Sticking With A Simple Repeatable Launch Plan With Rebecca Tracey

 

Rebecca: Let's be honest, we've all seen coaching programs that are the marketing is beefed up, but it's quite chunky and it's quite fancy. And then students get in and like they get totally lost or there's like 1000s of people and those programs are fine, but it's often just that people aren't registering for the right programs at the right time in their business. And so I'm that's like one of my one of my beefs. And one of the things I can rant about of like, coaches needing to just qualify their students better for these big programs. And so that's important to me.

Sara: You're listening to the launch playbook podcast, the weekly podcast for service based business owners to discover the starts, stops and tools of transformation that go into launching their online offers. I'm your host, Sara Vartanian. And if you want to launch your ideas into the world faster, with more success and less burnout, well, friend, consider this show your secret playbook to get you there.

One of the questions I get all the time is along strategist and copywriter is how should I launch this idea? Should we do a slow funnel or a webinar or go evergreen, or maybe even run a challenge. And oftentimes folks feel like it has to be this big, multi step process. And I think it's because that's what they see. know all those big, let's say name entrepreneurs doing it, or that there's a worry that if they don't do it with all the bells and whistles and won't look professional, and hey, big launching can work. But also launching does not have to be that complicated, especially in your early days, it's totally possible to have a great launch, and keep things simple and true to your preferences. And that's why I'm thrilled to be talking to Rebecca Tracy, founder of the uncaged life today, who's all about keeping things simple. Rebecca works with coaches and online business owners to get clear on their brand message, create packages itself, and help them get and keep clients all while working from home with no pants on. And she also runs a highly engaged online Facebook group of over 14,000 entrepreneurs. Welcome, Rebecca. Thanks for joining us here on the launch playbook podcast today. Yay. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. You're here and I can't wait to dig into Well, first, actually, what is the uncaged life philosophy? You want to tell us a little bit about that and how you got started?

Rebecca: Yeah. So at the end cage life, I work with coaches primarily. So service based folks to help them get clear on the foundations of their business. So I work with really new business owners who were not necessarily wanting anything. We'll talk a bit about that. And I started over a decade ago now, my gosh, it's been ages in the online business world. Yeah, it just came out of wanting to wanting to help people do the work that they actually wanted to do. And I saw a lot of a lot of my friends were starting businesses, either as life coaches or as health coaches. And they were kind of feeling stuck in these places that they had to be like, I had a lot of health coach friends who were like, I want to be healthy, but I really don't want to write recipes that they felt like they had to. And so I did a lot of coaching around just helping them get clear on what they really wanted to do and giving them permission to ditch the rest. And it's kind of transformed into what it is today teaching more like marketing and business skills.

Sara: Amazing. I love how you're saying about you're basically helping people have that permission slip to let go of all those shoulds

Rebecca: Yeah. In my business, I like helping other people do that, too.

Sara: And will you tell us a little bit how you got started because I know it involves a camper van. 

Rebecca: Yeah, I started my business when I was I've been thinking you know, as we do thinking about starting a business and wasn't even sure what that meant, or what it looked like for so long. And finally, I was like, you just need to do this. And so I knew that I wanted to build something that I that would let me work from anywhere and be able to travel and still like you know, build a career. And so I bought this really crappy old Chevy camper vans like 81 Brown seats that said on the lam gone fishing on the back, and just took off on a year long road trip and built my business doing that. So I go rock climbing for a few days holed up in a Starbucks and get some free Wi Fi and like write blog posts one one or two days a week. Yeah, it was a fun way to get started. I don't know that I recommend it. It's definitely challenging. But it was fun to not have the pressure of like, Oh my gosh, I have to pay my rent and oh my gosh, I have to be working every day. It was nice to like, have do it very part time while I was on this epic adventure. I love that. And do you still have the same man? No, I have a much nicer van now that I can afford it.

Sara: Kind of reminds me how I got started full time in my business. It was not like quite as adventurous. But we had been living in Toronto, and my husband and I had my kids were pretty little time. But we took a year off move to a log cabin, like three hours worth of city. When I say log cabin, like it was really a log cabin. Like it used to be, I guess like the main lodge of this old time resort and like Halliburton area. It's just like, if you're listening in from Ontario, it's like, really? where that is Yeah, or even from Toronto area. But it's like yeah, just like just really quintessential like cottage country like lakes and forests and trees. And yeah, like right on the lake. It was so beautiful. And it allowed me to take my business full time. It's something that I didn't think I'd ever end up doing because of course We were living up there was a lot cheaper. Yeah, that have all the pressures of work. And then we ended up going back to the city. And I was able to leave like I had been teaching before that. So like officially leave my teaching job. So yeah, what if you can make it happen? Right?

Rebecca: Yeah, it sounds similar. When I came back to Toronto after that trip I was able to stop doing or like, cut and re cut down the work that I was doing before.

Sara: Yeah, it's nice when you can figure out a way to take a break from or change the way things are already going on for you. Yeah, Norton make it happen. Okay, so tell us a little bit about what launching looks like for the uncaged life.

