So what I have done, is something really fun. I took our prospect call transcripts, prospects to turn into clients, and I’ve worked out the the struggling moment. But then and also, you know, like, the different elements of the struggling moment. But then I want you to look at those struggling moments and pick out the functional struggle, the emotional struggle, and, you know, the social struggle.

So you will if you haven’t opened up your workbooks, I would love for you to first do that so you can kind of go through the examples because those are, you know, those are examples.

But but I want you to look at the example so you can get an idea of what we are even talking about. So when I share my Google Doc with you, I want you to be able to kind of look at it and go, okay. And this would be the functional struggle, and this would be the emotion struggle.

So open up your workbooks. I’m gonna share screen.

And what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the workbook first, and then I’m gonna share a Google Doc with y’all where you would go ahead and do this exercise real time.

Alright. Cool.

Let’s get started.

And first up okay. Alright. Choose.

Okay. Cool. So this is what the section I want you to look at. The struggling moment is the seat for innovation.

Just scroll past this page. I want you to look at the examples here. So client comes in. You’ll get on a call.

Client says, okay. I wanna launch copy.

But then, of course, being the professionals you are, you will probe. You will ask.

And what they usually come up with would be some would be a story like this. And I’ll share our clients’ stories on probing.

And then from this, what you wanna look at is the functional struggle. So, okay, measurable decline in performance, social struggle, you know, people kind you’re like people are looking at you and all of that. And what’s the push force or what’s the you know, if there’s an emotional struggle to it, what what does that look like?

The more important thing that you need to ask yourself is why do you wanna kind of look at all of these struggles? Like, what does this help you do?

And use that to then direct the sales conversation. At least that’s what I do. It works out really, really well. And when you look at when you start to kinda pull the thread of either one of these struggles or if possible, all three and just kind of bring it together, it becomes so much easier to close clients at twenty k, thirty k, fifty k, hundred k. Right?

I have used this repeatedly just to kind of take time to really understand what the troubling moment really is. Because when a client comes and says, oh, I need website copy, it’s there’s something else going on.

You know? Why do they need website copy? And it’s fascinating because and I’m actually you know, because I can see this play out in in myself as a a buyer or as a client too. So right now, for instance, we are in the midst of speaking with, you know, designers and branding experts and all of that because we’re looking at a rebrand for our business.

So why I said it’s fascinating is because on calls with with branding strategist or with designers and things like that, the moment someone asks me oh, because we go in saying, oh, we wanna rebrand. Right?

Very straightforward.

But the caliber of a professional, like, it instantly kind of goes up in my mind when someone, like, takes the time to, like, clean forward and ask, okay. But why now? What’s happening right now that you’re looking to rebrand?

It just kind of opens up a whole thing for both Mike and me on that call. And I can only imagine that, and I hope that those strategists who are asking these questions are actually gonna use it when they kind of put our proposal together, when they send our quote together because I know it makes a difference. I always use struggling moments when I present my proposal to clients, especially for custom codes, and something like if they’ve, like, not just bought a package of the site, but they’ve taken time to fill out a form, and they met me for a call, and we have to give them a custom code.

I will use all of this in the proposal to basically present why we’re offering them what we’re offering them and what you know? And then what you’re charging them really kind of it’s not I’m not gonna say it becomes irrelevant, especially when they’re when you’re looking at fifty k, seventy five k packages.

It’s by no means irrelevant, but they can see exactly why they need it. What is the job that your service would actually be doing for their business.

So unlike my usual sessions where I have, like, a really nice slide deck and I have, like, tactical things and all, this one is very hands on. I just want you to understand what a struggling moment really is and learn to identify that in your own calls. Because if you’re not doing that right now, that is something you wanna fix right away.

So with that, do you have any questions before I yeah?

I do.

You say you use this during the sales call. Do you find this out in that triage call?

And then when you present, you know, back to your proposal, that’s when you pull this in?

Yes. Okay. So it’s in the triage call.

Okay.

And yeah.

I will basically use this definitely in the proposal, but I also kinda bring it up when we kick off. So when we kick off and I recap what’s in the project and, you know, who’s gonna be involved in the the the day c and all of that, I do mention why we’re doing what we’re doing because what I found and this is also true side note, this is also true for things like social proof. What I found, you need to like, once you’ve sold a client, you’d they you kinda need to have these, like, little mini selling points all through the process.

That works really, really well. Again, that’s just something I do. You don’t have to do it, but it just works really well. I’ve noticed.

Okay. Cool. So I’m gonna stop sharing. You should have it. Like, if you oh, wait. That’s the appointment you’re looking for. Anyways, let’s And what I’m going to do is drop a Google doc that I have created.

