How to Master Product Launches

0:00The reason it's lasted so long is because it's based on strategies as opposed to like one hit wonders as opposed to like short-term tactics. It's rooted in psychology and the way our brains work. And so the formula has been working for coming up on 30 years now, and it's going to keep on working for another 30, I think for 300 years. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Ductate Marketing Podcast. This is John Chance. My guest today is Jeff Walker. He's the creator of the Product Launch Formula, revolutionized online marketing with a step-by-step process that has generated over a billion dollars in launches.

0:40Since pioneering the concept in 1996, his formula has become the gold standard for online entrepreneurial training. He lives in my favorite state of Colorado, way down in the corner of Durango, enjoys outdoor adventures and family. We're going to talk a little bit about his updated and revised version of his best-selling book, Launch. How to sell almost anything online. Build a business you love and live the life of you. So Jeff, welcome to the show. Thanks, John. I'm really happy to be here. It's been a long time since you've been on the show, but fortunately, you and I got to bump into each other recently in Nashville, which is greatly connected.

1:17So for the two people that don't know, what is PLF? PLF stands for Product Launch Formula, and basically is a process and a system to launch your products online. Whether you have an online course, a membership site, a coaching program, any type of training like that. It's also used for art and for books and even for widgets. Awesome. So I always like to ask in a revised book, updated book, you know, a lot you're in the online space. A lot of stuff changes, you know, every day in there. What would you say to somebody who bought the original version? Like what's new? yeah you know what really changed so so product launch formula is the reason it's lasted so long so as you mentioned earlier i started developing it in the mid 90s that was when i did my first launch was in 1997 and developed it started publishing this as a course in 2005 came out with the first edition of the book in 2014 the reason it's lasted so long is because it's based on strategies as opposed to like one hit wonders, as opposed to like short term tactics.

2:28It's it's rooted in psychology and the way our brains work. And so the formula has been working for coming up on 30 years now, and it's going to keep on working for another 30, I think for 300 years. But the online world does change quite a bit. So with that in mind, I revised it. And really what I went into deep in the book is social media, which really wasn't, there was no social media when I started out. And even in 2014, it was definitely a thing, but it wasn't a thing at the level it is now. And also paid traffic, the ability to, you know, there's just great ad platforms that there weren't back in the day.

3:12So those are a couple of the really big things. And then one thing that's really changed is the timing of the sequences. So Product Learning Formula is built on sequences. And, well, it's built on stories, sequences, and mental triggers. And in the sequences, it used to be there was this pre-launch sequence, and that was like the star of the show. And then you would actually open up and start taking orders. And that was almost an afterthought, that portion, what we call the open cart or the open cart sequence. And that has become the star of the show now. So a lot of the emphasis has shifted from, yes, I'd say it used to be the pre-launch with the open cart being an afterthought.

3:52And now the open cart is a full on major sequence. You mentioned when you were describing what it was that you have a lot of, I mean, pretty big variety of use cases, right? But somebody might read the word formula and think, oh, there's one way to do it. I mean, how do you address that idea? Yeah, I mean, it's more like, I think that marketing is often, there's a science, and then there's the art. And within product launch formula, there's certainly room for the art. And as formulaic as I try to make it, because I'm teaching people to do it and the people I'm teaching, some of them are starting from absolute ground zero.

4:36I've never sold anyone anything. I've never done any marketing whatsoever. So I have to assume that's where we're starting from. But as you get more experience, there's all kinds of room for creativity within the formula. The whole idea, it's about delivering value before the sale. It's about delivering. One of the ways I like to think about it is the value. It's value before reveal. And before you reveal the full extent of what your offer is, you've already built great value for people. And then there's this idea of desire before availability, where you're building up this desire before someone can get it.

5:13And if you look at the way, I mean, this is used by big companies like Apple does this so well. Yeah. I mean, Hollywood does it. People waiting around the block for the new site. Right. Exactly. And that is possible even if you don't have a budget like Apple has or like the Hollywood studios have or like the big gaming companies have. We can absolutely do that by putting together a pre-launch where you walk people through a series of, you define a problem that they have, whatever market or niche you're in, whether it's quitting smoking or learning meditation or having a better love relationship or building your business or hitting a better tennis serve.

