Back to the drawing board…

It’s the first week of August, which means it’s officially Launch Season for me and my team… we’re gearing up to teach our big annual Launch Masterclass. Last year’s Masterclass was groundbreaking – I did 14 hours of live training + downloads and other goodies… and it was 100% free. And this year’s version is going to be even better!

In any case, here’s what’s on my mind as we dig into the nitty-gritty planning process (and I think it’ll help you with your next launch, too).

Okay. The calendar has flipped over to August, which means it is officially “launch season.” 

I've got my Launch Masterclass coming up next month in September, so it means I'm in full-on preparation mode for this. I do this every year about this time.  

So coming up, we're about six weeks out now, we'll do the Launch Masterclass and I'll do it as four – I'm considering maybe even five – live training sessions over 10 days or something like that. 

I'm going to walk you through how to do a launch – of course using my Product Launch Formula®. And full transparency here, this Launch Masterclass is actually my launch for Product Launch Formula because at the end of the free Launch Masterclass, I'll open up my yearly class for Product Launch Formula. 

So it's all very, very exciting. I'm getting deep into the planning now and I'm basically walking through my own process. You can say, I eat my own cooking – I eat my own food… Or sometimes people say, “You eat your own dog food.” So that means I'm looking at the process in Product Launch Formula that we take people through. 

So we look at, first of all, “What do you want from your launch? What outcome? What's your goal?” That might sound a little like, “Well why do you bother with that? I just want to make a bunch of money.” But there's lots of different reasons to do a launch and that will impact your strategy. For instance, some people might be more interested in the list build.  Some people might be more interested in having the greatest impact – reaching the largest number of people. Some people will want to make more sales at a lower price. Some people want to maximize dollars, which might mean selling at a higher price. So there are a lot of different possible goals or outcomes that you want for your launch. So that's one thing that you start off with.

And then we move into assets. We always think, “What are your assets? What do you have? What in terms of list, in terms of following, in terms of partners, in terms of contacts, in terms of media, in terms of product, in terms of bonuses? And that's just sort of scratching the surface. There are lots of different assets you can bring to the table and you want to look at that complete list of assets because the launch is all about focusing the maximum impact on that moment in time. I mean, that's why I love launches because it's just such a special time. The beginning of anything is super exciting to begin with. When a baby is born, a wedding, a graduation, the start of something… there's this inherent excitement in the start and you want to capture it, so you want to focus everything. So you want to look at what are your assets.

Then one of the biggest things, of course, is to take a look at your avatar, “Who are you trying to reach?” You don't want to reach … You can't reach everyone. For me, I just want to reach people who are either online entrepreneurs, they already have an online business or they want to have an online business, and there are many different subcategories. They might be practitioners or coaches or counselors or artists or information product course creators – all different sub-niches, sub-avatars. But at the bottom, or I guess the base level, it's either people that have an online business who want to grow that online business (because you always need to be launching, even if you already have an established business, you're always going to be launching), or people who want to have a business that haven't launched yet. So that's sort of my avatar. 

And then I drop down into, “Okay, what's the value I want to create in the prelaunch – in the free material?” Not thinking about the offer yet, but, “What's that value I want to create?” Another way I like to think about it is, “What is the story arc I like to use?” I like my launch to tell a story – to create a story. For me, it's the story of my client's future success. Really, that's the story arc that I'm going to be going after. So that’s another thing.

And then, of course, “What's your offer going to be?” A lot of times people get super obsessed with absolutely nailing down their offer 100%. But usually, that offer will evolve as you get into your launch because the cornerstone of a launch is having a lot of interaction with the people that you're launching to. And in that interaction, you'll often get a lot of extra intelligence, a lot of extra information, a lot of extra wisdom and insight into what people really want. Then, you can tweak your offer and build that into your offer. 

So that's what I'm doing right now. Those are some of the big areas. And so like I said, we're about six weeks out from this launch. It's going to be exciting. 

Last year was just monumental. Last year was the first time we did everything live and it's just more exciting when it's live. Frankly, I think I do okay on video but I'm better live. 

I think the value I created … I taught for something like, I think it was 13 or 14 hours of free content in the prelaunch phase before I actually opened up my offer for Product Launch Formula. So the value I created was just off the charts. Maybe that might sound like I'm patting myself on the back. But from the comments we got, which were thousands and thousands and thousands of comments. We had people viewing from all over the world, it was just amazing. 

So this year we're going to do something similar. It's going to be completely live all the way through.  It’s the Launch Masterclass, it’s coming up. I'll have a link for you to sign up in the next week or two. We'll have that out for you, but it's coming in September and I'm excited. 

So that's all I've got for you. 

Wherever you're watching, scroll down and leave a comment for me. Tell me if you've been through one of my Launch Masterclasses in the past – and if you got any value from it, love to hear that. Otherwise, let's go get ‘em this week.