Shownotes
In this episode of the Deeply Rooted Business Podcast, we’re pulling back the curtain on one of the most overlooked elements of a successful launch: your energy. What happens when your launch starts slow, despite all your prep? How do you protect your mindset and momentum when sales aren’t pouring in right away? We’re sharing real behind-the-scenes stories—including what happened when one of Jess’s clients had zero sales in the first 48 hours—and the exact pivots that turned it all around. This episode will help you manage your mental load, protect your energy, and turn every launch into a long-term asset.
In this episode, we cover:
- 00:35 Why mindset matters more than you think when the cart opens
- 03:13 How to acknowledge launch stress and still show up strong
- 08:34 Why the first launch is never the best
- 13:27 The power of having optional pivot points and bonus levers ready before you need them.
- 17:02 How to minimize burnout by managing your personal bandwidth
Links and resources mentioned:
- Listen to Taylor Swift Launch Lessons for Coaches & Service Providers: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/3d36c512-c20f-4456-b226-95743b518072/
- Listen to Email First Essentials: Building a Consistent Conversion Machine: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/83e34c1b-9dfe-4387-b2b7-ff6398f68be2/
Meet Your Hosts
Jessica Walther is the founder and CEO of The Launch Collaborative and Sustainable Success Systems. As a launch strategist and systems consultant, Jess is dedicated to helping solo business owners and small-but-mighty teams build businesses that deliver both peace and profit. She specializes in creating sustainable growth strategies that align with her clients' values and lifestyles.
Rachel Lopez is the founder and CEO of Gal Marketing Agency, a boutique email marketing and strategy firm. With over a decade of experience, Rachel helps heart-driven entrepreneurs craft intentional marketing strategies that attract, nurture, and convert leads sustainably. Her human-first approach ensures that marketing efforts feel authentic and effective .
Together, Jess and Rachel blend systems, storytelling, and soulful strategy to help you grow a business that's deeply aligned with your life—not just your revenue goals.
Connect With Us:
Learn with Us
Get Jess's Sustainable Success Systems Starter Kit, a Notion Business Management Systems that takes your business from overwhelmed to organized with 4 foundational workflows. <<Learn More Here>>
Diagnose Common Launch Problems and Fix Them Fast! Get the Launch Cure Guide : https://www.thelaunchcollaborative.com/launch-cure
Get Rachel's Guide to a High-Converting Email list to learn 4 shifts to elevate your emails & embrace sustainability in your marketing. <<Get it Here>>
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Transcripts
All right, picture this.
Speaker A:Your sales page is live.
Speaker A:Your Instagram post is up.
Speaker A:Your first email went out, maybe it's even on day two, and all you're hearing is crickets.
Speaker A:You've gotten nobody to purchase so far.
Speaker A:People are going to the website, but they're not really clicking.
Speaker A:This was the exact scenario that one of my clients was in a couple of weeks ago when we launched her group program.
Speaker A:It started off painfully slow, but thankfully, with a couple of pivots and mind shift shifts, we were able to turn it around and she actually doubled her enrollment.
Speaker A:Today we'd be diving into the energetics of launching and kind of how to roll with the punches during the one of the most or more stressful weeks probably of your year.
Speaker A:Because no matter how hard you plan for launching, when you open up cart, you're putting yourself out there, you're making yourself vulnerable.
Speaker A:So it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I will say one of the most make or break it parts of a launch is how you hold your energy from the moment that cart opens.
Speaker B:And typically what happens is that we are very much piled on with all of the planning that we just did, all of the writing that we just did.
Speaker B:So come open cart.
Speaker B:It's kind of like don't take your foot off the gas kind of thing, which can be immediately deflated if you start to not see anything.
Speaker B:So I really do think that the energetics, like, if you're listening to this and you're not very much woo.
Speaker B:Like jesser I.
Speaker B:And you're like, okay, next episode, like, hold on.
Speaker B:Because this can make or break if you are drained and exhausted, because people can feel that in your posts and everything.
Speaker A:Yep, yep.
Speaker A:But first, before we start, Mary Swiftness, I was thinking about this today.
Speaker A:This is the second Friday of a Taylor Swift album drop that we've been recording because, like, last time we did it and I was like, wow, we've really been recording for a long time.
Speaker A:So I'm very.
Speaker A:I was very surprised to just like, have that realization that, like, oh, wow, there's been two Taylor Swift album drops on a Friday.
