March 14, 2023 • 28 mins
This week on the show I welcome launch strategist and copywriter, Brenna McGowan. We discuss the aspect of an offer that many entrepreneurs skip over: pre-launch.
It seems so much easier to skip right to the promotion of the sale, rather than warming an audience up, doing our due diligence, and testing the market... Alas, those who skip the pre-launch are leaving money (and a loyal audience) on the table.
Putting the right offer in front of the right audience with the right messaging is key. Obvious? You'd be surprised as to how many business owners place a lot of incorrect assumptions within this step.
The market research component is huge. Brenna is actually teaching a workshop where she goes through and validates the offers of her students. From there, they have a true understanding of who their customer is.
Per Brenna, pre-launch is about selling your process, and not your program. For six weeks during a pre-launch, she suggests thinking through what is the buy-in your ideal customer has to have before they decide to buy your solution.
Listen in as we dive deep into these topics and more.
Connect with Brenna at her website and grab her free Pre-Launch Plan Cheat Sheet.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Geiger (00:02):
Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset
podcast, where we dive intotactical strategies to grow your
business and make an impact onthis world. A huge part of
success is keeping your mindsetand vision on track. So this is
a major part of our process. Andthis podcast. Let's do this Hey
(00:25):
everybody, welcome back to theSmall Business Big mindset
podcast this week we haveBrennan McGowan, a launch
strategist and copywriter.
Welcome Brenna.
Unknown (00:34):
Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
Erin Geiger (00:36):
You guys. We ran an hour laughing because we have
been in each other's circles forI don't wanna say a couple of
years now but we've neveractually met met virtually. So
it's it's hilarious that wedon't we know we don't we
haven't really met okay, youknow, but it's just so funny.
Like how online especially ifyou're in the same circles, you
can feel like oh, yeah, I'veknown this person for years. So
(00:58):
do you ever actually haven't hada face to face conversation with
him yet? It's
Unknown (01:03):
just me happens all the time. I feel like
Erin Geiger (01:06):
it's hilarious.
Okay, so let's dive right in. Iwould love to hear a little bit
about you, your background, andhow you got into what you're
currently doing.
Unknown (01:19):
Yeah, it's kind of a windy path. So I'll give you the
Cliff's Notes version, which wasI was a stay at home mom loved
being a stay at home mom. Andthen when my daughter went back
or went started to go topreschool, I started to just do
like odd jobs on the side forextra money. Which brought me to
2017, which was I was about toturn 40 and was kind of like,
(01:44):
what, what am I doing with mylife, right, like, and so I
started to think about like, Iwant to do something a little
bit bigger, but I didn't knowwhat that was. And I fell into
doing some social media andemail marketing for a friend who
was starting a business. Andwhen I started to do that for
her, and I always joke becauseit was like, all over vanity I
(02:06):
want to she was an estheticianand I want to fake eyelashes. So
I was like okay, how do I getfake eyelashes? And I'll help
you do like some of this littlebit of marketing's I've done
like odd jobs throughout thattime. So I started to do this.
And people were like commentingto her how much they liked it.
And I was like, Maybe I shouldstart a business doing this.
(02:26):
Because I had no I wasn't onsocial media, like it didn't
even like occur to me that thiswas like could be a career of
some sort. So I put up a websiteand did a logo and announced on
Facebook that I was going to bedoing kind of social media
marketing, and I got clientsimmediately. And I soon there
(02:49):
realized I hated social mediamarketing. There's aspects of it
that I really loved. But I itwas not what I wanted to do. So
I started to kind of have this,like, what should I do with this
business that I started and Ifound our mutual friend and
mentor Laura Bell Gray, and wasreading her emails and I was
like, Oh, wait, like all ofthese like quirky little funny
(03:13):
stories I have in my head I canactually use to sell. So I
pivoted quickly over to becomean email copywriter started
writing all types of copy. Andduring that journey of being a
copywriter and having thatreally strong content, social
media background, we started tonotice a hole in some of the
(03:33):
launches that I was helpingpeople with, which was like, Why
were people even when peoplewith audiences? Why did
sometimes, you know, their theiractual launch not convert the
way that it probably should haveon paper. And you know, what was
kind of this missing link. Andaround that same time I heard an
interview with some other mutualfriends where they talked about
(03:56):
pre launch. And it kind of hitme at that moment. It was just
like, wait a second, there's somuch of that goes into
launching, but a lot of timespeople forget about this runway
period that become that happensbefore the launch. And I made a
decision as I was trying to Iguess figure my life out that
this was an area I wanted tospecialize in, which felt a
(04:17):
little scary because I had neverheard of anyone talking about
this area in as a niche, if youwill. And that's how that's how
we're here today. So I startedto call myself a pre launch
specialist and haven't lookedback since.
Erin Geiger (04:33):
Yeah, no. And it's great that you realize like you
identified you know, that partof the industry where you're
like, wait a minute, this is aproblem area and no one's really
helping helping entrepreneursout because it's so true. And
I've done it as well. I thinkwe're all guilty of it. It's
like you're really excited abouta new product or service. And
you kind of you skip so manysteps. You go so far ahead to
(04:55):
get that out the door in frontof people where there's so much
prep work and other needs toreally help to make that go to
market successful for yourproduct or your service. So, I'm
so glad that you're here, you'regonna help so many people today,
I would love to dive a littledeep into that, like, what?
Where do you start? Like whenyou're when you're working with
(05:16):
a client? Like, what is it thatyou're like? Okay, first and
foremost, we need to hit onthese topics. And you know, are
these points before you eventhink about launching?
