E95:The Secret to Stress-Free Launches with Carole Searle

If you’ve ever felt stressed, overwhelmed, or disappointed after a launch, this episode is for you.

In this episode of Dream Business, Dream Life, Emma is joined by community and accredited launch manager Carole Searle, who shares what really makes the difference between a chaotic launch and a profitable one.

Carole takes us behind the scenes of successful online launches and thriving memberships, revealing why planning (and planning backwards!) is the secret most business owners skip. From audience building to post-launch follow-ups, she explains why there’s no such thing as a “failed launch” only missed insights and missed preparation.

You’ll also discover:

• Why growing and warming your audience is essential before you launch
• How to choose the right launch style (challenge, masterclass, webinar, email launch)
• The importance of data tracking and post-launch analysis
• How community management impacts retention and churn
• Why personal branding and trust are more important than ever
• How to make launches feel aligned with your energy and personality

If you’re planning a membership launch, course launch, or community-based offer, this episode will help you reduce stress, increase conversions, and build long-term momentum.

This episode of Dream Business, Dream Life is proudly sponsored by Carole Searle who is an entrepreneur with 8+ years in business. 

She began as a VA and found her zone supporting others, now specialising as a Community & Launch Manager. She helps you grow a buzzing membership and run stress-free launches from start to finish. 

Family is at the heart of everything and building her business means she can be present for her husband and two kids. That balance fuels her work, helping clients win, earn more and still have a life.

Website - https://csbusinesssupport.co.uk/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolesearlecsbusinesssupport/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/csbusinesssupport/

Want to connect? Find me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemmahine

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-hine

Website:  https://www.emmahine.co.uk

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaHineStrategy

Transcript

Hello & welcome to Dream Business Dream Life, helping ambitious people, like you, to grow a business they love.

I’m Emma Hine and I’m on a mission to show you that it is possible to grow a business without sacrificing your life.

Having experienced the rollercoaster of making millions of pounds, but feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and totally unsuccessful, I know first-hand the importance of growing a business on your terms.

On this podcast I'm going to share with you lots of tips and advice that will enable you to grow a business that gives you the financial freedom to live the life of your dreams while sharing with you some inspirational growth stories from other fabulous business owners.

Ready to live the dream? Then let’s get stuck in…

Hey, I'm Carol Serle of CS Business Support and I'm a community and launch manager for business owners who want to grow without the overwhelm. As a community manager, I help turn quiet groups into buzzing spaces. So that means driving engagement, nurturing relationships, welcoming new members, sparking conversations and just generally making sure that your community actually supports your business. And when it comes to launch time, I'm your calm, organised right-hand woman. So I'll plan the strategy, map out timelines, manage moving parts, keep momentum high and just make sure that nothing slips the net, meaning that you don't have to do it all alone. So if you want launches that feel exciting or a community that truly connects, then I'm exactly who you've been looking for in your business. 

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Dream Business, Dream Life. Today I'm joined by Carol Searle, who is a community and launch manager, helping business owners to grow a buzzing membership and run stress-free launches. And let's be honest, we all need a little bit of that in our lives. So hi, Carol. Thank you for joining me. How are you? 

Hi, Emma. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, I'm really good. Thank you. Really good. Really excited to be here. 

Super, super, super. Okay, so before we dive into what you do now, do you want to take us back a little bit to when you first started as a VA? So what did business and life look like for you back then? 