Speaker A:I think I was a lot more tired for Tortured Poets because it was longer album and like a double album.
Speaker A:But yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker A:And I was kind of thinking about, like Taylor launching her album, which I did a whole episode about Taylor's launch strategy a couple of weeks back.
Speaker A:Back and go listen to.
Speaker A:But, like, was she nervous?
Speaker A:Like, what are her, like, energetic practices?
Speaker A:Like, does she just, like, turn off social?
Speaker A:I mean, I know she didn't go on social a lot, but does she just like turn off the world or is she like sitting there like getting updates about like what everybody is saying about it or I was just kind of also imagining like her assistants being like.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And everybody's talking about that song called Wood where you literally surprise.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And they're all questioning your choice.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:That is so funny.
Speaker B:Okay, we could make this whole episode about Taylor Swift.
Speaker B:So we want to know if this is.
Speaker B:If you're a Swifty and you're listening like on one of our posts, just share what your favorite song is from the album so far because we want to talk more about it, but we have, we have things to get to.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's go into tip number one with maintaining a high vibe launch energy is just acknowledge the stress.
Speaker A:Like there is going to be stress in every single launch.
Speaker A:I think people think if they can like plan and make sure that all their like die eyes are dotted and T's are crossed that everything's going to be okay.
Speaker A:But once you open up the cart like you're control, like everything's kind of out of your control.
Speaker A:Like you just kind of have to like do your best and then surrender and trust.
Speaker A:So I think one of the ways that you can normalize it is just knowing like naming it like this is just launch jitters.
Speaker A:Like it's not evidence that like anything's going wrong and really bringing in like whatever like self regulating practices you need to do.
Speaker A:So whether that be walking or meditating or affirmations or journaling and kind of just getting that like sense of stress.
Speaker A:Especially, especially if you have a live event because it's going to show up there off of your plate and then just kind of like redirecting it into, you know, if things are not going as plans, redirecting into like looking at the metrics and seeing like what they are telling you because then you're able to kind of pull out those like strategic pivots.
Speaker A:Like I said, I had this happen with a client last week and I'd love to get your thoughts on this.
Speaker A:And I'm like, should we just not do like an early opened wait list anymore?
Speaker A:Because we early open to the wait list.
Speaker A:We had like prime them but we, we did a two day early bird and no one bought and then my client had to do a live event and like I had to like kind of boost her confidence back up because we had just went through two days of no sales and now she need to get on Live event.
Speaker A:Thankfully after live event, like people bought.
Speaker A:But it was just kind of weird to me.
Speaker B:That's so funny because I am still an advocate for the waitlist.
Speaker B:Like I just did a launch with one of my clients where we did wait list and we did her like regular list and we segmented them because she having kind of FOMO of being like, I want to send.
Speaker B:I don't want to like leave people out of the conversation even though they didn't raise their hand.
Speaker B:And like her wait list still overperformed by like 20, 30% versus the full list where I'm like, yeah, you got people coming in from that.
Speaker B:But like if we just worked harder to grow the wait list and shake out those people who didn't necessarily raise their hands.
Speaker B:So I don't know, maybe that was like a buyer behavior thing.
Speaker A:It was just a weird.
Speaker A:I think it was a couple of things I learned.
Speaker A:Like we did it on like we did the early word started on Monday.
Speaker A:Monday people are like busy.
Speaker A:We had an email only strategy and I think we were noticing that maybe like emails might not have been hitting like the actual inbox they're going to promo.
Speaker A:So like we needed to kind of layer on like that ecosystem strategy where.
Speaker B:Don'T get me started on my promotions.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:But you know, we took some learnings away, but I think it's just kind of making sure that those people are like really primed and like know the date that it's going to, to open and when they can enroll and all of that stuff.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Well, I mean I will say like in that particular, like what I know about that launch is that typically when you're promoting a live event, even if you have a wait list, people want to go to the live event.
Speaker A:That's what we thought.
Speaker A:I mean we had people on the wait list buy but they waited after the live event.
Speaker A:They wanted to like kind of learn more.
Speaker A:So I still think it, it helped.
Speaker A:It just kind of like really liked Rock like threw my client for a loop energetically for, for a minute.
Speaker A:But we were able to recover.
Speaker B:So in this mindset number one or mindset shift number one of acknowledging the stress, like I'm going to just put my jess hat on and say systems are self care.
