How to Get Your Product to Market & Make Sales FASTER

How long have you been “working on” an idea that you could have already launched? In this episode, Chris and I talk about why your first launch doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to happen. We break down what we learned from launching Found Trip and Million Dollar Guest, why the first version is really about testing for product-market fit and getting feedback, and why you have to keep marketing even when you don’t get an immediate response. Tune in for a reminder to stop getting ready to get ready, put your idea out there, and let the feedback help you make it better. Check out our Sponsors: Shopify - Try the ecommerce platform I trust for Glōci. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at http://Shopify.com/happy. Monarch Money - Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off at http://Monarch.com with code EYH. Northwest Registered Agent - Visit http://northwestregisteredagent.com/EarnFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Indeed - Indeed is giving Earn Your Happy listeners a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Just go to http://Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on Earn Your Happy. Momentous - If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to http://livemomentous.com and use code EARN for up to 35% off your entire first order. SmileSet - Listeners of our show get an additional 35% discount when they go to http://SMILESET.com/earn. Faire - Sign up today and get 50% off your first wholesale order, up to $100 at https://faire.com/happy50. Terms may apply. Life at the Speed of Play - Go to http://getmarksbook.com/earn to get two copies for the price of one—one for you and one for a friend. HIGHLIGHTS What Chris learned from launching Found Trip before everything was perfect. How I pushed through doubt while building Million Dollar Guest. Why a few bad days don't mean your idea isn’t working. How we sold the last Found Trip spot by turning up the marketing. Why your first launch is really a test for product-market fit and feedback. My reminder to stop getting ready and just get it out there. RESOURCES Get on the waitlist for Mentor Collective Mastermind HERE! Try glōci for 40% off your first order with code HAPPY at checkout - head to getgloci.com FOLLOW Follow me: @loriharder Follow Chris: @chriswharder Follow glōci: @getgloci

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Ready to launch your business before Black Friday? Go to Shopify.com/happy to start your free trial. Monarch Money, Monarch breaks the debt cycle, turning that endless gloom into a plan with an end date. Use code EYH at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. Northwest Registered Agent, Northwest gives you access to thousands of free guides, tools, and attorney drafted documents to help you run your business with confidence. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/earnfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Indeed, spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates

• 0:43Speaker 00

  who check all your boxes. They're giving Earn Your Happy a $75 sponsored job credit. Go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Life at the speed of play. Mark is offering our listeners two books for the price of one. Go to getmarksbook.com/earn. Sequencing, sequencing.com is offering your listeners up to 10% off your full genome test plus free shipping. Go to sequencing.com and use promo code earn for 10% off.

• 1:20Speaker 00

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• 2:44Speaker 00

  You just continue to do it with blinders on until you get a result, period, end of story. And that is where a lot of people go wrong is they have a couple of bad days or they have a couple of bad weeks and they're like, this isn't working. Well, the biggest things in the world go that way. You have to continue to push through. You have to go all in. You have to do a lot more than you think that you have to do in order to get things out in the world.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  And we're back.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  With another episode of He Said, She Said.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  I can't believe this trip week. I literally can't believe the first ever found trip for entrepreneurs that want to find what they're looking for is happening this week coming up.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  I know. I can't believe it either. I'm so excited. I'm going to go to one of the nights.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Which you need to tell people about this itinerary because I actually wasn't going to go because I'm so busy.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  And you told me some of the itinerary and I was like, oh my God, I need to rearrange my schedule so that I can go because I know how fun this is.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Okay, wait, I gotta think about the timing of this podcast because I want to be a surprise for people that are going on it. But you know what? By the time this comes out, we'll already be on it. So I think we're, yeah, oh yeah, we're totally okay. Okay. All right. So here's what we're doing. Day one is meet cool people. And that's where everyone comes into Beverly Hills and we start with a big get to know you lunch that I gamify a little bit to make sure it's really comfortable with everyone just getting to know cool people. That's why I call day one, get to know cool people or you know, meet cool people. And then that night, oh gosh, here's where the surprises circuit revealed. That night I'm taking them to the Magic Castle. Now, I bet most people listening don't know what the Magic Castle is, but it is.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  It's iconic.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  It's a private iconic castle, literally in Hollywood for the most famous and most storied members in the history of magic. You have to be a magician, a performing magician to get a membership and get in. And if you are a like tenured magician, you can let guests in to experience the Magic Castle. And we've, we've been once before, you know, shout out to Mel Abraham, who, who was getting us in this time and got us in last time. And it's incredible because when you're in there, there's all these magicians in all these different rooms of the castle just doing up close magic. And then there's a huge dining room where you can have dinner and you just have cocktails and mosey around this giant castle watching in

