Category: authority

The New Reality of the Course Empire

The New Reality of the Course Empire

Transcript

We are talking about courses.


And as I was putting together the workbook for it, which has about seventeen pages of scattered thoughts, it occurred to me that the reason it feels so scattered is because, the course world is different today than it was a month ago than it was a year ago and definitely than it was five years ago.


So I don’t want to put together a workbook that, is actually not based on what’s really going on right now. So I thought let’s have a discussion about it, because I know there are people in this room who work with course graders who have their own courses, and who are thinking of grading a course and wondering if that’s the right thing to do. So, this is more of a discussion today if that’s cool with y’all. So please bring your best experience, your best ideas, what you know to the conversation, and we can talk about that.


Now the bigger question when people talk about putting a course together, it’s typically a second part of their existing business, which is fair, but it does mean you’re now spread across two different business models, which is tricky. So you’ve got your, you know, service based business. Great. And then you have this other digital product business, which used to be great because you could honestly say, like, we’re just going to sell it in the background and just keep generating passive actual passive, income from it.


And, the passive income is kind of gone now. Not entirely gone, but it’s not what it was. It’s not it’s not at all what it was.


And I think there’s lots of reasons for that. And if anybody has any thoughts and wants to chime in, please feel free to.


But, obviously, there’s a lot of crap out there.


And then there are a lot of good options too, like, really great, strong, well produced options that, yeah, feel different, might not be as great with instruction, but I’m thinking of, you know, the stuff that Coursera puts together, and things like that. I don’t take it, but I know that people in teams in particular do take it, take the stuff over there. It’s also very affordable, compared to what most of us the rest of us do with our thousand to five thousand dollar courses that we put out.


So there’s a lot going on. Right? Anybody Anybody can make a course right now. It’s very difficult to tell if the course is any good or not before you get into it.


It requires a lot.


ChatGPT is our number one referral source right now, for people who buy copy school without having even heard of us before.


So a lot of people have typically come to us from our own ecosystem, and great.


But I’m quite surprised by what ChatGPT is doing for our business. One part destroying it, one part building it. So it’s a weird I’ve got a weird relationship with ChatGPT.


So but all that to say, when you’re thinking of building a course today, just like any content that you’re thinking about today, we are trying to increase our authority service area with LLMs, all the AI world out there, and with Google. So still worrying about search engine optimization, but also worrying about GEO. So all of this this other space where generative AI is telling your next client that they should go with your competitor.


So that’s something that we need to be thinking about when we’re doing everything, but absolutely when we’re putting together a digital product as well. Because the service obviously has a lot of friction to get into it. Right? Do I want to hire you for this versus I have someone on my team who should be doing this work?


Can you just teach them how to do it? And, of course, that’s where your course comes in.


So what does ChatGPT care about when they’re recommending? Because it’s going to be important as you put a course together or whatever your offer is. What do they what does ChatGPT care about? And that means what content should you be putting out where in order to promote your course. So you can see how.


I didn’t even expect, a year ago, of course, to be talking about how courses and ChatGPT are working together right now or how Reddit is a big influencer for ChatGPT or Wikipedia as well. You’re supposed to have a Wikipedia page now. So in order for you to even consider selling a course, you need to already have a stronger authority surface area in place. And then the question is, well, given that courses are very difficult right now to move people on unless they’re really affordable and small.


And typically, we’re hearing also supported by a human. So people still want someone to check-in with all the time. So this passive income thing isn’t what it was because you have to actively participate in running a course now, which you didn’t have have to do for the longest time. So what do we do with that?


Now I wanna bring this to y’all and kind of open the floor before I propose what to do with that.


I wanna open the floor and hear those who have courses.


What’s working, what’s not working for you? If you wanna share it. I don’t see why you wouldn’t wanna share it. But if you don’t, that’s okay. But if you do anybody?


Yeah. I’ll I’ll definitely share. Do you just mean, like, with my course business or what my clients are seeing?


Or Sure. Whatever, like, whatever feels, like, relevant to the idea of how do I build a course today, or should I build a course today? Yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. So what I was seeing kind of last year was well, bay basically, in terms of buying behaviors, I’m seeing that people if people don’t buy now, I think it’s, like, ninety percent. If people don’t buy now, they’re, like, beyond recovery after a month, like, ninety percent of people.


So, people it’s, like, about getting people to make a fast decision, but in order to do that, there’s definitely a price cap. So last year, I was looking at, like, a two thousand dollar price cap, whereas this year, it’s more like twelve hundred. So like if you’re gonna create a digital product I think it needs to be like around the thousand dollar mark, because you need to be able to sell it. Like from the moment people sign up for your webinar, like they’re gonna make a decision very quickly.


And then but you’re not gonna make money really off that. So it would then be if you have a higher ticket offer or a mastermind, to seed that into because people are only seem to really be buying those if they’re either getting on a sales call or they’ve already bought from you already. So that’s kind of how I’m seeing it all work together. So, they my clients that are making the most money have, like, a five thousand dollar offer that they’re selling through, through a call or like a five hundred dollar offer that they’re selling with Day one Evergreen and then that feeds into like a high ticket system.


So, yeah, that’s what I’m seeing. In terms of my own course, like, I’m not really doing much with it, but it is fully passive because it’s five hundred dollars and people just, like, hit me on a podcast or something and buy it. So I’m making, like, two k a month from it, which isn’t great, but, like, it’s nice because I can just put that that, like, high as a social media manager. So yeah.


Cool. Thank you.


Okay. So just to sum up what I’ve heard about the course world, for you is keep prices down lower than they used to be. And if they’re higher, have a sales call.


Yeah. Or if they’re higher, like, make them much higher with a community aspect.


Otherwise, keep it lower, but make sure that it seeds into something higher because, like, especially if you’re running ads. Like, it’s just they don’t stand alone in the way that they used to.


Yeah. Yeah. Nikki?


I just wanted to share share.


Mhmm.


When I was looking for someone to audit my podcast, I saw all sorts of different interesting programs that people were pitching me on and all that kind of thing.


And one interesting model that I saw was this kind of, like, high touch slash do it yourself program where they took the course that they already created and clearly were, like, previously selling for, like, two thousand dollars. And now it was, like, sitting inside this program where it’s now a, like, eight to ten ks program where like there’s like this accountability and like one on one calls but then you’re like handed off like let’s say once a month but you’re handed off to like the content in the courses. So like there’s the accountability because you have to check-in with the calls but there’s also, like, the passive content that, like, you’re not, like, left alone for, like, these one month periods of time. Yeah. So it’s just, like, an interesting model to see.


And then for myself, I was kind of thinking about, like, the community model where you’re kind of filling the room with I mean, I don’t know how to do this, but I was just like, it would be cool and it could work well if you’re filling the room with, like, a lot of smart people that like to share and help each other.


There’s a lot of value in that and then, like, once a month workshops. So, like, it can be low ticket, but also high touch person to person. Mhmm. So I was just thinking about that.


Yeah. And that’s funny because, over the years, we’ve for copy school, when teams have come to us, they rarely buy without having a conversation with us. Like, they don’t even go through our Sam card. Like, it’s just happening, with sales calls and, Stripe invoices. We send them an invoice for the number of seats, etcetera. But they have always wanted what you’re talking about, this hybrid of, yes, we want these on demand programs, but we need a kickoff call. We need check-in calls.


We need goal setting, and we need, like, a timeline with a final call at the end with the option to add on copy reviews and things like that.


So it’s interesting that has been what teams have been looking for for years, but it sounds like you’re saying, Nikki, that’s not just teams. It’s like individuals are expecting to have more of that as well. Is that right? Or was it teams?


That’s what I was saying. Yeah. Like, all these offers now shifting to that. By the way, also, I’ve been running, like, jobs to be done interviews, like, this past two weeks, like trying to figure out my ICP and all that.


And a lot of them were talking about that. Yes.


Like their companies expense these courses and they pay for these seats and like some of them use it, some of them don’t like, but all of them mentioned master class, which I thought was interesting because they were also like they were saying like like it sounded like the previous years were like copy school, CXL, reforge and like now it’s more shifting to like master class and, like, still some of that, but it was just, like, interesting to hear.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Thanks. Myrna.


Yeah. I’m gonna look at it from my client’s perspective, because I’ve had two different clients and and who have been in this whole online educational space at volume.


And what worked before is just not working for a couple of reasons. Time.


They just don’t have time to sit down in a course.


And so they need smaller, digestible kind of courses. So some of the courses that are doing really well are the the the faster courses where you’re getting something that’s very real world applicable very quickly.


But if you are in a longer course, I think I’m gonna echo what Nikki said, and it was the the idea of community.


And that’s really lacking in a lot of the the course structures that have been, successful in the past. And, they’re sort of ex they’re expecting access to the expert, a lot of real world applications, demos, tools, whatever they need. Definitely expecting this higher touch with the expert that that isn’t easy to execute always.


And and that’s why I think I’ve seen a resurgence of the membership model or the hybrid membership model when it comes to a course.


Okay. So what does the hybrid membership model look like?


I think it looks more like where you have it’s almost like this a little bit more, right, where you have smaller groups, and you have this ability to interact with the community, but you also have this giant resource library and a and and this back and forth. Mhmm.


And so it’s it’s not exactly what I would call it’s more of like a member a mastermind at scale maybe.


Interesting.


Yeah. And so and then, you know, I think the other thing that especially in the space I’m in, it it’s in this trauma education space.


Everybody’s starting to blend in, and so you really have to have some sort of differentiator and be super clear about that in your messaging because that’s not coming across, and it’s like everything seems to sort of feel like the same thing over and over again. Yeah. Even your own courses are starting to cannibalize other the the your own courses within your own ecosystem.


It’s interesting. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Marna. Mhmm. Abby?


Yeah. Since we it’s kind of removed on to, like, the higher ticket programs, I just wanted to share a model that I’ve been saying seeing working really well because it’s a bit different. And it’s, you basically run an on demand webinar all the time. And then there’s, like, a car open close on the first week of the month, and you have an agency come in for that week, and they take the calls and close for you. So it kind of creates a natural urgency, so you can you can only apply to book a call within that week.


I am thinking about doing it for my own business because it’s, like, cheaper than hiring a full time closer because it’s just for the seven days. But the clients I have who are still doing, like, three hundred k a month with online programs, it is through that model of, like, having having closes. So, yeah, just another thing I’m seeing. Yeah.


Yeah. Cool. Cool. Love. Katie?


No? Katie? Oh, Katie’s frozen.


Yeah. Just to speak to can you hear me? Okay. Sorry. My Internet is being weird. That’s why I’m on my phone.


To speak to, I think, as a buyer, so I told Abby about this already, but I bought a YouTube course well, bought into this YouTube course, but it was also clearly a course that had been turned into this hybrid model. So whereas they were probably selling it for, like, two k before, it was five hundred a month extra months. So I paid fifteen hundred for four months. Yeah.


But I will say, like, it was really tough going. It was very, like, front loaded with theory. So I got really and there was, like, very little engagement in the community and no perceived reason to be on the calls.


So, ultimately, at the end of that, it’s like you walk away without having anything versus like, you know, if you’ve invested in the course, you have still the thing to refer back to at the end.


And having got so little value from it, I didn’t want to keep investing. So I went back to another creator whose work I know and like.


And I have access to her, like, mini course, which has proved significantly more valuable than this, like, over bloated thing. So I think that, like, even from a consumer point of view, there’s so much more value in having that. Like, I don’t want two modules worth of theory. I just want the quickest path to the win that I purchased the course or, like, to the problem I purchased the course to solve. So that’s where That’s curious.


Sorry. I I wonder about that simply because this this race for shortcuts when ChatGPT exists and is, like, a shortcut.


It’s weird that you would hire a course to do what you could hire ChatGPT to do.


So I find that like, it’s weird. Right? Isn’t it weird?


Who would put more money into the course?


But I don’t have to I don’t have to second guess what she’s telling me to do versus what Tati Bhatia is telling me to do. Yeah. Definitely trust.


Also, because it’s a creator. I mean, at least Dharma, like, so I bought a bunch of her other programs. Like, I’ve been in her world for years. So and also so I had access to an older version of this course, and she just redid it.


Mhmm.


So there’s, like, hyper relevance to the content because it was new for twenty twenty five.


Yeah. And so with my own courses, I mean, I had this, like, smattering of workshops on different topics that I’ve held back from promoting in any capacity now because they feel stale, because there’s no mention a of AI in them. I think the only way that they would be remarketable is to go through and provide, like, a chat gbt prompt for each step in the process that I’m outlining, which, by the way, the other YouTube course had also integrated.


Mhmm. Yeah. And what would stop you from doing those prompts? You just don’t want to?


Yeah.


Not, like, not aligned with the market that I wanna be serving now.


Fair. So then you just let that die?


Well, that’s yeah. I mean, I don’t know. That’s the question.


Yeah. It is. I agree. No. I wonder that same thing so often. Okay. Thanks, Katie.


Abby?


Sorry. I’m I love talking about courses in case you can’t tell.


Yeah. So I it was funny because I I had my mastermind earlier, and I was talking about, quick positioning based on mark sophistication.


And this conversation just made me think of something in that because with when you’re looking at the highest levels with sophistication, you talk there’s, like, the community aspect we’ve talked about, but I think there’s also the value aspect. And I wonder if people will start leaning into that more. So, like, as an example, like, you know, like, there’s so many courses around, like, or how to build, like, a seven figure agency, but looking at, like, one specific thing, like, like, using it to, like so you can create jobs for people or just something that’s very value aligned.


So you’re creating a sense of belonging and identity rather than just an outcome. I wonder if that could be, like, the kind of potential future courses is, yeah, identity versus outcome.


Interesting. I’m wondering with all of this, like so the reason to create a course five years ago was, because it was pretty easy money. That was the number one reason people created courses, which is really good, quick money. I my acupuncturist, was performing acupuncture on me and talking about her course.


And I was like, I run a course business. And, like, it was like, her whole everything changed about her. She was so excited to talk about this chorus, and she’s gonna make all this money. Years later, she never stood the course up.


And now now what? Right? Now it’s unlikely to.


So I’m wondering, it does it make good business sense to create a course today?


Abby, you say yes.


Yeah. Like, even just for the authority service area, like you say, I think everyone should have a book, should have a course, should have spoken on ten podcast in five masterminds, have a blog, perhaps the same. Like, it’s just like one of the things on the checkbox. And, plus, you’re still gonna make a little bit of money from it. Even though if you wanna if you wanna make a lot of money from it, you have to make it like a whole arm in your business and hire people to help you with it. But, yeah, I just think it’s a at minimum, it’s a tick At most, like, you can you can still make good money from it. It’s just harder.


And we’re all like this, so it’s easier.


If it’s to part of it is to increase your what Nikki said there too. Right? Part of it is to increase your authority service area.


I wonder then, should it be gated, or should it be on YouTube?


Do you need to sell a course today? If you’re just gonna sell it for five hundred bucks, anyway, you sell for a month in a good month, let’s say, and you’re only selling them because you’re out there increasing the size of your service area, which you could better increase by just putting it out there for free. Couldn’t you?


But then it’s not self liquidating. Like, if you’ve got a course of five hundred dollars and you can run ads to that and then run ads to your YouTube video, then you’re gonna get in front of a lot more people, and more people are gonna take your course testimonial social proof. Like, I just think if you’ve got, yeah, if you’ve got something that’s self liquidating, then you can scale it. Whereas, like, yeah, like YouTube, like, as I think a lot of us have seen, you’ve gotta hide the editors. Like, there’s just so much. Whereas if at least you’re selling a five hundred bucks course, like, that’s gonna fund your editor.


Interesting.


Jess?


I yeah. I just wanted to say, like, what Abby said with having a course up helping to, like, support your authority.


That is something I just like, I’m always thinking of it as, like, a money making venture. And, like, if you don’t see the direct path to, like, making a lot of money from the course itself, and if you don’t have a big list and you are running ads and there’s, like, all this stuff to do to make it make you a lot of money, I like that reframe of, like, it’s just another piece of your, like, authority in addition to having a book and having all this stuff. Like, I think that’s, like, a really helpful thing for me. That was just, like, a little light bulb moment.


Okay. So you’re thinking of it as part of your bigger authority building picture.


I still have a question, and Nikki just popped it in there too. Nikki just said in chat, she had a podcast guest who ungated his course and did the awesome stuff for his business. It was not hosted on YouTube. You still had to opt in for it.


So use this lead gen, which is but this does go back to that question of your business model. And if you’re spread thin across two business models instead of just focusing on the one, am I gonna be an agency slash consultancy or am I going to be a course business? An agency doesn’t need a list. A course business needs a list.


Agency doesn’t need ads. A course business needs ads. So you can quickly see, like, you need two additional skill sets to do the course business. If the payoff is five hundred dollars for a course you sell and while that’s happening, the expectation is you have to make yourself available.


Your hour is worth a thousand bucks as a consultant. The Chorus business has just turned that into two hundred bucks an hour at best. So I’m looking at it as somebody who if the topic of the conversation is building your course empire, is there a way to build a course empire today? Does it make sense to try to build a course empire today?


Or is there a better, smarter way to build a consultancy that is based on, like, we’re talking about here, these authority checkpoints. Like, do you have these things in place? And then my question would be, well, where do you host this course? Because although it’s cool that this person was building was doing lead gen with his course, that does sound a lot like list building just to give away a whole free course versus put it somewhere where people, including ChatGPT, can find it, can parse it, and can say this person’s an authority and send better quality leads who are ready to spend more money to you for services including workshops.


So I want to open the conversation up or at least have some thought around the people who didn’t put courses together, and I’m thinking April Dunford. Bob Mesta did, but he didn’t do much to sell it, with Rewired Group, for jobs to be done.


They have done book, promote the hell out of your book, get on stages, whatever those might be, virtual or real, and drive to high ticket workshop sales so that you can build a five million dollar a year business running twenty workshops a year with bigger ticket clients, and it’s really you plus VA.


You get a lot more money for yourself. You get to buy vacation properties that way. Now it takes a lot, though. It takes a lot. But what I like for those who because if I if I were to start a whole new business today and someone told me what the expectations were around delivering a course and that I can charge a fraction of what people charged three years ago for that same course, and I have to do more for it.


Whereas, I could not do any of that.


I could still create that content, be a teacher, put my thought leadership out there, and sell to sell workshops into larger organizations who love this, sell a mastermind to the smaller smaller sized ICP, so freelancers, other consultancies, and things like that, sell that as well.


Do I need a course outside of for lead generation and authority building? Abby, you wanna hop in?


Yeah. So I can’t I can’t speak to the selling the work workshop. So just there’s just two things I wanted to say is, one, I do think having something to sell makes you a a much better service provider. Like, that doesn’t have to be a course, but I think understanding what it takes to sell a product, having a testing ground, like, a playground is just test things.


It makes you a better business owner. It makes you a better service provider. And, of course, it’s just such an easy one. It’s so easy to have.


Like, we’ve all got IP that we can create a course with.


The second thing is I just think when we’ve been talking about creating, using your course content as lead gen, I think it’s kind of it takes for granted the fact that once somebody’s become a customer, it is so much easier to convert them into a higher paying customer.


Like, I was really shocked when I opened up my mastermind. And, okay, I only made forty k with it, but I did nothing. I did not I posted it up to my email list once. I have less than a thousand people.


Posted on LinkedIn, like, three times, and it was all people that bought my course. Five hundred dollars then paid me five grand to be in my mastermind. And that is a scalable business model, is having a mastermind. And I just think even though I’ve got people that have downloaded all my freebies, watched my webinars, it’s the ones that have given me money that that convert into high ticket.


So I just really think, like, we can’t be taken for granted that if people buy something from you, it doesn’t matter what it is or how much it cost, like, you can make more money from them.


Does a book do that job?


Well, yes. But also, I I found that the peep it was loads of people more people have bought my book. Then of my mastermind, I think there’s nine people in there. Seven of them bought my course, and I’ve made it, like, over three hundred book sales. So, like, a book’s ten dollars. A five hundred dollar course is just it’s different. It’s a bigger commitment mentally.


Yeah. So it sounds like, no. A book doesn’t do the job that a course does when we think about the ladder of getting people. Depends on your audience. Yeah.


I guess it yeah. It it depends. But, like, yeah. If you’re for five thousand, ten thousand dollar mastermind, like, I don’t know. And if your book’s incredible, like, I don’t know. We’ll see what happens with yours.


Awesome. Nikki? Oh, you’re still muted somehow. Thought you just went off mute.


I pressed lower hand instead of mute.


I think what I wanted to say was this is, like, literally what I’m, like, grappling with right now is, like, this this business side versus this course side and, like, building the two different audiences and, like, all my content will be unfocused and all that.


But at the same time, there’s still this fear of, can I really just do one thing? Like, just audits and workshops for teams? Like, that’s crazy. Like, it feels so I don’t know.


I’m not sure the fear is. I don’t think it’s limiting. I don’t think I will be bored. I don’t think like, what’s what’s wrong with just that?


Is it because you’re used to busy hands?


Is you also used to be busy?


Or maybe it’s like the or, like, the opportunity cost.


Like, there are always going to be these people, like, these little mini April Dunfords that wanna be her and wanna learn from her and wanna like, she’s attracting them anyway, so, like, she should just say no to them.


Like Yeah.


Literally, April just says no. And in fact, her fear is creating little mini April Dunfords.


That is she doesn’t want them. She wants no mini April Dunfords out there because it dilutes her brand.


That is such disciplined.


Yeah.


Yeah.


I know. Right? And but that’s even when you say fear, that’s where courage comes from. Right?


It is doing the thing because you’re scared to do it. So have the courage to be a disciplined business owner, and it will mean turning away money. And as I April wouldn’t I don’t think mind me saying it. It’s not like April comes from money.


April doesn’t have an easy time saying no to these things, but she does. She says no. And it just keeps raising her her workshop prices so that she feels better at the end of it all. It’s worked out pretty well.


But it does take work. Yeah. Is it wrong to not wanna do a course, Myrna says? I don’t think so.


I think right now, you have to have a reason to do a course.


You love teaching. You’re building your authority, and this is one more way to do it.


I don’t think the reason can be money, and that was the reason. I don’t think that the empire will be a course empire.


It’ll be your empire, but will it be based on the course?


All the course businesses right now are tanking.


Tanking.


Like, insider insights into what’s going on in huge names.


People are shutting whole things down. They’re having to lay people off. It’s just getting expensive.


Her workshop starts at sixty thousand, April’s, and she typically sells lots. Like, she sells, like, four into Google at a time. So, you know, when you’re doing quarter of a million dollar or three hundred thousand dollar invoices for a few days work, you can see the discipline pays off. Yeah.


Abby?


Yeah. Can I just pose a question to the group? I’m just curious. So one of the ways my buying behavior has changed is because I’m so aware that anyone that’s making the ad to put out of content, AI is scraping that content and helping make them redundant.


So if I’m if I get something out of someone’s free content, like, I’ll buy from them and probably not take the course. I just wanna give them, like, a thousand dollars to just because, like, if they’ve taught me something that’s helped my business, like, they I wanna give them my money. Like, is anyone else thinking like that? And can you see that becoming, like, a not like a movement, but just but kind of, like, more people embracing that?


I think course creators want that to be a movement.


Are there more Abby’s out there?


Was anybody gonna answer that?


Yeah. My opinion is that I don’t I don’t really see that happening, mostly because, you know, people are I I don’t know. I feel like if they’re gonna give money to something, like unless they’re, like, feeling like an activist, you know, like, you know, they want something in return, I guess. I don’t know. To me, I just don’t I don’t see it going in that direction.


It’s like I think, historically, people have bought courses to say, please. Like, please, can I have your content? It’s like, I wonder if they’ll start buying courses today that say thank you because it’s like, I’ve already learned a ton from your YouTube channel. Like, thank you.


Like, the same way of Substack, you might buy someone coffee. I don’t know. It’s like Joe. Like, whatever you put out, I’ll buy it because I just because I’m grateful to you.


Like, I’ll buy it as a thank you whether I need it or not. Like, I don’t know.


I just we’re just curious to see if anyone else has seen that or if it’s just Yeah.


Like, it it might depend on the market too, but I I don’t see a consumer just handing over their cash because they are grateful, you know, at least in the direct shipping space.


A little cash. Right? Like, Patreon. Mhmm. Right? That sort of thing. Yeah.


That’s that’s a little different.


Yeah. Because they’re also getting value. Right? Because they’re I mean, they’re going to maybe participate in that community because Patreon’s like a community driven thing, same with school, something like that. But as far as, like, a course Yeah.


I don’t know. Roxanna?


I was just gonna say exactly what Jess said. I have done that. Mhmm. But thousand. You know, it’s gonna be, like, a couple of hundred because I think they’re great and I love them. For instance, I buy memberships from and for anything from, real finger, Ash Amberjay. You know, I think she’s amazing.


I gave her five hundred just to be in a local community newsletter course that I was never going to start just because I love her. But I don’t think I ever gave more than five hundred for that.


However, while I’ve never had a course, I’ve just did I mean, I’ve always had, like, small courses. I only did them just for lead gen and workshops.


I am grappling with this, and I’m wondering because I started a substack, but now it’s sitting there isolated. I haven’t emailed my list in three months or more.


And I used to, and I people would love my emails and I you know, it would be great. But now I’m rethinking everything and I, quite frankly, I don’t know what to do. April Dunford sounds amazing.


So maybe I should just, like, focus on the book.


And I’m just I’m just thinking what so what do I do?


You know?


So if we could just if I could just walk out of this call thinking, oh my god. Yeah. Forget about Substack. Forget about the email list.


Forget you know, now it’s the book and yeah. And it’s not gonna be a course. That’s okay. You’ve never done it.


You’re not gonna start now. This is kind of my universe of concerns. So there.


And I think that’s fair. Absolutely. What do I do? The challenge is it’s it’s you still do all the things more than ever.


So that’s the problem, is just how hungry the machine is, and it always needs fresh food. You always have to be producing something new or at least telling it that it’s something new, such as taking an old course or old content and putting it into a new environment.


So you do the Substack, and you do YouTube, and you do Reddit, and and and that’s that’s the problem. And we have to get to a place where that’s why you’re doing the right work and thinking through who is my ICP, who’s the persona at my ICP that I want to target, what is my specialization, and what do I bring uniquely to that. Because, otherwise, if you have to create content, if we all have to create content all the time, that’s the job, all the time, ongoing content creation, then you better make sure you’re not wasting your time on talking about headlines when your ICP is never gonna think at that level. They’re never gonna give a crap what you think about a headline, and you could waste a lot of energy coming up with content that doesn’t do anything.


So I don’t think we’ll walk away going here’s exactly what to do next. But what I wanna do is because everybody gets distracted, we all get distracted by all of the options out there. What I wanna do is at least know that people are walking away going, I will do a course, but it’s gonna be this kind of course sold in this location for this amount of money, whether that’s actual places or the amount of money is zero dollars and it’s sold on YouTube or whatever, and you’re doing it strategically for the right people, not not, hey. I wanna make money fast. I’m gonna put a course together.


Because that probably is not the way forward.


So, yeah, it’s not a list of what to do, but, ideally, you can either opt in to making a course or opt out. And once you make a decision as a business owner, you really have to stick by it. So if you say I’m not doing a course, you’re not doing a course. No matter what you hear, no matter who says something to you, seven months from now, you’re not doing a course.


That’s where I want us to land, hopefully. Is anybody thinking of doing a course right now?


Is everybody pretty disheartened by the whole course world right now? Yeah.


But the other options are still there, especially as we move into, you know, this what’s going on with humans in this world kind of question when every all of your clients or people who should be your clients are spending way too much time with ChatGPT, that’s where more of you in front of them goes a long way, which can look like a course, honestly, or it can look like a workshop or just more time spent on YouTube. But I don’t know. I feel like it’s kind of liberating to say, okay. Good. I’m gonna remove that as an option for a product I can create.


It’s not gonna be my it’s not gonna distract me anymore. But I know people wanna connect with me because among many other reasons, they’re they’re disconnected in life, they’re disconnected from the work that I do that I can help them do better. So I’m the human who comes in and helps them with this stuff. So there’s still something there. It’s just is it a course or not. Nikki says, what about digital products? Nikki, what other digital products?


Well, if if, like, we aren’t building a list to talk to the course people and building this, like, ladder of mastermind and course and all that, and I’m going down the wrongs instead of up the wrongs, it it probably doesn’t make sense to even build any digital products because then you’re just not gonna make enough money on them.


Well, what are the other digital products? Because, like, an ebook is a digital product.


Yeah. Playbooks and ebooks and packets and all that kind of stuff.


Why would those be bad?


Because, like, all the list building effort doesn’t pay off. Like, that’s what I have right now. Like, I finally launched a course and then just, like, let it sort of die.


And it never and it was never, like, a proper funnel that, like, really made, like, good customer lifetime value. Like, they just kind of, like, you know, every so often sales, like, I feel like you need that, like, proper funnel to really make it worth the time.


Yeah. It’s true. And that’s the two business models.


You’re spread thin unless you have a lot of money.


Like, I I have had the two business models running side by side, and it was great. But it was also when courses were selling without any effort. Like, nothing. So that world doesn’t exist.


It doesn’t exist like it did. That doesn’t mean someone won’t come out with a really great course and a bunch of people buy it. Sure. That’ll still happen if it’s for the right thing at the right time, etcetera.


So if you think you’ve got the right thing at the right time, don’t let this dissuade you because you can still do it. It’s just you have to be motivated by that thing, not I’ve got this knowledge. Let me make some extra cash on the side with this course. But I think also that these other smaller peripheral items you’re talking about, like SOPs, let’s say, because those were so popular to sell two years ago.


Those little documents, even templates, templates that you can teach them to share with CHAPPGPT or Claude in order to write emails with them, that could still work great. It’s low ticket. It is a way to say, hey, Nikki. I love your podcast. I’m gonna buy these templates from you, and whatever that might be. And it’s easier for you to create too. But the the the bar for courses is getting higher and higher and higher.


You have to hire when you think about the production of a course and what it takes.


These are twenty, thirty, forty, and more thousand dollar investments that you have to make in producing that course. Not so for a PDF, not generated by AI necessarily, but, in the vicinity.


Abby?


Yeah. I just wanted to just say something inspiring in the favor of courses because I think there’s this whole class of course creators who, like, followed the product launch formula in twenty twenty and made millions, and now they’re, like, jaded because it’s not like that anymore. Yes.


But I’m still seeing people make it like, I I’m working with a weight loss coach. She has a five thousand dollar program, and she’s making, like, two hundred k a month from it. And it’s like, people just buying a Zen Pick. Like, a Zen Pick is what ChatGPT is for marketers, and people are still buying it. And it’s because she’s doing it through YouTube. Like, the clients that I have that are absolutely crushing it are just doing it through YouTube, but they’re still they’re still making millions from courses. It’s just not through the product launch formula.


Yeah. Also, you need to post that. Chat GPT is to marketing, what those emphases to weight loss.


Yeah. But Oh, I hear that. It’s fair.


Yeah. I just don’t want if, like, if anybody’s in here and it’s like, oh, I really wanted to create a course, and now I just feel like there’s no point. Like, I just I I think if you want to, like, you can make it work, and it can be really fun. Like, trying to make it work. Like, don’t listen to the course creators who are just, like, bitter now.


I’m not bitter. I am so.


However, being I think it’s important when I look around at what freelancers can waste their time on, this is a thing they can waste their time on.


It’s it’s diff if everybody was raising their rates and charging what they should and working on lead gen and getting good leads coming in, And if everybody was in a place where they were like, okay. I’m building a million dollar consultancy. By this time next year, I’ll have generated seven figures.


I’ll have my team of four full timers in place. I have a good pipeline that I’m constantly working to actually convert. I’m good.


Okay.


Now you have more of the luxury of, okay. How do I expand this? What else do I do? And you can start putting out a course that you can dedicate your time to, but that’s not the case for the vast majority of people in this room.


That’s not where they are yet. When they get there, we’ll have that conversation. First, get your book out the door, get those leads coming in, raise your rates, have all that stuff in place. The course is a distraction.


And I stand by that. It’s got nothing to do with bidder.


Unless it makes you happy. If it makes you happy, then it’s like it adds something to your life as well. There’s that as well.


Next, Cody. Just kidding. Cody, you’re up.


Okay. So I put this in the chat, but I think it’s important for people to actually hear it too.


Well, before making a course, I think it’s important that we think about who it is that we’re who our ICP is, because for me, it doesn’t make sense. If I’m targeting companies that are doing, you know, at least twenty million dollars a year, CMOs, the CMO doesn’t care about how to write an advertorial. They wanna hire somebody to do that. You know?


So, I think it’s important that we just think about who it is that we’re targeting before we go off and create something like that. Agreed. Totally. Thanks, Cody.


Jess?


I did wanna make a note before my actual point is Jeff Walker is currently launching product launch formula, and I’m so curious as to see, like, if he’s, like, updated it or, you know, if he’s changed, like, anything, since twenty twenty. I’m just, like, really curious to see that. I hope not.


I hope that we still see him in his, like, Colorado cabin. Like, all exactly the same video sales letter. I love that.


Yeah. I’m yeah. I’m really curious to see what he does. But one thing I think that has been coming up for me is, like, I just watched, is his name Ramley? Ramley John launch his new book, and he had this, like, whole hoopla where I got like, I bought it because I was like, well, I need to know what’s in your book.


But then I got a course and access to all this stuff. And even when, there was somebody I think I asked Jessica if she helped produce this woman’s book Talia Wolf.


And it feels like people who are launching books, it’s like they’re already in such an established place that they when they launch, they have so many people sharing it and they have all this stuff around it. So each time I hear, like, write your book, produce your book, like, put out this book, it also feels like, okay. But now the the expectation is to also do a course and to also have these templates with it and to also have this and to have this upsell and and etcetera etcetera. So yeah.


Okay. So I wanna pause on that because that’s just marketing at play. Right? You don’t know what Talia’s business is like.


You don’t know what Rolleby’s business is like. You just know what they’re projecting, and that’s all anybody will know about you as well. So I would I would throw that right the hell out. Just don’t let it enter your mind.


Yes. To the takeaway of okay. Cool. So you have to have, like, great marketing around what you’re doing, and it can be helpful to have a course to sell into, to sell people into when they buy your book.


But everything else is it’s it’s a mask. It’s a thing that’s been created to make them look bigger and more badass. Not that they’re not. I’m not saying that.


Mhmm.


But I I wouldn’t I wouldn’t let that in for a second.


All it takes is marketing, and you’re a marketer.


You can do this.


Yeah. And I started watching Ramley’s course, and I’m, like, halfway through it. And I was like, it’s it actually kinda did me a favor where I was watching it, and I was like, there’s not a thing in here that I don’t already know. Like, I could put this out.


Yeah. You know? And, like, I’m still waiting for my hardcover to be delivered and maybe because I’m in Canada. That’s not why that’s why I haven’t got it yet.


But, yeah, I was just like, oh, there’s, like, not some secret thing in here that, like, I don’t know.


No.


Exactly. Yeah.


So most people are putting out. Also, when it’s published by a publisher, the publisher is attracted to those higher level things, not the more detailed things.


So that’s what we’ll often see from publishers versus self published, which is gonna be typically more useful, unless about a really great title that, you know, gets everybody to buy the book and nobody reads the thing.


So hundred percent. That’s why I keep saying write the freaking book. Yeah. It’s not it’s not because I think you’re not qualified.


It’s because I think you are. So go fucking do it now. Like, just sit down and do it. Workblocks, do it.


Yeah. I’ve been try I’m trying to watch that video of Jessica’s when she came into Yeah. CSP. Is it up now?


Because oh, perfect. Friday. Yeah. Oh, amazing. I can’t wait to watch it.


Okay. Good. Sweet. Now we’re talking about Hormozi. Abby, you little shit disturber over there. Alright. Nikki?


Hi. Sorry.


First of all, that by the way, that’s, like, my biggest fear about writing a book is that I’m gonna be one of those, like, useless authors that write something that everybody knows. Like, I don’t wanna do that.


Don’t do it.


That’s but then I’m, like, spinning my wheel. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Different different conversation.


So my my biggest question here is if like, back to what Cody was saying of, like, my ICP will not buy my course. So then why are they opting into any of my content? Like, they’re not gonna listen to my podcast either. They’re not gonna read my book either.


On your thank you page. Why what are you asking them when they are on the confirmation page?


Excuse me. Moment led you to it?


Yeah.


What was going on in your life that brought you to blank today?


How else are you gonna know? And that’s when they can tell you. You already know what to do. You’re just not doing it.


But Not and universally.


Just in What?


What’s that? I just missed what you said.


Oh, I said not universally, but just in that case, you’re not doing it. But go ahead.


Listening to my podcast, maybe as, like, an authority piece of, like, oh, I listened to it because ChatSpy told me that I should fire you. So I listened to it to, like, check that you know what you’re talking about, but they’re not actually my audience.


The people who are listening to your podcast are not actually your audience, or who is signing up is not actually your audience? How do you know?


I feel like the people listening are marketers doing the work.


Like, they are that before you know.


Still like Mhmm. Not Do do do VPs of marketing listen to, like, nitty gritty email strategy? Why? They’re not doing the work.


Some of them are.


Some of them absolutely, tragically, are right now because their teams have been cut in half, and they’re trying to create GPTs to replace those teams. And they can’t. And while we’re on the subject, all of these companies that have cut their staff in half, they still have freelancer budget. They’re just not allowed to hire.


So it is a good time to get out there for those VPs and put yourself in front of them because they don’t have the same team members they used to have. So consider that. But if you don’t think your ICP is listening to a podcast, do you have the podcast because you’ve had the podcast and your old audience is no longer the audience going forward? And if that’s the case and you don’t believe your new or current ICP listens to a podcast or your podcast or podcast in general, then why would you put your effort into it?


So I was thinking that I need to majorly change it. However, I still don’t think I have enough to say. Like, my expertise is not what they want to listen to day in, day out. They wanna hire me to do the thing.


Like, they want my expertise, but they don’t want me teaching it to them. They just want me doing it. What they wanna talk what they wanna, like, listen to a podcast on is something totally different. I don’t know.


Managing people and I don’t know. I don’t know what managers care about. I should know better.


I think that that was so I would say that that was somewhat true. But all along, every that’s all stages are for when these people and VPs do go to conferences, and they sit in the audience and they take notes. And usually sure. They might not be taking notes for what they’re gonna do, but they’re saying, oh, hire Nikki to come in and do x. And that’s their takeaway on their little notepad, and then they go back and they do that when they’re back in the office.


So don’t I, there’s the the struggle between, like, okay. We have to figure out what to work on. Right? What to work on now.


You have a podcast.


Consistency pays off better than hopping around fifteen different things. So just keep doing the podcast. Mhmm. Keep doing it.


Keep plugging away at it. Never stop doing it. You can change what it’s about. You can, like, move around and do different things, but keep doing it and then add in your book.


And you’ve got now this stronger authority surface area, and then you have figured out on your website what you’re selling. Do you have a mastermind for the people who listen to your podcast and want to be like you and do what you do? Do you have a workshop for the people who have a team already and they just want you to come in and teach that team? And do you have done for you services?


Which, like, all of that is a really standard, nice view of a business. All the front end stuff, all the back end stuff.


Yeah. I I yeah. If you think that your ICP is not listening to your podcast and you do some research and you find that they’re not and all the wrong people are, that doesn’t mean you have to give up your podcast. I would just consider changing it. Try something different on it instead.


Katie?


So you think they do listen to tactics?


Yes. I know that they do.


April’s book is ten steps to position your product, and it’s it’s the CEOs of large organizations are reading reading it. We think that they’re all caught up in strategy and all up here all the time.


But do you know how many leaders are frustrated by the doers on their team? And they’re like, what do my doers not know? And so they go and they look for the book that they can hand to their team and say this. Do it this way now, you guys. That’s where you come in. That’s where your content comes in.


Gotcha. Word. Cool.


Abby’s over there printing slogans. Alright.


Katie, you’re up. What’s up?


What are you thinking?


Okay. So just question on what you just said before my actual question. You said the business model would be, like, mastermind for people who wanna know what you know, do it themselves.


Yeah. Workshop for teams, and then done for you services.


In that sense, your the workshop for teams is training the internal team so that they could do what you would advise them to do.


Training is not facilitating. Yeah. So it doesn’t have to be training. You don’t have to come in and say, here’s what the exercise.


It depends. Right? So it depends on what they’re looking to do. And I think that the easier win, especially if you’re trying to get their team to a better place with what you’re training them on, is thinking of it as facilitation.


So they have some prework to do, then they have the workshop with you. Then there’s homework. It’s usually, like, let’s talk about, like, a two day workshop. Day one, six hours of going through and facilitating the thinking part, getting them so that they can go do homework.


You also go do some homework. You come back the next day, and together, you get to the outcome that the workshop was set up for, which requires that you really run a tight workshop because you can’t do that much with thirty people in the room.


So, yeah, that’s that’s so it’s a question of do you train in that time? Depends. I would know Minimum. But rather help them come to the right answers by giving them frameworks and listening and talking them through it, which they seem to like more in my experience.


Okay.


Okay. Thank you. That’s fine. I I did just finish, forget the model, so I can see how that translates to what they because they call themselves facilitators, so I can see that.


Yeah. April facilitator as well.


Go ahead. Sorry. My question is around, kind of what Cody and Abby were discussing in chat around, like, the workshop as paid consult.


And sorry. I just realized that. I was like, well, I have my diagnostic funnel set up, but it’s kind of, like, potentially gonna be irrelevant. But, like, the idea of having the diagnostic as a paid low ticket offer, I feel like we talked about this a while ago, and you said you were concerned that adding that friction of the payment just means that fewer people will see it.


But I wonder and, like, maybe a question for you slash the room, but, like, whether that because, basically, when I think about doing it, like, a pay any kind of low ticket paid training, the only thing I wanna teach is, like, my diagnostic funnel. But then I think it’s kind of weird to have the same content out there where one is free and one is paid.


Do we like, if you’re dealing with B2C SaaS, is there any point of having that, like, thirty seven dollar offer, or are you just focusing you’re like, just do the book. Ignore the product the shiny products.


Yeah. I’d I’d keep it pretty tight, and within the realm of what they expect.


So they expect a book. There’s probably they’re you’re up against someone who has a book, typically.


And as long as you have a book, self published or not, doesn’t matter. You’ve got the book. They can read it. They can hand the PDF around. They can upload the PDF to chat gbt, sadly, etcetera. So just have a book and then have a workshop and then have, if you want, done for you services. I wouldn’t put anything else in there that is paid because why?


Unless you thought the thirty seven dollar sale is that tripwire that gets them ready to buy more from you, but I see that less as less relevant for the kinds of SaaS brands that should be hiring you. So Brian from SamCart doesn’t need the tripwire experience. In fact, these are people who are more likely to say, look. I know I know what you’re doing.


I know what this is. Like, cool. So you’ve got a tripwire. Awesome. Can we just skip ahead to the part where I hire you to come do this stuff with us?


And they’ll reach out to you by email with that. So just, like, pull out all the distraction.


Focus only on like, if you think about even your global nav on your site, book, services, about, and that’s really it. So they go to the book, then they see the services. It’s a single page. Basically, it’s all about reaching out to you anyway with some ideas of what you can work on together. And you’ve got your lead gen in there wherever it is that has the diagnostic, and that could be a retargeting sort of thing. But the point is you’re keeping it really tight, so that they’re not distracted by all the bells and whistles.


Yeah.


For SaaS, at least.


K. Thank you. Sure.


Yeah. Abby?


Alright. Sorry. Sorry, Abby. Before you go, Katie, you put that out to the group too. Did anybody else wanna offer anything in addition to that?


No? Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Abby.


Well, first of all, thank you all for indulging me or at least going off camera to roll your eyes when I start talking again.


Yeah. I just wanted to say one one more thing. Unexpected benefit I’ve seen from creating a course and writing a book is to do something big like that. Like, you have to be so clear on your big idea, and it just makes everything else, like, so much easier.


Because before I would just, like, my LinkedIn strategy, I was just, like, putting up Paris and it was just, like, I don’t know. And nothing was really doing working, but because I like, in writing the book, it was like I had to get so clear on that. And now content’s just so easy. It’s like I I have like a little a thing I teach called, like, the take the cake method.


It’s like you wanna, like, bake a cake, which is the big thing because then that feeds, like, your wedge, your slice, and your crumbs. Whereas if you’re just putting out crumbs, like, it’s such a waste of time. But bake it, and then the crumbs just, like, take care of themselves. So that’s, like, in favor like, I think a book is the best one to do, but even, like, a course, it’s just it feeds all your other content, and it feels like a ten x move rather than just the constant, like, feeding the machine.


Yeah. I love that. I like take the cake too.


It’s a neat visual.


And I do think that, for me, I know that in writing this book that I’ve just written, writing the the pitch for the book, really forces you to clarify who you’re targeting, why they should love you, like, all of the things that you need in order to get there. So we don’t just write a book so that we have the product. We write a book so we know what we think and who we’re going after, who we’re there to help. So it’s the whole process of it.


Plus the outcome is now you’ve got a book.

Worksheet

Getting Invited onto Stages & Podcasts (p.26)

 

Transcript

Alright. Cool.

Good. Excellent. Okay. Welcome to the new week in the summer of big things. Today, we are going to talk about getting invited onto stages and podcasts.

So if that’s your thing, if that’s a big thing that you want to work toward, we’ll talk through the part of the workbook that walks you through that. That is starts it starts on page twenty six and goes to page thirty one. For those of you who are in the document itself, I’ll share my screen when it’s time when you need to look at something on the screen. But I do wanna start with is anybody does anybody wanna speak to wanting to get on stage or how that’s happening? Jess, do you have something to share here?

No. I just want to. And, like, I’m actually I go and I speak at there’s a starter company, like, yeah, like, a starter program through the small business enterprise center here that they invite me to speak, which is, like, really cool.

And I feel like I’m good at it. So I wanna do it for more of my, like, ideal clients.

Yes. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Good. Anybody else? Roxanna?

So I haven’t spoken in a long time on stages for some reason. You know?

And when I did, I converted, which was great.

But I kinda need to get it together and perhaps do something for the fall.

Okay. Okay. Cool.

Good. Alright. So podcasts come up a lot as well, and we’ll be talking about podcasts today too.

Who has podcasts being a guest on podcasts as part of their, like, growth strategy?

Yeah? Sabine, Jess, Cody Yeah. Abby. Yeah. Cody, do you wanna share something? Oh, sure.

Okay.

So I I it’s not something it’s not, like, my big thing.

Right? My big thing is my YouTube channel. But my content has created like, I I don’t know. People have been reaching out to me asking me to be a guest on their podcast because of that. So I just wanna share that.

Okay. That’s great.

Excellent. Anyone else wanna share anything regarding podcast stuff, Sabine?

Sabine, who decided to throw up on camera today?

Nice.

No. Podcast always used to be really easy for me compared to any sort of PR stuff. Even speaking on stages, it’s always been so remarkably easy for me to also sell on the back of that. I used to have my own podcast.

I stopped that because it became too much. But being a guest and maybe starting up something where I have a little less of an expectation that it’s super super duper polished. I think it’s also about getting the level of effort right. You know, there’s a balance.

Okay.

As in, like, when you’re a guest on a podcast, you can you need less prep work, or does It’s less I I think it’s less about the prep marketing of every single episode and having, you know, having so many different channels to look after.

I think if I were to start my own podcast again, I would make it a real focus, like Cody said, with YouTube. But being a guest, I think, can be more a supplementary path on top of my own owned channels.

Okay. Alright. Cool.

Okay. Excellent. Cody’s saying in chat, I had my own podcast too. Had it for a whole year.

It’s a solo podcast, though. Solo’s supposed to be better, actually. Okay. Interesting.

Alright. So we’re going to talk about let me just bring up my stuff here. We’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of it. Right? So if this is something that you’re not working on right now, it’s still worth seeing and maybe even, like, assigning to your VA or somebody else that might have more time if you have somebody on staff who you know is underutilized.

Putting them on this work, especially with a checklist in front of them, is pretty straightforward. It’s a pretty easy win. And then you’re ready whenever someone comes knocking. Whenever someone’s like, I think I might want you to speak on my podcast or get on stage, you’re good to go. Alright. So let me share that. Okay.

Poop. There we go. Alright. So you’ll need a speaker page in most cases. So years ago when conferences were enormous, you didn’t need like, when they were everywhere, you didn’t need a speaker page.

You just need people conference organizers were just busy watching other people’s replays or attending other people’s conferences and then, like, stealing speakers directly from there. Stealing being, like, ethical stealing. You’re just looking and saying, like, you were dope. Can you come over here now?

And so you didn’t need this. And you might still not need a speaker page. I don’t have a speaker page, but I also don’t want to travel and go do this stuff. I know a lot of people who get invited on a lot of stages, they don’t have a speaker page.

But that often has a lot to do with kind of being in this, like, insulated space. Once you start speaking on a stage on like, you start with one, typically, that will land you in a group of events that are all kind of, like, the organizers all attend each other’s events, and that’s how you’ll find yourself being invited to other events. So, yeah, that you’d that’s something to think about when you’re putting together your speaker page, whether you need one or not. Now if you’re not getting invited onto stages right now, there are ways around that, ways to kind of fudge that, which we can talk about.

But the speaker page itself is made for your organizer. It’s not made for the people in the audience. You are writing the speaker page to help that conference organizer who is busy, who just wants the best people in the room, who wants to make sure that anybody they bring on stage has charisma, can actually, like, walk around the stage and not just depend on a slide deck and not stand with a very dull slide deck presenting things for twenty five minutes and then shuffling off stage and going home. Conference organizers want an active event.

So we need to think of them first and foremost, and we can talk a bit about what they’re looking for. Now on the speaker page, really straightforward stuff. This is for your organizer. You gotta match that h one to the keywords that your organizer will use.

So that means looking into that, that does there’s not no clear answer right now outside of if they were, like, copy speaker for copywriting or something like that. I don’t know. You have to go find that. That’s part of the job.

You wanna show your face in high resolution above the fold.

People don’t like that. I know a lot of people here are like, I don’t want to. I don’t like it. Do it. We all know, like, our face is a big part of it. It is our signature now, and that’s an important thing in a time of AI. So put your face there.

Showcase your full name and your value prop as a speaker, not as the kind of copywriter you are or agency owner you are or whatever. What you will be speaking about, that’s what you put above the fold. Make sure on all devices, it’s above the fold.

Now what do organizers want the most? They wanna know things like, yes. I customize talks for each event. A lot of people are like, oh, I have, like, these two talks I give, and no.

I don’t I don’t, customize them, and that’s really problematic for the organizer. When I was first starting out getting on stage, I did a new talk for every single event I was at, and I had to the point where if I showed up at an event and the week before I had spoken at one event and then I went to a different one, and I know that the last one went well, I would just go off and talk to the organizer and say, like, okay. I have a new talk for you, but I actually just gave this other talk last week, and it went really well. Which one should we do?

And that’s, like, a nice thing for them. They’ll probably just say, like, no. Go with the one that’s on the agenda. We’re good.

But that’s not always the case. And so it’s nice to be able to just, like, kind of share ideas and different options with the conference organizers. You do have favorite talks, so it’s likely that you’ll have two or three decks in your back pocket as you go. Start with one, but don’t expect that you can get away with saying, like, here’s what I talk about.

This is my talk. If you do, it’s probably not gonna go over well if you don’t have a lot of events you can say you’ve spoken at. Organizers, again, they wanna make sure that they have something unique that will attract people to their event to pay for a ticket. And given that most events put your, put past conference put past talks on YouTube, if you’ve already given the talk and it can be found on YouTube, the organizer’s not gonna love that.

They’re gonna love that they can go watch and see how you are and what the content’s like, but they don’t want you to then say, I’m gonna give the same talk for you because an attendee would be like, well, why am I gonna pay if everybody is just giving all of the same talks they’ve already given and they’re on YouTube?

They also want things that make it easy to show that they’ve got authorities, thought leaders on stage. So if you’ve published a book in any way, that includes self publishing. Nobody cares. And you can bring copies.

Maybe you’re like, I always bring twenty copies to give away to attendees. Cool. One more thing they don’t have to worry about. One more piece of value they can add to their audience, add for their audience.

If you have bulk discounts where they’re like, I love that you wrote a book, and you’re like, cool. How many people are going to be there? And they’re like, three hundred. And you’re like, okay.

Well, if you buy three hundred copies of my book, I can drop it from fifteen dollars five dollars per. And if it costs you nothing, it costs you two bucks to print the thing, and now they have three hundred copies of your book sitting there. Now you just have to make sure that those books are, like, leaving, so it doesn’t look pretty sad.

So that’s something to keep in mind. What what can you add that proves you’re an authority? And then further than that, can you give part of that away? Honestly, little things like this, I’ve been asked several times.

Hey, Joe. What are you doing tomorrow? Can you fly out here? Because so and so got sick.

Or so and so lost their passport on the way here, and now they can’t get into Canada or into the States. Can you come out? So if you say, hey. I live in Toronto.

I’m thirty minutes from, international airport, and I can get to most places in the US and, even over in the UK and parts of Europe, then that’s good for them to know. That’s great for them to know. It doesn’t mean that it will make them book you or that they’ll go looking for you for that. But if they’ve been on your speaker page, maybe they didn’t say yes to you before, but they remember when they’re in that panic of, holy shit.

We don’t have a speaker for Tuesday, and it’s Sunday. They will then go, like, who was that person? Who was that person? That person who said that they could fly out in short notice.

And that could be just enough to get you there. Remember that these a lot of the conferences that are out there are small, and they’re, not embarrassed that they’re small, but, you know, big conferences get a lot of hype. Oh, we had five thousand people here. We had twenty five thousand people here.

Not, that’s not what most events are meant for, like, this big thing, but some speakers only wanna speak to large audiences, have very particular requirements about audiences. So if you’re like, hey.

I love small audiences. They’re my jam. I prefer to speak to two hundred to four hundred people in a room. Then knowing that the vast majority of those events that are out there are two hundred to four hundred people, you’re now making yourself, like, fit in to this, like, ninety percent of the events out there. And while we’re on the subject, smaller audiences are better. You get way more out of them.

If you’ve worked if you’ve, been on stage and other speakers love working with you, cool. Share their testimonial. That’s a big part of it. Right? There’s going to be behind the scenes when you’re speaking at an event. There’s a speaker’s dinner that you’re invited to the night before or the night of the first day.

There’s other parts where you’ll be asked to interact with not only the attendees, but also speakers. So if you seem like a cool person who is, like, not gonna make it weird to be around you, that goes a long way. So if other speakers, anybody in this room, if you’ve spoken maybe you put on your own event just for short like, you were just like, I need some video of me on stage. So you, like, rented out a small room and invited a bunch of people to it and invited someone else here to come out and speak there too and did, like, a mini copywriting event, great.

Get the person you invite out to also say, like, ah, so and so was so great to work with. It’s so nice to be a speaker who, like, works with other speakers, who get what it’s like to be a speaker. I mean, none of that even made sense, but, like, but more of that kind of, the conference organizer’s like, cool. This is, like, a speaker who’s not a dick, who doesn’t, like, leave or make it weird, which some people just do.

So if that’s not you, cool. Get a testimonial. This is a big one.

When you are going on stage and you tell your conference organizer, I stay for the whole event. So I I like staying for an event. I get to learn everything there. I get to connect with other people. Other speakers who stay have I’ve become best friends with speakers. Like, we now travel together.

And we met because we were backstage together going, like, I’m so nauseous. I can’t even and they’re like, I’m so nauseous too. What are we gonna do? And you become good friends.

And so if you can say, I’m an active speaker. I’m an active attendee. I stay for the whole event. I network.

I go out for lunches with people.

Cool. That’s one more thing that speaker that conference organizers love. Keeping in mind that there are a lot of people who are professional speakers who show up two hours before they go on stage. They get mic’d.

They stand around quietly in the back, and then they go on stage, give their talk that they’ve given ten thousand times, walk off stage, take their mic off, kind of do, like, a fake inauthentic hi to everyone, and then they get back on an airplane. That’s shitty. As an organizer, you don’t want that. Then the attendees are all separated from you.

The speakers are like, who is that?

And it’s just a weird feeling, so you cannot be that person. You can talk about that. On your speaker page, obviously, list every single thing that you’ve done that where you’ve been invited to speak or share any thought leadership. If you do have a highlight reel, go ahead and embed it.

You don’t need one, but if you’ve got anything you can share that’s like, here’s how I sound or look on stage. Here’s how audiences respond to me. And usually when you speak at one event, there’s a videographer, and that person is recording everything. So all you have to do before you agree to speak in an event, say, like, cool.

So happy to do this. So excited. I know you’re gonna be recording it. Can I get a copy of my recordings that I can embed it on my website?

Cool. It doesn’t have to be a highlight reel. It can just be the whole thing. If a conference organizer is seriously looking for good speakers, they’ll watch your whole session.

You don’t need a highlight reel. You don’t need to spend extra money or extra time.

Podcasts, events, and three posts about you, people talking about you, add that stuff in there. That could be, like, off other people’s LinkedIns. I don’t know. And then just drive to the appropriate call to action.

So what do you want them to do at the end of this? Again, this is for an organizer. This isn’t, like, necessarily go to my contact form, but rather, hey. If you would like to talk about a custom talk for your event, go over to my LinkedIn DMs or whatever the thing is that you want them to do.

Any questions about your speaker page?

No. Okay. Cool.

We’re not gonna dig to oh, Sabine?

Sorry. It was too late.

Cody’s very helpfully shared her speaker page. It’s a Canva page. It’s a it’s for a podcast, so it’s it’s maybe slightly different. But do you envisage the speaker page more as a page on the website or, like, an online document like this Canva page?

