Alex Waggoner’s Simple Strategy for 7-Figure Launches

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Alex Waggoner is an Online Business Manager (OBM) with a lot of great tips to share in this interview.
She has partnered with many 6- and 7-figure online business owners to help them streamline their operations and to support them with their product and service launches. She knows all about building systems for streamlined team collaboration, efficient task delegation, and real-time KPI tracking.
In this podcast, Alex shares practical tips on how CEOs can effectively delegate to their OBMs and actionable strategies that any entrepreneur can use to scale their businesses, optimize team performance, and stay focused on big-picture growth during important moments like launches.
Watch the Full Episode
Alex has been working online since 2018 and after Covid-related layoffs, she went all in on her online business. She talks about her changing path, from an education degree to a tech VA to online business management. She found that she was skilled in acting as a โsecond brain for founders,โ and moved forward with that business idea.
She shares what a typical day looks like for her and talks about working with 6-figure business owners, most of whom are course creators and coaches.
Alex shares her insight about gaps she sees among her clients, who often need help with team management and outsourcing. She talks about how to know when itโs time to hire someone, how to create effective SOPs, and shares other useful tips.
When asked why entrepreneurs should consider a launch, Alex talks about the advantages and ideal schedule and what type of products are the best to launch.
This leads Alex to talk about courses, digital products such as templates, and software.
She then offers some insider tips for a successful launch and then explains a good launch tech stack, from payment processing software to KPI tracking tools.
She shares her insight about what it takes for a successful launch and when to use different strategies for different types of launches.
Jared asks Alex about creating a compelling offer, and she also talks about validating ideas before you launch and whether or not itโs important to create buzz before a launch to make it successful.
Lastly, Alex talks about the successful launches sheโs been involved in and walks listeners through the entire process.
Links & Resources
- Her site, A Nomadic Entrepreneur
- Her Instagram
- ClickUp
- Loom
- Scribe
- ThriveCart
- Airtable
Topics Alex Waggoner Talks About
- Her background
- How she got involved in OBM
- Her day-to-day
- Outsourcing
- Creating SOPs
- Launching products and courses
- Tips for a successful launch
- Launch tech stack
- Making launches more successful
- Different types of launches
- Compelling offers
- Validating ideas
- Pre-launch build-up
- A successful launch
Transcript
Jared: I think that this topic today is going to apply to everyone, no matter where you're at in your online entrepreneurship journey. Secretly, I'm kind of excited as well for my own business. What does a launch do? And why is it something that you believe so strongly in?
Alex: One thing about a launch is it also just like brings this like spotlight to your business.
So even if you have other offers for sale, oftentimes, like when you're actively launching, you will make sales on other things in your business, simply because you're bringing attention to your offers and you're actively selling in your business.
Jared: Just to give people an idea for the scale you have, some of the successes that you've had along the way.
Alex: They're all online business owners, um, typically six figures to seven figure range in terms of income.
Jared: And let's get into some of the specific solutions that you help people with.
Alex: One thing I definitely encourage, even if you're a solopreneur from the beginning, is thinking how can I outsource a certain task, and how can I document that workflow from the very beginning, so then it's just written down.
Jared: Some insights, some secrets. Some hot takes, some tips on making launches more successful.
Alex: So honestly, a big one is follow through with your plan.
Jared: Clearly there's tons of opportunity in launching any number of products or courses, but there's also a lot of kind of the devils in the details sort of thing.
Alex: Especially if you have a team, but even if it's just you working and it's, this would be a great habit to have in general.
Jared: All right. Welcome back to the niche pursuits podcast. My name is Jared Bautman. Today we are joined by Alex Waggoner with a nomadic entrepreneur. Alex, welcome on board. Hi, how's
Alex: it going?
Jared: Good. Good. Good to have you. I'm excited about what we're talking about today. We were talking before we hit record, like, I think that this topic today is going to apply to everyone, no matter where you're at in your online entrepreneurship journey. And I'm excited to hear some of the tips you have to say.
Secretly, I'm kind of excited as well for my own business. And for my own, uh, my own journey, uh, running a, a marketing agency. So I'm excited you're here and I'm excited to learn from you and I'm sure everybody will get a lot out of it. Give us some backstory on who you are. You can maybe catch us up on what you were doing before a nomadic entrepreneur.
Alex: Yeah. So I've been working in online business since 2018. I started full time in 2020. I previously was working at a restaurant. Got laid off in that wave of COVID layoffs and decided to go all in on my business because what else are you going to do when you have quarantine? So that was really great. Um, I initially went to school for like, and got my undergrad in education, but I quickly realized.
Education was not my path and I did kind of fall into online education and the digital course world from that and initially I first started out as a copywriter. That's how I first started entrepreneurship. And then it just kind of unraveled into me becoming a tech VA. And then now I have stepped up and do more that operations management as an online business manager.
And I've been doing that for the past three years.
