What are the 3 Key Ingredients of a New Product Launch?
Over the past few weeks I’ve been sharing what our business has learned over the past year about “passive” income (and if you want to know why passive is in quotation marks, that’s here). We’ve also covered the real deal about how long it takes and how much you make. And today, I’d love to share the takeaways from Product Launch Formula. It’s a pretty sophisticated system, but at its core the key ingredients of a new product launch are actually quite simple.
I came across PLF and Jeff Walker years ago. Admittedly, I immediately dismissed him and his work because I judged anything with “passive income” as a scam. Years later, I haven’t totally revoked my judgement, as I still believe that you have to be really judicious with what you buy. The problem with online courses is that so many of them tell the story: “This will give you the money, freedom, life you’ve been craving…” but aren’t forthright about the work involved to get there.
You have to know that anything with a lasting change is going to take hard work and time. Also before purchasing something, you need to know what problem you’re trying to solve. Treat an online course purchase as you would hiring a consultant: know the problem you’re trying to solve, and buy resource to fill the gap. For example, over the past year, I’ve taken courses on money mindset; PR; and now, new product launches. These 3 have been superb to help Ellevated Outcomes reach its goals, given our knowledge gaps.
The PLF system is all over the internet, with lots of Jeff Walker disciples spreading its word – so I won’t spend too much time recounting it all here. En bref, there are 4 types of launches, called seed, internal, joint venture, and evergreen. And no matter which type of launch, you work through 3 phases: pre-prelaunch, prelaunch, and open cart. (Hopefully it goes without saying that the delivery of a quality product and follow-through is imperative). Then, as you’d imagine, each phase has dozens of steps. But here are the 3 elements of the new product launch strategy that (pleasantly) surprised me the most.
1. Consistency is key.
Though there are simply 3 phases of a new product launch, each contains actions that happen nearly daily over a 4-6 week period. That means 20-30 execution points. Then that means lots of planning behind the scenes. But here’s the good (and bad) news: even if the planning isn’t perfect, consistency is key. As the Speaker Lab says,
Process = Success. Consistency = Secret Sauce.
2. Go first.
The pre-prelaunch and prelaunch phases are all about giving things away (you know that I love this)! It speaks to Ellevated Outcomes so well because one of our values is abundance, which we describe as, “We give first.”
We try to be generous with our time, money, and referrals (hello Miracle on 34th Street business development). So I was pleasantly surprised that this online strategy embraces the same principle. Be a good person. Show up in your communities. Share. Go first. And those who appreciate and acknowledge what you’re doing will buy.
It reminds me something my friend Giulio told me years ago, “If someone offers a free app, I always pay for the upgrade. If they’re sharing a product for free, it’s the right thing to do.”
3. Ironically, relational real-life business development will make your online business soar.
I have a confession: when I started diving deeply into online marketing, I was scared. After all, I’ve made a career of talking about money & meaning. Offline, meaningful, up-close relationships are the cornerstone of my business and life. (I’m that annoying friend, alongside your mom, who calls you on the phone on your birthday. I know, you hate me). I even preach that ironically the way to scale a business is with intimacy. So, was I about to be told that I was wrong?
With nerves, surprise, and delight (and contrary to what most people think), I learned that no. Actually, scaling an online business – as you would an offline business – it still about IRL relationships. Jeff Walker tells the story of catapulting from $18K to $3.7M because of joint venture (offline) relationships he built. That is where the scale actually happened. If you’re familiar with tech terms, it’s the truest sense of the network effect. But the network effect can’t happen if you don’t have people to activate it for you. And no one will activate it for you without real relationships.
