Launch

by Jeff Walker

  I call it the Seed Launch because it’s a little launch that can grow a product, a list, and even a business into a great big success. Think of a tiny seed that can one day become a towering oak tree that stands a hundred feet tall. To look at that seed and think it can grow to such an incredible size seems improbable at best, yet we know that’s exactly what happens. And it’s no different with a Seed Launch. It starts with an idea and a handful of sales, but it can grow into a serious business.

  Disaster Strikes One Sunny Friday Afternoon

  Before I get into the exact mechanics of a Seed Launch, let me give you an example that shows just how it can work and how far-reaching the impact can be. This Seed Launch took place in 2005, and like many launches it was driven by a serious need. In fact, this was my launch, and I was starting over from scratch.

  After a number of years in business with a variety of products and services, I had a partnership break apart very abruptly. I’ve had many partnerships over the years, and the one thing you learn about partnerships is that, by their very definition, none of them can last forever. In any case, this partnership ended without warning. One Friday afternoon my partner called me to say not only was he leaving the partnership, he would be taking almost all of our paying clients with him.

  Most business people have been through something similar to this. As I say, the situation is not all that unusual. But it sure has a way of focusing your attention. So the first thing I did was sit down and think about what type of business I wanted to create next. I spent a lot of time listing what I liked and what I didn’t like about the business that had just disappeared. And then I created a criteria list of the changes I would want in my new business. And spent a lot of time selecting the niche I wanted to target with this new business. And most important, I focused on what value I could bring to the market.

  For years, I had focused on the investing and trading niche. All my products had been about teaching people how to invest in the stock market. Although I loved that business, I was burned out. I had been publishing my stock market newsletters an average of more than five hundred times per year. And since I did it all without any staff, the whole process had become a real grind. I was ready to move onto a different market that had a lot fewer deadlines.

  And there was another driving factor to consider: I had recently discovered a passion for entrepreneurship and marketing. I knew nothing of marketing when I first started out, but over the years I had developed a real knack for it. I had created my first business out of nothing, built a huge list of subscribers, and invented this crazy system for launching my products. In fact, I had been sharing my product launch techniques with some other entrepreneurs, and they had been getting outstanding results, so I knew my method would work for others just as well as they worked for me.

  So I had an area of expertise (marketing and product launches) that could create a lot of value for people, and I loved the entire niche of entrepreneurship and marketing. But I had two problems: I had neither a list nor a product in that market. The big email lists from my previous business were made up of people who were interested in the stock market; those lists wouldn’t do me any good in this new venture. But I did have one thing going for me—I had been invited to speak at a marketing conference that would take place in just a few weeks. I decided I would use my talk at that conference to begin building my new business.

  I put together a great presentation that walked through my entire launch process—or at least as much as I could fit into a 90-minute presentation. Then at the end of the presentation I made an offer: If anyone in the audience wanted to go deeper and learn exactly how to implement my strategies, I would coach a small group of clients through every step of the process. I called it the “Product Launch Workshop.” The coaching would take place via a series of teleclasses that I would be conducting after the event.

  There is an art form to “selling from the stage,” and let me just say I was neither skilled nor experienced at this practice. So my offer at the end of the talk did not get an overwhelming response. There were nearly three hundred people in attendance, and I sold only six spots in my workshop. That’s not a very strong performance. I now know that a 10% response rate is at the lower end of what you should expect after you make an offer from stage, and I had gotten less than 3%.

  Nevertheless, I realized that while I might not be a great pitchman, I definitely knew how to do product launches. And I now had real, live clients. I was confident that I could give them a skill that would forever change their lives.

  A Couple of Problems . . . Solved!

  At that point I had a couple of other problems. First, I knew how to do launches, but I didn’t necessarily know how to teach them. And second, to get a strong level of participation, I wanted more than six people in the class. So I invited several of my entrepreneurial friends, other business owners I had met over the years, to join the class. Since I understood that it was far more important to get a “critical mass” in the class than to extract every last dollar out of it, I extended the invitation on a complimentary basis. Many of these people knew of my successful launches, and they were eager to learn my formula . . . so this was a win-win for them. I got my critical mass, and they got to learn my secrets. And that brought the total class size up to just over 30 people.

  So that solved my critical mass problem, but I still had the problem of figuring out the best way to teach the material. I knew how to do launches, but I hadn’t taught my formula before. And I knew from experience that when you’re an expert on a topic, you often suffer from “the curse of knowledge.” You forget what it’s like to be a beginner, and you end up teaching at too high a level.

