I’ve mentioned it earlier, but there is a whoooooole lot more to getting your new thing out there than just creating it. The creation is the fun bit! The part that we all like to pretend doesn’t exist (and that makes many of us want to hide under a table) is the launching, marketing and sales of our new service or product. This takes time and money, but another currency we often forget to account for is our energy. 

If you think creating something new is taxing, wait until you have to launch it. Couple that with the fact that many clinicians feel weird (skeevy, sleazy, sales) when it comes to talking about themselves and their value, and you run the risk of burning yourself out with nothing to show for it if you don’t plan your launch efforts and prepare for them. 

The thing about creating a new thing is that it feels safe. It’s where many of us are in our element: we’re creating, we’re building, we’re making connections with little pieces of information and turning them into something big and whole and completely our own. 

The part where you have to step out, show yourself and give your thing to the world to be judged is…. terrifying. There’s the fear of rejection, the worry that the world will confirm that you aren’t good enough and that what you’ve made is worthless and unwanted. 

That’s why so many of us are chronic creators of ideas and services and plans that nobody knows about. 

And that brings me to my bad news: 

You are not going to feel good the whole way through this process. You’re going to feel uncomfortable, and vulnerable, and uncertain.

And you might even want to throw up a little bit. 

But that’s how you know you have to keep going. Doing good work doesn’t always feel good. 

Now please don’t take this to mean that I want you to be posting on your social media accounts 87 times per day, spamming all of your friends and making 12 Facebook live videos a week. Don’t do that. And I ever do that, you have permission to block me. 

But you guys know that it just doesn’t work anymore to throw your shiny new thing onto a webpage and wait for the stampede of traffic and the flood of customers.

It’s much the same as when you first threw open the doors to your practice – the phone didn’t just start ringing by itself. It took work and time to get where you are now, to build recognition and awareness about your practice and your work. 

It’s the same story for your new product or service. Until you reach JK Rowling’s or Stephen King’s level of fame, you’re gonna have to promote and build awareness about your work. 

So…. how do you do that? And how do you plan for it? Here are some of my best tips: 

Tip #1 – Launch WITH your people, not for your people. 

Pre-launching is a wonderful thing for clinicians, because it gives you a way of inviting your people along on the journey with you as you build something with them, not for them. 

I want you to shed the mentality that you can’t tell a soul about your work and until it’s finished and perfect.

Bite the bullet now and start talking about it – build curiosity and intrigue, and give your people the chance to give input into the very thing you want to make for them. 

I’ve seen many clinicians do this beautifully – imagine taking the pressure off yourself to build something perfect all on your own and then launch it – why not invite your people along on the journey with you? And ask them what they want and need from you?

Imagine what this could do for your sales: you’re no longer launching to a cold audience, and, you’ve built this thing with the input from the people who you ultimately want to help by giving them exactly what they’ve told you they want! 

Tip #2 – Prepare yourself for the energy you’ll need to do this thing properly

It’s my experience that content creation often takes all of your time, energy and money, and by the end of it, you need a holiday! And that’s ok, go take a holiday, but when you get back, know that you will still need to invest in getting your work in the hands of the people who need it. 

Your energy is something that you need to budget for – it’s a finite resource and the last thing we want is for you to collapse in a heap at the end (or in the middle) of all of this. 

So, it’s time to get strict with your time management. 

I hope that you’re already budgeting time for course creating and research (and giving yourself a deadline) – go a step further and start budgeting in marketing and promotion time. For every hour you spend on creating on creating content, you should give yourself two hours for promotion and marketing. Schedule it now – or else you’ll find yourself with a finished new product and no time or energy to market it. 

And this is the cold hard truth: “passive income” is rarely 100% passive. You need to give it airtime – and you need to give yourself enough margins with your energy and time to make sure that you’re not burning yourself out in the process. 

Tip #3 – Learn, adapt and KEEP GOING! 

So – maybe you’ve been a model student so far. You’ve created your product with input from your audience, you’ve worked your butt off to market this thing and yet…. You have crickets. This thing didn’t sell like you expected it to. 

First, let me tell you that you haven’t failed. 

There are no promises in business and this is especially true in the online world. 

This is where you have to shift your mindset and start treating all of your ideas as a hypothesis. Whether you hit your targets or not, what information can you gather from where you are right now? What does this mean for how you’ll approach things differently in the future? 

Maybe you need to return to learning more about your target market and speaking into their wants and needs, like we teach inside Accelerate Your Practice. 

Whatever you do, don’t give up. Try a different angle. Learn and test your hypothesis again. 

And be brave enough to be vulnerable one more time. 

I’m rooting for you. 

Here’s to your success, 

ABOUT JO

Jo Muirhead is a Rehabilitation Counsellor with over 20 years of experience in vocational rehabilitation. Jo is a mentor to allied health professionals who are ready to make freedom, flexibility and fulfilment happen in 2016. Click here to download the free guide: How to Find Freedom in Your Private Practice. 

Jo is the creator of the Book of Evidence.