Y’all I’ve never launched a brand before, but in hindsight (and with no basis for comparison) I think that it went extremely well. Starting off on my launch date of Tuesday, April 20, 2021, at least three times a day I thought, “I should write a blog about this.” But alas, I had no time. What many of you wouldn’t have known is that on that first night I hosted a private Zoom launch party for friends, family and professional colleagues. In leading up to the launch date, the lion’s share of my time was spent preparing for that one-hour event: creating and circulating the electronic invitation, producing a PowerPoint presentation, lining up photographers as guests, rehearsing an interview of me by a friend of mine, selecting specific individuals to give a toast and determining how to execute a prize giveaway, among other things. It was obviously a little bit more of an insanely-curated-presentation rather than a “party.” Do please keep in mind, I only learned that my divorce decree was signed on Friday, April 9th on Monday, April 12th. The legal finalization of the marital relationship triggered my freedom to form the company and launch the brand. Long story short – I pulled all of that off in eight days. (You do know that in this same time frame I also created an LLC, got a business checking account, ordered business checks, applied for a business credit card and applied for trademarks, right?)
Since all of the event-planning went towards the Tuesday Zoom prior to launch, after that soiree (which was so, so wonderful and attended by so many amazing people) I had to devote most of my time to 1.) My YouTube series launch on Friday, April 23rd and 2.) My first Stud Talk Zoom event with guest Kyle Kuhlman on that same night. The only real lift with YouTube (because the introductory video and first three episodes were already cut and edited) was making sure an e-blast went out to everyone in my new MailChimp database. Y’all, I think I’m up to 63 whole email addresses in my contacts via event sign-ups and website submission. I’m actually extremely proud of that figure. The thing is…for the last decade I’ve been a Constant Contact guy. MailChimp is a foreign language. But, with some testing and YouTube tutorials the e-blast went out perfectly. For Stud Talk, I had to promote it, hustle the tickets, prep Kyle on a practice Zoom, draft the PowerPoint, select which submitted questions to answer, draft the interview questions, and practice. That event did go off without a hitch and Kyle absolutely killed it. Did I mention that I issued two press releases during this same time frame?
So, I didn’t get to a “new” blog until today. I did release “Modern Southern Gentleman” on Wednesday, April 21st but it had been drafted in advance of the launch. And now here we are…and all I’ve done is prattle away on why I haven’t been able to reconnect with y’all. I was never big on making excuses, so I’ll just apologize that it took me so long.
Up to this point I’ve also done my best to not-so-subtly brag on all of my successes. I see how that’s a bit boring and unrealistic, so I’ll also let you know:
- After widely-advertising that Stud Talk had a “capacity” of 40, I had 8 guests;
- After absolutely convincing myself that I’d easily attain 1,000 YouTube subscribers on Day One, right now I’m at 42; and
- On my launch date I did get served with a lawsuit. I promise it’s seriously no big deal and I’ll tell y’all about it another time.
I would like to wrap up this blog by going back to point number two listed above. If you are reading this, hop on over to YouTube now and Subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Y’all this is like a really fast click of a button and it’s not like my YouTube’s gonna be up in your face all the time afterwards. I would personally suggest you do one more thing over there (but subscribing is the priority) and that’s take a screenshot where you can see the number of subscribers. The one I have in my phone says 36. Favorite that image. Don’t delete it. And then one day, when I hit 1,000,000 subscribers, you’ll be able to tell friends and provide evidence that you were my 45th, 51st or 62nd subscriber ever. In the event I only ever reach 100 subscribers, believe me, you’re still going to have an equally delicious laugh and story to tell. So that’s a win-win. Go subscribe.
If you would like to join for Stud Talk this Friday, April 30th featuring John Matthews (IG: @johncmatthews), please click here.
