Unknown Speaker 0:00
What I'm about to share with you, I wish every course creator understood this, because if they did, it would unlock so much possibility and really eliminate a lot of headache. And the thing that we're gonna talk about today are the three launch levels. And I don't think a lot of people understand that there are different levels, there are different stages, when it comes to their launches. Now, I talk primarily about digital course launches, because that's what I do. And that's who typically is in my circle, but what I'm talking about today could definitely apply to launches for your membership launches for if you have like one on one, a new offer services podcast. So there's different types of launches, that could relate to what we're talking about today. So there's different three different levels that we're going to talk about, and why it's important to know the difference is because when you don't understand where you are, you will if you're gonna hit a roadblock, and then if you hit that roadblock, you're gonna think you're a failure, right? You did something wrong, it works for everybody else, why doesn't it work for you? And that's just not the case. There are different stages. And an each one has a purpose. Okay, so the two the three different stages, there are two factors that go into each stage. One is your course curriculum, and I'm talking about your course materials, your videos, your lessons, what it is that you teach, so your course curriculum. The other factor here is your community. What how many people do you have? What's the size of your community? How engaged are they? Okay, so we're gonna think of each of these levels with community and your course curriculum. Alright, the first stage is the Get It Done stage, to get it done stage, this is what happens when you're not really sure about your curriculum, you're not really sure about what you teach. And maybe that's how you teach it. So for example, I work with some therapists. And the conversations that we've had were really enlightening, because they say, I do this stuff all the time in my practice, like, I'm a therapist, by trade, professionally certified all the things. But when I put it into a digital course, it's different because it's linear, versus having somebody inside their practice, they're having a conversation. So how that therapist can support them, it ebbs and flows based on the responses. But when they package it in a digital course, it's a little bit different, because there has to be kind of this step one, step two, step three. So that is something that they have to figure out. Now they know the the information, they are an expert, they are certified or you know, they they are qualified, knowledgeable to teach this, but how they package it, that's where they're, a lot of times, people are unsure of how to how to share their message. So in your first in the first level, get it done their curriculum, the curriculum, you're not quite sure on how to package it, how to share it, maybe how to release it, like do I give them everything at once do I give them, you know, one piece or one module per week. The other factor in that is the community. So maybe you have a new community, maybe you have a small community, maybe they don't really know you in this capacity, maybe this is something new. So the Get It Done phase is, like I said, get it done. The purpose here is to just get moving to just get started. And the way I like to think about this, somebody in my coaching group used this, I was like, Oh my gosh, that's a brilliant way to think about it. She says data over dollars. So the purpose, the intention, the reason you are doing the Get It Done strategy is because you want data, you want data, how do your students feel? Or how many results can they get? Or what's their transformation, if they go through this course that you offer it, they get it done stage, and I should say that's often like a beta launch a pilot. It could also be, hey, I want to teach this. I want to test it out. Let me go find three people that I can coach or teach one on one. It does not have to be like a formal course launch. It can have different capacity, different ways that you present it, but it's about getting it done. And so if you think about it from the context of data over dollars, the purpose here is not to make a bunch of money. It is not to generate revenue while there's a time and place for that and we're business owners And yes, that is the purpose is we generate revenue. So we can have this business, otherwise it's considered a charity. But but when you're in this get it done phase, it's about seeking information, seeking data seeking, like these touch points that you can measure. And I want to give you an example. Because if you're in a beta launch, right, you can see like, Okay, I have five people to go through it. Let me get their feedback, they answered some questions about the material, how it was presented, the structure, all those things like that. Those are your data points, right? The data can also be for you, personally, it doesn't have to be like, scientific numbers, right? So I'm going to use an I'm gonna use myself as an example here. So I launched a podcast, gosh, a week ago, two weeks ago, I can't even remember it, it was quick. It was inspired unplanned action, there's really no strategy. But But the intention was, I'm in this get it done phase, I just want to do it. To see if I can do it. My data that I wanted for myself is Can I can I actually do this, it does not matter to me how many downloads, it does not matter to me how many subscribers I have, it does not matter to me. If I'm monetizing or making money, that's not the purpose of this, quote, unquote, I'm using air quotes launch, because it wasn't even really a launch. It was, Can I do this? Can I get over my own stuff, my own limiting beliefs, my own thought of I need to have this perfect plan, can I just do it and get it out there. So that was the data that I wanted for myself. And earlier today, I was in a Facebook community. And so one of my friends, Lydia Martin, you might know her because she's in this course creation space, she's a Kajabi person like I am as well. And she has this beautiful podcast page, beautiful. And she does on Kajabi. And it's this page that showcases her podcast, and it shares her top nine posts. And she's got it like all kind of automated. So it updates itself. And it has a cover image for each individual