Ep. 102: "Oops that flopped. Now what?!" Dealing w/ a Failed Launch
It's completely normal in business to not knock it out of the park every time you launch something. I know that's crummy to hear, but it's also kind of liberating. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has had a launch that didn't quite go as planned.
Business is sort of like a giant science experiment with lots of variables. Maybe your launch happened during a time when a lot of your audience wasn't online, or during a contentious presidential election. (Yes, that really did mess up people's launches.)
It could also be that you didn't have enough people who saw it, or maybe it wasn't quite what they were looking for. It's not always about the price. But no matter what, it is super frustrating.
That's why in this episode I give you a few tips on what to do if you put something out there and it doesn't go as planned.
Links:
Waitlist for Rebellious Success: rebellious-success.com
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So silly me got to the end of this episode. And then I was chatting with a friend and chatting about failed launches and flops. And, uh, I was telling her about one of the offers that I mentioned in here that just never took off. And she reminded me that like, yeah, if you still think it's cool, you know, you, you definitely have more people.
Paying attention to you now. And I was like, yeah, you're right. I do. I probably would have better success if I launched it now. And then I was like, crap, I forgot something. I wanted to say, which is something I tell my clients all the time. Somehow I spaced it while I was recording, which is that a lot of times it's not the pricing.
It's not, uh, You know, the offer is wrong. It's, it's not any of that. It could literally be that there's just not enough eyeballs on you for the conversion rates to work in your favor, to get you the amount of enrollment that you want. I mean, yes, there's, there's always, you know, it's businesses like an experiment.
There's all sorts of different things that might need to be adjusted for next time. But sometimes it really can just be that there's not enough people who even saw the offer and you just need to keep growing your audience, which doesn't mean that you can't make any money until you have a huge audience.
It just means that creation and audience building always need to go hand in hand and far too often, what happens is we get mired in creation mode and then. We forget to be audience building while we're creating. And so then we launch and it doesn't go how we hoped because there's just not none of the people there.
Uh, so yeah, I just, I wanted to throw that in it's really, really important. Um, and by the time this comes out, I am currently working on a new, um, free guide. I know that, you know, if you're, if you're a longtime listener, you've heard me, uh, in the intro talk about my Knowsley sales guide. Which is awesome.
And if you don't have it, you can go to bit dot L Y forward slash no sleeves, sales, um, or no sleeves, no sleeves selling. Sorry. Uh, it's all lowercase, all, all one word bit dot L Y forward slash Knowsley selling. And, um, that's, that'll get you on my list. I'll get you that guide, but I am going to have a new one that is about.
Uh, audience building and visibility. Um, but I actually have a brand new paid offer that is going to be great. If you want customized. Sleaze free, sustainable ways for you to grow your audience without having to come like tick-tock famous or dance on reels or anything like that, then you definitely gonna want to check out my new offer, which is called rad clients on repeat, and you can learn more and apply@radclients.com.
Okay, now, for real, for real, we're going to the episode.
Welcome to the, sell it sister podcast today, we are talking failures and flops and also where my office is situated is right near the kitchen and the dishwasher is running, but this is the only time I can record this. So hopefully it's not too noisy. Um, we'll just pretend like it's background ambience.
Shall we again? Uh, Perfection is not, it's not something we do around, uh, around these parts. Uh, not in South sister, not in Eric, Devin's consulting. Not in any of it. Nope. Full speed ahead. Let's let's do this. Let's get started. Shall we? So, uh, recently I was so impressed by a client of mine who was going through a launch and it wasn't going how she had hoped and.
She was very honest with her audience cause it was for a group program and she had a minimum number that she wanted to have enrolled if she was going to do the program and she had one person enrolled, she needed a few more. Um, and she was just honest and uh, said, Hey, you know, this is the deadline, this is the reality.
Um, and you know, I, if it doesn't feel I may. Do it in the future. Um, but I will not, uh, I will not be running it right now if it's, if it doesn't hit its minimal number. And she got a lot of really great response from people saying that she appreciated their, you know, her honesty and how she showed up and, um, and just the very like kind and.
Transparent way instead of, you know, what, she wasn't like railroading people. She wasn't, um, bullying them into joining. In fact, it was just the opposite. She gave a really. Uh, beautifully authentic peek behind the scenes, um, into her business and was very forthright about, you know, how she does business and her values and how she never wants to pressure anyone into something that isn't, uh, that isn't a good fit and that she knows she could certainly sell more, um, by being manipulative, but it's not, it's not her jam.
And so wherever ended up, she was going to make peace with it. She, uh, was saying that in the end, you know, she felt really good with her lunch, even though it wasn't, you know, what, what typically we would call successful. Right. It didn't feel she put up a waitlist page. It's still on her heart to do it in the future.
