Digital Marketing

Julie Chenell Sitting at a desk writing in a notebook

10 Business & Life Tips To Take Into 2023

It was impossible for me to accurately summarize 2022 with a takeaway or a recap of all the things that happened since it was a banner year for crisis and problems. However, there are things I’d love to remember and gift to anyone who is looking for inspiration for 2023. So here are the things I’m taking with me!

#1 Ride the wave of disenchantment

There comes a time in a business where you feel utterly disenchanted with your offers, your customer, and what you’ve built. Disenchantment is part of the journey.

People freak out when it hits.

It’s normal and will happen, especially if you’re building something that’s meant to last.

You can even see this on long running TV series.

There’s always that season or two that feels lame and under done. But then they push through and the remaining seasons come back strong and ends with a bang.

Business is the same.

#2 What to do when you can’t hear your inner voice

First, stop thinking about it. Start feeling it in your body. I know… weird. But notice the sensation in your body when you think about the situation or idea. Do you get butterflies? Racing heart? Do you feel calm? Do your muscles relax?

Two, know what you need. Like a video game avatar, you have to know what stamina and strength you actually possess (and want to use up).

Three, acknowledge your fear bias. We are am drawn to that which is comfortable and avoid risk. And ask yourself what would you do if you weren’t afraid and could not fail?

Four, how much dysfunctional behavior are you doing (or dysfunctional beliefs) are you holding onto in order to exist in the current setup?

Five, are you being honest?

Six, have you acknowledged that your uncertainty is a choice in and of itself and if you search your soul, your dreams, or your quiet thoughts, are you ignoring a still small voice inside of you?

Try these six exercises the next time you can’t hear your own inner voice, and see what comes up. For me? Every time it’s paid off.

#3 Be warned… Indecision is addictive

Hard truth incoming: The habit of indecision is addictive.

I know this because as a pretty decisive person normally, I’ve found my brain stuck in several high stakes indecision loops during points of crisis and struggle in my life. And once out of it, the next time it happens, the well worn path in my brain says, “Oh good. Let’s do the indecision cycle forever!” and it’s even harder to break the next time.

You can read the full post here, but here is the cycle that the brain goes through.

How do you break out of the indecision loop?

Observe the cycle
Trust your acquiring information phase
Remind yourself of the thief of indecision
Steel yourself for your survival response and don’t listen to it

The first step is to observe yourself doing it. Once you see the behavior in action, you can actually move it from a subconscious pattern to a conscious choice you can push against.

The second step is to trust your acquiring information phase. For most decisions, whatever you learn within a few weeks or a month of hard core research, conversations, journaling, therapy, counsel, interviews, etc. is enough. Tiny little bits of new info aren’t going to change your outcome.

It’s also important to recognize that when you’re taking steps into an unknown territory, a place that requires you to start building new beliefs, there’s a level of risk that’s needed. Acquiring information may include examining your belief systems and making way for something new. Pick good mentors and critical thinkers to help you here because growth is messy.

The third step is to tell yourself that indecision is a thief, and carries far worse consequences over time than even a bad decision. Because even in a bad decision, there’s so much to learn and grow from.

The last step? Is to steel yourself for the survival response when it comes, and push through. Expect it. Don’t let it tell you you’re going to die if you choose. You will not.

I speak on this topic with deep experience in making irreversible, emotionally charged, difficult decisions that go against what is ingrained in me beliefs wise as a child.

#4 You need diverse voices in your life if you want to grow

Do you know that pine trees grow better in an unmanaged diverse forest than in a field where it’s only pine trees that are planted?

The diversity of the root systems, the fungal network that connects them underground… the pines are more likely to survive, thrive, and produce more wood and seed when they are among lots of different trees in a forest.

Next time you wonder why things aren’t going well…. Why you’re struggling to produce at the level you know you’re capable of, when you feel dead and exhausted and burned out…Get out of the field.

Get away from the monoculture you’re in.Go into the forest and live among the messy beautiful diverse species of plants and trees… and grow.

#5 No matter how loud you think you are, chances are you’re not loud enough

Ever notice on Instagram that breakout artists (singers/songwriters trying to build an audience)… they write a song and they do a reel clip of that song.

And then… another reel clip…of the same song.And then… another.

And another. Same song every time.

Maybe the lyric clip is slightly different. Maybe they are sitting behind the steering wheel of their car vs. walking on the sidewalk, but it’s the same information.

Next time you tell me you’ve run out of topics to talk about, or you are tired of the same thing…

Think about the breakout artists. Who are posting the same song day after day, hoping one of their videos catches.

Course creators and online service providers, you should NEVER run out of content because repeating content is totally fine.No one is paying as close attention to you as you are to you.

