Category: Creating Certifications

 

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

307

00:00:46] April: Hi guys, and welcome to episode number 307, where we are diving into all things LinkedIn etiquette. So let’s talk about first, who is this episode for? So if you are a subject matter expert or a speaker, a consultant or a coach, and you are looking to generate quality leads, and you are willing to do what it takes to actually build relationships with people on LinkedIn, and you realize that by doing that, you’re actually going to increase your profit.

[00:01:15] April: And if you’re like me, you’ve been on LinkedIn and you’re probably really tired of the spam messages. Just yesterday I had a, a well meaning young man send me a DM on LinkedIn and his only question was, do you have an Instagram for your podcast? Of course I was like, yes, of course. Here I have my Instagram channel for my podcast.

[00:01:39] April: And I proceeded to receive an entire video about all the ways that I should be growing my Instagram. Now, I understand that leading with like tips and help is a really nice way to do things, but this guy had never commented on any of my posts. He had no idea who I was, what I did. He didn’t take two seconds to actually determine if I was somebody that even Wanted help growing my Instagram, and that’s where my frustration lies with LinkedIn.

[00:02:08] April: Message me on LinkedIn if you feel the same way. I do want to receive those messages so I can connect with you. So in our process of building LinkedIn shows and having a series of LinkedIn here on the SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast, I was on the hunt for people I really value and I really admire. On the LinkedIn platform that I feel like are communicating in a very substantially real way.

[00:02:34] April: And you can tell that their LinkedIn success has definitely grown and it’s because of their skills in their LinkedIn communication and strategy. So in today’s episode. We get to bring in Selena Young. Now Salina helps you grow your business with LinkedIn and she is in a well established LinkedIn expert.

[00:02:53] April: We’re going to be sharing everything we have here for you and all the show notes, and this is episode number 307. So you can cruise over. To SweetLifeCo.Com click on the podcast and this is episode 307 to find all the goodies that we have here for you. And if you are a subject matter expert coach or consultant, and you’re ready to scale your business to the next level, and you are ready to scale your business past the basics, then we would love to connect with you.

[00:03:21] April: You can actually go over to the show notes as well, and you can download the six components of a highly scalable consulting and coaching business. It’s a. Complete list and a free guide that we would love to give you as our gift. You can find all of it by cruising over again to SweetLifeCo.Com. Click on the podcast and this is episode 307.

[00:03:41] April: All right, let’s go ahead and dive in. I think that you are going to love what Salina says here and you’re going to resonate with her as well. All right, you guys. Welcome back to the show. I’m super excited to be here with my new connection, Salina, and Salina is all over my LinkedIn feed. Let me just say this.

[00:03:57] April: I don’t know how I found her originally, but I have notifications on because I feel like she speaks a language that feels comfortable to me and comfortable with me on LinkedIn. So as I have been trying to grow my LinkedIn presence and being more active, I’ve really been taking your lead on how to it.

[00:04:16] April: Best communicate in a real way that isn’t, uh, overly pushy or salesy or marketing. So anyway, yeah. So, uh, thank you so much for taking your time out to be here on the podcast with us and to drop in your wisdom. We’re all, we’re talking about LinkedIn etiquette today. So can you give us a quick background for our listeners of, you know, you’re the one that talks about this and how you got to this place.

[00:04:43] Salina: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me in your show. Like, it’s just so excited, like sweet live entrepreneur. Come on, everybody wants to be part of this. So I’m Selena Young. I’m the LinkedIn business strategist. So I started my business three years ago, um, teaching people all things LinkedIn, particularly how to basically monetize using the power of LinkedIn.

[00:05:06] Salina: And me and April got connected because like one of my poses talk about how weird sometimes you’re just like so trusting about the whole, like, I think the audience on LinkedIn is really high quality, first of all. But like, sometimes you will just trusting people and decided to accept a stranger. And when they do, um, when we do accept it, the minute that we accept, we do not give you a permission to sell us right away.

[00:05:31] Salina: And that’s the pitch slap that we talk about. That’s how we get connected. And today we’re going to talk about that a bit more.

[00:05:39] April: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was it. I think when I actually saw the words pitch slap written and then you have all your other connections and everybody agrees and there’s this whole chain of connections and everybody’s going, Oh yeah, the pitch slap.

[00:05:51] April: Oh yeah, the pitch slap. I’m like, okay, these are my people. I want to know these people more. I want to hang out with these people and I want, and I want to learn from Selena. So let’s kind of dive into that. We’re talking about LinkedIn etiquette and LinkedIn best practices in, You know, where you have these deadly sins of linkedin that you share, where do you really start with people when they want to become more active?

[00:06:14] April: They want to build their personal brand on linkedin. You know, what, what are these deadly sins that you just are like, please, let’s take note of this first.

[00:06:22] Salina: Yeah, I love that questions a lot. I would start with thinking about the purpose and the goal you want to grow on LinkedIn. Like, is it to find clients?

[00:06:32] Salina: Is it to land a media feature? Is it to basically start building connection? Maybe you just You know, starting out fresh, starting out on your business, then maybe networking. Right. But in a way that, you know, April and I talk about built a deeper connection with another person, like imagine you and them, it’s like a digital handshake.

[00:06:53] Salina: Right. Instead of just like pitch slapping them with like. Hey, this is me. This is what I’m offering. This is my program. This is my website. Like, who are you? First of all, so I would start with your LinkedIn profile. I would warm up your relationship with that person through engaging with their content, like what we do, DMing each other, like understand about like, Oh, who you are, how do you help?

[00:07:18] Salina: Who is your ideal, um, sort of avatar and then go it from there. And, and I think that is much more natural step than someone just like, Hey, April, uh, I’m Selena. I’m the LinkedIn business strategist. This is my website. Check it out. Uh, let’s book a call. I would be like, uh, wait a minute. Like. Please slow down.

[00:07:36] Salina: Who are you? Right? So things like that will really helps to nurture the relationship and later down in the line, it’s exactly what I teach as well. It helps you with sales as well. It’s just take it longer to warm up the audience. But when they do decided to jump on a call and you guys are a match to work together, when you do on a sales call, it’s like a one call sales rather than like you already broke the initial trust and impression with the other person.

[00:08:03] Salina: And then you take it from there, right? Yeah, so that’s, that’s how I see starting out on LinkedIn, figuring the goal, figuring the purpose.

[00:08:12] April: Right, that’s such good advice. And I love that you said it’s gonna take longer, but with that, you’re so right, that when it’s time to convert into pre call, you know, cause we need to disqualify clients, just like we need to pre call.

[00:08:24] April: Prequalify them is just as important and going through the process of connecting with people in the feed, connecting with people in the posts. And I love it when I receive a message from somebody who has at least like two of my posts or commented on something because they actually seem familiar to me and I’m not afraid even if sometimes, you know, they might be.

[00:08:45] April: Pitch slapping me like as you call it, but I’m so much more open to it because I appreciate that they have taken the time to connect with me in the public feed. Absolutely. It just, it, you know, relationships sell. Yeah. And, and we can’t, well, maybe somebody would argue we can buy relationships, but really that level of trust comes with communication of conversation.

[00:09:06] April: And a bit of time too. So for somebody who’s new onto LinkedIn, if they’re trying to find people to connect with it, do you have like a hack or a way that somebody can find the right people to connect with and start following so that they can start messaging people that could be there? Perspective clients.

[00:09:24] Salina: Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn’t say a hack, but it’s more like really go down to what you just said about like who they are, right? Like if. They are targeting similar target audience. It’s easy to open up a conversation by saying, Hey, I really like your content, right? Just like April, you, you receive someone saying, Oh, I really like your content.

[00:09:45] Salina: I really resonate. And exactly like, this is like podcast interview show. That’s this beautiful collaboration happened. Right. And just that instant, um, connection. And I think like sometimes we over. Engineering the part where people will not answer you, but it’s actually not true if you personalize in a way that it’s adding value to the other person, I think it’s ultimately is a big yes, whether it’s to jump on a podcast show interview like this, a collaboration or even to ask for the big ass of sales.

[00:10:19] Salina: I think it’s, it’s very easy when you truly understand the other person who is their target audience, how you can help write things that, um, I find there’s two message, particularly really, really helpful. One started with, let’s say April, you and I are not connected on LinkedIn. I will go through your LinkedIn trying to figure out ways of the content that you’re creating on LinkedIn and say, Hey, I can add value to this.

[00:10:44] Salina: This is something that you and I could work together on. That is one way of doing so. The other way of doing so is like really understanding, um. The offer that you are sharing, like, let’s say business coaching, you’re helping people to basically do business modeling that it’s very highly profitable.

[00:11:03] Salina: Maybe, you know, another like big creator in the space on LinkedIn. Let’s say I know a lot of creators that is doing that. I would love to connect both of you together. That’s at value. But equally is not No. Something that people will find, Oh, that’s so salesy. Why are you messaging me? But there will be like, Oh, I’m open for this beautiful connection.

[00:11:22] Salina: I would like to know the other creator that is doing exactly what I’m doing. And I can work with her to partner up or affiliate or things like that.

[00:11:31] April: Right. And that is so valuable. And I love that you said that too, because it’s not just this and why I value your voice on this. Cause it’s not just necessarily this networking app.

[00:11:42] April: It’s a place to truly build alliances and mastermind with other people and to connect. And I know that I would find that. you’re like, Hey April, you should know Joe or whoever, you know, and we try to do that. You know, I do that actually for our clients, but now that you’re saying that, I probably definitely don’t do that enough for my connections.

[00:12:04] April: And so that’s something that I want to be better at. So as you’re saying this, I’m going, okay, I really need to look at my connections. Who do I value being like, you should know this person. And I know I value that. So I know that my connections would value that in, frankly, I just really never thought about that from a standpoint.

[00:12:21] Salina: And you’re such a so so butterfly. I can tell people it’s like, yeah, I know, I know you through April. Thank you so much, April, for this. And then like, it helps you with like this snowball effect of business opportunity as well. Right? Like when someone think about business coaching, the first person think about is April because you already helped them so much.

[00:12:41] Salina: Initially to make all those beautiful connection. Right. And I love that sentence that people say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And that’s, I think the together component, it’s what the most precious thing about LinkedIn. Um, people talk about business all the time and they carry a mindset of like, Oh yeah, we’re like creating this, um, partnership, we’re creating this. Opportunity either as business or a career, um, it’s, it’s normal in this space.

[00:13:14] April: Yeah. And I think that for, I mean, I’ve been down LinkedIn probably since, uh, 2008, 2009, a long, long time ago. I’m aging myself. Right. But I think that for me, In the last couple of years, recognizing the value of really great genuine connections that we haven’t been able to really make on other social media platforms and people I can learn from and people I can contribute to.

[00:13:41] April: And I love that you said that because that is the exact. Intention of why I know that many people are here. Like you were saying, they’re very valuable connections here and contributions, clients, collaborations, partnerships. And, and so I love that those are some of the ways that you lead with for your connections.

[00:14:01] April: So let’s talk a little bit about some. Direct messaging, direct messaging, things that people should not do on LinkedIn.

[00:14:12] Salina: Oh, love that. There’s so many, but I would start with the two, uh, of my least favorite. So I got a lot of people asking me to like send them a recommendation endorsement, and those are usually strangers.

[00:14:27] Salina: And I’ll be like, who are you? Why would I endorse you? Endorse your skill. If I have not even like. Work with you before recommendation either. And I think this is like a big no, no on LinkedIn because you’re giving a task first to someone completely stranger. You don’t even build the initial, um, like sort of like, um, relationship.

[00:14:49] Salina: And on top of it, you just like basically hurting your own personal reputation in this space because. But imagine if it’s a job, right, your future employer will call that person up or DM in that person. Hey, can you vouch for Selena for X, Y, Z? And that person will be, I don’t know who they are, but yeah, I endorsed them previously.

[00:15:09] Salina: It’s hurt them the reputation for both ends, right? Because you’re the one that giving and you’re the one that asking. So I would say this is the number one. No, no, from my end asking stranger for endorsement and recommendation on LinkedIn.

[00:15:23] April: Okay. I love that. And, and yeah, it’s, it’s your personal credibility too. And one of the things that we shared before we started recording is I’ve had people go through and kind of click certain endorsements for me, though I appreciate that I do who they are. And so, you know, then, then they would send a message, say, Hey, I just endorse you for this. And I would have this guilty conscience of like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t, I didn’t, but that has actually bothered me for years where I’m like, Oh, thank you. But I have no clue who you are or what you do, whether or not you’re good at it or what that is. So

[00:15:59] Salina: I think when some LinkedIn guru started to give tips about this, and I think like people start doing it, but without like a purpose or like strong goal of doing it. Right. So yeah, don’t ever feel guilty, April.

[00:16:13] Salina: It’s not your fault. It’s. Their fault, like they shouldn’t even start it with, you know, endorsing people that they don’t know and not really cultivating and like building that relationship first.

[00:16:25] April: Right. Okay. Great. Thank you for my release of that. Uh, so now let’s kind of go into frequency of direct messaging as far as with people you do want to become your clients.

[00:16:41] April: Do you have a recommended way that you, that you’ve known they have done the best practices, right? You’ve connected with them in the feed, you’ve built a relationship with them and you’ve added value. You’ve done all the things that you’ve said. And sometimes that, that jump to, Hey, what’s the next step feels like a pretty big jump to people getting prospects on a call.

[00:17:03] April: Do you have any recommendations on how to convert? From the, the relationship just into the actual sales prospect.

[00:17:10] Salina: I love that question so much. I literally just create a video, particularly around that topic. Um, it’s called the LinkedIn Grove strategies, just 15 minutes per day. So like obviously it’s like a 10 minute video.

[00:17:25] Salina: It’s really long. I go nitty gritty, but I will put into like three buckets. One we talk about like April and I talk about the engagement piece, I think is a really, really big piece. And then engagement could actually go first before even connecting with another person. Just like the point that you talk about, right.

[00:17:42] Salina: April you said. I remember this face like it’s on my feed. She supported my content. That instant connection will allow me to just accept that connection invitation. If that person is sending me in the second sort of like bucket that they’re doing right and the last one, I know what you mean by like, Oh, how do I actually jump into the conversation of sales?

[00:18:05] Salina: Right, I would actually take a step back and think about more in terms of your content. And I think. Content on LinkedIn. It’s such a like opportunity that a lot of people is not using. In fact, there’s only 5. 5 percent of the entire user on LinkedIn is posting on LinkedIn consistently, which means it’s so easy for you to dominate the new newsfeed.

[00:18:28] Salina: And the funny thing is like, if I’m thinking about my corporate. Like, uh, days, right. When I’m still working for LinkedIn during corporate days, I don’t actually engage a lot, like I would actually consume content. I don’t like people content. I don’t comment on people content, but I’m still interested to hear about what, like April, you have to say, what about sweet live entrepreneur?

[00:18:51] Salina: What, uh, what about your offer, but not necessarily interacting in the comments section. Right. So I would actually go back and really dial into your, like. Conversion when it comes to content, did you really at the end of the sort of like content, is there ways to connect with your audience? That is really like relatable.

[00:19:15] Salina: Is there like problems that you’re trying to help other people solve? And then at the end of it, the CTA needs to be extremely clean. And my preferred one is usually DM and then the word, which is the word. It could be your program name. It could be April, your name. It could be like. Things that you hope your clients to solve, right?

[00:19:34] Salina: Like it could be LinkedIn. Then it will be DME, the word LinkedIn, and let’s have a chat. And in that way, it just helps. Instantly to create that really easy flow of conversation of more transactional because they, you know, the other person is interested to talk to you to know more about your offer. And then from there, the transactional conversation is much more easier.

[00:19:58] Salina: And there is an ending point of it, right? Whether you want to take them on the sales page directly to buy a course or directly to book, um, sales consultation call with you VSL, whatever that is, it becomes much more natural. So I will start with that.

[00:20:16] April: Great tip. So, so far we’ve talked about authentically connecting in the feed. We’ve talked about adding value. We’ve talked about connecting our connections to each other. And providing value just because we’re good people and we want to and we know two people that would know each other and they could be great and actually leading with that place of I want to serve, I want to give first and now your tip about this content is so well, Smart because there are a lot of people that want to create content, but there’s something about LinkedIn.

[00:20:49] April: Maybe it’s because we’ve been in the Instagram, Facebook content space for so many years, and it’s just a totally different audience, different objective, a different culture, a different like all of it is different. And so there there seems to be this disconnect LinkedIn versus other social platforms that People may be on.

[00:21:11] April: I know that our clients struggle with that, and those are things that they bring up, which is why I’m so grateful to have you on the show and talking about this. And it’s really how to create content that is conversional. And so with that being said, because I just know our listeners and I Anticipate the questions are asking, how often do you recommend creating or posting not just any content, but that content that asks for a call to action content.

[00:21:38] Salina: Oh my goodness. Love that. I would say it’s a ratio. So for, for instance, it’s a easy ratio to follow. It’s let’s say you post every single day, which is what I recommend Monday to Friday. If it’s possible, then I would say you can have one post that is a ask post, which is you really like. Calling out your audience.

[00:21:57] Salina: Hey, like attention. Mine is like entrepreneur and corporate escapee. If you want to like create a follower, the brand, this is my offer. If you’re interested, let’s have a chat. And automatically we, we mentioned about the conversion, right? Because this is a ask. You need to understand that those type of lead generation posts will not get you engagement, a lot of engagement, just like other posts.

[00:22:19] Salina: Like if it’s a storytelling post about like. April, how you started your business, how you like created this amazing podcast show. Why do you create it? It’s obviously getting more eyeballs and more attention and engagement and people are more likely to engage, like commenting like, Oh, this is such a good show.

[00:22:37] Salina: I’ve been support a huge supporter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Continue the conversation. Whereas if you are direct asked, the conversation is less. But I can guarantee you, whoever that is listening to us right now, that ass is so important because without ass, no one knows exactly what you’re selling. And also it’s a direct ask that it’s just like, you know, I already at so much value throughout the entire week, like with educational polls, how you can basically achieve what you want with the goals.

[00:23:06] Salina: Obviously the, the goals that you want, right? Little mini bite side tips. And then from there you just like, Oh, if you want to learn more, obviously with each day, just two to three minutes of digesting, my content would not get you to where you want it to be. If you want to like 10 X your income or like help to land, um, media feature using LinkedIn, this is the program for you and that ass is important.

[00:23:30] Salina: So I will. Do that ratio if not if you’re posting twice or three times per week, then you can do two asks Um for the whole month and that could be ranging from you can do testimonial as well There’s so many ways of the big ass that you can do not just like hey This is my hand, take my hand. This is my program, but there’s also ways of like using soft styling, using your client testimonial to talk about those results, and then from there to, um, do the big ass of DM you about the work that we just talk about, or this is the sales page, go ahead and learn more.

[00:24:05] April: Wow. That we could have done a whole episode just on that.

[00:24:09] Salina: Know.

[00:24:11] April: Oh my gosh. Um, definitely need to have you back on the show. Uh, this. information is really valuable. And I appreciate so much that you lead with this. You practice this, you, you know, function through this day in and day out on all your LinkedIn content.

[00:24:27] April: I’ve learned so much already about being okay with posting five days a week. I’ve heard that, you know, you don’t need to do that, but I actually. Have enough content that I’ve wanted to share five days a week. And I felt like, honestly, it was this overkill. I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to bury all these, you know, followers on LinkedIn.

[00:24:45] April: So I love that you said that. And that’s really encouraging. And then just about how you’re asking for the ask that is, uh, that. That is so, um, you know, people are overusing the word authentic. So I actually try to avoid using that word so much now, but it’s direct and it’s intentional and it is starting with sharing why somebody needs to be there in, in, in coaching.

[00:25:12] April: I’ve coached entrepreneurs never. 27 years. But in coaching that I feel like the number one thing that we do is we serve, serve, serve. And we don’t come anywhere near asking for somebody to take the next step. I think we do that a lot. And so I love that you said that. Especially women. Right. Like, let me help you. Let me throw up more great information all over you or whatever that is, you know? Yeah.

[00:25:37] Salina: There’s a stigma that we’re like, Oh, we just wait. No, no more waiting. Just do the asking. Cause when you do ask results just come so naturally.

[00:25:47] April: Yeah. Yeah. And I would just end with this to our listeners. You know, how many of you guys are out there posting great content, but there are still a, you know, people.

[00:25:58] April: Might not actually be sure how to buy you or what to buy you for or what that next step is and you’re so good at sharing and teaching and contributing and transforming your audiences and giving all this great content and yet you, you have a group of followers that actually might want to engage with you and you are not giving them opportunity to say, Hey, I’m so glad that you know, you’re here.

[00:26:24] April: This is what happened with, you know, April when she worked with me and this is what it is, and these are the end results that, you know, we provide, you know, Are you ready for that? Do you want that? And so I just want to encourage our listeners and people tuning into this show that, you know, selling, um, Myron Golden, I don’t know if you listen to Myron, but I love Myron.

[00:26:43] April: He’s a business leader. Myron Golden says selling is a gift, right? And when we have a solution that we know delivers people or companies measurable, predictable, transformational results, then therefore it’s our obligation to make that available to them. And I think that there is so much of a. Of a, of a practice of free content.

[00:27:07] April: Free content, or even, you know, slightly paid content. And so I appreciate so much your ratio because we don’t wanna be over salesy. We don’t wanna be. Yes. And so I think we overcorrect so much. We actually don’t sell anything sometimes.

[00:27:18] Salina: I know. Yeah. And I love what you mentioned. It’s like, to me it’s like a act of love. An act of service. We’re not a product pusher. We’re just like, if. You and I are a match to work together. That’s an act of love. That’s an act of service. I inviting you to work with me, right? Just like them, the process that you mentioned, we just like qualify your leads.

[00:27:40] Salina: That’s an act of service. Knowing you and I are a good match to work together. If it’s not, then I’m sorry. Let’s, let’s say bye right here. And then later down the road, when you and I are ready, let’s, let’s go ahead and work together, right? So,

[00:27:53] April: yeah. Yeah. And actually doing our potential prospects a favor and saying, you know what? I’m not the right one for you, but here’s somebody else who could be, or, you know, using that very clear language into what our brand is.

[00:28:05] April: Like I, I’m not for everybody for sure. And so, I mean, when I speak on stages, I even speak on stages and flip flops. I mean, some people don’t want me, that’s just who I am. I’m not going to know who I am. Right.

[00:28:16] Salina: So that’s me every day. Okay. Right.

[00:28:20] April: So I was just. Speaking of podcast movement a couple of weeks ago, and you know, I showed up in my flip book, but that’s just who I just always who I’ve been.

[00:28:26] April: Right. Yeah. I feel like. There. I feel like that’s I feel like exactly like you’re saying. I love what you said that that is also a gift to disqualify people with our content with our messaging. And when we go in for that, making that service available to them, just being like, yeah, you know, this is you’re not either ready for this or this isn’t a good fit.

[00:28:46] April: Yeah, I think that’s it. I think that’s awesome. And if

[00:28:52] Salina: I can add two actionable points in terms of what you just said. If someone just like, the big ask is to really leverage the link you have on LinkedIn. Which shouldn’t be just putting a company website, but instead it could be the most important CTA you want.

[00:29:08] Salina: That is related to your sales goal. Let’s say you’re now launching a masterclass, a free workshop, put it right there. Like don’t waste your real estate. The second really good place to put is your feature section is completely for free. It’s the most clickable area on LinkedIn. And my question is why not utilizing it?

[00:29:28] Salina: It’s free traffic, free place to basically go through your funnel. So make use, make good use of those two plays.

[00:29:36] Salina: And I’m going to go change my general website link on my LinkedIn profile right now. I feel so bad, I’m sorry.

[00:29:44] April: What do you mean? That was gold for

[00:29:47] April: me. Don’t what. Well, I’m so grateful that you said that because, yeah. So basically we use our lead magnet or whatever that event we’re hosting in that first action step into our ecosystem of services.

[00:29:58] April: Yes. Golden. I’m going to add it to the list. I’m totally going to do that. Absolutely. Right now. Thank you so much.

[00:30:06] Salina: Perfect. I love actionable steps that you can take and implement, you know. Yeah, we do too. We eat them up. So how can people really connect with you? And just your content is so good. I want to make sure people know how to find

[00:30:20] Salina: you.

[00:30:21] Salina: Yeah, on LinkedIn. Really? I’m most active there. If you DM me like most. Most of the time I’ll be the one that responding. If not, my VA would definitely reroute you to me. Uh, but LinkedIn is the pace, uh, place to go. I do, however, started, um, YouTube channels. If you want to learn something more longer form of training, I have few trainings to get started on LinkedIn, how to basically use LinkedIn, uh, for your business.

[00:30:48] Salina: We also talk about LinkedIn premiums, which is a big topic that everybody asks all the time. Um, me and. April talk about the LinkedIn adequate. I actually have a specific dedicated show that is talk about a tan deadly scene. So if you want to like go through that, that will be really helpful, but it’s really expanding on some of the really great nugget that we just talk about today.

[00:31:10] April: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So that’s all on your YouTube is over there. And awesome. Okay. And we’ll make sure that the links to find you are in the show notes for this episode for sure. And so people can connect with you further. And I appreciate so much your time and being here and contributing and being such a leader in this space.

[00:31:29] Salina: Thank you you so much for having me on the show. I have such a fun time like geeking out talking all things LinkedIn with you.

[00:31:36] April: I really appreciate your wisdom. Thank you so much.

 

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

306 

[00:00:46] April: Hi there. Welcome back to the SweetLife Entrepreneurial Podcast. Especially those of you guys who’ve been with us for six years. I appreciate your listenership so much. In this particular show, we are continuing our series all about LinkedIn, how to generate leads on LinkedIn, how to use LinkedIn really the best way for your business.

[00:01:05] April: And this one is all about how to use LinkedIn events to generate a maximum number of leads. So, If you’re in this place where you are a subject matter expert, a coach, or a consultant, you, by the way, are the exact people that this show and our company is built for. And everything that we’re doing here is to tap in and help you uncover strategies that you can take away.

[00:01:26] April: As a matter of fact, this podcast has been known for delivering proven business trainings and strategies that other coaches will charge you thousands for. So you’re certainly in the right place. Now, if you have been trying to use LinkedIn events, like me, frankly, I’ve been doing LinkedIn events, but now that I have been through this episode that you’re about to hear, I realized that I was missing a lot of details in the steps.

[00:01:48] April: And so Jen Corcoran, who is our expert here on the show today, is a queen when it comes to LinkedIn lead generation. And so she’s going to actually unpack the steps of how to correctly set up a LinkedIn event. Did you know that you can actually create an, a LinkedIn event from your company page and connect and collect email addresses? I had no idea.

[00:02:11] April: But there are certainly pros and cons to that because you usually have less followers on your company page than you do a personal page. So in this show, we’re going to pack all, unpack all things LinkedIn events, and we are going to take you through how to set it up, where to put it, how to communicate before the event.

[00:02:27] April: And then I asked Jen a couple of really specific questions about paid events. And those of you guys who have like paid lead magnets or Paid live virtual events, even if they’re low ticket items. How do those work with LinkedIn events? And what is the strategy behind that? So the end of this show, you are going to know the three steps to actually set up program and fill your LinkedIn events.

[00:02:51] April: Jen even talks about how she gets thousands of invites out from her LinkedIn account to attend her events. And she breaks down her communication processes and how she actually doesn’t spend hours. That just seems like it would take forever to me. And she unpacked how it doesn’t actually take that long to connect further with people on LinkedIn through direct messaging in the most clear, non sleazy, genuine way possible.

[00:03:18] April: And we’re going to unpack all that here on the show. So if you’d like to dive in, stay tuned with me here and you’re going to have all of the show notes by visiting SuiteLifeCo. com. This is episode number 306. So you can just click on the podcast, click on episode number 306 and everything that you have been told will be waiting there for you.

[00:03:38] April: So glad you’re here. Let’s go ahead and dive in. Hi, everybody. Thank you for tuning in with us here. This is my friend Jennifer, and I met Jen because I actually convinced her to come in and teach a masterclass to our clients last spring. She was absolutely incredible, and everybody loved her, and she was teaching about newsletters at the time.

[00:03:58] April: And so she has definitely become a go to LinkedIn person for myself. And my team and for our clients as well. And so I’m really glad that we are bringing her here on the Suite Life Entrepreneur podcast, because I need to learn a lot about what Jen is talking about here today. Jen, you want to take a second, just give a little bit of background and introduce yourself.

[00:04:22] Jen: Sure. Thanks so much for having me. I’m really happy to be on this podcast with you. So I’m a LinkedIn consultant and I specialize with helping mainly introverted. sensitive and empathic female entrepreneurs. So my approach is a bit more sensitive than the main kind of hustle hype approach. So I’m more about feeding in integrity and feeding in flow.

[00:04:45] Jen: And I love events in my past life. I was an event manager, so I genuinely love connecting people. And I think LinkedIn events is an amazing feature. It’s probably my. Favorite feature and bit of content in terms of ROI. So I’m really excited to be chatting about it today with you, because I don’t think enough people tap into the power of the, of the event feature or know how to like find it or leverage it. So yeah, I’m really excited to be chatting about it.

[00:05:15] April: I am excited too because I was just sharing with you because, you know, before we recorded here that I just posted an event about a free event that we’re doing and so I just created it and exactly as you said, the process of going back and finding it and seeing where it was in, in the actual LinkedIn interface first of all, that was confusing to me.

[00:05:35] April: And then the second thing is to be completely honest, I really don’t have a full blown event strategy. To promote events on LinkedIn. So I was, I was really excited that you agreed to come on and, and talk about that. So let’s, let’s start out by chatting about the LinkedIn interface and just really even, how do we even, how do people set up an event?

[00:06:01] Jen: So you’re right. It’s not very intuitive. I personally wish there was like a tab at the very top menu that was for events, but there isn’t. So the easiest way to do it is on the desktop versus the mobile app. And just bring up your profile. Click on your home feed and if you scroll down on the left hand side you’ll see various shortcuts.

[00:06:25] Jen: So you’ll see like recent shortcuts, so things you’ve been, content you’ve been looking at recently. You’ll see groups and then below you’ll see events and you’ll see a little plus. sign. And that’s how you start to create your event from your profile. It works pretty much the same on your company page.

[00:06:43] Jen: You have to kind of scroll and find it down in the menu. It’s not obvious, but once you’re there, the good news is once you click through on the plus, they’re very easy to populate. It’s basically. Nice cover image. I always create them with camera, and then it’s literally the name of the event, the date, the time, the duration, a little description and the link.

[00:07:06] Jen: So pretty easy to set up and you can tag in any relevant speakers. If you’re doing an event, you know, a webinar you can tag them in, which is great. The difference really from doing it on your profile and your page, they’re basically the same, but from a business page you get an additional option of getting people to sign to and register so you get their email.

[00:07:30] Jen: You can’t do it from your personal profile, but on the company page you can set up an extra registration form, so they have to fill that out to be able to Join the live or watch the replay and then of course you can download their emails after so you can email them So that’s the beauty of doing it from your page over your profile and on the flip side People buy people more and you’re going to have a lot more connections on your personal profile So if you’re sending it from your company page and you’ve got a completely different name people mightn’t be as quick to accept Whereas if they know you They’re going to probably accept to your profile. So they’re both great. The page is especially great if you want to download emails.

[00:08:17] April: Okay. So now I have a question about that. Would you recommend, because with our event and with all the events I’ve done, I set them up on my personal profile. Would you recommend creating two events or duplicating it and one from the company page or.

[00:08:32] April: Maybe creating it because I love the idea of getting the emails because that’s what we’re going to talk about next the events We usually host or in zoom or you know someplace else and there’s an offline link and there’s another it’s like two or three Degrees away for people that actually register and get to the event. So First of all, do you recommend creating the event in two places or not?

[00:08:55] Jen: One is enough. You know, if you really want to download the emails, do it from your company page, you’ll always have that option. I think if you duplicate it just gets a bit messy and it’s just a bit more time consuming for you. And yeah, I think in relation to the external link that when you set up a LinkedIn event page, you’ve got various dropdown options.

[00:09:17] Jen: So you can either, Do an external link to something in person like an Eventbrite, or it could be a Zoom, a virtual event, or you’ve got the option of LinkedIn live or a LinkedIn audio. So when it’s an external link like a webinar or you kind of always have to nudge your attendees. So I think the first kind of nudges in the description part of the event, put the event like at the very top and go, Hey, have you like clicked all the way through?

[00:09:48] Jen: This is the link and then not be shy to click on manage attendees and DM them all. And I know it sounds like quite labor intensive, but it’s really not. If you have a little short and sweet kind of message like, Hey Mary, thanks for signing up for my event. Just want to make sure that you’ve signed all the way through.

[00:10:07] Jen: Here’s the link. Excited to see you there. And you just literally bang that out to the attendees. It doesn’t take that long. And it’s a great way to. Make sure that they have gone all the way true because 50 percent of the people won’t and they’ll be like, Hey, Oh God, I didn’t realize, thanks for that. Or, you know, you’ll start a conversation with all your attendees.

[00:10:27] Jen: So it just gets everybody excited because with the event feature, it’s not super intuitive. People can accept an event and then they can forget because they can’t really find out where, where are those events. So I think it’s, it’s a great thing to do is to definitely personally. DM people before and I always DM them after as well.

[00:10:49] April: Such great tips. Okay, so let’s go back to kind of unpacking this step by step. So it is… Okay, to have offline events on LinkedIn. And, and so I, I, I think most events that unless it’s a LinkedIn audio or something, or even a LinkedIn live. Yeah. So they’re going to have the external link there. Um, great tip to add the external link to the event description, not just leaving it in there that says link to the event.

[00:11:14] April: I’m going to go back right away and make sure our event is updated to include that. So yeah. So that next step really is DMing people that said they’re going to attend. Yeah. And I love your quick little script that you said, Hey, I can’t wait to see you. Just wanted to make sure you, you went all the way through and registered.

[00:11:34] April: Um, do you find that people are open to that? I like, I don’t like direct messages on LinkedIn, so I’m always super careful before I DM somebody and I probably am an over creation of anti DMing. Um, so I think I’m on the total opposite side of that. But I do see the value in that in it. Is that one of your secret recipes to get so many people to actually follow through and come to your event.

[00:11:58] Jen: Definitely. And I think most people will remember that they signed up. It was something they want, but they are grateful and they’ll come back and say, well, thank you. Sorry. I missed that, you know, and then it just gets you into a nice. Genuine conversation of I’m really looking forward to it. Or, you know, people will say, Oh, I’ve shared it with my friend or I’ve shared it in a group.

[00:12:15] Jen: And you’re like, wow. So you start to get into a nice conversation. And I think of it as like warm outreach, you know, they’ve signed up, whether they remember or not. And even if they, you know, a lot of people will come back and say, do you know what, I can’t make it now. So if it’s come up and I’ll say, don’t worry, I’ll DM you the replay after.

[00:12:32] Jen: So again, it’s another nice conversation and you have another opportunity to touch base after. Only rarely do I get people go, Oh, I never signed up for that and I’ll be like, Oh, you did? It’s the event page. I can send you the replay and you know, don’t worry about it, you know. So, it never goes awkward. I don’t think anybody like, feels like they’re being sold to or anything because it’s generally some kind of a training event and even if they don’t remember, I position it in a good way that they go, Do you know what, actually, I think I will go.

[00:13:04] Jen: Or I will check out. Okay, so yeah, I think it’s always like warm outreach. It doesn’t feel spammy the people they’ve signed up for whatever reason They like you they like their company, you know, do your company they like the topic So for some good reasons split decision they accepted the invite or they’ve actually seen you posting about it and actively Start to join the at the event page.

[00:13:26] Jen: So um Yeah, with an event. I do promote them in various ways. Of course, we’ve got the LinkedIn event page, but I’ll always like email my list. I’ll always share on LinkedIn anyway, on my personal home feed, on my company page in my LinkedIn group. So I, I try to really share about the event so that people are, You know, familiar with it. They’re not like, what is this?

[00:13:52] April: Yeah. And I think that’s a really good point is making sure that we’re feeding it. We’re not just totally relying on LinkedIn that we’re using all of our marketing channels, especially when we’re doing events that are really an important part of our marketing and campaign and launches.

[00:14:05] April: So what

[00:14:07] April: about, so we, we have the event, do you share the event multiple times between when you created it to your personal feed? So if somebody is having an event in. You know, let’s say 10 days from now about how many times would you reshare that event back to your feed saying, Hey, don’t forget, I’m hosting this cool event.

[00:14:28] Jen:

[00:14:28] Jen: Well linkedIn themselves, they kind of advocate that you should be create the event page about two to four weeks in advance. So it’s much kind of. You know notice that you can for me I would probably just share the event once or twice I create separate graphics that would probably have more impact than the actual event page So i’d share it in different ways, but it’s the same content, but it will look visually different And the main thing for me is I will invite my first degree connections to the event page manually.

[00:14:59] Jen: So You can invite a thousand first degree connections every five days, which sounds like a lot, but there are, there is a hacky way of really inviting people quick onto your event page where you can invite them at like 50 at a go. So when you kind of click into the filters, My favorites, one is school, one is company, these don’t really work for me when I’m targeting like coaches or consultants, I target by location, if it was like a local event you can do that, or I mainly target by industry, so I select, you know, the right one for me, it’s usually professional training and coaching, and then At the very top, LinkedIn will populate, it will start to bring up all the, the coaches and trainers and everything.

[00:15:47] Jen: And you can manually do one by one, which is very like time consuming, boring, but at the very top left, there is a little box. And if you click that, it selects 50 at a time. So if you’re 50, 50, 50, 50, you really can invite a thousand people really quickly. At the moment, I’m I’m running a, a virtual summit for sensitive people in October.

[00:16:14] Jen: So I’ve got an event page for that and I’ve set it up a few weeks in advance. So I’ve already invited, I think 3000 people every week. I’m like, Oh, I’ve got my credit back. Let me invite another thousand more because that’s the way I get maximum people. And I think if you’re lucky, you get about 10 percent accept, which is really good.

[00:16:34] Jen: If you think of like, you know, the rate of kind of exchange of an email list, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s. Pretty good. So yeah, I wouldn’t just rely on just creating the page and posting it and that’s it Because you’re only gonna get a handful of people whereas the way I do it manually inviting them I always get a hundreds of people on every event and it’s hundreds of leads So it’s worth it.

[00:16:58] Jen: And then if I’ve got a speaker I say to them, can you invite? A thousand people from their network and I make them a tiny little training showing them how to do it And then it just gets maximum bums on seats.

[00:17:10] April: Wow Okay I was going through with our event and like looking at everybody’s title sorting them out title like click click click I think I sat there for a good 45 minutes and only invited what I felt like was a ton of people which was 88 that I felt, and I was skipping people.

[00:17:26] April: I’m like, no, they’re not the perfect person. Um, so this makes me feel much better that there’s a much more efficient way and another reason why I was so excited to have this conversation because I was thinking, this is not sustainable. . Yeah. How, how do I do this? I, I have very little time to be doing be this.

[00:17:43] April: Okay. Very cool. Now, so after. Wait, I have one question here. What about events that are not free? What about paid events? What about events that are, uh, yeah, paid? Um,

[00:17:58] Jen: if I’m honest, it’s the same kind of process. I still would invite a thousand of my first week connections and Still have to nudge people to sign up manually to the link.

[00:18:10] Jen: You, most people, well, 50 percent of the people will not click true. They’ll think they’re signed up and you’re like, no, you have to click through this particular link. So, and the same, I would have different visuals. So I don’t think I would do. Anything different? Um, I, if it was a paid event, I would definitely want access to everybody’s email.

[00:18:31] Jen: So I would definitely do on my company page more so than my profile. But I think other than that, it would just be. The exact same way of marketing it and just giving yourself as much lead up time like I definitely did two to four weeks. There have been some free lives that I’ve done, you know, a week out, um, but with a paid, I would definitely do two to four just to drive that kind of visibility and reach and not just rely on, you know, a few days, whereas, you know, for a free event, you can get a lot of people jumping on at the last minute. So it’s a bit different.

[00:19:05] April: And with paid events. You know, because they think that almost all of them are going to be free because that’s just the way it works, really. So with paid events, I’m guessing it’s probably important in the description to say the cost of this ticket is, you know, 50 bucks or 500 or whatever it is. Do you feel like LinkedIn is a good place to also market paid trainings in the events page or really just lead gen?

[00:19:31] Jen: I’ve done both, you know, I think I primarily lead with free and I think like you said people are used to free and then, you know, they come along to a live or a webinar and then you kind of plug your paid services there. I think in general, I do see a lot more people free events on LinkedIn, whether it’s, you know, a LinkedIn live or an audio, you kind of give that free value first and then they buy into you.

[00:19:56] Jen: I think you could do paid one, but you wouldn’t want to be doing it all the time because people will just feel like you’re advertising. But if it’s like a one off, if it’s like, maybe it’s something you’re doing once or twice a year, I see no harm in it. But I think if you were to do it all the time, People will just get in their head that you’re someone that’s constantly selling.

[00:20:20] Jen: So you want to really stand out as somebody who’s, you know, giving value. Of course, you can plug sales calls and things at the end of your free stuff. And of course, you’re not going to get as many people onto a page when it’s just, it’s just sadly, just the way it is. There’s so much stuff online that they like to come in and test out the free first, but I don’t see any reason why you can’t, you know, I’m thinking of one paid event that I know is being promoted at the moment on LinkedIn, but I don’t know if it has an event page.

[00:20:52] Jen: So I’m going to go away and have a look. I’ve seen people, it’s, it’s a conference and people are posting about it and they’re definitely, you know, they’re definitely saying the price is whatever, 250 pound and then there’s attendees are sharing. But I don’t know if they’ve got an event page. If they do, I’ll let you know.

[00:21:08] April: That’s fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Send me a message and let me know. Cause I was thinking about we, you know, we have clients in ourselves where we do, sometimes we do paid workshops, paid live events, and sometimes they aren’t that much. They’re usually 47 to 97 because it prequalifies and, you know, buying into like.

[00:21:27] April: Even though less people, we already know a register for it, but when people pay, they pay attention and they usually convert into, you know, better clients. And so I was just curious about that. And then before I have a few clients actually that have promoted, you know, a thousand dollar workshops and have done really, really well with that.

[00:21:46] April: And that kind of goes into my next question for you be in there. Very niche specific, right? These are super specific for a super. Targeted industry to learn a super specific skill. They aren’t just informational. They’re actually training skills, workshops, and they’ve done really well with that. Um, and part of what they do, which I want to hear you unpack this too, is it’s in the follow up, right?

[00:22:12] April: So it’s the follow up 24 hours before for people that clicked that they did want to attend but haven’t paid the money. And they have like this 24 hour almost like Post cart closing type of a DM that they do. And they say that that does really, really well. So whether it’s following up before the event happens or following up afterwards, sharing the replay, you know, I would love to know, first of all, how much time that usually takes you opposite, especially if you’re, especially if you have 500 people attend your event.

[00:22:44] April: And do you have any sort of tips on following up to get people, whether it’s to register or to schedule a sales call or just to watch the thing?

[00:22:54] Jen: Yeah, I would definitely follow up with all of them and I promise it doesn’t take that long. If it’s just a short and snappy message and you just bang it out to all the attendees. So I would always, you know, follow up first with the replay because you know, not everybody has got on. So I would just be like, hi. Um, John, um, hope you enjoyed the event earlier on if you didn’t manage to see it, you know, I couldn’t see everyone that was live Here’s the replay and that’s the you know The first message and then you just start conversations people come back to you and say oh I couldn’t because I was with my mom or I was walking the dog You hear everything you start to get into a natural conversation Or people will say loved it and if they loved it i’ll say oh, what was your biggest takeaway and then?

[00:23:39] Jen: That usually prequalifies people because they usually say, Oh, they, because you said this and I really need help with that. And then straight away I’m like, Oh, did you book one of the sales calls? Or here’s the link to book. So for me, it’s always good to prequalify rather than just firing my sales call and get everyone and you know, they’re not the right fit or it’s never going to happen.

[00:24:01] Jen: So yeah, the replay is always. The good conversation starter because even if they were there, some people maybe have to hop off 10 minutes early and they’ve like, oh, brilliant. I missed the end. Um, so yeah, just share the reply, get into conversations. It’s very rare that people ignore you. I think after they, you know, you send them something.

[00:24:22] Jen: Like that, you know, they’re, they’re like, Oh, I’m going to watch it. And then you can touch base a few days later with them all again. And just say, Hey, good to know. Did you watch it? What were your takeaways? So it’s that kind of nudging and nurturing and then, you know, pre qualifying the right people. And if people, if that’s.

[00:24:40] Jen: kind of where they want to stop the journey for now. That’s fine. You’ve kind of built a little bit of a relationship and maybe they’re completely new to you and there’s somebody that you can invite to your next event. Others will be, you know, further down the line. They already know they need LinkedIn help and you’re just getting them on a call.

[00:24:58] Jen: But it all happens with the DMs for me. That nurturing before, during, after, you’ll get people, even while you’re doing the event saying, where’s the link? And you’re like, well, you don’t see that obviously till after, cause you’re doing the bloody event. So you’re like, well, I can’t DM you now. So yeah, it’s always the DMs.

[00:25:17] Jen: If you don’t do the DMs, it’s a missed opportunity because you’re only gonna like add a handful of people come back to you. Whereas if you DM them all, you’re going to get such a good response rate. So yeah, the magic for me is always in the DMs and it doesn’t have to take long. I promise you just click on manage attendees.

[00:25:37] Jen: It brings them all up, whether they’re first degree connection, second, third. Don’t need to be connected to them. You can just message them so they don’t need to be a connection and you just bang out the little message. So I do it always in batches. The way you’re doing this podcast, I will just go in and say, well, message to them all in a batch, step back, and maybe it’s the end of the day.

[00:25:58] Jen: Then I’ll go in, there’s conversations again, do it in batch. So yeah, not spending all day on it because you’d be driven mad.

[00:26:07] April: For sure. And, uh, and. And I, that’s a good like business basics reminder for me, because now that I’m becoming more active on LinkedIn, I realized I need to like block calendar schedule my LinkedIn time because I’m like, you know, leaving the office, going to the kitchen. I feel like all of a sudden I’ve been the last five days. I’ve been.

[00:26:29] April: So I definitely need to schedule out my schedule time and when I will be doing my LinkedIn work. And, you know, as we wrap up, I have to say that one of the reasons why I really appreciate you so much besides the tactics and the strategy and the wisdom that you get is that you’re so. Real about how you connect with people.

[00:26:48] April: And when you talk about how you do messages in the DMS, it feels so good to me. And I think that’s why you and I connected. And it frankly doesn’t feel like the way that a lot of people do messages and a lot of messages I have received on LinkedIn. And I really appreciate that about you. And it’s something that I would feel good about doing because it’s just a conversation.

[00:27:10] April: It’s just an actual natural conversation. There isn’t anything, you know, pushy about that. So I just, I wanted to share that with, with our listeners and just tell you personally, just thank you so much for leading in that way. Cause it’s. really, really helpful. Um, so now one of the things that we wanted to give our listeners today, which doesn’t directly relate to LinkedIn events, but is a profile optimization tool.

[00:27:38] April: And I really recommend all of you guys go connect with Jen on LinkedIn. And we’ll have all of her links and everything in the show notes. And we’re also going to connect to this free profile optimization tool so we can level up your LinkedIn personal brand. Can you talk a little bit about that tool and why that’s important?

[00:27:58] Jen: Yeah, sure. So it’s basically, it’s a chat list. It’s about seven, eight pages long and it just walks you to your profile and areas to optimize so that you’re showing up more in search and you’re just looking more at the part because if you do go to an event, your profile really is the gateway to everything.

[00:28:16] Jen: So if you create an event, you’re attending an event or you’re You know, you’re chatting to people who are also attending. People are going to check you out and they’re always going to go, who is this person? So it’s always, it’s like going into any physical event or virtual event. People are always going to check you out.

[00:28:31] Jen: So we want you to be looking good first and that will give you confidence. And that’s really where I started. My LinkedIn journey was optimizing my profile and when I felt like it really sold me and it felt more me and I looked to the part it made me more confident to send ems to connect and for me I love events on LinkedIn whether I’m hosting like a LinkedIn live or an audio or even a zoom I always encourage attendees to connect with each other you know I will say to all of my like if you’re going to any of my events have a look at the other people because It’s a safe container for you to reach out and send those DMS because they don’t always come natural for us.

[00:29:12] Jen: And I think the more you exercise that muscle, then you’re kind of like, it is just a chart and maybe it’s because I’m Irish, but I’ve always just thought, why is the big deal? Wellington is literally having a conversation and I’ve never thought of networking as networking. I reframed it as my hair in my head.

[00:29:29] Jen: It’s having chats with people and I think so many people build it up like networking is so, you know, serious, so professional. And I think on LinkedIn, especially for business owners, we have the joy of showing up whatever way we want. We’re not constrained by our old corporate roles where we had to be a bit more, you know, buttoned up and professional.

[00:29:49] Jen: Whereas now, you know, for me, if anybody DMs me, I love a good gif like, yeah, I wouldn’t think that sending them in my corporate days, it would have been like, you know, best regards it’s, you know, like super formal and I just think LinkedIn is what you make of it, you know, it’s just, you know, it’s, it’s like a massive online network where you can have like, you know. Networking conversations, little mini events the whole time.

[00:30:17] April: So valuable. So valuable. And so are you. Uh, what is the link? If it’s a pretty link, we’ll put it in the show notes anyway. But, um, you, well first of all, tell people exactly how to find your profile on LinkedIn. Let’s start with that.

[00:30:30] Jen: Okay, so thanks again, I feel, for all your lovely words. So yeah, I’m Jen Corcoran, so it’s C O R C O R A N. Find me on LinkedIn. My company page on there is called My Super Connector. So yeah, just find me either my personal profile or my company page. You can check out my previous events, stalk them, see if you learn any tips from them. She’s so good. You guys, you totally have to stalk her.

[00:30:57] Jen: And then we’ll share the link to the profile upgrade also in the show notes. But do you want to share the link as well? If you know that off the top of your head too, we can

[00:31:06] Jen: click funnels.

[00:31:08] April: Okay. Yeah. I knew it was like an ugly link. I didn’t know. We had a pretty link for it. Uh, we’ll put it in the show notes for you guys, everything here, how to connect with Jen.

[00:31:16] April: Uh, you guys can go over to suite life co. com. Click on the podcast and, uh, Jen’s episode will be right there on the top. You can also search our podcast website. Anytime, just search the word LinkedIn and this podcast and other podcasts that we have done will populate for you. So there’s a ton of resources there for you, Jen.

[00:31:37] April: Thank you so much. Just appreciate how you’ve poured into our clients. What you’ve taught me and being here on the show. So I really value you and I appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

 

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

305

[00:00:44] April: Hi, you guys. And welcome to episode number 305 here on the SweetLife Entrepreneurial Podcast. This episode is for those of you that really want to know how to use it LinkedIn. You have been working to generate leads on LinkedIn, establish thought leadership and connect with the right people on LinkedIn. And so in this show, we’re diving into all things, how to use LinkedIn polls in order to help you do that.

[00:01:09] April: But let’s talk about who this episode is for. This episode is for those of you guys who are established business owners. And even those of you who are just researching who your ideal. We have talked about polls. We’ve talked about quizzes a lot here on the podcast. As a matter of fact, I just shared a whole entire training on how to create quizzes as lead magnets for your business.

[00:01:31] April: This goes hand in hand with that. This is a great opportunity for you to do something that actually takes very little effort. but helps you identify the right audience, the right people to connect with. And it’s going to give you a gauge of whether or not you’re already connected to the right people on LinkedIn.

[00:01:51] April: So if you are in phase two or three or four of my lifestyle business roadmap, this is a great episode for you to listen to. If you already are rolling with LinkedIn, you probably don’t need this episode. No worries. You can go onto another strategy, and dive into LinkedIn ads with my friend, AJ, or LinkedIn company pages with my friend, Michelle. Those are all episodes that we’re dropping right around now.

[00:02:14] April: If you are not sure where you are in your phase of business growth, just cruise over to SweetLifeCo.com/quiz. And you can take a really short little quiz and you can know exactly where you are in business and exactly what you should be working on right now.

[00:02:29] April: So let’s talk about what you can expect from this show. We have Tania Bhattacharyya here on the show and she was introduced to me from somebody else on LinkedIn that says, this girl is great at LinkedIn marketing. You need to bring her in. We actually brought her in to host a little mini masterclass for our clients and our client intensive last week and every single one of our clients were able to implement the strategy that she’s talking about here.

