Amanda McVicker (00:00)
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the OBM educator. I'm excited to be back with some OBM education. You know, one of the things I love about this podcast is that I, you know, have been in the online space for, gosh, six years at this point. And so I do see the trends and I know what January means for a lot of people and
What it means is a lot of business owners are thinking about looking to execute on the launch projects that they have been thinking about. And so just, you you're going to see in the next month or two, a lot of launching happening, whether that's courses or masterminds or memberships, programs, things like that. And so...
I'm bringing a topic for you as the aspiring OBM or the new OBM or the OBM who just wants to brush up on a few things. A topic that is going to be beneficial for you as you are entering this season. And so that is about what your client is looking to you for as they are handling a launch.
a lot of the times clients have expectations just from what they've heard of other OBMs or maybe previous support providers that they've had. And so...
they are looking to you probably with some preconceived notion expectations.
And so that's what we're gonna get into today. I am really excited because in less than two weeks right now, so on January 21st, I am hosting a workshop, a free workshop called Launch Support 101. And so, you know, what I'm gonna talk about today is kind of like the, like what is your client looking to you to provide during the launch?
But the workshop is going to get into how can you provide those things. We're like breaking it down. It's going to be a lot of information, but if you know any of my previous trainings or have listened to the podcast before, you know that I make it really easy to follow along. But it's going to be like a 101 class. We are getting down into
how you support your clients during a launch and what you need to know, what you need to do, how you need to do it. This is going to be part of the series that I am doing this year called the Like an OBM series. If you were around last fall, I did a challenge called Think Like an OBM. And from that, that was like a five day.
challenge where you got a scenario each day, you know, a common business scenario and how would you approach it as an OBM. And so it was just kind of going through all of that. And some of the feedback that I got from that was I know that I would do this, but I don't know how to do that. And so I came up with this idea of a workshop series centered around really diving into these topics.
And so, you know, this is going to be stuff like this month, launch support. It's going to be how do you collect analytics? How do you create an SOP? How do you manage a team effectively? So those are kind of all future topics. But we're going to do launch support 101 to kick things off. Again, it is a free workshop. This workshop series is not leading into a pitch or an upsell or anything like that.
So come ready to learn. The link to register is in the show notes. Again, it'll be on January 21st at 1 p.m. Eastern. If you can't make it live, but you still want the information, I would still sign up because you would get the replay and have access to that going forward.
So without further ado, let's get into it.
Okay, so what I'm going to be talking about today is really for kind of like the broad launch.
It's not something that's like specific to a business coach or a coach in general, you know, or even online business, but it is kind of broad for a launch, a course launch, a program launch, mentoring coaching launch, a product launch, a mastermind membership, you know, something along those lines. And something I will say before diving into this is
you do need to look at the type of client that you have for this. So a business coach, if your client is a business coach who helps other businesses run their business or helps other businesses with sales or marketing or things like that, they are going to be pretty adept at launching. It's something they teach. They probably do it a lot. they are probably going to have SOPs around launching.
that you're more, you're still managing.
but you're not necessarily giving the strategic advice that I'm gonna talk
because they already have the strategic knowledge in their head.
But if you have a client who not work in business coaching day in and day out, chances are they're going to have limited knowledge on launching in general. And so this is where you're gonna come Being able guide your client is going to help make the launching process a lot less nerve wracking for them.
a lot smoother and they're going to feel more comfortable doing it again.
You want to help with making it so that when your client gets to the end of launch, they feel okay. You know, regardless of the results, you know, sometimes you can't as the service provider, as the OBM, you are not responsible for results. And lot of the time, you could do could change that. So regardless of the outcome, if your client ends the launch feeling
okay, relaxed, crazed, then in my opinion you have done your job.
And so the things that I'm going through today going to help with that and to help take things off of their to give them kind of calming guide the process. And ultimately it lets them show up.
to their fullest extent, ready to sell, ready to share their knowledge and do what they need to do during the launch.
So the first thing that your client is going to look to you for is tech. So this is going to center around what type of tech they should be using in the pre-launch, actual launch and delivery of whatever it is that they are launching. And so
There's so much, so much tech out there and chances are, depending on what your client wants to be doing, they might not have all of the tech they need from the get-go, especially if this is their first time launching. And so your first job is to look at
how can they use what they currently you want to optimize the tech that they currently pay for, the tech they've invested time and money into already see how it can fit. Now, there are gonna be times it's not pretty. are gonna be times that there is a better way to do it.
but you don't want to come in and tell them you need to change this and change this and change this because as the OBM, part of your job is figuring out how to work with what they have. That is where the brainstorming and the strategy kind of come so that you can figure out, how can I take what they're currently using?
even though it might not be the best, how can I make it still work?
