Launching my motivational membership site

[Genius01]

Hi guys,
You can read a bit about my background in my Intro thread here:
Introduction - Hi, medical doctor from a tropical African country


The summary of it is that I'm a medical doctor from a developing country (Nigeria). I've been a classic textbook Slowlaner all my career life, though always yearned for the Fastlane pathway all through. However I've been limited all the while by the pressures of a very demanding job, and analysis paralysis from an over analytical mind.
Finally got a couple of weeks relatively free and I've decided to grab the bulls by the horns, put the pedal to the metal and launch my journey into the Fastlane.

I'm about launching a motivational membership site, that shows people how they can achieve their goals, whatever it may be.
I've always been interested in what makes some people succeed in their endeavors and what makes others fail, and I've done quite a bit of research on it, and found out some things that have been working for me, which I've crystallized into a step by step system, and want to share with the world via my site.

I created the site some months back, and considered launching it then, but the initial results I got from Facebook ads were unencouraging at the time, (I suspected it was primarily due to poor timing, as people are much more interested in self-help products at the beginning of the year than in the middle of the year when they've already developed apathy). So I suspended the launch, to relaunch it now when people are more attuned towards self improvement products.

The main challenge for me now is the very very limited time I have to launch (as I believe the maximum sales should be around New Years day/first week of the year). I would have preferred starting work on the launch process from late November/early December, but was simply impossible due to the massive pressure of work. But I am inspired to still attempt launching it by a wonderful book The 7 Day Startup, which states that "You don't learn until you launch", as well as concepts from MJ's legendary book TMF .

I just started reactivating the site yesterday when I got some freedom from work, but I'm determined to hunker down like a bull and do everything I can to ensure I make it a success. Even if it means working on it every single minute, ...no, every single waking second, I'm going to commit everything I have to it.

The point is such that I would have given it my all.

Its time to start getting my stripes on the world of business. This is my first real venture outside the Slowlane.
Whether I succeed or fail, I would have gained from the real life experiences what I would never have gained from 1 year of analysis.

Win or lose, I would have gained ultimately.

I'll be documenting my journey here as I go along from time to time.

Wish me luck!

 

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[Genius01]

UPDATE:
Got a huge blow to my plans for rapid, expedited launch yesterday shortly after reactivating the site.
I fully expected there would be bumps on the entrepreneurial road, but never knew they could come this fast and this big.

One of my first steps was to check my payment buttons and ensure they were still working. But when I clicked on Pay Now, it was giving me an error report.
Contacted my payment processor 2checkout, turns out they had inactivated my account due to the fact that it had been a long time since I made any sales (hadn't made any new sales on the site since the initial test sales about 6months ago, as I had suspended launching and marketing the site since then).
I wasn't expecting this inactivation...."novice me"???

The worst part was that I couldn't speak with their staff directly in charge of account reactivation, as when I phoned their customer support, the person that picked up told me their seller support staff just left the office about 30 mins ago, and as that day was Friday 5pm, I wouldn't be able to even speak with them till after the weekend and New Year's day, that's till 2nd of January next year. (Meanwhile I was hoping to start sales latest by January 1, as that's peak period for my niche).
To make matters worse, I emailed their tech support and got a response that it will take 5-7 BUSINESS DAYS for them to review my account before possibly restoring it.
That translates to earliest possible account restoration being January 8, 2018, by which time most of the main sales for my niche will be all but over.

So I have to find a new payment processor.
The challenge? I'm from Nigeria and most of the payment processors don't support Nigeria. And if I do find one, whatever payment processor I find has to work with my membership software Paid Membership Pro, if not I would have to uninstall it, reinstall a different membership software, and start reconfiguring it afresh and making sure everything works alright including links, the forum, affiliate software integration, etc which had all been set up earlier and tested to be working well with my current membership software PMPro.
All this takes a lot of time which I do not have the luxury of at the moment given the very limited time I have for the launch.

The painful part is that I had felt reasonably confident I would be able to pull off launching it in such short time, because I could throw all my time and energy into retouching the sales page and aggressive marketing, as the basic site setup had been done earlier.
But with me having to spend time in sorting out these site basics, its going to take away a very huge chunk from the time I planned to spend on marketing and retouching my sales page, which can contribute to a flop.

Its really annoying, but one of the problems i have to overcome as an entrepreneur.

I'm still trying my best to find a workaround around this payment processor issue by finding one that supports Nigeria and works with a reasonable membership software i can use, and find it ASAP today/tomorrow.

Still pushing.

