EP 87: Why Your Launch Isn’t Failing—Your Pre-Launch Is
25:41 Share

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Aquara podcast where we talk about list building and lead generation, sales strategy, scaling, and a ton more. And I have tried to start this podcast, this recording, probably about four or five times because my allergies are driving me crazy. It is seasonal allergy season for me. I'm going insane and everything is crazy. Everything hurts in a weird way. Everything is

Yeah. But that's what we're going to talk about today. We're actually going to talk about something that kind of, I have to repeat over and over when I'm talking to potential clients and even current clients, and it has everything to do with launching. You probably know this to be true. When somebody wants to launch a program, product or service, they're so eager to launch it that they stop or they don't think about how to launch it successfully or what I just call the prelaunch, right?

And over the years that I've been doing this, I've developed a bit of a pre-launch playbook. Reason being that the pre-launch portion of your launch to me is more important than any other part of your launch.

That might sound insane, but it's really not. It is 100% true that the pre-launch portion of any launch is actually, to me, more important than the actual launch. Okay? So let me know if this sounds familiar where you've possibly spent weeks, maybe months,

Prepping an offer, crafting every detail of that offer, maybe pulling late nights with your team or asking a lot of your team to get stuff done, obsessing over a sales page, obsessing over a landing page, and then launch day hits and it doesn't go the way you want. It's either crickets or it's really low turnout. You're not getting the sales that you're looking for.

Now you're wondering what went wrong. A lot of times you look at your team and wonder what they did. Maybe you're looking at yourself and wondering what you did. And I'm here to be the hard truth person. I get to be this person quite often. And although I don't love this role, I actually, I have to embrace this role a lot. Your launch isn't the problem. Your pre-launch is the problem.

And today I'm going to break down exactly what is killing your conversions before the cart even opens. And we have a myriad of problems when the cart opens. We have a landing page or sales page conversion. We have...

you know, buyer experience and buyer journey. We have fulfillment issues. That is a whole other kettle of fish. That is a whole crap of things that go wrong. And I have covered that in other episodes, but this prelaunch phase is so fricking important. And if I could drill it into your heads, this is the thing that you need to do. Because often when I, when I strategize with a potential client or a client, I,

This is the part where they gloss over. This is the thing. They just want to get to the sale already. They don't want to have to do this and it ticks them off or it bores them or it annoys them that they have to do this prelaunch stuff. And I, again, have to be that voice of pain in your butt. This is the thing you got to do. If you want to be successful at the end, this is the stuff you got to do now. And I've got to like literally harp on people. So I'm going to harp a little bit today. We're

I'm going to tell you how it actually works. Okay. Again, most people think that the magic of the launch is when you open the cart window. And if you've been around as long as I have, you're going, ha ha ha. No, Jenny, I actually know this because you've been around the block a few times and you've seen this happen. You've done it yourself. I know you have. And then you're going, yeah, a hundred percent pre-launch is the way to go. Right? So you open this cart window or some people do

You have that open for five to seven days where you're hoping that people are actually buying, you're refreshing your stripe over and over again, and things aren't rolling in the way you want, right? And this, again, this could be technical, this could be sales page, this could be buyer experience, this could be copy related, this could be graphics related, it could be any of those. But I guarantee you that part of it is the pre-launch, right? 80%.

of the success of your launch is determined before you've even sent that email that says, "Card open."

80% I'm not even kidding you. I've done, I've done the research. I found the numbers 80 fricking percent, right? That's why your pre-launch phase is so important. It's the time when you warm up your audience, when you build up the desire and the interest, it's where you handle objections so that the sales page has an easier time doing what it's supposed to do, which is just making the sale happen, right? And you position your offer so that it's a no brainer.

Stupid simple, easy peasy, make it happen, right? Before you even pitch it. And yet most business owners aren't doing this. And they're acting like it's a surprise party. And nobody RSVPs. And they're really surprised when nobody shows. Like, what did I do wrong? Well, duh, you didn't do the things in your prelaunch. So...

Let's talk about the biggest mistakes that people are making. And I'm going to tell you a story of us like a little success story too. Right. So back in, oh my gosh, November of 2019, I wanted to launch a group program.

And it would launch in January, no, February. It was going to launch in February of 2020, which if you know your history of short-term history right now, you know that was kind of crazy times. So literally, November, I wanted to do this thing. I knew it was going to launch in February. I made a pre-launch calendar that was over six weeks, not including Christmas and New Year's. Okay, that's why it was happening in November.

