Lessons

Lesson Info

Elicit the Right Responses

All right, welcome back welcome back here is today's goal determine what responses will motivate you and get your business closer to your goals determine what customer responses will motivate you and get your business closer to your goals this is something we don't spend a lot of time thinking about how do we want our customers to respond to the work that we're doing and how khun those responses get us closer to the actual results that we want to be creating so that's what we're going to talk about today but first let's recap what we did in the previous lesson so first of all, focus looks good on you focus doesn't just change the way you work it changed the changes the way others perceived you and your business knowing your destination allows you to craft a route to that destination that stands out. We were just talking amongst ourselves here that you know you don't have to know how to get where you're going choosing that destination deciding what you're going to put into your maps app...

is enough to get you started on the rape path and the right path could be many there could be many right past to get to where you're going, but if you don't know where you're going, you're not going to get there no one ever is says oh well I here I am it's it's intentional it's intentional so let's, look at where we are in this bill to stand out business process. We are on lesson twelve elicit the right responses so everyone has a different way that they like to be responded, teo, I like applause, preferably standing ovations. So we need to work on that in here. No, I also like when people ask me questions, I love questions that's a response that makes me really jazz really inspired, really motivated because every time someone asked me a question, my boy, synapses start firing and new ways and it's in interviews and it's in settings like this and it's on cue and a calls where someone asked me a question in a way, I've not really thought about it before, and suddenly I'm on a whole tear of new ideas, and it can change the conversation that I'm having. Ah, in an instance, that's a response that really gets me excited, which is another reason why I love doing things like this. I love hopping on cue and a calls I love getting those questions so that I can form new ideas. Uh, tell stories in new ways and explain concepts in new ways. But here's the question, why are you aiming for the same responses as everyone else in your business? Why were you aiming for the same responses as everyone else in your business? This is what I see happening with my clients all the time it used to be everyone wanted blawg comments and when people stopped commenting on blog's people freaked out do you remember that? I mean, I've been blogging for a long time I was there when you got comments on your blogged I don't even have comments on my block anymore how many of you guys still have comments on your block? Oh a comments actually most of you okay there's a big trend towards just nixing the comments section on your block why? Because the conversation is happening elsewhere it's happening on twitter it's happening on facebook but it used to be that everyone wanted to know how to get mohr blawg comments it didn't matter whether those comments actually led to sales or not that was the thing people air cons were concentrating on another response that that people one is facebook likes how many of you get paid in facebook likes no, no you don't pay your mortgage with facebook likes no so we we go after all of these responses that we're told means something or that we get it excited about, but we don't stop and think what air the responses that I really want, what responses make sense for my business and which responses actually get me closer to the results that I want, you know, so one response that I like and my business is new email subscribers and so that's something that plays very prominently in my online strategy I want I've got my home page set up for that I've got my blog's set up for that I've got landing page is set up for that there are all sorts of opportunities to get on my email list because that's another response that excites me when I see my list grow, it makes me want to send them good stuff and that makes me really happy it also makes me a lot of money. Yes, that's an important part of this too, right? What responses are going to lead ultimately to more sales for you? What responses are going to get you closer to your vision that we defined in the last lesson? What responses do you guys like getting how do you like people to respond to your work? Amy well, I think one of the things that I really love is when they also echo the same sort of irreverence that I carry in my car, so I find that sometimes even in online forums, people still kind of don't know how far they can push certain boundaries, whether it's with language or political issues or whatever, and I find that by kind of embodying that in my own business and then somebody feels that they can be just as a reference or courageous in that way because my whole point is getting people to find their voice and take a stand and not care so much what everybody else thinks I'm like you're doing it, you're doing it and do you find that when people start to have that awakening when they start to find their voice that they're much more likely tio by one of your courses or work with you as a coach? It's yes and it's almost like a kn indirect way because they go she's the messenger I need toe listen, teo, because it's not necessarily that what I'm offering is radically different than a lot of other personal development people, but it's the voice