And then after you have that, then you figure out what do they need. And for the most part, if someone has launched before, what you're going to need
system program that allows for delivery of whatever it is they're launching.
plus probably a payment processor. Payment processor is usually the biggest thing because when you're launching say a course or a program, you tend to offer payment plans. And so you usually have a pay in full or a payment plan option. so you want it have a multiple payment option or a subscription option if it's a membership.
And you also want to do it in a way that you're not creating an invoice for every single person who's coming through. You want it to be something automatic. And so that is usually one of the things that most business owners, if they've never launched anything before, if they've never had products before, they don't have. so playing around with what can you use
fulfill that is gonna be a big part of the tech.
An example, when I was first starting out as an OBM, my first OBM client wanted to launch a course and wanted to have a payment plan option, but she used Square as her payment processor. And a lot of things like ThriveCart or Teachable or Kajabi, they don't accept Square as a payment processor. And so,
we were using Dubsado for her coaching and Dubsado accepted Square. And so I was able to brainstorm creating payment plans, creating a pay in full option in there, guiding them through agreeing to terms, onboarding, do some zaps to teachable, like all of that stuff. It seemed a little clunky on the back end.
but I don't think that it was really noticeable for the person going through it. And so it worked.
So instead of trying to convince her to use some other platform that honestly I couldn't even find any way that would take Square, we made that work for years.
And so when you're looking at what is it that they already have or looking at what can we get with limitations, whether that's budget or a payment processor, you need to be creative and think outside the box to see what can fit for that client.
So the next thing that they're gonna to you for during a launch is strategy slash advice. And so this is going to be in kind of all the different areas. So looking at the launch event, like what type of launch event should they be doing? Should they do a master class or a webinar or a challenge? And why does it make sense for them to do that?
they'll probably look to you for what type of content or promotion makes sense. Even if you're not writing the content, they will probably look to you for what kind of content makes sense during this promotion. What kind of email should I be sending out? How often should I be sending out emails? What should I put on Instagram versus Facebook? What should I put in Facebook groups? Things like that. They'll also probably look to you for advice on the length of a launch,
And you know, it's not just like them looking to you for advice. They're, they might not say it, but if you have a reason why something that they think they should be doing, maybe not be best practice, they're wanting you to bring that up. So for an example, if you had a client who was like, okay, well, I heard you should do a two week launch.
But you know that their audience, you know, gets really antsy after a week or maybe they aren't used to
such heavy promotion, you might want to counter that with a shorter launch period, with a bonus to get them to make that commitment quicker. They're gonna be looking to you for advice based on best practices and what it is that you've seen in the industry.
Now with this one.
there is sometimes you have to walk a fine line, especially if, say, your client works with a business coach. Because if your client works with a business coach, chances are that business coach has given them some strategy, and that's fine. At that point, you kind of take more of the management slash execution
and let the business coach lead on the strategy.
but also don't be afraid to give your opinion just so that they can have, know, different points of view. Cause obviously business coaches aren't going to be the end all be all.
when it comes to what works in a launch. If you have advice based on what you've seen in other launches or maybe you were a customer from a different launch and you have your experience as being the buyer, share that, share that with your client because they should want that type of advice and.
expertise that you can provide them.
And so the last thing I'm going to share of what your client is going to be looking to you for during a launch is the planning. And so this, you know, obviously takes a takes up pretty much everything, right? So this is managing all of the moving pieces from the pre-launch to the actual launch to the post-launch. It is writing out the timeline, creating a to-do list, delegating the tasks.
making sure that all of those things are actually done, testing everything, monitoring the actual launch, the signups, doing the post-launch analysis, like all of that kind of goes into the planning that your client is going to be looking to you to do. It's not that you are doing it all, but you are managing it. You are making sure that everything is being.
So this is the project management piece of launch management.
And this is what is going to allow your client to show up in the way that they need to show up during the launch. This is what's going to allow them to not worry about tech and the moving pieces and did this email get scheduled. This is what's going to allow them to stay in their zone of genius and be able to just sell.
And as a side note, if you want a full launch timeline that you can use for your client's launch, make sure to register for my workshop because I was just putting together the workbook last night and I made sure to include a full timeline of what needs to be done during launches. So just an F1.
So these are the things that your client is going to be looking to you for during a launch. Now this isn't.
An exhaustive list. All clients are different. I think having communication with your clients around what they are expecting during a launch. Maybe there's something different they do experiences that they've had. You want to have that discussion so that you do know what it is that they are looking for.
but this is going to be a pretty simple breakdown of the main things as an OBM, is what you should taking responsibility for during a launch to help for.
Success.
I hope this was helpful as we're going into launch season. register for the launch support one-on-one It's going to be so full of information. A workbook that gets you a timeline, gets you a checklist, know, helps you go through these different pieces that I talked about. And we're going to be just diving into all of the different aspects of a launch.
that will give you confidence to approach a launch as an OBM, even if you haven't done it before. So again, the link to register for that is in my show notes.
And yeah, I will talk with you guys next week. Bye.