[00:02:56] April: On today’s show, we are going to dive into how to use polls and she even goes through the step by step of what content you should put in your polls and exactly what to do after you post a poll. And we talk about how you can use polls as part of your launch strategy. If you were launching a new program or an offer or a reopening of something, this could be a really great strategy for you.

[00:03:19] April: So all of the show notes, including how to connect with Tania, please go connect with her on LinkedIn and the resources she has here can be found by visiting SweetLifeCo.Com. Just click on the podcast button. And this is episode 305. Let’s go ahead and dive in together.

[00:03:37] April: All right, you guys, we are here with a new friend. This is my friend Tania, and she was actually in our community working with our clients last week. And when I first met her actually I was referred to her by somebody else through LinkedIn for the purpose of LinkedIn growth LinkedIn lead gen And when I first met her there’s literally a million things that she could have come on this podcast and in our community and actually taught on but we honed it down on one particular activity one strategy and we’re gonna unpack this strategy for you here today on the show and it’s all about LinkedIn polls in.

[00:04:18] April: So anyway, we’re going to dive into all that and the step by steps of how to do it today on the show. But welcome to the SweetLife Entrepreneurial Podcast, Tania. I’m so glad you’re here. Do you want to share with everybody a little bit of background about you and how you got started doing what you’re doing?

[00:04:31] Tania: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you first of all, so much for that warm welcome. It’s so good to be here. I love chatting about, you know, all things. LinkedIn and entrepreneurship. So I got here, you know, as we all do through a kind of roundabout way, I didn’t think I was going to be an entrepreneur growing up. I went right into the nonprofit field. So I was always a, you know, do gooder. And I ended up working for a women’s addiction treatment program, for 12 years, doing all things, fundraising, marketing, alumni, you know, all that kind of good stuff.

[00:05:03] Tania: And, you know, eventually I became the executive director and, you know, we were a small scrappy sort of startup nonprofit. Well, I wouldn’t say startup, but we were a scrappy nonprofit for sure. And so, you know, we were, I was trying to figure out ways to really get our name out there to really build relationships, to really like. Grow influence and trust in our community without a huge budget and without like hiring a giant marketing team and a PR firm and all that kind of stuff.

[00:05:30] Tania: So I challenged myself to use LinkedIn to share, you know, one interesting story per week to connect with a couple of local, you know, business influencers, you know, corporate giving folks, you know, people who work for local foundations and just sort of like start to build my voice as a local nonprofit ed.

[00:05:49] Tania: And slowly but surely, You know, magical things started to happen. And I really want to say like slowly, but surely it didn’t happen right away, but it was a slow build and a slow burn. And after about, you know, a quarter or so, you know, we started getting inbound, like inquiries for, you know, major gifts. We started getting Organic PR opportunities.

[00:06:12] Tania: We started getting organic referrals and all these things that I used to have to really pound the pavement for, or just sort of happening all throughout, all just through LinkedIn. And so I’m a huge, just like advocate and evangelist for LinkedIn. I think it is such an underused platform still. I think it is still unsaturated and there’s so much we can do to really connect with the movers and the shakers that can really like supercharge our business, our mission driven business.

[00:06:37] April: Yeah. And I love your story and thanks for your honesty about the fact that, I mean, it was slowly but surely and, and I think there’s a lot of people that just really expect fast, you know, fast results and a lot of things and, and Hey, you know what? Maybe some people have passed fast results, but I’m like you, my results have not always been overnight and, and to be honest and why I really appreciate you coming into our community and coaching our clients and, and having this conversation here with me and is because I still, I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2008 or something like that.

[00:07:10] April: I still don’t feel like I know how to use LinkedIn. I still feel like I go there, like I love hanging out on Instagram. I can post pictures of my kids and my hiking and all this other stuff and kind of behind the scenes podcast stuff. But on LinkedIn, I just don’t really feel like I have still found my groove.

[00:07:28] April: And I feel very, this is like really, to be honest, I feel very different than a lot of businesses on linkedin because I don’t work for a corporation. I never have a day in my life you know, there’s there’s all of these different really big companies on there and I kind of just really feel like I haven’t found my people yet to be honest and so doing things like what you are going to share here on today’s show.

[00:07:55] April: I think a lot of our listeners might feel like I do and you know, they are subject matter experts. They are consultants. They are coaches They are, you know service providers, but they don’t really you know They don’t work for a big tech company and and they aren’t an employee. They are the coo and so how do we?

[00:08:14] April: As individual, very small micro businesses utilize LinkedIn to build relationships with not all the people, but the right people. And that’s what I love about LinkedIn polls. And what I learned a little bit last week when you were working with our clients. And I know what we’re going to talk about today too. Cause I really feel like it’s. For people like me.

[00:08:37] Tania: Yeah. I’m so glad that you said that. I think a lot of people feel that way and I think one of the biggest reasons why people feel that way on LinkedIn is there’s a lot of lurkers on LinkedIn. Like, I feel like on Instagram people are like, yeah, like there’s, people are just going to like comment and like and message and it’s just not as serious, you know, people just like are all in.

[00:08:54] Tania: Whereas on LinkedIn there’s like a little bit of like a reservedness. You know, it is a business platform. I mean, at least that’s what I’ve been noticing. I think of LinkedIn as sort of a 24 7 365 like, you know, networking event that you can always kind of pop into. And at a networking event, I mean, think about your behavior.

[00:09:12] Tania: You’re not just going to like be wild and crazy and be talking to everyone. You’re going to be kind of like. Checking it out, lurking a little bit, getting comfortable. And I think people are that way on LinkedIn too. But that doesn’t mean they’re not watching. That doesn’t mean they’re not like just waiting for something to, you know, sink their teeth into once that becomes available. And I think polls are a great way to find that signal and get people to raise their hand instead of lurking on the sidelines like we do on LinkedIn.

[00:09:37] April: Awesome. Okay. So let’s dive into LinkedIn polls. I’m so excited to talk about this today. First of all, let’s go back to like some basics. Why use polls? What, like, what kind of a poll? Why are we going to use a poll? What’s the purpose of a poll?

[00:09:50] Tania: Yeah. The purpose of a poll is like, it’s a, it’s a native, like integrated way. In LinkedIn, where you can ask your audience any kind of question, it can be a fun, silly question, like, what is your, you know, Hogwarts house?

[00:10:04] Tania: It can be a question that has everything to do with a offer that you’re putting out there. Like for example, one of my primary offers is a LinkedIn content. Sprint where we, I help people batch content, like in a very concentrated period of time. And so one of the things that I might ask in a poll is like, what stops you from batching your content?

[00:10:22] Tania: Right. And I can have up to four answers or instead of the, if, you know, like if I don’t want to live in the barriers, I could ask about the dreams and the goals and aspirations, like what could be possible for you or what would be an ideal scenario for you if you didn’t have to worry about content for six months, you know, what would you spend your time doing?

[00:10:39] Tania: And I could just have four, like. Fun things, you know, like hang out with my family or launch this new thing, you know, whatever. So it’s a way to get your audience sort of, , in the arena in a way, get them participating. It’s a way for them to get them to raise their hand and get really good information about your audience. Kind of like a market research thing, that you can then use to follow up with people.

[00:11:04] April: So cool. So cool. Okay. So how do we go about actually creating a pool poll? Like what are, what are the steps to go about doing this? I love your example of your offer, your program, and then asking people what’s stopping them.

[00:11:18] Tania: Yeah.

[00:11:19] April: Because anybody who answers just based on that is already prequalify themselves to say, Hey, listen, I’m already your ideal client because I’m struggling with this and it’s one of these different ways, but these are one of the things I’m struggling with. So I really love how you did that. My wheels are already spinning based on what you said, but how do we go about getting started to do?

[00:11:38] Tania: Yeah. Yeah. Well, just from a very tactical level, if, if folks are not as used to using LinkedIn, if they’re kind of like, they haven’t been on there in a while, it’s as easy as going to like start a post and it will see start, , create a poll as one of the options you see there. Like it. You know, the options just right off the top of my head or something like, you know, post a picture, post a video.

[00:12:00] Tania: Yeah. Create a poll is one of the options on there. And so you could, you know, there’s a place to very easily put the question. And then the default option is to have two answers, but you can have up to four answers. And I always like to have the fourth answer be something like other, tell me more in the comments.

[00:12:17] Tania: So that way you get people really, you know, if something doesn’t. If they have another idea, you know, you always want to give them a space to be able to do that. And then you can have the poll go for, you know, something like a day, three days, a week, or two weeks. And I found the kind of the special sweet spot is about one week.

[00:12:33] Tania: It gives it enough time to really like, it gives it that, that long shelf life that LinkedIn posts have. And it’s not so long that people have completely forgotten that they voted in the poll. So I like to do, you know, one week. Yeah.

[00:12:48] April: Okay, cool. And one of the things that you were saying, which I didn’t know is that when you, if I were to see your poll and vote in it, my response is actually confidential.

[00:12:58] Tania: Yes. This is one of my favorite parts about the LinkedIn poll, you know, because I think a lot of people get nervous, like nobody’s going to vote in my poll and then I’m going to look like a, like a loser, you know? And, and that’s a whole nother thing that, you know, I could talk on and on and on about. But the reality is, you know, people are not, you know, think about your behavior.

[00:13:16] Tania: Like if you’re scrolling LinkedIn and you see somebody with, you know, just a poll that Has a couple of responses. You don’t think negatively of them. So don’t be nervous about putting out a poll and not getting as many responses as you want. You know, this is all about practice. This is all about just like putting yourself out there and building the muscle, right?

[00:13:34] Tania: But, you know, I kind of went on a tangent there. So we were talking about the confidentiality piece. Yeah. Like I remember once I put out kind of a vulnerable poll. I was like, what’s, what stops you from showing up and, you know, playing bigger, right? Building a brand, you know, showing up with your authentic voice, something like that.

[00:13:54] Tania: And I was like, nobody’s really gonna like put them, LinkedIn, but people did. And the reality is, like you said, People can see what the results are of your poll in terms of percentages. They can see like a, like a bar graph of how the answers came out in terms of percentages, but they can’t see who voted how, which is really great.

[00:14:13] Tania: But as the poll creator, you can see how. Everybody voted. And my favorite, probably my favorite part of the poll is LinkedIn makes it really, really easy for you to just like with one click of a button next to each person’s, you know, kind of picture in your poll, there’s a little button that you can click to send them a message right away.

[00:14:34] Tania: And in that message, it will include an attachment of the poll. So even if it’s been, you know, a week since they voted, even if it takes you a little while to get. to get to your follow up after a poll. It’s totally fine because that poll will show up in your message and you can just say something like, Hey, April, like I, thanks so much for voting in this poll.

[00:14:53] Tania: I see you voted for, you know, answer B, whatever that is. And then you can actually start a dialogue. You can share a helpful resource. You can ask if they would like for you to send them. You know, a very specific resource that you have created just for them based on how they voted in that poll, right?

[00:15:12] Tania: Which of course they’re going to want because they already told you this is something they’re struggling with, right? Or something that they desire.

[00:15:19] April: Yeah, it’s so smart. So the strategy is creating the poll. And I mean, as users, I think it’s important for us to know that it’s confidential, which is really good. And I love as the poll owner that we get to see all the responses, but then the strategy you’re saying is then sharing and there’s a follow up strategy. After it’s not just the poll. It’s not for information But then you can message and share the actual results of the poll at the end of the poll with everybody who took it which I love that because that is such a natural next step conversation to have what besides like sharing the poll results and you’re saying so asking if they would like you to share a resource based on their outcome instead of just being like, here you go.

[00:16:05] Tania: Yes, yes, yes. Something that I hear a lot from people and that I struggle with myself is like really, really not wanting to be spammy, salesy, icky. Because we all get those messages from people that we don’t know trying to sell us something and it gives us that ick factor. Nobody wants that. that. Like I can’t imagine that that’s really working for anybody, really.

[00:16:26] Tania: And so something that makes me feel a lot better about this process and, and, you know, and I think on the other side, it feels, it feels good too, is, you know, let’s say somebody voted in my poll that they don’t. Batch content because they have writer’s block. I don’t know, I’m just coming up with something.

[00:16:44] April: Right?

[00:16:44] Tania: I could say, Hey, like thanks for voting my poll. I see you, you know, voted for writer’s block. I totally get that. A lot of people said that as well. I actually put together this whole like mini podcast episode about what to do when you have writer’s block. Um, would you like me to send you that link?

[00:16:59] Tania: You know, and that way I’m not just like going forward and just like sending them something that, you know, maybe they’re too busy right now. Maybe they are taking a vacation right now. Maybe they just don’t want it for whatever reason. I don’t know. But the act of them saying, Oh, actually, yeah. Like that’s so nice.

[00:17:16] Tania: Like. Yes, I would like that. It creates that permission based conversation and it, it makes it feel good on both sides that you’re moving forward in a conversation that both parties want to have, you know? And then, so what I would recommend is having some kind of mini resource for each of the answers that are in your poll and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

[00:17:37] Tania: It doesn’t have to be a whole pod. It could be a short blog. It could be a short loom video. It could be, you know, like a one page PDF. It does not have to be complicated, but something that’s targeted to how they voted in that poll. So you have something immediately for them. Right. And just as a, you know, example.

[00:17:56] Tania: When I did this during my last launch, I had 60 people vote in my poll, and about, like, a little bit more than half of them said yes to my inquiry. And so that’s about, like, uh, you know, like a baseline. It’s like a second version. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s just like an example number that you can go with.

[00:18:13] Tania: Not everybody’s gonna say yes, and that’s okay, because you’re just whittling it down to the people who really are interested, and really the people who you’re gonna have the most, kind of, productive, fun. Valuable sort of like conversation with in the DMs.

[00:18:29] April: Okay. And, okay. So let me ask you some questions that are in my head and I’m trying to imagine what our listeners or what their questions are right now as well. And if you guys have questions about this, if you have questions for Tania, please connect with her on LinkedIn and, you know, if we’re going to make sure her resources is in there too and just, and ask her directly too, if we miss some of your questions, some, some basics, how frequently could somebody post a poll?

[00:18:56] Tania: Yeah. Honestly, you could do one like pretty frequently. I personally would probably limit it to about, you know, maybe two per month. You know, and it kind of depends on your posting cadence. Like if you post every day, then yeah, you know, absolutely. Two per month is, is no, no biggie. I tend to teach this kind of strategy to folks who are, they tend to be like in the trenches.

[00:19:21] Tania: They are oftentimes like, like nonprofit. Eds or they’re just, they’re very busy. They’re not trying to spend all their time on LinkedIn. So I kind of teach a strategy of posting once per week. And because of how LinkedIn is set up that, that can be enough, right? Not so much for other social media platforms, but again, on LinkedIn, for a variety of reasons, like that can be enough.

[00:19:41] Tania: And so if you’re posting once per week, you know, maybe once a quarter. You know, do this poll strategy because again, like you said, very astutely, like it’s not just about posting the poll. There is some followup involved and the, the, you know, the real riches, right, are always in the followup. Like the good, like the good energy is always in the follow up. That’s really where you get that conversation going. So don’t, you know, if this is going to be like, I recommend really making sure you have time to do that follow up. That’s really important.

[00:20:13] April: I was, that’s what I was thinking. And I was saying this and you know, I I’m working right now on trade tab. Break out my, my LinkedIn time. And as you’re going through this, I’m thinking, wow, okay. I would want to make sure that I didn’t post a poll unless I knew that I had that built in time to actually finish it up and follow it up. And yeah, the fortune is always in the followup. So that’s a really, really good point.

[00:20:34] April: And then the other thing, , as you’re saying this. Is there’s a couple for our listeners you guys this Strategy would pair well with a strategy that we did I think it was episode 303 where I was teaching you guys how to create a quiz as a lead magnet Go back and look at that and take some of the questions from that and put it into this poll here that that Tania is telling you about Yeah, but this working so well hand in hand with launch.

[00:21:01] Tania: Yes.

[00:21:02] April: And it’s like a sweat equity funnel. You have to put in the time. You have to be willing to build the relationships. You have to want to have conversations with people, but this in conjunction with a launch just seems. So organic to me, it just seems like a no brainer why all of us frankly wouldn’t be doing this

[00:21:24] Tania: Yeah, it’s it’s a tool that kind of lets the warmest people emerge, you know Cuz sometimes like we’re just we don’t know who like we’re just looking for signs and signals and this is like a very strong signal right that That somebody would be interested.

[00:21:37] Tania: And if you can create a poll that is very much rooted in the transformation of the program that you’re launching, it’s like a, it’s like a win. It’s like a no brainer. It’s like a win win. It just works.

[00:21:50] April: Right. That’s gold. That’s gold. Okay. So as we wrap it up, let’s kind of recap what we talked about and give our listeners three action steps or four action steps or whatever you want to do to leave here right now, not, you know, to not just think about this, to actually go and take action on what you have taught them here today.

[00:22:08] Tania: Yeah. So like three, three action items. Okay. Yeah. So the first thing I would do is think about, you know, a program that you’re launching right now, an offer that you’re really wanting to sell right now, whether it’s. You know, whether you’re a coach, consultant, service provider, other type of business owner, think about that program promise. Like think about the transformation that you create for your clients and the problem that you solve. And then think about a question that you would want to ask folks that gets at the root of that, the heart of that.

[00:22:34] Tania: And probably the easiest thing would be like, what’s a barrier that stops you from doing this on your own kind of thing. Again, another option is to ask them like, what would be the dream if you could accomplish this? But sometimes the barriers are just a little bit more. Concrete, they’re a little bit more easy, you know, to figure out.

[00:22:51] Tania: So I would first of all, figure that out, like figure out that question. And then, you know, three, like two to four answers that fall under that. So again, in my example, cause I always think examples are helpful. My program promises around like batching six months of LinkedIn content. So the barriers I would include are like. Writer’s blog, not having time, my creative process doesn’t allow for it, and you know, I’m afraid my content won’t stay relevant if I batch for that blog, you know, those are just examples.

[00:23:21] Tania: So think about what those would be in your example, in your program. The second thing that I would do, I mean, literally I would just find like a week in your calendar where you have, where you can, where you know you’ll have the time to kind of like have these DM conversations, right?

[00:23:38] Tania: Um, and really that you’re going to want to We are going to want to have that time the week after you post the poll. So just like, think about that. , and I would just. do it, right? I would just put that poll up. I would just start it. And this is a test. Like, if you only get three people voting, like, that’s okay.

[00:23:54] Tania: That’s, that’s still great. You have three people that you know, you know, are struggling with a problem that you, um, you know, solve. So that’s a great thing. And the third thing that I would do or kind of action item that I would take is, you know, LinkedIn is organically going to show your poll to people, you know, people that you know already, then you’re connected with people that, uh, you don’t know, but are connected to the people who are voting.

[00:24:21] Tania: Like it’ll have that sort of just like networky effect, but. Don’t be afraid to share the poll in other places other than just LinkedIn, right? So in your post, there’s a little, it’s going to look like three little dots on the top right of your post. You can click on those three dots. And a dropdown is going to come up and you’re going to select copy link to post.

[00:24:46] Tania: And then in your clipboard, you’ve got a direct link to that poll. So if you send out a weekly newsletter, you know, like promo the poll in that, in that newsletter, right? If you’re a member of any Slack channels, you know, Facebook communities. If you have a group of business besties that just, you all support each other, a pure mastermind.

[00:25:06] Tania: Like there’s so many networks that you’re in that just aren’t LinkedIn. And this is a way to bring. Fresh people who maybe don’t check LinkedIn all the time, who maybe just missed it, um, to bring them to your poll and kind of, you know, manufacture a little bit of additional engagement, which is just going to increase the overall engagement of your poll.

[00:25:25] Tania: Right? So that would be the third thing I’d say is like, don’t be afraid to kind of go off LinkedIn to. Increase the engagement on LinkedIn for your poll, right? Oh, and then obviously the fourth one, which I know you just said three, but the fourth one is don’t forget to follow up. Like if you’re not having these DM conversations, like, you know, it’s still a good thing to do the poll. It’s not like a waste of time. But again, like we said before, the riches is in the follow up. So. Yeah. Don’t be afraid.

[00:25:51] April: Yeah. These are all, this is a great training. Thank you so much. And in every, every time I hear this and every time I hear this, say this, and, and again, like when you taught this in our business mastermind a week or so ago, immediately I had.

[00:26:06] April: All of these things and I was ready to take action, but I knew this week I wouldn’t have time to write. And so for me, for me, like I’m hanging onto that. That’s my, you know, I, I believe time’s more valuable than money. So I’m like, okay, when am I going to actually build in my time? But I think that people will get stuck on the, what question do I ask?

[00:26:24] April: And just to remind you guys, go back to all of your offer engineer training. What exactly, like Tonya said, like what transformation do you deliver? What is the end result of that? And what are the pains and the problems that you’re, you are helping people solve it and what are their struggles? Why aren’t they there already?

[00:26:40] April: Why do they need you? , so just, just some good reminders and you can sort the podcast website for all the trainings on offer engineering. If you guys are stuck there too. So. Tanya, you have this batch, this LinkedIn batching thing coming up, and I know you want to share a resource with our listeners as well, and you guys please move forward and connect with Tania too for her time and just blessing her for being here and pouring into us. Tell us about that resource where people can interact with you more.

[00:27:09] Tania: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, like, like you said, April, like definitely a great place to find me is LinkedIn, but I know in the show notes, we’re going to include a link to this kind of thing. Freebie I have, which is 14 free prompts that you can use to inspire your ongoing LinkedIn posts, right?

[00:27:26] Tania: And I think, I think polls might be one of the 14. I mean, that would make sense, right? But there’s all kinds of things that you can kind of like ask yourself to really let the, the most impactful LinkedIn content emerge. So definitely check that out. And, yeah, I’d say those are two really great ways to, to connect.

[00:27:46] Tania: Yeah, I appreciate your time so much. We’ll make sure all of the details are in the show notes, and then, we’ll of course be posting this on LinkedIn as well. Thank you so much for coming in here, and you guys, Tanya teaches much more than polls. That was just like one little thing that she, that she talks about that we wanted to bring to you today, so it’s an actionable strategy that you can implement right away. But, , she’s a great, great resource if you are looking for, other support. I appreciate you so good to be here.

 

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April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

304

[00:00:45] April Beach: Hi, you guys. And welcome back to the show. This is episode number 304. So if you’ve been a long time listener, you know that all the show notes and everything we’re going to share with you can be found by visiting SweetLife.

[00:00:57] April Beach: Simply click on the podcast and you can search episode number 304. I’m April Beach, host here on the show, and I’m really glad that you’ve tuned into this episode. I can tell you that I really needed to hear and learn what today’s guest brought to the table for us. If you have been trying to grow your business on LinkedIn and maybe you’re like me, I’ve had no idea, honestly.

[00:01:19] April Beach: Raise your hand. How to use LinkedIn company pages. Yes, we use them, but there really wasn’t a big strategy behind it. And LinkedIn didn’t have a huge reach. Well, if you’re like me and you actually want to know how to utilize your company page to build your brand, increase your sales, gain followers, and build relationships with important people.

[00:01:41] April Beach: That are going to grow and scale your business. Then this episode is for you. Today’s guest literally wrote the book, the first ever book on LinkedIn company pages. And in today’s episode, she’s going to share with you and me how much we are leaving on the table. Literally how many things that we could be doing that are simple tweaks to your business page that we’re just walking away from.

[00:02:04] April Beach: It’s like burning cash. You’re going to be blown away by the strategies you hear on today’s show. And what you’re going to walk away with is a simple process to know how to use your LinkedIn company page to build your brand, increase sales, gain recognition for your company and become more known. In addition to that, we even talk about the connection between your company page and your LinkedIn personal page and why that’s important.

[00:02:27] April Beach: So if you’re looking to grow your business on LinkedIn to gain recognition and to have a strategy that’s actually so simple, you can actually. Hand of the strategy that you get here on the show today to a team member to implement for you. It’s amazing. Or if you’re flying solo, this is a very simple strategy that you should be able to easily implement on your own for your LinkedIn company page following the steps that our guest is diving into today here.

[00:02:56] April Beach: So we have Michelle J. Raymond on the show. She’s amazing. I was introduced to Michelle by a mutual friend, and if you aren’t yet, Please cruise over and follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Again, it’s Michelle J. Raymond. Let her know that you heard this episode. You’re going to want to connect with her for sure after this.

[00:03:13] April Beach: It’s just an amazing amount of information that is truly going to be able to be implemented in your business and make a significant difference today. So if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place. Let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode.

[00:03:27] April Beach: Hi everybody and welcome back to the show. I’m here with my new friend, Michelle, and Michelle was introduced to me by another new friend, which is not always the way we meet, like the coolest people is introductions from other people. And. Michelle and I are going to dive into all things LinkedIn company pages. And one of the, one of the most amazing things that has happened since I’ve been connecting with Michelle is that I realized that our company page is really lacking.

[00:03:56] April Beach: One of the biggest reality check is basically, I really didn’t know what I was doing with LinkedIn company pages. Like I knew I didn’t know. And then I just talked to Michelle and tapped into all of her genius and realize how much I’m really leaving on the table because of my lack of understanding. So I’m really excited that, that you are here to help me and all of our listeners really understand how to dive in and utilize LinkedIn company pages more. So welcome to the SweetLife Entrepreneur podcast and thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom.

[00:04:25] Michelle J Raymond: It is my absolute pleasure and if it makes you feel any better, don’t worry, you’re in the majority, not the minority. They are vastly understood and put it this way, I wrote the world’s first book on it just three years ago.

[00:04:39] Michelle J Raymond: Now think about that. LinkedIn has been around for 20 years. There’s been no resources. It’s at all up until three years ago, which is just ludicrous. So hopefully we can help your listeners here today with some actionable tips that they can take away and move a little bit more into the, you do know some things about company pages that you can implement and help grow your business.

[00:04:58] April Beach: Absolutely. I’m so excited. So tell everybody a little bit how you said you wrote the first book on LinkedIn company pages. I mean, that is pretty crazy that nobody had actually figured it out yet until you did that. So how did you fall into that?

[00:05:14] Michelle J Raymond: Fall into it is the right words. So three years ago I set up my own business and not even that was intentional, it was accidental. So I’m an accidental entrepreneur, which I hope some other people can relate to. But picture this, one day I win a 2 million deal from a LinkedIn post for the company that I was working at. about a week later, I had to quit on the spot because the boss reneged on that deal. So imagine going from the highs of a 2 million win to I quit on the spot, never planned on quitting.

[00:05:46] Michelle J Raymond: And that whole mess that that was, but I just decided I wasn’t going to work for anybody else ever again. I’d had a run of bad bosses and I just figured I might as well work hard for myself. And so I did that. And after, you know, six months of trying to figure that out, I end up. On LinkedIn training, because I’d been using LinkedIn to sell for the last six years at that point.

[00:06:07] Michelle J Raymond: And so I thought I could help other people because it was March, 2020, you know, that little thing called COVID that sent the world into lockdown. That’s when I set my business up which turns out it was a good thing, but essentially I help people. And I went to the first person, offered them training and they said, can’t you just do it for us?

[00:06:23] Michelle J Raymond: And I said, is that even a job? Like I didn’t even know April, I’m not going to lie. I didn’t even realize that people would pay other people to do social media. That’s the craziness in hindsight, but I’m not even making that up. And the thing was company pages are a way that you can get a third party to do your LinkedIn for you without breaking any of the terms and conditions.

[00:06:43] Michelle J Raymond: So I started to do that for one client. Then I looked around and went, no one else is talking about this. So I’m just going to own that spot. And three years ago, people thought I was crackers. There’s no other words for it. They just thought, where’d I come from? And why was I talking about this thing that absolutely everybody else was just.

[00:07:03] Michelle J Raymond: Slamming and that’s where it started. It got me noticed for being known for that one thing. And it’s just got me so many opportunities since. But that’s how it all started. It was crazy. But here we are now.

[00:07:16] April Beach: It, you know, there’s the guy, there’s so many gems from what you just shared in your story. But just for our listeners also, this is totally a sidebar, but it shows the importance of being known for something and being known for one specific thing, even though Michelle and I, and you that are listening, you all, we have a million different things we could do.

[00:07:36] April Beach: But the becoming known for one thing and leaning into that and the power of that. And so that’s just a, that’s a, we could just end the podcast right there on that, but we’re not going to, I mean, that, that’s a, that’s a gem lesson right there. Right. It really, really shows that importance and then we can be known for something else next and something else next. And we just keep reinventing ourselves. Don’t we, you guys.

[00:07:56] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah. And that’s where I’m up to right now. Reinventing because, you know, I was known for that one thing and it’s opened so many doors. But now I’m going through this next evolution phase, which is exciting because being known for that one thing got me onto a podcast, which was picked up because someone saw me write a comment on LinkedIn and then someone in New Zealand listened to the podcast and then they reached out and they’re like, do you want to write a book together?

[00:08:20] Michelle J Raymond: And like the whole thing, it went from Vienna to Dubai, to New Zealand, to me in Sydney. How crazy is that? That’s the power of LinkedIn. And that’s why I fell in love with it so long ago.

[00:08:31] April Beach: Oh my gosh. I love your story and I’m so grateful that you’re here. Thank you so much for being here to share with us. All right. So pages, company pages. I mean, I, I think that I have had company pages since I don’t even know, before 2010 probably. And they have just sat there. We’ve been trying to use our company page in the past couple of years, but I have no idea what to do with it. So why is it important to have a company page?

[00:08:58] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, look, and this is the thing. Company pages realistically have been around for a long time, but it’s only been over the last few years that I think that they’ve got the attention they deserve from LinkedIn themselves. Now, why is that? Thanks to COVID, everybody brought their advertised Spend off other platforms and brought it to LinkedIn, you need a company page to run ads.

[00:09:19] Michelle J Raymond: And so they are cashed up and this is one area of growth for them. Now that works out for all of us who only do organic strategies, i. e. not paid because we get the benefits of all of these additional features. And so LinkedIn have put more resources, they’ve made them more actionable, but why should you use it?

[00:09:38] Michelle J Raymond: Go and Google your business name. That’s my simple answer. We piggyback and leverage off LinkedIn’s credibility and Google loves LinkedIn. And so your company page will show up in the first, probably five results maximum, sometimes one or two, depending how much content you’ve got out on the internet.

[00:09:56] Michelle J Raymond: Picture that first page results, top five, your LinkedIn company page is going to land there. Now you’ve got two choices. You can ignore it. Or you can basically roll out the red carpet if someone clicks on it and give them something that really welcomes them and shows them who you are and what you do as a business. That’s what I help people with. I want them to roll out the red carpet.

[00:10:19] April Beach: Wow. I had no idea. I just never even thought about that. But now that you explained that, it makes complete sense. And so in the past, I know that besides the SEO part of it that you just mentioned in the past, it was really hard to get followers to company pages and they don’t have a lot of exposure.

[00:10:38] April Beach: And the SEO within LinkedIn itself just didn’t seem that it was being shared with a lot of people. Can you speak a little bit to, you know, if there are so few people that actually see this. Other than some other benefits. I know we’re going to learn from you. Like why take the time? Why, why spend the time to curate the content for this page?

[00:10:56] Michelle J Raymond: They were super hard to grow. When I first started, they were like snails pace. I would have to tell people, you know, plan six to 12 months before you see anything, and I can assure you when someone’s paying you for a service. They don’t want to wait six to 12 months to see a result. The good part that LinkedIn’s done is one of the new features that they rolled out a while back is that we get invitation credits so we can invite our first degree connections.

[00:11:20] Michelle J Raymond: That’s people that we’re connected to. We can invite them to come and follow the page. Now we went from 100 to 250, so it’s a really easy way. That you can build a niche community. Now, this isn’t a place where you’re gathering friends and family and former colleagues or aunties and uncles, or, you know, relatives that aren’t interested in your business.

[00:11:40] Michelle J Raymond: We’re building a niche community, much smaller, a higher concentrate of people that are interested in what you do and what you offer. And that’s the main difference between our personal profiles. So one’s highly concentrated and one’s a bit more of a numbers game of lots of people that we’ve connected along the way.

[00:11:58] Michelle J Raymond: And they just work differently. And I think that’s an important piece for people to understand they work differently. So you can grow really quickly. You can do a lot with a page that’s got a couple of thousand. And if anyone’s ever used a review website, like TripAdvisor, Yelp, any restaurant review website.

[00:12:18] Michelle J Raymond: That’s what we do before we make purchases. It’s completely normal for us to go and research companies. So they might like me or they might like you, April, personally, and have followed our content. When it comes to handing over that money, we just want to make sure that the business is credible as well. And so this is where your company page supports what you do with your personal brand.

[00:12:39] April Beach: Oh, it all makes so much sense now that you explain that. Can I ask you specifically about those invite credits? Can you share just a little bit more about how those work? Because I know that people have heard about them and, and just a little bit more clarity on that.

[00:12:52] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah. The thing is, I don’t think most company pages are taking full advantage of this and it is the fastest and easiest way to grow your page. And so what happens every month you get 250 invite credits that can be used across of all of your page admins. So you might have multiple people helping to manage your company page and spread that work around.

[00:13:12] Michelle J Raymond: So what happens is you invite people and here’s the kicker. For every person that accepts, you get an invite credit back again, which is awesome. So be targeted higher chance of acceptance. You get another turn brilliant, but here’s the other side. They expire at the end of every month. So if you don’t use them, you lose them.

[00:13:31] Michelle J Raymond: So keep an eye out. It’s really simple. Just go to the page admin view. And in the top right hand corner, you’ll see invite connections. And what makes this even more brilliant? Is LinkedIn introduced some filters for us. So whether you target people by a geography, by an industry, or maybe you went a particular school, then you can do that within these filters.

[00:13:52] Michelle J Raymond: So again, they help you be targeted. They help you form that niche. And that is where the brilliance starts to come into play.

[00:13:59] Michelle J Raymond: Oh, that’s so cool.

[00:14:00] April Beach: I did notice the filtering on there and was playing with some invite credits in the past, and I think it’s really cool how they give you the credit back when somebody accepts it.

[00:14:08] April Beach: It’s just saying, yes, somebody actually really does want to know about your brand and follow you and be part of this community. So that is super exciting. So let’s kind of go into how do you even have Post on this company page. What do you put out there? What kind of content should we share on a company page versus in our on our personal linkedin profile?

[00:14:29] April Beach: I really I don’t think that people understand and know and what I’ve seen in the past. And I feel like we’ve done the same thing, too, because we didn’t know any better was just kind of sharing some of the same stuff And, and I understand now already just in what you’ve shared with us, that that is definitely not the right approach.

[00:14:47] April Beach: Look,

[00:14:47] Michelle J Raymond: it’s not the worst. I’d rather that than nothing because again, if someone finds you or discovers you on Google or the LinkedIn search bar, then at least they find something and not just the ghost town. So not the worst thing, but here’s my three, two, one strategy, April, which I’ll share, which makes it super easy for anyone running a company page to know what to post.

[00:15:08] Michelle J Raymond: And the last thing we want. We do not want them to be broadcast channels all about the company. No one wants to read that. It reads like ads and everybody just scrolls as fast as possible past ads. So don’t do it listeners. But here’s the three, two, one strategy. So three plus two. Plus one equals six.

[00:15:26] Michelle J Raymond: Okay. So we’re talking about six posts in total, and I’m going to show you how we break down those six posts. Now, for some of you, you might only be able to do one post a week. Totally fine. You might be able to do two in an ideal world. I’d recommend three, if you can get those done. So how are we going to do it?

[00:15:44] Michelle J Raymond: We have what’s called good to know posts. So three out of those six are good to know. And what do I mean by good to know? These are the posts where you highlight what you know is going on in your industry that would really help other people. If you’re a subject matter expert, doesn’t matter the topic you have access and to, or probably have done a lot of research in your particular area.

[00:16:07] Michelle J Raymond: Instead of other people having to do that same research, you become the place that they come to learn. And so this is what I call good to know. So trends that are going on. Maybe there’s been legislation changes for some people. Maybe there are things that are impacting that particular business, like changes to technology.

[00:16:24] Michelle J Raymond: You know, chat GPT is probably a big one that’s. That’s, you know, just being all over the place, but how is that impacting your particular area? And so you start to build up your credibility and to be known for that thing. And then, but if we just talk about that all the time, April, not going to lie, that gets a little dry, a little boring.

[00:16:42] Michelle J Raymond: And that’s when people are like, okay, you know, but what kind of a business are you? And this is where we start to come into the, what I call good to feel. So this is. What is your business? What do they stand for? We know that buyers are drawn to people who share values, purpose driven companies are getting, you know, a lot more say these days.

[00:17:04] Michelle J Raymond: So start to show us some of the things that makes your business different to others. What do I mean by this? If you’re doing work out in the community, show that. Show us some photos of what goes on behind the scenes. You know, it can be as simple as grabbing your phone, taking a selfie or a video when you’re out and about, and just explaining to people that this is part of your process.

[00:17:26] Michelle J Raymond: We want to see behind the curtains, like the wizard of Oz, you know, who’s behind that curtain. And this is what the good to know, sorry, good to feel posts will show people. So then we get that affinity for the business and we get to start to filter out who we want to work with and who we may not want to, but that leaves the lucky last post out of those six, which is the most important one, even though it’s the least that most people skip over.

[00:17:51] Michelle J Raymond: And you know what it is. The good to buy post for the love of God, please tell people what your business does and make it really clear so that people don’t have to guess what you do. I have so many people that I’m connected to on LinkedIn that post regularly that I learn a lot from. I even like them a lot, but I have no clue what they actually sell to people to be able to refer business or to buy from them. And I’m sure you see that a lot as well.

[00:18:22] April Beach: I think I do that a lot. Not only see that a lot.

[00:18:26] Michelle J Raymond: Yeah.

[00:18:27] April Beach: Wow. It is. It is so true.

[00:18:30] Michelle J Raymond: We get stuck in adding value. There’s this thing don’t sell on LinkedIn. And the problem is we can absolutely sell on LinkedIn. That’s why I’m there. I help businesses grow using LinkedIn.

[00:18:41] Michelle J Raymond: But the problem is when we do it all the time and get the ratio out of whack, say we were doing it six posts, we were just saying, bye, bye, bye. No one wants that. But the problem is we’re doing all this value, building up our credibility, people like us, and then they’re just confused. They’re just like, well, what would I actually spend my money with you?

[00:19:00] Michelle J Raymond: Now, when we keep it in the three to one ratio, people don’t mind because they’ve seen, you know, your things, they have an affinity for your business. And then they’re like, shut up and take my money, but they don’t know where. And so this is what I’d like to help people. It’s no longer a broadcast at people.

[00:19:16] Michelle J Raymond: The content style is very similar to what you do on your personal page, but. Don’t forget the good to buy posts. It is critical, even on your personal posts. It won’t reach as many people as part of the game, but it will reach the right people. And that’s the important piece. We don’t want to walk away and leave money on the table.

[00:19:36] April Beach: Wow. Okay. So three good to knows, two good to feels and one good to buy.

[00:19:43] Michelle J Raymond: Don’t forget that one.

[00:19:44] April Beach: That was a game changer for me, an absolute game changer for me. So let’s talk about the frequency of this and, and how often you think that we should be company or posting to our company page.

[00:19:56] April Beach: I don’t think

[00:19:57] Michelle J Raymond: there’s any one answer because every business is different. So let’s say it comes down to resources. Now for a lot of businesses, if you’re a solopreneur or a micro business, you don’t have a team that’s doing all of this for you, so you’ve got to do it yourself. I would kind of do the 80 20 rule. Most of your content should go over on your personal profile with, you know, just the smaller share go over on your company page.

[00:20:21] Michelle J Raymond: So we’re going to take it over in that particular case, ideal world. Even with my paying clients, we’re only doing three times a week. We’re putting our efforts into elsewhere on the platform, you know, forming relationships, nurturing relationships, and putting content out personally. So just keep it ticking over.

[00:20:37] Michelle J Raymond: Don’t get stressed. It’s okay to repurpose to your point. I have no problems for that, but what we do is we just put a bit of a gap in between when you’re repurposing, unless it’s time critical for say an event, any other posts, just put some space between it. And then that way people will just kind of go, I haven’t seen that before.

[00:20:56] Michelle J Raymond: And you’ve kind of got two different audiences. And on LinkedIn, we often see the same thing twice. And what do we do? We just scroll by and just go. What’s the silly algorithm. We don’t blame the person. And so I’ve got a concept that might help some people to keep going. Create your LinkedIn company page is going to be your greatest hits library.

[00:21:16] Michelle J Raymond: And what I mean by that and I’m going to be showing my age here, but when I was younger, I used to buy CDs and you would buy a CD, which have say 25 songs on it and three were great. But you had to buy the whole thing just to get those three. Well, we’re not going to do that. We want all killer, no filler.

[00:21:34] Michelle J Raymond: So we just want the three good tracks on the company page. And don’t worry about trying to keep up with the rest. When you take away the volume component and up the quality, it becomes so much easier to do. So yeah, create it as your greatest hits library and it’s so much easier.

[00:21:50] April Beach: Ah, I’m going to, it used to be cassette tapes for me. I’m really going to age myself.

[00:21:54] Michelle J Raymond: I’ve got those too, the mixtapes.

[00:21:57] April Beach: The mixtapes. We used to hit record when the radio was playing live to try to catch the song in the beginning. Oh my gosh. Yeah. This is, that is really, really interesting. Okay. So the greatest hits I honestly, I always like try to throw myself under the, well not try to, I always end up throwing myself under the bus here on the podcast, especially when I’m learning so many new things.

[00:22:17] April Beach: I honestly think that we have just been saying, okay, we don’t know where else to put this content. We’re just going to put it out on the company page. It was, we have so much content because of the podcast. We’re like, sure, let’s just put it on the company page, put it on the company page. And so I think that we’ve been sharing a lot of content, but there was certainly been no strategy behind it other than sharing, you know, this weekly podcast.

[00:22:37] April Beach: This is a game changer. And now I can see why you wrote the first book on LinkedIn company pages. And also why so many people are coming to you to help grow their business and their brand on LinkedIn. So I’m absolutely incredibly helpful, Michelle. I know that many of our listeners want to connect with you, want to know how to get your book because I mean that if this is what we’ve just picked up and you know, 20 minutes, then what is it going to be if they, if they actually dive into all your genius, how can they find you and connect with you?

[00:23:10] April Beach: Well, the

[00:23:11] Michelle J Raymond: easiest place to find me is always on LinkedIn and it’s Michelle J. Raymond. And that J is there deliberately not to make my name longer, but to make it easier for you to find me because there’s lots of other Michelle Raymonds. So Michelle J. Raymond and the book is called Business Gold and it’s on Amazon.

[00:23:26] Michelle J Raymond: But if you go to my profile, there’s links there and always happy to point people in the direction, but ultimately it’s everything you need to get you started. Started with your company paid. So we’ve covered a little bit here today, but for those of you who want to be stepped through the book is great. It’s a two hour read. It will set you off at success for the future.

[00:23:44] April Beach: Wow. Thank you so much for your wisdom and your experience and your excellence and everything you’ve taught us here today. We’ll definitely be applying this. I know in our business, and we’re really excited because you get to come in and teach our clients in an intensive coming up.

[00:23:58] April Beach: And I know our clients are really excited to be able to work with you. So just. Thank you so much for all the change that you’re making in all of our businesses. And we really appreciate you.

[00:24:07] Michelle J Raymond: It is my pleasure. I wish everyone all the growth this year. It’s a tough year, but I know they’re in good hands with you. So yeah, I’m excited to be working with you guys and just show people that this is just another tool that you can leverage to help your business grow. So yeah, excited to see what we can do.

[00:24:24] Michelle J Raymond: Me

[00:24:24] April Beach: too. Me too. It’s excellent. Thank you so much.

 

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

303 

[00:00:44] Hi guys. And welcome to episode number 303. This is a special treat. I am literally recording this episode on location. If you’re watching the video version of this from Podcast Movement, 2023, and I’m going to give you a secret. I’m literally recording to you the exact workshop training that I’m going to be delivering here as a speaker. at podcast movement this week. And here’s really our little secret. I am using this recording to practice my talk at Podcast Movement.

[00:01:18] So let’s see how well I do. You guys always get the behind-the-scenes here. When you tap into me at this podcast, if we don’t know each other yet, I’m April Beach. I am the founder of the SweetLife Company, and we help. Subject matter experts, coaches, and consultants scale their business with million-dollar programs and content licensing.

[00:01:39] And this entire show is designed to give you guys free trainings and coaching that you would pay thousands of dollars worth somewhere else. So I’m super glad that you’re here. Couple of prerequisites here as we dive in this, like I said, is the workshop that I’m delivering here at Podcast Movement Live two days from now.

[00:02:00] So our audio is not going to be pristine. I’m sitting here in the Riverside booth recording this, which is so cool Riverside is a software we use to record this show we have for years We love these guys and they were nice enough to give me a table here so I could record this show for you So I’m super stoked about this, but you know the sounds might be a little off.

[00:02:23] You guys are used to that though, because you know, behind the scenes at the beach house where my home studio is, you’re usually going to hear loud noises and kids and dogs anyway. So here we go.

[00:02:33] Today, I’m delivering you a workshop that is going to find the solution for three steps to build a profitable business from your podcast without running ads.

[00:02:44] Even if you have a small audience, that’s the workshop I’m teaching here. And those are the solutions that I’m going to give to you today. Now, who is this podcast for this episode for this episode is for those of you guys who again are subject matter experts, coaches and consultants, and you may want to launch a podcast or you have a podcast and it feels really saturated in the industry and you’re wondering, you know, nobody’s going to pay to advertise on my podcast.

[00:03:14] Maybe you have less than 10, downloads, right? So how do you make money from your podcast? The truth of the matter is, is I’m going to give you our exact framework on how we have made money and profited from this podcast directly into our business. So you’re in the right place. If you’re interested in podcasting, having your own show, not being a guest, if you’re interested in having your own show, or if you have your own show and maybe you’re not making money from it, maybe you don’t know how to turn listeners into buyers.

[00:03:48] I’m pulling back of the curtains and giving you every single thing here. So at the end of this, you are going to have a proven funnel that you can apply to your show. You are going to understand our strategy and you’re going to be able to actually take implementation tools that I’m giving you and be able to apply it to your show.

[00:04:09] So stay around and let’s dive in if that is what you want. Are you guys ready? All of the show notes can be found by visiting SweetLifeCo. com. This is episode number 303. 303. Shout out to all the 303 Boulder, Colorado area code people, even though that’s totally irrelevant to the podcast. You know, I just had to give a shout out there to 303.

[00:04:37] All right, let’s go ahead and dive into the show you guys. There’s gonna be no breaks, no crazy music in the middle. This is you and me on scene here at Podcast Movement going through these steps. So, Step number one to build a profitable business from your podcast is to have a predictable show structure.

[00:04:56] One of the things that you might have realized, especially if you’ve been listening to this show for a long time, is I have a certain format that I go through. Well, I should say I try to go through at least on nine out of 10 episodes, and I’m going to give you our exact format. But before I do that, I need to tell you one very important thing.

[00:05:17] Whether you have an interview type show or whether you have a solo show, it’s really important that you are the centerpiece of your show. And if you already have a show and you aren’t sure, I want you to ask yourself this question. Do your listeners know why they need to buy you? Do they know the problem you solve because sometimes if you have an interview show you’re so busy Which is fantastic interviewing all these other great people if you’re trying to build a profitable business on the backside of your show You need to become the centerpiece of trust and the framework that I’m going to give you is going to help you do that Now this is totally our framework.

[00:05:57] We’ve been using it for six years. So I promise you that it works But I’m also telling you you need to like take it and tweak it and make it your own like don’t copy my exact Framework, right guys, but I want you to take this framework and make it yours. So with a Predictable show structure what happens is is that when your listeners show up their brain is not overworking trying to navigate What’s happening here?

[00:06:22] What are they talking about? What can I get out of this? Because our brains, they’re kind of lazy. And when we ask your listeners brains to exert a lot of calories to figure out, Why do I need to listen to this show? And why do I need to hire this coach? Or buy their programs or services? We’re asking their brains to do a lot of work.

[00:06:41] So by having a predictable show structure, we’re reducing the work. Because we know that podcast listeners are listening in their car from work while they’re at the gym, while they’re cooking dinner, they’re multitasking while they’re listening. So having a predictable show structure is really going to help you to make sure that your listeners are getting exactly what they need out of your show.

[00:07:01] When you do this, you’re going to build trust, you are going to help your listeners understand that you value their time, and you’re going to have returning listeners come back again and again and again, and they’re going to actually purchase your services because they know that you respect them, you deliver high quality content.

[00:07:19] And that your show is a place where they can go find solutions. So here is our predictable show structure. The first part of our show, in the beginning of every show, I have what’s called a prerequisite. And a prerequisite is where I will say, Hey listen, this is who this show is for. If you’re in this place, if you need this, want this, or trying to learn this, or trying to do this, this is a great episode for you.

[00:07:43] But then at the beginning of the show, just like I said in the beginning of this, It is not for those of you guys who want to know about guest podcasting. I also will tell you who this is not for. You know why? Because I respect your time. You respect my time. Everybody’s happy because we respect each other.

[00:08:00] So the first step in the framework of a predictable show structure that we use is pre qualifying and disqualifying listeners from our show. The second step in the framework is where we share the opt in. Just like I shared with you, go to the show notes. You also can have a lead magnet. For your opt-in, and I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m gonna follow this structure.

[00:08:21] We have a very powerful tool that I gave away for free, a podcast movement that I’m also gonna give to you guys. So when you go to the show notes for this episode number 3 0 3, you are gonna find all of the implementation tools, all of the worksheets, and I’m also giving you the slides from this talk from podcast movement.

[00:08:44] So we’re gonna give you a ton of things. So now let’s apply that to your show. You say your prerequisite and then you say your opt in. What does that opt in look like? And then you share the end results. So again, the end results of this show are you’re going to have a funnel that you can duplicate and make your own.

[00:09:01] And you’re going to be able to understand how you can make money from your show as a coach, consultant, or subject matter expert without running ads. Or without having advertisers to your show, because frankly, your audience might not be big enough that an advertiser wants to pay to get on your show. So again, the first three steps of a framework are prerequisite, opt in, and end result.

[00:09:22] And then you’re going to go into your show content. I’m actually in my show content now because I’m already speaking to you. I’m already teaching you, but you’re going to go into your show content, whether that’s an interview or whether that is you. Teaching a training or delivering a monologue or whatever that is, whatever you do on your show.

[00:09:41] After the content of the show, which is the bulk of the show, the meat and potatoes. There are two other steps to this framework and you’re going to hear these at the end of this show. The next one is the implementation. It’s a recap of what you talked about. It’s a recap of what those end results were that you said in the beginning and how people can actually implement.

[00:10:04] So it’s recap and implement. This is where you would share your call to action. This is where you would share your Link to purchase your consulting program or schedule a call with you. This is where you have literally a direct call to action to the monetization piece of your business because if we aren’t actually monetizing the podcast yet.

[00:10:24] We have to monetize your programs and services on the back side of it That’s how we make money from your show. So that implementation that call to action is very very important Don’t forget it. And then the last part of it is asking for people to share your show, especially if you’re a newer show, you don’t have a ton of listeners yet.

[00:10:43] It’s really important that you ask, you know, people want to share, but sometimes we have to remind them, Hey, listen, can you please share this show with your friends? Because we don’t have advertisers on this show, and we might not even run advertisements to the show. So sometimes that is the most important thing is to ask.

[00:11:01] So, to recap the show framework, we have prerequisite, opt in, end result, content, implementation, and ask. So, take notes on this, if you aren’t, again, go to the show notes at SweetLifeCo. com, click on the podcast episode 303, and I’ll give you all these slides and a whole bunch of more things. All right, let’s keep going here.

[00:11:27] Step number two is to build what we call an intuitive lead magnet. The thing is, is that not all lead magnets work in a way that we need them to work for your show. So if your lead magnet should, and listen very carefully, holy moly, I hope you guys can hear me. I cannot even hear my own voice, so I really hope this is a good mic here.

[00:11:50] With your intuitive lead magnet, we want, it has a couple of very specific jobs. It is going to categorize, qualify, disqualify, or rate your listeners, okay? And I’m going to tell you how to do that here in a minute. It is going to give them more information about themselves, and it’s going to provide a roadmap to the progression that they can go through and grow through with your company.

