How To Divide Your Content: Free vs. Paid

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Transcript:

(00:00:02):

Hello, Facebook. It's Jen, welcome to the five o'clock happy hour.

Well, it's five o'clock where I am.

Let me know where you guys are listening from. I am in South Carolina.

I know I have listeners all over the world.

In particular today I'm really excited to do a topic that was requested by one of my lovely students in Australia.

<laugh> she said this time of day, my time five o'clock Eastern was good for her.

I don't even, I can't even begin to imagine what time zone it is, but she says that she listens to me while she has her AirPods or her earphones in, doing chores and stuff in her Australian morning.

Good morning to you, Melissa!

Hello to everyone else who is joining in no matter where you are is another day of <laugh> the ongoing video blog.

(00:00:56):

We have nearly made it through the longest month ever.

If you were just now catching up, not to worry because today, we are approaching a topic that has definitely, probably crossed your mind at some point, if you have thought about creating a coaching program of some kind or have thought about monetizing any type of online project, which is really what we're all about here.

Right?

The big question of the day is how do you distinguish between what should be free content that you're putting out to the world, whether that's a blog or a free ebook or free videos free podcast.

What do you put in that free content?

Then what do you reserve for your paid product?

Now, if you need to catch up on what are the different ways to monetize your online business and what that paid product is even going to be for you...

(00:01:56):

I would definitely suggest going back to, I think it was pretty much day one of our chat series - that seems a million years ago, but just started two weeks ago.

It was called Making Money Online Is A Real Thing.

It's not just scammy gold chain guys.

(Maybe that's just my association.)

There are definitely people making real money with blogs, with courses, with free podcasts that turn into paid coaching, for example - there are always going to be people who want to take things a step further than just free content, which we'll talk more about that in a second - and really either commit to some type of structured program to get more out of their endeavor, whatever that may be, or they just really like you and they want to work with you and they specifically want to talk to YOU about their solutions.

(00:02:56):

As we're talking today about the definition or the differentiation between your free and paid content, you'll definitely want to keep in mind, what is your paid content going to look like?

A lot of what I'm going to talk about today does not have a concrete answer.

Melissa is here, in Canberra.

I did take the pain... well, it was not a pain at all of looking up how to pronounce her local where she lives in Australia.

It looks Canberra to us in America, but it's pronounced Canberra. Welcome Melissa. Where was I?

As you were thinking, oh, I was going to say - as many different online business owners as there are, there are going to be a lot of different approaches to how much content you put out for free.

(00:03:56):

Then when you decide "THIS is my secret sauce and people have to pay for it", what does that look like?

That's going to be a little bit different if you're talking about monetizing a blog or doing an Instagram influencer type of business model.

Not to be missed, not to be laughed at, a lot of Instagram influencers, they don't charge you for a product, but they do charge their sponsors and their advertisers for getting them the visibility.

So to them, ALL of their content is free to their audience.

Melissa said I was perfect. Oh, thank you. I just had the sneaking suspicion when I looked at that word, I was like - before I say this on the internet, I bet you it's not pronounced exactly the way that it looks.

(00:04:43):

I wanted to make you proud because Melissa you're one of my lovely long time students and she has already preemptively invited me to come stay with her in Australia one day far in the future, or she would at least help sponsor my visit in terms of helping me find the right place to stay.

Maybe hold a retreat there someday for professional organizers.

Melissa, that is definitely on my bucket list.

I just want you to know that I did not forget about that offer.

The least I could do is make sure I pronounced your city correctly.

So I was touching on, there are some business models of online business that do not ever involve charging your audience for any paid product or content.

(00:05:33):

That doesn't mean that you can't monetize what you're doing.

For a lot of you who are in that set of people who, what you want to be selling is an online course or one-on-one coaching, which even every time I say the word coaching that - definitely if you're listening to me and you're from my Pro Organizer Studio audience of professional organizers, and you're talking about any type of virtual organizing where you're doing FaceTime or Zoom calls - that falls under the category of coaching.

That's my broad term for any of that type of thing.

So professional organizers: consider yourself coaches when you are working with somebody virtually.

In that group of people that want to be selling an online course or doing coaching, or even a group coaching program it doesn't have to be an expensive one-on-one package.

(00:06:29):

It can be a paid group where you are the one leading people through your content.

It might be the same exact content that you put out for free, but you're giving it to them in a structured format so that they can follow along with you.

You can give them homework assignments.

They get a private call with you, in a group in a group format, so that it feels a little bit more special.

Anyway, there are a lot of different ways to monetize what you're putting out there.

So this question definitely goes hand in hand with what your end goal is.

We talked about that, I said, days one and two, everybody, the title of video, "Everyone Has An Online Business Opportunity" and the other one was "Making Money Online Is A Real Thing."

(00:07:14):

Here are some ways to do that.

With that said, let me try to get to the point.

I'm going to talk through a couple of different models for how to decide, what should be free content and what should be paid.

I want to just put out there that you COULD tell people everything.

When, I say people, I mean a general audience, you can't customize your advice for each individual person and then put it out there for free.

You can put out almost everything for free and still be able to monetize it.

If you are choosing the right paid format.

I touched on before that there is value, even if you have put out everything that you know, or all your best tips, even if you have put all of that out there for free and videos and blog posts and guests podcasts, you have said it all, you could say everything and there still would be people who want to pay to have a more structured experience.

(00:08:29):

For you to decide here's what order we're going in, and I'm going to hold you accountable by or creating accountability.

I know this is an uncomfortable concept for people, but having people pay some amount of money is going to help them commit to the process.

Just as much as it helps you monetize your endeavor, whatever it may be.

When you're thinking - even if you have put out tons of free content, there are still going to be people who ask, can you just - where can I give you my money?

Tell me exactly what to do in order.

That could be one type of way that you monetize something where you're giving out lots and lots of stuff.

Then that way you don't ever have to worry about, ooh, should I hold back?

(00:09:21):

Or should I hold back my opinion on this?

Or should I hold back my secret weapons?

If you were monetizing it in and having in mind, I want to build a huge group of people.

