Have you ever wanted to create an atmosphere in your business where potential customers want your offer before it’s even available to buy? 

In this episode of Art of Online Business, I sat down with Brenna McGowan to talk about how to make it happen whether you are live launching, or launching on evergreen. More specifically, we are talking about your pre-launch strategy. 

How do you create a pre-launch strategy that gets the people that you want to serve so ready to buy your offer that they’re sold before it’s even available? This is a topic that so many people get hung up on, but it’s completely possible. 

Brenna McGowan helps coaches and course creators launch with more confidence, more sales, and far less stress. Brenna’s a strategic copywriter, marketing consultant, and launch pro who helps businesses of all sizes warm up customers until they’re fiery hot and ready to buy with her Build-a-CASE framework.

By leveraging her pre-launch strategies, Brenna’s clients have seen 50%+ revenue growth in their launches without the frenzy and chaos they used to feel when launching. Brenna believes that hustle-based, high-pressure program launches don’t serve you or your customers. Instead, she helps you leverage pre-launch content to show your customers empathy, authority, and personality—so you can sell spots in your program before the doors even open.

When Brenna’s not strategizing or helping clients launch, you can her walking her pug Frank, practicing yoga, reading cheesy romance books, or shuttling one of her three teenagers around their Northern California neighborhood.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What’s required for a successful launch
• Why empathy is so important when it comes to launching
• How far in advance you need to start your pre-launch strategy
• What the “Build-A-CASE” framework involves
• Why voice-of-customer research is so important
• Why levels of awareness matter in your strategy
• What’s involved in Brenna’s sub-framework Set-The-PACE
• How stories help establish a connection with your audience
• How this method can be adapted to evergreen launches

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Brenna McGown’s Links: 

• Get the Pre-Launch Cheat Sheet
• Check out Brenna’s website
• Follow Brenna on Instagram
• Connect with Brenna on Facebook

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Have You Broken Your Business Lately? (You Should…)

Hey, my friend, welcome to the Art of Online Business Podcast. My name is Rick Mullaney and I’m an online business coach. I’m an Adz expert, and most importantly, I’m a dad. And this show is where we help established online course creators and coaches create more profit, more impact with less hustle. All right, let’s get into it. Hey. Hey, what’s up, my friends? Rick Moretti here. Welcome to the Art of Online Business Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Coming to hang out today, we’re going to be talking about how to create an atmosphere in your business where potential customers want your offer before it is even available to buy. And we’re talking about whether you are live launching or whether you are selling your offer on Evergreen. And specifically the topic we’re covering today in order to achieve what I’m talking about here is your pre-launch your pre-launch strategy, how to leverage a and create a pre launch strategy that gets the people that you want to serve. So ready to buy your offer that they’re sold before it’s even available. And again, whether you’re doing live launches or evergreen, this is going to be relevant to you. This is a topic that comes up all the time when I’m talking to students and people in general is how do I create a great, effective pre-launch strategy? What goes into the emails, what goes into that strategy, etc.? And joining me on today’s podcast to share her expertise is Brenna McGowan. 

And Brenna helps coaches and course creators launch with more confidence, more sales and a whole lot less stress. And Brenna is a strategic copywriter. She’s a marketing consultant, and she is a launch pro who helps businesses of all sizes warm up customers until they’re very ready to buy with her framework called the Build a Case Framework. And Brenna very much believes that hustle based high pressure program launches do not serve you or your customers. Instead, she helps you leverage pre-launch content to show your customers empathy, authority and personality so that you can sell spots in your program or your course or what have you before the door is even open. So let’s dive right into that, shall we? Without further ado, let’s go hang out with Brenna McGowan. So, Brenna, you had me at. Free Launch Strategy. How to create a Pre-launch Strategy That Sells Out Your Program. Before you even launch, because I feel like, number one, is this possible to do? I want to dive into it here with you today. Number two, I think this is a topic that so many people get hung up on. 

I was literally actually having a now that I’m just thinking this right now is having a text conversation with that. It sounds weird. I was having a text conversation. I was texting with a buddy of mine last night who he was saying, yeah, I’m super stressed about. I have a launch coming up and I’m super stressed trying to get everything done. I was like, Oh, okay, when’s the launch? And he was like, September. I’m like, Dude, like, is four months away. Why are you stressed about it? And he’s like, Well, I’m trying to get the pre launch down. And he’s like trying to figure out what to do with the pre launch and such. And this is what you are an expert in. Brenna So before we dive into all of that with the pre launch and how to how to what is a pre launch strategy look like that will sell your program or course or what have you really before you even. Launching it, quote unquote. Let’s introduce yourself to the audience here and let us know what you do, how you kind of got to where you are right now. And what is your what is your specialty within this realm here?

