In today’s episode, I’m going to step you through a beautiful 15-minute activity that I call the 15-minute messaging makeover.
If you know that your messaging could use a little bit of a boost and some extra love and attention, then block out the next 15 minutes and grab a pen and paper.
Let’s dive into the messaging makeover!
Messaging is one of the core fundamentals of how to ensure that you have a business that’s viable, making sales, attracting in the right audience, and ultimately, is a sustainable business.
If you cannot effectively share the message of your work, and speak to the value of the service or product that you are offering, then you’re going to struggle to make those sales and create that viability through income.
In this very simple 15-minute process, we are going to give your messaging a sexy little makeover.
It doesn’t matter whether you have been in business for 30 years and you want a little top up, or whether this is your first attempt at crafting really powerful messaging. I think that this is going to be a really valuable use of your time.
Let us dive in by starting with the framework that we’re going to use for your messaging makeover…
I’m using the four Ps framework.
The four Ps framework is a great way to create messaging that is going to resonate and be clear to your audience when you speak about your business and offers, and when you create content or write the sales page of any product or service.
The four Ps are:
1. Person
2. Problem
3. Plan
4. Possibilities
I’m going to take you through these four Ps step-by-step.
If it’s a paid offer, sales page or something where you’re asking people to take an action, I’ve got two extra Ps that I want you to focus on.
Let’s start with the four main Ps…
1: Person
I’m not necessarily saying that you need to tell us who the person is that this is for.
In your messaging, you don’t have to tell us who your niche is, but you DO need to craft your messaging with a specific person in mind.
You need to know exactly who it is for.
When it’s for everybody, your messaging speaks to nobody.
The first of the four Ps is making sure you’re very clear on the person.
There are five niche decisions that you need to make about who that person is, in order for you to be able to craft a messaging that deeply resonates and speaks powerfully about what it is that you have to offer and the problem that it solves.
Those five niche decisions are:
1. Job-status
2. Gender identity
3. Important personality trait
4. Goal
5. The reason they can’t get it without you
If you are someone who doesn’t have your niche very clear – you haven’t been through that niching process – I recommend that you grab my Nail Your Niche training.
If you still aren’t 100% clear on who that person is and you can’t describe them accurately (I’m not talking about what age they are or random demographics that have nothing to do with your messaging – I’m talking about the five powerful niche decisions), I recommend that you go and do my free niche training: CLICK ME
That is the first P for your messaging makeover: Person… Who is this for?
2: Problem
The problem doesn’t necessarily need to be pain and overcoming something. The problem could be that someone wants to have their first 10k month, but they can’t. That’s the problem. Or they want to align the energy of their home to attract in more money, but they don’t know how. That’s a problem.
The problem isn’t always a painful experience. It’s not always something that’s wrong.
It could also be a goal that they don’t know how to get to.
When it comes to the problem in your messaging makeover, I want you to get clear on: What does your person think the problem is? And what do they think the solution to that problem is?
When you’re really clear on those two things, you are creating such clarity in your messaging, because you’re speaking to lived experience and tangible issues.
How does someone who’s in your niche who wants to be more confident describe what they think the problem is, and what they think the solution is?
They might say that they’re not confident enough to show up online. (Show up online – the tangible application of that problem). And they what they need is to have someone teach them how to do their hair and makeup properly.
If they think that the problem with their confidence is their hair and makeup, then you saying that the problem with their confidence is actually that they need to love themself more, will be like ships passing in the night with your messaging.
Your job in your messaging is not to tell us why we’re wrong. Your job is to meet us where we’re at.
A deep understanding of the problem and how your ideal client describes the problem and what they think the solution is will help you really elevate your messaging and make it much more resonant.
3: Plan
We need to know that you’ve got a plan to solve our problem.
It is not enough for you to say that if we buy your course we’ll be more confident. That’s like saying that if we take this pill, we’ll lose 30kg… We don’t understand the logic behind it!
We’ve got our lens of distrust when you don’t tell us how you’re going to get us there. You need to tell us the plan, and we need to believe that that plan will work for us.
If you say the plan is that we’re going to get on a call and meditate once a week for 12 weeks, and then I’ll make double the income, I need to believe that meditating once a week for 12 weeks will help me double my income.
If I don’t believe that, I will not buy your 12-week meditation plan.
You need to describe and clarify what your plan is to get me from where I am to where I want to be, and I need to believe that that plan will work.
In order for me to believe that plan will work, I need to believe that:
- I can follow the plan
- You have helped people through this plan before
- Those steps make sense for me, and they’re not steps I’ve already tried before
I see this a lot with people in the health and wellbeing space. They say that if you feel like you’ve tried everything before, then this is the last thing because this will work. BUT they never actually explained why it’s so different.
Why is your thing so different?
Yes, I have tried everything. I’ve tried everything to be able to run 5ks without stopping. I’ve tried everything and you just tell me that your thing is going to be different. Yet when you tell me what your plan is, it looks like every other plan I’ve followed before. Why is your plan any better than mine?
When it comes to looking at that plan and how you describe that plan, your job is to ensure that the plan makes sense to your person, that the plan clearly articulates the steps to solve the problem, and that you can express why your plan is so equipped to help me when all other plans have not worked.
Why is your plan any different?
That is P number three in your messaging makeover – the plan.
You can see these Ps stack on top of each other.
Until you know who the person is, you won’t be able to effectively articulate how they describe the problem and how they describe the solution. You’ll end up in blanket messaging because you’re not articulating it through the lens of one specific person.
