I’ve been on a bit of an epic quest looking for the right pilates studio since I moved to the Seattle area.

And I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a hard case customer – because I used to be a pilates instructor. I know there’s nothing worse than someone who thinks they know it all or what’s good for them.

I’m a pain. I get that.

But I try to be low key about that fact and not demanding.  In fact it only takes a little extra TLC to make me a customer for life.

So – back to the search for the perfect pilates studios.

I’ve gone to a few places over the past 2 years living in the Seattle area, but for many reasons, I’ve never stuck to a place.

All nice studios. All well trained instructors who knew their craft.

But I never quite got what I wanted.

And I thought – is that my fault for not asking? Did I expect too much? Or is it their fault for not listening or asking me?

I immediately flashback to when I was an instructor.  What did I do to keep my clients happy?  Was their something special I did to keep them coming back for more?

While I didn’t do it fully on purpose, the answer is yes.

I always aimed to do a few key things no matter if I was teaching a large class of people or a small group >>> it all came down to connecting and acknowledging each person and doing so on a regular basis.

Now – even though I no longer teach pilates – I aim to do the same exact thing with everyone that crosses my business path.

And – as a customer – I do expect that same type of acknowledgement.

Repeat Business Is EASIER to get than new business

Once you have established a relationship with someone – especially with things like business coaching, personal training, very personal and intimate relationships are born.

Don’t take those relationships for granted. Keep it simple, but make sure to hit upon a few touchpoints in order to keep them happy (returning) customers).

Here are 3 things your customers need to hear you say regularly – whether you’re launching or not:

1. “Hey, I haven’t seen you in awhile! How are you doing?”

You have to pay attention when they don’t show up or you haven’t seen them.

You might think it’s crazy to check in on the quiet students, but those people can give you the most insight into why you haven’t heard from them.

Yes – it takes a little extra effort – and no it might not lead to sales, but if you’ve only got money on the mind instead of impact/value/service, then you’re headed down a losing path anyways.  If you haven’t seen someone in the studio, speak up in class, whatever, call them!

Some of the studios I attended never called me to say – “Hey, is everything going okay?”  These studios were not so busy that they couldn’t have just picked up the phone and invited me to a new class or just asked how things were going.  If they had – I would have returned to their studio!

And the proof is that I am still on the hunt for that perfect pilates studio.

Pilates Collective studio owner Kristen Iuppenlatz says:

The most important thing I do to keep my customers coming back is to really listen to them, show them how a small adjustment can have a big impact and ultimately get them out of pain.

and

When clients stop coming in for any reason, the best way to invite them back is with a personal phone call. I am genuinely interested in their well being whether they practice Pilates with me or not, so I can be very authentic when I call. If you reach out and check in with how they are doing, they are more apt to return than if you just send an email or newsletter.

When I asked Kristen how business is going – she said GREAT! Of course it is.

Does your studio do this? How much work would it really take to reach out to a few people who you haven’t heard from in awhile?

2. “Let’s schedule your next session…”

Pre-book their next session before they leave your studio.

I am not great at this now (was when I taught pilates though!) but I’ll tell you who is – my stylist at Sorella Salon.  Crystal is on it and books people before they leave.  Her schedule is always full and you know better than to wait for even a week before to try to get an appointment.  She is an in-demand stylist at the salon andI think this is her secret sauce as to why.  This is such a great way to operate… that I will be doing it as I take on more private clients later this year.

The proof is that I pre-book with Crystal every single time and have bought other services from other providers at the salon too.

3. “You’re doing a great job…”

Send impromptu emails, voicemails…

This is one of those little things I’ve ever seen only a few personal trainers and business coaches have do… Receiving a call or a recorded message or a card even… does something magical for your relationship.  You want to know the result?

You set your next appointment. You remember to take action on the things they gave you for homework.  You go back for more. You say yes to everything they offer you.

The last message I received (just this week) from my business coach literally brought tears to my eyes.  How powerful is that?

Proof: I didn’t intend to enroll in every single offering from my business coach, but funny thing – I have now said yes to 3 different things….

Moral of this story?  Acknowledge and they shall return.

This is why putting some simple communication systems in place is so important to you and your business – whether you are a pilates studio owner or have another type of business.

So – let’s wrap this back into why engagement is important for launching – even online.

Engaged customers equal repeat customers.

