What I learned about Sales from 2 flopped class launches
Earlier this year I launched 2 classes using a new sales approach I’d been taught in a class on how to write for the social web. I was eager and excited to launch my first class, sure that the technique would work. Fairly soon into the launch though it became very apparent that the launch had flopped. Then a month later, with some experimentation and variation on the technique, I launched a second class. And it also flopped.
It was humiliating.
I had learned these new skills, faithfully applied, gotten some good initial results, and yet the end result was exactly the opposite of what I expected. Having two classes flop was a hard experience to go through. I questioned what was wrong with me that I couldn’t pull this off. I worried that perhaps what I was offering wasn’t what people wanted (which was a distinct possibility).
I let myself mope for a few days after the first failed class launch, but with the second flop, I decided I needed to take a good hard look at what I was doing and figure out why it was failing. And the answer that I came up with was twofold.
1. I clearly wasn’t in touch with what my desired audience needed. That was a hard truth to face, especially because I’d put a fair amount of time into creating the classes. Yet what I hadn’t done was qualify what my desired clientele actually wanted and/or needed. I’d made assumptions about what I thought they needed, but I hadn’t tested those assumptions.
Sometimes we think a class or service or a product is a great idea and it really isn’t. We usually find this out much later than we’d like, when no one has signed up for the class, service or product. However what has usually not happened is due diligence, specifically taking the time to find out if people are even interested in what you are offering.
The best way to find out is to ask the people in your community what they are looking for. When you learn what it is they need, then you can develop classes, services, and products around that need. Alternately you may discover they aren’t your ideal clients, and that can be useful as well, because then it shows you need to either change what you offer or find who your community really is.
2. There is no one size fits all approach to sales. The sales technique I learned didn’t really fit my personality. It worked well for the person who taught the class I took, but for me it wasn’t a fit. The truth is that there is no one size fits all approach to sales. It’s important to recognize that because you may learn techniques that work for one person, but don’t work for you.
The reason the technique didn’t work for me is that it felt like a high pressure sales approach and I just don’t like that kind of approach. I don’t want to pressure people into buying from me. And so when I looked at those launches, I saw that I didn’t really like the approach. It just didn’t feel like it was me.
When I did my next class launch, I took some of the skills I learned from the class and applied them, but I did the launch in a way that worked for me. I realized that the best approach to sales is based on the personality of the person doing the selling, which means you have to discover what really feels comfortable for you.
I launched my next class over the course of a month and wrote about it or wrote articles related to it throughout that month. That approach worked much better for me. I didn’t feel like I had to rush to get people interested in the class. Instead I could just share information about it and let people make their decision. I wasn’t feeling like I had to ratchet up the pressure on myself or anyone else. Instead I could just my passion for what I had to offer and let people respond in whatever way they saw fit.
Too often when people teach sales, what they’re really teaching is their own style of sales. That style works well for them, but it won’t necessarily work for you. The key is to look at what they’re teaching and ask yourself what you can adapt to your own style of sales. In my case, I did learn a lot about how to write for the social web, so I took what I learned and applied it to my launch and I liked how it worked. I felt more confident with that approach than trying to strictly replicate what I’d been taught.
Class launches can be intense, so it’s really important that you figure out what actually works for you in terms of promoting your class. I learned two valuable lessons from the class launch flops. One is that I need to make sure I do my due diligence, but the second is that the sales style has to fit my personality if I’m going to feel confident that it’ll actually make the right connection with my community.
The connection you have with community will tell you a lot about whether or not you’re coming across the right way. If you don’t feel the way you are promoting your class is right, then your community will pick up on that discomfort and it will make them less likely to buy from you. But if you are comfortable with how you promote your class that will also show in your communications. So pay close attention to your presentation of your class and if it doesn’t feel like it fits your personality, then change it so it does fit your personality. That way your sales approach is based on who you are and how you show up.
Taylor Ellwood is the business wizard for Eccentric Entrepreneurs at Imagine Your Reality. He’s also a mad scientist and magical experimenter at Magical Experiments. When Taylor isn’t writing, working with clients, or practicing magic, he can be found playing games and enjoying the pleasures of the Pacific Northwest in Portland Oregon.
