Sales Page In A Weekend Boot Camp: Now Open!

Today, the doors opened to the Sales Page In A Weekend Boot Camp

And it was an interesting launch.

Which made some people think I was a total marketing genius.

But made me feel like throwing something through a window.

Last night the sales page was published and I emailed the lovely early birds to let them know about this worm they wouldn’t want to miss.

Then this morning I got the first email which said:

I can’t see the whole sales page…

Hmmm, not to worry I thought, won’t be a big deal, the birds are still singing, there’s a song in my heart and I’m filled with the joy of the world. Let me just have a little look-see here, clickety click what seems to be the problem (of which I can probably fix in a jiffy…)

Oh, my good dang gosh and darn

(And if you think those were the actual words I uttered, then yes mother, that’s exactly what I said)

There Were No Buy Buttons

Or price plans for that matter, or guarantee, or testimonials, in fact half of the entire sales page had been gobbled up but only in Internet Explorer (I had tested in Mozilla which was fine. Big kiss and a cuddle to Mozilla).

What’s more, despite my optimistic clickety clicking and trying new things this was not going to be a quick fix.

So I called on my nearest and dearest…(yes my best friends are online, I don’t get out much…)

One person even thought it was a ruse to get people to check out the sales page:

I really hadn’t planned this as an elaborate pre-launch “teaser” I had just been a bit of a donk by not testing the sales page last night in Internet Explorer.

Suddenly I wanted to throw a brick at the singing birds, the song in my heart had turned into a death-metal soundtrack and the only joy in the world I could see was the world guffawing at my huge mistake.

But like I try and say, you win some, you learn some…

What I learned

Lesson # 1 I have The Best Readers And Twitter Followers Bar None.

People were supportive, they rallied to try and help, Karim above sent me modified images to use which would improve their appearance in IE which blew me away.

The lovely Matthew Kimberley even offered me help which he was pretty confident would be of no help what-so-ever. How’s that for going above and beyond?

Even if you think you can’t help, just trying means a lot

Lesson # 2 Suck It Up And Solve It

I’ll admit, I had my moment of hair tearing, exasperation and ranting about the situation. In fact as I inhaled my first pre-rant breath I just caught a glimpse of Malc’s heels as he scurried out the door.

But at some point I had to stop and find a solution. It meant sitting down and typing it out from scratch, but with a decaf coffee (that was a boost…), some loud music and total concentration I did it. And I tell you it felt better than the ranting phase. I even sung along, but then my typing got skewy and I was mixing in lyrics with sales copy so had to stop the singing.

Lesson # 3 You Are Your Hardest Critic

No-one complained about the gaff, people emailed to let me know what was happening which I really appreciated, and I know at least one person who saw the half sales page and then came back when it was fixed to buy.

With your launch, everything is magnified because you live it and breathe it, but you have a lot more room to manoeuvre and correct things than you think, so don’t let the fear of things going wrong stop you from making an offer or getting your sales page out there.

If you sign up to the Boot Camp I’ll even share a couple more “glitches” I’ve experienced before that whilst I thought were huge things, didn’t affect sales one bit.

So, now I am going to go to bed, and you may now see the full sales page in all its glory!

P.s. – If you are interested in the boot camp, don’t stare at the sales page too long, there are only a limited number of spots available.