A findable thing. So what is a conference organizer doing? They have in front of them a spreadsheet, and what and one of the parts of that spreadsheet, one of the tabs is, who might I bring on for this next event that’s happening eight months from now, and it’s time to hunker down and get this person booked.

They have gaps in their curriculum that they’ve they’ve got this. Here’s what we wanna cover.

Who can cover those things? So events that you might be speaking at, and this is answering the question, but events that you might be speaking at might be conversion rate optimization events, like CXL Live, when Pep and his organizer are putting that together.

They have a curriculum of the things that they want to hit throughout the day. They wanna make sure because they’ve got people in the audience who want who really want something out of the event. It’s not like some of those shitty events that are out there that are actually quite big that are really basic and no one’s that engaged and, like, marketing teams send three junior marketers to it because it’ll keep them busy.

The event will keep them busy. Those are not the events we’re really optimizing for. You wanna think about pep. Looking at a spreadsheet going, okay.

So we’re gonna start day one with the first part of conversion optimization, things around research and discovery. So he’s gonna list out that stuff, and he’ll have gaps. He’ll say, like, oh, obviously, Elle’s is perfect for this, and maybe Talia’s great for that. Who can do this?

And then if it’s a name that they already know, you might be like, yeah. But is there anybody else newer, fresher, somebody else?

And then they go looking, and maybe they have somebody who says internally, oh, I’ve heard I’ve listened to this person on this podcast, and they sound pretty smart. Maybe they talk, or something like that. But what you’re doing is if if this deck or Canva page or whatever, I don’t know how it’s working for you, Cody, I would just put it on my website, though. Like, just it says speaking in the global nav. And then if I’m an organizer or I read your book or whatever it might be, then I can go to that speaker page and see that you talk about podcasts and in person on stage events, and then that’s I can find it. So all I’m worried about is, is it findable?

Keyword phrases, obviously, will help bring someone to a live page, but there’s other ways you could do it. I just don’t know why you would. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just put a page together on your website because it’s a CRM. It’s easy, But do whatever you want to.

I just wouldn’t I wouldn’t leave it off my website. So Cody said, I would absolutely put it on my website if I were to go hard on speaking. Yeah. Why not?

Cool. Yeah. What other chats do we have here?

Work with us, hire us, speak at your event. Yeah. I would pull out hire us. Don’t say hire us, speak at your event.

Some of the most popular speakers out there, that get the most business from their work are not asking for money at all. And I like, properly, I rarely ask for speakers’ fees. It’s only if I’m like, I don’t want to go to this event, but maybe I have a friend who’s gonna speak there. And I’m like, well, if you’re going, I’ll go.

And they’re like, okay. I’m getting ten k to go. And I’m like, okay. Well, I can probably ask for something like that, and go to.

But, like, then I think of all the other conferences I’ve been to where I’ve not charged anything, and they’re great. It’s been big for building thought leadership and getting invited onto the next stage and the next stage and the next stage and getting ultimate, like, payoff for that. It’s rarely direct payoff. It’s usually indirect payoff.

But I would take up anything to do with what I cost. Mm-mm. Just do it for free. They’ll pay for travel, and they’ll pay for your to put you up in a hotel.

Okay. Good. Just pull it. Just get hire us right out of there. Cool. Alright.

Anything else? Any other questions on that?

Cool. Alright.

Oh, yeah. Question, Joe. Yeah. When you say they pay for your travel and they pay for hotel, is that something typically that you would book and then they pay you back, or they take care of that directly and they send you the details?

I because I am a terrible flyer and I will only fly business, which most events don’t want to cover.

So I say, here’s what it costs for me to go, and then I say, like, it’s usually a a set rate of twenty five hundred to three thousand. Like, I go and look at what the hotel’s gonna cost. Right. Sometimes they’ve just got specialty rates anyway, they’ve already booked in for speakers, and they’re like, well, we’ll get the hotel.

Fine. You get your own travel. And then I just asked for, like they just cut me a check for two thousand, five thousand sometimes. Depends on what the travel’s gonna look like.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

But it is. Yes. It’s standard for them to pay for travel and accommodations. That’s it. And then they’ll invite you to a speaker’s dinner, so your, like, other costs are usually covered along the way anyway. So there you go.

Alright. You need a plan on a page for getting invited. You need a plan for getting invited, but let’s start with a plan on a page. How can you actually attract hosts and organizers to you?

So this is just your homework. If this is your big thing for the summer, list out those target podcasts for q three, which we’re in right now. So that’s a little bit tricky because it’s only got a two and a half months left in it, but, hey, that’s still two and a months. You can do a lot in two and a half months.

So target podcast for q three and q four. I’ve only got four on there because I don’t want a mega list of all the podcasts on the planet that you might ever speak at. Rather, what are the targets? The actual ones you wanna be on.

Who is the organizer? So who decides who goes on it? Sometimes it’s the host. Other times it’s not the host.

Other times it’s their whole team, like, agreeing or voting. Find that out. That’s the job. And then what’s their LinkedIn?

Just so you can start following them, and be engaging with them, and then identify what they want that you can give them.

So this is you just being, like, unreasonably thoughtful about their lives. What and I don’t mean send them flowers. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, like, what do they want from someone who comes on the show?

Do they want you to promote the podcast episode? Of course, they do. Do they want what else do they want? So list out the things that you want that they want that you can give them.

And, basically, anything they want, you should be able to give them because it’s probably not irrational. So if they want you to bring fifteen examples to talk through for what you do, put together fifteen examples. Like, just do the thing. Do the work.

If you’re doing this to grow your authority and get more traffic and clients in, then give them what they want. They’re also going to like, they got on your target list for a reason, so do the work. And then also do target events for the next eighteen months. Now anybody who is doing an event in the fall, it’s usually fall and spring.

Anybody who’s doing an event in the fall is likely already booked. So the only way you could get in there is, like, getting on their radar to get invited in the event someone cancels out. And you honestly could just ping them and say, hey. I know your event is in October.

I know you’ve already got your speakers all lined up. I’m all over speaking. I’m digging it. I’m doing great with it.

Build that up.

And if somebody can’t make it, just know that I’m here and I can fly out with four hours notice or something like that. You can always end up having to say no later if they come to you, but hopefully, you can actually say yes if they come to you, and now you’re doing it.

So what are those target events for the next eighteen months? And then same thing as before, except this time it’s the event organizer. Find who it is. You can find this. It just takes a little bit of research.

Go on to their LinkedIn. Follow them. DM them if when it makes sense, comment on their stuff, repost their stuff, etcetera, and more of what they want that you can give them. Short notice, custom talks, etcetera.

Then update your speaking page. Make sure you’re following them on not only LinkedIn, but other spaces, especially if they have low followers in other spaces. Let’s say they have an Instagram or the company has a YouTube channel and, like, their subscribers are pretty low, which is really common for a lot of organizations. Of course, they don’t spend all their days just, like, working on this stuff.

If you’re somebody who’s on there making themselves visible, commenting on their YouTube video, you’re the one commenter, and you’re, like, insightful about it. This is just these are small things to start, like, elevating in their eyes.

Make sure that you’ve updated your content strategy with topics they invite people to cover. So if you’re like, I know that this person, the person who organizes MozCon is all I can think about. So whatever.

They want someone who does magic while on I don’t know what the thing is, but make sure that you are then creating content around that stuff so that they are more likely to find you.

And then use SparkToro. We talk about SparkToro a lot.

SparkToro has tons of answers for things that you didn’t even know you could find out about a purse about a business, and the people you’re trying to get in front of. So use SparkToro to determine where you’re going to share this content so that it drives them back to your speaker page.

Questions?

Moving on. Finally oh, Roxanna. Yes.

So you spoke a lot about SparkToro, and, obviously, I was not here. Where do we find the things that you said?

I don’t know how well our search is working yet in Copy School Pro. I know Sarah’s been working hard on that. You might be able to just search SparkToro.

But more than anything, I it’s not that I teach how to go through SparkToro, but I’d rather say, like, just go use SparkToro. So just go use SparkToro. So head over there. There’s free accounts. There’s, like, low cost accounts, and Rand has, like, the ability to cancel.

It’s really easy. So you might only sign up for a month and then just cancel, and then sign back up again when you need to go through it again.

Yeah. Cool.

Awesome. Alright. Speakers oh, it does. Okay. Thanks. Speakers to connect with.

You are about to if you do this stuff, if you go on stage and somewhat on podcast this is the tricky thing about podcast, right, is because you’re more likely, of course, only to connect with the person that you’re actually speaking with, the host of the podcast. You can, however, connect with people who have been on the podcast before. So go back and look through who was on the podcast in the last, I don’t know, ten episodes, and then just DM them. Like, just put their name in and, like, DM them and say, hey.

I saw you were just a guest on whatever. I was just on there last week, or they just invited me, or I’m thinking of going on there. Any tips? Just start connecting with speakers.

And the reason for this is event I cannot tell you how many times an event organizer has said, Joe, do you know anybody who? And I’ve put their name forward, and then they are speakers now. And it turns into really good things. I’ve CTA Conf, I can’t tell you how many people I recommended to CTA Conf.

I think one year, like, half of the agenda was just people that I’d said, what about her? What about him? And it’s great, and it’s a really good kickoff. But if I didn’t know those people, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything.

If I didn’t know that, like, Claire or somebody was interested in getting on stages and talking about jobs to be done, then I wouldn’t have said, hey. Do you know Claire? She talks about jobs to be done for marketers. Maybe her?

And then she’s on stage, and then she’s on stage again and again and again and again. So get them get friendly with speakers.

Obviously, we always wanna do it in a non skeasy way. It’s very easy to tell when someone’s being inauthentic. But if you’re genuinely curious and if you know, hey. If this person invites me to be on stage and they’re on stage at the same event, we’re probably gonna get together and have after, we’ll get together for drinks when there’s, like, a boring session happening and there’s, like, a pub down the street.

So this is like, befriend people. Just start making friends with other speakers, and then you might be one of the people that they recommend. Okay. That is really it. Oh, there is this part. It’s really detailed.

So I’m just gonna leave this with you so that you can know that you have to go back and do these things, but some of it is already, like, done. Your IRL funnel, talked about last week, your appointment funnel having those things connected, etcetera.

And make sure wherever you are, whether you have started the book or not, put that a book is coming soon, go in Canva, make a fake book cover with the title on it and your name on it, Say it’s coming soon. Put a mock up together. Put it on LinkedIn. Put it on your website. Nobody needs to know that it’s not quite ready yet. They do wanna know that though, that you are, an authority. You’re a thought leader or you’re about to be one.

Okay. Any questions?

Yes. Katie?

Can I you said also, can you hear me? Because this my mic wasn’t working. Yep. Yeah. Strong CTA for the speaking page. Like, I currently have a type form because I’m speaking to, I figured, podcast hosts and, like, coaches who have a mastermind and wanna bring in a guest expert. Would you wanna get on a like, forum to book a call?

Is that pretty standard for how you’d want that process to go?

It depends how much time the organizer has. So when you, like it’s it’s useful to even just, like, start I don’t know. Go spend some time listening to what conference organizers complain about. They rarely have the time or resources for any of the work they have to do. Right? It all feels really, really overwhelming.

So I would reduce friction wherever possible. I would say, like, hey. Here’s you fill in this form, or, like, if if time is of the essence, here’s my phone number. Call me.

And then if that gets weird and, like, the wrong people start calling you, then just take it off. But we’re really just trying to reduce friction so that that event organizer and I have event organizers in my head as I’m saying this. All of them would appreciate you making it fast and easy to find out if you’re the right person for them or not. So I would if a type form, I would eliminate the type form, go with a single, like, here’s how to email me, or why not just text me, and let’s get this. Like, let’s figure out if I’m even a good fit.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the pay at the end of the page, have, like, book a call or leave a message, and then the type form’s just, like, kind of segmenting them, and then they write their intro.

So Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I would just do as I require as little as possible and then start adding fields if you get, like, inundated with people. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Cool.

I got a I don’t know. This is just to me, or is this to everybody? I don’t know. Will you be doing more IRL events when your book comes out? Yes. If yes, will you try to get event organizers to bulk buy your book? Probably not.

But I’m I haven’t worked through that idea yet. I haven’t done any planning for what to do with the book since it’s not out till July twenty twenty six, so I have some time.

But I don’t know. When I when I dig more into that, I’ll definitely share what I’m going to do with bulk buying.

Yeah.

Obviously, it’s a good signal to Amazon and other spaces when a bunch of your books are purchased there. But if they go through, like, my publisher or me, then there’s all these book sales that are lost now that, like, Amazon doesn’t know anything about and etcetera. So yeah.

Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions or thoughts about particularly getting on stages, but the same rules often apply to getting on podcasts? They’re just in my opinion, and I know that it is an unpopular opinion.

Few podcasts are really, really good and likely to last a long, long time. There’s a lot of shit dies on the Vinom podcast. You gave a great podcast interview two years ago when no one’s ever gonna hear it. And that’s true for speaking as well.

Right? But you’ve got to get more personal with people, and that they’ll remember versus you just being another voice on the podcast. So that’s why I recommend more, getting on stages, but I know everybody else just wants to be on podcasts. So yeah.

I love podcasts, and we’ll die on that hill, Joe.

I hate to see you die, but go for it. I mean, if that’s, like, the thing that you want, cool. Alright.

Transforming Money into Wealth

Transforming Money Into Wealth

Transcript

I’m Acquania. I’m Acquania Escarne, and, glad to be here today. I’ve been in the community a few months now and, like to write.


So, I’ll talk about my multifaceted business, but I I started writing, blog writing, in like twenty sixteen and, you know, got my first thing off of Upwork and was initially only doing blogs and, articles for online magazine. But in twenty twenty, one of my clients asked me to help promote his ebook and digital sales and COVID were insane. So, that was my first client and he went from a six figure business to a seven, eight figure business. And, we still work together, and he referred me to all his friends. So I’ve actually built a, email marketing business with no website, no direct promotion to my email marketing services, but referral only.


Diverse Ventures: Life Insurance and Real Estate

And, in addition to that, I am a licensed life insurance producer and a real estate investor.


So, in twenty twenty, I also started investing in hotels and other types of real estate. So I’m gonna share a lot of that today, and, I started doing it with life insurance. So that is the beginning of what I’m about to talk about. So I’m gonna share my screen and then hop into this. And I like I said, I’ll leave time for questions because really, telling my story, helps people a lot because how you do it can vary slightly depending on where you are and what you have in your portfolio.


But money is money and money makes money. That’s my goal. Right? So let me minimize me, and you can always, you know, interrupt me while I’m talking, because I’d rather answer questions in real time.


Okay? So today, we’re gonna focus on how to invest in real estate with life insurance, but I’ll tell you all the types of real estate that I’m into and how I’ve made that work. My name is Aquania Esquane. I’m a mom, a wife, and an average traveler.


Before I did all of these things, I was a diplomat for the US government and, straight out of undergrad I went into grad school and then into the foreign service, so I’ve lived in many countries. My youngest was born in Dubai and I’ve also worked on foreign policy and U. S.


Issues. But that’s where I kinda started to put together all of these strategies on how to help people make money because when I was in Port au Prince, Haiti, they had an earthquake, and I saw how a lot of mid income to high income government workers were actually not prepared for disasters. And that’s what got me to encourage people to save money for emergencies and then also to take my finances even more seriously. Fortunately, when I went to Haiti, I had life insurance already, and I was already building the strategy that helped me do what I did in twenty twenty and beyond, but it started my desire to teach people how to do it too.


So it’s funny how crazy natural disasters will also make you reevaluate, your priorities and your focus.


Okay.


So, I started my journey on financial literacy with Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.


I know many of you may have heard about this book. If you have not, feel free to add it to your read list. It is a classic. My dad gave it to me at sixteen, sixteen, which is about the same time I took this picture and I read it. I read it in high school and I literally took to heart what he said and I started saving from retirement at sixteen with my first job.


Early Financial Habits and Retirement Savings

I worked at a clothing store as a cashier and a sales associate. And instead of using my paycheck to buy clothes in the store, I used my paycheck to start saving for retirement.


So I opened a Roth individual retirement account, which is a tax free or tax deferred account where you put money in after you pay taxes, and you get to take it out in retirement tax free. That was my first introduction to saving for my future.


And I’ve actually been able to leverage that one account to help me buy my first home. It also has been, very useful in emergency funds and even, just teaching other people, including my children, on how you can save tax free dollars for your future. So it’s never too early to teach your kids about money because they might listen and it might actually pay off for everybody because now I’ve been able to use some of the wealth I built to bless my family and to, you know, have amazing experiences for us. And so I highly recommend you start early.


Purchasing Properties for Financial Freedom

Okay. So this is me and my husband in twenty sixteen.


When we purchased our dream home in Virginia, we also purchased two other properties in that one year. So that’s the year that we really got on the path to financial freedom.


And the reason I say that is because most people can’t buy three properties in one year unless they, really plan or have just a lot of money. We actually did both. We, first being in the foreign service, as I mentioned, I was assigned to Dubai in twenty twelve, and I took my family with me. And those years while we were assigned overseas, we were also turned into forced landlords, because my husband purchased the condo he had at the top of the market in two thousand and eight, and then he was underwater in twenty twelve. So we weren’t in a position to sell the house, so we had to rent it.


But what I did was leverage my government benefit. So the US government paid for my housing in Dubai and a tenant paid our housing in Maryland. So we let the tenant pay the mortgage for the three years we were abroad and we we saved that mortgage payment, right, in a bank and invested it. So when we came back in twenty fifteen, we decided to make a plan for the money we’d save and the money we built, not just in life insurance because I’ll explain how I built up cash and life insurance, but also the money we saved for three years not paying a mortgage, and things that we had earned off of other investments.


My husband and I got a financial advisor the year before we got married so we could really work with another person to combine our money. And that person gave us a lot of these strategies that we were able to just set and then let work, right? So in twenty sixteen, we purchased our home. We actually helped my mother-in-law purchase a condo so that she could retire in her own home versus paying rent.


Strategies for Real Estate Investment

And then we also purchased a home in Philadelphia where we turned it into a rental and it created rental income for us. And the source of all of that money was mostly life insurance and then, the savings from not paying a mortgage. So there are definitely ways to leverage money and that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. But before I move on, do I have any questions?


I have things in the chat. Oh, yes. Yes. Glory days was definitely COVID when people just paid money for no reason.


So here’s how investing with life insurance works. But I’ll also give you some tips on how you can do this same strategy with retirement assets too, because now I have literally leveraged retirement assets, life insurance, and my own cash to do all kinds of deals.


Okay. So whenever you wanna do something, you need money to do it. I’m sorry to say I’m not gonna tell you today that you can do all of these things with other people’s money. That is just not my mantra nor is it realistic. You need some capital. It preferably a little bit of your own because when you have skin in the game, you take it more seriously.


You can create capital by raising money. I’ve also done that.


One of the things I did last year was raise a million dollars in six weeks of other people’s money to purchase a hotel, but that was something I did years later after really fine tuning my own money and how I used it.


So in the world of life insurance, just so we’re on the same definition of what it is, I wanna be clear that it is a contract.


The Basics of Life Insurance Contracts

And in the in the US, we really take this contract seriously.


You sign a contract with a company, you have agreed that God forbid you die, they are going to pay, and it’s a tax free benefit. So your your estate doesn’t pay any taxes on the money you leave them in life insurance.


But one thing that that people don’t always know is that you can use some of the benefits of life insurance while you’re alive. So that’s really what I did is I honed in on that benefit, and I ran with it.


So in my opinion, life insurance is a guaranteed way to leave a legacy because there are two things guaranteed in life, and you guys know what those are? Do y’all have this joke? Because yes.


Two things guaranteed in life. If you know what they are, drop them in the chat. Yes. You got it. Death and taxes. So that’s why I say as long as you have a contract in place before you die, they are gonna pay out, and that’s what makes it guaranteed. But there are there is some fine print to it, and I’ll kinda hop into that quickly right now.


Types of Life Insurance Explained

So, of course, life insurance, there’s different types everywhere, and and which one you get matters, because they don’t all allow you to do the strategy I’m about to talk about. But, being healthy, of course, being young, the type of insurance you get, and your criminal history and medical history all matter. They contribute to what the cost of this strategy is going to be for you, so that’s why I kind of want to highlight that first and foremost.


And we also have what we call term insurance which is like temporary contracts and they cover you for a certain amount of time like ten, fifteen, twenty years. And then we have permanent life insurance which is never expires.


It is more expensive but that’s where the money is, right?


So if you have access to these types of products, this is where you really want to kind of do the comparison and then see what’s best for you because I will say this strategy is not for everyone. It worked really well for me, my family, and a lot of my clients, but it’s important to kinda talk to someone to see if it’ll work for you too.


Alright. So term insurance, as I mentioned, it is temporary. It’s a a contract that expires, but it is still worth having in place if you don’t have anything else. And most employers kinda offer this as well. So, like, if you have an employer or you’re, you know, an entrepreneur who also has a nine to five, your employer might offer an a benefit where they provide life insurance to you or they provide it at a reduced cost. And a lot of times, that’s term insurance that just renews every year.


But the thing about this type of insurance, although it’s good to have and definitely the one that is the best bang for your buck, it also statistically doesn’t get paid out.


So it’s not the one that a lot of wealthier people use because it’s not meant for the purpose of building wealth. It’s meant for the purpose of leaving wealth. So I definitely think if you are limited on income and you wanna just make sure your family’s taken care of, term insurance is definitely the way to go because that will leave the wealth that your family needs to continue to live the life that you’ve built. And, unfortunately, I have had clients pass away, and this has been a lifesaver for their families, but it has also allowed their families to set themselves up for success after their death because they had money and didn’t have to worry about paying bills while they were grieving. So it’s still worth considering.


But, it does have its pros and cons being that it’s budget friendly. You can get a million dollars for, you know, an inexpensive price if you’re young, healthy, and not smoker not a smoker.


But, it is something that expires. Right? So that’s kinda one of the cons. You gotta keep up with it.


You gotta make sure you know when it’s gonna expire. You have to make sure that, you know what your contract says. And then, unfortunately, most people will never see the money because they live beyond the contract, which is a good thing. Right?


It’s good that you live a long life, but most people will outlive their contract. So these don’t get paid out that often, but they are still good to have in place as a backup.


Now the one that I leverage to start my wealth journey is permanent insurance. So one thing I will say is this is guaranteed to be paid out because it doesn’t have an expiration date. As long as you pay the the premium, according to whatever your contract says, they will pay your family.


They will also even pay you. So I’ll talk about how you can earn interest in these types of accounts.


And I know they do have these in Canada too. They just might have them under different names.


But the reason that I particularly like them is because these have been proven to build cash even in low or not as well performing economies and they are also, some of them are not directly invested in the stock market. So you have a type of product that’s not susceptible to the volatility of the stock market. So that’s what I also like and it is a good thing to have in addition to, so let me be clear, in addition to your other investments retirement accounts, it is very helpful to have some type of permanent insurance, if your budget will allow.


Now, there’s different types. I will briefly go into these, but I will say check where you are because it varies.


But you have some types of policies where guaranteed coverage for life, guaranteed price for the time of your contract.


But some of them make more money than others. And so like for example, in the US whole life insurance is the one that we know the most because it’s the oldest product on the market. So a lot of people will refer to their insurance as Whole Life even if it isn’t. But the reality is that this one is more conservative, so it doesn’t always make as much money as the product that I use, which is Index Universal Life. So I really like this one because it’s flexible.


It allows you to change what you pay based on your budget and your circumstances.


It also tends to have a higher return than some of the other policies. But again, it can come with, the the changes. It could be zero percent some seasons when the economy is really bad and then twelve, fifteen percent return when the economy is really good. But the goal is to go for what you’re most comfortable with because you never wanna take on more risk than you can handle. Okay?


But, do you guys have insurance? This is just a quick check with the group. Does anyone have insurance? Drop in the chat yes or no. And then if you do have insurance, do you know what type?


Okay. So we got a yes. We got a no. No. Okay. Alright. I’d love to get to say yes.


So here’s the thing. It’s it’s it’s yes but no type. So definitely look at your contract.


From this point forward, I’m gonna be focusing on the permanent one I talked about that makes money.


But I can answer questions about any type of insurance you have if you genuinely have questions. Okay?


But the key with the permanent insurance is because it doesn’t expire, and you’re paying more for it, the life insurance companies kinda give you some perks for hanging out with them and using their product. And one of the perks is interest. So they’re paying you interest after the first twelve months and every quarter after that based on how well their money does in the stock market. So the key to this strategy though is giving your money time to grow. So for example, my husband and I got policies the year before we got married, but then we gave them two to three years to grow before we cashed in forty thousand dollars to start our real estate investing.


Building Cash Value in Life Insurance

What we used was called cash value. So that’s the money that’s inside of the policy that grows over time. That’s part of that money is money we put in the policy and part of that money is the interest that the insurance company paid us to. Okay? So that’s where you get the capital. And then once you have accumulated enough capital, to to spend, that’s when you start to look for opportunities to leverage.


I like them. Thank you. I actually did this for myself, and I was, like, trying to get creative. So thank you.


So that’s what we’re gonna really focus on is, like, building the cash. So the cash, which is super important, comes from your payments. So every time you make a payment on your life insurance, a portion of it is going to go into a cash bucket, and a portion of it is gonna go to the actual cost of life insurance because it’s a life insurance product. So you are paying a cost for if you die, they’re gonna write the big check. Right?


But the part of your money that goes into the cash bucket is what’s gonna accumulate every month you make a payment. And then after your first twelve months, you start to get interest.


And that interest varies.


It really depends on how well the life insurance companies investments did. So I’m not sure if you guys know this, but life insurance companies don’t just sell life insurance. They actually invest in businesses, invest their money in the stock market, and then they use those profits to pay out their claims, right, and to make money.


So they are the people who are investing in the stock market, but your actual policy isn’t invested in the market.


So that’s why I like it because you don’t deal with the volatility and it makes it different from your other investments. Right? Your retirement investments might be in the stock market, but your life insurance doesn’t have to be. So I like that too.


But after the twelve months, they look at how well they did. If they made a twenty percent return on their investments, they split that with you and all the other people who also have permanent insurance. And on average, the company that I have policies with, they pay between ten to twelve percent since COVID. So just imagine you are paying for something that is gonna give your family money if you die, but in the meantime, you’re also gonna earn a ten percent return every year. I don’t think that’s too shabby.


But that ten percent grows. And if the life insurance company continues to be profitable when they invest, then you will continue to earn interest.


But here’s the catch.


On the month on the quarters, they don’t make any profit. So just imagine two thousand and eight, market’s down, real estate’s down, nobody’s making money. The life insurance companies lost money too. So in those quarters that they don’t make as much money or any money, you don’t earn any interest. But the the the deposits that you made and put into your cash bucket that the interest is paid off of, those will continue to accumulate. So your cash bucket is always making, deposits or getting deposits from the payments that you make, but the interest fluctuates based on the life insurance and what they pay out.


So I like it for that reason too too, because your cash value just doesn’t have the potential to decrease. It only has the potential to increase with the interest payments.


But, and if you make a reduction, meaning a withdrawal, then it will decrease that way, but it doesn’t decrease otherwise.


Utilizing Cash Value as a Savings Tool

So I call this like my second savings account.


And when you let the cash value just grow, then you can utilize it. But I still recommend you use your cash value while you’re alive because the death benefit goes to your family. The cash value is meant to be used by you and that’s what we did. So my husband and I, we had accumulated forty ks in cash value. We decided, hey, we wanna kinda stretch this out over three investments and see what happens. So we, use that money towards down payments on the real estate ventures and the money towards mom and the money in the house in Philly.


And then we funded those deals. And so you have to find the opportunity.


In twenty twenty, I actually found a lot of opportunities, believe it or not, because when everyone’s sitting at home, you have tons of classes to learn how to do tons of stuff.


So, in addition to learning how to take my cash value and put it into physical real estate that I knew how to do, which is buy homes and buy rentals, I also learned in twenty twenty that, hey, for twenty that twenty to twenty five thousand dollars you can also invest in hotels and your money can buy hotels and also give you profits from hotels if you’re an investor.


So in twenty twenty, I took some of my retirement funds and actually invested in my first hotel in Oklahoma and then, kinda got addicted and started investing in hotels every year after that. And so, what I will say is COVID was the best time to get into hotels because they were all on sale. You had owners who were multiple owners trying to make mortgages and struggling to do so because travel was down. And so they were literally giving away hotels for a discount, for taking over mortgage payments, whatever that bank needed to do in order to not have that property foreclosed was what you were able to do to take it over.


And the reason I really like hotels is because you’re not just buying the land, you’re also buying a business. So when you buy the hotel, you are buying a business that rents rooms, sells food sometimes, and then also has a land value as well.


So that’s what we I did in twenty twenty. Purchased real estate, including hotels, and those businesses, then started to pay me, in twenty twenty one.


So I borrowed.


I lended myself the money, basically.


And then I found the deal and then I literally, rinse and repeat.


So a lot of these properties I still have. I even started getting into apartment syndication. So for anyone who’s ever lived in a big apartment subdivision, most of the time those are owned by corporations or by LLCs who have investors in them. And so I chose to use my money, retirement money, life insurance money, and our cash to do those types of deals.


And so invested and repeated. And then since then, some of them have sold. So for example, the apartments that we had near Disney World in Florida, we sold those in twenty twenty three. And then, the the hotels I’m actually still invested in and, seeing how those go, and they’re pretty much doing well now that we’re out of COVID.


Exploring Case Studies in Insurance Funding

Okay. So before I get into case studies, I just wanna check to see, do we have any questions for the Canadians here, cash value, whole life, etcetera, all things here. Yes. Yes.


I’ve I’ve presented to a group in Canada before, and they told me the same thing, but I just wanted to to make sure. Okay. So I will say that it does take money to make money, but how much money you put into insurance is up to you.


Oh, that’s a good question. So, Katie, I invested directly into the hotels through private equity deals, and now I am a hotel owner myself. So when people invested with me in twenty twenty four, they sent me and my partner’s money and we purchased the hotel directly. And then they’re paid out, cash flow from the hotel profits directly from us as well. You can do funds like real estate investment trust and stuff.


But there just aren’t as many funds that do hotels as you would think. So I chose to do direct investment, but I also, you know, did my research, knew the people I was investing with, got to see the properties as well, before I, before I really dived in. And so that’s how I’ve been able to do it with confidence.


But I will say it is different. You will not always meet people who just invest in hotels, but when I learned and I met people who did it, I learned how they were doing it and why, and then I’ve been teaching others. So you can definitely do direct investment.


Alright.


So for the insurance, the first case study I have is someone who has excess cash flow because you can have excess cash flow of a thousand or so, and then it really, really makes sense. That’s what we call front loading or heavily funding your policy in the beginning. And then the next example I show you is when you fund it less, but you fund it longer.


So in this example, if you’re someone who has the cash flow and you only wanna do this for a few years, in this case, Jessica did a thousand dollars a month for four years. And then in the fourth year, she actually couldn’t even do the full amount because we have limits that you can do. So she kinda maxed out at three thousand eight hundred, but she still had quite a bit of cash. It builds up over time and then it becomes accessible for an investment. And you can actually access your cash value whenever your balance is more than zero dollars.


So this is a short term funding strategy where you, you know, quickly fund your policy at a high amount for a short amount of time, and then you can choose to take money out in the early years or leave it there. It’s really up to you. But this one is like fund it, forget it, and then don’t fund it anymore. That’s kind of the strategy that I call it.


Short-Term vs Long-Term Funding Strategies

And the reason that I personally like this is because you can contribute more than a Roth IRA, and it doesn’t have to do with your income. It doesn’t matter. As long as you can afford the contract and you need the insurance, there’s really nothing stopping you. So being able to have a high return, being able to get tax free money, that’s not limited to tax laws, is really nice. And then being able to withdraw it while you’re young or whenever you want is also a benefit.


Alternatively, if you wanted to do less, might even say five hundred dollars a month, and you are young, healthy, non smoking is always preferred because you’ll get the best rates. But in this case, Sarah’s even older than Jessica.


She’s funding it for five hundred a month, but for a longer period of time, because some of my clients will use this to, create another set of income for retirement.


So they will fund their policy for for, you know, monthly while they’re working for twenty years or fifteen years or whatever.


And then in retirement, they make no more payments, but the policy pays them.


So in this strategy, you are using half as much money as Jessica, but you’re funding it much longer than Jessica.


But this person’s goal was, hey, I wanna have forty thousand in tax free money in retirement for the rest of my life. So this is what I’m gonna do in a temporary setting in order to access tax free cash indefinitely later.


And so this is also a way to do it. Again, if you wanted to take any of this money and start to use it before retirement, you absolutely could. But I have some people who are like, you know, I don’t I’ve maxed out my employer options or my available tax free options, and I wanna still invest more towards retirement. This is a way to do it and it’s not limited.


And then it does come out to be a fixed amount when you retire and you can get that money every year until you pass away.


Alright.


So same thing, tax free, life insurance. So if she dies, the money the family gets almost five hundred k tax free, but then also, because Sarah’s strategy is tax free money in in retirement, she’s doing six thousand dollars a year to get forty thousand dollars a year in retirement, and it still has the same annual return range, but she doesn’t make any more payments in retirement. So it aligns with this idea that, hey. When you retire, you should have less bills, and your insurance shouldn’t be one of them.


Okay? So let me see.


Alright. So yeah. So I’m gonna skip to questions for that one for a second.


But if you withdraw, you still no. That’s a good question, Roxanna. So that’s the really cool part is, like, no. If you have cash and you withdraw it, you have options. You can pay it back so that you can continue to use your cash bank for other purposes.


And that’s what some people choose to do. When you use it for fix and flips, for example, you you take out money to fix the house or the do the renovations, then you sell the house. And when you get the proceeds from the house, you can put the money back into the life insurance policy. And when you do it like that, you can continue to utilize your cash bank and it’ll continue to make interest. But if you decide you don’t wanna return it, you don’t have to.


So there are, options and you choose based on kind of when you do it. So like in the Sarah strategy where she’s taking money out every year in retirement, that money is already calculated to never have to be paid back. If you took out money even before retirement one time and don’t wanna pay it back, that’s an option too. It just depends on, how much cash you have in there and whether or not you keep making payments or not.


So most of the time for people who take money out and never wanna pay it back, they still continue to pay for their life insurance, but they just have that money that they got. They don’t have to pay it back. And then even when they die, nobody’s looking for them. But for those who wanna continue to utilize that bucket, they will pay they will make payments to pay it back.


But you get to decide your repayment terms. So some people will say, oh, I’ll make I’ll make a extra hundred dollar payment until it’s paid off, and then others will make lump sum payments if they’re using it for real estate, and they have lump sum payments that come in. So it just depends. But, no, you’re not required to make the payments back.


That’s the short answer.


Thank you.


Bye, everyone.


Thanks. Bye. Bye.

Worksheet

Getting Invited onto Stages & Podcasts (p.26)

 

Transcript

Alright. Cool.

Good. Excellent. Okay. Welcome to the new week in the summer of big things. Today, we are going to talk about getting invited onto stages and podcasts.

So if that’s your thing, if that’s a big thing that you want to work toward, we’ll talk through the part of the workbook that walks you through that. That is starts it starts on page twenty six and goes to page thirty one. For those of you who are in the document itself, I’ll share my screen when it’s time when you need to look at something on the screen. But I do wanna start with is anybody does anybody wanna speak to wanting to get on stage or how that’s happening? Jess, do you have something to share here?

No. I just want to. And, like, I’m actually I go and I speak at there’s a starter company, like, yeah, like, a starter program through the small business enterprise center here that they invite me to speak, which is, like, really cool.

And I feel like I’m good at it. So I wanna do it for more of my, like, ideal clients.

Yes. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Good. Anybody else? Roxanna?

So I haven’t spoken in a long time on stages for some reason. You know?

And when I did, I converted, which was great.

But I kinda need to get it together and perhaps do something for the fall.

Okay. Okay. Cool.

Good. Alright. So podcasts come up a lot as well, and we’ll be talking about podcasts today too.

Who has podcasts being a guest on podcasts as part of their, like, growth strategy?

Yeah? Sabine, Jess, Cody Yeah. Abby. Yeah. Cody, do you wanna share something? Oh, sure.

Okay.

So I I it’s not something it’s not, like, my big thing.

Right? My big thing is my YouTube channel. But my content has created like, I I don’t know. People have been reaching out to me asking me to be a guest on their podcast because of that. So I just wanna share that.

Okay. That’s great.

Excellent. Anyone else wanna share anything regarding podcast stuff, Sabine?

Sabine, who decided to throw up on camera today?

Nice.

No. Podcast always used to be really easy for me compared to any sort of PR stuff. Even speaking on stages, it’s always been so remarkably easy for me to also sell on the back of that. I used to have my own podcast.

I stopped that because it became too much. But being a guest and maybe starting up something where I have a little less of an expectation that it’s super super duper polished. I think it’s also about getting the level of effort right. You know, there’s a balance.

Okay.

As in, like, when you’re a guest on a podcast, you can you need less prep work, or does It’s less I I think it’s less about the prep marketing of every single episode and having, you know, having so many different channels to look after.

I think if I were to start my own podcast again, I would make it a real focus, like Cody said, with YouTube. But being a guest, I think, can be more a supplementary path on top of my own owned channels.

Okay. Alright. Cool.

Okay. Excellent. Cody’s saying in chat, I had my own podcast too. Had it for a whole year.

It’s a solo podcast, though. Solo’s supposed to be better, actually. Okay. Interesting.

Alright. So we’re going to talk about let me just bring up my stuff here. We’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of it. Right? So if this is something that you’re not working on right now, it’s still worth seeing and maybe even, like, assigning to your VA or somebody else that might have more time if you have somebody on staff who you know is underutilized.

Putting them on this work, especially with a checklist in front of them, is pretty straightforward. It’s a pretty easy win. And then you’re ready whenever someone comes knocking. Whenever someone’s like, I think I might want you to speak on my podcast or get on stage, you’re good to go. Alright. So let me share that. Okay.

Poop. There we go. Alright. So you’ll need a speaker page in most cases. So years ago when conferences were enormous, you didn’t need like, when they were everywhere, you didn’t need a speaker page.

You just need people conference organizers were just busy watching other people’s replays or attending other people’s conferences and then, like, stealing speakers directly from there. Stealing being, like, ethical stealing. You’re just looking and saying, like, you were dope. Can you come over here now?

And so you didn’t need this. And you might still not need a speaker page. I don’t have a speaker page, but I also don’t want to travel and go do this stuff. I know a lot of people who get invited on a lot of stages, they don’t have a speaker page.

But that often has a lot to do with kind of being in this, like, insulated space. Once you start speaking on a stage on like, you start with one, typically, that will land you in a group of events that are all kind of, like, the organizers all attend each other’s events, and that’s how you’ll find yourself being invited to other events. So, yeah, that you’d that’s something to think about when you’re putting together your speaker page, whether you need one or not. Now if you’re not getting invited onto stages right now, there are ways around that, ways to kind of fudge that, which we can talk about.

But the speaker page itself is made for your organizer. It’s not made for the people in the audience. You are writing the speaker page to help that conference organizer who is busy, who just wants the best people in the room, who wants to make sure that anybody they bring on stage has charisma, can actually, like, walk around the stage and not just depend on a slide deck and not stand with a very dull slide deck presenting things for twenty five minutes and then shuffling off stage and going home. Conference organizers want an active event.

So we need to think of them first and foremost, and we can talk a bit about what they’re looking for. Now on the speaker page, really straightforward stuff. This is for your organizer. You gotta match that h one to the keywords that your organizer will use.

So that means looking into that, that does there’s not no clear answer right now outside of if they were, like, copy speaker for copywriting or something like that. I don’t know. You have to go find that. That’s part of the job.

You wanna show your face in high resolution above the fold.

People don’t like that. I know a lot of people here are like, I don’t want to. I don’t like it. Do it. We all know, like, our face is a big part of it. It is our signature now, and that’s an important thing in a time of AI. So put your face there.

Showcase your full name and your value prop as a speaker, not as the kind of copywriter you are or agency owner you are or whatever. What you will be speaking about, that’s what you put above the fold. Make sure on all devices, it’s above the fold.

Now what do organizers want the most? They wanna know things like, yes. I customize talks for each event. A lot of people are like, oh, I have, like, these two talks I give, and no.

I don’t I don’t, customize them, and that’s really problematic for the organizer. When I was first starting out getting on stage, I did a new talk for every single event I was at, and I had to the point where if I showed up at an event and the week before I had spoken at one event and then I went to a different one, and I know that the last one went well, I would just go off and talk to the organizer and say, like, okay. I have a new talk for you, but I actually just gave this other talk last week, and it went really well. Which one should we do?

And that’s, like, a nice thing for them. They’ll probably just say, like, no. Go with the one that’s on the agenda. We’re good.

But that’s not always the case. And so it’s nice to be able to just, like, kind of share ideas and different options with the conference organizers. You do have favorite talks, so it’s likely that you’ll have two or three decks in your back pocket as you go. Start with one, but don’t expect that you can get away with saying, like, here’s what I talk about.

This is my talk. If you do, it’s probably not gonna go over well if you don’t have a lot of events you can say you’ve spoken at. Organizers, again, they wanna make sure that they have something unique that will attract people to their event to pay for a ticket. And given that most events put your, put past conference put past talks on YouTube, if you’ve already given the talk and it can be found on YouTube, the organizer’s not gonna love that.

They’re gonna love that they can go watch and see how you are and what the content’s like, but they don’t want you to then say, I’m gonna give the same talk for you because an attendee would be like, well, why am I gonna pay if everybody is just giving all of the same talks they’ve already given and they’re on YouTube?

They also want things that make it easy to show that they’ve got authorities, thought leaders on stage. So if you’ve published a book in any way, that includes self publishing. Nobody cares. And you can bring copies.

Maybe you’re like, I always bring twenty copies to give away to attendees. Cool. One more thing they don’t have to worry about. One more piece of value they can add to their audience, add for their audience.

If you have bulk discounts where they’re like, I love that you wrote a book, and you’re like, cool. How many people are going to be there? And they’re like, three hundred. And you’re like, okay.

Well, if you buy three hundred copies of my book, I can drop it from fifteen dollars five dollars per. And if it costs you nothing, it costs you two bucks to print the thing, and now they have three hundred copies of your book sitting there. Now you just have to make sure that those books are, like, leaving, so it doesn’t look pretty sad.

So that’s something to keep in mind. What what can you add that proves you’re an authority? And then further than that, can you give part of that away? Honestly, little things like this, I’ve been asked several times.

Hey, Joe. What are you doing tomorrow? Can you fly out here? Because so and so got sick.

Or so and so lost their passport on the way here, and now they can’t get into Canada or into the States. Can you come out? So if you say, hey. I live in Toronto.

I’m thirty minutes from, international airport, and I can get to most places in the US and, even over in the UK and parts of Europe, then that’s good for them to know. That’s great for them to know. It doesn’t mean that it will make them book you or that they’ll go looking for you for that. But if they’ve been on your speaker page, maybe they didn’t say yes to you before, but they remember when they’re in that panic of, holy shit.

We don’t have a speaker for Tuesday, and it’s Sunday. They will then go, like, who was that person? Who was that person? That person who said that they could fly out in short notice.

And that could be just enough to get you there. Remember that these a lot of the conferences that are out there are small, and they’re, not embarrassed that they’re small, but, you know, big conferences get a lot of hype. Oh, we had five thousand people here. We had twenty five thousand people here.

Not, that’s not what most events are meant for, like, this big thing, but some speakers only wanna speak to large audiences, have very particular requirements about audiences. So if you’re like, hey.

I love small audiences. They’re my jam. I prefer to speak to two hundred to four hundred people in a room. Then knowing that the vast majority of those events that are out there are two hundred to four hundred people, you’re now making yourself, like, fit in to this, like, ninety percent of the events out there. And while we’re on the subject, smaller audiences are better. You get way more out of them.

If you’ve worked if you’ve, been on stage and other speakers love working with you, cool. Share their testimonial. That’s a big part of it. Right? There’s going to be behind the scenes when you’re speaking at an event. There’s a speaker’s dinner that you’re invited to the night before or the night of the first day.

There’s other parts where you’ll be asked to interact with not only the attendees, but also speakers. So if you seem like a cool person who is, like, not gonna make it weird to be around you, that goes a long way. So if other speakers, anybody in this room, if you’ve spoken maybe you put on your own event just for short like, you were just like, I need some video of me on stage. So you, like, rented out a small room and invited a bunch of people to it and invited someone else here to come out and speak there too and did, like, a mini copywriting event, great.

Get the person you invite out to also say, like, ah, so and so was so great to work with. It’s so nice to be a speaker who, like, works with other speakers, who get what it’s like to be a speaker. I mean, none of that even made sense, but, like, but more of that kind of, the conference organizer’s like, cool. This is, like, a speaker who’s not a dick, who doesn’t, like, leave or make it weird, which some people just do.

So if that’s not you, cool. Get a testimonial. This is a big one.

When you are going on stage and you tell your conference organizer, I stay for the whole event. So I I like staying for an event. I get to learn everything there. I get to connect with other people. Other speakers who stay have I’ve become best friends with speakers. Like, we now travel together.

And we met because we were backstage together going, like, I’m so nauseous. I can’t even and they’re like, I’m so nauseous too. What are we gonna do? And you become good friends.

And so if you can say, I’m an active speaker. I’m an active attendee. I stay for the whole event. I network.

I go out for lunches with people.

Cool. That’s one more thing that speaker that conference organizers love. Keeping in mind that there are a lot of people who are professional speakers who show up two hours before they go on stage. They get mic’d.

They stand around quietly in the back, and then they go on stage, give their talk that they’ve given ten thousand times, walk off stage, take their mic off, kind of do, like, a fake inauthentic hi to everyone, and then they get back on an airplane. That’s shitty. As an organizer, you don’t want that. Then the attendees are all separated from you.

The speakers are like, who is that?

And it’s just a weird feeling, so you cannot be that person. You can talk about that. On your speaker page, obviously, list every single thing that you’ve done that where you’ve been invited to speak or share any thought leadership. If you do have a highlight reel, go ahead and embed it.

You don’t need one, but if you’ve got anything you can share that’s like, here’s how I sound or look on stage. Here’s how audiences respond to me. And usually when you speak at one event, there’s a videographer, and that person is recording everything. So all you have to do before you agree to speak in an event, say, like, cool.

So happy to do this. So excited. I know you’re gonna be recording it. Can I get a copy of my recordings that I can embed it on my website?

Cool. It doesn’t have to be a highlight reel. It can just be the whole thing. If a conference organizer is seriously looking for good speakers, they’ll watch your whole session.

You don’t need a highlight reel. You don’t need to spend extra money or extra time.

Podcasts, events, and three posts about you, people talking about you, add that stuff in there. That could be, like, off other people’s LinkedIns. I don’t know. And then just drive to the appropriate call to action.

So what do you want them to do at the end of this? Again, this is for an organizer. This isn’t, like, necessarily go to my contact form, but rather, hey. If you would like to talk about a custom talk for your event, go over to my LinkedIn DMs or whatever the thing is that you want them to do.

Any questions about your speaker page?

No. Okay. Cool.

We’re not gonna dig to oh, Sabine?

Sorry. It was too late.

Cody’s very helpfully shared her speaker page. It’s a Canva page. It’s a it’s for a podcast, so it’s it’s maybe slightly different. But do you envisage the speaker page more as a page on the website or, like, an online document like this Canva page?

A findable thing. So what is a conference organizer doing? They have in front of them a spreadsheet, and what and one of the parts of that spreadsheet, one of the tabs is, who might I bring on for this next event that’s happening eight months from now, and it’s time to hunker down and get this person booked.

They have gaps in their curriculum that they’ve they’ve got this. Here’s what we wanna cover.

Who can cover those things? So events that you might be speaking at, and this is answering the question, but events that you might be speaking at might be conversion rate optimization events, like CXL Live, when Pep and his organizer are putting that together.

They have a curriculum of the things that they want to hit throughout the day. They wanna make sure because they’ve got people in the audience who want who really want something out of the event. It’s not like some of those shitty events that are out there that are actually quite big that are really basic and no one’s that engaged and, like, marketing teams send three junior marketers to it because it’ll keep them busy.

The event will keep them busy. Those are not the events we’re really optimizing for. You wanna think about pep. Looking at a spreadsheet going, okay.

So we’re gonna start day one with the first part of conversion optimization, things around research and discovery. So he’s gonna list out that stuff, and he’ll have gaps. He’ll say, like, oh, obviously, Elle’s is perfect for this, and maybe Talia’s great for that. Who can do this?

And then if it’s a name that they already know, you might be like, yeah. But is there anybody else newer, fresher, somebody else?

And then they go looking, and maybe they have somebody who says internally, oh, I’ve heard I’ve listened to this person on this podcast, and they sound pretty smart. Maybe they talk, or something like that. But what you’re doing is if if this deck or Canva page or whatever, I don’t know how it’s working for you, Cody, I would just put it on my website, though. Like, just it says speaking in the global nav. And then if I’m an organizer or I read your book or whatever it might be, then I can go to that speaker page and see that you talk about podcasts and in person on stage events, and then that’s I can find it. So all I’m worried about is, is it findable?

Keyword phrases, obviously, will help bring someone to a live page, but there’s other ways you could do it. I just don’t know why you would. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just put a page together on your website because it’s a CRM. It’s easy, But do whatever you want to.

I just wouldn’t I wouldn’t leave it off my website. So Cody said, I would absolutely put it on my website if I were to go hard on speaking. Yeah. Why not?

Cool. Yeah. What other chats do we have here?

Work with us, hire us, speak at your event. Yeah. I would pull out hire us. Don’t say hire us, speak at your event.

Some of the most popular speakers out there, that get the most business from their work are not asking for money at all. And I like, properly, I rarely ask for speakers’ fees. It’s only if I’m like, I don’t want to go to this event, but maybe I have a friend who’s gonna speak there. And I’m like, well, if you’re going, I’ll go.

And they’re like, okay. I’m getting ten k to go. And I’m like, okay. Well, I can probably ask for something like that, and go to.

But, like, then I think of all the other conferences I’ve been to where I’ve not charged anything, and they’re great. It’s been big for building thought leadership and getting invited onto the next stage and the next stage and the next stage and getting ultimate, like, payoff for that. It’s rarely direct payoff. It’s usually indirect payoff.

But I would take up anything to do with what I cost. Mm-mm. Just do it for free. They’ll pay for travel, and they’ll pay for your to put you up in a hotel.

Okay. Good. Just pull it. Just get hire us right out of there. Cool. Alright.

Anything else? Any other questions on that?

Cool. Alright.

Oh, yeah. Question, Joe. Yeah. When you say they pay for your travel and they pay for hotel, is that something typically that you would book and then they pay you back, or they take care of that directly and they send you the details?

I because I am a terrible flyer and I will only fly business, which most events don’t want to cover.

So I say, here’s what it costs for me to go, and then I say, like, it’s usually a a set rate of twenty five hundred to three thousand. Like, I go and look at what the hotel’s gonna cost. Right. Sometimes they’ve just got specialty rates anyway, they’ve already booked in for speakers, and they’re like, well, we’ll get the hotel.

Fine. You get your own travel. And then I just asked for, like they just cut me a check for two thousand, five thousand sometimes. Depends on what the travel’s gonna look like.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

But it is. Yes. It’s standard for them to pay for travel and accommodations. That’s it. And then they’ll invite you to a speaker’s dinner, so your, like, other costs are usually covered along the way anyway. So there you go.

Alright. You need a plan on a page for getting invited. You need a plan for getting invited, but let’s start with a plan on a page. How can you actually attract hosts and organizers to you?

So this is just your homework. If this is your big thing for the summer, list out those target podcasts for q three, which we’re in right now. So that’s a little bit tricky because it’s only got a two and a half months left in it, but, hey, that’s still two and a months. You can do a lot in two and a half months.

So target podcast for q three and q four. I’ve only got four on there because I don’t want a mega list of all the podcasts on the planet that you might ever speak at. Rather, what are the targets? The actual ones you wanna be on.

Who is the organizer? So who decides who goes on it? Sometimes it’s the host. Other times it’s not the host.

Other times it’s their whole team, like, agreeing or voting. Find that out. That’s the job. And then what’s their LinkedIn?

Just so you can start following them, and be engaging with them, and then identify what they want that you can give them.

So this is you just being, like, unreasonably thoughtful about their lives. What and I don’t mean send them flowers. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, like, what do they want from someone who comes on the show?

Do they want you to promote the podcast episode? Of course, they do. Do they want what else do they want? So list out the things that you want that they want that you can give them.

And, basically, anything they want, you should be able to give them because it’s probably not irrational. So if they want you to bring fifteen examples to talk through for what you do, put together fifteen examples. Like, just do the thing. Do the work.

If you’re doing this to grow your authority and get more traffic and clients in, then give them what they want. They’re also going to like, they got on your target list for a reason, so do the work. And then also do target events for the next eighteen months. Now anybody who is doing an event in the fall, it’s usually fall and spring.

Anybody who’s doing an event in the fall is likely already booked. So the only way you could get in there is, like, getting on their radar to get invited in the event someone cancels out. And you honestly could just ping them and say, hey. I know your event is in October.

I know you’ve already got your speakers all lined up. I’m all over speaking. I’m digging it. I’m doing great with it.

Build that up.

And if somebody can’t make it, just know that I’m here and I can fly out with four hours notice or something like that. You can always end up having to say no later if they come to you, but hopefully, you can actually say yes if they come to you, and now you’re doing it.

So what are those target events for the next eighteen months? And then same thing as before, except this time it’s the event organizer. Find who it is. You can find this. It just takes a little bit of research.

Go on to their LinkedIn. Follow them. DM them if when it makes sense, comment on their stuff, repost their stuff, etcetera, and more of what they want that you can give them. Short notice, custom talks, etcetera.

Then update your speaking page. Make sure you’re following them on not only LinkedIn, but other spaces, especially if they have low followers in other spaces. Let’s say they have an Instagram or the company has a YouTube channel and, like, their subscribers are pretty low, which is really common for a lot of organizations. Of course, they don’t spend all their days just, like, working on this stuff.

If you’re somebody who’s on there making themselves visible, commenting on their YouTube video, you’re the one commenter, and you’re, like, insightful about it. This is just these are small things to start, like, elevating in their eyes.

Make sure that you’ve updated your content strategy with topics they invite people to cover. So if you’re like, I know that this person, the person who organizes MozCon is all I can think about. So whatever.

They want someone who does magic while on I don’t know what the thing is, but make sure that you are then creating content around that stuff so that they are more likely to find you.

And then use SparkToro. We talk about SparkToro a lot.

SparkToro has tons of answers for things that you didn’t even know you could find out about a purse about a business, and the people you’re trying to get in front of. So use SparkToro to determine where you’re going to share this content so that it drives them back to your speaker page.

Questions?

Moving on. Finally oh, Roxanna. Yes.

So you spoke a lot about SparkToro, and, obviously, I was not here. Where do we find the things that you said?

I don’t know how well our search is working yet in Copy School Pro. I know Sarah’s been working hard on that. You might be able to just search SparkToro.

But more than anything, I it’s not that I teach how to go through SparkToro, but I’d rather say, like, just go use SparkToro. So just go use SparkToro. So head over there. There’s free accounts. There’s, like, low cost accounts, and Rand has, like, the ability to cancel.

It’s really easy. So you might only sign up for a month and then just cancel, and then sign back up again when you need to go through it again.

Yeah. Cool.

Awesome. Alright. Speakers oh, it does. Okay. Thanks. Speakers to connect with.

You are about to if you do this stuff, if you go on stage and somewhat on podcast this is the tricky thing about podcast, right, is because you’re more likely, of course, only to connect with the person that you’re actually speaking with, the host of the podcast. You can, however, connect with people who have been on the podcast before. So go back and look through who was on the podcast in the last, I don’t know, ten episodes, and then just DM them. Like, just put their name in and, like, DM them and say, hey.

I saw you were just a guest on whatever. I was just on there last week, or they just invited me, or I’m thinking of going on there. Any tips? Just start connecting with speakers.

And the reason for this is event I cannot tell you how many times an event organizer has said, Joe, do you know anybody who? And I’ve put their name forward, and then they are speakers now. And it turns into really good things. I’ve CTA Conf, I can’t tell you how many people I recommended to CTA Conf.

I think one year, like, half of the agenda was just people that I’d said, what about her? What about him? And it’s great, and it’s a really good kickoff. But if I didn’t know those people, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything.

If I didn’t know that, like, Claire or somebody was interested in getting on stages and talking about jobs to be done, then I wouldn’t have said, hey. Do you know Claire? She talks about jobs to be done for marketers. Maybe her?

And then she’s on stage, and then she’s on stage again and again and again and again. So get them get friendly with speakers.

Obviously, we always wanna do it in a non skeasy way. It’s very easy to tell when someone’s being inauthentic. But if you’re genuinely curious and if you know, hey. If this person invites me to be on stage and they’re on stage at the same event, we’re probably gonna get together and have after, we’ll get together for drinks when there’s, like, a boring session happening and there’s, like, a pub down the street.

So this is like, befriend people. Just start making friends with other speakers, and then you might be one of the people that they recommend. Okay. That is really it. Oh, there is this part. It’s really detailed.

So I’m just gonna leave this with you so that you can know that you have to go back and do these things, but some of it is already, like, done. Your IRL funnel, talked about last week, your appointment funnel having those things connected, etcetera.

And make sure wherever you are, whether you have started the book or not, put that a book is coming soon, go in Canva, make a fake book cover with the title on it and your name on it, Say it’s coming soon. Put a mock up together. Put it on LinkedIn. Put it on your website. Nobody needs to know that it’s not quite ready yet. They do wanna know that though, that you are, an authority. You’re a thought leader or you’re about to be one.