Rebecca: Yeah, so I love launches. I hopefully I know a lot of people or a lot of people that are sort of my colleagues and friends are moving away from launching, because it's very stressful. And we just had a year of COVID. And we'll talk about those two launches for me, because that was very stressful, also, but I still love it. So I have one program that I launched, it's called uncage your business and it's like a live group coaching program that I run twice a year. So we do two big launches a year. And I've been watching it for so long that we honestly just rinse and repeat. Like, it's very rare that we use a new strategy, or like a new tool, or a new tech or a new app, or a new whatever, maybe we like added in a messenger bot last year, it didn't really work that well. So we're gonna scrap that. But um, so we keep it pretty simple. We've been using the same launch emails for, I don't know, years, literally years, probably three years now. So what we do is, do you want to know like what we actually do, if you can take us through the steps, yeah, so we, we do some pre launch content. So I probably spend about three or four weeks. So it's, I always say I'm going to do four weeks. And then really, it's like two weeks. So let's just be honest, it's like probably like two weeks before the actual launch, I start going, Oh, I start rolling out content like and this is usually old blog posts that I've already written that I just kind of revamp a little bit and then send out to my email list post on my Facebook group just sort of content related to what we're going to be launching, like just pure value teaching. So just to prime people, let them know that we have a thing coming up. And then my co coach and I who coaches in the program with me, we do five days of free coaching. So this is kind of this is pre launch as well. So you can't even sign up to the program during this week. But we want people to like get on to zoom with us and let us actually coach them. So we advertise this as like anyone can come but really, it's for people who are like interested in joining, but they're not sure or they just want to check us out. Or they're like they're not even sure what we're all about. So we do this five days of free coaching, which is super fun. And a lot of the people who we end up coaching and joining the program, so it works really well. And then for the actual launch week, it's just five days cut down from I think I used to do two full weeks, like 14 days, which was wasting way too much. I was like What do you mean, it's not a problem. And I was like, Oh, I'm sending like 100 emails, this is way too long. So now we do five days, we start with a webinar, I've been doing the same webinars for a few years. Also, I'm not a big like sell on the webinar kind of person's like, we don't have bonuses or fast action, anything. It's just the the webinar for me is more like I really want people to watch it cuz I'm like, if you watch it, and you resonate with this, then you're gonna love the program, and you're going to be a good fit for the program. So it really helps me just weed people out versus being like a massive sales tool where I'm like, what's the conversion? I don't know what the conversion rate is, like, no one ever buys on the webinar. For us. It's not, it's not that type of thing. And then we just do five days of emails. So lots of emails coming out, I have no problem sending lots and lots of emails. I usually go live in my facebook group a couple times during that week. And then I'm just answering one of emails. So I'm like, I'm very active in my launch. It's not like a set it and forget it. And I'm just off on vacation while my team is doing everything. I like to be the one to answer emails, answer our live chats on our website, answer questions in the Facebook group, because I'm running the program live. So it's important to me that people see that I'm actually involved in this program in the delivery of the program, as well as in the sales. That's kind of what we do. We weren't we do run Facebook ads. So that's kind of a separate piece to all of this. But that's really what our launch strategy has been for the past two or three years, I would say it hasn't really changed much.

Sara: I love that type of few questions around that. So in order to get to this place where you could rent and repeat, what did you sort of test along the way? Like was it always the five days a coaching and then the same webinar?

Rebecca: Like Yeah, what else did we do? I think we've tried to like a three part video series. We didn't always do the five days of coaching we typically do before that we've never done a challenge. I know that I have a great coach that I work with who teaches challenges and she's just a huge how to do challenge and I'm like I don't want to never done challenges. We just incorporate the five days of coaching. I think previous to the five years of coaching I was doing a lot more Facebook Lives. So I was actually going live like every day of the week pre launch and like a few a few times a week for the few weeks before that but it just wasn't it didn't have the interaction that I wanted. It was like I was teaching people saw me on video. They liked that. But I wanted people to actually experience but it was like to be in the program. So that's why we shifted from doing the Facebook Lives to doing the actual coaching and then I think we've we've shortened the launch period for sure. It used to be two weeks and then it was like I think eight days and then I was like we're just doing Monday to Friday. Now. That's it. We used to do early birds we used to have like the first few days were early bird pricing, and then it moved to regular pricing. I'm so curious your thoughts on that. I always I liked it. But then I was always worried that no one was gonna buy it full price. It would never, it was never the case people still did. But it got a little bit complicated for just messaging and our Facebook ads I get there's too many moving pieces to have like the early bird and then switching. So now it's just one price. And that's the price for the five days.

Sara: Well, I love that. I think you're asking me what I thought about that. I remember I had tried that a few years ago with some clients like doing that early repricing, but it always felt not great, because then like the other people who came in later, like if they found out it felt like not really fair. And I don't like buying things. If I'm like, Oh, I just missed a $500 sale. Like I don't want to buy that now. I definitely Wish I liked it better when it was around, like maybe I missed out on like a PDF or something or an extra group call. But I've been still moving in moving farther away from like, change, like from that so that everything is mostly like, whenever you join, you get all the stuff like you've ever need. It does change things, but I think

Rebecca: we don't I like expiring bonuses during the five days or like the webinar bonuses we do sometimes do an early bird sale months before the launch, like at least two months out. We're like if you know you want in, here's 48 hours, here's your chance, get it now you save a few 100 bucks. And then once that's done, there's no more discounts on it. It's just Yeah, I think that's different, especially if even like, you've been doing this for a while. And then people even know that maybe you're doing that to kind of neat. Like it's expected, right? It's almost like you have some people have black friday things we Oh, we know, that group is gonna have like a Black Friday sale once he earned Yeah, I think the other thing that I have new the few clients that we've been liking is we open things up early is that if they come in early, we just they get a couple extra group calls just because they're early, essentially, or they get like, the first module or something like that. Yeah, really. So just now get the discount. And you'll start when we all start in October.