Jared: So it's interesting to hear you say you started with education, you moved into copywriter. You did Tech VA and now you're doing entrepreneurship, coaching, and, and, and that sort of thing. That, how did you get through that progression? Because each of those seems completely unique on their own, and yet I'm sure there's a connection that they all have together.
Alex: Yeah, so I first started my copywriting business because I was really enthralled by the idea of being a digital nomad. I really wanted that location independence and the ability to travel. And all of that and I saw a Facebook ad for a copywriting course and I was like, why not, you know, it seemed like it was checking all the boxes.
And as I started doing that, I enjoyed it. The skill was a great skill to learn. It just wasn't long term what I wanted to do. And I'm a very tech savvy person. I love tech and it's very easy for me to do. And I found some clients that needed help with that. So it just kind of organically was arrived in or it organically arrived in my life and I just started.
You know, setting up that tech. And then as I've started doing that more, I realized I was also very good at project management and keeping clients organized. And I'm really good at helping founders keep all of their ideas organized and like holding them accountable to like actually following through with their ideas or, you know, helping them plan accordingly.
And all of those logistics, when it comes to having all of the spinning plates that, you know, a business has, and it's really helpful to have that like second brain on the business. So in a way I'm almost that like second brain to help keep your business organized and smooth flowing and all the things.
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Jared: I think everyone listening will lean in a bit and say, Oh my goodness, I have more ideas than I have time to execute. Sometimes I even have more ideas than I have time to write them down. And by the time I get to put a pen to paper, it's like, Oh darn, I've already forgotten that idea, but I'll have another one next.
And then of course the execution side of things starts to get cumbersome. With all the to dos and how do you prioritize? How do you manage? I think you're speaking our language here. What, what does a day to day look like? What are you doing today? What does your business look like today? Maybe we'll use that to set the scene for where we're gonna go and what we can share with people.
Alex: Totally. So typically I start my days, I try to do a check in with myself first in my own business versus diving into client work. So I work with clients on a retainer basis and it can be very easy to Very easy to prioritize that over, um, you know, my own business. So I do try to have that check in, even if it's just a 30 minutes of like looking at my own stuff and checking emails and following through on potential leads and all of that kind of thing.
And then after I do that, I'll do a client check in. So I always try to double check and see if there's any fires that need to be put out before I like dive into whatever focus task I'm working on for the day. Um, and usually from there, it depends on the actual day of the week. So Mondays I try to keep for my own stuff and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays are typically my client work days.
I take calls on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Tuesdays I prep for those calls. And then in the gaps, I also, you know, like execute project plans and set up the tech and stuff. And I still do quite a bit of like the own, my own tech setup myself. Um, I am in the process of building out a team to help. Support with that, but that's kind of what my week looks like, shaped up wise.
Fridays, I kind of keep, you know, open for whatever. I try to do more of the fun stuff and keep it easy and light, just because it's Friday, you know.
Jared: Like these podcast interviews.
Alex: Exactly, yeah, exactly. It's a little
Jared: air on a Friday, but, cats out of the bag, folks, we are recording on a Friday. Um Let's, um, let me just ask you, like, what does your business look like right now?
Anything you're able to share, just to give people an idea for the scale you have, some of the successes that you've had along the way, some of the things that you, maybe the wins you've achieved for client work.
Alex: Totally. So I have a retainer service where I help founders with their operations on a day to day basis.
I work with founders from a range of, they're all online, online business owners. Um, typically six figures to seven figure range in terms of income. Um, and as far as like the business models go, I work with a variety of business models, but they're all online business, so I work with some online, like course, digital course, digital product sellers.
I have some coaches on my roster. I also have a client who's developing a software, which is a new fun thing. Um, software development is definitely becoming a trend of. But in the online business world, um, which is exciting. And then, yeah, so primarily it's coaches and course creators that I work with. Um, and then I also have some digital products myself in terms of my own business.
Jared: Let's get into some of the things that you see in an average business. I mean, most of the listeners here are going to be exactly as you described, online business owners. A lot of us growing websites. A lot of us growing a SaaS product, an e commerce business. I mean, kind of checks all the boxes you're mentioning.
What are the big gaps that a lot of these businesses are missing from what you see? And then let's get into some of the specific solutions that you help people with.
Alex: Yeah. So a big gap that I see is team management skills. Um, especially when you start online business, usually you come from a background of whatever your expertise that you're building that business on.
And unless you're building a business on managing teams, you might not have inherently that skill. So one thing I definitely encourage, even if you're a solopreneur from the beginning is thinking how can I outsource a certain task and how can I document that workflow from the very beginning so then it's just written down, even just the act of having a task that you do and writing down like I'm doing this and this is the process is super helpful for you because now you have a step by step workflow that you can outsource to somebody else.
Because one thing I do find when people are initially hiring There's this scramble of having to figure out your SOPs, your standard, standard operating procedures, and figuring out what do you do, right? And that will help from the very beginning if you get yourself organized. Outsourcing will be so much easier.