[00:12:16] In addition, it is going to serve as the guidepost for your prerequisites. So, will people actually get results? Who should listen to what episode? And when you do this right, your lead magnet is going to label, it’s going to tag your listeners. It’s going to give you a segment of listeners and it’s also going to tell you if you’re hitting your target audience.

[00:12:38] And let me explain to you exactly how we do that because that might seem a little overwhelming. I’m going to unpack our exact strategy for you. I recommend that you create a lead magnet in the form of a quiz or an assessment that is based on your methodology. Process, roadmap, consulting framework, maybe it’s based on the topics that you teach in.

[00:13:02] Your lead magnet should align with a proven process, method, or framework that is your intellectual property, that came out of your genius brain. All right. And so let me give you an example of how we do this here on the SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast. You guys have been listening for six years. You guys know all this already.

[00:13:21] Okay. You know our tricks. We create a quiz and that quiz tells our listeners what level of business growth they’re in. And when they understand the level of business growth and you go to our podcast website. Our shows, our episodes are tagged to a level of business growth. So you know, if you’re in phase three, that you’re going to listen to the episodes aligned with phase three.

[00:13:46] And that’s the kind of lead magnet I want you to create with your own quiz or your own assessment based on your intellectual property from your show. Now, I can’t cover all this right here, but I’m literally giving you an hour long training on how to create an intuitive quiz. for your show based on your method.

[00:14:07] That is one of the many bonuses that I’m giving with this talk here at podcast movement. And of course, I’m going to give it to all you guys too. So go to the show notes and grab that. So let’s say that you have your quiz in place. What I really want to hone in on right now is what do you actually do with that quiz?

[00:14:25] So there are five steps to actually then use that quiz to make your business more profitable on the backside of your show. The first one is to do what I said, tag each show. with an outcome to the quiz. So whether somebody lands in level one or level six, your shows and the content you deliver, even if you’re interviewing somebody, should align with an outcome based on your quiz or your assessment.

[00:14:50] It’s very important to tag each show to the outcome for your quiz. Number two, at the beginning of every single one of your episodes, you’re going to go on, you’re going to show in your show and you’re going to say, Hey, listen, if you’re in level five, if you’re in level four, if you scored an A or a B or a C or whatever on our intuitive quiz, this show’s for you and you’re already see how I’m disqualifying or prequalifying and you’re going to be able to do that at the beginning of every show.

[00:15:16] And I’m going to give you the language that we use exactly. This show is. for people in blank of my, and then insert your quiz or your roadmap name. And then you say, if you don’t know where you are in our genius process, pause this show for a second here and go take my short quiz. And so automatically everybody’s like, wow, well I don’t want to waste my time and listen to a show that isn’t for me, and I would really like to know where I am.

[00:15:46] You know, we’re all like suckers for quizzes. I would really like to know where I am in April’s process of business growth, right? So they’re going to go and they’re going to take your quiz. So, you do that at the beginning of almost every episode as it flows, as it pertains. And if they don’t know where the quiz is, you need to have a very clear verbal call to action.

[00:16:07] For example, go to my show notes or text the word quiz to this number. You need to have very clear verbal calls to action because if you give them a long URL, they are never going there. So number one is tag each show. Number two is qualify each show and tell people who it’s for in the beginning of the episode.

[00:16:27] And then number three is if they haven’t taken your quiz yet, tell them very easily how to go find and take your quiz. Number four, what we do is we then put the, the label of each one of the outcomes of our quiz at the top of every show notes. So when you go to our show notes, cause you’re totally going to go there, right?

[00:16:46] To get all of our free stuff, you’re going to see on top that it says, who is this episode for? Question mark. It says this episode is for established entrepreneurs who are in phases. Two through four of my system. And then there’s a hyperlink to go take the quiz if they haven’t taken it yet. I want you to do that in your show notes because we’re making the actual assessment a part of the ecosystem of your show.

[00:17:13] And then the last thing that we do for good measure is we’ve also built our podcast website that all of our shows can be sorted based on the outcome of our business quiz. So you can also take that extra step and that is step number two, even though I just gave you five step steps in two total steps.

[00:17:35] So, so far I’ve told you that to create a predictably profitable business on the backside of your podcast without running ads to it or running ads on it, that you need to number one, have a predictable show structure where you are the centerpiece. People know why they need you, even if you have guests.

[00:17:51] Number two, I recommend that you have an intuitive quiz that can integrate with every single one of your shows. And then the very third thing is that make an irresistible offer. This is really important for you guys to know. Again, if you can’t monetize the show because you’re not getting 50 or a hundred thousand downloads per episode, I don’t have that.

[00:18:14] Let’s be real. I’ve been podcasting six years. I don’t have that. And we have had advertisers approach us for advertising, but it’s just, I don’t, I just don’t want them on our show here. Right? It’s frankly, an advertiser is not going to pay me. I’m being really honest with you guys, as much money as I make off of clients having a relationship with me and hiring us on the backside of this show.

[00:18:39] I have made more money doing that than an advertiser would ever pay me to advertise on my show. Okay. I’m being really real with you guys. All right. So here’s a couple of stats for you. 28% of podcasters have made a purchase from hearing about an offer on the show. So I recommend that you actually make direct offers for your own coaching programs and products on your show.

[00:19:03] Number one, advertise your own stuff. on the show. That statistic comes from HubSpot. And then here’s another stat for you. 60% of podcast listeners say they’ve actually looked up products or taken action on a service after hearing an advertisement. So again, whether it’s your free lead magnet that we talked about, Or it’s an actual paid product.

[00:19:27] We know that 28% have actually bought in 60% are going to go look at that product and check it out. Imagine if that’s your product. I don’t believe you should be shy about sharing your solutions on your show, especially with people that already know, love and trust you in this third step. When we’re talking about.

[00:19:48] Building an irresistible offer, it’s very important that you understand that your offer, your program, your solution has to be aligned with your podcast, right? So for a profitable podcast, you have to have an aligned offer. So what am I mean by alignment? You should, if you’re using the intuitive quiz or assessment strategy that I shared with you here on the show.

[00:20:13] Your solutions should provide a direct response to a certain outcome in your quiz. So for example, if somebody is in phase three of our business growth roadmap, I have programs and services exactly curated for them. If they’re in phase two, that’s business launch, just so you know. We have our suite life launch program that is specifically curated to them.

[00:20:40] And so the offer has to be aligned with an outcome. You don’t have to have an offer for every outcome. You can have an offer only for one. We just happen to actually serve clients in two different phases of our outcome. You don’t have to do that. And here are examples of offers that do well for coaching and consulting businesses on the backside.

[00:21:00] Of podcast episodes, you can have group coaching, you can have on demand trainings, you can license your content. If you are a course creator, if you are a trainer, you know, I’m a big advocate for showing you guys how to release and license your trainings and courses to other companies and organizations.

[00:21:17] You can use your podcast to get the word out about that. You can of course have high ticket coaching programs, workshops, courses, retreats, mastermind services. These are examples of programs. That do well to sell on the backside of podcast. And here is why, because with this type of podcast, people want more access to you.

[00:21:38] They want to be in your world. They want to hang out with you. They want to have your direct response on their life or their business. And so these type of programs that give them actually more access to you do really well, even if it’s an on demand training that you already pre recorded and it’s totally scaled.

[00:21:55] They just want more of you, and it’s important to understand that not all offers are created equal. To build a profitable offer, you must deliver predictable, measurable, transformational results. Your program or your coaching program can’t suck, all right? It has to be great. We’ve already identified that it needs to align with your quiz.

[00:22:21] It actually has to be incredible in and of itself. Right? Can’t just, well, maybe you can throw it together, but if you throw it together and make sure it’s predictable, transformational and measurable, however long it is in whatever business model it’s delivered in, it also should align with in some capacity or relate to your quiz or your assessment in some way.

[00:22:44] And when you do this, you can sell more, you can scale more, you can license your content and you can stand out. And to make irresistible offers that build million dollar service based businesses, coaching and consulting businesses, these things are required. Okay. You can’t just have any offer. And so a profitable podcast hinges on having great offers.

[00:23:11] When your programs are irresistible. To your listeners, they will buy them. And here’s the deal. When you follow this framework that we have talked about here, you have created literally the most mouthwatering, irresistible offers for your audience because they took your quiz because you already know exactly what they’re struggling with.

[00:23:32] You already know exactly what they need. You already know exactly how to deliver them results, and they’re already. Pre qualified to work with you. They have the quiz result themselves. They can go back and take that quiz a million times. So when you’re on your show and you’re saying, Hey, listen, guys, I am launching a retreat.

[00:23:50] We’re going to go to wherever you want to go in a month from now for all of you guys to solve the problems based on this one outcome. In my quiz if you haven’t taken my quiz go take it if you’ve already taken the quiz and you know This is your outcome. This is exactly what you’ve been looking for and i’m telling you what guys when you go Honestly, you did the work.

[00:24:14] This is not like a scam you have done the work To develop an intuitive quiz based on your genius, your intellectual property, and based on the problems that your company solves in this is actually so ethical. This is like the most ethical way to do sales in my personal opinion, because. You are not making this offer to anybody except for those that already prequalified themselves based on an assessment that they took with their own information.

[00:24:43] You are only making an offer to help them based on the people that already said, Hey, listen, this is exactly where I am. I need your help. And then you’re coming on the phone or email or however, and you’re saying, Hey, listen, you’re in phase three of my quiz. I have the solution you’ve been waiting for. Do you want it?

[00:25:03] And this is how we build a profitable business on the backside of your podcast. This is how we’ve generated over a million dollars in direct sales from the SweetLife Entrepreneur podcast. Because of the fact that this is the structure, this is super secret sauce. Please don’t go teach this somewhere else.

[00:25:22] Just share my episode. I’m putting it out here to help you guys. Okay. Don’t take it. Don’t steal this unless you’re using your own business. You have permission to do that. It’s really important that you understand that by doing this, you are doing your listeners the best service that you can, even if you have an interview show.

[00:25:41] Because they have a deep connection with you and they trust you and they know that you’re looking out for their best interest. And this is how we build a profitable business on the backside of podcasting, even if you’re new. Even if you, you know, only have 10, 000 downloads, it doesn’t matter because it’s so curated.

[00:26:02] How many of you guys know that you don’t have to have a huge list or hundreds of thousands of downloads? To make money. I mean, look at me as an example, nobody knows me. That’s like, I’m going to go up here on stage at podcast movement and share all this. Nobody has, I’m a nobody, you guys, nobody has a clue who I am, but I have built a very profitable business on the backside of this exact structure I’m giving you.

[00:26:26] And that’s why it’s so cool. That’s why I still use this structure. Generally, I will say for the first probably three years, I was really religious about it. But now I’ve kind of gotten a little more lax, today’s full about it. But in those first, you know, three years of the show, it was like religiously here, here, here, here, here.

[00:26:43] And it created lifelong listeners and, and frankly, great friends that I have made that have become our clients from the show. And so I’m so excited to be able to share this with you guys, and I’m super excited to share it here on stage. Obviously, big difference recording here with you and then standing in front of hundreds of people.

[00:27:01] I’ll share with you guys a video. Hopefully I do okay. Uh, but I, I wanted to unpack this for you and selfishly, I wanted to practice this on you before I go up there on stage. So another thing that I’m going to unpack here, and I want to share with you a little bit, but it’s not going to come across real well here on an audio podcast or even video.

[00:27:21] But I’m also breaking down the numbers for the audience here at podcast move in. I’m breaking down like the number of downloads, the percentage of people we expect to take action based on the download, how to convert them, all of those things. I’m just, I wouldn’t do you a big service here if I tried to share it with you verbally on the show, but I want to let you know that you’re going to get the slides when you go to our show notes and you are also going to get.

[00:27:47] More worksheets to implement these numbers. So you’re going to be able to see them all. So go grab them. It’s free It’s my gift to you. Take it. Okay, let’s recap what we talked about here on Episode number 303 we talked about in order to build a predictable business on the backside of podcasting without running ads or paying for ads You know having advertisers pay you on the show even if you have a small list and a small audience that you can build a profitable business to And I gave you this structure, which is ours.

[00:28:20] The first one is having a predictable show structure so that people know how to interact with you and what they can expect from your show. Please make sure that you are the centerpiece and people know why they need you, even if you have an interview based show. Number two is having an intuitive lead magnet.

[00:28:40] We recommend a quiz. I’m giving you a whole training on how to build an intuitive lead magnet for your show or your business or whatever you want to use it for. So go get the training on the quiz. And then number three is making sure your offers are irresistible. You guys know what we do at the SweetLife Company is we help you build offers that are so good, people feel stupid not buying your services.

[00:29:04] And so, if you’re struggling and you don’t have a million dollar offer ecosystem, come work with us at the SweetLife Company. Go to SweetLifeCo. com and let’s book a call. Or, if you have great courses and offers and programs and you want to learn how to license those, We also help you. Here’s a little insight.

[00:29:24] If you’re in phase three or phase four of our quiz, those are the solutions we provide to you guys. And I’m really excited to do that. And so that’s what we talked about today on the show. That’s what I’m going to be teaching here at Podcast Movement. You can find all of the show notes by going to SweetLifeCo. com click on the podcast button, and this is episode number. 303. There’s all these people behind me.

[00:29:50] It’s so cool. I’m so happy to be here. It’s actually my first time at podcast movement. I really hope you guys can hear me. Riverside guys loaned me this mic shout out to Riverside. They really are awesome.

[00:30:03] We’ve just had such great results. It’s recording our podcast here with them, both audio and video. And if you haven’t yet, please share this show with your friends. I would really appreciate it. Share it on social media, share it on LinkedIn and tag me at any point in time, April beach life or use the hashtag sweet life podcast.

[00:30:23] Thank you guys so much. Super glad that you’re here and, and that I could practice on you. All right. I’ll see you guys soon.

 

 

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

302

[00:00:43] Hi guys. Welcome back to the show. This is episode number 302 here on the SweetLife Entrepreneur in Business podcast and I’m super excited to dive into what we’re talking about today. Let’s give a very brief recap of what we talked about last week. Last week, if you joined [00:01:00] us, we broke down the five components of actually making an irresistible offer. And we talked about the difference between what is an offer and what is a product.

[00:01:09] And we separated those two, especially for those of you guys who are in the service based industry. So you’re a subject matter expert, you’re a coach, you’re a consultant, you help other people get results based on your own genius. And so if you’re wondering how to actually craft an irresistible offer, pause go back to last week’s episode number 301 where we actually broke down those components.

[00:01:34] So here today on this show, we’re talking about how to build a successful program. An offer is not the same thing as a program. Although I understand that those two terms are used interchange interchangeably. quite often here in our consulting industry. So we are talking about the actual product itself on this show.

[00:01:54] So let’s make sure you are in the right place. First of all, if you are in phases [00:02:00] two, three or four of my lifestyle entrepreneur roadmap, this show is appropriate for you. That means you’re either launching your programs, you are scaling your programs, or you’re looking to increase the profitability of your programs.

[00:02:13] If you aren’t sure where you are in our Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap, pause this episode for a second and cruise over to SweetLifeCo.Com/quiz. And you’ll find out in a heartbeat exactly what phase of business growth you’re in so that we know that the episode and the content we’re talking about is appropriate and you’re actually going to be able to apply it.

[00:02:34] I never want our show to be a shiny object for anybody. I want you to be able to take the trainings that we give here on the show and actually implement them right away. We’re actually known for delivering business coaching and trainings other coaches will charge you thousands for. And so that’s what we’re doing here on today’s show.

[00:02:50] Now, let’s really dig into the nitty gritty of who this episode is for. If you find yourself providing [00:03:00] extra time to clients, what do I mean by that? You are helping them. extra over and above what they paid you over and above maybe the time frame within your coaching or your program, even your course that you said that you would help them if you are wondering whether or not they’re getting results.

[00:03:16] So you’re hanging out with your family and you are worried whether or not your clients are happy, whether or not they’re actually achieving measurable results within it’s a client of your business, then this episode is for you. So we are going to break down the structure of a highly profitable coaching program that guarantees your clients results.

[00:03:36] And I’m going to give you my recipe that I’ve been teaching businesses for well over a decade and how you can actually put this into your business as well. At the end of this episode, this is what you can expect. You can expect to know. The recipe, my recipe for three parts to a profitable coaching, consulting, or service based program.

[00:03:56] You’re going to be able to understand immediately, Hey, you know, this is [00:04:00] what I’m struggling with this one area. This one of the three is where I need to focus first. And I’m giving you a massive tool to actually implement some of what we’re talking about here on the show totally free. The tool that we are giving you with this show are the six components to a highly profitable, scalable coaching program.

[00:04:21] And so the notes… It’s in the show notes. We’re going to drop the link to that. You can find everything that I told you here in the show notes by visiting SweetLifeCo. com. Click on the podcast and this is episode number 302. So if you feel like you’re in the right place, let’s go ahead and dive on in.

[00:04:39] Okay, let’s go ahead and dive into the actual meat and potatoes of this podcast, mini masterclass training. So you want to be able to close your eyes and know that frankly, you’re really good at what you do. Everybody. We all just want to feel like we created change in somebody else’s business or their life or their profit margin, you know, as an [00:05:00] entrepreneur, as a coach, as a consultant.

[00:05:02] We’re teachers, we’re trainers, we’re leaders, and we’re guides. And so, first of all, it’s totally normal to think about, Hey, are my clients happy? I want you thinking about, Hey, are my clients happy? We’re thinking all the time, Are our clients happy? Are they getting results? Are they getting what they paid for?

[00:05:17] That’s a normal thing, but there’s a difference between being worried about that because you’re not sure if your programs are engineered correctly and actually just thinking about that from a customer service standpoint. And so to build a profitable, scalable coaching business, you have to have a very good product in what you do, what you teach, what you your service you provide.

[00:05:39] That is your product. We’re not selling, you know, bottles like water bottles here, right? We are selling our knowledge together, get other people results and we’re giving them tools and strategies to do that. So there are three parts to actually create a profitable coaching program. And I want you to know one thing, and this is not to be like, Oh, a total [00:06:00] downer.

[00:06:00] According to actioncoach. com. 80% of coaches fail in the first two years, and there’s a lot of reasons why that action coach, of course, wants to sell people to hire their coaches because they say that, you know, they, they perform better than that. Hopefully they do. That’s great on them. But this statistic still shows that there are a lot of consulting businesses that do not thrive, that aren’t successful.

[00:06:23] But this episode isn’t necessarily. For those of you guys that are getting started because some of the concepts I’m going to talk about here are advanced. I’m going to be honest with you, but if you have been doing what you’ve been doing for a while and you’re still not really sure that you’re getting people great results and you’re not making as much money as you want to, then it’s really important that you tune into what I’m saying here on this episode.

[00:06:43] So we aren’t going to let you be that 80%. That’s primarily our whole entire mission here, this week, life company, and on the podcast, all right? But it’s normal to struggle at in the beginning or as you’re learning to scale. So to start out with, there are [00:07:00] three words I want you to ask yourself about your coaching program. Your consulting program.

[00:07:05] We’re gonna use the words interchangeably. I don’t care if you’re a consultant, a strategist, a leader, a trainer, a teacher, a coach, any of those things. I’m talking to all of you guys. And by the way, I don’t care if you’re a marketing coach, sales coach, sex coach, life coach, parent coach, whatever kind of coach you are, it doesn’t matter.

[00:07:21] What I’m talking to you about applies to every single one of you. So, three words, and I say, I say these three words, I want you to think about your program, your offer. Just pick one in your head right now to workshop with me as we’re going through this. So, the first word is predictable. Are the results that your program delivers absolutely 100% predictable?

[00:07:45] So predictable that can you say before anybody works with you that at the end of this. This is what you’re going to know, understand, be able to do. Like, are you able to put a laundry list of [00:08:00] what is predictable within your program? What can somebody bank on? Is your program predictable? And even though, I get it, every single client’s different, every single one of our clients is different too, right?

[00:08:12] But we still need to deliver predictable results. It’s our job as leaders, consultants, teachers, trainers to do that. That’s why people pay us a big bucks, right? So number one, how predictable is your current program? Let’s just go with your signature offer or core program right now. That’s number one. So just do a check in with me.

[00:08:35] Number two, how transformational is it? Okay. So every single program we deliver, I don’t care if it’s a one hour call or a one hour workshop or shoot, it can be a 10 minute workshop. We need to take people from one place into another place. So from not knowing to knowing or not understanding to understanding or not being able to do something to being able to do something or not having peace to be able to rest assured in [00:09:00] something or whatever.

[00:09:00] You know, anything. We go from one place to the next place. It doesn’t have to be from A to Z. Those are huge programs, guys. And frankly, sometimes that’s way too much for people to learn in one program. It can be from A to C or A to M. It doesn’t matter. But, is your program transformational? Meaning, are you taking somebody from one place to another.

[00:09:22] Are they different? Is their business different? Is their life different? Is their marriage different? Is their marketing different? Is their communication style different? Is their confidence or their mindset different in your program at the end? And frankly, is it different along the way, which is what I call benchmarks.

[00:09:40] Then they were in the beginning. So the first one is predictable. Can you predict the end result? And can your clients bank on them? Number two, is it transformational? And then the third one, is it measurable? And by the way, these aren’t even the three parts. of building a program that I’m going to give you here in a [00:10:00] minute.

[00:10:00] So hang in with me. This is just kind of our check in to have a temperature gauge together here as to how your current programs are doing. And then I’m going to give you the three parts to structure out the program. Is it predictable, transformational, or measurable? Can you actually measure a change in results?

[00:10:19] And by the way, measurement isn’t always ROI. Is a matter of fact, I would say probably only 20% of our clients with their programs. We actually measure the change in making more money or ROI. Your program could create more time. It could reduce stress. It could create better systems. But are we measuring the way?

[00:10:39] You know, save time, right? There’s a whole bunch of different measurement metrics. And I should probably do a whole nother podcast for you guys about this. This is what we work on with our clients in our, in our, in our business coaching programs are all those metrics. But can you measure, can people measure the results that they are receiving?

[00:10:58] Within your working with you. So [00:11:00] predictable, transformational, measurable. So let’s just take a break here and identify where you may be coming up short. And frankly, I would love to know what you are rocking at. You can send me a message on Instagram. Send me a message on LinkedIn. I’m really trying to hang out on LinkedIn more.

[00:11:15] You guys, here’s a sneak peek next month. Our podcast series is all on LinkedIn growth, and I’m going to be learning right along with you guys. Um, send me a message on LinkedIn. That will test me to make sure I’m on my LinkedIn game and let me know what you’re doing really, really well. All right. So we’ve taken that temperature measurement, and if you are good at what you do, you’re always going to have business.

[00:11:39] You could have a profitable business on only five clients. You could have a profitable business on 5, 000 clients. I’m not talking the volume. I’m talking the quality of your programs and quality equals the volume in profit. All right. So now let’s dive into how do we actually structure the program itself.

[00:11:59] So [00:12:00] there are three parts to a profitable, scalable consulting or coaching program. Part number one, and these are important. I’ll share with you why these are important. Let me share that first. They’re important because we don’t want your program like everybody else. I do not, I mean you could be here, you can listen, I love that you’re here, but if you are a coach and you are just trying to duplicate the way other coaches are doing things, I can’t help you.

[00:12:25] You know, I believe that profitable businesses are built on your intellectual property, your unique process. And yes, do you take frameworks and services? Shoot, you’re taking my framework here. I’m giving it to you. But we want to make it uniquely yours. When we make programs uniquely yours that are predictable, transformational, measurable, that’s when we make you profitable.

[00:12:43] And guess what? Nobody can compete with you. You are like in your own blue ocean because they are built the way I’m going to share with you. So number one, your program should be built on your unique method, process, [00:13:00] roadmap, framework, or system. You need to have a system That gets people results.

[00:13:08] Have you guys ever read the E Myth or the E Myth Revisited? So they’re Michael Gerber’s books. It was one of the first business books I’ve ever read. It’s a really short read. And these are great books, okay? I’ll put it in the show notes for you. In the E Myth, Michael Gerber unpacks profitable business systems, that they do the same thing every way. They go through, there’s a predictable process of doing the same thing again, like Subway Sandwiches and he also unpacks like the back end, customer service of the Ritz Carlton.

[00:13:38] It’s fascinating. The point I’m making here is that I’m just not pulling this out, out of anywhere. Like, how we build incredible business programs and incredible programs, whatever you’re doing is you need to have your own unique method, process, system or framework to get your clients results, and you should be able to take different clients with different stories in different situations through the [00:14:00] same process every time.

[00:14:00] So step number one is building your unique method or framework. I have a ton of episodes on this. We work with our clients to build their unique method and framework cruise over to episode number 295 where I broke down the steps to build a method and framework.

[00:14:15] That’s a great place for you to start. And I’ll, I’ll put those on the show notes for you as well. But does your program, is your program built upon your unique proprietary process of getting people results? It doesn’t even have to be complex, can be totally simple, but is your program built on that? It needs to be built on that because that’s how we grow it.

[00:14:36] That’s how we scale it. That’s how we license your program to other companies and bring in millions and millions of dollars. It needs to be yours. It needs to be uniquely yours. So number one is it needs to be built upon a method or a process. Framework system, even key principles could be topics that are unique to you.

[00:14:54] And when you do this, you are going to be able to track your client’s progress through your programs [00:15:00] because you’re going to know exactly where they are in your process. And that is really helpful to know if a client or a customer is falling behind or if they’re struggling in a certain area. It’s not only good for your clients and they have so much more trust in you because they’re like, wow.

[00:15:13] You have a process to get me results, like go figure, uh, but it helps you as a leader to not lose track of people that might be struggling. So even if you have a huge course and there’s hundreds of people in your course, if you have a proven process, you can see where people are struggling. You can either edit or modify your course or program.

[00:15:33] You can add more help. You can add more office hours. You can call people up on the phone and say, Hey, April, I really see that you’re stuck on. You know, module number three, what’s the deal? So it’s really, really, really important that you have a method framework or process. Okay. Talked about that enough.

[00:15:47] Number two, the content in the curriculum within your program. You might feel the pressure to be a curriculum engineer, and that is really important. There are incredible curriculum engineers that can [00:16:00] actually pull your expertise out of your brain and put them into programs. By the way, that is part of what we do with our clients.

[00:16:05] We pull their expertise out of their brain, build them into transformational programs. The thing is, is that your curriculum itself needs to be your unique content. The curriculum doesn’t have to be long. Like I said, we can build transformational programs that are only one hour coaching sessions, but it should be yours.

[00:16:25] It should be unique to you. And as you’re curating your curriculum, don’t throw everything in there. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for five years, you know that I talk about the history of the online courses industry and how we used to build courses back in 2011 that were huge and they would last six months to a year.

[00:16:44] Our attention span is not the way it was. Like the old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be. I mean, at least me. I’m 47. I can’t remember anything, you guys. And what happens is it’s too much information for people to implement. So your content should be highly [00:17:00] valuable, but delivered in the shortest amount of time possible.

[00:17:03] And it’s really important that you curate your curriculum. Curriculum pertains to even like one hour consulting sessions, they pertain to the format of your luxury retreat. Your curriculum is a format even within masterminds. Your curriculum is a format within your training or your certification program.

[00:17:22] You know, what your webinar, whatever it is, your curriculum needs to be curated correctly without becoming overwhelming. So that’s part number two and then part number three is the actual model of your program. This is how we actually scale you guys. So there are a bunch of different models and models how you deliver your program to your clients that you can choose from.

[00:17:41] And I’m a big advocate. That the first step in choosing your model has to do with the alignment of your life. Most of you guys know I travel six months a year. I just returned from eight weeks of travel and a big event off grid. And I do that. I can do that. I’ve been able to do this for over 10 years [00:18:00] because of the way that I model and I package how I work with our clients, when I work with them, how I work with them.

[00:18:06] So I can still guarantee they’re getting results through my method and my curriculum, but it doesn’t mean that I always have to be there doing it. So your model is really important and your model should be two things. Number one, it needs to work with you and the life you’re building, the life you’re creating or your current life that you have for sure.

[00:18:24] That’s the first thing. There are a lot of business models out there that are really good. We can make you a ton of money with them. But if they don’t align with your time and the life that you want to have, Why are you an entrepreneur? That makes no sense to me at all. I’m going to go on like a little sidebar here.

[00:18:41] So many consulting businesses copy somebody else’s business model. They’re like, Oh, she did this. So that sounds good. I guess that’s the way to do it. I don’t want you to do that. As a matter of fact, in the tools here, I’m also going to give you the ultimate guide to download so that you can see all of the different online business models that you can choose from.

[00:18:58] And I’m going to [00:19:00] break down each business model and let you know how that business model is going to affect your life. You know why? Because I’ve done all these business models, and I can personally tell you what my life looked like when I did it. So I’ll give you the resource to download our ultimate guide to business models and offers.

[00:19:15] But I want you to think about the model. Now when we’re thinking about the model, number two, in addition to your life is how do your clients need to receive the information you are giving in order to actually achieve these world class results that you promise? How often do they need to see you or your team?

[00:19:33] How frequently do they need to receive the information? In what format does the information come? Is it an on demand video? Are some office hours? Do we deliver some quizzes or some downloads and worksheets? What is the curation of the curriculum look like for you? For your particular people? How do they need to receive the content and receive the information?

[00:19:59] To [00:20:00] actually get those predictable, transformational, measurable results that we need them to have in order to build your business profitably. And so to recap, there are three parts to a profitable, scalable coaching program. Number one is it’s built upon, like think of bricks, it’s built upon your method or your framework.

[00:20:21] If you do not have that, and it’s your method and your framework, by the way, isn’t necessarily like the outline in the modules of your course. Okay. There’s, there’s more to it than that. But number one is it needs to be built on your method or framework that’s unique to you. Number two, then the content that’s layered on top of it is curriculum that’s engineered.

[00:20:40] It’s the right amount. It’s how people need to hear the information in order to learn and implement it. And it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We have resources for you to teach you how to engineer your curriculum. As a matter of fact, our. Offer engineer masterclass is where we work with clients and we give you a framework to engineer your [00:21:00] curriculum like in one day.

[00:21:01] And then number three is how is the model delivered? Is this model in a way that you can serve more clients than one at a time? Is it in a way that you’re going to be able to travel all summer long like I do in the whole month of December? Is it in the way that your clients also need to receive it? So we have model, we have content or curriculum within your program.

[00:21:21] And then, excuse me. Scratch that. We have method, content, and curriculum in your program, and then model. Don’t pick the model first. That is a huge mistake that everybody makes. Don’t do that. Okay, I’m going to be really, I’m going to put on my mom hat here. Don’t say I’m going to launch a course or I’m going to launch a mastermind.

[00:21:41] You can start with that thinking because it’s normal to do that, but then take a look at your method and the content and ask yourself, what is the best way that my clients need to receive this to actually get the results that I’ve guaranteed them that they’re going to get from working with me and then go back and say, is it [00:22:00] really a mastermind?

[00:22:01] Is it really a course? Is it really, you know, a weekend retreat in challenge yourself, question yourself to make sure that the model aligns with the actual content that you are delivering in your program. And when you do this, when you do this, I guarantee guarantee you that no other competitors will be able to compete with your program, that you will stand in an ocean all by yourself, that your process will be unique to you.

[00:22:26] Nobody else will be able to compete with the way you do things because they’re actually truly pulled out of your incredible, beautiful, most likely ADHD mind. If you’re like me, I’ve Crazy ADHD, by the way, so many entrepreneurs have ADHD because we’re always creating things at once and yet they’re delivered in a way that people love you for it and if they love you in one program, they’re going to come back and they’re going to love you in two and they’re going to love you in three and they’re going to travel along the ecosystem of offers that you have perfectly You Curated for them to receive.

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] So let’s recap. We talked about how to build a transformational program, and I have a couple of resources here. Go to SweetLifeCo. com, click on the podcast button. This is episode number 302. I’m going to give you the six components of a schedule, scalable coaching program, and I’m also going to give you a link to download that entire ultimate guide to online offers where you can see which ones might work with you, which ones you love, which ones, you know, don’t really fit because I would love to save you up to 10 years time building the wrong kind of business model.

[00:23:31] All right, you guys. Okay. If you need help with your offers, you know where to find us. SweetLifeCo. com. We will be hosting. Our leading class on how to curate profitable, scalable programs and offers called Offer Engineer. That’s coming up this fall and you can always send us a message if you have any questions about our programs or services.

[00:23:51] We would love to hear from you, meet with you, give you some feedback on where you are. That’s what my team and I do and we love connecting with you guys. Thank you so much for [00:24:00] listening to this show. If I can ask if you would just share this episode, it would be really helpful to us. Share it on LinkedIn.

[00:24:06] Those of you guys that are on LinkedIn, tag me on LinkedIn. Help a girl out on LinkedIn. Man, I have to get on like my LinkedIn routine and, and tag me. We would really, really appreciate it. And I can’t wait to talk to you guys next week. We have some special episodes coming up. And again, that entire LinkedIn business growth and lead gen series is going to be coming for you as well. All right. See you guys soon. Bye for now.

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

301

[00:00:44] April Beach: Hi you guys. I’m smiling. My face hurts because I finally have. Jessica Erwin here on the podcast and those of you guys that are part of our SweetLife company and family and our [00:01:00] clients, you guys know Jessica because she is our COO and everything that happens in any sort of organized fashion at all, any systems whatsoever are done by Jessica.

[00:01:13] April Beach: So you can thank Jessica for that, including. Jessica, working with our podcast team to even produce this show for you. So it’s been probably too long that we have dragged our feet or waited or made it, found a good time to get her on the show. But I’m really excited to introduce you guys to Jessica. And today we’re talking about.

[00:01:33] April Beach: Five different keys to sell out your offer. But before we dive into that, I want you guys to get to know Jessica a little bit and Jessica, why don’t you share, you know, what you do and how long you’ve been with us at the SweetLife Company and really your area of expertise because you’re absolutely incredible.

[00:01:50] Jessica Erwin: Oh, you’re too kind. Let’s see. I’ve been officially on the books for like a year and a half. So right about there. But I started as a [00:02:00] client and before I was a client, I was a binger of all things, Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast and in clubhouse and in all the things that I could get my hands on for April Beach and I knew that I wanted to be in your circle.

[00:02:17] Jessica Erwin: And so I worked my way into that and I think, I think it was after being a client maybe for a month and a half that we had a conversation and it was like, Hey, Hey Jessica, how about, how about if we just pivot you just a little bit and you come to work behind the scenes here and it works out really great I’m an entrepreneur at heart for sure always have been I’ve had a lot of different things that I’ve done from restaurants and catering to women’s clothing stores to just my own coaching practice a lot of different things, but when you can align with somebody that you have a lot of similar goals, a lot of good overlap of the way that you see things.

[00:02:57] Jessica Erwin: I still get to do client work, [00:03:00] but I love the behind the scenes work and building things and tinkering. So it’s fun. It works. It works really good. And I’m here and I’m super excited. I’m one of my favorite podcasts. Yay. Yay.

[00:03:11] April Beach: And you’re really good at it. So at, you know, as CEOs, we all pray for somebody who can come in and put our systems in place and make sure our systems are running like clockwork.

[00:03:21] April Beach: And that’s what you do for our company. And one of your areas of specialty is actually also sales and working with our clients in helping them to position their offers. They’re all sold out. So you do a lot of work, one on one with clients and one on group within our accelerator and our business growth ecosystem.

[00:03:44] April Beach: And I know our clients just, just love you. So that’s what we’re going to dive into today. And, you know, the reason why this is so important, you guys, we’ve been talking about offers. We’ve done shows recently on the difference between a, an actual product and an offer. And there are parts of an [00:04:00] offer that is very marketing, it’s very messaging, it’s very communication, and I think people get confused on, hey, are we actually talking about the course or the program or the actual product I’m delivering, versus what, what am I doing when it comes to actually making the offer to help somebody.

[00:04:17] April Beach: And so today, I’m really excited, we’re going to do this a little bit interview style. To unpack what we teach our clients on the five keys to build a sell, a sold out offer and going into your genius brain in helping our listeners understand how they can apply this immediately to their business. So that’s what I’m excited to talk about.

[00:04:41] Jessica Erwin: Awesome. You know, I was just talking to somebody just a couple of days ago. We work with some amazing, brilliant people who are by far and away, like leaders within whatever it is that they teach and what they know, but you’ve got, you know, you’ve got two sides, you’ve got your [00:05:00] expertise and what you know, and what you’re going to teach somebody, and then the ability to sell and market that those are two different things.

[00:05:07] Jessica Erwin: And I think it can be. Disheartening to some because that, that market even sales traits, uh, those, those traits don’t necessarily come as natural and like, that’s okay because we can teach those things and we can build things around it. Um, knowing some of these things aren’t, aren’t exactly, um, intuitive to everybody.

[00:05:26] Jessica Erwin: So I love that we can just teach them these small, these small tricks, techniques to really spiff things up and make them, make them sell, get them into people’s

[00:05:36] April Beach: hands. Yeah. That’s so true. And how many of you guys are listening that feel that you feel like you’re really good at what you do, but you’re the best kept secret. You might not be the best marketer, you might not be out there doing videos all the time. You might not have, you know, thousands and thousands of social media followers and that’s okay. As a matter of fact, most people that are real true experts in their craft do not spend a lot of time hanging out on social [00:06:00] media, commenting on other people’s stuff.

[00:06:02] April Beach: They’re too busy helping their clients get results. And so that’s why, yeah, just what we’re talking about today. And what we teach and just unpacking these five different assets of how you can upgrade your offer to really sell it out is, is so powerful. And I love the work that you do with our clients in this.

[00:06:19] April Beach: And I know there’s so many of our clients that are going to be listening to this episode to be like, Oh yeah, we know this already. All right. So let’s go ahead and dive in. So there are five different, what we call keys to a sold out offer. And these keys are really important. And before we dive into these, you guys, let me just remind you, we’re not talking about the actual product itself.

[00:06:41] April Beach: So we’re not, we’re, I’m going to talk about that actually in next week’s episode. So we’re not talking about the program or the training or the outline or the curriculum or the IP or the content. We’re talking about five different keys to make an offer that makes people literally feel crazy if they don’t want to buy it.

[00:06:57] April Beach: Because why would they not want to buy this? [00:07:00] And so what is the first one, Jessica, that you want to unpack for us today? The first of the five keys to a sold out offer?

[00:07:08] Jessica Erwin: You know, I would start with pricing. I think that pricing’s a good place to start. It’s, it’s one of our first objections. Maybe when we go in to buy something new, so hitting that right, nailing that is incredibly important.

[00:07:22] April Beach: Perfect. And when we’re talking about pricing, what do you usually say to our clients? I know when you’re working with them to help them be confident about their pricing structure. There’s so much psychology behind pricing and, uh, you know, high ticket. High results, high reward for sure. But there are also different industries that they thrive on low ticket, many offers and low ticket pricing.

[00:07:50] April Beach: So what are some of the tips that you give regarding pricing? When, when businesses are looking to actually price our offer?

[00:07:58] Jessica Erwin: I think that’s something that is [00:08:00] often overlooked is really good market research. We need to know what our competitors are doing and what’s going on in this space. Not so that we’re more expensive, not so that we’re less expensive, not.

[00:08:10] Jessica Erwin: You know, not for anything other than really knowing what people are doing, that’ll help us know a bit of what is selling. And I mean, we can do that in a lot of different ways, but, but really figuring out what other people are charging. I think within pricing also, sometimes people come up with an arbitrary number.

[00:08:32] Jessica Erwin: Or maybe they’ve heard, you are worth so much, don’t undersell, like we’ve heard that. It’s really easy to say on Instagram that you should never coach for less than, I don’t know, some ridiculous 50, 000. Right? Yes. Girl, you are worth that. However, selling that is, you know, selling that and, and charge that are two different things.

[00:08:57] Jessica Erwin: So, it’s important to [00:09:00] know what people are pricing things at, what they’re getting, and does your offer stack up against theirs? So just learning some of those things are important. When I, when I think about pricing, I also think about, the ease of purchase for. Potential clients coming in, if, if the price of what you’re selling is going to be an objection for them, how can we help them with that?

[00:09:26] Jessica Erwin: Um, of course there’s payment plans. We can look at that. What sits well with you, you know, payment plans are anything from over the course of the training that you’re, that you’re giving. I’ve seen them weekly. Like that came up on my screen like recently and I was reading about it and I don’t know if my accounting brain can can get on board with that.

[00:09:49] Jessica Erwin: But if that helps somebody make something more palatable to buy, you know, I’m not here to judge what’s in somebody’s bank account. But I do [00:10:00] need to collect on, on the offer that I’m selling. So I want to make it as easy for somebody to buy as possible.

[00:10:06] April Beach: Those are such good tips. And the market research is so smart.

[00:10:11] April Beach: You are exactly right. There are so many people out there saying, well, just charge this and just charges. And there’s zero research behind that. And we are in business for a reason so much that there’s, you know, rumors about. Crackdown on the coaching industry because there are coaches that are charging overpriced amounts and not delivering ROI.

[00:10:29] April Beach: So it’s our responsibility as businesses to be charging based on the ROI and, and the market value of what we deliver. Again, we have very high ticket programs within our, within our ecosystem of offers. We also have low ticket programs. And so we’re advocates of all, as long as they align with you and your business.

[00:10:51] April Beach: And then the other thing I would say to just add on to that is that there are, you know, when we, and by the way, you guys, Jessica is the one that made me realize this. We’ve [00:11:00] always done payment plans for years, right? We’ve been in business for decades. And Jessica goes, you know, when we do a payment plan, we’re actually the bank.

[00:11:07] April Beach: We actually become the bank. We are actually financing this. And even though. I actually hadn’t thought about it like that until Jessica said that I was like, wait a minute. I am the bank. We are financing this for our clients. And when they default a contract, just like if somebody bought a car, we’re going to give them the whole car up front.

[00:11:27] April Beach: But if you’re the one building the payment plan for it, and you are the bank, let’s make sure that you know, you have structures in place to actually collect on that as well. So if you don’t want to be the bank, There are other organizations out there that fund programs, your program can actually get qualified and that is a bank that funds coaching programs and so there are other resources for you to do that if you guys don’t feel like being the bank.

[00:11:53] April Beach: So, um, just, I just remember that was just a really a big mind shift for me because I was like, Oh yeah, [00:12:00] I am.

[00:12:02] Jessica Erwin: Yeah. Right. And do you want to be the bank? I mean, do you want to take that risk? So there’s a risk associated with it. And we just, as, as always have to look at their risk versus the reward and, and what we’re willing to pay, what we’re willing to do.

[00:12:17] April Beach: Right. Especially in programs where we give like everything up front.

[00:12:21] Jessica Erwin: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely

[00:12:23] April Beach: in those programs. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So number one. First step to a sold out offer is making sure your pricing is right, making sure it aligns with the market, making sure it’s researched, making sure it aligns with your value and the clients you want to attract.

[00:12:37] April Beach: Um, certainly. Okay. What is the second one that you want to dive

[00:12:41] Jessica Erwin: into today? Second one, uh, scarcity slash urgency. Awesome. So why does somebody need to buy this right now? Why is it important for me to run into the other room and grab my wallet and put in my credit card information? Um, or can I just like hang out and wait and it’ll be there [00:13:00] next year, you know, whatever that might be.

[00:13:02] Jessica Erwin: And sometimes we do need to wait. And we, we jump into things a little quickly, but as somebody trying to market and sell your product, you want somebody to have a reason to buy it right now. So we can build in things within your offer. Hopefully. And it should be in a really above board ethical way. We don’t, I’ve seen way too many, um, ads and things that come across my screen that I’m like, you are so lying because this is still going to be available tomorrow.

[00:13:32] Jessica Erwin: Right? Like you, you are lying right now and I know it and I’m just, I can’t even look any further. So we want to be sure that like, we’re actually saying if there’s a deadline on something that we mean it. I only have five personal coaching spots available this month. What, what if six people came to you?

[00:13:51] Jessica Erwin: Would, would you say yes to that sixth person? Then, then maybe you shouldn’t say you only have five. We need to make sure that we are, are being honest [00:14:00] in our dealings. And there are lots of ways to do that. I was working with a client just yesterday on it, on a special thing that she has going on this summer.

[00:14:08] Jessica Erwin: And we are talking about the bonuses that we could offer. Um, which goes into our next one, which is bonuses, but the scarcity of the bonuses that they’re going to go away depending on when you buy and when you sign up. So there are things that we can do that are absolutely ethical and that really makes somebody say, Oh yes.

[00:14:29] Jessica Erwin: Okay. I’m off the fence. I’m going, I’m going to have the difficult conversation. I’m going to do it. Um, yeah. And make them jump. That’s

[00:14:35] April Beach: awesome. Okay. Love scarcity. And thank you for making those points. Absolutely. That’s awesome. All right. So you said the next one is bonuses. Yeah. Let’s, let’s talk about bonuses.

[00:14:45] Jessica Erwin: Favorite. It’s my favorite. I talked to everyone about this. We talk

[00:14:49] April Beach: about this all the time. All the time. Because every week Jessica is in talking to our clients about bonuses and like the most I do. Juiciest bonuses. And she has the best bonus ideas, by the way, [00:15:00] because you have a strategy for bonuses.

[00:15:02] Jessica Erwin: I do.

[00:15:03] Jessica Erwin: I do. Bonuses should be, should be developed and should be offered as a way to help. Overcome objections. So if there’s a reason why somebody might not buy your course or something that’s holding them back, or they’re scared about something, or they’re unsure about how they’re going to X, Y, or Z. We can create bonuses, um, to really pad the offer and help somebody see that was an objection.

[00:15:31] Jessica Erwin: No, oh, if I’m going to have enough time to complete this. This particular course. Oh, well, I have a time management bonus in there and it’s gonna it’s gonna answer that problem for you Whatever that might be surrounding and it doesn’t have to go Line by line actually with your exact offer. It can be all around it.

[00:15:51] Jessica Erwin: I’ve seen some dang juicy Bonuses thrown into something that really I wouldn’t necessarily call them a [00:16:00] stretch they’re still in the same like sphere, but but like I’ve seen Facebook ads training put into an offer building course. So not necessarily the same thing, right? But somebody who wants to buy a course on building an offer is going to need to sell that eventually.

[00:16:17] Jessica Erwin: And that’s a fear or, you know, a weakness maybe that they have that we can throw bonuses in. And I mean, you can pull bonuses from your massive hard drive of things that you’ve already created. You can work with partners on this, you know, uh, both April and I have come into lots of different programs and done different trainings and helped people.

[00:16:39] Jessica Erwin: Um, and you can do, you can do that same thing with, uh, business associates that you have or experts that you find online that you really want to work with and, and ask if they’ll put a bonus into your course. I mean, it’s a win win. So I love. Bonuses and I think they’re overlooked and too much just thrown together.

[00:16:55] Jessica Erwin: We need to be a little bit more strategic about it

[00:16:57] April Beach: Yeah, yeah, I want you guys [00:17:00] to Think about what jessica said regarding bonuses. Is it write this down bonuses should be a direct response to objections that people will have about your offer. So if you want to sit down and make a list of, you know, what are the top five things that I hear somebody say?

[00:17:21] April Beach: Well, I don’t have enough time or I can’t afford it. Or, um, you know, this is going to be too hard of work. This work is going to require too much effort. You know, what can you do to fix that problem for them already and those can become your bonuses to your program? And it’s just absolutely gold. We just did this in our, uh, in our offer engineering training that we just did.

[00:17:46] April Beach: We sat down and we listed all the objectives and then actually redid a whole bunch of bonuses. We’ve had this training for a while. And they were so cool because they were different to the most current [00:18:00] objections that people had about diving into a training during the summertime. So they were really specific to summer.

[00:18:08] April Beach: As a matter of fact, one of our bonuses we’ve never done before is. The VIPs having access to Jessica in Voxer for a month after this offer building masterclass that we did, and it was because everybody’s busy, everybody’s traveling, and they’re gonna want what we call an afterburn support and access to support access to both of us in Voxer, and you know, that just happened to be what applied to be a bonus for For when we were dropping this masterclass in the summertime.

[00:18:40] April Beach: And that was, it was a fun process to go through. And I love the strategy of that. So I think that’s so cool. I could talk for hours about bonuses. I know we should, we should do a whole, a whole entire episode.

[00:18:51] Jessica Erwin: Note to self. Future episode, right? All about bonuses. Juicy bonus episode.

[00:18:56] April Beach: Yeah, . All right. And so we do some market research, [00:19:00] right?

[00:19:00] April Beach: Yeah. Right. Uh, so we have two more so for, so, right? Yes. So far we’ve talked about price, we’ve talked about scarcity, we’ve talked about bonuses. We promised you guys five keys to sold out offers here on the show today. So what is the fourth one? And really probably goes hand in hand with the fifth one. I know people get confused about this.

[00:19:18] April Beach: They do. So go take us in this, this direction.

[00:19:22] Jessica Erwin: Yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s bring them out together. And that is a guarantee and a promise. So four and five guarantee and a promise. They’re not interchangeable. Um, they do stand on their own, but they both work to build trust with your potential clients and, and the guarantee specifically works to build in a lot of safety.

[00:19:43] Jessica Erwin: And ensure that, you know, a client knows that you’re not going to let them fail or whatever it is that you guarantee. So let’s talk about a guarantee first. When you go into a store and you buy something in general, like you’ve got [00:20:00] return policies, right? That’s a form of a, that’s a form of a guarantee. I know that if my phone from Apple stops working within however many months.

[00:20:09] Jessica Erwin: I’m going to be able to get it replaced or fixed, you know, something like that. Um, when it comes to coaching offers, those can be a little bit tricky because not everything is in your control. It’s, it’s so hard because you can give your, you can just pour your heart and soul and 40 plus years of experience into somebody.

[00:20:28] Jessica Erwin: But if that client doesn’t do the work that’s necessary or the world, I don’t know, shuts down for a couple of years or right, there’s so many things that that can get in the way having a guarantee in place can help. Can help a potential client say, all right, well, barring natural disasters that are outside of these, you know, these people’s control, I know that they stand behind their work.

[00:20:55] Jessica Erwin: So, there’s, there’s, uh, [00:21:00] guarantees that’ll be, you know, if you don’t. Get five new clients and you know, this is for somebody else’s program, of course But if you don’t get five new clients within 45 days Then your money back or if you don’t get five new clients within 45 days I’ll work with you until you do there’s you know different things within that there’s also like short term guarantees like hey if you start this program and And within 14 days, if you don’t feel like this is for you, I’ll give you a, uh, no questions money back.

[00:21:30] Jessica Erwin: That, that’s one type of guarantee that we can offer. It’s always going to be, if you do this or don’t do this, I’ll give you this. There’s always a, like a tit for tat. There’s always, I’m going to give you something if you’ve done something else. That’s an important part. There’s a, there’s a deal to it. Uh, there’s a real handshake

[00:21:51] April Beach: there.

[00:21:52] April Beach: Yeah. And I think that’s the biggest thing that you help our clients understand when you say like it’s an if this, then that, like if this doesn’t [00:22:00] happen, then we’re going to do that. And I, and that is the biggest thing. Uh, that helps me to remember and process the difference between a guarantee and a promise that I know that that guarantee that we’re making is like, if this, then that, and you guys, just like Jessica said, we’re all teachers.

[00:22:18] April Beach: That’s what we do. We can’t go home with our students and our clients at night and make sure they do the work and make sure they delegate it correctly to their teams. There are certain things we can control. So, you know, you can also ask for things. And, you know, like, hey, you need to show me that you did the work or you need to show me that you’ve put in this amount of work in order to be qualified for this guarantee and, uh, and, and you’re the judge of that.

[00:22:42] April Beach: There is no right or wrong way to offer a guarantee, but just remember that if then, if this, then that, and ask yourself what you’re actually willing to do if somebody doesn’t reach a certain threshold that you have promised them or guaranteed them that they would [00:23:00] reach.

[00:23:00] Jessica Erwin: And I think that one of the reasons why this helps You know, again, potential clients and customers feel safe is, would you guarantee something that if you didn’t know that it worked, like you should know, I’m going to know that my program works before I, before I say, I’m going to give you all your money back if it doesn’t work for you.

[00:23:20] Jessica Erwin: Right. So it. It helps them feel safe and know that you know what you’re talking about. And in general percentage wise, most people, there’s always going to be somebody, I mean, we’ll just put it out there. There’s always somebody who’s looking for a way to get something for less or for nothing. Put that fear aside because what you can get from gaining the trust and the purchase Is much higher as far as the amount of clients you can bring in Versus the little bits of time that you might lose out.

[00:23:54] Jessica Erwin: So I I would put your fear aside on that

[00:23:58] April Beach: That’s awesome. That’s such great [00:24:00] advice. Okay, now the promise.

