131. [BLACK FRIDAY SALE] – 5 Phases Of Growth Every Course Creator Goes Through

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131. [BLACK FRIDAY SALE] 5 Phases Of Growth Every Course Creator Goes Through

23 Nov 2021 | By Salome Schillack

Wishing there was an online course crystal ball that could show you your future?

I haven't found one yet, but I'll share the next best thing in this week's episode of The Shine Show. 

Remember that very first magical moment you discovered the 'HOLY COW; I can make money online' thing? 

You likely became a little obsessed. Googling & YouTubing all the things, discovering the big names in the industry, looking on in AWE thinking…….that could be me!

But then it starts to feel like going down the rabbit hole!

One moment TikTok is the knight in shining armor that will build you an adoring audience. The next second, YouTube is *definitely* your golden ticket to freedom. Then Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse, Facebook, Carrier Pigeon, you name it, everyone in the industry is adamantly declaring they have the secret to online course success.

So how do you separate the Cheshire Cats from the White Rabbits? Who knows the real way forward? 

As Cheshire Cat once told Alice, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." 

The thing is, you're not going just anywhere! 

You started your online course to reclaim your precious time and freedom, have more control over your finances, and make a difference in the world by doing something you love. 

Profitable launches are the road to get you there!

So how do you go from a fresh-eyed newbie to an admired industry sensation? 

There are 5 phases every course creator must go through before reaching those delicious 6-figure plus launches, and each step comes with new fears, new challenges, and new solutions that will get you to those sweet, sweet 6-figure launches without wasting time and money on 'roads to anywhere'.

Today on The Shine Show, I share the curious and curious-er phases of becoming a wildly successful online course creator and exactly what you can expect along the way. If you're hitting walls and feeling like it's all a bit of an uphill slog, this episode will give you clarity, confidence, and a concise roadmap to the journey of online success - it does exist, I promise. If I can achieve it, so can you!

I hope that this episode helps you never again waste time, effort, and credit card swipes on courses or 'solutions' that won't help you progress through your current phase. 

XXX

Salome

 

P.S If you haven't heard yet, Christmas has come early to the Shine and Succeed community! Prices for The Launch Lounge will be going up in 2022. However, I'm opening the doors one last time. If you're ready to invest at least $1,000 into ads, to get serious about scaling, and finally launch profitably - I've got you! 

Step into 2022, ready to take your course to new profits—no need to navigate your way down the rabbit hole by yourself. Join the best, most supportive community on the internet. Don't miss your final chance to secure your place in The Launch Lounge before prices go up.  SIGN UP HERE! 

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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126. What To Fix First In Your Funnel

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125. The ONLY Way Online Course Creators Can Make Money with Facebook Ads

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124. How To Get To The Next Level in Your Business

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123. Creating Evergreen Funnels Your Students Will Love with Jack Born of Deadline Funnel

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122. How To Overcome Fear of Live Video with Rosie Faulkner

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121. Amy Porterfield Shares What The Future Holds For Online Course Creators

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120. Build Your List Faster with Lead Ads

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119. How Your Online Course Will Change The World

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118. You’re Worthy of Earning More Money with Belinda Rosenblum

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117. Facebook Ads and IOS Update: What’s Working Now

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116. Business Lessons from RuPaul’s Drag Race

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115. 5 Lies You Were Told About Launching a Digital Course and What to Believe Instead

This is episode number 131 of The Shine Show. Today's show is called The Five Phases of Growth Every Course Creator Goes Through, and I'm going to share with you a little bit of the different feelings and things you're going to spend your money on, and things that's going to happen in your business as you grow as an online course creator, but before we jump into the episode, here is a little message from me to you. Christmas has come early in The Shine community, because I want you to step into 2022, ready to take your online courses to new profits. Yes, I'm talking about your online course launches becoming so profitable, that it gives you that fat wallet freedom you crave. If you've already made $1,000 from your online courses, you've got 1,000 people in your audience and you're ready to invest $1,000 into ads, then you will feel right at home inside The Launch Lounge.

The Launch Lounge has been called the best community on the internet, not by me, by the students, and we do really have the best coaches and fricking amazing students and community members. You get all the support to get your Facebook ads up, to get your launch strategy right. We do business building, copywriting, money mindset. You name it, you need the thing to build the online course profitably and to scale it predictably, you will find it inside The Launch Lounge, and for only a few days, we are opening the doors. This Black Friday, which we've turned into early Christmas, you can join The Launch Lounge at the price it is at now because in 2022, the price goes up. You can join by going to shineandsucceed.com/launch.

I would love to see you inside The Launch Lounge. Go, now. Go now, go. Shineandsucceed.com/launch. Merry Christmas. Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009.

Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show. Hello, and welcome to this episode. We're going to talk about the five phases of growth every course creator goes through, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about my journey along the way. I hope you laugh in this episode because it is pretty funny. It's funny for me in hindsight, but I know when you're in it, it's not so funny, so if you are in any of these phases and I'm laughing, it's because I'm laughing at me.

I'm not laughing at you. I have a tremendous capacity for compassion. You can ask any of my students inside The Launch Lounge. They will tell you that, but I also, incredibly insanely stubborn, and so I will keep badgering you to move through any phase that you feel you're stuck in until you get out on the other end because I know if I can do it, so can you. Okay. Phase number one, phase number one is that phase where you discover there is such a thing as making money online.

When I discovered this, I was pregnant with my first child, and I was a pharmaceutical rep in Perth in Western Australia, spending about six to eight hours a day driving around in my car, and there was a radio ad that came on, and the radio ad talked about some women's conference of some kind in Adelaide, which is like the tiniest, little town like ... I don't know. Who lives in Adelaide? Anyway, so I heard about this conference there, and it was for women wanting to create online course businesses, and it's so funny that after that, I went on 700 other different tangents and different roots just to come back to the online courses thing, and the person who was ... One of the people who were the speakers at that original conference back in 2000 and, I think it was 2012, 2011 ...

My daughter was born in 2011, so that must have been 2011, was Denise Duffield-Thomas. If you don't know who she is, she has been an inspiration to me over the years because I feel like she's one of the OGs here in Australia, one of the few people who made it big in the online course industry in Australia. She's been an absolute trailblazer, and she is a huge inspiration. I was driving in my car and I heard about this, and I realized, "Hold on," when it does this record scratch, and you go, "Hang on, what? There are women out there selling whatever they know to other people, and they're actually making money, and this is a thing?"

I was just fascinated, and so I started researching it a little bit. Well, not a little bit. A lot, because one of the things that's almost characteristic of this first phase is this obsession. Like we just obsessively click on everything and go down these rabbit holes of today, the rabbit hole might be email marketing. Tomorrow, the rabbit hole will be webinars.

Then, the rabbit hole is Instagram marketing, and then the rabbit hole becomes TikTok, and then the rabbit hole becomes YouTube, and then the rabbit hole becomes video series, and if you're in this phase, you know what I'm talking about, but also, it's like your ears are perked for people who talk about making money online, and you just see all these people with their Six Comma Clubs and making million dollars, even making $100,000, and it just seems completely outrageous to you. At this phase, your energy level is super high. You are excited. You've just discovered bread. Like you are just really excited, and when you start your business, like the social media should watch out because you are coming in hot, and you're posting three times a day.

You're emailing your list three times a day. You are just wherever you feel most comfortable because for some of us, it might be going live, and for others of us, it might be blogging, and for others of us, it might be podcasting, but you are just going in hot wherever you are putting your voice or your face. In this phase, you are learning heaps. You're learning heaps, and because you're a giver, you're also teaching other people in Facebook groups, so wherever you hang out in a Facebook group, where you're learning, you're probably also sharing what you have learnt, and so people might start looking to you for knowledge, and that can be frustrating because when you look at your bank account, you realize you're still broke. In fact, you are more than broke.

You're building up debt in this phase. You typically start bending your credit card a little bit more than you should. Being there, I racked up $40,000 in debt over three years, and I tell you, I spent most of it on online courses. I probably still spend maybe even more than $40,000 a year on online courses, but now I can afford it. I probably spend more than that if you count all the coaching that I pay for.

Okay. In that phase, you are consistently looking ... This is critical. In that phase, you're consistently looking for the one thing. You think there's just one thing that's going to be the secret. You think there's something wrong with you.

You think you're broken. You don't understand why others have figured this out, and you haven't yet, and this is especially hard for you if you are an overachiever. This was really, really, really difficult for me because I'm insanely competitive and I don't even try to do things that I'm not going to be good at, and I was really bad at this for the first three years. Really, really bad, so if you're there, I see you, I know you, I've been you. You'll be okay.

Here's what you need. You need to know that there's only two things you need in your business. You need an audience and you need an offer. You need an audience and you need an offer. The one thing that is your biggest focus is building your audience, because until you have an audience, you can't make them an offer, and unless you speak to your audience, you won't learn how to articulate your offer, and unless you have an audience and you make them an offer and they don't take you up on it, you won't know why, unless you ask them, and when you do ask them, you're going to learn some stuff, and then you're going to change your offer. While you work on changing your offer, you're going to build your audience a bit more, and then you're going to make the new offer, and you're going to get a result, and that result is going to tell you if you're on the right track or not yet on the right track, but you only need two things.

You need an offer and an audience, so build your audience, but here's the thing, you're going to choose one major piece of content. By that, I mean either a podcast or a blog, or a video blog. Big piece of content per week that can be batched, and you're going to choose one social media platform. Not five, not three, one. At the moment, depending on who your ideal customer is, but at the moment, for the majority of my students, that platform is Instagram, because really, if you think about it, Instagram is kind of five platforms in one, and there's just still no other way for us to really run ads that are as good as Facebook and Instagram ads, so we're kind of stuck with Zuckerberg for a bit.

We'll see what happens in the future, but for now, Mr. Zuckerberg is our friend, so I would recommend choose Instagram at this stage. I know it might be tempting to think you want to go on TikTok. I get it. I get it, and certainly, there are people who become superstars on there, and then it's very easy to then translate that from TikTok onto Instagram. Sure, I agree with that, but are you that unicorn, really?

Really, really? Okay. If you are that unicorn, you're allowed to go on TikTok, and then bring it over to Instagram so that you can run ads, because we're still figuring out TikTok ads. Okay. The other thing I want you to do at this phase one is save your money.

Stop buying all these tiny offers. Please don't buy tiny offers. Please don't buy $97 products. They don't teach you enough. They teach you a tactic, and what you need is a strategy.

You don't need a Band-Aid. You need a whole health routine, okay, so don't buy a Band-Aid when you need exercise and healthy food. Save your money and rather, invest in a larger course that teaches you a strategy. By that, I mean something like Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy is an example of that. James Wedmore's Business By Design is an example of that.

Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula is an example of that. Stu McLaren's TRIBE is an example of that. They are courses that are more expensive that's going to get you an entire strategy that will help you build your business. Okay, we're moving on to phase number two. Phase number two is, holy cow, it's working exhaustion.

I call it holy cow, it's working exhaustion, again, because I've been there. When my business ... Back in 2017, I went back to my day job to pay off my $40,000 debt to take responsibility for the fact that I needed to contribute financially to my family, and also because I'd been at it for three years, and frankly, it wasn't working, but I had learnt a ton of skills, a load of skills, and so in 2017, I went back to my day job and decided to finally niche down, finally pick a thing that I'm going to be known for, pick a thing that I can do and that I can market myself as, and that's when it started working. Isn't it magic? It's like the riches is in the niches.

Yeah, just pick a thing and be that, so you got to know who you serve and how you serve them. Then, it starts working. At this stage, so this is ... I got in an airplane and flew to San Diego and went to Amy Porterfield's event that she was hosting for her B-School students, and when I got there ... I'd actually, during that year in Amy's community, already started picking up some clients to do Facebook ads for them, and when I went to her event at the event, I picked up four new clients, came home, quit my job, and the rest, as they say is history, but then, I entered phase two.

Beginning of 2018, I quit my job and I couldn't believe I get to be at home while my kids are at school all day and actually make money working for clients. I remember it was the most free I had felt in the longest time. I would, some afternoons take naps before I go and pick the kids up, and I would just feel so incredibly free when I know I don't have to work for a boss. I can literally go and take a nap, and nobody cares. It was amazing, but in this time, there were some fears that creeped in, and at that time, my biggest fear was that it would all go away. I wonder if you can associate with that if that has ever come up for you, if you're at the point where your business is starting to work, and you're so relieved that you've moved out of phase one where phase one is just marked by this absolute anxiety of, "What is this one secret thing that I need in order to make it work?," and then you move in.

You find out that it's not one thing, it's actually a whole bunch of things, and then you start making some money, and then the fear that it's going to go away kicks in, so you start going the extra mile for your clients and for your students. You start giving more than you can sustain to give. You are probably also a little bit broke because you're probably not charging enough. Hmm, I see you. I've been you.

At this phase, you can't really afford to outsource anything yet because you are using all the money coming into your business to pay for your life. You are real solopreneur. You are the person with the ups and the downs, and when the down starts hitting, you start hustling again, and then as soon as you sign up a new client or you get some students or you have a launch, you're okay again for a few months, and then the hustle starts all over again. You might even, at this stage, be a little bit obsessed with time management and productivity tools, and that's okay. I was there too, and I bought all the books and all the planners, and even all the Asanas, and I bought a very, very, very fancy productivity tool, kind of like monday and Asana.

It's called Wrike, and I had to get an extra credit card because it costs 5,000 Aussie Dollars, and I didn't have it, but I thought Wrike was going to be the solution to all of my organizational problems, and so I got an American Express credit card, I put the $5,000 on there, and oh, my word, did Wrike do our heads in. It is the worst program on the planet. It does not do any of the things that the sales guy, who was a very good sales guy, promised me it would do. It was horrible. Horrible.

I couldn't wait to get rid of it, so $5,000 mistake, but what I want to say is in this phase, it's normal to kind of feel like there's some external tools out there that's going to help you be more organized and be more productive. I'm sorry to tell you, but wherever you go, there you are. It is an internal job. It really, really is an internal job. Staying organized, planning things requires discipline.

There's no quick fix. There's no tool that's going to do it for you. You got to just put the work in. It's a discipline. It's really is just a boring, monotonous do what you said you're going to do when you committed to doing it and plan your week and plan your month and plan your quarter and plan your year.

It's really as dry as that. Okay. Now, at this phase, you are probably also very emotionally invested in your student's results, or in your list growth, and so you're focusing a little bit too much on things like unsubscribes or on things like refunds during launches, so I want you to know that you're free of that. You can stop thinking about unsubscribes, and you can stop thinking about refunds. You are going to get refunds requests, because people are weird.

People have requested refunds for the weirdest reasons, and that's okay. That's okay, because not everyone gets it, and sometimes people make choices that you will never understand why, and that is okay, because the only person you can control is you and the only person whose peace you are in control of is your own, so just manage it in a way that gives you peace. What you need to do at this phase is you really need to start paying attention to your numbers. Mmm, really start thinking about your numbers. Start tagging people inside your CRM.

Now, you don't have to tag for every little click they clicked, but definitely tag for everything they opt in for. If they opt in for a lead magnet, you need to tag. If they opt in for a webinar, you need to tag. If they buy from you, you need to tag, so start paying attention to your numbers. Pay attention to your podcast downloads, your blog page visitors, your traffic numbers.

Know where your traffic is coming from and know whether people are converting or not, so pay attention to leads, pay attention to conversions. Those are the numbers you want to know. Double down on audience building, because once you get into this phase and things starts to work, the faster you can grow your audience, the faster this thing creates that snowball effect. Keep your eyes on the students that have success. Keep your eyes on your fans that love what you do because you're going to ignore the 10 students who give you positive feedback and the one student that misunderstood something or didn't use their manners when they complained about something.

That person's going to get stuck with you, and I don't want that for you because that's not healthy and it's not nice, and it's just not a nice place to be, so pay attention to the students who love you, who adore you, who's doing the work, who's showing up for the calls, who's learning, who's asking for feedback, who is helping other students. If you have students who help other students, then you are attracting the right people. That's fantastic. Okay, so that's the second phase. Now, the third phase, the third phase, I call the cleaning up and contractors phase.

At this phase, you have a funnel, and it works. When I say a funnel, I mean you have a fairly predictable way to generate leads and convert those leads, and your funnel could be as big as you sell a $3,000 course, and you launch it with a webinar twice a year, or it could be as small as a $27 thing with an upsell and a bump, which goes to another order bump, which goes to another order bump, and it's profitable and it's making you money, and that's okay. All right. At this phase, you start creating some systems around what you do, and you start building some SOPs, standard operating procedures. You start getting things out of your head, and you start hiring a VA, or a copywriter, or a tech person, or someone to help you.

Every time you hire someone, they kind of help you get a few more things out of your head and onto paper, and you start creating some kind of a predictable workflow in your business. It is likely that at this stage, you start cleaning up your website. It's funny how that goes in cycles because I remember so well, I hired my amazing friends, Zafira Rajan, who is just the best copywriter on the planet, and Zafira, hurry up and raise that baby so you can come back to work, please. She's so inconsiderate having children, and then not working. How dare she.

Anyway, so Zafira and I spent hours and hours and hours just talking about my ideal customer when I was in this phase, and I just loved, loved that journey of creating a new website that resonates with who I have at this stage, really come to get to know as my ideal customer, and it's so funny when I look at it now. I know we wrote that website, oh goodness, two years ago. It's definitely before COVID. Actually, we turned that website on in 2019. Yes, middle of 2019.

The website, the way it has been coming since 2019, and my business has radically changed since then. I mean, we don't even mention The Launch Lounge on there. I have a friend in a mastermind who told me the other day, "There's nothing about my students on my website," and I was like, "Yeah, dude, because I've been busy. I've been busy," so when I was in this phase three, I cleaned up the website for the customers I had then, and now, I'm in a different phase. I'm thinking, "Oh, the website needs to be cleaned up again," and that's okay because we go through different iterations, right, but this is in phase three, you're probably moving from solopreneur to entrepreneur, and this is where the machine is now bigger than just you.

The machine is turning into something where other people can actually bring their own flavor to. This is really nice because now, you start learning what your values are and you start learning who you like to work with and who you don't like to work with, and it's bigger than just they did their job. It's bigger than just, "Yeah, I like how they work because they're reliable." It's becomes bigger than that. Our number one value in my business is be engaged, and that means that we have each other's backs, we do what we say when we say we're going to do it, and we pay attention, and when everybody pays attention and is focused and does what they have to do when they said they have to do it, then that never drops the team, but I didn't know this when I hired the first few people who worked for me.

When I hired the first few people, I was just so desperate to get some hands to do some stuff, that I kind of hired people, expecting them to do one thing, and then turned out, they do something completely different, but I was kind of like, "Okay. Well, that's all right. I like you doing that. I didn't know I need to do that, but let's do that," and then they do it really well, and then I kind of start relying on it, but then, I still have the original need that wasn't fulfilled, and so then, I hire someone else. It's a weird, funny place to be when you start hiring people, but at this phase, what you need to focus on is focus on automating your lead generation.

This really is when you are no longer fiddling with lead magnets. You know which lead magnets leads into your course and you just put your ads on and leave them, and don't look at them, and don't turn them on and off and on and off and on and off. You just turn them on and you leave them, and you let them run in peace, and you don't fiddle with it, and you don't have 100 lead magnets, you just have maybe two or three. You're also going to focus on profit, and you're going to start saving your profit at this phase. You have to start saving profit.

You have to start saving money in your business as soon as you start hiring people, because you hire people and you pay them salaries, and then one day, your best customer pulls out and you end up not being able to pay yourself because you have to pay salaries, or you hire a team and you have a really nice team of three or four people, and it's all a bit hand-to-the-mouth still, and then COVID happens, and you're a little bit screwed, unless you have some savings in place. If I did not have savings in place when COVID hit, I would've had to let my team go very quickly, and I am so grateful that I had some savings put away, that I was able to be upfront with them and say, "Look, I can pay you guys three months. If all our clients disappear today, I can still pay you guys for three months. If you want to go find another job, I won't blame you, but if you will hang around with me for three months, let's see if we're still at three months a month from now, and if we still have three months worth of money a month from now, then let's see if we have three months worth of money two months from now." Every month, we just keep working to keep that three months there, to know that we have three months.

It's just incredible how amazing things worked out, but a year later, instead of four people, I know, I have 11 people on my team, and I can safely say I can pay salaries for more than three months because I've put away the savings. Okay, that's phase three. It's the cleaning up and contractors phase. Phase four is what I call the profitable scaler. The profitable scaler is definitely making more than six figures, right?

The profitable scaler is you've got it figured out. You look back at younger you, who was in phase one, and you want to hug that person, and you want to go back and tell that person, "It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. You're going to be fine. You're going to be just fine," so when you reach the level of being the profitable scaler, you have two to three predictable funnels in place, or two to three revenue streams, so maybe you have an online course, and then you have a backend membership, and maybe you have a mastermind of some kind.

Your list growth is fully automated. You don't think about list building. List building is not even a thing that takes up space in your brain. All you think about is nurturing that list, making sure you are optimizing your numbers as much as possible, so in other words, you're looking at your email open rates going, "Can we get these open rates higher? Can we get these click rates higher?"

"Can we get these conversion rates higher?" You're hiring employees. You're no longer looking for contractors to come and just help you out a little bit. You're no longer looking for people who work by the hour. You're actually hiring people and paying them a fixed amount every month.

Whether they're employees or contractors, they work for you and they're part of your team, and they buy into your vision, and they buy into the dream, and they show up and live your values, and you can hold them accountable. At this phase, you know your numbers and you know you're looking for ways to make your lead generation, your conversion and your ascension model, or your retention rate higher, so you are optimizing things. You're no longer wondering what your numbers, or you know your numbers, and you're just looking for ways to make it better. At this phase, you need to build your business culture and start to remove yourself from the day-to-day runnings and remove yourself from actually blocking the team from doing their based work, because if you hire the right people, they're going to do a way better job than you can at whatever it is that you think only you can do. Uh-uh (negative), you can't.

You hire the right people. You pay them well, and you let them do their thing. At this stage, you're also going to let your community start to speak for themselves and create their own identity, and this really, like this is just, I'm just coming into that place where this is unfolding for me inside The Launch Lounge, and even in A-Lister a little bit as well, but in The Launch Lounge, I can really say that the community is taking on this life of their own. Like they're kind of becoming this thing that's completely outside of me, and I know this sounds weird when I say it's outside of me, because obviously it's outside of me, but it's not. It's not centered around me anymore.

Yes, I'm the face of it. Yes, I'm the leader of it. Yes, I bring everything together. Yes, I determine the code and the culture and the values and what happens there, but I'm just the creator. I'm not the maintainer.

I'm the creator. The sustainability, the sustainers of the culture are the people, and they bring their own flavor, and they bring it way better than I can ever bring it, and it really is a privilege to start seeing your community really take on a life of its own. It's beautiful. Beautiful. All right, phase five.

Phase five. Phase five is when you start stepping out. I'm not quite there yet. I think I'm in phase four now, but I can definitely see phase five when I look at my mentors, when I look at someone like Amy Porterfield. I mean, you guys hear about her a lot. When I look at Stu McLaren, when I look at someone like James Schramko, when I look at ...

Let me think who else. Yeah, that's about the good examples I can quickly come up. Jeff Walker, he stepped out a long time ago, but he's still doing his launches, but yeah, there's a stepping out that happens, and that is okay and that is good. It's good. It has to happen.

At this stage, you have systems in place and the right people who are managing the systems, and so they don't need you anymore because the systems are created, the culture is established, they're managing the systems, and they maintain the culture. Your content process is megabatched and produced. There's no more hustling to get a podcast episode or a blog post or anything out, and you can almost create it in your sleep because you've been doing it for so long, and it's kind of just reiterations of the same stuff. Your audience grows naturally through other people, including affiliates, and also student endorsements, so you're probably not even running list building ads anymore because your promotions build your list big enough, and because you have a variety of revenue streams and they're probably all going on and off at different phases, some of them might be on evergreen, your audience building is just taken care of. Then, you really see the ripple effects of the difference that you make in this world, which is a fantastic place to be.

In this phase, you're finding new ways to invest your money in other revenue streams that are based in different markets so that you can minimize risk. I know this phase is typically probably not something you would hear a lot of people talk about on their podcasts because it is a phase where ... It's not sexy to say you're going to step out of your business one day. For some of us, it might even be something that you think you can't even go there. You won't even give yourself permission to go there, but I want to talk about it because I see Amy Porterfield, I see Brooke Castillo do it.