Great. Well, thank you for having me. I’m so honored and thankful to be here. And I’m a copywriter, marketing strategist, pre launch expert, and I kind of fell into this whole online business thing about four years ago. I was a stay at home mom taking care of my kids. And there was this like perfect collision of I had been working like an odd job, if you will, where I didn’t want to. They had decided that they were going to cut back on my hours, and I didn’t. I liked making a little bit of extra money for my family. Like at the time I was just trying to make like 500 extra dollars a month so I could go shopping and not feel guilty. And so I, I, at the same time, I had a friend who was starting her own business and I was turning 40. So I was at this point in my life where I was like, you know something I just don’t want to be. I remember saying to someone, I don’t want to be someone’s assistant forever or doing like these odd jobs. And so I decided on a whim to start a social media management business, not even realizing like that’s what it was called. So I joke around my ignorance actually helped me launch my business and there is this like parallel online universe that when you’re not part of it, like you don’t even realize it exists. And so I went headfirst into and I had some background with blogging and emails and email marketing, social media. 

So it wasn’t like I came in this like completely unaware, but I decided very quickly I hated social media management and that I needed to pivot and find something different. And at the beginning of 2019, I started to call myself an email copywriter. I had taken a course and done some things, and I became a copywriter. And I didn’t just write emails. I started to do all kinds of copy from landing pages, welcome series emails. But I also had this like strategy background because of social media and some of the other things that I had done. And so what I started to notice when as a copywriter and helping people with launches is that there was this big hole for people sometimes when they went to launch and some launches would go off great. And then some others just would would die flat. It didn’t matter. Like, how could I write copy on one launch that was super successful and maybe not as successful on another? And it kind of brought me to this pre launch strategy, which I think is a perfect combination of the different things I’ve done from strategy and understanding. Social media and copywriting and all these things kind of collide into a pre launch strategy. And so that’s where I’ve doubled down my efforts and, and yeah, it’s been great. I’ve seen a lot of success and I can’t wait to talk to you about it. 

So thank you for that. So it’s I mean, I think it’s really interesting that you went from, you know, just starting social media management on the side and then being like, this is not what I want to do. And then going into this, you know, as far as launching goes, pre launch copywriting, that sort of thing. When it comes to what were you noticing that was missing, if you will, on the pre launch side? Because you just mentioned you were seeing some launches that would go really, really well and then other launches that were not going super well. And I think that the I think the most important thing here as we start this conversation is let’s define in your mind here, what is a launch? What does a launch look like in the context of what we’re talking about here for you? 

Right. So what I’m talking about here is usually a live launch. A lot of what we talk about can be applied to evergreen launches. But I’m talking about a specific time, a specific enrollment where we’re opening doors. Closing doors. So that’s how I would define a launch. 

Okay. Okay. And then was it the pre launch strategy or lack thereof? That was really the biggest factor that you were seeing between launches that were, you know, quote unquote, successful versus ones that weren’t doing as well. 

Yes, definitely. So, you know, for any launch to go off, well, obviously we have to have right offer. Your offer has to be really great. You have to have an audience who’s ready for that offer and you have to have the right messaging. So people were bringing me in for the messaging, but what I was noticing noticing is that like the audience was either they weren’t aware, they weren’t involved, they assumed I started to notice that people just assumed like, Oh, I have an email list, I can just launch them, no problem. And that’s not the case. And I think and I’m sure we’ll talk about this more and more, I feel like that really isn’t the case. Right? We can’t go we can’t rely on the fact that we have an audience, we have any talk to or that someone is going to be ready to to just buy whatever we put out because we decided to write ten launch emails and do a webinar event. So I started to think about like, well, what are the steps that can come beforehand that could actually take the load off of a launch and make it feel a little bit more easy and seamless and at the same time really honor the person, not only honor us as a seller by we’re giving ourselves space, but honor the person that we are our ideal clients that are out there by giving them a little bit of time to actually process a decision and and come to the decision whether or not or our course program or service is right for them. 

Before you even get to the live launch portion of the launch, is that what you’re saying? 

Yes, exactly. 

So you want them having made up their mind for the most part, whether this is something that they’re going to pursue further or not before even the first webinar or the first day of the challenge or whatever it might be.

Yes. I want them seriously contemplating whether or not this is the right decision for them. And if this is the not, that just our course or our program is the right thing, but is is are the methods that we use the solution to the problem that they’re having. So, for example, for me, for anyone to be able to buy pre-launch from me either on my one on one services or to come into my program that I have around pre-launch, they have to believe that the pre-launch is the way to help have them get to this successful launch in the way that we’re talking about. So a lot of times people are opening the doors and wanting people to make a making. People have a decision on whether or not the course is the right thing for them when people haven’t even had to decide, like, is this method even the method that I want to work with? Is this something that I believe in? So there’s there’s a series of things that happened during the pre-launch period, but 100% it is going to be a heck of a lot easier to sell to someone when they come in with the awareness that they know that this is the right solution for them when it comes time to launch, then trying to have them make this very quick decision in a short amount of time, under a tremendous amount of pressure to some degree. 

Yeah. You mentioned in a previous conversation that we had that you said launching is very different than it used to be. Is this how it’s different or can you kind of dive into that, what that means for you in your view? Like, how is it different now than what exactly? 

Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, but yes, I feel like the market has shifted obviously so much in the last few years, whether it’s the pandemic or inflation or whatever’s going on in our world. And the online market has become saturated. Right? Like it’s not like overly saturated and I don’t use that as an excuse, but there is more competition out there than ever because of the circumstances of what’s gone on. So not to mention ad costs have gone way up. Right. What what used to be very you could get a lot of leads. Now, Facebook ads are you know, things aren’t converting as well. I know I hear a lot of like whispers behind the scenes of how things aren’t converting, how it’s costing more to get leads. Are these good quality leads even when they come through the funnel. And so what has kind of been this? Oh, I’m going to throw up a webinar, whether it was paid for or not and get people in. I see that people are just taking a longer time to make decisions and it kind of makes sense. There’s a stat out there I read in Inc magazine where people are making like normal people are making 35,000 decisions a day. So if we think about probably an entrepreneur, it’s like way more. And so all of a sudden we’re like are trying to like start do this like very quick in a traditional live launch, right? You have your webinar event. Sure, you might throw up some webinar emails or masterclass or whatever you’re doing, and then you open a cart for seven days on average and it goes by very quickly. And so when we think about how many decisions we’re making and then we compost, compound it with everything else that’s going on in the world, compound it with all the saturation of the market we can see just logically starts to make sense why people are we’re having trouble with conversions because of just the environmental factors. 

Sure. So. I know that everyone’s saying, okay, I get it. How do I do this? What does this prelaunch strategy look like? How far in advance do we start this type of this type of thing, I think. And before you answer that, I know that’s a big answer before we start to dive into that. I love what you said about we we want to give people as much more time than what traditionally people have given people to make a decision. Right. So we want like a big reason for doing this type of prelaunch strategy that you’re about to dive into is to. Empathize with them, to connect with them, to give them more time to make a decision whether yes or no, whether your offer is right for them. Right. Would you agree? 

Yeah, I have. So, yeah, I would just say I have a saying where the more empathy you have, the less urgency and scarcity you need. And I think it really comes down to that and empathy. It takes time to express this empathy in our content, right? That we truly understand where our person is at and that we’re not here to force them into a decision. We’re here. The way I look at launching and selling in general is I’m here to provide information, give you all the tools that you need to make a decision, and then let you come to that. And what I’ve noticed is that by doing this, I get more response. People are more apt to ask me about what’s going on because they don’t feel this pressure. You know, I’m having sales conversations right now. Speaking of your friend last night, you know, my next program starts in September. I’m already having sales conversations and already have someone enrolled for my September. And it’s because I think of what we’re talking about is that we’re kind of taking this pressure off of people so they have a little time to decide. And I’m able to empathize of where they’re at, what’s going to be happening in their business. And so therefore it becomes more of an invitation than a hardcore sales strategy. 

Sure. So I love that, by the way. So what is the strategy look like? And let’s start that with how far in advance? Everybody always wants to know how far in advance, quote unquote, should I start a pre launch strategy? 

I love this question. It’s actually the question I get the most. And in everything that I talk about always I feel like I always have nuances. So I think there’s a little bit of like, how expensive is your program? Right. Obviously a $500 program probably doesn’t need a huge launch. Right. How warm is your audience? How aware is your audience in the decision making process? So all of these things kind of go in. When I’m looking at strategy for clients I like personally. What I teach in my program is a six week strategy, which includes a week of what we would call like the launch event fill up. So I think you can go longer if you look at some of the I think someone told me they like Stu McLaren I think does 1212 weeks although don’t hold me to that that’s total totally but there are some people will go longer but in general I like like the 6 to 8 week mark when I’m planning out with clients, but I do think that you can start seeding in things ahead of time depending on what your strategy is.

So. All right, let’s just say we’re starting 6 to 8 weeks out. Let’s go through what is this process look like when we’re starting, say, six weeks out, four weeks. 

Out? That’s so I do something called my build a case framework because I do think we are building a case for not only for our product, but also like I talked about our methods and even our self. People have to want to work with us. So the first step to doing that is always the see is what I call clarifying, categorize where I am helping clients, or I’m always really encouraging people to go back and do research and pick up voice of customer. And this is another way. The best way we can empathize with someone is to understand where they’re at and we can actually show them by the words that we’re using in our copy. So I’m a copywriter, so everything always comes down to research. In my mind, everything is easier. When you do research, you’re writing your content planning. So I spend a lot of time in that first. That first C is really getting clear on who this person is like, what the transformation is that they’re desiring figuring out what their objections are, the myths that they believe, and collecting a lot of voice of customer data around that. Once we get to that point, we go into the A and they build a case is analytics and definitely I call I call it analytics light. 

Right. I am not a super, super analytical person. However, looking at the data, if we’ve done launches before, if we’ve done a lunch brief, looking at that and looking at even our current data, like how many people are opening our emails? It’s interesting. I have I’m I’m in the middle of my own program right now. And one of the things I had people do is send out a survey and they notice some people weren’t getting a lot of responses. And I was like, Okay, well, when was the last time you emailed these people in general? And it had been some time, right? So I was like, okay, well obviously this is a great analytic that we need to look at. I look at social media analytics, you know, just kind of collecting all the information, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and kind of putting that in. So the next part, which is strategy, is where I take all of the voice of customer, I take all the analytics and we go ahead and say, okay, now that we know all of this, like, how can we create this strategy that really helps move someone from point A to point B? Right. 

