How to Move Away from the Launch Model and Make Your Business Open Every Day – In Just 7 Minutes with Ross O’Lochlainn

Resources/Links:

• FREE: Get the exact Offer Doc template that’s sold over $1.37mil of premium offers without launches (or sales calls). Click here: https://conversionengineering.co/open-every-day-offer-docs/

Summary

Is your business stuck in the rollercoaster cycle of unpredictable launches? The high-pressure, complex campaigns can leave you exhausted and disappointed with inconsistent results. But you can transition to a model where your business has steady growth and consistent client engagement.

Ross O’Lochlainn is a former engineer-turned-marketing strategist who runs Conversion Engineering, a company that helps educate entrepreneurs to sell more programs without relying on the launch model through his proprietary Open Every Day System.

In this episode, Ross shares insights on transitioning from the traditional launch model to a more consistent business approach. He highlights the drawbacks of relying heavily on infrequent, high-pressure launches, such as their decreasing effectiveness and the unpredictability of results. Instead, he advocates for a strategy that keeps your business “open every day,” allowing for ongoing client engagement and conversion opportunities throughout the year.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 02:42 – Ross’s ideal client: Someone who’s in the online education expert, wisdom space.
• 03:16 – The problem he helps to solve: They’re over reliant on the launch model and they kind of bought into the launch model without realizing all the downsides to it.
• 05:16 – Symptoms of the problem: Conversion rates in your launch are going down.
• 05:47 – Mistakes his clients make before reaching out to him: Trying to just convert people in this week-long window and then not selling you your philosophy or your ideas the rest of the year.
• 07:13 – Ross’s Valuable Free Action [VFA]: Dean Jackson and his nine-word email.
• 08:53 – His Valuable Free Resource [VFR]: FREE: Get the exact Offer Doc template that’s sold over $1.37mil of premium offers without launches (or sales calls). Click here: https://conversionengineering.co/open-every-day-offer-docs/
• 09:55 – Q: Have I always been this changer? A: Yes, I have to.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“There's an awful lot more that people could be getting out of their leads if they were just playing the longer game, building the case to work with them.” -Ross O'Lochlainn Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome everyone to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. I’m Tom Poland, beaming out to you from the incredibly stunning Sunshine Coast here in Australia. Joined today by Ross O’Lochlainn. Ross, a warm good day from down under, Sir. Where are you hanging out right now?

Ross O’Lochlainn 00:24
Right now I’m hanging out in Saint-Calixte, North of Montreal. So, I live in Montreal, Canada, but stayed a little north today at the lake house.

Tom Poland 00:32
So, it’s an Irish surrounded by French speaking people.

Ross O’Lochlainn 00:37
Yes.

Tom Poland 00:37
Do you speak French?

Ross O’Lochlainn 00:39
I speak a small bit of French. Very poorly

Tom Poland 00:42
Enough to order a baguette. Some garlic and some croissants, perhaps. Yeah.

Ross O’Lochlainn 00:46
()

Tom Poland 00:47
Alright folks, Ross. Ross and I are seeing the same hymn sheet here because the title is, How to Move Away from the Launch Model and Make Your Business Open Every Day. And for those of you who don’t know, the launch model is kinda like this really long, complicated thing that you do. It’s a marketing campaign with a billion different partners and trip wires and dropdown sequences and it’s, oh my God, it’s a behemoth. It really is. And actually they’re working less and less as well. So how to move away from the launch model and make your business open every day is music to my marketing ears, Ross. Welcome to the show. I’m thinking you’d be a breath of fresh air. I think we’re going to expose the fact that the emperor doesn’t have any clothes and you’re actually better to have these clothes that they love new clients coming into your business rather than one or two big, oh my God, will it work or not? Rollercoaster events every year.