I see how people who have made, let's say in our industry, who have made $10 million, I see them starting to step out. What I see them do, and I think COVID has also accelerated this, what I see them do is invest in other forms of revenue that are not more online courses, so buying properties, buying investments, buying other businesses, buying local businesses, buying e-commerce businesses, starting to diversify their revenue streams because if you think about you when you're 50, 60, 70, 90, 120 years old, you are going to want to not have all your eggs in one basket, and I think if COVID has taught us anything, it is this, not to have our eggs in one basket. If you can be an entrepreneur and you can make it to this phase five, where your money just starts to work for you and you can invest your money in other people's businesses and in other areas where it minimizes risk, then you set yourself up for success. Okay. Well, that is all I have for you today.

I hope you guys have a lovely, lovely week, and hang around because I got something to tell you about The Launch Lounge. Christmas has come early in The Shine community because I want you to step into 2022, ready to take your online courses to new profits. Yes, I'm talking about your online course launches becoming so profitable, that it gives you that fat wallet freedom you crave. If you've already made $1,000 from your online courses, you've got 1,000 people in your audience and you're ready to invest $1,000 into ads, then you will feel right at home inside The Launch Lounge. The Launch Lounge has been called the best community on the internet, not by me, by the students, and we do really have the best coaches and fricking amazing students and community members.

You get all the support to get your Facebook ads up, to get your launch strategy right. We do business building, copywriting, money mindset. You name it, you need the thing to build the online course profitably and to scale it predictably, you will find it inside The Launch Lounge, and for only a few days, we are opening the doors. This Black Friday, which we've turned into early Christmas, you can join The Launch Lounge at the price it is at now because in 2022, the price goes up. You can join by going to shineandsucceed.com/launch. I would love to see you inside The Launch Lounge.

Go, now. Go now, go. shineandsucceed.com/launch. Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

130. Part 3: Creating High Converting Webinars

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130. Part 3: Creating High Converting Webinars

16 Nov 2021 | By Salome Schillack

Ready to become a grand master of high converting webinars? It’s the FINAL part of the high converting webinar series! So far, you've got the winning webinar framework, you know how to curate content that converts, and today it's time to land the plane. 

Let's talk sales......

By the end of today's episode, you'll know the exact formula to sell ANYTHING on a webinar.

  • Without feeling like a greasy salesperson.
  • Or some sort of con-artist. (even though you know  your course is full of seriously good stuff)
  • Or feeling your face go a little warmer when saying your prices.

Most people are super comfortable with the webinar content thing, but then it hits the sales bit, and suddenly the vibe changes. It can feel icky, creepy, and downright uncomfortable…...for everyone. 

But it doesn't have to be this way!

Believe it or not, there are people out there who are invigorated by the sales part of their webinar (Exhibit A - me!). It's effortless. It's exciting. It's….dare i say……....FUN!

And it can be the same for you too!

I've been in my fair share of webinars, and I've seen it all. From webinars that go very very wrong, and webinars that blow the roof off and create MIND BLOWING momentum!

And today, I'm sharing the exact framework for nailing sales and getting the audience saying…. HELLS YEAH, I WANT THAT! 

In today's episode of The Shine Show, you'll learn the proven formula for ick-free sales that will convert sales like crazy!

You'll feel cool, calm, and confident knowing how to smoothly breeze into the salesy part of your webinar where you PROUDLY announce your prices without feeling hot in the face.

Today on the show, we’ll run through:

  • The simple sales framework for converting like crazy
  • The exact word for word script to use that will get you the results you're dreaming of (access to the transcript is at the bottom of this page).
  • How to handle & minimize the number of inevitable refunds that come your way
  • How to make your audience see the value of what they are getting in the course is worth ten times more than what they are paying 
  • The language you MUST include to attract an uplifting, positive, inspiring community (and the words you need to stop using, like yesterday, that might be unintentionally drawing in the exact opposite.)

And so so much more.

XXX

Salome

P.S I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode! What has been helpful? What will you be taking away? What else would you like to learn about high converting webinars? Jump over to my Instagram and send me a DM.

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 130 of The Shine Show!

Today, we pick up where we left off last week talking about creating high converting webinar presentations. And you are going to want to strap in for this one, grab a pen and a piece of paper because there's a lot of content about to be dropped on you. It's kind of ironic that I'm teaching you how to create webinars without dumping content on people by telling you about webinars where I'm dumping content on you. Grab a pen and a piece of paper, sit down, you're going to want to write this one down.

All right, I will see you inside the episode.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

Hello, my friends, my webinar fundis, my course creator mavens. Hello, hello. I hope wherever you are, you are well. I trust that you have already listened to Episode 128, part one of this three-part series where we unpacked the framework of a high converting webinar presentation. And then in episode number 129, we looked at the content part, the chunky meaty bit in the middle, where we tend to over-deliver on content. And I showed you the difference between giving people content and taking them on a journey to discovering a roadmap from the state they are in right now that they feel they would rather like to move out of, and to the state that they want to be in, the dream that they want to accomplish, the problem that they want to solve, the thing that they're coming to you to.

Now, a lot of people often say that they're very comfortable with doing the content piece of the webinar, and then when they move into the sales part of the webinar, it suddenly becomes really weird, really weird, and they start falling over their words, it's like you can almost feel the creepy vibe suddenly come in. And you know what? The sales part of your webinar should really be as effortless as inviting a friend to a party at your house. It should feel light, it should feel invigorating, it should feel like you're hosting the best party of the season.

You have hand-picked the friends you're inviting to this party and you can't wait to blow their minds with the beautiful invitation that you're sending them to, and you really hope they accept, and you're going to pour all your love and your energy into the invitation to your party so that when they get the invitation, when they're unwrap it, when they open it, they buy into your vision for what this party is going to be and they are excited, and their immediate response is, "Hell's yeah, I want to come to this. Yes, I will dress up in my fanciest frock. Yes, I want to show up for that delicious food. Yes, I want to be there with all these other fabulous people. Yes, I want to come see the live music." think about it. Think of it as inviting them to the best party of their lives, because it really is.

The only time selling something is creepy is when you are unsure of the value of the thing that you're selling, or you're unsure of who it is for exactly, or you're trying to push something on people who don't really want it. But that is not what happens here. What happens here is we create mind-blowing value for our students, and then we get really super clear on who our ideal customer is, and we only invite the right people to this party, and they have no choice other than to say, yes, to come to the party. So, today, I'm going to talk about the sale and I'm going to help you see how you can really package this invitation to them in a way that they want to do it.

Now, I've already said you need to grab a pen and a piece of paper. If you haven't listened to the first two episodes, please go back and listen to the first two first. Then the other thing is, if you're driving, or you're on the treadmill, or you're out walking, and you don't have a pen and a piece of paper, don't worry about it, just come back to it later, because I'm going to be almost scripting some parts of this. And lucky for you, my amazing team transcribes every podcast that I do, and so every word that comes out of my mouth will be in the transcription on the show notes page. So, if I say something in a specific way, and you're like, "Oh, how did she phrase that again?" Because sales language, it's not a natural way to speak, but it is an effective way to speak in such a way that it makes people look forward to coming on the journey with you.

So, some of it, I'm going to just script some of it, kind of speak the language, and if you want to grab some of my language, you might just come and grab the transcription and save some of it, and then of course, massage it into your own language.

All right, so I want to recap episode 128. We talked about the seven parts of every webinar, we talked about, firstly, you need to make sure they know they're in the right place. Secondly, that you are the right person to talk to them about this, so you're going to establish your authority. Third, you have to show them that you understand their problem. Fourth, you have to create a clear roadmap for how to get from where they are now to where they want to be. Fifth, you understand where they want to be. They need to know that you understand where they want to be. Number six, that your online course will teach them everything they need to know to get the result they need or they want. And seventh, you're going to show them that what you offer is worth 10 times what they're going to pay for it.

In episode 128, we looked at number one, two, and three, and 129, we did number four and five, and in this one, we're doing six and seven.

I want to go on a quick rant here, not a rant, maybe a tangent, a side road, I want to interrupt myself a little bit here. Now, I don't believe that there is such a thing as a rant because I think the rent is sometimes the thing that makes the point land, but I'm going to make my little rant anyway.

When we, in marketing language, talk about the pain people are in, I want to make it very clear that there are two ways that you can address the pain people are in. You can address the pain they're in in a disempowered way, like telling them they are stuck. You've heard people say, "I work with entrepreneurs who feel they are stuck." It irks me. You're never stuck, you just don't know which way to go yet, haven't yet found the way to go. And then there are very empowered ways to demonstrate to people that pain place that they're in, and it might not even always be pain. If you're selling art or if you're selling self actualization, they're not in pain, they just have a desire and they're willing to buy for that desire.

I recently added a thing with my team where we looked at the best video ads of... we were just looking for great examples of video ads, and I came across the old QuickBooks ad by the Harmon Brothers. So, if you haven't seen this, do yourself a favor, go to YouTube, search for the Harmon Brothers. It's H-A-R-M-A-N or O-N, I can't remember... Harmon Brothers QuickBooks ad, just search for that. They also did an ad for Russell Brunson and for the 30-Day Funnel challenge, that is worth watching, and they were the guys who did the original advertising for Poo-Pourri, the spray that makes the stink go away. So, do yourself a favor, go to YouTube and search for the Harmon Brothers' ads. If you're an advertising geek like me, then you geek out on those sorts of things all day.

Now, the QuickBooks ad is the example that we unpacked a little bit, and it starts with this beautiful woman lying in a bubble bath, and she looks like she's relaxing, and she starts and she says, "You thought I'm having a relaxing bath." And then she gets up and she says, "No, I'm fully clothed. I fell in trying to help my son..." and then her son pops up out of the bubbles, "get his water gun out of the bath," or something like that. And it continues then to show this mum who is doing a great job but also doing a real job. Like she saves her child from jumping out the window, her kids run amok, she has washing everywhere, but she's smiling, she's loving life, she's loving it, but she's saying, "It's not glamorous, let's stop pretending it's glamorous."

And it's so beautiful how they showed the pain state. I'm going to continue to call it the pain state until I can find a better word, because that mom's not really in pain, but she does not have time to create photo books of her kids because she lives a real life. She just wants to have the memories saved in a quick, easy way, which is what QuickBooks does.

So, just pay attention a little bit, when you're looking at other people's marketing, at empowered and disempowered pain states that people talk about in this before state, because there are empowered ways to do it. And if you are somebody who wants to lift people up and you want to attract people to you who are resourceful people, who are positive people, who are uplifting people, keep your pain state stuff positive, keep your pain state stuff empowered, and be careful to assume that because I say pain state, that it means you have to talk about people being stuck, or overwhelmed. I have a pet peeve with the word overwhelm in any copywriting. If the word overwhelm appears in your copy, you need to work harder. Overwhelm is a very blah overused vanilla word. So, have a little bit of fun with the pain state and be specific. All right, rant over.

Okay. Now let's talk about selling on a webinar. If you've ever felt creepy or icky when you were selling on a webinar, you will love today's content, because I'm going to give you a process to follow and the exact language to use when you sell your course or your membership. You should walk away from this episode feeling really confident and clear and knowing how to manage that transition into sales and you will become a master at selling on a webinar if you follow my structure that I'm going to give you today.

So, let me start by giving you the big picture. I'm going to give you a framework with six elements that has to be in this sales pitch part of your webinar. Number one in this framework is the transition, the transition from teaching your content or your roadmap, from telling them about your roadmap, into your sales pitch. The second part is the why and the who, the why and the who. The why you want this and who this is for. The third one is the value stack. It's my little secret that I learned from Russell Brunson. The fourth one is the price. The fifth one is the guarantee, and the sixth one is the close and the Q&A. So, number one, transition number two, the why and the who, number three, the value stack, number four, the price, number five, the guarantee, number six, the close and Q&A.

Let's talk about number one, the transition. The transition is all about transitioning from your roadmap where you were using stories of other people that had implemented one of the three or five or 10 secrets that you discovered into asking for consent to selling to them. I am a firm believer in when you ask for permission from the get go, nobody is annoyed that you're selling to them. Don't hide the fact that you're going to sell to them, you can even tell it from the start. So, coming out of your roadmap, you've shared your three secrets and you've demonstrated how you discovered your three, or five, or 10 secrets, and how you've been able to help others achieve the success using your roadmap, so now you're going to do the transition. And here's what I would say. I'm quoting myself now. This is the part that you want to write down or copy and paste.

So, now you know secret number one, the XYZ secret, and you've seen how this can help you achieve whatever benefit you need to achieve just like it did for whoever's story you told. You've also learned secret number two, the ABC secret, and how doing it, or doing this, or implementing it can unlock... insert other desire that they want or benefit... just like it did for... insert person who you talked about. And then you'll do the same kind of sentence for each one, so each of your secrets. So, you want to go over like, almost recap your secrets. You've got secret number one, here's what it did, you know this now, you know that it gets you the result you want, make sure it's a benefit, and just like it did for XYZ. So, you're almost reminding them again of your secrets and how it has helped a lot of people get the results that the person in your webinar wants.

Now, I'm going to continue. If you want to create results just like person number one, two, and three, and if you're ready to take action just like... whoever else's testimonial you had... and start creating whatever it is that they want to create, so that you can... and then insert whatever life outcome, bigger life outcome they want. This is usually where you link it back to they want freedom, or they want energy, or they want to spend more time with their loved ones. It usually links back to some form of love and connection. Okay.

Continuing my little script. And if you're ready to say yes to you and finally take the action you need to take with all the support that will help you get the results you want, then I would like to share with you how you can take these three secrets you learned today and apply it and take it to the next level. My online course... insert awesome online course name... does just that, and if it's okay with you, I'd love to tell you more about this course. Type yes in the comments if you would like to learn more about awesome online course.

So, what have I done there? I've reminded them of my roadmap, I've reminded them that the secrets in my roadmap gets them the benefits that they want, and I've reminded them that I've done it for other people when they uncovered these secrets. I have linked the secrets with the people and the benefits to my awesome course and I have asked for their permission to tell them about it. And the other little bit that I did was I got them to say, verbally to commit, to say, "Yes, I want to learn more about this." Because our brains are funny little things, funny, fickle little things. If we say yes to learning more, we are more committed to listening and paying attention.

Now, for somebody who's already on the fence even before you've pitched it, if you get them to actively say yes, they will just pay attention a little bit more, they'll just be that tiny little bit more discerning, which is going to help them either decide, "Yes, this is for me," or "No, this is not for me." Because we want people to be as clear in their decisions as we possibly can from the get go. And that doesn't mean they have to say yes, that just means we have to get them off the fence, just make a decision. Is it a yes or is it a no? Doesn't have to mean that we push them to yes, it can mean that we push them to no, which is just as beautiful an outcome as pushing them to yes. Okay. So, that was number one, the transition.

Number two is the why and the who. And in this little section, we're going to remind them of the future they want, we're going to remind them what they're ready for, and we're going to remind them why they showed up today. So, the goal is to remind them who this is perfect for. And this is as much about things, like where they're at in a certain journey, or milestones they are wanting to hit.

So, when I sell the Launch Lounge, this is usually where I remind them that this is perfect for you. If you've already got 1,000 people on your email list, you've already made $1,000 from your online course, and you're willing to spend $1,000 in ads. Those three qualifying criteria immediately... Now, I would usually qualify people before they get on the webinar too, because by this point, I don't want anybody going, "Oh, I'm not ready for this." But those three criteria, making it very clear, automatically makes somebody who does not qualify go, "Oh, no, this isn't right for me." Okay?

Or it might be something like, this is perfect for you if you've already lost the majority of the weight you wanted to lose and now you just want to lose the last five kilos, or something like that. So, there's some physical or there's some attributes that you can think about here like, what does the perfect student need to have in place already in order to succeed with your course? Don't have wishy-washy boundaries here. Make your boundaries super clear. There might be a voice in your head that goes, "Yeah, but if I let everyone in, then I'm going to make more sales." No, in fact, the opposite happens. Clarity in specificity is going to help you attract more of the best students. And when you have more of the best students, you get amazing testimonials, and you get fewer refunds, so don't be wishy-washy on your boundaries here. It's not for everyone. Be clear on who it is for.

But then you also want to eliminate by people's values and by how they show up for themselves. So, you might also say, "This is perfect for you if you're ready to take action, roll your sleeves up, and do the work." Or, "This is perfect for you if you've sat on the sidelines long enough watching as other people do things you know you can also do, you just have never taken the first step." See how it's all to do with them really getting into taking action and being the people you want as a student. Your goal here very much is to help them see that you're going to require of them that they show up for themselves and that they can get the results they want.

Okay. So, now you're going to transition into the course, and you've already now done the little bit where you say, who this is right for you, and now you're going to go, "And when you're ready to start creating XYZ result, then I want to introduce you to my awesome course." And after you say the name of your awesome course, the next thing is the promise that your course will deliver on. So, you got to remember you've just opened up a whole new file or a whole new tab in their brain when you drop the name of your course, so their brain immediately goes into curiosity. "What is this? What is this? What is this? What is this?" So, in that second, after you drop the name of your course, you need to insert a very clear promise of what your course delivers. And a promise is made up of a clear benefit that they want, and then you can say, "Without," and then you add whatever objection they have.

So, here's an example, for A-Lister, my online course, I say, "And when you're ready to start creating lucrative audiences and making your first sales, then I want to introduce you to A-Lister, the fastest way to build a lucrative audience and make your first sale online selling your online courses or memberships with Facebook and Instagram ads without wasting money or getting a tech degree." The two biggest objections I get is, "Facebook is a waste of money," or, "Yeah, but I don't understand because it's so techy and I'm not a techy person." So, I have to overcome those. So, it's the fastest way to build a lucrative audience and make your first sale online using Facebook and Instagram ads without wasting money or getting a tech degree.

I want to point something out here to you as well, is I didn't lead with the best way to create Facebook ads. Facebook ads it's the what. It doesn't matter. We don't lead with the what, we lead with the why. Why do they want this? Because they want the fastest way to build a lucrative audience and get their first sale online. That's why. The what is the Facebook ads, and then the objection is without wasting money or getting a tech degree. So, it's a promise plus overcoming the objection.

Okay, we're making progress. We're on to number three, and this is called the value stack. And this is where we are stacking what they get when they buy our course in such a way that they can see that the value of what we're going to give them is worth at least 10 times the price we're charging for it. And I want to recommend that you get Russell Brunson book called Expert Secrets. My students joke, they say if I had $1 for every time I tell people to get Russell Bronson's book, I wouldn't need to have a business, I would be so rich. Maybe I should get Russell to pay me for every time I endorse his book.

So, Russell talks about this value stack. It is basically one slide that you keep coming back to where you keep stacking what they get with the monetary value next to it, and you keep adding to it, adding to it, adding to it, adding to it as you talk people through it, so they can visually add it up in their own brains while you are going through it, and at the end of you going through what they're going to get, they have literally gone, "Yeah, that's worth that much. Oh, yes, I agree, that is worth that much money. Oh, and I can see how this is counting up to a specific dollar value. This is fantastic."

So, the premise of the value stack is that it is one slide that you keep coming back to over and over where you just keep stacking what they get and the value of it right next to it. So, first, you're going to go through your main course module by module, and when you go through module by module, I want you to be careful. Be careful to tell them what you're going to teach them in that module, because really, remember, they don't buy what they're going to learn, they buy what it's going to do for them. So, go through your modules one by one, but make sure you outline the benefits, you tell them, "You're going to learn this thing, learn this thing so that you can... amazing benefits."

So, for example, in A-Lister, our take module, I would say, "Master the take so that you feel confident when Facebook keeps changing things every time." Instead of just saying, "Oh, in module one, I'm going to teach you how to add the pixel to your website, how to create a custom conversion, and how to set up your custom audiences," which is all tech stuff that I am going to teach you, but they don't know, that doesn't matter to them. I know that that's what they need to get there, but they're just interested in why that matters. So, I'm going to say, module one, "We're going to master the tech so that you feel confident every time Facebook changes things or even if Facebook keeps changing things."

I also like to start those with a verb. There's magic in starting a sentence with a verb because it automatically moves people into action, it automatically helps them see, "Oh, we're going to take action, we're going to do something." So, go through your modules, one at a time, and then come back to the stack slide, and list your online course with six modules listed out there and add a value to it. So, let's say for a moment, the value of your course is $500, you're going to say, "You get the full course was all five modules, and the value of that is $500."

Next, you're going to want to list the support you get. Again, same thing with the support, benefits and outcomes. Why do they want to be in a Facebook group? They don't care that it's a Facebook group, why do they want to be? You get a community of people who are there to cheer you on, encourage you, and help you when you get stuck. Something like that. So, benefits instead of features. If it's one-on-one support, you say, "Have me hold your hand as you take every step forward," something like that. And then you're going to go back to your stack slide, and on your stack slide, you've got your number one thing on your stack slide is your online course. Next to it, it says the value of that is $500. You're going to list below that now, you also get the support. The value of the support is, let's say it's $1,000. So, now you have two things on your stack slide.

Next, you might start adding in other little bits like bonuses, or added templates, or anything that will show them that it's going to make it easier for them, you're going to save them time, or you're going to save them money. So, let's say the third thing is templates. And again, you're not going to call it templates, you're going to call it step-by-step guide to getting whatever it is that they want, and you'll say, "Swipe our step-by-step or swipe our easy to implement... fill in the gaps... copy," or whatever it is, make it as easy for them to understand and clearly outline the benefit.

And now you're going to go back to the stack slide again and you're going to state, at the top of the stack slide, you've got your course, value is $500, then you've got the support, the value is $1,000, now you've added the templates, value of that is, let's say, $97. So, now you add all of that up and you say, "If you add up all of this value, it comes to $1,597, but I'm also going to add in these amazing, incredible bonuses." And then you start stacking the bonuses. Bonus number one, whatever bonus it is, and make sure you focus on benefits. Show them how it's going to save them time. Bonus number two, this bonus is going to save you money. Make sure you show the benefits.

Bonus number three. Let's say that is your early bird bonus. Now, here's where you're really looking for those people on the webinar to buy. So, you're going to say, "This one is the early bird bonus. It is only available to those of you who have registered for this master class." Or you might say, "It is only available to those of you who are still here live with me, and if you buy this..."

Usually, Amy Porterfield calls it a fast action bonus. It doesn't matter what you call it. I don't think students or our audiences always know what a fast action bonus means, so early bird bonus, that makes a little bit more sense because that is a term that everybody's familiar with. Most people know what an early bird means. So, you might call it your early bird or whatever you want to call it, but make sure that people know that this is something that is really special and unique just to them because they're still here with you. And then you stack the value of that.

So, now you're going to show your full stack slide with the course listed as $500, the support is $1,000, the templates is 97, and then the bonuses. Bonus number one, value $100, bonus number two, value $500, bonus number three, value $900, and you count all of that up and you show them that the value of everything you're getting is $3,097. And then you say the following. "Now you're probably wondering how much this course is," or something along those lines. "Now that you've seen the value of this, you're probably wondering how much we're going to charge for this course today." And you might even then want to recap it. And then I say that while I'm on the stack slide. And so you make a point of the stack showing the 3097 total value, they need to see that visually, then go to a next slide and have on that slide only the number 397. Now, this is a hypothetical number. You're going to put the number that your value stack added to.

You're going to say, "You've seen the value of this add up to $3,097." And then your next slide is you're going to cross out that $3,097 and you can say, "We are not going to charge you $3,097." And then you might have another number that is lower and that they might think, "Oh, maybe they're going to charge me, let's say, $1,097."

So, then you might have $1,097 appear on your slide, and then you're going to cross that out and you're going to say, "Well, we're not even going to charge you $1,097." And then you say, "When you join today, you can get started for just $97 today, followed by five more payments of $97. To join now, go to myawesomecourse.com/join." So, did you hear how I said that? "When you join today, you can get started for just $97 today, followed by five more payments of $97. Join now by going to myawesomecourse.com/join." That works really well when you have a payment plan, right?

So, you've just shown them the value is $3,000, you've told them you're not going to pay 3,000, you've shown them it might even be 1,000, and then you've said, "No, you can get started today..." Make sure you say that if it is a payment plan, "You can get started today for just $97 today, followed by five payments of $97."

And then you might go to your full pay, if you have a full pay bonus, or even if you don't... Let's pretend for a minute, you're selling your course for 497 and you don't have a payment plan. So, then you literally go, you show the slide where it's 3,097, you cross that off, you show the slide where it's 1,097, and then you say, "You can join today and get started for just 497, and that gets you all of the things that's on there," or you just go, "When you join today, you can get started for just 497. Join now. Go to..." insert the link, insert the awesomecourse.com.

So, if you do have a full pay bonus, you would bring that out after you've done the payment plan. So, you would list the full paid bonus, tell them what it is and say, "Get XYZ bonus that will help you achieve amazing benefit when you choose our best value option, which is one easy payment of 497." So, that's the script you're going to use for that.