#6 Fire is designed to burn up that which isn’t supposed to last

When the heat rages and you’re in the middle of the flames, everything (in your life, business, world) that was a distraction, a weight on your mind and heart, things that were not built on your conviction but on reactions and bad habits and people pleasing…beliefs that were propped up by lies or unquestioned assumptions…It will all burn up.

And what will be left… is what’s worth holding onto.

The fire is meant to help you.

It’s meant to clear the path so you can become who you’re truly meant to be. When you avoid the heat, when you shy away from the things that strike a match to your world…you never get the opportunity to watch all your false ideas and mindset trash and assumptions that are holding you back…turn to ash.

#7 There are really only 5 things you need to make passive income through digital products

If you want to make $500/$1000 a day passively selling digital products (not courses, coaching, etc.) but digital products like swipe files, documents, templates, etc…. here are the five things you need to make sure your product does if you really want to hit that mark with JUST those products (I’m not talking upsells and lifetime value).

1. You need an EASY as hell domain. Like, it’ll fall right out of my mouth level. Probably a domain that’s going to cost you more than $10. It HAS to be a .com. It might cost you hundreds to thousands of dollars to grab.

2. You need a product that people NEED. Not, “aw yea nice to have.” No. Need. Like, I NEED an email script if I’m doing cold pitching. I literally can’t pitch without a good script. vs some checklist for cold pitching (or an SOP) which is okay, fine. That’s nice. But I can technically do the project without it. Keep in mind it’s not that the checklist is bad, and it probably could and would sell, but if we want to accomplish the goal above, you’ve gotta make something people NEED.

3. It has to be a product that dramatically shortcuts time FOR your customer, but also (and here’s what people miss), also dramatically shortcuts time for possible collabs and affiliates. I’m selling a coaching program on sales, I don’t want to have to write email scripts that I KNOW work. Takes me time. I have to test it, try it, hope it works, then build it and sell it in my program. But if you do all that work for me, I just might want to buy a license for it. Or affiliate for it.

4. It has to be a product that you can write about, video about, market about, and be something that gets in peoples’ heads easily. Not tricky to explain. Not vague. Not general. Obvious. Clear. Duh. People will search for it on Google or YouTube, talk about it and ask for recommendations in groups, and your option will pop out of peoples’ mouths and out of search.

5. It has to be priced in such a way that the product itself would cost considerably more to make/build on my own then if I just fork over some cash to give to you the seller. Cheap and inexpensive digital products are GREAT tripwires to lead to bigger products, but if you want to make $500/$1000 a day on just a few digital products, you need to make something that would cost hundreds to thousands to build on its own, but you’re selling for $100-$300.

You nail all five and you’ve got something.

#8 How to know when to pivot and when to give up

If you’re the kind of person who struggles with letting go, you’ll probably hold on longer than you should.

If you’re the kind of person who abandons projects quickly and gets distracted, you’ll probably not give your stuff the attention it needs.

Look at your character pattern throughout your life.

Are you a stubborn I’m holding onto this come hell or high water? Learn to let go.

Are you easily distracted, “Here comes a new project that doesn’t force me to face my feelings about what isn’t going well?” You might need to learn how to fight for something when it isn’t always fun.

Other criteria to use…

1. Have you looked at the data? Are you making a decision based on benchmarks or mismanaged expectations? Use data.

2. Will the longterm payoff of what you’re building/selling be worth the short term grind? Everything worthwhile is uphill all the way. Sometimes it’s not going to feel good. Hold on when the longterm potential is worth it.

3. Have you tried optimizing your offer/business multiple times and not seen the results you want?

Assuming the opportunity and container are big enough for the $$ you want, have you let go of what “you” think it should look like, and been willing to experiment with other ideas that are outside the box? Don’t be afraid to experiment or take risks before you give up completely.

#9 Fear and imposter syndrome are triggered by attachment

Here’s how:

You start a project and get really excited about it. You pour time and energy into it, and as it gets closer, you get more and more nervous.

All these crazy feelings come up, you start to overthink and get in your head. What if you’re not good enough? What if no one buys?

The reason? You are attached to the outcome. You are attached to the vision you see in your head. And the fear that it won’t come to pass or be taken away from you, triggers your brain to start to find reasons why it might not work so you can combat them.

Your attachment to the project triggers this and it’s why so many people feel these feelings as they get closer to launch. It works the same in life.

Ever find the house of your dreams and get so scared the closer it gets to closing because you’re afraid something will fall through?The attachment creates the fear. You can see it and taste it, but it’s not yours yet.
Ever find the partner of your dreams, and find yourself falling in love and then the crippling fear or “not good enoughness” comes in because your brain – in anticipation of losing it – tries to combat it with overthinking.

This is how Imposter syndrome rears its ugly head the closer and more deeply attached you are to an outcome or dream you have in your head.