Sara:  It's amazing, though. So have you how long you've been doing Facebook ads for as part of it.

Rebecca: We've been doing them well, for the last two ish years. Previous to that we had we have an agency do them. I never touched them myself. But previously, I was probably dabbling myself or we had like maybe a VA doing them. And so we were redoing them a little bit. But I don't think we had a great strategy around it. And now with the team that we work with, they've just launched with us so many times that it's like they know all the pre launch stuff. They know they have all the data from the last couple of ads. So they're definitely working better now. But we have been using them for a couple years.

Sara: Great. What I really stood out to me as a couple It was a few things that you said particularly but like the fact that you're using the same things over and over again. I know it's a question that comes up. Sometimes when I talk to like I have a launch playbook club. There's all memberships people are like doing it themselves. Yeah. And that's the question comes up, like when I write these emails, can I use them again? and was like, Yes. Like, as long as you're bringing it also to like new audience and what people can hear things over and over again. alongs It's not like every month, you're saying the same thing. 

Rebecca: Yeah. And we didn't even twice a year, like we're about six months apart, sometimes last sometimes five months between launches. And I'm like, oh, tonight Just send these emails. But I have to remember that most of the people that are you know, because we're also running Facebook ads, and between our launches, and then we're doing a big blast before a launch. It's like most of the people who are coming in are new, and they haven't seen it. And half not even half. You know, most of the people on our list don't even read our emails. If they do they forget. And maybe they read one and they don't read the other one. Then they read the next one.

Sara: Yeah. And we didn't even twice a year, like we're about six months apart, sometimes last sometimes five months between launches. And I'm like, oh, tonight Just send these emails. But I have to remember that most of the people that are you know, because we're also running Facebook ads, and between our launches, and then we're doing a big blast before a launch. It's like most of the people who are coming in are new, and they haven't seen it. And half not even half. You know, most of the people on our list don't even read our emails. If they do they forget. And maybe they read one and they don't read the other one. Then they read the next one.

Rebecca: Yeah, so this launch, I was like, feel free write the emails. And my director of operations was like, why I'm like, I don't know. And she's like, why, like, you're right. Why? You don't need to do that.

Sara: Yeah, I think you don't need to do that if like shiny stuff, you know. But or, like if a story's changed significantly, or if it's like a really time, like if it doesn't make sense at the time anymore.

Rebecca: Yeah, like we did everything during COVID. And actually, our launch last March was scheduled to start literally like, okay, we're doing a webinar on Monday, the day that they closed down everything where they're like, no one can go to work, no, school, everything shut down. When can we listen, I was like, should we still launch and so we did have to go through that and do some last minute tweaks to like every email just not huge, like same content, but just to add in like, Hey, we know this is a weird time. Hey, like maybe you're not even working. We get that, you know, like we had to add relevant messaging and how how did that launch undergoing like you've that was when? Okay, good. Okay, actually, we didn't, I had a bit of a higher goal than than the previous launch and we didn't hit the higher goal, but we got around maybe like, just slightly less people register than the previous lunch. So it was not a total disaster. Like we thought it might be. Yeah, previous to lunch. We were like, Oh my gosh, I don't know what is gonna happen. And how this is going to go. And I was like, it's okay. If it doesn't work, we'll just figure it out. But it went, Okay. It was actually the net, the following launch in the fall of COVID. 2020 was worse. Yeah. And I was trying to think about why that was because it was two COVID launches one right at the beginning, when everyone was told you can't go to work. And then one in the fall, and I think the difference was the early one. People were like, oh, man, like, this is a crazy time. But like, I should really get my business going. Right? I think people sort of had that motivation of like, well, now's the time to get this started. And I think by the fall, if it was just wiped out, like people are tired, kids are home from school for however many months now. I don't have my family and friends who have kids were like, this is not okay. And I think it was just like, people were just completely exhausted. And it definitely showed that was probably the trickiest lunch I've ever had. Yeah,

Sara: Yeah, I've noticed that as well. During the past year, like with lunches at beginning it was a bit more I want to call it normal, like in terms of what you'd expect, but I think there was like that fatigue hitting. Yeah, like, when is ending and I can't be online anymore.

Rebecca: Yeah, when now it's now everything's lifting. And we're launching again, this fall. And I'm like, ooh, I wonder if we just launched a kind of a very small workshop this summer. And registration was pretty low. And I was like, I think that people are just like, Oh, my God, I'm going to visit family, I'm going traveling, I'm going like no one is focused, I'm very curious how this launch is going to go, I'm prepping for it not going well, as well as I would like because of just people being able to leave the house, go travel and go see their families and do things other than just sit on their computers and work and be depressed.

Sara: So when things actually don't go as well as you liked, or your launch, or anything that you do, or change in order to, let's say, put the effort in to try to, like, let's say lift up the numbers, you wonder.

