Ep. 070: Save Time & Frustrations by Pre-Launching
We often waste a lot of time building out every facet of an offer before we go to sell it, and this is a great way to drive yourself bananas. If you want to launch something new, just create whatever your clients or customers want right away, and build out the rest as you go. It seems scary, especially if you're a perfectionist, but it means you get to start helping people, and getting paid for it, sooner. Plus, you can even pre-launch a new offer to gauge interest and have people ready to go when the doors open.
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Grow marketing culture and sketchy MLMs have given modern business a bad reputation. It feels harder than ever to succeed as an entrepreneur, even though we've got an abundance of info and tech, right at our fingertips. If you feel frustrated, running your business, stress over your sales schools or are baffled by marketing strategies, you've come to the right place.
You deserve to run a successful sustainable business without spamming all of your friends or wasting time and money on marketing gimmicks. This is The Sell It, Sister Podcast, and you're going to learn how to make more money without complex systems or sleazy sales tactics. I'm Erika Tebbens and I teach highly motivated female and gender expansive entrepreneurs that selling doesn't have to suck.
I've been running successful businesses and teaching others how to sell smarter, earn more and create raving fans for over 15 years. And I'm excited to share what I've learned with you. If you want success without truly serving your clients, profits without any passion, or the next get rich quick scheme, I'm not your gal. But if you're all in as an entrepreneur, Want to make a difference with your work and are ready to run a business you're proud of, then get ready to sell it, sister.
Erika Tebbens: I know you want to grow your business. Because let's be real, who doesn't? But the reality is is that if you don't know your business persona and you don't fully know the stage of business growth that you're in. You might accidentally waste a lot of time, money and energy focusing on the wrong things in order to get your business from where it is to where you want to be.
And if you know anything about me, you know, I am obsessed with the show, Parks and Rec, which is why I created a really fun and free quiz to help you figure out your Parks and Rec biz persona, which will help show you exactly what you should focus on. For your next steps of business growth. So to take the quiz, you can head right on over to bit,ly/bizgrowthquiz to find out your Parks and Rec biz persona, and then get custom advice from me based on that, with what you should focus on next for your success.
Hey, so before I dive into the episode, I just finished recording it. And then I realized I never mentioned the term for what the thing is when you launch it in its smallest form. And because I try not to be a perfectionist, I'm just creating this extra little snippet, popping it in at the beginning, and I'm not going to be recorded that whole thing.
Cause I don't need to. So the common term, or at least one common term for the least amount that you would do before you launch something is Minimum Viable Product or MVP. So if you ever hear that or see that, or, um, you, you know, see me say it or. Anything like that, you can know that MVP is short for a Minimum Viable Product.
And it just means what is the bare minimum that you want to have in place when you are selling something. So that could be the bare bones of your framework. It could be the first module is done. It could be the first month's worth of content is done. Whatever it is, MVP, Minimum Viable Product. That is what I'm going to be talking about in this episode.
So now onto the regular bulk of this episode. This episode is going to save you so much time and frustration. But if you tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, or be overly prepared for things, it might give you a bit of anxiety. But hopefully by the end, you will trust me on this and it will be a game changer for you in, in your business.
So I was working with a client, uh, just a few days ago. And she is planning on launching some courses. And I know that the, the sort of default right from, from going to school, let's say. You, we get programmed that like, we're not gonna, we're not going to turn in a rough draft of something and call it done.
Right? Like if we, if we did that, our teacher would be like, okay, great. Now you need to do the final thing. And there's sort of this sense that the rough draft is not worthy, right? Like it's not, it's not super good. It's not what it's going to be judged. It's not going to get the full message across. And so I think what happens from that, um, and also out of a fear of needing things to be perfect and needing them to be just right, so that people feel like their investment was worthwhile.