You need that person super clear.
Then you need to know how I articulate the problem and the solution. If I think the solution to my business growth woes is getting more followers on Facebook and your plan does not include getting more reach on social media in some way, shape or form, then I don’t think your plan is going to work for me because I think the solution is that I need to get more followers on Facebook.
Unless your plan includes that, I ain’t buying.
You need to be able to stack these on top of each other. The plan then needs to talk about how you’re going to solve my problem for me (this specific person), and how it’s different to the other ways I’ve tried to solve this problem before.
4: Possibilities
This is where you talk about where they’re going to actually end up.
If you don’t talk about the possibilities, if you don’t talk about the end result, then how can I get excited about it?
If you only focus on the plan (ie. your modality, the steps you take me through and the features of your program), and you don’t tell me the possibilities (ie. the outcomes and the benefits), then it’s hard for me to get excited about that.
I saw a beautiful person promoting a beautiful offer just recently… but it was all deep in the plan.
What it looked like I was buying was 12 weeks of hard work. There was no talk about what the 12 weeks of hard work were for. There was no connection to what the outcome would be from that – what the possibilities are once we’ve done it.
When you are looking at how you are crafting your messaging, I want you to review it through these four Ps:
- Person – who exactly is this for?
- Problem – how did they describe the problem and the solution?
- Plan – what is your plan to get me to where I want to go?
- Possibilities – what is it that we will experience, see, hear, feel, touch and taste as a result of working with?
The four Ps can apply in all areas of your business – social media posts, blogs, podcasts, etc.
It is so powerful because it’s connecting us with why we want to get this done.
You may have noticed that when I talked about this particular podcast episode:
- Person: I created it with a very specific person in mind.
- Problem: I got very clear on what the problem was (your messaging is not resonating).
- Plan: I told you that I had a plan for you, and I took you through that plan of the four Ps
- Possibilities: I talked about how when you get deeply resonant messaging, that means you’re attracting in your ideal clients, and you’re making more sales.
I actually used these four Ps in crafting the 15-minute messaging makeover.
Where your message has a call to action (ie. you want me to sign up for something, come and follow you, etc.), then there are two other Ps you need to be clear on.
Bonus 1: Price
How much does it cost? Messaging makeover for messaging and copy
How much will this cost me?
To be clear, the price isn’t always dollars. It might be that I need to go and do something. Maybe I need to give you my email address (that is also a price to pay).
People protect their email addresses more than they protect their money.
There was a survey done where people were asked whether they’d rather give a stranger in the street with a flashy business booth their email address, or $5 to not email them.
The majority of people said that they’d give them $5 not to email them. Then it went up to $10, $20, $30, and so on. People were far more willing to give someone money than give them their email address without knowing what’s going to be done with it.
We need to be very mindful that people protect their email addresses. They protect their privacy, and we need to be conscious that that’s a price.
In order for me to be willing to pay that price, I need to know what the price is. Be clear about what you’re doing with my email address.
I need to feel that the four Ps you’ve shared with me are valuable enough for me to be able to pay that price.
Based on what I’ve seen, am I willing to pay the price?
I am a big fan of transparency in pricing.
When I see an offer for a paid product or service, you bet that I want to see the price of that paid product or service.
I know there’s a whole thing about keeping the price to yourself until they’ve jumped through a hoop or they’ve done a call with you because they need to understand the value before you tell them the price.
I think that marketing strategy is completely built on fear. As a buyer, if I don’t see a price then I just don’t sign up. I just don’t do it.
I don’t want to waste your time, but more importantly, I don’t want to waste my time. If I jump onto a call with you assuming the price is going to be a couple grand, and then we spend an hour talking about it, I think it is really valuable, and THEN you say it’s $25,000, I’m going be angry. I’m going to be angry because it’s a complete waste of time.
That is not in my budget right now, and that is not what I was expecting the price to be.
I am one to role model transparency in pricing.
I think transparency in pricing allows you to sink into the energy of being loud and proud about your prices. That’s such a different energy to making sure someone has jumped through a lot of hoops before they can know the price.
If you’re so afraid of telling me the price upfront, that says a lot about your confidence in your product or service. (That’s my opinion anyway.)
Bonus 2: Purchase point
You need to tell us what to do. How do we buy it? Where do we put our email?
Tell me what to do. Give me direction.
If it’s an offer where you want me to pay a price/take an action, tell me what that is and make it really simple.
You’d be surprised at how many offers I see on social media, where there is no instruction on what to do if I want it.
I understand that you’re luring people in, but if you are going to all the trouble of writing an offer, creating something, putting all this work and effort into the messaging, at least make it easy for me to take action.
If I have to jump through hoops in order to learn how to take it, I’m going to give up on you.
Give us that information, make it really easy, and make it obvious how we take action on this.
The purchase point could be to just send you a DM and you’ll invoice me. That’s totally fine! Just be really clear on what the next steps are.
That is the four Ps (with your two bonuses) for your messaging makeover.
As I said at the start of this episode, it all starts with the person.
If you aren’t sure you’ve nailed that niche and you would like to dive deeper into this, make sure to check out my Nail Your Niche training.
That training is completely free and takes about an hour to do, but is such a valuable investment because it is the foundation on which the other Ps are built.
It will help you to really nail that resonant messaging, and attract and convert those ideal clients.
You can grab it here: CLICK ME
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centered Business Podcast on giving your messaging a makeover.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
