Make It Visible
You’re full of amazing coaching skills, ideas, and a desire to make a difference, but marketing your coaching biz isn’t your thing?
Meet Michelle, your business bestie who knows exactly how to help coaches like you get seen, get heard, and get paying clients.
No more feeling invisible. Let’s make marketing easy-peasy and magical.
Make It Visible
#216: Behind the Scenes of My Launch: The Good, The Bad & The LOL Moments
If you've ever launched a course, membership, or coaching offer—you already know it’s way more than “build it and they will come.”
In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my most recent launch for Signature Talk Academy—and I’m breaking down the real story: the good, the bad, and the totally LOL.
You’ll hear what worked, what didn’t, what totally threw me off (hello fractured foot 😅), and why I keep launching the way I do—even when life throws curveballs.
Whether you’re prepping for your first launch or refining your fifth, this episode is packed with insight, strategy, and honest reflections to help you stay focused, stay sane, and stay profitable.
Key Takeaways:
- A launch isn’t a “one-and-done”—it’s a system that brings clarity, consistency, and clients
- You need a longer warm-up runway than you think. Trust is built before your cart opens.
- Stay focused on one offer at a time. Too many offers = confused audience.
- Social attention spans are short—build deeper relationships in fewer places (like a Facebook group).
- Life will happen. Build resilience into your process and stay flexible.
- Reuse and repurpose everything. Your future self will thank you.
🔗 Mentioned in This Episode:
🎓 Signature Talk Academy – My group coaching program for coaches ready to speak, get visible, and book clients. (Doors are currently closed, but stay tuned!)
💼 1:1 Coaching with Michelle – Ready for hands-on help with your business and visibility strategy? You don’t have to wait for a launch—this is open year-round!
📩 DM me “1:1” on Instagram or head to elevatelifecoaching.org
📣 Join the Community – Speak to Attract Clients Facebook Group is where I hang out and share exclusive trainings. Join us here: Speak To Attract
❤️ Love this episode?
Send it to a fellow coach or course creator who needs to hear the real talk about launching—and don’t forget to hit follow so you never miss a new episode of Make It Visible.
Drop me a line and share your thoughts!
Meet Your Host:
Hey there! I’m Michelle Kui—Visibility Marketing and Speaker Success Coach.
I’m the founder of Elevate LifeCoaching, where I help coaches like you build a stand-out brand, attract high-quality 5-6 figure clients, and land paid speaking gigs—all by leveraging the #1 most important asset in your business (hint: it’s not JUST social media!).
My Journey into Public Speaking & Visibility
My speaking journey started early—at 9 years old when my dad voluntold me to enter a speech contest (thanks, Dad!). Since then, I became the go-to speaker whenever someone needed a voice on short notice.
From leading corporate workshops to running training sessions, I thrived where most people froze—grabbing the mic while others sat back, hoping not to get called on.
After working with hundreds of coaches, I realized a HUGE missing piece that most entrepreneurs completely overlook—and it’s the #1 strategy top coaches use to grow their business, attract premium clients, and get booked on bigger stages.
Are you using it? If not, let’s change that. 🚀
🐦 SOCIAL STUFF:
Instagram ➔ / elevatelifecoach
Facebook ➔ / coachmichellekuei
Linkedin ➔ ...
Hey coach, welcome to the Make it Visible podcast. I'm your host, michelle Kui, your visibility and speaker success coach and your soon-to-be business bestie. If you're building a coaching business and wondering how to actually get clients to notice you, hire you and say yes, without feeling like you have to glue to the screen, watching out on your social media and posting and chasing and selling all the time, you're in the right place. This podcast is your go-to space for learning how to get seen and get paid and grow a business that you can wake up and you love, without chasing, without selling and definitely without exhausting. Without chasing, without selling and definitely without exhausting Each week. I'm giving you simple strategies to show up with confidence, speak your message and attract high-paying clients without doing all the guesswork, so that you know exactly what is your next best friend. So grab a notebook, pour yourself a favorite drink and let's make your coaching business visible.
