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The Four Things You Need To Do Before Marketing

By: Tad | Published: October 28, 2017 · 1 Comment

If you’re struggling with your marketing, it’s likely because of things that have nothing to do with marketing.

If you can’t seem to make the tactics you’re using to promote yourself work, it’s likely not about the tactics.

In order for your marketing to work, there are things that need to be done first. If marketing is the house, then there are foundations. If marketing is the skin, then there is a skeleton.

When people lack those foundational pieces they struggle in their marketing and can’t complete most of the online marketing courses they sign up for.

I asked my friend Rebecca Tracey of TheUncagedLife.com (who has appeared on my blog before) to make a video about this to share with you what she sees as the four biggest things the people need to do before they do any marketing at all. The video is about 14 minutes and it’s well worth your time.

I urge you to check out her program if you’re a coach who is struggling to grow their business. I’ve sent a lot of clients to Rebecca over the years and there’s been nothing but rave reviews. I love this woman dearly and deeply trust her perspective on growing a solid, sustainable business using realistic approaches.

If you’re interested in her program you can learn more at the links below.

Affiliate Link: https://theuncagedlife.com/uncageyourbusiness/ref/127/

Non Affiliate Link: https://theuncagedlife.com/uncageyourbusiness/

When To Ask For Help

By: Tad | Published: September 6, 2017 · Leave a Comment

“I think I’ll try to handle this and figure it out on my own.”

Well, hey . . . Amen.

This is how I’ve done most of my business. I’ve bootstrapped it and, for the most part, not spent money I couldn’t afford to spend. Sure. If you can figure your business out on your own and not spend the money, I would urge you to do that.

But, what if you can’t?

For years, I had a website I was embarrassed by. I kept meaning to fix it but I didn’t know how. Finally, one day, my friend Jaime Almond made me get on the phone with her and, together, over the phone, we built a wordpress website together. And it’s basically the website you see today.

I kept meaning to do it on my own.

But I never did.

I needed help.

Should we be able to do it all ourselves?

I have no idea.

Are we able to do it all ourselves?

It doesn’t seem so.

Modern culture is all about this Lone Ranger, self-sufficiency thing where everyone is an island. It’s the American Dream of everyone pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. And I see that approach keeping so many entrepreneurs stuck at whatever level they are currently at – even if what they offer is really compelling and excellent.

One of the simplest ways to get unstuck is to ask for help by doing a five minute support asking blitz. It sounds too simple but I’ve seen it utterly change the fate of people’s businesses.

However, asking for help and ideas on marketing from friends doesn’t always cut it because your friends likely aren’t marketing experts or anything close.

Worse, they might give you terrible advice that can hurt your business.

The following truisms are so burned out these days that I even hesitate to state them, but they’re still accurate:

if you are a singer, you’d hire a vocal coach.

If you were an athlete you’d hire a coach.

If you were serious about learning any craft, you’d apprentice.

If you were serious about just about anything you would find a mentor or a coach; and yet in marketing our businesses, we often get the impression that this model no longer applies.

You may have heard the theory that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to master something. And for many entrepreneurs, they’ve invested many hours in master their craft but very few, if any, hours on learning about marketing. In other words, they’re an expert in what they do. They’re not an expert in how to market what they do.

These are two distinct skill sets.

And, in business, unless you’re extraordinary at what you do and good fortune introduces you to the right people who talk you up in the right circles in the right moment so that everything grows from word-of-mouth alone . . . Marketing is something you likely need to learn.

If your business is more of a hobby? No need to even think about marketing.

But if it’s a business? Well . . . Of course you need to think, and perhaps even more important, learn about marketing.

It’s not indulgent to get help. It’s not indulgent to get a coach or a mentor in business. It’s important.

I can’t tell you how many people I meet who struggle in marketing their business because they try to figure it out on their own. It’s most of the people I see. I see the difference even a one day workshop with myself or others makes in their marketing approach. Huge blunders are avoided. Thousands of dollars are saved that would have been spent on the wrong thing (or even the right thing at the wrong time).

