7 Signs You’re Ready for a Stress-Free Launch

I recently sat down with a peer for a one-on-one during the middle of a big launch we’re managing for one of our clients.

She looked at me and said, “You don’t look like someone in the middle of a launch.”

I laughed. She was right.

I had enough time and space in my life to show up as my best self for our regular meeting without worrying about answering questions over email, sending passwords, processing payments, etc. This was because I designed the journey, created ideal branded touch points, and automated everything.

If your business relies on launches for revenue and your team wants to pull their hair out at every corner, you should know that you can achieve a calm and collected status, regardless of the size of your launch.

Here are a few signs you’re ready for a stress-free launch:

You have defined “what success looks like”

How many people do you want to sign up? The problem is that most entrepreneurs dream “as big as possible” while not defining enough to feel a sense of accomplishment and success. Is it any wonder how many of us struggle with depression and anxiety? Because if all you’re working for is as much as possible all the time, you can never acknowledge your transformation and growth. 

You have one central place for all client information

And it’s not a shared email box. You’ll want to capture pre-transformation points and measure them throughout your journey with your clients. Digging through old emails before a one-on-one call is not how you want to run your business. Furthermore, it’s important to measure an individual’s progress and benchmark their progress against that of their peers. This will allow you to see patterns and opportunities for strengthening the curriculum or creating some more strategic marketing for the next iteration of your program.

You have onboarding all set & automated

The main reason launches cause stress for people is because they haven’t taken the steps they need to automate & test everything.

Suppose a large influx of people comes into the system, and it’s not fully automated. In that case, you’ll be responding to emails, answering questions, and looking up passwords instead of engaging in a meaningful way. It’s the social equivalent of cooking dinner while your guests entertain themselves instead of being an engaging host.

You have up to two months of pre-launch content planned & produced

I’ve worked on 6 figure launches who’ve advertised to their warm email lists only, with a mention or two on social. You can only do this when your product or program has little to no competition.

The truth is that the bigger program launches have a two-month content plan with a mix of pre-recorded and live engagement opportunities. Creating this is a task in and of itself and takes months of work, but it doesn’t have to be stressful, and it can even be fun.

During the launch phase, the focus should be on engaging with potential customers instead of just creating content. 

You’ve mapped out the journey of your entire program

This goes beyond figuring out the curriculum. You also want to create milestones where your clients have achieved certain things by certain points of your program. 

Have you mapped how your clients feel at each stage of the process and how to use that to take advantage of designing your program? And for each point in the journey, have you outlined your communications, created supplementary materials, and pre-recorded any lesson videos you need?

You have multiple instances for feedback built into the program

One way to ensure clients have a great experience is by ensuring they know and feel like their coach is accessible. Creating a structure to accessibility through feedback surveys provides two benefits: clients always feel they have the opportunity to be heard (even if they don’t always take advantage of it), and you get a strategic insight about what they need at specific points in the program. Whatever you do, do not skip onboarding, end of the module, and offboarding surveys.

You have a team you trust

Managing all the moving pieces by yourself is hard. It helps to have a team to rely on so that, as the leader, you can focus on engaging with your audience when and where it matters the most.

You need space and time for your best ideas and support for bringing everything together for a launch. If not, you’ll find yourself scaling with people instead of with processes, which will only make the day-to-day harder and your next launch more stressful.

At Outspoke Design, we help our clients design, brand, and launch programs over two months, two weeks, or two days. 

The complexity of your launch depends on a lot of factors. But if your business is doing between $500K-$2M a year and you have a team of <10, let's connect for a 15-minute call to see if we can work together on your next launch.