I started doing webinars. I started doing lives. I started doing Q&A sessions. I was doing content strategy work, social media work, all this stuff to handle objections before I even got to the sale. Cart opened in December. By the way, this is Jenny being very bold to open a cart in December, but I opened a cart in December. Cart closed on...

December 18th, ended up reopening in early January and got more sales. And the program started, I think like February 2nd of 2020. The program started while I was in the car driving from Ontario to Quebec to go skiing. I held my first group coaching call in a Tim Hortons parking lot right on the edge of the border of Ontario and Quebec. So, and I mean,

Yeah. And then the world fell apart a couple of weeks later. But what happened with that was I seasoned up my audience. I really got them interested. I handled all the objections. My social media content and approach handled the objections before they even got to the sales page. Now, the sales page was a beast and it is still one of the highest converting sales pages I ever created. And I created it. Somebody else wrote the copy, but I built it.

And it converted really, really well. Well, it's because the page didn't have to do such a heavy lift because I had already done the heavy lift for the past like five, six weeks prior to people even getting to that page.

And then in January of 2020, I actually added a bit more content and refined it based on some feedback I got from people who purchased the program. And I kind of, you know, elevated the page a bit and it converted even better. Right. So I started my February group coaching class. I think I wanted like 12 people and I had 18 and then two more joined. So I had like 20.

So I had done better than I thought I would. It gave me the cash injection. I kind of needed it well above paid for my trip to go skiing, which was fantastic. And it allowed me to, you know, have other successful launches because I kind of cracked the code for myself. And, you know, I told clients to do it, but I was really trying to do it for myself on an elevated basis. And I really did. So

The things that I see people doing that are big pre-launch mistakes are not warming up their audience and just really going from zero to buy my thing without building up momentum, without connecting with people. I see this all the time. It drives me insane.

Additionally, number two, people wing it with their content strategy, hoping that something's going to fit, going to work, going to catch. And it's just like, honestly, it's spray and pray. It's so random. It's ridiculous. And if you're posting because you think you should, and not because it's strategically aligned to your messaging or moving people towards your offer, you're again, you're doing, you're doing yourself a disservice. Okay. Also, you're not seeding your offer properly. Okay.

And your audience, if they don't know what's coming and they don't know how to react and they don't understand what it is you're offering, they won't be excited or ready to buy it. They're going to gloss over. They're not going to be interested at all. And seeding your offer can be a lot of things. And we'll talk about that in a bit. Also, number four, if you're only focusing on visibility and not building connection, you've already lost. You've already completely lost.

Uh, you're shouting into the void. You're not building, you know, actual relationships. You're not connecting with people on a deeper level. This is 2025. Okay. If you do this, this is a recipe, not only for yourself to have launch fatigue, but everybody in your audience as well. And that means they're not going to listen very much the next time you do this, right? You're shooting yourself in the foot. And if you're also, uh, number five on my lovely little list here, you're waiting too long to start.

A proper pre-launch is six weeks before your cart opens. And you can be like, no, Jenny, it doesn't, that's way too long. I don't want that. No, it's not a few posts the week before. It's not a night before. It's not two weeks before. It's six freaking weeks, except for

and move on, accept and do. Okay. People who push back on me for the six weeks. And I think the lowest you could probably do is four weeks. Now I'm going to harp on six because I can get a better result with six, but the lowest you can do is four in my opinion. And people who harp at me and say that is, you know, that's a load of crap and I can do it faster and I don't need to do it that long. And that's takes two, blah, blah, like insert excuse ville here. Honestly, I'm

I don't say these things so I can hear my own voice. I have allergies right now and everything sounds nasally. And honestly, I'd rather do anything than record right now. But this is what we're doing. And I need you to accept that I'm coming to you with this knowledge to help you. Not to make your, you know, not because it was fun, not because I enjoy getting on my soapbox, although sometimes I do. This is literally what works. I've been doing this for...

Jeez, I've been doing this for 13 years. And what worked back in 20, you know, 2012 and 2013, when I was really kicking, like kicking things around and trying to be a better VA and trying to figure it out to where I, you know, to where I started coaching and what I've seen working with some really amazing people working with some big names, working with brand new people. I'm telling you, this is universal. I'm telling you, this is how it works.

And so please accept my, my injection of knowledge and, and really look to try and make it happen. Okay. Let's talk about a little bit of a case study. So I told you my story about my course back in 2019 and, and starting it in 2020. And now I want to talk to you about this other client that I had. It's, it's, it's a client in the wellness space. I've changed a couple of facts for anonymity, but we'll, we'll call it a wellness retreat. Okay. And, and,

This is really based on a true client. So I'm going to call this person Sarah.

