26-Week Internet Marketing Plan — A comprehensive, step-by-step internet marketing plan for ANY business

This week’s podcast, podcast number 26 is an interview with Jeff Walker from Product Launch Formula.

Jeff Walker is the internet marketing guru when it comes to taking you step by step through the launch process; he’s honed a step by step formula that anyone can apply to just about anything that can be launched.

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Here is the full interview transcript:

Jeff Walker

DB Okay, well Jeff Walker is the internet marketing guru when it comes to taking you step by step through the launch process; he’s honed a step by step formula that anyone can apply to just about anything that can be launched. In 18 months Jeff’s already helped his clients generate $60 million in revenue and I’ve personally bought Jeff’s training materials, which can be found at ProductLaunchFormula.com and I highly recommend them. Jeff, it’s a pleasure to talk to you.

JW Well, thanks a lot, thank you for the warm welcome.

DB (Laughter) My pleasure. I’ll tell you what the first thing I’d appreciate you sharing with us is a little bit about your background – I know that Product Launch Formula was launched in September 2005 I think?

JW Yeah, October, yeah.

DB October sorry, yeah. So how did that come into being and how did your own particular skill set evolve?

JW Well, it’s a funny question and it’s a long winding road but I’ll try to keep it as short as possible. It was back in, oh boy, all the way back in 1996, actually in 1994 I first learned about information marketing; the whole idea of selling information. And then in 1996 I actually, it took me a couple of years to figure it out but I started publishing online, I was publishing about the stock market so I was basically in the business of telling people the stock market’s going to go up, the stock market’s going to go down. And I started very, very humbly I didn’t even have a website, actually I didn’t have a website at all, I started publishing purely via email. A few months later I put up a website but didn’t even have my own domain name until maybe six months after that but then in early ’97 I started selling information products about the stock market. They were mostly subscription newsletters delivered actually via email and I quickly figured out that I’d never done any selling before. I didn’t think I had any selling skills whatsoever but I figured out I was actually sort of good at selling stuff when I wasn’t face-to-face, when it was via words on a computer screen and I started to introduce products gradually. And really what I was doing was I was initially I was publishing for free, so I’d publish a free newsletter and then I wanted to change it over a paid newsletter. And selling something, trying to sell something that you’ve been giving away for free is probably the most difficult thing you could possibly sell and I was just, I was selling one year’s subscriptions to this newsletter. So I was thinking, boy if I’m going to sell a one year’s subscription that means I have to produce it for a full year. So, if I’ve got to produce this thing for a full year I want to make sure it’s going to be viable, you know it’s going to be worthwhile, I’m going to make enough revenue to justify that. And so I thought, if I introduce this thing and I can put together some process to bring in a lot of money, to force people to make a decision right away, whether they’re going to buy or not then I could figure out whether it’s worthwhile to pursue this project because if I did this and maybe I brought in $300 in sales, then I would just give the people their money back and say sorry, we decided not to do it. So it’s really a very pragmatic thing, it was like just trying to get people to jump right away and to give everyone who is going to jump to get them to jump right away and make the purchase so I can make a decision on whether it’s a viable product. So I put together a few, you know I sat down and thought about how can I do this and I thought of a few strategies and then implemented those and they seemed to work pretty well. And then it turned out I did this over and over because I kept on coming out with new products and then I realised I could take these, what was becoming launch strategies and I could start to apply them to re-launch products as well. And so, it was just over the years really, from 1997 for three or four years, actually for five or six years I kept on doing this and refining what I was doing. I kept on adding pieces and changing pieces to figure out what worked and gradually this strategy evolved. And then the first time I hit it really big, well what at that time I considered really big was in early 2000 and I needed, actually I needed a down payment for a home so I designed this product, went through a very involved process where I figured out exactly what my target market wanted, designed the product and then launched it and did $106,000 in sales in one week, just to my list with no partners at all and no marketing costs, zero marketing costs. It was a matter of sending a few emails and then creating some pre-launch material, we’ll talk about that in a minute.

DB Hmm.