that they want to hear it from yes, this is an opportunity for you to create a place of alignment with your right people, right? Yeah, definitely let's hear from somebody else yes, lisa actually change something or choose something, create something that you know I've worked with him on and then when they tell other people what difference it made because I do teach him to create in quite a different way and so it's like a solution that's not expected and when they tell people it works really well, beautiful, awesome brand did you have one? Yeah, I did I I love shout outs like I love like whether it's in person like I'm in a group in and I happened to hear someone say a nice thing about me or on social media or whatever like I just I love getting showed outs from my client because we're really good where you're at in your business right now you're a couple people is like secret weapon right? Like you're one of my secret weapons and so I'm very happy to put the shot out on facebook or twitter and thats it thats a great response for you to not only be tracking but a great response for you to be encouraging it's not and it's not even like it's not ever that you say hate eric can you give me a shot on twitter like that is not a brie on thing to dio and I would not encourage that ever maybe not ever but but by just you know by giving that extra ten percent or by just following up that one more time those were the kind of actions that prompt me or chris or whoever you're working with to make that shout out happen and I think that that's pretty great right? How about one more of um kati mine is I really like it when I just see that light bulb go on or where they go like ah ha I didn't even think of it that way like what's that back door off ction you know how how can we get there another way so I love that ah ha moment yeah and so do you find yourself creating more opportunities to get that ah ha moment almost definitely yeah get a little extra research so that I can think of a different way that can help them that sort of thing beautiful that's all there is to this it's just identifying the responses you want and changing the action that you take to get more of those responses ah and the people just like amy was saying that people who respond to you the way you want them to respond the way you like to be have your work responded to those air much more likely to be your right people this is a point of alignment have you guys ever intentionally thought about what responses you want people to take other than give you money? No no amy question is how do you talents things like like likes or comments or shares that are really indicative of social proof but aren't necessarily like a direct avenue to sales if that makes sense like if you're if you're shoot obviously wanna shoot to get you know a larger brand presents on these different social media platforms without being sucked into that being your goal yeah something sense yes I think so so first of all, not every business has a goal of getting a larger presence on those uh, platforms and that's fine, good if you don't want to have a larger presence on facebook if you don't have a larger presence on pinterest totally fine you don't have to have a large presence anywhere and you can still do really, really good work when I was originally thinking of the quiet power idea, I was thinking about how many business owners I know who are thriving but you don't know their names, they're there the big guns, secret weapons um you know, they're they're the people who you know, maybe eventually you'll learn their names but they don't even care because they're meeting their financial goals they're working with incredible people, they're getting the responses they want for a lot of them it's it's the right new clients or the right new client conversations those that that's the only response they want in their business and as long as those new right client conversations keep coming, they feel successful they feel like they're accomplishing on a day to day basis what they want to be doing so you don't have to go for that and there's lots of different ways to show social proof okay, so facebook likes sure could be a very specific kind of social proof, but just a testimonial could be a piece of social proof of video maybe that a client shoots for you could be a piece of social proof just because you don't have one hundred thousand likes on your facebook page doesn't mean you're not still a really awesome person to work with and in fact there's lots of people out there that would rather work with someone who maybe hasn't put tons and tons of time into building a platform but it's instead put tons and tons of time into their clients you know and so there's lots of opportunities there the biggest piece is not getting sick sucked in and in the next lesson we're going to talk about vanity metrics on vanity metrics good I mean I'm dad man eating metrics are those things that we get assessed with that mean diddly squat? Okay, okay hate like page views in most businesses and most of our businesses page views on your website I mean pretty much did diddly squat right? Does that makes sense okay, yeah unless you're tying it directly to a metric like email subscriptions that does mean something for you if you know I can push my if I can push my page views by fifty percent, I'll get fifty percent more email subscriptions great and ideally you do know that but page views isn't the metric you want to be tracking just like facebook likes that's not a metric you really probably want to be tracking in some businesses sure, maybe that is maybe facebook likes really turn you on and you really want to work a