How I Developed 60 Days of Content Ideas for a $46k Program Launch (and How You Can Too)

A little over a week ago, I launched my program, Sell Your First 1,000 Books on LinkedIn. 95 authors enrolled. Hitting $46,000, it is the biggest single program launch of my career.

I cried more than twice over it because I was so overcome with joy. And I'm not telling you that to solicit goosebumps. I'm telling you that because after 10 years of launches, watching everything line up and take off is a point of professional validation I still can't properly articulate.

What I can articulate — in painstaking, steal-this-please detail — is the content plan behind it.

Because this launch was never an “it’s coming!” then "doors are open!" post. It was months of methodically phased content, and every phase had a specific job and then pushed the next phase into action, compounding in critical ways. Here's each phase, the receipts, and a to-do so you can run the same play for your launch (but more importantly so I write and study my own retro for the next one).

(Ok, fine…a major zoom.)

The launch didn't start with the program. It started with a bet.

I built a 50k following over 16 years writing about personal branding. And I announced, in front of all of them, that I was putting it all on black: zooming in massively on helping people write and sell books as thought leaders on LinkedIn.

I was careful to frame this as a zoom, not a departure. I'd spent years teaching people to build their brands on LinkedIn — now I was focusing on the people building that brand in service of a book, and the speaking and consulting that a book unlocks.

And this wasn't just a “market-research-brained” move. I ran an agency built on bestseller campaigns. I'm the unofficial commissioner of my book club. I am wildlyyyyy passionate about the art of long-form writing surviving the short-circuiting of our content and our brains.

That one announcement post drove 172 clicks to my waitlist. Before I'd taught a single thing.

Your to-do: Look at your brand as it stands today. How could a new program or service underscore a position you already hold, or refine one? A launch that deepens your story will always beat one that interrupts it.

(People root for the underdog. Be the underdog.)

"Sign up for my program" is boring.

"Watch me do this big scary thing out loud, and I'll keep you posted on how it's going" is a show. And everyone tunes in for an underdog story. In this case: me and my ambition vs. the fear of failure — an opponent every single person reading has faced, which means every single person reading is rooting with you and for you against it.

So a week after the announcement, I reported back: 3 viral statuses, DMs pouring in, 75+ people waitlisted in 3 days. That update pulled another 400+ reactions and kept the flywheel spinning.

Your to-do: Name the enemy of your launch. Is it the fear of failure? The way things have always been done? "The man"? (That last one is why every "I quit my fancy corporate job to chase the dream" story does numbers. Half your audience wishes they could do the same, and they will cheer loudly for the person who did.)

With the story running, I layered in the content that converts.

I set up a big LinkedIn Live — then talked about the Live and its climbing registrant count. (Again: give. your. audience. updates. 👏) I shared case-study posts, like the author with 6,000 followers who outsold one with 900,000. I penned deep-dive articles. I posted quick videos and statuses answering the exact questions I knew were keeping authors up at night — how to sell books and how to get paid to keynote with them. Which, conveniently, is exactly what the program does.

(I will die on this hill.)

Mine was live for about 4 weeks before cart open, and here's why I'll evangelize waitlists forever:

• You can see who's most interested and connect with them directly. I DMed every single person on my waitlist about the Live and other key moments. Every. Single. One.
• You can offer bonuses that reward the early birds. My VIP track, capped at 20 seats, came straight from watching the waitlist swell.
• And — you can report on the momentum of the waitlist itself. The waitlist becomes its own content. It's launches all the way down.

By the time I closed it: 200+ registrants.

Cart open got the "celebrate an occasion" post — a theme you'll notice across everything I write. TODAY'S THE DAY energy. And listen, I was sweating bullets that morning. In the first 3 hours, close to 30 authors enrolled. The VIP bonus sold out in 5.

Ummm. Unreal.

Every time we hit our next swath of 10 authors, I got loud about it. I also shared how I was feeling before pre-launch hype calls with the folks already enrolled — one of those posts went viral on a Friday and led to roughly 20 more sign-ups.

From one status. On a Friday. I still can't fully process that one.

(It kept growing anyway.)

We closed the cart Sunday night, 8/30, at midnight. At 8 p.m., I saw 88 authors in the program and was so overwhelmed I posted about it on the spot. In the 4 hours after that post? 7 more authors joined. A 95-person launch.

And the kicker: the waitlist for the next cohort picked up 22 authors in a single day after we closed.

Hours and hours of methodical phase planning. (I know. Sexy.)

The linchpin was knowing exactly which questions were twisting authors in knots — so my conversion content answered real anxieties instead of what I assumed people wanted. For that, I used Stanley to scour Reddit threads, LinkedIn threads, and Instagram land for the top questions authors were asking over and over. Once I had those, I had Stanley bottle it all up and text me ideas and a schedule. The conversion content then wrote itself because of how clear the pain points were, and the promo updates layered in around it.

On September 22md, I hosted a workshop on how to schedule 60 days of content ideas that build anticipation for your product or service using Stanley, for anyone who wanted the deeper dive.

​You can watch the replay here​

​And grab the accompanying workbook here​

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