Episode 42- [Guest] Streamlining Your Launch Plan with Jacki Hayes

May 9

If you’re a coach like myself, then launching and running group programs is part of your work schedule. Oftentimes, this comes with burnout and overwhelm. So how can you set yourself up for success during launch season?

My guest on the podcast today is a certified online business manager who partners with coaches to launch and run their group programs through Hustle Free Launch Planning and Management.

Jacki Hayes is here to teach us how to streamline our processes and create a self-care plan that supports both our business and personal lives.

She also has a podcast called ‘Here’s What I Learned’ where she and her guests chat about the lessons they’ve learned while living life and running an online business.

Tune in to hear:

Jacki’s 4 phases of launching and how to successfully complete all four.
How holding out for a ‘big reveal’ of your new offer or program is the wrong approach to launching
Jacki’s approach to launching Evergreen offers
How to handle emergencies during launch season

What is launching?

A launch is simply making your offer whatever your offer happens to be, available to either download, purchase, consume, if it was free or paid.

So that's all it really is. It's telling people, Hey, I have something, do you want it? And then giving them the opportunity to purchase it or consume it in some way.

How to get started with launching

I have seen how coaches with big platforms have evolved over time and we tend to forget that these people have teams and massive budgets. That's not where they started. They started small too. So it starts really with what you have around you already, the audience that you have already nurtured and built, whether that is 50 people on your email list or 5,000.

Can we personalize launching to make sure that it's true to who you are?

When I work with my clients, we tend to use personal assessments. I'm a huge personal assessment junkie, so if there is one that exists, I have probably taken it. Not everybody is into them, but everybody knows something about themselves. Whether it's their Myers-Briggs, their human design, their astrological sunshine, their Hogwarts house, whatever it happens to be, everybody knows something about themselves in that way.

And so we use those as a basis for building out a launch plan.

Knowing who you are and building from there is far more important than following somebody else's tried and true template.

That's how I coach my clients too. It's really making sure that things are done in a way that's going to make life a little bit easier for you. At the end of the day, this is our business. You get to make that business, whatever feels good and feels right for you, and trusting that your audience will follow and connect with that.

“People tend to throw spaghetti at the wall and partway through a launch they're overwhelmed and they don't really know what's working and what's not. And one of the things they tend to forget when they start that launch is how are they gonna care for themselves and their business through this time”

I like to help my clients think about how they are going to create a self-care plan during the launch process.

So make your life small during that process and find a way to build in support systems. So that you can let your body rest in the down moment and not be burnt out and overwhelmed.

It’s all about balance.

With launches, I recommend that you leave some space for spontaneity and inspiration. So I always say be 80% proactive. And that's the essentials. If this doesn't happen, the launch won't work. So sales page and marketing platforms.

But then leave yourself 20% for inspiration, but also the questions that might come up. Because you'll find as you're promoting your offer, people are gonna be asking you questions. So leave yourself some space in your schedule to respond to those questions.

The 4 phases of launching

1. Clarity and strategy.

You're getting really clear on your offer. You're getting really clear on who that offers for, how you're going to deliver it, how you're going to wow them, how that aligns to you and your business and your core values.

2. Connect and nurture.

You’re connecting with new audiences and nurturing the audience that you have now.

Sometimes clarity and strategy and connect and nurture will overlap.

“It's great to just start talking about your offer as soon as you have enough information to share. Because one of the things that we are finding in the online space is that people are needing more time to make a decision. They've been burnt by other people and other programs, and so they really need a lot more time now to build the trust, and they also need more information”

3. Conversion

This is where your cart is open, enrollment is open, you've made your product or offers available for somebody to purchase. I suggest doing that for seven to 10 days max. Otherwise you're gonna be burnt out and emotionally drained.

4. Evaluation

So when you have closed your cart, you take some time to evaluate the entire launch process.

You decide what worked and why, what didn't work, and why. And then you ask yourself what lessons you learned that you want to apply to the next launch.

Holding out for the ‘big reveal’ might be the wrong approach

A lot of people are finding that their audience just feels more connected to the offer when they've seen it being built from the ground up. They know the questions that you've been asking yourself as you're developing it. They know the conversations that you've been having as you create it, so they know how it's been created, so they understand that it is really for them, and they have a better understanding of how it can help them solve whatever problem it is that you're intending to solve, and also it just helps you connect as another human being because we buy from other humans.

Ideal pre-launch timeline

It really depends on your audience, your offer. So if you have something that is $97 versus something that is $10k, your pre-launch does not need to last nearly as long. If you have a smaller audience and you feel that you need to build your audience up a little bit before you open up your cart, then you're gonna need to add more time.

It also depends on how many times you have launched before, whether it's this particular launch or product or offer. Or if it's a brand new one.

If It's a brand new offer, you probably need to add some time to that launch. If you are brand new to the space, even if you have a big audience, you need to build up trust, so you're going to need to take more time. It can take up to six months, depending on how long you have been around the price point of your offer and how big your audience is.

But I would say anywhere from three months to a month, depending on again, the price point of your offer.

How to launch Evergreen offers

There comes a point, like if you have something that's always available, if you're always talking about it, eventually people are going to just skim right over that information. So I definitely suggest taking time off from talking about your Evergreen offer and whether that is talking about a lead magnet or your podcast or whatever it happens to be, and just doing mini launches or even big launches for your Evergreen.

Project management tools

I enjoy using Click up. And it's a great way if there's multiple people on the team to be able to communicate. Others are Trello, Asana, Google Docs, Google Drive spreadsheets, those are always handy as well. And what I love about the project management tools is that you can link directly, so it's right there. I also use it when I'm just launching for myself. It's a nice way to have a to-do list that I can just check off and it sends me reminders for what’s due.

Time Blocking - a different way

I don’t do the 15 minute specific tasks, I will block out time that says content creation or client work or things along those lines. And it's all color coded on my Google calendar. So if you were to look at it, you would say you'd see big chunks of time for all of that. Most of the time, Mondays and Fridays I set aside to work on my own business. Mondays are the business admin, the CEO days. On Fridays, I like to spend my mornings doing some kind of development, such as catching a replay on a webinar or diving into a program that I'm a part of. And then the middle of the week is really focused on client work and connecting with new potential clients.

That's lovely. I, that's exactly how I would teach time blocking too. I think those 15 minute increments get, it's just, it's a little dicey, right? It's a recipe for stress.

How to handle emergencies during launches

The emergencies are not as dramatic as they could be. So a lot of times those, and they'll be things like an email went out twice and there's really not much you can do after that. You're just like, okay, the two of those emails went out. Let's see what the glitch was so that we don't have that happen again. If there is a launch emergency, then obviously the schedule's gonna have to shift a little bit.

I also make space in my calendar for what might be called catchup. So I don't have my day so planned that there isn't room for the unexpected. I'm able to shift things.

“At the end of the day, like we're not doing brain surgery, so there's an important perspective around what an emergency actually is”

If you think about things ahead of time, it's less stressful when it does happen. Cause you know what to do because something Will go wrong. It's life. It's how it goes.

Great content for socials!

I share a very transparent business report every month that goes into all the details of where I got my money, how much money, how I spent my money, my mindset throughout the month. I have found that people have really responded to those emails and have gotten a lot of really good feedback from those.

Love the transparency. That's awesome. Wish everybody would do something like that.

Connect with Jacki Hayes

Website: https://www.jackihayes.me

Instagram: @jackihayes_obm

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