JW But my only costs at all were my merchant fees. So I ended up making $102,000, $103,000, $104,000 there, just a few days made enough money for my down payment and life was rosy and then, I went to a marketing seminar and I happened to mention that story; this is actually now in 2003, you know a couple of years later I happened to mention that I’d done that. And someone heard that story and they said, well that’s six figures in seven days.

DB (Laughter)

JW And the one thing I can do is, I can recognise a headline when I hear one and so when I heard that it’s like, oh yes, six figures in seven days, so I mentioned that to a few people and people started to pay attention at these marketing seminars. And then it was actually John Reece who, I’m sure a lot of people listening to this might have heard of John Reece, a very incredible marketer, one of the top marketing and business minds that I know. John heard that story, asked me about it and then called me up and I gave him some help with the launch he did. And he launched a workshop and he did six figures in I think nine minutes.

DB (Laughter)

JW Launched that workshop. Ended up selling about $450,000 worth of seminar seats to his list, which is only I think about 3,000, it might have been 5,000 people. If you do the maths, it’s an amazing amount of money to buy a list that size. And then a few months later he came out with a product, a multimedia product called Terrific Secrets and this is now August of 2004, and sold $1 million dollars worth in less than 24 hours and using basically my launch strategies. At that point the marketing world really sat up and took notice and then my phone started ringing off the hook, people to try hire me and at that point I’m still publishing about the stock market, happily publishing about the stock market. You know, I didn’t want be doing any consulting, it was fine to help out John Reece and a couple of other friends but I really wasn’t in that market but then the interest and the demands got so great that eventually I just decided to put together a product that explained exactly how all the stuff worked and exactly how I did this. And so that’s when I came out with Product Launch Formula in the fall of 2005 and it’s been a rocket ride since. I mean, just counting up, you mentioned that $60 million dollars and that’s just, that number is actually just the number I’ve identified is $58.3 million but there’s lots and lots of people that have bought my course that have huge success that I’ve never heard back from. Like just yesterday I was on the phone, someone I’d never talked to before called me up. Actually, I’d met him at a seminar and he mentioned some of the stuff, so when we got on the phone yesterday, he did a launch of $1.82 million, almost $2 million and this was selling to people who want to sell, you know, become best selling authors. I’d never even heard of this guy and he, you know, his $1.82 million isn’t even in that, isn’t in my total, you know my $58.3 million, so I guess that does take it up to $60 million now.

DB (Laughter) That’s phenomenal – it might be at $70 million, you never know!

JW Yeah and right, so it’s just. When I look back on it, going back to my humble first lunch in the December of 1996 where I think I made $1600 and was thrilled with that and I guess that’s even less pounds, (laughter) £800 but I was thrilled with it back then. So to look at how humble the beginnings were and where it’s gone.

DB Hmm.

JW And I do. I am a pretty humble guy and I try to keep my head on straight and not pat myself on the back too much but I really do think, you know, Product Launch Formula, arguably I think might be the single most influential internet marketing product ever.

DB Hmm.

JW People can make arguments and I’m sure there are good arguments against that but it has changed the game. I mean a few years ago, six figures in seven days was very, very impressive, three years ago and now, I almost feel like I have to apologise for it because it’s not seven figures in two hours or something so.

DB Hmm.

JW If

DB I think the great thing about Product Launch Formula as you said previously is that the information that’s contained in it will still be relevant in 50 years time.

JW Right.

DB It’s that longstanding; it’s not just reliant on technology.

JW Right, there are certain mental triggers that are, that exist in all of us and to different degrees and there are things that influence the way we act and what I’ve done, I’ve identified those. I didn’t invent them, you know, other people found them so I either identified them, or I learned them from other people but then I took them and I put them in a context of how you can use them in your marketing, specifically in your marketing online, and then how you can wrap them into a product launch, a whole process for pre-launch through launch. But yeah this stuff it’s going to work. It’s going to work 100 years from now because those mental triggers are not about the change, the idea of scarcity making us want something if it’s more scarce; the idea of we want to buy from people we like; the idea where community is, if there’s a community around. If we perceive ourselves as part of a community we’ll act like we think the people in our community should act. The idea of social proof. If we see other people doing something, a lot of other people doing something and they’re having it work out for them then we’ll be more inclined to do that ourselves. Those are all things that are inherent in all of us as humans. They’re not about the change, they work across cultures and they work across time so, yeah. The interesting thing is the internet, the environment of the internet allows us to tap into those factors in ways that no other marketers can because there’s three key things that are different about the internet versus any other medium or media. I’m never sure which you should say but