The solution is NOT to never get attached.

The solution is not to scrap your project and start over.

You will always come back around to the same mountain the closer you get to the moment of truth.

You are not weird.

It’s entirely normal.

#10 There will always be more resistance to what is unknown than what is known

If you’re waiting to feel 100% ready to step into something that doesn’t have any assurances, any promised destination, any certain outcome…

You’re going to wait a long time.

Because what is unknown will always be harder to grasp than what is comfortable and familiar.

The trick is to force yourself to take steps into the unknown based on an underlying decision vs. the emotional whim of the moment.

Don’t wait for the feeling of certainty.

It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do (at least I think so).

Stepping into something that isn’t defined yet, and leaving behind the comfortable familiar habits that kept you stuck in beliefs of the present that might have worked for awhile, but don’t anymore.

Please let me know which one spoke to you most, and I look forward to learning and growing with you in 2023!

Digital Marketing Featured The Best Stuff Sep 15, 2022

How To Know When You’re Teaching Too Much In A Webinar Or Challenge…And What To Do About It

Challenges and webinars are two of the most effective ways to build buzz and anticipation in a launch.

But before you put in all the hard work to build one, let’s look at the number one problem marketers face when creating this type of content.

They teach too much.

The issue of course is fueled by an over reaction to a trend to NOT TEACH AT ALL, which was commonplace a few years ago (and you can find lots of pockets of people still bloating their content with a lot of nonsense and fluff).

So in an attempt to not be that way, we’ve seen a rise of INCREDIBLY chalked- full-with-juicy-goodness webinars and challenges that give away all kinds of knowledge and strategy and tactics, and leave the participant feeling like they don’t need the program at all.

Where’s the middle ground? You want your lead to be impressed, happy they came and attended, and most importantly, you want them to buy your offer.

Finding the right balance isn’t easy, and if you’re hearing things like:

Omg this was amazing and I can’t wait to implement it all
This was as good as a paid course…
I don’t even need your [program name] because of how much I learned!

These are signs you’re teaching too much in your free content, and not positioning your lead to buy.

Let’s take a look at a typical 5 day challenge setup.

For the purposes of this example, we’re going to pretend we are a book coach. We teach people how to write books, launch them, sell them, etc.

Our product is a $2000 program that takes a student through the book writing process in 60 days, and includes help with the outline and the writing process.

Before you build a challenge that leads into this offer, the creator must ask themselves an important question:

“What problem must my student feel deeply in order to be motivated to buy my offer?”

In this example, my student might buy my program if:

They have a ton of ideas and no idea where to start or which one to go with
They have a half written draft they hate and are ready to throw away
They’ve gotten an outline done but are masters at procrastination and haven’t written anything yet

In each of these scenarios, I can see the 2 main problems clearly…the problem of lack of clarity and lack of direction.

The more foggy and directionless they feel, the more pain they are in during the writing process, the more effort and resources they will spend to get themselves out of that spot.

But it doesn’t stop there, because in order to alleviate the pain, they could simply…quit.

So what other problem must they be acutely aware of in order to take action?

The consequences of NOT writing a book at all.

Sometimes it’s difficult to feel a consequence like this because it requires the person to understand opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost is about the loss of potential gain from OTHER alternatives when one alternative is being chosen. In this case, the choice to quit writing removes them from feeling the gain of what sticking it out and publishing would produce.

Let’s ideate for a minute. What are the benefits to writing a book?

You get asked on more podcasts and stages leading to a bigger audience
You get instant credibility leading to more opportunities
You get new leads from people who’ve found and read your book leading to more sales
You get new sales & revenue from selling the book which gives you more revenue
You make more connections with experts you might have interviewed for the book and that can lead to potential collaborations
You get increased confidence in yourself as an expert in your field, which leads to taking bigger risks

After this exercise, we’ve got three primary problems our student MUST feel urgently and deeply in order to take action.

Lack of clarity (what to write)
Lack of direction (how to write it and get it done)
The consequence of giving up (many pain points there)

You could keep going with this and identify more and more problems if you wish. It’s never a bad exercise to really get intimately acquainted with the pain of your customer.

Now it’s time to build a challenge for the aspiring writer. If we pause here for a moment and pretend we didn’t do this problem exercise, a creator might put together a challenge like the following:

Day 1: How to pick your best book idea
Day 2: Creating your outline
Day 3: Getting in the habit of writing
Day 4: What to do when you get stuck
Day 5: Pitch (Inside our Writing Your Book in 60 Days Program)

The creator would probably struggle a bit trying to figure out what to teach for free and what to keep “secret” for the course.

The creator might settle on a big picture overview and outline and leave out a bunch of details.

Or the creator might teach snippets from the course and try to “over-deliver” in order to get the potential student excited to see more.

