Lessons

Lesson Info

Identifying What You're REALLY Selling

Eso while you're looking at your client intake process, you should've noticed something and this is exactly what we talked about with rebecca. People don't come to rebecca for therapy. Oddly enough, they come to her for figuring their relationships out. They come to her for living independently from their families they come to being able they come to her for just being able to show up at work every day and so people don't come to you for life coaching they don't come to you for web design they don't come to you for photography they don't come to you for scrapbooking ideas they don't come to you for copyrighting they come to you because they just got out of a ten year relationship and they need help figuring out what's next they come to you because they want people to take their business seriously they come to you because they they never I never want to forget. This time they wantto make those memories solid and an unforgettable they want to make time for them again. They want to invest...

themselves in their hobby they want to sell out their coaching program, they have goals. What they're buying is their goal, the results that they want they're not buying the service that you offer and this is really the heart of where product development starts its understanding what people are really buying from you on what your really selling with lily's example, earlier she talked about all the moms coming to her and saying, how is it that you do all the different things that you do? I want that life guess what is she creates a programme about having it all is a mom and creating your dream career and your dream family? What they're buying from her is a dream career and a dream family, not a course, not a program and that's key, I like to say function before format, you have to design your products function first, not format first, then, we've talked a little bit about format today, we've talked about all the different option and that you have for creating a product and ask that a program and experience, but that those things are secondary to the function that you're providing with that product. The goal that you have for your clients after they've used this product determines the best format for that product. The best format might be a retreat, it might not be a course write it, or it might be a book instead of wonder one service or an agency. So these, you know, this is this really comes to the co war, of how you're going to decide what your product is going to look like, and, most importantly, why it's going to sell it's a lot harder to say I've got a book for sale do you want to buy it or I've got a brand new course for sale? Do you want to buy it? You've experienced that kind of marketing or sales copy slopping on you there's a really good reason people don't buy things, they buy outcomes, they buy results and like the question that I asked rebecca they by what that means to them they buy meaning so you need to figure out what you're really selling because when you know what you're really selling, you can create a a focal point for your asset and then detach yourself from the rest of the process. So this question of self employment to business ownership is also a question of detachment self employed people are extremely attached to their work it's one of the reasons that they have a very difficult time pricing the work that they d'oh it's one of the reasons that they can't imagine taking themselves out of the process it's why they have a hard time delegating why they have a hard time bringing team members on when you start to understand what this focal point is, what the outcome is that your client's really want what it is that they're actually buying and what it is that you're actually selling suddenly you can create an immense amount of detachment which then allows you to get really objective about what you're going to create and how you're going to help your clients get results makes sense questions about this it's hard to imagine detaching so can you unpack that more? I'm gonna get it in theory but in practice that seems a little high when you care so much about something or you feel like you're putting yourself out there and I'm just thinking as a therapist to all the risk and uncertainty there, so can you dig in a little bit s immediately? What comes to mind is that someone taught you that the process of therapy right? You learned the psychology you learned to the questions you learned the difficult conversations and the response is right and you didn't need to for instance and forgive me if I'm insulting your industry in anyway but you didn't need to learn that from sigmund freud, right? You learned that from other people who had developed other methodology is based on other methodology is based on other methodologies, right? And so this is your opportunity to kind of step out of I do therapy and step into that place of I ca n't teach someone this this is learning well, just the same way I learned these things what I have the results that I have to offer in the process for getting those results is learn herbal that's one of the things that I do with my program as well is really training people to think independently and realize that they can learn how to be an executive of their business and then it's not just you know I could need to keep coming back to terra for more advice but instead aiken source my own advice because there's a process behind it right? And so if you were tio outline a process that you use specifically for helping someone maintain their identity and succeed at red lake ocean