In today's Q&A episode of the podcast, I'm answering a question from the fabulous Michelle about what the daily, weekly and monthly actions are that you need to tick off when you are starting a business.
This is a great conversation for us to have.
Today's question comes from the amazing Michelle Reid from Michelle Reid Feng Shui. You can find her on Facebook at Michelle Reid Feng Shui.
Michelle asked:
"Hey Tash, I understand there are actions that we need to take each day to work and grow our business. When you first start in business and don't have any experience, what are the key actions to do daily, weekly and monthly?"
What a great question, Michelle.
If you're first starting out in business and you're not particularly experienced or confident in your ability to deliver for your clients, then I would say you need to develop your skillset and experience first.
It might be that your focus when you're first starting out is getting lots and lots of experience working with clients - whether that be paying clients or non-paying clients.
If you're really confident in your ability to deliver but you don't know how to market, then you're probably going to need to learn some of those marketing activities - you're going to need to practise.
If you want to have video as a core part of your marketing strategy but you don't love doing video and you're not very good at it, then you want to practise that more often, because it's going to be part of your ongoing strategy.
It really does depend. However, I do like to have a consistent and balanced approach to both mindset and strategy during the week.
What I'm going to do is give you my example of how to have a good balance between mindset and strategy on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
I'll also share with you how to tailor your daily, weekly and monthly actions to what is important and a priority for your business.
Show notes in full are at: tashcorbin.com/251
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Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/250
In today's episode, I'm going to help you to structure your content so that it does its job properly.
We know that creating content can be a really great way to grow, nurture and convert your audience into paying clients. But if your content is NOT doing its job, then you're just wasting your time.
Let's dive into this episode and get your content doing its job properly!
I've made no secret of my love of the content marketing style of business.
I love creating podcasts and being on social media.
Content marketing is such a great way to create connection, grow your audience, nurture them and convert them into paying clients.
It's a great way of delivering value and information, and helping people. It feels like a really invitation-based model of business as well, because you can lean in with great content, but let your audience come the rest of the way, and be magnetic and attract them into your business.
So how do you structure that content so that it does its job?
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/249
Today I have a very practical podcast episode for you in which I'm going to tell you how to structure a webinar for great conversion.
There's no ONE size fits all, ONE way to do it, ONE specific structure that works for everyone. However, I'm going to give you some really great starting points so that you can ensure your webinar does all its jobs to maximise conversion.
If you've been following me for more than 15 minutes, you probably already know that I absolutely love and adore webinars. I think they are a brilliant lead magnet, and an amazing opportunity to create a connection with your audience, maximise conversion, really work on your list growth, and get feedback on your offers, your messaging, what people's resistance points are, and more.
I also love webinars because they're so low cost and it's really easy to do in startup. You don't need a website, you don't need a really fancy mailing list platform, and you can use low cost or free tools. When it comes to hosting a webinar, you can use the Zoom Meetings option, which in most cases is under around $20 per month.
Running a webinar is low cost and simple to do, and you don't have to get everything sorted, pre-recorded and edited up in the background beforehand.
These days, when I'm launching my programs and promoting my offers, a webinar still converts way better than any of my other lead magnets.
Generally, my webinars convert anywhere between 4% and 8% of the people who sign up into paying clients of what I'm offering
If the 94% of people who don't convert on the webinar join my mailing list, chances are, they're going to convert on the NEXT webinar or the NEXT launch.
Webinars are sexy and I love them so much.
When it comes to structuring a webinar, we want to ensure that it's doing all of its jobs.
Webinars have multiple jobs in your business and in your content strategy. We want to make sure that we do all of those.
In order for a webinar to maximise reach, it needs to be a topic that is juicy, tangible and practical for your audience.
In most cases, the topic of the webinar speaks to the symptom - what your audience thinks the problem is or thinks the solution is.
For example, if your audience thinks that what they need is more followers on Facebook, and you know that they do need more followers on Facebook but they also need to convert and make sure that they're niched so that they can attract in their ideal audience, you might do a webinar on how to grow your Facebook audience. In the webinar, you're not just delivering how to grow your Facebook audience, you're also delivering on making sure that it converts AND that the growth is the right type of person.
When it comes to structuring your webinar, we need to bridge a gap between what people THINK is the problem and the solution, and what we KNOW is the real transformation that needs to occur for them to get the outcome that they want.
Let's face it, people might think that they need more followers on their Facebook page, but in most cases, they want that extra following for a reason. They want more followers on their Facebook page because they think that's going to solve their issues with the number of sales they're making or their income level. The real transformation that they're looking for is not simply getting more followers on their Facebook page, it's actually something that is a lot deeper.
The TURN process is a four-step process through which we take people from curious to converted.
The TURN process stands for:
Think
Understand
Real need
Next steps
Think is the start of my webinar structure - making sure that we are on the same page about what the person thinks the problem is and what they think the solution is. I deliver on solving that problem and delivering that solution.
In the example of getting Facebook followers on your page, you would use How to get followers on your Facebook page as both the title AND the topic you will be covering in the early stages of the webinar.
Give your people what they want because if you just keep yelling at them that that's not what they need, chances are, their eyes will glaze over and they'll go and work with someone else.
People come to me all the time asking how to get more followers on Facebook. I've tried to explain to them that they don't need more followers, what they do need is high conversion, high connection strategies. But most people will just immediately shut that down and claim that they do in fact need more followers on their Facebook page first.
Instead of telling people that they don't need that, I explain to them how to do it, and then explain to them how to maximise the results in achieving that outcome.
Generally, I have the topic and the early parts of my webinars speaking to what my audience THINKS the problem is and THINKS the solution is, and I deliver on that.
U stands for understand.
Understand is where I help people understand how to solve the problem that they think that they have, but also I'm planting the seed of helping them understand that it goes deeper.
It's not just about getting followers on your Facebook page, there's a thing that you want that to achieve for you - you want followers on your Facebook page because you think that that's going to get you more sales.
Not all followers are created equal. If we're going to get you more followers on your Facebook page, why don't we get you more followers who are high quality, in your niche, ready, willing and able to take action and buy from you? Let's engage with that audience in a way that maximises conversion. Wouldn't that be amazing?
The U stands for understand - understand how to solve what they think the problem is, but also understand that it goes deeper.
If we want the big outcome that we think that that's going to get us, we need to ensure that we understand all the pieces that go into creating that outcome.
The R is where you present in your webinar that if your audience wants the big outcome, it's not just a matter of getting more followers on Facebook (because let's face it, you can buy 1000 followers on your Facebook page for $20 through Fiverr).
The thing is, they don't just want Facebook followers for followers' sake. They want Facebook followers because they want to make more sales, they want an audience and for that audience to be the right audience.
What we do in the R phase of the webinar - what the real transformation is - is we actually present what the combinations of things that go together to achieve that bigger goal are.
If someone wants more Facebook followers because they want to make more sales, then actually we need a combination of strategies here.
We need to:
1. Understand what your niche is really clearly.
2. Grow your Facebook audience through content that speaks to the value proposition of your work, and a message that deeply resonates with that specific audience.
3. Ensure that if we're going to have that Facebook following turn into paying clients, we're presenting them with an offer that is compelling.
4. Find the marketing strategies and techniques that we can use to maximise growth, new audience members, reach to existing audience and their engagement on your Facebook page.
Can you see how by bringing this combination of things together over an extended period of time, we're not just going to achieve extra reach and extra followers on your Facebook page, we're going to achieve more sales, more paying clients and high-quality audience?
You can see how that is the R stage of the webinar because we're not just talking about the surface level thing that people think the problem is or the solution that they need, we're also presenting to them a depth of understanding of what that real transformation is going to take.
The next step from the webinar is for us to work together.
You present your offer on how you can go deeper with that real transformation with your audience, and how you can support them through that process.
You're not just discrediting those needs and going against what they think they need, you're delivering on that AND you're giving them tangible, practical strategies to solve the problem and address the solution that they're looking for.
In the process, you're also helping to open your audience's eyes to the lightbulb moment or that big aha of understanding that in order to get Z, they also need X and Y.
Some people will come to your webinar and only need to get more Facebook followers. They get good conversion and engagement but they just need some practical ways to get better reach.
They leave that webinar really happy - they don't need to buy the next step from you because they're already sorted with the rest of that transformation.
But there is a percentage of people who come along to that webinar and realise what the bigger issue is for them and, if it's the right fit for them, they'll see that working with you further will help them to get where they need to go - not just with growing their Facebook page but also with making sales from it.
It's a really beautiful process that is very value-laden, and you don't have to hold back on the information that you're giving away (due to fear of taking away the value of the paid offer) because the webinar presents information and the next steps is actually embedding the transformation.
It's a beautiful bridging process that not only achieves reach through a great topic that's speaking at the symptom level, it also increases connection and that engagement with your audience.
You're taking them through a really beautiful process, you're meeting them where they are, helping them with what they think they need helo with, and you're also getting it to do its job in terms of conversion and lead generation for working with you further because for the right people, the next steps are exactly the steps that they're looking for.
When I present this as a structure for a webinar, I want to say to you that there is no one perfect webinar structure. There is no one perfect number of testimonials (I don't actually use testimonials in webinars). There is no one perfect webinar title structure, one perfect sequence of things that you say and you have to ask people, and in most cases where people are teaching that one perfect structure, it's just that they've found a structure that works for them and their audience so they think it's going to apply to every person and every audience and every provider. In most cases, that's just not true.
We need to make sure that we craft webinars that really meet our audience where they are, help them achieve that short term goal with the information that they need, and then present what the real transformation is - that deeper piece of the puzzle - and the next logical steps to working with you.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of ways to be able to do that.
I know that it's very tempting to fall into the idea that you have to get people to say 'yes' six times, so you're constantly asking people to give you a 'yes' in the comments.
This is old school neuro-linguistic programming - it's a very masculine-oriented sales strategy.
I get eye-rolly whenever I go to a webinar and I have to continuously type 'yes' in the chatbox before they even get to the content.
Just get to the content as quickly as possible.
What I generally do when I'm asking questions on a webinar, is I ask my audience not to just give me a 'yes', but to tell me where they're at, what they want to get out of the webinar, what their biggest struggle is with the topic and how it shows up for them.
As you continue to deliver webinars, you'll get more practise at asking quality questions and engaging your audience, but don't feel like you need to do the checkbox kind of structure where you're really buying into that masculine structure of setting people up and then swooping in as the hero and saviour with your paid product.
This is a very feminine, connection and value-laden way of structuring a webinar.
Sometimes people are trying to push square pegs of masculine webinar strategies and checkboxes into the round hole of a feminine, value-laden process that we're taking people through, and it just doesn't fit together.
When it comes to growing a webinar and getting your webinars working well, the best advice I have for you is to practise.
Run your webinar... then run it again... then run it again...
You are going to get better at delivering that webinar, understanding where people get stuck, answering people's questions, juggling the chatbox and the slides and remembering what you've got to say, learning how to speak without a script so it doesn't sound so stilted, as well as really mastering, nailing and scaling the webinar promotion piece, because you need to learn how to start getting that webinar appealing to colder and colder audiences as you continue to promote over and over again.
Generally, when I'm working with people in startup, we run the same webinar three months in a row.
The first time is just getting all of those firsts ticked off and running it, giving it a go and seeing how it goes.
The second time is process improvement - how to get more organic leads coming to that webinar, and how to deliver that webinar in a much more structured way where you're feeling confident with it.
Then if it works well the first two times, we start scaling it with some Facebook ads for the third time around.
What you need to do is nail your webinar and scale your webinar to colder and colder audiences.
That is how you get a webinar to do its job effectively.
Remember, when it comes to making money and conversion and sales in your business, the money's in the follow-up.
Don't forget to follow-up your webinar audiences. Too many times I see people create a webinar, do all of the promo, run the webinar, get one or two leads live on the webinar, send out the recording and then people never hear from them again.
Usually I write three emails after I've sent out the recording (sometimes only two) but I do create a really nice follow-up process that ensures that people have the information that they need, maximise the number of people who watch the recording, and maximise the conversion that I get from that webinar.
One thing that I do want to say about webinars, and it's my extra special juicy freebie for you today, is that the best webinars are hyper-specific to your niche. They aren't broad-brush webinars that could be helpful to anyone.
A really hyper niche webinar that speaks to the tangible practical issues that your audience is facing is going to maximise not only the signup rate but also the conversions.
It makes it so much easier for you to structure your webinars as well because you're speaking to a much more refined and narrowed audience.
It is available for you anytime, all you need to do is grab it at tashcorbin.com/niche.
If you have any lightbulb moments or questions following this podcast episode, make sure you come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know that you've been listening along to episode number 249 and let's continue the conversation over in the community.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/248
In today's episode, I'm going to help you address the big, horrible issue of what to do when everything just feels too hard and business is overwhelming.
When business is overwhelming, how do you address it?
This is a really helpful episode for preventative means as well as addressing it after it's come up.
Regardless of whether you're in 'its too hard' mode right now, or whether you want to prevent it from coming up in the future, this is going to be a very helpful episode for you.
I don't know if I've ever met an entrepreneur who hasn't experienced burnout, patterns of overworking or a feeling of business being overwhelming.
It can be very easy to decide that having a business is:
Even though it can sometimes feel like business is overwhelming and hard, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's just part and parcel of having your own business. In fact, when we get to spot the signs of burnout, overwhelm, overworking or any of the other signs that things just aren't working appropriately for us, and we address them quickly and effectively, we make our business easier and easier. It becomes more and more of a joy.
One of the big things that I've noticed is that the burnout effect or feeling like your business is overwhelming or too hard is multiplied when you're also not making money.
If you're on social media for two hours a day and it's not working, you're not getting any feedback from people, not getting any connections or messages back from people, then that feels really overwhelming, and that feels like the path to burnout. But if I said to you that in two hours a day on social media, you can make $50,000 a month in sales, would you still feel the same way? Probably not.
When you're not making money from particular activities - especially the marketing and sales parts of your business - that's when that overwhelm is multiplied. That's when that sense of overworking and the feeling of needing to work more and needing to work harder can actually snowball into something bigger than it ever needed to be.
All of that being said, even if it is working, did you start a business to be feeling like you need to spread yourself thin? To feel like you are in a state of overwhelm all the time? Did you start a business to do hard things all of the time? Probably not.
In this episode, I want to share with you my five strategies for dealing with that feeling that business is overwhelming and it's too hard or the signs and symptoms of moving towards burnout or overwhelm.
What I'm going to give you is my five-step strategy for addressing that overworking, preventing the overwhelm and burnout, or bouncing back from it.
Hopefully you'll find this helpful. Let's dive into those five strategies.
If I find myself feeling like I don't have time to do all the things in my business, or I'm feeling like business is overwhelming because of all the things I want to do, my number one priority is ensuring that I deliver to existing clients. Whether that's the clients inside my Take Off group program, my Accelerator or my VIP one-to-one clients, I make sure that delivery comes first.
The reason why I do this is not just because I want to deliver on my promise (which is a values alignment thing for me) but I also know that the fastest way for me to dry up leads and new sales coming in is feeling like I'm under delivering for the people that I've already got in my world. This was particularly prominent for me when I was working mostly with people one-to-one.
If I was feeling like I needed to make more money, my business was getting hard or my cash flow was drying up, the number one thing I made sure I was doing was feeling very confident about what I was delivering to my existing clients.
Whenever I embarked on a fast money target or setting myself a goal to bring in a lot of new clients, step zero - before I even begin that process - is to check in with how I'm feeling about delivery for existing clients.
How are you supposed to show up energetically and from a great emotional platform in going out and telling people that you're really good at what you do and that they should buy from you when you know that you're not putting your current clients first?
They're so intrinsically linked.
If I don't feel like I have the time and energy to do that, then I have no business going out and getting more clients.
I need to make sure I'm really setting myself up with effective client management systems and a great schedule so that I can deliver on the things I've already been paid for or I've already received commitments to be paid for.
That is always step number one for me.
I find it really worrying that more mentors don't speak about that piece first.
I know that there's a big belief out there that once you sell something to someone it's completely their responsibility to get the result. That's just not right.
I share the responsibility.
We are working as a team, we are co-creating that transformation, and if I'm not bringing my best to that relationship, then how on earth can I stand on social media with any sense of values alignment and tell people to work with me because I'm the right fit for them and I can help them. It has to be a shared responsibility.
You shouldn't just be throwing spaghetti at the wall all the time when it comes to marketing and sales in your business. You want to eventually land on a client attraction process.
My five-stage client attraction process is:
For each of those steps of the process, I have one or two strategies maximum that are my core strategies.
If you can't simplify your client attraction process down to a step by step process that you know works and that you know is simplified, how on earth are you supposed to systemise and scale to get that going to larger audiences?
Step two is always to review my client attraction process - simplify it down to the things that I know work and then scale it from there.
In most cases, whenever I'm getting into that sense of overwork or overwhelm, it's because I've been lured into some kind of shiny object that's promising to get me more cold reach. I know that my sales are not directly impacted by cold reach, especially not in the short term.
Cold reach is one of my last priorities when it comes to growing and scaling my business, and getting those clients in the door.
Remember that 20% of your actions and your strategies will get you 80% of your results anyway, so simplify that right down to the highest connection, highest conversion strategies, and just focus on nailing that first.
You are going to feel overworked and burnt out if you think that you need to:
That's not a simplified client attraction process, that is throwing spaghetti at the internet and hoping that some of it sticks.
You want to take responsibility for mapping out what your client attraction process is, and how you can simplify it down to the things that work so that you can scale it.
I get very real with myself about what I'm spending my time on.
Something I will do from time to time is have a week where I note down at 20-minute intervals what I've been doing for the last 20 minutes. It's a time and motion study.
In most cases, I want to be working in my business 15 to 20 hours a week maximum.
If I'm feeling like that's creeping up a little, or I'm avoiding my business and it's actually going down, I will do a little time and motion study for the week just to pay attention. I pay attention to what I'm actually working on, how I feel about what I'm working on, how I feel about my business, and I get real with myself about what I'm actually spending time on.
Most of the time when I'm feeling like my hours are creeping up, it's because I'm distracted by shiny objects and random projects that actually aren't moving my business forward, they just feel like they're fun, fluffy things to keep me busy.
Sometimes I notice that the reason why I've fallen into that trap of doing all of these things that are keeping me busy but not actually getting me results is because of my default mindset - in order to deserve my results, I need to be working really hard.
Every time I get to a new income level, that same thought and feeling pattern rears its head again. It rears its head sometimes in unhelpful thought patterns - pop up thoughts that get in my way - but more often than not, it rears its head through me defaulting into busyness.
By getting real on what you're actually spending your time on, and maybe tracking it and paying attention to it with a little more detail, you'll be able to see whether your business actually requires 60 hours of work from you a week, or whether it's just a need for you to feel busy so that you can earn your results.
Get real with yourself about the time that you're investing in your business.
You need to have someone that you can talk to, ie. a business bestie, mastermind, some form of support network, a mentor or a coach. Preferably someone other than your partner or family member because in many cases, they're going to just try and fix the problem or tell you what to do.
That is not what you want in this instance.
Having someone that you can talk it out with and get some external perspective with can really change that behaviour and can be such a pattern interrupt.
Sometimes you're doing all these things to grow your business because you've worked with 12 different mentors over the last three years and you've accumulated all these must-do's for your business, but are those must-do's still actually relevant to your growth strategy?
I had a new VIP client I was working with just a few weeks ago, and when we did this and reviewed what her client attraction process was, she was still doing four blog posts a week on her website for SEO and keyword optimisation and wanting to try and build a static YouTube channel. But when we actually looked at the time and energy that went into that approach, and what it was actually resulting in in terms of results for her business, it was counterproductive.
What was happening was her audience was struggling to keep up with the quantity of content that she was creating, so not only was it not good for her and was burning her out and overworking her, it also wasn't good for her audience, because they were having to run around the internet trying to find all the new content that she was releasing so consistently.
Even with reducing that down to one video per week, she would still be able to ensure that she's hitting some good keywords, she's SEOing her website and she's still getting more followers on her YouTube channel, but she's not doing it in a way that's completely burning her out.
Putting four videos a week onto Youtube is really for people who want to monetise and grow specifically just with a YouTube audience. It's not the right balance of work in terms of monetising through other channels, like selling VIP services or group programs.
Generally I do recommend getting that perspective from someone who is a mentor or who is experienced in helping people to actually work out what to take off their plate from a marketing perspective.
Someone who's up to date with what's actually going to achieve the results you want to achieve and what's not.
Another example of this is when I had someone that I was working with several months ago now, and she was still using scheduling tools outside of Facebook. She was using a platform where she was doing this huge content plan and pushing things off to six different social media channels, and she had this really complicated content strategy. When we looked at all of those social media channels, all of the work that was going into it and the results that it was getting for her, there just wasn't enough audience growth that was actually resulting in sales quickly.
We switched up some of the work she was doing on that with a high touch, high connection, high conversion Facebook group strategy, and she made more money in the following two weeks from being in Facebook groups and using that high connection, high conversion strategy than she had made in the previous two years with all of this extra work.
Sometimes you can switch out a strategy and still achieve the same results, but often with up to date, more streamlined approaches, you can achieve even better results and avoid having an overwhelming business.
I've got a couple of acronyms here for you with this one.
My approach to any type of marketing strategy, sales strategy and implementing anything in my business that helps me to prevent overthinking, overload and the feeling that business is overwhelming is the DARL principle. We want to DARL it.
You want to:
Decide
Act
Refine
Learn
You may have heard me say before that no great business was built on theory. No great messaging was built on theory, no great course was built on theory, no great webinar was built on theory; no great element of your business and marketing strategy was ever built on theory.
Instead of consistently overthinking it, perfecting it behind the scenes and getting caught in that space, I want you to just DARL it.
We're going to be DARLing all day long.
Decide, act, refine, and learn.
The opposite of DARL is OOPS, which is:
Overthink
Overload
Procrastinate
Shame
The OOPS one is where you get caught up in that cycle of overthinking things and worrying about whether it's perfect or right or good enough. You're looking for someone to tell you and give you the tick that it's okay, instead of just taking that action.
Instead of choosing two great strategies per stage of your client attraction process, you think that the more strategies the better.
You tell yourself that you'll accelerate your results by being on many channels or doing several strategies instead.
All you're doing is overloading yourself and under-delivering in every single one of those things that you've just added to your plate.
You're overthinking, overloading, then you procrastinate because you're so overwhelmed, you get so tired and there's so much to do. Then you get in the shame spiral because you're not being as productive as you should be, you're not doing all the things that you know that you should do and you're not even hitting your basics anymore.
That's when business becomes so overwhelming.
Instead of OOPS - overthink, overload, procrastinate and shame - I want you to DARL - decide, act, refine, and learn.
That's my five-step strategy on what to do when it's too hard and your business is overwhelming. I hope that you found that very helpful.
As always, continue the conversation over in the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs community using #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening along to episode number 248 and we'll continue the conversation there. I'd love to hear if you ever feel as if business is overwhelming and it's all just too hard.
If you would like to get your business on the fast track to results, and you are done with OOPSing all over yourself, I also have a great training for you.
In this training, I help you work out what the things are that you can let go of so that you can get to the money-making part of business faster.
You can get this free training here: tashcorbin.com/fasttrack
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/247
I have a Q&A episode of the podcast for you today, and it's all about where to put your focus when it comes to marketing your business, especially as you're starting out.
It's a brilliant question from a brilliant woman named Kim and I'm super excited to dive into it.
The Q&A question for today's episode comes from the wonderful Kim Hancher. You can find Kim on Instagram at @kimhancher, and also at kimhancher.com.
