Launch by Jeff Walker: Summary and Notes

"But in business, hope is an ugly, nasty word."

Chapter 3A License to Print Money: Your List

Asked by another parent about his college savings plan, Walker said he did not have one because he had a list. When he and Mary found their dream home in Durango, about 300 miles from Denver, he needed about $70,000 for the down payment fast. Instead of borrowing, he asked what offer he could make to his email list. The launch did $106,000 in a week, about $103,000 of it profit.

He says that taking only an obsessive focus on list building from the book would make it worth 10,000 times its price. A list is people who asked to receive your email; spam is unsolicited commercial email, and he says he has never sent any. What matters is responsiveness, which comes from relationship: 100 people with 60% opening beats 1,000 with 1% opening. He writes that the latest tests he has seen show email to be at least 20 times more powerful than a Facebook list, so 1,000 email subscribers outperform 20,000 followers, and that social platforms change their rules and can fade, as MySpace did. In his experience a buyer is worth 10 to 15 times a prospect, so buyers deserve extra attention, such as the handwritten thank-you postcards he sends new Product Launch Formula owners.

List building starts with an avatar, then a squeeze page offering an ethical bribe in exchange for an email address, with two choices: opt in or leave. His example math uses a rough $12 a year per subscriber. A sidebar form that converts 3% makes each visitor worth 36 cents; a squeeze page converting 20% makes each worth $2.40. Traffic comes from natural search, paid search, social media, word of mouth and, his favorite, affiliates and JV partners, through which he has added more than 50,000 people in days. He started at zero, worked up to 30 subscribers a day, which is 900 a month or 10,800 a year, and notes Gallagher added more than 1,000 subscribers during his launch.

"Push send, make money."

Chapter 4The Sideways Sales Letter: How to Sell Your Stuff Like Crazy without Being Salesy

Walker traces the long-form sales letter, Albert Lasker's "salesmanship multiplied," from print to the web, where pages got longer and later became long sales videos. Connected, skeptical buyers can spot a pitch a thousand miles away. His accidental answer was to turn the letter on its side: days instead of pages, a 10-day sequence instead of a 10-page letter, with each contact a piece of prelaunch content that delivers real value and leads naturally to the sale.

His example is Barry Friedman, a juggler who appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at 23 and performed at the White House. A mountain biking accident and six months of recovery showed him his income depended on his body. He built a $37 monthly membership site, Get More Corporate Gigs, then launched the Showbiz Blueprint, a 10-week coaching group limited to 15 people at $2,000, to a list of fewer than 1,000. Video one showed he shared his audience's fear of being forced into a real job, retold his guidance counselor's prediction that he would be broke and homeless, and painted the opportunity. Video two taught marketing as a business skill. Video three reviewed entertainers' websites and pivoted to the coming offer, a step Friedman admits he wanted to skip. The three videos ran over six days, all 15 spots sold almost immediately for $29,955, and a second class brought the total to $59,910, nearly $60 per person on his list. He reran the same launch four more times and later dropped the personal calls and the price to $997, passing $100,000 in sales.

"Instead of pages, I used days."

Chapter 5Weapons of Mass Influence: The Mental Triggers

Experts predicted in 2005 that launches would stop working once everyone had seen one. Walker says results have only improved, because the tactics evolve while the strategies rest on mental triggers that have worked for thousands of years. He warns that the knowledge can be used for evil and asks readers to use it ethically, then gives nine.

Authority: people defer to the doctor's white coat, and a high school friend once cleared a parking lot jam just by waving a flashlight. Reciprocity: free prelaunch content creates an imbalance that a purchase settles. Trust: it builds with time, which a sequence supplies. Anticipation: some called the method anticipation marketing, and a launch can feel like a birthday and summer vacation in one. Likability: people buy from people they know, like and trust. Events and ritual: shared events pull people in, the way sports do. Community: people follow community norms, like Midwestern neighbors tending green lawns, and a launch can create its own norms. Scarcity: the perception that something is running out forces a decision; he often sees as many sales in the last 24 hours as in the rest of the launch combined. Social proof: the restaurant with six cars in the lot wins, and so does the app downloaded 3.5 million times.

