Tag: joanna
The 9th Grade Debate Club Framework
The 9th Grade Debate Club Framework
Transcript
So you should have seen, this workbook come in from Tina. She sent it out. This is, my training for today, which I’m kind of loving. So we’ve been working on a lot more, VSLs and, well, we’ve been really focusing on webinar funnels around here lately as starting more with ads and then, of course, driving into funnels that contain emails and ESLs.
And we’ve been using this, and I’m actually scripting something new today that, that uses this framework that we’re gonna talk about here. And so far, I’m loving it, so I thought I would share it with y’all. I’ve called it the ninth grade debate club framework because it’s so, like, wait. Didn’t I do this in grade nine? Like, you’ll it, like, really is a flashback to, like, almost inverted pyramid stuff for those who remember those horrible days of writing essays in grade nine about what Hamlet was really thinking or something.
But what we’re gonna do here is walk you through a worksheet. That’s the worksheet here. We’ll have a lesson. That’s what I’m teaching you right now.
It’ll be recorded. You’ll have a two part flow at the end of it. The VSL and the email that drives the VSL should both be scripted. Now we’re not gonna active this isn’t like a skill builder, like, hands on session, skill drill, sorry, but rather just a training.
So you can go and apply this after. We’re not going to spend time today actually walking through it. If you want to, we have a study group on Wednesday, and you’re free to go to that and give it a shot and give people feedback, ask for feedback from others, etcetera.
Okay. Let’s dig into it.
So this is what we’re going to be shaping an argument, which I think we sometimes lose sight of in copywriting that we’re making a compelling, convincing argument.
We still have a clear argument.
And for a lot of people now we don’t wanna write at a grade nine level, but we know that a lot of our prospects have been through grade nine, grade ten, grade eight, all that that time when you learn that there should be some form of, like, argument that’s stated and then three supporting points, and then you wrap it up. And so we’re really going with exactly that just like in didn’t do debate club?
Nobody did debate club? A little bit. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I did debate club. It was fun.
Just in grade nine though, that’s the only time we had it.
Sadly, it should be over ten.
Okay. So what we wanna do is I know. I know. Even saying it, I’m like, gross.
Like, I did a lot of thesis statements, English as an undergrad too, and, gross all around.
But when you don’t have a teacher grading you it’s actually a lot more fun to work on them. So we’re gonna have a thesis statement. This is the I will argue that phrase. Then you’re gonna give three reasons. Here are the three reasons you will believe me, and then you’re going to expand on it and then, ideally open the conversation up further where that opening the conversation further is really getting into, okay, let’s book a call, let’s have a click through or buy or whatever.
And what happens here is not just, hey. Let’s write an email, but rather here is the email plus the video sales letter script so that you, when talking to clients, can start, especially if your specialization is in an email funnel of any kind. You can start pulling your clients away from the idea that you deliver just, boxes of things, and instead get them to see that you deliver solutions. Like, there’s a problem you’re going to solve the whole problem with this conversation that we’re having that is an argument.
Okay? So you already all after, but what I want you to do is take this away and start, like, applying it in the next email and landing page that you work on or if you work in an ad. What we’re talking about here in the email can also work in the ad, and then you can have this on the landing page. The VSL script, although I believe it should be a VSL, can be simplified down to landing page Poppy.
But you’ll see that the VSL is, is is wordy.
It’s wordy. It’s meant to be read as a video sales letter. Okay.
So we’re calling this advanced today, and it’s in a on our skills because we are busy.
Alright.
What you’re going to do is stick what you are arguing. So you will argue for a thing. I will argue that whatever the thing is that you’re selling, that hair plugs are not as ugly as you think they are. I don’t know.
Whatever you might be selling. You will argue against these things. Now you’re gonna list a bunch of these ones out, and those are all the things you have to kill before they’ll consider you. So I know kill is an aggressive word, and if you don’t like it, suck something else in.
But I want it to be a finalized slaying of a thing, whatever you call it. Euthanize nicely.
We just really want to destroy the strong beliefs that they have that are keeping them from choosing you, any myths that it might be that and this is they, that’s your prospect might be relying on, any advice from so called trusted sources. So I really like this political voice and they say this. Can you kill that? And, again, kill not just, like, gently suppress, but, like, destroy.
This is again, it’s debate club. You weren’t allowed to be subtle. You had to, like, show all the craziest examples of everything in order to win in debate club. So that’s what we’re doing here.
Doing here.
I just Jessica, can you go mute?
Hold on. I just muted you. I just heard myself.
The incumbent, whatever solution they’re currently using, this is what we’re going to be switching them away from. If you know the house to be done model of the switching forces or the forces that are working against switching, This is like the push and the pull that we’re talking about. So we have to destroy their current way in order to have them freed up to move toward our way. It’s an argument.
So that’s where we’re kind of like safe in this space. It’s not marketing copy. It’s not sales copy. It’s an argument.
It just so happens that it’s also marketing sales copy. So this is how it’s gonna go. This is the prework that you’ll do. It’s the argument you’re selling.
You have to kill just work through what those things are. There’s four of them. It doesn’t be a million.
You might not even hit more than one, but you wanna have options to work with.
And then the actual basic experience that suck for us, templates get in the way for those of us in the room who are here and know that we’re here to be professional copywriters.
So it breaks up into two parts.
The email begins with the completion of the statement. I will argue that. This is where we find our hook. I will argue that, sub in anything.
Think of any any client you have and what you have to get people to believe in order for them to choose you. And they’re gonna have to believe a bunch of different things. We’re just gonna focus on one. That’s it.
We don’t wanna argue fifteen things that won’t work. One thing.
What story are you gonna use? Story is a huge part of debate club. When I did debate club, it was, four in favor of euthanasia, and we won.
And it for the final one. I lost the very final one. But we had a video there of this woman who was trying to die.
The whole the only reason we won I was not good at the argument, but we had this incredible compelling story of this woman on video who deserved to have, like, her own decisions made at the end of her life.
And so story goes a long, long way. So we wanna use a story when we’re using this framework. I will argue that based on this story, and you will see the truth based on these three well supported reasons. So a, b, and c, we’re labeling them over here so that we can bring them down over here to the actual BSL where we will repeat back a, b, and c, but we’ll flash them a lot more.
Okay? This is if you’re, like, thinking of this as, like, an an essay statement. Basically, where it’s coming from, and then here are the three reasons why. This is like your opening paragraph, and then it says paragraph one, paragraph two, paragraph three.
It seems that, but it’s logical and, actually quite compelling and pretty easy to write once you get into it. So the argument, the three reasons why then you head on over to the BSL where you basically repeat the argument, but then you build on it more of like a marketing sales piece with the reason that’s supported by, reason supported by, reason supported by, and then you wrap it up with a solution. Now let me show you what that looks like.
Okay. So let’s pretend that you are writing your client is somebody who is selling, who is in the business of franchising.
Okay so we have the hook that begins that completes the phrase I will argue that this is the email by the way. I will argue that we’re gonna start to kill the current provider. So currently they’re doing one thing one way and we’re going to kill that. So it completes the phrase I will argue that, I will argue that. If you are trying to attract new customers to your business you should not use meta ads. This may seem counterintuitive. Now when you’re building an argument in debate club you usually are doing something that, like, where you are countering what people believe to be true.
I know when I told a man named George f, then we get into this story here, founder of a franchise restaurant chain that net ads are dead for everything except low cost b to c goods, He not only couldn’t believe me, he almost wouldn’t believe me. He was so certain that we needed to invest at least a hundred grand a month in meta ads as he was advocating for meta like it was his job. I disagree repeatedly. So we’re arguing here.
We’re in this story already, but we’re talking to George, not to our prospect. We’re allowing the prospect to listen on the story. I disagreed repeatedly. And just when I was ninety nine percent positive that he was going to leave our Zoom call, I laid three facts on him rapid fire.
Did you know I began? Then we list off those three facts. Again, George is a stand in for our audience. And then from there, the story continues, and we do what we can to provide an open loop that can only be closed on the other side of the click.
So in this case, George wasn’t buying into this entirely. He needed more proof. You wanna see a ton of proof, I asked, and I shared my screen. Twenty minutes later, he’d signed my proposal.
This is what I showed him, and that’s it. That’s where we drive to the second half. And then on the landing page, we have the embedded VSL. Now I’m not gonna spend time reading this VSL to you, but the idea here is that, that the person who is talking, this is John Just the fact Smith, that he shared his screen with George, and this is the recording of his.
So the talk again. This is like, hi. I’m screen sharing with you, so that’s kind of like the mechanism to get the story across.
Then we dig more into reason a, reason b, reason c.
There’s lots of room for proof because this got the way to go already for George to see, and then we continue on killing beliefs like it’s our job because it is, anticipating objections and then moving on to the argument four. So this continues and continues along, but we’re building on the basic premise of that.
That’s all we’re doing. Now I will argue that. That’s really blind for me to work with as well. So if you wanna go around to different websites, I encourage this. I do this for fun.
Go over to websites and rewrite a headline beginning, I will argue that, and then change it completely. And it’s pretty amazing what you can do and how clear becomes as an argument that we’re actually we’re not gonna say the words, I will argue that, But everything that follows and knowing that you have those three points you’re going to hit to prove it, is just I don’t know if it’s it’s either very basic or super advanced. And so I’m leaning towards super advanced because it took a long time for me to get here.
Alright. So that is it. I encourage you to go try this the next time you’re writing for anybody.
Any questions, any thoughts, concerns?
Do you already use something like this?
Do you write emails and VSL scripts at the same time or telling your clients that they should do this?
I use something like this, but it’s not I will argue this. I mean, it’s a lot more basically, I’m killing those beliefs whether it’s from the industry about the about the product, about the brand.
And I use, like, three, the, like, three reasons, but it’s not with actual proof. It’s, like, three reasons you’re actually failing at this and you don’t know it. Mhmm. Or three reasons your business should be doing this if you really want whatever.
Yeah.
But I like the idea with that. I would argue that, and I’m actually launching my own course.
Nice.
Like, I have to write the emails now.
Yes. I will use this for one of the emails. Definitely.
Excellent. Cool. It’s fun.
Alright.
Okay.
Transcript
So you should have seen, this workbook come in from Tina. She sent it out. This is, my training for today, which I’m kind of loving. So we’ve been working on a lot more, VSLs and, well, we’ve been really focusing on webinar funnels around here lately as starting more with ads and then, of course, driving into funnels that contain emails and ESLs.
And we’ve been using this, and I’m actually scripting something new today that, that uses this framework that we’re gonna talk about here. And so far, I’m loving it, so I thought I would share it with y’all. I’ve called it the ninth grade debate club framework because it’s so, like, wait. Didn’t I do this in grade nine? Like, you’ll it, like, really is a flashback to, like, almost inverted pyramid stuff for those who remember those horrible days of writing essays in grade nine about what Hamlet was really thinking or something.
But what we’re gonna do here is walk you through a worksheet. That’s the worksheet here. We’ll have a lesson. That’s what I’m teaching you right now.
It’ll be recorded. You’ll have a two part flow at the end of it. The VSL and the email that drives the VSL should both be scripted. Now we’re not gonna active this isn’t like a skill builder, like, hands on session, skill drill, sorry, but rather just a training.
So you can go and apply this after. We’re not going to spend time today actually walking through it. If you want to, we have a study group on Wednesday, and you’re free to go to that and give it a shot and give people feedback, ask for feedback from others, etcetera.
Okay. Let’s dig into it.
So this is what we’re going to be shaping an argument, which I think we sometimes lose sight of in copywriting that we’re making a compelling, convincing argument.
We still have a clear argument.
And for a lot of people now we don’t wanna write at a grade nine level, but we know that a lot of our prospects have been through grade nine, grade ten, grade eight, all that that time when you learn that there should be some form of, like, argument that’s stated and then three supporting points, and then you wrap it up. And so we’re really going with exactly that just like in didn’t do debate club?
Nobody did debate club? A little bit. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I did debate club. It was fun.
Just in grade nine though, that’s the only time we had it.
Sadly, it should be over ten.
Okay. So what we wanna do is I know. I know. Even saying it, I’m like, gross.
Like, I did a lot of thesis statements, English as an undergrad too, and, gross all around.
But when you don’t have a teacher grading you it’s actually a lot more fun to work on them. So we’re gonna have a thesis statement. This is the I will argue that phrase. Then you’re gonna give three reasons. Here are the three reasons you will believe me, and then you’re going to expand on it and then, ideally open the conversation up further where that opening the conversation further is really getting into, okay, let’s book a call, let’s have a click through or buy or whatever.
And what happens here is not just, hey. Let’s write an email, but rather here is the email plus the video sales letter script so that you, when talking to clients, can start, especially if your specialization is in an email funnel of any kind. You can start pulling your clients away from the idea that you deliver just, boxes of things, and instead get them to see that you deliver solutions. Like, there’s a problem you’re going to solve the whole problem with this conversation that we’re having that is an argument.
Okay? So you already all after, but what I want you to do is take this away and start, like, applying it in the next email and landing page that you work on or if you work in an ad. What we’re talking about here in the email can also work in the ad, and then you can have this on the landing page. The VSL script, although I believe it should be a VSL, can be simplified down to landing page Poppy.
But you’ll see that the VSL is, is is wordy.
It’s wordy. It’s meant to be read as a video sales letter. Okay.
So we’re calling this advanced today, and it’s in a on our skills because we are busy.
Alright.
What you’re going to do is stick what you are arguing. So you will argue for a thing. I will argue that whatever the thing is that you’re selling, that hair plugs are not as ugly as you think they are. I don’t know.
Whatever you might be selling. You will argue against these things. Now you’re gonna list a bunch of these ones out, and those are all the things you have to kill before they’ll consider you. So I know kill is an aggressive word, and if you don’t like it, suck something else in.
But I want it to be a finalized slaying of a thing, whatever you call it. Euthanize nicely.
We just really want to destroy the strong beliefs that they have that are keeping them from choosing you, any myths that it might be that and this is they, that’s your prospect might be relying on, any advice from so called trusted sources. So I really like this political voice and they say this. Can you kill that? And, again, kill not just, like, gently suppress, but, like, destroy.
This is again, it’s debate club. You weren’t allowed to be subtle. You had to, like, show all the craziest examples of everything in order to win in debate club. So that’s what we’re doing here.
Doing here.
I just Jessica, can you go mute?
Hold on. I just muted you. I just heard myself.
The incumbent, whatever solution they’re currently using, this is what we’re going to be switching them away from. If you know the house to be done model of the switching forces or the forces that are working against switching, This is like the push and the pull that we’re talking about. So we have to destroy their current way in order to have them freed up to move toward our way. It’s an argument.
So that’s where we’re kind of like safe in this space. It’s not marketing copy. It’s not sales copy. It’s an argument.
It just so happens that it’s also marketing sales copy. So this is how it’s gonna go. This is the prework that you’ll do. It’s the argument you’re selling.
You have to kill just work through what those things are. There’s four of them. It doesn’t be a million.
You might not even hit more than one, but you wanna have options to work with.
And then the actual basic experience that suck for us, templates get in the way for those of us in the room who are here and know that we’re here to be professional copywriters.
So it breaks up into two parts.
The email begins with the completion of the statement. I will argue that. This is where we find our hook. I will argue that, sub in anything.
Think of any any client you have and what you have to get people to believe in order for them to choose you. And they’re gonna have to believe a bunch of different things. We’re just gonna focus on one. That’s it.
We don’t wanna argue fifteen things that won’t work. One thing.
What story are you gonna use? Story is a huge part of debate club. When I did debate club, it was, four in favor of euthanasia, and we won.
And it for the final one. I lost the very final one. But we had a video there of this woman who was trying to die.
The whole the only reason we won I was not good at the argument, but we had this incredible compelling story of this woman on video who deserved to have, like, her own decisions made at the end of her life.
And so story goes a long, long way. So we wanna use a story when we’re using this framework. I will argue that based on this story, and you will see the truth based on these three well supported reasons. So a, b, and c, we’re labeling them over here so that we can bring them down over here to the actual BSL where we will repeat back a, b, and c, but we’ll flash them a lot more.
Okay? This is if you’re, like, thinking of this as, like, an an essay statement. Basically, where it’s coming from, and then here are the three reasons why. This is like your opening paragraph, and then it says paragraph one, paragraph two, paragraph three.
It seems that, but it’s logical and, actually quite compelling and pretty easy to write once you get into it. So the argument, the three reasons why then you head on over to the BSL where you basically repeat the argument, but then you build on it more of like a marketing sales piece with the reason that’s supported by, reason supported by, reason supported by, and then you wrap it up with a solution. Now let me show you what that looks like.
Okay. So let’s pretend that you are writing your client is somebody who is selling, who is in the business of franchising.
Okay so we have the hook that begins that completes the phrase I will argue that this is the email by the way. I will argue that we’re gonna start to kill the current provider. So currently they’re doing one thing one way and we’re going to kill that. So it completes the phrase I will argue that, I will argue that. If you are trying to attract new customers to your business you should not use meta ads. This may seem counterintuitive. Now when you’re building an argument in debate club you usually are doing something that, like, where you are countering what people believe to be true.
I know when I told a man named George f, then we get into this story here, founder of a franchise restaurant chain that net ads are dead for everything except low cost b to c goods, He not only couldn’t believe me, he almost wouldn’t believe me. He was so certain that we needed to invest at least a hundred grand a month in meta ads as he was advocating for meta like it was his job. I disagree repeatedly. So we’re arguing here.
We’re in this story already, but we’re talking to George, not to our prospect. We’re allowing the prospect to listen on the story. I disagreed repeatedly. And just when I was ninety nine percent positive that he was going to leave our Zoom call, I laid three facts on him rapid fire.
Did you know I began? Then we list off those three facts. Again, George is a stand in for our audience. And then from there, the story continues, and we do what we can to provide an open loop that can only be closed on the other side of the click.
So in this case, George wasn’t buying into this entirely. He needed more proof. You wanna see a ton of proof, I asked, and I shared my screen. Twenty minutes later, he’d signed my proposal.
This is what I showed him, and that’s it. That’s where we drive to the second half. And then on the landing page, we have the embedded VSL. Now I’m not gonna spend time reading this VSL to you, but the idea here is that, that the person who is talking, this is John Just the fact Smith, that he shared his screen with George, and this is the recording of his.
So the talk again. This is like, hi. I’m screen sharing with you, so that’s kind of like the mechanism to get the story across.
Then we dig more into reason a, reason b, reason c.
There’s lots of room for proof because this got the way to go already for George to see, and then we continue on killing beliefs like it’s our job because it is, anticipating objections and then moving on to the argument four. So this continues and continues along, but we’re building on the basic premise of that.
That’s all we’re doing. Now I will argue that. That’s really blind for me to work with as well. So if you wanna go around to different websites, I encourage this. I do this for fun.
Go over to websites and rewrite a headline beginning, I will argue that, and then change it completely. And it’s pretty amazing what you can do and how clear becomes as an argument that we’re actually we’re not gonna say the words, I will argue that, But everything that follows and knowing that you have those three points you’re going to hit to prove it, is just I don’t know if it’s it’s either very basic or super advanced. And so I’m leaning towards super advanced because it took a long time for me to get here.
Alright. So that is it. I encourage you to go try this the next time you’re writing for anybody.
Any questions, any thoughts, concerns?
Do you already use something like this?
Do you write emails and VSL scripts at the same time or telling your clients that they should do this?
I use something like this, but it’s not I will argue this. I mean, it’s a lot more basically, I’m killing those beliefs whether it’s from the industry about the about the product, about the brand.
And I use, like, three, the, like, three reasons, but it’s not with actual proof. It’s, like, three reasons you’re actually failing at this and you don’t know it. Mhmm. Or three reasons your business should be doing this if you really want whatever.
Yeah.
But I like the idea with that. I would argue that, and I’m actually launching my own course.
Nice.
Like, I have to write the emails now.
Yes. I will use this for one of the emails. Definitely.
Excellent. Cool. It’s fun.
Alright.
Okay.
The ROI of hiring (or the cost of hiring wrong / not hiring at all)
The ROI of hiring (or the cost of hiring wrong / not hiring at all)
Transcript
Every person you hire at an agency helps you make money. That’s not true in other businesses. You’re gonna you start a software company, most of your team does not help you make money. They’re all expensive developers. They’re not helping you make anything other than usually the product they wanna make.
That’s not true for agencies. Every single person you hire helps you make money and I mean directly helps you make money. So if you’re at all good at selling and getting your team members to do decent work and the more you specialize, the easier that part is, then it’s it’s actually kind of it’s foolish I would say not to hire unless you have of course health problems or these challenges that you know are currently insurmountable.
But if you don’t have currently insurmountable health or other such challenges, dig in. It’s time to hire. Alright. So I’m gonna share my screen. We’re gonna talk about this calculator, then I’ll share this around with y’all afterward.
I’m gonna make it bigger in case you’re on a laptop or something smaller than that even.
Okay.
So this is a general way of looking at how to afford things and can you.
So it starts with a breakeven calculator just to see, like, when am I gonna actually start making money, and we’ll get into all of those across these different tabs. The general tab here is just you setting your goals for good, better, best. Now in the intensive freelancing, which I think everybody here comes from, except Caroline, I don’t know if you did it. In the intensive freelancing, though, I’d say ten thousand dollars for your core project, five thousand dollars for your retainer.
My assumption here is your retainer average is about six months. It could be more, and, of course, your numbers go up if it’s more. We wanna also break down what it costs to run a project and what it costs every month to run a retainer. So if you are and this is why you really wanna get time tracking down.
Every single minute that your team member spends on something they shouldn’t be working on is literally costing you profit. So this all comes from, a variety of things. So we have to figure out what your salary is, what their salary is, how much time, how many hours it takes to do a project, usually about fifty is what we’re trying to budget, and how many hours it takes to to do a retainer every month, usually about twenty. And, again, you can see that if this suddenly takes thirty hours, now the project just got more expensive or the retainer just got more expensive. It takes forty hours, people are just pissing away your time. Now a project that should have cost a little over a grand cost you two, and that’s real money.
Actual money that you could just not do the work and just sit there, and that would be better than you waste energy on low profit projects. So we don’t want to have our numbers go up, our hours go up as soon as they do. It’s really like, the math is right there. It’s a lot.
We don’t want that. Don’t do it. And, of course, the more, expensive people, spend time on things, the less profit you have. So let’s say if you didn’t have a VA or a junior copywriter or a copywriter working with you, that means a hundred percent of the costs are suddenly yours.
So let’s say instead, there’s that. So now with the project without me deleting those, the project is now forty four hundred bucks instead of being thirty two hundred bucks. Right? So it costs you twelve hundred dollars to keep hiring yourself for these projects instead of hiring help to get you there.
So when you think of that, it can be easier to think, oh, it’s gonna be expensive to hire someone. But the reality is it’ll cost you an extra twelve hundred dollars for you to just keep hiring yourself for this with these, like, basic numbers in play. So we don’t want to do that. And, of course, as your salary goes up now these are all in salaries that we have here.
All the taxes and other things that you might be paying. If you were at a hundred and twenty five thousand salary in Canada, you’re probably going to end up spending about a hundred and seventy somewhere in there. The government’s gonna take a whole bunch, and all the other overhead that comes with it. So a hundred and seventy five thousand now if you are even more expensive than that.
The copywriter salary doesn’t keep getting more expensive. If you hire someone for copywriter and biz dev, that doesn’t keep getting more expensive and the VA doesn’t keep getting more expensive but you do. So as soon as this goes up, if you’re at two fifty suddenly because you’re like I work hard then everything gets more and more expensive the more involved you are. So we don’t want to involve you more than we have to in things that you could hire other people to do and train them to do it.
But the question usually is, okay, well, Joe, when do I hire someone? The answer is usually you should have already, but there’s another way to look at it. So what I want you to do is think about and I’m gonna share this with you afterward and I want you just to, like, put your own numbers in here. And you might find that you have to adjust them of the math, etcetera.
That’s fine.
That’s totally cool. This was me doing this all in an assumption of what goes on for people when they follow a general rule of project plus retainer. Every other month you get every month you get one new retainer in the last six months. Okay.
So this is the good year project projection where the year was about five hundred thousand where we have twenty projects and retainers are at sixty. I think that’s what we’re working with here. They take fifty hours a week. This is the breakdown of hours when you go through this.
Profit is showing up here. You as the CEO, if you were the only person doing the work here, you would actually max out at month four. You’ve got two projects a month and three retainers a month. You max out on available hours.
There’s nothing else left. There’s not there’s no time for biz dev in there. Nope. Even here, you have five hours a week for biz dev this month.
So when we think about that, you’re not gonna be able to grow your business very long. This is why a lot of people get stuck. They get stuck when they’re like, wow. I’ve got a lot of great work coming in.
I can’t do the business development work that my business needs me to do. So now here I am. I’ve got nice profit. I’m making good money.
I feel good about that. Anybody who’s made, who’s had a three hundred thousand dollars year and then found themselves dropping down afterward or wanting to drop down afterward is this is what was usually going on for you. And it’s just the numbers, They might budge a little, but they don’t lie. So if you’re going to max out, if you’ve got a hundred and sixty hours that you are technically selling, then what would that’s great.
That’s fine. You get you get nice profit, but you’re burned out. You can’t grow anymore, so we have to go back to this month maybe where it’s, you know, decent profit.
But, again, you’ve only got twenty hours in the month for biz dev, which means you’re working after hours or, again, you’re not developing your business.
No partnerships, no marketing, nothing going on and wondering why you’re only at five thousand profit, why there’s really not much left after you pay yourself and maybe your very part time VA who helps you run things a little bit. So this can be a deceiving little area to be in. I don’t need people. I’m making five thousand a month.
It’s not enough to hire anybody because nobody will come in for sixty thousand dollars a year and really make my life easier, but let’s look down. Once we’ve actually hired someone and we are bringing them on board, revenue has gone up because we’re open and available to actually do business development so we can keep bringing more projects in, keep converting those into more business, get those systems down. Right? Now we’ve got revenue of fifty thousand and salaries of about thirty three thousand.
And that sounds like a lot, but your profit and this is with all overhead built in, your profit is actually much higher month after month after month after month versus this one little month. Right? So you end up with profit of about a hundred and thirty six thousand. If you’re thinking like a business owner, you’re thinking shit.
If every person I hire is worth lots of extra money to me, I don’t wanna end the year with a hundred and thirty six thousand dollars just sitting there. I should have hired two more people along the way because I could afford them, and they would further explode my opportunities to grow. And I could bring in somebody who is going to be my salesperson or somebody who does account based marketing to get bigger themes coming in. I could have done that because I have all this profit.
But I decided to camp out in this little zone that feels safe. I don’t have to hire people. Everything’s fine. I can’t really do much, but it’s okay.
Right? It’s wrong. You’re gonna burn out. This is where you burn out. This is where life goes badly even though it appears to be going great.
So the ROI, the focus of today’s lesson is what is the ROI of hiring? The actual ROI shows right up here, and this is taking time for all of the right work. So we have basically a layout of what your life would look like if you were to start doing this right away. You bring a VA on board if you don’t already have one.
This is the person who in the intensive freelancing when we have week three where we show you your VA is doing this, this, this, this, this, and this, and here are templates for them, that’s what they’re trained on. They’re doing that work here. Week one, this is broken down by weeks. Basically, four weeks at a time, which is great because in the fifth week, your clients don’t need you in that week so you could kinda sorta take that time off according to this schedule.
Now you’ve got forty hours a week as the CEO.
Your VA, you’ve got them in for about five or six hours a week because you don’t need them to do other things. Anybody who hires their VA to be the copywriter, I know a lot of VA’s end up writing copy. I don’t understand who hires a VA to write copy though, especially if you are a copywriter.
What I would say, if you were like, I like the idea of having a good year like this where I’m free to close two projects a month and convert a bunch of those into retainers that last about six months and my profit is really good and I can see myself building a really nice business that grows, okay, then you should hire a copywriter right now. Recruit one right now. It’s expensive.
It seems to be in the short term, but we already have the numbers unless you can’t close a ten thousand dollar project. And we haven’t even talked about what happens if those prices go up. The project doesn’t change. But suddenly, we’re making way more. We can bring our retainer up to seventy five hundred, make way more, and the project and retainer stay the same. So we can see that there’s a lot of leverage ahead, but not if we keep doing everything ourselves.
So we hire a copywriter.
We don’t have a biz dev copywriter person yet, but we have them on the horizon. It’s in our org chart. Very likely, it ended up in your org chart. This is how much time you’re spending a week.
You’re working with clients, and you’re also dealing with this person shadowing you. So we have that under team slash skills. Now client time needed for the month, we’ve copied over from here. These are client time needed for the month.
They’re over here now. So as long as our clients as long as we have a hundred hours spent on client work, we’re good to go, which we do. We’ve got twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, and then our VA is putting in this for admin work. Cool.
That’s covered. We can then allocate fifteen hours a week to training this that’s two full days of training this person who is going to be able to start taking on jobs the next month because you have spent an exhausting amount of time treating them because you planned your week to the hour. You’re not going overtime, forty hours. You’re not even putting in the normal sixty or eighty it takes to build this thing because it’s an agency, and every person you hire is somebody who turns their job into more money for you as long as you’ll spend the time on it and take the leap and hire quickly because we wanna get this person onboarded and taking on a little bit of client work a week.
So like every morning they’re doing client work and every afternoon they’re training, and you’re doing a little bit of the training to help them get there, but you know it’s important and we’re still solving for what our clients need from us. We’re still allowing ourselves to have business development time of twenty hours a month or a week, which is phenomenal when you think about how that would look if you were to manage your calendar that way. Now business dev also can mean administration and other things that help support the business itself, but it shouldn’t mean I’m doing payroll all the time.
You have to run payroll twice a month, and it’s for three people. So, like, it’s fine. You just have to hit yes on payroll, and then it’s done. But we are actually over.
We’ve got more than twenty hours spent on client work in this month. So that’s kinda cool, but we’re willing to do that because even though it means an actual expense to us, we allocated more than we were actually charging for and if needed to, we were training this person. So it’s an acceptable It’s the season of spending in order to get that copywriter trained up. You’re okay with it.
You can handle it. You still walk away with the business getting eighty four hours of your time in there and some VA time as well. Your team has been upscaled to the tune of a hundred and twenty hours and you participated in that which only makes you stronger as the person who’s doing the training. Then by month three, where we’re again going back to all of this and the salaries here match that.
So month two, you’re not making any money. Month three, though, you’re starting to make money because that person is now working more and more. So every one of these tabs all work together. So you can see that by the time you hire, so month four, you’re recruiting the next copywriter, month five.
And when this is happening, you’re gonna be like, this is too fucking slow. We have to go faster than this. There’s so much opportunity if I just keep hiring people. Month five, you’ll be like, I shoulda hired you three months ago.
And you may wanna actually think about that depending on what your pipeline looks like. But you’ve got month four where they’re being recruited. Month five, they’re hired and onboarded. And month six, they’re starting to do client work.
You can see that your client time is going way down in this period. You are now officially working on the business, not in the business, still doing things to help your team, but your copywriter is empowered to work directly with your new copywriter who also does biz dev work for you so that you’re not also entirely the person in charge of biz dev because we don’t want single points of failure. Why? Lots of reasons.
One of them is vacation time. Eventually this copywriter is gonna need a freaking break and you don’t wanna be the one doing that work when the copywriter goes away for a week. Nor should the copywriter come back and go, you didn’t do anything while I was gone. Do I have to do everything around here?
And then they’re burning out and you train them and now they’re ready to leave. We don’t want that. We want them to go on vacation.
Other copywriters this, they do this work. You might do a little more, but we’re even seeing that by this point, you’re not doing more. You’re still only up five hours. This copywriter was able to take over in that time, and now you get to start going on vacations too.
So you decide you’re gonna do this. We still have an excess of hours that we’re dedicating to clients. We’re not we’re not skimming or doing anything less than. We’re doing exactly what our clients need us to do if we’re keeping to the rules around how much time we spend on each project.
And if those change wait. Where are the rules? There. If these change, then none of this works the same way, which is why you have got to time track if you want ROI from your copywriting team in an agency.
And eventually, I want you to look at this and go like, I don’t wanna have these extra hours hanging out. If an hour of my time is worth what’s my hour worth? Ninety bucks And we keep a hun or we keep ten of them at the end of the month that we didn’t use that we like kinda pissed away on client work that we shouldn’t have been putting my time into, that’s nine hundred dollars wasted. That’s the copywriter at this, that’s five hundred dollars wasted.
And it’s time that we could have put towards something else. So you, to be successful in bringing copywriters on staff, anybody on staff, need to be a real stickler for this. We don’t want to be over. We want it to always be at zero.
This is a great month. We did exactly enough for clients and not a smidgen more, and we were able to grow our business and add new team members here. We’re a little over, so that that means we could do something in here or we could say, well, ten extra hours.
If we how much do we need for a project, for a retainer?
By the time we get here, we could take on another retainer if we can maintain this. What can I do up here to maybe squeeze this so we can add another retainer in sooner?
And maybe we budge some of these numbers around and maybe the team and skills part shifts a little bit so that you can take on another retainer. And now it’s the same amount of money that you’re spending, but you’re getting more out of it and making more. Does this all make sense?
It’s a lot of numbers in a spreadsheet, but CEOs love spreadsheets.
And there’s lots of different tabs to go through and we’ve only done this for Goodyear. We haven’t done this for better year or best year, nor are they updated so that we have got if this number changes, everything else here changes. So that’s not happening at this point, but you can imagine and hypothesize that if you charged a little more and if you sold a few more projects and couple more retainers because you know what you’re doing, because you’ve specialized, because you have time available to do biz dev instead of you thinking you have to do all the work yourself, that’s how we make money. That’s where the money comes from in an agency, and that’s why agencies are so profitable.
That’s why we’ve reopened agencies every every time we’re like, alright. Let’s do another agency. We got lots of people in the pipeline. Just gotta hire a bunch of copywriters, and then by the end of that, we printed cash.
So I’m gonna share this out with you. That is the takeaway.
I wonder what would keep you from hiring copywriters if you could see and see as we saw today. Let’s imagine that you’re able to spend more time on biz dev, biz dev being everything to do with partnerships. So you’ve got your workshop, and if you know you have thirty hours a week to do things like pitching, to partners, you could do your workshop in front of, doing all of your Instagram lives and everything that engages your audience, posting to LinkedIn, running your newsletter, all of that stuff that’s actually the most fun as a CEO, what’s really getting in the way of hiring and training copywriters to do the work so that you don’t do that work anymore?
I know not everybody’s hiring. Most people are not hiring at all.
What’s going on?
And it’s like a real talk. It’s not like, shame on you. But, like, what’s getting in the way? Is it finding copywriters?
Is it training them? Is it that you haven’t looked at the numbers and how unprofitable it is for you with your expenses and your skills to be doing this project and retainer work that it’s actually bad for business for you to do that work?
Anybody have any ideas?
Jess?
So I think for me, it’s two things. One is, yeah, finding a copywriter who would agree to get paid that much money because working with contractors, they’re definitely more expensive, but they’re really good. So then the oversight is, like, you you don’t really have to oversee them as much. So that’s the one thing. And then I think the second thing is like not knowing a hundred percent that the clients will come in. And for me, just being in this new industry and targeting a new type of client, I think I’ll get more comfortable with that as time goes on. But, yeah, it feels just kind of like a I hope that’s the way that it works, but I’m I’m not a hundred percent certain at this time.
Yeah. So the second part, hiring someone is an incredible forcing function.
You’re like, alright.
I got payroll.
I have to make payroll. I’m gonna go figure out how to bring more clients in for this. Without payroll, you can take the summer off. And then you’re like, that was a good summer, but I guess I still have to go do this business. Where do I start? Like, you shouldn’t have stopped. You should have been at this the whole time.
So there’s that. The second part is I think that you might be surprised by how many copywriters are out there who are actually talented and who would need your help learning how to do things your way with your unique, this is what we do and this is how we do it. But if you have that baked in, that training time so most businesses that are successful don’t hire the, like, unicorns that we talked about before.
You don’t hire the great copywriter early. You make you are that great copywriter. You’re making copywriter someone who’s really good at this, someone who’s really good at that, and then later hire them. And this this is, like, across the board.
Think of a business.
No business that I that I know of at all hires the best person when they’re first starting unless they’re VC funded, and that’s it. Otherwise, you gotta hire cheap and start training them. Every agency on the planet hires cheap trains, and that’s where you get, like, a bit of a churn. So every two years, you can expect that that person put in a crap ton of time learning under you, not making that much money, but then still going and then they’re like, cool.
It’s been a great two years. I found a cool job at a tech company. I’m gonna go take that. Of course you are.
But that’s why we’re always training new copywriters and bringing new ones on board.
So I think that part one isn’t actually true. You’re probably shopping in the copy hackers world. So what I would say is go outside of the copy hackers world. Those who haven’t discovered that their talents are valuable, go post that to LinkedIn, in LinkedIn jobs.
And then the second half, yeah, as discussed. So I get it.
I can tell you from the other side.
This is this is the reality. Go through to the numbers.
You don’t know what if people are coming. How what are you doing for marketing today? What are you doing to intentionally are you spending for one thirty hours a week on business development to marketing?
Right now, no.
No. How much are you how much are you spending a week on biz dev and marketing?
Not a lot, to be honest.
That’s why I’ve just been trying to work yeah. That’s why I’m trying to work through, like, all the intensive stuff and then get into, like, doing everything else. But yeah. Yeah.
So that’s where I knew you could hire you.
Yeah. Second version of you to do thirty hours of biz dev a week for the price of a hundred thousand dollars a year.
If you found a guest who could do all of the work with your brain for your audience and they cost a hundred thousand dollars, you get thirty hours of their time a week and they’re on, would that be worth it?
Mhmm.
It would be worth it, and that’s all it takes to hire a copywriter who frees you up for that. Right? A hundred thousand dollars all in. Most copywriters that work for CXL get paid fifty thousand dollars a year.
Fifty thousand dollars a year. They’re we’re not expensive out there, just in here. Just in this world we are. But out there, great talented copywriters are available.
Just stop looking within this network. It’s not gonna it’s gonna be expensive.
Okay. Yeah. But yeah. You were otherwise just sitting there doing client work. That is probably best outsourced to somebody that you train.
Yeah. Cool. But thanks for sharing that, Jess. And I think that’s the reality for everybody as well.
Katie says, I don’t feel like I know my offer well enough to hire or train someone in it yet. Also waiting on clients in the pipeline.
Yep. That’s the thing. The waiting.
Right? The waiting because you don’t get to do the marketing and business development at thirty hours a week would be, like, bliss. Like, you could do so much with a hundred and twenty hours a month.
There’s so much there. I wish I had a hundred and twenty hours a month to do that stuff. But yeah. And then I get that. I get that. You wanna make sure that you have everything ready to go to train somebody well on it. That’s fair.
What what’s getting in the way of you having everything ready to go? If it’s actually costing you potentially a hundred and thirty six thousand dollars in profit this year after paying yourself and team members well, if it’s costing you big profits, could you pause, go off to a little hotel room for three days, charge to the business? I know everybody has family and things they need. It’s a work trip. You’re going off and you’re sitting down with your laptop at a not good resort, I’m talking at a Holiday Inn by an airport, you sit there in your shitty room and you type out all of this stuff, you bring a big post it note thing and you’re drawing and writing and figuring things out.
That’s three days of your time, two hundred bucks a night, fifty bucks a day in food. It’s pretty solid excursion, a meeting with yourself in order to have what it takes to then move forward.
That’s my take on it. Marina, what what are you thinking right now?
I’m glad you did that spreadsheet. I have something similar on my whiteboard downstairs, and I was going like, figuring out those hours and going, I’m gonna run out of time. Like, I have not.
Yeah. So then thinking about, like, when to hire it. But my question then is, do you maybe this is really bad business sense.
Do you have a line of credit that you You should have two months for an agency, you should have two months worth of payroll in your account.
That’s it. That’s not true for larger businesses or for, like, other kinds of businesses, but that’s what you need there. So before you hire a person, especially if your pay is usually if it’s a thirty day invoice Yeah. If it’s sixty, obviously, that’s worse. But that’s sometimes the reality. So okay. But if you have two months payroll sitting in your account, you’re more than ready to hire someone unless you have reason to believe that the world is about to explode, which I know we’re all traumatized.
We’re all dealing with PTSD. Thank COVID and everything getting really weird. And then thanks ChatGPT for making it weirder right afterward.
But we’ve survived, so we have to, like, focus and breathe.
The world the the sky is not falling. And if it does, then it’s gonna fall for everybody, and then you’ll have to adjust course or, like, abort mission.
But we can’t build a business thinking the sky is falling. You just you won’t. You’ll go work for the government part time, like and your life will suck, just to be clear.
So I would say if you think you don’t have enough time to do that work, you you don’t.
Now what?
Just do less work? Yeah. But you still need the money. So we have to, like, hire and train people.
Right. Have those two months of salary ready to go. And that’s it. But you have to hire before you’re ready to.
Every agency that I run, I’ve put cash into it upfront, twenty thousand dollars upfront. Mhmm.
And that was what we ran with. Yeah. Okay.
That’s what that’s what I was wondering.
Like, if you put seed capital in just to, like Yeah.
Get you through that Yeah.
Bit and then You’ll take it back out, like, three of her months later.
It’s like a very brief loan from one business to the other.
And it’ll just work like a dog. So to Katie’s point about waiting for clients in the pipeline Mhmm.
And I said I’m in implementation. So I then would it make sense then? I just wanna know if I’m procrastinating or if this is, like, good sense.
So reaching out for workshops.
So then once I start booking workshops and hopefully getting some calls, so concurrent to that, starting to look for potential copywriters and continuing to, like, refine the process so it’s easier to train Yes, sir.
So that when I land a client, then I can bring that copywriter on.
Yeah.
And then just What we can say is if you’re not currently closing two projects a month, which is, like, on that spreadsheet, you’ll see you may be closing two ten thousand dollar projects a month.
If you’re not doing that, like, you don’t have pipeline that shows you can do that, then when we talk about the constraints that we talked about a couple weeks ago, to me, the constraint is you’re not bringing enough leads to close on the project or your sales process needs to be improved.
I want you bringing in at least two projects that you’re closing every month in order to be ready to hire. So once you have two months of those under your belt, I did two projects.
And, I mean, it really quickly though. It really quickly switches to, like once you sell the project, selling the retainer is easier, and that’s why the retainer exists. It’s not to, like, make your life harder. It’s to make it so much easier to sell more ongoing services that give you results to the same clients you just spent all that effort trying to acquire, where a ten thousand dollar project might, at some point, not even feel profitable to you. It should based on what we’ve already seen in the numbers, but it’s like, no. That’s the retainer is what we’re really going for. That’s the easiest money, especially if you do a great job with it and it lasts longer than six months.
But you need to first close those projects. So if you’re working with one core client, your constraint is you need more leads and you need more of those to close into your projects.
And then once you sort that’s like the assembly line. Right? That’s the factory of making your business and a client along it.
You can’t even do anything further. Nobody down the assembly line is getting anything. They’re all just sitting there going like, where’s the rest of where’s the shit? So you have to fix the frontage. You gotta start pushing more into the assembly line So lead generation is a big thing for you, which means if you are dealing with one client right now, or one or two, then and if they’re not the product based thing that we’re talking about here, then you should be spending a lot of your day on biz dev, a lot of your day, a lot of your week to get to a place where you can do all of this other stuff that we’re talking about. Does that make sense, Marina?
Yes. That is helpful.
But But I was like, it’s a little bit cart before the horse, I think.
So Right.
Yeah. But but but this is speed wins here. Like, go faster. Just like Right. Speed will win when it comes to building an agency.
I I can’t think of an example of when that hasn’t worked.
Get out there. Get your message out there. Put some lead gen forms together.
Start calling. Start putting your phone number on your website. Like, do things to get people to say, like, okay. Let’s do this.
Let’s do this. Not like this slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady gets put out of business in, like, three months. Like, it takes no time for that to fall apart.
So up to. Okay.
Get those leads. Yamar Yamar everywhere. Andrew.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah. All of these are are resonating with me. I have no problem coming up with, list of fears and reasons not to do things.
I think something that I’ve noticed that’s a little bit different from what anyone else has said is, I’m having a little bit of fear of, like, having all of, like, having a lot of clients at once.
So right now, I have three clients, and I’m subcontracting for one of them and have project manager for two of the others, which is helping but still not exactly what we’re talking about here. And, yeah, I don’t know. I I guess I don’t know. I I still feel very attached to the idea that each client is getting a good amount of my attention, and I really know what’s going on with them. And so, I guess I start to worry about the overhead the mental overhead, that comes with, you know, remembering, like, a bunch of different clients and what they care about and, you know, all all these details. So I guess I could use I’m I’m sure there are some practical things here that I have like, skills that I haven’t learned yet that where you still know what the client cares about, but you’re not necessarily all the way down the weeds the way that I am right now.
Yeah. So when you unpack me what care about looks like for you when you say that.
Yeah. I guess okay. So I guess it’s a couple different things. So on so in terms of what they care about, I guess that’s maybe not the right thing to that maybe that’s not exactly what I what I’m worried about.
I guess it’s like, when I think of the level of detail that I have to go into right now in order to, like, write a landing page for someone, you know, and I’m presenting the copy, it’s really detailed. It’s little things. It’s, you know, at the at the level of features and things like that. And, I guess, I worry that if I have more clients, I’m kind of juggling, like, am I gonna forget what this I don’t know.
I guess I’m just I’m just I guess it’s a it’s a fear, and I don’t maybe I don’t know exactly what I’m afraid of with that. But, yeah, I think it probably all just comes back to, like, a fear of responsibility, complexity, all of those kinds of things.
I I do. I get that, and thanks for clarifying.
I think about that transition from being the service provider to being the agency founder.
Do you know Will Reynolds?
No. I do not.
Okay. He started this big SEO agency out of Philadelphia and have the multiple locations.
He by, like, year end of year one, he was only showing up on kickoff calls and, like, important calls with clients. And this and, like, he was the face of his business. And if you think that wasn’t hard for him to say, like, okay. Some other people have to take over and present what what was good about it. What many things. One, it freed him up to work on the business and go out and be an authority.
The less you’re in front of your clients, like, this is just human psychology, the more attractive you are to them. The less access they get to you, the more once you do show up, they’re, like, excited. Like, oh, cool. Andrew’s here.
And I think that it would be valuable for you to start, you know, kind of meditating on that, like what would change for me my happiness and what signals would it give to my clients as well if I wasn’t the one who appeared to be doing everything.
So you think it’s valuable, you think, hey, they’re getting me and they don’t recognize quite that getting you is amazing. But once you start vanishing, now getting you is amazing.
So I didn’t show up for tons of my client calls at all. That’s what Rashi was for. That’s what Carolyn was for. That’s what Aaron was for. Other people did that job. Sometimes they fucked it up.
Delegate with risk of failure. That’s fine. But but way more often, they didn’t they nailed it. And so all you really have to do then if you’re worried about releasing that control, what’s the mechanism you can put in place to make sure that you feel in control? You show up for certain meetings and you do, like, recording reviews.
So you can record your client your team member presenting to your client, and then you have meeting with the team members under your team skills area on your sheet, that’s just like, hey. Let’s look at your recording, and let’s talk about it. And you can point out, here’s how you should behave differently. Here’s what you did great.
Here’s what you didn’t do great. That’s it. It’s a game tape for you. That’s it.
I know that sounds simple, but but the numbers are are like they’re just they’re not going to lie.
So if they’re if if you are too expensive put in front of your clients, which I would argue you are too expensive to be doing this work, then it’s like, tell your business brain you are mismanaging funds right now by putting yourself a high value copywriter on every project.
Isn’t that copywriter likely to burn out too? And aren’t they responsible for business development as well? And if they go, doesn’t our whole business collapse? I feel like these are those feel like bigger concerns than my clients might not get as much access to me, or they might not understand why that cross head was written that that way. Does that make sense, Andrew?
Okay. Good. I know I’m talking about this.
I get very passionate.
Muted myself. No. That especially that last part. Definitely, yeah, the cost cost is not doing it. It’s greater than that.
Okay. Cool.
Cool. Wonderful. Katie?
Hi.
Okay. This is all really good. Delegate with risk of failure. I just wrote on a post it to stay my periphery.
But I’m so I’m operating with, like I only have there’s a fix in my business.
Yeah.
That’s what I’ve got right now. I have oh, okay.
K. Yeah. And, so I’m, like, deep in this debt now. Like, that’s kind of all I’m doing.
I know I’m not moving fast enough. Just gonna say that.
But I’m wondering, like, how right now, yes, I have time to work on, like, training materials and, actually, what you described about having, like, a head down mapping everything out session, like, that’s kind of in my calendar for this week. Okay.
But I’m like, at this point where I have my, like, remaining nest egg, I’m like, does that does it make sense to think about hiring at all this point? I guess you said no if it’s two clients in the pipeline.
But would it be crazy to invest in ads at this point?
I guess, because I’m like, I I see the the hiring roots, and I trust the profitability of that.
Does it make sense with, like, limited funds to invest in ads to bring those clients in?
No. It yes. It makes sense. Have you done ads before for your services?
No. Okay. I bought a course, like, two years ago, and I have yet to watch it. So I’m, like, back also on my list of things.
Is it Claire Peltz course?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It’s good, though. Okay.
So, yeah, watch the course.
Watch the short workshop I think she has. It’s actually better than the long one.
And it takes, like it’s an hour on a Saturday, and you’ll have an ad set up. And, actually, mine got rejected.
I remember when I did it. But it was I got I it was fun. I I took away enough that I could fix the parts that got rejected. But, yes to doing ads. Yes. Because you don’t have to spend that much money on them, but you really do have to figure out that offer. How are you going to get them to book a call?
Does it make sense to do retargeting ads? Is there a place where you can, like, buy a list that you can then upload? I know that sounds sketchy, but it’s actually not that expensive to buy a list.
And then it’s just a matter of uploading it, creating a look alike from it in Facebook.
And then yeah.
And I just don’t know if there are other places that are better than that other than I I talk about Facebook.
Maybe you meant Google Ads or something else or both.
So So my plan would have been add to the workshop with retargeting ads to my ROI calculator.
K. Yeah.
And then, yeah, and then that’s that’s as far as my plan went currently. And I’m it’s just like, in the background I have I wanted like, for example, Claire Pals is, like, a dream client that I would love to pitch this offer to. So I’m like I just am afraid, I guess, at this point of, like, burning bridges with prospective clients because I’m not like, that my, like, really, like, size are dream clients. I’m afraid to pitch them too early before I’ve, like, worked the kinks out of a new offer.
Then start with the semi driven clients.
Who’s the next tier down from Claire Pels? Who wants to be the next Claire Pels?
Yeah. I start there. And, I mean, we never talk about account based marketing here, but, effectively, you’re doing account based marketing. Right? Like, if you really want Claire Pels, you can really make that happen. It’s just it’s gonna feel like stalking and there’s going to be weird gifts involved.
But it’s all like a doable thing. It’s just, yeah. Think of it as account based marketing when you’re trying to get clients in right now. Like, account based marketing doesn’t scale as well as the rest of the marketing that we’re talking about, but it can actually help you land those key clients right away or the next tier down. So I’d Jess says, what do you mean by account based marketing?
If you even just Google ABM, account based marketing is where you say marketing to sales come together.
Instead of marketing pushing to sales, marketing and sales align, which is you sitting and talking to yourself and saying, like, okay. So here’s an account that we really want. What can we do to get them? It’s really all it comes down to.
There’s more to it than that, but that’s that’s effectively we’re gonna ship them. We’re gonna have a three tier process where we go phase or fear phase process. Phase one, we’re gonna ship an envelope to them that just introduces us to them. We have to make sure it lands on their desk.
So we’re gonna take an hour to look for their mailing address and freaking make sure it’s theirs. Okay. Fine. So we start the mailing process then seven days later, we know the package is supposed to arrive there or we did FedEx tracking on it.
We got a ping that said, hey. It arrived. Now we ping them on LinkedIn at the exact same moment and start a message with them. And if they still don’t reply, phase two begins and that’s another mailer.
And that’s LinkedIn plus maybe we call them. We get their phone number. They have seen our name now. So all in, you invest three, four hundred bucks in an account but if you can see it being worth thirty thousand, forty thousand dollars, that’s money very well spent versus three hundred dollars on a Facebook ad that might generate nothing.
You know, it’s just this takes time but account based marketing is is an opportunity when you’re really trying to just land some business.
Yeah.
And never underestimate the power of, like, hopping on a call, calling someone, especially if you are retargeting them. Have the call me number right in, like, your Facebook retargeting ads. It’s like, call. Like, call me, and then take the call, which sucks. And now you have to take calls. And they’re like, I don’t know who that person is.
But yeah. Does that help at all, Katie?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Actually, I’m rewatching Mad Men, so the account based marketing is, like, giving me good. I’m like, yeah. I can see how this how this can work.
Nice.
Okay. Thank you.
Cool. No worries. And Jess says, do you have a separate number for that? Eventually. I think for now, I just put your number out there. And you can set it up. Like, Zoom will sell you a phone number, and you can get phone numbers all over.
Our sales team uses their own phone.
We just I’ve put my phone number out there, and it’s just like, you’re my number. It’s in my signature.
Yeah.
Just take the call. And then if you’re, like, inundated with calls, that’s a high class problem to have. That means people are seeing it. And then you can address, do I need a new phone number?
Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Okay.
And, oh, their dog walker is here.
Alright. Any any other questions that we want to cover today? Does anybody did anybody arrive with other questions or more of the same questions or panic that it’s time to hire? It’s really actually exciting when you start hiring. I think you’ll find that you will you will rise to the occasion and make money.
Jess. Jess, come on. Andrew, what’s up?
Yeah. I guess so, you know, I I know I’m a little bit of a special case here. As you mentioned earlier, like, health health issues is definitely a thing for me.
I guess there’s I I feel a little bit like I’m sort of straddling two kinds of worlds here. Like, one is to, like, grow, grow, grow, build an agency, hire people as fast as you can, and the other is like, okay. Like, relax. You don’t have an unlimited amount of, like, energy Yeah.
Emotional, physical, like, all all of that stuff. And so I feel like I’m I’m trying to sort of, like, okay. How can I still do this, but also but do it kind of, like, on a smaller scale? And, like, I’m picturing, you know, can I do this with I have a, you know, maybe a business manager, a VA, and a copywriter or something like that?
Like Yeah. Does it is that still a feasible path, or am I screwing myself by trying to, like, be in the middle of two different approaches, and I should be, like, choosing one or the other? Or is there a middle ground that still is, like, credible and worth it?
Yeah. So a couple of things. One, you do need to plan for a future where you have clients and someone wants to go on vacation. And that’s where redundancy goes a long way. That’s why I’m, like, hire a few copywriters. Okay. Okay.
Also, I can’t help but think that this model is better for you because there are times when you can’t work or you don’t have enough energy for it. Right? Cody is saying something similar.
I a hundred percent get that. There’s a reason I’m on Zoloft. It’s like real I they’re not the same as yours. Don’t get me wrong. But I get not wanting to just be at the mercy of, oh my gosh. I have to do all this stuff. That’s what teams actually help with.
If I didn’t have Tina coaching, I’d be coaching. And everyone’s like, no.
And so Tina frees me up so that I can do other things. And sometimes those things are no things. Sometimes it’s just like I need Friday off because I didn’t sleep last night, and I’m kinda dying. And that’s my feeling today. I’m like, but I got a full day because I’m hiring another person, and I need a few interviews today.
So that just means that I’m gonna be low energy tonight.
But the goal is that in interviewing these people in a month’s time, now marketing is not my responsibility like it currently is. Right? So I know it sucks right now, and I’d much rather be napping, but I’m not.
And that’s it. But every team member I hire frees me up to do more. It’s not there’s no luxury. I don’t have a VA or an assistant as much as I watch Veep and want my own Gary. For anybody who knows Veep and Gary, like, I definitely want one, but that’s a luxury. I’m hiring people who free up my time so I can work on the right thing. So I would look, Andrew, at the, worksheet.
Once I send it out, go on team time, that team time tab and look under the CEO column. You can see that as you grow into doing more and more of the business development stuff, that might you might not need all of the time showing there. So you’ll see that there’s, like, by month three with this model knowing it’s not gonna work as perfectly as a model shows, but it’s a starting point. Right? So with this you’ve got twenty five hours a week on business development.
The reality is you don’t need twenty five hours a week on business development. You might need twenty five hours a month on business development if you’re working on the right things. So you then instead do ten hours a week on client work, five hours a week on getting your team in a good place, and another five hours a week on business development. That’s a twenty hour week suddenly instead of a forty or sixty hour week, so this doesn’t have to be as bad as it seems like because that’s what employees are there to do. Does that make sense?
It’s gonna be hard until you do it.
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So I think, like, two having two copywriters and business, like, project manager type person, like, that that sounds manageable to me.
So Yeah.
And those copywriters, I mean, there’s a lot of good things to be said about hiring two copywriters together to work under you.
They’ll help you make content as well. Like, they’ll help in so many ways. Like, Carolyn was so useful as a team member, beyond just being a really great conversion copywriter.
Yeah. And she was actually in the copy hacker sphere for those who were like, where do you find one then? They’re there. So all of them are just like, I do good work, and I don’t wanna sell my projects anymore.
I just wanna, like, go work somewhere and do the work. Cool. I got you. But it’s not gonna be the same unlimited salary that you had when you were on your own.
Yeah.
I like to sound a lot.
Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Marina, did you have something to add?
Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, where do you find these non copy hackers, copywriters?
And they are out there.
So it’s I mean, Carolyn was sitting in ten x FC. She would ask good questions.
So if I have access to freelancing school, look for the people who ask good questions.
And then, like, great. Like, you try to hire that person if you can.
Right. Start start talking with them. Yeah.
Yeah. Cool. Alright, y’all. Okay. I know we already have okay. We’re end of time. Oh, sorry.
Okay. Alright. So thank you, and be sure to sign up for the hot seat this Thursday with Ry to work through whatever thing is your biggest constraint right now or if you’re not sure what your constraint is or if it’s time to hire or whatever you’re working on.
You can talk through it on Thursday. Alright? And if you’re not in the hot seat, please show up for your fellow copywriters, and you can also, like, catch interesting insights by hearing what they’re going through and maybe even sharing your own story with them. Okay?
Worksheet
Worksheet
Transcript
Every person you hire at an agency helps you make money. That’s not true in other businesses. You’re gonna you start a software company, most of your team does not help you make money. They’re all expensive developers. They’re not helping you make anything other than usually the product they wanna make.
That’s not true for agencies. Every single person you hire helps you make money and I mean directly helps you make money. So if you’re at all good at selling and getting your team members to do decent work and the more you specialize, the easier that part is, then it’s it’s actually kind of it’s foolish I would say not to hire unless you have of course health problems or these challenges that you know are currently insurmountable.
But if you don’t have currently insurmountable health or other such challenges, dig in. It’s time to hire. Alright. So I’m gonna share my screen. We’re gonna talk about this calculator, then I’ll share this around with y’all afterward.
I’m gonna make it bigger in case you’re on a laptop or something smaller than that even.
Okay.
So this is a general way of looking at how to afford things and can you.
So it starts with a breakeven calculator just to see, like, when am I gonna actually start making money, and we’ll get into all of those across these different tabs. The general tab here is just you setting your goals for good, better, best. Now in the intensive freelancing, which I think everybody here comes from, except Caroline, I don’t know if you did it. In the intensive freelancing, though, I’d say ten thousand dollars for your core project, five thousand dollars for your retainer.
My assumption here is your retainer average is about six months. It could be more, and, of course, your numbers go up if it’s more. We wanna also break down what it costs to run a project and what it costs every month to run a retainer. So if you are and this is why you really wanna get time tracking down.
Every single minute that your team member spends on something they shouldn’t be working on is literally costing you profit. So this all comes from, a variety of things. So we have to figure out what your salary is, what their salary is, how much time, how many hours it takes to do a project, usually about fifty is what we’re trying to budget, and how many hours it takes to to do a retainer every month, usually about twenty. And, again, you can see that if this suddenly takes thirty hours, now the project just got more expensive or the retainer just got more expensive. It takes forty hours, people are just pissing away your time. Now a project that should have cost a little over a grand cost you two, and that’s real money.
Actual money that you could just not do the work and just sit there, and that would be better than you waste energy on low profit projects. So we don’t want to have our numbers go up, our hours go up as soon as they do. It’s really like, the math is right there. It’s a lot.
We don’t want that. Don’t do it. And, of course, the more, expensive people, spend time on things, the less profit you have. So let’s say if you didn’t have a VA or a junior copywriter or a copywriter working with you, that means a hundred percent of the costs are suddenly yours.
So let’s say instead, there’s that. So now with the project without me deleting those, the project is now forty four hundred bucks instead of being thirty two hundred bucks. Right? So it costs you twelve hundred dollars to keep hiring yourself for these projects instead of hiring help to get you there.
So when you think of that, it can be easier to think, oh, it’s gonna be expensive to hire someone. But the reality is it’ll cost you an extra twelve hundred dollars for you to just keep hiring yourself for this with these, like, basic numbers in play. So we don’t want to do that. And, of course, as your salary goes up now these are all in salaries that we have here.
All the taxes and other things that you might be paying. If you were at a hundred and twenty five thousand salary in Canada, you’re probably going to end up spending about a hundred and seventy somewhere in there. The government’s gonna take a whole bunch, and all the other overhead that comes with it. So a hundred and seventy five thousand now if you are even more expensive than that.
The copywriter salary doesn’t keep getting more expensive. If you hire someone for copywriter and biz dev, that doesn’t keep getting more expensive and the VA doesn’t keep getting more expensive but you do. So as soon as this goes up, if you’re at two fifty suddenly because you’re like I work hard then everything gets more and more expensive the more involved you are. So we don’t want to involve you more than we have to in things that you could hire other people to do and train them to do it.
But the question usually is, okay, well, Joe, when do I hire someone? The answer is usually you should have already, but there’s another way to look at it. So what I want you to do is think about and I’m gonna share this with you afterward and I want you just to, like, put your own numbers in here. And you might find that you have to adjust them of the math, etcetera.
That’s fine.
That’s totally cool. This was me doing this all in an assumption of what goes on for people when they follow a general rule of project plus retainer. Every other month you get every month you get one new retainer in the last six months. Okay.
So this is the good year project projection where the year was about five hundred thousand where we have twenty projects and retainers are at sixty. I think that’s what we’re working with here. They take fifty hours a week. This is the breakdown of hours when you go through this.
Profit is showing up here. You as the CEO, if you were the only person doing the work here, you would actually max out at month four. You’ve got two projects a month and three retainers a month. You max out on available hours.
There’s nothing else left. There’s not there’s no time for biz dev in there. Nope. Even here, you have five hours a week for biz dev this month.
So when we think about that, you’re not gonna be able to grow your business very long. This is why a lot of people get stuck. They get stuck when they’re like, wow. I’ve got a lot of great work coming in.
I can’t do the business development work that my business needs me to do. So now here I am. I’ve got nice profit. I’m making good money.
I feel good about that. Anybody who’s made, who’s had a three hundred thousand dollars year and then found themselves dropping down afterward or wanting to drop down afterward is this is what was usually going on for you. And it’s just the numbers, They might budge a little, but they don’t lie. So if you’re going to max out, if you’ve got a hundred and sixty hours that you are technically selling, then what would that’s great.
That’s fine. You get you get nice profit, but you’re burned out. You can’t grow anymore, so we have to go back to this month maybe where it’s, you know, decent profit.
But, again, you’ve only got twenty hours in the month for biz dev, which means you’re working after hours or, again, you’re not developing your business.
No partnerships, no marketing, nothing going on and wondering why you’re only at five thousand profit, why there’s really not much left after you pay yourself and maybe your very part time VA who helps you run things a little bit. So this can be a deceiving little area to be in. I don’t need people. I’m making five thousand a month.
It’s not enough to hire anybody because nobody will come in for sixty thousand dollars a year and really make my life easier, but let’s look down. Once we’ve actually hired someone and we are bringing them on board, revenue has gone up because we’re open and available to actually do business development so we can keep bringing more projects in, keep converting those into more business, get those systems down. Right? Now we’ve got revenue of fifty thousand and salaries of about thirty three thousand.
And that sounds like a lot, but your profit and this is with all overhead built in, your profit is actually much higher month after month after month after month versus this one little month. Right? So you end up with profit of about a hundred and thirty six thousand. If you’re thinking like a business owner, you’re thinking shit.
If every person I hire is worth lots of extra money to me, I don’t wanna end the year with a hundred and thirty six thousand dollars just sitting there. I should have hired two more people along the way because I could afford them, and they would further explode my opportunities to grow. And I could bring in somebody who is going to be my salesperson or somebody who does account based marketing to get bigger themes coming in. I could have done that because I have all this profit.
But I decided to camp out in this little zone that feels safe. I don’t have to hire people. Everything’s fine. I can’t really do much, but it’s okay.
Right? It’s wrong. You’re gonna burn out. This is where you burn out. This is where life goes badly even though it appears to be going great.
So the ROI, the focus of today’s lesson is what is the ROI of hiring? The actual ROI shows right up here, and this is taking time for all of the right work. So we have basically a layout of what your life would look like if you were to start doing this right away. You bring a VA on board if you don’t already have one.
This is the person who in the intensive freelancing when we have week three where we show you your VA is doing this, this, this, this, this, and this, and here are templates for them, that’s what they’re trained on. They’re doing that work here. Week one, this is broken down by weeks. Basically, four weeks at a time, which is great because in the fifth week, your clients don’t need you in that week so you could kinda sorta take that time off according to this schedule.
Now you’ve got forty hours a week as the CEO.
Your VA, you’ve got them in for about five or six hours a week because you don’t need them to do other things. Anybody who hires their VA to be the copywriter, I know a lot of VA’s end up writing copy. I don’t understand who hires a VA to write copy though, especially if you are a copywriter.
What I would say, if you were like, I like the idea of having a good year like this where I’m free to close two projects a month and convert a bunch of those into retainers that last about six months and my profit is really good and I can see myself building a really nice business that grows, okay, then you should hire a copywriter right now. Recruit one right now. It’s expensive.
It seems to be in the short term, but we already have the numbers unless you can’t close a ten thousand dollar project. And we haven’t even talked about what happens if those prices go up. The project doesn’t change. But suddenly, we’re making way more. We can bring our retainer up to seventy five hundred, make way more, and the project and retainer stay the same. So we can see that there’s a lot of leverage ahead, but not if we keep doing everything ourselves.
So we hire a copywriter.
We don’t have a biz dev copywriter person yet, but we have them on the horizon. It’s in our org chart. Very likely, it ended up in your org chart. This is how much time you’re spending a week.
You’re working with clients, and you’re also dealing with this person shadowing you. So we have that under team slash skills. Now client time needed for the month, we’ve copied over from here. These are client time needed for the month.
They’re over here now. So as long as our clients as long as we have a hundred hours spent on client work, we’re good to go, which we do. We’ve got twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, and then our VA is putting in this for admin work. Cool.
That’s covered. We can then allocate fifteen hours a week to training this that’s two full days of training this person who is going to be able to start taking on jobs the next month because you have spent an exhausting amount of time treating them because you planned your week to the hour. You’re not going overtime, forty hours. You’re not even putting in the normal sixty or eighty it takes to build this thing because it’s an agency, and every person you hire is somebody who turns their job into more money for you as long as you’ll spend the time on it and take the leap and hire quickly because we wanna get this person onboarded and taking on a little bit of client work a week.
So like every morning they’re doing client work and every afternoon they’re training, and you’re doing a little bit of the training to help them get there, but you know it’s important and we’re still solving for what our clients need from us. We’re still allowing ourselves to have business development time of twenty hours a month or a week, which is phenomenal when you think about how that would look if you were to manage your calendar that way. Now business dev also can mean administration and other things that help support the business itself, but it shouldn’t mean I’m doing payroll all the time.
You have to run payroll twice a month, and it’s for three people. So, like, it’s fine. You just have to hit yes on payroll, and then it’s done. But we are actually over.
We’ve got more than twenty hours spent on client work in this month. So that’s kinda cool, but we’re willing to do that because even though it means an actual expense to us, we allocated more than we were actually charging for and if needed to, we were training this person. So it’s an acceptable It’s the season of spending in order to get that copywriter trained up. You’re okay with it.
You can handle it. You still walk away with the business getting eighty four hours of your time in there and some VA time as well. Your team has been upscaled to the tune of a hundred and twenty hours and you participated in that which only makes you stronger as the person who’s doing the training. Then by month three, where we’re again going back to all of this and the salaries here match that.
So month two, you’re not making any money. Month three, though, you’re starting to make money because that person is now working more and more. So every one of these tabs all work together. So you can see that by the time you hire, so month four, you’re recruiting the next copywriter, month five.
And when this is happening, you’re gonna be like, this is too fucking slow. We have to go faster than this. There’s so much opportunity if I just keep hiring people. Month five, you’ll be like, I shoulda hired you three months ago.
And you may wanna actually think about that depending on what your pipeline looks like. But you’ve got month four where they’re being recruited. Month five, they’re hired and onboarded. And month six, they’re starting to do client work.
You can see that your client time is going way down in this period. You are now officially working on the business, not in the business, still doing things to help your team, but your copywriter is empowered to work directly with your new copywriter who also does biz dev work for you so that you’re not also entirely the person in charge of biz dev because we don’t want single points of failure. Why? Lots of reasons.
One of them is vacation time. Eventually this copywriter is gonna need a freaking break and you don’t wanna be the one doing that work when the copywriter goes away for a week. Nor should the copywriter come back and go, you didn’t do anything while I was gone. Do I have to do everything around here?
And then they’re burning out and you train them and now they’re ready to leave. We don’t want that. We want them to go on vacation.
Other copywriters this, they do this work. You might do a little more, but we’re even seeing that by this point, you’re not doing more. You’re still only up five hours. This copywriter was able to take over in that time, and now you get to start going on vacations too.
So you decide you’re gonna do this. We still have an excess of hours that we’re dedicating to clients. We’re not we’re not skimming or doing anything less than. We’re doing exactly what our clients need us to do if we’re keeping to the rules around how much time we spend on each project.
And if those change wait. Where are the rules? There. If these change, then none of this works the same way, which is why you have got to time track if you want ROI from your copywriting team in an agency.
And eventually, I want you to look at this and go like, I don’t wanna have these extra hours hanging out. If an hour of my time is worth what’s my hour worth? Ninety bucks And we keep a hun or we keep ten of them at the end of the month that we didn’t use that we like kinda pissed away on client work that we shouldn’t have been putting my time into, that’s nine hundred dollars wasted. That’s the copywriter at this, that’s five hundred dollars wasted.
And it’s time that we could have put towards something else. So you, to be successful in bringing copywriters on staff, anybody on staff, need to be a real stickler for this. We don’t want to be over. We want it to always be at zero.
This is a great month. We did exactly enough for clients and not a smidgen more, and we were able to grow our business and add new team members here. We’re a little over, so that that means we could do something in here or we could say, well, ten extra hours.
If we how much do we need for a project, for a retainer?
By the time we get here, we could take on another retainer if we can maintain this. What can I do up here to maybe squeeze this so we can add another retainer in sooner?
And maybe we budge some of these numbers around and maybe the team and skills part shifts a little bit so that you can take on another retainer. And now it’s the same amount of money that you’re spending, but you’re getting more out of it and making more. Does this all make sense?
It’s a lot of numbers in a spreadsheet, but CEOs love spreadsheets.
And there’s lots of different tabs to go through and we’ve only done this for Goodyear. We haven’t done this for better year or best year, nor are they updated so that we have got if this number changes, everything else here changes. So that’s not happening at this point, but you can imagine and hypothesize that if you charged a little more and if you sold a few more projects and couple more retainers because you know what you’re doing, because you’ve specialized, because you have time available to do biz dev instead of you thinking you have to do all the work yourself, that’s how we make money. That’s where the money comes from in an agency, and that’s why agencies are so profitable.
That’s why we’ve reopened agencies every every time we’re like, alright. Let’s do another agency. We got lots of people in the pipeline. Just gotta hire a bunch of copywriters, and then by the end of that, we printed cash.
So I’m gonna share this out with you. That is the takeaway.
I wonder what would keep you from hiring copywriters if you could see and see as we saw today. Let’s imagine that you’re able to spend more time on biz dev, biz dev being everything to do with partnerships. So you’ve got your workshop, and if you know you have thirty hours a week to do things like pitching, to partners, you could do your workshop in front of, doing all of your Instagram lives and everything that engages your audience, posting to LinkedIn, running your newsletter, all of that stuff that’s actually the most fun as a CEO, what’s really getting in the way of hiring and training copywriters to do the work so that you don’t do that work anymore?
I know not everybody’s hiring. Most people are not hiring at all.
What’s going on?
And it’s like a real talk. It’s not like, shame on you. But, like, what’s getting in the way? Is it finding copywriters?
Is it training them? Is it that you haven’t looked at the numbers and how unprofitable it is for you with your expenses and your skills to be doing this project and retainer work that it’s actually bad for business for you to do that work?
Anybody have any ideas?
Jess?
So I think for me, it’s two things. One is, yeah, finding a copywriter who would agree to get paid that much money because working with contractors, they’re definitely more expensive, but they’re really good. So then the oversight is, like, you you don’t really have to oversee them as much. So that’s the one thing. And then I think the second thing is like not knowing a hundred percent that the clients will come in. And for me, just being in this new industry and targeting a new type of client, I think I’ll get more comfortable with that as time goes on. But, yeah, it feels just kind of like a I hope that’s the way that it works, but I’m I’m not a hundred percent certain at this time.
Yeah. So the second part, hiring someone is an incredible forcing function.
You’re like, alright.
I got payroll.
I have to make payroll. I’m gonna go figure out how to bring more clients in for this. Without payroll, you can take the summer off. And then you’re like, that was a good summer, but I guess I still have to go do this business. Where do I start? Like, you shouldn’t have stopped. You should have been at this the whole time.
So there’s that. The second part is I think that you might be surprised by how many copywriters are out there who are actually talented and who would need your help learning how to do things your way with your unique, this is what we do and this is how we do it. But if you have that baked in, that training time so most businesses that are successful don’t hire the, like, unicorns that we talked about before.
You don’t hire the great copywriter early. You make you are that great copywriter. You’re making copywriter someone who’s really good at this, someone who’s really good at that, and then later hire them. And this this is, like, across the board.
Think of a business.
No business that I that I know of at all hires the best person when they’re first starting unless they’re VC funded, and that’s it. Otherwise, you gotta hire cheap and start training them. Every agency on the planet hires cheap trains, and that’s where you get, like, a bit of a churn. So every two years, you can expect that that person put in a crap ton of time learning under you, not making that much money, but then still going and then they’re like, cool.
It’s been a great two years. I found a cool job at a tech company. I’m gonna go take that. Of course you are.
But that’s why we’re always training new copywriters and bringing new ones on board.
So I think that part one isn’t actually true. You’re probably shopping in the copy hackers world. So what I would say is go outside of the copy hackers world. Those who haven’t discovered that their talents are valuable, go post that to LinkedIn, in LinkedIn jobs.
And then the second half, yeah, as discussed. So I get it.
I can tell you from the other side.
This is this is the reality. Go through to the numbers.
You don’t know what if people are coming. How what are you doing for marketing today? What are you doing to intentionally are you spending for one thirty hours a week on business development to marketing?
Right now, no.
No. How much are you how much are you spending a week on biz dev and marketing?
Not a lot, to be honest.
That’s why I’ve just been trying to work yeah. That’s why I’m trying to work through, like, all the intensive stuff and then get into, like, doing everything else. But yeah. Yeah.
So that’s where I knew you could hire you.
Yeah. Second version of you to do thirty hours of biz dev a week for the price of a hundred thousand dollars a year.
If you found a guest who could do all of the work with your brain for your audience and they cost a hundred thousand dollars, you get thirty hours of their time a week and they’re on, would that be worth it?
Mhmm.
It would be worth it, and that’s all it takes to hire a copywriter who frees you up for that. Right? A hundred thousand dollars all in. Most copywriters that work for CXL get paid fifty thousand dollars a year.
Fifty thousand dollars a year. They’re we’re not expensive out there, just in here. Just in this world we are. But out there, great talented copywriters are available.
Just stop looking within this network. It’s not gonna it’s gonna be expensive.
Okay. Yeah. But yeah. You were otherwise just sitting there doing client work. That is probably best outsourced to somebody that you train.
Yeah. Cool. But thanks for sharing that, Jess. And I think that’s the reality for everybody as well.
Katie says, I don’t feel like I know my offer well enough to hire or train someone in it yet. Also waiting on clients in the pipeline.
Yep. That’s the thing. The waiting.
Right? The waiting because you don’t get to do the marketing and business development at thirty hours a week would be, like, bliss. Like, you could do so much with a hundred and twenty hours a month.
There’s so much there. I wish I had a hundred and twenty hours a month to do that stuff. But yeah. And then I get that. I get that. You wanna make sure that you have everything ready to go to train somebody well on it. That’s fair.
What what’s getting in the way of you having everything ready to go? If it’s actually costing you potentially a hundred and thirty six thousand dollars in profit this year after paying yourself and team members well, if it’s costing you big profits, could you pause, go off to a little hotel room for three days, charge to the business? I know everybody has family and things they need. It’s a work trip. You’re going off and you’re sitting down with your laptop at a not good resort, I’m talking at a Holiday Inn by an airport, you sit there in your shitty room and you type out all of this stuff, you bring a big post it note thing and you’re drawing and writing and figuring things out.
That’s three days of your time, two hundred bucks a night, fifty bucks a day in food. It’s pretty solid excursion, a meeting with yourself in order to have what it takes to then move forward.
That’s my take on it. Marina, what what are you thinking right now?
I’m glad you did that spreadsheet. I have something similar on my whiteboard downstairs, and I was going like, figuring out those hours and going, I’m gonna run out of time. Like, I have not.
Yeah. So then thinking about, like, when to hire it. But my question then is, do you maybe this is really bad business sense.
Do you have a line of credit that you You should have two months for an agency, you should have two months worth of payroll in your account.
That’s it. That’s not true for larger businesses or for, like, other kinds of businesses, but that’s what you need there. So before you hire a person, especially if your pay is usually if it’s a thirty day invoice Yeah. If it’s sixty, obviously, that’s worse. But that’s sometimes the reality. So okay. But if you have two months payroll sitting in your account, you’re more than ready to hire someone unless you have reason to believe that the world is about to explode, which I know we’re all traumatized.
We’re all dealing with PTSD. Thank COVID and everything getting really weird. And then thanks ChatGPT for making it weirder right afterward.
But we’ve survived, so we have to, like, focus and breathe.
The world the the sky is not falling. And if it does, then it’s gonna fall for everybody, and then you’ll have to adjust course or, like, abort mission.
But we can’t build a business thinking the sky is falling. You just you won’t. You’ll go work for the government part time, like and your life will suck, just to be clear.
So I would say if you think you don’t have enough time to do that work, you you don’t.
Now what?
Just do less work? Yeah. But you still need the money. So we have to, like, hire and train people.
Right. Have those two months of salary ready to go. And that’s it. But you have to hire before you’re ready to.
Every agency that I run, I’ve put cash into it upfront, twenty thousand dollars upfront. Mhmm.
And that was what we ran with. Yeah. Okay.
That’s what that’s what I was wondering.
Like, if you put seed capital in just to, like Yeah.
Get you through that Yeah.
Bit and then You’ll take it back out, like, three of her months later.
It’s like a very brief loan from one business to the other.
And it’ll just work like a dog. So to Katie’s point about waiting for clients in the pipeline Mhmm.
And I said I’m in implementation. So I then would it make sense then? I just wanna know if I’m procrastinating or if this is, like, good sense.
So reaching out for workshops.
So then once I start booking workshops and hopefully getting some calls, so concurrent to that, starting to look for potential copywriters and continuing to, like, refine the process so it’s easier to train Yes, sir.
So that when I land a client, then I can bring that copywriter on.
Yeah.
And then just What we can say is if you’re not currently closing two projects a month, which is, like, on that spreadsheet, you’ll see you may be closing two ten thousand dollar projects a month.
If you’re not doing that, like, you don’t have pipeline that shows you can do that, then when we talk about the constraints that we talked about a couple weeks ago, to me, the constraint is you’re not bringing enough leads to close on the project or your sales process needs to be improved.
I want you bringing in at least two projects that you’re closing every month in order to be ready to hire. So once you have two months of those under your belt, I did two projects.
And, I mean, it really quickly though. It really quickly switches to, like once you sell the project, selling the retainer is easier, and that’s why the retainer exists. It’s not to, like, make your life harder. It’s to make it so much easier to sell more ongoing services that give you results to the same clients you just spent all that effort trying to acquire, where a ten thousand dollar project might, at some point, not even feel profitable to you. It should based on what we’ve already seen in the numbers, but it’s like, no. That’s the retainer is what we’re really going for. That’s the easiest money, especially if you do a great job with it and it lasts longer than six months.
But you need to first close those projects. So if you’re working with one core client, your constraint is you need more leads and you need more of those to close into your projects.
And then once you sort that’s like the assembly line. Right? That’s the factory of making your business and a client along it.
You can’t even do anything further. Nobody down the assembly line is getting anything. They’re all just sitting there going like, where’s the rest of where’s the shit? So you have to fix the frontage. You gotta start pushing more into the assembly line So lead generation is a big thing for you, which means if you are dealing with one client right now, or one or two, then and if they’re not the product based thing that we’re talking about here, then you should be spending a lot of your day on biz dev, a lot of your day, a lot of your week to get to a place where you can do all of this other stuff that we’re talking about. Does that make sense, Marina?
Yes. That is helpful.
But But I was like, it’s a little bit cart before the horse, I think.
So Right.
Yeah. But but but this is speed wins here. Like, go faster. Just like Right. Speed will win when it comes to building an agency.
I I can’t think of an example of when that hasn’t worked.
Get out there. Get your message out there. Put some lead gen forms together.
Start calling. Start putting your phone number on your website. Like, do things to get people to say, like, okay. Let’s do this.
Let’s do this. Not like this slow and steady wins the race. Slow and steady gets put out of business in, like, three months. Like, it takes no time for that to fall apart.
So up to. Okay.
Get those leads. Yamar Yamar everywhere. Andrew.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah. All of these are are resonating with me. I have no problem coming up with, list of fears and reasons not to do things.
I think something that I’ve noticed that’s a little bit different from what anyone else has said is, I’m having a little bit of fear of, like, having all of, like, having a lot of clients at once.
So right now, I have three clients, and I’m subcontracting for one of them and have project manager for two of the others, which is helping but still not exactly what we’re talking about here. And, yeah, I don’t know. I I guess I don’t know. I I still feel very attached to the idea that each client is getting a good amount of my attention, and I really know what’s going on with them. And so, I guess I start to worry about the overhead the mental overhead, that comes with, you know, remembering, like, a bunch of different clients and what they care about and, you know, all all these details. So I guess I could use I’m I’m sure there are some practical things here that I have like, skills that I haven’t learned yet that where you still know what the client cares about, but you’re not necessarily all the way down the weeds the way that I am right now.
Yeah. So when you unpack me what care about looks like for you when you say that.
Yeah. I guess okay. So I guess it’s a couple different things. So on so in terms of what they care about, I guess that’s maybe not the right thing to that maybe that’s not exactly what I what I’m worried about.
I guess it’s like, when I think of the level of detail that I have to go into right now in order to, like, write a landing page for someone, you know, and I’m presenting the copy, it’s really detailed. It’s little things. It’s, you know, at the at the level of features and things like that. And, I guess, I worry that if I have more clients, I’m kind of juggling, like, am I gonna forget what this I don’t know.
I guess I’m just I’m just I guess it’s a it’s a fear, and I don’t maybe I don’t know exactly what I’m afraid of with that. But, yeah, I think it probably all just comes back to, like, a fear of responsibility, complexity, all of those kinds of things.
I I do. I get that, and thanks for clarifying.
I think about that transition from being the service provider to being the agency founder.
Do you know Will Reynolds?
No. I do not.
Okay. He started this big SEO agency out of Philadelphia and have the multiple locations.
He by, like, year end of year one, he was only showing up on kickoff calls and, like, important calls with clients. And this and, like, he was the face of his business. And if you think that wasn’t hard for him to say, like, okay. Some other people have to take over and present what what was good about it. What many things. One, it freed him up to work on the business and go out and be an authority.
The less you’re in front of your clients, like, this is just human psychology, the more attractive you are to them. The less access they get to you, the more once you do show up, they’re, like, excited. Like, oh, cool. Andrew’s here.
And I think that it would be valuable for you to start, you know, kind of meditating on that, like what would change for me my happiness and what signals would it give to my clients as well if I wasn’t the one who appeared to be doing everything.
So you think it’s valuable, you think, hey, they’re getting me and they don’t recognize quite that getting you is amazing. But once you start vanishing, now getting you is amazing.
So I didn’t show up for tons of my client calls at all. That’s what Rashi was for. That’s what Carolyn was for. That’s what Aaron was for. Other people did that job. Sometimes they fucked it up.
Delegate with risk of failure. That’s fine. But but way more often, they didn’t they nailed it. And so all you really have to do then if you’re worried about releasing that control, what’s the mechanism you can put in place to make sure that you feel in control? You show up for certain meetings and you do, like, recording reviews.
So you can record your client your team member presenting to your client, and then you have meeting with the team members under your team skills area on your sheet, that’s just like, hey. Let’s look at your recording, and let’s talk about it. And you can point out, here’s how you should behave differently. Here’s what you did great.
Here’s what you didn’t do great. That’s it. It’s a game tape for you. That’s it.
I know that sounds simple, but but the numbers are are like they’re just they’re not going to lie.
So if they’re if if you are too expensive put in front of your clients, which I would argue you are too expensive to be doing this work, then it’s like, tell your business brain you are mismanaging funds right now by putting yourself a high value copywriter on every project.
Isn’t that copywriter likely to burn out too? And aren’t they responsible for business development as well? And if they go, doesn’t our whole business collapse? I feel like these are those feel like bigger concerns than my clients might not get as much access to me, or they might not understand why that cross head was written that that way. Does that make sense, Andrew?
Okay. Good. I know I’m talking about this.
I get very passionate.
Muted myself. No. That especially that last part. Definitely, yeah, the cost cost is not doing it. It’s greater than that.
Okay. Cool.
Cool. Wonderful. Katie?
Hi.
Okay. This is all really good. Delegate with risk of failure. I just wrote on a post it to stay my periphery.
But I’m so I’m operating with, like I only have there’s a fix in my business.
Yeah.
That’s what I’ve got right now. I have oh, okay.
K. Yeah. And, so I’m, like, deep in this debt now. Like, that’s kind of all I’m doing.
I know I’m not moving fast enough. Just gonna say that.
But I’m wondering, like, how right now, yes, I have time to work on, like, training materials and, actually, what you described about having, like, a head down mapping everything out session, like, that’s kind of in my calendar for this week. Okay.
But I’m like, at this point where I have my, like, remaining nest egg, I’m like, does that does it make sense to think about hiring at all this point? I guess you said no if it’s two clients in the pipeline.
But would it be crazy to invest in ads at this point?
I guess, because I’m like, I I see the the hiring roots, and I trust the profitability of that.
Does it make sense with, like, limited funds to invest in ads to bring those clients in?
No. It yes. It makes sense. Have you done ads before for your services?
No. Okay. I bought a course, like, two years ago, and I have yet to watch it. So I’m, like, back also on my list of things.
Is it Claire Peltz course?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It’s good, though. Okay.
So, yeah, watch the course.
Watch the short workshop I think she has. It’s actually better than the long one.
And it takes, like it’s an hour on a Saturday, and you’ll have an ad set up. And, actually, mine got rejected.
I remember when I did it. But it was I got I it was fun. I I took away enough that I could fix the parts that got rejected. But, yes to doing ads. Yes. Because you don’t have to spend that much money on them, but you really do have to figure out that offer. How are you going to get them to book a call?
Does it make sense to do retargeting ads? Is there a place where you can, like, buy a list that you can then upload? I know that sounds sketchy, but it’s actually not that expensive to buy a list.
And then it’s just a matter of uploading it, creating a look alike from it in Facebook.
And then yeah.
And I just don’t know if there are other places that are better than that other than I I talk about Facebook.
Maybe you meant Google Ads or something else or both.
So So my plan would have been add to the workshop with retargeting ads to my ROI calculator.
K. Yeah.
And then, yeah, and then that’s that’s as far as my plan went currently. And I’m it’s just like, in the background I have I wanted like, for example, Claire Pals is, like, a dream client that I would love to pitch this offer to. So I’m like I just am afraid, I guess, at this point of, like, burning bridges with prospective clients because I’m not like, that my, like, really, like, size are dream clients. I’m afraid to pitch them too early before I’ve, like, worked the kinks out of a new offer.
Then start with the semi driven clients.
Who’s the next tier down from Claire Pels? Who wants to be the next Claire Pels?
Yeah. I start there. And, I mean, we never talk about account based marketing here, but, effectively, you’re doing account based marketing. Right? Like, if you really want Claire Pels, you can really make that happen. It’s just it’s gonna feel like stalking and there’s going to be weird gifts involved.
But it’s all like a doable thing. It’s just, yeah. Think of it as account based marketing when you’re trying to get clients in right now. Like, account based marketing doesn’t scale as well as the rest of the marketing that we’re talking about, but it can actually help you land those key clients right away or the next tier down. So I’d Jess says, what do you mean by account based marketing?
If you even just Google ABM, account based marketing is where you say marketing to sales come together.
Instead of marketing pushing to sales, marketing and sales align, which is you sitting and talking to yourself and saying, like, okay. So here’s an account that we really want. What can we do to get them? It’s really all it comes down to.
There’s more to it than that, but that’s that’s effectively we’re gonna ship them. We’re gonna have a three tier process where we go phase or fear phase process. Phase one, we’re gonna ship an envelope to them that just introduces us to them. We have to make sure it lands on their desk.
So we’re gonna take an hour to look for their mailing address and freaking make sure it’s theirs. Okay. Fine. So we start the mailing process then seven days later, we know the package is supposed to arrive there or we did FedEx tracking on it.
We got a ping that said, hey. It arrived. Now we ping them on LinkedIn at the exact same moment and start a message with them. And if they still don’t reply, phase two begins and that’s another mailer.
And that’s LinkedIn plus maybe we call them. We get their phone number. They have seen our name now. So all in, you invest three, four hundred bucks in an account but if you can see it being worth thirty thousand, forty thousand dollars, that’s money very well spent versus three hundred dollars on a Facebook ad that might generate nothing.
You know, it’s just this takes time but account based marketing is is an opportunity when you’re really trying to just land some business.
Yeah.
And never underestimate the power of, like, hopping on a call, calling someone, especially if you are retargeting them. Have the call me number right in, like, your Facebook retargeting ads. It’s like, call. Like, call me, and then take the call, which sucks. And now you have to take calls. And they’re like, I don’t know who that person is.
But yeah. Does that help at all, Katie?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Actually, I’m rewatching Mad Men, so the account based marketing is, like, giving me good. I’m like, yeah. I can see how this how this can work.
Nice.
Okay. Thank you.
Cool. No worries. And Jess says, do you have a separate number for that? Eventually. I think for now, I just put your number out there. And you can set it up. Like, Zoom will sell you a phone number, and you can get phone numbers all over.
Our sales team uses their own phone.
We just I’ve put my phone number out there, and it’s just like, you’re my number. It’s in my signature.
Yeah.
Just take the call. And then if you’re, like, inundated with calls, that’s a high class problem to have. That means people are seeing it. And then you can address, do I need a new phone number?
Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Okay.
And, oh, their dog walker is here.
Alright. Any any other questions that we want to cover today? Does anybody did anybody arrive with other questions or more of the same questions or panic that it’s time to hire? It’s really actually exciting when you start hiring. I think you’ll find that you will you will rise to the occasion and make money.
Jess. Jess, come on. Andrew, what’s up?
Yeah. I guess so, you know, I I know I’m a little bit of a special case here. As you mentioned earlier, like, health health issues is definitely a thing for me.
I guess there’s I I feel a little bit like I’m sort of straddling two kinds of worlds here. Like, one is to, like, grow, grow, grow, build an agency, hire people as fast as you can, and the other is like, okay. Like, relax. You don’t have an unlimited amount of, like, energy Yeah.
Emotional, physical, like, all all of that stuff. And so I feel like I’m I’m trying to sort of, like, okay. How can I still do this, but also but do it kind of, like, on a smaller scale? And, like, I’m picturing, you know, can I do this with I have a, you know, maybe a business manager, a VA, and a copywriter or something like that?
Like Yeah. Does it is that still a feasible path, or am I screwing myself by trying to, like, be in the middle of two different approaches, and I should be, like, choosing one or the other? Or is there a middle ground that still is, like, credible and worth it?
Yeah. So a couple of things. One, you do need to plan for a future where you have clients and someone wants to go on vacation. And that’s where redundancy goes a long way. That’s why I’m, like, hire a few copywriters. Okay. Okay.
Also, I can’t help but think that this model is better for you because there are times when you can’t work or you don’t have enough energy for it. Right? Cody is saying something similar.
I a hundred percent get that. There’s a reason I’m on Zoloft. It’s like real I they’re not the same as yours. Don’t get me wrong. But I get not wanting to just be at the mercy of, oh my gosh. I have to do all this stuff. That’s what teams actually help with.
If I didn’t have Tina coaching, I’d be coaching. And everyone’s like, no.
And so Tina frees me up so that I can do other things. And sometimes those things are no things. Sometimes it’s just like I need Friday off because I didn’t sleep last night, and I’m kinda dying. And that’s my feeling today. I’m like, but I got a full day because I’m hiring another person, and I need a few interviews today.
So that just means that I’m gonna be low energy tonight.
But the goal is that in interviewing these people in a month’s time, now marketing is not my responsibility like it currently is. Right? So I know it sucks right now, and I’d much rather be napping, but I’m not.
And that’s it. But every team member I hire frees me up to do more. It’s not there’s no luxury. I don’t have a VA or an assistant as much as I watch Veep and want my own Gary. For anybody who knows Veep and Gary, like, I definitely want one, but that’s a luxury. I’m hiring people who free up my time so I can work on the right thing. So I would look, Andrew, at the, worksheet.
Once I send it out, go on team time, that team time tab and look under the CEO column. You can see that as you grow into doing more and more of the business development stuff, that might you might not need all of the time showing there. So you’ll see that there’s, like, by month three with this model knowing it’s not gonna work as perfectly as a model shows, but it’s a starting point. Right? So with this you’ve got twenty five hours a week on business development.
The reality is you don’t need twenty five hours a week on business development. You might need twenty five hours a month on business development if you’re working on the right things. So you then instead do ten hours a week on client work, five hours a week on getting your team in a good place, and another five hours a week on business development. That’s a twenty hour week suddenly instead of a forty or sixty hour week, so this doesn’t have to be as bad as it seems like because that’s what employees are there to do. Does that make sense?
It’s gonna be hard until you do it.
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So I think, like, two having two copywriters and business, like, project manager type person, like, that that sounds manageable to me.
So Yeah.
And those copywriters, I mean, there’s a lot of good things to be said about hiring two copywriters together to work under you.
They’ll help you make content as well. Like, they’ll help in so many ways. Like, Carolyn was so useful as a team member, beyond just being a really great conversion copywriter.
Yeah. And she was actually in the copy hacker sphere for those who were like, where do you find one then? They’re there. So all of them are just like, I do good work, and I don’t wanna sell my projects anymore.
I just wanna, like, go work somewhere and do the work. Cool. I got you. But it’s not gonna be the same unlimited salary that you had when you were on your own.
Yeah.
I like to sound a lot.
Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Marina, did you have something to add?
Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, where do you find these non copy hackers, copywriters?
And they are out there.
So it’s I mean, Carolyn was sitting in ten x FC. She would ask good questions.
So if I have access to freelancing school, look for the people who ask good questions.
And then, like, great. Like, you try to hire that person if you can.
Right. Start start talking with them. Yeah.
Yeah. Cool. Alright, y’all. Okay. I know we already have okay. We’re end of time. Oh, sorry.
Okay. Alright. So thank you, and be sure to sign up for the hot seat this Thursday with Ry to work through whatever thing is your biggest constraint right now or if you’re not sure what your constraint is or if it’s time to hire or whatever you’re working on.
You can talk through it on Thursday. Alright? And if you’re not in the hot seat, please show up for your fellow copywriters, and you can also, like, catch interesting insights by hearing what they’re going through and maybe even sharing your own story with them. Okay?
People Management & The 10% Rule
People Management & The 10% Rule
Transcript
Today, of course, we are continuing on with August theme for Copy School Pro, which is the people powered month, how to get help and get them to be helpful.
