We’re going to look at one of the hottest “freebies” there is and how it’s being used by one of the hottest teachers I know.
Sage Levine of Conscious Women Entrepreneurs
Sage has created a terrific quiz: What type of Workshop Leader are YOU?
——> CLICK HERE to take the quiz & get the results emailed to you
Sage’s Unique Style
Sage is down-to-earth and fun-loving and quite a bit smarter than your average bear. She focuses her work exclusively on women – even her own team is all women – and she truly believes that a feminine approach to leadership and business can not only transform lives, but indeed, the planet.
Sage loves to travel and she loves philanthropy, so she’s structured her business in such a way that she takes several long trips each year. She’s been everywhere from the Amazon to Africa, and I happen to know that she took her entire team to Hawaii this year – isn’t that cool?
As someone who has built a seven-figure business from scratch, Sage really knows her stuff. She’s a great teacher with a strong business philosophy, and she really is working to make the world a better place.
—–> I recommend getting on her list and taking advantage of her multiple freebies (start with the quiz : )
Sage’s Smart Strategy
A quiz is a fantastic way to invite people into your list. Not only are quizzes FUN, but they have the added benefit of allowing you to learn a lot about your prospects.
Quizzes also leverage one of the most powerful tools in marketing: intellectual curiosity. When faced with a compelling question like, “What kind of Workshop Leader are YOU?” even grizzled veterans like me want to know the answer!
Finally, quizzes are cool because they invite immediate engagement. The sooner you can get people INTERACTING with your material (clicking, sharing, commenting, rating, sharing….) the better off you are.
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
What ONE piece of information would help you communicate more intelligently with your clients? Could you make a quiz designed to elicit that data?
For example, if you’re a health coach, you might want to know more about your clients’ eating habits, so you could create a quiz called, “What’s Your Diet Downfall? Take this quiz to discover the sneaky nutritional habits that are ruining your waistline!”
Or if you were a visual artist, you could create a quiz called, “Does It Have to Match the Couch? Take this quiz to discover how sophisticated an art-buyer you are!”
Even just playing around with this concept can lead to some juicy ideas, yes?
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
—-> And be sure to check out Sage’s quiz and see what you would do the same, or differently!
Yours,
Sam
P.P.S. I am proud to be a friend, colleague, student, Big Fan and affiliate for many of the teachers, writers and healers I’m discussing in this email series. I trust that you will trust your intuition, do your own research and only get involved in things that are right for you. Good? Good. Thanks. – S.
Do you know what the single most important thing is in business?
It’s the same “most important” thing in family, in health and in life.
Relationships.
Your success is almost 100% determined by the quality and quantity of your relationships. If you have good relationships, you can overcome any setback, you can conquer any problem and you can grow faster than you ever thought possible.
As we take this 12-part look at the marketing and business strategies that my friends and I are using, we’ve gotten to one of my favorites: simple partnerships.
So let’s look at a favorite method I’ve created for myself around partnerships:
The Smart Strategy
There are three ways I could better use these Expert Calls, making them more to my advantage.
(Can you guess what they are?)
1) BETTER LIST-BUILDING: I could ask my guests to promote the call to their list, too. That way we would BOTH get some list-building benefit.
2) REUSE THE CONTENT: I could re-package the interviews as a series. I could offer them as “Best of…” recordings, or even repackage them as a podcast.
3) TIT-FOR-TAT: I could ask for something in return. I could ask for my experts to do an interview with me to their list at a later time, or to do an affiliate mailing for me.
But as it is, I’d rather leave this particular series “pure” – it makes it more fun for me, and honestly, I don’t need for it to grow my list or make me more money right now. I may rethink this in the future, but for right now, it’s just a joy.
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
I can think of a few different ideas you could borrow from this strategy:
1) Give your prospects an opportunity to describe their problems and questions in their own words. That kind of market research is indispensable.
2) Start your own interview series. And don’t be afraid to ask “big names” – you’d be surprised how willing people are to be interviewed, especially when it doesn’t come with the provisos of a summit.
3) Take a look at the caliber of your professional relationships. Are you hanging out with “better tennis players”? If not, make it a top priority to seek out a program, organization or society that contains the kind of people you’d like to emulate.
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
Yours,
Sam
P.S. I am proud to be a friend, colleague, student, Big Fan and affiliate for many of the teachers, writers and healers I’m discussing in this email series. I trust that you will trust your intuition, do your own research and only get involved in things that are right for you. Good? Good. Thanks. – S.