If you want to grow, you need help.

A good mentor or coach can shave years off your learning curve.

But, how do you know when it’s the right moment?

First of all, it’s important to know which of the four stages of business you’re at. If you’re at Stage One then it’s natural and important to be experimental in your approach. Sometimes you need some time to just noodle around and figure some things out on your own (such as, “Do I even want to be in business?”). Unless you’ve got a very deep clarity inside that this business is the one you want to grow, it’s a fine thing to give yourself time to test out your ideas in small, low risk ways. Before you start a business, you might just host a workshop in your living room. You don’t need a marketing coach for this.

Second of all, some of your issues can be handled by doing a five minute support asking blitz. Truly. Just doing a Facebook shout out can handle more issues than not.

But, if you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve asked for as much help as you can think to ask for an you’re still stuck? If you’ve been plateauing for months if not years? It might be time to spend the money to hire someone you trust or invest in your marketing education in other ways.

But, even so, it’s vital to get the right kind of support. In my experience, there are a series of steps that need to be achieved and it’s important to know where you are so that you get a support that meets you there. I’ve seen people spend thousands of dollars on workshops that were three steps ahead of where they were and so they weren’t able to apply it.

Here’s what I see.

What Kind of Help To Get When: The Three Phases of Growing Your Business

Phase One: Marketing feels gross. This seems to be the primary place people feel stuck. Even the idea of marketing is abhorrent. As long as this is true, I don’t care what they try to learn, they likely won’t do it. They’ll avoid it. This is what I cover in my Marketing for Hippies 101 workshop.

Phase Two: Niche. Once you’re okay with the idea of marketing yourself, then the next question becomes, “What am I marketing? And to whom?” or, “What is the role I want to be known for in the marketplace?” I see so many people skip this step to try to learn how to ‘get clients’ but, ironically, this makes everything ten times harder. 99% of the problems I see in marketing have to do with a fuzzy niche. True story. It’s so central to growing a sustainable and resilient business that I created a whole website about it, wrote a book on it and launched a home study course about it.

Phase Three: Getting found. Once you’ve got a clear niche, then you’re ready for what most people think of as marketing coaching. This is when you’re ready to learn about social media marketing, networking, public speaking, writing guest posts, blogging etc. But, if you try to skip the first two phases it’s not unlike flushing your money down the toilet. The best approach I know to getting found I’ve written up in my eBook Hub Marketing.

Don’t try to do it all on your own. Get the help you need.

If you’re interested in getting my help, I encourage you to check out my Mentorship Program but, whether or not you get it from me, if you’re serious about growing your business in the next year, I urge you to invest in some help (at whatever level makes sense to you).

Point of View Marketing: Five Case Studies

By: Tad | Published: June 1, 2017 · Leave a Comment

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As I get ready for my next Point of View Lab, I’ve been reflecting on some recent examples I’ve been uncovering with clients.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working with a lot of people around their point of view and I keep being amazed at the power that this has in our marketing.

Whereas niche helps to immediately establish relevance, point of view establishes credibility.

Niche gets them in the door but point of view convinces them to stay.

The pay for the niche. They stay for the point of view.

I see it all the time. People figure out what they want to do but then realize how much competition there is.

They become a life coach, yoga teacher, permaculture practitioner etc. and then they realize how many other people there are offering the same things. They decide to sell Spanish galleons and then go down to the harbour and see hundreds of other people selling the same thing.

One of the things that can differentiate you from others doing what you do is your approach to it; your take on it.

It took me over a decade but I finally realized that my core message was that “Marketing can feel good.”

So simple and yet my entire daylong workshop is based on it.

We’ve been diving into this a lot in my Mentorship Program.