Jared: When it comes to, um, getting the mindset of someone who, uh, yeah, don't worry folks, if you have a team, you already have a team, we'll, we'll talk about this, so just hang in there. But for the person who doesn't have a team yet, for the person who is thinking about the first hire, um, when do you think people should make that hire and what is often the best first role to hire for?
Alex: For me, The first flag is when you're, you know, you're at capacity or you look at you, you look at your calendar and you know, like this workload is not something I can personally do and assessing your own capacity of what you're capable of producing at like a healthy level will come with practice. And it just, it's one of those skills you gain as an entrepreneur when it comes to deciding it's time to outsource, I recommend doing it before it starts getting crazy.
And kind of following your gut, because sometimes if we wait too long and then we, like, it's just frazzled and it's last minute, and it's hectic, like, that can be a A stressful onboarding process for the team member. And it's just, it's not as clean cut as it would be if you're prepared from the beginning.
So if you, if you know, you want to outsource, you don't have to outsource too, is the thing like some solopreneurs are very successful by themselves. You can set up tech to help you DOI it yourself, and that's totally great. But if you know you want to outsource, like I said, make sure you're starting to write down the what, write down what you're doing and thinking from the beginning, like, what would this role look like?
What would this person, if they were to come into my business, what would they be doing? Right? So start thinking about those things.
Jared: You mentioned Writing down the process, you know, I often refer to it as SOP or standard operating process. There's so many different ways to talk about it. I think one of the big questions I hear a lot, especially of late, is, and this might be a little in the weeds, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
How do you recommend putting it together? You know, is it written with video? I hear people say, just record yourself doing it and then send it. Um, or, you know, does it need to be written out in full detail? Like, how detailed do you think these Operating procedures need to be before you can bring someone on.
Alex: Yeah, great question. So I recommend the platform project management platform ClickUp. Um, it's my favorite task management tool. I, it, there's a free plan. That's great for if you're just getting started and then it allows some space to scale. And I, in terms of managing SOPs, it really is personal preference.
Some processes are good to have a video if you know, you're doing a lot of like. Platforms and you need to have like there's little nuances that you want to make sure you capture having a video is good one drawback with videos is it can get A little rambly if you're not like intentionally being concise, you want to make sure you're being concise because sometimes if you like make updates down the line and then the video is outdated, so maintaining it longterm, a video can be a little trickier, but it also, sometimes it's just needed, right?
Like using loom is a great example for a tool to help you screen record. ClickUp also does actually have a screen recording tool natively in the platform, which is helpful and it's included in like. In everything, um, but I've also seen tools like scribe. It's a nice one, which I have become a bit more preferential to that because you can capture the moments you click when you're doing a task with so you can like write it out and it's a little easier to reference.
So personal preference. I kind of like a hybrid. Honestly, it really just does depend on the process. Um, I find long term maintenance of an SOP. Having it written down and like seeing the steps is the easiest to maintain because it's easiest to edit, but a video is also helpful. So it really just does depend on the workload.
Jared: That is, that's a good point too because, boy, you get that SOP done and you're like, oh, finally, okay. And then, you know, two weeks later something changes in one of the systems that you did. If something looks different, it's like, how often do I go back and update it? You know, I've just got done with that.
I don't want to touch this thing again. So, um, yeah, thinking about how you're going to be updated in the future is, is, is really good. Um, let's, let's talk about some other tips you have. I mean, you know, I, I know I'm looking over our agenda. We've got just a laundry list of things, uh, you know, as you put it, strategies that, you know, uh, entrepreneurs can use to succeed.
Maybe just start at the top of what you'd like to address and let's go through them.
Alex: Yeah. When it comes to managing operations, so let me think, when it comes to managing your launches, so I'm going to assume that you launch in your business with this example. Um, this is obviously the moneymaker in online business.
It's a good thing to have streamlined operations with. Um, a couple of tips I have when it comes to launching. So you want to make sure, especially if you have a team, but even if it's just you working and it's, this would be a great habit to have in general. Would be to have one centralized place for information that everyone references versus Things scattered all over the place.
I've worked with teams that, you know, there's like multiple Google Docs that you have to reference for the information on the launch. And then it just, it can easily get cluttered digitally. And then the long term maintenance of that, you, it just, it can easily start exploding. Your, your Google, Google Drive can start getting a little chaotic.
So I definitely recommend having like one centralized location and that's just like a general operations tip. Having one place to update anything is key. If you have to update any kind of like tracker, you know, task, like everything should have one place, one home. And that will make it way more efficient.
If you're updating it more than once anywhere else, then that means it's too many and you need to simplify your systems. Um, and yeah, I mean with, with launches, so, the, another thing, another good tip to have is, Make sure you're planning ahead of time and giving yourself plenty of prep time and act, and try your best to accurately, like, project workloads with what you want to do because sometimes it can be like, you want to do all of these different things, you want to run ads, you want to, you know, like, post on every single platform that's out there, you want to do all of these bonuses and fancy things, so you want to make sure your tech stack really allows you to do the things you want to do, make sure you're equipped from your tech stack.