I want to build a huge group of audience who knows and understands the way that I think the way that I teach, the way that I approach this topic - this could be true for any type of coaching or consulting business.

Rob I hope you're listening.

If you're listening on the replay, I'm just calling you out - that this could be true for any type of business where you just share - and you don't think, oh, I probably shouldn't tell them that until they pay me.

There is definitely something to be said for just - one of the people I follow online whom I really adore.

(00:10:10):

I keep it a secret that I like him because he comes across like one of those gold chain internet marketers - the gold chain's around the neck.

He <laugh> seems one of *those* internet guys, but when you really listen to what he is talking about, he says the best way to prove to people that you can help them is by helping them in advance.

It's a shocker, but when people are trying to build their audience online, they're often worried about who am I to be teaching this thing?

Do I have credibility?

Have I been doing this long enough?

Do I have a different enough perspective to even stand out?

The way to prove that to yourself and to your audience is to just help people in advance and be super generous with your time and what you know.

(00:11:05):

So I said, you can't answer every single person in a very customized way, but just like I'm doing with you guys right now - I will take a question or take a specific example and try to customize my advice, for example, to Melissa, and then give you guys tips on how to take that and apply it to your situation.

You can absolutely prove your value and get testimonials from people about, "hey, I took Melissa's advice and I did this in my home and it started saving me all this time and it saved me all this money."

Get those testimonials, even from people who are utilizing your free content and then down the road, when you are putting out an offer, for example, a paid group coaching program or a one-on-one consulting thing, or even for a professional organizer - hey, we're going to get on Zoom.

(00:11:57):

You're going to show me your house.

I'm going to write you out a DIY plan.

They still will - even if they've heard you say it all a million times, what they want more than anything is for you to be talking to them.

 I said, at this point they know you, they trust you and they the way that you think about it.

You're - there is value.

I just want to keep hammering this home.

There is value to providing them structure and customizing your advice to their specific situation.

Also just listening to what it is that they're experiencing and letting them have that moment of being heard.

See, so this whole topic goes hand-in-hand with really understanding what it is that people want when they're paying for content.

It's not just another how-to video.

(00:12:43):

That's not why they're paying you.

They may think logically or rationally - yes, I signed up for this course because I'm going to learn how to do X, Y, and Z.

The real reason, especially after they have been listening to your free content or reading your blog forever, the real reason is because they know that they're not going to really get the results or, take the processes seriously or get one on one time, any type of attention from you.

(It doesn't necessarily have to be one on one calls.)

They know that they're not going to really do it until they pay some money.

So just want you guys to keep that in mind when, we're talking about this spectrum-  there is a spectrum of people who give, they give for free, they give everything away.

(00:13:31):

They tell people everything.

Melissa said, for example, she says, "I think I've identified what my secret sauce might be through having given away too much before she said, but I'm definitely mulling over what to do now."

On one end of the spectrum people are saying: give away your secret sauce, show up, give away your secret sauce, be generous and be serving and monetize that by giving them a next level way to actually organize the information that you're giving and give them some structure and give them a plan and give them, I said, the accountability of having paid for it is a gift to them.

Then on the other end of the spectrum there are people who are - why would I give away that information?

(00:14:19):

"I want to charge what I'm worth."

I want people to just recognize that there, if you, if you hold everything back, then you're in the spot of not making any money because there are no sales that are made without trust being built and without - what's the word - you don't have to be in that mindset or that phase of your business, where you're giving free content forever.

You do not have to stay on this end of the spectrum forever, but there needs to be - what I'm talking about, the other side of the spectrum where you think, "well, I should not have to do that."

THERE, you are really missing out.

You are really shooting yourself in the foot, if you will.

You have to have some period of time where you are even showing up as a guest on other people's podcasts, maybe you don't even want to have your own podcast, your own blog, your own video.

(00:15:14):

You don't even want to do all this, but you have to have some way for people to get to know you a little bit, otherwise, why would they spend their money with you and commit to you?

Unless again, if you want to, if you could potentially build a business entirely on referrals from your paying customers.

My intuition about that tells me that you're really keeping yourself smaller by being way less visible and closed off - that's, I don't know what the word is for that, but it's keeping yourself small.

It's keeping your business smaller.

I would balance that - you can balance those two somewhere in between.

You can balance the two ends of the spectrum by being anywhere in between.

<laugh> you can have some period of time where you're giving out a lot of free content, and then you never do that again.

(00:16:02):

You don't ever have to do that again.

Then you're using that free content to funnel people into your paid offers.

That could again look a lot of different ways - or on the other end of the spectrum.

You continue to do a lot of free content and then always, the next way to work with you is people who want to literally just have a one-on-one conversation with you versus being in an audience of hundreds of people or thousands of people who are all taking your same advice.

You are always showing up and doing free content, but you're always also calling people to action and saying if you really want to get serious about applying all of this in your life or in your business or whoever you're talking to in your audience, you can say here's a way to book a call with me.

(00:16:54):

Let me, let me dig even deeper into the topic - if you do have a line, I said, on one end of the spectrum there is no line - you're always giving away your secret sauce - on the other end of the spectrum are people who are hoarding their best stuff for only paying customers.

Let's talk about someone who's in the middle, who they give away a lot, but there's also certain things that you really only get the full picture of.

Here's how to do it here is exactly, how to put all of the pieces together.

You have to pay for that part of the information and my business at Pro Organizer Studio definitely falls in that middle range.

I'm going to take a sip of LaCroix and I'm going to read the questions and then I'm going to answer the scenario that I just set up.

Suzette said, "I was thinking about the same thing this morning.

I'm considering releasing 50% of my future course for free, and then just repurposing it and adding in 50% later in a course format."

Now, I think that's a smart strategy.

(00:18:06):

Let me give you guys an example.

Again, I'm always only using myself as an example because I know my business really well, and I've been through a lot of this stuff and I have permission to share since it's just my own case study.

<laugh> so it's not because I have made perfect decisions, or I think, hey I'm amazing.

I did this so great - no, I'm sure I could have done it a lot better or a lot differently, or that any number of business coaches, by the way, when you do Facebook Live, you get really sweaty all of a sudden.

