Elisa Boogaerts shares her insights on the importance of planning and executing successful program launches on this episode of The One Small Change podcast. She emphasizes the need to establish systems and processes early on to ensure smooth operations. Boogaerts also highlights the significance of reframing negative experiences as a means of overcoming resistance.

Guest Bio:

Elisa Boogaerts is a launch planner with 16 years of experience in coaching, corporate project management, and helping entrepreneurs organize their businesses. She specializes in guiding coaches through program launches and events while emphasizing the value of strategic planning.

Key Points:

- Importance of Planning for Launches - 00:07:00

- Overcoming Resistance and Negative Associations - 00:01:51

- Understanding the Launch Process - 00:07:48

- Managing Launch Anxiety and Overwhelm - 00:11:14

- The Significance of Establishing Scalable Processes - 00:15:09

Main Quote:

"I think it's so important to have a plan because a lot of the people that I do work with are the big picture thinkers and the ideas people." - Elisa Boogaerts

Links:

Here's the link to my gift:

Launch Mastery: 5 Game-Changing Tactics Every Coach Needs To Launch Their Program: https://inspirationbyelisa.thrivecart.com/gift/

Here's the link to book a call with Elisa:

https://calendly.com/inspirationbyelisa/gameplancall

This is the link to Elisa's monthly workshop:

https://inspirationbyelisa.thrivecart.com/launchworkshop/

This is the link to Elisa's website:

https://launchplanner.my.canva.site/home

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the One Small Change. I am

really thrilled that you are, you know, wanna take this journey

of exploration and transformation with me. And I'm your host,

Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost 30 years of

entrepreneurial experience and passion for discovering growth

through the power of seemingly small change. So thank you for

joining me on this journey. And this week, we

are talking to Elisa,

and I'm not even gonna try to slaughter your last name. But

but you're gonna find what she has to share with you

is gonna be amazing. And, you know, I always say,

never make it One and done. Take something from what she says One

think about how you're gonna apply it right away. So, Elisa, thank

you so much for coming. Thanks for having me,

Yvonne. Yeah. Tell us what you do. Yeah. So I'm

a launch planner, and I help coaches plan and

execute their program launch and even events if they want me to

help with that. So I also help them, like, set up their systems and really

keep their business organized. And so I do it in a very structured and organized

way, and I, in my corporate career. So I have a combined,

16 years experience of coaching myself and launching my own programs and

also project management. So bringing that into the coaching world and just

being a super organized planner person,

and and yeah. Because I just find it really comes easy to me, and I

know that it's not a skill that that everyone has.

So, you know, so the first lesson is you don't have to know everything

or be able to do everything yourself, you know, if you wanna

get good results. So so tell us what what your small

change was that had, a a huge impact on

you. Yeah. It was,

it was actually becoming the launch planner. I,

I really resisted it for quite some time because I quit my

corporate job in 2023. And literally The

next day, I had I went to, an an in person networking

event called JVX. It was in Vegas, and I got to meet my business coach

in person, which is amazing. I got to actually, like, hug him, which is so

awesome. And, and I bounced this idea off him because I

had heard before that that knowing that some people hire project

managers and, like, if someone's doing a summit, they get allocated a project manager.

And I was like, oh, I wonder if I could do that. And I I

bounced the idea off him, and he was like, yes. Like, you need to be

a launch planner. And it sounded great, but, you know,

sometimes when you say something out loud The sometimes it's, like, perfect

One you're putting it into the universe and you wanna manifest it. But other times,

it may not really sit right. And so for me, it didn't really

sit right. And I noticed this huge resistance to

it, and it was like, you know what? Like, that's what I just did in

corporate, and I just left corporate. Like, I don't want anything to do with that.