So I’m going to share my screen. You got the worksheet delivered over the weekend. Tina sent that out.
So make sure you reference that and print this out.
Now this is today’s lesson is based on something that I only heard after a good six or seven years of managing people. And that was this whole ten percent rule, which is kind of crazy to me, and it might be to you. So what I learned is that every person that reports to you takes up ten percent of your time to manage. So if you’re managing five people, half of your day is half of your day, half of your time is spent, managing those people.
And that might seem like, woah. That’s a lot. But the reality is there’s a lot that goes into managing people if you wanna do it right. Then you look at companies like Google where there’s, like, twenty eight people reporting into one developer, and you wonder how that could possibly work.
But that’s a whole different story. I think that’s a lot of, like, you just make it work for various purposes and reasons and people.
I would argue that they’re probably not very well managed as people. Probably not getting a lot of time to talk about development, to get one on one with you or with the person who makes decisions about their career, who helps them through their career.
I think it’s really important to remember that everybody that you hire is on a career path. They’re trying to do something in their life, whether that is I’m shifting from a high stress job to a lower stress job or I’m looking at my career ladder and where I wanna go, they’re on a path. And so it’s important for us as employers to respect that.
Thus, we need to give them the time that we would want to have with somebody if we were working for them. So ten percent of your time is real, and, thus, if you are going to continue in an execution role, which I know so many people here are still like, I can’t give up control of research, of synthesis, of planning, of writing, of editing, of talking with the client. If you can’t give that stuff up, how are you ever going to really grow if people are at the heart of where you get that leverage that you need to grow? And so even if you only wanna have a small team, if you’re like, I only want three people reporting into me, that’s thirty percent of your time that’s gone.
It’s gone. So you really have to make sure that the seventy percent that is left is time really well spent. So it’s a really simple lesson today. How can we make sure that the more people you hire, even if that’s one or two, every single if you hire one, it is ten percent of your time gone, possibly more because you’ll be so partnered up with that person and because they’ll really depend on you as, like, a social, like, being in their lives, like, you are the only two that work together, you’re gonna get pretty close.
And if it’s not a close feeling, you’ll probably lose them.
So you have to think about that. And every time you lose somebody and have to replace them, every time you hire the wrong person and then have to fire them, this is all stuff that takes up time, and this is the stuff that will burn you out on people. So we wanna be realistic about people. If you want to get to a place where you’re going to make really good money without doing all the work, you’re going to need people. They’re gonna have to be the right people who are well managed and who feel like they’re part of a bigger vision of growing something. So meetings.
Meetings are how we communicate as remote team members. There’s there’s Slack, of course, but meetings are going to be critical. No one likes a meeting. It’s a rule. Nobody likes a meeting. Only middle managers like meetings because their whole job is to meet with people.
That’s not your job. That’s not an individual contributor’s job. You hire a copywriter. They don’t wanna have meetings. They’re also going to complain a lot about meetings. Oh, it’s interrupting my flow.
And and that’s fair, but the reality is you work in an organization, and that organization needs meetings to grow. So what you need to do is make sure you know what meetings you have and what meetings you don’t have because people adding meetings to your calendar is how things get out of control. No one cares about your calendar like you do. So right out of the gate, we need to make sure we’re making really good calls about what meetings you have as a team. And that could be starting with you as one person.
Having meetings with yourself is huge. So if you have a start of day stand up with yourself, that’s you sitting there looking at your to do list and determining what’s the most important thing to get done, when you can do it, blocking out your calendar for the day, whatever that might be. An end of day stand up could be a thing for you as well. And then just think of all the other meetings that you need to have. If you can start with a strategy now, then every single new team member that you hire, you can just hand this sheet over to them and say, this is how we do meetings here. So you choose, are you gonna do start of day stand up or an end of day stand up? Are you gonna do both?
I would recommend you choose one or the other and you make it daily and you keep it short. So we’ve got how long is it gonna be. If you have a ten person team, you’re gonna need at least thirty minutes for the stand up. And then later, you have to, of course, come up with your own agenda for that stand up.
Because the last thing you wanna do is go into a stand up and just have people say, today, I’m working on this. And you’re like, I could I could see that in Asana. I need to really, like, know what my stand up exists to do. Is it a social stand up to get everybody, like, jazzed for the day or to celebrate what we did at the end of the day?
So you need to decide that as CEO of your business.
When do you do a stand up? And that’s a whole team meeting, and how long is it? Do you need weekly team meetings or biweekly team meetings? What happens in a team meeting? What’s its function? What why are people going to attend this meeting and not be, like, upset that it’s interrupting their work? How long is that team meeting going to be?
There will be a need to have team meetings later.
If you figure this stuff out too late, you’ll always find your meetings are changing. And every new person who comes on says, let’s do meetings differently. Let’s do meetings differently.
You are not running a democracy.
You’re running a business, and you’re in charge of it. So you say, this is when we have meetings, and you get everybody on board. And if you have a good why behind that meeting, when it happens, why it’s as long as it is, what you cover, then it’s not a waste of time meeting. And then we’re not just adding in meetings for the sake of meetings.
So what does the stand up exist to do? What do your team meetings exist to do? When is there a time to socialize? What what happens there?
Things that you would normally do in an office where it’s lunchtime and you go get lunch together. It’s coffee break, you go get coffee together. What can you do to unite your team members? Do you need a large format team meeting, which is more of, like, even if you’ve only got, like, one person in sales, two copywriters, a smallish looking team, sales and account management.
They’re the same thing at this point.
It might feel like, well, all hands is, like, every single meeting we have. But an all hands meeting is a really good chance for you to restate your vision to the team, for individual team members to say, here’s how I fit into this world and, like, teach the rest of the team about their job. So there’s a lot that you can do with that that can better help you communicate. And then things like project briefings.
Those are just whole team meetings. Then you have individual meetings. Do you have a weekly one on one or biweekly one on one? How long is it?
Do you have coffee chats where you just sit down together? If your one on one is not meant to be a time to, like, talk about each other and what you’re going through, If it’s more of a get me up to speed on your projects, then when do you have time to just chat and be social with them? You are somebody that very likely they look up to in some ways. They’re usually going to be confused by the decisions that you make.
What you think is clear, they won’t think is clear. So there’s a lot that you have to consider in managing people, and just having a coffee chat is a good way for them to be like, oh, I think I understand you better. And for you to be like, oh, okay. Got it.
I see who you are now as a person. I’m getting to know you better. And that’s really critical for managing them well.
Quarterly performance reviews, annual performance reviews, what happens with those? Do you want it to be quarterly or annual? Gotta have a performance review at some point. People need to know how they’re doing or they’re not gonna feel well managed, and they won’t have a chance to say, I want more. I want less. I want clarity. Whatever those things might be that they’re looking for.
Goal setting.
They’re your team member.
You have targets for them, I’m sure. You probably have goals for where they go with their career in your organization, what they want to do more of. You won’t know unless you set goals with them. And Then, of course, once you set a goal, do you have growth check ins? Do you have, like okay. You said that you wanted to get better at email copywriting.
Great. We put you in ten x emails. Let’s talk about how that’s going for you. And then they can say, I haven’t taken it yet.
Okay. Now you can manage them towards taking it because they said that they wanted to. What’s getting in the way of them taking it? You have to manage them towards that.
So we gotta have our meetings figured out. Shorter is always better. If it can be done in fifteen minutes, do it in fifteen minutes. People expand to the size of a meeting.
And then comes basically this stuff. Just what are the days that you won’t work? So oh, sorry. Won’t won’t work.
Won’t have meetings. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Which ones are they? If you can set that up front, then everybody who joins your team knows.
We have no meeting Tuesdays, no meeting Wednesdays. I don’t know. You decide what those are. When do you refuse to have meetings as a team?
When is energy highest to do a person’s work versus when is it a good time for team members to meet? As you add in more people who are going to dictate what other people on the team are doing with their day, will that change? Should you always start your meetings at nine in the morning and only go until ten, and that’s a daily thing? That’s the only time, but you have to have rules.
You gotta have these standards set up or people don’t know what to do, and they just go populating meetings all over the place. And your clients are already gonna try to do that. Your clients already do not give a crap what your calendar looks like. So the more control you can have as an agency owner, the better.
Whether you think of yourself as an agency owner or not, if you have services that you produce, even if it’s a very small business, it’s still going to need to operate like an agency. And then what rules do you have about non work, non meetings? So Slack, email. When do you communicate?
What are the rules on scheduling a message versus not scheduling a message and just posting it? Are we allowed to send out anything after five PM or before nine AM? You have to have that rule. And if you have that rule, then everybody knows how to operate.
And if you don’t, then somebody ends up pinging the CMO of one of your companies that you work with at seven PM and interrupting how they live their lives, which is not good. It’s not a good look. So you have to figure that stuff out. It’s good to figure it out.
It really is a checklist with a circle around the thing that’s the starting point of your strategy, and then you just have to start to live it and then creating calendar controls. So this is part of no meetings days. Do you have all meetings in the morning? If so, then afternoons never get meetings.
It’s good to have those rules. Everybody can follow those really clearly. Are meetings only in the afternoon, and all morning time is there for you to work, get in flow, go through stuff while you’ve got high energy?
Or do you believe that your team might not actually show up until eleven in the morning because it’s remote and you don’t actually micromanage them. And if that’s a concern, then you might wanna start your meetings at nine in the morning and have an end of day meeting as well. That’s up to you and how you wanna trust people or not. Trust them.
It’s not your fault or their fault that you don’t trust them. It’s the reality of remote work. We wanna just make sure people are actually working during their work day. You decide that.
That is all. Then I want you to go away from this, and we’ve done in the intensive freelancing. I think it was in the intensive freelancing, but it was during a different week. Anyway, I know that at this point, you’ve drawn an org chart with where you’re going to go for your organization.
Now the time is now to go in and start circling those next hires. We’ve been talking over the last few weeks about who you should hire, how to find the constraints.
So if you can go in there and say, okay. My next four hires are this, this, this, and this, which means forty percent of my time is about to be eaten up with the meetings and other work that it takes to manage people. I’ll have sixty percent left. Is it time is my fifth hire going to be someone who can handle more project management, more people management? That does not have to be a full time person either. That could be a part time person that you hire just to make sure everybody is aligned with the business goals, everybody’s getting their stuff done, they’re feeling heard, etcetera, etcetera.
But you need to know who’s next because you need to know who’s about to take up ten percent of your valuable time. That is all for this week. The takeaway is every new team member takes ten percent of your time.
Alright. And it’s good. If they’re doing good work Mhmm. Then that’s great. If they’re taking up ten percent of your time, but they’re freeing up seventy percent of your time, then it’s a good trade off. That’s brilliant. Okay?
Alright. Any questions, thoughts, concerns?
No? Alright.
And if you think, oh, it’s just really not worth of hiring people. It really is. It really is. Even with all those things considered, it really is. Alright.
Question time. We have forty glorious minutes to talk about what you’re going through in your business. So if you have a question, please put up your hand using, I think, the react button so that happens.
Lower your hand if you no longer have a question, and we’ll go in order. Start with your win, please.
And if we have no questions, then we’ll just call it a day.
Are we good? No quest oh, Marina’s up. Marina, what’s your win?
I already shared my win, but that’s okay.
Hiring a brand person?
Hiring a brand person.
Dig it. It was yeah. Just had lots of epiphanies about what’s holding me back and how to get over myself so I can do it.
So Love it.
Huge win. And K. Thinking about meetings, and, yes, I agree with this.
Well, it doesn’t matter whether I agree or not, and it is true that every court takes ten percent of your time.
And I’m wondering about scheduling meetings. I can get really rigid about things.
And thinking about clients, this is not a problem right now ish, but I hope that it will be a problem, so I need to solve for it now.
If you say like, how much time do you leave on your calendar for booking client meetings? Do you say I’m only taking client calls in the morning? Also, I’m thinking about time zones. So I don’t love morning meetings, but all of my meetings end up being in the morning. So I’m like, okay. I just have to have morning meetings because that’s when all of the stuff is.
Yep.
Yeah. And eastern time zone, and they’re not gonna want a meeting at four because it’s after their work time. Yep. So knowing that, then I can still say that okay. What is my succinct question?
How many days do I have to allow for client meetings, and how flexible do you need to be to still have the client meetings, but also manage your calendar, and they’re also paying you?
So how do you That’s why you wanna manage your meetings the best you possibly can.
So you’re in control of when your team meets.
That is controllable.
So if you say, as a team, we never book meetings with each other between this hour and that hour or on this day and that day, etcetera, etcetera, then they know if they have a quick question to ask Marina or they wanna run copy by you that you only book meetings in certain times and always as close to an existing meeting as possible. Like, you have to set those rules up so they know that, because clients will be able to do a lot of dictating around the meetings that you have. Now if you are following having more of a standardized offer with retainer that comes off of that, then you set those meetings up all in advance.
And there’s less reason for a client to want to book an ad hoc meeting with you because there’s nothing ad hoc about what you’re doing. Everything’s planned. Everything’s good to go. Right?
And so if they want to have a meeting with you, it’s probably a meeting that’s critical to keeping them as a client. So they wanna change direction. Okay. Shit.
Okay. Let’s hear about this. Whenever they wanna book that, that’s fine. You can take that call.
And or else it’s, hey. This is going really well. We wanna add more. Or there’s something going on in their business. Like, hey. We just had a new product update, and people hate it. Our email strategy needs to kind of change for a second.
Okay. These are all good things to have, but it’s not gonna be like client has new idea they wanna run by me because that’s not the state of your engagement. Does that make sense, Marina?
Right.
So, basically, anytime a client wants to meet, you have to say yes. Like, if people wish to say no.
Yes. But that’s where you have to control as much of that as you possibly can.
Yeah.
Right. So set up the team meetings, and those are nondemocratic.
You work for me, and this is when we have meetings.
And people like it better when you just tell them things. So, yes. Yes. Democracy here. This is when we meet. Cool.
And then as far as clients go, they rule the calendar at that point.
Okay. And that’s that is in keeping with you charging more and delivering a retainer that is in keeping with what we’ve discussed. So Yes.
As a person paying you ten thousand dollars a month to optimize my emails, I feel like I should be able to talk to you when it’s time to optimize. Like, when I have a question about that, Slack is great for those quick questions, and you should default to Slack wherever possible.
But if I wanna sit down and say, Marina, we’ve got some concerns, then whenever. If I wanna call you at nine at night, that’s your job as an agency owner. You take the call. You give them your phone number so that they can call you anytime.
They’re not going to. They don’t want to call you all the time. Right. But at least they know they can.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Cool?
Yes. Fun.
This is my take on having run a couple agencies, obviously.
So I’m sure others have other takes on it. Not me, though. Okay. Adnan, what’s up? What’s your win?
So this is more of a look good kinda win. So there’s an agency that I, I think they’re based off in South America somewhere, but they have offices in London. But, anyways, through them, I got to write for Uber and Uber Eats.
Nice.
And then they contacted me last week because they have some Google projects Nice. That they want me to write for.
So it looks good. It’s not the most lucrative.
But Never is.
The win.
Big ones never are. Yeah.
Okay.
But I mean They know that.
They’re like, we’re you’re gonna want our logo.
Like, you would do this to create the logo.
The the chance out. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So that’s that’s the win.
The question I had, I I guess this relates to both the email services that I offer and also the pricing pages services that I will be offering Mhmm.
Is that over like, all the everyone that I’ve written emails for, I haven’t been able to get any feedback on how they’re performing or if there’s been a jump or any of that stuff. How do I kinda go out there and be able to quickly get that?
Like Why is it because you’ve been writing for large brands and you can’t get into their email platform to Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There’s been a couple of smaller ones. I mean, I’m I don’t know how small they are.
Success dot a I, I wrote for them. They reached out directly, but Okay. They haven’t shared anything either.
So Okay.
It’s definitely gonna be tricky, if you can’t get into their tool, to actually look at that. And that’s fair. Uber’s not gonna let you into their email marketing platform. It might even be because I don’t know. I have I have no idea, obviously, what they’re using.
If they’re using something homegrown Yeah.
They’re not even gonna wanna look in that.
Like, you’re looking for a hard pass.
And then, otherwise, it’s just generally gonna be tricky across the board. So who can you get in with who can feed you that information?
And or what can you do at the start of a project to make it clearer that the point of contact you have is responsible for sharing results with you? And I don’t just mean hide that in the contract because no one reads it anyway, except for legal.
They’re not gonna say, like, oh, hey. Point of contact. Did you know you’re supposed to do this? They’re just gonna, like, whatever.
So you need to talk to your point of contact about that right out of the gate. Like, the only way we can do this together is if I can see how it’s working so that I can help you. Maybe there’s something else you build in there. Like, it’s the beginning of a retainer offer or something like that.
But they have to understand that you wanna see it in the first place. Do you know how many copywriters ask to see how it performed? Like, none. Like, nobody ever asked.
They’re just like, I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna know, please. Like, I hope it did okay, and then they, like, run off. If you’re like, I need to know how this is performing, and here’s why, make it a why that they care about, not like and here’s why I wanna be able to add it to my portfolio.
I don’t give a shit about your portfolio. What do I care about? So make it about what they care about so I can see that I’m getting you the results we are talking about me getting you. And if I’m not, I wanna be able to fix that.
Okay? So I need you to get me results within x period of time of emails launching.
Also, if emails don’t launch, we need to meet so I I can understand why you didn’t send them, and we can revise so that they’re the right emails for your brand.
But you have to make sure that that date is really clear. If it’s a campaign, if it’s a one off, they should be able to share results with you in a week. So seven days after is the time limit you set. If it’s an automation, give it thirty days to run so you can start seeing what’s going on.
But you have to tell them, I need to see results by this time. If the point of contact is not the right person for that, because they’re like, I’m five people removed from whoever implements the thing, Then because they’re maybe in marketing and this happens over in, like, some weird developer part of the organization. It’s not even marketing anymore even though it was five years ago, but now it’s not etcetera etcetera. Things are weird.
Who do you talk to there? Who is in charge of that? And you just ask Ask upfront. And if they’re like, I don’t know.
I’ll get back to you on that, then follow-up. Make a note of it. Follow-up until you know that person’s name, and then you reach out to that person. Say, hey.
Hi. I’m working on these emails. You’re gonna implement.
We should love each other. Let’s have a coffee talk so I can get you on board with what I’m thinking. You can tell me what the limitations are, what you’ve tried. Does that work?
That’s their job. They’re in a large organization. They’re there to have meetings. They know that. So that’s what I would do and have done. Okay. That makes sense?
Thank you. Yeah. That makes sense. It’s always like a chicken and egg kind of thing.
Right? So I’ve lost out on some clients because even though my portfolio is good, the the the first question they’ll ask is like, oh, are you guys an agency, or are there any results can you that you can share with us? And then right off the bat, like, I’m on the I’m on the back foot, if you know what I mean. Yep.
Yeah. That’s the constraint. Right? So last week, we talked about constraints. And if you can say a big constraint to me closing business is that they always ask for results, then you gotta solve that.
Because if you solve that, then the pipeline opens up again. So we gotta take that problem and fix it. Great. You’ve identified.
A lot of people don’t know what where leads go. They don’t know why it stops. You know that. So it only makes good sense for you to prioritize that, and that’s where Joel’s old case study buddy was a good thousand dollars spent because a thousand dollars spent gets you a case study that you can now use to close twenty thousand dollar jobs across the board, or you do it.
You follow-up with clients and you say this. And, of course, if all it takes, if part of all that it takes is you adding into your process three new bullet points about at this point, I tell the client this. At this point, I get connected with their technology person for email implementation.
At this point, I follow-up with them for results.
Now you’ve got three little things added to an SOP that could unlock new projects for you. So I think that’s great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Alright.
Go add it to those SOPs.
Any other questions?
Are we feeling the quiet people in the room who I’m looking at?
No. I’m looking at them.
Awkward. Should I call on someone?
Nobody has any questions or concerns? Anything that they’re working on?
Caroline, I haven’t heard from you in so long. One, how was your summer?
You were off for a month. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna put you on the spot to ask a business question, but I do wanna know how your summer is going.
It is good. It is good. We traveled to we spent June in Asia. We were in Japan and Korea Oh. Which is very cool. Yeah. We sent a our oldest kiddo off to college over the weekend.
Wow.
Yep.
Banana’s amazing. How’s that feeling?
Good. He made it very easy to say goodbye. I’ll just leave it at that.
That’s amazing. Well, now you’ll have all this time to work on your business.
Yeah. I have three other kiddos, but yep.
Oh, I thought that was your youngest or your oldest, but No.
That’s my oldest. Yeah.
Oh, okay. Funny.
So I feel like I’m playing catch up. Yeah.
After the That’s fair.
Kids go back the kids go back to school tomorrow.
Amazing.
Glorious.
Okay. Well, it’s good to see you. I was glad to see you pop back in after your month break.
I yes. Cool. Awesome. Good to be back.
Anybody do you have anything you’re working on in your business that you wanna discuss? You were shaking your head madly that I shouldn’t call on you, and then I called on you.
Nothing nothing really great to share at the moment.
Okay. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Cody? Hannah? Stacy?
I don’t have any questions, but I’ve been working on Instagram posts.
Okay. How’s this going?
Last week.
It’s okay. I think I was getting a little far in the weeds with the Gary Vee book, and I’m trying to figure everything out. But I think I I think I have a decent plan at least now. But, yeah, it took me about ten hours last week to create, like, five posts.
Oh, wow.
Do you feel good about the posts?
Yeah. I mean, I’m writing them all out. That’s what takes the longest is to make sure they’re strategic. And then you have to since I don’t have, like, a team, I’m the one in Canva designing all the things and editing the videos, and it’s it’s a lot. Yeah.
Yeah. We’ll talk.
I mean, I know that it’s tricky to hire people to do that, but there’s, like, some really good short term.
Did you watch Shane’s training on hiring overseas?
No.
But I need to because you’re the second person who told me to watch that, so I’m going to do that.
Yeah. Definitely do. He’s built cool businesses that where the people that like, he’s getting to employ people, in situations where they need employment, and it’s just cheaper than it is here. Life is just cheaper in the Philippines, and so it’s cheaper to hire someone there, and he’s done really, really good work with it.
So, yeah, watch that. Yeah. It doesn’t have to be someone local and expensive who spends four dollars on a nectarine.
Can you believe the cost of fruit?
No. It’s crazy.
I know. Okay. Well, cool. Cody, I’m glad you’re working on that. I know it’s, social.
I’m ready.
I have, like, so many videos I have to record this week. I’m dreading it. Yeah.
Hannah, you have a question?
Yeah. I’ve got a win first. Okay. Great.
I set up a Instagram account on Friday.
Nice.
And I have, eleven followers now.
Amazing. That’s great.
Yeah. So Yeah. So that is a big win because I was quite resistant because I used to have an Instagram account, for for a lot of years and then lost it all.
So I haven’t had an Instagram for maybe about three years, I think.
Mhmm. But I got one now, and I’m Yeah. I’m happy. I’m just Great.
Sharing the same stuff, that I usually share on LinkedIn anyway.
So it’s easy with Yeah.
Just repurpose it. Did you read day trading attention, which we talked about last week?
No.
Gary needs a new book?
No. It’s I think I what I like about it so far, and I’ve not done it, but is this new take that the algorithms don’t care as much about your followers as so everybody’s always scared to get on social. They’re like, I don’t have any followers. It’s gonna take forever to get them.
But the algorithms are shifting in such a way that as long as you’re making content someone wants to see and will, like, pause and stay on, then you get served up to all these new audiences. So I find that encouraging because that was why I held off on Instagram as well. I’m like, well, why now? I’ve spent all this time over on Twitter, and Elon messed the whole thing up, and now I have to go find a new platform.
And so I didn’t want to, and then I just did. And now I’m, like, relieved to hear that it doesn’t matter how many followers you have. It’s always a good signal, but it’s not critical. So yeah. Cool.
I think, like, in a year’s tie in a year’s time, two years’ time, I’m gonna be really pleased that I did it. So that’s what I’m thinking.
Agreed. Yes.
I I look back now. So I set I I started LinkedIn in two thousand and nineteen, and I’ve got nearly sixteen thousand followers at all, like, all my friends.
That’s why that sounds weird.
But, and so and I’m and I look back, and I think I’m so pleased I did that back then. So pleased. Yeah. So, yeah, my question, you’ve just mentioned I just heard you mention the words, Joel’s case study earned a thousand dollars and spending a thousand dollars.
And I I don’t what what does that mean?
Sorry. So Joel Kletke is a copywriter, and he had a business called Case Study Buddy, but he just sold that. So it’s not his anymore. It’s someone else’s now. So it’s case study buddy by so and so.
And it was a thousand bucks a year or two ago. I don’t know what it is right now, but a thousand and you would, like, give them contact information for a person that you had worked with, and they would do all the work of making the case study. So they did this for a lot of different clients. And, yeah, it’s like, if we can find a thousand dollars to take a big, like, bite out of a big problem that we have, that seems like money really, really well spent.
So but it’s yeah. Joel Pletke, case study buddy, thousand bucks to get a case study made.
Yeah. Nice. And they would do everything too. Like, I used them for one case study. It turned out great.
And I would just have to connect them with this client of mine, and they just took over from there. Made the whole thing easy.
Yeah. Right. Okay. So they reach out to your client and then do everything for you.
Yeah. I think I had to warm intro them, just an email connecting the two. I I had to make sure that the client was okay with giving a case study first, but then I didn’t have to get on a call. I all of the tedium of that.
Man, Joel did a presentation at Content Jam, I think it was, a few years ago on making a case study, and there’s a lot. There’s a lot to her. It’s like, just pay just pay someone to do this for you. So I would look into that if you’re looking for case studies. Yeah.
Interesting. Thank you. Sure.
Thanks, Anna.
Anything else? Anyone? Nothing from Stacy. I saw you came on camera when I said your name.
That was just my courtesy showing my face because you said my name.
That’s all. I thought it might be. I thought it might be. Alright. Cool. Well, let us wrap up today’s session.
We have a whole bunch of people joining Coffee School Pro in September, which is our next official, like, intake.
So we have one more call without a whole bunch of new people in it. So bring any questions that you’ve had that you’ve wanted to tackle, because it’s gonna be a little a little bit noisier, not crazy noisier, little bit noisier.
Cool. Otherwise, hope everybody has a really good rest of your day. Alright, Jill?
Take care. Bye.
Worksheet
Transcript
Today, of course, we are continuing on with August theme for Copy School Pro, which is the people powered month, how to get help and get them to be helpful.
So I’m going to share my screen. You got the worksheet delivered over the weekend. Tina sent that out.
So make sure you reference that and print this out.
Now this is today’s lesson is based on something that I only heard after a good six or seven years of managing people. And that was this whole ten percent rule, which is kind of crazy to me, and it might be to you. So what I learned is that every person that reports to you takes up ten percent of your time to manage. So if you’re managing five people, half of your day is half of your day, half of your time is spent, managing those people.
And that might seem like, woah. That’s a lot. But the reality is there’s a lot that goes into managing people if you wanna do it right. Then you look at companies like Google where there’s, like, twenty eight people reporting into one developer, and you wonder how that could possibly work.
But that’s a whole different story. I think that’s a lot of, like, you just make it work for various purposes and reasons and people.
I would argue that they’re probably not very well managed as people. Probably not getting a lot of time to talk about development, to get one on one with you or with the person who makes decisions about their career, who helps them through their career.
I think it’s really important to remember that everybody that you hire is on a career path. They’re trying to do something in their life, whether that is I’m shifting from a high stress job to a lower stress job or I’m looking at my career ladder and where I wanna go, they’re on a path. And so it’s important for us as employers to respect that.
Thus, we need to give them the time that we would want to have with somebody if we were working for them. So ten percent of your time is real, and, thus, if you are going to continue in an execution role, which I know so many people here are still like, I can’t give up control of research, of synthesis, of planning, of writing, of editing, of talking with the client. If you can’t give that stuff up, how are you ever going to really grow if people are at the heart of where you get that leverage that you need to grow? And so even if you only wanna have a small team, if you’re like, I only want three people reporting into me, that’s thirty percent of your time that’s gone.
It’s gone. So you really have to make sure that the seventy percent that is left is time really well spent. So it’s a really simple lesson today. How can we make sure that the more people you hire, even if that’s one or two, every single if you hire one, it is ten percent of your time gone, possibly more because you’ll be so partnered up with that person and because they’ll really depend on you as, like, a social, like, being in their lives, like, you are the only two that work together, you’re gonna get pretty close.
And if it’s not a close feeling, you’ll probably lose them.
So you have to think about that. And every time you lose somebody and have to replace them, every time you hire the wrong person and then have to fire them, this is all stuff that takes up time, and this is the stuff that will burn you out on people. So we wanna be realistic about people. If you want to get to a place where you’re going to make really good money without doing all the work, you’re going to need people. They’re gonna have to be the right people who are well managed and who feel like they’re part of a bigger vision of growing something. So meetings.
Meetings are how we communicate as remote team members. There’s there’s Slack, of course, but meetings are going to be critical. No one likes a meeting. It’s a rule. Nobody likes a meeting. Only middle managers like meetings because their whole job is to meet with people.
That’s not your job. That’s not an individual contributor’s job. You hire a copywriter. They don’t wanna have meetings. They’re also going to complain a lot about meetings. Oh, it’s interrupting my flow.
And and that’s fair, but the reality is you work in an organization, and that organization needs meetings to grow. So what you need to do is make sure you know what meetings you have and what meetings you don’t have because people adding meetings to your calendar is how things get out of control. No one cares about your calendar like you do. So right out of the gate, we need to make sure we’re making really good calls about what meetings you have as a team. And that could be starting with you as one person.
Having meetings with yourself is huge. So if you have a start of day stand up with yourself, that’s you sitting there looking at your to do list and determining what’s the most important thing to get done, when you can do it, blocking out your calendar for the day, whatever that might be. An end of day stand up could be a thing for you as well. And then just think of all the other meetings that you need to have. If you can start with a strategy now, then every single new team member that you hire, you can just hand this sheet over to them and say, this is how we do meetings here. So you choose, are you gonna do start of day stand up or an end of day stand up? Are you gonna do both?
I would recommend you choose one or the other and you make it daily and you keep it short. So we’ve got how long is it gonna be. If you have a ten person team, you’re gonna need at least thirty minutes for the stand up. And then later, you have to, of course, come up with your own agenda for that stand up.
Because the last thing you wanna do is go into a stand up and just have people say, today, I’m working on this. And you’re like, I could I could see that in Asana. I need to really, like, know what my stand up exists to do. Is it a social stand up to get everybody, like, jazzed for the day or to celebrate what we did at the end of the day?
So you need to decide that as CEO of your business.
When do you do a stand up? And that’s a whole team meeting, and how long is it? Do you need weekly team meetings or biweekly team meetings? What happens in a team meeting? What’s its function? What why are people going to attend this meeting and not be, like, upset that it’s interrupting their work? How long is that team meeting going to be?
There will be a need to have team meetings later.
If you figure this stuff out too late, you’ll always find your meetings are changing. And every new person who comes on says, let’s do meetings differently. Let’s do meetings differently.
You are not running a democracy.
You’re running a business, and you’re in charge of it. So you say, this is when we have meetings, and you get everybody on board. And if you have a good why behind that meeting, when it happens, why it’s as long as it is, what you cover, then it’s not a waste of time meeting. And then we’re not just adding in meetings for the sake of meetings.
So what does the stand up exist to do? What do your team meetings exist to do? When is there a time to socialize? What what happens there?
Things that you would normally do in an office where it’s lunchtime and you go get lunch together. It’s coffee break, you go get coffee together. What can you do to unite your team members? Do you need a large format team meeting, which is more of, like, even if you’ve only got, like, one person in sales, two copywriters, a smallish looking team, sales and account management.
They’re the same thing at this point.
It might feel like, well, all hands is, like, every single meeting we have. But an all hands meeting is a really good chance for you to restate your vision to the team, for individual team members to say, here’s how I fit into this world and, like, teach the rest of the team about their job. So there’s a lot that you can do with that that can better help you communicate. And then things like project briefings.
Those are just whole team meetings. Then you have individual meetings. Do you have a weekly one on one or biweekly one on one? How long is it?
Do you have coffee chats where you just sit down together? If your one on one is not meant to be a time to, like, talk about each other and what you’re going through, If it’s more of a get me up to speed on your projects, then when do you have time to just chat and be social with them? You are somebody that very likely they look up to in some ways. They’re usually going to be confused by the decisions that you make.
What you think is clear, they won’t think is clear. So there’s a lot that you have to consider in managing people, and just having a coffee chat is a good way for them to be like, oh, I think I understand you better. And for you to be like, oh, okay. Got it.
I see who you are now as a person. I’m getting to know you better. And that’s really critical for managing them well.
Quarterly performance reviews, annual performance reviews, what happens with those? Do you want it to be quarterly or annual? Gotta have a performance review at some point. People need to know how they’re doing or they’re not gonna feel well managed, and they won’t have a chance to say, I want more. I want less. I want clarity. Whatever those things might be that they’re looking for.
Goal setting.
They’re your team member.
You have targets for them, I’m sure. You probably have goals for where they go with their career in your organization, what they want to do more of. You won’t know unless you set goals with them. And Then, of course, once you set a goal, do you have growth check ins? Do you have, like okay. You said that you wanted to get better at email copywriting.
Great. We put you in ten x emails. Let’s talk about how that’s going for you. And then they can say, I haven’t taken it yet.
Okay. Now you can manage them towards taking it because they said that they wanted to. What’s getting in the way of them taking it? You have to manage them towards that.
So we gotta have our meetings figured out. Shorter is always better. If it can be done in fifteen minutes, do it in fifteen minutes. People expand to the size of a meeting.
And then comes basically this stuff. Just what are the days that you won’t work? So oh, sorry. Won’t won’t work.
Won’t have meetings. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Which ones are they? If you can set that up front, then everybody who joins your team knows.
We have no meeting Tuesdays, no meeting Wednesdays. I don’t know. You decide what those are. When do you refuse to have meetings as a team?
When is energy highest to do a person’s work versus when is it a good time for team members to meet? As you add in more people who are going to dictate what other people on the team are doing with their day, will that change? Should you always start your meetings at nine in the morning and only go until ten, and that’s a daily thing? That’s the only time, but you have to have rules.
You gotta have these standards set up or people don’t know what to do, and they just go populating meetings all over the place. And your clients are already gonna try to do that. Your clients already do not give a crap what your calendar looks like. So the more control you can have as an agency owner, the better.
Whether you think of yourself as an agency owner or not, if you have services that you produce, even if it’s a very small business, it’s still going to need to operate like an agency. And then what rules do you have about non work, non meetings? So Slack, email. When do you communicate?
What are the rules on scheduling a message versus not scheduling a message and just posting it? Are we allowed to send out anything after five PM or before nine AM? You have to have that rule. And if you have that rule, then everybody knows how to operate.
And if you don’t, then somebody ends up pinging the CMO of one of your companies that you work with at seven PM and interrupting how they live their lives, which is not good. It’s not a good look. So you have to figure that stuff out. It’s good to figure it out.
It really is a checklist with a circle around the thing that’s the starting point of your strategy, and then you just have to start to live it and then creating calendar controls. So this is part of no meetings days. Do you have all meetings in the morning? If so, then afternoons never get meetings.
It’s good to have those rules. Everybody can follow those really clearly. Are meetings only in the afternoon, and all morning time is there for you to work, get in flow, go through stuff while you’ve got high energy?
Or do you believe that your team might not actually show up until eleven in the morning because it’s remote and you don’t actually micromanage them. And if that’s a concern, then you might wanna start your meetings at nine in the morning and have an end of day meeting as well. That’s up to you and how you wanna trust people or not. Trust them.
It’s not your fault or their fault that you don’t trust them. It’s the reality of remote work. We wanna just make sure people are actually working during their work day. You decide that.
That is all. Then I want you to go away from this, and we’ve done in the intensive freelancing. I think it was in the intensive freelancing, but it was during a different week. Anyway, I know that at this point, you’ve drawn an org chart with where you’re going to go for your organization.
Now the time is now to go in and start circling those next hires. We’ve been talking over the last few weeks about who you should hire, how to find the constraints.
So if you can go in there and say, okay. My next four hires are this, this, this, and this, which means forty percent of my time is about to be eaten up with the meetings and other work that it takes to manage people. I’ll have sixty percent left. Is it time is my fifth hire going to be someone who can handle more project management, more people management? That does not have to be a full time person either. That could be a part time person that you hire just to make sure everybody is aligned with the business goals, everybody’s getting their stuff done, they’re feeling heard, etcetera, etcetera.
But you need to know who’s next because you need to know who’s about to take up ten percent of your valuable time. That is all for this week. The takeaway is every new team member takes ten percent of your time.
Alright. And it’s good. If they’re doing good work Mhmm. Then that’s great. If they’re taking up ten percent of your time, but they’re freeing up seventy percent of your time, then it’s a good trade off. That’s brilliant. Okay?
Alright. Any questions, thoughts, concerns?
No? Alright.
And if you think, oh, it’s just really not worth of hiring people. It really is. It really is. Even with all those things considered, it really is. Alright.
Question time. We have forty glorious minutes to talk about what you’re going through in your business. So if you have a question, please put up your hand using, I think, the react button so that happens.
Lower your hand if you no longer have a question, and we’ll go in order. Start with your win, please.
And if we have no questions, then we’ll just call it a day.
Are we good? No quest oh, Marina’s up. Marina, what’s your win?
I already shared my win, but that’s okay.
Hiring a brand person?
Hiring a brand person.
Dig it. It was yeah. Just had lots of epiphanies about what’s holding me back and how to get over myself so I can do it.
So Love it.
Huge win. And K. Thinking about meetings, and, yes, I agree with this.
Well, it doesn’t matter whether I agree or not, and it is true that every court takes ten percent of your time.
And I’m wondering about scheduling meetings. I can get really rigid about things.
And thinking about clients, this is not a problem right now ish, but I hope that it will be a problem, so I need to solve for it now.
If you say like, how much time do you leave on your calendar for booking client meetings? Do you say I’m only taking client calls in the morning? Also, I’m thinking about time zones. So I don’t love morning meetings, but all of my meetings end up being in the morning. So I’m like, okay. I just have to have morning meetings because that’s when all of the stuff is.
Yep.
Yeah. And eastern time zone, and they’re not gonna want a meeting at four because it’s after their work time. Yep. So knowing that, then I can still say that okay. What is my succinct question?
How many days do I have to allow for client meetings, and how flexible do you need to be to still have the client meetings, but also manage your calendar, and they’re also paying you?
So how do you That’s why you wanna manage your meetings the best you possibly can.
So you’re in control of when your team meets.
That is controllable.
So if you say, as a team, we never book meetings with each other between this hour and that hour or on this day and that day, etcetera, etcetera, then they know if they have a quick question to ask Marina or they wanna run copy by you that you only book meetings in certain times and always as close to an existing meeting as possible. Like, you have to set those rules up so they know that, because clients will be able to do a lot of dictating around the meetings that you have. Now if you are following having more of a standardized offer with retainer that comes off of that, then you set those meetings up all in advance.
And there’s less reason for a client to want to book an ad hoc meeting with you because there’s nothing ad hoc about what you’re doing. Everything’s planned. Everything’s good to go. Right?
And so if they want to have a meeting with you, it’s probably a meeting that’s critical to keeping them as a client. So they wanna change direction. Okay. Shit.
Okay. Let’s hear about this. Whenever they wanna book that, that’s fine. You can take that call.
And or else it’s, hey. This is going really well. We wanna add more. Or there’s something going on in their business. Like, hey. We just had a new product update, and people hate it. Our email strategy needs to kind of change for a second.
Okay. These are all good things to have, but it’s not gonna be like client has new idea they wanna run by me because that’s not the state of your engagement. Does that make sense, Marina?
Right.
So, basically, anytime a client wants to meet, you have to say yes. Like, if people wish to say no.
Yes. But that’s where you have to control as much of that as you possibly can.
Yeah.
Right. So set up the team meetings, and those are nondemocratic.
You work for me, and this is when we have meetings.
And people like it better when you just tell them things. So, yes. Yes. Democracy here. This is when we meet. Cool.
And then as far as clients go, they rule the calendar at that point.
Okay. And that’s that is in keeping with you charging more and delivering a retainer that is in keeping with what we’ve discussed. So Yes.
As a person paying you ten thousand dollars a month to optimize my emails, I feel like I should be able to talk to you when it’s time to optimize. Like, when I have a question about that, Slack is great for those quick questions, and you should default to Slack wherever possible.
But if I wanna sit down and say, Marina, we’ve got some concerns, then whenever. If I wanna call you at nine at night, that’s your job as an agency owner. You take the call. You give them your phone number so that they can call you anytime.
They’re not going to. They don’t want to call you all the time. Right. But at least they know they can.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Cool?
Yes. Fun.
This is my take on having run a couple agencies, obviously.
So I’m sure others have other takes on it. Not me, though. Okay. Adnan, what’s up? What’s your win?
So this is more of a look good kinda win. So there’s an agency that I, I think they’re based off in South America somewhere, but they have offices in London. But, anyways, through them, I got to write for Uber and Uber Eats.
Nice.
And then they contacted me last week because they have some Google projects Nice. That they want me to write for.
So it looks good. It’s not the most lucrative.
But Never is.
The win.
Big ones never are. Yeah.
Okay.
But I mean They know that.
They’re like, we’re you’re gonna want our logo.
Like, you would do this to create the logo.
The the chance out. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So that’s that’s the win.
The question I had, I I guess this relates to both the email services that I offer and also the pricing pages services that I will be offering Mhmm.
Is that over like, all the everyone that I’ve written emails for, I haven’t been able to get any feedback on how they’re performing or if there’s been a jump or any of that stuff. How do I kinda go out there and be able to quickly get that?
Like Why is it because you’ve been writing for large brands and you can’t get into their email platform to Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There’s been a couple of smaller ones. I mean, I’m I don’t know how small they are.
Success dot a I, I wrote for them. They reached out directly, but Okay. They haven’t shared anything either.
So Okay.
It’s definitely gonna be tricky, if you can’t get into their tool, to actually look at that. And that’s fair. Uber’s not gonna let you into their email marketing platform. It might even be because I don’t know. I have I have no idea, obviously, what they’re using.
If they’re using something homegrown Yeah.
They’re not even gonna wanna look in that.
Like, you’re looking for a hard pass.
And then, otherwise, it’s just generally gonna be tricky across the board. So who can you get in with who can feed you that information?
And or what can you do at the start of a project to make it clearer that the point of contact you have is responsible for sharing results with you? And I don’t just mean hide that in the contract because no one reads it anyway, except for legal.
They’re not gonna say, like, oh, hey. Point of contact. Did you know you’re supposed to do this? They’re just gonna, like, whatever.
So you need to talk to your point of contact about that right out of the gate. Like, the only way we can do this together is if I can see how it’s working so that I can help you. Maybe there’s something else you build in there. Like, it’s the beginning of a retainer offer or something like that.
But they have to understand that you wanna see it in the first place. Do you know how many copywriters ask to see how it performed? Like, none. Like, nobody ever asked.
They’re just like, I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna know, please. Like, I hope it did okay, and then they, like, run off. If you’re like, I need to know how this is performing, and here’s why, make it a why that they care about, not like and here’s why I wanna be able to add it to my portfolio.
I don’t give a shit about your portfolio. What do I care about? So make it about what they care about so I can see that I’m getting you the results we are talking about me getting you. And if I’m not, I wanna be able to fix that.
Okay? So I need you to get me results within x period of time of emails launching.
Also, if emails don’t launch, we need to meet so I I can understand why you didn’t send them, and we can revise so that they’re the right emails for your brand.
But you have to make sure that that date is really clear. If it’s a campaign, if it’s a one off, they should be able to share results with you in a week. So seven days after is the time limit you set. If it’s an automation, give it thirty days to run so you can start seeing what’s going on.
But you have to tell them, I need to see results by this time. If the point of contact is not the right person for that, because they’re like, I’m five people removed from whoever implements the thing, Then because they’re maybe in marketing and this happens over in, like, some weird developer part of the organization. It’s not even marketing anymore even though it was five years ago, but now it’s not etcetera etcetera. Things are weird.
Who do you talk to there? Who is in charge of that? And you just ask Ask upfront. And if they’re like, I don’t know.
I’ll get back to you on that, then follow-up. Make a note of it. Follow-up until you know that person’s name, and then you reach out to that person. Say, hey.
Hi. I’m working on these emails. You’re gonna implement.
We should love each other. Let’s have a coffee talk so I can get you on board with what I’m thinking. You can tell me what the limitations are, what you’ve tried. Does that work?
That’s their job. They’re in a large organization. They’re there to have meetings. They know that. So that’s what I would do and have done. Okay. That makes sense?
Thank you. Yeah. That makes sense. It’s always like a chicken and egg kind of thing.
Right? So I’ve lost out on some clients because even though my portfolio is good, the the the first question they’ll ask is like, oh, are you guys an agency, or are there any results can you that you can share with us? And then right off the bat, like, I’m on the I’m on the back foot, if you know what I mean. Yep.
Yeah. That’s the constraint. Right? So last week, we talked about constraints. And if you can say a big constraint to me closing business is that they always ask for results, then you gotta solve that.
Because if you solve that, then the pipeline opens up again. So we gotta take that problem and fix it. Great. You’ve identified.
A lot of people don’t know what where leads go. They don’t know why it stops. You know that. So it only makes good sense for you to prioritize that, and that’s where Joel’s old case study buddy was a good thousand dollars spent because a thousand dollars spent gets you a case study that you can now use to close twenty thousand dollar jobs across the board, or you do it.
You follow-up with clients and you say this. And, of course, if all it takes, if part of all that it takes is you adding into your process three new bullet points about at this point, I tell the client this. At this point, I get connected with their technology person for email implementation.
At this point, I follow-up with them for results.
Now you’ve got three little things added to an SOP that could unlock new projects for you. So I think that’s great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Alright.
Go add it to those SOPs.
Any other questions?
Are we feeling the quiet people in the room who I’m looking at?
No. I’m looking at them.
Awkward. Should I call on someone?
Nobody has any questions or concerns? Anything that they’re working on?
Caroline, I haven’t heard from you in so long. One, how was your summer?
You were off for a month. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna put you on the spot to ask a business question, but I do wanna know how your summer is going.
It is good. It is good. We traveled to we spent June in Asia. We were in Japan and Korea Oh. Which is very cool. Yeah. We sent a our oldest kiddo off to college over the weekend.
Wow.
Yep.
Banana’s amazing. How’s that feeling?
Good. He made it very easy to say goodbye. I’ll just leave it at that.
That’s amazing. Well, now you’ll have all this time to work on your business.
Yeah. I have three other kiddos, but yep.
Oh, I thought that was your youngest or your oldest, but No.
That’s my oldest. Yeah.
Oh, okay. Funny.
So I feel like I’m playing catch up. Yeah.
After the That’s fair.
Kids go back the kids go back to school tomorrow.
Amazing.
Glorious.
Okay. Well, it’s good to see you. I was glad to see you pop back in after your month break.
I yes. Cool. Awesome. Good to be back.
Anybody do you have anything you’re working on in your business that you wanna discuss? You were shaking your head madly that I shouldn’t call on you, and then I called on you.
Nothing nothing really great to share at the moment.
Okay. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Cody? Hannah? Stacy?
I don’t have any questions, but I’ve been working on Instagram posts.
Okay. How’s this going?
Last week.
It’s okay. I think I was getting a little far in the weeds with the Gary Vee book, and I’m trying to figure everything out. But I think I I think I have a decent plan at least now. But, yeah, it took me about ten hours last week to create, like, five posts.
Oh, wow.
Do you feel good about the posts?
Yeah. I mean, I’m writing them all out. That’s what takes the longest is to make sure they’re strategic. And then you have to since I don’t have, like, a team, I’m the one in Canva designing all the things and editing the videos, and it’s it’s a lot. Yeah.
Yeah. We’ll talk.
I mean, I know that it’s tricky to hire people to do that, but there’s, like, some really good short term.
Did you watch Shane’s training on hiring overseas?
No.
But I need to because you’re the second person who told me to watch that, so I’m going to do that.
Yeah. Definitely do. He’s built cool businesses that where the people that like, he’s getting to employ people, in situations where they need employment, and it’s just cheaper than it is here. Life is just cheaper in the Philippines, and so it’s cheaper to hire someone there, and he’s done really, really good work with it.
So, yeah, watch that. Yeah. It doesn’t have to be someone local and expensive who spends four dollars on a nectarine.
Can you believe the cost of fruit?
No. It’s crazy.
I know. Okay. Well, cool. Cody, I’m glad you’re working on that. I know it’s, social.
I’m ready.
I have, like, so many videos I have to record this week. I’m dreading it. Yeah.
Hannah, you have a question?
Yeah. I’ve got a win first. Okay. Great.
I set up a Instagram account on Friday.
Nice.
And I have, eleven followers now.
Amazing. That’s great.
Yeah. So Yeah. So that is a big win because I was quite resistant because I used to have an Instagram account, for for a lot of years and then lost it all.
So I haven’t had an Instagram for maybe about three years, I think.
Mhmm. But I got one now, and I’m Yeah. I’m happy. I’m just Great.
Sharing the same stuff, that I usually share on LinkedIn anyway.
So it’s easy with Yeah.
Just repurpose it. Did you read day trading attention, which we talked about last week?
No.
Gary needs a new book?
No. It’s I think I what I like about it so far, and I’ve not done it, but is this new take that the algorithms don’t care as much about your followers as so everybody’s always scared to get on social. They’re like, I don’t have any followers. It’s gonna take forever to get them.
But the algorithms are shifting in such a way that as long as you’re making content someone wants to see and will, like, pause and stay on, then you get served up to all these new audiences. So I find that encouraging because that was why I held off on Instagram as well. I’m like, well, why now? I’ve spent all this time over on Twitter, and Elon messed the whole thing up, and now I have to go find a new platform.
And so I didn’t want to, and then I just did. And now I’m, like, relieved to hear that it doesn’t matter how many followers you have. It’s always a good signal, but it’s not critical. So yeah. Cool.
I think, like, in a year’s tie in a year’s time, two years’ time, I’m gonna be really pleased that I did it. So that’s what I’m thinking.
Agreed. Yes.
I I look back now. So I set I I started LinkedIn in two thousand and nineteen, and I’ve got nearly sixteen thousand followers at all, like, all my friends.
That’s why that sounds weird.
But, and so and I’m and I look back, and I think I’m so pleased I did that back then. So pleased. Yeah. So, yeah, my question, you’ve just mentioned I just heard you mention the words, Joel’s case study earned a thousand dollars and spending a thousand dollars.
And I I don’t what what does that mean?
Sorry. So Joel Kletke is a copywriter, and he had a business called Case Study Buddy, but he just sold that. So it’s not his anymore. It’s someone else’s now. So it’s case study buddy by so and so.
And it was a thousand bucks a year or two ago. I don’t know what it is right now, but a thousand and you would, like, give them contact information for a person that you had worked with, and they would do all the work of making the case study. So they did this for a lot of different clients. And, yeah, it’s like, if we can find a thousand dollars to take a big, like, bite out of a big problem that we have, that seems like money really, really well spent.
So but it’s yeah. Joel Pletke, case study buddy, thousand bucks to get a case study made.
Yeah. Nice. And they would do everything too. Like, I used them for one case study. It turned out great.
And I would just have to connect them with this client of mine, and they just took over from there. Made the whole thing easy.
Yeah. Right. Okay. So they reach out to your client and then do everything for you.
Yeah. I think I had to warm intro them, just an email connecting the two. I I had to make sure that the client was okay with giving a case study first, but then I didn’t have to get on a call. I all of the tedium of that.
Man, Joel did a presentation at Content Jam, I think it was, a few years ago on making a case study, and there’s a lot. There’s a lot to her. It’s like, just pay just pay someone to do this for you. So I would look into that if you’re looking for case studies. Yeah.
Interesting. Thank you. Sure.
Thanks, Anna.
Anything else? Anyone? Nothing from Stacy. I saw you came on camera when I said your name.
That was just my courtesy showing my face because you said my name.
That’s all. I thought it might be. I thought it might be. Alright. Cool. Well, let us wrap up today’s session.
We have a whole bunch of people joining Coffee School Pro in September, which is our next official, like, intake.
So we have one more call without a whole bunch of new people in it. So bring any questions that you’ve had that you’ve wanted to tackle, because it’s gonna be a little a little bit noisier, not crazy noisier, little bit noisier.
Cool. Otherwise, hope everybody has a really good rest of your day. Alright, Jill?
Take care. Bye.
Leverage training with Jo: How to Hire (and when to fire)
Growth Constraints
Transcript
Okay.
Alright.
Did we get constraints documented?
Anybody identify a constraint they have in booking calls?
If you did, please chat it over or share it by coming off mute.
Everyone’s constraint free? Well done. Marina.
I just have everything in progress because I’m starting from scratch when I started.
Mhmm.
And so it’s everything all at once.
Mhmm.
And so I’m just making my way through all the things, but I can see how all of the work that I’ve been doing is converging so that it will it will come together. It is coming together, but it’s not there yet.
Cool. Cool. Okay. Thanks, Marina. Andrew?
My biggest constraints are at the beginning and the end of the production line. So, there isn’t a whole lot of consistency in terms of, like, what I’m doing to generate leads in the first place.
That’s the kind of stuff that I often gets pushed to the side because, client work and not making time for it. And then, on the other end of the spectrum is, like, again, my calendar, just having, like, time and energy for a lot of new stuff coming in. So sometimes I think I don’t go as hard on the lead generation stuff because I’m kind of like, oh, I’m already, like, kind of busy as it is. So I think he wants to maybe needing some help with the lead gen stuff and also needing just to get better at, finally outsourcing or or a big delivery work.
Yeah. The delivery side of it. Okay. Cool.
Getting tired of.
It. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks, Andrew. Okay. So we’re gonna move on to the next part of the process. So someone’s booked a triage call. Cool. Now we gotta get them to sign a contract.
Map this thing up. This is just going to contract signed for good rates, by the way. It’s easy to close people when your price is way lower than they thought it was going to be. Typically, it’s easy.
So for the right rate, for a real price, We’re gonna map that out.
Four minutes. Just go really fast. You’ll it should only be the really the stuff that you know. Don’t get too detailed. K? Four minutes.
Also, I’m doing these along with y’all, and it is just eye opening all the time. I’m like, oh, yeah. We need to work on that and that and that. Like, it never stops.
Okay. Cool.
Did anybody find a constraint here that they could possibly hire out or make part of a role for somebody?
Are you feeling good that you can do this? The constraint is really you.
But if you can just find more time, just like every part of the process, you know, it’s like, who has ten million dollars to give me to hire all the people I need, please?
Yeah. I hear that. Yeah. There’s always there’s always someone else to hire. Does anybody wanna share a constraint here?
Andrew?
You are muted just as a side note or a full on straight note.
Yeah. That’s yeah. Not not a side note.
Yeah. So I don’t know I’m not sure yet if or how hiring could help with these, but the biggest kind of bottlenecks or or pain points in this process, that I’ve had is that, like, one, sometimes we need multiple follow-up calls. So we’ll have that fit call, that kinda, like, pre proposals type call, and then sometimes there’s just, like, more and more that needs to be figured out. And I’ve I’ve tried sort of standardizing and creating, like, a road map that they paid, but for whatever reason, I’ve had trouble kind of, like, selling it and standardizing it.
So that’s one area where where things are there there could be a constraint there. And then something else that I’ve noticed has been getting worse recently for whatever reason is that the contracts that companies have been signing me have gotten more and more ridiculous. Mhmm. And so I have to redline them, which kind of takes a while.
And then they have send to have a bottleneck on their side where I’ll send back and they’ll say, hey. Great to move forward. We just need to update these five things or whatever. And, they’ll be like, oh, yeah. Legal moves, like, really slow. So there’s gonna be, like, three months if we need red lines, and then I have to figure out some sort of workaround if we sign a contract that, like, conflicts with it and stuff like that. So those are my I don’t not wouldn’t be stoked about, like, hiring a a lawyer or something to help with that, but I’m open to to the idea if that’s something that could help.
Yeah. Okay. So you’ve identified a constraint there around getting that contract figured out, which a few other people have done as well here.
And that might be in part you hiring yourself to sit down and really think how can I like, what can I do differently to get this thing move forward faster? How do I get ahead of that? And then if you can find that way, because it’ll vary, then maybe there is somebody you can train for that. And given that a lot of people have the same challenge here with, like, template of proposal, contract invoicing, all of it, you know, makes you wonder if there’s not a world where someone shares people share a subcontractor here that, like, knows how to do this exact stuff.
But okay. Cool. Nonetheless, we’re not solving. We’re just looking at okay. There are constraints and probably someone that you could hire to help you with that in case you doing it is just too damn hard, takes too long, isn’t a good use of your five hundred dollar an hour, thousand dollar an hour.
Okay.
Maybe this one’s easier. We’re going to map the assembly line of onboarding and then managing clients. So this is let’s just imagine in this world, whatever your standardized offer is rather than the retainer, potentially, just to keep it simple or retainer only or whatever other thing that you’ve been selling here.
So, ideally, it’s where you wanna go, though. So you don’t wanna hire for the past. You wanna hire for your future life.
So map the assembly line of how a new client so they’ve signed.
Now what? How do you turn them into a happy client?
Alright. And for that, three minutes.
And it was I have the Zoom update that I think everybody else on the planet has had.
And, anyway, I’m learning it all over again. Okay.
Constraints here?
I would imagine constraints here. Abby, do you wanna go?
Yeah. Sure. So, the first thing I do is send, like, the welcome pack, which my VA has started doing, so that’s good. And then the cost for research, like, I was all set up to, like, outsource that.
Like, my mom was gonna do it, and then I just got in my head because I was like, oh, but, like, the customer research is where like, as I’m organizing it, that’s kind of where I get my ideas. Mhmm. And then I was looking at the copywriting. It’s like, I wanna do all of that.
And then I’m like, how how much of it is, like, just excuses because I don’t wanna, like, let it go. Like, I’m not I don’t wanna, like like, I just feel like I need to do everything.
Like Yeah. How do you, like I mean, is that just like a learning path that the It’s just it’s Yeah.
I think it’s recognizing when someone shows you. You’re a unicorn.
You that’s the thing. You cannot like, we need to start outsourcing the other parts if you wanna grow. Right? We’re talking growth constraints.
If you wanna stay where you are, which I know you don’t, I know you’ve got lots of opportunity and potential there. So it would be it to me, it sounds like you are a constraint. This is a moment where you’re identifying that you, as the person who thinks they have to do all the hands on work here to generate the ideas, you’re the constraint. However, what’s keeping you from putting that from letting somebody else take over, I would suggest, that you probably need to hire someone that you strongly believe is skilled in that area.
So if you your mom’s great. She could probably do a lot of things. Do you feel comfortable handling the core of what makes your work special off to somebody who maybe doesn’t think the same way you do? And this is I hire a lot of family.
I have four family members, five working for me right now. So I get hiring family, but I would hire them for things that they can be successful at. I would never I would never hire a family member to write copy or do research. Like, I I love them all dearly, and they’ve all taken copy school and sat by me all this time.
And I’m still like, no. If I’m gonna hire a copywriter, they have to be a copywriter.
And so that’s something for you to think about.
If that’s a constraint, you already know it’s a constraint. You can only grow to that constraint. So it’s always gotta be on you, then how are you then every other constraint has to be relieved by hiring. If you’re like, no.
I’m going to always do the research. Okay. Then then fine. But every other part that you’re also doing has to then be offloaded to somebody else.
Does that make sense?
Because you can’t do it all.
Are you ready to hire somebody who loves research? There are definitely a lot of copywriters who do and who you can train to think about it the way you think about it patiently knowing it takes six months to onboard somebody.
I don’t know.
Yeah. I know. It’s hard. I don’t have a single copywriter working for me.
I I just don’t. It’s hard. It’s too hard when you’re, like, a perfectionist about it. And your whole reputation is staked on it. Right? So I get why it’s gotta be you.
Alright.
Oh, wait. Someone just chatted something.
Good. Anybody else or anybody wanna give any notes to help Abby through this? Has anybody outsourced the core of the work that they do successfully?
No. It’s hard. It’s hard, but it’s a real constraint. It’s an absolute constraint.
Good news to start off your week. Alright.
Let’s yeah.
Andrew totally agreed. Now I have agencies, though. Don’t get me wrong. I have had great copywriters and research people there.
I just don’t bring it in house. It’s for me to do here, but it is completely doable. They’re all around. They’re usually much quieter than anybody else in the room.
You don’t know who they are. You haven’t ever heard from them.
But if you read one blog post that they wrote, like, that’s how I found Carolyn, and she was amazing and is still amazing.
Took a ton of work off my plate, thought exactly the way I do about things, and didn’t and then there were other parts that I would do that she didn’t wanna do. So it was a really good fit.
Carolyn was great. Hannah was great. Like, there are lots of great people out there. They’re usually quieter.
So, like, pay attention to the quiet ones who might have some really good shit that they just they don’t market themselves or they don’t want to.
All of the things that, yeah, that you can do instead. So they’re out there.
I think we have this one last one, and then we’re done.
Then you can, like, synthesize who you’re going to hire in all of these for all these needs.
The last one here for three minutes is delivering and measuring work. So how do you turn these new clients? Great. You delivered work well. Now what?
Now what? Most freelancers stop here. This is it. But we’re not freelancers here. We’re growing our businesses. We have more to do after this, especially if you are selling, retainer work. So what are you doing to measure it, to keep them coming back for more, to make referrals happen?
Because this will lead back to beginning of the assembly line, which is all about where leads come from. In this case, it will be somebody saying great work. Did they do it on video? Did they are you just hoping that they’ll sell tell somebody about you?
Or you’re more specific and deliberate with it? Are you measuring the work? Are you involved in measuring it? How involved?
When does that happen? Is there a meeting in place? Are there meetings in place? Do you know who is measuring their work?
Do you trust the person that they have that’s measuring the work? Or do you get to do it because you implement too? Alright. Two minutes on this one.
Okeydoke.
So the objective at this point is to, fill in the next page. I’ve put two in there, but, obviously, those are just examples.
We want to list out the biggest areas you identified as constraints. Just write them out. And then basically, like, circle, put group put them in groups. Like, I think all of this stuff sounds very administrative or all of this stuff sounds like a copywriter who has a background in research could do this, or or or, but we wanna write them out. So we know, like, this is basically job descriptions. And if you don’t hire people who can do these things, then you haven’t solved for those constraints.
And, yeah, I do wanna take some time with this. We’re gonna take four minutes to just roughly jot down what those are, then you don’t have to figure out what those next three hires are hires are in this call. But I want that to be a homework for you. And I would think that you want that to be homework for you too so you know who’s needed next. Alright. Three minutes. List them out and maybe you’ll be able to start grouping them and coming up with titles too.
Okay. So we may not know exactly what we need next, but we’re close to getting there.
Does anybody know exactly who they want to hire next?
Yeah. Does anybody wanna share?
If you do, come off mute.
No?
Katie?
I know that I need someone to help me with the, like, data and analytics from acquiring the leads to, like, client acquisition and then also through to delivery of my final product. Like, the tracking of numbers and analytics is something that I want to not be bogging down my brain with.
Okay.
It just, like, not you know, I’m happy to do the extrapolation, but I don’t want to be making the numbers come up on the screen, if that makes sense.
So Yeah.
I guess, like, my question I I know that I want somebody to support me with that, but when do you know, like, does that sound is that I hire a contractor to build the dashboard and that’s a one off thing? Or is that something where you see that being, like, having a tech person on your team?
Yeah. I mean, when it comes to so it could be a human solve or it could be a software solve or both. Right? So have you when it comes to the side of the business where it’s you, sounds like trying to figure mapping leads to delivery, you said. I wrote that down. So where leads come from all the way through to conversion, and then there’s a separate part of you having somebody help you measure how your work is producing.
Okay. Yeah.
So for the first half of that and maybe there’s one person there.
I mean, I know a killer person at this who is one of those quiet people you never hear from or about, Nicole Luke, who worked with me at Vox Car. I’ve known her for twenty years. She’s Sarah gets tired of me talking about how awesome Nicole is, but she’s just I just love her.
So smart, and very underpriced.
So, I’d go out there and, like, post on LinkedIn that you’re looking for some just know that, like, it’s not gonna be the first person to put up their hand because, again, it’s gonna be a quiet person who’s like, I don’t know if I could do this. Yes. You could. You could do this. But it could just be somebody that you hire as a contractor. So, like, look for a Google Analytics contractor on, like even go over to, Clarity is still a perfectly fine place to book somebody for an hour of their time to set up your dashboards for you to get everything connected for you for, like, three hundred bucks or whatever they charge.
But then there’s also are you using a dashboard tool at all right now?
Like, do you I tried to hire this out in the spring, and then the contractor bailed on me, and I haven’t revisited it since then.
Yeah. So this is, like there’s really good dashboard software now. Like, there wasn’t for the longest time, but, Sigmetrics is one that we use. We also know the dude there from a mastermind I was in with him before.
So that’s part of the reason I use it, but it connects with SamCart, which very few do. So if you use SamCart or plan to, SegMetrix is a really good way to go. We use Databox for real business analytics to see where people are coming from, how Instagram is performing, all of that kind of stuff. So I would go Databox.
I would look into Databox and say metrics if I were you, and choose one because they’re both, like, three hundred bucks a month. I don’t know if it if there’s, like, a smaller account. I don’t know. I know that for what we need it for.
I think it’s about three hundred bucks a month for each.
And so there’s that. So you wanna make sure that you’re using it and it’s set up right, and that’s where spending, again, three hundred bucks for an hour of someone’s time for them to say, here are the metrics you’re gonna need to pull in from here, here, here, and here. And then walking you through that on that call is money really, really, really well spent. If it’s that important to you to get that information, which when you’re growing your business, for sure it is. The leads to delivery side is probably where I would hire a contractor like Nicole, Luke, or somebody out there who, can go in, who has, like, a masters in math, who just, like, really gets this stuff and then can put a slide deck together.
Not gonna go on and talk to the client about that. That’ll be on you because usually they just talk about numbers instead of talking about what the business cares about. But I would just hire a contractor for that need. Because even Nicole at Boxcar, we had lots of like, a good number of clients who needed ongoing performance measurement.
And, she was like, what am I doing with half my time? I’m just sitting here. So I didn’t need her full time. I just wanted her full time. So you probably won’t need this person full time.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
So you recur hiring them on a recurring basis, but not needing to hire them full time?
Yeah. Exactly. Like, ask them if I could buy an a day of your time a month. What would that look like? And you probably get everything done for every client you have in that time.
And so when you’re working with like, if I’m looking at this, like, seven mid seven bigger coaches who likely have their own tech person on their team, like, in the delivery, assembly line, I wrote down, like, implement, like, that’s and then, you know, this is when it all gets added to their email service provider.
Would you normally assume that their tech person is going to implement? I mean, okay. So we would handle that. Because I just don’t I don’t know whether people are gonna want to hand over that implementation in their back end.
This is where I think you have to get even more narrow with your audience because seven figures for a course creator or coach is one million to ten million.
Very different.
Yeah. So the feedback I got is gonna be, like, three to seven, like, mid.
Yeah. I’d go up. I’d go five to ten just because three is when they’re starting to make more strategic hiring decisions.
By five million, they’ve made them. So they have good unless they looped way out with a really great webinar funnel or something like that that brought them a crap ton of cash.
In almost every other case, they’ve made good strategic hiring decisions that have the right people in place. And you have to think, five to ten million is still not a lot of money every year when you think about the cost of hiring people and what things just cost. And so when you have a five million dollar business, you have the right strategic minds in place that you probably like, I don’t even know if they would necessarily have somebody that they absolutely trust as their tech person, their tech person more. But you can do this just by, like, asking.
And maybe you already did ask, and that’s why you know that. But as one of those companies, I can say that we don’t have a tech person. We have people who are all empowered to do these things. And then when we need something more technical done, we go out to an agency that we have a relationship with.
So I would if someone came in and said, Joe, I’m gonna write your emails for you, and I’m gonna implement them an active ActiveCampaign. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I would just wanna make sure that they know what they’re doing in ActiveCampaign. So just, like, know what you’re doing, and then don’t hit send.
Just always make sure that that’s part of it.
But all that to say, at this Would that extend to if that person said, like, I’m gonna go into ActiveCampaign and set up an automation that triggers when that person does this? Like All of it.
Okay. Yeah. I would I would think that you should do it all unless they have an email person on staff, in which case that person will say, no. I’ll do that.
And you’ll just work with them and say, cool. But I need to be in there. You understand why I need to be in there looking at this stuff. Right?
And if they don’t understand that, then you’ll just talk them through why you would need to get in there and look at this stuff.
Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Cool. So ongoing contractor for my own needs and then ongoing contractor or, like and or tech tool and then ongoing contractor for the printing up the data on the retainer calls Yeah. As well.
Yeah. I wouldn’t hire a person for your needs. I’d just hire software for that. Yeah.
Okay. For the client’s needs, I would hire a person. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Katie.
Alright.
Anybody else wanna share who they think they’re going to hire next?
No?
Yes. She does have a data course.
Yeah. Perfect. Okay. And me, I know we’re at the end of our time, but hopefully that was useful for you.
Transcript
Okay.
Alright.
Did we get constraints documented?
Anybody identify a constraint they have in booking calls?
If you did, please chat it over or share it by coming off mute.
Everyone’s constraint free? Well done. Marina.
I just have everything in progress because I’m starting from scratch when I started.
Mhmm.
And so it’s everything all at once.
Mhmm.
And so I’m just making my way through all the things, but I can see how all of the work that I’ve been doing is converging so that it will it will come together. It is coming together, but it’s not there yet.
Cool. Cool. Okay. Thanks, Marina. Andrew?
My biggest constraints are at the beginning and the end of the production line. So, there isn’t a whole lot of consistency in terms of, like, what I’m doing to generate leads in the first place.
That’s the kind of stuff that I often gets pushed to the side because, client work and not making time for it. And then, on the other end of the spectrum is, like, again, my calendar, just having, like, time and energy for a lot of new stuff coming in. So sometimes I think I don’t go as hard on the lead generation stuff because I’m kind of like, oh, I’m already, like, kind of busy as it is. So I think he wants to maybe needing some help with the lead gen stuff and also needing just to get better at, finally outsourcing or or a big delivery work.
Yeah. The delivery side of it. Okay. Cool.
Getting tired of.
It. Yeah. Yeah.
Thanks, Andrew. Okay. So we’re gonna move on to the next part of the process. So someone’s booked a triage call. Cool. Now we gotta get them to sign a contract.
Map this thing up. This is just going to contract signed for good rates, by the way. It’s easy to close people when your price is way lower than they thought it was going to be. Typically, it’s easy.
So for the right rate, for a real price, We’re gonna map that out.
Four minutes. Just go really fast. You’ll it should only be the really the stuff that you know. Don’t get too detailed. K? Four minutes.
Also, I’m doing these along with y’all, and it is just eye opening all the time. I’m like, oh, yeah. We need to work on that and that and that. Like, it never stops.
Okay. Cool.
Did anybody find a constraint here that they could possibly hire out or make part of a role for somebody?
Are you feeling good that you can do this? The constraint is really you.
But if you can just find more time, just like every part of the process, you know, it’s like, who has ten million dollars to give me to hire all the people I need, please?
Yeah. I hear that. Yeah. There’s always there’s always someone else to hire. Does anybody wanna share a constraint here?
Andrew?
You are muted just as a side note or a full on straight note.
Yeah. That’s yeah. Not not a side note.
Yeah. So I don’t know I’m not sure yet if or how hiring could help with these, but the biggest kind of bottlenecks or or pain points in this process, that I’ve had is that, like, one, sometimes we need multiple follow-up calls. So we’ll have that fit call, that kinda, like, pre proposals type call, and then sometimes there’s just, like, more and more that needs to be figured out. And I’ve I’ve tried sort of standardizing and creating, like, a road map that they paid, but for whatever reason, I’ve had trouble kind of, like, selling it and standardizing it.
So that’s one area where where things are there there could be a constraint there. And then something else that I’ve noticed has been getting worse recently for whatever reason is that the contracts that companies have been signing me have gotten more and more ridiculous. Mhmm. And so I have to redline them, which kind of takes a while.
And then they have send to have a bottleneck on their side where I’ll send back and they’ll say, hey. Great to move forward. We just need to update these five things or whatever. And, they’ll be like, oh, yeah. Legal moves, like, really slow. So there’s gonna be, like, three months if we need red lines, and then I have to figure out some sort of workaround if we sign a contract that, like, conflicts with it and stuff like that. So those are my I don’t not wouldn’t be stoked about, like, hiring a a lawyer or something to help with that, but I’m open to to the idea if that’s something that could help.
Yeah. Okay. So you’ve identified a constraint there around getting that contract figured out, which a few other people have done as well here.
And that might be in part you hiring yourself to sit down and really think how can I like, what can I do differently to get this thing move forward faster? How do I get ahead of that? And then if you can find that way, because it’ll vary, then maybe there is somebody you can train for that. And given that a lot of people have the same challenge here with, like, template of proposal, contract invoicing, all of it, you know, makes you wonder if there’s not a world where someone shares people share a subcontractor here that, like, knows how to do this exact stuff.
But okay. Cool. Nonetheless, we’re not solving. We’re just looking at okay. There are constraints and probably someone that you could hire to help you with that in case you doing it is just too damn hard, takes too long, isn’t a good use of your five hundred dollar an hour, thousand dollar an hour.
Okay.
Maybe this one’s easier. We’re going to map the assembly line of onboarding and then managing clients. So this is let’s just imagine in this world, whatever your standardized offer is rather than the retainer, potentially, just to keep it simple or retainer only or whatever other thing that you’ve been selling here.
So, ideally, it’s where you wanna go, though. So you don’t wanna hire for the past. You wanna hire for your future life.
So map the assembly line of how a new client so they’ve signed.
Now what? How do you turn them into a happy client?
Alright. And for that, three minutes.
And it was I have the Zoom update that I think everybody else on the planet has had.
And, anyway, I’m learning it all over again. Okay.
Constraints here?
I would imagine constraints here. Abby, do you wanna go?
Yeah. Sure. So, the first thing I do is send, like, the welcome pack, which my VA has started doing, so that’s good. And then the cost for research, like, I was all set up to, like, outsource that.
Like, my mom was gonna do it, and then I just got in my head because I was like, oh, but, like, the customer research is where like, as I’m organizing it, that’s kind of where I get my ideas. Mhmm. And then I was looking at the copywriting. It’s like, I wanna do all of that.
And then I’m like, how how much of it is, like, just excuses because I don’t wanna, like, let it go. Like, I’m not I don’t wanna, like like, I just feel like I need to do everything.
Like Yeah. How do you, like I mean, is that just like a learning path that the It’s just it’s Yeah.
I think it’s recognizing when someone shows you. You’re a unicorn.
You that’s the thing. You cannot like, we need to start outsourcing the other parts if you wanna grow. Right? We’re talking growth constraints.
If you wanna stay where you are, which I know you don’t, I know you’ve got lots of opportunity and potential there. So it would be it to me, it sounds like you are a constraint. This is a moment where you’re identifying that you, as the person who thinks they have to do all the hands on work here to generate the ideas, you’re the constraint. However, what’s keeping you from putting that from letting somebody else take over, I would suggest, that you probably need to hire someone that you strongly believe is skilled in that area.
So if you your mom’s great. She could probably do a lot of things. Do you feel comfortable handling the core of what makes your work special off to somebody who maybe doesn’t think the same way you do? And this is I hire a lot of family.
I have four family members, five working for me right now. So I get hiring family, but I would hire them for things that they can be successful at. I would never I would never hire a family member to write copy or do research. Like, I I love them all dearly, and they’ve all taken copy school and sat by me all this time.
And I’m still like, no. If I’m gonna hire a copywriter, they have to be a copywriter.
And so that’s something for you to think about.
If that’s a constraint, you already know it’s a constraint. You can only grow to that constraint. So it’s always gotta be on you, then how are you then every other constraint has to be relieved by hiring. If you’re like, no.
I’m going to always do the research. Okay. Then then fine. But every other part that you’re also doing has to then be offloaded to somebody else.
Does that make sense?
Because you can’t do it all.
Are you ready to hire somebody who loves research? There are definitely a lot of copywriters who do and who you can train to think about it the way you think about it patiently knowing it takes six months to onboard somebody.
I don’t know.
Yeah. I know. It’s hard. I don’t have a single copywriter working for me.
I I just don’t. It’s hard. It’s too hard when you’re, like, a perfectionist about it. And your whole reputation is staked on it. Right? So I get why it’s gotta be you.
Alright.
Oh, wait. Someone just chatted something.
Good. Anybody else or anybody wanna give any notes to help Abby through this? Has anybody outsourced the core of the work that they do successfully?
No. It’s hard. It’s hard, but it’s a real constraint. It’s an absolute constraint.
Good news to start off your week. Alright.
Let’s yeah.
Andrew totally agreed. Now I have agencies, though. Don’t get me wrong. I have had great copywriters and research people there.
I just don’t bring it in house. It’s for me to do here, but it is completely doable. They’re all around. They’re usually much quieter than anybody else in the room.
You don’t know who they are. You haven’t ever heard from them.
But if you read one blog post that they wrote, like, that’s how I found Carolyn, and she was amazing and is still amazing.
Took a ton of work off my plate, thought exactly the way I do about things, and didn’t and then there were other parts that I would do that she didn’t wanna do. So it was a really good fit.
Carolyn was great. Hannah was great. Like, there are lots of great people out there. They’re usually quieter.
So, like, pay attention to the quiet ones who might have some really good shit that they just they don’t market themselves or they don’t want to.
All of the things that, yeah, that you can do instead. So they’re out there.
I think we have this one last one, and then we’re done.
Then you can, like, synthesize who you’re going to hire in all of these for all these needs.
The last one here for three minutes is delivering and measuring work. So how do you turn these new clients? Great. You delivered work well. Now what?
Now what? Most freelancers stop here. This is it. But we’re not freelancers here. We’re growing our businesses. We have more to do after this, especially if you are selling, retainer work. So what are you doing to measure it, to keep them coming back for more, to make referrals happen?
Because this will lead back to beginning of the assembly line, which is all about where leads come from. In this case, it will be somebody saying great work. Did they do it on video? Did they are you just hoping that they’ll sell tell somebody about you?
Or you’re more specific and deliberate with it? Are you measuring the work? Are you involved in measuring it? How involved?
When does that happen? Is there a meeting in place? Are there meetings in place? Do you know who is measuring their work?
Do you trust the person that they have that’s measuring the work? Or do you get to do it because you implement too? Alright. Two minutes on this one.
Okeydoke.
So the objective at this point is to, fill in the next page. I’ve put two in there, but, obviously, those are just examples.
We want to list out the biggest areas you identified as constraints. Just write them out. And then basically, like, circle, put group put them in groups. Like, I think all of this stuff sounds very administrative or all of this stuff sounds like a copywriter who has a background in research could do this, or or or, but we wanna write them out. So we know, like, this is basically job descriptions. And if you don’t hire people who can do these things, then you haven’t solved for those constraints.
And, yeah, I do wanna take some time with this. We’re gonna take four minutes to just roughly jot down what those are, then you don’t have to figure out what those next three hires are hires are in this call. But I want that to be a homework for you. And I would think that you want that to be homework for you too so you know who’s needed next. Alright. Three minutes. List them out and maybe you’ll be able to start grouping them and coming up with titles too.
Okay. So we may not know exactly what we need next, but we’re close to getting there.
Does anybody know exactly who they want to hire next?
Yeah. Does anybody wanna share?
If you do, come off mute.
No?
Katie?
I know that I need someone to help me with the, like, data and analytics from acquiring the leads to, like, client acquisition and then also through to delivery of my final product. Like, the tracking of numbers and analytics is something that I want to not be bogging down my brain with.
Okay.
It just, like, not you know, I’m happy to do the extrapolation, but I don’t want to be making the numbers come up on the screen, if that makes sense.
So Yeah.
I guess, like, my question I I know that I want somebody to support me with that, but when do you know, like, does that sound is that I hire a contractor to build the dashboard and that’s a one off thing? Or is that something where you see that being, like, having a tech person on your team?
Yeah. I mean, when it comes to so it could be a human solve or it could be a software solve or both. Right? So have you when it comes to the side of the business where it’s you, sounds like trying to figure mapping leads to delivery, you said. I wrote that down. So where leads come from all the way through to conversion, and then there’s a separate part of you having somebody help you measure how your work is producing.
Okay. Yeah.
So for the first half of that and maybe there’s one person there.
I mean, I know a killer person at this who is one of those quiet people you never hear from or about, Nicole Luke, who worked with me at Vox Car. I’ve known her for twenty years. She’s Sarah gets tired of me talking about how awesome Nicole is, but she’s just I just love her.
So smart, and very underpriced.
So, I’d go out there and, like, post on LinkedIn that you’re looking for some just know that, like, it’s not gonna be the first person to put up their hand because, again, it’s gonna be a quiet person who’s like, I don’t know if I could do this. Yes. You could. You could do this. But it could just be somebody that you hire as a contractor. So, like, look for a Google Analytics contractor on, like even go over to, Clarity is still a perfectly fine place to book somebody for an hour of their time to set up your dashboards for you to get everything connected for you for, like, three hundred bucks or whatever they charge.
But then there’s also are you using a dashboard tool at all right now?
Like, do you I tried to hire this out in the spring, and then the contractor bailed on me, and I haven’t revisited it since then.
Yeah. So this is, like there’s really good dashboard software now. Like, there wasn’t for the longest time, but, Sigmetrics is one that we use. We also know the dude there from a mastermind I was in with him before.
So that’s part of the reason I use it, but it connects with SamCart, which very few do. So if you use SamCart or plan to, SegMetrix is a really good way to go. We use Databox for real business analytics to see where people are coming from, how Instagram is performing, all of that kind of stuff. So I would go Databox.
I would look into Databox and say metrics if I were you, and choose one because they’re both, like, three hundred bucks a month. I don’t know if it if there’s, like, a smaller account. I don’t know. I know that for what we need it for.
I think it’s about three hundred bucks a month for each.
And so there’s that. So you wanna make sure that you’re using it and it’s set up right, and that’s where spending, again, three hundred bucks for an hour of someone’s time for them to say, here are the metrics you’re gonna need to pull in from here, here, here, and here. And then walking you through that on that call is money really, really, really well spent. If it’s that important to you to get that information, which when you’re growing your business, for sure it is. The leads to delivery side is probably where I would hire a contractor like Nicole, Luke, or somebody out there who, can go in, who has, like, a masters in math, who just, like, really gets this stuff and then can put a slide deck together.
Not gonna go on and talk to the client about that. That’ll be on you because usually they just talk about numbers instead of talking about what the business cares about. But I would just hire a contractor for that need. Because even Nicole at Boxcar, we had lots of like, a good number of clients who needed ongoing performance measurement.
And, she was like, what am I doing with half my time? I’m just sitting here. So I didn’t need her full time. I just wanted her full time. So you probably won’t need this person full time.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
So you recur hiring them on a recurring basis, but not needing to hire them full time?
Yeah. Exactly. Like, ask them if I could buy an a day of your time a month. What would that look like? And you probably get everything done for every client you have in that time.
And so when you’re working with like, if I’m looking at this, like, seven mid seven bigger coaches who likely have their own tech person on their team, like, in the delivery, assembly line, I wrote down, like, implement, like, that’s and then, you know, this is when it all gets added to their email service provider.
Would you normally assume that their tech person is going to implement? I mean, okay. So we would handle that. Because I just don’t I don’t know whether people are gonna want to hand over that implementation in their back end.
This is where I think you have to get even more narrow with your audience because seven figures for a course creator or coach is one million to ten million.
Very different.
Yeah. So the feedback I got is gonna be, like, three to seven, like, mid.
Yeah. I’d go up. I’d go five to ten just because three is when they’re starting to make more strategic hiring decisions.
By five million, they’ve made them. So they have good unless they looped way out with a really great webinar funnel or something like that that brought them a crap ton of cash.
In almost every other case, they’ve made good strategic hiring decisions that have the right people in place. And you have to think, five to ten million is still not a lot of money every year when you think about the cost of hiring people and what things just cost. And so when you have a five million dollar business, you have the right strategic minds in place that you probably like, I don’t even know if they would necessarily have somebody that they absolutely trust as their tech person, their tech person more. But you can do this just by, like, asking.
And maybe you already did ask, and that’s why you know that. But as one of those companies, I can say that we don’t have a tech person. We have people who are all empowered to do these things. And then when we need something more technical done, we go out to an agency that we have a relationship with.
So I would if someone came in and said, Joe, I’m gonna write your emails for you, and I’m gonna implement them an active ActiveCampaign. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I would just wanna make sure that they know what they’re doing in ActiveCampaign. So just, like, know what you’re doing, and then don’t hit send.
Just always make sure that that’s part of it.
But all that to say, at this Would that extend to if that person said, like, I’m gonna go into ActiveCampaign and set up an automation that triggers when that person does this? Like All of it.
Okay. Yeah. I would I would think that you should do it all unless they have an email person on staff, in which case that person will say, no. I’ll do that.
And you’ll just work with them and say, cool. But I need to be in there. You understand why I need to be in there looking at this stuff. Right?
And if they don’t understand that, then you’ll just talk them through why you would need to get in there and look at this stuff.
Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Cool. So ongoing contractor for my own needs and then ongoing contractor or, like and or tech tool and then ongoing contractor for the printing up the data on the retainer calls Yeah. As well.
Yeah. I wouldn’t hire a person for your needs. I’d just hire software for that. Yeah.
Okay. For the client’s needs, I would hire a person. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Katie.
Alright.
Anybody else wanna share who they think they’re going to hire next?
No?
Yes. She does have a data course.
Yeah. Perfect. Okay. And me, I know we’re at the end of our time, but hopefully that was useful for you.
The Buyer Handbook: Find and Attract Your Ideal Buyers
The Buyer Handbook: Find and Attract Your Ideal Buyers
Transcript
Excellent. Okay. So we have a few more people joining. Of course, this is recording, but this is our Copy School Pro call of the week. This week, we are talking continuing on with our final week, actually, of the buyer handbook.
Next week, as you’ll see in the Coffee School Pro training area very soon, next week, we will have a whole new theme starting, and that one for the month of July is under the sunshine growth model.
When you look at the skills part of the sunshine growth model and the skills that you use, those are used to grow your business, like administrative stuff or things like list building and social followers. That’s what we’re doing next month is all about list building, and getting more social followers where social can be the best path toward building your list today. But we’ll talk more about that all next starting next week. We’re gonna get started on Instagram.
We’re gonna get into gamifying list building, with Shane. We’ll do a webinar, like, how to create a waking up to the problem webinar that you can present to other people’s audiences. I’ll be running that. So if you are wondering how to get in front of other audiences, like what we’re gonna talk about today, then this will be useful for you.
So there’s a lot coming up in July. Watch for all of that. Two lessons a week as usual.
And then this week this week oh, yeah. This week, we have Shane wrapping up, our, buyer handbook month with using AI to create your business’ actual buyer handbook. So that should be fun and exciting.
Alright.
It’s a bit of a working session today. We’ll be doing some actual work, which I hope is good for everybody in the room. And, yeah, there will, of course, be a replay, and there is the worksheet. So if you can open up the worksheet that we that Sarah sent out over the weekend that has the buyer handbook, find and attract your ideal buyers. I’m about to share my screen.
This is, of course, a really this is a fundamental topic, finding people who will buy the stuff that you’ve got, pretty important.
We we we need to do that. That’s just how life works. Now, hopefully, they’ll find you right back, but you still need to show up conveniently where they are. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about here today. Let me just go into presentation mode.
If you haven’t watched other sessions from the month of June on the buyer handbook, go back through the Coffee School Pro training area and pick up some more stuff there where we’re talking about ICPs, personas, personas underneath your ICP, all of that kind of stuff that, is critical to understanding who you’re talking to and if they’re the right person to talk to right now. And, of course, they will talk about where they are. So this is going to be very useful for you. If you wanna find out where your ICPs are, you will need to have your laptop open in front of you to do this work.
If not, your phone might be okay, but we’re gonna go into a tool, today. And maybe you already have access to that tool. And if you do, awesome. And if you don’t, that’s okay. They have a free thing that you can use today.
And then after this, you’re going to be ready to start pitching brands, not people.
Brands on partnering to share your content. Now there are people at the brands, but what people often talk about for freelancers with cold pitching is go cold pitch a potential client. And there’s nothing technically wrong with that, except it doesn’t scale very well. It takes a lot of work to do it, and we would all rather people just come to us.
So we’re gonna borrow the authority of other brands, which I talk about all the time, because that’s how I got here. So if not for me, absolutely latching on to the authority of other brands, way back in the beginning, I would not have the business that I have today. Not at all. And I’m very happy with the business I have today.
And so I can say, and I think a lot of people who look back at their growth or their lack of growth will be able to look at the network that they tapped into or did not tap into early on. So for me, Hacker News was a big part of it. So that’s community. What community can and should you participate in right now? We’re gonna work on finding those communities today.
It would be better if you’d started working in that community five years ago. Of course, it would everything better if we’d started doing any of this stuff five years ago, but we didn’t. So we’re going to do it today and not let any of the crap in because this crap always comes in. Oh, there’s no way in. It’s saturated, etcetera, etcetera. Shush.
We’re just gonna do the work. Just do the work and don’t think about it.
I also partnered with brands.
Unbounce was just starting out. HubSpot was still small enough that people weren’t necessarily that familiar with everything HubSpot could do. It wasn’t ubiquitous like it is today when I was starting out. Leadpages was like a whole different thing at the time, and Wistia was two dudes.
That was it. So but we partnered with them early on, and now their brands have grown. Our brands have grown and been able to, like, carry on. Our brand has grown and been able to carry on with it.
So I borrowed their authority. You need to do the same because there is an a early version of Wistia out there right now. There’s an early version of Unbounce out there right now.
Partner with them. They have as much hustle as anybody else had twelve, fifteen years ago, they are people to, partner with. So we’re gonna talk about who those, like, hidden gems are, and that’s really the goal today. When you find where your people are at, then we want you to put a webinar, which you’ll probably call a workshop, in front of them as soon as humanly possible.
And you’re going to force it to snowball. You’re not going to sit there and go, okay, I wonder if this is gonna work. You are going to make it work because that is how we get shit done. That’s what separates us here. We will force the snowball effect. Okay. So how do we even get started?
We’re gonna find people online using SparkToro. Has anybody used SparkToro before?
Yes. Cool. Are you using it now?
Good. It’s very easy to start and cancel, start and cancel. That’s actually you know, anybody who’s worked with them knows that’s a an actual challenge for them. As you use it, get everything you need out of it, and then you cancel, but you might come back four months later and use it all over again. So it’s a bit of a a different subscription model. But will you use SparkToro, in order to find out where people are, obviously, that’s what SparkToro does. It helps you find out what they’re talking about, etcetera.
But oftentimes when you’re using SparkToro and I’m just gonna open this up, over to the side as I move Zoom around. When you’re using SparkToro, it’s often defined, like, keywords and things like that.
Not keywords for social necessarily, what brand should I be looking up?
Just mine. And so I’m what brand should I be looking up? Just mine. And so I’m going to recommend that you look up a complementor. So instead of a competitor, this is someone who is like a competitor, but they’re more complimentary. So for us, ConvertKit or Kit might be a complimenter for us because we share a similar audience of digital creators, but we want to find a group that has more traffic, ideally, significantly more traffic than we get.
So for me, I might look up convertkit dot com, or I might look at other complementors. April Dunford and I have similar audiences in some ways. It depends on what I’m trying to sell. In other ways, we have very different audiences.
So that might be somebody that I look up to see, what because we can’t look up ourselves. Right? If you’re if you have a brand new website or you’ve got, like, five people coming a day to your website, you can’t really use SparkToro or yourself to get a sense of it. So we need to go and basically get a sense of the audience that our complementors or even full on competitors have.
So if you’re like, okay. I’m serving this market, but I know that this other brand is huge and they’re serving the same market I am. We’re just gonna use this over here in SparkToro. So you should now be seeing the SparkToro interface where you wanna go to the tab audience research.
What I recommend is right now, while I’m chattering, if you’re not using SparkToro, start an account right now. It’s free. You just, like, go to SparkToro dot com, use your Gmail or whatever to create an account quickly, get in there because we’re going to go to the audience research tab and this there’s all sorts of things.
Claire, did you work with Jia and Claire on SparkToro stuff?
Sorry. Muted. I have someone on the tab. Yes. I did. Okay.
Wait back to before two point o.
You would know, of course, more than I I’ve used for Arturo on and off, but I’m not, like, a power user of it. So, Claire, if you have anything to add, please do feel free to at any point or anybody who uses this and and has something to add here, please please do.
What we wanna do today is start by listing out three brands, ideally, the dot com version, like, the actual website that gets the audience you wish you could get. Now that could a really obvious one is some sort of software Software made for different audiences. So if you’re like, I want to work primarily with nonprofits, then you’d go look you should know what software people who are at nonprofits use. If you were like, I only work with real estate developers, then you’ll know or or realtors. And you might say, like, okay. Realtors use follow-up boss. So I’m going to look up follow-up boss and see what comes up.
And that’s what I’ll use to get started here on filling this in.
We have to wait for it to load, so we’re gonna do that. While that’s happening, make sure you’ve started your SparkToro account and start thinking of these people. So you have to first first know who your ideal audience is and then what they trust. So I don’t have a part on here for your ideal audience because you already know that That’s, like, very introductory basic stuff.
Tell Rand what did you say? Oh, got it. Fine. To pedal faster?
Is he in a race right now? Is he, like, biking somewhere, Andrew?
Or Andrew?
Are you chatting to us? Oh, he’s powering the sparktor.
I got it. I didn’t get that. Okay.
Now I got it.
I was slow. It’s my damn slow. Yeah. It’s taking a while to load up. Is it slow is it slow for everybody?
No? For some? Okay.
So we’ll just set that aside, and I will walk through what our objective is, like, what we’re going to do along the way. So if you can list out those three to five groups, you’re going to enter and repeat this process for those three to five different groups in here. For follow-up, boss, really?
Okay. So we’ll go through a creative free SparkToro account, go to audience research, search the website or domain of a complementor, then we’re going to fill this in for for, like, three to five of those groups. Knowing that as just happened here, sometimes, Barktoro won’t have enough data for it. So just keep that in mind, and then just repeat. Then afterward, we’re going to save this and downloaded data because you can export data on, SparkToro from SparkToro to wherever. This is the kind of thing that you’ll want to share with your VA as you move forward or just have for yourself as you, like, get deeper and deeper into building your business.
Knowing more about who and where they are is everything. It’s the thing that keeps people from growing is I don’t know how to get in front of my audience because I don’t know where they are. What are they paying attention to? And then everybody gravitates to the exact same people.
Well, all Chorus creators want to get or or follow Amy Porterfield. Okay. Great. But what software are they using?
What plug ins for that software are available? What Chrome extensions are they using? Can you partner with those smaller groups in order to get some traction? Because everybody can’t go around pitching Amy Porterfield, and her audience gets fatigued too versus the smaller companies that are out there that are gaining traction and would love to help an x to have an expert like you come in and teach their audience.
This is a big thing. Unbounce wanted me to come in and teach their audience to be better at making landing pages because it’s good for Unbounce. Same was true for Leadpages. Same was true for ConvertKit.
All of these different groups early on want you to come train their audience, and the good thing is you want to do that too. You wanna be an authority in front of them, so we need to find out where they are. So we’re gonna use SparkToro to find out where your buyers are. It might not be your audience.
Now if your audience if your website gets a lot of traffic, then this is gonna be really directly applicable for you. Like, oh, this is where my audience is coming from. That’s cool to know. What you’ll really wanna focus on, though, are not, like, the top accounts, but the hidden gems.
So you’ll see when you do oh, now they do have stuff. You’ll see when you go through here that, they have these bigger accounts, like, how are you going to pitch Realtor magazine?
Instead, you’ll probably wanna look at some hidden gems. Now they don’t have any hidden gems here, so that would be a thing where I’d have to then go do another search. But what I want to do is not just focus on all of these giant places to pitch, but where are my buyers going? What websites are they visiting is step one.
So we wanna write in the websites that they visit based on what you’re seeing here. Focus only on the ones that where you can actually answer. I can guest here, or I can advertise here. If it’s not an option, although this is a column that I have on the worksheet, if you can’t do anything with this, like, if you’re like, well, I can’t do anything with Keller Williams.
Like, it’s a giant broker brand. What what might I do? That’s too hard for me to conceive of putting a web webinar together. I mean, maybe maybe it’s a ten x that’s worth it more than, like, something else that could feel like a two x.