When you’re launching say a new service, new class, online program, or anything else that is “new” or improved, you (kind of) get to skip a step in the process of making people your customer.

It’s more like a head start with those people who already know, love and trust you.  You’ve passed a hurdle of telling someone why they should trust you with their business, body, life, finances, whatever.

Try to implement and make some of the above suggestions into your routine follow up with clients and customers.

How this might look:

1. Focus on a past customer promotion only for your next launch.  Maybe you have a series of very specific emails that you send just them – maybe there’s a discount.

2. Email any clients who’ve disappeared and perhaps even a quick voice memo attached to the email.

3. Got current clients or students going through a course?  Email them now and get them to sign up for your next offer before it’s out and before they finish your program!

If you have a solid system in place in your business, launching anything new becomes a breeze.  Fill your spots with people who already know and love you!

You may never do a public launch again!

The post 3 Things Your Customers Need to Hear You Say Whether You’re Launching or Not appeared first on anne samoilov.

Do you ever stop yourself from giving away all of the answers to your audience’s problems?

Do you hold your “best posts” for your own site instead of pitching them to a higher traffic blog as a guest post?

Do you get nervous that people won’t buy if you give away too much?

Do you ever wonder how much is too much to give away?

If you’re building your business – you’re probably plagued with one of the following:

• one eye looking over your shoulder to make sure no one’s copying you

• one eye on other people and wondering how they did it – maybe secretly hoping you thought of something first

• thinking that you can’t give away all your good stuff for fear that no one will need to buy from you.

I’m not a fan of any of these fear-based illnesses… and especially not the last one…

Too many new people have been ingrained with the idea that they have to hold back and give less than their best.

And I’ve got proof that it’s not worth it to hoard your knowledge.

Case Study

I’ve spent the last year writing posts ONLY about launching.  I’ve tackled different topics around the bigger concept of launching – how to launch, how to write emails for a launch, the first steps to launching, why setting up an interest list is important, the systems you need in place before you launch, what type of communication should you use during your launch…

Launch, launch, launch, launch… oh and launch…

I think the word launch has been in most titles of blog posts starting in February 2012 through December 2012.

I even have a Launch Toolkit with resources pulled directly from a paid program.

You get the picture –  and you might wonder, “Okay, but Anne, how much more could you possibly write about launching?”

Believe me – there’s more in me on that topic.  Much more.

But each round of students in my Fearless Launching program has grown. My mailing list has grown. Traffic improves each month.  Steady growth on all fronts.

And best – my business has grown to a point it finally feels like a real business.

All while giving away my “best stuff”.

Hmmm…Interesting.

What you should do about this

So you might be thinking how you can start to give your best stuff, especially when you’re used to holding back.

What’s on your content creation plate right now – a blog post? an email? your weekly newsletter?

• Write it out like you normally would

• Go through + pretend you are one of your readers

• Ask questions that your readers might ask

• Revise your content with the answers

• Give it all away

It is that easy – to start with your very next piece of content.

Need more convincing?

And if you need more convincing, check out these articles – they jumped out at me from the tons of tons of articles on this topic.

No Opt-In Required: 5 Reasons to Give Away Your Best Stuff

Give Away Your Best Stuff

Why Free Is Your Best Marketing Strategy

My advice though – until you see free in action, it won’t mean a thing. So get to work – and let it all hang out.

The post Dare to give away your best stuff for free [case study] appeared first on anne samoilov.

What’s the toughest part of putting together an online launch?

According to the survey I sent out to many of you a few months ago, you said you needed help creating your pre-launch content.

And I totally get it – because it’s one of those pieces in a typical product launch formula style launch where you think you need to do it a certain way.

You’ve been taught that your PLC needs to:

• Tell your launch story

• Create excitement

• Give people results in advance

• Build up to the sales page or sales video

And the thought of creating this content is often overwhelming and nearly paralyzing to someone who is launching for the first time.

You see the well shot videos, professional launch sites, thousands of people flocking and leaving their facebook comments.

And it’s not just the content itself but putting together the content, the backend setup, the emails, the “who” it should go to — It’s enough to make anyone give up on the whole process.

But I discovered something interesting on my last launch that I think you’re going to want to hear.

It’s not a quick fix and it will require you to put in the time, do the work, and still create that ramping up excitement for your launch, but it will NOT be by doing the typical pre-launch content.

Are you with me?

What is pre-launch content?

First – let’s go over what pre-launch content is by breaking it down.