One of my clients in that program, Alysa, helps people with chronic pain. Her particular angle is the emotional aspects of chronic pain and how to live a full life in spite of it. During one of the calls she shared her idea for a URL: www.PainIsNotTheProblem.com. I loved it. The website isn’t ready yet, but the core POV here is very strong. She’s offering a whole other approach to dealing with pain by suggesting that, in terms of your quality of life, pain is not the core issue.

Another participant, Pamela runs her Brave Love programs and, while working with her on her POV, this gem emerged: “you must be willing to risk every relationship if you want truth and real intimacy.” What a mind bomb. In order to have a real relationship you have to be willing to risk it? Every time? That, without the willingness to risk it it will never become what it could be? More than anything she wrote, this grabbed me.

When I asked Pamela about the impact of doing this POV work she said, “It grounds me in something I know for sure. Between the risking and the not jumping ship, I find that everything I do revolves around these core beliefs. It is empowering and exciting to uncover what I’m all about.”

18342682_10155165607550586_8481781063627981696_n Another participant Karen uncovered the overlap between Sex, Love, Genius and represented it in this venn diagram. She’s written more about it in this article.

When I asked her about the impact, she said, “For me I’m surprised at how it makes people connect with me. I’ve had a close colleague contact me to want to know more about what I do…and then the new client yesterday who just easily invested in a 6 month 1-1 commitment because I’d spent so much time articulating a POV that resonated with her. That it has a shocking effect of really drawing people closer.“

Outside of my Mentorship Program, I worked with a fellow Michael Talbott-Kelly whose work is built on the foundation of this idea: your problems have a purpose. This idea that every symptom we have in our life carries with it a message for it, that our symptoms are purpose-driven not random happenings to us. Looked at in this way, our symptoms happen for us not to us.

And then there’s Brad and Andy of The Great eCourse Adventure who I spent a day with delving into their point of view around helping people develop home study courses. We talked about a lot of things but, the strongest thread I saw was in their realization that most people never complete the home study courses they sign up for. As a result of this, they don’t get the results they paid for. As a result of that they don’t rave about it to their friends. Word of mouth is the dominant force in marketing and when people have a mediocre experience with something they don’t talk about it. Brad and Andy realized that the best way to make your home study course profitable was to make sure your course was worth sharing. And so they created an entire site dedicated to making their case around that point of view called coursesworthsharing.com

On the surface, these phrases and ideas might not seem like much and, the truth is that, on their own they aren’t but they can open the door to a fresh perspective that they’d never considered before. Each of these people would be able to stand up in front of a crowd and unpack and articulate these simple ideas for hours revealing layer upon layer like Russian stacking dolls.

I believe that an intro workshop can and should be based around simple and clear ideas like this. A distinct, clear and compelling point of view. Something provocative.

You can read more examples of people with a clear point of view here.

Want help crafting your unique own point of view?

Here are three options:

OPTION #1: Join my next POV Lab. It’s a 30-day program for twelve people where you will be guided to dig deep into your own unique perspective and be asked over and over again why you do what you do the way you do it. This includes a lot of handholding and feedback. You can learn more here: marketingforhippies.com/povlab

OPTION #2: Get my Point of View eBook. This is my treatise on the subject and includes an incredibly useful workbook. You can get your copy here: marketingforhippies.com/povbook

OPTION #3: Get my workbook Don’t Market Yourself, Market Your Message. This is a sister piece to my POV eBook. You can get your copy here: marketingforhippies.com/messageebook

Helping The Helper

By: Tad | Published: May 25, 2017 · 2 Comments

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Sometimes you’ve got to ask yourself, “Who is it that’s helping the one I want to help?”

Sometimes your target market isn’t who you think it is.

Famously, FedEx made the mistake of thinking that their clients were the CEO’s of companies when, of course, it was actually the secretaries and executive assistants who would be using their services. Marketing to the CEO’s failed. Marketing to the administrative staff succeeded. The most brilliant ad directed to the wrong person is doomed to fail.

