In this episode, I’m going to help you fix the one thing that is probably stopping your business from resonating far and wide with your awesome ideal clients, and is holding you back from converting them into actual paying clients.
That is your messaging.
Today I’m going to share with you how to get your messaging for your business right.
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If you don’t already know this, messaging is the critical component of your business – particularly in relation to sales and marketing.
If you want to make sales, you need to have great messaging in your business.
When I’m working with people and helping them to work out what’s going on or why something’s not working, it usually comes down to one of three things:
1. They’re not getting enough reach, or
2. They haven’t got their mindset sorted, so they’re energetically blocking things, or
3. Their messaging is out of whack and they’re not able to accurately and effectively describe their value proposition to their ideal clients
Nine times out of ten it comes down to a messaging issue, and that’s why it’s so important to me to help you work out how to get that messaging part right.
I have run messaging masterclasses before that go for two and a half hours, so there’s a lot to this messaging conversation.
I’m going to start you off with one of the most critical parts of your messaging in your business because I want to make sure that we can get as many of you really rocking your messaging as possible.
One of the things I also share when it comes to sales and marketing is that there are 5 stages to making great sales in your business.
Messaging is actually stage 2.
The different stages are:
1. Reach – you’ve got to get in front of a bunch of people
2. Messaging – you need a message that’s going to attract and get people curious
3. Nurture – You’re creating a relationship based on value
4. Conversion – your messaging is critical there as well
5. Recommitment – up-selling them into a VIP package or some other work with you. Getting people to recommit to working with you consistently if you have people on a retainer or membership program for example
You can see that all five stages of sales really require you to have great messaging and know what messaging you need to be sharing at each of those stages.
I just wanted to flag that with you at the start because I think one of the things I see people do is constantly look for “the perfect messaging”. They’re looking for that perfect tagline, that perfectly written sales page, that perfectly written offer, and that perfectly written blog post that will magically do all of the work for them with its “perfect messaging”.
Even now at $500k a year in my business, I’m still working on my messaging. I’m still refining, and I’m still experimenting and exploring.
I’ve grown, my ideal clients have grown, and things have changed.
People are at different stages of that process, so the way that I describe my business is different in different context. The way that I describe my services and the way that I demonstrate value is different in all of these different contexts.
Think about you getting an opportunity to step on stage at a conference, where the entire room is your exact ideal clients, compared to meeting someone at a barbeque who you don’t know if they are your ideal client or not.
The way that you explain your business and the way that you talk about your services is very different in those two situations because in front of your ideal client, you can start to use very specific messaging.
You can use different language, and you know that you’re speaking to people who are your actual peeps.
At a barbeque, you have an opportunity for people to ask you questions.
When you’re standing on stage, it’s very much more broadcast, so you have to make sure you cover off a few different things that you wouldn’t actually talk about if you were just talking to someone randomly at a barbeque or in the elevator with your “elevator pitch”.
Elevator pitch for business start-up marketing message
There’s really no one perfect messaging for any single business, even if you know your exact target market and you’ve got everything working.
I really don’t think that there’s ever just one way to describe something. I actually ran a messaging workshop in the Take Off program recently, and I asked everyone to describe for me what they think my message is.
There were so many different responses, all of them were right. I think that’s a really beautiful thing.
My role as a marketer and business coach is not to get you to reflect back to me my exact tagline or my exact job description/title that I’ve bestowed upon myself.
My job is to convey the value proposition of my business and share my business wholeheartedly in a way that makes sense to YOU.
When I do that really well, you can describe it back to me in a way that resonates for you.
When some people talk about my business, they talk about the feminine model of business – they talk about feminine sales and marketing and not acting “like a man”.
Other people talk about how I break business down into step-by-step strategies that really work for start-up, particularly if you don’t have a lot of money.
Both of those things are true.
It’s a beautiful reflection that I have been able to share my message. That I’ve been able to articulate the value proposition of my business in lots of different ways so that it actually makes sense to my ideal client, and they find the thing that resonates most for them.
If you’re not getting those sales and sign-ups, and if you don’t feel like you’re getting traction in your business, it’s usually a messaging issue.
I want to give you this one tool that I have been sharing far and wide, and I think it really helps you to articulate what it is that you do gorgeously, and understand how to apply your messaging at different stages of the process with your ideal clients as well.
This is called the TURN process.
TURN stands for:
Think
Understand
Really-Need
Next-steps
At the top level, there’s usually a disconnect between what your ideal client needs from you and thinks the problem is, and what you really know that they need from you – what you really know is the issue.
For example, in the online business space, I have a lot of people who come to me and say that they just need 1,000 followers on their Facebook page and then their business will thrive.
They think the issue is that they don’t have enough followers, but I know that the issue runs deeper.
When it comes to starting a business, what you need is a way to find your ideal clients, create messaging that really connects with them, and to start asking them for the sale.
Then you can start testing your messaging – testing what works.
Once you actually have that clarity around your niche, your ideal client, what you have to offer them, and that they’re actually going to see value in what you do and buy the thing that you have got to offer, then we start to scale your marketing.
There are some things people need to get right in order for that Facebook page growth to actually result in sales.
I’ve had clients before who have tens of thousands of followers on their Facebook page, and they’re not making sales.
Likes do not equal sales.
We want to actually build a business. That is what they want. They think that they need to grow their Facebook reach, but actually, what they need to do is get their business foundations right and start making sales quickly.