Okay, so yeah, humongously different to what it looks like now. So yeah, so I basically, I've been an admin ever since leaving school. So it's what I live, breathe, community, support, customer service and that. I became a single mum with my first child. And my God, it was hard trying to get that time off from work to spend time if he's poorly, if he's got school events, having school holidays with him. It was horrendous. So then I met somebody else. I married them. We had a child together. And I just thought when I was on maternity leave, you know what? I'm not going through that again. I'm not going to beg to spend time with my family. There needs to be something more to life, better to life than just working all the time and begging to have time with my family. So Googled, what kind of admin jobs can I do from home? I popped virtual assistant. I thought, what on earth is this? This magic? Yeah, I looked into it more and just didn't look back. So I became a virtual assistant coming on nine years now, probably. And yeah, it's just kind of evolved from the general admin support with people. It just naturally evolved with the clients that I was working with, helping out with their communities. And then some clients started saying, like, I need help with this launch that I've got going on. I just loved it. I absolutely loved the just taking all that stress away from them, giving them time back to help with other things, supporting their clients, like the members in their communities or when they're doing launches. I absolutely thrived. And so I just thought, this is just something, this is a bit of me. And so, yeah, so I, I've kind of like niched out into that. I'm now an accredited launch manager as well. So yeah, I've really honed down to make sure that I can just give my clients and their clients the best possible service going. Which is amazing. 

And I think that's really important, isn't it? When you can finish anything and say, this is me, this is what I do, and I love doing it, I think that is music to my ears. Because I think that's what we need, isn't it? We need to enjoy what we're doing. 

Absolutely. I remember that when I was employed and I would have that Sunday dread, like, oh, I've got to go back and do this tomorrow morning at work. And it was horrible. But now I possibly go too much the other way. And I'm like, I can't wait to go back to work on Mondays. I love my family. I do love my family, but I just bounce. I literally do bounce as well with how much I love my job. 

And I think, you spend a lot of time working, don't you? spend a lot of your, adult life, you spend a lot of it working. So if you can enjoy what you're doing and that can support the life and clearly your family are at the heart of everything you are doing, there's no doubt about that at all. But actually, if your business can support that, then why wouldn't you love it? You know, why wouldn't you love it? Absolutely. But I think we all love different things, don't we? all love doing different things. And obviously you found your place with community work. Community work. That's a whole different, a whole different thing, isn't it? Community work with helping people with their communities. Exactly. And the launches. So tell us a little bit about that. What would you say is your zone of genius in terms of helping people with communities and launches? 

Okay, so it's my main things when somebody, if I'm on a call with somebody, my first things that I will say to them is I give you your time back. So I find the areas where you're struggling, that you don't need to be doing, that you don't like doing, and I take those away from you. And I also, I'm really good at spotting any gaps. So if there's areas, whether it's within how you run your community, whether it's how you're running your launch, because obviously I've been doing this for so many years now and I've worked with so many different types of business and so many different styles of launches as well, excuse me, there's gaps that I can just see because when you're in the thick of your community or the thick of your launch, it's so hard to sometimes be able to step back. and see what's going on, what's working, what's not working, maybe what's missing. So as an outsider looking in, I can see exactly, yeah, that's spot on, or we could be doing a tweak in that, or have you thought of doing this? And it just helps everything just kind of like piece together, really. 

And would you say that by sort of, I suppose, niching down, better word to find is the really the niching down to offer what you offer now, do you think that has helped you in terms of building your business? 

I think so, because I'm so passionate about it myself and it's not just about me and how much I get from it. I really do thrive on seeing how much it helps my clients as well. Yeah, it's kind of, it has made me focus more and want to learn more and understand all the ins and outs of how to do the different things. So of course, that naturally then forwards on to the clients and their businesses to help them out as well. 

Which is amazing, isn't it? Because that is what we're here to do, isn't it, to impact our clients so that they can get the results? Because that's what gives us the buzz and the satisfaction, isn't it, of, and I suppose our own success as well, that gives us our own success, doesn't it? So you've obviously seen, Behind the doors of lots of businesses, and you sort of said there that you've worked with lots of different types of businesses, what would you say that is probably the most common thing that people are, I hate saying people are doing things wrong, but we are, aren't we? We do things wrong. So what would you say is the most common thing that people get wrong when it comes to launching a product or a membership or a community? 

Not giving yourself the time for the planning. It's huge. The amount of people that come to me, I've got this launch coming up and I'm like, fantastic. Tell me all about it. Starting with, when is it? Oh, it's in two weeks time. And I'm just like, okay, what have you done so far? Nothing. 

You know what I mean? Are you not a magic, a magician, Carol? You can't just magically go with this happen. 