But try to be, like, realistic because you could list out all the websites they visit that are huge names. And then you think, okay. I can guess here. And if you get no’s across the board, you’re going to not feel good about it. So we wanna be able to get you wins in here. So maybe put some big websites in alongside some smaller websites in.
Don’t underestimate the power of directly advertising in some of these spaces. That doesn’t mean you go to their advertised page, but there are ways to get in. We’re not gonna talk about those today.
But you can, in some cases, advertise where they’re at, and that’s gonna get more real as we get into newsletters and podcasts that look more like sponsorships.
Then you’ll go through and look at their, YouTube channels. This is really straightforward stuff. Right? Like, you just go through and use SparkToro, but document what you’re learning so that you’re not just like, oh, yeah.
Cool. I’m gonna, like, probably hit home lights. We’ll write it down. Write it down and then say, okay.
I can guess here. Because at the end of this, we’re gonna go through and make an actual plan for what you will do over the next ninety days. This will feel like, big work, but it’s useful work to do. It’s where your buyers are at right now.
Like they’re sitting there right now.
So we want to go get them. So we’ll go through and look at YouTube channels that they watch. There are a lot of columns here. Websites are a little trickier, so I didn’t put that many or a lot of rows.
Sorry. I didn’t put that many rows in here because a website could feel like, what do I even do with the website? What we’re really saying is the brand behind the website. A YouTube channel is far more specific.
If you know that they’re all going to let’s see where they’re going. HomeLight. Okay. So HomeLight is really popular as a YouTube channel, I guess, for people in the realtor space.
So you could write in home light, and then you could figure out what am I going to do with this. Go look. Go look into what HomeLight is doing on YouTube. Is there anything you could do there?
It might just be as simple as I can try to advertise. I can put a video together for these people. I can try to figure something out. Can you guest there?
You’d have to watch and see. Like, do they have podcasts that are also video that they post there? Can you try to pitch them on getting on that? If you can and if it’s a big enough swing, it’s going to be worth your time.
If it’s a small swing, then you have to make sure it’s a really scalable thing. And that’s, like, put one workshop together, which we’ll be talking about next month, that you can then pitch and you keep repeating that workshop in all of these smaller places. It’s a twenty minute workshop. The leads come directly to you, not to them, etcetera. We’ll get into that next month.
But first of all, you need to know where you’re gonna pitch it. Otherwise, when you put the webinar together next month, you’ll be like, well, what the hell do I do with this thing now? So this is that work.
Every second page in this workbook is for you to make notes to self. So if you haven’t printed this off and started going through it, I recommend you do. If you don’t print it off, if you just, like, go through and mark up the PDF, absolutely cool too. But some people will look at this table and do nothing with it.
Go like, oh, yeah. Cool. Good lesson. And move on. I don’t want you to be that person.
You’re here right now. Do the thing.
Add notes to self. Add notes for a VA if you’ve got one.
What are you thinking right now about the Homelight YouTube channel? What are you thinking? Write down your notes as they come up. If I’m chattering, turn the volume down on me. You can come back and watch the replay later if you’re actually doing work and I’m talking through your work. I’m good with you muting me. I just can’t mute myself because other people have to still do the work.
Continuing on. Oh, Claire. Yes.
Sorry to interrupt.
I I can build a list on Airtable. So I’ve got I’ve got a list of, like, fifty websites.
Sorry. Eight hundred websites, actually. Fifty YouTube channels and a bunch of subreddits that I kind of narrowed down. The subreddits were actually easiest to narrow down to my OCD.
Yes. Yes. They’re also obviously the easiest to, like, research and post on. But when it comes to YouTube and websites and I’m looking at, like, big brands, like, let’s say Crazy Egg, for example.
They do SaaS. They do analytics. People who are interested in that are probably interested in what I do. Mhmm.
But, wow, how do I begin to, like, even start narrowing down all of the different sites and also, like, figure out if they allow advertising. Because a lot of places have stopped having, like, a guest posts available page because they get crazy. Right. So yeah.
So, yeah, any advice on that?
That’s where I I firmly believe that if you can run a workshop that gets recorded and played and that brand then puts it on their YouTube. It comes up as a search result when your name is searched.
That’s what we wanna do. I would focus entirely on what is an audience.
It could be Crazy Egg if you’re subscribed. So step one, make sure you’re actually subscribed to that brand’s newsletter or email list, however that comes in. If that means you have to get a free, a free user account, free trial account, then do it. Do it and start, like, looking through.
Does Crazy Egg ever invite people to workshops?
Like and if they do, have a look at it because you might be like, Kajabi invites a lot of people to workshops, but then they’re also affiliates for all of those workshops. So you have to sell something in the workshop. So that’s not gonna be a good fit because Kajabi would be like, no. Because you’re not selling anything at the end, and so we’re not gonna make any affiliate revenue off of this.
Okay, fine. So the more you know about what they’re doing to create content and share content for their audience, the better. So that would be step one. And then then the challenge is not a guest blog post because a lot of people are not publishing guest blog posts right now.
Written content is not what it was.
So what can you do? Can you get in front of their Instagram audience somehow?
Can you I would really, really put all my eggs honestly in the basket of workshop, workshop, workshop.
They’re going to do live events of some kind. I mean, live online events.
Any brand that is scrappy enough to try to break in right now that has a little bit of money to spend is teaching their users to be better users. It’s just like a really classic playbook for getting your SaaS brand out there.
So if you if you can say, okay. I’m really clear on who my ICP is on the persona under that that this group does watch workshops.
Workshops get a bad rap. No one watches a webinar. No people people don’t watch low value stuff. But if it’s coming from a brand that they trust, then they’re more likely to watch it.
So I will watch all the webinars that Gong dot IO puts out, because they teach good stuff about sales calls and all of the stuff that matters to me. They’re not putting crap out there. I don’t get three tips for running a sales call. I get, like, here’s how to do multithreading four zero one, which is really valuable.
Right? So you do need a workshop.
It needs to be the right value level for the audience you’re trying to attract that will wake them up to their problem. So not thirteen copywriting tips, obviously, but something more strategic, something that where five people who attend reach out to you immediately, not some other thing, which, again, we’ll talk about next month when we talk about the workshop that you should be getting out there. But, Claire, as a long answer to your question, focus on getting that workshop together and then finding the right group based on what you know about how they’re creating content and promoting it to pitch because Crazy Egg might not be the way to go.
Does that make sense?
Got it. Super helpful. Yes.
I love that you have that giant air table.
That’s great. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Like, pay for it. It’s so expensive as software.
So I might as well use this.
Yeah. Totally.
Yeah. The tricky thing about, like, lists of eight hundred is, like, where do you start? Right? So that’s very tricky. And that’s why I frankly like limiting it to, like, only the size of this worksheet.
If you can take that table you already have all filled in and start, like, limiting your options, putting those constraints around it. You’re only allowed twelve podcasts that they listen to only right in twelve then. Every this is ninety days. This isn’t the rest of your life. This is the next ninety days. What are you going to do? Where are you gonna pitch?
So same as these for podcasts. They listen to make notes to self subreddits that they frequent.
And that might not be where you create content, but you can get involved in conversations, obviously.
Any notes to self there, social accounts that they follow, these are gonna be hidden gems, not the big ones necessarily, but not tiny ones either. So you wanna look through and make sure and next month, we’ll talk more about Instagram followers and stuff like that.
But keep in mind, when I say buyers throughout this, I don’t just mean ICP. So not just that ideal client profile, but the persona under it. So you might say, people who are in a marketing capacity are your persona, and a lot of them are women. So they may be on x social space versus other groups.
So what I want you to do is not discount. I’ve had people discount. Oh, nobody’s on social. None of my the people that I’m trying to reach are on social.
And I’m like, that’s Europe to lunch. Of course, they’re on social. We’re all on some form of social unless you’ve actively chosen not to be, and then chances are good you’re not in digital marketing because you you gotta be on social if you’re in digital marketing. And if you’re hearing this and going, but I’m not on social and I’m in digital marketing, get on social.
It’s time. You have to. You have to. If I have to, you have to. Because I have to, and I’m not always happy about it.
Then we wanna get into keywords and topics. This is just not so that you’re creating content that is keyword rich or keyword targeted necessarily.
But when it comes time as we get deeper and deeper into the work, this isn’t just it’s not none of the work we do is siloed. Right? It feels like it because it’s a rectangular document, and it effectively looks like a silo. But it’s not.
This is all gonna work together. So you might not use trending keywords you can post about right now. But since you’re in SparkToro and it will share with you what some of those trending keywords are, you can see all the keywords. Obviously, it’s Rand.
Document them because that could be stuff that you can pitch content about. If it’s trending in particular, you can then adjust your workshop or webinars that the title is more about that trending keyword, but it’s still actually about the same thing. And this would just be a trending keyword that’s related to what you do. So if you’re like, oh, none of these keywords are related to what I do, that’s okay.
Just put a strike through it so that you know you did the work and nothing was there or do an NA or whatever, but I just don’t want it to look blank. I find that frustrating when things are blank. Maybe you don’t. Okay.
Now this is gonna wrapping up this conversation here. I know that we can’t do all the work because SparkToro is being a slow little bunny.
But go off and do it afterward, please. It’s on your business. Your business wants you to. That’s why you’re part of Coffee School Pro. So make sure that you do it.
Hacker News was where I started. I swear by finding a community and being of value to it before you try to take anything out of it. So add to the bank. Keep adding to the bank, and then later, you can start withdrawing.
Start now. If you don’t have a community that you’re part of, start now. It’s time to. Got it. And it could pay off a lot faster than, like, I wasn’t using Hacker News for a thing. I was just interested in what people were doing on Hacker News, like, cool, fun startup ideas and stuff like that. It’s, like, scrappy atmosphere.
So I want you to know what your Hacker News is.
I found that if you go on Reddit, you can find a lot of good communities talked about on Reddit. So go on there immediately.
Most of us are on Reddit for some things anyway, just for fun even. If you can go on Reddit and search something as simple like where are marketers hanging out? And you’ll see all sorts of responses. You can just Google Reddit and then that search phrase or whatever you want to look or, you’ll find them.
They’re listed there. Slack group. You need a couple Slack groups that you could request to join. So, ideally, they won’t just be open to everybody.
If there are a hundred and twenty thousand people in there, don’t do it. Don’t you go into that Slack group. That is going to be a waste of your time.
So Slack groups that are limited or private membership or even that are, like, you have to pay the cost of the monthly Slack charge, like, eight bucks a month plus two dollars for the administrative person who has to take care of all of this, that’s going to narrow the number of people who are in that Slack group, and that’s good for you. You don’t want a hundred and twenty thousand people in a Slack group, in a Discord, in in bigger communities maybe.
You you really do wanna focus on a concentrated group of professionals.
So if that means joining the paid product led growth Slack group, if there’s a way to do that without taking the course, I don’t recommend the course. But if you can do that, cool. Because now you’re in a product led growth Slack community, and everybody in there is concerned about product led growth. And most of them are just actively in start ups or tech companies that are using product led growth.
If that’s your ideal audience, it only makes good sense for you to participate in that group. Adding value, not taking it out, not saying, hey. I’ll do that for you. Wait until people are like, woah.
Wait. You’re a SaaS copywriter, and you do the research?
I had no idea that’s true for you. Can we talk? That’s exciting. That’s better. That’s good. So find a Slack group.
Discord, particularly if you work with tech in any way. There’s going to be a bunch of nerds who said no to Slack and yes to Discord.
So go check out Discords as well, which, of course, Reddit is also very good for nerds. So you can find all the Discord groups on Reddit too.
Clearly, I am more targeted at tech and SaaS companies than I am health and wellness and other groups like that. However, you can apply the same rules to finding same stuff for health and wellness. And if you’re like, Reddit doesn’t work for that, well, then something else, the health and wellness equivalent of Reddit.
Be resourceful. Figure that part out. The point is you need to walk away with at least one really solid Slack group for that your ideal audience is in so that you can start participating and adding value, answering questions, posting useful resources, all of those sorts of things that make you a useful part of that community. And then when it’s time for you to, like, withdraw a little from the bank, you got lots of credit there.
You got lots that you can do there. So go ahead and make sure you’re brainstorming based on everything you’re seeing on SparkToro, based on the idea of participating in a Slack group. What are you going to do? Can you come up with a brand that you could partner with?
Can you come up with three brands that you could partner with? And I mean, Unbounce thirteen years ago, Wistia twelve years ago, those sorts of groups.
Who are they today?
Can you find a way to partner with them? Where are they showing up? Where are their heads of growth showing up? Or where are the CEOs slash CMO slash cheap garbage take routers? Like, they’re doing everything.
Where are they right now? Where are they consuming content? Where are they hoping to find that next great idea?
Get in front of them. But you need to brainstorm this stuff, move through it, and then start to figure out, okay.
If it’s x brand, whoever it is, if it’s boards, let’s say words is up and coming. They’re doing lots of cool stuff. They’ve got lots and lots of users, but they really wanna scale. Boards could be my audience.
What webinar could I pitch to boards? What would make the users of boards better users of boards? Maybe it’s around x. And if it doesn’t make sense to it, you’re like, oh, no.
They need me to, like, help them write social posts and stuff. Forget it. Not boards. Next.
Cool. Eliminate things. That’s a big part of, like, finding the gold is washing away everything else until you get to the gold. Right?
So put a whole bunch of stuff in there and then start figuring out what to do. That’s the point of brainstorming. One page should not be enough. If you can do it all in one page, that was like a brain drizzle.
We wanna go on full storm, really stormy stuff, lots of stuff. And then that’ll help you get down to a ninety day attraction plan, which is free. It’s free and loose because all of this is there to tighten up your ideas where you can be. Now once you’ve got a brainstorm in place, what are you going to do over the next ninety days?
That’s July, August, September. Or if you’re watching the replay, whatever month you’re in, plus two more after that. What are you going to do for that, for the next ninety days? Are you going to pitch?
First, you have to put that webinar idea together pretty loosely because you wanna get it approved before you start actually going out and putting a full workshop together only to find out that nobody wants the damn thing. So what are you going to do to try to get out there? Keep in mind that next month we have full training on more stuff around using social media and getting your workshop in front of other audiences.
Any questions on this really quick run through of finding your buyer?
Thoughts or concerns?
No?
Andrew’s thinking.
Okay.
That is the training for today.
Do you have any questions about it, or are we ready to move on? Oh, I just saw your thing about the joke. Are we ready to move on, to the AMA part of today’s call? Good. Yes.
Alright.
Cool.
Let’s do that then. So as usual, if you have any questions, please start by, sharing your win, win of the week. Jessica has put up her hand. So what win do you have to share with us first? And if you could I know, Jess, you’re on your treadmill, I think, so you probably don’t want to come on camera.
But feel free to. It’s also encouraging.
Yeah. Share your win. Ask your question. And if you want everybody in the room to weigh in, please be sure to open it up to everyone. Otherwise, I’ll just jump in. Jessica?
Thank you. Sorry. I’m in the dark right now, actually, so that’s why I’m not on camera.
You can hear me alright? Yes. Okay. Perfect. So my win is leads into my question.
So I thought on Friday, my win was, I don’t know if people saw, but I’ve been doing the big pivot back to books. And that’s great. I feel really, really solid about that.
And I was in the middle when I made the shift. I was in the middle of a VIP client potentially hiring me for a optimization retainer for their ecommerce emails. So I was in the middle of that conversation when this shift kind of happened, but it was kinda looking that good, I guess.
Also a client who’s not ideal, so it was a very stupid choice anyway.
The win was on Friday, I kind of thought that I made it clear that this was not going to move forward via an email. I tried in a meeting. It didn’t work out. I made it clear in the email. I’ve since gotten a so I felt really good.
The winners, I felt really good because I was like, yes.
All in on books. Let’s go.
But since then, I’ve gotten a reply, and it’s kind of become clear that this it’s a fractional CMO. She would really like to work with me, but she’s really it’s, like, it’s becoming the classic thing you always coach Joe about when they can’t afford you and the things they want. And it’s like, a guarantee and promises and when can we see results or whatever. And so, of course, I stupidly used in my email response finally to just really cut this off. I I said that I I kind of attributed it to her need for guarantees and promise of results in the first like, by month two even though month one was spent on strategy. We need to analyze your data. We need to look at all the things, whatever.
So, anyway, my point is is basically, I need to now cut this off completely, and I’ve really just made a freaking mess of it. And, I don’t know. She she wrote me this long email trying to justify I misunderstood, and we can continue working. I just want clarity around the promises and the potential results and all that, and it’s just a mess. I’ve made a mess of this, and I need to get out of it.
Okay. So you’re trying to get out of it while preserving the relationship?
Yeah. I mean I mean, at least at least in a I know we’re not gonna work together in the future, but I don’t wanna be an asshole.
Oh, you came to the wrong place. Just kidding. Sorry.
It might be a bit of just kidding.
Okay. So what do we so this person had enough time to write you a long email instead of just saying, hey. Can we hop on a call? You’d already hopped on a call before, Jessica?
Yes.
Last week, I tried to hop I did hop on a call with her to say, look.
I this isn’t, you know, whatever. And I’m I know it’s a growth area. I I need to work on this, but I did I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. We can work out a and stupid. It was my fault.
So you were saying we can work something out?
It was more like I defaulted to okay.
I wouldn’t say we work yes. Sure. Let’s go with that. Yeah.
It’s okay.
I’m gonna need No.
No. No. No. No. No. No. It’s hard to say no, especially if you haven’t practiced saying no.
So I think that’s completely fair.
But now you have to practice saying no. So, it’s awkward. It is. Even when you practice at it, it’s still awkward because you have to let them down.
But one way that I would recommend going about it is saying, like, hey. Something’s changed for me. I’ve actually been running two different service businesses, and the other one is taking off big time. So I need to now reprioritize my efforts on that one because it’s a service, and I am the service provider. So I can’t move forward with you on the ecommerce side of things. And that’s absolutely true. And how could she argue with that?
No. She really can’t. I think it’s I think it was just my yeah. I I should have led with that. I’m kicking myself. I should have led with that.
That’s okay. I mean, I think you’re do so, like, so what? You’re not honestly, she’ll be over it within a minute.
I’m moving on, so I wouldn’t I wouldn’t overthink it. I think it’s nice that you’re worrying about it. Just tell her the fact in a nice way, and then she’s released to go look for someone else instead of waiting around hoping that it might work out with you.
Yeah. Okay. Good? Thank you. That’s cool. It still feels like garbage. But Yeah.
It does. Lots of the things will feel like garbage as you grow.
That’s why you have to make a lot of money to make up for when you feel shitty. Yeah.
Yeah. You’re right. Okay. I’ll add that to the list, become millionaire faster than I wanted to be Exactly.
So because of this. I like that. I like that. Except it needs a deadline. Okay.
Alright. Cool. Awesome, Jessica. Good luck. Thanks. Thanks.
Johnson, what’s your win?
Hey.
So a win, for this weekend is related to the question is that, I developed, three to four more outlines for various products within narrative selling to follow the sort of land and expand model that you, were talking about. And, it actually came fairly easily once I was kinda looking at it from that perspective, and it’s quite exciting.
So my question is that I’ve, I have this this this new idea for a for a product wise, a service based product, that I’m calling the founder’s narrative, as a sort of standardized offer with the authority building offer that you’ve seen in in that document as the, sort of upsell and then ongoing retainer.
So the the founders product is basically to help founders, find their story and and message, like, a kind of a well, a few elements of it, but but but a key story that is sort of their why, their, their meaning, behind their sort of their mission, and then, signifier stories that can be reframed in in multiple ways to convey various, aspects of, their their product.
And then there’s some other stuff about how to tell stories and how to adjust them for various audiences.
So my question is, does that sound like a good pairing and a good choice for the land and expand?
And, also, do you have any thoughts about the the document that you placed on?
Yes. The document. Thanks.
Yes. So so the idea with the founder’s narrative for land and expand is you’re brought in to work on the founders narrative, and then you work through other departments?
Yeah. Sort of to to look for founders who are keen to be out there, get in front of people, talk about, their stuff, which I I feel like won’t be hard to find, and, and to give them a framework to do that that that they, that that helps, helps them resonate with their target audience, basically.
Okay. Cool.
Let me open the doc then. Okay. So if you feel good about that as your land and expand, that’s cool. The only question I have around expand is if it’s a founder’s narrative, how big is the ICP that you’re going after?
How many employees does it have?
Well, I guess somewhere between sort of ten and fifty is a very sort of rough number. I’m imagining around, twenty to thirty, probably on on average, in this sort of, in that sort of range.
Do you think there’s a do you think it’s it might be too small?
Well, there’s just not much room to expand there. Where land and expand when you’re, like, talking about going up market is I mean, you still can.
You would just land in c suite and then expand to marketing might want the product narrative, I guess.
Yeah. I’ve got something for for marketing and sales as well.
So it was sort of like get the founders on board, make them love us, and then it felt like it would be an easier sell to the rest of the the teams.
Yeah.
And maybe that’s so in looking over your pricing, the thing about the founder’s narrative and, like, it’s cool and, like, I don’t know.
It feels like there’s it’s got legs because it’s a lot like positioning, but for the founder, which is cool.
So you could definitely, like, piggyback off of a lot of what April Dunford’s done. Like, if April did it, you should do it.
So that’s worth considering.
I guess I just wonder about the retainer side of it.
April also doesn’t have a retainer model for hers. However, there is this, like, there is more of a land and expand, which might be more of the retainer for you, where you would instead start with the founder’s narrative as the thing that you’re standing up, impress the crap out of the founder with that, and then say, okay. You know, we can do the same thing for your products, or we can do the same thing for your different groups, like the sales team or whatever. You’d have to figure that out. When I look through your document, the part that’s tricky is, like, the the execution y stuff, like monthly lead magnet development, it feels like forcing the issue, in order to get that easier performance based retainer in there or performance driven retainer in there.
So I would for you, I would say, okay. This week, I’m going to pause thinking about my business as stand up offer followed by retainer and instead think of my business as fully land and expand. Okay. That’s all I’m going to do. If I were to do that, what would expand look like? So land is the templated thing that then gets applied to different departments.
For that to work, what did my what would my ICP need to look like? What would they need to believe?
What would need to be their struggles right now? Because you have to solve those by repeating this thing across everywhere, which is doable. But I would put aside anything that has to do with, execution.
I’d keep it at the strategic level, and you can always recommend other people to execute. Yeah. I know. Right?
Johnson, you just graduated from executing. Well done.
That’s awesome.
My word. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There’s a win for me. I was having a conversation with my, teammate where we were discussing, like, just how much I want to move away from delivery, of execution of products, and onto consulting.
Yeah. Cool. So And if you’re down for traveling too, the only side note is that if you’re going to go in and impress founders, they often need to see you in real life.
So you have to travel.
Fair.
And if I was willing to, sorry to hold the mic. But if I was willing to, switch up because, again, like, I feel like there’s a lot of ways I could apply these ideas, and there’s a lot of ways I could go with it.
If I wanted to look at a more sort of enterprise y level of the really upmarket, sort of land and expand.
Do you have any thoughts about, just the maybe the land product?
The problem is I really like the idea of the founder’s narrative.
I feel like it reminds me of this is so stupid.
It reminds me of on Friends when Jennifer Aniston says something about apartment pants to her, boss, who’s like, now I want apartment pants. They’re not even a thing, but it’s such a good, like, idea. Like, you could sell it.
So she’s like, let’s invent apartment pants.
And that’s the same kind of thing here. Like, the founder’s narrative just sounds really good. You know, you can see that founders would be like, I want a narrative. I need a narrative.
Get me a narrative. I want this, just like apartment pants. So now you just have to figure out what the founder’s narrative is. Stacy just said leaders narrative, potentially.
Yeah. Right?
I think that there’s if it’s blank narrative, you’ve got a big idea there that although people have been saying narrative, it’s kind of like story brand. It’s blank brand. But your blank narrative But then you just you gotta be ready to go all in and, like, own narrative. And I think that’s cool. I think that’s great and strategic and potentially expensive.
But, yeah, you do have to rethink that. Maybe it is leaders’ enter leaders’ narrative.
Maybe. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.
I I love that, Stacy.
Thank you.
And, okay, just one other tiny, tiny, tiny thing, because I feel like you will know the answer to this. I have this, as far as, like, coming out with this idea and talking about it and being this, thought leader, and creating all of the content, I have this fear that someone is going to take the the developed idea as far as it’s developed right now and then run with it faster than I can, and rename it, rebrand it into something else.
Is that, not stupid, but, like, is that something worth worrying about?
Yeah. Except you’re gonna do it better. You’re going to stay with it. People will steal your ideas all day.
So many. But they’re also lazy and quickly bored because they don’t have their own ideas. So I would say, like, don’t worry about it. They’ll come in.
They’ll swoop in. They’ll try to steal it.
The more you can’t. So that’s the worrying side of it. You can protect it as well. You can’t protect it from some parts of the world.
But once you’ve trademarked the thing, you’re good. You’re pretty good from there. People will still try to knock you off, but there was actually a story that Bob from Rewired Group was telling me a couple of weeks. I think it was Bob was saying, that one of his friends has, like, this big IP.
And someone from, like, McKinsey came to his friend and said, like, oh, we love your, we love or no. It was Blair Ends, maybe. I mean, we love your, blah blah blah product, the program, the framework. We use it across we’ve been using it across our x y z clients.
He sent them an invoice for his consulting fees on that because it’s his protected IP, and you cannot teach it. And so he got paid, like, three million dollars or something because this guy from McKinsey didn’t know better than to keep it to himself.
There was legal shit involved. Not that it wasn’t just like, oh, we’ll pay this invoice. Like, there was stuff. But that said, write a book about it.
Knock that thing out. You can do a better edition once it gets traction. Like, second edition is actually good. Like, well written.
First one is just great ideas. Document your framework. Own the title, trademark what you can, and then no people will steal it. And you just have to push through and be better at it.
Don’t switch to something else. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it will happen.
Alright.
It’s just the way it is.
Okay. Okay. Alright. That’s helpful. Thank you, Joe.
Sure. I look forward to reading the book in a couple months.
Yes.
Yes. Good. Awesome.
Deadline’s next ninety days.
Got it.
Oh, good. I hope so. Andrew, what is your win?
Hey. Can you hear me okay? Yeah.
Cool.
My win is that, I gay I did a, redid a client’s, land paid search landing page, maybe that they started testing about six weeks ago. And as of today, they they’ve a little bit lower traffic, so we’re using eighty percent as, significance. And as of today, I have a winner, at about twenty eight percent increase Nice. At eighty percent significance.
So, you know, not Getting there.
You know? Yeah. Amazon is not, you know, not gonna count that as a win, but it’s been consistently leading, and the copy from before was really bad. So I’m pretty confident that it’s that it’s true, but there’s some some reality behind the those numbers. So that’s exciting. That definitely lights me up. I like that stuff.
I love that. Cool. Nice work.
Yeah. That’s a big that that that’s the stuff that really lights me up is checking, like, to go into the, into Optimizely and be like, winning.
Anyway, so my my main question is that what I’ve noticed is that the companies that I tend to have the most success with, are companies that are, like, doing fairly well. Like, let’s say, they’re already at, you know, maybe fifty million, a hundred million, but have obviously bad copy on their website. Like, you can go in, and it’s usually, like, a problem, and it’s just, like, way too technical. Like, you know, clients that like, I have a client who’s running a headline. It’s, like, accelerate analytic productivity, and it’s, like, okay. What?
So what I’m so I’m kind of wondering, like, is that, like, a reasonable strategy to sort of look for companies that are, like, succeeding despite bad copy? Because I just I just feel, like, a lot more confident going into those situations where it’s, like, I can just look at their website and just know that I’m gonna be able to make it better.
Guess the question is I would look at their team. Why is the copy bad?
It’s because it’s use often because they’re having their product marketers write it, and their product marketers are really smart, but they’re very technical and write in a sort of academic tone, and nobody really knows. Like, when I come in and start talking, like, copy hacker stuff, their minds are exploding.
Yeah. Cool.
I love hearing that.
No. I’m sorry. I’m just kidding. Thank you.
Thank you for Okay.
Can you are you willing to pick a fight with product marketers writing copy? Would you write a headline ever that says product marketers can’t write copy?
Yeah. I’ll take some whack with that as a former product marketer.
But yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m sure a lot of them would be like, yeah.
No. That shouldn’t be my job in the first fucking place, by the way.
Yeah. Doing a very respectful way.
Well, that’s the thing. In a if the real challenge is, can you put a banner up that says product marketers can’t or shouldn’t write copy?
But you have like, if you can stand behind that, if you could put it on a T shirt, then you might be on to something.
Right? Because then then you can go out to these groups and or they’ll come to you and they’ll see, like, oh, this person understands that product marketers, maybe the word is shouldn’t. But what you need to know when figuring out if this is what’s keeping them from writing good copy, if it’s not just bureaucracy, if it’s not just dilution of things as more features are added, If it’s really product marketers are writing this stuff and they shouldn’t, that may need to be the fight that you pick. And if that’s the fight that you pick, you have to be willing to fight that fight.
And that really does mean you have to pick a fight. You have to say product marketers shouldn’t write copy, and it’s everywhere. And that doesn’t mean that’s going to be your tagline, but you have to be willing to do that. Like, your head has to get right with that, with the big statement, whatever that big statement is.
So I think, yes, if you’re willing to stand behind it and really say something.
Yeah. Otherwise, there’s no point.
Yeah. I mean, I think I would as maybe a question of when I back in when I need to start doing internal interviews with the people I just called out.
Hey. You guys are so smart. Love what you do. But, I mean, honestly, that’s part of the problem.
Right? Is that they they know the product too well. They don’t have any objectivity. They’ve learned it in a kind of academic way.
And so they’re just disconnected from how people are going to buy, you know, I mean, you you send them to copy school, then sure, they can do it.
But if they haven’t done that yet, then they’re just not the people who should be writing your conversion focus Exactly.
Conversion copy. Yeah.
So as long as you have the support for that, then I think but you just have to be willing to say it. You have to go on LinkedIn and say it, and then support it with everything that you just said. If not just LinkedIn, I actually whatever. But I know everybody else likes, like, LinkedIn.
Go wherever you’re going online and and say the thing, and then support it like you just did. And they will buy in. They’ll agree with you. That’s just the way it is. Yeah. And some won’t, and that’s good. Some shouldn’t.
Yeah.
Okay? Then we can pipe it. Cool. Thank you. Sure. Awesome.
Thank you. Claire, what’s your win?
Hey. Well, I just completed my win, which was narrowing my Reddit parse my Reddit, like where is the subreddit? So where is the subreddits?
Sorry. It’s late for me.
My YouTube and my website’s down. Also under forty. So each of them is under forty, which is a good start. And I’ve got some, like, moonshots in there and some, like, realistic ones.
Interestingly, I don’t know if anyone else is targeting b to b SaaS, but here’s quick fun insight.
Everyone’s YouTube channel, like, if you are targeting people who, like, follow April Dunford, for example, are interested in product led growth, those brands’ YouTube channels, crap.
Like, as far as the scale of YouTube goes, like, their view count is pretty low, and their cadence is pretty low as well Okay.
Which is really interesting. What’s the opportunity there when you know that? What do you think the opportunity is then?
Well, Crazy Egg hasn’t posted a video in three years. But three weeks ago, they posted a video, and I’m like, oh, does that mean Coming back. That they’re trying to do something? Does that mean that some marketer in there has gone like, crap, guys.
We really need to work on our, you know, stuff.
And some executive has gone, yeah. Find people.
Yes. Totally. And you, like, miraculously show up at the right time.
Right time, right place.
Love it. So nice.
That’s the one thing.
Cool.
Okay. So I you told me a while ago to name, what I’ve been working on, which is onboarding flows. So I’m gonna say, like, broadly this this is for everyone, by the way. Broadly, this flow, will include include emails at its most basic.
It’s more complicated. It will take someone from free to paid. So that means the in app prompts the sign up page for when you, like, click the, sign up button or stop for free, that page, and even the pricing page in future. That’s like the expanded version.
It’s, like, comprehensive.
So I’ve got a few options that I’ve narrowed it down to. Two of them were like, oh my god. Like, that might work moments.
And two of them were chat GPT moments. So the premise being that onboarding flows, typically, most people understand them as like a linear path. Right? And my fight that I’m picking is that, no. It’s not a linear path.
It is very much, and this is my latest one, like a pinball machine. Right? So the user, like, drops it, and then they get, like, knocked all over. Maybe get close to converting, visiting a pricing page, and then nope back to product experience.
Yeah.
So, the pinball onboarding machine, TM was one idea.
The pinball what? Onboarding machine. Onboarding machine. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.
And then my brand name is Coby Ireland. I had, like, a little wobble about whether or not I need to change that and ultimately decided that the effort of changing it probably wouldn’t be worth the payoff.
But bucket list onboarding was another kind of concept where the user has to go through, like, a bucket list of things that they need to check. Basically, points k.
In order to actually activate.
K.
That was the one.
And then the other two are Japanese. I love Japan. Obsessed.
Also, my audience is fairly, like, interested being nerds and all.
So the one is pretty classic. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of continuous small improvements Yep. Which has three kind of main principles of involvement of everyone. So that would be like sales, customer success, etcetera. Standardization of the practice that would be more about the optimizing side and the process. That would be the process of confiding someone.
K.
There were two other Japanese words that I thought could be could work with onboarding flow or activation flow. The one was, which means to wake up something dormant, and kumiki, which is the Japanese woodwork. I don’t know if you guys know about it, but they very carefully cut, their wood so it slots together. Like, their houses are built with no nails they used to be.
The workmanship is extremely precise so that everything, the whole big picture just slots together.
Yeah.
Those old ideas. Anyone any of them feels sticky? I was driving myself.
Anybody wanna chime in?
I have thoughts.
I would just on the on the Japanese words, I would caution against that right now because of the whole issues with cultural appropriation and things like that. So I don’t know that I would want to latch onto another culture’s term for, you know, for commercial gain.
That’s something that I would be beware of. I I love the pinball concept, and I think you have a lot of potential with that.
You know, pinball pinball onboarding, don’t tilt, you know, get the high score or all the kinds of things. I mean, there’s a lot you could do with that. It’s kinda it’s fun and and memorable.
Just my my take.
Cool feedback.
Anybody else have a note for Claire on this?
So I like the I like that pinball is a known thing. For me, pinball means chaos, though. Like, it flies everywhere.
So I wonder if there’s, like if you could dig into pinball the way you dug into these Japanese terms.
What are the little toggle guys called? What are the what are the parts called?
And I would, like, try or what’s, like, the outcome or the sound when you when you land it? Like, what’s the like, when the the ball goes in the hole? Whatever hole that is. What are the I would dig more into that famous pinball players even, in the past and stuff like that simply because I like the analogy.
I like metaphor. I like I like that it’s pinball.
I don’t love the visual chaos of things going everywhere, Right.
Because you’re not going to bring chaos. It might be that things are popping all over the place.
But, yeah, what’s the oak? What’s the I dig into it because I think there’s something there. And maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks chaos with that word.
So there’s that to consider, but I like it. It’s it’s a thing. It’s a known thing. I know what it is.
I could talk about it. It’s pinball.
When it comes to the Japanese stuff, I didn’t see it the same way that Stacy does, but I think it’s valid and worth considering, of course.
The Kanuki one seemed most interesting simply because Kaizen, I feel like a lot of tech companies were talking Kaizen, like, seven years ago or somewhere in there. Yeah.
Although I really like that the model has, like, those three parts that you could, like, model out, no share, use as your diagnostic, and things like that.
But the visual of the Kanuki is nice. I think it was Kanuki is what you said. Kanuki? Kanuki?
It’s with an m, but pretty close. Okay.
I don’t know it.
But that could be interesting and also, like, ownable and still in the the area of Kaizen and everything that we learned from Toyota and all of these other great brands that are extremely efficient.
So, yeah, those are my thoughts. I like where you’re going, and I love that you’re giving it a name. Oh my gosh. Yes to naming things. Yes.
But naming is extremely difficult while we’re on the subject. So yeah. Yeah. And pinball dot I o is twenty five thousand US dollars to buy.
Mhmm. Interested in really going in on that and only getting an I o out of it while we’re on the subject. So, yeah. Johnson, do you have to add do you want me to add anything here for Claire?
Oh, mine’s, that’s, well, it’s, like, related to knitting, but, I don’t you I I don’t wanna cut off the phone. Claire.
K. Claire, is that helping at all? Like yeah. Yeah. Load it also over in the Slack group for those who weren’t here today.
Yeah. Cool. Awesome. In the CSP part, not just in the intensive because it’s a CSP.
Okay. Perfect. Cool. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Claire.
Johnson, you’re back.
I’m just getting in all the questions I should have gotten in Do it.
Over the last excellent. Yes. On naming things, right, which you just mentioned.
So you might remember, I my sort of and, Stacy, I would love your feedback on this too if you’re willing.
The the name I came up for my idea was narrative selling. And that was gonna be sort of the overarching concept. And now we’ve got, like, founders narrative and company narrative and product narrative and narrative selling itself as, like, its own sort of subdivision, of it. But I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on how narrative selling as a as the overarching, sort of as the forget the final, as the jobs to be done, like, does that make sense as a, as a name, or is there maybe a different direction I should think about?
Stacy, do you wanna share your thoughts since you were invited?
I mean, I’ve as a name for you mean, like, a brandable name for your Yep. It’s too generic to be a brandable name, I think, because, I mean, there’s already there’s so many people talking about narrative selling already. It’s just a thing. You know? I mean, I Sassy writes sales narratives.
It it’s just, you know, lots of people are doing narrative selling and talking about narrative selling. So I would find another brandable name that you can own and figure out, you know I mean, and make that narrative selling could be what it is, but I would I wouldn’t necessarily call it that unless you’re and with you’re talking about that as a product. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
I mean, I I maybe I’m not I’m probably not in the same circles as you, but, do they call it narrative selling as, like, the the that combination of words, or is there just talk about narrative and selling as, like, a sort of Well, like, I mean, like, StoryBrand has a whole thing on, you know, selling with story, and there’s a whole they have a whole course in that.
And I’m I’m very, very involved in story because I’ve, you know, ingested, like, pretty much everything having to do with story. I have all the, you know, all the books and all the things because I’ve been a StoryBrand I’ve been a StoryBrand certified guide for six years, and, about thirty percent of the StoryBrand certified guides use my software.
So I’m very, very steeply involved in story.
So, I would just you you know, if you want something brandable, I would just say that narrative selling is a generic term. That’s that’s all I’m saying.
Cool.
That’s a thing. It’s a valid thing. And if you can talk about narrative selling, that’s fine to talk about it. But if it’s if you’re looking for a brandable term, I don’t think that you’re gonna have success with that as a brandable term.
Got it. That’s really helpful, Stacy. Thank you. I didn’t know that you, you’ve worked so much with story branding.
That’s cool. I will we have to do a coffee meet soon, actually. I meant to message you. Sorry.
Okay. Jo, do you have any thoughts?
Yeah. I mean, I feel like, okay. Cool. So totally fair on maybe narrative selling, but I still think there’s room there.
I honestly do. I think, it doesn’t have to be that. I like I really like the founder’s narrative. People have been talking about storytelling and narrative for all time, and no one’s ever nailed it.
Like, there’s still you walk away even with StoryBrand. We get all people that copy hackers coming over from StoryBrand because they’re like, well but I can’t actually, like, write the stuff. Like, I can put it mapped very well, and that’s great. But, like, now my clients need the next step, and I can’t do that.
And that’s fair. It’s fine to stay higher level. That’s fine. It just means I think that it leaves what it’s speaking to is that there’s room in the market for more gap filling.
I I every time you say you talk about this, Johnson, I think of The Message and the Messenger, which is a book that I would write if it made sense for me too.
What what I keep seeing from brands is right now, they don’t know there’s a mismatch between what they’re saying and who they are, and they’re publicly demonstrating that on social media, trying to be something that the brand isn’t, But that’s because a brand has a hard time being authentic, but a person can be authentic. Like, a person can be real. And so a founder wants to be the right messenger for his brands or her brands or their brands message. So so to me, it feels like there’s an opportunity opening up, thanks to social media largely, where the messenger needs to have the right message, and it has to come together. It has to work.
And that’s where the founder’s narrative is interesting.
To me, I would try to break it, though. I think that we should always try to break the things before we invest. So how could that be broken? Maybe it does get confused with StoryBrand.
Maybe it gets confused somehow with Rem’s book Lost and Founder somehow.
You don’t you don’t know. Right? But you just, like, start trying to break it. And then, okay, if we can break it, now let’s rebuild it stronger and better so it can’t be, which could be trying to break it for me would be like, okay.
If the founder’s narrative is my land, my expand has to be getting into other parts of the organization.
So what are those called? Is it like, we were talking about, is it product narrative? Uh-uh. Not great.
Is it the sales narrative also not really meaty?
So play around with that. You’re I think there’s something there. I would also, like, try to work through how Simon Sinek got to start with why. Because we are talking about something strategic here. We are talking about something that would attract a lot of c levels if they heard it, if they saw you on stage or heard you on a podcast.
It would feed their ego, honestly, to have their own narrative created by some great person from England with an accent. Like, there’s a lot there, honestly, as this I know that sounds stupid, but I think it would sell extremely well.
Interesting.
So what is the name?
If it’s not the founder’s narrative, stay in that vicinity, though, and see Well, I I do like that.
Yeah. I mean, I, like, I do like the founder’s narrative as a, as a name for this particular product.
And I I’m just I I feel like I I keep kind of asking this thing. It’s like, is this the right umbrella to put my these ideas under? Because I know that once this is done and I invest it and I buy the websites and, like, that’s it. It’s locked in. And I just kind of wanna I know names are maybe the least important part in many ways of Okay. You know? Oh.
They’re both not important and entirely everything.
So, yeah, if you get it right, it doesn’t matter. If you get it wrong, you’re screwed.
Right. I mean, I think founders narrative is is great. I really like that one. I think that’s strong and that the the the thing that I don’t like about that is that it doesn’t bring you into the enterprise market, which is why you can have founders narrative for the smaller companies and leaders narrative for the enterprise companies. And for the for the enterprise companies, leaders narrative is great because every enterprise wants to harness their workforce to help them establish thought leadership.
So if you’re if you’re going into an enterprise and helping them establish thought leadership across the enterprise by teaching them a process of the leader’s narrative and then empowering everybody to share the same story, you can make a fortune doing this.
So I did have an idea that I’ve called the organizational narrative, which was a sort of internal look at the narratives that are at play sort of strategically within the organization where there’s conflicting, perceptions essentially about, well, the stories, the the narratives that exist within the company, of what teams are doing, of what C suite wants and does.
And that was a that was a sort of next the next sort of one I wanted to start fleshing out a little bit.
Yeah. So cool. Okay.
I mean, it sounds like You’re separating it from the human element then, though.
You’re breaking up the organizational narrative. That’s like the people are what matter when you’re telling stories. Right? So the if you you you make the leaders narrative align with the organizational priorities, and then you have happy people who have their own story that they get to share that’s aligned with the organization.
Does that make sense? What do you think, Joanna? Yeah.
I fully agree. Yeah. Organizational narrative bored me immediately, and it’s, it’s it’s probably because it’s missing people. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
Alright. Okay.
And think about the job that they’re actually hiring this to do. It might feel like they’re hiring it. They’re hiring this service to do, so a a job inter I would say they’re hiring it for they’re likely going to wanna come out of this, feeling better about themselves. It’ll be a personal job they’re really hiring it for, feeling valuable, feeling, of course, like they can can perform better and go out into the world and really understand their message.
But but so if you know it’s about you’re gonna have people making people based decisions, name it in a way where it’s, like, gotta have it.
This thing, the leadership story deck, there’s a guy, David Hutchins. His book is, The Circle of the Nine Muses. He has this great deck of cards, and it’s all about stories. And it’s the stories that individual people can tell, and it breaks it down into this whole framework of, like, when to use what story for what. It’s really fantastic. I think if you checked it out, it would be a a good, thing for sparking ideas for creating your own thing. But he goes in and does workshops, and it it becomes, actually a personal transformation for the attendees.
It’s it’s about them transforming themselves by learning to tell these stories and to to do it through work. So that’s a that’s another thing to think about. Think about the people, the people.
Alright.
Okay. That’s really helpful. Thank you.
And so narrative selling maybe as an umbrella term is not, possibly not the the best way to go, but something narrative was narrative something, maybe still to keep these all under a similar sort of, format.
Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
Alright. Thank you so much, guys. This was incredibly helpful. That was, like, a little bit of a electricity for me there. Thank you.
Good. I, I love it.
Okay. Excellent. Good stuff. Alright. Thanks, y’all. Thanks for hanging on, and see you later. Have a good one.
Thanks, Stacy. Thanks, Jared.
Bye.
Worksheet
Worksheet
Transcript
Excellent. Okay. So we have a few more people joining. Of course, this is recording, but this is our Copy School Pro call of the week. This week, we are talking continuing on with our final week, actually, of the buyer handbook.
Next week, as you’ll see in the Coffee School Pro training area very soon, next week, we will have a whole new theme starting, and that one for the month of July is under the sunshine growth model.
When you look at the skills part of the sunshine growth model and the skills that you use, those are used to grow your business, like administrative stuff or things like list building and social followers. That’s what we’re doing next month is all about list building, and getting more social followers where social can be the best path toward building your list today. But we’ll talk more about that all next starting next week. We’re gonna get started on Instagram.
We’re gonna get into gamifying list building, with Shane. We’ll do a webinar, like, how to create a waking up to the problem webinar that you can present to other people’s audiences. I’ll be running that. So if you are wondering how to get in front of other audiences, like what we’re gonna talk about today, then this will be useful for you.
So there’s a lot coming up in July. Watch for all of that. Two lessons a week as usual.
And then this week this week oh, yeah. This week, we have Shane wrapping up, our, buyer handbook month with using AI to create your business’ actual buyer handbook. So that should be fun and exciting.
Alright.
It’s a bit of a working session today. We’ll be doing some actual work, which I hope is good for everybody in the room. And, yeah, there will, of course, be a replay, and there is the worksheet. So if you can open up the worksheet that we that Sarah sent out over the weekend that has the buyer handbook, find and attract your ideal buyers. I’m about to share my screen.
This is, of course, a really this is a fundamental topic, finding people who will buy the stuff that you’ve got, pretty important.
We we we need to do that. That’s just how life works. Now, hopefully, they’ll find you right back, but you still need to show up conveniently where they are. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about here today. Let me just go into presentation mode.
If you haven’t watched other sessions from the month of June on the buyer handbook, go back through the Coffee School Pro training area and pick up some more stuff there where we’re talking about ICPs, personas, personas underneath your ICP, all of that kind of stuff that, is critical to understanding who you’re talking to and if they’re the right person to talk to right now. And, of course, they will talk about where they are. So this is going to be very useful for you. If you wanna find out where your ICPs are, you will need to have your laptop open in front of you to do this work.
If not, your phone might be okay, but we’re gonna go into a tool, today. And maybe you already have access to that tool. And if you do, awesome. And if you don’t, that’s okay. They have a free thing that you can use today.
And then after this, you’re going to be ready to start pitching brands, not people.
Brands on partnering to share your content. Now there are people at the brands, but what people often talk about for freelancers with cold pitching is go cold pitch a potential client. And there’s nothing technically wrong with that, except it doesn’t scale very well. It takes a lot of work to do it, and we would all rather people just come to us.
So we’re gonna borrow the authority of other brands, which I talk about all the time, because that’s how I got here. So if not for me, absolutely latching on to the authority of other brands, way back in the beginning, I would not have the business that I have today. Not at all. And I’m very happy with the business I have today.
And so I can say, and I think a lot of people who look back at their growth or their lack of growth will be able to look at the network that they tapped into or did not tap into early on. So for me, Hacker News was a big part of it. So that’s community. What community can and should you participate in right now? We’re gonna work on finding those communities today.
It would be better if you’d started working in that community five years ago. Of course, it would everything better if we’d started doing any of this stuff five years ago, but we didn’t. So we’re going to do it today and not let any of the crap in because this crap always comes in. Oh, there’s no way in. It’s saturated, etcetera, etcetera. Shush.
We’re just gonna do the work. Just do the work and don’t think about it.
I also partnered with brands.
Unbounce was just starting out. HubSpot was still small enough that people weren’t necessarily that familiar with everything HubSpot could do. It wasn’t ubiquitous like it is today when I was starting out. Leadpages was like a whole different thing at the time, and Wistia was two dudes.
That was it. So but we partnered with them early on, and now their brands have grown. Our brands have grown and been able to, like, carry on. Our brand has grown and been able to carry on with it.
So I borrowed their authority. You need to do the same because there is an a early version of Wistia out there right now. There’s an early version of Unbounce out there right now.
Partner with them. They have as much hustle as anybody else had twelve, fifteen years ago, they are people to, partner with. So we’re gonna talk about who those, like, hidden gems are, and that’s really the goal today. When you find where your people are at, then we want you to put a webinar, which you’ll probably call a workshop, in front of them as soon as humanly possible.
And you’re going to force it to snowball. You’re not going to sit there and go, okay, I wonder if this is gonna work. You are going to make it work because that is how we get shit done. That’s what separates us here. We will force the snowball effect. Okay. So how do we even get started?
We’re gonna find people online using SparkToro. Has anybody used SparkToro before?
Yes. Cool. Are you using it now?
Good. It’s very easy to start and cancel, start and cancel. That’s actually you know, anybody who’s worked with them knows that’s a an actual challenge for them. As you use it, get everything you need out of it, and then you cancel, but you might come back four months later and use it all over again. So it’s a bit of a a different subscription model. But will you use SparkToro, in order to find out where people are, obviously, that’s what SparkToro does. It helps you find out what they’re talking about, etcetera.
But oftentimes when you’re using SparkToro and I’m just gonna open this up, over to the side as I move Zoom around. When you’re using SparkToro, it’s often defined, like, keywords and things like that.
Not keywords for social necessarily, what brand should I be looking up?
Just mine. And so I’m what brand should I be looking up? Just mine. And so I’m going to recommend that you look up a complementor. So instead of a competitor, this is someone who is like a competitor, but they’re more complimentary. So for us, ConvertKit or Kit might be a complimenter for us because we share a similar audience of digital creators, but we want to find a group that has more traffic, ideally, significantly more traffic than we get.
So for me, I might look up convertkit dot com, or I might look at other complementors. April Dunford and I have similar audiences in some ways. It depends on what I’m trying to sell. In other ways, we have very different audiences.
So that might be somebody that I look up to see, what because we can’t look up ourselves. Right? If you’re if you have a brand new website or you’ve got, like, five people coming a day to your website, you can’t really use SparkToro or yourself to get a sense of it. So we need to go and basically get a sense of the audience that our complementors or even full on competitors have.
So if you’re like, okay. I’m serving this market, but I know that this other brand is huge and they’re serving the same market I am. We’re just gonna use this over here in SparkToro. So you should now be seeing the SparkToro interface where you wanna go to the tab audience research.
What I recommend is right now, while I’m chattering, if you’re not using SparkToro, start an account right now. It’s free. You just, like, go to SparkToro dot com, use your Gmail or whatever to create an account quickly, get in there because we’re going to go to the audience research tab and this there’s all sorts of things.
Claire, did you work with Jia and Claire on SparkToro stuff?
Sorry. Muted. I have someone on the tab. Yes. I did. Okay.
Wait back to before two point o.
You would know, of course, more than I I’ve used for Arturo on and off, but I’m not, like, a power user of it. So, Claire, if you have anything to add, please do feel free to at any point or anybody who uses this and and has something to add here, please please do.
What we wanna do today is start by listing out three brands, ideally, the dot com version, like, the actual website that gets the audience you wish you could get. Now that could a really obvious one is some sort of software Software made for different audiences. So if you’re like, I want to work primarily with nonprofits, then you’d go look you should know what software people who are at nonprofits use. If you were like, I only work with real estate developers, then you’ll know or or realtors. And you might say, like, okay. Realtors use follow-up boss. So I’m going to look up follow-up boss and see what comes up.
And that’s what I’ll use to get started here on filling this in.
We have to wait for it to load, so we’re gonna do that. While that’s happening, make sure you’ve started your SparkToro account and start thinking of these people. So you have to first first know who your ideal audience is and then what they trust. So I don’t have a part on here for your ideal audience because you already know that That’s, like, very introductory basic stuff.
Tell Rand what did you say? Oh, got it. Fine. To pedal faster?
Is he in a race right now? Is he, like, biking somewhere, Andrew?
Or Andrew?
Are you chatting to us? Oh, he’s powering the sparktor.
I got it. I didn’t get that. Okay.
Now I got it.
I was slow. It’s my damn slow. Yeah. It’s taking a while to load up. Is it slow is it slow for everybody?
No? For some? Okay.
So we’ll just set that aside, and I will walk through what our objective is, like, what we’re going to do along the way. So if you can list out those three to five groups, you’re going to enter and repeat this process for those three to five different groups in here. For follow-up, boss, really?
Okay. So we’ll go through a creative free SparkToro account, go to audience research, search the website or domain of a complementor, then we’re going to fill this in for for, like, three to five of those groups. Knowing that as just happened here, sometimes, Barktoro won’t have enough data for it. So just keep that in mind, and then just repeat. Then afterward, we’re going to save this and downloaded data because you can export data on, SparkToro from SparkToro to wherever. This is the kind of thing that you’ll want to share with your VA as you move forward or just have for yourself as you, like, get deeper and deeper into building your business.
Knowing more about who and where they are is everything. It’s the thing that keeps people from growing is I don’t know how to get in front of my audience because I don’t know where they are. What are they paying attention to? And then everybody gravitates to the exact same people.
Well, all Chorus creators want to get or or follow Amy Porterfield. Okay. Great. But what software are they using?
What plug ins for that software are available? What Chrome extensions are they using? Can you partner with those smaller groups in order to get some traction? Because everybody can’t go around pitching Amy Porterfield, and her audience gets fatigued too versus the smaller companies that are out there that are gaining traction and would love to help an x to have an expert like you come in and teach their audience.
This is a big thing. Unbounce wanted me to come in and teach their audience to be better at making landing pages because it’s good for Unbounce. Same was true for Leadpages. Same was true for ConvertKit.
All of these different groups early on want you to come train their audience, and the good thing is you want to do that too. You wanna be an authority in front of them, so we need to find out where they are. So we’re gonna use SparkToro to find out where your buyers are. It might not be your audience.
Now if your audience if your website gets a lot of traffic, then this is gonna be really directly applicable for you. Like, oh, this is where my audience is coming from. That’s cool to know. What you’ll really wanna focus on, though, are not, like, the top accounts, but the hidden gems.
So you’ll see when you do oh, now they do have stuff. You’ll see when you go through here that, they have these bigger accounts, like, how are you going to pitch Realtor magazine?
Instead, you’ll probably wanna look at some hidden gems. Now they don’t have any hidden gems here, so that would be a thing where I’d have to then go do another search. But what I want to do is not just focus on all of these giant places to pitch, but where are my buyers going? What websites are they visiting is step one.
So we wanna write in the websites that they visit based on what you’re seeing here. Focus only on the ones that where you can actually answer. I can guest here, or I can advertise here. If it’s not an option, although this is a column that I have on the worksheet, if you can’t do anything with this, like, if you’re like, well, I can’t do anything with Keller Williams.
Like, it’s a giant broker brand. What what might I do? That’s too hard for me to conceive of putting a web webinar together. I mean, maybe maybe it’s a ten x that’s worth it more than, like, something else that could feel like a two x.
But try to be, like, realistic because you could list out all the websites they visit that are huge names. And then you think, okay. I can guess here. And if you get no’s across the board, you’re going to not feel good about it. So we wanna be able to get you wins in here. So maybe put some big websites in alongside some smaller websites in.
Don’t underestimate the power of directly advertising in some of these spaces. That doesn’t mean you go to their advertised page, but there are ways to get in. We’re not gonna talk about those today.
But you can, in some cases, advertise where they’re at, and that’s gonna get more real as we get into newsletters and podcasts that look more like sponsorships.
Then you’ll go through and look at their, YouTube channels. This is really straightforward stuff. Right? Like, you just go through and use SparkToro, but document what you’re learning so that you’re not just like, oh, yeah.
Cool. I’m gonna, like, probably hit home lights. We’ll write it down. Write it down and then say, okay.
I can guess here. Because at the end of this, we’re gonna go through and make an actual plan for what you will do over the next ninety days. This will feel like, big work, but it’s useful work to do. It’s where your buyers are at right now.
Like they’re sitting there right now.
So we want to go get them. So we’ll go through and look at YouTube channels that they watch. There are a lot of columns here. Websites are a little trickier, so I didn’t put that many or a lot of rows.
Sorry. I didn’t put that many rows in here because a website could feel like, what do I even do with the website? What we’re really saying is the brand behind the website. A YouTube channel is far more specific.
If you know that they’re all going to let’s see where they’re going. HomeLight. Okay. So HomeLight is really popular as a YouTube channel, I guess, for people in the realtor space.
So you could write in home light, and then you could figure out what am I going to do with this. Go look. Go look into what HomeLight is doing on YouTube. Is there anything you could do there?
It might just be as simple as I can try to advertise. I can put a video together for these people. I can try to figure something out. Can you guest there?
You’d have to watch and see. Like, do they have podcasts that are also video that they post there? Can you try to pitch them on getting on that? If you can and if it’s a big enough swing, it’s going to be worth your time.
If it’s a small swing, then you have to make sure it’s a really scalable thing. And that’s, like, put one workshop together, which we’ll be talking about next month, that you can then pitch and you keep repeating that workshop in all of these smaller places. It’s a twenty minute workshop. The leads come directly to you, not to them, etcetera. We’ll get into that next month.
But first of all, you need to know where you’re gonna pitch it. Otherwise, when you put the webinar together next month, you’ll be like, well, what the hell do I do with this thing now? So this is that work.
Every second page in this workbook is for you to make notes to self. So if you haven’t printed this off and started going through it, I recommend you do. If you don’t print it off, if you just, like, go through and mark up the PDF, absolutely cool too. But some people will look at this table and do nothing with it.
Go like, oh, yeah. Cool. Good lesson. And move on. I don’t want you to be that person.
You’re here right now. Do the thing.
Add notes to self. Add notes for a VA if you’ve got one.
What are you thinking right now about the Homelight YouTube channel? What are you thinking? Write down your notes as they come up. If I’m chattering, turn the volume down on me. You can come back and watch the replay later if you’re actually doing work and I’m talking through your work. I’m good with you muting me. I just can’t mute myself because other people have to still do the work.
Continuing on. Oh, Claire. Yes.
Sorry to interrupt.
I I can build a list on Airtable. So I’ve got I’ve got a list of, like, fifty websites.
Sorry. Eight hundred websites, actually. Fifty YouTube channels and a bunch of subreddits that I kind of narrowed down. The subreddits were actually easiest to narrow down to my OCD.
Yes. Yes. They’re also obviously the easiest to, like, research and post on. But when it comes to YouTube and websites and I’m looking at, like, big brands, like, let’s say Crazy Egg, for example.
They do SaaS. They do analytics. People who are interested in that are probably interested in what I do. Mhmm.
But, wow, how do I begin to, like, even start narrowing down all of the different sites and also, like, figure out if they allow advertising. Because a lot of places have stopped having, like, a guest posts available page because they get crazy. Right. So yeah.
So, yeah, any advice on that?
That’s where I I firmly believe that if you can run a workshop that gets recorded and played and that brand then puts it on their YouTube. It comes up as a search result when your name is searched.
That’s what we wanna do. I would focus entirely on what is an audience.
It could be Crazy Egg if you’re subscribed. So step one, make sure you’re actually subscribed to that brand’s newsletter or email list, however that comes in. If that means you have to get a free, a free user account, free trial account, then do it. Do it and start, like, looking through.
Does Crazy Egg ever invite people to workshops?
Like and if they do, have a look at it because you might be like, Kajabi invites a lot of people to workshops, but then they’re also affiliates for all of those workshops. So you have to sell something in the workshop. So that’s not gonna be a good fit because Kajabi would be like, no. Because you’re not selling anything at the end, and so we’re not gonna make any affiliate revenue off of this.
Okay, fine. So the more you know about what they’re doing to create content and share content for their audience, the better. So that would be step one. And then then the challenge is not a guest blog post because a lot of people are not publishing guest blog posts right now.
Written content is not what it was.
So what can you do? Can you get in front of their Instagram audience somehow?
Can you I would really, really put all my eggs honestly in the basket of workshop, workshop, workshop.
They’re going to do live events of some kind. I mean, live online events.
Any brand that is scrappy enough to try to break in right now that has a little bit of money to spend is teaching their users to be better users. It’s just like a really classic playbook for getting your SaaS brand out there.
So if you if you can say, okay. I’m really clear on who my ICP is on the persona under that that this group does watch workshops.
Workshops get a bad rap. No one watches a webinar. No people people don’t watch low value stuff. But if it’s coming from a brand that they trust, then they’re more likely to watch it.
So I will watch all the webinars that Gong dot IO puts out, because they teach good stuff about sales calls and all of the stuff that matters to me. They’re not putting crap out there. I don’t get three tips for running a sales call. I get, like, here’s how to do multithreading four zero one, which is really valuable.
Right? So you do need a workshop.
It needs to be the right value level for the audience you’re trying to attract that will wake them up to their problem. So not thirteen copywriting tips, obviously, but something more strategic, something that where five people who attend reach out to you immediately, not some other thing, which, again, we’ll talk about next month when we talk about the workshop that you should be getting out there. But, Claire, as a long answer to your question, focus on getting that workshop together and then finding the right group based on what you know about how they’re creating content and promoting it to pitch because Crazy Egg might not be the way to go.
Does that make sense?
Got it. Super helpful. Yes.
I love that you have that giant air table.
That’s great. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Like, pay for it. It’s so expensive as software.
So I might as well use this.
Yeah. Totally.
Yeah. The tricky thing about, like, lists of eight hundred is, like, where do you start? Right? So that’s very tricky. And that’s why I frankly like limiting it to, like, only the size of this worksheet.
If you can take that table you already have all filled in and start, like, limiting your options, putting those constraints around it. You’re only allowed twelve podcasts that they listen to only right in twelve then. Every this is ninety days. This isn’t the rest of your life. This is the next ninety days. What are you going to do? Where are you gonna pitch?
So same as these for podcasts. They listen to make notes to self subreddits that they frequent.
And that might not be where you create content, but you can get involved in conversations, obviously.
Any notes to self there, social accounts that they follow, these are gonna be hidden gems, not the big ones necessarily, but not tiny ones either. So you wanna look through and make sure and next month, we’ll talk more about Instagram followers and stuff like that.
But keep in mind, when I say buyers throughout this, I don’t just mean ICP. So not just that ideal client profile, but the persona under it. So you might say, people who are in a marketing capacity are your persona, and a lot of them are women. So they may be on x social space versus other groups.
So what I want you to do is not discount. I’ve had people discount. Oh, nobody’s on social. None of my the people that I’m trying to reach are on social.
And I’m like, that’s Europe to lunch. Of course, they’re on social. We’re all on some form of social unless you’ve actively chosen not to be, and then chances are good you’re not in digital marketing because you you gotta be on social if you’re in digital marketing. And if you’re hearing this and going, but I’m not on social and I’m in digital marketing, get on social.
It’s time. You have to. You have to. If I have to, you have to. Because I have to, and I’m not always happy about it.
Then we wanna get into keywords and topics. This is just not so that you’re creating content that is keyword rich or keyword targeted necessarily.
But when it comes time as we get deeper and deeper into the work, this isn’t just it’s not none of the work we do is siloed. Right? It feels like it because it’s a rectangular document, and it effectively looks like a silo. But it’s not.
This is all gonna work together. So you might not use trending keywords you can post about right now. But since you’re in SparkToro and it will share with you what some of those trending keywords are, you can see all the keywords. Obviously, it’s Rand.
Document them because that could be stuff that you can pitch content about. If it’s trending in particular, you can then adjust your workshop or webinars that the title is more about that trending keyword, but it’s still actually about the same thing. And this would just be a trending keyword that’s related to what you do. So if you’re like, oh, none of these keywords are related to what I do, that’s okay.
Just put a strike through it so that you know you did the work and nothing was there or do an NA or whatever, but I just don’t want it to look blank. I find that frustrating when things are blank. Maybe you don’t. Okay.
Now this is gonna wrapping up this conversation here. I know that we can’t do all the work because SparkToro is being a slow little bunny.
But go off and do it afterward, please. It’s on your business. Your business wants you to. That’s why you’re part of Coffee School Pro. So make sure that you do it.
Hacker News was where I started. I swear by finding a community and being of value to it before you try to take anything out of it. So add to the bank. Keep adding to the bank, and then later, you can start withdrawing.
Start now. If you don’t have a community that you’re part of, start now. It’s time to. Got it. And it could pay off a lot faster than, like, I wasn’t using Hacker News for a thing. I was just interested in what people were doing on Hacker News, like, cool, fun startup ideas and stuff like that. It’s, like, scrappy atmosphere.
So I want you to know what your Hacker News is.
I found that if you go on Reddit, you can find a lot of good communities talked about on Reddit. So go on there immediately.
Most of us are on Reddit for some things anyway, just for fun even. If you can go on Reddit and search something as simple like where are marketers hanging out? And you’ll see all sorts of responses. You can just Google Reddit and then that search phrase or whatever you want to look or, you’ll find them.
They’re listed there. Slack group. You need a couple Slack groups that you could request to join. So, ideally, they won’t just be open to everybody.
If there are a hundred and twenty thousand people in there, don’t do it. Don’t you go into that Slack group. That is going to be a waste of your time.
So Slack groups that are limited or private membership or even that are, like, you have to pay the cost of the monthly Slack charge, like, eight bucks a month plus two dollars for the administrative person who has to take care of all of this, that’s going to narrow the number of people who are in that Slack group, and that’s good for you. You don’t want a hundred and twenty thousand people in a Slack group, in a Discord, in in bigger communities maybe.
You you really do wanna focus on a concentrated group of professionals.
So if that means joining the paid product led growth Slack group, if there’s a way to do that without taking the course, I don’t recommend the course. But if you can do that, cool. Because now you’re in a product led growth Slack community, and everybody in there is concerned about product led growth. And most of them are just actively in start ups or tech companies that are using product led growth.
If that’s your ideal audience, it only makes good sense for you to participate in that group. Adding value, not taking it out, not saying, hey. I’ll do that for you. Wait until people are like, woah.
Wait. You’re a SaaS copywriter, and you do the research?
I had no idea that’s true for you. Can we talk? That’s exciting. That’s better. That’s good. So find a Slack group.
Discord, particularly if you work with tech in any way. There’s going to be a bunch of nerds who said no to Slack and yes to Discord.
So go check out Discords as well, which, of course, Reddit is also very good for nerds. So you can find all the Discord groups on Reddit too.
Clearly, I am more targeted at tech and SaaS companies than I am health and wellness and other groups like that. However, you can apply the same rules to finding same stuff for health and wellness. And if you’re like, Reddit doesn’t work for that, well, then something else, the health and wellness equivalent of Reddit.
Be resourceful. Figure that part out. The point is you need to walk away with at least one really solid Slack group for that your ideal audience is in so that you can start participating and adding value, answering questions, posting useful resources, all of those sorts of things that make you a useful part of that community. And then when it’s time for you to, like, withdraw a little from the bank, you got lots of credit there.
You got lots that you can do there. So go ahead and make sure you’re brainstorming based on everything you’re seeing on SparkToro, based on the idea of participating in a Slack group. What are you going to do? Can you come up with a brand that you could partner with?
Can you come up with three brands that you could partner with? And I mean, Unbounce thirteen years ago, Wistia twelve years ago, those sorts of groups.
Who are they today?
Can you find a way to partner with them? Where are they showing up? Where are their heads of growth showing up? Or where are the CEOs slash CMO slash cheap garbage take routers? Like, they’re doing everything.
Where are they right now? Where are they consuming content? Where are they hoping to find that next great idea?
Get in front of them. But you need to brainstorm this stuff, move through it, and then start to figure out, okay.
If it’s x brand, whoever it is, if it’s boards, let’s say words is up and coming. They’re doing lots of cool stuff. They’ve got lots and lots of users, but they really wanna scale. Boards could be my audience.
What webinar could I pitch to boards? What would make the users of boards better users of boards? Maybe it’s around x. And if it doesn’t make sense to it, you’re like, oh, no.
They need me to, like, help them write social posts and stuff. Forget it. Not boards. Next.
Cool. Eliminate things. That’s a big part of, like, finding the gold is washing away everything else until you get to the gold. Right?
So put a whole bunch of stuff in there and then start figuring out what to do. That’s the point of brainstorming. One page should not be enough. If you can do it all in one page, that was like a brain drizzle.
We wanna go on full storm, really stormy stuff, lots of stuff. And then that’ll help you get down to a ninety day attraction plan, which is free. It’s free and loose because all of this is there to tighten up your ideas where you can be. Now once you’ve got a brainstorm in place, what are you going to do over the next ninety days?
That’s July, August, September. Or if you’re watching the replay, whatever month you’re in, plus two more after that. What are you going to do for that, for the next ninety days? Are you going to pitch?
First, you have to put that webinar idea together pretty loosely because you wanna get it approved before you start actually going out and putting a full workshop together only to find out that nobody wants the damn thing. So what are you going to do to try to get out there? Keep in mind that next month we have full training on more stuff around using social media and getting your workshop in front of other audiences.
Any questions on this really quick run through of finding your buyer?
Thoughts or concerns?
No?
Andrew’s thinking.
Okay.
That is the training for today.
Do you have any questions about it, or are we ready to move on? Oh, I just saw your thing about the joke. Are we ready to move on, to the AMA part of today’s call? Good. Yes.
Alright.
Cool.
Let’s do that then. So as usual, if you have any questions, please start by, sharing your win, win of the week. Jessica has put up her hand. So what win do you have to share with us first? And if you could I know, Jess, you’re on your treadmill, I think, so you probably don’t want to come on camera.
But feel free to. It’s also encouraging.
Yeah. Share your win. Ask your question. And if you want everybody in the room to weigh in, please be sure to open it up to everyone. Otherwise, I’ll just jump in. Jessica?
Thank you. Sorry. I’m in the dark right now, actually, so that’s why I’m not on camera.
You can hear me alright? Yes. Okay. Perfect. So my win is leads into my question.
So I thought on Friday, my win was, I don’t know if people saw, but I’ve been doing the big pivot back to books. And that’s great. I feel really, really solid about that.
And I was in the middle when I made the shift. I was in the middle of a VIP client potentially hiring me for a optimization retainer for their ecommerce emails. So I was in the middle of that conversation when this shift kind of happened, but it was kinda looking that good, I guess.
Also a client who’s not ideal, so it was a very stupid choice anyway.
The win was on Friday, I kind of thought that I made it clear that this was not going to move forward via an email. I tried in a meeting. It didn’t work out. I made it clear in the email. I’ve since gotten a so I felt really good.
The winners, I felt really good because I was like, yes.
All in on books. Let’s go.
But since then, I’ve gotten a reply, and it’s kind of become clear that this it’s a fractional CMO. She would really like to work with me, but she’s really it’s, like, it’s becoming the classic thing you always coach Joe about when they can’t afford you and the things they want. And it’s like, a guarantee and promises and when can we see results or whatever. And so, of course, I stupidly used in my email response finally to just really cut this off. I I said that I I kind of attributed it to her need for guarantees and promise of results in the first like, by month two even though month one was spent on strategy. We need to analyze your data. We need to look at all the things, whatever.
So, anyway, my point is is basically, I need to now cut this off completely, and I’ve really just made a freaking mess of it. And, I don’t know. She she wrote me this long email trying to justify I misunderstood, and we can continue working. I just want clarity around the promises and the potential results and all that, and it’s just a mess. I’ve made a mess of this, and I need to get out of it.
Okay. So you’re trying to get out of it while preserving the relationship?
Yeah. I mean I mean, at least at least in a I know we’re not gonna work together in the future, but I don’t wanna be an asshole.
Oh, you came to the wrong place. Just kidding. Sorry.
It might be a bit of just kidding.
Okay. So what do we so this person had enough time to write you a long email instead of just saying, hey. Can we hop on a call? You’d already hopped on a call before, Jessica?
Yes.
Last week, I tried to hop I did hop on a call with her to say, look.
I this isn’t, you know, whatever. And I’m I know it’s a growth area. I I need to work on this, but I did I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. We can work out a and stupid. It was my fault.
So you were saying we can work something out?
It was more like I defaulted to okay.
I wouldn’t say we work yes. Sure. Let’s go with that. Yeah.
It’s okay.
I’m gonna need No.
No. No. No. No. No. No. It’s hard to say no, especially if you haven’t practiced saying no.
So I think that’s completely fair.
But now you have to practice saying no. So, it’s awkward. It is. Even when you practice at it, it’s still awkward because you have to let them down.
But one way that I would recommend going about it is saying, like, hey. Something’s changed for me. I’ve actually been running two different service businesses, and the other one is taking off big time. So I need to now reprioritize my efforts on that one because it’s a service, and I am the service provider. So I can’t move forward with you on the ecommerce side of things. And that’s absolutely true. And how could she argue with that?
No. She really can’t. I think it’s I think it was just my yeah. I I should have led with that. I’m kicking myself. I should have led with that.
That’s okay. I mean, I think you’re do so, like, so what? You’re not honestly, she’ll be over it within a minute.
I’m moving on, so I wouldn’t I wouldn’t overthink it. I think it’s nice that you’re worrying about it. Just tell her the fact in a nice way, and then she’s released to go look for someone else instead of waiting around hoping that it might work out with you.
Yeah. Okay. Good? Thank you. That’s cool. It still feels like garbage. But Yeah.
It does. Lots of the things will feel like garbage as you grow.
That’s why you have to make a lot of money to make up for when you feel shitty. Yeah.
Yeah. You’re right. Okay. I’ll add that to the list, become millionaire faster than I wanted to be Exactly.
So because of this. I like that. I like that. Except it needs a deadline. Okay.
Alright. Cool. Awesome, Jessica. Good luck. Thanks. Thanks.
Johnson, what’s your win?
Hey.
So a win, for this weekend is related to the question is that, I developed, three to four more outlines for various products within narrative selling to follow the sort of land and expand model that you, were talking about. And, it actually came fairly easily once I was kinda looking at it from that perspective, and it’s quite exciting.
So my question is that I’ve, I have this this this new idea for a for a product wise, a service based product, that I’m calling the founder’s narrative, as a sort of standardized offer with the authority building offer that you’ve seen in in that document as the, sort of upsell and then ongoing retainer.
So the the founders product is basically to help founders, find their story and and message, like, a kind of a well, a few elements of it, but but but a key story that is sort of their why, their, their meaning, behind their sort of their mission, and then, signifier stories that can be reframed in in multiple ways to convey various, aspects of, their their product.
And then there’s some other stuff about how to tell stories and how to adjust them for various audiences.
So my question is, does that sound like a good pairing and a good choice for the land and expand?
And, also, do you have any thoughts about the the document that you placed on?
Yes. The document. Thanks.
Yes. So so the idea with the founder’s narrative for land and expand is you’re brought in to work on the founders narrative, and then you work through other departments?
Yeah. Sort of to to look for founders who are keen to be out there, get in front of people, talk about, their stuff, which I I feel like won’t be hard to find, and, and to give them a framework to do that that that they, that that helps, helps them resonate with their target audience, basically.
Okay. Cool.
Let me open the doc then. Okay. So if you feel good about that as your land and expand, that’s cool. The only question I have around expand is if it’s a founder’s narrative, how big is the ICP that you’re going after?
How many employees does it have?
Well, I guess somewhere between sort of ten and fifty is a very sort of rough number. I’m imagining around, twenty to thirty, probably on on average, in this sort of, in that sort of range.
Do you think there’s a do you think it’s it might be too small?
Well, there’s just not much room to expand there. Where land and expand when you’re, like, talking about going up market is I mean, you still can.
You would just land in c suite and then expand to marketing might want the product narrative, I guess.
Yeah. I’ve got something for for marketing and sales as well.
So it was sort of like get the founders on board, make them love us, and then it felt like it would be an easier sell to the rest of the the teams.
Yeah.
And maybe that’s so in looking over your pricing, the thing about the founder’s narrative and, like, it’s cool and, like, I don’t know.
It feels like there’s it’s got legs because it’s a lot like positioning, but for the founder, which is cool.
So you could definitely, like, piggyback off of a lot of what April Dunford’s done. Like, if April did it, you should do it.
So that’s worth considering.
I guess I just wonder about the retainer side of it.
April also doesn’t have a retainer model for hers. However, there is this, like, there is more of a land and expand, which might be more of the retainer for you, where you would instead start with the founder’s narrative as the thing that you’re standing up, impress the crap out of the founder with that, and then say, okay. You know, we can do the same thing for your products, or we can do the same thing for your different groups, like the sales team or whatever. You’d have to figure that out. When I look through your document, the part that’s tricky is, like, the the execution y stuff, like monthly lead magnet development, it feels like forcing the issue, in order to get that easier performance based retainer in there or performance driven retainer in there.
So I would for you, I would say, okay. This week, I’m going to pause thinking about my business as stand up offer followed by retainer and instead think of my business as fully land and expand. Okay. That’s all I’m going to do. If I were to do that, what would expand look like? So land is the templated thing that then gets applied to different departments.
For that to work, what did my what would my ICP need to look like? What would they need to believe?
What would need to be their struggles right now? Because you have to solve those by repeating this thing across everywhere, which is doable. But I would put aside anything that has to do with, execution.
I’d keep it at the strategic level, and you can always recommend other people to execute. Yeah. I know. Right?
Johnson, you just graduated from executing. Well done.
That’s awesome.
My word. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There’s a win for me. I was having a conversation with my, teammate where we were discussing, like, just how much I want to move away from delivery, of execution of products, and onto consulting.
Yeah. Cool. So And if you’re down for traveling too, the only side note is that if you’re going to go in and impress founders, they often need to see you in real life.
So you have to travel.
Fair.
And if I was willing to, sorry to hold the mic. But if I was willing to, switch up because, again, like, I feel like there’s a lot of ways I could apply these ideas, and there’s a lot of ways I could go with it.
If I wanted to look at a more sort of enterprise y level of the really upmarket, sort of land and expand.
Do you have any thoughts about, just the maybe the land product?
The problem is I really like the idea of the founder’s narrative.
I feel like it reminds me of this is so stupid.
It reminds me of on Friends when Jennifer Aniston says something about apartment pants to her, boss, who’s like, now I want apartment pants. They’re not even a thing, but it’s such a good, like, idea. Like, you could sell it.
So she’s like, let’s invent apartment pants.
And that’s the same kind of thing here. Like, the founder’s narrative just sounds really good. You know, you can see that founders would be like, I want a narrative. I need a narrative.
Get me a narrative. I want this, just like apartment pants. So now you just have to figure out what the founder’s narrative is. Stacy just said leaders narrative, potentially.
Yeah. Right?
I think that there’s if it’s blank narrative, you’ve got a big idea there that although people have been saying narrative, it’s kind of like story brand. It’s blank brand. But your blank narrative But then you just you gotta be ready to go all in and, like, own narrative. And I think that’s cool. I think that’s great and strategic and potentially expensive.
But, yeah, you do have to rethink that. Maybe it is leaders’ enter leaders’ narrative.
Maybe. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.
I I love that, Stacy.
Thank you.
And, okay, just one other tiny, tiny, tiny thing, because I feel like you will know the answer to this. I have this, as far as, like, coming out with this idea and talking about it and being this, thought leader, and creating all of the content, I have this fear that someone is going to take the the developed idea as far as it’s developed right now and then run with it faster than I can, and rename it, rebrand it into something else.
Is that, not stupid, but, like, is that something worth worrying about?
Yeah. Except you’re gonna do it better. You’re going to stay with it. People will steal your ideas all day.
So many. But they’re also lazy and quickly bored because they don’t have their own ideas. So I would say, like, don’t worry about it. They’ll come in.
They’ll swoop in. They’ll try to steal it.
The more you can’t. So that’s the worrying side of it. You can protect it as well. You can’t protect it from some parts of the world.
But once you’ve trademarked the thing, you’re good. You’re pretty good from there. People will still try to knock you off, but there was actually a story that Bob from Rewired Group was telling me a couple of weeks. I think it was Bob was saying, that one of his friends has, like, this big IP.
And someone from, like, McKinsey came to his friend and said, like, oh, we love your, we love or no. It was Blair Ends, maybe. I mean, we love your, blah blah blah product, the program, the framework. We use it across we’ve been using it across our x y z clients.
He sent them an invoice for his consulting fees on that because it’s his protected IP, and you cannot teach it. And so he got paid, like, three million dollars or something because this guy from McKinsey didn’t know better than to keep it to himself.
There was legal shit involved. Not that it wasn’t just like, oh, we’ll pay this invoice. Like, there was stuff. But that said, write a book about it.
Knock that thing out. You can do a better edition once it gets traction. Like, second edition is actually good. Like, well written.
First one is just great ideas. Document your framework. Own the title, trademark what you can, and then no people will steal it. And you just have to push through and be better at it.
Don’t switch to something else. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it will happen.
Alright.
It’s just the way it is.
Okay. Okay. Alright. That’s helpful. Thank you, Joe.
Sure. I look forward to reading the book in a couple months.
Yes.
Yes. Good. Awesome.
Deadline’s next ninety days.
Got it.
Oh, good. I hope so. Andrew, what is your win?
Hey. Can you hear me okay? Yeah.
Cool.
My win is that, I gay I did a, redid a client’s, land paid search landing page, maybe that they started testing about six weeks ago. And as of today, they they’ve a little bit lower traffic, so we’re using eighty percent as, significance. And as of today, I have a winner, at about twenty eight percent increase Nice. At eighty percent significance.
So, you know, not Getting there.
You know? Yeah. Amazon is not, you know, not gonna count that as a win, but it’s been consistently leading, and the copy from before was really bad. So I’m pretty confident that it’s that it’s true, but there’s some some reality behind the those numbers. So that’s exciting. That definitely lights me up. I like that stuff.
I love that. Cool. Nice work.
Yeah. That’s a big that that that’s the stuff that really lights me up is checking, like, to go into the, into Optimizely and be like, winning.
Anyway, so my my main question is that what I’ve noticed is that the companies that I tend to have the most success with, are companies that are, like, doing fairly well. Like, let’s say, they’re already at, you know, maybe fifty million, a hundred million, but have obviously bad copy on their website. Like, you can go in, and it’s usually, like, a problem, and it’s just, like, way too technical. Like, you know, clients that like, I have a client who’s running a headline. It’s, like, accelerate analytic productivity, and it’s, like, okay. What?
So what I’m so I’m kind of wondering, like, is that, like, a reasonable strategy to sort of look for companies that are, like, succeeding despite bad copy? Because I just I just feel, like, a lot more confident going into those situations where it’s, like, I can just look at their website and just know that I’m gonna be able to make it better.
Guess the question is I would look at their team. Why is the copy bad?
It’s because it’s use often because they’re having their product marketers write it, and their product marketers are really smart, but they’re very technical and write in a sort of academic tone, and nobody really knows. Like, when I come in and start talking, like, copy hacker stuff, their minds are exploding.
Yeah. Cool.
I love hearing that.
No. I’m sorry. I’m just kidding. Thank you.
Thank you for Okay.
Can you are you willing to pick a fight with product marketers writing copy? Would you write a headline ever that says product marketers can’t write copy?
Yeah. I’ll take some whack with that as a former product marketer.
But yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m sure a lot of them would be like, yeah.
No. That shouldn’t be my job in the first fucking place, by the way.
Yeah. Doing a very respectful way.
Well, that’s the thing. In a if the real challenge is, can you put a banner up that says product marketers can’t or shouldn’t write copy?
But you have like, if you can stand behind that, if you could put it on a T shirt, then you might be on to something.
Right? Because then then you can go out to these groups and or they’ll come to you and they’ll see, like, oh, this person understands that product marketers, maybe the word is shouldn’t. But what you need to know when figuring out if this is what’s keeping them from writing good copy, if it’s not just bureaucracy, if it’s not just dilution of things as more features are added, If it’s really product marketers are writing this stuff and they shouldn’t, that may need to be the fight that you pick. And if that’s the fight that you pick, you have to be willing to fight that fight.
And that really does mean you have to pick a fight. You have to say product marketers shouldn’t write copy, and it’s everywhere. And that doesn’t mean that’s going to be your tagline, but you have to be willing to do that. Like, your head has to get right with that, with the big statement, whatever that big statement is.
So I think, yes, if you’re willing to stand behind it and really say something.
Yeah. Otherwise, there’s no point.
Yeah. I mean, I think I would as maybe a question of when I back in when I need to start doing internal interviews with the people I just called out.
Hey. You guys are so smart. Love what you do. But, I mean, honestly, that’s part of the problem.
Right? Is that they they know the product too well. They don’t have any objectivity. They’ve learned it in a kind of academic way.
And so they’re just disconnected from how people are going to buy, you know, I mean, you you send them to copy school, then sure, they can do it.
But if they haven’t done that yet, then they’re just not the people who should be writing your conversion focus Exactly.
Conversion copy. Yeah.
So as long as you have the support for that, then I think but you just have to be willing to say it. You have to go on LinkedIn and say it, and then support it with everything that you just said. If not just LinkedIn, I actually whatever. But I know everybody else likes, like, LinkedIn.
Go wherever you’re going online and and say the thing, and then support it like you just did. And they will buy in. They’ll agree with you. That’s just the way it is. Yeah. And some won’t, and that’s good. Some shouldn’t.
Yeah.
Okay? Then we can pipe it. Cool. Thank you. Sure. Awesome.
Thank you. Claire, what’s your win?
Hey. Well, I just completed my win, which was narrowing my Reddit parse my Reddit, like where is the subreddit? So where is the subreddits?
Sorry. It’s late for me.
My YouTube and my website’s down. Also under forty. So each of them is under forty, which is a good start. And I’ve got some, like, moonshots in there and some, like, realistic ones.
Interestingly, I don’t know if anyone else is targeting b to b SaaS, but here’s quick fun insight.
Everyone’s YouTube channel, like, if you are targeting people who, like, follow April Dunford, for example, are interested in product led growth, those brands’ YouTube channels, crap.
Like, as far as the scale of YouTube goes, like, their view count is pretty low, and their cadence is pretty low as well Okay.
Which is really interesting. What’s the opportunity there when you know that? What do you think the opportunity is then?
Well, Crazy Egg hasn’t posted a video in three years. But three weeks ago, they posted a video, and I’m like, oh, does that mean Coming back. That they’re trying to do something? Does that mean that some marketer in there has gone like, crap, guys.
We really need to work on our, you know, stuff.
And some executive has gone, yeah. Find people.
Yes. Totally. And you, like, miraculously show up at the right time.
Right time, right place.
Love it. So nice.
That’s the one thing.
Cool.
Okay. So I you told me a while ago to name, what I’ve been working on, which is onboarding flows. So I’m gonna say, like, broadly this this is for everyone, by the way. Broadly, this flow, will include include emails at its most basic.
It’s more complicated. It will take someone from free to paid. So that means the in app prompts the sign up page for when you, like, click the, sign up button or stop for free, that page, and even the pricing page in future. That’s like the expanded version.
It’s, like, comprehensive.
So I’ve got a few options that I’ve narrowed it down to. Two of them were like, oh my god. Like, that might work moments.
And two of them were chat GPT moments. So the premise being that onboarding flows, typically, most people understand them as like a linear path. Right? And my fight that I’m picking is that, no. It’s not a linear path.
It is very much, and this is my latest one, like a pinball machine. Right? So the user, like, drops it, and then they get, like, knocked all over. Maybe get close to converting, visiting a pricing page, and then nope back to product experience.
Yeah.
So, the pinball onboarding machine, TM was one idea.
The pinball what? Onboarding machine. Onboarding machine. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.
And then my brand name is Coby Ireland. I had, like, a little wobble about whether or not I need to change that and ultimately decided that the effort of changing it probably wouldn’t be worth the payoff.
But bucket list onboarding was another kind of concept where the user has to go through, like, a bucket list of things that they need to check. Basically, points k.
In order to actually activate.
K.
That was the one.
And then the other two are Japanese. I love Japan. Obsessed.
Also, my audience is fairly, like, interested being nerds and all.
So the one is pretty classic. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of continuous small improvements Yep. Which has three kind of main principles of involvement of everyone. So that would be like sales, customer success, etcetera. Standardization of the practice that would be more about the optimizing side and the process. That would be the process of confiding someone.
K.
There were two other Japanese words that I thought could be could work with onboarding flow or activation flow. The one was, which means to wake up something dormant, and kumiki, which is the Japanese woodwork. I don’t know if you guys know about it, but they very carefully cut, their wood so it slots together. Like, their houses are built with no nails they used to be.
The workmanship is extremely precise so that everything, the whole big picture just slots together.
Yeah.
Those old ideas. Anyone any of them feels sticky? I was driving myself.
Anybody wanna chime in?
I have thoughts.
I would just on the on the Japanese words, I would caution against that right now because of the whole issues with cultural appropriation and things like that. So I don’t know that I would want to latch onto another culture’s term for, you know, for commercial gain.
That’s something that I would be beware of. I I love the pinball concept, and I think you have a lot of potential with that.
You know, pinball pinball onboarding, don’t tilt, you know, get the high score or all the kinds of things. I mean, there’s a lot you could do with that. It’s kinda it’s fun and and memorable.
Just my my take.
Cool feedback.
Anybody else have a note for Claire on this?
So I like the I like that pinball is a known thing. For me, pinball means chaos, though. Like, it flies everywhere.
So I wonder if there’s, like if you could dig into pinball the way you dug into these Japanese terms.
What are the little toggle guys called? What are the what are the parts called?
And I would, like, try or what’s, like, the outcome or the sound when you when you land it? Like, what’s the like, when the the ball goes in the hole? Whatever hole that is. What are the I would dig more into that famous pinball players even, in the past and stuff like that simply because I like the analogy.
I like metaphor. I like I like that it’s pinball.
I don’t love the visual chaos of things going everywhere, Right.
Because you’re not going to bring chaos. It might be that things are popping all over the place.
But, yeah, what’s the oak? What’s the I dig into it because I think there’s something there. And maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks chaos with that word.
So there’s that to consider, but I like it. It’s it’s a thing. It’s a known thing. I know what it is.
I could talk about it. It’s pinball.
When it comes to the Japanese stuff, I didn’t see it the same way that Stacy does, but I think it’s valid and worth considering, of course.
The Kanuki one seemed most interesting simply because Kaizen, I feel like a lot of tech companies were talking Kaizen, like, seven years ago or somewhere in there. Yeah.
Although I really like that the model has, like, those three parts that you could, like, model out, no share, use as your diagnostic, and things like that.
But the visual of the Kanuki is nice. I think it was Kanuki is what you said. Kanuki? Kanuki?
It’s with an m, but pretty close. Okay.
I don’t know it.
But that could be interesting and also, like, ownable and still in the the area of Kaizen and everything that we learned from Toyota and all of these other great brands that are extremely efficient.
So, yeah, those are my thoughts. I like where you’re going, and I love that you’re giving it a name. Oh my gosh. Yes to naming things. Yes.
But naming is extremely difficult while we’re on the subject. So yeah. Yeah. And pinball dot I o is twenty five thousand US dollars to buy.
Mhmm. Interested in really going in on that and only getting an I o out of it while we’re on the subject. So, yeah. Johnson, do you have to add do you want me to add anything here for Claire?
Oh, mine’s, that’s, well, it’s, like, related to knitting, but, I don’t you I I don’t wanna cut off the phone. Claire.
K. Claire, is that helping at all? Like yeah. Yeah. Load it also over in the Slack group for those who weren’t here today.
Yeah. Cool. Awesome. In the CSP part, not just in the intensive because it’s a CSP.
Okay. Perfect. Cool. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Claire.
Johnson, you’re back.
I’m just getting in all the questions I should have gotten in Do it.
Over the last excellent. Yes. On naming things, right, which you just mentioned.
So you might remember, I my sort of and, Stacy, I would love your feedback on this too if you’re willing.
The the name I came up for my idea was narrative selling. And that was gonna be sort of the overarching concept. And now we’ve got, like, founders narrative and company narrative and product narrative and narrative selling itself as, like, its own sort of subdivision, of it. But I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on how narrative selling as a as the overarching, sort of as the forget the final, as the jobs to be done, like, does that make sense as a, as a name, or is there maybe a different direction I should think about?
Stacy, do you wanna share your thoughts since you were invited?
I mean, I’ve as a name for you mean, like, a brandable name for your Yep. It’s too generic to be a brandable name, I think, because, I mean, there’s already there’s so many people talking about narrative selling already. It’s just a thing. You know? I mean, I Sassy writes sales narratives.
It it’s just, you know, lots of people are doing narrative selling and talking about narrative selling. So I would find another brandable name that you can own and figure out, you know I mean, and make that narrative selling could be what it is, but I would I wouldn’t necessarily call it that unless you’re and with you’re talking about that as a product. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
I mean, I I maybe I’m not I’m probably not in the same circles as you, but, do they call it narrative selling as, like, the the that combination of words, or is there just talk about narrative and selling as, like, a sort of Well, like, I mean, like, StoryBrand has a whole thing on, you know, selling with story, and there’s a whole they have a whole course in that.
And I’m I’m very, very involved in story because I’ve, you know, ingested, like, pretty much everything having to do with story. I have all the, you know, all the books and all the things because I’ve been a StoryBrand I’ve been a StoryBrand certified guide for six years, and, about thirty percent of the StoryBrand certified guides use my software.
So I’m very, very steeply involved in story.
So, I would just you you know, if you want something brandable, I would just say that narrative selling is a generic term. That’s that’s all I’m saying.
Cool.
That’s a thing. It’s a valid thing. And if you can talk about narrative selling, that’s fine to talk about it. But if it’s if you’re looking for a brandable term, I don’t think that you’re gonna have success with that as a brandable term.
Got it. That’s really helpful, Stacy. Thank you. I didn’t know that you, you’ve worked so much with story branding.
That’s cool. I will we have to do a coffee meet soon, actually. I meant to message you. Sorry.
Okay. Jo, do you have any thoughts?
Yeah. I mean, I feel like, okay. Cool. So totally fair on maybe narrative selling, but I still think there’s room there.
I honestly do. I think, it doesn’t have to be that. I like I really like the founder’s narrative. People have been talking about storytelling and narrative for all time, and no one’s ever nailed it.
Like, there’s still you walk away even with StoryBrand. We get all people that copy hackers coming over from StoryBrand because they’re like, well but I can’t actually, like, write the stuff. Like, I can put it mapped very well, and that’s great. But, like, now my clients need the next step, and I can’t do that.
And that’s fair. It’s fine to stay higher level. That’s fine. It just means I think that it leaves what it’s speaking to is that there’s room in the market for more gap filling.
I I every time you say you talk about this, Johnson, I think of The Message and the Messenger, which is a book that I would write if it made sense for me too.
What what I keep seeing from brands is right now, they don’t know there’s a mismatch between what they’re saying and who they are, and they’re publicly demonstrating that on social media, trying to be something that the brand isn’t, But that’s because a brand has a hard time being authentic, but a person can be authentic. Like, a person can be real. And so a founder wants to be the right messenger for his brands or her brands or their brands message. So so to me, it feels like there’s an opportunity opening up, thanks to social media largely, where the messenger needs to have the right message, and it has to come together. It has to work.
And that’s where the founder’s narrative is interesting.
To me, I would try to break it, though. I think that we should always try to break the things before we invest. So how could that be broken? Maybe it does get confused with StoryBrand.
Maybe it gets confused somehow with Rem’s book Lost and Founder somehow.
You don’t you don’t know. Right? But you just, like, start trying to break it. And then, okay, if we can break it, now let’s rebuild it stronger and better so it can’t be, which could be trying to break it for me would be like, okay.
If the founder’s narrative is my land, my expand has to be getting into other parts of the organization.
So what are those called? Is it like, we were talking about, is it product narrative? Uh-uh. Not great.
Is it the sales narrative also not really meaty?
So play around with that. You’re I think there’s something there. I would also, like, try to work through how Simon Sinek got to start with why. Because we are talking about something strategic here. We are talking about something that would attract a lot of c levels if they heard it, if they saw you on stage or heard you on a podcast.
It would feed their ego, honestly, to have their own narrative created by some great person from England with an accent. Like, there’s a lot there, honestly, as this I know that sounds stupid, but I think it would sell extremely well.
Interesting.
So what is the name?
If it’s not the founder’s narrative, stay in that vicinity, though, and see Well, I I do like that.
Yeah. I mean, I, like, I do like the founder’s narrative as a, as a name for this particular product.