Today I want to talk about Summits.
If you’re just joining us, we’re going “backstage” in the world of email and personal development, and taking a look at the business-building methods that some of my best friends and favorite teachers are using, so you can not only benefit from all their fabulous freebies, but you can also start to develop a vision for your own marketing.
I’m going to get underneath the hype and examine each teacher’s:
- unique style
- smart strategy
- ideas you could borrow for yourself
So you can discover what’s going on behind the curtain.
My hope is that this will make you both a smarter consumer and a better entrepreneur.
(Because – like it or not – all creative people are entrepreneurs in one way or another, yes?)
So let’s look a very popular list-building strategy: Summits.
The Manifesting Wealth Retreat
This summit promises that you will, “Discover Your Money Powers, Unlock the Secrets of Living Life on Fire and Design Your Best Year Yet!”
It’s being hosted by Paula Johnson, who’s a very nice Canadian lady with a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology.
—-> Check it the Summit here: https://paulajohnson.samcart.com/referral/JzmlT3J1/418190
The Manifesting Wealth Retreat’s Style
To be perfectly blunt, this summit is perfectly normal. The speakers are of good caliber, the message is good and Paula is a good interviewer.
—> Go ahead and click here to sign up and see what I mean
(Don’t worry – you can always unsubscribe right away – no one minds.)
Manifesting Wealth’s Smart Strategy
Here’s the deal with Summits:
One person (in this case, Paula) reaches out to a bunch of experts (me) around a common theme (in this case, money). She interviews each of us, and we all agree to mail our lists promoting the summit.
It’s a great deal for the organizer, because if you have 20 experts, and they each have a mailing list of 10,000 or more, you are now in front of an audience of + 200,000. Even if only 1% of those people opt-in, you have still grown your list by over 2,000 highly-qualified prospects in one swell foop : )
It’s a so-so deal for the experts. We get to promote our message, and usually get to offer a freebie, so some percentage of the larger audience is now opting in to our list. (I usually get 50-100 new readers from a Summit, which isn’t great, but isn’t terrible, either.) Mostly I do it because I like teaching and I like helping other people build their businesses.
It’s an OK deal for the customers, too. They get access to a bunch of free wisdom and groovy freebies, and, especially for beginners, it can be a terrific introduction into the world of personal development.
If the Summit offers an upsell (and this Manifesting Wealth one does – you can get the recordings and some bonus materials for just $47) then the experts usually get an affiliate commission on those sales. To this day, I don’t I’ve ever made over a hundred bucks on any Summit upsell.
So no one is in it for the money – it’s all about the list-building.
I think the bloom is a bit off the rose for summits these days. Audiences are a bit burnt out on them, and especially the ones with 2-3 interviews a day are just too overwhelming to be consumed easily.
Also, they are a TON OF WORK to put together. Organizing the speakers, coordinating the interviews, creating the copy, making sure all the links work and then making sure that all the experts really DO mail…dude, it’s like herding cats. It’s a big, big job.
There are companies that will “produce” your Summit for you, but I can’t say I know much about them.
Bottom line: it’s a tried-and-true method to build up your email list, but it’s also an enormous amount of effort.
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
If you’re just starting out, then hosting a summit will give you a big boost, and appearing on summits will help you hone your message, practice your interview style and have something different to offer your list. So I wouldn’t say “don’t do it,” but I would advise you to be very clear about your desired outcomes.
I think there’s a lot of opportunity to take the underlying ideas and collaborative spirit behind the Summit concept and do them in new ways… What do YOU think?
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
Yours,
Sam
P.S. I am proud to be a friend, colleague, student, Big Fan and affiliate for many of the teachers, writers and healers I’m discussing in this email series. I trust that you will trust your intuition, do your own research and only get involved in things that are right for you. Good? Good. Thanks. – S.
Today we’re going to look at the brand-new, fresh-off-the-presses lead magnet from the International Institute for Facilitation and Change (IIFAC.org) which I thought would be interesting for you because:
- they are based in Central Mexico (and offer most things bilingually)
- the CEO is a brilliant woman in her 70s who is just starting to really leverage email marketing
- they work predominantly with non-profits and NGOs all over the world
So if you’re working internationally, or are concerned that it’s “too late” for you, or if you work B2B (business-to-business) rather than B2C (business-to-consumer), then this example might be especially meaningful to you,
This is all part of a twelve-day series taking you “backstage” in the world of email and personal development, and take a look at the business-building methods that some of my best friends and favorite teachers are using, so you can not only benefit from all their fabulous freebies, but you can also start to develop a vision for your own marketing.