Unknown (05:27):
Well, I definitely taking a look at the offer and
making sure you know, there'sthere's three parts to any
successful launch, if you will,and that is putting the right
offer in front of the rightaudience with the right
messaging, right. So a lot oftimes we spent spend so much
time looking at the offer thatwe forget, oh, yeah, we actually
(05:48):
need to evaluate like, where didthis audience come from? Like,
where? How did we accumulatethem, and then backing up even
further and taking a look attheir messaging that supports
the offer? So that's always thefirst thing is like, you know,
people will also say that, like,there's different quotes, or
cliches like a good offer willsell itself. And it's like,
(06:09):
okay, no, a good offer doesn'tsell itself. Because if you
don't have an audience, right,and if you're not explaining
your great offer to youraudience in a way that they can
understand it, see themselves init, see the transformation that
you're providing, then it's allyou know, it's, it's not, you're
just wasting time. And that'swhat happens sometimes in these
lunches, and people like, Oh, mylaunch didn't go as well, or no
(06:31):
one wants my offer. And it waslike, no, no, we didn't look at
all of these pieces of thepuzzle to make sure that they're
working together and workingtogether cohesively to help you
get to the best launch. So oncewe know yes, we have an offer,
we have an audience. And this iswhere I really come in and
specializes. How can we makesure the messaging that builds
(06:52):
up to the offer is, is intact.
And so what happens a lot oftimes with, with launching in
general is as being acopywriter, there's, there's
this line that's drawn betweencontent and copywriting,
conversion, copywriting, and ourcontent. And I see the two of
them blending together,especially during pre launch,
which is how can we use some ofthese things that we use in
(07:15):
conversion copywriting, andreally apply it to the content
that we're putting out beforethen. So the first step of what
I do with my program, the firststep, if I sit down with my
clients, besides sitting downand really planning, which is,
coincidentally enough, isskipped step that most people
(07:36):
don't even realize they'reskipping, right? They're like,
Oh, I'm gonna launch on Januaryfirst, and it's going to be for
seven days, and they haven'treally taken into account, like
what's going on in theirbusiness or what's going on in
their personal life. So once weactually kind of look at the
scheduling part of it, the firststep is always to look at our
merch market research, ourtestimonials, and really
(07:57):
thinking about where is ourcustomer at right now in their
journey? And where do they needto be able to? Or where should
they be? Or where do they needto be to be able to buy our, our
service, our product, whateverit is we're putting out there.
Erin Geiger (08:16):
Ya know that I love that because it's like, if
you're just kind of likespouting out messaging, it's not
resonating. Like it's not whatyour your audience is, like,
they're there. Maybe you'reassuming they're further along
in the funnel, right. So it'slike they're there. They know
what their problem is. Andthey're looking for a solution.
(08:37):
Well, if your messaging, youknow, tackles that, but your
audience that you're talking to,isn't sure what their problem is
or what the next step is, andit's like, your messaging is
going to be lost on them. So Ithink it's great that you start
out with validating the offer aswell, because like, do you? I
bet you that happens, right? Youyou start working with someone
(08:58):
and they you you're like, well,we need to validate this offer
before we move forward. And thenwhat if it doesn't? What if
you're like, this isn't theright offer? You know, how do
you how do you help people kind?
Of course correct in thatsituation?
Unknown (09:10):
Right? Well, most of the time, when people are
hiring, hiring me privately, oryou they already have an offer
that has been validated.
However, I do have people thatgo through my program, because
I'm always like, okay, yeah, weneed to make sure in the only
way that your offer is going tohave a chance is if we, you
know, do this messaging,especially when you're trying to
(09:31):
get it off the ground. So, youknow, I think it's a matter of
looking and it all goes back tothat market research component.
I'm actually teaching a a bit ofa workshop right now where we're
going through and validating theoffer and then everything like
your business hinges on yourmarket research and having a
(09:51):
true understanding of who yourcustomer is where you're like
what they're saying. And whenLooking at how it intersects
with where they're at in theawareness journey, and where it
intersects of what I call rightfit readiness, which is making
sure we're talking to that rightideal client. So when it comes
time to actually look at youroffer, it's like, okay, have we
(10:13):
gone and spoken to people about?
Would they buy this offer? Why?
What would they, you know, whatwould, what would be the
hesitation about buying youroffer, and really getting deep
into that and making sure thatyou understand what they want,
you know, what the pain pointis, and where their
transformation is, in terms ofthe of what they're looking at
(10:35):
the problem that they're lookingto solve? So always going back
in everything I know, it's notthe sexiest of answers, but
truly, it relies on talking topeople. Yes, we there's so much
that we can do in marketresearch in terms of whether
it's going on Amazon and readingbook reviews, or even chat GT
chat GPT right now, where youcan do a lot of research. But if
(10:57):
you're not really dialed intothese people and talking to
people on a regular basis, it'sgoing to reflect throughout your
whole launch and your wholesales process.
Erin Geiger (11:09):
Yeah. And so once you they've had they have an
offer, it's been validated, theyknow the messaging that they
need to go to market with.
They're very aware of theiraudience, and we're, you know,
where they're headed. What? Andthey've, they're like, Okay, put
a lot into my calendar, this isgoing to work, you know, for me,
personally, professionally, thisis great. What are the what's
(11:29):
critical, then, you know,between, you know, getting all
their ducks in a row and theactual launch date? And is there
a certain timeframe thattypically you you recommend, you
know, for this pre launch phase?
Unknown (11:46):
Yes, this is a great question. It's probably the the
question that I get asked themost, which I liked about six
weeks, you can go if you look atsomeone like Amy Porterfield,
she's pre launching, I think,812 weeks, I'm guessing, you
know, people will do a littlebit longer people do shorter,
have a little bit of a run way.
I also think it depends on onceagain, the awareness of your
(12:06):
audience, right, like how warmthey are, or how ready they are
to buy your thing. It alsodepends a little bit too on
pricing, and not all the time,because obviously, it's going to
be a little bit easier to sella, you know, $500 course
sometimes and a, you know,$3,000 package, but not not all
the time, I think that's anassumption that we make to about
(12:27):
pricing, but taking a look atthose things. But for most
people, I like about six weeks,and really you start starting to
look at okay, now that I'm atsix weeks, what is the type of
content that I, you know,depending on your business, like
Am I on Facebook, and my onInstagram, am I on email, when I
(12:47):
look and help people plan, it'sreally taking these core
concepts or messaging throughoutthese weeks, and figuring out
ways to simply repurpose themand reuse them throughout the
week. So we can build a contentplan around them. The question
that I also get asked is like,Okay, well, if I only, you know,
(13:10):
what's the most important thingthat I will do, and I will
always say, emailing your, youknow, having an email list and
emailing them. To me, that'swhere sales happen. All of these
other things reinforce the salesprocess, but it really making
sure that you are emailing yourlist. well ahead of time, I
(13:30):
think you should be emailingyour list all the time as it is,
but dialing it in, during thepre launch to me is probably the
most important thing that youcan do.