Just know that, so a lot of business coaches, or even mentors that I have had my myself have said, hey, you might want to think about doing this, or you might want to do that.

(00:18:51):

Everybody has a different opinion.

It really comes from their perspective and there are a lot of roads that lead to Rome as they say.

So here's what I do for my specific audience.

Suzanne said, maybe she's not giving away enough, Suzanne, maybe you should, only because it would be in the interest or the service of people getting to know you better.

Then making sure though that you're not just giving it away with no selling.

You've got to always - if you're doing a lot of free content, always use that to drive it back to what you are selling.

So Suzanne what that could look for you is doing a lot of organizing videos, but then you're always saying, by the way, did you know can work together remotely?

(00:19:44):

If you need another set of eyes or an external brain because a lot of people need that right now, just - hey, just help me look at my own situation.

You can say that is exactly what a professional organizer can do.

We can work together virtually and here's how you can get started.

For example, don't, give away so much free content that you are never selling, if that makes sense.

Unless, I said at the beginning, Suzanne, I'm not sure if you're here right at the beginning, but unless you were going that route where what you wanted to do was just grow this huge YouTube channel that was all organizing videos and it was pretty professional because a lot of the big YouTube channels are and your monetization strategy was just to make money off of ad revenue or do affiliate links for your favorite products or that thing.

(00:20:38):

Maybe if you didn't ever want to sell a one-on-one service that would be a way to do it.

Theoretically you could.

I have friends in the industry who do have that similar business model.

For someone who is a professional organizer who is only on hold with your in person services temporarily because of the times that we're in you can, you can use it as a way to promote - hey, we can work together virtually.

Even though I'm not there in person, I can help you customize a routine, a plan.

That thing Suzette said, the call to action is always the hardest part for her.

Suzette, I'm going to put a bookmark on that thought because I feel you on that and I'm going to talk to you about, I'll be very open with my struggle about that, but let me go back and answer my question that I asked to myself a minute ago, which is when I started my business with pro Organizer Studio, I was always planning on - actually let me back up.

(00:21:43):

I was not always planning on only selling a course.

It is just that was so popular and it became its own - just so much momentum got going on it, that is the primary way that business is monetized.

Every other thing that we do for free is made possible by the fact that we sell that one course and one business program.

Yes, in a lot of, especially in my getting started phase of putting out a lot of free content and again, this is in a business context because this business is B2B.

I'm not teaching people how to organize their house.

I'm helping people start and grow their professional organizing businesses using a unique business model.

When I was answering questions on live videos, when I was first starting and was sharing information, I would say that I probably shared in one way or another had probably said 85-ish percent, about 85% of what was inside the course that I was selling.

(00:22:59):

85% I had probably put out there at some point in time.

Now remember what I said a minute ago: was it organized in order where there were checklists, worksheets, workbook, video tutorials, all the things that go into it to actually systemize it and take action on it in a comprehensive way?

Absolutely not.

Somebody could for sure. This is what they say about free content on the internet in general, everything is out there already.

There is nothing that somebody is not there, I've seen some really, expensive business programs.

I've been IN some really expensive business programs.

The information itself is never something that you can't find in a tutorial in a different program.

For example, let's say that you're in a business program...

(00:24:02):

We teach Squarespace web design as part of the course, or at least we give an overview of Squarespace web design as probably our favorite option for doing a website.

The information of HOW to create a Squarespace website is 100% free.

Squarespace themselves has put out the tutorials on how to use the web design app and all that.

What people are not going to get is - here's me cutting right to the point of exactly what you need to do to make it look professional, to give it the vibe that you want to go for, as a professional organizer.

What the value is that I'm adding there, is it's my tutorial that I'm making or my overview that we're providing inside the course, that's one piece of a million things that we have in there.

(00:24:53):

It's coming from the perspective of someone who has been there, done that.

I know what they're trying to accomplish and I don't want them to get hung up on details that don't matter.

What you're doing, the benefit there is you are helping save time, but showing them here's exactly how to do this.

Here are the resources that I know you're going to be looking for as you're going through this process.

So I guess what I wanted to say was when you pull, when you peak behind the curtain of expensive, Suzette was saying coaching and one-on-one accountability is such a valuable investment.

When you peek behind the curtain of really expensive programs, the how-to tutorials themselves are not ever going to - they may be mind blowing to YOU, but t's something that you, if you knew what to search for, you would see that's the thing is you would've had to know exactly WHAT to search for to find that information.

(00:25:48):

I can see the hundreds of hours that I think are saved by taking a course on anything.

So I'm not even talking about my own course.

I have taken a lot of courses.

Suzette's going to agree with me on this, because I know she's got the same problem I do.

<laugh> We are course hoarders!

It is going to save you so much time - that the investment of a thousand dollars for the program or a couple hundred dollars for a workshop or whatever, it is going to is going to save you so much time.

You're going to get to where you want to go infinitely faster than you would have on your own, trying to figure it out.

Again, you could find all that information for free, but you would have to know what you didn't know.

(00:26:32):

That's the thing.

Think about that as you guys are creating a coaching offer or a mini program yourself, or even if you're doing virtual organizing consultations temporarily, remember that it's what people don't know that they don't know that's such an investment to them and to have your eyes, in some cases, if you're selling a one-on-one offer to have your eyes on their situation and for you to say, oh, I can see exactly A, B and C, this is what order you go in.

This is what you do next.

It's unspeakably valuable.

I cannot even explain.

So that's why, when we're talking about all of the free content that you put out there, even if you say most everything, almost everything in your program at some point, you can still sell your program.

(00:27:26):

If you're sitting there thinking, well, I can't sell a coaching program or any course, if I've already said it, or you might be thinking if somebody else has already said it, then they're definitely not going to buy my thing.

Yes, they will.

Because the purpose of you putting out all that free content was not to prove you know something that everybody else doesn't know - because you probably don't <laugh>.

I don't think I have any unique, for example, I do not have any special rocket scientist knowledge about anything that I teach, but I know that I feel, let me see, how would I summarize this?