Does this sound familiar? It’s so incredibly common. Don’t feel bad if this has happened to you.

Another way creators build challenges is to focus on the stuff the student needs to do BEFORE writing. So a challenge might look like this:

Day 1: What are you an expert in?
Day 2: The book idea incubator
Day 3: Testing your book idea
Day 4: Building the outline
Day 5: Pitch (Inside our Writing Your Book in 60 Days Program)

In this example, it’s a bit easier (and more effective) because even if you “give away the farm” you will have solved one problem…in this case the idea of what to write, but you will not have solved AT ALL the idea of how to write it.

But is this really the best we’ve got for our challenge?

Let’s go back to the problems we unearthed in our exercise above. Most creators undervalue their diagnostic skills.

If you have a pain in your stomach and you go straight to a surgeon, that surgeon will open you up and look around, try to figure out the problem, and then fix it? No! Of course not.

Instead, you will be diagnosed with a specific problem – in this example – appendicitis. That piece of information is CRITICAL to both you and the surgeon.

The same goes for our student.

When we are able to accurately diagnose their problem, and help them SEE the problem accurately, then we don’t have to hardly sell at all, because they will be convinced themselves.

Diagnostic teaching uses a lot of stories, tangible before/after examples, assessments and reflections.

Let’s build a challenge that’s more diagnostic than prescriptive. We can do this by building a challenge AROUND the problems. Assign a problem to each day.

Day 1: I want the student to FEEL and understand the consequence of not writing a book.
Day 2: I want the student to FEEL and understand they are lacking clarity
Day 3: I want the student to FEEL and understand they are lacking direction

Starting with Day 1, we could do a story based teaching about the benefits of writing a book. We could talk about the scarcity of time, about resistance to doing hard things, about imposter syndrome and fear.

As a tangible activity, you could have them write their fears and overcome them, write out their goals and vision, create an accountability plan, etc.

On Day 2, we want them to walk away realizing that clarity makes EVERYTHING easier. Use an example of an author who was unclear vs. one who was clear. Showcase the two outlines side by side. Examples and stories create more aha! moments than bullet points. They should be able to quickly see how one outline makes SO MUCH more sense than the other.

As a tangible activity, give a clarity assessment worksheet to help them rank how clear or unclear they are on their topic. The goal is for them to recognize where they are lacking that clarity and have an aha! that this is why they haven’t taken action yet.

On Day 3, it’s time to help them feel the pain of lack of direction. Set up the challenge about the tale of three authors. Maybe one hasn’t started at all, one is halfway through and blocked, and one is finished and hates it and it’s collecting dust in Google drive. In this way, they can start to identify who they are in this story.

You could show what happens to books that don’t have direction vs. ones that do. Compare and contrast units sold on directionless books vs. bestsellers.

As a tangible activity, do a “how I will know my book has direction” reflection. Ask them what their expectations are around the book writing process.

Now you still have two days left. You could go back to the problem exercise and find another one, or you could start to identify the path forward (which leads right into the sale).

You could make Days 4 + 5 both more sales pitch days as you use the course program as the roadmap or guide to solving these pressing issues.

The final challenge outline might look like this:

Day 1: Your Book Publishing Dream
Day 2: Getting Crystal Clear On Your Perfect Book Idea
Day 3: Three Roadblocks Every Author Faces
Day 4: Setting Your Writing Process Up For Success
(this will start to introduce the program)
Day 5: Get Your Book Done In 60 Days
(Inside our Writing Your Book in 60 Days Program- full pitch)

We’ve now done this process with a challenge, but it works exactly the same for a webinar. The steps are simple to say, but take a bit more work to do.

Identify the problems your potential customer faces
Identify what they need to FEEL in order to take action
Teach from a diagnostic perspective vs. prescriptive (save that for your paid program)

You can use this framework for other types of content too. Emails, social media content, presentations, podcasts, and more.

Try it out next time and resist the fear that diagnosing a problem isn’t enough “teaching”.

Ask the guy who got the appendicitis diagnosis before surgery. He’d agree.

xx Julie

P.S. I do these challenge/webinar hotseats with all my 1:1 clients. If you’re making $100k or more a year and would like to work with me personally, you can apply at digitalinsidersmastermind.com

Digital Marketing Featured Oct 21, 2021

Three Ways To Measure Your Offer’s Success

It’s bound to happen if you’re putting yourself out there: An offer is going to flop. This post is about how to identify if it is in fact a flop (scientifically :P), because many people get disillusioned about their offers because it doesn’t LOOK like what they expect.

Let’s start with the foundational piece of offer flop measuring: You must have a benchmark to measure against.

If you haven’t set a benchmark for your offer, there’s no way to measure objectively if it underperformed or not! So how do you set a benchmark for an offer?