Okay. Any questions?

Yes. Katie?

Can I you said also, can you hear me? Because this my mic wasn’t working. Yep. Yeah. Strong CTA for the speaking page. Like, I currently have a type form because I’m speaking to, I figured, podcast hosts and, like, coaches who have a mastermind and wanna bring in a guest expert. Would you wanna get on a like, forum to book a call?

Is that pretty standard for how you’d want that process to go?

It depends how much time the organizer has. So when you, like it’s it’s useful to even just, like, start I don’t know. Go spend some time listening to what conference organizers complain about. They rarely have the time or resources for any of the work they have to do. Right? It all feels really, really overwhelming.

So I would reduce friction wherever possible. I would say, like, hey. Here’s you fill in this form, or, like, if if time is of the essence, here’s my phone number. Call me.

And then if that gets weird and, like, the wrong people start calling you, then just take it off. But we’re really just trying to reduce friction so that that event organizer and I have event organizers in my head as I’m saying this. All of them would appreciate you making it fast and easy to find out if you’re the right person for them or not. So I would if a type form, I would eliminate the type form, go with a single, like, here’s how to email me, or why not just text me, and let’s get this. Like, let’s figure out if I’m even a good fit.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the pay at the end of the page, have, like, book a call or leave a message, and then the type form’s just, like, kind of segmenting them, and then they write their intro.

So Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I would just do as I require as little as possible and then start adding fields if you get, like, inundated with people. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Cool.

I got a I don’t know. This is just to me, or is this to everybody? I don’t know. Will you be doing more IRL events when your book comes out? Yes. If yes, will you try to get event organizers to bulk buy your book? Probably not.

But I’m I haven’t worked through that idea yet. I haven’t done any planning for what to do with the book since it’s not out till July twenty twenty six, so I have some time.

But I don’t know. When I when I dig more into that, I’ll definitely share what I’m going to do with bulk buying.

Yeah.

Obviously, it’s a good signal to Amazon and other spaces when a bunch of your books are purchased there. But if they go through, like, my publisher or me, then there’s all these book sales that are lost now that, like, Amazon doesn’t know anything about and etcetera. So yeah.

Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions or thoughts about particularly getting on stages, but the same rules often apply to getting on podcasts? They’re just in my opinion, and I know that it is an unpopular opinion.

Few podcasts are really, really good and likely to last a long, long time. There’s a lot of shit dies on the Vinom podcast. You gave a great podcast interview two years ago when no one’s ever gonna hear it. And that’s true for speaking as well.

Right? But you’ve got to get more personal with people, and that they’ll remember versus you just being another voice on the podcast. So that’s why I recommend more, getting on stages, but I know everybody else just wants to be on podcasts. So yeah.

I love podcasts, and we’ll die on that hill, Joe.

I hate to see you die, but go for it. I mean, if that’s, like, the thing that you want, cool. Alright.

BFCM FTW

BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) FTW

Transcript

today, we’re talking about Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or the win.


Anybody who has any digital product of any kind needs to take advantage of Black Friday, Cyber Monday. It’s been a source of literal millions of dollars for us, for those who wonder why we keep blowing out copy school every Black Friday, it’s because it brings in multiple millions of dollars when we do that. So I recommend it to everybody.


And I mean everybody. Every mastermind I’m in, everything that I’m in, I tell people do your Black Friday blowout, and none of them ever do. And I’m like, alright. Fine.


But I’m going to share this with you today in the hopes that y’all do.


Sorry. We’re trying out just using k. Well, that’ll that’ll be fine.


Alright. So we are talking about Black Friday, Cyber Monday, then today. I’m gonna share my screen right away. I just want a quick recap on what we’ve covered so far in these big things.


For the summer, we’ve done the IRL funnel, which includes moving from networking to getting a client, getting invited to speak, and book deal stuff. Today is Black Friday Cyber Monday promo. We’ll also have coming up this month your YouTube channel, getting your course and launch funnel up and running, which is a really big topic.


And then we’re also going to bring in two guests, Aquania. I never say her name right. I think I said that right though, is in CSP. She’s been traveling, and she does a lot of investing and, teaches people how to invest as well.


So she’s gonna come in and do a session on how to turn money into wealth, for those who do not want to always work at making money, but also don’t just wanna, like, put their money in a GIC or whatever the equivalent is for you wherever you are and make four percent a year on it or some nonsense when there’s other things, and lots of ways to, to get wealth. Wealth is fun. Okay. So we’re gonna do Black Friday Cyber Monday today.


This is a really, really big presentation as well. So I sent out the workbook. If you are thinking of putting together a Black Friday promo this year, go through the workbook in detail. I’m gonna hit on some of the key pages here, but go through in detail. And now before I begin, who, if anyone, is looking to, do a Black Friday offer this year?


Roxanna?


Nikki?


Jessica? Abby?


Nobody else? Cody, why did I think you were?


No. It’s interesting. I told you. I was going to, but I started doing this, YouTube thing for my summer of big things, and so I didn’t know if I should pursue that as well. And I don’t really have a digital product to offer, so it would probably be my services in some way, shape, or form.


Okay. Which is, like, we’ll find not a great, a great Black Friday offer, asterisk, because there are ways to make it work. Okay. Cool. So bunch of people are. And those who are not, are you not doing it because you don’t have a digital product?


Anybody wanna chime in? Yeah. It’s just the lack of digital product. Okay. Cool. So, definitely worth considering creating a digital product just for the purposes of doing a Black Friday blowout.


The first year, maybe you bring in twenty, forty, fifty thousand dollars, and then the next year is when it starts to take off. And soon, if you can have this digital offer going out into the world every year, it can be speaking of turning money into wealth, it can be a really great way, especially since it’s so condensed.


It’s one of those launches, like, we’ve all had launches over the years and launches kinda suck now.


However, Black Friday is still a time when there’s so much. Right? There’s so much motivation for people to spend and look for deals.


And if your deal can be the best looking deal in their inbox, that’s huge. Now I know it’s tough if you’re like, well, but I only sell into businesses.


Then you need to think about a way to sell into freelancers or smaller businesses that don’t have to get approval. You need to be able to get people to buy, like, as soon as they see your offer. It’s a short window, three, four weeks max with the actual Black Friday offer typically lasting, much smaller amount of time.


So does anybody have anything they wanna bring up? Any objections, anxieties, concerns about putting a Black Friday offer together?


I have a question.


Yeah.


So you just mentioned that bringing up or selling to freelancers or something like that.


And I just wonder, like, what if your list doesn’t have a bunch of freelancers to sell to?


You know?


Yep. The quest I and I think that’s fair. And when we look through the actual training, I think it’ll be easier to generate ideas for what your existing audience could look for. But Black Friday also depends heavily on ads, and that’s good.


It’s it’s good. It’s one of the few times of the year when it’s worth giving Zuckerberg half of what you’re making. The rest of the year, I get really mad about that. I don’t like it one bit.


But over Black Friday, I was like, alright. He earned his money.


Jessica? So we’ll talk about that, for sure.


Yeah. Jessica?


I just wanted to check. So I don’t have a digital product either, but my plan was to do a lot you know you know that, that product you sent me, Joe, about the summer Yes. Came up with it. Yeah.


That. So I was planning on doing, like, a live boot camp like thing, which is kind of actually a little tricky when I was thinking about, oh, shoot. Black Friday, I can’t really say publish your book by the end of the year, but I could do this thing at the you know, in twenty twenty six. Just any feedback about that in terms of doing a live boot camp and how it aligns end of year versus that’s not enough time for them to actually write and publish a book by you know?


Yeah. Totally.


And one great boot camp is a really good idea. That’s one of the off the things I have listed in the workbook for today.


The question of the value prop forward or what you’re really selling, write a book by the end of the year. I mean, you’re probably gonna sell to a lot of Americans who are gonna be celebrating a lien this year, Christmas.


But they’re gonna be busy with the holidays. So, yeah, the bananas to say you can write a book while you’re getting your house ready for grandma to come and stay.


So we can talk about what that would look like, but if you could adjust the value prop to something that still feels within reach, like, they’ll get results quickly, The speed to results will be there, but it happens in the new year. And then why they’re signing up for it a month beforehand is really just the gap you have to close. But we can talk about that as you start working through the idea.


But you don’t have an issue with, the instead of a true digital product, it’s a boot camp okay. Okay.


Good thing. No. That’s one of the things that I think everybody here should do. You don’t have to prerecord it.


In fact, you probably shouldn’t. If you don’t have a course right now, like, we’ll be talking next week. No. The week after about, putting a course together.


But, honestly, today, live is selling much better than prerecorded.


The ability to talk people, get your questions answered, etcetera. We’re hearing from people who don’t buy copy school that one of the key reasons they’re not buying is, because there’s nobody there to coach them through it or give them feedback.


And that’s what you can do with a live boot camp. Right. Thanks. Cool. Sure. Myrna just said, is Black Friday a good time to launch membership?


It depends on the offer. Given that a membership is a recurring payment, If it’s a discount on month one, no.


If it’s a discount on twelve months, and it’s a good discount and, yes, Black Friday typically does require discounts. So So when I discount, if it gives you, like, an allergic reaction, sorry. It’s time to get used to it in time for Black Friday.


It would I would argue that when we’ve done payment plans for Coffee School and we had it on subscription for two years, and we did a Black Friday promo. It was monthly recurring that the discount applied to, and people loved that. In live chat, they loved it. It was a question that came up a lot.


You’ll need chat on your sales page, just a side note, but it came up a lot. Like, so is this just a discount on month one? And when we’re like, no. It’s on every month.


And then they were like, this is amazing.


So be ready to bring the the offer to something that feels difficult for you to be okay with, because we’re talking about quantity of sales.


Okay.


Good. Alright. I don’t see anything else. Oh, wait. I stayed with an exercise program way longer than I should have because I kept getting that monthly discount.


I know. I know. My yoga studio has a I signed up on a monthly discount, and it’s it’s coming to an end.


I just want it to continue. Mhmm. I’m like, I’d still pay it, but it’s the taking away of the discount that I don’t like.


Alright. Any other notes before we dive into the training?


No? Alright. Cool. Then I’m gonna share my screen, and we’ll take a look at, at this. So you should be seeing, hopefully I don’t know if you’re seeing all my tabs. If so, apologies.


Alright. So plan on a page. Definitely work through this. It’s really straightforward, so I’m not gonna spend too much time on the the details of it outside of I was gonna show you the Gantt chart that we put together for our Black Friday promos every year, but it’s a lot.


And I was like, no. It will turn everyone off of doing a Black Friday launch, so I’m not going to show you. As we get as you start working through this and you have questions, I can reference that Gantt chart if it’s because once you’re already in it, you might not be as intimidated. But there’s just a lot that actually can go into it, but it doesn’t have to be that way.


The first time we ran a Black Friday, promo for copy school was because two people on my team were like, Joe, we’re doing this. Just do it.


And then I very reluctantly agreed to do it, and it didn’t take that much for it took nothing for me. But my team just, like, kinda flew through it. So, of course, there’s multiple people there who are working on it. Nonetheless, it wasn’t like, oh, you need three hundred ads and and and and and.


It doesn’t have to be bananas. You will need ads, though. So you’re gonna wanna build your list, build some hype beforehand, immediately beforehand. Don’t start now.


Start in October, mid October, late October.


Not too much in early November.


No. No. We didn’t send out. So Sarah’s on leave. We did not send out the worksheets, by email. They’re in Slack.


Perfect. Thanks, Nikki. Awesome.


Lead nurturing is another one. Of course, you’ll want some nurturing for the people who are already on your list and those who are joining your list, and then, of course, the the actual sales cart open part and then what to do with delivery. So there is much I can say about delivery and what to do after the fact, but given that Black Friday is about making a bunch of money and then reinvesting that money into more things for your business, especially if you’re looking to, like, build out your digital empire or whatever, you’ll wanna think about what happens during the delivery of your product. And that doesn’t happen if you’re doing it live, you’ll wanna think through that whole experience is really what it comes down to. I’m assuming most people who don’t already have a course will be doing this, live. And so, with that, you’ll wanna have the delivery of the product sorted through. Gantt charts, make sure your metapixel is installed and tracking.


It’s really straightforward. There are easy Chrome extensions to check that it’s tracking as well. So easy peasy.


If you don’t have a cart set up, I recommend Soundcard. We’ve used it forever. You can sell straight through Stripe, but it’s harder to do tracking that way a little harder to do tracking that way, and it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to do upsells if you just go through Stripe. Just use SamCart. This is what it’s built for. Really straightforward stuff there.


Develop a prelaunch offer.


We’ll talk about that. And then the development of your best possible offer. We use the phrase repeatedly at CopyHackers.


Best possible offer. Best possible offer every time talking to any contractor, every time Ry has come in and done stuff with us, best possible offer. What is that offer that is impossible for your prospect, your real prospect to say no to? And you’re probably a little uncomfortable with it.


People will tell you that’s too cheap. That’s too cheap. You’re not charging enough. It’s too it’s too cheap.


You’re you’re losing so much money, etcetera. That’s when you basically know you’re in the right vicinity, for a blowout. Right? Like, this is not a small let’s build our little business.


This is like a blowout. So you’re trying to get a lot of sales, so do the work to make sure that offer just totally kills.


Obviously, things like countdown timers and all that kind of stuff will need to be on the page.


You’ll wanna record and produce some video ads that specifically mention your offers. We’re gonna talk about ads, lightly, and feel free to ask questions for those gaps that I just cannot fill in this training period.


But some of those ads will be evergreen, and you should record them thinking of them as evergreen because April may roll around. And you might be like, you know, we had all those great assets, and I would love to do, like, a quick pop up sale or something. And I can’t because everything says, this Black Friday only. So you have to make sure that you’re doing some evergreen versions of your ads where you can have the, the producer of the ads, the actual videographer or whoever you whoever you use, they can put Black Friday overlays on it. And then they can take those overlays off for a second version of those same ads so that you just got the really good ad that you recorded that now is evergreen because Black Friday was just an overlay.


But then they’re the bottom of funnel ones where you will want to say, in your words, this Black Friday only save x percent on blah blah blah blah blah.


Make sure you’ve got updates to everything where your offer is mentioned.


So if you’ve got abandoned cart emails right now, just update them so that they’re good to go for Black Friday. I note this because we didn’t one year, and it was, like, such a miss.


And then sales chat.


On your sales page for this product, make sure you install a chat platform. We use PureChat. I like it very much. It’s very affordable.


It’s a small team over there. I think there’s two people that run it. It’s like a husband and wife or something. I don’t know what it was when they started out at least and seemed to be for a couple years there.


So they’re good, they’re responsive, and it’s a great tool. It’s we’ve used lots of live chat tools. PureChat’s the easiest, in my opinion, for a small business to run. So, like, Paul can sit on Paul on my team can sit on PureChat on his phone while he’s, like, walking his dog, and it works out brilliantly.


There are templates in there, like, templated responses that make it really easy to just, like, start answering key questions. And as you start putting your Black Friday, Cyber Monday offer and, like, full campaign together, just come back to Copy School Pro sessions and ask, like, Joe, I’ve done this. What do I do with this? Which are your sales chat templates, etcetera? And we can talk more about that as we get into it as you get into it. If I were to dump it all on you now, there’s there’s so much, that I’d much prefer that you just keep coming back and we can keep talking about it.


Alright.


That’s it for, like, those high level stuff. Your best possible offer, this is where we need to talk about the actual, should I make this bigger? So, talk about what you’re going to sell. So you’re gonna have prelaunch, and then you’re gonna have launch.


Now we have done Black Friday without prelaunch, but we wanna build your list and get some people in there who spend money and who you can start to train Facebook on. So a big part of your success with Black Friday, as I mentioned, will be ads.


In order for those ads to work, and this we have found to be true when using agencies and when doing ads ourselves. So in all cases that I can imagine across Black Friday promos, you will need ads and you will need to have prelaunch ads where you are training Meta very quickly on who buys from you so that Meta sends more of those people to you.


This is tough.


Most of the year, as I mentioned, I’m annoyed by Meta. But if you can spend a month, six weeks getting Meta really smart on who needs your stuff and who buys from you, then that will take away a lot of the frustration during Black Friday when, it’s actually very expensive to buy ads. So your ad spend is going to be high during Black Friday, but we’ll talk about how to make that not feel gross for you. And keep in mind that when you do this work intentionally, you can fully bring in six, even seven figures.


I don’t I’ve never seen a seven figure myself done on the first time through, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. So and six figures absolutely can. Absolutely can. Absolutely be done.


So try not to think, oh my gosh. I’m spending fifty thousand dollars on ads. And instead, try to think, oh my gosh. I made a hundred and fifty thousand dollars this form in this four month period.


Zuckerberg took fifty of it, but I have a hundred thousand still left, and I can do a lot with that. And and you learned how to do this on your own business so you can sell it to clients if you want to going forward for ecommerce all throughout the year. They’re constantly running offers, and you can do it for yourself again next year having learned a lot and then, ready to do whatever the next year’s offer is. So we’ve got prelaunch offer, which is, like, really low cost tripwire type thing, something quite low cost, those seven bucks where there’s a good discount, and then have a series of upsells on that if possible.


So a series of ebooks might be like your core offer. And then, again, using SamCart, you have up an upsell funnel set up, which would have a series of SOPs to get something written or to run your business. So depends on what the ebook is, if it’s a book or a series of ebooks. And, again, you can throw this together using, like, type set or whatever that other SamCart tool is.


Like, take your blog post, jump them all in there, and then have it produce your book for you. This is not this is not the kind of stuff that Jessica is publishing. It’s not that ebook. It is manuals.


It’s how to get something done. It’s, the big book of templates for SMS campaigns or whatever the hell. Whatever it is. But it’s just like a big fifty page something that you can sell regularly priced at twenty nine, put it in SamCart for twenty nine dollars, then have another one that’s seven dollars so that you are selling them both for that price.


Have the upsell in there of SOPs that support what the ebooks value prop is and then perhaps another bundle of something else. You figure out what that, like, upsell funnel is. But the the reason to have an upsell here is because in most cases, the first thing that you sell is just consumed. Like, the any money you make off it goes right into paying for your ads.


So you might lose money out of the gate, and it’s the upsell where you’ll actually make that money back and possibly have enough to then support you having a higher budget for your Black Friday launch itself. Now for Black Friday, for that Black Friday offer, which is not only going to be on Black Friday, Cyber Monday. It’s not Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. It’s the week leading up to Black Friday onward.


Again, this is really useful for Meta to be able to learn because you’re gonna shift your offer. You’re gonna have two ad sets inside your one Black Friday campaign.


So it’s Meta’s been learning who to throw into this campaign, but when you add in this new ad set, you also need to give Meta some time to start figuring out who’s going to buy this other offer that you have. It will be based on the campaign wins that you’ve seen so far, but this new ad set is going to be for a different offer, which is your Black Friday offer. So you need a little more time than four days. It can’t really do that much in four days.


So this is where you have your course, a bundle of courses, bundle of ebooks, bundle of all the things that you’ve got. Like, this is like look around your desk. What do you use? Like, what is a file that you have saved somewhere that’s like, this is all my cool stuff for my business.


This is how I get x, y, and z done. Go open up that Dropbox, get your VA to, like, anonymize it, everything in it, and voila. Now you sell that. That is a wonderful thing to sell.


And then there’s the option, Jessica, you mentioned this, the make it after you sell it thing. So put a live three part boot camp together with a community that you can, like, again, make it sound extra good by having that circle community or something private or you guys call each other on Voxer. I don’t know. Whatever.


But you don’t have to make it beforehand and you probably shouldn’t.


Rather, what is the thing that your audience, people that have a hunger that you can satisfy, what can you put together for them? And then, of course, you wanna make it easy and fast to say yes. Definitely add in as many payment, methods of payment as you can inside SamCart, which is really easy to turn on, because it’s connected to Stripe or you use SamPay. Whatever it is, make sure you’re activating Apple Pay. It’s very frustrating to try to buy something on your phone when people haven’t activated Apple Pay, especially since it just takes, like, slight turn it on. There. Now you take Apple Pay.


PayPal is great if you’re selling into businesses, because PayPal feels like fake money so often, for a business, but it’s real money for you when you get it. So that’s good. Make sure you’re auto applying discounts. Don’t expect them to put a coupon code in.


I know that there’s all sorts of data, like, but in entering the coupon code now, blah blah blah. That’s true, except Black Friday moves fast. Do not slow people down in any way when they are on that point of purchase. So no discount, no coupon code.


Sorry. You can still have a place for a coupon code. Have coupon code set up so that when you’re in chat and someone chats you and says, I’m in the military. Do you have a coupon for me?


Sure. I do. I’m a teacher. Do you have a coupon for me? Of course. I do.


I’ve bought from you before. I follow you on Instagram. Do you have anything for me this Black Friday? Sure.


I do. It’s ten percent off for all of them. Call it loyalty ten or BFCM ten or whatever it is. It doesn’t matter if people guess that.


Who gives a crap? You lost another nine dollars on a ninety nine dollar sale. So what? You still made the ninety dollars.


So we’re good. And that’s what’s important. The less involved you are in the product, the more margin you have. Right?


So that’s where I don’t want you to be selling services. I’d much rather you sell something where once you’ve once you’ve built it, you don’t really have to worry about delivering it or doing anything. Now when it comes to having a boot camp or something like that, you will be involved.


That’s where we can talk about how you can ensure that you’re not unless unless this is, like, the first go of something that will become a course for you, in which case it’s a really good use of your time. I mean, in almost all cases, it’s going to be a good use of your time to, like, be heavily involved. But I’m looking for you to have really nice margins so that you don’t end up saying, oh, I can’t possibly give this discount or stressing that you’ve now got to spend the next twelve weeks with a group of people who underpaid and so they undervalue and they don’t show up and they don’t do the work, blah blah blah. All that stuff is very real, very true. So we wanna make sure that, like, when you’re putting that offer together, when you’re figuring out what that product is, you’re accounting for all of these, like, delivery nuances.


And then final note here is have a back end offer ready to upsell inside your tech. What time are we at? Okay. We’re at ten thirty, so I’m not gonna spend any more time on it here.


Do go through the workbook.


We have prelaunch and launch. This prelaunch and launch, like, your primary offer is going to cover ad spend. Get your head good with that. That’s anything you’re selling here is gonna cover ad spend. You’ll make more than that, but if you can at least say, alright. If I sell fifty thousand dollars worth of product and I spend fifty thousand, that’s cool as long as I have a two to one return on advertising spend, based on the upsells that are on the other side.


Confirmation page. Also, don’t just drop people right in product. Talk to Katie about this stuff as well. Katie is all back end offers and an expert on it.


But the confirmation page does not just like, congratulations.


Go to your product now. Check your inbox.


Make sure you’re putting them into something. You’ve you’ve not been a customer that you can upsell into another customer. They haven’t exhausted all of their money. They haven’t spent all of their money.


What you’ve offered them is going to help them make more money. So don’t hold back. Don’t like, oh, now we’re just friends. No.


You’re not. You’re friendly. You love them. You appreciate them. You want the best for them, and the best thing for them is for them to continue buying more from you if it will help them make more money.


If it won’t, you’ve gotta deal with finding a way to make more money for them. If it will, voila. Now you just keep charging them more, so put them into, a funnel.


This is where I really wanted to spend most of my time. So we might talk about this more in September, October when you’re actually starting to set up those Black Friday ads.


This is all again, I’m not an ads person myself. Many times, I find them frustrating.


Black Friday is when they make sense for me, and I learned a lot of this from Brian at SamCart. So and he has spent, I assume, much money. Made so much money off ads. He’s learned so much, that he’s definitely worth listening to, and I’ve made a lot of money listening to him, talk about ads during Black Friday in particular. So check this page out. If this is the first time you’re seeing it, go back, print it out, put it next to you.


That’s for the setup of the ads. This the running of the ads is where the real gold is. Now ads are going to be expensive as I mentioned. Very expensive once you’re in Black Friday, and that’s why the more Meta knows upfront about who buys from you, the cheaper your ads can be, the better your return on advertising spend is likely to be. There’s these numbers you’ll need to know.


You will. Just be a CFO about it. This is where you stop with creativity, stop with surveys, and focus on real hard quantitative data that says, are we making money or aren’t we? Because as soon as your RO your return on advertising spend ROAS is two to one, that’s when you wanna start increasing your budget.


We can talk in great detail about this, but this this part here, this tiny little bit down here, maybe with this included, this this is where all of your money comes in. This is how you make money over Black Friday. Everything else is required in order to have something to sell and make sure that it is valuable to your prospect. But this is where you get Zuckerberg to work for you.


So check that out. Finish reading through all of it. This is a very long list, a short list actually of all of the things that you’ll need. If it feels like a lot, that’s why it’s called the summer of big things, and it’s one big thing that you can do to make you a lot of money. Alright. Any questions, thoughts, concerns?


No? There’s a lot. There’s a lot. But there’s very little that we’ll cover in any training that will make you as much money as Black Friday. I would say there’s nothing else that we’ve ever covered or will cover that’ll make you as much money as Black Friday will. Liza?


Yeah. Okay. So I love this idea. I’m because I’m transition I’ve transitioned into this space over the last, like, year or so, I don’t have a huge email list to give Meta, like, a lookalike audience or anything like that?


No. No. You actually don’t do lookalike audiences.


I know that it was like, oh, I should.


Meta knows more than any of us know about the right audience for you. I know it’s hard to trust it. I struggle outside of Black Friday. I struggle to trust Meta.


You don’t have to do anything more than say, this is the country that they should be in. And, basically, everything else, Meta starts to figure out. And so read through that running ads page because it’ll walk you through that. But go ahead.


K. Yeah.


I was just wondering if I should focus on building my email list because my some of our big things is focusing on my onboarding, like, making sure people, you know, see my workshop video and things like that, and get that Yeah.


Centered in.


So I didn’t know if I should be shifting focus a little bit, but that makes sense.


Yeah. I would say this is where let honestly, that’s how I talk to myself about it. Let Zuckerberg earn the money this time. He won’t most of the year, but this time yeah.


Let that I know that, Advantage Plus audiences in, Meta Business Manager, it gets some, like, bad vibes out there. But the people who are spending money and seeing results actually trust, Advantage Plus audiences, which is just Meta saying, like, just shush. You sit there. We’re gonna go find people.


And those who buy, then when you see the money start to come in and that’s like you have to wait for three or four hundred bucks to start coming in. So you’ll probably have spent three or four thousand by this point, and you’ll feel gross about it. And you’ll start to see three or four hundred, and that’s when you can start doing the math around return on advertising spend. Are you now starting to see a return of one point two, one point four?


And once you get at two to one, then you dial up your spending because you’re saying, Meta, good job. You finally found them. Good. Do more of that.


And it’s like, cool. Every time you change your budget, Meta responds. Meta changes things. When you don’t change your budget, you keep it running, Meta is like, cool.


Everything’s good, I guess. So that’s where let Meta do that work. You don’t need to list build beforehand.


Okay. And then if I don’t have anything as of yet, should I be testing out offers now?


Like It’s gonna be a very different vibe during Black Friday.


Right? You’ve got people who are, like like, buzzing for offers. Like, they’re looking for it, versus now. They’re not spending money.


They don’t give a shit about anything. October is a terrible time to test an offer. If you look at graphs from, like, finance people, the year goes great and then October dips and then it comes back. So, like, it’s a really it’s tricky.


You’re just gonna have to put your best foot forward for Black Friday and say, like, look.


I don’t know, but we’re gonna try it this year, and that’s how it’s gonna be. But I wouldn’t test anything because it’s gonna be different when people are highly motivated.


Okay. Yeah. Good point. Awesome. Thank you.


Okay. Sure. Nikki. Question. Yes.


Okay.


First, I have to wrap my head around the fact that, like, people buy things from ads because, like, I just I can’t believe it.


Like, why? Okay. Yep. You say it, then I’ll believe it.


Hey. That’s I it’s not yeah. I was on Business is built on it. Yes. It’s like a lot. Yeah.


But, like, the whole, like, know, like, and trust thing, like, where is that?


So anyway Well, and that’s where when we’re getting into the actual ads, if you’re showing up on camera, there’s still all the know, like, and trust there.


The bottom of funnel offer heavy ads, which, I mean, to be fair, a lot of your Black Friday ads will be offer heavy. But you’ll still be putting together testimonial ads in there and other things that build on the know, like, trust factors. Yeah. So go ahead.


No. I’m just wondering, like, follow-up from Black Friday, like, retention stuff. Like, any thoughts there, I don’t know, follow-up offer offers or nurturing of any secret.


We haven’t been good at that, mostly because I just I think because I’m the one person in my circle who runs Black Friday stuff.


Nobody else does outside. I mean, a little, but not really. And so, I don’t I I just I just take the win. I take the money win, and then I use I invest in it, but I don’t I don’t and Katie can attest to this, like, having set up some of our back end stuff now.


We don’t have a lot of those post purchase offers.


We just people go on a list and then we just nurture them from there, but I I can’t I can’t at all speak to what to do once they’ve become that paying customer. I can speak to get the customer, get them to spend a little more money if you can during that that Black Friday time.


And then from there, you’ll have a separate retention or upsell strategy or whatever that might be. Yeah.


Awesome. Katie?


Yeah. I have a similar question about if we’re selling if my like, obviously, my primary offer is done for you services.


So the question about, like, it’s a different buyer.


Mhmm.


But is it?


Is it Like, so what’s a piece that you could chip off? And I think for you, Katie, like, people don’t know nearly the course creators, SaaS founders, people out there who are entrepreneurs, own they own their own business. However, Meta finds them, they own their own business, and they just need to learn about back end offers. You could have a really solid mastermind twelve week boot camp on, like, find your back end offer, step that thing up, or something like that. But I feel like that and then that would, of course, sell into, okay, Katie. Thank you. That was great.


Beginner audience is what you’re, like For an audience of stage awareness.


They’re probably low stage awareness. They’re high on pain for I need to make money.


They’re high on pain for the frustration of I have this product, and somehow I’m not making good money. What’s going on?


And then you swoop in with that. So any any pre offer stuff could be, like, introduction to your back end offer. What even is a back end offer? Like, all of that early stuff, and then have some sort of group boot camp to three thousand bucks down to two thousand bucks this Black Friday only, starts in January, get your year going right, whatever, and try to sell fifty, a hundred people on that, with even, like, one on one coaching as an upsell.


Yeah. I don’t know if that’s what you’re asking. I just got excited for you.


Well yeah.


So I’m hosting a live master class Good.


On the thirteenth.


K. So I was planning to turn that into a digital product.


K.


But I feel like maybe that’s the pre offer then, and then the boot like, some kind of live thing is the is the main offer.


Okay. Yeah.


Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you for letting me think it through. Yeah. Cool. Anybody else?


Yeah. Nikki.


I’m just thinking of the the prelaunch. Do we talk to those people also?


Like, those people go into, like, a funnel and get you Oh, yes.


Prelaunch is all about getting people into your list that are buyers so that when Black Friday hits, you’re still running ads to acquire more. You’re gonna have retargeting ads in play as well.


And so anybody who’s hit your website in the last thirty days, which will include these people because they probably have hit your website in the last thirty days, the prelaunch offer purchasers, those are who you’ll retarget to, which is typically a little bit more affordable, especially since they’re more likely to buy. Know, like, trust. But then they’re also on your list too. So you can save a bunch of money, by doing, like, a two day pre BFCM.


So before you turn your launch offer on, and this is in the workbook, before you turn that on and Meta knows about it, the actual offer for Black Friday, you can run, like, a a webinar with those people who just bought and say, like or call it a whatever you have to call it so it doesn’t sound like a webinar, and do, like, hey. You’re gonna get if you sign up today, you get our Black Friday offer early, plus we’ll credit you the cost of or the amount that you spent when you first bought our ebooks or whatever that thing is as, like, nice little extra incentive, so that you can clear out a lot of those people before, before Meta starts charging you to sell to them.


Yeah. Cool. Yeah. There’s much to do. But it is it’s three months of work that can pay off very nicely.


And, I mean, I’m keeping numbers low here when I say, like, make a hundred thousand in order to because I know people think, oh, people think thoughts about bigger numbers, like, they’re impossible to get or something. But if you can get a hundred thousand, you can get three hundred thousand. If you can get three hundred thousand, you can get a million. So, like, this is much more doable as, like, a big swing initiative, if you just do all of the work.


That’s all it takes. It’s just all of the work. But if you can do that for the two months leading up to it and then run live chat for the actual week or two weeks that you’re running an offer, just just close all day. Just close, close, close.


So it can be pretty big.


What would a minimum offer like, you don’t wanna sell, like, a hundred dollar offer for your main offer.


What would the minimum price like, where do we wanna hit?


For prelaunch or for your actual offer? The actual offer. Oh, not a hundred. Go higher. Go much higher because you’re gonna be doing something cool, like something live or some killer course.


The lead up to it is also collecting testimonials. So if you’re like, this is the first one that I’m running it, find ways to get so that you can have those ads that are single image ad or a quick video ad. Someone gave you a testimonial.


Get someone in the group to go through your training and, like, run it run them through it. Like, work together. This is what bros do all day. They just, like, cross promote each other nonstop.


So do it with everybody else in the room too, to collect that social proof. Right? Because that’ll help you sell, of course, a bigger ticket offer, but the discount is largely what people are looking at. Right?


They’re, like, fully high alert on what is the big offer in my inbox, what are these cool offers other people are talking about they landed. And if someone says on LinkedIn, I just scored Nikki’s course on email x, whatever, on human emails, or on million dollar emails, then, that’s cool. Right? Then they’re looking through, like, oh, how much was oh, wow.


You saved sixty seven percent. That’s, like, seven hundred dollars or whatever.


They’re looking for it for for the deal. Yeah. It’s deal hunters.


Yeah. So that you don’t have to go low. You just have to make the discount meaty. Yeah.


Katie.


So if you’re creating something new that you’ve never sold before, how do you frame the discount?


Oh, okay. So FTC would say you can’t discount it until you’ve run it for a certain price, so set it up. Set it up in SamCart for your twenty nine ninety seven.


It’s public. It’s live. Sucks that you suck at selling it at twenty nine ninety seven, but nonetheless, it’s been live and that’s that. So that’s really I mean, look at AppSumo has been bullshitting everybody with what things cost and the discount for a billion years, and Noah Kagan has never been brought before the FTC.


So I wouldn’t I wouldn’t worry about it. I would have, protected myself from that by just putting a page up live beforehand with the full price.


Yeah.


And then I guess after your deadline, change it back and Yeah.


Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.


Totally.


I bought Thrive’s card, panicked that I was gonna miss out on the deal that is still going on four years later, so I have no problems.


No.


We’ve all been there.


We’ve all done that.


Alright. Cool. Well, we are switching over now to the general q and a part of the day.

Worksheet

Getting Invited onto Stages & Podcasts (p.26)

 

Transcript

Alright. Cool.

Good. Excellent. Okay. Welcome to the new week in the summer of big things. Today, we are going to talk about getting invited onto stages and podcasts.

So if that’s your thing, if that’s a big thing that you want to work toward, we’ll talk through the part of the workbook that walks you through that. That is starts it starts on page twenty six and goes to page thirty one. For those of you who are in the document itself, I’ll share my screen when it’s time when you need to look at something on the screen. But I do wanna start with is anybody does anybody wanna speak to wanting to get on stage or how that’s happening? Jess, do you have something to share here?

No. I just want to. And, like, I’m actually I go and I speak at there’s a starter company, like, yeah, like, a starter program through the small business enterprise center here that they invite me to speak, which is, like, really cool.

And I feel like I’m good at it. So I wanna do it for more of my, like, ideal clients.

Yes. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Good. Anybody else? Roxanna?

So I haven’t spoken in a long time on stages for some reason. You know?

And when I did, I converted, which was great.

But I kinda need to get it together and perhaps do something for the fall.

Okay. Okay. Cool.

Good. Alright. So podcasts come up a lot as well, and we’ll be talking about podcasts today too.

Who has podcasts being a guest on podcasts as part of their, like, growth strategy?

Yeah? Sabine, Jess, Cody Yeah. Abby. Yeah. Cody, do you wanna share something? Oh, sure.

Okay.

So I I it’s not something it’s not, like, my big thing.

Right? My big thing is my YouTube channel. But my content has created like, I I don’t know. People have been reaching out to me asking me to be a guest on their podcast because of that. So I just wanna share that.

Okay. That’s great.

Excellent. Anyone else wanna share anything regarding podcast stuff, Sabine?

Sabine, who decided to throw up on camera today?

Nice.

No. Podcast always used to be really easy for me compared to any sort of PR stuff. Even speaking on stages, it’s always been so remarkably easy for me to also sell on the back of that. I used to have my own podcast.

I stopped that because it became too much. But being a guest and maybe starting up something where I have a little less of an expectation that it’s super super duper polished. I think it’s also about getting the level of effort right. You know, there’s a balance.

Okay.

As in, like, when you’re a guest on a podcast, you can you need less prep work, or does It’s less I I think it’s less about the prep marketing of every single episode and having, you know, having so many different channels to look after.

I think if I were to start my own podcast again, I would make it a real focus, like Cody said, with YouTube. But being a guest, I think, can be more a supplementary path on top of my own owned channels.

Okay. Alright. Cool.

Okay. Excellent. Cody’s saying in chat, I had my own podcast too. Had it for a whole year.

It’s a solo podcast, though. Solo’s supposed to be better, actually. Okay. Interesting.

Alright. So we’re going to talk about let me just bring up my stuff here. We’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of it. Right? So if this is something that you’re not working on right now, it’s still worth seeing and maybe even, like, assigning to your VA or somebody else that might have more time if you have somebody on staff who you know is underutilized.

Putting them on this work, especially with a checklist in front of them, is pretty straightforward. It’s a pretty easy win. And then you’re ready whenever someone comes knocking. Whenever someone’s like, I think I might want you to speak on my podcast or get on stage, you’re good to go. Alright. So let me share that. Okay.

Poop. There we go. Alright. So you’ll need a speaker page in most cases. So years ago when conferences were enormous, you didn’t need like, when they were everywhere, you didn’t need a speaker page.

You just need people conference organizers were just busy watching other people’s replays or attending other people’s conferences and then, like, stealing speakers directly from there. Stealing being, like, ethical stealing. You’re just looking and saying, like, you were dope. Can you come over here now?

And so you didn’t need this. And you might still not need a speaker page. I don’t have a speaker page, but I also don’t want to travel and go do this stuff. I know a lot of people who get invited on a lot of stages, they don’t have a speaker page.

But that often has a lot to do with kind of being in this, like, insulated space. Once you start speaking on a stage on like, you start with one, typically, that will land you in a group of events that are all kind of, like, the organizers all attend each other’s events, and that’s how you’ll find yourself being invited to other events. So, yeah, that you’d that’s something to think about when you’re putting together your speaker page, whether you need one or not. Now if you’re not getting invited onto stages right now, there are ways around that, ways to kind of fudge that, which we can talk about.

But the speaker page itself is made for your organizer. It’s not made for the people in the audience. You are writing the speaker page to help that conference organizer who is busy, who just wants the best people in the room, who wants to make sure that anybody they bring on stage has charisma, can actually, like, walk around the stage and not just depend on a slide deck and not stand with a very dull slide deck presenting things for twenty five minutes and then shuffling off stage and going home. Conference organizers want an active event.

So we need to think of them first and foremost, and we can talk a bit about what they’re looking for. Now on the speaker page, really straightforward stuff. This is for your organizer. You gotta match that h one to the keywords that your organizer will use.

So that means looking into that, that does there’s not no clear answer right now outside of if they were, like, copy speaker for copywriting or something like that. I don’t know. You have to go find that. That’s part of the job.

You wanna show your face in high resolution above the fold.

People don’t like that. I know a lot of people here are like, I don’t want to. I don’t like it. Do it. We all know, like, our face is a big part of it. It is our signature now, and that’s an important thing in a time of AI. So put your face there.

Showcase your full name and your value prop as a speaker, not as the kind of copywriter you are or agency owner you are or whatever. What you will be speaking about, that’s what you put above the fold. Make sure on all devices, it’s above the fold.

Now what do organizers want the most? They wanna know things like, yes. I customize talks for each event. A lot of people are like, oh, I have, like, these two talks I give, and no.

I don’t I don’t, customize them, and that’s really problematic for the organizer. When I was first starting out getting on stage, I did a new talk for every single event I was at, and I had to the point where if I showed up at an event and the week before I had spoken at one event and then I went to a different one, and I know that the last one went well, I would just go off and talk to the organizer and say, like, okay. I have a new talk for you, but I actually just gave this other talk last week, and it went really well. Which one should we do?

And that’s, like, a nice thing for them. They’ll probably just say, like, no. Go with the one that’s on the agenda. We’re good.

But that’s not always the case. And so it’s nice to be able to just, like, kind of share ideas and different options with the conference organizers. You do have favorite talks, so it’s likely that you’ll have two or three decks in your back pocket as you go. Start with one, but don’t expect that you can get away with saying, like, here’s what I talk about.

This is my talk. If you do, it’s probably not gonna go over well if you don’t have a lot of events you can say you’ve spoken at. Organizers, again, they wanna make sure that they have something unique that will attract people to their event to pay for a ticket. And given that most events put your, put past conference put past talks on YouTube, if you’ve already given the talk and it can be found on YouTube, the organizer’s not gonna love that.

They’re gonna love that they can go watch and see how you are and what the content’s like, but they don’t want you to then say, I’m gonna give the same talk for you because an attendee would be like, well, why am I gonna pay if everybody is just giving all of the same talks they’ve already given and they’re on YouTube?

They also want things that make it easy to show that they’ve got authorities, thought leaders on stage. So if you’ve published a book in any way, that includes self publishing. Nobody cares. And you can bring copies.

Maybe you’re like, I always bring twenty copies to give away to attendees. Cool. One more thing they don’t have to worry about. One more piece of value they can add to their audience, add for their audience.

If you have bulk discounts where they’re like, I love that you wrote a book, and you’re like, cool. How many people are going to be there? And they’re like, three hundred. And you’re like, okay.

Well, if you buy three hundred copies of my book, I can drop it from fifteen dollars five dollars per. And if it costs you nothing, it costs you two bucks to print the thing, and now they have three hundred copies of your book sitting there. Now you just have to make sure that those books are, like, leaving, so it doesn’t look pretty sad.

So that’s something to keep in mind. What what can you add that proves you’re an authority? And then further than that, can you give part of that away? Honestly, little things like this, I’ve been asked several times.

Hey, Joe. What are you doing tomorrow? Can you fly out here? Because so and so got sick.

Or so and so lost their passport on the way here, and now they can’t get into Canada or into the States. Can you come out? So if you say, hey. I live in Toronto.

I’m thirty minutes from, international airport, and I can get to most places in the US and, even over in the UK and parts of Europe, then that’s good for them to know. That’s great for them to know. It doesn’t mean that it will make them book you or that they’ll go looking for you for that. But if they’ve been on your speaker page, maybe they didn’t say yes to you before, but they remember when they’re in that panic of, holy shit.

We don’t have a speaker for Tuesday, and it’s Sunday. They will then go, like, who was that person? Who was that person? That person who said that they could fly out in short notice.

And that could be just enough to get you there. Remember that these a lot of the conferences that are out there are small, and they’re, not embarrassed that they’re small, but, you know, big conferences get a lot of hype. Oh, we had five thousand people here. We had twenty five thousand people here.

Not, that’s not what most events are meant for, like, this big thing, but some speakers only wanna speak to large audiences, have very particular requirements about audiences. So if you’re like, hey.

I love small audiences. They’re my jam. I prefer to speak to two hundred to four hundred people in a room. Then knowing that the vast majority of those events that are out there are two hundred to four hundred people, you’re now making yourself, like, fit in to this, like, ninety percent of the events out there. And while we’re on the subject, smaller audiences are better. You get way more out of them.

If you’ve worked if you’ve, been on stage and other speakers love working with you, cool. Share their testimonial. That’s a big part of it. Right? There’s going to be behind the scenes when you’re speaking at an event. There’s a speaker’s dinner that you’re invited to the night before or the night of the first day.

There’s other parts where you’ll be asked to interact with not only the attendees, but also speakers. So if you seem like a cool person who is, like, not gonna make it weird to be around you, that goes a long way. So if other speakers, anybody in this room, if you’ve spoken maybe you put on your own event just for short like, you were just like, I need some video of me on stage. So you, like, rented out a small room and invited a bunch of people to it and invited someone else here to come out and speak there too and did, like, a mini copywriting event, great.

Get the person you invite out to also say, like, ah, so and so was so great to work with. It’s so nice to be a speaker who, like, works with other speakers, who get what it’s like to be a speaker. I mean, none of that even made sense, but, like, but more of that kind of, the conference organizer’s like, cool. This is, like, a speaker who’s not a dick, who doesn’t, like, leave or make it weird, which some people just do.

So if that’s not you, cool. Get a testimonial. This is a big one.

When you are going on stage and you tell your conference organizer, I stay for the whole event. So I I like staying for an event. I get to learn everything there. I get to connect with other people. Other speakers who stay have I’ve become best friends with speakers. Like, we now travel together.

And we met because we were backstage together going, like, I’m so nauseous. I can’t even and they’re like, I’m so nauseous too. What are we gonna do? And you become good friends.

And so if you can say, I’m an active speaker. I’m an active attendee. I stay for the whole event. I network.

I go out for lunches with people.

Cool. That’s one more thing that speaker that conference organizers love. Keeping in mind that there are a lot of people who are professional speakers who show up two hours before they go on stage. They get mic’d.

They stand around quietly in the back, and then they go on stage, give their talk that they’ve given ten thousand times, walk off stage, take their mic off, kind of do, like, a fake inauthentic hi to everyone, and then they get back on an airplane. That’s shitty. As an organizer, you don’t want that. Then the attendees are all separated from you.

The speakers are like, who is that?

And it’s just a weird feeling, so you cannot be that person. You can talk about that. On your speaker page, obviously, list every single thing that you’ve done that where you’ve been invited to speak or share any thought leadership. If you do have a highlight reel, go ahead and embed it.

You don’t need one, but if you’ve got anything you can share that’s like, here’s how I sound or look on stage. Here’s how audiences respond to me. And usually when you speak at one event, there’s a videographer, and that person is recording everything. So all you have to do before you agree to speak in an event, say, like, cool.

So happy to do this. So excited. I know you’re gonna be recording it. Can I get a copy of my recordings that I can embed it on my website?

Cool. It doesn’t have to be a highlight reel. It can just be the whole thing. If a conference organizer is seriously looking for good speakers, they’ll watch your whole session.

You don’t need a highlight reel. You don’t need to spend extra money or extra time.

Podcasts, events, and three posts about you, people talking about you, add that stuff in there. That could be, like, off other people’s LinkedIns. I don’t know. And then just drive to the appropriate call to action.

So what do you want them to do at the end of this? Again, this is for an organizer. This isn’t, like, necessarily go to my contact form, but rather, hey. If you would like to talk about a custom talk for your event, go over to my LinkedIn DMs or whatever the thing is that you want them to do.

Any questions about your speaker page?

No. Okay. Cool.

We’re not gonna dig to oh, Sabine?

Sorry. It was too late.

Cody’s very helpfully shared her speaker page. It’s a Canva page. It’s a it’s for a podcast, so it’s it’s maybe slightly different. But do you envisage the speaker page more as a page on the website or, like, an online document like this Canva page?

A findable thing. So what is a conference organizer doing? They have in front of them a spreadsheet, and what and one of the parts of that spreadsheet, one of the tabs is, who might I bring on for this next event that’s happening eight months from now, and it’s time to hunker down and get this person booked.

They have gaps in their curriculum that they’ve they’ve got this. Here’s what we wanna cover.

Who can cover those things? So events that you might be speaking at, and this is answering the question, but events that you might be speaking at might be conversion rate optimization events, like CXL Live, when Pep and his organizer are putting that together.

They have a curriculum of the things that they want to hit throughout the day. They wanna make sure because they’ve got people in the audience who want who really want something out of the event. It’s not like some of those shitty events that are out there that are actually quite big that are really basic and no one’s that engaged and, like, marketing teams send three junior marketers to it because it’ll keep them busy.

The event will keep them busy. Those are not the events we’re really optimizing for. You wanna think about pep. Looking at a spreadsheet going, okay.

So we’re gonna start day one with the first part of conversion optimization, things around research and discovery. So he’s gonna list out that stuff, and he’ll have gaps. He’ll say, like, oh, obviously, Elle’s is perfect for this, and maybe Talia’s great for that. Who can do this?

And then if it’s a name that they already know, you might be like, yeah. But is there anybody else newer, fresher, somebody else?

And then they go looking, and maybe they have somebody who says internally, oh, I’ve heard I’ve listened to this person on this podcast, and they sound pretty smart. Maybe they talk, or something like that. But what you’re doing is if if this deck or Canva page or whatever, I don’t know how it’s working for you, Cody, I would just put it on my website, though. Like, just it says speaking in the global nav. And then if I’m an organizer or I read your book or whatever it might be, then I can go to that speaker page and see that you talk about podcasts and in person on stage events, and then that’s I can find it. So all I’m worried about is, is it findable?

Keyword phrases, obviously, will help bring someone to a live page, but there’s other ways you could do it. I just don’t know why you would. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just put a page together on your website because it’s a CRM. It’s easy, But do whatever you want to.

I just wouldn’t I wouldn’t leave it off my website. So Cody said, I would absolutely put it on my website if I were to go hard on speaking. Yeah. Why not?

Cool. Yeah. What other chats do we have here?

Work with us, hire us, speak at your event. Yeah. I would pull out hire us. Don’t say hire us, speak at your event.

Some of the most popular speakers out there, that get the most business from their work are not asking for money at all. And I like, properly, I rarely ask for speakers’ fees. It’s only if I’m like, I don’t want to go to this event, but maybe I have a friend who’s gonna speak there. And I’m like, well, if you’re going, I’ll go.

And they’re like, okay. I’m getting ten k to go. And I’m like, okay. Well, I can probably ask for something like that, and go to.

But, like, then I think of all the other conferences I’ve been to where I’ve not charged anything, and they’re great. It’s been big for building thought leadership and getting invited onto the next stage and the next stage and the next stage and getting ultimate, like, payoff for that. It’s rarely direct payoff. It’s usually indirect payoff.

But I would take up anything to do with what I cost. Mm-mm. Just do it for free. They’ll pay for travel, and they’ll pay for your to put you up in a hotel.

Okay. Good. Just pull it. Just get hire us right out of there. Cool. Alright.

Anything else? Any other questions on that?

Cool. Alright.

Oh, yeah. Question, Joe. Yeah. When you say they pay for your travel and they pay for hotel, is that something typically that you would book and then they pay you back, or they take care of that directly and they send you the details?

I because I am a terrible flyer and I will only fly business, which most events don’t want to cover.

So I say, here’s what it costs for me to go, and then I say, like, it’s usually a a set rate of twenty five hundred to three thousand. Like, I go and look at what the hotel’s gonna cost. Right. Sometimes they’ve just got specialty rates anyway, they’ve already booked in for speakers, and they’re like, well, we’ll get the hotel.

Fine. You get your own travel. And then I just asked for, like they just cut me a check for two thousand, five thousand sometimes. Depends on what the travel’s gonna look like.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

But it is. Yes. It’s standard for them to pay for travel and accommodations. That’s it. And then they’ll invite you to a speaker’s dinner, so your, like, other costs are usually covered along the way anyway. So there you go.

Alright. You need a plan on a page for getting invited. You need a plan for getting invited, but let’s start with a plan on a page. How can you actually attract hosts and organizers to you?

So this is just your homework. If this is your big thing for the summer, list out those target podcasts for q three, which we’re in right now. So that’s a little bit tricky because it’s only got a two and a half months left in it, but, hey, that’s still two and a months. You can do a lot in two and a half months.

So target podcast for q three and q four. I’ve only got four on there because I don’t want a mega list of all the podcasts on the planet that you might ever speak at. Rather, what are the targets? The actual ones you wanna be on.

Who is the organizer? So who decides who goes on it? Sometimes it’s the host. Other times it’s not the host.

Other times it’s their whole team, like, agreeing or voting. Find that out. That’s the job. And then what’s their LinkedIn?

Just so you can start following them, and be engaging with them, and then identify what they want that you can give them.

So this is you just being, like, unreasonably thoughtful about their lives. What and I don’t mean send them flowers. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, like, what do they want from someone who comes on the show?

Do they want you to promote the podcast episode? Of course, they do. Do they want what else do they want? So list out the things that you want that they want that you can give them.

And, basically, anything they want, you should be able to give them because it’s probably not irrational. So if they want you to bring fifteen examples to talk through for what you do, put together fifteen examples. Like, just do the thing. Do the work.

If you’re doing this to grow your authority and get more traffic and clients in, then give them what they want. They’re also going to like, they got on your target list for a reason, so do the work. And then also do target events for the next eighteen months. Now anybody who is doing an event in the fall, it’s usually fall and spring.

Anybody who’s doing an event in the fall is likely already booked. So the only way you could get in there is, like, getting on their radar to get invited in the event someone cancels out. And you honestly could just ping them and say, hey. I know your event is in October.

I know you’ve already got your speakers all lined up. I’m all over speaking. I’m digging it. I’m doing great with it.

Build that up.

And if somebody can’t make it, just know that I’m here and I can fly out with four hours notice or something like that. You can always end up having to say no later if they come to you, but hopefully, you can actually say yes if they come to you, and now you’re doing it.

So what are those target events for the next eighteen months? And then same thing as before, except this time it’s the event organizer. Find who it is. You can find this. It just takes a little bit of research.

Go on to their LinkedIn. Follow them. DM them if when it makes sense, comment on their stuff, repost their stuff, etcetera, and more of what they want that you can give them. Short notice, custom talks, etcetera.

Then update your speaking page. Make sure you’re following them on not only LinkedIn, but other spaces, especially if they have low followers in other spaces. Let’s say they have an Instagram or the company has a YouTube channel and, like, their subscribers are pretty low, which is really common for a lot of organizations. Of course, they don’t spend all their days just, like, working on this stuff.

If you’re somebody who’s on there making themselves visible, commenting on their YouTube video, you’re the one commenter, and you’re, like, insightful about it. This is just these are small things to start, like, elevating in their eyes.

Make sure that you’ve updated your content strategy with topics they invite people to cover. So if you’re like, I know that this person, the person who organizes MozCon is all I can think about. So whatever.

They want someone who does magic while on I don’t know what the thing is, but make sure that you are then creating content around that stuff so that they are more likely to find you.

And then use SparkToro. We talk about SparkToro a lot.

SparkToro has tons of answers for things that you didn’t even know you could find out about a purse about a business, and the people you’re trying to get in front of. So use SparkToro to determine where you’re going to share this content so that it drives them back to your speaker page.

Questions?

Moving on. Finally oh, Roxanna. Yes.

So you spoke a lot about SparkToro, and, obviously, I was not here. Where do we find the things that you said?

I don’t know how well our search is working yet in Copy School Pro. I know Sarah’s been working hard on that. You might be able to just search SparkToro.

But more than anything, I it’s not that I teach how to go through SparkToro, but I’d rather say, like, just go use SparkToro. So just go use SparkToro. So head over there. There’s free accounts. There’s, like, low cost accounts, and Rand has, like, the ability to cancel.

It’s really easy. So you might only sign up for a month and then just cancel, and then sign back up again when you need to go through it again.

Yeah. Cool.

Awesome. Alright. Speakers oh, it does. Okay. Thanks. Speakers to connect with.

You are about to if you do this stuff, if you go on stage and somewhat on podcast this is the tricky thing about podcast, right, is because you’re more likely, of course, only to connect with the person that you’re actually speaking with, the host of the podcast. You can, however, connect with people who have been on the podcast before. So go back and look through who was on the podcast in the last, I don’t know, ten episodes, and then just DM them. Like, just put their name in and, like, DM them and say, hey.

I saw you were just a guest on whatever. I was just on there last week, or they just invited me, or I’m thinking of going on there. Any tips? Just start connecting with speakers.

And the reason for this is event I cannot tell you how many times an event organizer has said, Joe, do you know anybody who? And I’ve put their name forward, and then they are speakers now. And it turns into really good things. I’ve CTA Conf, I can’t tell you how many people I recommended to CTA Conf.

I think one year, like, half of the agenda was just people that I’d said, what about her? What about him? And it’s great, and it’s a really good kickoff. But if I didn’t know those people, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything.

If I didn’t know that, like, Claire or somebody was interested in getting on stages and talking about jobs to be done, then I wouldn’t have said, hey. Do you know Claire? She talks about jobs to be done for marketers. Maybe her?

And then she’s on stage, and then she’s on stage again and again and again and again. So get them get friendly with speakers.

Obviously, we always wanna do it in a non skeasy way. It’s very easy to tell when someone’s being inauthentic. But if you’re genuinely curious and if you know, hey. If this person invites me to be on stage and they’re on stage at the same event, we’re probably gonna get together and have after, we’ll get together for drinks when there’s, like, a boring session happening and there’s, like, a pub down the street.

So this is like, befriend people. Just start making friends with other speakers, and then you might be one of the people that they recommend. Okay. That is really it. Oh, there is this part. It’s really detailed.

So I’m just gonna leave this with you so that you can know that you have to go back and do these things, but some of it is already, like, done. Your IRL funnel, talked about last week, your appointment funnel having those things connected, etcetera.

And make sure wherever you are, whether you have started the book or not, put that a book is coming soon, go in Canva, make a fake book cover with the title on it and your name on it, Say it’s coming soon. Put a mock up together. Put it on LinkedIn. Put it on your website. Nobody needs to know that it’s not quite ready yet. They do wanna know that though, that you are, an authority. You’re a thought leader or you’re about to be one.