[00:24:03] Jessica Erwin: The promise. Promises should be simple. They should be something like, I will pour my heart and soul. Like I said, I just said, I will work with you until you’re finished on this. I will provide you with 30 years of my training and support to ensure that you find success within.

[00:24:27] Jessica Erwin: This program, I will give you, you know, you’re telling them, but you’re not, you’re not hinging it on anything. I, well, I guess I’m hinging it on their purchase, but I’m not hinging it on, um, specific work that they do and saying, I’m going to give it back. I’m basically saying I’m going to put forth this.

[00:24:45] Jessica Erwin: It’s good faith effort, and it can again build trust because you’re using trust building words. Um, but you’re not necessarily putting your, your money where your mouth is in that. That’s for the guarantee, but I promise [00:25:00] that I will be there every Monday morning at eight o’clock for that session. I promise that you will be able, that you will be able to reach me and I will get back to you within.

[00:25:10] Jessica Erwin: This much time, whatever, again, as you’ve gone through this list, and you should be doing this, if you’re building out an offer, a list of all the different objections that somebody could possibly have. Well, what am I doing to defeat those objections? And a lot of that can be in our words of trust and how we can build that with somebody.

[00:25:30] Jessica Erwin: And I’m just explaining, look, I’m here for you. This, this matters to me and this is how I’m going to do it. So we don’t need to put a dollar value next to those words. They’re just strong words. When they come in writing or in video or however it is, you’re sharing it with the public. Oh,

[00:25:48] April Beach: that’s so good.

[00:25:49] April Beach: Love that. Okay. So let’s recap what we talked about today. We talked about the five keys to a sold out offer, or we’ve called them irresistible offers. And you guys, these are [00:26:00] really important. Again, we’re not talking about the actual curriculum. We’re not talking about the outline of your program. We’re not talking about your intellectual property or your method that you teach.

[00:26:09] April Beach: We’re talking about when that is done. And then you go to make the offer. To, to help people and we move into the marketing and the sales part of selling your program and. I think it’s important that we separate out here. We’ve actually been talking about this a lot for the last few months on the podcast, but I think it’s important that we separate it out because building obviously the content we’re going to talk about next week, but doing this well, this is what people buy.

[00:26:36] April Beach: You know, people buy the offer. They just assume and pray and hope based on the guarantee that your program is engineered well, and you’re actually good at teaching what you do. They buy the offer. They bet on the program because they don’t see it yet, but this is what they get to see, and that’s why this is so important, you know, to, to communicate this very, very well.

[00:26:59] April Beach: [00:27:00] And just like Jessica said. Heading off those objections, getting in their mind and knowing what they’re already thinking, I think, is the key to all of this, right? The pricing, the scarcity, the bonuses, the guarantee and the promise. I think that that’s the key to all of it. And like Jessica talked about in the beginning, that does require knowing your audience.

[00:27:22] April Beach: That does require market research. It’s just like the pricing did. It does require you knowing how you’re serving and what they really need. But also, what they’re…

[00:27:36] Jessica Erwin: I think if you think about a program or your coaching program, what it is that you’re selling is inside the box and your offer is, you know, the wrapping outside of it, you’re not going to buy, you’re not going to buy just a black box. Yeah. Even if it is on the end cap at Walmart, you’re not going to buy it.

[00:27:52] Jessica Erwin: You need to know what’s in it. And we all know that certain packaging sells better than others, right? Right. We’re attracted [00:28:00] to a cover of a book, even though it doesn’t tell us exactly what’s in it. If we’re at a bookstore, we are looking at the package, right? And part of that package is the writing that the synopsis of the book.

[00:28:13] Jessica Erwin: So it’s all of those things matter. So the packaging. of the offer. These five things I think will really help your stand out better and will help you know, I think if you go through them, they’ll really help you know that much better what you’re putting inside the box. Uh, and making sure that when they open it, it’s everything that they wanted and even more because you’re delivering so high.

[00:28:36] April Beach: All I can think of is, is Tiffany’s blue box with diamonds inside when you said that. Are you, are you, is it a Tiffany box or is it? I was just watching, uh, what is it, Sweet Home Alabama, where he takes her. Have you ever seen that movie where he takes her into It’s mine

[00:28:51] Jessica Erwin: and my husband’s first date.

[00:28:53] April Beach: It was our first date when we were dating.

[00:28:55] April Beach: I was just watching that and he just turns on the lights and she’s in the back door at Tiffany and Company. I’m like, oh my [00:29:00] gosh, every girl’s dream. Um, but yeah, so are you, are you, is it a Tiffany box air packaging app? Uh, or, you know, or, or

[00:29:08] Jessica Erwin: You better have a Tiffany ring in that box. You

[00:29:10] April Beach: better have a Tiffany ring in that box.

[00:29:11] April Beach: In a Tiffany box, okay?

[00:29:17] April Beach: I think that’s such a good analogy, though. So we’ll leave you guys is with this, right? So what’s in the box is the program. We talk about it all the time. Of course, if you guys need help with that, we help subject matter experts. Experts build leading programs and create sold out offers. But today I really, I’m so glad, first of all for you guys to meet Jessica here on the podcast.

[00:29:38] April Beach: She’s so awesome. And unpacking this part of the wrapping of the box because it is separate than what is on the inside. And I, I think that’s a perfect analogy. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. All right, you guys. Well, we are going to wrap this up. Please share this episode with anybody you feel like this would be beneficial.

[00:29:57] April Beach: You know, we don’t have advertising here on the show, so we really [00:30:00] rely on our friends like you to up arrow and share this and share the wealth of knowledge. And Jessica, thank you so much for coming onto the show. I know you’re going to be on here a million more times. And, you guys can connect with Jessica, through our social media channels as well.

[00:30:15] April Beach: And then, Jessica, what is your, connect with her on LinkedIn? We’re hanging out a lot more on LinkedIn, you guys, if you aren’t hanging out with us on LinkedIn, hang out with us on LinkedIn, , as well, but how can people find you?

[00:30:27] Jessica Erwin: Any, any of the socials that I am Jessica Erwin, Erwin with an E. Awesome.

[00:30:31] Jessica Erwin: But yeah. Otherwise, any place Sweet Life is, I am at, so I will find your message.

[00:30:38] April Beach: Thank you so much. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you.

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

300

[00:00:45] Hi, you guys. And this is a really special episode. First of all, I just want to start out by saying thank you so very much. This is our three hundredth Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast episode. And that is all because [00:01:00] you have kept listening. You have kept sending messages. You have kept sharing this show with your friends and you have kept us going. And so before I say anything else, this episode is going to be epic as far as the birthday gifts we are giving to you for being a listener of this show.

[00:01:18] I just want to start out by thanking you. So much, especially those of you guys that were on our original podcast launch team, you know who you are and who have been there since the very beginning of this show back in 2017 if it wasn’t for your belief, your Kindness And peace And peace And joy And grace And peace Enthusiasm around this show, your faith in knowing that we’re going to drop valuable content, your support, even to those of you guys who left me messages during my little podcast sabbatical that I took saying, April, don’t forget to come back to us. We really want to hear more shows. I even hear right now explaining this to you.

[00:01:59] I can’t [00:02:00] express. How much that has meant to me and how much that’s meant to our team. And it’s because of you guys that we have made it to 300 episodes. So happy birthday to all of us. Happy birthday to the SweetLife Entrepreneur podcast and thank you so very much.

[00:02:18] Okay. So first of all, I want to gift you for our birthday. And we’re going to talk about business evolution here. I’m going to share with you a lot of things that are happening with the Suite Life company behind the scenes, give you all the juicy details, but I want to gift you. So this is episode number 300 and we are giving you over two thousand dollars in free business access in trainings. But here is the catch. You need to access it and download it this week. So we’re gonna celebrate our birthday the whole entire week. So if you’re a subscriber and you get our episodes live, dropped into your inbox. Thank you so much. Here’s one of those benefits. So from [00:03:00] August 7th, all the way through this Sunday, which is August 13th, 2023. If you’re listening to this show, go to this link. Go to SweetLifepodcast.com/300. And these are the show notes for this episode. And there are going to be links and codes for you to access over 2, 000 in business trainings and coaching with us totally for free. You guys, no strings attached.

[00:03:27] We just want to pour into you and bless you the way you guys have blessed us. So pause this episode. If you need to go to sweetlifepodcast.com/300. Or you can text the number 300 to 805 254 0880 and we will make sure that you are hooked up. So again, but that’s you got to get it now because it’s done on August 13th of 2023. So that’s, that’s where all the goods are. And [00:04:00] I’ll explain to you in a little bit here what those goodies are and actually how you know which one you’re going to pick.

[00:04:05] So we don’t want you diving into everything. We want you to diving into the right things, right? How many times do I say this? Nobody needs more content. Nobody needs more training. They need a transformation for their business. So I’m going to help you pick which one of these gifts you want to access, but let me catch you up to date here.

[00:04:21] on what’s happening a little bit with the SuiteLife company and really how our company has evolved since we started the show six years ago. So these key areas are important. And as I’m sharing with you what’s changed for us, I want you to think about what is changing in your business and whether or not you are pivoting correctly for your life, your profit margins, and your teams in the way that are best for you for your next Three, six, 10, 14 years of your business to you.

[00:04:52] So many of you guys, again, have been here since the beginning of this show. And if you go back and listen to the trailer of this [00:05:00] episode, it’s a really short trailer. If you’ve never listened to it, I actually recommend it. Because I literally cried in the trailer of this episode. I was so excited and I was so moved to launch the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast.

[00:05:14] I felt so called to do this and I literally broke down crying in the trailer. It’s like a short little three minute trailer talking about why it’s so important to get trustworthy business trainings in the hands of those people that are intentionally working hard to build trustworthy businesses. And I still am so convicted about that today, but if you’ve never listened to our trailer, you’ll hear a little bit of behind the scenes, a little bit of my story.

[00:05:43] I’m a second generation lifestyle entrepreneur and things I learned from my parents, but really the mission of this show. So go back and listen to episode 00, which is our trailer. If you have never done that, let’s talk about how your company has evolved and how our company [00:06:00] has evolved. So in the beginning.

[00:06:02] Of the launch of this podcast, the reason why I did this, a reason why I felt so strongly about this was because of the fact that there are a lot of new consultants and subject matter experts coming into the world is back in 2017. And there are a lot of trainings out there that were really kind of hit or miss.

[00:06:21] And so we wanted to create a show where you guys can find proven. I say proven. These are trusted business trainings from experts that you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars for. And so we wanted to become the go to place where you can get trusted step by step implementable business trainings that you can apply in your business.

[00:06:42] immediately right away. They aren’t too huge and they aren’t too little micro. We’re not going to leave you guys hanging. We give complete business trainings in every single one of our episodes. And here’s a little secret. Many of you, if you listen to our podcast episodes, it’s a lot of what we teach in some of our, especially our startup business programs.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] You can just listen to the podcast, guys. Go back and start it from the beginning. And frankly, you don’t even have to buy a lot of our services. If you curate the content that I’m giving to you on the in the podcast, we are here to pour into you guys. We have been since day one and I, I feel tired when I say, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for six years.

[00:07:21] There’s a couple people I really need to thank. I feel like I’m like given an Oscar. I’m not at all. This totally would not have happened if it wasn’t for Brittany Felix, our original podcast producer. She’s absolutely amazing. And Ineke is our current podcast producer. She helped me get the energy again, after taking a year off to relaunch this show, if it wasn’t for Ineke and her creative vision to bring this show back to the world, after a year break that I desperately needed. – Thank you so much, all of you, by the way, for that – , then that would not have been possible.

[00:07:53] And of course, Jessica Erwin, our COO, which you guys are going to get to meet Jessica on podcast episode. I’m so [00:08:00] excited, but let’s talk about. Business trainings, right? Let’s talk about how we’ve evolved. In the beginning of this show, the majority of our client base we are working with were trying to reach consistent 10k months.

[00:08:14] And so the whole first 100 episodes of this show. So we’re curated to trying to hit consistent 10k months and, you know, offer strategy. We’re really focused on building funnels and online marketing and how to create your brand and how to create your voice. But also the other thing, and I want you to think about this for your business too.

[00:08:37] The other thing that we focused on, especially in the first 100 episodes was how to build your business around your family. And when I started this show, my three boys, Tim, Jake, and Sam, were between the ages of 10 and 16. Now, I’ve evolved, they’ve grown, I’ve grown, we’ve all grown. Now my [00:09:00] three boys are 21 and the youngest one is 16.

[00:09:03] So in the beginning, the first 100 episodes, a lot of what you’re going to get in those first 100 episodes are how to build a business around a family when your kids are younger and they’re not grown and flown. And so that’s how we focused. And then as I grew, as my life grew and as my kids grew and as my clients grew.

[00:09:23] So what’s so cool. It’s like, as my kids are growing, a lot of our clients kids are growing up kind of alongside. My kids as well. And we are walking into new seasons of life as leaders, as CEOs, as entrepreneurs, as parents. And that’s a very, very cool thing. Whether your kids are micro and you’re, you know, moving into elementary years, most of our clients, you know, your kids are that teenage phase and you’re, you’re moving into the flown and grown years.

[00:09:54] If your kids maybe haven’t even left the house already. So. I just want you to stop and [00:10:00] reflect. How has your content that you’re sharing grown over the last six years? How is your own personal life grown and how is that reflected in the content that you’re teaching and the trainings and programs that you’re delivering?

[00:10:17] And so as our clients have grown, as my kids have grown, as my life has changed and I’m moving into my late forties now, The content that I’m delivering here on the show, you guys may notice, and if you’re a new listener, welcome. You’re just dropping in here is, is changing because it’s aligning with what I am currently consumed with in my life.

[00:10:40] And I want to tell you something. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s important that your business does align in some capacity with your life in the current things that are important to you. Because when we do things in our business for other people that are important to us as [00:11:00] well, and that we’re currently working through in our own life, we’re even better at what we do.

[00:11:04] We bring more passion to the table. So the first thing I wanna share is it. If you feel like your audience you’re serving needs to be somebody totally different, you’ve never related to them, that isn’t true at all. As a matter of fact, your audience are people that you totally get, that you can relate to, that you understand what’s happening in their business or in their life or whatever it is is your area of expertise.

[00:11:30] And that certainly happened. So those of you guys who’ve been listeners from the show at the beginning, you have seen the episodes that we’ve done that we no longer talk about, you know, how to manage life, entrepreneurship life with younger kids. We did a ton of those episodes in the beginning. As a matter of fact, I even interviewed Timothy, my oldest son, when he was 17 years old about what it’s like to be the child.

[00:11:52] Of lifestyle online entrepreneurs. It’s a very interesting episode. He wore sunglasses and the whole entire thing. You guys, he [00:12:00] had his like tie dye shirt and his hat, and he was wearing sunglasses. And he thought he was so cool. You want to hear something that is cool is that Tim is now. My marketing intern in our company and as we share social media posts in the email marketing He’s a senior in college and he has been interning for us since that interview Back when he was 17, and he is an amazing online marketer and a communication specialist And so watching him and my kids even grow through the process of this show in our business.

[00:12:33] He’s literally sitting on the other side of the wall right now and he’ll be creating email marketing and sharing posts about this. Probably the email you read to come listen to this episode, Tim probably edited and wrote. And how cool is that? Okay. So what’s happening in your business? How is your business evolved as your life has evolved?

[00:12:54] Lean into that. Lean into the things that matter to you because [00:13:00] when things matter to you, even if they aren’t directly related to your business, they matter to the right clients for you as well. So that’s the first evolution. I just wanted to share with you. The second thing I want to share with you is our offers.

[00:13:12] We went from having so many offers, as a matter of fact, at one point in time, many of you know, I own two international business consulting 56 online courses. I’ll open it once I close them all down, reorganize them, updated the model. So what has happened is we used to have so many different offers. Let me, let me tell you a secret.

[00:13:33] Do you know that we have over 250 funnels from this podcast into our business? Let me say that again. We have over 250 funnels from podcast episodes into our business. Right? So you think that, oh my gosh, that’s such a great idea. I thought it was a great idea at first, you guys. Do you know what that is?

[00:13:54] That is called a nightmare. That is called way too many funnels to manage [00:14:00] and update and so much messaging because we used to give a free lead magnet with every single podcast episode. Holy moly, I had to hire a team to document and map every single one of the funnels and the landing pages they were on.

[00:14:12] But in the beginning, I thought that was a great idea. Uh, our listeners, you guys loved it. You had a free, awesome download with every episode. But what happened was it was a million email onboarding sequences all at once and we shut it down. It was just too much, right? Too much is not necessarily a good thing.

[00:14:34] And those are the things through testing and traction that we learned over the time. So we’ve reduced our offers. We’ve reduced the solutions we provide. We used to be a very comprehensive business consulting firm, and now we’ve really, really honed in to different areas of expertise that we like to help our clients with, which are million dollar offer engineering and licensing their content to other programs and [00:15:00] creating ecosystems of offers that align with their life.

[00:15:03] And so, as the podcast has grown, as I have grown, as you have grown, the things we offer, the solutions we offer have grown, and we’re actually, we have decreased, we’ve significantly decreased how many funnels, how many programs, and how many offers we have. And so what does that look like to you? When is the last time you, as your company’s grown, kind of cleaned house on some of the programs and offers that you have built over the years?

[00:15:35] How many do you have? Because Simplicity sells and so, you know, maximizing yourself and getting yourself out there and repurposing content is one thing, but creating a million different solutions that for that you can provide for your clients, you know, that wasn’t our initial intention. We just wanted to create action items from every podcast episode.

[00:15:56] That frankly as a CEO turned out to be a [00:16:00] nightmare for me because it was too much to manage. So I told you I’d share with you kind of a lot of behind the scenes things, sound like a great idea. Turned out two years later, not to be a great idea. So what can you simplify in your business now that your business has grown?

[00:16:15] What can you get rid of? What do you need to cut off? What are you no longer excited about? And here, here’s the biggest one. And this kind of goes into the third area of evolution. What clients have you outgrown? And I’m not saying that in a bad way. Alright? But you will outgrow certain clients over time.

[00:16:38] Just like we used to be very, very heavy for 15 years. We were very heavy on teaching experts, consultants, and coaches to launch their business for the ground up. And we’ve taught that business launch, online business launch for coaches and consultants for a decade, you know, really since prior to 2006, all right.

[00:16:59] But as [00:17:00] time has evolved, we focus on, you guys have evolved, your businesses have grown, your businesses have launched, and now instead of just trying to get you to 10K, now we’re getting our clients to 50K a month. Now we’re getting our clients past seven figures. So, as we have grown, our clients have grown, the content on the podcast has grown, the offers that we are creating, the programs and the solutions that we’re providing, those have also grown up too.

[00:17:28] And that’s the cool thing about staying the course, you guys, when you grow, when you increase your profit. When you increase your own knowledge, so when you understand yourself as a leader even better than you did yesterday, and how do we do that? We do that by putting ourself out there. We do that by trying things, uh, testing new solutions, testing new methods and frameworks on new audiences in listening.

[00:17:55] We do that by understanding. What the next step for our client is in continuing to [00:18:00] create a journey that brings our clients to the next level and the next level and the next level. So we can have lifelong clients. Some of the clients that work with us have worked with us for over a decade because of the fact that we are evolving with our clients.

[00:18:14] This podcast has evolved with our clients. And so we never, we no longer focus on business launch trainings. Again, if that’s where you are. I have a really awesome gift for you with, with this podcast birthday thing. You need to go, you need to go grab it, but it’s not our primary focus. We primarily now for the last five years, I’ve worked with established subjects, met our experts, coaches, and consultants to bring their offers and their businesses to scale.

[00:18:43] And so I just want you to realize that it’s okay to outgrow your clients. It’s okay to stop and ask yourself, do I still love serving these people? Does this still light me up? Because the second you feel like providing support seems like [00:19:00] monotony, that you’re not super fired up about who you’re working with anymore, and it’s nobody’s fault.

[00:19:05] fault. It’s just called moving into a new season. You as a leader are going to move into a new season. And so as I’m sharing a little bit behind the scenes in our 300th birthday episode, I want to let you know that it’s totally normal to do that. And I have done that in all of us. If we don’t take a minute to recognize what we are outgrowing, we’re going to get either bored or burnt out or stagnant.

[00:19:31] You always, okay, I can’t speak for you. I always need to have something to look forward to. It’s just a thing for me. If I don’t have a next level I’m growing to or a next place I want to go to or a next, uh, professional strategy, I want to master a next financial level I want to hit. Uh, a next physical goal.

[00:19:52] I have a lot of like travel adventure goals, whether it’s in your life, in your business. I’m a strong believer. If you don’t have something that’s constantly [00:20:00] challenging you that you need to push yourself to that next level. It’s going to get really old really fast. And that’s why entrepreneurship past those first couple of years, I don’t even know what the success rate is, but it’s really low businesses that launch and those that stay in business past like one year and then three year, it’s because they aren’t continuing to push themselves.

[00:20:20] I believe that when we push ourselves, when we challenge ourselves and when we believe that failing as part of the process, then you are going to be successful at that next level and whatever that looks like for you. So let me just kind of recap a little bit what we talked about since the beginning of this show, six years ago, our audience has changed the content that I’m sharing here on the podcast has grown with the audience.

[00:20:44] Our offers have changed. We no longer serve so many people. It’s very exclusive. The clients that we work with now. I’m not interested in having programs with hundreds and thousands of people in there. I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to do that. I like [00:21:00] working with select entrepreneurs that I can literally know their name, even if they’re in one of our group coaching events, one of our group coaching programs.

[00:21:10] That’s what I like. And so think about what you like. And are your clients growing up as you’re growing up? I don’t care if you’re 25 We are never ever stopping to get to that next level. We’re going to never stop evolving. That’s what makes us entrepreneurs. We’re never satisfied. It’s also one of our downfalls.

[00:21:30] You know, when we do something great, we don’t really stop to recognize that we hit a milestone and did something great. We’re just like, hey, what’s next? What’s next? And so that’s what we’re doing here. Maybe I should even stop and say, Hey, yay, we hit this milestone. But instead of course, I’m just thinking about how we can identify how we can grow from this milestone into, into the next phase.

[00:21:54] And I want you to identify that also. And I want to help you. Let’s get to the [00:22:00] goods. For our 300th birthday, again, this week only, we are giving you guys complete free access to two different trainings. You get to pick which one you want. It’s over 2, 000 worth of trainings. The first one is for those of you guys that are ready for the next level, you’re ready to scale your business and you are interested in learning how to sell your consulting course or training to corporations, organizations, other entrepreneurs.

[00:22:30] the government, educational institutions. So if you are listening to the show and you are interested in, you have an existing program, rule number one, and you are interested in licensing, you want to know about licensing. You want to know what comes next after that launch lifestyle and in social media marketing to really push your business past seven figures.

[00:22:52] Then we are giving you completely free access to licensing. Launchpad. Okay. So licensing launchpad is our entry [00:23:00] training, which gets you to the point where you know what you have, you understand the value of it and you can build an action plan to sell your trainings to other companies. On top of that, we are also giving you exclusive access to one of our Amplify events.

[00:23:16] So what is Amplify? Amplify is our licensing accelerator. It is an amazing group of leaders just like you that are licensing their content and we are going to give you a guest pass to one of our exclusive Amplify events. So again, if that’s the level that you’re at, then I want you to go over to SuiteLifePodcast.

[00:23:35] com forward slash 300 and just fill out your information there and we’re going to get you access to everything for free. If you aren’t quite there yet, if you are still scaling. Which is a beautiful place to be. What does that mean? If you are building your business and you are trying to hit consistent 10 K months.

[00:23:54] If you, it doesn’t even matter if you’ve been in business for over five years. We have a [00:24:00] ton of people that come across our ecosystem saying, listen, I’ve been coaching or I’ve been consulting for years and years and years and I still can’t get to consistent 20, 30, 000 a month. What am I doing? What am I missing wrong?

[00:24:13] We are going to give you free access to SuiteLife launch. Now, Suite Life Launch doesn’t mean you’re launching your business from scratch. As a matter of fact, 56% of the businesses inside Suite Life Launch program have been in business for over 5 years. Suite Life Launch is going to take you through the process of assessing your offers, understanding funnels for online marketing, and actually selling your services consistently.

[00:24:39] And we’re going to give you free access to that program. And so those are your two that you get to choose from. Don’t choose both. That’s the rule. You can’t choose both. You have to pick one. So you’re either trying to hit consistent 10, 20, 000 months, or you’re beyond that and you’re ready to learn more about selling your program to corporations or even allowing other entrepreneurs or [00:25:00] businesses to distribute your programs for you, like in a licensing deal, or you are considering creating a certification program.

[00:25:08] We’re going to give you free access to licensing launchpad and an exclusive invitation to one of our Amplify, which is our private client accelerator events where you get to work with me personally and we get to pour into you personally. So we really wanted to give back to you. We really, there were so many ideas we had around this podcast episode, but I just, I wanted to talk about, you know, some of the things that are the elephant in the room, some of the things that we don’t really get a chance to talk about here on the podcast about the growth and evolution of our businesses and how it’s okay to grow to different levels, how it’s okay to change your mind, all the, all the mistakes.

[00:25:45] Of that we did and wondering how to fix those and how to pivot to your next level. And I just, like we started out in the beginning, I’ll always be honest and transparent with you guys here on this show. If you ever have any questions about anything, you can always send us a direct [00:26:00] message. We are at suite life co or the suite life business strategy on Instagram, where the suite life company, you can follow our company page on LinkedIn.

[00:26:09] And we’re always in there wanting to connect with you and hear more about your company. I am not in this to serve the masses. That’s very clear to me now, even more than it was before. I want to serve you, and I really feel like our legacy is being that, you know, little rock that is dropped to help you be the waves in the pond that continue out across the world for the good work that you have done.

[00:26:36] And I just appreciate you guys so much for being listeners of the show, for your personal support, all of the personal messages. For those of you guys that hear my voice, I had somebody hear my voice. I was at a conference and I was talking to somebody washing my hands in like a public bathroom. And a woman came out of the stall.

[00:26:53] She’s like, Oh my gosh, that’s April Beach. And she gave me this big fat hug and it felt so good. Not because she [00:27:00] recognized me, but because somebody listened. Let’s just be really honest. I put a lot of work into this show. Our team, we spent a lot of money to produce this show for you guys. I’ve always refused advertisers.

[00:27:12] I hate them, personally. And just to know that you guys listen, and that you’re getting some value out of this. is totally worth it. And it just, honestly, that’s the best thank you ever that anybody can say was, Hey, listen, I listened to this episode. It really, really helped me. And that’s all we want to do.

[00:27:31] That’s what we’re here for. Our mission is to inspire and equip. You to design your life through entrepreneurship. That’s my core purpose in this show as part of that process. So thank you so much for being a listener. Oh, just wait for the next year. Oh my goodness. Okay, so here’s a preview of what’s coming up.

[00:27:50] We’re talking more a little bit about offer engineering in the next couple episodes. Next week episode is the five keys to a sold out offer. Next episode after that [00:28:00] is the three components to a transformational consulting program. We’re diving into a little bit. I’m sharing behind the scenes how I travel six months a year in my very specific business model.

[00:28:10] I’m going to unpack that for you. And then This fall, we are diving into an entire LinkedIn Logic Mastery Series with just incredible LinkedIn experts. For those of you guys that are looking to build your consultancy business through LinkedIn and sell to companies or even sell to other individuals through LinkedIn.

[00:28:28] So that’s just a little preview of what’s coming and, thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thanks for being here.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

299

[00:00:00] Hi guys, and welcome to the last episode of the summer series here on the Sweetlife Entrepreneur in Business podcast. I’m April Beach, your host, and I am coming to you with this intro to this episode from my front porch. So you probably hear dogs and kids and cars. I have my fireplace behind me and there is a gentle summer rain shower and I’m just so grateful to be here recording this episode for you.

[00:00:26] First of all, thank you so much for listening to this show. There are so many great business podcasts out there and I truly appreciate the fact that you hang out with me and that you don’t mind that I am here. And my workout clothes, my little Patagonia hat with my dog recording this intro from the front porch.

[00:00:43] So this is the last of our summer series and in our summer series we have brought to the surface our most popular episodes of the last couple of years. And as you know, we deliver business coaching and strategies that other coaches will charge you thousands for. And so in this [00:01:00] episode we are specifically talking about how to engineer your suite of online offers.

[00:01:05] Making the old theories of like basic Ascension model. We’re bringing those to light and talking about whether or not they actually should work for your business. We’re talking about new ways to engineer your suite of offers. And I teach you my strategies on offer engineering and business ecosystem engineering in such a way that It does things that my life that I get to do, I get to travel six months a year with my kids, my husband and I own five companies.

[00:01:32] And that is only because of how I engineer my suite of offers. So with that being said, enjoy this episode. Everything can be found by visiting the show notes at Sweetlifepodcast.com/299. And yes, next week is our 300th podcast episode. I’m so excited about that. Get ready for that. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, but in the meantime, dive in and take the proven strategies that I give you here on this show about [00:02:00] how to engineer your suite of offers.

[00:02:03] And you can visit the new link that I just gave you at episode two 99. Or also the previous show notes link that I have given you in the past. Both of them will lead you to the resources that we have here waiting for you. Thank you so much for being a listener to this show, for being part of this summer series and being part of our online business family. I truly appreciate you.

[00:02:28] You’re listening to the SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mentor and entrepreneur activator, April Beach.

[00:02:47] Hi you guys, and welcome to episode number 225 here on the SuiteLife Entrepreneur Podcast. We’re going to go ahead and dive right in today. And we’re talking about how to structure your suite of offers. I know this [00:03:00] is a common question. I’m literally in clubhouse rooms every single week talking about this, because there are so many things that you could do that you could launch in your business to scale.

[00:03:10] Who knows? Is that the right thing for you? Is that what we really need for you in your company? And that’s, is that really what’s going to equal the profit plan that you want? So in this week’s show, I’m actually breaking down a process that I take entrepreneurs through called strategic business design.

[00:03:27] And so we’re going to dive into all things, how to structure your suite of offers to give you the results that you want. So let’s do a little bit of housekeeping first, and then we’ll go ahead and get started. This episode is for established entrepreneurs. So this is for those of you guys who are in phase three Of my Sweetlifebusiness launch system, it’s also called the start to scale up system.

[00:03:47] Basically it is a roadmap of five different steps and you know which phase of business that you’re in. It’s really important. You know where you are so you know what you should be working on so you can scale your business faster. And so if you’re in phase three. [00:04:00] This episode is for you. So keep tuning in here and we’re going to go ahead and dive in.

[00:04:05] If you aren’t really sure what phase of business you’re in, simply go to SweetLifeCo. com forward slash quiz, and you can take the quiz there and get your exact download customized to where you are in business right now. So this is what we’re talking about on today’s show. We’re talking about the fact that online services, courses, masterminds, coaching programs are all a great way to scale your business.

[00:04:25] However, how you structure your suite of offers can make or break your business, your lifestyle, and your profit plan. So on this show, I am breaking down my strategic business design method, and I’m giving it to you high level because frankly, it’s so simple. You can run with it high level right now. And I want you to leave this show with exactly what to do to get started to design your suite of offers.

[00:04:50] At the end of this show, you are going to know exactly the high level steps of what that method is. You are going to know where you can start right now in [00:05:00] considering your suite of offers, and you’re going to have clarity of what you are going for in the future and how that actually equals the lifestyle results that you want.

[00:05:08] So if that’s what you’re here for, this show is for you. Let’s go ahead and get started.

[00:05:23] Okay, guys, welcome. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. This is episode number 225 here on the Sweetlife Entrepreneur Business Podcast and all the show notes and everything that we’re going to talk about on today’s show. Can be found by visiting SuiteLifeCo. com. Simply click on the podcast.

[00:05:41] And this is episode number 225. And today we’re talking about how to structure your suite of offers. So I’m going to give you three high level steps. And within each step, we’re going to break them down. So if you have a piece of paper and a pen, Take notes. If you’re on the go, join me in clubhouse live this [00:06:00] week, because I’m going to be taking your specific offer design questions on Wednesdays at noon Eastern time.

[00:06:07] And if you’re not yet, you can follow me on clubhouse at April beach. You’ll get notification of that room. And I would love to include you in workshop this with you. So let’s go ahead and dive in. First of all, let’s talk about why this is important. I coach entrepreneurs. Obviously all the time. That’s what I do.

[00:06:25] And what we’re seeing is a huge trend of companies coming to us new and established companies coming to us who have launched a course or launched a membership, launched a grouping of offers because everybody else is doing it. And a couple things are happening. Number one, They’re failing, they’re falling on their face and nobody’s joining them.

[00:06:45] Number two, what they’re doing for the people that are successful doesn’t really align with what they wanted to do and why they became an entrepreneur in the first place. And what happens is they are tapped out. They haven’t designed their offer strategically in a [00:07:00] way that is going to deliver a couple things.

[00:07:02] Number one, the profit that they want. Number two, the lifestyle that they want and number three, the transformation that their clients want and need and deserve from them. So they’re tapped out. They don’t know how to do more. They don’t know how to create this, what we call a suite of offers. And this is how we build profitable million dollar coaching businesses that if you want, if you do it right, you can turn around someday and sell it.

[00:07:26] And so what I’m going to do is I’m going to take you guys through high level. These are the three steps of my strategic business design method. And people fly to me here in Colorado all the time to meet with me for one day to go through this process with them. This is a very important process and I really want to make sure that it’s in your hands too.

[00:07:49] Of course, I would love to have you join me here in Colorado or a virtual strategic. business design session, but let’s get you started where you are right now and make sure that [00:08:00] you know the steps of going through this. When you go through a process called strategic business design, you’re going to end up in three to five years from now with a company that you really, really love.

[00:08:10] You’re going to end up walking into that brand influence that you’ve wanted. So what you want to be known for, how you want to be seen. And really, in my opinion, one of the most important parts is you’re going to end up with the life that you want. You’ve listened to this show before. If you’re new, welcome.

[00:08:25] Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I travel with my kids four to five months a year and it’s broken up. I’m always on a plane. We’re always somewhere adventuring and that is because I learned at a very young age from my parents how to design businesses for lifestyle freedom and this is the process. Really high level and so I want to make sure you have it.

[00:08:44] So let’s go ahead and dive into step number one. And I’m sure this sounds so crazy. You’re like, oh my gosh, this isn’t, this isn’t revolutionary April. When I tell you what step number one is, but it’s really important that most people skip it. So step number one is starting with [00:09:00] the end in mind. See what I said?

[00:09:02] You’re probably thinking, oh, great. I’m listening to this podcast in. I’ve already heard all this before. Everybody says start with the end in mind, but let’s, let’s actually talk about what this means for you and why this is important. So starting with the end in mind means that you’re going to take a second.

[00:09:18] And I really mean take a second, just sit for a minute and stop and envision what do you want your average week to look like in three to five years. That means, who do you want to be working with? What do you want that to actually look like? So I want you to dive in. I want you to close your eyes unless you’re driving.

[00:09:38] Don’t close your eyes. And I want you to picture yourself. What are you doing on an average week and in an average day? What is your average day look like? And perhaps what is your average month look like? And here’s some questions. I want you to see in your own mind when we’re going through this exercise.[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] How are you working with your clients or your customers? What does your interaction between you and your customers actually look like? Where are you working from? Are you working from an office space? Are you, uh, working from your home? Are you working from a sailboat? Where are you working from? I want you to really feel both of those things, because both of those things, that equals the business model we need to design for you.

[00:10:27] And then, I mean, it’s not just a pipe dream and that’s why this is pretty crazy deep strategic business planning. This is not a business coach coming in here and saying, decide that you want to be on a boat. You’ll never get that from me. We need to talk about where you want to be. And I’m going to give you the exact steps to actually make that happen.

[00:10:46] The next process is I want you to go through and who are you talking to? Who are you working with? Who flows through your day with you? Who flows through your activities? Who is on your team? And [00:11:00] how, what, how are they operating? What does that look like to you? The next question, after you go through and imagine that, I want you to figure out what is happening that is not work related.

[00:11:11] And this is where the lifestyle entrepreneur side comes into play. What are you doing? That’s not work related. How are you interacting with the people that you love? What does that look like? And what are those relationships look like? And then when you go through this process to actually envision this three to five years from now, I really want you to see it.

[00:11:33] Because these answers equal the business model and they are going to lead to the suite of offers that you’re going to want to create in your business. Along those lines, I do have a tool for you. Go grab it. It is a 17 page ultimate guide to online business models. If you have not grabbed that yet, grab it.

[00:11:54] It breaks down every single type of offer structure that you can do for an online business. And I tell [00:12:00] you exactly how it’s going to affect your life. You can grab that simply. By going to Sweetlifeco. com, clicking on podcast number two 25. And we’ll make sure there’s a link here for you in the show notes.

[00:12:11] So that’s step number one is starting with the end in mind. But I need you. Most people actually don’t go through this process because of the fact that they think it’s just this pipe dream they’re building. Now we’re going to go a step deeper. We’re going to reverse engineer it even more. So hang with me here, okay?

[00:12:27] So after you’ve gone through that process to really figure out what that looks like for you, what you want that to look like for you, step number two is curating your suite of offers, programs, and products. So here is what I mean by this. What programs do you offer under your business and your brand?

[00:12:48] What types of programs do you want to offer to people? What do you want to be serving them in what regard? How do you want to be coaching them? What type of results do you want to give to them? So, [00:13:00] what programs, plural, make up your suite of offers? The next question to that is, what are the business models of each one of those programs?

[00:13:12] You could, in your business, only have one signature program that brings in half a million dollars a year. You don’t have to have multiple programs. But most companies do. I’m a big advocate for multiple streams of income. And frankly, you know, if you only have one program, we’re not really creating a journey for your clients to grow with you and to keep clients longterm.

[00:13:36] And so I am a big advocate of creating a suite of programs that creates a journey for your clients to work with you for years and years to come as they grow. So in your mind, what programs are you offering when you imagine yourself? Five years down the road from now. And what is the business model of each offer?

[00:13:56] And what I mean by business model, these are the common terms. Is one a [00:14:00] course? Is one a membership site? Is one a live virtual event? Do you have retreats? Do you offer one on one coaching? What is the collection of programs and the business model of each that is going to help you get to where you want to be doing in an average week and an average month and an average year?

[00:14:18] And here’s one thing I want you to lean in on. And we do talk about this a lot in clubhouse. This is what we teach in my masterclass on how to create your signature programs is I don’t want you to be afraid to create a custom business model and deliver your programs in a way that meets your needs while also still delivering a transformation to your clients.

[00:14:38] If you want to do a hybrid mix of models, which every single one of our clients are now. Don’t be afraid to do that. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. And of course, what you create here and what we’re thinking about and we’re shopping in your brain right now in this podcast, it’s going to change as technology changes.

[00:14:55] And you know, we get three, five years down the road and we bring in artificial intelligence and virtual [00:15:00] reality and all these other cool, amazing things, but we need to start with somewhere. And I want to make sure you have the roadmap to do this. Next question I want you to ask is what digital or physical products also make up your offer suite?

[00:15:12] Do you have any? Do you have a book? Do you have t shirts that you sell? You know, what sort of digital or physical products might also be in that suite of offers? Are you writing your third book or your fourth book? Are you launching a podcast? What other ways are you contributing to the excellence of your clients?

[00:15:29] And then here is where the hard work comes in. And this is where most of you guys are going to totally tune me out. But those of you that keep listening are going to be the ones that actually build the life that you want out of your business. The next part is to value and create a profit forecast for each one of your offers.

[00:15:50] So you need to sit down and write the forecast of sales for each one of your offers and the value each one of your offers holds separately and collectively. [00:16:00] and crunch those numbers and make sure they’re going to equal that lifestyle that you want. And then the third step is to determine what do you need to build right now?

[00:16:11] What do you need to start building right now in the next 30, days? What’s the top signature program that you want to launch or gain traction on first? What do you want to be known for first? And most importantly, how does this first program you’re launching fit into that long term suite of offers? And that’s what I want you to lean in on and those are the questions that you should be able to answer.

[00:16:36] If you cannot answer those questions, you know where to find me. This is my jam. This is what I do. You can send me an Instagram DM. I would happy to be happy to set up a strategy session with you. But the first thing is we need to do one thing really, really well. We can’t do all the things at once. And it’s also really hard with all the noise across marketing to become known for something.

[00:16:54] So I want you to lean into this one first signature program that you are building. And you need [00:17:00] to see and understand how that fits, how that one brick, if you will, fits into the bigger house that you were building with all the other bricks. Signature programs that you will create and once you nail your signature offer, once you’ve scaled this first one that you’re doing and that includes a program delivery, you’ve reached your first benchmark of your profit goal, then you can move on to developing the next program in your suite of offers.

[00:17:26] And as you go and as you grow, your clients go and grow with you. It’s an amazing thing and when it’s well thought out and there’s a strategy, I guarantee you it works every single time when we don’t add in strategy and tactics to creating business design. That’s where entrepreneurs run into trouble.

[00:17:46] And so I wanted to download you on this today, and I wanted to give you these really three high level steps. Literally people fly to me in Colorado to spend a day with me to go through this and design this for their company. [00:18:00] And I want you to have these tools too. You’re, you’re my people, you’re my podcast family.

[00:18:04] And thank you so much for listening to the show. And I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this lately. And so I really wanted to make sure that one of these shows here, as soon as I could fit it in, we were talking about these high level steps. So this is my strategic business design process and I want you to have it.

[00:18:22] Let’s go ahead and recap. They’re very basic, right? It doesn’t have to be complicated to build a profitable business. As a matter of fact, simple is what creates traction both for you and for your followers and for your students, your clients, your customers. So number one is starting with the end in mind.

[00:18:40] but in a much deeper way than you have done before. It’s understanding how what you want your life to look like is controlled by the business model. You choose number two is curating your suite of offers, programs, and products, and not only doing that, but then going the extra step, creating a [00:19:00] profit forecast for each of them.

[00:19:02] And understanding and making sure that the hard work you’re doing is in fact, going to equal the profit that you need in order to create the lifestyle and the impact that you want to make. And then the third step is to understand what you need to do first and build right now in the next 30, 60, 90 days, what you need to be leaning in on what signature program that brick in the, in the big building of your whole house has to happen first, what’s the first brick that has to be laid.

[00:19:27] And this isn’t for new businesses as a matter of fact. If you are a new business, thank you for listening to this. But these are the things that we work with, with established companies, established experts that are scaling offline to online, or who have just done a lot of things. I think one of the biggest confusion places in this are companies and entrepreneurs that have launched a whole bunch of things, and it’s all just a bunch of things thrown out there.

[00:19:51] There’s no strategic business design plan. And so it’s taking what, you know, what you’ve done well and putting it into a strategic plan, because I [00:20:00] really, I want you to have what I have. I feel so blessed, but it’s taken a lot of hard work and it’s a lot of strategy and it’s a lot of understanding how the importance of reverse engineering your business model equals that lifestyle and that profit that you want.

[00:20:14] And so this is a wrap on today’s show. I want you to lean in from here. And I would highly recommend connecting with man clubhouse. I would love to workshop with you on this and lean in. And instead of saying, I want to launch a course, or I want to launch a mastermind, or I want to launch a membership. I recommend that you go through the process of strategic business design to understand how it affects your life.

[00:20:39] And truly, what’s the best transformation that you can give to your clients? Are those business models truly the best ways that you can get them the transformational, predictable, measurable results that we want you to give them in your suite of offers? That’s what we talked about today on the show.

[00:20:57] Thank you so much for spending time with me [00:21:00] here. Again, this is a Sweetlife Entrepreneur and business podcast, episode number 225. I know your time is super valuable. So I hope that you felt that it was valuable spending this time here, listening to me. And I would love to connect with you further. As I said, on clubhouse, you can follow me at.

[00:21:16] April beach and all of the show notes and everything we talked about today. It can be found by visiting Sweetlifeco. com. Simply click on the podcast button. And this is episode number 225. Thanks so much. And I can’t wait to talk to you guys again with another proven business training you can take to the bank next week. Bye bye for now.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

298

[00:00:00] Hi, you guys. And welcome to the summer series here on the Sweetlife Entrepreneur podcast. I’m April Beach, host of this show. And I’m so excited to bring you back to the surface one of our most powerful episodes that we have played here on the past on the Sweetlife podcast. If you’ve been following us for any period of time, you know that we give you trainings and proven strategies that other coaches will charge you thousands for.

[00:00:24] And so we went back into our archives and pulled up our most popular profit generating powerful episodes and it brought them to the surface over the summer series here on the Sweetlife Entrepreneur podcast. So if you’re new to the show and you miss these episodes, we want to make sure you don’t miss them.

[00:00:39] And if you’ve been listening to this show for over five years. Thank you so much. First of all. And secondly, these things are great to hear again. And sometimes when we rehear things that we learned once before, we hear them in a different way because you and your business are at a different level.

[00:00:57] And so that’s what we were doing here on the show. In [00:01:00] this episode, we are replaying a popular episode about how to build transformational courses. Now we’re going to talk a little bit about the history of online courses, the trends in courses in this episode, if you plan to scale your business with courses, or if you’ve built courses and they are not selling, this is a very important episode for you to listen to.

[00:01:21] The online coursing courses industry has changed drastically since we first started in 2008. It is completely oversaturated. People are not finishing courses, but yet. Some of our clients are generating millions of dollars selling their courses, and that’s what I want you to hear in this episode. So, with that being said, let’s go ahead and dive in.

[00:01:45] This is a replay of a past episode. All of the show notes have been updated for you, and they can actually be found by visiting sweetlifepodcast.com/298. And you can [00:02:00] also go to the links in the old replay episode and they will be updated for you and they will also be there to provide you with more resources again.

[00:02:07] Thank you so much for tuning into the show, tuning in behind the scenes here from the front porch of the beach house. And I am so appreciative of your listenership and your support of this show. Enjoy.

[00:02:22] You’re listening to the Sweetlife Entrepreneur Podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mentor and entrepreneur activator, April Beach.

[00:02:40] Hi there, and welcome back to the show. I’m April Beach host here at the Suite Life Entrepreneur Podcast and founder of the Sweetlife Company. Thanks for joining me again on another episode where you can take what we deliver to the bank. This show is known for delivering you business trainings and coaching that other businesses and coaches [00:03:00] charge thousands for.

[00:03:01] So thank you so much for tuning in with us before we get started today. And we’re about to talk all about online courses, which I know is a popular topic for so many of you. I want to make sure that, you know, how you can connect further with us here on the podcast.

[00:03:14] Delivering information is one thing, but then you usually have questions or you want to know maybe how this applies in your business. So if you are on clubhouse every single week on Wednesdays at 12 o’clock, we host a room and this room is all about the podcast topic of the week. And I take your specific questions on what we talked about on this week’s show.

[00:03:36] So if you’re listening right now to episode number 223, and you want to know all about how to launch a transformational online course, you’re listening to this podcast, and then you want to workshop with me and ask your questions. That is where you can find me totally free. Every single Wednesday on Clubhouse at 12 o’clock Eastern time in order to find that room You just [00:04:00] need to follow me on Clubhouse and I can be found at April Beach super simple so So let’s take this podcast from where we are now over to clubhouse and I’m happy to have a deeper conversation with you and give you support in this area.

[00:04:15] So who is this episode for this episode is for those of you guys that are in the business launch or scale phase and you’re thinking about doing so with an online course. So here are a couple of important things to note. Launching an online course isn’t enough. All right. In fact, the sale of on demand online courses and free courses actually dropped.

[00:04:37] The consumption of them has dropped over the last couple of years. And that’s because so many people are weary of buying another course or even of spending their time on a free course. And they understand the material they’re getting really isn’t good or it isn’t transformational. And they aren’t really getting the outcome that they had hoped that they would receive.

[00:04:58] So, if you are… [00:05:00] Which you are listening to me here and entrepreneur business, and you’re looking to scale online courses are still really powerful way to do that. In fact, we help most of our clients launch online courses, but how you curate your content and deliver a transformation to your students, to your clients will determine whether or not your course is a huge hit or a huge fail. And so that’s what we’re talking about today on the show at the end of this episode. You’re going to understand the basics of transformational course creation and design. You’re going to be able to assess your current courses and whether or not you need to make changes, and you’re going to have 4 steps to take action if you’re building an online course.

[00:05:41] Right now. So if you’re ready, let’s go ahead and dive into the show and all of the show notes and everything we have here for you can be found by going to sweetlifeco.Com [00:06:00] okay. So let’s first dive in and talk about what is a transformational course. A transformational course is an online course that delivers measurable transformational results where your students, your, your clients actually are able to understand what you have taught them and actually practice and put it into action instead of.

[00:06:21] So a lot of course creators, actually, most of them just teach you how to kind of outline your content. In benchmarks and basic reverse engineering, you need to do much more of that if you want to scale your business and become an undisputed leader in your space by creating a transformational online course.

[00:06:37] So that’s why this is so important. The problem is more content is not better. You know, nobody needs more content. Nobody is out there saying, please inundate me with more content. I know I’m not and I’m sure you’re not either your students and your clients and the people that you’re going to go through your course.

[00:06:57] They just need a transformation and [00:07:00] that transformation could be a micro transformation or it could be a major transformational outcome for them. So in able to do that or being able to do that. As a course creator means that you need to understand how to design your course that includes delivering a transformational measurable result in the end.

[00:07:21] And according to canto. com content overload is when too many different blog posts and articles and ideas and suggestions cover one specific area. And I know that as entrepreneurs that you’re struggling with that. If you’re talking about something that so many other people are talking about in that same area, it is a huge issue for your business and it has a couple of negative effects.

[00:07:45] For one, it creates a vast. Quantity of material covering this one topic and it makes it really hard for you to stand out. Another problem is that it turns off a potential audience and they don’t want to shift through [00:08:00] endless content to find the one thing they’re looking to achieve. And you can read that article.

[00:08:06] We’ll go ahead and put that link to that article in the show notes for you guys on our website. And so, as an entrepreneur, I know you’re struggling with this. I know that you need to understand how to stand out, how to become known, how to become like what I call undisputed leader. And I talk to hundreds of entrepreneurs every single month that are asking, how do I make my course or my program or my service stand out?

[00:08:30] And it all starts with simplified. Transformational program design. So I want you to write those words down in your memory. If you’re driving your car to say with me transformational course or service or program design. Okay. And that’s what we’re talking about here today. That’s what we teach within the Suite Life company.

[00:08:53] If you’re looking for a resource beyond this podcast in this area. And so here are some steps I want to give you that you can walk away with though [00:09:00] immediately so that you can take a look at your course. Step number one is if you already have a course, take a look at your curriculum, take a look at it.

[00:09:11] And if you’re in the process of building your online course, take a look at what you’re proposing to build. And you need to be able to articulate the end results so that people can expect, know what to expect fully. in the end with the transformation they’re going to get from your course. Not just what is the end, but what is the detailed transformation that they can expect.

[00:09:35] You don’t want to just say, oh, they’ll feel better as a parent if you’re launching a parent coaching course. Or they’ll know how to land speaking gigs if you’re a speaking coach. Or they’ll know how to run or moderate a clubhouse room. Those are all too general. I recommend that you are able to specifically articulate and identify the transformation [00:10:00] like this.

[00:10:00] So instead of, they’ll feel better as a parent, you should be able to say something about your course like, they will have crafted their parenting plan with confidence. So it’s really specific and you’re talking about how they’re getting the transformation. Or instead of, They’ll know how to land a speaking gig.

[00:10:18] It’s something to the effect of they will have completed the pitch process to land their dream stages. See, it’s much more specific and it also alludes to how you’re teaching them how to do that. And instead of launching a course that just says, Hey, you know, they’re going to know how to run a great clubhouse room.

[00:10:36] Instead, we want you to identify the transformation you’re delivering. An example could be they understand the guidelines of moderating inclusive clubhouse rooms. You see the difference in that? So step number one is really taking a good look at your curriculum. Number one, do you actually understand the transformation that you’re giving people?

[00:10:56] Is that really, really clear to you? And if you [00:11:00] don’t, It’s okay. I don’t want you to feel like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I don’t know the transformation because I literally speak with entrepreneurs all the time that are like, wow, April, I’ve created this course. I bought all these other course creation programs and I put all this content in there and laid it out.

[00:11:17] I still can’t articulate the transformation I’m giving people. So if that’s you, just first of all, know that you’re not alone. There’s a lot of people out there talking about how to teach course creation that might not even understand instructional curriculum design. And so that’s not a reflection of you, and it’s certainly not a reflection of your content.

