It was so hard at the beginning of my business journey to find a mentor or strategist who’d give me effective help with my messaging.
And it wasn’t because there weren’t a million people offering this kind of support. (There were, and are!)
It was because of how they worked!
I remember two programs in particular, one of which cost in the high 4-figures and another in the low-5 figures, in which you could only get messaging support in two ways:
1) Ask a “question” about your messaging, on a call with anywhere from 15-60 other people (yes, really, 60!). Naturally, on a call of this size, you only got maybe 5 minutes at most to ask your question AND receive the coaching.
2) Email back and forth with messaging or copy that you wanted them to review. They’d write back with their thoughts on things they’d suggest changing. There’d often be at least 24 hours in between each back-and-forth email.
I never felt like these mentors truly nailed my messaging or copy (they would suggest wording changes that completely altered my meaning, or that were actually inaccurate to what my work was about).
And as I think about HOW they worked, it makes total sense that they missed the mark.
(Maybe you’ve had an experience like this?)
I realized that there were two main things missing from the way they worked – and I’ve now incorporated those two things into my own work as a content/messaging consultant.
I think that working this way has contributed hugely to my success in helping people with these things for about the past 5 years (and to the many rave reviews from people saying “no one’s been able to get to the bottom of my message like this before”).
So here are the two main things that they missed – and that you can expect if you work with me:
1) They didn’t get background information on my business before reviewing my messaging and content.
Their format on the live calls was that you could only “ask a question” about your message.
In other words, you could send over (or put on the screen) a short piece of copy, like your outcome statement for example, and they’d give you their quick read on whether it was clear and would appeal to a potential client.
Here’s the problem with that, though:
There’s more stuff that needs to be checked about a message besides whether it’s clear and would appeal to a potential client.
Like WHETHER IT’S AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF WHAT YOU DO.
That is the #1 thing that I fix about folks’ messaging that the above-mentioned processes will not catch.
I so often find that somebody (for example) says “I help coaches get fully-booked with premium clients,” which in theory would probably check the box as appealing to potential clients – but then when I review what I know about their work (i.e. the information that my coaches didn’t ask me for, but that I do ask my clients for), I realize that the “fully booked” part of their message doesn’t make sense because there’s nothing about their work that specifically affects the NUMBER of clients someone gets (like maybe they’re an expert in packaging high-ticket offers but not in lead-gen).
Or I’ll find that someone says (for example), “I help professional women to attract Mr. Right” – which in theory makes sense and is appealing, but when I review what I know about their work, I realize that the message actually needs to be more SPECIFIC than that – like perhaps they specifically help professional women who rarely date at all because no one is up to their standards. (That’s a different “flavor” of this problem than some women might have – like always dating tons of inappropriate people because they have some kind of neediness going on.)
The problem with the “ask a question” format of helping people with their messaging is that the person asking a question doesn’t know what they don’t know.
They don’t know to ask, “Is this message an accurate representation of what I do?”
And to be fair, they probably wouldn’t even think to ask that because they know that their coach doesn’t really KNOW the ins and outs of what they do – they only know in a general sense, like that this person is a coach who helps women find love.
And the coach doesn’t know what they don’t know either, so they don’t know that they should ask for more information about someone’s business before giving feedback.
Those who’ve been 1:1 clients of mine or attended my workshops know that I have a very specific process for getting detailed (yet concise) information about what they actually do, how they do it, and for whom they do it – including specific client case studies and examples – and I keep all of that in mind when I review their message.
It’s a lot of work for me – way more work than my own messaging coaches did to help me.
But, I have this thing where my brain wants to understand something (and someone) fully so that I can feel we’ve truly gotten to the bottom of it – and so they feel fully seen and have a message that they’re comfortable with, and in integrity with.
And so that my clients have a close to 100% chance of feeling satisfied with the messaging that we generate, and drawing in the right clients from it – because I believe that high-ticket fees (which I charge) should have a close to 100% chance of generating high-ticket-worthy results.
Lots of coaches will hastily propose a message for someone and then make them wrong if they don’t feel comfortable with it or don’t feel that it’s accurate. We don’t do that ’round these parts. 😉
2) The second thing that my coaches missed, that I make sure to do with my clients, is that they didn’t have back-and-forth LIVE conversations with me about my content and messaging.
The only option I had besides getting 5 minutes of live coaching on a group call was to email back and forth with one of the coaches to get their feedback.