episode, this gorgeous page. And I'm like looking at it, my heart starts to race literally. Because I look at it. And I think oh my gosh, how did she do that? How did she know to create that? What are the steps, and I immediately get overwhelmed. And then I had to realize that she isn't much further along space, her launch levels or her level that she's at with her podcast is way beyond where I'm at, because I'm literally in week two. And she's been doing this for a while. So I did check myself. And remember, I'm just here to get it done. There will be a time and a place where I can judge it up. And I have all the bells and whistles, I'm just not there yet. That's not my intention. That's not my purpose. So keeping in the mindset of where we are and why we're doing things can help. Because what happens is often we jump and we skip over this, get it done phase and we go right into the next phase. And what can happen is we're not quite ready, or we hang our hat on everything. And if it doesn't go the way we want, we're like, oh, I'm a failure. Oh, I shouldn't have done this. This is the universe telling me I shouldn't have done this course, I shouldn't have done this launch, I should have Coulda, Woulda, and really, it's that we might not have gotten to that level yet. And we jumped, we jumped over that. So I encourage you when it comes to your digital course, figure out what needs to happen and get it done phase. Maybe it is something where you're like I want to do a beta launch. I want to get five people in. I just want to have some people go through it. Maybe it's a one on one. You might also already know okay, I don't need this, get it done. Because I have been in this business for a couple years. Or I already have a handful of people that want to buy my course because we've talked about it I've shared they know what I'm about. They know what I teach, they know how I can help them, then maybe you're good at done is like already already have done that. Maybe not in a formal beta launch or pilot launch or anything like that. But you've had this, you've had this connection and this work already built in over time that you might be ready to shift into the next level. So let's get into that. The next level is your launch plan.
Unknown Speaker 9:53
Now this is where I typically work with our private clients is in this launch plan. There is strategy There is intention there is planning, there is an understanding of the customer journey, people come in through a lead magnet, they're on your email list, we invite them to a live webinar. If they sign up for the webinar, they get these emails, if they don't sign up for the webinar, they get those emails, when they're ready to enroll, there's a whole process, right, a sales page checkout page they get in the course, this is where like this is where things get real, is you have that plan. And now your community knows who you are. They know what you're about. They know what you teach, and you feel confident, or at least comfortable with your course curriculum. And what needs to happen in this launch is it just needs to intersect, we need to get the course in front of your existing community so that they can enroll. And this is really where you can have that purpose of I want to make some money with this course, I really want to stop doing one on one, I want to be able to reach more people, I want to impact the world or impact my community by sharing my expertise. This is this is really where it gets real. But there's a lot that does go into it. Right. So there's a plan that, you know, we scheduled lunch dates. For us and our private clients, we work together for about 90 days to get to this point. So there is it's a lot more systematized, there's a lot more like strategy. It's a lot more tactical at this point. Okay, so launch plan, I think is where people often jump to right away. Again, you might be ready for this, or you might need to slow it down and go back to the Get It Done phase before you're ready for the launch plan. Because if you jump right into the launch plan, and you're not quite ready that you can fizzle out, because not to say you've set yourself up for failure, we're not talking about failure, failure, failure doesn't exist it what we're what we're talking about here, but it can be a hard pill to swallow, if you just the first thing you do is jump into this level two, and you're like, I'm gonna make a million dollars, and then you make $2,000. And you it's just way off because your expectations were not there. Okay, let's talk about phase number three. And after phase number three, I'm going to also share a few things that you need to know as you're moving through these phases. So phase number three is really where you can accelerate. So you are, you know what you're going to teach, you have an existing community. And now you're ready to uplevel it maybe what you teach your curriculum you're refining a little bit. And in your community, it's really about expanding your community. It's really about growing your community. So first off with your curriculum, we're refining it right now. So maybe that is the actual information that you teach the course materials that you teach, I work with a lot of people that teach their first cohort or to live live on Zoom. And then after they do a couple cohorts, a couple sessions, then they want to record, pre record their videos, because they know, okay, I feel really good about where we're at. I've put it out there, I've tested it with my students. Now it's time to record. So it could look like that to people who record off the bat, that's totally fine, too. It also can be refining how you deliver the materials. So for example, I have a client, we just closed her cart this week, the first time we launched, it was eight modules over eight weeks, and then launch like three or four, we switched it from eight modules over four weeks, because people wanted the information quicker. And then this last launch, we did, we did all eight modules, and they got it immediately. And that's something that we've adjusted over time based on the feedback from her students. So that's what refining can be, which is a really, that's like a really simple thing to do. It could also be something like, Oh, I know my students get stuck on week two, or week three, it's really heavy content. Let me build in an implementation week. That's what refining can be as well. You can also refine things like maybe your webinar topic that