If you’re looking for standard conversion rates on funnels, I invite you to check out Funnel Rx!

There are three ways you can set a benchmark.

#1 Based on needed revenue from that offer for the month

If you’re only selling one main offer, you might want to back into the benchmark by thinking about how much money you need to make each month to pay the bills and take a salary.

First figure out how much it costs you to live each month
That will give you your baseline salary. If you want to save, add a bit more.
Then factor in about 30% taxes and anywhere from 30-60% expenses, to back even further into what your topline revenue needs to be to cover salary, other expenses, and taxes.
Now you have your topline revenue number. Let’s say it’s $20,000. If you sell a $5k coaching package, you need four new clients a month.
In this case, your benchmark for your program is four units.

Obviously this gets more complicated if you have multiple offers, so you might use a combination of #2 and #1 to figure out how many of each offer you need to sell each month. Some offers are scalable and some are not.

#2 Based on support infrastructure for the offer

Perhaps you’re a service provider and you have a team of web designs or VA’s running an agency. The way you set your benchmark might be based on infrastructure. How much can the team take on in any given month?

Approximately how many hours is a project?
How many team members do you have?
How many hours can they work per week?
You might determine you can handle three web design projects a month with your current infrastructure.
In this case, your benchmark for your service is three units.

This is a great way to also help price your offer since if you combine numbers #1 and #2 you will quickly see what price you have to charge with the current setup you have.

#3 Based on funnel // launch stats previously

Let’s say you’re a course creator and you did one big launch and sold 100 units. Does that become the benchmark for each month? No, probably not since launches have a lot more pressure built up. But you can use your data to guess estimate what a monthly unit flow might look like.

Review what your conversion rate was on the sales page (divide number of views on the page by the number of units sold). Let’s say it’s 4%.
Calculate about how much traffic you think you can bring to that page in 30 days. This will be an estimate. Let’s say it’s 300 views a month. You might want to search your other web traffic to see what kind of momentum you have on a given day.
Multiple that by 4% and you’ll get your benchmark.
In this case, your benchmark for your course would be 12 units a month.

Once you have a benchmark, you can measure month over month how your offer is performing. If you only launch a few times a year, measure each time and then add it to a spreadsheet.

So what constitutes underperformance?

If you notice you only hit between 10-50% of your goal, month after month, the offer is underperforming.
If you notice you hit between 50-70% of your goal, I would watch your benchmarks for a few more months. It might be the benchmark isn’t quite right, or you’re marketing needs tweaking, but you’re clearly making progress.
If you’re between 70-100% of your goal (or beyond), congratulations! You are on the right track!

This way you can set proper expectations for what is achievable month over month in your business, and you can set up your marketing plan to hit or exceed those benchmarks as you put more resources towards different campaigns and channels.

If you haven’t read my post, how to set a marketing plan without Facebook ads, that’s a great place to start!

Coaching Create Your Laptop Life Podcast Digital Marketing Aug 9, 2021

Ep. 97 How To Get Good At Writing Hooks

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Full Transcript:

Today I want to talk about one of the hardest parts of marketing. And that is writing a good hook. So as much teaching as I do around copywriting, marketing, talking about hooks and angles and headlines is really tricky. And I’m trying to figure out how to communicate what makes a good hook and what doesn’t.

So here are some of my best ideas, my best advice. I just went through over 300 submissions in one of our coaching programs, it’s called Launch Gorgeous Lite, and we are helping people write a paid workshop, like a low ticket paid workshop. And I went through 300 ideas and the hook was the single worst part of all of it. That’s something that people just don’t know naturally how to do. And I think a lot of people are like, “What do you mean when you say the hook? Are you talking about the headline?” Yes, it could be the headline, and often times you’ll see the hook manifest itself in the headline. But it’s really the sense of what happens when someone lands on the page and they make a decision in 3 seconds or less, “Am I going to continue reading about what’s on this page? Am I going to continue to be interested or am I going to bounce off?” So it’s a combination of the headline, of the design, of the graphics that communicates stay or eh, go.

So when you’re coming up with ideas the hook is most often found in the copy. But again I’m going to say this, I can look at a hook and it can look amazing in copy, but then somebody can put it in a funnel or on a page, and I’m like, “Ooh, you lost it.” It got lost because the design isn’t right, or the picture is distracting, or the colors don’t quite work. So the hook is really the feeling that you communicate to the lead on that page, as to whether or not they’re going to pay attention.

Okay, so the first piece of advice is do not confuse a great hook with being clever. So I saw a lot of people on this thread that I was looking at, and I would say things like, “Hey this is too broad, or this is too vague. This isn’t going to capture attention. I don’t know how this is any different than the 8000 other workshops out there.” So they rewrote it, and instead of writing a hook, they just made it clever, like theme-y. I’m trying to think of an example.