Fail.

So these are all clients from prospect calls that I’ve transcribed, and then let me go on the blank. Commenter.

Copy link. Okay. Cool.

Dropping the link in chat.

Oh, Lisa, good question. So you get this in the first fifteen minute call and then begin to it in the length here. One did that did Michelle’s question answer your question as well?

Oh, sorry.

So I do this a little differently, but I don’t want y’all to kind of digress from the process that, you know, y’all are going through.

In your case, I would look at the kind of try and get this get this struggle, in the fifteen minute call and then, yes, dig into it in the length of your call. That said, how I exactly do it and what Michelle calls the triage call is, again, this is my way to get, is I just do one call, and then I do proposal.

Right?

And I’ve done this for pretty much every project, but y’all also need to remember.

It’s I’ve been doing this for a while now, so there’s probably that at play. But, Katie, yes. Sometimes.

Depends.

For instance, it depends on a couple of different factors. If there are multiple people involved in the project, for instance, we just especially the corporate clients. So there’s this huge group of schools that I’ve been working with since last year.

There are multiple people involved in it. I’ve done one project with them. I’m working on a second project with them.

So in that case, always present it on a call because there are everyone wants to be involved in it.

But if it’s someone who we’ve worked with in the past, if it’s someone who has come through a referral, if it’s someone who is already sold on us, a podcast host, I mean, for that happens a lot.

I will not present it on a call.

Breaking rules? Yes. Maybe. But it just that it’s been working.

Yes, Leasel. With corporate clients, yes. Definitely. You will have to do two calls. You may even have to do more depending on the scope of the project.

For projects upwards of seventy five thousand dollars, I have done as many as in fact, with this particular client. Okay. We’ve done okay.

Three three calls, with different stakeholders.

So because there have been changes to, oh, we wanna include this. Now we wanna you know? So yeah.

Corporate times are a whole different thing. I I really love the size of the project.

It just takes me too much time.

Okay. Cool.

You should have the Google Doc in the chat. Open it up. And what I want you to kind of look at and put down is go through the struggling moment and leave your comments or just make your own comments as like, unmute yourself and tell me what you think is the functional struggle, what do you think is the emotional struggle, what do you think is the social struggle. So this is gonna be a very different call here.

Usually, yes. Three calls seems hard.

But this is for the second project. So they’ve already worked with me once. And, yeah, perfect times are whole different days.

Y’all should have commenting access, so feel free to leave comments if you want to.

Alright. Anyone wants to volunteer for the first one?

Well, I guess since nobody else go ahead.

Go ahead.

And it’s early in the morning, so I don’t know.

So functional struggle will probably be Clients who were interested were weren’t, signing up?

Yeah. Okay. Because?

Oh, because timing was too short.

Perfect. Yeah. K. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. K. Emotional struggle? I guess it was about from the yeah.

Go ahead.

Headspace and timing to they weren’t in the right headspace, and there was too short of time for them to spend that nine ninety seven.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you’re reading this, you also wanna think about this from the client point of view. Right?

Like, how is the client feeling emotionally about this this struggle that they’re coming up against? Because that’s what you wanna kind of lean into and talk about it. Oh, so you’re feeling this because our students or our, you know, our prospects aren’t getting enough time to convert. Is that right?

You know? So Okay. Yeah. But you’re really, really, you know, dialed in into this. This is really good, Michelle.

Yeah. Okay.

The social struggle, that’s where I’m kinda lost.

Yeah. And that is where for social struggle, you will see that you will need to start reading between the lines.

Okay.

You will need to start kinda looking at, okay.

What are they worried about? Like, what’s the perception here that they’re worried about? Is it is it that they don’t want to they they feel like, oh, we are being we are being pushy versus being intentional? Is it more that, oh, you know, people are going to maybe see me differently or won’t respect me if I do this or if I don’t do this.

So you gotta kinda read between the lines. That is where that is where your skills as someone who is, like, tuned into how people think, come into play Okay. And where doing a little bit of probing will help. So that’s not very the the, the social struggle is not usually straightforward.

Forward.

But, for instance, in the second second, client’s case, I worked on their website probably earlier this year, and her her social struggle was a little more straightforward. So take a look at that and see if you can kind of pick the social struggle there. Okay.

Anyone else wants to kinda weigh in with the first one?

I had for the social struggle and sorry sorry I was late, so I will catch the replay to catch myself up if I missed something. But I put, whose job is it to notice this?

Like, because potential on the part of the speaker, there was confusion around, like, it was brought up by a team member.