And, um, but you know, she essentially, even though it was a quote unquote failure, uh, she. Said that she felt really good because of how she showed up for herself and for her audience. And that was really, really, really awesome and amazing to see, because I know she had also said that she had followed a different methodology in the past.
Um, and it also didn't have the desired result that she wanted, but she didn't feel great. About how that launch went. And there's a huge difference there, right on the outside. It's it's easy to look at it and just go, okay, well, both flopped, right? Both, both flopped and, uh, And we could tell ourselves all these stories we could, um, really get in our own our own heads and get in our own worthiness.
Um, but she, she didn't even actually, uh, afterwards she was, um, you know, she was posting about how she felt and how it felt really good and how she stayed in integrity. Uh, and that was more important. To her then what w you know, what we in the business community would consider a successful launch. And again, people really resonated with that.
Right. They really appreciated her, her honesty and her willingness to say, yeah, I, this flopped, but I know I'm still good at what I do. Right. I, I know I am. Super booked out on my other services. I was trying to create something that would accommodate more, more people. Uh, people who maybe are, you know, have a different budget to work with me and all of that.
And, and it was something she was excited to do. And it's something she is still excited to do. In the future. And we were, we were chatting in, uh, in Slack and, um, you know, with, with everyone. And it was really inspiring for the other members of the community to see as well. And it was a good reminder to me of like, normalizing.
Flops and failures and putting stuff out there. And I w I'm not implying that we should all give everyone a behind the scenes. Uh, you know, of every of absolutely every single thing that we are doing in our businesses, that is not, that's not necessary whatsoever, but I do think that the more. The more that people show up from time to time and they talk about.
The spectrum of business, not just, you know, the highlights, not just the highs, but also the lows and what we learned from the lows and, uh, and how we can be resilient and keep pushing past, um, beyond those swaps and failures. I feel like we just, we create this culture of, Oh, this is normal. This is normal and I'm not broken.
And you could be super successful in one area of your business and then still struggle in another area of your business. Or you could have had a great launch on something once. And then the next time it could totally flop. And again, it doesn't. I mean, you soccer you're horrible or your business's doomed to failure or anything like that.
And I think that, uh, even though this isn't like, Oh, my gosh. It's, it's so inspiring. Like, Oh God, I can't wait for my next failure or flop obviously. No one's saying that, um, we, we want to succeed of course, but we, when, when we know how normal it is from people who we respect from people we admire, um, from people who we view as success, assess them, I feel like it's, it's like, Oh, okay.
It's this breath, breath of fresh air. So, I mean, I've, I've definitely had my own. The funny thing is truly, I can't even like, remember. All of mine, like honest to God, that's not hype. Like if that's not just me being like, you know, false, modest, like, Oh my God, I have so many. But like really? Haven't like, no, I it's literally I've, I've put so many of them out of my, out of my mind.
I, I, like, I just can't even remember them because other stuff came and took its place. Um, but I do remember, uh, I think it was in 2019. I mean, maybe it was, yeah, I think it was in 2019. I created a four week group intensive called I think he called it the offer lab, which like TMT MTM. I may use that again in the future.
Also, if you get that reference, if you know what podcast I'm referencing there, let me know. I will. I will pay for your next coffee. Uh, we can, we could super nerd out on what I'm referencing, but anyhow, I was like, Oh my God, that's a cool name. That's so fun. It's awesome. It was basically taking my next big thing.
Offer creation, launch, launch intensive, and like boiling it down. To, um, a group component instead of one-on-one and four weeks, instead of getting it done in two hours and at S you know, at a lower price point. And I was like, Oh my God, this is gonna be amazing. Like, I'm totally gonna get, you know, a handful of people they're going to be so stoked about this offer.
And then nothing. I had a few people who were like, yeah, it seems cool, but like, not right now, or, you know, whatever. And I was like, Oh, okay, damn, all right. I guess I'm not, I guess I'm going to put a pin in that and. Maybe I'll revisit it in the future, but obviously not right now. Another one was, um, in January of 2019.
Um, so the offer offer lab was like later in 2019, uh, January of 2019. Um, I was doing another launch for my group program at the time. Success squad had already been going. For the previous five quarters. So since Q4, uh, was that 2017, um, went all through 2018 and then we are going into 2019 and it flopped, I had one person who renewed and I had one new person and.
I reached back out to them and I was like, Hey, do you just want to switch to one-to-one like, I'm happy to honor the rate. It's lower than what I would do for one-to-one, but I'm happy to, I'm happy to honor it. I would love to work with you. I would love to help you. Um, clearly this is just not something other people want to right now, even though it had been really, really successful for five previous quarters, all of a sudden it wasn't.