Erin Geiger (13:44):
And do you what do you suggest as far as cadence
rate, you know, within that sixweek period, I mean, some
people, you know, like to emaila ton, you know, weekly, and
then as they get closer to thelaunch, it gets to like every
two days and every day. Somepeople take a different
approach. What do you typicallysuggest? And I know it probably
(14:06):
depends upon the industry andthe audience and the price and
all that and all of that, but isthere a kind of a general
recommendation that you have?
Unknown (14:15):
Yeah, I like what I teach in my program is at least
twice a week, if you can dothree times a week, all the
better. But if you can be inthere, you know, once a week
minimum for sure. But I like Ithink twice a week is something
that to me, hopefully,especially the way that I teach
it doesn't feel superoverwhelming, and that you're
(14:37):
staying in front of youraudience and you're you're
dialing up your visibility Imentioned, I just had an article
published in authority magazine,and I talked about how, you
know, I I believe that duringthis time, you know, when you
can dial up your visibility italso builds trust amongst your
(14:58):
audience are used to seeing You.
So it really, really helpssolidify you. And especially to
that when we're talking aboutemailing during this time, we're
emailing very specific messagesthat people need to hear in
order to help them make a buyingdecision. So this isn't just
like, Oh, I'm just going to besending these random two emails
a week, we're really dialinginto, hey, what's the strategy
(15:21):
of moving someone from point Ato point B? And how can we start
stringing that along reallybeautifully during our pre
launch to get that in front ofour client or a customer to help
them make a buying decision?
Erin Geiger (15:35):
Yeah, that's my next question. As you kind of
like move along to sales,because I mean, really, at the
end of the day, that's the goal,right? You want to sell your
service product, what have you.
And so in these emails, what areyou having your clients talk
about? How do they kind of like,manage that messaging of it's
kind of sales, but you're alsomake trying to make a connection
(15:57):
and foster a relationship at thesame time? Are they pointing to
content? Like, are you like, youneed to have consistent content,
whether it's a blog post or apodcast? Or, you know, what have
you? Or, you know, what kind ofcontent? Are they? Are they
leveraging? And what do yousuggest there?
Unknown (16:20):
Right? So I always say that pre launch is about selling
your process, and not yourprogram. So what people will be
like, Oh, my gosh, you're gonnayou're asking me to sell for six
weeks? No, like, I'm not askingyou to sell for six weeks during
a pre launch. What I'm asking isfor you to think through what is
what what is the buy in yourperson has to have before they
(16:42):
decide to buy your yoursolution, right? Like, what is
the outcome that they're lookingfor it? My friend, Rob Tillman,
when I was talking about this,like, what, what is this outcome
that people are looking for,because if people believe in our
outcome, then they will eat moreeasily by our solution. So what
I hear a lot of times is thatpeople are like they don't like
(17:05):
selling right like that launchperiod does feel really good to
them, because they're likeasking someone to make a
decision. The way when whenpeople do the pre launch
process, and I'm talking about,first of all, they're very,
very, very prepared, that youhave a launch coming up that
you're going to be sellingsomething. So that's the first
thing. So I'm always like, Ihave no problem selling really
(17:26):
hard during those seven days ofmy actual launch period. Because
I've given people a lot ofdecision making time, I talk a
lot about autonomy in myframework of pre launch, which
is giving people a lot of spaceto make a decision and giving
them the information they needto make a decision. So when we
go back and look at those sixweeks of like, what type of
(17:49):
content are we putting outthere, we are helping people
understand if our process isright for them. I'll give you an
example. So one of my clients,Linda Sadu, she is she sells
personality quizzes, she has aprogram that helps people create
a personality quiz. Well, forsomeone to believe that a person
(18:10):
that they need this programaround personality quizzes, they
have to believe that apersonality quiz is how they are
going to build their email listwith ease, how they're going to
be able to segment morecarefully. Like there's there's
several things that they have tohave a buy in for. But once they
have a buy in, and they believea personality quiz is the way to
(18:32):
get these things that they want,then suddenly, when she's
putting the offer in front ofthem for her her quiz lab, then
it becomes a much easierdecision at that point. They're
just trying to decide, okay, howis this the right program for me
to get the right thistransformation that I want? Is
this the right person who I wantto learn from? And that's where
(18:53):
we get to people to that what iscalled the product aware stage
if we look at the awarenessjourney, so yeah, that is kind
of what we're doing throughoutthat time is getting people to
have a buy in to our actualprocess.
Erin Geiger (19:06):
Yeah, no, I love that approach. Because it's
basically you've been buildingthis relationship along the way
and kind of educating people sothat by the time they get to the
decision point of purchasingthere's no convincing going on
right it's like you know,whether it's for you or it's not
(19:27):
and I just think that that'sthat's a great approach and love
Linda, she's actually been onthe show as well she's great.
Hi, Linda. Shout out so no,that's that's really that's
really awesome gives me so I dowant to ask you about kind of
like processes that you use andmaybe like a tool that has
(19:48):
helped you as you as you'vegrown your your business, but is
there anything else and we'regonna put a link to where people
can learn more and work withyou? Was there anything else
before we move on, that youwould love to share? About pre
launch and Getting comfortablewith selling and and all of
that?
Unknown (20:04):
No, I just think in general, if you're listening to
this, and you're like, oh mygosh, you know, how how, how can
I do this like not to beoverwhelmed II Oh, just it
doesn't have to be. You know, ofcourse, I'm telling you about a
system that I've created thatsix weeks, right but but if you
just do a just a tad of whatwe're talking about here, you're
(20:26):
going to be doing more thanprobably 80% of marketers out
there, right there, that this isnot something that,
unfortunately, that's beentalked a lot about in online
marketing. And that's why I'mreally excited to be able to
bring more awareness to it.
Because this is, you know, evenjust doing little touches of
this is going to make such adifference and is going to help
you go into your sales period.