You want to make sure you have enough time to prepare those things so you're not rushed, so you can really be present in the launch and allow yourself to check in every single day. All of that and make sure you're actually getting things like attending things because when you start having a really successful launch, you're going to get questions.
You're going to get customer service emails and all of those things that you want to make sure we have the space and bandwidth to address as soon as possible. Instead of like, Oh my God, I actually have to write this last minute Instagram post. Then I also have to actually set up this tech platform for the checkout cart and all of those things that can happen last minute.
Um, so yeah, that's a little. Launch rant. Um, but yeah. When it comes
Jared: to a launch, what is a typical tech stack? You know, what's a tech stack that you would make sure to recommend? I think, certainly someone who's doing a launch for the first time might think they have the tech stack lined up properly and then partway through realize, whoops, there's a gap.
So what would like a typical startup tech stack look like for a launch?
Alex: Yeah, so I, first thing is to have a, some kind of task management tool. I recommend ClickUp. It can even be something as simple as a piece of paper if it's just you. It doesn't have to be some fancy tech tool, um, tech platform. But I definitely have, recommend having some sort of way to keep yourself organized in terms of your tasks.
And then, in terms of Sales, so you want to make sure you have some kind of checkout, of course, like how you're receiving the money, how are they paying you. PayPal and Stripe make really good checkouts. You can also do something like ThriveCard, that's what a lot of my clients use. ThriveCard's a great tool to use.
Um, so you want to make sure you have a good checkout cart. ThriveCard's great because you can do bumps and upsells and all of that so you can really get the most out of one sale. Um, if you have other offers that are related to whatever you're launching. You of course want to have some kind of sales page, whether that's a full on website, the classic long form sales page, where it really in detail explains everything.
I've even seen in launches, someone use a Google Doc to explain the offer. But you need something to explain what your offer is, so you can communicate that, right? That's the copywriter in me. You gotta have something to explain what you're selling. Is it? Um, and Yeah, I mean, the next thing you'll definitely want, I mean, this will be like with product delivery, you want to have some sort of delivery tool, however you're delivering your offer, whether that is a service, whether that is a digital course, digital product, um, software, whatever it is, you've got to make sure that fulfillment process is good, um, one thing when it comes to data tracking, um, It's helpful to have, like, an air table base or something, some kind of KPI tracking tool to help you stay on top of what are you actually, like, what is, where are you at with the launch, what are your stats in terms of income, what are your conversion rates, so, as you're, like, sending out emails, which is another tech stack tool, you'll definitely want an email marketing tool, if there's one marketing thing, I mean, I feel like that's what everyone says, but email really is the best thing when it comes to Launching and, you know, conversion rates and everything like that.
So yeah, having an air table base or some kind of data tracking tool to help you keep track of those KPIs. So you really have your finger on the pulse the entire time. Um, and yeah, I mean, that's like pretty bare minimum. I mean, a Google sheet could also work for KPIs as well, but that's like pretty bare minimum in terms of a tech stack.
Of course, there's all of the fun tools you can do, like countdown timers and I mean, you can do fun child, like fun launch events. If you're doing a webinar, it really depends on if you're doing that launch event piece as well. So if you're doing like a webinar, you'll obviously need. You know, Zoom, you can do something like, I don't know if Riverside does.
Webinars, but there's all kinds of fun webinar tools you can use your challenge, you can, you know, like there's all kinds of like ways to expand from a launch, but that's like a minimum viable.
Jared: Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. So I
Alex: mean,
Jared: I don't mean that a bad way, but I just mean, it's, it's important that we kind of went through it because tech stack wise, I think that's probably what trips up a lot of people is it can be a bit overwhelming to look at it and say, For a launch, where do I start?
And at least what pieces do I need to line up? And that alone is a challenge. And let me ask you about some, uh, I, I know this word's kind of a buzzword, but I get to use it cause I'm a podcast host. And, uh, and why not only get you for a few minutes. What are some of, some insights, some secrets, some hot takes, some tips on making launches more successful?
You've obviously been a part of a lot of them, more than most people because of your role in different companies. And what do you see consistently moving the needle and changing a launch from being something that is, say, ho hum, into something that's really successful?
Alex: So, honestly, a big one is follow through with your plan.
Oftentimes, I find entrepreneurs have a million ideas that we want to immediately take action on and it can be a bit of a crutch if you change your mind last minute and you want to change everything. Then you're spending more time focusing on like making those changes as opposed to selling. And we want to make sure during the launch, like the point of it is to really put your all in selling and Changing, I mean, you of course can change your mind.
I'm not saying like never change your mind. That's impossible and will always happen, but as much as you can, try to follow through with your plan and see, see that from start to finish, because then you can have that whole data of did this idea actually work rather than I want to try this. I want to try this.
I want to try this, which is beautiful and great. And there's plenty of time in the future to initiate that idea as well. But follow through with a plan is definitely key.
Jared: I think a lot of people listening are going to be very intrigued at the idea of launches if they haven't already started them because many people have an audience, right?