I don't want to bring that into my business. It kinda gave me this really,

like, ick kinda feeling. Mhmm. Mhmm. And,

so I put, because I was still doing life coaching at the time being a

confidence coach. And I so I put the idea kinda to the side,

and, and I was Small sort of being encouraged to do it. One, eventually, I

decided I was like, okay. Let's stop, like, pushing down The

feelings. You know, we all know we should probably process our

emotions. One, so I used, like, you know, all the tools that

I do have to figure out what was really going on. And, yes, there was

a lot of resistance. Excuse excuse me.

But it was because in my corporate job, there were

some some of the places that I worked in had a very toxic environment,

and I had to deal with a lot of adversity. And I often

felt, belittled by some of the people that I worked with

because, you know, they had degrees and, you know, they were engineers or

and I was, you know, directors, what have you. And, you know, and to become

a project manager, you can kinda take, like, a 5 day course. You know? So

it's something that I sort of felt like as if I was lesser than them.

Though there are definitely some incredibly intelligent people that I worked with, and I really

respected them. And then I also noticed that the project processes

were really quite strict, and everybody kinda had an opinion of how they should work.

And I often felt at a loss that I couldn't really please

anyone. So I had all this history with all this baggage

that kinda came with it and all the negative feelings when

I did leave, and I was also super burnt out when I left. And

so in my mind, it was like, I don't wanna live, like,

go through that toxicity again. I don't wanna feel burnt out again. So I was

associating it. Right? I was, like, taking my past and throwing it into the

future. And so I really began to reframe it.

And I started to use this affirmation that says,

I'm open to using my gifts and talents. And I was

saying that to myself, okay. I'm open to using my gifts and talents, and this

really helped to, helped me sort of overcome it and really

calm down and think more clearly. And I started to then have

a a better mindset with it One knowing that,

yeah, that I was I was projecting my past into the future One that,

I did some journaling meditation as well, but this affirmation really helped me. And it

gave me this perspective that, you know, if I do

use my project management skills, that it would be my process. It would be

my business. You know? I I could and it's a completely different

industry, and I would get to choose who I work with. And this

all made it sound a lot less scary and a lot more fun.

And I was like, wait. So I can run my own business, use the skills

that come easy to me, work with my favorite people who are coaches, and help

them with skills that they don't have One so that they can do their amazing

work and get their program out there? I was like, okay. That sounds pretty awesome.

And so I was able to make that shift, which helped me to

really you know, I could lean into my own experience of launching programs.

So so let me let me stop you because you've hit on a couple of,

I think, really important things. And so, you know, the

first One, is one of the ones that, you

know, I teach all the time is your

uniqueness and your gift is the thing that makes you different

from everybody else. Do you know? And

that comes from a combination of what I usually say is my

heart business and my head business. And so, you

know, when you when they talked about project management, that was kind of

your head business, and it came with all the yucky stuff that you

know? And and your heart business was I wanna help people. You

know? And your uniqueness is well, I get to pick them, and I get

to pick the kinds of things that they wanna do. And now I'm

someplace that I'm excited about, that I can really write. And

so that is an amazing thing to know that you can

take what you already have and reframe it

as you said, and come up with something so much better and so much more

powerful for you. I also One us to take a step

back because I think the the term launch is a

very marketing niche, you know, kind of word,

for people who are just starting their business or, you know, maybe haven't gotten

into marketing a whole lot. So I'd really like you

to, talk about what a launch entails

One also how there is a launch process

even for something small. I mean, when we think about launching a course,

launching a a workshop, launching a summit,

You know? But I think that, you know, where we miss the boat a

lot of times is that learning how to launch something from something

small. So if you could talk about that a little bit, I

think that would be really helpful to the audience.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think it really starts

with, coming up with a plan of what you want. I think that I mean,

I I love planning, so I know I plan everything. One,

and so what kind of goes into that plan, for

launch can really be Let me take you let me take you back a step

because, you know, if I could get you to talk with the

idea of what the idea of launch is. Launch is kind

of starting something or putting something.

I mean, maybe I don't have the right definition, so that's why I'm asking you.

