Denise Duffield...:            Hey, gorgeous, and welcome back to Chill & Prosper. It is totally your time, and you're ready for the next step to chill and make more money. So today, we are talking about one of my favorite things to talk about in business, which is launching, whether it's launching a course, or launching a program, or a group coaching program, or something like that, I love and I hate launching. So today, I want to talk about just some little tweaks that I made that really have improved some of my recent launches, and that's all you need to do, is you need to just launch and tweak, launch and tweak, launch and tweak.

                                                So just real quick, I've been launching for quite a long time, right? I've been doing course launches since 2009, when I ran my first-ever group program, it was called the Raw Brides Transformation Plan. So I didn't know what my business was going to be back then. I just got married, I had eaten a bunch of raw food to get fit for my wedding, and so, I was like, "Teach what you know." And so, I wrote a book called Raw Brides, and I had my program called the Raw Brides Transformation Plan. Now, already you can hear in my voice, so it's "raw," as in raw food, "brides," as in brides, but people would go, "Rob rides? What's Rob rides?" And I'd go, "No, it was raw brides."

                                                So I had one per person join that program, and I did the whole launch and the video stuff, and you know what? This is the biggest tweak I want you to learn. Okay? There are no failures in launching, ever, ever, ever. This will be your first test, if you want to make lots of money. So, I had one person in my program. Did I feel like a loser? Did I cancel the program? Did I refund that first person? I did not. I felt like the biggest winner, I really did. I felt like such a winner. I was like, "Oh my God, someone is paying me to teach them something that I know? This is amazing."

                                                And yeah, it's a bit tricky logistically when you've got one person, especially if you intend to do a group for it or a Facebook group for it. I actually didn't for my first launch. And so, just it's okay to keep things simple for your first launch, because yeah, you might not need a Facebook group for your first launch, especially if you're only going to have one person. That's totally fine. I did live calls, and that person came to every call. Isn't that amazing? And I did the call and I was like, "Wow, here's a frequently asked question," because she never asked a question.

                                                So that's my first tweak, is that everything is a lesson for next time. Everything is a lesson for next time. My next course had five people in it, and one person had a refund. And then the first time I ran Money Bootcamp was in 2012, it had 20 people in it, and then the next one had 42, and then 60, and now we've had over seven and a half thousand people at the time of me recording this. So I have done a ton and ton of launches, right? And every time you launch, you can just tweak a little thing, and the biggest mistake I make is that people quit too early, because they think it's a one-and-done thing, and it's not.

                                                Even that Raw Brides Transformation Plan, I know I say it so quickly, having that one person on it, it's still the same amount of work. I still had to do the sales page, I still had to do the checkout page, I still had to create handouts, I still had to do videos, I still had to do all of those things. And so, if you're feeling like a loser because you didn't get the results that you wanted to, I want you to flip this around and go, "Those people had faith in me, but also, they pay for me to create all of these assets," because there's so much, there's so much that has to be done, and then it'll be easier the second time. You'll have the templates, you'll be able to do it again and again, and the first time you do it, there's so many technical things to learn, and then you tweak, okay? You don't have to start from scratch again and again. So don't quit, that's the first lesson.

                                                The second lesson is you don't have to reinvent the wheel all the time. You don't have to start from scratch every single time you do it. Every time I launch Money Bootcamp, sometimes I do new launch videos, sometimes I reuse the same ones because they're fine. I rerecord the videos every two years or so, but you don't have to do it every single time. We use a lot of the same emails, because there's a million emails that you have to write. So it's okay to use the same ones and tweak it, and the lesson around tweaking rather than reinventing, is that it's totally okay for you to make things easy, and I feel like people feel like it's cheating, that they have to earn it. And so, then they scrap everything and they start again, or you scrap everything and start a completely new business, and you do not need to do that. Okay? You absolutely don't need to do that.

                                                Okay, so here are some other tweaks that we make. Okay? So I want you to think about all the things you learn about launching, about how you might've bought a course, or a blueprint, or something like that, and it's totally okay to tweak things that works for you and your audience. Okay? So for example, close cut times and dates. So I used to always close cut at midnight, because that's what people taught me. I was like, "Oh, you just close the cut at midnight," and I realized that the people I was taking advice from were young men in their 20s and 30s who didn't have kids.