Rebecca: Yeah, I'm always pretty actively involved. Like, I'm always kind of tweaking as we go in the launch. And so if it's not going as well, which to me really just means like, we're the thing with launches is, you know, you never really know until the cart closes, how it went. Last day, we could be at 50% of our numbers, and then, you know, hit our goal by the end of the day. So it's like, but if it feels slow, if it's like Wednesday, or Thursday, and I'm like this is like pulling teeth like this is challenging that I usually just do more live things. So sometimes I'll open up console calls and I'll say like, Hey, get on my calendar, come hop on a call. And let's just talk it out. I'll I do a ton of follow up. Like I mean, I just follow up with everybody multiple times during lunches, I have a fancy tracking sheet, which they literally just write on a piece of paper, people's names. No spreadsheets or anything. I just write who it is where they were like in the Facebook group in this email thread on the live chat. And then what their question was when I'd like have a check mark system? Well, Mike, I followed up with him once twice, because I do a lot of that. And then I'll get a little bit sneaky with my email marketing system, if things aren't going as well, where I'll go through and I'll look, we'll pull out like who was opening, okay, this person's opened all the emails, and I'll look and go have I had a conversation with them? I haven't. Okay, so how can I reach out to them in a way that's not creepy to be like, Hey, I see. And sometimes I just say that I just say, hey, like creeping around in my email marketing, I saw you've been reading all the emails, I just wanted to see if you had any questions. And I'll just send personal emails to people like that based on kind of the behavior that I see them doing in the email marketing. So it gets a little bit creepy. And I think some people don't realize you can do that. But it's great. And people love it. They're like, Oh, my gosh, you caught me. And then we enter a conversation about it.

Sara: That's great. And I think when we're straightforward to you and say, like, my email system tells me so we just call it what it is. Right? Yeah, creepy. It's, we're free. We're sneaking around. 

Rebecca:  Yeah, I literally think the subject line for that email is like, Hey, I saw you creeping in there. I'm like, Yeah, sorry.

Sara: Amazing. Yeah, I also really what stands out to me what your lunches is that you like the amount of connection that you have with the people that you want to work with? So, you know, I think when people think about launching times they think of like, it's so automated. And um, yeah, it sounds like you have some automated things happening, your emails, but you're still so involved, like, there's access to you. And you said the other coach, so like, you have those that chance for them to like experience what it would be like to work with you. And that five days, I think, is huge and powerful. And then like, the reaching out, and the personal email in the fact that it's you behind that, I think is a huge, like, a huge piece of probably why your launches do so well, because they get to actually like experience you.

Rebecca: Yeah, and I think because my program is for new business owners, and many of them have taken other programs where there's been 1000s of people and they never even got to talk to the coach selling it. We don't run the program that way. Like we're actively involved. I'm on every call answer every like literally every question that they come in, I answer personally. So I like to mimic that in the launch because it's important to me that they because that's really I think what makes our program stand out is that we do give so much personal attention and people are so used to programs that are more automated, where they're not going to talking to the coach and so I just like to show them in the launch that like I'm here I'm listening and following along and they usually think I mean I have email threads of like, you know, 30 emails I was back and forth with people. And they eventually by and they're like, thank you so much for actually just like taking the time to talk through it and chat about my fears and figure out if it was a fit. And selfishly like I want the right people in the program. Of course, yeah, it's easier if I can talk to them and get some info about their business and make sure that they're the right fit, because it makes my job easier once they're actually enrolled.

Sara: Right. And then you know, that they're going to probably get the transformation that they're looking for, right? Because you know, the right fit. Yeah, yeah, I think that's like a big difference between a lot of other lunches that happen because that there is like, they're chatting with customer service, which is fine. But it's not the same as chatting with the person who's gonna be coaching.

Rebecca: But we do sell the same program as a self study in between our live launches. And I am like, removed from that it's a self study, there's no personal support. It's like, here's all the content, go and rock and roll it on herself. And then our customer service team answers their questions. And so I do remove myself between launches, but during the live one, because I am teaching you to be running it live. Right? Yeah. I love that. And that's just not sustainable. Like, I couldn't be doing that customers. Definitely. Yeah, definitely not.

Sara: But it is nice to have that access to you. And I think especially you're dealing with people in the early years of business, it might be something really new for them getting into this.

Rebecca: So like, it'll be so funny, because I'll get emails that are like, Hey, I have questions about the program. Here's my phone number, give me a call. Which is so funny, right? In the business world where like a lot of a lot of my students are like, you know, coming from corporate or working in like, their whatever their stay at home moms, and they're, they're not in this weird online business world yet. It's normal to just be like, here's my phone number. Give me a call. We'll talk about it. We don't of course, we usually just have to whatever, whatever is appropriate for the waiter. But yeah, people are so new to this. Yeah. 

Sara: That's a really good example of how new. Yeah, right. But that's why I think even more important, like you during the lifetime being there and talking to them, like, so they really can feel comfortable with like, What is this, like, very vague thing that I keep asking my money in?

Rebecca: Yeah, and I mean, let's be honest, we've all seen coaching programs that are the marketing is beefed up, but it's quite chunky, and it's quite fancy. And then students get in and like, they get totally lost, or there's like 1000s of people and those programs are fine, but it's often just that people aren't registering for the right programs at the right time in their business. And so I'm that's like one of my one of my beefs. And one of the things I can rant about of like, coaches needing to just qualify their students better for these big programs. And so that's important to me.

Sara: Yeah, I agree. I've been on like, I've definitely been a student of one of those before where I thought it'd be different, like I didn't, and there was like, 600 people and no person connection. I was like, This is definitely not like, right for me.

Rebecca: Yeah, one of the one of the questions I get asked the most when I launch is how many people are in the program? How many people in the program? And I'm always like, I know, you're asking that because you're worried you're not going to get personal attention. So here's the personal attention that you get, regardless of how many people are in the program, here's exactly what you get. And then what I usually do, we usually enrolled about 100 people, because that's the most I can actively engage with and give feedback to them. They're like, Oh, that's nothing compared to compared to the ones that have 1000s.

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Sara: So I'm curious, what do you think business owners do need to have in place in order to make like this kind of simple launch, or rinse, repeat launch successful.