And yeah, so that, that was, that was what I did. So those, those are the only two that came to mind, but I know that there are so many more that my brain has just forgotten. So here's what I want you to think about. First of all, everyone has had this huge names, like either huge names, people you've heard of, or like really, really, really successful people who you haven't heard of.
Um, but you know, they they're like. Multiple six or seven figure course creators and things like that. They might just serve a different nation. That's why you've never heard of them. Cause they're not like B2B, they're more B to C. Um, they've had, they've had failures, I've worked with clients who are super, super, super, super successful.
And then they put out an offer. They think it's great. We think it's great. And it just doesn't resonate the way we anticipated with the audience or it comes out in. Uh, time of year or whatever a season stuff's going on. And it's just, it's not for whatever reason, it's just not the right timing. Right. Or the people who join, freaking love it.
But in subsequent rounds, it's like, it's harder to. Help people understand, like why it's so good. And so you have to make that judgment call, like, do we, do we keep going with this? Even though the people who are in it get great results, does it really make sense to put this much time, money, and energy into continuing to launch this thing?
If we aren't getting the volume of people in that we need in order to make this worthwhile again, going back to my client, she needed. She had decided for herself, she needed for people to make it worthwhile. She only got one and therefore she decided not to not to run it. And so I, I would just say, you know, it's trust and believe it's normal.
Everyone has something at some point or another usual, multiple points or another where something either completely flops or it's doesn't. Have the results that you had hoped it doesn't get the enrollment that you had hoped that doesn't hit the revenue goal you had hoped, or it does. And then eventually you're just like, I don't want to offer this anymore.
Even if it is successful, even if it's making you great money, this doesn't mean we have to. Keep offering something forever. Right? So that's one thing. Second thing is check in with yourself. What do you want to do? Right. What feels good to you? Are you doing something because you think you should, or you doing something because someone in your audience said that they would love that.
And you, so now you sort of feel obligated to offer it, like really do a gut check because I'll be honest. When I look back on. That field round of success squad. I mean, my heart wasn't in it. I felt obligated to keep it going, but I really didn't want to do another round. I was, I was avoiding the inevitable.
I was like, okay, I'll just do, I'll just do the Q1 round. And then I won't. I, I won't recap. Right. That was, that was going to be my plan. Well, you know what, like the universe had other ideas for me, the universe kind of like called my bluff and forced my hand and was like, I'm going to do the thing that you are too chicken to do, which is to just say.
Yeah, I'm not making this available anymore. Um, but you know, I felt bad. It was, it was the lowest cost way to work with me. I was like, Oh my God, who is, who am I to take away this lower cost thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, and, and I, and I loved it. I, the whole 15 months I did it, I loved it. I loved my clients.
I love doing it. I love all of it. So I was never doing it out of obligation, but there were some, you know, at the end of 2018, Going into 2019. My gut was just like, all right. I think it's been a good run. I think, I think we can wrap this up and move along, but my, my brain was like, no, just do it again.
Bring it. So when we are doing something from a place where we aren't really all in fully, fully, fully, fully behind it, then it can be really hard to have a successful launch or. We will somehow get lucky and have a successful launch, but then we will feel blah, while we're doing the thing. Right. So always, always do, always do a gut check with yourself.
If you didn't do a gut check before, and then you're in the midst of the launch and you get the gut check, you can always cancel a launch. You, you always, you can always do that. Uh, you have my full, my full permission to do that. And if you've been offering something, even if people love it and you don't want to do it again, successful launch or not, and you can also just do it again.
The next thing I would say is get curious and reach out. You can, you can ask people questions, you can check in, you could send a, like, Survey wide. And by you can reach out personally, if you know, you were having conversations with people and ask them and not in a way of like burrow, why didn't you buy 'em?
You know, but say no, like there's no judgment. There's no shame. I really want to know, like, this will help me get better for next time. Was the bad timing. Was it the cost? Did it not make sense? Uh, is it not the thing you need? You know, is there something else that if that, if it was like a part of it, it would've been a hell yes.
Is there something that was an automatic hell no, it's not that you have to then take all this data and try to appease everyone with it because that is also really hard too. But you can look at the data and go, Ooh, like, is there a trend? Was everyone saying like, Oh, it seemed really awesome, but like, we're trying to spend more time off social media and it was in a Facebook group.
And so we didn't want that. Or was everyone saying like, well, you said it was gonna be in Slack and like, I really don't want to learn a new platform. And so if it had been a Facebook, then I would have been all for it. Kim, if you're like, I don't want to be on Facebook just because people are saying that you don't necessarily have to make it on Facebook, you might just need to like.
Change your messaging or change who you're targeting or, you know, like who you're speaking to. Right. Um, there's all different ways that you can adjust, but just get, get curious, get curious, and actually talk to people. And. See, and you know, if you have mentors, if you have friends, if you have whatever, like see if they can look over your stuff, your sales page, your, um, you know, sales emails, uh, your launch plan.