Kim's question is:
"I just launched in June. Small list, small social following, but growing. Weekly content is a blog. Where should I put my marketing focus? Social media, guest blogging or press coverage in a digital publication? If social media, which format? My ICA is on many of them. I’m a style coach looking for 1:1 clients with a longer-term goal of selling digital courses. Thank you!"
Kim, this is such a juicy question that you have asked because it may actually be that you're focusing your energy and attention in the wrong space.
Fun fact: The highest conversion audience that you could possibly ever focus on is your hottest audience - those people who know you, like you, trust you and feel connected to you.
When it comes to getting clients from online spaces, you are more likely to convert and get those clients - especially when you're first starting out - from spaces where you already have a connection to people, NOT from your cold audiences.
90% of online business owners spend their energy and attention in their marketing on growing their cold audiences, but that activity and focus is less likely to get you clients than simply by focusing on very high connection, high conversion strategies.
Whilst I love that you've committed to doing a weekly blog, and that's a really great foundation of your business, I actually don't think any of the marketing focuses that you talked about would be the right fit for you.
Here's what you need to do:
You may have that information for your business, Kim, but for everyone else listening along as well, when it comes to choosing what your high connection, high conversion marketing strategy will be, you need to know your niche really, really specifically.
The five specific things about your niche that you need to know in order to be able to make those marketing decisions are:
If you cannot answer those five questions about your ICA, or there are slashes, or's or commas involved in your answer to that question, then chances are your niche is not narrow enough. This means that you're going to struggle to make those important marketing decisions, and you will struggle to focus your attention on high connection, high conversion strategies that actually work.
Remember: Your niche is the set of people that you focus on with your marketing activities.
Your niche is not your work, it's not your modality and it's not the service that you offer.
Your niche is a group of people - not the group of people that you COULD help, but the group of people that you focus on when you are marketing.
There's a very big difference.
If you are looking for more help with getting that niche decision really clear, I have a free niche training for you. It's called Nail Your Niche and I would highly recommend that you check it out at tashcorbin.com/niche.
That's part one - you need to make sure you've made very clear decisions in those five points around your niching first.
You need to choose your high connection, high conversion strategy that's going to work most effectively for your audience.
You want to focus on a marketing strategy that allows you to quickly and easily engage members of your audience in a one-to-one conversation.
1. Social media
You can definitely do some high connection, high conversion activities in there (and I'm going to go into more detail in a moment because that's going to be your best option).
2. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get people interested in you by association, but it's a very cold audience that you're generating.
If you do a guest blog on someone else's website, what are the chances that someone who finds that guest blog will strike up a one-to-one conversation with you? Pretty slim to nil. Guest blogging is a reach growth strategy, it's a cold audience growth strategy, and it is not suitable if you are in the startup stages of business.
3. Press coverage
Press coverage is even colder.
Take it from me as someone who has been in a bunch of different spaces in the press. The likelihood of me being in the press translating into me getting clients is very, very low. Over the years, of the thousands of people that I've worked with, barely any of them have initially discovered me from a random press coverage.
When it comes to social media, it's not just about building a cold audience on that platform, it's about building high connection, high conversion strategies.
You need to make a decision on one of two platforms: Instagram or Facebook.
I know that there are others, but none of them work for high connection, high conversion strategies the way that Facebook and Instagram do.
You'll need to answer a few questions to make a decision about whether Facebook or Instagram is the right fit for you.
I would suggest with design and style coaching (anything where it's a very visual business) you'll probably find that Instagram is going to be a better fit for you. It's probably more naturally aligned to your strengths, but there's definitely a big market for style coaching on Facebook as well.
Depending on whether your ideal client is in a job or working for themselves, that will also dictate which platform I would recommend.
If it's for people in a job, I'd probably recommend Instagram, whereas if it's people who work for themselves, I'd probably recommend Facebook.
Regardless of whether you choose Facebook or Instagram, your goal is NOT to grow your audience, your goal is to have one-to-one conversations in your DM's.
Make sure that whichever platform you use, you are focusing on high connection, high conversion strategies.
If you decide that Facebook is the channel that you would like to go down the path of exploring, I do also have a free $0 Facebook Marketing Strategy training that you can access at any point at tashcorbin.com/zero.
Hopefully, beautiful Kim, this has answered your question and given you some clarity on where you need to focus your energy and attention moving forward as you grow that amazing style coaching business.
If you would like to continue the conversation, please come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to episode number 247 and share your lightbulb moments and questions in the community.
Would you like me to answer one of your questions on the podcast? Simply go to tashcorbin.com/question, pop your question in there, and I will answer your question and give you a shoutout on the podcast.
Thank you once again, Kim, for your epic question.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/246
Today I am imploring you to STOP waiting, STOP perfecting, STOP hiding, and embrace progress over perfection.
Before we dive into this episode, I want to let you know that you do not need to identify as a perfectionist in order for perfectionism to be impacting your results in business.
Whether you identify with the whole 'perfectionism' thing or not, I think this is going to be a really helpful episode.
Whether I'm running free challenges or workshops, working with clients in my group program or in VIP one-to-one sessions, I will invariably come across a time with them where they use the phrase, 'I just need to ...'.
It might be that they want to:
It's important for us to be able to discern whether it's a valid reason or if it's actually perfectionism coming out to play.
One of the biggest and most powerful questions that I ask myself when I am in that space of feeling like I can't do something yet because I need to do something else first, is how can I just get started? What CAN I do now?
It is such a powerful circuit break up because it helps me to understand whether I actually can't do anything right now due to truly needing something else first, or whether I'm just holding myself back and could have already started on my path.
As I said at the start of this podcast episode, you don't need to identify as a perfectionist in order for perfectionism to be messing with you and your business, and stopping you from actually starting to make progress.
What is this perfectionism that can come and play with us?
Whether it's your course that's not ready, your Facebook page, branding or any number of things. This is what can cause you to hold yourself back because there's always something that isn't ready.
When it's never ready, it's never the right time, or you just never feel like it's good enough for you to be able to share it with other people.
I actually asked this question in my 5-Day Client Attraction Challenge a couple of weeks ago. I asked who had ever created an offer, changed the wording, worked on an image for it and then never shared it publicly, and we had sooooo many people putting #guilty and #thatsme in the comments.
It's so fascinating because we know at a logical level that if we did go and share that offer, even if it didn't make any sales, chances are it would have given us traction, it would have given us insight into what people are interested in, and we might have got some questions. But instead, we never shared it so now we don't know and are constantly living in this state of wonder.
I wonder if that would have ever worked? Or what if I had done that back when I first had the idea?
I've got a really juicy example for you. In 2010, my partner Honest Dave had this idea of creating a website around the theme of 'Would you pay $1 to see how many people have paid $1'. He had this super fun idea to create a website with a simple first page and then a second page that had the counter on it that people could access once they paid $1. It was just an idea that was birthed from the curiosity around how many people would pay the dollar, but we just laughed it off as one of those funny ideas (despite the fact that it could have made thousands).
Flash forward to about 2015, we heard about this guy who was doing 'Would you pay a pound to see how many people have paid a pound', and this guy had made MILLIONS from this idea.
But it was that whole idea of perfectionism where it's not quite good enough or it probably won't work so let's not bother.
It's such an interesting one that comes up for us, and I bet you've got some of those stories from your own past as well.
Wishing that you'd jumped into Bitcoin earlier, or that you'd started your business back in 2010 when decided not to start because no one else was really doing it and you didn't have faith in yourself. You might have just released a course or a podcast and you're kicking yourself for not starting it three years ago.
I absolutely have those types of experiences and things for me in my life, not just in relation to business, but everything.
What we want to do is look for where the excuse that we're using or the reason that we're holding ourselves back is a requirement for it to be perfect first, or if it's an unnecessary requirement that we want, such as needing something to be successful before you start trying to make it successful, or needing to have an audience before you try to grow your audience.
I see people do this all the time. They say that they can't run a webinar yet (which will inevitably grow their list) because their list isn't big enough yet. Or that they can't do a podcast to grow their audience because their audience isn't big enough yet.
You're putting these weird parameters on things that you'll never actually be able to achieve.
People say that they just need to decide if it's going to be A or B and THEN they'll be able to do it.
Decision making is something that can actually be really quick and easy if you set yourself the task of making that decision.
What is actually stopping you from sitting down and making those decisions?
It might mean that you need to get some advice from somewhere else or you just need to sit down and try it. This happens a lot with niching, where people often say that they're so afraid to choose the wrong niche that instead, they choose to have no niche at all.
Even if you choose the wrong niche, it will actually allow you to:
If you keep being uncertain and not wanting to choose the wrong thing, you are holding yourself back from actually experiencing the insight that you need in order to find what the right niche is for you.
Sometimes the wrong decision is actually better than no decision because it helps you to make the right decision sooner.
I know some people do their business around moon cycles and stars which is totally fine, but how many times have you felt like you needed to wait for the perfect storm?
Waiting for someone to choose you, waiting for a coach that will tell you it will work, waiting for the right VA that will support you in case customer service inquiries go through the roof and you can't handle it.
There are a lot of ways that perfectionism can show up. It's not necessarily just for those people who wear their perfectionist label.
I am such a half-arser - I am someone who thinks that good enough is good enough. That is the kind of person that I am, yet I'm still hit by perfectionism in those micro-moments and specific projects where there's a fear of something, I'm worried about something, or I'm procrastinating on something, because I let that perfectionism get to me.
That doesn't necessarily mean I identify as someone who's naturally a perfectionist.
I've got another really great example for you. It comes from a retreat that I went on earlier this year.
We were having this conversation, and this beautiful woman was talking about how she wasn't sure whether she should launch something as a course or a membership. She was tossing up whether it would make more money as something that's high priced yet only has a limited amount of people in it, or was a more cost-effective thing that had lots of people in it.
And someone said, 'Well, I think it would actually make more money if it existed'.
It was such an amazing moment that broke the ice and we all burst out laughing because we were all trying to help her resolve this question, and someone else had just said it point-blank exactly how it is.
Yes, it might make more money as a small group versus being a large group, but right now, you've been sitting on this for 18 months and it hasn't made a cent because it hasn't seen the light of day.
I know people who have:
If you don't create the thing and get out of that perfectionist space, you won't ever have anything to change or adjust.
Another one that comes up for me is people who don't launch their business or they don't want to come out to the world and start being an entrepreneur because they don't know how to label themself.
I was having a conversation with someone a few weeks ago, and she said that she's a kinesiologist but she doesn't want to label herself as a kinesiologist.
She hadn't even started her business. She'd done her kinesiology training, but she was also a qualified coach, had studied Qigong, energy healing and other modalities. But the big thing she had done was that she just finished qualifying as a kinesiologist.
She had decided she needed to qualify as a kinesiologist because she had just-one-more-qualification syndrome, which luckily, we were able to put a hold on once she'd gotten a kinesiology qualification.
Previously, the 'I'm not allowed to until' was 'I'm not allowed to until I have a kinesiology qualification because that's an accepted, slightly more mainstream set of energy work that people will actually understand'.
That was what she told herself when she'd signed up for that kinesiology training.
She finished the kinesiology training but then she didn't want to call herself a kinesiologist.
And so again, she'd been holding off on actually starting her business and taking the very basic first step of setting up a Facebook page because she felt like she needed to have the perfect words to explain herself - to label herself.
Instead what we did was we then and there on the call, set up her Facebook page as her name and in the description of what she did, we instead focused on her niche, 'I help women entrepreneurs who are struggling with ... and I use tools such as kinesiology, energy work coaching ...'.
We were able to get her away from this need to find the perfect words or find the perfect explanation, and just instead get started.
Fun fact about that particular client, she created her Facebook page, shared it in the Heart-Centred community, shared it into my Take Off community, which is the program that she's in, and out of those three actions, she got two paying clients simply by just unleashing it onto the world.
Instead of waiting to get the perfect words and finding the exact perfect label, I want you to just take some action.
I also want to leave you with a very powerful statement, and that is that NOTHING in business that is awesome and amazing and life-changing was ever built on theory alone.
You don't build an epic business and audience based on your theories about who that audience might be.
You don't build an epic free webinar by just theorising and posturing and navel-gazing about that webinar over and over again and never sharing that webinar.
The best webinars in my business are the ones that I have done over and over again, and every time I do them, I improve them, upgrade them and refine them.
The Take Off program today looks very different to the Take Off program that I first created and launched.
When I first launched it, I thought it was going to be a complete self-study program with no live calls, and within three weeks, I knew we needed live calls to go with that Take Off program.
Nothing awesome is going to be built on theory in your business. You need to actually get it out in front of people.
A great example of that is this podcast.
This podcast has taken me years to get:
I would never have gotten to this quality of podcast, this level of audience, this quality of content and this consistency if I hadn't just started the podcast, knowing that I probably wasn't going to get it right, and knowing that it probably wasn't going to be that great.
It has been such an epic journey, and now, when I create a new podcast episode, it goes into the inboxes of 10,000+ people.
When I create this podcast episode, there are about 300 subscribers on YouTube who get a notification that this podcast is live. I share it onto my Facebook page and I share it into the Heart-Centred community of over 34,000 people.
A lot of those audiences are the size that they are because of this podcast. If I'd waited for the audience and getting the podcast right, this podcast wouldn't be as good as it is today.
I want you to find a few spaces where you are holding yourself back from just making progress, from feeling and reaping those compound interest effects of doing something over time consistently and refining and adjusting as you go.
I want you to find where you're holding yourself back from doing something because you need it to be perfect, and instead today, I want you to ask yourself the powerful questions: How can I just start? How can I make progress?
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode and any follow-up questions you might have. Come on over to our beautiful Facebook community, Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs, use #podcastaha, let me know that you've been listening to episode number 246 and let's continue the conversation there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/245
In today's episode, I'm going to share with you my 10 unconventional business tips for starting out online.
Let's dive into this episode because I have some really juicy unconventional tips for you.
I thought I would do this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast as a little bit of a self-indulgent moment because I often have so much that I want to say about being in business online and particularly starting a business.
Normally, what I try to do is think about the key questions people ask me or the key challenges that people have and how I can answer those things, but sometimes you don't even know what questions to ask, so this is me giving you all of my best and most unconventional advice for you if you're getting a business started online.
I have 10 hot tips for you and then I have an extra bonus tip at the end of today's episode that I think you'll find very juicy.
This is actually a multi-layered tip.
First of all, don't just listen to me.
I know that in a lot of cases, online marketers, business mentors and people who do similar things to me, will try and get you to commit to just listening and trusting them and to not ask questions.
I am completely the opposite of that - I don't want you to just take my word for it on all things, and I also don't want you to commit to never listening to another marketing or business mentor ever again.
There is a bit of a balance. You don't want to have hundreds of gurus that you're following all at once, but at the same time, I also don't want you to just listen to me and follow what I say and never question it, or only have me in your inbox or as your mentor in your business.
1. Question it
If it doesn't feel right and you don't understand why, don't be afraid to ask questions. If your mentors don't like you asking questions or don't like you questioning things, then get a better mentor. That would be my advice.
2. Have a diverse range of voices that you listen to
We know that we live in a very white-centric world, especially in the online business world and especially when it comes to marketing. I also deeply know that that means we're missing out on some really important insight and diversity in the strategies that we use, and understanding how our work, messaging and presence is impacting people from diverse backgrounds as well.
One of the reasons why I am so vocal about not just listening to me is because I also know that I am a cis-gendered, straight white woman, and you will actually be missing out on some very important insight if I'm the only person that you're listening to.
3. Trust yourself more
If you are anything like me, you have probably spent the last few years, if not longer, being gaslit by people trying to convince you that you don't quite understand, you don't quite know and you can't really trust yourself. In the online marketing and business space especially, this is elevenfold. This is so dialled up because a lot of marketing experts, business experts and sales strategy experts want you to believe that they have the answers, that they know all and that they are the guru. Part of their strategies and the way that they do things can often be planting seeds of doubt in your mind about your own capacity and how much you can trust your own decision making and instincts.
I want you to learn how to trust yourself, listen to yourself and trust yourself more and more as we work together, not less and less.
Again, it's very unconventional because so many hustle-type people out there want you to be really fancy and put yourself on a pedestal above other people.
They will tell you NOT to invite people to private message you, NOT to invite people to email you, and that you are NOT here for individuals so let them jump through the hoops and do things on mass instead. They tell you if people DO email or direct message you, that you should only answer them for one hour a week maximum, that you need to put all these boundaries and fences up and have an autoresponder on saying that you will answer your emails eventually.
Whilst there may be some extra boundaries and fences that you do need to put up as your business grows, for most people in start-up, high-connection conversations and one-to-one conversations is your number one sales strategy.
To be told not to invite people to engage one-to-one and to definitely not answer them if they do cross that barrier is outdated.
It's so short-sighted and for many women in business, it's actually costing you really great growth and really great financial results in your business simply by not engaging in conversation.
We are so amazing at connecting with people, relating to people and being human and vulnerable, and listening and understanding. All of those innate strengths show up even better in one-to-one conversations, even when it's a written conversation.
Instead of blocking all the ways that people can connect with you, why not invite people to connect with you? And when they do, why not actually respond to them?
Whilst I understand that when you're first starting out, you might like to try a range of niches, offers, branding, colours, social media platforms, etc. because you don't really know what your strengths are and it's better to take action than not, you also want to make sure that you're clear with yourself that you're NOT going to be doing everything on every platform for all of the niches with all of the products forever.
When we do engage in experiment and play and throwing some spaghetti at the wall in our strategies, it's through the lens of an experiment, and an experiment is only an experiment when we learn from it. Otherwise, it's just play.
We want to make sure that if you do choose to throw some spaghetti around and see what sticks, you pay attention to what does stick, what doesn't work, why it doesn't work and then you can stop doing it.
You want to make sure that if you do choose to go through a bit of an experimentation phase, that you learn from that experiment, make some decisions, refine your focus and move forward with that refined approach. Otherwise, you are just consistently spreading yourself thinner and thinner, and eventually it will lead to some form of burnout, over-stretching yourself, underpaying yourself or some other challenge that comes from being spread so thin.
WHAT?!?
Especially when you're starting a business, your number one job is not growing your audience and it's definitely not growing your audience at scale because for most people who are in startup, you haven't actually created any proof of concept of your business yet.
The beautiful thing is that instead of growing your audience when you are first starting your business, you can just borrow someone else's.
There are so many ways for you to tap into existing communities and audiences to do all of those other things and basically test and refine the foundations of your business through making sales that you don't need to go and grow your Facebook page followings or grow your Instagram followers to make.
Not all reach is created equal. That cold audience reach, that follower growth, that audience growth in the early stages of business is actually not that valuable to you.
Especially not if you haven't got those foundations sorted.
Those foundations are sorted by making sales, and those sales don't come from cold audience growth, but instead from that high-connection, high-conversion strategy.
That is where you sort your foundations.
There is NO:
Creating and growing an online business is actually a very simple process that has been overcomplicated, over-convoluted and made into feeling like there is some kind of secret formula because that's how fear-based marketers make their sales.
There is no magic formula. The formula for creating and growing a business online is reaching the right people and converting them into paying clients.
That is the formula. There is nothing magic about it and there is nothing secret that you need to learn.
No one has the special magic beans that would create this automatic growth on your business if you had them. There is no such thing.
Instead, what you want to do is build your business on very solid foundations with very simple, effective marketing strategies.
Whilst proliferating the belief that there is a magic formula may make me more money in the long term, ultimately, I am creating a business and teaching online business through the lens of the fact that there is NO magic formula, because that is the honest truth. That is what is aligned with my values.
It might be unconventional for someone to say that there is no magic formula, but I just have to say it because for me that's the truth.
This is another one where it's slightly unconventional.
If you've ever signed up for a launch or freebie that is trying to tell you the EXACT secret formula to business success - and that if you don't sign up then you'll never succeed - chances are, they're also in the process of trying to sell something to you. They're making it feel like it's going to be hard if you don't work with them.
Often the reason why we're making it harder than it needs to be is because of a money mindset issue, (ie we tie hard work to making money, and therefore, the more money we want to make, the harder we have to work so we subconsciously and unconsciously look for ways to make it harder). It can also come down to an industry belief, that if we make it look harder than it is, if we make it seem more complicated, if we make it feel like it's a bigger deal than it actually is, people are more likely to look to us as leaders for help, support, guidance, hand-holding and secret formulas which we can sell to them.
It's not as hard to create and grow an online business as you think it is.
For many people when they come into my VIP work or they come into my Take Off program, one of the first things they realise is that 80% of their to do list is stuff that they don't actually need to be doing. It's just keeping them busy and making it feel hard.
I often get asked what the time investment is if you sign up for the Take Off program, and for most people, the time investment when they join the Take Off program is negative.
I take hours and hours a week of work that they're doing because they think that that's what they need in order to be successful, off of their plates. They think that they need to be in all of the spaces online, but actually, most of that stuff they don't need to be doing.
Whilst there are some hours a week that I would definitely say is involved in doing the Take Off program, in return for that I take all these hours off their plate until they don't need to worry about that right now.
Unconventional, I know.
This one goes against quite a few big industry leaders here, but don't be everywhere.
You don't need to be everywhere.
You don't need to be on 14 social media channels and on the cutting edge of all of them - knowing what they are and how you can show up and be present on them.
If someone's telling you that you really need to be on TikTok because otherwise you're not going to make money, they're usually trying to sell you a course on how to make money on TikTok.
They have a conflict of interest in giving you that advice.
I'm here to tell you that you don't have to be everywhere. I would much rather see you focus on one channel, generally Instagram or Facebook, as your core social media strategy and just focus on that.
I love Facebook and Instagram because they are the two social media platforms where you can have that high-connection, high-conversion strategy, and you don't need to have thousands and thousands of followers in order to be making money.
I have two clients that I've been working with over the last couple of months, and both of them have sold over $10,000 in their services in the last month with under 200 followers on Facebook.
Both of them have under 200 followers on Facebook, and both of them have done $10,000 in the last month.
The reason why they are able to do that is because they are focusing down on high-connection, high-conversion strategies.
In order to make four sales at $2,500, you don't need to have 4,000 followers, you just need to find the right four people. That is it.
You don't need to be everywhere.
1. Old school marketers
They've been around for a long time, and being early adopters in other social media channels really did them well, so therefore they think that that needs to be the rule of thumb from now on.
They think that if you want to grow consistently, you need to be an early adopter on any social media channel that comes out, and they try to convince their followers to do just that.
2. People who are proliferating across multiple platforms
I'm talking about eight to ten platforms. They are the people who also say that you've got to hustle, want it harder, create twenty pieces of content a day and that that's the only way.
They're just making you a giant list of things that you have to do... but that is NOT the reason why you started your business.
You didn't get into this business to be on every social media platform, totally strung out, burnt out, spread thin and having to respond to messages in fifteen places all over the internet.
That's not why you did this.
Focus down on your one core high-connection, high-conversion platform and build from there.
You do not have to get up at 4am to be successful at business.
If you did, I would never have gotten to where I am today.
This morning, I got out of bed at 8:30. Yesterday, I got out of bed at 7:30.
That's not my thing.
You are allowed to build a business that works for you, works with your natural rhythms AND that you don't have to be working 12 hours a day in order to be successful in.
Even some of the biggest advocates for business models that are low time investment, still advocate for doing the hard work early so you don't have to do the hard work later. They still advocate that 12 hour days are just something you have to do sometimes in your business, especially when starting up, and then they tell you that it will get easier and you can get down to 4 hour days LATER.
That's delayed life syndrome all over again and you are teaching your business what it can expect from you in the future.
If it's not your style to wake up at 4am, you don't have to do it.
If you're not someone who loves burning the midnight oil and staying up late, don't do it.
You do not need to do any of these things in order to be successful.
In most cases, the more boundaried you are about the time that you give to your business, the more effective that time is when you do it.