It's not just my knowledge or it's not just the expertise.

It's the fact that 1.) one that I care enough and that I care enough about the topic to make it my full time focus.

(00:28:16):

There, for example, is nobody else in my industry who does exactly what I do to that extent, not to my knowledge.

That alone is a standout or difference from all of the other options that they have out there, because they have a lot of other options.

I'm able to consistently invest in this course or this community and everything that we do BECAUSE my attention is not split in a million other places.

That could be something that if you're taking into account, as part of what you're trying to grow here is - what I offer and the program that I sell is different because this is my exact niche.

This is all that I focus on.

Therefore you are going to have so much more insight and just the ability to just cut through the clutter of whatever the person's scenario is.

(00:29:15):

Let's say you are a business consultant, that you're listening to me and you have such a specialized knowledge of one certain thing.

So you're not going out there saying, hey, I'll consult on any type of business, any type of problem.

People might start to love you and trust you and think that you're cool and you're funny and they - you Rob, I'm talking to you, Rob, hope you're on.

People are going to love you because you're funny.

The way to supercharge, and when I say supercharge, I mean just make it go faster.

I don't mean you're charging a million dollars for it, but the way to get the momentum as quick as possible is to specialize in a certain thing.

Or for not only a certain topic, but for a certain type of person.

(00:29:59):

Say you go from being a business coach who helps people find their life purpose to or life purpose business coach.

I don't know.

Anyway, that was a bad example.

To somebody who says: THIS is all I do.

"All I do is focus on female entrepreneurs who are trying to balance a day job and a side hustle.

I'm trying to help them maximize their business so that they can leave their full-time job."

That's just again, another random scenario, but if that was your specialty and that's all you do every day, I would be so much more likely to come to you if I have that problem.

I'm just - again, where can I give you my money?

Tell me how to work with you, because I know that is exactly what you do.

(00:30:46):

That's exactly what my problem is.

I'm much more likely to just spend my investment with someone who I know is so committed.

They're so committed and they're so good at helping me with this problem, that they've created an entire business out of it.

At least I believe that's one reason why what I do stands out is because I I'm just - hey, this is my niche.

I am a business coach for professional organizers.

I don't do anything else.

There is nobody who thinks about professional organizing and marketing and sales period, as a business, there's probably nobody else who thinks about that exact topic as much as I do.

So in the service of that, all of my free content is very, it's very generous.

It's very helpful.

(00:31:37):

There's at this point I was going to say, so at the beginning, when I first started, I would say, I probably said or gave my opinion on 85% of the same stuff that I said inside the course.

At this point now I was years later, I've probably said most everything, except that I think I do hold my opinion back in a way that only people who have actually listened to my videos inside my program, that they're just - oh, that's what she really thinks.

I think I'm only just a little more - I'm just very general, on my podcast.

I think people know that I am opinionated, but I don't get quite so specific as I do inside the program where I'm just - if you really want to do this quickly and make the most amount of money, this is truly how I feel.

(00:32:35):

That would be another example of - it's not exactly free versus paid content, but it's free versus paid attitude and energy that you're bringing to it.

When I spend money on something, I want to know that people are not fluffing up their videos with a lot of extra BS.

I'm just - I'm here for it. I'm taking notes, I'm ready to implement.

So that's another thing that I think when you are working with somebody, even if you're doing one-on-one coaching - you're now not giving them all of that additional info.

You're just completely laser focused on their scenario and how you can specifically help them.

Melissa I hope you're still listening to me.

I hope you're over there cleaning in Australia, but <laugh> you opened up - this is a really good topic because it's so much more than just the question of what should I call free content and what should I call paid?

(00:33:36):

I have seen businesses that have blogs that are completely free content.

Let's say I'm going to use an example of people who don't do a lot of video.

I do.

There are people who have blogs of tons and tons of old content and they repackage all of that knowledge that they've put into written format into, and again, this only works, if you don't have to show people how to do something, if you're showing organizing tips in the house you're going to probably want to do some videos at some point, but again - let's pretend we're talking about something just really not video dependent.

Let's go back to the example of the person who I said, they specialize in helping female entrepreneurs transition from their day job to their business full-time and everything that goes into it, because think about it.

(00:34:33):

It's not just a question of skills.

It's a question of maturity and financial readiness and the support of their spouse.

The ability to manage their own time - think about all of those additional topics that go into it.

Let's say that was your thing.

You don't make videos about it, but you just blog about it and you have blog about every topic and scenario under the sun, and you've been selling one-on-one consulting, but at a certain point, you could take all of that exact same free content.

It's all out there and it's free and you never held any secret sauce back, but you could have, you could do it yourself, or you could hire somebody to help you take all of that free content and put it into a book and you can upload that onto Amazon and you can start selling it as an ebook immediately.

(00:35:25):

Again - let's say you have - I'm going to go big here.

I'm going to go big here.

Let's say you have 50,000 people who are on your email list for your blog and they read your content weekly because you put out a blog post every week.

Theoretically, that's more than possible, more than possible.

Particularly when you're somebody who really specializes in something and you commit to creating consistent content, there are people who are - oh, she's serious about this.

I will take it seriously.

I want to read her stuff because I love her approach.

Let's say you had 50,000 people who read your blog, or at least subscribe to your email list on a regular basis, but you've only ever had 25 private clients.

Again, if you're charging the right amount of money and people want to work with you for a certain amount of time you can have a full-time business essentially based around 25 core clients or at least have a client roster that's 25 and that you try to keep full.

(00:36:26):

Think about this, you take all that free content you've been putting out on your blog and then repackage that into an e-book and have it edited at - listen. I'm trying to break this down.

I'm not trying to make this vague - oh yeah, you can make a book out of it.

You literally take all of that blog content and you send it to someone who is a professional editor or book editor, or whatever.

You can hire people for different phases of your project.

On Fiverr or Upwork or some of those freelance websites that I was talking about over the past few weeks, you can send it all to them and say, okay, so what I want out of this - in this phase is let's try to organize this into a hierarchy and an outline of how would I want to present this in a book, but all they're doing is remixing or it's writing a cover song, or, not writing a cover song, performing a cover song.