A colleague of mine, a copy-writer, ran into a problem one day. His wife had come up with a relaxation CD for stressed out brides. He’d written the copy himself. It didn’t sell. He asked high-priced colleagues of his to help him out. It didn’t sell. He was flummoxed. When I looked at the situation, it seemed to me that he had his ladder leaned against the wrong wall to begin with. What bride is so self aware to realize she’s becoming a ‘bridezilla’? How likely is it that, in the midst of the madness that is modern wedding planning, that she would look for a relaxation CD rather than downing a bottle of wine or getting a massage.

Does that mean it’s a terrible idea? Not necessarily. It might just mean that the bride’s mother or the bride’s maids might have been better target markets.

Sometimes you’ve got to ask yourself, “Who is it that’s helping the one I want to help?”

A client of mine works for a mental health organization in a major city in Canada. They would do talks at Universities about mental illness. I suggested that he might get a stronger response if he did a talk about, “How To Help Your Friends Who Are Struggling With Mental Illness,” because those struggling are unlikely to show up at a talk when they could just watch a youtube at home.

Sometimes you’ve got to ask yourself, “Who is it that’s helping the one I want to help?”

Another client of mine is a death doula in Toronto with a background in Non-Violent Communication (NVC). She wanted to work with the dying but those dying are unlikely, in the turmoil they are in, to reach out and hire themselves a death doula. And, how would you market to them without it seeming crass?

I suggested she create a workshop about, “How To Be With Your Loved Ones As They’re Dying,” in which she could tie together her background in NVC, empathic listening, healing and her death doula work.

“If you do that,” I suggested. “You might find that these people want to hire you to support their families in helping them out as death begins its courteous but unwanted approach to their loved ones.”

A client who helps people with chronic pain realized that a target market for her might be caregivers to those who are in pain. If you help people with cancer, surely you could create a workshop on “How To Support Loved Ones Struggling With Cancer”.

Sometimes you’ve got to ask yourself, “Who is it that’s helping the one I want to help?”

And then sometimes those people will connect you with the ones you really want to help.

“What are your favourite books and authors?”

By: Tad | Published: April 24, 2017 · 2 Comments

20343649 - old books on a wooden shelf. no labels, blank spine.

This is a simple question that I’ve asked more times than I can count of clients to help them clarify their point of view on an issue: “What are your favourite books and authors?”

Now, when I ask this question, I’m not asking generically. I’m asking it in the context of the work they do. I’m asking them, “Look, you help _____ kinds of people get ______ kinds of results. Who are the authors, what are the books you’ve read, that have most formed your opinions around this all? What are the books that you wish your clients would read because they best express your take on things?”

What I’m trying to get at with this question is a more clear understanding of how they see things.

I’ve had so many clients tell me that their ideal clients would be ‘spiritual’. And I have no idea what they mean by that. I could ask them to tell me their entire cosmology but that’s often a convoluted and nebulous affair. So, instead, I ask them,

“What are your favourite books or authors on this spirituality?”

And you can tell a lot about how a person sees and defines spirituality by their answers:

“The Celestine Prophecy, Conversations With God and The Four Agreements.”
“Loving What Is, Feeding Your Demons and Debbie Ford.”
“The Course in Miracles, Marianne Williamson and The Disappearance of the Universe.”
“Doreen Virtue and Louise Hay.”
“Iyanla Van Zandt, Oprah Winfrey and Rev. Michael Beckwith.”
“The Secret, Greg Braden and Deepak Chopra”
“Black Elk Speaks, Vine Deloria and Leanne Simpson.”
“The Bible, Thomas Merton and Jim Rohr.”
“The Tao the Ching.”
“Rudolph Steiner, White Eagle and books on Theosophy.”

Each of these compilations gives us a very different picture of what they mean by ‘spirituality’.