Your pre-launch simply means a specific period of time before you open your sales cart where you focus in and start sharing a higher volume of messages about your coming soon offer!

Pre-launch content then can include any combination or formats of content from social media messages to videos, blog posts, emails, special events like teleseminars.

Usually this content features a series of written, video, audio, or otherwise specially created content that gets people excited and ready to buy from you as soon as your product or offer is ready to “buy”.

A recent great example of pre-launch video content is Marie Forleo’s Rich, Happy + Hot B-School.  Go to that link and you’ll sign up for the program interest list.

Another example would be a series of emails written and sent from David Siteman Garland for his recent launch Create Awesome Products.

Another example is a contest Laura Simms recent launch and scholarship contest for her program:

http://createasfolk.com/how-to-win-a-scholarship-or-anything-else/

http://createasfolk.com/yourcareerhomecomingcoaching/

Finally – even I did a month long series of blog posts that led to a webinar for my first launch of Fearless Launching (fearlesslaunching.com).

Why I Took A Different Approach (don’t laugh)

But for the 3rd round of Fearless Launching, I knew I had to do something different.

Nothing about doing a webinar, more blog posts, or even a contest was doing it for me.

For a hot minute – I thought I was going to do a google hangout… and I even dropped that idea like a hot potato the week before I intended to announce it.

Let me take a brief interlude here to tell you what was going on in other areas of my life – well, namely work.

I had recently told LKR that I planned to leave the company to pursue my business full time.  I was working feverishly with Laura Roeder to make sure we found the right person, that everything I knew was downloaded, that the company continued to move along even though I had given notice.

I simply had no time to do anything fancy – like my trip to the Space Needle during the 2nd round of FL.

So – I asked myself… What if I don’t have pre launch content? What if I just use the content I’ve spent the last year hammering away at – all on the topic of launching?  What if I leverage all the guest posting I’ve done?

So – perhaps a little lazy, perhaps a little unconventional (mostly lazy)… I decided to open the doors and then start re-releasing my best content. The work that I knew would help people make the right decision for joining Fearless Launching or not.

Bottom line:  I made a choice to create absolutely NO special pre-launch content.

Here’s Why It Worked

Leverage existing blog posts

You’ve done the hard work of staying consistent, writing every single week – and you’ve proven to your audience that you know what you know.  If creating even more content feels like overkill, it just might be!

In addition to hand-picking my own content to highlight during the pre-launch phase – I also use a plugin called Twitterly that allows me to adjust the frequency of automatic tweets.  I cut down the number of posts through this tool and focused on more engagement style posts where I asked questions.

Guest post round up

So you’re post on problogger went live more than a month ago – link to it! Make sure people know that you were there – keep sharing it!

A full year of consistent monthly guest posting that I picked based on the success of those posts and the sites they were on.  I was very careful to choose the highest traffic sites as well as posts I was proud of.

I scheduled social media sharing/newsletter mentions of these posts a few weeks before my early enrollment pricing ended to share some of the best posts.  Even though I was sending people away from my site, a large number did come back.

Interviews/Summits/Oh My

One more piece to the puzzle that was intended but I wasn’t sure how it would all line up – I schedule some pretty sweet interviews and one summit that managed to go live before and during the launch.  I made sure I included these in my “guest post round up” too!

Getting people to know you fast

By looking at all the content I’ve ever done over the past year, I was able to pull together the best examples of working with me – share it with people and bring new people up to speed fast.

Several people came into this round of Fearless Launching letting me know they’d heard me on a podcast the day before they’d signed up for the course!  I thought that was so cool.

Do you need pre-launch content?

So I kind of tricked you a little.

You do need to release content before a launch. So – yes you do in fact need pre-launch content.

You need to make sure – people are able to get to know you, believe that you have the answer to their question, and believe that you will solve their problem.

You need to build trust.

You need to entertain.

Successful pre-launch content has the exact right mix of instruction and inspiration.

Before you use this strategy, ask yourself these questions!

Have you spent 6 months to a year developing content, sharing concepts, fully covering your topic or industry?

Do you have a somewhat established audience – even if it’s small – that comments, emails, and inquiries when you send new content out?

Have you done the work to be featured on many other sites – consistently?

Does your content tell enough of the story of your product or service or are there any holes in what you’ve published over the past year?

You don’t necessarily need a year of content to pull from – this was my criteria for choosing.