you use to bring in some of your students. Maybe you want to refine that adjusted a little bit more. So you are overcoming some of their objections or you're helping them get started and feel ready to buy your course. So there's different pieces that you can refine but it's not recreating the wheel at this point. The when it comes to your community, it's really time to rev it up. So what we've done for some of our clients is you know, maybe you start doing Facebook ads at this point paid ads because you know, that your course works that people want it. We just need to find more people that want it. It can also be things Just like bringing in affiliates that can help promote for you, whether that's past students, or people that are in your professional world that have an existing email list themselves, that could be an affiliate for you. That's a strategy to add in when you're in this acceleration phase, it can also be allowing you time to show up in a different capacity. So maybe because you have this course done, you have launched before, to get to this acceleration phase, you're not creating everything new, you're just really tweaking and refining at this point, that allows you to the capacity to maybe get on podcasts, maybe you speak at different conferences, whether that's in person, or virtual, maybe allows you time to be more visible, because that can be a great way to grow your audience. And you may or may not have the time and energy to do that when you're early in the earlier stages of your course. So revving up your community is definitely what you need to do in the third stage. That's the purpose of the third stage. Now, here's a couple things to keep in mind as you're moving through the phases. Number one is you cannot put all the weight on the first launch. So there's this concept that one of my clients gave me it's a pancake launch, she says, You know, when you make pancakes, the first one is like, sometimes delicious, but sometimes not great, and you throw it away. The purpose of that first pancake is to make sure like how hot as your pan is your batter good. You know, get that first one out of the way. So you can focus on that, make the adjustments on the heat batter, whatever it is to get to the next, you know, to get to the rest of the batch. So knowing that you don't want to put all the weight on the first quarter the first launch, if it doesn't go the way you want. Okay, now we know what we need to adjust. But sometimes you don't know that until you get into until you get into that launch. And so don't like being yourself over the head thinking, oh, man, I should have known all this stuff. No, you really shouldn't have because you can't necessarily predict what's going to happen, how it's going to be received by your audience until you get into it. Another thing I want to mention, this comes from Jensen churros book, you are a badass, like, this is something I cannot get out of my head. She says when you are wanting to do something, and you are wanting to do something big, and purposeful and impactful, the universe or God or whatever you believe it's gonna throw things in your way that it's supposed to happen, you are supposed to get these roadblocks you are. So it's not supposed to be easy. Because you need to prove to yourself or the universe or whatever, that this is something that you really want. This is something that really matters to you. And, and I think we see these little roadblocks and we see these little hiccups. And we're like, oh, that's a sign I shouldn't do it. I don't think that's true. I think that's just I need to prove to myself or I need to show that I really want this and these little hiccups that come, I've just got to push past them, I've got to find a way to keep moving forward. So those are some of the things like the mindset things I want you to think about. And finally, this last piece is tactical. And I've got to say it because it gets overlooked is you must list build in between your launches, you must list build, I think so many people focus on the course. And they're like, I really got to get this course. And oh, yeah, let's build to you have got that has to be your first priority to build your email list. It has to be because if you do not build your list or do not have an email list, who's going to buy your course, nobody's going to know about it. Right. And so that is something that I think should be your first priority is getting your list together a lead magnet and start building your list. Because that can be something that is happening in the background. As you create your course, as you go through the just get it done phase. And as soon as you finish any launch, whether that's get it done. That's the launch plan, you should immediately start going back to building your list. Maybe it's your existing lead magnet, okay,
Unknown Speaker 19:35
we're going to focus on sharing this again. Maybe it's just me, you tweak it based on what you've figured out from this last launch. But you have got to jump right back into building your email list so that your next launch is successful. Otherwise, you're going to have a launch, use up all your warm audience and then your second launch. We don't want that to be a failure, right? So you've got to list Build. I feel like maybe I'm preaching to the choir or maybe that's something you, you really need to hear. But you've got to be doing this in between launches to set yourself up for success. Okay. So I'm curious, where are you at with your course with your launch? Are you at the Get It Done phase? I'm just still trying to figure things out data over dollars, maybe small community, maybe not quite sure about your course curriculum, or are you at the launch plan phase like you're in this level? I'm in it. I'm launching, I'm focused. I have an existing community. I feel okay about my curriculum. I might tweak it over time, but I'm ready to start sharing it. Or are you in the acceleration phase, which means you've launched at least once, ideally, twice. And now you're ready to kick it into high gear. So curious what level you're at one, two or three, send me a message, send me a DM I'd love to know what you're experiencing. And if there's anything I can help with, please reach out. Send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook. I love connecting with you all. And I'm happy to help where I can. Alright, that's it. Thanks for tuning in.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai