Lisa Pfister Product Launch Consultant

I was just reading a business book summary of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely we at www.TheBusinessSource.com wrote and thought I’d share a snippet I found interesting and entertaining. This is a powerful concept you may choose to use in your marketing efforts.

The High Cost of Zero Cost

A key chapter in Ariely’s book focuses on the amazing power of giving away things for free. It turns out that getting something for free makes most people feel very good. In this way, zero is not just another price. Psychologically, zero is very special.

A few Halloweens ago, Ariely conducted an interesting experiment on this very subject. To explore the effect of free chocolate on trick-or-treaters, Ariely started with a supply of Hershey’s Kisses (which hold about one-tenth of an ounce of chocolate) and two kinds of Snickers bars – regular-sized bars, and one-ounce Halloween miniature-sized bars.

When the first children came to his door, Ariely handed each of them three little Kisses. He then offered to make a deal. If they wanted to, the kids could trade one Kiss for a mini-Snickers bar OR two Kisses for a full-sized bar. Almost all of them were able to do the math in their heads on the spot, and traded the two Kisses for a full-sized Snickers.

Half way through the evening, Ariely shifted the terms of the deal. The kids could now trade one of their three Kisses for the larger bar, OR get a mini-Snickers without having to give up anything in return. In terms of sheer volume of chocolate, the trade for the larger bar was still by far the better deal. But, faced with the prospect of getting one mini-Snickers for free, most trick-or-treaters lost all ability to do the simple math in their heads. Most of them refused the trade, even though it cost them overall. Tellingly, when Ariely later performed this experiment on his MIT students, they made the same mistake.

Ariely speculates that the underlying reason for the chocolate miscalculation was anxiety. People are naturally risk averse, he explains. But “there’s no visible possibility of loss when we choose something for free.” Accordingly, most people are drawn to it.

Again, if you’re in sales or marketing, and you come to understand the power of FREE!, you can do some pretty marvelous things. Want to draw a crowd? Give away something for free. Want to sell more products? Just make part of the purchase free!

Hope you found this as interesting as I did!
Lisa

Just a quick head’s up. Launch Answers Now is now making it even simpler to get answers to your product launch questions. With our new format we’ll be featuring a ton of questions we’ve been asked (so you can just peruse the content). But don’t worry – you’ll still be able to ask your specific questions on the site as well.

We’re still putting the finishing touches on the new format but we’ll be relaunching soon so take notice

Lisa

Thanks so much for all your great product launch questions you’ve been asking us at www.LaunchAnswersNow.com. As time goes on I’ll share some of the questions we’re asked and the answers we’ve provided. Today I selected a simple, but important question: What are the different types of product launches?

There are a number of different types of product launches.

A Seed Launch is the perfect vehicle for building a list and a following.

A Re-Launch can either bring a product back off the shelves as an updated version, with a new bonus attached or as it was originally sold (with some new compelling reason to buy now).

An Internal Launch is when an offering is only given to a business owner’s internal list. It’s best suited for people who don’t have all their systems perfected yet. It’s usually best to do an internal launch to iron out all the kinks before you bring in Joint Venture partners who will be less forgiving of any issues you might have. It’s also an opportunity to prove up your concept and get solid conversion numbers to share with future JV Partners.

An internal launch usually precedes a Joint Venture Launch where you have a number of partners that tell their lists about your offer. They are given a percentage of the proceeds as compensation for their endorsement. In the internet marketing space a JV Partner may get 50% or more of the gross profits which may seem high, after all you’ve done all the hard work – right? Wrong. The hardest part is getting people in front of you that may want your offer and if you can leverage the trust of a JV partner and the relationship he has with his list it’s well worth the steep commission. That being said, 50% is not written in stone. We have done many launches where we pay our partners 15%- 35%. The most important thing in a JV Launch is not how big a commission you bring to the table, the most important thing is how much value you can bring to the JV’s list. You want to help them build their relationship with their people while compensating them for their introduction. The list is the most important thing. You burn their list, you do irreparable damage.

A Rolling Launch is when you launch repeatedly (often with a series of JV Partners). Personally, this is my favorite type of launch. A rolling launch allows you to do almost everything you’d do in a “regular” launch with way less hassles. If you do a onetime “big bang” launch you can run into a lot of trouble. Your merchant account may close down due to unexpectedly high sales, there may be technical problems or a sickness or some other major snafu which could possibly jeopardize your entire year’s earnings. A rolling launch gives you great cash flow, allows you to constantly tweak your offering, testing and growing your conversion rates step by step. We do rolling launches all year with different JV partners. It takes away the headaches of getting everyone on board at the same time and makes life A LOT easier.

What’s your favorite type of launch?

Hi Folks,

Thanks so much for all your well wishes, notes and questions for the new product launch question and answer site www.LaunchanswersNow.com.

It’s been a long road to get to this point and we’re all thrilled with the result – a place to get answers to all your product launch questions when you need them most – NOW!

The quality of the questions has been terrific and the enthusiasm has been infectious.

So thanks again and I look forward to getting more of your questions on www.LaunchAnswersNow.com.

Back to answering questions now.

Lisa

Just a super quick note to let the world know that www.LaunchAnswersNow.com is now LIVE.

Come ask your product launch questions and get answers FAST for FREE from 8 top flight Product Launch Managers.

Can’t get a better deal than that!

See you there

Hi Folks,

It’s been awhile since we’ve last talked about product launches.  Being busy is no excuse, but it’s the one I’m using anyway.

One of the projects I’ve been working on is Launch Answers Now. It’s pretty exciting and we’re almost ready to go live so I thought I’d share it with you.

As you may already know, last summer, 45 people came together to be trained as Product Launch Managers by the Product Launch Guru, Jeff Walker.  We were all doing very well in our own businesses, and had many successful product launches, but all of us wanted to learn that extra special something so we made a sizable investment in our professional development to get personal training from the master himself.

Since we returned home many people have approached us to do a product launch for them. The problem is that very few are qualified prospects. They don’t have the resources (money, list, proven product, JV connections etc) to make it possible to do a product launch with them.

It’s been frustrating all around. We can’t serve people who have a need and people who have a need can’t get to the point of being served by us because they don’t have an option of reasonably priced resources to get them to a level where Product Launch Management is feasible.

So this is what we did. 8 Product Launch Managers from around the globe decided to form a team of experts to help take you on a journey.

We decided to set up a site where you could get your product launch questions answered by a group of top notch product launch experts so you could finally take action with confidence. To make it even nicer we’ll be doing this for free. We’ll answer your questions, give you perspective on your plan of action, give you a starting point or just get you unstuck.

What’s in it for us? First of all, we’ll help you get to a place where you qualify for Product Launch Management.  And secondly, we’ll be of service to you.  That means something. We hate just saying “sorry, we can’t help” without providing some way to assist you.

So there you have it. We hope to go live in the next week or two.  If you have thoughts on the project let me know or if you have questions hold on a bit and then keep the questions coming to www.LaunchAnswersNow.com

Product Launch Management

It’s been a big year of transition going from managing my own business & launching my own products to helping others launch their products and take their businesses to new heights.

It’s been a real honor to be invited into other people’s businesses, seeing how they operate and what is working for them and what isn’t.

The most surprising thing I’ve encountered on this journey is how complicated it really is to launch a product, create a winning and sustainable marketing system and then systemize your business so you can predict results and plan appropriately for the future.

The most interesting thing about this journey is seeing how many businesses are run “by the seat of their pants.” This isn’t a judgement, it’s a fact. Many of these businesses even make a fair bit of cash. So you can have a successful business without systems – but you’re doing it with one hand tied behind your back. The other problem with not creating, testing, improving and implementing powerful marketing systems is that life is no fun. It’s not predictable and the inevitable fires you need to put out in a launch almost become unmanageable because you’re already spinning too many plates.

So my gift to you this Holiday season is the gift of reflection. Take some time this year to see what’s working for you, see how you can systemize, outsource, automate and simplify those tasks so you can start to free up time to create the space for creative thought. After all, your success in business is a reflection of that creative thought. It will be the best time you even spent.

Good luck and best wishes for continued success and happiness in the New Year!

What’s your biggest product launch question? What’s your biggest marketing question? What’s your biggest concern moving forward? Is it the product itself? Your offer? Your team (or lack thereof)?  The technical side of things – like setting up a shopping cart, integrating systems, server crashes?

There are so many moving parts in a product launch. It really SEEMS to make sense to have someone manage it for you – but that’s the kicker – it SEEMS that way.

Now you’re probably thinking what the #@!! She’s a Product Launch Manager, doesn’t she want me to buy her services? Well the short answer is: probably not. In the vast majority of circumstances it makes sense for you to start on your own, build your assets (prove up your product, build your list, put together some Joint Venture relationships) and talk to your customers and prospects so you really know what they want not what you THINK that they want.

There are two big reasons for this.

Firstly, after you do these things you’ll be either ready to do the big money, list build, megacompany win launch (or you’ll close down the shop and move onto something that excites you more).  Either way you‘ll have got critical information.

And secondly, you’ll be in a position to hire a Product Launch Manger that will put in the extra ingredients to make your launch the success it could be.

The problem I see in the marketplace is that lots of people who come to me have a number of things cooking but they aren’t at the place to knock it out of the park. They haven’t done the groundwork. Most people think that once the product is done, the hard work is behind them. Unfortunately this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

A Product Launch Manager needs certain assets to work with:

• Ready to sell product (helpful if something like it has been successful in the past)
• Be trusted and liked by your customer base
• Provide high margin, high ticket products (information products are ideal)
• Have a large responsive list of customers and prospects
• Enjoy relationships with companies who will promote for you

Now you may be thinking how do I get all of this without having the expertise of a product launch manager to guide me? Well one way to start is by asking one question at a time. What are you having problems with? What’s your biggest issue? Is it where to start? Is it how do I get unstuck?

Let me know and maybe I can help get you, get ready, to hire me

There are 33,000 product launches each year and over 24,500 of them fail. There are a number of reasons for this.

First of all most people don’t have the assets they need to have a successful product launch. A great proven product, a substantial warm list, strong JV relationships, and a willingness to make a substantial investment in marketing are all vital to the success of a product launch.

Business owners all too often believe in their product and get the value of what they created so they aren’t willing to fully invest in marketing efforts that can demonstrate that value to their prospects. (Just because it’s obvious to you, don’t think the benefit you provide is obvious to the prospect.) After the product is created is when the real work starts. Thousands of great products never go anywhere because no one knows about them and those who do learn about them don’t have a compelling case made to take action now.

On top of this there are also a ton of moving parts to crafting a successful product launch.

• Create a really compelling launch story
• Identify the market’s hot buttons
• Identify and overcome objections
• Create pre-launch content
• Create bonuses
• Craft emails for each piece of launch content
• Learn new skills like how to effectively use the social psychology triggers
• Survey the list
• Recruit JV partners
• Create a JV website and support system
• Set up e-commerce
• Train customer service people
• Plus tons of other jobs like — creating a high-converting website, a squeeze page, thank you pages, a blog, a sales letter etc, etc, etc!!!

Please get some help with this stuff. If you’re just starting out you probably can’t afford to hire someone to manage your launch but at least pay for some advice to keep you on track.  If that’s still out of you budget invest in marketing programs that will at least give you a head start.

The last thing people don’t have is a true understanding of where they are today. They see a product launch as an opportunity to make a ton of cash now and don’t see beyond that. Now there’s nothing wrong with a ton of cash. Personally, I’m a big fan of cash. :)  However, maybe the biggest value you get from your first few launches isn’t cash. Maybe it’s a list build so you start to create a community of rabid fans. Maybe it’s an opportunity to demonstrate your value to the marketplace so partners come on board and learn to trust and value you. Maybe it’s getting the kinks out of your system, really learning what your people want (not just what you think they want).

These are all precursors to the big product launch with the big cash grab. Don’t devalue these steps or you’ll just be one of the 24,500 business owners licking their wounds after a battle lost.

The trouble with people is that we are, well, Humans. We do not always behave rationally, we take short cuts in our decision-making, we don’t always do what is best for us even when we know it (smoking or over-eating for example), and we are subconsciously influenced by what is going on around us (such as “following the crowd”). We wear ties because others do and eat more when we’re with others than when we’re alone.

We are homo sapiens but we would like to think of ourselves as homo economicus, economic man, or Econs — people who think and choose unfailingly well. Econs are really no more than a theoretical concept, a model of how perfectly rational people — like Star Trek’s Mr Spock — might behave.

The reason we are Humans rather than Econs is explained by the way our brains work. We have two systems — one that is intuitive and automatic and another that is reflective. We use the automatic system when we duck without thinking if something is thrown at us (think George W Bush at his infamous Iraq press conference in late 2008) and the reflective system when we are asked, for example, to multiply 411 by 37, which route to take on a trip or which college to apply for.

The trouble is that, unlike Mr Spock, we do not use our reflective, reasoning powers to the full. We use other approaches:

• Rules of thumb. For example, we tend to assess the risk of certain things happening by how readily similar incidents come to mind. People are more likely to take out earthquake insurance after an earthquake, for instance, although the actual likelihood of one has not changed. And we see patterns in behaviors and incidents when they are not really there.
• Optimism and over-confidence. A survey of students’ performance expectations showed only 5% thought they would be below the median level, when, by definition, 50% would be. Similarly, more people over-estimate their immunity from harm, such as the likelihood of having cancer or getting divorced.
• Loss aversion. We hate losing roughly twice as much as we love winning, which leads to inertia, avoiding change even when it might be in our interest, for fear that something will go wrong.
• Status quo bias. We simply can’t be bothered. For example, we fail to cancel magazine subscriptions even though we never read them, or we stick with whatever TV channel we happen to be watching. Publishers and broadcasters know this and use it to their advantage.
• Framing. We allow ourselves to be influenced by the way information is presented. We are far less likely to opt for surgery if we are told “10 out of every 100 people who have this die”, than if the message is “the success rate is 90%.”

Not unnaturally, these behaviors can lead us astray. The picture that emerges is one of busy people trying to cope in a complex world, in which they cannot afford to think deeply about every choice they have to make. We need help. Instead, things are made worse by another human fallibility — temptation: the tendency to do things we know we shouldn’t.

It’s as if there are two parts of our brains at war with each other, and they are seen not only in temptation but in broader areas of self-control. These are labelled Planners (the part that knows how we should behave) and Doers (the part responsible for what we actually do). For example, our Planner may buy and set an alarm clock to get us up in time for work, but our Doer hits the “snooze” button and defeats it!

A further influence on our behaviors is the herd instinct. Econs, say Thaler and Sunstein, are not followers of fashion — they may communicate with and learn from others if it’s to their advantage but then they go their own way. Humans, by contrast, imitate others in general. We smile when others smile, we avoid visible differences, we support the majority view because it’s the majority, and we believe what others believe.

These and other many interesting aspects of homan decision-making behavoiors are discussed in Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. Don’t make the mistake of assuming we’re rational beings when all evidence is to the contrary.

When buying, selling & marketing examine how understanding these behaviors can work for and against you – so you are no longer a victim of your tendencies but rather a victor by seeing, rising above and utilizing the powers they hold.