Do you know what? I am good at what I do, but I think sometimes it stretches a little bit. And absolutely, it's not to say that a launch can't happen in a couple of weeks. Absolutely not. It all depends on, it depends on so many factors, which again is where your planning comes in. So it depends on things like, do you have an audience? First of all, who are you speaking to? Again, some people do sometimes think that I just, and it could be an absolute amazing service that they have, but they can just start sharing it now without actually building the audience first. So yeah, it's all in the planning, which does take time. So people need to be thinking about building an audience first of all, letting the audience know about them. letting the audience be able to resonate and relate with them as a person. So the personal branding is so important, but also warming the audience with whatever it is, the service or product that they have coming up. So that's all planning that needs to be done beforehand. Then people have to plan like the promotions that go into it, all the marketing that goes into it, what's happening throughout the actual launch itself. And then again, people sometimes think that once you've done the launch, say you've done cart close, that's it. Job done. Off down the chippy. No. Off down the chippy. I fancy a chippy now. I've done one for ages. Yeah, you can see where my brain goes, can't you? Food. But yeah, it's all the launch still carries on then because yeah, the cart's closed and absolutely it can be exhausting. So definitely have have a breather, have a celebration meal, just go and have a bath or something, but it's not finished. You need to do follow-ups because there could still be people, there could still be money on that table that you could follow up with to sell lower ticket prices. And also maybe if it's a time-related thing, you might have a shorter time-related service that they could buy. And then there's also like data for people to analyze and look through what worked in the launch, what didn't work in the launch? What can we either leave as it was, because it was amazing, or what could we tweak the next time? So yeah, there's all the bits after the launch as well. 

Yeah. And I think that all comes into your planning, doesn't that? All comes into. I imagine you see a lot of people who've launched something and thought, oh, it's flopped. You know, it didn't work. So it's obviously me, it's obviously the offer that's wrong. It's obviously, whereas you were probably going to say 99% of the time it's. 

Not, it's just that you didn't plan properly for the launch. in a failed launch. I really don't think there is such a thing as a failed launch. Absolutely. Of course, we're all going to be looking at the numbers, how many people have signed up for it, how much money we've made for it. And so, of course, it's disheartening. I'm not ballistic that at all. Of course, it's disheartening, but there's always something positive that you can take away as a win from that launch. It's like with negative feedback, isn't it? It's always a way to learn to take that feedback on board learn from it and move forward. And so, yeah, there's lots of other things. You kind of grown your mailing list. You kind of just learnt what works because it depends on your audience as to what kind of launch you use as well. So you can take those learnings. Maybe it was, as you said, it might have been the launch itself, the launch style. A challenge isn't suited or a masterclass isn't suited. So there's always something to win. from a launch. 

Exactly. And I think that's where your data comes in, isn't it? The more you log and record in terms of your launch, the more you can see where things worked, didn't work, what you did, what you need to do more of. So yeah, but people are very scared of data, aren't they? They're very scared of data. 

Yeah, it's not always the best thing to see. It's not. It's not. It is. It's boring. It can be hard to kind of work out where to find these figures, what kind of figures you're looking at. And again, if the figures are lower than what you were hoping for, it can be disheartening. But it is still a learning curve. You can see if you follow the figures through right from the start of the planning all the way through, you can kind of pinpoint where things have stopped and stalled slightly. So, you know, right, that's somewhere that we need to look at. what was wrong with it and what you can then tweak for the next time. So yeah, they're not fun, but they are essential. 

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that goes for lots of things in business in addition to, in addition to launches. So in terms of communities, do you support people who have got a community in terms of things beyond the launch of the community? So I mean, the management of it. Yeah, So tell me a little bit about what that looks like. 

