Not sure what to launch next? Here is how you can decide

Typically, what I've noticed happens with entrepreneurs is that we either are in the space where we have way too many ideas, or we end up in a space where we have no ideas at all. It's like an idea drought.

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How to come up with ideas for your next launch and how to choose one

 

There's usually no middle ground where we have that one perfect idea. We tend to have 10 ideas or none at all. So I'm going to walk you through how you can come up with an idea for something that you can launch, if you have no ideas at all. But I'm also going to talk you through how you can choose an idea.

If you have way too many ideas it can be distracting. And it can move us further away from our goal, because we tend to start working on one and then we see the other shiny object that pops up in the corner. And then you start working on that shiny object.

And after a little while that shiny object also gets boring because at some point, these things all take a little bit of work. And then out of the corner of your eye, you see another little shiny object. And we end up with all of these half-finished digital products, programs, memberships, whatever you want to call them. We end up with all of these half-finished things, and yet we have nothing available to sell and bring an income into our business, which is what we really need to be aiming for.

 

Problem: No ideas for your next launch

 

So if you have no idea of what you could create as a group program, a digital course, or a membership, or no idea what you want to launch next, I'm going to run you through a couple of questions to get you brainstorming what you can launch next.

 

Now I want to point out something that I've talked about in previous blogs, is I love to teach how to launch something before you have created your program, membership, course, or other digital product.

This can take probably about 90% of your energy. It can be somewhere where you can get really stuck because it can become this endless project where you keep adding tasks to it. You keep thinking of new things you need to add. And then you never finish it. It's never ready to launch. Whereas if you launch and sell it before you've created it, then you know that there are people out there willing to spend money on it. So you validated the idea. And launching something before you've created, it is the best way to validate because we don't know for sure if somebody wants something until they pay money for it. But until they pay money for it, we don't actually know that they truly will pay money for it.

And the other benefit of launching something before you've created it, is it gives you a deadline. Now, this might feel scary knowing, you have to finish creating this group program or creating this course or creating your membership content before this date because you've sold it to people and they are expecting it on this date.

Terrifying, right? But wonderful because it means that you can't procrastinate on it. It means that you have to get out of that perfectionist tendency that you might be in. It means that you focus on getting the product out there because something that is out there, and 90% perfect and in your audience's hands, is going to have a much bigger impact than something that is yours, that you're waiting for it to be 120% perfect. But it's not going to ever release out into the world.

 

Questions to start brainstorming a product that is perfect for your audience

What problems can you solve for someone?

For example, I know my audience really wants to launch, they maybe have created a product and they've been waiting to launch it.

Maybe they're halfway done and they don't quite know how to start to fill it up and how to get people to sign up for it. Or maybe they are thinking in the distant future, “I'd like to launch a group program or a membership or a course.” The problem that I'm solving is that launching feels really overwhelming when you don't know what to do.

And from that problem, that was where I came up with my program Launch Magic.

 

What frustrations can you ease?

These don't have to be massive,world-changing frustrations. These can be as simple, tiny things. And I'm going to use a really interesting example for a small frustration that a product eases, this is a physical product. It's not a digital product, but I think it's a really great illustration. All the frustration you can ease. And that is Poo Pourri.

I don't know if you've heard of Poo-Pourri – they are little drops that you put into your toilet to neutralize odours after. So that's a really small frustration. It's not going to change somebody's life. But for somebody who maybe has guests over regularly and wants to make sure that their toilet smells nice, that's a little frustration that that product has eased. We often think that when we're creating a course or a membership or program, it needs to be this big signature program that's going to change people's lives. It really doesn't need to be. It can be just as simple as making the day that tiny little bit easier.

 

How can you improve someone's life?

The first obvious thing that come to mind are things like money, health, and fitness. But what else can your audience use a little bit of improvement with? How else can you improve it? Can you help them to be more organized? I'm sure if somebody taught me how to keep my desk decluttered, that would improve my life because I would feel so much more inspired every time I sat down at my desk, rather than frustrated at the mess. I look at it every time and believe me, I have tried Marie Kondo in this.

 

What are your strengths?