(20:48):
Feeling so much more confident,right, so much more ease I
talked about a lot actuallyhave. Somebody just sent me a
message like she's already presold five seats inside of her
program, and the doors haven'teven opened yet. So when you're
able to start building up thismomentum, it brings along a ton
of confidence. So instead oflooking at it, like oh my gosh,
(21:10):
just seems like more work.
You're put your out thereanyway, it's just a matter of
organizing it in a way whereyou're helping your your best
customers find you and selectyou.
Erin Geiger (21:21):
Yeah, so it's I just love it. It's so organic
and natural, so that no onereally feels as though you know,
they're being sold to I mean,yes, obviously, that's part of
the process, but I just it'smore of a relation based thing
where you're just like, hey,this is the solution to a
problem that you know, you'vesaid you're you're dealing with,
(21:42):
so I do I do agree with that,that approach. And so is there
anything like I said, there's,you know, entrepreneurs that
are, you know, large part ofthis audience, and we just love
to learn from each other. So isthere like a, a tool or process
that you'd like to share thatkind of has helped you as you've
grown your own business?
Unknown (22:01):
Oh, gosh, it's been so many, but the one that pops into
my head, especially because wetalk so much about market
research, is that if if peopleare listening, like oh, how to
talk to people, I teach insidemy program, like yes, getting on
a zoom call and recording it isalways nice, but I love I use
boxer for all kinds of things. Ijust did a whole entire summit,
(22:24):
masterclass series where Irecorded all of our
conversations on Voxer. I alsolove to use Voxer for market
research. Meaning where you canjust have casual conversations
with people that you know, whereit doesn't feel as formal and
you get if anything, I think youget might get a get even better
market research because you'renot staring at someone asking
(22:45):
then they have time to actuallystop and think. And so using
boxer for market research,because you can easily download
boxer files into audio files andbe able to transcribe them into
something I use otter AI. Formost people, it's free, because
unless you're using it a lotlike me, it's a free tool that
(23:07):
you can use. And you can be ableto transcribe these things. So
when you're in, when you'refeeling in your head about your
process your program, whateverit is, you want to get
additional market research, justfinding friends that are like
your ideal clients where you canreach out and ask them questions
and then being able to downloadthose answers super easy,
(23:29):
transcribe them, and organizethem for some of the market
research. I think that's been agreat tool. But yeah, Voxer in
general, I use it for I use itto send it when people are
asking questions in groups and Ihave a longer answer, you can
actually use something called mynotes on there and get a URL and
(23:50):
be able to send that out. I useboxer for sending audio emails,
because you can link themquickly. They they have a URL,
you don't have to upload audiofiles anywhere. I even have
ideas around it for creatinglike private podcast. So that's
really been my tool of choicelately is using boxer for all of
(24:12):
these things.
Erin Geiger (24:13):
Yeah, I love Voxer I haven't used it in a while I
need to get back into Voxer. AndI use otter all the time as
well. And is it easy? Like ifyou're you know, like, Hey, if
you're working, you know to doresearch or to chat with other
people in the industry ifthey're not on Voxer Is it
pretty easy for them to get onit or or most people that you
talk to you or they just alreadyon Voxer so it's a non issue.
Unknown (24:35):
Most people I know are already on it, but it's a free
app. So it's super easy todownload. You can pay I paid
like $25 a year where I canrecall messages which would just
come in handy once or twice. ButI but it's completely free. It's
easy to use. It's such anamazing tool to have in your
(24:55):
arsenal. You know a lot of evenyou know coaches and stuff have
have switched over to I knowlike my business coach, we do a
lot of boxer coaching. So it canbe used in a coaching element.
And it's really amazing that wecan use it for free and use it
for all these all thesedifferent types of things that
we just talked about.
Erin Geiger (25:14):
Yeah, no, that's incredible. So as you move along
with your business, what skinnyshare with us like the goals or
vision that you're thinking of?
Unknown (25:24):
Had? No, it's I love this question. I was literally
having a conversation about thisyesterday. And as of now, it's
really I, I want to bring themessage of pre launch, I just
released a mini product, whichis a calendar, which actually
has a really cool calendaringtool in there, as well. And
(25:46):
keeping in doing my groupprogram, and I think eventually,
at some point is my larger goalis to teach service providers as
well how to do that, you know,to do this service, because
there's not a lot of peopleright now that are, are helping
others. And so I, you know,would love to spread this
(26:06):
message further and help otherpeople be able to provide this
service and help their ownclients with it, or whether it's
in their copywriting theirlaunches, that sort of thing.
Erin Geiger (26:16):
That's so great.
Yes. Because I mean, it's like,if you don't have this solid
foundation, at first, it's gonnabe super tough along the way. So
I'm so glad that you're tacklingthat part of the process. Where
can people find you online, ifthey want to connect with you
and find out more?
Unknown (26:31):
Yes, so you can find me at Brendan mcgowan.co online.
And I also have a cheat sheetthere, Beretta mcgowan.co
forward slash cheat sheet, whichtells you it gave me the three
buyer beliefs that people needto believe before they buy from
you. And then I give you an ideaof some of the types of content
that we are talking about, thatyou can start creating today for
(26:53):
your free lunch.
Erin Geiger (26:55):
Awesome. And so we always ask this question of
everybody. My husband and myselfare super big music people. So
if you could only listen to onemusic artists for the rest of
your life, who would it be?
Unknown (27:09):
Oh my gosh, this is so hard. I am a nerd. So I'm going
to say like my favorite. I wouldsay it would be Billy Joel. His
album The stranger would bemine. I'm a I'm an 80s kid. So I
think if I if I could onlylisten to one album for the rest
of my life, that wouldn't thatone would be it.
Erin Geiger (27:31):
That's awesome. I don't think I've had that one
before. So that's great. Yeah,we I created it as playlist on
Spotify is a small business bigmindset playlist and so we it's
a little I need to impact up nowI need to add all the new
artists that recent guests havesaid but basically it's a it's a
playlist of entrepreneursfavorite music so you gotta have
it on while you're going youknow doing getting stuff done so
(27:54):
but yeah, so while I Billy Joelon there's I don't think he's on
there yet. Exactly. For you.
Thank you so much for taking thetime. I really enjoyed our chat
today that we could finallyconnect face to face virtually.