Rebecca: And when they need to do they need to have an audience, it's really hard to launch without having already built up an audience. Like, obviously, we do build up a new audience through Facebook ads. And so if you don't have an audience, then you need to be okay with testing, and possibly losing money on Facebook ads to build that up. It's just part of how it goes. I think that having an organic audience that you've built up is the best thing that you can do for lunches. I've been building that up for 10 years. But evidence is still for 10 years. Like it's still fairly small. Like I think our email list has like 10,000 people 2000 people, we'd like to chop it in half regularly and you know, cut off people who just are not opening emails, but having that and having the organic traction and just having been writing blog posts and having my Facebook community for so long. The Facebook ads help support that. But I don't think they'd work without having that that organic community. So you really do need people to launch to ideally, and this is I know that there will be you might even disagree. I'm curious. I know. Because I've worked with coaches who disagree and they're like, No, you don't need to have a huge, huge audience. You can build that up during your launch. I've never done it that way. I've always had the audience first and then started launching. So that's just always my preference and what I think is going to be easiest for people, or at least take less, it's less stress. It's not like this gamble of like, Okay, I'm gonna run all these Facebook ads? And is it gonna work? Like you've already got a group of people who are hungry for what you have and like love your personality and love what you have to say and want to learn from you?

Sara: Yeah, I definitely agree that building an audience in between is really important and helps, I would say that, I think it's okay to launch like to have little audience but know that like your results, like the number you're gonna roll are gonna relate to that?

Rebecca: Yes, totally. Yeah. And I'm not saying you need 1000s of people, like a couple 100 engaged people is great if you want to, you know, fill a program with a smaller number of people, but you're probably not going to get 500 people in your program from an audience of 500.

Sara: We have to like, just have our expectations match what our audiences probably. And then also, you know, once you've watched that audience realize that you have to, like keep growing it and you just can't watch the same number every single time. Yeah. Because, you know, they've really already heard it over and over again. So that is something. And I think I know, yeah, I talked with some ninja some of the clients about like, maybe even not doing Facebook ads, at first, like just wanting like either reaching out to people they know, personally, they may be talking about working with the very early days.

Rebecca: Yeah, I think you have to make sure that your messaging is on point that you're like, whatever your funnel is, works like that things convert organically before Facebook ads can work, or else you just have again, you have to be okay with putting in a lot of money and possibly losing it in Facebook ads. So it's one or the other. Yeah,

Sara: Yeah. And that's something you talk about a lot, right? It's like messaging. And the other thing, I think, was niching, like getting released. 

Rebecca: Yeah, I do a lot of that work, because a lot of my students are brand new, and they're trying to figure out how to market themselves as a life coach. And they're kind of coming out as generic life coaches and don't quite have a strong message. And so we work a lot on that. Yeah.

Sara: And do you think that they need to have that in order to have that first sort of launch be successful? And what can they do to help it?

Rebecca: I think so I think the nation work, like I think the clarity on what problem their program is helping people solve are probably sick of hearing people say, like, you need to know what problem your program is solving. And your clients need to know that they have that problem. And that's the piece that I work on a lot with my students, because, for example, let's say we have a generic life coach that comes in and they're like, Oh, well, my problem that I help people solve, is that like, they're not living authentically. And I'm like, cool, do your clients? No, they're not living authentically, like, probably not, right. So if you go out and you try to sell that they're not gonna buy it. So we have to take these sort of big ideas that that at least in I'm in like health, wellness, health, coaching, life coaching, healers, kind of have these like big ideas, but we really need to work to drill it down to something specific so that people know because if you think about, I was thinking about what I've spent money on. And it's always for a specific results, like it's never like, here's a nice idea, right? It's always like, I have a struggle in an area. And this person really looks like they can help me. So we need to take our big cities and distill them down into really clear niches and clear problems and clear results. Especially when you're launching programs like one on one coaching, you can get away with being a little bit broader because you have that individualization, but in a launch, if you're launching a course or a program or group program, then it does need to get more specific.

Sara: And so what are some of the ways that people can figure out what that promises are? That that thing that they're doing? So? Well?

Rebecca: Yeah, I think market research is the best thing you can do, which like, I feel like we tend to think of as like, you know, for big companies that are creating a product. But it's the same, like you need to go and actually talk to people about the topic and get their language and figure out how they're talking about it and what kind of results like they're wanting or what kind of outcomes they're wanting things that they want in their life that they don't currently have related to that topic, what they've tried, that hasn't worked, because all of that then becomes your messaging and your point of view for your launch. And when you can use the same language as them then it's You can't miss the mark, because they've literally said it.

Sara: Right. Yeah, yeah, that makes my heart like just be little faster. Yes. That's basically my favorite part of copywriting is, yeah, as a copywriter. Yeah. If it's not landing, it's because there's something with the messaging. And like when you do that research, I'm like, your sales pages can literally write themselves. Yeah, you're pulling copy directly from what people? 

Rebecca: Yeah. And there's messaging of like, what's your message like? Oh, I'm all it's all about, like living your best life, whatever. But then there's like language. Yeah, language and like tangibles, which I think is where a lot of people just we write most most, I would say, Do you work with a lot of coaches? I just keep coming back with I do. Yeah, I guess most people become coaches, because they have gone through some kind of transformation. And they want to help people with the same and so they kind of just come from their own perspective and are using the language after they've already drank the Kool Aid. So we need to like go back to the language before they drank the kool aid to figure out what they were struggling with and what their clients are struggling with. Like before the coaching happened.