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW But one of them is the speed of communication; it’s just so much faster to be able to communicate with people. If you want to communicate via TV. TV, it’s fast to zap it out but to actually put it together, you know put together a production and get it out there it’s not fast. Through the internet, you know, direct mail, magazines, door-to-door selling, whatever, face-to-face; none of it has the speed of communication that the internet has.

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW And none of it has the cost structure; that’s the second item, it’s the cost structure, it’s so much cheaper to communicate online. You know, via email, it’s virtually free once you have your list.

DB Hmm.

JW The third one, this is a huge one, is it’s interactive. No other environment is interactive except for face-to-face, one to one selling or selling from the stage but it’s rare. One to one selling you can’t do it to masses like you can with the internet and in front of … From the stage it’s a pretty rare environment to get there, where it’s pretty easy to create that environment online. So those three factors completely change things in the whole marketing arena; it completely changes things and it gives you a unique stage, a unique playing field to be able to touch on all those mental triggers, and so

DB Hmm.

JW I just designed this process that, like I said, it wasn’t like I woke up one morning and invented it, it was gradually developed over in a case of twenty-five launches that I did in my trading and investing market and then since then probably, you know, if you cut up all the ones I’ve consulted in and been involved in, it’s probably, I don’t know, it’s somewhere, it’s well north of fifty launches and it’s probably approaching a hundred now. So it’s just, it’s been developed over time, so I’ve been able to systemise it. In every launch it’s a little different but it’s really, you know, the formula is sort of amazing how effective it is.

DB So it’s all about really applying your core strengths, which I believe to be relationship building and email communication really as well. As one of your core strengths, you’ve really harnessed the auto responder to do an awful lot of your effective marketing on your behalf.

JW Hmm-hmm.

DB How would you describe the benefits of using auto responders to marketing managers then?

JW Well, auto responders are amazing because you know when you’re online people are looking for every… Since they’re not face-to-face with you, they’re looking for every clue about who you are and what you represent and how you treat people; every clue they can possibly get and so, they’re looking at every word you send them in an email. They’re also looking closely at your blogs and any audio and video but when you, we all know this, that when you meet someone first impressions are important, okay. So, with an auto responder you have the capability of, what I love to do is really work very, very, very hard on the first few emails that someone gets from me because that’s your introduction, that’s the first impression. So, what an auto responder lets you do, it lets you sweat blood over that first email, and the second email and the third email and really make them say exactly what you want in exactly the way you want it, and also create your story because. Really, I mean, people are looking for relationships. They’re looking for relationships with the people they do business with. They don’t want to buy from some nameless, faceless company, they want connections, they want to feel they have a connection with the people they’re spending money with. And we all know, if you reflect in your personal experience, you know, do you feel better about walking into a fast food restaurant and buying from some nameless person who just is just flipping hamburgers for a few hours after school or, would you rather go in and sit down and have a waiter come over and then maybe the owner of the place stops by and shakes your hand, and after the meal the chef walks out and thanks you. I mean the personal touch is far more important.

DB Hmm.

JW And so, people feel very personal about their computers. I mean, no one likes to have someone else poking around in their computers right.

DB Hmm.

JW Everyone feels very personal and so you’re. The email inbox is an incredibly personal place, even though it gets hit with all kinds of spam, way too much email, way too much spam it is fundamentally a very personal place. If you doubt that, think about letting like a friend of yours or a co-worker just start going through all your email and your. There’s not too many people that would be comfortable with that I bet.

DB So you’re obviously in a very personal approach. Is that an appropriate thing to do? From a corporate environment as well, if someone’s in a position and they’re perhaps only intending to be in that position for a couple of years would you still recommend building up a relationship from a personal perspective or should it be more from a brand?

JW You know I’d really, huh, and I’m not a big corporate guy I just know how to sell stuff really effectively right.

DB Hmm.