Unknown (28:11):
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
Erin Geiger (28:14):
Thanks for tuning into the Small Business Big
mindset podcast. To keep the fungoing. Check out our Facebook
group start and scale an onlinebusiness For even more free
trainings and resources fromfellow entrepreneurs. If you
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subscribe. Join our email listfor weekly updates. And if
you've enjoyed this podcastepisode, check us out on your
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(28:36):
As always be authentic, bring aninsane amount of value and keep
crushing it
Welcome to the Small Business Big mindset
podcast, where we dive intotactical strategies to grow your
business and make an impact onthis world. A huge part of
success is keeping your mindsetand vision on track. So this is
a major part of our process. Andthis podcast. Let's do this Hey
(00:25):
everybody, welcome back to theSmall Business Big mindset
podcast this week we haveBrennan McGowan, a launch
strategist and copywriter.
Welcome Brenna.
Unknown (00:34):
Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
Erin Geiger (00:36):
You guys. We ran an hour laughing because we have
been in each other's circles forI don't wanna say a couple of
years now but we've neveractually met met virtually. So
it's it's hilarious that wedon't we know we don't we
haven't really met okay, youknow, but it's just so funny.
Like how online especially ifyou're in the same circles, you
can feel like oh, yeah, I'veknown this person for years. So
(00:58):
do you ever actually haven't hada face to face conversation with
him yet? It's
Unknown (01:03):
just me happens all the time. I feel like
Erin Geiger (01:06):
it's hilarious.
Okay, so let's dive right in. Iwould love to hear a little bit
about you, your background, andhow you got into what you're
currently doing.
Unknown (01:19):
Yeah, it's kind of a windy path. So I'll give you the
Cliff's Notes version, which wasI was a stay at home mom loved
being a stay at home mom. Andthen when my daughter went back
or went started to go topreschool, I started to just do
like odd jobs on the side forextra money. Which brought me to
2017, which was I was about toturn 40 and was kind of like,
(01:44):
what, what am I doing with mylife, right, like, and so I
started to think about like, Iwant to do something a little
bit bigger, but I didn't knowwhat that was. And I fell into
doing some social media andemail marketing for a friend who
was starting a business. Andwhen I started to do that for
her, and I always joke becauseit was like, all over vanity I
(02:06):
want to she was an estheticianand I want to fake eyelashes. So
I was like okay, how do I getfake eyelashes? And I'll help
you do like some of this littlebit of marketing's I've done
like odd jobs throughout thattime. So I started to do this.
And people were like commentingto her how much they liked it.
And I was like, Maybe I shouldstart a business doing this.
(02:26):
Because I had no I wasn't onsocial media, like it didn't
even like occur to me that thiswas like could be a career of
some sort. So I put up a websiteand did a logo and announced on
Facebook that I was going to bedoing kind of social media
marketing, and I got clientsimmediately. And I soon there
(02:49):
realized I hated social mediamarketing. There's aspects of it
that I really loved. But I itwas not what I wanted to do. So
I started to kind of have this,like, what should I do with this
business that I started and Ifound our mutual friend and
mentor Laura Bell Gray, and wasreading her emails and I was
like, Oh, wait, like all ofthese like quirky little funny
(03:13):
stories I have in my head I canactually use to sell. So I
pivoted quickly over to becomean email copywriter started
writing all types of copy. Andduring that journey of being a
copywriter and having thatreally strong content, social
media background, we started tonotice a hole in some of the
(03:33):
launches that I was helpingpeople with, which was like, Why
were people even when peoplewith audiences? Why did
sometimes, you know, their theiractual launch not convert the
way that it probably should haveon paper. And you know, what was
kind of this missing link. Andaround that same time I heard an
interview with some other mutualfriends where they talked about
(03:56):
pre launch. And it kind of hitme at that moment. It was just
like, wait a second, there's somuch of that goes into
launching, but a lot of timespeople forget about this runway
period that become that happensbefore the launch. And I made a
decision as I was trying to Iguess figure my life out that
this was an area I wanted tospecialize in, which felt a
(04:17):
little scary because I had neverheard of anyone talking about
this area in as a niche, if youwill. And that's how that's how
we're here today. So I startedto call myself a pre launch
specialist and haven't lookedback since.
Erin Geiger (04:33):
Yeah, no. And it's great that you realize like you
identified you know, that partof the industry where you're
like, wait a minute, this is aproblem area and no one's really
helping helping entrepreneursout because it's so true. And
I've done it as well. I thinkwe're all guilty of it. It's
like you're really excited abouta new product or service. And
you kind of you skip so manysteps. You go so far ahead to
(04:55):
get that out the door in frontof people where there's so much
prep work and other needs toreally help to make that go to
market successful for yourproduct or your service. So, I'm
so glad that you're here, you'regonna help so many people today,
I would love to dive a littledeep into that, like, what?
Where do you start? Like whenyou're when you're working with
(05:16):
a client? Like, what is it thatyou're like? Okay, first and
foremost, we need to hit onthese topics. And you know, are
these points before you eventhink about launching?
Unknown (05:27):
Well, I definitely taking a look at the offer and
making sure you know, there'sthere's three parts to any
successful launch, if you will,and that is putting the right
offer in front of the rightaudience with the right
messaging, right. So a lot oftimes we spent spend so much
time looking at the offer thatwe forget, oh, yeah, we actually
(05:48):
need to evaluate like, where didthis audience come from? Like,
where? How did we accumulatethem, and then backing up even
further and taking a look attheir messaging that supports
the offer? So that's always thefirst thing is like, you know,
people will also say that, like,there's different quotes, or
cliches like a good offer willsell itself. And it's like,
(06:09):
okay, no, a good offer doesn'tsell itself. Because if you
don't have an audience, right,and if you're not explaining
your great offer to youraudience in a way that they can
understand it, see themselves init, see the transformation that
you're providing, then it's allyou know, it's, it's not, you're
just wasting time. And that'swhat happens sometimes in these
lunches, and people like, Oh, mylaunch didn't go as well, or no
(06:31):
one wants my offer. And it waslike, no, no, we didn't look at
all of these pieces of thepuzzle to make sure that they're
working together and workingtogether cohesively to help you
get to the best launch. So oncewe know yes, we have an offer,
we have an audience. And this iswhere I really come in and
specializes. How can we makesure the messaging that builds
(06:52):
up to the offer is, is intact.