Let’s say you love, whatever, you love Disney. I do love Disney. So I rewrite my headlines all with sort of a Disney theme. Or I try to cleverly disguise a word, or use different words than I would normally do. Clever is not a hook. Clever actually oftentimes over complicates a message. Cleverness usually makes you feel cool, like, ‘Oh cool, look how clever I was when I wrote this.” But the person, it’s very hard to be clever and have the person be like, ‘Oh that was good.” Most of the time it comes off as cheesy. A great hook doesn’t necessarily mean clever. A good hook is understandable in 3 seconds or less. And most things that are clever take longer than 3 seconds to figure out. So when I say that it’s too big or too broad, don’t be clever, clever is not going to work here.

Okay, the second thing is that a good hook is a pattern interrupt. So when they land on the page, there’s something that happens in their brain, that either says, “Ooh, this is different. I haven’t seen this before.” Or “Huh, maybe I should keep reading.” Okay, so something that denotes difference. A lot of people when they’re doing pattern interrupts, they simply do the opposite of what someone expects. So if I am a weight loss coach, and I’m teaching people how to lose weight, my hook, my pattern interrupt is going to be a headline that says, “Never give up cheeseburgers.” It’s a pattern interrupt because it’s not what you expect I’m going to say. And that’s usually enough to get me to keep reading. But it doesn’t always have to be contrarian, it can be.

Another thing that creates pattern interrupt is curiosity. Where they don’t know where you’re going with it. It doesn’t mean they don’t understand what you’re doing, they totally should understand in 3 seconds what you’re saying, but they don’t necessarily understands where it leads, which is why they want to keep reading. Okay, so that’s really, really important.

If I said to you something like, I don’t know, “Write a book in 2 hours.” You instantly know what I’m saying, but you don’t really know the answer, and you don’t really know the end. You’re like, “How is she going to do that?” So it’s that curiosity, and it’s something different, it’s unexpected and you’re going to keep reading.

Now if I said, you know, if I tried to disguise “write a book in 2 hours” to be clever, you know, “Write your bespoke memoir in the same time it takes to watch a Netflix documentary.” Someone would do that right, they would be like, “Oh look, see isn’t that great copy.” No, it’s not. It went from “Write a book in 2 hours” I understand it in 2 seconds or less, to “Write a bespoke memoir in the time it takes to watch a Netflix documentary.” I’m like, that’s like 4 or 5 seconds of me trying to understand. So that is sort of the example of what I’m trying to say here.

Another thing is it should sound interesting, or possibly fun, or sexy. Meaning you want it. You want whatever it is the promise is. Whether it’s weight loss, whether it’s a better marriage, whether it’s a six figure business, whatever it happens to be, you want what it says. Some people they try to write good hooks and they’re like, you know, plan your I don’t know, lets see. “Plan what you’re going to do with your business when you retire.” Nobody wants to do that, it’s not like, “I want to do that.” So you have to be careful when you’re selling things that are not super exciting to do. You have to kind of find the hook that’s like, “Ooh, I do want that.” Without getting so clever that it takes longer than 3 or 4 seconds.

Short headlines are easier to comprehend than long headlines. So don’t make your headline more than 2 lines. In fact, one line is best. If you absolutely have to say what you need to say, you can do a pre headline, you can do a tag line, and then you can design it so those are much smaller, so that someone in still reading the first part very clearly, and then they’re sort of backing off and reading the other pieces.

So kind of as a recap, it needs to be different, it needs to be clear, needs to avoid being too clever, it needs to be understood in 3 seconds or less, it has to have either curiosity or sexy like you want to do what it says, it could be something that’s interesting and fun, it could sound new, different, something you haven’t tried before, it could be going against the grain. So that is how you write a good hook, and a good hook does include copy, but it also means that when you put that copy on the page, that the images and color and design is communicating, it’s all working together to create that same please keep reading, please keep paying attention, please keep listening.

So hopefully that helps, appreciate you all, talk to you soon.

Create Your Laptop Life Podcast Digital Marketing Oct 19, 2020

Ep. 84 Tips for Giving Voxer Access To Your Clients

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Full Transcript:

Sorry for the long hiatus. I don’t know how many of you follow me on social media, but I just got back from a two week trip driving across the country.

So it has been quite the adventure. But today, I’ll save that for another episode, but today I want to talk about, it actually came up on social media. Someone was talking about giving Voxer access as a coaching consultant and what to look out for, and what are the upsides and downsides. So today I want to talk about high touch coaching, especially using apps like Voxer, so let’s dive in.

So many of you know that I run a mastermind, it began in 2017, it’s not 2020 so we’re heading into year 4, and it has about 100 members. And every single member in that group gets Voxer access to me. I originally learned this from Russell Brunson. He had an inner circle and offered Voxer access. And for those of you who don’t know what Voxer is, it’s really just a voice to voice app, people hit a button, they talk for everywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, and you listen and then respond. You can also do text or video as well.