Speaker B:And the way that you can systemize and still get into your routine of doing the things that make you feel grounded, doing the things that are maybe something that feels like it can be dropped when you're in this kind of like different energy.
Speaker B:So like launch energy, you're more likely to Be getting ready because you have to be on stories or you have to be getting ready for your events and things like that.
Speaker B:That could be like, okay, well I'm going to take my time to get ready today, but I'm going to kick out my meditation practice or I'm going to kick out my morning walk.
Speaker B:Do the things that make you feel grounded and don't throw those out because that is what's going to keep you stuck steady through these kind of like one week of just like active time.
Speaker B:So I want to make sure that we preface that like don't do an or situation.
Speaker B:Do an and situation.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think, I think this goes back to like the more you can have wrapped up and planned before you actually open cart, the better.
Speaker A:So one of the things for this particular client is like, like we had spent a lot of time, effort, energy on preparing for the live event, prepping like all the emails in the sales page.
Speaker A:But her social strategy, it was kind of just there.
Speaker A:Like I guess the plan was for her to like just kind of like pop up on stories and share organically.
Speaker A:And at that point she did not have like the energy, the creativity because she was under so much stress.
Speaker A:So thankfully I was able to swoop in and I just started like scripting out story.
Speaker A:You know, I spent like, you know, two hours scripting out a story for every single day with like testimonials and all of this so that I was able to like see it to her each day to kind of take some of that like lift off.
Speaker A:So that'll be something that we definitely change going into the next launch is making sure that we have like not just our emails plan, not just our post plan, but like every single day like the action items that we're going to be doing.
Speaker B:Totally okay.
Speaker B:So moving into mindset shift number two is essentially treating every launch like an experiment, which it is putting your scientist hat on and looking at things like they are a scientific trial.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We have designed this beautiful product, we've tested some of the messaging.
Speaker B:Now we're going to collect the data and how do we make sure that we're looking at things that we can pivot in the moment to handle, whether that be slow open carts, the mid launch lull or really kind of boost that like end of launch momentum.
Speaker B:But how do we take the numbers and what they're telling us and like really shifting it to build on the momentum now, but also to make next launch way more impactful.
Speaker B:And I will say that some people get very stressed about numbers they look at them and they're like, I don't even know what's going on.
Speaker B:But I think that, like, I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but, like, numbers are very calming to me.
Speaker B:Like, give me a truth.
Speaker B:They don't give me this blown up, like, thoughts in my head that are, like, fueled by my insecurities.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because they're not, like, subjective, I guess.
Speaker A:There's like, no emotion tied to them.
Speaker A:I can even remember back in, like, retail when I would have to, you know, performance manage or, you know, manage or motivate my subordinates that were underneath me.
Speaker A:Like, I would always, like, make sure that they had, like a number goal and then tie their performance to that number goal.
Speaker A:Because that's kind of just easier to talk about than, like, you're just not doing your job.
Speaker A:Then, like, hey, your goal is to make this much in sales or have this conversion and you didn't hit it.
Speaker A:So let's talk about how we can, like, actually fit that.
Speaker A:We've talked about how important the launch debrief is after, like, looking at those numbers.
Speaker A:Because that's really where you're going to, like, analyze your experiment and then make hypothesis or your next experiments for the next launch.
Speaker A:So to put that in the context of like, real life.
Speaker A:So this was the second time that we launched this program for my client.
Speaker A:The last launch went well.
Speaker A:We had a lowish amount of enrollments for the.
Speaker A:We didn't hit our enrollment goal.
Speaker A:We were able to see that we just weren't getting, like, enough traffic to the sales page.
Speaker A:We had anyone that would get to the sales page would convert.
Speaker A:We didn't have enough traffic there.
Speaker A:So we're like, okay, sales page good.
Speaker A:We don't have to, like, switch.
Speaker A:You don't want to be switching.
Speaker A:Too many variables.
Speaker A:A bunch.
Speaker A:Sales page conversion, good.
Speaker A:Need to drive more traffic.
Speaker A:So then what we did was we're.
Speaker A:I did a.
Speaker A:We're like, okay, we're going to use.
Speaker A:Instagram has been unreliable this year.
Speaker A:So we're going to.
Speaker A:One, we did a couple of things, actually.
Speaker A:We revamped our quiz and did like a really huge quiz push the month before so that we could start driving more people into her launch.
Speaker A: So we got about: Speaker A:And then two, we decided we wanted to experiment with some Facebook ads.
