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Lesson Info

Attracting Ideal Client: Hot Seats

So now that the time has come. We're gonna be looking, at a few value-based content, here. We're gonna, y'all, I told you, that I stalked y'all, right. So, I know where you're from, I know what you do, I know your online presence, surprise. (audience laughs) Okay. Now, first and foremost, this is really hard. So people watching online, like, oh my god, I can't believe that that's their blog, boo, check out your own blog. (audience laughs) I'm choosing stuff that I see quite often. Because if you have not updated your blog in three weeks, you do not have a blog, you have a website that you update once every six weeks. Right? Like, that's what it is, right? So let's just call it for what it is. So, knowing that, these people are not isolated, and I would, strategically, to look and give an assessment. So. I need to smile because I feel myself looking mean. (audience laughs) Okay! My question, I asked three questions, are they creating value-based content? Are they helping readers? Are th...

ey making their lives easier? Are they diminishing a peer? Right? That's how we determine value. And could a random stranger find the information that they have on their blog, helpful, engaging, three things. So as I go through these, this is what I'm thinking. I'm not thinking about aesthetics, I'm not thinking about brand division, I'm just thinking, are you creating valuable content. So let's dig in. To Chantal, Events by Coco. She is a wedding and events planner. Now, when I went to Coco's blog, I scrolled down the blog, just to do a quick check, what did I see? A Happy New Year post, Merry Christmas post, a book announcement, which is what we see here. How to make 2017 your best year yet. What I did over the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving. I saw six pieces of content, and of the six, one was value-based. And the value-based, what I perceived as value-based, was how to make your 2017 the best year yet. So, to me, there's too much of not enough value. Like the balance, it was unbalanced. So one out of six was value-based, but here's the thing about the, um, okay, let's dig into this. From Chantal, I'm writing a book. Yes, I have officially begun. I have the general idea down, I just decided to do it. Wherever you are, you keep on going. It's been so cold up here in New York, I made my very own Christmas, ugly Christmas sweater party, I have a surprise I've been secretly working on with super awesome giveaway, sign up for the newsletter to get it. Me, stumbling across Chantal's blog for the first time, I know she's writing a book, I know it's snowy, and in order for me to find out more information about the giveaway, I have to sign up, which is requiring more action from me. If this is the first thing that I see, I'm not, it's not resonating with me, as a perspective client. The things that you put out on your blog are a division of your business. And if you are really excited about something, tell it here. Sell this sizzle. I, okay, one, I'm a gluten-free vegetarian, right. I've worked in more steakhouses, I even was employee of the month in two thousand, 2005, for Lucille's Bar-B-Que, the whole store. And as this vegetarian, I can sell you ribs, I'll sell you ribs you didn't even know. Take some home for your mama. You want some banana cream pie? I'll pack it up for you, great? Okay. So, the thing is, the best advice I got by working at these steakhouses, my manager turned to me and he says, "You sell the sizzle not the steak." I stood there my whole time, like, here, what is your giveaway? Tell me everything that you're gonna give away so that I have to give you my email address. That's what I want, right? As you create content, be helpful, sell the sizzle. Let's get into our next one, oh, this is a good one. This is Camille, where's Camille? Right here. Oh! Sorry! Right in front of me. My blog's on there. That's right boo. That's right. This is brand new. How long has this, how old is this? Two weeks. Yeah, it's brand new. Okay. So. Things that I liked: I liked the design, I thought it was great. I liked the clean navigation, as you scrolled, it made a lot of sense. I liked her, she has a direct, to camera photo, those work extraordinarily well to convince and build trust. Here, she has a tagline, get unstuck and fearlessly remodel your kitchen in 30 days or less, liked that. This is, and then, that's her business tagline, and here, on her blog, as you scroll down, this is how you can fearlessly remodel your kitchen to fit your life, and your style, and your budget. We all see these things that are just working, except for the fact that when I came here, the sample post was in Latin, so there's two sample posts. So, when you launched your website, and this goes to anybody launching websites, have something there. Have anything there that isn't Latin, because it just feels like, I didn't know that this was two weeks old. I thought it was old, I thought it was older, and what it just indicates to me is, you're launching the website, you can actually push people to the website, like, I just launched a new website, except for the fact