He says these nine are about half of the triggers he uses, and their power comes from layering them in sequence: authority and reciprocity in the first content, then social proof and likability as comments build, then events, ritual and scarcity near open cart.

"Scarcity is one of the most powerful mental triggers in existence, period."

A note on editions: these notes cover the original 2014 edition, which the print and audiobook links sell. No Kindle edition of that text exists on Amazon, so the ebook link goes to the later Updated and Expanded edition, which is a revised text.

Chapter 6The Shot across the Bow: Your Pre-Prelaunch

The pre-prelaunch is the hidden step that people reverse-engineering a launch miss. Named for a naval warning shot, it gets attention without selling. It activates or starts building a tribe, tests interest, surfaces objections and gathers information to shape the offer, usually with an email or two, sometimes social media, video or a survey.

Walker lists ten questions he asks himself: how to signal something is coming without seeming to sell, how to tease curiosity, how to make the product collaborative, how to find objections, how to start a conversation free of corporate speak, how to make it fun, how to stand out, how the market wants to be sold, what the exact offer should be, and how this leads into the prelaunch. His favorite strategy, which he says works 95% of the time, is a 2005 email headed "Quick announcement and a favor": an 80-word note saying a long-awaited trading manual on support and resistance was nearly done and asking readers for their top two questions. Asking for help made readers co-creators, since people support what they help create; giving them his attention built reciprocity; their questions revealed the objections and the language for the launch. Writing the email and survey took about an hour. That launch, his first physical product, done from his kitchen table in his bathrobe, brought the first order in under four minutes, over $27,000 in the first hour and over $110,000 in a week, with no affiliates.

"People will support the things they help create."

Chapter 7Sell Them What They Want: The Magic of Prelaunch

Will Hamilton started FuzzyYellowBalls.com in his parents' basement. Advertising on YouTube videos could never pay in a niche like tennis, and a $25 monthly membership site languished for 10 months. His first, rushed launch did $35,000 in a week, as much as the business had made since opening. The next did $65,000, then $105,000, then $170,000 for Tennis Ninja, which drew the agent for Bob and Mike Bryan. The Bryan Brothers Doubles Playbook launch did $450,000.

Walker frames prelaunch as giving value before any hint of a sale, citing Joe Polish: life gives to the givers and takes from the takers. The three pieces of prelaunch content form one story arc. The first covers the opportunity and answers why: show the transformation, establish your position, teach, raise objections, foreshadow the next piece and ask for comments. People fail to buy for four reasons: they do not want it, cannot afford it, do not believe you, or do not believe it will work for them, and prelaunch handles the last two. The second covers the transformation, the what, with real teaching; his own second video, about 18 minutes long, teaches the seed launch. The third is the ownership experience, the how: answer the top questions, show the big view, pivot to the offer in the last 25% with a soft landing, and seed the scarcity. Video works well but is optional; he has done plenty of launches with email alone. He has run prelaunches from 3 days to 27 days and suggests starting with 7 to 10, for instance content on days 1, 3 and 5 with open cart on day 7. He adds a caution about FTC rules on results-based testimonials and advises consulting an attorney.

"The way you put together a great pre-launch sequence is by delivering massive value to your market."

Chapter 8Show Me the Money: It's Time to Launch!

Susan Garrett, who has won more than 25 U.S. and Canadian national championships in dog agility, joined Walker's coaching program in 2008 and set out to pay for it before her husband saw the credit card bill, with no product, no list and almost no technical skill. She emailed about 1,200 past clients, got about 700 onto a list, turned old articles into a $14.97 e-book, ran an email-only prelaunch, and made $27,000. Her DVDs had never sold more than $10,000 in a year. Her product line now runs from $47 to $4,997.