ships you probably have a static siri's of questions that you'd ask stories that you'd want to pull out from people and those things aren't you they're things you know how to dio yeah on dso that's that I think that's another big important piece of this process peace is that when you start identifying the process you start taking you out of it and you start to see how it can be done in lots and lots of different ways and the other exciting piece of that is is that sometimes what you're selling in your process doesn't dictate with the product format has to be and so you can sell it like five different ways which is a great way to make lots of money you know you can sell it as a workshop you can sell it as of course you can sell it as a licensing program you can sell it as a book and now you're earning revenue from the same process four different ways okay, yeah. So from detachment question to how to make lots of money in thirty seconds, but yeah, so anyone else kind of feel that difficulty with detachment? Michelle oh, yeah, I have, I think that's one of my biggest challenges because I always feel like the secret sauce of my speak for impact process is my brain and my ability to put ideas together and kind of pick out the points that are, like, really unique, and I'm like, how do I make that into ah process? Yeah, okay, so this is a really interesting question, and I definitely don't again, I've dealt with this myself. So I think one thing that you have to dio is get really clear that you are going to get results faster than your clients or your students or your customers here are over. You want to think about it and that's okay, you can't expect your students to get results in the same amount of time that you get results this ridiculous. How long have you been doing this? Years, years? You can't hope for that, right? Everyone asks me, terror, how do you come up with things on stuff so fast like that, I can't do that, yeah, I've been doing this for years, this is this is me in my element. Right? You asked me a question I'm going to come up with an answer for it because I think about this stuff constantly, but that doesn't mean that your client isn't capable of doing and it doesn't mean you're not capable of doing it. You can come up with the answer it's just going to take a little bit longer so you start thinking about okay, what is it that I do that allows me to combine those ideas together and maybe for you it's just being able to say, you know, I combined really weird ideas together maybe I should just ask my clients to start doing that, you know, pull out and say you've got ten different messages here, what happens if you combine them in a hundred different ways which one's the best one? You know, it could be that simple. It could be a simple as saying, trial and error. You know, this really reminds me of what we dio in quiet power strategy with the quiet power inventory, and I don't keep coming back to this because I'm promoting it we're not even selling it right now I keep coming back to it is because, like I've gone through all of this stuff before, so with a quiet power inventory right, I have, you know, because you've done this, I have people list out all the things all the messages, the ideas that they're super passionate about, the things that bug them, the things that they love, the things that they most firmly believe, then we pull out all of that stuff. Some people have fifty different ideas in there, which I love when that happens. And then I go in and I say or their coach says, or they figure out this one could be a really great block post, like, great, it could be a really good block post go right that block post, see what happens, right? So there's an element of experimentation. So that's, another thing that you could do is not just have people randomly combined ideas, but figure out how they how they can experiment with it as well. Okay, but this is a this is a big part of that detachment piece is realizing that your clients your students aren't going to be able to get results as fast as you can. You're an expert, they're not right. That's ok, that's, why they're there. It took me a long time to get over that. It took me a long time, tio not get so frustrated that people weren't getting as good or results as I know they could get right away. But what I realized is that they were actually really happy working through the process and getting better at it. And so sometimes the best emails I get are from people who have taken my program or my courses or, you know, two years ago watched the first creative live that I did and then come back to me a year later, two years later, three years later, and said, you know, it took me a while I had to work through this a couple of different times to really get it, but now I love it, I understand it, I apply it and I'm you know, I'm making progress so fast have house and so that that could be a big part of that detachment piece to melissa, a little bit of a light bulb moment. Oh, just thinking about, like, like, take the book the artist's way, which a lot of people are familiar with, right? You can go through that book and get so much out of it on your own right? Or you can join a group of people and go through the book together, and maybe you'll get exponentially more or you can work one on one with the really expensive coach. And maybe you'll get even more even faster out of it right on. That only makes sense because the investment that somebody's going to make in the book is going to be a lot less than they're going to make with the one on one sessions with the coach. So whatever your product is, when you