My colleague Kel Wil of Showgirl Awakening gives a wonderful example of this on her homepage when she says:

I have a special place in my heart for women who yearn to trust & express themselves with confidence & radiance, who light up whenever they see the intersection of art, psyche and spirit, are drawn to Hafiz & mystic poetry, into typing systems & self-knowledge systems like Enneagram, Archetypes, Astrology, Oracles & Tarot and whose attention is rapt when they read or listen to Ane Axford, Angeles Arrien, Caroline Casey, Sarah Peyton, Cynthia Winton-Henry, Phil Porter, Hafiz, Khalil Gibran, Carl Buchheit, Andrew Harvey and Francois Delsarte and who have well-worn copy of Women Who Run With the Wolves.

What can you do with this list?:

Put Them In Your Homepage or Bio: This list of influences (and, of course, we could ask the same question and have it be about documentaries, websites, blogs, podcasts etc.) could be shared on the About Me page of your website to help people get a sense of where you’re coming from (this is surprisingly effective at helping people figure out if you’re a fit or not). This gives people a sort of mosaic, at-a-glance view of your perspective. They can connect the dots. And, if they’re also into those particular influences, they will be leaning towards working with you.
Use Them To Find Hubs: You could also look at each and ask yourself, “Where might I find people who share my interests in these kinds of books?” This could reveal some hubs you’d not thought of before. Perhaps there are book clubs, MeetUp groups, or bookstores that focus on those particular themes.
Reach out to them directly: You might be surprised at how accessible certain influencers are. You might be able to foster a relationship with them. Perhaps you could interview them or they might interview you.
Use This List to Hone Your Point of View: Sit with this list and ask yourself, “What’s the perspective that these all share? What are the points of overlap? How do all of these authors see _____ issue that I agree with?”

Additional Resources:

Point of View Marketing – Tad Hargrave

Everything I know about marketing in a single sentence

By: Tad | Published: February 13, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Before someone buys from you, everything in the following sentence needs to be true (and true in the order it appears in this sentence):

There’s a result clients crave that they believe can be attained, and they believe you can help them attain it better than others.

So simple.

Of course.

But we often miss pieces of this in our marketing.

I could even distill that sentence down into three words: relevance, credibility, value.

All too often, we don’t identify and directly name the problem we’re solving (or result we’re offering) and so people don’t see the relevance in what we’re offering.

We ignore the fact that they may be in a state of learned helplessness about solving their problem. They might not believe it’s possible for it to be solved at all. Period.

They might have gotten comfortable and feel like solving this problem is a could but not a must.

They might believe that it can be solve but not trust that we can solve it.

They might trust that we can solve it but not be convinced that we’re the best option for them.

If you’re trying to market to someone to convince them that you’re the very best there is at solving a problem they don’t believe is solvable, you will get nowhere.

Obviously, our ideal clients, the bullseyes, are those for whom that whole sentence is true. But that’s a very small number of people indeed.

And so, we market. And so, we educate. And so, we build relationships. Sometimes fruit takes a while to ripen.

Danny Iny does brilliant work in this in helping his clients create what he calls a ‘Demand Narrative’ for their launches.

His premise is, if people believe that solving their problem or achieving a certain result is impossible, then the first stage of your marketing must focus on making the case for them that it is, indeed, possible for it to be solved.

Below are five questions that can help you think this through…

Q1: What is possible for them they didn’t think was possible for them before?

Remember: it’s not the first time in their life they’ve thought about this result.

They’ve likely daydreamed about it for years and reality has ground them down. They’ve tried to make it happen and failed. Now they’re resigned. They believe that this isn’t possible to achieve or, at least not for them.

The more specific the result is that you’re offering, the stronger the response will be.

Q2: What evidence can you offer that this is possible?

Case studies and stories are a fine way to do this. Show them how people just like them have achieved what they are hoping to achieve.

Verge Permaculture did a brilliant job of this when they created ten short films about their grads. They knew that many of the people attending their Permaculture Design Certifications wanted to make a living with permaculture. So, instead of just writing a sales letter telling them that this was possible, they showed them. “Here are ten of our grads and how they’re making a living with permaculture.” Brilliant.