6:02It doesn't matter that the people they have, they're there, they're in your world because they want something different in their life. And our job is to either is still deliver. It's basically to take away pain or deliver pleasure to people, give them more pleasure, take away pain for them. And so they have a series of problems. And if you can solve those problems through your pre-launch and not like the big overarching problem, but if you can start to thin slice some of the things that are keeping them up at night and you can define those problems really well and then start to solve some of them in the pre-launch, then that just, it builds trust.

6:44It builds relationship, but it also builds anticipation that they're going to want to get your, whatever the thing is. Would you say that this sort of came about organically? Like, you know, 1995, we were all, I was online then too. We were all trying to figure out, hey, how can I make money on this thing? And so you created something and worked. People started asking you, hey, Jeff, how'd you do that? I mean, would you say that's kind of it? Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, so like when I started, I was publishing and started publishing a newsletter in 1996. And it was about the stock market.

7:19And that's something I had some knowledge on. And John, I don't even think I ever told you this, but I started that newsletter. It was a free newsletter back when there were very many free newsletters. We called them e-zines or something like that, right? Right. And there weren't very many. And I think there was probably about zero free ones about the stock market back then. There might have been a couple. And I actually started publishing that because I needed to put something on my resume to help me get into grad school. So it's just, yeah, by this ridiculous path, people started subscribing to that newsletter.

7:52and then after I had about six or eight or 900 people and I'm like oh maybe they'll buy something from me and but at that point there was no teaching or training about marketing online this in 1986 it just didn't exist and I had no sales or marketing experience and I furthermore I thought I had this feeling messed up feeling about marketing and messed up feeling about sales that if I asked them for money for something that they would hate me. And it's like, and so I decided to romance them and I gave them a whole bunch of really high quality content. And that gradually led it to the sale. And that one seed of an idea has led, yeah, all these years later, my students have done a billion dollars in sales.

8:36It's just ridiculous. You mentioned the idea that there there is a psychological strategy or psychological component to a lot of this so you talk a lot about authority and scarcity reciprocity so how how do you make that in a way that doesn't seem unique but also is certainly does the job yep so there's all these mental triggers and the pre-launch gives you this amazing time to use those triggers and the one of them you know, authority you mentioned. And that's, you absolutely have to lead with authority. Anytime you're doing any type of marketing, even if you're just doing content marketing, if you're just people that try to pay attention to your message out in social, you have to establish some authority or else there's just no reason for them to pay attention to you.

9:28So anytime, any presentation you give from any sort, anywhere, you have to tell people why they should pay attention to you. Now, there's elegant ways to do this and there's clumsy ways to do it. And the picture in front of your jet. Yeah, right, right. Exactly. I think one of the best ways to do it is to deliver real value and to show up and know what you're talking about. Like not have the intro that I just had on this podcast where I was stumbling over myself trying to describe what PLF was. But yeah, so I think authority is a big one you want to lead with. And like reciprocity is a mental trigger where if you give something to someone, they want to give something back to you.

10:08And that, you know, when you're giving true value in your pre-launch and it doesn't cost anything, that's not manipulative. You're just giving value, but it does develop reciprocity. And so, yeah, I mean, I think with a lot of any type of marketing, there's ways, you know, to go to the dark side. And I hope my clients aren't doing that because I think, you know, the reality is if you just show up and you deliver real value, you've automatically built up authority and you've built up reciprocity and you've built up likability. And so, yeah, those triggers are built right in all the way through the process.

10:46Where I see people, what I'm talking about, I'm sure none of your students do this, but, you know, we've all seen the, oh, sale ends at midnight every day for the next, you know, six months, the sale ends at midnight, right? And so it's just, you know, it's just manipulative. It's not, you know, it's not honest and authentic. It's my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast, our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with a must-have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We've been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters, and sales funnel drip campaigns.