I'm just thinking out loud that, you know, perhaps other people are having the same light bulb or whatever, whatever you are product izing your service, you you know, the format is irrelevant because you could do it is so many different things, and that just just sort of acknowledging this makes it easier for me to think about detaching when I think about how to break down what I do, that they feel so intuitive and it's like it's just me it's my secret sauce. But actually it's a process and it's a system and I can offer it up to people and they can take it. Choose teo, choose to take it in whatever form at works for them. Boom! Yes, yes. So right. People make a choice is to invest at the level that they're comfortable investing. And we know when we invest in a book that we're going to have to work at it a little bit, right, it's going to take some time? I read a copy writing book a couple of years ago that literally changed my life, but I'm still playing with the ideas from that book. Now, I could have either hired a copywriter for thousands of dollars I wouldn't have gotten actually what I wouldn't have gotten the same results, or I could have maybe coached with a copywriter like I'd like to learn more about copyrighting, and I probably could have gotten they're faster, but he chose to invest at the book level, and it really worked for me, that's another thing I've had to come to terms with over the years, this sometimes there are some people out there that are going to get justice good results from my book says they do working closely with me, that's okay, that doesn't matter, it doesn't mean I should go in charge thousands of dollars for my book, andi doesn't mean that I should charge for my coaching what I would charge for a book people invested, whatever level is comfortable for them, and one of the benefits of what we're doing here is being able to create investment opportunities at lots of different levels, and, like I mentioned with rebecca there's, maybe four different ways she could sell one particular process, which means there are four different ways people can invest with her which means there's more opportunity for making money there as well. So there's lots of different things going on. Yeah, yeah, teo, add on to that most of what I've offered so far has been in in the context of a group of a community, and I've been reluctant to detach myself because there's so much of value that comes from the learning in the community and the sharing in the community or the group, right? But I'm also working on books, right? I'm writing books and there's a lot of value that somebody can get from my sharing in the context of a book even though there's no community there's, no sharing inside of a community that's gonna happen on its own from that purchase. And yet it's still something of value that I can put out there, huh? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Alright. Ah, panelists, I want to hear from you. What do you really selling? What do you really selling, marie confidence? Because they now have a process that they could fall back on. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I saw with a quiet power strategy strike just training as well is confidence in a system yeah, confidence in themselves through a system essentially jennifer I'm selling empowerment to take action and to help them stop feeling unsatisfied overwhelmed and not being sure where to start yeah sasha same things empowerment and confidence and connection nice john um opportunity clarity and ongoing support community nice well, um often visibility and fancy nous it's something that I feel really fancy when they hire a publicist you really think he'll really fancy if you hired bridge of as your publicist makes him feel like all right and then another thing is really pissed street discreet thing a lot of people are selling their book idea by hiring us like we help people sell their book ideas. Oh, great. Okay, so that's really good because it's super concrete to like if you've got a book you want to hire a publicist because we're going to help you sell that book or even if you want to sell your book to a publisher yeah and you need to show clips yep, we like that's something that we can even throughout that whole process it's what we're getting hired for more more now nice fantastic. All right, so it's time for another hot seat uh let's see who wants to cory come on up cory andy that means you're next okay um so cory first of all let's go back to the client intake process are you still working with people one on one too ah, small percentage small percentage. Okay, so when people come and hire you for one on one, what are some of the goals that they have? Generally speaking, my one on one client far either artists who are already selling maybe semi regularly, but maybe not quite enough to go full time. Or they have a successful offline art business, but they are looking to start selling on fine. Okay, yeah. And then there's a few people who are career transition er's they're successful in a different field of business, but they want to become become a rest. Okay, awesome on dh. What are some of the specific problems that they're dealing with on the path to achieving those different things? Yeah, eso the artists who are trying to go full time they're trying to figure out how to deliver the art that they've sold, like hot addict would actually make it while they're still working their day jobs. That's huge problem. Okay, what time? They don't know what I mean. They don't have to manage their time. That's usually like helping them increase their prices so that they can