Okay. Any questions?

Yes. Katie?

Can I you said also, can you hear me? Because this my mic wasn’t working. Yep. Yeah. Strong CTA for the speaking page. Like, I currently have a type form because I’m speaking to, I figured, podcast hosts and, like, coaches who have a mastermind and wanna bring in a guest expert. Would you wanna get on a like, forum to book a call?

Is that pretty standard for how you’d want that process to go?

It depends how much time the organizer has. So when you, like it’s it’s useful to even just, like, start I don’t know. Go spend some time listening to what conference organizers complain about. They rarely have the time or resources for any of the work they have to do. Right? It all feels really, really overwhelming.

So I would reduce friction wherever possible. I would say, like, hey. Here’s you fill in this form, or, like, if if time is of the essence, here’s my phone number. Call me.

And then if that gets weird and, like, the wrong people start calling you, then just take it off. But we’re really just trying to reduce friction so that that event organizer and I have event organizers in my head as I’m saying this. All of them would appreciate you making it fast and easy to find out if you’re the right person for them or not. So I would if a type form, I would eliminate the type form, go with a single, like, here’s how to email me, or why not just text me, and let’s get this. Like, let’s figure out if I’m even a good fit.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the pay at the end of the page, have, like, book a call or leave a message, and then the type form’s just, like, kind of segmenting them, and then they write their intro.

So Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I would just do as I require as little as possible and then start adding fields if you get, like, inundated with people. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Cool.

I got a I don’t know. This is just to me, or is this to everybody? I don’t know. Will you be doing more IRL events when your book comes out? Yes. If yes, will you try to get event organizers to bulk buy your book? Probably not.

But I’m I haven’t worked through that idea yet. I haven’t done any planning for what to do with the book since it’s not out till July twenty twenty six, so I have some time.

But I don’t know. When I when I dig more into that, I’ll definitely share what I’m going to do with bulk buying.

Yeah.

Obviously, it’s a good signal to Amazon and other spaces when a bunch of your books are purchased there. But if they go through, like, my publisher or me, then there’s all these book sales that are lost now that, like, Amazon doesn’t know anything about and etcetera. So yeah.

Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions or thoughts about particularly getting on stages, but the same rules often apply to getting on podcasts? They’re just in my opinion, and I know that it is an unpopular opinion.

Few podcasts are really, really good and likely to last a long, long time. There’s a lot of shit dies on the Vinom podcast. You gave a great podcast interview two years ago when no one’s ever gonna hear it. And that’s true for speaking as well.

Right? But you’ve got to get more personal with people, and that they’ll remember versus you just being another voice on the podcast. So that’s why I recommend more, getting on stages, but I know everybody else just wants to be on podcasts. So yeah.

I love podcasts, and we’ll die on that hill, Joe.

I hate to see you die, but go for it. I mean, if that’s, like, the thing that you want, cool. Alright.

My Locked-In Book Deal

My Locked-In Book Deal

Transcript

Jessica, you’re gonna talk to us a bit today, run a bit of a discussion. You look surprised by that.


No. I would I’m not talking to you. I’ll talk with you about Perfect. Otherwise, if I was talking to you, I would have prepared slides. But Joe told me that he had no slides. And I was like, okay.


Exactly. Running a discussion.


So today’s session, also, welcome, everybody.


Today’s session, we are talking the big thing that we’re focusing on, is my locked in book deal. So I’m gonna share some insights into how it’s pretty easy to get certain kinds of book deals.


And then alternatives to getting a book deal, of course, are just actually publishing the book yourself, which is basically the thing to do right now for a lot of reasons. So, Jessica, of course, as for those who don’t know, Jessica Jessica, do you wanna describe what you do so I don’t botch it?


No. You should do it, and then I wanna analyze and see if you do it well.


Shit.


How would you describe what I do?


So Jessica takes books largely from idea or early draft to published and promoted.


So that’s so the way I see Jessica’s work is a lot of ghostwriting, get the book to a really good state, get it published by yourself, and then get people to start buying it, buying and buying more of it. Jessica, would you add anything or change anything there?


No. I think that was very nice, and I might, grab that little hook you said at the beginning. But, yeah, I think that and then I’m zeroing in a lot more on the book sales strategist. So I’m coming in a lot more.


People typically come to me now when they’re thinking they wanna launch. And then but I’d really like to zero a lot more in on the sales after. So post launch when people are like the most common thing is you have sales go really, really high during your launch, and then it’s like sometimes slow, sometimes a crash to very few sales after the post in the post launch phase. So that’s where I’m coming in a lot more with a lot of different types of funnels, and helping people pick that back up. But a lot of the people who come to me are not the ones who are solely focused on book sales. That’s one KPI for sure, and it’s definitely helpful.


But a lot of people are like, no. I really wanna be the as Abby helped me figure out the undisputed authority in their industry. They don’t want anyone to come up in, you know, ChatGBT or Google or wherever they wanna be the name. And, they also want speaking engagements, and oftentimes, they want clients more better to whatever it is. One client I just had was a lactation specialist, so she wanted more clients to her practice in Austin. And then another client wants more clients for her agency.


So it’s that kind of work really.


But yeah. So do you want me to kick off our discussion?


Well, so the note that I had for the discussion, but Yeah. Feel free to take it elsewhere, is how long does it take to move move a book from idea to published?


Yes. I have a wonderful story about this. It so, the leads that I get, every every person I’ve ever worked with thought about working or whatever, has come back at some point.


Usually, if they work with me in the first couple weeks, certainly in the first couple months, they come back going holy crap. I had no idea that publishing a book took this much work.


And so, last week, I had a new lead call. They, worked with a ghostwriter and were kind of wrapping that up, and they already they were basically doing it backwards. They already had a date set in October for their book launch event, a very large one, fifteen hundred people invite kind of situation. Yet, they were reaching out to me last week and in our discussion came to find out not only is the book still in process, there is not a finalized title, which means there is no cover. The interior is not finalized yet.


The venue had already been determined, set, and ready to go and all the things, and we’re talking about a three month turnaround.


That’s probably the most extreme timeline I’ve ever been on at least in terms of having an an official in real life event plus the actual launch. So, so just to give you, like, some context on the timing. Traditional publishers, you’re talking the big five. So Simon Schuster, those kind of folks.


And sometimes they’re five, sometimes they be whatever.


But typically, traditional pubs, big five.


Once your manuscript is basically finalized, it’s on average about twelve to eighteen months to get to your launch date. Typically, that’s average.


And then hybrid publishers are all over the place and there’s a lot of different options there. I’m sure Joel will talk about that. But in my business, if you’re a first time book, we talk about, seven to nine month because I’m able because I know the timelines, and there’s multiple and they interchange and they overlap and some things have to be done. Like, you have to have a title before you have a cover.


Like, that’s you you have to have that. And don’t you dare go on Amazon and put up a preorder with a book title, that you’re not sure about because you’re locked in. There’s no going back. So just some, like, little tidbit stuff, but that’s what I work in is all of this stuff.


And, and if you do it out of order, it gets really messy.


So typically seven to nine months, but you better have a pretty solid book or you could be like Abby and Joe who have a topic, know exactly what they wanna write, and how they want it to look. They’re very fast writers and they get shit done and they just focus on it for a certain amount of time and then it’s like off. If you’re that kind of person, a Joe and an Abby, then, certainly, you can do shorter publishing.


But I definitely wouldn’t recommend that if you don’t meet that criteria or, or if you don’t have the resources and the money to get people to help you with all that, then don’t rush it.


And then, of course, then in the yeah. So that’s, like, in a nutshell kind of the timing that I have seen. It’s all over the place, but, I mean, the biggest tidbit would be start with two things. So your first question is, who are you writing the book for?


Who’s the reader? Who’s the ideal reader? And it’s all the things you already know from being in Joe’s sphere that it goes beyond a persona. Right?


It’s beyond demographics. It’s problems, desires. What is the problem your book is going to help them solve, or inspire them to do whatever?


Get clear on that. And then the second question is, what do you want the book to do for you? What’s the goal? And then that’ll dictate your entire strategy.


And then the other part of that question is what are you willing to do for that goal? If you want if it’s all for you about book sales, what are you willing to do to get book sales no matter what? That kind of stuff. So I just kind of start with the reader, then be clear on your own goals, And then what are you willing to do for that?


And it should set the trajectory for your entire launch, whether it’s, hey. I’m gonna, like, be like Abby, get this done. And what was it? Forty hours, Abby?


You went from nothing to a manuscript?


Or if you’re someone who it’s gonna take longer, but you need to be clear on those things before you set up any kind of calendar of what should be done because you need to be clear on those things. So it’s all things you all know about goal setting. And then if you’re a copywriter or business owner, you know these things. So just get clear on what you want to get out of it and the kind of person and writer you are and how much money and time you can invest, and that’ll dictate everything.


There you go. There’s my lecture.


I love the classic, expert awesome.


What don’t you know? What don’t you know, bitch? Scared.


Who here knew that it takes seven to nine months?


I’ve been through it, and I didn’t know that. No. So yeah. No, girl.


Thank you. Like you know that. Okay. Sure.


Oh, Jess.


Alright. Oh, Jess. Anybody have any questions for Jess based on that? Jess, if you’re cool with questions.


Absolutely. I’ll tell you if I don’t know.


Okay. Nikki?


Hello.


Hi.


How much should we invest if it’s, like, we’re just doing it as an authority piece? Like, I don’t really care about book sales. I just wanna be known as an authority.


It feels really weird to invest a lot of money. Oh, yes. He’s like my tiniest one shaker because he’s a twin, so he’s smaller. Like, you should have seen the others were dripping off.


Anyway, how much should we be investing? Like, prepare to invest.


Does it make sense to invest if it’s just an authority piece?


It comp it’s again, you’re not gonna like any of my answers. It completely depends on it completely depends on what what you want out of this. So in terms of client if are you gonna one, are you gonna write it?


Are you gonna hire a ghostwriter?


You’ll write it? Okay.


Okay.


Okay.


So if you’re gonna write it, then you don’t have sorry?


You said, I guess I wanna hear both. Okay.


Yeah. Okay. How much, then a sub question for if you’re thinking about ghostwriting, are you going to make sure that they can use AI, or would you use AI at all part of the writing process?


Yeah. That’s fine.


Okay.


So if you were if I were straight up going with a ghostwriter, those are wide ranges. But if you allow for them to use AI, then you could probably get lower cost too for that as well. Ghostwriters.


Okay. There’s a company what is his name? Joe, you probably know.


I always mess up their names.


There’s a guy you can hire and I think they’ll do the interviews with you. It’s a fast turnaround book. It’s very formulaic.


So if you’re cool with, like, strict formulas and being like a bunch of other books out there, just fill in. It’s basically a template that you’re filling in with your interviews and then they make it nice. I think that package, if I remember correctly, is around like twelve thousand dollars or something like that. I forget if that’s a self publishing guy or whatever.


And then there’s ghostwriters who are ghostwriting for big names and big business names and those are over a hundred thousand dollars. So I mean it really just depends and I would certainly recommend that you do some form of a I need to see the kind of writing work that you do before you get into paying that kind of thing for a ghostwriter and get really clear in the contract about how and when they can use AI. Because if they’re just gonna straight up, take your interviews that you record with them and pop it into Claude or something and have that, I’d almost say don’t waste your money on that you could do that or have an assistant do that. That’s so basic.


So get really clear if you’re allowing AI in the ghostwriting part of it, you need to I mean, it really does need to be spelled out how and when it’s used. If you’re writing the book, then for sure here are the things I would never do unless you have design background. Okay?


You I think if you have basic, frankly, cover design, it’s important. Yes.


But you could get away with doing it yourself with Canva and AI help and kinda putting things together. You could.


It’s a pain in the butt if you want to turn it into all the different file types you need, so I probably would invest in a cover designer just for that part.


Interior design, don’t do it yourself unless you wanna use a tool called Atticus and you wanna be the person going in there copy pasting formatting doing all the stuff. I personally think that’s pretty low level for most of the I would imagine most of the people in this room. I would have an assistant do that or, go on to, Fiverr or Upwork or whatever and get an interior designer to do it for you, check their work, that kind of thing. I would invest in that one for sure. I think that’s just so time consuming and not worth it for you.


Let’s see. So interior design, cover design, you have to pay someone pay someone to be your second set of eyes, and I do not mean pro writing aid. So for editing and then the this is the one that everybody forgets.


Once you have your interior design, your book is in its formatting and all of that, awesome, except you need someone to go in there and proof and make sure that not only are there not spelling errors and all that editing stuff, but also it looks nice, and and you don’t want the designer to do that because they’ve also, you know, you guys know it’s not fresh eyes and you you start fixing things with your eyes even though it’s a problem, so get even a basic editor. Some I don’t think you should have to pay more than a few hundred dollars depending on your your, how many words are in your book, but, a couple hundred I would think somewhere between two and four hundred, you should be able to pay a proofreader to go through, and you’re gonna have if an ebook, you’ll have either a PDF form of that or a epub if you’re publishing on any of the Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whatever. And then your PDF will also be if you do a paperback or hardcover.


Those are all separate files that you need someone to proof and make sure they look good and actually pull it up in their Kindle and go, okay, does this look okay? Is this image, you know, fuzzy? Does it, you know, that kind of stuff. So you want someone I would invest in a second or third pair of eyes to prove that when it’s in its format.


Marketing. If you can do your marketing, you can do your marketing for your book.


If you’re a business owner with budget, I would invest and at least get some consulting on it. The biggest thing that I think most people should probably invest in is some form of a consultant on the things that you just don’t know about the back end of publishing. So if you are gonna publish, you all could just publish on your own, have your own funnel, and you send them the PDF file or the ebook file. You could do that.


You get all the royalties. You don’t have to worry about Amazon and their stupid rules or them taking over fifty percent of your money. You could do the whole thing. You could run your own ads, take it all and do it do it yourself.


The caveat to that, of course, is that you won’t appear on Amazon. You’re not gonna be on Barnes and Noble. So some people really like being able to say I’m a published author and you can go to my Amazon to see that. It just, again, depends on your goals.


But if you are going the other way and you wanna be on all the different places, your visibility and that and I do recommend that if this is gonna really be an authority piece for you, then I would recommend even hiring a consultant for, like, an hour or a VIP day depending on what they offer, but have them walk you through, okay, how do you get on Amazon? I literally had a client who just thought, I’ll take this Word doc and pop it into Amazon and it’s all good. Right? Ebook?


And she she just had no clue about formatting or she hire oh my gosh. This was and this is one I’ll tell you. Oh my gosh. Please don’t do this. You’re not you’ll get you’ll get punished.


I know because we made the mistake.


Do not hire someone to and give them access to your Amazon account that you use. You cannot it’s against their terms of use. You’re not allowed to do that. And you can go on Reddit and all that, and you’ll see people getting their Amazon account shut down.


So when you’re publishing on Amazon, when you hire this consultant, which I, like I said, I recommend, you would hop on Zoom, you’ll share your screen, you’ll go into your Amazon, they’ll tell you, okay. Here’s how you upload the file. Here’s the categories you should put your book in. Here are the keywords you should do if they provide that as part of it or at least they should tell you how to do it.


And then here’s the book description. Put all that in. Here, let’s go through your pricing. Make sure that your pricing is optimized for all the countries that you want it in.


Don’t do wide distribution, you know, all the things. They should walk you through that, but you have to be doing all the clicking especially on Amazon.


I promise I will look at the chat in a second, but you will derail me if I look at it. It. So anyway, so yeah. So, like, I would hire someone to at least give you the or or I’m sure there’s plenty of course oh, no.


You know what? Now I take now that I say that, I’m lying. That’s not true. I’ve looked for these courses.


There aren’t many. There aren’t many courses out there telling you how to set this stuff up. So, yeah. I would hire a consultant who knows what they’re talking about, walks you through it all, make sure that you know that your title has to be final before you set up a preorder in Amazon.


Otherwise, you’re screwed. You can’t change it, that kind of stuff. Your content has to be final when you submit it. If you make major changes to content, they will not consider it that book.


They’ll make you do a second edition. It gets messy if you do this stuff out of order. So if anything, I would invest if I could pick one thing, it’d be someone who understands the process of getting those things on Amazon and all the platforms in the right order and, frankly, making sure that you don’t click the wrong thing. And I know I’m being dramatic, but it is actually true, and I would imagine Abby or Joe could back me up on this.


There are just certain things you can’t come back from once you do it. So, yeah. Okay. Sorry. Should I go in the chat? I feel like I’m just chatting away here.


I think it’s mostly outside of the Caitlin has a question to clarify if a different user signs in using your credentials, Amazon will boot you.


Oh, sorry. Say that again?


Her question was, to clarify, if a different user signs in using your credentials, Amazon will boot you?


Yeah. They shut down your Amazon account. You’re you are fired. You’re done. You don’t get that. That account’s gone.


Dang.


And not just if they can figure out so here’s the thing.


Amazon is always if you’re an Amazon user, they track you everywhere. Amazon knows your Facebook friends. So that’s why it gets a little interesting when you’re trying to get reviews for your book, by the way, another really important thing, because if Amazon can see that it’s a friend or family or related to you on other platforms because they get they have access to information, and your recommendations all the stuff you do to share, you know, they they have a lot of tracking data so, they sometimes will not approve people’s reviews And it’s why people do a lot of shady crap frankly to get hundreds and thousands of reviews because they’re paying people who are not related to them or, you know, whatever that Amazon can see somehow there’s a relationship.


I don’t recommend doing that shady stuff, by the way, but people do it because Amazon does track.


It’s good to know, g.


Yeah.


Caitlin, you have a question still?


Yeah. So okay.


So, Jess, so say, you know, I’m not focusing on the book thing right now, but say I wanted to with the goal of me doing this being to get more prospects in my pipeline for my standardized offer. But the position I’m in right now is, like, the last several years, my clients have just been word-of-mouth and repeat clients. I only, like, over the last couple of months, got started getting consistent, like, with my social media platform.


So say I’m here in this situation coming to you saying I wanna now focus on this, would you say, yeah. Go ahead. Like, this is, like, a good time to do that, or would there be other things that you would want me to prep or accomplish before I focus on this?


Okay. So what do you want the book to do for you?


Get more prospects into my pipeline.


Okay. Do you have a clear problem that you wanna solve for those clients? Mhmm.


Do you have a clear process for doing that?


Yeah.


Well So you I would say it’s it’s general right now, and Mhmm.


It’s, like, not as clear as, like, Abby’s day one ever evergreen. Like, she, like, does this, like, same sort of thing.


But if Joe came to you and said, hey, Caitlin.


I’m gonna give you a really cool opportunity. You get to come on to CSP and provide three trainings on your unique process, would you be able to figure out how to do that?


Yeah.


I know what my process is. I wouldn’t say that I’ve invented any of it.


But, like, you know, it’s like the conversion copywriting process, the, like, continued optimization, the conversion of market research.


Your flavor of it? Do you have, like, your flavor, your unique whatever on it?


No. I do market research.


I make a customer compass like Talia Wolf, and then I use, you know So there you go.


You just identified.


Okay. So that’s you just identified where I’d probably consult you on starting. So I wouldn’t I yes. You can you can always be writing.


Right? Like, track document things as ideas come to you. I do that. Pick an app, start documenting things.


You don’t have to worry about, oh, but this is gonna be my book. Don’t put that pressure on it. Instead what you need to figure out first is what’s your flavor of all that because if you think about it that’s no different than what Joe’s done what Abby’s done what everybody has done since forever is they see someone’s process they learn, they take what they like, they leave out what they don’t, they create their own kind of signature, whatever way of doing these things. But oftentimes, you can track a lot of these things back to something that came before it, right?


So I think that would be my recommendation to you right now is you’re not worried about getting this book out immediately. Why not spend the time on figuring out what’s Caitlin’s signature? What’s the flavor that you add? What’s the new thing that you bring to it, what’s the way you do it that’s different.


Focus on that, document stuff, make notes like I said, and then you could just as easily, you could get that into a book and a lot of times for me, what works best is I’m a verbal if you can’t tell, so I just hop on a recorder, and I talk. And I talk and I talk and I talk and I talk, and then I have a transcript. And then I can pop into the AI and say, if this were a chapter in my book on blah blah blah, how would you organize this rant?


And, you know, so that’s what I would do now. I wouldn’t but I wouldn’t put pressure on the book. I put pressure on I need my own way of doing things. What is that? And discovery. Just do it through discovery. That’s what I would do.


Cool.


Does that help?


Great things, Jessica?


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Because that that’s exactly where my stuck point, I think, would, like, would be. Yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. I hear you.


We found, Jessica, once like, have you ever started a book project without being crystal clear on what, like, the unique flavor was and then found it while you were writing, or do you always have to know what it is before?


No. No. I think writing a book is discovery. So I mean, my own, certainly. But, no.


That that definitely happened with, Naomi’s book. Naomi is my client who’s a lactation person on breastfeeding, and, she thought she had the book ready. She was the one who thought it was like, yeah. Just pop that up on Amazon.


It’ll be all good. And, it was only through what I call book doctoring, which is like editing married with ghost writing and they kind of have this weird baby, then that’s what that is. And so that’s what she and I did, and then we discovered what that really was about in her.


She kind of had ideas.


Like, Caitlin, she had a lot of ideas about it, but it it just wasn’t cohesive. It wasn’t she didn’t know how to communicate it. So, yeah, it was through the writing process.


That’s good to know. Awesome. Abby? Got a question?


Oh, yeah. There you go.


Cool. Yeah. So I know we’ve been talking about this separately. I just thought I’d ask in case that, like, benefits the group.


So, yeah, last year when I launched my book, it was literally the the purpose was to have a book. Like, I didn’t really think beyond that. I was just like, Joe says get a book up, so I got a book up. And now in October, I’m launching the print edition, and I wanna do more of a proper launch this time.


And I’m just thinking about what kind of goals to set because, obviously, it’s like I want more clients. I want more course sales. But, do you have any advice to how I can get kind of more clear, and realistic, but while also being ambitious? Like, what kind of goals are healthy to set when launching a book?


It depends.


It depends on your audience size. It depends on your goals. I think that if you cannot tell me I because you’re Abby, you’re like every lead I get. Right? You’re the, yes, the I want speaking, I want authority, I want more clients for the thing. Those are like the top ones I always get.


But if you’re going to create if you’re gonna create a solid campaign, you have to what is the primary KPI? You can have the other ones, certainly.


And authority comes with a lot of this work anyway, but I think you first have to get clear on what is the one thing that you absolutely when you imagine yourself post launch with you and I on our Voxer or on a coffee, yourself post launch with you and I on our Voxer, around a coffee, talking about it the week after, what what would make you celebrate and be like, shit.


We should get together and have champagne. This is so amazing.


Or what would you be the most disappointed by? What would you be really mad at me if you actually hired me? What would you actually be mad at me for if you didn’t get this because I didn’t help you make it happen? That’s what I would honestly figure out first and I would optimize for that first.


If you can hit the other things, great. And a lot of them, like I said, you will. It’s an ecosystem. It’s not one, you know, but I would get very clear on and I’d visualize.


That’s why I visualize the future. Post launch week, what does that look like? Celebration versus not happy, what does that look like?


Mhmm.


Cool. Yeah. I know. It’s just because I’ve because I’ve made I’ve gained some prospects and things from the e book. I guess what I’m trying to do is figure out what my, like, ten x goal is because all my goals are, like, two x goals just, like, more than what I’ve got. So I yeah. I guess that’s where I’m, like, what would the what’s, like, the ten x goal here?


What is the ten x goal for which KPI?


Well I don’t know which goal to go for the ten x if I don’t have a KPI.


Yeah. It’s either gonna be prospects or course sales or both.


Or one?


Or both? Which one?


Which one are you gonna optimize for prep? Which one’s primary?


Yeah. I don’t know.


Okay. I don’t know. So you have to you have to decide that one, and then we can absolutely ten x. But then also, Abby, I think a big one for you is what am I willing to do? And by you, I usually mean who are you gonna hire or who you gonna, like, you know, I don’t mean you as in Abby, but what are you willing to put in to make sure that that goal is hit?


Because I know you like to move fast and do the thing, and I I love that about you. It motivates me, but also you have to be realistic about does that align with whatever goal you wanna achieve.


Okay. Okay. Thanks, Jessica.


I don’t I’m sorry. I know I can tell you’re in a face. That’s not very helpful.


I’m just thinking. Well, thinking. I’m thinking.


Okay. Tell me what happens later.


I’m gonna.


Right. Caitlin.


Okay. And I know everyone in the in the chat’s like, oh, everything’s a remix. Like, I yeah. Like, I think it’s my main client is a lawyer, and and ever since working with her, I am just the most paranoid person.


Okay. My question, though, so once your clients just publish and launch their book, you talked about in the beginning of today, you know, it’s like there’s a whoop, and then, you know, it can be sort of like crickets. Do you have, like, a system or, like, this, like, go to game plan of, like, things that you get in place for, like, continued sales?


And if so, I’m just curious, like, a little bit about what those are.


Okay. So I look over here because I have a whiteboard that’s really big with my diagnostic and all the things. So that’s where I’m looking right now. Yeah.


So I have my diagnostic, and it’s basically, like, the it’s it’s known It’s a funnel essentially. So like my diagnostic is, okay, distribute. That’s the top of the funnel. How are you gonna get your book in front of the right readers and get them to buy it?


That kind of stuff. So we have that kind of visibility stuff set in place, which some of that is addressed in when you publish it first, right? Like making sure that things are set up properly on Amazon, the right categories, keywords, all of that.


And then some of that is like your ongoing social media content and making sure that you are regularly mentioning the fact that you have a book, and people can see it. And you don’t have to directly call it up. There’s a lot of ways. So I have a lot of it’s basically just making sure that I have set up the reader to whatever the KPI is, you know, lead, reader to lead, reader to client, reader all those different funnels. Reader to speaker funnel is a popular one for me.


So, yeah, reader to course funnels. So it’s that’s really what it is is if they come to me and they’ve already published, making sure that they have those pieces in place and that they’re optimized.


And if they don’t, then we set them up. And yeah. So it’s just basically a lot of optimizing a a funnel, a lot of funnels actually.


But it’s all the things you know, top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom of funnel. Making sure that they have an email marketing system that incorporates their book in a lot of different ways. Do they have a nurture sequence after someone buys the book and then gets the bonuses? Do they have bonuses to collect those emails? Like, these are all things we set up if they don’t have them in place.


So I don’t know. Did that answer your question? It’s a lot. It’s like I said, it’s an ecosystem.


Yeah. I mean, it it sounds like you kinda treat it, like, almost as not its own business, but, I mean, just like doing, like, the the typical stuff. Like, if you have those funnels, like, you’re doing top of funnel stuff to get people into it who if the goal is to then, like, get speaking engagements and making sure that you’re just, like, you know, getting all that in front of the right people and just doing different, like, even list building efforts for the book. Right? Yeah. Outside of And then it is written sprinkled into your existing stuff too.


It’s just it’s put in systematically, but then, yes, we have the sprinkles. Like, I randomly I’m like, okay. You need more clients in your agency? Great.


Go to that dream list that you have, whatever. Let’s go get some branded packaging. Pop your book in there. Let’s pop your book in there, let’s send a nice letter and mail them out, and that’s what you’re gonna do with your book to leverage it.


So it’s like there’s the ecosystem and the systems put on the back end for sure and then sometimes that includes ads and whatever. But then there’s, like, the little little sprinkles and tactics I like to do too just to test and see, if that should become something bigger, like envelopes with books in them for new clients.


Cool.


Awesome.


Thank you.


Okay. So question feels kind of nebulous, so bear with me. But I’m wondering about, like, the difference between a book that’s good and just, like, putting all your blog posts together in one document, I mean, like, this is my book. And when you think of, like, a book that is really gonna help your clients achieve the goal that they have for it, is there a certain, like, je ne sais quoi that you’re looking for? Like, does it like, what you mentioned earlier about that big idea, or is that me being a perfectionist about it? Like, I just what’s your kind of gauge for it being a good book?


I have this really awesome thing that happens in my body where I get excited about it, which doesn’t take much. My level of excite like, you could start talking about environmental science to me, which is not my thing at all, but if you’re passionate, I’ll get passionate.


So I’d say that’s, like, a key indicator to me, and it’s also what I often will say when Abby and I talk about my books is like the moment where I’m sitting there going, nah, it’s not nah, then that’s an indicator in me that I no. I won’t it’s too hard, I think, to write a book and do the stuff and all the things that you give up to take the time if you’re not excited about it, so that would be my first is do you think are you excited about the fact that this could help someone? Do you and I I do a lot of future a future manifestation or vision stuff and I just imagine you get an email or a LinkedIn comment where you talked about your book and they’re like, oh my god, Katie, I just read your book.


I am changing everything and this, I just feel like the clouds have cleared. I know what I’m doing when it comes to this thing. If that is enough to get you through this, then you should do that and if if you could imagine that happening from coming from a bunch of blog posts that are you could clearly connect them, you know, I wouldn’t recommend, okay, what, you know, don’t do anything to them, I’d probably finesse them, which you know that. But, but if you think that on the other side of putting together those blog posts and, putting that out into the world could really help someone and that excites you and you’re willing to do that, then I think you should do that.


There’s no, you know, there’s not like one way to write a book or one thing, you know, there’s problem solving books, this was in right useful books. Like there’s the problem solving books, right? And then there’s inspirational kind of other stuff where it’s a lot more thought and philosophy, whatever, doesn’t necessarily give you the steps for how to exactly solve these things. Books take on a lot of different purposes and formats, but if you think that someone could walk away with value and help them solve a problem, I mean, I don’t think you’re selfish for keeping it to yourself for not wanting to do the work, but wouldn’t you want someone to benefit from that?


Why would you hold back that information?


I don’t know. That’s just did that help, Katie? I’m sorry.


Yeah. I like the idea of, like, the tingle of excitement in your body about about that being the measure of whether or not you’re onto something.


Yeah. I like that indicator. It makes it so much easier. I don’t have to look at a chart for that.


Thanks, Jessica. Abby?


Cool. Okay. So I I do I really wanna get traditionally published. Like, it’s just like a golf thing.


So I guess I’m deciding, like, should I is there a benefit? See, because I have another business book in me called the Evergreen, Course Formula, trademarking it here. Like, that’s happening. So but I’m like, should I should I use that to get richly published? Or, like, my if it’s just, like, purely, like, for an itch, is it better to just do one of my science fiction novels and then self publish the business book?


Depends on your goals. I mean, Joe, you’ve gotta have an opinion on that. I think it comes back to your goals.


But An opinion on whether you should go with your fun writing versus your business writing?


For traditional publishing?


So, Abby, can you repeat the question?


Yeah. So I I want to get traditionally published because it’s, like, it’s my goal. It’s just, like, something I want for myself. So, yeah, the question is, like, should I use because I have two books I’m working on. One is business, one is fiction.


Like, is there a benefit enough of a benefit to being traditionally published for business that I should use that one, or is is it better to be self published for business, in which case I’ll just publish my sci fi one?


Yeah. You’ve distracted us all with this sci fi novel situation.


Tell us?


That’s I needed the bigger phrase too. Like, wait. What’s the question? Abi has a sci fi novel? Abby has many sci fi novels?


Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s either or. Right? Or, like, why choose? Just do both?


Yes. I I I do fun writing as well.


I don’t have an opinion on it. I think, like, if you’re motivated to get traditionally published, when I did, it was not fun. I didn’t enjoy the publishing process, but I would go through it again because yeah. So I don’t have a take on it. Jess Jess is like, you love it? I don’t.


Alright.


I do what feels right, but just know that traditionally published fiction is writing for librarians.


They’re your first audience.


Editors and librarians are everything.


That’s all I really have to say about it. But but if you wanna do it, do it because you’ve got that intern it’s like taking it’s like doing your PhD. Until you’ve done the fucking thing, you can’t put it out of your head, so you have to go through with it and do it. We all have this crap that we think we have to do. So if traditionally published is one of your things, just you just gonna have to do it.


Start, like, getting into finding your agents, finding an agent and all of that real work or publish Oh, and I should say I I’m sorry.


I should have prefaced that too. This has become more and more common because of shifts in publishing and all the things. It is not uncommon to self publish a book and then it takes on a life of its own and then the traditional publishers come to you and are like, hey, we wanna publish that and they pick it up. So and and there’s all sorts of interesting options because I what I’ve never liked about traditional publishing when I figured it out is how much they dictate and I don’t like being told.


And I don’t like someone else hold holding me to certain things that I don’t like. So that would give you more options too though, Abby. I mean, your sci fi thing takes off and it’s a it’s a cult phenom and all the things. You have a lot more negotiation power going into a traditional publisher when they’re like, hey, we wanna publish this when you’ve already proven it’s a great book, if there’s an audience and it’s selling, you know?


So you could and all that to say to everybody, you could start by self publishing and that’s not just fiction, that’s nonfiction and fiction. And but then suddenly, it gains momentum visibility, and you could have publishers knocking on your email inbox asking what they can do to work with you.


So Nice.


Colleen Hoover. Right? Colleen Hoover started that way?


Oh, yeah. A lot of people did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


Cool. Abby, what quick pitch for your sci fi novel? What’s it about?


Think, the the Good Place meets Lost meets Severance.


What the fuck?


Okay. Yeah. It’s weird. Alright.


Alright. It’s sci fi.


Now we gotta read it. Cool. Caitlin, do you have a question?


Yeah. I think this will should be quick.


Jessica, so, like, do you think a lot of what you do could also be translated if instead of a book, you have a TV show on, like, NBC? So my brother has an a TV show on NBC Sports Boston.


And because I’m also thinking about this. So he’s got an online business. I’m also thinking about he’s not gonna wanna write a book.


But I’m like, other than sprinkling the credibility of that in places, I’m just wondering if there’s, like, some immediate, like, things of some, opportunities.


There’s a different phrase I’m looking for, to, like, leverage that a little bit more. And so yeah. So the basic question is just, like, do you think a lot of what you do could translate to a TV series?


I’m I’ve I’m not a hundred percent certain on the question. So what I do to help people?


Yeah. Like, the way you help them leverage their book for something inside their business.


So my brother has a fishing membership, and it’s basically, like, for people. It’s a certain region, and, they wanna learn how to fish that region. So he has, a decent sized membership, and he is selling spots in his membership.


And he’s been doing this for years and years and years, so he I don’t know how it happened. I forget. But he also, got he has a show now, a fishing show on NBC Sports Boston. So he’s, like, sort of like a little fisherman celebrity in his world.


And I’m just because now he’s my client for a very discounted rate as I told Joe last week.


But, yeah, I’m just I’m just wondering if, like yeah. Like, if he were your client and he was like, instead of this book, instead of leveraging this book, I wanna leverage this thing I already have that’s happens to be just a different medium, like a TV show.


Would there be overlap in, like, what you do?


I mean, sure. Because, I mean, a lot of the stuff that I do is, right, is repurposing content and creating strategy around expanding your authority and visibility. So certainly, yeah, I would imagine there’s probably a lot of overlap with that. But, man, I mean, why why wouldn’t you do a fishing book?


That’s what I was sitting there going, like, I I I’m in the Midwest. We fish. I’d take a TV and turn that into a transcript and put that into a fishing book. I don’t know.


I just I like to dream for people. Why shouldn’t your brother be on the cover? Like, I’m imagining the cover. He’s out there doing one of those, like, you know, whatever.


But, yeah, I would imagine there’s a lot of probably overlap.


Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But, also, this this conversation alone makes me realize we need to sprinkle that credibility more into, like, his existing things.


So even though Oh, yeah.


Good good help for today. Okay. Cool. Thanks.


Amazing. Thanks so much. Thanks, Jessica. You were gonna lead a little discussion, and now we’re fifty minutes later.


So thank you.


You should have known, Joe.


You know me well enough.


You should have known that we would Everybody has so many questions too.


That was great. Oh, good. Thank you. Yeah. Well done. Thanks.


So we can if you have time to go over y’all, I have this in my calendar for ninety minutes. If you have to drop off, please put your hand up pronto if you have a question, and we’ll hop right into your question. Otherwise, if you’re cool to stick around, then we can go another forty minutes. It’s in my calendar for that at least.


No one’s put up their hand. Cool. So we do have oh, Sabine, you gotta go. Alright. Let’s do it.


And then Caitlin No.


I don’t have to go. Sorry. If I misunderstood that, I don’t have to go. I’ve got time so I can lower my hand and wait for other people who urgently need to go.


Caitlin, will you be with me? Caitlin?


Yeah. Same. I’m not pronto.


I think I just, like like, reacted that no one has questions, and I was like, yes.


Exactly.


Okay. Cool. I just wanna make sorry. I just wanna make sure we’ve cleared up the topic of publishing, because we’ve talked about getting your, you know, self publishing with Jessica, which is great.


And for some it’s it’s I mean, I’ve self published every book outside of some novels, and my upcoming book, and it’s all great. And Jessica has been the one behind, any of the books that were published after Copy Hackers was launched as a business. So not the first four, or first seven even, but, the rich writer series and then bringing back some other, books from before. So, self publishing, great.


Awesome. Fabulous. Have a plan for promoting, of course.


Make sure you read, write useful books. It’s a must read. It will save you many iterations, especially if you’re looking to get clients or other sorts of sales out of your book.


Write Useful Books is recommended by everybody who’s written and self published, primarily self published, a book. Page two, Jessica, have you ever worked with page two or anybody who’s worked with page two?


Its publisher?


Yeah. I mean, I’ve worked with people who’ve worked with them. Yeah.


Okay. I was just wondering.


Yeah. So page two is a great they’re sort of a hybrid publisher. Aren’t they, Jessica?


Yeah. Yeah.


They’ll get your self published book out the door, but I think it starts at fifty US.


So that’s worth keeping in mind, and that’s not for ghostwriting services either. That’s just, like, to get the book out.


So let that also be, like, a sort of way to level set on what this stuff costs. And if you are ready to start investing in this, cool.


It it’s not free, but you were writers. Everybody in the room here has that unique advantage that is completely unfair that other people, an engineer who wants to write a book is basically screwed in comparison to us. Not that they can’t, but we can all get this done. So the challenge is just forcing yourself to sit down and do the thing. I personally, as a side note, set a goal, and I told my group of of of business friends slash masterminded people, that I was gonna write three books in two years, and I am on track.


So I think if you can just establish and commit to a goal, then that’s, like, that’s a big part of it. Just keep and then tell other people that that is your goal, and they will be disappointed in you if you don’t hit it. So make sure you do.


Couple notes that I’ve had. I have a book coming out with a publisher with whom I already had an existing relationship. So I just reached out to the editor and said, like, hey. I’ve got this book. Do you want to publish it?


And so and they’re a group that just accepts pitches from people. So if you’re in the workbook, I don’t know what page it’s on in the final version of the month one. But if in my version of it, it’s page forty nine. I don’t think that’s true in yours because I think this is out of order.


But it begins go direct to the publisher. That’s the title of the page, and it lists out there we list out publishers. You can just pitch directly where you don’t need an agent to pitch them.


And agents go a long way.


My, one agent in particular from Writers House has pit has, signed many of my friends to the point where I’m like, it’s kinda weird that I didn’t go with this person.


Josh Kaufman is the core one, but then we were all in a mastermind together. And, anyway, there was a bunch of people. Basically, almost every business book that’s come out in the last four years, this one person did over at Writers House. So there are good agents all over the place that you can pitch and get, and they are getting books sold.


So you can go the traditional route, but you can also just go direct to publisher too. So I’m publishing with Ben Bella. They’re distributed by Simon and Schuster. So you do get to have some of those, like, established relationships.


You get some good logos on your page and things like that. But there’s a full list of people who will publish this stuff. You can also pitch directly to Wiley if you want. Depends on your ICP.


Right? Like, who in your ICP reads the book that you’re going to write. And if you have a very technical ICP, Wiley goes a long way as a brand, so consider them. But but check that page out.


I just really wanna quickly run through some quick notes, and then we’ll switch over to q and a and just, like, open it up to normal q and a. Some of the things that have come up that I’ve noticed, and this is, I’m very close with April Dunford. I’ve heard a lot over the years about her book.


Just like Jessica, you were saying publishers reach out after it’s a success.


Yes. April would second that. Gia and Claire with Forget the Funnel, they self published as well. I think they both went through page two because April’s a big advocate for page two. It doesn’t mean you have to. I looked into page two, but I was like, well, Ben Bella can do everything they’re doing, and I’ll just go with Ben Bella.


So and Ben Bella doesn’t charge me any money. We just have a profit share. So there’s that to consider. But what I can say is you can’t tell a self published book from a traditionally published book.


Nobody looks. Nobody cares. Nobody notices anymore. Try to make your book cover look pro. I would argue that it’s good to have a great book cover in place because it will make you look more legit, versus a cover that doesn’t look legit, and then you see it self publishing like, if you have an ICP you’re trying to target who flies a lot, which a lot of people who are targeting entrepreneurs or people in large tech organizations that have, like, different places that they go to or consultancies, try to optimize for the length of time it takes to fly somewhere, and then try to get an audible in place as well.


Make sure you’re on Kindle, but get your audible version of the book up and running. Put your best stuff in your first book. When I was talking to Ben Bella, to the editor there about my book idea, and I was like, but look, here are the different books I wanna write over the next six years. And he is like, calm down.


Just bring your best your everything book, and then we’ll figure out the other stuff. And I was like, damn it. But I’ve got all these ideas. But I think he’s absolutely right because it’s very I feel really good about the book that’s now, under going through the production process.


But just put all your best shit in it. Just, like, don’t hold back, Don’t say I’ll cover that another book. I think we’ve all read those shitty books that are, like, like, you’ve got everything from the title. And if you read right useful books, it’s unlikely you’ll write that kind of book. But just, like, give it your all, like, all of your good stuff. Every example you have, there should be no examples you have that are not in this book.


Yep. I mentioned do the audiobook too.


Make sure you’re not driving to a URL that will not be forever there. So I know somebody mentioned a horror story of somebody using, like, a Bitly alternative, and then that business went out of business. And it’s, like, published in their book.


So that’s shitty because then you have to do, like, an updated version and stuff.


Book sales, bulk sales, sorry, are a big thing as well. Dan Martel has some pretty cool strategies you can just learn by watching.


If you buy, like, three thousand copies of his book on Amazon, you’ll get, a one half day in person session with him where he’ll fly you to Kelowna.


And, you can have, like, a three hour session with him, which he usually sells for about thirty thousand or fifty thousand dollars or something. But that way, it’s a really good signal.


I don’t know how much the algorithms care or recognize that, but that’s how Dan helped to become, to get buy back your time on the Wall Street Journal, I think, bestsellers list.


So bulk sales, Chinese translation.


I don’t think he’d mind me mentioning his name, but Sean Ellis, who wrote Growth Hacking, told me that his, he sold as many books in China alone as he has across the rest of the world combined.


And a lot of books are stolen too, so consider that. Like, these are all purchased books, so so don’t underestimate the power of getting someone to do, like, a Mandarin, version of the book.


And make sure you’re pitching. This is an April, tip. Make sure you are pitching conferences and podcasts well ahead of your publication date so you can have those books there. I think that’s really it.


There’s a lot more in this section to go through, and cover if you wanna pitch a literary agent. If you have more questions about any of this stuff because it’s really important to get that book out there, a book that hopefully you’ll be proud of. It’ll never be everything you want it to be, I think, is worth keeping in mind. You’ll always wanna make new versions of it, but you gotta get the thing out there anyway.


How many times how many times did Melville rewrite Moby Dick?


Three full times.


Three full times.


So, yeah, don’t don’t keep don’t keep revising it. Just publish the damn thing.


Okay. Now Now let’s move over to the q and a part of the day.

Worksheet

Getting Invited onto Stages & Podcasts (p.26)

 

Transcript

Alright. Cool.

Good. Excellent. Okay. Welcome to the new week in the summer of big things. Today, we are going to talk about getting invited onto stages and podcasts.

So if that’s your thing, if that’s a big thing that you want to work toward, we’ll talk through the part of the workbook that walks you through that. That is starts it starts on page twenty six and goes to page thirty one. For those of you who are in the document itself, I’ll share my screen when it’s time when you need to look at something on the screen. But I do wanna start with is anybody does anybody wanna speak to wanting to get on stage or how that’s happening? Jess, do you have something to share here?

No. I just want to. And, like, I’m actually I go and I speak at there’s a starter company, like, yeah, like, a starter program through the small business enterprise center here that they invite me to speak, which is, like, really cool.

And I feel like I’m good at it. So I wanna do it for more of my, like, ideal clients.

Yes. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Good. Anybody else? Roxanna?

So I haven’t spoken in a long time on stages for some reason. You know?

And when I did, I converted, which was great.

But I kinda need to get it together and perhaps do something for the fall.

Okay. Okay. Cool.

Good. Alright. So podcasts come up a lot as well, and we’ll be talking about podcasts today too.

Who has podcasts being a guest on podcasts as part of their, like, growth strategy?

Yeah? Sabine, Jess, Cody Yeah. Abby. Yeah. Cody, do you wanna share something? Oh, sure.

Okay.

So I I it’s not something it’s not, like, my big thing.

Right? My big thing is my YouTube channel. But my content has created like, I I don’t know. People have been reaching out to me asking me to be a guest on their podcast because of that. So I just wanna share that.

Okay. That’s great.

Excellent. Anyone else wanna share anything regarding podcast stuff, Sabine?

Sabine, who decided to throw up on camera today?

Nice.

No. Podcast always used to be really easy for me compared to any sort of PR stuff. Even speaking on stages, it’s always been so remarkably easy for me to also sell on the back of that. I used to have my own podcast.

I stopped that because it became too much. But being a guest and maybe starting up something where I have a little less of an expectation that it’s super super duper polished. I think it’s also about getting the level of effort right. You know, there’s a balance.

Okay.

As in, like, when you’re a guest on a podcast, you can you need less prep work, or does It’s less I I think it’s less about the prep marketing of every single episode and having, you know, having so many different channels to look after.

I think if I were to start my own podcast again, I would make it a real focus, like Cody said, with YouTube. But being a guest, I think, can be more a supplementary path on top of my own owned channels.

Okay. Alright. Cool.

Okay. Excellent. Cody’s saying in chat, I had my own podcast too. Had it for a whole year.

It’s a solo podcast, though. Solo’s supposed to be better, actually. Okay. Interesting.

Alright. So we’re going to talk about let me just bring up my stuff here. We’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of it. Right? So if this is something that you’re not working on right now, it’s still worth seeing and maybe even, like, assigning to your VA or somebody else that might have more time if you have somebody on staff who you know is underutilized.

Putting them on this work, especially with a checklist in front of them, is pretty straightforward. It’s a pretty easy win. And then you’re ready whenever someone comes knocking. Whenever someone’s like, I think I might want you to speak on my podcast or get on stage, you’re good to go. Alright. So let me share that. Okay.

Poop. There we go. Alright. So you’ll need a speaker page in most cases. So years ago when conferences were enormous, you didn’t need like, when they were everywhere, you didn’t need a speaker page.

You just need people conference organizers were just busy watching other people’s replays or attending other people’s conferences and then, like, stealing speakers directly from there. Stealing being, like, ethical stealing. You’re just looking and saying, like, you were dope. Can you come over here now?

And so you didn’t need this. And you might still not need a speaker page. I don’t have a speaker page, but I also don’t want to travel and go do this stuff. I know a lot of people who get invited on a lot of stages, they don’t have a speaker page.

But that often has a lot to do with kind of being in this, like, insulated space. Once you start speaking on a stage on like, you start with one, typically, that will land you in a group of events that are all kind of, like, the organizers all attend each other’s events, and that’s how you’ll find yourself being invited to other events. So, yeah, that you’d that’s something to think about when you’re putting together your speaker page, whether you need one or not. Now if you’re not getting invited onto stages right now, there are ways around that, ways to kind of fudge that, which we can talk about.

But the speaker page itself is made for your organizer. It’s not made for the people in the audience. You are writing the speaker page to help that conference organizer who is busy, who just wants the best people in the room, who wants to make sure that anybody they bring on stage has charisma, can actually, like, walk around the stage and not just depend on a slide deck and not stand with a very dull slide deck presenting things for twenty five minutes and then shuffling off stage and going home. Conference organizers want an active event.

So we need to think of them first and foremost, and we can talk a bit about what they’re looking for. Now on the speaker page, really straightforward stuff. This is for your organizer. You gotta match that h one to the keywords that your organizer will use.

So that means looking into that, that does there’s not no clear answer right now outside of if they were, like, copy speaker for copywriting or something like that. I don’t know. You have to go find that. That’s part of the job.

You wanna show your face in high resolution above the fold.

People don’t like that. I know a lot of people here are like, I don’t want to. I don’t like it. Do it. We all know, like, our face is a big part of it. It is our signature now, and that’s an important thing in a time of AI. So put your face there.

Showcase your full name and your value prop as a speaker, not as the kind of copywriter you are or agency owner you are or whatever. What you will be speaking about, that’s what you put above the fold. Make sure on all devices, it’s above the fold.

Now what do organizers want the most? They wanna know things like, yes. I customize talks for each event. A lot of people are like, oh, I have, like, these two talks I give, and no.

I don’t I don’t, customize them, and that’s really problematic for the organizer. When I was first starting out getting on stage, I did a new talk for every single event I was at, and I had to the point where if I showed up at an event and the week before I had spoken at one event and then I went to a different one, and I know that the last one went well, I would just go off and talk to the organizer and say, like, okay. I have a new talk for you, but I actually just gave this other talk last week, and it went really well. Which one should we do?

And that’s, like, a nice thing for them. They’ll probably just say, like, no. Go with the one that’s on the agenda. We’re good.

But that’s not always the case. And so it’s nice to be able to just, like, kind of share ideas and different options with the conference organizers. You do have favorite talks, so it’s likely that you’ll have two or three decks in your back pocket as you go. Start with one, but don’t expect that you can get away with saying, like, here’s what I talk about.

This is my talk. If you do, it’s probably not gonna go over well if you don’t have a lot of events you can say you’ve spoken at. Organizers, again, they wanna make sure that they have something unique that will attract people to their event to pay for a ticket. And given that most events put your, put past conference put past talks on YouTube, if you’ve already given the talk and it can be found on YouTube, the organizer’s not gonna love that.

They’re gonna love that they can go watch and see how you are and what the content’s like, but they don’t want you to then say, I’m gonna give the same talk for you because an attendee would be like, well, why am I gonna pay if everybody is just giving all of the same talks they’ve already given and they’re on YouTube?

They also want things that make it easy to show that they’ve got authorities, thought leaders on stage. So if you’ve published a book in any way, that includes self publishing. Nobody cares. And you can bring copies.

Maybe you’re like, I always bring twenty copies to give away to attendees. Cool. One more thing they don’t have to worry about. One more piece of value they can add to their audience, add for their audience.

If you have bulk discounts where they’re like, I love that you wrote a book, and you’re like, cool. How many people are going to be there? And they’re like, three hundred. And you’re like, okay.

Well, if you buy three hundred copies of my book, I can drop it from fifteen dollars five dollars per. And if it costs you nothing, it costs you two bucks to print the thing, and now they have three hundred copies of your book sitting there. Now you just have to make sure that those books are, like, leaving, so it doesn’t look pretty sad.

So that’s something to keep in mind. What what can you add that proves you’re an authority? And then further than that, can you give part of that away? Honestly, little things like this, I’ve been asked several times.

Hey, Joe. What are you doing tomorrow? Can you fly out here? Because so and so got sick.

Or so and so lost their passport on the way here, and now they can’t get into Canada or into the States. Can you come out? So if you say, hey. I live in Toronto.

I’m thirty minutes from, international airport, and I can get to most places in the US and, even over in the UK and parts of Europe, then that’s good for them to know. That’s great for them to know. It doesn’t mean that it will make them book you or that they’ll go looking for you for that. But if they’ve been on your speaker page, maybe they didn’t say yes to you before, but they remember when they’re in that panic of, holy shit.

We don’t have a speaker for Tuesday, and it’s Sunday. They will then go, like, who was that person? Who was that person? That person who said that they could fly out in short notice.

And that could be just enough to get you there. Remember that these a lot of the conferences that are out there are small, and they’re, not embarrassed that they’re small, but, you know, big conferences get a lot of hype. Oh, we had five thousand people here. We had twenty five thousand people here.

Not, that’s not what most events are meant for, like, this big thing, but some speakers only wanna speak to large audiences, have very particular requirements about audiences. So if you’re like, hey.

I love small audiences. They’re my jam. I prefer to speak to two hundred to four hundred people in a room. Then knowing that the vast majority of those events that are out there are two hundred to four hundred people, you’re now making yourself, like, fit in to this, like, ninety percent of the events out there. And while we’re on the subject, smaller audiences are better. You get way more out of them.

If you’ve worked if you’ve, been on stage and other speakers love working with you, cool. Share their testimonial. That’s a big part of it. Right? There’s going to be behind the scenes when you’re speaking at an event. There’s a speaker’s dinner that you’re invited to the night before or the night of the first day.

There’s other parts where you’ll be asked to interact with not only the attendees, but also speakers. So if you seem like a cool person who is, like, not gonna make it weird to be around you, that goes a long way. So if other speakers, anybody in this room, if you’ve spoken maybe you put on your own event just for short like, you were just like, I need some video of me on stage. So you, like, rented out a small room and invited a bunch of people to it and invited someone else here to come out and speak there too and did, like, a mini copywriting event, great.

Get the person you invite out to also say, like, ah, so and so was so great to work with. It’s so nice to be a speaker who, like, works with other speakers, who get what it’s like to be a speaker. I mean, none of that even made sense, but, like, but more of that kind of, the conference organizer’s like, cool. This is, like, a speaker who’s not a dick, who doesn’t, like, leave or make it weird, which some people just do.

So if that’s not you, cool. Get a testimonial. This is a big one.

When you are going on stage and you tell your conference organizer, I stay for the whole event. So I I like staying for an event. I get to learn everything there. I get to connect with other people. Other speakers who stay have I’ve become best friends with speakers. Like, we now travel together.

And we met because we were backstage together going, like, I’m so nauseous. I can’t even and they’re like, I’m so nauseous too. What are we gonna do? And you become good friends.

And so if you can say, I’m an active speaker. I’m an active attendee. I stay for the whole event. I network.

I go out for lunches with people.

Cool. That’s one more thing that speaker that conference organizers love. Keeping in mind that there are a lot of people who are professional speakers who show up two hours before they go on stage. They get mic’d.

They stand around quietly in the back, and then they go on stage, give their talk that they’ve given ten thousand times, walk off stage, take their mic off, kind of do, like, a fake inauthentic hi to everyone, and then they get back on an airplane. That’s shitty. As an organizer, you don’t want that. Then the attendees are all separated from you.

The speakers are like, who is that?

And it’s just a weird feeling, so you cannot be that person. You can talk about that. On your speaker page, obviously, list every single thing that you’ve done that where you’ve been invited to speak or share any thought leadership. If you do have a highlight reel, go ahead and embed it.

You don’t need one, but if you’ve got anything you can share that’s like, here’s how I sound or look on stage. Here’s how audiences respond to me. And usually when you speak at one event, there’s a videographer, and that person is recording everything. So all you have to do before you agree to speak in an event, say, like, cool.

So happy to do this. So excited. I know you’re gonna be recording it. Can I get a copy of my recordings that I can embed it on my website?

Cool. It doesn’t have to be a highlight reel. It can just be the whole thing. If a conference organizer is seriously looking for good speakers, they’ll watch your whole session.

You don’t need a highlight reel. You don’t need to spend extra money or extra time.

Podcasts, events, and three posts about you, people talking about you, add that stuff in there. That could be, like, off other people’s LinkedIns. I don’t know. And then just drive to the appropriate call to action.

So what do you want them to do at the end of this? Again, this is for an organizer. This isn’t, like, necessarily go to my contact form, but rather, hey. If you would like to talk about a custom talk for your event, go over to my LinkedIn DMs or whatever the thing is that you want them to do.

Any questions about your speaker page?

No. Okay. Cool.

We’re not gonna dig to oh, Sabine?

Sorry. It was too late.

Cody’s very helpfully shared her speaker page. It’s a Canva page. It’s a it’s for a podcast, so it’s it’s maybe slightly different. But do you envisage the speaker page more as a page on the website or, like, an online document like this Canva page?

A findable thing. So what is a conference organizer doing? They have in front of them a spreadsheet, and what and one of the parts of that spreadsheet, one of the tabs is, who might I bring on for this next event that’s happening eight months from now, and it’s time to hunker down and get this person booked.

They have gaps in their curriculum that they’ve they’ve got this. Here’s what we wanna cover.

Who can cover those things? So events that you might be speaking at, and this is answering the question, but events that you might be speaking at might be conversion rate optimization events, like CXL Live, when Pep and his organizer are putting that together.

They have a curriculum of the things that they want to hit throughout the day. They wanna make sure because they’ve got people in the audience who want who really want something out of the event. It’s not like some of those shitty events that are out there that are actually quite big that are really basic and no one’s that engaged and, like, marketing teams send three junior marketers to it because it’ll keep them busy.

The event will keep them busy. Those are not the events we’re really optimizing for. You wanna think about pep. Looking at a spreadsheet going, okay.

So we’re gonna start day one with the first part of conversion optimization, things around research and discovery. So he’s gonna list out that stuff, and he’ll have gaps. He’ll say, like, oh, obviously, Elle’s is perfect for this, and maybe Talia’s great for that. Who can do this?

And then if it’s a name that they already know, you might be like, yeah. But is there anybody else newer, fresher, somebody else?