JW And I’ve been in the corporate world but it’s a long time since I’ve been there but I think still the personal touch is incredibly important. Now if you’re worried about continuity maybe you invent the character.

DB Hmm.

JW I mean maybe it’s you know it’s Sally and no matter who’s writing those emails, or who it’s coming from it’s always going to be Sally.

DB Hmm.

JW And this is something you know every. And my advice is that, then again, I’m not in the corporate world and that’s not where I’m speaking from right now but yeah. Even if it’s, even if it isn’t from an individual person you have to avoid the corporate speak. You have to avoid using. You know when you get in an airplane the way they speak like when they’re doing their little safety talk before you take off and it’s just pure like, it sounds like a computer speaking because it’s like, you know. In the event of a water landing, you know, you don’t say in the event, it’s like; I mean they’re just trying to avoid saying real words. They’re trying to avoid directly saying things.

DB Hmm.

JW They’re trying to dance around, you know, it’s like hey if we crash in the water or if we’re going to go down, obviously they don’t want to say that and we know whey they don’t want to say that but you have to avoid that corporate speak. I mean if you want to get technical you have to avoid the passive voice, when you’re writing do not use the passive voice.

DB Hmm.

JW And I can’t even you a. I know what passive voice is, I can’t give you a definition go look, Google it and find out what

DB (Laughter)

JW The voice is.

DB (Laughter). That airplane situation is a great analogy though and I understand what you’re saying with that.

JW Yeah, so I mean even if you’re in the corporate and you are protecting your brand, and you don’t want to have it come from some fictitious person, at least have someone, have it come from a name, have there be a name at the bottom of the email and avoid that airplane speak. Avoid the corporate speak. Avoid the passive voice because people do not. They see that and their eyes glaze over, they just don’t care.

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW People are looking for a connection that’s what they’re really. The online environment really is personal and if you avoid the corporate speak and I know we’re a bit off the subject here but I mean this is, it’s vitally important that they feel a connection to you. And there are companies online that are doing a great job of doing this but there’s so many more that are just doing an awful job it’s incredible. And it’s making it

DB Hmm.

JW Easier staying apart, especially if you are corporate and your competitors are using corporate speak you will instantly set yourself apart by just being personable and ‘m not saying that this is right for every corporation, but I’ll use words like ain’t. When I’m speaking you’ll never hear me say ain’t, you know, it ain’t good

DB Hmm.

JW But I’ll use that in my copy. I’ll often use the term folks and I don’t know if they use that over in the UK but you know that some folks

DB Hmm.

JW Are wondering about this. I don’t ever say that when I’m speaking but it’s folksy and that’s at least in my marketing in the way I want to come across, as someone that they can just, you know, if they’re walking through a restaurant and saw me sitting there eating lunch they’d feel comfortable stopping and shaking my hand, and asking if they could sit down.

DB Hmm. No, excellent advice there. I’d like to cover just two quick other things about auto responders actually before we move on. One is, if you could possibly give us a little advice on why a double opt in is good? And the other one is, just talking a little bit about storing your email list on your own server or storing it elsewhere?

JW Yeah, I went to double up then I think in 2001 and basically that’s where someone opts in, they get an email from your server asking if they really want to get it and they have to click, and then once they click then they’re added. And so this, I just think, I don’t either if you have to do it in every market but I think it’s actually better at night because the reality is, is if you have a competitor and your competitor wants to play a little underhanded with you, they could conceivably go put lots of people’s names into your opt-in form. And maybe they even put in, they look up some of the most famous anti spam people and they put those people’s names in the auto responder, and those people are getting under subscribed to you. You know, they didn’t mean to.

DB Hmm.

JW Your competitor did it in an underhanded fashion, then you could get in a lot of trouble in terms of you could lose your list, you could lose your list host. And it doesn’t even have to be someone doing that maliciously to you, it could just, there’s all kinds of weird ways people can end up on your list. Or even more importantly, someone ends up on your list and they did sign up but they forgot to sign up and this happens all the time; they forgot they signed up. This way you can prove not only when they signed up but when they confirmed and so if someone complains that you’ve been sending them spam your list host will basically have all the records on hand to show when they subscribed, what IP address they subscribed from and when they confirmed. And it’s pretty hard for someone to argue if they’ve confirmed that they never, you know, they had to take two steps then and the second step just came from their inbox. So it really does protect you from anti spam complaints and basically, it’s about the only way I’ll go unless. I mean there’s certain rare exceptions but it’s actually better, I like that way.