• 5:07Speaker 01

  person magic. And it's this very exclusive, like, you know, David Copperfield could be there or whatever. Like, it's just wild. And so anyhow, we're taking everyone there and you have to dress up like shirt and tie, you know, suit and tie and all that stuff even to get in. It's really good. They just don't have things like that anymore. So super secret society type stuff. So I'm taking them there that night. So we talk about putting the magic back into your business and like what it's like to truly be performative and to do your best at your craft, you know? Because really the whole trip is just about prompting people to think differently and think bigger and have better conversations. And when we do things like this, it causes people to have better conversations. So that's literally just the first, you know, day, go back to the hotel room, you know, we're all staying in a very five star hotel in Beverly Hills. And then the next morning we wake up and we

• 5:52Speaker 01

  go to, God, this is why I'm like, I'm glad this is coming out after they experience this. We're going to Rob Deardex's office to meet Rob Deardex. I know everyone thinks he's the funny guy from TV and the famous skater, but he's actually one of the best entrepreneurs in the world. And we're going to go to his headquarters and check that out and get a tour, but more importantly, get a tour of his new software, which is a life management software. Cause nobody is more like obsessed with measuring the good parts of life and only doing what matters than him. So we're gonna have a huge lesson about why that's important from the person who like thousand and more than anybody else.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  He changes my life every time he talks.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Every time, every.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Because I've never like really gotten to listen to him talk, like look up a podcast. I think it was on Jay Shetty's show, maybe a while back. Just look up any podcast, Lewis Howes, Jay Shetty, I believe they had him on and it's life changing.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yep. So gosh, we're still in the first 24 hours. So when we're done doing that, we're leaving Beverly Hills and we've got a fleet of Escalades has taken everybody everywhere. So get out in the fleet of Escalades and we're starting making our way up to Santa Barbara. And we're gonna take the coast all the way up. It's a beautiful ride. If you've never done it before, it's like what people save up money to go on this, you know, Pacific Coast Highway vacation. We're gonna make our way up the coast and we're stopping for lunch on the water along the way. That'll be super cool. It's just, you know, halfway point, not a long drive, two hours, two and a half hours. And then we'll continue making our way to Santa Barbara and checking into one of yours and my favorite resorts ever, the Ritz Bacara, which is the most beautiful, awesome five star property ever. Stunning. And so that night we'll have a beautiful dinner outside for everyone. And I'm just creating containers,

• 7:26Speaker 01

  like the ride is a container, the lunch on the water is a container, dinner outside of Bacara is a container for people to have better conversations with people they wouldn't have them with otherwise. And this is why all the magic starts happening and the bonds start happening, right? It's really wild. So that's just the first two days. And then day three, oh, sorry, day two, I call it meet a cool founder, right? That's why we meet Rob. So then day three is do cool things. And we are waking up in the morning, doing a beach hike, then having breakfast and then heading out to a really cool winery that is owned by a pro athlete. He used to be a pro athlete and when he retired, he said, I want to buy this hometown winery and turn it into number one winery in the whole San Andres Valley up there. So it's gonna be super cool to hear from him. Like, why would you ever buy a winery? How'd you make it work? How'd you become number one? And how'd you also become