                                                So this is who I learned from when I first started doing launching like 10, 15 years ago. I would go to these bro marketing conferences, no offense, bro marketers. I love you, I accept you, but I'm not a bro marketer. Right? But I just didn't even question it, not realizing my target audience is probably not awake at midnight. A lot of people in my audience have children, and if you're anything like me, I go to bed at 9:15, because my kids wake up at 4:30. So you're allowed to take blueprints and things like that, and just take what works for you and what doesn't. Okay? It's totally okay for you to make it for you and for your audience, and leave the things that don't work. All right. Okay, that's cool.

                                                So another thing that you might want to tweak is how you run your launch in the first place. Okay? So, love Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula, Mark and I use it in our business, we think it's amazing. Right? And so, we endorse that program, and if you ever want to join PLF, you can do it through our program, right? But still, even Jeff Walker, who is the king of launches, he teaches lots of different ways to launch. So that, again, is another lesson about it's totally okay for you to tweak things and do what works for you.

                                                So I have done launches where it's been video content, like three video workshops. I have done launches where it's a challenge, and I've done launches where it's a popup Facebook group. I have done launches where there's been a quiz funnel. I've done launches where it's like free stuff up front. There are so many different ways to launch something. You can choose what works for you. If you hate being on camera, you don't have to do it on camera. If you hate being salesy, you don't have to be salesy.

                                                And one tweak I made actually in our last launch, is I said to Mark, "Look, I just hate doing the reveal at the end of a launch webinar, where you don't tell them the price, you don't even tell them that there's a launch, and then you just spring it at the end," and I said, "You know what? I'm just going to say that in the second slide that I'm going to talk to them about Money Bootcamp at the end," and because Mark likes following rules, right? So he's like, "Yeah, but that's not how you do it," and I go, "Yeah, but it doesn't work for me. I don't feel authentic springing it at the end."

                                                So on my second slide of my sales webinar, I'm like, "Oh, and hey, spoiler alert, I'm going to give you so much great content in here and I know it's going to really help you, but of course, if you want to work with me after, I'm going to tell you about it, so you don't even have to stress." And I even, and this is totally against the rules of launching, I gave them the URL. I was like, "Oh, by the way, if you're curious, here's the URL, this is what I'm going to offer at the end of the webinar," and it was so against the rules, but it made me feel really authentic, and in integrity. Now, you don't have to do that either, because that's just another thing of like, "Oh, Denise said I have to do this." You can launch in however you want to launch, but it's really smart to send out emails and do some of the things that are worth doing.

                                                Now, after the break, I am going to tell you some of those tweaks that I did that I resisted, but that actually made a ton of difference to our launch. All right. I will see you in just a second.

Christina Woote...:          My name is Christina Wooten of Modern Life and Spirit Podcast, and I absolutely loved Get Rich, Lucky Bitch. A friend of mine recommended it to me a few years ago, and it illuminated some money blocks that I didn't realize were lurking around. I've mentioned my love for Get Rich, Lucky Bitch a couple of times on my own podcast, when we talked about the spirit of money, for example. Thanks, Denise.

Megan Moran:                  Hey there, this is Megan Moran from the Mompreneur Guide in Cleveland, Ohio. Denise, I cannot thank you enough for all that you are doing for us fellow entrepreneurs. From Get Rich, Lucky Bitch, to Chillpreneur, to joining your Sacred Money Archetypes Program, I have learned so much on how to be a mom entrepreneur with a little bit more ease.

                                                In your books, I've learned that you don't have to overcomplicate things. You can make marketing simple, and you can make it in a way that's right for you, from marketing your business by sharing what you do, and making an offer to living a keyless lifestyle, and not having too much friction in what you do. Pairing that with Sacred Money Archetypes by figuring out who I am down to the core, and using that to guide the activities and the way that I'm serving people in my business has transformed my life.

                                                Denise, again, I cannot thank you enough for all the work that you're doing, and I can't wait to see what else you come up with in the future, because I know for sure, I'm going to be consuming it like no other. Thank you again for all that you do.

Denise Duffield...:            Okay, welcome back. We are talking about launching and tweaks that I have made that have made a massive, big difference in our profitability, and the results of our launch. Now, I was just saying just before the break, that it's totally okay to make up your own rules around launching, and I will say yes, but with a caveat, because what I see people do sometimes is go, "I'm just going to manifest clients. I'm just going to manifest people to join my course. I don't like marketing. I'm going to do anti-marketing, and I hate launching, I'm going to do anti-launching," and you know what? That can be such a sabotage, because marketing is manifesting. Marketing is manifesting clients. Manifesting just means make real, and if you don't tell people about what you do, and how you can help them and how they can work with you, your launch is probably going to flop, because you're probably not going to actually do the things and tell people about it.