So what are the upsides and the downsides to offering Voxer to clients and/or students? So the upside is pretty obvious, everyone in the mastermind I get to know incredibly well, they have 12 months of access to me. And I would say on average most members will vox me at least once a week, and then you will have a small number of people who really don’t use Voxer very much. And then a small number of people who that use Voxer almost every single day. So the upside is you get to know your client or student extremely well. There is nothing quite like voice to voice, and you can essentially have a 12 month conversation.

So for some of these people, I have been voxing with them now, coming up on 3 years. So my ability to coach and understand where they’re at in their business, give them feedback, understand their personality, is very good at this point. So that’s a relationship that takes time to develop, so that is the most obvious upside.

The second upside for Voxer access is that in a traditional coaching relationship, most of the time it’s 60 minute Zoom calls once a week. And I know for me when I was doing one on one coaching in that regard, it never failed that like 20 minutes after we got off the Zoom call, shit would go sideways in their business. And then they’d have to wait an entire week before they could talk to me again. So it doesn’t really work. Imagine if you were married or a business partner, you could only talk to them in one 60 minute block per week, it’s just a lot of stuff that happens. So the second upside is that you’re in real time with your client or customer.

Now let’s talk about the downsides, and these are all can be mitigated, but you really need to understand the downsides before you just offer Voxer access. Number one is that there is scope creep, right. And what I mean by that is just that people have different ideas about how they can use Voxer access. Maybe it’s 15 minute long Voxers, 3 of them a day. And now you’re listening to 45 minutes of messages, which is actually quite hard to do. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to listen to 45 minutes of a monologue, but it’s hard. So you have that issue.

The second issue is that because it’s voice to voice, sometimes people can ramble, because they don’t really know what their question is, because they don’t have to type it out, it can kind of meander along for a while, and then you get through a 5 minute message, and you realize that it was one question that they could have written and you could have answered in about 10 seconds. So that’s the second thing.

The third thing is that you could be on Voxer all hours of the day and night because the little orange dot appears that shows you that you have a new message, and then you answer it, you clear all your messages, and that really just triggers a response, because it’s a conversation. So it can feel like an unending checklist that never finishes.

So the threat for burnout with Voxer access is very real if you go into it not really understanding how Voxer works, how humans work, and your own bandwidth. So a lot of people will not do Voxer access to themselves because they can’t figure out how to manage it.

So now, saying all of that I’m going to tell you with 100 people having Voxer access to me, I have learned how to use and leverage Voxer without it swallowing me, because if I were going to get burned out, I’m now in year 3, it probably would have happened by now.

So a couple of things, number one, it is your responsibility as the coach, the provider, the consultant, to learn how to manage your own addictive behaviors. So I have no Voxer notifications turned on my phone. It never ever beeps, or dings, or rings. So that is the first thing. So I had to create a system for myself, and my system has adapted over the years. And if you have just a small number of people who have Voxer access to you, your system can be very simple. You decide what time of day you’re going to check it. So morning, afternoon, evening, when you go into Voxer you want to start from the bottom up, because those are the oldest ones, and don’t click on a message until you’re ready to read, listen, and respond. You just leave that orange dot there.

This has worked for me for the first year and a half, two years without any issue. The second thing you want to do, is if you have people who are giving you access to links, documents, things that you have to look at, my recommendation is that you forward those to a VA or an EA or you can just forward them to your own self. And look at things all at once, because it’s very easy to go down a rabbit hole. So when I’m answering all the Voxers that are just off the cuff answering from my brain and expertise, and then I go back and once a week I look at things. So whether they’re document links, you know profit and loss statements, funnels, ads, etc, I will open up all of those. So I forward them to my executive assistant who knows, “This is a link, this is something Julie has to actually look at, so put it on her calendar, put it on her board to look at on Mondays.”

So that helps because some people will give you things to look at. The third thing you can do is encourage people to give you texts. So if something needs to be spoken, that’s fine, but explain to them that text messages are going to get a faster response because you can read quickly, usually there’s less information, and it’s easier to respond. So some people just use it as a texting app knowing that they’re more likely to get a quick response because I can comprehend what’s happening faster.

Now when it comes to Voxer access, you also want to make it very clear at the beginning what they should vox you about or for. So in my mastermind I have several coaches that field questions that are better suited to send to them than to me. And the most important thing I can say is as you’re learning how to do this with your customers or clients, or let’s say you’ve given out Voxer access and now you want to bring on another coach, the best thing I can say is that are you’re kind of explaining to people what kind of questions, you can just forward your Voxers to the person it’s supposed to be to, and then just tell them, “Hey I forwarded this to so and so, you really should ask them this question because they’re going to be able to answer it better.