facebook strategy that optimizes that because you figured out how to turn likes in two dollars, and if you figured that out, I would love to talk to you. Does that kind of answer your question? And it's almost sounds like it's ah it's really about intentionality instead of just looking at the trends of what everybody's saying you me to do absolutely, absolutely being intentional about it and deciding what you really want because we have to put a lot of work into our businesses and we're most of us are really isolated in our businesses as well. And so knowing what responses from customers are going to keep you really excited about your business on dh channeling, channeling the ability to pay attention to that and honor those responses is going to keep you much more motivated. It's going to keep you much more on track going back to that hole blocked comment thing, it hasn't happened in a while, but maybe like a year or two ago I would get questions from my client's asking, well, you know, I put my block out, people read it, I have page views, but nobody comments, and that really depresses me why? Why let's look at something else for you to track? Maybe you do want comment. On people aren't going to comment on your block but how can you channel that activity over to facebook, for instance or how can you channel it over to twitter how you channel it into your inbox? One of those things and probably one of those things is going to translate better to sales for you and how can we look at that? How can we get you x sighted about a response other than what you've been told is the key tio success makes sense because there another question yeah lisa following on from that like if you want to build a sense of community with people and yes, I know you could do facebook groups in those things but like, is there value in the commenting? Is that part of that or is there other things that are better? Uh, I think it all depends on what kind of community you wanna have like on I'm going to forget her name but there's there's a woman who worked on a brown bag lunch webinar serious and so every week she did a brown bag lunch weapon armed where she'd come in and she'd teach a topic in a webinar on dh people were massively attracted to these things and the same people would show up over and over again, and so there was the sense of community created around it she had a blogger too but the blood wasn't where the community wass the community was on these these webinars and so that was a great place for her to create community you know, creative, live creates community were uh because I love twitter I'm channeling as much of that into twitter as possible but it's also happening on facebook it's also happening on instagram it's happening lungs of different places so for me, I know that I get really jazzed when I go into the green room and I go through my twitter feed and there's one hundred orm or new tweets coming at me yeah, it makes me really excited that's where I want to create a sense of community and it's where it's easiest for me to have a back and forth with someone too, and I know that that back and forth does lead to sales. It may not. I may not be able to say by this many twitter conversations I I can make this much money I'm not I'm not suggesting that, but I do know that engaging people on that platform because it's a platform that I use really well and that makes a lot of sense to me tends to make people want to stick around it makes them want to sign up for my email list it makes them want to read my sales page, it makes them want to think about joining my membership community yeah yeah any other questions about this cathy just because I didn't understand this whole question in the beginning so now I'm thinking referrals would definitely be a type of response absolutely so I'm okay I just want to clear that I think your first response was good though teo yeah so let me give you one more example of this because I know this question can be a little weird but I do I do really believe in the importance of this question so in the last group that I worked with three the quiet power strategy program we actually had to financial people and they asked me why there audiences didn't respond to them like this other financial persons audience did that financial persons audience responded to her with these gushing gosh egg facebook posts right? They post on her timeline they post on her page they posted her group and they would just gush and gush and gush and sometimes it would be in praise of this person sometimes it would be, you know, out of kind of the sense of sharing their vulnerability like I'm just I'm this stuck or I'm in this problem and I just had to share that here it was just it was just very open and transparent and I said to the two women that I was coaching is that is that the response that you want do you want clients that would respond to you like that where they would kind of bare their soul on facebook not that there's any problem with that but is that what you want and they based it oh no no no no no I don't I don't want that I just thought that I had to do that I had to get people to do that to have a successful business no you don't have to do what you don't have to mimic the way other people respond to other people's businesses you have to be intentional about choosing or understanding what responses really turn you on and then how you can use those to get results referrals is an easy one referrals lead directly to sales you know facebook likes or shares or at mentions on twitter might not lead directly to sales but you know you get a sense over time but this is something that leads to real results makes sense