I know, I know, it's so empowering sometimes and it feels so uplifting to be hustling for it, working really hard, doing tough things and making yourself so uncomfortable every single day, but a lot of that hustle mentality is just part of that industry belief system that proliferates over and over again, and honestly, I just don't buy it.
I know for myself throughout my seven years in business now, the times when I've been in hustle mode are the times when I've been the most stressed out, put on the most weight, eaten the worst quality food, stressed myself out so much that I hardly slept, worked so hard, and ultimately, didn't really get me as good a result as when I was just focused, consistent, and boundaried.
If you feel like one of the reasons why you're not as successful as you could be right now is because you're just not motivated enough, you're not hustling enough or you're not working hard enough, I give you permission to throw that reason out the door.
If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend the book Chillpreneur by Denise Duffield-Thomas. It's absolutely gorgeous, written by a beautiful woman for beautiful women just like us, and it really helps to disassemble some of those belief systems that absolutely proliferate in the online entrepreneurial space in particular.
Hustle can take a hike - let's just choose the easy way, the lazy way and the fun way.
ELF - easy, lazy, fun.
I understand that as a service provider in the online marketing and business space, it would be really handy for me to proliferate that belief that in order to really commit to a challenge or a program, you need to invest big money because money is the motivator for you to actually get the result.
It would be really easy for me to say to you that if you want to attract clients that spend big, if you want to earn big, then you need to invest big and role model the behaviour that you want from your clients. But honestly, it's all just buying into that pyramid scheme BS that the online business world would love for you to believe in.
Ultimately, it's a complete fallacy.
Some of the most amazing business owners that I know, built their business on the sniff of an oily rag. They did not invest big and they did not spend big money in order to make great money in their business.
I am one of those people.
The most I've spent on a mastermind was $25,000 and it was one of the worst investments I've ever made.
I've received so much more value and had so way better results from working one-to-one with people. One of my favourite things I ever did was a $2,000 program. Another one that I did was a six month VIP coaching package that was $5,000. I bought a course for $97 that completely helped me with my marketing and building my presence online.
Honestly, this whole belief system that the price tag is equivalent to the result that you get is actually just a fallacy. In a lot of cases, it's a strategy that's used to make you believe that it's more valuable than it is.
In old school marketing terms, we would see people saying that if it's $5,000 or it's $2,000, the people who pay $5,000 are going to be more committed, they'll do more work and they'll get more value out of it because they paid more for it. But this has been used as an excuse by a lot of people who create really half-done masterminds and underdeveloped courses.
I just want you to know that you DO NOT have to spend huge amounts of money in order to make money online.
Similarly, you do not have to make quick decisions to invest if you want to attract quick decision-makers.
It is a completely manipulative tactic that is trying to talk you into making a decision without thinking about it.
I have a rule with my partner, which is a sleep-on-it-for-48-hours rule with any investment of over $1,000.
When I've told certain people that I really love their course and I want them to send me the details but I just need to sleep on it for 48 hours before buying, there are some people who get completely judgemental and manipulative about that. They tell me that they were under the impression that I was a decisive leader in my industry, and that because I'm not making a quick decision, they don't think that it's the right fit for me because if I want to attract quick decision-makers then I need to be a quick decision-maker.
I know that that strategy is simply used as a psychological tactic to convince me to part with my money quickly so that I can't think it through.
Do you really want to work with someone who would prefer to make you NOT think it through? No.
Would I prefer to teach you strategies that are empowering for your audience, and that allow them to think things through and still make an empowered decision to say yes? Absolutely.
Do you want to show up as a marketer who pressures people into buying things through these manipulative tactics? No, you probably don't so you are in the right place if these unconventional strategies and pieces of advice are resonating for you.
The reason why this is my unconventional tip is because there are a lot of marketers, trainers, coaches and mentors out there who have been taught fear-based marketing strategies.
Many of them don't even know that the strategies they're using are fear-based because they just do what they're told.
Some of them do know that the strategies that they use are fear-based but they justify them by telling themself that they'll be thanked later once their client has got the result.
They are built through the lens of gaslighting people and using psychological strategies and tactics to convince people to buy something that may not necessarily be the right fit for them, or that it may not be the right time for them to purchase.
For a lot of people, fear-based sales strategies also have you running around in circles thinking that you need to do 100 different things because you're freaking out about not being successful enough yet.
You need to be able to recognise when something is making you feel really uncomfortable and freaked out about missing out on something before you've even gotten into the juicy content of a webinar, freebie, etc. Being able to recognise that feeling in yourself and spot the fact that they've dolled up your fear before they've presented the answer and swooped in as your saviour, is really freeing.
It gives you permission to identify and disengage from that fear-based strategy.
That fear-based strategy will be used to convince you to sign up for things you don't need to sign up for, keep receiving emails you don't want to keep receiving, buy products and services that you don't actually need to buy, and ultimately spend money that you don't need to be spending to grow your business.
Learning how to spot those fear-based strategies is a really sexy way of avoiding overspending and overwhelming yourself in that startup business journey as well.
Those are my 10 (plus a bonus tip) unconventional business tips for starting online.
1. Don't JUST listen to JUST me
2. Answer and invite emails and direct messages
3. Spaghetti at the wall is okay but it cannot be your strategy forever
4. You should not be focusing on audience growth
5. There is NO magic formula
6. It's easier than you think it is, and it's DEFINITELY easier than you're making it
7. Don't be everywhere
8. Don't get up at 4am if getting up at 4am doesn't come naturally to you
9. Hustle can take a hike
10. You don't need to spend big money to make big money
BONUS TIP: Learn how to spot fear-based marketing strategies
If you would like to work on getting the foundations of your business clear - your niche, value proposition and offer - in a way that feels aligned, I’d love to invite you to come and check out my new Nail Your Niche training.
It is a prerecorded training that you can do at your leisure (and you can also listen to it on double-time so you can get through it nice and quickly).
This will help you to look at those foundations of your business and make sure that you’re very clear on them all.
I've got a big favour to ask you. I want you to share in the Heart-Centred Community, which of these 11 tips did you find the most valuable?
Come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to episode number 245, and I want to know which of these was most powerful for you and why. Bonus points if you can tell me which one you think is the most unconventional as well.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/244
In today's episode, I'm going to tell you the C words that you need to focus on in business.
I have three C words that you need to be focusing on to ensure that your business is actually growing. More specifically, consistently growing over the longer term.
The three C words that I have for you are content, consistency and compound.
The reason why those three words are so important and connected, is because they are the key to the long term consistent growth of your business.
Let's have a look at each of them individually.
Content is one of the most critical parts of having an online business.
This is especially true if:
Content is how we connect with our audience, connect with our ideal clients, and connect the dots for people between where they think they need to be focusing their energy and attention in order to achieve the goal that we help them with, and where they actually need to be focusing their energy and attention.
Often people misdiagnose what it is that they need to be focused on, and they misdiagnose just how simple and effective it could be for them to get that outcome.
It's also how we nurture our audience and move them towards that understanding and lightbulb moment where they realise what it is that they truly need to be focusing on and what support they need.
Our content is how we are found. It makes us searchable. It makes us able to be found in the topic areas where we want to be known in our business.
When you share things on social media, most of the time you're not just sharing and telling people to follow someone, you're sharing and saying something specific that people need to check out - ie. an article or podcast episode.
That is how we are shared amongst our audiences. It's also how we convert.
Our content - especially on social media, in our emails and on our website - is how we help people to understand the transformation that we facilitate, make a decision about whether it's the right fit for them or not, and then ultimately make a sale and convert them into paying clients.
Content has a multi-layered multifaceted role in our business for reach, nurturing and conversion.
It's a really critical part of our business.
The number one thing that consistency drives is trust.
Our trust in others is directly impacted by our ability to predict their behaviour.
If you are completely inconsistent when it comes to creating and sharing content in your business, then it's really difficult for your audience to accurately predict your behaviour.
They begin to wonder how regularly they will get free and interesting content from you.
I know for myself, I've signed up for a free webinar with people or a free checklist, and then I don't hear from them for another three or four months. When I finally get that email in my inbox from that person, it takes me a minute to work out who they are and why I'm on their mailing list. Sometimes I can't even work it out and I don't know whether it's because I signed up for something, if they've bought my email illegally, or if it's just spam.
We know that the drivers of buyer behaviour are that they know you, like you, trust you and feel connected to you.
Your content itself helps people to know who you are and like you, but your consistency is what drives how much people trust you and how connected they feel to you.
If they are getting consistent content from you - and that might be once a week, once every two weeks or even once every month (as long as it's consistent and predictable) - that is what drives trust.
Consistent content has a compound interest effect.
Think about it: the more consistent you are with your content, the more it comes out on a regular basis, the more it's adding to the content on your website, the more it's building up that consistent algorithm on social media, the more reach it gets, the better your SEO, and the more it's creating that dynamic of trust and connection with your audience.
When you have a spurt of content that comes out and then you disappear for three months, when you come back, you're not just having to rebuild your algorithm and your trust in terms of SEO, you're also having to rebuild trust on a human-to-human level because of that unpredictability of your behaviour.
If I haven't heard from you for three months, the idea of buying from you has an extra layer of risk to it. Whether I feel it subconsciously or consciously, I am going to wonder or worry:
That is why I wanted to connect these three C words for you - content, consistency and compound.
How is it that we achieve that consistency of content for a compound interest effect?
The more you aim for perfection in your content processes, in what goes into the content, and in whether it's keyworded up properly, the more you have excuses to damage your consistency.
When we let go of the need for it to be perfect and instead focus on that consistency, we actually have a greater impact on our outcomes.
I'm not saying that you should:
I'm not saying any of that at all.
In most cases, our level of expectation for ourselves is well below our markets expectation of us.
I want you to give yourself permission to not get it perfect, to not have all of the SEO parts worked out, to not have to have the perfect camera, the perfect background, the perfect lighting or the perfect copywriting.
Chances are, it will be much much more valuable to your audience than that perfect thing that you make them wait three months for before they're allowed to see it.
I love batching content.
I'm recording a couple of podcasts episodes right now in sequence, and that batching process allows me to really tune into times when I'm feeling great, I've got my words, and I can actually string some sentences together effectively.
When I get in the flow of creation, I've got processes that I can use to create a bunch of content.
In this recording session alone, I've recorded three video promos for a freebie that I'm running, this is the third podcast episode that I've put together, and I've also recorded a Facebook Live and had a conversation with my team about a few different things.
It's no coincidence that I've just been through a couple of days where I've been very customer-focused and very much speaking with my ideal clients. The cogs are ticking and I'm able to put some dots together - I've got some big things that I want to say to my audience.
I'm really in service mode right now, so I'm batching up a bunch of content at the same time.
If you are interested in finding out more about batching, getting that content out on a consistent basis and doing it in a really joyful way, I also want to recommend that you go and check out podcast episode 241: The joy of consistent and strategic content with Claire Riley.
Claire Riley is really the batching queen, so I would highly recommend that you check out that episode here: tashcorbin.com/241
Whether that be:
That external support makes a big difference to whether or not you embrace done over perfection and whether you embrace consistency over waiting for the perfect storm.
Having some form of external support is a really powerful way to ensure that you do nail that consistency.
In closing, I just want to tell you to stop running around looking for shiny things to fix your business, get you more reach, get you in front of new audiences and convert more effectively if you haven't yet nailed consistency of content.
Consistency of content underpins all the other shiny marketing strategies you could possibly find on the internet, so make sure you've got that very important foundation sorted first.
If you would like to understand how content and your content strategy fits in with getting your business off the ground (particularly in the early stages of online marketing), I have a great free resource for you.
It looks at all the key pieces that you need to get sorted in order to get your business creating consistent, predictable and juicy income.
If you're not yet bringing in an income that really feels like you've hit your baseline consistently, then this is going to be a great training for you.
You can find this FREE training here: tashcorbin.com/fasttrack
As always with every episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, if you have any lightbulb moments from this episode or follow up questions, make sure you come over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs community and share using #podcastaha and the episode number (244).
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/243
In this Q&A episode, I'm answering Jodie's question about how often I set myself a fast money target.
I also have a bit of an out of the box freebie for you today as well so make sure you go and check this one out.
Today's question comes from the fabulous Jodie Thornton. You can find out more about Jodie at jodiethornton.com.
She is a parent coach so make sure you go and check her out.
Jodie asks a brilliant question, which is:
"Hi Tash! How often do you set a fast money target?"
This is a really great question. Even though it's going be a pretty quick episode, there are some great little lessons in this one.
For those of you who are in my audience and have been around for a little while, you probably are familiar with this.
I do have a Fast Money training, and I also have a Fast Money Challenge that I run from time to time that's focused on setting and achieving a stretch income goal in a really short period of time.
I call it Fast Money (it's named after the fast money round on Sale of the Century).
My fast money goals are usually a seven to a ten-day goal. I don't always have a fast money target going at all times at this stage in my business, however, I always have a quarterly income goal, or sometimes I'll set it for a little bit longer (maybe it's a 100-day income goal).
I love setting a goal for the first 100 days of the year, so I'll have a 100-day income goal usually at the start of most years.
I would define a fast money goal as something where I'm going for a stretch income goal - maybe it's seven, ten or even fourteen days.
Due to fast money being a short term goal, I only ever really set a fast money goal these days when I'm doing a launch. Maybe I have a launch and in the six days of the cart being open, I set myself a big stretch income goal for what I'm going to bring in at that point in time.
I recently needed to purchase some things - a new phone, Apple Watch and a few other tech tools and toys - so I decided that I was going to go and manifest the money for those in three days.
The other thing that I use fast money goals for these days is when I see in my cash flow projections that cash flow might be a little bit tight in the coming months, so I do a fast money goal in a short period of time to manifest that income to get me through that poor cash flow period.
That definitely has been something that I've only brought into my business recently. I never used to do cash flow projections, but now that I do those more consistently and I can see what's coming up, I have been doing those fast money targets for myself once every couple of months. It makes it easy for me to see that if I only get my predicted income in for the month, then I may be a bit tight on cash flow and I'd rather have a nice buffer for myself so I end up doing a fast money challenge.
However, all of that being said, when I was in start-up, I actually did a fast money target every single week.
I would stretch out my goal a little further, I would have a look at what's coming up for the week and what would be a nice juicy stretch for me, and I would set myself a fast money challenge and I would go for it.
Every Sunday morning I'd do a review of the past seven days and then I'd set myself up for the next seven days.
For those people who are interested in my answer to this question because of where they're at in their business and using that to guide with how often they set themselves a fast money target, what I would say is set it for as often as you want.
When I'd set myself a fast money target and stay focused on it for those seven days, my income was always better - whether that be during the seven days or in the following seven days.
For me when I first started my business, that was actually me practising and refining my own manifesting strategy. That's why I did it so consistently.
I might take a week off every now and again or sometimes what I would do is I would start on a Sunday and end on the Saturday, and then the following week, I would just take three or four days off and start on the Wednesday and then do a 10 day fast money target.
It's really up to you.
For me, I'm the kind of person who works really well when I have short term goals, I have deadlines, and I have a process to follow.
As my business started to grow and my income became a little bit more predictable, I would create my fast money target for the first week of every month.
If I wasn't close to my monthly income goal at the end of the month, I might do a fast money target than as well.
There are lots of opportunities to do fast money targets for yourself and set yourself that short term stretch goal and go for it.
I would say to just pay attention to how it makes you feel, whether it really lights you up, and how well it works for you.
Also for me, the big thing that I got out of doing those fast money challenges back to back was that it really showed me how to notice the difference between being tired and needing to take a break from stretching myself, and resisting the mindset work and actions that I knew would grow my business.
I was constantly checking in with myself and asking: Is this my resistance, limiting beliefs and mindset blocks coming up? Or is this just me actually feeling a bit tired, not wanting to go for a stretch this week, and wanting to allow myself a beautiful rest week?
A little bonus tip here, and what really worked for me, was that I recognised when I started doing fast money targets very consistently, that in the week I was due to be menstruating, that was not a great time for me to go for a fast money target.
Some of the actions that I wanted to take to get out there and start bringing in that money weren't necessarily aligned with where I was at in my cycle.
I learned about that by doing both Flow Freedom and Your Business Your Flow with Stasha Washburn.
If you don't follow Stasha, I highly recommend her. You can also find her on Facebook HERE.
That was definitely incredible for me and was a big part of me learning: Is this tiredness because it's not the right time? Or is this the right time but I'm in resistance because I actually don't want it to work? Or I don't want to try and then fail and have made people see me publicly fail? Is there some other mindset block coming up for me here?
Nowadays, if I'm going to do one of those short term income targets, the first thing that I check is where I'm going to be in my cycle.
I also make sure to check: What is coming up for me right now in terms of the different phases (because we have those four phases that you need to learn more about from Stasha)?
That has been instrumental in me really learning how to ride along with the ebbs and flows of my energy, and tying that into how I schedule myself and whether I'm in stretch mode or contemplation mode in my business as well.
Jodie I hope that I've answered your question.
If you are interested in finding out more about setting and achieving short term income goals, I do actually have a free training.
I highly recommend that you go and check that out here: tashcorbin.com/fastmoney
If you've been listening along to this podcast episode and you'd like to ask me a question, make sure you go to tashcorbin.com/question, pop your question in there and I'll make sure to answer it on the podcast and give you a shoutout.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
As always, make sure to come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, share any aha's or questions you have using #podcastaha and the episode number (243) and I'll see you over there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/242
In today's episode, I'm going to share with you sales conversations that do NOT feel gross.
I know for a lot of people, they either try to avoid sales conversations or they do sales conversations but they absolutely hate it.
If that is you, I want you to pay attention to this episode. If you LOVE sales conversations, I still want you to read along because I'm going to help you make them even more effective and successful for you.
The number one thing we need to get clear before I jump into improving your sales conversations, is the agreement that sales conversations are absolutely amazing.
They are awesome for you, they are awesome for your ideal clients, and they are awesome for your business.
Why is it that we avoid sales conversations or don't like them?
In most cases, it's because we don't know how to do sales conversations effectively, or the way that we are doing sales conversations just feels yucky and so therefore we try to avoid them.
Why do I believe sales conversations are amazing?
They create so much connection. You're having a one to one conversation with someone about what they want, what they need, what's getting in their way, and how YOU might be able to help them achieve their goals.
Therefore it's one of the most high conversion activities you can do in your business, and it gives you really deep insight into what your audience is thinking, feeling and wanting in your area of expertise.
This is such an amazing insight to assist you in getting your messaging clear, in making sure that you are speaking to the right outcomes with your value proposition, in refining and changing up your packages, and looking at your pricing structure - there are so many benefits to doing consistent and regular sales conversations.
Not only that, you get a chance to practise speaking about your work to new and different people, and you get an opportunity to refine your messaging in your broadcast marketing activities because you're keeping up to date with what your audience is wanting and looking for from you.
We resist those marketing and sales conversations because we don't have a way of doing sales conversations that feels great, or we've got some mindset blocks about being salesy, upsetting someone or being pushy or aggressive with them.
That is why I see so many women trying to avoid sales conversations, and instead making sales only via broadcast methods such as sending emails, sending someone to a sales page, jumping straight into doing group programs instead of selling one to one packages, selling via their social media and making offers into Facebook groups. But they never actually have great quality sales conversations with potential leads.
I learned sales conversations the wrong way.
When I first started my business, I had two coaches that I had worked with who taught me how to do sales conversations. Both of them took that sales conversation training straight out of the bro-marketing book - very aggressive, very manipulative types of sales conversations.
Because of the way that I learned sales conversations, I tried to avoid them as well. I absolutely hated doing them.
Not only did I try to avoid them and hate them when I did them, I also experienced physical symptoms when I actually had some sales conversations.
When I was doing sales conversations, I would get what I called The Rash of Despair. I'd have this rash that would creep up out of my cleavage, take over my neck and then envelop my face. Many times people would ending up asking me if I was okay because I had turned bright red, and I would just brush it off saying that it was hot, but really it was because I was so uncomfortable with the process that I was taking people through.
That led to me going through a significant period of time where I didn't really do sales conversations at all, unless I was doing the upsell at the end of a single session with people.
Even then when I did the upsell at the end of the single session, I mostly made sales by people asking me how we could keep working together and me very briefly stating what the next package was and how much it was.
I'm very lucky, however, that about four or five months into the growth of my business, I realised that sales conversations would be so valuable for me in really refining my messaging and copy because I was struggling to understand how to speak about the value proposition of my work in a way that really converted effectively and at scale.
I decided to reconcile my differences that I had with sales conversations, but also learn how to structure them and do them MY way in a way that felt comfortable for me.
At that point, I threw out the sales conversation structure that I had been taught, and instead, I developed a sales conversation structure that felt really good for me.
I also had a little check-in with myself after every single sales conversation by asking myself:
When you're doing a sales conversation or avoiding a sales conversation, I encourage you to tune into how that feels, and why it feels that way.
I want you to really pay attention to that.
You might find that it comes down to one of three S's:
1. Skill
It might be that you just don't have good sales skills. Sales skills are a bit of a non-negotiable when it comes to being an entrepreneur and having your own business, so is this an opportunity for you to improve your skills in doing sales conversations?
2. Structure
Perhaps you don't have a structure that feels like it works effectively for you, that guides you and your ideal client through that process so that it feels like you're ticking the boxes that you need to tick along the way, and you're getting to the point where you're pitching and feeling confident and comfortable doing that. Sometimes it's a structure issue.
3. Shady
Is it just a shady practise that you've been taught, and it's not aligned with your values and you don't want to do it? That is totally cool as well.
I'm going to go through these three S's with you and give you some advice on how to address these depending on what the combination is for you.
There are two ways for you to grow your skills in sales conversations.
1. Learn sales skills from people that you trust, and whose sales processes you love
Many women in the Take Off program are in there because they want to learn how to sell the way that I sell.
The way that I sell really resonated for them, it felt very comfortable and empowering, and that's what they want to learn in their business as well.
There are lots and lots of sales mentors out there. The number one piece of advice I would give you is before you sign up to learn selling from any of these people, go through their sales process.
If you are signing up to learn sales conversations with someone, I want you to ask them if you can have a quick chat about working together, and see how they make you feel in that sales process.
Sign up for their newsletter and see the way that they treat you when you are a lead in their business.
You might also like to unsubscribe from their newsletter and see how they treat you when you become someone who's not a lead in their business. I have unsubscribed from some things, and I can tell you, the way that some of their unsubscribe options were worded were absolutely manipulative and really gross. That actually helped me make the decision that I didn't want to stay on that person's list and I wasn't going to go back to them because that was really gross and I didn't like it.
Learn sales skills from people that you trust, and go through their sales process.
Listen to their podcast, get onto their mailing list or follow them on social media and see what happens in that process.
Even just sliding into their DM's or sending them an email and seeing how you are treated will tell you a lot about the types of sales strategies that that person employes, and how they're going to teach you to make sales in your business as well.
2. Practise
You build skills by practising.
You aren't going to jump into doing sales conversations and be brilliant at it from the very start. It's going to take some practise, it's going to take some tweaking and refining and also just learning how to find the words that work for you.
The reason for that is because we have different voices, we speak differently, we have different topic areas that we're helping people with and that is actually a good thing. You want to sink into sales conversations that feel like really comfortable conversations for you, therefore, you're going to need to find your words. That comes with practise.
The first S is building your skills.
I'm going to give you a really simple structure to a sales conversation, and I'm going to explain why each of those elements are part of that sales conversation so that you can see how empowering that structure can be.
For me when I'm doing sales conversations, my basic structure is:
1. Connect with the person
When we start the call, I don't just jump right into whether they're going to buy the program or not, I ask them where in the world they are, and for some information on their business. I want to understand a bit about that person and have some form of connection with them. I just keep that nice and brief, and I make sure in that connection that we have a shared understanding of what we're talking about.