Leave your answers in the comments below or talk them out with a friend or business partner.

You may just find that your PLC is sitting in your back pocket, already created, looking for a little spotlight!

The post Easy ways to build excitement for your next launch + an alternative to pre-launch content appeared first on anne samoilov.

Have you ever started something that you decided later you didn’t want to finish? Did you stick to it because you felt bad about dropping it?  But secretly inside you kind of knew it would be a flop or that you just weren’t into it?

How many of you always try to finish what you start? Is it because you think you’re supposed to?

There’s a growing epidemic among creatives, entrepreneurs, and people who are a little bit of both.

Or at least that’s what “they” want you to think.

You know – the people who say that it’s always a bad thing if you’re:

⇢ Not finishing
⇢ Not following through
⇢ Not being proactive
⇢ Not making a decision
⇢ Not focusing

But are those people right?

Is it wrong to trash something you’ve started?

I say no.

And that’s why today’s content creation post is going to be a little bit different…last week I shared with you the how it’s possible to create a ton of great content.

I’m going to share with you another side of creation.  You’ll learn:

• The reality + result of not finishing something
• How hesitation helps you find your reason for calling it quits
• And why your content creation strategy means nothing without this one ingredient

And – hopefully, when we’re done today – you’re going to realize why dropping that fluff is the best thing you can do to improve your business, your launches, your future.

What happens when you stop what you’re doing

It’s pretty simple really.

Don’t finish – and you have nothing to show.

Your idea is still in that amorphous, half-fleshed out stage.

The lack of completed action means no launch, no finished book, no new strategies or promotions to push your business forward.

So – good, bad, right, wrong. If you don’t finish – you don’t launch.

There’s a clear result or outcome.

As long as you know that – you can move on – expect a different outcome and you’ll be extremely disappointed.

Stop driving and you don’t get to your intended destination (but is that always bad?).

When hesitation calls pick up the phone

When you get that feeling that you should stop or drop a project, a blog post, a product, a launch, what do you do?

Even if you’re entrenched in something – have made announcements – people are “expecting” something, it’s actually better to stop if you’ve got doubts and regroup a little.

Just like a wedding that doesn’t feel right – you can stop – delay – change your mind.
You’re allowed. I don’t care how many people expect you to do – you get to change your mind.

PLUS…

Hesitation can give you:
• clarity on whether you’re really talking to the right people
• confidence that you are offering something valuable to those right people
• time to digest feedback that may have caused the hesitation in the first place
• a chance to change your approach, schedule, email, sales page
• ideas to product improvements
• permission to stop

Don’t deny that pause.  Listen to it.

When you shouldn’t quit

Sure there are things that SHOULD be left undone.
Or things that have lost value in our lives.
Or that we’ve lost passion for…
Those things ⇢ make sense. Right?

But undone life, creations, passions we want and lose sleep over – the stuff we chase after for years but never reach…it’s those that really hurt when we suddenly stop doing them with no real thought or clear decision on.

Why is it happening?

Is it on purpose?

Are you purposely stopping yourself from living bigger, doing more, achieving great things, all that good stuff?

Is it one of these reasons? Fear of NOT finishing ….. or fear OF finishing?

Think about it and move on only when you’re certain and can answer.

A case for flaking

I have a tough time with words like flake, inconsistent, fickle… people who saw me have different jobs (all doing the same things for the record) somehow saw me as being this transient who could never settle.

Thank goodness for that I say.

What they didn’t see is me bringing projects to completion – everything from my spec script for a sitcom, my dramatic screenplay, the album I planned, wrote, and produced. Training and getting certified in less than 1 year to be a pilates instructor.
Yes – they are all over the map.

All those things happened because I wanted to do and finish them.

But in that same way – the times when someone saw my flaky side, they were seeing me decide not to do something.

Heck – even writing this series of content creation posts – I dropped my approach completely in order to share a deeper understanding of how to create content.

There is a time to drop it like its NOT hot.

- when it no longer excites you
- if you realize the idea was only marginal and boring
- when you weren’t speaking to any one person in particular
- when you realized that it seriously sucked!
- if you question whether you wrote the post already

So – if you suspect you’re over a post – rip the bandaid off – decide quickly and then get back to work.

Have you ever felt like not finishing a project, a blog post or even canning a product?
Tell me about it below in the comments!

The post How To Know When To Finish What You Start + the Value of Hesitation appeared first on anne samoilov.