okay I appreciate you guys sticking with me on this one okay so the responses that inspire you likely tie into your personal values or guiding principles do you see that the things that you really want the things that are truly important too you are also likely what is influencing or how you want people to respond to you they always tie into your fascination language I want a standing ovation because I'm a power person I'm a power personality that likes to stand on stage and tell you like it isthe and that means the obvious response to that is applies I know I'm doing a good job when you respond to my power, you know, maybe you for you it's you know, you're doing a good job when someone responds to those mystique qualities. So cathy, what I was hearing in terms of giving people that ah ha moment andi, I don't remember if mystique is one of yours, but that sounds like a mystique kind of thing on to me like you ask questions you do the research you dig deep, you look for the substance and when that ah ha moment happens it makes you really happy and that that's that's very, very mystique it's also dying. Yeah, they're like, oh, I have the answer for you yeah, exactly yeah and so another way that prestige comes out is so another one of the responses that I like is getting stories back with the results the clients get. I like the nodding there. Yeah, I love hearing like I got briones case study back from her you know she didn't just beat my eight thousand dollar challenge she added ten thousand dollars of unexpected revenue in the last quarter of last year of her business that makes me very, very happy and I also know yeah makes me unhappy to also know that I can channel that result into sales so I know that not only do I get that result from her, but then I posted on my site, I send it out via email, I I show people, look, this is the response, my work god and then that's part of the sales conversation I have welcoming a new group into that program so it's very cyclical. Okay, now I do have to necessary responses these air the responses that every business needs to incorporate in the year twenty fifteen or whenever you're watching this on live one is signing up for your email list. I'm sorry email marketing is one of my non negotiables. It is a quiet power strategy, non negotiable. You may hate email marketing, we're going to change that for you in session five you might hate email, email marketing or you might think that it's, yucky or icky, but email marketing is a must have response or s o are signing up for your email list is a must have response so you can think about what are the other responses that you like to get for people? And how can you channel that into email sign ups? Because email sign ups do always if you're even doing it remotely right, lead to more cash in your bank account and then the second one is, of course making purchases your customers need to respond to your your prospects need to respond to you by making a purchase signing up for your service or you're not really in business okay so those air two responses that we can use to guide the way we you know those other responses that come along uh to your first point about signing up for the email is one thing that I found is that uh some of my best clients are much more you know they're they're content producers and they are intentionally I've had people say to me that I've worked and say you know what I don't sign up for email lists so so how do I balance that you know, I I attract people on my mailing list and I have a healthy and growing list they're not necessarily my best clients and my best client has said well I just I don't I like to sign up for email it because I don't like to consume content I'm going to just be focusing on producing so I would be someone who doesn't sign up for a lot of email list but I still sign up for some email list the people that are really putting things out there that I don't want to miss I would say one way that you can look at that is that your email subscription base may not be your best clients but they may know your best clients I've definitely like used service providers that clients have recommended to me so it may not even be that they're friends with your best clients it may be that there are also using your best clients services and then say, oh, hey bree in you might want to check out this brand girl because she's pretty awesome and I think you could really benefit from working with her which ties into the show doubts but yes, exactly and so the other thing they're too is that email marketing is the number way number one way to maintain that top of mind status for people and when you're top of mind you know they made they may or may not use your services, but they're definitely gonna be the first you're definitely gonna be the first person they think about when a need arises for somebody else and so that's there you can't trip me up there no way around that email marketing is where it's at so all of these things are optional responses you have may have been told that any of these things are way where it's at but if it's not where it's at for you it's optional it's not necessary so you know we've talked about block comments we've talked about facebook likes interview requests, I love getting interview requests, it goes back to that question thing if you're asking me questions, I'm a very happy camper so I love getting interview requests you might not care about inter quick interview requests whatsoever it doesn't mean your business can't still be successful requests for consultation that is something I do not want in my business I don't want a request for a consultation nowhere on my website doesn't