Absolutely. So, I mean, obviously, there is a community side that goes with launches if you are running, say, for example, like a challenge group, or you might have a pop-up community for a launch. So, yeah, so they're like you kind of one-off communities. But yes, I also support with ongoing communities, whether they're Facebooks or Mighty Networks or Heartbeat. So there's all your ongoing communities. communities. Yeah, I'm in those as well. So I'll be there making sure everyone's playing nice, making sure everyone has access to the resources they need, questions getting answered. I'm supporting one of my clients today with they've got a masterclass later on. So I'm supporting on the masterclass. So I'm in there co-hosting, making sure people are admitted, going into the chat, making sure again, everyone has the answers. So yeah, just again, general managing the community. Of course, the client's in there doing their zone of genius, but there's some things that they don't need to be doing, like the scheduling and the posts and what have you, and just putting links in comments and that kind of thing. So I can help with that side of the running the community as well. 

Which helps to take away that stress, doesn't it? When you talk about helping people with a stress-free launch, it's things like that, isn't it? You know, you're trying to deliver your best possible masterclass or your best possible, you know, challenge, whatever it is. And in the meantime, you're thinking, oh, I need to share a link. Oh, I need to let somebody in. Oh, you've just spoken. Can I mute them? And all of those little things, the things that can take you off your zone of genius, aren't they? 

That's it. Yeah. And it can really throw you as well. It's like, what was I talking about? So yeah, it can really throw you. So absolutely, if you've got somebody in the background, as you say, admitting people into the call, making sure questions are answered or noted, posted links, social proof, there's so much social proof that can go on in the chats in communities as well. And we all need that social proof to help our businesses go on. So yeah, so I can be there capturing all of that throughout the whole thing as well. And again, within the community itself. 

Yeah, which is super, super important. I think these are all the things that when people say the launch didn't go the way they want it to go are probably things that have hindered them or they haven't thought about or they haven't realised or they've tried to string and sellotape it. So I love that. Do you help people within their membership? So if you've got an established membership, do you help them in terms of the membership management as well? 

Yeah, I class that all under the kind of community umbrella. So yeah, absolutely. In the memberships again, so again, I'm supporting all the calls, I'm making sure Things like if there's things that need sending out to members, they all get sent out. If members have queries with login details or payments or anything like that, yes, it's me that deals with all that kind of thing. So yeah, all the kind of admin-y background kind of it, just making sure it's all ticking over nicely, everyone's happy. 

And that's important with a membership, isn't it? Because with memberships, it's the churn rate can be quite high, can be not with everybody's, but it can, it's can be quite high. So actually doing everything you can within your membership to keep everybody happy and to make sure everybody's got access to everything that they need. And they're given the links for launching in it for trainings or whatever else is going on within the membership. I think that can be the difference between your membership becoming a burden and your membership actually being something that grows without you having to really. do a lot as the owner if you've got somebody else doing the real work for you. Yeah. 

Exactly. And it's kind of time sensitive as well. If somebody has a query within your membership, whether it's a concern or even if it's just a simple question, they don't want to be waiting ages to have that answer. So you want to be making sure that your members are taken care of, they are looked after, you do value them just as much as I value my clients. You value their members as well. Everyone is important. You're grateful to everyone putting their time and devotion and trust in you. So yeah, so it's time sensitive as well with the community service side of things. 

Yeah, absolutely. So what would you say? To somebody who is sitting here at the moment and I don't know, they're about to go into launch, what would you say that your recommendation is if they only do two or three things, what would you suggest that the two or three things that they do are to keep it as stress free as they can? Yes. 

So first of all, I would planning. Planning is huge. And I would plan backwards. So work out when your launch date is going to be. And then plan backwards from that. So this is your launch. We'll go with the challenge. So it's a week-long challenge. And you want to do 2 weeks before that of promotions. And then you want to factor in, I say, good, three to six months of properly warming your audience and getting them to know you, getting them to align with you, and then slowly introducing the services that you do as well. So yeah, so planning. but plan backwards would be one thing. Again, majorly, get your audience. Grow an audience. You can have the bestest product or service in the whole wide world, but if nobody's in your area, if nobody knows about you, nobody's going to know about what it is, and you know that you have something that can help them. But if you're singing to crickets, it's It's such a shame. 