And getting really clear of I always start inside of my program, I call it the awareness journey story. Like, where is this person at now? What? Where do they want to go to? And then the pre launch is simply the the bridge in between the content, the things that we have to fill in to help people move towards a decision. And the last part of the Build the case framework is EA. And with the EA, this is what I call the energize. And this is actually when we’re going through and writing the content out based on the plan that we put together. 

So if you move in those four stages, it becomes you can really simplify and figure out a lot of times what people say to me and they’re like, I don’t know what to talk about in my pre launch. Like, where, where do I even start? So if we go back to what I talked about when, when we know like what these people need to hear and we know the methods that they need to hear it in, then all of a sudden being able to write the content or create or do video, whatever it is, becomes a heck of a lot easier. 

So. Voice of as I hit my microphone, voice of customer research analytics strategy and then energize, which is basically writing out the content based on that strategy. I want to go back to the voice of customer research because. This right here is the piece that so many people don’t want to do, but yet is literally we’re having this conversation in our Facebook group of my accelerator coaching program. Yesterday someone was talking about not necessarily knowing, you know, like as far as messaging goes within, they were there. They have a launch coming up and. And it was it literally was as simple as are you a speaking to your exact target people that you serve either through existing relationships or past customers. Are you going back and looking at what people are saying, etc., etc.? If somebody is doing this kind of research themselves. How do we go about doing that research? Like what are the different areas to go to? I know you mentioned social media and such. As far as analytics go, where do people go necessarily to learn what is the language? Because that’s for years I’ve been. Everyone always wants to know, like I don’t know what to write for ad copy. Right. I’m like, you look at what your customer like, speak to your ideal people that use their language. That’s your ad copy. You don’t have to reinvent something or people make it a lot harder than it really needs to be. So with that said, where do people go? Where do they start in getting that kind of customer research that you’re talking about? 

Right before I go there to even with going through with my students recently, they realize like to that it was amazing just doing this research how eye opening it was to them, things that they had never even thought about or problems that people were having or pain points or objections, things that never even crossed their mind. So this is and quite honestly, if you do what I’m about to tell you, it’s going to help all your copy, all your marketing. It’s not just going to help you in pre-launch, it’s literally going to help you in every facet of your business. So I break it down the way I have. Like what was like stage one or stage two? Like what are the things that you absolutely must do? And then what are the secondary options when it comes to research? So the first thing that I always recommend is interviews and getting on and actually talking to someone on Zoom. I also love to do this over Boxer, especially when I started this. When I decided to do Pre Launch, I was like, I just started asking some friends over boxer conversations, conversations. And the great thing about Boxer case, if anyone’s listening, is that you can actually download and transcribe these audio files just like you can zoom. So I love it and I feel like someone in my group had said this and I think it was it was really spot on. I actually think the pressure sometimes is taken off. If you can have a boxer conversation because it’s not like you’re steering someone and looking at them. So absolutely 100% going through and doing customer interviews. The second thing that I always do is a survey. You know, surveys aren’t quite as quite as nice.

I always send out an anonymous survey as well, so people feel that they can answer candidly. Of course, we can’t get into that deeper language. Like if we want to ask like a secondary question, which you can do in an interview, obviously, that you can’t do that in a survey. But those are the main two things that are like must haves that I have my students do. Any time I have clients is like, okay, and then for some secondary ways is going on and looking in Facebook groups, right? Like going and seeing what people are commenting. Instagram comments, YouTube comments, Reddit core like people do not give a rip what they say on Reddit or it’s amazing some of the language that you can find on there. The only the thing that I’m always cautious about too, though, when I’m doing when I’m going to these like out, it’s like when I’m actually interviewing people that are in my current audience. Obviously, these are probably more of like my ideal clients when when you head to Reddit or Core or Amazon book reviews, any of these other ways like you, you’re making assumption that this person is in the headspace that you want them to be. So however it can, it can be a wealth of information. And sometimes too, especially if it’s someone who is starting off or they’re maybe launching a new offer that’s a little bit different than what they’ve done before. Sometimes you have to go to those secondary strategies because you don’t you’re not able to interview. But I absolutely think that interviewing and the surveys is really where you get where you get the most gold when it comes time for voice of customer. 

You mentioned earlier, too, about. Understanding where they are on their a level of awareness and then be what stage they’re in. In that from point A to point B. How do we deal with when people are at different or in different sort of different stages there maybe like so point a might be a little bit different from person to person. Point B’s the same, but they might be a little bit, you know, they might be in different positions. Trying to get to point B. Does that make sense? Yes. So how do we deal with that? 