And so what happens a lot oftimes with, with launching in
general is as being acopywriter, there's, there's
this line that's drawn betweencontent and copywriting,
conversion, copywriting, and ourcontent. And I see the two of
them blending together,especially during pre launch,
which is how can we use some ofthese things that we use in
(07:15):
conversion copywriting, andreally apply it to the content
that we're putting out beforethen. So the first step of what
I do with my program, the firststep, if I sit down with my
clients, besides sitting downand really planning, which is,
coincidentally enough, isskipped step that most people
(07:36):
don't even realize they'reskipping, right? They're like,
Oh, I'm gonna launch on Januaryfirst, and it's going to be for
seven days, and they haven'treally taken into account, like
what's going on in theirbusiness or what's going on in
their personal life. So once weactually kind of look at the
scheduling part of it, the firststep is always to look at our
merch market research, ourtestimonials, and really
(07:57):
thinking about where is ourcustomer at right now in their
journey? And where do they needto be able to? Or where should
they be? Or where do they needto be to be able to buy our, our
service, our product, whateverit is we're putting out there.
Erin Geiger (08:16):
Ya know that I love that because it's like, if
you're just kind of likespouting out messaging, it's not
resonating. Like it's not whatyour your audience is, like,
they're there. Maybe you'reassuming they're further along
in the funnel, right. So it'slike they're there. They know
what their problem is. Andthey're looking for a solution.
(08:37):
Well, if your messaging, youknow, tackles that, but your
audience that you're talking to,isn't sure what their problem is
or what the next step is, andit's like, your messaging is
going to be lost on them. So Ithink it's great that you start
out with validating the offer aswell, because like, do you? I
bet you that happens, right? Youyou start working with someone
(08:58):
and they you you're like, well,we need to validate this offer
before we move forward. And thenwhat if it doesn't? What if
you're like, this isn't theright offer? You know, how do
you how do you help people kind?
Of course correct in thatsituation?
Unknown (09:10):
Right? Well, most of the time, when people are
hiring, hiring me privately, oryou they already have an offer
that has been validated.
However, I do have people thatgo through my program, because
I'm always like, okay, yeah, weneed to make sure in the only
way that your offer is going tohave a chance is if we, you
know, do this messaging,especially when you're trying to
(09:31):
get it off the ground. So, youknow, I think it's a matter of
looking and it all goes back tothat market research component.
I'm actually teaching a a bit ofa workshop right now where we're
going through and validating theoffer and then everything like
your business hinges on yourmarket research and having a
(09:51):
true understanding of who yourcustomer is where you're like
what they're saying. And whenLooking at how it intersects
with where they're at in theawareness journey, and where it
intersects of what I call rightfit readiness, which is making
sure we're talking to that rightideal client. So when it comes
time to actually look at youroffer, it's like, okay, have we
(10:13):
gone and spoken to people about?
Would they buy this offer? Why?
What would they, you know, whatwould, what would be the
hesitation about buying youroffer, and really getting deep
into that and making sure thatyou understand what they want,
you know, what the pain pointis, and where their
transformation is, in terms ofthe of what they're looking at
(10:35):
the problem that they're lookingto solve? So always going back
in everything I know, it's notthe sexiest of answers, but
truly, it relies on talking topeople. Yes, we there's so much
that we can do in marketresearch in terms of whether
it's going on Amazon and readingbook reviews, or even chat GT
chat GPT right now, where youcan do a lot of research. But if
(10:57):
you're not really dialed intothese people and talking to
people on a regular basis, it'sgoing to reflect throughout your
whole launch and your wholesales process.
Erin Geiger (11:09):
Yeah. And so once you they've had they have an
offer, it's been validated, theyknow the messaging that they
need to go to market with.
They're very aware of theiraudience, and we're, you know,
where they're headed. What? Andthey've, they're like, Okay, put
a lot into my calendar, this isgoing to work, you know, for me,
personally, professionally, thisis great. What are the what's
(11:29):
critical, then, you know,between, you know, getting all
their ducks in a row and theactual launch date? And is there
a certain timeframe thattypically you you recommend, you
know, for this pre launch phase?
Unknown (11:46):
Yes, this is a great question. It's probably the the
question that I get asked themost, which I liked about six
weeks, you can go if you look atsomeone like Amy Porterfield,
she's pre launching, I think,812 weeks, I'm guessing, you
know, people will do a littlebit longer people do shorter,
have a little bit of a run way.
I also think it depends on onceagain, the awareness of your
(12:06):
audience, right, like how warmthey are, or how ready they are
to buy your thing. It alsodepends a little bit too on
pricing, and not all the time,because obviously, it's going to
be a little bit easier to sella, you know, $500 course
sometimes and a, you know,$3,000 package, but not not all
the time, I think that's anassumption that we make to about
(12:27):
pricing, but taking a look atthose things. But for most
people, I like about six weeks,and really you start starting to
look at okay, now that I'm atsix weeks, what is the type of
content that I, you know,depending on your business, like
Am I on Facebook, and my onInstagram, am I on email, when I
(12:47):
look and help people plan, it'sreally taking these core
concepts or messaging throughoutthese weeks, and figuring out
ways to simply repurpose themand reuse them throughout the
week. So we can build a contentplan around them. The question
that I also get asked is like,Okay, well, if I only, you know,
(13:10):
what's the most important thingthat I will do, and I will
always say, emailing your, youknow, having an email list and
emailing them. To me, that'swhere sales happen. All of these
other things reinforce the salesprocess, but it really making
sure that you are emailing yourlist. well ahead of time, I
(13:30):
think you should be emailingyour list all the time as it is,
but dialing it in, during thepre launch to me is probably the
most important thing that youcan do.
Erin Geiger (13:44):
And do you what do you suggest as far as cadence
rate, you know, within that sixweek period, I mean, some
people, you know, like to emaila ton, you know, weekly, and
then as they get closer to thelaunch, it gets to like every
two days and every day. Somepeople take a different
approach. What do you typicallysuggest? And I know it probably
(14:06):
depends upon the industry andthe audience and the price and
all that and all of that, but isthere a kind of a general
recommendation that you have?