The next section you get to is the guarantee. You need a guarantee. I don't care who you are, you need to guarantee because the people who are going to run and buy immediately, they've already left, they've already bought, your phone is already starting to ping, PayPal is telling you you're making sales, Stripe is telling you you're making sales, SamCart and ThriveCart and all the things are telling you you're making sales. It is perfectly okay for you to have conditions with your guarantee. The best guarantee is the guarantee that removes all of the risk.

As some people are so bold in their guarantees that they would say money-back guarantee, I love a money-back guarantee, or I would say, "You can get your money back or there's a money-back guarantee for seven days, or 30 days, or however long you want to do that," and make sure that you have conditions and link to those conditions. And it might be money-back if you can show that you implemented the course work and didn't get the results. I like having conditions for that because it holds people accountable.

I will be honest and say that I have refunded people who have bought and didn't implement because they would say to me, "Well, I thought I was buying something completely different." And if they can justify it, I just refund people. I don't want any disgruntled miserable people in my world so I just refund them, it's no issue. If you worry too much about refunds, you're focusing on the wrong thing. So, create a money-back guarantee, if you can, and put a time limit on it for sure.

All right. So now you have announced the price of your course, you've told them where to buy it, they know that there's different payment options, they know that there's a guarantee, you're going to go back to your value stack where you show everything you get, but this time you don't show the higher prices, you just show the low prices, the two options they have, and then that is going to be your final screen, and you might even want to insert a testimonial in there. And then you're going to go into Q&A.

Now, for Q&A. Q&A is not open season on asking you content questions. If people come to your Q&A and they say, "Hey, I'd really love to know how to insert my pixel on my website." Clearly, that is a content question that is not going to help you move the sale forward. So, what you need to do in that case is to say, "And that is such an amazing question and I'm so glad you asked that question. I answer that question completely fully and show you how to implement it, how to troubleshoot it, and how to do whatever else you're going to do with it in module three of the course. So, when you're ready, go to myawesomecourse.com/join to start to learning how to get your pixel up." Whatever it might be for you. Of course, it's not going to be big questions for you, but I get those and then you just have to remind them that you teach that inside the course. Don't get caught out in going into content here.

The purpose of the Q&A section is to overcome objections, so what I want you to do is to write down all the questions you've gotten before on webinars, hopefully you have them. It's always a good idea to download the transcript of your webinar so you can see what people are asking, and then think about the questions they're going to ask you. Nine out of 10 times, those questions are going to be related to, "How much time am I going to have to put into this? What other tools and resources am I going to need? Do I have lifetime access to this?" And then it might be questions around the level of support that you get. So, make sure you prepare that. They might even ask you, again, about the guarantee, some of the things that you've already covered, but they were so busy buying the course that they forgot to pay attention.

So, that is it. Oh, my goodness. Are you still with me? Did you write all of this down? Are you exhausted? Do you need a break? Take a break. Come back to this episode as many times as you need to. I know it's been super content heavy, but to all of my listeners out there, everyone, I just had enough of the lack of transparency that there is around how to just teach sales content in a webinar. Too many people are still teaching too much content and not understanding the purpose of the webinar, and I am really, really looking forward to hearing your story of how these three episodes have helped you. Please let me know if it has. If you have a friend, or you're in a mastermind, or in somebody's mentorship or somebody's membership somewhere and you hear people complaining about people who have hosted webinars and everyone said they loved the webinars but nobody bought, then please come and send them to these episodes for me and for them so that they can learn how to create webinars that converts like crazy.

All right, my friends. That is a wrap on the three-part series about webinars. I hope you all have a lovely, wonderful week and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week, and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

129. Part 2: Creating High Converting Webinars

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129. Part 2: Creating High Converting Webinars

09 Nov 2021 | By Salome Schillack

Ever been ghosted by a webinar attendee?

You know the feeling. Someone turns up, is super engaged, emails you after to tell you how much they LOVVEDDD your webinar, and by this stage, you've already envisioned the next 12 months working with them. Let’s be real, you're daydreaming about which cocktail you'll first order with them at your first student beachside retreat, but then.....

...NADA

...ZILCH

...RADIO SILENCE!

You're left pondering….Was there something in my teeth? Did I not provide enough value? Should I have done cartwheels? 

If you've ever felt like this, I'm here to tell you… it's not you. However, it could have been your webinar content. You might be thinking, "Ummm, Salome, I literally gave out like 3 modules of the most game-changing, insanely valuable information for FREE in my webinar. Do they not understand what that's worth? It was packed with value. How. On. Earth. Did It. Not. Convert?"

Sound familiar?

You’re in the right spot. This week is part two of the High Converting Webinar mini-series and we are tackling content! 

When it comes to creating webinar content, there is a formula to turn those viewers into raving students; and in this week's episode, I reveal step-by-step what you need to include to have your audience sitting on the edge of their seats, credit cards in hands, just waiting in anticipation to sign up! 

Tune in to discover:

  • How to choose an unmissable title that commands your dream audience's attention.
  • Selecting the 3-5 things you're going to teach in the webinar that leaves them wanting more.
  • The secrets to building a roadmap showing how you are undoubtedly the best person to take your audience from where they are to where they want to be.
  • How to 'inspire' your audience to buy your course, rather than 'teaching' the facts.

PLUS so much more!

Let's banish the webinar ghosting for good and get your audience converting like CRAZY! If you haven't done so already, tune in to part 1: episode 128 and get up to speed before listening this week.  

XXX

Salome

 

P.S Finding this mini-series helpful? I would love you to send this episode to someone who is in the process of creating a webinar! Either on Instagram, Facebook or send this email straight to them. They will love you for it ;-)…and so will I!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 129 of The Shine Show. And today is part two of creating high converting webinars. Today, we are going to look at the difference between a webinar that delivers facts and teaches content versus a webinar that sells like crazy because it facilitates a transformation. So stay tuned.

Giving up time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack. And I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in. Because you are ready to shine. And this is The Shine Show.

Hello. Welcome back. This is the second episode in a series of three episodes that I am dedicating to creating high converting webinars. And the reason I'm doing this is because man, or maybe I should say woman. I have dried too many tears of people who have spent so much money filling up their webinars with loads and loads of their ideal customers and then making little or no sales. And then saying to me, I got emails from people telling me how much they loved the webinar and how much they learned on the webinar. But why didn't they buy? Why did they not buy when they said they learned so much and they loved it so much?

And I'm guessing that if you are listening to this episode, maybe you're either thinking about creating a webinar or you have been in those shoes. Or maybe you have created a webinar that did convert. But you kind of still was left feeling maybe you were wondering, maybe I taught too much on the webinar. Maybe if I changed it up a little bit, I will sell more.

But then you're also a little bit scared of coming across as super salesy. So you want to make sure there is a good quality content in your webinar because you don't just want it to be one giant pitch face from start to finish.

So if that's you, then you're in the right place today. Because today, we are going to talk about the meaty of your webinar. The content piece, the piece where people usually share three, or five, or seven secrets, tips, or thingamajiggies that they feel people have to learn in order to make progress. And sometimes they take those three, or five, or seven things directly from their course modules. And that's kind of where you go wrong from the beginning. So today, I'm going to show you exactly how to create the meaty part of your webinar without overloading your audience with content.

At the end of this three part series, what I want you to have is I want you to have a structure to follow, to create a webinar that's going to convert like crazy. So in part number one last week, we looked at the framework. And if you haven't yet listened to part number one, the framework, I want you to go back and listen to that first. Because these three episodes follow on from each other. They build on each other. So go back, listen to episode number 128, and then come back here and listen to this one. And then next week, 130, we're going to wrap it up by talking about the sale. But today, we're talking about the content.

Now on last week's session, I shared with you seven things that your webinars should do. Seven goals your webinars should kick. Seven mile posts. Is that the right word? Mileposts? I feel like that's not the right word. Well, milestones? Milestones. What's the right word? It's not mileposts. It's milestones, and something posts. Seven posts, seven flags, seven thingamajiggies that your webinar absolutely needs to check. Seven boxes it needs to check.

The first one is you have to make people feel like they're in the right place. Look, any times humans come together in a space where they've never been together as a group before, the first thing we all want to know, the first fear we all want to put to bed is am I in the right place? Do I belong here? Who are these other weirdos hanging out with me? And is this where I should be? Is it safe for me to be here?

The second thing you want to establish in your webinar is that you are the right person to talk about this topic. You need some kind of social proof. You need some kind of authority. You need to somehow show your ideal customer that you have walked a mile in their shoes. But not just that you have walked a mile in their shoes, but also that you have overcome the challenges that they are still facing.

And then third one is you have to show them that you understand their problem. If they feel unheard, unseen, un-understood. I don't want to say misunderstood because it's a bit, not understanding them and misunderstanding them is two different things. They have to feel like you really know them. There has to be this kind of exhale moment where they go, "I found my person. This person gets the struggle. This person understands what I'm facing here."

The fourth thing you have to check, the fourth box you have to check is you have to give them a clear roadmap for how to get from where they are to where they want to be. You have to give them a roadmap, because your job is to show them that you are the person who can facilitate a transformation for them. That's number four.

Number five is you got to show them that you understand where they want to be. It's kind of a difference between somebody who wants to be a very successful business coach because they want to buy first class tickets, or they want to buy the newest Bentley, and they would love to be seen flying on private jets, and driving the fanciest new car, and having the latest, brightest, shiniest Birkin. Versus the person who wants to be a successful business coach because they want to help soulful entrepreneurs create more balance in their lives and tap into more of their inner peace. I don't know if that's a great example, but you get the picture. You understand the difference here. So you have to show your ideal client, whoever that is. And if it's the Bentley person, great. Just own it. If it's the Bali beach babe person, then great. Own that. But you have to show them that you understand where they want to be and why they want to be there.

And then that's number five. Number six is you have to show them that your online course or your membership, whatever you're selling on the webinar, you have to show them that your online course is going to teach them everything they need to know in order to get to that end result, in order to get to that end state that they want to be in.

And then last but not least is you've got to show them that what you are offering them is worth 10 times more than what you're asking in return, which is money. You're asking money in return. But you got to show them that what you're offering is worth at least 10 times what you're offering.

So those are the seven boxes every webinar has to check. And we started talking about the first three of those. We talked about the first three, that you're in the right place. You're the right person, and you understand their problem in last week's episode. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about the content. We're going to talk about the flashy piece, the biggest part of the webinar. And that's the part where you're going to teach them something. Or maybe you're not going to teach them something. Or maybe, you're going to tell them something. They're going to learn some things, but you're not going to teach them a thing. What is it going to be? Let me explain.

This class today is definitely for you if you've run a webinar that didn't convert in the past. It's definitely for you if people have sent you messages saying that they loved it, but they didn't buy. Or if you are currently selling from a webinar, but it's mostly your warm audiences that are buying. So it's mostly your true life fans. It's mostly people you already know because they interact with you inside your Facebook group, or they're very active with you on social media, or they were referred to you by somebody else where you're either a guest teacher or you're a prominent member of someone else's Facebook group. And you already know the people and they already know, like, and trust you. So you find it easy to sell to them. But for the life of me, you are not able to convert people when they come to your webinar from Facebook ads. So in other words, when they come to your webinar cold and they don't know who you are, and they have not yet experienced you the way your warm audience has, then they might not be buying from you.

I do have to give some credit here. So I will confess that I have taken, I want to say if there's a webinar course out there that I have not yet taken, I would be curious if there is. I buy them all because I love it. And I love seeing the difference between how people teach. But I will say that two people in particular have really shaped how I think about webinars. The one, you already know who I'm going to say. It is my girl crush, Amy Porterfield. She has shaped so much of what I believe good webinar content is. And if you are sneaky like me, don't tell Amy, but I transcribe her webinars. And I look at the way she uses language really specifically in her webinars. Don't tell her I do that. And maybe you go do that too. You didn't hear that here. Because she is really, really a master of using words really well.

The other person who shaped my thinking around webinars and around the content of webinars and the difference between teaching people stuff and facilitating a sale is Russell Brunson. And I think if my students inside A-Lister, but specifically inside The Launch Lounge, I think if you ask any of my students inside The Launch Lounge, if we turned me saying buy the book Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson into a drinking game, then the students in The Launch Lounge might all show up to our calls a little tipsy every week, because I think. Maybe if I had a dollar for every time I say buy Russell Brunson's Expert Secrets book, I would have more dollars than I have right now. Because I have told so many people so many times to get the book.

To the point where my students are now, I have the book always on my table. So when I pick it up and I show it to them and I'm like, "Get this book," a lot of them will just literally lift up the book from their desks and be like, "I already got it." That is really, really the best, best resource on how to create high converting webinar content. And now I want to give credit to Russell and Amy because pretty much, I've even taken Frank Kern's webinar course. I've taken, what's the other dudes name? There's a whole bunch of dudes that I've learned webinars from, but Russell and Amy just nails it.

So here is how you need to think about this. You need to facilitate, and create, and help the person on your webinar see that you have a clear roadmap for how to get them from where they are now, to where they want to be. Your job is not to show them that you know the facts. They assume you know the facts because you're an expert. And because you have proof, you have evidence of having the transformation they want in your own life. And you have evidence of helping other people, other students, or other coaching clients achieve the same transformation. So giving them facts will not help them see that you can help them solve the problem.

I want to say that again, because you need to write this down. You need to really know this. This needs to permeate your skin. Is that the right word? I don't know. What's with my English today? It needs to sit in your bones.

Facts do not facilitate transformation. They need to see that you can facilitate a transformation for them. You need to help them identify a roadmap from where they are to where they want to be. That is your job on the webinar. If you are not helping them see that you have a roadmap from where they are to where they want to be, what's going to happen is they are going to listen to your facts on the webinar. And they're going to say, "Wow, this was great. Thanks. I learned so much." And then they're going to go and buy your competitor's program. And you don't want that because I know yours is better.

Now this roadmap that you're going to create for them, it starts with answering three important questions. And these three questions comes from Russell Brunson. I learned this from Russell. He talks about the three biggest objections that they have. And the three biggest objections are the objection to the opportunity, the external objection, and the internal objection. I'm going to say those again. The objection to the opportunity, the external objection, and the internal objection.

Those three main objections, if you can overcome those three main objections, then somebody has to say that not somebody, the right person, your ideal customer, the person who's absolutely perfect for your course or membership has to say yes. And has to see that your course is right for them. The objection to the opportunity is the thing that they can say, "Yeah, sure. But that's not really a thing." Or, "Yeah sure. But it doesn't really work."

So in my case for example when I'm selling A-Lister, A-Lister is a course that teaches how to find your audience online and make your first sale to them using Facebook and Instagram ads. The opportunity, the tool is Facebook and Instagram ads. So the objection to the opportunity in my case might be Facebook ads. They come to my webinar curious about using Facebook ads. They come to my webinar desperate to find a different solution other than social media, because they're tired and hustled out. But they're not yet 100% sure or sold on the opportunity. And that opportunity is Facebook ads.

If I was selling a course that taught you how to create a flower selling business from growing your own flowers, then the objection to the opportunity might be something else. I'm going to use a few different examples here. So we've got Facebook ads is the one. I'm going to use a few different online courses that I could think about to help you understand these different objections.

Planting flowers on a small block of land, and then turning that into a business. That's the other example I'm going to use. The next example I'm going to use is an online course that teaches you that there's money in food photography. You can take photos, beautiful photos of food and turn that into a business. And then there's the one that they can, of course that teaches you that you can launch an online course and turn that into a business. And the last example that I'm going to use here is if you have a handmade business. It's like handmade businesses, people who sell things at craft markets and fairs, let's say you sold a course that helped them get online.

So you see how Facebook ads is the opportunity. Creating a little flower business from a small block of land, that's an opportunity. Turning your food photography into a business is an opportunity. Creating and launching an online course, there's an opportunity. Taking your handmade business online using online marketing to sell your handmade products. There's an opportunity.

So anyone can come to a webinar with that objection. It's the, "Yeah, sure. But is Facebook ads really going to work, or can I really sell flowers and make money? Can I really take photos and make money? Can I really put my knowledge into an online course and make money? Can I really sell my handmade stuff that sells so well at the fair where people can touch it on a website?"

So those are all examples of online courses where the opportunity objection is the first thing that you need to overcome. And I'm going to give you examples of how we overcome them. Just bear with me. I just want you to first understand these three types of objections.

So the first type of objection you need to overcome when you develop your roadmap that you're going to teach on your webinar is the opportunity objection. The second type of opportunity, or the second type of objection that you want to overcome is the external objection. The external objection.

The external objection, I wonder if I'm going to ask you, and of course you can't answer me, but answer yourself this for a second. What is the most common? There are two most common external objections that we might sometimes want to pay attention to, and sometimes we just want to ignore it. What do you think? What do you think is the biggest external objection? The biggest external objection, you got it. It's, "I don't have money. This is going to cost me money."

Okay. So in the example of me selling A-Lister where I teach people how to build an audience online, find their people online, and make their first sale using Facebook and Instagram ads. The external objection could be, "But I don't have money for ads yet. I'm new to business. I don't have money for ads yet." So one of the secrets that I would reveal in my webinar, one of my three secrets that is part of my roadmap would be the secret to finding pockets of money for ads, even before you start spending that money on other things like software systems, or memberships, or design programs.

So I show people in the webinar how they're currently spending, how much they're currently spending on things like Kajabi, lead pages, click funnels, Canva, different online memberships, masterminds, all sorts of things that are bells and whistles that makes you feel good, but that does not get you any closer to money. And then I would use a story of one of my students who was saying they don't have the money, and then found the money. And then whatever the result was after they found the money by canceling some of these subscriptions, starting to spend that money on their audience. And then suddenly, their audience explodes, and then they're able to make money. And then they can go back to the subscriptions. The thing is without an audience, you can't make money. So a lot of the time we think we need all sorts of fancy equipment and fancy stuff. When in fact, all we need is an audience that can easily be obtained through ads.

So you see how I have taken that external objection, and I've acknowledged the objection. Because you can say, "Yeah look, it costs money." I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this is going to happen for free. And you definitely need to be aware that you're going to be spending money on ads if you're going to come into this program. But if you're worried, like maybe I was, or maybe like one of my other students were that you don't have money to spend on ads yet, let me reveal the secret to you. And then I would show them like I've said, how you have hidden pockets of money in your business. But I'll also show them how the algorithm is dead, the organic algorithm. And pretty much not using money is no longer an option for new entrepreneurs. It is no longer an option to build our businesses for free.

So the question I have for you is do you think learning this is valuable to them? Do you think someone who sits on a class and goes, "When I came to this, I thought I didn't have money. But now I'm actually seeing that I'm wasting my time posting on social media every single day. I should just put $25 a day list-building or $5 day on engagement ads. And that's going to build my audience so much faster. And I've seen all these examples of other people who've built their audiences, and then they've made some sales. So maybe there's something here."

Do you think the person who just learned all of this things didn't learn something? If you think they did not learn something, then the temptation is to want to go, "Well, hang on. Let me teach them how to set up an ad. Let me go into the ads manager and teach them which buttons to press and which levers to pull, because then I can show them that I can teach them something." But the thing is once they've seen you do it, you haven't empowered them. What is the old saying? Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, right? So we want to teach them how to fish. We don't want to give them a fish. If you teach them something practical on a webinar, you're giving them a fish. If you reveal a secret about how they need to change the way they're thinking about something or change their strategy about something, you're teaching them how to fish.

So if we think about the example of the flowers, right? They might use something like you start with one packet of seeds. So the external objection again might be, "Well, I don't have the capital to outlay a big farm, or to plant seeds on a big farm." But the external objection, the way you overcome it could be you can literally start in your backyard with one packet of seeds. And within two seasons, you'll have a whole backyard full of flowers that you can sell to your local shop. And then you substantiate that by telling stories and showing testimonials of actual students who have done the actual thing.

For the food photography, the objection might be, "Oh yeah, but where am I going to get my first client? I don't even know anybody." And the objection can be, "I learned, I discovered that with the right pitch strategy, you can get your first paid gig from a local restaurant by taking the local restaurant." Go to your local restaurant, find one with an ugly menu, have the right use my pitch strategy and do it for free. And then use their menu as your portfolio. So you see how you overcome the objection where somebody says, "Yeah, but nobody's going to pay me for taking photos." You just go, "Well, there's a restaurant somewhere in your local area with an ugly menu. You go help them out and you use that, and you can use our pitch strategy to make sure you get in." And that's another secret that you discovered, right? You discovered the secret of the ugly menu photography. And that is how you got your first job.

For online courses, you can show that anyone can launch an online course if you know the right type of course. So some people might want to do a workshop. Other people can create a mega certification. And it just depends on where you're at. So you might say, "Well, anybody can really create a course." And the type of course will depend on where you're at. So if you know which type of course is right for you, then that completely dissolves the objection that I don't have a course inside me. I don't know what I can teach. So you teach someone what's the right course.

And suddenly everyone goes, "Oh, hang on. I can do a workshop about organizing my pantry. Because I've just done that." Or, "I can do a workshop about finding the best orthopedic shoes, because I've just done that. I've just been through that." Or researching the base school for your special needs kid. Maybe you can do that. There's all sorts of things that suddenly you go, "Oh well if it's simple and I can do a workshop, sure anyone can do this."

And then for your handmade business it's the, your online handmade business will boost sales when you sell at craft fairs, because maybe the external objection is, "No one's going to come to a website. They want to see me at the craft fair." And you can say, "Well actually, you're still going to be at the craft fair." But suddenly, having a website is going to make you look legit, and they're more likely to come and buy you. Or if you have a website and you create regular content, then more people will come and look for you at the craft fair.

For every single one of these objections, you're going to use stories from your own life and stories from the lives of your students to demonstrate the success of your secret that you are revealing.

So let's just recap a little bit before we move to internal objection. You're busy creating this roadmap. The roadmap is all about the secrets you discovered, or the keys you learned, or the commonly misunderstood things that you're going to reveal the truth about. And those things typically are three, five, or seven things. I like three because it's easy and I can get through it in an hour. And then those three things typically relate to either an objection about the opportunity, an external objection, and an internal objection. And your job is to overcome those objections, and to use stories from your own life and from the lives of your students or coaching clients to demonstrate what happened before they discovered the secret, and what happened afterwards. And the learning happens automatically. Because when you teach someone the what, they learn more than when you teach them the how. How is a lower quality thing to teach, because it only gives them a fish. Teaching them the what teaches them how to fish.

Okay. So finally, internal objections, right? Internal objections are tough because they're usually hidden away. They're usually the things we don't think about, or the things we are afraid to admit to ourselves. So the internal objection I have to overcome when I'm selling A-Lister is, "But I am not good with technology." That's often one. "I'm just not really great with technology." So the way I overcome that is by saying to them, "Well with my strategy, I discovered the $5 a day engagement strategy. And you can literally take one of your social media posts and turn that into an ad that's going to build your audience for you for $5 a day." And I show them how super easy it is to set it up. And then I know they're good to go. And I can say to them, "You're not going to need an army of geeks. And we're going to take it step by step. And we're going to start with the easiest ad, which is just a social media post you're going to turn into an ad. So if you've ever boosted a post and you got that right, then you can do this too." And then they all of a sudden go, "Oh yeah, hang on. I've done that a few times. So if I can boost a post, I can create actual ads? That's fantastic." Now I've overcome their objection.

The internal objection for the flowers might be you give them a script for selling your flowers to your local grocery store. And you can say to them, "All you need is one customer." Because if you're planting flowers on a small block of land, you don't want 700 different people to sell your flowers. Maybe you want your little road stall, you want your little side of the road thing, and maybe you want one of your local grocery stores. So you can say, "Well, we've discovered the perfect script for approaching your local greengrocer," or whoever, "Where you can then sell your flowers."

For the photos, the internal objection could be, "I'm not a good enough photographer. I just don't know how to really take great photos that's going to sell." And you overcome it by saying something like, "Well, we've got the pro photography checklist to ensure that we get your best, best photos. So you are not going to be left out in the cold. We discovered that as long as we follow this checklist of things when we're taking photos, and we check that we have thought about all these things, then we actually end up taking really good photos." And again, you can use before and after stories of students. Someone before they had the checklist and after they had the checklist, and how much their photography improved, and whether or not they were able to then build a business with it.

The next one is, "I don't know what I can teach anyone else." So that's the internal objection for online courses. And you can talk about the different ways that you can identify your strengths and then turn that into a course that people will pay for. And this is especially powerful if they've already done the exercise on what type of course is right for them.