So I'll ask them how they are, I'll talk a bit about my day and whatever's been happening for me, and THEN once we've had a little bit of connecting time, I will clarify exactly what we're there to talk about.
Some people can jump into a sales conversation with you and assume they're going to get a free coaching session first, so I want you to be really clear on the structure of what's going to happen in that call.
You can give people some insight into how it's going to unfold so that everyone's on the same page.
2. Qualify
This is where you learn how to ask really good questions.
This is where a lot of sales conversations let you down, especially when you're learning that aggressive sales strategy where you dial up the pain points.
That strategy isn't about understanding whether it's the right fit for people or not, it's about helping the person to see that it IS the right fit for them regardless.
I approach this very differently. I'm on a journey of discovery with the person that I'm speaking to, I'm not on a journey of discovery of how to sell this thing to that person.
When I'm talking about Take Off with someone, I tell them that I'm not going to pressure them into buying it, and that I just want us to work out whether it's the right fit for them or not.
I genuinely want to do that in that sales conversation because I'm not interested in pitching Take Off to people who it's not going to help.
I'm not interested in selling to people who I don't think are a really good fit for it, and who I'm not going to enjoy the process with, they're not going to enjoy the process, I'm not going to help them get the outcome, and they're not going to get the outcome.
If there are any red flags coming up for me, I want to know about them in the sales conversation.
I think that that's where some of those more masculine, aggressive, pushy sales conversation structures can make it really difficult for us because they do tend to silence the other person and only get them saying yes to you.
That's not how I do these things.
I will often also ask people for a bit of information about their business, what their income level is, what works for them, what they've tried in the past and all of those insights into what's going on for them.
This helps me to get a really clear picture of whether this is just going to be the same as what they've done before, whether there's going to be something different here, and also what stage of business they're at so I can accurately diagnose what their challenge is going to be and how they're going to get the most value for money either from working with me or from getting support from someone else.
3. Confirm
Once we've done that and I feel like we're on the same page and that I really understand what's going on for them, I will have a confirmation section of my sales call.
In that confirmation section, I'm just making sure I've understood accurately what they need and that we're both on the same page.
I will say something like, 'Look, it sounds to me like you've got all of the key pieces in terms of you understanding your niche, you know what your message is, you know what it is that you're offering, but you don't know how to bring all of those together to bring in good quality leads and convert them. Would that be accurate?'
I'm just confirming and giving my expert diagnosis of what I can see, to get insight into whether that diagnosis is accurate.
I will say something like 'It sounds to me like if you could get a little bit of hand-holding and direction on ..., and a step by step process for ..., that you'd really feel like you'd be able to get that momentum, achieve your income goals and be able to do it in the 20 hours a week that you've got limited to in terms of how long you can work in your business. Does that sound like I've got it right?'
I'm saying these things and I'm confirming these things just to make sure that we are on the same page.
Another thing that I might confirm (and it's usually a 50/50 as to whether I feel like this is necessary or not) is what the timeframe is.
For example, if your client has a deadline that they need to be making $4,000 a month before they go on maternity leave, then I will confirm that timeframe as well to make sure we're on the same page.
If we haven't discussed timeframes in the qualifying section, I make sure that I ask that question about timeframes.
I ask the questions:
For example, if someone is looking for a really quick growth trajectory without having any ad spend or team members and they're relying completely on organic strategy, I will confirm that with them and then be upfront with them that I don't think I can help them achieve that goal.
In that confirmation section of the sales conversation, we are being really upfront and honest with each other, we're getting on the same page, and I am confirming the value proposition that this person is looking for, and when they're looking for it by.
It's a really important part of the sales conversation.
4. Offer
Then and only then once I have that confirmation, I know that we're on the same page, we've agreed on some kind of timeframe that would be an appropriate goal that I would be comfortable with and that they would be comfortable with, THEN I make the offer.
My words are, 'Well here's what I would recommend...'
The reason why I make that recommendation is because I have just put all that energy and effort into understanding the person's business, what they're looking for and what they want, if I then say, 'Well, here's my offer', it actually disconnects from what we've just done.
I make it as a recommendation. Sometimes I'm recommending a program, sometimes I'm recommending VIP, and sometimes I'm recommending that they go work with someone else.
I make those recommendations based on my understanding of that person that I've just got from this sales conversation.
That means that when I do make that offer - when I make that recommendation - I'm very confident that it's the right fit for them. This also means that when I ask them how that sounds, I can be confident and quiet and listen to their response without being really attached to them agreeing that that's what they need.
If that recommendation is not the right fit for them, it's not what they are able to afford, it doesn't fit into their timeframes or they don't have the capacity to do that right now, we can talk about that, but at least I've made that recommendation with confidence.
For people who aren't adding structure to their sales conversation, when they do the pitch of what the offer is, they're doing it blind, they haven't done that qualification, they haven't done that confirmation, and so they're just basically saying what their pitch is without really having that shared understanding that the thing they're pitching is going to help them achieve the goal that they want to achieve and address the challenges that they're facing.
I need to be clear and confident that I'm making the right recommendation for that person.
5. Ask
I give them a simple recommendation - I don't go into all the details of all the inclusions and bonuses, I just say what I recommend, why it would be the right fit for them, and what they'll get from it.
Then I ask the question.
Sometimes I will say the price and the investment upfront, sometimes I'll just confirm that they actually want to do it.
I'm constantly checking how everything sounds to them. I go offer, ask, be quiet. Offer, ask, be quiet. Or recommend, ask, be quiet.
6. Close
In the close, I tell them what's going to happen from here.
It's a really simple structure - you've got the connection and introductions, qualify, confirm, offer and ask, and then refine and close.
That simple structure has really helped me, and I've built that based on my experience and practise doing sales conversations that feel really comfy for me.
There are often some things that we are told we need to do in sales conversations that make us feel really gross and that is why we're avoiding them.
1. No means no
If someone says 'No, I can't afford that right now', that is not an opportunity for you to then convince them of the value proposition.
If they don't see the value proposition in it through the qualifying and the confirmation process, and when you present the investment, they tell you that it's out of reach for them even with a payment plan, then no means no.
That's something that's really important to me.
I know that for other sales conversation strategies and teachers, they don't teach that, but for me, that's really important.
It's an issue of consent and rape culture, it's an issue of gaslighting and making women unsure of what their decisions are and making them doubt themselves, so for me, it's very important and it is a matter of principles and values that I respect the no.
2. Do NOT dial-up people's fear or pain in the process
I don't use any sort of manipulation in my sales process.
I will never try to manipulate people into buying my program by presenting them with what the negative consequences of not buying my program would be, and using emotional blackmail to get them into it.
It doesn't actually add to that process or empower people in that process in any way.
3. No pressure tactics or false scarcity
I don't:
If someone says that they need to talk to their partner and they'll get back to me, I'll tell them that that's no problem and ask when they would like me to follow up with them.
I will NOT tell them how I thought they were an independent woman who made empowered financial decisions on their own.
I don't in any way, shape or form, create any pressure, make any false scarcity or make people make a decision there and then on the call, because I don't like doing that, therefore, it's another matter of principle and values from me.
4. Does it feel empowering?
Then the final tactic and the final thing to think about when it comes to the shady stuff is to just ask yourself the question: Is this sales conversation empowering for them? And is this sales conversation empowering for me?
If the answer is no to either of those questions then there's something shady going on, and it's a call for you to look into why that doesn't feel like it's empowering, and how you can change that process.
I know that there's a lot in this podcast episode, but I also know how valuable it is to deal with the skills, structure and shadiness that come up in sales conversations.
If this is something that you realise you haven't actually put any time and energy into learning in terms of growing your business and how to get those foundational skills and learn how to do sales in a way that is empowering for your audience, I would love for you to come and check out my free training.
In this training, I cover the core base-level things you want to take care of in terms of skills, structure and strategy.
Make sure you go and check that out at tashcorbin.com/fasttrack.
I hope that you have found this really valuable.
If you've found it valuable or you've got follow up questions or lightbulb moments you'd like to share, make sure you come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to podcast episode 242 and let's continue the conversation there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/241
"It doesn't have to be this hard. Choose the easy way." – Claire Riley
This episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast is a special Spotlight series interview with the one and only Claire Riley.
In this episode, Claire and I get down to business talking about the joy of consistent and strategic content in your business.
Claire also shares her AMAZING freebie, Batchie Content Planner. You can download this epic planner here: bit.ly/BatchieContentPlanner.
It's called Batchie Content Planner. This 90-day blog and social media content planner will help you to plan content that engages, helps and converts.
You can download this FREE quarterly content planner at bit.ly/BatchieContentPlanner.
Make sure you come and share your questions, comments and light-bulb moments over in the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs community using #podcastaha and the episode number (241).
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes in full at tashcorbin.com/240
In today's episode, I'm going to talk about why marketing tactics are NOT your biggest challenge in your business, and how to stop playing at the surface.
If you know me, you'll know that I love me some good questions. I love asking questions on social media, in conversations with people and also on my calls in my group program.
I love asking questions because I love understanding how people are identifying what they need to focus on in their business, what their big challenges are and what they want help with, because that helps me to make sure that my content is really relevant and I'm able to support people with the things that they want help with.
When I ask questions about people's biggest challenge with:
They'll ask me questions about why they aren't able to fill their webinar, whether they should be running a 5-day challenge or a webinar instead, why they're struggling with sales calls and having people saying they can't afford to work with them, not knowing how to price their online call or how to write an offer copy or sales page.
People are saying that their biggest challenge with growing their business is actually part of their marketing tactics.
I would say it is around 9/10 people that I speak to who would identify a marketing tactic as their biggest challenge.
But with all of my experience in the people that I've helped in this online business space, I can tell you hand on heart for most people, that is not actually their biggest challenge.
They are misdiagnosing their challenge as being something to do with their marketing strategy or their marketing tactics, when in actual fact, they've got a foundations issue in their business.
The foundations that I am referring to are your niche, value proposition and messaging, and your offer.
Those things need to be solid before any marketing strategy or tactic is actually going to work.
What do I mean by these foundations?
Having a very specific, very tangible niche allows you to:
The riches are in the niches.
All of these sayings are common and consistent because they're so true.
The broader your messaging needs to be to accommodate for a broad niche, the less likely it is to deeply resonate with your audience.
The broader your niche is, the less specific you are able to get about the tangible, practical day-to-day experiences that let your ideal client know they have a challenge.
When you are talking about your ideal client, if you are using the word 'or', 'slash' or 'and', then chances are you're not being specific enough, and therefore, it doesn't matter how great your ad copy is, if it's not specific and tangible, it's not going to resonate with people.
It doesn't matter how much money you put into ads, if you are trying to get in front of hundreds of thousands of people and your messaging isn't clear because you're not niched enough, then you're going to be wasting money on those ads - you're going to be building an audience that may not actually be ready to buy from you.
We want to make sure that we've got that niche foundation clear, first and foremost.
Once you've got that hyper-specific niche, then you can create deeply resonant messaging, and articulate your value proposition in a way that really resonates with your audience and your ideal clients.
That is what we want our online messaging to do.
Get really clear on your value propositioning and your messaging ecosystem.
Remember: Your message is not one sentence, and your value proposition is not three bullet points.
In the Take Off program, we build a messaging onion. That is how we articulate the value proposition and message across the different audiences in your business in a way that deeply resonates with those audiences.
You want to make sure you get that value proposition and messaging really clear as well.
Do you have something that people are ready, willing and able to buy? Have you proven that by making sales?
I would be making sure that you can actually make a sale of your offers and packages before you apply any marketing tactics or strategies to them.
You can make sales through connected conversations and reaching out to your existing networks before you ever need to use any of those broadcast marketing strategies to get in front of a cold audience.
That means that you are building based on tangible, practical results and things you've proven rather than just your theories alone.
Once you've got those three foundations really solid and really clear by making sales, it's then that we start to look at your broadcast marketing tactics.
The next thing I would say is that most people go straight to very high-level broadcast strategies - they go straight to the surface level stuff.
They look at long reach Facebook ads or guest posts on other people's Facebook pages or on other people's blog posts.
They're trying to get in front of as big an audience as possible, so they look at reach and the surface level strategies when it comes to marketing.
But if you focus on your conversion-based marketing activities first - your high touch, high conversion marketing and highly connected reach - rather than broadcast reach, you're then proving that your niche, value proposition and offers work for a warm audience.
The colder the audience, the more nurturing and warming up you're going to need before you get that conversion.
If you jump straight from making two sales to broadcasting and growing your reach by thousands of people without any nurturing or any way to warm that audience up, you're going to have a lot of reach and very little conversion.
We want to grow your business and your marketing strategy and tactics in a way that doesn't just jump straight to the surface, it builds that proof through making sales and growing your income as you go.
If this sounds like a really novel way of doing business to you and you've never heard me talking about Lean business before or getting that niche right first, I would love for you to come and check out my Nail Your Niche training.
You can register for my free Nail Your Niche training so that you can go through that process of making sure:
If that sounds like it might be a good fit for you, you can find that training here: tashcorbin.com/niche
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to give it a review wherever you listen to the podcast.
Please come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group and let's continue the conversation there.
If you've got more questions, want to talk about your niche, want to share a lightbulb moment that came up for you in this podcast episode, just use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to episode number 240 and we'll continue the conversation over there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/239
Today we have a fantastic listener question in relation to growing and converting your podcast audience.
If you've been thinking about having a podcast or you already have one, this is going to be a great episode for you.
Today's listener question comes in from Lilach Saperstein from All About Audiology. You can find out more about her business at allaboutaudiology.com or on Instagram at @allaboutaudiologypodcast.
Lilach'a question is:
"Hi Tash! My podcast has several different listener segments (parents of children with hearing loss, audiologists and related professionals, and students). Episodes include and address different topics, I bring on varied guests, and provide value to all these different kinds of listeners. Do you have any advice on growing the listenership further, and converting listeners to clients? It has been a steady growth and a wonderful journey of connecting with people around the world, primarily on Instagram. For some context, I have 45 episodes with nearly 20,000 total downloads and over 1000 followers on Instagram. Thanks!"
First and foremost, I want to say an epic congratulations for your consistency as well as growing your listenership already with your podcast.
For so many people, their podcast has the first 12 episodes and then it just disappears, so being able to maintain your listenership as well as your consistency with getting your podcast out there is absolutely amazing.
1. Reach - How do you grow the reach of your existing podcast?
2. Conversion - How do you improve the conversion from a listener into a paying client?
I'm going to cover those two issues separately in this Q&A episode.
First, let's talk about reach.
I want to answer this question not just about your specific situation, but also for anyone who has a podcast.
Being consistent and predictable, and having episodes come out on the same day every single week is a really big driver of listenership of a podcast.
If people can't accurately predict when that podcast episode is going to come out, it can really impact on your listenership.
When you have over 30 days without a new podcast episode, that can mean that some people who have been subscribed will automatically either be unsubscribed or asked if they still want to commit to that subscription. You might then find that your automatic downloads, whenever you release a new podcast to your subscribers, will significantly drop because you've had too much of a gap in those podcast episodes coming out.
I've been through this and I've done it several times in my journey as a podcaster, where I've struggled with that consistency and ended up having to rebuild my listenership which is a really big struggle.
Keep that consistency up if you want to make sure that you're consistently scaling the reach of your podcast.
This one is probably where you're going to have some struggles when you have a diverse range of listener segments.
Thankfully, you have a consistent topic and that topic can be very interesting and relevant to all of your listener segments if it's handled effectively.
Say you've got some episodes that are specifically targeted towards:
If you're separating those episodes out and making those episodes not relevant to the other listeners, more often than not, then that may impact on your reach and your listenership.
We want to make sure as much as possible that your episodes have relevance for all of your audience segments, and where they don't have relevance for other audience segments, that you're really upfront about that early on in the podcast episode so that you're not wasting anyone's time.
If someone's subscribed to your podcast or they've stumbled across it and have listened to three or four episodes, but two of them weren't really relevant to them and it took 10 to 15 minutes of listening before they worked out it wasn't relevant to them, then of course, that's going to really hurt in terms of your reach.
Be upfront at the start of the episode about what the topic is, and if it's not necessarily relevant to all audience members, letting them know who it is relevant for can actually be really helpful.
Even though people may not listen to that episode, you have demonstrated that you value their time and they're more likely to move on to other episodes that are relevant to them.
They are some of the core base-level things when it comes to podcasting and increasing your reach of that podcast.
This is what's going to significantly impact your reach, as well and growing your listenership.
You want to make sure that you take responsibility for distributing your podcast.
It's wonderful that those podcast platforms:
Have a think about ways that you can ensure that every episode of your podcast is distributed as far and wide as possible to relevant audiences.
For example, if you do an email newsletter consistently, you want to make sure that you're highlighting certain podcast episodes or the latest podcast episode.
On your social media channels, especially on Instagram, you want to make it easy for people to know that you have a podcast and how they can get to that podcast. Not just saying that you have a podcast generally, but directing them to a specific podcast episode.
When you talk about your podcast episodes, you want to make sure that you're very specific about the value proposition of that podcast episode and who it's for. Being active on Instagram is a great platform for you to make the most of the opportunity that comes with Instagram stories.
Whenever a new episode is available on your podcast, doing Instagram stories to talk about the topic, get people interested in it, and then let them know there's a podcast episode that dives into it further, is going to be really helpful for growing listenership.
If you've got a particular episode that's done very well, make sure that you put it in your social media schedule to consistently bring people back to it because clearly it's something that people have found valuable.
Take responsibility for distribution and re-distribution of podcast episodes because you will see that improves not only your listenership, but also your subscriber rates really quickly.
Other things to remember:
What I would suggest is to not try 12 things all at once.
Just pick one strategy that you're going to focus on, give it three to four weeks, see how it goes in terms of improving your regular download rates for your episodes, and then decide if you're going to keep doing that, or if you're going to let go of it and try something else.
If you decide to keep it, systemise that and get it working at scale before you start bringing in other strategies.
Too often I see people with podcasts who try a distribution strategy and it works, so then they add another distribution strategy which also works, so then they add another one and so on...
But they've never really systemised, outsourced, or scaled that startegy, so what ends up happening is every time they have a podcast episode to release, they end up needing to do 8 to 12 hours of time in actually doing all that distribution, and that's not scalable for you.
We want to make sure that we do it at scale in a systemised way.
Let's now talk about conversion.
Too often, I listen to podcast episodes where it's a really fascinating subject and I absolutely love it, but then the call to action is just to go and check out a random freebies page (or there's no call to action whatsoever).
There's no information on how I can find out more or discuss that with you if this is something I want to work on, or even a way to know how I might be able to work with you.
Make sure on your podcast episodes that you have a clear call to action for anyone who's listening along, finds it fascinating and wants to know how they can dive in further.
For most people, the conversion doesn't come straight from podcasts into paying you - although that is something that can happen, so make sure you give people that option. Generally, it's going to be a conversion from podcast onto your mailing list, mailing list into a lead magnet, and lead magnet into buying something from you.
For my Take Off program for example, I know what the most common journey from podcast to Take Off is. Let's say I do a podcast episode on niching, and then I'll have my Nail Your Niche freebie as the call to action on that podcast. They'll jump into that Nail Your Niche freebie, go through the email sequence - nurturing and getting my regular newsletters - and then when I launch the Take Off program the next time, they'll jump into the webinar or the challenge for that launch, and then they'll convert there in a live lead magnet for a that particular launch.
You want to make sure that you are growing that email list, and you're consistently nurturing them. Then you can let your email list know how they can dive deeper with you, work with you, or jump into a launch if you've got a product or service that you are launching.
The other thing I want to quickly touch on here in relation to conversion is the audience belief system that we have that if we can just get our stuff in front of a bigger audience, then it will automatically mean that we are going to get better results and sales in our business.
How many people (I've definitely had this thought) reading along have had the thought that if you could just get one podcast episode to go viral and have 200,000 people listen to it, then everything will be okay and your business will grow and you'll definitely make sales? Or if only you could just get that one post on social media to be shared by someone famous, then everything would be okay?
Often, when that huge leap in audience does happen, it doesn't translate into more sales, because you haven't identified and taken responsibility for your customer journey - not just through the process of hearing about you and then buying from you in one jump, but also through that nurturing process.
Have you got a really clear nurturing process that people go through that you know works to convert people into paying clients with you? And if you don't, that is something we want to be prioritising so that we can take care of that and make sure the podcast is doing its job.
At the end of the day, the job of your podcast is to grow your reach and audience, but also bring them in on that customer journey.
Thank you so much for this question Lilach, I hope that you have found my answer helpful.
I would recommend looking at:
Focus on those for a consistent period of time and see how they work, and then make a decision about whether you want to stop it or continue it, and whether you're going to bring other strategies into play.
The final note that I want to say about any podcast or any type of strategy in terms of whether it's going to work and whether it's going to reach the right people and convert them into clients, is to make sure that you are really clear on your niche, your value proposition and messaging, and your offer.
Very often we can get caught up in how we can get better reach, thinking that that is what is going to grow our business and get those results.
You need to have confidence and clarity on these three core foundations:
If you don't, then all of the surface level activities that you do in order to grow your audience, grow the reach of your podcasts and get more listeners, is not necessarily going to result in business growth.
If that is something you would like to work on - getting that niche, the value proposition and your offer clear - I'd love to also invite you to come and check out my new Nail Your Niche training.
It is a prerecorded training that you can do at your leisure (and you can also listen to it on double-time so you can get through it nice and quickly).
This will help you look at those foundations of your business and just make sure that you're very clear on, for you Lilach, each niche that you're focusing on, what the value proposition is for them, and then what the offer is that that person is actually looking for and how you express and articulate that in a way that has them saying, 'Yes! That's exactly what I need, how do I sign up?'
If you have found this episode of the podcast particularly helpful and you'd like to continue the conversation, come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha and let me know you've been listening along to episode number 239.
I'd love to hear from you if you are a podcaster or you've been thinking about podcasting:
Do you have a question you'd like me to answer here on the podcast? Go to tashcorbin.com/question, pop your question in there and I will answer your question as well as give you a shoutout and a link back to your channels.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/238
This is not really a marketing topic per se, but running a group of 33,000 women online, I see some things, and this is a conversation that I'd love for us to continue over in the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group. It is a pattern and trend that I see happening in lots of different ways and I wanted us to open up this conversation.
A big shout out to Vampire Weekend and their song Oxford Comma for that gorgeous description - dripping with disdain. It's such a powerful and emotive phrase, and I just love it. It's three words put together so perfectly.
Dripping with disdain can be about your industry or your audience, and I thought that this particular podcast episode could be about how by shining a light on some of that disdain that we might have for our industry or our audience, we can start to detox ourselves from the judgement that we might feel towards others.
Let's jump into this episode, it's going to be a bit of a meandering conversation, but I've got eight really powerful examples for you where it might be so helpful to shine a light on where this behaviour - even if it's not outwardly facing, it's just inward thoughts - can show up and how it is actually stopping you from growth in your business.
As you might have picked up from my introduction to this episode, it's not necessarily about fixing something so that your business will grow, or doing a certain thing so that you can get more clients. I do think it's really important for us to pay attention to our thoughts and feelings, especially as they relate to our industry, our audience and potential clients.
For me, that's where the biggest personal development and growth journeys have happened. I know for myself, there are still areas where I can have some pop-up thoughts that aren't necessarily helpful, but I don't ignore them, I pay attention to them.
They show me where I need to be changing my behaviour, showing up more authentically, or sometimes it's highlighting something in my industry or something for my audience that I need to step up, talk about and change.
By ignoring those things, I end up keeping myself small, or just judging quietly and not necessarily having the conversation.
I'm going to start with my points about industry, and then I'm going to talk about audience.