                                                So when I follow a launch process, there's just things that you need to do, right? You need to tell a story, you need to show people how you can help them, you need to tell them logistically how to join your program, you need to have the things in place so they can give you money. There's a lot of logistical things around that, that if you don't do, are real freaking sabotage, right? So don't kid yourself that you can just hide in your room, and people are going to knock on your door and go, "Hey, can I join your program?" Launching is just such an amazing way to tell people about what you do. And yes, it's going to bring up all of your money blocks, it's going to bring up all your fears around, "I'm an imposter. Nobody wants what I have," and I've done so many other episodes about this. You can go search my one on imposter syndrome, you can go search my ones on confidence and all the things, but it's really smart to follow a process and then just tweak it. Okay?

                                                All right. So, here's an interesting tweak that I made around payment plans. Okay? This was a mindset tweak. So a lot of people resist the idea of offering payment plans because yes, it does create work to offer them, to administer them, all that kind of stuff, but it can also be a really great way of increasing your launch revenue by offering people the chance to pay things off over the time. But I realized is that I actually had a massive mindset issue around offering payment plans, because I realized I had a story that nobody would pay in full, that I'm not worth paying in full for.

                                                And so, the first couple of times I launched, 95% of people paid on the payment plan, because it was my issue, I realized, it wasn't worth paying full price for. So I had to shift my mindset to be like, "Oh, this is totally worth paying in full four. I attract people who pay in full as well," and the next time we did it, it was 70%, and actually, in our last launch, it was 50/50, which really surprised me, but I realized I'd done so much mindset tweaks about that it's safe for me to receive more money upfront, it's safe for people to invest in me full out.

                                                So just have a little look at that about what mindset issues are coming up when you're thinking about offering a payment plan, both in resisting it in the first place, but on the other side of it, of expecting that most people will. And especially if you've got a story about maybe you always do the payment plan or you don't have the money up front, but yeah, just tweak your mindset around that, because it can be really, really interesting offering the payment plans. And by the way, I have an episode about how to chase up default payments, so if that's a stress for you, just search for that, because that can bring up some stuff for you as well.

                                                Now, a couple of years ago, I made a massive tweak around my money back guarantee, that made such a big difference, not for the launch necessarily, but for the after launch stuff. So, I want to just do some real talk here, right? Refunds are going to happen. It doesn't make you bad that people ask for a refund. Now that I've sold thousands and thousands of programs, and like 20 million worth of courses and stuff, refunds just follow a very predictable process. We know how many people will ask for a refund in a launch, and there's definitely little things you can do.

                                                So, but we used to have a 60 day money back refund period, and I pride myself, if someone doesn't like it, we don't make people jump through hoops, and we just let them do it, but my refund policy was starting to be a little bit abused, and it was really impacting me. So we had people who would set their calendar for day 59, and ask for a refund after they had joined the course, played out, asked me heaps of questions, went on all the calls, interacted in the community, everything, and they just took advantage of it because it was there. They were like, "Oh, no questions asked? Well, okay, I'll just ask for my money back," and they didn't feel guilty about it at all.

                                                And the worst time, this is where it really made a massive impact on me, we did a big launch in October, and so, the 59th day actually fell on Christmas Eve one year, and yes, it was all legal and proper for people to ask for a refund, but it just made me feel so bad. It made me feel like all these people were really just taking my work, and abusing me and taking advantage of me, using it up, and then asking for a refund, so they had more Christmas money. And if there were people homeless on the street at Christmas and they needed their money back, fine, but you'll find that people will do this, people will be really cheeky, and I feel like it's really out of integrity to ask for your money back if you got value out of a course. I really, really do.

                                                So, I actually changed and made a tweak to a 14 day refund period, which was enough for people to kind of check out the course, engage with it, see if it's right for them, and leave, but without it being exploitative to me, and that tweak, it felt so much more win-win for me. I was like, "This is a mutual thing. If you don't like this, then I'll just give you your money back, but you don't get to have all of my content. You don't get to see everything. You don't get the bonuses until after the refund period. You get to see the first two lessons of the course, and that's it."