Well, I think it goes back to really once again understanding, you know, if they’re kind of somewhere. I think most people when it comes to awareness are somewhere between like problem aware, solution aware. Like that’s where people mostly hover that in. In most cases, sometimes they’re way in advance. So I would say that you’re kind of you don’t want you don’t want to be talking to the person that you’re having to convince that they have a problem. Right. So they might flounder back and forth, but they but they’re pretty aware of what’s going on in the help that they’re looking for. So I would say try and keep it in solution aware. And someone who’s a solution aware is someone who is not only aware that they have a problem, but they’re at the point where they’re actually trying to figure out what that problem is it’s going. So I would say, yes, they might flounder back and forth, but you really want to speak to someone who’s starting to look for a solution because the awareness. Right. It’s going to take a long time to try and convince someone that they that they even need to look for a solution. So getting super clear on who that ideal client is at, where they’re at, even if they kind of meander back and forth. I also think something that’s really important that I talked about recently, too, is finding someone that is not ambivalent. 

Right. Ambivalent is someone who’s kind of wishy washy in the way that they’re in their approach. And there’s no like there’s no worse person to be talking to than the ambivalent person. I joked around in a post I did recently where I’ve been like super ambivalent about like how I’ve been eating lately. I’m usually pretty healthy, but it’s easy to like slip back into old habits. And I’ve just been wishy washy about it, like not really caring. So I at that point in time, that head frame, like you don’t want to be trying to convince me. I need to do something right. It’s kind of nice when you find that person who’s like, Okay, I’m uncomfortable enough now that I’m ready, my pain is kind of bothering me enough. Like I’m ready to start looking for something. So I would say that for most cases that we’re trying to get someone at that point where they’re they’re really starting to look for a solution. They’re kind of they’re kind of sick and tired of being where they’re at and they’re in there ready to take action. And it’s amazing. It’s our language is how we can talk to someone who’s an action taker versus someone who’s kind of in that ambivalent stage. And even our messaging, when we that’s getting really granular, it can make a difference. On helping someone start moving up those awareness stages. 

What can you give an example of that right there? Like getting granular in the messaging to get to kind of move them along. 

Right. So this is someone who you know, someone who’s an action taker or, you know, when you’re when you’re using their language in your language, it would be along the lines of, I’m trying to think of a of an example as I’m talking out loud. I love how my friend Marissa Corcoran talks about it. She talks about like the triggers in the yours, right? It’s the triggers. The person who’s like, okay, I’m like super ready to do something. So like the way I would talk to someone is if they are someone who’s more of an action taker, it’s like, okay, you’re ready to do this, right? Like you’re ready to kind of move from point A to point B, you’re tired of feeling like this where the where the or person is like, yeah, you know, yes, you’ve been going through this situation and I know it’s been really hard for you. And so let me like, you know, here, here’s a free resource that might help move you out of that, right? Those are kind of the areas, the people that are just like, okay, I think it goes back to what I talked about earlier is that that ambivalence of someone who is ready to go and looking for something and maybe they’re not perfectly ready to go. When I think about pre-launch re, I have an awareness where I won’t say an awareness problem, but I have an awareness where people maybe don’t realize that pre-launch is what they need to really start making their next launch successful.

When I’m able to like step up and understand, but I know at the core there are people these people are ready to have a successful launch. Right? So I’m able to go in and speak to them on that level where it’s like, yeah, you’re you want a successful launch, you’re ready to do something new. And let me tell you why you know this, why pre launching is the way to get you there is going to be a lot different than me kind of letting them rest in there. Launching is so hard. It’s always so tough, the market is so saturated. And I think that’s even just saying what I said earlier when I was talking about how the market is saturated that would be speaking to in the or like, yeah, the market is saturated. It’s not your fault versus yeah, the market is saturated, but you have a decision to make yourself stand out and this is how you can do that. That would be the difference in the type of language that I would be using in this situation. 

Do we get to decide? Because when I think about what we’re talking about here with this specific topic. I feel like I don’t know. I’ve gotten to the point in my business where. I am speaking to that person who’s ready, like who is already established there. They’ve already seen success in their business. And now they want to take things, they want to scale their business, etc., etc. They want to create more. Everything we do, everything we help them with in in accelerator. If somebody I’m not here to convince somebody that to do that or to show them that, does that make sense? So I don’t even go there with. Can we get to make that or when do we do? I guess is the question here, when do we do the type of things that you’re talking about speaking to the Tigger and the Eeyore versus only speaking to the Tiger? 

Right. Well, I think this is something that you’re doing throughout this whole pre-launch period, right? You’re yeah. You’re using the whole amount of time that you have to kind of home in. And this is what I really love about pre-launch as well, is that you you’re not. So what most people are trying to do is get all of this messaging, all of this like mind shifting beliefs, objection to helping people work through their objections. They’re trying to do it in like a seven day period, ten day period, 14 day period, maybe, where we actually have the space in a pre launch to kind of walk people through some of this. And and they have, they have like the space around instead of like, oh, I need to tweak how I’m saying this because I’m noticing people aren’t responding. You’re able to have some time to actually be able to pivot or change your messaging or switch around based on the feedback that you’re getting from your audience. So I think you’re doing this throughout this whole pre-launch period. 