Walker compares launch day to focusing the sun through a magnifying glass, and to a friend's account of a rocket liftoff. On one client launch, the number of people waiting on a countdown page grew from 100 to 300 to 600 in the last 30 minutes; he messaged his team that they were here and wanted to buy, and the launch passed $500,000 in the first hour and $3 million in total. The mechanics are a strong sales page and a short open cart email with the scarcity in the P.S., after testing every step of the order process. For a first launch he suggests five days open. Typically about 25% of orders come on the first day and about 50% on the last. The cardinal rule is a real close with a negative consequence: the price goes up, bonuses go away, or the offer goes away entirely, and they can be stacked. Skip the scarcity, he says, and you cut sales in half. During a five-day launch he mails twice on day one, social proof on day two, answers to top questions on day three, a 24-hour warning on day four and two or three emails on the final day. He covers crashed servers, nervous merchant account providers, and diagnosing a launch that does not convert (offer or sales message), then the post-launch: unannounced bonuses, strong customer service and continued content for prospects who did not buy.

"Make it clear that something bad will happen if they don't buy before your launch ends, that your prospects will miss out on something."

Chapter 9How to Start from Scratch: The Seed Launch

Tara and Dave Marino, after the loss of their young child, started from nothing: Tara had a passion for helping other women live a more sensual life but no product and no list. She gathered about 200 people from her inbox and social media, sold five spots in a program of six weekly teleseminars for almost $3,000, and built the product as she delivered it. Their next launch did almost $12,000, then $90,000, then $190,000, passing half a million dollars in sales. Dave quit his job, and the family moved to the south of France.

Walker's own seed launch came in 2005, after a partner left abruptly and took almost all their paying clients. Burned out from publishing stock market newsletters more than 500 times a year, he moved into marketing with no list and no product. At a conference of nearly 300 people he sold only six spots in a Product Launch Workshop, under 3% where 10% is the low end from stage. He invited friends free to reach just over 30 participants, surveyed them before each of the five promised teleclasses, and ended up delivering nine or ten calls. That material became Product Launch Formula, which he launched in October 2005 for more than $600,000 and which has since passed $20 million in sales and 10,000 owners.

The seed launch rests on two facts: small lists are far more responsive (he once had 297 of 299 people buy a formerly free service at $100 a year, 99.3%), and every list has hyper-responsives. Build a micro list of 100 to 300 through social media, run the classic ask survey, follow up with what you learned, then make an offer for three to five weekly teleseminars plus a bonus Q&A call. Aim for 30 buyers, or invite a few free. Survey before every call, record everything, and the transcripts (15 to 20 pages per hour) become a 90 to 120 page book. The method does not suit physical widgets.

"It might seem almost criminal, but you're getting paid to gather all this market research."

Chapter 10How I Made a Million Dollars in a Single Hour: The JV Launch

Walker returns to October 21, 2005, sleep-deprived after more than 48 hours, entering a crowded internet marketing niche with no positioning. His ace was the friendships formed at the 2003 Dallas seminar and the help he had given others with their launches. In a JV launch, partners mail their lists to your prelaunch content and earn a commission on sales, tracked by affiliate software, and you keep the list. Within a couple of days 8,000 people joined; by the end he had more than 15,000. The first hour did more than $70,000, the first 14 hours over $200,000, and the week just over $600,000, with no advertising and Mary as his only staff. He paid 50% commissions on the $997 price, $498.50 a sale, and says there is no typical commission.

A strong list is a scarce resource, so partners watch their earnings per click; 100 clicks producing $450 in commissions is a $4.50 EPC. His rule is never to test an offer on a partner's list: run an internal launch first. Affiliates follow more of a 99-1 rule than 80-20, with his top 10 partners producing most sales and the top three as much as a quarter, so he advises finding three to five strong partners. Search your market's top keyword, join the lists of the top 50 sites, study what they promote, and create value for them first, for instance by promoting their products. In March 2008 Product Launch Formula 2.0, at $1,997, drew over 34,000 opt-ins. On March 27 one second brought more than $12,000 in sales, the launch hit a million dollars in 53 minutes, and it closed after 34 hours at $3.73 million.

"You never want to test an offer with a partner's list."

Chapter 11Creating a Business from the Ether: The Business Launch Formula

Ruth Buczynski's NICABM ran live conferences of up to 1,000 attendees for health and mental health professionals until September 11, 2001 cut business travel. She moved to virtual events, each with a classic three-part prelaunch; one first video drew more than 1,000 comments. Attendance is free and she sells a gold level with recordings and transcripts. One webinar had 9,000 people from 70 countries, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army told her he read her emails, and the business grew 160% in three years.