What are the things that you can do, that other people maybe can't do? What comes easily to you, that doesn't come as easily to other people? My best selling product ever. The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan. This came about because I had a lot of people asking me, “Hey Steph, you have a podcast. I really want to start a podcast. How do I do it?” And to me, it was so easy. I wondered, why would you need help with that? But people kept coming back, asking about technology to use, software to use, and what equipment to use and so on.

So I figured, “If this is something that's coming easily to me, I can create a product about this. And it's going to help other people to launch their podcasts.” And that is how the A-Z Podcast Launch Plan came about.

 

What is one small thing you can help somebody to achieve?

In a month, or two weeks or even a week, what is one tiny little transformation that you can deliver to somebody. It can be how to make the perfect cup of matcha. It can be how to structure a podcast episode. These are not big transformations. But they are small, tangible achievements, that when somebody gets to the finish line, they're going to feel a little bit better about themselves.

 

Problem: Too many ideas for your next launch

So that's going to hopefully give you a bunch of ideas now for your next digital product launch. But when you have a lot of ideas, how do you then choose between these ideas?

 

Which is the lowest hanging fruit?

What is something that I can create the easiest, the quickest, which feels most inspiring to create, or that maybe I already have the content for. A process that I've already got in place that I can simply teach to somebody else. I really love this concept that I came across recently. It's called selling your sawdust.

So selling the little offcuts from your own work. Selling your processes perhaps or selling swipe files that you've used in a launch, that's all your sawdust. And that doesn't require a whole amount or a whole huge amount of work to create, but it's still valuable to somebody else who doesn't have that knowledge and that expertise and that experience that you do.

It might be that the lowest hanging fruit is a group program. For example, where you're bringing together a small group and you're teaching them live each week on zoom. Or maybe it's an online course where you're teaching it live each week via zoom. Or maybe it's a membership where you're just creating the first month or two ahead of time. And then after you've launched it, you'll go ahead and create more content. So what is that lowest hanging fruit out of those ideas that you've come up with? N

 

What does your audience need from you first?

So if we think about the bigger picture journey that you are taking your audience on, what is the first step that you can help them with?

For example, my first step in my product journey is somebody coming to me to learn how to launch a podcast with the A-Z Podcast Launch Plan. From there they realize, “I need to grow my audience”. They can then join Boost Your Brands Superfans, which is my course on how to grow an engaged audience with the right people who are ready to buy your product or your service.

From there they might also realize, I've got this audience, now I want to monetize this audience, or now I want to monetize my podcast or maybe I've got so many clients and I'm just so busy, but I want to consider creating a digital product and launching that. And in that case, that's when they come to me for Launch Magic. So you can see how there's this bigger journey that I'm taking people on. And I have so many people in my audience, who've bought one of my products and then they've come back to buy the next one and they've come back to buy the next one because they know me, they like me and they trust me. They enjoy my teaching style. It's so much easier to sell to somebody who is already in your audience who has already bought from you, than it is to go out there and acquire a new customer.

 

What is going to generate the most revenue?

What is going to generate the most cash flow, especially if you are at a point in your business where maybe cash is tight, or maybe you need a nice inflow of cash.

So that you can look at hiring somebody. You can look at upgrading your software and your systems so that you can make it a little bit more scalable. So in that case, something like a $19 e-book isn't going to generate as much cash as a $200 course, which isn't going to generate as much cash as a $2,000 course or a $2,000 group program.

It's going to take you probably longer to create that $19 ebook than it would to create that group program where you're teaching it week by week. But what is going to give you the best return on your time? That is something for you to look at. What is going to give you the best return on your time, and what's going to generate the most cash flow.

 

What do you feel most inspired to do?

What is your gut telling you to do what feels most exciting? Now there is going to be that point where you have already started creating something where you start to feel less inspired and you feel like you want to give up.

That's not your gut feeling. That's not your intuition. That's not inspiration. That is simply you wanting to give up because it feels challenging. And I love the book, The Dip by Seth Goden, because he talks a little bit about how it's not inspiration calling us to this new shiny object, but how we actually need to persist through the challenging part of creating anything of any creative project, any creative pursuit, we have to persist through that challenging part. To get to the finish line. It's going to show up for everything that we are doing. So we have to persist.

I think often the idea that feels most exciting to you, that is often going to be the best one. And sometimes we do just have to throw logic out the window and go with our gut.

 

 

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