Inside Launch Magic: Real stories from my students

You can spend forever trying to piece together everything you need to launch your program from the free information that's out there. But you don't *really* get the actual information to help you launch until you buy. So, you are always just going to be getting told more and more things about the problem that you have.

In today's episode, I'm talking to previous Launch Magic students because sometimes the best way to know whether a program is going to be a good fit for your particular situation is to listen to the experiences of other people who have been in that situation:

– How launching your offer (whether you've just got an idea, or you've already launched before) is totally possible regardless of where you're at in your business.
– The common problems these students were having before they did Launch Magic.
– The experience each of these Launch Magic students had as they worked their way through the program.
– Find out how their launches unfolded and the results they had along the way.

Today, I'm sharing an episode with some of my students' experiences inside of Launch Magic, because you can read all the testimonials, you can spend hours scrolling up and down the sales page, trying to decide if it's right or wrong for you. But sometimes the best way to know whether a program is going to be a good fit for your particular situation is to listen to the experiences of other people who have been in that situation.

Now in Launch Magic, we typically get three different types of students. We get the ones who have an idea for a digital product that they want to launch. They've thought about the online course or the group program that they're going to create. And they've been sitting on this idea for so long and it's never come out into existence. It's never eventuated.

We also have those who have sort of half created or fully created their digital product and have never finished creating it or who have never actually properly launched it. And then a wondering why it hasn't sold.

And then we have the third bucket, which are people who have done a couple of launches and they're realizing just how effective launching can be as a cash injection into their business. And they want to learn how to really get strategic about their launches, how they can double down on their launches to bring in a cash injection over and over again, from the same asset, from that same online course or that same program or membership, or literally any other kind of digital product.

So today I'm sharing some experiences from a few students in those different buckets.

And one of the things you might notice as you listen to the episode is how, what they learned inside the course, didn't just impact their launches but it actually changed the way that many of them do any kind of marketing or sales in their business because launching at its core is a repeatable marketing and sales process. And the strategy that you learn inside Launch Magic can be copied across to other areas where you are marketing and selling in your business. It's not just about a launch and it only applies to launching.

I'm going to let the students introduce themselves and we can get into today's episode.

I'm Jodeen McIntyre. I am a social media trainer. I have a business called Social Smarty, and I help self-made business owners understand social media and really learn simplified systems so that they can show up online and really build buzz around their business.

I'm Sabrina. I'm a certified baby sleep consultant, helping families get their babies and toddlers to sleep through the night.

I am Helena. I am a dietician in Australia and I support women with gestational diabetes to be able to achieve really balanced blood sugar levels, easily prepare and plan their meals and go through their whole journey of that stage of their pregnancy, stress free and with ease, and to actually be able to enjoy their pregnancy instead of feeling completely overwhelmed and yeah, stressed out.

I'm Jennifer from Skincare Business Foundations and I help people who are wanting to launch their dream skincare brands.

My name is Rachel. I am an online marketing strategist and margarita enthusiast who helps health professionals market their businesses online with ease.

I'm Danielle Raid from Raid City Rochester. I'm a copywriter for rebellious business rockstars.

I asked my students what was going on in their businesses before they signed up for Launch Magic. I asked them to paint a bit of a picture so that we could understand not just where they were at with creating courses and digital products and launches, but where they were at more broadly in their business.

So I probably did the classic course creator thing where I got really excited about creating a course, absolutely no validation, didn't understand the problem that I was solving, really dived into the nitty gritty of putting together the modules, recording the content, got really, really excited about this thing. Put as much in as I could because I equated more stuff with more value, and then I had to sell it and I didn't know what to do. So what I did is I kind of panicked and I reduced the price for a start. So I was selling it at a really low price point. And I did have some people sign up and I later on.

From when I asked a few people why they didn't, one of the big pieces of feedback I got was that the price point was so low that they didn't see the value in it, which was really interesting. But I also didn't have any kind of launch plan, so there was no runway. There was no build up. There was no preparation for getting people really excited about this thing that was coming up or getting them to understand that it might be a solution that they need.
Because I really wasn't sure what problem I was solving, so it was really hard to market something when you really don't know who you're marketing it to and what problem you're solving for them.
I was mostly working with clients one-on-one, which I enjoy doing, but it can be quite draining as well. And I was definitely wanting to branch into online courses. Everyone's doing an online course, and I was definitely keen to do it, but I was first working on some PDF downloadables, but not really getting anywhere because I just wasn't really enjoying doing that work and always kind of pushing out doing the online course. I knew with the online course I didn't want to waste months and months of creating it and then launching it and no one's going to buy. So I knew I needed help with that side of things.