They didn’t even know about it. So then if I’m on that call as a copywriter, I would be noticing, like, oh, they don’t.

Like, there was a role missing in the strategy behind the trial and, like, who’s gonna fix this problem.

Absolutely. Which is exactly what happened in this case as well, Katie, is one, there was no one looking at the fact that customer support is getting all these requests about, hey. Can I get more time?

Right? Like, it just came up during their they have, like, a stand up meeting or a catch up meeting, what they call it, and and really random. Not even like, oh, you know, here’s something. So which is what then led us to work on what we did for them were, like, behavior based sequences that, a, not only we give them, like, an extended trial, but then we had, like, oh, if they went ahead and logged in, then we have, like, a different sequence kicking in versus people who weren’t logging in, versus people who, you know, were logging in and watching an x number of lessons.

So it the social struggle was no one was really watching what was going on with this trial that they were thinking for all purposes as kind of doing well, because and and what was happening was they were leaving a lot of people, in terms of, like, oh, who could who could just just needed a few more days to be able to convert. So, like I said, you need to kind of read between the lines there and do a little more probing.

But what they came in saying was, oh, we wanna increase conversions. But the point is and what they initially thought was they had a lead flow problem. Like, oh, we need more people coming into the funnel so we can increase conversions. But what they actually had was a current conversion problem. Like, people were coming in but were not converting because of the lack of time. And, like, you know, Michelle said the feeling of being they were interested, but they didn’t have the headspace and the timing.

Thing was really felt too short for them.

Alright. Who wants to take number two?

These are yes. We weren’t giving them time or room to build, breathe, or build belief. That’s like so they didn’t really need a seven day trial. They needed what we went with was actually a fourteen day trial, and more emails.

So because if I just sold them a seven day trial, it would have worked.

The result of the of increasing the, trial period or the result of presenting them with a fourteen day file package? Conversion to paid upgrades. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it’s been ninety so then these are all fairly recent projects that have wrapped up. So this it’s gonna it we completed ninety days of the funnel, say, thirty first of March. So, they in ninety days, they’ve been able to almost, I would say, two point five x their conversions, but, again which is great.

However, what we are now testing out is if we shorten it to about nine days instead of fourteen days, would that create more of an urgency and increase conversion? So that’s what we gotta do in the optimization phase of it. My reasoning for this is I noticed that a lot of people wait till the very last day to convert. So I’m just kinda curious to see if you, like, go from seven from we went from seven to fourteen. So if you go from fourteen to nine or even ten, does that, you know, shorten the cycle while basically either increasing or keeping the conversions the same.

They are they’re they’re pretty happy, so they’re open to testing, which is a good thing.

Because we can always go back to fourteen if, say, the nine, ten day experiment does not work out.

Alright.

Functional struggle can’t explain too easily and in a way that shows value. Bit of imposter syndrome in the self as a creator. Yes. Then yes.

In fact, you’re it’s so cool that you brought up the imposter syndrome thing because the thing is she’s not a SaaS marketer. So this client, is really cool. She’s a really, really big affiliate marketer. She’s got, like, millions and millions of followers, on Instagram and TikTok. And, she created this tool, like I’m sorry. Her husband basically created this tool because she was really frustrated with the link in bio options available to her. So so that imposter syndrome in her is pretty real because she doesn’t think of herself as a SaaS founder.

She still thinks of herself as, an affiliate marketer who’s playing, a SaaS founder. So it’s so cool that you, kind of picked on that.

Potential loss of authority from lack of credit. Exactly. You know?

She felt like, oh, she because she’s concerned, you know, like an expert and she like, loads of an affiliate marketers look up to her. She felt like, oh, I would be they would be seeing me as less than or as per you know? So that was really, really yeah. It is. But it’s very hard, I think, when you are a creator or founder, and I guess most of you would kind of relate to it is because, like, people were approaching her about it, and she had a successful beta run and all of that, but it just kind of, you know, feel like, I don’t really know. And she came in saying, okay. I need copy for this website.

It’s interesting. I’ll tell you what we kind of sold her once we’ve kind of gone through this. But okay. Cool.

Anyone else wants to weigh in? Johnson, potential loss of authority. Yeah. Perfect. That is exactly like, that is the social, struggle here for sure.

Cool. Anyone have anything else to add?

Nope? Okay. So this is a classic case. The client comes in saying, you know, oh, I need better copy for my affiliate link in bio website so people understand what this tool does.