They have web traffic, they have social media traffic, and many will have an email list. And I think one thing that a lot of people are wrestling with is this idea of doing a launch. In real time, we're setting up more of an automated launch as part of a workflow sequence, whether it's when people first join their email or whether it's on a trigger, maybe 90 days in.
Can you talk through those different aspects and where you see one being more successful than the other or when the right time and place is to automate a launch versus, um, maybe more blast style or in the moment?
Alex: Yeah, I mean, truthfully, when it comes to like finding the right time, there's trends you can focus on in the industry, in whatever industry you're in, and of course, like Black Friday is a big time to launch, but it really, Boils down to your capacity as an entrepreneur, there's always going to be some externalized factor that will come into play and like make you change your mind, but if you make the decision to do a launch, just make sure you have the capacity to fully do everything that is involved with the launch, um, which is kind of a workaround answer, but you really, it's just, when do you have the capacity to actually do the things to do a launch, right?
Like if you know, you're not going to be working a ton. In the month of March, but then you want to do this massive launch in the month of March. Maybe that's not the best time, but I mean, if your systems and you have a team in place where you can fully delegate all of that, then fabulous. But if it is like your first launch, you want to make sure you have that time and bandwidth to get your all with it.
Jared: If I can, I want to ask you about offers, and I know that's not something we addressed kind of on our agenda going into this, but Um, come out of left field with it, offers play a huge role in launches. And, you know, I know an offer is going to be very niche dependent, very product dependent, but what are some ideas for people around offers and how to make an offer that is compelling, whether it's an offer that's only available during the launch or even just the entire launch process and how to offer that up in a way that's compelling for people that want to make, that makes them want to buy it.
Alex: Yeah, so always look at what your audience is asking for you. Like what are they One willing to pay for which is gonna be it's gonna involve some testing You might not immediately like if someone's saying like, oh, I really want this and then you launch it and they're like it's you launch to crickets That's very common at the beginning like it and it's a frustrating thing, but it does happen.
It's it does happen Keep going anyways, but Truly just tapping into what your audience needs in terms of what are they asking you and seeing how can you package that into a resource for them to go back and look at. And even if it's like a service, so maybe what they're asking for you is help, like actual physical help, then that could maybe be your offer, right?
So it really is just tapping into what your audience needs.
Jared: What offers do you see work really well? You know, discount, add value, um, you know, uh, I mean, I could rifle through so many, but like, which ones in today's environment kind of work really well?
Alex: Discounts can definitely work, but you want to be careful with that, because if you do them too frequently, then your audience expects that, and then they won't purchase anything at full price, so discounts can work, but like, tread carefully there.
Um, one ti uh, a fast action bonus can be really helpful too, so if you are selling something and You have, like, this bonus thing that you just happen to make and you want to give them access to it this one time. That could be a fun thing to get some urgency there. Um, and I mean, truthfully, what it boils down to is finding an outcome you can help people with.
And finding a container that, that, that you can deliver that outcome. And again, that Boils down to coming back to tapping into what your audience needs, but the delivery of the offer and like the physical offer itself really just involves empathizing with what your audience needs. Um, which is it, and that's where it's tricky as like entrepreneurs, like there's so many options, right?
Like when it comes to offer creation, like and all of the creative ways we can package our offers and sell them, but it really does boil down to. Figuring out what your audience needs and then, you know, writing copy that can help empathize and convert or explain that outcome to your audience as well. So, yeah, figuring out how to explain to your audience what you're selling as well and like, what outcome, right?
We want to empathize the outcome, not just like, here's a course that teaches you this. It's like, what, like, let's say, like, if it was an operations, like some kind of content management tool, like, let's say it's a content calendar. Right. So what do people actually want when it comes to a content calendar?
They want to stop over being overwhelmed with all of the different content platforms. They want to stop, um, feeling disorganized and they want to have a system that they can easily show up to and kind of like turn off their brains and just work and get into that employee execution, get stuff done mode, rather than like, okay, how do I have to like strategize, organize all of these things.
Right. So that's just one example. Um, but it really does just boil down to. Your audience, and knowing your audience.
Jared: You've touched on it a couple times now, so I'm going to ask, because I'll just raise my hand. I've had a failed launch, right? For sure. Where I thought my audience wanted something. And it was, as you said, crickets.
And it never sold much. I do agree, I didn't get too down on myself. Because to some degree it's like, well, you know, you don't really know until you do it, you know? But at the same time, it was certainly a bummer. And it kind of takes the wind out of your sails and you look back and think about the time you spent on it and not getting the traction that you thought you could have.
What are some ways, I mean you've talked about it a couple times already and it hits at like, how do you validate what your audience wants? Because a lot of times you will think Your audience wants something and perhaps probably been told, you know But what making somebody wants from you and then what somebody's willing to pay for from you Often are two different things.
Like how do you validate these ideas? How do you determine which ones are worth proceeding into making something that you're going to launch sell? Produce, fulfill, et cetera.
