Most launch playbooks have a clean ending. The cart opens, the cart closes, and you move on. Well, I'm gonna make the case today that those last 48 hours, you're likely leaving money on the table. And those last 48 hours might be the most valuable ones of all. If you've ever felt like the traditional launch playbook is running out of gas, or those final push emails are making you cringe, or you're seeing people buy later than they used to and wondering what to do about it, this episode is for you. because I'm gonna share two things that we did at the end of our last launch that weren't in any playbook and they produced some of our best results ever. Welcome to Marketing Your Business. I'm Stu McLaren, co-founder of Membership.io and author of Predictable Profits. Now here's the truth. You are one great marketing idea away from transforming your business. One strategy can be the difference between struggling and thriving, between a business that drains you and one that fuels your life. Every episode, you're gonna get specific tactics you need to build your audience, attract more customers, and scale your business, all without the burnout. These are real strategies, real numbers, real behind the scenes. Buckle your seatbelts, my friend. Let's go! Hi, my friend, good to talk to you. I wanna cycle back, and I wanna share a couple key lessons from our most recent Summit launch. As I've shared with you in some of the earlier episodes, This was a total experiment. We had never done a summit before. We had done launches before and we're really good at launches. You know, typically, you know, we're doing multi-million dollar launches. So we got that whole process dialed in, but we had never done a summit. Now, the way this summit kind of worked was we had three days where we were playing these incredible interviews. And by the way, I'm just so stoked about the sessions that we had during the summit, helping people grow their audience, make more sales and make more consistent sales month after month. The sessions were so good. And anyway, there was a couple of things that we did because after we had those days where the sessions were live, I then did a webinar where I made an offer to help people continue to implement the things that they had learned specifically by creating a membership. And so with that began the start of the open cart period. And so it lasted five days. Now, during that open cart period, it can feel awkward because you're gonna kick it off, in our case, with a webinar, and you're gonna get a bunch of sales during that period of time. But it's what you do in the in-between days that matter most. And that really the scene that I want to set for today episode Because there were two things that we did during those in days that made a huge difference And specifically, there was one thing that where, as I said, the summit had wrapped up, the cart was closing in a couple days, and we had done the typical playbook, and we had sent out all the emails and the reminders and all of that stuff. And most teams at that point would have just let the sequence ride. But we did something different. We opened up a Zoom room and we were live for three hours. There was no slides, no script. There was no formal pitch, no countdown timer, none of that stuff. All we did was just invite people to come hang out, ask questions. Heck, we even said, come lurk if you want. Now, we didn't have like thousands of people show up. We had just over 100 people, but they were the right 100 people. And then during that window, we had just over 30 sales come in. That's over $100,000 during that time. And here's what surprised me most. Most of the buyers were people we'd never seen engage before. They were quiet the whole launch. They were just watching and waiting. Now, they didn't need a better pitch. They just needed a room, like a low pressure space just to raise their hand. And here's the bottom line. What we learned from that call and from something else we did right before the cart close completely changed how I am thinking about the end of a launch. And that's what I want to bring to you today. Okay. So there are three things about showing up when the playbook says stop. Number one, lesson number one, people are taking longer to buy. See, typically the cart opens and closes on a schedule, but real life doesn't. And people are taking longer to buy. They've seen the offer. They've maybe read the emails, but they need another touch point, not more pressure. And research and data backs this up. Recently, there was research done around the whole, you know, the rule of seven, you know what I'm talking about, where people, you need seven touch points to be able to make a sale. Well, what they found was that before a B2B or creator economy purchase, this has now gone up to eight to 13 touch points in the modern buyer journey research. So think about that. Like it used to be the rule of seven. Now it's as high as 13 touch points. And so right around when we did this zoom, we also did one other thing that wasn't initially in our playbook. We took the most watched interviews from our summit and we restreamed them on YouTube live And this was completely unplanned And this was no new content no extra production per se it was just we just gave people another chance to watch what they missed Now I gotta give a shout out to Kyle and Tyler from our team who came up with this idea and they pulled it off like perfect. But here's why it worked. Because not everyone could block off three days for the summit. You know how it is. Kids get sick, meetings run long, time zones don't cooperate. So instead of just emailing like another last chance to people who have never seen the content, we put the content back in front of them. And so what I wanna encourage you to do is to treat your audience like humans with busy schedules, not leads in a countdown sequence. Is this making sense? Okay, so lesson number one is that people are taking longer to buy. So sometimes you gotta make accommodations for that. Lesson number two, you can only sell without selling if you believe. Now, most companies would not do a three-hour open Q&A with no script, but you can only do that if you genuinely trust what's on the other side of the buy button. That confidence is felt by your audience. So we weren't worried about tough questions. We in fact welcomed them. I legit on this call asked people if they were on the fence to tell me why, and I would honestly tell them whether the offer we were making was a good fit or not. And I did. Some cases, it wasn't a good fit and I would tell people that. But other cases, it was more of a fear that was holding people back. And we talked through it and it was an opportunity to get coaching. I didn't mind whether they bought or didn't buy. It was an opportunity to show up and help. We didn't need a slick slide deck for that. The product is the product. People can feel when you believe and they can also feel when you don't. So if you're nervous about opening the floor, that's a signal. Either fix what you're selling or fix how you feel about it because you can't pressure people into trusting something that you yourself aren't even sure about. And some people, they don't need another pitch. They just need a room, like a space where nobody's pushing them, but where they can actually feel that you believe in what you're selling. Lesson number three, ask what would actually help right now? So here's the core idea. The smartest play is often the one that's not in the playbook. It's the one where you stop and ask what would actually help people right now? And then you just do that. Now I know this sounds like almost too simple, but the zoom call is a great example of this right Like people were on the fence So what would help them A room a real conversation zero pressure The YouTube restream If people missed the summit what would help them Another chance to watch See both took almost zero extra effort and the content already existed The channel already existed. The Zoom count already existed. We just asked, who can we still help? And then we showed up and we did that thing. See, the gap between campaign is over and we could still help is where a lot of goodwill and revenue live. Is it more work? Yeah, it's a little more work, but is it worth it? Every single time. You following me so far? Okay. So before your next launch ends, I want you to build in one quote, what would help right now? End quote, move. It doesn't have to be big. It could be a Q and a could be a replay window, a bonus training, a behind the scenes. I want you to ask your team. If we weren't selling right now, what's one thing we could do that would actually help people? And then do that thing. At the end of the day, my friend, things are changing. The way you and I are approaching our marketing and sales, it's got to change and adapt too. People are changing. The style of launches is changing. Marketing is changing. AI is changing everything. It's all changing. And it means that you and I have got to adapt. And so one of the things that I'm learning, the best way to adapt is just to show up and serve. Now, hopefully this has inspired you to take the next right step and show up for your audience. But I'm telling you one quick way that you could show up here is if you hop on over and rate and review the show, that'd be a huge, huge help. All right. So here's a quick recap. What I want you to do from today is take three things. Number one, people are taking longer to buy. They need more touch points, not more pressure. Number two, you could only sell without selling if you truly believe in what you're offering. And that confidence, my friend, that is felt. And when it's there, some people don't need another pitch. They just need a room to be able to get their questions answered. Number three, the smartest move is usually not in the playbook. It's the one where you ask what would actually help people right now? And then you just do it. Because sometimes the highest converting thing you can do is to stop selling and start being available. The launch playbook says stop, but your customers say keep going. So listen to your customers. Thanks my friend for listening. Now go make it a great day. And remember the more money you make, the more impact you can have. You're awesome. you
