Today I’m giving detailed feedback on a post by Ashlee Record (with her permission). 🙂
This is part of a new series of posts where I’ll be pointing out what people can change about their content to attract more pre-sold leads who are a great fit for their high-ticket offers.
Let’s get to it!
Ashlee’s post is found here.
The first thing I noticed about this one was the way she started the post.
“You know what keeps a lot of people stuck?… Other people’s opinions.”
In my framework, each post focuses on a specific problem that our ideal client is having.
And often (though not always) we mention that problem at the very beginning of the post so readers can quickly self-filter as “yes this is a problem I have, I’ll keep reading” or “no, I don’t have this problem and I’ll move on with my day.”
So what I notice here is that “stuck” is not a very specific problem.
Because “stuck” is so vague, I’m not sure where this post is headed or what Ashlee is going to be teaching/explaining to me.
As I read further down the post, I realize she is talking about business.
She names a few different problems, like “inconsistent and lack discipline in your business.”
And “keep missing out on opportunities within your niche.”
And a couple of others after that, too.
What I’d suggest is picking ONE of these problems to focus the post on.
In fact, maybe even go narrower once she picks one.
Like if she picked “missing opportunities within your niche” – what’s a specific example of what that looks like?
I’m not totally sure what she means by missing opportunities, but maybe “here’s why you saw an opportunity to have your business featured on a podcast by someone who’s already successful in your niche, but you let it slip by without applying.”
Beginning a post that way already says so much about who her ideal client is – that it’s someone who’s earlier in business and struggling a bit with getting herself out there.
Now, here’s another thing I notice about this post.
In my framework we usually try to deliver one or more mind-blowing insights about what is causing someone’s problem.
(Often, limiting it to just ONE insight for the entire post is most powerful)
But the main insight that Ashlee gives here as to why people are stuck seems to be “other people’s opinions are what keep you stuck.”
Which, to me at least, seems quite obvious – or at the very least it’s something that this ideal client has probably thought about before. It’s not like they’re totally unaware that they’re worried about what other people think and that this holds them back.
My curiosity here is whether there’s a reason people are stuck that goes deeper than “other people’s opinions.”
Like, what’s the reason underneath THAT?
After all, some people are concerned about others’ opinions and other people are less concerned about others’ opinions.
Why are some concerned and some less so?
Can this post speak to that?
Like, maybe as follows…
“Here’s a possible reason why you were worried about what people would think of you if you applied for that opportunity to feature your new business on an influencer’s podcast: you have __ personality type and that type tends to be more concerned about others’ opinions.”
Now, I have no idea if personality type is something that Ashlee incorporates into her coaching – I’m just taking a wild guess here to fill in the blanks with something more substantive.
(If Ashlee were a client of mine in my 30-day program, I would have her go through my comprehensive intake process where I’d learn a lot about the methods she uses to to help her clients. We’d do this before we even began looking at her posts, so that I would know what kinds of information need to be talked about in her content to properly inform her ideal clients about what she does.)
Now, let’s move on to the part of the post where Ashlee talks about how to change/fix the problem.
She says her ideal client needs to get clear on 3 things in order to change her mindset.
The 3 things she lists here strike me as really BIG things:
(1) who God created you to be,
(2) what God wants to do in the marketplace through your business, and
(3) who are the people who will benefit the most from what you offer.
Those all seem like giant topics that would take pages and pages to unpack.
And, as the reader here, I’m craving more specifics on ALL of it…
I’m thinking, “What do you mean, ‘who God created me to be’? I’d love to know more, that sounds so interesting… yet a bit mysterious! What’s an example of knowing who God created me to be? And how, exactly, would that solve the problem you’re talking about in this post?”
And I’m thinking similarly about her other two points. What exactly does she mean? What are some examples? And how would those points solve my problem?
Because there’s so much to say about all of this, I recommend narrowing this post down to one particular point about how to solve the problem.