And then finally the handmade product. Again, if you're helping people set up anything online, tech is likely to be an objection you might come across often. But again, you can say something like, "We discovered how super easy it is to use Shopify. And we're going to give you a theme to help you set up and save time that you can just copy and paste so that you have your own setup already done."

Now I want to remind you again, each of these objections as you go through them, you're going to use stories of students, stories from your own life, stories of clients, any stories you can use to show them rather than just tell them about it. Don't tell that you want to tell them what the secret is, but you also want to demonstrate it with stories.

So I wonder if you can see that when you take someone through this, that they actually do end up learning something. When you're on a class like this, did you give value to your students? I think you'll find that the answer is yes. And did you also while you were giving them value, provide them with a profound vision of a new possibility for themselves and for their lives?

If you build it in such a way that your three secrets, or five mysteries revealed, or seven doors unlocked. If you build it in such a way that they can clearly see you know where they're at now, and you have a roadmap for where they want to be, and there are specific milestones that they need to hit as they move through this journey, then they can only say yes and buy your product.

So now after we've spoken about all of this, you know how to choose a title for your class or your webinar that will help your attendees, know what you're going to reveal or teach. It's the three things, or the five mysteries, or the seven secret doors, or the three commonly misunderstood things about something and how to fix it.

You also know how to choose the three to five things that you will teach them. Remember, opportunity objection, external objection, internal objection. And you know how to turn those three to five things into a roadmap that takes them from where they are to where they want to be.

You also know how to teach them without teaching them how to content. It's very different showing them that you discovered that there's a secret, there's a specific way to pitch your services as a photographer to a local restaurant versus saying, "You have to change the setting on your camera from this to that, so that you compensate for the lighting. And that's how you achieve the bright and light look." That just speaks to their logic. It does not speak to the roadmap you're trying to build from where they are to where they want to be.

So now it is over to you. Your work, you have some homework. Your work is to go home and think about whether or not you're creating the roadmap for them. Are you revealing secrets that will overcome their objections? And are you using sales, or are you speaking in terms of creating a different place for them with your current students?

Next week, we are going to land this plane. Next week, we're going to talk about the sale. Now this is usually where people go all eerie, and icky, and weird. And I'm going to show you exactly if you've done this first bit right, how to just move them from the one section into the next section. Because if you do this meaty bit where you create the roadmap for them, then the sale is really super easy. And how you transform from the content piece to the sales pitch piece becomes really easy.

So tune in, and I would love it if you would share this episode with just one other person. Someone in your mastermind or someone in a group you're in who is currently struggling to get their webinar up. Share this episode with them. Share it on Instagram, Facebook, or on email. And I would really appreciate that. All right, my friends. I will see you again next week when we finish up this three-part series about webinars. Have a lovely week. Bye

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing!

128. Part 1: Creating High Converting Webinars

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128. Part 1: Creating High Converting Webinars

02 Nov 2021 | By Salome Schillack

SURPRISE! 3-part mini series coming your way. If you’re creating a webinar, either right now or in the near future,  you literally cannot afford to miss this! (Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with giving away all your best content for free).

I remember putting together my very first webinar. I assumed the magic trick was to load in as much information as possible, make my viewers feel like they had hit the webinar jackpot, to then naturally buy EVERYTHING I had on offer, turning me into a bazillionaire overnight.

Simple right?

The EXACT opposite happened. It fell flat, and I was teaching my super valuable content for free! 

I've dried up many, many, many wobbly webinar tears from course creators who poured their heart and soul into a webinar that didn't convert, and it breaks my heart!

From the good, the bad, and the downright ugly, I’ve seen it all when it comes to creating high converting webinars, and I've finally cracked the webinar converting code which I know many of you have been asking for.

We're all friends here, so truthfully, I CEEBS putting together a new course right now. But I would never leave you high and dry.

So, I've done the next best thing and created a 3 part mini-series podcast teaching you all I've learned about building high converting webinars that sell like crazy!

By the end of this three-part series, you'll have the framework to craft a compelling webinar that has your audience on the edge of their seats, credit card in hand, KEEN AS MUSTARD to buy from you!

Tune into The Shine Show for part one of this very special webinar series, and join me as I crack open the can of webinar worms and let you in on all the tips and tricks (and everything I wish I knew when first starting out) that will take your next webinar from flop to fab.

Next week, we'll tackle exactly what content to include that will leave your audience saying, "OMG, that was A-MA-ZING. I can't wait to learn more."

Let’s get this show on the road!

XXX

Salome

P.S Did you find today's episode helpful? I LOVE LOVE LOVE hearing your feedback! Jump over to my Instagram (@salome.schillack) and let me know what your biggest takeaway was from part one!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello and welcome to episode number 128 of The Shine Show. Today is the first in a three-part series I'm creating. Today's episode is called creating high converting webinars. And over the next three episodes, you and me are going to unpack and unlock the secrets to creating a webinar presentation that converts like crazy. Enjoy.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram Ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

Well, hello. It is lovely to be hanging out with you today and talking about webinars. Oh my goodness, what a sticky topic. I remember putting together my first webinar and I just loaded as much information in there as I possibly could, and it didn't convert very well. I did a whole bunch of webinars, just teaching people things for free when I started as a sales coach back in the day. And since then, I have learned a few things about webinars and I have dried the tears of many people who created webinars, spent a ton of money on Facebook Ads only to have their webinar not convert. And so I have been sitting on this idea to add a whole lesson, a whole online course, if you want into the content of The Launch Lounge that teaches people exactly how to finally know exactly what to put inside their webinars. And coming to the end of the year, more and more people have been asking about this and I just kind of went, "Yeah, I just don't want to put together a whole new course right now."

But I did think, well, how about, what if I take everything I know about creating high converting webinar presentations and I put it into three-part podcast series? And voila, this is what you have today. So in the next three episodes, episode 128, 129 and 130, I have three episodes dedicated to creating high converting webinars. And whether you're a student of ours or whether you're a client of ours or whether you are just a fan of the podcast and you're putting together your webinar, my hope with this three-part series is that I can really share with you everything I've learned about building high converting webinars, and particularly in understanding how to structure a webinar to be a sales conversation, because that's what it is. And you know what? I know often we find ourselves feeling a little bit allergic to the word sales. I actually really love sales and I love selling. I'm a bit weird like that. I did not love it at first. My first sales job was selling gym memberships in a gym in London. I worked at Fitness First right on Piccadilly Circus.

And my job was to sell gym memberships and I hated every second of it. And you know what? Now I look back at it and I think, man, I wish I could go back and do that again, because I'd have so much fun. Because selling gym memberships, how much fun is that? You're selling health. It's fantastic. Luckily, somewhere along the line I learned to love sales probably when I was selling drugs to doctors. I did, because I loved it. I loved having conversations with doctors. And then I had to learn to sell my own services as a sales coach, which again, I sucked at. It was terrible and I hated it. But then I learned how to do it, but I learned how to sell things I believe in. And now I get to sell Facebook Ads, and I get to sell online course, launching and growing profitable online courses, which I absolutely adore. So I love sales.

So I am excited to bring you this three-part series because at the end of this series, you will have a structure to follow to create a webinar that converts like crazy. So in part one of this three-part series, we're going to talk about the framework. And I'm going to give you the big picture. I'm going to give you seven distinctive parts that every webinar has and what your main communication mission or your main goal with each of the seven parts are. In this one, we're going to unpack part one, two, and three. And then in part two next week in the next episode, we are going to look at the content of your webinar. And in part three, the third episode, we're going to look at the sale. So that by the end of this, you've got the framework, you've got the content, and you've got the sale down and you can create a webinar that converts like crazy.

So when you've listened to all three of these episodes, you'll know exactly how to craft a webinar that holds your ideal customer's attention all the way to the end and leaves them looking forward to working with you as a student inside your course or membership. This is part one, the framework. The framework is the big picture. Every webinar is a journey that you take your viewer on. And I call them viewers because just like a movie or a book, a webinar is meant to take people on a journey. When you watch a movie or you read a book, you kind of settle in for an experience. You're there for an experience. Now I want you to wear your sitting. If you're driving, don't do this please. If you're on the treadmill, get off the treadmill. I want you to close your eyes and picture your ideal customer. Picture them sitting behind their computer, getting ready to join your webinar.

And they are feeling a little bit, picture how they're feeling a little bit anxious, but they're also feeling a little bit excited because they are so acutely aware of the problem that they have and they're looking for an answer. They're wondering if maybe today will be the day that they finally get some answers to the problem they've been holding onto for so long. They turn their notifications off. They close their office door or put their AirPods in and they wait for you to come on live. They are your exact perfect customer. And you know the pain that they're in right now intimately because you've been there. You also know the pure joy of solving the problem they have because you've done it for yourself and you've done it for your other students, your clients, and your customers. You know for sure you have a great course. And you know that when the right person buys your course and they implement what you teach, then they get amazing results. And so you log into your webinar software and you see hundreds of people have already logged in and shown up live to hang out with you.

And they are ready to learn from you. And they're hungry for change. They are desperate for your help and they're ready to invest in the program that will help them fill the gap between where they are right now and where they want to be. And now you can open your eyes. And I'm going to repeat that last sentence. They are desperate for your help and they're ready to invest in the program that'll help them fill the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. And that right there is the difference between a webinar that tanks and a webinar that soars and converts hundreds of people to a course. A profitable webinar is designed to help people see that your course is the only way that they can get from where they are now to where they want to be. I'm going to say that again because I really, I need you to write this down. I'm going to have my team put this on a quotable and we can put it on Instagram.

A profitable webinar is designed to help people see that your course is the only way that they can get from where they are now to where they want to be. A webinar is not designed to instruct them, to give them things to do, it is designed to show them that your course will fill the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. So if where they are right now is point A and where they want to be is point B, what do we need when we want to move them from point A to point B? Because that is the content of your webinar, right? If the webinar designed to move them from point A to point B and leaves them understanding that your course is going to help them get the rest of the way, what goes into the webinar? What content do we put inside our webinar, on our slides, and in our presentation, in the language that we used to show them we can move them from point A to point B?

If you're thinking you need to teach them something, you're 100% wrong. You do not need to teach them something. In order to help someone see that you can move them from point A to point B, you need to demonstrate to them that you can move them from point A to point B. There's a concept for you. In order to help someone see that you can move them from point A to point B, you need to show them that you can move them from point A to point B. You do this by using language like making sure they understand that they are in the right place, making sure that they know that you are the right person to talk about this topic. So here are the seven things that... The seven... What will I call this? The seven check boxes. The seven different communication goals your webinar has as you move people from point A to point B. These are kind of like your checkpoints. Seven checkpoints as you move them from point A at the start of your webinar to point B at the end of your webinar.

But also as you demonstrate for them that you can move them from point A where they are right now to point B where they dream of being one day after they have implemented what you teach in your course. The seven checkpoints along the way in your webinar is number one, you need to identify that they are in the right place. Number two, you need to identify for them that you are the right person to talk about this. So establish your authority. Number three, you need to show them that you understand their problem. Number four, you have to give them a clear roadmap for how to get from where they are now to where they want to be. That's the hardest thing, but we're going to learn that next week. Number five, you need to show them that you understand where they want to be. You understand their desires. You understand why they have those desires. Number six, you need to show them that your online course will teach them everything they need to know to get the result they want. This is moving into the sales piece.

And number seven, you need to show them that what you offer is worth at least 10 times more than what they're going to pay for it. So those are the seven checkpoints. Those are the seven markers that as you build your presentation, you need to be able to go through and go, did I show them they're in the right place? Yes. Did I show them I am the right person to talk about this? Yes. Did I show them I understand their problem? Yes. Did I give them a clear roadmap for how to get from where they are now to where they want to be? Yes. Did I show them that I understand very clearly where they want to be and why it matters? Yes. Did I show them that my online course will teach them everything they need to know to get the result they want? Yes. Did I show them that what I offer is worth 10 times more than what they're paying for it? Yes. If you can say yes to all seven of these things at the end of creating your webinar, you have a winner.

So now that you have the framework for a webinar that converts, we'll unpack number one, two, and three a little bit more. And next week, we'll dive deep into number four, the roadmap for how to get from where they are now to where they want to be, and number five. Number five is showing them that you understand where they want to be. You understand their end goal. You get it. You've been there and you get it. And then in the third and final episode in this series, we'll then explore number six and seven, which is how your course will get them the results they want and how the value of your offer is worth 10 times more than what they're paying. So let's look at number one, two, and three. Number one is help them know that they're in the right place. I want you to picture for a moment you walk in on a group of 80 year old ladies playing bingo. Picture that. Look at the picture in your mind. What are you seeing in the room? What do you feel when you walk in?

What do you hear? What are the sounds coming out of there? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel like you belong? Do you instantly feel like you found your tribe or these your people? Maybe they are. Now picture you walk into a rave in the '90s. It's the '90s and you walk into a rave. What do you hear? What do you see? What do you smell? Do you feel like you belong? Do you feel welcome? Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. Or maybe picture you walk into a bookstore that has a coffee shop next to it. What do you smell? Coffee, yum. What do you see? What do you hear? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel like you belong? For me, out of those three scenarios, the coffee shop is the place where I feel most welcome and most like, "Oh, my place in this world is a coffee shop with a bookstore." Your webinar sign up page, your branding and the message they see before the webinar go live all helps set the scene for the webinar.

It tells them if this is bingo, or a rave, or a bookstore with a coffee shop. And it has to be purposefully designed to make sure that you communicate in your pre-webinar content who the right person is for this webinar. When they come to the webinar, you want to call out exactly who this is for and exactly who this is not for, and do not be shy to call out who this is not for. It's almost more important than who it is for, but you don't start calling this out on the webinar, because if you filled your webinar with the wrong people, you're going to lose half of your registrants. You start calling these people out, making sure that they understand who this is for from the get go. Otherwise, you're going to get a bunch of ravers show up to bingo, or a bunch of bingo players show up to a rave. So if you don't want MLMers, you have to be very clear about that from the start. Sorry, MLMers nothing against you guys. We just don't want you on our webinars because you don't buy.

If you sell something that doesn't work for anyone who makes less than a certain amount of money, you say that. When I have the webinar for The Launch Lounge, I say to them, if you are not ready to spend a thousand dollars on ads, this webinar is not the right place for you, because you're going to be frustrated and overwhelmed. Maybe it's more of a value. Maybe you say to people, "Hey, this is not for you if you take yourself too seriously." I've been on webinars where people said, "Look, we like to have fun. We like to laugh at ourselves. And if you are one of those serious people who's going to point out every mistake and who's not going to have grace for yourself or other people, this is not for you." I have one where I might have a little pet peeve about saying please and thank you. I mean, seriously people. How hard is it to say please and thank you?

And so when we work with clients, one of my conditions for accepting them is, did they say please and thank you in their emails? So don't be shy to really call out who this is for. And who this is not for is almost more important than who it is for. Start with who this is not for, and then invite those who it is for even closer. There's kind of a psychological thing to first establishing all my... I want to say a communal enemy, right? I don't like terminology, communal enemy, because nobody's our enemy. It's just you do you boo. But over here, this is how we do things in my community. We do things this way and this is who it's for. And it works for people who do things this way. And if you don't, that's great. You go do it somewhere else. And no judgment, it's just not for you. But there's a psychological bonding that happens when you first start by saying who this is not for and you exclude them and then say, "Okay, great, awesome. Those of you who have stayed, you belong. You're in the right place."

And so you'll use language like, you are going to love this if, or you'll get the most out of this training if, or if this is you, then you're in the right place. And then you bullet point a few things that you're looking for. Don't be afraid to be controversial. Put a stake in the ground. Stand up for who you want. All right. So that's number one. Number one is call out exactly who is right for your webinar. Number two, show them you're the right person to talk about this. Now this is where we're going to build social proof. This is where, when people come to a webinar, they're kind of still a little bit hesitant and they're coming with a lot of reservations. And this is where you're going to say... Your job in this second phase of the webinar is to demonstrate to them that you have experience in this. Now sometimes I've been on webinars where people harp on about their story and they harp on about their experience and they harp on about all sorts of things. And I'm like, it's like 20 minutes in and they're talking about themselves.

My advice to you is keep it short, keep it punchy. Use a short story. Develop a story, your own story. But the way that you tell your story is you tell it like a hero's journey, right? You have to study the hero's journey. And you tell that story from the perspective of what you struggled with and how many things you tried, because surely you tried a lot of things, and all the obstacles that you had to face, and then how you came to discover the key to success. That is very important. It's very important that you show them you were where they are at now, that you show them, give them social proof of the fact that you are now where they want to be, but also make sure the middle part of this story shows them the struggle and it introduces the key learning, the thing that was the thing that made the difference for you. Give it a cool name.

You discovered that these three things are what was missing all along and nobody else teaches these three things and it's because nobody else teaches it that it took you so long to discover it. But once you discovered it, it made all the difference for you and that's what you're going to teach them in the webinar today. So whatever the epiphany is, whatever the aha moment is, if you can show them that aha moment is the thing that you'll teach on the webinar, that made all the difference for you. And that's why when we create webinars, the three secrets, or the five little known things, or the three most commonly misunderstood some things, or the three keys, or the three... That's why it works so well. There has to be some element of a discovery that you made. Now where people go wrong in this section of the webinar is they only show their own credentials. They only show, I've done this and I've done this and I've worked with this person. And then I got these numbers and then we made these results.

And that really only appeals to your logic. We do not want to appeal to people's logic too much. We want to appeal to their emotion. We want to build relationship with them. And the thing that builds relationship with them, the thing that makes them relate to us is story. So tell your story as if you are your ideal customer and show them how you struggled with the same things they are struggling with now, show them how you've been able to create the success that they really want. Use examples. When you show the success, this is where you pull out the numbers. This is where you pull out the who's who in the zoo that you've worked with, or the results your clients have gotten, or the results you got. You can have a look at the work of Donald Miller in StoryBrand. He did fantastic work on telling stories, setting up your brand as a story.

And you can also have a look at Russell Brunson's book, Expert Secrets. He dives really deep into that. Russell Brunson's Expert Secrets book is probably the book I recommend most often to most people about webinars. I've even bought copies for clients before. And then this key thing, this thing that you discovered, this is it's like the three secrets, or the magic formula, or the five little known secrets, or the three keys or something, there's something, that is the roadmap that gets them from where they are now to where they want to be. So when you go into teaching them these three things, what you're teaching them is the what, not the how. You teach them what you discovered, not how to do it. As soon as you or go into teaching them how to do a thing, their brains switches to a different mode. It switches to learning mode. And you want the brain to be in discovery mode. You want it to be in a storytelling mode. You want it to be in relational mode. You want them to relate to you as the person who is going to help them solve their problem.

So do not underestimate the value of showing them what made the difference for you versus how to do something. So after you've told them that they're in the right place, then you show them you've been in their shoes by telling them your story and relating that back to the before state that they're in now and the after state that you are living now. Then you move on to the body of your webinar, which is where you're going to reveal these key things that you've discovered as you created success in this area for yourself. Next week, we're going to look at what goes into this section of your webinar, this body section. Next week, I'm going to teach you exactly how much content to teach them in your webinar so that people leave your webinar knowing that they got a ton of value, but also feeling ready to purchase your course.

It is possible to achieve both those things. They are not mutually exclusive. And for them to know if your course is right for them. So join me next week when we continue this three-part series on creating high converting webinars. And next week's bit, we are looking into the juicy piece of webinars and I'm going to teach you how to create content in such a way that they leave going, "Oh my goodness. That was amazing. I can't wait to learn even more from her." Can't wait to see you on the show, hear you, talk to you on the show next week. Have a lovely week. Bye. 

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

127. Leadership is Feminine with Kris Plachy

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127. Leadership is Feminine with Kris Plachy

26 October 2021 | By Salome Schillack

Hands up if you’ve ever thought, "I am NOT cut out for this whole CEO thing."

Being titled CEO made me feel like a total imposter. I had a business idea, driven by purpose, wanting to create something beautiful and meaningful in the world to help people, and I had brought that into reality with a desire to change the world. 

But this CEO title seemed to suck the beauty out of it.

Why is that?

When we look at 'good leadership' qualities, typically, it's very masculine traits that come to mind— powerful, assertive, authoritative, decisive. It's no wonder women all over the world are thinking, NO WAY when it comes to leading a team.  It can feel uncomfortable and unnatural, especially when you’re wired to operate from feminine energy. 

BUT guess what? There is another way. 

Imagine being a leader who exudes all the beautiful feminine energy traits we've spent our whole life learning?

Imagine leading your business by nurturing, communicating, listening, supporting, and showing grace to everyone you come across, from clients to employees to fellow entrepreneurs?

The world is changing, masculinity is taking a backseat, and femininity is rising to the top! There has never been a more critical time for leaders to embrace feminine energy and lead gently. No need to sound, act and think like a man to achieve success; you can embrace your natural traits and shape the world around you with the gorgeous energy you naturally bring to the table.

Today on The Shine Show, you'll meet my mentor, fellow visionary, and friend, Kris Plachy. She's the expert in teaching women entrepreneurs everything they didn't know they needed to know about managing and leading others to achieve extraordinary results while remaining authentic to themselves.

Tune in to discover:

  • What feminine energy leadership looks like in a practical day-to-day sense
  • How to handle resentment that occurs from being ‘everyone’s everything’
  • Managing a team in a way that is conducive to your natural traits
  • Using feminine energy as your secret sauce for attracting the most accomplished, driven, high quality employees in the world

AND so much more!

I’m so excited to share this episode with you, as leading with femininity is emerging in its entirety, and I want to do all I can to set YOU up to pioneer the movement. It's time to normalize the feminine way of leadership, embrace the gentle, embody kindness and lead the way with grace! 

XXX

Salome

 

P.S Has this episode inspired you to change the way you lead? I would love to hear your thoughts! It’s so important to surround yourself with female leaders who are embracing their natural energy, and I would love to be that for you. Head to my Instagram (@salome.schillack) and let’s chat!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Salome Schillack: (00:00)

Hello, and welcome to episode number 127 of the Shine Show. Today, I have the incredible privilege of introducing you to my friend, a mentor of mine and a woman that is just showing us all the way. Kris Plachy joins us. Kris is the thought leader and expert for female entrepreneurs. Kris has poured her life's work into learning about, and then teaching how to lead a team. In a space where there is a lot of noise and advice, Kris has designed a how to, of team leadership through her how to CEO for female entrepreneurs program. Kris knows without a doubt, there is no challenge you're facing as a leader that she can't help you solve. She's helped me solve multiple issues in my business, as the leader of the business, she's helped me become confidently feminine as a leader in this space and own my title of CEO. I am excited to bring you my interview with Kris Plachy, on how to lead as a female entrepreneur. Enjoy.

 

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is the shine show. Kris, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Kris Plachy: (01:56)

I am so thrilled to be here with you today my love.

Salome Schillack: (01:59)

Yes, you are my one of my favorite humans in their whole wide world.

Kris Plachy: (02:04)

I feel the same way. 

Salome Schillack: (02:08)

There you go. I was going to say, Kris has the most infectious laugh, and she's wickedly funny as well. I hope we have a lot of laughter today, because you can't help laughing when Kris laughs. Kris, thank you so much for being here today. Your new podcast leadership is feminine is just hitting me right in the heart there with every single episode, so I had to have you on to come and share with the shine show listeners, about leadership is feminine. It's not how we were raised. It's not what we were told, right?

Kris Plachy: (02:47)

Right.

Salome Schillack: (02:51)

I feel like we are alive in such an amazing, incredible time in this world right now, where the masculinity is taking a backseat, femininity is rising to the top, but your take on it is leadership has always been feminine. Talk to me about leadership is feminine. How is it feminine and how are we placing ourselves with regards to our femininity in the world right now?

Kris Plachy: (03:29)

That's so interesting. I'd love it because it is, it is a crazy, amazing, weird, a little terrifying time. The foundations that all of us have stood on for literally centuries are very tentative and tenuous and that's good. I think we need that. When you really think about women, at least in the most recent history, so we could just go 1,000 years maybe. Women and men have had very clear roles, and without over stereotyping, I think most of us know what those are. Leadership has been very associated with power, aggression, being in charge, and there's been this connection between you are a leader only if you have followers, all those kinds of things. The way that people became leaders was to proving strength, through strengths.

Fighting, killing each other, war, and that's all very male energy, it's a lot of masculine energy. I do think it's important that I say, we have to have a little bit of both in who we all are. I think men and women, but what I believe in watching, because I grew up in a very different environment. I grew up with a single mom who had to raise, who had to figure out how to make money, and she was very well-educated, but didn't have a lot of experience in a corporate environment, and her story is pretty interesting. She got divorced, had no money, couldn't get a credit card. A woman that she worked form gave her, did a pay it forward, gave her the money so that she could start taking care of me and build a life, and get a credit card.