Michelle:All right, today we are going to talk about the good and the bad and the LOL. So those of you who's been following me for a while, you probably have watched me launch. You might not know that I'm in a launch unless you've been in the coaching industry for a while and you see how people do it. But essentially what a launch is? Basically, I like to think of it as almost like the election campaign you want people to get excited about something that you have to offer, whether it's a membership, a course, or maybe it's a one-on-one coaching or group coaching whatever that you have to offer for your business. You don't want to just push it out there and then hope for the best, close your eye and hope for the best. That usually doesn't work, and I know that for sure because initially that's what I was doing. I figured oh, I'll just create a workshop and I'll put it out there and people will know about it and people will want to come right Wrong. Comment down below if you have ever done that, where you put out an event and you're thinking that if I create it, I put it out because that's what all these other coaches and speakers are doing. So if I just copy the same strategy, that will work right.
Michelle:No, it actually take a lot more work than just creating it and put it out, and so the way that you actually want to do it appropriately is to create a launch, and launch usually takes 30 days anywhere from 30 days to sometimes 90 days, depending on how big of your package or how much you're charging. If it's smaller offer, obviously it's easier for people to cross people will sign up. But if it's a larger something that involves thousands of dollars, then you definitely want to have a longer, longer period of launch where you guys you should kind of warm up your audience and get to know, so they have an opportunity to get to know you before you offer them or selling them something. If you've been following me, you know that I do these launches, so I do have. This is going to be a long chat. I hope you all know that this is going to be a long chat, but essentially a launch is something that I do throughout the year.
Michelle:So I have two signature programs. One is called Profitable Coach Formula and that program, that course, is really for newer coaches in the beginning of your journey, so maybe around whether you're starting from zero. So this is your first year in your business, up to, I would say, about that first year to the second year mark. And the reason why I created that course is because I know a lot of coaches are still working on clarifying the niche, knowing your brand messaging. So that course, that signature course was designed to help coaches in the beginning of your journey to identify your niche, knowing what you have to offer, and then we get into the first step of creating your social media content or your blog posts and how you are. Your social media content or your blog posts and how you are that's the point where you start to establish, like, exactly where you want to take off on the next journey. So that's the profitable coach formula and that's one of my signature course. So if you've been following me for a while, you probably saw me launching it a couple of times in the last couple of years. And then this time I have a second signature course and which is it's not really a course, it's a group coaching. So I do this group coaching live, where it's not a recording that I send you and go and watch the video.
Michelle:So the second signature offer that I have, which you saw me launching it, it's the Signature Talk Academy. So it's a live group coaching program where I walk coaches who would like to have a speaking, leverage, your speaking skills, as part of their visibility strategy. So you could be podcast, webinar, doing workshops and you could be getting paid as a speaker through this program, because what I'm essentially helping you to do is creating that signature talk inside the program and showing you exactly where you need to pitch to either get paid or to actually book more paying clients from the talk itself. So that's my second signature program that I have launched. I launched throughout the year a couple of times throughout the year. If you miss this round, there's usually depending on which one I'm going to offer, it might be a different signature program that I'm going to launch the next time around. And then I have the one-on-one coaching, where I don't do a launch. It's basically available throughout the year that anyone can jump in at any time, and so that's my program, and the launch was recently to the Signature Talk Academy Now I'm here to talk about.
Michelle:So this is. I have done already 10 launches so far, and so I got a lot of experience. I wouldn't say that I'm a launch expert, because some of the launch experts that I have connection with they've done like thousands of launches through their whole entire journey in their career, so I'm still a little tiny baby compared to what they are launching right throughout their entire career. Now I'm here to share from a perspective of I have done this, I created strategies and I followed the blueprint, and here's what I have done this I created strategies and I followed the blueprint, and here's what I have learned. So the good thing is that if you are someone who's creating a membership, who's doing a course, who would like to have group coaching, or even with your one-on-one program, I would highly encourage you to consider it, creating a plan and the reason why I do launch is because it gives you a plan in terms of what you're going to do throughout the year. So the good thing is, I have the plan of when I'm going to do what throughout the year.