And then they go looking, and maybe they have somebody who says internally, oh, I’ve heard I’ve listened to this person on this podcast, and they sound pretty smart. Maybe they talk, or something like that. But what you’re doing is if if this deck or Canva page or whatever, I don’t know how it’s working for you, Cody, I would just put it on my website, though. Like, just it says speaking in the global nav. And then if I’m an organizer or I read your book or whatever it might be, then I can go to that speaker page and see that you talk about podcasts and in person on stage events, and then that’s I can find it. So all I’m worried about is, is it findable?

Keyword phrases, obviously, will help bring someone to a live page, but there’s other ways you could do it. I just don’t know why you would. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just put a page together on your website because it’s a CRM. It’s easy, But do whatever you want to.

I just wouldn’t I wouldn’t leave it off my website. So Cody said, I would absolutely put it on my website if I were to go hard on speaking. Yeah. Why not?

Cool. Yeah. What other chats do we have here?

Work with us, hire us, speak at your event. Yeah. I would pull out hire us. Don’t say hire us, speak at your event.

Some of the most popular speakers out there, that get the most business from their work are not asking for money at all. And I like, properly, I rarely ask for speakers’ fees. It’s only if I’m like, I don’t want to go to this event, but maybe I have a friend who’s gonna speak there. And I’m like, well, if you’re going, I’ll go.

And they’re like, okay. I’m getting ten k to go. And I’m like, okay. Well, I can probably ask for something like that, and go to.

But, like, then I think of all the other conferences I’ve been to where I’ve not charged anything, and they’re great. It’s been big for building thought leadership and getting invited onto the next stage and the next stage and the next stage and getting ultimate, like, payoff for that. It’s rarely direct payoff. It’s usually indirect payoff.

But I would take up anything to do with what I cost. Mm-mm. Just do it for free. They’ll pay for travel, and they’ll pay for your to put you up in a hotel.

Okay. Good. Just pull it. Just get hire us right out of there. Cool. Alright.

Anything else? Any other questions on that?

Cool. Alright.

Oh, yeah. Question, Joe. Yeah. When you say they pay for your travel and they pay for hotel, is that something typically that you would book and then they pay you back, or they take care of that directly and they send you the details?

I because I am a terrible flyer and I will only fly business, which most events don’t want to cover.

So I say, here’s what it costs for me to go, and then I say, like, it’s usually a a set rate of twenty five hundred to three thousand. Like, I go and look at what the hotel’s gonna cost. Right. Sometimes they’ve just got specialty rates anyway, they’ve already booked in for speakers, and they’re like, well, we’ll get the hotel.

Fine. You get your own travel. And then I just asked for, like they just cut me a check for two thousand, five thousand sometimes. Depends on what the travel’s gonna look like.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

But it is. Yes. It’s standard for them to pay for travel and accommodations. That’s it. And then they’ll invite you to a speaker’s dinner, so your, like, other costs are usually covered along the way anyway. So there you go.

Alright. You need a plan on a page for getting invited. You need a plan for getting invited, but let’s start with a plan on a page. How can you actually attract hosts and organizers to you?

So this is just your homework. If this is your big thing for the summer, list out those target podcasts for q three, which we’re in right now. So that’s a little bit tricky because it’s only got a two and a half months left in it, but, hey, that’s still two and a months. You can do a lot in two and a half months.

So target podcast for q three and q four. I’ve only got four on there because I don’t want a mega list of all the podcasts on the planet that you might ever speak at. Rather, what are the targets? The actual ones you wanna be on.

Who is the organizer? So who decides who goes on it? Sometimes it’s the host. Other times it’s not the host.

Other times it’s their whole team, like, agreeing or voting. Find that out. That’s the job. And then what’s their LinkedIn?

Just so you can start following them, and be engaging with them, and then identify what they want that you can give them.

So this is you just being, like, unreasonably thoughtful about their lives. What and I don’t mean send them flowers. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, like, what do they want from someone who comes on the show?

Do they want you to promote the podcast episode? Of course, they do. Do they want what else do they want? So list out the things that you want that they want that you can give them.

And, basically, anything they want, you should be able to give them because it’s probably not irrational. So if they want you to bring fifteen examples to talk through for what you do, put together fifteen examples. Like, just do the thing. Do the work.

If you’re doing this to grow your authority and get more traffic and clients in, then give them what they want. They’re also going to like, they got on your target list for a reason, so do the work. And then also do target events for the next eighteen months. Now anybody who is doing an event in the fall, it’s usually fall and spring.

Anybody who’s doing an event in the fall is likely already booked. So the only way you could get in there is, like, getting on their radar to get invited in the event someone cancels out. And you honestly could just ping them and say, hey. I know your event is in October.

I know you’ve already got your speakers all lined up. I’m all over speaking. I’m digging it. I’m doing great with it.

Build that up.

And if somebody can’t make it, just know that I’m here and I can fly out with four hours notice or something like that. You can always end up having to say no later if they come to you, but hopefully, you can actually say yes if they come to you, and now you’re doing it.

So what are those target events for the next eighteen months? And then same thing as before, except this time it’s the event organizer. Find who it is. You can find this. It just takes a little bit of research.

Go on to their LinkedIn. Follow them. DM them if when it makes sense, comment on their stuff, repost their stuff, etcetera, and more of what they want that you can give them. Short notice, custom talks, etcetera.

Then update your speaking page. Make sure you’re following them on not only LinkedIn, but other spaces, especially if they have low followers in other spaces. Let’s say they have an Instagram or the company has a YouTube channel and, like, their subscribers are pretty low, which is really common for a lot of organizations. Of course, they don’t spend all their days just, like, working on this stuff.

If you’re somebody who’s on there making themselves visible, commenting on their YouTube video, you’re the one commenter, and you’re, like, insightful about it. This is just these are small things to start, like, elevating in their eyes.

Make sure that you’ve updated your content strategy with topics they invite people to cover. So if you’re like, I know that this person, the person who organizes MozCon is all I can think about. So whatever.

They want someone who does magic while on I don’t know what the thing is, but make sure that you are then creating content around that stuff so that they are more likely to find you.

And then use SparkToro. We talk about SparkToro a lot.

SparkToro has tons of answers for things that you didn’t even know you could find out about a purse about a business, and the people you’re trying to get in front of. So use SparkToro to determine where you’re going to share this content so that it drives them back to your speaker page.

Questions?

Moving on. Finally oh, Roxanna. Yes.

So you spoke a lot about SparkToro, and, obviously, I was not here. Where do we find the things that you said?

I don’t know how well our search is working yet in Copy School Pro. I know Sarah’s been working hard on that. You might be able to just search SparkToro.

But more than anything, I it’s not that I teach how to go through SparkToro, but I’d rather say, like, just go use SparkToro. So just go use SparkToro. So head over there. There’s free accounts. There’s, like, low cost accounts, and Rand has, like, the ability to cancel.

It’s really easy. So you might only sign up for a month and then just cancel, and then sign back up again when you need to go through it again.

Yeah. Cool.

Awesome. Alright. Speakers oh, it does. Okay. Thanks. Speakers to connect with.

You are about to if you do this stuff, if you go on stage and somewhat on podcast this is the tricky thing about podcast, right, is because you’re more likely, of course, only to connect with the person that you’re actually speaking with, the host of the podcast. You can, however, connect with people who have been on the podcast before. So go back and look through who was on the podcast in the last, I don’t know, ten episodes, and then just DM them. Like, just put their name in and, like, DM them and say, hey.

I saw you were just a guest on whatever. I was just on there last week, or they just invited me, or I’m thinking of going on there. Any tips? Just start connecting with speakers.

And the reason for this is event I cannot tell you how many times an event organizer has said, Joe, do you know anybody who? And I’ve put their name forward, and then they are speakers now. And it turns into really good things. I’ve CTA Conf, I can’t tell you how many people I recommended to CTA Conf.

I think one year, like, half of the agenda was just people that I’d said, what about her? What about him? And it’s great, and it’s a really good kickoff. But if I didn’t know those people, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything.

If I didn’t know that, like, Claire or somebody was interested in getting on stages and talking about jobs to be done, then I wouldn’t have said, hey. Do you know Claire? She talks about jobs to be done for marketers. Maybe her?

And then she’s on stage, and then she’s on stage again and again and again and again. So get them get friendly with speakers.

Obviously, we always wanna do it in a non skeasy way. It’s very easy to tell when someone’s being inauthentic. But if you’re genuinely curious and if you know, hey. If this person invites me to be on stage and they’re on stage at the same event, we’re probably gonna get together and have after, we’ll get together for drinks when there’s, like, a boring session happening and there’s, like, a pub down the street.

So this is like, befriend people. Just start making friends with other speakers, and then you might be one of the people that they recommend. Okay. That is really it. Oh, there is this part. It’s really detailed.

So I’m just gonna leave this with you so that you can know that you have to go back and do these things, but some of it is already, like, done. Your IRL funnel, talked about last week, your appointment funnel having those things connected, etcetera.

And make sure wherever you are, whether you have started the book or not, put that a book is coming soon, go in Canva, make a fake book cover with the title on it and your name on it, Say it’s coming soon. Put a mock up together. Put it on LinkedIn. Put it on your website. Nobody needs to know that it’s not quite ready yet. They do wanna know that though, that you are, an authority. You’re a thought leader or you’re about to be one.

Okay. Any questions?

Yes. Katie?

Can I you said also, can you hear me? Because this my mic wasn’t working. Yep. Yeah. Strong CTA for the speaking page. Like, I currently have a type form because I’m speaking to, I figured, podcast hosts and, like, coaches who have a mastermind and wanna bring in a guest expert. Would you wanna get on a like, forum to book a call?

Is that pretty standard for how you’d want that process to go?

It depends how much time the organizer has. So when you, like it’s it’s useful to even just, like, start I don’t know. Go spend some time listening to what conference organizers complain about. They rarely have the time or resources for any of the work they have to do. Right? It all feels really, really overwhelming.

So I would reduce friction wherever possible. I would say, like, hey. Here’s you fill in this form, or, like, if if time is of the essence, here’s my phone number. Call me.

And then if that gets weird and, like, the wrong people start calling you, then just take it off. But we’re really just trying to reduce friction so that that event organizer and I have event organizers in my head as I’m saying this. All of them would appreciate you making it fast and easy to find out if you’re the right person for them or not. So I would if a type form, I would eliminate the type form, go with a single, like, here’s how to email me, or why not just text me, and let’s get this. Like, let’s figure out if I’m even a good fit.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the pay at the end of the page, have, like, book a call or leave a message, and then the type form’s just, like, kind of segmenting them, and then they write their intro.

So Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I would just do as I require as little as possible and then start adding fields if you get, like, inundated with people. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Cool.

I got a I don’t know. This is just to me, or is this to everybody? I don’t know. Will you be doing more IRL events when your book comes out? Yes. If yes, will you try to get event organizers to bulk buy your book? Probably not.

But I’m I haven’t worked through that idea yet. I haven’t done any planning for what to do with the book since it’s not out till July twenty twenty six, so I have some time.

But I don’t know. When I when I dig more into that, I’ll definitely share what I’m going to do with bulk buying.

Yeah.

Obviously, it’s a good signal to Amazon and other spaces when a bunch of your books are purchased there. But if they go through, like, my publisher or me, then there’s all these book sales that are lost now that, like, Amazon doesn’t know anything about and etcetera. So yeah.

Okay. Anybody else? Any other questions or thoughts about particularly getting on stages, but the same rules often apply to getting on podcasts? They’re just in my opinion, and I know that it is an unpopular opinion.

Few podcasts are really, really good and likely to last a long, long time. There’s a lot of shit dies on the Vinom podcast. You gave a great podcast interview two years ago when no one’s ever gonna hear it. And that’s true for speaking as well.

Right? But you’ve got to get more personal with people, and that they’ll remember versus you just being another voice on the podcast. So that’s why I recommend more, getting on stages, but I know everybody else just wants to be on podcasts. So yeah.

I love podcasts, and we’ll die on that hill, Joe.

I hate to see you die, but go for it. I mean, if that’s, like, the thing that you want, cool. Alright.

Evergreen Webinar Funnels

Evergreen Webinar Funnels

Transcript

Okay. Fab. Okay. So, yeah, we’re looking at evergreen must haves when generating leads to the non demand webinar. So just to start, like, why webinars? Webinars are literally the gold standard for high quality lead gen.

They’re the closest thing that you can get to having a one to one sales call because they can actually see you. You can talk to them.

They’re committing to spending time with you. It’s not like a checklist that they can very easily download and have a look at. They’re actually when they sign up, they’re thinking, okay. I’m gonna spend forty five minutes with this person. So they tend to be a high quality lead because they’ve made that commitment.

Obviously, everyone knows here that I work with course creators, workshops still in b to b and SaaS, whatever industry you’re working in. Ninety one percent of b to b professionals say that webinars are their third type of content, and companies report that twenty to forty percent of webinar attendees become qualified leads and within the sales pipeline, which is pretty high. Like, if you think any other type of content, if you’re putting it out there, you’d expect maybe, like, two percent, to become leads.

Okay. Cool. So when it yeah. When it comes to webinars, I really believe that on demand is the way to go.

Why? Well, because then you can you can literally have it running twenty four seven as a way to generate leads. Whereas if you’re doing it live, obviously, there’s only so many times you can do it. And if even if you are like, I’m gonna do it every week, that’s likely gonna lead to burnout. Like, there are a lot of things that we’re juggling. Whereas if you just have it on demand, it can sell for you.

It’s also but it’s not just for us. It’s also for the clients, the people we’re selling to because when it’s on demand, they can actually fit it into their schedule. So if the live times don’t work for them, they can just watch it. I mean, I do I really do feel like in, you know, twenty twenty five is on demand is what people expect. Like, if you wanted to watch a show on Netflix and they were like, you have to schedule it. Do you wanna watch it, like, Tuesday at seven or Wednesday at nine? It’s just not how we’re used to consuming content.

It means that they can literally get the value the moment that they need it. They don’t have to wait till you’re next doing a live webinar. And, also, actually, on demand have higher opt in and watch rates, which really surprises people because I think people think with the urgency of live webinars, more people show up. But more and more webinar platforms are releasing, that’s not the case. Like, e webinar, for example, I think it was something like, sixty five percent watch it when it’s on demand versus forty percent live.

And seventy five percent when given the option will always choose on demand.

Okay. Cool. So you’ve decided that you wanna oh, you’ve decided that you wanna do a webinar, then you’re you’re writing your opt in page.

Obviously, you know, we’ve done a lot of training on how to write a good opt in page.

The challenge with Evergreen is you need to you need to keep it hyper relevant to what’s going on in your customer’s life now. So if you teach without tailoring to what’s happening, you come across as irrelevant. So your opt in page should really be tailored to the most recent information that you have about your ICP.

Oh, just like a warning, my GIF use gets more and more, like, unhinged as it goes through.

Just a heads up.

Okay. So you should really be updating your ICP profile every three to six months.

So your ICP might not change, but the world that your the world has changed. The world that they operate in has changed. So you need to have up to date information about how they’re handling the new challenges, the new opportunities that that exist that didn’t six months ago.

So as an example, so for my online course, I target course grades who have been in the game for a little while but haven’t cracked thirty thousand dollars a month. They all wanna make a thousand dollars a day.

So in twenty twenty three, all of my customer feedback and interviews were revealing that their primary pain point was that they were really exhausted by the burnout and the lack of predictability associated with live launches. This was, I think, a time when everyone was being told everywhere, you need to live launch. You’ve got a live launch. It’s the way.

It’s the way. It’s the way. And that was all my messaging was around that. However, in twenty twenty four and towards the end of twenty twenty four more, there were just so so many more courses and workshops around going evergreen.

And I found that it their primary pain point had actually changed. People yes. They were still motivated by it not doing live launches, but it was actually that they tried going evergreen with the urgency powered system and live webinar format that lots of people are teaching that were really big in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, and it wasn’t converting. So even though my ICP has stayed the same, the primary pain point has changed.

So as an example of, like, what this would look like in terms of optimization, like, just a simple shift on the opt in page, everything’s the same. Still course creator desired outcome’s the same, but the pain point shifted from live launching to the kind of the eye roll around adding a countdown timer to make sales.

And you you also wanna send signals, just little little ones that this wasn’t recorded two years ago. So just something so easy that literally takes two minutes that you can just schedule yourself to do once every three months. Just put it in your calendar, take five minutes, and just add something that’s going on now. Like, for example, you know, when you when you have, like, the here’s what you’ll discover in the webinar, just mentioning something current. So the election, the TV show that everybody’s watching, just anything that signals, okay, what you’re getting is it’s relevant to now. It’s happening now because especially if you’re targeting founders or teams or founders, they don’t wanna waste time watching a webinar that literally, like, is not in day. It has nothing to do with their business now.

Okay. So a quick checklist I go through to see if my opt in page has ever been ready. So you you need to obviously make sure you remove any specific dates that are more than three months old.

Any cultural references, to events or media need to be released in the last six months. Any longer than that, and it’s gonna feel stale.

You need to mention at least one challenge that the ICP is facing right now that your offer can solve. So it feels it has to feel tailored. It has to feel specific, especially within every webinar. Like, obviously, with all webinars, but particularly evergreen.

I like to add a specific detail.

You know, I I know, like, when you’re doing in to be to be SaaS, like, the tone’s often a bit different, but just something like color with a hot cocoa and watch this forty minute webinar versus, like, grab a nice latte. So it’s saying, you know, summer, is how this is now. And make sure you you’re updating your best and latest testimonials and features, and they they’re they’re prominent. So if you have a really cool testimonial, that you you got last month, but you haven’t touched your opt in page for a year, they’re gonna be missing that. So just make sure that you are you are regularly adding new social proof.

Okay. Cool. Alright. So that’s you’ve got your awesome page. They’ve grabbed the webinar. What happens next?

So first of all, you wanna set up your strategic thank you page.

So you don’t actually want to redirect people straight to the webinar. You wanna add your thank you page.

I I’m done ad about this for a while because there’s the, there’s the added friction of not taking them straight to the webinar, but, actually, you know, they’ve already committed. And, you know, as we know from Coffee School that the thank you page is such a valuable opportunity to get to get feedback from your audience, to to, give them a survey, and they’re much more likely to respond to that because, it’s a sad useful moment. They’ve just given it you’ve just given them something. So on your thank you page, you wanna reinforce the value that they signed up to receive.

You wanna include social proof, smart to your testimonials, your logo, so you’re just continuing to reinforce that you are the go to person on the thing that you’re, that you’re gonna do for them, and then include a one a one question survey. And then when you do have your webinar button, just make sure it’s so big and juicy, like, obnoxiously unmissable, so that you’re not by including thank you page, you’re not reducing the chance of them finding finding the webinar.

Okay. So I’m a little bit obsessed with my Thank You page survey. So I love I love Jay’s question, the what was going on in your life that brought you here today. And I think that’s a really great question to ask especially as you’re when you first start running it because you can really see, like, if there’s a match between, who you’re trying to attract and who you’re attracting. If people are saying they’re here to solve a problem that you’re like, actually, it’s a bit what I’m trying to solve is a bit high level than that, then you know that your opt in message isn’t connecting with them.

But as as you as it goes on, you might find that there’s specific gaps in your research or things that you just love to know about your ICP, especially related to, again, what’s going on in the world right now. So as an example, something I might do, like, every six months is just say, like, hey. What is, like, the what are the new challenges for course creators this year? And it might be things like ChatGPT and people creating courses with that.

It could, you know, it could be anything. So I get that as the the idea. But then the thing is with ChatGPT is it doesn’t obviously prioritize voice of customer. So then I would take that idea and use it to craft a a survey question.

So let’s say, like, what are your biggest concerns around AI right now? What are you currently doing to close your customer’s talent gaps? So you’re taking that opportunity, when you are likely to get better responses because it’s a thank you page, to collect that that voice of customer.

Okay. So exercise.

I think it’s it’s in your workbook.

I actually I’m not sure what page (pp. 41 – 49 of the Agency Workbook). I don’t know if Sarah does. But we’re gonna take just maybe four minutes to have a think about a couple of things that you wish you knew about your ICP or that you you need to know for segmentation and then what question you could ask them to gain those hyper relevant insights.

Does anyone wanna share my questions?

Please.

I will.

I’ll share my questions, but I do not have a, answer yet.

Like, I don’t have the question to ask them yet. Okay. Okay. So I have what makes your okay.

Hold on.

So, basically, one of my questions is just to it just I’m curious about what makes my ICP hesitant to invest in advertorials and sales pages. Like, maybe they’re maybe they have ideas that, it costs way too much or that it’s gonna be hard to implement that they have to like, there’s, like, hoops they have to jump through to get these things set up or something. You know? And then the other question I had was, what they what they think that the advertorials or sales page will do for their business, like, in their own words.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, with the first one, you could just ask, like, why haven’t you invested in this already?

That would probably reveal the hesitations. And then the second one yeah. I think, like, I mean, even the what was going on in your life of what you hit today would probably answer that, to be honest.

Yeah. Yeah. The second one?

Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s like or or you could just ask just on the nose. What what was it again? What what are you hoping to achieve with?

It the question was, what do they think that sales pages and advertorials will do for their business, like, in in their home? Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Good ones. Claire?

Sorry. I was just writing down one.

It was very useful.

Okay. So I have two, and I’m kinda struggling between which one is more important.

So the first one is one that I’ve been struggling with a lot in, SaaS. It’s either your product led or your sales led. One of the two. You’ve either got a free trial or you’ve got a demo to book. And I’m really struggling to figure out who the hell I’m trying to target because sales led is complicated, but product led is less value per customer. So my question was gonna be, are you product led or sales led? Like, what’s your model currently?

Yeah. I I think with that sorry. I say, like, it does have a multiple choice. And then when you’re when you’re, that will help you segment, obviously, if you you multiple choice and you could connect it to your emails. But then when you’re when you’re tracking that, are booking calls and closing because then you can obviously see, like, which yeah. Which one’s more valuable for you.

Okay. So that adds segmentation. And then the other one I wanted to ask is, what makes email a valuable marketing channel for you?

Just like oh, getting into the head of a CMO is so different to everyone else because they’re seeing, like, this massive picture where it’s like, I’ve only ever seen this tiny little one.

But I don’t know if that’s too broad. It’s gonna like, if it’s gonna just net me one word answers that aren’t actually useful.

Well, just try it. I mean, that’s a great thing about thank you based surveys. I think, you know, as copywriters, we optimize everything. We’re always changing things, but then our thank you based survey, we just kind of, like, leave it for, like, three years and don’t really look at the responses. But, actually, if you change them every three months and take that and and test and see how you can get the best responses, that can make all the other optimization a lot easier.

That’s really helpful. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Claire.

No. No. Thank you.

Johnson?

Hey.

So, I’m talking to series b SaaS founders, and, I’m still I’m I’m doing some sort of product refinement. So I’ve been wanting to know what commonalities are, amongst, like, where their story, outwardly is falling flat to customers. So the question for that would be, what do you wish your audience would, quotation marks, get about you, your company or your product?

And I also kinda wanna know what the, like, story like, I so sort of around storytelling, what would a dream state look like?

So that I can use that in copy.

And for that, it was what do you wish was gossip about you or your company, which I feel could be maybe in could generate some interesting POC.

So those two Yeah.

That was a really good question.

I mean I’m gonna Any advice?

Go back and make a note. Or they no. No. No. I love them both. I was actually thinking, yeah, I’m gonna, yeah, take a note.

Maybe That’s fine.

That’s fine. Great. Okay. Cool.

Thanks, Johnson.

No worries.

Okay. Cool. Alright. Let’s let’s move on. So you’ve got your thank you based survey.

The next step is then you you’ve got your landing page where you wanna embed your webinar.

So you really don’t need fancy webinar software. I’m seeing more and more that watch rates and conversion rates are higher when you just embed a webinar on a landing page versus doing, like, easy webinar where you where you schedule. Again, like, it just it doesn’t feel it like, it makes sense to me because it doesn’t feel natural to schedule a time when you you’d rather

you schedule things on your your own calendar rather than kind of meeting someone, choosing prompt options. And, also, especially if you’re selling b two b and CEOs, like, they use if they wanna watch something, they know to schedule it into their calendar.

So, yeah, you don’t need banks to webinar software. You can use a free tool like Wistia or Vimeo. Just make sure it’s one that you can track watch rates because that’s really helpful to see where people are dropping off.

And then, yeah, literally, you just embed it on the landing page or remove any other script distractions like your menu bar.

If you are using a tool like Wistia, it has an option to make a button appear, taking them to your Calendly or your checkout page. So when you’re pitching, they can straight away click that.

I just asked ChatGPT. Like, that’s probably my favorite use of ChatGPT. It’s be like, I have a tech thing. Like, how do I do it? So just say this is the what tool do you recommend? Can I do this? How do I do it?

Okay.

Cool. So, yeah, you’ve you’ve they’ve opted into your webinar. You’ve given them the webinar. Now you wanna send us a sale sequence. So your welcome sequence, your your open rates are never gonna be that high. This is when you’re gonna see fifty, sixty percent open rate. So I know that this is a kind of a wider conversation, but I love selling in the welcome sequence.

Yes. Give them value. Give them case studies, all that good stuff, but, like, sell the shiitake mushrooms out of your offer.

And then add conversation starting touch points. So, yes, it’s all automated, but you could also just add these these opportunities for them to reach out to you and to gain more feedback. So there are four that I love including, Jason Lemora again. I just love that. Okay.

So for the FAQ email, which, you know, is a is a standard, in in the sales sequence, I love to actually just turn that into, like, an all day q and a, and it’s like, I there is actually a humor on the other end that is gonna answer your questions if you have them. Because getting those questions are so, so helpful because they tell you what isn’t clear about your offer, so that you can then go and add that into into your webinar or wherever. And it also gives you the opportunity to to answer these questions, to address those objections, and to get them on a call, which leads us to our second one, call me. I can’t remember where I saw this. It was years ago. It might it might have been Tarzan, but who who said that one of our highest performing subject lines was was call me.

And literally just giving them your mobile number and saying, you know, if you wanna talk this through, just give me a ring. And that just really, again, takes away from this idea that it’s this automated thing, that it’s just running, there’s no person because what faster way to be like, no. I’m a real I’m a real person than to actually give them your mobile number. And if they spontaneously wanna call you, they don’t have to then book on your Calendly. You can you can take that call and you can sell them. Whether you whether you want that, that’s another question, but it is an interesting touch point you to consider to have as an option.

And then three days after your sequence ends, just asking them straight up up like, hey. What kept you from calling?

So this is a great opportunity to collect objections hesitations. Like, what is it that that that stop them that from thinking, yep. This is the solution for me.

And then, obviously, then you can preempt those objections elsewhere in your sales funnel.

It’s also an opportunity to open up the conversation by their if they’re like, oh, I really like this idea, but, you know, it’s just low down on the priority list because we’re focusing on x. And then you could say, cool that you’re focusing on x, but, you know, did you know? And then you can reopen that conversation with them.

And then finally, Jo’s nine word email, that she taught last year. I thought the nine times twenty three lesson. So every twenty three days, sending a nine word email just asking the question like, are you still struggling to?

Is email marketing still on your, your, like, draw your drawing board for this year? Just a question to, yeah, open it back up. Cody?

I just am curious if anyone has ever called you.

Oh, I don’t do that. I would not do.

Okay. Okay. Got it. No.

I like I love the idea. I’m just way too, like like, won’t don’t like answering calls. But, yeah, if I’ve done it for clients and they have. Yes.

Nice.

Yeah. It’s like, I like having it as an option. And if I really needed like, if I was getting desperate for to close leads, I would add it in there because it is a really good one. But, like, fortunately, I don’t have to at the moment. I can keep keep my space.

So are you just doing the all day q and a and then also the nine word email then?

So you’re just taking the And the Yeah. And then what kept you from calling? Yeah. And I the all day q and a has been really helpful.

Like, I think eighty percent of the time when people ask a question, I end up closing them because they’re just you just get to go straight into that objection, and they’re already gonna be relatively high intent to send that. But then, yeah, when I’m I put them all in a spreadsheet, and I’m like, okay. Loads of people are asking, whether a webinar template is included, and I haven’t. So I obviously haven’t included that.

I mean, obviously, this is for my online course, but the same applies for generating clients. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Cool. Yeah. Any questions?

I would love to know, Abby. Like, you talk about using the welcome sequence to sell the offer. How much time do you spend on or, like, how many emails do you send getting people to watch the webinar versus just kind of assuming that they’re watching the webinar and then focusing on selling the offer?

These days, I don’t, like, keep selling the webinar. I mean, it’s something, you know, you can add down the line. You can segment you based on, okay, people that didn’t send the webinar, maybe send them, like, three emails. I’m reminding them. But, yeah, I just focus on talking about the value and kind of coaching the same things that were in the webinar.

And then if they’re curious, they’ll go back and watch it. Otherwise, they’ll just book a call anyway. It’s more about, like, getting them on the email list.

Like, obviously, it’s great if they watch your webinar, but, like, it’s not the end of the world. If they don’t, you can still sell them on that sequence.

Okay. So deliver the webinar and then, basically just assume that they’ve watched it from next day?

Yeah. So send the confirmation email and then start. Yeah. Start selling. And then it when I do the, like, what kept you from buying, I try to take the the kind of the principle with your thank you page, like the law of reciprocation.

And so I redeliver that webinar. Say, if you wanna watch it again or if you didn’t missed it, here it is. And then that also just, like it helps me get more responses, but it gives them another opportunity.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Claire?

Hey. So I this is so timely. I’ve got right up on my list launch Evergreen webinar for January and, like, we’re in the last week. So I recorded it today.

But I wanted to ask two two questions around it, really. The first one is about the actual webinar itself. I had planned for it to be, like, kind of not live. Like, it doesn’t feel live. It’s actually a training video, not like a live video. Is that okay, or is it gonna put people off?

Oh, yeah. No. No. No. No. Like, it’s on demand. Like, the only time people would expect to be live was just this, like, weird boom that kind of happened in twenty twenty where live webinars were a thing.

But if you think about every other form of content you consume, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, like, you always watch it on demand. So, like, I don’t see yeah. And peep no. I’ve never had, I’m I’m always very upfront.

And I think as well because especially, like, if we’re targeting people that are marketers and know about marketing, they know about these Abrigam webinar funnels that pretend that they’re live, and they don’t like that because it’s deceptive. You don’t wanna start a relationship deceiving them. So actually being super upfront about the fact that it’s on demand, plays in your favor and helps to build trust.

Got it. Okay. So on demand workshop. Yeah. I feel like I’m dealing with a weird audience because I’ve done marketing for Abbott for, developers before, and they’re, like, super anti any kind of marketing marketing.

Like, it feels like marketing. They’re like, woah. You’re coming on too strong. And now although I’m trying to do it towards marketers, I’m like, oh, wait.

They’re kind of the same because they’re just so overwhelmed with so much marketing stuff. Okay. Cool. That’s my first question.

The other question is more around the technicalities of setting it up. So I am not even worried about, like, the email side of things because I’ll worry about that if I actually manage to send a human to watch it.

When I set up the initial landing page, in your experience, is it important to have, like, a long one? Or do you think that here’s a form, here’s a headline, here’s a subject, just like Gong actually sets up their, webinars like that. And then there’s, like, a logo box kind of underneath it, and that’s pretty much it.

Is that sufficient in your book?

Yeah. I mean, it’s a very, like, it depends question. I’d say it’s probably, like, how urgent is the problem? Like, if it’s really urgent, like, it’s a the the blood gushing problem, then, you know, it’s it tends to be enough to just say, like, you know, had you’ve got the headline.

This is problem solved. This is for you, and here’s what’s in it. Like, maybe a bit of social proof. If it’s a kind of higher level problem that you need to coach them towards, you might have a bit of a longer form page opt in.

But yeah. Okay.

Got it. Alright. So the just to clarify, I understand. The landing page takes you to is a form, like, enter your email and name kinda thing. That takes you to a thank you page with another survey, answer my wonderful question, which is probably gonna be, do you do a trial or not? And then the third page, when once they click submit button or whatever it is, the third page is directly the embedded video with, like, a book now kind of, another form I suppose, some kind, whether it’s Calendly or whatever underneath.

Yeah. Also, they would click, they click watch now to take into the webinar, so it’s just like that instant gratification feel.

And then, yeah, have a button pop up that they click it, takes them to the checkout form, or takes them to the Calendly if they need to speak with you first. But, ideally, you want that to pop up later on in the pitch because, you know, if it’s a big juicy button, like, you’re gonna get curiosity clicks, so you wanna wait till they’re a bit more sold on working with you.

Okay. Got it. I’ve got, like, I’ve planned for I can take this out. So but I’ve planned for mid webinar to say, essentially, my first I’ve added a step to my, little circle framework. I’ve added, like, a triangle. It’s like a instant like, this is what to do with your demo or confirmation email kind of framework, and I called it the hello hook.

But I’ve said in the middle of that section, essentially, I’m actually doing this kind of audit for three companies a week. If you want help with this, check out the form below, and I’ll see if I’ve got a slot for you.

Is that okay?

I mean, like, just with all these things, we’ve just gotta test it.

Right? Like, you know, we all we all know that really. Like, I I could tell you, like, one way, I need but but you’d still be like, I think I need to test it. Like, if yes.

Yeah. People filling in that form? If you can get this pop up at that exact moment, that would look cool. That would look baller as well.

So I did yeah. If you could do that.

Yeah. Getting them to take action mid webinar.

Yeah. It’s an interesting idea. Just try it.

Yeah.

I saw it in the YouTube video, and I was like, oh, actually and then at the end, he kind of reiterated, and I was like, oh, yeah.

Now I’m gonna do it. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I’ll check it out. Thank you.

No. Thank you. Cody?

Yeah. I was curious if you have, like, a specific time limit, like, how long that these should be. Have you seen, like, any time limit that’s more successful than others? Or yeah.

I think, like, there’s an element of again, it depends on your audience. I mean, my audience course creators, I know that they expect, like, an hour long webinar. That’s what everyone’s doing. That’s they they will spend an hour if it’s really they know it’s gonna be valuable to their business. So the formula I tend to use is, forty minutes teaching with a full twenty minutes pitching.

So rather than just rushing through the pitch at the end, actually doing a very, very tailored pitch.

So, yeah, an hour, but then if you’re you’re like, if you find that your, audience, like, you know, they’ve they’ve they’ve got an attention span of, like, twenty minutes, and then they have to move on to the next thing, then you know that it’s gonna be a twenty minute webinar.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Cool. Katie?

So I know you asked a question in the group recently about, like, ads to your webinar.

I would just love to know, I guess, kinda, like, where you’ve landed on running ads to your webinars, if you have any tips on running ads for our webinars, or generally, like, about driving traffic. What should we keep in mind about driving people to the Evergreen webinar?

Yeah. I think I think ads are a good idea. I mean, webinar leads are more expensive than, like, a PDF lead. At the moment on Facebook, what I’m seeing is kind of seven to twelve dollars. I know it’s more in LinkedIn, but they tend to be I’m hearing more and more good things about doing running ads on LinkedIn. Like, I’m definitely gonna be looking into that.

But, yeah, I think I think to begin with, like, it’s helpful to run ads to get that traffic, basically. Like, just run it. Just take take the chance. See what happens.

Like, expect nothing to happen. Like, put a thousand in and expect nothing to happen, but you’re gonna get voice of customer. You’re gonna get feedback. You’re gonna get a feel for whether this is worth continuing, see if you booked any calls.

So yeah. I mean, like, organic, it’s just it’s just slow, isn’t it?

Like, I I am gonna be running ads. Yeah.

I’m tired of just, like, yeah, trying to trying to do social.

Did you decide about the Pinterest course?

No. I didn’t. That got, like, that got bumped out.

Fair enough.

Yeah. I’m I’m more like YouTube.

Okay. Thank you.

Cool.

Yeah. Anyone else?

I don’t like Joey’s not here for asking me anything, so I don’t

I have I have questions for dates.

I mean, I can go on. Please.

Alright. Ads.

I have been scared of ads for so long because, like, I don’t know.

Twelve dollars for, like, a chance kinda feels like entering the lottery, but I But it’s not one chance, is it?

Because they’re on your enroll list. So it’s like Oh.

Three hundred sixty five chances a year. Like, every time you send an email, it’s a chance.

Yeah. Okay. Cool.

And have you found that, pain focused messaging or outcome focused messaging, Yeah.

I mean, what’s more burning their desire or their problem? Like, you know, for so for what I teach, the message like, when I did my competitor analysis, the message that all of these evergreen people are teaching is you can make so much money. Like, you can make sales every day, and people need to hear that. That message does need to be on on a page because it’s the expectation.

But that because everyone’s been burned. Like, literally, everyone who’s bought my course, so it’s become a client, has been burned. They also need to hear, like, yeah. You don’t just, like, set up deadline funnel and then suddenly, like, you’re on vacation and your Thrive card just won’t stop, like, pinging.

Like, they need to hear, like, yes. It’s a process.

Yeah. It you know, it it’s not immediate. Like, you need to optimize, but here’s what we’re gonna do about it. So I think a competitive analysis can really help with that question.

So, like, what what what do people need here that isn’t being said? Is that pain related, or is it desired outcome related? Like, do they need to know be woken up to the opportunity, or do they need to, like, show that that do they need to hear that their pain is not unusual, that it is like, it’s fine. That’s the story, but there is a way out of it, and you acknowledge that.

And you’re not gonna just promise them, like, the world.

That makes so much sense. I’ve been talking to a lot of marketers, lately, and the recurring theme I keep hearing is, like, I don’t wanna clutter up someone else’s inbox. My inbox is so full. I don’t wanna fuck up someone else’s.

So, yeah, I think that probably needs to be on the page and, you know, more crucial raising.

Yeah. And then do an AB test, like, test test desired outcome versus problem and see.

What do you use for AB testing, by the way? Do you have, like, online in pages? Sorry. Not for ads.

Okay. So I I use lead pages, but I did have a call with Jo. Like, when I did my ISP interview with her, she was like, yeah. I wouldn’t sign up to a webinar that’s on lead pages.

So it’s on my list to change that, but, like, you know, it’s like if you’ve got WordPress or something, it’s simple. I need to just figure it out. Like, that’s my next thing to ask ChatGPT is how do you do, like, a AB test on a Squarespace landing page? Like, these aren’t impossible questions anymore, which is which is great.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Workbook

List Building and Lead Nurturing, pp. 36 – 43 (in-house)

List Building and Lead Nurturing, pp. 41 – 48 (agencies)

Workbook

List Building and Lead Nurturing (in-house)

List Building and Lead Nurturing (agencies)

Transcript

Okay. Fab. Okay. So, yeah, we’re looking at evergreen must haves when generating leads to the non demand webinar. So just to start, like, why webinars? Webinars are literally the gold standard for high quality lead gen.

They’re the closest thing that you can get to having a one to one sales call because they can actually see you. You can talk to them.

They’re committing to spending time with you. It’s not like a checklist that they can very easily download and have a look at. They’re actually when they sign up, they’re thinking, okay. I’m gonna spend forty five minutes with this person. So they tend to be a high quality lead because they’ve made that commitment.

Obviously, everyone knows here that I work with course creators, workshops still in b to b and SaaS, whatever industry you’re working in. Ninety one percent of b to b professionals say that webinars are their third type of content, and companies report that twenty to forty percent of webinar attendees become qualified leads and within the sales pipeline, which is pretty high. Like, if you think any other type of content, if you’re putting it out there, you’d expect maybe, like, two percent, to become leads.

Okay. Cool. So when it yeah. When it comes to webinars, I really believe that on demand is the way to go.

Why? Well, because then you can you can literally have it running twenty four seven as a way to generate leads. Whereas if you’re doing it live, obviously, there’s only so many times you can do it. And if even if you are like, I’m gonna do it every week, that’s likely gonna lead to burnout. Like, there are a lot of things that we’re juggling. Whereas if you just have it on demand, it can sell for you.

It’s also but it’s not just for us. It’s also for the clients, the people we’re selling to because when it’s on demand, they can actually fit it into their schedule. So if the live times don’t work for them, they can just watch it. I mean, I do I really do feel like in, you know, twenty twenty five is on demand is what people expect. Like, if you wanted to watch a show on Netflix and they were like, you have to schedule it. Do you wanna watch it, like, Tuesday at seven or Wednesday at nine? It’s just not how we’re used to consuming content.

It means that they can literally get the value the moment that they need it. They don’t have to wait till you’re next doing a live webinar. And, also, actually, on demand have higher opt in and watch rates, which really surprises people because I think people think with the urgency of live webinars, more people show up. But more and more webinar platforms are releasing, that’s not the case. Like, e webinar, for example, I think it was something like, sixty five percent watch it when it’s on demand versus forty percent live.

And seventy five percent when given the option will always choose on demand.

Okay. Cool. So you’ve decided that you wanna oh, you’ve decided that you wanna do a webinar, then you’re you’re writing your opt in page.

Obviously, you know, we’ve done a lot of training on how to write a good opt in page.

The challenge with Evergreen is you need to you need to keep it hyper relevant to what’s going on in your customer’s life now. So if you teach without tailoring to what’s happening, you come across as irrelevant. So your opt in page should really be tailored to the most recent information that you have about your ICP.

Oh, just like a warning, my GIF use gets more and more, like, unhinged as it goes through.

Just a heads up.

Okay. So you should really be updating your ICP profile every three to six months.

So your ICP might not change, but the world that your the world has changed. The world that they operate in has changed. So you need to have up to date information about how they’re handling the new challenges, the new opportunities that that exist that didn’t six months ago.

So as an example, so for my online course, I target course grades who have been in the game for a little while but haven’t cracked thirty thousand dollars a month. They all wanna make a thousand dollars a day.

So in twenty twenty three, all of my customer feedback and interviews were revealing that their primary pain point was that they were really exhausted by the burnout and the lack of predictability associated with live launches. This was, I think, a time when everyone was being told everywhere, you need to live launch. You’ve got a live launch. It’s the way.

It’s the way. It’s the way. And that was all my messaging was around that. However, in twenty twenty four and towards the end of twenty twenty four more, there were just so so many more courses and workshops around going evergreen.

And I found that it their primary pain point had actually changed. People yes. They were still motivated by it not doing live launches, but it was actually that they tried going evergreen with the urgency powered system and live webinar format that lots of people are teaching that were really big in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, and it wasn’t converting. So even though my ICP has stayed the same, the primary pain point has changed.

So as an example of, like, what this would look like in terms of optimization, like, just a simple shift on the opt in page, everything’s the same. Still course creator desired outcome’s the same, but the pain point shifted from live launching to the kind of the eye roll around adding a countdown timer to make sales.

And you you also wanna send signals, just little little ones that this wasn’t recorded two years ago. So just something so easy that literally takes two minutes that you can just schedule yourself to do once every three months. Just put it in your calendar, take five minutes, and just add something that’s going on now. Like, for example, you know, when you when you have, like, the here’s what you’ll discover in the webinar, just mentioning something current. So the election, the TV show that everybody’s watching, just anything that signals, okay, what you’re getting is it’s relevant to now. It’s happening now because especially if you’re targeting founders or teams or founders, they don’t wanna waste time watching a webinar that literally, like, is not in day. It has nothing to do with their business now.

Okay. So a quick checklist I go through to see if my opt in page has ever been ready. So you you need to obviously make sure you remove any specific dates that are more than three months old.

Any cultural references, to events or media need to be released in the last six months. Any longer than that, and it’s gonna feel stale.

You need to mention at least one challenge that the ICP is facing right now that your offer can solve. So it feels it has to feel tailored. It has to feel specific, especially within every webinar. Like, obviously, with all webinars, but particularly evergreen.

I like to add a specific detail.

You know, I I know, like, when you’re doing in to be to be SaaS, like, the tone’s often a bit different, but just something like color with a hot cocoa and watch this forty minute webinar versus, like, grab a nice latte. So it’s saying, you know, summer, is how this is now. And make sure you you’re updating your best and latest testimonials and features, and they they’re they’re prominent. So if you have a really cool testimonial, that you you got last month, but you haven’t touched your opt in page for a year, they’re gonna be missing that. So just make sure that you are you are regularly adding new social proof.

Okay. Cool. Alright. So that’s you’ve got your awesome page. They’ve grabbed the webinar. What happens next?

So first of all, you wanna set up your strategic thank you page.

So you don’t actually want to redirect people straight to the webinar. You wanna add your thank you page.

I I’m done ad about this for a while because there’s the, there’s the added friction of not taking them straight to the webinar, but, actually, you know, they’ve already committed. And, you know, as we know from Coffee School that the thank you page is such a valuable opportunity to get to get feedback from your audience, to to, give them a survey, and they’re much more likely to respond to that because, it’s a sad useful moment. They’ve just given it you’ve just given them something. So on your thank you page, you wanna reinforce the value that they signed up to receive.

You wanna include social proof, smart to your testimonials, your logo, so you’re just continuing to reinforce that you are the go to person on the thing that you’re, that you’re gonna do for them, and then include a one a one question survey. And then when you do have your webinar button, just make sure it’s so big and juicy, like, obnoxiously unmissable, so that you’re not by including thank you page, you’re not reducing the chance of them finding finding the webinar.

Okay. So I’m a little bit obsessed with my Thank You page survey. So I love I love Jay’s question, the what was going on in your life that brought you here today. And I think that’s a really great question to ask especially as you’re when you first start running it because you can really see, like, if there’s a match between, who you’re trying to attract and who you’re attracting. If people are saying they’re here to solve a problem that you’re like, actually, it’s a bit what I’m trying to solve is a bit high level than that, then you know that your opt in message isn’t connecting with them.

But as as you as it goes on, you might find that there’s specific gaps in your research or things that you just love to know about your ICP, especially related to, again, what’s going on in the world right now. So as an example, something I might do, like, every six months is just say, like, hey. What is, like, the what are the new challenges for course creators this year? And it might be things like ChatGPT and people creating courses with that.

It could, you know, it could be anything. So I get that as the the idea. But then the thing is with ChatGPT is it doesn’t obviously prioritize voice of customer. So then I would take that idea and use it to craft a a survey question.

So let’s say, like, what are your biggest concerns around AI right now? What are you currently doing to close your customer’s talent gaps? So you’re taking that opportunity, when you are likely to get better responses because it’s a thank you page, to collect that that voice of customer.

Okay. So exercise.

I think it’s it’s in your workbook.

I actually I’m not sure what page. I don’t know if Sarah does (pp. 41 – 49 of the Agency Workbook). But we’re gonna take just maybe four minutes to have a think about a couple of things that you wish you knew about your ICP or that you you need to know for segmentation and then what question you could ask them to gain those hyper relevant insights.

Does anyone wanna share my questions?

Please.

I will.

I’ll share my questions, but I do not have a, answer yet.

Like, I don’t have the question to ask them yet. Okay. Okay. So I have what makes your okay.

Hold on.

So, basically, one of my questions is just to it just I’m curious about what makes my ICP hesitant to invest in advertorials and sales pages. Like, maybe they’re maybe they have ideas that, it costs way too much or that it’s gonna be hard to implement that they have to like, there’s, like, hoops they have to jump through to get these things set up or something. You know? And then the other question I had was, what they what they think that the advertorials or sales page will do for their business, like, in their own words.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, with the first one, you could just ask, like, why haven’t you invested in this already?

That would probably reveal the hesitations. And then the second one yeah. I think, like, I mean, even the what was going on in your life of what you hit today would probably answer that, to be honest.

Yeah. Yeah. The second one?

Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s like or or you could just ask just on the nose. What what was it again? What what are you hoping to achieve with?

It the question was, what do they think that sales pages and advertorials will do for their business, like, in in their home? Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Good ones. Claire?

Sorry. I was just writing down one.

It was very useful.

Okay. So I have two, and I’m kinda struggling between which one is more important.

So the first one is one that I’ve been struggling with a lot in, SaaS. It’s either your product led or your sales led. One of the two. You’ve either got a free trial or you’ve got a demo to book. And I’m really struggling to figure out who the hell I’m trying to target because sales led is complicated, but product led is less value per customer. So my question was gonna be, are you product led or sales led? Like, what’s your model currently?

Yeah. I I think with that sorry. I say, like, it does have a multiple choice. And then when you’re when you’re, that will help you segment, obviously, if you you multiple choice and you could connect it to your emails. But then when you’re when you’re tracking that, are booking calls and closing because then you can obviously see, like, which yeah. Which one’s more valuable for you.

Okay. So that adds segmentation. And then the other one I wanted to ask is, what makes email a valuable marketing channel for you?

Just like oh, getting into the head of a CMO is so different to everyone else because they’re seeing, like, this massive picture where it’s like, I’ve only ever seen this tiny little one.

But I don’t know if that’s too broad. It’s gonna like, if it’s gonna just net me one word answers that aren’t actually useful.

Well, just try it. I mean, that’s a great thing about thank you based surveys. I think, you know, as copywriters, we optimize everything. We’re always changing things, but then our thank you based survey, we just kind of, like, leave it for, like, three years and don’t really look at the responses. But, actually, if you change them every three months and take that and and test and see how you can get the best responses, that can make all the other optimization a lot easier.

That’s really helpful. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Claire.

No. No. Thank you.

Johnson?

Hey.

So, I’m talking to series b SaaS founders, and, I’m still I’m I’m doing some sort of product refinement. So I’ve been wanting to know what commonalities are, amongst, like, where their story, outwardly is falling flat to customers. So the question for that would be, what do you wish your audience would, quotation marks, get about you, your company or your product?

And I also kinda wanna know what the, like, story like, I so sort of around storytelling, what would a dream state look like?

So that I can use that in copy.

And for that, it was what do you wish was gossip about you or your company, which I feel could be maybe in could generate some interesting POC.

So those two Yeah.

That was a really good question.

I mean I’m gonna Any advice?

Go back and make a note. Or they no. No. No. I love them both. I was actually thinking, yeah, I’m gonna, yeah, take a note.

Maybe That’s fine.

That’s fine. Great. Okay. Cool.

Thanks, Johnson.

No worries.

Okay. Cool. Alright. Let’s let’s move on. So you’ve got your thank you based survey.

The next step is then you you’ve got your landing page where you wanna embed your webinar.

So you really don’t need fancy webinar software. I’m seeing more and more that watch rates and conversion rates are higher when you just embed a webinar on a landing page versus doing, like, easy webinar where you where you schedule. Again, like, it just it doesn’t feel it like, it makes sense to me because it doesn’t feel natural to schedule a time when you you’d rather

you schedule things on your your own calendar rather than kind of meeting someone, choosing prompt options. And, also, especially if you’re selling b two b and CEOs, like, they use if they wanna watch something, they know to schedule it into their calendar.

So, yeah, you don’t need banks to webinar software. You can use a free tool like Wistia or Vimeo. Just make sure it’s one that you can track watch rates because that’s really helpful to see where people are dropping off.

And then, yeah, literally, you just embed it on the landing page or remove any other script distractions like your menu bar.

If you are using a tool like Wistia, it has an option to make a button appear, taking them to your Calendly or your checkout page. So when you’re pitching, they can straight away click that.

I just asked ChatGPT. Like, that’s probably my favorite use of ChatGPT. It’s be like, I have a tech thing. Like, how do I do it? So just say this is the what tool do you recommend? Can I do this? How do I do it?

Okay.

Cool. So, yeah, you’ve you’ve they’ve opted into your webinar. You’ve given them the webinar. Now you wanna send us a sale sequence. So your welcome sequence, your your open rates are never gonna be that high. This is when you’re gonna see fifty, sixty percent open rate. So I know that this is a kind of a wider conversation, but I love selling in the welcome sequence.

Yes. Give them value. Give them case studies, all that good stuff, but, like, sell the shiitake mushrooms out of your offer.

And then add conversation starting touch points. So, yes, it’s all automated, but you could also just add these these opportunities for them to reach out to you and to gain more feedback. So there are four that I love including, Jason Lemora again. I just love that. Okay.

So for the FAQ email, which, you know, is a is a standard, in in the sales sequence, I love to actually just turn that into, like, an all day q and a, and it’s like, I there is actually a humor on the other end that is gonna answer your questions if you have them. Because getting those questions are so, so helpful because they tell you what isn’t clear about your offer, so that you can then go and add that into into your webinar or wherever. And it also gives you the opportunity to to answer these questions, to address those objections, and to get them on a call, which leads us to our second one, call me. I can’t remember where I saw this. It was years ago. It might it might have been Tarzan, but who who said that one of our highest performing subject lines was was call me.

And literally just giving them your mobile number and saying, you know, if you wanna talk this through, just give me a ring. And that just really, again, takes away from this idea that it’s this automated thing, that it’s just running, there’s no person because what faster way to be like, no. I’m a real I’m a real person than to actually give them your mobile number. And if they spontaneously wanna call you, they don’t have to then book on your Calendly. You can you can take that call and you can sell them. Whether you whether you want that, that’s another question, but it is an interesting touch point you to consider to have as an option.

And then three days after your sequence ends, just asking them straight up up like, hey. What kept you from calling?

So this is a great opportunity to collect objections hesitations. Like, what is it that that that stop them that from thinking, yep. This is the solution for me.

And then, obviously, then you can preempt those objections elsewhere in your sales funnel.

It’s also an opportunity to open up the conversation by their if they’re like, oh, I really like this idea, but, you know, it’s just low down on the priority list because we’re focusing on x. And then you could say, cool that you’re focusing on x, but, you know, did you know? And then you can reopen that conversation with them.

And then finally, Jo’s nine word email, that she taught last year. I thought the nine times twenty three lesson. So every twenty three days, sending a nine word email just asking the question like, are you still struggling to?

Is email marketing still on your, your, like, draw your drawing board for this year? Just a question to, yeah, open it back up. Cody?

I just am curious if anyone has ever called you.

Oh, I don’t do that. I would not do.

Okay. Okay. Got it. No.

I like I love the idea. I’m just way too, like like, won’t don’t like answering calls. But, yeah, if I’ve done it for clients and they have. Yes.

Nice.

Yeah. It’s like, I like having it as an option. And if I really needed like, if I was getting desperate for to close leads, I would add it in there because it is a really good one. But, like, fortunately, I don’t have to at the moment. I can keep keep my space.

So are you just doing the all day q and a and then also the nine word email then?

So you’re just taking the And the Yeah. And then what kept you from calling? Yeah. And I the all day q and a has been really helpful.

Like, I think eighty percent of the time when people ask a question, I end up closing them because they’re just you just get to go straight into that objection, and they’re already gonna be relatively high intent to send that. But then, yeah, when I’m I put them all in a spreadsheet, and I’m like, okay. Loads of people are asking, whether a webinar template is included, and I haven’t. So I obviously haven’t included that.

I mean, obviously, this is for my online course, but the same applies for generating clients. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Cool. Yeah. Any questions?

I would love to know, Abby. Like, you talk about using the welcome sequence to sell the offer. How much time do you spend on or, like, how many emails do you send getting people to watch the webinar versus just kind of assuming that they’re watching the webinar and then focusing on selling the offer?

These days, I don’t, like, keep selling the webinar. I mean, it’s something, you know, you can add down the line. You can segment you based on, okay, people that didn’t send the webinar, maybe send them, like, three emails. I’m reminding them. But, yeah, I just focus on talking about the value and kind of coaching the same things that were in the webinar.

And then if they’re curious, they’ll go back and watch it. Otherwise, they’ll just book a call anyway. It’s more about, like, getting them on the email list.

Like, obviously, it’s great if they watch your webinar, but, like, it’s not the end of the world. If they don’t, you can still sell them on that sequence.

Okay. So deliver the webinar and then, basically just assume that they’ve watched it from next day?

Yeah. So send the confirmation email and then start. Yeah. Start selling. And then it when I do the, like, what kept you from buying, I try to take the the kind of the principle with your thank you page, like the law of reciprocation.

And so I redeliver that webinar. Say, if you wanna watch it again or if you didn’t missed it, here it is. And then that also just, like it helps me get more responses, but it gives them another opportunity.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Claire?

Hey. So I this is so timely. I’ve got right up on my list launch Evergreen webinar for January and, like, we’re in the last week. So I recorded it today.

But I wanted to ask two two questions around it, really. The first one is about the actual webinar itself. I had planned for it to be, like, kind of not live. Like, it doesn’t feel live. It’s actually a training video, not like a live video. Is that okay, or is it gonna put people off?

Oh, yeah. No. No. No. No. Like, it’s on demand. Like, the only time people would expect to be live was just this, like, weird boom that kind of happened in twenty twenty where live webinars were a thing.

But if you think about every other form of content you consume, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, like, you always watch it on demand. So, like, I don’t see yeah. And peep no. I’ve never had, I’m I’m always very upfront.

And I think as well because especially, like, if we’re targeting people that are marketers and know about marketing, they know about these Abrigam webinar funnels that pretend that they’re live, and they don’t like that because it’s deceptive. You don’t wanna start a relationship deceiving them. So actually being super upfront about the fact that it’s on demand, plays in your favor and helps to build trust.

Got it. Okay. So on demand workshop. Yeah. I feel like I’m dealing with a weird audience because I’ve done marketing for Abbott for, developers before, and they’re, like, super anti any kind of marketing marketing.

Like, it feels like marketing. They’re like, woah. You’re coming on too strong. And now although I’m trying to do it towards marketers, I’m like, oh, wait.

They’re kind of the same because they’re just so overwhelmed with so much marketing stuff. Okay. Cool. That’s my first question.

The other question is more around the technicalities of setting it up. So I am not even worried about, like, the email side of things because I’ll worry about that if I actually manage to send a human to watch it.

When I set up the initial landing page, in your experience, is it important to have, like, a long one? Or do you think that here’s a form, here’s a headline, here’s a subject, just like Gong actually sets up their, webinars like that. And then there’s, like, a logo box kind of underneath it, and that’s pretty much it.

Is that sufficient in your book?