And I I’m just I I feel like I I keep kind of asking this thing. It’s like, is this the right umbrella to put my these ideas under? Because I know that once this is done and I invest it and I buy the websites and, like, that’s it. It’s locked in. And I just kind of wanna I know names are maybe the least important part in many ways of Okay. You know? Oh.
They’re both not important and entirely everything.
So, yeah, if you get it right, it doesn’t matter. If you get it wrong, you’re screwed.
Right. I mean, I think founders narrative is is great. I really like that one. I think that’s strong and that the the the thing that I don’t like about that is that it doesn’t bring you into the enterprise market, which is why you can have founders narrative for the smaller companies and leaders narrative for the enterprise companies. And for the for the enterprise companies, leaders narrative is great because every enterprise wants to harness their workforce to help them establish thought leadership.
So if you’re if you’re going into an enterprise and helping them establish thought leadership across the enterprise by teaching them a process of the leader’s narrative and then empowering everybody to share the same story, you can make a fortune doing this.
So I did have an idea that I’ve called the organizational narrative, which was a sort of internal look at the narratives that are at play sort of strategically within the organization where there’s conflicting, perceptions essentially about, well, the stories, the the narratives that exist within the company, of what teams are doing, of what C suite wants and does.
And that was a that was a sort of next the next sort of one I wanted to start fleshing out a little bit.
Yeah. So cool. Okay.
I mean, it sounds like You’re separating it from the human element then, though.
You’re breaking up the organizational narrative. That’s like the people are what matter when you’re telling stories. Right? So the if you you you make the leaders narrative align with the organizational priorities, and then you have happy people who have their own story that they get to share that’s aligned with the organization.
Does that make sense? What do you think, Joanna? Yeah.
I fully agree. Yeah. Organizational narrative bored me immediately, and it’s, it’s it’s probably because it’s missing people. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
Alright. Okay.
And think about the job that they’re actually hiring this to do. It might feel like they’re hiring it. They’re hiring this service to do, so a a job inter I would say they’re hiring it for they’re likely going to wanna come out of this, feeling better about themselves. It’ll be a personal job they’re really hiring it for, feeling valuable, feeling, of course, like they can can perform better and go out into the world and really understand their message.
But but so if you know it’s about you’re gonna have people making people based decisions, name it in a way where it’s, like, gotta have it.
This thing, the leadership story deck, there’s a guy, David Hutchins. His book is, The Circle of the Nine Muses. He has this great deck of cards, and it’s all about stories. And it’s the stories that individual people can tell, and it breaks it down into this whole framework of, like, when to use what story for what. It’s really fantastic. I think if you checked it out, it would be a a good, thing for sparking ideas for creating your own thing. But he goes in and does workshops, and it it becomes, actually a personal transformation for the attendees.
It’s it’s about them transforming themselves by learning to tell these stories and to to do it through work. So that’s a that’s another thing to think about. Think about the people, the people.
Alright.
Okay. That’s really helpful. Thank you.
And so narrative selling maybe as an umbrella term is not, possibly not the the best way to go, but something narrative was narrative something, maybe still to keep these all under a similar sort of, format.
Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
Alright. Thank you so much, guys. This was incredibly helpful. That was, like, a little bit of a electricity for me there. Thank you.
Good. I, I love it.
Okay. Excellent. Good stuff. Alright. Thanks, y’all. Thanks for hanging on, and see you later. Have a good one.
Thanks, Stacy. Thanks, Jared.
Bye.
The People at My ICP
The Buyer Handbook: The People at My ICP
Transcript
Yep.
Let’s dig into the actual training. So I shared the worksheet out in Slack. If you need it, please go to the Copy School Pro Slack group, and you will find the worksheet in the events area.
So this month, we’re trying out themes for the month in Coffee School Pro. The idea for this month is to get you really crystal clear on, all things ICP and persona. And when I say ICP, for those who are maybe watching the replay from other places, you might say I c a.
We say I c p, which in my brain, I was just like internal client. No.
Ideal client profile is what that is. I was going to share the inverted pyramid, but I didn’t want to overwhelm us with all talks of, like, market audience, and all of, like, the parts of the inverted pyramid, but there is one out there if you want. And what I don’t love about the inverted pyramid is it finishes at the bottom with persona.
So if you can imagine, there’s a world where there’s this inverted pyramid, and it has, like, market at the top and then, like, kind of target market. Then ICP, that’s the type of business that you’re really trying to target, and everybody here that I know of is trying to target a business of some kind.
So you’ve got the business, and then you have persona at the bottom of this inverted pyramid. But the challenge is that it looks like it’s one thing that it looks like you should have one, persona and that it’s small when in fact, most of us are gonna have three, maybe four different personas, the people that we are trying to reach out to in organizations, and that’s what I wanna talk about today.
Hi, Abby. Welcome. Just saw you show up.
Cool. So I’m going to share my screen. And, Abby, you just got here, so know that this worksheet is over in, in Slack. So you can get that there. If you would like to, please do. I would like you to work on the the free drawing area that we get into later. You can just do it on a piece of paper that you have.
So all this month, we’re working on this buyer handbook idea. Who are the people you are trying to sell to? That’s the persona you’re trying to connect with.
And then, where do they work? So getting really clear on that. And when your clients come to you and say, can you help us write for this segment? You can be really clear on that too. So between Perna and Rai teaching about, like, what to do for the copywriting side of things, research, etcetera, for your clients, And then myself and Shane helping you with, the stuff to do for your own business.
You should come out of this with a really rounded, education. Some of it reminder stuff, some of it brand new stuff by the end of June.
Book of the month. Does anybody remember what the book of the month is?
I don’t.
I will look, and we will share it with you.
So watch for that. Okay. So we wanna talk with the people at our ICP. Our ICP, again, ideal client’s profile, personas fit in neatly underneath that Challenger sale. Thank you, Jessica.
So the Challenger sale.
There. One second.
The Challenger sale got some bookmarks in it.
The reason that we want to read this is because everything to do with our buyer is in the sunshine growth model under the money side of things. So it can feel administrative. It can feel extra, but it’s really, really critical to get this stuff right if you’re going to make more money. You may make some changes to your ICP. You may add a new persona. Maybe you don’t even have personas at this point. That expect some of that to be kind of stirred up, some changes that you might make to make sure you’re attracting people who value what you do and have money to spend on it as well.
So the great thing about a persona is that it helps you visualize the person that you’re talking to, the person who’s consuming your content on social media or wherever that might be in your email list, and the people that you’re going to be working with internally as well.
Personas and jobs to be done are often talked about in, like, conflict with each other, but every persona has a job to be done, at least one. Right? So you can use everything you might know already about jobs to be done.
You can use that alongside personas. So if you have any resistance in your mind, if you’re like, oh, I’m pure jobs, I don’t wanna hear about it, don’t worry about it. You can do both. You can both follow persona stuff and job stuff.
Okay? By the end of this month, we have shifted some things around so that Shane is working toward, ideally, being able to say, now that you’ve got all these insights into your buyer, into who you’re trying to target and how to get in front of them, what’s what they’re looking for, etcetera, you can, like, have AI put together your buyer handbook for you. So this is all building up to something, then you can hand that handbook off to anybody that you might hire and yourself. You can, of course, reference it.
So keep that in mind, and it’s always gonna be a work in progress.
Okay.
Your ICP, it could be useful to have a representative brand. If you’re watching this, open up your workbook now. This is where you’re going to be writing some stuff in, this worksheet.
So does anybody have a representative brand for their ICP?
Johnson, Katie, Jessica, Stacy, Abby?
No?
Like, a brand that would be the most ideal version of it.
I I do, but then I worked with that brand, and now I’m looking for a new one because they were not ideal. Yeah.
Hey. Okay.
Johnson, you put up your hand a bit on that. No?
Okay. Yeah. It can be useful too. Some people start with that representative brand, and it’s it doesn’t have to be a dream brand either.
It can be a brand you already worked with. So if there’s someone who stands out to you, it’s usually better to start with the brand you already have worked with so that you can really clearly fill this part out. Now this isn’t, like, from any sort of book putting together your ICP. This is what I find useful in understanding, the organization that I’m talking to.
For us, we’re often talking to, very two very different ICPs. So for copy hackers, we have at least two ICPs. One of them is a very small business. One person with, like, a VA or two, obviously, all the freelancers that we work with.
And then there’s this other ICP that is extraordinarily large organizations that have copy teams in them and creative teams. So we have two different ones with different personas in each, which is not recommended. It’s not gonna make your life any easier. So do choose one that you can target well with your offer.
And then this is really like, it feels, maybe administrative, but if you haven’t written down what industry they’re in, where they’re located, that doesn’t have to be, like, down to a city. Right? It doesn’t have to be just for this brand. So if you’re like, my ICP is Facebook.
Well, let’s say Meta. So my ICP is Meta. Their industry is tech slash social media slash advertising.
Their location is they’re in Palo Alto. Last I knew of the Facebook headquarters.
You don’t have to go into that. So it doesn’t have to go that far. You don’t have to say Palo Alto. You can just say they’re in the UK or North America slash Canada, whatever you wanna put there.
So the representative brand does not necessarily dictate everything that goes under here. It’s really just shorthand for the kind of brand you’re looking for. So if it is Meta, you might say, okay. Well, I want I want the company I work with to have, like, five thousand plus employees.
Meta has far more than that. But then at least, you know, if the organization has fewer than five thousand employees, they’re probably not a good fit for me. And you can be really, like, dedicated to your ICP, and you should be because the more narrow you are with that, the more you commit to that, the less guesswork you really have to do so you can identify what their revenue is. This is annual revenue.
This is the department that they’ll that you’ll likely be working with, the one that reaches out to you most commonly. So if you’re like, it’s always creative services or it’s always their growth team, or they’re likely to have, like, a sales pod that reaches out to me, then you write down that department and that becomes can you imagine how you would use that then? If you know that it’s always going to be a sales pod at, a large organization of five thousand people in tech that reaches out to you. Now you can really clearly figure out how to use LinkedIn sales navigator to get in front of more of them.
You can do a little voice of customer research and open up tons of information that’s just for them. So you can do far less work and still have it look like you’re a freaking genius because you’re focusing on this narrow group, which can be scary, but there’s only one of you. So if it’s like, but there’s only five thousand peep groups in the total addressable market. How am I ever gonna get rich?
You will. Don’t worry about it. It’s good. Like, you’re one person. You’re not a team of five thousand.
That would be a scarier proposition. There’s one of you. Most of the time, you’re you can’t go too narrow as long as you’re choosing people who have money and value what you do. If they don’t value what you do, no matter what, you’re never going to make any money.
If they don’t have money, no matter what you do, you’re never going to make any money. So that’s, like, pretty important.
Is this all clear and making sense and not weird?
Okay.
Do they have a creative team? Who’s on their creative team? And what’s important to answer here is if you are like, I only work with coaches, and there’s usually the coach plus their admin person who turns into a bit of a partner for them, and they use freelancers, that’s okay. Just write down here that their creative team is made up of freelance designers, freelance, freelance copywriters, maybe that you wouldn’t you you would even put in there any AI they use to, like, sub in for a creative person.
You also wanna put the tools that they use for your specialization or for things related to your specialization.
Canva could be one.
If they do wireframing, let’s say, in their tools they use for your specialization, if you’re in email, that’s your specialization.
What’s their CRM most likely to be? What is the what are the tools that they’re using? Again, that way you can say, hey.
Coach struggling with ActiveCampaign and segmenting in there. And, obviously, the the more you know about this, the easier it is to create content, which is what we are always, always going to be actually talking about when we’re talking about growing our businesses. There’s always an element of, okay, but what are you gonna put out into the world so that people know that.
What’s their budget?
Be honest about their budget for the kind of work that you do. Not their budget overall, but their budget for the kind of work that you do. If you don’t know, this is where it’s great to look at your past clients and better understand what their budget has been. If you’re like, I don’t want anymore, like, my past clients. Fair. Totally fair.
Now is the time where you are resourceful. Then you go out and you do the hard work of saying, how can I get my ideas, the persona at my ICP? We’ll get into personas next.
To sit down and talk to me about what their budget is and be honest with me. Like, I have to get that information or else I won’t know if they can afford my services. So you have to get that information. How can you go get it? Be resourceful about getting an answer to that important question. You’re the CEO.
CEO has to answer these important questions. You can’t just pretend they don’t exist. Right? So how do you find the budget? How do you find out what their budget is? How are they solving their copy struggles today?
I but I’ll be saying struggles more than problems going forward. I had a really good talk with Bob Mastat, this retreat I was just at from jobs.
And, yeah, struggles, just know going forward. I mean, problems, but struggles are typically we’ll talk more about that.
But it’s struggles slash problems.
And then time to close. How long does it take for them to say yes to you from the point that they feel that early problem slash struggle, through to getting on a call with you and everything else that happens so that you cannot be frustrated when this stuff takes time. Some the larger the organization, the more time it’s likely to take for them to say yes to you. And if you’re like, well, I need to close a client by the end of the month, they take three months to make a decision.
Now you know what your time is to close. And it’s critical to be really honest about these things or it’s very difficult to move forward if you’re, one, guessing. I think it probably takes, like, a month. If you don’t know, you really have to get on a call with that persona that you’re more likely to get honest information from.
Find a way to get on a call with them. Any questions about this for the ICP side of things?
Does everybody already have this sorted out?
Clearly, in a way you could hand it off to somebody.
Why haven’t you? Can I ask? And it could just be because, like, busyness, but I’m really curious. Yeah.
Me? Yeah. Katie. Yeah.
Because I am still lost in this model of, like, do I just change industries completely, or, like, am I looking at talking to a higher level person in the industry I’m already in?
Mhmm. Okay.
So, like, is it worth trying to figure out who this is, like, in the coaching space, or do I wanna just be like, you know, if it Joanna says to go to SAS, like, do that and, and dive in?
Yeah. I wonder about, like so I say SaaS because it’s easier, in everything that I’ve seen, but but I’ve also never built a brand in a different space. I’ve never been the one people go to when they’re a coach.
I’ve been asked, you know, a copywriter by all of the big coaches out there, but it’s never been understood to be me. That would be that one. Whenever, like, Joe, can you write this? Because I think they know damn well. Like, I don’t know what I what?
So can you do anything with coaches? How what I really mean is can you find a group that talks to each other so you can get easy referrals, that has ongoing work to do, and that thinks of themselves as a business? Part of the problem with a lot of coaches is that they follow this launch idea, which makes it hard for you to think of it as a business. It’s not until you cross over to Evergreen that in my experience, people seem to understand.
Now I’m a business. Now I’m making regular recurring revenue, not I just did a three million dollar launch, and I’m gonna take three months to freaking decompress because that was so much work.
But is there a way to go upmarket, Katie, for you? Is there an upmarket version of your audience?
Yeah. I definitely think that there is. I just think that, like I think I mentioned this before. It’s kind of like the further up you go, the more people are just teaching, like like, kind of the higher market you go, the less I wanna work with them.
Like Okay.
It’s more then I feel like it gets really and just, like, not the ethos that I wanna be in. Yeah. So, like, I’m in this program with lots of coaches at the, like, multi six to seven figure level, and I see them.
Like, so when I I used to feel like I knew who this ICP was, but then, like, working on the standardized offer, like, wanting to have some like, wanting to have something in that model Yeah.
I don’t think that that, like, ICA that I had previously mapped out wouldn’t necessarily go for the, like, optimization package, and that’s where I’m still, like, trying to marry this altogether.
Yeah. That’s fair.
I have a call booked with Rai, actually. I booked a one along with him for his insight into this market specifically to try and get this nailed down by the end of the week.
So that’s like Oh, damn. Why am I am, like, trying to figure it out.
Nice. Good deadline. I love it. Okay. Cool. So that makes sense. You’re actively working through it, and you’ll know more, hopefully, after talking with Rai.
Okay. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Katie. Anybody else wanna share what’s holding them back from pinpointing a little more, at least, their ICP?
I can, share something. I, I I told you I brought someone on recently, and, this person is someone who I want to take on, this portion of work that we’re doing at the moment with a client who works in ERP solutions Okay. Like NetSuite.
These consultancies, he’s, you know, he he runs a consultancy.
They the the the kind of the smallest versions have a revenue of about half a mil, and it goes all the way up to sort of fifteen to twenty mil before they start to really scale up. And what this client that I work with is, a great client, really, dedicated, but struggles with lead gen. Basically, it’s kind of just running running the business is taking everything. So we’ve developed an offer, sort of following a good chunk of what we’ve been doing, where I’m gonna be pitching, essentially kind of authority building, on LinkedIn, and Reddit because a good chunk of these customers are there, plus maybe a little bit of, lead gen, and sort of pitching it at a sort of ten k initialization and then an ongoing five k retainer.
But this is brand new. We’ve sort of been working day and night to put this together and build the pitch and kind of get into the direct selling sort of direct response, sorry, techniques to to really, like, sell it to this client. And then it was only, like, a week or two ago, we were like, oh, we should also, of course, prepare the like, we’ve developed a whole product now. We should start to look at, like, who else we could sell this to, because the might say no.
And, so we’ve we’ve got a good idea. We know the industry. We know the location. We know the revenue.
We know the employees, the department.
I guess we know the creative team. It’s freelancers.
Budget is trickier to figure out because they hire consultants, on a sort of ad hoc basis to complete their projects.
And I guess the the reason why we don’t have this all filled out is because, I don’t know the level of detail to go into yet.
Okay.
Because it’s new. Right? So that’s because it’s new. Yeah.
Yeah. So, this is a side note. Curious, though, about this pitch that you’re building.
Do you feel like it’s going to be something you can easily replicate for others?
So the whole as we built out this process, we’ve been building basically, we built the whole, service out of soaps. So, as as much as is possible, I will not be involved at all, and this other person will take over so that I can focus on, doing life cycle emails. And but this will be a, sort of a source of revenue for the business, an opportunity to to train this this person to a sort of management position.
So it’s a sort of long it’s sort of like a little bit of upfront work to get some long term distance out of the business.
Okay. Makes sense.
Cool.
So work in progress. Once you have this pitch done, you’ll have a little data. No. One data point is not, like, good.
But it’s better ish than nothing.
So it might be worth at least starting to to fill this in. But right now, you have a general idea of some of these points.
Sure. And I guess the one question I maybe had was if you so I know it’s in ERP solutions.
But to be honest, because of the nature of the service, there’s no real reason why it couldn’t be in, you know, any industry as long as the the company had a motivated founder who wanted to build a personal brand or, you know, and understood the the significance of that. Do you have any, do you have any advice on sort of thinking, laterally across industries for this kind of I know it’s a very sort of different.
No.
Well, that’s simply because I was just thinking so wait. I I now as a total side note. So wait. You want to help people who are in organizations build their personal brand?
Yeah. Well, to general yeah. To build their authority, to to, yeah, to build their their their company’s brand and their own personal brand.
So it’s sideways.
I actually have a lead for you then. They’ll send along to you. Someone just reached out to me for exactly that. So, anyway, I’ll send that to you, and that could be another data point for you to at least get in on a conversation with the what, the why, and all that kind of stuff to help fill this in. So that’s why I got distracted there and couldn’t answer your question because I was like, that’d be cool if I can solve that ask.
Okay. So yours so repeat your question then, please.
I’ve got the words from it, but not how it all goes together.
So so just how to think about I’m you know, I’m I’m basing this on the industry that that this this plan is in because we now I now know it very well. I mean, it works for them. But, you know, reasonably, with maybe a little bit more preparation upfront, we could do this for any industry.
Yeah.
So, do you have any advice about sort of thinking, laterally to move, you know, across industry or or just advice on maybe industries that are likely to have a a wealth of companies that are sort of in the, I I don’t know, one mil to fifteen mil revenue range, small ish teams and motivated founders.
Yeah. So many.
Definitely. Let me let me give some thought to that. I can say if that’s something you wanna do, if you wanna say, hey, founders, I can help you build your brand that is you’re ready to write a book. I assume all of those sorts of things will fit under that. Yep. Yeah.
Then just know that there’s a large market for this. There are a lot of people, a lot of founders who are doing exactly that. But it’s probably worth at minimum starting with one industry still. I would say it’s definitely worth that because then you can say, okay.
If it’s a founder and they’re making so much money, then you can start looking for the influencers, and that would, like, get into, the personas. So they might not even be at that ICP. So I would think of something like, if you’re trying to target those people, then we’d wanna get more into, like, figure out who the influencers are because there’s the SaaS Academy that’s filled with founders who are ready to build their brand. There’s, Matt Lerner with System, and that’s just in, like those are two groups that have founders who are highly motivated to do what it takes to get out into the world so that people use their solution the way that Jason Fried and DHH did for base camp.
So no, but there’s lots there, and let me give it some more thought.
Cool. That’d be amazing. Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks.
Anybody else have anything about ICPs before we move on?
Okay. So when it comes to your ICP, the inverted pyramid, as I mentioned at the start of this call, the inverted pyramid has, like, ICP, and then at the bottom is persona.
That, to me, visually, doesn’t leave enough room for the many personas that might be under there, and this, to me, feels more like pillars. But I I hate old school business diagrams with pillars. I just have a strong aversion to them from my day that Intuit. So I didn’t want this to look like a pillar.
But this is really a question of who are you targeting. So we need to fill in your ideal client profile, which just, like, take everything here and write a statement. Now if you’ve done the intensive freelancing, you’ve already done this work. You’ve already got this figured out. You know already that you will be refining the personas and a little bit of your ICP, but you should have that down, pretty well. Now the personas are, of course, the people at the ICP, typically, that are going to be the ones that you are targeting in your marketing.
But I don’t want you to stop there. And I know this can start to feel like a really big exercise, but if we only ever think about the people that we are targeting with our marketing, then we miss the point of all of the decision makers internally, and other people who help them make a decision. So when you’re thinking of personas, I would like you to think about what I just said to Johnson.
Who are the bigger influencers and make a persona out of one of those key influencers that might be they have a coach. They have an executive coach in Johnson’s case. Right? There’s an executive coach. They’re trying to make them better.
If you were to message toward executive coaches for these founders, then they could be a really good, opportunity for you. Right? But they don’t technically work at the ICP.
If you’re working with really small businesses, maybe they’re highly profitable, very small businesses, it could be the partner of the person who runs that business. So they’re like, the James clears of the world. They’re, like, super well known for one thing. They’re not planning on building a big business out, and their partner or, someone that they trust really closely.
Again, that could be an executive coach. It could be the partner that they have in life. It could be, a person in that they met in a mastermind who they call up all the time for help. So James Clear could say, hey, Nathan Barry.
Let’s hop on a call and talk through this. So one of your personas could be the Nathan Barry’s of the world.
So that would be something to consider. So I don’t just want you to think about only about the personas that you are likely to talk to directly on the path to getting a client, but do start there. Start with the people that you or the person usually that you are likely to, who is usually your point of contact or the one who kicks off working together.
So a good way to go about that, I have found and this is like a blank page for you to fill this in. I’d like you to take just five minutes to basically map out whatever that looks like for your org chart with personas and influencers. Now this org chart doesn’t have lines between it, because it’s really unnecessary. Grower, nobody. No. You can’t eat that plant. Nobody.
You’ve got the so in this case, I have VP of marketing, life cycle lead, and senior copy likely to be people that I connect with directly. The senior copywriter finds me and follows me, and this is if I was working on life cycle as my specialization. That’s the example here. This isn’t for me.
This is for an example of a freelancer who’s working on life cycle. So who’s your primary point of contact? This is the person who’s likely to work with you directly throughout. So the senior copywriter may find you online and start in their meetings with their manager, life cycle lead in this case, let’s say.
They’re in these meetings, and they’re like, hey. I’m really still struggling with x.
But I’ve started following, Abby, and I’m learning this cool stuff. And I wonder if there’s any way we can bring her into the org to help us with why.
And then that person would be the one who actually reaches out to you. Like, okay. Maybe just connect me with them or send me their email address, send me their website, and I’ll look into it. So the life cycle lead could be the actual person who reaches out to you, but your advocate internally might have been the senior copywriter or in other cases, other people.
But this is the example. Right? So if you know, generally, some people watching the replay of this will have been working with an organization or, like, sorry, an ICP for a long time, and they can more clearly document the I say org chart, it really means, like, influencer chart.
They can more easily document that because they’ve set they can say like, I can say for a SaaS company who wants to bring me in to rewrite their website and then optimize it. I know exactly who that point of contact is. I know who the influencer was that like, the advocate who first said we should go with this person. I know where they found me. I generally know when they found me, and I know who has to agree to this, who I have to really impress in order to get them to say yes, to say yes to a large amount of money. So I would know that a senior designer is gonna be involved.
Always brand managers are somehow involved. I gotta get them to believe that I understand brand at the same time I understand CRO. The CFO is gonna be the one approving usually going over budget because almost nobody comes to me and says, like, perfect. That’s exactly what I was hoping you would say.
It’s usually like, shit. Let’s see what we can do. So I have so these are lighter boxes here. These are the people, the CFO, the brand manager, the senior designer, those are people who are likely to come up a lot in meetings and in Google Docs.
So I want you to take five minutes to figure out the key personas that you will be typically talking with, that will find you, that will email you, that will follow you on social and DM you, and then the people who influence them.
Five minutes just to knock it out. Is that cool? Can we do this?
Hopefully, it’s a good useful exercise. I will be quiet until ten forty when I will be noisy again.
How’d we do?
Anybody want to share or talk through what you put down on the page?
Yeah. I I felt like like looking back at my past clients, so, like, seven figure course creators, I think I’m struggling to think of the time where it wasn’t the CEO that reached out to me and kind of approved the work. Like, I’ve maybe once had, like, an ad strategist come to me, but, otherwise, it’s it’s always gonna be the CEO.
And then where I’m struggling there is that like, with printing out content and stuff because it’s like I’m just skeptical whether, like, a CEO is gonna kind of watch my webinar or anything.
Yeah. Do they so then it’s good to look out at influencers. Right? If it’s difficult to get them directly, who influences them? Do they have a coach?
I guess so. Yes. Probably. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. If they’re doing seven figures, they probably have a coach because a coach probably targeted them at some point and sold themselves to them.
That’s at least been my experience is having coaches reach out, probably why I have three of them. And then, if you were to find that they have a coach or they’re part of a mastermind, have you experienced that at all that they’re part of a mastermind or they’re coached?
Yeah. I mean, I this is something I’ve been thinking about for years because it seems like such a strategic way to market, but I just I’ve not found, like, those masterminds.
Okay.
Yeah. I would say the next thing, you you just need to identify who first has introduced them to you or could introduce them to you, where has is the better one, but could is still an opportunity.
How do they find you? Who says at Usually Facebook groups. Facebook groups.
Yeah.
Or, like, LinkedIn.
But it’s always the, like, the founder that that reaches out, not a member of the group.
Figure or six figure? Yeah. Yeah. Seven figures. And they’re involved in Facebook groups that aren’t run by a coach.
Sometimes it’s their Facebook group.
Oh, okay. So what can be all so I don’t know if anybody else has any thoughts, but we know that they don’t summon us from the air. Right? We are not genies out of a lamp. We have to come from somewhere. They have to find us somewhere. They have to build a belief in us somehow.
Our job is to write down the path and figure out, like, who on that path is is the person that’s most likely to open the door for us.
So I would encourage you to really dig into it, Abby. If it’s always a Facebook group that they run, then that’s just good to know. Then you can say, okay. The CEO is always my number one persona. They’re the one I’m gonna reach out to all the time.
And if they find me in a Facebook group, then that’s not about this at all. That’s just gonna be marketing that further fleshes out your, both your ICP and your persona because they’re obviously hiring the Facebook group to do something for them slash for their business. So that’s just good to know.
Is it what you think the future ideal client looks like? Do you think it’ll be the same sort of experience, or do you have reason to believe the next group that you target the or sorry, the next group that, should be hiring you that they will find you the same way.
I mean, I don’t know. I think this is the trouble is, like, I find it, like, I find the ideal avatar exercises really hard because it it’s like, well, if I’m not kind of engaging with them already, like, how do I know what they like, who they are or what they want and how to speak to them?
Yeah. You have to speak to them. That is actually the work of it. It’d be nice if there was an easier way.
But the easier way is ultimately, usually, the harder way anyway if you like. Yeah. Buy insights somehow.
You’ll probably eventually end up having to go back to, you know, I actually do have to just get on a call and talk with them.
And how do you do that?
Oh, you gotta find them. That’s LinkedIn sales navigator. Try to find them. Yeah. And then DM them and offer them a really compelling offer to get on a call with you so you can pick their brain and get that advice that you need.
But that will be that’s the work.
What are sorry to Jen. What are some of those compelling offers just, you know, for fun?
What what their currency? Like, what moves them? If you know that you’re working with heart centered people, you could say, hey. So you have to ask yourself, what is this call worth to me potentially?
Is this a thousand dollar call for me? Would I pay a thousand bucks to get information out of them? If I knew I was paying a thousand dollars, then what questions would I ask? So you probably have better questions because you’re like, I’m gonna get the most of this thousand bucks, for an hour.
On their end, they’re like, holy. An hour is a long time for me to tell you how to target people like me, so you better make it worth a thousand bucks to me. So let’s say, you know that your ideal your persona, the one you are trying to reach out to, loves dogs, then you can say, okay. My offer is I’ll make a thousand dollar donation to the soy, I think it’s pronounced soy, s o I, dog foundation on your behalf if you get on this call with me for an hour and really get honest with me about this sort of thing. That could be a great offer, but not everybody will have the same offer because everybody is moved by different things.
So I would say the more you know about that person so research them on LinkedIn. Follow every other thing that you can. This is a this is, like, critical work. Right? This is how you potentially shape a multimillion dollar business.
I was talking to my team about this earlier, and I’m not saying this about you at all, but the money that we have to put up to start an online business is so minor compared to a florist. I wanna start a flower shop. There’s so much friction, so much money that has to go into that. This is this is the kind of thing where you have such an advantage over, like, a florist. You make more money than they ever will as well.
But this is the investment. This is like filling out the lease and spending money on leasing the space.
This is that hard cost for you. Find a thousand bucks. Do the hard research of figuring out who you need to talk to at what organization, what they need to hear from you in order to say yes hopping on a call with you.
Do that work, and you could have literally millions of dollars in value there. Don’t do the work. Have you guys seen that that that diagram of the easy life versus the hard life?
It’s like you I’ll I’ll find the diagram and send it to you. It’s like you ask easy questions, and your life it’s easy until you have to climb back. I’ll show you the diagram. It’ll make a lot of sense, but it’s the hard work.
You’re doing the hard thing. You’re valuing it the way you expect to be valued as well, by giving it a thousand bucks or whatever that is. And then, just make sure make sure you make the most of it. Does that all make sense?
A hundred percent. That makes perfect sense because I wanna do this for, life cycle emails too. That is my next job. Yeah. So that’s, mega super duper helpful. Thank you, Jeff.
Cool. Awesome. Abby, how are you?
Yeah. I’m just thinking, like so if I was gonna do five interviews and be like, okay. I’ll donate five thousand dollars for those five.
If, like, they’re the wrong people, then I’m gonna be like, like, really on time.
That’ll be a giant waste of money. Yeah. I mean, it’s good you donated. It’s not a waste, but for you, they’ve you that’s why you have to make sure it’s the right person. So the best you can do is start with one.
So who is the purse so if you actually believe that it is the CEO who reaches out to you Mhmm.
Then you need to find the CEO of this seven figure training business and really make sure that that they’re the one.
And that’s good. That’s the thing. But just do one first. Don’t book five of these things out of the gate because you might find that although the CEO has reached out to you in the past, just like in this diagram, life cycle lead is likely to reach out to me, not the senior copywriter, but senior copywriter was the one who found me.
So you need to first talk to the CEO who you hypothesize is the person and ask them as a question. Like, really dig into it. Don’t take the first answer. Don’t even take the seventh answer.
Like, dig deep into how they found you, and we’re willing to take that leap to hop on a call with you. You could find out that someone they listen to mentioned looking for a copywriter in a podcast. I don’t know what it is. You don’t know what it is, but you’ll find out when you do that first interview.
Just do them one at a time. Give yourself time to synthesize what you learn so that you can ask better questions the next time and make sure you’re talking with the right person. By the time you reach number five, you know you’ve spoken with the right person slash people.
Yeah. Don’t book five out of the gate. Okay. Just a point. Okay. Cool. Awesome.
How’s everybody else feeling, Katie? How are you doing?
Yeah. I mean, the personas, like, was clear for, I feel like, my current slash, like, slightly art market ICA, like, CEO, CMO, whether it’s fractional or, like, some kind of marketing person in house, then they typically have a VA or an OBM who does, like, the CRM management.
Then I’ve I’ve dealt with, like, the social media manager, if you remember that issue on the call, and the designer. And then I know that I’ve been recommended by, like, a content strategist. Mhmm.
I know a big one for me and, like, Abby, maybe this is helpful for you, but, like, I’ve had kind of two big rounds of clients come through a coach who has hired me and then recommended me within their masterminds.
So, like, one client who’s probably responsible for, like, forty percent of the business I’ve had, she uses my freebies in her group programs as resources, and then people come to me through that. But, like, that’s, you know, that’s a market that I’m, like, moving beyond, but it has so now I’m like, okay. How do I get in, like, the next level mastermind to have that same kind of effect? Yes. And that’s where I guess yeah. Sorry.
Go. Keep going.
Well, this is just, like Yeah.
That I mean, that’s, like, great, and I love that. And the idea of, like, something like, okay. Marketing, like, road to pursue is, like, teaching in more mastermind like, group, guest teaching in more programs.
But then I just I’m like, I have my my existing of, like, stuff that I’ve created and trainings that I’m ready to do, but I don’t know if any of that is relevant to who I wanna be speaking to now.
And I think I’m having this bigger, like, identity crisis around, like, do I really leave behind everything that I’ve created up till now, or, like, should I really just be doing a better job of marketing everything that I’ve already created?
Yeah.
It’s a tough call. Right? Sometimes the answer is yes. You do have to cut ties with everything that you’ve done in order to move on to what’s next.
Sometimes that’s really, really the true thing, and it’s the hard thing. But it doesn’t have to be. Right? You possibly could do you think people who value what you do and can afford your services are in are are somewhere in this audience you already have access to?
Well, I don’t know if you remember when you looked over my, like, visibility funnels offer idea, but, like, my stretch audience was still way below who you were telling me to go for. So it’s like maybe.
Yeah. Yeah.
I can tell you that I know it can I know it’s scary? I get that it’s totally scary. If it helps, we at CopyHackers are making hard cuts in our audience.
Very hard cuts, intentionally. And it means like, okay. We built this really great, solid seven figure with lots of profit business with this one group, but they’re not the future for us. They’re not what’s next.
And it’s hard to it’s technically difficult to say goodbye to that audience.
But how else are we gonna grow? You know? How else are we going to we’re going to have the business that we envision as a team going forward, if we just we have to let them go. And for us, it’s actually been exciting that Alex Catani is on the scene now because she’s serving a lot of, like, brand new freelancers, and I’m so happy to say, like, go learn from Alex.
Don’t don’t don’t hang out here. I don’t have anything for you. I and I do have things for them. I have lots of things for them, but that’s not the future.
So just know that it is a hard decision a lot of us has to have to make, to say no to a certain audience in order to open ourselves up for what’s next. And it’s risky, but that’s the business that we’re in. It’s all about reward for risk and sometimes getting a punch in the face for taking the risk too. And that’s just, like, the freaking joys of what we’ve signed up for.
So I don’t know. If you’re struggling to believe that the people who can afford you and value you are in your current audience without having to shake them off entirely because it’s scary too. And, potentially, scary also means, like, costly because you’re you’re saying no to things.
What can you do to mitigate that risk?
How can you and I just Mhmm. Oh, I’m so bad at this part of it because my gut is always just just just jump into the next pond, both feet in, just jump.
And not a lot of people want to, but when you dip your toe, I don’t know that you get the same rewards versus jumping all in.
But I also am extremely comfortable with risk.
Yeah.
I feel like I have, I have a retainer client and, like, payment plan that cover my bills for, like, the next four months.
Okay.
So I’m kind of like, okay. That’s, like, that’s there. So I do have this space to be doing this work. It’s just, yeah, like, that feeling of I’m because I know that, like, the the work that I get in three months is based on the marketing that I’m doing now. So, like, am I gonna drive off a cliff in into which when, you know, if that when that payment plan ends and that retainer offer is over, like, will there be anything left to to pick up?
Yeah.
Anyway, I’m I’m I’m I can do, like, mindset work around that, but, yeah, that’s where I’m at with the full audience shift.
Okay. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I think that’s huge that you’re even considering making the shift.
It’s also a really nice sign that you’ve got a cushion right now, for the next couple of months at least. So is there ever gonna be a safer time to make this call? Like, it feels like with the cushion, you’re covered, sounds like, for the next four months.
This could be the best time in your business history to really make this call.
It’s just you have to make the call, which is so challenging.
Not as fun as we want it to be.
Always fun when you look back later, like, oh, it was the best call ever.
But in the moment, stuff.
Okay. Thanks, Katie. Have you talked to Kirsty about any mindset stuff around making that change?
Not lately. But I feel like I’m in the so the other program that I’m in with all these coaches is very mindset focused.
So, like, I do a lot of stuff around that. It’s just the it’s more the practical like, what Johnson was asking about, like, actually getting in front of people Yeah.
Like, where to find them and how to figure out who actually has the budget and the priorities.
Have you used LinkedIn sales navigator? Like, have you given it a shot?
No. I don’t I’m not on LinkedIn at all.
My yeah. We’re I’m I’ve been very focused on, like, SEO and blogging Yeah. Which I know is, like, also on my on my little website. It probably gets little traffic. But that’s where like, other than direct referrals, that’s where most of my people come from.
Interesting.
Yeah. If you’re wondering about I would just say, like, go put together a quick LinkedIn profile. Say yes to the ninety seven bucks for LinkedIn sales navigator and just see if you can start.
What I find is useful with Sales Navigator is even if you don’t do anything with it right away, you can at least say, cool. There is a market out there. Cool. There are like, you could find that there are five thousand coaches, and then you can start narrowing down with their filters a bit more to the point where potentially you could reach out to a few of them and say, can I pick your brain? I’m trying to figure this stuff out. Yeah. Cool.
And, of course, you’ve got the group that you’re in, which probably has some of these coaches you can also just Mhmm.
Ask. Yeah. Okay. Cool, Katie. Johnson?
Yep. So, I because I’ve missed a few things. I remember seeing someone else and talk about SaaS navigator. Have you you’ve have you covered you’ve covered that in something somewhere?
Lightly. We covered it a few weeks ago. I think it was in CSP.
Really lightly, the new copy school professional dot com.
Sarah, I know we just talked about it this morning.
Tina, maybe you know the answer. Wait. Sarah’s coming on screen.
When Why you hate me?
Why do you gotta hate me on this?
When will Johnson have access to?
I don’t know. When is Johnson gonna work on it? Just kidding.
Johnson would I wanna say by the end I’d wanna say by the end of this week.
Okay. So then you’ll be able to answer.
I’ve been snacking on working on, the CSP website. That’s my bad.
Yeah. Thank you for finally admitting that.
It’s it’s about time.
Awesome. Yeah. By the end of this week, we’ll have a link so it’s already invitation.
Awesome. Oh, there we go. Stacy says it was April twenty second. Thanks, Stacy.
So you can go back through some close to that.
I’m not sure on the exact date, but around then.
Okay. Wicked. Thank you.
Okay. So we have about fifteen minutes, because I actually have unfortunately, someone booked a meeting immediately at quarter after instead of thirty after, thirty past. So my bad.
Worksheet
Worksheet
Transcript
Yep.
Let’s dig into the actual training. So I shared the worksheet out in Slack. If you need it, please go to the Copy School Pro Slack group, and you will find the worksheet in the events area.
So this month, we’re trying out themes for the month in Coffee School Pro. The idea for this month is to get you really crystal clear on, all things ICP and persona. And when I say ICP, for those who are maybe watching the replay from other places, you might say I c a.
We say I c p, which in my brain, I was just like internal client. No.
Ideal client profile is what that is. I was going to share the inverted pyramid, but I didn’t want to overwhelm us with all talks of, like, market audience, and all of, like, the parts of the inverted pyramid, but there is one out there if you want. And what I don’t love about the inverted pyramid is it finishes at the bottom with persona.
So if you can imagine, there’s a world where there’s this inverted pyramid, and it has, like, market at the top and then, like, kind of target market. Then ICP, that’s the type of business that you’re really trying to target, and everybody here that I know of is trying to target a business of some kind.
So you’ve got the business, and then you have persona at the bottom of this inverted pyramid. But the challenge is that it looks like it’s one thing that it looks like you should have one, persona and that it’s small when in fact, most of us are gonna have three, maybe four different personas, the people that we are trying to reach out to in organizations, and that’s what I wanna talk about today.
Hi, Abby. Welcome. Just saw you show up.
Cool. So I’m going to share my screen. And, Abby, you just got here, so know that this worksheet is over in, in Slack. So you can get that there. If you would like to, please do. I would like you to work on the the free drawing area that we get into later. You can just do it on a piece of paper that you have.
So all this month, we’re working on this buyer handbook idea. Who are the people you are trying to sell to? That’s the persona you’re trying to connect with.
And then, where do they work? So getting really clear on that. And when your clients come to you and say, can you help us write for this segment? You can be really clear on that too. So between Perna and Rai teaching about, like, what to do for the copywriting side of things, research, etcetera, for your clients, And then myself and Shane helping you with, the stuff to do for your own business.
You should come out of this with a really rounded, education. Some of it reminder stuff, some of it brand new stuff by the end of June.
Book of the month. Does anybody remember what the book of the month is?
I don’t.
I will look, and we will share it with you.
So watch for that. Okay. So we wanna talk with the people at our ICP. Our ICP, again, ideal client’s profile, personas fit in neatly underneath that Challenger sale. Thank you, Jessica.
So the Challenger sale.
There. One second.
The Challenger sale got some bookmarks in it.
The reason that we want to read this is because everything to do with our buyer is in the sunshine growth model under the money side of things. So it can feel administrative. It can feel extra, but it’s really, really critical to get this stuff right if you’re going to make more money. You may make some changes to your ICP. You may add a new persona. Maybe you don’t even have personas at this point. That expect some of that to be kind of stirred up, some changes that you might make to make sure you’re attracting people who value what you do and have money to spend on it as well.
So the great thing about a persona is that it helps you visualize the person that you’re talking to, the person who’s consuming your content on social media or wherever that might be in your email list, and the people that you’re going to be working with internally as well.
Personas and jobs to be done are often talked about in, like, conflict with each other, but every persona has a job to be done, at least one. Right? So you can use everything you might know already about jobs to be done.
You can use that alongside personas. So if you have any resistance in your mind, if you’re like, oh, I’m pure jobs, I don’t wanna hear about it, don’t worry about it. You can do both. You can both follow persona stuff and job stuff.
Okay? By the end of this month, we have shifted some things around so that Shane is working toward, ideally, being able to say, now that you’ve got all these insights into your buyer, into who you’re trying to target and how to get in front of them, what’s what they’re looking for, etcetera, you can, like, have AI put together your buyer handbook for you. So this is all building up to something, then you can hand that handbook off to anybody that you might hire and yourself. You can, of course, reference it.
So keep that in mind, and it’s always gonna be a work in progress.
Okay.
Your ICP, it could be useful to have a representative brand. If you’re watching this, open up your workbook now. This is where you’re going to be writing some stuff in, this worksheet.
So does anybody have a representative brand for their ICP?
Johnson, Katie, Jessica, Stacy, Abby?
No?
Like, a brand that would be the most ideal version of it.
I I do, but then I worked with that brand, and now I’m looking for a new one because they were not ideal. Yeah.
Hey. Okay.
Johnson, you put up your hand a bit on that. No?
Okay. Yeah. It can be useful too. Some people start with that representative brand, and it’s it doesn’t have to be a dream brand either.
It can be a brand you already worked with. So if there’s someone who stands out to you, it’s usually better to start with the brand you already have worked with so that you can really clearly fill this part out. Now this isn’t, like, from any sort of book putting together your ICP. This is what I find useful in understanding, the organization that I’m talking to.
For us, we’re often talking to, very two very different ICPs. So for copy hackers, we have at least two ICPs. One of them is a very small business. One person with, like, a VA or two, obviously, all the freelancers that we work with.
And then there’s this other ICP that is extraordinarily large organizations that have copy teams in them and creative teams. So we have two different ones with different personas in each, which is not recommended. It’s not gonna make your life any easier. So do choose one that you can target well with your offer.
And then this is really like, it feels, maybe administrative, but if you haven’t written down what industry they’re in, where they’re located, that doesn’t have to be, like, down to a city. Right? It doesn’t have to be just for this brand. So if you’re like, my ICP is Facebook.
Well, let’s say Meta. So my ICP is Meta. Their industry is tech slash social media slash advertising.
Their location is they’re in Palo Alto. Last I knew of the Facebook headquarters.
You don’t have to go into that. So it doesn’t have to go that far. You don’t have to say Palo Alto. You can just say they’re in the UK or North America slash Canada, whatever you wanna put there.
So the representative brand does not necessarily dictate everything that goes under here. It’s really just shorthand for the kind of brand you’re looking for. So if it is Meta, you might say, okay. Well, I want I want the company I work with to have, like, five thousand plus employees.
Meta has far more than that. But then at least, you know, if the organization has fewer than five thousand employees, they’re probably not a good fit for me. And you can be really, like, dedicated to your ICP, and you should be because the more narrow you are with that, the more you commit to that, the less guesswork you really have to do so you can identify what their revenue is. This is annual revenue.
This is the department that they’ll that you’ll likely be working with, the one that reaches out to you most commonly. So if you’re like, it’s always creative services or it’s always their growth team, or they’re likely to have, like, a sales pod that reaches out to me, then you write down that department and that becomes can you imagine how you would use that then? If you know that it’s always going to be a sales pod at, a large organization of five thousand people in tech that reaches out to you. Now you can really clearly figure out how to use LinkedIn sales navigator to get in front of more of them.
You can do a little voice of customer research and open up tons of information that’s just for them. So you can do far less work and still have it look like you’re a freaking genius because you’re focusing on this narrow group, which can be scary, but there’s only one of you. So if it’s like, but there’s only five thousand peep groups in the total addressable market. How am I ever gonna get rich?
You will. Don’t worry about it. It’s good. Like, you’re one person. You’re not a team of five thousand.
That would be a scarier proposition. There’s one of you. Most of the time, you’re you can’t go too narrow as long as you’re choosing people who have money and value what you do. If they don’t value what you do, no matter what, you’re never going to make any money.
If they don’t have money, no matter what you do, you’re never going to make any money. So that’s, like, pretty important.
Is this all clear and making sense and not weird?
Okay.
Do they have a creative team? Who’s on their creative team? And what’s important to answer here is if you are like, I only work with coaches, and there’s usually the coach plus their admin person who turns into a bit of a partner for them, and they use freelancers, that’s okay. Just write down here that their creative team is made up of freelance designers, freelance, freelance copywriters, maybe that you wouldn’t you you would even put in there any AI they use to, like, sub in for a creative person.
You also wanna put the tools that they use for your specialization or for things related to your specialization.
Canva could be one.
If they do wireframing, let’s say, in their tools they use for your specialization, if you’re in email, that’s your specialization.
What’s their CRM most likely to be? What is the what are the tools that they’re using? Again, that way you can say, hey.
Coach struggling with ActiveCampaign and segmenting in there. And, obviously, the the more you know about this, the easier it is to create content, which is what we are always, always going to be actually talking about when we’re talking about growing our businesses. There’s always an element of, okay, but what are you gonna put out into the world so that people know that.
What’s their budget?
Be honest about their budget for the kind of work that you do. Not their budget overall, but their budget for the kind of work that you do. If you don’t know, this is where it’s great to look at your past clients and better understand what their budget has been. If you’re like, I don’t want anymore, like, my past clients. Fair. Totally fair.
Now is the time where you are resourceful. Then you go out and you do the hard work of saying, how can I get my ideas, the persona at my ICP? We’ll get into personas next.
To sit down and talk to me about what their budget is and be honest with me. Like, I have to get that information or else I won’t know if they can afford my services. So you have to get that information. How can you go get it? Be resourceful about getting an answer to that important question. You’re the CEO.
CEO has to answer these important questions. You can’t just pretend they don’t exist. Right? So how do you find the budget? How do you find out what their budget is? How are they solving their copy struggles today?
I but I’ll be saying struggles more than problems going forward. I had a really good talk with Bob Mastat, this retreat I was just at from jobs.
And, yeah, struggles, just know going forward. I mean, problems, but struggles are typically we’ll talk more about that.
But it’s struggles slash problems.
And then time to close. How long does it take for them to say yes to you from the point that they feel that early problem slash struggle, through to getting on a call with you and everything else that happens so that you cannot be frustrated when this stuff takes time. Some the larger the organization, the more time it’s likely to take for them to say yes to you. And if you’re like, well, I need to close a client by the end of the month, they take three months to make a decision.
Now you know what your time is to close. And it’s critical to be really honest about these things or it’s very difficult to move forward if you’re, one, guessing. I think it probably takes, like, a month. If you don’t know, you really have to get on a call with that persona that you’re more likely to get honest information from.
Find a way to get on a call with them. Any questions about this for the ICP side of things?
Does everybody already have this sorted out?
Clearly, in a way you could hand it off to somebody.
Why haven’t you? Can I ask? And it could just be because, like, busyness, but I’m really curious. Yeah.
Me? Yeah. Katie. Yeah.
Because I am still lost in this model of, like, do I just change industries completely, or, like, am I looking at talking to a higher level person in the industry I’m already in?
Mhmm. Okay.
So, like, is it worth trying to figure out who this is, like, in the coaching space, or do I wanna just be like, you know, if it Joanna says to go to SAS, like, do that and, and dive in?
Yeah. I wonder about, like so I say SaaS because it’s easier, in everything that I’ve seen, but but I’ve also never built a brand in a different space. I’ve never been the one people go to when they’re a coach.
I’ve been asked, you know, a copywriter by all of the big coaches out there, but it’s never been understood to be me. That would be that one. Whenever, like, Joe, can you write this? Because I think they know damn well. Like, I don’t know what I what?
So can you do anything with coaches? How what I really mean is can you find a group that talks to each other so you can get easy referrals, that has ongoing work to do, and that thinks of themselves as a business? Part of the problem with a lot of coaches is that they follow this launch idea, which makes it hard for you to think of it as a business. It’s not until you cross over to Evergreen that in my experience, people seem to understand.
Now I’m a business. Now I’m making regular recurring revenue, not I just did a three million dollar launch, and I’m gonna take three months to freaking decompress because that was so much work.
But is there a way to go upmarket, Katie, for you? Is there an upmarket version of your audience?
Yeah. I definitely think that there is. I just think that, like I think I mentioned this before. It’s kind of like the further up you go, the more people are just teaching, like like, kind of the higher market you go, the less I wanna work with them.
Like Okay.
It’s more then I feel like it gets really and just, like, not the ethos that I wanna be in. Yeah. So, like, I’m in this program with lots of coaches at the, like, multi six to seven figure level, and I see them.
Like, so when I I used to feel like I knew who this ICP was, but then, like, working on the standardized offer, like, wanting to have some like, wanting to have something in that model Yeah.
I don’t think that that, like, ICA that I had previously mapped out wouldn’t necessarily go for the, like, optimization package, and that’s where I’m still, like, trying to marry this altogether.
Yeah. That’s fair.
I have a call booked with Rai, actually. I booked a one along with him for his insight into this market specifically to try and get this nailed down by the end of the week.
So that’s like Oh, damn. Why am I am, like, trying to figure it out.
Nice. Good deadline. I love it. Okay. Cool. So that makes sense. You’re actively working through it, and you’ll know more, hopefully, after talking with Rai.
Okay. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Katie. Anybody else wanna share what’s holding them back from pinpointing a little more, at least, their ICP?
I can, share something. I, I I told you I brought someone on recently, and, this person is someone who I want to take on, this portion of work that we’re doing at the moment with a client who works in ERP solutions Okay. Like NetSuite.
These consultancies, he’s, you know, he he runs a consultancy.
They the the the kind of the smallest versions have a revenue of about half a mil, and it goes all the way up to sort of fifteen to twenty mil before they start to really scale up. And what this client that I work with is, a great client, really, dedicated, but struggles with lead gen. Basically, it’s kind of just running running the business is taking everything. So we’ve developed an offer, sort of following a good chunk of what we’ve been doing, where I’m gonna be pitching, essentially kind of authority building, on LinkedIn, and Reddit because a good chunk of these customers are there, plus maybe a little bit of, lead gen, and sort of pitching it at a sort of ten k initialization and then an ongoing five k retainer.
But this is brand new. We’ve sort of been working day and night to put this together and build the pitch and kind of get into the direct selling sort of direct response, sorry, techniques to to really, like, sell it to this client. And then it was only, like, a week or two ago, we were like, oh, we should also, of course, prepare the like, we’ve developed a whole product now. We should start to look at, like, who else we could sell this to, because the might say no.
And, so we’ve we’ve got a good idea. We know the industry. We know the location. We know the revenue.
We know the employees, the department.
I guess we know the creative team. It’s freelancers.
Budget is trickier to figure out because they hire consultants, on a sort of ad hoc basis to complete their projects.
And I guess the the reason why we don’t have this all filled out is because, I don’t know the level of detail to go into yet.
Okay.
Because it’s new. Right? So that’s because it’s new. Yeah.
Yeah. So, this is a side note. Curious, though, about this pitch that you’re building.
Do you feel like it’s going to be something you can easily replicate for others?
So the whole as we built out this process, we’ve been building basically, we built the whole, service out of soaps. So, as as much as is possible, I will not be involved at all, and this other person will take over so that I can focus on, doing life cycle emails. And but this will be a, sort of a source of revenue for the business, an opportunity to to train this this person to a sort of management position.
So it’s a sort of long it’s sort of like a little bit of upfront work to get some long term distance out of the business.
Okay. Makes sense.
Cool.
So work in progress. Once you have this pitch done, you’ll have a little data. No. One data point is not, like, good.
But it’s better ish than nothing.
So it might be worth at least starting to to fill this in. But right now, you have a general idea of some of these points.
Sure. And I guess the one question I maybe had was if you so I know it’s in ERP solutions.
But to be honest, because of the nature of the service, there’s no real reason why it couldn’t be in, you know, any industry as long as the the company had a motivated founder who wanted to build a personal brand or, you know, and understood the the significance of that. Do you have any, do you have any advice on sort of thinking, laterally across industries for this kind of I know it’s a very sort of different.
No.
Well, that’s simply because I was just thinking so wait. I I now as a total side note. So wait. You want to help people who are in organizations build their personal brand?
Yeah. Well, to general yeah. To build their authority, to to, yeah, to build their their their company’s brand and their own personal brand.
So it’s sideways.
I actually have a lead for you then. They’ll send along to you. Someone just reached out to me for exactly that. So, anyway, I’ll send that to you, and that could be another data point for you to at least get in on a conversation with the what, the why, and all that kind of stuff to help fill this in. So that’s why I got distracted there and couldn’t answer your question because I was like, that’d be cool if I can solve that ask.
Okay. So yours so repeat your question then, please.
I’ve got the words from it, but not how it all goes together.
So so just how to think about I’m you know, I’m I’m basing this on the industry that that this this plan is in because we now I now know it very well. I mean, it works for them. But, you know, reasonably, with maybe a little bit more preparation upfront, we could do this for any industry.
Yeah.
So, do you have any advice about sort of thinking, laterally to move, you know, across industry or or just advice on maybe industries that are likely to have a a wealth of companies that are sort of in the, I I don’t know, one mil to fifteen mil revenue range, small ish teams and motivated founders.
Yeah. So many.
Definitely. Let me let me give some thought to that. I can say if that’s something you wanna do, if you wanna say, hey, founders, I can help you build your brand that is you’re ready to write a book. I assume all of those sorts of things will fit under that. Yep. Yeah.
Then just know that there’s a large market for this. There are a lot of people, a lot of founders who are doing exactly that. But it’s probably worth at minimum starting with one industry still. I would say it’s definitely worth that because then you can say, okay.
If it’s a founder and they’re making so much money, then you can start looking for the influencers, and that would, like, get into, the personas. So they might not even be at that ICP. So I would think of something like, if you’re trying to target those people, then we’d wanna get more into, like, figure out who the influencers are because there’s the SaaS Academy that’s filled with founders who are ready to build their brand. There’s, Matt Lerner with System, and that’s just in, like those are two groups that have founders who are highly motivated to do what it takes to get out into the world so that people use their solution the way that Jason Fried and DHH did for base camp.
So no, but there’s lots there, and let me give it some more thought.
Cool. That’d be amazing. Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks.
Anybody else have anything about ICPs before we move on?
Okay. So when it comes to your ICP, the inverted pyramid, as I mentioned at the start of this call, the inverted pyramid has, like, ICP, and then at the bottom is persona.
That, to me, visually, doesn’t leave enough room for the many personas that might be under there, and this, to me, feels more like pillars. But I I hate old school business diagrams with pillars. I just have a strong aversion to them from my day that Intuit. So I didn’t want this to look like a pillar.
But this is really a question of who are you targeting. So we need to fill in your ideal client profile, which just, like, take everything here and write a statement. Now if you’ve done the intensive freelancing, you’ve already done this work. You’ve already got this figured out. You know already that you will be refining the personas and a little bit of your ICP, but you should have that down, pretty well. Now the personas are, of course, the people at the ICP, typically, that are going to be the ones that you are targeting in your marketing.
But I don’t want you to stop there. And I know this can start to feel like a really big exercise, but if we only ever think about the people that we are targeting with our marketing, then we miss the point of all of the decision makers internally, and other people who help them make a decision. So when you’re thinking of personas, I would like you to think about what I just said to Johnson.
Who are the bigger influencers and make a persona out of one of those key influencers that might be they have a coach. They have an executive coach in Johnson’s case. Right? There’s an executive coach. They’re trying to make them better.
If you were to message toward executive coaches for these founders, then they could be a really good, opportunity for you. Right? But they don’t technically work at the ICP.
If you’re working with really small businesses, maybe they’re highly profitable, very small businesses, it could be the partner of the person who runs that business. So they’re like, the James clears of the world. They’re, like, super well known for one thing. They’re not planning on building a big business out, and their partner or, someone that they trust really closely.
Again, that could be an executive coach. It could be the partner that they have in life. It could be, a person in that they met in a mastermind who they call up all the time for help. So James Clear could say, hey, Nathan Barry.
Let’s hop on a call and talk through this. So one of your personas could be the Nathan Barry’s of the world.
So that would be something to consider. So I don’t just want you to think about only about the personas that you are likely to talk to directly on the path to getting a client, but do start there. Start with the people that you or the person usually that you are likely to, who is usually your point of contact or the one who kicks off working together.
So a good way to go about that, I have found and this is like a blank page for you to fill this in. I’d like you to take just five minutes to basically map out whatever that looks like for your org chart with personas and influencers. Now this org chart doesn’t have lines between it, because it’s really unnecessary. Grower, nobody. No. You can’t eat that plant. Nobody.
You’ve got the so in this case, I have VP of marketing, life cycle lead, and senior copy likely to be people that I connect with directly. The senior copywriter finds me and follows me, and this is if I was working on life cycle as my specialization. That’s the example here. This isn’t for me.
This is for an example of a freelancer who’s working on life cycle. So who’s your primary point of contact? This is the person who’s likely to work with you directly throughout. So the senior copywriter may find you online and start in their meetings with their manager, life cycle lead in this case, let’s say.
They’re in these meetings, and they’re like, hey. I’m really still struggling with x.
But I’ve started following, Abby, and I’m learning this cool stuff. And I wonder if there’s any way we can bring her into the org to help us with why.
And then that person would be the one who actually reaches out to you. Like, okay. Maybe just connect me with them or send me their email address, send me their website, and I’ll look into it. So the life cycle lead could be the actual person who reaches out to you, but your advocate internally might have been the senior copywriter or in other cases, other people.
But this is the example. Right? So if you know, generally, some people watching the replay of this will have been working with an organization or, like, sorry, an ICP for a long time, and they can more clearly document the I say org chart, it really means, like, influencer chart.
They can more easily document that because they’ve set they can say like, I can say for a SaaS company who wants to bring me in to rewrite their website and then optimize it. I know exactly who that point of contact is. I know who the influencer was that like, the advocate who first said we should go with this person. I know where they found me. I generally know when they found me, and I know who has to agree to this, who I have to really impress in order to get them to say yes, to say yes to a large amount of money. So I would know that a senior designer is gonna be involved.
Always brand managers are somehow involved. I gotta get them to believe that I understand brand at the same time I understand CRO. The CFO is gonna be the one approving usually going over budget because almost nobody comes to me and says, like, perfect. That’s exactly what I was hoping you would say.
It’s usually like, shit. Let’s see what we can do. So I have so these are lighter boxes here. These are the people, the CFO, the brand manager, the senior designer, those are people who are likely to come up a lot in meetings and in Google Docs.
So I want you to take five minutes to figure out the key personas that you will be typically talking with, that will find you, that will email you, that will follow you on social and DM you, and then the people who influence them.
Five minutes just to knock it out. Is that cool? Can we do this?
Hopefully, it’s a good useful exercise. I will be quiet until ten forty when I will be noisy again.
How’d we do?
Anybody want to share or talk through what you put down on the page?
Yeah. I I felt like like looking back at my past clients, so, like, seven figure course creators, I think I’m struggling to think of the time where it wasn’t the CEO that reached out to me and kind of approved the work. Like, I’ve maybe once had, like, an ad strategist come to me, but, otherwise, it’s it’s always gonna be the CEO.
And then where I’m struggling there is that like, with printing out content and stuff because it’s like I’m just skeptical whether, like, a CEO is gonna kind of watch my webinar or anything.
Yeah. Do they so then it’s good to look out at influencers. Right? If it’s difficult to get them directly, who influences them? Do they have a coach?
I guess so. Yes. Probably. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. If they’re doing seven figures, they probably have a coach because a coach probably targeted them at some point and sold themselves to them.
That’s at least been my experience is having coaches reach out, probably why I have three of them. And then, if you were to find that they have a coach or they’re part of a mastermind, have you experienced that at all that they’re part of a mastermind or they’re coached?
Yeah. I mean, I this is something I’ve been thinking about for years because it seems like such a strategic way to market, but I just I’ve not found, like, those masterminds.
Okay.
Yeah. I would say the next thing, you you just need to identify who first has introduced them to you or could introduce them to you, where has is the better one, but could is still an opportunity.
How do they find you? Who says at Usually Facebook groups. Facebook groups.
Yeah.
Or, like, LinkedIn.
But it’s always the, like, the founder that that reaches out, not a member of the group.
Figure or six figure? Yeah. Yeah. Seven figures. And they’re involved in Facebook groups that aren’t run by a coach.
Sometimes it’s their Facebook group.
Oh, okay. So what can be all so I don’t know if anybody else has any thoughts, but we know that they don’t summon us from the air. Right? We are not genies out of a lamp. We have to come from somewhere. They have to find us somewhere. They have to build a belief in us somehow.
Our job is to write down the path and figure out, like, who on that path is is the person that’s most likely to open the door for us.
So I would encourage you to really dig into it, Abby. If it’s always a Facebook group that they run, then that’s just good to know. Then you can say, okay. The CEO is always my number one persona. They’re the one I’m gonna reach out to all the time.
And if they find me in a Facebook group, then that’s not about this at all. That’s just gonna be marketing that further fleshes out your, both your ICP and your persona because they’re obviously hiring the Facebook group to do something for them slash for their business. So that’s just good to know.
Is it what you think the future ideal client looks like? Do you think it’ll be the same sort of experience, or do you have reason to believe the next group that you target the or sorry, the next group that, should be hiring you that they will find you the same way.
I mean, I don’t know. I think this is the trouble is, like, I find it, like, I find the ideal avatar exercises really hard because it it’s like, well, if I’m not kind of engaging with them already, like, how do I know what they like, who they are or what they want and how to speak to them?
Yeah. You have to speak to them. That is actually the work of it. It’d be nice if there was an easier way.
But the easier way is ultimately, usually, the harder way anyway if you like. Yeah. Buy insights somehow.
You’ll probably eventually end up having to go back to, you know, I actually do have to just get on a call and talk with them.
And how do you do that?
Oh, you gotta find them. That’s LinkedIn sales navigator. Try to find them. Yeah. And then DM them and offer them a really compelling offer to get on a call with you so you can pick their brain and get that advice that you need.
But that will be that’s the work.
What are sorry to Jen. What are some of those compelling offers just, you know, for fun?
What what their currency? Like, what moves them? If you know that you’re working with heart centered people, you could say, hey. So you have to ask yourself, what is this call worth to me potentially?
Is this a thousand dollar call for me? Would I pay a thousand bucks to get information out of them? If I knew I was paying a thousand dollars, then what questions would I ask? So you probably have better questions because you’re like, I’m gonna get the most of this thousand bucks, for an hour.
On their end, they’re like, holy. An hour is a long time for me to tell you how to target people like me, so you better make it worth a thousand bucks to me. So let’s say, you know that your ideal your persona, the one you are trying to reach out to, loves dogs, then you can say, okay. My offer is I’ll make a thousand dollar donation to the soy, I think it’s pronounced soy, s o I, dog foundation on your behalf if you get on this call with me for an hour and really get honest with me about this sort of thing. That could be a great offer, but not everybody will have the same offer because everybody is moved by different things.
So I would say the more you know about that person so research them on LinkedIn. Follow every other thing that you can. This is a this is, like, critical work. Right? This is how you potentially shape a multimillion dollar business.
I was talking to my team about this earlier, and I’m not saying this about you at all, but the money that we have to put up to start an online business is so minor compared to a florist. I wanna start a flower shop. There’s so much friction, so much money that has to go into that. This is this is the kind of thing where you have such an advantage over, like, a florist. You make more money than they ever will as well.
But this is the investment. This is like filling out the lease and spending money on leasing the space.
This is that hard cost for you. Find a thousand bucks. Do the hard research of figuring out who you need to talk to at what organization, what they need to hear from you in order to say yes hopping on a call with you.
Do that work, and you could have literally millions of dollars in value there. Don’t do the work. Have you guys seen that that that diagram of the easy life versus the hard life?
It’s like you I’ll I’ll find the diagram and send it to you. It’s like you ask easy questions, and your life it’s easy until you have to climb back. I’ll show you the diagram. It’ll make a lot of sense, but it’s the hard work.
You’re doing the hard thing. You’re valuing it the way you expect to be valued as well, by giving it a thousand bucks or whatever that is. And then, just make sure make sure you make the most of it. Does that all make sense?
A hundred percent. That makes perfect sense because I wanna do this for, life cycle emails too. That is my next job. Yeah. So that’s, mega super duper helpful. Thank you, Jeff.
Cool. Awesome. Abby, how are you?
Yeah. I’m just thinking, like so if I was gonna do five interviews and be like, okay. I’ll donate five thousand dollars for those five.
If, like, they’re the wrong people, then I’m gonna be like, like, really on time.
That’ll be a giant waste of money. Yeah. I mean, it’s good you donated. It’s not a waste, but for you, they’ve you that’s why you have to make sure it’s the right person. So the best you can do is start with one.
So who is the purse so if you actually believe that it is the CEO who reaches out to you Mhmm.
Then you need to find the CEO of this seven figure training business and really make sure that that they’re the one.
And that’s good. That’s the thing. But just do one first. Don’t book five of these things out of the gate because you might find that although the CEO has reached out to you in the past, just like in this diagram, life cycle lead is likely to reach out to me, not the senior copywriter, but senior copywriter was the one who found me.
So you need to first talk to the CEO who you hypothesize is the person and ask them as a question. Like, really dig into it. Don’t take the first answer. Don’t even take the seventh answer.
Like, dig deep into how they found you, and we’re willing to take that leap to hop on a call with you. You could find out that someone they listen to mentioned looking for a copywriter in a podcast. I don’t know what it is. You don’t know what it is, but you’ll find out when you do that first interview.
Just do them one at a time. Give yourself time to synthesize what you learn so that you can ask better questions the next time and make sure you’re talking with the right person. By the time you reach number five, you know you’ve spoken with the right person slash people.
Yeah. Don’t book five out of the gate. Okay. Just a point. Okay. Cool. Awesome.
How’s everybody else feeling, Katie? How are you doing?
Yeah. I mean, the personas, like, was clear for, I feel like, my current slash, like, slightly art market ICA, like, CEO, CMO, whether it’s fractional or, like, some kind of marketing person in house, then they typically have a VA or an OBM who does, like, the CRM management.
Then I’ve I’ve dealt with, like, the social media manager, if you remember that issue on the call, and the designer. And then I know that I’ve been recommended by, like, a content strategist. Mhmm.
I know a big one for me and, like, Abby, maybe this is helpful for you, but, like, I’ve had kind of two big rounds of clients come through a coach who has hired me and then recommended me within their masterminds.
So, like, one client who’s probably responsible for, like, forty percent of the business I’ve had, she uses my freebies in her group programs as resources, and then people come to me through that. But, like, that’s, you know, that’s a market that I’m, like, moving beyond, but it has so now I’m like, okay. How do I get in, like, the next level mastermind to have that same kind of effect? Yes. And that’s where I guess yeah. Sorry.
Go. Keep going.
Well, this is just, like Yeah.
That I mean, that’s, like, great, and I love that. And the idea of, like, something like, okay. Marketing, like, road to pursue is, like, teaching in more mastermind like, group, guest teaching in more programs.
But then I just I’m like, I have my my existing of, like, stuff that I’ve created and trainings that I’m ready to do, but I don’t know if any of that is relevant to who I wanna be speaking to now.
And I think I’m having this bigger, like, identity crisis around, like, do I really leave behind everything that I’ve created up till now, or, like, should I really just be doing a better job of marketing everything that I’ve already created?
Yeah.
It’s a tough call. Right? Sometimes the answer is yes. You do have to cut ties with everything that you’ve done in order to move on to what’s next.
Sometimes that’s really, really the true thing, and it’s the hard thing. But it doesn’t have to be. Right? You possibly could do you think people who value what you do and can afford your services are in are are somewhere in this audience you already have access to?
Well, I don’t know if you remember when you looked over my, like, visibility funnels offer idea, but, like, my stretch audience was still way below who you were telling me to go for. So it’s like maybe.
Yeah. Yeah.
I can tell you that I know it can I know it’s scary? I get that it’s totally scary. If it helps, we at CopyHackers are making hard cuts in our audience.
Very hard cuts, intentionally. And it means like, okay. We built this really great, solid seven figure with lots of profit business with this one group, but they’re not the future for us. They’re not what’s next.
And it’s hard to it’s technically difficult to say goodbye to that audience.
But how else are we gonna grow? You know? How else are we going to we’re going to have the business that we envision as a team going forward, if we just we have to let them go. And for us, it’s actually been exciting that Alex Catani is on the scene now because she’s serving a lot of, like, brand new freelancers, and I’m so happy to say, like, go learn from Alex.
Don’t don’t don’t hang out here. I don’t have anything for you. I and I do have things for them. I have lots of things for them, but that’s not the future.
So just know that it is a hard decision a lot of us has to have to make, to say no to a certain audience in order to open ourselves up for what’s next. And it’s risky, but that’s the business that we’re in. It’s all about reward for risk and sometimes getting a punch in the face for taking the risk too. And that’s just, like, the freaking joys of what we’ve signed up for.
So I don’t know. If you’re struggling to believe that the people who can afford you and value you are in your current audience without having to shake them off entirely because it’s scary too. And, potentially, scary also means, like, costly because you’re you’re saying no to things.
What can you do to mitigate that risk?
How can you and I just Mhmm. Oh, I’m so bad at this part of it because my gut is always just just just jump into the next pond, both feet in, just jump.
And not a lot of people want to, but when you dip your toe, I don’t know that you get the same rewards versus jumping all in.
But I also am extremely comfortable with risk.
Yeah.
I feel like I have, I have a retainer client and, like, payment plan that cover my bills for, like, the next four months.
Okay.
So I’m kind of like, okay. That’s, like, that’s there. So I do have this space to be doing this work. It’s just, yeah, like, that feeling of I’m because I know that, like, the the work that I get in three months is based on the marketing that I’m doing now. So, like, am I gonna drive off a cliff in into which when, you know, if that when that payment plan ends and that retainer offer is over, like, will there be anything left to to pick up?
Yeah.
Anyway, I’m I’m I’m I can do, like, mindset work around that, but, yeah, that’s where I’m at with the full audience shift.
Okay. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I think that’s huge that you’re even considering making the shift.
It’s also a really nice sign that you’ve got a cushion right now, for the next couple of months at least. So is there ever gonna be a safer time to make this call? Like, it feels like with the cushion, you’re covered, sounds like, for the next four months.
This could be the best time in your business history to really make this call.
It’s just you have to make the call, which is so challenging.
Not as fun as we want it to be.
Always fun when you look back later, like, oh, it was the best call ever.
But in the moment, stuff.
Okay. Thanks, Katie. Have you talked to Kirsty about any mindset stuff around making that change?
Not lately. But I feel like I’m in the so the other program that I’m in with all these coaches is very mindset focused.
So, like, I do a lot of stuff around that. It’s just the it’s more the practical like, what Johnson was asking about, like, actually getting in front of people Yeah.
Like, where to find them and how to figure out who actually has the budget and the priorities.
Have you used LinkedIn sales navigator? Like, have you given it a shot?
No. I don’t I’m not on LinkedIn at all.
My yeah. We’re I’m I’ve been very focused on, like, SEO and blogging Yeah. Which I know is, like, also on my on my little website. It probably gets little traffic. But that’s where like, other than direct referrals, that’s where most of my people come from.
Interesting.
Yeah. If you’re wondering about I would just say, like, go put together a quick LinkedIn profile. Say yes to the ninety seven bucks for LinkedIn sales navigator and just see if you can start.
What I find is useful with Sales Navigator is even if you don’t do anything with it right away, you can at least say, cool. There is a market out there. Cool. There are like, you could find that there are five thousand coaches, and then you can start narrowing down with their filters a bit more to the point where potentially you could reach out to a few of them and say, can I pick your brain? I’m trying to figure this stuff out. Yeah. Cool.
And, of course, you’ve got the group that you’re in, which probably has some of these coaches you can also just Mhmm.
Ask. Yeah. Okay. Cool, Katie. Johnson?
Yep. So, I because I’ve missed a few things. I remember seeing someone else and talk about SaaS navigator. Have you you’ve have you covered you’ve covered that in something somewhere?
Lightly. We covered it a few weeks ago. I think it was in CSP.
Really lightly, the new copy school professional dot com.
Sarah, I know we just talked about it this morning.
Tina, maybe you know the answer. Wait. Sarah’s coming on screen.
When Why you hate me?
Why do you gotta hate me on this?
When will Johnson have access to?
I don’t know. When is Johnson gonna work on it? Just kidding.
Johnson would I wanna say by the end I’d wanna say by the end of this week.
Okay. So then you’ll be able to answer.
I’ve been snacking on working on, the CSP website. That’s my bad.
Yeah. Thank you for finally admitting that.
It’s it’s about time.
Awesome. Yeah. By the end of this week, we’ll have a link so it’s already invitation.
Awesome. Oh, there we go. Stacy says it was April twenty second. Thanks, Stacy.
So you can go back through some close to that.
I’m not sure on the exact date, but around then.
Okay. Wicked. Thank you.
Okay. So we have about fifteen minutes, because I actually have unfortunately, someone booked a meeting immediately at quarter after instead of thirty after, thirty past. So my bad.
The High-Class Problem Sell
The High-Class Problem Sell
Transcript
Today is, copywriting lesson, and then that’s followed an AMA that will go until we’re just done talking.
There’s a small group of us today, so no need to, maybe it’s just like a good time if you have, like, something you’re going through that you maybe didn’t want to share with more people or something, which I know happens.
It could be a good time to talk through that today too. So, as usual, be ready to bring any questions that you got any wins to preface them, and that can be any kind of win, just celebrating those good things that happen. This is being recorded. The worksheet for today’s session already went out that went out on Friday. It is the high class problem sell, which I’m really excited about. We’ve used it a couple times. And then I’ll show you the one example for a new page in progress that we’re working on, and how we use it there.
But as usual, yeah, just kind of be with me here, set your intention, just be present, closing down other distractions. If you can, I know life is real and all around us, but, whatever you can do to just kind of ignore your phone for a bit and other, you know, notifications that come in?
Yeah, everybody’s feeling cool. I’m I’m feeling really good today. Awesome. Okay. So open up that work If you haven’t already, got it open.
I will only share my screen if you don’t know what worksheet I’m talking about. Because what I’m going to do today is, a little different format that we’re trying for our training now which so far I quite like, but I’ve never done it live. And I have never done it one live, two unsupported by somebody on my team who can, like, talk and fill in the gaps while I’m like, oh, no. The text’s broken. So we’re just gonna try it here today, and see what happens.
But yeah. So the context for this is, you’ve got. I mean, we have so many ways to try to get into stories, into the argument that we wanna make when we’re writing copy.
Lots of different things that you can do but sometimes when it comes down to it and you’re actually writing the page or writing the email, I find that things can feel boring and repetitive pretty fast, not for your right not for your reader necessarily, but for you as a copywriter, I mean, we do data driven things and use better practices and frameworks, etcetera, but it can be tedious sometimes when it’s like a rule of three. So you’re always hitting three points in a row and it’s just like, kinda wanna break out of it. So that’s how I feel about it. The longer you write copy, the more likely you are to feel that way too.
If if this isn’t resonating, stick around. It’s going to eventually. So I like finding and identifying, and I’m sure you do too, identifying little new ways to attack parts of pages in particular. So what I’m gonna show you today is from a long form sales page, I first saw it on someone else’s long form sales page.
I wanna say a bazillion years ago, but it could have been last year. It all blends into one now. And I was really I was really interested it. So I kinda broke it apart and tried to reverse engineer what they were doing.
Tried it in a sales email for our freelancing school, promotion over the Black Friday weekend.
And, yeah, I’m feeling kinda cool about how it could be an unlock for you when you’re stuck. So, I’m going to share Just half a second while I choose the right one.
Okay.
Cool. So you should be seeing my iPad now.
Oh, are you?
Yeah.
Fancy.
I’ve just never shared my iPad before. So, but this is where we’re going to be working today. So This is an example of the opening of that that sales page that we’re working on for copy school pro. So you set up a big promise, like big.
The bigger, the better, and it doesn’t have to be a promise necessarily as in we promise you’ll get this. But something that’s really going to grab their tension. So really thinking about your audience and what they’re trying, what they most want. And that’s where on the worksheet, we have the, what’s really good about this is I can use three monitors now, which is cool.
We’ve got good outcome and then a high class problem. So we often talk about the good outcomes that people have. And these are good outcomes. These here are good outcomes that you might be looking for.
Right? It’s not a promise because it’s in the first person in quotation marks, which, of course, as anybody who has taken any of my training knows, unless I feel like I’m saying it all the time, but maybe I’m not, first person headlines in quotation marks are my favorite across the board. So how I, big thing, big thing, big thing, ending with the big thing, and then and then overcoming an objection right here.
But don’t you need a lot of money that, etcetera. So with the fifty thousand dollar ad budget, which is basically nothing. Okay. So we’re capturing their attention.
I’m not this doesn’t mean it’s ADA. I know as soon as I hear its attention, doesn’t mean it’s ADA. It might be though. But we’re gonna break it really fast.
So don’t try to look too hard for a framework here yet. Okay. Then we get into kind of something a little bit old school. So that is this.
Step one is opening up this idea that there will be something that follows later, a step two. So a small, not curiosity gap, but like an open loop. Right? There’s more to come.
This is just the first step, even if you forget that later. The point is not that you’re waiting around for step two, but it’s an interesting way to start, opening up that attention into something more kind of like a little more intrigue.
Re time, really old school. You don’t have to do any of this stuff for the framework that I’m teaching you or the cell that I’m teaching you today to work. I’m just walking you through kind of the decisions that were made here.
From the desk of, again, old school. I do like old school, founder of copy hackers, grader of copy school, inventor of conversion copywriting, and this is an important thing, mother of kittens, just because what we’re about to get into, we need to set a tone. So far, the tone is kind of bro y. Right? Like, look at all the, you know, money you can make and crap like that. And that can feel a little bit weird.
The tone can be a little bit. We have to make what I’m trying to do here is set it up so that we can have a little bit of fun going forward because this framework, as I’ve used it, has been about tapping into, like, a little bit of fun. The high class problem cell is, like, we’re going to talk about some high class problems And if you make it sound like a problem, that’s not gonna work. Right? Like, that’s the bad thing we don’t want to do.
Okay. So I’m just gonna pop over to the next one. So then we get into the next part of the page.
So we set set up this big cool thing that you can do. Oh, Sorry here. Let me just go back to this. So it opens with so I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve landed on this isn’t the first page you’ve landed on with big promises and enticing numbers.
And I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? And this really means you could have put almost anything before this part. So I’ll get to that in a second is like, again, you could have done anything before that.
Accept what follows here in these bullets that are about to follow down here is we’re basically building on that cool outcome. So let’s say your cool outcome that you’re trying to hook somebody with is you’re gonna land a thousand customers in a month. You’re gonna land a thousand thousand dollar customers in a month. Really big, really desirable thing that they want that would, attract their attention.
And then from there, we’re going to find that less desirable outcome of that thing, the high class problem. So again, it could be anything to open.
But we want the bullets that follow the good outcomes and then the high class problems, to speak to that thing that just hooked them. So we have, and I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? Then we have good outcome, Deliver World class copy.
Number one thing. It’s gonna be short in, like, actual length because we’re trying to pull them in. So a short bullet most of the sentences are short at this point. As you can see, they all end here.
Make lots of money for your clients or team and also for yourself good outcome. Cool. And now we start getting into the high class problems associated with those good outcomes, and we spend more time on them because we’re having more fun with it. We’re just kind of like enjoying our time talking to our prospect about the things they want being frankly as we’re about to see similar to the things that, we want.
So do you actually want to have super smart people ping you late at night when they’ve needed, when they need to crack a conversion problem when you become their go to copywriter? That’s a high class problem. You just got a ping in the middle of the night, but it’s pretty solid because someone cool is asking you for help and they trust you a lot. Do you really want to?
Do you actually want to go through life with a sense of guilt that everything is falling into your lap and you haven’t had to toil in the coal mine or perform open heart surgery after building years of schooling to get it? Wanna get so good at selling products that jealous people begin whispering about you and you have to start hanging out with a whole new crew of high achieving nerds? These are high class problems. And the reality is your prospect should want them.
Right? So then we say great. Then you and I want the same things, and then you continue on telling the rest of the story and still building on the stuff that you did. Although I can’t help you with another high class problem, which is the anxiety that overachievement brings or an outcome of a high class problem recommend a marriage counselor for when you spend half your summer texting with a network of smart people who’ve sought you and your genius out.
I can do these things, and then you get into what those things are, and that’s what we’re really here to talk about. But you’re capturing their tension with this like unexpected outcome.
And it’s not just the usual good news, good news, good news, life is always gonna get better as you get better and the levels are higher. Life is like way better. There’s real problems that are gonna come with it, but we’re not positioning them as problem problems. Just as a high class problem. Does this make sense?
Can you imagine how you might use this in your work?
Potentially? Okay. Cool.
So I’ll stop sharing that part and then just quickly walk through the worksheet.
So that you’ve got it. Okay. So the high class problems sell, as always, the worksheet and lesson will help you find a new way into writing about comes so that new way in particularly if you’re bored, but also if you just wanna try something else. Write sales emails or sales pages with that What you wanna do is list out your good outcomes and then the high class problem that comes with it. And this is the framework effectively, bit of a template for you to use. Cool.
Have what you need to use it. Alright. I’m not gonna make you. We can go through and do an exercise if you’d like to try it out. Otherwise, we can just kind of hop into question time or talking time.
Good talking time. Does anybody have any questions they wanna bring to the table today?
Everyone’s quiet.
Do you wanna do this as an exercise?
Go right for something? Okay. I think that’s a good use of time. So what I would love for you to do if you have a productized service, if you have a package of some kind, anything that you already have pre written copy for. So ideally not for a new campaign or something.
Anything that you might have on your site today or that you wish you had on your site today?
I would like you to take the next ten minutes to come up with the good outcomes and the high class problems and then try to fill this part in.
Doable?
Okay. Cool. I’m gonna stop sharing.
And then be sure to come off mute if you have any questions as going through it, and we’ll be back in ten minutes.
Joe, can I ask a quick question?
Love it. Yes.
I’m really I really struggle with ten saying. Right? It’s just my thing.
Like, am I am I writing it, like, in the future terms as or, like, am I writing it as if it’s happening or so it’s do you actually want to in the future?
Yes. So do you actually want to but it’s still written in the present tense. Deliver, not will deliver. So deliver world class copy. Do you actually want to And then it’ll just follow in, I guess, the imperative, really, because it’s just two. Does that make sense?
Yeah. It’s just my noob thing. Like, this is why I can’t write fiction because I struggle with Ted’s sake. That no.
That’s like Latin. Did you take Latin in school?
No.
Oh, okay. That messed me up for some things. So when I when people struggle with these things, I’m like, oh, you probably took Latin. So yeah, this is just like, do you actually want to, and then these are all just present tense. Do you want to have a call that sort of thing. Right? Just happening right now.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Jay. Sure.
Alright. Should we talk about that’s how to go?
Any luck?
Did it suck? Was it awesome? Is it hard? Did you get anywhere?
That was fun. I liked it.
Okay. What’d you work on, Abby?
I did for my day one evergreen package.
And, yeah, what I like about it is because, I find myself, like, using the same kind of messaging it with different clients like this kind of like, you can make more money. You can make six figures, and it’s starting to feel, like, quite stale. So I like the the high problem approach is a farmer around that, and I feel like it really boosts credibility because you’re not just saying, like, this is how awesome, like, life is. It’s like. Yeah. Yeah, take them out. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Okay. Cool. That’s wicked. That’s how I feel about it too. Like, it’s just a more interesting way to position of good outcome?
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Everybody else needs them any anything that didn’t feel that good or, like, you’re not it’s not clicking.
It wouldn’t work for you maybe.
I like that it’s very fresh, but it feels a little bit it feels a little bit exaggerated to me.
It feels a little bit Oh, yeah.
It’s on the sales. Page.
It’s gonna be a little. I hear you there. So what would you what how would you modify it?
Any idea?
Well, I mean, the the goals that I have are are more immediate goals. But the tone feels a little bit of still feels a little bit much even though the actual things I’m writing about are realistic.
Okay. Can you read yours and just share so we can hear what that sounds like?
Yeah. So I am looking at the, the service page I have for, PVC.
So Google Landing Pages and, social ads. So I wrote do you actually want to watch your pipeline fill up with qualified leads effortlessly?
Capture all of the great top of funnel demand your social media. Is generating, become so efficient at attracting new leads that AEs are so overwhelmed with demos that they tell you to slow down the campaign so they can focus on the lead they have and attract so many good opportunities that you actually cringe when influencers cry about pmax ridiculously broad, broad campaigns, and Google’s ever changing algorithm on LinkedIn over and over again.
But the tone, the tone still feels off to me even though those are like very realistic. Things.
Okay. What feels off to you? I guess I wonder as, like, for me, I I heard it and I was like, cool. That sounds dope. That sounds like Yeah. Who wouldn’t react well to that?
Some won’t. Some won’t. But usually, those are the people who are just like I I won’t I won’t think about those ones as much as the people who are like, yeah, I’d like to have that problem, you know, and you’re like really getting there, but how did everybody else feel when you were hearing it?
Any notes for Naomi?
I thought it was really cool. I liked it. Yeah. I didn’t feel like the tone was off. I mean, obviously, I don’t know what you’re going for, like, generally with your tone, but, yeah, I thought it was cool.
Okay. Yeah.
I didn’t feel like the tone pull up either, but yeah, again, same as Abby, but the tone didn’t seem like off to me for off footing.
And I know it can feel like a certain audience, your audience, Naomi, wouldn’t respond well to that, and you may absolutely be right. I would just be curious to test it out, give it a shot, see if they do.
Yeah.
Cool. Awesome. Anyone else wanna share?
Yeah. I’ll share mine. I’ll be. I’ll be able to get feedback on it. Okay. Cool.
It’s a bit it’s obviously a bad fish drop. Okay.
But let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to wake up to sales every day, automate your entire sales process? Miss out on the I mean, Rausch, you usually get when you get a sales notification because it happens so darn frequently that the sensible thing to do is to turn stripe notifications off altogether.
Stop having those indulgent. Ugh, it’s just so stressful conversations with fellow course creators because you’ve hopped off the live launch roller coaster and are now making launch size revenue while on vacation.
Having awkward tail between your legs conversation with your SSO when they ask why you spent twenty k on ads this month and you have to loan that you turned that twenty k into two hundred and twenty k, and now you’d like to buy a vacation rental five minutes down the road from the end loss.
It’s fun. That’s fun. Those are some high class problems to have to have that awkward conversation anyway.
I just can’t relate to the last point about moving close to your in laws. But other than that, it was so infuriating that you’re that good at writing copy that quickly, which I always tell you that.
That’s awesome. Yeah. It really does it was what I liked was. It was so great about qualifying who she’s speaking to. It’s ridiculous.
I mean, if you can’t relate to that, you’re gone and Yeah.
It’s a good side effect. Right? Like, all of these other outcomes of that. That’s really a really good point.
Yeah. Thanks, Jessica.
And you can tell you had fun writing it. It doesn’t sound like it was a slog or you, like, it gets I think it’s exciting. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that it’s, like, it’s a fun framework to use. It’s, like, nice to to deviate from, like, the usual, like, I just always use PAS.
So Yes. Same. Yeah. Cool. Anyone else wanna share? Jessica?
Yeah. Let me follow Abby.
Jessica.
No. I honestly I mean, I could It was for my seasonal sale thing, which I think you know I’m fleshing out to turn from a what used to be a productized service like thing to a signature.
So I and actually I get I don’t know if this is I think where I struggle is the whole dream state because I feel like I haven’t confirmed this desire for a e commerce client yet. That they really see the connection between. No. No. You can really double your, you can increase your sales for your seasonal sale. But at the same time, you can be creating these long term relationships.
And so it kind of I think that’s where I struggle. So, I mean, I can read you parts of it, but it you know, it’s nowhere near what Abby’s is and it’s partial as per usual with me. Jessica.
Read the whole m thing.
We wanna hear get to that.
Do you actually want to double your next seasonal sale revenue? See a massive increase in LTV over the next? Whatever months, clear out your inventory and have to work quickly with your team to figure shit out. Provide on-site therapy because your team dressing out and worried they can’t get orders out on time, which will inevitably lead to unhappy customers.
And that’s as far as I got.
Cool.
Took a little extra negative on the last one there. It wouldn’t pull back on that one a bit, but no. It was good.
It’s yeah. Just make sure it stays a high class problem. Like Okay. Well, yeah. Like, my diamond shoes are too tight. That’s gotta be the effect. Right?
So yeah.
Okay.
Cool. Cool. Love it. Jessica, you did that so fast. Really?
Oh, thank you. I’m always asking I’m begging Abby for tutorials on how to be fast. That’s what I wanna know.
You just did it.
Nice.
Nice. Cool. Anyone else?
I won’t put you on the spot by calling on you, but I’m probably looking at you.
No one.
Alright. Alright, Katie. Welcome to the crew. You just missed the the tutorial there, but you’ll get the replay after. So I think it I think we had fun with it.
So yeah. Now, if anybody has any questions or wants to talk shop, what are you going through right now? What should you be working on that you’re not that we can help, like, unlock? Jillian.
Okay. I have well, I’ll start with a win. It’s not a money win. I guess I shared that in Slack recently, but my current win is that, I’ve been severely low in iron for like my whole life and didn’t know it.
So I was like this year I’ve been like fainting and like feeling really dizzy and I’m finally back a normal iron level. So it means I can exercise again, which is life changing. So I wasn’t really able to exercise this past year. But it really helps with, like, energy and productivity.
And it’s really Yes. Exciting. So I was going to use it in Doing a lot of stuff.
Congrats. That’s amazing. Yes.
So that’s why I win.
Coming with a little more energy.
Huge. Energy is everything. Yes.
Everything. Yeah.
So on that note, my question is maybe a bit unwieldy, but as I mentioned, I’m like I was going through your training again from a couple weeks ago.
Started watching Shane’s training.
And I’m thinking about, like, the brand also reading PenX is easier than two x, and so I just feel like I have a lot of ideas. Swirling and kinda wanted to like throw them out there and just like get some thoughts.
So I’m focusing on pricing pages, which is a new, you know, I haven’t worked in SaaS that much. I worked with a lot of different companies on websites, a little bit of SaaS that like kind of across the board. So I’m trying to figure out how to balance, like, my current client, and so I do websites with who are not SaaS primarily, and still have, like, my website is geared towards that. I kinda wanna put up a different website so that I can still serve my current customers in the meantime and not be like out money and just, you know, diving into this new thing. Yeah. So the idea that I have is, like, I know you said the brand really starts with, like, your opinion and your viewpoint, which I feel like I’m still developing, but I have, like, a general idea since no one’s really talking about pricing pages yet, which is that like everyone’s kinda missing the point. Of the pricing page, like, they’re all doing it wrong, basically.
And that’s, like, very general. There’s more that goes into it, but the the name that I have or the idea for, like, a book and a podcast and maybe, like, my site, I’m wondering if they can all be the same, is, like, the pricing point. I’m talking about how I don’t know if that’s, like, even a good title or not, but that’s the idea that I’ve been working with. Okay.
Just like, yeah, talking about how everyone’s missing the point, and like they’re all treating it like, you know, they’re putting so much time into their other pages and optimizing, and then they get to the pricing point and it’s just like they get to the pricing page and everything just deflates. Like, that’s the point of the sale, and it’s like, you know, very matter of fact. Here’s the even big brands, like even huge companies they look at are doing this. I think they’re all kinda dropping the ball at that point.
When it should be like the height of excitement value and, like, it’s the most critical point. Yeah. Absolutely. I know it’s a big I’m like rambling now, but, like, I’m just wondering if, like, Should I go in this direction? Because I’m, like, wanting to start doing this stuff, but I just, like, wanna know if that makes sense if it’s, like, on the right track to start with.
Okay.
I’ll jump in first and anybody who would like to add anything.
I’m so happy that you’re doing this, Jillian. Like, I know I’ve expressed that to you, but men, there’s nothing but room out there for this. And it’s it’s like, that’s it’s the money page. Right? Like, it seems like such an easy sell once you start raising awareness for the problem.
Sounds like you understand what your point of view is. I know you said it’s developing, but it’s like y’all are doing it wrong. Like, that’s a good place to start. Right?
Especially since it’s, like such a blue ocean still. There’s not that much competition out there. So I think it’s safe to go with something big like you’re doing it all wrong. Like, full stop.
That’s it. Like, you’re I’m you’re gonna need a lot of help, and I can help you with that. It leaves a lot of room for you to have thought leadership, and to say contrary in things or to, like, make them aware of things that they hadn’t had any clue about, which is always good for, you know, likes on so and comments and things like that. So the pricing point, how did you get to that name?
I don’t know. How do we get to anything?
There. I think it like came to me first. I also thought the URL was available. Also it kind of like ties into this whole thing of like like maybe I can say what the point is. Like, everyone’s missing the point. Like, they think the point is this, but the point is really this.
And also, like, Yeah. I don’t know. That was kind of the the main. And it seemed like kinda short and Yes. It’s not gonna be a subhead.
Like, if it was a book, there’d be like a subhead of I don’t know what that is yet, but Yep.
Totally agree. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think great. And it does, like Jessica chatted out.
Leaves a lot of room for expansion.
Yeah, and you can speak to value, like, what the actual point of pricing is. Right? And those are bigger conversations that are really intriguing. Yeah.
Everyone loves it.
Yeah.
Who else wants to share thoughts with Jillian?
Can I can I offer a, perspective? Sure.
When it comes to SAS, you should keep in mind that there are a lot of very complicated SaaS products that don’t have a pricing page because a lot of that happens in sales negotiation.
Because a lot of times they have to customize the software to fit the solution.
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be like a fifty thousand dollar software product. It happens at lower pricing points too, and a lot of companies choose not to put pricing anywhere on the website because either they’ve tested it or they believe that adding the pricing will increase the, or will reduce conversion rate, regardless of whether that’s true or not. That’s what a lot of companies think. And it may be true on desktop versus mobile or the reverse.
So I would make I think that it would be worth while to expand the conversation, they use because they they usually have a plans page that just doesn’t have pricing on it and it goes through like what you would get with the enterprise suite versus the mid tier versus the small, mini business tier. So I would make sure to not leave them out of the conversation.