Is there something that maybe could be awesome, but you hadn't thought of, and you're like, duh, that's so obvious. Cool. I just did a session with somebody yesterday. We like mapped out our whole launch and nothing I was telling her was like monumental or revolutionary or. Or anything like that, it's just, she's so close to her own stuff.
She was like, Oh my God, that's amazing. I'm so excited about this. I never thought about this. Thank you. This was really valuable. Right. And I do this too. I did this for my rebellious success launch earlier this year. I launched it before I knew I knew I could launch again. I knew it'd probably be successful.
Cause it felt like a hell. Yes, to me and new people were getting results. Even though I'm a strategist. I hired a strategist because I'm sure we're all too close to our own work. I just couldn't see the obvious thing that was right in front of me. I needed somebody else to go. Why don't you do this? And then, so then I was like, Oh duh, that's super obvious, but thank you.
Thank you for that. Cause I'm going to do it. And it worked. It was awesome. Right. So check in with your gut, give herself permission to just, you know, do, do what feels really good and exciting for you. Not just what you think you should. Check in with people like, you know, was it a horrible time? Where were all of your people?
Was it spring break? And like the vast majority of the people that you were targeting with this offer with this launch, they're like on holiday, right? They're not paying attention. They're not checking their inbox. They're not on social. They're enjoying time off could be that they absolutely want, it could be that they think the price is.
Perfect. But they're like cramp, I just missed it. I didn't even know what's happening. Right. You know, did you, did you talk about it enough? That could be another thing. Maybe they were around, but you only sound like chewing emails and you did like three social media posts and they just didn't see it. Or they saw it in and they forgot.
Right. She didn't eat in sound like, Oh my God, the doors are closing email. Like, or, you know, Hey, but like last call on. You know, on Instagram, like give me your Q and a, you know, doors are closing this round, right? There are always, always, always going to be people who forget who miss it, who didn't notice w we can't, you know, we can't stress about.
Meeting everyone like, you know, or, or reaching out to everyone or, or, uh, hoping everyone sees it. That's an impossibility, right? I would guess right now, probably there's an email in your inbox from some retail store that was just having a sale that maybe you would have loved to take part in. But you missed it cause you didn't open that email right there.
There's always gonna be people who, who miss out who would be good candidates. Um, there are things you can do on the, on the backend to capture them for the future, like setting up wait lists or anything like that, so that you make sure that they know the next time the doors are open. But you know, just, just get curious, get nonjudgmental with yourself.
Uh, be like a little like experimenter, a little researcher. And, and just see, and then look at what the feedback is, look at what you want to do and see how you can meld those together. And then also get help, get help from people who have other insights that they could give you to make your next launch go a lot more, a lot more smoothly.
And also don't be afraid to lean on the people who've already. If it's an existing program, lean on them. Again, it can feel awkward. Cause it can feel like we're saying like, Oh, Hey, can you tell me how great I am? How great the program I created is. And can you only talk about me places to other people to, you know, to tell them how great I am.
Like that can feel really awkward, but at the end of the day, you're not doing it to like fluff your ego. You're doing it. So that more of the right people will know, so they can say yes so they can get the transformation that you were delivering. With that offer. And the last thing I would leave you on is the way I started is the way I want to finish.
It's normal. Don't beat yourself up really, and truly, uh, it, the, the sooner that, uh, you can get that objective curiosity that you can put on that researcher, hat and not. Make it a negative self-talk Fest, the better off that you will be because it just comes with the territory. Like I think about all day long, all day long, all these things that we joke about now, right?
Like, like crystal Pepsi, if you're of a certain age, you remember crystal Pepsi, that was a flop. It was a huge flop. Like there was the SNL parody on crystal gravy, which is so funny. Fricking look that up. Hilarious. Um, but then I remember like a year or so ago they like resurrected it and people were like selling it on eBay and like all this stuff.
Right. You never know. And I'm sure, like, you know, Pepsi's got a kajillion dollars, they have full fledged marketing teams. They have, you know, people in suits who were like, yeah, crystal paps, are you, you know, this is going to be amazing. It's going to like, Take the world by storm. And it was a joke. It was a freaking joke.
And then later it became like, cool retro. Right? So I don't, I don't want you to have like a giant crystal Pepsi failure of a huge public humiliating failure. Also. I really doubt that would even happen, but, but be kind yourself, right? This is so normal. Like brush yourself off vent to your friends. Get an ice coffee, you know, hop back on, hop back on that business pony and ride.
All right, I'm going to leave it there cause I have to hop off and go do a training with some clients. But as always, if you love this, share it with a friend. Tag me on social at Eric Devin's consulting. I love to say hi to my listeners. Sign into my DMS over on Instagram and as always happy settling.