But the thing is she did not have any messaging created for this. Like, she just created the tool, got, like, a very, very basic one page kind of a sign up, and she felt like, okay. Let’s just change words on the website to, you know, make it clearer. But what we had to start with was and all of you know this, we had to start with going back and looking at, okay, what is it that you were saying?

How are people talking? So we had to start with all the research. We had to put together her complete message brand messaging guide, and then the website copy. But then we because of the imposter syndrome emotional struggle and, you know, wanting to explain the tool easily and that potential.

All of these struggles kinda came together because we did not want that experience to end when people signed up for the tool.

So I was able to show her that she also needed the staff onboarding emails. She needed, you know, nurture emails so that people would go ahead and use the tool and then, of course, win back emails for people who churn because it’s a subscription.

So it went from being, oh, I need copy from my home page to describe what people you know, describe what this tool does to being a huge project, because we kinda took the time to really understand what was going on, which is the whole purpose of this call is for you to start doing a little more digging to understand what is the struggle, what is the job that a prospect is actually hiring your service to do for them.

Where did they receive that? Nope.

So she was putting in all her money. Like, she’d made she’s yeah. So not VC backed, but her husband and she were both, and, Abby, it’s so funny because, you had a post in, in the Slack community that I saw later, so I didn’t get a chance to comment on it. But where you mentioned about having a call with a founder, and then the husband was on the second call and, you know, having to kind of do the I mean, it’s it’s exactly the same here.

So, she came to us through a referral, someone I’ve worked with in the past, and then she was like, yeah. Completely sold. I want all of it and then some. And then, you know, her husband, because he’s the one who created it and is also partly funding it, wanted to get on another call, and it was, you know, like, again, do the whole same thing, walking them through it again.

So, yeah, was it hard to expand the scope by that degree with the client? No. Simply because I knew the problem that she was wanting to solve was not just I needed to be clearer.

The problem was I need to look like the expert I really am. I wanna keep my standing as this really, really top affiliate marketer.

I want my app to present me the way the like, the affiliate marketing world sees me as.

So nope.

It wasn’t.

Yeah. Image is huge. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Absolutely, Johnson. So because I spent the and this is the whole purpose of this call is, essentially, I want you to take the time to really dig into what is the struggle that your audience is looking to solve, your prospect is looking to solve, so it becomes easier for you to to sell them your standardized offers.

In my case, it’s more custom. So, I don’t have, like, a standardized offer other than fully loaded launch, which in any case is now going to get overhauled and retired. But, I’ve started catching this stuff on the fly, little because I’ve been doing this for a while now.

The more you’ll do it oh, one thing that I will recommend is we all use AI note takers.

I still make notes by hand. I do use an AI notetaker to kind of go over things that I may have forgotten, especially if I wanna, you know, in big package cases and things like that where we need to kind of sit down and hash out what, quote unquote, the deliverables are gonna look like. But I’ve started, like, kind of, like I make notes and then I draw lines to kind of talk about, okay, this is what the struggle really is or this is what they’re trying to solve. So, highly recommend doing that too. It just kind of trains your brain to to start picking these things.

Yes, Ali. Fully loaded launch is getting replaced with something even better.

But, yeah, I will share that soon.

It is iconic. I know.

But, yeah, it’s been a while now. So, it’s run its course, and we’ve been customizing it way, way more often, which means that we need to kind of, yep, expand the the package and change it up and all of that. So that was what happened. It is a federal party.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good idea. Probably should do that.

Give it a going the way it probably served us well.

Awesome. Cool. Alright. Let’s look at number three. This is someone that we recently recently closed, like, as recent as, like, the contract’s just gone out to them. So yeah.

Oh, by the fun fact, because I did this session last month I I think I did the session last month.

This is someone whose podcast I appeared on.

And after the part like, she’s the she’s the podcast host, so that will come out later. So after the podcast, she ended up, like, wanting to know more, and then she filled out a form. And this is what we kind of know, basically.

We’ll be working together. So, again, for those of you who’ve not seen that session and who are wanting to turn podcasts into client opportunities, would highly recommend listen to that one. But for now, look at this and tell me mhmm. Functional struggle. Okay. And our data value of the offer.

Cannot sustain effort across every business area. Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

Feel free to unmute yourself if you got things to add if you don’t wanna kind of okay. Jenny, are there specific questions you ask clients so they go beyond sharing the surface level problem?

This isn’t converting, for example, to help them share with you what the shrugging moment really is.

I generally start by asking, well, so okay. What’s on your mind? You know?

You filled out I recap what they filled out the form for. So you mentioned you’ve got a launch that’s not being well. But, really, tell me what’s on your mind.

