What if My Launch Didn’t Work?

What do you do if you launch your online course or other offer and don’t get the results that you hoped for? Where do you look to improve?

It’s the worst case scenario. You announce that your new course or program is open. You have visions of a mad stampede of perfect clients racing to your sales page that rivals Best Buy on a Black Friday.

What happens if instead of people fighting to get in, you only hear the distant sound of crickets chirping?

This can be easily be one of the most discouraging things to go through as an entrepreneur.

Here’s what I want you to know: Every successful entrepreneur experiences this. Experiencing what doesn’t work is an essential part of the process of figuring out what will.

Launching is about testing. Click To Tweet

You plan.

You put it out there.

You study the results.

You refine.

To do this well, you have to separate emotionally from your offer. Objectivity is key.

You are not your product or offer. Just because your launch didn’t work the way you wanted doesn’t mean there aren’t thousands of people out there looking for exactly what you have to offer.

It’s really hard for entrepreneurs like us because the work you’re putting out is your expertise. When you don’t get this big response to it, it’s easy to feel discouraged and like people aren’t looking for the thing that you want to share.

The truth is that  there are often small changes that can make a really big difference in the results you get.

Here is why: You think you have a funnel with leads flowing from one step to the next eventually becoming a raving fan. The problem is that many funnels look more like a colander with leads falling through holes every step of the way.

6 Holes Your Leads Fall Through in Your Funnel

• They click on your ad, but don’t end up signing up for your webinar or free offer
• They sign up for your webinar, but don’t show up to watch it
• They click on your ad, sign up for your webinar, but leave the webinar early and never hear about your offer
• They watch the webinar but don’t go to your sales page
• They watch the webinar but never open any other emails from you
• They watch the webinar,  go to your sales page, and decide they need to think about it (and ultimately forget to return)

In your funnel flow, there are all these opportunities for people to fall through the holes. It’s far easier to improve a launch when you focus on each step of the journey and notice where you are losing your people.

You have to anticipate all of these holes before you launch. The key is to think about your offer and putting that out. Then, you have to keep in mind and think about what you can tweak as you continue to share that offer with your audience.

How One Expert Improved Her Launch from 28 to over 300 Students Enrolling

Kim Moore, who is part of our Create 6-Figure Courses community, launched a course called Head Shape Matters, which teaches an innovative method of haircutting. When she first offered her program, she had 28 people that enrolled her in course.

Kim and I worked together to refine and improve her results. We looked for the holes in the experience that could be improved and plugged.

Kim moved from having 28 people in that first launch to 300 people in her last launch, with the same program. She didn’t change the program. Instead, she focused on her launch and identifying those holes. We looked at each hole and figured out what we can do to plug that hole so we didn’t lose people in the experience. This can often be as simple as split testing headlines or refining your webinar scripting.

You have to test to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

A launch is simply an experience that you’re crafting for your audience, and noticing where they’re engaged and where you’re losing them is the key to having more people move through the complete experience with you.

The Biggest Shift You Need to Make to Successfully Launch

The main shift that we have to make is really a mindset shift. You have to embrace the idea that launching is about learning what will work.

This mindset allows you to go faster in putting your work out, which is really important. You can’t perfect your offer until you get it in front of your customers.

I’d love your thoughts on this whole idea of approaching launching like an experiment. What have you learned from your launches?