Because there are a lot of companies that fit into that category, and your point can still be relevant. It would just have to be adapted to a much more business mindset.
Well, and I think that that’s a fair point. I think it does speak to the need to just identify who that audience is.
I think the SaaS that you’re talking about, Jillian, are people who have Who have.
Have a debt that says pricing in the nav of which there are bajillion so versus people who have sales teams. So we’re talking more people who are product led growth and are likely to have pricing pages at some point that they, and usually, visitor facing ones, and then behind the scenes.
Post use post activation ones. Yeah. Is that accurate, Jillian?
Yeah. That makes that makes sense. But, yeah, it’s a great point, Naomi.
Thanks for thanks for Yeah.
There’s a huge market. SaaS is enormous, obviously.
So it’s just really identifying. Okay. These are although it can be useful to get the enterprises that don’t have pricing pages, it’s just like anybody who doesn’t have copy. It’s really I can’t do much for you.
Like, you’re gonna need to believe in copy or else. It’s like, I can’t sell you copy school, and you can’t sell a person without a pricing page. Pricing page insights. So cool.
Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Anybody else wanna share?
With Jillian or feedback on what Jillian’s working on.
Nope. Awesome.
Jillian, you feeling good?
Yeah. I love that.
It’s like a book cover.
Yeah. And it gives it fine to have, like, you know, a, like, a book, like, if it was a book and a podcast, and, like, even the site, like, just have it all have the same name, like, even where I’m selling my services, keep the same name for everything.
That’s I mean, g n Claire did that with forget the funnel. Yeah. Everything is forget the funnel.
And I mean, juries out. It’s they’re doing, like, a bad ass business. So I would say it’s probably, like, a good Studiesing that story brand, same thing.
Mhmm.
Yeah. So probably okay. A thing to overthink at least.
Okay. I well, I got the URL for it, so I think it’ll just, like, start and I can keep my current site, like, with my current customers.
And kind of start doing the new thing at the new place.
Yeah. Totally. Totally. Cool.
Oh, thanks everyone.
Thanks. Thanks for sharing a nice win.
Excellent. Life changing.
I mean, energy for real though. Like, I have a new energy going with some life changes that I’ve made too, and it’s like energy. It’s a good thing. It changes everything. So that’s cool.
Anybody else wanna share what they’re working on or going through or struggles? Esther Grace.
Hey. Can everyone hear me?
Yep.
Okay. Awesome. So a win. I shared this in channel already, but copy hack is closed. Still excited about that.
Well done.
Thank you. And okay. So I need help with lead generation.
So I’ve nailed down my ideal clients, my customer avatar, all of that.
My offer, even a bit of the delivery system, But right now, I really just want to get on more sales calls.
So I realized last week that I love sales calls. So I did resales calls in the past two weeks. And just those three made me feel so energized about my business. I’m like, this is awesome.
Like, I love talking to these people and selling them on what I on what I do. So where I am right now is I’m also, like, couple of us here. I’m also reading ten x is easier than two x. So I’m not creating any plans to just gradually increase revenue from year to year.
Like, this was one of the thing, Joe, I think you talked about during the CSP info session. About want to be a copywriter who’s gradually increasing revenue from year to year and then in five, ten years before you hit, like, five hundred k. You want to be the one that just ten x is essentially. So that’s kind of where my mindset is now.
It’s more of how do I get this new offer, this new system that I’m building to generate one m in revenue in the next twelve months. And I actually ran the numbers, and I realized it’s actually very possible.
Okay.
It would just take, like, two clients with a high retainer fee and a performance based assistance.
It’s email marketing, so I can do performance basis as well and track everything. So it would literally say two clients if I was going to work on it solo. But if I was building a small team, then I can take on even more. So just running those numbers made me realize how possible it is for me. And so now it’s just like, okay. How do I get on those sales calls to book those two major clients that are going to bring in the revenue.
So what are you doing for lead gen right now? What’s top on your list?
So right now, I’ve been doing a lot of warm outreach. So just people I know asking for referrals, The the that has been my most active lead gen method. So it’s like being in groups, responding to messages, networking, pretty much.
Thought about cold outreach because I’m also still doing my authority building, like, systems. I’m still doing all of that, but I’m like, okay. I still want to get those leads, like, in the next one thirty days, thirty, sixty days. So I’m trying to do some more active, outreach methods as well. So that’s pretty much where I am.
Okay. So how many people are you reaching out to? A day for the warm leads. Let’s pause cold. We’ll ask that next, but warm leads, how many a day?
About two a day. K.
Do you think that’s enough?
About ten people.
Yeah.
Yeah. And so it’s a numbers game. Right? Like, There’s the two. There’s several ways you can go about this. One part is authority building stuff with content that you put out there all the time and then bigger content, and that can feel like a long game. It doesn’t have to be, but it also is a long game too.
Then we’re talking warm leads and cold outreach. So outreach to warm and outreach to cold. It’s good to do both.
But the more you have to do a lot of Right? Like, this is you’re reaching out to people, and you have to hit them right and at the right moment. So It’s a numbers game. So if you’re just doing two a day, what’s stopping you from doing twenty a day?
Oh, so the warm outreach, I just don’t know that many people.
That’s what you think. You don’t know that many people. But I would say really, like, think through everybody that you know and that they know. And I know that can feel like, oh, aren’t I getting in people’s way? I mean, you’re an entrepreneur and this is part of the job. If if your goal is get more leads in because you wanna get to a million dollars a year.
You have got to earn what you want, and that’s how you earn it. It’s hard. It’s hard, but you pick up the phone or you send the email, and but you have to do a lot of it, like, a lot a lot.
Like, an uncomfortable amount. And this is where some people, when they have, like, partners, and they’re both invested in it. That can, like, you spread the job out across two people, which is why a lot of people end up building companies together because it’s a lot of quantity, quantity, quantity, and then there’s the cold outreach. And it’s a doable thing.
People do it all the time. Don’t do it. That’s because I didn’t have to do it. But if I had to do it, it would be a matter of, like, go a hundred a day.
And this is like figure out, you’ve said you’ve you’ve run the numbers. So if What’s your close rate right now? Do you happen to know what it is when you get someone on a call? How many people close out of ten?
So I haven’t had that many sales calls.
That’s the problem with Okay.
Yeah. That was right. Yeah.
So getting in leads, so you wanna make sure that you’re getting these leads into a sales process that isn’t just going to, like, burn up all of these people that you spoke with. But you’re energized about them when you actually get to talk to them and have that sales call.
Make sure you’re running that right. So we have that Huka, sales call training this Wednesday, attend it. Take notes. It’s smart.
And it’s an hour to fucking nail this stuff. So attend that.
And then it’s if you’re gonna do leads, cold outreach and warm, the numbers game, get up every morning, put it in your calendar, do it when you have energy, do the hard thing, personalize the cold stuff, obvious we’ve got that training in copy school dot copy hackers dot com.
But it’s it’s an because it’s a numbers game, if you get one and one hundred people to hop on a call with you.
You gotta, like, that’s why you have to do. A hundred of them a day. You can’t do two a day. It’s not gonna lead to anything except for frustration.
And you’re like, nothing works. No. It it can work, but it’s you have to do Does that make sense? So what I would like you to do is put together, like, a list of warm outreach and cold that you can do, like, give yourself a a to do list of every single day.
I’m going to reach out to five people I know and fifty people I don’t know every morning without fail. And if you can get in that habit, which you have to get. This is your job. You have to get in that habit.
Then you can start to see the needle move, and then you’ll be more inspired to go like, okay. Well, if I’m doing fifty cold outreach, cold attempts a day, And it’s bringing in four people.
If I double it to a hundred, now I’ve got eight, and that’s a lot better to deal with, and you’re gonna get so much better at cold outreach that you can outsource it to a VA because you’ll have it nailed down what to say, how to say it, how to get people onto that call, how to get them to show up, Like, all these reps, all this practice work is the stuff that’ll get you there. But two reps, and you expect you’re gonna, like, build muscle, I lifted the weight twice.
It’s gonna take a little more than that. But you’re doing it. Just do more of it.
Yeah.
And would you see those are the, like, two main, like, lead gen strategies? Or is there anything I’m missing besides those two of an authority?
Oh, yeah.
No. There’s more. It depends if you have money to spend. If you’ve got money to spend, there’s lots of other things you can do. And it doesn’t have to be a lot, but you have to have, like, fifty bucks a day to spend boost things to hire people to do the work for you, stuff like that. I would say start there. Start getting traction.
There. Your immediate network is the place to go first. The people you know that you’re just not thinking of how to really go after them, and then it’s follow-up. As well without saying the word follow-up.
Like, it’s it’s, hey, I talked to my cousin who has a skin care who works at a skin care company. I talked to her one time about it. Okay. Well, now you have to go back and talk to her again.
And again, and wear her down. She’s your cousin. She’s gotta give you work, and that’s just the way it is.
But really it’s like quantity.
More and more and more if you’re still trying to build up leads. If you had and I sit and still do all your authority building stuff as to grace, you’re, like, all of these things work together. Have you read hundred million dollar leads by Hormoza?
That’s next on my list. Yeah.
I was planning to read It’s really practical, like super practical.
And it comes with a bit of a course as well. So check that out, but it really will come down to quantity. Yeah. Cool. Anybody got any notes? For Esther Grace based on what you have done to get leads.
In person networking, going to things. But, like, every single thing you do, you need to do intentionally. Like, I know people who have gone to networking events and they kinda just stand at a table.
It’s like, no. No. No. No. No. You have to work it. You gotta, like, get in there and say hi.
And like, have a pitch ready to go, like, be able to open. So there’s opening and then there’s closing. Right? And so a lot of people suck at the open part.
Maybe you’re okay with closing, but all we’re talking about to get leads is like constantly opening.
So being able to go to a networking event event that’s possible and and do the open. Be ready to start asking questions about their business and Sounds like you’re working on x, y, or z. I do that too. Do you think would it make sense for us to have a talk about this?
Like, should we book a call? Like, be ready to to get moving on something, not just like, oh, cool. And, like, falling into the friend zone, which can happen a lot. So just, like, everything you do, be intentional about what you’re gonna do with it.
Katie also said the five day five k challenge. Totally. It’s, it’s still available.
Yes. So take that too, but don’t just do it once a month. Do it every five days. Yeah. Cool.
Jessica, do you wanna say that out loud?
I was just gonna say Abby wrote a blog post and did a tutorial on utilizing Facebook groups And I know she, of course, has had huge success with it, but I know other people have too applying what she taught. So I don’t know if where your audience is, but can’t hurt.
Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
Love it.
I think I’ve read the post op yet.
I think I told you about it.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s the her tutorial is, pinned to the top of our YouTube channel right now over on. On YouTube. So check it out.
It’s great. Perfect. Okay. Good luck, Esther Grace. Set a goal too. How many warm, how many cold, you’re gonna do a day, and how many you need to get in booked calls every week.
And then post, follow-up in slack when you get those wins, just let people know, like, and my goal was four bookings this week, and I got five. And, like, make that happen. You can. Cool.
Anybody else have anything else? Thanks, Esther Grace. Any questions or anything you wanna share with others?
Hi. One question. Yeah.
Well, I have lots of questions, but, I will start with the most relevant one. So I was approached by a, sorry, I spoke in an event, about a few weeks ago. And so afterwards I was approached by a marketing agency, and it seemed I really feel like marketing agencies are an ideal source, an ideal client because They’re focused specifically on demand gen. They don’t have to answer to a CMO or to upper leadership quite in the same way that somebody who works in house would.
And they’re very data driven. And they tend not to be creatives. So they tend not to provide as much pushback, as somebody who works in house. So anyway, I had a call with the, with a guy again today, and we agreed on a to start with, like, a social ad, for more top of funnel work.
And what I ended up doing this time around, which is different than what I did last time around, last time around, I sold a company just like a bank of ours. And this time, I gave him a pricing page and I said, okay, a set of ads is this much, and a landing page is this much, And then so I’m gonna send him a proposal. We’ll sign the proposal, and then he can just add whatever he needs as he goes, and then at the end of the month, I’ll send the invoice to HR to accounts receivable, and then I’ll be able to bill them. But I’m wondering there’s anything I because I feel like this is such an ideal client, if there’s something I’m missing out on that I could be doing to make it easier for them or to increase the amount that they would get from me from the beginning and that initial conversation.
Whether that’s like, should I expect them to say, oh, well, you should get at least this amount, to increase the amount that they would get from me, or would that be a little bit too aggressive because they sort of get projects rolling in as they come? I’m not sure exactly.
What they’re working on, it could be a little bit too demanding for them right at the outset. So I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing out on that I should have done and could do hopefully next time.
Yeah. Cool. Who’s working with agencies? Who has been through what Naomi’s going through? Nobody subcontracts?
I used to, but I’ve just always do it on a day. Right? So I can’t I don’t really know how to haven’t got anything to give. I’m afraid.
So what did you do? Why did you choose to do a day rate or why did they like a day rate? What was the reasoning there?
Well, actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I told them it was a date. Right? I think I just priced it in my mind. It was, like, lead gen like, I’ve done a few. I did for a lead gen funnel.
Oh, like a lead gen agency, like, a few emails and stuff for a, SaaS company. So I’d yeah. I was like, oh, I’ll just it was always gonna be, like, fifteen hundred or whatever, for the emails. But in my head, I was like, okay. I’m booking myself for VIP to do those. And then I did the same thing with, like, course agency as well.
But, yeah, that’s I mean, that’s just because at the time, I really liked the IP days.
Yeah. Okay. That’s fair. But they responded well to it as a day rate. Did you did they ever know it was a day rate? Did you tell them that?
I don’t even think so. I just, like, they just didn’t really seem to care. They were just like, okay, like, we need you to do this. What does it cost? And that was kind of it.
Yeah. Okay.
But, like, every time they need like, did you work with them multiple times? And every time they needed you, they booked a day rate.
No. They just said, can you do these, emails or whatever? And I was like, yeah, sure. And then booked myself in as, like, a day and build them the same.
So I was just kinda like, if I I would always say yes. I was just at a time in my life where if I was, I would be happy to give up a Sunday for, like, the extra money. So I’ll just be like, sure. Yeah.
I’ll do it.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m wondering about I’ll go ahead, Naomi.
The difference in these kind of agencies are specifically working on Google and social. They’re demand gen agencies, or or it’s usually either Google, or Google and social or LinkedIn.
So it could be like the ads aren’t working. It’s time to refresh the or we want to start a new campaign for this specific persona, or we have a new ABM approach that we want to do, and so we need copy but they don’t necessarily know when they’re gonna need those ads or when they’re gonna want to improve the landing page because it depends on how the campaign performs. And so there’s a level of unpredictability, and which is good to have work rolling in. Like a lot for most of my clients, I’ll have work coming in on a rolling basis.
And I think that having something that’s not connected to ours is definitely more efficient, but I I don’t think that possible to be efficient to the point where I can say like, okay, I can do this within a day.
Yeah. No. I mean, I know, like, some summer, she used to do, like, credits. I think, like, someone was talking about this in Slack today, but, so she would have, like, kind of a menu of what each credit can buy, and then the credits roll over if they weren’t used in, like, the month. So it was kind of like a retainer y type thing.
So she’d get paid, like, every month they’d buy, like, two credits or whatever.
So they would have to commit to a certain number of credits?
Yeah. Yeah. But then they could rush. She would let them roll over So if they only used one, she’d be like, okay, that’s fine. We can use it next month. If next month, you have, like, more clients. So that kept the client happy, but also had that kind of security of a retainer for her.
Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s kind of tricky because every time you work for an agency and they have multiple clients, you have to learn new things about each client in order to write for them. Right? So it’s like you’re taking on a new client every time. Even if you redo and you work for the same client effectively a month later, whatever.
But it’s still it’s a lot of, like, learning time.
Have you experienced that Naomi?
That it is.
I’m, like, Yeah. This is the first agency that I’ve Oh, okay.
Okay. Cool. So and that’s where it’s tricky with credits. We had our credit based agency years ago called Snap that Leanna and James now have.
And it was it was good in some ways, but you do have to spend time thus spend a credit on, like, learning a thing. Like, what’s the what is this product?
And so that has to be baked in, and that’s where I really like the VIP day.
Because it’s like I can do all sorts of things. In that time. I can, like, and if it’s really important to them, I guess I’m just worried, Naomi when you say you, like, you would sell them a landing page.
It’s fine. It’s doable.
It’s, how are the margins though? Like, the reason that I rarely recommend sub tracing to an agency is you just don’t make as much money because they’re charging what you would charge, and now they have to make a profit on you. Yeah.
No. They’re they’re giving me work. They’re the client.
Yeah. But they’re an agency, a demand gen agency that pays that gets paid by their clients.
Yeah.
They’re an agency. Yes.
But I’m not doing the subcontracting contracting.
There’s subcontracting to them. They’re they’re so the client has the contract with them, and they have a contract with you.
Right. So I’m the subcontractor.
Yeah. So you’re the subcontractor. Exactly. Okay. And so every new contract down is, like, losing money losing money losing money lose.
So if you have a subcontract you’re gonna pay them half of what you would charge, and the agency is gonna pay half of what they’re gonna charge at best on a good day. Because they also have overhead and all sorts of other expenses. So if they’re charging it’s probably if it’s demand gen, their performance base, they’re on retainer with the client, it possibly getting a percentage of how things perform depending on who the client is. Okay?
So if they’re making, let’s say, they’re making, they’re billing their client ten thousand dollars a month for services.
They, as a business, need to make a profit to continue to exist.
So they’re trying to get three thousand dollars off that. That leaves them with seven thousand dollars a month to spend on resources for that client. They have their own people that they’re paying and all of the expenses that go along with shipping something out, taking someone to lunch, whatever that other crap is too. And then comes money for the subcontractor.
That’s you. So that’s where I hear subcontracting, or work for an agency as a subcontractor. And, I don’t love it because you have to really optimize your time because you’re not gonna be able to make that much. As much money as you could if you were direct to the client. If you were like, I can do that for you instead and here’s what I charge.
And so that’s it. So how can you if you’ve got three thousand dollars that you might make off them in a month for that one client, let’s say, what can you do to ensure that you are maximizing the amount of money you get for the time you put in. Obviously, it’s all it’s always our game.
And that’s where a VIP day sounds like really good. You could charge two thousand dollars. They can budget that in easily for their differing clients. And as they’re planning on what to do next month with their clients and new clients they take on, they’re like, okay.
Well, Naomi can write a landing page in a day. If you can. Naomi can do, analysis in a day. So we always have to book for every client every month.
We need Naomi two days for each client. So we’re going to budget in four thousand dollars when we’re estimating something with clients. Right now, you have to figure out what they’re estimating with clients right now because of their thinking and have you it sounds like you haven’t talked to them about what you’re what you cost or have you?
Yeah. Give them a pricing sheet.
Okay. So you what what does your pricing sheet? What do you have on it, Naomi? What does it say?
I have an add landing page web copy.
I think I added research can bring it up.
Yeah. It’s like a it’s like a menu.
Yeah.
I made it very simple because, I I figured selling hours was just not going to be sustainable so I Yeah.
Figured this would be a good solution, but I didn’t over complicate it.
Yeah. It’s good not over comp of course. That’s great. And a rate sheet can be a good thing to share.
But if the objective is to make good money off them, on an ongoing basis.
So what’s wrong do you think is broken with giving them the rate sheet right now? What’s not working there?
It’s I I would say it’s more that I would like a more long term commitment, where if it’s just going to be, if it’s going to be like five to ten thousand chat, three to five thousand dollars a month.
Like, that would be good to have it, like, rolling in to have them on retainer.
If it’s gonna be just like a few like a thousand dollars here, maybe a few hundred dollars there, then it’s not going to be efficient. Yeah. But if they’re a marketing agency, then they’re gonna do this on a long term basis. And because tech is in such a bad place right now, more and more and more companies are choosing to outsource a lot of their marketing. So it’s also just practical because they’re trying to cut down on people in house.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s that. So okay. So all you’re really looking to do is set up a retainer with your this agency and then make sure that you aren’t working non got for them. Like, you’re having good boundaries around your retainer. Is that right?
Yeah.
So make sure that the effort that I put in to learning about each company pays off in the long run by not having to acquire new clients.
That meaning that is a long term relationship that is worthwhile because it’s not just like a couple hundred dollars here and there.
Yeah. Totally it. So what’s stopping you from having a conversation with them or have you had that conversation? I think if you gave them a rate sheet, you probably haven’t had the conversation then about, here’s what I would love to get out of this relationship.
Here’s the problem that I’ll solve for you. All of them but here’s the only way that that could work and here’s how great it’ll be when it does work. So the here’s the only way that will work part is I have to learn about all of your clients. Like, that’s that’s real work.
It’s if you had a salesperson, they would have to learn about all of those clients too. So understanding that. And by the way, I’m your scalable online sales person. So I need to learn everything about them.
I need this these engagements to go on. And you also need these engagements to go on. You need, you know, all of the reasons that they don’t wanna just, like, swap in and out crappy freelancers and just, like, have somebody that they love etcetera, etcetera. So the whole conversation, and then you tell them that you want a need and they need.
You position it as what is the best solution for them, a retainer minimum of six months for each client. Is that what you think it is for each client?
So each client that they have, if they have five clients, you have five different retainers with them, or you have one big retainer that covers everything.
See, I think, yeah, I think it would be too aggressive to say that I have five retainers with each of your clients. That’s fair.
Yeah. So it’s like one pool that they get to draw from. For their various clients.
Mhmm. That’s what you want. Is that right? Like a like a bucket. You’re the bucket every week. Yeah.
Because when I went into they were like sort of sold on me. They were like, how do we start? And I thought what I was gonna do was like I’ll just have you pay via credit card for the first project, and then we’ll open up a proposal. But then he was like, oh, well, actually we’d rather just be paid by invoice because that’s how we just manage everything. And so now I was like, oh, well I’ll send you a proposal. And then I thought, like, oh, well, I should have had the conversation that I was expecting to have afterwards, because I thought that they were just gonna pay via credit card who were like, oh, we just want one ad.
But I wasn’t because I thought that that would be a good way in and then afterwards, I’d be like, oh, I’d love to build a more long term relationship with you, because I can’t say like, well, we just wanna have a long term relationship on the star. That’s a little bit.
A little bit much.
So Is it?
I guess I wonder why would it be? If they’re pre sold on you, Why would it be too much to say, like, cool y’all.
Here’s how I work. And then say it’s like, you’re an agency and really, like, help them understand why the best thing to do is put you on retainer.
Know you mentioned the word aggressive a couple times, but to me, it’s only aggressive if you’re, like, if your tone is aggressive about it. Otherwise, it’s just They have a problem to solve. And you know demand gen agencies have it’s constant, test everything, and they need they need you to come up with hundred add variations in a day. So there’s going to be just lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.
There’s a big numbers game too. Right? So So if you know the demand for what you have is real, then you can solve that. Who else are they gonna hire who can do as good a job as you can. Yeah.
No. Like, they they they got that. They were they were convinced that I was their that I was their person. But also for my sake, like how do I price that?
How do I price in testing and landing pages and ads on a rolling basis with all of these other things and potentially add variations, and then maybe nothing because the campaign is working, Yeah. That’s why I didn’t push it right away. Like Yeah. We could figure that we should have a, like a trial almost.
Yeah. I’m I I I to me, it sounds like I don’t think that the trial is a necessary thing, but I wasn’t in the conversations you’re in, obviously.
To me, it sounds like, okay. You just need to protect your time, but give them a lot of things that they need. Typically, I have not seen and I don’t know if your experience is different. Naomi, but when a campaign is going well, nobody sits back.
Like, now we’re, like, it’s just more. Like, oh, it’s going great. We can do even more. Or let’s shift you over to new client now where the campaign isn’t going as well and where we need your resources over there.
So for me, I hear this If they’re a big enough agency that you think they actually have money to spend on you, if they have a real need for copywriting services, conversion copywriting in particular, if that’s what’s going on and they already like you, but you don’t want to sell your life to them. Of course not, but you wanna be able give them a menu of services without them having to go through and pick and choose one and, like, call you up for one ad at a time. You know, because that’s not how this works. Why not sell them?
Can you sell them?
I don’t know if it has to be a specific day or whatever whatever that looks like. But to me, why not charge x amount for a retainer? This is what it costs to hire you. Say this is what it costs to hire me. And that’s it. And if they’re, like, that’s too expensive, well, then one that you you probably should have, like, spent more time in the sales process to make it so that they understand the value you can bring or two, they might not have ever been a good fit to begin with.
But I wouldn’t worry that it’s too aggressive to say it’s five thousand bucks a month for a retainer to retain me. You’ll get x many hours with that or better for you to have, like, outputs that gives you either a package of a hundred ads for one cloud, whatever. Like, you figured that out because you had the conversation with them. But you say this is the amount five thousand, ten thousand, whatever it might be. And it’s a minimum of six months.
I I don’t know. Is is there you would be wrong with that?
You wouldn’t you would skip the trial entirely and say these are my for all agencies.
I don’t know what the trial solves.
Well, I mean, it also might be budgeting constraints on their side. Like, he may love me, but he had to get the green light from their CFO because the CFO needs to green light everything these days.
For sure.
So other ways until proven yourself.
And I I think like proving yourself is something that I wouldn’t say you should ever even let in the conversation.
Nobody nobody who has proven themselves ever again says I have to prove myself. So to me, it sounds like, oh, I need to prove myself, is the thing that you say when you know that that’s not that common to be able to prove yourself. So it’s kind of a signal. Don’t say. Robin from your vocab.
Prove me fine. He needs to accrue my value.
And I get it, like, to see the level to the rest of the team because he’s not in charge of the the bank account.
There are a totally. And there are other ways to get the CFO to sign off on things. Right? It’s not necessarily going to be a trial.
It could be hey, if once you lock in six months, you automatically get ten percent off for the entire six month thing, which I don’t love discounting, but CFOs love discounting. So if you’re trying to say, get that CFO picturing this person who’s just trying to make sure that profits are great. What’s the solution for them? A trial Could be it. Don’t get me wrong, Naomi. It could be a trial thing. I just don’t know that that’s that’s a chance for them to go.
Was she perfect?
And it’s like, well, no. Nobody would be.
Rather, hey, I’m badass. You already like work that I do, you already need the job done.
What’s, like, the only thing that’s really gotta move you forward is getting the CFO happy So here’s what we do. And if if you sign on for six months, you get ten percent. If you sign on for twelve months, you get fifteen percent off. And now the CFO has something to work with. And everybody knows you can cancel any time, and the the lawyers will cover the contract with, like, after thirty thirty days notice to to cancel the contract, etcetera.
Yeah, I don’t I considering I already agreed to a trial for this specific agency, it would make more sense to say like Okay, like, send time a, send time a proposal with just like the price list that I have, and then say, okay, work with that, and then like, see how that goes, and then say, look, I have a limited availability if you want to get me on the books, then you can either then hear the packages I have for agencies.
Otherwise I Can I see the guarantee availability?
Yeah.
Or should I, like, call them up tomorrow and be like, oh, actually I wanna change everything and No.
If you’re already down the path. What I just don’t wanna do is have you become a commodity for this agency. That’s all. It’s just I want everybody in this room to go into every call in a power position. That’s that’s it. Like, that’s where we I don’t.
I don’t think I’m a commodity.
I I Oh, no.
I just a menu list is a commodity. That’s the thing. So it requires that you have a good, context for it. That’s all. So Naomi, if you’re already down that path, Cool.
Really the is the question then if you’re doing this trial, how do you lock them into something that’s profitable for you? After the trial ends. Is that what we’re looking for?
Yes. For this one specifically.
Yeah.
And I I guess for all of them because, like, I I also would not wanna commit to a tend to a huge retainer without having any sense of what to expect from somebody who’s relatively new at running a business.
Yeah. Justin. Definitely. Yeah.
Is that okay? Go for it.
Yeah. So I’ve been, speaking with Adri Yedlyn, he’s been, like, sharing a bit of, like, Blair. Is pricing strategy, and I it’s just so curious to me. And I wonder if it could work here.
So basically, offering pricing tiers, but doing it by the likelihood of success. So you’ve got the so the first one is basically your, like, champagne popping kind of retainer. Like, it’s like ten hair month you’d be, like, over the moon if you got it, and they get, like, x, y, and zed in it. And then your middle one is the one that you’re happy that’s the one you’re going for, like, the five k and it includes, like, this amount of deliverables it’s capped here.
And then your like lowest likelihood of success, which is one that’s meant to be like the best value for your time. So like a VIP day or something that you can and I wonder if you could do something like that presented in them like that. And then for the trial, do, like, a month under the kind of care that they want. So rather than doing, like, a trial is, like, an or something, be like, okay.
You wanna go for this option. Let’s try it, see how it goes, see if we need to, like, increase scope or decreased scope. And then, yeah, it was just a a thought.
No. I think it’s I think it’s a great idea I would love, in theory, I love it, but measuring success.
Well, it’s not like to increase the likelihood of success.
You’re gonna do, like, way more voice of customer research.
You’re is gonna include a lot more of that stuff.
Whereas when I’m working for agencies, don’t do any of that. Like, I don’t do that great job, to be honest, because they don’t, you know, they’re not paying me, like, the amount to go and interview their customers. So I’m like, okay, I’ll do your sales agent like, I’ll do it in a day. Like, and I don’t think of it as, like, good sustainable income. I treat it like a cash injection, like, just those, you know, when it’s opportunity to get a bit a bit of extra cash. If you wanted to yeah.
What was that about Revshare?
No.
I I thought that you were saying, like, like, if they Oh, like, no.
No. No. No.
No. It then performs well then.
Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s just like this is what I’ll do too. If you want the maximum chance of success, we’re gonna go for the, like, all in option if you Yeah.
Not etcetera.
Yeah. That could be a good way to go. Have you read Naomi pricing creativity?
Blaren’s.
No. It’s it’s got he’s got a bunch of books. But that’s it’s good. It’s very helpful, for something like this.
Yeah. So you’ve got the trial.
It’s really hard to say how to come up with, but I love Abby your ideas there with, like, you I can give you the full service everything every month for every client, or I can you could buy the VIP day, one a month or something, but at least a VIP day can keep you locked in contained and people don’t expect that they can reach out to you anytime, whereas a block of hours, I could reach out to you for one hour hypothetically on a Thursday and expect you to get back to me. The problem with trials, just as a side note, trials are good for systems. If this was a system that you were selling to them, then the trial would prove out the system or not, but the work we do is so custom.
It’s so specific to what’s going on in the market with the audience with the product. The offer with medium, all of it. That it’s very difficult for a trial to perform because the work we do often doesn’t perform until you’ve had a few takes at it. And you were able to go like, oh, that hypothesis was wrong, but look where it led us.
And then you can go along and get better and better and better. And that where, like, the payoff is with a really good copyright. That’s why agencies that’s why the agency you’re talking to doesn’t sign up for month to month. Because that would that does it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work until you’ve committed to doing something, and trying a whole bunch of different things. I know for certain that demand gen agencies don’t do month to month.
So any any good ones at least don’t. So That’s my only pause for you going forward with trials. If it’s a system, it’s easy not to trial out. If it’s a human engagement, it’s very hard to trial.
And maybe go for a VIP day.
As like the easiest way in and then from there, they can start to look in to bring you in on projects and other things.
Yeah.
That’s my take.
I’ve done a bunch of VIP days with, a couple agencies too, and I feel like it’s a good, like like what Joe said, you don’t want them to be like, oh, we did an hour here and there or two hours for this. It’s like, it’s a contained main time. And I’ve had an easy time, like, selling those.
Sorry.
My biggest concern with the IP days is really the creative component because so much of what in in more performance based mediums the design is such a big part of it that I really have to work very, very closely with the designer to make sure that they follow, like, conversion CRO principles and UX principles, the way that I would like them to.
So I’d be worried that the VIP day, like, oh, oops, the designer isn’t available. You have come back on Monday and finish up for us. So that’s that’s really my biggest concern with VIP Day. Do you have that issue?
I haven’t had that issue because I’m working and like working on different kinds of things, but it sounds like if if that is a thing, even if it’s not a VIP day, is that still going to be annoying schedule if they’re like, oh, hey, the designer’s not available today. Like, is it still gonna be like they’re kinda calling the shots and they’re like, oh, actually, let’s You know, does that make sense? Or does it have the IP plan out? Sure. But even if it’s not a VIP day, they stop the plan ahead and be like, this is when the designer’s available. Right? So whether it’s a VIP day or not, you have to to expect for your schedule.
Right?
Yeah. Like, you don’t pay for that premium, like, then they’re not paying, like, that’s the fact that you work, like, on UX for the designer, like, that’s that’s more value really than a VIP days for, I would think. So that’s where, like, if you were to offer the different options. It’s like the more expensive option is the one where, like, you’re gonna collaborate a bit more with their team and they’re gonna pay, like, the premium for that.
Yeah.
And it’s two VIP days maybe, right, where you get in a flow of VIP day one is you doing the work VIP day too is you doing the checks over how it’s been implemented and then making any changes accordingly.
If that’s a real if that’s a real problem or the other side is, it’s an agency. It’s a subcontract.
Sometimes you just have to be okay with stepping back. You hand over the copy doc. You give all the best direction you can do. The designer is going to do do what the designer is going to do, though. And so, unless you work directly with them very often, and can establish a relationship there. It can be tough to get a designer to do what the subcontracted copywriter wants them to do.
Yeah. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s just like, do you pick your battles here and just like, is If if working with agencies was your full business model and that’s what you were doing going forward, then we could come up with different things here. But my hope and prayer is that it is not so that we can get you, like, scoring big ass projects and competing with that very agency, not necessarily demand gen. But, depending on what you what you want to do, of course, that’s the goal is not to keep. I is that is that in line, or do you want to keep working with agencies in the long term?
Well, I want to work with demand gen professionals because that’s really my area of expertise. So if they are in an agency, maybe that would work. If they’re in house, great. But Yeah. If they’re in house, maybe they already have a team of copywriters that they they they work with, or they have very strict brand principles, and they don’t wanna outsource anything.
So, like, is there a sweet spot?
Yeah. Working with in host demand gen.
Twenty twenty one.
I have worked with in host demand gen, and they are the best. They get excited about everything that you do because they don’t have a lot of fresh ideas coming in. So That’s where if you love DemandGen, cool, you know, do some stuff with the agencies, whatever, have it be that cash that you need, have it be some, like, experience that you get more and more and more with them so you can try different stuff. But then if you like DemandGen, go work as a freelancer for demand gen that’s in house at, like, almost any e commerce company, and it’s it’s fun and ego boosting, which never hurts. And you make good money. Yeah.
Right. So that’s what I’ve been that’s what I did in house for many years.
Nice. Love it.
That was what I did over and over and over and over again.
So I know that they that they like me.
The the trick is figuring out, do they have the budget to hire me, hire somebody out out of house.
And do they are they even thinking that way?
Yeah. And it’s true that a lot of tech companies have laid off people.
Not necessarily because they have to these days, because it looks good on the books to do it. But hiring agencies can be have its own downfalls. It can be expensive too. So it’s not that they’re only looking at agencies. They’re also looking at freelancers, to fill in those gaps. So I would just keep that in mind too. Yeah.
Okay. Cool.
That was fun.
I didn’t mean to think up so much time.
No. That was a lot of working through a big thing. Hopefully, we got, you know, kind of nodding things a bit, which takes work.
Good. Let us know what what happens with this conversation. Naomi over in Slack too. Cool. Well Yeah. I know we’ve got three minutes technically left, even though we’re over sort of by thirty. Does anybody have any last thoughts or question or, like, a rapid something where we good to go.
Yeah. Quick question.
When is the the free month trial, like, officially and, like, for CSP. Do you know the day?
That’s a Sarah. I think February. I think this is the free month for you.
Yeah.
Yeah. I just wondered if there was, like, a I think the date.
I think the next payment is on February twenty eight, I think.
Okay. Yeah.
What I think? Check with Sarah.
Okay. Yeah. Sarah knows all that stuff. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Abby. Anybody else?
Alright. Have a good week. We will see you in Slack. And, this Thursday is Percy’s mindset session on rethinking failure.
So make sure you check that out if you struggle with things like the word failure.
Cool. Okay. Thanks, everybody.
Have a good day.
Thanks, Joe. Bye.
Worksheet
Transcript
Today is, copywriting lesson, and then that’s followed an AMA that will go until we’re just done talking.
There’s a small group of us today, so no need to, maybe it’s just like a good time if you have, like, something you’re going through that you maybe didn’t want to share with more people or something, which I know happens.
It could be a good time to talk through that today too. So, as usual, be ready to bring any questions that you got any wins to preface them, and that can be any kind of win, just celebrating those good things that happen. This is being recorded. The worksheet for today’s session already went out that went out on Friday. It is the high class problem sell, which I’m really excited about. We’ve used it a couple times. And then I’ll show you the one example for a new page in progress that we’re working on, and how we use it there.
But as usual, yeah, just kind of be with me here, set your intention, just be present, closing down other distractions. If you can, I know life is real and all around us, but, whatever you can do to just kind of ignore your phone for a bit and other, you know, notifications that come in?
Yeah, everybody’s feeling cool. I’m I’m feeling really good today. Awesome. Okay. So open up that work If you haven’t already, got it open.
I will only share my screen if you don’t know what worksheet I’m talking about. Because what I’m going to do today is, a little different format that we’re trying for our training now which so far I quite like, but I’ve never done it live. And I have never done it one live, two unsupported by somebody on my team who can, like, talk and fill in the gaps while I’m like, oh, no. The text’s broken. So we’re just gonna try it here today, and see what happens.
But yeah. So the context for this is, you’ve got. I mean, we have so many ways to try to get into stories, into the argument that we wanna make when we’re writing copy.
Lots of different things that you can do but sometimes when it comes down to it and you’re actually writing the page or writing the email, I find that things can feel boring and repetitive pretty fast, not for your right not for your reader necessarily, but for you as a copywriter, I mean, we do data driven things and use better practices and frameworks, etcetera, but it can be tedious sometimes when it’s like a rule of three. So you’re always hitting three points in a row and it’s just like, kinda wanna break out of it. So that’s how I feel about it. The longer you write copy, the more likely you are to feel that way too.
If if this isn’t resonating, stick around. It’s going to eventually. So I like finding and identifying, and I’m sure you do too, identifying little new ways to attack parts of pages in particular. So what I’m gonna show you today is from a long form sales page, I first saw it on someone else’s long form sales page.
I wanna say a bazillion years ago, but it could have been last year. It all blends into one now. And I was really I was really interested it. So I kinda broke it apart and tried to reverse engineer what they were doing.
Tried it in a sales email for our freelancing school, promotion over the Black Friday weekend.
And, yeah, I’m feeling kinda cool about how it could be an unlock for you when you’re stuck. So, I’m going to share Just half a second while I choose the right one.
Okay.
Cool. So you should be seeing my iPad now.
Oh, are you?
Yeah.
Fancy.
I’ve just never shared my iPad before. So, but this is where we’re going to be working today. So This is an example of the opening of that that sales page that we’re working on for copy school pro. So you set up a big promise, like big.
The bigger, the better, and it doesn’t have to be a promise necessarily as in we promise you’ll get this. But something that’s really going to grab their tension. So really thinking about your audience and what they’re trying, what they most want. And that’s where on the worksheet, we have the, what’s really good about this is I can use three monitors now, which is cool.
We’ve got good outcome and then a high class problem. So we often talk about the good outcomes that people have. And these are good outcomes. These here are good outcomes that you might be looking for.
Right? It’s not a promise because it’s in the first person in quotation marks, which, of course, as anybody who has taken any of my training knows, unless I feel like I’m saying it all the time, but maybe I’m not, first person headlines in quotation marks are my favorite across the board. So how I, big thing, big thing, big thing, ending with the big thing, and then and then overcoming an objection right here.
But don’t you need a lot of money that, etcetera. So with the fifty thousand dollar ad budget, which is basically nothing. Okay. So we’re capturing their attention.
I’m not this doesn’t mean it’s ADA. I know as soon as I hear its attention, doesn’t mean it’s ADA. It might be though. But we’re gonna break it really fast.
So don’t try to look too hard for a framework here yet. Okay. Then we get into kind of something a little bit old school. So that is this.
Step one is opening up this idea that there will be something that follows later, a step two. So a small, not curiosity gap, but like an open loop. Right? There’s more to come.
This is just the first step, even if you forget that later. The point is not that you’re waiting around for step two, but it’s an interesting way to start, opening up that attention into something more kind of like a little more intrigue.
Re time, really old school. You don’t have to do any of this stuff for the framework that I’m teaching you or the cell that I’m teaching you today to work. I’m just walking you through kind of the decisions that were made here.
From the desk of, again, old school. I do like old school, founder of copy hackers, grader of copy school, inventor of conversion copywriting, and this is an important thing, mother of kittens, just because what we’re about to get into, we need to set a tone. So far, the tone is kind of bro y. Right? Like, look at all the, you know, money you can make and crap like that. And that can feel a little bit weird.
The tone can be a little bit. We have to make what I’m trying to do here is set it up so that we can have a little bit of fun going forward because this framework, as I’ve used it, has been about tapping into, like, a little bit of fun. The high class problem cell is, like, we’re going to talk about some high class problems And if you make it sound like a problem, that’s not gonna work. Right? Like, that’s the bad thing we don’t want to do.
Okay. So I’m just gonna pop over to the next one. So then we get into the next part of the page.
So we set set up this big cool thing that you can do. Oh, Sorry here. Let me just go back to this. So it opens with so I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve landed on this isn’t the first page you’ve landed on with big promises and enticing numbers.
And I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? And this really means you could have put almost anything before this part. So I’ll get to that in a second is like, again, you could have done anything before that.
Accept what follows here in these bullets that are about to follow down here is we’re basically building on that cool outcome. So let’s say your cool outcome that you’re trying to hook somebody with is you’re gonna land a thousand customers in a month. You’re gonna land a thousand thousand dollar customers in a month. Really big, really desirable thing that they want that would, attract their attention.
And then from there, we’re going to find that less desirable outcome of that thing, the high class problem. So again, it could be anything to open.
But we want the bullets that follow the good outcomes and then the high class problems, to speak to that thing that just hooked them. So we have, and I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? Then we have good outcome, Deliver World class copy.
Number one thing. It’s gonna be short in, like, actual length because we’re trying to pull them in. So a short bullet most of the sentences are short at this point. As you can see, they all end here.
Make lots of money for your clients or team and also for yourself good outcome. Cool. And now we start getting into the high class problems associated with those good outcomes, and we spend more time on them because we’re having more fun with it. We’re just kind of like enjoying our time talking to our prospect about the things they want being frankly as we’re about to see similar to the things that, we want.
So do you actually want to have super smart people ping you late at night when they’ve needed, when they need to crack a conversion problem when you become their go to copywriter? That’s a high class problem. You just got a ping in the middle of the night, but it’s pretty solid because someone cool is asking you for help and they trust you a lot. Do you really want to?
Do you actually want to go through life with a sense of guilt that everything is falling into your lap and you haven’t had to toil in the coal mine or perform open heart surgery after building years of schooling to get it? Wanna get so good at selling products that jealous people begin whispering about you and you have to start hanging out with a whole new crew of high achieving nerds? These are high class problems. And the reality is your prospect should want them.
Right? So then we say great. Then you and I want the same things, and then you continue on telling the rest of the story and still building on the stuff that you did. Although I can’t help you with another high class problem, which is the anxiety that overachievement brings or an outcome of a high class problem recommend a marriage counselor for when you spend half your summer texting with a network of smart people who’ve sought you and your genius out.
I can do these things, and then you get into what those things are, and that’s what we’re really here to talk about. But you’re capturing their tension with this like unexpected outcome.
And it’s not just the usual good news, good news, good news, life is always gonna get better as you get better and the levels are higher. Life is like way better. There’s real problems that are gonna come with it, but we’re not positioning them as problem problems. Just as a high class problem. Does this make sense?
Can you imagine how you might use this in your work?
Potentially? Okay. Cool.
So I’ll stop sharing that part and then just quickly walk through the worksheet.
So that you’ve got it. Okay. So the high class problems sell, as always, the worksheet and lesson will help you find a new way into writing about comes so that new way in particularly if you’re bored, but also if you just wanna try something else. Write sales emails or sales pages with that What you wanna do is list out your good outcomes and then the high class problem that comes with it. And this is the framework effectively, bit of a template for you to use. Cool.
Have what you need to use it. Alright. I’m not gonna make you. We can go through and do an exercise if you’d like to try it out. Otherwise, we can just kind of hop into question time or talking time.
Good talking time. Does anybody have any questions they wanna bring to the table today?
Everyone’s quiet.
Do you wanna do this as an exercise?
Go right for something? Okay. I think that’s a good use of time. So what I would love for you to do if you have a productized service, if you have a package of some kind, anything that you already have pre written copy for. So ideally not for a new campaign or something.
Anything that you might have on your site today or that you wish you had on your site today?
I would like you to take the next ten minutes to come up with the good outcomes and the high class problems and then try to fill this part in.
Doable?
Okay. Cool. I’m gonna stop sharing.
And then be sure to come off mute if you have any questions as going through it, and we’ll be back in ten minutes.
Joe, can I ask a quick question?
Love it. Yes.
I’m really I really struggle with ten saying. Right? It’s just my thing.
Like, am I am I writing it, like, in the future terms as or, like, am I writing it as if it’s happening or so it’s do you actually want to in the future?
Yes. So do you actually want to but it’s still written in the present tense. Deliver, not will deliver. So deliver world class copy. Do you actually want to And then it’ll just follow in, I guess, the imperative, really, because it’s just two. Does that make sense?
Yeah. It’s just my noob thing. Like, this is why I can’t write fiction because I struggle with Ted’s sake. That no.
That’s like Latin. Did you take Latin in school?
No.
Oh, okay. That messed me up for some things. So when I when people struggle with these things, I’m like, oh, you probably took Latin. So yeah, this is just like, do you actually want to, and then these are all just present tense. Do you want to have a call that sort of thing. Right? Just happening right now.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Jay. Sure.
Alright. Should we talk about that’s how to go?
Any luck?
Did it suck? Was it awesome? Is it hard? Did you get anywhere?
That was fun. I liked it.
Okay. What’d you work on, Abby?
I did for my day one evergreen package.
And, yeah, what I like about it is because, I find myself, like, using the same kind of messaging it with different clients like this kind of like, you can make more money. You can make six figures, and it’s starting to feel, like, quite stale. So I like the the high problem approach is a farmer around that, and I feel like it really boosts credibility because you’re not just saying, like, this is how awesome, like, life is. It’s like. Yeah. Yeah, take them out. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Okay. Cool. That’s wicked. That’s how I feel about it too. Like, it’s just a more interesting way to position of good outcome?
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Everybody else needs them any anything that didn’t feel that good or, like, you’re not it’s not clicking.
It wouldn’t work for you maybe.
I like that it’s very fresh, but it feels a little bit it feels a little bit exaggerated to me.
It feels a little bit Oh, yeah.
It’s on the sales. Page.
It’s gonna be a little. I hear you there. So what would you what how would you modify it?
Any idea?
Well, I mean, the the goals that I have are are more immediate goals. But the tone feels a little bit of still feels a little bit much even though the actual things I’m writing about are realistic.
Okay. Can you read yours and just share so we can hear what that sounds like?
Yeah. So I am looking at the, the service page I have for, PVC.
So Google Landing Pages and, social ads. So I wrote do you actually want to watch your pipeline fill up with qualified leads effortlessly?
Capture all of the great top of funnel demand your social media. Is generating, become so efficient at attracting new leads that AEs are so overwhelmed with demos that they tell you to slow down the campaign so they can focus on the lead they have and attract so many good opportunities that you actually cringe when influencers cry about pmax ridiculously broad, broad campaigns, and Google’s ever changing algorithm on LinkedIn over and over again.
But the tone, the tone still feels off to me even though those are like very realistic. Things.
Okay. What feels off to you? I guess I wonder as, like, for me, I I heard it and I was like, cool. That sounds dope. That sounds like Yeah. Who wouldn’t react well to that?
Some won’t. Some won’t. But usually, those are the people who are just like I I won’t I won’t think about those ones as much as the people who are like, yeah, I’d like to have that problem, you know, and you’re like really getting there, but how did everybody else feel when you were hearing it?
Any notes for Naomi?
I thought it was really cool. I liked it. Yeah. I didn’t feel like the tone was off. I mean, obviously, I don’t know what you’re going for, like, generally with your tone, but, yeah, I thought it was cool.
Okay. Yeah.
I didn’t feel like the tone pull up either, but yeah, again, same as Abby, but the tone didn’t seem like off to me for off footing.
And I know it can feel like a certain audience, your audience, Naomi, wouldn’t respond well to that, and you may absolutely be right. I would just be curious to test it out, give it a shot, see if they do.
Yeah.
Cool. Awesome. Anyone else wanna share?
Yeah. I’ll share mine. I’ll be. I’ll be able to get feedback on it. Okay. Cool.
It’s a bit it’s obviously a bad fish drop. Okay.
But let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to wake up to sales every day, automate your entire sales process? Miss out on the I mean, Rausch, you usually get when you get a sales notification because it happens so darn frequently that the sensible thing to do is to turn stripe notifications off altogether.
Stop having those indulgent. Ugh, it’s just so stressful conversations with fellow course creators because you’ve hopped off the live launch roller coaster and are now making launch size revenue while on vacation.
Having awkward tail between your legs conversation with your SSO when they ask why you spent twenty k on ads this month and you have to loan that you turned that twenty k into two hundred and twenty k, and now you’d like to buy a vacation rental five minutes down the road from the end loss.
It’s fun. That’s fun. Those are some high class problems to have to have that awkward conversation anyway.
I just can’t relate to the last point about moving close to your in laws. But other than that, it was so infuriating that you’re that good at writing copy that quickly, which I always tell you that.
That’s awesome. Yeah. It really does it was what I liked was. It was so great about qualifying who she’s speaking to. It’s ridiculous.
I mean, if you can’t relate to that, you’re gone and Yeah.
It’s a good side effect. Right? Like, all of these other outcomes of that. That’s really a really good point.
Yeah. Thanks, Jessica.
And you can tell you had fun writing it. It doesn’t sound like it was a slog or you, like, it gets I think it’s exciting. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that it’s, like, it’s a fun framework to use. It’s, like, nice to to deviate from, like, the usual, like, I just always use PAS.
So Yes. Same. Yeah. Cool. Anyone else wanna share? Jessica?
Yeah. Let me follow Abby.
Jessica.
No. I honestly I mean, I could It was for my seasonal sale thing, which I think you know I’m fleshing out to turn from a what used to be a productized service like thing to a signature.
So I and actually I get I don’t know if this is I think where I struggle is the whole dream state because I feel like I haven’t confirmed this desire for a e commerce client yet. That they really see the connection between. No. No. You can really double your, you can increase your sales for your seasonal sale. But at the same time, you can be creating these long term relationships.
And so it kind of I think that’s where I struggle. So, I mean, I can read you parts of it, but it you know, it’s nowhere near what Abby’s is and it’s partial as per usual with me. Jessica.
Read the whole m thing.
We wanna hear get to that.
Do you actually want to double your next seasonal sale revenue? See a massive increase in LTV over the next? Whatever months, clear out your inventory and have to work quickly with your team to figure shit out. Provide on-site therapy because your team dressing out and worried they can’t get orders out on time, which will inevitably lead to unhappy customers.
And that’s as far as I got.
Cool.
Took a little extra negative on the last one there. It wouldn’t pull back on that one a bit, but no. It was good.
It’s yeah. Just make sure it stays a high class problem. Like Okay. Well, yeah. Like, my diamond shoes are too tight. That’s gotta be the effect. Right?
So yeah.
Okay.
Cool. Cool. Love it. Jessica, you did that so fast. Really?
Oh, thank you. I’m always asking I’m begging Abby for tutorials on how to be fast. That’s what I wanna know.
You just did it.
Nice.
Nice. Cool. Anyone else?
I won’t put you on the spot by calling on you, but I’m probably looking at you.
No one.
Alright. Alright, Katie. Welcome to the crew. You just missed the the tutorial there, but you’ll get the replay after. So I think it I think we had fun with it.
So yeah. Now, if anybody has any questions or wants to talk shop, what are you going through right now? What should you be working on that you’re not that we can help, like, unlock? Jillian.
Okay. I have well, I’ll start with a win. It’s not a money win. I guess I shared that in Slack recently, but my current win is that, I’ve been severely low in iron for like my whole life and didn’t know it.
So I was like this year I’ve been like fainting and like feeling really dizzy and I’m finally back a normal iron level. So it means I can exercise again, which is life changing. So I wasn’t really able to exercise this past year. But it really helps with, like, energy and productivity.
And it’s really Yes. Exciting. So I was going to use it in Doing a lot of stuff.
Congrats. That’s amazing. Yes.
So that’s why I win.
Coming with a little more energy.
Huge. Energy is everything. Yes.
Everything. Yeah.
So on that note, my question is maybe a bit unwieldy, but as I mentioned, I’m like I was going through your training again from a couple weeks ago.
Started watching Shane’s training.
And I’m thinking about, like, the brand also reading PenX is easier than two x, and so I just feel like I have a lot of ideas. Swirling and kinda wanted to like throw them out there and just like get some thoughts.
So I’m focusing on pricing pages, which is a new, you know, I haven’t worked in SaaS that much. I worked with a lot of different companies on websites, a little bit of SaaS that like kind of across the board. So I’m trying to figure out how to balance, like, my current client, and so I do websites with who are not SaaS primarily, and still have, like, my website is geared towards that. I kinda wanna put up a different website so that I can still serve my current customers in the meantime and not be like out money and just, you know, diving into this new thing. Yeah. So the idea that I have is, like, I know you said the brand really starts with, like, your opinion and your viewpoint, which I feel like I’m still developing, but I have, like, a general idea since no one’s really talking about pricing pages yet, which is that like everyone’s kinda missing the point. Of the pricing page, like, they’re all doing it wrong, basically.
And that’s, like, very general. There’s more that goes into it, but the the name that I have or the idea for, like, a book and a podcast and maybe, like, my site, I’m wondering if they can all be the same, is, like, the pricing point. I’m talking about how I don’t know if that’s, like, even a good title or not, but that’s the idea that I’ve been working with. Okay.
Just like, yeah, talking about how everyone’s missing the point, and like they’re all treating it like, you know, they’re putting so much time into their other pages and optimizing, and then they get to the pricing point and it’s just like they get to the pricing page and everything just deflates. Like, that’s the point of the sale, and it’s like, you know, very matter of fact. Here’s the even big brands, like even huge companies they look at are doing this. I think they’re all kinda dropping the ball at that point.
When it should be like the height of excitement value and, like, it’s the most critical point. Yeah. Absolutely. I know it’s a big I’m like rambling now, but, like, I’m just wondering if, like, Should I go in this direction? Because I’m, like, wanting to start doing this stuff, but I just, like, wanna know if that makes sense if it’s, like, on the right track to start with.
Okay.
I’ll jump in first and anybody who would like to add anything.
I’m so happy that you’re doing this, Jillian. Like, I know I’ve expressed that to you, but men, there’s nothing but room out there for this. And it’s it’s like, that’s it’s the money page. Right? Like, it seems like such an easy sell once you start raising awareness for the problem.
Sounds like you understand what your point of view is. I know you said it’s developing, but it’s like y’all are doing it wrong. Like, that’s a good place to start. Right?
Especially since it’s, like such a blue ocean still. There’s not that much competition out there. So I think it’s safe to go with something big like you’re doing it all wrong. Like, full stop.
That’s it. Like, you’re I’m you’re gonna need a lot of help, and I can help you with that. It leaves a lot of room for you to have thought leadership, and to say contrary in things or to, like, make them aware of things that they hadn’t had any clue about, which is always good for, you know, likes on so and comments and things like that. So the pricing point, how did you get to that name?
I don’t know. How do we get to anything?
There. I think it like came to me first. I also thought the URL was available. Also it kind of like ties into this whole thing of like like maybe I can say what the point is. Like, everyone’s missing the point. Like, they think the point is this, but the point is really this.
And also, like, Yeah. I don’t know. That was kind of the the main. And it seemed like kinda short and Yes. It’s not gonna be a subhead.
Like, if it was a book, there’d be like a subhead of I don’t know what that is yet, but Yep.
Totally agree. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think great. And it does, like Jessica chatted out.
Leaves a lot of room for expansion.
Yeah, and you can speak to value, like, what the actual point of pricing is. Right? And those are bigger conversations that are really intriguing. Yeah.
Everyone loves it.
Yeah.
Who else wants to share thoughts with Jillian?
Can I can I offer a, perspective? Sure.
When it comes to SAS, you should keep in mind that there are a lot of very complicated SaaS products that don’t have a pricing page because a lot of that happens in sales negotiation.
Because a lot of times they have to customize the software to fit the solution.
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be like a fifty thousand dollar software product. It happens at lower pricing points too, and a lot of companies choose not to put pricing anywhere on the website because either they’ve tested it or they believe that adding the pricing will increase the, or will reduce conversion rate, regardless of whether that’s true or not. That’s what a lot of companies think. And it may be true on desktop versus mobile or the reverse.
So I would make I think that it would be worth while to expand the conversation, they use because they they usually have a plans page that just doesn’t have pricing on it and it goes through like what you would get with the enterprise suite versus the mid tier versus the small, mini business tier. So I would make sure to not leave them out of the conversation.
Because there are a lot of companies that fit into that category, and your point can still be relevant. It would just have to be adapted to a much more business mindset.
Well, and I think that that’s a fair point. I think it does speak to the need to just identify who that audience is.
I think the SaaS that you’re talking about, Jillian, are people who have Who have.
Have a debt that says pricing in the nav of which there are bajillion so versus people who have sales teams. So we’re talking more people who are product led growth and are likely to have pricing pages at some point that they, and usually, visitor facing ones, and then behind the scenes.
Post use post activation ones. Yeah. Is that accurate, Jillian?
Yeah. That makes that makes sense. But, yeah, it’s a great point, Naomi.
Thanks for thanks for Yeah.
There’s a huge market. SaaS is enormous, obviously.
So it’s just really identifying. Okay. These are although it can be useful to get the enterprises that don’t have pricing pages, it’s just like anybody who doesn’t have copy. It’s really I can’t do much for you.
Like, you’re gonna need to believe in copy or else. It’s like, I can’t sell you copy school, and you can’t sell a person without a pricing page. Pricing page insights. So cool.
Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Anybody else wanna share?
With Jillian or feedback on what Jillian’s working on.
Nope. Awesome.
Jillian, you feeling good?
Yeah. I love that.
It’s like a book cover.
Yeah. And it gives it fine to have, like, you know, a, like, a book, like, if it was a book and a podcast, and, like, even the site, like, just have it all have the same name, like, even where I’m selling my services, keep the same name for everything.
That’s I mean, g n Claire did that with forget the funnel. Yeah. Everything is forget the funnel.
And I mean, juries out. It’s they’re doing, like, a bad ass business. So I would say it’s probably, like, a good Studiesing that story brand, same thing.
Mhmm.
Yeah. So probably okay. A thing to overthink at least.
Okay. I well, I got the URL for it, so I think it’ll just, like, start and I can keep my current site, like, with my current customers.
And kind of start doing the new thing at the new place.
Yeah. Totally. Totally. Cool.
Oh, thanks everyone.
Thanks. Thanks for sharing a nice win.
Excellent. Life changing.
I mean, energy for real though. Like, I have a new energy going with some life changes that I’ve made too, and it’s like energy. It’s a good thing. It changes everything. So that’s cool.
Anybody else wanna share what they’re working on or going through or struggles? Esther Grace.
Hey. Can everyone hear me?
Yep.
Okay. Awesome. So a win. I shared this in channel already, but copy hack is closed. Still excited about that.
Well done.
Thank you. And okay. So I need help with lead generation.
So I’ve nailed down my ideal clients, my customer avatar, all of that.
My offer, even a bit of the delivery system, But right now, I really just want to get on more sales calls.
So I realized last week that I love sales calls. So I did resales calls in the past two weeks. And just those three made me feel so energized about my business. I’m like, this is awesome.
Like, I love talking to these people and selling them on what I on what I do. So where I am right now is I’m also, like, couple of us here. I’m also reading ten x is easier than two x. So I’m not creating any plans to just gradually increase revenue from year to year.
Like, this was one of the thing, Joe, I think you talked about during the CSP info session. About want to be a copywriter who’s gradually increasing revenue from year to year and then in five, ten years before you hit, like, five hundred k. You want to be the one that just ten x is essentially. So that’s kind of where my mindset is now.
It’s more of how do I get this new offer, this new system that I’m building to generate one m in revenue in the next twelve months. And I actually ran the numbers, and I realized it’s actually very possible.
Okay.
It would just take, like, two clients with a high retainer fee and a performance based assistance.
It’s email marketing, so I can do performance basis as well and track everything. So it would literally say two clients if I was going to work on it solo. But if I was building a small team, then I can take on even more. So just running those numbers made me realize how possible it is for me. And so now it’s just like, okay. How do I get on those sales calls to book those two major clients that are going to bring in the revenue.
So what are you doing for lead gen right now? What’s top on your list?
So right now, I’ve been doing a lot of warm outreach. So just people I know asking for referrals, The the that has been my most active lead gen method. So it’s like being in groups, responding to messages, networking, pretty much.
Thought about cold outreach because I’m also still doing my authority building, like, systems. I’m still doing all of that, but I’m like, okay. I still want to get those leads, like, in the next one thirty days, thirty, sixty days. So I’m trying to do some more active, outreach methods as well. So that’s pretty much where I am.
Okay. So how many people are you reaching out to? A day for the warm leads. Let’s pause cold. We’ll ask that next, but warm leads, how many a day?
About two a day. K.
Do you think that’s enough?
About ten people.
Yeah.
Yeah. And so it’s a numbers game. Right? Like, There’s the two. There’s several ways you can go about this. One part is authority building stuff with content that you put out there all the time and then bigger content, and that can feel like a long game. It doesn’t have to be, but it also is a long game too.
Then we’re talking warm leads and cold outreach. So outreach to warm and outreach to cold. It’s good to do both.
But the more you have to do a lot of Right? Like, this is you’re reaching out to people, and you have to hit them right and at the right moment. So It’s a numbers game. So if you’re just doing two a day, what’s stopping you from doing twenty a day?
Oh, so the warm outreach, I just don’t know that many people.
That’s what you think. You don’t know that many people. But I would say really, like, think through everybody that you know and that they know. And I know that can feel like, oh, aren’t I getting in people’s way? I mean, you’re an entrepreneur and this is part of the job. If if your goal is get more leads in because you wanna get to a million dollars a year.
You have got to earn what you want, and that’s how you earn it. It’s hard. It’s hard, but you pick up the phone or you send the email, and but you have to do a lot of it, like, a lot a lot.
Like, an uncomfortable amount. And this is where some people, when they have, like, partners, and they’re both invested in it. That can, like, you spread the job out across two people, which is why a lot of people end up building companies together because it’s a lot of quantity, quantity, quantity, and then there’s the cold outreach. And it’s a doable thing.
People do it all the time. Don’t do it. That’s because I didn’t have to do it. But if I had to do it, it would be a matter of, like, go a hundred a day.
And this is like figure out, you’ve said you’ve you’ve run the numbers. So if What’s your close rate right now? Do you happen to know what it is when you get someone on a call? How many people close out of ten?
So I haven’t had that many sales calls.
That’s the problem with Okay.
Yeah. That was right. Yeah.
So getting in leads, so you wanna make sure that you’re getting these leads into a sales process that isn’t just going to, like, burn up all of these people that you spoke with. But you’re energized about them when you actually get to talk to them and have that sales call.
Make sure you’re running that right. So we have that Huka, sales call training this Wednesday, attend it. Take notes. It’s smart.
And it’s an hour to fucking nail this stuff. So attend that.
And then it’s if you’re gonna do leads, cold outreach and warm, the numbers game, get up every morning, put it in your calendar, do it when you have energy, do the hard thing, personalize the cold stuff, obvious we’ve got that training in copy school dot copy hackers dot com.
But it’s it’s an because it’s a numbers game, if you get one and one hundred people to hop on a call with you.
You gotta, like, that’s why you have to do. A hundred of them a day. You can’t do two a day. It’s not gonna lead to anything except for frustration.
And you’re like, nothing works. No. It it can work, but it’s you have to do Does that make sense? So what I would like you to do is put together, like, a list of warm outreach and cold that you can do, like, give yourself a a to do list of every single day.
I’m going to reach out to five people I know and fifty people I don’t know every morning without fail. And if you can get in that habit, which you have to get. This is your job. You have to get in that habit.
Then you can start to see the needle move, and then you’ll be more inspired to go like, okay. Well, if I’m doing fifty cold outreach, cold attempts a day, And it’s bringing in four people.
If I double it to a hundred, now I’ve got eight, and that’s a lot better to deal with, and you’re gonna get so much better at cold outreach that you can outsource it to a VA because you’ll have it nailed down what to say, how to say it, how to get people onto that call, how to get them to show up, Like, all these reps, all this practice work is the stuff that’ll get you there. But two reps, and you expect you’re gonna, like, build muscle, I lifted the weight twice.
It’s gonna take a little more than that. But you’re doing it. Just do more of it.
Yeah.
And would you see those are the, like, two main, like, lead gen strategies? Or is there anything I’m missing besides those two of an authority?
Oh, yeah.
No. There’s more. It depends if you have money to spend. If you’ve got money to spend, there’s lots of other things you can do. And it doesn’t have to be a lot, but you have to have, like, fifty bucks a day to spend boost things to hire people to do the work for you, stuff like that. I would say start there. Start getting traction.
There. Your immediate network is the place to go first. The people you know that you’re just not thinking of how to really go after them, and then it’s follow-up. As well without saying the word follow-up.
Like, it’s it’s, hey, I talked to my cousin who has a skin care who works at a skin care company. I talked to her one time about it. Okay. Well, now you have to go back and talk to her again.
And again, and wear her down. She’s your cousin. She’s gotta give you work, and that’s just the way it is.
But really it’s like quantity.
More and more and more if you’re still trying to build up leads. If you had and I sit and still do all your authority building stuff as to grace, you’re, like, all of these things work together. Have you read hundred million dollar leads by Hormoza?
That’s next on my list. Yeah.
I was planning to read It’s really practical, like super practical.
And it comes with a bit of a course as well. So check that out, but it really will come down to quantity. Yeah. Cool. Anybody got any notes? For Esther Grace based on what you have done to get leads.
In person networking, going to things. But, like, every single thing you do, you need to do intentionally. Like, I know people who have gone to networking events and they kinda just stand at a table.
It’s like, no. No. No. No. No. You have to work it. You gotta, like, get in there and say hi.
And like, have a pitch ready to go, like, be able to open. So there’s opening and then there’s closing. Right? And so a lot of people suck at the open part.
Maybe you’re okay with closing, but all we’re talking about to get leads is like constantly opening.
So being able to go to a networking event event that’s possible and and do the open. Be ready to start asking questions about their business and Sounds like you’re working on x, y, or z. I do that too. Do you think would it make sense for us to have a talk about this?
Like, should we book a call? Like, be ready to to get moving on something, not just like, oh, cool. And, like, falling into the friend zone, which can happen a lot. So just, like, everything you do, be intentional about what you’re gonna do with it.
Katie also said the five day five k challenge. Totally. It’s, it’s still available.
Yes. So take that too, but don’t just do it once a month. Do it every five days. Yeah. Cool.
Jessica, do you wanna say that out loud?
I was just gonna say Abby wrote a blog post and did a tutorial on utilizing Facebook groups And I know she, of course, has had huge success with it, but I know other people have too applying what she taught. So I don’t know if where your audience is, but can’t hurt.
Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
Love it.
I think I’ve read the post op yet.
I think I told you about it.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s the her tutorial is, pinned to the top of our YouTube channel right now over on. On YouTube. So check it out.
It’s great. Perfect. Okay. Good luck, Esther Grace. Set a goal too. How many warm, how many cold, you’re gonna do a day, and how many you need to get in booked calls every week.
And then post, follow-up in slack when you get those wins, just let people know, like, and my goal was four bookings this week, and I got five. And, like, make that happen. You can. Cool.
Anybody else have anything else? Thanks, Esther Grace. Any questions or anything you wanna share with others?
Hi. One question. Yeah.
Well, I have lots of questions, but, I will start with the most relevant one. So I was approached by a, sorry, I spoke in an event, about a few weeks ago. And so afterwards I was approached by a marketing agency, and it seemed I really feel like marketing agencies are an ideal source, an ideal client because They’re focused specifically on demand gen. They don’t have to answer to a CMO or to upper leadership quite in the same way that somebody who works in house would.
And they’re very data driven. And they tend not to be creatives. So they tend not to provide as much pushback, as somebody who works in house. So anyway, I had a call with the, with a guy again today, and we agreed on a to start with, like, a social ad, for more top of funnel work.
And what I ended up doing this time around, which is different than what I did last time around, last time around, I sold a company just like a bank of ours. And this time, I gave him a pricing page and I said, okay, a set of ads is this much, and a landing page is this much, And then so I’m gonna send him a proposal. We’ll sign the proposal, and then he can just add whatever he needs as he goes, and then at the end of the month, I’ll send the invoice to HR to accounts receivable, and then I’ll be able to bill them. But I’m wondering there’s anything I because I feel like this is such an ideal client, if there’s something I’m missing out on that I could be doing to make it easier for them or to increase the amount that they would get from me from the beginning and that initial conversation.
Whether that’s like, should I expect them to say, oh, well, you should get at least this amount, to increase the amount that they would get from me, or would that be a little bit too aggressive because they sort of get projects rolling in as they come? I’m not sure exactly.
What they’re working on, it could be a little bit too demanding for them right at the outset. So I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing out on that I should have done and could do hopefully next time.
Yeah. Cool. Who’s working with agencies? Who has been through what Naomi’s going through? Nobody subcontracts?
I used to, but I’ve just always do it on a day. Right? So I can’t I don’t really know how to haven’t got anything to give. I’m afraid.
So what did you do? Why did you choose to do a day rate or why did they like a day rate? What was the reasoning there?
Well, actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I told them it was a date. Right? I think I just priced it in my mind. It was, like, lead gen like, I’ve done a few. I did for a lead gen funnel.
Oh, like a lead gen agency, like, a few emails and stuff for a, SaaS company. So I’d yeah. I was like, oh, I’ll just it was always gonna be, like, fifteen hundred or whatever, for the emails. But in my head, I was like, okay. I’m booking myself for VIP to do those. And then I did the same thing with, like, course agency as well.
But, yeah, that’s I mean, that’s just because at the time, I really liked the IP days.
Yeah. Okay. That’s fair. But they responded well to it as a day rate. Did you did they ever know it was a day rate? Did you tell them that?
I don’t even think so. I just, like, they just didn’t really seem to care. They were just like, okay, like, we need you to do this. What does it cost? And that was kind of it.
Yeah. Okay.
But, like, every time they need like, did you work with them multiple times? And every time they needed you, they booked a day rate.
No. They just said, can you do these, emails or whatever? And I was like, yeah, sure. And then booked myself in as, like, a day and build them the same.
So I was just kinda like, if I I would always say yes. I was just at a time in my life where if I was, I would be happy to give up a Sunday for, like, the extra money. So I’ll just be like, sure. Yeah.
I’ll do it.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m wondering about I’ll go ahead, Naomi.
The difference in these kind of agencies are specifically working on Google and social. They’re demand gen agencies, or or it’s usually either Google, or Google and social or LinkedIn.
So it could be like the ads aren’t working. It’s time to refresh the or we want to start a new campaign for this specific persona, or we have a new ABM approach that we want to do, and so we need copy but they don’t necessarily know when they’re gonna need those ads or when they’re gonna want to improve the landing page because it depends on how the campaign performs. And so there’s a level of unpredictability, and which is good to have work rolling in. Like a lot for most of my clients, I’ll have work coming in on a rolling basis.
And I think that having something that’s not connected to ours is definitely more efficient, but I I don’t think that possible to be efficient to the point where I can say like, okay, I can do this within a day.
Yeah. No. I mean, I know, like, some summer, she used to do, like, credits. I think, like, someone was talking about this in Slack today, but, so she would have, like, kind of a menu of what each credit can buy, and then the credits roll over if they weren’t used in, like, the month. So it was kind of like a retainer y type thing.
So she’d get paid, like, every month they’d buy, like, two credits or whatever.
So they would have to commit to a certain number of credits?
Yeah. Yeah. But then they could rush. She would let them roll over So if they only used one, she’d be like, okay, that’s fine. We can use it next month. If next month, you have, like, more clients. So that kept the client happy, but also had that kind of security of a retainer for her.
Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s kind of tricky because every time you work for an agency and they have multiple clients, you have to learn new things about each client in order to write for them. Right? So it’s like you’re taking on a new client every time. Even if you redo and you work for the same client effectively a month later, whatever.
But it’s still it’s a lot of, like, learning time.
Have you experienced that Naomi?
That it is.
I’m, like, Yeah. This is the first agency that I’ve Oh, okay.
Okay. Cool. So and that’s where it’s tricky with credits. We had our credit based agency years ago called Snap that Leanna and James now have.
And it was it was good in some ways, but you do have to spend time thus spend a credit on, like, learning a thing. Like, what’s the what is this product?
And so that has to be baked in, and that’s where I really like the VIP day.
Because it’s like I can do all sorts of things. In that time. I can, like, and if it’s really important to them, I guess I’m just worried, Naomi when you say you, like, you would sell them a landing page.
It’s fine. It’s doable.
It’s, how are the margins though? Like, the reason that I rarely recommend sub tracing to an agency is you just don’t make as much money because they’re charging what you would charge, and now they have to make a profit on you. Yeah.
No. They’re they’re giving me work. They’re the client.
Yeah. But they’re an agency, a demand gen agency that pays that gets paid by their clients.
Yeah.
They’re an agency. Yes.
But I’m not doing the subcontracting contracting.
There’s subcontracting to them. They’re they’re so the client has the contract with them, and they have a contract with you.
Right. So I’m the subcontractor.
Yeah. So you’re the subcontractor. Exactly. Okay. And so every new contract down is, like, losing money losing money losing money lose.
So if you have a subcontract you’re gonna pay them half of what you would charge, and the agency is gonna pay half of what they’re gonna charge at best on a good day. Because they also have overhead and all sorts of other expenses. So if they’re charging it’s probably if it’s demand gen, their performance base, they’re on retainer with the client, it possibly getting a percentage of how things perform depending on who the client is. Okay?
So if they’re making, let’s say, they’re making, they’re billing their client ten thousand dollars a month for services.
They, as a business, need to make a profit to continue to exist.
So they’re trying to get three thousand dollars off that. That leaves them with seven thousand dollars a month to spend on resources for that client. They have their own people that they’re paying and all of the expenses that go along with shipping something out, taking someone to lunch, whatever that other crap is too. And then comes money for the subcontractor.
That’s you. So that’s where I hear subcontracting, or work for an agency as a subcontractor. And, I don’t love it because you have to really optimize your time because you’re not gonna be able to make that much. As much money as you could if you were direct to the client. If you were like, I can do that for you instead and here’s what I charge.
And so that’s it. So how can you if you’ve got three thousand dollars that you might make off them in a month for that one client, let’s say, what can you do to ensure that you are maximizing the amount of money you get for the time you put in. Obviously, it’s all it’s always our game.
And that’s where a VIP day sounds like really good. You could charge two thousand dollars. They can budget that in easily for their differing clients. And as they’re planning on what to do next month with their clients and new clients they take on, they’re like, okay.
Well, Naomi can write a landing page in a day. If you can. Naomi can do, analysis in a day. So we always have to book for every client every month.
We need Naomi two days for each client. So we’re going to budget in four thousand dollars when we’re estimating something with clients. Right now, you have to figure out what they’re estimating with clients right now because of their thinking and have you it sounds like you haven’t talked to them about what you’re what you cost or have you?
Yeah. Give them a pricing sheet.
Okay. So you what what does your pricing sheet? What do you have on it, Naomi? What does it say?
I have an add landing page web copy.
I think I added research can bring it up.
Yeah. It’s like a it’s like a menu.
Yeah.
I made it very simple because, I I figured selling hours was just not going to be sustainable so I Yeah.
Figured this would be a good solution, but I didn’t over complicate it.
Yeah. It’s good not over comp of course. That’s great. And a rate sheet can be a good thing to share.
But if the objective is to make good money off them, on an ongoing basis.
So what’s wrong do you think is broken with giving them the rate sheet right now? What’s not working there?
It’s I I would say it’s more that I would like a more long term commitment, where if it’s just going to be, if it’s going to be like five to ten thousand chat, three to five thousand dollars a month.
Like, that would be good to have it, like, rolling in to have them on retainer.
If it’s gonna be just like a few like a thousand dollars here, maybe a few hundred dollars there, then it’s not going to be efficient. Yeah. But if they’re a marketing agency, then they’re gonna do this on a long term basis. And because tech is in such a bad place right now, more and more and more companies are choosing to outsource a lot of their marketing. So it’s also just practical because they’re trying to cut down on people in house.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s that. So okay. So all you’re really looking to do is set up a retainer with your this agency and then make sure that you aren’t working non got for them. Like, you’re having good boundaries around your retainer. Is that right?
Yeah.
So make sure that the effort that I put in to learning about each company pays off in the long run by not having to acquire new clients.
That meaning that is a long term relationship that is worthwhile because it’s not just like a couple hundred dollars here and there.
Yeah. Totally it. So what’s stopping you from having a conversation with them or have you had that conversation? I think if you gave them a rate sheet, you probably haven’t had the conversation then about, here’s what I would love to get out of this relationship.
Here’s the problem that I’ll solve for you. All of them but here’s the only way that that could work and here’s how great it’ll be when it does work. So the here’s the only way that will work part is I have to learn about all of your clients. Like, that’s that’s real work.
It’s if you had a salesperson, they would have to learn about all of those clients too. So understanding that. And by the way, I’m your scalable online sales person. So I need to learn everything about them.
I need this these engagements to go on. And you also need these engagements to go on. You need, you know, all of the reasons that they don’t wanna just, like, swap in and out crappy freelancers and just, like, have somebody that they love etcetera, etcetera. So the whole conversation, and then you tell them that you want a need and they need.
You position it as what is the best solution for them, a retainer minimum of six months for each client. Is that what you think it is for each client?
So each client that they have, if they have five clients, you have five different retainers with them, or you have one big retainer that covers everything.
See, I think, yeah, I think it would be too aggressive to say that I have five retainers with each of your clients. That’s fair.
Yeah. So it’s like one pool that they get to draw from. For their various clients.
Mhmm. That’s what you want. Is that right? Like a like a bucket. You’re the bucket every week. Yeah.
Because when I went into they were like sort of sold on me. They were like, how do we start? And I thought what I was gonna do was like I’ll just have you pay via credit card for the first project, and then we’ll open up a proposal. But then he was like, oh, well, actually we’d rather just be paid by invoice because that’s how we just manage everything. And so now I was like, oh, well I’ll send you a proposal. And then I thought, like, oh, well, I should have had the conversation that I was expecting to have afterwards, because I thought that they were just gonna pay via credit card who were like, oh, we just want one ad.
But I wasn’t because I thought that that would be a good way in and then afterwards, I’d be like, oh, I’d love to build a more long term relationship with you, because I can’t say like, well, we just wanna have a long term relationship on the star. That’s a little bit.
A little bit much.
So Is it?
I guess I wonder why would it be? If they’re pre sold on you, Why would it be too much to say, like, cool y’all.
Here’s how I work. And then say it’s like, you’re an agency and really, like, help them understand why the best thing to do is put you on retainer.
Know you mentioned the word aggressive a couple times, but to me, it’s only aggressive if you’re, like, if your tone is aggressive about it. Otherwise, it’s just They have a problem to solve. And you know demand gen agencies have it’s constant, test everything, and they need they need you to come up with hundred add variations in a day. So there’s going to be just lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.
There’s a big numbers game too. Right? So So if you know the demand for what you have is real, then you can solve that. Who else are they gonna hire who can do as good a job as you can. Yeah.
No. Like, they they they got that. They were they were convinced that I was their that I was their person. But also for my sake, like how do I price that?
How do I price in testing and landing pages and ads on a rolling basis with all of these other things and potentially add variations, and then maybe nothing because the campaign is working, Yeah. That’s why I didn’t push it right away. Like Yeah. We could figure that we should have a, like a trial almost.
Yeah. I’m I I I to me, it sounds like I don’t think that the trial is a necessary thing, but I wasn’t in the conversations you’re in, obviously.
To me, it sounds like, okay. You just need to protect your time, but give them a lot of things that they need. Typically, I have not seen and I don’t know if your experience is different. Naomi, but when a campaign is going well, nobody sits back.
Like, now we’re, like, it’s just more. Like, oh, it’s going great. We can do even more. Or let’s shift you over to new client now where the campaign isn’t going as well and where we need your resources over there.
So for me, I hear this If they’re a big enough agency that you think they actually have money to spend on you, if they have a real need for copywriting services, conversion copywriting in particular, if that’s what’s going on and they already like you, but you don’t want to sell your life to them. Of course not, but you wanna be able give them a menu of services without them having to go through and pick and choose one and, like, call you up for one ad at a time. You know, because that’s not how this works. Why not sell them?
Can you sell them?
I don’t know if it has to be a specific day or whatever whatever that looks like. But to me, why not charge x amount for a retainer? This is what it costs to hire you. Say this is what it costs to hire me. And that’s it. And if they’re, like, that’s too expensive, well, then one that you you probably should have, like, spent more time in the sales process to make it so that they understand the value you can bring or two, they might not have ever been a good fit to begin with.
But I wouldn’t worry that it’s too aggressive to say it’s five thousand bucks a month for a retainer to retain me. You’ll get x many hours with that or better for you to have, like, outputs that gives you either a package of a hundred ads for one cloud, whatever. Like, you figured that out because you had the conversation with them. But you say this is the amount five thousand, ten thousand, whatever it might be. And it’s a minimum of six months.
I I don’t know. Is is there you would be wrong with that?
You wouldn’t you would skip the trial entirely and say these are my for all agencies.
I don’t know what the trial solves.
Well, I mean, it also might be budgeting constraints on their side. Like, he may love me, but he had to get the green light from their CFO because the CFO needs to green light everything these days.
For sure.
So other ways until proven yourself.
And I I think like proving yourself is something that I wouldn’t say you should ever even let in the conversation.
Nobody nobody who has proven themselves ever again says I have to prove myself. So to me, it sounds like, oh, I need to prove myself, is the thing that you say when you know that that’s not that common to be able to prove yourself. So it’s kind of a signal. Don’t say. Robin from your vocab.
Prove me fine. He needs to accrue my value.
And I get it, like, to see the level to the rest of the team because he’s not in charge of the the bank account.
There are a totally. And there are other ways to get the CFO to sign off on things. Right? It’s not necessarily going to be a trial.
It could be hey, if once you lock in six months, you automatically get ten percent off for the entire six month thing, which I don’t love discounting, but CFOs love discounting. So if you’re trying to say, get that CFO picturing this person who’s just trying to make sure that profits are great. What’s the solution for them? A trial Could be it. Don’t get me wrong, Naomi. It could be a trial thing. I just don’t know that that’s that’s a chance for them to go.
Was she perfect?
And it’s like, well, no. Nobody would be.
Rather, hey, I’m badass. You already like work that I do, you already need the job done.
What’s, like, the only thing that’s really gotta move you forward is getting the CFO happy So here’s what we do. And if if you sign on for six months, you get ten percent. If you sign on for twelve months, you get fifteen percent off. And now the CFO has something to work with. And everybody knows you can cancel any time, and the the lawyers will cover the contract with, like, after thirty thirty days notice to to cancel the contract, etcetera.
Yeah, I don’t I considering I already agreed to a trial for this specific agency, it would make more sense to say like Okay, like, send time a, send time a proposal with just like the price list that I have, and then say, okay, work with that, and then like, see how that goes, and then say, look, I have a limited availability if you want to get me on the books, then you can either then hear the packages I have for agencies.
Otherwise I Can I see the guarantee availability?
Yeah.
Or should I, like, call them up tomorrow and be like, oh, actually I wanna change everything and No.
If you’re already down the path. What I just don’t wanna do is have you become a commodity for this agency. That’s all. It’s just I want everybody in this room to go into every call in a power position. That’s that’s it. Like, that’s where we I don’t.
I don’t think I’m a commodity.
I I Oh, no.
I just a menu list is a commodity. That’s the thing. So it requires that you have a good, context for it. That’s all. So Naomi, if you’re already down that path, Cool.
Really the is the question then if you’re doing this trial, how do you lock them into something that’s profitable for you? After the trial ends. Is that what we’re looking for?
Yes. For this one specifically.
Yeah.
And I I guess for all of them because, like, I I also would not wanna commit to a tend to a huge retainer without having any sense of what to expect from somebody who’s relatively new at running a business.
Yeah. Justin. Definitely. Yeah.
Is that okay? Go for it.
Yeah. So I’ve been, speaking with Adri Yedlyn, he’s been, like, sharing a bit of, like, Blair. Is pricing strategy, and I it’s just so curious to me. And I wonder if it could work here.
So basically, offering pricing tiers, but doing it by the likelihood of success. So you’ve got the so the first one is basically your, like, champagne popping kind of retainer. Like, it’s like ten hair month you’d be, like, over the moon if you got it, and they get, like, x, y, and zed in it. And then your middle one is the one that you’re happy that’s the one you’re going for, like, the five k and it includes, like, this amount of deliverables it’s capped here.
And then your like lowest likelihood of success, which is one that’s meant to be like the best value for your time. So like a VIP day or something that you can and I wonder if you could do something like that presented in them like that. And then for the trial, do, like, a month under the kind of care that they want. So rather than doing, like, a trial is, like, an or something, be like, okay.
You wanna go for this option. Let’s try it, see how it goes, see if we need to, like, increase scope or decreased scope. And then, yeah, it was just a a thought.
No. I think it’s I think it’s a great idea I would love, in theory, I love it, but measuring success.
Well, it’s not like to increase the likelihood of success.
You’re gonna do, like, way more voice of customer research.
You’re is gonna include a lot more of that stuff.
Whereas when I’m working for agencies, don’t do any of that. Like, I don’t do that great job, to be honest, because they don’t, you know, they’re not paying me, like, the amount to go and interview their customers. So I’m like, okay, I’ll do your sales agent like, I’ll do it in a day. Like, and I don’t think of it as, like, good sustainable income. I treat it like a cash injection, like, just those, you know, when it’s opportunity to get a bit a bit of extra cash. If you wanted to yeah.
What was that about Revshare?
No.
I I thought that you were saying, like, like, if they Oh, like, no.
No. No. No.
No. It then performs well then.
Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s just like this is what I’ll do too. If you want the maximum chance of success, we’re gonna go for the, like, all in option if you Yeah.
Not etcetera.
Yeah. That could be a good way to go. Have you read Naomi pricing creativity?
Blaren’s.
No. It’s it’s got he’s got a bunch of books. But that’s it’s good. It’s very helpful, for something like this.
Yeah. So you’ve got the trial.
It’s really hard to say how to come up with, but I love Abby your ideas there with, like, you I can give you the full service everything every month for every client, or I can you could buy the VIP day, one a month or something, but at least a VIP day can keep you locked in contained and people don’t expect that they can reach out to you anytime, whereas a block of hours, I could reach out to you for one hour hypothetically on a Thursday and expect you to get back to me. The problem with trials, just as a side note, trials are good for systems. If this was a system that you were selling to them, then the trial would prove out the system or not, but the work we do is so custom.
It’s so specific to what’s going on in the market with the audience with the product. The offer with medium, all of it. That it’s very difficult for a trial to perform because the work we do often doesn’t perform until you’ve had a few takes at it. And you were able to go like, oh, that hypothesis was wrong, but look where it led us.
And then you can go along and get better and better and better. And that where, like, the payoff is with a really good copyright. That’s why agencies that’s why the agency you’re talking to doesn’t sign up for month to month. Because that would that does it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work until you’ve committed to doing something, and trying a whole bunch of different things. I know for certain that demand gen agencies don’t do month to month.
So any any good ones at least don’t. So That’s my only pause for you going forward with trials. If it’s a system, it’s easy not to trial out. If it’s a human engagement, it’s very hard to trial.
And maybe go for a VIP day.
As like the easiest way in and then from there, they can start to look in to bring you in on projects and other things.
Yeah.
That’s my take.
I’ve done a bunch of VIP days with, a couple agencies too, and I feel like it’s a good, like like what Joe said, you don’t want them to be like, oh, we did an hour here and there or two hours for this. It’s like, it’s a contained main time. And I’ve had an easy time, like, selling those.
Sorry.
My biggest concern with the IP days is really the creative component because so much of what in in more performance based mediums the design is such a big part of it that I really have to work very, very closely with the designer to make sure that they follow, like, conversion CRO principles and UX principles, the way that I would like them to.
So I’d be worried that the VIP day, like, oh, oops, the designer isn’t available. You have come back on Monday and finish up for us. So that’s that’s really my biggest concern with VIP Day. Do you have that issue?
I haven’t had that issue because I’m working and like working on different kinds of things, but it sounds like if if that is a thing, even if it’s not a VIP day, is that still going to be annoying schedule if they’re like, oh, hey, the designer’s not available today. Like, is it still gonna be like they’re kinda calling the shots and they’re like, oh, actually, let’s You know, does that make sense? Or does it have the IP plan out? Sure. But even if it’s not a VIP day, they stop the plan ahead and be like, this is when the designer’s available. Right? So whether it’s a VIP day or not, you have to to expect for your schedule.
Right?
Yeah. Like, you don’t pay for that premium, like, then they’re not paying, like, that’s the fact that you work, like, on UX for the designer, like, that’s that’s more value really than a VIP days for, I would think. So that’s where, like, if you were to offer the different options. It’s like the more expensive option is the one where, like, you’re gonna collaborate a bit more with their team and they’re gonna pay, like, the premium for that.
Yeah.
And it’s two VIP days maybe, right, where you get in a flow of VIP day one is you doing the work VIP day too is you doing the checks over how it’s been implemented and then making any changes accordingly.
If that’s a real if that’s a real problem or the other side is, it’s an agency. It’s a subcontract.
Sometimes you just have to be okay with stepping back. You hand over the copy doc. You give all the best direction you can do. The designer is going to do do what the designer is going to do, though. And so, unless you work directly with them very often, and can establish a relationship there. It can be tough to get a designer to do what the subcontracted copywriter wants them to do.
Yeah. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s just like, do you pick your battles here and just like, is If if working with agencies was your full business model and that’s what you were doing going forward, then we could come up with different things here. But my hope and prayer is that it is not so that we can get you, like, scoring big ass projects and competing with that very agency, not necessarily demand gen. But, depending on what you what you want to do, of course, that’s the goal is not to keep. I is that is that in line, or do you want to keep working with agencies in the long term?
Well, I want to work with demand gen professionals because that’s really my area of expertise. So if they are in an agency, maybe that would work. If they’re in house, great. But Yeah. If they’re in house, maybe they already have a team of copywriters that they they they work with, or they have very strict brand principles, and they don’t wanna outsource anything.
So, like, is there a sweet spot?
Yeah. Working with in host demand gen.
Twenty twenty one.
I have worked with in host demand gen, and they are the best. They get excited about everything that you do because they don’t have a lot of fresh ideas coming in. So That’s where if you love DemandGen, cool, you know, do some stuff with the agencies, whatever, have it be that cash that you need, have it be some, like, experience that you get more and more and more with them so you can try different stuff. But then if you like DemandGen, go work as a freelancer for demand gen that’s in house at, like, almost any e commerce company, and it’s it’s fun and ego boosting, which never hurts. And you make good money. Yeah.
Right. So that’s what I’ve been that’s what I did in house for many years.
Nice. Love it.
That was what I did over and over and over and over again.
So I know that they that they like me.
The the trick is figuring out, do they have the budget to hire me, hire somebody out out of house.
And do they are they even thinking that way?
Yeah. And it’s true that a lot of tech companies have laid off people.
Not necessarily because they have to these days, because it looks good on the books to do it. But hiring agencies can be have its own downfalls. It can be expensive too. So it’s not that they’re only looking at agencies. They’re also looking at freelancers, to fill in those gaps. So I would just keep that in mind too. Yeah.
Okay. Cool.
That was fun.
I didn’t mean to think up so much time.
No. That was a lot of working through a big thing. Hopefully, we got, you know, kind of nodding things a bit, which takes work.
Good. Let us know what what happens with this conversation. Naomi over in Slack too. Cool. Well Yeah. I know we’ve got three minutes technically left, even though we’re over sort of by thirty. Does anybody have any last thoughts or question or, like, a rapid something where we good to go.
Yeah. Quick question.
When is the the free month trial, like, officially and, like, for CSP. Do you know the day?
That’s a Sarah. I think February. I think this is the free month for you.
Yeah.
Yeah. I just wondered if there was, like, a I think the date.
I think the next payment is on February twenty eight, I think.
Okay. Yeah.
What I think? Check with Sarah.
Okay. Yeah. Sarah knows all that stuff. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Abby. Anybody else?
Alright. Have a good week. We will see you in Slack. And, this Thursday is Percy’s mindset session on rethinking failure.
So make sure you check that out if you struggle with things like the word failure.
Cool. Okay. Thanks, everybody.
Have a good day.
Thanks, Joe. Bye.
Worksheet
A Crash Course in Optimization for Copywriters
A Crash Course in Optimization for Copywriters
Transcript
Today’s training though is if you look at that sunshine growth model that we talked about in the intensive freelancing, it’s on the skills side of thing, and this is skills that you sell. So the skills that you sell are copywriting services, whatever, whatever, whatever. These are the skills that probably turned you into a copywriter.
Then everything else, on that sunshine growth model is all business y stuff.
So we rarely need to really talk about this at this level, talk about skills at this level.
However, I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately around optimizing. What do how do I optimize this thing?
And as we’re talking about a retainer offer being built on your standardized offer, the retainer again needs to mat it needs to build on the work that you did in that initial standardized offer, and the way to build on it is not by doing a bunch of new work, but by optimizing the work that you did. There is definitely a desire for that work out there for you to optimize.
So just keep that in mind. Suspend disbelief if you’re like, nobody really wants me to optimize. All they want is for me to keep churning out more work. Well, that might be that you’re possibly doing, working with the wrong clients to begin with. But what I wanna talk about today then is how do we optimize a thing? How do you start optimizing something?
And it’s tricky. Right? So we’re all gonna come at this from different angles, different amounts of experience.
So bear with me if you’re like, this is, obvious, Joe. I’m not trying to start at an obvious place, but I am trying to, like like, level set, like, where just make sure we’re all starting from the same, same place. So before, so backing up for me, when copywriting started to actually really click for me was when we started split testing it when I was at Intuit. Prior to that, it was a big guessing game, and I felt I felt frustrated by that.
I didn’t wanna guess at it. I don’t like that feeling. I don’t like that someone else can guess at my job and possibly win against me. There’s a little bit of competition there.
But if someone else can say, well, we should try it this way instead, and it’s very hard as a copywriter to say, no. Let’s not do it that way. Because then they go, well, why not? And it turns into a bit of a, a challenge I found. And maybe this isn’t your experience, but it was mine when I was in house at a big tech company.
Why are you right was always the question. And then when you could start testing it, then you could build up that, like, this is why I’m right because I’ve been right on these ones, and, here’s what we learned from it, etcetera etcetera. So it turns your job from this guessing game into something that’s really, measurable, and you know. It’s not just that others know, but you know if what you’re doing is performing well.
And that’s really important for a lot of type a’s. If I don’t know where everybody sits, but it’s pretty it’s I think it’s important for everybody. I can only speak as someone who is quite type a. For me, it’s very important to know how it’s working and to be able to say, this is what I did.
I rock. And I wanna have that experience, and I want everybody to have that too.
When I’ve been teaching optimization before, again, it doesn’t have to be experimentation all the time, but in most cases, it should be. There has to be a form of measurement going on that’s reliable, so keep that in mind. I was teaching one of my Boxcar team members, back before she was at Boxcar. She was, still at the other agency as it was wasn’t called the other agency.
It was called CH Agency, but she was there. And she was really frustrated with with testing and how to do it. And I said to her, it got to the place where in our conversation, I said, look. If you start from a place where you understand everything is always a little wrong, if you understand that you’re never right, then you can start optimizing.
Then you can, like, explore what that means, that nothing is ever right. If that doesn’t help you, throw it away. But if it does, just try to keep that in mind that we’re not aiming for perfection.
We are always challenging the thing we did before because the thing we did before was an educated guess. And in control even though it’s never been, like, tested as a control. We just control even though it’s never been, like, tested as a control. We just call it the control because that’s, like, the language you use when it’s really variation a, not a control. A control is typically just for everybody who doesn’t know, and that’s cool.