[00:11:36] So the very first thing to do is to look at the curriculum and be able to clearly Identify the transformation in a detailed description. Number two, create transformational benchmarks. And so let’s talk about what I mean by this. I was just hosting a clubhouse room on this topic last week, and I was asked this question, and a woman said she’s had a course [00:12:00] forever, and they were, I was so excited for her because they were going back through her course and actually understanding the importance.

[00:12:07] Of transformational course design. They’re going back and they were updating or redoing their course. It’s been this killer course. It’s made a ton of money for years. And she asked me, should I measure the transformation in the whole entire course or also should I do it in each one of the benchmarks, each one of the modules?

[00:12:26] And here is the answer to that. Yes. As an expert, you need to understand to be able to articulate the sub transformations within each benchmark of your course or of your service. Or really, this applies to any single business model. We teach transformational program development and design that applies to mastermind creation, membership creation.

[00:12:50] This can apply to a one hour coaching call with somebody. This can apply to any way that you deliver your content. Right now, in this podcast, we’re just talking specifically about [00:13:00] course creation. So, step number two is create transformations within each one of your benchmarks. And take a look and make sure that you understand and that you can articulate in a detailed way the sub transformations within each one of your modules or benchmarks as well.

[00:13:17] And number three is to curate content the way people learn. Okay, this is really, really important. Understanding that more content does not equal a better course or a program. We talked about that in the beginning, right? So your responsibility is to actually remove the content that does not directly apply to the end result that you are giving.

[00:13:39] That is step number one, take a look at your course, or if you’re in the process of building the course, take a look at it and say, okay, what doesn’t actually have to be in here to deliver the transformation that I’m guaranteeing people? There’s even more than that. As an entrepreneur, I understand that you’re not an instructional design expert or a [00:14:00] scientific learning expert, but if you’re offering a course, you have to curate curriculum with transformational program or service or coaching design.

[00:14:10] This is how you lead people to amazing results, and this is how you become an undisputed leader in your, in your space. So I want you to understand this. Most people believe that repeated exposure to material, right? So going over the things that you teach them in each module, and rereading it, and practicing it, and memorizing it.

[00:14:30] Is like the best way to get people results, but according to the McGraw Center for Teaching Learning at Princeton University, this is super time consuming and is actually less effective. Instead, they recommend making learning difficult in strategic and desirable ways to enhance retention, retrieval, and transfer of knowledge.

[00:14:56] Let me say that all again. You’re probably going like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re talking about Princeton [00:15:00] University, April. I’m a nutritionist or I’m a marketing coach or you know, whatever it is. This totally doesn’t apply to me, but yet it does. As course creators, it is important that we understand instructional design, especially if you are building your company and scaling your business with creating a product that gives people results and they have to go through a process of learning.

[00:15:23] So let me say that again. A lot of course creators, entrepreneurial course creators out there, put a bunch of content in a course, lay it out in a timeline, and then give people homework for each benchmark. That is truly not the way to get people results in your program. And what we find is just going over their notes or rereading the things that you’ve done.

[00:15:48] Isn’t necessarily the way to do it. In fact, according to this study by Princeton University, they actually recommend understanding and absorbing [00:16:00] some of your content in your program and intentionally making it difficult, but doing so in desirable ways. creating challenges within your course that people want to overcome, they want to do, and it’s not super easy.

[00:16:18] But let’s go ahead and dive a little bit more into this because you might just be like totally tuning me out at this point, which I really hope you’re not. Because again, as a course creator, Or somebody that wants to offer a course, it’s important that you understand this in the process of building your curriculum.

[00:16:36] So desirable difficulties. Let’s kind of dive into that. What does that actually mean? Desirable difficulties is a term that Dr. Robert Bjork from UCLA came up with over 20 years ago and refers to conditions of learning that create challenges for the learners. And even slow down some of the rate of learning, but in the end, they [00:17:00] actually enhance the long term retention of the knowledge and the skills that you’re giving them.

[00:17:06] So what does this tell us? Okay, this is, this is very advanced instructional design and scientific learning. And I totally get it. You’re like, okay, April, I’m not offering an MBA. I’m like just teaching somebody how to get more YouTube fans or whatever it may be. I totally, totally get it, but you are a course creator and bringing your clients, also known as your students, from one place to another in knowledge or skill is what you’re promising them, right?

[00:17:33] And therefore, you should include some measure of desirable difficulties. And again, what is that? So let’s take a look at your course. Either you’ve created a course or you’re thinking about creating a course. A desirable difficulty is placing the challenges, certain number of challenges, and everybody’s program is different within your course [00:18:00] that they’re ready module, but really great challenges that your clients are ready.

[00:18:06] To face in by doing so they get excited about doing it. They want to do it. They want to take what you’ve been teaching them and delivering to them over the past couple of weeks or months or however long your program is and they want to put it into action. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard, but it’s the best kind of heart because they know that doing it is for sure what’s going to raise them from where they are to the next level of where they want to be with you.

[00:18:35] Here’s an example of this. At my company, at the Suite Life company, we have a program that’s called Your Signature Offer. And we teach small 13 years.

[00:18:52] As a matter of fact, way back when in 2008, we launched an online course on how to create online courses, like [00:19:00] before the whole entire online world was talking about it. And here is why the process of curating your curriculum and building courses in a way that embraces what you are capable of as an expert, as far as scientific learning, but it also levels up your customers outcome. Your clients, not only retention in your program, but the results in your program. That’s how we build leading entrepreneurs and businesses. And we teach a process in my program called your signature offer that actually takes your thoughts out of your mind and your expertise and puts them into a process that creates what we call transformational program design.

[00:19:41] It is really hard work, but by the time we actually teach that in my Your Signature Offer program, people are ready for that. And so they’ve gone through the places in the benchmarks where they’re like, okay, bring it on. I am so amped up for [00:20:00] this. I’m totally aggro. I’m ready to grow. It’s going to be great work.

[00:20:03] This is good, important work because they’re ready for it. If we created huge challenges for them throughout the whole entire program, they would never do it. If we created no challenges for them throughout the program, they would learn nothing and they’d have no transformation. So I always love kind of showing you guys behind the scenes on our company and how we do things.

[00:20:23] So let’s take that example and let’s look at your course or your program that you’re creating or that you have already launched. Do you have desirable levels of difficulty that are strategically placed that cause challenges that enhance the outcome and the transformation people are getting within your course?

[00:20:45] If you don’t, then it’s time to take a look at that. And if you feel like you’re totally having a panic attack right now, and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I don’t even know where to start. Then cruise over to signatureoffer. com and you can join one [00:21:00] of my next whiteboarding sessions. I do these whiteboarding sessions for free all the time.

[00:21:04] And we’ll whiteboard out your course together. Or like I said, join me on clubhouse. At noon on Wednesday, the week this show drops, and we’ll, we’ll be diving into this together. And here are some things I want for you to consider as we’re wrapping up this really important episode here on the show. Number one, understand that action is part of your client’s learning process.

[00:21:29] But how are you going to implement that action? What is the difference between them taking action and you just giving them work to say you gave them work? Or frankly, you giving them no work because you just wanted your course easy to get through. Where is the measure there based on the transformation that you are promising they’ll receive from your course?

[00:21:49] Number two, create challenges at the right points within your program. Not just to create these challenges, but understand when and where people are ready [00:22:00] to be challenged. And of course, number three, which is how we started out this show, cut the content and focus on the transformation and the output of the process that you are teaching.

[00:22:12] More content is not better. And if you take anything away from this episode, because I know we talked about a lot. Number one is to simplify the content within your course. Don’t overload people with more and more and more content. Instead, look at the content within your course or your program and ask yourself, how am I going to make this transformational at every single touch point within what I’m delivering to my clients?

[00:22:41] If you want to take your course, you want your course to take the lead in your space. You’re going to need to design it like a leader designs courses. And this applies to many courses, signature courses, and frankly, any program that requires learning and implementation based on the [00:23:00] information that you teach.

[00:23:02] Ooh. So we talked about a lot of things today, today in episode number 222, here on this Suite Life Entrepreneur Business Podcast, we are talking about how to launch a transformational online course. This again is for those of you guys who are just starting to scale your business with online courses.

[00:23:20] Whether you have had a course for years, like the woman I was speaking to in Clubhouse, or you’re just now trying to tap into the power of scaling your business through online courses. Understand that launching a course alone is not enough. Also understand that the completion of online courses has fallen so much that you have to understand how to engineer your curriculum in order to get people transformational, measurable, predictable results.

[00:23:47] And the resources we have for you again are join me in clubhouse. Let’s have a conversation about this. I’m happy to dive in, roll up my sleeves and link arms with you in our regular weekly clubhouse room on Wednesdays at noon. Again, [00:24:00] follow me at April beach and we’ll dive in with this together. Or I want you to also check out signatureoffer.

[00:24:09] com if you’re to the place where you’re ready to take the lead in your industry and you want to make sure that the courses that you’re developing are transformational industry leading courses, that is where you get the steps to do it. Again, that’s signatureoffer.com. And all of the show notes from this episode here can be found by visiting SweetLifeCo.

[00:24:32] com. And I kind of geeked out on the research for this one, so in those show notes, there’s a couple of really important resources. We have actually put the Princeton resource in there for you as well, as well as I’m putting a link to how to create strategic levels of difficulty from Dr. Robert Bjork here in the show notes as well.

[00:24:55] So if you want to dive in deeper to that, I’ve made sure all these resources are here for you. All right, you [00:25:00] guys, thanks so much for tuning into the show. I can’t wait to talk to you again next week on another podcast that delivers a business coaching. You can take to the bank. You guys have an awesome week. Bye bye for now.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

297

00:00:00] April Beach: Hi guys, and welcome back to the show. You have tapped into the summer series here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast, and I’m April Beach recording this intro for you from my front porch here, just outside of Boulder, Colorado. If you’re watching this video, you’re gonna see I have a fire on and it’s actually raining here in Colorado.

[00:00:19] April Beach: I don’t know, our climate’s totally changed. It is June and we have had rain every day. But I love recording podcast episodes for you guys. Where you can really see behind the scenes of how we do things. This, we’ve been recording this show for almost six years and and I love just kind of unpacking the behind the scenes for you, especially during summertime.

[00:00:38] April Beach: So this is a special summer series we are doing for you and what we’ve done is we are. Replaying some of our most powerful and popular episodes here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast because they’re so good. I need to make sure you didn’t miss them. Don’t forget, we are known for delivering podcast episodes that other coaches will [00:01:00] charge you hundreds and thousands of dollars for, and everything we do here is to pour into you first.

[00:01:05] April Beach: And so the episodes that I’ve picked to replay and bring that back up to the surface for the summer series are ones that you’re gonna be able to apply to your business immediately today. And make more money. Improve your programs, improve your operations, and generate more leads. And this is one of those episodes.

[00:01:22] April Beach: So this is episode number 297, technically but is it is a replay of episode number 211. And so you’re gonna hear some other links in this episode. All of the show notes have been updated for you and can be found by visiting sweetlifepodcast.com/297. But if you go to the old links in the episode, in the past episode that we’re replaying, you’ll also find all the assets that we promised here for you. So never fear.

[00:01:53] April Beach: Now we are diving into how to actually increase your program sales through speaking in our [00:02:00] guest is Heather Sager. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, if you’re one of our clients and you’re in our programs, you know Heather Sager, she was actually on the episode on a show a few months ago, and we recorded a similar episode specifically for you guys who are speaking to license your training programs.

[00:02:20] April Beach: Now this episode is the version for those of you guys who are trying to bookkeep speaking engagements more to sell your B2C side of your business. We just did an episode recently about B2B. This one’s going back to B2C. So if you’re trying to fill up your courses, fill up your programs, fill up your mastermind, fill up your MRI, or your membership, or your live virtual event, or your retreat, this is the podcast episode for you.

[00:02:43] April Beach: And I felt like it was important because we talked about the. Corporate B2B side of it recently to bring this one back up to light for the rest of you. Enjoy everything here can again be found by visiting Sweet Life podcast.com, episode number [00:03:00] 297, and all of Heather’s assets that we have here for you as well.

[00:03:04] April Beach: Thanks so much for tuning in, hanging out with me here on the front porch, or if you’re listening by audio. Thank you so much for listening over the summer. This is our Sweet Life Summer podcast series and I am so glad that you are here. Dive into the episode and enjoy.

[00:03:22] April Beach: You are listening to the sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business, and launch a life you love faster. With business mentor and entrepreneur, activator a April Beach.

[00:03:40] April Beach: Hey you guys and welcome back to the show. This is episode number 211 and I’m April Beach. Super great to be connected with you today we are diving in, we’re talking about how to fill your programs using guest speaking, and we have Heather Seger, the one and only in the house. So what you can expect from today’s show [00:04:00] is if you are a coach or a consultant and you’re really good at what you do, even the leading expert in your space, but you’re having trouble getting noticed, well, speaking could be a really powerful way. To establish yourself as a leader and get in front of the perfect audience.

[00:04:15] April Beach: And so today we’re talking all about the steps to do that and giving you the methodology from the expert herself, Heather Sager. But real quick, before we jump into that, if you’re new to hearing this show, welcome. This is The Sweet Life Entrepreneur and Business Podcast. And we give you step-by-step business trainings that are so good. There’s no way they should be free. You can find all the resources we have by visiting sweet life co.com.

[00:04:41] April Beach: And if you’re interested in scaling your business, developing your signature program, signature methods, signature offers in truly scaling your business to live life on your terms for massive profit, then we would love to help you get to that place. Visit sweet life co.com. That is our ninja skill and that’s what [00:05:00] we do. All right, diving into today’s episode. This is for entrepreneurs in all stages of my start to scale up system. So we like to tag these episodes in advance so you know whether or not this is really a good, good opportunity for you to learn and grow based on the phase of business you’re in.

[00:05:17] April Beach: So if you aren’t sure what phase of business you’re in, and therefore what you should be focusing on right now, you can go and take a very short quiz just by visiting sweet life co.com/quiz. And we’ll give you a full download of exactly where you are in your business growth and development, and exactly what you should be focusing on right now so that you can grow your company faster.

[00:05:41] April Beach: So that’s one resource I wanted to share with you. And along those lines, this particular episode is for those of you who are in phases two, three, or four of that start to scale up system. So hopefully that will equip you to know whether or not you should [00:06:00] hang out with us any longer. And I’ll tell you, if you’re in this phase, you are not going to want to miss this episode.

[00:06:06] April Beach: And one other quick housekeeping announcement. I know that we have probably been talking about Clubhouse way too much, but I wanted to let you know that you can connect with us and connect with our Sweet Life podcast guest experts by following me on Clubhouse. I am at. April Beach on Clubhouse, and we now host a weekly room at 12 o’clock every single Wednesday.

[00:06:33] April Beach: And that is Eastern Standard Time. So if you wanna be on the hot seat, if you want my eyes and your business to help you strategize your next steps, find us on Clubhouse and subscribe to our clubhouse updates. If you are not on Clubhouse yet, or if you just want the updates, you can visit sweet life co.com/clubhouse.

[00:06:53] April Beach: And we’ll keep you in the loop of what’s happening on Clubhouse while you might be waiting to get on the app. And we’ll send you reminders and [00:07:00] invitations to our upcoming rooms. So I know that was a lot of information and you can find all the information I just shared with you in the resources for these show notes, which is going to be@sweetlifepodcast.com/211 okay.

[00:07:17] April Beach: Let me introduce you to our fabulous guest on today’s show. You get to hear from Heather Sager. Heather helps entrepreneurs structure their ideas, clarify their message, and hone their speaking skills so they can deliver magnetic live presentations, videos, and workshops to grow their authority, whether on a physical or a virtual stage. She’s spoken on stages around the world teaching six to seven figure business owners how to grow their company using effective communication. She also works one-on-one with business owners to prep them for the stage and help you manage and prepare your message for the most impact. So, Let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode. Again, all of those [00:08:00] amazing resources that I shared and everything we’re talking about with Heather can be found by visiting Sweet Life podcast.com/two one.

[00:08:17] April Beach: All right, you guys. Welcome back to another awesome episode here at the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Business Podcast, and I am visited today by none other than Heather Sager. And what we’re talking about is something that’s so important, I know many of you guys have questions about. So we are immediately diving into how to fill your programs using guest speaking.

[00:08:38] April Beach: So Heather, thank you so much for being on the show today. Give yourself an awesome intro. An intro that you deserve cuz you’re very powerful at gudy people. Amazing results. Anna, tell everybody about what you do.

[00:08:48] Heather Sager: Thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for the chance to serve your audience today and talk about pressure on an intro.

[00:08:56] April Beach: I mean, I’m being honest. I will say behind the scenes, so I [00:09:00] have followed Heather on Instagram and it’s one of those things where you’ve been connected and a little bit connected, but not completely connected, and I knew that you guys needed to hear from Heather. So very excited to have you here.

[00:09:11] Heather Sager: Thank you. Thank you for that. So as April said, I’m Heather Sager. So I’m a speaking coach for online entrepreneurs. And essentially what that means, I always joke that I teach people how to do the thing that most people fear more than death, which is public speaking. And in the online space, uh, it’s kind of funny because we think about public speaking back.

[00:09:31] Heather Sager: If y’all worked in corporate ever, how you think about getting up in front of a group and giving a presentation or teaching a workshop, or we think about speakers as the people who live their life on the road at conferences, on big stages, and none of those things seem to really fit in the online space of coaches and course creators and and online entrepreneurs.

[00:09:50] Heather Sager: And what I like to remind people is the fact that as business owners, we speak to people every single day. So we are already speakers. It’s not like a label [00:10:00] that we just all of a sudden adopt. We’re already speakers, and so I, what I do is I teach people how to do it with intention and purpose. So what they speak about actually connects back to not only what they’re passionate about, but also what they do in their business.

[00:10:13] Heather Sager: I think your voice has the potential to be a magnet for other people, for them to go, Ooh, I, not only do I like her, I wanna learn more from her. And the more that you get out and use your voice on different platforms, the more you pull people back with you that they’ll want to join your programs and hang out with you more and buy from you.

[00:10:31] Heather Sager: So that’s what I do. My background is like many entrepreneurs is in corporate where for years I spoke on stages around the world as a corporate trainer. Where I taught actually entrepreneurs in the medical space, so doctors and their teams. I taught them customer service and sales. Two very taboo topics in the medical space, right?

[00:10:55] Heather Sager: Let’s tell you, as a 27 year old kid, it felt like [00:11:00] teaching doctors how to sell, how to talk about what they did, how to talk to their teams, how to talk to their patients. That was an intimidating task at hand, so I had to learn how to speak in a very different way. I had to learn how to be influential and persuasive with an audience who was highly skeptical of my experience, my age, everything about me.

[00:11:22] Heather Sager: And so that’s where I got my like big girl chops around speaking. That’s where I had to fight through all my own insecurities about being a. I always talked about being like a baby nugget on a stage, being an unexperienced or inexperienced professional, like I had to work through all of those mental issues we go through.

[00:11:39] Heather Sager: I had to do that in a very highly publicized, highly criticized space, but I did damn good job, and I realized that while I love my job as a trainer, what I really loved was. Teaching people how to use their voice for good. And I got really good at storytelling. I got really good at the body [00:12:00] language and the hand gestures and all those things that come with speaking that are more than just the message.

[00:12:05] Heather Sager: And I started getting people asking me, could you teach me how to do that on a stage? Or could you teach me how to lead a workshop? And I found all of my free time in corporate was teaching my peers and other businesses how to do what I was doing. And at some point I was like, Ugh. I don’t wanna do this for anybody else anymore.

[00:12:22] Heather Sager: Why don’t I just do this full time? So I made the leap like many do, which is let me start my own business and help other people do the thing that I love. But here’s the kicker. It wasn’t just about speaking, it was about speaking with purpose, because I think speaking is like gasoline on a fire. I think speaking is one of the best marketing strategies that we can use in our business, and I think people treat it as a skill, but speaking is actually a strategy.

[00:12:48] April Beach: Mm. So many things that I wanna say, right, right now about all, about all those things. First of all, now you guys know I wanted Heather on the show. Fire. Fire, right? Fire, fire, fire. [00:13:00] That was like, okay, we can just end it. Just go work with Heather and she’s gonna help you be just this insane speaker. You know, really?

[00:13:07] April Beach: You said so many things though. So as business developers, and obviously that’s what we do at the Sweet Life Company, we help. People develop their programs and we help them develop life-changing programs and offers and these amazing services. Right? And one of the things that they are always asking about is, but how do I separate myself from other businesses that are delivering these same type of results?

[00:13:32] April Beach: Besides doing it within the. Framework of my program, like how do I stand out? And it always comes back to taking the authority on what you know, in stepping out and speaking about it. So that’s the first thing. And I can’t wait to dive into the strategies we’re gonna talk about here today on the show, but something else that you said that it’s so true is that you’re speaking to people all the time.

[00:13:54] April Beach: It doesn’t always have to be a webinar or an actual live event, but when as an online [00:14:00] entrepreneur, when you have the opportunity to actually speak to somebody and take them on a journey that you have pre crafted, it is a skill and that’s how you get people to follow you that are the right. People and I, I wanna just kind of pause for a second saying, even if you’re listening to the show and you’re like, well, you know, speaking doesn’t fit into my business model, listen to what Heather’s saying because you’re already speaking, so let’s make it so you don’t suck at it.

[00:14:24] April Beach: Right? Let’s make every single moment that you are having the, honestly, the privilege. Just like I just feel very blessed and privileged that people listen to the podcast, right? All of us, when somebody is listening to what we have to say. It is a very unique opportunity and a privilege to be able to speak to these people.

[00:14:43] April Beach: So what we say and how we say it is incredibly, incredibly important. So just love everything that you said there and, and I appreciate how direct you are about the importance of this. So you help establish business owners really take the lead [00:15:00] in doing so by speaking and increase what I love, of course, is the sale of their programs.

[00:15:05] April Beach: So, Talk about how you do that. You have a very special method, and I’m gonna tout Heather’s method here for a second. By the way, if you all don’t have a method we need, we want you to have a method to make you known and to gain the trust of the people you’re leading. Talk to us about your method in, what is that called, and can you guide us through your method today?

[00:15:25] Heather Sager: Yes, 100%. I love methods. We were sharing our love of frameworks and methods and just easier ways to help people understand what it is you do, right? We all think things make sense in our own heads, but really our own heads are a very special place that only we understand. So we have to be able to articulate them.

[00:15:41] Heather Sager: So my signature method that I teach inside my program speak up to Level Up. It’s where I teach online course creators and coaches how to leverage speaking in a way that’s gonna grow their business. We walk through something I call the speak for Authority method. And the reason why we call it the Speak for Authority method is every business owner has different [00:16:00] goals related to speaking.

[00:16:01] Heather Sager: Some people might be like, Hey, I wanna get paid to speak $10,000 for a keynote, or $40,000 for a keynote. That’s one strategy. But when it comes to speaking, there are several strategies that you can apply. One can be growing your the revenue in your program, so selling from stages. Another could be driving leads to your social media accounts, or leads to your list, or leads to your offers.

[00:16:22] Heather Sager: Another one could be just. Not peeing your pants when you go live on a platform. It could just be growing your confidence, but I think throughout all of it, speaking is like a business card for your business. In all of these, they’re authority boosting activities that when you grow your authority, you have the ability to.

[00:16:41] Heather Sager: Charge more, get on better stages. Network with the people that you wanna network with, collaborate with the business partnerships you wanna have when you have authority, which is clout, where people see you as the go-to in your field. It seems like doors open naturally. So if you aren’t known, if people don’t know who you [00:17:00] are, you could be the best at what you do.

[00:17:01] Heather Sager: But until other people point at you and say she knows what she’s doing, or he’s an expert in this, by the way, you don’t say you’re an expert. You let other people do that for you. Until that moment comes, it doesn’t really matter how good your program is. You have to articulate it, make it sound like a big deal, and get other people talking about it.

[00:17:18] Heather Sager: And that’s where growing your authority becomes a really important thing.

[00:17:22] April Beach: Wow. Okay. Yeah. So talk to us about this Speak for Authority method, and I love how you preface it by saying that the reason why it’s so important is because all these goals are absolutely important, and they do apply probably to every single person listening to this show.

[00:17:37] April Beach: So what is the first part of this method? Where does somebody start when they wanna take action on this?

[00:17:44] Heather Sager: Yeah, you’re gonna love this one cuz this right, goes right up your alley of what you teach, which is number one is nail your messaging. What do I mean by that Is you have to nail who are you talking to?

[00:17:55] Heather Sager: What do you have to offer and how do you talk about those core [00:18:00] offerings, your messaging? So what’s interesting is the first time I, I taught my program, when I started working with groups of entrepreneurs versus one-on-one, I started by going, let’s create your talk. And I would start extracting ideas out of their head and formulating a signature talk with them.

[00:18:17] Heather Sager: And what I realized pretty quickly was, oh my gosh, this was the first time they were vocalizing their ideas. And some of them didn’t even have their programs fully formatted or organized in a way that really got people results. So I found out, you know what? When people start moving from just writing down their ideas or drawing out their ideas, when they start articulating their ideas, That’s when they realize, oh, this either makes sense or it doesn’t.

[00:18:43] Heather Sager: So step number one, nailing your messaging means that you are not just thinking off, like speaking off the cuff or winging it all the time. Here’s this big myth that happens a lot of times when we see experts or we see influencers on a podcast or on a [00:19:00] video or on clubhouse, we think, oh, they’re just so naturally gifted.

[00:19:05] Heather Sager: But here’s the thing. These people have been talking about these things over and over and over and over again. Mm-hmm. They know what they’re talking about. It’s not by chance, it’s on purpose. Now, sometimes it’s by chance because they’ve just done it enough where they don’t know, but they have discovered what their core talking parts are.

[00:19:19] Heather Sager: You have to understand what should you and what should you not be talking about to lead people into your business, not lead them to other people’s businesses. Like there is a difference. You could talk about a lot of things, but if you don’t have your messaging nailed, you could be providing a lot of education, but then serving them up open doors to have other people help them because they don’t realize how it connects back to you.

[00:19:44] Heather Sager: So, Wow.

[00:19:45] April Beach: Okay. I’m gonna totally put you on the spot here. Yes, please. Go. Because ev, because everybody’s saying like, oh my gosh, shoot. Am I doing this? Am I? Because everybody wants to be out there and sharing information and great value. Can you give us an example of how sharing some [00:20:00] information as in a particular way may lead somebody to go work with somebody else?

[00:20:04] Heather Sager: Yeah, I’ll give you me as an example. Okay. I talk about speaking, right, and I want you to imagine, uh, speaking, this is like this giant ocean of information. It’s in the, the marketing ocean. There’s so many different things we can speak about and one or two times I did podcast episodes or interviews where people are like, oh, speaking on camera.

[00:20:20] Heather Sager: Heather, will you come talk about getting over your fear of the camera? And I’m like, sure, I love this. This is within my, my wheelhouse. But what I realized is when I would start doing all these interviews that were specific to getting over your fear of the camera or going live on Facebook or all these things, which I, I do teach, what I realized was my messaging was really specific to social media speaking, and my offer is how do you speak on all kinds of stages?

[00:20:48] Heather Sager: Get your messaging down. Use guest stages. Yes, use your stages. But the speaking on lives and Instagram stories was such a minute point. I don’t want people to know me as the person to help you get over your fear of the camera, right? [00:21:00] Like that’s not what my program is about. Even though I have episodes around it.

[00:21:04] Heather Sager: Like the messaging, while it was a good relevant topic, it wasn’t core messaging that’s gonna drive back to my program, speak up to level up. I mean, it’s a lesson in my program, but it’s not the core concept, right? So I think a lot of times this thing that happens is we’re like, oh, it’s within the wheelhouse.

[00:21:21] Heather Sager: Well, you have to think about is it like a neighbor down the block in your content or is it like on the block, like on your street, in the house that you’re trying to attract people to? Wow,

[00:21:31] April Beach: that’s so important. Okay. I’m just gonna take a little left hand turn tangent here. Yes. Do as we are all diving into, or as many people as or possibly can, we’re driving into Clubhouse, for example, I just did the recording of this, hosted a a welcome.

[00:21:47] April Beach: Event room for a bunch of women entrepreneurs last night and they were all asking, what should I be talking about in these rooms? And I feel grateful. Now, I didn’t totally lead them astray, but it was always coming back to, cuz [00:22:00] I’m obviously not the speaking coach, but it was always back, what do you wanna be known for?

[00:22:04] April Beach: And I think that this is so exactly important, what you said, because. There are so many things that we can talk about. I can, you know, talk about a million components of, of our program as well in, in the ways and other things that are like supporting evidence, supporting document, but not that main nugget.

[00:22:21] April Beach: So what I’m hearing you say in what I want all of you guys to hear is what Heather’s saying is that go for, go after what you wanna be known for. This is also important why we have your signature program created so we know what we’re selling people into. So it aligns with your program. So important. And I think that there are so many people that are just looking for any opportunity to get in front of an audience that they are willing to speak on.

[00:22:44] April Beach: Oh, I can speak on that. Oh, sure. I can speak on that. Yeah. And what you’re saying is that is not strategy. Let’s be very strategic and make sure that in the little amount of time that somebody is willing to give you attention to hear what you have to say, that you are making a good [00:23:00] use of that and establishing an understanding of who you are, who your brand is, and the, and the end results you provide.

[00:23:05] Heather Sager: Bingo. So powerful and let me give you a visual for that because I wanna make sure you aren’t hearing me say, don’t ever talk about those things. Right. Okay. I want you to imagine, do you remember back in, I don’t know, some kind of math class when we were in school, the something called a sca, I think it’s called a scattergram.

[00:23:20] Heather Sager: It’s like the graph that you would draw with the dots and it’s like when you would have a point, it’d be like all these dots and you’d look for the trends of the dots. Maybe this is a terrible example, but go with me here for a second.

[00:23:30] April Beach: I’m sticking with you. You guys should see behind the scenes in the recording. My, I’m like, uh,

[00:23:35] Heather Sager: So if you think about like mapping the dots, like mapping different coordinates. Yeah. But I want you thinking about is you want to map. Like the bulk of your coordinates, i e the bulk of your speaking to your signature offer. But if you have a little dab like, oop, I’m gonna talk about this because it’s sexy, or oop, I’m gonna talk like, I’ll do a room talking about how do you do your voice on clubhouse?

[00:23:54] Heather Sager: Not what I teach, but it’s a sexy topic that people want. Like if my little scattergram. Gosh, I hope that’s what it’s [00:24:00] called. If I have like a couple beeps and boobs of topics that are outside of my core, that is not gonna dilute what I’m known for. It’s just gonna expand it. But if I spend too much time outside of my core topic, then I will be unforgettable because there’s no repetition on my core topic of people seeing over and over again.

[00:24:17] Heather Sager: Oh, I wanna speak on guest stages. Heather Sagers the speaking coach for online entrepreneurs. Oh, you wanna know how you speak into the strategy. Heather Sagers the coach To help you with that, like you have to make sure your repetition in your wheelhouse is happening in order to earn the right to have those scattered topics.

[00:24:32] April Beach: Absolutely awesome visual. Thank you so much. I have no idea what you’re talking about because frankly I think I was skipping school in stoned every high school math class, but, but just keeping it real. With that being said, I can totally get the visual and that completely makes sense. My teenage boys are gonna listen to this podcast and

[00:24:53] Heather Sager: yeah, it’s cool.

[00:24:54] Heather Sager: Your mom’s super cool.

[00:24:57] April Beach: At me. Oh, they, they’ve heard all the [00:25:00] stories. Okay. I am redeemed. Woohoo. Anyway. Yes. Totally makes sense. Okay, so you are going to be unforgettable. The closer you stay to what I’m hearing you say, the core of the center of that scattergram, like the primary message, so powerful. Super.

[00:25:17] April Beach: Awesome. All right, so step number one is like we’re still at step number one, you guys. Yeah. This is how goal, the information that Heather has given you here. So nailing that message and deciding what we’re talking about. So the second step in that is obviously an extension of that. The second step you say is creating the actual signature talk itself. Share a little bit about how to go about doing

[00:25:39] Heather Sager: that. Yeah, so for those of you who like cooking, I love cooking. Imagine step one is like your masen Plus, where you get all your ingredients out and you know what you’re going to make. Step two is actually following the recipe to build your delicious food, whatever you’re making your meal, so your signature talk.

[00:25:57] Heather Sager: You’re not coming up with random things on the fly. It’s [00:26:00] strategic because you’ve already done that homework. So your signature talk needs to guide your audience from where they are. To where you want them to go, which doesn’t have to be like, haha, I’m gonna trick you to buy my program. You need to guide them in their thinking and equip them with the tools to be successful on whatever transformation they want.

[00:26:18] Heather Sager: Your program just helps ’em do it faster. So your signature talk, it has to include stories. You have to be speaking to people’s beliefs. You have to be hitting that really good balance around insights and awareness and speaking to where they are. But gone are the days where you can just talk about the why fluffy stuff for your whole talk.

[00:26:39] Heather Sager: People hate that. Yeah. They know when they’re being sold or when somebody’s bringing flas. So people in today’s market want tangible. Tips and strategies. So you have to balance your talk with both. How do you provide insights and teach people how to think differently about your topic? You can’t skip over that because if you do, when they go back in their business and try to [00:27:00] apply it and something’s off, you haven’t equipped them with the right context for them to be successful, to be able to maneuver it in the context of their business.

[00:27:07] Heather Sager: So you have to teach ’em how to think, and then you have to give them some tips and strategies. How I recommend people do that. Is, uh, you teach the why and then you teach the what, and it’s gonna get a little technical, but I feel like your audience might love it. My format that I follow with people is you go, why, what?

[00:27:23] Heather Sager: How? Easy model for a presentation and you sandwich it with an opening story and a closing story, like not rocket science. That’s what I work with every client on. Opening story. Closing story in the middle of the sandwich is the what, why, and how. And if you’ve worked with April and you’ve been around her world, the what section is essentially your method.

[00:27:40] Heather Sager: So you’re almost there. You just need to work on, okay, how do I get this messaging in and what’s the right place to talk about in the how to make people hungry for more? But your signature talk should be like an accordion where you can deliver a signature talk in five minutes because you know your talking points, but you also can expand it and make it, I mean, a full day [00:28:00] workshop, maybe even a full course, right?

[00:28:02] Heather Sager: So you should be able to know what your talking points are within your signature talk, and that becomes your business card on those guest stages.

[00:28:10] April Beach: And it perfectly segues into purchasing your signature program. Yeah, and I mean, this is just absolutely the journey that you take people on it and how you nail and get it and get people really understanding what you do in your zone of genius.

[00:28:24] April Beach: Couple of questions for you about the stories. Do you find, and maybe there isn’t a right or wrong answer, but I’m just asking the questions. I think that possibly your audience is hearing, we should totally do a clubhouse room on this, like in conjunction Yes. I’d love with this, with the, the week we dropped this, we should, we should do a clubhouse room and take q and a.

[00:28:41] April Beach: I’m here for it and that would be so much fun. So, Talking about, really quickly about the stories, are they usually a story about another client? Personal stories about how the expert themself or the leader has overcome? Like what type of stories? I mean are we making people cry? Does it depend on the context when we’re talking about [00:29:00] stories in general?

[00:29:00] April Beach: Is there a quicker, seriously, you guys follow us on Clubhouse? Cuz Heather and I are gonna do this. I’m just putting her on the spot right now. We’re gonna host a clubhouse room on this. So what, just join our clubhouse room and you can ask your story questions. Go to our Instagram bio. It’s go to Heather’s Instagram bio.

[00:29:16] Heather Sager: I’ll give you, lemme give you a little teaser. The secret to good storytelling is knowing what emotion you want people to feel. That’s the key thing. You have to be intentional with the emotions you want to evoke. So for example, when I was working with Tyler McCall last month, we wanted people to feel heart, but we also wanted to laugh.

[00:29:34] Heather Sager: So we talked, we did a story about the time he went to forestry camp and was too embarrassed to tell his father that he had to take a dump. So we had to go home. So like outside of the cont I very weird left story about like 11 year old Tyler. That was one story. But like you have to catch people off guard, but you have to know what emotions are you going for and obviously your stories have to have a point.

[00:29:55] Heather Sager: There was a business lesson in that story, I promise you. Yes. I’m sure there was. Yes. We’re [00:30:00] too like on the nose. Mm-hmm. With our stories where like, I hate this people’s signature story where they’re like, let me tell you about my perfectly curated journey, which pumped me out of this perfect place to be your expert.

[00:30:12] Heather Sager: No, I think it’s bullshit. Your audience is not in the exact same space that you were. You can’t say I was in your shoes, because I think it’s obnoxious and rude because you don’t know what their shoes are. I think we have to tell our journey stories differently in a more authentic way if we wanna attract the kind of clients we want.

[00:30:29] Heather Sager: That’s if you wanna have, I think, authentic, ethical, meaningful relationships that make impact. You have to tell stories differently than what we’ve been told with the bro marketing online.

[00:30:40] April Beach: Ah, here’s, here’s my clapping. There you go. Nice. Yes. There we go. Okay. Awesome. All right, step and we are gonna do a clubhouse room on this. So let me just say you go to sweet life podcast.com/211 which is this episode number, and we will make sure there is a link to how you can get into this [00:31:00] clubhouse room and ask, ask Heather your questions. Also, follow us both on Instagram, because we’ll post our events on our Instagram’s accounts, too.

[00:31:08] April Beach: Heather, what’s your IG handle?

[00:31:09] Heather Sager: @theHeatherSager.

[00:31:11] April Beach: @theHeatherSager Awesome. Okay, so step number three. We’ve nailed this signature talk. We are on a roll. What happens next? What’s the next most important thing ?

[00:31:23] Heather Sager: Okay. So I think as entrepreneurs, we get by a lot by writing things out and typing things in our Google Docs to post on our blogs or whatever else. But if you want to speak, you actually have to speak, which means the first time that you speak your signature talk out loud should not be on a stage. It should be in the privacy of your home office where you can sound like a blubbering idiot because you will. So, so step number three is, Becoming magnetic with our delivery skills.

[00:31:47] Heather Sager: So you have to learn how to speak in a way that’s captivating and entertaining that serves your audience. Gone are the days where you can just show up and shoot a video on something good, on a how to People’s attention [00:32:00] span are short. Even on live events or like on clubhouse, people can jump in and outta rooms quickly.

[00:32:05] Heather Sager: So you have to understand that your delivery skills, it’s not just the words you say, how you say it matters more. So you have to think about, am I speaking in just audio right now or am I also, do I have video? When it comes to communication, there’s three parts. The words that you say, how you say those words and your non-verbals, and I think people put disproportionate weight on those.

[00:32:28] Heather Sager: What it works out to studies that came from Southern California universities in the seventies show that in marketing, when we’re talking about things that have an emotional message, which most of our marketing messaging does, 55% of what we communicate is our non-verbals. So our facial expressions, our gestures with our wow posture over half of what we communicate, which is why video is so powerful in allowing us to see, oh, she’s authentic or she’s not.

[00:32:52] Heather Sager: Right? Like, video is powerful cuz you see those, right? But 38% of what we communicate is the how we say it. The [00:33:00] intonation, the pace, the volume, the emphasis, those kinds of things. It’s 38% leaving only 70% of our communication to our words. Now as online entrepreneurs we’re used to writing, we’re used to emails, we’re used to captions.

[00:33:13] Heather Sager: We’re used to putting all the weight there. So it’s scary to think, oh crap, I have to focus on these others, but I see it as a gift. You don’t have to be so precious with your words when you’re speaking. In fact, I screw up all the time. If you rewind this back, I have misspoken, I have, I have strong words together.

[00:33:30] Heather Sager: Didn’t, didn’t actually make a sentence. I speak like up all the time, wrong words, whatever. You just keep moving because your energy, how you deliver it, and your body language carries you and your message. So if you don’t get intentional with how do you wanna be received, what kind of energy do you wanna create for other people?

[00:33:46] Heather Sager: What do you want them to feel when they hear you? See you listen to you? If you don’t practice that you’re leaving it to chance. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t, I don’t wanna leave to chance what people say about me. Like I wanna be intentional and be like, damn, I wanna work with [00:34:00] Heather. Or, oh, you need a speaking coach that’s gonna help you bring your energy up.

[00:34:02] Heather Sager: Work with her. Yeah. Like I wanna be more intentional. Absolutely. I don’t wanna like be caught up and obsessed with what people say about me, but I know I can influence it, so I say, why not?

[00:34:11] April Beach: Yeah. That’s amazing. Those stats are very interesting. I I had not personally heard those before, so super, super surprising.

[00:34:18] April Beach: And then Steph number four. Okay. So how do we, how do we go about wrapping all this up together? And this is your speak for authority method. This is your unique. Ip, your methodology. You have gotten people results going through this process, going through these steps, time and a time again. So wrapping this up, what’s that last really important thing that people need to do?

[00:34:40] Heather Sager: Yeah. So building your authority means you need to make sure that your speaking strategy fits your strategy that you’ve outlined. So if you determine that speaking’s going to grow your authority, you have to say, okay, what podcast stages do I need to be on? Right? Which live events do I need to be on? Who do I need to partner?

[00:34:54] Heather Sager: How do you identify the right players in your industry to help position you in that way? If your [00:35:00] strategy was to grow your leads, all right, in this stage we’re gonna make sure the freebie that you offer on stages correlates with your signature talk. So it’s not just a one-off like, oh, go take my random free training about something.

[00:35:11] Heather Sager: That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re not gonna drive that. So that’s where we’re gonna talk about how do we get results from our speaking determined by the strategy that you identified as your number one. So making money, if that’s negotiating a higher fee, great. If that’s selling your program, great.

[00:35:24] Heather Sager: If that’s driving leads, great. Like it’s kind of a pick your own, uh, pathway. There. You have to figure out what strategy you want for you, and then we have the template to say, okay, how do I make that happen from a stage?

[00:35:34] April Beach: Fantastic. How powerful is this, you guys? Alright, let me make sure that I can summarize your four steps. as clearly as possible because there was so much gold throughout this process. So your speak for authority method that you just laid out like a red carpet here, I mean, this is gold. You guys, you would’ve had to pay Heather a lot of money to get this information. And so make sure that you’re connecting with her more, both on [00:36:00] Clubhouse and we’re gonna give you some ways to work with Heather after this.

[00:36:02] April Beach: So the first part of your method is really nailing your message. The second part is really creating that signature talk. The third is delivering it with confidence. In the fourth part of your method is elevating your authority. Did I summarize that correctly?

[00:36:18] Heather Sager: You did great. You did great. High fives and applause for your articulation.

[00:36:22] April Beach: Good students, good student. You guys should see my, see my notes behind the scenes. I’ll just share personally, you know, public speaking has just always been something that I love to do and once I get up there and once I get in a role, I’m great. But it is such a head trip for me to get up there in the beginning of it.

[00:36:41] April Beach: And my biggest fear, I tried to figure out what I was afraid of. Cuz clearly I talk all the time. I’m not afraid to speak right. And I, I really don’t care what people think about what I look like. I’m, you know, one of the few speakers that usually takes a stage in some sort of flip flops, but, What I realized I was afraid of is that people were gonna leave that room, and this [00:37:00] is when we were having, you know, regular events that people were gonna leave.

[00:37:04] April Beach: That room unchanged. And I realized that, wow, what if somebody says, that was the biggest waste of an hour I ever spent. And it scared the shit outta me seriously forever because I was like, gosh, I just want people to leave here and have some sort of a transformation. And I was taking that. I’m really an advocate for that, as you know, like that’s how we develop programs.

[00:37:26] April Beach: Your program should deliver a transformational, measurable result. And I wasn’t really sure that my signature talk was doing that. And so if you guys are listening and you have whatever issues, like Heather said it in the beginning, people would rather. What, like die than speak on stage. What? What is that saying in the beginning? Like,

[00:37:43] Heather Sager: yeah, it’s like a Jerry Seinfeld joke around. More people would rather give the eulogy or a be in the coffin than give their own eulogy.

[00:37:50] April Beach: Right? That is awful. We were all given a voice for a reason. We’re all called to do great things for a reason. And using what Heather told you guys today in this show. [00:38:00] And her method is going to help you get clarity on all of this. And I, I’m super excited and appreciate your expertise and your time here today on the Sweet Life Podcast. So we’re gonna do a couple things to wrap up this episode. First of all, Heather has a way to get you started. Obviously, we wanna give you tools to take action right now. So Heather, where do people go to learn more about working with you directly?

[00:38:22] Heather Sager: Yeah, so the Speak for Authority method we talked about today. I outline this in a little bit more detail and at a little slower pace. If you wanna head over, my free training is up right now. If you head over to heather sager.com/free, you can download that free training.

[00:38:36] Heather Sager: You can watch it right away and go through it. And I teach you how to actually use this method to start driving leads into your program, so you can grab that now. It’s really designed for coaches, course creators, and small business owners who do not have a large following. But want to start establishing their self as authority.

[00:38:50] Heather Sager: So that’s perfect for you. But also if today’s conversation was of interest and you’re trying to figure out what kind of stages would even work for me, like how does this even play [00:39:00] out? I think maybe we should go on a second date. So maybe let’s jump into a training. Let’s go on a second date so I have a podcast.

[00:39:06] Heather Sager: It’s also on that page, heather seger.com. Fest free. You’ll have two options. The podcast is the Heather Sager Show, and you get like a little besta playlist that you can hear a little bit more around how I speak. You can get used to my style a bit, steal it, use it for your own, and uh, start getting more comfortable with this concept of what does it look like to speak on other people’s stages, but also use daily opportunities to exercise your voice, build your confidence, and most importantly, be more intentional with your message that you wanna share so you can make a bigger impact.

[00:39:36] April Beach: I love it. Okay, so I’m looking at my phone here. If you guys are watching the video behind the scenes, looking at the schedule, this show is live on January 25th. It is episode number 211. So that means sometime this week you and I are going to host a clubhouse room and we are going to implement and talk to our audience and answer questions for people that are listening to this show.

[00:39:59] April Beach: So I’m so [00:40:00] excited. I’m so excited too. We’ve been talking about like, you know, doing rooms together. So here is how you find out when this room is happening. First of all, you can go to sweet life co.com/clubhouse and you’ll get a list of events in the direct link to the event so that you guys won’t miss it cuz Clubhouse has a lot of fun things happening.

[00:40:21] April Beach: If you are not on Clubhouse, then listen to my podcast that I recorded episode number 209 about how to get started. Started on Clubhouse and I just want you guys just to take a second here like me, I do have many notes. If you feel like you are struggling to be seen as a leader in your space, that you really wanna connect with people on a more personal, relational level, relationship sell, that’s what sells.

[00:40:48] April Beach: And you want to get in front of your ideal audience and give them an experience, transform them through your speaking so that they can work with you more. I highly recommend. Speaking in general, but [00:41:00] specifically hitting up Heather to see how you could do that more confidently. So Heather, thank you so much for being on this show, so much Gold.

[00:41:08] April Beach: Again, this is Sweet Life podcast.com/ 211. So episode number 211, we’ll have all the links that Heather mentioned cuz we dropped a lot of gems in this. So all the links so you can find Heather and work with her more. And of course, a link to our clubhouse room when we get that scheduled.

[00:41:33] April Beach: Hey guys. Thanks for tuning into the show. To get updates and join Heather live in our clubhouse room, please visit sweet life co.com/clubhouse and follow me on Clubhouse at April Beach. If you would like to have Heather’s eyes on your business and ask Heather your questions, and also to join our weekly clubhouse rooms every single Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern time. Thanks [00:42:00] so much for tuning into us, and I will talk to you next week on the show.

 

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

296

[00:00:00] Hi guys, and welcome back to the show. You have tuned into the summer series of the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast and this is episode number 296, and this is such a good show. This is actually a replay of a popular episode that I dropped a few years ago and it’s so good, and it includes a totally free hour long training on how to do what I’m talking about in this show, including worksheets and everything else.

[00:00:26] I couldn’t resist to replay this episode for our summer series. If you are tuning in with me on video, you’re seen behind the scenes, I’m actually recording this updated intro for you from my front porch with my dogs and the park, and the fire and the afternoon thunderstorms here. And, uh, and all the cars driving by and my neighbor’s wondering what the heck I’m doing.

[00:00:48] They, I don’t think they think I work at all you guys. It’s so funny. How many of you like your neighbors and the people around you, you’re an online business strategist or whatever you do, like, they have no idea [00:01:00] what you do. So you know what I’m talking about. So here I am recording this summer series Intro for you, and I always love to share with you behind the scenes, as you guys might know or you might not know.

[00:01:10] My husband and I own five companies. I travel six months a year. And so every time I get to do a podcast intro from the front porch or pool side, you know, the audio might not be perfect, but I love, unpacking what we do behind the scenes so that you can take the frameworks that we use and apply them to your own business if you’re looking for a lifestyle centered company as well.

[00:01:30] Okay, this episode, I will, I will not make you wait any longer. This is how to create a quiz to generate leads for your business. Why is creating a quiz important? Creating a quiz is not only important for generating leads. Okay? That’s, that’s a, you know, captain obvious. Why it’s really important is because quizzes give you inside insights into your audience.

[00:01:54] That both helps you in understanding. Where they are, and it helps [00:02:00] them in understanding themselves or their problem better. So it’s a win-win. It gives you a better understanding of your audience, and it gives your audience a better understanding of themselves. In addition to generating a massive number of leads, so in this show, I break down how to create a quiz, the whole entire process.

[00:02:16] And like I said, it comes with a totally free hour long training that should not be free anymore. And so you can grab all of this by visiting the show notes@sweetlifepodcast.com slash. 296, you’re gonna hear some outdated links in here because this is a replay from a previous show. You can also go to those outdated links and all the information is waiting there for you as well.

[00:02:38] Thank you so much for tuning into this show and being part of our family of online business ecosystem. Friends, I love that you’re here. I appreciate everything that you’re doing to build your business, and thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of that and contribute to your company growth. Okay. Go ahead and dive on in. This is episode number 296, which is a replay of episode number [00:03:00] 217. Enjoy.

[00:03:04] You are listening to the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business, and launch a life you love faster. With Business Mentor and Entrepreneur Activator April Beach.

[00:03:23] Hi everybody. Welcome to episode number 217 here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur and Business Podcast. My name’s April Beach and I am your host here on the show. Half of these shows are just you and I rolling up our sleeves together, working on online business strategies on the other half of our shows.

[00:03:39] We have amazing guests. So thank you so much for tuning in here. And today we are talking about how to create a quiz to generate leads for your business. It’s gonna be a power packed episode, and it’s gonna be pretty quick and short. And here is why. I have a huge, really cool extra [00:04:00] bonus with this podcast episode for you.

[00:04:02] I’m including totally free a one hour video training and a worksheet that goes along with this episode that tells you exactly step-by-step in-depth, how to create a quiz or an assessment to generate leads for your company. And you can totally get that no strings attached, completely free. I’ll tell you this right away.

[00:04:23] Here are two different ways you can get it. You can go to sweet life co.com/how to create a quiz, or you can text the word quiz help. That’s all one word. Quiz help to the number 8, 0, 5, 2, 5, 4, 0, 8, 8, 0, and that’s gonna be a link where you can access this training right away. Why am I super passionate about this and giving you a bunch of stuff for that’s really highly valued because I know it [00:05:00] works.

[00:05:00] We’ve had quizzes in our business for years, and they’re a powerful way for you to generate leads in your company. They’re also a really great opportunity for your clients, your potential clients. And so it’s a win-win situation for everybody. So here’s what we’re talking about today. This episode is great.

[00:05:17] For those of you who are ready to generate leads for your small business, that means you are in either phase two or three of my start to scale up system. It’s my business growth roadmap, and of course, I have a quiz that you can take that tells you exactly where you are in the process of growing your business.

[00:05:39] Again, I’m a huge advocate for this type of list growth, and you can take my quiz, our quiz if you haven’t yet, by visiting sweet life co.com/quiz. Now this episode is for those of you guys who are looking to grow your list, but you wanna know how to do so in a mindful way. We’re gonna [00:06:00] dive into the steps to create the content of your quiz, the outcomes of your quiz, and the questions within your quiz.

[00:06:07] And we’re wrapping it all up today, talking about software recommendations for where you can build your quiz. So at the end of this episode, you’re gonna have a strategy of whether or not quiz list growth is right for you. You’re gonna know how you wanna use this strategy in your business. Your wheels are totally gonna be spinning here in about the next five minutes in a really good way, and you’re gonna learn the exact process to design a quiz and the content within your quiz. So if you’re ready, let’s go ahead and dive in.