that this looks like it's been neglected. Two choices, shut the blog until you have content there, or put a couple placeholders that are helpful content and driven. But it's very little that I can complain, outside of the fact that I wish I read Latin. (audience laughs) Okay. So. Let's get into Veiled Beauty, Kat Krafel. She makes headpieces. I went to the blog, and I found that there was one blog post. And the blog post that I clicked on was The Struggle. And this was written on October of 2016. Lost it all in a valley of mindless numbing. My most coveted coping mechanism was a mouthful of hypnotic humming. In secret, screens deceived me into thinking I was connected to a world free. Free from pain of being a sad, pitiful version of me. Engulfed by a life that wasn't worth living, because I was consuming rather than giving. Beautiful poem. Probably not the best thing to have on your blog, the first time that a happy-go-lucky, newly engaged bride, (audience laughs) who's pumped up on champagne, and chocolate, and shopping for her Louboutins, and is like, (gasps) I'm consuming, I'm so so guilty for consuming this veil that I really want. We have to think about this stuff, and there was one blog post, because I actually was looking for other content that I could create some sort of balance, that maybe that this was just at a point, it'd be after the holiday season, gearing up, like, to be present, to be grounded, but there was nothing else to balance what my perception immediately became from Veiled Beauty. But, when you go to her website, her stuff is beautiful. Let's create a continuum of valuable content. Ideas, I can come up concept for days for veils. What's the best veil to wear on a beach wedding? What's the best veil to wear on a destination wedding? How do you travel with a veil internationally? Who should be responsible for the veil? Options to wear your veil into a ceremony, are you doing a first look with the veil? How does it look, who puts it in? How the proper way to put on a veil. Are you gonna do, what are they called, like a mantilla? Uh huh. Oh, god. Right? Those are a big pain in the arse, how do you put them on? Like, we can go content, 30 days of content, real quick, right now. And you just have to parse them out, slowly over time. Helpful content will drive people because, brides aren't saying, I need Veiled Beauty veils. They're saying, how do I put on a mantilla veil? And they come across your mantilla veils, and they're just like, oh my god, this is exactly what I was looking for. Let's get into Erin Schmidt, photography blog. Cute photo, love the arm tats, one day you're gonna get to a sleeve, I am already feeling that. (audience laughs) So I scrolled through Erin's blog, and I, there was a couple things that were very clear, she's a solid photographer. She does bright, airy, fun photos, solid, right. So clearly, she's gonna be doing something. Now I liked that a lot of her blog posts were searchable. And by searchable, I mean she was including a lot of details that people could be searching for. What's the best first dance song? Let me show you an example. So this is a part of the body of it, so it's like, D.A.'s favorite memory of the day, wedding advice for newly engaged couples, things that people could be searching on. Honeymoon location, and people are like, Cabo San Lucas honeymoon, and they're saying, flying from Detroit to Cabo San Lucas honeymoon, and then her blog comes up, they might not, at the time, have been looking for a photographer, but they're finding these things. So I feel like that was, that was good. That was a good thing. The only advice I would have to this is link, who, and where you are. All times. I constantly find reasons to link back to old blog posts within my current blog post, to make sure I'm generating and keeping traffic and clickables on my blog. So, I will click back and link to all a specific venue that I've shot at, so people can see more of where I shot, or I'll click back to a specific event, I speak at an event called Alt Summit, and I wanted to post back to the other blog posts that I did so people can find it, searchable and relatable. I would link two things in there. Now, I went through Erin's blog posts and what I saw was boho wedding, Detroit engagement, Eastern Market wedding, Chicago engagement, Detroit wedding, modern Detroit wedding. Okay. This feels like an extension of a website. Which I think is great, which I think she should do. It's beautiful, it's current. She should be infusing it with valuable content to get discovered. And it could be lifestyle content, it could be, like on this great cafe, I think you're from Michigan, okay, that's what I assumed. So I think you're from Michigan, you could go to like a great little cafe, and you take a picture of your cappuccino, with your laptop, and maybe like a wedding album or something, working from this cafe, blah blah blah, and when people search for that cafe, they're looking for a cafe, your stuff comes up, I can't tell you how much business I've got as a derivative of people who weren't looking for the thing that I was selling but knew somebody who was in need of the thing that I was selling. Get yourself discovered.