We often wait until we have the complete polished, full, final draft done beautiful and ready to deliver to the world, before we launch something. Right? So whatever that is, whether it's a course, whether it's a membership, whether it's a group program, we are like, "You know what, I'm going to spend three months making this thing and making sure that nobody could possibly criticize any part of it. And then I'm going to launch it." And what ends up happening sometimes is that we launched the thing and then come to find out, "Oh, people aren't actually that interested in the thing." Right? We thought, "Oh yeah, this is, this is definitely like, like people are going to be signing up right up for this and they're going to love it. And it's going to be so amazing."
And we spent all this money on. Uh, like a platform to host it, you know, especially if it's a course like, "Oh, you know, I paid this money to upload all the course modules and I, I did all these things and now nobody's signing up or, or like too few people are signing up."
Right? And that is incredibly, incredibly disheartening. And I will say I learned from a woman, uh, at my very first mastermind I was ever in. And our very first retreat, which happened shortly after I had joined. So this was early 2018. And I had only started my business like at the end of the summer, the year before.
And so was, I was like fairly new and I was still trying to figure out what I was going to do. And she said, "When you launch something only have the very beginning done and then build as you go." And I was like, "You've got to be kidding me, there's no way I can't do that. That's terrifying. You, like, you honestly think that that is going to work?" And she's like, "No, I know it's going to work."
And she's like, "I'm telling you, because somebody told me that a long time ago and she's like, I didn't believe him either. And then I tried it and I'm so glad I did. So now it's like the advice that I give to everyone." And she was a delightful person and very successful, and I knew she had my best interests at heart.
So I was like, "Oh my gosh. Like she, I mean, she's obviously telling the truth. Like she's not trying to lead me astray. But again, like you're asking me to charge people for what is essentially a rough draft of something? Something that is traditionally viewed as incomplete, as not good, is not the best. And you want me to take money for that? Yeah, okay. Like, we'll see."
And I will say that I'm very glad that I listened to her, although hard and at all times not perfectly. This is something that I've gotten much, much better about doing over time. And now it's sort of how I like live and breathe and, uh, talk to my clients about it too. Right? Like this is, this is what I teach in and preach because I know it works.
And there's one step, even before this, even before the launching of the beta thing or the rough draft, or, you know, the first two modules to something and like, you know, building it out as the weeks go on is the pre-launch. Right? So we don't necessarily have to. Pre-launch everything. We don't have to, you know, pretest every idea or, you know, crowdsource every option.
But I wanted to be sure to talk about both. So to prelaunch would be obviously to just like, it's like selling something or putting out there like a pitch about something before you have done anything with it at all. So this could be something where you're like, "Hey, I am, uh, I'm going to pre-launch this thing, like here's, here's what I'm thinking. Here's what we're going to do. And it's not put together yet, but it will be, let's say in 30 days from now. Right? So I'm going to open up, um", we'll just say it's a group program, right? "I want to do this group program. And I need to get at least five people or else it's not going to run. Right? If, if five people are more interested, we're going to roll with it. And if not, then that's okay." But it's not going to happen. And maybe let's say there were four people, maybe you come up with like a variation or a paired down version of what you were of what you were thinking, or maybe you just assigned to do something like one-on-one with them instead. Right? But you can just give people the parameters for what it is that you want to launch.
And then just say, "Hey, it's this amount, these are the details. Um, this is who it's for. All the same as you would do for selling anything. And then just say, "You know, you can. Either, uh, put a deposit down here or you can pay here. And if we don't get the number I'll refund you, or you can fill out an application to secure your spot. And then if we get enough, then I'll send you an invoice." Like there's a lot of different ways that you can do it, but this prevents you from going too far down the rabbit hole, spending your very precious time, creating a bunch of stuff. If it ends up being something that people, at least in this moment right now in your business are not interested in.
Now, this doesn't mean you can't ever revisit it or revise it. If let's say you don't get that right number, but at least you don't have to go through all of it. And this happened recently. I had this idea. It was going to be a slightly lower priced offer. And, uh, it was going to be a group, a group program that would help with offer creation and launch.