(00:37:23):

It's you taking what is the raw material, and you're remixing it into something new and probably much more streamlined.

If you've been blogging about a topic for any length of time, you could create an e-book that is much more to the point probably because there's not all the extra fluff and extra repeating yourself.

So you can have an editor help you create that.

Then next phase is hire a freelance or whatever who's going to edit it into the final form of your ebook.

You want it to be professional, but it doesn't have to be this perfect work that is going to become a New York times best seller because you can publish it yourself on Amazon and charge $9.99 for it, or whatever people charge for a Kindle download.

(00:38:16):

You keep a lot of the profit - here's the way that Amazon works with eBooks.

You can self-publish it, but here's the thing is if you send that out to your list of 50,000 people and it's $10 and they're like, I've been following this girl for years (or I'm calling you all girls, but you're girls and gentlemen of all ages that are listening), I've been following them for years and now it's - this is their brain and a super structured there's chapters.

I'll be able to revisit all of those concepts.

I heard them say that and now, they've put it all - they've put their secret sauce, if you will, into a book format.

Out of those 50,000 people, don't you think <laugh> that at least a thousand of them would buy it immediately?

(00:39:03):

So a thousand times, 10 bucks, $10,000, Amazon takes whatever, a thousand of it.

Now you've got $9,000 and you continue to sell that.

It's not just the first thousand people that buy it out of your email list, but it's continuously being promoted.

It can be on the sidebar of your blog - hey, love my blog? You're going to love my book.

Like my blog, love my book.

Send them to Amazon to buy the book or they can buy it directly on your website and you keep more of the profits that way.

What the benefit of putting it on Amazon is you can have people put their reviews.

You are potentially finding new people that didn't even know about you in the first place, because they're like, oh my gosh, she wrote a book about my exact life problem.

(00:39:50):

She has all these readers.

She has all these readers and she has all these followers and great reviews on her book.

Look at this blog, it would take me a million years to read the blog.

All I've got to do is buy the book for $10.

I will get all of the most important concepts from her years of blogging in one place.

That would be another example of you give and you give and you give, but then you repackage it into something that is more easily digestible.

Then from there, let's talk about what we can do from there.

You don't even have to stop at a book.

Let's say that you were you were working with people, I said, you had 25-ish private clients out of your big audience.

You had already been doing that.

(00:40:33):

You had already been doing that.

Let's say you hadn't been doing that.

Let's say you've just been blogging forever and you didn't really take monetization seriously.

Now you want to monetize.

Now you create this book and now you're putting it out to your email list or maybe starting an email list for the first time and saying - hey we've put the best of such and such blog in a book now.

So now you're selling it, but the book itself can now be another step in your funnel towards doing one-on-one coaching and one-on-one consulting.

So it's once people have read your blog, read your book, they've started to create their own action plan.

Let's say you get them a little bit further down the road than they would have putting together the free content on their own.

(00:41:18):

So they're at the point where they're - I've read her book and now I'm really seeing - I'm really seeing how to make this happen.

They're starting to sketch out their plans enough to where they're taking it seriously.

They're like, "I think I could actually leave my job and transition to my business."

I've really understood what she said about I've got to have the support of my partner and I can't just jump off the cliff of entrepreneurship tomorrow.

I've got to be ready.

They're really making their plans - now when they come across the very next roadblock, because there's going to be one - who do you think they want to talk to about it?

<laugh> A random business coach that has no background in what specifically she is struggling with or the action plan that you helped her put together in the book?

She wants to talk to you.

The book itself is a marketing tool for building your coaching business in that way.

This whole scenario that I just talked about never involved you holding back your secret sauce.

All of your content was always free and it never even involved you getting on videos, because again, your topic in this scenario was not dependent on you showing people how to do things.

(00:42:34):

So if you're <laugh> if you're really a glutton for wanting to get as much exposure as possible out of your free content, let's say you've been blogging.

Now you want to go back.

You want to go back and you want to create a podcast out of your blog content, because now you've been reading articles that say people don't even read blogs anymore because it's too time consuming, but they love to listen to podcasts because they can multitask whether cleaning at home <laugh> or driving back and forth between their work and home.

Now you want to - you can take all of those blogs that you ever wrote.

Literally I'm doing right now, my microphone plugged into my computer, record them, record yourself, reading your blog post.

You can add in a little *flair*.

(00:43:32):

It doesn't have to be verbatim, but you publish that as a podcast.

Then again, you can hire people to help you figure this out if you do not want to deal with the technical side of it.

There are very cheap services on Fiverr that it's - hey, help me set up my podcast platform, help me edit my podcast episodes or whatever, help me record a professional intro.

Somebody who says "Welcome to Downsizing with Melissa Frazier."

I don't know, Melissa. I don't know if you want to do a podcast, but I'm just using you as an example.

Have somebody else record the intro and all this stuff, then that's just another format where you're taking the exact same free content.

You're giving to a whole new set of people that may have never read your blog.

(00:44:20):

Now that they are listening to your podcast, they come to your blog.

They're not going to sit there and go, " Heyyyy you know what? She read her exact podcast.

She read her blog post and recorded it as a podcast.

This is not even new stuff."

How many people do you think would even really notice that?

I think so very few, it doesn't even matter - does not matter because people like to get their content in multiple different ways.

Suzette, I did not forget about my bookmark in your question of - she said the call to action is always the hardest part for me.

And what that means - I don't know if people consider that a buzzword, but a "call to action" is anytime that you are putting out a video, a podcast <laugh> a blog post, anything, what are you asking them to do next?

(00:45:13):

Sometimes, what you're asking them to do is to book a consultation with you so that you can get on the way to becoming a one-on-one client, or essentially get them into a sales call.

Sometimes your call to action can be something in between.

Again, let's use the example of, if you love this blog, you might not want to go - let's go back to that whole blogging - ebook - coaching/consulting funnel.

If you can say, "if you love the blog, subscribe to my email list."

"If you love the blog, buy the ebook."

"If you love the ebook, share it with a friend."