[00:06:46] Okay, today we’re talking about the power of quizzes. So when you engineer a quiz or a self-assessment correctly, it’s a very powerful tool for both you and your audience. Quizzes give you an amazing [00:07:00] amount of insight into where your clients are right now and what they need right now, and also to where your marketing is landing.

[00:07:07] So we’ll talk about that here in just a sec. But with the knowledge that you get based on where people land and the results of your quiz, you can segment your list. You can decide to add more services. So how people are falling in the outcomes of your quiz is gonna give you insight to whether or not you wanna add more services or solutions or products for these people.

[00:07:30] And you can hyperfocus on those that truly, truly need your services and your solutions. And. What’s also amazing about this is with this type of lead generation, you can move people to other places. You can create a journey for people through your products and through your offers, and you can move them to other places in your business through the knowledge that you’re receiving from the outcomes of their quiz.

[00:07:58] Or of [00:08:00] course, you can completely remove clients altogether. So based on your quiz results, you can disqualify those people that aren’t the perfect people for your business, and that is equally as powerful for you and for them. We don’t wanna waste their time if they’re not the right fit clients, and we certainly don’t wanna waste yours either.

[00:08:17] So quiz a quiz really, really does this. So let me take you behind the scenes. I know if you’re a listener, you’ve been listening to the show for a long time. You have heard of my Sweet Life Entrepreneur Roadmap. I created this roadmap about eight years ago, and we have two names for it. I’ll be really honest.

[00:08:36] I call it in-house. It’s a sweet life entrepreneur roadmap. The technical term is called the Start to Scale Up system. Okay, so you might have heard it being called different names. You know, whichever one you like. It’s the same thing. Let me explain to you the quiz process of how we use this. So, first of all, what it is, is it is five phases of [00:09:00] business growth, starting from phase one when somebody’s just thinking about launching a company all the way to phase five, which is a social entrepreneur.

[00:09:09] So it’s a company that has hit the financial benchmarks they wanna hit. And they’re doing so well. They’re making a huge impact. Basically they’re making a ton of money to give a ton of money away or to free up the founder’s time to go start a new company. So we have five phases in this literally roadmap to building a life first business.

[00:09:30] And within each one of these phases, there are different things that a company needs to focus on. So phase one is just figuring out starting phase two is launch. Phase three is scale. Phase four is also scale, but it’s a next level scaling. There’s a difference between the first time you scale and when you continue to scale as a business.

[00:09:48] And then phase five is impact. And so we have this quiz. That I share with you at the beginning of every single episode cuz we actually tag our episodes here on the podcast based on [00:10:00] what we’re talking about, in what part, what phase of outcome this episode is appropriate because also that’s a benefit. I don’t want you hanging out here with me.

[00:10:09] If I’m talking about something that really only pertains to those entrepreneurs in phase five and you’re in phase two, that’s how we get really overwhelmed in business and that whole shiny object syndrome. So, That is our quiz. You can take it. You can find out exactly what phase of business development you’re in.

[00:10:25] So I’ve just shared with you how we use that even on the podcast. But now let’s go a little bit further behind the scenes. Based on the outcomes of where someone lands in our quiz. We have certain business programs, so we are able to strategically design business coaching and strategy programs and services and courses and offers and communities and masterminds based on the phase of business that somebody is in.

[00:10:54] So, It’s helpful to me on the business side because I know where the majority of our [00:11:00] marketing is landing. For example, if we have marketing strategy and, and I put the quiz out there, and the majority of people are, are in phase one, they’re just starting up. Well, they’re not our ideal clients. Our ideal clients are businesses that are really ready to scale, or they’re going through from offline to online to scale.

[00:11:17] They’re launching their first online business, or they have been in online business. They’re really ready to develop their signature offers and have scaled strategy. And so it’s really important that I know whether or not our marketing is hitting the right people, our perfect clients. So that’s what’s really cool for us on the back end.

[00:11:37] So, Now let’s also talk about what’s really cool for the users of our quiz when they take our quiz. And again, if you’ve taken our quiz, you know this, they get an entire list of exactly what they should be working on right now in their business. They get a summary that explains the phase of business that they’re in.

[00:11:55] The highs and lows, the pitfalls in the victories, and they get a very [00:12:00] thorough checklist of exactly what they should be focusing on right now. So even if they aren’t one of our ideal clients to join our, you know, mastermind or to join our next level signature offer program. They’re still getting amazing value based on where they are in business, so it’s a win-win for us as a company.

[00:12:20] Again, we have insight into who is coming into our marketing funnels and who’s coming into our, our marketing efforts. We know exactly where entrepreneurs are, and so therefore, we’re only gonna offer entrepreneurs. The resources based on the phase of business they’re in. I’m not gonna send an email to every single person about joining a program that’s really only appropriate for those people in maybe phases four or five.

[00:12:44] So see how cool that is for us. We have amazing insight. We have amazing intelligence into what people need from us, and we’re giving it to them exactly based on where they are in business, and they [00:13:00] are getting exactly what they need based on where they’re in business. So now let’s turn this to you. What is it that you do?

[00:13:07] What is it that you need to know about your clients or what type of clients, or maybe even phase of clients in their journey do you serve? A quiz is gonna give you great insight into where your clients are and what they need. And with this knowledge, just like we do, you can segment your list, you can decide to add more offers or services, and you can hyper focus on those people that are coming your way.

[00:13:35] It is an amazing opportunity for you, and it’s really, really a win-win. There’s a lot of lead magnets that we can create out there. Obviously, we always want them to be a win-win, but I honestly don’t think any are as powerful as a self-assessment or a quiz and, and I’m just speaking from our experience.

[00:13:53] And so the users get the amazing results. You get the amazing results, and it’s a win-win for everybody. So, [00:14:00] So now let’s kind of dive in here for a minute and let’s talk about actually how to create the content for your quiz. This is where people get stuck. They’re like, oh yeah, I wanna create a quiz. And then it’s like they totally stop because you think it’s easy, but it’s actually easier said than done.

[00:14:19] So just like everything else we do in your business, we wanna give them a transformation. Even in your quiz, in your lead magnet strategy, in a call with you, everything. Okay. And so we wanna make sure we’re taking them from one place before they’ve taken their, your quiz to knowledge or a different place in the end.

[00:14:38] So the first thing that you wanna ask yourself when you’re figuring out this kind of strategy of, okay, what’s my quiz on? Like, what do I wanna do here? What’s gonna be awesome for everybody is what, you know, really what is the main topic of your quiz? How does your quiz relate to or confirm your area of expertise?[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] So how can you create a quiz that relates to what you have sick skills at, what your company is amazing at? And really think about that instead of just throwing a quiz out there. And literally, the next question I really want you to ask yourself is, what is gonna be helpful to you? What insight is gonna be helpful to you as the business owner to understand about your audience?

[00:15:29] For me, I need to know what phase of business somebody is in when I know that I can deliver them. Pinpointed perfect business coaching programs to keep growing and scaling their company. For you, what do you need to know about the people that are coming into your business to truly line them up in a perfect way for your services or your programs?

[00:15:55] And then the next question is, what is the quiz gonna tell your [00:16:00] users about themselves? What can you share with them that they don’t already know, or what can you confirm to them that they might have had a feeling about, they might have had a suspicion about already, but nobody ever made it that clear.

[00:16:14] Here’s the deal. When somebody takes your quiz and the outcome that they receive is so right on. It blows their mind. They’re like, oh my gosh, this person was in my head. I love them. They know more about me than I know about myself. I love this business like we’re creating super fans here. When your quiz does this, so what do you need to know about the outcome of the quiz for your business, and what do the users need to know about themselves or their situation?

[00:16:47] That is what creates a powerful quiz. It’s so good. You’re gonna love it. You’re gonna, you’re gonna have people, I have people emailing me being like, oh my gosh, April, this is right on. And thank you so much. And that’s what I want for you as well. [00:17:00] So now we’re gonna dive into just a little bit about actually how to create the quiz itself.

[00:17:05] You know me, I’m a program builder. I’m a service in a, in a content, you know, course builder. So I have to teach you this side cuz this is where everybody gets stuck. I’m gonna share with you the first three steps here. And then this is what the hour long training that is totally free with this podcast episode gives.

[00:17:23] And so it’s super duper important that if this is an area that you want to use in your business, go take that training. Like there’s no strengths attached. It’s not even a whole hour, I think it’s like 53 minutes, and I dive in in depth and help you strategize the answers to these things we’re talking about.

[00:17:40] But here, this is how to create your quiz content. So number one, you start with the end in mind. If you’ve tried to create a quiz and you’re starting with the questions, you’ve probably struggled greatly. Instead, we wanna start with the outcomes. Okay? So first you wanted to create the clear outcomes and give [00:18:00] them unique names.

[00:18:01] Give them names that people understand, but they’re unique names, you know? So our outcome is like phase one planning, phase two, launch phase three, scale, phase four, purpose, phase five impact. So they’re clear words, you know, we wanna get fancy but not too fancy. Just make sure they’re very clear outcomes that people understand.

[00:18:20] So the first thing you’re gonna do is really define the end results and define your outcomes. Step number two is then write each outcome. Of your quiz in paragraph form, and this is really important. This is what’s gonna go to them by email or what they’re gonna find on a results page on your website.

[00:18:41] You wanna write it out. You wanna say, Hey, listen, this is where you are. I hear you. I’ve got you. Like that’s what this paragraph says, and you wanna take your time to write out the response or the result for that outcome. And you wanna include any sort of details that are necessary, any sort of specific [00:19:00] outcome knowledge, or whether it is psychological, or whether it’s physical, or whether it’s, you know, strategic, any of those things you wanna include in this outcome, including tips and steps and actions and recommendations.

[00:19:15] And then the third part is going in and then creating the statements or the questions that lead to each one of those outcomes. And so that is a step-by-step process. Those are three of the six steps that we use to create an amazing quiz that converts and converts to the right people and just wows them.

[00:19:35] Even if they aren’t your right clients, we’re still gonna wow them, right? Cuz you know what? If they aren’t your right clients now, they might be your right clients next year. And that’s a really important thing to remember, so, And so those are the three steps to actually go through and create the content within your quiz.

[00:19:53] And again, that’s really high level you guys here on the podcast to be very efficient and making sure I’m giving you great [00:20:00] information in a short period of time. But if you want to access that free video training, all you have to do is go to sweet life co.com/how to create a quiz. You know, all squished together to make it URL friendly.

[00:20:14] And then I’m also gonna make sure that we put the links for how to access this free training, and it comes with a worksheet as well into the show notes of this podcast episode. If you’ve never visited our podcast website, it’s like a whole entire business resource center. You can actually search anything by keyword, and it’ll bring up exactly where we’ve taught that for the last four years on the show.

[00:20:37] This is podcast number 217. So that means the quick link to get to the show notes for this episode, all you have to do is go to sweet life podcast.com/ 2 1 7. So if that’s easier for you, then whatever’s easier, I wanna make sure we’re getting the resources in your hand. Okay, so we [00:21:00] talked about the importance of a quiz, the power of a quiz, showing you behind the scenes on how we use our quiz and how we have for years and why we love it.

[00:21:08] And hopefully if you’ve taken our quiz before, that’s gonna really make it even clearer for you. I, I love showing you guys behind the scenes on things you’ve already used because I think those, those are the best examples that we can have as we’re learning and as we’re growing. So now let’s kind of talk a little bit about tech.

[00:21:24] Okay, so we use a software called Interact. I love these guys. I love the software, I love the flow. I will go ahead and make sure that there’s a link for Interact Quiz Builders in the show notes of this episode. So if you’re wondering what we use, Those are the guys we like. We’ve been with them for years, but there are other places where you can create quizzes as well.

[00:21:46] Google Forms is ex for, as an example, creates quizzes, type form, creates grade assessments, and even Kajabi has an assessment tool. I would say we haven’t recommended that highly quite yet, even [00:22:00] though as you know, we’re big hijabi fans. I just find that there’s some other software out there that’s giving, uh, a better user experience with quizzes.

[00:22:07] So I’ll go ahead and drop some of those tech links down here for you in the show notes as well of this episode. Basically, here’s the deal. I love self-assessment. I love quizzes. They’re great for your business. They’re a great lead generator. They’re highly valuable to those people that are either new to your list or already on your list.

[00:22:24] I mean, we have people coming back all the time. And retaking our quiz to see where they are in this whole entire, you know, sweet life business roadmap. And so that’s what I want for you. I want you to be able to create the lead generating list, growth quiz that’s gonna be highly valuable for your new people, for your established people, and for you as a business owner.

[00:22:46] So that’s a wrap today. We talked again all about quizzes, showed you behind the scenes. In ours, we dove into the first three of six steps in order to create a powerful quiz, and I [00:23:00] gave you the tools and resources to access the free one hour training or 52 minute training. It’s so good you guys. It’s really helpful.

[00:23:07] If you’re serious about creating a quiz, it’s totally free. It’s on me. It’s my gift to you. I want you to be awesome at this. So go grab it Again, you can grab it by visiting the show notes for this episode, which are@sweetlifepodcast.com slash two 17. That’s where we’ll have all the tech links and everything as well.

[00:23:25] And if you just wanna go directly to the place where you can get the training right away, you can go to sweet life co.com/how to create a quiz. All right, you guys. I love chatting with you. Thank you for being a listener of this show. Again, I’m April Beach. If we haven’t spoken before, come cruise over and hang out with me on Clubhouse.

[00:23:50] I know it’s hard. Not everybody can get there quite yet, but it’s the place where we hang out every single Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern time. We dive in deeper to entrepreneur [00:24:00] business strategies. It’s a room that I host and I would love to meet you there. If you’re on Clubhouse, follow me at April Beach.

[00:24:07] Come into that room on Wednesday and just say, Hey, April, I listened to your podcast and you are also welcome to ask me any questions about any of the business trainings that we drop here on the podcast in that clubhouse room. So if you’re going through these business trainings and you’re using our podcast like a course, which is what it’s designed to be used for, and you have any questions, Cruise over, hang out with me on Clubhouse.

[00:24:30] That’s where I am every single week, and I would love to meet you. All right. Have an incredible day, and I will talk to you guys next week.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

295 

[00:00:00] Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur and Business Podcast. I’m April Beach, your host, and you have tapped into the summer series. If you’re watching this on video, you are seeing that I am on my front porch recording the intro to this episode for you with my fireplace on and my dog here, and.

[00:00:20] All the cars driving by and all the kids playing in the park in an afternoon. Rain shower, out, out over the overhang here. So welcome to our world. Welcome to what it’s like to build a business that is totally engineered because of the life that you want, and we try to show you this as many times as we can behind the scenes.

[00:00:40] So this is the plan. This is what we’re doing here for the next five podcast episodes. I’m actually replaying the most powerful episodes here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast for you. And here is why. Because these trainings are so good. They are game changers for your business. And frankly, as you know, the trainings we drop here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast, other coaches charge you [00:01:00] for and we give you here for free.

[00:01:02] And so we have gone through and we’ve picked out the five most popular and pivotal episodes that we have dropped in the last couple years, and we’re bringing them back to the surface. This is great if you’re a new listener, and frankly, if you’ve already heard these before, how many of you guys know it’s important to rehear things we already know so we can learn the next level of it or apply it in to a higher level, the scale of our business?

[00:01:23] And so that’s what we’re doing. So this is a replay of episode originally, number 212. What we’re talking about here is the importance of having a proprietary method, process, and framework for your business. If you do not have your own method, process, or framework to get people results, your company is probably struggling in one of a few different areas.

[00:01:42] Number one, with your sales. Number two, in getting clients results. And number three, actually with your marketing. If you’re having trouble getting known, it’s probably because you don’t have your own proprietary, proprietary process that people rave about you for. And so we’re diving into all that into this episodes, the updated show notes, because this [00:02:00] is a little bit later here.

[00:02:00] The updated show notes for this episode can be found by visiting sweet life podcast.com/ 295. But you can actually find them by visiting the old show notes as well. And with this episode, I’m actually giving you a free tool. Remember, our episodes are so actionable, you’re gonna walk away with your business better.

[00:02:21] When you left, I’m actually giving you a free tool of a worksheet on how to create your method and framework and really teaching you more about what this is. So whether you’re new in business or you’ve been in business for 10 years, And you just wanna really systematize things. This is a perfect episode for you.

[00:02:36] Also, for those of you guys that are interested in licensing your courses and trainings to other companies in the future, even if you’re not doing it right now, we need to have a proprietary method and process for you to do that. Before we can even talk about licensing. So this is a great place for you wherever you are listening to this.

[00:02:54] And again, all the show notes can be found by visiting suite life podcast.com/ 2 [00:03:00] 9 5. You’re gonna hear some old links in here that just comes with a replay, but we have everything live for you. So tap in wherever where, wherever you need, and, uh, we’ll be waiting to deliver the tools to you. Okay, enjoy the episode. Thanks for being here.

[00:03:17] You are listening to the Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster. With business mentor and entrepreneur activator April Beach.

[00:03:35] Hey there and welcome back to the show. This is episode number 212, and today we are talking about. Eight steps to create your leading method or framework. I’m April Beach, founder of the Sweet Life Company and host here for the past four plus years on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur and Business Podcast.

[00:03:52] And I’m super glad you’re tuned in today. This is a really important topic and something I’m incredibly passionate about, something that I teach [00:04:00] frequently, and so I’m glad to dive into it more on today’s show. So first of all, if you’re new to listening to this show, we tag every single episode based on the phase of business that you’re in.

[00:04:10] I wanna make sure that the things we’re talking about and the business trainings we’re delivering align with what you should be working on right now in your business. So each episode is tagged with a phase based on my start to scale up business system. If you are not sure what phase of business you’re in, cruise over to sweet life co.com/quiz.

[00:04:34] Again, that’s sweet life co.com/quiz. When just answer six simple questions, you will learn the phase of business that you’re in and you’ll know exactly what you should be focusing on right now to grow and scale your business faster. So, So this particular episode is strategically designed for those of you in phases two or three of the start to scale up system.

[00:04:57] Some of you may also know my business system as a [00:05:00] sweet life entrepreneur business system or roadmap, and so this is the same system that we’ve had for years, and so glad to be able to help you hone in and get focused on what you should be working on right now. So in today’s episode, we are talking to those of you guys who may lack a method or process or framework that delivers transformational results to your clients.

[00:05:23] So if you’re ready to scale your business, but you’re lacking a method or a framework, we’re gonna run into some problems. And so that’s why what we’re talking about here is so important because you’re probably incredibly good at what you do, but you might be struggling to scale or get noticed or establish undisputed leadership.

[00:05:40] So, And I often find this is because you are lacking a proven method or a process or a framework that scales your business to the top. But by doing so, you’re getting your people, your clients, these amazing, predictable, transformational results. That’s why we need a [00:06:00] method, and honestly, most business coaches don’t talk about method development.

[00:06:03] But it’s usually the first place we start with our clients because without a method, you are gonna struggle to grow your business in other areas, but with a method, we can exponentially scale your business across all levels, across your offers and the content that you’re talking about. And so creating this methodology is usually the first step.

[00:06:24] That we wanna talk about the first area that we look at in the process of working with companies that are really ready to take it to the next level and really ready to lead in your niche. So at the end of this episode, you will determine your need for creating a unique method or process. You’re gonna have eight clear steps to follow, to jumpstart the creation of your method or your process, and you’re gonna understand how your method is the core of all the other services, your signature offers and your signature programs, and really the future of scaling your business.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] In addition to what I’m talking about here on the show, I’m also giving you a free resource. We do this oftentimes with most of our episodes. You’re gonna get some really cool free tools. This episode’s free tool is literally a worksheet that guides you through the eight steps to create your method. And so you can grab that by going to sweet life co.com/method.

[00:07:25] And of course we will have all these resources in the show notes for you. So if you’re ready, let’s go ahead and dive on into today’s show. Okay. First things first, let’s talk about having an method and why it’s important. Having a method is important because this means that you are creating a system that guarantees predictable, transformational, measurable results [00:08:00] every single time to your clients. And in doing so, you’re gonna increase your efficiency and your’re gonna be able to better systematize and scale your business, and your clients are going to get predictable, transformational results.

[00:08:14] Your clients are gonna know what to expect in working with you. And then it has even more compound amazing effects. So you’re gonna be able to create a team that you can scale and you can train other coaches if that’s within your business model, based on your method. So for example, in my company in the Sweet Life Company, one of our methods is called Sweet Life Launch.

[00:08:37] It’s a 90 day launch system. I’ve taught this system for over 12 years. I have other expert business consultants that I have trained on my method, and it’s very easy for them to follow. So when you have a method, you can actually train other coaches in your method, and you have just created exponential results, like dropping a stone into a lake in [00:09:00] these ripple effects of going out of how many more businesses you can touch.

[00:09:03] And it really all starts with creating your method. And then you are also able to become known and in a sea of so much noise, it’s really important that we have your message clear and people know what your ninja skill is, what your superpower is, and by creating your method, That is the first step, one of the first steps that we do in the process of helping you to become known and stand out in your space.

[00:09:28] And then once you have your unique method created, you are able to create a suite of offers around it. These could be programs or products or books or signature talks all around your method. So the method is like the center of the earth. The method is the core. Of what you’re known for, what your superpower is, and then we build your signature program services, offers your signature suite of products all around this, including all the other big [00:10:00] dreams that I know you have because you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a creator, so you’re always creating all these things in your mind that you wanna do.

[00:10:06] Truly, it starts with your method. So let’s go ahead and dive a little bit more into what a method is and why it’s important. And then I’m gonna download you on these eight steps. And of course, don’t forget to grab the worksheet that goes along with this@sweetlifeco.com slash method. It’s gonna be really helpful for you to implement the things that we’re talking about here on today’s show.

[00:10:30] So a method is basically a set of principles and tools and processes that guide your clients to achieve a particular transformational result. Your unique coaching method is developed from your ip, your intellectual property, your experience, your expertise, but then also your beliefs and your systems and your processes that you use within your coaching process to support your clients.

[00:10:55] So it’s your technique, it’s your system, it’s your way, it’s your [00:11:00] method of getting people results. Now let’s just talk for a sec, because there’s also another terminology that’s put out there that I work with clients to develop as well, and it’s called a framework. A method really is your unique way, your unique style of bringing people to results.

[00:11:19] Whereas a framework is more of a structure, it’s more of a loose system that allows for movement within that system where your clients can bring in their own tools, their own system, their own information to be organized and better understood within the guidance of your framework. So frameworks, examples, you know, can be concepts or core principles or thought processes, even blueprints that people can build upon or springboard from.

[00:11:43] In one instance, I’ve heard it referred to as where a framework is a noun, whereas your method is a verb. If that helps you to kind of separate them. And honestly, clients work with me to develop their method and their framework. So a great example of this is a client of ours, grace, who’s the [00:12:00] founder of the hi vre.com.

[00:12:02] Grace has both a genius framework that she delivers within her incubator program and her unique method, known as the Zone of Grace that guides her clients through core principles to achieve the highest business and life results. And also, just so you know, at the end of this episode, and we’re gonna dive into the teaching here, but in the end of this episode, I’m gonna share some of the frameworks that I’ve created within my companies that I’ve owned.

[00:12:25] And they’re truly the reason why we scaled past seven figures in multiple occasions. It’s because people know to expect, cuz we have a very clear framework of what we do and people know what to expect from us. So let’s go ahead and dive into these eight steps to create your method or framework. Step number one.

[00:12:45] Is truly honing in on your ideal client. Now this might be like, thank you Captain. Obvious. I know I have to do that for most of you that are in the scale phase of your business, but when we’re talking about your method, it actually might be a little bit harder. You might be like, my [00:13:00] friend Brian Fanzo calls like he is like team, no niche where he can get a lot of different companies and a lot of different areas, great results, and that’s terrific.

[00:13:08] Whatever it is, whoever you’re serving, we do need to hone in on who the ideal buyers are. They don’t have to be all the same people, but what pain point or deep desire is your method solving, or is your framework delivering really, really focused? Maybe not so much on the people themselves, but on on the problem.

[00:13:31] Or the deep desire. That’s what people buy. They buy a serious pain point that they need help overcoming or a deep desire that they want incredibly badly. So step number one is really deciding what solution, what pain point is my method going to solve or deliver? And then step number two is actually laying out what I call the transformation story or your transformation timeline.[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] And it’s your job as the teacher, as the leader to lay this out. And this is identifying where people are right now and where they’re gonna be when they are done working with you, when they’re done experiencing your method, following your framework, following your roadmap, blueprint process. Those are all different interchangeable words we use for this type of coaching.

[00:14:25] And a couple of questions you should ask yourself are, how is my method? How’s my framework or my process going to improve their life? How can it increase their sales, improve their business? Does it improve their efficiency? Does it give them more clarity? Does it give them better health and wellness?

[00:14:43] Does it help them to serve more clients and scale their business faster? There is going to be a transformation that your people go through along the route of following your method or your framework, and it’s your job to actually lay out that [00:15:00] transformation and determine where are they gonna be when they are done with this transformation.

[00:15:05] It’s our responsibility as teachers, as coaches and consultants, as leaders to define the end result. That we are going to take people through, and it’s our job to get them there. That’s also why having a method is so incredibly important so that you can guarantee predictable results within your programs.

[00:15:22] And then step number three is to pinpoint the problems and define the process. Now, along that transformation timeline of creating your method, there are problems and your problems become what I call your benchmarks along that way. But one of the things I want to caution you on is that these problems, these so many solutions or points of knowledge that you’re teaching them along, guiding them through your process, they can be both physical problems and psychological problems.

[00:15:56] So here’s an example I wanna give you of a client of mine. [00:16:00] She has an amazing method that I helped her design and create called the Convergence Method. So Arianna Grace is her name, and she has the convergence method, and we developed her method specifically because she helps Christian course creators get their students better results.

[00:16:19] But Arianna realized that it wasn’t just what the people needed to learn, that there were some spiritual blocks that people were experiencing. Going along through these courses. So Arianna’s method that she designed helps Christian course creators get their students better results by pinpointing the problems along the way that identify both the physical and the psychological needs within that method.

[00:16:47] So that’s an example of how you, when you’re creating your method, should be thinking, I’m not just giving these business results, or I’m not just giving these health results or these financial results, but what are the psychological [00:17:00] needs that are happening that what’s the mindset behind what I’m taking my students through as well?

[00:17:06] Because it is just as important in some cases. Based on what you’re teaching or your area of expertise to pinpoint both along the creation line of your, of establishing your method. And then number four is to actually produce your method outline, create your method plan. Really sit down, get to work, outline your method, create the plan, and make sure that you are at the end of the day saying, I know that, I know that.

[00:17:31] I know that I outlined this in a way that people are gonna get the results that I promise when they follow my method, my process, or work within my framework. Number five is to pace yourself. And really think about it, how long is it going to take somebody to get results within your method? And this is not necessarily even talking about the business model of your method, but still talking about the process in which someone needs to follow.

[00:17:59] [00:18:00] And how long can your clients, can your students expect? So number five is to pace yourself and to define how long it’s going to take somebody to get results within your method. Number six is to brand the heck out of it. So give it a great name. A name like Arianna’s, that is the convergence method. Or like my other client, grace, which is the zone of grace.

[00:18:23] Give it an amazing name that is yours and nobody can take from you. And it separates you from everybody else. But it’s also clear about what it is that your method delivers. So pick a name, brand it, own it, share it with the world. Number seven is really getting in and having test testing interaction for your method.

[00:18:43] This is really committing to those first people that you are testing your method on. That’s what we do. You need to make sure that you apply it to the world, but then you’re also committed to listen, get feedback, listen to your students, and perfect it. The first time we put something out there in the world, it’s not [00:19:00] gonna be perfect.

[00:19:00] Things evolve. Our methods, our programs, our systems all evolve and that’s a process of growing as a leader while we’re, while we’re growing our students and our clients as well, is always being, being willing to listen, always being willing to have feedback, and really taking a look at the method that you’ve presented and making sure that that is for sure working.

[00:19:21] Getting the feedback from people that are in your process and in your method in testing it and making sure it’s getting traction and that they’re getting results. And then step number eight is to scale and exponentially increase your profit. While in most cases you can decrease your time by choosing business models that scale.

[00:19:42] So number eight is scale and increase profit and double down and use your hard work and your method to create signature offers, programs, suites of offers and services that can scale your business exponentially. This is when you know what, if you’ve nailed your [00:20:00] method, maybe it’s time to write a book on it.

[00:20:02] If you’ve nailed your method, let’s turn it into your signature talk. There’s so many other things that we can do. Once you nail your method, your process, your unique methodology, that gives people amazing world-class transformational results, that’s what we’re talking about here. That’s what we do as a company.

[00:20:19] If you wanna work with us, you can always work with us as well to develop your method and process. That’s what we’re here for and that’s what I wanna talk about today on sh, on today’s show, is really emphasizing the importance of creating your method and why every single coach, or consultant, or service-based provider needs a method that you can rely on and that your people can trust.

[00:20:38] So let’s do a really quick recap. We talked about eight steps to create your method or framework. First one was choosing your ideal client. Second one was laying out the transformation. Third one was pinpointing the problems and defining both the physical and the psychological needs that your method has to deliver.

[00:20:54] The fourth is producing your method outline in your method plan. The fifth is pacing [00:21:00] yourself and determining the timeline. The sixth is picking your name and branding it. The seventh is testing and traction, and the eighth is scaling exponentially. And so that’s a recap of why creating your method, your process, your framework is so important and.

[00:21:17] I told you if you hung out until the end, I’m gonna give you some examples of some of the methods that we have created as a program creator, as a method creator, of course, I honestly, I have like a method for everything, but let me just share a couple of them with you so you can get your wheel spending as well as you’re thinking about creating yours.

[00:21:33] So for example, my 90 day business launch system is called Sweet Life Launch. My five phase business design, launch and scale roadmap is the one we use here in the beginning of our podcast. That’s the one that outlines all the five phases of business design, launch, and scale, and it’s a long-term roadmap.

[00:21:55] Clients follow our roadmap for years. I have clients that are in phase three and four and they’ve been there for [00:22:00] five years. It’s the whole life cycle of a lifestyle, highly profitable business. We call that the sweet life business roadmap. And it’s also referred to in the tech side of it as the start to scale up system.

[00:22:14] That’s our framework. And so for example, if you’re a podcaster, I love teaching other podcasters to figure out a way to tag your episodes so that you can organize them and you can really build a relationship with people in certain, with certain tags, and then funnel them into your programs. But you guys can do this for anything.

[00:22:31] You don’t have to be a podcaster to do this. But this is another example of why having a system, a process, a framework, is so incredibly important. Another example is my process to teach entrepreneurs and experts to develop your method and your signature offer and your signature programs, and it’s called My Method Creation System.

[00:22:49] And then the last one, but definitely not, not least, is my three step proprietary process that turns everyday entrepreneurs into undisputed leaders who live life on their terms. And [00:23:00] that’s called My Sweet Life Entrepreneur System. So see there’s like a method to everything, but these are things that I have learned and built over decades of coaching other businesses.

[00:23:11] These didn’t come overnight. So going back to yours, your first step is to define what you wanna be known for, who you’re serving, and create your method. And talk about it, share it. Share that you have a method. This develops a higher level of trust between your audience and you, between your potential clients because they know you’ve taken the time to develop a method.

[00:23:31] If you are one business and you might be doing Facebook ads and you say, Hey, listen, but we have a method of getting our clients results, and you spell it out, versus your competitor who also might do Facebook ads. Obviously it’s just an example my do Facebook ads, but they just kind of put some services on their website.

[00:23:50] Lemme tell you what, I’m going with one with the method because I trust that you have laid out the process to get me results. That’s why a method is so incredibly important. [00:24:00] Okay, so here is a couple of resources for you to take action on this now. So we want you to listen to this show and then we want you to take action on it again.

[00:24:09] The first thing is grab the eight step guide to develop your method. You can grab that by going to sweetlife co.com/method. The second thing we have for you is depending on when you listen to this show, we host a one day live virtual event on creating your signature offer or method. So I will put this in the show notes for you, but you can join our one day live virtual event on creating your signature offer or method by going to sweet life co.com/signature offer event.

[00:24:45] And. If you listen to this, if you subscribe to this podcast and listen to it, real time tickets for that event for the whole day right now are on sale for only $77. It’s crazy. So again, sweet life co.com/signature offer [00:25:00] event, and I’m gonna be helping you build out your methodology that day. It’s gonna be amazing day, and of course, If you are not yet on Clubhouse, I talk about this all the time on Clubhouse, so I’m always hosting rooms on Clubhouse regarding methodology creation and signature offer and business scaling.

[00:25:17] I would love to chat with you, so if you’re on Clubhouse, follow me at April Beach, get notifications turned on, and I will love to talk to you and answer your direct questions about creating your method and your signature offer. And really truly designing a blueprint for your business for high profit and the lifestyle you want, and then helping you reverse engineer it to actually get there.

[00:25:39] Thank you so much for tuning into the show. I dropped a lot of links and a lot of resources. There’s a lot of gold in this episode, so if you forgot every other link that we’re talking about, here’s the last one and everything is gonna be under this one link. You ready? Okay. You can go to Sweet Life [00:26:00] podcast.com/ 2 1 2.

[00:26:03] So sweet life podcast.com/112. In all of the show notes, the transcription for this show, the summary of this show and all the links to all the resources we’re gonna drop right in there for you to make it super easy. You can also find the link to this show in the latest podcast by visiting us on Instagram at April Beach Life.

[00:26:24] All right, you guys have an awesome day. I love talking to you. Always. Thank you so much for being part of this show for so long, and if you’re a new listener here, it’s absolutely awesome to get to connect with you. I’ll talk to you guys next week.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

294

[00:00:44] Hi you guys, and welcome to episode number 294. I am recording this episode on location. Just north of Tampa, Florida in Saddlebrook, Gulf and Tennis Resort down here at a [00:01:00] very cool event with Myron Golden called the Offer Mastery Live. And so there’s gonna be probably a little bit of background noise and. My sound might be a little bit different for this episode, but how could I resist if you are not watching the video on YouTube, Cruise over there because this place is just beautiful and you know me. If you guys have been following me for any period of time, it’s not gonna surprise you at all that I decided to record a podcast out here by the pool. By the bird sanctuary in my flip flops. And ready to dive in with you today.

[00:01:34] So today we are talking about the difference between an offer and a product. So, And the event I’m actually at right now with amazing speakers and incredible humans, like Eileen Wilder is here. She was a guest on the podcast a few months ago. And, uh, everybody’s talking about offers and making offers. And being an offers engineer that I am, I realize one [00:02:00] thing that is glaringly missing from what they are talking about at this event.

[00:02:06] And that’s what we’re talking about here today. Soon this podcast episode. So for all of the show notes, cruise over to sweet life co.com. This is episode number 294, and you are in the right place if you are a subject matter expert, a consultant, a speaker, a coach, or an advisor of some kind, and you build offers and programs.

[00:02:33] Based on your expertise to help other people get fantastic results from the processes you have created. And so if that is you, this is an awesome episode to be listening to Cruise over to the show notes because I’m actually gonna give you a worksheet download with this episode totally free, breaking out the five components of an offer.

[00:02:55] And so make sure you’re cruising over to the show notes. On our website, you have to go to sweet [00:03:00] life co.com to get those. Click on the podcast and search number 2 94, and I will make sure that you get, it’s actually a two page worksheet with explanations and a bunch of cool stuff. So if this is what you want, if you’re not really sure the difference between an offer and an actual program, then stay tuned and let’s go ahead and dive in.

[00:03:21] Okay guys, let’s go ahead and dive into this episode. If you’re watching the video, I had to move locations. There was just a little bit too much background noise there, but I want, I wanna get to what we’re talking about here today. So we’re talking about the difference between an offer and a program. And frankly, I have never heard anybody define this, and I realize that I think maybe there’s some confusion or maybe some feeling of overwhelm for experts and coaches and advisors and consultants, because there’s a lot of talk about build your offers, build million dollar offers, build high ticket offers, build low ticket offers, build mini offers, right?

[00:03:58] But there is a [00:04:00] difference between an offer and a program, and so I wanted to bring that to light here and help clarify that. Now, of course, here, here are some disclaimers. I’ve never heard anybody define the difference, and so this is my belief, this is my expertise in doing this now for 17 years. This is how I define the difference between an offer and a program.

[00:04:22] You may find somebody else has a totally different definition. All right, so let’s start by telling you a story to help you understand what I’m gonna explain here today on the podcast. So, Let’s say your friend is having a party and she’s just totally overwhelmed. She has so much going on and you offer to help her, and here’s some of the things you say.

[00:04:44] You say, I am gonna help you do your grocery shopping. I’m gonna help you plan the menu. I’m gonna help you send out invitations. I’m gonna help you decorate the house and decorate the living room. I’m gonna help you clean up your house. You know, how many of you know that that’s the [00:05:00] biggest work of a party is making sure you know your bathroom’s clean and everything, and, uh, so you make this great offer to her and you offer to do all these things for her.

[00:05:10] You may even say, I promise I’ll be there by this time. You may even say, I guarantee you everybody will love the food that I make. All right? That is an offer you’re offering to do something. For her. Now you go, you show up that day. You do every single thing that you said, and you use your secret genius sauce expertise to actually make that food that you guaranteed.

[00:05:44] Everybody would love to actually make sure the house is decorated just as you promised That is the product. So there is a difference between the offer and what you’re offering to do somebody for somebody, [00:06:00] and the product, the offer is the promise, the guarantee, what’s in it for them. The offer is even a little bit of scarcity.

[00:06:10] Even if you say to your friend, look, I’m willing to help you, but I have this other thing that somebody else wants me to do that same weekend, so you need to let me know by five o’clock tonight. If you want my help, that’s part of the offer you’re offering to help her. Okay. But the product is you actually showing up in doing the work with her for her, or teaching her how to do the work yourself.

[00:06:39] And so now let’s take that analogy and hopefully that clarified it for you. And now let’s take that analogy and let’s talk about your business, right? Like how that actually can apply to your business. You hear so many coaches. Again, I’m here at this amazing, beautiful space with these [00:07:00] multimillionaires.

[00:07:00] Multiple seven and eight figure business owners, and they’re talking about generated offers and they’re talking about their offers and their teaching, their students how to generate these amazing offers. And they’re talking about very important things that have to do with offers, like what you’re gonna promise them and how you increase the value of what you do.

[00:07:23] But nobody here and frankly ever have I ever heard actually explain the difference between the offer and a product. And so that’s what I wanna talk about here on the podcast. And I actually, my goal is to help you with whatever part of your business you’re building. So of course that’s the been the goal here for six years on the podcast.

[00:07:45] Those of you guys that. Listen to the show, know that we deliver coaching and strategies that other coaches will charge you thousands for. I can, and do charge in depth for [00:08:00] the things that we’re talking about here on the pH, on the, on the phone here, on the phone, uh, here on the show. Okay? So this is really, really valuable and my goal here for you is that I want you to understand what you’re working on.

[00:08:16] When you have clarity in your work, you get faster action. So I wanna separate the difference between an offer and a product in an effort to help you understand which one you’re actually working on or which one may need the most work. A few weeks ago, and darn it, I should have looked it up for you, I don’t remember the exact episode, but a few months back.

[00:08:43] We did an episode, it was so powerful on the six components of a scalable offer. Okay. And that was language that people really understand. It was the six components of a scalable offer, or I think it was actually six com. No, it was six [00:09:00] components of a scalable program. Right. What I was teaching in that podcast is what goes in the actual product itself.

[00:09:07] I was not talking about how to make an offer. I. I was talking about how to actually build the, the pro product, the program with these six components in every single program. I don’t care what you do, I don’t care if you’re doing live virtual events, retreats, running a mastermind, having an mri, like a monthly reoccurring revenue program, building a course.

[00:09:30] Every single program has to hit all six of those components. That’s another episode. I’ll reference it for you here in the show notes. But that is only half of it. So I digress. My goal is for you to be able to identify this part of my business needs work. It’s either the offer or it’s the product. Okay, so let’s talk about what could go in each one of these.

[00:09:55] There are five components to the offer. To the offer building [00:10:00] side, and there are three components to the product side, and then obviously each of these trickle down and, and there’s a bunch more steps, bunch more details that I can’t go into right now on this podcast. I just wanna go really high level here to help communicate the difference.

[00:10:18] So in an offer when we’re talking about the offer itself, five components that make up a sold out offer include, Your pricing, and we’re not even getting into pricing or any of these. I’m just giving you, again, high level, your pricing makes up your offer. And so let’s go back to our story of offering to help your friend.

[00:10:41] You may say, Hey, listen. I’m, I’m gonna do this for free. You may say, listen, this is a really good use of, uh, you know, your investment in me. And let’s say your friend, I don’t know, maybe she’s a massage therapy and you therapist and you trade her out. You say, I’m gonna plan your party for you, and, and you gimme a great massage.

[00:10:58] Whatever the pricing is [00:11:00] that goes into the offer, the next component of the actual offer itself is scarcity. That’s when you tell your friend, Hey, listen, I need to know by five o’clock tonight, or I, I’m booked. Right, or, or there’s only three seats left in my program. That’s another component of making your offer.

[00:11:20] Another one is the bonus. Okay? So a big part of creating great sold out offers is giving bonuses. If you do not listen to Alex Hormozi, love this guy. He’s the author of, Million Dollar Offers. He talks about not just throwing anything into offers, and you know that we’ve been talking about this for years on the podcast as well.

[00:11:43] We don’t throw just a bunch of crap, honestly, into your products to increase the value. We’re very strategic about what we pick that goes in your programs. Part of making an offer is communicating what those bonuses are. [00:12:00] You want your bonuses, and this is, this is for free. You’re welcome. Uh, you want your bonuses to solve a problem that your client is having in one of their hesitations of buying you.

[00:12:14] So make sure when you pick bonuses, we can do a whole episode on bonuses. We actually will, uh, when you pick your bonuses, make sure that they aren’t just a whole bunch of fluff. Nobody needs more content. Guys. And I know I say this quote all the time, I’m gonna say it again. It’s really important. Nobody needs more content. They need a transformation, and time is more valuable than their money.

[00:12:36] They’d actually pay you more to reduce the amount of time. So going back to what is included in the offer side of it. We talked about pricing, we talked about scarcity, then we just hit on bonuses. Include bonuses that answer their hesitations to buying you.

[00:12:53] The next one is your guarantee. Let’s go back to our friend and, and we’re, we’re helping her [00:13:00] plan, her party. The guarantee is when you say, I guarantee you that when your guests taste my chocolate cake, it’s going to be the very best cake they ever tasted. Okay? That’s a guarantee. So what are you guaranteeing is going to happen in the end result of your offer?

[00:13:21] And then the promise is the last component of an offer. Your promise is, I promise I’ll be there at one o’clock. I promise I’ll show up and I’ll give you a hundred percent of my attention. I promise I’ll help you clean up when the party is over. Those are promises, and so that is, that is the offer side.

[00:13:42] It’s you’re making an offer and you’re giving promises, and you’re giving guarantees, and you’re quantifying the value. And that is what we work on when we’re actually building the offer side of it. Okay, so hopefully that [00:14:00] makes sense. Message me on LinkedIn at April Beach if this does not make sense to you. Or on Instagram as well, April Beach Life on Instagram, but I wanted to share that component. Again, I’m here at Offer Offer Mastery live. With seriously, I mean, just amazing mentors that I have looked up to and learned so much from for so long, but, this is missing. Nobody’s talking about this. Okay, so this is the offer side of it.

[00:14:28] Now let’s talk about the program, the product side of it, because this podcast is what is the difference between an offer and a program? The program is the actual product itself. It is the content, and it is the model of delivery that makes up what you’re actually doing. It’s your curriculum. Curriculum.

[00:14:49] It is your intellectual property. It is your teaching. So there are three components that you need to hit on in order to build a transformational program. [00:15:00] I don’t care if this program, again, is a one hour masterclass, a 12 month, uh, mastermind. It doesn’t matter yet. Okay? So let me explain this to you. The bottom line is your program has to have these three components to be transformational.

[00:15:15] The first one is it needs to have your method or your framework. Your program, your way of teaching is your intellectual property and the way you do things and the way you teach things. I can’t do it the way you do it. Nobody can compete with you, your unique method. Is your process of getting people results?

[00:15:43] Let’s go back to our friend and, and we’re helping them have the party. Our unique method of baking that chocolate cake is what makes us be able to guarantee that the cake is the best cake anybody ever tasted. All right, so your program, first and [00:16:00] foremost, we cannot build any program until you first build your framework or your method in which the program is built around.

[00:16:07] Frankly, that is the centerpiece. And if you’ve heard, heard any of my other podcasts, we talk about method and framework creation all the time here on the show. Because it’s literally like the center of your universe, your method. Just think of the sun and the solar system and everything else flies around it.

[00:16:23] Your method and your framework of getting people re results is in the center. That’s a first component of your program. The second one is the actual curriculum itself. That is a curriculum that fills up the content. First, you have the process of teaching, and then you’re gonna dive into how am I actually doing it?

[00:16:40] This is the nitty gritty of the chocolate cake recipe. This is one third of a cup of sugar and a half a stick of butter. Okay? These are the nitty gritty components that fill up. All of the ingredients in your chocolate cake, in your genius, in your promise of what you deliver your [00:17:00] curriculum is also your intellectual property.

[00:17:04] And if you’re struggling with building curriculum, that’s one of the things that we do. We have a framework called Transformational Program Design. You can also listen to other podcasts where I teach on T P D and transformational program design. But for the purpose of this one, Let’s just dive in saying, okay, the program itself, number one, it has your method and framework.

[00:17:24] Number two, it has your genius curriculum. And then the last thing that makes up your program is the model of delivery in the client experience. So first, you build your method of getting people results. Second, you extract your genius and you download all of your amazing content, your recipe. The very last thing we do is the very last thing is picking the model, by the way.

[00:17:52] People do that wrong all the time. I think every single person out there builds a program in the wrong way. We don’t pick the model until the end. [00:18:00] We don’t wanna pick the model until two things, until number one, you fully understand how you want your life and your time to work, and then we reverse engineer it into the delivery model that works for you.

[00:18:10] You all know I travel six months a year with my kids, my husband and I own five companies. I own two international business consulting firms. How do I do that? I first determined the content I need to give my clients, and then I determined how I wanna live my life, and then I reverse indivi, engineered it into the delivery model of my program.

[00:18:31] And you can do that too. So let’s kind of summarize this and wrap this up with a bow. There is a difference between an offer and a program. What are you struggling with? Are you struggling with I. Determining and clarifying the offer side of it, which is your price, scarcity, bonuses, promises and guarantee, or are you struggling with actually delivering your product?

[00:18:58] Are you struggling on the product [00:19:00] and the program side of it? There seems to be a million coaches out there that are teaching you guys how to create offers, but nobody, I mean, I can’t say nobody. We do it, but I, I’m sure there’s a lot of amazing coaches out there to do this. I haven’t come across them yet.

[00:19:15] Actually extracts your genius into the product. People get stuck pulling their genius out of their head into a transformational methodology and product in the curriculum itself. And so I want you to understand what you’re struggling with right now. Do you feel like you’re getting stuck on the offer side of it, making the offer to people?

[00:19:34] What’s the pricing? What’s the scarcity? What are the bonuses? What is the promise and what is the guarantee? Or do you feel like the actual product itself. Is where you are getting stuck? Are you stuck in, uh, uh, do you not have your method built yet? Do you not have your process or your framework created yet?

[00:19:55] Um, do you not? What’s another good example? Do you not have the content filled into your [00:20:00] program? Do you not know what to say in your videos? By the way, don’t just take chat G p t, you know, and what they say you want. It has to be your own intellectual property. Great tool. You guys can actually go to our website and download our AI for Coaches tools where I give you a downloadable how to create a program and a product using chat, G P T.

[00:20:22] And I give you all the rules around that. We love giving you guys so much free stuff that you just, your business transforms. It makes me so happy. Uh, But the content, the curriculum itself, is that what you’re struggling with? Or are you struggling with understanding and defining your model? Do you not know if you wanna do v i P days or a membership?

[00:20:44] Do you not know if you wanna launch a course? By the way, courses have not been selling and converting since 2008. If there are course creation coaches out there that are saying, launch a course and you’re gonna make millions of dollars, they’re probably lying to you unless your audience is in the corporate space.

[00:20:59] Those [00:21:00] courses, courses are doing awesome. Yeah, I mean, I’ll, I’ll always give you my opinion. It’s okay. A lot of people hate the things I say. Uh, but listen, I’m here to tell you the truth. I’m here to tell you what I know from literally 27 years coaching other businesses, and I have been teaching experts and entrepreneurs how to build their programs.

[00:21:24] Since 2006 originally, but really since 2008. And so I want you to hear this because at the end of this, your action items are, what is the biggest thing you’re struggling with? Is it making the offer or is it actually developing the product? And I believe that once you identify what it is you’re struggling with, you can take faster action.

[00:21:48] To get it done and to have faster results. I want you to take what you have here on the show and take immediate action. So let’s wrap it up. This is episode number 294 here on the [00:22:00] Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast. I’m April Beach, if we don’t know each other, and, uh, you can cruise over to sweet life co.com and find all the resources we have there for you.

[00:22:12] And today on the show, we talked about what is the difference between an offer and a program, and why is it important? And I would like for you to identify if you’re struggling in this area or you want more knowledge in this area, what is the one action item you were gonna take from this show? It could be just going and taking a piece of paper and out lighting the.

[00:22:32] Here are the components of my offer. Here are the components of my actual product. Based on what we talked about here in the show, uh, it could be going to our website, clicking on the podcast, hitting episode number 2 94 in downloading the free two page worksheet. Uh, Jessica, our coo, she’s fantastic, built this worksheet for you guys and, uh, you can download this worksheet and it breaks down the five components of an offer.

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] Or it could be just listening to this twice or just thinking about what you’re struggling with. Sometimes we don’t know the problem that we have because we’re so used to consuming, consuming, consuming more information because we think the problem’s just gonna show up. The more we learn from people, the more we consume, and then the more we learn, and then the more we consume.

[00:23:23] So if you’re not really sure with what your product is struggling with right now, I just wanna encourage you to stop for a minute and allow yourself to be introspective. Stop listening to my voice. So I’ll shut up here in just a sec, and give yourself permission to actually look at your own product instead of having people talk, talk, talk, talk, talk at you all the time.

[00:23:45] And so on that note, Uh, that’s a wrap. Thanks for joining me here. And, uh, again, down here in beautiful Saddleback Resort in Florida. If you’re watching the video, yes, I am totally sweating, but I love being outside [00:24:00] and I’m gonna go inside and enjoy the conference. Wanted to create this, um, This training for you.

[00:24:06] Again, all the show notes can be found by visiting sweet life co.com, episode number 294. Just click on the podcast and we’ll be right there with you on tap. All right, guys. Have a fantastic week. I’ll talk to you soon.

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April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

293

[00:00:44] April Beach: All right, you guys. This is episode number 293, and I’m super stoked to dive into this. This is really the nitty gritty of what you need. To sell your programs to other companies, to license your trainings and courses to other organizations, nonprofits, [00:01:00] government education, small business tech companies, hospitals, other coaches just like you.

[00:01:06] April Beach: Today we’re diving into what you actually need. We’re talking about the actual assets that you need to close a sales deal, and there’s only three assets. Praise the Lord. I love licensing, you guys. It is so simple. The sales process is so simple. Shoot, that’s why I’ve done it for 14 years. That’s why I was able to figure it out 14 years ago without ever do ever having to do it before, because you don’t have to overthink it.

[00:01:34] April Beach: It isn’t this complex. Sh fancy schmancy thing, and we’re making it really simple for you Here on today’s episode, of course, Emily Hall, our licensing sales specialist, is back with us again, and we’re actually unpacking the three deliverables that you need to have prepared in order to close millions of dollars in licensing deals.

[00:01:57] April Beach: All right, so this is going to be [00:02:00] simple. Make sure you have a pen and a paper out because Emily unpacks each asset for you. And of course, if you wanna work with us to develop these assets, if you are ready to move into licensing and you are ready to scale in this amazing way, And you want a dream team that is rolling up their sleeves with you, you know where to find us. Cruise over to sweetlifeco.com. Simply click on licensing and you can find out how you can apply to work with me, how you can apply to be part of our ecosystem, working with Emily and having her build out your sales presentations even for you. And of course, you can also apply to work with us privately or in our ecosystem with other businesses.