Ross is a former engineer turned marketing strategist. Now the thing about being a former engineer is that you know about processes and you know about steps and you know about testing and you know about all of these things that those of us without an engineering background often kind of take for granted and just wing it. So he’s applied the engineering smarts to run a conversion engineering, if you like, of marketing. So he is educating people like you and me to sell more programs, which is to my user game without relying on the pig in the python launch model, the pig in the python, the python follows a pig and it can’t do anything because it’s got so much to digest and it’s a much more relaxed, it’s a much more organic, it’s a much more, feels like it’s a flowing process when you’re generating leads pretty much every week of the year. So time for me to shut up and get Ross to do the epic. Let’s kick off Ross, your seven minute start now. Question number one is, who’s your ideal client?

Ross O’Lochlainn 02:42
Ideal client for me will be someone who’s in the online education expert, wisdom space. there’s a very well-defined base. The label is a little less clear, but we all know who kind of we’re talking about. If you’re selling some sort of course, coaching program, membership site. And they’ve launched the thing, it’s working and they’re looking to transition away from that and just get to a point of consistency.

Tom Poland 03:05
I call them cats, coaches, consultants, advisors, teachers, trainers and speakers.

Ross O’Lochlainn 03:10
That’s good. I like it.

Tom Poland 03:12
That’s the job. Okay. And what’s the problem you solve?

Ross O’Lochlainn 03:16
Yeah, above myself. It’s for a lot of folks, they’re over reliant on the launch model and they kind of bought into the launch model without realizing all the downsides to it. And they’re kind of sick of running at high pressure once or twice a year. Big campaign. And then they’re really doing much with the list throughout the rest of the year. Either they’re just keeping the leads warm or they’re promoting other people’s offers, hoping that those people will come back and promote their offers. And that’s just a big pitfall, I would say, because there’s a lot that you could be doing with your own leads throughout the year to increase your conversions.

Tom Poland 03:45
And more and more launch partners are saying, look, we’re only going to promote the top 10 on our leaderboard. So if you go all out and send and destroy half your email list and send 74 emails out, you might go to the top 10 and then we will reciprocate. But otherwise you’re just one of the pack that we go, oh, here’s 20 bucks affiliate fees. Good luck. Apart from that, what are the problems you see with the launch model? Right now, I think this is worth unpacking, so I’m going to press the pause button while you answer that.

Ross O’Lochlainn 04:11
Yeah, there’s a lot of problems. don’t get me wrong. I love launches. They’re great. Jeff Walker, who’s in our space with product launch formula, probably one of the longest standing, running info marketing, online education, marketing programs.

Tom Poland 04:24
Good luck to you.

Ross O’Lochlainn 04:25
Great legends, right? So I’m not knocking launches. I think the downside is that they work great until they don’t. And the issue is that a lot of people expect them to work and then something happens and you have all, like, particularly if you’re running the ads or affiliate marketing game, like you put all this effort in and then it doesn’t pay out and after ad costs and affiliate commissions, like you’re just left with not a lot at the end of the roll.

Tom Poland 04:53
I mean my observation is it used to be a surefire way to bank a lot of money provided you follow someone like Jeff’s formula and you did it well. But I think it certainly had their heyday. I’m not saying they’re not worth doing. I’m sure some people still make money out of them, but personally, I like to think we know what we’re doing with marketing, but we’ve struggled with them like they have to say. So let’s go on to question three, the symptoms.

Ross O’Lochlainn 05:16
What I would call out is, a lot of folks like they’ll get the leads and you kinda mentioned they’re not working anymore. So conversion rates in your launch are going down and whatnot.

Tom Poland 05:27
They’re working less well.

Ross O’Lochlainn 05:28
Yeah, they’re working less well. Yes. That’s the best way to put it. I think it’s because there’s more noise in the marketplace. More competition. Yeah. People are a bit more skeptical. And yeah, just the lack of consistency in the results that people are getting. I think there’s an awful lot more people could be getting out of their leads if they were just playing the longer game, building the case to work with them. That transitions into the next question, which is what some of the common mistakes people make. I think it’s trying to just convert people in this week long window and then not selling you your philosophy or your ideas the rest of the year round then expecting that when you come back to open your cart that people are just going to be ready to buy. I think the game has kind of changed a little bit.