I’m getting underneath the hype and examine each teacher’s:
- unique style
- smart strategy
- ideas you could borrow for yourself
So you can discover what’s going on behind the curtain.
My hope is that this will make you both a smarter consumer and a better entrepreneur.
(Because – like it or not – all creative people are entrepreneurs in one way or another, yes?)
So let’s look at the way that one of the my all-time favorite people is rocking her business:
Beatrice Briggs of the International Institute for Facilitation and Change
First of all – she’s my MOM!!
Yep.
My mom lives in an intentional community in Central Mexico and she travels the world teaching non-profits, NGOs and for-profit businesses how to have more effective meetings. And she’s in her 70s, whip-smart and fit as a fiddle. Is your mom that cool? Nope. No way.
When it comes to moms, I win : )
Beatrice’s Unique Style
Working with people around “bad meetings” can be challenging, because no one really thinks that their organization can change. People are willing to tolerate bad meetings – its a chronic, low-level pain. So part of Beatrice’s job is to give people helpful tips to improve their meetings and point out to them that with a little bit of training, they could save themselves hours of time while building a more effective team.
Really, she’s teaching leadership and communication skills.
Which means that – deep down – she’s changing lives.
Beatrice is smart, straight-forward and elegant. She is an American who speaks excellent Spanish, which sometimes confuses people, and she loves to dive into complicated problems.
She also loves to write, which has led to her latest ebook: No More Boring Meetings: 21 Practical Strategies for Leaders and Teams
—–> CLICK HERE TO GET HER FREE EBOOK and discover how to make your meetings better
Beatrice’s Smart Strategy
Beatrice collected some of her best articles from her blog and edited them into an ebook filled with helpful advice and action steps. This is a generous “give” to her audience, and a great way to introduce people to her work.
Since Beatrice offers customized solutions and trainings, the Call to Action is to schedule a strategy call with her, during which she can better assess each potential clients’ needs.
—–> Check Out “No More Boring Meetings” ebook
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
First of all, I love it that mom was able to re-purpose a bunch of her newsletter articles and turn them into a valuable ebook. There’s a high “perceived value” in an ebook that’s that substantial, and it should speak loudly to her ideal client.
What do you have already completed that you could turn into a lead magnet?
Secondly, I’m so proud of Beatrice for jumping in to the world of email marketing and learning about how to succeed in this new world. YAY MOM!
What new skill are you willing to learn in order to increase your chances of success?
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
Yours,
Sam
P.S. Last night Justin Lofton and I did a VALUE-PACKED free training on the REAL DEAL with Facebook Ads and how to use them effectively to grow your business – you can check out the recording here: http://evergreenretreat.co/free-training.html
P.P.S. I am proud to be a friend, colleague, student, Big Fan, affiliate and daughter : ) for many of the teachers, writers and healers I’m discussing in this email series. I trust that you will trust your intuition, do your own research and only get involved in things that are right for you. Good? Good. Thanks. – S.
How are you enjoying this “backstage” tour through the world of email and personal development? Are you having as much fun as I am, taking a look at the business-building methods that some of my best friends and favorite teachers are using, so you can not only benefit from all their fabulous freebies, but you can also start to develop a vision for your own marketing? I hope so.
So today’s featured entrepreneur is a close friend and one of my favorite people:
SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) and her Succulent Wild Business Summit
SARK is gathering creative geniuses, healers, coaches, and world changers to change the world of business and bring more love and light into the world. Discover how to change the world while making a great living: https://www.facebook.com/PlanetSARK/?ref=233
SARK’s Unique Style
You probably don’t need me to describe SARK’s immensely popular, playful style, but if you’re not sure who she is, just check out her Facebook page and you’ll get the idea.
I once referred to SARK’s style as “aggressively whimsical.” She liked that : )
She’s been in business forever, and has been hugely successful selling both products (posters, blankets, etc) and courses. Oh, yeah – and she’s written 17 books.
So now SARK is offering something a little different – entrepreneurial coaching for creatives.
