0 (2s):
Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like My First Million. Today, we'll be focusing on how to launch your online business and to drop these value bombs. I brought Jeff Walker into EOFire studios. Jeff is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller LAUNCH. He's been teaching people how to launch online courses, products, services, and brands since 2005. And today we'll be talking about some of the biggest success stories cause Fire Nation. You can put yourself in the shoes of some of these success stories and follow their success cause guess what?

0 (42s):
Success leaves clues. We'll talk about what's changed since the first edition and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors ever wish you had a mentor to help improve your customer experience and scale your business. HubSpot's new podcast, the shakeup with Alexis Gay and Brianne Kimmel has you covered. I love it because it shares how real people are building real businesses in very unique ways. Listen, learn, and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork. Fire Nation, are you finally ready to publish a book the right way? Kevin Anderson & Associates can help for a limited time, they're offering Fire Nation a free 90-minute consultation to discuss writing and publishing your book in just six months.

0 (1m 26s):
Visit KAWriting.com/fire to schedule your free 90-minute consultation today. That's KAWriting.com/fire. Jeff say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 45s):
Hey, Fire Nation. It is good to be on here. So John, so great to talk to you again. One thing about success that I believe that a lot of people I think don't get is that people are not born successful. I say this as someone who, if you could have seen me at 35 years old, you would have said, this guy has got nothing going on and no future whatsoever. People are not born successful. They make themselves successful and whatever you want to do, whatever you want to become a master at whatever you want to succeed at someone else has spent their entire life studying that thing and mastering that thing.

1 (2m 31s):
And a huge number of those people are willing to teach you through their podcasts, through their courses, their physios, through their books. And all you have to do is study with those people and follow those clues to get to the success.

0 (2m 49s):
I love that message and I resonate with it a hundred percent. In fact, I really lived a very similar life myself, where if you had taken snapshot of me at 32 years old, just a couple of years behind you, you would have been in the same head-scratcher situation been like, what is this kid doing? Like he's just dropped out of law school, quit corporate finance, like is not doing much in real estate. I mean, he's just kind of floating around doing nothing. And then I finally found my thing at 32 went all in and then here we are talking almost 10 years later, almost 3000 episodes later, and I'm still rocking and rolling. That's what Jeff did finish. And he found his thing. So just because you're hearing some of my guests be like, yeah, I was like, you know, ripping flowers out of people's garden beds and selling it back to them.

0 (3m 37s):
When I was seven years old and I was mowing 1,000, 10,000 yards a week, you know, and I had all these people working for me, painting houses when I was like 16 years old. Like if that's not you that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're not going to be able to make your stamp, share your message, your mission, your voice in this world that we now live in. In fact, Jeff's living breathing example. I'm a living breathing example. We were in our low to mid 30s when we first started, I've had guests on that started in their forties, fifties, seventies. I just was interviewed by somebody who's now in his nineties and just launched a podcast. I'm like, this guy is my idol. I love it. And Fire Nation take inspiration from all of this.

0 (4m 18s):
Now we're here to talk today about your book launch. I mean, I interviewed you for the first time on entrepreneurs, on fire over seven years ago. Now I can still picture where I was. I was in San Diego at the time and I was a little nervous cause you know, the name Jeff Walker back then was a really big deal. And he's maintained that big dealness throughout the seven years that have passed as well. In fact, we recently were rocking and rolling down here at Puerto Rico where he was the keynote at a really awesome conference called Puerto Rico masterminds. And one thing that I remember so clearly was being like, man, I was really nervous about the interview with Jeff, but he made me feel so relaxed. So at ease because he's just a cool normal down to earth guy.

0 (5m 1s):
And you've always been that way. Jeff people say that behind your back, by the way, which is a good thing. And they're all just like Jess. So a cool guy. And it's like, that's exactly what he is. So you came on back then and you talked about your New York times, number one bestseller. And here we are seven years later, you're writing a new addition to this masterpiece. Why

1 (5m 22s):
The book contains this formula I've been developing now for 25 years. It sounds ridiculous. 25 years. And that formula is going to keep on working because it's based on human psychology. It's, it's based on the way we make decisions and it's taking that psychology and it's putting it to use in your promotion so you can launch whatever you want, whether it's an online course membership site, a podcast, even it just doesn't matter. It's how to launch. And so the book was the first, the first edition was published in 2014, two reasons why I updated. First of all, people go onto Amazon and they see it was published in 2014.

1 (6m 3s):
They're like, wow, this must be old. I'm not going to get it because things move so quickly. Well, that's partially true the tactics change, but the strategies remain. So in the new edition, we kept all the old strategies that keep on working. But we added the new tactics that, that are part of part of the world we live in today. So for instance, back in 2014, pay traffic, you know, Dre using ads to drive people into your offers was a thing, but it wasn't a thing at the level it is right now. So I had to update it to show how to use paid traffic within your launches.

1 (6m 45s):
Same thing with social media. Sure. Social media was a thing in 2014, but it wasn't everything the way it is now. So I had to update it to show how to use social within your launches. And then another thing is the tools keep on evolving. When I first started out, the launches were literally via email. That was the only tool we had. Then eventually we had blogs. So we could do blog posts. Then eventually we had online audio then very simple screen capture online video. Then it was fancier video. And then we use started using narrative, a narrative driven, really fancy video as B roll and everything.

1 (7m 26s):
Now we have live broadcasts. We can actually broadcast live via any number of different tools. And so many of the launches, not all of them, but many of the launches now use live video and live streaming as part of the launch. So I had to update with that another thing, and I don't, I'm sort of giving the whole overview here right now, but the way we actually, once you go through your prelaunch phase and you get into your open cart, that has completely changed as well. So I had to update for all the new tactics and the new tools that we've got these days that we didn't have in 2014

0 (8m 3s):
And Fire Nation. That's one thing that I've been experiencing as well. I mean, we launched Podcaster's paradise back in 2013. I mean, I don't think there's one original video from back then that is still part of our over 200 video catalog because things change. You know, we have to keep up with the times we need to continue to say, okay, this is what's working right now. And so that's why when you go and you purchase this updated edition of launch, you're going to know that you're getting the latest and the greatest. And what I love about YouTube Jeff, is that you're always trying new things and testing new things. Like you shared a couple of really cool things that you were doing in your own launches when you were down here, keynoting Puerto Rico masterminds a couple of years ago, that was really fun to see. And then seeing you put that into action, and this is just a person by our nation who loves what he does and continues to try to iterate and stay on that cutting edge.

0 (8m 52s):
So we love stories, Jeff finishing his love story. So share with us some of your favorites about those who have used this book in your method to launch their online business.

1 (9m 5s):
One of my favorites, recent ones, I've got so many stories. I love collecting these stories and I'm absolutely addicted to the impact that my work can make and, and hearing these stories. So Anne LaFollette and was successful in the corporate world. She was in her late fifties, working for a great big company at a very successful level. She was in operations and she was a senior leader at this big corporation in, in operations management. And one day her boss called her into her office. She had no idea why. And her boss basically said, we're laying you off.

1 (9m 45s):
You're being downsized. And so, and spent her entire career corporate what's successful in corporate, but now she's like 58, 59 years old. And when something like that happens, it completely rocks your world. And it was not an easy situation for Anne yet. She went home and she like something she'd always done as a hobby. Was art, just doodling well in the next year or so, she, that, that hobby turned into a passion and she did this thing called surface pattern design, which when she, when I, when she first sent in an email telling me about her results from her launch, I had to go and Google what surface pattern design is.

1 (10m 29s):
And I still didn't understand what it is, but it's basically, yeah, it's John, I'm sure you don't know you'll Google it. You will no idea, but it's, it's this idea of taking doodles and designs, taking them minute into an Adobe illustrator and turning them into a repeating pattern that you can then go license to put on handbags or mouse pads or, or luggage or whatever that companies will actually license these things. So, and got pretty good at this. And then she started decided to roll out a course and start teaching people. She had no experience as an entrepreneur, no digital marketing experience, very little digital experience. She's now in her early sixties, but she started publishing every week.