Yeah. I mean, it’s a very, like, it depends question. I’d say it’s probably, like, how urgent is the problem? Like, if it’s really urgent, like, it’s a the the blood gushing problem, then, you know, it’s it tends to be enough to just say, like, you know, had you’ve got the headline.

This is problem solved. This is for you, and here’s what’s in it. Like, maybe a bit of social proof. If it’s a kind of higher level problem that you need to coach them towards, you might have a bit of a longer form page opt in.

But yeah. Okay.

Got it. Alright. So the just to clarify, I understand. The landing page takes you to is a form, like, enter your email and name kinda thing. That takes you to a thank you page with another survey, answer my wonderful question, which is probably gonna be, do you do a trial or not? And then the third page, when once they click submit button or whatever it is, the third page is directly the embedded video with, like, a book now kind of, another form I suppose, some kind, whether it’s Calendly or whatever underneath.

Yeah. Also, they would click, they click watch now to take into the webinar, so it’s just like that instant gratification feel.

And then, yeah, have a button pop up that they click it, takes them to the checkout form, or takes them to the Calendly if they need to speak with you first. But, ideally, you want that to pop up later on in the pitch because, you know, if it’s a big juicy button, like, you’re gonna get curiosity clicks, so you wanna wait till they’re a bit more sold on working with you.

Okay. Got it. I’ve got, like, I’ve planned for I can take this out. So but I’ve planned for mid webinar to say, essentially, my first I’ve added a step to my, little circle framework. I’ve added, like, a triangle. It’s like a instant like, this is what to do with your demo or confirmation email kind of framework, and I called it the hello hook.

But I’ve said in the middle of that section, essentially, I’m actually doing this kind of audit for three companies a week. If you want help with this, check out the form below, and I’ll see if I’ve got a slot for you.

Is that okay?

I mean, like, just with all these things, we’ve just gotta test it.

Right? Like, you know, we all we all know that really. Like, I I could tell you, like, one way, I need but but you’d still be like, I think I need to test it. Like, if yes.

Yeah. People filling in that form? If you can get this pop up at that exact moment, that would look cool. That would look baller as well.

So I did yeah. If you could do that.

Yeah. Getting them to take action mid webinar.

Yeah. It’s an interesting idea. Just try it.

Yeah.

I saw it in the YouTube video, and I was like, oh, actually and then at the end, he kind of reiterated, and I was like, oh, yeah.

Now I’m gonna do it. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I’ll check it out. Thank you.

No. Thank you. Cody?

Yeah. I was curious if you have, like, a specific time limit, like, how long that these should be. Have you seen, like, any time limit that’s more successful than others? Or yeah.

I think, like, there’s an element of again, it depends on your audience. I mean, my audience course creators, I know that they expect, like, an hour long webinar. That’s what everyone’s doing. That’s they they will spend an hour if it’s really they know it’s gonna be valuable to their business. So the formula I tend to use is, forty minutes teaching with a full twenty minutes pitching.

So rather than just rushing through the pitch at the end, actually doing a very, very tailored pitch.

So, yeah, an hour, but then if you’re you’re like, if you find that your, audience, like, you know, they’ve they’ve they’ve got an attention span of, like, twenty minutes, and then they have to move on to the next thing, then you know that it’s gonna be a twenty minute webinar.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Cool. Katie?

So I know you asked a question in the group recently about, like, ads to your webinar.

I would just love to know, I guess, kinda, like, where you’ve landed on running ads to your webinars, if you have any tips on running ads for our webinars, or generally, like, about driving traffic. What should we keep in mind about driving people to the Evergreen webinar?

Yeah. I think I think ads are a good idea. I mean, webinar leads are more expensive than, like, a PDF lead. At the moment on Facebook, what I’m seeing is kind of seven to twelve dollars. I know it’s more in LinkedIn, but they tend to be I’m hearing more and more good things about doing running ads on LinkedIn. Like, I’m definitely gonna be looking into that.

But, yeah, I think I think to begin with, like, it’s helpful to run ads to get that traffic, basically. Like, just run it. Just take take the chance. See what happens.

Like, expect nothing to happen. Like, put a thousand in and expect nothing to happen, but you’re gonna get voice of customer. You’re gonna get feedback. You’re gonna get a feel for whether this is worth continuing, see if you booked any calls.

So yeah. I mean, like, organic, it’s just it’s just slow, isn’t it?

Like, I I am gonna be running ads. Yeah.

I’m tired of just, like, yeah, trying to trying to do social.

Did you decide about the Pinterest course?

No. I didn’t. That got, like, that got bumped out.

Fair enough.

Yeah. I’m I’m more like YouTube.

Okay. Thank you.

Cool.

Yeah. Anyone else?

I don’t like Joey’s not here for asking me anything, so I don’t

I have I have questions for dates.

I mean, I can go on. Please.

Alright. Ads.

I have been scared of ads for so long because, like, I don’t know.

Twelve dollars for, like, a chance kinda feels like entering the lottery, but I But it’s not one chance, is it?

Because they’re on your enroll list. So it’s like Oh.

Three hundred sixty five chances a year. Like, every time you send an email, it’s a chance.

Yeah. Okay. Cool.

And have you found that, pain focused messaging or outcome focused messaging, Yeah.

I mean, what’s more burning their desire or their problem? Like, you know, for so for what I teach, the message like, when I did my competitor analysis, the message that all of these evergreen people are teaching is you can make so much money. Like, you can make sales every day, and people need to hear that. That message does need to be on on a page because it’s the expectation.

But that because everyone’s been burned. Like, literally, everyone who’s bought my course, so it’s become a client, has been burned. They also need to hear, like, yeah. You don’t just, like, set up deadline funnel and then suddenly, like, you’re on vacation and your Thrive card just won’t stop, like, pinging.

Like, they need to hear, like, yes. It’s a process.

Yeah. It you know, it it’s not immediate. Like, you need to optimize, but here’s what we’re gonna do about it. So I think a competitive analysis can really help with that question.

So, like, what what what do people need here that isn’t being said? Is that pain related, or is it desired outcome related? Like, do they need to know be woken up to the opportunity, or do they need to, like, show that that do they need to hear that their pain is not unusual, that it is like, it’s fine. That’s the story, but there is a way out of it, and you acknowledge that.

And you’re not gonna just promise them, like, the world.

That makes so much sense. I’ve been talking to a lot of marketers, lately, and the recurring theme I keep hearing is, like, I don’t wanna clutter up someone else’s inbox. My inbox is so full. I don’t wanna fuck up someone else’s.

So, yeah, I think that probably needs to be on the page and, you know, more crucial raising.

Yeah. And then do an AB test, like, test test desired outcome versus problem and see.

What do you use for AB testing, by the way? Do you have, like, online in pages? Sorry. Not for ads.

Okay. So I I use lead pages, but I did have a call with Jo. Like, when I did my ISP interview with her, she was like, yeah. I wouldn’t sign up to a webinar that’s on lead pages.

So it’s on my list to change that, but, like, you know, it’s like if you’ve got WordPress or something, it’s simple. I need to just figure it out. Like, that’s my next thing to ask ChatGPT is how do you do, like, a AB test on a Squarespace landing page? Like, these aren’t impossible questions anymore, which is which is great.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Pitching Your Workshop Presentations

Pitching Your Workshop: Abi, Marina & Claire Present Their Diagnostics

Transcript

Hey. Hey. Alright. Workshop day. Y’all ready? Yes?

Of course.

Good.

I’m excited. This is gonna be a lot.

We’ve got three p doing this a lot. I don’t know what’s going on with my brain.

My fingers never match what the number is that I say. So three. There. I had to think about it. We have three of you going today, and I know it just hit start time. So we’re just gonna let some people come on in.

Abby, you’re going. Marina, you’re going. And I think Claire is our third, and we’ll, go in that order.

Is that exciting? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Good.

Alright. We’ll let some people file in. How are you all feeling about your present your workshops?

I don’t know why, but I’m, like like, nervous about giving it.

Really? Yeah. I was like, I don’t know why.

They’re just, like, my friends. I can agree. I was saying to my partner, but I’m, like, really nervous.

It’s so much worse when you know the people.

It’s so much worse.

Is that what it is? Maybe.

Yes. Totally.

Three thousand strangers, easy compared to three people you know very well. Like, no. Thanks. I don’t need this. I’m good. I’ll do something else with my life.

Well, also these people, they know what it’s supposed to be. So what if you totally miss the boat?

I guess that’s true. Yeah. That’s fair. That’s fair.

Alright. Thanks everybody who’s attending today and not presenting.

We’re going to be attending as people in that person’s ideal audience. So, Abby, Marina, and when Claire gets here, if the three of you can please just let us know basically who your ICP is and the persona that you believe would be watching this, and we can do our best to sit in those shoes. And, otherwise, we’ll just, like, give other feedback as well.

So that’s our job for everybody who is filing in again.

Yeah. Really simply, we are here to watch and give feedback on three workshops. And if you’re working on your own work workshop, which you should be, it’s a great chance for you to do to see to see. So you can also learn like, oh, wow.

I loved that. Or, oh, okay. That’s gonna be a confusing part. It was confusing for their audience.

It’s probably confusing for mine. I didn’t think of it that way, etcetera, etcetera. So a caught not taught kind of workshop day. It is two hours, because we have three groups, three people going.

Each gets about thirty minutes, then we’ll have about five minutes of discussion time, which could turn into ten, which is why we have two hours blocked out. Thank you for this endurance approach. It’s not a sprint, today. So are we ready?

We’re gonna go Abby, then Marina, and then Claire, if any of you surprised.

And you’re like, wait. What? I’m going today? Yeah. That’s the sign up list I got.

So so, hopefully, that’s right. Going in that order, Abby, then Marina, then Claire. Are we ready? Or does everybody know why we’re here and what we’re doing?

Any confusion?

No? I wouldn’t think so. Alright. We are recording.

Let’s get cracking. If you’re not presenting, please go on mute and do your best to stay on camera if possible so that the presenter can see our faces and not feel like they’re talking to an empty room or people who are busy doing other things. Okay. Thanks.

Abby, take it away.

Cool. Okay. So, my ICP is a course creator, so you’re probably doing about three to four million. You wanna be doing ten million.

But at the moment, you’re just completely stuck with a live lodge roller coaster. You’re getting burned out because every time you live lodge, it just takes out of you, and you just cannot get Evergreen to work, and you don’t know why.

Okay. So can everybody, like, see my screen?

Okay. Cool. Right.

Okay. So this workshop is called how to make five thousand dollars a day with a mid ticket evergreen course.

So I’m Abby. I’m the founder of AT Content and the creator and author of day one evergreen, the only funnel that’s built to convert better every month.

I help course creators add one point eight million a year in revenue, which is five thousand dollars a day, without the nail biting stress of live launches. I’ve worked with hundreds of course creators. I’ve worked on evergreen funnels for Amy Porterfield, Becca Klein, Jel Sid, Coffeehackers, Ingrid Ana, Fast Needs a QBO, and some other names that you might recognize.

So you’re in the right place if you have a mid ticket offer between three hundred and two thousand dollars that you’d love to scale to five thousand dollars a day on Evergreen. The reason I say these amounts is just what I found is when it’s over two thousand, it tends to just take a little bit more nurturing. So the idea of this funnel is that you bring people onto your email list and you sell to them straight away.

So you’re already doing at least a million with your online course, but you really wanna scale with to ten million without relying on the nail biting trust of live launches.

And you’re already using paid advertising to sell your online course. So this isn’t a requirement.

So, generally, to to reach five thousand dollars a day, depending on how much your course is, you wanna be getting at least a hundred, maybe two hundred people into a funnel every day. If you can do this with organic marketing, awesome. Great.

But likely, you’re gonna be using some kind of paid advertising.

So a quick case study.

So one of my clients is Fast and Easy QBI. So back in January, they launched a brand new course with an email list of ten thousand, and we made six hundred thousand dollars. Their sales that month outpaced all of their sales in twenty twenty three. We straightaway took that launch funnel evergreen and made seventy six thousand dollars in month one, keeping in mind that they’d already pretty much exhausted that email list because we literally just live launched.

And then we continue to optimize.

And now in July, they’ve got a six point eight cent conversion rate with a three dollar cost per lead. So for a twelve hundred dollar course, they’re they’ve got a pretty good ROAS there, and they’re making five thousand dollars a day with they on Evergreen.

A few more case studies, which you can get in my book.

So one of my clients, Eric Petrus, he came to me because he he was selling guitar guitar repair course.

I worked on his evergreen sales page, and we tripled his weekly sales. At Harmusch, I wrote his evergreen sales page three years ago. Amazingly, he’s still using the same copy, and it’s converting at thirteen percent. He’s making hundreds of thousands of dollars from that. Becca Klein, I increased her final conversions by a hundred and fifty percent.

Jove said two hundred and forty percent increase in webinar sales.

This was actually for a live launch, but the coffee converted so well. She took Evergreen and actually tripled her course price.

And Fast and Easy QBO, another course I’ve worked on for them is a membership, and we’ve seen a forty percent increase in membership sign ups since setting up day one evergreen.

Okay. So to address the eye roll here, these aren’t friends or colleagues. These are course creators that have come to me to evergreen their funnels. This isn’t another just add a countdown timer, just set up deadline funnel, and it’s gonna convert. This is unique system designed to collect ongoing data via a ten point customer feedback loop so you can legitimately improve your conversions without ripping a funnel apart every month.

So deal with evergreen, the funnel that’s built to convert best every month. So now you can stop relying on unpredictable live launches that burn you and your team out or the unpredictability of them as well. I mean, live launches are fun and exciting when they go well, but, also, if you’re putting you’re counting on one live launch to generate your full year’s revenue. And one link doesn’t work, and then you potentially lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So this is to just build a bit more peace into your business. It’s not to say never live lodge, but just to have that one point eight million as well.

Without lining Zuckerberg’s pockets, while barely breaking even on your ad spend, so maybe we’re already running ads to your evergreen course, and it’s kind of converting. But, actually, after you paid your ad spend, you’re not making enough money. Like, yes, you’re getting those leads, but you’re then having to go back to live launching to sell to sell to them.

And without hiring expert after expert in the hope that someone can fix your evergreen funnel problem. And then again, just linking back to live launches because it just doesn’t work.

Okay. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do a little slice together. So I’d love you to just grab a notebook and pen.

Okay. So what I want you to do is in the middle of your page is to just draw a circle and write in there five thousand dollars. So that’s that’s what we’re going for here, five thousand dollars a day. And then I will need to draw four leaves.

Make them quite big so you’ve got room to write in them. I guess these are kind of kind of looking like petals here. So you should have what looks like a little flower.

And then in the first, leaf, I want you to write attract.

In the second leaf, I want you to write engage.

And the third, convert.

And then the fourth, optimize.

Okay. So the first thing you’re gonna wanna do, if you if you want to be making sales every day, you need to be bringing people into your funnel, and you need to attract the right leads. So we’re gonna be using Facebook ads to do that.

Then the second thing we need is an attraction device. So you need a way to bring these people into your funnel and instantly engage them. So this is like you’re gonna be an opt in page with a workshop.

And then you need a lead monitor. So you need some way of actually seeing, okay, are these good leads as the reason that my funnel isn’t converting because my sales messaging is awful. Am I just bringing in low quality leads?

Okay. And then we have engaged. So you need an irresistible offer.

We’re gonna be talking in a minute about deeper into what these all mean and how to assess, whether you’ve got it set up or not, and then mindset shift.

So rather than doing a traditional how to workshop, you’re gonna do a workshop that’s built out of mindset shifts the audience needs to, go through in order to be ready to buy your course.

And then, oh, sticky story. Sorry.

Brain brain fart.

So because this is you are bringing people in and selling to them straight away, it’s really important you build know, like, and trust here. So this isn’t just like putting a shit’s creep gif in your emails and being like, hey. I have a personality. Like, you wanna build these really sticky stories that, like, win them over to your world and make them feel ready to to buy from you.

Okay. And then we’ve got combat. So we want an easy yes pitch. So at the end of your webinar, you’re gonna pitch your offer, and it’s gonna make it very easy for them to say yes.

And then you’ve got a million dollar sales page. So this isn’t your typical templated sales page. This is a long form sales page that addresses any objections they have that by the time they get to the ends of it, they’re not gonna have any further questions about your course.

And then conversion emails. So, again, not just your generic sales emails, emails that are written to convert.

And then finally, we have optimize.

So data tracking.

Are you tracking your data across the whole funnel?

And then we have your customer feedback loop. So that’s your ten point customer feedback loop, which includes forms and surveys, AB tests to gain as much information about your customer as possible.

And then finally, we have conversion hotspots, which is where you want to implement your customer feedback to have the biggest impact on your conversions.

Okay. So you should have something that looks a bit like this. Maybe a little bit neater. Mine’s a bit. My handwriting’s still great.

And now we’re gonna go through and we’re gonna write where you are for each of these sections. So if you’re feeling really confident, you’ve got it set up, it’s all converting beautifully, you’re gonna give yourself a ten.

If you have it set up but conversions aren’t quite where they should be or you just feel like it could be better, you can give yourself a five. And if it’s not set up or it’s not converting at all, you’re gonna give yourself a zero.

Okay. So the first thing we’ve got is your Facebook ads.

So in order for to hit five thousand thousand dollars a day, your ads need to be profitable. So if you are your current ad spend is ten to twenty dollars a day and you have a five hundred dollar course, you’re just literally flushing away that money and not and not seeing any return on your ad spend. So we wanna ideally get your lead down to around five dollars, five to ten dollars.

And it’s also it’s not just about the cost per lead, but having someone on your team who’s gonna address seasonal changes, who’s gonna keep updating that so that what works in winter can then be made to work in summer. You’re not you’re refreshing the ads, so they can continue to go back, and you’re not just flushing that money away.

And then you want your attraction device. So your opt in page to your workshop. So, ideally, your opt in page conversion rate should be around forty to sixty percent.

You also want to make sure that people are then watching your webinar. So if people aren’t even clicking to watch your on demand webinar, then the chances are that it’s just not desirable enough. So if you have an issue there with people not watching, it might just be that your opt in page isn’t selling it hard enough. And then lead monitor.

So you’re gonna have a thank you page survey embedded after people sign up for your webinar, and this is gonna determine what drove them to to sign up. It’s gonna tell you whether these are good leads. So you might find that lots of people going in there are like, oh, I just wanna make more money or some other kind of quick win, and then this is a sign that actually those leads aren’t the ones that you want in there. You want ones that are ready to buy, they’re ready to invest, and understand that it’s it’s a long term game.

You also wanna be doing very strategic AB testing on your opt in page. So rather than just testing to see if you can get your conversion rate up a little bit, actually looking at the bottom of your funnel and seeing, okay. Is this one bringing in the leads that actually convert?

So, again, if you don’t have that set up, it’s gonna be a zero. If you have some of it set up at five, and if you’re really confident that you know what’s going on with your leads and who’s converting, then you’re gonna be self a ten.

Okay. And then going on to engage. So your irresistible offer.

Do is this something that people will, like, crawl through broken glass to get? Do you have a great offer that’s converted before? And is it converting with Evergreen? So it might be that it converts pretty well when it’s like you live launch, but on evergreen, maybe you don’t have the right kind of urgency set up. Do you have that authentic scarcity that gives people a reason to act now rather than later.

And then mindset shifts. So your workshop, is it built out of the mindset shifts that people need to go through to go from where they are now to where they need to be to say yes to your course, or are you just doing how to content that isn’t actually converting them?

And then sticky stories. So, again, building in that relatability stories that really stick. And you can the way you can tell this is are people staying to the end of your webinar? Are people sticking around? Are they opening your emails? Are they engaging with your offer? And if they’re not, then the chances are you need to just go back and build in more of that storytelling and more of yourself so that people can buy into that.

Okay. And then we’ve got Converse. We’ve got the easiest pitch.

So this is at the end of your webinar. Are you not just are you are you reading through your modules and your bonuses, or are you constantly making sure that you’re connecting the modules and the bonuses to what’s going on in their life at the moment, explaining to them how how it’s gonna improve their life, how it’s gonna aid the transformation that you’re promising. And, again, the way you can measure this is are people sticking around to the end of your webinar, or are they dropping off?

Your million dollar sales page, is this, is it converting? Is is the the first thing to think about? Are you converting at five to eight percent, which is what you should be getting with an evergreen webinar funnel like this?

Is it templated? Are you pulling out generic pain points, or are you have you got your customer research and you’re reading their mind and you’re empathizing with them deeply? You’re as they’re reading through, they’re thinking, oh my god. Yes. This person gets me. Important on an evergreen sales page because again, these people don’t know you. They haven’t been on your list for months and months and months.

So it’s even more important that you show them you understand where they are and that they can trust you to guide to guide them.

And then finally, conversion emails. Again, emails are rich in voice of customer that are addressing different objections objections that are coming up in your customer feedback loop, which we’ll talk about in a second.

Are people opening them? Are people clicking through? Is your click through rate for each email above two percent?

Okay. And finally, optimize. So data tracking. Are you tracking every point of your funnel, and do you understand how it all ties together? So your cost per lead, your click through rate on your ads, your opt in page conversions, how the amount of people that show up for your webinar, and the amount of time they spend on your webinar, your sales pitch, your versions, your open rates for emails, your click through rates. Are you measuring all that, and are you measuring it month monthly and looking at how things are changing each month?

Your customer feedback loop. Do you have a ten point customer feedback loop built in? Do you have survey set up? Do you have opportunities for your customers to engage?

Are you finding out why people are converting versus not converting? Are you running strategic tests? All of these things will help you understand your audience better. So if anything’s not converting, you can use your data tracking to identify where and you know what to change around your messaging.

And this also applies to seasonal changes as well. For example, let’s say you have an outgoing copywriting course, that converted amazing in twenty twenty two. Then in January twenty twenty three, your conversion rates dropped and you don’t know why. If you had that customer feedback loop set up, you could say, oh, okay.

Because everyone’s freaking out about about AI, but I’m not addressing that in my messaging. So do you have these points set up so you understand what is getting in the way for your audience? And then finally, conversion hotspots. Once you’ve got that feedback, do you know where to put it?

Do you know where to put that the voice of customers so that you are having the biggest impact of your conversions and you’re not just constantly randomly rewriting, ripping pile funnels, start again, wasting all this time just hoping, praying that something’s gonna convert.

Okay. Cool.

Thanks. So you should hopefully have something that looks a little bit like this, maybe a bit less colorful unless you you’ve got your crayons. So now we’re you should be able to identify three to four points, for you to now go away and work on. So if your problem is that, okay, you are making some sales, but it’s just not profitable because all of your money is going to Facebook ads. You wanna go and you wanna look at your Facebook ads, you wanna work on your opt in page, see if you can get that conversion rate up, and maybe have a look at your offer. Is there room to put the price up a bit more so you’re more profitable? And then, of course, getting this customer feedback loop built in so you can see why people, why your leads are expensive, what what you can do to actually improve that.

Is your is it the case that your sales are inconsistent? Sometimes, some months are gray, other months are poor.

Again, you wanna build this customer feedback loop in so you can see what’s changing. You want someone working on your Facebook ads so that they can respond to these seasonal changes and then be going through these conversion hotspots through your funnel from the top to the bottom to optimize based on what it is that’s changing.

And if you’re not getting sales at all, then or you’re you’re just making a couple, like, nowhere near that five k that you want, then the chances are you need someone to come in and set up this day one evergreen funnel for you.

So if you do just have a couple of points here, then that’s awesome. Go away. Give give this to your team. Get my book for the to get the ten conversion, the the customer feedback loop.

If you’re thinking, okay. I just really love someone to just set this up for me, then my team has one space available per month. Not only will we set it up, but we’re also available to optimize. So it’ll be like having someone on your team that’s gonna review the customer feedback loop every month and then improve the funnel so that you your comp until your conversion’s where you want them to be, and then, again, respond if anything dips. So I’m gonna be dropping a link to book a call with me, come to that call with your drawing today ready, and, yeah, we’ll have a chat and see if we’re a good fit. Any questions?

Okay. That’s it.

Good job, Abby.

Alright.

Let’s share any notes. Who would like to go first to share feedback for Abby?

Otherwise, I’ll choose you. So put up Andrew’s first and then Claire.

Right.

Yeah. That was really good, Abby. Definitely lit some fire under my butt to to get my workshop going and hopefully get it as good as yours is.

I would say my number one point of feedback, would be to really slow down, a good bit. There were parts where you were going through it really fast, and it’s like, I could keep up with you because I kinda know a lot of this stuff. And what you’re talking about, you know, getting customer feedback or, like, conversion rates and sales pages that add address objections, I’m right there with you. But I feel like if I’m someone who is that’s not marketing is not my main thing, I would need you to go a lot slower so that I can understand what you’re talking about.

I wrote that down when you were going through the diagnostic at the mindset mindset shift. Like, I know what you’re talking about about we need to, like, shift people’s mindsets, but you kinda blew through it a little bit. So I think if you went, like, maybe, like, half the speed, that would probably help, a little bit.

And then in terms of, like, stuff that I really liked was when you’re going through the diagnostic, when you had things like the exit like, when you were doing the customer feedback loop, you had like, you used the example of, like, AI. You know? Oh, is my messaging not resonating anymore? Because everyone’s freaking out about AI, and we haven’t addressed that.

That specificity was helpful.

Same thing with the last one, the conversion hotspots of, like, asking questions. Like, okay. You’ve collected this feedback. Do you know where to put it, where to implement it?

I feel like that was helpful.

And I just wanted to check on in the beginning, would you could you say it was supposed to be three hundred to two thousand dollars, or was it higher than the other typo?

No. Yeah.

You might have a typo.

So Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Three hundred to two thousand.

Yeah. It goes to twenty thousand. I was like, oh, damn. That is a high ticket offer.

Nice. Okay. Yeah. No mid ticket. Thank you.

I didn’t notice that.

But, yeah, big biggest piece of advice would be just, yeah, slow down. Like, the content taught the content is really good, I thought.

So Thank you, Andre.

Her goal was so nice.

Claire.

My feedback is is really simple.

First, like, there were a few points where I really loved. You got, like, super specific. You just gave me an example, and I went like, oh, okay. I get what that is now. But you didn’t do it for all of them. So I some of them, I was like, okay. Following along.

But those super specific points were, like, really convincing, I suppose. And then same feedback on slowing down. I’ve gotten that feedback, like, a million times as well. Slow it down. Say less.

Say say things simpler as well. I think, my biggest piece of advice that I got from Cody was, sometimes they don’t understand what you’re saying because you’re overexplaining, which is, like, kind of the opposite of what you’re trying to do when you’re overexplaining.

So just by keeping it to, like, one, I suppose, big idea, per section, it makes it a lot easier to slow down and not catch yourself over explaining.

And then lastly, I really loved your presentation. I haven’t done a presentation at all. I hope that I’m instantly jealous.

But I really loved your presentation. I thought it was super cool to be able to follow along.

I think as you go, you’ll probably find you don’t say as much as you did just as you get, like, more comfortable with the content. But, the end was also really, really great. I love the Calendly visual. I just felt so like, okay. Today.

Yeah. I hate that.

Thank you. Helpful.

Anyone else wanna share some notes for Abby?

No?

Okay. I’ll share mine. Abby, I loved it. I thought you did a great job overall. The opening numbers and the promise right out of the gate, it’s like a super solid hook.

The case studies, well done. I do have a note that you’re talking a blue streak. That’s not what I wrote.

So can you ask questions earlier on? Like, have you experienced this too?

Something like that just to bring people in. I know when it’s recorded in advance, then that’s really, like, tricky, but even maybe slowing down could solve it there.

Okay. So early on, I have at ten o seven my time, which is probably about four minutes into the presentation.

I I would love you to say, hey. Yes. You can work with me and my team directly, and, like, just get ahead of that because I am definitely in your target market. And as somebody who would rather outsource this work, then try to get my team to do it ourselves.

Yeah. I was like, my question was immediately. Can we just hire you for this? So you could say, yeah.

You know, you can work with me directly. I’m gonna walk you through this because we only accept three clients a month. Also, I think you should say three clients a month, not one. So it sounds bigger, like a larger group.

You can only take on one. Then if you want, you can take out as many as you want to at that time, but I would open it up to three.

So then say, yes. You can work with me directly. I would also love, at that point, for you to say what your prices start at.

There’s no reason to not do that. Yeah. So give it a shot, and make it a nice high number.

You’re presenting really well, and you clearly know your stuff, and you have good case studies.

The only thing that would make a person think you should be less than fifty thousand dollars at minimum is you not saying fifty thousand dollars to start. So, like, if you don’t have a fifty thousand dollar budget, you’re not a good fit to work with you. You’re just not. So no. So fifty, sixty, whatever that number goes to, but say it. Even though it’s scary, this is what the whole point of this thing is, not just to get the leads you could otherwise close, but, like, new leads, more money. So I want you to do that.

You need more build up to the fact that you’re gonna be drawing today. So I would say earlier on, hey. By the way, just as we’re kicking off and while people are still filing in, you’ll need a piece of paper and a pen today. It’s not that’s not an art class. Don’t worry. But you’re gonna wanna draw something. I’m gonna show it to you.

I don’t understand the leaf the need for the leaf shape.

Because it’s evergreen.

So yeah.

Yeah.

I know. It’s really corny, but I just like No.

Because I I I had a design when it’s not in the green belt.

Leaves are seasonal.

Yeah. I don’t I just gave it to a sign designer. I was like, can you make this, like, not look like Joe’s?

From your from my side of things, I was drawing it, and I didn’t know what the lines off the leaves are meant to be.

So, like, when you have a triangle and you put those lines in there, the triangle is meaningless. As soon as you make something a shape, then everything on it needs to be part of that, like, metaphor.

And so if I’m thinking, okay, these are leaves, what are the three pokey things coming off the side then? So for me, like, I’m just it didn’t connect, and so I didn’t know why I was drawing three leaves. I didn’t know what was expected.

I know Andrew’s really trying to make it evergreen there.

Yeah. So just know that as your audience drawing it, I didn’t give myself enough room possibly because I wasn’t set up to know to draw this thing. The leaves felt like a artsy exercise that I couldn’t do, and it’s one more point of friction. Right? Like, did I draw a good leaf?

That’s just like come on. But I love starting with the circle in the middle. I love the four parts.

What I a couple notes.

When you’re going through, you’ve got, like, metrics and yes, no. I’m gonna look through and see if I can find a blank version of the scorecard that they gave us at their workshop, because you might wanna also follow this workshop up with shipping out that or bring the work and I’ll show it to you, and I’ll send you separate loom so you know what I’m talking about. Simply because what you’re talking about like, you’ve got numbers and how to tell if this is a yes or no. I didn’t love zero five ten either. I I think simplify it down to red, yellow, green.

It’s just like five zero ten.

I was copying it.

I know. I hate it. And I only do it because the sun doesn’t have, like, the sunshine growth model and zero like, the red, yellow, green doesn’t work on a sun. So that’s where it’s bad, like, where it falls apart from me.

But I don’t I know I know that’s what I do. I don’t like it, and so I wanna coach you to do it the easier way, which to me is red, yellow, green, or something really simple like that where there’s a three part thing. Okay.

Bum bum bum. Let me see. I took some good notes on, like, the actual content. Like, that was good. I have notes here for self.

Oh, when we get to oh, yeah. Million dollar sales page, I would love you to rename that for the purposes of this workshop simply because that’s the only thing that has million dollar or a price or, like, a, like, a outcome attached to it. So for me, I was like I mean, easy yes is another thing. Also, it sounded like you were saying easy ass to me. Just so you know, it came off as easy ass. And I was like, let me see what she writes down here.

So there’s that. But million dollar sales page, I would give it something else that sounds different just because I wrote, makes it sound like success is all on this.

Suddenly million dollar sales page had much heavier weighting than anything else, and I was thinking, do we just need a better sales page?

And that’s not the takeaway that you want.

Ta da. Couple more notes, then I’m done.

Oh, yeah. When we get to optimize, I felt like so you opened with data tracking. I needed a story there. Like because you say you can find places where there’s where money is basically hidden is effectively what you were saying there.

Like, you won’t know unless you’re tracking that. And you walked us through a bunch of great metrics, which was great. But then I was like, wouldn’t it be cool if at this point you were to say, for example, or whatever that QBO one was, we noticed x here, we optimized it, and we brought in another twenty thousand dollars in that in the next quarter or something like that. Right?

So I’m like, oh, damn. But then I was like, well, if you could do that.

It closely tied to the data tracking ties to conversion hots hotspots. Once you track data, then you know where to put it in these hotspots. Right? So I was confused about why the ten point thing was between the two.

So I wrote, what if for optimize, you first open with the ten point feedback loop, then you do data tracking, and then conversion hot hot spots, which would allow you to finish with a case study example. Like, oh, and when we did this and now we’re ending on a really high note. Money outcome. I remember why I want you to do this because although I can see that I’m red here, green there, yellow there, I know that I want you to do it if I remember that you you make money for people, which leads me to final notes.

We dropped the model pretty quickly.

What I would love is you spent a lot of time, I think, saying, like, if this is true for you, if that is true for you, etcetera, I had just finished with you should have have an idea of where your weaknesses are and what you should work on next. Don’t say give it to their team. You can imply that. You can say that earlier on.

Like, I’ll give you enough that you can go forward and do this yourself. But at this point, like, close them, and that’s really it. Like, now is the point where I’m like, I’ve seen that I’m really right in a lot of places. Those all seem expensive, and, like, I’m really gonna need to train my team on how to do those things.

So don’t say go give it to your team. Instead, you could say, I mean, the red parts, is your team ready to do those parts? Are they qualified to optimize all of those parts?

Don’t minimize what you do. You started talking using verbs like set up. I’ll set this up for you.

No. Like, you’re not setting it up. That’s even when you do, it’s just not a good verb. Like, we’re we’re we’re this for you as we’re watching.

Like, wow. She, like, knows her shit. She can do this. And then I was brought down to maybe your team can maybe you can buy the book.

Maybe I can set it up for you. You know? So, no. And then book a triage call with team. Don’t put yourself in your Calendly even if you have to make somebody up. Someone else is your setter.

So make sure it’s like you can book a call with so and so from my team, and then go from there. It just elevates your price again and again. Like, oh, damn. Just sales team.

Yep.

The workshop’s selling. It’s doing a great job. I think if you simplify the model, slow down a bit, you’re good.

Tell people. Yes. You can charge me. You you can hire me. It’s fifty thousand to start or whatever the price is. What is the price to start?

Thirty five. To start. That prices start at thirty five.

Right. And then you build on the retainer after that?

Well, I’m gonna I think I’m gonna say like, I’m gonna build in an obligate not not a retainer, but just like, I’m here if you like if things don’t work. Like, I’m on I’m here for forty days just to work with your team if anything’s not working, and then recommend, like, you should really do the three the retainer as well.

Well, you should because your model Andrew knows what’s coming. You know your model.

Your this optimized you’ve sold us on it. It’s in the freaking model. It’s right here. How am I gonna go forward and data track and update those conversion hotspots?

You sold us on a thing here.

Like, you have done the work.

Okay.

That’s all. You know what my take is here.

So, yeah, any other notes or thoughts from anybody else for Abby?

I I just wanna tack on to what you just said, Joe, about, like, making this goes back to that that post that I made a while back about not making your monthly retainer separate from the offer to just make it part of the whole thing from the beginning so that it’s just the natural next stage of your product. It’s not a separate thing.

I so agree with that.

Yeah. Totally. It’s it’s it’s built in. I I attended this both as me here for you, but also as a person who would hire you for this. And if I heard, oh, you don’t necessarily need me for that part. I’d be like like, what are you talking about? But who’s gonna handle my conversion hotspots?

Like, what?

What’s happening? Who’s gonna look over my survey data? What?

So, yeah, Andrew made a really great point. I don’t know if you’re being tentative about selling yourself because you’re in a room with us and maybe with strangers. You’d be, like, more on the nose about how awesome you are, but wherever you do this next, lay it on.

Yeah. Reason to. Okay? Please?

One other tiny thing too. You just said a couple a couple minutes ago, Abby, about I’ll be there in case something’s not working. Like, you don’t even wanna say in case something’s not working because don’t even put that in their mind. Just if you wanna reframe that even as to make sure everything goes smoothly. Mhmm.

Mhmm.

You know?

But don’t even put in the possibility that something might not be working.

Yeah.

Okay. Love it. Good? Thank you. Bye. That’s Abby, nice work.

That’s lots of noise. Very helpful. Thanks.

Awesome. Marina, you’re up. You ready?

Of course.

K. After just a heads up for everybody who’s like, I need a bio break.

After Marina’s talk and our feedback session, we’ll take, like, a five minute break and then come back for Claire’s. Okay?

Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Marina.

Alright.

Take it away.

Tell us who your ICP is and everybody upfront first, please.

Yes. So ICP, CMO, VP marketing, twenty to a hundred million, b two b SaaS, with a reverse trial. So they start with a trial and then go to a freemium kind of model.

So that is who you are.

Alright. Thank you for Sorry, Maureen.

I hate to interrupt you. What remind me just really quickly.

Persona.

Sorry. Just just again. How much the persona who are you talking to at that ICP, and how much do they bring in a year? ICP years?

So we are b to b SaaS brands that are twenty to a hundred million.

Twenty to a hundred million.

And I’m talking to CMO, VP marketing, head of Okay.

Perfect. Sorry. Thank you. I had a restaurant instead of pen. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. All good.

Alright. Today, we’re gonna talk about how you can get more of your free users to convert to paid plans. So for our session today, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Don’t worry.

Not an art class. As long as you can read the notes on your diagram when we’re done, you will be good to go. So we’re specifically going to be talking about using, action triggered emails, message met sales pages to get your free users to to upgrade to a paid plan. Now these are users that have gone through your trial.

They have not converted yet, and there they are. We want them to feel good about the upgrade so they leave you a good review.

Now the next twenty five minutes, they’re gonna be valuable to you if you are a CMO, head of growth, VP of marketing, if you’re a b to b SaaS brand that generates twenty to a hundred million in annual revenue, these types of brands are the ones I work best with. Companies like Bitly, QR code generator, where we’re continuing to increase conversions strategically, by rewriting and optimizing emails and so on. Now I’m not the first person to share big brand names with you. So let me clarify.

These brands are not filled with people I knew before I started working with them. I got this work because this is exactly the type of work I’m building my reputation around. Further, I don’t pretend to have the perfect solution for you right here and now. Your company is not built on templates or you wouldn’t be here right now.

I may have the solution for you, but I’m not gonna hand you like it’s not like a trick where I say, oh, let’s all of a sudden stop letting those nine hundred and ninety five out of every one thousand free users sit in that free plan, sucking support resources indefinitely while taking space in your CRM, space you pay for every month.

Instead, I’m gonna help you see where your challenges are, and you’re going to discover them today for yourself in today’s workshop. So if by the end of our twenty five minutes together, you believe that my team is the only one that can stop the bleeding, fix what’s broken, reshape your conversion program into a superhuman sales generator, then you’ll be invited to book a conversion consultation with my team.

If that call proves that we should work together, you’ll be invited to invest twenty thousand dollars for my team of trained experts to establish your free to paid post convert, post trial free to paid strategy, roll out that strategy, including getting all of the automation set up. You won’t have to do a thing with that. And then five thousand dollars a month thereafter to optimize it. Because as you know, if you set and forget, it’s just going to go downhill.

Now my team has room for two clients. We take on very few clients, so we can serve them extremely well, and we always serve them on an ongoing basis.

Because while what I do seems magical, it’s not a magic trick.

So now let’s see what’s happening with your post trial free to paid program.

We’re gonna use my diagnostic tool to see what’s holding you back from driving more of those free users into paid plans.

So get that piece of paper out, and I’m gonna get you to go ahead and draw a triangle right in the middle of your paper.

So draw a triangle right in the middle of your paper, and here we go.

So we’re going to have, something on this side. We’re gonna say activate.

Don’t worry if your penmanship is awful. It’s alright. As long as you can read it, you’re good to go.

And we’re gonna have a few things on that activate side.

Alright. As we go along, I’m gonna get you to write the things in as we go, and then we’re gonna see where are you at, red, yellow, or green. Red being like, never even thought about this. We don’t have this, or it’s just not performing well.

Yellow is things are just like status quo. They’re not going up or down. We can’t seem to budget. And green, is we are doing great.

Now as we go through, you might think, my goodness. I don’t know the numbers for this.

Or you might be like, oh, I had some of the numbers for the last board meeting. I don’t know where we’re at right this second. No worries. We’re looking for sort of rolling averages. What is the general trend? Because we can always go back and get specific numbers later.

So let’s start over here, and let’s talk about open rates.

So you’re sending your free users emails.

Are they opening them?

Red, yellow, or green, generally?

Are you like, yeah. I’m happy with my open rate. I think people are opening them. We have some pretty cool subject lines. It’s getting them to open them. You might think you’re green.

Great.

Moving along then, we move to click rates.

So once they’re open and they’re in that email, are they actually clicking on the button or clicking on the link? And I don’t mean clicking unsubscribe. I mean, are they clicking on the call to action that you have in that email so they can go and do the thing that you want them to do?

So if your click rates are, like, great. Give yourself a green. If they’re, like, sometimes people are clicking, but it’s not going up at all. Or maybe it’s, not looking good at all, and you’re like, we can get them to open, but they don’t do anything.

So I’m gonna put us a yellow here.

And just on your diagram, put whatever it is that you think for your company.

Now the next thing we’re gonna think about as we are activating because these users, they might have gone through that free trial already. They may have opened things. They may not have opened things, but we know that they didn’t actually understand the value. Otherwise, they would be using or they would have converted to paid. They would have done something.

So now we have this time to value. Do you have your post trial, user journey map mapped out so that those users that went through that trial didn’t really get to value? How are you getting them to value post trial? Because they are there sitting in your free plan. Are they getting to value?

Now if that if you’re like, I don’t even have a map, we send out a few post, trial emails, and that’s it. Probably sitting at red there.

If you have thought about it, have a few things, you might be yellow. And if you’re like, oh, we’ve mapped out the whole process. We know how we can get them to, that value. Great. You’re green.

Now I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you might be red on that because if we would have had people already experiencing that value, we might not be talking.

Alright. So now this next side of the triangle of our conversion triangle, we’re gonna call it sticky.

How can we get these free users to actually use the product? So we might have them. Maybe we can get them opening, those emails.

K? We’re gonna it’s this progression. Maybe we can get them opening the email. Maybe we can get them clicking. Maybe we can get them to value, but can we get them to stay? Let’s see.

Because if they’re not gonna stay for the freed, they’re definitely not gonna a free plan, they’re definitely not gonna stay for the paid. So over here, we want them to commit to something.

So, they’re committed to something, and this could be maybe, you have as part of your, features that they can invite a team member, and maybe they can do still do that on a free plan. So if they’ve invited a team member, great. Perhaps they are uploading data In order to use your software, appropriately, they need to input data. And if they’re doing that, it shows that they’re somewhat committed. They’re invested in that. Or if they’re including it as part of their tech stack, maybe there’s some integration. They’re starting to integrate that.

So we wanna know, are they committed? And maybe you’re like, you know, some of people are doing this, but it’s not really it’s not really increasing.

Give yourself a yellow. If nobody’s really, taking advantage of it, give yourself a red. And if you’ve got lots of people integrating already, give yourself a green.

Alright.

Next up.

If they are doing that, then we need to look at daily active users or weekly active users. So this is dependent on, what your software is. Do people need to be in there every day? Do they set something up, look at it once a week? What is the process? So for your, software situation, think about how people are, how often people are in, the app doing something.

If they are increasingly doing things in app, give yourself a green. If it’s staying the same, yellow. And if it’s kinda tanking, give it a red. So you might be yellow here.

Alright.

Again, I don’t know your current situation. If we have a chat later on, if you decide to book a call with the team, we can dig into this more at that point.

Now the next thing on this sticky side is we have increased feature usage.

So if they have invited a team, great. If they’re in the app more often, great. They came to your app to solve a problem.

They’ve got your software. They because they think, hey. Your software is the answer to this problem.

If over here, we finally got them some value, they’re like, okay. Yes. I can do this thing.

Now in order for them to stick, we want them to expand that expand the number of your, features that they are using. So they’re using the thing they came for, and they have confidence in that. And now they’re like, I wonder what else we can do. Because as we expand this feature usage, that’s where we can start selling things in the plan. Like, oh, you want the plan because you can also do this other thing.

So, in general, are users using more features? Give yourself a green, staying the same yellow, and kinda decreasing, give it a red.

So you might think, okay. Well, I’m kinda yellow on that on that sticky side. Alright.

And, again, it’s kind of this progression.

Now we come to convert.

So here we are at the bottom, and we have looked at all these things. Now we can finally talk about conversion and what are some other things that are going to be influencing conversion. So now we’ve got them in the product. They have some value, and we’re like, great. They’re ready to convert.

And then we look, and we’re like, oh, but are they?

Let’s look at support tickets. Now you might think, oh, I don’t know. I’m not in there talking about support tickets all the time. I don’t know.

Do we have lots? Do we? K. If you have not heard about the number of support tickets your team is, processing, you’re probably good.

But if you’ve heard a lot of stuff and people are complaining and going like, can you do something about this? Like, our, we can’t handle the volume of support tickets. Like, it’s too much. If that’s the case, we’re looking at red.

If you’ve heard sort of murmurings, maybe it’s yellow. Yellow with the mind of, oh, we need to do something about this. Because if we have lots of support tickets and I don’t mean the support tickets that are asking simple questions. I mean, they’re angry about things because they don’t understand the product.

And so you think, why are they asking us about these things? It’s because look back to this first side, this activate side, we’re obviously not getting them the information they need so that they can see the value. Because once people start seeing the value, we’re gonna have a whole different kind of support ticket coming in. It might just be a simple question rather than a rage against the product.

Alright. The next thing, product reviews, and the review rating.

Now this is something that a quick search of Trustpilot, Capterra, g two, that’s gonna get you your star rating.

And what is it? Maybe think about the last time you looked. What was it? If it was under three, give yourself a red. If it was a three, give yourself a yellow. And four and five, give yourself a green.

We live in a society that people don’t buy stuff without looking for reviews. Think about it. When was the last time you bought something without googling to see a review?

Even simple things. Now think about this. They’re buying this for their business to help them increase their business. Of course, they’re gonna be looking at reviews.

Now, unfortunately, people leave for reviews if they don’t understand the product and don’t think they got value from it. So if we solve the things earlier on, we can get this up. So perhaps right now, you’re thinking, my reviews are not that great.

Don’t worry. It’s something we can do something about.

It is a solvable problem.

And this last thing on the conversion is this time to sale.

Is the time to sale so they finish the trial. They didn’t convert the during the trial. So now you’ve got them on this post trial, road map. You want to get them to that sale.

Perhaps they just needed more time. They didn’t have time to read the emails earlier. Whatever the case, they didn’t get there. Now you’re going to take them on that journey to get to the sale.

Is that time to sale decreasing? So as you look at the number of of users converting in a in a specific time frame, is that number going up, down, or staying the same?

And you might say, you know, it’s just staying the same. We can’t seem to increase the number of conversions in that time frame, meaning you’re having trouble decreasing that, time to sale.

So now at this point, you probably got a pretty good idea of what is happening. There should be no question into your in your mind of what’s getting in the way of you or your team increasing those post trial free to paid conversions.

We talked about perhaps time to value was too long. Users didn’t get there.

Maybe you didn’t have that customer journey mapped out. Maybe there was no plan. Whatever the case, perhaps they finally get to value, but they’re only doing the one thing. They’re not increasing the number of features that they’re using. They’re not exploring those, which means they’re going to sit in that free plan comfortably, sucking your resources forever because they don’t feel the need to, move on to a paid plan.

Perhaps your support tickets through the roof. Angry users feel misinformed, and, research shows that angry users tell nine to fifteen people about their bad experience.

Good experiences, people tell maybe six people.

So what is your customer experience, and can we change that, so that more people are telling about their good experience?

Alright. Here, we’ve gone through this whole conversion triangle in order you know what needs to be happening next.

Some of you, you might think, oh, great. I know what I need to work on.

Maybe share it with your team and they think, oh, yeah. We have capacity to do this. But I’m guessing since you’re here, that might not be the case.

It’s a lot of legwork.

So if you take this away, you think, yes. I don’t wanna leave money on the table. There are huge, possibilities and, for wins on the horizon, you can decide to book a call with my team.

Others are wondering, hey. How can I be one of these two brands that you work with next?

And we say I’m honored to consider, to be considered and say I’m sorry, though, that if we find we cannot work together, I can’t help all the brands that reach out to me. But I can give you a private link to book a call with my team, step one of three. So after you book, after you book, you will have the opportunity to answer three questions.

If you don’t complete the form, I’ll have to cancel the conversion consultation. If, however, you complete the form and my team assesses that we’re unlikely to be a good fit, we’ll have to cancel. But in all other cases, we will proceed with that call. Now bring your drawing from this session to our call because we’re going to use it to create a plan to work towards your goals, using our strategic solutions. So go ahead and start with scheduling your conversion consultation, complete the form, and then be ready to have a candid conversation with me.

Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks, Marina. Notes. Who would like to start? Abby. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. First of all, like, well done for doing it without a slide deck. I feel like it’s a lot to remember, and you just did it really calmly. You didn’t even stumble at all.

So that’s really cool. I have, like, some very specific notes. No. I’m not trying to be, like, nitpicky.

I just found it really helpful when I got specific notes. So Oh, please do. Yeah. I really like the superhuman sales generator.

I thought that was very cool. When you were talking about the optimization, you said about setting and forgetting it, like, and this is a note I’m gonna I’ve made for me as well. I’d love to hear, like, more, like, what because you just said it will go downhill. I could love to hear a bit of drama there, like, the worst case scenario if you don’t optimize.

When you were going through the diagnostic, it was quite high up. So where everybody is, I couldn’t actually see the top. So, like, it’s nice.

Like, we just the very, very top. So I just like to, yeah, make sure it’s lower down.

When you’re going through the activate, like, the open rates, click rates, I would have quite liked benchmarks. Like, I know it’s it’s always difficult with benchmarks because, like, everybody’s a different. But when you’re just saying, like, oh, if you’re getting, like, some some opens, it’s kinda I think a bit of specificity there would have been helpful.

And then yeah. Like, I guess, like, a bigger note with the I didn’t feel like there was, like, a very big clear promise. Like, it was kind of increasing the activations, but I’d love, like, something just a bit, like, sexier.

Like, a bit more like, really kind of selling that promise.

And then, like, this might just be a a meeting, but the with the three sections, you’ve got activate, sticky, and convert. Like, for my brain, I just love, like, three verbs. Like, the sticky just kind of like, even if it was just sticky, it just felt a little out of place for me.

And then when you were talking about support tickets, I loved that research point you gave that just really, like, build my confidence in you. I think just sharing those things really makes you seem like an expert.

But then you connected it to activate, instead of convert. And, like, I guess I can I can understand why it’s in the convert a bit, but I would like like you to kind of lay that out a bit? Like, this is why it has to do with conversions.

And then, yeah, just a really stupid thing, like, the traffic lights because you your your red was pink.

Like, I just because you said red, yellow, green. Like, I wanted to see red, yellow, green. But yeah. No. I thought it was really awesome. And like I said, it’s just, like, very impressive to me that you managed to remember all that without any slides or anything.

Thanks, Abby. Andrew?

Yeah. Cool. Just, great job, Marina.

Just a couple quick fire rapid fire thoughts. I thought that maybe, there might have been, like, compared to Abby with talking about, like, this kind of sales pitch part of it, there might have been a little bit of, like, an overcorrection that might have just been for me. But, like, there’s something you said in the beginning about, like, talking about, like, who you work best best with. And it for whatever reason, it felt to me, like, maybe a little bit too early, to to bring that piece in about telling, like, telling us who you work best with because we’re about to, like, get ready to learn from you. That might just be my opinion. Curious to hear what others say.

And I think there also might be some some work to do around, like, smoothing out the part where, like, I can tell that there’s, a part in the beginning where you were talking about, like, who you’ve worked with and that it wasn’t, like, exactly, like, who you’ve worked with isn’t exactly who you want to work with or something like that. And I I don’t necessarily have a good solution, but there was something Yeah. About that that sounded a bit tentative and sent sent a little bit of a signal that, like, you don’t do this all the time kind of thing. Again, might have just been my my opinion.

And I just felt like maybe it raised a little bit of an objection that I didn’t necessarily have. Like, I kind of assumed that you’re the expert, and then it was like, oh, wait. Like, now she’s telling me that she hasn’t worked with with those, with companies like mine or something like that that I don’t have an elegant solution for you yet.

And, two more quick things. One was along with what Abby said, I think that you could dive a little bit deeper into, like, what the problems are. You said something about, like, this you know, paying for space in my CRM. I could be wrong because I don’t know this audience or I don’t know this problem all that well, but, like, I feel like maybe that’s not the biggest manifestation of the problem is, like, they’re not really worried about space in their CRM. They’re worried about, like, getting more money.

And I agree with Abby that having some specific percentages around open rates and click rates, like, rather than just letting it feel like being left to their sub subjective opinion of how they’re doing. I think it can be really helpful to give me some percentages. Like, I think people love benchmarks and knowing, like, where they stand in comparison to other people.

On the reviews part of convert, I felt like that would be a good opportunity to bring in some data because there definitely is data to support the point that you’re making that people look at reviews. So if you had something where you could be, like, you know, x percent of people, say that the of b to b buyers, you know, say that they consult reviews before, making purchase decisions. Something like that could back that claim up.

And I think you could also get a little bit more granular there. Like you said, like, three, you’re kind of, like, yellow.

I feel like there’s a big difference between, like, someone who’s, like, three point nine, rated and someone who’s, like, four point six, or even, like, four point two and four point six. So I feel like you might be able to get a little bit more granular there, and I think that would make me feel like you’re more of an expert if you do, like like, to the to the tenth.

Like, what what signals, good versus bad. But, yeah, I think that’s about it for me. Hope that’s helpful.

Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Todd, you had your hand up and then you put it down. So down?

Yep. I’m here.

Sure I’m here. Can everyone hear me? Because I had to restart. Cool. Yeah. Just didn’t wanna clutter it too much.

Mine are basically what everyone else just said. Pretty much the triangle was cut off. I’m really happy that the red, buzzed pink because I am colorblind.

So I was like, oh, okay.

The only thing for me really, there’s a lot of information.

So, again, everyone’s on on point. The only thing I would say, and it’s just because I come from a PR thing, is, to spell out certain words like daily active users, I think, weekly active users, maybe, time to sale. Just because they’re looking at so much information, if they can see it spelled out, it’s a quick reference for them.

And I think as well, I would say, I think you mentioned I don’t know your current situation at one point for clients, and I you you do, though. You’re the expert. So you do know their situation. You have been in that spot.

I would just maybe, if you want, you know, use a use I always call it pays off. Just maybe agitate it. You know? If you’re like some of my clients and give them a quick solution and agitate it, that’s the only thing.

I would say it was it was great. And I’ll be honest, everyone everyone says slow down here, but we are trying to bolt through this workshop. So I think that’s a given. But, yeah, if you can keep it in your mind just to keep your speech just kinda level throughout.

Also, I wanted to say though, great energy. That was really, really good energy. You had you came in with a smile. You came in with a pen and note, and you just kept great energy throughout.

So that was that’s basically it for me. So good job. Well done, Rena.

Thanks, Todd. Claire?

Yeah. I have two notes. The first one was on the product reviews.

I am not I’ve never worked with a company that has had less than four stars.

So I but I have worked with plenty of companies. We’ve had very few reviews and trouble getting reviews.

So I wonder if that’s also not a good signal of, like, review help, to maybe talk about is something that’s more universal. But, again, I don’t know your specific ICP or personas, so that might be useful. They’re showing me the support tickets.

I have haven’t seen people write into support angry. That’s not an emotion I’ve, like, heard of, but they do write in very confused and overwhelmed.

Also, I worry that your CMO doesn’t care that much about support and their outcomes, but is more, like, I guess, self centered. Like, if they can be the hero, great. But it’s not like a priority for them to remove all of support’s messages.

But if you tie supports like, if you tie that overwhelm and confusion of support, through to the time to sale, or time to value as you as you well did, like, in a more I wanna say in a stronger way, that could be really powerful.

Because support reviews are kind of emotional things for for people to fail at.

Awesome. Perfect. Thanks, Katie.

Hey, Marina. I thought you did a really great job.

Like Todd said, really appreciated your energy and, yeah, just like the comfort that you brought to talking about all of this. Like, props for doing it, some slides. The only thing so I agree with a lot of the feedback you’ve already gotten. The only thing that I found that nobody’s mentioned so far was just at the end. You said if your team doesn’t have capacity, and I feel like that can’t be the only thing that their team doesn’t have. Like, it’s, you know, strategy, vision, you know, and capacity, like, on top of that. So just, like, sure capacity is part of the equation, but not obviously not the only thing that they’re lacking.

Yeah. Thanks, Katie.

Agreed. I think one of the I think we’re out of everybody giving feedback, so I’ll jump in with mine. In addition to what everybody has said, yeah, definitely do check when you share your screen. Just make sure, because nobody will tell you. Like, none of us told you. Right? Because we’re all trying to not interrupt you.

So, yeah, double check. Never hurts.

Okay. You’re selling email, but where but but there was, like, very little push on how awesome email is for businesses.

So, for me, I feel like you you really quickly glossed over anything you had done with Bitly.

Spend some time there. Like, you’ve rewritten countless emails in their life cycle, series.

You’ve mapped a customer journey. You have seen that people get lost. Lots of leads get lost, and there’s real expense there. And yet all I really heard was, like like, twelve seconds max about Bitly and QR code generator.