Putting something out there so it'll happen, I guess, is what

I'm which is Yeah. But so

do a better one. Yeah. So launching, you're

right. It's putting something out into the world, and it doesn't

even have to be for the first time. It could be, you know, if you

have a program that you like to make available to your clients,

say, 3 times a year, each one of those could be considered

a launch. So when you're sort of being like, okay. It's now available.

Come work with me. And leading up to that are a whole

bunch of steps to get people into the program. So that's kind of what the

the launch process is. And same with, like, a summit as well. It's like, okay.

The summit is now something that people can come to, something that you're selling.

And, and so that's, yeah, kind of putting it out into the world and

showing your genius, really. It's it's it's about how do you let

people know that you're doing a thing. That a

thing is coming up, whatever that thing is. Right. Yeah. Because we

don't wanna be the best kept secret. Right? Because you can create your

program, but you gotta tell people about it. So, you know, you can

you know, the intensity of the The or how much work you put in it

depends on if it's something that you you

you just decide you're going to you know, I'm I'm kind of making this

ultra simple. If you decide you're gonna do a work,

workbook live, a Facebook live, or a LinkedIn live,

then that's just a matter of letting people know that you're gonna do

it. So it's a very simple form of a launch. If you're doing

something like a workshop, you've got more steps to it, and you need

to go into more avenues, to get it done. So that's

kinda what I want people to start thinking. I want them to start thinking

launch. How do I get my stuff in front of people?

Right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And you're right. And there's, like, very varying

degrees of it as well. And, because you could, yeah, do, like, a

Facebook live as a form of, like, a sort of a speaking thing that you're

doing yourself to introduce the program and, like, getting people into it.

And you could do, like, a whole 3 month process where

you're working with JV partners One, like, you have, like, hundreds of people

coming to you, The event that you're putting on, like a workshop or a master

class or even a 3 day event if you're sort of, like, you know, more

of like a multi six figure coach. And then that all

all roads lead to your program that you were selling.

So so the other thing you

talked about was

kind of, I don't wanna say getting over

yourself, but saying, you know, kind of discovering that people

needed what you had. So what are the what are

some of the things that you're discovering that people don't put into

their launch or don't think about in terms of launching?

I think that I think that some people don't

think about it much at all. They're just sort of like, oh, you know, I'm

gonna put my program out there One, yeah, you know, I'll I'll do it in

May. They're like, okay. So it's The May's in 2

weeks. Is are you gonna do it? Sort of you know, it's kind of, like,

just sort of this idea, but it's like, oh, that's something in the future. I'll

I'll worry about that later. And then I noticed that, you know, if they if

you do actually can get them to commit to a date, then some sort of

fears and anxieties can come up around that. And some people can be like,

excitement. Right? Because fear is excitement on pause. One

then, so if you kind of, like, all of a sudden you realize,

oh, the the date's in 3 weeks, and you start to think of all the

stuff that you may or may not wanna do, And then that kind of can,

increase anxiety bill levels One that people feel overwhelmed and stressed out.

And so I think that, if I were to give sort of like a tip,

it's really think about it early and and plan it out of all the

things that you wanna do One do it bit by bit, week by

week so you can get everything done that you wanna get done without feeling that

overwhelmed stress crunch time One, like, the week before you wanna

launch your program. So let me let me tell you 2

things that, I've encountered, which I find kinda funny.

One is I'm like you. I love to plan. I mean, you One,

And so the flips so there are 2 parts of that. So for

those of you that don't like to plan One, like, you know,

one person said to me, you say the word plan One I automatically wanna

run. You know, what do you

do for them? And then the other side of it is I I

had someone say to me once, you're so

linear, and I'm much more spiritual and holistic.

And my answer to that was, okay. I understand The,

but if you try to attract

people to your program One you do it by saying, okay. This is what

I feel like today. This is what I'm gonna do. Then your

client has to be in the exact same mood, in the exact

same mindset, at the exact same time you are to be able

to find you. If you can put some consistency in

so they know how to find where you're gonna be, then they can

find you. So can you kind of put those 2 ideas together,

like, why Yvonne if you might be holistic and much more, you

know, loose, having some

kind of a plan is is better.