It is a shame, isn't it? is a shame. And when that happens, I think there's this assumption, isn't it, that it's always the offer that's the problem. You assume that it's the wrong offer rather than actually it's how I put it out there, how I communicated it, or the fact that I've got nobody in my audience that actually wants this particular product or service. So what you see then is they just go and I'll just do another offer and I'll do the exact same process again. That's it. Sorry, go on. 

Sorry, I was going to say as well on that, if you do research as well, so not only are you like growing your audience, but do the research, what they actually want in the 1st place. And you can do that in lots of ways. You can do it like on your socials with polls and you can do, you can have like little focus groups. So yes, there's lots of ways to do the research to make sure that what it is that you're wanting to put out there is actually needed and wanted at the time as well. 

Yeah, love that. Research is really important, isn't it? Make sure we're offering what it is that people actually want from us. So my little brain can't now remember the question I was going to ask before, because that's how Emma's brain works. It's like when it's in there, it's got to come straight out. It's got to come straight out. So I'm going to throw something, a different question at you. So if the other one comes to me, I'll write it down so I don't forget it again. So for people who are who have got the audience, they've built the audience, they're ready to do this launch. What would your biggest tip be to that community of people who are, like I say, they've got the audience, they've got the offer to help them make their launch as stress-free as it can. 

I would say, think about who they are as well, because you want to match the right launch style. to the right audience. And you also want to match the launch style to your energy as well. So for example, if you're a quite quiet, slower energy person yourself, you're probably not going to want to do a high vibe challenge, where you've got to be doing lives every single day and going in and really keeping that vibe up. So you might want to think of a smaller launch style. And likewise, if you have Possibly if you're launching something to a corporate audience, again, they're probably not going to be suited to a challenge either. They're just going to want to come along to something like a masterclass. So yeah, I would think once you've got the audience, have a think about what it is that you're wanting to sell, what product or service you're wanting to sell. Have a think about who that audience is that you're wanting to sell to. and have a think about you and your personality and what you like doing, what you don't like doing, and piece the three together. And that way you can make sure that you're also getting the correct launch style, which gives you that optimum chance of selling to more people. 

And I think that's a really important point, isn't it, that there is not just one right way or best way to actually launch your product and service. That is very much driven by who you're launching it to and what you were launching as well, isn't it? 

That's it, absolutely. There's so many different launches. There's summits, there's masterclasses, webinars, workshops, just a really soft e-mail launch. So there's multiple and they can be on the small size. They don't always have to be the massive, amazing launches that we see. They can just be the smaller ones as well. So yeah, absolutely. There's so many different launches to suit different people and audiences. 

Exactly. It's determining what's success for your launches, isn't it, as well? You know, it isn't for everybody. It's not the... 2 million, 3 million, 100,000 pound launch. It's not for everybody, is it? That's not necessarily what everybody want from a launch. And it might vary from product to product and service to service that even the same person is launching in terms of how they do it. 

That's it, absolutely. Yeah, there's so many, so many different things to consider. And as you say, it's what do you want from this launch yourself? Are you just looking, are you just looking to grow your e-mail list? sometimes. There's not really a high ticket that you're trying to make money back on. It might be just that you just want to widen your audience and grow your e-mail list, or it could be absolutely that you are looking to make a few million from it. So yeah, it's what do you want to make? 

Yeah, Do you find that people come to you and say, Carol, just tell me what I need to do. Tell me what the best launch is that I need to get out there. Is that what people do? 

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm not, what I would say to them is I'm not a launch strategist. I am a launch manager. So I don't come in and like plan their whole launch right from the beginning. What I generally do is I manage, I oversee the launch. So I make sure deadlines have been hit. I make sure everyone knows what they're doing and when they're doing it by. I make sure I do the proofreading. I oversee the launch, kind of like project management. I do advise all the way through because obviously I have been doing this for so long. I do. I can see what works. You've seen a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll advise of best practices throughout, plug any gaps, take all the stuff off their plate that they don't need to be doing or they don't want to do. So it's more taking their plans. and working with their plans, but tweaking their plans and advising on them as we go along, as opposed to the initial building their plans in the 1st place. If that makes sense. 