DB I mean that it should be a no-brainer for people starting new lists for the first time – make it double opt in.

JW Yeah, right, and then I would always use a list host instead of running it off your server or your desktop because these days to get an email delivered is a challenge and if you go with a really rock solid list host then they have people full… Like the people I use, which is profollow.com, that’s my, actually my private label, that’s aweber.com is their parent company but I use profollow.com and they have a whole staff of people that are full-time doing nothing but staying in touch with AOL and Yahoo Mail and Gmail and making sure that those companies are not blacklisting your email. That’s really you know, back. probably about, up until about oh 2002, I was using a different list host and they didn’t have the full-time people allocated to that so I found myself, I was calling up AOL and saying hey, let my email go through it’s not spam it’s double opt in.

DB Hmm

JW And boy, for me to call up AOL, they’re not going to answer the phone, they don’t care about me but like with ProFollow, they’re, you know they have so many lists and they have such a good relationship with AOL and it’s like anything they’re on the phone with them constantly, they know each other. They know that they run a clean service so they don’t blacklist them.

DB Hmm.

JW I mean unless you can afford to hire two, or three, or four people to full-time manage that relationship and even then, it’s gotten so complicated. It’s just; it’s insane to try to do it yourself.

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW No one technical…

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW It’s just. Don’t even think about it. And these services are literally $20 a month. You just can’t afford not to do it. It’s just not even worth talking about, just go.

DB (Laughter). Yeah definitely okay.

JW Yeah.

DB So that’s a black and white argument?

JW It is there’s just no two ways about it.

JW And I’ve gone every way you could imagine. I used to have a publishing email for eleven plus years and I’ve probably sent approximately 10,000 different email broadcasts, so I’ve done it all and there’s just no other way to go right now.

DB Great, great, great and so if we can possibly move on to just a few tips for people to use within a mini launch process if someone’s got some new product, new service coming out within their business.

JW Hmm-hmm.

DB And they know that they’re going to introduce this new product in say, a couple of months time, would you certainly begin to advise people by starting with the end in mind and really having a think of what they want to do before thinking about a launch process.

JW Yeah absolutely and you have to be strategic about it, you have to look, what do I want from this and is it just, why are you introducing this product? Do you just want to make some money? Do you want to broaden your line? Do you want to increase the number of prospects you have? Do you want to increase the number of clients you have that you can then sell other things to? Maybe you just want to do a launch, just attract joint venture partners or new affiliates because you’re going make it such a successful launch and pay out such a huge portion in money that you all of a sudden, bring in new affiliates or activate old affiliates. So yeah, you really have to focus on what’s the overall strategic goal of this process.

DB Hmm.

JW And then, and this is where most people fall down or most companies fall down is, you need to really ask your market what they want so hopefully you’re building a list. I mean building a list is just a given, you have to do that in business nowadays and building an email list is the way to go and an offline list is great as well but you build an email list. You basically go to them and you ask them what they want. You know, we’re looking at designing this widget that does this and but before we do that we just want to check it with you and figure out what are the top two most important things you need to know. What are your top two questions in this area? What are the top two features you need to see on this type of product? And so you’re actually, you’re designing your product. You’re letting your customers, your clients, your prospects design your product and that’s critical and also, this brings them in, they start to actually feel a little bit invested, and this starts to let them know something’s coming. And a big piece of the whole launch process I teach is the idea of anticipation and you let people know something’s coming, they start to get excited about it, especially if you don’t give them the whole story off bat, ahead of time, you know, you just give them a piece of the story, a part of the story. You really turn it into a soap opera. So initially, you’ll do a survey with them, until they have an inkling something’s coming then you’ll come back and say, well yeah, a few weeks ago or a month ago we asked you about this and we’ve decided to actually go ahead. We are actually going to put this thing together and we’ve made a lot of progress, and we’re actually getting fairly close to having this thing ready. We might even have it ready in another three, or four weeks and if you’re interested here’s the place to go and get on the list for more updates about this.