And my previous client, Sarah, had a wellness brand that she launched. And she also had an online program that we'll just call the Wellness Retreat. Gorgeous branding, incredible testimonials. She had 4,000 people on her list that she had grown through summits, through organic, through podcasting and being on other people's summits, bundles, all that kind of stuff.

She did the standard five day cart open window. She posted on Instagram incessantly. She did quite a few emails. She sold 11 spots out of the 50 that she wanted. And here's the kicker. She thought she had done everything she could have for the pre-launch. Now, my job with this client wasn't to do her pre-launch strategy. My job with that client was to create her sales page and

And that was it. This is back in the day where I was just honestly building funnels like crazy. I was pumping out fun, like a couple of funnels a week, trying to make them as high converting as possible. Client was left to do the strategy. Okay.

After this was over and she only sold 11 of the 50 spots, she was looking at me with some side eye. She was like, wow, the sales page probably didn't convert very well until I gave her the facts and said, listen, we had X amount of people coming to the page. Out of the X amount of people who came to the page, we had a conversion rate that was like, I don't know, I think it was 15%, which is awesome on a sales page. I said, you just didn't get enough traffic to it.

So I decided to gift her some strategy. So we dug in, we did a post-launch kind of like breakdown call. And what we found and what I looked at was her content had no clear or direct connection to her offer. Zero. She was posting about vacation. She was posting about her dog. She was posting about, what else was she posting about?

her dog, what else? There was something else that was like, oh, she went to some conference and was an attendee in the audience and talked about that for a couple of days. None of that related to her offer. None of that was gearing towards her wellness retreat. None of it at all, right? Her audience didn't even know that the retreat was coming. Now, this was a virtual retreat. It was kind of fun. I guess you could call it a reset more than a retreat.

Her emails focused on motivation. They were all very high motivation content, but no, no, nothing was focused on outcomes or building value or talking about value. So it was just like, you can do it very raw, raw, which seriously has a place totally does. But when you are trying to seed an offer in your pre-launch phase, there's gotta be a shift, right? And then worst of all, biggest of all, she did not nurture her list in the months leading up before she started promo.

She didn't at all. It was quiet. I looked and I was like, listen, Sarah, you wanted to launch this program and you have not talked to your audience in about three months. Like what the, what's up with that? Oh, I just didn't have time. And I'm like, well, even your expectation is that you do and everybody comes running. So she treated her launch like a, like a light switch, right? If she just flipped it, you know, light would come on and she hoped that it would work. And so I said, okay, we're going to relaunch this program.

This time I'm going to give you the six weeks of launch strategy. I'm going to help you with your posts. I'm going to show you what to do. I'm going to give you a whole breakdown, right? And so we decided to relaunch it. We gave ourselves six weeks. We did, or I got her to do weekly live sessions, answering questions her audience actually cared about.

And when we didn't know what our audience actually cared about, because again, she hadn't nurtured them in a while, we asked some good questions of, you know, GPT, got some good stuff from that. And then used, you know, used some reframing on that to actually create what we thought would be questions that our audience would ask and they actually fit. We added personal storytelling to build connection and trust.

You know, why does why does Sarah do wellness? Why was she driven to this? How is this the thing that she does? Why is this so important? You know, we did strategic seeding in her emails and her posts, made sure that people knew something was coming, made sure to build excitement. And we generated a brand new lead magnet.

that we then put on social. We ran some ads to it, actually. We ran a bit of ads to it. We ran some ads to warm traffic, retargeting her 4,000-person list to try and wake it up, which was great. Worked beautifully, woke up the list, and also got our new subscribers. Now, this time we sold it. We got 97 people to purchase. Same offer, same list, different pre-launch. 97 people purchased.

And that prog that, that retreat slash reset was a thousand dollars, almost a hundred grand, almost a hundred grand just from reframing it versus the like, however many, I think it was 17 people she got before 12 people or something that she got before insane change, right? Simply from following sort of a step-by-step. So what is actually going to work for you in 2025?

everything I just said. And also, okay, let's talk the strategy. Let's break it down. It doesn't matter if you're in year one or year 12, this is what I want you to reconsider. And if I can reinvigorate you for your next launch, cause honestly launches can be exhausting, totally exhausting, but also totally worth it. And I'm a, I'm a work hard, play hard kind of person. So I want you to think about the following and I've got five really distinct points for you. Number one,

Nurture first mindset. Think of your audience as,

Think of your audience like a fireplace, okay? You don't get any heat by just throwing a log on the fire and hope for the best, right? You have to prep the space. You've got to spark a flame. You've got to put some tinder in there. You've got to put some crumpled up newspapers. And then you've got to keep tending it to make sure it actually works. Throw a log on a fireplace that doesn't have any heat on it whatsoever. That log's just going to sit there, obviously. Okay.