Here are some examples of places, and conversations that I've heard, where people have disdain for their industry.
Have you:
I know that this conversation pops up again and again in the Heart-Centred community and in the Take Off program, and I totally understand where it's coming from, and that some of those concerns that people have are very valid.
I know of coaches who charge $15,000 to teach people how to charge $15,000 to teach people how to charge $15,000...
That is totally a model of business that I've seen.
Has there been any material training or development or mentoring in actually changing people's lives for that $15,000? Or is it just finding more people to charge $15,000 to learn how to charge $15,000? Who knows...
I understand that we can see some of these examples and feel quite judgmental about how that's what the whole industry is in a nutshell and that we're not doing anything different (I've had someone say that to me in a VIP call).
If it is a giant pyramid scheme, we just can't see it and we're contributing to it, then aren't we culpable in this entire scheme and shouldn't we opt out of it?
The first thing I want to say to that is: It's not all of the industry.
I have worked with so many amazing people who have completely changed my life, not just in the way that I grow my business, but also in the way that I serve my clients and in my life outside of my business.
I absolutely love and adore the training, support and development that I have received from most of the people that I've worked with.
a. Realise that it's not all of it.
b. Look at the ways where you have been helped outside of the way that you make money.
Are there things that you have learned? Are there changes that you have made? Do you show up differently as a result of being in this industry, and therefore, could that change be something beyond being part of the cycle of paying a certain amount to charge a certain amount to teach how to charge that amount?
c. See this as an opportunity.
I know for myself that when people want to work with me, they are working with me because they see that I am not just in that pyramid-type model. They see that a lot of my clients don't teach people how to make money. My clients teach people how to look after their health and wellbeing, how to dial up their intuition, how to fengshui their home to improve their relationships, or how to attract their soulmate.
One of the big things for me when I am working with a mentor or coach is to look at whether their clients do exactly what they do, or if their clients work and impact people's lives in other ways.
There is an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself, simply by the fact that you're not part of that pyramid scheme. You can express your value proposition beyond teaching people exactly what you learned about how to sell something that doesn't actually change people's lives.
Whenever I am feeling that it's a giant pyramid scheme and I am judging people for it, in most cases, what it's doing is highlighting for me my fear that maybe I'm in that.
It is just this beautiful reminder to me that I need to be conscious of how I show up online, I need to be conscious of the contribution I'm making to the world, and I want to be 100% confident that my business isn't contributing to a giant pyramid scheme. I ask myself what I need to change, adjust or focus on in order for that to be true.
That's how I deal with it.
This one has particularly come up a lot this year with Black Lives Matter, white privilege, a lot of justification of white privilege, white fragility, and all of those things that have really come to the fore, particularly this year, and seeing industry leaders topple.
I've seen many people who I would have seen as leaders in my industry have a very hard and fast fall because they were unwilling to stop, listen, do the self-reflection, pay attention and acknowledge their own internalised racism, systemic racism, white privilege, and white supremacy. It could be very easy to look at those leaders and think about how they are horrible, or they didn't deal with it so you should opt-out altogether.
What I have also seen, especially this year, is the lifting of amazing voices and the demand at the client level for this to be addressed. People are voting with their wallets.
I have been able to hear from and see so many more amazing black women who run brilliant multimillion-dollar businesses.
I have moved from working with someone who had some problematic responses to Black Lives Matter, and I immediately cancelled my membership in their program and went and joined a different one.
A great example of this and a different way to look at it would if you wanted to sell swimwear and be in the swimwear industry.
The leading brands in your industry do not:
The leaders in the swimwear industry have mostly white, mostly skinny, mostly very tanned and problematic-from-a-sun-safe-perspective models. So you wanted to sell swimwear, but looking at the leaders in your industry, it would be easy to think that to succeed in that industry you have to do that, and you're not willing to so instead you're going to opt-out.
You wouldn't opt-out of that industry, you would stand up for what you want to see in that industry and you would have that inclusivity and that diversity as part of your business model.
That would be a point of difference for you, and that would ultimately end up being an advantage for you. Especially as more and more people are no longer willing to tolerate silence on:
I myself saw that all of the leaders that I could see in my industry were talking about the 4am club. They were talking about hustling, wanting it harder and dialling up people's pain and fear in the sales process, because 'you can totally fix them later when they buy from you'.
I didn't want to do any of that.
But if I had completely opted out of the entire industry because the people that I saw who were leading in that industry had problematic behaviours and beliefs that I didn't agree with, then all of the thousands of women that I've now supported to grow their businesses and market in a way that is completely aligned with their values and doesn't cause the triggering of trauma or dialling up people's pain points in the sales process, all of those thousands of women would have missed out and they'd probably be following the industry leaders and feeling the same as I did seven years ago.
When it comes to looking at your industry, notice where you're feeling that disdain for the leadership, and judgement of the way that other people are behaving. Instead of just expressing that disdain and judgement and doing nothing about it, turn it into something that's actually helpful and useful for your audience.
You will notice that when I talk about the problematic behaviours in terms of sales processes in my business, I don't just throw out disdain and judgement. I instead break it down to 'This specific strategy is not aligned with my values because of this, and this is what it does to people. I'm not willing to do that. So if you aren't willing to do that either, here's what I do. You might like to try to do this way as well'.
You have the opportunity to do that as well.
I've had many conversations, in particular in the last couple of months, where people are saying that they're not going to put anything out online anymore because every time they do, a couple of days later they see someone else putting the same thing up. They don't think it's fair that someone else is having free content written for them so they just won't create any anymore.
I had someone who I was talking to who had created a program that they'd given a specific name to, and then someone else who they saw as a peer came out with an unbuilt program that she started selling with the exact same name - she'd clearly just copied the name and wanted to get in with it first.
There's a lot of that.
On a Facebook Live earlier this year, I talked about a particular product that I was thinking about doing and a URL that I was thinking about buying, and three days after that, someone else bought that URL and put it instantly up for sale for $5,000.
The URL was something very specific to something that I talked about very clearly. It seems like it could be very likely that someone watched that video and went and bought that domain name, but does that mean I'm not going to do anything? Does that mean I just give up and that the entire industry is full of copycats?
Where are you putting your attention if you're constantly looking to find who is copying you?
What I ended up doing was just completely moving in a different direction with a different name for the same concept.
I felt like it ended up being better anyway, so it's no drama.
I could spend my time and attention getting really upset and angry about that, or I could spend my time and attention on building this program.
You can spend your time and attention looking for people who have copied you, or you can block those people and get on with your life. You can accept that there's a lot of coincidence and we all kind of end up sounding the same when we're talking to the same audiences, or you can just focus on your audience instead of focusing on your peers.
It feels as though it's an affront to you, it's an insult, and you make it mean so many different things.
At the end of the day, I have so much compassion for someone who feels that they need to copy my things and my work, because to me it says that that person is really low in self-esteem, and is really struggling to feel confident in their own content, in coming up with their own concepts and in coming up with their own way of talking about things.
If they're constantly resharing or modelling my work in their work, then sure it's not necessarily an insult and it's very flattering, but also it says more about that person than it does about me.
I don't judge someone who copies me, and I don't judge someone who copies someone else.
I understand what it feels like to feel like you desperately need to create something and you have no idea what to say, and how stuck that can feel. If the thing that gets that person unstuck is regurgitating something that you've done, then power to them, let's all help each other. A rising tide lifts all ships.
I'm not saying that you should let everyone copy everyone and that we should all just all regurgitate the same information. There are legal protections, there are ways that you can address it, but at the end of the day, is it even worth doing some of those things?
I had a conversation with someone who said that she has a girl who follows her, who likes every one of her posts, and then a few days later she does a very similar post on her own page.
And I just said to block her. If something upsets you that much, all you need to do is block that person.
But this person didn't want to block her, and every practical solution that I gave her, she made excuses for why she didn't want to that.
Eventually I just got to the point where I told her that the other option is to stop focusing on this copycat and stop checking whether they're copying her.
I think sometimes we prefer to stay in the space of feeling superior or feeling like we're better than someone than actually addressing the challenge that we think we're facing.
That's all I'll say on that one for now, but I do have a whole episode about copycats that you can find here: tashcorbin.com/185-how-to-deal-with-copycats
I think this one can be particularly difficult for people who are new to social media or who struggle with social media.
They say that they don't want to be a part of the noise.
To that I would say, yes, everyone is trying to share their content. We all want to speak to our audiences, but at the end of the day, your audience is going to resonate with your message.
Just because you might feel like it's a busy space to be speaking into, doesn't mean that people aren't sitting there waiting to hear from you.
I know for myself, there have been several times where I felt like no one was talking about the thing I needed people to be talking about on social media. Even when I googled it, I couldn't find anything. Then when I finally found someone who was having that conversation, I was so excited because I really wanted to learn that stuff.
The noise of the internet didn't get in the way, it was just that no one was having that conversation as far as I could find.
I understand the fear that you're just contributing to the noise of the internet, but think about your content and your posts as an oasis for your ideal client.
I've got a great example, of when I went to this amazing market over the weekend and there were all of these stalls (it's been a bit quiet on the market's front because of COVID).
I love just browsing when I go to markets, and I don't need to have conversations with every single person. But in this row of market stalls, many of the stallholders were standing in front of their market stall, and as I walked through this section, I was assaulted by noise and people talking at me trying to get me to come to their stall.
There was this beautiful lady who would have been at least in her sixties, and she had these beautiful handcrafted beads, buttons, jewellery and decorative things, and she was just sitting there quietly behind her stall, and I just naturally made a beeline to her stall.
I was looking at her things while she just sat there quietly and eventually we started talking about why she started creating these things, and we had this amazing conversation. And she wasn't loud.
You can just be this beautiful oasis of really useful information for your audience - you can be an oasis of calm confidence.
It was the calmly and quietly confident people at that market that I spent the most time engaged with because I didn't want to be yelled at by mostly dudes. I didn't want to know that his beef jerky was the best beef jerky in all of Southland, I didn't need to know how many different flavours of bath bombs that other guy had. Honestly, I didn't need them yelling at me. It was the quiet, calm, confident stallholders that didn't need to get out and pitch to me in desperation that I was really drawn to.
You can show up on the internet in that way as well, but you still need to show up.
Instead of being worried or judgmental about everyone yelling over everyone and the internet being really noisy, work out how you can show up in a way that reflects what you want to show up as, how you want to be seen, and how you want to contribute to what's on the internet.
They are the four big judgments I see of the industries that we might belong to.
1. It's a pyramid scheme
2. Leadership
3. Copycats
4. The internet's already too noisy
The other side of this conversation is where I see disdain for people's audience...
This one I really don't get, but I see it come up often.
I have an example from the Heart-Centred community, and this was many, many moons ago. I don't want to get into who it was or anything like that, but it was such a great example for me of not seeing the opportunity with your audience.
Every three or four months, I used to do a post on in the Heart-Centred group asking people what their astrology sign was and what their favourite thing was about being that sign.
There was someone who was a very experienced astrologer who saw this post as being particularly problematic.
There was one time where 700 people had commented on this post, and all the Leo's were teaming up with each other and bonding over being the same sign and sharing what they love about it. All these people were having these amazing conversations - it was one of the most beautiful posts that I've ever done in the group.
One time it really took off and there were all of these comments, and this very experienced astrologer saw people making assumptions about their sign or talking about their astrology in ways that she, as an experienced astrologer for multiple decades, could see were wrong.
Not only did she comment on the post saying that the post was a complete sham, a waste of time, no one knew what they were talking about and that I had posed the question wrong, she also reached out to me and told me to take the post down because it was so problematic and people shouldn't be talking about their astrological signs if they weren't actually informed about what it meant.
Some astrologers had put comments up saying that if someone didn't know what their sign was about then they would happily explain it to them. We had some astrologers adding extra things and adding statements - the astrologers were having a field day and everyone was having a great conversation. I loved it.
Then this person went through and commented and told everyone why they were wrong.
You could choose to see that this conversation about astrology was an affront - which is how she chose to see it - or you could see that this conversation about astrology was an opportunity.
The only difference as to whether you see it as an affront or whether you see it as an opportunity is your perspective.
Not only did I not take that post down (because I loved the conversation that was happening), but whenever that post came up again as a suggestion in my content planning for the group, I haven't done it. I haven't put that post up there the last three times it was suggested.
If this person had seen it as an opportunity and engaged in a really beautiful way without the disdain and without the judgement for their audience (because 90% of people on that post were their ideal client - they were semi-informed about astrology but loved talking about it), then that would have been an amazing opportunity.
Instead of seeing it as an opportunity, they saw it as an affront, shut the conversation down, upset a lot of people in the comments, and now hasn't had the opportunity for that conversation to be reinvigorated in the group since.
That person could have simply seen it as an opportunity, given some clarification about how there's more to it than that and that if anyone wanted to know what it meant for them and their busines, she would love for them to get in touch.
It is such a shame that that was a missed opportunity.
I know that this is a really extreme example, but I see it pop up all the time, where someone asks a question and they're basically screaming at you that they are your ideal client because they don't quite understand how to ask the question properly, and instead of being met with love and compassion and understanding, they are met with judgement and disdain, and completely put off the whole idea.
This happened to me many years ago when I joined a vegan group. I asked a few questions about veganism, and I was basically told that by asking that question, I was telling them that I'm not a proper vegan and so they wanted me to go away. They didn't say it in a nice tone at all, and it was so bizarre to me because it was full of vegan entrepreneurs who could have helped me with understanding some things about veganism.
I see this come up over and over again, people judging and having disdain for their audience asking questions that indicate they're probably ripe to have a conversation with you about this. They might actually either be really ready to work with you, or just before the tipping point of being ready to work with you.
I just wanted to bring that one up because I think that it can be easiest for us to jump to conclusions about why someone's asked a question or what they're saying or why they're saying it.
But at the end of the day, are you looking at that audience conversation as an affront or as an opportunity?
There are so many people complaining that their ideal clients won't invest in sessions with them but they will happily throw money down the toilet for the outcome from someone else.
It is so interesting to me that that is met with frustration, because that says to you all that you need to know for your messaging and marketing.
There is something about the other thing that makes it look like it's the right answer for those people. They're willing to invest in that, and when you share your product or service which you think solves the problem even better, they don't buy it.
That's a messaging issue. The key to resolving that messaging issue is in paying attention to and getting curious about where people are investing their money instead.
If you are getting frustrated or judgmental of your audience because they're spending money in the wrong spaces, again, instead of seeing that as insulting, see it as an opportunity for you to really nail your value proposition and address the messaging issue that means they're putting their money into something else other than the work that you are offering.
This one's a really interesting one because I see it pop up in a range of different ways.
I had a friend in a mastermind who ran a free challenge. There were all these people in her pop up group for her free challenge, and when the challenge finished, people were saying that since the group was closing, they should all make their own group and continue to support and help each other.
This person was like "How very dare they".
"How dare they think that they can go off and work on this without me when I have put all of my time and energy into doing this with them in this free challenge. If they wanted extra support and community, they could just buy my program and they would get everything that they need. But instead, they're going to go off and create their own splinter cell of people working on this together for free. How dare they."
It pops up with people who are working with someone, talking to each other, and forming networks with each other.
I actually did a program once where we weren't allowed to talk to the other participants, and when a couple of people got busted who knew each other outside of the work that they've done together, it was like a "how dare you" and they got booted out.
Again, that judgement or that disdain for them was an opportunity. Clearly people want to keep working with each other, and they want to keep talking to each other. They want to keep working on this thing, they feel like there's more for them to do but the group program or whatever is on offer is not the thing for them - they want something else.
It's totally okay if you want to set the boundaries and say that there can't be any splinter groups - that's your group, your rules, your program, your rules, your business, your rules - but don't judge people simply because they want to keep having that conversation.
If you can facilitate that conversation and keep them in your community to have that conversation then great. But if you're not interested in facilitating that conversation, then they're going to go and have that conversation elsewhere. That's totally legit of them to want to do that.
That's a really interesting one, and for me, it always creates this sense of asking myself how I can meet those needs without changing my boundaries.
If you find yourself feeling like "how dare they" about your audience or your clients as well, just pay attention to that one.
"If they can't see how valuable my work is, then I'm not there for them." Or "If they can't prioritise investing in working with me, then I'm not interested in working with them, I don't want to help these people."
I see this particularly in sales conversations:
"If they're not a quick decision maker and they're not willing to pay even the deposit straight away, then I don't want to work with them because they're not a quick decision maker."
"If they aren't willing to invest $6,000 in my program without talking to their partner, then they're not the kind of person that I want to work with because they're not independent."
To this I always say that you just don't know what's going on for other people. How can you know? And is that really how you want to show up in the world?
I don't see this as much in the Heart-Centred community, but I do see this in the online business world and particularly in places where those hardcore pressure sales tactics are used.
"I don't even want them to be in my audience". This one I see a lot with email marketing, "If they're not willing to put up with 17 emails for me in a week when I'm launching something, then they can just F right off" - I see that a lot.
If someone doesn't want to receive 17 emails from you in a week and that makes them want to unsubscribe from your list, is it actually a they-have-to-put-up-with-it-or-else kind of scenario?
Someone that I see who does this really well is Denise Duffield-Thomas when she's doing an affiliate launch for a particular program. At the start of that affiliate launch, and in every other email that she sends about that affiliate launch, there's an option of unsubscribing from that launch if they don't want to hear about that program.
That's a really beautiful thing to be able to do without telling someone that they have to receive 17 emails about a launch or else they can just go away and that it's their problem.
For your audience as well, sometimes they can't see the value of what you are offering. It's not their job to find it - it is not their job to go on a treasure hunt and try and work out whether your product is the right fit for them or not.
You have a shared responsibility.
They need to show up and read some emails, or they need to show up and watch some videos, but you also need to make sure you're taking responsibility for providing enough information in that process that they can make that decision without having to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to find the information that they need.
Similarly, with the if-they-can't-decide-in-24-hours type thing, you don't know what other people are going through.
Even I don't invest in things more than $500 without talking about it with David. The reason why I do that is because we are saving for a house right now, and we have some big priorities for our money. We have some really big financial goals that we're going for.
The process of talking it out with him is really helpful for me as an extrovert, to get really clear on:
I also know I'm very susceptible to NLP in the sales process, and all of the trickery and tactics that make me end up having really big buyer's remorse, so I have a rule with myself that if I'm going to invest in anything in my business, I have to sleep on it for 48 hours.
That's just the rule.
To say, "Well I don't care if you have that rule, if you don't buy from me immediately, then you're not my kind of person", that is dripping with disdain. It's full of judgement.
Just because they have a different process of assessing whether something is the right fit for them, doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be helped.
That's a really big one for me. I think that in the online business world, there can be a tendency to be very dismissive of people who aren't excited and quick to jump in and willing to take everything that you say at face value and immediately trusting of you.
To me, that's actually a really great quality that I love in my audience.
I love that people take time to consider whether they're going to work with me. I love that people want to talk about it with their partners first because they're going to go fully into it if they do join. And I love giving people time and space to sleep on it, because I love getting time and space to sleep on it myself.
That's one where I've seen a tendency for this judgement and this disdain to creep in. If that's coming up for you, it's something to consider.
1. Getting frustrated with your audience and missing opportunities
2. "My audience will waste money on A, B and C when all they need is just a few sessions with me"
3. "How dare they"
4. "If they can't see what they're doing then that's their fault"
With all of these things that we've talked about in this very long episode of the podcast (and thank you for sticking with me if you're still here), my goal is not to tell you not to feel them, think them or say them (some of them please don't say), but that's not the goal of this podcast episode.
For me, the biggest shifts that happen are when I pay attention to my thoughts, and I pay attention to the way that I'm contributing to the conversation in my industry.
Think about all of these things we've talked about today:
When you pay attention to how you think about these things and your contribution to your industry in this space and to the conversations about these things, that can shine a light on why we feel this way.
We get to make a conscious decision about whether we want to continue thinking that way, whether we want to continue behaving that way, and whether we want to continue showing up and contributing to the conversation in that way.
I hope that you found it valuable, and as I said at the start of the episode, I want this to be a conversation.
Please come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, and tell me that you've been reading episode number 238.
I'd love to know:
I would love for this to be a group conversation because I think there's so much that we can learn from these experiences, as well as so much that we can change about what we see online that we don't agree with.
I know that the Heart-Centred community is a beautiful incubator of new types of thinking for online business. It is a community with new ways of showing up much more feminine, connected, vulnerable, open, and implementing integrity-driven practises in the online business world.
Come on over to Heart-Centred group and let's continue the conversation.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/237
Today I'm answering one of your listener questions, and this question comes from the fabulous Justine.
We're going to be talking about what to do when people say they cannot afford to work with you, and addressing the value proposition of your work.
Super juicy topic, amazing quality question.
Today's listener question comes from the fabulous Justine Dean. You can find out more about her at justinedean.com or on Instagram at @justinedeanofficial.
Justine writes in and says:
"Tash, what do I do when people say they love what I'm writing and they need what I do, but they cannot afford it? I'm guessing my value proposition isn't clear?"
This is such a great conversation for us to have, and thank you so much for writing in with your question.
Quick note: If you also have a question you'd like me to answer here on the podcast (and I'll give you a shout out as well), then just go to tashcorbin.com/question, pop your question in there and all of your details, and I'll answer your question on a future episode.
1. What to do when people say they cannot afford to work with you
2. Looking at your value proposition
I've got three areas that I want us to explore in answering this question.
If you are having a conversation with someone, and they love what you're writing about and your work, but then you start talking about how you can work together and they say that it sounds great but they can't afford it, first of all, always respect that 'no' when you get it, but also make sure that you don't pitch until you know it is a good fit and you have clarified the value proposition.
In the sales call process, I'm not starting the process by straight-up saying how much it is to work with me. I am starting the conversation by clarifying and qualifying: Is this what the person actually wants?
In the qualifying process, I ask lots of questions about:
Then before I go into any pitching, I use a confirmation statement.
I will say something like 'It sounds to me that if we could do ..., then that would address ...', or 'What I'm hearing you say is if we could do ..., then you would feel .... Have I got that right?'
For you Justine (Justine is a relationship specialist), you might say 'It sounds to me like if we could address all of the baggage and the stuff that you feel like you're carrying, then you would feel more confident to step back into the dating circles. Have a got that right?' Just get really clear and specific about what they are needing.
By doing that qualifying - asking the questions and finding out what the priority is for the person individually - and then making that statement of confirmation and making sure that you're both on the same page before you prescribe what you think the solution would be for them and whether that is working with you or not, you've already confirmed the value proposition.
The value proposition isn't just more stuff. So many people think that they improve the value of their products and services by adding more sessions, more bonuses, extra access to them, unlimited voxer support or unlimited email support in order to try and improve the value proposition.
But ultimately, the value of your work isn't just the process, it's also linked to the outcome.
What we want to make sure we're doing is confirming for your audience the value proposition of the before and after that you are facilitating.
This brings me to the second part of what I want to talk about, and that is really looking at your sales process and whether it's giving you the insight and information that you need to really scale and grow your business.
We can work on our messaging, value proposition, how we sell our products and services, our packaging on a broadcast level, (ie. putting it up on social media, talking about it consistently, sharing it with your audience, posting offers into groups or on your social media page, you can post great content that has a call to action to talk to you about whether you should be working together or not), but at the end of the day, if you're getting mostly crickets and people commenting saying that it sounds really great but they can't afford it right now, then you're not actually confirming or qualifying:
One of the things that I'd really recommend for anyone who's experiencing lots of comments saying that it's great but they can't afford it, is to actually set a goal for yourself to have as many conversations with people who might be your ideal clients as possible.
The more of those conversations you have, the more opportunity you have to qualify, practise that confirmation statement and really confirm and understand how your ideal client expresses the value that they are looking for in terms of before and after.