All of these are calls to action, because you're saying - you made it this far - so you probably are here for a reason.

(00:46:03):

You probably wouldn't be here if you didn't care.

Even sometimes asking people to leave a comment on a Facebook post is a call to action.

As an example, I always tell you guys, my call to action for you right now is leave a comment.

Let me know that you were there.

Give me, give me what you want to hear from me next, because a lot of what I'm doing with this right now is completely dependent on who, is writing to me.

Who's sending me a win.

Who's asking me a question - and saying, "what I want more than anything right now is for this content to be valuable."

That's what my call to action is.

I want you to engage with me.

(00:46:44):

I want you to talk to me.

That's a call to action too.

Suzette I think maybe what you meant, of course, by your struggle with the call to action is asking somebody to get into a sales conversation with you.

So one thing that can help with that, one thing that can help with that is one to - not, of course, call it a sales consultation, but call it a free consultation or a free discovery call, or hey, even a lead magnet of some kind so that they opt into your email list because you want them to just take that next little baby step.

You don't want to go from zero to 100.

In that example, I was talking about when people are reading your blog, where you're talking about coaching them to transition to their business full-time you can ask them to go into a Facebook group.

(00:47:42):

Then in that Facebook group - and a lot of people do this.

Free Facebook groups, it seems like everybody has one.

Now, once they're in your free Facebook group, then you're talking to people who are most highly interested in what you're offering.

That can be where you talk about if you're interested in working together, here are the next steps.

I think honestly, that probably more people than you believe just want to be told, I know you have this problem.

We can work together to find the solution.

Here's step 1, 2, 3 on how to do it.

If you make them work hard on how to work with you, then they're like hmmm I don't know, maybe I'm not in the right place, maybe I'm not ready yet.

Or maybe I'm not "good enough" yet to be a client of hers or maybe she doesn't really work with me or maybe they have all these reasons why - they're not going to email you and just say, hey, I love your blog.

(00:48:35):

I'm just wondering if you, if you would coach me - you've got to say I offer coaching and here's how to do it.

If that makes sense, your call to action, for example, on a blog post can, does not have to go, hey, let's work together.

It can go to - like Melissa said, definitely want to drive people to the mailing list, drive people to any free email lead magnet.

Then and even Suzette, if you are uncomfortable with that ask verbally, literally, really being on video, for example, and saying, here's how we can work together.

You can send them an email auto responder.

We talked about this last week in the email list basics.

Send them an email auto responder where the ask is not at the beginning, it's at the end.

(00:49:25):

So you maybe you'll feel more comfortable if people are really invested in your content.

They've opened your emails and they got to this point where they're - I've been, I've been reading this daily email series.

Let's say that was your lead magnet opt in was an email series.

So not on day one, but on day seven of the email series, you can say, if you love this you will you will love this coaching offer X, Y, Z.

Here's how we can work together.

Then you can say - I'm opening up my calendar.

I'm totally jumping around Suzette.

Let me know if you need actual ideas on what to say, and if that would help, because I've seen a lot of very effective ideas where people don't want to be saying "hey, pay me for coaching!"

(00:50:19):

<laugh> They might say - I'm trying to think of ones that I've actually responded to.

I'm on somebody's email list for a long time, who one time she was like, "I don't do this a lot."

She said I don't do a lot of one-on-one consulting, but this month I'm opening up my calendar for 10 coaching spots.

If you want one, just email me.

She didn't make it this really complicated process.

I know for a fact that obviously it was true that she wasn't doing it all the time because she wasn't constantly promoting coaching.

I got in because I just want one business consulting session with this person.

I paid $450 and I got it and it was an hour and a half, and it was worth every penny to me.

(00:51:02):

When there's somebody who has the specific expertise that you're looking for, and you have an email list.

I'm not going to call it - a blank check, ATM.

You still have to really connect with people and deliver on what you're saying, but you can come up with these one-off offers as often as you want to.

Does that make sense?

Say in a particular quarter, one year you are doing less - let's say you're a professional organizer - using you guys as my forever example.

Anyway, let's say in a particular quarter, business has been slow, but you've been in person, business has been slow, and let's just pretend we're talking about normal times, not right now, specifically, because business is slow for everybody.

(00:51:55):

Let's say in a normal year, you decide you're just going to do a one-off - hey, I'm going to focus on virtual organizing and stuff.

I'm going to do a virtual organizing group program and it's going to be an eight-week program.

I'm going to email all my past clients.

I'm going to email everybody that's on my email list that reads my blog or watches my videos or whatever.

I'm going to post about it a few times on my Facebook.

You sign up eight women who are going to go through this group program to do all the exact same things that you talk about on a regular basis.

You're not coming up with brand new, life-changing content.

You're just literally doing eight calls, once a week with a call.

Then following up with some homework and a check in maybe even a personal check in, since it's a small group and you charge people $300 for that each.

(00:52:47):

That was essentially - you sent out an email and you're committing to a certain number of hours per work, obviously to get the job done, but that was $2,400 that you made online.

It didn't require you to go to anybody's house.

It didn't require you to overthink - oh, I've got to come up with this brand new, special sauce.

<laugh>

Suzette said - going back to Suzette's question, she said, I just have a lot of free content, but I don't know what to tell people to do to take action.

You said it's probably easier once you build more diverse offerings to link to - yes that may be true.

The other thing Suzette is I wonder, and if you don't feel comfortable sharing don't, but tell me what it is.

Give me the picture of what you have right now.

(00:53:40):

I know you and I have talked about this one-on-one before, but what do you have right now?

Another thing that you could do Suzette is even if some of your paid products are not ready yet, you can link people to - hey, here's a waiting list for my next coaching offering.

I don't know what you're doing, but that would apply to a lot of people.

For you, if you have a little mini-course that you've been working on, I hope you're still working on that.

You can have people go to a waiting list for that.

It's almost a separate opt in where people are giving you their email address and they're not expecting immediate answer, but it's just - oh yeah, I want to know about that when that comes out.

(00:54:19):

That would be a softer call to action.