Yeah. I think that it's so important. Excuse me.

I think it's so important to have a plan because, also, yeah, because I think

a lot of the people that I do work with are the big picture thinkers

and the ideas people. One, and I think that

actually a lot of them do quite like to have someone sort of bring

them down. One, last year, I was learning a lot about masculine

energy and feminine energy, and we need to have a good balance of both. And

so I think the person you're sort of describing has a more sort of, like,

feminine energy and a little bit sort of, like, more floaty. But you do need

some of the masculine energy to sort of anchor you down or also just kind

of always be floating and maybe never actually

get things out in a way or get have, like, the success that you want

in your business, I think, if you are to use a little bit of masculine

energy to put some things in place, be a little bit more

tactical, because in doing so because I think The,

people wanna feel cared for when they come into your

world, when they come into your program, and they wanna know that you know what

you're doing. And there's a bit of, like, you know, like, you have, like, a

start One, and there's a bit of structure to the program. And so I think

that if you can't deliver that to people in some

way, that they might be a little bit more hesitant to to

join you. At least that's kind of what I have found that people like to

they feel a little bit more cared for being like, okay. There's, like, this person

is gonna take me on this journey, and there's a bit

of a plan to it. Yeah. I don't know if that answers your question. I

think it's it's having a safety net. Do you know? It's

like, typically, when people are getting in front of people, even if you're if

you're relaunching something, you know, you've made a decision to

do something different. I'm gonna either put it in front of a different audience, or

I'm gonna do a different medium or a different way.

So the idea of it may not have worked. You know, I

don't know if it'll work, or it may not work again. So having

somebody there to have, you know, that outside

perspective has gotta be helpful. And and The

other piece that I think people may

not think about, and I'm just guessing here,

is that when you help them, you're putting

in place a process that's scalable.

I just had I just had an interesting conversation, and they were saying, did

you, could you take a look at this, and is The step in

there? And I said, well, you need to add another step because of this.

And they go, oh, well, it doesn't matter because I, you know, I don't have

anybody that's doing that now. And I go, but you will.

Yes. Why not build it in now? And now that you have that step, if

somebody does come in, it you know, because one of the things that I see

so often I'm sorry. One of the things that I see so often, especially

with big thinkers sometimes and particularly generous entrepreneurs,

is they have a structure in place, and then they do all these

outside the structure things. So they'll go, oh, you

know, I'm gonna let you in my program for free, you know, because

of something you did for me or whatever. And so they never get them

into the system, and so they never get the emails.

They never get the reminders. I mean, I can't tell you how many times that's

happened to me where it's like they were like, well, you didn't come. And I

was like, I never got a notice. Right. You know? I

mean, do you know? And so that's the kind of thing is you can

actually give better service to the people that

you're working with when you've got a system, so you've got

consistency One your quality is good. And so

also, you can spend more time doing what you

do instead of trying to chase, you know,

the the odd the one the one off things. Does that make I

mean, does that make sense? That totally makes sense. Yeah. And I that's something I

really like to work with people as well. It's, like, setting up those systems and

processes, even something as simple as filing. You

know? Like, do you have a good filing structure so you can find things? Because

I don't know how many times people search for things. Right? Like, you have some

assets somewhere, some image, or some document, and you spend so much time searching for

it. And, actually, a a client of mine, he had,

in his previous launch, had a contractor who was doing

everything, but she was using her personal email and saving everything on

her personal. And so when she her contract ended One

they didn't bring her back for the next launch, she kept all that because it

was all on her personal systems. It wasn't on his. So there wasn't the system

for the him to have access to all of it, and so they had to

recreate everything. And they ended up doing a little bit late and a little bit

rushed, and he thinks that he lost about $50

from that launch. That if he had had all those assets and hadn't had to

spend all that time to recreate everything. And it's the same that if you lose

something, you have to, like, spend that time to recreate it. So, like, you know,