[00:02:42] April Beach: We have super opportunities to help you advance at your rate, at your speed, and we are waiting there for you. So again, cruise over to sweet life co.com and you can find all of our licensing support options and click on the one that you believe is right for you now. [00:03:00] Let’s unpack what you actually need, the three assets you actually need in order to sell licensing deals. I can’t wait to dive in more. Emily and I in this show even dove into what you need to put within each asset. We’re not just telling you, ah, you need this and this and this. She actually unpacks and in this, do that and in here do there. So get a piece of paper and a pen and let’s go ahead and dive in.

[00:03:28] April Beach: All right everybody. We are back again with Emily Hall, and this is like the fast down and dirty, but full of gold series of podcast episodes on how to sell your courses to companies. And the last couple episodes we talked about, how to approach companies, who to sell them to, like how to find the right company to sell your training or course to.

[00:03:51] April Beach: And then in last episode, Emily walked you through, you know, exactly,, how to hold those conversations in a sales process. How to [00:04:00] actually outreach and who to connect to in a sales process. And today we are diving in and finishing the trifecta of amazing. Information and coaching for you here on actually, what do you need?

[00:04:13] April Beach: What assets do you actually need to close sales deals, whether they’re a thousand or a million dollars, when we’re talking about selling your programs to companies. So I’m super excited about, talking about these three components of the, the assets that people need. So can you dive in? Let’s start with obviously the basics of each one of these assets and the function of each one of these.

[00:04:41] Emily Hall: So the three assets that you need to close any sale. The first one is a one pager, so this is going to be a high level description of. What your program is a really, that social proof or the proof of the problems of some sort of data, some sort of something that illustrates what problem they’re [00:05:00] feeling, that validates that, , that then flowing into the features and the benefits and the value of having that overall transformation solved.

[00:05:10] Emily Hall: Get to that transformation. What, you know, that that big value thing that they’re looking for. Then diving into, you know, a high level of what the format of the program is, what the features are, what all the benefits are, the kind of the, not the nitty gritty, but a little bit more detail, um, than about you, about the educator, about your company, your credibility markers, brands you’ve worked with, things like that.

[00:05:34] Emily Hall: So it’s really just an at a glance. One, maybe two pages tops. This comes in early in the process. It’s something that you typically engage in with your champion, which we talked about in the last episode, and that then becomes a, , kind of a talking point piece for them to be able to take within their organization to make sure that they’re representing your.

[00:05:53] Emily Hall: Program and your brand and you the way that you want them to. And so this can be standardized, it can be customized for different [00:06:00] industries, for different brands. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Simpler is often best with one pagers though.

[00:06:07] April Beach: So I love this. We’re talking about one pagers because I know our audience is really familiar with one pagers when it comes to pitching themselves to speak. You know, so we have speaking one pagers. We have, you know, one pagers to get pitched on podcasts to be a podcast guest. But what’s so cool about this is that you’re really talking about a one pager that talks about the problems and solutions of their actual offer. So it’s an offer, one pager, it’s a program, one pager, and it, it’s talking about, Hey, listen, why should your company bring in my training? Why should your company bring in my course? These are the markers. These are the problems we solve. So literally, It’s as simple as that. That very first thing, it’s a higher level one pager in order to sell a program. And so it’s cool if it’s two pages, you think in many cases

[00:06:54] Emily Hall: it can be. Yeah. If it works visually to have it just a little bit more spaced out, you know, you don’t [00:07:00] wanna compromise readability, , and having it feel overwhelming to look at, you’d rather have them read it right? So if it, if it’s, think of it like a resume, like if it goes on two pages cause it really needs to, that’s okay. Just make sure that it’s cohesive and clear and it’s not two full packed pages. It’s two pages that have room to breathe and you’re using design a little bit differently.

[00:07:23] Emily Hall: You’ve got a little more space, you’ve got a little more, uh, room to room to play visually so that they can scan it faster. That’s kind of the only reason that you would dip into two and kind of where you wanna, where you wanna hold yourself back there from using two pages as an excuse to just fit more information on that is not the goal. Not the goal.

[00:07:42] April Beach: Well, and I know that’s a big problem and, and, but we see that with our clients, right? They really wanna, they just wanna share everything and they’re like, oh my gosh, I wanna get out there. I wanna put everything in that one page or, so. Can you just highlight again, for those people that are listening, like, what are, what are the most important things that need to be on this? It’s not everything, [00:08:00] but what exactly should be on this one pager?

[00:08:02] Emily Hall: Yeah. Less is. Less is more. And, , every single one of my clients has run into this exact same thing. You think that every. Single part of your program. Every single detail, every single statistic, every single, everything is so special and so important.

[00:08:17] Emily Hall: You have such an attachment to it, and you really have to look hard in the mirror and get a little bit critical about how you walk those back a little bit and think about what are truly the most important words that need to be on this page. It very much is an introduction to your program, not. It. It’s not selling the program itself.

[00:08:35] Emily Hall: It’s getting them interested. It’s bringing them to the table. That’s the goal of this one sheet, is to pique their interest so that they come to the table with you to have more conversations. So the things that you want on there are a really high level overview, kind of a tagline type situation. You want to outline the problem and kind of the overall solution, that big transformation, um, and whether that’s through data or whatever other can kind of things [00:09:00] that you typically will use to, um, sell those.

[00:09:02] Emily Hall: A lot of that can be transferred from your B2C sales. If you’re already doing B2C sales, that can come over pretty easily. And then you want to talk about really high level, so. The program format, the for the structure, what’s included. Again, not getting into the nitty gritty, this is not like a full detailed proposal, which we’ll talk about in a little bit, but this is just a very, very quick, here is what the thing is.

[00:09:25] Emily Hall: And then really reinforcing your credibility. So your bio, your company’s bio, the companies that you’ve worked with, how many people have taken this? I. Those, those authority builders and those credibility boosters that are gonna help them say, okay, yes, I take this person seriously. This is something to pay attention to.

[00:09:43] April Beach: That’s so cool. That’s so cool. And super simple. Okay, so that is asset number one. And then asset number two is…

[00:09:50] Emily Hall: is our sales presentation. So this is the thing that freaks a lot of people out. It feels very intimidating, it feels very formal. But if you wanna think about the sales presentation as. [00:10:00] Just a slightly more structured sales conversation.

[00:10:03] Emily Hall: So usually the sales presentation will be, you don’t need to have it ready for your initial meeting with your champion. Typically it’s gonna be a second or third meeting within the organization, um, depending on how. Big the company is how many layers they’ve got, things like that. Um, and it is, it ranges really in how you put it together and what they’re looking for.

[00:10:25] Emily Hall: It can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes. You can be really, really specifically answering questions that they have. They might have really specific requests on what they want information on. Um, or you, they might give you nothing and you have to really kind of, Use your, your audience analysis, your research.

[00:10:45] Emily Hall: Lean on your champion for insights to be able to craft something that you know is gonna be really compelling and really persuasive. So, Typically a pit , sales presentation has a few different parts. It’s got an open, it’s got a middle that has a few different subsections, [00:11:00] and then it has a close. And how much or how little you put into that really depends on who you’re speaking to, what they wanna hear about, how you wanna kind of position your content.

[00:11:10] Emily Hall: The biggest thing is to remember that this is a. Presentation for your audience. It’s not a presentation about you, which is an in. It’s a different nuance. This is not a, I’m gonna stand up here and read you the brochure. Of all the reasons why I’m amazing, it is a, here are all of the ways that you are struggling, and this program is perfectly positioned to help that it positions you as a partner, positions you as an ally, and as somebody that they can see going forward.

[00:11:40] Emily Hall: It builds that connection, that credibility, that trust, so that they feel more confident saying yes at the end of it.

[00:11:46] Emily Hall: See, I think

[00:11:47] April Beach: that’s a mind-blowing thing and I think people overthink this. And again, as you guys know, cuz I’ve said it a million times, Emily is in, she works with our clients on these kick-ass sales presentations.

[00:11:59] April Beach: And, and we [00:12:00] see that in our clients too, right? Like they, they feel like they need to show up and like, Initially until they learn this magic that, and I think it just is a tendency in the world of business, we feel like we need to show up and present. Right. And it’s always like the same presentation every single time.

[00:12:17] April Beach: But if, if our listeners have been listening to everyone of the podcast episodes, they know that in the last episode you talked about, I. Important questions to ask that in internal champion, right. Important questions to ask in that first meeting, and what you are saying and what you teach actually feels so much better and it works a lot more to make more money and close more deals.

[00:12:39] April Beach: It’s where you’re, you’re presenting back not just the program, but their own, probably like what you heard them say about their issues as to why your program would be a good fit for that. And let’s say, I mean, I’m just gonna be honest, frankly, I really love that because I don’t like feeling like I’m under pressure to sell something.

[00:12:59] April Beach: [00:13:00] I like having a conversation. And so the way you’re talking about this is even though you’re in a sales presentation, it’s still bringing up conversations that you’ve already had regarding their specific company. This just feels so good to me, and I know our clients love this process as well, you know, how, but is this the way that like, I mean, you’re, this is your area of expertise, you know, so obviously you’re the expert at this, right?

[00:13:28] April Beach: But is this the way that everybody does it, or is this just something special about the way you do it? I mean, Talk, talk to me about this. Like, is this a totally disruptive approach to sales processes, like actually listening to people?

[00:13:43] Emily Hall: Um, yes and no. Uh, it is, it is in some areas. So I have been been doing this for. I mean, I’ve been building sales presentations as part of what I do for almost 10 years, and with my agency for, at this point, over [00:14:00] four years. We worked with hundreds of clients, helped, helped our clients make millions of dollars, all sorts of really cool stuff. And what. We really, it’s part of it is based in my background.

[00:14:11] Emily Hall: So my background is in, program development for public health. So really leaning into behavior change psychology to figure out how do you get an audience to go from A to B, to change a behavior, to change a thought, to change, a feeling, to change all of that. So I bring that approach, but then very much with a business first attitude.

[00:14:31] Emily Hall: You know, the most important thing is that my clients that I work with, your clients that I work with are. Achieving their business goals. And a lot of times how we do that is we have to extend that business first mindset into how we approach the presentations. And so I have to coach my clients on how they shift their mindset so that they go into things very business first, how do we make sure that their clients feel taken care of?

[00:14:54] Emily Hall: Their prospects feel like they are connecting with the absolute right person. And so it’s, it, [00:15:00] there are, I mean, this is based in communication science. It’s based in marketing principles, it’s based in all sorts of stuff. And then when you get into the presentations, there’s a whole bunch of like design science and how we build all of those things.

[00:15:10] Emily Hall: We build all the assets for our clients, um, for this process, but it’s very much based in a foundation of, of. What works, how the brain engages, how we connect with other people, how, what information we need and at what stage of the process we need it in order to change our thoughts, our behaviors, our feelings, or make a decision, um, from A to B to go from, you know, I don’t even know I have this problem to, yes, I feel confident that you are the right partner.

[00:15:40] Emily Hall: This is the right solution, and I will get the results that I’m looking for. And so we really go in deep into how. Where are they at in that process? Where are their brains coming? Where are their brains coming from? what do they need to hear? What, how, what can we provide to them to help them feel better about it?

[00:15:55] Emily Hall: And how can we do that in a way that feels very collaborative so that they feel heard, they feel [00:16:00] understood? And what that does is that strengthens our approach because we’re then able to serve them up more targeted information, we’re able to answer their questions better, and ultimately help them feel better about their decisions.

[00:16:11] April Beach: Mic drop right there. Okay. Thank you so much for explaining that. And I know that I really wanted our listeners to hear you kind of go through that process and be like, this is not cookie cutter and this is why, and that’s why it’s so brilliant the way that you do this. So thank you for sharing all this.

[00:16:30] April Beach: So we talked about needing a one pager, so that’s asset number one. Number two is this genius sales presentation that’s led by science and, and communication and all the things you said. And then what’s the third asset that people need to sell their programs?

[00:16:44] Emily Hall: They need a proposal. So the one pager is really what helps them get that first meeting. The presentation is what helps them, you know, convince the decision maker, convince the people at the table that this is the right thing, and then they have to actually [00:17:00] get that decision in writing. And the way that they do that is through presenting the proposal. So the proposal’s really just an expansion of.

[00:17:07] Emily Hall: All of the messaging that they’ve already built, but an expansion into the logistics, and this is where it’s really cool that a lot of, I know that your clients and a lot of clients that I work with, use the proposal as an opportunity to customize things so that it fits within the client’s parameters.

[00:17:22] Emily Hall: And so this is where all of that research that you’ve gathered, all that information that you have been taking notes on, that you’ve been listening to, that you’ve heard, that you’ve reacted to, it can all come into this one place to really show the client, yes, I see you. I hear you. This is what we have prepared for you.

[00:17:38] Emily Hall: That is a just for you version of what you’re looking for, the transformation that you’re looking for, that we provided to all these other people, here’s a flavor of it that fits your logistics, that fits your format, that fits your, um, you know, your software, you know how, where it’s hosted, when we’re gonna bill, how or contracts are gonna work, who’s gonna own what, things like that.

[00:17:59] Emily Hall: All those [00:18:00] specifics go into that proposal and that’s then where you really get them to sign on the dotted line. So your ask typically at the end of a sales presentation is, Are we ready to send a proposal over? And that yes, means that they’re ready to review the logistics and then it may have to go through review processes.

[00:18:14] Emily Hall: Typically, the bigger the organization. Yeah, the more the reviewing. Um, and so that’s where really following up with the people that you have built those relationships with throughout the process is really important to be able to get that signature back, to be able to roll in from there.

[00:18:29] April Beach: So good. So good and so simple. And, um, again, you know, many of our, our listeners to this show have been in the consulting or the expert advisory space for years and years, and, you know, when you’re selling consultancy services, you don’t sell them like this. It’s been very complicated for them for the last 10 years. That’s why, you know, you and I are both such an advocate for licensing.

[00:18:51] April Beach: It’s like this crazy secret that nobody talks about, which is why we’re. Trying to bring it to the surface here. And it’s so [00:19:00] simple. It is a one pager, it is a presentation of, of actually just saying back to them what you’ve heard. And it is a proposal based on a customization from, uh, what I would call a base product, what I’d call a base offer.

[00:19:14] April Beach: And so, um, this is, this is really eyeopening. I know for a lot of our listeners and. Hopefully just, you know, everybody comes to me and they say, I, I, I just don’t know what I don’t know. And that is literally every single person that comes across our ecosystem threshold just says, I just, I just don’t know what I don’t know.

[00:19:33] April Beach: I don’t know how to sell this. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know what I can charge, and all these things. And so under the way you have broken down in these last three episodes is, So powerful and I appreciate you so much and I appreciate who you are as, as the advisor and a consultant to our clients and being within our ecosystem and just always giving so much in teaching.

[00:19:52] April Beach: You’re such an awesome teacher. So thank you so much for this and I can’t wait for these episodes to drop. I know you guys are listening to it live, [00:20:00] but I know that many of you guys have been waiting for this content for some time. So any final words regarding, , assets to sell? Anything else that you want our listeners to know?

[00:20:10] Emily Hall: Don’t overthink these. I know that it’s, it’s easy to get really overwhelmed with thinking. You have to have all of these ready in advance. A lot of times it’s really just important to get those first leads, get those conversations, get those meetings on the books, and then the rest will evolve. The rest will happen naturally.

[00:20:26] Emily Hall: So don’t worry about what is next. Focus on the asset that you need to build at the time. Focus on listening to your client. That’s the most important thing, and. Trust that you will be able to build something that really resonates with them because you’ve been listening, because you’ve been responding in a way that is supportive and connection driven.

[00:20:46] Emily Hall: And if you need help with this, let us know. We’re happy to help. This is what our agency does. Uh, but it’s, it’s something that don’t worry about it before you need to worry about it, because that’s a really big thing that we see our clients get very overwhelmed with [00:21:00] before they need to be, and it affects, you know, How you come into conversations and you, you feel that stress and you feel that tension.

[00:21:06] Emily Hall: Cause you’re thinking, okay, do I do a proposal now? Do I do it later? Do I have to have it in the initial meeting? You don’t have to have any of that ready. And so it’s just give yourself a little bit of space. Trust that it’s a process. It’s not gonna all happen at once. And know that you’ll, you’ll get to that next stage when you get there.

[00:21:23] April Beach: Mm. I love it. Thank you so much, Emily. We really appreciate you. Thank you. Okey dokey. You guys. That is a wrap of episode number 293. Wow. Those were three powerful episodes. 291, 292, 293, where we went in and unpacked how to actually sell your programs to other companies. Prior to that, we unpacked how to actually package your opportunities, your content, your courses, and your trainings.

[00:21:53] April Beach: I took you through the steps of exactly what people are looking for. I’ve taken you through the process of how to price your licensing [00:22:00] offer. We have taken you through and unpacked the actual strategy of who to sell it to and frankly who should license their trainings and who shouldn’t license their trainings.

[00:22:11] April Beach: Here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast, We have wanted to open up this world of licensing to entrepreneurs. Whether you guys work with us or not, of course we are here with our arms open. We are the only organization and consulting firm that we know of, like us, who has a complete licensing roadmap and project plan with as many experienced in successful clients, and we are waiting to give those solutions and strategies to you.

[00:22:38] April Beach: I certainly would love to work with you know, your story and help you explode the reach of your work and your profit. But if you’re not ready for that yet, that’s why I record these shows because I want to help all of you, wherever you are in the process, understand what licensing can do for your business.

[00:22:59] April Beach: And so for those of you [00:23:00] guys that are just dipping a toe into licensing and you’re not really sure if you wanna move forward, cruise over to licensing launchpad.com. It’s a little mini training, but you’re gonna get to build your first licensing action plan. And for those of you guys who already to dive in, Cruise over to sweet life co.com, which is our main company website.

[00:23:21] April Beach: Simply click on licensing and you’re gonna find all of the different options. We are here to work with you in a one day workshop. We’re here to work with you in our Amplify Licensing Accelerator. And we are also here in a done for you capacity to hold your hand in a V I P setting and build out all of your licensing for you.

[00:23:43] April Beach: Whatever you are ready for right now, we as a team are prepared and we are ready to help you do that. So please cruise over there, set up a call, and I would love to personally talk to you further about how we can help you advance your business through licensing or just go to licensing launchpad, dip [00:24:00] your toe in and let’s play with it and open up the world of licensing for you.

[00:24:04] April Beach: Again, I have a super special appreciation for Emily Hall and for her coming in and working with you guys on these last few podcast episodes. Please, you know, send her messages as well. We’ll make sure all of her contact information is available in the show notes and thanking her. Uh, and we’re just here to pour into you guys.

[00:24:24] April Beach: Licensing is a very, very, secret thing when I share about the possibilities of licensing. Every single person I talk to, whether they have a nine figure business or they’re barely crossing $9,000 a month, every single person says, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m not doing this. How do I get involved?

[00:24:47] April Beach: How do I get started? This is so exciting. This is genius. I wanna dive in, help me, and those are the things that I hear. And so that’s why these episodes were so important because I wanna open up the world of licensing [00:25:00] to everybody and share with you the same success that I have achieved through licensing myself.

[00:25:04] April Beach: And so hopefully this was beneficial to you. Thank you so much for spending time with me here on the show, sharing this show. Next week we’re diving into more trusted business strategy and coaching that. Consultants will be charging you thousands for we just give you free here on this show. Thank you so much for tuning in.

[00:25:19] April Beach: Again, you can find how to work with us and any other support we have for you is always available at sweetlifeco.Com. You guys be awesome and I’ll talk to you.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

292

[00:00:44] April Beach: All righty, you guys. This is episode number 292, and you are here because you are interested in fully understanding how to actually sell your program. How to pitch companies to sell companies, your training program, your courses, your [00:01:00] content. You are definitely in the right place I’m April Beach. My specialty is helping experts just like you and coaches and authors and speakers, subject matter experts and consultants, package up your training programs and seldom to other companies, organizations, small businesses, even micro entrepreneurs.

[00:01:18] April Beach: Possibly just like you are. So if that’s what you’re in for, you are here in the right place. And so all of the show notes, so we have a lot of show notes, we provide a lot of resources for you guys here on this podcast. They can all be found by cruising over to our website sweetlifeco.com. Simply click on the podcast and this particular episode is number 292, so you can just enter number 292 and it’ll take you right here with all the resources.

[00:01:46] April Beach: That I’m going to mention for you here on this show. On this show, we have our expert, Emily Hall is back with us again this week, and we are diving into how to actually pitch companies. [00:02:00] In last week’s episode, we talked about identifying what companies to sell to, who actually values your program, what companies are out there looking to buy programs just like yours.

[00:02:09] April Beach: Today we’re diving into how to actually pitch them, and that means we’re diving into the nitty gritty of what to say on your first pitch phone call and who exactly what you wanna talk to in what answers you are looking for. Exactly. And so if you fe felt like this is an intimidating process, or you don’t really know where to start, maybe you’ve been selling courses and doing launches for years, right?

[00:02:35] April Beach: And all of a sudden you wanna pivot into this new, very smart and profitable way of doing business, and you have no idea where to start. You are gonna find a great deal of confidence in today’s conversation. Let me tell you, I’ll just spill the beans ahead of time. It is way more simple than you probably think.

[00:02:54] April Beach: I’m so excited for you to keep diving in with us today in actually how to pitch companies. And [00:03:00] if you’re ready to move into licensing, if you have a company who’s already approached you that wants your programs, or if you are super smart and you realize and identify. That this is a direction that you wanna head in for your business.

[00:03:13] April Beach: Cruise over to sweet life co.com and apply to work with us where we will hold your hand through the entire process of licensing your program to companies, even packaging it and giving you all the contracts you need. To make that happen again, you can cruise over to sweet life co.com and just click on licensing, and we are there waiting to work with you.

[00:03:34] April Beach: Okay, so again, this episode is all about unpacking what to say on those initial calls, and if you are ready for that, let’s go ahead and dive in again with Emily Hall. All right, you guys, we are continuing in this little mini podcast series. We’ve been talking about licensing and how to get your courses into other companies for a few weeks here on the show, and now we’re into the nitty gritty of it.

[00:03:57] April Beach: It’s like act. How do you actually sell [00:04:00] your programs to companies? And we have our favorite person, Emily Hall, in here, who gets to work with our clients personally and help them sell their programs to companies, help them. Close these million dollar deals. Emily, how, I just have to say this, and we’ve done your intro before, but how much money in sales have you closed recently with your clients? So some crazy number?

[00:04:21] Emily Hall: Yeah, it’s up over 25 million. I think it’s close to 30 these days.

[00:04:26] April Beach: That’s crazy. Okay, so think about this amount of money, this amount of program sales. Um, and so you’re really getting a special treat by tuning into Emily today. And her area of expertise is helping you actually stand up confidently within the sales process, especially if you’re somebody like me.

[00:04:44] April Beach: You’re somebody like many of our clients who have never sold a program to a company. A day in your life, you don’t even know where to start. And so in this episode, we’re really diving into how to confidently move in this direction and, and move into the sales process [00:05:00] of selling to companies. So let’s just kind of start there.

[00:05:02] April Beach: What is an overview of. You know, what does it look like when you are selling a program to a company? Then, you know, it, those then selling individually to, to people. If you, they might have been consulting or coaching in the past. What is like the main difference between those two types of sales processes?

[00:05:21] Emily Hall: Yeah, so we call that B2B versus B2C. So B2B is your business to business. That’s gonna be your course licensing, your program licensing. B2C is business to consumer. That’s where you have one buyer at a time. So some of the main differences are with b2b, you’re typically selling a group of licenses, anywhere from 10 to a hundred to a thousand, depends on the size of the organization and what their needs are.

[00:05:43] Emily Hall: Whereas B2C, you’re selling one seat at a time, which they’re just very different. So, um, typically B2B takes a little bit longer to close. It’s bigger conversations. There’s more dollars on the line. It’s a bigger investment that an organization is making time-wise, energy-wise, resource-wise, dollars wise, [00:06:00] all of that.

[00:06:00] Emily Hall: Whereas an individual, you’re selling to a specific person at a specific phase solving one problem. Um, and you are instead of. Engaging in a kind of multi-tiered sales process. You typically are, you know, engaged in more of a longer marketing play, and then you have some sort of sales trigger where they are buying with maybe not even con like getting in contact with you at all.

[00:06:22] Emily Hall: They might, may not have any, any direct relationship with you. They just are like, yes, I have seen this person online. I trust them, I know them. I want to buy their thing. I want to be in their world. Whereas B2B is, um, a much more, uh, It’s a much bigger stakes relationship, so there’s a lot more involved in preparing for that in moving through that process. And a lot more people that you have to get on board that have to say yes to it.

[00:06:47] April Beach: In much less of that marketing. They’ve seen you online forever and ever. Right?

[00:06:51] Emily Hall: For sure. For sure. It’s like very, very little. You need some of it for the street cred, you know, it’s you, you have to, you have to show them that you know what you’re [00:07:00] doing.

[00:07:00] Emily Hall: You are legit. You have this presence, you have credibility. Um, but it’s a lot more about how. The results that you’ve gotten, the, um, the value of the promise that you are bringing to them, that’s the most important thing.

[00:07:13] April Beach: That’s so exciting. So I think that those people are listening who have been in like the online marketing and social selling and posting on Instagram, you know, every single day and doing your reels and doing your videos, you know, those things are, are really not as important when we’re talking about selling to B2B.

[00:07:28] April Beach: And just like Emily said, having your credibility, you need to be good at what you do, right? You need to know what you’re doing. You need to have an an established thought leader type of a or or specialist in your area of expertise for sure. Um, but. Even as far as an online platform, which we’re not even talking about this in today’s show, really the platform we play with is LinkedIn in this capacity and not so much Facebook and Instagram and in those type of places, which is, which is kind of a breath of fresh air, I think for our clients who, you know, who our [00:08:00] listeners, I mean, who.

[00:08:00] April Beach: Who have been in the online coaching space for, for some time. So when we’re talking about selling B2B and when we are talking about moving into this direction, you’re gonna hear my dog crying in the background. Hello everybody. He’s very excited. My kids are home. There you go. There’s my dog crying the background.

[00:08:19] April Beach: I don’t know if you could hear him. Um, but when we’re talking about moving in the sales direction, How does somebody start? Like who do they look for? What, where do they even begin in this process? I think that alone is an area of understanding that is very gray for a lot of people. Moving in B2B sales.

[00:08:39] Emily Hall: Yeah, it’s uh, it’s a tricky one. It feels like that big scary first step, like when you’re in social selling, it’s that first figuring out how to post for the first time. It’s figuring out like, okay, what direction do I go? What do I say? Who do I want to talk to? Um, it’s. It’s a very different game. It’s a relationship game for sure.

[00:08:57] Emily Hall: And so it’s how do you leverage the relationships that you [00:09:00] have? How do you build new relationships? How do you, um, demonstrate your expertise and highlight what you do, the results you’ve gotten for people in more of a high quality way? So a lot of times we see people that will go and do. Speaking engagements and get leads for companies off of that, that are interested in learning more.

[00:09:19] Emily Hall: Or they’ll host, you know, they’ll host a community paid workshop or they’ll go speak at a conference. We see a lot of, a lot of conversion off of speaking events, um, and then existing networks, you know, tapping into your LinkedIn network. When people go onto LinkedIn, they’re already in business mode and decision makers.

[00:09:34] Emily Hall: Tend to see that as more credible than the Instagrams, the, Facebooks, the tos of the online world. So, um, it’s a much higher quality place to stay, like you said. Um, but what you’re really looking for, you’re, you’re looking for someone who could be a champion for you. So finding somebody who sees what you do, who understands the problem that you solve, and who is excited about it, because that champion is going to be your entry point into an organization.

[00:09:59] Emily Hall: That [00:10:00] champion is going to be a very key person for you in this sale, in this sales process. Um, your champion typically isn’t your decision maker. They’re the person that’s gonna go and advocate for you within that organization about how awesome you are. How great this program is. You absolutely have to meet them.

[00:10:14] Emily Hall: We have to get everybody together and hear what they have to say. Um, your champion is going to be somebody who is going to sell essentially on your behalf within the organization.

[00:10:26] April Beach: That’s fantastic. And you know, I know a lot of questions that our clients have is can the champion be maybe a past client of mine or somebody I’m currently working with?

[00:10:35] April Beach: Do you feel like that is okay? Also?

[00:10:37] Emily Hall: Absolutely, absolutely. The champion can be, you know, you can have any relationship with them. It’s somebody who understands what either the industry that you are coming from, the, um, the value that you teach. Maybe they’ve seen you speak before, maybe they’ve experienced how, um, you know, they’ve experienced a transformation from you and they want to share it with their entire organization.

[00:10:58] Emily Hall: There’s a lot of different ways that you can really [00:11:00] hook somebody into that champion role and leverage that into a bigger contract.

[00:11:03] April Beach: Perfect. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. So once they find this champion who absolutely loves them, then what do we, what do they do with this person? Take us through the next step of, okay, this person loves me.

[00:11:16] April Beach: They just said, Hey listen, I really want to introduce your program to my HR manager. I really wanna introduce you to program to our founders. Uh, how do we help them do that? Like, what are the things that are important that need to happen next?

[00:11:29] Emily Hall: Yeah. So we typically recommend that. You have a, either a face-to-face or a zoom meeting with your champion, and you really wanna accomplish two things.

[00:11:39] Emily Hall: One, you want to get a. Bigger understanding of truly what the problem is that they are trying to solve within their organization. What does success mean for them? What barriers are they running into? Who is going to have a say in this? Who are your, you know what we call your influencers? Who are the people that have a seat at the table and will [00:12:00] have.

[00:12:00] Emily Hall: Say in whether it’s a yes or a no, um, but they may not be the ultimate decision maker. This can typically be somebody in your finance department or the legal department or it that, you know, if you, if they say, yes, this program is gonna affect their world, but they’re not the ultimate yes or no. And then you have your decision makers.

[00:12:16] Emily Hall: Typically, there’s one, maybe two in an organization. So really identifying who those people are will help you to then equip your champion with the talking points, with the value propositions, with the language that they need to go to each of those people to get buy-in on your behalf.

[00:12:33] April Beach: Yeah. That’s brilliant. And I love, I love how you said that, I mean, you’re basically like being a good listener. You’re, you’re being in there and, and here’s the deal. You are super excited because you’re having a conversation about your program being brought into an organization. But I know that one of the things that you oftentimes share with our clients as well, and helping them with this process is, Being a really good listener, and I think that some people get really intimidated because they feel like they need to show up to this [00:13:00] meeting and have, you know, this whole presentation.

[00:13:02] April Beach: I know that’s coming down the road. We’re gonna talk about this next, but I love that what you say is listen to even what the champion wants in who those key players are. And so, We want I, I say this and I highlight this for you guys listening because when you understand that you need to have great listening skills and you need to ask questions about, The other key players in their organization.

[00:13:27] April Beach: And that is what Emily just said. The two most important things of this first conversation. It’s not so intimidating. You’re there to be a listener, to, to learn, to absorb, to answer questions and to support. And I, I love that because I think it takes the edge off of that quote unquote, like first type of sales meeting.

[00:13:48] April Beach: Yeah.

[00:13:49] Emily Hall: And it’s, it feels like a lot of pressure when you have to memorize every feature, every talking point, every little nuance, and it’s, it’s essentially, it changes the [00:14:00] dynamic. So if you were to come in and say, here is, they’re like, tell me about your program, which everyone will usually start with that.

[00:14:06] Emily Hall: Um, but it’s up to you to take control of the conversation and shift it and say, well, I’d love to hear more about you first. Um, so get them talking first. That’s like rule number one. Um, instead of saying, all right, here are my 60,000 things, let me just like fire hose this information at you. When that happens, they’re going to try to make those connections themselves.

[00:14:25] Emily Hall: They’re gonna try and say, okay, well this could help this person. Okay, that makes sense for that person. They’re, they’re connecting those dots already when you can get that information from them. You can then present your program information back to them with those dots already connected. So we, when you say, okay, you’ve got, you know, you’ve got somebody in legal who is really worried about cybersecurity, or you’ve got somebody in finance who’s really worried about, you know, the, the turnover of the fiscal year, you can say, oh, well we’ve got really flexible payment plans that allow you to spread this out over the fiscal years.

[00:14:57] Emily Hall: Tighten it up here, push it to next year. So that should make your, your financial [00:15:00] person really happy so that they can make a mental note of that. Um, you know, our. I don’t know, insert talking point about cybersecurity, X, Y, Z. We built this program to be able to accommodate this, blah, blah, blah. Um, and so it allows you to really customize those features and position them as benefits to your, um, to your, your.

[00:15:18] Emily Hall: Target cu your target company, uh, which is huge. And then what you can do is you can take those talking points that you kind of outline for them, put them into a, either a custom one sheet, or you can have a one sheet of those things already prepared and be able to deliver that to your champion so that they can distribute that internally so it gives you more controls.

[00:15:39] Emily Hall: This could be a PDF it could be. A word attachment in an email. Don’t recommend that people then can change your stuff. PDFs are great, um, but it can be, you know, as custom or as standard as you want it to be. But then it gives that champion very accurate, very true talking points. So they’re not trying to paraphrase you.

[00:15:57] Emily Hall: They’re not trying to summarize what you’re saying. They’re not trying to [00:16:00] draw out insights that may be incorrect. So when they go to speak about it, when they go to deliver that information to the other influencers in the organization, to the stakeholders, it is accurate. They are. Everyone is looking at the same information.

[00:16:12] Emily Hall: Everyone is seeing those benefits. Everyone is seeing all those details. In the exact same way. And so it gives you that control and it takes that pressure off of your champion to have to remember it all, which helps them feel better, helps them feel more connected to you, and it really positions you as a partner to them, as kind of a teammate in this process versus just kind of giving them information and then waiting for them to, to do all of the work on their own.

[00:16:34] April Beach: Right. And what I, what I always love to tell our clients too is that the better we can make our champion look to their teammates, to their bosses, like we wanna make our champion look like a rockstar, like the best employee or the best team member who just found this amazing program to solve this problem.

[00:16:51] April Beach: And so equipping that champion to even look really great, um, and feel good and feel confident sharing about your program is a [00:17:00] big part of what. What we do in the beginning phase. So I know that there’s oftentimes a lot of hesitation, especially when you guys are moving from selling your program B2C, to selling your program b2b, that I just want you to hear what Emily is saying today about this relationship with your champion and how we want to equip them and how we wanna listen to them and.

[00:17:21] April Beach: You know, as we go through the rest of this and we have another special episode coming up next, I, I want you guys to start just for a second here and try to identify people. Do you already have in your circle that could be a champion for you? Do you have clients that work for companies? Do you have other business partners or other affiliates that actually own other companies that maybe you’re thinking about licensing your program into their even small or micro business or their association or their.

[00:17:53] April Beach: Membership community or whatever that could be. And just trying to think about what you can do to make their job [00:18:00] easier to help them to accomplish the goals that they have, not only for their own business, but you know, for the people that they work with and for their clients as well. So, um, really quick, Emily, just because I know we’re honing in on the champion here on this episode, what are the other roles.

[00:18:17] April Beach: Of the process of the people, we kind of give names to roles of the people in the process. For those businesses that are selling to larger corporations, what are some of the roles that those other people that champion has a conversation with, um, may have, and what do those people just generally care about?

[00:18:38] Emily Hall: Yeah, so we have, like I mentioned, you have your, your influencers and your decision maker. Your decision maker is, depending on the size of an organization, um, is either going to be C level. So, um, C E O /C O O, chief Operations Officer, um, depending on the area of business that your program sits in, the decision maker is likely going to be [00:19:00] the highest or one of the highest leaders in that organization, especially if it’s a very high dollar amount.

[00:19:06] Emily Hall: The other people that typically have a say, and by the way, they care about overall success of the, the mission of the organization. So they care about, you know, Delivering services to customers, delivering software, whatever it is, they care about keeping people happy. They care about the, the broader, um, business ecosystem and how that all works together.

[00:19:28] Emily Hall: So the more you can appeal to that for the decision maker, you’re gonna be in very good shape. The other influencers that we typically see that have a seat at the table but may not be a full decision maker, are people kind of below that, within the org, within that team. Um, so they might just be lower level in terms of.

[00:19:45] Emily Hall: You know, they may be closer to the customer or closer to the client or closer to wherever in terms of, you know, hierarchy. So they may have more insight and more direct insight into those things. Um, you’re typically going to have somebody from finance involved. If it’s a very high [00:20:00] dollar amount, it’ll be the C level or just below.

[00:20:03] Emily Hall: They care about, uh, how much things cost. They care about flexibility of payments. They care about when they have to pay, what those deliverables are gonna be, what those milestones are, they are accountable to. Um, they’re accountable to the finances of the organization. So they wanna make sure that they are being good stewards of that, they’re being good gatekeepers of that.

[00:20:20] Emily Hall: So being able to really appeal to the, uh, short-term value of your program as well as the long-term value of your program is really gonna help you get that person on your side. Typically we also see somebody who is involved in the implementation of the program. So sometimes that can be somebody from operations, sometimes that can be somebody from IT who is responsible for kind of configuring or managing, could be somebody from HR if it’s a, you know, a people focused program. Um,

[00:20:46] Emily Hall: There might be an entire training department that has people that are dedicated to that. So when you think about who is implementing or executing or kind of owning the actual program itself, you wanna think about making their lives easier. We wanna make sure [00:21:00] that, you know, everyone’s busy, everyone has a full, full job if they are being brought into a room saying, here’s this thing that you’re gonna manage.

[00:21:07] Emily Hall: That’s, that’s a lot of extra work potentially that may, they may or may not be on board with. And so being able to really highlight how. Your program is set up to be easy. The support that they get, the flexibility that they have, the resources that they have in order to make that a smooth process for them.

[00:21:24] Emily Hall: Not add too much overhead in terms of time or steps or, you know, dealing with all the, all the minutiae. And so being able to make their lives easier in terms of productivity and efficiency is, is fantastic there. Typically you also have somebody that represents risk management, so that could be. Um, so it could be legal, could be somebody from finance or HR.

[00:21:44] Emily Hall: That person wants to make sure that things are like above board, that this is legit at this high quality, um, that this is not going to communicate something that is going to open them up to liability. And so this is where your credibility, your authority, your [00:22:00] expertise, your, you know, documentation of what goes into this program is really going to come in.

[00:22:05] Emily Hall: Come into play when you can assure them of that, that this is based in X, Y, Z science, or this is based in 20 years of experience in all this data, or based in, you know, whatever your program is based in really leaning into that credibility so that they feel more at ease about it. Um, those are kind of the big players.

[00:22:23] Emily Hall: If you have any other ones, depends on the organization a little bit. But what you wanna think about just a shortcut is what are, so if you find out that, say somebody from, I don’t know. Facilities is gonna be there. I don’t know, maybe there’s an in-person element and there’s a, there’s somebody who’s from admin or somebody who does event planning.

[00:22:40] Emily Hall: I don’t know, it could be anybody. Um, think about what. Are those person’s performance metrics? What makes them successful? What does success in that role look like? What does that mean for them? Um, and then how does your program help them achieve that, um, in either actively making it better or not [00:23:00] holding them back from achieving that.

[00:23:01] Emily Hall: So you kind of approach it from two sides, but that’s kind of your shortcut to be able to, uh, translate how to speak to different people that are coming to the table.

[00:23:09] April Beach: That’s fascinating. Um, and you know, again, if you guys are new to this, which we assume most of our podcast listeners are new to this because this is like an untapped just pot of gold for you guys, which is why we’re bringing it to you here on the show, and we work so hard.

[00:23:26] April Beach: Bringing you up to the table so that you can take a seat at this table. And all of these episodes have been designed to build awareness and confidence in this as potentially your next move. And so Emily, I think that you just, even just breaking it down here and making it super simple, like the first meeting again is listening to that champion, finding the champion, whoever they could be.

[00:23:50] April Beach: But you know, and we talked in the last episode about. Great ways to get introduced to champions, what companies to look for. But once you have that person, what do you ha how do [00:24:00] you handle that conversation? And I think that that is a very important thing that you covered because I, to me, hopefully for our listeners, that just took out all the intimidation of just saying, Hey, listen, this fir first conversation is, is just listening to the problems and, um, understanding, you know, the dynamics of their organization.

[00:24:17] April Beach: And then thank you so much for also going further in depth and breaking down. Decision makers and implementers and stakeholders and all these other things. And uh, you know, basically as a summary for our listeners, just understand that each person who is in the process of deciding whether or not to license your training or course has their own drivers.

[00:24:37] April Beach: And identify what their drivers are and be able to speak to how your program will affect or will not affect their drivers. That’s it. And they’re, here’s the deal, guys. They aren’t gonna bring anybody in the meeting that your program does not affect. Like, they’re not just gonna, everybody’s too busy.

[00:24:55] April Beach: They’re not just gonna have a meeting with 20 people when your program only affects maybe three different departments. [00:25:00] You know, they’re only gonna bring the three people in there. So you don’t have to get overly intimidated, you don’t have to identify every role of could be in there. But once you learn who’s gonna be in there, figure out why.

[00:25:09] April Beach: Why they care, why they’re there listening. And this is of course, selling to big corporations, organizations, but when we’re going into selling to small businesses in startups, and. Even healthcare. We don’t have, well sometimes we do in healthcare, have that many people in a meeting. So just know it’s not always gonna be this big, huge thing.

[00:25:31] April Beach: But our job here is to equip you on what could be so that you’re going into it with eyes wide open. And so, Emily, thank you so much again for another, Awesome podcast episode. These are answering like these are like frequently asked questions that we get all the time, right, that we’re answering here on this show.

[00:25:50] April Beach: And if you don’t have these questions yet, you will. So just come back and bookmark this. That means you aren’t yet at that point, but you will remember where this episode is. Number [00:26:00] 292. And come back and listen to it and. You’ll have all, all of, all of the answers here. All right. Thank you so much, Emily. I appreciate you.

[00:26:08] April Beach: Thank you. Okay, that is a wrap for episode number 292. Hopefully, you are finding peace in the sales process. It is so much easier than people think to actually license and sell your programs and trainings to other companies. Because we don’t have to deal with complex funnels and fancy schmanzy sales systems.

[00:26:31] April Beach: It really comes down to connecting with the right person, listening to their company’s needs, and connecting your program or training. With the needs they are trying to fill, whether their needs are internal for training their staff, or whether their needs are external and they wanna use your program to beef up their offers to their clients.

[00:26:52] April Beach: Both of ’em are a huge blessing to both you and to the organization and of course to the end [00:27:00] users as well. So that’s one of the reasons why I love licensing so much. So, again, to reference the show notes and the transcription and everything we talked about. Cruise over to sweetlifeco.com. This is episode number 292, which you’ll find if you just very simply click on our podcast button.

[00:27:17] April Beach: You can search 292. And if you wanna dip your feet into licensing, if you wanna build your first licensing action plan, if you wanna identify in your own vault of genius what you already have, that is. Primed and ready to go for licensing, cruise over to licensing launchpad.com. It’s a very short, there are actually five little mini videos that I personally guide you through where I’m gonna take you through the process of building your first licensing action plan.

[00:27:47] April Beach: It’s a super rad training. We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people go through it since we dropped it just like a couple weeks ago. It’s been awesome and I can’t wait for you to dive in as well. Again, licensing launchpad, [00:28:00] depending on when you listen to this, there will literally be thousands of people who have gone through that.

[00:28:04] April Beach: And you wanna be in the beginning. You wanna be ahead of the curve. You wanna be tip of the sword. That’s why you listen here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast to get trainings and proven strategies that you can take to the bank from experienced consultants and experts that are all here to pour into you.

[00:28:19] April Beach: That is our mission here on the show. So thank you for listening, and I will see you on next week’s episode where we have Emily coming back one more time. And we’re diving into more of what you actually need, the assets you need in order to close million dollar licensing deals. I’ll see you next week.

[00:28:38] April Beach: Thanks for being here with us and share this show with your friends, please. I hate advertisers. I refuse ’em. I turn down their money all the time and I really rely on you guys to share this show cause of that. So we really appreciate you and advance for doing that. Thanks so much. I’ll see you next.[00:29:00]

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

291

 

[00:00:43] April Beach: Hi everybody and welcome back to the show. This is episode number 291, and so all of the show notes and everything we’re gonna talk about here can be found by cruising over to sweet life co.com. Click on the podcast and just remember the number 291.

[00:00:58] April Beach: I’m April Beach. If we haven’t connected [00:01:00] before. I help specialists, subject matter experts, coaches, consultants, speakers, and authors. Scale their business online by developing million dollar programs with lifestyle freedom. And so if that’s what you’re looking for, everything we talk about here on this Sweet Life Entrepreneurial podcast is designed to give you proven strategies and steps to accomplish that.

[00:01:19] April Beach: So thank you so much for joining us here. Let’s kind of unpack who this episode is for. So we’ve been talking a lot about licensing and what licensing is and how to take the courses and the trainings and the content and the frameworks that you have already created. You’ve already been using them in your consulting business and actually allow other companies, To deliver them and actually license them to other companies.

[00:01:45] April Beach: Giving other companies, corporations, small businesses, even micro entrepreneurs just like you. The ability to distribute your trainings, whether internally to their teams or externally is part of their pro, is part of their products. It is a huge. Not [00:02:00] great secret because I’m trying to make it not a secret.

[00:02:02] April Beach: And everything that we’ve been doing in this series here on the show for the last couple of episodes is introducing experts like you to this possibility. And so we’re moving from really what is licensing, what is the program, how to do it. Now we’re moving into how to. Sell it. And I brought in our very own Emily Hall.

[00:02:23] April Beach: Emily is an absolute expert when it comes to selling programs to other companies. She comes in and she works with our clients and handles our clients’ development of their sales processes as well. And so if she was certainly the best person to bring into this show and introduce you to, and so. We are gonna unpack in this particular episode, who to actually sell it to.

[00:02:47] April Beach: It’s a question I get all the time. You know, you guys say, April, I have this great course, I have this great training, but how do I know who wants to buy it? I’m used to selling it b2c. Now I’m thinking of selling a b2b. [00:03:00] What companies are out there that would want to buy my training, especially some of you guys have amazing niche trainings, like off the wall, super specific, and we’re gonna be giving some case studies of very specific niche trainings.

[00:03:13] April Beach: And in this episode we’re gonna unpack how to actually go through the process of identifying. Who to sell it to. So Emily is coming in here and we’re also unpacking for you the top five industries and the types of programs that they are buying. This is very important for you to understand. So as we’re walking through, we’re telling you how to connect with companies, how to reach out.

[00:03:36] April Beach: How to skit the ball, rolling to sell your programs to companies, but also what the top five industries are looking for in the programs are buying right now. This is a really powerful episode for you and on top of it, we of course have an amazing bonus training. If you have not dove in yet, cruise over to licensing launchpad.

[00:03:56] April Beach: And let you can go to licensing launchpad.com. It’s a [00:04:00] little mini training on today’s show, we’re only covering five different industries. In licensing launchpad. We unpack for you 10 top industries in exactly all the programs they’re buying. And we even give you the names of the positions of the people.

[00:04:14] April Beach: In these companies and who to reach out to, to connect with to sell your program too. So we’ve done all that work for you already. You can cruise over to licensing launchpad.com to get started, and of course, listen to this episode. So let’s go ahead and dive in with Emily Hall. All right, you guys. Welcome back to the show.

[00:04:33] April Beach: I am super excited about our next expert who’s actually hanging out here with us for the next couple of shows. It’s been long awaited that Emily Hall and I have been trying to get together and record these podcast episodes for you. First of all, this is not just a podcast episode like every single one of our.

[00:04:51] April Beach: Episodes, I guess we dropped. This is really a training and it’s really important for you all to understand that you should be taking notes here [00:05:00] cuz what Emily’s about to walk you through. People pay thousands and thousands of dollars for this information that’s gonna, that she’s gonna guide you through on these next couple podcast episodes.

[00:05:11] April Beach: So if you are again in a place where you wanna license your trainings and courses to companies, you’re really ready to scale your business. Uh, listen up. Today we are talking about. Actually who to sell your program to, who to license your program to, who to license your training from a B2B perspective.

[00:05:30] April Beach: And so I’m so pleased to bring in Emily to guide us through this process and this conversation. And Emily. You’re always in there working with our clients. You guys, our clients are really lucky. If you wanna be one of them, you know where to find us because Emily literally rolls up her sleeves with our clients all the time working through these sales processes, and I wanted to give you guys a taste of how amazing she is.

[00:05:52] April Beach: And the biggest thing that everybody asks is how do I sell it? How do I sell my license program to another company? Who do [00:06:00] I sell it to? And it kind of just seems like this huge barrier in block, especially for experts and coaches and consultants coming from the coaching space and this is very different.

[00:06:10] April Beach: It’s actually much. More simple in my opinion, but talk us through this process. What does it look like? How does one even determine who is the best buyer for their program?

[00:06:23] Emily Hall: Yeah, like you said, it’s a really, really common hangup. You know, especially if you’re already selling B2C, you know who that audience is, you know who that individual buyer is, and when you try to identify companies with those same profiles, it’s, it’s not apples to apples.

[00:06:36] Emily Hall: It’s apples to oranges for sure. And so figuring out who to target can be a really, really hard spot. So what we really encourage our clients to do and what we help them kind of go through is, A little bit of a, a narrowing down process. So we start with, based on your program, based on your course, your workshop, your training, whatever your material that you’re licensing is, are there any immediate industries that you know would [00:07:00] benefit from?

[00:07:01] Emily Hall: The transformation that you provide in terms of financial success. So financial success is gonna be kind of that initial hook that most companies are gonna be looking for. There’s obviously layers of reasons that companies say yes to buying programs, but the financial benefit of that, um, is one of the biggest ones.

[00:07:18] Emily Hall: And you wanna look at that through two perspectives. The first one is the internal, benefit. So how will it help their employees be more productive, be more engaged, be more. Happy, be more successful in what they’re trying to accomplish. And then whoever that company’s client is, their customer, their end user, whatever services they’re providing, how can your program help them be more successful in how they deliver their services?

[00:07:47] Emily Hall: So looking at the internal financials, so how does it help their staff? How does it help their employees? And then also how does it help their customers? So figuring out. Just out of the gate, are there any industries, any companies, , any, you know, [00:08:00] specific organizations that really makes sense out of the gate for that. That’s kind of the first thing that we look at that can help to narrow it down because there are a million places to take your program

[00:08:09] Emily Hall: and it’s hard to know where to start.

[00:08:10] April Beach: Right, and I love that you said that too, because we’ve used that language a lot here on the podcast recently about how to. Pick what programs you wanna license. And we’ve talked about, you know, is your program something that is internally facing or externally facing? And you’re right, both certainly benefit both. But the first thing, if you guys are listening to this and you have a course or a training that you want to figure out how to license other companies, you’re tired of selling them directly yourself.

[00:08:39] April Beach: And that’s exactly kind of what Emily is saying here. Now, not just identifying the product, but going in and now identifying. How it benefits the company internally and externally as well. I think that’s, I think that’s brilliant. Not just the actual hardcore product itself, but the, the extenuating benefits for sure.

[00:08:57] Emily Hall: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the second thing, kind [00:09:00] of the second step, second tier of this is to look at your own experience. You know, you didn’t, you’re not brand new to your expertise. You’re not brand new to doing this. So what industries do you have experience in? What networks are you connected in that would.

[00:09:15] Emily Hall: Lead to a stronger, easier, smoother connection into a specific industry, into a specific organization. A lot of times that’s a really strong way to start leveraging those relationships using the networks that you’ve spent, you know, years building as a professional to help you launch into this. B2B side of licensing, um, is a really, really smart way to do it.

[00:09:35] Emily Hall: You’re not starting from scratch, you’re not reaching out for cold calls, you’re leveraging the assets that you’ve got. Um, a lot of times programs can go into lots of different industries. So being able to kind of choose that lowest hanging fruit, if you will, of, alright, what, what can I do to get the most success?

[00:09:49] Emily Hall: Immediately get that social proof, get that sale, get that, get that success, get those results for those clients, and then be able to move on to the next one. Um, so that’s kind of that second side of it is [00:10:00] what. The company, what they need, what will benefit them, and then also what’s gonna be easiest for you.

[00:10:05] April Beach: Yeah, and that’s so interesting too cuz so a lot of our listeners haven’t been part of corporate for a long time, or they might not, na, they might not have established corporate relationships. I remember the first time I sold my like, First big deal, license package. It was to, uh, an industry that I had never set foot in in my life.

[00:10:26] April Beach: And I remember, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I feel like such a, such a fish outta water here. But I know a lot of our clients, uh, that still then go on to sell programs into industries where they have zero experience or they have zero connection. And so, I love what you teach our clients like there are shortcuts to do this.