One of the things I want to say here is that even for myself, as I am scaling beyond the half-a-million-dollar mark in my business and I'm now having six-figure launches of my group program, I still have lots of sales conversations.
The reason why I continue to do that is not just because it massively improves my conversion rates, but also because it gives me really beautiful and powerful insight into the value proposition that my audience is looking for, and how to articulate and express that from multiple angles.
Even in the last launch of the Take Off program (which was not quite six figures - it was $99,000), out of the 45 people who joined the Take Off program, I had email conversations with about 20 people, and I had 15-minute chats with about 6 or 7 of those people as well.
I don't see that as a chore because I have to put more work into making that sale, I see that as an opportunity to find out what didn't hit the nail on the head with my value proposition for this person. Of course I want to make the sale if it's the right fit for this person, but I love to talk with them and find out what's missing in my messaging and what their concern is.
When you're working on your value proposition, you really want to make sure that you're having as many conversations as possible. It is through the conversation that you really clarify that value proposition - not through throwing spaghetti at the wall with messaging.
The other thing I want to say with value proposition is, as I said before, it's not about having more things in order to improve the value proposition, it's actually to improve the priority level that this person places on that outcome. The way that you do that is not by telling someone that this should be a bigger priority for them.
A great example of that would be if you worked in the health and wellbeing space.
I see this all the time. I understand you're really passionate about health and wellbeing, but when you just keep yelling at the internet that people should prioritise their health and wellbeing, you're not actually connecting with your ideal client where they are, and you're also not connecting to their priorities.
If they put their health and wellbeing at the bottom of the priority list all of the time, it's going to be really difficult for you to shift those priorities simply through broadcast marketing and content.
For you Justine, if getting back into the dating space and having a great experience of dating could link to your ideal client's current priority (which might be to have a really enjoyable lifestyle and travel a lot), then you're going to help improve the value proposition of that outcome that you are offering to people.
The other thing I love is for a lot of people when they're going through relationship work or getting themselves ready for dating or getting back into the dating space, it's a real journey of self-development and growth, and often, it's an opportunity to practise manifesting what they want in every area of their life.
I know that there are relationship coaches out there who link:
By linking those things together and actually showing and demonstrating that by addressing one certain thing, you're also going to address this other thing, it actually improves the priority and therefore value proposition of working with you.
For different people, the link between the work that they do in terms of dating and relationships and another area of their life is going to be quite different.
That is why I absolutely adore having conversations with people.
When I'm talking to people about making more money in their business, I don't just talk about making more money in their business for the sake of making more money in their business.
I ask people:
Why do you want to make more money in your business?
What would this mean to you?
How would that impact other areas of your life?
What's your priority other than making money?
If someone's talking about the fact that they could have more time with their children and they can have that more spacious lifestyle, I'm always sure to talk about that in my confirmation statement. I would say something like, 'It sounds to me, if we could get you hitting that $10,000 a month mark without having to do more than the 25 hours a week that you're doing right now, then that's not just going to help with the growth of your business, it's also going to allow you to have the lifestyle and the time with your children that's really important to you. Am I getting this right?'
Whilst we can make sweeping generalisations and make statements about what we think is going to be the priority for our ideal clients, that is most powerfully linked in a one-to-one sales conversation.
There are definitely lots of conversations to practise when it comes to value proposition.
This is a really out there point, but I think this is a really important one when it comes to value proposition and particularly having lots of people following you saying how lovely your work sounds but it's not a priority for them right now.
I know for a lot of people when it comes to building and growing their business on broadcast channels, and wanting to get those sales, we can start to feel like to improve our value proposition, we need to look more expensive, valuable and professional.
This can actually veer you in the wrong direction when it comes to getting that connection and conversion in your business.
If you are someone who feels like they always have to use the same six perfect pictures in their posts on social media, and you're constantly doing pictures with words over them, and it always looks like you're writing ads, then that can actually be part of the disconnect for people (and I don't necessarily think this is you, Justine, but I just wanted to cover on this for everyone reading).
If you look all polished and professional and perfect, then it can imply to people (consciously or subconsciously), that in order for them to get the same outcome, they also need to be perfect, professional and polished.
I know for you, Justine, that's not what your core message is actually about. Your core message is about that beautiful journey of self-exploration and letting go of some of that baggage whilst still being human in the process.
We need to give our audience permission to be human. We need to give our audience the confidence to believe that even if they don't do it correctly, they'll still move closer to their goal. Even if they don't show up perfectly, they're still able to access the transformation that you facilitate.
In our marketing and messaging, and particularly when we're trying to encourage people to go over that tipping point of having a conversation with us and investing in getting this outcome, we need to make people feel like they can get that outcome and that it's totally accessible to them. They don't need to have some kind of magic formula or show up perfectly or be hyper-professional or any of those things in order to be able to get that outcome.
A little exercise that I would recommend that you do is:
I want you to go and look at the last 20 posts on your Facebook page, and I want you to assess how many of those posts invite people to connect and have a conversation with you in an unthreatening, no strings attached kind of way.
It's all well and good to say 'obligation-free chat', but that sounds so sales, that people gloss over the fact that it's obligation-free.
I want you to start looking at when you're doing your call to action, is it really conversational, connecting and unintimidating? Or is it really formal?
Have a look at that call to action. I want to know how many times you've had a call to action, and how conversational that call to action is on your Facebook page.
I also want you to have a look and see, when you look at this from an objective perspective, does your Facebook page look polished and manicured, and like you've got a series of ads (ads for your free content, ad-style tips, ads for your products and services, ads for your freebie)? Does it look like a sequence of ads? Or does it look like an engaging conversational, let's-all-be-human kind of space?
If you can improve that sense of connection, engagement and that feeling of being allowed to make mistakes on your social media platforms - not just your page but also when you're posting in communities - then you're going to make that resistance point to jumping in and working with you a little easier for people to overcome, because they don't have a perception that they need to have their ducks in a row before they even come to work with you.
They don't need to do the groundwork or do all the practise work before they're allowed to have this outcome and work with you as well.
Hopefully that's been really helpful for you Justine and everyone else reading along as well.
I would love to know what you think about qualifying in the sales process, dealing with people saying that they can't afford it, and also that value proposition and dialling up that value proposition for your audience.
Come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to episode number 237 and let's continue the conversation over there.
I also want to encourage you if you have a question for me, go on over to tashcorbin.com/question, pop your details in there and ask me your question.
I would love to answer your question here on the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/236
In today's episode, I'm going to share my 5-minute post-call habit, and how this habit grows my business.
It's a really simple thing you can do that escalates and elevates your business results quickly.
We know as entrepreneurs that content is really powerful in:
We also know that messaging is one of the critical foundations that allows us to be deeply resonant in our posting and our presence online, helps us to connect to our ideal client and helps them understand our value proposition.
Messaging is such a big part of business because it covers so many different elements of what goes into our business model.
Our messaging shows up in our posts on social media, in our deeper content, on our sales pages and websites, and in our conversations that we have with our audiences.
Knowing that content is powerful and messaging is so critical to business growth and success, every group call that I facilitate and every VIP client call that I have is a goldmine.
Every single time I run a group call, every single time I run a VIP one-to-one call with anyone in my business, I take 5-minutes after that call. In that 5-minute post-call habit, I take that 5-minutes to note down three key things.
Whether the call was a large group coaching call for the Take Off program, or a very intimate one-to-one coaching client call, I take note of what challenges were brought to me on that call.
With the bigger group calls in the Take Off program, I'd probably note down three or four major challenges that were brought to me. In a VIP call, I'd note down one or two of the major challenges that were brought forward to me that someone wanted me to fix for them.
For your business, with your clients, your messaging, and your content, if you are working with a perfect ideal client and they come to a session with you and present you with the problem that they need you to fix, imagine how powerful that content is to then go out and find more people just like that one.
But how many of us jump from client session to client session, from call to call, and don't ever stop and take note of the exact thing that our ideal clients are asking us for when they have the opportunity to speak with us?
The first thing that I write down in that 5-minute post-call habit is what challenges were brought to me.
How did they describe:
That really helps me to refine my keywords, my key phrases, and the things I need to talk about in my content.
Being able to speak to my audience using words and phrases that THEY use to describe what's going on, is so powerful in my messaging.
It's all well and good for me to just diagnose their challenge as a niching issue, but if they think the issue is that they just don't know how to speak to their audience effectively, then I'm missing the mark with ships passing in the night if I don't use the words that they use to articulate that particular challenge or problem.
It is my job to help my audience bridge the gap between where they think the problem is, and what I can see the deep issue that may be causing all of that pain and strife that's coming up for them is.
If I could proactively go out and help 100 other people who had the same challenge, what would I need to say?
This is actually the basis of my content plan.
I talk about my 5-minute post-call habits so often in my client calls and in my group calls because it is such a useful way for people to refine their messaging and get clear on what content they need to be sharing.
Guess what question I get asked over and over and over again... How do you come up with content? What do I say on my blog? What do I post about on social media?
The answer is in tapping into the juicy resource that is the conversations you're already having.
If you're not having conversations with anyone just yet in your business:
a. Find ways to have those conversations
b. You will be very equipped from day one to know how to make sure that you maximise the return for your business from those conversations
Just to recap, my 5-minute post-call habit is to stop and write down:
1. What were the challenges that were brought to me in that call?
2. What are the keywords and phrases that my client used?
3. If I could proactively go out and help 100 other people who have the same problem, what would I need to say?
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I hope that's been a really helpful one for you.
If you aren't 100% sure on how to identify your niche, your target market or how to start having conversations with those people, then I would love for you to come and check out a new free resource that I have available.
It's based on a live training that I have run over six times in the last two years that I've now turned it into a self-study video training that you can access at any time.
All you need to do to access it is go and register here: tashcorbin.com/niche
As always, please come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening along to podcast episode 236, and share what you thought about my 5-minute post-call habit. Let me know if you have any questions or aha's, and I'll see you over there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found tashcorbin.com/235
This is a listener Q&A episode of the podcast, and the question comes from the amazing Claire, who wants to know how to scale her membership program to over 100 members.
If you've been thinking of starting a membership program, or you've got one that you'd love to scale to larger audiences, this is going to be a really helpful episode for you.
This listener question comes from Claire Riley. You can find out more about Claire on her website claireriley.co.
Claire asks:
"How do I scale my membership program?"
Claire has been running her membership program Batch It Crazy (yes, that sounds like something else but that's not what it is), for three years. She's got 35 active members as of when she submitted the question, and she's had over 70 members go through this membership in the time that she's been running it.
She said that the members are engaged, they love the program, she loves the content and the delivery, and she also said the launches work both with time-sensitive launches AND evergreen funnels.
Claire wants to know how she can scale this to bring in more members and perhaps even have some more self-study content.
This is a really awesome question.
Before I get to the specifics of Claire's question, I want to start by saying that I think memberships are absolutely brilliant. I especially love Claire's membership which I've been a part of before.,
Memberships are great because:
Whenever it comes to getting more people into a program - whether it be a course, membership or a mastermind - my core marketing strategy comes down to the three core things: reach, conversion and mindset.
The really interesting thing about Claire's question is that she said when she launches it and when she sets up evergreen funnels, they both work.
It clearly looks to me like your membership is doing well, it has a great conversion rate when you put it in front of your audience, and people buy it - so why haven't you actually taken the action to scale your membership program?
If you know that you want to get to 100+ members, you know both launches and evergreen funnels work, to me it's a simple proposition of more reach at the top of your funnel equals more conversion into clients at the bottom of the funnel.
What I want you to do specifically darling Claire, is to get clear on what the negative consequences of having 100 members in this program are.
There may be a clue in the last part of your question, which was about creating some more pre-recorded self-study content.
That gives me a clue that potentially you're worried that if you have more members coming into your membership, you're not going to be able to handle all those extra members. You're feeling like maybe there's something that isn't scalable on the inside of the program. The marketing of your membership is completely scalable, so for me, the first thing to look at is not reach or conversion, it's actually mindset.
Is it because you feel too busy?
Is it because you feel like your marketing strategy is too busy right now?
Why haven't you put in some really strong scalable strategies to get your launches in front of more people?
The most simple and obvious way to scale this membership is to simply put more money into your ad spend when you are launching, or put more money into your ad spend on your evergreen funnels.
Your homework for this episode is to deal with those mindsets things, and have a think about what the negative consequences may be.
You might think that there aren't any negative consequences and you want 100 people in your membership, but there's a reason why you're not scaling it.
I find it's always best to spend some time getting really clear and honest with yourself, and allowing yourself time to really go there.
If you have a subconscious fear that more than 50 people in there at a time is going to burn you out, then that's going to stop you from bringing more people in.
If you have a subconscious fear that more than 50 people in there is going to mean that your older members are going to feel like they get less time with you and they're not going to love it as much so they're going to drop out, then that's something that you need to be conscious of.
We need to bring those thoughts and beliefs to the surface so we can address them - both from a mindset perspective but also from a practical perspective. Is there something you can do to give extra love to people who've been in your membership for over a year?
In the Heart-Centred Business Academy, when I used to run it, I had a VIP level of membership.
VIPs got an extra call every month, so that was how I could reward people for staying a little bit longer, and make sure that those longer-term clients would feel like they're getting that extra time and attention from me without me having to give extra calls to every single person who was inside the program.
Have a look at those negative consequences, deal with any of the mindset or the practical ways that you can address that, then get that ad spend up and let's get more people into Batch It Crazy.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I hope it's been helpful for anyone listening along.
I'd love for you to come and have a chat in the group about this episode. If you're wanting to scale your membership program and yet you're not scaling it, or if you feel like you've hit your limit on how many people you can get in per launch, let's bring this conversation over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group and continue the conversation there. All you need to do is use the #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening episode number 235, and share your questions, comments, aha's, lightbulbs and discussion points about this juicy question that Claire has asked.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/234
In this episode, I'm going to hit you with a bit of a truth bomb, and that is that your ducks will never be in a row... so why wait to start your business?
If you are still waiting to launch your business or waiting to get something sorted before you're allowed to get started, then this is the episode for you.
When I talk to women in particular who want to start a business, I can get really frustrated because there are so many things that I hear these women say that they're waiting for.
Some of those things are valid, but most of them aren't.
What I wanted to do in this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, is break down some of those beliefs about what you need in order to be ready or allowed to start a business, and what else you could do instead.
Let's jump in and look at all of the things that people say they need before they're allowed to start a business.
This is the biggest one that I see.
People don't want to start their business yet because they haven't:
When I first started my business, I just picked a colour and I got started. I had some photos taken by a friend of mine who was a photographer, but to be honest with you, they were totally off-brand with what I was actually going for in the end because my business model and my branding developed over time.
It wasn't until I was several years into my business that I really felt like I found the right branding. In the meantime, I'd made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Instead of waiting to find the perfect branding and then starting your business, what if you first started your business and got a deeper understanding of your niche and what you want your brand to stand for. Then go and create that branding with a great provider that you can pay for with the profits from your business, and who can give you great advice on how to really connect with your audience.
I have so many people that have already started their business, yet they're still not out there talking about their services. They're still not actually taking action and moving forward because they feel like their messaging is off, they need to find the perfect message first and THEN they'll be able to grow their business. They feel that they need to find those perfect words, that perfect catchphrase, have that perfect sales page or elevator pitch, and once they figure that out, then they're allowed to have a business.
Speaking purely from my own experience, I didn't know what my messaging was going to be when I first started my business. In fact, I had a very different niche and very different ideas about what I needed to say in order for people to understand my work and what would be of value to them.
The best way to make your messaging really resonant and stand out to your audience is to start talking to them sooner rather than later.
Instead of waiting to craft the perfect theoretical message, and then getting out and starting to talk to your audience, why don't you just go and start having conversations? This will help you to understand how your audience describes their challenge, what your audience is looking for, and how you can speak to them in a way that really resonates.
That's another way that you might be waiting for all your ducks to be in a row before you're allowed to start a business.
As you can see, you don't actually need it to be perfected before you get started.
I've even had members of my programs and VIP clients who have come back to me and told me that they haven't done certain things in their business because someone said that they need a website before their business can actually be legitimate. All of these beliefs that you have to have a website in order to seem legitimate or to be allowed to get your business off the ground and started are ridiculous.
I've been very open about my own journey with this, but it's not just my experience in relation to having a website.
One of the great examples I would give is a person who's in the Take Off program, who has now just surpassed a $15,000 month in her business. She's been in business for more than three years now and she still doesn't have a website. She simply has a Facebook page, a way for people to pay her and a way to reach her audience through Facebook.
You don't have to have a website in order to have a business.
Of course, a website is brilliant as a foundational part of your marketing, but wouldn't it be awesome if you could pay for that website out of the profits of your business? Wouldn't it be awesome if you created that website once you'd worked with a few clients, so you had absolute clarity about what you needed to say on that website, and what your content needed to include in order to really resonate with the right people?
My first website said nothing. It was pretty and it was very professional, but at the end of the day, it did nothing to get clients into my business. In fact, it took over a year for me to make a sale on my website. All of my sales in my first year of business came from social media and having conversations with people.
You don't need a website.
I see this one happen in so many different ways.
Some people say they need to get their list to 1000 people before they start promoting products or services. Some people say they need to have 1000 followers on their Facebook page, or that they're just going to do a bit of Instagramming and get their followers up first because that creates the social proof and then they can start selling things.
Basically what you're saying is that you need to have an audience before you're allowed to start your business.
That's not actually true.
You could build your audience with thousands of people who aren't your ideal client and who aren't ever going to buy from you if you don't actually get started building your audience through the lens of building your business.
If you separate those two things out, chances are, you're going to have an audience that loves you and loves what you share on social media, and you're going to have your niche - the people who are actually going to buy from you - and they're going to be two very different groups of people.
Instead of thinking you need to build the audience first, build it as you go.
Instead of thinking that you have to hit some certain number before you're allowed to grow your business and before you're allowed to start selling things, focus on what the audience is that you have access to today, and how you can sell to them.
One of the beautiful ways that you can do that is actually through existing communities.
I facilitate the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, and in that community, there are over 33,000 women, and I openly encourage them to promote to that audience. You don't need your own audience, I'm going to let you have mine. I'm going to let you join the Heart-Centred community, become a member and contribute to that community, and you can promote to that audience.
You don't need to wait to get 1000 followers on your own Facebook page, you can promote to existing audiences when it's done really well.
This could look like needing:
This one doesn't happen as much these days. I think people are really starting to see that there are so many opportunities online. It's really easy to buy an audience and it's really easy to buy fame if you want to, and that doesn't necessarily mean you have a legitimate audience anyway.
I do see it a little bit more in the influencer space - attaching your success to someone else saying your product or service is a good thing. Some think that if that person would just endorse it, then everything would be okay.
Speaking from experience, both myself and many of my clients in the Take Off program have been endorsed, have had that media coverage or have had some level of fame that doesn't necessarily equate to business success.
Of course, there are ways to create momentum from that, but if you haven't been growing your business before you get that coverage, then chances are that when you do get the coverage, people are going to be seeing copy, messaging, imagery, and even products and services that don't necessarily resonate.
I always say that your audience will never be as small as it is today. Now is the time to get started on experimenting with your messaging, your content, and your products and services because when you test them on a smaller audience and then scale, you're scaling something that you know works.
I know that there is a lot of security and safety that comes from knowing you've got your expenses covered for six months before you start your business. I know there's a lot of security that comes from being able to invest in a $25,000 mastermind as your starting point into your business. And I know many people who are still saving so that they can start their business.
I totally understand where they're coming from, and I totally understand different people's needs for different levels of security. But I also know that for a lot of people that I speak to, that requirement for having savings in the bank, needing to have more money set aside, needing to have $25,000 to invest in a program because that's how they're going to succeed, is actually stopping them from taking the powerful action that would get them growth in the first place.
You might feel like you need to quit your job and just be in your business full time in order for it to be able to start, but most of the people that I've worked with actually started their business on the side of a job, or they started it during maternity leave, or whilst they were still working in a family business.
I know that that was because I come from a massive baseline level of privilege, in that I was university educated and I had a handsome six-figure salary. Even if I spent six months trying to grow my business and ended up $15,000 in debt having tried, my worst-case scenario was going back and getting another consulting job.
I had a lot of security, even though I didn't know what the job was that I would fall back on. Even though I didn't have savings, I still had a lot of privilege in that space to be able to do it.
I believe when you're first starting a business, even if you've just got an hour a week to put into it, there is always something that you can do.
The reason why I encourage people to just get started immediately is similar to the whole principle of investing. The best time to start investing was ages ago, the second-best time is right now.
It's exactly the same with starting a business. The best time to start an online business was probably five years ago, but the second-best time to start a business is today.
The reason why is because those actions that you take today, will have compound interest effects on your results in years to come.
Similarly to that compounding interest effect, it is so powerful to make small decisions and take small actions on a consistent and regular basis.
You're going to make more money from compounding interest, if you are investing $10 a week for years and years, then if you have a big chunk of money and you just have it sitting there and you never contribute again.
I'm not talking about giant big actions that you need to take. It can be as simple as opening up three spaces a week to work with clients, and investing an hour a week in marketing and admin.
It doesn't have to be massive.
Those little actions that you take now will have such a compounding interest effect on your business growth.
In the short term, you're bringing in clients so you've got income, you're testing your messaging, and you're working with people who can help you refine what it is that you offer.
In the long term, you're growing your audience, and nurturing and warming that audience up so that when you do decide to go more fully into your business or scale things up a little, you're not starting from scratch, you're starting from a really solid platform.
The whole reason for me doing this podcast episode is to encourage you to know that there is always something that you can do to get your business started sooner rather than later.
Join a couple of Facebook groups, do the bare minimum activities to try and make a couple of sales. Prove to yourself that this business is viable, that there is an audience for the work that you're doing and that you are someone who can do a little bit of work consistently to grow this business.
If you do want to get this business off the ground and you're done with waiting for your ducks to be in a row, I have a beautiful free resource for you.
It goes for just over an hour, and what I do in that is break down the myths about what you need in a lot more detail and give you a step by step strategy to actually get your business started the fast, simple, easy and lazy way.
Go and grab the free resource here: tashcorbin.com/fasttrack
As always, if you've got any questions or lightbulbs that have come up for you as a result of listening to this episode, head on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, and let me know you've been listening to episode number 234. If you're ready to stop waiting and you just want to get your business started and make a public declaration that today is the day, then go and use that #podcastaha in the Heart-Centred group and share your commitment with us.
There are thousands of women waiting to cheer you on and share your excitement for finally getting started.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
In this Spotlight episode of the podcast, I am interviewing the one and only Leonie Dawson.
Leonie Dawson was the second Australian woman that I ever discovered as an entrepreneur when I started my business. I started following Leonie back in 2014, and it has been an epic journey ever since.
In this interview, I get to peel back the curtain and ask some really juicy questions about the success of her multi-million dollar business over the years.
Leonie also shares her wide range of freebies which can be found here: leoniedawson.com/free
And if you want a quick summary, I’ve even popped some key points below. ENJOY!!!
Leonie has a wide range of free goodies on her website, from colouring pages to marketing workbooks and so much more.
You can find it all here: leoniedawson.com/free
Make sure you come and share your questions, comments and light-bulb moments over in the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs community using #podcastaha and the episode number (233).
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/232
In today's episode of the podcast, I'm going to help you identify your target market.
If you're really struggling with how to make the decision about where to niche or who your target market should be, this is going to be a great episode for you.
Before we jump into how to decide on your target market, let's get really clear on what your target market actually is.
Target market is another way of describing your niche. Your niche or your target market is the specific group of people you focus on when marketing your business.
They are focusing on all of the people they could help, or the people who could really benefit from their services. They're focusing on all the people who could experience a great shift if they were able to work with them.