Another way to do this is to share a clear and compelling point of view about your approach to the problem. This perspective needs to be fresh. It can’t be what they’ve tried before. You need to point to a new mechanism, technology or process that you use when approaching this issue. You’ve got to make the case that you have a trustworthy take on this and some track record in helping people achieve this result.

You’ve got to make the case, if it’s true, that your approach to the issue is new. There is often the possibility of saying something like, “It’s understandable that you never achieved ________ (result) because you never tried/were missing _______.”

Before you sell them on hiring you, sometimes you need to convince them that the approach you use is valid.

Before you try to convince them to get a ticket on your boat, you might need to convince them that boats are the way to go (vs. swimming, airplanes, submarines and, of course, dirigibles).

In the 1980’s, before they could market Apple products, they had to market the idea that you could have a computer on your desk.

In the 1990’s, before they could market Palm Pilots, they had market the idea of a Personal Digital Assistant.

Often you’ve got to market the category before you market the brand.

Before you sell them on getting acupuncture with them, you may need to sell them on Traditional Chinese Medicine as a whole.

Before I convince someone to buy my book on niching, I will often need to convince them that figuring out their niche in the missing link in their marketing.

Before you sell them on your offers, you may have to sell them on the type of work you do, your modality as the transformative approach they’ve been looking for.

Q3: What are the main reasons people give for this result being out of reach for them?

Of course, once people see what’s possible, they will get excited and… then all of the reasons why it might work for others but not for them are likely to appear. It’s predictable.

They’re like to say something like the following to themselves, “Okay, this is possible in general but I don’t think it will work for me specifically because ________.”

And you need to know what these objections are. You need to know what they would put in this blank. And you need to address these candidly and directly.

You need to be able to let them know which of those concerns are real deal-breakers and where they aren’t. Sometimes, they will be right in their assessment. Sometimes, given the limitations of their lives, it isn’t possible for them. And sometimes they are wrong.

Q4: Which of those reasons do you agree with and which ones do you not?

This comes down to sharing your point of view. Your take on things.

Q5: How could they achieve their goals even if ______ factors are present/absent?

Once they are open to the possibility that this result might be possible for them, it can be a good idea to really paint the picture for them of what it could mean to their life if they had it. Tell them the story of what might be different. Do your best to put them in the experience. This might already have been achieved by your stories and case studies. But you can also say something like,

“Imagine it… it’s five years from now and you have this result…” and put them in the experience.

My caveat here: do not over-promise. If that possible future for them isn’t compelling enough without your exaggerating then it’s not worth selling.

When you’re launching something, a basic approach is to simply email your list about it (and I’ve done that plenty).

But the only people who will sign up are those who are those where…

There’s a result they crave that they believe can be attained and they believe that you can help them attain it better than others.

So, a savvier approach can be to create layers of your marketing. Danny calls this Behaviour Based Segmentation.

Layer One: Prove that it’s possible. If they engage with that content (e.g. open those emails, watch those videos to the end, download those eBooks etc.) then you move them to…
Layer Two: Help them understand if it is possible for them. Caveat: Do not over-promise here. Be clear for whom this is a fit for and for whom it isn’t. If they engage with that content, then you move them to…
Layer Three: Help them understand your unique approach to solving the issue and seeing if it’s a fit for them. And, at this point, you can make the offer. They don’t even see your offers in those first two layers. Why would you bother showing someone an offer for whom it wasn’t a fit?

And, of course, this means a lot more planning than most of us do and more tech savvy than most of us might have at the moment (though it’s all learnable).

It means a certain amount of savvy in how to keep track of where they are in their process around grappling with this issue and inviting them to take the next step if it’s a fit.

And, if they go to a video and don’t watch the whole thing? You could send them a reminder to come back and finish it.