say email us for a free consultation no no no no no I don't I don't know no no no but you're welcome to talk to me on twitter you're welcome to send me a message on fate actually don't send me a message on facebook post took post on my facebook I'm happy to answer questions there there's plenty of opportunities to get in touch with me that's a response I don't need so any other new ideas of responses as we've gone through here that you want to channel in your business patrice so my absolute favorite response is when my clients starts a lean on me morning everyday basis include me in those regular decisions they're making as opposed to kind of see me as their attack attorney okay so I love for instance I had a client and it can be very something very simple but she has a deejay curating a playlist and that's something people would not normally think to contact their attorney about but she said hey patrice I haven't attorney I mean I have a d jake you're writing this playlist with copyright issues around that so for me, it's and I have a moment because I can see how she's starting to think, not just in terms of this is new marketing from our business, but let me contact patrice and talk about happy, right? But it also I love just being included in those conversations and knowing that they really see me as an advisor in that way, that is such a great idea. What do you think you're such a great idea? What do you think you could do differently in your business to encourage more of that response? So I'm thinking, and this is where it's the tough balance with my time, but eliciting that type of response, but I'm thinking it scares me to say it, but I have some sort of like our hands on deck call me when you want I'm here for you fight dio sure did you do like open office hours every week? I could, but of course that scares me because then I don't know if that's just going to be overwhelming, but that would elicit encourage more of those regular sure may be an opportunity for differentiation, and in that way, that allows you to be competition and commodification so that you can raise your prices yeah, and then sometimes that overwhelming stuff goes away when you're getting paid better for it, sometimes overwhelming is just overwhelming and sometimes overwhelming reflects I'm just not getting paid enough to deliver the value that I really want to deliver, and I should raise my price. I think another thing that you could do to use the c r m system I do s o that might be something that you could just incorporate into your c e r n it's only once a month you have an email that either pings ur goes out automatically there says he don't forget, you know, are you planning something new? It has there been any changes in your business? I'm I'm a partner with you in your business as your attorney keep me posted on anything. I'm I'm here for you, okay? Yeah, and then not that's one way it's either completely automated are mostly automated and that so it's it's less overwhelming for you, but it still keeps that thing going right. I love that in the money piece is really important. It is because I also find I don't enjoy the clients as much where they're distant and they're not reaching out as much, so I love automating it and yes, the money will definitely make you feel. Thanks perfect, perfect and I really I really do think that's a great opportunity for differentiation, teo and you've been talking about how you do things differently, right? And I've been pretty much the rest of the legal profession and this is just one more way you can make that happen inspired by one of the response is that you you really like and that's the idea here it's not just about counting these things are letting them stack up but it's about changing our behaviour on a daily basis about changing our strategy so that we can elicit more of those responses because when you change your behavior to elicit more of those responses, then you get more of those other responses leg people getting their credit cards out and that's that makes for happy times all right cells when you pick two to three responses that really excite you as a creator in business owner you can focus your actions and your prospects attention on a listening that response just like what we talked about with patrice there, then you can use your personal response preferences preferences to elicit one of the necessary responses for your business. In other words, you can channel that that response that you really like into either email sign ups or purchases and that's the idea is that we're creating a path ah preferred path of behavior so let's look at um some examples of this the first is from a former client, sean think who's the founder of abundant mama the abundant rama project and abundant mama dot com one of the responses that she really loves you hear about is mother's changing their behavior at home changing their habits so she developed this free welcome gift for her community called the ten habits of highly effective mamas and so right there in the welcome gift she's kind of encouraging that response here's a habit I'd like you to create or habit I would like you to change and to do that she's getting people on her list so everything's all baked into a really nice a little package right there. All right let's do it let's do a quick hot seat because I'd like to break this down a little bit more patrice's example was great let's do it with somebody else real quick melissa come on up let's let's put you in the actual hot seat. So what responses do you really like? Well, like you, I love questions okay? Because it shows that people are looking to me as an expert and it gives me an op