[00:10:47] April Beach: If you don’t have established relationships, you don’t have established connections, you actually have shortcuts on how to find the best industries that actually align with your program. [00:11:00] Uh, can we dive into that a little bit here for our users too?

[00:11:03] Emily Hall: Yes, yes. There are definitely five main industries that we see program sales being the most successful in. Uh, the first one is, um, a little bit of kind of the broad category of corporations and what we look at within those are, you know, tech companies, financial companies, insurance companies, maybe professional services, things like that. Really large organizations that are providing services directly to customers. So those, um, industries tend to really, they tend to be large. They tend to take a longer time to close cause you have more, um, More

[00:11:37] April Beach: levels than red tape.

[00:11:39] Emily Hall: Yes. Yes. Lots of hoops to jump through for sure , but they tend to be some of the biggest, and so they tend to have the largest payouts. And so it’s really, and they’re very established.

[00:11:50] Emily Hall: They’re very, uh, Um, easy to understand how they work. They’re very similar to each other. And so once you kind of dial in your value proposition for one company, you can [00:12:00] very easily take it to different companies that are similar. So that is one that’s really, really successful , especially for. Yeah, it’s just, it’s a very, it’s a very, very successful industry.

[00:12:12] April Beach: Right. And I know that our listeners are like saying, okay, when you say like, big deals, like big sales deals, um, you know, we love dropping numbers for you guys here on the podcast. I know that we have current CR clients right now that are in deals with big industries for over a million dollars for one course.

[00:12:28] April Beach: What other numbers have you seen, Emily, when we’re talking about. Licensing your training and program to these larger corporations. What are, what are some of the sales numbers that you have seen with program selling in the past?

[00:12:40] Emily Hall: Yeah, it can be, it depends on the, the specificity of the course really and how many people in the organization it applies to. It can be as little as, you know, two to 500,000 up over in the multiple of millions, just depending on what segment of the organization it’s targeting, what area of their team, um, is going to be using it [00:13:00] or what segment of their, um, end users or their customers are gonna be using it. But there’s definitely a really broad range there.

[00:13:06] April Beach: Right. I love how you said as little as two to 500, 250 to 500,000. No big deal. Yeah. We’re talking, we’re talking about one training guys, one course. So we really, we really wanna let you know that this is feasible. People are doing it, our clients are doing it. You can be doing it too. Uh, okay. So that’s one area is the per professional training, like the larger corporations, our purchasing programs.

[00:13:29] April Beach: All the time. Yes. What is another industry that is, that you wanna share with our listeners?

[00:13:36] Emily Hall: Yeah, so while those organizations typically have pretty large budgets that are pretty flexible, um, one that they surprisingly have larger budget budgets than people realize is the government and education side of things.

[00:13:49] Emily Hall: So we see a lot of people find success selling to government organizations and educational entities, uh, because governments and educational. [00:14:00] Organizations. They have, they have set budgets, they have money that they have to spend, they have grants, they have bonds, they have all these pools of money that have to be spent.

[00:14:07] Emily Hall: And so being able to really tap into those and build relationships is so helpful. The other great thing is once you get into one, they tend to refer to each other. So it tends to be a really nice domino effect of using multiple sales after that initial, um, that initial deal closes. Of, you know, other similar organizations in other states or other parts of the country or other regions or other, you know, departments wanting a similar transformation.

[00:14:32] Emily Hall: They, that referral network within government and within education is really, really strong. So it’s very, very beneficial to tap into that industry.

[00:14:41] April Beach: That’s fascinating. Um, and again, we do, you know, you and I are both working collectively with clients that have government deals and education deals. And so what I’m hearing you say, and what I’ve heard you say to our clients as well, is that they literally have the money and they actually have to spend it.

[00:14:58] April Beach: So it’s not, it, [00:15:00] it, they’re there, they’re looking for programs constantly to fit into certain areas, both education. And this is, you know, these are primary education, secondary education and government, and they are always looking for curriculum and programs. Uh, and, and they do have the funding for that.

[00:15:16] April Beach: So that’s exciting for, for you to hear. Um, hopefully exciting for you listeners to hear as exciting. It is for me to have her tell you that. Uh, okay. So number three, we talked about. Larger corporations. We talked about government and education. Now what is the third industry that we often see programs being sold into?

[00:15:37] Emily Hall: Yeah. So the third one is, um, actually the startup world. And by startup world, I mean not necessarily your, you know, bootstrapping entrepreneur or your, you know, brick and mortar small business. I’m talking about the startups that go through the funding process, go through the venture capital, whole chain of barriers? Yes. Um, to try and get up and grow. [00:16:00] Those organizations have, uh, they have a lot of cash, so especially depending on where they’re at in their funding stages, they have cash to burn and they have to spend it in specific ways. So being able to tap into those, um, that part of the industry, that startup industry.

[00:16:15] Emily Hall: Of companies, um, is really, really helpful. If you were able to help them reach their next funding goal, help them reach their next milestone of rolling out, building, launching, scaling their product. There are different levels of funding that are unlocked at different levels. So if you can help an organization get to that next place in a way that saves them money, saves them time, makes them look good, it’s gonna be a much, much easier sale.

[00:16:39] Emily Hall: So you see a lot of success in startups with programs that help companies accomplish those things.

[00:16:43] April Beach: Oh, that’s so exciting. Okay. Uh, industry number four.

[00:16:48] Emily Hall: Yes. So this one is a little bit of a surprise and it’s a little bit, it, it, it works in a very specific situation, but the fourth one is actually the nonprofit world. So [00:17:00] nonprofits like to, uh, they’re there to help people. They have big hearts. They have a mission, they have employees that are engaged. Everybody is, is working towards something. And while they don’t necessarily have a. Like a, a budget the size of maybe a government entity or a big corporation, they have a vested interest in furthering their mission.

[00:17:23] Emily Hall: So if your program aligns with them seeing success in their mission, it’s going to be very helpful. They also have to be very transparent. With how they spend their money, where they spend their money, things like that. And so being able to, you know, they have caps on how much they can spend on salaries typically.

[00:17:39] Emily Hall: So they’ve got, you know, cash that they want to put back into their programs, back into their business to further their mission. So if your program aligns with that and you’ve got those good relationships, you’ve got that good track record proving that you can get that result for them. That’s, it’s a great place to be.

[00:17:55] April Beach: Fantastic. I love that. Uh, and we have also seen success with our [00:18:00] clients in that area. Uh, and I think that you were part of some of those deals, or you were around in some of those deals last year for a couple clients who were going through and it was, it really was surprising to me. I’ll be really honest.

[00:18:11] April Beach: To see exactly how much nonprofits we’re spending on programs. Um, and certainly encouraging to see that in, in their desire to purchase programs that help them accomplish their mission is, it’s a, it’s frankly blows my mind. I’ll be really honest. Um, makes me really happy cuz our clients are making money and the, and the organizations are really happy, but it, it still surprises me.

[00:18:36] April Beach: To see how much the money that they will actually spend on, on the right types of programs. So that’s awesome. Okay. Uh, and then number five, what is the last one?

[00:18:46] Emily Hall: The fifth industry is actually healthcare. Healthcare is massive and there are so many different segments of it, and they have money to spend, they tend to be more heavily regulated.

[00:18:58] Emily Hall: So you are, [00:19:00] depending on your program, it may have to be compliant with certain things. Um, but healthcare organizations have. They have a mission, they have things that they’re trying to accomplish. They need to take care of their patients. They need to take care of their staff. So if your program helps them to deliver better care, keep their staff happy, save them money in the long term, they’re willing to spend that money to save that money in the long term, especially on the scale that most healthcare or healthcare organizations operate at.

[00:19:24] Emily Hall: Being able to see that, um, that really high r o ROI on the, that return on their investment in your program. They’re, it’s worth it to them. It really is. And so being able to, you know, help in any one of those areas, increase that quality of care, increase their patient outcomes, help their staff be more engaged, help with their retention, help with their success, um, and then ultimately save them money through either one of those things or just money saving efforts in general.

[00:19:52] Emily Hall: That’s going to be, It’s, it’s a really, really great place to be, and once you get into healthcare, it’s easier to go into other areas of healthcare. So that’s also a [00:20:00] really nice part of it. It’s very similar to government and education that way. Um, it’s a, it’s a, they tend to be a tighter, um, industry and so it’s, it’s easier to roll that into referrals with other organizations.

[00:20:11] April Beach: Yeah, that’s fascinating. And I remember my first program, my first big program that I ever sold, um, all my whole package and course and content and everything to, um, was to, was to a healthcare corporation, um, which was actually to a hospital. And interestingly enough, their desire to buy it was marketing.

[00:20:31] April Beach: Um, they, you know, cause they were, they were patient fo facing classes and courses and content that I was selling. And this hospital wanted to compete so badly and they wanted to be the go-to hospital in their city. And that was really valuable to them to bring in all of my trainings and programs and content.

[00:20:52] April Beach: In a way that they had exclusivity to it and they paid me for that exclusivity that nobody else had it. And they really [00:21:00] wanted to increase the number of patients that were going to their hospital for a specific reason. And I remember actually being really quite surprised at that. So also, you guys, if you have programs that could be patient facing as well.

[00:21:14] April Beach: Um, for, for healthcare, uh, certainly that’s another opportunity for, for, for you guys as well. And I can speak from experience. So let’s kind of do a quick recap. So the whole entire purpose of this episode, and we’re doing some mini episodes here to really help people get great information fast. So the whole purpose of this episode is really identifying who do you sell your licensed program to, who do you sell your training program to?

[00:21:41] April Beach: And you talked about obviously making sure that. Our listeners understand the benefit in who really benefits, whether it’s internally and externally. And then you talked about definitely the path of lease resistance is going to people you already know your network, you already know who do you know, who have you worked with in the [00:22:00] past?

[00:22:00] April Beach: Who do you know that maybe in a C-suite level? Um, so certainly that is the fastest way. If, however, you’re honestly like a lot of our clients who haven’t worked in, in C-suite. And they want to sell their programs. You just went through the top five industries and the types of programs they buy all the time in what they’re looking for.

[00:22:24] April Beach: And you said, um, you covered number one, financial tech and, and just overall corporations. You talked about what they were looking for, their drivers and what type of programs. They’re constantly on the hunt and they’re constantly purchasing. And then you went in to talk about. Government and education.

[00:22:41] April Beach: And again, we have a lot of clients with programs in government education and who are building programs for government and education. And to me, that whole thing is so fascinating. I’ll share one case study really quick that a few years ago we had a client that taught, um, how to do, uh, how to create great videos on social [00:23:00] media.

[00:23:00] April Beach: And she literally taught how to do reels. And it was fantastic. And her program was actually licensed by two different universities in their marketing departments. And it was so specific and it was so niche, but those universities only taught like macro marketing. They weren’t talking about like micro marketing on a certain platform level in her program was really valuable.

[00:23:22] April Beach: And so those are, you don’t have to have something that is more traditional, but we see very niche specific programs being licensed by. Universities and organizations. Y you know, it’s just, it’s fascinating to see what they’re looking for and they’re constantly trying to innovate. You talked about number three, you covered startups, um, funding.

[00:23:42] April Beach: That was just brilliant. Number four, you covered nonprofits, and number five, you covered healthcare. What is like a final closing thought that you want our listeners to. Walk away with when it comes to who to approach, who to sell your program to. [00:24:00] Any final last words of wisdom on this?

[00:24:03] Emily Hall: I would say never underestimate who’s around you in your life. So if you’re planning on licensing your program, start talking about it. You never know who. Knows somebody who knows somebody who’s neighbors with somebody else that can get you an introduction. It happens all the time, and it’s so surprising, and it’s such an untapped resource, just being able to talk about it.

[00:24:25] Emily Hall: The more you talk about it, the more you’re on people’s minds, the more you might get, you know, you, you’re. Office neighbor, if you are in kind of a, a more general, i, I work in a, um, a, like an executive suite situation. So my, all my office neighbors run their own businesses and we talk about things all the time and they’re all constantly like, oh, how you’re working on this?

[00:24:45] Emily Hall: Or You have a client, this, I have an introduction here. I know this person. I can, I know the head of this organization, or I worked with this nonprofit a year ago. You never know who knows who. So being able to just keep talking about it and. Keep, really keep yourself top of mind. You just never know what’s going to [00:25:00] come of it. So never underestimate those initial conversations.

[00:25:03] April Beach: Oh my gosh. That is great advice. Um, and just to put a bow on that, that it’s not just theory. Uh, one of our clients, she went for a walk with her neighbor, told her neighbor what she was doing, and he was the one that created the introduction for a contract she has on the table for 1.5 million.

[00:25:22] April Beach: Right. Yeah. So I mean, literally this guy she’s lived across the street from for 20 years, she really didn’t know exactly what he did and they started talking and that was where that conversation led to. So that is awesome and hopefully super inspirational for our listeners. Um, thank you so much for tuning into this show, you guys. Emily, thank you so much for being here, and let’s go and dive into the next episode.

[00:25:50] April Beach: Okay, what a great episode. So this is our implementation time. Now you heard from Emily about what the industries are buying, and you also heard me [00:26:00] unpack for those of you guys that might not have any corporate connections, like I didn’t have any corporate connections and frankly, the.

[00:26:05] April Beach: A lot of our clients don’t have corporate connections. Maybe you have never worked in a corporation before like me, and so when you go to start selling your trainings and programs to other businesses, perhaps in other industries that you haven’t worked in, I understand there may be some intimidation with that in this entire episode.

[00:26:22] April Beach: Was giving you the confidence to let you know, listen, if I could do it, believe me, anybody can do it, and we are here to help you do it, and it’s not as big and hard and as intimidating as you think. So choose one thing to take action on from this episode. First of all, if you haven’t gone back and listened to the previous episodes, 290, 289, 288, you know, really back in the episodes of what is Licensing, how to Package your course, in your training program to sell it to other entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofits.

[00:26:52] April Beach: Then maybe that is your action item, or if you’re ready to take to the next step and build your first licensing [00:27:00] action plan. Cruise over to licensing launchpad.com. Dive into that little mini training where we’re gonna take you through the steps of understanding what you have to license, what is valuable, the street value of that.

[00:27:14] April Beach: And we’re gonna unpack for you the top 10 industries and all the programs that they are buying in addition to who exactly to reach out to in each company to start the sales process with. So we’ve done all that work already for you, and you can cruise over to licensing launchpad. Dot com and get access to that.

[00:27:33] April Beach: And of course, if you are ready to dive into licensing, you can also apply to work with us where you can actually work with Emily as well, where she comes in and works with our clients in making sure your whole entire sales process is ready to go. Cruise over to sweet life co.com and you’ll find where you can apply to work with us in Amplify, which is our licensing accelerator.

[00:27:57] April Beach: And I would love to meet you over there as well. All [00:28:00] right, so again, this is episode number 291. In next week’s episode, we are diving into actually how to, how to hold the conversations with what we call that internal champion, what exactly to say in your first outreach with a company. And we’re unpacking all of that for you on next week’s episode.

[00:28:20] April Beach: So make sure that you click some. Please share this with your friends. We really appreciate it.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

290

[00:00:45] April: Hi guys. This is episode number 290 and we’re diving into the business model of. Speaking, my very good friend, and I’m so grateful to say that she’s also an expert that comes into our ecosystem and works with our clients. Heather Sager is back on the [00:01:00] podcast again, and if you’ve ever wondered how to actually use stages to sell your programs on the backside, This is a very important episode for you to tune into.

[00:01:11] April: As you know, you can be a paid speaker. That is a different type of business model. We are not talking about that today. We are also not talking about being a speaker on podcasts, and we’re not talking about being a speaker on summits. That is not what we’re talking about here today. So I wanna make sure that you’re not showing up and being like, oh, I know this already. I give a free opt-in. That is not at all what we’re saying on this show.

[00:01:34] April: In this particular episode, we are diving into the framework of how to get booked to speak and actually close deals in the process of communications with companies to sell your program on the backside of speaking, whether you’re paid to speak or not. It’s a really powerful episode. It’s actually so powerful. And the framework that we’re talking about scratches the surface of what Heather comes in and works with [00:02:00] our clients on, especially our clients that have million dollar programs in our content, in our licensing, their programs to companies and organizations.

[00:02:09] April: This is one of the powerful ways that we use to sell and license their programs to other companies, nonprofits, and even other businesses. So if you’ve been listening to the last couple episodes on licensing, you also should be listening to this because it’s one of the methods we use to sell your licensed program.

[00:02:29] April: Again, Heather’s absolutely amazing. I can’t wait for you to get to know her if you’ve never met her before. At the end of this, you’re gonna know the two different types of speaking business models. And you’re gonna know the three steps and what you need to do to use the model that we’re talking about here to sell your programs on the backside.

[00:02:46] April: It could be your course, could be your consulting, and it could be your licensed program or certification program. It’s a powerful episode. Tune in with us and let’s go ahead and dive in. All right, [00:03:00] everybody. Welcome back with my friend Heather Sager. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know that Heather is one of my favorite people to bring in here because we unpack strategies that you can instantly take to the bank of which means taking to your business first, especially in regards to speaking.

[00:03:17] April: And so, Heather, it’s been a bit. Since you’ve been on the show, but give every everybody a quick update about what you’ve been up to in your business lately and all of the amazing action your clients are taking.

[00:03:28] Heather: Yeah. Thanks for having me on the show. April. So the, the biggest new thing in my business, I think last time I was here, I had had my podcast go in for like a year and a half, and we just had a wonderful pivot.

[00:03:40] Heather: The new name of my podcast is now Hint of Hustle, and what I really focus on with entrepreneurs teaching them with speaking is I’m a huge believer that the time you spend on stage. Should give you more freedom and flexibility offstage. So I’m on a mission to help more entrepreneurs who are personal brands, trying to make money with their information products, how [00:04:00] to leverage stages so they get their time back. And that’s what my podcast is all

[00:04:04] April: Oh, I love it. I love it. And that’s why we we’re saying, you know, we’re a match made in heaven for, for what we do. And it’s really interesting because before we dive into what we’re gonna say here in a minute, I hear from so many entrepreneurs say they want to speak.

[00:04:17] April: But it just sounds so exhausting traveling around being on this speaking quote unquote circuit, if you will, and that really isn’t what they want in their business. So I’m very glad that, that we’re talking about this today. So let’s talk about the business of speaking, the business model of speaking. As we dive into today’s show.

[00:04:37] April: What should our listeners know about that?

[00:04:40] Heather: Yeah, so exactly what you just said is a lot of people go on this path thinking, oh, speaking means I travel to conferences or organizations and I deliver keynotes, and I could get paid very well for it, which is very true. That’s actually how I started full-time in my business.

[00:04:55] Heather: I jumped from the corporate space where I was planning multimillion dollar events, bringing in the world’s [00:05:00] best speakers for my conferences, and I love what they were doing. And I knew I was really good on stages, so I thought I could do what they do. I, I, I decided I’m gonna go out and become a professional speaker, and that’s how I started.

[00:05:11] Heather: And very quickly I realized that the professional speaker route was not giving me my time back because I was committed to organizations. A year, 18 months out for these contracts. Like my time was being booked even further out and I had multiple bosses versus just my old former boss. So I thought like, hold on.

[00:05:31] Heather: I love being on stages. I’m really good at it and I have really good messages to share. So there has to be a different way. So when it comes to speaking, I think most people think when they think professional speaking, they think professional means I’m gonna get paid for my time on stage. Which is that traditional speaking model, which most people end up hiring or bringing on like an agent or a speaker’s bureau to have them book on their behalf to get on stages, which is really great [00:06:00] when you wanna get paid for your time on stage.

[00:06:02] Heather: So that is a very relevant business model. It’s very profitable because the margins are low. You don’t have to have a big team. A lot of professional speakers have a part-time assistant. And really what you need is a damn good talk and a system to book stages that that is what you need now to get started.

[00:06:20] Heather: Like there’s some other things with it, but that’s one model. My clients that I work with, we operate, offer a different business model, and that is the, the model where instead of speaking, being the product. You’re using speaking to grow your products. So this is for, if you’re a coach, you’re an entrepreneur who has digital courses, membership consulting, um, you do any of those types of things with information products and you wanna make money offstage, we have to look at a different business model and that’s where.

[00:06:47] Heather: You can still get paid to speak on stage, but that moment on stage opens far more opportunities both with the organizations and with the audience. Yeah, and,

[00:06:57] April: and that’s exactly what we talk about behind the [00:07:00] scenes. Uh, as some of you guys know, Heather is one of our experts that comes in and, and works with our clients at the Sweet Life Company because we’re selling these game-changing very valuable offers in.

[00:07:11] April: There’s no better way to get in front of a perfect audience than using stages to sell those programs, sell those offers on the backside. So I’m super, super excited to dive into that second business model, selling programs, selling your intellectual property on the backside of stages. So how does somebody get started with this process if they’re like, yes, this is totally what I was looking for, but I didn’t actually know how to go

[00:07:39] Heather: about doing that.

[00:07:41] Heather: Yeah, I, I love this topic so much because a lot of times I’m focused with people just on their talks and we don’t even get to the point of them making the business on the back end. So this, I’m gonna geek out with you today. So you know how I mentioned in a professional speaking model, you really need two things, the damn good talk.

[00:07:54] Heather: You need the system to book the stages. So when you’re leveraging those stage opportunities, and let [00:08:00] me just clarify. When I say a speaking opportunity or a stage opportunity, it could be you being paid to speak at a conference. It could be you coming into an organization teaching a workshop. It also could be you speaking virtually, maybe for an organization, but also you might be going direct to your ideal clients and speaking at virtual summits.

[00:08:18] Heather: Or hosting your own events. A stage is simply a platform to share your message, so you have a lot of opportunities available for you, but to you speaking as a way to grow your business, you actually need three things in this business model number one. It’s not just good enough to have a damn good talk.

[00:08:35] Heather: It doesn’t matter if you’re charismatic or you’re a great storyteller. You have to have an effective talk, which means not only do you wow your audience and the client who booked you, but you have to ensure that you’re driving demand and desire for your offers. So that’s why you have to have an effective talk.

[00:08:54] Heather: That is number one. That’s what I spend most of my type. Time helping clients with, because most entrepreneurs, we [00:09:00] believe were really, really great speakers, but we’re really good at getting praise. We’re not good at organically driving sales from our messages. Right? And I teach people how to be persuasive without being schmucky.

[00:09:11] Heather: I love that. Number one, effective talk. Number two, of course, you have to have a system to book talks. It’s the same on both ends, but who you’re booking, you’re being a little bit more csy. Mm-hmm. And more intentional with the types of clients you’re after. But then number three, you have to have a system on the back end for how you make money after your talk.

[00:09:31] Heather: Because it’s not just about your time on stage, it’s what’s happened next. And part of that is what happens next for the audience. But a big part about speaking when you’re an expert is you can make money through consulting, booking additional gigs. There are so many opportunities on the backend when you’re booking corporate and organizations.

[00:09:50] Heather: Yes, yes,

[00:09:50] April: yes. And licensing. And that’s what we love to talk about, right? It’s just selling your program. Selling your consulting to the organization. So let me just repeat for our [00:10:00] listeners, what I just heard you say is that, There are really two audiences that you actually get to sell to in business model of speaking.

[00:10:09] April: Number two, first of all, the audience, and second the company that you’re speaking for. And how powerful is that? So you really have two people that you can serve. So how, if somebody really wants to get started with this, what are some of the steps? To build, first of all, the effective talk. So my question for you is, how important do you believe is it that their effective talk connects with the solution they provide in the offers that they’re selling on the backside?

[00:10:43] Heather: If you wanna be effective in your selling, you want it to be very closely aligned. The, the more distant your, uh, stage topic is from your offer, the harder the hill you have to climb with your audience. And the longer the nurture window and the more connection you have to create in terms of connecting [00:11:00] the dots for them.

[00:11:00] Heather: But the closer aligned your solution is to what you’re speaking about. The closer you are to your audience with them being aware of their problem. So I like to align those things. It’s why what we do to build an effective talk for the majority of my clients, we build something called a Signature Talk, which very much coordinates with what you teach in your signature method.

[00:11:20] Heather: So what we do is we focus on how do we create the context for the signature solution so that people are excited about it. And that’s what we do inside my program called the Signature Talk Accelerator. Where we geek out over that, we obsess over it and say, how do you build the narrative in a way that gets people excited and you’re able to pitch it to organizations so that they see the benefit for them too.

[00:11:42] April:

[00:11:42] April: Right, And it’s so fascinating. I mean, when I talk to clients, I think there is so much confusion around people thinking, oh, I need that motivational talk. I need the one that feels so super good. And I really do think there’s a disconnect between what you’re saying, between an [00:12:00] effective talk. And not that it’s not motivational, not that it’s not inspiring, of course it encompasses all those things, but you’re bringing somebody through, would you call it, that framework and you’re saying in their method of what they teach in that process.

[00:12:16] April: And I really think that it’s just, ,muddied waters a bit for people that just don’t understand that if they do not have that framework. Extracted from their offer as part of their talk. They’re working against themselves. I was actually just working with a client. I need her, I need to send her over to you.

[00:12:37] April: As I’m saying this, I’m realizing, oh my gosh, I need to make sure she’s getting introduced to Heather. Um, and she has an amazing program she’s working through at a certification program. She’s booked all the time on stages and the talk that she has been given, giving for years. Now that we have this program that we’ve built for her, right?

[00:12:58] April: It’s totally the wrong talk. [00:13:00] It’s a great talk. She’s known for this talk. She’s getting booked for this talk, but now she really needs to pivot that.

[00:13:07] Heather: Yeah, and she could probably keep it. So one of the things I talk about with my clients is you’re gonna have a speaking ecosystem. So your signature talk is the one that is most directly aligned, aligned with your offer, right?

[00:13:18] Heather: So that one there, and that’s why I help clients. We start there because if you have a method or if you have a program, and if you don’t have a method, see April, right? She helps with that. This is what you do is, uh, we wanna align those. A lot of people go, oh, I’m gonna start with my signature talk and then I’m gonna figure out what to sell.

[00:13:34] Heather: It’s kind of ass backwards. I mean, you could do that, but you’re gonna be far more, again, the word is effective. Mm-hmm. If we start with what is the goal, what ultimately is the offer you wanna be known for? What is the thing that you wanna sell? And then we build your signature story and all of the messaging around that.

[00:13:51] Heather: But you also will have other talks. So for me, I’m still a professional speaker. That is part of the revenue in my business. I love speaking. I don’t think that’s ever [00:14:00] gonna go away. I have a variety of keynotes and workshops that I deliver that are not my signature. Now, the majority of them are connected back in some way to my signature talk because I wanna be known for something.

[00:14:13] Heather: But let me give you an example here. I specifically work with entrepreneurs who have. Mostly online programs, so again, experts, co coaches, consultants, educators. Now with this type of business, I’m very specific in what I teach on speaking. However, when I work with organizations, I’m hired a lot by companies to come in to train their sales team, to hire, um, to come in and train their executives on more effective communication.

[00:14:39] Heather: Now, communication, giving presentations. That’s really not the same for sales, like a sales force or an executive, right? But the principles of effective communication, they transfer. So I have talks that are modified that aren’t completely different than what I do, but the point is you can have multiple talks, but you wanna know which ones are gonna be the best money makers [00:15:00] for your business on and off stage.

[00:15:02] April: Fabulous. I love the ecosystem language around that, as you know. That’s just awesome. Okay, so they have their talk, they have their framework, they have their outline of what they’re gonna speak on, and then the next step, you said that it, you need something after that. What comes after that, after you’ve booked that talk?

[00:15:23] April: What? What happens on the backside to actually sell the programs? What does that usually look like in your experience?

[00:15:31] Heather: Well, a lot of times this starts actually well before the engagement itself. So we, we create our talk I recommend for my clients is we practice, uh, we, we book some low stakes talk that are not your ideal client that you’re after.

[00:15:43] Heather: So we can, uh, hammer out the, the weird parts of your talk. People struggle with transitions, the stories, right? We have all that done. But let’s say that you’ve booked. An epic stage talk and now you’re going, how do I make money on the backend? Well, the reality is most organizations when you come in or conferences you speak [00:16:00] at, they are not gonna be a fan or allowed to any capacity of you saying, here’s my program, here’s my offer.

[00:16:07] Heather: Selling from the stage is, is a very unique thing. And what I’m finding with today’s consumers, most people are turned off by it. And what you’ll hear oftentimes is people are like, but it’s so effective. And it is. But what we also find is consumers who purchase from those selling from the stage moments they buy despite feeling kind of yucky about it.

[00:16:27] Heather: Mm-hmm. There is a high pressure stakes piece of it. So yes is effective. I’ve done it before and multiple people have done it before, but you go with it knowing that it might not be the best experience for the audience. Now I say that, I know a lot of people disagree with me, that’s totally fine. But what I find with most of my clients is it works.

[00:16:45] Heather: And it’s not always the most positive experience. Sometimes it is. There’s like people like Brennan Burchard, he’s phenomenal at it. Mm-hmm. Um, however, I bought a 10 K BN Burchard offer once, and I remember feeling like this was not, I don’t feel great about it anyways, so, but I love the offer. [00:17:00] Um, I, I digress here, but going to the back end.

[00:17:03] Heather: Your back end selling starts before the talk. So we talked about you have two audiences. You have the ultimate for the, for the client audience or the people in there. And then you also have the client who booked you. So what I like to start out with is if you’re having a pre-call with an organization, you’re scoping.

[00:17:22] Heather: What they’re looking for, and I’ve taught your group this before April, around how to lead these calls around how you actually start gathering information for your client to understand. She’s so

[00:17:31] April: good at this, you guys. It’s ridiculous. I’m very, it’s like ninja skills. It’s insane. Sorry, go ahead.

[00:17:38] Heather: Yes. Is where, no, it’s great.

[00:17:39] Heather: Thank you. You can say more nicely. All time. Like she’s incredible at it.

[00:17:42] April: It’s crazy. My clients are so powered

[00:17:44] Heather: up. Oh yeah. Most people, they go into these inquiry calls like thinking like, I wanna, I wanna get the information so I can pitch. I wanna understand the scope and the context so I can offer a bigger transformation.

[00:17:57] Heather: Mm-hmm. That’s how I go through it. So I ask the [00:18:00] questions I need for my specific talk, but I’m also asking rooted questions around what is the overall impact in this organization? What is the bigger picture for the people in the audience? I wanna know context, because context allows me. To paint a bigger picture for them because nine times outta 10, well probably 10, 10 times outta 10 most meeting organization, uh, organizers or HR professionals, when they book you, they’re filling a spot for a conference, right?

[00:18:25] Heather: They’re not thinking, oh, your program would be amazing for our fleet of salespeople. Like they’re not really thinking there. Job, their scope is the meeting planner or the HR person to bring in people for this one training event. That’s like point blank. That’s what they are focused on. However, if you have a conversation with them and even nod the fact that this goes in alignment with your program, and in fact most of your clients you work with, you end up working with them on a more long-term basis through consulting or through your program licensed [00:19:00] out for them.

[00:19:01] Heather: You can drop these breadcrumbs in your planning conversations with them on a very soft nod. And you normalize it by saying how you typically work with clients, which opens up the door often when you’re on site with them at an event. This is how I used to book speakers. We’d bring them in because we were auditioning them and we had spots to fill, but the ones who, our audiences went bananas over that we, you better believe I took them to lunch.

[00:19:26] Heather: Ask more follow-up questions, and those often led to multiple six-figure contracts for those people consulting in an organization. So you never know what a lead, but you do not wait until that you step off stage to start selling. It starts way at the beginning, at the start of the relationship.

[00:19:41] April:

[00:19:41] April: Oh this is so powerful. And it, it’s a different thought process. It’s about being very proactive and not shooting from the hip and being in incre incredibly strategic about the steps in the time that you take in every moment that you have with a potential [00:20:00] organization, a potential buyer. A potential client, which again, Is of course the, the audience that’s listening.

[00:20:08] April: But I really love in this conversation here, we’re honing in on the company side of it. And one of the things that you have said when you, you’ve come in and work with our clients that are licensing their products and selling their programs to companies, Is being a great listener, and this is not what we’re talking about on this show, but the feedback that our clients when they leave one of your master teachings in our ecosystem is, wow, I’m not being a good enough listener.

[00:20:39] April: I haven’t been a good enough listener, or I haven’t really, like you were saying, understand what their bigger picture is. What words did you say? I think you said under. Understanding the greater mission of the organization, not just the micro mission of the spot they are trying to [00:21:00] fill as a speaker. I think that’s so powerful.

[00:21:04] Heather: It, it’s critical, and I think this is the, there’s a lot of things that go into this, but one of the mis biggest misconceptions people have with speaking is that it’s your responsibility to stand up on a stage and grab the mic, and it’s your moment to share whatever’s on your heart. Whatever message, what do you wanna know?

[00:21:20] Heather: And that works if you’re trying to become a motivational or inspirational speaker or there’s a lot of very successful. Athletes. Yeah. Or celebrities with a story. They have a story to share and that’s great, but again, we’re not speaking for just monetizing that time on stage. We’re business owners and there is a bigger mission we have, and it’s not just about making money.

[00:21:40] Heather: I think this is the critical takeaway here to connect back with listening. The people that I work with, they genuinely. Want to help solve the problems they were put on this earth to solve. Yes, they know that what they have to do, there are people who need it, and they feel the sense of duty to teach it in a way that are gonna reach these people.

[00:21:58] Heather: Now, the the [00:22:00] dichotomy that we have here is because we have to play expert role. We think that we have to know everything and therefore share everything with a prospect in front of us or people on stage. But your most powerful connection and sales tool. Is to listen. You need to understand what types of questions should you be asking so that people open up to you.

[00:22:19] Heather: One of the most important parts of sales calls, whether it’s booking for a stage or you’re selling your licensing deal, is you need to understand what questions you can ask to help the person in front of you. Better understand their own problem. And if you take anything away from this interview, remind back that 10 seconds.

[00:22:37] Heather: Because if you can learn how to do that, which is what I do all the time, that right there it become, you become the linchpin for that organization where they’re like, oh, you ha like we, you’re pointing out things that we weren’t even aware of, but yes. Organizations, they want to pay to solve the immediate pain, but what they really want is they want to solve the root problems.

[00:22:59] Heather: The [00:23:00] problem is they do not understand what those are, and that’s where you come in.

[00:23:03] April: Powerful. That is something that people don’t talk about enough and. I know that we’re, we’re super lucky to tap into your genius at our company and, uh, now our listeners can tap into you again. So, in summary, there are two types of speaking business models.

[00:23:20] April: Number one, it’s the business of being a speaker, getting paid to. Speak very well known people understand this business model. I think people are scared of this business model and frankly, uh, that business model personally to me doesn’t sound great at all. That sounds not, especially as you were explaining how far in advance you were booked to speak.

[00:23:40] April: My goodness. I, you know, for people that are really looking for, Time control and time freedom. That is not an ideal business model. And then we have this other one, which is the ecosystem of speaking and the offers that you sell on the backside. And you said the importance of having, not necessarily a [00:24:00] heartfelt motivational, the type of a talk, but an effective talk that’s connected to the offers and the solutions that you provide on the backside.

[00:24:09] April: And then the process. This is so powerful you guys. Seriously, like you should re, you should rewind this and, and please share this episode on social media with you, with your friends. Maybe don’t share it with your, don’t share it with your competition. Just share it with your friends. Is. Listening in these conversations.

[00:24:30] April: And can you say that one more time before we end? When, when you help them understand, finish

[00:24:37] Heather: that for me. Can you understand the, the context of their problem? If you help them start seeing really what the environment is around their product and not just sitting in the pain of the annoyance. You, it’s a game changer because they start trusting you.

[00:24:51] Heather: Because here’s what other people, here’s what your competition does is they go through and they ask the generic questions to unearth the, oh yeah, oh, you’re struggling with this. Yep. [00:25:00] Check the box. Oh yeah, you want this? Yep. Okay. Check. I have pain check, I have desire check. I have like ultimate timeframe.

[00:25:07] Heather: Check. I have budget. So then they pitch back. Okay, cool. You said this, I, I think this, here’s what we should do. Point and done. But when you get good at asking questions, when you ask them some more contextual things, and I’m not saying go into their life story, like we’re not gonna go into their childhood trauma and like understand this, but they’re very pointed, intentional questions that I teach my clients.

[00:25:28] Heather: It’s what we’re doing is we’re raising their level of awareness. To their own problem. And when you do that, you instantly put yourself in a different category from your competitor cuz they see you not as someone who’s just a wham bam, thank you ma’am speaker, where you’re coming in for a paid gig to get in and get out.

[00:25:46] Heather: You actually care about the results and the impact your message has for their clients, their audience, their uh, employees, whoever their group is. When you demonstrate that by taking the time to ask pointed questions, [00:26:00] you become more valuable. Boom, mic

[00:26:02] April: drop right there. Thank you so much for being back again on the show and for, uh, your giving first and all the ways that you do that, not only in our community, but I know in so many places that you do that online.

[00:26:15] April: If you guys are not following Heather, please make sure that you are following her. And Cruz over to heather sager.com. Heather, how are you working with clients right now? Outta curiosity, but if you’re listening to this in two years, guys, it might not be the same.

[00:26:31] Heather: Go. The website’s the best place to keep up to date that you get the podcast, the hint of hustle.

[00:26:35] Heather: That’s a great place to go right now if you’re like, Ooh, I like her fire. I’m like this every week on my show. Cheers. So hint of hustle where you can find me. Um, but I’m working with clients these days have really honed in and I focus primarily with the starting point for every successful speaking business, right?

[00:26:49] Heather: Making money through speaking is having a damn good signature talk. So I’ve taken all of my training that I’ve been doing for the last five years plus, um, I’ve been speaking on stages for the last 20 years. But I’ve [00:27:00] taken all of my programs and have actually simplified it into one three Day Accelerator to help experts get their story, get their effective message, get everything out of their head into what we call a shitty rough draft.

[00:27:12] Heather: So you have that version we can work from, you go deliver a beta talk. We get feedback, we work on it together. Um, but that is the best way, my favorite way that I’m working with clients right now. So you can find all about that on my website to see when the next time is coming up. And if we’re not teaching that live, there’ll be an alternative for that.

[00:27:27] Heather: Yeah. But getting your signature talk down. That is the place to start.

[00:27:30] April: You know, when you, uh, texted me that three day, day accelerator, I was like, oh my gosh, this is fire. That’s what all of us want. Right? To get solutions fast. Uh, so yes, I I I don’t have it. It makes me wanna have a three day accelerator.

[00:27:44] April: Now I’m

[00:27:45] Heather: gonna, it blew my mind. The, we just taught it a couple months ago and the, like it within a number of hours. We were getting posts from people that they were already having wins. They were already booking talks just from the micro time we had spent [00:28:00] together. It blew my mind. I’ve been working with clients for years, and the volume of transformations we’ve gotten out of this three day accelerator is just.

[00:28:07] Heather: I’m like, all right, rinse and repeat. We’re just gonna keep doing it this way. Ah,

[00:28:10] April: love it, love it, love it. Well, thank you so much for just being so rad and just being who you are and bringing all your smarts from all of your decades of experience in sales and working with companies and consulting companies, and teaching people how to kill it from the stage and build a profitable business on the backside.

[00:28:26] April: We absolutely love you and appreciate you again. Um, all of the show notes will be found over sweetlifeco.com. We will include all of the links for this episode so you guys can connect with Heather. Thank you so much, my friend.

[00:28:39] April: All right, you guys, let’s wrap up this episode here. Isn’t Heather awesome? Again, cruise over to heathersager.com. We are big fans and, and as you know, I bring Heather in to work with our clients who are licensing their programs and trying to sell their courses to companies, organizations, and other small businesses. So, What are [00:29:00] your action items here? After this, what is the first thing you’re gonna do?

[00:29:02] April: Oftentimes you can listen to a podcast episode and there’s so many great things and you’re not really sure where to start. So let’s start by asking yourself, this is this business model, so the speaking to sell your program’s model one that you’re interested in, one that you’ve been looking for the solution to.

[00:29:20] April: You’ve been looking for for a while. If that answer is yes, then hey, let’s go ahead and take it to the next step. Do we have your products created? Do we have your courses, your trainings created in a way that they give people guaranteed transformation? So if you don’t, then you can cruise over to where we are@sweetlifeco.com and we will help you build your transformational million dollar programs.

[00:29:43] April: And then the third part of that is, If you are really interested in diving into learning this business model of speaking, unpacking your ideas outta your head, I don’t know about you, but I can help other people unpack their ideas. But when it comes to my own, especially when it comes to [00:30:00] my signature talk, it’s really hard for me to see it.

[00:30:04] April: It’s like a lot of smoke in the air. It’s always harder for me to see my own things than it is. So I go to people like Heather. For help in this area. So Heather’s amazing and you can find her programs over at Heather Sager. It’s S A G E R@heathersager.com. And of course, we will give all of the resources on the show notes for that and they can be found sweetlifeco.com.

[00:30:28] April: This is episode number 290 and as we mentioned, it is a perfect pair with licensing your program to other companies and one of the many powerful tools that we have to sell your programs. So if that’s what you’re interested in, you are certainly in the right place. Thank you so much for tuning into this show.

[00:30:49] April: I hope you got as much out of this as I know that I did. I always have notes after I leave listening to Heather speak. She is just a rockstar, as I’m sure you can tell. And, [00:31:00] cruza over on social media and. Tell Heather hello as well, assuring this episode. We’d really appreciate that. All right, you guys have an awesome week. I will talk to you next week. Cruise over on YouTube and you can see our video podcast as well now. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

 

April Beach on LinkedIn

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Full Show Transcript:

289

 

[00:00:45] Hi guys, and welcome back to the Sweet Life Entrepreneur and Business Podcast. I’m Beach and I am excited about this episode. We are continuing to dive into the power of selling your trainings, your courses, your programs, your [00:01:00] frameworks, and your content to corporations, organizations, other entrepreneurs, agencies, even educational institutions. This is a nexts level business move. In the last five episodes on this podcast have been completely dedicated to unpacking the steps.

[00:01:17] To help you move forward in this area. So if you are an established coach, consultant, speaker, subject matter expert, if you are a trainer, if you have a proven process and you have been selling your proven process with the results one-on-one, even if you deliver it in a group format and you’re ready to bring your business and your profit to the next level.

[00:01:42] Licensing is the fastest way to do that. I can personally speak to that and I do unpack a lot of stories here on the Sweet Life Podcast about how I have changed my business and my life, and I’ve been coaching other entrepreneurs to do it for 10 years through licensing.

[00:01:55] So you are getting trusted, proven, true take it [00:02:00] to the bank business consulting here on the show, and this episode is like all of the others. All of the resources you can find for this episode can be found by visiting sweet life co.com. Click on the podcast and this is episode number 289. In addition to this, we have tons of actual, actual actionable resources for you to start moving in the direction of licensing.

[00:02:27] So if you aren’t even sure what licensing is and you just want to dip your toe in, we have videos that you can watch. We have resources that you can download. If you’re ready to get started, but you’re not really even sure you wanna commit to it, please cruise over to licensing launchpad.com where I will bring you up to the launchpad of licensing and help you determine if this is a good move for your business or if you are ready to totally dive into licensing or if you have had a business already approach you.

[00:02:56] Who wants to license your program? You don’t know how to price it, you [00:03:00] don’t know how to release it. You’re not exactly sure how to navigate this. Cruise over to sweet life clo.com and apply to work with us in our licensing accelerator or with me privately, and I will take you through the finish line here on this podcast.

[00:03:14] We are diving into the five most common ways. To package and release your license material, your license program. There are tons of questions regarding licenses and certifications and train the trainer programs, and we’re breaking those apart here on the show. Some of you might be thinking, Hey, you know, I kind of wanna do a certification, but what does that relate to a license?

[00:03:39] And what if I wanna other, you know, certify other people in my method? And what about a Train the trainer program? Those questions should be clarified for you today on this show to help you be able to move forward and determine which one is best for you in your particular business situation. So if that’s what you’re here for, if that sounds good.

[00:03:57] That’s what we’re downloading on the show. [00:04:00] So let’s go ahead and dive right on in. There are five common ways that our clients typically. Package up their courses, trainings, and materials, and license them to other companies. By the way, a little sidebar here, if you don’t actually know what licensing is, let me tell you.

[00:04:18] It’s like renting your programs for other companies to use internally or client facing. And definitely go back and listen to all the other podcast episodes that I have recorded for you on this. You can even cruise a to our website and there are tracks on licensing where you can binge how to get started with licensing.

[00:04:36] So let me make sure I created that, that foundational understanding for you here. So when we’re talking about taking your programs and you’re thinking, well, how do I do this? What, what, what does this actually look like? Here are the five most common ways, and granted, we can create anything, but I’m just covering the five most common ways here.

[00:04:52] The first one is what we call straight As. It is licensing. It’s just a straight license. What that means is that [00:05:00] you take, we’re gonna take an example. If you have a course that you have created and you are ready to add a lot of zeros behind what you’ve been selling that course for, we can literally allow for other organizations to distribute your course.

[00:05:15] And so what that is, is it’s literally packaging up your material and allowing other organizations to access it. They may want to deliver it in their own learning management system. A lot of our clients work with big corporations and they have their own LMS. They have their own internal learning systems where they wanna bring your content in, or you may end up hosting it yourself, but either way, how it works is you have an awesome program you have an awesome course, a company. Once they’re people getting those results, you sign a contract, you agree upon the number of users and the some parameters about that, and I talked about parameters in other episodes, and you take the money and you move on. And what’s so beautiful about a straight license [00:06:00] agreement is that then they come back to renew it and after the content is delivered, you literally get to walk away.

[00:06:06] So lemme give you a case study of that. My trainings and my programs are literally licensed by other entrepreneurs in small businesses in 13 countries. They line up once a year. I have a waiting list and I approve or disapprove. People to license my courses. I have eight to different courses and I license.

[00:06:26] I approve them or disapprove them to license my courses. I send them a bill. I take the money and I don’t see them again for another two years until it’s time to license that renew their license. That’s how it works for me. So think about that and think about that case study and how that could work for you.

[00:06:44] The second way where you can release and model and package your training for licensing is a license plus consulting. This is really beautiful, as long as it works with your life, that’s where we do exactly as I said, it’s the license release [00:07:00] of the materials. But you are the expert and a lot of companies want you to help their people facilitate the expertise that they are learning from you in the license program.

[00:07:12] So adding consulting or workshops or facilitating groups may be something that you may also wanna choose to add on top of licensing your training program. What’s so powerful about that is that. It really helps for organizations to get even better use out of your content. Now, one of the things that we always tell our clients is that you don’t have to do this in the license term for their content.

[00:07:38] For the content usually lasts longer than your agreement to consult, so just make sure that you are creating a consulting agreement. Where other people can actually come in and consult for you. It doesn’t always have to be just you. We wanna build your teams and scale you and that it is not un, it is not just ever ending, right?

[00:07:58] The consulting contract and the [00:08:00] licensing agreement are usually two separate agreements. So the second way you could release your training and course for licensing is the license of the material, but then adding on some consulting and workshops on top of it. The third way that you may choose to do this is again, starting with just the licensing of the material.

[00:08:19] But then also creating what we call Train the Trainer program, where you may then level up their own team members to facilitate and deliver your training. It’s not a certification, but you can create a Train the trainer guide to guide their. Leaders to guide people through your trainings. It can be just a delivery of the guide, or you can add in some consulting and coaching and some support for their leaders.

[00:08:45] So the third way that you can package your material is the course, is the content or the material plus some form of a train the trainer. The fourth way where you can package up your programmer course for [00:09:00] licensing is with the license, like I talked about for the material and. A certification on top of that.

[00:09:07] So a certification is where we certify that people understand how to seamlessly execute your methodology, and you validate that, and you verify that. So it’s a step above that. Train the trainer. It still starts with the licensing of the content, but then you may want to certify individuals within their organization.

[00:09:30] Or within a group or a business who you actually say, Hey, this person is absolutely excellent and understands the processes in which to keep people, get people results according to my training. And you actually certify that. You can even add continuing education onto that and build a certification bigger, which we’ll talk about here in a second.

[00:09:52] But that fourth way of releasing your program for licensing can be. The license of the training program and then [00:10:00] adding a certification program for either leaders or individuals that actually complete your training program. And the fifth way, and I don’t want you to get confused, we’re gonna flip those two words, whereas number four is the licensing is the bulk, the primary product and the certification would be secondary in number five.

[00:10:19] The certification is primary and the licensing is secondary. Now, let me explain this to you in the best way possible that I can do here on this podcast. What it means that your primary product is a certification program in your course, in your training, in your method that you’re teaching. That is the primary product you’re selling.

[00:10:41] And then those individuals who are certified in your method then may have the ability to use your training. And so we’d license your training to them with your product. So hopefully that made sense. I obviously consult people on this [00:11:00] in much more details when we’re building this in your business, but I, I’m trying to simplify this for you.

[00:11:05] Number four, option is we start with the licensing first. Usually releasing it to a corporation, an organization, university’s agencies, and we may certify individuals that are their employees. In your process. Whereas the fifth way is we first certify the in, certify the individuals, and then we allow for those certified individuals to license your content and deliver it within their services.

[00:11:34] So the fifth way and the fourth way that they seem the same, but they they are not the same. They’re two separate business models. One is primary and one is secondary. So I wanted to record this show for you because out of all the questions I answer about licensing, number one, everybody wants to know how to price it, and I’ve talked about it in the other episodes, exactly the steps that we lead up to in understanding how to price your program.

[00:11:57] This one is, How do I actually [00:12:00] package it? What? What am I giving them? What does that look like? And so let me recap the five most common ways. Now, there are many decisions within each one of these methods that we can not get into in today’s show. If you would like cruise over to sweet life co.com, jump into our programs that I will tell you about all those other intricacies and help you get clear on them.

[00:12:22] But for today, We are just recapping the five most common ways for you to get your wheels spinning on how you can release your content. Number one is the content itself straightaway license your content. Thank you. See you later. Bye. I’ll see you in whatever timeframe when you wanna renew it, and it is a beautiful thing.

[00:12:41] The second way is licensing your content, but including consulting or support or facilitation, whether it’s for you from you directly. Or one of your team members. The third way is the licensing of the program or the process, and then building Train the trainer support on [00:13:00] top of that for people that may be facilitating that within a larger organization.

[00:13:04] The fourth way is licensing your content. You’re training your course to a company and then certifying people who have completed that training within the organization. And then the fifth way is building the certification first. So first we certify people in the method, in your course, in your process, and then on the backside of that, we give those individuals the ability to license out your training because they are certified in your amazing genius method because you’re so amazing.

[00:13:39] Ah, that is the summary of today’s show. I’ve tried to keep these shows very short and simple for you. I would love to help you move into the n Nick’s phase of adding ones and twos and zeros behind your sales on your established courses. Trainings, programs, [00:14:00] processes and methods through licensing it to other organizations, companies, small businesses, large businesses, mid-size businesses, agencies, nonprofit organizations.

[00:14:13] I think I already said that the sky is the limit. Basically, what I want you to realize in the summary of all of this is there’s a lot of businesses out there that don’t have what you’ve created. Most people don’t know the value of their content and their trainings in companies. They don’t wanna create these themselves.

[00:14:31] It costs them money, and it takes them time to try to create things that you have already had, that you’ve already created and built, and you’ve already tested your systems. It saves companies money to buy what you have rather than build it themselves, and that is the shift I want you to understand with the potential of where we can take your consulting coaching business to the next level through licensing.

[00:14:58] It’s perfect for those of you guys who are [00:15:00] speakers, your advi, your advisors, or your subject matter experts as well. If you want more information on this, Cruise over to sweet life co.com. Just click on the licensing button and we have tons of resources there for you. And if you just wanna jump into licensing launchpad, you can do that right now by visiting licensinglaunchpad.Com and I will be there with three short videos at totals like 43 minutes max.

[00:15:27] And the worksheets to unpack your, your genius out of your brain and move you forward into licensing. This is episode number 289 here on the Sweet Life Entrepreneur Podcast, and we have some amazing experts coming up in the next few weeks on the show. I’m so excited to bring in these powerful people.

[00:15:45] We’re talking about selling licensing programs, creating sales pitches, sales deck, how to close million dollar licensing deals, and then we’re diving into brand new series with. Other amazing well vetted experts here coming up on the show. So please [00:16:00] make sure you click subscribe and you share the show with your friends. We really appreciate you for, for you for being here, and I will talk to you guys next week. Bye-bye for now.