The big question is this: Where are they not yet convinced? And is there a case to be made? If not, you can bless and release them. You continue to meet them where they’re at making the case for the things you believe to be true. You never make an offer to them that they haven’t indicated they are ready to receive.

If they’re not interested in the result? They don’t hear from you again about it.

If they haven’t indicated that they believe it can be attained? You never mention the product until they indicate they are open to the possibility that it might be possible.

If they don’t believe you can help them? You focus on building that trust, not pushing your product.

There’s a lot of thought we can put into marketing. But, rather than getting overwhelmed, try this: pick your flagship product or service (just one) and run it through these five questions. See what you come up with and take an hour to consider how that might help shape the way you structure your marketing in the future.

If Your Marketing Feels Hard Then Something Is Wrong

By: Tad | Published: November 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

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Marketing shouldn’t feel hard.

That’s not to say that it shouldn’t take effort. It does.

That’s not to say it doesn’t ask you to hustle. It does.

But it shouldn’t feel like a struggle.

I see so many people struggling to figure out which tactics to use and how to use them.

If your marketing does feel like a struggle, it likely means that some of the fundamentals are missing.

When I see people struggling with their marketing, ninety per cent of the time it’s because they don’t have a clear or well articulated niche. Or, if they have the niching part sorted and their marketing is still a struggle, it’s often because they’re lacking a well-articulated point of view.

If someone have both of those things – a clear niche and a well-articulated point of view – and they are still struggling with their marketing, then the culprit is usually the lack of clear and compelling packages.

If a person has all of the above going on (clear niche, articulate point of view, and compelling packages) and the marketing piece is still not working? Then it’s almost always that that they’re using a “cold approach” to marketing, instead of identifying and building relationships with hubs.

When you’re building a house, it’s only a struggle if you don’t have clear blueprints to work from.

Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.

– Rumi

Three Marketing Lessons to Pull From Rebecca Tracey’s Uncage Your Business Launch

By: Tad | Published: September 7, 2016 · 1 Comment

Rebecca Tracey has just launched her Uncage Your Business program and there are three lessons I think it’s worth taking from it that might be able to help you in your next launch.

1) Use Case Studies: Rebecca did three case study interviews with past UYB Grads. You can watch those here.

Whether you sign up or not, you might consider the power of what she’s done as a marketing technique with these case studies by interviewing people a while after they took the course, so you can really see the results they have gotten over the long term (and not just that post-course glow that most testimonials have).

They show an accurate portrait or what someone can expect with her course – real results for a new business owner. Things like getting your first few paying clients, stopping working hourly and creating leveraged programs instead, and finally having the confidence to tell people what you’re doing in your business.

It’s something you might want to consider doing with your own programs to market them.

Note: Case studies like this are so much more powerful than testimonials because they tell a story. Also, I find that Rebecca’s conversational style in these has them land as more real and authentic that something that’s very well produced. The approach is free (just get on Skype and record it) and down to Earth. Testimonials carry 10% of the impact of these.

Another excellent example of this was done by Verge Permaculture who, instead of making a promo video about themselves made a bunch about the grads of their programs. You can watch them here.

2) Let People Spread Out Their Payments. Rebecca just opened up the possibility of a six-pay, meaning you will be able to pay for the program over six installments rather than all at once. You can take advantage of that here.

So many people don’t offer this up to their people and yet, by offering it, you can get a much stronger response. Try it in the next launch of a program you run – give people the opportunity to pay in terms and you may find that you get a lot more sales than you might have.

3) Provide Pink Spoon Content: You can learn more about Rebecca and her take on things in a blog post I just wrote entitled Eight Business Building Thoughts from Rebecca Tracey. This blog post is full of smaller pieces of content that Rebecca has been releasing throughout the launch as a way for people to get to know her without a huge time investment. This is a solid idea.