Kris Plachy: (05:26)

This was in the ‘70s, and then she went into and became an executive in her industry and was very, very successful. But she worked in a male, she worked in the beef industry, cattle, cattle ranchers. She worked in a male dominated industry. Not knowing it, I watched her my whole life, have to figure out how to negotiate this environment, and she was very feminine, my mother. As I've worked with more and more and more and more women, what I've watched is women who are entrepreneurs, who don't have a lot of leadership training, management training, they just come in, "I have an idea, I can make money." Then they do. Then they have people and then they don't know what to do, and they dismiss all the skills that they have, that they've learned as a woman, as a sister, as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother, they dismiss it because the modeling is this other heavy masculine energy.

Kris Plachy: (06:32)

Then so many women sit at the helms of their business and feel like imposters. They don't feel like they belong there, because they don't fit a mold that was never for them. In the process, we have completely denied in so many ways, our own assets, our own ability to collaborate, to communicate, to build teams, to nurture, to connect, all the things that women are naturally most good at, but then are dismissed as the soft skill. Hard skills are the ones that frankly are easier to learn, soft skills are really like emotional intelligence and being able to read the room and being able to understand someone without having a hair. That's hard.

Women who already have that though, they've been dismissing it, quieting it, telling themselves they're too soft. They're too permissive. I think you can actually have all the cool boundaries you need. You can lead with grace. You can create lots of beautiful structures in your organization. You can have accountability, and you can be a woman. You don't have to try to sound, look, act like a man.

Salome Schillack: (07:50)

Absolutely. Where do we stopped learn that?

Kris Plachy: (07:56)

The more women who do that, the more it just normalizes it. That's my mission. That's why my program is how to CEO. I want women to just take it. [inaudible 00:08:06]. So many of the women who start with me are like, "That just makes me really uncomfortable. I'm not a CEO. I don't fit the mold of a CEO. Other people are like, that's not for me. I'm not. I'm just a business owner." There's this hole. For me, whether you call yourself a CEO or not is irrelevant. It's, let's just go through the process of understanding why you're so resistant to it.

Salome Schillack: (08:37)

When do you, go from being a business owner to being a CEO? Because I think there's a, as with everything, when you're growing a business, there's a moment where your mind has to be there before your body catches up,

Kris Plachy: (08:54)

Well said.

Salome Schillack: (08:54)

And before your finances catches up.

Kris Plachy: (08:57)

Yes, absolutely.

Salome Schillack: (08:59)

But it's also, the other side of it is true is, and that's what happened for me as you know, because you were helping me through this, is you start building a team and you view yourself still as a business owner, but now I'm a business owner with three, four or five people on my team, and then you go, "Well, yeah, but I don't want to call myself a CEO, but I have CEO problems." Where does that, is there a moment where you go, because especially my audience that are mostly women who start their business on their own, and then success means that they can build a team. Success means that they have to step into that leadership role, but where does it go from business owner to CEO and how do you know when you're there?

Kris Plachy: (09:52)

Such a great question. If we think about it this way, I like to say that there's really three ways I've watched people who are in the entrepreneur space. If they don't call themselves an entrepreneur, they either go with founder, owner, business owner, or we can go with CEO. Inherently a founder, that means I found it. I found it. When we use that language, I don't not like it. I called myself often a founder, but a founder, it's still a lot about me. I found it, I created it, it's got my name on it. An owner, it's mine. That's usually, especially for solo entrepreneurs who just have a couple people and they just get started. When we think of ourselves as owning something, it belongs to me, which means what I'm really doing is hiring people to help me.

I'm not building an organization, a business that has nothing to do with me eventually. For as long as I continue to think of myself as an owner, then the people I hire are just there to be helpful. It's a mental thing really. CEO. We go from solo preneur, which is me, and then we go to entrepreneur, which is we. This is where most women start working with me, is when they get to that entrepreneur space. Now, they have five, eight people, whatever more. But they're still thinking a lot like it's mine, and they can't figure out why they can't get things done through people, all the things. People are very frustrating. So we have to move into that we space. This is a collective. Then the CEO is really, when you can get into that visionary, like what got you there in the first place. You started with a vision, there was a reason you decided to hang up a shingle or start a website, or whatever the heck you did, and then you got to go through the mess.

I know there's an author called a messy middle, and now I'm forgetting him, forgive me. Then we go, we get to CEO, and then it's them. The whole, it's an ecosystem, and I'm the visionary. My job at that point is to support, drive, feed, engage, do the things that drive the success of the business, instead of being the one who literally has her hands inside the engine tinkering, doing all the things. That moment you're absolutely right, but I have to do first always is invite women to start to see their business as something outside of themselves. It's not yours. You weren't given the gift and the dream of the business, but it isn't yours. Now it belongs to your clients, your employees. You're the world, you've put it there. Now, you are the custodian of that business, and that's when we start to transition into a CEO mindset.

Salome Schillack: (12:58)

What I love about that transformation is the tremendous amount of freedom that comes with that.

Kris Plachy: (13:05)

Absolutely.

Salome Schillack: (13:07)

There's for me, I feel like when I did that, when I went through that transformation, there's this moment of exhalation. You go, that's not all me anymore. And you realize you don't have to show up on social media as you, every single day, you just create the vision, and the beauty of then being able to hire the right people and just hold space for them, and let them do what they do best, working towards your visionary. I have found that a lot of my students often ask me, "Well, how do you manage someone? How do you make them do what you want them to do?" When you get to that CEO place, it's no longer about getting them to do what you want them to do. It's about holding space for them to do what they're so good at. Nine out of 10 times people do it differently than I would have done it, but they do it with their flavor. That's when it starts to take on a whole life of its own.

Kris Plachy: (14:16)

As long as the results are clear that you want them to deliver, and that's what so many women struggle with initially, is that it has to be a certain way, and then that causes a lot of friction. There's a lot of pieces in there, but I do believe you're spot on. I call the CEO role, the gift of all the work you did before. Once you've really arrived to that CEO position, it's the gift out of the hustle.

Salome Schillack: (14:47)

What's the thing that stops most women from getting to the gift?

Kris Plachy: (14:51)

Difficult. It's hard.

Salome Schillack: (14:54)

It is.

Kris Plachy: (14:55)

Learning how to manage people, building systems to help you manage people, creating consistent practices and treating your business, not as your project, but as the thing that needs its own processes to follow, not just what you feel like doing today. The constraint that is required of a visionary to allow other people to follow through on things. Visionaries are typically very quick start and have lots of things, and they want to change it. This is still for me, These are things that my team and I wrangle me with. That's for sure a huge part of, it's just the hard part. I don't know how to say that any better. It's so unsexy. But once you know that you can manage anyone and handle anything that happens on the team at any time, regardless of whatever the issue is, there's a freedom that comes with that.

Salome Schillack: (16:00)

There's a recipe for it. I love this. I think this is one of the best things that when I worked with you, and how long ago was that? I feel like it's two years.

Kris Plachy: (16:11)

Two years.

Salome Schillack: (16:15)

In a way it feels like yesterday, but it also feels like a lifetime ago.

Kris Plachy: (16:19)

I know it.

Salome Schillack: (16:20)

That you taught me that there’s a recipe in this. There's a recipe. Let me just explain the recipe. I feel like you gave me the language to tell people when they're messing up. You gave me the language to tell people when they're doing the right thing. I think the biggest thing that you gave me was the skills to let go of, what if they don't like me? Or what if they respond in a negative way? Those were all things that I had to learn from you, and I feel like you had such a great recipe for how to do this. When it gets hard, especially for these, for visionaries like me and you, who are the creative people who just wants to do the thing we feel like doing today. Because we're so emotive by nature. What are the disciplines, and discipline is a masculine thing. But what are the disciplines?

Kris Plachy: (17:27)

I guess some people like to think that, but if you were a mother raising children, I think you would disagree. Discipline is quite feminine. I think it's interesting how we just have associated it as this edgy, even accountability can feel very masculine, but frankly, all accountability is an agreement. We made an agreement. Did you follow through on your agreement? As soon as we drop that, but the ... ask the question again.

Salome Schillack: (17:57)

How do we, women who are visionaries, who naturally tend to thrive in chaos, naturally tend to want to follow our instinct, naturally tend to want to be responsive instead of proactive, naturally want to chase the squirrel. How do we create structure?

Kris Plachy: (18:22)

I have never used this analogy before, but I'm going to share it because, and I know not everybody listening who is a woman has children, but I think you can still relate to this. Imagine if every woman who had a child just decided, okay, I'm done. You too, and I'm going to go do this now. We don't do that, because we understand we have a level of commitment and what do we do? We grow in our mothering and our parenting with the child. The same thing is true with a business. See, I have this inherent belief that you were given this dream on your heart, this vision. You were given something unique and exclusive to you, where it from whoever, I don't know. But it was given to you, and because you took action on it and you literally produced it, you put it into the world, you are the custodian of it.

It doesn't mean you don't get to have new ideas, and it doesn't mean you don't get to try things on. It just means that the discipline of that business baby's growth, is your responsibility. When you don't stay the course, you don't allow, create opportunity for it to become so much more than you probably even think it could. Really once we get to team, that's when so many women quit. I just had a woman who joined my program just a few weeks ago. She had like a team of five, part of the reason she joined is three of them quit, so she's down to a straggle crew, and she's like, "Should I just scrap it and just be a solo entrepreneur  again, because that feels a lot easier." Of course I'm like, "Look, I can't tell you what to do," but it feels like it's not the right time to make that choice. It's hard to hire people right now. It's really hard to hire.

Salome Schillack: (20:29)

Is it? Why?

Kris Plachy: (20:31)

I will say this. It's funny because I asked, I actually asked my clients who I know you were in the lab with me and I still have some women who've been in the lab, some of them up to four years, so I asked a few of them that have been around a long time, four years about that. They're not having any trouble hiring. Yes, if you think of hiring is really transactional and you think of it as I need people to help me, employees have become much more discerning. That's what we're finding through this whole pandemic. Here in the states, we've had massive, the great resignation they're calling it. I don't know if the same is true in Australia, but it's massive amounts of people are leaving the workforce and they're not coming back.

If I'm going to come back, we have to figure out what is attracting that person who's talented, capable, accomplished, but they have a different perspective on work now than they did two years ago and they can. My perspective is that women actually, women business owners actually have a secret sauce, because you can connect with people differently, you can create environments much better than big corporations can, you have a lot more flexibility. There's a lot of assets that women who are CEOs of small businesses have to offer. I think that's the super secret sauce that a lot of women just don't know how to tap into, or they think they shouldn't.

Salome Schillack: (22:09)

Or they think they shouldn't. I like that. Again, this is not the traditional model.

Kris Plachy: (22:15)

No.

Salome Schillack: (22:15)

That's so funny for me that you say hiring is hard at the moment, because 2021 has been the year where I have hired the most people, and it has been the easiest.

Kris Plachy: (22:25)

Of course it has.

Salome Schillack: (22:27)

Yes,  because I was in the lab with Kris plachy and I learned all these things.

Kris Plachy: (22:32)

I can't take all the credit.

Salome Schillack: (22:34)

You can, you can. You take it.

Kris Plachy: (22:35)

But when you are a heart-centered, value centered business, and you have a clear vision, you attract people who want to deliver on purpose in their life. Everybody thinks it's about money and about benefits, and listen, for a fraction of people, it is.

Salome Schillack: (22:50)

Yeah, but it is. I agree with you, especially women because I hire mostly women. Not because I don't want men, just because I want to create a different work environment for women. Women do not need to sit in a cubicle from nine to five. I think neither do men, but that's a whole other can of worms. But I write job ads in such a way that every single person who applies, who is serious, starts their application with, "You wrote this for me, This was written for me."

Kris Plachy: (23:21)

That's marketing. There's that secret sauces.

Salome Schillack: (23:27)

There is there. You need a marketing niche, and you need employee niche. I do have the skill of sewing things. But it is. It is the, you're ambitious. You want to make a massive difference, but you don't want to work. Even in Australia, it's 37 hours a week. I know you guys work more than us, but no one on my team works more than 25 hours a week.

Kris Plachy: (23:52)

I do.

Salome Schillack: (23:52)

But no one on my team works more than 25 hours a week, and I don't want some cruisy low paying, low stimulation part-time job. They want the high impact, big difference, ambitious, all that masculine stuff that would normally mean they need to go and be a CEO or a director or something in a corporate business where they're going to work 50 to 70 hours a week. They want that, but they want it in a 25 hour week, and I can give that to them, because I don't have the structures that the normal working environment, and especially in the Australian environment where we're more of a labor country than you guys. You guys are a lot more entrepreneurial and independent, where more people want to work for the boss. They want the boss, but they want the freedom as well, and we have a super power that we can give that to them.

Kris Plachy: (24:50)

Absolutely. It's your business. You can do whatever you want.

Salome Schillack: (24:52)

But I like, because I feel like that is, leadership is feminine in practice. That is the thing. I want to talk to you about one thing that I heard on your podcast that when you say this, I was like "Ouch Kris, ouch." Resentment. I remember a day clearly. I think I was pregnant with my second child, when I was outside hanging the washing, and I felt this deep, incredible, absolute sadness, anger and resentment because why the F am I at home hanging the f-ing washing, when my husband gets to be in the office having a job. I think every single woman on this podcast have had that moment. You have an amazing way of making it okay for us to get to that moment. But what do we do after that? Just talk to me a little bit about how do we get to that moment? And once we realize we're there, how do we get out of it?

Kris Plachy: (26:12)

I think if I remember correctly, this was anyway, I was doing a course on overwhelm for female entrepreneurs so I really started thinking about okay, because so many of us, we're always just talking about, "So overwhelming. So much going on." I think you would have even started this goal that way. I was like, “I got this, I got the kids. I got blah, blah, blah." But I had this moment where I realized when I was young, I didn't feel that way. Then I just watched a little video of my life in my brain, and I realized, I think a lot of women do the same thing. We're like, "Ooh, yay, young and free," and all the fun, and then we get married or we get a partner and "It's amazing. This is so fun and now let's get a place to live and oh no, no. It's fine. We can all decorate because I want it to look like what I want it to look like."

Kris Plachy: (27:10)

Then "No, no, no. It's fine. I'll cook because I like to cook the food I want to eat. No, no. I'll do the holiday parties because I would like to use my time. Then we have the children and "No, no, no. I'll take care of. No, no. I'll buy the clothes. No, no, no. I'll get them registered for school. No, no. I'll take them to the doctor," and there's this window, and let's just say somewhere from my age, 24 to 38, depending on when you launch, that's all really fun. It's really, really fun. Then you're sitting doing the laundry or your China's just chill on your couch. "Mom. Where's the ... hey honey, I can't find the ... do you know where the ..." and then you add starting a business. "Hey boss, I can't find the Dropbox folder with the ... Hey do you know, what do you guys ... Hey boss, what do you think about this color for the branding camp?"

Kris Plachy: (28:15)

Then it's like there's this moment where you're like, "Seriously? Can anybody function without me?" The answer is, not really because you built it this way, mama. That resentment is a great indicator that, oh, it's time to flip the script because of course they expect you to make the dinner and do the laundry, take care of the dog while you make the, have the, pay the, build the business, do ... of course they do because you have, but you can change that, and you can rewire your own brain, and rewire everyone else's brain so that you don't feel guilty, and you don't feel like a horrible person because you start teaching people how to take care of themselves, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. That, to me, in my experience is where I meet a lot of my clients, because it's also when their business starts to hit seven figures and they're like, "Wait a minute. Something's got to give."

That's where that comes in. I think resentment is just a great indicator light. It's like, listen, nothing's broken here. Nobody's taking advantage of you, at least not yet, but it feels like that. It does. But it's just agreements you've made along the way. Now, if you've made agreements knowing you didn't want to make the agreement, then that's on you. You got to figure that out. That's where coaching, I think for lots of different kinds of coaching is really valuable, because I was coaching someone today and she said, “I just don't understand. When I'm in the office, everything's great. But as soon as I leave, it's a train wreck." I said, “Okay, let me just ask you a question. When you're in the office, on average, how many questions do you think you answer?"

She felt it. She's like, "Oh, I don't know, 10 to 20." "And when you're in the office and you get asked 10 to 20 questions, how many do you answer?" "10 to 20." I go, "That's the start. The start is when you're in the office, you stop answering and you start redirecting, and you start asking them to tell you what they think would be the best answer. Or hey, give it a shot. Let's see what happens." You start distancing their need for your approval to succeed from you. You give them permission, you empower them to start making their own decisions. But it's a process.

Salome Schillack: (31:10)

That is a process. Because the first thing that comes up for me, when you say that is, yeah, but then they're not going to like me anymore.

Kris Plachy: (31:19)

No, they're not.

Salome Schillack: (31:20)

There's the, see, if I stopped doing this thing, my family, it's going to be uncomfortable. They're going to be surprised, like this is you're imposing change on us, and why your brain is going to sign you're being selfish. Your husband or your children, or your partner, or your children, or your employees might even think you're being selfish. I feel a little bit like the resentment is the fog horn that goes off, that tells you something's wrong.

Kris Plachy: (32:02)

But then you have to work through each one of those moments.

Salome Schillack: (32:06)

The fixing of it-

Kris Plachy: (32:07)

But isn't that interesting to say ... It's so interesting that the antithesis of me doing everything for everyone else is now me being selfish. I find that fascinating. That's a big pendulum swing. Because in my mind selfish is, I don't care about anybody. You can do whatever you want. I'm only going to take care of myself. [inaudible 00:32:31]. I saw something of a mom who had totally lost her mind and she just washed her own fork and her own plate for like a month, and she didn't touch anything else in the house. She was like, “Listen to me, I'm out." She just had her own plate her own fork. I just think that that's because we've all been ingrained that women need to be the nurturers, they need to be available. They need to be open, they need to be accessible. They are supposed to take care of everybody.

Salome Schillack: (33:06)

I think it's important-

Kris Plachy: (33:07)

They do that all at their own expense. Yeah.

Salome Schillack: (33:10)

It's important that we say that fixing it doesn't feel good at first.

Kris Plachy: (33:14)

No, it's terrible.

Salome Schillack: (33:16)

Fixing it is very uncomfortable, and it causes a whole lot of brain chaos at first, because you have to now coach yourself through your own BS that comes up as a result of it. But then you also have to face the people around you who's got the WTA faces.

Kris Plachy: (33:37)

I don't know. If I experienced because I practice what I preach, and a couple of years ago, shortly I think before you and I met, we had a lot going on with our oldest son, and I was obviously starting my own business. We have two other kids. I just had to sit down with my husband I said, “I'm not going to do dinner anymore. I'm all in. I'll help with the groceries. I'll Instacart. I'll do the things. As far as I'm concerned, I can have peanut butter sandwich. I'm over it." We've done sit down dinners. Honestly, the breaking point was my son. I made dinner and he's like, "Oh my God, I can't eat any more broccoli." I'm like, "You know what, I can't either. I can't do it either." For 18 years I've been making dinner and we've had sit down dinners as a family for that long.

He was supportive, but he didn't really believe me. Then there was the one night "What's for dinner." "I don't know. I had a couple of cheese and crackers. What do you feel like?" Our door dash bill has gone up significantly. I don't know if you guys have door dash, but I don't care. That's the other thing, I think a lot of women are like, "I don't want to cook, but I don't want them eating that crap." You know what, you can't do that either ladies takes care of the kids, but he doesn't do it right. He doesn't change the diapers right, he doesn't make the right food. He doesn't hit the bottle up. That's why men get so frustrated. You say you want to go out with the girls, but then you lose your mind when you come home and they're wearing their pajamas backwards.

Salome Schillack: (35:30)

It is true. That is true.

Kris Plachy: (35:31)

You don't get that. I think that's the part we have a lot of work to do. I get the control need, but you have to be able to do that. But that is a big jump that you're selfish. That's a lie. Stop it.

Salome Schillack: (35:44)

That is a lie. But that's a lie that we need to just stop everywhere in everything and do. I'm so glad you said you did the thing with the cooking, because I did it too, and now sometimes it is, like one has baked beans on toast and the other one has 10 spaghetti and it's amazing how quickly the kids start then going, "Oh, well hang on. I can make tacos," and then there's dinner. I'm like, "Oh great. You're making tacos. Make for everyone please. Thank you." I have now started doing, I'm doing that with the washing, I'm doing it with everything. If it's a communal thing that needs to happen in the house for all of us to have clean clothes, be fed, have lunch boxes, it is not a me job. It is an our job, and we need to figure it out.

Kris Plachy: (36:29)

That's really, really cool.

Salome Schillack: (36:31)

To wrap up here. What is your one message to all the visionary women out there building businesses in a more feminine way? If you can leave one thing for women to just hold on to, as we are creating this new way of being leaders, or an old way that is being done in a new environment. What's the one thing that you think if every woman can just know this?

Kris Plachy: (37:07)

I don't know if this is a good answer, but the answer that I have is to find and surround yourself with women who share your values and hold out. That's true for the people you hire, that's true for the women you spend your time with. I think one of the most frustrating things or difficult things about being a woman who's a visionary, and a visionary is a woman who has a thing in her heart. It's not just that you like having a company. It's that you genuinely are driven, either is a thing in your heart that you can't put down and other women like you get you, but trying to be with other women who don't get you, is soul destroying. That's where all that imposter, all that I'm a terrible mother, all that I'm not good at this. What am I thinking? I should be doing ... all that.

As soon as you're with other women who share not your vision, but share that purpose, it's a game changer. I think it's worth holding out for. I think it's important to be incredibly discerning with who you let into your space, because you are gorgeous and powerful and have beautiful energy to share with the world, and giving it to people who haven't, who don't align, or haven't worked to earn it, I don't think that's good news for you. We need you. We need visionary women to be strong and supported and heard. We don't need you hiding because you feel uncomfortable. We need you. The world is changing and we have work to do.

Salome Schillack: (39:13)

I love that so much. I feel like that's, we have permission to be weird the way we're weird, and there's a reason why we feel like we don't fit in with a lot of the other women. I feel like, as soon as I started hanging out with women founders who get it like me, you suddenly, you're given permission.

Kris Plachy: (39:39)

Yeah. You start to soar a little.

Salome Schillack: (39:41)

Yeah, you do. That's fantastic. Kris, thank you so much for being here.

Kris Plachy: (39:45)

It's my pleasure.

Salome Schillack: (39:45)

Where can people learn more about you?

Kris Plachy: (39:48)

Krisplachy.com is my website, and Kris Plachy coach Instagram is probably the best place to connect, connect I would say. But yeah, come on over. We're having some fun. How to CEO, let's do it.

Salome Schillack: (40:03)

Yes. Go to Kris's Instagram. There's lots of golden nuggets on there. It's brilliant. Thank you so much for hanging out with me, Kris. I love you. I appreciate your wisdom. I learn something from you every time you open your mouth and you just keep doing what you do.

Kris Plachy: (40:19)

No pressure. Thank you.

Salome Schillack: (40:23)

All right, take care. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode just as much as I did. I always have fun hanging out with Kris. She really is an absolute, fountain of wisdom. I want to encourage you to listen to her podcast, go to her Instagram account and just troll that a little bit, and you will get so many golden nuggets that she drops in there. It is really, really makes a difference for any woman trying to build a business, a woman leading. As we navigate this new world that we're living, where leadership is more feminine and the world deserves to have more feminine way of being, Kris is really somebody to follow and to learn from.

I hope you enjoyed it. Have a wonderful, wonderful week. Come and tell me what you learned from Kris. I can't wait to hear from you. DM me on Instagram. I want to hear exactly what you learned from Kris. Have a fabulous week everyone. I'll talk to you next week. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

126. What To Fix First In Your Funnel

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126. What To Fix First In Your Funnel

19 Oct 2021 | By Salome Schillack

Feeling like your energy and money is vanishing into thin air? With little to show for all that hard, hard work you've poured into your business?

Stop what you're doing (and double-stop what you're doing if it involves learning a new Reels dance that you're hoping will draw in hundreds of new followers) because it sounds like you have a case of 'broken funnel' on your hands!

Right now, you might be thinking; my funnel is A LOT! Where the HECK do I even start? And how do I even know what needs fixing? Is there some magic pill that can do it for me?

Or maybe you’re just not making money and you suspect it might be because your funnel is not working, but how do you know where to start fixing it? 

This week on The Shine Show, I'm putting on my funnel doctor coat and taking you step by step through the funnel diagnosing process that will help you:

  • Pinpoint and fix the problem
  • Reclaim your time
  • Stop the bank account drain
  • Put your energy & resources into the things that will make you more moolah
  • and start growing exponentially!