                                                So that's not to say you have to do that. You do not need to do that, but if there's something around launching and then delivering that is rubbing you the wrong way, then it's safe for you to make little tweaks around it, even if that's how you started. It's your business, your rules, you can change things anytime, and you can change it for the people going ahead, because otherwise, if you don't sort out all these things that annoy you, you're not going to launch. You're just not going to do it, and that's sad, right? If you're letting someone who's asking for a refund let you throw in your business, then that's horrible, because think of all the amazing people that you could help, if you just let yourself do it, and give yourself permission, the fact that not everyone's going to love it. It's okay for some people to not like it. It's okay for some people to not like your voice. It's okay for some people to realize they've made a mistake. It doesn't mean that it's not good, and I don't want you to derail your whole business just because of that.

                                                All right. So one other tweak that I made, which is so obvious, and you might think, "Oh, Denise, you're at a stage of business where you don't have to do everything yourself," is outsourcing during the launch. Oh my God, I know it sounds so easy, but I like writing all the emails myself, doing all the graphics myself, doing all the things myself, and realizing it's totally okay to do shortcuts. There are so many people now who sell templates of stuff. You can get templates of launch emails, you can get templates of, I don't know, slides for your webinar. You do not have to do everything yourself, and I know it sounds so stupid when I've got a multimillion dollar business and you just think, "Of course Denise is outsourcing." There's still a part of me that feels like I have to do it all myself.

                                                So whatever's really stressful for you, whether it's writing scripts to do your videos, trying to do the videos yourself, doing the graphics yourself, creating your slides for your launch webinar. Even if it's like you don't want to launch because you hate having a Facebook group, you can hire a community manager to help you in your Facebook group, but the lesson is that it's totally safe for you to get help. It's safe for you to take smart shortcuts, to find hacks around launching. Oh my God, it is honestly the best thing that I've done recently is just going, "Oh, who already does that? Oh my gosh. Who has a template?" So I don't have to start from scratch. Yeah, as I said, you think I would've learned that lesson a long time ago, but I really haven't, and the first time that I got someone to do my videos for me, I was like, "What? This is so easy. Oh, this is brilliant."

                                                Now, I have a ton of launch things for you. I've got a ton of articles I've written about launching, so I've put them all in one place. If you go to denisedt.com/launch, you'll see everything that I've ever written about launching, including mindset stuff and different tips. I'll put it all together so you don't have to search around for it, and if you are launching, trust me, it is absolutely worth it. I promise it is so worth it. It is planting a seed that could make millions of dollars for you and your family, and help potentially thousands and thousands of people. So I always love hearing about people's launch fears and things like that, so obviously, feel free to hit me up on social media, but it is totally safe for you to launch. All right, I'll see you for my final thoughts, right after the break.

Tasha Corbin:                     Hello, my name is Tasha Corbin, and I teach consent-driven marketing and sales strategies to online business owners. I've been a member of Denise's Money Bootcamp for several years now, and the things that I love most about Bootcamp are that it is a deeply inclusive space, and Denise's program is not built on toxic positivity, or bypassing our real and lived experiences. Denise never tells us to hustle harder, or burn ourselves out, or subscribe to the patriarchal systems and tools that are pervasive in online platforms and the personal development world these days. One of of the things that I love about Money Bootcamp is that it hasn't just helped me to increase how much money I make and how much money I keep in building my investments and savings, but it's helped me embrace a life of easy, lazy, and fun approaches to making more money, and keeping more money. Money is fun for us to make, to spend, to invest, and to give away, and embracing the approach that Denise teaches has completely changed my life for the better. I am so grateful for Money Bootcamp.

Denise Duffield...:            Welcome back, and my final thought is about the word "rich." Rich. I notice sometimes in the personal development world, sometimes the spiritual world, people don't like saying the word "rich," They say "abundant" instead, and that's fine. "Abundant" is also a cool word, but let's ponder this word "rich" for a little bit. You might have some stories about what a rich person is, and what I know to be true now is that rich is so different for everyone. What makes me feel rich might not feel good for you, and vice versa.

                                                So what do you need to do to make friends with this word "rich," and being more rich? It could be, "It's safe for me to be rich. I can be rich being me. I am what a rich person looks like." Maybe you have some stories about that you're not old enough, or you're not young enough, or you're not pretty or skinny enough, or tall enough, or white enough to be rich, and rich can be whatever we want it to be now. "It's safe for me to enjoy being rich," maybe it's something like that, or "It's safe for me to be the richest person I know." That could be an interesting thing to ponder over the next couple of days.

                                                So let me know what you think about this word, "rich." Share this episode, tell me what your ahas are, and I will see you next week on another edition of Chill & Prosper. Peace out for me.

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