What? Like, that’s anybody in that audience finds this a sexy topic. So you’re allowed to nerd out and spend some time here. So, like, spend time on that. Bring it back to money. Bring it back to how they’re spending money on bringing people into their flow, trying to attract trial users, and then they’re just sitting there. So have an opinion, and make it all about money because the right people will be sitting in the audience going like, shit.

Yeah. And that’s what you want instead of, oh, yeah. She seems nice.

Like, that’s not the point.

Yeah.

Right? Exactly. Abby’s message there. So you are minimizing the stuff that you need to really emphasize, And when you don’t emphasize it, the other parts land wrong because we haven’t heard that you’re an authority yet, and we haven’t got on side with you yet.

So when you say it’s twenty thousand dollars to start and then five thousand a month, we drop off. Right? Like, what are you talking about? What do you even do?

And because you don’t have slides, it’s very hard to go along with that. Right? Like, it’s hard to keep up, so you need if you’re not sharing a visual, you have to really talk through everything.

Like, make it clear, still have energy. And then there’s times when you just do want to share, I mean, you’re not slides. So I was looking up this thing, and this is I’ve talked a bit about how I’m gonna reward myself with this training at some point.

It’s not open right now. Let me just share this with you in chat.

You know, use the Stream Deck and a few other things. And, so you don’t have to show slides on the screen, but you can pop up things on your screen, and I want you to play with that.

Not necessarily take this, but just, like, follow inside the show and start looking at some of the things that they do. Because with a Stream Deck and a little plugin for Zoom, you can, like, hit a button and the Bitly logo pops up next to you. Right? So there are cool things you can do just like that.

You can pull in a testimonial and flash it on the screen from somebody. So it doesn’t have to be a slide deck, but unless you’re going to take a lot of time really driving things home, you need something on the screen. I also think you need, to show me some emails. Like, here are some examples of emails that I’ve written.

Just really ground me in as a member of your audience and, like, oh, okay. Okay. When she talks about this kind of email, here’s what she means.

So okay. Couple more things. Take a few breaks for breath.

Set more things up upfront too. Just like, if you have your water here with you, that’s great. We’re gonna settle in for twenty five minutes. We’re gonna do some drawing. I’m not gonna share a lot of slides.

Make sure you stop for water. I’m gonna stop every so often. Just, like, set that up up front, and then you can stop.

And you can pretend you’re drinking water and just take a fucking breath. Like, just take a breath, but I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like.

Definitely need a promise up front. Dig into the pain. Set up the desire.

I have a few more notes that I can’t read here. I don’t understand on the triangle, what product review rating and support tickets will have to do with you doing the work later. So you’re gonna go through and make sure that support doesn’t get tickets.

You’re gonna do work to increase their product reviews, but you’re really just saying, no. No. Once you have active activated users, these things will all go up. But if if you’re not working on it and it’s on the model, that’s like a flag.

And if you ignore it, it’s gonna be it’s gonna continue to be like but it’s never gonna feel right for you and maybe even for them. So rethink the convert part. There’s no money showing anywhere on your model. Where at what point?

Like, I’m like, where’s the when do I get the money from them? Like, I want the money from them.

So I would think through that as well. But overall, I mean, I think it’s good. You just need to spend more time on things so we really, really get what you can do. And that also means you have to get what you can do. So go over the stuff that you’ve done in Bitly and QR code generator and, like, come up with your cheat sheet of awesome that you, like, need to remember, and it’ll help you.

Cool?

Everything else everybody else said agreed as well.

Oh, yeah. No. I won’t worry about that. But, yeah, I drew a dollar sign with, like, circles around it galore.

Like, where’s the money? Where’s the money? This is the path we’re able to make money. Help them see that.

Okay. That is all.

Thanks, Marina. Any notes or thoughts, Marina or Abby so far? Or, Abby, go ahead.

Can I just ask a quick question? So because I noticed when I did the diagnostic, I, like, wrote it out and then went and did the review, and then read and I just went straight into the view.

I was just wondering, like No.

Agreed. It was actually one of my bigger notes too. I’m not ready to diagnose as I’m going through. Agreed. First, draw the model, tell them about it, and then walk them through. Now we’re gonna diagnose where you’re at.

Yeah. Not as you go. I was I was actually I lost interest a little bit, because I didn’t know, like it doesn’t feel right. So and that could be just for me because I know how it’s supposed to be presented.

But, yeah, just so you know, just do it the way it’s taught. First, you die first, you document everything. Show them the thing so I can zoom out, see that there’s, like, a map of my life cycle right here. And then you can zoom into the parts and say, are you red, yellow, green here, and give your examples in there.

For example, you might be yellow if your numbers are this. Yeah. Totally agree. Thanks for bringing that up, Abby.

Okay.

Abby, Marina, how are you feeling?

Well, I’m glad I have not pitched anybody yet, and I’m thankful for all the feedback because it’s actually helpful Good.

Because I know what to do now. And I think it it is a confidence thing.

Mhmm. Like, as far as, like, pulling out and saying, oh, I’ve done this and that.

So I just need to You just need to write it down and look at it.

Put it on sticky notes all over the place then. Like, I know that might seem like gel.

Why not? If you need to build your confidence, build your confidence, like, actively. It doesn’t build itself.

No.

But I wanted to do this today so that I could get Oh, and you did great. Let me be very clear.

Feedback. Totally.

Because I was just trying to follow that form formula that you add, and I was like, okay. Are these actually my words? I’m like, I’m just gonna do the thing, and then I can review. So thank you everybody for all the feedback. Super helpful.

And just to be clear, these notes are, like sometimes the the formula just needs to be adjusted for you. There are things that I mentioned to Abby for Abby to change, and I’m sure she’s like, but, Joe, I took that from what you taught me. Then she’s like, I’m just not gonna say anything, but this is annoying.

But so just know, like, that’s why we’re doing it live. Not to say, did you follow it exactly, but cool. Was cool. Here’s how you can make it cooler.

Yeah. Cool. Abby, how are you doing?

Yeah. I’m glad I did it because I was like, okay. If I if I, like, book it Monday, then that means I’ll actually make the damn thing. So, yeah, I think, like, tomorrow, I’m gonna start doing pitching five people every day and just see what happens and work on my closing because I know that’s my my week there anyway.

Love it. Amazing.

Okay. So we’ll take three minutes. We’ll be back at twenty two after the hour when Claire will be our final presenter.

Alright? Three minutes. Thanks, everyone.

Oh, a little bit overtime there.

Okay. We are back. We’re here. Good stuff. Ready? Where’s Claire? Claire’s not here. Karen. Oh, there you are.

I just like to lost it in calculation.

Awesome. Okay. Claire, are you ready to go?

I am ready.

I’m gonna stop this all by saying I’m very nuts for some bizarre reason. I was so confident up until, like, well, seven o’clock, which is when this started.

Okay. Wicked. Well, I’m excited. So, tell us who your ICP is, who you’re targeting this toward, and then we’ll dive in.

Sure. My ICP is pretty similar to Marina’s. So it is b to b SaaS companies within the twenty five to fifty million range, so a little bit tighter.

They are either doing a freemium or a free trial, sort of setup at the moment. And I’m talking specifically to the CMO or director of growth, head of growth, that kind of person.

Cool.

Awesome.

Then okay.

Okay.

Today, I’m gonna talk about onboarding your free trial and premium users so that more of them stick around, log back in tomorrow and the next day and the next because the reality is that eighty percent of the users that you’ve worked really hard to get through the front door and to click start trial or sign up now, eighty percent of those users don’t come back tomorrow. They try your product once, give you twenty minutes, and that’s it. They’re out the door, and they are never coming back, unless you can win them back. And using email is a great way to do that.

So specifically using triggered emails, I’ll explain more about that later, but it’s stepping away from the concept of timed emails and dripping things out slowly but surely and more than focusing on sending more relevant, messages at the right time and right context.

So this is gonna be a great use of your time if you are a CMO or head of growth at a b two b SaaS company doing around twenty to fifty million dollars a year.

Companies have worked with me to get results like a thirty seven percent lift in product adoption that was with Invoice Simple.

And then Synthesia has also worked with me to sorry.

For messaging optimization.

And I’ve also partnered with Forget the Funnel and worked on over twenty start ups, onboarding flows to optimize for their growth and retention.

So if this I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve caught email or that the email channel might be useful to you.

But there are some things that you need to remember. First, people do read. Else, LinkedIn wouldn’t exist, and it wouldn’t send you those annoying yet effective notifications to check your feed.

Secondly, you do not have to guess at what to put in your email, and you don’t have to worry that you’re going too long or too short, you’re including too many pictures, no pictures at all. All that is something that you can definitively answer through optimization and testing.

And then just so you know, email is also a seven billion dollar industry at the moment. So it is, again, really clear that people do still check their email inboxes.

Inboxes. So this is gonna be great if you are looking to improve your user activation, free to pay conversion rate, and ultimately conversion, what I’m not gonna do is give you another template or the two minute secret to a sixty eight percent reduction in churn.

This is going to be a bit of a hands on workshop, so get a pen and paper ready while I continue talking.

What we’re gonna walk through today is something called the overpowered onboarding framework. Now if you haven’t heard about what overpowered means, it is a term used for superheroes, and it basically means a character or an object that is so powerful it makes the game easy.

So Superman would be a great example of an overpowered character, and this is going to be something that really makes the email channel easy. It’s gonna answer all the questions and make it simple for you to prioritize what to do next.

So it’s not gonna be a game changer for your acquisition, but rather a game changer for your activation.

Okay. Let me go ahead and share my screen, and we can get into it.

There we go.

Alrighty.

Can everyone see my screen?

Yes. Okay.

Alright. So first step is to draw a big old circle.

Don’t worry if your circle is not perfect. That would prove to you’re insane.

And then another circle on the inside.

Here, I’m gonna write down and say our goal for today is a thirty percent lift in free to paid paid. You’re wondering how much that’s worth if you have, say, ten thousand users who are, signing up and actually paying every month, and they’re on on average paying seventy nine or sixty nine dollars each, then a thirty percent lift is equivalent monthly lift is equivalent to just over two hundred thousand dollars worth of revenue. So it’s a pretty big difference that you could be getting very, very quickly.

One of the best things about onboarding people effectively is that that revenue actually stacks up because your retention naturally increases now that your users fully understand and realize the value that you’re giving them.

Next is to draw a nice Mercedes symbol because we are winners.

And I’m just gonna go ahead and label, so please label with me as we go. Up at the top, we have foundation.

This is what sets the tone for your entire onboarding flow and what is a great foundation.

Next up, we have conversation, which is where you start talking to your oh, talking and writing is difficult. Conversation, let’s just pretend I wrote that correctly.

Where you are, actually talking to your customers and convincing them that creating this great idea. And then finally, on the left, we have personalization.

Sorry, optimization.

Alright. We’re gonna go ahead and divide this diagram in hop again, just each section, a nice little line.

Up at the top, we have insight.

And down below, we have journey.

Next up, we have triggers, and then we have personalization.

Then we have tracking.

And finally, we have testing.

K. I’ll give you all a second to finish writing down.

If you have some colored pens nearby, please feel free to grab those. You can do red, for poor or not so great, orange for it’s kind of okay, and then green for everything is absolutely rosy. I’ll also give you some examples so you’ll know which one you want. If you don’t have colored pens nearby, feel free to do a star system. Just one, two, three stars, three for excellent, one for so good, and two for okay.

Alright. We’re changing over.

Okay. Scientists.

When you are struggling to understand your customers, that means that ultimately what you’re struggling to do is connect your what with your why.

So insight predominantly consists of customer interviews, customer surveys. You could even do some social listening.

You could even do some analysis of your heat maps, basically understanding what people are doing.

You could keep recording and analyzing your demo calls or your sales calls. All of that stuff gives you insight into who you’re talking to, what they value, and what they care about most. So if you’re currently doing one or more of those and you are, actually analyzing it with a regular occurrence, then you can go ahead and give yourself a green. If you are recording things, but maybe not finding the time to analyze them because you’ve got a million other things on your plate, which is totally understandable, think of yourself in orange. And if you haven’t conducted any kind of customer research in the last six to twelve months, that would be a red.

Alright. Next up is journey.

So the customer journey is a very well known phenomenon at this point. It is, however you’re currently tracking it, what you need to hit on for your onboarding is to understand at what points your customer is seeing value. So if you have a customer journey map that walks someone that walks you through exactly where your users are seeing value when they sign up, fantastic.

Give yourself a green. If you’re not so sure and you’re kind of implementing a bit of guesswork, chances are that guesswork is gonna bleed over into the rest of the circle. Right? You’re gonna stop making more and more educated guesses, and they’re gonna start getting less and less educated and more and more guessy.

So give yourself an orange there, that’s something to look at. And if you are not sure about your customer journey at all, you’ve maybe undergone a lot of changes recently, a lot of product updates, If you saw a red, that’s something to prioritize.

Onto triggers.

So historically, we’ve all we’re all very familiar with sending out timed emails. Right? Those are the direct emails sent to you. Maybe you get eight, when you sign up to a new product.

The thing with timed emails is that their quality degrades exceptionally quickly. So sorry. Not quality, but their their metrics. So the open rate, the click through rate, how many people even look at them in their inbox. So if you’re sending more than three emails in a in a row to someone without any kind of interaction from them, so you’re not triggering any, chain reaction in your in your email marketing system, then that would be a red.

If you are sending, emails that are email chains or sequences that are for emails or less, so maybe you’ve only got one welcome sequence and it’s for emails. That’s great. That’s an orange.

If you are sending triggered emails, so you’re tracking your product, you’re tracking your product.

Usage. Sorry about that. You’re tracking your product usage, seeing what features they’re using, what what they’re actually onboarding onto. Maybe if you have multiple products within your within your software suite, then you could trigger emails based on how they sign up to things and and play around. You could also be triggering Winmax, when someone doesn’t hit a certain, beat of of your customer journey, that would be a green.

Next up, personalization.

So it’s very easy to generalize an email and very easy to say something very generic. Right? And the problem of saying things that are generic is that they’re specific to absolutely nobody.

For example, let’s say you are and this is a situation that I ran into with a client the other day. Right? They are serving lots of different types of businesses with lots of different types of use cases. Now the triggers are all the same, but the context is slightly different because these businesses are different types of businesses. We have a food truck or a nail salon.

So instead of saying businesses for every email here, how is how are things going in your business? We say, how are things going in your food truck? How are things going at your nail salon? It’s much more specific, much more personalized.

And that kind of attention to detail is what gets your open rates higher, your click through rates higher.

So if you are personalizing the if you’re personalizing your emails, then you can go ahead and, give yourself a green for segmenting by use case. Right? So if you’re separating people out into use cases like I just described, it could be yourself agree.

If you are not doing anything beyond maybe the name that’s getting personalized in every email and perhaps you’re also doing a trial date in every email, then you can go ahead and give yourself an orange. You’re on the way.

If you’re not doing anything at all, give yourself a red.

Alright. Onto tracking. Now most people are tracking the free to pay conversion rate.

That’s pretty common and pretty easy to do. Some people are also tracking the product adoption rate. Now if you haven’t bumped into that term yet, it’s another fun acronym. You know, marketers love them.

But the product adoption rate or PAI is what we use to tell if someone has truly adopted the software. Doesn’t mean that they’re paying for it yet, but they’ve adopted it. So, for example, Slack only considers someone debated, if they hit the product adoption indicator of getting sort of sending two thousand messages. Right? Anything less, they are not considered activated.

So are you tracking your free to page? Are you tracking your, product adoption indicator? If so, great. You are currently in orange. To take you to green, you will need to be tracking a few more details, something like the engagement rate, how often people are logging back into your software, how long they’re taking to get to various stages of their customer journey, and then as well as their time to value. Right? How long does it take for them to create ultimately?

K. So hopefully that was clear to you all.

Next up is testing.

Testing is really where the magic happens. Right?

So if you are not currently testing, then you’re probably really struggling with the guesswork that’s started over at Journey.

If you if you haven’t really looked at your welcome email in six to twelve months, Your new newest user who signed up, like, three seconds ago has just read it. Right?

Testing means that you can continuously maintain and optimize your results. And if you don’t test, the thing that will happen is that your, your metrics will just slowly decline. It’s like a slow gradual hill of sadness. And at the end of that sadness hill is, unfortunately, the sandbox, which is exceptionally difficult to get out of.

So in testing, you are doing a great job if you are currently checking on your open rate and click through rates every and deliverability every month.

You are also possibly, making some hypotheses about your customers, testing those up, disproving them, or approving them.

If you’re not doing that, but you are checking on things monthly just to see how things are going, or maybe, you have pretty regular product updates, which means that you’re going to be checking.

It means you’re gonna be updating your emails fairly regularly with new screenshots or new messaging, then that’s great. Give yourself a orange. If you’re not doing any testing at all, then you’d be a red.

So this is the onboarding to, the show about onboarding framework.

And it’s great. It’s a circle because you are going to start way back at inside once you’ve gone all the way around and keep going around, keep optimizing, and keep improving with time. And that ultimately is what makes that thirty percent lift a recurring lift rather than just a one sole win.

Alright.

So I haven’t practiced the closing very much.

In true honesty so let me just get my notes. Alright. By this point, you shall know, should know what’s getting in your way the most. Right? It’s very easy to get overwhelmed with a hundred different things, grabbing your focus. And the last thing you wanna do is walk into your next boardroom meeting and give your presentation and watch your CEO kinda glaze over in confusion as you go over the numbers in immaculate detail.

So now you know where to put your focus. You know how to explain what’s going wrong, what’s going right, and how you’re gonna improve it. If that’s something that you need help with or that you’d like to outsource, then you are welcome to book a call with me. I will pop it kindly into a spreadsheet slideshow later on for you to go ahead and click on.

And I’ve lost my track completely. I’m very sorry, but thank you.

Thanks, Claire.

Alright. Okay. Notes for Claire. Who’s up first?

Yeah.

I’ll I’ll I’ll go.

Yeah. Claire, I thought that was that was really good. Like, you’re so funny. I really wanna get coffee with you.

And we can work on our, like, shy girl energy together.

But yeah. No. It was really engaging. That was really fun. I took quite a few, like, notes or just bits I really like. Like, I love the overpowered onboarding framework. And if you do use that tool that Joe said when you, like, describe Superman, if you have a Superman come up, I just love that so much.

There was a bit when you’re talking about insights and you’re talking insights. Sorry. You’re talking about the customer research that you could do. You say you could do this. I kinda wanna be told, like, what I should do, not what I could do.

And then when you’re talking about personalization, like, that just felt like a really good place for a case study to just when you’re saying about specificity, if you could just say I did this for so and so.

And I thought the fact that it’s a circle is brilliant, like, the ongoing going round and round. Like, really, really like that. So, yeah, it it was good. And if you do wanna, like, work on the clothes together, because I just I just get so shy when, like, I’d be happy to do that.

Oh, and just another thing as well, like, because you seem to get a lot more confident as you went on. Like, that’s why I always use a slide deck at the beginning because it just I don’t know. It just makes me feel which, you know, maybe I need to go over that this well. But, yeah, just a tip if if you, like, need something at the beginning to yeah.

But, anyway, I thought it was really good.

That’s so helpful. Thank you. I have a quick question. I don’t just okay.

I went back and forth between personalizing personalization and segmentation for emails and ultimately decided that personalization is very different to segmentation, obviously, and that if different segments are identified in the insights area or the customer journey area, that those should have their own circle. So it’s like other circles for other for other, segments.

Does that track with everyone, or is that sounding fairly confusing and counterintuitive?

So you’re saying so you’re saying this is the core model, and then you’d have a separate one for the personalization part of the model. Like, let’s dig into that, and here’s what that looks like? No.

Like like a big circle is, like, the main say that’s their main identified job to be done. They know very clearly who they’re targeting, But they have all these little satellite ones to the side, which on that important.

Our first engagement would be focusing on the main one. But in future, if they realize that one of their satellites is actually a bit bigger than they thought, we could do the same thing for that one, but it would be a whole new process.

Yeah.

So I don’t know if I’ll I can’t answer that, but what I can say is each one of these sections you have is likely to have its own thing that you would draw. So insights, As you dig in and you’re working with the client more and more, then you’ll do you’ll help their team get up to speed on what you mean by how to tell if we’re doing insight right. So you’ll have a new model that’s, like, breaking down insight, and that might be speaking to, like, the satellite thing that you’re talking to.

But I wouldn’t I wouldn’t draw a satellite in here. I wouldn’t say anything more about these other parts. I might just call it personalization and segmentation just for the sake of, like, simplicity here with your audience.

But don’t I wouldn’t have more stuff going off the side.

You’ve also, like, the circle is in segments, so you could even say, like, the sec you know, segmentation is part of it.

That’s That’s cute.

Little orange segments. Cute. Awesome. Okay. Any other notes for Claire? Katie?

Hey, Claire. Just like kudos for putting yourself out there and doing it. I thought you did really well.

Okay. So things I thought were great. I love when you said, like, how much that’s worth and have that concrete number of, like like, we’re talking about a thirty percent lift, but here’s the what that would be worth to you. I thought that was a great way of bringing the money in.

And I’m sure, like yeah. I don’t know, not much about your client history, but I’m sure that there is room to bring in other case studies. But I did like how you had the food truck versus hair salon example just to give me something concrete, to work with when you’re talking about the personalization.

I also like the example with Slack. Like, Slack doesn’t consider, was it product adoption metric reached until two thousand messages?

So one thing I thought you could work on was, and I’m just looking at myself. Like, I don’t think I have actually had any other, like, changes. But I wrote the drama that moment that you talked about, like, your you have looked in your onboarding emails for six months, but the person who just signed up looked at them a few minutes ago.

I just felt like that’s such a good moment, and I felt like it needed a little bit more build up to really hammer home, like, what kind of, you know, how we, like, build up that moment of high attention. Like, why does that matter?

What is that worst case scenario? Like, what are the implications of that, versus just, like, locating me in that moment, but not really, like, having me realize why it has been important for me to inhabit from that moment. Does that make sense? So, like okay.

So I’m thinking about that. I’m like, oh, shit. Yeah. Who knows if I have, like, COVID references in my in my onboarding emails or something?

But if that new user looks at it, what is what is that irrelevant is going to cost me, basically.

Yeah. And then so I just wonder I have a question mark if that if where you at it was the best place for that or if building that moment up more towards the end could be a great segue into your pitch of, like, this is your worst case scenario.

Don’t have that. Hire me. So maybe moving that from where you had it, I believe you had that within testing.

I wasn’t really clear on its relevance to testing. I saw it as more of, like, keeping your onboarding fresh and, you know, optimized.

So for me, it just felt like it should have been pulled out of testing and then use more as that pivot into your closed.

Does that make sense?

That makes total sense. Yeah. So I pull it out of the pull it out of the circle and use it for the close?

Use it to the pivot. Yeah.

That’s so helpful. Thank you. Because I have no idea how to transition. That’s kinda where I went like, oh, crap. It’s done. What?

Do you know?

That’s really helpful. Thank you.

Perfect. Thanks, Katie. Marina.

Hey, Claire.

You’ve got so many gems in there, and I was like, oh, that’s how you could say that. Oh, that’s how you could say that. But I had to listen so carefully because they were sort of hidden in just, like, I think a little bit of, like, vocal variety or, change in speed of saying things or, like, varying the energy so that, like, you’ve got a ton of good things in there. And I was like, oh, that’s really cool.

That if they just, like I know you’re nervous. I get it. You’re probably probably throwing up too.

Maybe I’m projecting. But, anyway I don’t know.

But but it would totally then it would be like these little zingers, And then you’ve got, like, this wicked under, like, quiet sense of humor that then it would bring that out too. And so then I I don’t know. I just think you’ve got a lot of good things going in there. And it’s kind of like, maybe just think about it as taking a highlighter mentally and go going, okay. I need to highlight these bits and, like, really, like, come out a bit more instead of ending, like, with your kind of, like, a question.

Right? And just Yeah. Yeah. This is me telling you. So this like, I’m try I I’m not one to talk.

But seeing it in yours, I was like, oh, okay. She could totally if you’re just, like, pushing this one little bit and pushing this one little bit. And I can’t remember all the things because I was, like, listening and going, oh, that’s how you can include something without it coming across seeming like, you were bragging on yourself, but it didn’t come across as like, oh, I’m so great, and I did this in a bad way. It came across as like, oh, she knows what she’s she’s talking about.

But then just, like, zing it out a little bit more so I don’t have to, like, listen for it quite so deeply, if that makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I I I’m really grateful for that feedback. It’s so specifically helpful.

Sun Sinic actually has a new course I’m presenting, which I’m desperate to do.

Yeah. He’s so convincing.

Yes.

Anyway, nice nice work. Obviously, lots of work has gone into it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks, Marina. Todd.

Yeah. Mine is pretty quick, Claire. And I could be wrong. It might not be relevant, but I believe you spoke to email as a seven billion dollar industry.

And, you know, I will kinda just look at Joe for this one. In ten x emails, you speak to for every, know, every dollar you spend on email marketing, and the average return is, like, forty four dollars and twenty five cents or something. So maybe it could be a setup for ADA as you move them through. Like, did you know if you do this, you get this back?

And let them know, like, there’s not just we’re not just selling your service, but you should expect a return on what you’re getting kind of idea and just set them up. Like, you’re the expert again in it and just like, yeah. Come with me, and this is not a cost. This is an investment kind of idea and just really set it up because you’ve talked to such a big number.

But if you can bring that back and just put that in their in their court and let them know, like, we’re expensive for a reason kind of idea, but I’m not sure if that’s relevant or not.

Love that. Agreed. I think there were a few number of points in there that needed more, like, push on. That’s one of them. Your line eighty percent don’t come back. I wrote down and circled like, damn, that’s terrifying.

Eighty percent don’t come back.

So there are a lot of moments there. I was like, if you need calculators, you need, like, to show what that adds up to, how much you spent only to have them vanish. Like, no wonder marketing looks flat.

You early on, you picked a fight sort of with blast emails, but then it wasn’t until you were getting to the trigger part of the model that you really dug into why, like, a broadcast or blast email isn’t as good as a triggered one. I would have liked you to pick a fight with it earlier and then just continue the fight when you get to triggers.

So, like, bring me into the problem with blast or broadcast emails, which the vast majority of these people are doing.

So why they should stop doing that.

What else have we got?

You said it’s a game changer for activation, but not for acquisition. And I didn’t know why you bring up acquisition at all, just, like, focus on activation when you were talking about the overpowered onboarding framework. You’re like, this is a game changer for activation.

It is not for act for acquisition. It’s like, shush. Shush. Don’t talk about acquisition. No. No. That’s not actually activating.

I’ve got a great diagram if we have, like, a few minutes afterwards that I wanted to quickly If it shows up on the slide, then that’s one thing.

But I’m like, I don’t know if you’ve read straight line selling. I’m talking about it a lot these days, the Jordan Belfort book. But, it’s it’s what he would call Pluto.

So it’s too far out. Don’t bring come back. Come back. Let’s not talk about that part.

I also thought that you could okay. Two things and we’ll wrap up.

You did get more confident as you went. I totally noticed that. The more you practice, the more the parts are, like, second nature to you, the better and more engaging the whole thing is. And I know you hadn’t practiced the clothes or things like that, so that’s fair.

But just know that if it ever feels like, is it even worth it? The more you practice it, the you’ll it’ll be a natural thing. You are funny, and you’re friendly and likable. There’s a lot of good stuff there, but now we just gotta nail your delivery.

Like, that’s it. Just practice a bunch of times.

The thirty percent lift in the middle, I’d love to see you pause, and I think you’ll do that more as you get more chill with, like, presenting like this.

What’s nice about, like, Abby’s five k in the middle is it’s a number that I want. I want that number. Thirty seven thirty percent lift is not yet a number. It’s just like this wonder like, this great idea.

I would love you to be able to before you even draw your model, to put them through a very simple calculation, and just say, like, look. Don’t worry. We’re not using this for, like, the wrong purposes. Just set up just put context around it, but what you want is them to have a number to put in the middle of the circle.

So if you can help them do the calculation of what a thirty percent lift would look like and then extrapolate that, like, maybe say, okay. Now annual. Like, just figure it out how you can get that number in the middle to look really compelling. Like, oh, I could make eight thousand dollars a day, and I’m currently making four dollars a day.

That sounds awesome. Thanks.

But if you can do the calculation now, I’m, like, very keen on this instead of thirty percent lift.

My final note here is I’m not in love with some of the word choices across the model.

Foundation threw me because it was up high, and I want a foundation to be down low.

So I’m like, no. That’s a sky up there. I’m very literal.

But I thought that you could do a, like, a SaaS sweep.

Now that you’ve got these six parts in place with their three labels, go back through and make it feel what words can you use? Because right now, what we have for foundation conversation optimization, insights, journey, triggers, personalization, tracking, and testing, that’s all like, a course creator could follow the same thing, and an ecommerce business could follow the same thing. Right?

Lower journey might be replaced with funnel if you were really getting into it for, like, a specific course creator group. So to me, it felt too generic still. It feels like, good. You’ve got this, like, poor model in place. Now let’s SaaSify it. Now that twenty five to fifty million dollar group, what words will feel better?

Foundation doesn’t feel right.

Conversation might.

Optimization does, I think. But then inside of that, insight, I want you to work on that word.

Journey is good. Triggers are good. You already know you’re gonna work on personalization and segmentation and figure that out. Tracking and testing, can you do something that feels more if you know these people are using intercom, for example, intercom e language.

So, like and that’s your job. Just sweep through it and see if you can make it sound more sassy so I can see myself. Sassy this sassy, not Stacy’s sassy. But so I can see myself as a SaaS founder or marketer or whatever when I look at this model.

Does that make sense?

Just a little more pointed on your word choice.

Okay. That’s super helpful because I I like I’ve taken it way back. Do you know how how long it took to get like three shuns?

Sorry.

What did you say?

Three shuns. Three, like, activation. What is it? Conversation, foundation.

Oh, the shuns. Foundation. Oh, I see.

Yeah. But I can find a new shuns. I’ve done it now.

Find a new shuns. There are more shuns.

Yeah. K. Cool.

I’m a new shin.

Awesome. Good. How are you feeling, Claire?

Great. Great. Yeah. I’m really really excited to actually do this well.

Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got a really good starting point here. And, oh, Todd.

Nice job. Nice way to finish the meeting.

You’ve got great case studies too. Oh, one other note, the over twenty startups with, on the or onboarding flows with Forget the Funnel. I don’t know that you have to say it with Forget the Funnel because I’m just gonna go look up Forget the Funnel. So just say, like, twenty more onboarding flows. Like, wow. It’s a lot of onboarding flows.

Yeah. Nobody’s listening anymore because there’s a puppy in the room. So, we’re just gonna go look at the puppy now. But good job, Claire and Marina and Abby. Thank you. Well done, everybody. And thanks for giving your notes as well and tuning in to help your fellow to help your peers out here.

Good. Alright.

So next month kicks off a whole new month for, Coffee School Pro. We’ll be posting about that very soon.

Cool. Awesome. And, Todd, you have to tell us about this puppy. What’s going on here?

Sorry. We she’s a week and two days old, and we’re renovating the house. We’re actually getting a podcast studio ready for me in the basement, and, she sleeps at my feet. She’s on her little bed.

And, yeah, she’s she’s a great little dog. She’s learning quickly. And she’s just been at my feet all things, so I you might see me looking down. I’ve been trying to avoid it, but she just woke up.

So yeah. And she’s licking me like crazy.

So She is. But she’s got those little shark teeth too.

Yeah. She’s got little pearls as Tina said.

Oh my gosh. What’s her name?

Patty. Patty. Patty. Patty. The patty.

Yeah. Patty? Yeah. It’s a yeah. It’s a new dog for us. So, yeah, she’s she’s a great dog.

So Oh. Try and sorry if I interrupted everyone.

It’s just It’s end of meeting.

I’m amazed you were able to hold off this whole time.

Oh, it’s tough. You have no idea when she’s at my feet and she’s, like, nudging me with a bone, and then she’s nudging me with a toy, then another toy, and then she’s out cold and looking at her. So, yeah.

Oh, so cute.

So cute. Well, I saw your two as well.

So Oh, yes.

They just came in from Yeah.

Playing out at the lake.

Yeah. We’ll do it. Tina was the first one to meet her, I believe, as well. Uh-huh. So yeah.

Patty. Yeah. Super cute.

Patty is welcome to the crew.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

Okay. Thanks, y’all. Thanks so much. Well done, everybody. If you haven’t worked on your workshop, go do it.

And if you have, keep practicing. Thanks, everybody. Bye.

Thank you.

Worksheet

Practicing and pitching your workshop

Transcript

Hey. Hey. Alright. Workshop day. Y’all ready? Yes?

Of course.

Good.

I’m excited. This is gonna be a lot.

We’ve got three p doing this a lot. I don’t know what’s going on with my brain.

My fingers never match what the number is that I say. So three. There. I had to think about it. We have three of you going today, and I know it just hit start time. So we’re just gonna let some people come on in.

Abby, you’re going. Marina, you’re going. And I think Claire is our third, and we’ll, go in that order.

Is that exciting? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Good.

Alright. We’ll let some people file in. How are you all feeling about your present your workshops?

I don’t know why, but I’m, like like, nervous about giving it.

Really? Yeah. I was like, I don’t know why.

They’re just, like, my friends. I can agree. I was saying to my partner, but I’m, like, really nervous.

It’s so much worse when you know the people.

It’s so much worse.

Is that what it is? Maybe.

Yes. Totally.

Three thousand strangers, easy compared to three people you know very well. Like, no. Thanks. I don’t need this. I’m good. I’ll do something else with my life.

Well, also these people, they know what it’s supposed to be. So what if you totally miss the boat?

I guess that’s true. Yeah. That’s fair. That’s fair.

Alright. Thanks everybody who’s attending today and not presenting.

We’re going to be attending as people in that person’s ideal audience. So, Abby, Marina, and when Claire gets here, if the three of you can please just let us know basically who your ICP is and the persona that you believe would be watching this, and we can do our best to sit in those shoes. And, otherwise, we’ll just, like, give other feedback as well.

So that’s our job for everybody who is filing in again.

Yeah. Really simply, we are here to watch and give feedback on three workshops. And if you’re working on your own work workshop, which you should be, it’s a great chance for you to do to see to see. So you can also learn like, oh, wow.

I loved that. Or, oh, okay. That’s gonna be a confusing part. It was confusing for their audience.

It’s probably confusing for mine. I didn’t think of it that way, etcetera, etcetera. So a caught not taught kind of workshop day. It is two hours, because we have three groups, three people going.

Each gets about thirty minutes, then we’ll have about five minutes of discussion time, which could turn into ten, which is why we have two hours blocked out. Thank you for this endurance approach. It’s not a sprint, today. So are we ready?

We’re gonna go Abby, then Marina, and then Claire, if any of you surprised.

And you’re like, wait. What? I’m going today? Yeah. That’s the sign up list I got.

So so, hopefully, that’s right. Going in that order, Abby, then Marina, then Claire. Are we ready? Or does everybody know why we’re here and what we’re doing?

Any confusion?

No? I wouldn’t think so. Alright. We are recording.

Let’s get cracking. If you’re not presenting, please go on mute and do your best to stay on camera if possible so that the presenter can see our faces and not feel like they’re talking to an empty room or people who are busy doing other things. Okay. Thanks.

Abby, take it away.

Cool. Okay. So, my ICP is a course creator, so you’re probably doing about three to four million. You wanna be doing ten million.

But at the moment, you’re just completely stuck with a live lodge roller coaster. You’re getting burned out because every time you live lodge, it just takes out of you, and you just cannot get Evergreen to work, and you don’t know why.

Okay. So can everybody, like, see my screen?

Okay. Cool. Right.

Okay. So this workshop is called how to make five thousand dollars a day with a mid ticket evergreen course.

So I’m Abby. I’m the founder of AT Content and the creator and author of day one evergreen, the only funnel that’s built to convert better every month.

I help course creators add one point eight million a year in revenue, which is five thousand dollars a day, without the nail biting stress of live launches. I’ve worked with hundreds of course creators. I’ve worked on evergreen funnels for Amy Porterfield, Becca Klein, Jel Sid, Coffeehackers, Ingrid Ana, Fast Needs a QBO, and some other names that you might recognize.

So you’re in the right place if you have a mid ticket offer between three hundred and two thousand dollars that you’d love to scale to five thousand dollars a day on Evergreen. The reason I say these amounts is just what I found is when it’s over two thousand, it tends to just take a little bit more nurturing. So the idea of this funnel is that you bring people onto your email list and you sell to them straight away.

So you’re already doing at least a million with your online course, but you really wanna scale with to ten million without relying on the nail biting trust of live launches.

And you’re already using paid advertising to sell your online course. So this isn’t a requirement.

So, generally, to to reach five thousand dollars a day, depending on how much your course is, you wanna be getting at least a hundred, maybe two hundred people into a funnel every day. If you can do this with organic marketing, awesome. Great.

But likely, you’re gonna be using some kind of paid advertising.

So a quick case study.

So one of my clients is Fast and Easy QBI. So back in January, they launched a brand new course with an email list of ten thousand, and we made six hundred thousand dollars. Their sales that month outpaced all of their sales in twenty twenty three. We straightaway took that launch funnel evergreen and made seventy six thousand dollars in month one, keeping in mind that they’d already pretty much exhausted that email list because we literally just live launched.

And then we continue to optimize.

And now in July, they’ve got a six point eight cent conversion rate with a three dollar cost per lead. So for a twelve hundred dollar course, they’re they’ve got a pretty good ROAS there, and they’re making five thousand dollars a day with they on Evergreen.

A few more case studies, which you can get in my book.

So one of my clients, Eric Petrus, he came to me because he he was selling guitar guitar repair course.

I worked on his evergreen sales page, and we tripled his weekly sales. At Harmusch, I wrote his evergreen sales page three years ago. Amazingly, he’s still using the same copy, and it’s converting at thirteen percent. He’s making hundreds of thousands of dollars from that. Becca Klein, I increased her final conversions by a hundred and fifty percent.

Jove said two hundred and forty percent increase in webinar sales.

This was actually for a live launch, but the coffee converted so well. She took Evergreen and actually tripled her course price.

And Fast and Easy QBO, another course I’ve worked on for them is a membership, and we’ve seen a forty percent increase in membership sign ups since setting up day one evergreen.

Okay. So to address the eye roll here, these aren’t friends or colleagues. These are course creators that have come to me to evergreen their funnels. This isn’t another just add a countdown timer, just set up deadline funnel, and it’s gonna convert. This is unique system designed to collect ongoing data via a ten point customer feedback loop so you can legitimately improve your conversions without ripping a funnel apart every month.

So deal with evergreen, the funnel that’s built to convert best every month. So now you can stop relying on unpredictable live launches that burn you and your team out or the unpredictability of them as well. I mean, live launches are fun and exciting when they go well, but, also, if you’re putting you’re counting on one live launch to generate your full year’s revenue. And one link doesn’t work, and then you potentially lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So this is to just build a bit more peace into your business. It’s not to say never live lodge, but just to have that one point eight million as well.

Without lining Zuckerberg’s pockets, while barely breaking even on your ad spend, so maybe we’re already running ads to your evergreen course, and it’s kind of converting. But, actually, after you paid your ad spend, you’re not making enough money. Like, yes, you’re getting those leads, but you’re then having to go back to live launching to sell to sell to them.

And without hiring expert after expert in the hope that someone can fix your evergreen funnel problem. And then again, just linking back to live launches because it just doesn’t work.

Okay. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do a little slice together. So I’d love you to just grab a notebook and pen.

Okay. So what I want you to do is in the middle of your page is to just draw a circle and write in there five thousand dollars. So that’s that’s what we’re going for here, five thousand dollars a day. And then I will need to draw four leaves.

Make them quite big so you’ve got room to write in them. I guess these are kind of kind of looking like petals here. So you should have what looks like a little flower.

And then in the first, leaf, I want you to write attract.

In the second leaf, I want you to write engage.

And the third, convert.

And then the fourth, optimize.

Okay. So the first thing you’re gonna wanna do, if you if you want to be making sales every day, you need to be bringing people into your funnel, and you need to attract the right leads. So we’re gonna be using Facebook ads to do that.

Then the second thing we need is an attraction device. So you need a way to bring these people into your funnel and instantly engage them. So this is like you’re gonna be an opt in page with a workshop.

And then you need a lead monitor. So you need some way of actually seeing, okay, are these good leads as the reason that my funnel isn’t converting because my sales messaging is awful. Am I just bringing in low quality leads?

Okay. And then we have engaged. So you need an irresistible offer.

We’re gonna be talking in a minute about deeper into what these all mean and how to assess, whether you’ve got it set up or not, and then mindset shift.

So rather than doing a traditional how to workshop, you’re gonna do a workshop that’s built out of mindset shifts the audience needs to, go through in order to be ready to buy your course.

And then, oh, sticky story. Sorry.

Brain brain fart.

So because this is you are bringing people in and selling to them straight away, it’s really important you build know, like, and trust here. So this isn’t just like putting a shit’s creep gif in your emails and being like, hey. I have a personality. Like, you wanna build these really sticky stories that, like, win them over to your world and make them feel ready to to buy from you.

Okay. And then we’ve got combat. So we want an easy yes pitch. So at the end of your webinar, you’re gonna pitch your offer, and it’s gonna make it very easy for them to say yes.

And then you’ve got a million dollar sales page. So this isn’t your typical templated sales page. This is a long form sales page that addresses any objections they have that by the time they get to the ends of it, they’re not gonna have any further questions about your course.

And then conversion emails. So, again, not just your generic sales emails, emails that are written to convert.

And then finally, we have optimize.

So data tracking.

Are you tracking your data across the whole funnel?

And then we have your customer feedback loop. So that’s your ten point customer feedback loop, which includes forms and surveys, AB tests to gain as much information about your customer as possible.

And then finally, we have conversion hotspots, which is where you want to implement your customer feedback to have the biggest impact on your conversions.

Okay. So you should have something that looks a bit like this. Maybe a little bit neater. Mine’s a bit. My handwriting’s still great.

And now we’re gonna go through and we’re gonna write where you are for each of these sections. So if you’re feeling really confident, you’ve got it set up, it’s all converting beautifully, you’re gonna give yourself a ten.

If you have it set up but conversions aren’t quite where they should be or you just feel like it could be better, you can give yourself a five. And if it’s not set up or it’s not converting at all, you’re gonna give yourself a zero.

Okay. So the first thing we’ve got is your Facebook ads.

So in order for to hit five thousand thousand dollars a day, your ads need to be profitable. So if you are your current ad spend is ten to twenty dollars a day and you have a five hundred dollar course, you’re just literally flushing away that money and not and not seeing any return on your ad spend. So we wanna ideally get your lead down to around five dollars, five to ten dollars.

And it’s also it’s not just about the cost per lead, but having someone on your team who’s gonna address seasonal changes, who’s gonna keep updating that so that what works in winter can then be made to work in summer. You’re not you’re refreshing the ads, so they can continue to go back, and you’re not just flushing that money away.

And then you want your attraction device. So your opt in page to your workshop. So, ideally, your opt in page conversion rate should be around forty to sixty percent.

You also want to make sure that people are then watching your webinar. So if people aren’t even clicking to watch your on demand webinar, then the chances are that it’s just not desirable enough. So if you have an issue there with people not watching, it might just be that your opt in page isn’t selling it hard enough. And then lead monitor.

So you’re gonna have a thank you page survey embedded after people sign up for your webinar, and this is gonna determine what drove them to to sign up. It’s gonna tell you whether these are good leads. So you might find that lots of people going in there are like, oh, I just wanna make more money or some other kind of quick win, and then this is a sign that actually those leads aren’t the ones that you want in there. You want ones that are ready to buy, they’re ready to invest, and understand that it’s it’s a long term game.

You also wanna be doing very strategic AB testing on your opt in page. So rather than just testing to see if you can get your conversion rate up a little bit, actually looking at the bottom of your funnel and seeing, okay. Is this one bringing in the leads that actually convert?

So, again, if you don’t have that set up, it’s gonna be a zero. If you have some of it set up at five, and if you’re really confident that you know what’s going on with your leads and who’s converting, then you’re gonna be self a ten.

Okay. And then going on to engage. So your irresistible offer.

Do is this something that people will, like, crawl through broken glass to get? Do you have a great offer that’s converted before? And is it converting with Evergreen? So it might be that it converts pretty well when it’s like you live launch, but on evergreen, maybe you don’t have the right kind of urgency set up. Do you have that authentic scarcity that gives people a reason to act now rather than later.

And then mindset shifts. So your workshop, is it built out of the mindset shifts that people need to go through to go from where they are now to where they need to be to say yes to your course, or are you just doing how to content that isn’t actually converting them?

And then sticky stories. So, again, building in that relatability stories that really stick. And you can the way you can tell this is are people staying to the end of your webinar? Are people sticking around? Are they opening your emails? Are they engaging with your offer? And if they’re not, then the chances are you need to just go back and build in more of that storytelling and more of yourself so that people can buy into that.

Okay. And then we’ve got Converse. We’ve got the easiest pitch.

So this is at the end of your webinar. Are you not just are you are you reading through your modules and your bonuses, or are you constantly making sure that you’re connecting the modules and the bonuses to what’s going on in their life at the moment, explaining to them how how it’s gonna improve their life, how it’s gonna aid the transformation that you’re promising. And, again, the way you can measure this is are people sticking around to the end of your webinar, or are they dropping off?

Your million dollar sales page, is this, is it converting? Is is the the first thing to think about? Are you converting at five to eight percent, which is what you should be getting with an evergreen webinar funnel like this?

Is it templated? Are you pulling out generic pain points, or are you have you got your customer research and you’re reading their mind and you’re empathizing with them deeply? You’re as they’re reading through, they’re thinking, oh my god. Yes. This person gets me. Important on an evergreen sales page because again, these people don’t know you. They haven’t been on your list for months and months and months.

So it’s even more important that you show them you understand where they are and that they can trust you to guide to guide them.

And then finally, conversion emails. Again, emails are rich in voice of customer that are addressing different objections objections that are coming up in your customer feedback loop, which we’ll talk about in a second.

Are people opening them? Are people clicking through? Is your click through rate for each email above two percent?

Okay. And finally, optimize. So data tracking. Are you tracking every point of your funnel, and do you understand how it all ties together? So your cost per lead, your click through rate on your ads, your opt in page conversions, how the amount of people that show up for your webinar, and the amount of time they spend on your webinar, your sales pitch, your versions, your open rates for emails, your click through rates. Are you measuring all that, and are you measuring it month monthly and looking at how things are changing each month?

Your customer feedback loop. Do you have a ten point customer feedback loop built in? Do you have survey set up? Do you have opportunities for your customers to engage?

Are you finding out why people are converting versus not converting? Are you running strategic tests? All of these things will help you understand your audience better. So if anything’s not converting, you can use your data tracking to identify where and you know what to change around your messaging.

And this also applies to seasonal changes as well. For example, let’s say you have an outgoing copywriting course, that converted amazing in twenty twenty two. Then in January twenty twenty three, your conversion rates dropped and you don’t know why. If you had that customer feedback loop set up, you could say, oh, okay.

Because everyone’s freaking out about about AI, but I’m not addressing that in my messaging. So do you have these points set up so you understand what is getting in the way for your audience? And then finally, conversion hotspots. Once you’ve got that feedback, do you know where to put it?

Do you know where to put that the voice of customers so that you are having the biggest impact of your conversions and you’re not just constantly randomly rewriting, ripping pile funnels, start again, wasting all this time just hoping, praying that something’s gonna convert.

Okay. Cool.

Thanks. So you should hopefully have something that looks a little bit like this, maybe a bit less colorful unless you you’ve got your crayons. So now we’re you should be able to identify three to four points, for you to now go away and work on. So if your problem is that, okay, you are making some sales, but it’s just not profitable because all of your money is going to Facebook ads. You wanna go and you wanna look at your Facebook ads, you wanna work on your opt in page, see if you can get that conversion rate up, and maybe have a look at your offer. Is there room to put the price up a bit more so you’re more profitable? And then, of course, getting this customer feedback loop built in so you can see why people, why your leads are expensive, what what you can do to actually improve that.

Is your is it the case that your sales are inconsistent? Sometimes, some months are gray, other months are poor.

Again, you wanna build this customer feedback loop in so you can see what’s changing. You want someone working on your Facebook ads so that they can respond to these seasonal changes and then be going through these conversion hotspots through your funnel from the top to the bottom to optimize based on what it is that’s changing.

And if you’re not getting sales at all, then or you’re you’re just making a couple, like, nowhere near that five k that you want, then the chances are you need someone to come in and set up this day one evergreen funnel for you.

So if you do just have a couple of points here, then that’s awesome. Go away. Give give this to your team. Get my book for the to get the ten conversion, the the customer feedback loop.

If you’re thinking, okay. I just really love someone to just set this up for me, then my team has one space available per month. Not only will we set it up, but we’re also available to optimize. So it’ll be like having someone on your team that’s gonna review the customer feedback loop every month and then improve the funnel so that you your comp until your conversion’s where you want them to be, and then, again, respond if anything dips. So I’m gonna be dropping a link to book a call with me, come to that call with your drawing today ready, and, yeah, we’ll have a chat and see if we’re a good fit. Any questions?

Okay. That’s it.

Good job, Abby.

Alright.

Let’s share any notes. Who would like to go first to share feedback for Abby?

Otherwise, I’ll choose you. So put up Andrew’s first and then Claire.

Right.

Yeah. That was really good, Abby. Definitely lit some fire under my butt to to get my workshop going and hopefully get it as good as yours is.

I would say my number one point of feedback, would be to really slow down, a good bit. There were parts where you were going through it really fast, and it’s like, I could keep up with you because I kinda know a lot of this stuff. And what you’re talking about, you know, getting customer feedback or, like, conversion rates and sales pages that add address objections, I’m right there with you. But I feel like if I’m someone who is that’s not marketing is not my main thing, I would need you to go a lot slower so that I can understand what you’re talking about.

I wrote that down when you were going through the diagnostic at the mindset mindset shift. Like, I know what you’re talking about about we need to, like, shift people’s mindsets, but you kinda blew through it a little bit. So I think if you went, like, maybe, like, half the speed, that would probably help, a little bit.

And then in terms of, like, stuff that I really liked was when you’re going through the diagnostic, when you had things like the exit like, when you were doing the customer feedback loop, you had like, you used the example of, like, AI. You know? Oh, is my messaging not resonating anymore? Because everyone’s freaking out about AI, and we haven’t addressed that.

That specificity was helpful.

Same thing with the last one, the conversion hotspots of, like, asking questions. Like, okay. You’ve collected this feedback. Do you know where to put it, where to implement it?

I feel like that was helpful.

And I just wanted to check on in the beginning, would you could you say it was supposed to be three hundred to two thousand dollars, or was it higher than the other typo?

No. Yeah.

You might have a typo.

So Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Three hundred to two thousand.

Yeah. It goes to twenty thousand. I was like, oh, damn. That is a high ticket offer.

Nice. Okay. Yeah. No mid ticket. Thank you.

I didn’t notice that.

But, yeah, big biggest piece of advice would be just, yeah, slow down. Like, the content taught the content is really good, I thought.

So Thank you, Andre.

Her goal was so nice.

Claire.

My feedback is is really simple.

First, like, there were a few points where I really loved. You got, like, super specific. You just gave me an example, and I went like, oh, okay. I get what that is now. But you didn’t do it for all of them. So I some of them, I was like, okay. Following along.

But those super specific points were, like, really convincing, I suppose. And then same feedback on slowing down. I’ve gotten that feedback, like, a million times as well. Slow it down. Say less.

Say say things simpler as well. I think, my biggest piece of advice that I got from Cody was, sometimes they don’t understand what you’re saying because you’re overexplaining, which is, like, kind of the opposite of what you’re trying to do when you’re overexplaining.

So just by keeping it to, like, one, I suppose, big idea, per section, it makes it a lot easier to slow down and not catch yourself over explaining.

And then lastly, I really loved your presentation. I haven’t done a presentation at all. I hope that I’m instantly jealous.

But I really loved your presentation. I thought it was super cool to be able to follow along.

I think as you go, you’ll probably find you don’t say as much as you did just as you get, like, more comfortable with the content. But, the end was also really, really great. I love the Calendly visual. I just felt so like, okay. Today.

Yeah. I hate that.

Thank you. Helpful.

Anyone else wanna share some notes for Abby?

No?

Okay. I’ll share mine. Abby, I loved it. I thought you did a great job overall. The opening numbers and the promise right out of the gate, it’s like a super solid hook.

The case studies, well done. I do have a note that you’re talking a blue streak. That’s not what I wrote.

So can you ask questions earlier on? Like, have you experienced this too?

Something like that just to bring people in. I know when it’s recorded in advance, then that’s really, like, tricky, but even maybe slowing down could solve it there.

Okay. So early on, I have at ten o seven my time, which is probably about four minutes into the presentation.

I I would love you to say, hey. Yes. You can work with me and my team directly, and, like, just get ahead of that because I am definitely in your target market. And as somebody who would rather outsource this work, then try to get my team to do it ourselves.

Yeah. I was like, my question was immediately. Can we just hire you for this? So you could say, yeah.

You know, you can work with me directly. I’m gonna walk you through this because we only accept three clients a month. Also, I think you should say three clients a month, not one. So it sounds bigger, like a larger group.

You can only take on one. Then if you want, you can take out as many as you want to at that time, but I would open it up to three.

So then say, yes. You can work with me directly. I would also love, at that point, for you to say what your prices start at.

There’s no reason to not do that. Yeah. So give it a shot, and make it a nice high number.

You’re presenting really well, and you clearly know your stuff, and you have good case studies.

The only thing that would make a person think you should be less than fifty thousand dollars at minimum is you not saying fifty thousand dollars to start. So, like, if you don’t have a fifty thousand dollar budget, you’re not a good fit to work with you. You’re just not. So no. So fifty, sixty, whatever that number goes to, but say it. Even though it’s scary, this is what the whole point of this thing is, not just to get the leads you could otherwise close, but, like, new leads, more money. So I want you to do that.

You need more build up to the fact that you’re gonna be drawing today. So I would say earlier on, hey. By the way, just as we’re kicking off and while people are still filing in, you’ll need a piece of paper and a pen today. It’s not that’s not an art class. Don’t worry. But you’re gonna wanna draw something. I’m gonna show it to you.

I don’t understand the leaf the need for the leaf shape.

Because it’s evergreen.

So yeah.

Yeah.

I know. It’s really corny, but I just like No.

Because I I I had a design when it’s not in the green belt.

Leaves are seasonal.

Yeah. I don’t I just gave it to a sign designer. I was like, can you make this, like, not look like Joe’s?

From your from my side of things, I was drawing it, and I didn’t know what the lines off the leaves are meant to be.

So, like, when you have a triangle and you put those lines in there, the triangle is meaningless. As soon as you make something a shape, then everything on it needs to be part of that, like, metaphor.

And so if I’m thinking, okay, these are leaves, what are the three pokey things coming off the side then? So for me, like, I’m just it didn’t connect, and so I didn’t know why I was drawing three leaves. I didn’t know what was expected.

I know Andrew’s really trying to make it evergreen there.

Yeah. So just know that as your audience drawing it, I didn’t give myself enough room possibly because I wasn’t set up to know to draw this thing. The leaves felt like a artsy exercise that I couldn’t do, and it’s one more point of friction. Right? Like, did I draw a good leaf?

That’s just like come on. But I love starting with the circle in the middle. I love the four parts.

What I a couple notes.

When you’re going through, you’ve got, like, metrics and yes, no. I’m gonna look through and see if I can find a blank version of the scorecard that they gave us at their workshop, because you might wanna also follow this workshop up with shipping out that or bring the work and I’ll show it to you, and I’ll send you separate loom so you know what I’m talking about. Simply because what you’re talking about like, you’ve got numbers and how to tell if this is a yes or no. I didn’t love zero five ten either. I I think simplify it down to red, yellow, green.

It’s just like five zero ten.

I was copying it.

I know. I hate it. And I only do it because the sun doesn’t have, like, the sunshine growth model and zero like, the red, yellow, green doesn’t work on a sun. So that’s where it’s bad, like, where it falls apart from me.

But I don’t I know I know that’s what I do. I don’t like it, and so I wanna coach you to do it the easier way, which to me is red, yellow, green, or something really simple like that where there’s a three part thing. Okay.

Bum bum bum. Let me see. I took some good notes on, like, the actual content. Like, that was good. I have notes here for self.

Oh, when we get to oh, yeah. Million dollar sales page, I would love you to rename that for the purposes of this workshop simply because that’s the only thing that has million dollar or a price or, like, a, like, a outcome attached to it. So for me, I was like I mean, easy yes is another thing. Also, it sounded like you were saying easy ass to me. Just so you know, it came off as easy ass. And I was like, let me see what she writes down here.

So there’s that. But million dollar sales page, I would give it something else that sounds different just because I wrote, makes it sound like success is all on this.

Suddenly million dollar sales page had much heavier weighting than anything else, and I was thinking, do we just need a better sales page?

And that’s not the takeaway that you want.

Ta da. Couple more notes, then I’m done.

Oh, yeah. When we get to optimize, I felt like so you opened with data tracking. I needed a story there. Like because you say you can find places where there’s where money is basically hidden is effectively what you were saying there.

Like, you won’t know unless you’re tracking that. And you walked us through a bunch of great metrics, which was great. But then I was like, wouldn’t it be cool if at this point you were to say, for example, or whatever that QBO one was, we noticed x here, we optimized it, and we brought in another twenty thousand dollars in that in the next quarter or something like that. Right?

So I’m like, oh, damn. But then I was like, well, if you could do that.

It closely tied to the data tracking ties to conversion hots hotspots. Once you track data, then you know where to put it in these hotspots. Right? So I was confused about why the ten point thing was between the two.