  So I went back to one of my favorite tools—the one I taught you when we covered the pre-prelaunch. I asked my audience what they wanted to know. As part of my offer, I promised five teleclasses. But before I did even the first one, I surveyed my 30 students to learn their most burning questions about product launches. I took the responses and split them into five broad categories to correspond with the five calls I would make. For the first call, I took all the questions for that specific topic, which was a broad overview of the product launch process, and put them in a logical sequence. Then I simply went through and answered each question on the call.

  Before the next call, I ran another survey. I asked my students if they had any questions about the material I covered in the first call. And then I asked them for their top questions about the second topic—creating the Prelaunch Sequence. Once again, I arranged those questions in a compelling sequence and went through all the questions on the teleclass.

  I continued that process for each call—wash, rinse, repeat. After I had completed all five teleclasses, I added an extra bonus call where I answered any additional questions my students had. And then, because I’ve always been obsessed with over-delivering on my promises, I added a few extra Case Study calls where I walked through examples from some additional launches.

  In the end, I think I ended up doing nine or ten calls instead of the five I had promised. We went deep, and I taught everything I knew. And that led to some terrific testimonials and several successful Case Studies from my students. Those testimonials were partly because I had over-delivered and partly because my material (which later became Product Launch Formula) was truly revolutionary. But there was also a third very important reason my students loved the course so much, and it’s critical that you understand this third reason.

  Simply put, even though I had never taught the material before, I did a great job teaching it. And the reason why wasn’t because I’m a natural-born teacher. It was because I let my students guide the process. I continually asked them, both on the calls and in the surveys before each call, what they needed to know. What wasn’t clear in the material I delivered? What did I need to go back and cover more thoroughly? What unanswered questions did they have? In effect, I used that first group of students from my Seed Launch to learn how to teach the material.

/>   In my current position in the industry, I get to see a lot of products come to market. And many of them are not very good. Using the Seed Launch removes the worry that you’re going to create a lousy product. It gives you an interactive process to build your product, and when you involve your clients by asking for their input you end up with a great product. Simply put, you naturally become attuned to your market’s need. There is no guesswork. You avoid the curse of knowledge. And you deliver true value to your clients.

  Your Seed Launch

  So let’s get to the nitty-gritty of the Seed Launch.

  This is the ideal launch if you’re just starting out and you don’t have a list or a product. It’s also great if you have an idea for a new product, but you aren’t sure of the demand for it or you would like to get paid for a product before you create it. What you’re going to find is that the Seed Launch is enormously flexible. The one real limitation is that this style of launch doesn’t work for physical widgets. But if you have a knowledge- or learning-based product, then this is a perfect fit. If you want to teach how to lose weight, build a better relationship, find a better job, run your first marathon, train your dog, bring in more chiropractic patients, get more followers in social media . . . or anything like that, then you’re going to love the Seed Launch.

  The good news is that by now we’ve already learned nearly all the tools and concepts that you need in your Seed Launch. The even better news is that the Seed Launch is the simplest launch of all. And the best news is that you’re going to end up with your own product by the time you wrap it up, and it’s going to be a great product that’s perfectly tuned to your prospects’ needs and desires.

  The Seed Launch takes advantage of two phenomena that very few people are aware of unless they’ve done some list-based direct marketing. The first is that, on a percentage basis, smaller lists are more responsive than bigger lists. And I’m not talking a LITTLE more responsive—I mean they’re a LOT more responsive. For instance, I once did a launch to a list of 299 people. I was trying to make one of the most difficult sales ever by taking an online service that had originally been free and charging for that exact same service. And the new price was not inexpensive, but $100 per year.

  On the face of it, I was looking at an extremely difficult sale. But the list was very warm (in other words, I had a very strong relationship with the people on the list). In the end, I had 297 out of the 299 sign up for the product, which gave me a conversion rate of 99.3%. That’s one conversion stat that I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to top! (And my results were certainly not typical!) But more to the point, if the list was three thousand people, then I wouldn’t have had anywhere near that conversion rate.

  The second little-known leverage point the Seed Launch capitalizes on is that in every list there’s a percentage of people known as “hyper-responsives.” These are your raving fans. They open up every email or letter you send them. They’ll eagerly buy whatever you offer. These people are the first you hear from every time you send an email, the first to comment on your blog, the first to pass along your social media updates. The good news is—these hyper-responsives exist in nearly every list.

  And when you combine the fact that small lists are more responsive and there are hyper-responsives lurking in that small list, you have the seeds of . . . well . . . a Seed Launch.

  Of course, you might be wondering why I’m telling you all about small lists when I said you could do a Seed Launch with no list. Well, the first step in your Seed Launch is to build some type of micro-list. That list might have only 30 people, but it would be better if it contained more like a hundred people. And three hundred would be even better.