And I like, in my mind, I was like, "This is amazing." Like, this is great for people who just, you know, don't want to spend the money or can't spend the money right now to work with me one-on-one. And I'm going to take them as a group through the process of offer creation and launch that I would with my private clients. But because it's in a group setting, I can make the price lower and it's not going to take them three months. It was only going to be four weeks. Right? So I was really jazzed. And what I did was I created a sales page and, um, you know, I felt like the sales page was pretty good. And, uh, it, you know, really spoke to like who it was for and what we were going to do and what the investment would be.
And I put it out there. And lo and behold, I didn't get a lot of takers. And I just decided, no, you know what? It's, it's not the right thing. Clearly right now, it's not the right thing. It's reaching, like I'm trying to create something for certain people in my mind. Who've said they, that they've wanted to work with me for a bit, but it's still not the right moment for them to invest, even at that lower price point.
And I just thought, you know what, I'm scrapping it. It's okay. Literally all I did, like I didn't make any worksheets. I didn't start to build out uh, like a membership portal or make a Facebook group. Like, I didn't, I didn't do anything other than the sales page. And then it also helped me, it just basically gave me a lot of clarity.
Right? But I didn't waste a ton of time. And of the people who said, you know, "Oh, like I am interested, but I can't do it right now." Or, you know, various things like I can just. You know, mentally, uh, keep a list or, you know, make an actual list of those folks. So I can practice some good up with them on different offers later on.
Right? And, uh, but yeah, so that was, that is around pre-launching. Like I would say if there's something new that you have hankering about, you can pitch it out there. Uh, but don't waste a ton of time building out everything first and give yourself a set number of like, "I'm need to have X amount of people who are interested and committed before I spend time and money and energy building out the rest of the program."
So now when it comes to launching, so let's say you're like, "Okay. I've got some interest or I know this is fricking good. Like I, this, this is my thing. This is my jam. I'm making it." I, I highly encourage you to create a framework for whatever it is. So let's say it is going to be, you know, you are, you teach people how to do their brand messaging and then create content around that brand messaging. Right? So you have some fundamentals, some crucial, crucial things that are part of your signature framework or your methodology that you know, you want to put in there. So I would say, make an outline and jot down what are the non-negotiables? What are the things that you absolutely know that you need to talk about at a bare minimum?
Right? And then just start to create those or the first few. So this is what I did with my course, uh, Sell It, Sister. So I had actually run the bulk of the content as an in-person two part workshop that had a very boring name. It was just called Business Basics. Uh, and so I ran that. And I literally created the first days worksheets and whatnot, uh, before the first one. And then I created the second sessions worksheets before that next one. And I just knew, I knew for myself that if I gave myself that deadline and I had people who were committed to being there, that I would do whatever it took to get that work done. And I also didn't give myself uh, an overwhelming to do list, right? I wasn't like, "I need to create 47 worksheets and all this stuff." It was like a few worksheets and a little bit of training for each session. Right? Less is more, and I'm not going to overload myself, but I am going to be certain to finish this. So I was able to do that.
And then I took that and I turned it into my Sell It, Sister course. And what I did was at first, I literally just had it on my website and I like built it out fully online as I went. So I had to, since I wasn't teaching, like in a, you know, standing in front of people, I had to record videos. So I launched it.
I put a password protected pages for each of the four weeks on my website. And I believe I had all of the lessons for the first week, maybe the second week they were done, uh, when it launched. So people could go in and they could start doing that. And I basically just unlocked each week as they went. And then I recorded the remainder of it about a week or so ahead of when it would come out.
And this was helpful because sort of boxing myself in it meant I couldn't get too perfectionist with it. Right? Like I couldn't, I couldn't re-record those videos a million times and make myself bananas. Maybe, you know, each video took three or four takes. Right? So I had to really get over myself in order to make sure that it was done and the info would be out there in the time that I said that it would be out there. And then I had a VA helped me to just put the content into prettier looking worksheets. And it was great. And it wasn't until later on that I, uh, switched over to podia and, um, started moving all of my courses over there. But for the longest time, it literally just lived on password protected pages, on my website.
