Today I’m giving detailed feedback on a post by Pamela Wilson (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!
Pamela’s post is found here.
She begins as follows:
“The curse of knowledge is REAL, y’all. And it can make your offer FUZZY.
“By mid-career, you are ‘The Person Who Knows Too Much.’ Industry terms and complex ideas are part of your muscle memory.
“But what if your customers don’t understand your lingo? Your offer can’t deliver results.”
At this point, I am already feeling like I need to go back to the beginning and re-read. I’m not sure what this is about or where she’s headed.
And it’s interesting that I, Eleanore, am feeling that way, because I actually have a keen interest in topics like lingo, the curse of knowledge, and fuzzy offers – these things are part of what I teach, too!
So if I’m not getting drawn into this post, what’s the deal?
I think the deal is that I’m a bit tired and distracted today and not able to force myself to pay attention as well as I normally might.
BUT… BUT… BUT!!
That is how many (if not most) social media users are – all the time. 😉
Even (especially?!) the ones you’re hoping will sign up to work with you.
To get people to start – and finish! – reading our posts, we have to word them in a way that speaks to people who are mindlessly scrolling, half-paying-attention – in other words, not being their highest intellectual selves at the moment.
And, in my framework, that means speaking to a burning problem that they have – and phrasing it the way they would.
(And, this part where we state the problem is often at the beginning of the post – though not always.)
This is what will GRAB their attention and COMPEL them to read the post all the way to end – rather than them feeling like they have to force themselves to do so (which they won’t, unless – like me – they’ve promised to read and review somebody’s post 😉 ).
So let’s go back to Pamela’s post.
Again, she begins with:
“The curse of knowledge is real… and it can make your offer fuzzy.”
If we think about her ideal client, is that person going around every day thinking “wow, my offer is fuzzy. Wow, the curse of knowledge is upon me.” ?
Yes, it’s possible that those thoughts have OCCURRED to them at one point or another.
But is that the bottom-line, most basic, most visceral, most emotional problem that their lowest intellectual self thinks about in the day-to-day moments when they’re upset and distracted?
Probably not.
I’ve been the person whose offer was fuzzy, and what went through my head the MOST was things like…
“Ugh, I’ve put together 5 different offers in the past year and no one bought them.”
“Well, at least I got a couple of people to buy that one offer, but now months have gone by and no one else bought. And I didn’t even hear whether those two people got results…”
See what I mean?
These are examples of stating the problem at its CORE.
As opposed to the kinds of thoughts where the ideal client is trying to diagnose what causes the problem, like when they go, “maybe my offer is fuzzy or maybe I’m speaking in lingo.”
The core problem is ideally what should start off this post.
A few sentences in, Pamela does say:
“What if your customers don’t understand your lingo? Your offer can’t deliver results.”
So maybe “my offer isn’t delivering results” is the problem this post should focus on?
I’m actually not sure, because I haven’t gone through my usual intake process that I would normally do with new clients, where I’d learn all the details of Pamela’s business and what problems she solves.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that’s the problem that this post will focus on.
Although we might want to phrase it differently, because people probably aren’t awake at night thinking “my offer isn’t delivering results.”
They’re probably thinking in more casual terms, like I was:
“Ugh, I’ve only had a few people go through this offer and some said they didn’t get results and others I haven’t heard from…”
So maybe that’s the way this post should start off.
“Are clients telling you they didn’t get results from your offer? Or just dropping off the face of the earth and not telling you how the program went for them?”
Again, I’m not sure, and maybe those are two separate problems.
I’d need to talk to Pamela more to ask what problems she notices with her clients and whether these two things tend to go together or have the same causes or same fix.
Then, ideally, next we would state what causes this problem and/or how to fix it, in one concise, precise sentence – letting the distracted reader know exactly what they’ll get if they keep reading.
It’s likely that this problem has multiple causes and a multifaceted solution.
So that’s why, in my framework, we try (most of the time) to focus on ONE cause and ONE solution in each post – that way, over time, as distracted readers get more and more posts from us, they’ll eventually get the full picture.
So, what’s ONE reason why people don’t get results from an offer? And ONE part of Pamela’s solution for that?
One of those should probably go next.
So, beginning again:
“Are clients telling you they didn’t get results from your offer? Or just dropping off the face of the earth and not telling you how the program went for them?
“One HUGE reason for that is…”
And actually, I’m not sure how to complete that sentence.
Because I went back and re-read the rest of Pamela’s post, and she’s giving a few different “steps” that people need to do:
“Pinpoint the transformation you want to deliver”
“Figure out what you need to give/tell them so they get this transformation”
“And then deliver that to them in real time, face to face and let them tell you where they’re confused”
I’m not sure which one of these would specifically help with the problem of “clients not getting results from offer.”
Maybe the third one? Of letting clients tell you where they’re confused with your offer or how you teach?
Assuming that’s the one, maybe the post would begin as follows:
“Are clients telling you they didn’t get results from your offer? Or just dropping off the face of the earth and not telling you how the program went for them?
“One HUGE reason for that can be: they were confused by how you taught the concepts in the program.
“[explain this a bit more, maybe give some examples]
“In my framework, we solve this by creating a testable version of your offer that allows you to get actual feedback from clients on what was/is confusing about how you teach your concepts.”
“[explain this a bit more, in a few more paragraphs]”
And that could be the rough outline of the post.
I’m not sure about this one, though, because I’m not sure that the way I’m wording it is accurate to what Pamela does.