  But the good news is that pulling together a micro-list like this has never been easier, and your most-effective tool is social media. The process of getting those first subscribers is as simple as starting to post good content about your topic on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and whatever new darling emerges in the social media world.

  Since social media moves faster than books can be published, and since the Seed Launch will still be working decades after I write these words, I’m not going to give you exact tactics on how to build a micro-list via social media. But at the end of the day, you attract followers by publishing relevant interesting content about your topic. It can either be content you create or content you curate (i.e., stuff from others that you find and repost). Either way, it doesn’t take long to attract a small following. Again, aim for one hundred to three hundred. It’s really not very hard.

  The entire goal of the Seed Launch is not to make a million dollars but to get you in the game, help you automatically create a great product and learn about your market, and set you up for a bigger launch just a bit further down the road.

  So just like I did with my Seed Launch of the Product Launch Workshop, your offer is going to be a series of teleseminars. That means you and all your clients call into a “bridge line.” This is a simple phone call you make into a special number. The bridge line is set up so that everyone else can hear you—sort of like a conference call. Essentially, you can give a lecture over the phone to your students. If you want, you have the control to unmute the lines so your students can speak on the call. I’ve done teleseminars where I presented to thousands of people, but when you’re delivering your product after your Seed Launch, you’ll probably have only a few dozen people on your calls.

  A quick note: You could choose to do webinars instead of teleseminars. On a webinar, your students will be able to see your computer screen in addition to hearing you speak. Webinars can be great because they give you the capability to teach visually, but they’re also slightly more complicated to deliver. You could even do a series of live, inperson trainings if your audience is local. But the easiest way to start is with teleseminars. You can get more details on bridge lines and teleseminar services on the Resource Page at http://thelaunchbook.com/resources.

  So let’s just say you’re going to do a series of three teleseminars about your topic. (Again, you could do any number that makes sense, but most of the time three to five calls works best.) Plan on doing one per week. Also plan on doing a surprise bonus “Question and Answer” call just to make sure that you overdeliver to your new clients.

  About the actual launch . . . since you’re going to be selling to a small, warm list that almost certainly has a number of hyper-responsives, your launch doesn’t need to be elaborate. Just use what I taught you in Chapters 6 and 7.

  But you do need to have a good offer, and you need to do a good job of explaining the benefits people will receive from your class. That means you focus on the transformation or change people will experience by going through your training. You must show your clients how you’re going to help them reach their dreams and aspirations and/or avoid their fears and frustrations. So, for example, if you’re going to teach someone how to play guitar, don’t focus on how quickly they will learn to switch between all the primary open chords; instead, focus on the transformation they will go through. What will the final outcome be? Will they finally be able to play songs for themselves and their friends? Will they gain the confidence to start playing with other people? Will they finally feel like a real musician? Will they get more dates?

  So let’s get to your launch. With the Seed Launch you want to keep things simple, beginning with the pre-prelaunch. In fact, your pre-pre will do a lot of the heavy lifting for your launch. Go back and review the pre-prelaunch chapter, then run a classic pre-pre “ask” campaign where you ask your micro-list to tell you their most burning questions. You can do this either by putting together an actual survey or via email or social media. That survey will tell you a lot about the hopes/dreams/fears/frustrations of your market . . . and it will be invaluable as you put together your offer. And, of course, your pre-pre is a shot-across-the-bow—it sets the stage for your offer and starts to build awareness and even anticipation of your coming offer.

  After the initial survey i
n your pre-prelaunch, your next step is an email follow up, where you talk about some of the findings and conclusions from your survey. You can share some of your own journey of transformation, such as some of your early challenges and how you overcame them. And at the end of your email, you can talk a little bit about your upcoming class.

  After that, your next email is where you make your offer. Generally, you will want to direct people to a sales letter or sales video. But remember, you don’t need to oversell. The people on your micro-list will feel like they have a personal relationship with you (and for many of them that will likely be true). So you want your sales message to reflect that. Of course, you still have to work hard to explain the benefits, and you still need to focus on the ultimate transformation or change that your new clients will experience. But you don’t want to come across as a used-car salesman, because that won’t resonate with your micro-list.

  Your goal in all of this is to get 30 people (60 would be even better) to say yes and buy your product. You want that many people because you want to have a lot of interaction. And attrition is a sad fact of human nature . . . you’ll almost always have some people who just don’t show up or participate in any way. So if you start with 30 people, then you’ll still have some sticking around at the end. If you don’t sell 30 spots, do what I did with my Product Launch Workshop and discreetly invite a few people to participate on a complimentary basis. And if you come up short of 30, that’s okay. Tara started with five, and I started with six.