So I wrote, what if for optimize, you first open with the ten point feedback loop, then you do data tracking, and then conversion hot hot spots, which would allow you to finish with a case study example. Like, oh, and when we did this and now we’re ending on a really high note. Money outcome. I remember why I want you to do this because although I can see that I’m red here, green there, yellow there, I know that I want you to do it if I remember that you you make money for people, which leads me to final notes.

We dropped the model pretty quickly.

What I would love is you spent a lot of time, I think, saying, like, if this is true for you, if that is true for you, etcetera, I had just finished with you should have have an idea of where your weaknesses are and what you should work on next. Don’t say give it to their team. You can imply that. You can say that earlier on.

Like, I’ll give you enough that you can go forward and do this yourself. But at this point, like, close them, and that’s really it. Like, now is the point where I’m like, I’ve seen that I’m really right in a lot of places. Those all seem expensive, and, like, I’m really gonna need to train my team on how to do those things.

So don’t say go give it to your team. Instead, you could say, I mean, the red parts, is your team ready to do those parts? Are they qualified to optimize all of those parts?

Don’t minimize what you do. You started talking using verbs like set up. I’ll set this up for you.

No. Like, you’re not setting it up. That’s even when you do, it’s just not a good verb. Like, we’re we’re we’re this for you as we’re watching.

Like, wow. She, like, knows her shit. She can do this. And then I was brought down to maybe your team can maybe you can buy the book.

Maybe I can set it up for you. You know? So, no. And then book a triage call with team. Don’t put yourself in your Calendly even if you have to make somebody up. Someone else is your setter.

So make sure it’s like you can book a call with so and so from my team, and then go from there. It just elevates your price again and again. Like, oh, damn. Just sales team.

Yep.

The workshop’s selling. It’s doing a great job. I think if you simplify the model, slow down a bit, you’re good.

Tell people. Yes. You can charge me. You you can hire me. It’s fifty thousand to start or whatever the price is. What is the price to start?

Thirty five. To start. That prices start at thirty five.

Right. And then you build on the retainer after that?

Well, I’m gonna I think I’m gonna say like, I’m gonna build in an obligate not not a retainer, but just like, I’m here if you like if things don’t work. Like, I’m on I’m here for forty days just to work with your team if anything’s not working, and then recommend, like, you should really do the three the retainer as well.

Well, you should because your model Andrew knows what’s coming. You know your model.

Your this optimized you’ve sold us on it. It’s in the freaking model. It’s right here. How am I gonna go forward and data track and update those conversion hotspots?

You sold us on a thing here.

Like, you have done the work.

Okay.

That’s all. You know what my take is here.

So, yeah, any other notes or thoughts from anybody else for Abby?

I I just wanna tack on to what you just said, Joe, about, like, making this goes back to that that post that I made a while back about not making your monthly retainer separate from the offer to just make it part of the whole thing from the beginning so that it’s just the natural next stage of your product. It’s not a separate thing.

I so agree with that.

Yeah. Totally. It’s it’s it’s built in. I I attended this both as me here for you, but also as a person who would hire you for this. And if I heard, oh, you don’t necessarily need me for that part. I’d be like like, what are you talking about? But who’s gonna handle my conversion hotspots?

Like, what?

What’s happening? Who’s gonna look over my survey data? What?

So, yeah, Andrew made a really great point. I don’t know if you’re being tentative about selling yourself because you’re in a room with us and maybe with strangers. You’d be, like, more on the nose about how awesome you are, but wherever you do this next, lay it on.

Yeah. Reason to. Okay? Please?

One other tiny thing too. You just said a couple a couple minutes ago, Abby, about I’ll be there in case something’s not working. Like, you don’t even wanna say in case something’s not working because don’t even put that in their mind. Just if you wanna reframe that even as to make sure everything goes smoothly. Mhmm.

Mhmm.

You know?

But don’t even put in the possibility that something might not be working.

Yeah.

Okay. Love it. Good? Thank you. Bye. That’s Abby, nice work.

That’s lots of noise. Very helpful. Thanks.

Awesome. Marina, you’re up. You ready?

Of course.

K. After just a heads up for everybody who’s like, I need a bio break.

After Marina’s talk and our feedback session, we’ll take, like, a five minute break and then come back for Claire’s. Okay?

Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Marina.

Alright.

Take it away.

Tell us who your ICP is and everybody upfront first, please.

Yes. So ICP, CMO, VP marketing, twenty to a hundred million, b two b SaaS, with a reverse trial. So they start with a trial and then go to a freemium kind of model.

So that is who you are.

Alright. Thank you for Sorry, Maureen.

I hate to interrupt you. What remind me just really quickly.

Persona.

Sorry. Just just again. How much the persona who are you talking to at that ICP, and how much do they bring in a year? ICP years?

So we are b to b SaaS brands that are twenty to a hundred million.

Twenty to a hundred million.

And I’m talking to CMO, VP marketing, head of Okay.

Perfect. Sorry. Thank you. I had a restaurant instead of pen. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. All good.

Alright. Today, we’re gonna talk about how you can get more of your free users to convert to paid plans. So for our session today, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Don’t worry.

Not an art class. As long as you can read the notes on your diagram when we’re done, you will be good to go. So we’re specifically going to be talking about using, action triggered emails, message met sales pages to get your free users to to upgrade to a paid plan. Now these are users that have gone through your trial.

They have not converted yet, and there they are. We want them to feel good about the upgrade so they leave you a good review.

Now the next twenty five minutes, they’re gonna be valuable to you if you are a CMO, head of growth, VP of marketing, if you’re a b to b SaaS brand that generates twenty to a hundred million in annual revenue, these types of brands are the ones I work best with. Companies like Bitly, QR code generator, where we’re continuing to increase conversions strategically, by rewriting and optimizing emails and so on. Now I’m not the first person to share big brand names with you. So let me clarify.

These brands are not filled with people I knew before I started working with them. I got this work because this is exactly the type of work I’m building my reputation around. Further, I don’t pretend to have the perfect solution for you right here and now. Your company is not built on templates or you wouldn’t be here right now.

I may have the solution for you, but I’m not gonna hand you like it’s not like a trick where I say, oh, let’s all of a sudden stop letting those nine hundred and ninety five out of every one thousand free users sit in that free plan, sucking support resources indefinitely while taking space in your CRM, space you pay for every month.

Instead, I’m gonna help you see where your challenges are, and you’re going to discover them today for yourself in today’s workshop. So if by the end of our twenty five minutes together, you believe that my team is the only one that can stop the bleeding, fix what’s broken, reshape your conversion program into a superhuman sales generator, then you’ll be invited to book a conversion consultation with my team.

If that call proves that we should work together, you’ll be invited to invest twenty thousand dollars for my team of trained experts to establish your free to paid post convert, post trial free to paid strategy, roll out that strategy, including getting all of the automation set up. You won’t have to do a thing with that. And then five thousand dollars a month thereafter to optimize it. Because as you know, if you set and forget, it’s just going to go downhill.

Now my team has room for two clients. We take on very few clients, so we can serve them extremely well, and we always serve them on an ongoing basis.

Because while what I do seems magical, it’s not a magic trick.

So now let’s see what’s happening with your post trial free to paid program.

We’re gonna use my diagnostic tool to see what’s holding you back from driving more of those free users into paid plans.

So get that piece of paper out, and I’m gonna get you to go ahead and draw a triangle right in the middle of your paper.

So draw a triangle right in the middle of your paper, and here we go.

So we’re going to have, something on this side. We’re gonna say activate.

Don’t worry if your penmanship is awful. It’s alright. As long as you can read it, you’re good to go.

And we’re gonna have a few things on that activate side.

Alright. As we go along, I’m gonna get you to write the things in as we go, and then we’re gonna see where are you at, red, yellow, or green. Red being like, never even thought about this. We don’t have this, or it’s just not performing well.

Yellow is things are just like status quo. They’re not going up or down. We can’t seem to budget. And green, is we are doing great.

Now as we go through, you might think, my goodness. I don’t know the numbers for this.

Or you might be like, oh, I had some of the numbers for the last board meeting. I don’t know where we’re at right this second. No worries. We’re looking for sort of rolling averages. What is the general trend? Because we can always go back and get specific numbers later.

So let’s start over here, and let’s talk about open rates.

So you’re sending your free users emails.

Are they opening them?

Red, yellow, or green, generally?

Are you like, yeah. I’m happy with my open rate. I think people are opening them. We have some pretty cool subject lines. It’s getting them to open them. You might think you’re green.

Great.

Moving along then, we move to click rates.

So once they’re open and they’re in that email, are they actually clicking on the button or clicking on the link? And I don’t mean clicking unsubscribe. I mean, are they clicking on the call to action that you have in that email so they can go and do the thing that you want them to do?

So if your click rates are, like, great. Give yourself a green. If they’re, like, sometimes people are clicking, but it’s not going up at all. Or maybe it’s, not looking good at all, and you’re like, we can get them to open, but they don’t do anything.

So I’m gonna put us a yellow here.

And just on your diagram, put whatever it is that you think for your company.

Now the next thing we’re gonna think about as we are activating because these users, they might have gone through that free trial already. They may have opened things. They may not have opened things, but we know that they didn’t actually understand the value. Otherwise, they would be using or they would have converted to paid. They would have done something.

So now we have this time to value. Do you have your post trial, user journey map mapped out so that those users that went through that trial didn’t really get to value? How are you getting them to value post trial? Because they are there sitting in your free plan. Are they getting to value?

Now if that if you’re like, I don’t even have a map, we send out a few post, trial emails, and that’s it. Probably sitting at red there.

If you have thought about it, have a few things, you might be yellow. And if you’re like, oh, we’ve mapped out the whole process. We know how we can get them to, that value. Great. You’re green.

Now I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you might be red on that because if we would have had people already experiencing that value, we might not be talking.

Alright. So now this next side of the triangle of our conversion triangle, we’re gonna call it sticky.

How can we get these free users to actually use the product? So we might have them. Maybe we can get them opening, those emails.

K? We’re gonna it’s this progression. Maybe we can get them opening the email. Maybe we can get them clicking. Maybe we can get them to value, but can we get them to stay? Let’s see.

Because if they’re not gonna stay for the freed, they’re definitely not gonna a free plan, they’re definitely not gonna stay for the paid. So over here, we want them to commit to something.

So, they’re committed to something, and this could be maybe, you have as part of your, features that they can invite a team member, and maybe they can do still do that on a free plan. So if they’ve invited a team member, great. Perhaps they are uploading data In order to use your software, appropriately, they need to input data. And if they’re doing that, it shows that they’re somewhat committed. They’re invested in that. Or if they’re including it as part of their tech stack, maybe there’s some integration. They’re starting to integrate that.

So we wanna know, are they committed? And maybe you’re like, you know, some of people are doing this, but it’s not really it’s not really increasing.

Give yourself a yellow. If nobody’s really, taking advantage of it, give yourself a red. And if you’ve got lots of people integrating already, give yourself a green.

Alright.

Next up.

If they are doing that, then we need to look at daily active users or weekly active users. So this is dependent on, what your software is. Do people need to be in there every day? Do they set something up, look at it once a week? What is the process? So for your, software situation, think about how people are, how often people are in, the app doing something.

If they are increasingly doing things in app, give yourself a green. If it’s staying the same, yellow. And if it’s kinda tanking, give it a red. So you might be yellow here.

Alright.

Again, I don’t know your current situation. If we have a chat later on, if you decide to book a call with the team, we can dig into this more at that point.

Now the next thing on this sticky side is we have increased feature usage.

So if they have invited a team, great. If they’re in the app more often, great. They came to your app to solve a problem.

They’ve got your software. They because they think, hey. Your software is the answer to this problem.

If over here, we finally got them some value, they’re like, okay. Yes. I can do this thing.

Now in order for them to stick, we want them to expand that expand the number of your, features that they are using. So they’re using the thing they came for, and they have confidence in that. And now they’re like, I wonder what else we can do. Because as we expand this feature usage, that’s where we can start selling things in the plan. Like, oh, you want the plan because you can also do this other thing.

So, in general, are users using more features? Give yourself a green, staying the same yellow, and kinda decreasing, give it a red.

So you might think, okay. Well, I’m kinda yellow on that on that sticky side. Alright.

And, again, it’s kind of this progression.

Now we come to convert.

So here we are at the bottom, and we have looked at all these things. Now we can finally talk about conversion and what are some other things that are going to be influencing conversion. So now we’ve got them in the product. They have some value, and we’re like, great. They’re ready to convert.

And then we look, and we’re like, oh, but are they?

Let’s look at support tickets. Now you might think, oh, I don’t know. I’m not in there talking about support tickets all the time. I don’t know.

Do we have lots? Do we? K. If you have not heard about the number of support tickets your team is, processing, you’re probably good.

But if you’ve heard a lot of stuff and people are complaining and going like, can you do something about this? Like, our, we can’t handle the volume of support tickets. Like, it’s too much. If that’s the case, we’re looking at red.

If you’ve heard sort of murmurings, maybe it’s yellow. Yellow with the mind of, oh, we need to do something about this. Because if we have lots of support tickets and I don’t mean the support tickets that are asking simple questions. I mean, they’re angry about things because they don’t understand the product.

And so you think, why are they asking us about these things? It’s because look back to this first side, this activate side, we’re obviously not getting them the information they need so that they can see the value. Because once people start seeing the value, we’re gonna have a whole different kind of support ticket coming in. It might just be a simple question rather than a rage against the product.

Alright. The next thing, product reviews, and the review rating.

Now this is something that a quick search of Trustpilot, Capterra, g two, that’s gonna get you your star rating.

And what is it? Maybe think about the last time you looked. What was it? If it was under three, give yourself a red. If it was a three, give yourself a yellow. And four and five, give yourself a green.

We live in a society that people don’t buy stuff without looking for reviews. Think about it. When was the last time you bought something without googling to see a review?

Even simple things. Now think about this. They’re buying this for their business to help them increase their business. Of course, they’re gonna be looking at reviews.

Now, unfortunately, people leave for reviews if they don’t understand the product and don’t think they got value from it. So if we solve the things earlier on, we can get this up. So perhaps right now, you’re thinking, my reviews are not that great.

Don’t worry. It’s something we can do something about.

It is a solvable problem.

And this last thing on the conversion is this time to sale.

Is the time to sale so they finish the trial. They didn’t convert the during the trial. So now you’ve got them on this post trial, road map. You want to get them to that sale.

Perhaps they just needed more time. They didn’t have time to read the emails earlier. Whatever the case, they didn’t get there. Now you’re going to take them on that journey to get to the sale.

Is that time to sale decreasing? So as you look at the number of of users converting in a in a specific time frame, is that number going up, down, or staying the same?

And you might say, you know, it’s just staying the same. We can’t seem to increase the number of conversions in that time frame, meaning you’re having trouble decreasing that, time to sale.

So now at this point, you probably got a pretty good idea of what is happening. There should be no question into your in your mind of what’s getting in the way of you or your team increasing those post trial free to paid conversions.

We talked about perhaps time to value was too long. Users didn’t get there.

Maybe you didn’t have that customer journey mapped out. Maybe there was no plan. Whatever the case, perhaps they finally get to value, but they’re only doing the one thing. They’re not increasing the number of features that they’re using. They’re not exploring those, which means they’re going to sit in that free plan comfortably, sucking your resources forever because they don’t feel the need to, move on to a paid plan.

Perhaps your support tickets through the roof. Angry users feel misinformed, and, research shows that angry users tell nine to fifteen people about their bad experience.

Good experiences, people tell maybe six people.

So what is your customer experience, and can we change that, so that more people are telling about their good experience?

Alright. Here, we’ve gone through this whole conversion triangle in order you know what needs to be happening next.

Some of you, you might think, oh, great. I know what I need to work on.

Maybe share it with your team and they think, oh, yeah. We have capacity to do this. But I’m guessing since you’re here, that might not be the case.

It’s a lot of legwork.

So if you take this away, you think, yes. I don’t wanna leave money on the table. There are huge, possibilities and, for wins on the horizon, you can decide to book a call with my team.

Others are wondering, hey. How can I be one of these two brands that you work with next?

And we say I’m honored to consider, to be considered and say I’m sorry, though, that if we find we cannot work together, I can’t help all the brands that reach out to me. But I can give you a private link to book a call with my team, step one of three. So after you book, after you book, you will have the opportunity to answer three questions.

If you don’t complete the form, I’ll have to cancel the conversion consultation. If, however, you complete the form and my team assesses that we’re unlikely to be a good fit, we’ll have to cancel. But in all other cases, we will proceed with that call. Now bring your drawing from this session to our call because we’re going to use it to create a plan to work towards your goals, using our strategic solutions. So go ahead and start with scheduling your conversion consultation, complete the form, and then be ready to have a candid conversation with me.

Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks, Marina. Notes. Who would like to start? Abby. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. First of all, like, well done for doing it without a slide deck. I feel like it’s a lot to remember, and you just did it really calmly. You didn’t even stumble at all.

So that’s really cool. I have, like, some very specific notes. No. I’m not trying to be, like, nitpicky.

I just found it really helpful when I got specific notes. So Oh, please do. Yeah. I really like the superhuman sales generator.

I thought that was very cool. When you were talking about the optimization, you said about setting and forgetting it, like, and this is a note I’m gonna I’ve made for me as well. I’d love to hear, like, more, like, what because you just said it will go downhill. I could love to hear a bit of drama there, like, the worst case scenario if you don’t optimize.

When you were going through the diagnostic, it was quite high up. So where everybody is, I couldn’t actually see the top. So, like, it’s nice.

Like, we just the very, very top. So I just like to, yeah, make sure it’s lower down.

When you’re going through the activate, like, the open rates, click rates, I would have quite liked benchmarks. Like, I know it’s it’s always difficult with benchmarks because, like, everybody’s a different. But when you’re just saying, like, oh, if you’re getting, like, some some opens, it’s kinda I think a bit of specificity there would have been helpful.

And then yeah. Like, I guess, like, a bigger note with the I didn’t feel like there was, like, a very big clear promise. Like, it was kind of increasing the activations, but I’d love, like, something just a bit, like, sexier.

Like, a bit more like, really kind of selling that promise.

And then, like, this might just be a a meeting, but the with the three sections, you’ve got activate, sticky, and convert. Like, for my brain, I just love, like, three verbs. Like, the sticky just kind of like, even if it was just sticky, it just felt a little out of place for me.

And then when you were talking about support tickets, I loved that research point you gave that just really, like, build my confidence in you. I think just sharing those things really makes you seem like an expert.

But then you connected it to activate, instead of convert. And, like, I guess I can I can understand why it’s in the convert a bit, but I would like like you to kind of lay that out a bit? Like, this is why it has to do with conversions.

And then, yeah, just a really stupid thing, like, the traffic lights because you your your red was pink.

Like, I just because you said red, yellow, green. Like, I wanted to see red, yellow, green. But yeah. No. I thought it was really awesome. And like I said, it’s just, like, very impressive to me that you managed to remember all that without any slides or anything.

Thanks, Abby. Andrew?

Yeah. Cool. Just, great job, Marina.

Just a couple quick fire rapid fire thoughts. I thought that maybe, there might have been, like, compared to Abby with talking about, like, this kind of sales pitch part of it, there might have been a little bit of, like, an overcorrection that might have just been for me. But, like, there’s something you said in the beginning about, like, talking about, like, who you work best best with. And it for whatever reason, it felt to me, like, maybe a little bit too early, to to bring that piece in about telling, like, telling us who you work best with because we’re about to, like, get ready to learn from you. That might just be my opinion. Curious to hear what others say.

And I think there also might be some some work to do around, like, smoothing out the part where, like, I can tell that there’s, a part in the beginning where you were talking about, like, who you’ve worked with and that it wasn’t, like, exactly, like, who you’ve worked with isn’t exactly who you want to work with or something like that. And I I don’t necessarily have a good solution, but there was something Yeah. About that that sounded a bit tentative and sent sent a little bit of a signal that, like, you don’t do this all the time kind of thing. Again, might have just been my my opinion.

And I just felt like maybe it raised a little bit of an objection that I didn’t necessarily have. Like, I kind of assumed that you’re the expert, and then it was like, oh, wait. Like, now she’s telling me that she hasn’t worked with with those, with companies like mine or something like that that I don’t have an elegant solution for you yet.

And, two more quick things. One was along with what Abby said, I think that you could dive a little bit deeper into, like, what the problems are. You said something about, like, this you know, paying for space in my CRM. I could be wrong because I don’t know this audience or I don’t know this problem all that well, but, like, I feel like maybe that’s not the biggest manifestation of the problem is, like, they’re not really worried about space in their CRM. They’re worried about, like, getting more money.

And I agree with Abby that having some specific percentages around open rates and click rates, like, rather than just letting it feel like being left to their sub subjective opinion of how they’re doing. I think it can be really helpful to give me some percentages. Like, I think people love benchmarks and knowing, like, where they stand in comparison to other people.

On the reviews part of convert, I felt like that would be a good opportunity to bring in some data because there definitely is data to support the point that you’re making that people look at reviews. So if you had something where you could be, like, you know, x percent of people, say that the of b to b buyers, you know, say that they consult reviews before, making purchase decisions. Something like that could back that claim up.

And I think you could also get a little bit more granular there. Like you said, like, three, you’re kind of, like, yellow.

I feel like there’s a big difference between, like, someone who’s, like, three point nine, rated and someone who’s, like, four point six, or even, like, four point two and four point six. So I feel like you might be able to get a little bit more granular there, and I think that would make me feel like you’re more of an expert if you do, like like, to the to the tenth.

Like, what what signals, good versus bad. But, yeah, I think that’s about it for me. Hope that’s helpful.

Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Todd, you had your hand up and then you put it down. So down?

Yep. I’m here.

Sure I’m here. Can everyone hear me? Because I had to restart. Cool. Yeah. Just didn’t wanna clutter it too much.

Mine are basically what everyone else just said. Pretty much the triangle was cut off. I’m really happy that the red, buzzed pink because I am colorblind.

So I was like, oh, okay.

The only thing for me really, there’s a lot of information.

So, again, everyone’s on on point. The only thing I would say, and it’s just because I come from a PR thing, is, to spell out certain words like daily active users, I think, weekly active users, maybe, time to sale. Just because they’re looking at so much information, if they can see it spelled out, it’s a quick reference for them.

And I think as well, I would say, I think you mentioned I don’t know your current situation at one point for clients, and I you you do, though. You’re the expert. So you do know their situation. You have been in that spot.

I would just maybe, if you want, you know, use a use I always call it pays off. Just maybe agitate it. You know? If you’re like some of my clients and give them a quick solution and agitate it, that’s the only thing.

I would say it was it was great. And I’ll be honest, everyone everyone says slow down here, but we are trying to bolt through this workshop. So I think that’s a given. But, yeah, if you can keep it in your mind just to keep your speech just kinda level throughout.

Also, I wanted to say though, great energy. That was really, really good energy. You had you came in with a smile. You came in with a pen and note, and you just kept great energy throughout.

So that was that’s basically it for me. So good job. Well done, Rena.

Thanks, Todd. Claire?

Yeah. I have two notes. The first one was on the product reviews.

I am not I’ve never worked with a company that has had less than four stars.

So I but I have worked with plenty of companies. We’ve had very few reviews and trouble getting reviews.

So I wonder if that’s also not a good signal of, like, review help, to maybe talk about is something that’s more universal. But, again, I don’t know your specific ICP or personas, so that might be useful. They’re showing me the support tickets.

I have haven’t seen people write into support angry. That’s not an emotion I’ve, like, heard of, but they do write in very confused and overwhelmed.

Also, I worry that your CMO doesn’t care that much about support and their outcomes, but is more, like, I guess, self centered. Like, if they can be the hero, great. But it’s not like a priority for them to remove all of support’s messages.

But if you tie supports like, if you tie that overwhelm and confusion of support, through to the time to sale, or time to value as you as you well did, like, in a more I wanna say in a stronger way, that could be really powerful.

Because support reviews are kind of emotional things for for people to fail at.

Awesome. Perfect. Thanks, Katie.

Hey, Marina. I thought you did a really great job.

Like Todd said, really appreciated your energy and, yeah, just like the comfort that you brought to talking about all of this. Like, props for doing it, some slides. The only thing so I agree with a lot of the feedback you’ve already gotten. The only thing that I found that nobody’s mentioned so far was just at the end. You said if your team doesn’t have capacity, and I feel like that can’t be the only thing that their team doesn’t have. Like, it’s, you know, strategy, vision, you know, and capacity, like, on top of that. So just, like, sure capacity is part of the equation, but not obviously not the only thing that they’re lacking.

Yeah. Thanks, Katie.

Agreed. I think one of the I think we’re out of everybody giving feedback, so I’ll jump in with mine. In addition to what everybody has said, yeah, definitely do check when you share your screen. Just make sure, because nobody will tell you. Like, none of us told you. Right? Because we’re all trying to not interrupt you.

So, yeah, double check. Never hurts.

Okay. You’re selling email, but where but but there was, like, very little push on how awesome email is for businesses.

So, for me, I feel like you you really quickly glossed over anything you had done with Bitly.

Spend some time there. Like, you’ve rewritten countless emails in their life cycle, series.

You’ve mapped a customer journey. You have seen that people get lost. Lots of leads get lost, and there’s real expense there. And yet all I really heard was, like like, twelve seconds max about Bitly and QR code generator.

What? Like, that’s anybody in that audience finds this a sexy topic. So you’re allowed to nerd out and spend some time here. So, like, spend time on that. Bring it back to money. Bring it back to how they’re spending money on bringing people into their flow, trying to attract trial users, and then they’re just sitting there. So have an opinion, and make it all about money because the right people will be sitting in the audience going like, shit.

Yeah. And that’s what you want instead of, oh, yeah. She seems nice.

Like, that’s not the point.

Yeah.

Right? Exactly. Abby’s message there. So you are minimizing the stuff that you need to really emphasize, And when you don’t emphasize it, the other parts land wrong because we haven’t heard that you’re an authority yet, and we haven’t got on side with you yet.

So when you say it’s twenty thousand dollars to start and then five thousand a month, we drop off. Right? Like, what are you talking about? What do you even do?

And because you don’t have slides, it’s very hard to go along with that. Right? Like, it’s hard to keep up, so you need if you’re not sharing a visual, you have to really talk through everything.

Like, make it clear, still have energy. And then there’s times when you just do want to share, I mean, you’re not slides. So I was looking up this thing, and this is I’ve talked a bit about how I’m gonna reward myself with this training at some point.

It’s not open right now. Let me just share this with you in chat.

You know, use the Stream Deck and a few other things. And, so you don’t have to show slides on the screen, but you can pop up things on your screen, and I want you to play with that.

Not necessarily take this, but just, like, follow inside the show and start looking at some of the things that they do. Because with a Stream Deck and a little plugin for Zoom, you can, like, hit a button and the Bitly logo pops up next to you. Right? So there are cool things you can do just like that.

You can pull in a testimonial and flash it on the screen from somebody. So it doesn’t have to be a slide deck, but unless you’re going to take a lot of time really driving things home, you need something on the screen. I also think you need, to show me some emails. Like, here are some examples of emails that I’ve written.

Just really ground me in as a member of your audience and, like, oh, okay. Okay. When she talks about this kind of email, here’s what she means.

So okay. Couple more things. Take a few breaks for breath.

Set more things up upfront too. Just like, if you have your water here with you, that’s great. We’re gonna settle in for twenty five minutes. We’re gonna do some drawing. I’m not gonna share a lot of slides.

Make sure you stop for water. I’m gonna stop every so often. Just, like, set that up up front, and then you can stop.

And you can pretend you’re drinking water and just take a fucking breath. Like, just take a breath, but I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like.

Definitely need a promise up front. Dig into the pain. Set up the desire.

I have a few more notes that I can’t read here. I don’t understand on the triangle, what product review rating and support tickets will have to do with you doing the work later. So you’re gonna go through and make sure that support doesn’t get tickets.

You’re gonna do work to increase their product reviews, but you’re really just saying, no. No. Once you have active activated users, these things will all go up. But if if you’re not working on it and it’s on the model, that’s like a flag.

And if you ignore it, it’s gonna be it’s gonna continue to be like but it’s never gonna feel right for you and maybe even for them. So rethink the convert part. There’s no money showing anywhere on your model. Where at what point?

Like, I’m like, where’s the when do I get the money from them? Like, I want the money from them.

So I would think through that as well. But overall, I mean, I think it’s good. You just need to spend more time on things so we really, really get what you can do. And that also means you have to get what you can do. So go over the stuff that you’ve done in Bitly and QR code generator and, like, come up with your cheat sheet of awesome that you, like, need to remember, and it’ll help you.

Cool?

Everything else everybody else said agreed as well.

Oh, yeah. No. I won’t worry about that. But, yeah, I drew a dollar sign with, like, circles around it galore.

Like, where’s the money? Where’s the money? This is the path we’re able to make money. Help them see that.

Okay. That is all.

Thanks, Marina. Any notes or thoughts, Marina or Abby so far? Or, Abby, go ahead.

Can I just ask a quick question? So because I noticed when I did the diagnostic, I, like, wrote it out and then went and did the review, and then read and I just went straight into the view.

I was just wondering, like No.

Agreed. It was actually one of my bigger notes too. I’m not ready to diagnose as I’m going through. Agreed. First, draw the model, tell them about it, and then walk them through. Now we’re gonna diagnose where you’re at.

Yeah. Not as you go. I was I was actually I lost interest a little bit, because I didn’t know, like it doesn’t feel right. So and that could be just for me because I know how it’s supposed to be presented.

But, yeah, just so you know, just do it the way it’s taught. First, you die first, you document everything. Show them the thing so I can zoom out, see that there’s, like, a map of my life cycle right here. And then you can zoom into the parts and say, are you red, yellow, green here, and give your examples in there.

For example, you might be yellow if your numbers are this. Yeah. Totally agree. Thanks for bringing that up, Abby.

Okay.

Abby, Marina, how are you feeling?

Well, I’m glad I have not pitched anybody yet, and I’m thankful for all the feedback because it’s actually helpful Good.

Because I know what to do now. And I think it it is a confidence thing.

Mhmm. Like, as far as, like, pulling out and saying, oh, I’ve done this and that.

So I just need to You just need to write it down and look at it.

Put it on sticky notes all over the place then. Like, I know that might seem like gel.

Why not? If you need to build your confidence, build your confidence, like, actively. It doesn’t build itself.

No.

But I wanted to do this today so that I could get Oh, and you did great. Let me be very clear.

Feedback. Totally.

Because I was just trying to follow that form formula that you add, and I was like, okay. Are these actually my words? I’m like, I’m just gonna do the thing, and then I can review. So thank you everybody for all the feedback. Super helpful.

And just to be clear, these notes are, like sometimes the the formula just needs to be adjusted for you. There are things that I mentioned to Abby for Abby to change, and I’m sure she’s like, but, Joe, I took that from what you taught me. Then she’s like, I’m just not gonna say anything, but this is annoying.

But so just know, like, that’s why we’re doing it live. Not to say, did you follow it exactly, but cool. Was cool. Here’s how you can make it cooler.

Yeah. Cool. Abby, how are you doing?

Yeah. I’m glad I did it because I was like, okay. If I if I, like, book it Monday, then that means I’ll actually make the damn thing. So, yeah, I think, like, tomorrow, I’m gonna start doing pitching five people every day and just see what happens and work on my closing because I know that’s my my week there anyway.

Love it. Amazing.

Okay. So we’ll take three minutes. We’ll be back at twenty two after the hour when Claire will be our final presenter.

Alright? Three minutes. Thanks, everyone.

Oh, a little bit overtime there.

Okay. We are back. We’re here. Good stuff. Ready? Where’s Claire? Claire’s not here. Karen. Oh, there you are.

I just like to lost it in calculation.

Awesome. Okay. Claire, are you ready to go?

I am ready.

I’m gonna stop this all by saying I’m very nuts for some bizarre reason. I was so confident up until, like, well, seven o’clock, which is when this started.

Okay. Wicked. Well, I’m excited. So, tell us who your ICP is, who you’re targeting this toward, and then we’ll dive in.

Sure. My ICP is pretty similar to Marina’s. So it is b to b SaaS companies within the twenty five to fifty million range, so a little bit tighter.

They are either doing a freemium or a free trial, sort of setup at the moment. And I’m talking specifically to the CMO or director of growth, head of growth, that kind of person.

Cool.

Awesome.

Then okay.

Okay.

Today, I’m gonna talk about onboarding your free trial and premium users so that more of them stick around, log back in tomorrow and the next day and the next because the reality is that eighty percent of the users that you’ve worked really hard to get through the front door and to click start trial or sign up now, eighty percent of those users don’t come back tomorrow. They try your product once, give you twenty minutes, and that’s it. They’re out the door, and they are never coming back, unless you can win them back. And using email is a great way to do that.

So specifically using triggered emails, I’ll explain more about that later, but it’s stepping away from the concept of timed emails and dripping things out slowly but surely and more than focusing on sending more relevant, messages at the right time and right context.

So this is gonna be a great use of your time if you are a CMO or head of growth at a b two b SaaS company doing around twenty to fifty million dollars a year.

Companies have worked with me to get results like a thirty seven percent lift in product adoption that was with Invoice Simple.

And then Synthesia has also worked with me to sorry.

For messaging optimization.

And I’ve also partnered with Forget the Funnel and worked on over twenty start ups, onboarding flows to optimize for their growth and retention.

So if this I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve caught email or that the email channel might be useful to you.

But there are some things that you need to remember. First, people do read. Else, LinkedIn wouldn’t exist, and it wouldn’t send you those annoying yet effective notifications to check your feed.

Secondly, you do not have to guess at what to put in your email, and you don’t have to worry that you’re going too long or too short, you’re including too many pictures, no pictures at all. All that is something that you can definitively answer through optimization and testing.

And then just so you know, email is also a seven billion dollar industry at the moment. So it is, again, really clear that people do still check their email inboxes.

Inboxes. So this is gonna be great if you are looking to improve your user activation, free to pay conversion rate, and ultimately conversion, what I’m not gonna do is give you another template or the two minute secret to a sixty eight percent reduction in churn.

This is going to be a bit of a hands on workshop, so get a pen and paper ready while I continue talking.

What we’re gonna walk through today is something called the overpowered onboarding framework. Now if you haven’t heard about what overpowered means, it is a term used for superheroes, and it basically means a character or an object that is so powerful it makes the game easy.

So Superman would be a great example of an overpowered character, and this is going to be something that really makes the email channel easy. It’s gonna answer all the questions and make it simple for you to prioritize what to do next.

So it’s not gonna be a game changer for your acquisition, but rather a game changer for your activation.

Okay. Let me go ahead and share my screen, and we can get into it.

There we go.

Alrighty.

Can everyone see my screen?

Yes. Okay.

Alright. So first step is to draw a big old circle.

Don’t worry if your circle is not perfect. That would prove to you’re insane.

And then another circle on the inside.

Here, I’m gonna write down and say our goal for today is a thirty percent lift in free to paid paid. You’re wondering how much that’s worth if you have, say, ten thousand users who are, signing up and actually paying every month, and they’re on on average paying seventy nine or sixty nine dollars each, then a thirty percent lift is equivalent monthly lift is equivalent to just over two hundred thousand dollars worth of revenue. So it’s a pretty big difference that you could be getting very, very quickly.

One of the best things about onboarding people effectively is that that revenue actually stacks up because your retention naturally increases now that your users fully understand and realize the value that you’re giving them.

Next is to draw a nice Mercedes symbol because we are winners.

And I’m just gonna go ahead and label, so please label with me as we go. Up at the top, we have foundation.

This is what sets the tone for your entire onboarding flow and what is a great foundation.

Next up, we have conversation, which is where you start talking to your oh, talking and writing is difficult. Conversation, let’s just pretend I wrote that correctly.

Where you are, actually talking to your customers and convincing them that creating this great idea. And then finally, on the left, we have personalization.

Sorry, optimization.

Alright. We’re gonna go ahead and divide this diagram in hop again, just each section, a nice little line.

Up at the top, we have insight.

And down below, we have journey.

Next up, we have triggers, and then we have personalization.

Then we have tracking.

And finally, we have testing.

K. I’ll give you all a second to finish writing down.

If you have some colored pens nearby, please feel free to grab those. You can do red, for poor or not so great, orange for it’s kind of okay, and then green for everything is absolutely rosy. I’ll also give you some examples so you’ll know which one you want. If you don’t have colored pens nearby, feel free to do a star system. Just one, two, three stars, three for excellent, one for so good, and two for okay.

Alright. We’re changing over.

Okay. Scientists.

When you are struggling to understand your customers, that means that ultimately what you’re struggling to do is connect your what with your why.

So insight predominantly consists of customer interviews, customer surveys. You could even do some social listening.

You could even do some analysis of your heat maps, basically understanding what people are doing.

You could keep recording and analyzing your demo calls or your sales calls. All of that stuff gives you insight into who you’re talking to, what they value, and what they care about most. So if you’re currently doing one or more of those and you are, actually analyzing it with a regular occurrence, then you can go ahead and give yourself a green. If you are recording things, but maybe not finding the time to analyze them because you’ve got a million other things on your plate, which is totally understandable, think of yourself in orange. And if you haven’t conducted any kind of customer research in the last six to twelve months, that would be a red.

Alright. Next up is journey.

So the customer journey is a very well known phenomenon at this point. It is, however you’re currently tracking it, what you need to hit on for your onboarding is to understand at what points your customer is seeing value. So if you have a customer journey map that walks someone that walks you through exactly where your users are seeing value when they sign up, fantastic.

Give yourself a green. If you’re not so sure and you’re kind of implementing a bit of guesswork, chances are that guesswork is gonna bleed over into the rest of the circle. Right? You’re gonna stop making more and more educated guesses, and they’re gonna start getting less and less educated and more and more guessy.

So give yourself an orange there, that’s something to look at. And if you are not sure about your customer journey at all, you’ve maybe undergone a lot of changes recently, a lot of product updates, If you saw a red, that’s something to prioritize.

Onto triggers.

So historically, we’ve all we’re all very familiar with sending out timed emails. Right? Those are the direct emails sent to you. Maybe you get eight, when you sign up to a new product.

The thing with timed emails is that their quality degrades exceptionally quickly. So sorry. Not quality, but their their metrics. So the open rate, the click through rate, how many people even look at them in their inbox. So if you’re sending more than three emails in a in a row to someone without any kind of interaction from them, so you’re not triggering any, chain reaction in your in your email marketing system, then that would be a red.

If you are sending, emails that are email chains or sequences that are for emails or less, so maybe you’ve only got one welcome sequence and it’s for emails. That’s great. That’s an orange.

If you are sending triggered emails, so you’re tracking your product, you’re tracking your product.

Usage. Sorry about that. You’re tracking your product usage, seeing what features they’re using, what what they’re actually onboarding onto. Maybe if you have multiple products within your within your software suite, then you could trigger emails based on how they sign up to things and and play around. You could also be triggering Winmax, when someone doesn’t hit a certain, beat of of your customer journey, that would be a green.

Next up, personalization.

So it’s very easy to generalize an email and very easy to say something very generic. Right? And the problem of saying things that are generic is that they’re specific to absolutely nobody.

For example, let’s say you are and this is a situation that I ran into with a client the other day. Right? They are serving lots of different types of businesses with lots of different types of use cases. Now the triggers are all the same, but the context is slightly different because these businesses are different types of businesses. We have a food truck or a nail salon.

So instead of saying businesses for every email here, how is how are things going in your business? We say, how are things going in your food truck? How are things going at your nail salon? It’s much more specific, much more personalized.

And that kind of attention to detail is what gets your open rates higher, your click through rates higher.

So if you are personalizing the if you’re personalizing your emails, then you can go ahead and, give yourself a green for segmenting by use case. Right? So if you’re separating people out into use cases like I just described, it could be yourself agree.

If you are not doing anything beyond maybe the name that’s getting personalized in every email and perhaps you’re also doing a trial date in every email, then you can go ahead and give yourself an orange. You’re on the way.

If you’re not doing anything at all, give yourself a red.

Alright. Onto tracking. Now most people are tracking the free to pay conversion rate.

That’s pretty common and pretty easy to do. Some people are also tracking the product adoption rate. Now if you haven’t bumped into that term yet, it’s another fun acronym. You know, marketers love them.

But the product adoption rate or PAI is what we use to tell if someone has truly adopted the software. Doesn’t mean that they’re paying for it yet, but they’ve adopted it. So, for example, Slack only considers someone debated, if they hit the product adoption indicator of getting sort of sending two thousand messages. Right? Anything less, they are not considered activated.

So are you tracking your free to page? Are you tracking your, product adoption indicator? If so, great. You are currently in orange. To take you to green, you will need to be tracking a few more details, something like the engagement rate, how often people are logging back into your software, how long they’re taking to get to various stages of their customer journey, and then as well as their time to value. Right? How long does it take for them to create ultimately?

K. So hopefully that was clear to you all.

Next up is testing.

Testing is really where the magic happens. Right?

So if you are not currently testing, then you’re probably really struggling with the guesswork that’s started over at Journey.

If you if you haven’t really looked at your welcome email in six to twelve months, Your new newest user who signed up, like, three seconds ago has just read it. Right?

Testing means that you can continuously maintain and optimize your results. And if you don’t test, the thing that will happen is that your, your metrics will just slowly decline. It’s like a slow gradual hill of sadness. And at the end of that sadness hill is, unfortunately, the sandbox, which is exceptionally difficult to get out of.

So in testing, you are doing a great job if you are currently checking on your open rate and click through rates every and deliverability every month.

You are also possibly, making some hypotheses about your customers, testing those up, disproving them, or approving them.

If you’re not doing that, but you are checking on things monthly just to see how things are going, or maybe, you have pretty regular product updates, which means that you’re going to be checking.

It means you’re gonna be updating your emails fairly regularly with new screenshots or new messaging, then that’s great. Give yourself a orange. If you’re not doing any testing at all, then you’d be a red.

So this is the onboarding to, the show about onboarding framework.

And it’s great. It’s a circle because you are going to start way back at inside once you’ve gone all the way around and keep going around, keep optimizing, and keep improving with time. And that ultimately is what makes that thirty percent lift a recurring lift rather than just a one sole win.

Alright.

So I haven’t practiced the closing very much.

In true honesty so let me just get my notes. Alright. By this point, you shall know, should know what’s getting in your way the most. Right? It’s very easy to get overwhelmed with a hundred different things, grabbing your focus. And the last thing you wanna do is walk into your next boardroom meeting and give your presentation and watch your CEO kinda glaze over in confusion as you go over the numbers in immaculate detail.

So now you know where to put your focus. You know how to explain what’s going wrong, what’s going right, and how you’re gonna improve it. If that’s something that you need help with or that you’d like to outsource, then you are welcome to book a call with me. I will pop it kindly into a spreadsheet slideshow later on for you to go ahead and click on.

And I’ve lost my track completely. I’m very sorry, but thank you.

Thanks, Claire.

Alright. Okay. Notes for Claire. Who’s up first?

Yeah.

I’ll I’ll I’ll go.

Yeah. Claire, I thought that was that was really good. Like, you’re so funny. I really wanna get coffee with you.

And we can work on our, like, shy girl energy together.

But yeah. No. It was really engaging. That was really fun. I took quite a few, like, notes or just bits I really like. Like, I love the overpowered onboarding framework. And if you do use that tool that Joe said when you, like, describe Superman, if you have a Superman come up, I just love that so much.

There was a bit when you’re talking about insights and you’re talking insights. Sorry. You’re talking about the customer research that you could do. You say you could do this. I kinda wanna be told, like, what I should do, not what I could do.

And then when you’re talking about personalization, like, that just felt like a really good place for a case study to just when you’re saying about specificity, if you could just say I did this for so and so.

And I thought the fact that it’s a circle is brilliant, like, the ongoing going round and round. Like, really, really like that. So, yeah, it it was good. And if you do wanna, like, work on the clothes together, because I just I just get so shy when, like, I’d be happy to do that.

Oh, and just another thing as well, like, because you seem to get a lot more confident as you went on. Like, that’s why I always use a slide deck at the beginning because it just I don’t know. It just makes me feel which, you know, maybe I need to go over that this well. But, yeah, just a tip if if you, like, need something at the beginning to yeah.

But, anyway, I thought it was really good.

That’s so helpful. Thank you. I have a quick question. I don’t just okay.

I went back and forth between personalizing personalization and segmentation for emails and ultimately decided that personalization is very different to segmentation, obviously, and that if different segments are identified in the insights area or the customer journey area, that those should have their own circle. So it’s like other circles for other for other, segments.

Does that track with everyone, or is that sounding fairly confusing and counterintuitive?

So you’re saying so you’re saying this is the core model, and then you’d have a separate one for the personalization part of the model. Like, let’s dig into that, and here’s what that looks like? No.

Like like a big circle is, like, the main say that’s their main identified job to be done. They know very clearly who they’re targeting, But they have all these little satellite ones to the side, which on that important.

Our first engagement would be focusing on the main one. But in future, if they realize that one of their satellites is actually a bit bigger than they thought, we could do the same thing for that one, but it would be a whole new process.

Yeah.

So I don’t know if I’ll I can’t answer that, but what I can say is each one of these sections you have is likely to have its own thing that you would draw. So insights, As you dig in and you’re working with the client more and more, then you’ll do you’ll help their team get up to speed on what you mean by how to tell if we’re doing insight right. So you’ll have a new model that’s, like, breaking down insight, and that might be speaking to, like, the satellite thing that you’re talking to.

But I wouldn’t I wouldn’t draw a satellite in here. I wouldn’t say anything more about these other parts. I might just call it personalization and segmentation just for the sake of, like, simplicity here with your audience.

But don’t I wouldn’t have more stuff going off the side.

You’ve also, like, the circle is in segments, so you could even say, like, the sec you know, segmentation is part of it.

That’s That’s cute.

Little orange segments. Cute. Awesome. Okay. Any other notes for Claire? Katie?

Hey, Claire. Just like kudos for putting yourself out there and doing it. I thought you did really well.

Okay. So things I thought were great. I love when you said, like, how much that’s worth and have that concrete number of, like like, we’re talking about a thirty percent lift, but here’s the what that would be worth to you. I thought that was a great way of bringing the money in.

And I’m sure, like yeah. I don’t know, not much about your client history, but I’m sure that there is room to bring in other case studies. But I did like how you had the food truck versus hair salon example just to give me something concrete, to work with when you’re talking about the personalization.

I also like the example with Slack. Like, Slack doesn’t consider, was it product adoption metric reached until two thousand messages?

So one thing I thought you could work on was, and I’m just looking at myself. Like, I don’t think I have actually had any other, like, changes. But I wrote the drama that moment that you talked about, like, your you have looked in your onboarding emails for six months, but the person who just signed up looked at them a few minutes ago.

I just felt like that’s such a good moment, and I felt like it needed a little bit more build up to really hammer home, like, what kind of, you know, how we, like, build up that moment of high attention. Like, why does that matter?

What is that worst case scenario? Like, what are the implications of that, versus just, like, locating me in that moment, but not really, like, having me realize why it has been important for me to inhabit from that moment. Does that make sense? So, like okay.

So I’m thinking about that. I’m like, oh, shit. Yeah. Who knows if I have, like, COVID references in my in my onboarding emails or something?

But if that new user looks at it, what is what is that irrelevant is going to cost me, basically.

Yeah. And then so I just wonder I have a question mark if that if where you at it was the best place for that or if building that moment up more towards the end could be a great segue into your pitch of, like, this is your worst case scenario.

Don’t have that. Hire me. So maybe moving that from where you had it, I believe you had that within testing.

I wasn’t really clear on its relevance to testing. I saw it as more of, like, keeping your onboarding fresh and, you know, optimized.

So for me, it just felt like it should have been pulled out of testing and then use more as that pivot into your closed.

Does that make sense?

That makes total sense. Yeah. So I pull it out of the pull it out of the circle and use it for the close?

Use it to the pivot. Yeah.

That’s so helpful. Thank you. Because I have no idea how to transition. That’s kinda where I went like, oh, crap. It’s done. What?

Do you know?

That’s really helpful. Thank you.

Perfect. Thanks, Katie. Marina.

Hey, Claire.

You’ve got so many gems in there, and I was like, oh, that’s how you could say that. Oh, that’s how you could say that. But I had to listen so carefully because they were sort of hidden in just, like, I think a little bit of, like, vocal variety or, change in speed of saying things or, like, varying the energy so that, like, you’ve got a ton of good things in there. And I was like, oh, that’s really cool.

That if they just, like I know you’re nervous. I get it. You’re probably probably throwing up too.

Maybe I’m projecting. But, anyway I don’t know.

But but it would totally then it would be like these little zingers, And then you’ve got, like, this wicked under, like, quiet sense of humor that then it would bring that out too. And so then I I don’t know. I just think you’ve got a lot of good things going in there. And it’s kind of like, maybe just think about it as taking a highlighter mentally and go going, okay. I need to highlight these bits and, like, really, like, come out a bit more instead of ending, like, with your kind of, like, a question.

Right? And just Yeah. Yeah. This is me telling you. So this like, I’m try I I’m not one to talk.

But seeing it in yours, I was like, oh, okay. She could totally if you’re just, like, pushing this one little bit and pushing this one little bit. And I can’t remember all the things because I was, like, listening and going, oh, that’s how you can include something without it coming across seeming like, you were bragging on yourself, but it didn’t come across as like, oh, I’m so great, and I did this in a bad way. It came across as like, oh, she knows what she’s she’s talking about.

But then just, like, zing it out a little bit more so I don’t have to, like, listen for it quite so deeply, if that makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I I I’m really grateful for that feedback. It’s so specifically helpful.

Sun Sinic actually has a new course I’m presenting, which I’m desperate to do.

Yeah. He’s so convincing.

Yes.

Anyway, nice nice work. Obviously, lots of work has gone into it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks, Marina. Todd.

Yeah. Mine is pretty quick, Claire. And I could be wrong. It might not be relevant, but I believe you spoke to email as a seven billion dollar industry.

And, you know, I will kinda just look at Joe for this one. In ten x emails, you speak to for every, know, every dollar you spend on email marketing, and the average return is, like, forty four dollars and twenty five cents or something. So maybe it could be a setup for ADA as you move them through. Like, did you know if you do this, you get this back?

And let them know, like, there’s not just we’re not just selling your service, but you should expect a return on what you’re getting kind of idea and just set them up. Like, you’re the expert again in it and just like, yeah. Come with me, and this is not a cost. This is an investment kind of idea and just really set it up because you’ve talked to such a big number.

But if you can bring that back and just put that in their in their court and let them know, like, we’re expensive for a reason kind of idea, but I’m not sure if that’s relevant or not.

Love that. Agreed. I think there were a few number of points in there that needed more, like, push on. That’s one of them. Your line eighty percent don’t come back. I wrote down and circled like, damn, that’s terrifying.

Eighty percent don’t come back.

So there are a lot of moments there. I was like, if you need calculators, you need, like, to show what that adds up to, how much you spent only to have them vanish. Like, no wonder marketing looks flat.

You early on, you picked a fight sort of with blast emails, but then it wasn’t until you were getting to the trigger part of the model that you really dug into why, like, a broadcast or blast email isn’t as good as a triggered one. I would have liked you to pick a fight with it earlier and then just continue the fight when you get to triggers.

So, like, bring me into the problem with blast or broadcast emails, which the vast majority of these people are doing.

So why they should stop doing that.

What else have we got?

You said it’s a game changer for activation, but not for acquisition. And I didn’t know why you bring up acquisition at all, just, like, focus on activation when you were talking about the overpowered onboarding framework. You’re like, this is a game changer for activation.

It is not for act for acquisition. It’s like, shush. Shush. Don’t talk about acquisition. No. No. That’s not actually activating.

I’ve got a great diagram if we have, like, a few minutes afterwards that I wanted to quickly If it shows up on the slide, then that’s one thing.

But I’m like, I don’t know if you’ve read straight line selling. I’m talking about it a lot these days, the Jordan Belfort book. But, it’s it’s what he would call Pluto.

So it’s too far out. Don’t bring come back. Come back. Let’s not talk about that part.

I also thought that you could okay. Two things and we’ll wrap up.

You did get more confident as you went. I totally noticed that. The more you practice, the more the parts are, like, second nature to you, the better and more engaging the whole thing is. And I know you hadn’t practiced the clothes or things like that, so that’s fair.

But just know that if it ever feels like, is it even worth it? The more you practice it, the you’ll it’ll be a natural thing. You are funny, and you’re friendly and likable. There’s a lot of good stuff there, but now we just gotta nail your delivery.

Like, that’s it. Just practice a bunch of times.

The thirty percent lift in the middle, I’d love to see you pause, and I think you’ll do that more as you get more chill with, like, presenting like this.

What’s nice about, like, Abby’s five k in the middle is it’s a number that I want. I want that number. Thirty seven thirty percent lift is not yet a number. It’s just like this wonder like, this great idea.

I would love you to be able to before you even draw your model, to put them through a very simple calculation, and just say, like, look. Don’t worry. We’re not using this for, like, the wrong purposes. Just set up just put context around it, but what you want is them to have a number to put in the middle of the circle.

So if you can help them do the calculation of what a thirty percent lift would look like and then extrapolate that, like, maybe say, okay. Now annual. Like, just figure it out how you can get that number in the middle to look really compelling. Like, oh, I could make eight thousand dollars a day, and I’m currently making four dollars a day.

That sounds awesome. Thanks.

But if you can do the calculation now, I’m, like, very keen on this instead of thirty percent lift.

My final note here is I’m not in love with some of the word choices across the model.

Foundation threw me because it was up high, and I want a foundation to be down low.

So I’m like, no. That’s a sky up there. I’m very literal.

But I thought that you could do a, like, a SaaS sweep.

Now that you’ve got these six parts in place with their three labels, go back through and make it feel what words can you use? Because right now, what we have for foundation conversation optimization, insights, journey, triggers, personalization, tracking, and testing, that’s all like, a course creator could follow the same thing, and an ecommerce business could follow the same thing. Right?

Lower journey might be replaced with funnel if you were really getting into it for, like, a specific course creator group. So to me, it felt too generic still. It feels like, good. You’ve got this, like, poor model in place. Now let’s SaaSify it. Now that twenty five to fifty million dollar group, what words will feel better?

Foundation doesn’t feel right.

Conversation might.

Optimization does, I think. But then inside of that, insight, I want you to work on that word.

Journey is good. Triggers are good. You already know you’re gonna work on personalization and segmentation and figure that out. Tracking and testing, can you do something that feels more if you know these people are using intercom, for example, intercom e language.

So, like and that’s your job. Just sweep through it and see if you can make it sound more sassy so I can see myself. Sassy this sassy, not Stacy’s sassy. But so I can see myself as a SaaS founder or marketer or whatever when I look at this model.

Does that make sense?

Just a little more pointed on your word choice.

Okay. That’s super helpful because I I like I’ve taken it way back. Do you know how how long it took to get like three shuns?

Sorry.

What did you say?

Three shuns. Three, like, activation. What is it? Conversation, foundation.

Oh, the shuns. Foundation. Oh, I see.

Yeah. But I can find a new shuns. I’ve done it now.

Find a new shuns. There are more shuns.

Yeah. K. Cool.

I’m a new shin.

Awesome. Good. How are you feeling, Claire?

Great. Great. Yeah. I’m really really excited to actually do this well.

Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got a really good starting point here. And, oh, Todd.

Nice job. Nice way to finish the meeting.

You’ve got great case studies too. Oh, one other note, the over twenty startups with, on the or onboarding flows with Forget the Funnel. I don’t know that you have to say it with Forget the Funnel because I’m just gonna go look up Forget the Funnel. So just say, like, twenty more onboarding flows. Like, wow. It’s a lot of onboarding flows.

Yeah. Nobody’s listening anymore because there’s a puppy in the room. So, we’re just gonna go look at the puppy now. But good job, Claire and Marina and Abby. Thank you. Well done, everybody. And thanks for giving your notes as well and tuning in to help your fellow to help your peers out here.

Good. Alright.

So next month kicks off a whole new month for, Coffee School Pro. We’ll be posting about that very soon.

Cool. Awesome. And, Todd, you have to tell us about this puppy. What’s going on here?

Sorry. We she’s a week and two days old, and we’re renovating the house. We’re actually getting a podcast studio ready for me in the basement, and, she sleeps at my feet. She’s on her little bed.

And, yeah, she’s she’s a great little dog. She’s learning quickly. And she’s just been at my feet all things, so I you might see me looking down. I’ve been trying to avoid it, but she just woke up.

So yeah. And she’s licking me like crazy.

So She is. But she’s got those little shark teeth too.

Yeah. She’s got little pearls as Tina said.

Oh my gosh. What’s her name?

Patty. Patty. Patty. Patty. The patty.

Yeah. Patty? Yeah. It’s a yeah. It’s a new dog for us. So, yeah, she’s she’s a great dog.

So Oh. Try and sorry if I interrupted everyone.

It’s just It’s end of meeting.

I’m amazed you were able to hold off this whole time.

Oh, it’s tough. You have no idea when she’s at my feet and she’s, like, nudging me with a bone, and then she’s nudging me with a toy, then another toy, and then she’s out cold and looking at her. So, yeah.

Oh, so cute.

So cute. Well, I saw your two as well.

So Oh, yes.

They just came in from Yeah.

Playing out at the lake.

Yeah. We’ll do it. Tina was the first one to meet her, I believe, as well. Uh-huh. So yeah.

Patty. Yeah. Super cute.

Patty is welcome to the crew.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

Okay. Thanks, y’all. Thanks so much. Well done, everybody. If you haven’t worked on your workshop, go do it.

And if you have, keep practicing. Thanks, everybody. Bye.

Thank you.