You can see that there’s this separation.
I see this a lot in the health and wellbeing space as well.
People think that they need to find that magical juice cleanse, or they need to find that perfect exercise regime, or they need to find that perfect mindset thing that is going to stop them emotionally eating. That one silver bullet is going to fix it all.
But what they really need is a more complex ecosystem of support. What they really need instead of that magical juice cleanse is to work out what is best for their body and just do that 80% of the time, and look at it as a long-term approach and be consistent.
Maybe that’s what it is (I’m just making all this stuff up – I’m not a health coach).
You can see that there’s this disconnect between what your ideal client thinks is the problem and thinks is the solution, and what you know that the real problem and solution actually is.
If we’re going to connect and resonate with our ideal clients, then we’re not going to do that if we just keep yelling at them saying that they don’t need that.
If I kept saying “No, you don’t need to grow your list so stop trying to!”, then I’m not going to resonate with my ideal client.
Instead, I say: “Hey, here’s how to grow your list, and if you want that list growth to actually result in business sales and end-results for your business, here’s what you need as well.”
Can you see the difference in that messaging?
Instead of saying to people all the time that they’re wrong, I’m giving them what they think they need, while also helping them understand what the thing is that they actually need to grow their business.
And magically, people really get excited about that, and they want the next thing from me because I’ve helped them.
In this TURN process, we need to understand what our ideal client thinks that the problem is and thinks the solution is. That’s the T.
You’ll often have lots of different “T’s” that people are telling you.
I have that with my business. In startup, I have a range of “T’s.”
They think the problem is that they suck at sales and marketing – they just need someone else to handle that for them.
They say they think they need another qualification because it will make them feel more confident.
I often say that if you don’t have a business yet, that qualification is not going to help your business to grow, because you don’t need the qualification, you need the confidence that you think it will bring you.
That confidence comes from just getting started.
Then if you decide you still want to do that qualification, go ahead and do it.
They might say that they’re not confident enough to have an online business, and that their lack of confidence is preventing them from getting clients.
My job with my messaging is to help people understand how to solve the T, and acknowledge that it runs deeper.
When it comes to people thinking that they need a website, I might say, “Here’s what you should put on your website, but also if you’re not getting consistent clients, a website won’t solve that. Let’s also look at what you really need to grow your business.”
This is helping them solve the T, but helping them (U) understand that it runs deeper.
U is for understanding.
R is what they REALLY need.
For a lot of people, that’s usually a combination of things.
You know as a health practitioner that there isn’t one magical silver bullet that everybody needs that will fix them. When it comes to health and wellbeing, there’s usually no silver bullet solution. It’s the same as running a business.
As I say, the only silver bullet in business is consistency.
In order to get that consistency, there are other things that you need.
What are the things they really need in order to achieve the outcome that they desire?
Helping people to understand that through this process after solving the T, means they are more open to hearing the message from you.
N is the Next step, and in most cases, the N is to work with you, to opt-in to something and jump onto your mailing list, or maybe attend a webinar.
There’s a next step they can take that will actually help to start solving the R.
You may have heard a saying, “Sell people what they want, and give them what they need.”
I disagree wholeheartedly with that message.
What I suggest you do instead is to give people what they want for FREE and sell people what they really need.
By doing that, you’re creating this high level of connection by giving value upfront, and you’re increasing the conversion that you make in your sales process.
This is actually the fundamentals of the feminine heart-centred business.
This is the difference.
In a masculine-orientated business, you would just say: “Okay, you suck at sales and marketing? Well, I’m going to sell you my sales and marketing VIP program. In that program, I actually don’t teach you a lot of sales and marketing, but I give you what you really need.”
In order for me to make that sale, I need to mislead you and agree that you suck at sales and marketing, instead of talking about the real issue and how to solve it.
The real issue isn’t that you suck at sales and marketing. That’s something that is stopping you practice your sales and marketing, and that’s one of the things stopping you from moving forward.
What you really need is to believe in your value proposition, have this messaging sorted, and get really clear on your niche.
When you do that, you’ll realize that a lot of the sales and marketing stuff you suck at is a masculine-driven strategy that is not aligned to your values and you don’t need it.
You don’t need to sell people what they want and then give them what they need.
You don’t need to trick people onto your mailing list, or use NLP to dial up peoples pain points and make them feel like they’re not going to be able to succeed without you.
Instead of misleading you, I’m going to meet you where you’re at and give you the T for free.
Instead of “Sell people what they want, and give them what they need”, I always say, “If it’s free, solve the T”.
Solve the T with your:
- Webinars
- Blog posts
- Social media content
- Podcast
I usually recommend the ratio of 80/20.
80% of your Facebook, blog or webinar content is solving the T for people, because that’s what they want.
If you do that for them for free, then you create this beautiful sense of trust and connection, and all of a sudden they’re hungry for those next steps.
You’ve solved the problem that they had, so now we can get on with the business of doing what we really need to do to actually create those results.
It’s a beautiful feminine version that creates more connection and develops a sense of trust between you and your ideal clients.
This TURN process is what I say you can use to turn people from curious into paying clients in a feminine, connected, value-orientated way.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of the podcast!
If you have any questions, come into the Heart-centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let us know you’ve been reading episode 155, and I will happily answer your questions and celebrate your aha’s with you.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