Speaker A:Very low budget.
Speaker A:I think it was like 500 for the entire launch.
Speaker A:But we knew with those Facebook ads that the people were going to be colder.
Speaker A:So then that's why we needed to do.
Speaker A:Do an event so they could see Abby, so they could talk to her, that they could kind of get to know her a little bit, since they were coming a little bit cold.
Speaker A:And we knew we were intentionally doing a lower budget because this was an experiment and we didn't know if it was going to work.
Speaker A:It did work.
Speaker A:We had people that went straight from ads to webinar to converted.
Speaker A:So now it's kind of just a numbers game.
Speaker A:The more money we're going to pump into the ads, the more people are going to come to the webinar, the more people that are converting into the program.
Speaker A:So that's kind of like where we say, like, launching this experiment, look at your numbers.
Speaker A:Like, that's that put into action.
Speaker A:And that's how you scale and grow and improve your results every single time.
Speaker A:And that's why we always say that your first launch is not going to be your best launch.
Speaker A:It's typically going to be the third or the fourth launch.
Speaker B:This is something that I think is really important because Jess didn't just say, hey, I'm going to start paying for ads and that's going to make my conversion better.
Speaker B:Like, we are not taking just this assignment assumption.
Speaker B:Like, I'm gonna post the stories and that's where my sales are gonna come from.
Speaker B:Those things.
Speaker B:I think that when you're replicating and like, if you listen to like our past launch episode where we were talking about, like, you can't do what other successful launches are doing without, like putting your own nuance into it.
Speaker B:You really do have to validate these things because your traffic during launch on story specifically, maybe crash and burn, because that's what Instagram does.
Speaker B:They smell a promotion and they say, just kidding.
Speaker B:You get two people watching your stories and it's your mom and your sister.
Speaker B:Like, those are things that you cannot rely on unless you have like validated lead source data.
Speaker B:You have validated conversion rates and things like that coming from that.
Speaker B:So when we're saying launching as an experiment, do, don't just go, I have $1,000 of extra budget.
Speaker B:Let me put it to ads.
Speaker B:Or I'm not going to do anything.
Speaker B:Because stories usually perform very well.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:Validate it, please.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And okay, so then this brings us into our kind of like shift number three or tip number three is to have like just in case strategies planned out beforehand.
Speaker A:So different levers that you can pull that are plan out before you in because you're not going to want to do it if you're stressed because you're not not meeting your numbers but that you can rely on.
Speaker A:But maybe you don't want to have to do it because it's more work or you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker A:So a couple of these strategies could be like adding in like an open house where like people can come and talk to you.
Speaker A:Like if for all the people that are like clicking but not buying like where they can come ask you like their, you know, objections.
Speaker A:For this past launch we ended up being dming like anyone who had raised their hand for the wait list but didn't end up purchasing them.
Speaker A:Like asking them if they had any like specific questions.
Speaker A:You could release additional bonuses mid launch to kind of like pull people over.
Speaker A:You're doing this planned out beforehand and you're kind of reacting to what you're seeing.
Speaker B:But you can be proactive with your reaction.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah, you can kind of think ahead of time.
Speaker A:So do you have any other like examples or thoughts about this strategy?
Speaker B:I have seen some really good, they seemed like pop up mid launch things but I know that they were pre planned and that's kind of like a office hours like a hey, like join me on like this day, three days before cartons and you know, like let's have a conversation.
Speaker B:Let me show you the inside.
Speaker B:Like let me do that.
Speaker B:I've seen those do really well and those are pretty like low lift things.
Speaker B:But yeah, I mean I really think that like we have to be.
Speaker B:We can't just assume everything is going to go right.
Speaker B:We have to manage our expectations.
Speaker B:But also like create a plan B and like that plan B, like the goal is maybe not to use it but like why wouldn't you if you wanted more kind of thing.
Speaker B:So it really is just all perspective on some of these things where it's not failing because you're needing to add in additional things.
Speaker B:It's really just smart marketing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And one that we didn't mention is like pricing pivots.
Speaker A:I wouldn't say like lower your price immediately but sometimes there is going to be like an additional payment plan or something that you know, maybe you hadn't planned on offering.
Speaker A:12 pay.
Speaker A:You just had like 6 pay and 1 pay and then your numbers aren't there.
Speaker A:So 12 pay might make it a little bit more accessible for people to get in or a lot less like risky for people to want to get in.