Another example of this was created on the fly last month, when I recorded a 12-minute walk-and-talk video with Rebecca while I was visiting in Toronto. Click on the image below to see it. It’s entitled “Summer Tour: Day Two – A Late Night Walk With Rebecca Tracey of TheUncagedife.com”

If people have never heard about you before, it’s foolish to expect them to sign up for your program and spend hundreds of dollars with you. Safety is vital in marketing. The more ways you can give for people to safely check you out from a distance the better.

Of course, there are many ways to be strategic about this. Danny Iny has some brilliant ideas about this that you can watch in the video below.

If you’ve been struggling to get yourself out of the gates in your business, Becca’s Uncage Your Business program closes on Friday. You can learn more about it at the link below:

theuncagedlife.com/uncageyourbusiness/ref/22

Note: The link above for her program is an affiliate link. That means that, if you click on it and then sign up, I will get some money for that. It’s a part of what helps sustain my business and allows me to keep offering my live workshops on a pay-what-you-can basis at this point. I’m grateful for it. And I know the uneasy feelings that people have about affiliate deals. If you’d like to learn more about my approach to affiliate deals, you can read that here.

If you click on the link below, it won’t be tracked and I’ll receive no money if you sign up. Either way is fine. I hope you’ll check it out regardless.

theuncagedlife.com/uncageyourbusiness

Eight Business Building Thoughts from Rebecca Tracey

By: Tad | Published: August 24, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Rebecca Tracey of The Uncaged Life (pictured right) is one of my dearest colleagues. She’s produced solid, reliable content with an attitude and personality that is unique to her.

She’s getting ready to launch her program Uncage Your Business in a few days and I wanted to do the best possible job at introducing her and her content.

So here are eight, big business-building thoughts from her.

The first six are quick, straight-to-the-bottom-line blog posts (I’ve included some teaser text for each of them but you can click on the links to read more).

The last two are videos that require (and are worth) an email opt-in.

Thought #1: Don’t Make A Website for Your Business Until Your Read This

“Unless your business is super solid and you are crystal clear on what you do, who you work with, and how you do it, any efforts to build a website or come up with a great logo are a massive waste of your time.”

Thought #2: 3 Reason You Need to Be Selling Packages

“If you’re a coach or any other kind of solopreneur who wants to be able to work online, you might have heard me bang on and on about how to create your packages for your business. But after chatting with some people in my free Facebook community, I realized that the idea of packages may be new to you, and not entirely clear.”

Thought #3: Why Choosing A Niche is So Hard (and how to make it easier)

“My take on niche is simple. Forget avatars. Forget ideal client. Forget age ranges and demographics. Focus on PROBLEMS.”

Thought #4: Your Message And Why It Matters

“The only way you will get clients is if they can understand what you do and see that it’s something they need. If you can’t describe it or get all wordy and stay with the higher level stuff, no one will get it and their eyes will gloss over and they will head for the drink table before you even finish your 5 min rambling elevator pitch.”

Thought #5: The Best Way to Get More Clients Quickly

“I’m all about the slow build and taking the time to build something solid and sustainable – but I’m also all about paying your rent and being able to eat and stuff. So here’s what I recommend for getting clients right NOW in your business, while you work on the more sustainable methods in the meantime.”

Thought #6: 3 Ways to Sell More

“We have all seen it (and let’s be honest, we’re all sick of it). The vague, wishy washy, “sounds nice but I’d never buy it” kind of offers. The ones promising you authenticity, your best life and business, that promise to help you thrive, or raise your vibration, or find vitality, or claiming they will help you leap over the hurdles in your business (and life!), help give you energy for new possibilities. And so on. Hell, you might even be sick of your OWN packages and descriptions of your services (you wouldn’t be the only person reading this who feels that way). And being sick of your own work is NOT good for business. So how to we clear away all the clutter and actually create packages that offer results, and then sell those packages in a way that actually speaks to people?”

Thought #7 (12-min video): Why you’re not making any money in your business

Thought #8 (20 min video): How I Grew My Business Quickly

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out her Uncage Your Business program.