At the end of the day, that is not a niche and it's not a target market. When we are growing our business online, we need to be very conscious and very selective about a specific group of people that we are going to focus our marketing activities towards.
The reason being is that we have never had the capacity to expose our businesses to as big an audience as we do today. Due to that and the fact that we're competing with a lot of noise on the internet, we need to be able to create deeply resonant messaging and offers that have people feeling so certain that that's what they need and that they want to work with you.
In order to achieve that, our messaging needs to be relevant, tangible, specific and deeply resonant.
There is a marketing phrase that says that if you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to nobody.
That is more true today than ever before.
In addition to that, if you try to speak to everybody, your messaging is very fluffy, it's usually very high level, the examples that you give could apply to anyone and therefore you are not stopping the scroll and your messaging just doesn't hit the mark for people.
When it comes to growing a business online, niching is a critical foundational decision. In fact, it's one of the first foundation decisions that we need to make, especially if you're going to market online.
If you are stuck in a geographic location and you're working with people who are physically located near you, then that is a niche decision that's kind of been made for you because you have a geographical location as part of your niching.
If you are able to work with anyone around the world, that is when it is even more critical for you to be very specific about who your niche will be.
With this episode today, I have a very special resource for you.
In that training, I walk you through in a little bit more detail why niching is so important, what a niche is, what a niche isn't, and the five most important niching decisions that you need to make when you are marketing online. It's specifically to marketing services online.
I won't repeat all of that training in this podcast episode, but I do want to encourage you if you've never watched my Nail Your Niche training before - or it's been a while since you've watched it - to watch that training specifically.
To add to that training and those five niching decisions, in this podcast I wanted to give you some prompts on how you can decide what your niche is.
It's all well and good to know what the decisions are that you need to make about your niche, but how do you actually make that decision?
I've got four things that I'm going to give you today that are going to help you to make that decision.
If you've been through the same journey that you are now facilitating as a business owner, then you when you were first starting through this journey could be what your niche is.
Let's say you were in chronic pain and you discover this beautiful healing modality. You taught it to yourself, you healed yourself and now you teach that modality to other people so they can heal themselves as well. That means that your niche and the decisions that you make about what your niche might look like, could be you before you discovered this particular modality.
That can absolutely be a way to make your niching decisions easier.
Just pick you from however many years ago, and look at what your situation was back then. That can definitely be one way of making a decision around your niche.
It's better to start with something than to start with nothing.
If that's a starting point and you end up refining it later, that's absolutely brilliant.
When I first started my business, I thought I was going to be career coach (but that didn't last very long), and then I knew I wanted to work in entrepreneurship, businesses and teaching people marketing online. I initially just looked around at who my friends were and what they had in common.
Something that I noticed, was that I absolutely adored creative people - artists, people who did handicrafts, sewing, making amazing mosaics, pottery, artworks, all those things.
In my friendship circles, the people I hung out with in my old job, and in my family, I connected with a lot of people over arts and crafts. I really adored crafting myself - I wasn't an artist but I was definitely a crafter.
I knew that that particular subset of people in my life really struggled with the business and marketing side of making a living out of their arts and their crafting.
That's the niche that I actually chose.
It wasn't a me five years ago thing, it was the people I absolutely adore hanging out with, and I knew that putting my skills with their amazing talents would create incredible results. That's how I made those niching decisions.
Look at people you adore and people you really want to hang out with. Why shouldn't your business be filled with people that you love hanging out with and spending time with?
I think that's a really beautiful thing.
I'm definitely this kind of person these days.
As soon as I started my own business, I was a convert. To every person I spoke to who was complaining about their work, I'd just tell them to quit and start a business. My friends would get so frustrated with me and I would get so frustrated with them while trying to tell them what they're missing out on and that they need to just start a business, forget working for someone else, screw the corporate structures and smash the patriarchy.
I would get so passionate about having a business and entrepreneurship.
Even now to this day, when I find out that someone is a business owner, an entrepreneur, or they're giving something a go themselves, I just love and adore them.
I went and had a blood test at the doctor's surgery a few days ago, and the nurse asked me what I did for my job, so I said that I work with people online, I have my own business, and I teach social media, marketing and sales strategies to people online.
I gave her the laypersons explanation of what I do, and she told me that she's just set up these Airbnb's in our local area, and maybe she should go and follow me because she doesn't know how to spread the word about them. And I got so excited for her that she was embarking on this opportunity to create some form of other income outside of her work and be in business for herself and she was wanting to learn about social media and marketing.
I had to bite on my tongue to not offer to have a coffee catch up with her where I could teach her everything I know over coffee because I'm just so passionate about that type of work.
You might find that there is a certain person or a certain type of thing that you get so passionate about that whenever anyone says any inkling of an idea that they might be interested in that as well, you just completely latch on to it and get really passionate and ranty.
That's definitely a space that you might want to be niching in.
At the end of the day, it is better to choose and pivot than to not choose and keep going round and round in circles and staying un-niched.
The longer you stay un-niched with your marketing and messaging online, the longer it's going to take for you to develop a bigger audience, get your conversion working and really get that resonant messaging so people want to buy from you.
Hopefully you've found these beautiful tips helpful for how to select and make those decisions around who your target market or your niche will be.
As I said, make sure if you haven't watched it before, come and check out my Nail Your Niche training.
If you have had any lightbulb moments or questions as a result of reading this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to episode number 232 and tell me what your insights are, if you've got any follow up questions, or maybe if this has helped you to make that niching decision.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/231
Today's episode of the podcast is one of our Q&A episodes, and I have a brilliant question from Nicole, who's asking for help on pivoting her niche and what to do with her existing audience when she does so.
If you're doing any adjustments to your niche or messaging, this is going to be a great episode for you to read or listen along to.
This brilliant question comes from the fabulous Nicole Moorey, and you can find out more about Nicole at nicolemoorey.com.
Nicole asks:
"Hi Tash, I'm excited to be narrowing my niche to wellness entrepreneurs, etc. as per your recommendations. This new niche represents only a small portion of my existing vaguely niched email community. How do you recommend I pivot my messaging and marketing in a way that gently and kindly lets my existing community realise I'm pursuing a new direction - whilst also helping my new niche? Some of them have been loyal friends and followers for a few years, so I want to be sure to make this change in the best way possible for everyone."
First and foremost, I want to say to Nicole that that is so beautiful.
I think for most women entrepreneurs, our desire not to exclude anyone and our struggles with niching can sometimes come back to our feelings and experiences on the playground where we didn't get picked for something or we were excluded.
I think it's such a beautiful thing that you are thinking of your audience at this time, and you're wanting to bring them along on the journey with you if it's the right fit, or let them go gently if it's not.
I've got some ideas for you, Nicole, on how you can really make this transition as easy and gentle for your audience as possible, bringing along the right people and gently letting go of the people who may not be a fit anymore.
Before I jump into my advice and tips, I want to quickly clarify for anyone who hasn't heard my training about niching before, your niche is the specific group of people you focus on when you are marketing your business.
Your niche is not everyone you could help, your niche is everyone you want to help. Your niche is not even everyone you could market to, your niche is the specific group of people you focus on when you are marketing your products and services - when you are marketing in your business.
With that in mind, I've got five tips for you, Nicole, on how you can start to refine that niche and bring your audience with you.
Those niche decisions that you make are behind the scenes decisions in your business.
You don't ever have to say to your audience, "I'm no longer working with everyone else, I'm only working with wellness entrepreneurs."
But as your business moves forward and you express examples and share content that's specifically tailored for wellness entrepreneurs, then that's going to deeply resonate with those wellness entrepreneurs. For some people, they may realise that that doesn't resonate for them, but for others, it may still be helpful.
Let's say you've got someone who has a photography business, and they've been on your list for years and they absolutely love and adore who you are and the work that you do. Just because your content is now targeted towards wellness entrepreneurs, doesn't mean that that person doesn't eventually want to work with you. It's totally up to you about whether you choose to work with that person or not.
It's not about who you serve, it's about who you focus on with your marketing activities.
You never need to come out of the closet and say that you're specifically working with a certain niche now, but because you incorporate those niching decisions into the way that you message and the way that you market, you are naturally going to start attracting more wellness entrepreneurs into your work.
Your messaging content and offers will simply move the right people closer and not move the wrong people any closer.
You don't need to ever reject anyone when you decide to refine your niche.
All you're going to do is know that you have a content ecosystem that is consistently moving people more and more towards the centre and getting warmer and warmer in your audience. The wellness entrepreneurs in your audience are going to move faster than the non-wellness entrepreneurs because your content isn't designed to move them any closer.
Without ever having to reject anyone, through your messaging, content and offers, you will naturally magnetise those people who fit within your niche, and you'll be less likely to magnetise those people who don't.
You don't ever have to reject anyone.
While someone might not fit that rigid niching that you've now selected (because I do recommend that you make that niching very tight, specific and clear), that doesn't mean that they decide that they can never get any value out of being on your mailing list, following you or even one day working with you.
I've got a great example of this to share with you. I specialise in helping women entrepreneurs who are wanting to start and scale their online business.
I do teach leveraging and launching in my Accelerator, and I teach startup in the Take Off program.
Recently I had a lady reach out to me who's been following me for two years and has a product-based business - she doesn't sell services.
I specifically share content and have courses that help people with that one-to-one service-based type business, and going into one-to-many service type business - selling digital products but not physical products.
But I had this lady reach out to me because she's got to the point in her business where she really wants to start scaling her marketing. Even though she sells high-end products, she reached out to me and asked if she could buy a VIP session with me - despite the fact that she knew I usually work with service-based businesses - so that I could have a look at her online messaging, marketing and channels, and to see if there's any advice that I have.
I had a look at her website, I had a look at what she was doing, and I told her that we should book in a VIP half day so that I could go through and give her product-based business all the help that I could.
If I had looked at her website and thought that I couldn't get her the return on investment because it wasn't where I specialised, I could have referred her on to someone else.
But based on what I saw of her business, I said yes and she's booked in to do a VIP day with me in a few weeks time, and we get to work together even though she doesn't specifically fit my niche.
They get to make the decision, you just want to empower them with all of the information that they need to make that decision.
If someone doesn't specifically fit your niche and they decide they still want to work with you in some way, or they want to pay you for your services, or they still want to be on your mailing list because they're getting little dribs and drabs of great information here and there - that's totally their decision.
I know that I have a lot of people on my mailing list and who listen to my podcast every single week who do not fit my niche. They made the decision that it was worth their time, energy and sometimes money to invest in learning from me because they got so much value out of it, even though maybe they don't necessarily fit my specific niche.
That's their decision.
That's not my decision to make for them.
You could decide to just keep staying un-niched for the next two years and continue going round and round in circles and not really resonating with anyone with your messaging. But you've made a decision that by getting specific, you are going to be able to sell more effectively and deliver more effectively for your clients.
I just wanted to do one tip in here to check-in and make sure you're viewing this as a positive thing, not only for you but also for your audience.
At the end of the day, your decision to niche is actually a decision to accelerate the growth of your business, but also be able to serve the people you do want to work with, much more deeply and much more effectively.
Because of that, it means that really at the end of the day, everyone is a winner.
If they are within your new refined niche, they're going to get much deeper, much more specific and much clearer support from you, as well as much higher quality content.
If they aren't in your niche, they get to make the decision of whether they stay for the content that you are delivering, or if they should unsubscribe and unfollow to save themselves some headspace.
It doesn't need to be a harsh decision, it doesn't need to be a big piece of rejection for people, it doesn't need to be a hair tossing storm on their way out, it can actually be a really beautiful thing and a positive move.
I want you to view this positively because I see it as a very positive move for your business.
Nicole, I know you've been to my niche training and know what I'm talking about when I say remember your golden nuggets.
I've got a resource for you below so you can go and watch it, but in summary, what I mean by gold nuggets is think about yourself when you're niching as really focusing on a very specific tunnel.
You're tunnelling really, really tightly with the smallest tunnel you can choose because that means you're going to move through that tunnel faster.
What happens when you're tunnelling and you've got a very specific niche, is that if you have someone who doesn't fit that niche ask to work with you (like my beautiful product based lady), that is like having a gold nugget fall out of the ceiling of your tunnel.
You're tunnelling through with this very specific niche, and a gold nugget falls from the ceiling and into your lap when someone who's not in the tunnel comes to you.
At that point in time, you get to decide: Am I going to keep this gold nugget? Am I going to say yes to this client and work with them? Or am I going to hand this golden nugget over to someone else?
Sometimes I have people who come to me who don't fit my niche and they ask me to help them, and I tell them that I don't think that I'm the best person for the job and I point them in the right direction of someone who could help them much better. I hand that golden nugget over to someone else and I keep tunnelling with my very specific niche.
If that tunnelling analogy has piqued your interest, I have a great free resource for you.
In this training, I:
You can find that beautiful Nail Your Niche training here: tashcorbin.com/webinar
Nicole, thank you so much for your question and thank you to everyone for reading along. I hope you found this episode really helpful as well.
If you'd like to submit a question for these Q&A podcast episodes, simply go to tashcorbin.com/question, pop all your details and your question in there and I will answer it on the podcast in coming episodes.
Please come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, using #podcastaha share your aha moments and any questions that you have about this episode of the podcast. Let me know you've been reading podcast episode 231 and we can talk about this further over there!
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/230
In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you feminine time management strategies that boost your productivity.
Traditionally, when we think of things productivity and time management strategies, we can associate them with jamming more things in and really hustling. Getting up at 4am, getting stuff done before the kids wake up and the sun wakes up and even while the early birds are still sleeping. Do more!
Productivity was about jamming in as much as possible. It was about making sure that you extracted every possible inch out of every possible second.
Time management strategies were not about how to make things easier or more effective, time management was all about how to make sure you can do 100,000 things in four minutes a day, and jamming as many of those four minute increments in as you could.
What I have discovered, and something that I've had to detox myself from, is just how masculine dominated those productivity and time management strategies are, and how much they can really drain my energy and end up being really ineffective for me.
It is by embracing a more feminine energy orientation towards time management, productivity, and getting results in my business.
I believe that we are a balance of masculine and feminine energy, and I 100% believe that we want to keep those things in balance.
I'm not saying it's all just the feminine energy or it's all just the masculine energy, but for myself, I know that with the corporate background that I have, my experience of my education - being in high school and particularly in university - I have been really focused on those masculine dominated time management strategies.
I do need to detox from some of that programming that says that the masculine orientation is the best way to do it because I know for myself that that just isn't the case.
My question to you is: What if you could achieve more and have better outcomes, but do it in less time and with less work?
One of the big things I want to say before I even jump into my time management strategies with you, is to just notice how you feel when I say a word like 'easy'. How much have we been told that easy equals wrong? That easy is the cheat's way?
What about how you feel when I say the word 'lazy'?
What about the word 'fun'? Can growing a business, being productive, getting work done and getting results be fun?
They are the three words that I focus on whenever I'm going for a big goal.
Easy, lazy, fun.
ELF is my little acronym for it.
With ELF, I'm able to pay attention to my thoughts and feelings about those words and look for ways where I'm making things hard, where I feel like I need to look like I'm really diligent, and where I'm sucking the joy out of the thing that I'm doing.
I've got five tips for you on how to really embrace more feminine time management strategies and boost your productivity.
I don't know how many times I was told this and how many times I brushed it aside because I believed that I was a really productive person so I could have a longer list.
I know from experience that having a longer list overwhelms.
Having a longer list makes you less productive.
Think about it: If you are looking at your to-do list and there are 100 things on it, and you get 6 done for the day, do you feel like you've totally smashed it and nailed it for the day? Or do you feel like you've only done 6% of your tasks and that's not very good?
On the other hand, if you had a list of three things to get done for the day and you get them all done, how do you feel at the end of the day? How does that translate into your energy the next day?
Often we have a very short term focus when it comes to our to-do lists, and we overestimate what we can achieve in the short term, and underestimate what we can achieve in the long term.
This is because we have giant to-do lists in front of us and we only ever make tiny, incremental progress in those giant lists, comparative to the number of tasks that we've given ourselves.
Go through that list of things that you have been transcribing from page to page to page in your to-do planner, and start crossing some of those things out.
Which of those things are just not a priority right now?
Some of those things might need to be put somewhere else. You can outsource them to someone else, or you can put them in your toy box to play with later because it's not a priority for you right now.
Some things you might need to have on your urgent to-do list and get them done.
But I challenge you to get really honest with yourself about how critical it is for that thing to get done today.
What are the chances you are going to have a successful day and tick it all off? What are the chances that there's still going to be something left at the end of the day?
Every day when I write down my to-do list for the day, I write a to-do list that I have 100% confidence that I will absolutely smash. Usually it's three or four things.
If I finish it early and I want to go and play with some other things, I've got plenty of options lurking away in my toy box and in other spaces. I can also take things from the next day or from future plans and get some things done early.
But when I keep my to-do list small, I absolutely nail the productivity thing because I am in momentum. I feel successful and that feeling creates a snowball effect of its own.
If I'm not experiencing that feeling that I nailed it today at least four days a week, then I end up feeling like I'm behind and like there's so much to do.
That feeling creates more of it, and it snowballs its own feeling.
Make your to-do list smaller and start saying no to things.
Sure it might be nice for you to jump on and do that free interview, but it's not a priority for you right now. Yeah, it would be great for you to create a new freebie and a welcome sequence and an upsell, but right now your focus is on getting sales conversations and having connected conversations with people.
The other thing that I see when people have their to-do list far too big, is that they choose the things that aren't actually going to move them forward.
When I challenge you to get to the four most important things you need to focus on, then you are going to have to focus on the things that are going to move you forward.
You can't get distracted by those one percenters. You have a very small number of things that you're able to write onto your to-do list, so you have to pick the ones that are going to have the biggest impact. You're also less likely to avoid those things by distracting yourself with the other less important things that are on that ginormous list.
Make a smaller list and say no to things.
Give yourself space to:
One of my experiences in the corporate world that I had, was when I was in a consulting role and one of the things I had to do for each project was an end of project report.
In most cases, we would be allocated two days of time (16 hours) to do that end of project report. I actually ended up getting in the habit of taking those two days as work from home days when I knew I had that report to work on, and I would get that report done in two or three hours.
But it was two or three hours at the end of each day.
I'd do my work from home day, and I would batch cook up some beautiful food, get my laundry done, tidy the house and do some painting, and then I'd sit down for a couple of hours at the end of the day and really smash out that report.
With that space of playfulness, tidying and moving my body, I was actually getting that report clear in my mind.
I am a very spatial bodily thinker and processor. By doing that, I was able to craft an end of project report that would normally take two days of sitting at my desk staring at my screen, in two or three hours.
The reason why I started doing this at home was because when I was in the office and I was on my two days of report writing, I would get in so much trouble because I would be distracting people, and I'd be staring out the window telling people to look at something outside because I wasn't actually in the right space and I hadn't done my processing to write out the report.
If I sat there and forced myself to stare at the computer screen, I couldn't do it.
I'd get in trouble sitting at my desk distracting everyone - helping someone with something, going and tidying the kitchen and coming up with ideas for a social event for the workplace - so my boss would have to tell me that I had to stop talking to other people. She actually moved my desk so that I would sit and I wouldn't talk to anyone else. (Even though talking to other people was mostly helping them... well sometimes I was distracting them). I would sit staring at the computer screen with this blinking cursor, and I'd just be looking at a white page. I would be staring and I could not get it clear.
When I decided that I'd work from home instead and I gave myself that freedom and that space, rest and creativity, then the two hours that I did put into report writing were effortless.
I know that I'm the same with my business.
For three hours before I sat down to record this podcast and a couple of others that I've recorded before this one, I was out walking in town, having lunch, and just giving myself some spaciousness. I knew which podcast episodes I was going to be recording, and the spaciousness allowed me to remember of the story of being at my desk in my consulting role, and that's how I decided I'd share that in my podcast today.
I know for myself that if I give myself spaciousness before a big task, I get that task done more efficiently and more effectively.
These days, I record my podcasts in a single take mostly off the cuff with a couple of points that I have on my screen. But I can only do that if I've had space.
If I force myself to try and record podcasts between busy, busy, busy, busy, I stumble over my words, I can't process it properly, and I can't string my two sentences together without making lots of mistakes.
Give yourself rest, playfulness and creativity.
I have another cool story for you on this one, and this came out of a conversation I had with an amazing lady called Aesha Kennedy. If you don't follow Aesha, please do go and follow her, she's brilliant.
I was talking to her about creative outlets because in 2017 when I did a big review of my business, I had 37 different products and services that people could buy.
Through a conversation I had with Aesha about this, I recognised and realised that what I was doing was funnelling all of my creative energy straight into my business, and in doing so, I actually broke my business.
If I had given myself a creative outlet outside of my business during the two years before 2017, I have no doubt that I wouldn't have tried to get that creative energy from my business, and I wouldn't have tried to use my business as my only creative outlet, thus feeling like I'm constantly in this space of needing to create things for my business.
The reason why this was something that happened for me was because at the time in 2016 and 2017 in particular, I had huge goals for my business, and I wanted to be the most productive that I could be.
If I was to decide that I'd spend three hours playing with some paints and mucking around, I couldn't justify that time.
But it's easy to justify creative time in your business because it could make you money, it could get you followers, and it could grow your business.
There's using your business as a creative outlet, and then there is using your business as your only creative outlet.
By giving yourself space, having rest, and especially by having creative outlets and social outlets other than your business, the time that you spend on your business can be focused, much more effective and more likely to get you results.
I speak to so many creative entrepreneurs and so many women who talk about the fact that they need to create six different programs because they need to express their creativity. They need to write a book, they have to have events, they have to do this and that, and they label themselves as multi-passionate.
I honestly believe if you want your business to grow exponentially, quickly, easily and effortlessly, you need to be really specific, narrow and hyper-focused.
For many people, the best gift you can give your business is getting your creative outlet in other spaces, so that your focus in your business can be refined.
Many of the behaviours and habits that we get into in our business come from programming.
I know that if I work on my business and do some social media stuff sitting on the couch, I feel like it's not as productive as when I'm doing it at my desk. But sometimes I do just need to go and sit on the couch.
When I am working on web pages, design or those sorts of things, my favourite way to do that is in the recliner, legs up, with my little lap table and just playing with things in that position. That is actually a really productive time for me to be doing creative things.
I love getting down on the floor and working as well. Sometimes I'll feel guilty for sitting on the floor and working, and it's because of this programming telling me that I need to be sitting at my desk and working in a certain way for it to be productive time.
If you've got someone else in your home or someone else who's witnessing you, and you are doing something that doesn't look like you're being productive, sometimes we can do productive things to keep up appearances.
Something that I like to do every single day is to step outside, get my feet in the grass and play with Munchkin, and I noticed - especially at first - my thoughts about worrying that someone would see and think I'm bunking off and not being productive in my business.
It was so fascinating to just pay attention to those thoughts, concerns and worries that I had about productivity, time management and what I should achieve in a day.
I'd tell myself that I couldn't take time off because I was launching, or I couldn't go to the movies during the day because I needed to be really focused on a certain income goal. But in fact, the opposite is true for me. If I go to the movies during the day, I have a really productive morning and a really productive afternoon because I know I'm going to the movies in the middle of the day.
A project will expand to take up the time that you give it, and 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort.
When you have limited time to work on your business, and you have a four dot point to-do list, that means you're going to focus on the 20% of things that get you 80% of your results, and you're going to get them done really quickly because your project can only expand to the time that you give it.
For me, I know that if I'm out walking every day, looking after my body, taking time to go to the movies, and finishing early three days a week to spend time with my partner, I'm actually more productive. I'm more effective.
The measure that I have for my business success is not focused on how many things I can get done and tick off my to-do list, the measure of success in my business ultimately is: How much money does my business generate, and how many people can I serve?