DB Hmm.

JW And so, now you’re sort of in a non selling environment where people want you to sell to them their defences go up and they start to get sceptical but at this point you’re not selling them, you’re just excited you’re sharing that something’s coming up and their defences are down, it’s easier to get their curiosity aroused, it’s easier to get them interested. When you’re always out you’re not asking for the order at that point. And then as you move forward you gradually share more and more of what’s coming and the tension rises, they get more, you know, you get more excited about it, they get more excited about it and you start to communicate with them more and more regularly and now you’re sort of basically into the pre-launch phase. You’re starting to tell them what’s in it. You’re starting to answer questions but all through here is the interactive process. You’re asking them for a feedback. You’re asking them whether there are questions and then you’re. Well, questions there’s another term for questions and that’s usually that’s objections. What are the objections to buying this product? And really their questions will point you to what those objections are and if you can answer those objections during the pre-launch phase, before you ever get into a launch, before you ever ask for the order, it’s very, very effective. So you might be two weeks out and you send them an email that says, boy you know what, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about how such and such a widget does what. My favourite example is maybe you’re going to put out a product that teaches them how to grow tomatoes and how to grow big tomatoes in your garden. And so a couple of weeks out you would send them an email that says, well I’ve been getting a lot of questions, people are they’re having a lot of problems with the rabbits coming out and eating their, eating the plants when they’re still small and then they never get tomatoes and. You know that’s a great question because I’ve struggled with that for years until I could finally figure out what the answer is. If you want to see the answer go to my blog and I answer this question there. So they go to the blog and then you give a big long answer there, which is basically it’s answering their objection. It’s telling them that you know how to stop rabbits from eating tomato plants and you can give them a little bit here but the product’s really going to cover it and then you invite them to make comments. People can make comments then and then, and that’s where you get into social proof. It’s like all of a sudden other people see that. People are looking and seeing that there are other people interested. There are other people making comments and questions and you’re interacting with them so all of a sudden, it becomes this interactive environment and it can really feed on itself and people can get really excited. I sort of went off a long way there but I took you longer, further along that question than you thought.

DB No that’s great. You talked a little bit about blogs there actually. Obviously it’s easy for people to sign up and get their own Blogger account, or if they’re perhaps a little bit technically savvy they could download WordPress onto their own server and use that but would you recommend for the majority of product launches to use a blog?

JW Yeah, I think yes, for the majority I definitely would. I would definitely lean towards hosting it on your own website versus Blogger or something like that because that gives you ultimate control. Because I know people that have had Blogger accounts and had them shut down for no good reason just you know Blogger, for whatever reason, decided they didn’t like their blog and.

DB Hmm.

JW I would definitely; it does take a little more technical savvy but not much to install Word Press.

DB And what about, sorry, what about press releases? Would you use that and if so, would it be more effective to use that at the beginning or in the middle of the campaign?

JW Absolutely, absolutely, I’d use them and I would start early. We have there’s a saying (laughter) in the States here and I don’t know if they have it over in the UK but it’s a bit of a joke, it’s to vote early, and to vote often and

DB Laughter.

JW And of course you know, you can’t vote often but it’s a, I don’t even know the origins but yeah, press releases early and often. Just, they can’t hurt; they’re, you know, all that it takes is, it’s not that much money and it just takes some time to create them. So if you have the time to create it and of course, the deal with press releases is the ones that get covered are the ones that really do feel like news. So

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW Definitely you want a news related press release and absolutely we’d use them and frankly, sometimes they’ve been really effective and other times they haven’t been but it’s just, it’s sort of like one spoke in the wheel.

DB And I know you’ve talked about scarcity a little bit in the past could you possibly give us a couple of examples of how you’d build scarcity in to the product pre-launch phase?

