I recently saw somebody offering a free training on “how to get 30 potential leads in your inbox each day.”
I did a double-take, then asked: “What does ‘potential lead’ mean?”
The answer: “It means people who are interested, but you don’t know yet if your offer will fit their needs.”
I did a big ol’ head-scratch on that one, as I wondered why anyone would want that.
Wouldn’t you rather have 5 people in your inbox who DO feel that your offer fits their needs?
Instead of 30 people who are interested but the offer may or may not fit their needs?
(In theory, if there’s no guarantee that the offer fits for any of the 30, you could actually have ZERO true prospects among that bunch. In which case, what’s the point?)
And here’s a secret that I’ve recently discovered:
The kind of content that attracts “potential leads” is simultaneously likely to repel ACTUAL leads.
So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if you had zero actuals among that group of 30 potentials.
What kind of content are we talking about here?
Roughly, it’s content that is very brief, and really only talks about outcomes.
I once tried to use this kind of content, before I knew what I know now.
I posted those big-letters posts saying “Who wants my free guide on how to make $10k/month? DM me if so!”
And indeed I did get LOADS of DMs (more than 100!) from “potential leads” 😉 who wanted that free guide.
But you wanna know how many of those “potential leads” ended up purchasing my paid service to help them make $10k/month?
ZERO!
Oh, I talked to some of them. A few booked sales calls or DM’ed saying they were interested to know what working with me looked like.
But none were a fit for my paid service.
There were all sorts of things that were “off” about them, such as…
- I checked their websites and social pages and noticed many grammar/usage errors, suggesting that they didn’t have even a basic writing ability.
(and my ideal clients need to be really good writers before we even start, because my client attraction method is writing-based, and we are just making the smallest of tweaks to their content, not learning how to write from the ground up)
- Many were just looking into starting coaching as a career because they thought it sounded cool, but they had no experience nor even an idea of what topic(s) they might coach on.
(and my ideal clients need to have a lot of experience at what they do, because the content we write includes a lot of detail about their methods for getting results)
- Many were unemployed and had no income.
(and my ideal clients need to be able to afford my high-ticket fees fairly easily)
and
- Many weren’t even coaches or professional service providers at all! Some were network marketers, product-based businesses, or other business models.
(my writing method doesn’t really fit for products – it’s designed specifically for people who have a subject-matter expertise to display that expertise so that people who may be interested in hiring them for that expertise will be able to see and appreciate it)
There were more things besides just these four.
But I hope this gives you an idea.
I couldn’t help thinking about how much time I was wasting by being so vague in my messaging. I had to DM-chat and do sales calls with hundreds of people who were not a fit for my paid programs and might not ever be.
If I included more details up front, wouldn’t that filter through to the correct people who would actually be a fit for my services?
Turns out: yes 🙂
But I didn’t listen to my intuition at the time because all my own coaches and mentors told me that wasn’t a good idea.
They said I needed to hold back the details in order to create the opportunity for conversation.
On the face of it that sort of makes sense, but what’s the point if you’re creating conversations with all the wrong people?
AND repelling the kinds of people who would actually be a fit?
This is the hugest insight right here: the people who are actually a fit for high-ticket services usually won’t DM coaches or service providers who post vague offers.
One reason is that they’re busy (usually with the business or career that has them earning enough money that they can afford high-ticket services easily!).
DMing a bunch of people just to find out what they even offer is not a good use of time for them. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Another reason: just the fact that you post something so broad and vague (like “want to make $10k/month” or “want to get over impostor syndrome”) makes you look unsophisticated and unspecialized.
The high-ticket buyers have usually “been around the block” a few times (or more than a few times) trying services like yours, and they have a pretty good idea of what specific help they need to close the gap on whatever their challenge is.
So they’re looking for a specialized solution, and will pay attention to the people who offer that kind of solution and look right past all the others.
This means they don’t just want to know what outcome you’re claiming to help them get – they also want to know exactly and specifically what methods you employ to get them there.
And they also want to know who those methods work well for and who they don’t – so they can see which camp they fall into.
I developed a method of writing about your offer and outcomes in such a way that you include these details about your methods and how they close your exact ideal client’s gap – so that they will see that the work you do (plus the container in which you do it) is a fit for them.
There are two kinds of posts that we write.
In one, the “direct offer post,” we list out all of the information that a high-ticket buyer would want to know about our offer.
(who exactly it’s for, what gap it closes for the client, what concepts or methods or miniature outcomes are worked on in order to close that gap, the features or “stuff” included, qualifications of the best candidate to get results, and price)
In the other, the “lead-generating post” (or “belief-shifting post” as some have dubbed it), we dive deep on one micro-problem of our ideal client and one micro-piece of our solution so that they can see the detail behind our methods.
We also include an abbreviated version of the direct offer post at the end.
The results of this method are nothing short of incredible.
Almost overnight, I was able to attract clients on a weekly basis who were a perfect fit for my programs and paid the high-ticket fees without blinking.
(and without a sales call!)
And the “can’t afford it” crew (and those who didn’t match my ideal client in other ways) all but vanished.
I was able to cut my work hours in half (because of eliminating the sales calls and all the busywork engaging with people who weren’t a fit) and 10x my income (taking my previous 30k/year earnings and adding a zero at the end!).
As I shared the writing methods with my clients and followers, reports came pouring in that they got similar results.
Want these results too?
You can work with me 1-on-1 to have my help clarifying your offer and ideal client and writing this kind of content.
More detail on what that looks like can be found here.
You can also get familiar with how to write these two kinds of posts by watching two free trainings I’ve created:
Direct offer post training here.
Lead-generating post training here.
If you have any questions about the method or want to share your experience with making vague vs. specific offers, please comment below! I’d love to hear your thoughts. ❤