I'd been trying a few things on my own, just from what I've been hearing on podcasts and following other people on social media. Nothing was really working for me and I was confused.
I didn't know what direction to go in. I knew I wanted to build this course for women with gestational diabetes and I'd already niched enough, all my content was going really well, my audience was growing. All of that was good, but I didn't know how to sell and I didn't know how to actually get this off the ground. And so after trying some things already and then not being successful, I was feeling really deflated.
I needed something to help give me some structure. I just needed something to follow, because I was just in a place where I was ready to just throw in the towel.

I've had my course since 2018, and that's just been kind of running in the background with my sales funnels. I don't do any kind of Facebook advertising on that, but I hadn't launched a program before. I would've been fumbling my way around and, and going down the Google rabbit hole trying to work out what to do because marketing is not my strong suite. I'm very good on the technical side and the business startup side and compliance regulations, but marketing is not my forte. I hadn't even really thought about the steps that I would need to do it or to have a successful launch.

Before I signed up for Launch Magic, I was actually working as a dietician. So I was having a bit of an identity crisis where I wasn't quite finding my place within my career. So I studied dietetics 5 years ago and finished the degree and thought, gosh, I don't think I want to do this. So I actually decided to start my own online business, where I had an online clinic and I started to do a lot of work with brands and just fell into this online marketing world and sort of fell in love with it.
So fast forward two years, and I decided to completely pivot my business and Launch Magic was something that sort of spearheaded that and helped me develop my first digital product.

I was doing one-on-one client work 100% of the time. I had previously “launched” SEO for beginners, which is the course that I use Launch Magic with. However, I was looking to diversify my income a little and also my time, because I was finding that I was getting booked up months in advance and for example, one of my services used to be blood writing and it's not one that I offer now.
However, I know that it's really important for businesses. So I felt that it was a great way to service a market that I no longer was, but also to not be fully at capacity.

Now the thing with launching is that 12 weeks is a pretty big commitment, right? I talk about how you really need to invest 60 to 90 days of work before you open those doors. 60 to 90 days of sharing content that brings your audience to the place where they need to be so that when you do open doors, they are ready to buy.

And this is a huge commitment. This is a long time. And when you're in your business at a point where you're like, I need to start seeing some quick wins. You probably don't really want to commit to something where you're only going to see the results 12 weeks in the future. So, this is the thing with Launch Magic though, is you actually start having wins as soon as you start working through the content. Now I asked my students, the students on this episode.

 

What wins and shifts and aha moments they started to have. At the start of Launch Magic not just 12 weeks into the future.

The biggest thing was getting really clear on my messaging. Module one, I think really understanding, what am I helping people achieve, and I'm sure you've said it before, that people want to get from A to B, but they want to get there easier, faster, or better. And so I'm trying to understand, I've got this thing at that point it was an email marketing course. but people didn't even really know that they needed email marketing or I didn't really know who I was pitching it at. Was it service-based businesses? Product-based businesses? It wasn't resonating with anyone. So working through that messaging, getting really clear on, okay, who are the people that I'm selling this to? What problem am I solving for them?
It just changed everything around how I communicate. And I've used that sort of process in all sorts of marketing, I think it's just kind of fundamental marketing skills that you taught me.

I think something that helped me the most and that I was doing kind of throughout was just speaking to my audience so much more and just getting so much more insight from them about what they needed and what content I should be posting and what my course should be about.
I started noticing that people cared more. People were starting to get into a conversation with me around the things that I was sharing, and they were new people in my audience as well.

I wanted to know how their launches went. Obviously not everybody is comfortable sharing numbers and dollar figures, and that's fine because your launch isn't just about how much money you make or how many students you enrol the first time. It's about building out this process, which you can then go back to review, make tweaks, rinse it and repeat it.
Each time using it to generate more sales from your program, your course, your membership, or whatever other digital product you are launching.

 

Here are some of the launch results that my students were comfortable to share.

At first I was like, oh, five people signed up. This was terrible. But then when I actually looked at the numbers and did the calculations, I was like, my stats are actually really, really good. I knew where it came short was my initial audience was just too small because , I just didn't have enough time to put it into growing it.
But now I know I have the tools and I know how to grow my audience and I can focus on it next time because I don't have to worry about creating the course all over again so I can focus all my attention building my audience. I'm definitely going to do some Facebook ads this time round as well, because now I've validated the course.

It went really well. It went better than I could have expected. I think in my head I had a target of around, 15 to 20 grand, although it was only I think five to 10 students in my head. I thought, if I can launch and get that, that would be great. But I ended up getting 21 students signing up and it was just under 300k launch. So I was really happy with that.

It was really good. I was hoping to get 30 people signed up because that would cover my costs that I put into basically creating this new business and rebrand and website and all of those costs involved.
And I ended up having 93 people sign up to the course, which was just crazy. 93. Signups was revenue of $41,568.
I had one day plus weekends to work on this little project or business now business, and, you know, talking about the results of the launch. That's enabled me, to have more financial freedom and cut down on those hours for my employer and work more in my business and sort of on business development.