JW Hmm-hmm. Well basically there is the idea that if there’s less of something we want it more and nothing can ignite a fire like talent, you know, people there’s only a couple of copies left of such and such and boy, you, until you experience the results of that type of thing you just cannot believe it. But basically the scarcity in the pre-launch you’re. I always like to have some form of scarcity in a launch so like if you buy in the first week you get such and such a price, you get so much money off. You know, so many dollars or pounds off your, you know, the purchase. Or if you buy in the first twenty-four hours you get this extra bonus or the first fifty buyers get this extra bonus. So there’s three major ways. There’s other ways to do it but three main ways to create scarcity is to do it with the price, where the price will go up, or do it with bonuses, where certain bonuses or features will go away, or you could do it, you know, the products are only available for such an amount of time. And that one is a painful one because you could limit the amount of profit you make if you do that but it’s probably the most effective and where that is really is effective is like maybe with coaching, or anything that requires personal time. Obviously there are limits there, anything that would require help, personal coaching, personal interaction. Even if you’re running a large organisation there at some point there is a limit what you can handle.

DB Hmm.

JW And/or it’s like a live event, we’re doing a live seminar. Well obviously if it’s a live seminar there can be only so many attendees and even it’s a huge event, the event will happen at some point, it will come and go so they obviously have to act before the event. So those are the main ways to build in scarcity. I mean you could do things like the first people to purchase get priorities or priority scheduling, priority delivery, anything like that but certainly I always when in a launch I try to create some type of scarcity and during the pre-launch, what you’re doing is that you’re explaining that. You explain to people that they do have to act quickly, this is a limited special, they only have so much time available. This is the reason why it’s always important to have a reason behind that scarcity and the pre-launch is a great time to explain the reason for that and that makes it a much more powerful tactic. You know, when you’re explaining ahead of time you have a legitimate reason why.

DB There’s some great tips there, thank you. So people have had a goods effective pre-launch and had an effective product or service launch. Are there any tips that you could possibly offer on post-launch on ensuring that all opportunities are captured and customers are retained for the future?

JW Well yeah I mean the launch period and right after the launch is critical because what happens with these launches is that you end up with a lot of excited buyers. This is a fun process if you do it right people are fun, they’re excited, they’re excited to be part of it, they’re happy they’ve got through and so, you have, it’s like a honeymoon period and you can really, if you execute properly during the honeymoon period, you can really lock in your customers for, if not life, for a long time. And we have first and foremost, this is all dependent on delivering a good product. I mean, you’re doing a really effective launch and piling up, you know, selling up oh, just a huge amount of product or doing these huge sales in the first few days, the first week, the first day. It’s all great but if you don’t have a great product, it’s just a, it’s a great way to put yourself out of business really.

DB Hmm.

JW If you’re not going to deliver then don’t bother. So first thing is you having a good product, get it in their hands quickly and you can never communicate too much. You just keep on, communicate tell them if things have slowed down; if you’re overwhelmed let them know right away. Continue to follow up with them and then instantly, you know people who’ve bought from you like to buy. Well those are the best prospects for buying from you again and so, if you can follow up with another offer, very quickly, you know, days or weeks, follow up with another offer to settle up.

DB Hmm.

JW Then you also want to go back and look for testimonials and case studies right away because one of the triggers is commitment and consistency, and if you can get them to tell you right in the honeymoon period. If you can get them to tell you how great you are, so they buy from you, you give them the product, two days later you ask them for a testimonial, they come back and tell you how great they are. One of the reasons they’re telling you how great they are is because there’s a honeymoon period, you know everyone wildly in love on their honeymoon. Well, but once they give you their testimonial or their case study, part of the commitment consistency is people like to act in a consistent fashion with the way they’ve acted in the past. So if they tell you you’re great, then in the future they’re going to want to live up to that idea. They truly believed you were great, they told you, you were great. They remember that they told you, you were great and so, that is going to affect the way they feel about you in the future. And this sounds sort of weird but it’s very, very effective and this is like the whole idea, you don’t often hear the term brainwashing very much anymore but that’s really the idea of like cults and the way they bring people in, and the way they get them to change behaviour; one of the ways is through commitment consistency. If someone can get you to say yes, even to a very, very small request, you know, the tiniest request like, even like with POWs like in past wars. Maybe someone, if you were a captive they would offer you, do you want a cigarette? And they’d just get you to say yes, I want a cigarette. They get you to say yes, just to the most minor little thing and then they’ll gradually bring you along and get you to say yes to more and more things. And eventually, they’ll have you saying yes to denouncing your country.

