SFR 161: My Favorite Rollout Strategy...

Boom what's up guys it's Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio, and today we're going to talk about how to roll out products. This is my favorite rollout strategy.

 

I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my 9 to 5 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.

 

The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt? Completely from scratch. This podcast is here to give you the answer.

 

Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.

 

My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.

 

What's up, guys? Hey, I'm excited for today; I'm excited to be able to share with you some neat things that, frankly, I don't see many people doing.

 

The first product I ever launched and put out the door was an utter failure - the thing was terrible, okay? But I didn't know that at the time.

 

I spent inordinate amounts of time putting together the product. I thought my product was the best product ever -I was so excited! I was running towards it.

 

In my mind, I was like this thing's going to change everything - this is going to be incredible. I was excited, and people would be like, "What are you doing? What do you spend all this time doing?"

 

I'd be feeling a little smug about it like, "You don't know - just you wait and see!" There'd be people coming up to me and saying things like, "Larsen, what's up now? You doing that thing again? Alright, good luck with that..."

 

I was actively seeking what I called, "My Shut Up Check." My shut up check"was something that I sought as fast as I could when I was launching.

 

This was four years ago, and I hadn't perfected the rollout strategy that I want to talk with you guys about today... But what was interesting was I'd go build these things, I was looking for my shut up check.

 

The shut up check was a concept I learned from a guy I was listening to six or seven years ago. The shut up check is the first check you get from your business.

 

So when someone says, "Oh, you doing that thing again? Is that even gonna work?" You can pull it out that check and be like "Shut Up! It is working, here's the money."  That's your shut up check.

 

I hope that you've gotten your shut up check to throw in the naysayers faces a little bit? Not that we would ever do that... BUT TOTALLY DO IT ;-)

 

What I wanna do real quick is share with you guys how I roll out my products.

 

What ended up happening with that first one is, I spent eight months building it... and then when I finally launched it, and I put it out there... nobody bought it. And it's because nobody knew about it.

 

It took three or four months before cash actually started coming on in, and I kind of abandoned it. Until I figured out better ways for traffic - and then I started making more money. But I don't want you to go through that, okay?

 

I was in the middle of college, I was doing stuff with the Army, I was super busy. So for me to spend eight months of my time - we're talking late nights, early mornings - time I could have been with my family... And then, to not have it work - that was so mentally tasking it was ridiculous. I don't want you to go through that.

 

So instead, I wanna share with you how I roll out my stuff.

 

I have marketing books in bookshelves all over the place. I was reading this book, Positioning (It's written by Al Ries and Jake Trout)

... just kind of thumbing through it.

 

Frankly, instead of reading front to cover, I'll thumb through and find chapters that look interesting, and I'll go learn something specific from it.

 

Anyway, it's kind of cool, they say, “When you make a new product you must by default, position against the old product.” I thought “Hey, that's super cool.” I totally get it, when you're making an opportunity... and he's saying a whole bunch of other great stuff.

 

I really like what they say at the beginning. They say that, “we live in a communication-saturated environment.” There's so much communication; you're listening to me, you're listening to other people ... Don't listen to other people, just listen to me ;-) There are so many people speaking.

 

Back in the day, not enough communication was the issue.  Inside of organizations, not enough communication was really the issue. Maybe even customer to business, or business to the customer - not enough communication. Those are serious issues for sure.

 

However, there are also massive tendencies to over-communicate now. I believe in consuming a very information very low information diet - as Tim Ferriss teaches and talks about in 4 Hour Work Week.

 

I'm very careful who I choose to listen to and very careful about what I consume. If I'm not learning for intent, then why am I learning? It's just noise. I ranted about that on a previous podcast.  I really like what Tim Ferriss says about the subject.

 

In Positioning they say, “Today, communication itself is a problem. We've become the world's first over-communicated society. Every year we send more and receive less.” Now as an entrepreneur, as a marketer, that is a terrible terrible place for you to be.

 

It has to do with something that was mentioned in the beginning of the book. There's a point that I really like ... (There are a few points that I disagree with too - sorry. Actually - not sorry - I believe it. Just from my own experience of rolling out products)

 

This is the point; “For years, all of us in the marketing area have taught to our students to build a marketing plan around ‘The 4 P's’.” If you guys don't know the 4 P's; the 4 P's are like the Bible, they're like gospel. Especially in corporate marketing.

 

The 4 P's are: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. What's the product - what's the price of it?  Where you gonna place it? How you gonna promote it? Now that makes sense, but he makes a great point. There's some areas here that I agree with and some that I won't here, and I wanna share with you why - and it has to do with my rollout strategy.

 

The next point is; “I began to realize some years ago, that some important steps needed to precede the 4 P's. All good marketing planning must start with research before any of the P's can even be set.

 

Research reveals (among other things) that customers differ greatly in their needs, perceptions, and preferences. Therefore customers must be classified into segments.”

 

Research, get them into segments. You can't serve all segments. I agree with that. I wanna walk you through how I do this wit...