• 8:11Speaker 01

  a pro athlete that won championships? And where did those things tie together? Like this idea of excellence? How can he keep hitting excellence through both things? So.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Can you share the rest? Is this gonna be out?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I can share the rest.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I left the best part out. On this day three, where we're doing cool things in the morning, we're asking everybody to voluntarily surrender their cell phones for the entire day until dinner. So that you're really present. Now, we're gonna give them a heads up. They don't know this yet, but we're gonna give them a heads up on the first day. It's a hey, in two days, you're gonna be asked to voluntarily surrender your cell phone entirely for the, from the whole morning to the, to the evening. And you got trust in the magic of not having that day with you. And we're gonna give, say, here's a phone number. You can call this phone number. It'll be someone who's with us on the team the whole time in case something happens. Give it to your wife, give it to your business partner, give it to whoever needs it. So it's not like they're not reachable.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  And we'll have their phones locked up in a bag in the fleet of Escalades that we're taking everywhere. But nonetheless, they're gonna be without their phones for a whole entire day. That's why I'm like, I'm so glad this is coming out after they learn this.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Imagine though, what kind of conversations and how present they'll be. At first it'll probably be very awkward.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  And fidgety. And you know, you're used to like grabbing your phone just when you feel uncomfortable having the conversation like it's like a mental break like, oh, I'm gonna look at my phone so I don't have to keep talking to this person, but they're not gonna be able to do that.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  No.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  So yeah, we go to winery, meet this incredible ex pro athlete turned founder of winery. Then after that, we're taking them to the tallest, longest zip lines in North America, which goes from like mountain top to mountain top. It's going to stretch up, it's going to, you know, some people be fine with it, others, it's gonna be pushing their edge.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  And it's gonna be a thrill. And by the end of this thing, holy cow, are they going to be expanded.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Right? So we do those, then we go back that night and have an incredible dinner, fireside dinner. And then on the last day, it's set cool goals. We have this long drawn out mastermind feeling breakfast or brunch, I should call it for several hours, where everybody gets a chance to talk about what they need now that they've had the trip together. How do they want to be supported? And what is the big audacious goal that they're gonna set to be held accountable to? Right? And then we slowly make our way back with a little bit more fanfare back to, you know, LA in this case, back to Beverly Hills. So I guess I didn't even plan on sharing the itinerary on here, but the reason why we do it this way is because look at all the containers that we created for entrepreneurs to get outside of their business, to have new conversations in new settings, settings

• 10:43Speaker 01

  that stretch them, settings that inspire them, settings that make them really realize, oh, I'm playing small. And you can't help but come back and expanded different person after a trip like this. And you know, the whole freaking point of talking about this is we just launched this on a whim as like, hey, we want to kind of pivot into the human experience, human, what do you call it, human connection economy.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  And I threw it out there and it sold out. And I had a lot of fear, would it sell out or not?

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Would it work or not?

• 11:16Speaker 00

  People think that you don't or you won't. We have it every time.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Every time we try something new. And you know, sure enough, it sold, in fact, nine out of 10 sold right away. And then that last one was like the pesky spot to sell, right? And then that one went. But the point is, you just have to do it. I didn't build a big landing page. I didn't build a big website. I didn't get ready to get ready to get ready. I didn't do any of that. I planned the agenda. I knew we'd make it magic. And I said, hey, world, we're going on this trip. Who wants to come?

• 11:44Speaker 00

  You said, I'm gonna market until it fills, whether that's a lot or a little. And I think that's what people don't understand is they will do something like this and say, okay, I want to fill 10 spots. I hope they fill. Well, there is no hoping, there's just action until they do.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:02Speaker 00

  Like, there's just, like, you know, you were halfway through and we're like, okay, we need to turn it up. Like, we need to put the boosters on to make sure this gets sold. So you just market more.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  And you market all over and you, you know, you were texting people, you're marketing, marketing everywhere. And I think that that is the miss with what people do is they think that they've sent a couple of emails and they've told their list and they didn't get any response yet. And it's like, well, you really didn't seed the product. You didn't, you know, continue to tell people, you didn't show it, you haven't showed it on your Instagram yet, you haven't done video and emails and all the things. So when you do your first one, that's gonna most likely be your most challenging one.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it doesn't exist.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  You have proof.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  You have testimonials, you're gonna have social proof, you have, you have pictures, you have video, people can now see it, taste it, feel it, touch it, where the first one is gonna be a little bit of an uphill battle.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Well, that's really, you know, the direction we want to take this podcast today was.