I’m so glad she’s sharing her deep wisdom from her years of experience as a business owner and artist. She’s naturally anti-authoritarian and she’s allergic to anything that isn’t 100% truthful, so you know she’ll give you the straight dope.
SARK’s Smart Strategy
SARK is taking advantage of the Facebook Live feature to offer 7 days of free teaching. During that training, she’ll encourage interested people to book a one-on-one call and from there, if it’s right for all concerned, she’ll invite them into her high-end coaching program.
What’s Facebook Live, you ask?
FB Live allows you to broadcast a live video feed for up to 90 minutes. And just like a post, people can Like, Comment and “blow kisses” to you as you air. Once you’re done, your video stays on your page, just like any other video you might post.
It’s very simple: You just log in to Facebook using your phone, go to your profile page and rather than writing a post, you hit the “live” icon. (You can’t do this on your computer – it has to be on your phone.) There’s a little bit of easy set-up (here’s a step-by-step how-to: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-live-guide) and then BOOM – you’re a star.
You can then repost the video to YouTube, Vimeo or your own website. Here’s a easy how-to: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-repurpose-your-facebook-live-videos/
The great thing about this is that you can get quite a lot of viewers both during and after you record, and it’s fun to have your own instant tv show. It’s great for spreading the word about what you’re up to, building community and interacting with your fans.
I’ve only done it once or twice myself, and I liked it a lot. I probably wouldn’t try to sell anything directly during a FB Live, though – but I think it’s great for making free offers or, as SARK is doing, inviting people to a strategy call.
Idea You Could Borrow for Yourself
The average American spends almost an hour a day on Facebook – slightly terrifying, but true – so why shouldn’t they spend some of that time soaking up your fabulousness?
And so many of you have such an advantage here because, let’s face it, most people are kind of boring. But YOU, my little cabbage, are anything but boring. So I’d urge you to be brave and try it out.
Video is far and away the most effective means of online marketing. When people can see into your eyes, feel your passion and authenticity and also interact with you – there’s nothing better for building credibility and fans.
Let me know what you come up with, OK?
Yours,
Sam
Chapter 21 – Getting Out of the Urgency Trap
Your email pings. Your message app pings. Your other message app pings. You’ve got forty-seven notifications and thirteen new requests and an overflowing inbox. It all seems urgent. After all, it pinged. That must mean it’s important.
Your brain is hard-wired to respond to immediate stimulus. This is another survival mechanism. Anything that sounds like “Alert! Something is happening!” gives us a little hit of adrenaline, whether it’s a rustle in the bush that indicates a hungry tiger is nearby or a text from the spouse reminding you to get milk on your way home.
Correspondingly, our brain releases a hit of the “feel-good” chemical dopamine each time we feel a sense of achievement, even if that achievement is simply texting back, “Yes. Milk. Love you.” As Simon Sinek explains in his brilliant book Leaders Eat Last, we can get addicted to the cycle of doing and doing and doing, and we fail to notice that nothing is actually getting done.
We get addicted to the cycle of doing and doing and doing, and we fail to notice that nothing is actually getting done.
Bringing just a bit of mindfulness to your daily movements can help a lot. One way to check in with yourself is to play the Because/Because game.
The Because/Because game asks you to pause for one moment before you begin an activity and ask why you are doing what you’re doing and why you’re the person doing it.
So, in the moment before you start catching up with the bookkeeping for your side hustle, you might have this conversation with yourself: “Why am I doing this bookkeeping? Because it’s important to me that I know whether this side business is really profitable. Why am I the one doing this? Because even though I dislike doing these kinds of detail-oriented tasks, I’m the only employee.” Now, this awareness might not lead you to hire an assistant immediately, but once you’ve had this conversation with yourself five times in a week, you might start to see the value of getting some help.
On the other hand, if you find yourself dreading a visit to Sad Susan, your friend who just ended yet another disastrous love affair, you might hear yourself thinking, “Why am I going to see Susan? Because she needs a shoulder to cry on. Why am I the one doing this? Because even though Susan’s love life is a non-stop soap opera, I care deeply about her happiness.” Remembering your true motivation can put a smile back on your face as you stop off along the way for the margarita mix and ice cream.
Little Changes Action Step: Put a few of your least favorite activities through the Because/Because game. Are there any that you could you eliminate from your life today?
To finish reading… just grab a copy here: http://www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com