The Business Launch Formula chains launches into a business. Gallagher moved from the game to an herbal kit to LearningHerbs.com, with thousands of members at about $12 a month, launching two to four times a year. Garrett sold more DVDs in three days than her distributor had in a year and grew 16 times larger. Hamilton's next three launches after his first totaled more than $340,000 and led to deals with the Bryan Brothers and Pat Rafter. Walker's six keys: always deliver high-value prelaunch content; always build the list and the relationship; make more than one offer, usually two to four launches a year; run the circle of awesome, seed to internal to JV and back to seed; use relaunches and evergreen launches; and take care of clients, since in his experience it is about 15 times easier to sell to someone a second time.

"The essence of PLF is giving first and asking for the sale later."

Chapter 12Creating a Business You Love

Many entrepreneurs end up with a business they merely tolerate. Walker starts with the big why; he thinks of money as stored-up freedom and energy, but says most people eventually want a purpose beyond it. Marketing should attract the right clients and repel the rest: of two similar conferences he spoke at, the one filled by marketing congruent with his style produced clients who needed less support, refunded less and got better results. He passes on his son's mountain biking lesson to look through the corners, meaning plan past the next three months and skip shiny objects. He has been in mastermind groups since 1999, following the idea Napoleon Hill described, and says great ones are made of givers with real horsepower.

Asked for the single most important thing in business, he answered opportunity cost, usually measured in time, and it grows as deal flow grows; Dean Graziosi compares it to a full bookshelf. He urges being a perpetual student, treating competitors as partners because your network is your net worth, putting an information component into any business (as Joe Polish did with a free report for his carpet cleaning company), writing with the human touch in place of a corporate "we," and making up your own rules.

"You want to attract the right people and repel the rest."

Chapter 13A Recipe for a Big Life

Driving from Michigan to a job at Motorola in Tempe, Walker stayed a night in Durango; his father joked he sounded like he wanted to stay. He moved there 14 years before writing, runs a fully online business with a virtual team, and sets an alarm only for early ski days or flights. The recipe starts with a vision exercise: write down, as if already achieved, your ideal life three years out, from income and home to health, relationships and impact. A list he wrote before his first business, then forgot, turned out years later to be nearly all achieved.

The only real security is the ability to create value and get paid for it. He borrows Stephen Covey's sharpen the saw and Joe Polish's million-dollar racehorse to argue for rest, and keeps a list for lifting his state: exercise, meditation, getting outside, adventure, service and gratitude. He cites Dan Sullivan's unique ability to argue for staying in your genius zone, calls focus the scarcest resource and warns that the phone in the morning holds someone else's agenda. He worked without any hires or contractors for his first ten years and calls it a mistake; he now follows Eben Pagan's stars only rule. The magic word is no. The chapter's turning point is the abundance juice: when a competing publisher, Frank Collar, asked how he made his stock charts, Walker sent full instructions, and Collar later helped him launch the paid newsletter behind the $34,000 week and eventually gave him his list of paying subscribers. Sébastien Knight closes the chapter, financing a six-month dance trip around the world with his fiancée from one launch and working one day a week.

"Your most scarce resource is focus."

Chapter 14It's Your Time to Launch

Walker says the formula is behind every business he has built, including one launched weeks before writing, and his clients' more than $500 million in sales. Less than a year after he released Product Launch Formula, a white paper predicted the death of launches; launches have only grown. His explanation draws on Sun Tzu: tactics such as streaming video, blogs, webinars and social media come and go, while connection, anticipation, mental triggers and value before the sale endure.

He recalls the ad for Turn Your Computer Into a Money Machine, around 1994, which cost $99.50 when the family had a little more than $400 a year in disposable income. He read it for a week, ordered it, and received one floppy disk that opened the world of direct marketing; he later thanked its creator, Sheila Danzig. He tells of Franz Wiesbauer, a Vienna internist whose echocardiography training grew to ten times its earlier level after a full launch. His closing advice: do not compare yourself to his million-dollar launches; compare yourself to his first launch, which did a modest $1,650. Expect mistakes and late nights, start building your list, and write to him with your story.

"Tactics come and go. Strategy is forever."