2022 is just around the corner (how scary is that!!) Now is the perfect time to reset, reflect, tweak and get your funnels in tip-top shape and set yourself up for the most unbelievable success leading into the new year!

Grab a notepad for this one, and ▶️ PRESS PLAY here!

XXX,

Salome

P.S Nothing makes my heart happier than hearing your feedback from the show. Jump over to my Instagram (@salome.schillack) and message me if you're taking away something from today's episode! What are you fixing first in your funnel? HOW are you getting ready for 2022? Slide into my DMs and let me know!

 

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 126 of The Shine Show. In today's episode, we're going to talk about what to fix first in your funnel. And at the end of this show, you will know exactly where to focus so that you know you're spending your energy and your money in exactly the right place to make the biggest impact in your business right now. Let's listen.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

Well, hello, my friends. It's so nice to be here with you today. In today's episode, you're going to learn exactly what to focus on when you are troubleshooting your funnels to see what you need to fix first so that you spend your energy in the place where you will make the biggest impact. When you know how to do this, you'll start putting your money into the right things where you're going to get exponential return instead of just throwing spaghetti on the wall. So what I'm going to teach you today is going to save you time. It's going to help you have a little bit more peace in your life because you're going to pour your energy into things that are actually making a difference. And it is going to help you save money and put the money in the important places.

Now, if you have been hanging around with me for a while, you may have heard me say that there's a very easy equation to making money online. You only need two things. You need an audience, and you need an offer. So audience plus offer equals money. Audience plus offer equals money. Super simple. It's not quite easy, but it is super simple, and it really is as simple as audience plus offer equals money. So let's unpack those three elements a little bit. Let's unpack audience and unpack offer and unpack money because those are the three levers you can pull. And if you only have three levers you can pull, it automatically makes it easier to start knowing where to troubleshoot your funnels.

First of all, we're going to look at audience. Audience has three core elements. Now, you might be grabbing a pen and a piece of paper to write some of this stuff down. I will be repeating a lot of it because today's episode is quite content-heavy. I'm going to be teaching you some stuff. This is teaching stuff here, heavy stuff. This is like the kind of stuff I teach the students inside The Launch Lounge. So grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down, "Audience plus offer equals money." Now, on another page, write down, "Audience," and then let's divide audience into the things that you need to be focusing on first when you are fixing your funnels and when you're trying to make some money or more money online.

So here are the three parts of audience that we're going to troubleshoot. The first one is list building. List building is number one. Number two is list nurturing. That is the second thing you're going to focus on. And number three, and yes, my friends, I am putting this one last for a reason, is social media. Why do I put social media last? Because really, social media is the last thing you should be focusing on when you are building your audience, and I'll explain why in a second. So under audience, we have list building, list nurturing, and social media.

Now, let's talk about list building. When you are building an audience, the most important thing, the number one activity you should be doing, the only thing you should be focusing on when you get started is list building. I heard the money's in the list. I heard build your list. I heard it 700 million times before I actually listened to it. And can I tell you what the one thing is I regret most in my business? Is not starting my list building sooner. By the time I got around to building my email list, my ad costs were higher, my social media engagement was lower. Thankfully that's about the same time I realized I can run engagement ads to build all those things back up, but it was an expensive exercise, and especially if you're on a tight budget.

So don't think that you're just going to use social media. You are going to use social media too, but your number one priority when you start out creating funnels, testing funnels, and building funnels is list-building. You're going to use your lead magnets to build your list. You are going to test your audience targeting. And when you look at your ad results, you're going to look at your link click-through, right? So in other words, the rate at which people who are seeing your ads are clicking on your ads, and you want that to be above 1%. And you're going to look at your landing page conversion rate, and you want that to be above 45%.

So if you're just getting started and list building is the first thing you're focusing on, then you're going to create as many lead magnets as you possibly can. You're going to put yourself in your ideal customer's shoes and ask yourself, "What is one small win someone can have when they come and talk to me or work with me?" And you can decide if you want to put that into a checklist or a blueprint or an ebook or a quiz or whatever you want to do. Actually don't do a quiz. Quizzes are more advanced. If you're just starting out, don't do a quiz. If you're advanced, please do a quiz, you can do a quiz, you're allowed to do a quiz. But if you're just starting out, steer clear of quizzes because they are a little bit more advanced.

Start building your email list, focus there first. If there's anything you're going to fix first, you fix your list-building first. You make sure you have a lead magnet in place that is actually going to convert. You make sure you have a lead magnet in place that people actually want. And you make sure you have a lead magnet in place that is the start of a conversation with your ideal customer where the next logical conversation is your paid course. In other words, if I'm going to solve a small problem for someone with my lead magnet, I want them to consume my lead magnet and be left after consuming my lead magnet feeling like, "Wow, I just got a fantastic win, and this win has given me clarity for what to do next." And it is that what-to-do-next piece that is your online course then.

So my question to you as we wrap up talking about list building is, is your lead magnet the start of a conversation that ends in them buying your paid course? Think about that for your lead magnet. And if you are currently not making money in your funnels, ask yourself, "Was my lead magnet the opening of the conversation that logically led to them wanting to buy my course?" So that's number one. So let's go back. Audience plus offer equals money. We're unpacking and dissecting audience at the moment because the first thing you need to test is your audiences. Under audience, number one, list building, number two, list nurturing.

What is list nurturing? Actually, not nurturing your list is the number one reason why people don't build their lists. You can put your imaginary hand up. I'm not seeing you, so put your imaginary hand up, but my hand is going up. Hand up if you have started list-building, started emailing them every week, was consistent for about a month, and then the kids were on holidays or the cat got sick or your job got busy or something happened, or you signed up a few clients and then you didn't need to nurture the list anymore, and then you stopped nurturing your list. Oh-oh. List nurturing is one of the key activities in your business. If you're going to build an audience, if you're going to put money behind ads to build your list, you 100% need to be nurturing your email list.

Now, it doesn't have to be something epic. You can just write a personal email, share a story, share a success story of a client or another student or something that happened in your life. Go live on Facebook and share that with them. But add value. Find a way to add value. There's a reason. That lead magnet that you created, people opted into your email list based off of that lead magnet that you created. They said, "I would love to hear from you on a regular basis. Please send me emails." So send them emails and make them valuable. Every single week, send them a valuable email. What are you doing consistently and reliably every single week to nurture your list and give them value? If you're sitting there and you're like, "My funnels aren't working, I haven't made money online," question number one is what are you doing to build your list? Question number two is what are you doing to nurture your list?

So now you know what to fix first. First, you fix your audiences. Under audiences, you fix list-building first, you fix list-nurturing second. Now, what is the third thing, the thing that I said I put third on the list for a reason? The thing that is third on the list is social media. Now, we are often tempted to start by fixing social media. Again, hands up if you've downloaded 700 different content planning templates or content calendars or prompts for social media content. I remember spending Sunday afternoons sitting there creating posts for Instagram and Facebook. Maybe back then when I started it was just Facebook. I think it was just Facebook. Sitting there creating posts on Canva and writing all sorts of captions for my social media, thinking that's going to get me closer to making money, but it does not. It doesn't. So don't start with social media. You start with list-building and you nurture your list. And lastly, you move to social media.

Social media, you are going to start by choosing just one platform, just one platform. And it's not the platform you like best, it is the platform where your ideal customer hangs out. So if your ideal customer is 65, you need to be on Facebook. If your ideal customer is a 40-year-old female who's into arts and crafts, you're probably on Instagram. If it's an 18-year-old, I think TikTok is where they're hanging out these days. I'm not quite sure. Is it Snapchat or TikTok? Probably TikTok. Is Snapchat even still a thing? I don't know. If it is professionals, then LinkedIn is where you need to be. So choose one platform and embrace it.

Start by using content from your lead magnet. Don't reinvent the wheel. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. It's more important that you get lead magnets out than that you create social media content. So take your lead magnet, chop it up into a million different posts, chop it up into different pieces, pull sentences from it, and use that for social media content. And if you already have an email list and you're nurturing that list, you're going to want to promote your weekly content on social media. In my business, if you go to my Instagram account right now, you will see just about the only thing that happens on there is the podcast. I promote the podcast twice a week. So twice a week it goes on the News Feed, and twice a week it goes on Stories. That's all that's happening over there. And you know what? For now, that's enough.

I know where I'm going with it. I have a clear strategy and plan. And to be honest, right now, my energy and my resources are allocated elsewhere. So I am not worried about not being on IGTV and not being on Reels and not being on this, that, and the other. And don't even get me started about Clubhouse and all the other things that are brand new, shiny objects. You don't need to be there; do not get distracted. Focus on list building. Focus on consistently adding value to your list. Promote your content on one platform. So I'm curious, what are you already creating in your business that can be repurposed and reused for social media so that you free up your time and your energy so that you can go move higher up in the hierarchy of things that need fixing? Instead of spending an entire Sunday afternoon coming up with all sorts of Reels dances you can do, spend that time coming up with better lead magnets. Spend that time batch-creating your podcast. Spend that time batch-creating your blog posts.

Your social media is going to be a hungry monster, but it'll always be there waiting for you. But when you pour your energy and your money into list building and list nurturing, you get a return on investment. And by return on investment, I don't just mean pie in the sky stuff, I really mean money in your pocket return on investment. So now you know what to fix first of the three things. So what are the three things again? Audience plus offer equals money. We fix our audience first because we need a tribe. We need a hungry crowd to feed. So audience is the thing you fix first, and you fix it in the order of list building, list nurturing, and social media.

Now let's look at what to fix in your offer. I looked up the definition of the word offer, because I was like, "how am I going to... " When you say offer, there's so many different things that come to mind. Is it my sales page? Is it the bonuses? Is it my course? What is an offer? I think every time, even when you create a social media post, you're kind of making an offer because you're offering people an opportunity to engage with you. So I was like, "How would I define offers?" So I looked it up, and one of the definitions I found was, "to present something to someone to accept or reject as desired. To present something to someone to accept or reject as desired." I think the keywords here is present. Yeah, you're presenting something. You have to present something. So if you've been list-building for 700 years, and you still haven't made an offer, you're not presenting something to people, right? You want to be presenting something to them, and you want to be presenting it to them pretty much from day one because that's the only way you're going to learn what offers convert and which ones don't.

And then the other keyword here is desired. They have to desire what you're offering because if they don't desire it, they won't accept it. Instead, they might reject it. And that sucks. It feels horrible when you make an offer and people reject it. My kids do not love broccoli very much. I love broccoli. I can eat loads of broccoli, I love it. But my kids don't, and I just feel like broccoli is a superfood and you need to eat broccoli. And anyone who gets raised in my house is going to eat broccoli. Dammit, you got to eat your broccoli. So when I put broccoli in front of my kids, they can either accept or reject it. So I have to come up with a better offer for them when I'm offering them broccoli. If I take the broccoli and I steam it a little bit, like literally just a tiny bit, because one of my kids actually really like raw food. So if I just steam it a tiny, tiny bit, so it's just almost just warm but still a bit crunchy and I cover it in mozzarella cheese, they're all over it. They eat more cheese than broccoli, but at least they get some broccoli in as well.

But what I've learned is if I take the broccoli and I put it in the blender and I fold into spaghetti bolognese, which is one of their favorite, favorite meals, they eat broccoli without knowing they're eating broccoli like there's no tomorrow. And I can triple the consumption of broccoli in my house just with this one trick; by folding it into the spaghetti bolognese. My children need broccoli. They do not want broccoli. My offer has to be something that they want, not something that they need. If I offer them what they need, if I present to them what they need, they can accept it or reject it. And they're going to reject it because they don't desire it. So I have to change it into something that they want so that they say yes to it. And then I may have the opportunity to give them what they need.

Your job as a marketer is to understand your ideal customer's desires and to package what they need into an offer that they want. In other words, sell them spaghetti bolognese and give them broccoli included inside. They're not going to want what they don't want. There are three components, audience plus offer equals money. We've already covered the audience. If we look at an offer, there are two very important parts to an offer that I want to talk to you about and that I want to share with you that you can taste and look at to see if it needs fixing. And those things are the promise and the benefits. The promise is the transformation that will occur after they've consumed and implemented what you're offering them. So it is the promise of the desired end state they're going to be in after using your thing, after reading your ebook, after taking your quiz, after downloading your audio, after signing up for your workshop.

I have a few examples for you of where we've just taken the promise of an offer and we've just... Well, actually, we've taken broccoli and turned it into spaghetti bolognese. So we've taken what somebody gave us as an offer, and we just asked a few questions about the ideal customer and then came up with a better promise, and that became the offer. So here's an example of a lead magnet. This lead magnet is coiled... called not coiled. It's called Oil Paint Mixing Guide. Oil Paint Mixing Guide. The person who creates Oil Paint Mixing Guide could say, "Well, everybody asks me for a mixing guide. Everybody wants to know how I mix my oil paints. Everybody wants to know how I get that great color every time. Because they asked for an oil paint mixing guide, I created an oil paint mixing guide." And so that goes on the landing page, and then it doesn't convert quite as well.

And so we change it to Perfect Color Every Time: A Guide to Mixing Colors for Confidently Painting in Oils. I'm going to read that again because dang, this is good. Perfect Color Every Time: A Guide to Mixing Colors for Confidently Painting in Oils. We're still saying, "Oil Paint Mixing Guide." We're just packaging it up as spaghetti bolognese. What the ideal customer here really wants is they want the perfect color every time. So what they might say is, "Can you show me how you mix paint so that I can paint in the perfect colors as well?" And what you hear is, "I want a color guide." And so what you create is a color guide. But the little bit that you missed or that you didn't include in that is, "I want the color guide so that I can create perfect color every time." So there's a good example for you of the promise and the benefit. The benefit is perfect color every time. Whereas, Oil Paint Mixing Guide does not include a single benefit, it is just a feature.

Here's another example from a workshop I recently saw. Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm hanging out with my friends, I've never used the words career reinvention. "Oh, I would love to reinvent my career." That's not how we talk. That's how we were taught to write in school, but nobody says, "I want career reinvention. Oh, can I please have some career reinvention?" The answer is no, you do not want career reinvention. What about Love What You Do Without Sacrificing Family Time: A Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. How's that? "Love what you do." That's what we say when we talk to our friends, we say, "I just want to love what I do without sacrificing time with my family." Love What You Do Without Sacrificing Family Time: A Career Reinvention Workshop for Women Over 40. That's much better, isn't it?

So the promise is love what you do without sacrificing family time. The benefit is you're going to love what you do without sacrificing family time. Spaghetti bolognese instead of broccoli. Still, you're offering the same thing, but you're wrapping it up differently. And here is an example for you from my own learning and from my own life and from my own business. So here's a course I used to sell and the promise of the course. The Fastest Way to Build Your List to a Thousand People. The Fastest Way to Build Your List to a Thousand People. I thought, "Who doesn't want that? Everybody wants to learn how to build their lists using Facebook and Instagram ads." Turns out they don't. So we sold A-Lister. The very first time I sold A-Lister, we sold it as the fastest way to build your list to a thousand people. When I surveyed the audience, I realized nobody wants to buy... Well, they did buy, but they told me it's a grudge purchase, buying something that teaches you how to build your list. Because it's not sexy, it's not what we want.

Instead, later, we turned it into Find Your People Online and Make Your First Sale. That's what they want. They want to find their people online. They want to find people who just wants to buy their thing. And they want to make their first sale. That's what they want. I know that they need to build their list, but I was giving them broccoli. Had to wrap it up as spaghetti bolognese. So when you learn how to make offers to your warm audiences, in other words, your email list and your cold audiences with your lead magnets using ads, then you can move on to fixing the third part of the equation. What is the third part of the equation? Audience plus offer equals money. Money is the third part of the equation, right?

So you need a hungry audience, you need a good offer with a clear promise and a benefit, and then you'll make some money. So if you're not making money, what are we going to look at? After we've looked at building your email list, we've looked at nurturing your email list. We've looked at social media to promote your lead magnets and your weekly contents. We've looked at lead magnet offers that has to be inviting and converting. Now we look at paid offers, making money. Paid offers. And under paid offers, we're going to look at three things. We're going to look at the number of people who are in your funnel. Because if you don't have enough people in your funnel, you need to fix that. Then we're going to look at the number of people who saw your offer. Because if you didn't get enough people seeing your offer, you need to fix that. And finally, we're going to look at the number of people who converted.

Now, I'm willing to bet that when you started listening to this episode or when you saw the title of this episode, What to Fix Next in Your Funnel, you thought I'm going to start with making money. You thought I'm going to start with, "Why aren't people paying me?" And you can see that we actually fixed that last because before we can make money, we need an audience and we need an offer. So the first thing we're going to fix when we're making money is the number of people in your funnel. Statistically, only four to 5% of the people who are in your launch, so in other words, people who sign up for your webinar or say, "Yes, you can send me this promotion." only four to 5% of them will convert. So that means you need at least 100 people to sign up for your webinar or your challenge or your workshop to make four or five sales.

A lot of people are surprised when I tell them this number, because they would build their email list to two or 300 and then invite the two or 300 to a webinar and have a webinar with about 20 people on it and then make one sale. Or maybe they make no sales. And they tell me, "But I had 20 people on my webinar, and only one bought." And I go, "well, that's fantastic. One out of twenty is great." And they're disappointed because they worked so hard to get the 300 on there. What they don't realize is, statistically, that is still a fantastic outcome because if you increase that 300 to 600, now you have two sales. If you increase it more, you have more sales. So I don't want you to feel disappointed when you have low numbers of people in your funnels to begin with, and you didn't make any sales. It is a numbers game. It's online marketing because it's online, and we need to get those critical mass.

So the question is, did you have enough people at the top of your funnel to make those sales at the bottom of the funnel? And if you didn't have enough people, what do you need to go back to? What are you going to fix then? You're going to go back to square one; fix your list building. You're going to go back to list-building, nurturing your list, sending them emails, posting on social media, creating an offer that converts, getting them onto a webinar or a workshop or a free thing, making them an offer. Now that you have more people, you're more likely to make a sale.

So the first thing you want to fix is the number of people in your funnel. The second thing you want to fix is the number of people who saw your offer. This is another one that we run into a lot. Will say, "Well, I had 20 people on my webinar, why did nobody buy?" And I say, "Well, how many of the 20 went to your sales page?" And then you go and look in Kajabi, and Kajabi tells you you had five people view your sales page. And I say, "Well, yeah, it's not that it didn't work, it's just that you didn't have enough people there." Your sales page should convert roughly around 20%. 20% of the people who come to your sales page should buy your course. So once you know you have enough people in your funnel, look at the number of people who actually saw your sales page and ask yourself if that's enough. 20% of the people who saw your sales page should be converting to sales.

If you feel that you didn't make enough sales, look at how many people were on your sales page and see if you had enough people converting from your sales page to a sale in order to know what to fix. If you didn't get enough people on your sales page, where do you start fixing it? You go back to square one: audience. Check that you've got a big enough audience. Check that you are adding value to them every week. Check that you're building your list on your social media. Check that you invited them to the workshop or the webinar on social media. Check that you had enough people in the launch. Check that you had enough people on the sales page. So that's the second thing, sales page. And the third thing is the number of people who converted.

So finally, after building our list, after nurturing our list, after promoting everything on socials, after making offers, after making free offers with our lead magnets, after making paid offers, if you've checked that you've had enough people in your funnel and you've checked that you've had enough people see your offer, then and then only do you check if you have enough people converting. A lot of people just look at the number of conversions and they become so emotional about that number that they forget to actually go back and check the data. Today, on one of the coaching calls inside The Launch Lounge, one of the students said, "It is such a beautiful dance between emotion and data. You have to lean into the emotions that you go through as an online course creator, and you have to build that resilience and that emotional fitness to lean into the emotions of the ups and the downs in order to get to a place where you can say, 'Now I can just look at it from a data perspective.'"

Because it really is only data, but it also is a lot of big feelings that goes with it. But if you just stop at the feeling and you never move through the feeling to get to the data, you risk staying stuck there, and you risk making the wrong decisions about how to fix it. And I see this so often when I see even... Sometimes I see multimillion-dollar online course creators who have hit a plateau in their businesses, who are not looking at their data and then desperately searching for some kind of an expert, some savior, someone who has some magic pill to come and save them from whatever they perceive to be the problem in their business. And it doesn't just happen to one-man shows, it doesn't just happen to five-figure businesses, I see it in seven-figure businesses. It's a bit scary when you see someone looking for a savior and you know that the savior is you need to be really, really, really honest with yourself about your data. If you stay stuck in those emotions, you're never going to be honest with yourself about your data. And then you're never going to learn what to fix.

Now, some people, when they're launching only need three students in a launch to have a profitable launch. Others need 300, and others need 3000. So how do you know if your conversion number is a good number or not? The question is you look at your ROAS. What does ROAS mean? ROAS stands for return on ad spend, ROAS, and it's pretty much a little sum that we use to work out, "Did you make any money?" Because we're putting money into ads on the front end and we're getting money out of our launch on the backend, so we want to know for every dollar I put into Facebook Ads, how many dollars did I get back? The equation is revenue over ad cost. And the idea is that that number should be more than one. If you put in $1 and you got out $1, you are still exactly where you were before you started launching. It would have been better to go and buy a pair of shoes.

If you put in $1 and you get out $2, then you have made money. Then your money has grown. For every $1 you put in, you got $2 out. So you made your dollar back and you might another dollar. That's a good vending machine. Now, ideally, we want the ROAS to be more than two because we got overheads to pay. We got to pay ourselves. We go to save some profit. But it depends on your business model how much you need in terms of return on ad spend for it to be profitable. So then if you want to make more money on the next round when you're launching, you need to go back to the original equation: audience plus offer equals money. And in order to make more money, you grow your audience. Then you make better offers, and then you sell more so that your return on investment becomes bigger and bigger and bigger than the money you put into ads. And that, my dear friends, is how simple it is to make money online. It's simple, hey. You think it's simple? Very simple. It's not easy.

Today's episode was content-heavy. Now, I know that some of you will be taking notes feverishly, and some of you might be going a little bit like, "What?" Wherever you're at right now with this content, I want you to know that it is exactly where you need to be. If you take one thing from today's lesson, from today's podcast episode, think about what that one thing is. Come over to Instagram, find me on Instagram. I'm salome.schillack. And if you can't spell that, I can't spell it either, just... I don't know, search for Facebook Ads and I might come up. Or just search Salome and maybe I come up. Or go to my website, shine and succeed, and you'll find it as well. Come and find me and tell me what the one thing is that you learned today that you're going to fix first, that you're going to do differently, that you're going to make a change. And tell me how you're getting ready for that change to really impact your business in 2022.

It has been a shitty couple of years, right? I mean, the last two years, it's just been doozies. So let's start thinking about 2022, and let's start putting our energy and our focus and our money into the things that really matter so that we can get more of our time back so that we can have more peace of mind so that we can have more freedom and control in our lives so that we can make more money and have that create more freedom for ourselves. So if there's one thing you're taking away from today's episode that you know that if you do this one thing in 2022, then that is going to help you get to where you want to go faster, come and send me a DM on Instagram, come and tell me what that one thing is. I would love to hear from you, please come and tell me.

All right, my friends, you guys have a wonderful, wonderful week, and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss a thing.

125. The ONLY Way Online Course Creators Can Make Money with Facebook Ads

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125. The ONLY Way Online Course Creators Can Make Money with Facebook Ads

12 Oct 2021 | By Salome Schillack

Hands up if you've ever said:

"Ads have never worked for me."

"I've never been able to find a good ads manager."

"My ads manager couldn't find the right audience for me."

It’s time to address the big, ugly, destructive lie that makes so many online course creators very sad! 

Facebook Ads have never made anyone any money!

When you pay for ads, you're not paying for more sales. You're paying for more eyeballs who will click to a landing page, sign up for all your launch things, and eventually purchase your course.

Your funnel is what converts all those eyeballs into dollar dollar bills! And seeing more of those ‘cha ching’ notifications appear in your emails all comes down to how well you market to people. 

The good news is there's no need to run out the door and sign up for a marketing degree because most of the information you need is sitting right under your nose! All the data you have, from your sales page views, email opening rates, and click-through rates from your ads, all bring little clues about what is pricking your target audience’s attention, and what they have literally no interest in . 

Once you understand how to interpret this golden information, do more of what's working well, and phase out what isn't…. Guess what?

THAT’S MARKETING, BABY!

Wondering where to start? I’ve got good news.

This week on The Shine Show, I delve right in and share all my hot tips for how to nail your marketing by cleaning up your funnels and 

Together we're going to discover:

  • WHY ads fall flat, and how to avoid this happening to you
  • The industry benchmarks when it comes to conversions and what rates you should be looking for
  • How to understand what is and what is not working for you
  • Where to find the data that will transform everything! 