And I would send out emails, with a link and the password to that page. And the great thing that happens, so part of why you don't want to also like build stuff out too far in advance, is that as people are actually going through it, new things will come up. There will be questions that they have that you hadn't even thought of or things that you need to clarify, that you didn't even think might be confusing or need more clarification. And there will be other things that are adjacent to what you're talking about that you're like, "Oh my gosh, like, you know what I, I actually didn't think about including that, but that is really important and I'm going to." So this gives you more flexibility to add good nuggets into your content later.
So maybe if you have, you know, units one and two, ready to go, and then you're, you're like life teaching it. Like maybe you have a weekly Q and A, something like that. Then as new things come up, it allows for room for you to include, uh, maybe some additional trainings in the upcoming weeks or create bonus modules, or a separate worksheets, or just different things that support the learning. And this makes it more impactful and more powerful and people get bigger wins and more transformation. So it's just, it's a win-win for everyone. And it feels it can feel terrifying at first, uh, for all the reasons I mentioned before, but my suggestion really is, is if you have pre-launch something and it's a go or you're like, "I'm just launching it. And I know this the thing I'm going to do. And I, I feel very strongly about it and I feel very confident that it will, um, you know, people's interests will be peaked and they'll want to invest." Don't don't give yourself too much time because we will use whatever time is in front of us. If we say, "I'm launching this thing in six months", or "I'm launching it in three months", there's a very good chance that we could actually get it done in three months.
Right? Like it could, it could be out to the world and it could be ready. Now sometimes the reason why we want to launch something at a different time has to do with personal factors in our life, uh, or things happening in our industry or in the world or whatever. But usually we give ourselves too much time because we want everything to be quote unquote, perfect before it's out there. Because if it's perfect, then no one can criticize us and no one can be disappointed that they invest in it. And everything will just be perfect. But that is not the case. And I have gone through enough trainings and programs and just all sorts of things with very smart people, people who are very good at what they do, uh, things that I am so thrilled I invested in. And there's been, you know, typos or random errors or just different things.
And I used to think when I was starting out like, "Oh, I would just be, I would just be mortified. Like people would think I'm a joke and they wouldn't want to invest in me and they wouldn't take me seriously." And now I'm like, "No, I don't care." If somebody I'm learning from, if the value is there and I'm getting the learning that I am investing in and I'm getting the transformation and all of that, just because like one word is misspelled on a slide, like a training slide or the format and got weird on a worksheet. Like I'm not, I'm not going to be that picky. Right? I don't, I don't actually care that much. And so it's really proven to me that the people who you're going to enjoy working with, I mean, listen, there's always going to be those, those nitpicky people.
Right? Uh, but the people who are really going to be super invested in the transformation that they'll get from working with you, they are not going to care as much as you think that they might about small little things. So pre-launch and launch without everything being a hundred percent complete. Uh, it will just make your life so much easier.
It will save you so much time. It means that you will get the revenue now instead of six months from now. You can start impacting people now, instead of six months from now And you will learn so much about yourself and so much about your clients as you go, you'll get that clarity that only comes from action.
And it's, it's going to change the way that you work in your business for the better. It's just save you so much time and headache and frustration and money. He wasted on investing in things, you know, for worksheets and uh, all sorts of stuff. Um, things that maybe people don't even actually don't actually want.
Right? So I hope you enjoyed this. If you did. Let me know, uh, go ahead and tag me on Instagram @erikatebbensconsulting. Let me know your biggest takeaway. Let me know if there's something that you are going to launch or pre-launch. I would love to hear about it. And as always, happy selling.
Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Sell It, Sister Podcast. If you loved it and you want more, be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And then head on over to sellitsisterhood.com to join my free Facebook community group. And as your mama said, "Sharing is caring." So if you got a lot of value out of this episode, be sure to share it with your biz besties too.
Okay? Now get out there and sell it, sister.