So as we. So in terms of all right, we’re starting six, seven weeks out. We’re talking about, you know, going through the case framework here. And I love that, by the way, building a case. People like people listening right now. And I’m going to I’m curious to within this framework, is it all emails or are we doing this in our other forms of content, whether it’s whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s YouTube, social media, whatever it might be. But then in terms of emails, how often are we sending emails? And I know that it does it does vary and different, so forth. But in your mind, what is sort of what do you see as something that is quite effective in terms of how often we should tend to be quote unquote, should be sending an email over those seven weeks or so? 

Right. So what? So for the first question, we are doing pre-launch content like all of the above podcasts, I really recommend that your live that you’re visible, that people are seeing you, that you’re sending emails if it’s your social media posts and we’re not when, when I help my students do this or when I do it, we’re kind of using different methods to repurpose so and reinforce what we’re talking about 

to kind of streamline the process in the pre launch period. I like 2 to 3 emails. Some people would be like, oh my gosh, like I can’t write three emails a week, but I have different formulas, if you will, different ways of sending out emails. I, my friend Linda Sidhu, I work with her on quizzes. Actually, she was on your podcast and I work with her behind the scenes. And so when we think about like disk personalities of the four different types of personalities that there are that we can actually create some content to around them. So you might be sending a really short email for one, you might have a story email for another, right? So we can use different methods of content to kind of so not only are we repurposing, we’re using different types of content to kind of ease the burden off of of creating. And also we’re attracting different people, the different sectors in our audience, the people who are more of like a quick action taker versus someone who is a more slow decision maker. 

So what the the most important thing to me. So I always say, like, you build a case, that’s the first part of my framework. But then I say you set the pace. And so the second part, a lot of people will talk about content and especially when it comes like Instagram, different things, talking about different like buckets or content buckets. To me, the things that are super important that you get across in your pre launch content are the P is personality. So having this is where you build your know like and trust the A is authority coming out that you are the expert that people should be investing in you because you know what you’re talking about. Credibility is that social proof, case studies, testimonials, case study or I’m sorry. You know to me, if you are going to come out with a lot of authority, you have to have a lot of credibility to back that up. I think that’s another thing that’s really shifting more and more is not only just having testimonials, but spending time on case studies really going into the story behind why someone was successful. I think the I made $1,000,000 overnight is kind of tired.

People want to know not only yes, the like monetary, tangible benefits, but like the emotional benefits that are products and services can can provide. And the last part is that E is that empathy that we talked about and that is I forget where I was just saying it recently, but to me, you know, e a lot of people will try to put in education for the E and not empathy. And quite honestly, I don’t do I was just typing it out today. I do not do a lot of educational content during a pre launch. A pre launch is more for those other things to go over. Like why are we the expert? Why should someone, you know spend their money with us? Where is the proof that we have to back it up and that we and the E goes back to now I’m going on a tangent, but the E goes back to why you need voice of customer, right? Why that is, is we can empathize more when we truly understand where someone’s coming at. And when we’ve done interviews and surveys and talk to people, then we’re able to easily put this into our emails, our podcasts, our lives, and be able to speak to someone where they’re at. So they really feel like you understand them. 

So. This is so good. Personality. So. Pace It’s kind of like a sub framework, if you will, within the case framework that we talked about earlier, personality, authority, credibility and empathy. I want to focus within those four things on the personality side and the empathy side. Within now. I mean, on a podcast, for example, or on video especially, we can even though people tell me they’re like, dude, you’re, you need to show more personality on your podcast. Even though I’m, you know, six over 600 episodes later, I could always do a better job with that, but. How are we? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know how to do this is the right question, but. What do you see that works really well in terms of showing our personality in the early stages, if you will, of that pre-launch? 

Right. So I have a few different answers that I’ll try and keep succinct here, but I want to reflect something back to you. I was listening to a podcast that you did a few weeks ago where you were talking about how you were a coffee snob. Right? So simple things like that can really show our personality because even in my mind, I’m like, Oh, I can drink Folgers and I’m good. Like, I am not a coffee snob, but I just thought, Hey. 

I’m not grandmother drink Folgers. 

I don’t drink it. My husband won’t let me but I just thought that picky about coffee know as long as I have coffee I’m good so those are the kind of things where I might have a connection with you, like, oh, you really love coffee. So it’s these little personality things are coffee. This is learning how to speak conversationally even can show our personality in our copy. Right. It’s telling telling little stories about what’s going on with your life, how you talk about your three year old daughter all the time. You know, and I remember a story where you took her to Disneyland and I took my kids to Disneyland. So I I’ll I feel a connection in that regard. Like, Oh, we have this shared experience. So it doesn’t have to be where you’re like spilling your guts on, like just these little, little touches of it, even down to like gifts in an email, right? The type of gifts that you use, like I use a lot of like friends gifts because I’m old and watched it in the nineties or Seinfeld. Right. So those are the kind of things that people start to know you for it. I have a pug and like on Instagram stories, I’ll show how we’re walking. And so any time anyone has anything to do with a pug, people will like send me something or my daughter wears the ugliest crocs. She’s 14. Like, I can’t believe that like a 14 year old wears these. And so people will see ugly crowds. I’m sorry, ugly crocs like out in the wild and like, send me pictures of people wearing these ugly things. 