Absolutely makes sense. Absolutely makes sense. And there's a need for both, isn't there? You know what I mean? You need to have your plan in place, but then have somebody else to go and implement it for you is, in my opinion, sounds like heaven. Absolute sounds like it sounds like heaven. So would you say there's a lot, there's a lot of talk, isn't there about, you know, things are changing, launches are different? different. Have you seen that and experienced that in your job? Yeah. 

It's coming, it's becoming harder. There's a lot of mistrust out there now, I think, and because there's so many, there's so many different launches going on and there's so many people offering the same services. So yeah, this is where personal brand is becoming a lot bigger. It's better for people to get to know you as a person, to align with what you love, what you hate, what your reasons are behind what you're doing. So yeah, personal brand is huge. Games, making things more fun as well. That's become quite a big thing as well. So putting in those little games for people to play, the little challenges, whoever brings in the most people get surprised, the most engaged, get surprised, that kind of thing. So Yes, those two things have definitely become more. 

Yeah, I think trust is really important right now, isn't it? people have got to trust who they're buying from, which again, comes right back to your very early point that says you need to be planned and prepared to make sure that you're doing this right. Because people aren't going to buy if they haven't got that trust and confidence in you yet. 

Again, yeah, and taking that time, as I say, it takes a good three to six months to be to be building that audience and making them know about you and warm into you. Yeah, it's not it's not just an overnight thing. So yeah, it's all it's all in that planning. 

Absolutely, absolutely. So what's next for Carol? What's next for you in terms of your own growth? 

I am thinking of building my own community. 

Wow, love that. 

I haven't, yeah, so this is going to be, so I'm in the research stages myself. So as to whether it's going to be a community to help people with their communities. or whether it's going to be a community for people to come in and have a think about their launches and help them with their launches as well. I'm not quite sure. So I'm going to be doing my own research on that, finding out where's the bigger demand. I might see if I can merge the two, but I think it'd be easier to keep them separate. So yeah, I want to be able to help more people. And I know there's There's so many people who are just starting out, they're just at the start and they want to do this community and they want to do this launch, but they're struggling with building the audience or they're struggling with funds to do the bigger launches. So I want to, and they struggle with knowing what to do as well. So yes, I really want to try and help more people with that side of things as well in a group setting. 

Love that. Look forward to seeing where that takes you and what that actually looks like. Okay, so we're running out of time. But at the end of every episode, I like to ask my guests to share with us a top tip. So what would your top tip for our listeners be? 

I think it has to be the planning. It really does have to be the planning and plan backwards from your launch day. I think if you, what is it, if you fail to plan, then plan to fail. But plan and allow for contingency plans as well. Things go wrong. We're human, tech gets in the way sometimes. So allow a bit of time in your plans for if things ever go wrong as well. But planning? 

Planning, contingency, love that. Tech goes wrong. Oh yes, and guaranteed it's going to go wrong during a launch, isn't it? Absolutely, guaranteed. 

Absolutely, absolutely. Again, don't get stressed over it. At the end of the day, BS happens and what have you. So it's how you deal with it. You just have to go, oh, okay, now what we're going to do instead. So yeah, don't get stressed. Don't let it derail you. If you've planned, then you can work on your plan B. So it's all good. 

Absolutely. Love that. Fantastic tips. So finally, Carol, if any of our listeners want to come and learn more about you, where's the best place for them to connect with you? 

Okay, so I'm mainly on either LinkedIn under Carol Sell, or I'm on Instagram, which is under CS Business Support. And that's also my website as well, CS Business Support. 

Amazing. All of that is going to be shared in the show notes for everybody as well. So you can go and there'll be clickable links so you can just go and click straight across to go and find Carol. But Carol, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Oh, thank you so much, Emma. I've had a really good time talking to you. Thank you. 

Amazing. And if anybody needs any support with their launch or their community, go and loop Carol up. But for now, thank you for listening. We will see you next time. 

You have been listening to Dream Business Dream Life with Emma Hine. If you want to know more about how I can help you to build your dream business and your dream life, then visit my website emmehine.co.uk. Until next time remember you really can have it all!