A control usually has to be, put up against something else and then beat it. You can’t just say my home page that I created on the clear blue sky is the control because it’s not it’s it doesn’t fit into a control. It’s a variation a. It’s a starting point.
It’s a. Now we’re gonna create b against it. The headline on that page is a. Now we’re gonna create headline b and test it against it.
It’s not the control. We just it’s just, like, easy language to say, but what we really do mean is variation. A.
A control is, like, a respected thing. You want to beat a, like, proven control. And when you can do that, that’s a really good thing to, like, to brag about if you’re looking for that. But what’s important to keep in mind is that everything that we’re up against, everything you’re trying to beat, including the own work you did, was likely an educated guess. So So what I want you to do right now, just, like, take a few minutes and chat out to me in chat out to all of us In the most recent project that you did where you wrote copy, what did you guess at?
Just chat it to everybody. What did you guess at?
I’ve listed a few of them here. These are those yeah.
Nobody guessed at anything? Everything was perfect?
Value prop headline over SEO optimized headline on a product page. Okay.
So the headline, what it was about, how it was messaged, what formula to use for it, what VOC to pull in for it, Those are four things that you guessed at.
An SQL sequence without a CTA. They wanted no CTA, and then you gotta talk them out of that shit. That’s bad.
What are you gonna do without a CTA?
Caroline guessed at the biggest reader desire. Johnson guessed at target audience’s main points. Even if you can interview even if you can interview, you’re guessing. Do you you come up with a list.
You get all this stuff out of an interview, and then you go through and go, I think that one. And that’s how we choose. I think that one sounds best. And that might not be true for what you say.
You might prioritize what to say in a way that feels calculated and scientific, but how we say it is almost no. It’s always guessed at. It’s always a guess. Headlines, stage of awareness.
Right? Which stage of awareness do you lead with? Take a guess.
The freebie use? Yeah. What offer? How do we message the offer? What do we lead with in the offer?
What’s the most important thing? What’s the headline for the offer? What’s the cross head there? What’s the call to action?
Is it a call to value? How do we message that? Every single thing. Everything, the format, how you talk about it.
Should we say on the page that it’s a video or that it’s a PDF?
Should we say on the page that it’s a video or that it’s a PDF? You have to say. You have to guess. You’re guessing. So that’s okay. Knowing that that’s true for everybody.
We are data driven and, like, data informed, but we are guessing from top to bottom. We’re better guessers because we’re informed, because we don’t just, like, stare at a blank page and start throwing stuff on. That’s really, really bad guessing. That person shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near marketing. It’s too too much guessing. But we’re still otherwise, we’re there’s still an element of guessing in every single thing that you do.
Jessica has more. Yep. Open loop at the end of email too. Should we do that?
I don’t know. Should we? Okay. Let’s do it. I have a guess.
You might a hypothesis is still a guess. A research question is a guess phrased as a question. So know that. And once you recognize that every single thing that you write is guessed at, and that that’s okay, then you know that if I guessed at it, then there’s gotta be a way to beat it.
Right? It’s gotta be another, possibly better guess out there. I can learn more. I can do more.
There’s a better guess because everything is always a little wrong. Nothing’s ever a hun there’s nothing that’s converting at a hundred percent out there at scale. Maybe a hundred percent one to one, but not not at scale. So and we work at scale largely.
Okay. If you didn’t chat out something you guessed at, I hope it’s because you couldn’t think of it, not because you believe that you don’t guess at things. We all do. We all do. I’ve made a very good living out of guessing at this stuff.
And we can guess better and better as we go, but it’s a guess. Okay.
So this week for this is just one part of what we’re gonna be talking about when it comes to optimization and how to beat variation a in most cases, the control in some cases.
What do we need to start with? So most of the time, copywriters are as guilty as any marketer on the planet of jumping straight to copy. Here’s the copy, and that’s why a lot of us feel imposter syndrome. It’s because you’re so certain that the copy was wrong that you then worry like, oh, that’s gotta be it. Shit. I really blew it with this copy.
We don’t start there. Sometimes you can quickly analyze and go like, oh, who let the f word slip in this headline? Maybe that’s a copy problem. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.
But it’s that never happens. That literally that never happens. So what else is it if it’s not really obvious report. You don’t have to read the analytics report.
You have to ask for it. You have to say, show me this, or does anybody have the numbers on that? Here’s a data point that we need to see. Here’s the metric that I need measured.
Who can help me out with this? You can guide people. You don’t. Your job is not to be a data analyst either, but you do need to get the numbers.
Before you come up with any sort of hypothesis for what to do differently in the next iteration before you come up with a research question, You need to know what the pages or email or ad or whatever funnel is, being measured on. And there are two parts of that. K? There’s the KPI.
Again, if you already know this, just be like, it’s okay. Some people don’t know this. So just roll with it. KPI is a key performance indicator that’s indicator that’s typically a higher level business y goal, but not so high.
It’s not like grow the business. They’re lower than that. And then metrics are subpoints for that. And, also, sometimes, a metric can be a KPI too.
Just keep that in mind. But we have KPI, key performance indicator, the thing that you are specializing in, the offer that you’re putting out into the world. And I know this is newer to Copy School Pro and talked about more in the intensive, and that’s why you’ve been invited to the intensive so we can talk about the same things the same way.
What you’re putting out into the world has a way of being measured. There’s success metrics associated with it or else the business wouldn’t hire you for it. Businesses have better things to do with their money than just throw it at random freelancers and say, well, I don’t know. Hopefully, something good happens.
They’ve got an idea in their head. Right? So we need to identify what the primary key performance indicators are for the offer we’re putting out into the world. And then what those supporting metrics are for each of the KPIs so that not so we can, like, identify what to do next, but so that we can keep a good handle on how the thing that we made is actually performing so that we’re not busting something that’s not close to or we’re not trying to fix something that’s not broken and in turn breaking it.
So this is the general checklist. You need to identify It’s usually a lot of KPIs the more you think about it, so try to just narrow it down to three KPIs. If there are two, that’s cool. Then two to three supporting metrics for each KPI.
We’ll get into metrics on the next page. You’ll see that there are a lot of metrics, and this is, like, a small list of the many metrics that are out there. So we need to tighten everything up, and that’s why it’s good to specialize and have a single standardized offer that turns into a retainer offer. So you’re always so you’re becoming an expert on these three KPIs as they relate to your offer, and you expertly know how to use the metrics, how to measure them, who you talk to versus having to know everything.
And since copy is everywhere in marketing, in sales, in product, it’s everywhere, the metrics are endless. There’s endless questions you could have if you were a generalist. There are far fewer questions that you’re required to answer if you’re a specialist. So we need to come up with those metrics that matter.
That means the real ones. If it it only matters if it matters.
Keep that in mind as you’re moving forward. When it comes to optimizing anything, it only matters if it matters. You can get a lot of questions thrown at you as you optimize stuff. What about this? What about that? It only matters if it matters, and you know it matters if it ties back to one of your key performance indicators with the metrics underneath them.
Now I have here that you should map the KPIs and MTMs on a triangle simply because we’ve been talking about triangles so far. But the golden triangle, we have your diagnostic that might have looked like a triangle.
It doesn’t have to be a triangle, but I’m trying to just when you see triangle, know it means model. Some sort of model, some way to look at things, in a controlled way that isn’t just a table that feels changing. You need it to look like it is the final version of a thing.
And that’s important as signals to your client going forward that, like, you’ve got this handled. You’ve thought about it a lot. You’ve put in the legwork. They don’t have to think about it.
Here’s the model. Here’s how it works. K? So we come up with that triangle, which we’ll talk about, then you need to educate your client on that diagnostic.
So when they hire you for the standardized offer and the retainer offer, ideally, that follows it, you need to be able to walk them through. Okay. Here are the KPIs that we usually are measuring for when it comes to this offer, this way, this thing that I’m doing for you.
Here’s why. Here’s what we’re gonna measure to make sure we’re on track. Now should we talk through these KPIs and you can, like, walk them through that, get their buy in on it, help them see that you’re the expert because you’re leading with important stuff that businesses talk about, like KPIs and metrics. You’re talking about measuring.
You’re not saying just things around voice of customer data, which is great data, but also the quantitative side of it. So qualitative, cool. You know that in and out. Quantitative is where you’re asking them for that data.
You’re talking with them. You don’t have to go in and run the report. Just as another reminder, if you love data, you can go run the report. Add that in as an extra layer of service.
Cool. Charge more, though. Then you wanna measure those metrics at regular scheduled intervals.
A big mistake people make who have not been coached through how to do conversion rate optimization is they, measure whenever they feel like it, or they don’t have it in their calendar, like, diarized.
And so you’re just like, oh, shit. I haven’t looked at that test in a while. And then you go look at it, but you haven’t been doing it on a regular basis. So it’s very it’s like in a lab, if you put stuff in a beaker and walk away and then come back three minutes later and measure it and then come back three months later and measure it and try to do anything with that, anybody would be like, you just lost your grant.
Like, you don’t know what you’re doing. Please stop. So we don’t wanna do that. We wanna do regular scheduled interviews for or intervals for, the things that we’re measuring.
Okay?
And measuring month over month and year over year, which can be really tricky because a lot of the stuff that we’re standing up doesn’t have a year over year, barely has a month over month.
So know that that’s difficult. But as you move forward in your retainer, you are looking at month over month performance and year over year performance, not hour over hour. That’s that’s really far too narrow. It would do this up and down, up and down like crazy. We don’t want that. We wanna look at things in controlled, disciplined ways because that is what we do as consultants.
And then we wanna report on progress toward KPIs.
So when you do, we’ll talk about this in the intensive freelancing.
When you do present your results monthly to your clients, you don’t have to dig into here are the six or nine, metrics, but rather here’s how we’re progressing toward these three KPIs that we have. And then you can support it. But we wanna stay higher level when talking to our clients because the lower and deeper we get into it, the more murky it becomes, and then people try to draw insights from it. Like, oh, no.
Our click through rate is changing, and it went down. Let’s all go look at the call to action. Like, pause. There’s so many things that could be happening here that we wanna keep the client up, There’s so many things that could be happening here that we wanna keep the client up at KPI level.
That’s where they wanna be. They didn’t hire you for a better click through rate. They hired you for a result, so we keep them at the result level. Is this making sense?
Cool. I’m talking a blue streak, but but, hopefully, it’s okay. Alright. Cool.
So, yeah, I had a whole mind map. It’s already twenty five minutes into this, and there are so many more things to discuss. So we’re gonna we’re gonna finish off this worksheet, which I the page numbers aren’t updating automatically. Sorry about that. So this is not page page two. We’re gonna finish this off and then just know that going forward, we’ll have other sessions on, like, okay. At this level, when there’s a bounce rate happening on a long form sales page, what might we do with that data?
Unlikely. Maybe bounce rate would be important. Anyway, we’ll get into that.
So you need to identify what your KPIs and metrics that matter are for your standardized offer.
You can understand that if you don’t have a standardized offer and just to be clear, a standardized offer gets measured the same way your retainer offer gets measured because they’re building on each other. Well, the retainer offer builds on the standardized, so, of course, your retainer is constantly trying to improve the results that come out of the thing that you did up front, that project.
So they both have the same KPIs. They both have the same metrics that matter. These are unchanging things during the course of your retainer. It’s not like suddenly you see engagement is way up, but that wasn’t a metric that matters.
You don’t start reporting on engagement being way up. That’s cool. That’s nice. Maybe change your model in the future so it it reflects engagement as an important metric, but you don’t start reporting on it suddenly.
Just just know that we only wanna report on things that matter to the client that they agreed on. That’s how they’re gonna see value in you and feel like you’ve got this under control.
Okay.
So I want you to just take a couple minutes. We’re gonna go through this. Try to think of your standardized offer if you’re not there yet. Think about the project that you most commonly get hired to do or that you most want to do going forward, whatever that thing is that you’re going to be creating and then optimizing.
What is the number one goal that your client has or is likely to have for that thing?
Write that in.
I have a question about this.
Can I ask it now because it’s relevant, or should I wait until afterwards when you’re done with the whole Oh, go for it?
Let’s hear it. Okay.
So in the most of the companies that I’ve worked for, they measure things differently, and this is especially relevant for different sized companies. And I would say that the kind of ups more upscale company that I would want to target, they’re definitely gonna have, individual metrics that they use Yeah. That their own data science team, creates, especially if they’re measuring the quality of the lead. And when when I mean qualitative data, I mean, quantitative qualitative data.
Like Sure. Sure. How long they are are around. Right? Yeah. And then also these metrics are gonna go out of date.
Like, I don’t know anyone that I work with that uses CAC anymore.
But, like, ten years ago, everyone was people that still use CAC so completely.
But keep going. Keep going. Just know that there’s a Like, MQL. Gigantic world out there with businesses doing all sorts of things at all sorts times. Okay. Keep going.
So I feel like if I come in and say, we’re gonna measure this, they’re gonna be like, don’t tell us what to do. We measure this because we have our whole, like, we have our whole, like, Tableau set up, and this is how we measure things. And this is what’s important to us us because this is our model.
And, like, you need to adapt. I feel like it’ll come off as very aggressive and, like, not customer serving.
Nope. Okay. Although it depends it depends on how you do it. Right? You go in and use buy in isn’t me telling you clients what to do. Buy in is getting is showing them, like, okay.
I’ve done this. They you come into the conversation knowing where everybody knows that they have, that you’ve done this before. K? You’re not here to guess at it. You’re not here to do whatever the client wants you to do. You’re here to help them get the result that they’re looking for.
You measure the work this way. Now do they agree that the primary KPI for the thing that they’ve just hired you for is x?
If they’re like, no. That’s the secondary KPI. Here is the top one. Then you just turn the triangle for them.
But you have to have the three key, performance indicators on there. You will know what those are. I don’t care how different businesses are. There’s a CMO at the top of it who is doing the right things for their business and is thinking of the same KPIs for their different departments within marketing, the CTO, or the chief product officer, or whoever also has certain KPIs.
And those are not such changing things across organizations that we need to be afraid or, uncertain that we can come in and say, here’s how I measure success.
Here’s why.
What do you think of that?
You need to be able to consult with your clients. And I would say, if it feels too aggressive, try it because that’s how consultants actually come in. Someone comes in. Perna comes in. She’s charging a hundred thousand dollars for a project.
If she comes in and goes, how do you wanna measure it? What do you want this to be like? Now I’m like, what did I hire you for? Why am I paying you all this money if I’m the one who has to make up all the rules as we go? What I want is for you to take this outcome that I’m looking for and make it happen for me in a way where I feel very little effect of it other than smiley faces every time I look through your report at the end of the month. That’s what people are looking for at a higher level when it comes to copy that converts.
Social media posts are another thing. I’m not in the business of social media posts or other ways of creating content.
I’m talking about real copy that people are looking for that does the thing that the business needs it to do. Does that make sense, Naomi?
But, like, even in terms of, like, lead quality. Like, I’ve worked with companies that use lead to sale. I’ve worked with companies that you I don’t even remember. It’s ATV or ACV. They had their own metric. Mhmm.
And so, like, if I use lead to sale, one company would be like, well, we never use that.
So wouldn’t it make more sense to be a little bit less specific and say measure quality, based on how you measure that. Because when I say MQL for one company, they’re not gonna take me seriously because they see MQLs as sort of garbage leads and sort of, like, not super high quality. This is based on, like, my own experience. I’m sure it’s different elsewhere.
It’s clearly based on your experience, and that’s good.
Great. That’s a real legit experience. It’s not reflective of an experience that I go through in these scenarios. So I would say, how is it working for you when you go in and the client does the leading? How is it working? Are you able to close fifty thousand dollar projects, or is that a scary number?
It’s not a scary number for me. And I do go into these organizations and have these conversations, and no one says you’re overstepping.
No one has said that to me since I was at Intuit, and I had to just go into the consulting world where they line up for it. So I would I would say how is it working out for you when they get to dictate everything about how things are gonna be be measured and stuff like that.
Really, like, analyze how it’s working.
And it’s okay if you go into an organization and they’re like, we don’t use MQLs.
Anybody who is, like, laughing about that or thinks it’s outdated, I feel like they’re they’re probably not very professional if they go into a space and go, like, nobody uses MQLs anymore. Like, no. Like, lots of people use MQLs still, like, the vast majority. And whether they see it as a garbage lead is really on, like, them. It’s got nothing to do with and you don’t have to also, nobody’s saying for you that you have to go in and say MQL is the metric that matters here. If you know this, if the people that you’re selling this to don’t it means marketing qualified lead, and then there’s sales qualified lead, and that’s an SQL. So if you go into these and there’s other types of qualified leads that gets it gets detailed when you’re dealing with product led growth versus sales led.
So there’s also just stuff going on there, but just know that it’s okay that you might measure things differently than your client does. This isn’t about trends. It’s not about what the latest thing is that people care about. Cost to acquire a customer is always going to be a critical, metric.
It doesn’t mean you have to call it that. Call it whatever they call it then. You don’t have to fill in the metrics with them. You can say these are the three KPIs that I’m generally measuring for.
Do you agree with these that these are the three outcomes you’re looking for when you’re hiring me for this? Yes. We do. Cool.
I know businesses, measure these things differently. What are the two primary metrics you use to measure this KPI? Me through that. And then you can draw that on the model.
But what I don’t want you to do is shy away from taking the lead and saying, this is what I do. This is how I do it well, and then talking with the client about that. Does that make sense, Naomi?
Yeah. For sure. For sure. I can, like, outline the metrics that I use. But my idea would be to go in and say, okay.
We’re gonna measure leads. Do you measure MQLs? Do you measure leads, or do you measure opportunities? And then have that as one side of the triangle and then say quality.
Do you have a metric or quality that you have, like, as an algorithm? And then have that as one And then ask them specifically, like, do you have a specific metric that you created with your own algorithm, or do you use something in like, what would you use? And then add that later on rather than coming in specifically and using something that’s not actually programmed into their database.
For sure. That’s great. We’re totally aligned on that. Just make sure that you’re guiding the conversation and you go in there knowing what your standard KPIs are, what the most common metrics that matter are so that when you’re guiding them through this conversation, they might also stare at you and go, I don’t know.
Not because they don’t know, but because they’re trying to figure out what you like to connect a dot between what they wanna share with you and what you want to hear from them. So when you’re asking those questions, it’s good to have a backup that’s like so here’s an example of a KPI that we use. Does that match what you use for this or what you had in mind for this? Yes.
It does. Okay. Perfect. And if it doesn’t, then they can say that at the same time too.
Cool. Something wrong.
Because if I’m speaking yeah.
If I’m speaking to somebody who’s more product marketing oriented or more brand oriented, like, sure. I can come in with very specific data and lead the conversation. But if I’m coming into somebody who’s a campaign manager, then I wanna make sure that I’m speaking to them on their level and Sure. Sort of engaging them in the conversation.
Hundred percent. Love it. Awesome. Cool.
Okay. Excellent.
Did we get our primary goal for your offer? Does anybody wanna check that out, what they or just share it?
Everybody timid about this? It’s okay.
Nobody got what’d you do? John said you’re looking down at your page.
K. Naomi has conversion rate. Awesome.
Jessica?
Is it okay to ask a question?
Sure. Katie, you have increased lifetime customer value. Nice.
Web traffic. Yeah. That’s a good KPI.
High level.
Jessica, are you asking it or what’s that?
Oh, yeah. Sorry. I wasn’t sure when you wanted me to ask.
So I was gonna Go for it.
Go for it.
Sorry. Okay. So with the seasonal sale, right, conversion rate? Yes.
I’ve been looking more into the, attributable revenue, but that’s not I guess that’s not the word. But, anyway, the one where I’m kind of struggling, though, is the idea of instead of just general ROAS, which was really big when I was working in house with my ecommerce client Yeah. It seems to me that given my specialty and what I would like to do, that new customer ROAS would be an interesting metric. K.
But where I’m getting kind of stuck is if they have a high lifetime customer value, right, and it’s so a really high one, then they might be able to spend a little bit more with their ads and invest a little so they’re so the ROAS on a new customer may not you know, they may be able to lose a little bit.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. So I guess that’s where I get a little stuck in the muck of KPIs and all that because given the especially, it seems like it comes back a lot of times to lifetime value. Based off of what they can get long term, you can make different decisions in the short term for the seasonal sale. And that’s where I’m kind of struggling with what how to standardize, I guess.
So that’s where I mean, a lot of experience will help with that. Like, the more you go and try this with different groups, but also your perspective on it. That’s why specializing on the sunshine growth model is right next to thought leadership. Like, the two work hand in hand.
So if you draw a line in the sand and you say, look, I work with clients or with brands that are spending money to acquire new customers and have high lifetime value, or customer lifetime value, that’s who you work with now. That’s what you build thought leadership on. You say you’re gonna lose money on the first one. And by the way, you’re not the only person saying this.
Like, every ad agency we talk to is like, oh, no. No. No. You need something further down the line because you’re gonna barely breakeven on the first ones.
So but that’s cool. Why not draw a line in the sand and say this is this is the case? You need to be willing to lose money on that new customer acquisition in order to upsell them on things later. So you have to have a high customer lifetime value that is realized after that first purchase.
Okay. Okay. So that’s an acceptable option. Okay. I did not even think about that with the thought leadership, so you’re right.
And thank you for pointing that out.
Cool. Awesome. Good question. Okay. So I’m looking at time.
A bunch of metrics listed here, all sorts of them that matter across different things for different businesses. Some businesses will care a lot about some of these and others will not. Some of the work you do, this will matter for it, and some of the work, it won’t matter. The way attention and attraction are written together really mess with my head. Did I spell one of those wrong? I couldn’t.
No matter how many times I read that over, I’m like, there’s something wrong with that. Anyway, it’s messing with my eyes, and has ever since I started working on this.
Then there are conversion sales revenue. So are you working more closely with sales, with the sales team, or more with the product team, or more with the marketing team? That’s gonna vary based on what you’re doing. Obviously, cart abandonment is more for ecommerce than it will be for SaaS. But you may still find some people who work in SaaS and say cart abandonment largely because they came from an ecommerce background, which is very, very normal. So just, like, be ready.
Be ready to not be too shocked by the number of things that you may hear in an organization. Not everybody is running at an expert level. So that’s important to keep in mind when you’re like, what did they mean by car dependent meant when we’re in SaaS? Just like, oh, they just meant this.
They meant that. So keep that in mind. And then there’s way more to this. I don’t work in engagement referrals or necessarily sometimes in retention, but I don’t, like, even consult with people on this side.
So I didn’t have a lot of metrics to list out here, so there’s probably more if this is the thing that you work in. Just keep adding to it and know that these lists are not exhaustive. The reason they’re in here is to help you if you’re like think I know what one goal is.
And I think I know how they measure that, but there are, like, fifteen things that they use to measure that goal, and they’re all listed in here, then you need to decide what the most important ones are, the metrics that matter for the work that you’re being brought in to do. So this is the sort of thing you’d wanna fill out. It doesn’t have to go in any sort of order. Like I said, depending on what their primary KPI is, you just, like, tilt tilt the triangle around until the one that’s number one is, like, up at the top if that even matters visually. But just keep that in mind. This doesn’t have to go in any certain order. It sometimes does go clockwise.
Cool. Sometimes it has the flat part down at the bottom. Whatever. That doesn’t have to be drawn as a triangle either, but what you want to do is be sure that you’re able to talk your client through how you do it.
So let’s say that a standardized offer is for an ad funnel audit. When the ad funnel audit is done, there’s a road map of optimization tweaks that gets produced at the end of the ad funnel audit. So this is an example. Okay?
The example.
What might that person do if that was their standardized offer and the retainer that comes out of it? Great.
They could have and they talk they go into the conversation with their, client talking about this. Right? So the KPIs that are most common when I’m doing an ad funnel audit and then the work to optimize that ad funnel, they are more leads, more calls booked, and greater profitability. Does that match what you’re thinking?
And they look through it, and they might wanna unpack. Okay. What do you mean? Like, how would we even measure more leads?
Great question. There’s lots of ways to measure more leads. We typically use impressions and click through rate. And they’re like, oh, just to your point, Naomi, they’re like, no.
We don’t use that. We use blank and click through rate. Okay. Cool. Let’s do that.
We’re aligned that those are the two ways we’re gonna measure more leads. Yes. We are. Perfect.
Now let’s move on to more calls booked. What we’re looking at, because this is on the landing page in this ad funnel, is bounce rate. Are they staying on the page, or are they abandoning it? And sales demos booked.
Does that match what you would like to how you’d like to measure success for more calls booked? Well, we definitely need sales demo booked. I don’t know about bounce rate, though. Is that the most important thing?
And then you have a discussion with them about why that is. And then we get into greater profitability, cost to acquire, and cost per lead. Those are the key ones that we’re typically working at working with. Naomi, to your point, they’re like, we don’t say cost to acquire customers anymore.
Like, okay. Fine. What do you use then? Great. We’ll use that, but we’re good with cost per lead.
We say dollars spent per lead. Okay. Fine. We’ll call it dollars spent per lead. Are we good with that?
Yes. We are. Cool. This is how we’re going to measure success going forward. At the end of every month, when I report results to you, you’re going to see these KPIs on the page with month over month.
And once we get there, year over year data. How does that sound? So we can actually measure how this is working. Cool beans.
We’re set. Good. Now you’ve walked them through that.
Everybody is on board with it, and you’ve also addressed things that aren’t, that don’t match what they typically do, which is good for anybody who is maybe of a large organization that does have a data team.
Okay.
We’re really low on time here, but what I want you to do is once you’ve completed this this is homework. Once you’ve completed this triangle for your standardized offer with the metrics that matter, it’s not set in stone. You’ll change this. The sunshine growth model has been coming together for, like, four years, so it changes over time.
It changed from the beginning of the, CopySchool Pro. We didn’t even have those four categories. So it will change. That’s okay.
That’s why we use Canva so we can always be editing things. So it’s going to change. That’s okay. Just start with the metrics that you believe matter.
Then this is where we start to think through. We’re not gonna get into it today, but this is where we start to think through. Okay. Now that I know how we’re measuring this, what can I do to start chipping away at systematizing ways to optimize that metric?
So for that metric, I mean. So let me skip ahead. This is the blank one for you to fill in for your own triangle or whatever diagnostic you use. This is what we’ll start to use to identify areas of opportunity for optimization.
So if we’re like impressions, again, if they changed if the client has changed it, then you change this too.
Impressions is how where is one metric. So what are things that could impact impressions? Well, the audience might be too narrow, too broad, or whatever. The image might be impacting impressions.
Maybe it’s a video, and it needs to be a static image or maybe the opposite, a hook or a keyword. Now we don’t wanna list every possible thing. That’s what a full mind map is for. That’s what I’ll share with you down the road.
All we really wanna do right now is start saying, like, okay.
If I implement this, what might be going on when things aren’t performing well or when they’re performing really well? And this will mean referring back to your list of guesses. Right? Like, you made guesses at every stage.
What did you guess at that could be impacting positively or negatively bounce rate, for example. Well, the headline, I guessed at the headline, so it’s maybe that. It’s the I guess, at the formula that we use for it, I guessed at the message, I guessed at how. So headline could be doing it.
Could be trust factors because that’s what bounce rate is largely about. Do people trust you when they landed on that page?
Load time is also another one. Right? So you’ll work through these. And then when you’re going through and doing the measuring and bounce rate is high, now you can say, okay.
If bounce rate’s high, we don’t worry about that or that. We only worry about these things. Let’s look at these things. And that’s how we can start to put together hypotheses for what could be going wrong and what we could do instead.
So you’ll fill that in, and then there’s all these other pages where you can then take every one of these you have. This is a lot of systematizing, but it does mean if you do this work upfront, then when the time comes for you to hire somebody to help you with optimizing, you train them on this. And you say, like, okay. These are the six metrics that matter.
These are the things that are probably going on if that metric is underperforming or if it’s doing really, really well. So if we see that click rate has gone through the roof, it’s amazing, Then we’ll look at offer and CTA and develop hypotheses for those. How do we develop hypotheses for those? We go through and we fill in one of these for each one that comes underneath this table.
I’m scrolling around a lot, but you can see here we have impressions, audience, impressions, audience. We wanna list out all the things that could be going on with audience that is possibly affecting impressions. Is the audience too narrow? Is it too broad?
Is it too new to us? It’s different from what we’ve been doing successfully. Is there no look alike as a starting point? And, again, that’s kind of moving toward towards, like, a new to us.
Too close to our existing list of nonconverters. Like, they’re just bad even though they reflect a lookalike. Too hard to reach, etcetera, etcetera. So we start brain dumping what might be going on there knowing that it usually comes down to these things. Either there’s a wrong x, wrong tone, wrong wrong voice, wrong message, wrong framework, wrong formula, wrong audience, changed all of those things again so the audience we thought it was has actually changed.
Changed seasonality, that’s a big one too. There’s no x. There’s no one upper. There’s no CTA on that one admin that you were men that you’re mentioning.
No CTA, or it’s a weak CTA. It’s get started when it should be more of a call to value. So it’ll come down to wrong, change, no, or weak, and then you fill in anything after that. Then it’s too much of something.
Too narrow, too broad, too many, too few, too clever, too timid, too different, not different enough. And then there’s, like, this kind of bucket of other random shit that could also be true. It’s introducing a new something, a new component to an offer that is unnecessary, new friction in form fields. It’s introducing new anxieties by saying something about trust when nobody was even thinking about trust.
And, oh my gosh, should I trust these people now? It’s swiped, not strategic. That’s what most junior copywriters are going through or guest steps. That’s also what most junior copywriters are going through.
Like, I like this headline, so I wrote it. Well, that’s a guess, and we can really say, like, no. No. That’s probably what’s going on, or it’s ego based.
Someone, the highest paid opinion said this is what the headline should be. You all, like, put your your head down and went, okay. Let’s make that the headline. But you know that that was ego.
Or it was you. You wrote a poem or a email.
Nobody gives a shit about your poetry. So don’t write a poem. Go back and write something that matters for the customer. So that’s what it’s likely to come down to. It’s kind of like an absolute crash course in things that could be going on that are negatively or positively sometimes affecting whatever your goals are or the metrics that matter are underneath those.
I’m gonna stop there because there’s a lot here as I knew there would be, and there’s even more planned. This is this is scaled back. But, hopefully, that is helpful to you. Yes. This is in the Slack under copywriting advanced in that channel if you couldn’t find it. Do you have any questions, thoughts, concerns?
Yes, Katie.
Okay. I’m gonna preface this by saying I have several questions, thoughts, and concerns. So, like, what is the best place and time to like, are we gonna revisit this large topic?
Yes.
Yeah. We’re just scratching the surface. This is, like, intro. Not super intro, but yeah. Yeah. There’s more to come.
So I would say Mike ask now, and then Mike can say, like, we’ll tackle that later.
Okay. So one project that comes to mind that I actually have, like, is a quiz funnel I wrote. It went live about six months ago, and I’ve been putting off, like, checking in the after data, because I don’t know if you remember. I’ve I’ve Slacked about this client’s team. It was a social media manager who really, like, took over a lot of decisions about the email marketing.
So I guess, like, the thing that needs to be optimized is it’s not readable on mobile, and all of their traffic is coming from Instagram.
So how do you how do you navigate the conversations when you think that the thing that needs to be optimized isn’t your yours to own?
So I’ve had this happen. Ari, is it safe for you to talk to your point of contact about this team member taking over on the thing that they shouldn’t have taken over on?
Well, the problem really at the end of the project was that I could not get the client on a call without the team member being there.
Like, I tried a lot. I have, like, a two a one on one call, and he was just always also on the call.
So then it’s not safe too. That’s not possible.
So, I mean, there’s upfront work going forward where you can say you can put the rules around it. Right? Like, if if we’re going to ever measure this, you need to implement as we agree.
They’ll have reasons not to. They’ll always say we’re the one paying the invoice. It’s on it’s our business. We can do whatever we want, and they’re absolutely right.
So it is a matter of them getting on board with you being the deliverer of better performing KPIs for them. If they can recognize that you hold the key to that, then they’d be silly to get in the way. Silly is a big word though because there’s all sorts of internal politics going on. Nobody wants to fire a team member.
Who knows what’s going on? But lots of team members are underperforming out in the world, and that’s why you were brought in in the first place. It’s no offense to them. They go home at four o’clock.
Nothing. You’re like you’re an expert.
So what do you do up front? Try to do things up front to get them to buy in to the idea that and, again, the more money they’re spending on you, the less likely they are to be like, hey, Sue from accounting. What did you think of this? Like, no. No. No.
Katie knows. We trust Katie. That doesn’t mean that’s always true. Charging more isn’t gonna be, like, the the silver bullet, but it helps.
And then I the tricky thing is if you can’t get them on a call to talk to them about that, that’s the kind of thing where I would just, there’s nothing you can do about it. They’ve implemented the wrong copy. If they ever reach out to you and go, why is it working, then you say, let’s hop on a call, and I’ll tell you exactly why it’s not working.
And then you can walk them through. And this is the conversation I’ve had to have have before. It’s like, is so and so a conversion copywriter?
No. What are they? They’re a marketing intern. Yeah. So why are they writing this copy then?
And you can ask that question. And if they’re the CMO, same question. Doesn’t matter where they’re at. They’re not you.
Why are they editing your copy and doing whatever they want? And if they’re if the if the culture of the organization is allowing that, you can’t do anything about that. All you can do is step away and try to do your best to avoid that kind of client in the future. But you’re allowed to have real talks with that person and say, you brought me in for this.
It’s it’s important to me that my copy perform well for you. It’s important for me as important as it is for your team member to not feel disengaged from this. This is my this is my livelihood. Like, this is everything that I do.
And if I’m not getting results for you, that’s really bad for me. So how can we implement my copy? What’s stopping that?
And if they don’t have anything to say, then this call is very likely down to there’s something going on internally.
There’s nothing they can do about it, and there’s nothing you can do about it either in my experience.
Yeah.
And so, like, I I totally understand and respect that as, like, the way forward with this client. I’m curious how you would approach that in general when it’s like you’re the copywriter. You were brought on to to optimize the copy, but you have a hunch that a design component is what’s impacting the performance of that page? Like, do you just provide we’re like, we think we should test button color or something like that, and then and then you put that on their team to implement?
Yeah. So everything that we’re working on, it’s good to align with their designer or design team right up front wherever you can. Always, always, always. And if you can do that, then also share that as they know.
Copy doesn’t live in a silo. Copy and art work together. The creative department is copy and art and now other digital stuff too. But it’s always been art and copy.
There’s a documentary called art and copy. Like, it’s always been art and copy. So you need to work with the artist just like the artist needs to work with the copywriter to get it to its best place. If you the problem is that the designer may not feel empowered to be part of conversion rate optimization.
They’re just like they’ve been beat down over the years by every marketer saying, just change it to this color, and they’re like, they kinda wanna dye a lot of them, just like a lot of in house copywriters kinda wanna dye.
So if you have empathy for that, it doesn’t mean it’s always true, but I would start from that point. Like, I really respect what you do. Have a one on one with the designer, their design team. Really love what you are doing here.
I really wanna be part of making this better. Here’s how I work. How do you work? Let’s let’s figure out how to align on this.
If you can do that, then you can get them on board. Some people will still never be receptive. And in those cases, for me, I get a little bullish, and, take over. And then just say, like, here’s the road map for what we’re gonna do to optimize this.
And you can use data to support that. Right? If you’re like, here’s the email.
I went and I put it on, user testing dot com and had people speak to it, or I did validation, like, a five second test or whatever the hell you wanna do to get that little bit of data to say, like, people are not seeing this button. It’s gray, y’all.
Why is the button gray? But you don’t have to be the bad guy then. You can say people aren’t clicking on it. Let’s hypothesize why people aren’t clicking on it. Do we think they can find it?
Sure. They can find it. Okay. But when they find it, does it look clickable? Well, great things are clickable.
Well, great things aren’t clickable, actually. So you can have that discussion with them. But if they’re if they’re weird about it and you’ve done everything you can to make nice and be friendly with them, you’re the consultant.
Take over. You don’t have to make best friends in this organization.
And a lot of a lot of people are gonna go, does Katie know? And that’s just the way it is.
But they’re probably miserable in their jobs too in my experience. So I don’t know how helpful that is. People are trying to do their best, but they’re also calling it in a lot, like, a lot a lot.
So sometimes you have to kinda be the bad guy if being the good guy didn’t work. Yeah.
Johnson, you have a question, or at least one of the two Johnsons that are here has a raised hand.
I, I’ve got my laptop so I could see the see what’s going on. I was using my phone because it’s got a camera.
Yeah. This isn’t, well, it’s sort of I mean, it’s tied into this, of course, but, you know, we talked last time, about moving towards email, getting to know my market better and the the offer.
And, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s more or less a reiteration of the same thing. In terms of offer, I don’t know what I know. Don’t know. And I do know what I know.
But I don’t know what yeah. And I I know you have a lot of experience in email, and, honestly, I would just love to hear what your thoughts are in terms of offers that fit this model well, and, that that you think are interesting because that would that might be a really good starting point for me.
Okay. So you’re just looking for, like, ideas on what to do as your standardized offer?
Yeah. Basically. Yeah. I’m pretty open to to whatever, and I’m I’m I’m pretty excited. So yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Love it. Who do you like working with? Who’s your target audience? Who is in closest proximity to you that you can reach?
So, I mean, it’s part you you mean, in terms of, like, next client or just in general?
Well, it’s probably that client with my cousin Lee. That’s but that’s gonna be in, financing.
But, I mean, it’s tech financing, so that’s kind of kind of a sort of blend.
K. And that’s gonna happen in q two or q three now. So, that’s the project I’ve done yet, which I’m excited about. Nice. Oh, so that will win. And, Yeah. So that’s probably where I’m going next.
Do you like working with tech?
Well, yeah. I mean, broadly speaking, yes.
But, again, broadly speaking, I mean, aside from, I don’t know, helping our company kill the rainforests, and, I’m I’m happy to work in any industry, as well as I don’t hate.
So yeah.
Love it.
Okay. So the thing that seems to be an unlimited gold mine, is life cycle emails, because of you just problem is you have to go narrower than that because there are so many emails that I’m I’m saying tech, but I really, in this case, mean SaaS. I don’t mean NVIDIA or other more complex behind the scenes things. I mean, SaaS.
I mean, there’s a sign in, there’s a login, and people and users use it, and it’s usually product led growth. Doesn’t mean it has to be, though. So Envision has a sales team, for enterprise organizations. Envision’s not a good example.
They just went bankrupt.
But they were really good for a long, long time.
But point here is if you work with SaaS, there are loads of good reasons too, which I won’t get into because I know I already talk too much as this.
But SaaS life cycle emails or SaaS depends on which part of the life cycle you wanna work on, but that nobody’s doing it. I’ve said this before. Nobody’s doing it when they are they’re inundated with work. They can’t hire fast enough, so that becomes your problem. Like, cool. There’s so much money in work, but I actually can’t hire and train fast enough. So that’s a real like, that’s a first world problem, but it’s legit.
And there’s lots of money. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money for a life cycle. So just do life cycle, stand up, life cycle of some kind, activation through to revenue, whatever that looks like. You have a standard model in place that you, modify.
So you always know we’re gonna probably have these three box scars, but there might be a fourth or a fifth on there. We’re always gonna do segmentation around this part. We’re gonna try to do if we can do triggered emails, then this is true. Some SaaS companies, you still can’t do triggered.
Everybody on the development team is, like, homegrown stuff, so it gets messy. Point is, you figure that out.
Stand it up. That’s your project. That’s a standardized offer, and then you just optimize it from there on out. And because SaaS businesses need this so badly and have a real problem of a database that is packed with email addresses that they’ve been ignoring hard.
If you can come in and start to untangle that, like, that’s why Boxcar that’s why I started it. Just it’s endless, the amount.
The amount of of need there. It’s directly it’s back to revenue where they have users right there. They’re just not touching.
Is that what Boxcar specialize in then?
Yeah.
Yeah. And that’s what Boxcar so I’ve exited Boxcar. They’re off doing their own thing, and they’ve added in other landing pages mostly because there’s also a lot of demand for landing pages, and things like that. But I continue.
Like, I’m consulting with clients right now, on exactly this stuff, and it’s endless. I can’t even stop the engagement when I try to. When I say, okay. I’m ready to hand this over to others.
No. No. Way. Confused. There’s too much money on the line. Yeah.
Okay. A follow-up question I have then is, when would you recommend looking to, gain a a solid understanding around this area in terms of self education?
Yeah. I mean, given that software companies use intercom so much, I would read through all the intercom resources, watch all the things.
Also, Gong, though, like, Gong dot io, they’ve got a really good resource center and software companies that are using Gong usually have a lot of money to spend. They’ve got a sales team as well, but they’re probably trying to also do product led growth. So check out everything that Gong. Io has.
Intercoms, yeah, really obvious one.
Yeah.
Those are Okay.
Those are Like, I don’t think I English.
Yeah. You can start there and have a really solid education at the end of it. Yeah.
Alright. Great. That’s amazing.
And and just before, is there anything else, just seeing as this is something you’re so passionate about, is there anything else you think I should know about approaching this?
My only pause on doing it at all is that you will have to get really strong at saying no to coming on board as an in house person.
So I would say build out your team sooner. Yeah.
The Right.
You’re gonna make us a a crazy offer to bring you in because it’s so valuable or just right. Okay. Got it.
It’s it’s just so hard to I most people who started an email went off and did something else for god knows why, So there just aren’t that many experts out there. If you become that trusted life cycle person for them, yeah, there will be annoyingly compelling offers that you’ll have to be stronger then because when good freelancers go in house, they regret it. Two years later, they’re like, damn it. Why did I not just keep doing the thing? And I have story after story that I’m not allowed to share, but just know. This happens all the freaking time.
Don’t say yes to that offer. You can make more money on your own and be happier.
Anyway, we’ll get in we’ll cross that road when we get there, but that’s the only thing I would say. Yeah.
No. No. No. I think that just made me wanna do it more, honestly, because I’m never gonna go in house.
So, Never say never.
The offers can be very compelling.
So it’s stupid. Sure. Okay. Okay.
Cool. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Jonathan. Anybody else? Anything else? We’re good. Edna.
Hey. So I was gonna ask you, apart from the click rates or the conversion rates on a pricing page, what else can you track?
Like, the like, the scrolling with the heat maps and That’s a page I took out of today’s presentation.
Easy oh, wait. No. It’s in the tips area at the very end. I didn’t get to the tips page. The last page is full of tips.
Easy on scrolling, and pricing pages are typically not bad. Okay.
I hear you.
There’s the FAQs at the bottom that are, like, expandable too.
You know, I wouldn’t what I would look at on a pricing page, depending on if it’s on the website versus if it’s where people in product lend or lend from emails for users, not trial. So website versus other pricing page would likely have two different ways of like, two different models that you would put together for how to measure success there and what the KPIs are.
Bounce is actually really important, and it might be more at that point, it’s like exit because bounce is, like, when you enter a site and then bounce it versus exit rate is different. So you’d probably call it exit rate. On the pricing page, did they spend less than ten seconds there, which could mean all sorts of things.
And that’s where it’s like, okay. Well, that’s a metric. That’s not a KPI. So you have to first figure out what the KPI is.
Is it, hold more people on the page longer, whatever that looks like as the actual, like, goal, in which case, exit rate would be huge. And then you would go down to the table below and say what’s affecting exit rate on here. Is the price too large, too high? Are we not giving them enough time to scroll?
Like, you’d have all sorts of questions you could ask.
But it really does depend. What you want out of a pricing page is for people to choose an option, but that’s not as important as just starting to be a user. So click a button is gonna be a really important thing. It doesn’t always matter which button they click.
However, if increasing average revenue per user is important to you and if they are the kind of company that starts, that like, a lot of companies, when you land on their pricing page, you don’t have to choose a plan. You’ll choose that plan when you go. Other ones, you do choose a plan. So for the ones where you do choose a plan, it might be that you’re trying to optimize to get more people into a higher tier plan.
So that could be something, increase average revenue per user. It could be both a KPI in this case and a metric underneath that KPI.
But we’re really just looking at increasing average revenue per user, and there’s lots of ways to figure that out and lots of hypotheses you can come up with if you’re like, oh, no. We’re not. Our our poo went down.
So if that’s the case anyway, there’s that to consider.
Okay.
All sorts of things. All sorts of things.
Okay. But start with their goal. So you could also just go out there and do some research on what people want, what business owners want, what SaaS people, or even course creators want out of their pricing table.
Yeah.
There’s Thank you. Loss.
Yeah. Alright. Fun. Cool. Anything else? Anyone else? We good.
Can you just tell me when it I don’t wanna take up more time today. But I am I have some random ideas, I guess, about what might work as a retainer, or may not. And so I guess what is the best time to start discussing and then knowing because I was reading through the workbooks for all this stuff, And at one point, I think I saw something scary like, if you cannot do this, we need to go back to the standard offer and change it. I was like, oh, shoot.
I need to figure this out sooner rather than later. So what is, like, the best time would you say just talk about it in Slack? And if you guys say, nope. None of this works, then I need to look at that.
I’m a little concerned about how much time I’m wasting on seasonal campaign if I can’t figure out a retainer an optimization performance retainer for it. That makes sense.
That’s fair.
What can you I mean, now is a good time. We are in this afternoon talking about standardized offers. And with that, it’s important for you to think about the retainer offer. But next week will be full on retainer offer stuff.
Okay.
So what do you have right now?
Now is a good time?
Okay. Well, the one that to me seems to there’s obviously the seasonal sale campaign, any it could be a product launch campaign, right, where you learn from that campaign, and you can take some of those learnings and apply it to retention strategies and other things like that or just your future campaign. But a future campaign, like you said, is a new project. Yeah. So I’m trying to also avoid that. And so then the major things that I kind of was trying to get it down to was my focus on seasonal sales can also lay a great foundation for ongoing customer retention.
And, so, yes, the average order value that yes. You can do that. And, yes, you can get them to come in during the seasonal sale and buy a second time. That’s all great. But we can also start laying the foundation for increasing lifetime value and all that kind of stuff. So then the only thing that to me made sense in terms of value was ongoing work around their customer retention KPIs.
But what I was still struggling with is I’m not doing enough to opt I’m not doing enough, I don’t think, in the seasonal the standard thing for post purchase experience and all that to kinda make it not a brand new project that almost requires an email audit or something like that. So then I’m like, I don’t know. I just keep hitting the same off. Okay.
Well, I might as well just do an email program audit because they I don’t have the full picture if they bring me on for a seasonal sale. Right? And I wanna keep their customer attention going and doing all those things. It feels like if I don’t see the full picture, how do I say, yes.
We should focus on a win back versus something else. You know? Yeah. That’s what keep kinda coming against a wall of my brain.
I think you’re getting close. I do. Because it feels like okay.
If you have a point of view on standardizing seasonal campaigns Mhmm.
You can start with an audit of their past. That could be, like, your project out of the gate, potentially. Like, we’re just brainstorming here, and it might break. It might not be right.
But, if you were to start with seasonal audit, you go over their last six seasonal campaigns, and you audit them against, like, a rubric, just a some sort of analysis that you come up with. It’s your thought leadership. You own it. You’ve made sense of the best ways that seasonal campaigns work.
And then you could be responsible on an ongoing basis for running their seasonal campaigns against what you found in the audit. Doesn’t mean that’s the thing to do, but there might be if you have thought leadership and a point of view on how to run killer seasonal campaigns, All all you need is that.
Just that, Jessica. You just need outstanding thought leadership on seasonal campaigns.
Right. But that really could be you could build something out of that. You would still have So for every part of the retainer, there is still a certain level of original work that has to be done. Yeah.
But you need to try to systematize.
I say sixty percent of that. That’s not a real number. That’s just to give you a sense for it should be more systematized than custom.
Mhmm. So if you can break it down to here are the templates that work great for these campaigns.
If you could come up with that, if you could own that, then that could be a really interesting retainer where you are doing original work each time, but it’s based on your brand’s hypothesis about what is what to do to make seasonal campaigns work really well so that you attract customers that will pay pay more money to you down the road or whatever that thing is that you’re say that you end up saying in the end. I feel like you could do something, but it would require a lot of, like, really dig into what your point of view is on this.
Mhmm. Yeah. Does anybody have anything to add or any thoughts there?
I would just add that I’m totally in exactly the same boat of wondering, like, the ideas that I have for the retention offer, how do I stop them from snowballing into new projects?
Like, just, yeah, just finding that right, like, golden ratio of what goes in the standardized offer versus what’s the ongoing.
And then kind of adjacent to that, I know we were talking about, like, web copy. Like, so many of us having web copy as a standard project, but not wanting that to be the standardized one going forward.
Like, if I’ve landed on the, like, automated email sequences to increase lifetime customer value, But I’m like, how I don’t know if that’s close enough to the pain point that people like, you know, needing a sales page feels like a strong like, I don’t have the sales page. I don’t feel like it’s converting or, you know, I just feel like the post sales automated sequences feels like an add on to a painkiller product versus, like, a standardized offer in its own right.
Okay. So we were talking about this last time or on Friday. Right? And so if we’re at a so if I’m recalling correctly, it came down to sales page as standardized offer that then gets optimized, emails as standardized offer that then get optimized, or both, a standardized offer that then get optimized. And this is where you’re you’re still working through that. Is that accurate?
Well, I mean, I so I was like, okay. Shut up and make it easy. Choose the emails.
But what I because I’m reading a hundred million dollar lead nice.
Leads right now and just and I really wanna be close to the pain. Like, I wanna be fine. I want people to be like, please help me with this. And I don’t feel like the automated emails is the place where they’re like, we desperately need this support.
Can you then so you’re saying that the pain is the sales page?
No? Well, okay. I acknowledge that I’m talking about working with a different audience that I work with right now, but I was yes.
Because nobody’s ever come to me being, like, give us these emails, but people come to me all the time for the sales page.
Do they want you to continually optimize the sales page, or is it a one and done project?
Well, for my current audience, it’s a one and done project, but I’ve also never pitched sales page optimization before.
Okay. Cool. Great. So if you were to say the pain is closest to the sales page, My target audience that maybe I’m expanding to, feels great pain and wants that page optimized on an evergreen basis. They want to just continually optimize it, I’m going to sell that. That’ll be my thing. That sounds great.
No? What could be wrong with that?
Well, I feel like the sales page is harder to own than the emails just in that there’s more people doing it.
More contractors doing it. More more copywriter in my space talking about sales pages versus the behavior based automations feeling like a more like a bluer ocean.
Okay. That’s interesting. Yeah. I I don’t think it’s red ocean, though. I really don’t like I mean option?
You know best. You don’t You know. But, like, your target audience who is a person that needs a sales page that they’re continually optimizing? What’s the brand that you would want to work with?
Let’s say, like, Jerisha Hawk is a coach that I would like to work with.
Okay. Cool.
Mhmm.
So there are and do you feel like this person sorry. I’m not familiar with them. They’re always being pitched by others, or, like, they’re does it feel like they’re staring at a red ocean of people pitching them on these services?
Well, I’m like, from how engages with hers with her Instagram posts, I feel like there’s definitely at least a handful of other other copywriters, like, circling the wanting to work with her.
Who’s really killing it, though? Like, who in this red ocean is kill is it a red ocean full of sharks tearing everybody apart, or is it, like, a a goldfish pond where there’s lots of little ones in there doing their best, but may like, is there room for you to come in and be the shark?
Okay. I like that. That’s a good analogy for me. That works.
Okay. Good. Then we’ll leave it at that. I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
Alright.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Anybody else?
No? Okay. Cool beans.
Then if you’re sticking around, I’ll see you in an hour and a half for the next training.
And thank you for those who are letting their brains fill up with this stuff. Hopefully, it’s getting you to a good place, but we’ll talk more in a little bit. Okay? Thanks y’all. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Worksheet
Worksheet
Transcript
Today’s training though is if you look at that sunshine growth model that we talked about in the intensive freelancing, it’s on the skills side of thing, and this is skills that you sell. So the skills that you sell are copywriting services, whatever, whatever, whatever. These are the skills that probably turned you into a copywriter.
Then everything else, on that sunshine growth model is all business y stuff.
So we rarely need to really talk about this at this level, talk about skills at this level.
However, I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately around optimizing. What do how do I optimize this thing?
And as we’re talking about a retainer offer being built on your standardized offer, the retainer again needs to mat it needs to build on the work that you did in that initial standardized offer, and the way to build on it is not by doing a bunch of new work, but by optimizing the work that you did. There is definitely a desire for that work out there for you to optimize.
So just keep that in mind. Suspend disbelief if you’re like, nobody really wants me to optimize. All they want is for me to keep churning out more work. Well, that might be that you’re possibly doing, working with the wrong clients to begin with. But what I wanna talk about today then is how do we optimize a thing? How do you start optimizing something?
And it’s tricky. Right? So we’re all gonna come at this from different angles, different amounts of experience.
So bear with me if you’re like, this is, obvious, Joe. I’m not trying to start at an obvious place, but I am trying to, like like, level set, like, where just make sure we’re all starting from the same, same place. So before, so backing up for me, when copywriting started to actually really click for me was when we started split testing it when I was at Intuit. Prior to that, it was a big guessing game, and I felt I felt frustrated by that.
I didn’t wanna guess at it. I don’t like that feeling. I don’t like that someone else can guess at my job and possibly win against me. There’s a little bit of competition there.
But if someone else can say, well, we should try it this way instead, and it’s very hard as a copywriter to say, no. Let’s not do it that way. Because then they go, well, why not? And it turns into a bit of a, a challenge I found. And maybe this isn’t your experience, but it was mine when I was in house at a big tech company.
Why are you right was always the question. And then when you could start testing it, then you could build up that, like, this is why I’m right because I’ve been right on these ones, and, here’s what we learned from it, etcetera etcetera. So it turns your job from this guessing game into something that’s really, measurable, and you know. It’s not just that others know, but you know if what you’re doing is performing well.
And that’s really important for a lot of type a’s. If I don’t know where everybody sits, but it’s pretty it’s I think it’s important for everybody. I can only speak as someone who is quite type a. For me, it’s very important to know how it’s working and to be able to say, this is what I did.
I rock. And I wanna have that experience, and I want everybody to have that too.
When I’ve been teaching optimization before, again, it doesn’t have to be experimentation all the time, but in most cases, it should be. There has to be a form of measurement going on that’s reliable, so keep that in mind. I was teaching one of my Boxcar team members, back before she was at Boxcar. She was, still at the other agency as it was wasn’t called the other agency.
It was called CH Agency, but she was there. And she was really frustrated with with testing and how to do it. And I said to her, it got to the place where in our conversation, I said, look. If you start from a place where you understand everything is always a little wrong, if you understand that you’re never right, then you can start optimizing.
Then you can, like, explore what that means, that nothing is ever right. If that doesn’t help you, throw it away. But if it does, just try to keep that in mind that we’re not aiming for perfection.
We are always challenging the thing we did before because the thing we did before was an educated guess. And in control even though it’s never been, like, tested as a control. We just control even though it’s never been, like, tested as a control. We just call it the control because that’s, like, the language you use when it’s really variation a, not a control. A control is typically just for everybody who doesn’t know, and that’s cool.
A control usually has to be, put up against something else and then beat it. You can’t just say my home page that I created on the clear blue sky is the control because it’s not it’s it doesn’t fit into a control. It’s a variation a. It’s a starting point.
It’s a. Now we’re gonna create b against it. The headline on that page is a. Now we’re gonna create headline b and test it against it.
It’s not the control. We just it’s just, like, easy language to say, but what we really do mean is variation. A.
A control is, like, a respected thing. You want to beat a, like, proven control. And when you can do that, that’s a really good thing to, like, to brag about if you’re looking for that. But what’s important to keep in mind is that everything that we’re up against, everything you’re trying to beat, including the own work you did, was likely an educated guess. So So what I want you to do right now, just, like, take a few minutes and chat out to me in chat out to all of us In the most recent project that you did where you wrote copy, what did you guess at?
Just chat it to everybody. What did you guess at?
I’ve listed a few of them here. These are those yeah.
Nobody guessed at anything? Everything was perfect?
Value prop headline over SEO optimized headline on a product page. Okay.
So the headline, what it was about, how it was messaged, what formula to use for it, what VOC to pull in for it, Those are four things that you guessed at.
An SQL sequence without a CTA. They wanted no CTA, and then you gotta talk them out of that shit. That’s bad.
What are you gonna do without a CTA?
Caroline guessed at the biggest reader desire. Johnson guessed at target audience’s main points. Even if you can interview even if you can interview, you’re guessing. Do you you come up with a list.
You get all this stuff out of an interview, and then you go through and go, I think that one. And that’s how we choose. I think that one sounds best. And that might not be true for what you say.
You might prioritize what to say in a way that feels calculated and scientific, but how we say it is almost no. It’s always guessed at. It’s always a guess. Headlines, stage of awareness.
Right? Which stage of awareness do you lead with? Take a guess.
The freebie use? Yeah. What offer? How do we message the offer? What do we lead with in the offer?
What’s the most important thing? What’s the headline for the offer? What’s the cross head there? What’s the call to action?
Is it a call to value? How do we message that? Every single thing. Everything, the format, how you talk about it.
Should we say on the page that it’s a video or that it’s a PDF?
Should we say on the page that it’s a video or that it’s a PDF? You have to say. You have to guess. You’re guessing. So that’s okay. Knowing that that’s true for everybody.
We are data driven and, like, data informed, but we are guessing from top to bottom. We’re better guessers because we’re informed, because we don’t just, like, stare at a blank page and start throwing stuff on. That’s really, really bad guessing. That person shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near marketing. It’s too too much guessing. But we’re still otherwise, we’re there’s still an element of guessing in every single thing that you do.
Jessica has more. Yep. Open loop at the end of email too. Should we do that?
I don’t know. Should we? Okay. Let’s do it. I have a guess.
You might a hypothesis is still a guess. A research question is a guess phrased as a question. So know that. And once you recognize that every single thing that you write is guessed at, and that that’s okay, then you know that if I guessed at it, then there’s gotta be a way to beat it.
Right? It’s gotta be another, possibly better guess out there. I can learn more. I can do more.
There’s a better guess because everything is always a little wrong. Nothing’s ever a hun there’s nothing that’s converting at a hundred percent out there at scale. Maybe a hundred percent one to one, but not not at scale. So and we work at scale largely.
Okay. If you didn’t chat out something you guessed at, I hope it’s because you couldn’t think of it, not because you believe that you don’t guess at things. We all do. We all do. I’ve made a very good living out of guessing at this stuff.
And we can guess better and better as we go, but it’s a guess. Okay.
So this week for this is just one part of what we’re gonna be talking about when it comes to optimization and how to beat variation a in most cases, the control in some cases.
What do we need to start with? So most of the time, copywriters are as guilty as any marketer on the planet of jumping straight to copy. Here’s the copy, and that’s why a lot of us feel imposter syndrome. It’s because you’re so certain that the copy was wrong that you then worry like, oh, that’s gotta be it. Shit. I really blew it with this copy.
We don’t start there. Sometimes you can quickly analyze and go like, oh, who let the f word slip in this headline? Maybe that’s a copy problem. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.
But it’s that never happens. That literally that never happens. So what else is it if it’s not really obvious report. You don’t have to read the analytics report.
You have to ask for it. You have to say, show me this, or does anybody have the numbers on that? Here’s a data point that we need to see. Here’s the metric that I need measured.
Who can help me out with this? You can guide people. You don’t. Your job is not to be a data analyst either, but you do need to get the numbers.
Before you come up with any sort of hypothesis for what to do differently in the next iteration before you come up with a research question, You need to know what the pages or email or ad or whatever funnel is, being measured on. And there are two parts of that. K? There’s the KPI.
Again, if you already know this, just be like, it’s okay. Some people don’t know this. So just roll with it. KPI is a key performance indicator that’s indicator that’s typically a higher level business y goal, but not so high.
It’s not like grow the business. They’re lower than that. And then metrics are subpoints for that. And, also, sometimes, a metric can be a KPI too.
Just keep that in mind. But we have KPI, key performance indicator, the thing that you are specializing in, the offer that you’re putting out into the world. And I know this is newer to Copy School Pro and talked about more in the intensive, and that’s why you’ve been invited to the intensive so we can talk about the same things the same way.
What you’re putting out into the world has a way of being measured. There’s success metrics associated with it or else the business wouldn’t hire you for it. Businesses have better things to do with their money than just throw it at random freelancers and say, well, I don’t know. Hopefully, something good happens.
They’ve got an idea in their head. Right? So we need to identify what the primary key performance indicators are for the offer we’re putting out into the world. And then what those supporting metrics are for each of the KPIs so that not so we can, like, identify what to do next, but so that we can keep a good handle on how the thing that we made is actually performing so that we’re not busting something that’s not close to or we’re not trying to fix something that’s not broken and in turn breaking it.
So this is the general checklist. You need to identify It’s usually a lot of KPIs the more you think about it, so try to just narrow it down to three KPIs. If there are two, that’s cool. Then two to three supporting metrics for each KPI.
We’ll get into metrics on the next page. You’ll see that there are a lot of metrics, and this is, like, a small list of the many metrics that are out there. So we need to tighten everything up, and that’s why it’s good to specialize and have a single standardized offer that turns into a retainer offer. So you’re always so you’re becoming an expert on these three KPIs as they relate to your offer, and you expertly know how to use the metrics, how to measure them, who you talk to versus having to know everything.
And since copy is everywhere in marketing, in sales, in product, it’s everywhere, the metrics are endless. There’s endless questions you could have if you were a generalist. There are far fewer questions that you’re required to answer if you’re a specialist. So we need to come up with those metrics that matter.
That means the real ones. If it it only matters if it matters.
Keep that in mind as you’re moving forward. When it comes to optimizing anything, it only matters if it matters. You can get a lot of questions thrown at you as you optimize stuff. What about this? What about that? It only matters if it matters, and you know it matters if it ties back to one of your key performance indicators with the metrics underneath them.
Now I have here that you should map the KPIs and MTMs on a triangle simply because we’ve been talking about triangles so far. But the golden triangle, we have your diagnostic that might have looked like a triangle.
It doesn’t have to be a triangle, but I’m trying to just when you see triangle, know it means model. Some sort of model, some way to look at things, in a controlled way that isn’t just a table that feels changing. You need it to look like it is the final version of a thing.
And that’s important as signals to your client going forward that, like, you’ve got this handled. You’ve thought about it a lot. You’ve put in the legwork. They don’t have to think about it.
Here’s the model. Here’s how it works. K? So we come up with that triangle, which we’ll talk about, then you need to educate your client on that diagnostic.
So when they hire you for the standardized offer and the retainer offer, ideally, that follows it, you need to be able to walk them through. Okay. Here are the KPIs that we usually are measuring for when it comes to this offer, this way, this thing that I’m doing for you.
Here’s why. Here’s what we’re gonna measure to make sure we’re on track. Now should we talk through these KPIs and you can, like, walk them through that, get their buy in on it, help them see that you’re the expert because you’re leading with important stuff that businesses talk about, like KPIs and metrics. You’re talking about measuring.
You’re not saying just things around voice of customer data, which is great data, but also the quantitative side of it. So qualitative, cool. You know that in and out. Quantitative is where you’re asking them for that data.
You’re talking with them. You don’t have to go in and run the report. Just as another reminder, if you love data, you can go run the report. Add that in as an extra layer of service.
Cool. Charge more, though. Then you wanna measure those metrics at regular scheduled intervals.
A big mistake people make who have not been coached through how to do conversion rate optimization is they, measure whenever they feel like it, or they don’t have it in their calendar, like, diarized.
And so you’re just like, oh, shit. I haven’t looked at that test in a while. And then you go look at it, but you haven’t been doing it on a regular basis. So it’s very it’s like in a lab, if you put stuff in a beaker and walk away and then come back three minutes later and measure it and then come back three months later and measure it and try to do anything with that, anybody would be like, you just lost your grant.
Like, you don’t know what you’re doing. Please stop. So we don’t wanna do that. We wanna do regular scheduled interviews for or intervals for, the things that we’re measuring.
Okay?
And measuring month over month and year over year, which can be really tricky because a lot of the stuff that we’re standing up doesn’t have a year over year, barely has a month over month.
So know that that’s difficult. But as you move forward in your retainer, you are looking at month over month performance and year over year performance, not hour over hour. That’s that’s really far too narrow. It would do this up and down, up and down like crazy. We don’t want that. We wanna look at things in controlled, disciplined ways because that is what we do as consultants.
And then we wanna report on progress toward KPIs.
So when you do, we’ll talk about this in the intensive freelancing.
When you do present your results monthly to your clients, you don’t have to dig into here are the six or nine, metrics, but rather here’s how we’re progressing toward these three KPIs that we have. And then you can support it. But we wanna stay higher level when talking to our clients because the lower and deeper we get into it, the more murky it becomes, and then people try to draw insights from it. Like, oh, no.
Our click through rate is changing, and it went down. Let’s all go look at the call to action. Like, pause. There’s so many things that could be happening here that we wanna keep the client up, There’s so many things that could be happening here that we wanna keep the client up at KPI level.
That’s where they wanna be. They didn’t hire you for a better click through rate. They hired you for a result, so we keep them at the result level. Is this making sense?
Cool. I’m talking a blue streak, but but, hopefully, it’s okay. Alright. Cool.
So, yeah, I had a whole mind map. It’s already twenty five minutes into this, and there are so many more things to discuss. So we’re gonna we’re gonna finish off this worksheet, which I the page numbers aren’t updating automatically. Sorry about that. So this is not page page two. We’re gonna finish this off and then just know that going forward, we’ll have other sessions on, like, okay. At this level, when there’s a bounce rate happening on a long form sales page, what might we do with that data?
Unlikely. Maybe bounce rate would be important. Anyway, we’ll get into that.
So you need to identify what your KPIs and metrics that matter are for your standardized offer.
You can understand that if you don’t have a standardized offer and just to be clear, a standardized offer gets measured the same way your retainer offer gets measured because they’re building on each other. Well, the retainer offer builds on the standardized, so, of course, your retainer is constantly trying to improve the results that come out of the thing that you did up front, that project.
So they both have the same KPIs. They both have the same metrics that matter. These are unchanging things during the course of your retainer. It’s not like suddenly you see engagement is way up, but that wasn’t a metric that matters.
You don’t start reporting on engagement being way up. That’s cool. That’s nice. Maybe change your model in the future so it it reflects engagement as an important metric, but you don’t start reporting on it suddenly.
Just just know that we only wanna report on things that matter to the client that they agreed on. That’s how they’re gonna see value in you and feel like you’ve got this under control.
Okay.
So I want you to just take a couple minutes. We’re gonna go through this. Try to think of your standardized offer if you’re not there yet. Think about the project that you most commonly get hired to do or that you most want to do going forward, whatever that thing is that you’re going to be creating and then optimizing.
What is the number one goal that your client has or is likely to have for that thing?
Write that in.
I have a question about this.
Can I ask it now because it’s relevant, or should I wait until afterwards when you’re done with the whole Oh, go for it?
Let’s hear it. Okay.
So in the most of the companies that I’ve worked for, they measure things differently, and this is especially relevant for different sized companies. And I would say that the kind of ups more upscale company that I would want to target, they’re definitely gonna have, individual metrics that they use Yeah. That their own data science team, creates, especially if they’re measuring the quality of the lead. And when when I mean qualitative data, I mean, quantitative qualitative data.
Like Sure. Sure. How long they are are around. Right? Yeah. And then also these metrics are gonna go out of date.
Like, I don’t know anyone that I work with that uses CAC anymore.
But, like, ten years ago, everyone was people that still use CAC so completely.
But keep going. Keep going. Just know that there’s a Like, MQL. Gigantic world out there with businesses doing all sorts of things at all sorts times. Okay. Keep going.
So I feel like if I come in and say, we’re gonna measure this, they’re gonna be like, don’t tell us what to do. We measure this because we have our whole, like, we have our whole, like, Tableau set up, and this is how we measure things. And this is what’s important to us us because this is our model.
And, like, you need to adapt. I feel like it’ll come off as very aggressive and, like, not customer serving.
Nope. Okay. Although it depends it depends on how you do it. Right? You go in and use buy in isn’t me telling you clients what to do. Buy in is getting is showing them, like, okay.
I’ve done this. They you come into the conversation knowing where everybody knows that they have, that you’ve done this before. K? You’re not here to guess at it. You’re not here to do whatever the client wants you to do. You’re here to help them get the result that they’re looking for.
You measure the work this way. Now do they agree that the primary KPI for the thing that they’ve just hired you for is x?
If they’re like, no. That’s the secondary KPI. Here is the top one. Then you just turn the triangle for them.
But you have to have the three key, performance indicators on there. You will know what those are. I don’t care how different businesses are. There’s a CMO at the top of it who is doing the right things for their business and is thinking of the same KPIs for their different departments within marketing, the CTO, or the chief product officer, or whoever also has certain KPIs.
And those are not such changing things across organizations that we need to be afraid or, uncertain that we can come in and say, here’s how I measure success.
Here’s why.
What do you think of that?
You need to be able to consult with your clients. And I would say, if it feels too aggressive, try it because that’s how consultants actually come in. Someone comes in. Perna comes in. She’s charging a hundred thousand dollars for a project.
If she comes in and goes, how do you wanna measure it? What do you want this to be like? Now I’m like, what did I hire you for? Why am I paying you all this money if I’m the one who has to make up all the rules as we go? What I want is for you to take this outcome that I’m looking for and make it happen for me in a way where I feel very little effect of it other than smiley faces every time I look through your report at the end of the month. That’s what people are looking for at a higher level when it comes to copy that converts.
Social media posts are another thing. I’m not in the business of social media posts or other ways of creating content.
I’m talking about real copy that people are looking for that does the thing that the business needs it to do. Does that make sense, Naomi?
But, like, even in terms of, like, lead quality. Like, I’ve worked with companies that use lead to sale. I’ve worked with companies that you I don’t even remember. It’s ATV or ACV. They had their own metric. Mhmm.
And so, like, if I use lead to sale, one company would be like, well, we never use that.
So wouldn’t it make more sense to be a little bit less specific and say measure quality, based on how you measure that. Because when I say MQL for one company, they’re not gonna take me seriously because they see MQLs as sort of garbage leads and sort of, like, not super high quality. This is based on, like, my own experience. I’m sure it’s different elsewhere.
It’s clearly based on your experience, and that’s good.
Great. That’s a real legit experience. It’s not reflective of an experience that I go through in these scenarios. So I would say, how is it working for you when you go in and the client does the leading? How is it working? Are you able to close fifty thousand dollar projects, or is that a scary number?
It’s not a scary number for me. And I do go into these organizations and have these conversations, and no one says you’re overstepping.
No one has said that to me since I was at Intuit, and I had to just go into the consulting world where they line up for it. So I would I would say how is it working out for you when they get to dictate everything about how things are gonna be be measured and stuff like that.
Really, like, analyze how it’s working.
And it’s okay if you go into an organization and they’re like, we don’t use MQLs.
Anybody who is, like, laughing about that or thinks it’s outdated, I feel like they’re they’re probably not very professional if they go into a space and go, like, nobody uses MQLs anymore. Like, no. Like, lots of people use MQLs still, like, the vast majority. And whether they see it as a garbage lead is really on, like, them. It’s got nothing to do with and you don’t have to also, nobody’s saying for you that you have to go in and say MQL is the metric that matters here. If you know this, if the people that you’re selling this to don’t it means marketing qualified lead, and then there’s sales qualified lead, and that’s an SQL. So if you go into these and there’s other types of qualified leads that gets it gets detailed when you’re dealing with product led growth versus sales led.
So there’s also just stuff going on there, but just know that it’s okay that you might measure things differently than your client does. This isn’t about trends. It’s not about what the latest thing is that people care about. Cost to acquire a customer is always going to be a critical, metric.
It doesn’t mean you have to call it that. Call it whatever they call it then. You don’t have to fill in the metrics with them. You can say these are the three KPIs that I’m generally measuring for.
Do you agree with these that these are the three outcomes you’re looking for when you’re hiring me for this? Yes. We do. Cool.
I know businesses, measure these things differently. What are the two primary metrics you use to measure this KPI? Me through that. And then you can draw that on the model.
But what I don’t want you to do is shy away from taking the lead and saying, this is what I do. This is how I do it well, and then talking with the client about that. Does that make sense, Naomi?
Yeah. For sure. For sure. I can, like, outline the metrics that I use. But my idea would be to go in and say, okay.
We’re gonna measure leads. Do you measure MQLs? Do you measure leads, or do you measure opportunities? And then have that as one side of the triangle and then say quality.
Do you have a metric or quality that you have, like, as an algorithm? And then have that as one And then ask them specifically, like, do you have a specific metric that you created with your own algorithm, or do you use something in like, what would you use? And then add that later on rather than coming in specifically and using something that’s not actually programmed into their database.
For sure. That’s great. We’re totally aligned on that. Just make sure that you’re guiding the conversation and you go in there knowing what your standard KPIs are, what the most common metrics that matter are so that when you’re guiding them through this conversation, they might also stare at you and go, I don’t know.
Not because they don’t know, but because they’re trying to figure out what you like to connect a dot between what they wanna share with you and what you want to hear from them. So when you’re asking those questions, it’s good to have a backup that’s like so here’s an example of a KPI that we use. Does that match what you use for this or what you had in mind for this? Yes.
It does. Okay. Perfect. And if it doesn’t, then they can say that at the same time too.
Cool. Something wrong.
Because if I’m speaking yeah.
If I’m speaking to somebody who’s more product marketing oriented or more brand oriented, like, sure. I can come in with very specific data and lead the conversation. But if I’m coming into somebody who’s a campaign manager, then I wanna make sure that I’m speaking to them on their level and Sure. Sort of engaging them in the conversation.
Hundred percent. Love it. Awesome. Cool.
Okay. Excellent.
Did we get our primary goal for your offer? Does anybody wanna check that out, what they or just share it?
Everybody timid about this? It’s okay.
Nobody got what’d you do? John said you’re looking down at your page.
K. Naomi has conversion rate. Awesome.
Jessica?
Is it okay to ask a question?
Sure. Katie, you have increased lifetime customer value. Nice.
Web traffic. Yeah. That’s a good KPI.
High level.
Jessica, are you asking it or what’s that?
Oh, yeah. Sorry. I wasn’t sure when you wanted me to ask.
So I was gonna Go for it.
Go for it.
Sorry. Okay. So with the seasonal sale, right, conversion rate? Yes.
I’ve been looking more into the, attributable revenue, but that’s not I guess that’s not the word. But, anyway, the one where I’m kind of struggling, though, is the idea of instead of just general ROAS, which was really big when I was working in house with my ecommerce client Yeah. It seems to me that given my specialty and what I would like to do, that new customer ROAS would be an interesting metric. K.
But where I’m getting kind of stuck is if they have a high lifetime customer value, right, and it’s so a really high one, then they might be able to spend a little bit more with their ads and invest a little so they’re so the ROAS on a new customer may not you know, they may be able to lose a little bit.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. So I guess that’s where I get a little stuck in the muck of KPIs and all that because given the especially, it seems like it comes back a lot of times to lifetime value. Based off of what they can get long term, you can make different decisions in the short term for the seasonal sale. And that’s where I’m kind of struggling with what how to standardize, I guess.
So that’s where I mean, a lot of experience will help with that. Like, the more you go and try this with different groups, but also your perspective on it. That’s why specializing on the sunshine growth model is right next to thought leadership. Like, the two work hand in hand.
So if you draw a line in the sand and you say, look, I work with clients or with brands that are spending money to acquire new customers and have high lifetime value, or customer lifetime value, that’s who you work with now. That’s what you build thought leadership on. You say you’re gonna lose money on the first one. And by the way, you’re not the only person saying this.
Like, every ad agency we talk to is like, oh, no. No. No. You need something further down the line because you’re gonna barely breakeven on the first ones.
So but that’s cool. Why not draw a line in the sand and say this is this is the case? You need to be willing to lose money on that new customer acquisition in order to upsell them on things later. So you have to have a high customer lifetime value that is realized after that first purchase.
Okay. Okay. So that’s an acceptable option. Okay. I did not even think about that with the thought leadership, so you’re right.
And thank you for pointing that out.
Cool. Awesome. Good question. Okay. So I’m looking at time.
A bunch of metrics listed here, all sorts of them that matter across different things for different businesses. Some businesses will care a lot about some of these and others will not. Some of the work you do, this will matter for it, and some of the work, it won’t matter. The way attention and attraction are written together really mess with my head. Did I spell one of those wrong? I couldn’t.
No matter how many times I read that over, I’m like, there’s something wrong with that. Anyway, it’s messing with my eyes, and has ever since I started working on this.
Then there are conversion sales revenue. So are you working more closely with sales, with the sales team, or more with the product team, or more with the marketing team? That’s gonna vary based on what you’re doing. Obviously, cart abandonment is more for ecommerce than it will be for SaaS. But you may still find some people who work in SaaS and say cart abandonment largely because they came from an ecommerce background, which is very, very normal. So just, like, be ready.
Be ready to not be too shocked by the number of things that you may hear in an organization. Not everybody is running at an expert level. So that’s important to keep in mind when you’re like, what did they mean by car dependent meant when we’re in SaaS? Just like, oh, they just meant this.
They meant that. So keep that in mind. And then there’s way more to this. I don’t work in engagement referrals or necessarily sometimes in retention, but I don’t, like, even consult with people on this side.
So I didn’t have a lot of metrics to list out here, so there’s probably more if this is the thing that you work in. Just keep adding to it and know that these lists are not exhaustive. The reason they’re in here is to help you if you’re like think I know what one goal is.
And I think I know how they measure that, but there are, like, fifteen things that they use to measure that goal, and they’re all listed in here, then you need to decide what the most important ones are, the metrics that matter for the work that you’re being brought in to do. So this is the sort of thing you’d wanna fill out. It doesn’t have to go in any sort of order. Like I said, depending on what their primary KPI is, you just, like, tilt tilt the triangle around until the one that’s number one is, like, up at the top if that even matters visually. But just keep that in mind. This doesn’t have to go in any certain order. It sometimes does go clockwise.
Cool. Sometimes it has the flat part down at the bottom. Whatever. That doesn’t have to be drawn as a triangle either, but what you want to do is be sure that you’re able to talk your client through how you do it.
So let’s say that a standardized offer is for an ad funnel audit. When the ad funnel audit is done, there’s a road map of optimization tweaks that gets produced at the end of the ad funnel audit. So this is an example. Okay?
The example.
What might that person do if that was their standardized offer and the retainer that comes out of it? Great.
They could have and they talk they go into the conversation with their, client talking about this. Right? So the KPIs that are most common when I’m doing an ad funnel audit and then the work to optimize that ad funnel, they are more leads, more calls booked, and greater profitability. Does that match what you’re thinking?
And they look through it, and they might wanna unpack. Okay. What do you mean? Like, how would we even measure more leads?
Great question. There’s lots of ways to measure more leads. We typically use impressions and click through rate. And they’re like, oh, just to your point, Naomi, they’re like, no.
We don’t use that. We use blank and click through rate. Okay. Cool. Let’s do that.
We’re aligned that those are the two ways we’re gonna measure more leads. Yes. We are. Perfect.
Now let’s move on to more calls booked. What we’re looking at, because this is on the landing page in this ad funnel, is bounce rate. Are they staying on the page, or are they abandoning it? And sales demos booked.
Does that match what you would like to how you’d like to measure success for more calls booked? Well, we definitely need sales demo booked. I don’t know about bounce rate, though. Is that the most important thing?
And then you have a discussion with them about why that is. And then we get into greater profitability, cost to acquire, and cost per lead. Those are the key ones that we’re typically working at working with. Naomi, to your point, they’re like, we don’t say cost to acquire customers anymore.
Like, okay. Fine. What do you use then? Great. We’ll use that, but we’re good with cost per lead.
We say dollars spent per lead. Okay. Fine. We’ll call it dollars spent per lead. Are we good with that?
Yes. We are. Cool. This is how we’re going to measure success going forward. At the end of every month, when I report results to you, you’re going to see these KPIs on the page with month over month.
And once we get there, year over year data. How does that sound? So we can actually measure how this is working. Cool beans.
We’re set. Good. Now you’ve walked them through that.
Everybody is on board with it, and you’ve also addressed things that aren’t, that don’t match what they typically do, which is good for anybody who is maybe of a large organization that does have a data team.
Okay.
We’re really low on time here, but what I want you to do is once you’ve completed this this is homework. Once you’ve completed this triangle for your standardized offer with the metrics that matter, it’s not set in stone. You’ll change this. The sunshine growth model has been coming together for, like, four years, so it changes over time.
It changed from the beginning of the, CopySchool Pro. We didn’t even have those four categories. So it will change. That’s okay.
That’s why we use Canva so we can always be editing things. So it’s going to change. That’s okay. Just start with the metrics that you believe matter.
Then this is where we start to think through. We’re not gonna get into it today, but this is where we start to think through. Okay. Now that I know how we’re measuring this, what can I do to start chipping away at systematizing ways to optimize that metric?
So for that metric, I mean. So let me skip ahead. This is the blank one for you to fill in for your own triangle or whatever diagnostic you use. This is what we’ll start to use to identify areas of opportunity for optimization.
So if we’re like impressions, again, if they changed if the client has changed it, then you change this too.
Impressions is how where is one metric. So what are things that could impact impressions? Well, the audience might be too narrow, too broad, or whatever. The image might be impacting impressions.
Maybe it’s a video, and it needs to be a static image or maybe the opposite, a hook or a keyword. Now we don’t wanna list every possible thing. That’s what a full mind map is for. That’s what I’ll share with you down the road.
All we really wanna do right now is start saying, like, okay.
If I implement this, what might be going on when things aren’t performing well or when they’re performing really well? And this will mean referring back to your list of guesses. Right? Like, you made guesses at every stage.
What did you guess at that could be impacting positively or negatively bounce rate, for example. Well, the headline, I guessed at the headline, so it’s maybe that. It’s the I guess, at the formula that we use for it, I guessed at the message, I guessed at how. So headline could be doing it.
Could be trust factors because that’s what bounce rate is largely about. Do people trust you when they landed on that page?
Load time is also another one. Right? So you’ll work through these. And then when you’re going through and doing the measuring and bounce rate is high, now you can say, okay.
If bounce rate’s high, we don’t worry about that or that. We only worry about these things. Let’s look at these things. And that’s how we can start to put together hypotheses for what could be going wrong and what we could do instead.
So you’ll fill that in, and then there’s all these other pages where you can then take every one of these you have. This is a lot of systematizing, but it does mean if you do this work upfront, then when the time comes for you to hire somebody to help you with optimizing, you train them on this. And you say, like, okay. These are the six metrics that matter.
These are the things that are probably going on if that metric is underperforming or if it’s doing really, really well. So if we see that click rate has gone through the roof, it’s amazing, Then we’ll look at offer and CTA and develop hypotheses for those. How do we develop hypotheses for those? We go through and we fill in one of these for each one that comes underneath this table.
I’m scrolling around a lot, but you can see here we have impressions, audience, impressions, audience. We wanna list out all the things that could be going on with audience that is possibly affecting impressions. Is the audience too narrow? Is it too broad?
Is it too new to us? It’s different from what we’ve been doing successfully. Is there no look alike as a starting point? And, again, that’s kind of moving toward towards, like, a new to us.
Too close to our existing list of nonconverters. Like, they’re just bad even though they reflect a lookalike. Too hard to reach, etcetera, etcetera. So we start brain dumping what might be going on there knowing that it usually comes down to these things. Either there’s a wrong x, wrong tone, wrong wrong voice, wrong message, wrong framework, wrong formula, wrong audience, changed all of those things again so the audience we thought it was has actually changed.
Changed seasonality, that’s a big one too. There’s no x. There’s no one upper. There’s no CTA on that one admin that you were men that you’re mentioning.
No CTA, or it’s a weak CTA. It’s get started when it should be more of a call to value. So it’ll come down to wrong, change, no, or weak, and then you fill in anything after that. Then it’s too much of something.
Too narrow, too broad, too many, too few, too clever, too timid, too different, not different enough. And then there’s, like, this kind of bucket of other random shit that could also be true. It’s introducing a new something, a new component to an offer that is unnecessary, new friction in form fields. It’s introducing new anxieties by saying something about trust when nobody was even thinking about trust.
And, oh my gosh, should I trust these people now? It’s swiped, not strategic. That’s what most junior copywriters are going through or guest steps. That’s also what most junior copywriters are going through.
Like, I like this headline, so I wrote it. Well, that’s a guess, and we can really say, like, no. No. That’s probably what’s going on, or it’s ego based.
Someone, the highest paid opinion said this is what the headline should be. You all, like, put your your head down and went, okay. Let’s make that the headline. But you know that that was ego.
Or it was you. You wrote a poem or a email.
Nobody gives a shit about your poetry. So don’t write a poem. Go back and write something that matters for the customer. So that’s what it’s likely to come down to. It’s kind of like an absolute crash course in things that could be going on that are negatively or positively sometimes affecting whatever your goals are or the metrics that matter are underneath those.
I’m gonna stop there because there’s a lot here as I knew there would be, and there’s even more planned. This is this is scaled back. But, hopefully, that is helpful to you. Yes. This is in the Slack under copywriting advanced in that channel if you couldn’t find it. Do you have any questions, thoughts, concerns?
Yes, Katie.
Okay. I’m gonna preface this by saying I have several questions, thoughts, and concerns. So, like, what is the best place and time to like, are we gonna revisit this large topic?
Yes.
Yeah. We’re just scratching the surface. This is, like, intro. Not super intro, but yeah. Yeah. There’s more to come.
So I would say Mike ask now, and then Mike can say, like, we’ll tackle that later.
Okay. So one project that comes to mind that I actually have, like, is a quiz funnel I wrote. It went live about six months ago, and I’ve been putting off, like, checking in the after data, because I don’t know if you remember. I’ve I’ve Slacked about this client’s team. It was a social media manager who really, like, took over a lot of decisions about the email marketing.
So I guess, like, the thing that needs to be optimized is it’s not readable on mobile, and all of their traffic is coming from Instagram.
So how do you how do you navigate the conversations when you think that the thing that needs to be optimized isn’t your yours to own?
So I’ve had this happen. Ari, is it safe for you to talk to your point of contact about this team member taking over on the thing that they shouldn’t have taken over on?
Well, the problem really at the end of the project was that I could not get the client on a call without the team member being there.
Like, I tried a lot. I have, like, a two a one on one call, and he was just always also on the call.
So then it’s not safe too. That’s not possible.
So, I mean, there’s upfront work going forward where you can say you can put the rules around it. Right? Like, if if we’re going to ever measure this, you need to implement as we agree.
They’ll have reasons not to. They’ll always say we’re the one paying the invoice. It’s on it’s our business. We can do whatever we want, and they’re absolutely right.
So it is a matter of them getting on board with you being the deliverer of better performing KPIs for them. If they can recognize that you hold the key to that, then they’d be silly to get in the way. Silly is a big word though because there’s all sorts of internal politics going on. Nobody wants to fire a team member.
Who knows what’s going on? But lots of team members are underperforming out in the world, and that’s why you were brought in in the first place. It’s no offense to them. They go home at four o’clock.
Nothing. You’re like you’re an expert.
So what do you do up front? Try to do things up front to get them to buy in to the idea that and, again, the more money they’re spending on you, the less likely they are to be like, hey, Sue from accounting. What did you think of this? Like, no. No. No.
Katie knows. We trust Katie. That doesn’t mean that’s always true. Charging more isn’t gonna be, like, the the silver bullet, but it helps.
And then I the tricky thing is if you can’t get them on a call to talk to them about that, that’s the kind of thing where I would just, there’s nothing you can do about it. They’ve implemented the wrong copy. If they ever reach out to you and go, why is it working, then you say, let’s hop on a call, and I’ll tell you exactly why it’s not working.
And then you can walk them through. And this is the conversation I’ve had to have have before. It’s like, is so and so a conversion copywriter?
No. What are they? They’re a marketing intern. Yeah. So why are they writing this copy then?
And you can ask that question. And if they’re the CMO, same question. Doesn’t matter where they’re at. They’re not you.
Why are they editing your copy and doing whatever they want? And if they’re if the if the culture of the organization is allowing that, you can’t do anything about that. All you can do is step away and try to do your best to avoid that kind of client in the future. But you’re allowed to have real talks with that person and say, you brought me in for this.
It’s it’s important to me that my copy perform well for you. It’s important for me as important as it is for your team member to not feel disengaged from this. This is my this is my livelihood. Like, this is everything that I do.
And if I’m not getting results for you, that’s really bad for me. So how can we implement my copy? What’s stopping that?
And if they don’t have anything to say, then this call is very likely down to there’s something going on internally.
There’s nothing they can do about it, and there’s nothing you can do about it either in my experience.
Yeah.
And so, like, I I totally understand and respect that as, like, the way forward with this client. I’m curious how you would approach that in general when it’s like you’re the copywriter. You were brought on to to optimize the copy, but you have a hunch that a design component is what’s impacting the performance of that page? Like, do you just provide we’re like, we think we should test button color or something like that, and then and then you put that on their team to implement?
Yeah. So everything that we’re working on, it’s good to align with their designer or design team right up front wherever you can. Always, always, always. And if you can do that, then also share that as they know.
Copy doesn’t live in a silo. Copy and art work together. The creative department is copy and art and now other digital stuff too. But it’s always been art and copy.
There’s a documentary called art and copy. Like, it’s always been art and copy. So you need to work with the artist just like the artist needs to work with the copywriter to get it to its best place. If you the problem is that the designer may not feel empowered to be part of conversion rate optimization.
They’re just like they’ve been beat down over the years by every marketer saying, just change it to this color, and they’re like, they kinda wanna dye a lot of them, just like a lot of in house copywriters kinda wanna dye.
So if you have empathy for that, it doesn’t mean it’s always true, but I would start from that point. Like, I really respect what you do. Have a one on one with the designer, their design team. Really love what you are doing here.
I really wanna be part of making this better. Here’s how I work. How do you work? Let’s let’s figure out how to align on this.
If you can do that, then you can get them on board. Some people will still never be receptive. And in those cases, for me, I get a little bullish, and, take over. And then just say, like, here’s the road map for what we’re gonna do to optimize this.
And you can use data to support that. Right? If you’re like, here’s the email.
I went and I put it on, user testing dot com and had people speak to it, or I did validation, like, a five second test or whatever the hell you wanna do to get that little bit of data to say, like, people are not seeing this button. It’s gray, y’all.
Why is the button gray? But you don’t have to be the bad guy then. You can say people aren’t clicking on it. Let’s hypothesize why people aren’t clicking on it. Do we think they can find it?
Sure. They can find it. Okay. But when they find it, does it look clickable? Well, great things are clickable.
Well, great things aren’t clickable, actually. So you can have that discussion with them. But if they’re if they’re weird about it and you’ve done everything you can to make nice and be friendly with them, you’re the consultant.
Take over. You don’t have to make best friends in this organization.
And a lot of a lot of people are gonna go, does Katie know? And that’s just the way it is.
But they’re probably miserable in their jobs too in my experience. So I don’t know how helpful that is. People are trying to do their best, but they’re also calling it in a lot, like, a lot a lot.
So sometimes you have to kinda be the bad guy if being the good guy didn’t work. Yeah.
Johnson, you have a question, or at least one of the two Johnsons that are here has a raised hand.
I, I’ve got my laptop so I could see the see what’s going on. I was using my phone because it’s got a camera.
Yeah. This isn’t, well, it’s sort of I mean, it’s tied into this, of course, but, you know, we talked last time, about moving towards email, getting to know my market better and the the offer.
And, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s more or less a reiteration of the same thing. In terms of offer, I don’t know what I know. Don’t know. And I do know what I know.
But I don’t know what yeah. And I I know you have a lot of experience in email, and, honestly, I would just love to hear what your thoughts are in terms of offers that fit this model well, and, that that you think are interesting because that would that might be a really good starting point for me.
Okay. So you’re just looking for, like, ideas on what to do as your standardized offer?
Yeah. Basically. Yeah. I’m pretty open to to whatever, and I’m I’m I’m pretty excited. So yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Love it. Who do you like working with? Who’s your target audience? Who is in closest proximity to you that you can reach?
So, I mean, it’s part you you mean, in terms of, like, next client or just in general?
Well, it’s probably that client with my cousin Lee. That’s but that’s gonna be in, financing.
But, I mean, it’s tech financing, so that’s kind of kind of a sort of blend.
K. And that’s gonna happen in q two or q three now. So, that’s the project I’ve done yet, which I’m excited about. Nice. Oh, so that will win. And, Yeah. So that’s probably where I’m going next.
Do you like working with tech?
Well, yeah. I mean, broadly speaking, yes.
But, again, broadly speaking, I mean, aside from, I don’t know, helping our company kill the rainforests, and, I’m I’m happy to work in any industry, as well as I don’t hate.
So yeah.
Love it.
Okay. So the thing that seems to be an unlimited gold mine, is life cycle emails, because of you just problem is you have to go narrower than that because there are so many emails that I’m I’m saying tech, but I really, in this case, mean SaaS. I don’t mean NVIDIA or other more complex behind the scenes things. I mean, SaaS.
I mean, there’s a sign in, there’s a login, and people and users use it, and it’s usually product led growth. Doesn’t mean it has to be, though. So Envision has a sales team, for enterprise organizations. Envision’s not a good example.
They just went bankrupt.
But they were really good for a long, long time.
But point here is if you work with SaaS, there are loads of good reasons too, which I won’t get into because I know I already talk too much as this.
But SaaS life cycle emails or SaaS depends on which part of the life cycle you wanna work on, but that nobody’s doing it. I’ve said this before. Nobody’s doing it when they are they’re inundated with work. They can’t hire fast enough, so that becomes your problem. Like, cool. There’s so much money in work, but I actually can’t hire and train fast enough. So that’s a real like, that’s a first world problem, but it’s legit.
And there’s lots of money. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money for a life cycle. So just do life cycle, stand up, life cycle of some kind, activation through to revenue, whatever that looks like. You have a standard model in place that you, modify.
So you always know we’re gonna probably have these three box scars, but there might be a fourth or a fifth on there. We’re always gonna do segmentation around this part. We’re gonna try to do if we can do triggered emails, then this is true. Some SaaS companies, you still can’t do triggered.
Everybody on the development team is, like, homegrown stuff, so it gets messy. Point is, you figure that out.
Stand it up. That’s your project. That’s a standardized offer, and then you just optimize it from there on out. And because SaaS businesses need this so badly and have a real problem of a database that is packed with email addresses that they’ve been ignoring hard.
If you can come in and start to untangle that, like, that’s why Boxcar that’s why I started it. Just it’s endless, the amount.
The amount of of need there. It’s directly it’s back to revenue where they have users right there. They’re just not touching.
Is that what Boxcar specialize in then?
Yeah.
Yeah. And that’s what Boxcar so I’ve exited Boxcar. They’re off doing their own thing, and they’ve added in other landing pages mostly because there’s also a lot of demand for landing pages, and things like that. But I continue.
Like, I’m consulting with clients right now, on exactly this stuff, and it’s endless. I can’t even stop the engagement when I try to. When I say, okay. I’m ready to hand this over to others.
No. No. Way. Confused. There’s too much money on the line. Yeah.
Okay. A follow-up question I have then is, when would you recommend looking to, gain a a solid understanding around this area in terms of self education?
Yeah. I mean, given that software companies use intercom so much, I would read through all the intercom resources, watch all the things.
Also, Gong, though, like, Gong dot io, they’ve got a really good resource center and software companies that are using Gong usually have a lot of money to spend. They’ve got a sales team as well, but they’re probably trying to also do product led growth. So check out everything that Gong. Io has.
Intercoms, yeah, really obvious one.
Yeah.
Those are Okay.
Those are Like, I don’t think I English.
Yeah. You can start there and have a really solid education at the end of it. Yeah.
Alright. Great. That’s amazing.
And and just before, is there anything else, just seeing as this is something you’re so passionate about, is there anything else you think I should know about approaching this?
My only pause on doing it at all is that you will have to get really strong at saying no to coming on board as an in house person.
So I would say build out your team sooner. Yeah.
The Right.
You’re gonna make us a a crazy offer to bring you in because it’s so valuable or just right. Okay. Got it.
It’s it’s just so hard to I most people who started an email went off and did something else for god knows why, So there just aren’t that many experts out there. If you become that trusted life cycle person for them, yeah, there will be annoyingly compelling offers that you’ll have to be stronger then because when good freelancers go in house, they regret it. Two years later, they’re like, damn it. Why did I not just keep doing the thing? And I have story after story that I’m not allowed to share, but just know. This happens all the freaking time.
