Reflections on launching a new product

“Thank you so much for your honesty, your vulnerability and your practical advice”

This was one of the many very lovely bits of feedback I received last week from one of my free How to Make an Online Course webinars.  It wasn’t the only comment about my honesty, which has led, through various ponderings, to me writing this blog post.

I fully believe that radical generosity, both in life and business is the correct approach.  I waste absolutely no time worrying about intellectual property and whether someone will nick my ideas.  Naturally, I’d rather they didn’t, but if it happened, so be it.  I doubt they’d be able to deliver those ideas in quite the same way I do.  

Back when I was 17 and studying A level Dance, I had to wangle my head around postmodernism.  One element which stuck with me to this day is that there are no original ideas any more.  I wonder if there ever were?  

Anyway, the point of that story is to illustrate further my approach to how I share my business knowledge, skills and ideas.  I share with a deep openness as I believe it’s the right way to live and also because there are likely to be similar things already out in the world.  But as with everything it’s the combination of the content and how that story is told that brings people to my door (as to any door).

Also, when I do share openly and honestly, it brings me more wealth. Both financial and a deeper, more meaningful wealth too that goes way beyond money.  Every time.

With all that in mind, I’m going to bare all here about how well those webinars did, alongside the launch of The Marvellous Online Course Course, because I know I find it super useful when I hear about how someone’s business venture really went.

Let’s take a trip back in time a month or so ago…

The summer, as usual, had been pretty quiet, but things usually start picking up around mid August.  This year they didn’t, so I knew I had to shift something.  I’ve had all sorts of online course plans forming for ages, but the lure of well paid freelance contracts were always more immediate and certain.  However by mid August, the inbox had turned into the Marie Celeste, so it was definitely time.

I had a fair few mini panics about the way forward… no, I’m not being fair on myself, I was being prudent (not a strength of mine) because if I were to take a step forward in my online course plans, I would need to upgrade my Kajabi account which would mean an even greater recurring bill on an already expensive platform.  But that prudence caused me to stall, and then there were some illogical panics around fear of failure which are rare for me, but absolutely still happen.

Eventually it was my 15yo who worked it through with me.  I’m very lucky to have a kid whose brain works differently to mine, yet we have an appreciation for similar things and a shared sense of humour.  He is dead set on a career in finance (which is surprising considering his creative upbringing, but whatever makes him happy), and it was this money focused approach that was useful.  We crunched the numbers, weighed up the risks and he asked me some excellent coaching questions, which unblocked me and gave me the confidence to go for it (I’ve trained him well).

Because of his pep talk, along with a clip of Emperor Palpatine which he thinks I should use continually as a motivational tool, I decided to go for it.

I’ve learnt some deep lessons over the last month about where the lines sit between setting schedules to suit me, setting them to suit others, making baffling unsuitable scheduling decisions and occasionally finding the sweet spot which suits everyone.

Firstly, I wanted to approach the delivery of some free webinars, and then a more indepth 3 week course properly.  I wanted to shape a strategy and then develop a promotion plan which I promised myself I would stick to.  Then I’d know that I’d given it my best shot and, if it all went t*ts up, I’d not have myself to blame.  

I made this decision because I’ve been guilty in the past of creating a brilliant offering but then bottling it at the sales stage: doing a bit but not enough and the project flopping.  So this last month has been an intensive process on readdressing that issue and confronting some particularly thorny narratives I’ve been carrying around about selling and money.

I needed a solid plan; one which was scheduled properly and not some on-a-whim, pluck a date out of the air approach (also previously guilty).  To suit a lot of my ideal audience, I needed to avoid the October school holidays across the UK and also not take the course too close to Christmas.  Which actually made it a lot trickier than it first sounds.  The dates for half term break (English name), October week (name around here) or Tattie Fortnight (a delightful NE Scottish term) span from 13th October to the 31st.  

I needed three weeks for the course, calculated two weeks for promoting it, one week before that for the webinars and two weeks before to promote them.  Eight weeks in total.  The only time to really make it work, avoiding the school hols and getting too close to Christmas, was to start on the 21st August.  With a big gulp, I decided the week before to go for it.  Lots to plan, build and deliver, including lots of automated emails to set up, brand assets to be created and that aforementioned promotional plan to devise.  Argh!

But, diamonds are made under pressure and it was massively motivating to have something to really get stuck into when the rest of my portfolio wasn’t as busy as usual.