Opens up a whole lot of conversation. It’s not my question, though. I would highly recommend if you’ve not read the coaching habit by Michael Banda Stanier. I have been using this what’s in your mind question, thanks to him, for years.

It’s worked really, really well. So, I think it was Pat Flynn who sent me that book, but anyways, years ago. But it’s a really good book. It’s called The Coach and Habit. If you don’t have it, get it, read it, use it.

Yes, Abby. Love that book. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah.

That’s okay. Liesl, you are participating.

Alright.

Couldn’t articulate value of the offer.

Hired people in the past that didn’t work out. Nailed it. Cannot sustain effort across every business area. This is a really big one. Yeah.

She just felt like, oh, I’m struggling to kind of, you know, delegate these critical marketing tasks and all that fearful of letting someone else do it. That is definitely the emotional struggle.

She felt really trapped in the founder operator stage where she knew she should be giving it up, but when she would, it won’t work out. And here’s the interesting thing. In the past, when someone would say, I’ve worked with copywriters before, and it’s never worked out. So it’d be like a huge red flag for me.

Right? Like, I know people say like, oh, red flag. And I would because I’d heard that, I would be like, oh, yeah. I’m not gonna be working with them.

Never gonna work out.

But sometimes I’ve found not sometimes right now. Most of the times. In fact, I have quite a few client, stories and testimonials talking about how in the past they’ve hired and it’s not worked out, mainly because people don’t follow process. So I I’m just sharing this from the point of view that if a client comes to you and says that, don’t let that scare you off.

Do your digging to find out, okay, what happened?

What did they do? Like, what was their process like and all of that? In this landscape, they had lots of data that, as copywriters, had not even touched. So this is like someone who runs a systems business, who teaches other fractional CMOs how to, set up systems and processes and also they’ve got loads of data. Right? They’ve not done anything with it.

And the people that you’d hired in the past didn’t touch it.

So they might as well just been guessing at the copy they were writing, which is why it wasn’t converting, which is why I knew that we could do so much with it. Point being, like, that’s, like, a side story to tell you. Sometimes when you sometimes something becomes like an industry thing. Oh, if someone says they’ve worked with someone and not like the experience, you should not work with them.

Do your own due diligence.

Yeah. Okay. Rizal, yeah, you were about to ask that. So I hope that answers your question about project boundaries.

Social struggle. If they’re a podcast host, they’re in front of a lot of people. Yes. And they’ve got she’s got, like, I think, close to thirteen million subscribers on YouTube or something like that.

So, yes, that is definitely a social struggle. It’s like, okay.

What kind of life it would be exactly that, you know, this is what I’m gonna be doing, which is something that she did, you know, say it’s not in this in the summary here is, like, I cannot see myself doing this all the time because they’re you know, she’s got other programs. She’s obviously doing the delivery as well along with the rest of her team, but she couldn’t be stuck in the cycle of writing that copy.

The other interesting thing in all of these cases I would like you and why I picked recent ones is because AI. Right? Like, all these smart in tune with the market founders all know about AI, all know about Checkatrade, all know about cloud.

None of them want to take the time to sit down and be the, you know, the prompter or the feeder of, like, hand holder for for LLMs. They do not have the time or the patience.

That is the audience you wanna look at.

Because, one thing I’m always queue again, this is something that I hear a lot in the industry, so that’s why, again, I’m bringing this up is, like, oh, no one’s hiring copywriters.

I don’t know.

So but kind of looking at what is it that people really need solved, and she could, for all purposes, use AI to write her emails for her.

But, yeah, she knows that she does not have the time or the patience. It just feels faster for her to do it herself or repurpose some of her past launch emails even though she knows they probably won’t do as well. But, yeah, that’s the alternative.

Okay. Cool. Anyone wants to weigh in on functional struggle, emotional struggle, social struggle?

Yeah. What kind of life this will be? That’s so true, Donaldson. Like, that is exactly, like and I think you probably even said this on the call. It’s like, I cannot imagine doing this, all of this year and next year. This is not sustainable.

Bernadette, would you say that loss of face is, like, the overarching theme of the social struggle, like, that that most of the time, it’s some kind of worry about loss of perceived status or authority?

Yeah. I would say that. Yeah. You know, fear of losing reputation as an expert, fear of feeling, that people won’t see you in that light that you you want them to see. That is definitely an overarching theme.

Other things that have come up in social struggle has been, you know, their their position as the founder.

They feel like again, it’s because it’s social, it’s kind of like, oh, you know, I’m not it’s been I’ve been doing this for, like, a few years. It just feels like I’m bringing it, and I want that to change.