PLUS so much more!

XXX

Salome 

 

P.S I LOVE hearing your feedback about the show. DM me on Instagram (@salome.schillack) and let me know if this episode has inspired you to make a change to your funnels or marketing and what steps you’ll be taking to avoid the ad flop!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 125 of The Shine Show. Today's show is called: The only way online course creators can make money with Facebook ads. I don't know about you, but I just love this time of year. I just wanted to say hi to you and say, I hope you are also enjoying this kind of wind down towards the end of the year. I love quarter four, because quarter four is about wrapping things up, cleaning things up and planning for the new year. And goodness gracious me, let's hope 2022 has some really good stuff installed for everyone, including a lot of freedom. Like Tahlia, I have country cabin fever. I have state cabin fever. We've been stuck inside Queensland for the better part of two years. And I know that that is not by any means the worst thing that's happened to anyone due to COVID, but man, I'm ready to get on an airplane.

So I just want to say, as we kind of start going into the festive season, I want you to think about what has worked really well in your business this year. What are you going to keep doing? What are the things that are causing overwhelm and stress and tiredness, and that's not working well? And let's sit down at some point and really design 2022 for ourselves now. Let's start calling it into life. Let's start calling into life the way we want to live, the money we want to earn, the clients we want to work with, students we want to attract, the hours we want to work, and let's build healthy, wholesome businesses together.

All right, today on the episode, I am going to share with you the only way, the only, only way online course creators can make money with Facebook ads. And I'm willing to bet it's not what you think it is. Enjoy.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi. I'm your host, Salome Schillack. I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine. This is The Shine Show.

On the agency side of our business, where we run ads for online course creators and membership hosts, we recently worked with a client who has a fabulous business. This business makes millions dollars, has been around for a long time, and from the outside really looks like a healthy business. However, the client came to us saying that they are feeling frustrated and they're feeling stuck and they're getting angry because they've hired all these ads managers in the past to help them run ads and ads have just never really worked for them. That was the client's words. Ads have just never really worked for them.

Now there's a little bit of a red flag that comes up for me when I hear someone say, "Ads have never worked for me." Or when they say something like, "My ads manager didn't make my launch work." I'm going to tell you guys today why that is the biggest lie you can believe and what to believe instead if you want to make money, lots of money from your ads, because the truth is Facebook ads, Facebook and Instagram ads have never, never, ever made anyone any money. Facebook ads pays for eyeballs. It pays for more eyeballs. It pays for more eyeballs who click to a landing page. It pays for more people with their eyeballs and their clicking fingers to sign up for webinars and video series and challenges and all sorts of launch thingies. And it brings people to sales pages. The thing that converts those eyeballs into dollar, dollar bills is funnels, it is how well you market to those people. So on today's episode, we're going to unpack all of this a little bit.

When this client told me ads have never really worked for her, I said, "Okay, let's run some ads, but before we start spending thousands of dollars, what I want to do is I want to take $3,000." Now I know for some of you, $3,000 might sound like a lot, but on an average funnel where we want to get a clean data run of enough people starting at the beginning of the funnel and coming down all the way to the bottom of the funnel, we would typically take about $3,000 to get enough people through that funnel. So I said, "Let's take $3,000 and run these ads over a period of two weeks and we track every single conversion point."

And by every single conversion point, I mean, we track the CPM, we track the click-through rate, we track the landing page conversion rate for the lead magnet. We track the open rates for the emails. We track the click-through rate from the emails. We track the number of people who saw the sales page and we track the sales conversion page. So every little conversion point along the way in this funnel, we are tracking that.

And then let's meet up again at the end of these two weeks and unpack that and see what we can learn based on the way that the data shows that people moved through your funnel. Because if ads have never really worked for you and nobody has ever taken the time to sit down with you to track your data, go through it and understand where did all those eyeballs that I paid for go to, then of course, you're going to believe ads haven't worked for me. Because if you think it is an equation of ad money, ad dollars going in, sales dollars coming out, and that is cause and effect. But you don't understand what happened between when the dollars went in and when the dollars came out, then it is... Of course, it's normal and natural to think, "Well, ads didn't work for me because I put the money in, but I didn't get the money out."

But here's the thing. Unless you can sit down with someone like us or a data and analytics person, or you have someone like that on your team, or maybe you're really good at tracking data, unless you can look at all of those conversion points, you're never really going to diagnose the problem. It kind of ends up being a little bit like saying, "I've had a broken foot for so long and I keep treating my arm, but my broken foot isn't getting any better." You see, it doesn't make sense.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere along the way, online course creators have been told that the way to make money is to run ads. And if I find the person who started spreading that line, I am going to do some nasty, nasty things to that person because it is the lie that makes so many online course creators, incredibly sad, frustrated, and waste thousands of dollars. I see people wasting thousands, tens of thousands of dollars because they believe that ads is the thing that's going to make them money. And they never get to the point where they diagnose the real problem where someone sits down with them and goes, "You shouldn't be treating your arm. You have a broken foot. Fix the foot and the problem goes away."

So yes, I'm getting passionate about this because I see this too often. I feel like it is my mission in life. Like your mission, should you choose to accept it, is just save all these online course creators from this terrible lie that they continue to believe that Facebook ads is the thing that makes them money. I kind of see people then, once I burst this bubble for them, once I help them see that the funnel is the thing that's broken, I see them falling into two different categories.

They fall into the first category, which is the people who are incredibly grateful that we've helped them identify the problem, that we've helped them see what needs fixing, and then they can go away and fix it. Or they stay in this blame, putting the onus on someone else's bubble, which is their prerogative. Everybody has a choice, but what I tend to hear people then say is one of two things. Either they continue to say, "Well, ads have just never worked for us." Or they say something like, "Well, I've just never been able to find a good ads manager." Or, "The ads managers have hired have never been able to find the right audiences for me."

If you've ever said any of those things, I just need you to pause for a moment, just pause for a moment and think about whether or not someone has ever really helped you unpack your entire funnels conversion points, every single point and put it into context based on what we see happening in the real world, based on what we see conversion averages are. Because there are these averages where we can go, well, okay, a sales page should convert at roughly a certain percentage in this kind of funnel. We can compare it and we can say, "If the average is 20% and yours converted at 2%, there's a clue for us as to where to start fixing this funnel."

But if someone holds on to this belief that it's the ads manager, or it's the ads, or they didn't find the right people, or ads have never worked for us, that is a incredibly disempowered position to be in. Because if you continue to believe that the problem with your broken foot is your arm, you're never going to fix the real problem. You're going to keep chasing your tile, and that makes me very, very, very, very, very sad.

What are ads and what can they do?

Ads is basically just traffic. We call it traffic. We even refer to ads as traffic. We call ourselves traffic people. We call ourselves ad buyers because ads is just traffic and spending money on ads just means you're going to increase your traffic.

Now, most of the time when we spend money on ads during launches, the majority of that budget goes to cold audiences. So they go to people who've never, ever, ever heard about us or seen us. So if I work working with the students inside the launch lounge, what I teach them is to use your ad money, to build your email list first. Get your email list to at least a thousand people or more, and then only launch your course to your email list because your email list is not cold traffic. They are warm traffic. They are people who love you. They're people you're nurturing. They're people who adore you, who would go to the ends of the earth for you. And so of course, when you make your offer to them and they buy and they eat it up like hotcakes, you have proof of concept. Now you know your amazing course will sell to a warm audience.

Now, another thing that I see happening so much is someone would be nurturing their email list, telling them about a course that's coming in six months, four, six months. And for six months be warming them up. And then they sell to this list that they've built up over time and nurtured, and they make a ton of money. And it's fantastic. And then the hire an ads manager, and they do the same thing, exact same thing that they did to their list, but they do it to cold traffic and suddenly it doesn't make money. Guess what they say, "Ads have never worked for us. My ads manager couldn't find the right people." All the same things because the first launch was super duper warm. And then they expected the same thing to happen to super duper cold people.

That is why I teach all the students inside The Launch Lounge and in A-Lister to build your email list first, make your offer to that list. If your offer takes you up on that, if your list takes you up on the offer, fantastic. Now go back to list building, and then do a... What shall we call it? A mild launch. A warm and cold launch. So this time you warm up your list again, but this time you add a little bit... Like take half of your budget, spend it on list building, take half of your budget and spend it on cold traffic to the webinar or the video series or whatever you're using to launch your course so that you have like lukewarm people, not all cold, not all warm, lukewarm.

And if it works to a lukewarm audience, guess what? Chances are it might also work to a cold audience. But as you progress through this process of launching to a cold audience, every time you launch, you're going to learn new things about your audience. Every time you launch, you're going to discover new ways you can optimize your funnels, new ways you can improve your funnels. And every time you improve your funnels, you're going to get better and better and better, and your conversion rates are going to get higher and higher and higher.

However, as you move from warm audiences to cold audiences, you will see that your conversion rates, overall, are very likely to come down significantly because cold people who have just met you on a social media app, behave differently to people who have been on your email list all along.

Two things you should do right now, if you fall into the ads have just never worked for us categories. The first one is you need to fix your belief, that ads equal money. Stop treating your broken leg with a bandage on your arm.

The second thing is you need to start tracking all of your conversion points in your funnels and diagnosing the real problems and fixing them with the audiences you have, with the warm audiences before moving to cold audiences.

What I mean by tracking your conversion points in your funnel is, I mean, your link click-through rate from your ads should be higher than 1%. Your landing page conversion rate on your lead magnets or on your webinars should be more than 45%. Your email open rates should be hitting at least 35% if it's a promotion. Your link click-through rates from your emails, track those. I'd say I want them at least to be three or 4%. And then clicks to sales page, you need to be tracking those because you need to make sure that you're getting enough eyeballs on your sales page and then conversions from your sales page. So track your sales page conversion rate. We want the sales page to convert at least 20% of the people who come to the page.

What do we say when someone insists that, "Well, what if we have the wrong audiences? What if we were targeting the wrong people? What if we did... What if our funnels would have converted had we targeted people differently?" I just want to share that there's... One of the things that I teach inside of our courses is there's three key ingredients. If you imagine a Venn diagram for a second, there's three key ingredients that goes into not into a successful launch, into building a successful online courses business. So every online course launch, every successful online course launch a business has these three things working really well.

The first thing is the messaging. You know your ideal customer, you know their pain points, you know their desires, and you can craft an offer that is absolutely irresistible to this ideal customer. That's ingredient number one. That is a very important ingredient and it is an ingredient that takes time to learn, really. It's also an ingredient that you learn kind of through falling in your face a few times and asking for feedback and learning and listening to your audience.

The second ingredient is traffic. Facebook ads. There you go. That's where the Facebook ads manager comes in and the Facebook ads manager contributes traffic, and you need traffic. You need an audience because you can't sell to nobody. You need an audience, a big enough audience. And the best way to get a big enough audience is to run traffic.

The third thing you need is a conversion mechanism that works. What I mean by that is a conversion mechanism... I'm looking for a cooler name for this than conversion mechanism, because it sounds so mechanic. But so if you can help me come up with a better name for conversion mechanism, let me know. The conversion mechanism is basically either an email sequence, a webinar, a video series, a challenge, a workshop, what ever your preferred choice of thingamabobby, event, sequence, series of energy, whatever you want to call it. A series of emails, series of conversations. Whatever that mechanism is that you use to convert people, needs to be proportionate to the dollar value of the course you're selling.

Now, what did I just say? Conversion mechanism needs to be proportionate to the dollar value of what you're saying. I mean, what does that even mean? It means that you can't bring a bazooka to a knife fight. It means that if you are selling a product where the price point is $27 and you invite people to a three-hour long webinar that costs you $5 per lead to fill up, and you require 90 minutes of their attention or three hours of their attention to sell the $27 thing, you're not going to make money. But if you use an automated email sequence where they only have to read one, two, or three emails and take to a sales page to get made an offer for $27 thing, that's a no brainer thing, then your launch mechanism was proportionate to your dollar value of your sale.

It makes sense to use a webinar for a $1,000 course. It makes sense to use a webinar and maybe also a one-on-one conversation for a $5,000 coaching package. It makes sense to use a prerecorded webinar for a 400 to a $1,000 thing. It makes sense to use a four-part video series for a $2,000 thing. So you see how your launch mechanism that you choose is important and also matters that your launch mechanism actually converts these people. That's where your launch mechanism and your offer really comes together. Those are the three important ingredients that everybody needs to build successful online course, launch business's messaging, traffic, and a conversion mechanism.

I call these three things, the three ingredients for you to be able to identify your most profitable customer journey. Because if you can nail your messaging, you nail your traffic and you nail your conversion mechanism, then what you'll start to see is there is a pattern in how people move through your funnels from the very first time they hear or see you on social media, to when they opt in for your lead magnet, to when they sign up for your webinar, to when they become sales in the end. Think about that and ask yourself, is your messaging working? Is your traffic working and is your conversion mechanism working? Because those are going to be the things that are going to contribute to your success. And those are going to be the things that's going to get you out of that why ads can never work for us or what if we had the wrong audiences lies. All right.

Here are a few things you should do, or you can do to ensure your funnels convert well.

Number one, test your messaging using engagement ads, which are the cheapest ads. You can run $5 a day, your based social media posts to lots of different cold audiences and see which messages land best for which audiences. What you're looking for is message market match. So you're looking for the messaging in your ad, the hook in your ad, why the people are associating with you, the featured product in your ad, or the pain points that you address in your ad. You're looking for people to associate with that and engage with your ad. And when you're targeting a few different interest-based audiences, and you see that one actually showed more interest in your messaging than another one, then that's a clue for when you start running conversion ads. So use cheap ads to test your messaging and to test your targeting. Because if you can identify three or four, nice, big, cold interest-based audiences, or a few good lookalike audiences with your engagement ads, then you've done the research with cheap ads. You don't have to do the research when you're running your webinar ads. So number one, test your messaging.

Number two, build your email list, build your email list, build your email list, build your email list. It is super, super, super important. The first ad, the best ad, the only ad that is ever going to be really of value to you is your list-building ads. So put your money into list-building ads. Before you sign up for any Kajabis or ClickFunnels or any of the more expensive stuff, just get a plain landing page builder and start building your email list. You can find out where your ads convert best long before you launch so that you know you have the right audiences by the time you launch if you've built your email list. You also are way more guaranteed of making money if you start by launching to your email list.

Number three is use lots of interest and lookalike audiences. Test them all. Try big lookalikes and small lookalikes. And lookalikes of your email list and lookalikes of your sales list, but also lookalikes of your video views. Also, lookalikes of people who engaged with you on Instagram. Play around with it, have fun and just test it and see what works. The key to making more money with ads is to make money without ads. So spend your ad dollars on list building, test your funnels to your email lists, fix your funnels, optimize your funnels, make sure your funnels are converting, and then hire the very best ads manager you can find to blow up your funnel with even more traffic. And that my friends is how you make money with Facebook ads.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I really, really love, love reading your feedback, your comments, your DMs. Thank you so much. Keep them coming. Send me a DM. I am salome.schillack on Instagram, and I would love to know what you learned today on the episode. What are you going to do differently? What is going to change for you as a result of listening to the episode? Send me a DM. I will personally respond to you. I love, love reading your messages. Thank you very much for being here and let me know what this is doing for you. Cheers.

If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

124. How To Get To The Next Level in Your Business

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124. How To Get To The Next Level in Your Business

5 Oct 2021 | By Salome Schillack

The things you surround yourself with won't serve you forever! But it can feel confusing trying to figure out what is adding value to your life and what has simply become an energy-sucking activity that's not pushing you in the right direction.

It's time for a bit of 'life pruning'.

Think of a lush, leafy, tall green tree. That tree didn't just become a masterpiece overnight; it required a lot of sunshine, good quality soil, and pruning off the dead branches to grow healthy and strong.

The same goes for you!

Today on The Shine Show, I want to help you step into the best NEXT version of yourself by giving you the framework for recognizing what branches you need to 'prune away' so you can grow faster, healthier, taller, and stronger.

We talk a lot about surrounding ourselves with all the good things, finding nourishing soil to 'plant' ourselves in, getting enough light and love to allow ourselves to flourish….but sometimes the pruning thing can be uncomfortable to think about.

Those dead branches can feel really comfortable and familiar! But keep those branches around, and you'll be at risk of stagnating and never reaching your full potential!

I won't lie. It can be uncomfortable and painful to cut off the branches that no longer serve you. However, I'll be here with you, sharing the advice that helped me protect my energy and end up in circles that invigorate and inspire me to thrive and grow in the right direction!

XXX

Salome

P.S If today’s episode resonates with you, and you’re now analyzing all the pools you’ve dived into, I would love to hear from you! DM me on Instagram (@salome.schillack) and let me know what steps you’re taking to find the pool that supports your dreams & desires, and a tribe that pushes you to get there!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

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175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

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174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

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173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

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172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

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171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

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170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

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169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

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168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

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167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

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166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

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165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

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164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

Hello, and welcome to episode number 124 of The Shine Show. 

Today's episode is called how to get to the next level in your business. And I just wanna say, spring has sprung here in Brisbane. It is warming up, there are beautiful flowers everywhere. The world is full of colour. And I feel like there's some new life being breathed into me and into the world around me. And I hope that wherever you're listening, even if it's being autumn, even if autumn has sprung for you, that you are also feeling optimistic and feeling like there's a new life about to come. Well, on that note, let's jump into the episode. 

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is oh, 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster, then tuning because you are ready to shine. This is the Shine Show. 

How do you know that it's time to let go of something? In today's episode, I want to give you a little bit of guidance as much as I can or share a little bit of my story with you about times when I've had to let go of things. And they aren't always just things that you lose or things that are taken from you or relationships that end or contracts that end or students that opt out or it's not always that kind of letting go.

Sometimes you're in a group that you love and it's very comfortable and it feels good and you love hanging out with them and it's a business group and it is standing in the way of your growth. Where can I explore a little bit of that today? And I'm gonna share a little bit of what I've learned about being in the wrong group or staying in a group for a longer time than you should. And at the end of this episode, I'm hoping you'll have a little bit of a framework.

Then you can sit down with your journal or sit down when you're meditating or when you're dreaming about your future and just really use this framework to ask yourself some really honest questions, because sometimes it's being in groups or situations or places where we are most comfortable, that is actually standing in the way of our growth. 

Most of you, if you've been here with me for a while know that I live in Australia, I live in beautiful sunny Brisbane, I love Brisbane, it is my absolute favourite place on this earth. And I grew up in South Africa. Now I lived in South Africa until I was 23. So my entire childhood until I was a young adult was in South Africa. Then I moved to the UK, spent a little bit of time there, back to South Africa and then moved to Australia. 

But where I grew up in South Africa, I grew up in a mining town called Witbank. It is not far from Pretoria or Johannesburg if you've ever been there. Now Witbank is a good, I'd say five or six hours drive from the nearest beach. So let's call it an inland town. Like it is a town where we don't have access to beaches in the ocean, as freely as I would say, we have here in Australia. 

And in South Africa growing up, I was a very good swimmer. I used to really kick butt at the swimming carnivals, especially backstroke. Man, I was good at it. And I think one of the reasons I was good at it is because I have ginormous feet. And my ginormous feet, meaning that I got teased a lot at school, but it also means that when I got in that pool, you better watch out because I am going to use my ginormous feet to win the swim carnival. 

So back in South Africa, I was one of the base swimmers in the school. And I was really proud of it. Fast forward about proper 30 something years and about a year ago, one of my friends here in Brisbane said to me, she is gonna start swimming. And I thought, what a great idea! I'm gonna start swimming with her. I live right on, for those locals who know I live right next to Mount Coot-tha. Mount Coot-tha is a beautiful, beautiful hill, call it a hill. And there's a school right at the top of Mount Coot-tha. And that school has a swimming pool on the top of that hill. And that hill overlooks green, beautiful green trees with a fabulous view of the city in the morning. 

So idyllic as can be every morning, not every morning, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we now go up to the school and we watch the sun come up and we swim. And there's a swim school there that had open sessions for adults who want to come swim. So we decided we're gonna join the swim squad.

And what I didn't realize is that this adult squad is filled with mostly triathletes. Yeah, there's some serious dudes in that pool who swim like nobody's business. But that's okay because there's one lane and that lane has a little sign at it that says for those where every lap hurts. So I started in that lap, in that lane, I was like, okay, I haven't swam in a long time, but I was a good swimmer, I can do this. I'll start in the lane where every lap hurts and I'm sure I'll make my way up pretty quickly. 

So the first day, I get in the pool and the guy who's the coach says, "All right, we're gonna start with 475 meter laps, and we've got to do them in under two minutes. Go!” Oh my goodness, I nearly died. I thought at the end of that first session, I drowned probably about three times nearly drowned. But I was like, okay, I clearly haven't done this in many years, I suck. 

Now today, fast forward to today, I have been swimming for a year. And the other day I walked around with my friend after swimming and I say to her, I know I'm not doing this because I wanna be good at it, I'm doing it for a health and wellness for my mental and my physical wellbeing. But I say to her, "I am still in the lane where everything hurts."

The coach told me the other day after he said, we're gonna do braced stroke, like after we've done the braced stroke, he looks at me and he says, "Yeah, Salome, we're gonna have to teach you how to do braced stroke." I mean, what? Do you have to teach me? I thought I'm really good at it. Now, I'm not. So I was walking with my friend afterwards and I said to her, I don't understand this. Back in school, I was the best swimmer. And then I come here and I'm the worst swimmer. And a year later, I'm still one of the worst swimmers and I'm still not getting it. 

And she looked at me and with the most clarity, she just said, "It's because you were in the wrong pool." And I thought about it, and I realized, yes. Back in South Africa, I was in the wrong pool because even though I had a little bit of maybe natural talent, I was in a pool with a bunch of kids who live inland and hardly ever get to swim. 

So, what I was doing back in school I was probably swimming and most of the other kids were just not drowning. But I think about that and I go, I thought I was really good at it, but I was in the wrong pool. I was the base swimmer in the pool with the kids who don't know how to swim. And that gave me false confidence because when I moved to Australia, I learned that Australian kids are taught to swim from when they were babies, because Australia is all around the coast. 

Everybody lives pretty much within an hour's drive of the ocean. And Australia is such a health and safety focused country, it is important that our citizens don't drown, that our kids don't drown. And so swimming is a skill that gets taught here to little Aussie kids from the moment they open their eyes. So for me to get in a pool with a bunch of not just Aussies, but Aussie triathletes, of course I'm still in the lane where everything hurts. 

I am by far the worst swimmer, because I didn't learn it as a kid, the way that they did, they've had 40 years of practice on me. And so even now, I mean the wrong pool, but this is a pool I choose. I choose to be in this wrong pool. I choose to be the worst swimmer in the pool where I'm swimming with other people who know how to do it, who can push me to be better, where there's a coach who can look at me and say, "Dude, you don't know how to do brace stroke "we got to fix that." 

And even though my ego, like kind of cringes in the moment, I go, "Wow, I never knew "that I don't know how to do this properly." But when the expert looks at me and says, "You don't do it properly," you bet I'm gonna pay attention because this is important to me. So what I realized is, back home, I was in the wrong pool and I was basing my confidence on my performance, in the wrong pool. And right now, I'm also in the wrong pool or maybe right now, I'm in the right pool. But being in the right pool now, feels very uncomfortable. It hurts, I'll tell you my butt has been hurting for two days from the last swim we did. 

So I tell you this story because I want you to see that sometimes being in the wrong pool holds you back sometimes staying in a group where you're the based in the group or staying in a group where you're comfortable or staying part of something that you committed to, just because you committed to it or being part of something, because you feel like the other members of the something it relies on you to be there, or just because you made some kind of commitment and that's no longer serving you that could be holding you back from growing. 

And I would rather, if you're gonna be in the wrong pool, I'd rather have you be in the pool where you're with the triathletes and you're the worst one in the pool, but you're the one who gets to make the most progress. So I wanna tell you about a couple of groups where I have had this moment, where I realized that if I stay here, I'm gonna stagnate and I need to move somewhere. 

The first time was back in Perth when I lived in Perth and I just started my business and I thought that the best way to grow a business, this is back when it was a sales coaching business is by attending networking events. Oh man, tell me you've been to a BNI meeting. Oh, I would rather stick a fork in my eye. 

So I was sitting at a table at 6:30 AM with some MLMs, some lawyers, some accountants, some real estate agents looking around the room going, what am I doing here? I don't wanna work with any of the people in this niche. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that I don't wanna work with them. I wanna work with creative people, I wanna work with marketing people, I wanna work with artists, I wanna work with teachers, I wanna work with educators, I wanna work with people who are pouring their own energy and their own love and their own creative talent into other people. And not that lawyers and accountants don't do that, it's just not my jam. And I looked around and I saw that, the business that I was building was the wrong type of business, if I needed to be at 6:30 AM networking events. 