Sara: And you know, in our pre chat, you were talking about how sometimes it's not a good idea to launch and like what you should be doing First, you want to talk a little bit about that.

Rebecca: Yeah, because I have a lot of students who will come and they're like, Okay, I'm getting ready to launch my business. And I'm like, cool, what, like, what does that mean? And then I'm gonna, like, put my website out and like launch. And I'm always like, okay, so launching, like, just to be very clear launching to you means you're gonna make your website live and they're like, yeah, and like, and then what's gonna happen and they're like, I don't know, what else do I do? Like, exactly. So I don't, I'm not a big fan of like launching a business unless you're like, you know, Apple launching a new product and you have millions of people waiting for it. That's not the case for most of us. It's like we launch and we put our website on our Facebook page, and our mom likes it. And our friends are like these work. And then we're like, what do we do now? So I think I think a launch should really just be I think a business launch. People can't see me, but I'm doing air quotes. Every time I say, I think a business launch should really be more about going and finding one client, you don't need a website, you don't need a Facebook page, you don't need an Instagram, you don't need a tick tock, you don't need any of that to actually go and start getting paying clients. And once you get a paying client, then you go and give me another one, then you go and get another one. And then you start to see through those clients, that almost becomes your market research too, right? Because you're actually working with the people and you're going Oh, they actually are struggling over here, or there's this like interesting thing coming up over here. And then you're in a place where you're like, Okay, now I can write website, copy, now I can actually sort of tweak my packages to be more specific to these results. And then you can put it on the website. But even then you're really launching, you're just making it live. And then you're still going and doing all your marketing efforts that you need to be doing. So it's sort of more of a I mean, I think we hear this all the time. It's like it's a marathon, not a sprint, it's not like we launch them, they come it's like we set our website live. And then we go and hustle our asses off to get people over to it and to tell them about our business and to get those clients.

Sara: Yeah, I love how you brought up getting clients like as one of the first things you really need to do. And I think even to like when you're going to actually decide that one day that you want to launch that program, that once you've had the clients, you actually are more clear on like your process, what you're actually selling the unique way you do things. So that you can actually then go and translate that to a program. 

Rebecca: So many people jump to what I did this when I started my first business as a holistic nutritionist, I got I went, I was like, I need a logo, I need a business card, I need a website, I need like a brochure. This is long time ago. And I had that I paid someone and maybe a logo, then maybe whatever, it didn't get me any more clients. Like I still didn't know what I was doing. It was super generic. I had a website, I had to change everything after I started working with people because I was like, Oh, this is not relevant. This actually doesn't make any sense. And so I think the website and the copywriting all of that can easily come later. And if you need somewhere to just write up, you know, the outline of your program, or what you're going to do with people put it in a Google doc and sold lots of programs through Google Docs.

Sara: I see a lot happening all the time. Yeah, it works. So I'm up to you in the fact that when I started getting clients originally, like, way back, I guess, when I was still teaching, and it was like definitely a side hustle. I had a blog, it was a green living blog was called Green mums collective. And I started, like, I ended up reaching out to a couple of like, people that I maybe want to work with. And I was like, because it wasn't early days or Instagram, and I was like, Hey, I'm doing like, um, do you want some help with your Instagram, like reading the captions? And like taking some of the photos of stuff? And they were like, Yeah, I like for a very long time. Like about two and a half years, I just had clients from like, either a little bit reached out or like someone would tell them about me. And I didn't have any website around that actual business until I find I started working with a business coach. And she was like, maybe like, you'll reach more of your goa;s.

Rebecca: And she was like, maybe like, you'll reach more of your website, by the way, I think everyone should, I think you should get it up sooner than you want. But I think that there is some pre work that needs to go into that to make sure that the messaging and the nice thing is clear on that site. But you can always tweak it.

Sara: Yeah, I think we can put our ideas out there. And we just start trying to work with people we can kind of figure out as we go to total. 

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah, you have to because otherwise, you spend all your time planning and prepping this I see this all the time and procrastinating and perfecting. And then you put it out there and like if it doesn't work, then it becomes this, like our business is over. And we're gonna be to failure. And we have no self worth. We make it this whole thing. And and it took us probably way too long to actually get it out there.

Sara: And yeah, so I think that applies to lunches too, right? Like the faster we can get it out there. And testing doesn't have to be all fancy in the beginning and beta launch.

Rebecca: Yeah, go and grab five people, let them know you're doing it for the first time. You want some feedback, you want to make some tweaks, knock half off the price, we'll get them in the door, run this and run the damn thing. And then you can like get more prepared to launch for next time once I've actually just done the program once Yeah,

Sara: I agree. There's like nothing like using zoom and like Dropbox folder or Google folder even to like give them the stuff totally works.

Rebecca: That's still what we do for our program and we sell it to about $200,000 launches. During Google Docs, or calls or on zoom or webinars on zoom. We don't use any of our software or like LeadPages or Click Funnels. We don't use any of these things. We just have like literally a page on our website uses zoom.

Sara: link. It's very simple. Yeah, I'm the same. I use the Zoom link. I use just like page on my website. I do have JV so we do have our stuff in the kajabi membership platform. Yeah, but all the documents because it's copywriting, like they get like copywriting templates. They're all in Google Docs. Yeah. So when I dig into it, I find there's usually something really unexpected or unusual that worked really well to me. Launch successful. So thinking back to one of your recent launches, what's something sort of unique about your process, or maybe something that actually worked for you that you didn't expect? That was gonna work like something kind of different?

