The first launch! (And so far the only one, because I’m doing the second launch in June 2025 and we’re still in April😉)

• So, we were about a week out from the first launch, and all my plans of funneling thousands of eager buyers into a webinar where I ran it like a superstar and hundreds signed on had completely… disappeared. If I’d had any spare time to dwell on it I would have been really down about this, because I’m a Type A (somewhat) reformed perfectionist who doesn’t like failing at anything and totally doesn’t understand why I’m not perfect at everything even when I haven’t done it before- but luckily (?), I was still far too busy to worry about ‘what might have beens’ (and the smaller cohort numbers turned out to be a total blessing in disguise anyway)!
• I heard from the first person that was ready to join!!! (Hive fives and happy dances!) Followed rapidly by my first experience of how it feels when the tech setup you spent hours on isn’t set up properly- aaargh!!! A few stressful attempts later I sorted it out and they were in! This was a deeply significant moment for me, because not only did it mean that the tech was running ok, and I’d made my first bit of income from this new business, but mostly because this was the proof of concept I needed. After all, I KNEW the Clockwork course worked (I’d seen it in my own results and also the results of many other business owners who had gone through the course alongside me), but someone had listened to MY story, and MY way of adding value into an already incredibly valuable course and decided that they believed in it enough to vote with their time and money- I was deeply, deeply happy, honoured, and probably most of all, relieved! Then it hit me- I was now responsible for guiding this person through what could be one of the most significant learning journeys they’d ever taken, and I had a little freak out moment! Fortunately, I knew deep down that I was absolutely capable of doing this and calmed down- but that was NOT something I was expecting!
• Launch day!!!! Came… and went. Because of the way I’d set it up, the only thing that happened was that the first lot of course materials was made available to the people on it, and ditto with the community channels. I’m already re-thinking this, because I think a better way of doing this would be to have a welcome call on the first day so we can all see and meet each other. This is the fantastic thing with running your own business though- if you see something that can be improved, you can absolutely do it!
• So this is where I tell you it was smooth sailing from there on in and I sat back and made my millions, right? Yeah, nah. I was still deep in getting the course actually set up- I had a few weeks of course materials loaded but not all of them, I even still had to record some of the final tech modules! But I was like a swan- going along smoothly on top of the water, and paddling like hell underneath! The one thing that I was focused on though was to make sure that the people doing the course were getting a great experience and that everything was going smoothly from their perspective- and fortunately I was happy that I was delivering on that! I also hadn’t even started to really do much about building my presence on social media, so that’s where I was turning my attention to next!

My lesson from this: when you’re in business, it’s like rowing a boat, and each person working in the business is only allowed one oar. So when it’s just you, you’re going to have to go from side to side, rowing a couple of strokes on one side at a time to get some forward momentum (ie working on one main thing at a time)- but do too much on the same side and you’ll start going in circles. So then you need to head to the other side and put in some work over there to get headed back in the right direction and keep moving forward- and so on, and so forth. I’m in this bit now, and let me tell you, if this is the bit of the journey you’re on too, it’s going to be exhausting, but hang in there because it won’t last forever. Once you get to add a team member who has another oar then things are going to get a hell of a lot easier!

Next up: Feedback- and what the hell is going on with social media these days???