I advertised the free webinar through a few different channels.  My own social media - mostly LinkedIn and Instagram; through a few select Facebook groups; on Creative Scotland and ACE’s opportunities pages and through the hard slog of sending individual emails to previous collaborators and other connections.

All those routes brought people to the webinar but by far the most effective were the opportunities pages (particularly CS) and the individual emails.  Also, as I was speaking directly to people, those emails sparked other conversations so they were well worth doing, even though it felt uncomfortable to do at the time.  I’m sure some fell into inboxes that deemed them irritating, but I don’t bombard people with tons of emails, so I was able to reason that my intentions were good.

I offered 3 different times for the same webinar - 1pm (on a Tuesday), 10am (Wednesday) and 7pm (Thursday).  I got over 40 signed up for the 1pm and around 20 for each of the 10am and 7pm ones.  So about 80 folk in total.  I was happy about that, although v.aware that as it was a free thing, I was unlikely to get anywhere near 80 attending.  I had also offered a replay for anyone who had signed up, so I know there was a proportion who weren’t going to attend live and intended to catch it afterwards.

About half of sign ups attended the 1pm and the 7pm.  But, somewhat miraculously, 17 out of 21 folk on the 10am turned up.  I’ll need to run similar things a few times to see if the morning folk are just more reliable or not!  

Spreading them out over 3 days was a mistake.  It was a choice where I was doing it to suit others, but it didn’t suit me.  By the time I got to the 7pm one on the third day, the energy was harder to muster and the group seemed a bit tired too - which I definitely put down to time of day and near end of week.  Also, I prefer to do face to face stuff during the day, so that’s something to reconsider next time.

And there will be a next time, as those webinars really delivered.  Lots of people emailed to express how useful they found it, both those who then wanted to buy the course and folk who weren’t in a position to buy but appreciated the free content.  I got big dollops of affirmation and validation through that.

I offered an early bird deal on The Marvellous Online Course Course till the Sunday at midnight of that week - so they only had 3 to 5 days to buy.  This really worked and I exceeded my sales targets.  

However, I made one very silly scheduling error: I decided (without much thought) to end the early bird at 11.59pm on the Sunday evening.  After a technical issue with the discount price, I had to go in and manually change the checkouts just after that time.  Which meant I stayed up beyond my usual bedtime on a Sunday night.  Nuts!  I could have just set it for noon on any day at all!  Lesson learnt.

I’d then set 11 days until doors close on course sign ups.  Initially that felt too long, but, when I was honest with myself, that’s just because I was missing the regular ping of the inbox with new sign ups coming in - Sunday was dopamine city for that!  No, 11 days felt about right.  It gave me time to regroup, revisit the plan and share the course more widely.  It also gave me absolutely essential time to work on building the course!

I’d made a risky decision that I wasn’t going to invest a huge amount of development time building a product before I sold it.  The selling part is, for me, the hardest, so I decided to do that first.  Another daring but brilliant motivator.  Of course it’s a gamble, but one that has panned out as I’ll be going into those 3 weeks with the most up to date information and my head buzzing with ideas.  My course participants will get the best from me.

Doors are still open on the course as I type, so I can’t tell you how the full sales period went, but thanks to the early bird, I’m already happy with where I’m at.  

It has also been an excellent reminder of where my strengths lie: meeting people in a workshop setting where I’m providing informed, accessible and enthusiastic content.  I’ve always known that’s the best way for me to engage with folk and to build trust, but as with most things I already know, I do often need reminding so I actually put that knowledge into strategy.

It’s also been incredibly enjoyable creating the course content with my actual customers in mind.  

Also, this intense period has come with a load of creative inspiration.  I now have a strategy for the next six months of course creation, and that is now developing into a properly shaped plan.  It’s really exciting!

But, I must not get ahead of myself.  When I used to make a lot of theatre, I always knew I was on a creative roll when I’d start getting excited in the dress rehearsal about the next play, which was really stimulating, but I also had to bring myself back down to earth and focus on the current production.

Same with this.  The focus now is on making this course as good as it can be.  And then I can turn my attention to the next projects… there’s a Storytelling for Business course collection currently cooking as well as one specifically for my fellow coaches on how to harness creative approaches and apply them to your coaching practice.  But enough of that for now!  

If you want to sneak in at the last minute (and you’re reading this in September 23), click here to book The Marvellous Online Course Course.