I failed so you don’t have to
Want to know what doesn’t feel good?
You’re excited about a new product and ready to launch it. You hit send on your first sales email.
Nothing happens.
You start messaging people you know who might be interested, and you get a lot of:
“That sounds so cool! But no thanks. Hope it goes well!”
You refresh your stripe account. There’s zilch. Nada. Not a single penny has materialized.
That happened when I tried to launch my paid community to the 30 people on the waitlist. Plus, the 15 people in my circle who I thought would be interested.
The only positive response I got was from one friend who said he’d buy it to support me as a friend but wouldn’t be able to participate.
It hurt.
But hindsight is 20:20, and I can see where I went wrong. Besides, I’m here to fail, so you don’t have to.
Here are five mistakes I made that you can avoid if you want to launch a paid community.
1. It’s best to sell it before you’re ready
I’d been working on this idea for about a month. It would be a community group of writers, podcasters, and solopreneurs based on the shared values of craft, quality, and long-term projects.
Everyone I spoke to thought it was a cool idea, so I created a Carrd landing page and started discussing it in my articles.
People were joining the waitlist.
My friends thought it was an awesome idea.
I was getting more and more excited, but I kept putting off the launch because I was worried about how it would come together technically. What software was I going to use? How would I host live sessions with the limited internet I get in the countryside?
But I decided to be brave and do a presale. I would make some sales, gauge interest, and then figure it out as I went.
Thank god I did.
People liked the idea in theory, but no one would pay. Because no one was willing to pay, I could move on to the next idea.
If your target audience says they’re excited but aren’t willing to pay, then it’s not a viable product.
Try to pre-sell your idea as soon as possible. That will give you the feedback you need to decide if you’ve got a viable product. No other feedback matters.
2. A wait list doesn’t guarantee sales
I had 29 people on the waitlist when I sent out my first sales email. I wanted to get 3 of them to join, which is a hefty 10% conversion rate, but I was confident (read as excited and foolish)
No sales came. My first email declaring that I was open for founding members had a 62% open rate. That’s 18 people who opened and 4 who clicked through to the Stripe link.
I thought because I had the waitlist, selling to them would be easy. But I was wrong.
This is the early days of my newsletter. Yes, I’ve been doing this for 9 years and earning a living as a digital writer for 7 years, but I haven’t built up trust with this audience yet.
I sent out 5 sales emails in total to make sure I gave it the old college try, but nothing came of it. There was a little trickle of interest, but no sales.
3. Don’t Go Broad
I was offering this community to writers, podcasters, and solopreneurs. I’m all three of those things, so I thought it would be a creative mix of people who found themselves inside.
That way, the feedback from the broad group of people would have the most impact, and we’d get really interesting collaborations.
I still think that would be true. But for founding a group, it was too broad. I got feedback from people who didn’t think it was for them because they were only writers or didn’t see the value as podcasters.
Nobody except me fit those three boxes, and so people thought it was for everyone else and not for them.
I’ve since narrowed down my focus to just writers. It’s my true passion and where I can have the most impact from my experience.
Pick who it’s for. It’s the oldest trap in the book, and I dove right in with both feet. If you don’t pick a specific audience, you can’t make them something amazing they’ll love.
4. You need to set expectations of the customer
Where I thought I was giving and being generous, I was asking. I was asking people to pay to join and then participate in the community to create value.
I got feedback from people saying they didn’t have time to make it worthwhile. They wouldn’t be able to contribute, so they felt bad about joining.
I wasn’t clear about what was expected of the customer. This is true for all selling, you need to make it clear what’s needed from them to get the transformation your product offers.
Do they have to take a 60-minute course or a 10-week course? Do they need to actively participate in live sessions every week or every month?
No matter what it is, the customer must know what’s expected of them.
5. You need to be super specific on the value
I was excited about the idea of the group, but I couldn’t quite get the value proposition right.It was a chicken-and-egg situation. I was offering up the value as the community, but with no members inside there was no community and so no value.
Outside of the community, my value proposition was that you could get feedback on your work and join in live work sessions.
I thought that would be enough, but in hindsight, it isn’t anything. There is no “hell yes!” value to be had there. Nothing that you’d be stupid to say no to.
And because the community didn’t yet exist, I couldn’t articulate the value of being in it.
I’ve bounced this straight into my next idea: a video course teaching the protocol I use to build writing habits, which took me from writing one article a week to three articles in one 90-minute session.
The value is much clearer. Pay for this course and learn how to write more articles in less time. (Pre-sale is open if you’re interested)
6. You need to get comfortable with people saying no
Entrepreneur and author Noah Kagan talks about turning “no” into a game.
You have to ask and then see how quickly you can get to 25 no’s so that you’ll actually get a yes.
Great in theory. Sucks in practice.
Every no was like a blow to the chest. I’m used to passively selling instead of directly selling, and this direct rejection was hard on my ego.
But I got used to it.
The more you get comfortable hearing no. The more success you will have. This all happened from Wednesday to Friday last week and I’m already working on my next course.
After you get your no, people don’t remember. They move on. They get back to their lives. It’s easy to get lost in the pit of despair, imagining people are laughing at you or judging you, but they aren’t.
It’s not personal. It’s just not right for them. Take that and roll on to the next attempt.
7. Launch if you’ve been thinking about it
If you have a product in mind that you want to build, launch it first. Start a waitlist with Convertkit and then email the people on the list asking them to buy it. Ask 10 friends who you think might be interested, and if 3 of them say yes, you’ve got a new product ready.
- Idea
- Pre-sale
- Create
- Sell
If you don’t get past pre-sale, go back to step 1.
I teach you how to turn your writing into a business you love. Click here to learn more.
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