If you’ve ever emailed back and forth with someone about ANY topic, you know how inefficient it is compared to having a voice-to-voice conversation.
But when it comes to reviewing marketing content that someone has written, I find that this “email back and forth” method is SO inefficient that it actually becomes impossible to clarify and correct all of the things that need to be clarified and corrected.
And that’s because the person giving feedback on the writing can only say, “This part was unclear to me.” Or, “I’m not sure what point you’re making.”
They CAN’T really tell you what it should say instead.
(Well, they can if they just want to impose their thinking on you rather than ask you what you meant or what your business is really about – and many messaging coaches choose that option, which is why so many folks end up with a message that isn’t accurate or doesn’t feel right – see point #1 above!)
But they can’t tell you what the unclear parts should REALLY, accurately say instead – not unless they have you right there next to them or on a call so they can ask, “What were you trying to say here?” Or, “What does _____ word mean?”
You can SORTA do that over email but it takes forever – and then if the client’s answer still isn’t clear, you have to ask in a different way until you finally get a clear answer. Most people don’t have the patience (or enough hours in the day) to go back and forth in writing that many times.
And, as I mentioned, there was often a 24-hour lapse in between each back-and-forth exchange – which does makes sense, because my coaches had other things going on in their lives and could not reasonably be expected to consistently give me faster responses than that.
But on a live call, you can rapid-fire back and forth to each other very efficiently until clarity is reached.
And that’s how I work, and what I’m great at.
I’ve even thought of naming my process “the twenty questions method” because I’m not afraid of asking and digging as many times as necessary until we get clarity – and that can sometimes be 10 or 20 questions, and up to 90 minutes of call time. (that’s 1-on-1, of course!)
(and, for all the folks who just ask for free written feedback in my free FB group, that’s why I only say things like “that part isn’t clear to me” and then follow up by saying it’d be better if I had them in a back-and-forth conversation so I could help them see how to clarify it! 😉 )
In fact, the way I work with clients is a hybrid of the “live conversation” approach and the “email back and forth” approach (except I use Messenger, which is more real-time than email, and already better for that reason).
The “write back and forth” approach actually is a great SUPPLEMENT to having already had several lengthy live back-and-forth conversations – because the majority of the biggest issues can be corrected on the live conversations, and then the number of things that need to be clarified via writing back and forth is drastically reduced (and if a big thing pops up in the written conversation, we can always say “let’s table that one for our next live call!”).
I’m so proud of these methods I’ve created that are so much more effective than those I encountered in the programs I joined.
I guess the person I really needed back then was FUTURE-ME. 🙂
Anyway – if you want this sort of help to get to the bottom of your message (like, really, really), and to write (really, really) clear and awesome content that actually makes sense to the people you’re hoping will buy from you – I currently offer two ways to do that.
One is my 1:1 30-day program (with an option to extend the timeframe) which is the “whole shebang” – we work on your outcome message, articulating/pitching your offer in my proven 500-word framework, and writing lead-generating content.
All of that work is aimed at helping you to get consistent high-ticket enrollments from the exact right people from social media and add $100k-$1M/year to your bottom line – so I also round out that program with the other pieces that you’ll need to complete that puzzle, such as showing you how to grow your organic audience with the right amount of volume, sharing my simple process for closing sales over Messenger or a very short call, and even helping you think through and package (or re-package) your actual program (this is stuff like what’s included and why, who it’s for, etc.).
The next step if you’re interested in this program is to DM me on Facebook. We’ll have a short chat to see if it’s a good match for you and your business and goals.
More information about the 1:1 program can be found here.
The second option to work with me is to join one of my group workshops where I help people to articulate their outcome only. This is also part of my 1:1 program, but the workshops chop off that piece and address it on its own.
I offer these workshops on a regular basis. To find out when the next one is, you can always visit this page (I update it with the most current date/s).
The next step is to send me a DM on Facebook if you’re interested.
More information about the workshops can be found here.
Annnnd… there’s actually going to be a third way to work with me soon!
I’m going to be training other business/messaging/copy coaches to work the way I work with clients, to help their clients package and explain their program, as well as write the lead-generating content and do all the other pieces of the client-getting system I’ve developed.
Send me a message on Facebook if you’re interested in working with me in that new program.
I’d also love to know: has your experience of getting coached on your messaging or content been similar to mine? What was it like, what were the results, and how did it feel?