My launch went really well. It exceeded my goal, which to start off with I was, of course, terrified no one would even come to my webinar. And when they did, I was very excited. And then when people bought live, I was confused a little bit inside because I was like, oh yeah, this is the point of it because I ended up feeling like a really fun process throughout as well. So the launch went better than I could have imagined really.

Then I asked my students, what was the most valuable part of Launch Magic for you?

Because some people show up to every single call and get a lot out of that aspect. Other people never show up to a single call and just get a lot of value out of the pre recorded content alone. Some people interact in the community every day. Others don't even join the Facebook group. What each person gets out of it is completely different so I wanted to know what these students thought was the most valuable aspect for them.

I love how actionable it is. You know, there's no waffle. This is what you need to know. Here's your homework, go and get it done. And then the group is just the icing on the cake. Just having that community around you where you go for extra support and support each other and cheer each other on. I remember when it's like webinar week and everyone's like, oh my God, I did my webinar.
And like you're all jumping for joy and being like, oh, yay, that was awesome. Or signing up for each other's webinars just to attend and cheer them on. So I think that community aspect is awesome.

What I really loved about the Facebook group, everyone is so supportive in that space as well. You can tell there's no competition. We all want everyone to succeed. And it really is a community where you help each other. But then the Q&A calls for me were invaluable.

I think the calls and being able to ask questions were probably the most helpful. I mean, I was on pretty much every call and always trying to ask things, because also when I invested in that, it was a big investment for me and I said to myself, I'm going to show up to everything and I'm going to get every piece of information and all the use I can out of this course because otherwise it was a waste of my money. And so like you always talk about it's having the skin in the game and like having the incentive to actually do the work.v So in some ways, that was the most beneficial thing, just having that push to put myself out there and ask questions.

It was great having the step-by-step process laid out. So I really enjoyed the video lessons and having the worksheets as well that we could work through each week. So I tried to be quite diligent in attending most of the live Q&A calls as well, or whenever I could, and that was great as well to be able to ask questions along the way.

I think for me really nailing my audience and my ideal client and getting super clear on my messaging and my offering. I think that was the biggest takeaway I took from the course and I'm sure you can imagine. I have to completely change my audience because people were following me for nutrition info and all of a sudden I was now this marketing person online. And so I think having that really clean messaging helped my audience transition relatively seamlessly.

There was a lot like just having a clear framework that I know is always there to come back to, no matter what I'm launching also was really reassuring.
When it comes to investing in any kind of online learning at the moment, especially, it can be really hard to know what is going to be a good use of your time and your budget versus what isn't, especially because so many people out there are really good at selling. And then when it comes to delivering on those promises, they're not quite so good at that.

 

I asked them what hesitations they had when they were thinking about signing up for Launch Magic.

I remember watching your webinar and I was one of the people on the fence who was like typing in my little objections to it, and it was mostly around the money, and I think it was maybe also just the concept that this is something that you can keep doing over and over again. And that also, if you don't have a successful launch, then it doesn't mean it's a failure. And if you've got a small audience, you can still launch.

What would you say to somebody who is thinking about joining Launch Magic, but is on the fence?

You can spend forever trying to piece together all of the free information that's out there. But once you understand where people are coming from as well in terms of their marketing, you realize that you're not actually getting the solution until you buy, right? So you are always just going to be getting told more and more things about the problem that you have. And then it's still up to you if you haven't bought into a program to try and figure that out on your own. And that's hard. And that could take you forever.
And that procrastination about investing is also going to cost you money. The time's still going to go by. So you may as well do something that's more productive and actually just get started and have the right tools behind you to do it. And also the things that I said before, if you've got a small audience, then it's fine.
This can make it an even more successful launch. All the things that you think are barriers, they probably aren't barriers. It's probably just your head talking to you and telling your stories.

I was a bit short on time with my wedding coming up, and I remember I had been asking if I should launch before or after my wedding, but I'm glad I launched when I did a few weeks before the wedding. I didn't have time throughout to do all the content that I would've liked to do or spend time on. I was doing a lot of it on the fly.
Now that I've got that structure and that framework to follow, I'm really looking forward to my next launch where I can actually spend the time to do my content planning properly, and then have some better sales emails throughout the process and everything. And I'm looking forward to seeing what, where my next launches can take.
I think pre launch me had a lot of uncertainty around whether or not I could monetize a digital product and online services to make a viable business, I suppose, whether it would work for my niche and the people that I was targeting. And so the results really validated my belief that I had found a good fit with my niche that I'm in and it validated my career change.

Pin this?