Rebecca: I think like, for me, it's always been the, like the personal follow up. It just doesn't necessarily new or unexpected, but it's like I just, if I look at the numbers, actually, we had a challenging launch, what is it now it's spring. So last fall, or last fall launch was the most challenging I've had, it felt like pulling teeth, I was like, I just don't we use all the same messaging, we did all we did everything the same. And I was like, this is just not working. And I would say that I think we enrolled maybe 75 or 80 students that we didn't hit our goal of 100. But most of them like, I don't even know what percentage more than half of them enrolled after multiple follow ups. Like if I hadn't been in that email communication, checking in on people, like consistently, we would have probably ended with like 50 people registered instead of 80. And so it just like the the power of that personal attention, and following up just always is amazing to me. And I have, you know, I know people who are like, don't follow up, don't chase people, like they'll buy if they want. And I'm like, No, it's not about pushing them. But it's just like continuing the conversation. And most of those people always thank me and they're like, thank you so much for just continuously checking in and like giving me time and answering my questions like they appreciate it. But we're not talking about like pushy follow ups. But yeah, that continues to work well. And I was just thinking of my favorite sales coach Kendrick shope, who's like 80% of sales are closed in follow up. And I'm like that is 100% true. For our launches. We see it round after round, and especially the challenging ones.

Sara: And what could you tell people who are maybe reluctant or have something going on in their mind Nathan, like mine trash around like that following up? And like, what it what it says if it feels pushy, or all those Yeah, things that are rolling through their head around it.

Rebecca: I like to think of myself and how I buy things. And if I like send an email to someone, and like if I sent an email and asked a question someone about a program, and they replied and answered it, and then I got busy, or like, I read their email while I was like, you know, getting in my car. And I was like, Oh, look at that later. And then I forgot. I love it when they send me another email. And they're like, Hey, I just want to check in. Here's, you know, here's my last email. Do you have a chat about it? I'm like, Oh, my God. Yes. Like, I really appreciate the reminder because I got busy and I forgot, or like I was maybe on the fence and the fact that they were like, Hey, I care about this. I want to make sure your questions are answered gave me like that little nudge to be like, Oh, yeah, I do want to do this thing. So I appreciate it. So I think if we look at like how we are with those things, like if somebody and then that's much different than a follow up going, like, are you ready to buy? Here's the button. That's not what we're talking about. I think it's I think it's just doing a service for your clients. People are busy, no one has time to like, read every email and remember to do all the things. And so I think it's just nice to help them like nudge them along with little check in. And if it's a hard note, they get an X on my little piece of paper, and I don't follow up them anymore. Yeah, but usually, if they've reached out to you, it's because they had an interest. And so I think just remembering that we're not shoving this thing down people's throats like they asked us a question. And we're like making sure that they're getting the answers that they need to make a decision.

Sara: So it's more around the idea that you're taking care of them and helping them feel like supported to make the decision Yes or no?

Rebecca: Totally!

Sara: I love that like not making it means something that it isn't like it's not it doesn't mean, you know that you're It doesn't mean that you're pushy doesn't mean anything. It's like it's all in service and no value, and that you've been away when it's time.

Rebecca: Kennedy, you must know Kendrick, I've heard it Yeah, she's got a whole bunch of sales tools that teaches she teaches and some are more I don't wanna say pushy, but like, they're a little bit more aggressive than others. I'm like, I pull those out sometimes, like, there's some students where I'm like, they need a little bit of tough love right now. I'm just gonna give it to them. And they and I can always I've just been doing this for so long, but I can read that of like, what is needed. And even that, even when I'm like, Listen, I'm just going to give it to you straight here. Like, here's what I think like, they super appreciated. You have to read your audience. But even the push your times, you know, where I'm like, I am like, pushing people, but it's, I can tell that it's what they need. And it's always the decision is always up to them. It's never I'll never be on the phone with someone getting their credit card. Or like, okay, so just get it right now or go get that bank loan like that's, it's not that, but it's more just about being in service of them and seeing that you have a solution for them to a problem that they have. And so why wouldn't you remind them of that?

Sara: And do you ever tell them that it's not the right fit? Have you ever?

Rebecca: yeah, I tell people all the time, especially because my programs for new business owners, they can be too new, where they don't even have a business idea. And they're like, I don't know what I want to be and I'm like, cool, you can't join. Or sometimes they're too far along and they need like more specific strategy or copywriting or something like specific and I'm like, this is more foundational, if you're brand new, versus if you're already making 100k and you're looking to like scale up with a membership. Like that's not what we're going to teach you so and then there's people who I can just tell have a lot of mindset issues, and oh, sometimes I don't I won't turn them away, but I'll kind of steer them towards not signing up, like because I'm like The program's gonna be hard for you, if we can't work past this, we do have a mindset coach, but like, We're not here to like talk forever about your imposter syndrome week after week after week, like we need you to be doing things. And if you're not willing to actually take the actions, and you're probably not going to get a good result. So it's up to you, but just know that, like, we're going to be pushing you in the program. And so then I kind of leave it on the table and table for them. And half the time they sign up, and they're like, okay, you're right, I do need action. And sometimes they just can tell that they're not ready.

Sara: Yeah, I'm thinking about these calls that you have with people too. And like these follow up, and it reminded me, so I recently, in end of June, like finished a launch for my program. And someone had reached out thinking about joining in, I like, asked a few more questions. And if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have realized that she wasn't right for it. Yeah, right. Like, yeah, so I that's why I think it is really service. Like it ends up she has a brick and mortar. And and I don't really work with brick and mortar people, like you could apply some of the stuff to it. But like, totally, there's probably something way better out there for you.