So but, yeah, mainly, it’s a lot to do with their internal, you know, thoughts and feelings about how others would perceive it, which is the whole social element. Yeah.

Anything else? Any other questions?

Any other insights on any of these?

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

So those of you who are new, something that I tend to do in my calls is give you homework.

So I want you to pull a transcript of one of your prospect calls and put it together into a similar Google Doc like this and share what you think would be the functional, emotional, social struggle or the you know, what would what are you in your in your opinion there? And then share it with me, of course, the rest of the, you know, CSP crew. In fact, please tag me. I tend sometimes tend to miss notifications otherwise.

But, yeah, I would love for you all to do that.

Just kind of start building those muscles trying to pick what clients are really struggling with so you don’t again, this is a step closer to what’s going from being an order taker to someone who starts looking at, okay, what is it that they really need and, yeah, how can I help them? Okay. In this particular client’s case, because I realized I didn’t talk about this, So in her case, for instance, she came in saying that I need help writing evergreen emails. Right?

So easy for me to say, okay. Yeah. Excitingly evergreen would be perfect for you. But because I know she has a lot of data, because I knew that she also wants, you know, to get consistent sales, Instead of just selling her a package, what we’ve done is, of course, you’ll be doing all of her evergreen sequence, but then I’m also doing a quarterly retainer with her where I’m doing her flash sales and I’m doing her, I’m doing newsletters for, people who are not, you know, who went through the webinar but did not buy and flash sales for the larger audience.

So that’s a quarterly retailer. So instead of just being a one off package now, I have a ongoing thing with her for her to help her sell consistently beyond the Evergreen funnel as well.

So in every case in all these three cases, and this yeah. This is pretty much what we’ve seen over the last few years is understanding what an aspect is really, really struggling with helps you sell, be it, and close bigger packages.

Makes it easier for your in in your case, in all your cases because you are creating your standardized offers, and I want you to kinda focus on that.

You wanna start looking at, okay, how does our standardized how does my standardized offer help this client so that and once you start pulling at the struggle, you’ll find that it becomes that much easier for you to close that time because you’re not just saying, oh, I’m gonna be giving you a webinar funnel, or I’m gonna I’m gonna be giving you a website copy, or I’m gonna be giving you an evergreen funnel. No. You’re solving a much bigger problem than that.

Cool.

Alright. Yeah.

Katie, go ahead.

Okay. So I had I had this question before, but what you just said dovetail nicely into it. On on expanding the scope, So I did a preliminary like, of my standardized offer of the three back end funnels, I, sold the initial strategy as a stand like, basically, as a downsell on the sales call.

They said we’re not the whole thing.

I said, okay. Let’s just do the strategy.

While doing that road map, I identified that when it came to the back end offer, like, there was a lot of potential like, they didn’t have the core messaging dialed in for that back end offer enough to want to do the back end for that as well. So in the initial sales call, I had pitched the post sale profit system for both offers.

Mhmm. On the road map presentation call, I pitched post step profit system for the signature offer and then message optimization for the Mhmm. Back end offer.

Mhmm. But that felt like it because that hadn’t come up in the conversation before, it opened a can of worms that they weren’t expecting.

And so it was a muddier conversation because where I probably could have had a very clean clothes on, you know, just doing the back end sales, then we were also talking about an offer that they hadn’t considered that they needed. So it was something that I had spotted as a deeper need, but they weren’t thinking about that yet.

So I guess similar to the affiliate marketer Mhmm. Like, when you’re introducing when you see the deeper need, do you what is your sequencing, I guess, around, like, when you would bring something up like that? Or do you have any tips on how to bring that into the conversation without kind of throwing people, from what they expected?

I tied into the overall goal. Right? So what is again, going back to what was she trying to accomplish? She wanted that it people who bought her LinkedIn bio tool would feel confident and also, you know, continue to see her as the expert that she is when it comes to affiliate marketing.

And not having a proper onboarding nurture term sequence or win back sequence would mean that once they buy, there’s post purchase experience isn’t going to be great because they’re gonna be only getting either ordinary templated emails or maybe no email. Worse, you know, no emails at all. So in my proposal, essentially and I because I did not have another call with her. This was just a single call, close.

So in my proposal, I presented the custom package, and I explained my reasoning for including all of these emails as a you know, along with the exact kind of the same explanation that I just gave you is that since our goal is to a, b, and c, I recommend we have these emails in place.

And, oh, no. This is the affiliate marketer. And that is when her husband wanted to kind of get on a call and say ask, okay.

What would we be doing? What would be the purpose and all that?

So yeah. So I did do two calls with them.