So this is a wild yeah. 

So this is what once again is why pre launching is so important. It’s like, okay, we are really trying to create this like personal connection when we like, like someone when we feel like we know them. But once again, that doesn’t happen when you have someone come in on a webinar and then you’re throwing ten lunch emails at them, right? This is some of the stuff that gets lost in in just because of a timing factor. So that’s the first way is really to show your personality is just to kind of write like you talk, start sharing simple stories, start sharing what’s going on with your life and and it kind of comes together. 

Now. That makes perfect sense for me because like as you were talking to, I’m thinking about like stories that I could tell. And yeah, I think you’re mentioning I think you’re referring to. The little blurb I did at the beginning of an episode. The one I did was Zach Buckler talking about how he built up a six figure run rate on memberships. And I was talking about how I created with I’m laughing because there’s a story behind this, how I created my own honey cinnamon latte with my coffee machine. Upstairs. And depending on when this episode comes out, I have an episode coming up where we are, two episodes coming up where with Jude Charles and we talk exactly about that story and he was like, Dude, it was a completely relevant to the rest of the episode. And he’s referencing this exact story that you’re talking about anyway. That’s why I’m kind of laughing, because I don’t know why I shared it. But yet you’re saying it was effective because it’s a another way for people to connect. On the Coffee Snobbery. 

Prequel and then just stories like A big part of what I do in pre-launch is stories, right? Like and I as an email copywriter, I was trained by the great Laura Bell. So, like, stories are so important and they don’t have to be long stories or overcomplicated stories. But even these like little quick mentions, a story is just how we it. Stories like statistics don’t stick with us. Right? All the stats, the things that stick with us over time are these little stories and things that we hear and they’ll catch us in our day. And so it’s just a really effective, yet easy way to create connection with our audience.

Yeah. And so on the empathy side for the e of the pace subframe or quote unquote, how do we establish that? How do we create that empathy? Empathy. You mentioned this is where you use your customer research and the research that you are doing back in the first step of the overall case framework. How are we specifically establishing that empathy based on that research within the structure of our pre-launch? 

Right. Well, I think it’s that people feel seen and that you understand what they’re going through. So I’ll give you an example of an email that I wrote last week where I talked about I’ll tell you a very quick story, but I was at yoga and the yoga instructor was saying how all of these events that are coming up and then I’m like my mind flash. This is what I had talked about in the email, like to driving over to yoga where the radio station was talking about like what songs were coming up in the next hour. And I was saying how like now that like my brain is like in pre launch mode, I see it everywhere. Like everywhere we turn around there’s these little mini pre launches, whether we believe it or not there the entertainment industry runs on a pre launch. If you think about it. Movie what movie trailers? What’s coming up? There was something with like Lady Gaga a couple of weeks ago. She had a new song coming out. She was talking about the why, what happened behind her song. And so I started to say, like, how now that I’ve seen this, like I can’t unsee that that that pre launches are everywhere and that somehow somewhere along the way, someone came up with this method that you’re supposed to. 

Once again, going back to buy live launch where you’re supposed to throw up a webinar, have someone come and buy from you and spend thousands of dollars over seven days and that this is just supposed to work. And I in my I joked around in my email, I was like, make this make sense to me. Like, it doesn’t make sense if you really start to think about our human nature. But then again, I could make someone feel silly if I left it at that right? Like this doesn’t make sense. I could. If someone’s reading that, they could be like, well, so what? I just simply said, like, hey, I just want you to know, like, this is not your fault if you have done these type of launches, if you’ve had and I talked about how to, it’s almost like then we berate ourselves, why we’ve had these failed launches and wonder what we’ve done wrong when we’ve actually been kind of set up to fail. By the way, we’ve been taught to do these things all along. And so I was made sure to point out to the person like, this isn’t your fault, this is the way you’ve been taught, this is the way I’ve been taught. 

And here is a better way. This is what I’m here to show you. And so I’m empathizing with where they’ve been that they have you know, most of us have like some type of failed launch, some type of promotion, even if it’s just like a freebie, something that hasn’t gone well. And we’ve all been in that situation. And so the fact that I’m just seeing them and letting them know that I understand where they’re at is in itself just empathetic, right? Letting the less we feel alone, the less that we can show that we have been in their shoes, walked in their shoes, have clients. This is where case studies can come in, that other people have walked in the same shoes that they’re at and kind of helping. And this goes back to like what I talked about earlier. Now we can start taking some of this like pinpoint customer language of where where have they said like how have they expressed this before? And I can use this directly in the copy to, to have it like be more effective I guess is for lack of better words. 

I want to start to wrap up, but I one question that’s come to my mind, Brenna, as we’re talking about all of this, is that so my audience here knows how I feel about, you know, our our business relying on one or two live launches a year. You know, I’ve done a whole episode about it. A lot of people talk to me about it because of that episode. This is something I teach an accelerator where it’s like, Let’s get away from just the one or two live launches a year. I’m not saying don’t live launch, I’m not saying that at all, but let’s combine it with an evergreen strategy. Can you use this framework or these this the case framework and the PACE framework on an evergreen. Strategy. So what I mean by that is let’s just say somebody opts in to a lead magnet, to an amazing lead magnet. Can we truncate that? Down like from seven weeks to maybe a shorter period of time while still going through this type of strategy. And then maybe the call to action is an evergreen training or something like that. Have you seen this work on an evergreen basis? 