 

[mo3]

Hi genius, glad you’ve joined us. The issue with payment processing is one of those frustrating things we so often run into - there are always little bits in business that slip through the net.

Personally I wouldn’t panic too much about losing New Year sales. In my experience people are looking for self-improvement all the time and motivation will be especially high this month and on into spring when people want change and improvement before summer comes.

Your site really needs to focus on exactly what people will get from joining. What problems will it solve? How will it help them specifically? What makes your method better? How will they benefit? All of these things should be addressed and answered before they will buy.

Good luck with getting things up and running, and keep checking in with us!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Genius01]

@mo3 Thanks so much for the kind words of encouragement.

I actually thought the New Year/first week would be the point of maximum sales for anything that has to do with "how to achieve your goals", as that is when people are most gingered about making resolutions and all, and then the enthusiasm wanes after that.
That's why I was particularly bothered about the payment processor thingy.
But still working to sort it out though.

Thanks again for your response.

 

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[Genius01]

UPDATE:
The unexpected initial delays in the payment processor thingy took the wind out of my sails and slowed down my momentum.
They eventually resolved it somewhat faster than the projected 5-7 business days (thanks to the payment processor team).

After the issue was resolved, I started recreating my sales page.
In retrospect, I should have started this from the first day I decided to launch, when I opened this thread. However, because of the payment processor issue, I postponed revamping the sales page till I had sorted the payment processor. This was because I didn't want to spend money on recreating a sales page only to be unable to launch the site in my planned window period due to payment processor issues. I felt recreating the sales page would take a maximum of 1 or 2 days. That was my 2nd rookie mistake.
It eventually took me about another 2 weeks to get a sales page I was satisfied with. Why? The first designer I gave it to kept giving me crappy results after multiple revisions, so I had to dump him and get another designer. This 2nd designer eventually gave me something I felt I could work with, also after multiple revisions. By this time, it was already 3 weeks into the year, which was beyond my planned optimal window period for launching the site.

My relatively free period at work had elapsed, and work was back in full bone-crushing intensity. It basically sucked out any remaining motivation from me, combined with the feeling that the optimal period for launching the site had passed.

I basically spent all of February and this first half of March facing my day job squarely, with nothing happening on the Fastlane side of things.


MY DECISIONS:
1. I will reschedule the launch of this site till ending of this year/beginning of next year. This is because I want it to be launched at the time when public motivation is highest, as a lot of my method depends on creating a community. This will be much easier to create when public motivation is high, than when it is low. Its better to go with the flow and be carried by the wave, rather than fighting the ebb.

2. However, I will start working on the site towards the last few months of the year, latest by mid November.
Before then, I will still be doing some minimal but important things related to the site, like growing a list, and building strategic relationships with other key players in my niche. This will help me have a bigger, better, smoother launch by year's end.

3. In the meantime, I will start another business venture, starting with immediate effect, to grow in the space between now and end of the year.
I have a number of ideas I've researched, and will choose one today.
I will create a progress thread on that, and post the link here.
This will help me keep growing my entrepreneurial muscle, and acquire important experiences and skills.
It will also help me further validate my goal-achieving system, for financial goals. I've used my system to achieve a lot of my goals in other spheres of life, but not really much for financial/business goals, as that hasn't been my focus until now.


LEARNING POINTS FROM MY LITTLE EXPERIENCE SO FAR:

1. Always be on the lookout for, and proactively anticipate, possible problems that can affect your business.
I should have known that payment processors would probably render an account redundant if it has not been used for some time. It just didn't occur to me. And the particular timing of me finding out on a late Friday afternoon just before the extended New Year holidays, cost me valuable time and motivation.

2. Always Plan for anything you order/request for to take at least double the expected time, and factor that into your planning.
If I knew recreating my sales page was going to take as much as 2 weeks, I would have started working on it from the word go, so that it runs concurrently with sorting out the payment processor issues.

3. Run business processes concurrently, wherever possible.
Its a corollary to the point above. I think going forward, anything or process that is required for my business setup or progress, that can run concurrently, WILL run concurrently, unless there is a major cogent reason why not. It simply saves time.

Anyway, lessons well learned. I'm not likely to repeat them again in future (hopefully). That's the point of learning from real life, not in books and theory.
That's why I started this journey in the first place, to learn the lessons as fast as I can, and move on, and apply them going forward.

So for now, on to my next business venture.....I'll create a progress thread on it today, and put up the link here.

**************************
Now Edited to include link of the progress thread for my new business I'm starting today, as I said I would (its in INSIDERS):
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...ng-an-online-service-arbitrage-company.81461/