One with her and then one with her and her husband.

So I would present it in the proposal. In your case, I feel I again, I don’t know, Mike, but, did you explain your reasoning?

Or Yes.

Yeah. And then and then because my presentation had, like, a very clear segue into and, like and then then this is where you sign, and then the call was, like, forty five minutes longer than I expected while we discussed my reasoning. So, that’s that’s kind of where I was like, oh, this could have gone better. Or maybe I should’ve, like, maybe I should’ve held off until the proposal, and then Mhmm. They’ll only introduce that offer once they had said yes to the initial offer. I could have introduced it Yeah.

As well add on or Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, I mean, there’s so much here, like, that we don’t really know about, like, the the time there. You know, what was said that they’re trying to solve and things like that. But, yeah, we’re kind of testing out to see whether you present your findings, but then based on your findings, you present your offer to them when you present your proposal.

Mhmm.

So if someone comes for you for something and you identify through your initial research that the deeper need is that they need something else, and that something else will allow you to deliver better what they said they needed, would that be a would that be a deal breaker for you?

If they were to say no Mhmm. Would that be a deal deal breaker for me?

There was a time when it would probably have been like, oh, hey. I know.

But the the level of business owners that I’m kinda working with right now, honestly, I let them know that, okay. Hey. This is what I can see happening if we are to do this, this, and this. At the same time, I understand that a business has other goals, marketing asset allocations, etcetera, etcetera. So if you want, we can push this for later. If you wanna do it on your own later, that’s also cool. But yeah.

Right now, it’s not.

In most cases, they’re willing to kind of park it as a project as a second project.

And if not I mean, again, I did my job of letting them know that this is what would make more of a difference to you. At the end of the day, it’s their business.

So I’m not yeah.

I’m not gonna kind of let myself get walk away from, say, a five figure project because of something that my goal is is, like, don’t let your ego play the game. Just keep focus on and focus on the data. Focus on what you’re investing to do. So yeah.

Because there’s a time where I play it. Yeah. No. I’m the expert here. I know what I’m saying.

I know this would make more of a difference. It would be a whole thing and, like, reach that level of maturity where I’m like, cool. I’ve set my peace, your business, your decision.

I thank you. I aspire to that level of maturity. Working on it.

Yeah. I had the same approach with hiding for my copy as well, but there was a time when I would say, nope.

Nope. Nope. No. No making any changes to my copy. It’s like every single line was based on research and stuff and stuff. Now, again, I explained my reasoning.

I let them know. But if they like, for instance, this affiliate marketer, she would have, like she had very specific things around certain words. Right? So I explained why, but she would be like, no.

Okay. But I feel like my ideal client would put it in. Like, okay. It’s again.

It’s your business.

Alright. Cool. Any other questions? That was those were really good questions, Katie.

Nope?

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

I I know there are ask you a quick question if there’s time.

Sure.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to think how to phrase it as a question. So because, basically, I’m just I’m having hiring pains at the moment.

Okay.

And it’s just making me feel really bad because, like, I didn’t like, the people I’m hiring, they’re just making me look bad to to the client because they keep making mistakes. And then when I’m trying to, like and then I’m having to quality control, and then it’s just taking longer. And I’ve just I feel like I’ve made quite a few bad hires. And I was just wondering if you’ve, like, experienced that or if it you know? Because I’m like, is it me, or is this just part of the learning curve?

It’s part of the learning curve, Abby. I’m sorry to hear that it’s happening. We’ve had our fair share of bad hires.

You know, we worked with, a lot. We we work with a lot of different contractors, which is right now, once we find a really good contractor, I, yeah, I hold on to them for dear life.

But, but it is part of the learning curve.

You may wanna take a look at things like, okay, your onboarding, your processes, and everything. But once you’ve done your own thing, there is which is exactly what I was talking about. You know, like, when people say, oh, we worked with a copywriter, and it wasn’t a great experience. Sometimes it really isn’t the client.

It is the copywriter. I’m sorry, but it’s it’s true. Right? So similarly, in your case, sometimes it’s not you.

It is the contractor. Right? So you need to kind of take a dispassionate look or have someone take a dispassionate look at your processes, your onboarding, your, you know, communication, and if there are no gaps, then it’s probably that person and you need to cut them loose.

So Yeah.

This is very popular, and I am obviously not the one who’s come up with it. But I believe in this for me. It’s like hire slow and fire fast. Fast. I would not Mhmm.

Hold on to someone who’s making us look bad in front of a client that is so, not them. Yeah.

Yeah.

I’ve just had I’ve had a bit of a streak of bad luck, and I don’t know if it’s first.