This is similar to how I recommend talking only about one particular point regarding what CAUSES the problem.
(and sometimes the two are the same, or almost the same – what causes and how to solve)
So, Ashlee could choose to focus this particular post on the point about knowing who God created us to be.
Here’s how it might sound (from the beginning, again):
“Here’s a possible reason why you were worried about what people would think of you if you applied for that opportunity to feature your new business on an influencer’s podcast: you have __ personality type and that type tends to be more concerned about others’ opinions.
“One important piece of how to solve this is to realize who God really created you to be.
“God did create you with this personality type, but the fear of what others think isn’t part of God’s plan. God’s plan is….”
I’m grasping a bit here and don’t really know where to go with this because I’m not sure what Ashlee’s philosophy is on this particular point or how she would explain it.
But if she were my client I would have her explain it out loud to me as best she could, and then (if needed) we’d talk about how to put the explanation down in writing.
Or she might just run with it and know exactly how to write it once we talked about it.
This is really about unlocking her “coaching voice” – being able to get at how she would explain something on a coaching call to her own client who was struggling with this problem.
The idea is that when people read these posts, they can sort of “hear” your voice in their head and get a taste of what it’s like to be coached by you.
Just one more point here: the unpacking of the point about knowing who God created us to be would likely take some time and space – particularly if examples are given, or other ways to help the reader really grasp the point.
That’s why – in my experience reviewing hundreds and hundreds of these posts – about 1,000 words is a satisfying length for the reader.
And usually the explanation of how to solve the problem takes up the majority (more than half) of that word count.
That’s because “how to solve this” is what the reader most craves to know.
As Ashlee’s post currently stands, it is only about 300 words. So there’s a lot of room to expand here.
Finally, a brief word about her call-to-action:
She mentions, “In my 90 day program, my clients learn how to build their businesses with consistency and discipline. If you’re a Christian woman in business, let’s chat via DM about how you can get started.”
This call-to-action doesn’t really tell me what kind of help she provides in her program.
I understand that it’s about building a business with consistency and discipline, but does that mean she provides particular strategies for business-building?
(And, if yes, what aspect/s of business-building? Marketing? Lead generation? Niche selection?)
Or is she focusing on the “consistency and discipline” part and not necessarily providing strategies – meaning the program is more about helping her clients deal with the self-sabotaging things that come up as they pursue a plan they’ve already set for themselves?
All of this would naturally be clearer to the reader if the post itself were meatier and went into more depth about some aspect of Ashlee’s methods.
I also notice in this call-to-action that I don’t see a clear starting point and ending point of the offer (also known as Point A and Point B!).
It does mention “build their businesses” – so, I might ask, “Build their businesses from what point to what point?”
From earning $0 to getting their first few clients/customers?
From earning 100K/year to earning 200K/year?
Something else?
There are tons of possibilities here – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen two offers that had the exact same point A and point B.
If Ashlee were a client I’d learn all about her point A and point B in my comprehensive intake process before we began writing posts.
…
So, that’s my feedback on this post!
Ashlee, thank you so much for allowing me to review it.
And, Ashlee, if you felt so inclined, I’d love to see a post from you sometime that filled in the blanks above that I didn’t know how to fill in. 😉 I’m very interested to learn what you would say about who God created us to be and how that relates to our not taking specific actions in our businesses.
For the rest of you, if you’ve read this far, I hope you learned a lot from this review.
If you found it as valuable or more valuable than other business help or information you’ve paid for, I welcome your gratuity payment at my new gratuity page, as this kind of content is not free for me to produce. More information here on how to make a payment.
If you want me to write a post giving feedback on one of YOUR posts – here is the info on how to be considered.
If you want my step-by-step teaching on how to construct posts according to my framework, here is a link to a free video training.
And if you want the info on my 30-day program and how to become a client of mine, here’s what you need to know.
DM me on Facebook if interested in working together, and comment here with any questions about the writing method or the feedback I gave in this post. 🙂