DB Hmm-hmm.

JW And so, I mean, we’re not trying to brainwash people but if we give them an opportunity to say, yes I love you, you know, yes, Jeff I’ve bought your product and it’s the greatest product I’ve ever bought.

DB Hmm.

JW And then it reduces the chances of them two months later saying, Boy Jeff, I don’t like your product I want my money back, of if then I go to them and say, do you want to buy another product? Yes, Jeff you’re great, you know they’ve already said that once and so it’s easier for them to say it a second time.

DB Hmm-hmm.
JW I’m not talking about they sit in front of the computer saying, yes Jeff I love you. I’m talking about just in their mental dialogue.

DB Hmm.

JW Or – that can be very critically important and a great chance when you have them so excited about you and your product because they went to this launch. Then it gives you a great opportunity to create that, do all kinds of things like that.

DB That’s actually an excellent way of rounding the conversation off and emphasising that list building that initial piece of communication by auto responder, building the relationship is where you have to begin and that you have to begin that as soon as possible.

JW Right, absolutely.

DB Excellent yeah, and obviously entrepreneurs and marketing managers just can’t afford to ignore email marketing and the product launch processes so they have to become aware of it or

JW Yeah.

DB Or study it a little bit yes?

JW Yeah, and specifically like with the email, you know, everything we’re talking about here is, it’s all relationship based; people are looking for relationships. I think I mentioned this earlier, I mean people are more and more. It’s harder to find connection. As our world gets busier and goes more digital and more digital media, digital entertainment, the internet based people are less and less connected with each other. We can all reach out, we’re talking thousands, 3,000 or 4,000 miles apart and we’re talking like we’re sitting next door to each other but people are still lacking a lot of human connection and it may be sad but you can really, you know, you can create that feeling of connection where you might be publishing the 10,000 or 100,000 people but if you write your copy properly they will feel a connection. They’ll feel like they know you. They’ll feel like your next-door-neighbour. It’s incredibly powerful and if you can create that environment it really makes the entire marketing process and the launch process a lot easier and a lot more rewarding.

DB Great. Well, I know you’re doing a course yourself late June for Product Launch Formula owners. I think it’s going to be a little bit late for people who are hearing this recording to book a place on it but do you want to possibly tell us a little bit about that and maybe any possible plans for product launch formula in the future?

JW Yeah, right now well yeah, what I’ve done is, I’m putting together a small workshop that’ll be very interactive in Denver, Colorado in the States and it’s going to be in late June, June 22nd, 23rd, 24th and it’s basically I have learned, you know, nothing’s changed in terms of all this stuff, works and like we talked about earlier, will continue to work but I have learned some new tactics and some new techniques. I’m going to be sharing that with people in my seminar in June and we’ll also be working very interactively to try to put together joint ventures in the room to really, so people really walk out of that room with a complete blueprint of what they’re going to do in their next launch. So I’m just really excited about this, we’re going to, you know, I don’t know exactly how many people we’re going to have right now but I’m thinking 50 people in the room, or maybe approximately and including a bunch of experts that I’ve personally trained, or have used my materials and some are just going to. It’s going to be a blast if we have three days of just really intensely working on our business and creating these plans and I think it’s just going to make millions and millions going forward. So I’m very, very excited about that.

DB And obviously with mentioning ProductLaunchFormula.com is the website for people to go to, to find out more about that but if people want to get in touch with you would you like to give out any contact details at all?

JW Yeah, it’s my email address is jeff@sixinseven.com that’s like six figures in seven days, six in seven and I do try to respond to emails, the crush inside the inbox is just become insane but I do definitely try to response to emails.

DB Jeff, I really appreciate you joining me today it’s, you’ve given an awful lot of excellent information and it’s been extremely worthwhile and thank you very much.

JW Oh you’re welcome, it was fun and good luck, it sounds like you’re doing great things. It sounds like the workshop you just had was very, very powerful and I really enjoyed being on with you.

DB Thank you.

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