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12:07Now, this offer is limited to new ActiveCampaign customers only. So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue, and save precious time by upgrading to ActiveCampaign today. So tell me this. You have had lots of success, but I'm sure that you have heard from a person or two, this just doesn't work, Jeff, for me. Like, what are the common mistakes, you know, that people make when they, you know, invest in your program, start to try to follow it. Where do you see them fall down? I think there's a couple ways. And one of them is the people that are just amazing salespeople and the incredible salespeople.

12:47Often they have like a sales message or a pitch that they're used to giving. And as an aside, I don't like the word pitch. I always use the word offer. So I'm using that intentionally here where these folks have a pitch and what they do is they're like, oh, pitch. And I'd see in your formula, you usually put out like three pieces of pre-launch content. Well, I'll take my pitch and I'll just cut it into three pieces. I'll take my webinar and I'll make it three 20-minute segments instead of a 60-minute segment. That's not following the formula. That's not delivery value. So I think the people that are just really good at selling, and I don't consider myself one.

13:25And I've gotten, I'm really good at marketing. I've gotten pretty darn good at selling, but it's been a long journey for me to get there. But the people that are just natural salespeople, the one that can sell sand in the desert, they get into trouble. They don't want to waste the time on all that other stuff. Right, exactly. Maybe they don't need to. I don't know. Maybe they don't need to. So that's one. And the other one is where people, they just get enamored with is, oh, deliver value before the sale. I love that. And then they just teach and teach and teach. If I teach, like, if you say I'll put out three pieces of pre-launch content, I know I'll do like three, three hour trainings.

14:04And so they don't actually follow the formula because the reality is you can easily overteach. and when you overteach, when you're asking people to invest a lot of time with you before they've really truly chosen to invest with you monetarily, but also emotionally and intellectually. So if you're just like, I'll tell you what, you're free, just give me your email, and I'm going to give you a Harvard MBA. It's going to take you about three years to get through it, but that's okay because it's going to be great. Yeah. And even if you delivered that there, no one, when they give you an email is prepared to spend three years getting an MBA and the same, they're not going to go through three or four hours of training with you until you've moved them forward.

14:51Or establish some value of that. Right. It's like, I'm not going to invest the time because I don't know if it's any good. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, so, all right. What do you tell the person that says, well, okay, I don't have any, I don't even have a course, you know, can I like make this work or do I need to go to work on sort of the pre-free stuff? Yeah. I mean, so I think first of all, you need to start anyone who's building an online business, anyone's building any business, you need to start to build an audience. I would start that immediately. Uh, and you can, the great thing is you can start that on social these days.

15:28But then you want to move people off of social onto an email list. So you want to start to build that audience. And as you build that audience, I consider myself a publisher. It's like when I'm on the ski lift and someone asks me what I do, I'm a publisher. That's what I do. Because I put out, well, these days often it's video, but I put words and thoughts and video out into the world. And I think we all need to do that. And the great thing is when you're just starting out and you don't have an audience yet, you don't have to be amazing. Like, John, you and I were at this point now where if we're going to publish something, there's an expectation that we're going to be pretty good because we're experts in our field.

16:08We're perceived as experts in our field. But when you're first starting out and no one's paying attention, you have time to practice and get your chops down and find your voice and find the hooks in your message and find what it is you're going to bring to the world. I think that almost every one of us, probably every one of us has something we can bring to the world that we can teach. Something that people that, you know, what do people come to you to ask you about? You know, what seems like incredibly easy to you, but seems hard to other people. And some of the niches that people have had success in, you know, John, I, we had, there was two guys, they had a six figure launch.

16:49So a hundred thousand dollar launch teaching people how to scream and i was like they wrote in you know after they got they went to the court they did this launch they wrote him they said yeah we taught him screaming and i'm like we okay we got to get these guys that i call and find out what this is and it turns out that it's for i'm like what could that what it's for screaming for like heavy metal for heavy metal vocals how to scream i was going like some sort of mental health release or something but and but turns out there's a technique for it and they knew how to do it. So they taught it. You know, he had someone teaching sword fighting, you know, it's just, it goes on and on, the different types of things.