1 (11m 14s):
She started doing a live video teaching what she knew, of course she had zero audience. So in the beginning, the only person that was actually watching them was her cousin, her cousin would show up every week and watch her do her live broadcast. And Ann likes to say, I was just getting used to talking to the green dot, you know, that little green.next to your webcam. I was talking to the green dot and sure enough, she got more and more and more comfortable talking to the green dot. And then she started spending $5 a day in Facebook ads to drive Fe, to drive people into her live videos. And she started to build a small audience.

1 (11m 55s):
Then she did her first initial seed launch just as a proof of concept and that, and she made a few thousand dollars built our course. And then the next year she made a hundred thousand dollars. That was in 2019, 2020. She just kept on feeding, more paid traffic into her launch, building her platform. And 2020, she did $400,000 in sales teaching surface pattern design as someone who is in her early sixties, but no entrepreneurial experience. Someone who started with no digital marketing experience, no online experience and no list whatsoever

0 (12m 38s):
2021. She moves a Puerto Rico to keep all that internet money she's making. Am I right?

1 (12m 46s):
Maybe, maybe she, she lives in, in Minnesota. So she might be ready for some warm

0 (12m 51s):
Weather, just six months a year. Come on now, come on down. The weather and tax benefits are arise, but financially, what I love about the story that Jeff shared is that it wasn't just like this person woke up one day launched. Its did all these things and had hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in. This is a process. This is a journey. $5 in ads can help you understand if you actually have something that people want, the people need. The people will vote with their wallet, that people will pay actual money for, man, stories like these that really do give me shivers and maybe we'll have time for another one. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors Fire Nation, do you realize the value being a published author brings to your business?

0 (13m 34s):
As one of myself, I can honestly say a lot. So if you've ever considered writing a book, but feel like you don't have the time writing ability or idea to make it a success, then I've got great news for you. Kevin Anderson & Associates is an industry leading all-inclusive book writing firm that can help you go from no book to publish author in as little as six months Kevin's team has launched 19 number one, New York times bestsellers and hundreds of national bestselling books. You'll be able to work directly with those who helped launch the careers of the biggest names in the book business, including Bernay Brown, Simon Sinek, Robert Kiyosaki, and many more. It doesn't matter where you are in the book writing process. Kevin's team will guide you through every step of writing your book and developing a customized publishing strategy to exceed your wildest expectations.

0 (14m 16s):
In as few as eight hours of your time. Kevin Anderson & Associates can gather all the Intel. They need to write and publish your book the right way in as quickly as six months. If you're ready to establish yourself as the authority in your area of expertise, Kevin is currently offering you Fire Nation, a free 90-minute publishing consultation call visit KAWriting.com/fire to schedule your free consultation today. Available for a very limited time. That's KAWriting.com/fire customer expectations are at an all-time high. So when a prospect or customer reaches out, it's important that everyone across your organization has the context. They need to deliver a personalized and helpful experience.

0 (14m 57s):
And because conversations with prospects and customers are going to happen across all sorts of channels and teams, it becomes increasingly important to be able to manage all those conversations in one place. That means giving your sales team visibility into marketing emails that are sent in customer service teams, having visibility into conversations that happen during the sales process. We both know that when messaging isn't aligned, it can create a frustrating experience for customers who might feel like they're constantly repeating themselves or that your business just isn't a fit for them. Lucky for us. How's what has the tool to help us manage everything under one central CRM platform, HubSpot integrates with your inbox to automatically save and store email conversations, allow reps to record calls, right from within HubSpot, gives your teams a universal inbox to tackle live chat, inquiries, emails, Facebook messages, and more, learn more about how you can scale your company without scaling complexity at hubspot.com.