Unknown (14:15):
Yeah, I like what I teach in my program is at least
twice a week, if you can dothree times a week, all the
better. But if you can be inthere, you know, once a week
minimum for sure. But I like Ithink twice a week is something
that to me, hopefully,especially the way that I teach
it doesn't feel superoverwhelming, and that you're
(14:37):
staying in front of youraudience and you're you're
dialing up your visibility Imentioned, I just had an article
published in authority magazine,and I talked about how, you
know, I I believe that duringthis time, you know, when you
can dial up your visibility italso builds trust amongst your
(14:58):
audience are used to seeing You.
So it really, really helpssolidify you. And especially to
that when we're talking aboutemailing during this time, we're
emailing very specific messagesthat people need to hear in
order to help them make a buyingdecision. So this isn't just
like, Oh, I'm just going to besending these random two emails
a week, we're really dialinginto, hey, what's the strategy
(15:21):
of moving someone from point Ato point B? And how can we start
stringing that along reallybeautifully during our pre
launch to get that in front ofour client or a customer to help
them make a buying decision?
Erin Geiger (15:35):
Yeah, that's my next question. As you kind of
like move along to sales,because I mean, really, at the
end of the day, that's the goal,right? You want to sell your
service product, what have you.
And so in these emails, what areyou having your clients talk
about? How do they kind of like,manage that messaging of it's
kind of sales, but you're alsomake trying to make a connection
(15:57):
and foster a relationship at thesame time? Are they pointing to
content? Like, are you like, youneed to have consistent content,
whether it's a blog post or apodcast? Or, you know, what have
you? Or, you know, what kind ofcontent? Are they? Are they
leveraging? And what do yousuggest there?
Unknown (16:20):
Right? So I always say that pre launch is about selling
your process, and not yourprogram. So what people will be
like, Oh, my gosh, you're gonnayou're asking me to sell for six
weeks? No, like, I'm not askingyou to sell for six weeks during
a pre launch. What I'm asking isfor you to think through what is
what what is the buy in yourperson has to have before they
(16:42):
decide to buy your yoursolution, right? Like, what is
the outcome that they're lookingfor it? My friend, Rob Tillman,
when I was talking about this,like, what, what is this outcome
that people are looking for,because if people believe in our
outcome, then they will eat moreeasily by our solution. So what
I hear a lot of times is thatpeople are like they don't like
(17:05):
selling right like that launchperiod does feel really good to
them, because they're likeasking someone to make a
decision. The way when whenpeople do the pre launch
process, and I'm talking about,first of all, they're very,
very, very prepared, that youhave a launch coming up that
you're going to be sellingsomething. So that's the first
thing. So I'm always like, Ihave no problem selling really
(17:26):
hard during those seven days ofmy actual launch period. Because
I've given people a lot ofdecision making time, I talk a
lot about autonomy in myframework of pre launch, which
is giving people a lot of spaceto make a decision and giving
them the information they needto make a decision. So when we
go back and look at those sixweeks of like, what type of
(17:49):
content are we putting outthere, we are helping people
understand if our process isright for them. I'll give you an
example. So one of my clients,Linda Sadu, she is she sells
personality quizzes, she has aprogram that helps people create
a personality quiz. Well, forsomeone to believe that a person
(18:10):
that they need this programaround personality quizzes, they
have to believe that apersonality quiz is how they are
going to build their email listwith ease, how they're going to
be able to segment morecarefully. Like there's there's
several things that they have tohave a buy in for. But once they
have a buy in, and they believea personality quiz is the way to
(18:32):
get these things that they want,then suddenly, when she's
putting the offer in front ofthem for her her quiz lab, then
it becomes a much easierdecision at that point. They're
just trying to decide, okay, howis this the right program for me
to get the right thistransformation that I want? Is
this the right person who I wantto learn from? And that's where
(18:53):
we get to people to that what iscalled the product aware stage
if we look at the awarenessjourney, so yeah, that is kind
of what we're doing throughoutthat time is getting people to
have a buy in to our actualprocess.
Erin Geiger (19:06):
Yeah, no, I love that approach. Because it's
basically you've been buildingthis relationship along the way
and kind of educating people sothat by the time they get to the
decision point of purchasingthere's no convincing going on
right it's like you know,whether it's for you or it's not
(19:27):
and I just think that that'sthat's a great approach and love
Linda, she's actually been onthe show as well she's great.
Hi, Linda. Shout out so no,that's that's really that's
really awesome gives me so I dowant to ask you about kind of
like processes that you use andmaybe like a tool that has
(19:48):
helped you as you as you'vegrown your your business, but is
there anything else and we'regonna put a link to where people
can learn more and work withyou? Was there anything else
before we move on, that youwould love to share? About pre
launch and Getting comfortablewith selling and and all of
that?
Unknown (20:04):
No, I just think in general, if you're listening to
this, and you're like, oh mygosh, you know, how how, how can
I do this like not to beoverwhelmed II Oh, just it
doesn't have to be. You know, ofcourse, I'm telling you about a
system that I've created thatsix weeks, right but but if you
just do a just a tad of whatwe're talking about here, you're
(20:26):
going to be doing more thanprobably 80% of marketers out
there, right there, that this isnot something that,
unfortunately, that's beentalked a lot about in online
marketing. And that's why I'mreally excited to be able to
bring more awareness to it.
Because this is, you know, evenjust doing little touches of
this is going to make such adifference and is going to help
you go into your sales period.
(20:48):
Feeling so much more confident,right, so much more ease I
talked about a lot actuallyhave. Somebody just sent me a
message like she's already presold five seats inside of her
program, and the doors haven'teven opened yet. So when you're
able to start building up thismomentum, it brings along a ton
of confidence. So instead oflooking at it, like oh my gosh,
(21:10):
just seems like more work.
You're put your out thereanyway, it's just a matter of
organizing it in a way whereyou're helping your your best
customers find you and selectyou.