I think it’s just, like, the lack of care. Like, it really, like, baffles me how little some people care. Like, as I’d like the mistakes I make, and it’s like, how, you know, how what makes you think that’s okay? Like and I I just hate it because I’m, like, selling a, like, a a premium service. And then when the mistake it just makes me feel awful. Like, there’s so much stress, but and I’m struggling to see, like, the light at the end of the tunnel because it has been, like, four people in a row now.

But yeah, I for the same role?

Different roles, like the designer, web developer, and automation, email automation expert. It’s just every time, it’s just been the lack of care and attention to detail.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally relate.

And, again, like I said, really sorry. It is part of the learning curve.

It is hard. Are you hiring based on referrals?

I’m hiring from within the Copiacus community, and then people I’ve worked with before. So kind yeah. Like, I haven’t I haven’t received, like, a really good referral yet.

Someone that, like like, if if if it was someone that, like, someone I trusted vouch for, I think I’d have a better experience. But, yeah, that person just hasn’t kind of come up yet.

So Yeah.

That’s really unfortunate.

It is, things that I’ve worked in the past for us have been basically I’ve always hired on referral. I’ve always as much as possible.

Always hired and run with a couple of test projects and with very little margin for error, basically.

Mhmm.

And so test projects are really important. If you’re not doing test projects, that is something you may wanna add in.

We pay them for the project, but, yeah, kind of gives you an idea of how they, communicate and things like that.

And like like I said, the other thing is it’s kind of evaluating and seeing whether, whether our own processes have a gap somewhere and need need fine tuning.

But but also making it very clear when we hire them, like, things like, okay. Time lines are key, and we just don’t have any wiggle room around that. Like, things like okay. Anything that’s gonna be directly impacting the client.

Because at the end of the day, the buck stops with you. Right? Yeah. I mean, it’s your name.

It’s your brand. Your client does not care whether you’re working with someone else for research. If your editor is sick, that is not your client’s problem.

So those are things that like, making sure that everyone that we hire has the same value system as that when it comes to so having those conversations early on has really, really helped. Like, in the initial conversations, whether it’s been with our editor, whether it’s been with a person who worked for research.

Full disclosure, we’ve had a designer in the past we preferred who’s dropped the ball for our clients. Like, never again would I ever send another person their way. Like, I don’t care what happened.

But yeah. So point being, these are certain things that have worked well for us, but it is unfortunate there are like, it’s it’s hard to find good talent.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s just the the emotional problems I think of, like, when you’re letting go of that control for the first time, which is really scary anyway.

And then Yeah.

Yeah.

And then And then people drop the ball.

Yeah. What?

And then what you fear happens happens, and it’s just Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. Which is why when, like, the first few times we worked with people who went above and beyond, I was like, oh, yeah. This is amazing.

Mhmm.

Never gonna work with anyone else again.

But, yeah, Punez, I would say ask people for referrals, like, instead of, like, hiring like, when you say when you’re hiring from within the community, is it, like, do you say, okay.

I have an opening for this, or do you say, okay. I’m looking for this person. Do you have any referrals? And when people refer, do you ask, have they worked with them? What was their experience like?

Like, what’s that process look like?

Yeah. I mean, it was more just people, like because I was a coach in freelance school for a while, so I had a, like, contact with people on, like, Friday socials and stuff. So I’d spent quite a lot of time with this person, who I’m thinking of. So I felt good hiring them.

And then yeah. I don’t know. I think it’s just like, what I find with freelancers, I think, is they’re watching their profitability so much that it means they, like, don’t spend as long as they should on quality control.

Is Pardon Frozen? Is it just me? Yeah. Okay.

Well, it doesn’t look like she’s gonna unfreeze.

Yeah. I mean, I think we’re at time anyway.

Yeah. I gotta go.

I might wait. I’ll wait for her to come back. Bye, Michelle.

Bye.

Anyways, let’s just kind of wrap this up.

Abby, feel free to, like, if some like, let let us know if there’s, like, a specific role you’re looking to hire for or whatever. If, you know, anyone comes to mind, I will definitely share referrals.

But all of this to say, yeah, this is par for the course, unfortunate, but, yeah, you Everyone’s gone through this. It’s a rite of passage.

It’s all No. I think I needed to hear that. Thank you, Prana.

Yeah.

You’re welcome. Alright. Thank you so much, everybody. I hope you all had fun. I want to see some struggling moments, from your transcripts in Slack next week.

So please tag me, and I will set up scheduled reminders to check-in with you all otherwise. Alright. Thank you, everyone. Bye.