even just these little things because when you do scale One you do bring people

in, you wanna have it sort of, like, in a way that they can find

it easily as well because we all believe everybody will still. Right? We will

all eventually have a team. So, yeah, it's good to get those systems in

place. But, you know, I know one of the things that I'm working on is

naming the podcast so that when I send it over to the people

that are doing whatever they do, doing the magic that they

do, They will be able to find my Podcast, and also I'll be able to

file it because it's you know, someone said to me once,

it's not where you put it that's important. It's what you think

of when you need it. Mhmm.

To be able to retrieve it. And I was like, oh, that makes

sense. And so, you know, you know, I have a coach

that's working with me on naming, you know,

format and, you know, again, where I'm putting stuff so I can

find it, that kind of stuff. Because I do spend an inordinate amount

of time after after being in business over 30 years. I've got

good lord. Good googly moogly. I got, you know, a junk draw

that's probably as big as some people's house, you know,

finding stuff. And I'm I'm always amazed when I do find it's like,

oh, I remember this. This is actually pretty good. Maybe I should

rename it so I could actually find it when I think about it. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I always like to say The. I'm like, if I was me, where

would I put that? Yeah. What was I doing when I

you know? Yeah. Who was I working with or something like that?

So so you've got something an offer for us. So

why don't you tell us tell us about that?

So yeah. So I do, what I offer is

a a planning session. So it's a program planning session, and I know we're talking

about the word plan kind of might make people kind of like, One

it's really so I have this amazing document that I'm super proud of, and

it's got, like, everything. It's actually something we didn't touch on today It's about

tracking as well. So if you can, like, track your metrics as you're

launching or putting stuff out there, you can see if something's not working, and you

can tweak things if you look at your conversion rates and things like that. So

I have this template that has all different things that you can track for a

launch. It has a plan and also,

like, metrics. So you can look at your I call them the keys to success,

the things that you wanna have to track. We have a revenue goal or anything

like The. And we go through the plan together. We sit 1 by 1. We

go go through it and actually commit to a date for your launch and,

and put all the dates in to see if everything that needs to make it

happen. So, yes. If anyone wants to book a call with me to talk about

that, I will, provide a link for, to book a

game plan Small, One we can chat about doing a program planning

session. That will be in the notes for the show. And let me just tell

you. First of all, if

you're if you can't measure something, you're probably

not doing it. And, you know, part of the measure

is so that you can evaluate. So if you're to see whether you're doing it

well, if you're doing it often. The other thing is,

you know, I'm not, you know, there are a lot of people that are very

much into journaling. I'm not a journaler. I

will never do you know, if you've heard me talk before, you've heard me say

that I lost The £150. Yeah. I have never been able to do a

food journal. I have I find food journals in terms of

data really unhelpful. It's

kind of like, I know I ate

it, and 2 weeks from now, I don't wanna go see what I ate. That

doesn't, you know so I have trackers that I

that I developed for when I was losing weight that I use for business

now that is, like, what is my goal? What am I doing every day?

You know? And and it's for people who are visual, and the majority of us

are visual. Trackers are amazing. You

can actually see the patterns. And, you know, I don't know about you,

but, you know, when I get into my tracker, I start to color code it

and all that kind of stuff. And and, you know, it becomes almost like a

game. So I'm gonna really encourage you to take advantage of this

opportunity, especially if you're saying, planning

is not my thing. Because you may find that this experience

will totally open your eyes. You will have an idea about

something totally different and a way to do it. And, you know,

one of the things that she said was, it may not be

exactly the way you wanna do it, but she's gonna help you to customize it

a little bit for what you're doing. And that's the key to it. You know?

You know, I always say, if it doesn't work, it if it doesn't work for

you, it doesn't work. And so, you know, if as you're working

with people, anybody who goes, you have to do this exactly like The.