I personally have worked with people on live lunches. However, when it comes to an evergreen, absolutely, because you on an evergreen, you know, typically most evergreen offers are you’re opting in your maybe going through a quick warm up sequence. Sometimes you’re getting going, watching a webinar or going directly into a sale sequence. But if someone says no at some point, obviously they are ready to buy. So all of a sudden you can take everything that I taught you. And whether you make it a few weeks, six weeks, whatever it is, you can start walking them through and start figuring out if someone did it by on the evergreen the first time, where can I start looking at my data? Where where are things falling off? What hasn’t worked? Where can I go and start kind of warming them back up to the thought of purchasing our product? So I would say 100% you should be, if you have an evergreen funnel, be doing exactly what I’m saying because you just if you just are trying to sell to someone all the time, eventually it becomes static and noisy. They’re not they’re going to stop listening to you. So really start building your case again. If they should say no and you’re putting them back into a funnel to get them to buy you, a lot of times what happens to is on an evergreen funnel is that will they’ll go into like a webinar, they’ll watch, they won’t buy it. Then we just throw them on to our regular email list and then they, you know, and that’s where the sales can go to die some point on an evergreen and all of a sudden you’re just sending them out regular emails, you’re not approaching them again. So I think they’re this conversation can be nuanced on the strategy of what you’re trying to do, what what the lead magnet is all of this but 100%. You could be using exactly what I’m talking about on an evergreen funnel.

I love it. Yeah, I completely agree. Everything you’re saying here, it’s like this can absolutely be used on an evergreen basis. And I’m thinking for on a personal level, I could do much better job of this on an evergreen level as well. So you mentioned that you have a course all about pre launching. It’s a is it a group coaching program, correct? 

Yes. Until it becomes an evergreen offer at some point. But that won’t be until 2023. But yes, as of now, it is a group coaching program. 

Okay, cool. So you offer that group coaching program, you will offer it as a course next next year. People can work with you one on one. If people want to learn, how do I get in Brennan’s world? What’s the best place? How do what are the best ways to for them to do that. 

Right. Well you can come my website is Brenda McGowan CO you can always DM me and come say hi on Instagram. I hang out there a little too often and if you’re if you’re just like wanting to get your, you know, your feet wet with this whole pre launch, I actually have a pre-launch cheat sheet where I break down as a checklist of the different types of content that you can be putting out there with ideas for your next free launch. 

And is that on your website? 

Yes, that is. Thank you. Brennan McGowan, echo slash cheat sheet. 

Okay, cool. I will be downloading that so everybody could download that cheat sheet because this is something that I see almost every single week in speaking with somebody or coaching somebody, that this is a piece that’s missing again, whether it’s a lot on live launching or on an evergreen basis, the concepts that that Brant is talking about here are critical, that it’s like, look, let’s help somebody make the best decision for them and not put them into like this time crunch. We’ve talked about that before, too, where they feel all this pressure to make a decision, right? So let’s help them make the right decision over a longer period of time doing the types of things that that Brenna has shared here today. So, Brenna, thank you so much for coming on here, this show. Super appreciate. 

It. Thank you for having me. And one one last thing I’m going to throw in. You asked at the beginning if this can work to pre fill your programs and my versus my program. I completely sold out using exactly what I’m talking to. I never even had to go to launch. So it’s definitely 100% possible for any for any of the naysayers out there. 

So you completely sold out your program before having to do any kind of live launch webinar or what have you? 

No, I had no launch emails. It was actually I was going into the week of what would have been a launch and like it was almost like a miracle, but it was definitely it was either the Thursday or Friday before what I would have considered my launch week, my program had been it was completely filled up. 

Boom. I love it. Love when that happens. Good stuff. Thank you, Brant. I appreciate it. 

Thank you. 

Hey, if you’re an established online course creator or you’re a coach or maybe you’ve got a membership program and you’d like my eyes on your business if you’d like my teams, eyes on your business if you would like a group of very successful, amazing online entrepreneurs from different niches or niches looking at your business and helping you grow and scale your business and your impact, then I want to invite you to send me an email. Or you can also or you can do both. Go over to our accelerator coaching program page at Rick Mulraney for Accelerator. You can learn more about our coaching program right there. You can hear from current and past members of Accelerator and how we have helped them scale their business and their impact. Here’s the key. While working no more than 25 hours a week or less, that’s what this is about scaling your business and your impact while working a whole lot fewer hours. So again, shoot me an email, Rick at Rick Modica, we can start the conversation there or and you can go over to our accelerator coaching program page at Rick Mulroy Forward slash accelerator. Thank you, my friend, as always for listening to today’s episode. Super, super. Appreciate you. I do not take your attention lightly until next time. Be well and I’ll talk to you soon.