So you can kind of train people to say like, “This is the person you want to go to for this and that.” So the forward feature on Voxer makes it very easy. A lot of people want to know, how much time does it take to answer Voxers, and that really depends on how your customers or clients are using Voxer.

So I have the entire range from quick questions all the way to 5, 6 minute Voxers that are kind of brainstorm-esque. So it can me anywhere from an hour, up to 4 hours a day to answer Voxers with 100 people. So you can go ahead and do the math. With 50 people it’s about 2 hours, anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours. With 25 people it would probably be just a few minutes to an hour. I have a pretty high touch relationship with my clients, so I encourage them to vox me, I encourage them to share what’s going on in their world. So if you are wanting to be more boundaried about it, you can make it very clear what kind of questions.

And you don’t have to give unlimited Voxer access, you can give, you know, you can basically what you want to do is explain what you’re going to do. It never works as well if you say, “You can send me 10 Voxers a week.” Or “you can vox me once a week.” It’s more “You check your Voxers when…” So my rule of thumb is that I check my Voxers every single business day. I do not check on weekends unless I you know, want to. But I’m not required to. I don’t check my Voxers on holidays. And then during the year, if I take a vacation, I’ll let people know, “Hey, I’m going on a Disney Vacation. I’ll be off the grid for 5 or 6 days.”

So otherwise I’m answering Monday through Friday. As the group has gotten bigger, as I’ve gotten better, I have modified my system a bit, just because the number of people that I support. And what I have started doing, especially because some of my Voxers are not quick answers, they’re big decisions, they’re hard decisions, there’s no wrong answers, so some of those take time for me to think about.

So what I’ve started doing is, listening and quickly taking shorthand notes on all the Voxers, I use just Trello, I take all the notes and in my brain, I’m just in listening mode taking notes. And then I kind of have an idea of what’s behind the message. I mean, you never quite know when you see a 5 minute message if it’s an update or if it’s a big problem, so this kind of gives me a sense of like, “Okay, what’s going on.” And then later on, I go back and I read the notes, and then I respond. This has worked really well for me for longer messages, because it’s really hard for me to retain, you know, 2, 3, 4 questions in a 5 minute message that happened in the first 30 seconds. I’m always answering the last one and then I’m forgetting.

The other thing is that when you’re listening to messages the orange dot disappears and now you can’t quite remember who you responded to. So with this system I’m actually listening, taking shorthand notes, so that I have those notes to refer back to, which is really helpful, and then answering later. And then, that way my primary mode of learning, which is reading, allows me to read and absorb much more quickly, and it allows me to process, and be able to answer better and more clearly, and more comprehensively.

So once you get up there in numbers, that may be beneficial. You can also have a transcriber, or a note taker do that for you. Where you run through your Voxers, answer the short visually reading Voxers, and you know, any that are longer, 2 minutes or higher, you have short hand notes taken on them, and then you go through them. That might help. It’s also nice because it kind of keeps a trail, so that you have remembrance of what you’re talking about. Because sometimes it can get a little bit like, “Wait, what were we talking about?”

So I am a big proponent of Voxer access if you’re looking to really expand your coaching ability and get to know your customers and clients. I am a big not advocate of Voxer if you’re doing as part of a value stack to make it seem more valuable. Because you will burnout and you will not like it. I know people who have offered Voxer access and had, you know, 10 people have access to them and then feel like, “Oh my gosh, I regret this.” And you know, one of the key features here is I do all my own sales calls for my mastermind, so I don’t have a sales person selling people into my program, who then I have to work with for 12 months. Because I just would rather know who I’m going to be connecting with for 12 months.

So just keep in mind all of those things when offering Voxer access, and you know if you have a customer base that’s a beginner, or you know that there’s going to be a lot of questions, one of the things that really helps mitigate that is content. So I have a ton of content that I can direct my clients to so I don’t have to keep repeating myself over and over again. And I actually have in my Apple notes, I have several responses of like, “Hey, I think this is the best piece of content for you to look at. Do this first, do that second.” Because a lot of people have the same question, so if they’re asking me, “How do I do the thousand dollar Facebook ad strategy?” I can go into my Apple notes, find the response that I have that was about the thousand dollar Facebook ad strategy, copy it, and paste it in Voxer. You could also easily do that on your desktop, there’s all kinds of shorthand, for the Mac I think it’s Alfred. You can create shorthand responses, you can answer Voxers right on desktops, you get a lot of the same questions, you can just direct them to the content that they need.

So I hope that’s helpful, I hope that gives you sort of an overview of how to use Voxer, why it’s good, things to look out for when you’re serving coaches, I mean when you’re serving clients as a coach. Appreciate you all, talk to you soon.