0 (15m 47s):
So Jeff, a lot, and I mean, a lot has changed since you published that first edition of the launch. What are some of those big changes that you've seen? I mean, we talked about a few of them earlier on in the interview, but let's really dive into some specifics, maybe one or two where you're just like, you know what? These are things I really had to focus on to really make this new edition relevant in today's world.

1 (16m 12s):
One of the things that I mentioned it very briefly was the open cart. So in one of these launches, we have this period called the pre-launch period and in the pre-launch period, you're delivering content and it's not just random content. This isn't just like, quote unquote content marketing. This is, well, it follows a formula. It's very, very specific. It's generally three pieces of content. And the first one is all about establishing the opportunity. So whatever you're selling, your, your, there is an opportunity for your clients, your future customers to either have reduced pain in their life or increased pleasure. Pretty much everything.

1 (16m 52s):
Everything we sell comes down to either of those things or both of those things. So they have an opportunity. It may be it's an opportunity to quit smoking, to develop a meditation practice, to have a better tennis swing, to learn, to play guitar, whatever it is that first piece is about the opportunity for their, their life to change. That leads into the second piece, which is the transformation where we start to make that transformation in their life feel very, very real. That leads into the I'm going super quick here. This is the whole, pre-launch the pre-launch magic. But the third piece is what we call the ownership or ownership experience.

1 (17m 32s):
And that's where they really start to take ownership on that future life. That you're promising them, that future life that they're going to have when they, when they get your product, when they have that meditation practice, when they find the love of their lives and that whole pre-launch period can be anywhere from three to 10 days long. In that time you're developing a rapport with your audience. You're, you're building reciprocity by giving them amazing things. They might want to give something back to you. You're developing your authority. You're showing that you've truly got the skills to deliver on this. You're you're creating social proof so that they can see other people are excited about this. And this all leads up into launch day launch day is when you open cart.

1 (18m 19s):
So we use that as a verb. You actually open cart. This is when people can actually start buying your product, signing up for your membership. The open, we also use open cart to talk about this open cart period, or we might call it Curt week. And that's the, this is like five to seven days where they can actually buy from you. At the end of that time, you have to shut down your launch offer doesn't mean it has to come off the market, but there's a specific period of time where they have to act to get your, your special offer. That's what makes it all so exciting and unique and, and makes them act now. So that's your open cart period. Your open cart week, I call it a week.

1 (19m 0s):
It's usually five to seven days, but in the old days, as of a few years ago, open cart was basically, Hey, CURT's open. I know you're excited about this because you've been watching all my prelaunch videos. You've been consuming that I've been watching all your comments, come in. Now you can come and get the offer. Here's the link. And then it used to be a few days later, then it was like, okay, offers coming off the market. And you have to act by tonight to get the offer. Well, nowadays the show has shifted from being all about the pre-launch, to being about the pre-launch, but also about that open Kurt period. So during that Curt period, you'll generally release a, another piece of content.

1 (19m 46s):
That piece of content will be net super complex. It will introduce new things, new, it's not new knowledge to, to, to study and to learn, but it's a simple, easy training content piece that also leads into the making the decision to buy will also generally during Kurt week, add in a live streamer too often, it's with past clients or success stories or other leaders in the industry. Another piece of that might be an FAQ video or FAQ live stream where you're answering the top questions. So this current week Maria talked about the formulas is opportunity.

1 (20m 30s):
Transformation ownership. Kurt week is all about enrollment. It's about getting them not only to enroll in your product, but really first to enroll in themselves to, to say, yes, I am the kind of person that's going to quit smoking. Yes, I am the kind of person that's going to build a yoga practice. So you're getting them to enroll in themselves. So throughout the entire current week, it used to just be a few emails, but now it's actually a little, it's a little mini mini campaign within Kurt week to get people to move.