Michelle:A couple of years ago, we actually my mastermind member actually we got together inside the same room in November and that one weekend it's the first week of November and I'm planning to have that mastermind retreat again this year. If you'd like to join us, you might want to mark down the time, the timeframe. I am going to opening up to more people this year and it's going to be on the first week of November, on the weekend, and we get away for two days, right, and we sit in the same room and we map out exactly what we're going to do the following year and the reason why I hosted that mastermind retreat was because I know this is something that I do for myself. So throughout the year, I would think about what I am going to launch and I map it out on my calendar so that I know exactly when I am supposed to be doing something. Now, if you're someone who is in that middle of oh, I got one-on-one coaching, but I also like to have group coaching, or I'm creating a course what you want to do is you want to start thinking about okay, so I got one-on-one coaching, but I also like to have group coaching, or I'm creating a course. What you want to do is you want to start thinking about okay, so I got all these going on what do I want to focus on this quarter?
Michelle:So the good thing about my launch that came out with was the fact that, because I had very strategically broken down in when I am going to do certain things, I had a clear direction of what needs to be done next. So, my first quarter when I first brought out this Signature Talk Academy my first quarter, my first launch I got most of what I needed for that first quarter right In. Just within a week I enrolled how many. I think I have four students in that first time around, and so that first launch allowed me to set my tone for almost my whole entire quarter. So I didn't have to scrambling around and wondering, okay, so where's my next clients going to come from Financially? Do I have what it takes in order to get rid of all these burden and stress for my first quarter, scrambling around and wondering, okay, so where's my next client going to come from financially? Do I have what it takes in order to get rid of all these burden and stress for my first quarter.
Michelle:So that was a good thing, and this is something that I learned from my mentor coach, and he said that if you're going to plan on doing anything, you wanted to make sure and especially throughout the year and beginning of the year, if you're going to launch, you wanted to make sure that in the beginning of the year and beginning of the year, if you're going to launch, you want to make sure that in the beginning of the year, you just hit the ground running right. That first initial month is going to be very tough. You have to put everything together, but once you get the clients coming in and you are financially secure within that first quarter. Then you can relax a little bit for at least a good month or two, so that you don't have to worry about, oh, where's my next client going to come from. And that's the beauty, and that's the good thing that I have learned from that first launch. And this is just one of the launch. So I'm giving you an example of that, the good thing that happened from beginning of the year, and the same thing that goes with this recent launch. I was also able to get new clients and I don't have to worry about, oh, what am I going to do for the next 60 days or 90 days? And so I have that clear blueprint and I also know specifically what topic or program. I have my notes here so that I don't miss out anything. So I also know what topic and specific program that I want to focus on, to talk about and to promote.
Michelle:If you have a one-on-one coaching program and a membership and a course, which one do you focus first? And that's what happens when you have too many things going on and you're trying to figure out which one do I talk about first. So the idea is, if you're going to pick one thing to launch, drop in the comment. Do you have a course? Do you have a membership? What is it that you have in mind that you would like to launch? If you don't have enough one-on-one clients, then you might want to just focus on okay.
Michelle:So when I do launch, I'm going to focus on my one-on-one program. That's all I'm going to talk about. So stop going around and talking about everything else. Or I'm going to talk about workshop, I'm going to talk about X, y and Z. So don't do that, right, because you don't want your audience to be confused. What are you offering right now? So you want to be focusing on just one program that I'm going to promote in the next 60 days or 90 days, whatever that timeframe that you choose, but focus, just talking about that. And so that's what I have learned and that's also what I did.
Michelle:So, if you remember back in, what is it Right now? We're in April, so I started this launch sometime in end of March. I usually have a 30 dayday launch period and I start talking about what's coming up, and so if you go back to my social, you'll notice that a lot of what I talk about towards the end of March is all geared towards speaking engagement, getting onto the stage, getting onto podcasts, getting booked. A lot of that is about what's coming up for the course. So the idea is you want to stay focused, right, and that was a good thing that I got out of. I was very focused and this way it helps my content creation. I don't have to go scrambling around and trying to figure out what do I create, what do I talk about, and I can just focus on creating content. So that was also a good thing.