Rebecca: Yeah, same thing. Sometimes I'll get product businesses or brick and mortar. And I'm like, you could use some of it, but it's not going to be the best thing. And I get that info through asking them questions. And so the follow ups aren't just like, are you ready to buy? They're like, hey, like, I'd love to learn more about your business? Can you answer these five questions like, how many clients have you worked with? Have you done this? I've done that, because I want to get a sense of like, what they've actually done to make sure that my program is gonna work for them.

Sara: Yeah, cuz I think in the end, like, what what you really want, right is like people to come in and have a good experience and get what they're paid for. And if they want.

Rebecca: I want you to get results. So yeah, so it's not just like, get anybody in and who cares? Because that's not good for my program or my reputation. So speaking of that, how do you measure the success of your launches, I'm probably I put sticky notes on my door. I put sticky notes for how many students I want. And I write their names as they enroll. And so that's it's not the best way to track because it's like, sort of irrelevant. It's like, sometimes people buy an upsell, and then they pay more. And so it's like, we're not really looking at we do, we do look at total revenue and everything. But that's my my way during lunch is just to kind of like keep myself engaged and excited about it is to like, write their names on their sticky notes. And then I like take a little picture of it and put it on Instagram and do a little happy dance. So that's how I track my sticky notes. Don't feel like it's sad. That's probably not the best way. But we do, then we do look at like, we pull all our numbers for our like total revenue, and how many people paid in full versus payment plans, like we've had more people shifting to paying in full, which I think is really interesting. So yeah, a couple ways like that. And I think there's the general feeling that I have two, which is not really super measurable or accurate. But it's like there's just this last launch felt felt amazing. I was like, people are just interested. I feel like we're having great conversations, it doesn't feel hard. I'm like, filling up my sticky notes. And it's feeling good versus one that feels like I was pulling teeth. It was hard, even if we got the same number of students. So just sort of the general ease.

Sara: like your energy and yeah, and so then how do you bring in clients work with people between your lunches, you mentioned that your program goes into an evergreen mode.

Rebecca: And but yeah, it goes into an evergreen self study funnel. And so we we rely heavily on Facebook ads for that which we're we're moving away from we're starting to do more organic marketing, it's the exact same program, it just doesn't have any of the live support or live elements at all. Some people just don't some people don't even want that. They're like just getting the content. I'm good. Yeah, so we Yeah, that's through a funnel, and we come through. So if we don't work with anyone live in between our launches in the Evergreen funnel, like what's the first step of that funnel, it's through webinar, the same webinar that I do live, for the launch is pre recorded, again, reuse, usually, for running ads, they'll come in first through like some more about that. It's like a Facebook Live I did or a blog post or something, and then we'll get them into the webinar. And then it's a five day funnel where we're sending them emails and just additional content, and then they can still, they can still buy the program. After that five day funnel ends, the price just goes up. So it's sort of like a fast action there. That's where we do have kind of a get in early without $300 off. Otherwise, you can buy it. And here it is. So it's all the programs always available brain. Yeah. 

Sara: Amazing.  And if you could give just one piece of advice for our listeners about launching, what would it be.

Rebecca: it would be to beta launch, I think I think it would be to beta launch. If it's someone who's just getting started with launching, I would say and what that what that means to me is just like a really simple launch where you go and find five to 10 people who are like already in your world, past clients, people that you know, and just get them in and run your program with them. And because that's just going to be the best way for you to first of all, test your program. Like if you haven't tested your program yet, I guess that's more program testing them launching, but kind of all the same. If you haven't actually run your program yet. You want to test it because it's going to give you confidence so that when you sell it in your actual launch, you're going to be like nope, here's the results we get, you're going to feel amazing about it and you're going to have testimonials. You can use those folks as case studies. You can bring them in during the launch, do a facebook live with them to share about their results. So I think like that sort of low pressure beta launch is the best way to get a lot of your launch content kind of ready for the next time and get the social Proof in the testing and all that stuff done and just take the pressure off. Like if it's your first launch. There's nothing worse than when I see people who are like I'm launching and they've never run the program. And they've maybe haven't even sold anything. And they're gearing up for this whole big thing. And they've got these complicated funnels and these webinars systems and then like, it doesn't work. And I'm like, is such an easier way for you to do this when you're starting. Yeah, for you to test it and figure it out. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Slow and steady up to like a more complex launch.

Sara: Well, thank you so much for joining us date. Rebecca, will you tell us about how we can work and connect with you? 

Rebecca: Yeah, I have a Facebook group. That's great. It's called uncage lifers, anyone's welcome to join lots of new businesses. And they're coming ask questions, and also lots of more established businesses that like to give answers. That's a great place to just come and get, get some free help. And then my website is the uncage life.com. Go and poke around may see. I will put all of those links of course in the show notes. Thank you again for joining us.

Sara: It was so much fun to talk to you about launching and anchoring the way that you approach it. Thanks. I love launching. Amazing. Thanks for tuning in to the launch playbook podcast. If you want to get weekly launch secrets in your ears. I hope you'll hit subscribe on iTunes so you'll never missed an episode. Because who knows? It could reveal just the thing you've been looking for to make your next launch a success. And be sure to leave a five star review on iTunes telling me how this episode inspired your launch plans. Until next time, keep putting your big ideas out into the world. I'm rooting for you