If I can do that in an hour a day, why not do it in an hour day?
Why is it more worthwhile if I've worked hard for it?
That is all programming and we need to pay attention to those thoughts and feelings.
This is probably the big one for me with productivity.
When I had big projects to achieve in corporate and when I had big deadlines coming up, I would eat terrible food, work long hours, give up my exercise, sleep less, drink less water and drink more coffee and alcohol.
At the time, it was very short term focused - I just had to get the thing done and smash it out. But I have no doubt upon reflection, that if I'd kept my boundaries about my work time, if I had looked after my health and wellbeing, if I drank lots of water, not resorted to coffee and alcohol, and not skipped the exercise, I would have actually still been able to meet those deadlines.
I would have still been able to achieve those goals.
Again, it's this programming of 'If something requires my effort, energy and attention, I need to stop looking after myself. I need to sacrifice some things.'
For me, the things that I cannot sacrifice anymore and I refuse to sacrifice because I know that if I do, it actually makes me less productive are:
Those things are just non-negotiable for me now because I know that when I get those things and when I really look after myself, that's when I get the best out of myself anyway.
When I'm launching, I go for two walks a day instead of just the one. I ramp up the nourishment, the timeout and the fun, because that gets me better results.
The outcome that you're striving for is not working 16 hour days - that's not why you started a business.
You did not sign up for this so that you could work really long hours and burn yourself out.
Why did you decide to start this business? Why are you going for the goals that are going for right now? What is the outcome that you are chasing?
The fastest, most effective and productive way for you to achieve that outcome is not burning yourself out, it is by really making sure that your time management and productivity strategies are a balance of the masculine and the feminine.
For 90% of the people I talk to, the thing that they need to work on is bringing up the feminine and reducing some of the masculine. Whipping yourself into shape doesn't create sustainable long term productivity outcomes.
I was talking to someone a couple of days ago, and she had set herself a goal of a $10,000 month. When she'd set that goal, she'd mapped it all out specifically with what clients she was going to get, how she was going to sell her course for $150 and do this launch, and on the second last day of the month, she had someone getting in touch with her who was interested in getting her services with some consulting and doing a VIP package with her. They wanted to get her doing two months of some very specific work absolutely in her zone of genius, and their budget was $10,000.
We were having a conversation about it because she said for two days, she was ummming and ahhing about whether to take on the project or not, not because she wasn't really sure if she wanted to do the project, but because she already had a plan of where that money should have come from. She didn't realise that what she was doing was trying to stick to the process, instead of just being clear on the outcome.
In the end, she was so excited to take it on, but initially she was resisting it because it wasn't the hard work that she had thought she was going to be putting into place.
If your goal is to bring in $10,000 and someone decides that they want to gift you $10,000, do you brush it aside and say that it doesn't count because you want it to come from a certain thing?
For most people, when it comes to productivity and time management, they're not focused on the outcomes they want to achieve, they're focused on the hours that they want to work. They're focused how many hours they want to work and what they want to get done in a certian amount of time.
They're focused on the inputs and the outputs, and they're not actually focused on the outcome itself.
Get clear on the outcome because at the end of the day, if you can get to that outcome the easy, lazy and fun way, then why wouldn't you?
To recap, my time management strategies and tips are:
1. Create a smaller to-do list and say no to some things
2. Give yourself lots of space for rest, creativity and processing
3. Pay attention to those thoughts and feelings, and notice where your programming is telling you that you need to work harder
4. Nourish yourself
5. Get clear on the outcome that you are aiming for
This is going to be a really juicy conversation for us, so I'd love for you to come over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, let me know you've been listening to episode number 230 and share with me any lightbulb moments or questions that you have about feminine time management strategies and boosting your productivity.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/229
This is a very special episode of the podcast as I'm joined by Tammy Guest in this Spotlight interview.
In this interview, Tammy and I talk about the new opportunities that are arising in the online business world, particularly in the health practitioners space.
Tammy also shares her free checklist How To Pivot To Online Consults Checklist. You can access this freebie at tammyguest.com/online-consults-checklist
"I'm learning to fly helicopters and I really feel like there are so many lessons in things that you are most fearful about.
Whether it's tech, whether it's taking that next step, pulling away from the computer or the textbooks and actually doing the webinar that you want to do, or whether it's turning a helicopter into wind and flying up really high, or turning the engine off and hoping that it'll come back on at the bottom of an emergency landing.
You're not going to know until you do it.
You need to feel the fear. Because it's scary as. Even just signing up for a free program or something - it's kind of scary!
Do it anyway. Feel the fear. You're not going to know unless you cut the engine and see if it comes back on again.
The thing that gives you the jiggles, is the thing that is pushing you right up against the edge of your comfort zone. That's why you're jiggling so much because you haven't been there.
You can either contract back in and stay the same with the same old results, or you can jiggle your way through it, feel the fear do it anyway.
There will be something on the other side of it, and no one can tell you what that is until you go through it." – Tammy Guest
There's a massive shift in the online space for practitioners in particular.
If you're a practitioner who's reading along, Tammy has a checklist that's specific for you. It will go over the essentials you need to successfully transition to online consults and virtual practice
It's super easy and you can download it here: tammyguest.com/online-consults-checklist
Make sure you come and share your questions, comments and light-bulb moments over in the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs community using #podcastaha and the episode number (229).
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/228
In today's episode, we are going to be answering the question: Where do you go to get help when you're first starting a business? And how can you launch that business really successfully?
This is going to be really pertinent for those of you who are in the early stages of business, and who are really wanting to make sure you're getting to sustainability and profitability in your business quickly.
When it comes to starting a business - and especially one online - there are so many options. There are different options around:
You can often get into the space of not knowing what to do because you've got too many options in front of you.
Who do you turn to for help? How do you decide where you're going to get your startup advice from?
Especially if you're looking to hire a mentor, work with someone, buy a course, or have someone help you with this process. How do you choose someone that you are going to invest in working with?
What I wanted to do today was break it down into six pieces of the decision-making process, and why I think these are really important for startup especially.
Before I go through these six decision points, I also just want to start by saying that I think it's important when you're in startup to not have too many experts that you're following at once.
Yes, I think you should explore when you're first starting out, to look for all the possibilities of who might really resonate with you, who's a great mentor, and who could really help you who specialises in your industry. But then I think it's important to make a decision and really focus down rather than overwhelming yourself and spreading yourself thin.
I know a lot of women who followed fifteen to twenty different people in startup, and all that did was left them going round and round in circles because sometimes the advice they were getting was conflicting. Sometimes the priorities were conflicting too. All of the mentors said that you need to grow your list, but some said to do it early and some said to wait until you had your messaging clear. All of that confusion just winds up with you doing a lot of work but not making a lot of progress.
So yes, explore. But I think when you're in startup, it's important to just really focus down on working with one to three mentors maximum in a range of different ways if you want to, but really keeping it quite narrow.
I made this mistake. The first ever person that I discovered who helped people starting a business is the person I paid US$4,000 to because I didn't realise how many options there were out there.
At that point in time, I was working in corporate, I wasn't really on social media that much, and I had had limited exposure to the business coaching world, business mentoring, and particularly people who helped startups.
I came from a consulting background, so the types of business consultants and business coaches that I saw in my industry really worked with large scale organisations and mostly production-based organisations - factories, manufacturing and all of those sorts of things.
Take some time to explore at first, and don't just sign up with the first person that you like or the first person that says something that resonates with you.
I think it is important to have a period of exploration and just getting to know some people.
When you are listening to this person's podcast, how does it make you feel?
When you go through the email sequence of getting to know someone and signing up for something of theirs that's free, how does that email sequence feel?
What language do they use when they're speaking to you?
Do you feel empowered in that process? Or do you feel like you're so far behind, you're totally freaked out, and there's no way you're going to succeed unless you hire that person immediately?
If you don't like that experience or if that experience leaves you feeling a little bit uneasy or traumatised, then chances are, you're not going to implement what they teach you because you're not going to want to make other people feel that way.
Whenever I'm looking to work with a mentor, buy a new course, buy a membership program, or jump into a mastermind, the first thing that I do is observe their strategies. I go to someone's podcast, I go to their website, and I sign up for two or three different things.
Over the next few weeks, I observe what that email onboarding process is like, and how that person makes me feel. If I can go to a webinar or a challenge, or listen to a video training of their's, I will do that as well, to see how much they truly put into their content and how much they're just using it as a long-winded fear-inducing sales process.
If they do that to me, then I'm not going to buy from them.
Often, the success that those people have achieved is because they have wholeheartedly adopted a fear-based marketing practise - even if they don't realise that they have.
A lot of people have learned sales and marketing from other people who've built it on fear-based marketing, and those people have learned it from others.
I've seen marketing coaches and people who are mentoring in business, and they claim that they don't teach fear in the sales process and that they do it as an empowered and feminine sales process. But when you see what it is, it is completely using neuro-linguistic programming, and manipulative fear-based tactics to get you to buy what they want you to buy. They just don't realise it because they're not discerning as to what they're doing to people in their sales process.
Do you feel like you can do this and that you're so excited to be there? Or do you feel like you HAVE to buy something in order to be able to make it?
That's a big indicator of how they're going to teach you, and therefore the way you are going to make your audience feel as well.
This is a little bit controversial, but it's so important that you are working with business strategies, mentors, programs, and courses that are appropriate for where you are now, not where you want to be.
I understand that it would be magnificent for you to have a $25,000 ads budget, a team of ten people and to be able to have a 100K launch in the next couple of weeks - I totally understand how amazing that feels.
But if you still don't have clarity on what your business model is, your ideal marketing strategy or you don't have the budget for that, then signing up to work with someone who expects you to have that budget and who expects you to have that level of support, is actually going to create a big gap for you that you're not going to be able to fill.
I've even had it myself where I've facilitated some more intermediate and advanced programs and masterminds, and people have joined and said that they're not there yet but they're going to work really hard, catch up and do all of the things that I'm teaching. Most of the time, I'm able to say to them that it isn't appropriate for the stage of business that they're at and redirect them somewhere else.
But sometimes I haven't even known.
I once had someone join a mastermind of mine, and she lied about how much income she was bringing into her business because she thought she could make the big leap. When it came down to it with the strategies I was teaching and the things that we were trying to do, she didn't have the solid foundations to actually get the results. We ended up having a conversation and she moved into something else with me.
They WANT to be ready to sell, promote and launch courses, they WANT to be ready to invest thousands of dollars in Facebook ads, and they WANT to be ready to hire a team of six people, but they're not ready and they buy programs that are too far beyond their stage of business.
Jumping into advanced programs is going to really highlight the holes in your foundations if you are still in the early startup stages of business, and if you don't have:
I have people come to me about the Take Off program in particular. They say that they've been in business for 18 months, so they're not really in startup and don't need help starting a business. They say that the Take Off program isn't for them, but when I ask a few simple questions in regards to where their clients come from, how many followers they have, and how often they send out their newsletter, it's clear to me that they don't have any of those foundations in place.
I have to stop saying that the Take Off program is for startups. Instead, it's really about nailing your business foundations and getting you to the point where you're making that consistent 5K - 8K a month.
Many people want to believe that they're not in startup anymore, but really, they are in terms of building their online marketing system, building their presence online, and nailing the attraction and conversion strategies for their clients.
I want to encourage you as much as possible to work with mentors who specialise in helping you where you are. NOT pretending that you're miles ahead because you think that you can leap into that without having those foundations in place.
When I'm joining a program, I always ask:
Sometimes I've been sold things where they tell me that it's for every stage of business, and then I jump in and they're operating from the assumption that everyone can spend $4,000 a month on Facebook ads.
When I joined that particular program, I had no budget for Facebook ads.
I could maybe spare a couple of hundred dollars, but I didn't have consistent clients yet, so how was I supposed to find $4,000 a month? The program was only $1,000, and yet there was an expectation I was spending multiple thousands of dollars a month on Facebook ads.
When I asked the person before I joined the course what the prerequisites were and what I needed to know, there was no mention of the fact that I was going to be asked to spend $4,000 a month on Facebook ads. AND they had a 60-day refund window, but you had to show the receipt for Facebook ads that you'd spent over $5,000 on Facebook ads in the 60 days. How is that a refund window? Anyway, that's a whole other conversation.
Make sure to ask these questions first:
This point is a range of different things that you just want to consider depending on your specific situation.
For example, if you are a health practitioner, you might want to work with someone who specialises in helping health practitioners.
Especially in the world of psychology and other specific medical spaces, you need to have certain things in place. There are certain rules that apply to you in your marketing, such as not being able to use testimonials or not being able to advertise in certain ways.
If you are starting a network marketing business, find someone who's actually a specialist in helping people start a network marketing business, because usually you have regulations and rules to follow. You can't promote on social media or you can't talk about certain things on social media.
It's best to work with someone who is familiar with your industry as a minimum, but also if you can, someone who has success in your industry. This may make it more effective for you getting that help starting a business.
If you are starting a product-based business and you want to sell physical products, I'm not the right person to mentor you in your startup journey.
Of course I can help you with some of the social media stuff and you can listen to my podcast because most of this can be applied to service and product-based businesses. But I tell people not to join the Take Off program because it's specifically about selling your services as a coach, mentor, trainer, web developer, graphic designer, etc.. It's about selling services and moving into digital products eventually - like courses and memberships and those sorts of things - but not physical products.
You want to make sure that if you're going to work with someone, you understand what their specialisations are so that you have that information to decide whether they're going to be the right fit for you.
You can also look at things like their results in their own business, results of their clients, social proof, testimonials, and those sorts of things. Although I give about a 0.5% weighting to social proof results and testimonials these days because a lot of coaches are out there telling people to fake it.
It was very disappointing, but I even discovered that someone was saying that they'd made $100,000 in sales for the month, and when I reached out and congratulated her saying that she could buy that car she'd been wanting, she told me that it was actually that she got a free spot in a $50,000 program as a deal for letting someone into her program so it wasn't actually cash. I was shocked that she was out there saying on social media that she'd achieved something that she hadn't actually achieved.
I don't pay a lot of attention to results, social proof and those kinds of things.
If I can see someone that I know has done that program, I'll reach out to them privately and ask what their experience was, and I'll ask very specific questions. I won't just ask what they thought of it, I will ask questions like:
Especially if the person is an affiliate for it, I don't just ask them if they liked it because it's in their best interest to say that they loved it and it was amazing - but they don't actually tell you what they did.
I asked someone recently what they thought of a program, and they said that it was amazing and they loved it. Then I asked my more specific questions about how long it had taken this person, and they said that they only did the first two modules but they really loved being in the community and surrounded by amazing people. And for me, that wasn't what I was looking for.
I was actually looking for some step by step guidance.
If you're going to ask someone about it, ask the key questions so that you can get some really useful information about whether it's the right fit for you or not.
This is the final piece of advice that I have about getting help starting a business.
For example, I am a raging extrovert and quite happy on camera. Some people come work with me because they're the same and they know that they can work with me. They know that the strategies I teach them are closely aligned with who they are and what they can do.
But I also have a lot of people who come to me as a business mentor because they are the opposite. They are introverted, and they're not as confident on social media. They want to expand their comfort zone and experiment with some more forward-facing, video-based strategies.
I want you to just take some time to reflect: Are you looking for someone who's really similar to you so that you can model what they've done and design your business in the same way that they've designed theirs? Or are you looking for someone who's a little bit different?
This is where I think having one to three people that you follow closely in your startup journey and that maybe you work with, can be really helpful.
That can be really helpful to give you that balance and nudge you out of your comfort zone. But also, make sure you've got someone you can model from who is more aligned with who you are, and how you are going to show up as well.
As a little bonus on this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I have a free resource for you - especially for those of you who perhaps need help starting a business or getting those foundations in place.
When I say starting out, I don't mean you've been in it for 10 minutes... I mean that you still don't have that consistency of your processes in terms of marketing online - you haven't got the results, and you don't have the scalability.
In this training, I take you through the key foundations that you want to actually get implementing as quickly as possible, so you can start making money quickly in your business.
By doing this and getting that money in quickly, you can then make some decisions about the model, the messaging and the niching, because you've got those solid foundations in place.
As always, come over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, and let me know that you've been listening to episode number 228. I'd love to know: What are your questions, lightbulb moments or decisions as a result of reading this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast?
Something I haven't done consistently on this podcast is asking you to review the podcast as well. If you can find the review section and give me a review (making sure you let me know who you are so I can give you a shout out), that would really help me to get this podcast in front of other people.
It's how people get to find the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, and of course, it always gives me some really good warm fuzzy vibes when I get people's review and feedback on the podcast as well.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/227
In today's episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I'm going to be answering one of your questions. I have a fabulous question from Ali, who asked how to be more consistent on social media the easy and lazy way.
This question was submitted by the fabulous Ali Bengough.
Ali is the face behind Ali Jayne and you can find her at facebook.com/alijaynecoach.
Ali's question is:
"Hi Tash! Do you have any tips on how to create a social media ecosystem the easy and lazy way, such as with batching? I find the consistency difficult to maintain, particularly when I need substantial time to retreat and recover my energy when dealing with heavily emotional client work. Thanks so much!"
Thank you, Ali, for this question. It's something that I get asked quite regularly, and if you haven't already checked out my previous Q&A episode where I answer a question about social media for introverts, I think that that would be a great one to check out as well.
For you Ali, I have six specific tips on how you can be more consistent on social media in a way that feels easy and lazy, and allows you to really enjoy it as well.
If you absolutely adore being in Facebook groups and engaging with people, then make that the core part of your strategy. If you love doing little snippet videos, then do that. And if you love having deep and intense one-to-one conversations with people, you can do that on social media.
What we want to do is actually create a social media strategy that plays to your strengths and really lights you up so that you can be more consistent on social media.
Social media is social.
Whether what you love is:
You can totally do any of those.
Find the social media strategy that brings you the most joy.
Don't just come from a place of wondering how much this strategy will make your business. If you don't enjoy your social media strategy, we're going to pick up on that energy. If you're just dialling it in, thinking about how much hard work it is and that you don't want to be doing it, we're going to pick up on that in your language, in your tone and also in the energy behind your posts.
Enjoy your strategy.
High conversion strategies require you to be in front of fewer people because you don't need to reach as many in order to get the conversions that you need for business sustainability and success.
A high conversion strategy would be showing up in a couple of small groups where you can step up, be a leader, and be known for your business in that particular audience and get lots of referrals from that space.
That way there's a high level of people knowing, liking and trusting you, and there's a much higher conversion rate because people are feeling very connected to you.
Something like inviting people to send you a private message and taking the conversation one-to-one quickly, working with a few people and talking with a few people but doing it all one-to-one, is much higher conversion than just broadcasting onto social media over and over again.
By bringing together point 1 (find your joy) and point 2 (find a way to make it high conversion - and therefore you don't have to reach as many people) you'll be able to make it as easy as possible.
There are many people who can help you with batching your content and scheduling it up. You don't even need to do the scheduling part yourself.
But if you're doing it yourself for now, set aside a small portion of time once a week or once every two weeks or even once a month, where you schedule up one post on your Facebook page per day for that period of time.
If you're scheduling things up once a month, then schedule a post for each day for the next 30 days.
Something nice and simple that helps you to make it as easy as possible and allows you to be more consistent on social media.
Not all of your content has to be written exactly on that day and published organically on that day.
You can batch and schedule up some content.
I find this is really helpful for people who do intense work such as yourself, Ali. Sometimes it's three or four days in a row where you just cannot be on social media and you really need to retreat.
If you've scheduled things up and you know that at least your minimum posts are going onto social media, then you can do that without guilt or worry.
Your minimum posts are going up, you don't have to panic too much, and everything is taken care of.
Sure, it would be better if you could show up and be present with your audience more consistently. But if there are times when you need to retreat, you can do so with confidence and without feeling as though you're sabotaging your business by taking time off.
That's the last thing we want you to feel when you are looking after yourself.
I think this is where a lot of people get drained by social media. They are on social media eighteen times a day, scrolling randomly, replying to that one message from someone, looking through their notifications, and they don't have boundaries or structure around the way they are on social media.
I separate my business time on social media from my playtime on social media.
In my business time on social media, I usually dedicate about 25 minutes a day, where I have a set list of things that I do, and I don't divert from that plan.
I will check any messages and respond, I will reply to any notifications or comments I need to reply to, and then I will jump into my own Facebook page, see what's going on and see if I need to do anything organically. I'll jump into my own Facebook group and do something, and then if there's time in my 25 minutes (which there usually is) I can also jump into a couple of other Facebook groups, share some posts in there as well, cheer a few people on and do some commenting.
If I've done that 25 minutes - and I try and do it as early in the day as possible - the rest of my time on social media is joy time.
I'm consistent, I'm there for 25 minutes a day, five days a week - I'll usually have one day on the weekend that I skip and one day during the week that I skip - and I'm consistent, but I'm very boundaried with that time.
Whilst the kettle is boiling, if I choose to also scroll through social media, see what everyone's up to and message a few friends, that's my playtime. That's personal time. It may be that some of the things I do in that playtime overlap with my business, but it's extra, and it's not a minimum requirement. If I don't do it, I don't have a problem with that because I have met my minimum requirements for the day on social media.
Be consistent on social media, but be boundaried about it.
Outsource as soon as you can.
Especially when you are batching up content and someone else can do the scheduling for you.
My first ever Facebook scheduling hire was someone who I paid US$8 an hour through Upwork and I hired her for two hours per month.
It cost me US$16 per month to outsource my content scheduling onto my Facebook page to someone else.
I still made the content - I was in that stage of creating videos, making little boards in Canva and writing up all of my content. All I did was just send the person a spreadsheet with all of the information in it - dates, what they had to post, and where the link to the image or video was if they needed it - and they did the scheduling part.
At first, it took me longer to set up that system than if I had just kept scheduling it myself. But I knew if I created a little system and I got it working at least efficiently enough that I could hand it over to someone else quite quickly and easily, that that would pay dividends in saved time and energy over and over and over again.
Setting up the spreadsheet and filling in the content probably took me two or three hours the first time, and then it got quicker and quicker and quicker, but the whole time, my US$16 per month stayed stagnant.
I was putting less and less time into my social media, but putting the same amount of money and getting much better results from that consistency.
Make sure you outsource as quickly as you can, get into the habit of creating systems and processes for yourself because it's actually in that structure that you will find so much freedom.
I can jump on video and talk as much as I like. It doesn't drain me, in fact, it really energises me. So to me that feels way easier than writing out 100 posts for 100 days.
I would much prefer to show up on video more consistently, than show up with written stuff, writing long-form captions and all of those sorts of things.
90% of what I do on social media is whatever was easiest for me at the time.
It is allowed to be easy, and that's often a mindset issue more than a strategy issue.
You think in order for your social media to work well, you have to:
That is just not true.
20% of what you are doing is getting you 80% of your results. You just need to know what that 20% is, and make sure that that's not the part that you skip when you feel like just doing the minimum.
If you're just doing the minimum, do the 20% that gets you 80% of your results.
That's usually the high connection, high conversion strategies, and being very present with your audience.
There's absolutely no need to overcomplicate it.
I hope you found that helpful, Ali and everyone else reading as well.
To summarise, here are my six tips on how you can be more consistent on social media the easy and lazy way:
Please come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, and let me know you've been reading episode number 227. I'd love to know which of those six things you are going to try in the next few weeks to make your social media strategy easier, lazier, more fun, more joyful and more effective for your business because you're able to show up more consistently when you find the easy way.
If reach and conversion are areas you’d like to focus more on, and you do a lot of selling on Facebook (or if you’d like to), I actually have a free resource for you.
This is a free training that helps you to make more money from Facebook by getting better rates and better conversion.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.