Tom Poland 06:11
Right, and I agree with you and I do think it depends on the market you’re targeting. I mean, if you’re targeting 18 year olds who have a dream of being retired before they’re 21 and you are selling some sort of get-rich-quick game, then you can still sell that stuff. I don’t know if you can live with yourself, but you can sell that stuff. But if you’re looking to attract premium price clients in particular as serious players who are already successful, then you better dial down the hype and you better open up the duration of the relationship before you expect people to buy it. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. There’s three and a half minutes left. Let’s flip this. We’ve talked about what’s happening, what’s not working. We’ve acknowledged that some of it still does work, but the ratios have all dropped. What do you say is a top tip, a valuable free action? So someone looked at launches or they’ve done launches and going, I think Ross might have a point here. What’s one step that can get them in the right direction moving towards your idea of this non-launch sequence? It’s not going to get them the whole way. Maybe they might need you for that, but one thing they could do that’ll get them started.

Ross O’Lochlainn 07:13
Yeah. So if you’re not familiar with Dean Jackson’s nine-word email, I would apply the nine-word email in two specific applications of it. The nine-word email is a very simple email.

Tom Poland 07:27
Could you repeat the name please, Ross?

Ross O’Lochlainn 07:29
Dean Jackson and his nine-word email. So if you’re not familiar with it, a super simple email. That’s just first name, Tom. And then the whole email is like, hey Tom, are you still interested in the blank, question mark? The blank is the intent or outcome of your offer. I would take that and I would send that to your email list, your last launch list and ask them about the thing that you were selling. Not are you still interested in buying my program? Are you still looking for a house? Are you still looking to get more leads? Are you still looking for whatever the outcome is, not the product, right? And when people want, just say, hey, how long has that person been on my list? Look up when they were on their list, how long they’ve been on your list. And I think you’ll notice that number one, there’s demand still there, people are still interested despite you having not done a big launch recently. And two, those people have probably been around in your world for a fair amount of time and are now ready and interested in engaging with you.

Tom Poland 08:27
That is one super tangible thing you can do, folks, is Google Dean Jackson nine-word email and send that out to your list. Doesn’t matter if you’ve got eight people on your list or 800 or 8,000. That could uncover some gold right there. Thank you for that Ross. Very valuable. Where can people go to find out more about your stuff? We’ve got 90 seconds left. Give us a landing page, we boom, go and get more value. Opt into your list and get even closer. Take another step

Ross O’Lochlainn 08:53
For sure. Yeah. So what I would recommend people do if you’re sending any sort of offer similar to what we were talking about here is to send the nine-word email or send an invitation out saying I’m starting a new group, would you like to join me? and then I would go to the landing page, which we will put in the show notes, but it’s https://conversionengineering.co/open-every-day-offer-docs/. And what I would do is I would put your offer in a very simple Google doc and when people get back to you, just share the details of the offer with them. And I think you might be surprised how it would work if you’re looking for a walkthrough of how to assemble that offer and how it works. So you can get on without having to get on a phone or use a launch, opt in there. You’ll get a template on that page and you’ll also get a walkthrough on how to assemble…

Tom Poland 09:37
I have opted in folks, it’s underneath the video, but if you’re listening to this on iTunes or Stitcher or something, https://conversionengineering.co/open-every-day-offer-docs/. Go get it. 15 seconds left, Sir. What’s the one question I should’ve asked you but didn’t?

Ross O’Lochlainn 09:55
Have I always been this changer?

Tom Poland 09:58
And the answer is?

Ross O’Lochlainn 09:59
And the answer is yes. Yes, I have to.

Tom Poland 10:01
Confirm that you’d have to pull down your pants, but this is a family show. I’m going to do that. Alright, Ross, thank you for your time. Cheers.

Tom Poland 10:52
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.