Erin Geiger (21:21):
Yeah, so it's I just love it. It's so organic
and natural, so that no onereally feels as though you know,
they're being sold to I mean,yes, obviously, that's part of
the process, but I just it'smore of a relation based thing
where you're just like, hey,this is the solution to a
problem that you know, you'vesaid you're you're dealing with,
(21:42):
so I do I do agree with that,that approach. And so is there
anything like I said, there's,you know, entrepreneurs that
are, you know, large part ofthis audience, and we just love
to learn from each other. So isthere like a, a tool or process
that you'd like to share thatkind of has helped you as you've
grown your own business?
Unknown (22:01):
Oh, gosh, it's been so many, but the one that pops into
my head, especially because wetalk so much about market
research, is that if if peopleare listening, like oh, how to
talk to people, I teach insidemy program, like yes, getting on
a zoom call and recording it isalways nice, but I love I use
boxer for all kinds of things. Ijust did a whole entire summit,
(22:24):
masterclass series where Irecorded all of our
conversations on Voxer. I alsolove to use Voxer for market
research. Meaning where you canjust have casual conversations
with people that you know, whereit doesn't feel as formal and
you get if anything, I think youget might get a get even better
market research because you'renot staring at someone asking
(22:45):
then they have time to actuallystop and think. And so using
boxer for market research,because you can easily download
boxer files into audio files andbe able to transcribe them into
something I use otter AI. Formost people, it's free, because
unless you're using it a lotlike me, it's a free tool that
(23:07):
you can use. And you can be ableto transcribe these things. So
when you're in, when you'refeeling in your head about your
process your program, whateverit is, you want to get
additional market research, justfinding friends that are like
your ideal clients where you canreach out and ask them questions
and then being able to downloadthose answers super easy,
(23:29):
transcribe them, and organizethem for some of the market
research. I think that's been agreat tool. But yeah, Voxer in
general, I use it for I use itto send it when people are
asking questions in groups and Ihave a longer answer, you can
actually use something called mynotes on there and get a URL and
(23:50):
be able to send that out. I useboxer for sending audio emails,
because you can link themquickly. They they have a URL,
you don't have to upload audiofiles anywhere. I even have
ideas around it for creatinglike private podcast. So that's
really been my tool of choicelately is using boxer for all of
(24:12):
these things.
Erin Geiger (24:13):
Yeah, I love Voxer I haven't used it in a while I
need to get back into Voxer. AndI use otter all the time as
well. And is it easy? Like ifyou're you know, like, Hey, if
you're working, you know to doresearch or to chat with other
people in the industry ifthey're not on Voxer Is it
pretty easy for them to get onit or or most people that you
talk to you or they just alreadyon Voxer so it's a non issue.
Unknown (24:35):
Most people I know are already on it, but it's a free
app. So it's super easy todownload. You can pay I paid
like $25 a year where I canrecall messages which would just
come in handy once or twice. ButI but it's completely free. It's
easy to use. It's such anamazing tool to have in your
(24:55):
arsenal. You know a lot of evenyou know coaches and stuff have
have switched over to I knowlike my business coach, we do a
lot of boxer coaching. So it canbe used in a coaching element.
And it's really amazing that wecan use it for free and use it
for all these all thesedifferent types of things that
we just talked about.
Erin Geiger (25:14):
Yeah, no, that's incredible. So as you move along
with your business, what skinnyshare with us like the goals or
vision that you're thinking of?
Unknown (25:24):
Had? No, it's I love this question. I was literally
having a conversation about thisyesterday. And as of now, it's
really I, I want to bring themessage of pre launch, I just
released a mini product, whichis a calendar, which actually
has a really cool calendaringtool in there, as well. And
(25:46):
keeping in doing my groupprogram, and I think eventually,
at some point is my larger goalis to teach service providers as
well how to do that, you know,to do this service, because
there's not a lot of peopleright now that are, are helping
others. And so I, you know,would love to spread this
(26:06):
message further and help otherpeople be able to provide this
service and help their ownclients with it, or whether it's
in their copywriting theirlaunches, that sort of thing.
Erin Geiger (26:16):
That's so great.
Yes. Because I mean, it's like,if you don't have this solid
foundation, at first, it's gonnabe super tough along the way. So
I'm so glad that you're tacklingthat part of the process. Where
can people find you online, ifthey want to connect with you
and find out more?
Unknown (26:31):
Yes, so you can find me at Brendan mcgowan.co online.
And I also have a cheat sheetthere, Beretta mcgowan.co
forward slash cheat sheet, whichtells you it gave me the three
buyer beliefs that people needto believe before they buy from
you. And then I give you an ideaof some of the types of content
that we are talking about, thatyou can start creating today for
(26:53):
your free lunch.
Erin Geiger (26:55):
Awesome. And so we always ask this question of
everybody. My husband and myselfare super big music people. So
if you could only listen to onemusic artists for the rest of
your life, who would it be?
Unknown (27:09):
Oh my gosh, this is so hard. I am a nerd. So I'm going
to say like my favorite. I wouldsay it would be Billy Joel. His
album The stranger would bemine. I'm a I'm an 80s kid. So I
think if I if I could onlylisten to one album for the rest
of my life, that wouldn't thatone would be it.
Erin Geiger (27:31):
That's awesome. I don't think I've had that one
before. So that's great. Yeah,we I created it as playlist on
Spotify is a small business bigmindset playlist and so we it's
a little I need to impact up nowI need to add all the new
artists that recent guests havesaid but basically it's a it's a
playlist of entrepreneursfavorite music so you gotta have
it on while you're going youknow doing getting stuff done so
(27:54):
but yeah, so while I Billy Joelon there's I don't think he's on
there yet. Exactly. For you.
Thank you so much for taking thetime. I really enjoyed our chat
today that we could finallyconnect face to face virtually.
Unknown (28:11):
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
Erin Geiger (28:14):
Thanks for tuning into the Small Business Big
mindset podcast. To keep the fungoing. Check out our Facebook
group start and scale an onlinebusiness For even more free
trainings and resources fromfellow entrepreneurs. If you
haven't already, head on over tomuscle creative.com and click
subscribe. Join our email listfor weekly updates. And if
you've enjoyed this podcastepisode, check us out on your
favorite podcast platform tofollow us and give us a review.
(28:36):
As always be authentic, bring aninsane amount of value and keep
crushing it
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