• 13:02Speaker 00

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• 15:52Speaker 00

  When I launched Glossy, my drinkable skincare brand, I was obsessed with the formula. The product was my baby, but the store part felt way more intimidating. And that's a big reason we built on Shopify in the beginning, because you really don't have to be an e-commerce expert to get up and running. And that's a big deal in the beginning of a business. And here's the biggest lesson I learned about the holidays. You do not want to be building your store in the middle of the rush. You want to be set up, you want to be tested and ready before the traffic hits. So two things I love. First, Shopify mobile app. I'm on planes, I'm on stages, I'm here recording with you, and I can still check my inventory, help a customer, see payments right from my phone, which is so much fun. And that's the second they check out.

• 16:36Speaker 00

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• 17:14Speaker 01

  You have to just do it. Stop getting ready to get ready. And you're kind of building your, your air, you're building your parachute on the way down.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Always.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  You know? And you did this with your program.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Go ahead and reinforce that.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  I mean, I didn't look back. I didn't look sideways. I didn't look at what other people were doing.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  It's a million dollar guest, by the way.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Million dollar guest, which teaches you how to profit off of other people's podcasts. I just felt like after I talked to quite a few people to kind of see if people would even be interested in this product, and I just got such positive feedback back that I decided I just have to go for it. And I can't doubt myself. And I can't doubt this product. And I can't have a bad day and not get leads and be like, maybe I shouldn't do it. You just continue to do it with blinders on until you get a result. Period, end of story. And that is where a lot of people go wrong, is they have a couple of bad days or they have a couple of bad weeks and they're like, this isn't working.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Well, there's a lot of things that are like, the, the biggest things in the world go that way. You have to continue to push through, you have to go all in, you have to do a lot more than you think that you have to do in order to get things out in the world.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  And it ended up a smashing success. In my case, the trip sold out. In your case, you hit the number that you wanted to hit, right? Your goal. And that's not always guaranteed. But I'll tell you what, if you don't just throw it out there, if you don't quickly rush it out there and make sure that like, and I don't mean like do it sloppy, but you know, don't slow yourself down, don't get paralyzed, don't get ready to get ready to get ready. If you just get it out there, you get the feedback. So if the feedback's good, high five yourself. If the feedback isn't what you wanted, you don't throw it away.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  No.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  You say, okay, I learned these parts are good and people are responding, these parts are not, people are not responding, and you do it differently next time. And, and the first time you throw a product out there, it's the tester. That's what people don't understand. They're so damn worried about getting it right and have their biggest launch or whatever. No, the first time you throw a product out there is the proof of concept. It's called product market fit. You're testing to see if there's product market fit or not. And when you learn there is, then you worry about more of the details next time. Then you worry about dialing in better next time. Then you worry about the bigger, more audacious launch the next time. The first one, you're going for product market fit, you're going for feedback. And it really is all about the second launch and the third launch. The first one is just the, I committed to getting something out there and I did it. And I hope that makes people take more action faster, because I know a lot of people have

• 19:40Speaker 01

  some really good ideas that they're not taking action on, or they're worse yet, they're lying to themselves and they're lying to people around them, saying, yeah, I'm really working on this thing, yeah, I'm really working. And they know that they could have already launched it. And they're just getting ready to get ready. All right, well, listen, guys, whatever your idea is, get it out there. All, I love hearing your ideas. If you ever want to run it by me on Instagram, send me a quick two minute or less voice note. I love hearing those things. And I'll always give you feedback. I try and make sure I catch as many of those as possible. And in the meantime, wish us luck on the trip and follow along.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  I'm so excited. And you guys, we will obviously debrief you when he gets back from his trip, which I can't wait. And we'll fill you in on all the juicy details and conversations and we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.