eternity to riff cool which I'm really liking else you like to do I love riffing and I like also for same reasons I like interview requests because I get to riff with somebody and have them ask me questions and see me as an expert cool. So do you have a page on your website that asks for an interview requests no, but I will very soon that would be the first thing I would teo I mind this kind of buried into my speaking page now and it's it's not as as prominent but uh four five years ago it was one of the big parts it was actually in the sidebar of my blogged interview me I love being interviewed interview me email this address and we'll set it up and I would be happy to be interviewed by someone who had ten block readers or have a woman who had ten thousand block readers because it was it was just it was really good for me and helped me develop my voice as well as my platt form absolutely so I would highly encourage you to either have a page on your site or to put it in a prominent area like your sidebar that called toe action because that's what this is all about is creating better calls to action at the action being the response right that's great, I love that. Okay fantastic let's talk about the question piece what opportunities do you have for clients are for perspective, clients or perspective customers toe ask you question well, I'm about to have a very regular one because I'm starting a podcast which will feature primarily like, ask melissa like the dear abby for creatives perfect that's, exactly, but I would recommend some people are going t be really drawn to that kind of more produced ah type of thing. If I were doing it, I would probably do it more is like a live thing because I like that kind of spontaneity that happens in a line of communication about that you're just a little bit of a tangent, but I have played around with that with doing like monthly calls where people can come up and come and ask me questions or whatever, and I've gotten a lot of really great, you know, great response from that. It hasn't always lead to sales, has it let this building your platform? Um, well, it's been a while since I've done it. My list was a lot smaller when I did that, but perhaps you could help me with this. I've been told by, uh, other sort of mentors and, um, compatriots, that part of the thing that people really like about working with me is the, um, access right, and if if they get just unlimited free access every month, then perhaps that makes them less likely to sign up for a program where one of the values is that they get access to me. Well, you know what I mean? Yes. Okay, so I agree with that and I disagree with it and that I think a free monthly call is not unlimited access, right? So you know, if it's half hour, forty five minutes even an hour log I think it's that the access piece even goes down further. The bigger your platform grows too, because there are we going to get to you on the phone today if if you're not in a place where you think you can get enough people on the phone to create that sense of urgency and that sense of not having access, then yeah, that's probably not the best thing to do in a podcast where it's much more curated and produced sounds like a phenomenal idea. Yeah, that was the other thing. And again, this was a while ago, so I don't know what it would be like now, but you know, some some months I would get a bunch of people on the calls and other months one or two yeah, so you know and that's not a big deal either as long as there's one or two people are willing to talk to you because sometimes it can be like oh my gosh, I have this transformative experience with melissa now I really understand what she does and I'm going to sign up for her program like I've had that happen before you know whether it's hot seat here, whether it's, you know a hot seat and kickstart labs where we can really dive into something cause maybe there's not a lot of people on the phone and that's when it really clicks for someone and they see the value in it finally they get why it costs what it costs or you know, the format that it's in or whatever so there is up I think there is opportunity there I I really like the direction that you're going with it, so we've confirmed that idea and I you can ask ashley for the chart on your podcast I don't know what her fee is, but yeah, and then I think the and creating that call to action for interview requests I think it's going to be really big, brilliant, yeah, yeah I'm good. Yes, cool. Thank you. All right, you guys starting to see how this works now it's making it a little bit more concrete so it's about understanding what responses inspire and motivate may motivate you creating clear calls toe action and then turning those responses into the necessary responses sign ups to your email list and purchases so knowing how you want people to respond to your work helps you create compelling calls to action that stand out. If you don't want just another sign up for my email list to get free update, think about responses you want that can help people actually decide that signing up for your list is a good idea. So let's. Look at today's homework. Today's. Homework is to decide on two to three ways you want people to respond to your work and your business. Consider how you could tie those responses into new email subscriptions or sales to look at the path holidays. One response that you want. Tie in to new email subscriptions or sales what's that path look like, and then share how you want people to respond to you with us on twitter using the standout biz hashtag so share you want people to respond to your business with us on twitter? Using the standup is hashtag