When you don't really have a lot of stuff to link to - okay, she's given me more examples, but for the rest of you guys - if you do have a lead magnet of some kind, which is an email opt-in any freebie, you can use that as your call to action.

Every single time you do anything, you could do it at the end of your videos, you could do it at the end of your blog post, you could post about it on your Instagram stories.

You post about it on your Facebook page.

That's your main driver.

You want people to know you for a specific topic.

(00:55:00):

Therefore you have all this content that's related to that topic.

Then you have the guidebook for getting started on this topic that is your free lead magnet opt in.

Then once you have those people on your email list, because they opted in for your thing, then you can sell them something.

That's where obviously things get really exciting because we're not doing all this just for fun.

Suzette said right now she has a Facebook group with 200 people providing new video and PDF content three times a week.

Are you, here's my questions for you?

This is so fun.

Will you let me analyze and strategize for free?

Because the more you're willing to tell me - I will absolutely do it.

<laugh> So my first question is because you have all those people in your Facebook group.

(00:55:49):

Do you have all those people on an email list or is your primary way to connect with them through that Facebook group? (Which is not necessarily a bad thing.)

I'm just curious if they have to see your Facebook post in order to see all that new content.

Because right now, one thing you could do is use your email list to say, hey, here's what you missed this week in the Facebook group.

That way you're always cross-promoting your things.

If you have people on the email list who aren't on the Facebook group, then they're still getting the chance to see it and then getting them to join.

If you have Facebook people that are not on your email list, you really want to get them there so that you can really control how often that they're seeing your stuff.

Because that's the thing about Facebook is you can give them tips on - hey, here's how to get notified on all my posts, but you can't force that.

Because it's really up to Facebook's algorithm.

(00:56:46):

Then Suzette also tell me if you are - what are your paid options right now?

Literally the easiest paid option for anybody right now is to come up with a one-on-one coaching offer or even a one off call where they don't have to commit to a long term with you, but if they want to do an hour and a half call with you and pick your brain, tell they can tell you their life story, if that's how they want to use that time.

Come up with that and link it to a calendar scheduling option that you can take the payment directly there.

I don't know what the word is - take the payment when they book the call.

I do that.

I do that through my - and Suzette is in my paid program.

(00:57:39):

She has access to this already, but I don't even mind posting this on this page, the Calendly tutorial.

Here's how you set up a calendar, a calendar call where you take payment.

When people book that call, because that's the easiest thing in the world to sell - you don't have to create a product.

You just have to link your calendar to the program.

Suzette says she's doing free consultations.

Suzette assuming that in your free consultation, that is a sales conversation for something, whether it's ongoing virtual organizing or if you're using that to do, I don't know, I'm trying to piece this together about what I know about what you're doing, but I don't think Suzette this Facebook group is just local people, right?

(00:58:35):

You're not doing free consultations to do in-home services right now.

This is more of a bigger audience.

I would assume I could be wrong, could be wrong.

Yeah, Suzette, if you are if, you're doing a free consultation that you are doing a discovery call, it's - yes, those are all euphemisms for sales conversations, which is why you should not charge for them.

Don't get me even started on that topic.

Don't charge for an initial consultation because then how will you ever get people to talk to you?

<laugh> don't do that.

That initial consultation, okay, Suzette said yes, 75% of them are 75% of them are local.

If your free consultation is your sales conversation, then telling them on your Facebook group, your call to action should be, here's how you can book a free consult with me.

(00:59:29):

Let's say right now, Suzette, that you're doing them all on Skype or FaceTime or Zoom.

Right now, just because if you're not going into people's homes right now, just say you can book it, just have them book it directly.

Have that call link.

The actual link to schedule the free consultation, virtual consultation - you can connect Calendly to Zoom so that they're booking their meeting with you.

That link itself should be your call to action every time.

Let me know, okay, what's still missing for you with that.

If you have this mapped out to where 75% of this Facebook group is local and once you get them in the consultation that you're selling them on something.

All you're missing is the link between the free content that you're putting out three videos a week and PDF content.

(01:00:29):

That's incredible.

That's so much value.

Every single time you should be saying "And did you know can book a free call with me? We can talk about your specific situation."

Is there anything that makes you uncomfortable about that part?

Let me know about that.

Because again, you're putting some steps in between, hey, here's my free content and hey, pay me money.

Your call to action doesn't have to be spend money now.

And it looks you already have that thought out.

Hopefully I'm giving you some confidence today that you and everyone else should be comfortable telling people "if you like this, here's where you can find out more or here's how we can continue to work together."

Or for example, Suzette for that week, you could tie it back to the specific video content or PDF content for that week and say "Do you want to discuss your action plan for this particular topic on these videos or this PDF?"

(01:01:33):

or you could ask, "Would it help to get my eyes on your specific scenario? Here's how you can book a free consultation."

That could be another way where you're saying the same thing every week - book a free consultation with me <laugh> but you're altering it slightly so that it appears more natural and organic with what you're doing, and that's really exciting.

I think it's really good!

Suzette, you should also be thinking - I'm going to spout one more big idea scenario and then I'm going to have to cut myself off so I don't lose my voice.

Because I want to keep doing this every day.

Suzette, you could be using all of that video content - and I'm sure you're probably already doing this, but if your Facebook group - if what you're selling does not ultimately depend on your members being local and you DO have some thing like a virtual organizing offer, or even we've talked about many courses or other things that are in your expertise...

(01:02:40):

Don't feel just because you have this Facebook group of people who are getting the video content - and I've talked about this in the past videos in the past couple weeks - you can still upload that video content in other places, and your call to action, for example, if you take that video content that you're doing three times a week and you're uploading it to YouTube, then maybe your call to action is, "Do you love this? Come join the group where you get all the first notifications," or whatever.

Maybe I don't know if it's necessarily live videos, but you are uploading it to the Facebook group first.

You can use still use the same content and still share it with more than just your free group and change your call to action slightly.

(01:03:27):

Or of course, still have them go directly to your website.

If they're just - let me cut to the chase.

I just want to work with her.

Of course, give them that option too.

Your call to action on YouTube can be - come join the free group.