0 (21m 5s):
Talk about value bombs, Fire Nation. I mean, how can you not get excited about this content that Jeff is sharing ends, as he mentioned earlier, I just want to reiterate how he truly does feed Fire Nation off of your success stories. Like he loves the impact that his work, that his value that his knowledge brings. And it's just so exponential to see what it's done over the years. And that's why he has such a large and loyal community. They just love having access to Jeff's brain. And that community's awesome. In fact, my neighbors here in Palmas Del Mar Puerto Rico Farouk and Heidi got married after they met at Jeff's masterminds and being part of his annual mastermind that he does, where he has a community of people that get together multiple times, of course, online, virtually very often.

0 (21m 55s):
And they met, fell in love. And now they're my neighbors and some of our dearest friends. And that's just, you know, a fraction of a minute fraction of the impact that Jeff has had over so many people over so much time in so many different areas and walks of life. So Jeff, give us the one key takeaway that you want to make sure Fire Nation really gets from everything that we talked about here today, share a direct call to action where a Fire Nation can pick up this spanking brand new edition of launch. And then we'll say, goodbye.

1 (22m 27s):
First of all, you need to launch no successful business brand product service survive without a launch you need to launch, you need to put your stake in the ground and focus a white hot spotlight, no matter how small that is, no matter how small your audience is, you have to focus that on your launch to get people excited, to get them to move. And your business will be a series of launches. When you first start out, you might be like me. My first email that I ever published went out to 17 people. It didn't make a lot of noise. My first video that I ever published went out to just a few hundred people.

1 (23m 10s):
It didn't make a big impact, but it was still a focus that got that, that initial launch set up all the subsequent launches. So first of all, you need to launch. Second of all, the launches are built of stories and sequences and triggers. And I mentioned, you know, Jen, what I love about you is, is every one of your episodes is focused on story and the importance of story, because that's how humans learn. That's how humans transmit information. So your launch needs to be built, a story and sequences. We talked about to the sequences, the pre-launch and the open cart, and it's built on triggers.

1 (23m 52s):
And we talked about some of the triggers, authority, social proof, social proof, reciprocity, community stories, sequences, and triggers. We'll build an engineered launch for you that will focus all the attention of your audience and your offer and get your results. And if you don't want to learn more, the launch book.com. So first of all, the book is titled launch. You can get it on Amazon or any other booksellers, but if you go to the launch book.com, then I'll have a bunch of extra goodies for you there just to, just to make it an irresistible offer

0 (24m 28s):
History, Fire Nation, his story. We love stories. We should also have another word, her story, her story. I mean, we live and breathe on stories. So I love all of that, but that was one thing I wanted to double back on foundation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with and hello, you've been hanging out with JW and JLD today. So keep out of that heat head over to eofire.com type Jeff in the search bar. He did a prior episode, as we mentioned earlier on Entrepreneurs On Fire seven years ago, we really get into his story on that episode. So you want to hear a little bit more detail about just story. Like it's a doozy we talk about as a worst entrepreneurial moments, which was a, quite a story as well, as well as what was firing them up back then, which would be really interesting for you to hear about.

0 (25m 16s):
So just go to EOFire.com type Jeff in the search bar, and both of these episodes will pop up, listen to them back to back and make sure you head over to the launch book.com to get all the goodies he's including at that URL. And of course, read the book and implements the genius within Jeff. Thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you brother and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Jeff and Fire Nation. Are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Well, check out my free podcasting course, where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free freepodcastcourse.com.

0 (26m 6s):
That is freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flippity flip side. He'd

2 (26m 15s):
Ever wish

0 (26m 16s):
You had a mentor to help improve your customer experience and scale your business. HubSpot's new podcast, the shakeup with Alexis Gay and Brianne Kimmel has you covered. I love it because it shares how real people are building real businesses in very unique ways. Listen, learn, and grow with the HubSpot Podcast Network at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork Fire Nation. Are you finally ready to publish a book the right way? Kevin Anderson & Associates can help free limited time they're offering Fire Nation a free 90-minute consultation to discuss writing and publishing your book in just six months. Visit KAWriting.com/fire to schedule your free 90-minute consultation today. That's KAWriting.com/fire.