I mean, unless you're doing surgery or something.

You know, it's gotta have it's gotta have room for your personality and

your needs and and that kind of thing. So Yeah. That's almost one of the

first things that I say in the planning session. I'm like, so I put The

other thing, but I'm not precious about it. This is now yours.

Let's make it work for you. We can change the wording for it. We can

change everything and completely customize it so that it makes sense to them

because it is their plan for their program launch.

Not precious about it. So you're deaf this is,

like, an incredibly valuable gift. I may take you up on

this myself. So I'm gonna encourage everybody

to do this. It is a way to have

somebody look at your business. I gotta tell you, I

this is, like, this is a very sad story.

Especially if you're doing something big for the first time, there

are so many moving pieces, and there can be something that

is so common sense that you thought was already

baked into the the thing, only to find out that it

wasn't. Yeah. I mean, I I can't tell you how many times.

I I won't say I that I did it a lot of times, but one

time was enough The I did something in Zoom,

and I assumed that it had the same link as the other workshops that I

did, and it didn't. And so people were showing up someplace

else, and I was someplace else. Mhmm. Being Totally

avoidable. Totally avoidable with a good plan and a and a good

plan to keep place. Alright. Yeah. So, I wanna say

to everybody, one of the things you need to do is you need to make

sure you check out the the the really

generous gift that Alicia has given you.

Alyssa. Sorry. Wasn't that wasn't a gift, though. That

was just my program I was talking about. Okay.

But if you book a call, you'll see if that's something they need.

Yes. Okay. Sorry. I I miss I misconstrued that.

There will be also be information for, any for

an upcoming workshop that she does on a fairly regular

basis, so we should talk about that. So be sure to, you know, The

the you make sure that you subscribe and you share The,

and give us comments on on Facebook, you know, because we wanna build a

community. And, you know, this is the way to give back give

back to the community and, you know, get

people involved One so you can learn something so that you, you know,

as we go along, we need different things in different times. So, you know,

the thing about the podcast is it's good because you can go into it when

you need it. Alright. So now just for kind of a fun thing before we

end, the question that I'm gonna ask is One was the

last time you did something new for the first time?

That's a good one. I, well, I recently,

volunteered for my, community garden that's in my

my my building here to help The grow, like, fruits and veggies and herbs

for our building. So I hadn't, been wanting to to work with them and

volunteer with them. So that's something that I have done for the first time.

I think that's great because I think, you know, if you wanna stay curious, you

have to do different things, and you need to do things that you haven't you

haven't done before. So,

what would be if you were you know, what would be the last like,

the, you know, practical steps people can take from what you said

today? I would

say to really take the time to set up your systems

and do it early on so So you already have it in place, and then

it can just flow so much more easily. So really, like, give yourself

that time One let yourself just sort of sit down

and think it through. You know, what do you need to do?

And then, systematize it. Okay. And

and I think part of that has to do with,

you know, someone said I feel really bad because I'm really

plagiarizing on this this coach. She said on her workshop,

she said The brain that created this problem is not the same brain

that can solve it by itself. So if you have not been good

at planning in the past, chances are you're not gonna

be hugely more

successful in the future because you don't have the tools,

and so you need some outside help. And there's nothing wrong with that because

none of us can do everything. So that would be my 2¢ with

The, that find out what's holding you back from planning, find out a way that

works for you. Thank you again, and

what I want you to everybody to remember is that

change can be simple, but it's not always easy. And it

requires a certain amount of courage and resilience and a willingness a

willingness to step out of your comfort zone, when you

do something different. And you you made, a comment to that that fear

and excitement are kind of the same thing. We experience it the same, and

that's true. So I want you to join me for the One small

change on a regular basis where we embark on a journey of

bold vision and innovative possibilities. And so I

will see you next time, and thank you so much for spending this time

with us. And I hope we'll do this again at some

point. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on your show, Yvonne. This has

been fun. This was great. Thank you.