Then that way again, I think they feel they have more exclusive access to you.

If you're doing something like an organizing challenge or any type of structured free content then they get to follow along because they're in the Facebook group in real time, whereas on YouTube, that content will live out there forever.

As long as you don't take it down and people can find you forever from that YouTube content out there.

I really think that that's really critical is to be putting your stuff out there where people who are literally typing in the search terms can find it.

(01:04:15):

Then still later, you could be putting out all the stuff, Suzette for six months straight, three times a week for six months straight, and then you don't even have to do anymore.

All you do is you have all of that video content living out there on YouTube and it tells people to come join your free group and in your free group, after you stop doing all of that live content, you're still always driving people towards - now you have that mini course ready.

Now you have that ebook that you're selling.

Now they can 1, 2, 3 book a virtual consult with you and work with you virtually - it gives you time.

It gives you options down the road because your Facebook group - maybe we should do another topic on this.

Let me know if you guys are interested in this or maybe not - free Facebook groups?

(01:05:02):

<laugh> I have very strong opinions about them.

I had one that I had a love/hate relationship with.

I did close it after gosh, it was probably about a year and a half, probably had it open for about a year and a half.

I stopped doing it and I don't regret stopping doing it.

I also don't regret doing it, because doing a free group - that was, I told you guys about this in my past story video - having the free group and the YouTube channel cross promoting each other is how I grew my initial audience when nobody knew me at all when I started .

Suzette said, that's scary, but it's a good idea.

(01:05:50):

That's how most things that I tell people to do are - so sorry, but I'm not sorry.

You're totally capable.

You're so capable of doing this.

If you can get 200 people in a free group, you can absolutely implement everything else I'm saying.

I think you'll be just fine.

Anyway, I have a lot of opinions about free groups, but the one biggest thing that I think people maybe miss - if they decide not to do some type of free community where people will just talk to each other and trade ideas - is that it's your own personal market research lab.

You can pull directly from the questions people ask and you're - again, I've talked about this.

How do you know what your next Facebook video should be?

(01:06:43):

Well, take it from the comments that people leave and the questions that people ask - that applies to every single topic out there that you guys could possibly be thinking about.

If they didn't care enough to watch.

If they didn't care enough to watch and nobody's watching, maybe you don't have a topic that is as on target as you want it to be, or maybe you just haven't spent enough time cross-promoting the videos so that people who are interested can find it.

I can diagnose that problem.

That's one of two things.

If people are watching and not commenting, you're not asking them enough questions about themselves because people are dying to tell you their story, but also their opinion.

If you have people watching and not engaging and you're not getting engagement in your Facebook group or engagement on your videos, you've got to work on just pretending you're in a FaceTime call with your friends and ask them questions.

(01:07:36):

If people did show up and if people did comment, that is absolutely an indicator that they care and they are not the only three people in the world who care either.

That means that you, if you're not growing your Facebook group enough, and there's people who are regularly engaged and regularly asking questions, you're not getting enough visibility and traffic into your content stream currently.

That's all it is.

It doesn't grow to huge numbers overnight, which - thank God, because I think that would be really intimidating when you're just getting started.

You can let it grow organically.

If you want it to grow faster, then you would need to start collaborating with people who have people in their audience already that would be a great fit for what you do.

(01:08:26):

Maybe you would want to think about people that are not necessarily your exact competitors, but people who have a big overlap in maybe your specific niche.

Maybe - let's say that you're that business coach or you're that life coach and you specialize in a certain topic.

Well, you might not want to reach out to another life coach because you guys are selling the exact same thing.

You might not want to just reach out to somebody who's your competitor and say, hey, will you want to be a guest on my podcast?

Or can I be a guest on your podcast?

Maybe there is some opportunity there, but what you would want to do is maybe find for example, if you were that business coach who helps women transitioning their to their business full-time from a side-hustle or whatever, maybe you want to reach out to someone who has a podcast that's about life balance, their audience is going to have some of your people in there.

(01:09:33):

More importantly, you are going to be building that relationship with that person that has the podcast, or has the email list in a very non-threatening way, so they can be a resource for your guests in the future.

Let's say you have your own blog or your own podcast.

You guys are cross-pollinating your audiences, but you're not selling the same thing at all.

Maybe that person has - they do a parenting course for busy parents.

You want some of those busy parents because that's one of the struggles that your target audience is having.

Maybe this is not one of the best examples, but I think you guys hear what I'm saying.

You don't necessarily want to reach out to your competitors.

(01:10:17):

You don't want your exact competitors, you want to reach out to people who have a big overlap in the demographics or the characteristics of that person that you are that you're trying to reach.

You do want to be thinking about, what are these people struggling with?

Because if they're not taking the time to invest in themselves in some way already, and here's the other thing about other people's email lists or other people's audiences that they're invested because they listen, they listen regularly because they're like, I really care.

I really care about this thing.

If they're not invested already, then they may not exist.

They're out there, but they're not easy to find, if that makes sense.

That's another reason why other people's audiences are really valuable is because you already have a proof, you have proof that they listen to this podcast.

(01:11:07):

I know that they, or somebody that they know is likely to be also interested in my content.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, I've been talking for one hour and 11 minutes and 11 seconds.

I feel that is a sign from the universe that I should cut it out for the day <laugh>.

I will be back tomorrow. Of course.

I will publish my time my timeframe tomorrow morning.

I think it was going to be a little earlier than usual tomorrow just because things going on, people sharing this computer, kids also working from home on school stuff and they have their own meetings with their classmates and I'm like all right, that's cool.

I will get out of your way.

I think it's fun for them.

Actually I think they're adapting to this remote school virtual e-learning quite well.

Melissa's still here. Thank you Melissa for requesting this topic today, she said so much clarity on numbers in the list, building community, effective call to actions, absolute game changers.

She says she is so grateful and I am so grateful that you guys have shown up to listen because this is a huge outlet, a big outlet for me.

(Suzanne said her favorite number is aligning: 1-1-1-1-1)

Hugs and kisses to all of you. Take care of yourselves and I'll talk to you later! Bye.