In this post I’m giving feedback on a post by Jennifer Harter (with her permission).
To follow along, you can find her original post here.
This is part of a new series of posts where I point out what people can change about their content so that they get at least one new client for their high-ticket program every week when they’re posting daily.
Let’s get to it!
What I notice about Jennifer’s post is that I have a really hard time identifying what problem it’s focusing on.
I read and re-read the opening sentences and couldn’t connect easily with what she was trying to say.
(In my framework, we focus each post on a problem that’s bothering our ideal client a lot, and give some really meaty insight about what causes it and how we recommend solving it)
Essentially, Jennifer starts out the post by saying (I’m paraphrasing here):
“Even though money and finances are really important and have a huge effect on our lives, most adults don’t take the time to learn about them. Why not? The answer is MINDSET.”
As far as I can tell, this doesn’t speak to a painful problem that’s top-of-mind for someone who would be interested in signing up for a program that gives help with financial topics.
At least, for me and those I know, I can’t imagine that we go around every day thinking, “Gosh, finances are really important but I’m not taking the time to learn about them – why aren’t I doing that?”
I mean, it’s possible that the thought has occurred to us – but it doesn’t strike me as one of those “keep them up at night” thoughts that we really feel an urgency about.
Jennifer’s post goes on to unpack this mindset-related reason why people don’t take the time to learn about finances… but since the beginning part of the post didn’t grab me as “hey! that’s a problem I really want to know how to solve” – I had trouble getting myself to pay attention to the explanation all the way until the end.
So if Jennifer were a client of mine, I wouldn’t go into how this post can be beefed up or re-written – I’d just say “let’s nix this one altogether and just write a new post that focuses on a SPECIFIC problem that people really want to know how to solve.”
From Jennifer’s content (of which I scrolled and read more than just this one post), I can’t quite tell exactly what kinds of financial problems she solves, so I’ll be grasping a bit to try to come up with some ideas for her.
(If she were a client of mine, we’d do a deep-dive to identify these problems as well as how her ideal client would express them, before we even began writing posts)
But what I CAN do here is refer you to two amazing financial experts who do an incredible job writing content according to the Strong Method (my method, for those who are new here 😉 ):
Claire Sweet and Angela Anderson
Citing a few of their recent posts, here are some problems that they focus on:
“I’ve already taken all the money that I need out of my company account for the year in salary and dividends, and I have a surplus in my company accounts. What do I do with that surplus so I can save as much on Corporation Tax as possible?” (Claire, 2/21/22 post – see here)
“If I’m not sure how much money I’m going to make each month in my business, how will I plan and make sure I’m on track to meet my financial goals?” (Angela, 2/18/22 post – see here)
“Inflation is at 4.2%! What do I do about the fact that the 50K in my bank is only going to be worth 47.9K next year and it’s only going to get worse from there? How do I preserve my wealth?” (Claire, 11/17/21 post – see here)
Now, I’m not sure if these are the kinds of problems that Jennifer focuses on, but these are just to give you all an idea of what I mean.
Claire and Angela both support self-employed people and business owners who are earning well from their businesses to grow their assets to 500k-1m plus, so the miniature problems they write about are all in service to that overall outcome.
I couldn’t quite tell what overall outcome Jennifer helps people to achieve, nor who she targets exactly (though she does mention moms in a few places) or what their starting point might be.
Back to Jennifer’s post…
A natural outgrowth of not focusing on a keep-them-up-at-night problem is that this post doesn’t really give any real advice or information. By the end, I’m no more convinced than I was at the beginning that Jennifer has some real, substantive knowledge about how to solve a problem that I might be dealing with.
Finally, let’s examine the call-to-action.
She says, “DM me to see if I can help you achieve your goals, whether it is a very specific topic or so you can become the go-to money guru in your circle and help your family and friends.”
This isn’t necessarily wrong, but in my framework, the call-to-action would be for a very particular program/offer with a specific point A and point B and aimed at a very particular ideal client.
For example, “my 3-month 1-on-1 program for professional moms earning six figures or more who want to build their savings to X amount and have a plan in place to meet their retirement goals.”
(Again, grasping here because I’m trying to fill in blanks that I don’t have all the information necessary to fill in)
It sounds like Jennifer is approaching her paid offerings from the perspective of “tell me what your problem is and we’ll make a plan to solve it.”
Again, this is not necessarily wrong, and I do know that there are coaches and experts who get clients by using that approach.
All I know is that when I started offering something really specific, and writing about really specific topics (instead of just “contact me, tell me what your problem is and I’ll help you solve it”) I started getting at least one new client every week and being able to charge 10X more than I could previously.
Turns out that specific content gets more attention, and specific offers can sell more easily and for more money!
…
So those are my thoughts on Jennifer’s post. Jennifer, thank you so much for allowing me to review it. I would love to know what advice you have on specific financial topics, and will look forward to your future posts. 🙂
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. 🙂