Alex: I definitely recommend some market research and just seeing what other people are doing. Obviously not from a place of like copying what other people are doing, but getting some inspiration.
Even if it's just getting ideas for how they've packaged their offer and seeing like what options are out there. Because then that can get your creative gears turning and seeing like, okay, maybe. If this person did that and we also want to remember that we don't know how successful someone else's launch is.
So if we look at someone's business and see they have this course, we don't necessarily know like if it's being sold a million times, right? Like I've had, depending on the product suite, like one of my clients has quite a few different digital products for sale. Like. Some sell almost every single day.
Some sell maybe, maybe once a month. Like it, it really just does depend on the offer, but yeah, I definitely recommend doing some market research to get your ideas turn in and yeah. Seeing what other people are doing.
Jared: How, uh, successful or important are bringing other parties on board for your launch to be successful?
Alex: Obviously
Jared: this could be in the name of affiliates, right? You can see, you can go out and get some affiliates. We're even just getting, um, a tribe of people talking about it. You know, the build up, the, uh, uh, the, the, the pre launch as I've heard it referred to before. So whether it's getting other people like affiliates on board or whether it's like a pre launch sequence, how important are those kinds of things?
Or is it a lot of extra work for not a ton of extra gain? Just to launch itself is what tends to drive the bulk of the dollars. What do you see?
Alex: Yeah, I definitely recommend some sort of launch event simply because It gets people on your email list typically, so you want to have like that opt in so they're on your email list so you can send them those launch emails, but even just creating like that small community that converts with that idea, they, they are there right now for a reason.
They're not just like people who've been on your YouTube list and, or YouTube channel, like maybe you're watching or, or maybe like sitting on your Instagram and just kind of standing by like, When you have that commun or when you have that, you know, email list opt in of some kind and people actively, like, choosing to be there, that definitely is really helpful and same with what, like you said, on affiliate marketing and having an affiliate team.
If you have the tech stack capacity to do that, Thrivecart does allow for that, which is helpful. I definitely recommend tapping into your network and hyping up your offer that way. If you have like a solid network of people that you know your offer is relevant to their, their offer, their audiences, then I definitely recommend tapping into that if you have that bandwidth.
Um, but Yeah, I mean, I definitely think having some sort of, you know, launch event congregation of community in some capacity because it, it just brings that energy of people make taking action like that collective action and that can be really powerful in just in general and as a community building tool for your audience in general.
Let's take a step back for a minute.
Jared: The idea of an online entrepreneur launching a product, a course, something that they can charge for, let's look at it from a high level. Speaking to this audience here of online entrepreneurs, content creators, Uh, wide ranging topics, but generally basically focused on online entrepreneurship.
Why do a launch? What does a launch bring that other business focuses like maybe consistent sales, uh, focusing on more of a repetitive, uh, organic sale process and evergreen sale process? What does a launch do? Why should they consider it? And why is it something that, that you believe so strongly in?
Alex: Yeah.
So, of course, it, it, yeah. Assuming that it does go successfully, it is always a nice cash injection, which is good. Um, one thing about a launch is it also just like brings this like spotlight to your business. So even if you have other offers for sale, oftentimes, like when you're actively launching, you will make sales on other things in your business simply because you're bringing attention to your offers and you're actively selling in your business.
And it also allows you to create some repetition and predictability. So of course, like if you're only doing one launch, that's not some predictability, but if you build that system of consistently planning, okay, I'm going to launch this month, this month, this month, this year, I try to aim for like a quarter one, a quarter, um, to not overwhelm yourself.
You might, once you get really good at launching, you might do more than that, but aim to have like one good launch a quarter. And. Then you can kind of get into that rhythm of that cash injections, right? So I always try to do at the beginning of the quarter So then you can have like depending on what your sales goals for that quarter You can immediately know like okay, where am I at?
How do I need to pivot for the rest of the quarter and plan accordingly But yeah, I definitely recommend doing it on like a quarterly basis To get that repetition. What,
Jared: uh, what, what, in today's environment, like, what are the most common things people should consider for, to launch? You know, you, you've mentioned courses, um, uh, but, you know, you mentioned a content calendar, actually.
What other things can people, what are some of the more popular ones? What are the more successful ones? Are any of that kind of getting a little old and tired and, and maybe a common user's mind?
Alex: Digital course has started to get maybe not the best in, Not the best reputation simply because some courses might not be as good as others.
So having that like credibility to your course is very important. Testimonials, screenshots, results. Like if you can prove that your course can produce the outcome, then I do recommend a course, honestly, because it does allow that like training component. It allows that source of passive income. If you just have it on your site available all the time.
Um, digital products are also a good thing to have. Like if you can templatize anything in your business. If you can have some kind of resource that helps people, um, something low ticket like under 50 is really helpful, um, and yeah, I, one fun thing that I've been noticing lately is more like software development, I've just I've had a few clients that have started building stuff with, you know, like chatGBT and the custom GBT capabilities and database software and whatever ways you can make software tools might be something worth exploring because I do find that that's becoming a newer trend that I hadn't noticed previously.