Don’t say yes to that offer. You can make more money on your own and be happier.
Anyway, we’ll get in we’ll cross that road when we get there, but that’s the only thing I would say. Yeah.
No. No. No. I think that just made me wanna do it more, honestly, because I’m never gonna go in house.
So, Never say never.
The offers can be very compelling.
So it’s stupid. Sure. Okay. Okay.
Cool. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Jonathan. Anybody else? Anything else? We’re good. Edna.
Hey. So I was gonna ask you, apart from the click rates or the conversion rates on a pricing page, what else can you track?
Like, the like, the scrolling with the heat maps and That’s a page I took out of today’s presentation.
Easy oh, wait. No. It’s in the tips area at the very end. I didn’t get to the tips page. The last page is full of tips.
Easy on scrolling, and pricing pages are typically not bad. Okay.
I hear you.
There’s the FAQs at the bottom that are, like, expandable too.
You know, I wouldn’t what I would look at on a pricing page, depending on if it’s on the website versus if it’s where people in product lend or lend from emails for users, not trial. So website versus other pricing page would likely have two different ways of like, two different models that you would put together for how to measure success there and what the KPIs are.
Bounce is actually really important, and it might be more at that point, it’s like exit because bounce is, like, when you enter a site and then bounce it versus exit rate is different. So you’d probably call it exit rate. On the pricing page, did they spend less than ten seconds there, which could mean all sorts of things.
And that’s where it’s like, okay. Well, that’s a metric. That’s not a KPI. So you have to first figure out what the KPI is.
Is it, hold more people on the page longer, whatever that looks like as the actual, like, goal, in which case, exit rate would be huge. And then you would go down to the table below and say what’s affecting exit rate on here. Is the price too large, too high? Are we not giving them enough time to scroll?
Like, you’d have all sorts of questions you could ask.
But it really does depend. What you want out of a pricing page is for people to choose an option, but that’s not as important as just starting to be a user. So click a button is gonna be a really important thing. It doesn’t always matter which button they click.
However, if increasing average revenue per user is important to you and if they are the kind of company that starts, that like, a lot of companies, when you land on their pricing page, you don’t have to choose a plan. You’ll choose that plan when you go. Other ones, you do choose a plan. So for the ones where you do choose a plan, it might be that you’re trying to optimize to get more people into a higher tier plan.
So that could be something, increase average revenue per user. It could be both a KPI in this case and a metric underneath that KPI.
But we’re really just looking at increasing average revenue per user, and there’s lots of ways to figure that out and lots of hypotheses you can come up with if you’re like, oh, no. We’re not. Our our poo went down.
So if that’s the case anyway, there’s that to consider.
Okay.
All sorts of things. All sorts of things.
Okay. But start with their goal. So you could also just go out there and do some research on what people want, what business owners want, what SaaS people, or even course creators want out of their pricing table.
Yeah.
There’s Thank you. Loss.
Yeah. Alright. Fun. Cool. Anything else? Anyone else? We good.
Can you just tell me when it I don’t wanna take up more time today. But I am I have some random ideas, I guess, about what might work as a retainer, or may not. And so I guess what is the best time to start discussing and then knowing because I was reading through the workbooks for all this stuff, And at one point, I think I saw something scary like, if you cannot do this, we need to go back to the standard offer and change it. I was like, oh, shoot.
I need to figure this out sooner rather than later. So what is, like, the best time would you say just talk about it in Slack? And if you guys say, nope. None of this works, then I need to look at that.
I’m a little concerned about how much time I’m wasting on seasonal campaign if I can’t figure out a retainer an optimization performance retainer for it. That makes sense.
That’s fair.
What can you I mean, now is a good time. We are in this afternoon talking about standardized offers. And with that, it’s important for you to think about the retainer offer. But next week will be full on retainer offer stuff.
Okay.
So what do you have right now?
Now is a good time?
Okay. Well, the one that to me seems to there’s obviously the seasonal sale campaign, any it could be a product launch campaign, right, where you learn from that campaign, and you can take some of those learnings and apply it to retention strategies and other things like that or just your future campaign. But a future campaign, like you said, is a new project. Yeah. So I’m trying to also avoid that. And so then the major things that I kind of was trying to get it down to was my focus on seasonal sales can also lay a great foundation for ongoing customer retention.
And, so, yes, the average order value that yes. You can do that. And, yes, you can get them to come in during the seasonal sale and buy a second time. That’s all great. But we can also start laying the foundation for increasing lifetime value and all that kind of stuff. So then the only thing that to me made sense in terms of value was ongoing work around their customer retention KPIs.
But what I was still struggling with is I’m not doing enough to opt I’m not doing enough, I don’t think, in the seasonal the standard thing for post purchase experience and all that to kinda make it not a brand new project that almost requires an email audit or something like that. So then I’m like, I don’t know. I just keep hitting the same off. Okay.
Well, I might as well just do an email program audit because they I don’t have the full picture if they bring me on for a seasonal sale. Right? And I wanna keep their customer attention going and doing all those things. It feels like if I don’t see the full picture, how do I say, yes.
We should focus on a win back versus something else. You know? Yeah. That’s what keep kinda coming against a wall of my brain.
I think you’re getting close. I do. Because it feels like okay.
If you have a point of view on standardizing seasonal campaigns Mhmm.
You can start with an audit of their past. That could be, like, your project out of the gate, potentially. Like, we’re just brainstorming here, and it might break. It might not be right.
But, if you were to start with seasonal audit, you go over their last six seasonal campaigns, and you audit them against, like, a rubric, just a some sort of analysis that you come up with. It’s your thought leadership. You own it. You’ve made sense of the best ways that seasonal campaigns work.
And then you could be responsible on an ongoing basis for running their seasonal campaigns against what you found in the audit. Doesn’t mean that’s the thing to do, but there might be if you have thought leadership and a point of view on how to run killer seasonal campaigns, All all you need is that.
Just that, Jessica. You just need outstanding thought leadership on seasonal campaigns.
Right. But that really could be you could build something out of that. You would still have So for every part of the retainer, there is still a certain level of original work that has to be done. Yeah.
But you need to try to systematize.
I say sixty percent of that. That’s not a real number. That’s just to give you a sense for it should be more systematized than custom.
Mhmm. So if you can break it down to here are the templates that work great for these campaigns.
If you could come up with that, if you could own that, then that could be a really interesting retainer where you are doing original work each time, but it’s based on your brand’s hypothesis about what is what to do to make seasonal campaigns work really well so that you attract customers that will pay pay more money to you down the road or whatever that thing is that you’re say that you end up saying in the end. I feel like you could do something, but it would require a lot of, like, really dig into what your point of view is on this.
Mhmm. Yeah. Does anybody have anything to add or any thoughts there?
I would just add that I’m totally in exactly the same boat of wondering, like, the ideas that I have for the retention offer, how do I stop them from snowballing into new projects?
Like, just, yeah, just finding that right, like, golden ratio of what goes in the standardized offer versus what’s the ongoing.
And then kind of adjacent to that, I know we were talking about, like, web copy. Like, so many of us having web copy as a standard project, but not wanting that to be the standardized one going forward.
Like, if I’ve landed on the, like, automated email sequences to increase lifetime customer value, But I’m like, how I don’t know if that’s close enough to the pain point that people like, you know, needing a sales page feels like a strong like, I don’t have the sales page. I don’t feel like it’s converting or, you know, I just feel like the post sales automated sequences feels like an add on to a painkiller product versus, like, a standardized offer in its own right.
Okay. So we were talking about this last time or on Friday. Right? And so if we’re at a so if I’m recalling correctly, it came down to sales page as standardized offer that then gets optimized, emails as standardized offer that then get optimized, or both, a standardized offer that then get optimized. And this is where you’re you’re still working through that. Is that accurate?
Well, I mean, I so I was like, okay. Shut up and make it easy. Choose the emails.
But what I because I’m reading a hundred million dollar lead nice.
Leads right now and just and I really wanna be close to the pain. Like, I wanna be fine. I want people to be like, please help me with this. And I don’t feel like the automated emails is the place where they’re like, we desperately need this support.
Can you then so you’re saying that the pain is the sales page?
No? Well, okay. I acknowledge that I’m talking about working with a different audience that I work with right now, but I was yes.
Because nobody’s ever come to me being, like, give us these emails, but people come to me all the time for the sales page.
Do they want you to continually optimize the sales page, or is it a one and done project?
Well, for my current audience, it’s a one and done project, but I’ve also never pitched sales page optimization before.
Okay. Cool. Great. So if you were to say the pain is closest to the sales page, My target audience that maybe I’m expanding to, feels great pain and wants that page optimized on an evergreen basis. They want to just continually optimize it, I’m going to sell that. That’ll be my thing. That sounds great.
No? What could be wrong with that?
Well, I feel like the sales page is harder to own than the emails just in that there’s more people doing it.
More contractors doing it. More more copywriter in my space talking about sales pages versus the behavior based automations feeling like a more like a bluer ocean.
Okay. That’s interesting. Yeah. I I don’t think it’s red ocean, though. I really don’t like I mean option?
You know best. You don’t You know. But, like, your target audience who is a person that needs a sales page that they’re continually optimizing? What’s the brand that you would want to work with?
Let’s say, like, Jerisha Hawk is a coach that I would like to work with.
Okay. Cool.
Mhmm.
So there are and do you feel like this person sorry. I’m not familiar with them. They’re always being pitched by others, or, like, they’re does it feel like they’re staring at a red ocean of people pitching them on these services?
Well, I’m like, from how engages with hers with her Instagram posts, I feel like there’s definitely at least a handful of other other copywriters, like, circling the wanting to work with her.
Who’s really killing it, though? Like, who in this red ocean is kill is it a red ocean full of sharks tearing everybody apart, or is it, like, a a goldfish pond where there’s lots of little ones in there doing their best, but may like, is there room for you to come in and be the shark?
Okay. I like that. That’s a good analogy for me. That works.
Okay. Good. Then we’ll leave it at that. I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
Alright.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Anybody else?
No? Okay. Cool beans.
Then if you’re sticking around, I’ll see you in an hour and a half for the next training.
And thank you for those who are letting their brains fill up with this stuff. Hopefully, it’s getting you to a good place, but we’ll talk more in a little bit. Okay? Thanks y’all. Bye. Bye. Bye.
The Distributable Brand
The Distributable Brand
Transcript
Okay. This is the worksheet that you are working through today.
You’ll see on the front of all of the worksheets. There was a, I think, a problem with a couple of the worksheets that were sent out to you, but going forward, This part down at the bottom will help you understand what to use it for.
We’re going to talk through what not to start with when you’re thinking of your brand and what to start with when you’re thinking of your brand. And again, I have, worked with a lot of freelancers who struggle a good amount with their brand, and it’s really closely tied to your differentiators and to the audience that you want to target, And sometimes that can mean and feel like it’s not as tied to you as you might want it to be, but we’ll talk about that.
This is what people don’t understand about what I or we, if you’re talking about yourself as like an agency or something like that. Strong opinion we’re gonna get into who also openly shares this opinion. If somebody else does, then it’s like, should you go forward with that?
And then basically how you talk when you talk freely. Then a little bit of this, we’re not really going to touch too much on this in the training itself because it’s really straightforward. I mean, everybody here is in a pretty advanced state. So it’s quite simple to fill this stuff in, but this is the kind of thing that when you are working through talking when you’re at the next stage where you’re like, okay. I’m going to hire somebody to develop, like, a mood board for my brand, or I’m gonna put my own mood board for my brand together, then that’s where, you know, colors will come up and the personality is that are similar to your brand or what you want your brand to feel like those will come up too, and that can lead to brand voice guides and all sorts of stuff. So you’ve already seen Justin Blackman’s training on brand voice He has a great approach.
Excuse me. My approach is slightly different.
But it all works together. It’s all just like, catch the things that are helpful to you and use them to move forward not to get stuck. If anything I share today, makes you feel stuck, disregard it unless it’s a good stuck, unless it’s like that that crash that you have to feel like, oh, I can’t figure this out, and that’s actually a productive sort of stuck. And then, really at the end of this, we’re going to want you to write out that brand? Like what is the brand? How does it sound?
And specifically, how does it make you distributable? And that’s really key difference here in thinking through brand, if you are trying to build your authority, and this is true for every new brand that’s out there because brands now spread on social.
Obviously, that’s scalable word-of-mouth when we’re talking about social media. So distribution is a really big part of your brand. Can my brand be distributed?
And that really means when you think about the influencers out there that you want to distribute your brand, these may be wish list, or you may be like, one degree, like, separated from that person that you want to talk about you. So maybe there’s an easy way in.
We have to make it easy for those ideal people to distribute us to their audiences.
So will I easily distribute their distribute you really simple, clean question. And if you can’t answer, yes, not would I, not anything, but will I easily distribute you? And if it’s not a yes, then refine it.
Will Marie Forleo easily distribute you if that’s somebody that you want to. Well, I mean, the list goes on, but Lenny is another great example. A little difficult. It’s actually harder to get to distribute you than even these two are, which is, I think, pretty stunning.
But will these influential people who have access to the Mark you want to tap into easily distribute their distribute you, and there has to be, of course, a reason why there has to be something they’re worth sharing with other people. And the reality is, that if you think why would anybody wanna share my brand, then you’re probably not in a good place with your brand.
But there is this content beast that all the lenny’s and Marie’s and Tim’s of the world and everybody else that you wish would talk about you They are trying to feed this content beast. They are running up against what should I talk about next? Who should I share next? And that’s a really big opening.
Or your brand for anybody’s brand that there is so much need to keep feeding that beast. So you need to distribute other brands. You will need to distribute other brands. If you were to start a podcast, you’d be like, who am I gonna get on my podcast?
You are identifying brands for you to distribute to people that is this audience that you are creating. So podcast host need new and interesting guests. Instagram needs people to talk about stuff three times a day at least. So if I’m a brand, posting, I have to post three different things, and it can’t all be just about me, or it’s just gonna, like, no one’s going to carrots people inviting other brands into their ecosystem.
And YouTube rewards accounts with really great videos that are added a lot.
So knowing that, that’s an opening for you. This isn’t about you to worry about this. This is we need to recognize that brands out there, that influencers need all of this stuff. And you can be the one that they then distribute.
So I think this is kind of bananas.
To meet minimum standards on Instagram, you need to post a thousand times a year, a thousand times. How are you gonna keep coming up with content? This is, again, a huge opportunity for any brand, hear any brand that’s being developed.
Everybody who trying to build something on Instagram is thinking through shit. I have to post a lot.
You can be one or ten or twenty or two hundred of those posts if you are a brand that they want to distribute. So knowing that everyone needs not just content, but engaging content. There are those influencers out there who want to share the most engaging stuff, and that means things that are clickable, of course, which can often, of course, mean people with opinions.
So we’ve got all of these people on the left potential partners, affiliates influencers, as mentioned, hosts of podcasts newsletters, whatever that thing might be, publishers. This is traditional publishers, like book publishers, as well as everybody else who would call themselves a media company or a publisher of some kind. They’re off trying to seek out in all of the crap that’s out there. All the boring brands that have nothing to say that are saying the safest things all the time that have no new perspective, no new opinion, that’s all crap.
They want to avoid that crap and look or the good little bits inside of it. And we need to be those good little bits inside of it that then get ballooned. So When we’re talking about brands, everybody really quickly wants to jump to. How should I sound?
What should I say? Joe, should I talk about myself as I or we?
And I would love to back up because no matter what you do with photo shoots, with your logo, Should my domain be my name or a brand name? None of that matters. The thing that matters first is distribution. So that means identifying who those people are.
You want to share your brand. And that doesn’t just mean influencers. I showed those people because we’re talking about scale about getting out there and getting shared broadly and repeatedly by cool people who have awesome audiences that we want to tap into. But then there’s also the brand that your clients and customers share.
If you’re working on referrals a lot, what makes you distributable by referral across client that you have and three or five people that your client knows. Right? That’s also a matter of distribution.
How do we get people to share our brand and why aren’t they already sharing it? What’s getting in the way? Does Seth Gordon know why?
He should distribute you to his audience that believes strongly in everything that he says and shares.
Does he know, is there a why? Is there a why for him to reach out to you? So we we don’t wanna start with photoshoot, stylist, especially since so many photoshoots are bullshit and you know that when you look at them, right? Where there’s a smiling happy Instagram face, And that’s not even what your brand is necessarily.
And the problem is if you don’t go to a photographer with clear vision of your brand and who you’re going to distribute that to, you will end up with the smiling not true to who you are brand photos. We get those all the time, and I’m like, these are fucking pointless because that’s not who I am. People are gonna think of a smiling I don’t even know what the now would be, but it’s not who I am. And so these stylists come in with that same idea.
Oh, you just want to look friendly or look good or whatever it might be, and that’s gonna end up being stuff you throw out later because nobody gives a shit. Or the wrong people. Give a shit.
A logo. Don’t worry about that yet. A domain, whatever. You can buy another one later. A brand voice guide. That is the last thing to think about when you’re thinking about your brand right now.
We wanna make it an easy no brainer for the right people to talk about you. Now that might sound like Joe, you repeat the same thing. That’s because it will always come back to these things when you haven’t done the hard work of actually figuring out how to get people to talk about you. What’s the opinion you’re going to take that appears to be probably contrarian to what the world thinks. So Wait.
Hold on. Do start with. Where did my little checklist go? Sorry. They should all be check marks. These are all supposed to be check marks. So This is the check mark part of your worksheet.
What is a counter opinion that you can take? Where do you stand on a popular subject in your space? What should you own that you will love and that others will respond to. So we’ve been talking a bit about what you should own, right, when it comes to your red thread and where you’re going to build your authority. And we really need to dig into that counter opinion and what your stand is, where what your soapbox is that you would happily stand on for the rest of your life because once you identify that thing, you will be standing on that soap box for a very long time.
Then there’s the other note of and then lack of check mark is super throwing me. The other note of your attitude when you’re feeling most communicative. So a lot of people in the room, a lot of writers, if you’re watching this replay too, a lot of us feel different at different times, of course, but there’s a strong sense of introversion with a lot of writers and writer types creatives out there. But there are moments when you do feel like more alive let’s say or more, like, energetic and you’re willing to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about something, kind of tap into what that attitude is when you’re feeling most communicative?
Like, are you do you get really passionate about a certain subject That’s when you’re like, you could talk without anybody ever stopping you. You would just keep going and going and going. You have to also think through that because When your most vocal, you’re going to have to continue to be vocal going forward. That’s how your brand is built.
What can you say and say again and again and again and again passionately in an interesting way to make people curious, to make people listen.
So we wanna be opinionated in a way that comes naturally to you when you’re at your most vocal. Are you at the pub with friends? And someone said some about how Jennifer Aniston treats herself to one potato chip when she’s feeling like snacking. And you, like, lose your mind over this stuff.
That doesn’t mean you’re gonna be opinionated about Jennifer Aniston or potato chips or anything. But really tap into what what do you need to be talking about that makes you feel alive and ready to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, which is what your job is going to be. So me, for example, I’m naturally very shy, but when I feel like communicating, I can get a little spicy, a little snappy, I roll my eyes pretty hard when I disagree. I can disagree a lot, and that’s true for like everybody in my family.
It’s a very loud family.
I take sides, you know, the strong opinions loosely held idea.
Not often loosely held though, so that can be a problem.
I do not always need to have support of my opinion to stand behind it. I do love to have support of my opinion though, and I can stand behind it better than I can be exaggerated and animated. So it’s like the hard eye rolls and stuff like that. And sometimes I can be a little offensive.
I don’t mean to be. But I know that I can sometimes come off that way, and that’s when I’m activated. That’s when I’m, like, turned on, ready to talk about a thing. And I think it’s good for you to note those things for yourself as well.
Because if it’s if it’s likely that the time that I’m gonna talk the most, the loudest, and in potentially the most interest thing way is when I’m spicy or when I’ve been, like, I disagree with you, then that’s gonna be important as I’m figuring out my brand and how will I talk? I’m not gonna be this quiet smiling Instagram type. You know, I’m not going to. It wouldn’t it wouldn’t make any sense to because if I ever do a podcast, you’d be like, well, that doesn’t even sound like that person.
Completely different. Right? So it’s important for you to think about how you actually activate.
So my take, my opinion that I hold that I go out into the world with, is most of what we’ve been taught about messaging in particular is wrong. Most of what you’ve heard about copywriting is wrong, and I wanna fix that. I will frank I will frequently say things like, no. Don’t do it that way.
Do it this way. And we also see that people respond best when I say no. Don’t do it that way. It this way instead, and that is a good thing for our brand.
So think through that kind of stuff what activates you and how that comes to life. And then the question is do I know how to distribute you? So, obviously, we talk about things like videos, quotes, like there’s or Instagram, you’re putting videos out that are long, that are short, images with quotes on them. You can share photos and memes, obviously links to books, This is easy to distribute.
Right? You can have a book and what makes it so easy to distribute a book is that there is a link to it There’s a title for it. There’s a pre made image for it. That’s the cover of it, and it’s got natural built in authority.
It is easy for me to distribute. I don’t really have to get any buy in from anybody, but that you’re a good person to distribute if there’s a book there. Blog posts, depending. That can also be very easy.
At least it’s it’s physically easy to distribute it, and it’s physically easy to distribute a link to a podcast episode as well. But it’s not just about being easy. Right? That’s will I easily.
The will part is, is it worth it? Is it worth it to distribute use? That’s where we need to be opinion based and divisive with our videos.
Have short and pity videos that make it worth it as well. Like, okay, I can easily distribute you and my audience is going to understand you really quickly and take a side really quickly. Quotes that break with the norm that say something a little bit different, unexpected photos and memes. Maybe a quote image that looks different out of the blue. That’s not on but that better matches your tone, which is again, don’t worry about your brand and what it looks like as much as does it sound right? Does it sound like your opinion.
Books, everyone wants to promote a good book, clever deep blog posts. Those are easy links to share, as I mentioned before, and energetic podcast episode. So it’s not just easy, but is it worth me sharing your brand with the world?
Is it too risky to put you in front of my audience? Is the other question that we have to answer? So that means being consistent.
If I bring you on my podcast, am I what I’m going to get so that I can actually distribute it to my audience, and they’ll be like, cool. Dig it. Love it. That was a and your life for you, I knew it would be amazing because they’re always consistent with what they say. They’re always saying the same thing in the same energetic or bitchy or whatever that adjective might be that will define what your brand sounds like.
Finishing thought, and then we can talk a bit about this.
Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins said this. I am not necessarily a huge Tony Robbins fan. My sister and I had to sit through this horrible Tony Robbins Day. Someone gifted us tickets and we were like, oh my gosh. We were dying.
We didn’t even get to see him. Of course, as everybody who’s been to a twenty Robbins event knows, he, like, doesn’t come on until two in the morning or something. But an important thing is that the Tony Robbins brand is very different from who Tony Robbins says he is behind closed doors. So he says, I made this. Everything you’re seeing is something that he produced. So we’re talking right now about the early stages of figuring out what your brand is and how to make it distributable.
But we’re really working toward a place where potentially what your brand looks like and what you as the face of your brand look like. Are not what you think they are today, that every part of you may actually be constructed as you’re putting your brand together. And that that’s actually not only okay, but that’s kind of the point you are the product that you’re selling. And just like any product needs an interface that looks a certain way. It needs certain packaging.
That’s what we’re going to be putting together, as brands. Does this all make sense? Any questions?
Any thoughts?
No thoughts.
I like the concept, especially with, like, celebrities. When you look at celebrities, there’s this whole you know, what they want you to think on screen, but then you behind the scenes, right, that’s drug use, it’s all this other stuff, and you’re like, there’s the brand and then there’s real. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. This, like, intentionally selected, curated, and, like, watched over brand.
Yeah. That can feel like, well, I don’t have a team, or you can feel inauthentic as well. But I honestly, I don’t think Marie forleo is anything close to the person that she shows herself to be because she’s a bit of a caricature. She’s like an exaggerated version of Marie Forleo.
And that’s the kind of thing that we can either, like, roll our eyes about it or go, like, okay, that’s a really good lesson. That’s so if if these people out there are putting on a brand that’s different, but that makes it distributable. Obviously, Marie Forleo tapped into what a lot of women in business wanted to see how they wanted to feel, and she did that extremely successfully right out of the gate.
And yeah, that’s like a lesson for all of us.
So that’s kinda like your origin story when you think about it. That’s the whole point is really to create your brand ideally around who you’re you’re targeting. Right? So then they they feel like, hey, they get me.
They understand me, but is it is it really you? Yeah. It’s not. It’s your brand.
It’s, like, it’s mind numbing when you think about it. It’s like Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
And you can think about, like, people who really pull off their brand very well, like, you know, Taylor Swift as a kind of obvious example, where it’s so believable that maybe it really is real.
And that’s okay. And maybe she, like, grew into that Brent, or who knows? Parts of her are there and parts of her, she dials back. She’s not gonna be the same on stage as she is chilling, like, doing her friend’s nails.
I wonder if, you know, like, I know it’s pretty deep, but I wonder because it is about your brand and I know especially with celebrities and stuff. I wonder if there’s people who specialize in that where it’s like, okay, you’re this old, you’re fourteen years old. Here’s your your target audience. This is your brand. And as you get older, you notice the celebrities evolve because their their market is evolving.
Yeah.
It’s interesting.
Yeah. That is. It is.
Wow. But maybe that’s what’s happening. That’s why you see, like, what’s his name, the Canadian goof. Then no one likes him.
Justin Bieber. You know, he turned into this like bangs and then as he got older, he was edgy. Is that what’s happening? It’s crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah. Wow. Interesting.
Never thought of it that way.
Fun.
I know Johnson said, should we craft those facets with a customer in mind the same way we write copy?
It depends who your customer really is.
But I would say when you’re thinking of your brand and how to get that brand out there, a customer isn’t going to distribute you as well necessarily as a more influential person is. So and that person doesn’t have to be person either. It could be brand, x, that wants to put you on stage or whatever it might be.
So I wouldn’t craft with, like, the next ten thousand dollar client in mind, because that’s small, but let’s craft with who do those ten thousand dollar clients listen to. Where do they go to find what they need?
And that’s who that’s that’s who’s gonna distribute you. If they don’t get it, and they don’t distribute you, then you’re constantly working for every client that you get every single time.
And referrals are good. Referals will go a long way, and that can be, you know, solving for that client, but How can you be more distributable than that?
Abby?
Jason, there’s, like, a disadvantage to being kinda, like, a smiley friendly brand because that’s, like, the way I am, but then I do worry sometimes that because I’m quite like giggly and stuff. I’m like, oh, it is it affecting, like, people’s value perception of me? And I think because I I have like a baby face as well, like, don’t worry that people, like, like being smiley friendly, like, is that should I should I, like, change it? I don’t know.
Do you think it is holding you back from being distributed?
I don’t know. Like, I generally don’t know. So I’m asking.
I mean, and I’m not I’m not like boo to smiley happiness.
At all. I’m just not really like what’s funny is when I say that I’m not that my friends my little friend group over in our shine crew. They’re always, like, surprised because they do see me as, like, laughing and smiling a lot. But that’s when I’m not at work when I’m at work to get pretty bitchy about things. Like, I get a little opinionated, pretty quickly on things. And so so there’s different sides of who you are, obviously. Right?
But if you actually are that and you feel good about that, I think that’s wonderful.
You’re you don’t have to, like, have attitude or anything. Just like, do people know what they’re getting with you? Are they getting the same thing with you every time that consistency?
And is it something that I, like, think is interesting enough that I’m going to share it. And obviously, the things that you say are gonna be the most interesting thing, but people will go to your website, see a photo of you, go to your Instagram, see who you are there, and it’s like, so the two parts have to come together.
The opinion that you have and the way that you present yourself.
And they could be like juxtaposed. Right? It could be, like, you’re really happy.
And you come off as very, like, as you said giggly or cheerful or whatever, And then you have like these really sharp cutting opinions, that could be really like an interesting contrast.
Just depends. Right?
Yeah. Right.
But if you don’t feel it’s holding you back and you do see evidence that people distribute, happy brands, which they do, then no need to stop. Just make sure you know that your ideal audience distributes that. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. Let me bug out.
How much did you say is, value versus, like, say, like, ability Like, yeah.
This person can offer a lot of value to my audience, but, I just don’t like them sort of thing.
That’s tough. What do you think?
I don’t know. I think they’re gonna choose. I just don’t like them. Unless they could show that there’s ROI, they’re gonna make a lot of money, then you can buy a lot of therapy, but it’s Personally. I don’t know.
Yeah. No. I think of of brands that I don’t like, and I would never ever even like when people in my audience mention them. I’m like, I if if I’m like mentioned in the same LinkedIn comment with somebody I find unlikable, then I’m I’m not even gonna, like, like, react well. I won’t react to that post at all because I don’t Yeah. I see.
It’s like that person is not distributable for me. I won’t help them get distributed.
Yeah.
Yeah. I’ve had people steal, like, I know what you mean. Like, you’re, like, there’s so much just, you know, this is not a good person sort of thing.
Not not so much likability, but But just, like, No.
I don’t want you to follow them. They’re gonna say crazy shit. Because I can’t be the one who led you there in any way.
Which but if if you say something really interesting, then, of course, people want to. And then just, like, keep your unlikable stuff to yourself, unless it’s like that’s part of your brand, which the person I’m thinking of, that’s part of his brand. He’d be very happy that people think he’s an asshole.
But I don’t even I don’t even mention him. It’s such an hassle.
Yeah.
Anybody else wanna talk about this, or do you wanna move on?
Other things that are on your mind today or business and money, stuff.
Where you at?
Question time, talk time?
I’ll can I ask a question?
Yeah.
A win. I sorry. I don’t know. It’s not directly a win for money, but I did have an online magazine reach out for feature interview or something like that. So. Nice.
And actually, yeah. I’m always thinking it’s spam. So I given the route back and forth, I was like, oh, okay. That’s anyway.
So Good job.
Nice.
Thanks.
I guess my question is It’s really basic but on all of this.
I’m kind of wondering, okay, so what do I do next? Like what’s my next step? And the only because the only thought I had is you all were talking was when you were saying you’re not smiley or related to that and all that. And I was like, how old my brand? Like me if I had to really sum it up and it was like, okay. If I could have the Bernee Brown stuff, have a baby with Harley Davidson.
That’s what I wanna feel like.
Okay.
I don’t know. And but like in terms of what do I do that’s kind of my question, I guess. I’m I’m struggling to figure that out with real clarity.
Okay. So you want to combine Brenae Brown and Harley Davidson. What does that mean to you? What are you putting together there? What’s the outcome?
Oh, oh, what’s the outcome?
I want a brand where you you feel like they they really genuinely care about the customer like customer first. Right? Bernae Brown. It’s like really being authentic but an empathy and all those things, but then the Harley Davidson part of it is if you look at their copy, it’s often very right to it short.
Like this this. You know, there’s a period between two very quick two word sentences or something, you know. And I like that very direct and to the point kind of feel and then also the the the way they I actually think both brands kind of lift you to this ideal freedom, you know, just in very different ways. Right?
Like Harley is about get on the road. You’re an American like be free. That’s their, you know, it’s like their vibe. But in the same way, I think Renee Brown also is trying to call you to freedom but getting rid of all the crap that we carry, you know, mentally and all the emotion kind of stuff like that.
So I don’t know. Did that answer your question?
I’m not sure what the outcome Exactly.
Yes. Yeah. No. I’m just curious to hear you talk a bit more about it in the hopes that that’ll also help you work through it. Abby, you had a thought I know you just chatted it, but you did because you were gonna come off mute, and now you chatted something over.
No.
I wasn’t gonna come off mute. I was just saying, like, the the grand, pillars as, like, the rubber and then, like, the idealist. It sounds like a merger of the two of those.
Yeah.
Okay.
That’s what I was gonna say. It’s kinda like, in the twelve archetypes, it’s like outlaw and caregiver.
Yeah.
But, yeah, what do you do with it? What, like, I I’m curious about what’s forming in your head when you think about that? How long have you been thinking about that, Jessica?
Yeah, where are you Like, it’s really a question of, like, it’s the first step, right, is figuring this sort of thing out and making sure that there’s, you know, a world out there that will share that brand. And what is the opinion? What’s the what’s the position that you’re taking that’s then supported by a mix of Renee Brown and Harley Davidson or this idealist meets rebel.
Caregiver versus outlaw.
Where are you at?
Well, okay. So the Harley Davidson thing, I’m from Milwaukee. So of course that’s always been a thing and so the marketing branding ended that is just fun to look look at think about, study their copy, look at their photo shoots, all the things they do. But the in terms of the opinions, that’s That’s harder for me. So I I think about things like the seasonal sales you all know. I’ve shared with you that I just think people are looking at it in a short term win when they’re really missing the long term possibilities.
But then also in email, like in e commerce, this heavy reliance on, image graphic graphic heavy and discount heavy offers when they really should be trying some other things not so Afakevy and and discount heavy.
So but I don’t know how those kind of merge into my branding or opinion that’s where I’m still trying to flush that out and figure that out.
Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t think that will necessarily get there right now. Because that’s like a big thing is to figure out your brand and all of it, everything that goes with it. But, I mean, think it’s great that you’re heading there.
And it’s just like, do the work of really figuring out, like, when we even look at the worksheet. Right? If you can write down what let me just go over to it.
Really working through because your thoughts on seasonal, unlike things in e commerce that are just kinda short term, think that’s a good start. Right? But it’s it’s really a question of how do you form that into a strong opinion? Like a single statement that you could say again and again that makes sense to people as soon as they hear it. And I don’t mean like a tagline or value prop or any even just your positioning line necessarily, but just state what that opinion is. Really, it’s what are you picking a fight with really?
Clearly, and, like, just do that on page one. Of the worksheet and then just make sure that, like, nobody else is really saying it that way, or if they are, they’re not as noisy as you are.
So if it’s something someone else is already saying, then it’s not really worth distributing you. Right? Because I probably can just distribute this other person and etcetera, etcetera.
So yeah, I would say that’s like the next step. Document it in repeatable way, and then just like share it in the slack group and see if it resonates. With people, and then just, like, keep refining it until it does.
Okay. Yeah. K. Thank you.
Yeah. Sure.
Anybody else? What else is going on? Katie, do you have a win to share first or are you building on what Jessica said?
I have a unrelated question. Yeah.
My win would be I have booked, last minute VIP day with one of my retainer clients.
Nice.
Thank you for last. So was fun.
Surprise. Nice.
I’m curious, like, When it comes to simplifying complex ideas to make them memorable, like, to make something feel like it’s easily distributable because I feel like my, like, profitable signature offers thing is really big. Like what the the problem that I want to The the thing I have an issue with is people not, like, a lack of alignment in people’s marketing so that their top of funnel content is not attracting the customers that they wanna be putting their high end offers in front of.
And so what that has meant is that I end up talking about a lot of different things. Like, I talk about your lead magnet and I talk about your welcome sequence and your, you know, your sales, like, I talk about all of the things. Yeah. And so I don’t like, lately, I’ve been focusing more on the sales page.
Because that I see that as like the source for, you know, finding that alignment throughout, but yeah, I feel like since my very first hot seat, in the first week of the program, that’s been the the red thread of, like, I have this big thing, but I don’t know how to make it small enough that I can ease, like, that it is that easily distributable idea.
To under so so it’s profitable signature offers.
Where signature offer has been a thing, and then profitable is your way of making it your own?
Or is that is that what you would call, like, your differentiator on the subject of I don’t know because I’m trying to, like, find all these different angles into it.
So, like, one of the things that I talk about is like golden opportunities. So it’s like different ways of adding, you know, upsells or systematizing referrals. So, like, that’s kind of one of the angles that I’ve taken on the signature offer is, like, finding these hidden opportunities to make your existing offers more profitable But ultimately, like, what I really enjoy is you have this one, you know, landmark offer, like, that’s what you’re getting known for, and then helping business owners refine everything else that they’re promoting and selling that they’re attracting an audience that is gonna be a good fit for that offer and then, you know, whatever they have on the back end. So It’s just broad. I mean, all of you said an answer, like, you know, a solution, but I love, like, a direction to look in for.
Yeah.
I think if we can even unpack what’s going on within what could be getting in the way of people really understanding it maybe because for me, Most marketers I talk to, don’t understand what an offer is. They don’t think offer.
People in information marketing think offer. They’re used to that.
Coaches maybe do more and more people who’ve read hundred million dollar offers.
Where that was a very distributable idea of hundred million dollar offers. That’s like a big idea. Like, tell me more, please.
And that’s picking a fight, indirectly picking a fight with your these shitty little nothing offers where you’re making a twenty bucks on something, you know, to a hundred million dollars. So But I wonder if there’s something that will be difficult for the average person who’s trying to figure out what you do when it comes to the word offer, that doesn’t mean that’s true. But I’d be like, let’s maybe think through that. And then profitable signature, profits good. Profitable is a big word. Signature is also a big word.
So it’s like kind of a lot of, you know, cognitive friction there in getting into what profitable signature.
Offers means. I understand all three words separately, but altogether, it’s a little bit trickier. And I would wonder, what are you really picking a fight with?
Do you know what you’re picking a fight with?
Yeah. So my to answer your question as Stacy is, like, I mean, I work with primarily, like coaches and experts who are, you know, were experts and now I’m moving into coach So I I would say, like, offers is just ubiquitous, like, the term using the word offers to describe what you’re selling is fairly ubiquitous, the concept of signature offer. You know, there’s maybe a handful of other terms that people use for it, but, like, that’s also There.
Yeah.
But I wrote about, like, what people don’t understand about we do, making it your oh, may be making your signature offer profitable goes beyond any one sales or launch strategy.
It’s about know, attracting the right audience. Like, and then I have this handful of things that I wanna say it’s about. And I think that’s where I lose the it takes so long to get to what it is.
So you’re saying your audience’s idea of an offer is broken. It’s too small. It’s too narrow. Are you picking a fight with the very concept of offers as far as these experts think.
I guess it’s in the sense that they almost, like, that the offer the concept of a signature offer like exists in a silo when really your signature offer shouldn’t form your full business strategy.
Yeah. Yes. I, do I align the entire funnel? I do Oh, I work like across the full funnel. Yeah. Exactly. And I help people, like, create that alignment from the top to the bottom of their funnel.
Yeah.
I’m wondering why or Shane. Do you have any thoughts on this at this point?
Especially where I given how you work with people just like this.
Yeah. So I think you touched on at the end. It’s a creating alignment. Right? You’re you’re sort of you’re aligning all our messaging towards this this signature offer and everything in between that sort of that leads to that. Correct?
Yeah.
And then it’s deciding, you know, what is what does success mean to them whether it’s more money or more leads or what is what what’s the outcome that they’re looking for, ultimately that the system would achieve. What is it?
More sales and easier launches is what my surveys always always say the same thing. And and then, you know, those sales coming in, like, the offers feeding into each other without having to do the launch every time.
That’s the problem, like, what’s the specific problem that they’re facing with the with the system or what currently is working with them right now?
Fish feeling like every sale is harder is too hard. Like, you know, the launch feels like a grind and or the launches aren’t working.
So working isn’t, like, defined just to break that down a bit more.
Like, if it’s not Leading expectations, making the money.
It’s not they’re not seeing ROI. They’re not it’s so it’s not like setting it up. It’s just it’s not they’re setting it up. They’re using this process. They have this high ticket item, but it’s just not selling. Is that sound about right?
So your solution goes in and and solves that problem, essentially, and then you you and by doing that, you align all of their messaging and all their marketing assets to their their high ticket item, which then helps correct me if I’m wrong, then make more money.
Right? In a sense?
Yeah.
I don’t that sounds good to me. Doesn’t it?
I mean, no. Because it’s too complicated. You know, like, doesn’t it feel like it’s not distributable, simply because it’s too complicated. I don’t know what a profitable signature offer is.
And if I think offer, it sounds like, like you said, Katie, it’s in a silo. An offer is a thing that I put out at this one time. It happens in a launch. So your audience hates launches, increasingly.
They’re stressful. They want an easier way.
To do this. Right? So it’s like it’s packed with tension because I don’t understand the words. And then I don’t know what my outcome is.
Like, I want money. You know, that’s what they that’s why they’re doing launches. That’s why they’re putting courses out there. They want easier access to the money that exists.
In the world for people with courses.
So to have a profitable signature offer, although it’s a really nice series of words, and you could see it beautifully printed in a really nice font.
I just worry that it’s too Nordstrom when it needs to be more Walmart. Like, it’s just a little highfalutin for the average person.
And I don’t mean the average Joe. I mean, the average person who has money to spend on what you’ve got.
It’s a bit up there. You know, it’s it’s not distributable simply because it’s complicated language.
Is it profitable, Joe?
Like, it’s the word, like, the how it’s all strung together, or is it It’s a thing that sounds good when you hear it and then you forget about it.
It’s like I like profit. I like signature. Cool. I wanna have like a signature offer.
But then you walk away. And if you didn’t act on it right away, to me, it feels like It was just it’s just pretty smart for busy people who were trying to make money. Are you public? Better what the fight is?
Like, What am I doing right now? What’s my problem that I have right now as your target audience that is tied like a rich person problem. Right? We wanna solve rich people problems.
So what do I have that’s that?
That you can then express, and maybe it still ends up being called profit signature offers, but it’s it’s help me.
The next I think the hint is the metaphor in the red thread book when she talks about, like, finding your tangible metaphor to Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, the hidden benefit sort of thing. Like, the where was the ad where it’s there was golfing. Oh, ideally, the CEO was wanting to get on the golf course. So that was the the sales letter focused on that. And then it just are you that angle sort of thing?
Like, are you saying that I guess the messaging is not as broad, you know, like the profitable, yeah, it makes sense, but to tailor that more. Specific to, like, the not just the outcome, but the a layer deeper, like, ultimately why.
You know, I wanna make more money. Why? Well, I wanna spend it with my Yeah.
And it and it’s making more across things. Right? So, Katie, you’re doing like all, like, sales pages right now, but it sounds like as was already mentioned, there’s this entire Stacy mentioned that there’s funnel and the offer happens across it.
But that’s kind of breaking with this so you have to sort of reeducate your audience on offer on all of it because if it spends every thing, and it’s not just focused on this one off campaign or launch, then now I need a new definition maybe for offer and that there’s friction there. So I I won’t understand it. I’m like, how can you make it?
How can you, like, bring it down? What if you had to throw out? What if you just weren’t allowed to use profitable signature offers anymore? It’s taken. You’re being sued for ten million dollars if you use it even one more time. That’s gone. What is it now instead?
Insistent, like maybe that’s more of an angle where you have a repeatable process that they can apply that you’re like secret sauce, you figured it out sort of thing.
How do you make it? Like, what to start?
What to start with? Yeah. Okay. I mean, This is good. I’m gonna run with this. Like, the questions that Joe’s been asking.
I don’t I don’t know now.
I know. I wanna work through this.
What is Walmart ready though? Like, what do you mean by that, Joe? Do you have an example?
I mean, like, it’s a simple word. It’s one syllable. There might be a number involved.
Like a numeral that I something I can see where I’m not actually reading anything. I’m just like looking and I get it.
You know?
Like hundred million offers, where he didn’t even spell out million. It’s just one a dollar sign. Woah, I get it. A hundred Oh, that’s a big number with an m on the end.
Shit. That’s a really big number. I don’t know what offers is, but tell me more about this hundred million thing. And I’m not saying b for Mosey at all.
But also why the shit not? Like, why not? If you could be, then why not go be the hundred million dollar guy.
But, yeah, what’s that, like, thing?
Which is so nebulous. Right? Like, to even say, what’s the thing? But, like, what’s how can you this is gonna sound mean, but how can you really dumb it down? To and in such a way, that it’s a clear flip or obvious opposite to what people think right now.
What does Amy Porterfield think right now about offers? What is she getting wrong right? Now about them, and can you then express that? And does profitable signature signature offers do that. Like, if there is something that she’s getting wrong, is your solution, the solution, and if it is cool, then you know you’re on the right track. Now we need to, like, say it in such a way that it’s low friction and easy to share around with everybody.
Does it is it food for thought there, Katie, for you?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Interesting.
Reading of, sorry, the, a book on twenty five k sales funnels. That concept? Yeah. That’s what you’re thinking?
I’m think well, yeah, that’s good. Because you know what it is. I mean, it’s just just a small number. Yeah.
It’s gonna One hundred million dollar signature offers or hundred million.
That that sort of idea.
Yeah. It’s just I mean, the the ease with which you can talk about that book.
And I’m not saying make it a book title, obviously.
I feel like it’s more, like, start with why, like, because if I want them to reimagine like all of their business assets, then it has to be like we I get into their brains from the starting point rather than the ending point and then be like, oh, and by the way, if you want this ending point, you’re gonna have to go do all this work. So okay.
So let’s start with what would you say instead of y? So if he said start with y and you were allowed to say start with, what would you say start with?
Like either who or like the buyers, like the actual not the people who are gonna buy your thirty seven dollar SLO offer, but like the people who are gonna buy your ten k offer.
Yeah. And then it’s really just and that’s cool.
Are other people saying it? And they are? And that’s cool. But to me, it sounds like what it’s missing there is the cool part about offers is that they’re tied to revenue growth. Like, when you hear offer, you think, oh, that’s where there’s a buy now button involved. There’s, like, a credit card involved soon.
Versus starting with your customer, which is like, oh gosh. I have to do all the research. Then I have to synthesize it, and then I have to get buy in, and then I have to write the thing, get it approved.
And then we come up with an offer. So you’re saying so I think, yeah, roll with that, start with but can you bring that blank at the end of start with? Can you bring it closer to money or offer? I’m not saying that you have to, but I think it’s a worthwhile exercise in figuring out what it is that you’re saying that people can then distribute.
Okay.
Yeah. And then will you share it with us in Slack or next week?
Yep.
Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks, Katie. Abby. Where are you at?
Hey. Yeah, I have a question.
So, yeah, when I already shared in Slack, I’ve hired six people in the last one.
I didn’t see that you’d hired six people.
I know. It’s not, like, full time, obviously, but I, like, I literally didn’t hire, like, a VA until, like, November last year. So the five to five six people is, like, madness.
Amazing. Well done. Thank you.
My question. So, I’m starting to, like, outpry some of the leads I’ve been bringing in, but I I don’t wanna lose them.
Like, for the time being. So my kind of, like, you can’t afford me offers in a VIP week, but I don’t think that’s working for any more partly because the price is too low, but also because just a week of my time, like, it’s not really up for grabs at the moment and that the same way. So I want to offer I’ve been thinking about offering a consulting package where they get access to me for, like, ninety days. Maybe they get my course, and they’re kind of implementing it with me, like, some copy audits and then, like, voxa access. And I was thinking of pricing it maybe, like, five thousand dollars, like, ninety days.
I just I haven’t done anything like that. So I wanted to get some feedback before I kind of ask my audience for feedback on like the pricing, the packaging, whether, it’s kind of a nice idea in theory, but more hassle than it’s worth in practice, just any thoughts, really.
So it’s the course plus box her access. Is that right?
Unlike copy audits, but like baby ones.
Was the baby copy of it? Yeah.
Well, like, ten, fifteen minutes. Yeah. Which, I mean, I love doing those anyway. They’re, like, my morning warm up.
So Really? Okay. Yeah. Like gets me in the zone.
Oh. That’s my bad move. That’s good. That’s good. Okay. So you’ve got Chorus and then these copy audits. And those are private one on one things where you, like, record a video and send it to them?
Yeah. So for each of the assets in the funnel, the day one evergreen funnel, and then, like, unlimited box access for ninety days, but like unlimited within kind of set. Set my voice.
What makes you think this is a good idea? Why do what’s what’s leading you here?
Because I have people coming to me that just can’t they’re not gonna pay twenty grand for a funnel.
I can’t just do one asset for them because they need a whole funnel. The DIY course, like, it’s not enough because they feel like they want the hand holding. So I wanna offer something in the middle to serve that audience because I am getting, like, the leads coming in from them.
And until I’m getting loads of, like, really the ones that can afford me, like, I I need to bridge that gap somehow. So and I like the idea of it. Like, I I I like the idea of doing self consulting. It seems like it would be fun for me, but yeah.
So Cool. The course is easy enough because it’s already made. It’s like anything that you make on that is profit. Almost, copy audits, five minutes of your day, and you like doing them. Okay. So that’s good. Vauxer access.
You’d have to put a lot of boundaries around that, I would think, because it really quickly feels like it could turn into one hour consults on demand whenever they feel like it.
Mhmm.
Here, I’m gonna throw fifty questions at you in Vauxer and then your Saturday night is spent on that. So this could be cool.
I would just you’d have to really figure out how to control that. And that could be, like, just in tiers. Right? You might just have two tiers. It’s like, hundred minutes of voxer access or unlimited voxer access or something like that so they can at least see and then unlimited’s like a dumb amount of money, versus the hundred minutes. And then they’re like, okay. Well, I paid for the hundred minutes, so I’m going to take my hundred minutes and know more than that.
Or whatever, but that’s, like, hearing you say this. I would say that’s course is easy. You already have it. Copy audits are easy. You like doing them. They energize you, they start your day. That’s cool.
Boxor access, you’d have to figure out how to control it. Some people might be cool, but it only takes, like, Imagine if two just keep filling your inbox. You’d be like, when are these ninety days going to end? Like, I need out of this. Did anybody else have thoughts on this?
I’ve heard somebody speak about how to do boxer and put boundaries around it, but I can’t think of what it is right now, but I’ll try to find it for you, Abby.
Thank you. I mean, what about, like, doing unlimited but within office hours. So it’s like I have set times that they can vox at me because then I could just be like, okay, for like five hours on a Tuesday.
And five hours on, like, a Friday, I’m gonna be, like, on boxer, and I can just I’ve I’ve seen it done successfully if you put a window on particular day of the week and you say unlimited boxer access between these hours on this day, that absolutely can work.
Yeah.
And and I’ve seen people do that also as well with the ben the added benefit if you structure it in a way that helps you uncover problems that your audience wants to solve. It can be a good way to do research for product development and, knowing things to offer. So you you’re kind of getting paid for doing customer research.
Mhmm.
Yeah. So I feel like if I say, like, a hundred minutes, whatever. People are gonna use a hundred minutes. If I say unlimited, then they’ll probably use my fifty minutes. They’ll use less. Right?
Oh, good.
Go ahead.
Yeah. Two two very clear boundaries. I’ve seen done well, and I’ve used at least one of them is the questions they ask can’t be covered in the course. Right? So, like, one morning on that. Right? Like, you’re not gonna refer them back to the course every time that’s their responsibility.
And the second one, which I really like, and I’ve used, is a question that has to be articulated in through seconds or less. Right? So they’re not rambling and figuring out their question on the fly and using your space to figure out what they wanna ask. They’ve already done the thinking, right, and they’ve, yeah, done them, used a mental bandwidth to get to the question that they need answered, then Yep. That usually limits a lot of the excessive three minute splurges of just people even figuring out what they wanna ask.
I love both of those. That’s great. Yeah.
Thank you. Okay. So do you think it’s an okay offer? Like, should I just try it? Like, Yeah.
Try it with, like, limited access.
Right? Like, limited seats, six seats, or whatever you Well, whatever it is that you want to do, obviously, to push people to buy it, all the usual stuff.
Yeah. And then ninety days.
Yeah.
You think that that would normally takes ninety days for people to do this?
I’d say, like, probably more realistically like sixty.
Okay.
Then do it sixty because then if you hit it, you can get out of it faster.
Yeah. And it’s not like people will be like, oh, extra value on that extra ninety days. Sixty days at five thousand and ninety days at five thousand or, like, basically the same. And then at least you’re out of it after sixty days. Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you for the feedback.
Yeah. Cool. Good. Okay. Thanks. Anybody else? We good?
I just have a quick win to share.
Nice. Share your win.
I ended my beta of my software, and which, you know, was at half of the regular subscription price. It was ninety nine a month versus the one ninety nine. So I ended it, went up to the regular price and have, added another thousand in, MRR with half the people it would have taken before.
Nice.
Amazing.
Well done. Very cool.
Awesome. Good. Well, hopefully everybody is having wins out there. If you wanna share them, you can share them now or throw them in the wins channel, obviously. Anytime.
If we’re wrapped up on questions, very cool.
Next Monday. I am on a flight when this happened. So as much as I want, every single Monday to always be honest, was already booked in advance this flight. My team is having an on site in Edmonton. Yay, cold.
And so I’ll be on the flight. Liana Patch will be in. I think we’ve shared that over in Slack. And she’ll be talking about largely about, copywriting techniques around infusing humor. Into your copy. It is her thing, and it’s great that she owns that thing, and it’ll be, I think, cool if everybody see not just the techniques, but also a person who’s committed to owning humor in copywriting, sticking with it and teaching it and, what it looks like to learn that from somebody who’s been practicing it for so long.
Awesome. Yeah. Great. Always over in, Slack, obviously, and Thursday, Shane. Do you wanna give a teaser for what’s coming on Thursday?
Putting you on the spot.
Yeah, so it’s, building your authority site. So I’m gonna It starts with your, ESP, sorry, your value prop on the home page, and then the structure we use, including templates, or suggested templates for each page based off of formula. So we’re gonna, start with, we call it an avatar, but it goes beyond your typical psychographics, demographics, it really focuses on, the core problem and then, your solution to solve that problem, and then we focus on point of different benefits, and, you’ll use that to craft your home page action, and then, I’ll share all the material after that as well. So
including the process from site map, to spit draft and wireframe following Joe’s process all the way to The process we use to convert, we use WordPress, but there’s other options as well that you can use. And, and sort of some tips we’ve learned. And then we also take this same system and we, sell these services to clients as well. So you can apply for your coaching, your service.
And we also use the same framework for Google Ads pages, and we see an average minimum around twelve percent conversion because you’re really focused on solving a specific problem and, and nailing that during the messaging. So That’s overarching idea of how it works.
Love it. Awesome. Yeah. And Shane has you showed that this to me months ago. Like, I think it was in the summer that we first started talking about this. So it’s gonna be really cool to see you walk everyone through it to get.
Yeah. Pretty cool.
Yeah. Alright. Awesome. Thanks, everybody. We will see you well, Thursday is the next one. And then I will be back in two weeks, but obviously on Slack otherwise.
Alright. Have a good week. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thank you.
Worksheet
Worksheet
Transcript
Okay. This is the worksheet that you are working through today.
You’ll see on the front of all of the worksheets. There was a, I think, a problem with a couple of the worksheets that were sent out to you, but going forward, This part down at the bottom will help you understand what to use it for.
We’re going to talk through what not to start with when you’re thinking of your brand and what to start with when you’re thinking of your brand. And again, I have, worked with a lot of freelancers who struggle a good amount with their brand, and it’s really closely tied to your differentiators and to the audience that you want to target, And sometimes that can mean and feel like it’s not as tied to you as you might want it to be, but we’ll talk about that.
This is what people don’t understand about what I or we, if you’re talking about yourself as like an agency or something like that. Strong opinion we’re gonna get into who also openly shares this opinion. If somebody else does, then it’s like, should you go forward with that?
And then basically how you talk when you talk freely. Then a little bit of this, we’re not really going to touch too much on this in the training itself because it’s really straightforward. I mean, everybody here is in a pretty advanced state. So it’s quite simple to fill this stuff in, but this is the kind of thing that when you are working through talking when you’re at the next stage where you’re like, okay. I’m going to hire somebody to develop, like, a mood board for my brand, or I’m gonna put my own mood board for my brand together, then that’s where, you know, colors will come up and the personality is that are similar to your brand or what you want your brand to feel like those will come up too, and that can lead to brand voice guides and all sorts of stuff. So you’ve already seen Justin Blackman’s training on brand voice He has a great approach.
Excuse me. My approach is slightly different.
But it all works together. It’s all just like, catch the things that are helpful to you and use them to move forward not to get stuck. If anything I share today, makes you feel stuck, disregard it unless it’s a good stuck, unless it’s like that that crash that you have to feel like, oh, I can’t figure this out, and that’s actually a productive sort of stuck. And then, really at the end of this, we’re going to want you to write out that brand? Like what is the brand? How does it sound?
And specifically, how does it make you distributable? And that’s really key difference here in thinking through brand, if you are trying to build your authority, and this is true for every new brand that’s out there because brands now spread on social.
Obviously, that’s scalable word-of-mouth when we’re talking about social media. So distribution is a really big part of your brand. Can my brand be distributed?
And that really means when you think about the influencers out there that you want to distribute your brand, these may be wish list, or you may be like, one degree, like, separated from that person that you want to talk about you. So maybe there’s an easy way in.
We have to make it easy for those ideal people to distribute us to their audiences.
So will I easily distribute their distribute you really simple, clean question. And if you can’t answer, yes, not would I, not anything, but will I easily distribute you? And if it’s not a yes, then refine it.
Will Marie Forleo easily distribute you if that’s somebody that you want to. Well, I mean, the list goes on, but Lenny is another great example. A little difficult. It’s actually harder to get to distribute you than even these two are, which is, I think, pretty stunning.
But will these influential people who have access to the Mark you want to tap into easily distribute their distribute you, and there has to be, of course, a reason why there has to be something they’re worth sharing with other people. And the reality is, that if you think why would anybody wanna share my brand, then you’re probably not in a good place with your brand.
But there is this content beast that all the lenny’s and Marie’s and Tim’s of the world and everybody else that you wish would talk about you They are trying to feed this content beast. They are running up against what should I talk about next? Who should I share next? And that’s a really big opening.
Or your brand for anybody’s brand that there is so much need to keep feeding that beast. So you need to distribute other brands. You will need to distribute other brands. If you were to start a podcast, you’d be like, who am I gonna get on my podcast?
You are identifying brands for you to distribute to people that is this audience that you are creating. So podcast host need new and interesting guests. Instagram needs people to talk about stuff three times a day at least. So if I’m a brand, posting, I have to post three different things, and it can’t all be just about me, or it’s just gonna, like, no one’s going to carrots people inviting other brands into their ecosystem.
And YouTube rewards accounts with really great videos that are added a lot.
So knowing that, that’s an opening for you. This isn’t about you to worry about this. This is we need to recognize that brands out there, that influencers need all of this stuff. And you can be the one that they then distribute.
So I think this is kind of bananas.
To meet minimum standards on Instagram, you need to post a thousand times a year, a thousand times. How are you gonna keep coming up with content? This is, again, a huge opportunity for any brand, hear any brand that’s being developed.
Everybody who trying to build something on Instagram is thinking through shit. I have to post a lot.
You can be one or ten or twenty or two hundred of those posts if you are a brand that they want to distribute. So knowing that everyone needs not just content, but engaging content. There are those influencers out there who want to share the most engaging stuff, and that means things that are clickable, of course, which can often, of course, mean people with opinions.
So we’ve got all of these people on the left potential partners, affiliates influencers, as mentioned, hosts of podcasts newsletters, whatever that thing might be, publishers. This is traditional publishers, like book publishers, as well as everybody else who would call themselves a media company or a publisher of some kind. They’re off trying to seek out in all of the crap that’s out there. All the boring brands that have nothing to say that are saying the safest things all the time that have no new perspective, no new opinion, that’s all crap.
They want to avoid that crap and look or the good little bits inside of it. And we need to be those good little bits inside of it that then get ballooned. So When we’re talking about brands, everybody really quickly wants to jump to. How should I sound?
What should I say? Joe, should I talk about myself as I or we?
And I would love to back up because no matter what you do with photo shoots, with your logo, Should my domain be my name or a brand name? None of that matters. The thing that matters first is distribution. So that means identifying who those people are.
You want to share your brand. And that doesn’t just mean influencers. I showed those people because we’re talking about scale about getting out there and getting shared broadly and repeatedly by cool people who have awesome audiences that we want to tap into. But then there’s also the brand that your clients and customers share.
If you’re working on referrals a lot, what makes you distributable by referral across client that you have and three or five people that your client knows. Right? That’s also a matter of distribution.
How do we get people to share our brand and why aren’t they already sharing it? What’s getting in the way? Does Seth Gordon know why?
He should distribute you to his audience that believes strongly in everything that he says and shares.
Does he know, is there a why? Is there a why for him to reach out to you? So we we don’t wanna start with photoshoot, stylist, especially since so many photoshoots are bullshit and you know that when you look at them, right? Where there’s a smiling happy Instagram face, And that’s not even what your brand is necessarily.
And the problem is if you don’t go to a photographer with clear vision of your brand and who you’re going to distribute that to, you will end up with the smiling not true to who you are brand photos. We get those all the time, and I’m like, these are fucking pointless because that’s not who I am. People are gonna think of a smiling I don’t even know what the now would be, but it’s not who I am. And so these stylists come in with that same idea.
Oh, you just want to look friendly or look good or whatever it might be, and that’s gonna end up being stuff you throw out later because nobody gives a shit. Or the wrong people. Give a shit.
A logo. Don’t worry about that yet. A domain, whatever. You can buy another one later. A brand voice guide. That is the last thing to think about when you’re thinking about your brand right now.
We wanna make it an easy no brainer for the right people to talk about you. Now that might sound like Joe, you repeat the same thing. That’s because it will always come back to these things when you haven’t done the hard work of actually figuring out how to get people to talk about you. What’s the opinion you’re going to take that appears to be probably contrarian to what the world thinks. So Wait.
Hold on. Do start with. Where did my little checklist go? Sorry. They should all be check marks. These are all supposed to be check marks. So This is the check mark part of your worksheet.
What is a counter opinion that you can take? Where do you stand on a popular subject in your space? What should you own that you will love and that others will respond to. So we’ve been talking a bit about what you should own, right, when it comes to your red thread and where you’re going to build your authority. And we really need to dig into that counter opinion and what your stand is, where what your soapbox is that you would happily stand on for the rest of your life because once you identify that thing, you will be standing on that soap box for a very long time.
Then there’s the other note of and then lack of check mark is super throwing me. The other note of your attitude when you’re feeling most communicative. So a lot of people in the room, a lot of writers, if you’re watching this replay too, a lot of us feel different at different times, of course, but there’s a strong sense of introversion with a lot of writers and writer types creatives out there. But there are moments when you do feel like more alive let’s say or more, like, energetic and you’re willing to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about something, kind of tap into what that attitude is when you’re feeling most communicative?
Like, are you do you get really passionate about a certain subject That’s when you’re like, you could talk without anybody ever stopping you. You would just keep going and going and going. You have to also think through that because When your most vocal, you’re going to have to continue to be vocal going forward. That’s how your brand is built.
What can you say and say again and again and again and again passionately in an interesting way to make people curious, to make people listen.
So we wanna be opinionated in a way that comes naturally to you when you’re at your most vocal. Are you at the pub with friends? And someone said some about how Jennifer Aniston treats herself to one potato chip when she’s feeling like snacking. And you, like, lose your mind over this stuff.
That doesn’t mean you’re gonna be opinionated about Jennifer Aniston or potato chips or anything. But really tap into what what do you need to be talking about that makes you feel alive and ready to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, which is what your job is going to be. So me, for example, I’m naturally very shy, but when I feel like communicating, I can get a little spicy, a little snappy, I roll my eyes pretty hard when I disagree. I can disagree a lot, and that’s true for like everybody in my family.
It’s a very loud family.
I take sides, you know, the strong opinions loosely held idea.
Not often loosely held though, so that can be a problem.
I do not always need to have support of my opinion to stand behind it. I do love to have support of my opinion though, and I can stand behind it better than I can be exaggerated and animated. So it’s like the hard eye rolls and stuff like that. And sometimes I can be a little offensive.
I don’t mean to be. But I know that I can sometimes come off that way, and that’s when I’m activated. That’s when I’m, like, turned on, ready to talk about a thing. And I think it’s good for you to note those things for yourself as well.
Because if it’s if it’s likely that the time that I’m gonna talk the most, the loudest, and in potentially the most interest thing way is when I’m spicy or when I’ve been, like, I disagree with you, then that’s gonna be important as I’m figuring out my brand and how will I talk? I’m not gonna be this quiet smiling Instagram type. You know, I’m not going to. It wouldn’t it wouldn’t make any sense to because if I ever do a podcast, you’d be like, well, that doesn’t even sound like that person.
Completely different. Right? So it’s important for you to think about how you actually activate.
So my take, my opinion that I hold that I go out into the world with, is most of what we’ve been taught about messaging in particular is wrong. Most of what you’ve heard about copywriting is wrong, and I wanna fix that. I will frank I will frequently say things like, no. Don’t do it that way.
Do it this way. And we also see that people respond best when I say no. Don’t do it that way. It this way instead, and that is a good thing for our brand.
So think through that kind of stuff what activates you and how that comes to life. And then the question is do I know how to distribute you? So, obviously, we talk about things like videos, quotes, like there’s or Instagram, you’re putting videos out that are long, that are short, images with quotes on them. You can share photos and memes, obviously links to books, This is easy to distribute.
Right? You can have a book and what makes it so easy to distribute a book is that there is a link to it There’s a title for it. There’s a pre made image for it. That’s the cover of it, and it’s got natural built in authority.
It is easy for me to distribute. I don’t really have to get any buy in from anybody, but that you’re a good person to distribute if there’s a book there. Blog posts, depending. That can also be very easy.
At least it’s it’s physically easy to distribute it, and it’s physically easy to distribute a link to a podcast episode as well. But it’s not just about being easy. Right? That’s will I easily.
The will part is, is it worth it? Is it worth it to distribute use? That’s where we need to be opinion based and divisive with our videos.
Have short and pity videos that make it worth it as well. Like, okay, I can easily distribute you and my audience is going to understand you really quickly and take a side really quickly. Quotes that break with the norm that say something a little bit different, unexpected photos and memes. Maybe a quote image that looks different out of the blue. That’s not on but that better matches your tone, which is again, don’t worry about your brand and what it looks like as much as does it sound right? Does it sound like your opinion.
Books, everyone wants to promote a good book, clever deep blog posts. Those are easy links to share, as I mentioned before, and energetic podcast episode. So it’s not just easy, but is it worth me sharing your brand with the world?
Is it too risky to put you in front of my audience? Is the other question that we have to answer? So that means being consistent.
If I bring you on my podcast, am I what I’m going to get so that I can actually distribute it to my audience, and they’ll be like, cool. Dig it. Love it. That was a and your life for you, I knew it would be amazing because they’re always consistent with what they say. They’re always saying the same thing in the same energetic or bitchy or whatever that adjective might be that will define what your brand sounds like.
Finishing thought, and then we can talk a bit about this.
Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins said this. I am not necessarily a huge Tony Robbins fan. My sister and I had to sit through this horrible Tony Robbins Day. Someone gifted us tickets and we were like, oh my gosh. We were dying.
We didn’t even get to see him. Of course, as everybody who’s been to a twenty Robbins event knows, he, like, doesn’t come on until two in the morning or something. But an important thing is that the Tony Robbins brand is very different from who Tony Robbins says he is behind closed doors. So he says, I made this. Everything you’re seeing is something that he produced. So we’re talking right now about the early stages of figuring out what your brand is and how to make it distributable.
But we’re really working toward a place where potentially what your brand looks like and what you as the face of your brand look like. Are not what you think they are today, that every part of you may actually be constructed as you’re putting your brand together. And that that’s actually not only okay, but that’s kind of the point you are the product that you’re selling. And just like any product needs an interface that looks a certain way. It needs certain packaging.
That’s what we’re going to be putting together, as brands. Does this all make sense? Any questions?
Any thoughts?
No thoughts.
I like the concept, especially with, like, celebrities. When you look at celebrities, there’s this whole you know, what they want you to think on screen, but then you behind the scenes, right, that’s drug use, it’s all this other stuff, and you’re like, there’s the brand and then there’s real. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. This, like, intentionally selected, curated, and, like, watched over brand.
Yeah. That can feel like, well, I don’t have a team, or you can feel inauthentic as well. But I honestly, I don’t think Marie forleo is anything close to the person that she shows herself to be because she’s a bit of a caricature. She’s like an exaggerated version of Marie Forleo.
And that’s the kind of thing that we can either, like, roll our eyes about it or go, like, okay, that’s a really good lesson. That’s so if if these people out there are putting on a brand that’s different, but that makes it distributable. Obviously, Marie Forleo tapped into what a lot of women in business wanted to see how they wanted to feel, and she did that extremely successfully right out of the gate.
And yeah, that’s like a lesson for all of us.
So that’s kinda like your origin story when you think about it. That’s the whole point is really to create your brand ideally around who you’re you’re targeting. Right? So then they they feel like, hey, they get me.
They understand me, but is it is it really you? Yeah. It’s not. It’s your brand.
It’s, like, it’s mind numbing when you think about it. It’s like Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
And you can think about, like, people who really pull off their brand very well, like, you know, Taylor Swift as a kind of obvious example, where it’s so believable that maybe it really is real.
And that’s okay. And maybe she, like, grew into that Brent, or who knows? Parts of her are there and parts of her, she dials back. She’s not gonna be the same on stage as she is chilling, like, doing her friend’s nails.
I wonder if, you know, like, I know it’s pretty deep, but I wonder because it is about your brand and I know especially with celebrities and stuff. I wonder if there’s people who specialize in that where it’s like, okay, you’re this old, you’re fourteen years old. Here’s your your target audience. This is your brand. And as you get older, you notice the celebrities evolve because their their market is evolving.
Yeah.
It’s interesting.
Yeah. That is. It is.
Wow. But maybe that’s what’s happening. That’s why you see, like, what’s his name, the Canadian goof. Then no one likes him.
Justin Bieber. You know, he turned into this like bangs and then as he got older, he was edgy. Is that what’s happening? It’s crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah. Wow. Interesting.
Never thought of it that way.
Fun.
I know Johnson said, should we craft those facets with a customer in mind the same way we write copy?
It depends who your customer really is.
But I would say when you’re thinking of your brand and how to get that brand out there, a customer isn’t going to distribute you as well necessarily as a more influential person is. So and that person doesn’t have to be person either. It could be brand, x, that wants to put you on stage or whatever it might be.
So I wouldn’t craft with, like, the next ten thousand dollar client in mind, because that’s small, but let’s craft with who do those ten thousand dollar clients listen to. Where do they go to find what they need?
And that’s who that’s that’s who’s gonna distribute you. If they don’t get it, and they don’t distribute you, then you’re constantly working for every client that you get every single time.
And referrals are good. Referals will go a long way, and that can be, you know, solving for that client, but How can you be more distributable than that?
Abby?
Jason, there’s, like, a disadvantage to being kinda, like, a smiley friendly brand because that’s, like, the way I am, but then I do worry sometimes that because I’m quite like giggly and stuff. I’m like, oh, it is it affecting, like, people’s value perception of me? And I think because I I have like a baby face as well, like, don’t worry that people, like, like being smiley friendly, like, is that should I should I, like, change it? I don’t know.
Do you think it is holding you back from being distributed?
I don’t know. Like, I generally don’t know. So I’m asking.
I mean, and I’m not I’m not like boo to smiley happiness.
At all. I’m just not really like what’s funny is when I say that I’m not that my friends my little friend group over in our shine crew. They’re always, like, surprised because they do see me as, like, laughing and smiling a lot. But that’s when I’m not at work when I’m at work to get pretty bitchy about things. Like, I get a little opinionated, pretty quickly on things. And so so there’s different sides of who you are, obviously. Right?
But if you actually are that and you feel good about that, I think that’s wonderful.
You’re you don’t have to, like, have attitude or anything. Just like, do people know what they’re getting with you? Are they getting the same thing with you every time that consistency?
And is it something that I, like, think is interesting enough that I’m going to share it. And obviously, the things that you say are gonna be the most interesting thing, but people will go to your website, see a photo of you, go to your Instagram, see who you are there, and it’s like, so the two parts have to come together.
The opinion that you have and the way that you present yourself.
And they could be like juxtaposed. Right? It could be, like, you’re really happy.
And you come off as very, like, as you said giggly or cheerful or whatever, And then you have like these really sharp cutting opinions, that could be really like an interesting contrast.
Just depends. Right?
Yeah. Right.
But if you don’t feel it’s holding you back and you do see evidence that people distribute, happy brands, which they do, then no need to stop. Just make sure you know that your ideal audience distributes that. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. Let me bug out.
How much did you say is, value versus, like, say, like, ability Like, yeah.
This person can offer a lot of value to my audience, but, I just don’t like them sort of thing.
That’s tough. What do you think?
I don’t know. I think they’re gonna choose. I just don’t like them. Unless they could show that there’s ROI, they’re gonna make a lot of money, then you can buy a lot of therapy, but it’s Personally. I don’t know.
Yeah. No. I think of of brands that I don’t like, and I would never ever even like when people in my audience mention them. I’m like, I if if I’m like mentioned in the same LinkedIn comment with somebody I find unlikable, then I’m I’m not even gonna, like, like, react well. I won’t react to that post at all because I don’t Yeah. I see.
It’s like that person is not distributable for me. I won’t help them get distributed.
Yeah.
Yeah. I’ve had people steal, like, I know what you mean. Like, you’re, like, there’s so much just, you know, this is not a good person sort of thing.
Not not so much likability, but But just, like, No.
I don’t want you to follow them. They’re gonna say crazy shit. Because I can’t be the one who led you there in any way.
Which but if if you say something really interesting, then, of course, people want to. And then just, like, keep your unlikable stuff to yourself, unless it’s like that’s part of your brand, which the person I’m thinking of, that’s part of his brand. He’d be very happy that people think he’s an asshole.
But I don’t even I don’t even mention him. It’s such an hassle.
Yeah.
Anybody else wanna talk about this, or do you wanna move on?
Other things that are on your mind today or business and money, stuff.
Where you at?
Question time, talk time?
I’ll can I ask a question?
Yeah.
A win. I sorry. I don’t know. It’s not directly a win for money, but I did have an online magazine reach out for feature interview or something like that. So. Nice.
And actually, yeah. I’m always thinking it’s spam. So I given the route back and forth, I was like, oh, okay. That’s anyway.
So Good job.
Nice.
Thanks.
I guess my question is It’s really basic but on all of this.
I’m kind of wondering, okay, so what do I do next? Like what’s my next step? And the only because the only thought I had is you all were talking was when you were saying you’re not smiley or related to that and all that. And I was like, how old my brand? Like me if I had to really sum it up and it was like, okay. If I could have the Bernee Brown stuff, have a baby with Harley Davidson.
That’s what I wanna feel like.
Okay.
I don’t know. And but like in terms of what do I do that’s kind of my question, I guess. I’m I’m struggling to figure that out with real clarity.
Okay. So you want to combine Brenae Brown and Harley Davidson. What does that mean to you? What are you putting together there? What’s the outcome?
Oh, oh, what’s the outcome?
I want a brand where you you feel like they they really genuinely care about the customer like customer first. Right? Bernae Brown. It’s like really being authentic but an empathy and all those things, but then the Harley Davidson part of it is if you look at their copy, it’s often very right to it short.
Like this this. You know, there’s a period between two very quick two word sentences or something, you know. And I like that very direct and to the point kind of feel and then also the the the way they I actually think both brands kind of lift you to this ideal freedom, you know, just in very different ways. Right?
Like Harley is about get on the road. You’re an American like be free. That’s their, you know, it’s like their vibe. But in the same way, I think Renee Brown also is trying to call you to freedom but getting rid of all the crap that we carry, you know, mentally and all the emotion kind of stuff like that.
So I don’t know. Did that answer your question?
I’m not sure what the outcome Exactly.
Yes. Yeah. No. I’m just curious to hear you talk a bit more about it in the hopes that that’ll also help you work through it. Abby, you had a thought I know you just chatted it, but you did because you were gonna come off mute, and now you chatted something over.
No.
I wasn’t gonna come off mute. I was just saying, like, the the grand, pillars as, like, the rubber and then, like, the idealist. It sounds like a merger of the two of those.
Yeah.
Okay.
That’s what I was gonna say. It’s kinda like, in the twelve archetypes, it’s like outlaw and caregiver.
Yeah.
But, yeah, what do you do with it? What, like, I I’m curious about what’s forming in your head when you think about that? How long have you been thinking about that, Jessica?
Yeah, where are you Like, it’s really a question of, like, it’s the first step, right, is figuring this sort of thing out and making sure that there’s, you know, a world out there that will share that brand. And what is the opinion? What’s the what’s the position that you’re taking that’s then supported by a mix of Renee Brown and Harley Davidson or this idealist meets rebel.
Caregiver versus outlaw.
Where are you at?
Well, okay. So the Harley Davidson thing, I’m from Milwaukee. So of course that’s always been a thing and so the marketing branding ended that is just fun to look look at think about, study their copy, look at their photo shoots, all the things they do. But the in terms of the opinions, that’s That’s harder for me. So I I think about things like the seasonal sales you all know. I’ve shared with you that I just think people are looking at it in a short term win when they’re really missing the long term possibilities.
But then also in email, like in e commerce, this heavy reliance on, image graphic graphic heavy and discount heavy offers when they really should be trying some other things not so Afakevy and and discount heavy.
So but I don’t know how those kind of merge into my branding or opinion that’s where I’m still trying to flush that out and figure that out.
Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t think that will necessarily get there right now. Because that’s like a big thing is to figure out your brand and all of it, everything that goes with it. But, I mean, think it’s great that you’re heading there.
And it’s just like, do the work of really figuring out, like, when we even look at the worksheet. Right? If you can write down what let me just go over to it.
Really working through because your thoughts on seasonal, unlike things in e commerce that are just kinda short term, think that’s a good start. Right? But it’s it’s really a question of how do you form that into a strong opinion? Like a single statement that you could say again and again that makes sense to people as soon as they hear it. And I don’t mean like a tagline or value prop or any even just your positioning line necessarily, but just state what that opinion is. Really, it’s what are you picking a fight with really?
Clearly, and, like, just do that on page one. Of the worksheet and then just make sure that, like, nobody else is really saying it that way, or if they are, they’re not as noisy as you are.
So if it’s something someone else is already saying, then it’s not really worth distributing you. Right? Because I probably can just distribute this other person and etcetera, etcetera.
So yeah, I would say that’s like the next step. Document it in repeatable way, and then just like share it in the slack group and see if it resonates. With people, and then just, like, keep refining it until it does.
Okay. Yeah. K. Thank you.
Yeah. Sure.
Anybody else? What else is going on? Katie, do you have a win to share first or are you building on what Jessica said?
I have a unrelated question. Yeah.
My win would be I have booked, last minute VIP day with one of my retainer clients.
Nice.
Thank you for last. So was fun.
Surprise. Nice.
I’m curious, like, When it comes to simplifying complex ideas to make them memorable, like, to make something feel like it’s easily distributable because I feel like my, like, profitable signature offers thing is really big. Like what the the problem that I want to The the thing I have an issue with is people not, like, a lack of alignment in people’s marketing so that their top of funnel content is not attracting the customers that they wanna be putting their high end offers in front of.
And so what that has meant is that I end up talking about a lot of different things. Like, I talk about your lead magnet and I talk about your welcome sequence and your, you know, your sales, like, I talk about all of the things. Yeah. And so I don’t like, lately, I’ve been focusing more on the sales page.
Because that I see that as like the source for, you know, finding that alignment throughout, but yeah, I feel like since my very first hot seat, in the first week of the program, that’s been the the red thread of, like, I have this big thing, but I don’t know how to make it small enough that I can ease, like, that it is that easily distributable idea.
To under so so it’s profitable signature offers.
Where signature offer has been a thing, and then profitable is your way of making it your own?
Or is that is that what you would call, like, your differentiator on the subject of I don’t know because I’m trying to, like, find all these different angles into it.
So, like, one of the things that I talk about is like golden opportunities. So it’s like different ways of adding, you know, upsells or systematizing referrals. So, like, that’s kind of one of the angles that I’ve taken on the signature offer is, like, finding these hidden opportunities to make your existing offers more profitable But ultimately, like, what I really enjoy is you have this one, you know, landmark offer, like, that’s what you’re getting known for, and then helping business owners refine everything else that they’re promoting and selling that they’re attracting an audience that is gonna be a good fit for that offer and then, you know, whatever they have on the back end. So It’s just broad. I mean, all of you said an answer, like, you know, a solution, but I love, like, a direction to look in for.
Yeah.
I think if we can even unpack what’s going on within what could be getting in the way of people really understanding it maybe because for me, Most marketers I talk to, don’t understand what an offer is. They don’t think offer.
People in information marketing think offer. They’re used to that.
Coaches maybe do more and more people who’ve read hundred million dollar offers.
Where that was a very distributable idea of hundred million dollar offers. That’s like a big idea. Like, tell me more, please.
And that’s picking a fight, indirectly picking a fight with your these shitty little nothing offers where you’re making a twenty bucks on something, you know, to a hundred million dollars. So But I wonder if there’s something that will be difficult for the average person who’s trying to figure out what you do when it comes to the word offer, that doesn’t mean that’s true. But I’d be like, let’s maybe think through that. And then profitable signature, profits good. Profitable is a big word. Signature is also a big word.
So it’s like kind of a lot of, you know, cognitive friction there in getting into what profitable signature.
Offers means. I understand all three words separately, but altogether, it’s a little bit trickier. And I would wonder, what are you really picking a fight with?
Do you know what you’re picking a fight with?
Yeah. So my to answer your question as Stacy is, like, I mean, I work with primarily, like coaches and experts who are, you know, were experts and now I’m moving into coach So I I would say, like, offers is just ubiquitous, like, the term using the word offers to describe what you’re selling is fairly ubiquitous, the concept of signature offer. You know, there’s maybe a handful of other terms that people use for it, but, like, that’s also There.
Yeah.
But I wrote about, like, what people don’t understand about we do, making it your oh, may be making your signature offer profitable goes beyond any one sales or launch strategy.
It’s about know, attracting the right audience. Like, and then I have this handful of things that I wanna say it’s about. And I think that’s where I lose the it takes so long to get to what it is.
So you’re saying your audience’s idea of an offer is broken. It’s too small. It’s too narrow. Are you picking a fight with the very concept of offers as far as these experts think.
I guess it’s in the sense that they almost, like, that the offer the concept of a signature offer like exists in a silo when really your signature offer shouldn’t form your full business strategy.
Yeah. Yes. I, do I align the entire funnel? I do Oh, I work like across the full funnel. Yeah. Exactly. And I help people, like, create that alignment from the top to the bottom of their funnel.
Yeah.
I’m wondering why or Shane. Do you have any thoughts on this at this point?
Especially where I given how you work with people just like this.
Yeah. So I think you touched on at the end. It’s a creating alignment. Right? You’re you’re sort of you’re aligning all our messaging towards this this signature offer and everything in between that sort of that leads to that. Correct?
Yeah.
And then it’s deciding, you know, what is what does success mean to them whether it’s more money or more leads or what is what what’s the outcome that they’re looking for, ultimately that the system would achieve. What is it?
More sales and easier launches is what my surveys always always say the same thing. And and then, you know, those sales coming in, like, the offers feeding into each other without having to do the launch every time.
That’s the problem, like, what’s the specific problem that they’re facing with the with the system or what currently is working with them right now?
Fish feeling like every sale is harder is too hard. Like, you know, the launch feels like a grind and or the launches aren’t working.
So working isn’t, like, defined just to break that down a bit more.
Like, if it’s not Leading expectations, making the money.
It’s not they’re not seeing ROI. They’re not it’s so it’s not like setting it up. It’s just it’s not they’re setting it up. They’re using this process. They have this high ticket item, but it’s just not selling. Is that sound about right?
So your solution goes in and and solves that problem, essentially, and then you you and by doing that, you align all of their messaging and all their marketing assets to their their high ticket item, which then helps correct me if I’m wrong, then make more money.
Right? In a sense?
Yeah.
I don’t that sounds good to me. Doesn’t it?
I mean, no. Because it’s too complicated. You know, like, doesn’t it feel like it’s not distributable, simply because it’s too complicated. I don’t know what a profitable signature offer is.
And if I think offer, it sounds like, like you said, Katie, it’s in a silo. An offer is a thing that I put out at this one time. It happens in a launch. So your audience hates launches, increasingly.
They’re stressful. They want an easier way.
To do this. Right? So it’s like it’s packed with tension because I don’t understand the words. And then I don’t know what my outcome is.
Like, I want money. You know, that’s what they that’s why they’re doing launches. That’s why they’re putting courses out there. They want easier access to the money that exists.
In the world for people with courses.
So to have a profitable signature offer, although it’s a really nice series of words, and you could see it beautifully printed in a really nice font.
I just worry that it’s too Nordstrom when it needs to be more Walmart. Like, it’s just a little highfalutin for the average person.
And I don’t mean the average Joe. I mean, the average person who has money to spend on what you’ve got.
It’s a bit up there. You know, it’s it’s not distributable simply because it’s complicated language.
Is it profitable, Joe?
Like, it’s the word, like, the how it’s all strung together, or is it It’s a thing that sounds good when you hear it and then you forget about it.
It’s like I like profit. I like signature. Cool. I wanna have like a signature offer.
But then you walk away. And if you didn’t act on it right away, to me, it feels like It was just it’s just pretty smart for busy people who were trying to make money. Are you public? Better what the fight is?
Like, What am I doing right now? What’s my problem that I have right now as your target audience that is tied like a rich person problem. Right? We wanna solve rich people problems.
So what do I have that’s that?
That you can then express, and maybe it still ends up being called profit signature offers, but it’s it’s help me.
The next I think the hint is the metaphor in the red thread book when she talks about, like, finding your tangible metaphor to Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, the hidden benefit sort of thing. Like, the where was the ad where it’s there was golfing. Oh, ideally, the CEO was wanting to get on the golf course. So that was the the sales letter focused on that. And then it just are you that angle sort of thing?
Like, are you saying that I guess the messaging is not as broad, you know, like the profitable, yeah, it makes sense, but to tailor that more. Specific to, like, the not just the outcome, but the a layer deeper, like, ultimately why.
You know, I wanna make more money. Why? Well, I wanna spend it with my Yeah.
And it and it’s making more across things. Right? So, Katie, you’re doing like all, like, sales pages right now, but it sounds like as was already mentioned, there’s this entire Stacy mentioned that there’s funnel and the offer happens across it.
But that’s kind of breaking with this so you have to sort of reeducate your audience on offer on all of it because if it spends every thing, and it’s not just focused on this one off campaign or launch, then now I need a new definition maybe for offer and that there’s friction there. So I I won’t understand it. I’m like, how can you make it?
How can you, like, bring it down? What if you had to throw out? What if you just weren’t allowed to use profitable signature offers anymore? It’s taken. You’re being sued for ten million dollars if you use it even one more time. That’s gone. What is it now instead?
Insistent, like maybe that’s more of an angle where you have a repeatable process that they can apply that you’re like secret sauce, you figured it out sort of thing.
How do you make it? Like, what to start?
What to start with? Yeah. Okay. I mean, This is good. I’m gonna run with this. Like, the questions that Joe’s been asking.
I don’t I don’t know now.
I know. I wanna work through this.
What is Walmart ready though? Like, what do you mean by that, Joe? Do you have an example?
I mean, like, it’s a simple word. It’s one syllable. There might be a number involved.
Like a numeral that I something I can see where I’m not actually reading anything. I’m just like looking and I get it.
You know?
Like hundred million offers, where he didn’t even spell out million. It’s just one a dollar sign. Woah, I get it. A hundred Oh, that’s a big number with an m on the end.
Shit. That’s a really big number. I don’t know what offers is, but tell me more about this hundred million thing. And I’m not saying b for Mosey at all.
But also why the shit not? Like, why not? If you could be, then why not go be the hundred million dollar guy.
But, yeah, what’s that, like, thing?
Which is so nebulous. Right? Like, to even say, what’s the thing? But, like, what’s how can you this is gonna sound mean, but how can you really dumb it down? To and in such a way, that it’s a clear flip or obvious opposite to what people think right now.
What does Amy Porterfield think right now about offers? What is she getting wrong right? Now about them, and can you then express that? And does profitable signature signature offers do that. Like, if there is something that she’s getting wrong, is your solution, the solution, and if it is cool, then you know you’re on the right track. Now we need to, like, say it in such a way that it’s low friction and easy to share around with everybody.
Does it is it food for thought there, Katie, for you?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Interesting.
Reading of, sorry, the, a book on twenty five k sales funnels. That concept? Yeah. That’s what you’re thinking?
I’m think well, yeah, that’s good. Because you know what it is. I mean, it’s just just a small number. Yeah.
It’s gonna One hundred million dollar signature offers or hundred million.
That that sort of idea.
Yeah. It’s just I mean, the the ease with which you can talk about that book.
And I’m not saying make it a book title, obviously.
I feel like it’s more, like, start with why, like, because if I want them to reimagine like all of their business assets, then it has to be like we I get into their brains from the starting point rather than the ending point and then be like, oh, and by the way, if you want this ending point, you’re gonna have to go do all this work. So okay.
So let’s start with what would you say instead of y? So if he said start with y and you were allowed to say start with, what would you say start with?
Like either who or like the buyers, like the actual not the people who are gonna buy your thirty seven dollar SLO offer, but like the people who are gonna buy your ten k offer.
Yeah. And then it’s really just and that’s cool.
Are other people saying it? And they are? And that’s cool. But to me, it sounds like what it’s missing there is the cool part about offers is that they’re tied to revenue growth. Like, when you hear offer, you think, oh, that’s where there’s a buy now button involved. There’s, like, a credit card involved soon.
Versus starting with your customer, which is like, oh gosh. I have to do all the research. Then I have to synthesize it, and then I have to get buy in, and then I have to write the thing, get it approved.
And then we come up with an offer. So you’re saying so I think, yeah, roll with that, start with but can you bring that blank at the end of start with? Can you bring it closer to money or offer? I’m not saying that you have to, but I think it’s a worthwhile exercise in figuring out what it is that you’re saying that people can then distribute.
Okay.
Yeah. And then will you share it with us in Slack or next week?
Yep.
Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks, Katie. Abby. Where are you at?
Hey. Yeah, I have a question.
So, yeah, when I already shared in Slack, I’ve hired six people in the last one.
I didn’t see that you’d hired six people.
I know. It’s not, like, full time, obviously, but I, like, I literally didn’t hire, like, a VA until, like, November last year. So the five to five six people is, like, madness.
Amazing. Well done. Thank you.
My question. So, I’m starting to, like, outpry some of the leads I’ve been bringing in, but I I don’t wanna lose them.
Like, for the time being. So my kind of, like, you can’t afford me offers in a VIP week, but I don’t think that’s working for any more partly because the price is too low, but also because just a week of my time, like, it’s not really up for grabs at the moment and that the same way. So I want to offer I’ve been thinking about offering a consulting package where they get access to me for, like, ninety days. Maybe they get my course, and they’re kind of implementing it with me, like, some copy audits and then, like, voxa access. And I was thinking of pricing it maybe, like, five thousand dollars, like, ninety days.
I just I haven’t done anything like that. So I wanted to get some feedback before I kind of ask my audience for feedback on like the pricing, the packaging, whether, it’s kind of a nice idea in theory, but more hassle than it’s worth in practice, just any thoughts, really.
So it’s the course plus box her access. Is that right?
Unlike copy audits, but like baby ones.
Was the baby copy of it? Yeah.
Well, like, ten, fifteen minutes. Yeah. Which, I mean, I love doing those anyway. They’re, like, my morning warm up.
So Really? Okay. Yeah. Like gets me in the zone.
Oh. That’s my bad move. That’s good. That’s good. Okay. So you’ve got Chorus and then these copy audits. And those are private one on one things where you, like, record a video and send it to them?
Yeah. So for each of the assets in the funnel, the day one evergreen funnel, and then, like, unlimited box access for ninety days, but like unlimited within kind of set. Set my voice.
What makes you think this is a good idea? Why do what’s what’s leading you here?
Because I have people coming to me that just can’t they’re not gonna pay twenty grand for a funnel.
I can’t just do one asset for them because they need a whole funnel. The DIY course, like, it’s not enough because they feel like they want the hand holding. So I wanna offer something in the middle to serve that audience because I am getting, like, the leads coming in from them.
And until I’m getting loads of, like, really the ones that can afford me, like, I I need to bridge that gap somehow. So and I like the idea of it. Like, I I I like the idea of doing self consulting. It seems like it would be fun for me, but yeah.
So Cool. The course is easy enough because it’s already made. It’s like anything that you make on that is profit. Almost, copy audits, five minutes of your day, and you like doing them. Okay. So that’s good. Vauxer access.
You’d have to put a lot of boundaries around that, I would think, because it really quickly feels like it could turn into one hour consults on demand whenever they feel like it.
Mhmm.
Here, I’m gonna throw fifty questions at you in Vauxer and then your Saturday night is spent on that. So this could be cool.
I would just you’d have to really figure out how to control that. And that could be, like, just in tiers. Right? You might just have two tiers. It’s like, hundred minutes of voxer access or unlimited voxer access or something like that so they can at least see and then unlimited’s like a dumb amount of money, versus the hundred minutes. And then they’re like, okay. Well, I paid for the hundred minutes, so I’m going to take my hundred minutes and know more than that.
Or whatever, but that’s, like, hearing you say this. I would say that’s course is easy. You already have it. Copy audits are easy. You like doing them. They energize you, they start your day. That’s cool.
Boxor access, you’d have to figure out how to control it. Some people might be cool, but it only takes, like, Imagine if two just keep filling your inbox. You’d be like, when are these ninety days going to end? Like, I need out of this. Did anybody else have thoughts on this?
I’ve heard somebody speak about how to do boxer and put boundaries around it, but I can’t think of what it is right now, but I’ll try to find it for you, Abby.
Thank you. I mean, what about, like, doing unlimited but within office hours. So it’s like I have set times that they can vox at me because then I could just be like, okay, for like five hours on a Tuesday.
And five hours on, like, a Friday, I’m gonna be, like, on boxer, and I can just I’ve I’ve seen it done successfully if you put a window on particular day of the week and you say unlimited boxer access between these hours on this day, that absolutely can work.
Yeah.
And and I’ve seen people do that also as well with the ben the added benefit if you structure it in a way that helps you uncover problems that your audience wants to solve. It can be a good way to do research for product development and, knowing things to offer. So you you’re kind of getting paid for doing customer research.
Mhmm.
Yeah. So I feel like if I say, like, a hundred minutes, whatever. People are gonna use a hundred minutes. If I say unlimited, then they’ll probably use my fifty minutes. They’ll use less. Right?
Oh, good.
Go ahead.
Yeah. Two two very clear boundaries. I’ve seen done well, and I’ve used at least one of them is the questions they ask can’t be covered in the course. Right? So, like, one morning on that. Right? Like, you’re not gonna refer them back to the course every time that’s their responsibility.
And the second one, which I really like, and I’ve used, is a question that has to be articulated in through seconds or less. Right? So they’re not rambling and figuring out their question on the fly and using your space to figure out what they wanna ask. They’ve already done the thinking, right, and they’ve, yeah, done them, used a mental bandwidth to get to the question that they need answered, then Yep. That usually limits a lot of the excessive three minute splurges of just people even figuring out what they wanna ask.
I love both of those. That’s great. Yeah.
Thank you. Okay. So do you think it’s an okay offer? Like, should I just try it? Like, Yeah.
Try it with, like, limited access.
Right? Like, limited seats, six seats, or whatever you Well, whatever it is that you want to do, obviously, to push people to buy it, all the usual stuff.
Yeah. And then ninety days.
Yeah.
You think that that would normally takes ninety days for people to do this?
I’d say, like, probably more realistically like sixty.
Okay.
Then do it sixty because then if you hit it, you can get out of it faster.
Yeah. And it’s not like people will be like, oh, extra value on that extra ninety days. Sixty days at five thousand and ninety days at five thousand or, like, basically the same. And then at least you’re out of it after sixty days. Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you for the feedback.
Yeah. Cool. Good. Okay. Thanks. Anybody else? We good?
I just have a quick win to share.
Nice. Share your win.
I ended my beta of my software, and which, you know, was at half of the regular subscription price. It was ninety nine a month versus the one ninety nine. So I ended it, went up to the regular price and have, added another thousand in, MRR with half the people it would have taken before.
Nice.
Amazing.
Well done. Very cool.
Awesome. Good. Well, hopefully everybody is having wins out there. If you wanna share them, you can share them now or throw them in the wins channel, obviously. Anytime.
If we’re wrapped up on questions, very cool.
Next Monday. I am on a flight when this happened. So as much as I want, every single Monday to always be honest, was already booked in advance this flight. My team is having an on site in Edmonton. Yay, cold.
And so I’ll be on the flight. Liana Patch will be in. I think we’ve shared that over in Slack. And she’ll be talking about largely about, copywriting techniques around infusing humor. Into your copy. It is her thing, and it’s great that she owns that thing, and it’ll be, I think, cool if everybody see not just the techniques, but also a person who’s committed to owning humor in copywriting, sticking with it and teaching it and, what it looks like to learn that from somebody who’s been practicing it for so long.
Awesome. Yeah. Great. Always over in, Slack, obviously, and Thursday, Shane. Do you wanna give a teaser for what’s coming on Thursday?