buy back that time on. Then. For the artists who are going from selling offline to selling online, it's just education like how do I like what is required? What's a good website how do I use social media all that kind of stuff? How do they connect with people online in the same way that they connect people offline on then for the career switchers it's how do I take this business? Thes business skills that I have from this other career and apply them in the financial industry okay, so you kind of range the gamut from tactical to strategic then as well as in the one on one working okay, fantastic. What is it so let's ask the big question from this lesson which is what are you really selling? I'm really selling get helping artists find the resource the financial and time resource is to be able to make more art so and helping them how do I say this? Helping them make art that allows them to make the sort of impact that they would like their art to make world okay all right let's let's stick with the time and resource is right now just cause that's super duper concrete on dh also I think it's really in because it sounds like the what you're really selling is the flip of your problem as opposed to a particular goal so they like they might come to you and say I want more time and energy or much more time on dme or resource is but that that's also them saying their problem it's not necessarily a goal well they don't they don't usually tell me I want more time and resource is they say they say things like I have this day job and it's super demanding and I can't figure out when I can have studio time and I did this show last week over the weekend and I sold you ten pieces of art and I got to commission sign ups and on and I have to go backto work and I have these two commissions that I've been paid thousands of dollars for but I can't figure out what I'm gonna have time to paint them right interesting okay what do you think is what do you think is that focal point than for branching out into I mean I know you've got products and courses already but in terms of you know bringing it all together on really finding a focal point for leveraging though the existing resource is that you have what do you think from your client intake process from this question of what you're really selling what is that focal point for you yeah that's interesting I've been working on a a customer lifecycle good right like like their career life cycle not with me but in their life right like and how the art how our careers are what the arc of that career is and and sort of trying to match up my products with where artists are in their career cycle because they sort of go through similar cycles, like all businesses do, and guess what you're really asking me is, how do I match up what I'm offering with there with that? Is that essentially, yeah, because we'll actually do that exercise in a future lesson, and I call it a customer journey, but a customer life cycle is exactly the same thing. Yeah, or is there is there an over arching focus toe? What your offering? That kind of gives people the tip off that yes, if I start with cory here, I'm eventually going to get this big goal that I have, yeah, I think, and this is something that I have step back and realize that maybe I'm not completely clear on in my messaging, but what my goal for myself is, I have a goal of helping artists get to the point where they can make art there full time living, okay, fantastic, so that if that hasn't been a focal point of messaging, I would highly encourage you to make that the focal point of your messaging. So much so that you could say I'm cory half and I create resource is that allow artists to make art there full time living, because then that pulls all of your products together, and it tells people you know it tells them if they jump on board with you you're going to steer the ship exactly where they want to go and so no matter where they jump on in that customer life cycle they're going to feel like the next step is one step closer to that ultimate goal so you're selling what you're really selling is the vision the ideal of being a full time artists yeah perfect thanks gory all right any questions about what finding what you're really selling and how you can start to apply that to thinking about the products that you're going to be creating or the product you're going to be creating any questions as you're very quiet group thinking in I'm curious I'm gonna ask the panelists again is there anything that we've talked about in terms of what you're really selling your claim and take process that's giving you an idea for an adoration on the product that you have janu too smiled tell us about it well right now you know I'm selling I'm selling experience in community in the form of a conference but it's an investment and I do it that way because I want people to like literally have a speed bump in their lives or a full stop and I could take them out of their busy nous and the focus on their business on their lives but I'm wondering what if there's an opportunity here for a book or be an online course on you. And I have sort of talked about that a little bit, and I haven't done anything with it yet, because actually it scares the crap out of me, way sign, which means I probably do it on the idea of a master class, freaks me out a little bit, but maybe that's what I need to run towards. And so I'm saying that is a different opportunity for investment that may not have the in person interaction, but doesn't mean it necessarily has to have less community. Yes, absolutely, yeah, which kind of goes back to what melissa was