But, yeah, um, coaching programs are also another one that can be fun if you know you can help people with one specific outcome and you can produce that outcome multiple times with like a repeated framework, then instead of doing like one on ones, Maybe consider doing a group coaching program and because then you can of course the more you sign on the more income it is but Yeah, so just making sure you have that capacity, but coaching programs could also be a good one.
Jared: Talk through maybe um a Successful launch or two that you've been a part of and some of the things you think that separated it Uh, I think a lot of people hearing all of this are gonna be like, oh my gosh A lot of opportunity, a lot of work. So kind of give people, paint a picture of what a successful launch can look like for people and some of the things that you were a part of that helped it go right.
Alex: Yeah. So definitely, like I said at the beginning, make sure you have, you, you start from, you plan for success. So you want to make sure you have the time to do it. You don't want to just say, Oh, I'm going to launch next week. That's not enough time to properly prepare, especially if it's your first time, because you want to give yourself.
The space to do things. You got to prepare tech. You got to prepare, you know, marketing assets. You got to give yourself time to also like get your mindset game set up. So you want to make sure you give yourself plenty of time. I definitely recommend at least having a month preparation, but depending on the size of the launch, I mean, if you're running ads, if you're doing things like affiliate, you have an affiliate team, you're managing, like.
You want to first identify what you want to do, right? So what, what are you launching? When are you launching the, the, when could. Be flexible depending on if, how you're mapping out your capacity, but when are you launching? What parts, or excuse me, what, what is involved with your launch? So like, what do you want to do?
Affiliate marketing? Do you want to do any kind of bonuses or any kind of service fulfillment, right? So really outlining all the details of what are you launching and working backwards from there. So you have your dates, you have on your calendar, okay, I know I'm going to be launching this two week time period, and then you're going to work backwards.
Okay, so I know I need to have all my text set up. I do recommend having everything set up like a week in advance just to give yourself buffer time. Um, so you want to have a week before launch date, everything set up, and you can start testing things and making sure you're all good to go. Um, and just working backwards.
So when you have that list of, okay, this is all the stuff I want to do for this upcoming launch. What needs to happen for that. So I know if I want to send out emails, I know I need to write emails. I know I need to schedule emails. I know I need to, if I want to have graphics in those emails, I know I need to design those email marketing graphics, really brain dumping that task list.
Even if it's just on a Google doc and getting everything out of your head. And then, yeah, it's like a, you, you, how I recommend doing, and this is something I help my clients with is we get all those ideas out of their head. On to some externalized thing. And from there, I usually just organize it into a task and project plan from there.
And with a larger launch, I do recommend planning it in four different phases. This is one, um, pretty good tip when it comes to managing big launches, because I know there's a lot of pieces, so it can be pretty overwhelming. Um, and with managing a project plan for a launch, what I recommend is having four different phases.
So you're first doing that prepare phase, you're identifying all those tasks, you're identifying the due dates for those tasks, and you're just really getting yourself prepared and you're identifying what needs to be done. And then in the second phase, phase two, that's when you are preparing, like you're actually, you switch from planning CEO phase to employee phase.
This could be where you're delegating, this could be where you're outsourcing to other VAs or social media managers or whatever, but this is when you're preparing those assets in phase two. And then the third phase is when you're hosting the launch, right? That's like actively when the launch is happening, you're showing up every day, I recommend having like a daily launch check in so you're making sure One, your automations are working, whatever automations you might have set up, you, you know, your, you know, your sales carts turned on.
It's always good to go and check that because I've launched my own business and I look at my sales page and I'm like, that looks terrible. Like sometimes tech just techs and you don't know what happens, but you always want to sit with your launch and like be present and click around and make sure things are happening properly.
And customer service emails, right? Stuff like that. Just making sure you're paying attention to what's happening in your launch as it's happening. And also keeping an eye on, like, the numbers. Like, who, how many people have signed up for the launch event? How many people are buying based off of who signed up for that launch event?
Like, kind of like, noticing those trends. And then the last phase is wrap up, so that's when you're cleaning things up, you're archiving stuff, you're, you know, keeping track of data points, and, you know, you're just, you're, it's like, I always like to think of it as the phase, it's like when you're closing down a restaurant, you know, I don't know if You ever worked at a restaurant or
Jared: all of that,
Alex: but yeah, it's, it's, everyone seems to have.
And I
Jared: worked a night shift actually.
Alex: Yep. So it's like, it's like cleaning up the, the restaurant at the end of the shift, right? So you're just wrapping things up, you're archiving stuff, you're deleting anything that might not need to be there to avoid any digital clutter from forming. Um, so yeah, that's how I recommend structuring it.
Jared: I mean, talk us through like a successful launch, you know, what type of, um, uh, like maybe walk us through a specific example. What it looked like, what the offer was, what the launch sequence was like, and then maybe the end result if you can. Again, just to give people that, that vision of what's possible or what might be something they can, they can pull off.