Speaker A:I'm not a fan of payment plans that go past the like of course amount but I have seen a really successful strat tactic from one of my clients where they'll offer a 12 pay during launch and then it's a six month program midway through the program because they want to have as many people paid off as possible.
Speaker A:They do like a seal the success event where they offer like a.
Speaker A:Another payment plan that would be available and it would have everyone paid off by the time the course ends.
Speaker A:And then that's got like another bonus, like incentive tied to it to kind of get.
Speaker A:And he does have a lot of people that take advantage of that.
Speaker A:And it's not just the bonus.
Speaker A:It's like people were like, well, you know, at first I didn't know if I wanted to invest like all this money in, you know, but now that I'm in it, like I know it works.
Speaker A:Y' all are great.
Speaker A:Like here.
Speaker A:Yeah, of course I want to pay it all off faster.
Speaker B:Yeah, totally.
Speaker B:I like that idea then.
Speaker B:Yeah, that was, I guess another thing that I have seen is the impromptu payment plans.
Speaker B:But like you've always planned to do the payment plans because that is something mid low, mid, mid, low, mid launch lull.
Speaker B:You can interject, yes, for sure.
Speaker A:And then tip number four is going to be definitely protecting your mental load.
Speaker A:So we've already talked about making sure that most of your launch tasks are wrapped up before you start promotion, but also think about blocking off your calendar for other things.
Speaker A:So a lot of my clients also have one on one clients.
Speaker A:I would really suggest to minimize any of your one on one client meetings during launch week as much as possible.
Speaker A:Think about home life.
Speaker A:Maybe you get meal prep for that week so you're not having to worry about that.
Speaker A:Maybe you arrange pickup for your kids or that sort of thing.
Speaker A:Because really, like, especially if you're doing one of these live launches that you're only doing once or twice a year, it's a really important week and you kind of want to treat it as such.
Speaker A:Same thing with like I've had clients that like go on vacation the week before or think they can be on vacation the week of and I'm just.
Speaker B:Like, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:Like it really is an all hands on deck kind of thing and you don't know what's going to happen and how many pivots are going to have to make and how much demand you're going to have to make or what's going to come up.
Speaker A:You just want to make sure that you have the time and space to deal with whatever you need to.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think last year I think I turned down a huge launch.
Speaker B:The business owner was like, I'M going to be moving and vacationing in Europe or something like that.
Speaker B:And I was like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker B:Like we need to be doing all of the work beforehand.
Speaker B:She's like, yeah, no, I won't be able to.
Speaker B:I said, I don't.
Speaker B:Then we're not in a line fit.
Speaker B:Like that sounds so stressful.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I mean, I think this is what you can do to balance the personal life plus the launch life.
Speaker B:Like it really is so crucial.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then one final thing as we wrap up, I just want to make sure that you're like reframing every launch is just not like a one time event.
Speaker A:You're really building in an asset for the future.
Speaker A:So all the content that you're creating right now can be repurposed later or reused during the next launch.
Speaker A:That audience that you're building, some of them might not be ready to buy now.
Speaker A:They may be more of a tortoise buyer, but they will be ready next.
Speaker A:Go around and then every time you launch you're going to be like refining your message a little bit more.
Speaker A:You're going to be noticing what's working, what's resonating and what's not working and where you need to like tweak it.
Speaker B:If you didn't listen to last week's episode, set up those backend flows that are helping you convert those people into that are non purchasers and upside down sells for your people who did purchase.
Speaker B:It's really important.
Speaker B:Go listen to last week's episode because I, I think I broke that down pretty well.
Speaker A:All right, so quick little recap on how to keep your launch vibration high so that you are becoming a magnet for your ideal customers.
Speaker A:You want to make sure that you know, you recognize and normalize the stress.
Speaker A:It's just a part of launching.
Speaker A:Make sure that you take a growth mindset approach and treat your launches as experiments.
Speaker A:Each time you're going to get better and better because you're learning new things.
Speaker A:Pre plan your pivots or just in case launch strategies.
Speaker A:Make sure that you have a plan to protect your energy and your mental load in and outside of your business.
Speaker A:And just remember that every time you're building a asset, it's going to get better and better every single time.
Speaker B:So if you liked this episode, leave us a review.
Speaker B:Share your favorite Taylor Swift song from this latest album and share with the bestie.
Speaker A:And until next time, we are rooting for you.