saying as well, is that, you know, there's lots of different ways that you can go about getting someone toe what you're really selling, right, and so an online course. Yes, you may not get people there as well, fast as you do when you say come to cancun with me and I'm gonna I'm gonna put your life and doesn't world role wind, but you can still create that experience. You can. Still help them reach those goals you gonna ask the same questions you can get them talking to other people in the same ways on so yeah, it might not happen this fast it might not happen to the same degree but you're still putting people on that trajectory on one of the questions that I think we have to ask ourselves as we move from service to product is what is expendable and what is not what's expendable and what is not in a future lesson we'll talk about that in terms of a minimum viable product which is uh something you've probably heard me talk about before but yeah, I think that this is really key for some people uh that would be something that's not expendable for some people saying no it has to be a one it has to be an in person experience and I could look for different ways to create an in person experience like you could say yeah, I'm gonna have one hundred person conference and then I'm also going to take ten people at a time on retreats and then yeah I'm also going to create these weekend you know workshop things that people can dio but in person is a non negotiable it's not expendable can't get rid of it because it's a key part of the process right not about you it's about the process right but you might also make the decision that no what's more important to me is getting as many people involved in this movement in this community as possible and one way I could do that is taking it online, making it virtual, making it easier for people to access, making it less of you know of a speed bump in their lives and instead creating that experience in a different way and so that's a really important thing if you feel yourself going in the direction of you know, I've thought about this before I don't really like that idea ask yourself what's expendable and what's not what is necessary to get people to what you're really selling and what's not and for different businesses that's going to be different things and that's all based kind of on your personal values your guiding principles what it is that you personally this time imbue into your business on dh how you set it up how how you want your customer experiences to be but I think that's a really that was a really interesting point and yeah thank you melissa yeah, I was going to say my head is like exploding right now um so where do I start? So what I'm selling really is alive nous ok happiness joya connected connection with life what does that look like? Um it looks like making time to do the things that give you joy okay, so that you're walking around with a smile on your face yeah and everyone you touch is affected by that instead of the you know shades of grey rain cloud over the head right so and because I have a background as a professional artist I have for the past whatever five years of having my block and being having a business up on line been attracting a lot of artists but in fact I don't care if people are going to make money from their art that is not what I'm about that's corey's thing I said to go look for that that's great if you want to do that but I want to help you bust through all that crap that got in your way when you were four and somebody shamed you in school and said don't ever saying or don't ever draw or whatever right and get you to do that thing and I've just been madly scribbling notes thinking about what what lily was saying like I've learned all this stuff myself I have so many different creative pursuits and passions and I live what I consider a full color life and so like they're so I'm just all of a sudden like oh my god there's all these processes and systems that I wasn't even aware o led me to where I am right now that I could dig into and I'm envisioning like so many, you know, large and small products that could be created out of this is what I have learned that's helped me so much and let me share it with you. Yeah, which is I mean, effectively what I'm already doing, but I don't know, I'm just like thinking more globally about it, yeah, looking at it from a different perspective really changed the way you approach what's possible in terms of creating a product. Something that hit me while you were talking is that you may have more in common with rebecca than you do with cory, like on the surface, your business might look more like corey's, but below the surface you have way more in common with rebecca and I think that's a really interesting thing, too, and, you know, speaking of competitors, competitors or other solutions that people might be trying, you know, therapy might be one of the other solutions that people are trying or rebecca for you creativity classes or creativity, empowerment, coaching or whatever it might be might be something else that people are are trying on when you get down to the nitty gritty of what your really selling that you, khun, see what some of these other solutions are in completely different fields and completely different industries on dh that could be actually really, you know, instead of being like, oh gosh, now I have even more competitors than I used to have now you've got wow. I have more synergy with all of these other collaborative partners than I ever realized I had before. And that can then help you market and sell what it is that you're creating.