Alex: Yeah, so one example would be for a pretty, it was a four figure course, it was 1, 500. Um, and that was a launch that we prepared three months in advance. So we identified we wanted to do it at the beginning. End of the year, and launch was in March, we were starting to prepare and plan for it in December.
And it ended up being, I think it was a 500k launch that we ended up landing at. Um, and yeah, so from the very beginning, what we wanted to do is, again, we just like started identifying those tasks, what needed to happen and figuring out all of those bits and bobs and getting all that prepared. There were quite a bit of team members involved in that launch, um, typically with the really big ones usually have some kind of team support.
Um, just to like get that level of expansion, but you can also still have a six figure launch even if you're a solopreneur. I've seen it. Um, but yeah, and we prepared a lot of the assets. We did stick to the plan. That is one key thing is there were some like logistical things we shifted, but we didn't change the whole offer two months in, right?
We knew what the offer was. It was an already established offer that That the audience already was familiar with. It wasn't the first time this was launched. And that is one thing when it comes to launching, it does take a couple of tries. Like if it's not successful the first time, that doesn't mean it's not going to be successful the second or even third time.
I know some businesses that launched an offer three times and the first two were not that great, but the third one ended up being a six figure launch. So it just, it really does. sometimes involve that consistency and tweaking your messaging and all of that. So we just want to like, keep going. And if you wholeheartedly believe in your offer, keep going.
Like if you know that that is something that will actually help people, there are other things than the offer itself. Sometimes it is just like messaging and all of that. Um, But yeah, I mean, in terms of walking through the launch, we set up the tech, got the marketing assets, and like I said, had those daily launch check ins and making sure we're following through with everything.
That was a webinar launch, so it did have, I think we had two weeks of, two weeks of pushing to the webinar, so driving to the webinar, and there was a one week open cart period afterwards, and About one email a day for getting to the webinar and two to three emails a day during the open cart period. Um, during those periods you want to make sure you have like a mixture of both emotional and logical types of content.
So what are some logical key points to purchasing your offer and then what are like some emotional fulfillment things that your offer can help fulfill. So make sure you're having a balance of that, because everyone makes decisions a little bit differently, like some people are more logical decision makers and some are more emotional decision makers, so you want to have a good balance of that in terms of your content for the launch, uh, and yeah, we did, we were able to get all of those emails scheduled ahead of time, so it wasn't like something like, okay, We only scheduled like the every single day.
Like it was batched. Like all of it was written at once, all of it was scheduled at once sort of thing. So that was pretty efficient. Um, but that it's not the end of the world if you do need to like go back and tweak and all of that. And sometimes I have seen launches where people will like make a decision halfway through.
They're like, okay, we were gonna have this fast action bonus. Um, what was it? We, we, we were gonna. Stop doing the fast action bonus at one specific date, and I think they ended up, um, allowing it through the whole entire launch. So it's like, you're not just for that window, but you're just, you're tapping into what your, your audience wants and like seeing what people are responding to the most.
Jared: Well, I, it's, it seems like there's a lot of details that need to get lined up. And I mean, even hearing you talk about some of the specifics was like the number of emails per day. And, uh, the amount of copywriting that goes in on the front side, the details to make sure. I mean, you even talked about appealing to the logical side, appealing to the emotional side.
So, um, you know, clearly there's tons of opportunity in launching. Any number of products or courses, but there's also a lot of kind of the devil's in the details sort of thing. I mean, any final thoughts on, um, uh, on all the things we've talked about before we wrap up, any, any thing we didn't cover that you want to make sure that we address?
Alex: Yeah. So one thing when it turned in terms of launching, if you're launching a service, make sure you don't forget about or a coaching program of any kind and make sure you don't forget about fulfillment when it comes to. Managing your workload, so oftentimes when like planning a year, planning a workload, your workload, planning your quarter, we say, okay, we're going to launch this time frame and forget about, okay, like I actually do have to coach afterwards, right?
Like it's not a one and done sale, like you want to make sure, and same with it goes for if you're creating the offer. If it's your first time launching an offer, is the offer made? Is that considered in your launch plan? Because that is a totally separate project. Creating a product, creating a service, which is a little less prep.
But creating a product is a separate project from launching a product. Product. Jeez. So making sure we have both fulfillment and like that creation preparation of the offer itself is into account for when you're planning.
Jared: Alex, where can people follow along with what you have going on? Where can people learn more about some of these details and get in touch with you if they want to?
Alex: So my website's a nomadic entrepreneur.com, uh, like Digital Nomad, a nomadic entrepreneur. Um, I also am on Instagram at a nomadic entrepreneur. Um, my email list is the best place to find me. So on my website, I do have a weekly newsletter where I share, um, operations tips specifically for remote business, online business help, um, online business tips.
So yeah, so that would be my website would be the best place to go to.
Jared: Perfect. We will get that in the show notes if you're watching or listening. Alex, thank you for joining us. Thanks for all the tips you shared. And, um, until we talk again.
Spencer: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for listening to the niche pursuits podcast.
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