It's like, duh, come on. Think about how you're doing things strategically. Number two, audience first content. Okay. Start with what people are struggling right now. Use polls, use surveys, use DM conversations to understand the language and the pain points, and then really go deep with those. Get into it with your audience first content. Answer the questions.

And then number three, I want you to tease the offer. Don't hide it. Again, this is not like light switch, ta-da, like this isn't what we're doing, right? Share behind the scenes of you actually creating the offer. Share what you're building. Give people a, you know, behind the curtain sort of look and feel to what you're trying to build. Talk about the struggles and the awesomeness of doing this. Let them see the process before the pitch, right?

I promise you that will work. And then number four, really look at engagement over vanity metrics. I don't get a ton of comments and engagement on a ton of posts. Like not, I get engagement. I don't get a ton of comments or likes or shares sometimes. But what I do get is I get really good engagement in terms of I will get DMs. I will get people who connect. I will get people who go directly from my social to my website to book a call.

I will get people who refer to me. My name comes up in organic conversations because I've seen something of mine. And that's where differences can happen. Micro connections can lead to macro results, macro conversations, and really have a difference, like create a big difference. And the number five is use visibility and the platforms that create it with a ton of intention.

Really chalk up your calendar full of being guests on podcasts. Join bundles, show up in summits, and then really email your list to go with that. Borrow other people's audiences before you launch to warm up your own current audience, but also to grow more. Another thing, and I didn't even mention this because I kind of forgot. If you're launching and you haven't built or added new people to your list and you're launching to the exact same list as you have in the past,

and not engaged or warm them up or even built new people into that list by, again, having a new lead magnet, running some ads maybe to that lead magnet, getting on bundles and summits and podcasts and so on, then you are creating a vacuum where people just are not going to hear you, right? Make sure that you're creating visibility before you launch and grow as much as you can. So this is my little pre-launch to-do list for you, okay?

If you're preparing to launch or if your last one flopped, start here. Re-engage with your list. Make sure they know who you are. Engage with them. I like to put a little thing at the top of my email if I've been really quiet for a while and just said, hey, you're part of this list because you joined from maybe a summit, maybe a bundle, maybe you found me on Acquire, my podcast. Either way, you're here. I'm so glad. Let's talk. And then I get into my topic. Create content that plants the seeds for your offer.

Map out three or four high value pieces of pre-launch content that you can create and give out and try to just engage people that way. Warm up your audience with personal stories and testimonials. Also look at warming up your audience maybe with some ads and other organic plays as well. Just don't put everything in ads and don't put everything in organic. Show up where your ideal clients are already hanging out. That should be like a no brainer, but it's a thing.

One of my current clients, their audience, their entire audience is on LinkedIn. My client likes to be on Instagram. It's a complete...

lack of engagement because her audience is on LinkedIn. And so I shifted her entire strategy over to LinkedIn and now she's killing it because she might like Instagram as the platform, but that's not where her ideal client is. And she needs to be where they are, right? So this is not about doing more. I don't want you to like exhaust yourself. It's about doing the right things in the right order to get the right result. That's all I'm asking you to do. Okay. And

And I have devised a really quick checklist to help do this. And I'm not even going to get you to opt in for it. I'm just going to give it to you. So there's a link in the show notes. Go and grab this link. I've created my prelaunch playbook for you. It's in there. This is something that I've been working on. I'm eventually going to probably turn this into a

either a lead magnet or maybe a small paid product right now. I'm still in the process. You're getting my second version of it before I turn it into something paid. I'd love for you to have it. I'd love to hear what you think of it too and tell me what you think. If it makes sense, please do consider leaving a review for the podcast. I would love to know what you think not only of that, but also of the playbook. Let me know if it was helpful to you, if you enjoyed it.

And if you want my eyes on your next launch, let's talk. Let's figure it out together. Book a call with me. There's a link in the show notes to do so. Your launch doesn't have to be a flop. It just needs a better warmup. I can help you warm that up. You can also do it yourself and hopefully it will work great. I really appreciate you listening to Acquire. Got some great episodes coming up, more awesome solo episodes. Well, I hope they're awesome. And some great episodes with guests. And just as a heads up,

The 100th episode of Acquire is happening more towards the end of the summer. And as we build up to the 100th episode of Acquire, I've got some really cool stuff in the works. And so I hope that you will stick around to enjoy that as we get closer. And yeah, really excited. Thank you so much for listening. And we'll talk to y'all soon. Take care.