Michelle:The other good thing that came out of my launch is I created assets, so some of the emails I can reuse, I can repurpose. Some of the social media posts I can also reuse and repurpose. And some of the things that didn't really land very well with myself, like some of the what do you call that? The testimonial client review? It didn't play out. It didn't sprinkle out the way that I want it. So I'm going to go back and go and look at it again and see how I can better and bring it out, spread it out through my process. But essentially I created all these graphic, I created videos for these, so I can go back and reuse them again for my future launch. So one of the, and another great thing that came out of this launch is that I created these assets that I can reuse and repurpose anytime. I want to do it again.
Michelle:Those are the good things and the bad thing. Here we are. We're talking about the bad now, okay. So the bad thing is right, and the bad thing was I was fighting against a lot of attention. You think that fighting being out social is about fighting against the noise during the lodge. You're fighting against more, more attention, attention that just take you away, take your audience away from listening to you. So you can have great content but, depending on what's going on in the world, your audience might be tired of all the BS that's on social. Your audience might be exhausted from hearing all the negative, so they tune out from their email, from their social media, from just getting themselves exposed to all the things that they don't want to hear. And that includes your social media posts, that includes your video, that includes the time or the email that you send them.
Michelle:So the bad was that I don't know if you guys remember, but back in late March, in April, I was fighting a tension with the tariffs. That's when the tariffs began and there was a lot of fear and hesitation about where the egg prices, right, grocery pricing going up, and it's just ridiculous that everybody were talking about it. There's a lot of fear and people are just tired of hearing the negativity on social. And so if your business is depending on social and depending on your email, guess what the bad would be? People are not checking their email anymore, people are not on social anymore, and so they tuned you out. They tuned you out. They're not intentionally. My, my people still come and check me out on social, right, they still love to come and follow me and on social because I do a Christmas countdown. But besides just that, when I'm in that lounge, I only have a week, a period, where I'm keeping this open. Now, if you decide to tune me out or you don't want to be on social during that period of time, then that's a big loss for me and there's no way to get the attention back. And so that was a bad thing, because there was a lot of uncertainty. There was a lot of things and negativity that's just floating around about the tariffs, about the pricing increase, about the inflation that we're experiencing. So a lot of these social instability is going to impact how your launch is going to come out. So that was one of the bad things.
Michelle:The other bad thing is that what I have learned is that a lot of us, we go through these masterminds and we go through these masterclasses of training, live training and social media. We're able to pull up a lot of resources for ourselves, including myself. A lot of times, if I need to look for information for something, then I just go to Google and I start Googling and the bad is that because there's such an information overload these type of information unless you have a way of standing yourself out, then that relationship that you're building with your potential client, you're going to need to have a better way of making connection with them. So the bad is that a lot of the newer clients who don't know much about you or who come across your social, who is getting your email for the very first time, they're not going to be your buyer right. So that relationship is going to require a longer period of time to build.
Michelle:So what's not working? What's not working is in the past, where there's a lot of coaches are just going to launch and then they are able to see people signing up right away. So the client retention time has been longer and this video I'm doing this because it actually came from one of my clients who reached out to me in a text and then she was asking hey, michelle, I'm launching something in in May. What's working and what's not working? What should I avoid? So here's my sound advice okay, if you're gonna, if you're gonna launch for membership or course or one-on-one or whatever that you're going to offer, what my suggestion to you and based on what I have learned from my own launch is that you want to start building the relationship with whoever that you're serving.
Michelle:Long, long, long time ago Okay, long, long time ago, because now people are tired of BS. People are very tired of BS and people are very tired of the things that we all know. You're going to sell me at the end of the day. So, if you're going to sell me, at least do show up and care about me, and so you want to make sure that you build that relationship early on. So, whatever that you're doing, do not expect that someone can't come across your social media posts and someone just come across with you for the very first time and they're going to buy something from you.
Michelle:No, the trust needs to be earned, and you really need to get your hands dirty and putting the work and making sure that you show up for you, for them and by yourself. Okay. So, if you want their business, you better show up with them, and that's how you earn their trust, because nowadays there's a lot of, like I said, people just tired of this bs that's going on, and so the trust needs to be earned. And how do you earn that trust? You build a longer relationship with them, okay. So you gotta take your time, you gotta show up for them and you gotta do everything that you can and be there for them, and that's how you earn their trust. Be helpful, be supportive, be available, and this is something that I know is true, and I think one of the one of the praises that I got from one of my clients this recently, from the recent launch, and it really hit me hard, right, because what she said was oh, I love the fact that you're always available to me, and that was like a big sign and big ringing in my ear, right, because then, oh, that's working, right, obviously, my availability to them. That was important. Okay, so I'm going to use that for my next launch and make sure that I am there, available for you. And so that's what I also learned the good from the bad, because it takes longer to build that relationship, it takes longer to earn somebody's trust, and so those are the things that I have learned. Now the lol, so you know, happens I got to take a sip of water for this.