(This is one of the things we’d discuss if she were a client of mine – before beginning to write posts.)
For example, I’m just assuming that the teaching of concepts is what Pamela’s clients’ clients find confusing, but maybe it’s not that at all.
I mean, maybe we’re talking about how a web designer communicates with clients regarding stuff they need them to submit, and they unknowingly use lingo that’s confusing.
I think this is pointing to the fact that I need to know what Pamela means by “offer.” And what type of business owner she serves.
Like, could this be a coaching service?
(Many coaches would say that they don’t “teach” – they only guide and respond to what the client is telling them – and there wouldn’t necessarily be content/training included in their program)
Or is it a done-for-you service like web design or legal services?
Or is it a self-study course, where the creator does not have live interaction with those who purchase?
What type of “lingo confusion” is Pamela helping to clear up?
Actually, if I knew that, I could propose an even more specific problem to lead off this post.
“Do your web design clients take forever to get back to you?”
or
“Do your coaching clients stop showing up for calls halfway through the contract?”
or
“Do you never hear anything from the small number of people who purchase your self-study course and you’re not sure if they’re even getting any kind of result from it?”
Those are all more specific versions of the problem “Clients not getting results from your offer.”
Now, let’s briefly talk about another point regarding Pamela’s post.
It reads like a very brief summary of the steps to solving a problem.
“1) pinpoint the transformation you want to deliver, 2) figure out what you need to provide to clients so they get the transformation, and 3) deliver it and let them give you feedback on what wasn’t clear.”
Makes it sound so simple, doesn’t it?
Except, those three things are REALLY HARD.
Even each of them on its own is hard.
For example, just #1 above is totally mystifying for so many people who’ve been coaching or providing a service for decades.
Or so they tell me, anyway.
They have no idea what transformation they deliver or how to pinpoint that.
And then, if they do manage to figure it out, the process of figuring out how to help someone get the transformation in a standardized offer is a Herculean task as well.
Not to mention, if you do manage to make it through those first two near-impossible tasks, and come up with a testable version of your offer… how on earth do you find people who’ll test it?
And motivate them to go through it?
And ask the right questions to draw out meaningful feedback from them as to what’s good and not good about the offer?
(One time, for a new offer of mine, I managed to make it through steps #1 and #2 and even part of #3, and then got stuck on the “motivate them to go through it” part. I had 10 people who agreed to take my program for free, and then one by one they either dropped off the face of the earth or made every excuse in the world to me as to why they could no longer complete the program. So I never got the opportunity to figure out what anyone thought of it.)
I could go on.
But my point is: Posts like this make change sound easy (“just follow these 3 steps!”), and the savvy reader knows it isn’t that easy.
They’ve likely tried your 3 steps before – even many times – and got stuck somewhere, just as I did.
So, how do you convince your reader that you actually do understand the 3 steps inside and out, and have the ability to lead them through any/all the areas where they might get stuck?
You do that by breaking down your posts into much smaller micro-topics, as I alluded to earlier.
One problem (sometimes a very small piece of the problem you solve), one micro-cause, one micro-solution.
And expand on all of that for approximately 1,000 words.
So, instead of those 3 broad steps that Pamela lists here, she’d take a tiny piece of ONE of the steps and pair it up with a micro-problem.
She could even take the one I mentioned earlier, that happened to me:
“Did you have free beta-testers drop off the face of the earth and not complete your program after you did so much work to identify a transformation you could deliver and build a test program to deliver that transformation to people?
“Here’s ONE part of my method for offer testing and development where we make SURE the beta testers complete it:
“[tell this part of the method in one concise, precise sentence then spend the rest of the post unpacking it]”
A post like THAT is what begins to convince readers that, even though the transformation they seek is not easy, the writer of the post has thought through every nook and cranny of how to get the transformation and has a tested and proven method for solving any micro-challenge they might encounter along the way.
Cool, huh?
One last note about this post: the CTA.
Pamela mentions that the best candidate for her program is “someone in mid-career who has an established website and a list, either on social media or (preferably) an email list.”
I have a feeling that the best candidate is actually way more specific than that! 🙂
It’s possible that someone could be in mid-career (though I’m not totally sure what that means) with 10 years of experience as a consultant, yet never had a client get a meaningful result and perhaps even helped clients with 100 different things, and has a website and email list of 100 people.
(I know of consulting firms that don’t seem to have a single success story when I do informal, non-scientific surveys of people who have hired them – yikes)
And it sounds like that person would meet Pamela’s criteria, the way she has them laid out currently.
But I suspect they wouldn’t do well building an offer with her – she’d probably want them to have examples of client results, and to have those results all be somewhat similar, right?
After all, if they have no client results, or if the results they have are not at all similar to each other, then it’s hard to see what concept or what transformation they’d build an offer around.
That’s assuming I know what Pamela means by “offer,” which I may not.
If Pamela were a client of mine, the first exercise we’d do together would contain a section where we pin down exactly how she’d define the best candidate to get the transformation she herself offers.
And, as I think about it, I’m actually not sure what that is!
Is it to get a new offer selling the first X number of times?
Is it to get an X % success rate with the offer?
She doesn’t say.
But Pamela comes across as a smart savvy gal who probably has all the information in her head (and then some) to answer every question I had about this post! 😉
Phew! This may have been my favorite post review yet – since it’s for someone whose topics overlap with mine.
Pamela, thanks so much for allowing me to review it.
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.
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