Putting you on the spot.
Yeah, so it’s, building your authority site. So I’m gonna It starts with your, ESP, sorry, your value prop on the home page, and then the structure we use, including templates, or suggested templates for each page based off of formula. So we’re gonna, start with, we call it an avatar, but it goes beyond your typical psychographics, demographics, it really focuses on, the core problem and then, your solution to solve that problem, and then we focus on point of different benefits, and, you’ll use that to craft your home page action, and then, I’ll share all the material after that as well. So
including the process from site map, to spit draft and wireframe following Joe’s process all the way to The process we use to convert, we use WordPress, but there’s other options as well that you can use. And, and sort of some tips we’ve learned. And then we also take this same system and we, sell these services to clients as well. So you can apply for your coaching, your service.
And we also use the same framework for Google Ads pages, and we see an average minimum around twelve percent conversion because you’re really focused on solving a specific problem and, and nailing that during the messaging. So That’s overarching idea of how it works.
Love it. Awesome. Yeah. And Shane has you showed that this to me months ago. Like, I think it was in the summer that we first started talking about this. So it’s gonna be really cool to see you walk everyone through it to get.
Yeah. Pretty cool.
Yeah. Alright. Awesome. Thanks, everybody. We will see you well, Thursday is the next one. And then I will be back in two weeks, but obviously on Slack otherwise.
Alright. Have a good week. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thank you.
The Golden Triangle
The Golden Triangle
Transcript
All right.
We’re going to dive in because yeah, spring break or not. We’re here, and the game doesn’t quit.
So what I’m gonna do today, we are talking about the, diagnostic ish tool, called the Golden Triangle. And it’s less about when I say diagnostic, it’s less about diagnosing where they’re at and more about helping them realize them being your clients or your lead. Realize that it costs money to get a service like yours, and to get the outcomes out they’re looking for. Does everybody did everybody have a chance to look at the worksheet already?
If you didn’t, that’s okay. We’re still gonna go through it. So it doesn’t it won’t hurt either way. But it does build on the diagnostic that, we talked about a couple weeks ago. So I’m gonna share my iPad, actually.
You should be seeing that soon.
Just half a sec.
Loading up.
Cool. Good.
I was like, sometimes it’s sketchy. I was like, I don’t want this not to work, oh, in our, call.
Okay. So building on everything that we have talked about with that whole diagnostic. Right? So the idea is this comes from Simon Bowen, who is definitely worth looking into if you’ve never heard of him. I hadn’t heard of him before.
I saw a little, like, recording of a talk he did, and then I, like, binged everything.
So really worth looking into Simon Bowen. His name is on the worksheet for the week, which is, again, this is he calls it the iron triangle, and I don’t know why. So I was like, well, golden’s better. So I’m gonna go with the golden triangle.
You can call it whatever you want to. There isn’t a name for it that I’ve heard of out in, like, the world. But when we’re talking to our leads, we’re gonna basically pretend like there is and act like it. And that’s part of part of closing them.
So we’ll get into all of that. The point is we’re gonna start off with already having our iPad being shared. Now if you don’t have an iPad, that’s like, okay. It will just help a lot if you do and, like, sign up for a new bank account, and they’ll give you one for free.
So, like, don’t overthink it.
But, yeah, we do want an iPad or, there’s this other coach, Taki, who has his has, like, a sheet of paper on a table with a camera, like a phone over it. So you need a phone then.
Like, but and then he just draws as well. So you don’t you can you can just have paper and be drawing it, but it’s important that you’re not, like, drawing it, holding it up, drawing it, holding it up. You You wanna make sure that they’re watching. So Simon Bowen says, like, when you draw, it draws them in.
So the idea is the more that they’re watching you doing stuff, the more interesting it is and also showcases expertise that you’re gonna get into. Because it’s a scary thing to have a blank, sheet of paper. And only an expert can really start from a place of blankness and draw and make things, like, make sense. People are watching the whole time.
Right? So if you start with a blank sheet of paper and you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s it’s typical. You haven’t done it before. That’s why.
Right? So the more you’re confident drawing, taking notes in front of them. So we talked about this briefly when we did the diagnostic session before. And also, if you’re like, what’s she talking about?
Open up the worksheet too that I sent along for this week that Sarah sent you. So you, like, can just follow along because there’s a script in that worksheet as well. Just an easy script to follow when you’re doing this. So you’ve already been sharing your diagnostic, tool.
You’ve already maybe got through that point. For us, it looks like a sudden a little bit. And then you’ve been making notes going along, whatever they’ve been saying. You’ve been like, oh, excellent point.
Oh, I get it. And you’re, like, putting notes together and they’re watching. Right? So that’s where we’re at.
And by the time you’re ready for the golden triangle, we’re really getting to a place where we understand basically what the project is that they’re looking for.
We’ve already been through the vetting process, so we know, like, it’s something that we do or want to do. We have in mind our own budget for it, like, what it costs to do that, to to hire you to do that. And now we’re just trying to bring it all together. Now one of the things that many leads like to do is negotiate on price or start low. Of course, they do. They don’t wanna pay the top dollar if they can get it for less.
It’s just part of business, so we’re cool with that. Alright? But what do we do to get them on board with our price? So price objections can be a real thing. There are lots of ways that we’re gonna be talking about, throw a copy school professional.
Lots of ways to address price objections.
But the golden triangle is a way to address them without directly challenging their budget, even though there comes a point at which you’ll kind of directly challenge their budget. So let’s get into it. You’re at that point in the call where you understand what they want, etcetera. So but you’re starting to move toward understanding their budget.
Maybe they’ve even told you what their budget is, and they’re, like, off. Like, the no. They’re not way off. Like, they’re not saying two thousand and you’re thinking twenty thousand.
That’s like, we’re gonna wanna wrap this call up because it’s really hard to close that gap.
We’re talking more they’re like, it’s four thousand and you’re thinking eight thousand or it’s five thousand and you’re at ten. Something more like that. So not a massive gap. They can come on board. They are showing that they have some money to spend. Okay.
So this is the part if you’re already sharing, they’re already watching you map things out. You’re talking to them. You’re a consultant working through x, y, and z with them. Okay.
We’re getting that part of the the conversation with price. Oops. Sorry. And so we go.
Alright. Well, you’d be familiar, and this is the language to use. So okay. Cool. So you’d be familiar with the golden triangle.
Right?
You say you’d be familiar, and what’s the reaction?
Mhmm. Yep. I I’d be familiar with that. I literally did this the other day on a call with a gentleman, a copywriter who’s in house at this big tech company who I’m copy chipping.
And I said, so you’d be familiar with the fish and the fishermen. Right? And he said, mhmm.
And I was like, okay. So how does that apply here? And he was like and I was like, I’ll just jump in for you and save you there. But it it was just it was like that moment where I was testing out this.
You’d be familiar with phrasing works like a charm. People are nodding along with you. Okay? And it might feel tricky, but it’s just one of those things to get the client out of that place where so often for copywriters in particular that they come to us and they think that our work is very easy.
And, they just got all these weird assumptions going on. And this is, like, just just make them a little less comfortable with making all sorts of assumptions. That’s it. So you’d be familiar with the golden triangle.
So you would know that the golden triangle consists of, and then you write this out for them, time, budget, and outcome. Right? And, of course, the golden triangle exists because the world had learned that the vast majority of projects failed to deliver all three.
That’s it. Good. You’re good there. They’re like, okay. Cool. Yep. Because they’ve already agreed that they know what the golden triangle is.
So for them to challenge this now is a really weird thing to do. So now they’re on board with they can’t have everything. Okay. So what do we wanna do here?
This is where we say, okay. So let’s start with your outcome. Let’s start with what you were looking for. You came to me and you right out of the gate, you were saying that you wanted an onboarding flow.
This is just to follow along with the one that’s in your example.
And that includes, of course, strategy and execution. Right? Perfect. And what’s your deadline? What are you looking at? When when would you like this completed by? Okay.
So May thirty first. Is that, like, the absolute latest you can do? May thirty first. Is there any wiggle room there? No. Okay. May thirty first it is.
And what’s what’s your budget? What do you have as, like, a line item, or what’s your expectation for your budget here? And they might tiptoe around this, and all you’re just doing is that part of the conversation where you get them to to say what their number is. And they finally say, like, okay. Well, we’re we’re thinking about seven grand for everything.
Okay. Cool. So we’ve got this here. Now let’s look at this. It’s the golden triangle.
Right? This is the part where we prioritize in the golden triangle. So tell me which one is most important to you. And you’re still drawing.
Most important to us, the thing that we need most is probably to actually get the thing that we want. So the onboarding flow. Okay. Cool.
And then is it price or time? What’s most important next? Well, we really do need it by end of May. Okay.
Cool. So does that look about right? Great. Okay. Now let’s run this.
Let’s imagine you get an onboarding flow, strategy and execution live by May thirty first, but it comes in at, like, what the market typically pays, which is more in the vicinity of twelve thousand dollars. I know that’s not perfect, but if that’s what it had to be, would that be okay with you?
And they’re like, so from seven thousand to twelve thousand. Like, yeah. That’s would that be okay with you? Well, no. Okay. Alright. So it sounds like budget’s number one, and that means this is number two, and your deadline is number three.
Cool. So with a budget of seven thousand dollars, you get your onboarding flow, but it’s delivered July thirty first. Would that be okay with you? Well, no.
That’s not okay. I okay. Fine. So what I’m hearing is date delivery date is really important to you, then comes budget, and then comes the outcome.
So if you get this done by May thirty first for seven thousand dollars, but you only get the strategy.
You don’t get the execution by that date. Is that okay? And now they’re like, you’re out of your mind. Like, what are you talking about? Of course, that’s not okay. And you might have a little chuckle about this because they know where it’s going. Oh, are you still able to see my screen?
Okay. Cool. It just vanished for me. So just so you know.
Okay. So now you’re at a point where you get to get, like, honest with them. Right? And go, like, look, I can deliver the value that you’re looking for. I can deliver that for you, strategy and execution. I can do it by May thirty first. I’ve done it for clients like x, y, and z on similar timelines, but it’s always at a rate of ten thousand dollars.
It sounds like if something has to give, your budget is that thing. Do you disagree?
And that’s where you’ve now landed at a place where they may not be able to hit that budget. But what they can see is that your number is a real number, that they can’t have everything that they want. It’s not that your number is high. It’s that their budget was too low.
And that’s a good thing for them to walk away with because then the next time they have budget, they’re like, well, remember that person we talked to? She she drew that diagram. Remember that triangle? And we couldn’t afford her.
Maybe we can afford her now. Should we call her or him or whatever? So that’s the objective here. And if they can’t get there, if you’re going through this triangle and they’re like, price is just it never comes up properly the way you want it to and the way we just walk through it, that can also be a sign that it’s, like, not a good client for you because because they’re not willing to give on things very much.
They’re just like, yep. Nope. That’s fine. If you can deliver it to me for seven thousand dollars by July by the end of July, and it’s only strategy, that’s okay.
You’re like, well, that went weird.
And then you’d still say like, well, okay. So normally, this is the full scope of the project For me, just to deliver strategy, all of my minimum projects are, like, ten thousand dollars. So this is always gonna be the budget. Does that make sense? You’d still have to back up and talk them through that. But that’s basically how that flow goes. Does that all make sense?
Do you see how you would use it?
Kind of? Abby, I saw you do. I’m not sure.
It’s interesting, and I can see how I’d use it. For some reason, I’m running into some, like, hesitation. I don’t know where it’s coming from though. Yeah.
I don’t know where it’s coming from. Maybe just discomfort. Yeah. I don’t know.
Okay.
But I I liked it. I just yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Adam? By sales call, you mean, like, initial call, right, by the way? Like, the first stuff first call, the first interaction?
It could be either. Right? So it really depends. I’d be ready to move with this on any call.
So, if because some calls move a lot faster. Sometimes in that fifteen minute call where we think we’re just, like, determining if we should even work together, There’s, like, instant spark, you know, this is gonna work out well and you’re ready to move forward. So even though you book fifteen minutes in your calendar, you should have at least thirty minutes for that time in case it goes longer. And then if it does, if price starts coming up, if they’re talking about, well, we’d like it by this date, which can often happen in that fifteen minute call, then you’d wanna be you’d wanna have this handy for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah. I’ve been on calls where where they know exactly what they want, want, and, like, they just wanna hammer out, like, timeline and place.
So Yeah.
Yeah.
When the call goes so fast, it gets gets into an awkward territory because you haven’t prepared for that discussion yet. And Yep.
Yep. No. I totally hear that. So and this is like you can practice these things.
It doesn’t take much. You can you don’t even have to have anybody there with you. You can just like, I don’t know if you’re uncomfortable talking to yourself, but I’m not. So I’m gonna talk to my monitor all day.
And so you can just go through and practice doing it all by yourself and trying different ways of running through it.
And then the more you practice, the better able you are. Just go like, actually, I got something that will probably help with this conversation. One sec. You’re familiar with the golden triangle.
Yes? And that can be just like a really natural thing to help you whenever the time comes up. When you know budget is about to be discussed, that’s a good time to get ready with this. Yeah.
Cool?
Okay. Thanks, man.
Sure. Totally. Can I just make a recommendation?
Abby, you you might like this. So, I saw this triangle, and I got super excited because Joe validated me watching this terrible well, I thought it was good, but it went off the air after a second season. But, Oh.
There was a scene in this show Lipstick Jungle.
Oh, okay. And the guy is like he’s explaining to a gal. He’s, like, he does the triangle, and he puts and he goes fast, cheap, good. And he goes, you get two.
You don’t get three. And I just kinda put in the so when I saw your triangle, I was like, oh, that’s so cool. I was seeing it on the show from, like, the person who’s trying to hire someone and what you desire, and you did it from the person who’s trying to sell to that person. And I don’t know.
I just it kind of really rounded out the teaching for me having that perspective.
That you really tend to only get two unless you’re on Amazon, but then that can be crap too.
So Totally.
Then you’d have to put a third item, like, swap something out on the triangle that’s, like, ethical or something like that. Right? Yeah. Which one of these do you want?
So yeah.
I I heard it would stick jungle. I didn’t then I stopped hearing about it. I guess it went off, You, like you said, went off the air.
Yeah. Two seasons, but that was like the big business takeaway. So I appreciate that. I’ve binged that kind of thing just for that.
Oh, that’s so fun. Cool. Awesome. Anybody else? Any concerns? Yeah.
I have a question. Oh, Naomi, you go first. Yeah.
I was gonna say that the majority of time when I’m talking about price, the person who is I’m talk my point of contact is not the person with the purse strings. They’ve been given a budget and by either their boss or by the CFO directly and there’s a lot of bureaucracy in order to increase that budget. And they probably don’t care what the budget is is at all. Mhmm. But it’s not their decision to make.
Yeah. Yeah. And that it does depend. Like, this triangle can come out more than one time.
Right? So if they’re the one making the if you’re never gonna talk to decision maker, then it’s your job to get that person whose budget is inflexible to go back and make a case for you. And the more you see otherwise, you wanna get that the person who holds the strings on a call. Like, that’s the most ideal thing to do.
But if you can’t do that, then the other person has to advocate for you. Because there’s gotta be a way there has to be room to move or else your audience is wrong. If they’re always gonna come in the room with a five thousand dollar budget, and that’s just the way it is, it’s gonna be really hard to ever get to a place where you make the kind of money that you should be making because they’re making all the calls when it comes to how much you make. You might as well go in house at that point.
So you need to show that you are, hi kitty. You need to show that you’re an expert, that consultant where they’re like, this person’s gonna make me look good because this person knows what they’re doing. Like, I was impressed on the call with them. So I’m gonna go back to my boss or CFO and say, look, we have seven thousand.
We’ve paid this low amount for freelancers before, and they’ve kinda screwed us. So what, what can we do to get to ten thousand for this project? If it’s impossible, then it’s impossible. And there are other levers to pull, but we all know we gotta make a certain living, and that’s the way it is.
So get the decision maker on the call or get the person who should be advocating for you to be pumped about advocating for your price.
Yeah.
Yeah. You are mainly the group you serve.
You need to be a sales driven organization. There’s just no two ways around it. Yeah.
Alright. Abby, you had a question?
Yeah. I think, I already know your answer to this, but I’m gonna ask anyway.
So what’s your take on, like, with the outcome removing pieces? So for example, if it was, like, a sales page, and then you can say, okay. I could take out, like, the messaging guide, the customer interviews to bring the price down. Yeah.
It’s not the objective is not to change your scope.
That’s not what the triangle exists for. So if there if you say something that you think is ridiculous, like, I can deliver the strategy but not the execution by May thirty first. Like, that’s obviously, like, it’s ridiculous. Like, you’re gonna want both.
Otherwise, what? Or I can deliver execution, but no strategy. Like, for you, you’re like, that’s actually bananas. Of course, that’s not gonna happen.
How what would I be executing on? Just error? Like, there has to be something that comes before it.
So if they’re like, yeah, that sounds good. Then you’re like, shit. No. I can’t work with this person because they don’t understand.
But if they think that it really is, like, about adjusting scope for, the project, that would really only work. You’d only wanna say yes to that if you have a team to hand it off to. If it’s, if it’s like, oh, okay. So you just want a sales page, not the whole thing.
I’ve got a team. There’s someone on it who can write just the sales page, and it won’t be a problem for them. Maybe I’ll just close this business. Like, you can if you have a team to do that.
If it’s you, don’t. Yeah. Don’t change the scope.
Why not if it’s just me?
Because then you’re so we’ll talk about this during the intensive.
Okay. As soon as you start if you’re ever going to get to the kind of money that you want to get to, you need to have leverage in the form of systems, documentation, and then eventually people to execute on those systems and the documentation.
The more you’re customizing and changing scope and and things for people, the, the more documentation you need, the more systems you need. So if you have more people, then you have the ability to kind of, you know, puppet master things.
So that’s fine. You can change things up. But if it’s just you and you’re doing new things all the time, it is just not a tenable.
It’s not a good approach when it comes to like getting to that next tier. Can’t build your authority on fifteen different things, changing scope all the time. Gotta have the thing that you do and do really well. So for you and then your job is to sell them on the whole thing.
So if they’re actually like, well, you’re it’s true. Our budget is only seven thousand and we do need all these pieces, but maybe we can write the emails internally. For you, that should be like a holy shit note. Like, no.
Your job becomes making it clear to them that they need you for all of the pieces. Yeah. Oops. Oops.
Sorry. Yeah. If you’re ever going to adjust things, it should be scope typically. But that’s for, like, that’s like freelancing school stuff.
That’s not coffee school pro stuff.
That’s not getting to that scope all the time, like, to make this sound bad habit.
I need to get out. Yeah.
Yeah. So we’re gonna I’m so excited to talk about this in the intensive. Starts next week for those who just joined late, late, like a second late. I had just talked about it and then other people join us.
Go. Sorry. So it starts next week. You’ve been invited to it, to the kickoff call.
There’s gonna be a bunch of stuff, that will get you set up for hopefully, some cool stuff. I’m so stoked about this curriculum. It’s amazing. Yeah.
So, yeah, watch for that, and we’ll be changing some some ways that we think about projects and talk about them. We’ll be switching that up. Cool.
Alright.
We’re entering that part of the call where if you have any questions, we can talk through them. So if you do share your win first, and then we can all celebrate with you, and then we’ll hop into questions. And if you don’t, then we’ll take the rest of our money back. Any questions? Anything anyone’s working on?
We’re all good?
I’ll go with no one’s going.
Sure. Go for it.
I don’t really have much of a win to share, but I had a lead come in, which looks a little promising. That’s for email work, so that’s the only win.
Alright.
So when Yeah.
In terms of questions. So regarding that, pricing page book, ebook, I have I almost have my spit draft, but I have worked on a table of context. I’ve sort of worked backwards now in the sense that, like, maybe I spent too much time just writing stuff.
Okay. And then I’m in the stage where I’m trying to figure out what the table of content should look like. So I landed on something, and I was wondering how to kinda get feedback on it. Should I share it on the channel or should I?
Throw it up right now. Let’s take a look at it. I don’t know how deep we’re gonna get it, but we can at least did you read useful books, Edmond?
I did. I did.
Okay. Perfect. Then you should be in decent shape with that one.
In decent shape. Yeah. I think the table of contents still need some work in terms of how you position the titles, but at least content wise, I’m just trying to get things that should be there. Okay. I’ll share my screen.
Wait. How do you share again?
Download. I don’t know.
It depends on what Oh, there it goes.
You’re on. For me, it’s at the bottom.
Okay. Let me know if you guys can see my screen.
Okay.
This sounds nitpicky, and it’s the very first That’s fine.
No. That’s perfect. I I I want nitpicky, so this is good.
Well, why instead of the definitive guide?
Okay.
There’s a real question. We had to choose that.
So the reason I said, actually, maybe bit sticky.
Yeah. You’re right. Because I I figured other people will be writing something on it as well and saying the is coming off very authoritative, and I’m not really an authority in the space.
So How about what what the whole idea of this is to say I’m the authority.
True. Yeah.
For the way.
You know, when April talks, like, when April talks about her career in her book, it seems like she’s already worked on so many clients before she wrote that book.
Well, she had. She worked on clients, but she didn’t have she doesn’t actually have a background in marketing.
She’s an engineer. Like, she doesn’t she didn’t have that. So, like, she’s a Waterloo engineer.
So, but that doesn’t, but she’s then she went and worked in tech companies and ended up doing sales and marketing.
But I mean, honestly, when you think about the number of people out like, you don’t have to don’t let I don’t have enough experience.
Stop you. I mean, I you’ll know, cause there’ll be a wall and if you’re pushing through the wall, faking your way through it, you’ll know.
But otherwise I wouldn’t like just write the book, start by writing the book and then go from there. Look at and then, honestly, I would challenge you to look at the vast majority of people who are out there who how did James Clear become the habits guy? He doesn’t have a degree in habits.
Right? Like that’s not his thing. He just formed good habits and then started writing about them, and became an authority on it and worked to be an authority on it.
So I wouldn’t like, yes. Worry. But don’t it’s one of those balances. Right? Yes. You need to be authoritative, but you can also be learning things as you build that authority.
So the Noted.
Definitive guide. Okay. How to transform your most conversion critical asset into a powerhouse of results.
Anybody have any notes so far on what you’re seeing?
I would put this in sentence case. This is really hard to read in title case.
And sentence case is usually seen as a little bit more professional, especially in SaaS companies. I don’t see that many SaaS companies that use title case. I know it’s a pain in the ass to change, but, that’s I typically think it’s much easier to read when it’s, when it’s that way.
Anybody anybody else? Jessica, what are you doing?
You’re reading I’m looking at my books going.
I’m not sure I agree with that one. I don’t I mean, it’s not the thing I would focus on as much, but I I don’t know. I I’m looking at my books going, I see a lot of the opposite or capitalize the whole thing, which but I don’t know.
I guess I never really looked that close. So I I don’t know. And that’s probably not the one I would I I disrespectfully, I guess, disagree on that one.
But Depends on the I’m not the definitive person on that.
You’re a definitive person. I’m a Yeah. I would say look at the books on yourself, right, to figure that. Who knows in the end, like, the formatting. The three I just looked at all had all caps. Yeah. So it’s like yeah.
But that’s still, it’s a fair point, Naomi, we do want it to be a readable, book. But I I get that, like, the title. And so alright. So we have SaaS pricing pages. The audience that you’re speaking to is whom, Adnan?
Where do you speak? C level c level folks, who would be willing to we we’re looking to optimize or or increase their conversions from bottom of funnel assets.
Okay. And when you went through and did the right useful book stuff, did you write out when he was like, make sure you know your audience, how they found your book, how they’re referring your book, you wrote all that stuff out? Or did you just read it?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. You wrote it out?
No, I, I wrote all that stuff out.
Okay, good. Work through that. Okay, cool.
Yeah.
Okay. So how to transform your most conversion critical asset.
So your people are coming to this book. How do you think they’re finding your book?
How do they discover it?
So the okay. So I was thinking about distribution, as to, like, once I’ve written, how am I gonna distribute it? So I figured that, I guess, the the easiest thing for me to do, considering this will be an ebook, would be to distribute it through newsletters.
So they’re landing on it through newsletters emailed to them.
Okay. So do you mean, like, you’re sponsoring newsletters? Or how are you getting into it? Okay. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So these are newsletters then that are already targeting tech.
That audience.
Leaders.
Okay.
Great.
But do they know that a SaaS pricing page is important?
Are they to me, it sounds like if you’re unless the newsletter is about pricing pages, what are the chances they know that? So so because we know that a lot of tech marketers don’t think about their pricing pages at all, like, ever. They think about their home pages and all this other stuff, but not their their pricing pages like they should.
I wonder if there wouldn’t be an objection to the idea that it’s my most conversion critical asset.
Because I’m I’m not even thinking about it at all. I thought my onboarding sequence was, what are you talking about? What’s this pricing page thing? So that part for me, I would just say make sure that your audience is nodding with you from the beginning. Or if they’re not nodding with you, they’re so surprised in a good way by what you’ve just already revealed to them. So if you want to reveal to them that their pricing page is, like, this powerhouse potentially powerhouse of results, feels like there’s a gap there between the headline and the subhead. For me, at least, it does.
In in the shoes of your audience, I feel like there would be a gap.
Yeah.
Can I also, I I have another thing to mention? I I think that when it comes to SaaS pricing pages, you may wanna reconsider who your target audience is because SaaS companies grow incredibly fast.
And if they’re looking at their like, a website is a very complicated thing to update because you often need engineers and you need designers. So a lot of them are thinking, like, my homepage is a mess. The entire website is a mess. Like, there are so many things to do.
Pricing pay it by the time they’re ready to think of the pricing page, I feel like they’re in the, like, optimization stage. Like, the rest of the website has more or less updated messaging, meaning, like, it reflects the actual product that they have. And so if they’re ready to optimize, you may be actually you may have more success if you’re targeting, like, a a product marketing manager or a growth marketing manager because they’re gonna be thinking of, I am ready to take this to the next level. The website is more or less converting. Our campaigns are converting.
Now we’re ready to, like, give it a little boost. Because if you try to introduce the pricing page when their homepage was created four years ago and has none of the information is relevant, then it’s not going to hit quite as well.
I think it’s a good point.
K.
So how how how do you how do you propose then do we ease into that? Because like you said, Joanna, like, they’re probably not thinking about their pricing page being a problem yet.
Yeah. I mean and that could be a question like so you’re calling it the definitive guide to SaaS pricing pages. If you are a growth lead at a SaaS company, whether that is a fast growing or slow growing one because there’s the giant space in there before the hockey stick and that varies.
Regardless of it, there’s somebody who wants to grow revenue trial starts, conversions on the other side of the onboarding sequence. So depending where their how their pricing page changes or if they just simply have two, What are they looking for? Now it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong to have it be called the definitive guide to SaaS pricing pages.
But is that what they’re looking for? Or are they really, like what’s and and so did you start by writing the title, or did you finish by writing the title?
So the title was already in my mind.
Yeah.
I hadn’t I hadn’t written it down. I I I I focused on the content first, and then I landed on that sort of title and the subtitle.
I feel like both of these together might be worth trying as a really strong subhead that like, it’s like explaining the value proposition of a SaaS pricing page for that growth focused person as the subhead. But, like, what’s the bigger idea that they’re buying into?
Obviously, awesome as, like, the bigger idea. Right? You want to be so obviously awesome. You don’t have to talk about yourself at all. It’s just really clear.
So what’s the thing that this audience is looking for?
What’s the conversions. Of that. Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So something around conversions, would you say?
Converting prospects, converting When you talk to people in this space, does anything surface that they’re saying?
Is Is there anything that’s, like like, for positioning? I wish people just understood what’s so awesome about us. Nobody seems to get what’s so awesome about us.
And so are they saying anything like that for you or, like I would look into that.
Yeah.
What are what’s that that you can hit? Or and if it’s not that kind of thing, it’s like the invisible sales machine, I think it was called, or the invisible selling machine, which is a we’re recording this, but it’s garbage book about email marketing.
But it’s a really good title, like a really good title for the people it’s trying to attract.
So kinda just explore that. But if your if your title can be a bigger, more ambitious idea, I’d start going down that path. I know you’re calling it an ebook. We don’t want it to sound like a blog post.
Like, we want it to sound like it’s a meaty, insightful, like, look into this asset that you’ve been ignoring that’s actually the site of conversions and ultimately revenue for your business. Like, you gotta work on this thing, and the payoff is huge when you do.
So I’d dig in there.
I would also keep in mind that for a lot of company a lot of SaaS companies right now, paid media spend is down.
And so you can use the angle of leakage, meaning if you’re spending ten thousand, thirty thousand, fifty thousand dollars a month on paid media, and you’re funneling all of your resources into the home page, then you’re really wasting a huge opportunity to convert people once they land. So it’s not only converting, it’s also, like, wasting a a lot of your marketing spend because all of those high intent leads will go to the pricing page.
And, like, you just maybe you spent a hundred and fifty per lead, maybe you spent two hundred per lead. So I would say that, yeah, loss, loss aversion can be a stronger motivating factor than positive benefits. And for a marketer, wasting money is, is is very scary because there’s not that many of it. There’s not that much of it, and there’s a a lot of pressure on marketers these days. There always is, but especially right now.
Yeah. So I I found a good content on how it it’s worth more it’s more of an it’s a better ROI to focus on optimization versus customer acquisition, which most companies tend to focus more on. So I actually found some good content on that as well.
Yeah. That’s, like, the whole premise of forget the funnel. Like, stop forcing people into the top of your funnel.
Cool. Awesome. Okay. So then we get into your title for the section is the anatomy of a pricing page. But what you’re really the opening, the hook is the most ignored marketing asset in the customer journey.
So that I think that’s really important, to bring your your reader on board with that out of the gates. Like, just make a strong case for pricing pages. Why are they so ignored, etcetera.
Can Can we just see the high level, all the one, two, three, four for the actual or wait.
Sure. Yeah.
My monitors are overlapping in a funny way, so I’m missing the part over here. So understand your audience, leverage pricing psychology, design for user success. Okay.
So chapter six or section six being, like, the main meat of the Okay.
I think there’s too much. I think there’s too much going on. And the messaging strategy part kinda threw me.
I get pricing pages, pricing tiers.
Yep. Or do you think that that that six point one six dot one and six dot two should be just one thing as section six.
I think when you say messaging, you’re gonna throw people off.
Okay. That’s all.
I think that’s another it’s a follow-up book, that’s an appendix, or something else that you put in there if it really matters. But if I’m looking at a pricing page, I should be thinking yes of my headline and stuff like that and everything that goes under the pricing table. But in most cases, the biggest opportunity is in, one, change your h one from pricing to something real, and then do more with the pricing table. So talking about the tiers and stuff like that.
How to label those, what people are doing wrong, the examples, the tear downs that you can do in this of, like, existing pricing pages and what they’re getting wrong versus right. I don’t think you need to get into your message because that’s gonna be like, wait. What’s a stage of awareness? What?
Cut it.
I would. I’d cut it. Only add it in if it needs it afterward, but to me, it feels like you don’t need any of the messaging stuff.
Okay. So none of the rule of one, none of the okay.
Stick to the Say it lightly, but I don’t introduce things that are gonna be, like just focus entirely on the rule of one.
Just focus on pricing pages. That’s it. Everything else, they can they can book a consult with you to learn more about other things. Like how but what but what about after I’m done the pricing page, the tiers Still not working. What do I do? Then they they talk to you and do a workshop. Yeah.
So when you say that about messaging, do you also mean, like like, the the messaging inside the tier as well don’t talk about it as much?
Oh, no. I mean, like, if it’s gonna sound like the thing about a pricing page that’s so nice is it’s so focused on on action, on things that people do on, like, quick looking at information, and then clicking the thing. But it’s not like like a home page where you’re like, oh my gosh. What do we lead with?
Like, what do we say in what order and accept, like, when do we ask them to click? A pricing page is like, this is where the button is. That’s where they click. We either have a button there or we don’t.
If we don’t, it’s strategic. And if we do, it’s standard. It’s like the button goes here. So that’s kind of where it’s like, just focus them on the user experience stuff, on persuasion architecture, and then layer in the importance of, like, how your copy and message are on the page.
But don’t I would I would not get deeply into words.
Copy principles. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
I wouldn’t. Because I don’t think that’s that interesting, honestly.
Not when you’re coming, you’re trying to figure out what’s going on with my pricing Okay.
Okay. So it it was a lot bigger than this.
I had to cut a lot of things to get And you’re still gonna cut some more.
Cuts. But I think it’s I mean and we’ve got people in the room who write books like this all the time. Jessica, Abby, both have strong backgrounds in this. Any other notes for admin?
Yeah. I I think chapter six, that’s the one I need to read through to see where you’re going with it to give you, I think, more specific advice. I don’t have a problem doing that. Adnan, if you would like that, I’d be happy to do that for you.
A little bit. Yeah.
Just seeing kinda seeing top level is hard when I don’t I haven’t seen what you actually wrote.
I am I know that when you’re writing to that audience, like, because I used to work with that audience, you can’t they don’t you don’t write to them the way you would maybe a course creator. Right? Little less sexy kind of way. But I am kind of wondering if there’s a way to make it a little more enticing.
Like, for example, one of the questions I had was, when you titled chapter six craft your messaging strategy, do they if they were talking about all of those, the value prop and everything you have in that chapter, would they consider that messaging and messaging strategy? Is that what they call it?
That that’s something worth looking into that I should research. Yeah.
Yeah. Because, I mean, I don’t know. I just I’m and look. Limited here. I only worked with truly, like, one or two companies that were true SaaS and tech, but, I just can’t see my engineer guys saying that, but they weren’t they were very traditional marketing, so maybe that’s why.
But I would just look into that because for some reason, that was a red flag to me. Like, oh, I just want you to kinda say how to talk about, you know, how to talk on your pricing page, which is terrible. But you know what I mean? I wanted a little more straightforward, but that might just be my personal.
But I was literally what I had literally what I had before, like, what to say in your pricing page.
Yeah. And I’m like, that that cannot be a title.
Like, that just I’ve look.
I mean, it should be in alignment with what your ideal audience would say. Right? But for some reason, the the thing in my brain went off with messaging. I was like, oh, that sounds very marketer speak.
I’m I’m not I’m not sure. The guys I worked with wouldn’t have said that, but that’s just the guys I worked with. So yeah. Anyway, something to research and just make sure because I do think for a lot of people, myself included, the word messaging is loaded.
And and for me and I think for my and, actually, my old clients would have been very intimidated by that word and I wouldn’t want a chapter where, that I started off with that.
That’s my only thought when I saw your chapter six.
K. Thank you. That’s that’s very valuable insight.
Nice. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. I think each chapter, just if you can zoom it in on one thing as much as possible.
And as you’re reading through, if ask yourself, like, could I write a book on this? And if the answer is yes, then it’s probably not zoomed in enough. I mean, I I’ve had to redo my entire outline for my book because I really like like, I had a chapter on sales pages, a chapter webinars, and I’m like, this, you can’t you can’t teach a sales page in a chapter. So completely pivoted.
Yeah. So just maybe be be prepared to to to do a lot of pivoting, and just zoom in as much as possible would be my advice.
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s worth noting that if you’re was there. Otherwise you do lose a reader. I remember, when I was reading You’re a Badass at Making Money, I was loving it. And then she got into really simple, like, basic stuff around list building and things. And I was like, oh, no.
Is this person basic? This whole time, have I been nodding along with someone who, like, doesn’t really know what she’s talking about?
So better for her not to mention that at all than to, like, just mention it in a way where you’re like, oh, no. Oh, it’s kinda crappy. So if you can’t dig into it, cut it. Unless somehow they need it. Need it. Need it. Like, need it.
Okay. Need it. Just gonna keep saying need it because that’s meaningful.
I really do think I look at six point one and six point two, and I’m like, that’s the whole bunch. Like, there’s so much there.
Once you start adding in examples, what there’s jobs to be done in there. Like, there’s it’s like everything. So just like Abby said.
You even mention jobs to be done other than just making a reference to it?
I mean, your audience probably knows about jobs whether they apply it or not. They know about it. So it’s like a good indication that, like, if I know about it, you know about it. We have something to talk about together. Right?
There’s like Yeah.
Leave this in common, which can be good for likability. But write the book, see if it works, if it if it feels, again, basic, then that’s what editing’s for.
K.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and the chapter, these are, like, the last ones again. And now it probably feels like a lot. Right?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. I I have for a second. I would be careful with the word messaging because in my mind, what I hear is more, like, fundamental product messaging. Like, how do we compare to our competitors? How do we pitch ourselves? What is our voice?
Like, a lot of those kind of things.
And those are the things that they probably would have figured out if they’re ready to optimize their pricing page.
So it might be confusing for them, because they’ll see it, and they’ll like they’ll be like, wait, I think we already have messaging, or do we have to redo our messaging? That’s gonna take a long time. I’m gonna have to get lots of people on board. Where if it’s just a pricing page, then they can move more quickly. They can optimize it with their own team without having to get lots of people in upper management and then give them a little time. So, like, each like in this title, you may just want to pick a different, like, phrasing or copy or something that feels a little bit more small a little bit smaller and more specific in scope.
Okay.
Alright. You got notes to work with there, Adnan?
I do. I do. I do. The whole program. So, okay, thank you so much.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Good job working on this. It’s amazing.
Make it happen. Yeah. Alright. Anybody else?
Abby?
Yeah. I would oh, first of all, my win. So I’m just about to close a deal with my client, and then I’ll be at hundred k for q one, which is exciting.
Revenue, though, not profit.
And then my question so the optimization retainer I was chatting about, like, last week. I just lost some feedback on what I’ve included in it. I’m just feeling really weird about the whole thing, not confident. Would you mind taking just a quick look at Still it.
Should I I can drop it in the chat or share my screen.
Sure.
Then we can all look at the same thing as I do.
Yeah. K. Cool. Okay.
Can you guys see the email? That’s the box. Okay. Okay.
Now we can’t. Oh, wait. It’s your inbox.
Yeah. Yeah. This is the email that I sent. This was just like a quick proposal after the call. Okay.
Alright. So here’s a quick proposal to show you what it would like. Well, it would be like to have me working on optimizing the other free cleanup funnel based on the data so far. I see a huge opportunity to scale cleanup to ten thousand plus a day.
Maintaining improving conversions as you scale would play a crucial part. Okay. Here’s what’s included. So included in the optimization.
Okay.
Mhmm.
Track conversions, AB test and optimize, monitor and optimize, opt in page versus email. Okay.
Ad copy.
This is a lot of stuff, Abby.
Optimize sales page and add new testimonials, features, messaging.
Just, like, keep doing the project again and again and again and again. It’s a lot. Ad hoc reengagement, downsell sequence based on performance, collaborate with other team members when needed, and then a profitability report. Have you sent this?
Yeah.
Yeah. And they’ve got we’ve got a call about it. So they’re they wanna discuss pricing and features. Because he I remember he said to me, like, make sure each thing is worth a thousand dollars, and he said to quote ten.
But as I was looking, I was I’m like, well, fresh ad copy as needed. Like, it’s an essential part of it, but that’s not worth a thousand dollars. That’s worth maybe, like, a couple of hundred. So I was just kind of no. I thought ad copy is, like, cheap. Or Well, it’s cheap.
I mean, literally, everything’s free if you want to look at it that way.
So it’s there’s a there’s a quality standard, though. Right? There’s the expertise that you’re bringing, and that’s why it’s for you to nobody needs someone to write junior copy for them. AI got rid of junior copywriters.
Peace to the juniors, but you’re gone. So you have to always be the the best at it. Right? And just, like, don’t worry that you’re not.
Like, just I know that sounds dumb, but, like, just don’t worry. Just, like, don’t worry. Worry about it, Joe. You’ll be good at it. Don’t worry.
You’ll know if you’ll know.
Yeah. So when I look at this, I’m like, okay.
I what I see is, you’re trying to show value by showing lots of stuff that you’ll do, not by showing results.
What they care about is not your busy hands. They don’t want you sitting around doing nothing, but nobody I haven’t my experience is not for people who are hiring professionals. It’s not how busy were you today.
It’s what did I get out of it today. And that’s all you need to worry about. You need to say, let’s get you now that we’ve implemented this, now that you’ve got this evergreen funnel going, you know what most businesses do? And wait for them.
Most businesses walk away and just let it sit there and fester and nothing’s getting better and their audience is changing and algorithms are changing all around us. And you have the same evergreen funnel set up brilliantly. I might add because I’m a genius, but you have the same thing sitting there. And when are you gonna optimize it?
When did you last optimize your evergreen funnel? You didn’t have one before. Right? So like just talking them through it in a way where you see yourself as the expert and on the same level.
You’re not asking for work, you’re offering them this solution, but you actually have a way for them to keep making money. Like, where you will be in charge of watching that the evergreen funnel keeps going up instead of what’s their plan right now to optimize it? What’s their plan? Fucking nothing.
You know, they have no plan to optimize it. You come in for the bargain basement price of five thousand dollars a month. You’re gonna keep that going up.
What? Like, you don’t need to list out every single thing you’ll do. That doesn’t matter. They’ll wonder, okay, how are we going to get to those results? You’re saying you’re gonna keep this number going up.
How? Then you can talk about that, and you can say really quickly, like and put it in brackets. Like and if you’re wondering how I’ve done this a million times, and then you just put in brackets, like, check tracking conversions on an ongoing basis, writing new copy as needed, and then close brackets, etcetera. Close brackets because you don’t want them using this as your new checklist of, oh, did she do all of this stuff for us this month?
Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. Because on the call, they I kind of I sold them, and I put them a good.
But then they, they asked me in the email to say, like, what actually is included in that, which is why I broke it down like this.
And that’s another chance to hop on a call too. So just because the client wants you to send a checklist, doesn’t mean you do. And there are gonna be times when if all they really wanna bring it back to is that you do have busy hands the whole month, then, they’re not a good candidate for a retainer.
But you would probably already know that because they would have been kind of annoying to work with already.
So if they weren’t annoying because they weren’t like, what else are you gonna do for me? Like, what else are I’m gonna make you money, dummy. Like, what are you talking about? What else am I gonna do for you?
The thing that you want most in life, the money. I’m going to help you get more of that. So I I’m think would happen during this optimization, this ongoing optimization? What would you expect?
And then you can have a conversation and say, of course, we’ll do that. Of course, we’ll do that. No. We won’t do that. That’s a whole new project.
That sort of thing. Right? So you don’t have to show that all you’re gonna do is spend your time on this. It’s not Mhmm.
I know it’s hard because you’re just starting to sell the retainer stuff, but just know that you shouldn’t expect to close all clients on a retainer afterwards. They’re not all gonna be a fit for it. They’re not all going to understand that you don’t hand over work and voila, it works and works forever. Like but others will others will, and they won’t say, show me everything you’re gonna do.
Mhmm. Yeah. Because I think these clients are really good for it’s just the trouble for me is my confidence comes when I’ve done something, like, fifty times, and I haven’t done this before for a client. So it’s difficult to to communicate the value when I’m just, you know, doubting myself because I haven’t, like, earned the right to kind of be an expert in it or call myself in. I don’t know.
Do you think that you will suck at this?
I don’t think I’ll suck at it. No.
No.
I won’t suck, but like, I’m gonna be figuring some stuff out as I go, which is why I put the price at five thousand, not the ten thousand.
Yeah. So you’ll be figuring it out as you go, and you adjusted your price accordingly. You don’t tell them that. But the reason you adjusted your price is to help you get over that mindset hump.
Right? So you have already done the job of reducing the price to make it so that you shouldn’t be worried then. So this is the thing, right? Like respect the work that you’ve done, not just the expertise that you’re going to bring to this, but the fact that you had this mental block on ten thousand dollars and you decided to then bring it down to five thousand dollars, And thus, you now need to force yourself over that mental block.
You’ve already done what you can do to solve it. The next step in solving it is doing the work and seeing, like, oh, I’m just tweaking things as I go and then seeing how it does, and I’m putting together this report and sharing it with them.
These are not a lot of difficult, crazy, difficult steps at least. Right? So I know it’s I know it’ll get easier the more you do it, but you have already reduced your price.
You are going to be learning on the job. You’re not gonna make much money off this one, but that’s that doesn’t mean you have to work your fingers to the bone doing all sorts of checklist stuff, this whole list.
Right? You’ll get it.
But do your best to hop on calls wherever possible. You can close better on calls than you can in email.
Even great emails, unless they’re so stoked on their side of things, like, they’re like, we see nothing but opportunity, and you’re the absolutely only person on the planet who could ever do this for us, that’s where they need to be to close on email. You need to get them on a call.
Yeah. Which is difficult because they’re busy.
Of course. Once again, Nicole. You’re busy to make money? Like, another month. I’m like, for real. No.
You did. You did go on a call with me when I tried to close you.
I know.
Well So, I mean, it’s difficult.
It is actually Sorry.
I didn’t need to call you out.
That’s fair. They can be. Well, I would say, did I see a way to make money easily there?
Okay. There has to be the easy payoff in my life for me to move on anything.
Laziness factors in. And that’s true for a lot of people.
So I would not hold it against them if they don’t hop on a call right away, but do your best to get them on a call. That’s far easier to close them, especially when you’re just working this stuff out. When you, like, have not done this before, you can listen and take notes as they’re as you’re asking questions, not pitching, asking questions. Well, what what would optimization look like for you?
What are some questions you have? Like, now that we’ve set up this evergreen funnel, what comes to mind for you? What are you looking at? What’s the first data point that you were hoping to see?
And they can tell you exactly what they need from your this retainer with you. And you then all you say at the end is that’s cool. We’re gonna do all that stuff. You’re gonna get all of that.
And then Mhmm. Go do it. I draw it right then. Now it’s like, take recording, take transcript, turn into new SOP for what I’m gonna do on my retainer, but let them tell you in that call.
Yeah. That’s smart. That makes sense. Thanks.
Alright. I’m so hopeful for you. I think it’s gonna be cool. I hope it works out. Alright. Anybody else?
I was gonna say, Abby, I think you’re dramatically underestimating how much value they put on just having you around. Because knowing that you’re taking care of it one of my favorite ad copies is it’s not just x, it’s peace of mind. And you can fill in lots of things there. And just knowing that you’re on it, that you can answer questions or you can be there if they’re freaking out about something irrelevant is an immense amount of value in and of itself.
And that’s not something you put on a checklist. That’s just something intangible.
Yeah.
Mhmm.
Thanks, Naomi and Jessica, for your dramatic agreement.
Yeah. When it comes down to it yeah. I know. I’m not gonna harp on it, but yeah. Cool.
Alright. Anybody else?
We’re all doing brilliantly in our businesses and need no conversation.
Nothing?
I have a big win to share.
Oh, sweet. Do it.
It’s been over it’s been almost three months, and, like, at least half at least a dozen trips to my lawyer. But as of next month, I will have a salary again.
Oh, sweet. And my no. I mean, like, not I will have, like, a as a I will have a corporation. So I will have, like, a pay slip. Again. Amazing.
And my retirement account for my corporation will be open.
And I’m gonna save like one thousand dollars on tax every month.
So that is, been a long time coming.
But What are you gonna do with the thousand dollars that’s freed up in your business now?
Well, since I have a salary, it’s go it has to go into the business. So I’d like to take on more people to help with some of the social media stuff.
Nice.
And, yeah, to so I can get more time back in my day.
K. Excellent. That’s amazing. Good stuff.
Oh, yeah. It’s so much easier. Like, when I hear about the different countries around the world and the challenges with setting up a business and then tax and everything, Canada makes it so easy.
Like, so easy.
Adnan, do you have a business set up yet?
Yeah.
I do. I I have I’ve had one for a couple of years now, but it’s pretty smooth. Like, I haven’t had too many issues with anything else.
No. When I talk to even Americans about their, like, tax situations and stuff, I don’t understand the levels of complexity. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.
So you don’t have that.
Most of us don’t know either, Joe, so it’s fine. Yeah. Fair. Fair.
Well, it becomes much more complicated when you’re a dual citizen.
So that’s part of the issue. I bet. I bet.
That might be part of the issue. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, good. It’s a win though. Well done. That’s awesome.
Alright. Are we ready to wrap up today’s call?
Next week’s call is not on Monday. It’s Easter Monday Easter Monday. Easter Monday. So here we won’t be in.
Our team has, the four day weekend off, which is stat, I think, across Canada.
And Tuesday is the kickoff for the intensive freelancing. So we’re just bumping the Monday to the Tuesday call, which will be that kickoff. So you’ll have a worksheet to go with that. That’ll go out on Friday, and that will apply then to the Tuesday, call.
So I’ve invited you. If you gave a thumbs up in that message that were posted for the intensive, if you give a thumbs up, you’ve been invited to it. If you didn’t give a thumbs up and you’re watching this, the reason you’re not invited is because you didn’t give a thumbs up. So, if you want in, just let Sarah know.
Cool? Right. Excellent. Okay. Thanks everyone. I hope that you go forward and use the golden triangle to just overcome those weird moments, when budget is under discussion and you don’t want to budge at all on your budget.
So yeah, let me know how it goes. Go practice it too. It’s actually kind of fun and we’ll see you later. Bye. Y’all have a good one.
Worksheet
Worksheet
Transcript
All right.
We’re going to dive in because yeah, spring break or not. We’re here, and the game doesn’t quit.
So what I’m gonna do today, we are talking about the, diagnostic ish tool, called the Golden Triangle. And it’s less about when I say diagnostic, it’s less about diagnosing where they’re at and more about helping them realize them being your clients or your lead. Realize that it costs money to get a service like yours, and to get the outcomes out they’re looking for. Does everybody did everybody have a chance to look at the worksheet already?
If you didn’t, that’s okay. We’re still gonna go through it. So it doesn’t it won’t hurt either way. But it does build on the diagnostic that, we talked about a couple weeks ago. So I’m gonna share my iPad, actually.
You should be seeing that soon.
Just half a sec.
Loading up.
Cool. Good.
I was like, sometimes it’s sketchy. I was like, I don’t want this not to work, oh, in our, call.
Okay. So building on everything that we have talked about with that whole diagnostic. Right? So the idea is this comes from Simon Bowen, who is definitely worth looking into if you’ve never heard of him. I hadn’t heard of him before.
I saw a little, like, recording of a talk he did, and then I, like, binged everything.
So really worth looking into Simon Bowen. His name is on the worksheet for the week, which is, again, this is he calls it the iron triangle, and I don’t know why. So I was like, well, golden’s better. So I’m gonna go with the golden triangle.
You can call it whatever you want to. There isn’t a name for it that I’ve heard of out in, like, the world. But when we’re talking to our leads, we’re gonna basically pretend like there is and act like it. And that’s part of part of closing them.
So we’ll get into all of that. The point is we’re gonna start off with already having our iPad being shared. Now if you don’t have an iPad, that’s like, okay. It will just help a lot if you do and, like, sign up for a new bank account, and they’ll give you one for free.
So, like, don’t overthink it.
But, yeah, we do want an iPad or, there’s this other coach, Taki, who has his has, like, a sheet of paper on a table with a camera, like a phone over it. So you need a phone then.
Like, but and then he just draws as well. So you don’t you can you can just have paper and be drawing it, but it’s important that you’re not, like, drawing it, holding it up, drawing it, holding it up. You You wanna make sure that they’re watching. So Simon Bowen says, like, when you draw, it draws them in.
So the idea is the more that they’re watching you doing stuff, the more interesting it is and also showcases expertise that you’re gonna get into. Because it’s a scary thing to have a blank, sheet of paper. And only an expert can really start from a place of blankness and draw and make things, like, make sense. People are watching the whole time.
Right? So if you start with a blank sheet of paper and you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s it’s typical. You haven’t done it before. That’s why.
Right? So the more you’re confident drawing, taking notes in front of them. So we talked about this briefly when we did the diagnostic session before. And also, if you’re like, what’s she talking about?
Open up the worksheet too that I sent along for this week that Sarah sent you. So you, like, can just follow along because there’s a script in that worksheet as well. Just an easy script to follow when you’re doing this. So you’ve already been sharing your diagnostic, tool.
You’ve already maybe got through that point. For us, it looks like a sudden a little bit. And then you’ve been making notes going along, whatever they’ve been saying. You’ve been like, oh, excellent point.
Oh, I get it. And you’re, like, putting notes together and they’re watching. Right? So that’s where we’re at.
And by the time you’re ready for the golden triangle, we’re really getting to a place where we understand basically what the project is that they’re looking for.
We’ve already been through the vetting process, so we know, like, it’s something that we do or want to do. We have in mind our own budget for it, like, what it costs to do that, to to hire you to do that. And now we’re just trying to bring it all together. Now one of the things that many leads like to do is negotiate on price or start low. Of course, they do. They don’t wanna pay the top dollar if they can get it for less.
It’s just part of business, so we’re cool with that. Alright? But what do we do to get them on board with our price? So price objections can be a real thing. There are lots of ways that we’re gonna be talking about, throw a copy school professional.
Lots of ways to address price objections.
But the golden triangle is a way to address them without directly challenging their budget, even though there comes a point at which you’ll kind of directly challenge their budget. So let’s get into it. You’re at that point in the call where you understand what they want, etcetera. So but you’re starting to move toward understanding their budget.
Maybe they’ve even told you what their budget is, and they’re, like, off. Like, the no. They’re not way off. Like, they’re not saying two thousand and you’re thinking twenty thousand.
That’s like, we’re gonna wanna wrap this call up because it’s really hard to close that gap.
We’re talking more they’re like, it’s four thousand and you’re thinking eight thousand or it’s five thousand and you’re at ten. Something more like that. So not a massive gap. They can come on board. They are showing that they have some money to spend. Okay.
So this is the part if you’re already sharing, they’re already watching you map things out. You’re talking to them. You’re a consultant working through x, y, and z with them. Okay.
We’re getting that part of the the conversation with price. Oops. Sorry. And so we go.
Alright. Well, you’d be familiar, and this is the language to use. So okay. Cool. So you’d be familiar with the golden triangle.
Right?
You say you’d be familiar, and what’s the reaction?
Mhmm. Yep. I I’d be familiar with that. I literally did this the other day on a call with a gentleman, a copywriter who’s in house at this big tech company who I’m copy chipping.
And I said, so you’d be familiar with the fish and the fishermen. Right? And he said, mhmm.
And I was like, okay. So how does that apply here? And he was like and I was like, I’ll just jump in for you and save you there. But it it was just it was like that moment where I was testing out this.
You’d be familiar with phrasing works like a charm. People are nodding along with you. Okay? And it might feel tricky, but it’s just one of those things to get the client out of that place where so often for copywriters in particular that they come to us and they think that our work is very easy.
And, they just got all these weird assumptions going on. And this is, like, just just make them a little less comfortable with making all sorts of assumptions. That’s it. So you’d be familiar with the golden triangle.
So you would know that the golden triangle consists of, and then you write this out for them, time, budget, and outcome. Right? And, of course, the golden triangle exists because the world had learned that the vast majority of projects failed to deliver all three.
That’s it. Good. You’re good there. They’re like, okay. Cool. Yep. Because they’ve already agreed that they know what the golden triangle is.
So for them to challenge this now is a really weird thing to do. So now they’re on board with they can’t have everything. Okay. So what do we wanna do here?
This is where we say, okay. So let’s start with your outcome. Let’s start with what you were looking for. You came to me and you right out of the gate, you were saying that you wanted an onboarding flow.
This is just to follow along with the one that’s in your example.
And that includes, of course, strategy and execution. Right? Perfect. And what’s your deadline? What are you looking at? When when would you like this completed by? Okay.
So May thirty first. Is that, like, the absolute latest you can do? May thirty first. Is there any wiggle room there? No. Okay. May thirty first it is.
And what’s what’s your budget? What do you have as, like, a line item, or what’s your expectation for your budget here? And they might tiptoe around this, and all you’re just doing is that part of the conversation where you get them to to say what their number is. And they finally say, like, okay. Well, we’re we’re thinking about seven grand for everything.
Okay. Cool. So we’ve got this here. Now let’s look at this. It’s the golden triangle.
Right? This is the part where we prioritize in the golden triangle. So tell me which one is most important to you. And you’re still drawing.
Most important to us, the thing that we need most is probably to actually get the thing that we want. So the onboarding flow. Okay. Cool.
And then is it price or time? What’s most important next? Well, we really do need it by end of May. Okay.
Cool. So does that look about right? Great. Okay. Now let’s run this.
Let’s imagine you get an onboarding flow, strategy and execution live by May thirty first, but it comes in at, like, what the market typically pays, which is more in the vicinity of twelve thousand dollars. I know that’s not perfect, but if that’s what it had to be, would that be okay with you?
And they’re like, so from seven thousand to twelve thousand. Like, yeah. That’s would that be okay with you? Well, no. Okay. Alright. So it sounds like budget’s number one, and that means this is number two, and your deadline is number three.
Cool. So with a budget of seven thousand dollars, you get your onboarding flow, but it’s delivered July thirty first. Would that be okay with you? Well, no.
That’s not okay. I okay. Fine. So what I’m hearing is date delivery date is really important to you, then comes budget, and then comes the outcome.
So if you get this done by May thirty first for seven thousand dollars, but you only get the strategy.
You don’t get the execution by that date. Is that okay? And now they’re like, you’re out of your mind. Like, what are you talking about? Of course, that’s not okay. And you might have a little chuckle about this because they know where it’s going. Oh, are you still able to see my screen?
Okay. Cool. It just vanished for me. So just so you know.
Okay. So now you’re at a point where you get to get, like, honest with them. Right? And go, like, look, I can deliver the value that you’re looking for. I can deliver that for you, strategy and execution. I can do it by May thirty first. I’ve done it for clients like x, y, and z on similar timelines, but it’s always at a rate of ten thousand dollars.
It sounds like if something has to give, your budget is that thing. Do you disagree?
And that’s where you’ve now landed at a place where they may not be able to hit that budget. But what they can see is that your number is a real number, that they can’t have everything that they want. It’s not that your number is high. It’s that their budget was too low.
And that’s a good thing for them to walk away with because then the next time they have budget, they’re like, well, remember that person we talked to? She she drew that diagram. Remember that triangle? And we couldn’t afford her.
Maybe we can afford her now. Should we call her or him or whatever? So that’s the objective here. And if they can’t get there, if you’re going through this triangle and they’re like, price is just it never comes up properly the way you want it to and the way we just walk through it, that can also be a sign that it’s, like, not a good client for you because because they’re not willing to give on things very much.
They’re just like, yep. Nope. That’s fine. If you can deliver it to me for seven thousand dollars by July by the end of July, and it’s only strategy, that’s okay.
You’re like, well, that went weird.
And then you’d still say like, well, okay. So normally, this is the full scope of the project For me, just to deliver strategy, all of my minimum projects are, like, ten thousand dollars. So this is always gonna be the budget. Does that make sense? You’d still have to back up and talk them through that. But that’s basically how that flow goes. Does that all make sense?
Do you see how you would use it?
Kind of? Abby, I saw you do. I’m not sure.
It’s interesting, and I can see how I’d use it. For some reason, I’m running into some, like, hesitation. I don’t know where it’s coming from though. Yeah.
I don’t know where it’s coming from. Maybe just discomfort. Yeah. I don’t know.
Okay.
But I I liked it. I just yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Adam? By sales call, you mean, like, initial call, right, by the way? Like, the first stuff first call, the first interaction?
It could be either. Right? So it really depends. I’d be ready to move with this on any call.
So, if because some calls move a lot faster. Sometimes in that fifteen minute call where we think we’re just, like, determining if we should even work together, There’s, like, instant spark, you know, this is gonna work out well and you’re ready to move forward. So even though you book fifteen minutes in your calendar, you should have at least thirty minutes for that time in case it goes longer. And then if it does, if price starts coming up, if they’re talking about, well, we’d like it by this date, which can often happen in that fifteen minute call, then you’d wanna be you’d wanna have this handy for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah. I’ve been on calls where where they know exactly what they want, want, and, like, they just wanna hammer out, like, timeline and place.
So Yeah.
Yeah.
When the call goes so fast, it gets gets into an awkward territory because you haven’t prepared for that discussion yet. And Yep.
Yep. No. I totally hear that. So and this is like you can practice these things.
It doesn’t take much. You can you don’t even have to have anybody there with you. You can just like, I don’t know if you’re uncomfortable talking to yourself, but I’m not. So I’m gonna talk to my monitor all day.
And so you can just go through and practice doing it all by yourself and trying different ways of running through it.
And then the more you practice, the better able you are. Just go like, actually, I got something that will probably help with this conversation. One sec. You’re familiar with the golden triangle.
Yes? And that can be just like a really natural thing to help you whenever the time comes up. When you know budget is about to be discussed, that’s a good time to get ready with this. Yeah.
Cool?
Okay. Thanks, man.
Sure. Totally. Can I just make a recommendation?
Abby, you you might like this. So, I saw this triangle, and I got super excited because Joe validated me watching this terrible well, I thought it was good, but it went off the air after a second season. But, Oh.
There was a scene in this show Lipstick Jungle.
Oh, okay. And the guy is like he’s explaining to a gal. He’s, like, he does the triangle, and he puts and he goes fast, cheap, good. And he goes, you get two.
You don’t get three. And I just kinda put in the so when I saw your triangle, I was like, oh, that’s so cool. I was seeing it on the show from, like, the person who’s trying to hire someone and what you desire, and you did it from the person who’s trying to sell to that person. And I don’t know.
I just it kind of really rounded out the teaching for me having that perspective.
That you really tend to only get two unless you’re on Amazon, but then that can be crap too.
So Totally.
Then you’d have to put a third item, like, swap something out on the triangle that’s, like, ethical or something like that. Right? Yeah. Which one of these do you want?
So yeah.
I I heard it would stick jungle. I didn’t then I stopped hearing about it. I guess it went off, You, like you said, went off the air.
Yeah. Two seasons, but that was like the big business takeaway. So I appreciate that. I’ve binged that kind of thing just for that.
Oh, that’s so fun. Cool. Awesome. Anybody else? Any concerns? Yeah.
I have a question. Oh, Naomi, you go first. Yeah.
I was gonna say that the majority of time when I’m talking about price, the person who is I’m talk my point of contact is not the person with the purse strings. They’ve been given a budget and by either their boss or by the CFO directly and there’s a lot of bureaucracy in order to increase that budget. And they probably don’t care what the budget is is at all. Mhmm. But it’s not their decision to make.
Yeah. Yeah. And that it does depend. Like, this triangle can come out more than one time.
Right? So if they’re the one making the if you’re never gonna talk to decision maker, then it’s your job to get that person whose budget is inflexible to go back and make a case for you. And the more you see otherwise, you wanna get that the person who holds the strings on a call. Like, that’s the most ideal thing to do.
But if you can’t do that, then the other person has to advocate for you. Because there’s gotta be a way there has to be room to move or else your audience is wrong. If they’re always gonna come in the room with a five thousand dollar budget, and that’s just the way it is, it’s gonna be really hard to ever get to a place where you make the kind of money that you should be making because they’re making all the calls when it comes to how much you make. You might as well go in house at that point.
So you need to show that you are, hi kitty. You need to show that you’re an expert, that consultant where they’re like, this person’s gonna make me look good because this person knows what they’re doing. Like, I was impressed on the call with them. So I’m gonna go back to my boss or CFO and say, look, we have seven thousand.
We’ve paid this low amount for freelancers before, and they’ve kinda screwed us. So what, what can we do to get to ten thousand for this project? If it’s impossible, then it’s impossible. And there are other levers to pull, but we all know we gotta make a certain living, and that’s the way it is.
So get the decision maker on the call or get the person who should be advocating for you to be pumped about advocating for your price.
Yeah.
Yeah. You are mainly the group you serve.
You need to be a sales driven organization. There’s just no two ways around it. Yeah.
Alright. Abby, you had a question?
Yeah. I think, I already know your answer to this, but I’m gonna ask anyway.
So what’s your take on, like, with the outcome removing pieces? So for example, if it was, like, a sales page, and then you can say, okay. I could take out, like, the messaging guide, the customer interviews to bring the price down. Yeah.
It’s not the objective is not to change your scope.
That’s not what the triangle exists for. So if there if you say something that you think is ridiculous, like, I can deliver the strategy but not the execution by May thirty first. Like, that’s obviously, like, it’s ridiculous. Like, you’re gonna want both.
Otherwise, what? Or I can deliver execution, but no strategy. Like, for you, you’re like, that’s actually bananas. Of course, that’s not gonna happen.
How what would I be executing on? Just error? Like, there has to be something that comes before it.
So if they’re like, yeah, that sounds good. Then you’re like, shit. No. I can’t work with this person because they don’t understand.
But if they think that it really is, like, about adjusting scope for, the project, that would really only work. You’d only wanna say yes to that if you have a team to hand it off to. If it’s, if it’s like, oh, okay. So you just want a sales page, not the whole thing.
I’ve got a team. There’s someone on it who can write just the sales page, and it won’t be a problem for them. Maybe I’ll just close this business. Like, you can if you have a team to do that.
If it’s you, don’t. Yeah. Don’t change the scope.
Why not if it’s just me?
Because then you’re so we’ll talk about this during the intensive.
Okay. As soon as you start if you’re ever going to get to the kind of money that you want to get to, you need to have leverage in the form of systems, documentation, and then eventually people to execute on those systems and the documentation.
The more you’re customizing and changing scope and and things for people, the, the more documentation you need, the more systems you need. So if you have more people, then you have the ability to kind of, you know, puppet master things.
So that’s fine. You can change things up. But if it’s just you and you’re doing new things all the time, it is just not a tenable.
It’s not a good approach when it comes to like getting to that next tier. Can’t build your authority on fifteen different things, changing scope all the time. Gotta have the thing that you do and do really well. So for you and then your job is to sell them on the whole thing.
So if they’re actually like, well, you’re it’s true. Our budget is only seven thousand and we do need all these pieces, but maybe we can write the emails internally. For you, that should be like a holy shit note. Like, no.
Your job becomes making it clear to them that they need you for all of the pieces. Yeah. Oops. Oops.
Sorry. Yeah. If you’re ever going to adjust things, it should be scope typically. But that’s for, like, that’s like freelancing school stuff.
That’s not coffee school pro stuff.
That’s not getting to that scope all the time, like, to make this sound bad habit.
I need to get out. Yeah.
Yeah. So we’re gonna I’m so excited to talk about this in the intensive. Starts next week for those who just joined late, late, like a second late. I had just talked about it and then other people join us.
Go. Sorry. So it starts next week. You’ve been invited to it, to the kickoff call.
There’s gonna be a bunch of stuff, that will get you set up for hopefully, some cool stuff. I’m so stoked about this curriculum. It’s amazing. Yeah.
So, yeah, watch for that, and we’ll be changing some some ways that we think about projects and talk about them. We’ll be switching that up. Cool.
Alright.
We’re entering that part of the call where if you have any questions, we can talk through them. So if you do share your win first, and then we can all celebrate with you, and then we’ll hop into questions. And if you don’t, then we’ll take the rest of our money back. Any questions? Anything anyone’s working on?
We’re all good?
I’ll go with no one’s going.
Sure. Go for it.
I don’t really have much of a win to share, but I had a lead come in, which looks a little promising. That’s for email work, so that’s the only win.
Alright.
So when Yeah.
In terms of questions. So regarding that, pricing page book, ebook, I have I almost have my spit draft, but I have worked on a table of context. I’ve sort of worked backwards now in the sense that, like, maybe I spent too much time just writing stuff.
Okay. And then I’m in the stage where I’m trying to figure out what the table of content should look like. So I landed on something, and I was wondering how to kinda get feedback on it. Should I share it on the channel or should I?
Throw it up right now. Let’s take a look at it. I don’t know how deep we’re gonna get it, but we can at least did you read useful books, Edmond?
I did. I did.
Okay. Perfect. Then you should be in decent shape with that one.
In decent shape. Yeah. I think the table of contents still need some work in terms of how you position the titles, but at least content wise, I’m just trying to get things that should be there. Okay. I’ll share my screen.
Wait. How do you share again?
Download. I don’t know.
It depends on what Oh, there it goes.
You’re on. For me, it’s at the bottom.
Okay. Let me know if you guys can see my screen.
Okay.
This sounds nitpicky, and it’s the very first That’s fine.
No. That’s perfect. I I I want nitpicky, so this is good.
Well, why instead of the definitive guide?
Okay.
There’s a real question. We had to choose that.
So the reason I said, actually, maybe bit sticky.
Yeah. You’re right. Because I I figured other people will be writing something on it as well and saying the is coming off very authoritative, and I’m not really an authority in the space.
So How about what what the whole idea of this is to say I’m the authority.
True. Yeah.
For the way.
You know, when April talks, like, when April talks about her career in her book, it seems like she’s already worked on so many clients before she wrote that book.
Well, she had. She worked on clients, but she didn’t have she doesn’t actually have a background in marketing.
She’s an engineer. Like, she doesn’t she didn’t have that. So, like, she’s a Waterloo engineer.
So, but that doesn’t, but she’s then she went and worked in tech companies and ended up doing sales and marketing.
But I mean, honestly, when you think about the number of people out like, you don’t have to don’t let I don’t have enough experience.
Stop you. I mean, I you’ll know, cause there’ll be a wall and if you’re pushing through the wall, faking your way through it, you’ll know.
But otherwise I wouldn’t like just write the book, start by writing the book and then go from there. Look at and then, honestly, I would challenge you to look at the vast majority of people who are out there who how did James Clear become the habits guy? He doesn’t have a degree in habits.
Right? Like that’s not his thing. He just formed good habits and then started writing about them, and became an authority on it and worked to be an authority on it.
So I wouldn’t like, yes. Worry. But don’t it’s one of those balances. Right? Yes. You need to be authoritative, but you can also be learning things as you build that authority.
So the Noted.
Definitive guide. Okay. How to transform your most conversion critical asset into a powerhouse of results.
Anybody have any notes so far on what you’re seeing?
I would put this in sentence case. This is really hard to read in title case.
And sentence case is usually seen as a little bit more professional, especially in SaaS companies. I don’t see that many SaaS companies that use title case. I know it’s a pain in the ass to change, but, that’s I typically think it’s much easier to read when it’s, when it’s that way.
Anybody anybody else? Jessica, what are you doing?
You’re reading I’m looking at my books going.
I’m not sure I agree with that one. I don’t I mean, it’s not the thing I would focus on as much, but I I don’t know. I I’m looking at my books going, I see a lot of the opposite or capitalize the whole thing, which but I don’t know.
I guess I never really looked that close. So I I don’t know. And that’s probably not the one I would I I disrespectfully, I guess, disagree on that one.
But Depends on the I’m not the definitive person on that.
You’re a definitive person. I’m a Yeah. I would say look at the books on yourself, right, to figure that. Who knows in the end, like, the formatting. The three I just looked at all had all caps. Yeah. So it’s like yeah.
But that’s still, it’s a fair point, Naomi, we do want it to be a readable, book. But I I get that, like, the title. And so alright. So we have SaaS pricing pages. The audience that you’re speaking to is whom, Adnan?
Where do you speak? C level c level folks, who would be willing to we we’re looking to optimize or or increase their conversions from bottom of funnel assets.
Okay. And when you went through and did the right useful book stuff, did you write out when he was like, make sure you know your audience, how they found your book, how they’re referring your book, you wrote all that stuff out? Or did you just read it?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. You wrote it out?
No, I, I wrote all that stuff out.
Okay, good. Work through that. Okay, cool.
Yeah.
Okay. So how to transform your most conversion critical asset.
So your people are coming to this book. How do you think they’re finding your book?
How do they discover it?
So the okay. So I was thinking about distribution, as to, like, once I’ve written, how am I gonna distribute it? So I figured that, I guess, the the easiest thing for me to do, considering this will be an ebook, would be to distribute it through newsletters.
So they’re landing on it through newsletters emailed to them.
Okay. So do you mean, like, you’re sponsoring newsletters? Or how are you getting into it? Okay. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So these are newsletters then that are already targeting tech.
That audience.
Leaders.
Okay.
Great.
But do they know that a SaaS pricing page is important?
Are they to me, it sounds like if you’re unless the newsletter is about pricing pages, what are the chances they know that? So so because we know that a lot of tech marketers don’t think about their pricing pages at all, like, ever. They think about their home pages and all this other stuff, but not their their pricing pages like they should.
I wonder if there wouldn’t be an objection to the idea that it’s my most conversion critical asset.
Because I’m I’m not even thinking about it at all. I thought my onboarding sequence was, what are you talking about? What’s this pricing page thing? So that part for me, I would just say make sure that your audience is nodding with you from the beginning. Or if they’re not nodding with you, they’re so surprised in a good way by what you’ve just already revealed to them. So if you want to reveal to them that their pricing page is, like, this powerhouse potentially powerhouse of results, feels like there’s a gap there between the headline and the subhead. For me, at least, it does.
In in the shoes of your audience, I feel like there would be a gap.
Yeah.
Can I also, I I have another thing to mention? I I think that when it comes to SaaS pricing pages, you may wanna reconsider who your target audience is because SaaS companies grow incredibly fast.
And if they’re looking at their like, a website is a very complicated thing to update because you often need engineers and you need designers. So a lot of them are thinking, like, my homepage is a mess. The entire website is a mess. Like, there are so many things to do.
Pricing pay it by the time they’re ready to think of the pricing page, I feel like they’re in the, like, optimization stage. Like, the rest of the website has more or less updated messaging, meaning, like, it reflects the actual product that they have. And so if they’re ready to optimize, you may be actually you may have more success if you’re targeting, like, a a product marketing manager or a growth marketing manager because they’re gonna be thinking of, I am ready to take this to the next level. The website is more or less converting. Our campaigns are converting.
Now we’re ready to, like, give it a little boost. Because if you try to introduce the pricing page when their homepage was created four years ago and has none of the information is relevant, then it’s not going to hit quite as well.
I think it’s a good point.
K.
So how how how do you how do you propose then do we ease into that? Because like you said, Joanna, like, they’re probably not thinking about their pricing page being a problem yet.
Yeah. I mean and that could be a question like so you’re calling it the definitive guide to SaaS pricing pages. If you are a growth lead at a SaaS company, whether that is a fast growing or slow growing one because there’s the giant space in there before the hockey stick and that varies.
Regardless of it, there’s somebody who wants to grow revenue trial starts, conversions on the other side of the onboarding sequence. So depending where their how their pricing page changes or if they just simply have two, What are they looking for? Now it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong to have it be called the definitive guide to SaaS pricing pages.
But is that what they’re looking for? Or are they really, like what’s and and so did you start by writing the title, or did you finish by writing the title?
So the title was already in my mind.
Yeah.
I hadn’t I hadn’t written it down. I I I I focused on the content first, and then I landed on that sort of title and the subtitle.
I feel like both of these together might be worth trying as a really strong subhead that like, it’s like explaining the value proposition of a SaaS pricing page for that growth focused person as the subhead. But, like, what’s the bigger idea that they’re buying into?
Obviously, awesome as, like, the bigger idea. Right? You want to be so obviously awesome. You don’t have to talk about yourself at all. It’s just really clear.
So what’s the thing that this audience is looking for?
What’s the conversions. Of that. Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So something around conversions, would you say?
Converting prospects, converting When you talk to people in this space, does anything surface that they’re saying?
Is Is there anything that’s, like like, for positioning? I wish people just understood what’s so awesome about us. Nobody seems to get what’s so awesome about us.
And so are they saying anything like that for you or, like I would look into that.
Yeah.
What are what’s that that you can hit? Or and if it’s not that kind of thing, it’s like the invisible sales machine, I think it was called, or the invisible selling machine, which is a we’re recording this, but it’s garbage book about email marketing.
But it’s a really good title, like a really good title for the people it’s trying to attract.
So kinda just explore that. But if your if your title can be a bigger, more ambitious idea, I’d start going down that path. I know you’re calling it an ebook. We don’t want it to sound like a blog post.
Like, we want it to sound like it’s a meaty, insightful, like, look into this asset that you’ve been ignoring that’s actually the site of conversions and ultimately revenue for your business. Like, you gotta work on this thing, and the payoff is huge when you do.
So I’d dig in there.
I would also keep in mind that for a lot of company a lot of SaaS companies right now, paid media spend is down.
And so you can use the angle of leakage, meaning if you’re spending ten thousand, thirty thousand, fifty thousand dollars a month on paid media, and you’re funneling all of your resources into the home page, then you’re really wasting a huge opportunity to convert people once they land. So it’s not only converting, it’s also, like, wasting a a lot of your marketing spend because all of those high intent leads will go to the pricing page.
And, like, you just maybe you spent a hundred and fifty per lead, maybe you spent two hundred per lead. So I would say that, yeah, loss, loss aversion can be a stronger motivating factor than positive benefits. And for a marketer, wasting money is, is is very scary because there’s not that many of it. There’s not that much of it, and there’s a a lot of pressure on marketers these days. There always is, but especially right now.
Yeah. So I I found a good content on how it it’s worth more it’s more of an it’s a better ROI to focus on optimization versus customer acquisition, which most companies tend to focus more on. So I actually found some good content on that as well.
Yeah. That’s, like, the whole premise of forget the funnel. Like, stop forcing people into the top of your funnel.
Cool. Awesome. Okay. So then we get into your title for the section is the anatomy of a pricing page. But what you’re really the opening, the hook is the most ignored marketing asset in the customer journey.
So that I think that’s really important, to bring your your reader on board with that out of the gates. Like, just make a strong case for pricing pages. Why are they so ignored, etcetera.
Can Can we just see the high level, all the one, two, three, four for the actual or wait.
Sure. Yeah.
My monitors are overlapping in a funny way, so I’m missing the part over here. So understand your audience, leverage pricing psychology, design for user success. Okay.
So chapter six or section six being, like, the main meat of the Okay.
I think there’s too much. I think there’s too much going on. And the messaging strategy part kinda threw me.
I get pricing pages, pricing tiers.
Yep. Or do you think that that that six point one six dot one and six dot two should be just one thing as section six.
I think when you say messaging, you’re gonna throw people off.
Okay. That’s all.
I think that’s another it’s a follow-up book, that’s an appendix, or something else that you put in there if it really matters. But if I’m looking at a pricing page, I should be thinking yes of my headline and stuff like that and everything that goes under the pricing table. But in most cases, the biggest opportunity is in, one, change your h one from pricing to something real, and then do more with the pricing table. So talking about the tiers and stuff like that.
How to label those, what people are doing wrong, the examples, the tear downs that you can do in this of, like, existing pricing pages and what they’re getting wrong versus right. I don’t think you need to get into your message because that’s gonna be like, wait. What’s a stage of awareness? What?
Cut it.
I would. I’d cut it. Only add it in if it needs it afterward, but to me, it feels like you don’t need any of the messaging stuff.
Okay. So none of the rule of one, none of the okay.
Stick to the Say it lightly, but I don’t introduce things that are gonna be, like just focus entirely on the rule of one.
Just focus on pricing pages. That’s it. Everything else, they can they can book a consult with you to learn more about other things. Like how but what but what about after I’m done the pricing page, the tiers Still not working. What do I do? Then they they talk to you and do a workshop. Yeah.
So when you say that about messaging, do you also mean, like like, the the messaging inside the tier as well don’t talk about it as much?
Oh, no. I mean, like, if it’s gonna sound like the thing about a pricing page that’s so nice is it’s so focused on on action, on things that people do on, like, quick looking at information, and then clicking the thing. But it’s not like like a home page where you’re like, oh my gosh. What do we lead with?
Like, what do we say in what order and accept, like, when do we ask them to click? A pricing page is like, this is where the button is. That’s where they click. We either have a button there or we don’t.
If we don’t, it’s strategic. And if we do, it’s standard. It’s like the button goes here. So that’s kind of where it’s like, just focus them on the user experience stuff, on persuasion architecture, and then layer in the importance of, like, how your copy and message are on the page.
But don’t I would I would not get deeply into words.
Copy principles. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
I wouldn’t. Because I don’t think that’s that interesting, honestly.
Not when you’re coming, you’re trying to figure out what’s going on with my pricing Okay.
Okay. So it it was a lot bigger than this.
I had to cut a lot of things to get And you’re still gonna cut some more.
Cuts. But I think it’s I mean and we’ve got people in the room who write books like this all the time. Jessica, Abby, both have strong backgrounds in this. Any other notes for admin?
Yeah. I I think chapter six, that’s the one I need to read through to see where you’re going with it to give you, I think, more specific advice. I don’t have a problem doing that. Adnan, if you would like that, I’d be happy to do that for you.
A little bit. Yeah.
Just seeing kinda seeing top level is hard when I don’t I haven’t seen what you actually wrote.
I am I know that when you’re writing to that audience, like, because I used to work with that audience, you can’t they don’t you don’t write to them the way you would maybe a course creator. Right? Little less sexy kind of way. But I am kind of wondering if there’s a way to make it a little more enticing.
Like, for example, one of the questions I had was, when you titled chapter six craft your messaging strategy, do they if they were talking about all of those, the value prop and everything you have in that chapter, would they consider that messaging and messaging strategy? Is that what they call it?
That that’s something worth looking into that I should research. Yeah.
Yeah. Because, I mean, I don’t know. I just I’m and look. Limited here. I only worked with truly, like, one or two companies that were true SaaS and tech, but, I just can’t see my engineer guys saying that, but they weren’t they were very traditional marketing, so maybe that’s why.
But I would just look into that because for some reason, that was a red flag to me. Like, oh, I just want you to kinda say how to talk about, you know, how to talk on your pricing page, which is terrible. But you know what I mean? I wanted a little more straightforward, but that might just be my personal.
But I was literally what I had literally what I had before, like, what to say in your pricing page.
Yeah. And I’m like, that that cannot be a title.
Like, that just I’ve look.
I mean, it should be in alignment with what your ideal audience would say. Right? But for some reason, the the thing in my brain went off with messaging. I was like, oh, that sounds very marketer speak.
I’m I’m not I’m not sure. The guys I worked with wouldn’t have said that, but that’s just the guys I worked with. So yeah. Anyway, something to research and just make sure because I do think for a lot of people, myself included, the word messaging is loaded.
And and for me and I think for my and, actually, my old clients would have been very intimidated by that word and I wouldn’t want a chapter where, that I started off with that.
That’s my only thought when I saw your chapter six.
K. Thank you. That’s that’s very valuable insight.
Nice. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. I think each chapter, just if you can zoom it in on one thing as much as possible.
And as you’re reading through, if ask yourself, like, could I write a book on this? And if the answer is yes, then it’s probably not zoomed in enough. I mean, I I’ve had to redo my entire outline for my book because I really like like, I had a chapter on sales pages, a chapter webinars, and I’m like, this, you can’t you can’t teach a sales page in a chapter. So completely pivoted.
Yeah. So just maybe be be prepared to to to do a lot of pivoting, and just zoom in as much as possible would be my advice.
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s worth noting that if you’re was there. Otherwise you do lose a reader. I remember, when I was reading You’re a Badass at Making Money, I was loving it. And then she got into really simple, like, basic stuff around list building and things. And I was like, oh, no.
Is this person basic? This whole time, have I been nodding along with someone who, like, doesn’t really know what she’s talking about?
So better for her not to mention that at all than to, like, just mention it in a way where you’re like, oh, no. Oh, it’s kinda crappy. So if you can’t dig into it, cut it. Unless somehow they need it. Need it. Need it. Like, need it.
Okay. Need it. Just gonna keep saying need it because that’s meaningful.
I really do think I look at six point one and six point two, and I’m like, that’s the whole bunch. Like, there’s so much there.
Once you start adding in examples, what there’s jobs to be done in there. Like, there’s it’s like everything. So just like Abby said.
You even mention jobs to be done other than just making a reference to it?
I mean, your audience probably knows about jobs whether they apply it or not. They know about it. So it’s like a good indication that, like, if I know about it, you know about it. We have something to talk about together. Right?
There’s like Yeah.
Leave this in common, which can be good for likability. But write the book, see if it works, if it if it feels, again, basic, then that’s what editing’s for.
K.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and the chapter, these are, like, the last ones again. And now it probably feels like a lot. Right?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah. I I have for a second. I would be careful with the word messaging because in my mind, what I hear is more, like, fundamental product messaging. Like, how do we compare to our competitors? How do we pitch ourselves? What is our voice?
Like, a lot of those kind of things.
And those are the things that they probably would have figured out if they’re ready to optimize their pricing page.
So it might be confusing for them, because they’ll see it, and they’ll like they’ll be like, wait, I think we already have messaging, or do we have to redo our messaging? That’s gonna take a long time. I’m gonna have to get lots of people on board. Where if it’s just a pricing page, then they can move more quickly. They can optimize it with their own team without having to get lots of people in upper management and then give them a little time. So, like, each like in this title, you may just want to pick a different, like, phrasing or copy or something that feels a little bit more small a little bit smaller and more specific in scope.
Okay.
Alright. You got notes to work with there, Adnan?
I do. I do. I do. The whole program. So, okay, thank you so much.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Good job working on this. It’s amazing.
Make it happen. Yeah. Alright. Anybody else?
Abby?
Yeah. I would oh, first of all, my win. So I’m just about to close a deal with my client, and then I’ll be at hundred k for q one, which is exciting.
Revenue, though, not profit.
And then my question so the optimization retainer I was chatting about, like, last week. I just lost some feedback on what I’ve included in it. I’m just feeling really weird about the whole thing, not confident. Would you mind taking just a quick look at Still it.
Should I I can drop it in the chat or share my screen.
Sure.
Then we can all look at the same thing as I do.
Yeah. K. Cool. Okay.
Can you guys see the email? That’s the box. Okay. Okay.
Now we can’t. Oh, wait. It’s your inbox.
Yeah. Yeah. This is the email that I sent. This was just like a quick proposal after the call. Okay.
Alright. So here’s a quick proposal to show you what it would like. Well, it would be like to have me working on optimizing the other free cleanup funnel based on the data so far. I see a huge opportunity to scale cleanup to ten thousand plus a day.
Maintaining improving conversions as you scale would play a crucial part. Okay. Here’s what’s included. So included in the optimization.
Okay.
Mhmm.
Track conversions, AB test and optimize, monitor and optimize, opt in page versus email. Okay.
Ad copy.
This is a lot of stuff, Abby.
Optimize sales page and add new testimonials, features, messaging.
Just, like, keep doing the project again and again and again and again. It’s a lot. Ad hoc reengagement, downsell sequence based on performance, collaborate with other team members when needed, and then a profitability report. Have you sent this?
Yeah.
Yeah. And they’ve got we’ve got a call about it. So they’re they wanna discuss pricing and features. Because he I remember he said to me, like, make sure each thing is worth a thousand dollars, and he said to quote ten.
But as I was looking, I was I’m like, well, fresh ad copy as needed. Like, it’s an essential part of it, but that’s not worth a thousand dollars. That’s worth maybe, like, a couple of hundred. So I was just kind of no. I thought ad copy is, like, cheap. Or Well, it’s cheap.
I mean, literally, everything’s free if you want to look at it that way.
So it’s there’s a there’s a quality standard, though. Right? There’s the expertise that you’re bringing, and that’s why it’s for you to nobody needs someone to write junior copy for them. AI got rid of junior copywriters.
Peace to the juniors, but you’re gone. So you have to always be the the best at it. Right? And just, like, don’t worry that you’re not.
Like, just I know that sounds dumb, but, like, just don’t worry. Just, like, don’t worry. Worry about it, Joe. You’ll be good at it. Don’t worry.
You’ll know if you’ll know.
Yeah. So when I look at this, I’m like, okay.
I what I see is, you’re trying to show value by showing lots of stuff that you’ll do, not by showing results.
What they care about is not your busy hands. They don’t want you sitting around doing nothing, but nobody I haven’t my experience is not for people who are hiring professionals. It’s not how busy were you today.
It’s what did I get out of it today. And that’s all you need to worry about. You need to say, let’s get you now that we’ve implemented this, now that you’ve got this evergreen funnel going, you know what most businesses do? And wait for them.
Most businesses walk away and just let it sit there and fester and nothing’s getting better and their audience is changing and algorithms are changing all around us. And you have the same evergreen funnel set up brilliantly. I might add because I’m a genius, but you have the same thing sitting there. And when are you gonna optimize it?
When did you last optimize your evergreen funnel? You didn’t have one before. Right? So like just talking them through it in a way where you see yourself as the expert and on the same level.
You’re not asking for work, you’re offering them this solution, but you actually have a way for them to keep making money. Like, where you will be in charge of watching that the evergreen funnel keeps going up instead of what’s their plan right now to optimize it? What’s their plan? Fucking nothing.
You know, they have no plan to optimize it. You come in for the bargain basement price of five thousand dollars a month. You’re gonna keep that going up.
What? Like, you don’t need to list out every single thing you’ll do. That doesn’t matter. They’ll wonder, okay, how are we going to get to those results? You’re saying you’re gonna keep this number going up.
How? Then you can talk about that, and you can say really quickly, like and put it in brackets. Like and if you’re wondering how I’ve done this a million times, and then you just put in brackets, like, check tracking conversions on an ongoing basis, writing new copy as needed, and then close brackets, etcetera. Close brackets because you don’t want them using this as your new checklist of, oh, did she do all of this stuff for us this month?
Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. Because on the call, they I kind of I sold them, and I put them a good.
But then they, they asked me in the email to say, like, what actually is included in that, which is why I broke it down like this.
And that’s another chance to hop on a call too. So just because the client wants you to send a checklist, doesn’t mean you do. And there are gonna be times when if all they really wanna bring it back to is that you do have busy hands the whole month, then, they’re not a good candidate for a retainer.
But you would probably already know that because they would have been kind of annoying to work with already.
So if they weren’t annoying because they weren’t like, what else are you gonna do for me? Like, what else are I’m gonna make you money, dummy. Like, what are you talking about? What else am I gonna do for you?
The thing that you want most in life, the money. I’m going to help you get more of that. So I I’m think would happen during this optimization, this ongoing optimization? What would you expect?
And then you can have a conversation and say, of course, we’ll do that. Of course, we’ll do that. No. We won’t do that. That’s a whole new project.
That sort of thing. Right? So you don’t have to show that all you’re gonna do is spend your time on this. It’s not Mhmm.
I know it’s hard because you’re just starting to sell the retainer stuff, but just know that you shouldn’t expect to close all clients on a retainer afterwards. They’re not all gonna be a fit for it. They’re not all going to understand that you don’t hand over work and voila, it works and works forever. Like but others will others will, and they won’t say, show me everything you’re gonna do.
Mhmm. Yeah. Because I think these clients are really good for it’s just the trouble for me is my confidence comes when I’ve done something, like, fifty times, and I haven’t done this before for a client. So it’s difficult to to communicate the value when I’m just, you know, doubting myself because I haven’t, like, earned the right to kind of be an expert in it or call myself in. I don’t know.
Do you think that you will suck at this?
I don’t think I’ll suck at it. No.
No.
I won’t suck, but like, I’m gonna be figuring some stuff out as I go, which is why I put the price at five thousand, not the ten thousand.
Yeah. So you’ll be figuring it out as you go, and you adjusted your price accordingly. You don’t tell them that. But the reason you adjusted your price is to help you get over that mindset hump.
Right? So you have already done the job of reducing the price to make it so that you shouldn’t be worried then. So this is the thing, right? Like respect the work that you’ve done, not just the expertise that you’re going to bring to this, but the fact that you had this mental block on ten thousand dollars and you decided to then bring it down to five thousand dollars, And thus, you now need to force yourself over that mental block.
You’ve already done what you can do to solve it. The next step in solving it is doing the work and seeing, like, oh, I’m just tweaking things as I go and then seeing how it does, and I’m putting together this report and sharing it with them.
These are not a lot of difficult, crazy, difficult steps at least. Right? So I know it’s I know it’ll get easier the more you do it, but you have already reduced your price.
You are going to be learning on the job. You’re not gonna make much money off this one, but that’s that doesn’t mean you have to work your fingers to the bone doing all sorts of checklist stuff, this whole list.
Right? You’ll get it.
But do your best to hop on calls wherever possible. You can close better on calls than you can in email.
Even great emails, unless they’re so stoked on their side of things, like, they’re like, we see nothing but opportunity, and you’re the absolutely only person on the planet who could ever do this for us, that’s where they need to be to close on email. You need to get them on a call.
Yeah. Which is difficult because they’re busy.
Of course. Once again, Nicole. You’re busy to make money? Like, another month. I’m like, for real. No.
You did. You did go on a call with me when I tried to close you.
I know.
Well So, I mean, it’s difficult.
It is actually Sorry.
I didn’t need to call you out.
That’s fair. They can be. Well, I would say, did I see a way to make money easily there?
Okay. There has to be the easy payoff in my life for me to move on anything.
Laziness factors in. And that’s true for a lot of people.
So I would not hold it against them if they don’t hop on a call right away, but do your best to get them on a call. That’s far easier to close them, especially when you’re just working this stuff out. When you, like, have not done this before, you can listen and take notes as they’re as you’re asking questions, not pitching, asking questions. Well, what what would optimization look like for you?
What are some questions you have? Like, now that we’ve set up this evergreen funnel, what comes to mind for you? What are you looking at? What’s the first data point that you were hoping to see?
And they can tell you exactly what they need from your this retainer with you. And you then all you say at the end is that’s cool. We’re gonna do all that stuff. You’re gonna get all of that.
And then Mhmm. Go do it. I draw it right then. Now it’s like, take recording, take transcript, turn into new SOP for what I’m gonna do on my retainer, but let them tell you in that call.
Yeah. That’s smart. That makes sense. Thanks.
Alright. I’m so hopeful for you. I think it’s gonna be cool. I hope it works out. Alright. Anybody else?
I was gonna say, Abby, I think you’re dramatically underestimating how much value they put on just having you around. Because knowing that you’re taking care of it one of my favorite ad copies is it’s not just x, it’s peace of mind. And you can fill in lots of things there. And just knowing that you’re on it, that you can answer questions or you can be there if they’re freaking out about something irrelevant is an immense amount of value in and of itself.
And that’s not something you put on a checklist. That’s just something intangible.
Yeah.
Mhmm.
Thanks, Naomi and Jessica, for your dramatic agreement.
Yeah. When it comes down to it yeah. I know. I’m not gonna harp on it, but yeah. Cool.
Alright. Anybody else?
We’re all doing brilliantly in our businesses and need no conversation.
Nothing?
I have a big win to share.
Oh, sweet. Do it.
It’s been over it’s been almost three months, and, like, at least half at least a dozen trips to my lawyer. But as of next month, I will have a salary again.
Oh, sweet. And my no. I mean, like, not I will have, like, a as a I will have a corporation. So I will have, like, a pay slip. Again. Amazing.
And my retirement account for my corporation will be open.
And I’m gonna save like one thousand dollars on tax every month.
So that is, been a long time coming.
But What are you gonna do with the thousand dollars that’s freed up in your business now?
Well, since I have a salary, it’s go it has to go into the business. So I’d like to take on more people to help with some of the social media stuff.
Nice.
And, yeah, to so I can get more time back in my day.
K. Excellent. That’s amazing. Good stuff.
Oh, yeah. It’s so much easier. Like, when I hear about the different countries around the world and the challenges with setting up a business and then tax and everything, Canada makes it so easy.
Like, so easy.
Adnan, do you have a business set up yet?
Yeah.
I do. I I have I’ve had one for a couple of years now, but it’s pretty smooth. Like, I haven’t had too many issues with anything else.
No. When I talk to even Americans about their, like, tax situations and stuff, I don’t understand the levels of complexity. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.
So you don’t have that.
Most of us don’t know either, Joe, so it’s fine. Yeah. Fair. Fair.
Well, it becomes much more complicated when you’re a dual citizen.
So that’s part of the issue. I bet. I bet.
That might be part of the issue. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, good. It’s a win though. Well done. That’s awesome.
Alright. Are we ready to wrap up today’s call?
Next week’s call is not on Monday. It’s Easter Monday Easter Monday. Easter Monday. So here we won’t be in.
Our team has, the four day weekend off, which is stat, I think, across Canada.
And Tuesday is the kickoff for the intensive freelancing. So we’re just bumping the Monday to the Tuesday call, which will be that kickoff. So you’ll have a worksheet to go with that. That’ll go out on Friday, and that will apply then to the Tuesday, call.
So I’ve invited you. If you gave a thumbs up in that message that were posted for the intensive, if you give a thumbs up, you’ve been invited to it. If you didn’t give a thumbs up and you’re watching this, the reason you’re not invited is because you didn’t give a thumbs up. So, if you want in, just let Sarah know.
Cool? Right. Excellent. Okay. Thanks everyone. I hope that you go forward and use the golden triangle to just overcome those weird moments, when budget is under discussion and you don’t want to budge at all on your budget.
So yeah, let me know how it goes. Go practice it too. It’s actually kind of fun and we’ll see you later. Bye. Y’all have a good one.