Michelle:So life happened, the week that I closed the enrollment to the signature talk, I actually discovered that I have a hairline fracture on my foot. I had a hairline fracture on my foot and it was really painful to walk around. And I am someone who's very active. I like going to the gym, I like moving around and I like to stand when I'm doing live videos and things like that. So that last week, that last couple of days when I was closing the car, I was in pain. When I that last couple of days when I closing the car, I was in pain, I was in pain sitting here with my foot up. You can't really see it, but I had my foot up and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. Good thing you know my job does not require me to go around and moving around and jumping around, because there's no way I can do that right now. That was a funny thing that had happened during that week. It was I was struggling with a hairline fracture and plus there's a lot of things that's going on with my parents. So my parents, they live with me and so they're very that that week my dad came down with the cold and so it was just not a happy moment for me.
Michelle:So when, so I can totally. What I'm saying is, I can totally relate to you when things are not going well and you're feeling stressful and you're feeling that you wanted to do this, you wanted to do this right. But that mental struggle, that mental resilience is so important, and for me I was fortunate because it was towards the end of my launch. But had it happened in the beginning of the launch, I wouldn't. I don't know what I'm going to do. Let's just put it that way I don't know what I'm going to do. So those are the good, the bad and also the LOL.
Michelle:So, overall, what I have learned from this launch. So my first quarter was all done. So I I did a five-figure launch in case you're curious, I did a five-figure launch just for the first quarter and that allowed me to take a breather for my next couple of months to to focus on the things I need to fix right, fixing some and tidying up some of the loose end and going through what I have learned from the previous two launches. I'm able to better my email. I can create better video. I can have a better way of supporting my members right. You'll see me more active now a day in the Speak to Attract community inside the Facebook group, because that's one of the ways that I have learned that I need to focus and finding a way to continue that relationship with all of you inside the community, and so you'll notice I'm getting more active inside the group.
Michelle:A lot of the things that I put out or share is going to be exclusive for the group. So if you have not joined the group, go and join the group. Right, Speak to or attract Facebook group. Go and speak to the group. That was another thing that I've learned is that if you're planning on starting a group, don't divide out the energy. Put everybody in the same group together. Don't divide out the energy. Put everybody in the same group together. And that was one of the bad I had done over the years, over the 10 launches is I divided into different groups and I divided people from different places and different programs. But in reality, if you're going to do this, learn from my lessons and just bring everybody into the same group. I'll go into that another day in another detail, but the reason why you want to keep everybody in the same group everywhere is because then you have your past clients, who share their wins, share what they have learned, also being there as your testimonial in order to keep that engagement going. And so that's a lesson that I have learned, especially from the last two launches, and that's why you'll see me tweaking my strategy a little bit, moving forward.
Michelle:I don't have any launch, I don't have any program to enroll at the moment. What I do have is a one-on-one coaching. So you'll see me talking more about the one-on-one coaching offer that I have, but that is something that you can jump in any time of the year, and if you have any questions, please let me know, drop into the comment, let me know how I can support you, how I can help you for the success of your launch. Okay, coach, that's a wrap for today's episode.
Michelle:If this got your wheels turning, helped you to see things a little differently, or maybe you're feeling like, yes, I needed this. Go ahead and send it to another coach who can use this too. And hey, if you're tired of wondering where your next client is coming from and you're ready to get visible with intention, come check out my monthly membership community. Speak your Way to Clients. It's where we meet for coaching, feedback and visibility strategies so you can land more speaking gigs, grow your audience and find more paying clients with confidence. Head over to elevatelifecoachingorg. Click on the tab community to learn more. I'm so glad you're here, my friend. Keep showing up, keep sharing your message and I will see you in the next episode.