17:28So I think pretty much all of us have something we can bring to the world. I am a big fan of this, of this, what I call a wisdom business where you're, you know, whatever you spent time learning how to do, you could show other people how to do it. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting too. I think a lot of people underestimate this idea that everybody's on the continuum of their journey somewhere. So like people that have read all the books and gone to all the courses, you know, maybe they're farther along in their journey, but there's definitely people back here starting their journey that you can teach something to.

17:58I think that's a lot of times when people, you know, they read your book and they think, I got to be like that. But, you know, Jeff serves a certain audience. There's a whole lot of people out there that your stuff, they're not ready for your stuff. Right. You know, and the reality is there's more people at the beginning. There's more beginners than in any market because everyone starts as a beginner, right? You know, if you're teaching guitar, there are some people that are masters, you know, Eric Clapton, you know, the masters, but there's a lot more people that just bought the guitar because everyone starts.

18:30Eric Clapton bought a guitar one day. Everyone starts and only a few people get to the expertise. So there, you know, if you, it's like a pyramid, There's just more beginners in any field. I hesitate. We're about at the end of our term. I hesitate opening up this door. But how has AI impacted what you do and what marketers do in your view? Well, you know, obviously we're still in the second inning in the AI revolution, I think. Yeah. So we don't know where it's going to go. I just have no idea. Right now, where it's at is, I think it's great for ideation. Yeah. It is absolutely amazing. You know, I've spent my life for the last 30 years becoming a very good copywriter.

19:17I'm really good at putting words together that convince people to move forward with me. And those words might be delivered via an email, via a blog post, via social media, or, or a script that I say on video. And, you know, it's something I do. I'm great at. I'm proud of. But it's not necessarily an easy thing to do. I've spent three decades getting better at it. But right now, you can use AI and cut out the first 80 % of that. So I think it makes it a lot easier. You can tell it's right like Gary Halbert. Yeah. And it won't write like Gary Halbert. In fact, John, you know, just in the last week, I was going back and reading the old Gary Halbert letters.

20:02For those of you who don't know, Gary Halbert's one of the legends of copywriting. He's passed away quite a number of years ago now, but one of the absolute legends. But I think AI can get you the first 80 % there. AI can help you design a course. AI can help you brainstorm books. AI can help you brainstorm lead magnets. It's just, it's... Pain points. Yeah. Right. Right. Get to know your avatar. Yeah. I've sounded really good at, it's terrible at creating original content in my view right now, but it's pretty good at repackaging your good original content. And so for me, for a lot of marketers, you start with something really good.

20:41And now you, because we want to maybe, or it makes sense for us to participate in a lot of different platforms, you can actually take that original content and make it fit for the platform. But again, you can't tell it, write me a 700 word blog post on X. or it'll be pretty garbage. Right. But like something, like a lot of people struggle with is like avatar research. So avatar is your ideal client. And because a lot of us are more advanced, like if you are the guitarist, who's like this amazing guitarist now, and you're trying to remember what it was like to be a newbie because you want to teach some newbies, it's hard to remember what it's like.

21:16But you can go to AI and ask AI what it's like to be a newbie and what the concerns are and what the hopes and dreams and fears are. And it's really good at that. Yeah. And I think the hopes and courage and dreams when I picked up the guitar had more to do with Patty McCormick than learning how to play the guitar. Like a lot of junior high guitarists, right? Right. Right. Well, Jeff, it was awesome catching up with you. Where can people find more about your work and certainly pick up a copy of the updated revised launch? The book is called Launch. It's available anywhere books are sold, including Amazon.

21:51And there's all the different types of versions there. and then you can find more about the product launch formula at product launch.com. I've always got all kinds of great free resources there for you to have. Yeah, and depending upon when you're listening to this, I know you have a new launch of PFL coming up, and we will let people know where that is. But again, depending upon when you're listening to this, you can find the latest and greatest. John, this is great. Thank you. My pleasure. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these things out there on Highway 50.

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