And that's when I started looking around and I found social media and I realized that what I actually wanted was a business where I don't have to go out of my house to meet other people so that I can have business because I had two young kids. And it wasn't fun for me getting up before they're up in the morning, going out to a networking event, hanging out with people that I had no interest in doing business with, and then by the time I get back, they would have already gone to daycare or to school. 

So my question to you is, does your business serve your life? Or do you need to swim in a different business pool? And sometimes it can also look a little bit like, you started your business and you just did the thing that brought in the base to money at first. So maybe like a coaching business. And then as it grew and grew, it turned into a monster. And now, even though it makes money, it does not serve you anymore. 

So sit down and think about your business model, the offers that you have. Is there anything in there that has now become the wrong pool that you may be you need to find a new pool? The second one I wanna tell you is my realization. The day that I realized that social media is the wrong pool for me. 

So after these networking events, I realized that I need to build a business online. And to me online, all I knew about online is social media. And all I saw are influencers and a lot of online course creators building mega platforms on Instagram and then it looks like they're making money. I mean, if I look at their photos on Instagram, I think they're making money. 

So I thought that was the answer. And I joined a group, I joined that kind of like a mastermind for social media. And I was in the group for about six months. When one day I had had a particularly like sort of moment where I was just so desperate to figure out how I'm gonna make money with this thing. And I thought social media is gonna help me make money so I joined this group and the group was expensive. And I had to pay for all these apps to schedule things on social media. And I was just, I wasn't bringing in any money. And the money was flowing out really fast and I was desperate and crying. 

And I joined the group, I came to the station and that day I will never forget it, that day, the topic of conversation was how to create Plaid on your Instagram story. How to create Plaid on your Instagram story. And I had this moment where, when you feel like you leave your body and you float above your body, and you're looking down at yourself, going, what are you doing here? You're in the wrong room. 

Because I was sitting there going, oh my goodness. Like how am I gonna monetize making Plaid on my story? That is the most useless skill, no offense to anyone who makes Plaid on their stories. And if you do, and you make beautiful stories, good on you. But for me, I was in the wrong pool moment. I did not wanna pay someone to teach me to do that. And frankly, I realized that that is not the skill that's gonna get me closer to making money.

So I wonder for you, are there skills that you have invested in learning that you need to pull the plug on? That you need to say, "I know I committed to this, "but this is not what I thought it was gonna be." "Or this is not gonna get me any closer to where I wanna go." Or they're online courses you've bought that you're spending hours going through, even though you already know that that is not the thing that's gonna get you closer to making more money in your business? 

Are there memberships that you keep paying for every month that you don't use? Either because you're not really interested? And it kind of doesn't jive really with you almost like the networking events? Like there's nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't for me. What educational programs, educational content feeding your brain with input or you committed to that you need to get out of? That you need to move into a different pool? So think about that a little bit. 

Maybe you have a social media pool just like me, that you needed to get out of. And to this day, if you go into my social media you'll see, here you won't see any Plaid. Let me put it this way, you won't see any Plaid 'cause frankly, I have better things to do with my time. 

The last pool that I wanna share with you, that was a pool that I realized I needed to get out of. I have been part of many accountability groups/ masterminds. I have probably been part of at least 10 or 12, and I've only been in one that has, and I'm talking about a small group, like a less than 10 people or less than six people, little accountability, let's get together and hold each other accountable and help each other build businesses sort of thing group. I've been in many of those and I've really only been in one where it's been really helpful. 

When I found one of these groups, I found them at a live event that I went to for an online course that I loved and that I'm part of. And I felt that I finally found a group of people who really understood my challenges and who really understood the things that I was going through trying to build this business. So I felt like I'd finally found my people. And so we formed this little group and it was great at the start, but then as it unfolded, I started seeing some people bringing the same problem to the calls over and over and over and not making any progress in between calls, which drives me nuts. 

And about six months in, I wanna say six months, maybe it was four months, I'm not sure, but four months in, I started noticing that there's a lot of gossiping going on in the group, like a lot of gossiping about industry, industry leaders, industry experts, and this group had access to a lot of communities where that belong to some of the bigger most well-known online course creators. And it got to a point where I kind of one day maybe also had this sort of when my mind leaves my body and hovers over words, looking at us, masterminding. And the only topic of conversation was gossip. What's happening to this one? What is this one done? Did you hear this once had this failure? And oh my goodness, get me out of there. I could not run away from that fast enough. 

And I will say to you that I have also had, I've worked with a coach who towards the end of our sessions together, started gossiping and sharing negative information about communities that that person has been in. And I'm out, like I am out when you start gossiping, and I want you to hear this as well, because if you're learning from someone or masterminding with someone who is tearing other people down, who are walking the walk, talking the talk, having blood on their faces in, what's the expression they're in the arena, getting dust and blood on their faces and you gossip about them, that tells me just one thing. And that one thing is that that person will always be afraid to put themselves out there because they will be too afraid to be judged the same way they have judged other people. 

So run my friends. Don't walk, run when you're in an accountability group or a mastermind group or any kind of friendship group inside all these online course communities where people gossip, shut your ears to the gossip. It is easy, it is very easy to become part of the gang. Part of the rock throwers, to have that gang up mentality do not do that. Because people who are in the arena, don't have time to pay attention to people who are gossiping. So be someone who's in the arena, don't be someone who gossips. And if you're in a group where that happens, run. 

So I think a lot of what I've shared, it might be a little bit on the negative nelly side, 'cause I'm just pointing out to you all these things you need to run away from. But I want you to see that there is a really positive side to this. There's really a light to this and you need to figure out where you're in the right pool as well, because that matters just as much. 

And it is often the way that our brains are built and created is, it's easier for our brains to see the negative than the positive just because of the way that our little animal brains are programmed to identify things we need to run and hide from. 

So when you sit down and you think about these things, it's probably gonna be super easy for you to come up with a list of at least I wanna say, come up with a list of at least 10 places in your business, in your community, in your learning, in where you're spending your energy and your time where you're in the wrong pool, and do that first. 

And then, I want you to come back and use this framework to decide proactively where you wanna be, which groups you wanna be. And so, I wanna give you some guidance here. The first thing you need to ask yourself is, what are my values and what are the values of a group I wanna join? For me, if you're in the launch lounge or in A-Lister, or if you're one of my clients, you know that for me, please and thank you it's a non-negotiable, you say, please and thanks. Particularly if you're writing something because the nonverbal cues get lost. 

So appreciation and gratitude is one of my key values. Kindness is one of my key values. If you come into my community and you are unkind to someone else, I will not have it. So I am always looking for leaders who show kindness. I am looking for mentors who show kindness. I am looking for students who show kindness and clients who show kindness, because it's one of my values. 

So if there's a kindness pool, you know I'll be swimming in it. And that is one of the filters that I put through, when I'm asking myself, which pool do I wanna swim in this year? Where do I wanna mastermind? Where do I wanna hang out? Where do I wanna spend my energy? Are the people that I'm looking at in this group or are they kind and do they treat people with kindness and with gratitude and appreciation. 

The second filter to use is the community filter. Do you feel like you belong? Do you feel like you fit in? And be a bit careful here, I thought a couple of times about including this, because some of us just never feel like we belong anywhere. I'm one of those people, I'm an introvert and I'm a loner and I on the disc profile, I'm a high D. So I'm very happy being by myself, which means I often feel like an outsider wherever I go. 

But, if I lean in to a group in the first month or so after forming the group and I build relationships with one or two people, I very quickly get a feel for that community. And whether I like being in the community. Very quickly get a feel for the friendships and the circles and how inclusive or exclusive those circles are and whether I can bond with them or not. 

Now, I also wanna add a little word of warning here about COVID because if you're like I have actually pulled out of a lot of communities because I am zoomed out. Like I cannot build relationships with people in a big group via Zoom in the middle of the night anymore. So I'll just hang in there until I can get on an airplane and fly somewhere nice and hang out with people in real life. 

But are you getting the community that you need? Ask yourself that from your groups. The third thing you can ask yourself is, what is the level of support I need? And what do I want in a group where I can offer support? What is the level of support I need? And what is the level of support I can offer that group? Because in some groups you might be the expert in your area, which is great 'cause you get to add value to that group. 

And then the question is, where do the group members add value to you? Because if you're the expert in most things, it's gonna be hard for you to feel like you're getting value. But if you're in a diverse enough group with diverse enough businesses or people who run different funnels or people who launched in different ways or people with different niches, then there are people who can look at your needs and your desires and apply a different filter to it and be incredibly valuable to you. 

So be clear, ask yourself what support can I give and what support can I receive from a group that I'm in? And then finally, the last thing is, the last kind of filter that you need to apply is, how will I know that I am really being challenged to grow? How will I know that I'm really being challenged to grow? When I was in the group where we learned to use Plaid on Instagram stories, I think by the definition of the person who was leading that group, the idea was to challenge us to grow, the idea was to challenge us to grow creatively and to challenge us to grow and try new things, but what I wanted to be challenged in terms of growing results in getting clients or in making sales. And so, because we had different things that we felt is the important thing to challenge each other on, that's why it didn't work out for me. 

Now, I want you to think about, think about when you prune a tree, think about if you have a tree and you cut off the dead leaves. What happens to that tree? It's like that tree suddenly gains like steroids. It's like the leaves, all of a sudden just grow so much faster, so much newer, so much greener. And that's what I want for you. 

I want you to opt out of things that holds you back, even if they're comfortable and familiar. I want you to really sit with yourself and ask yourself, what is it that you really, really, really want? What do you want for your time? What do you want for your energy? What do you want for your results? What do you want for your business friends? What do you want for your coach? What do you want for your mastermind? What do you want for your education? And what do you want for your finances? And if what you've got now is not challenging you towards getting what you want in the future, it's time to prune it. It's time to get out of the wrong pool and start proactively searching for the right pool. 

Even if that means, when you find that pool, you're gonna have to stay in the every lap hurts lane for a year. Sometimes, when loss happens as it does, whenever you leave a group or a program or people, or something that you spend your energy and your time in, that shows us very, very clearly where we really want to be after all. Or are you swimming in the right pool? Is it time to move to a new pool? Sit down, evaluate the pools you're in use this framework, and my wish for you is that this will really challenge you and help you grow into the absolute best next version. 

You're already the absolute best of this version, and I know that the absolute best of the next version is already inside you, and it is just waiting to be uncovered. So my friend, take this framework, go and spend some time with your journal and may you all be swimming in the pool where every lap hurts. 

Have a lovely week. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I would love, love, love it, if you send me a DM and tell me that you've listened today and tell me if any of what I said resonated with you, or if you just want to share with me that you are committed to doing this work and sitting down and figuring out which pools you should be getting out of and which pools you should be getting into. 

Sometimes, this podcast feels a little bit like a one way conversation if I don't hear back from you, so please send me a message. I wanna hear from you, I wanna know that you've listened, let me know. I look forward to reading your message. 

You can DM me on Instagram, that's probably the best place to find me. On Facebook I might take a while to respond 'cause I'm not there that much. Or send me an email, hello@shineandsucceed.com, I would love to hear from you.

Have a lovely, lovely week. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss a thing.

How to Navigate iOS Changes To Minimize Disruption to Your Facebook Ad Campaigns

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How to Navigate iOS Changes To Minimize Disruption to Your Facebook Ad Campaigns

04 March 2021 | By Salome Schillack

  • 1 Why the iOS change is happening.
  • 2 How this change impacts online course creators’ ads on Facebook and Instagram.
  • 3 What you should do now to prepare.
  • 4 What you may need to do in the future to stay up to date with the changes.

Facebook is on a journey. When Mark Zuckerberg started his company, he famously said:

“Move fast and break things.”

It appears that Facebook is living up to that motto as it updates the Ads Manager and its functionality to prepare for a significant iOS change. We don’t yet have all the answers, and it seems that Facebook doesn’t either. You should prepare for your Ads Manager to be slow, glitchy and full of warning signs that could very well impact your experience.

Step-By-Step Guide to Verifying Your Domain and Creating Your 8 Conversion Events

In 2020, Apple announced that it would be proactively asking iOS 14 users – everyone with an Apple iPhone – if they would opt in to being tracked online. It is fair to assume that many users would choose not to be tracked when given the option.

 Facebook and online course creators rely on user data to build audiences and to run a variety of ads (e.g., list building, webinars, launch, and evergreen). If Apple iOS users opt out of being tracked across the internet, the impact to our interest, target and retargeting audiences, as well as the corresponding data, is immense.

To mitigate these changes, Facebook is proactively making significant updates to how we track users online and how we measure conversion events like leads and sales. Though Facebook is taking action in response to Apple’s iOS update, these changes will impact ad placements across all platforms and operating systems.

Imagine you have a saved audience of two million users that you target when running list building ads. One day, 75% of this target audience disappears. Poof. Gone. The impact would be immediate and substantial: your targeting would be off, and it would impact your results and the algorithm’s ability to find more users like those who were converted in the past.

Now imagine you’re in the middle of a webinar launch, and you see thousands of users land on your thank-you page. You want to retarget those users with your urgency message, except 75% of them have opted out of being tracked. You would be left with a retargeting audience that represents only a fraction of who you are trying to reach.

In both hypothetical scenarios, your targeting and retargeting audience data is skewed, and you don’t know which ads actually resulted in sales. You are left unable to scale effectively, and your launch becomes a guessing game.

When massive portions of our audiences disappear, we are affected in these three ways, each of which Facebook identified as it considered the iOS changes:

  • 1 OPTIMIZATION: The pixel is not going to learn as well as it once did because it can’t “see” who is landing on our pages, or use that information to find more users like them.
  • 2 TARGETING: Because our target audiences will not reflect users who opt out of being tracked, the quality of lookalike audiences will be affected and our retargeting audiences may become highly diluted.
  • 3 REPORTING: The numbers being reported inside Ads Manager could become highly inaccurate.

To help us overcome these challenges, Facebook has introduced big changes to how we create campaigns, track events and use the pixel to get the best possible feedback and data from our ads.

Step-By-Step Guide to Verifying Your Domain and Creating Your 8 Conversion Events

Facebook indicates that it is working to develop new products for advertisers that will help us track our results and create campaigns that effectively target and retarget our audiences.

To prepare, Facebook is asking us to do three things:

  • 1 VERIFY YOUR DOMAIN (do this now).
  • 2 SET UP YOUR EIGHT CONVERSION EVENTS IN EVENTS MANAGER TOOL (do this now).
  • 3 START MOVING OVER TO CONVERSION API (wait for more information from Facebook about this action).

Let’s explore each one of these in a bit more detail…

Facebook is asking us to verify our domains so that we have one “official” domain that belongs only to us and is linked to our account in Business Manager. Before you will be allowed to create any new conversion ads, you will need to have a verified domain linked to your account.

QUICK REMINDER: Conversions ads are those that ask Facebook and Instagram users to take an action, such as providing an email address in exchange for a lead magnet or paying us in exchange for our paid courses. We use “events” like custom conversions or standard events to indicate to Facebook that someone who saw our ad also converted to a lead or a sale.. An “event” can be one of two things: a custom conversion that we set up using the ‘Thank-You’ page, or a Standard Event such as “Lead” or “Purchase.” Whenever we refer to “events” in this post, we are talking about these conversion events.

If my website URL is myawesomebusiness.com, that is my main domain and what I want to verify in my Business Manager account. When I want to run ads for my lead magnet, webinar or launch, I will set up my pages on my website where I have verified my domain.

 As an example, I create a webinar “Thank You” page using the URL myawesomebusiness.com/webinar-thank-you from which I will also create my custom conversion event.

The process of verifying a domain is slightly different depending on which software system you use to host your website and to build your landing pages.

 To help you verify your domain, we created this step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to verify your domain in WordPress.

Step-By-Step Guide to Verifying Your Domain and Creating Your 8 Conversion Events

ROAD BLOCK. PAY ATTENTION HERE.

Because Facebook will only allow us to create conversion events that are linked to our verified domain, it can be complicated if you have a website that lives on WordPress but you buyild landing pages on third-party software systems like Kajabi, LeadPages, or ClickFunnels.

 Most of these platforms will allow you to integrate a subdomain with their software. A subdomain is a “baby” domain that you register with your domain registration company – e.g., GoDaddy or BlueHost – and can be anything you want to add in front of your primary domain. In our example, I may want to use learn.myawesomebusiness.com as my subdomain.

If I want to continue to use third-party software systems like Kajabi, LeadPages, or ClickFunnels to build landing pages, I will need to follow the instructions they provide to integrate my subdomain with their platform.

In our continuing example, after I have integrated my subdomain on a platform like Kajabi, Facebook would allow me to use learn.myawesomebusiness.com/lead-thank-you to create my event or custom conversions. 

Before you sign up for any webinar hosting platforms or landing page builders, check that you can link your subdomain to that platform. You will save yourself much frustration as you start setting up your ads.

Facebook now limits us to only eight conversion events per account. The limit of eight events includes standard events (e.g., Leads, Purchase, View Content, etc.), and it also includes any custom conversions you create using your “Thank You” page URLs. 

Yes, you read that right: we now have only eight conversion events, and we have to choose those eight events long before we want to run ads. It now takes up to 48 hours for an event to be approved by Facebook.

With losing such a significant portion of our audiences, we will receive limited information from our webpages to the pixel. As such, Facebook is making us rank our eight events in order of importance and will only report the event that is highest in that ranking.

You will have to choose which eight events matter most by ranking them in order of importance; and you will only receive data on the highest ranking event. If someone opts in for a webinar and then purchases your course, you will only receive data on the one event you tell Facebook is most important to you. (Naturally, we want to rank sales higher than leads.)

 If you are just getting started and only have one or two conversion events that you use to build your email list, you can select just two events. You do not need to fill the eight events if you do not have eight events yet.

QUICK REMINDER: Standard Events encompass all your custom conversions that also meet the criteria of the standard event. All of your lead magnet custom conversions can also be Lead events and your course sales custom conversions can all fall under one standard purchase event. Custom conversions are hyper-specific events created from just one specific “Thank You” page. I can have many Lead events for all my lead magnets, but I can only have one custom conversion for my Five-Day Video Training lead magnet.

The ranking of events could look something like the following:

Pixel/Custom Conversion Event Name
Your PixelLead
Custom ConversionYour custom conversion for your lead magnet
Your PixelView Content
Custom ConversionYour custom conversion for your second lead magnet
Your PixelView Content
Your PixelPurchase

Here is a screenshot of my events along with the priorities of conversion I am tracking in the next few months:

salome table

How you choose to rank your conversion events is up to you.

Real Life Example

I am launching my online course with a webinar in which I will be running list building ads in the leadup to my launch. After building my list for a few weeks, I run ads to fill up my webinar, and I will run sales ads when enrollment for my course opens.

We have one conversion event for the list building ads, one for the webinar ads, and another for the sale event. That takes up three events of the eight Facebook has allotted us. My lead magnet and my webinar thank you pages also have Lead standard events on, and my sales page has a Purchase event on.

Facebook is only going to show me data for the highest ranking event.

In this case, I want to see results for sales over webinar registrations, and I want to see webinar registrations over lead magnet downloads. I will rank my eight events in this order so that I see results for the event I value the most.

Though you do not need to have all eight events defined, you will need to have any new event you want to run ads to be defined in the Events Manager. You should take the time now to choose your eight (or fewer) events in the order you deem most appropriate. 

To help you set up your eight conversion events in the Events Manager, we created this step-by-step guide.

Step-By-Step Guide to Verifying Your Domain and Creating Your 8 Conversion Events

Facebook is creating an entirely new way for us to measure the results of events that happen on web pages (i.e., all of our conversion events). Facebook calls this Conversion API, which is a very uncreative coding name for a fancy new tool. At the moment, this fancy tool is so new that even Facebook – and experienced coders – can’t explain in plain English how to use it. 

Keep checking back here for updates, which we’ll share as we figure out the Conversion API.

Can I verify more than one domain?

Yes, you can verify multiple domains but you can only choose ONE domain as the domain you want to use to track conversion events.

I use both WordPress and Kajabi/LeadPages/Cartra/ClickFunnels to build landing pages on. How will this affect me?

If your main website is built on WordPress and that is where your business domain (mydomain.com) points to, you’ll need to create a subdomain (anything like join.mydomain.com or learn.mydomain.com) and integrate that sub domain in the software system you use to build landing pages. Because you have mydomain.com verified and that contains the subdomain, your conversion events will work. 

I use Kajabi as my website and I build landing pages here too. Can I verify my domain in Kajabi?

Yes, you can. It would still be best practice to have your own custom domain pointing to Kajabi (mydomain.com instead of mydomain.mykajabi.com). Once you have your own custom domain set up on Kajabi you can verify your domain by following the same steps to copy your “Meta-tag Verification” and pasting it in the >>Head<< section of your Kajabi site. Before you do this make sure that your Facebook pixel is linked to your Kajabi account.

I don’t use WordPress, how does this affect me if I use WIX/Squarespace as my website?

You’ll need to register your own custom domain and integrate that domain into your WIX/Squarespace account then verify the domain by pasting the “Meta-tag Verification” into the >>Head<< section of your website. Before you can do this you’ll need to install your Facebook pixel onto this website.

I have an evergreen webinar that collects registrations for the webinar on pages that are not on a verified domain. What can I do?

You will need to register a sub domain and integrate that with the webinar software. Or you can redirect webinar registrants to a “Thank You” page that lives on your verified domain. 

If I verify my domain but put my thank you landing pages on a subdomain, will that work?

Yes, perfectly. 

Can I send traffic to one domain and then send them to another domain when they land on the “Thank-You” page?

Yes, you can. The conversion event is only relevant to the verified domain of the “Thank You” page. 

I have my subdomain already set up in Kajabi. It has been verified. But when I go to set up a conversion ad, it does NOT show up as a pixel with the green dot. How do you overcome this?

Your Facebook pixel is not installed on your Kajabi account therefore there is no data being fed back to Facebook from that page. Integrate your Facebook pixel with your Kajabi account and the sub domains should work perfectly. 

How will this affect those of us who are just starting out and have never run ads or are not ready to run ads yet? Is there something we need to do now to prepare for the changes?

Yes, after setting up your ad account you’ll need to place your pixel on your website and then verify your domain. Before you set up any conversion events you’ll need to create your first custom conversion or standard event and then set this event up as one of the eight events you want Facebook to give you data on. 

So if we are list building and using a quiz, TryInteract - is it correct that we direct leads to a 'result page' that would be our subdomain, instead of TryInteract own pages?

Yes, if you can integrate your sub domain with TryInteract then that page would work (with a new URL reflecting the use of your sub domain). But if you cannot do that in TryInteract, next best thing is to redirect people to a page that sits on your verified domain. 

If my pixel code is placed in my header on my WordPress site, do I put the domain verification in the same place?

Yes, exactly the same place. So just leave a few spaces, then paste it below your pixel.

I don’t have a Business Manager account yet. Can I still verify my domain?

No, you’ll need a Business Manager account with an Ad Account that has a pixel linked to your domain before you can verify your domain. You’ll also need to create your first custom conversion or standard event before you can select it as one of your eight events. 

Are the 8 events fixed or can you change them?

They are not fixed and you can change them. Changing them however will impact the data you see in the ads manager and it could take 48-72 hours for the change to take effect. We recommend not changing them unless there is a specific strategic reason for changing them.

I have never created any events. Can I set up my eight events?

No, you will first need to create either a custom conversion or a standard event for one of your list building, webinar or launch events. Once you have created the event then you can select it as one of your 8 events in Events Manager.

Can we set up our 8 new events if we already have events set up for existing ads? (or should we start a fresh set of ads with new conversion events)?

You should use your old events if they are linked to campaigns that are currently running or if you’ve collected data on those events in the past. If you have more than eight events set up you’ll have to choose your tip eight that you want to track in the events manager. This is where it becomes valuable to use standard events instead of just custom conversions

The way we track users from a Facebook or Instagram ad to a webpage, where a user converts to a lead or sale, is drastically changing. The change comes as a result of us losing “sight” of a very large percentage of users online as Apple rolls out the option to opt out of being tracked online.

Not being able to “see” such a large part of our audiences will mean that we have to change the way we set up our campaigns, the way we interpret the data we get from Facebook, and what we do with that data to scale our campaigns.

Right now, to make the shift, we all should verify our domains and select our eight conversion events in Events Manager.

Most importantly, we must all keep in mind that we are in uncharted territory. As we navigate these changes, we will become smarter marketers and develop brand new tools that will ultimately help us to make informed decisions about how we advertise online. 

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