The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 125: Melissa Chat: Answering Your Questions
I starting asking my Instagram audience questions that they had around business, around scaling...anything was on the table! They came up with amazing questions and today, we are answering the top five most asked questions.
Melissa Chat: Answering Your Questions
By: Melissa Lin
So a few days ago, I asked my Instagram audience and this is something I do fairly often, usually at least once a week, I asked my Instagram audience what questions we had around business, around scaling, etc... Anything was on the table. It didn't matter if you were in the beginning stages or if you're further into your business. I was taking all the questions. Usually I’ll answer these in my Instagram stories, but today I'm answering right here just for you. So, what I did was I grabbed the five most repeated questions. Every single question I'm going to be reviewing today was asked at least by two or three people over and over and over. So we're going to be answering them, for you, right now. So get ready. I've got my coffee in hand, literally in my hand right now, and I am ready to go.
How far in advance do you plan your content?
So who is ready for Q&A time? So, the first question is “how far in advance do you plan your content? I'm getting overwhelmed with it all.” Now we actually four other people asked the same question.
What I do now is definitely not what I did years ago. I love to be as efficient as possible, and I also love to give myself and my business space to pivot if needed. So we typically plan our themes and our pillars a few months ahead of time as they always aligned with our launches. So our launch calendar is typically planned out minimum six months ahead, minimum, if not for the full year, does that mean we're going to stick to it completely? Not always. We may pivot if something comes up, right? We want to have that space to be able to pivot if needed to, but we always create content that aligns with our launches. So we know what we're going to be launching over the next six months, over the next eight months, 12 months.
However, our actual content copy, I like to stay around two weeks ahead. This gives us the flexibility to really pivot if we really need to. So what I mean is for the podcast, for example, I have the topics planned out for the next two months, minimum. However, we don't have all of those fully recorded. Same with Instagram captions, same with our live training, same with our challenges that we do. We have the topics planned out months ahead of time. However, not the actual copy, just because we want to be able to pivot if needed. Right? We don't have every episode for the next three, four months recorded for the podcast. We want to be able to pivot if we want to. So if you're looking for some more help with creating captions, creating content, I do have a quick download, a $35 download, called “The Caption Capsule” to help you with this. It includes a training on how to make your content calendar, all of those things. And you can save five bucks today by using the coupon code “PODCAST”. So that's question number one, we plan topics fairly far in advance, but then the actual copy itself, usually a week or two.
I am starting my business. What should I offer first? What offers should I start with?
Next question is,“I am starting my business. What should I offer first? What offers should I start with?” This is a question, believe it or not, that I get multiple times per week. It's a big question that I'm really excited to answer it and go through it with you. The first thing I do want to say is there is no cookie cutter way to build a business. Right? Like, yes, my programs will give you the step-by-step. However, you do have flexibility to decide different things. For example, you know, we usually recommend starting with private coaching in your business. Does it mean that you need to? No, not necessarily. So I want to go ahead and answer this question and what I first want to say is; It's just as “easy” or “difficult” to sell a $50 offer, a $25 ebook as it is a $1000 coaching program or $2,000 coaching program. It truly takes just as much of your energy. I have been in the online space for years and years and years now, my clients have learned this and I typically recommend starting with one-on-one coaching so that you can run a few beta clients through your program. I’ll do a quick breakdown of the different types of offers you can create in your business. First, second, third, fourth. Again, you get to choose the order. It's your business. So you get to choose exactly how you want it to run. I usually recommend starting with one-on-one coaching first, just because if you create this incredible program and you start to put some people through, you take on your first few clients, that's going to be much easier to make some tweaks and adjustments in the program as you have a few private clients going through it, then if you have a ton of people in a group program going through it. It's much easier to make those tweaks and improvements and get a few people through the program first before you move it into a group coaching program and start to really scale it. That's my recommendation. It's what I've done. That's what I truly recommend. It's what I usually recommend to my clients as well, and it always works out so wonderfully. But again, this is your personal choice.
Now, I want to go through the different types of offers as well, right? A lot of people want to start with eBooks. A lot of people want to start to create online courses, and then a lot of people want to get into group coaching and one-on-one coaching, and they're all wonderful pieces of income streams to add into your business. Now, I want to start with the lowest ticket offer first and kind of walk through what they are, and when you might want to have these in your offer and I'll even go through, like when I had them in my business for the very first time. So, eBooks are something that a lot of people like to create. Right? $25 eBooks, $15 eBooks. They make you feel very safe and very comfortable. They help you build confidence in your area of expertise and will gain you some momentum. However, it will be a little more difficult for you to hit a 5k month, or 10K month with an eBook, if you have a smaller audience. So if you're just getting started in the online space with a smaller audience, definitely would not recommend doing an eBook to get started.
So, my Caption Capsule that we have, We created that, I'm thinking back, I believe in 2018. So it was not the first thing that we released in the business actually. I started with one-on-one coaching and then moved to zoom group coaching, and then created the first digital download product, which is our Caption Capsule. Then, very shortly after, we created our first course, “Sell Like a Sales Queen”. So that's my little take on eBooks. Now, as I just mentioned, we also launched our first course, “Sell Like a Sales Queen,” our sales course, right around the same time. We launched that course back in November 2018, and since then we have launched a few additional courses, right? For you to continue to grow your business and continue to scale, you get to serve more people. One amazing way to do that is with courses. So, with online courses, it does require some knowledge, right? In tech, you've got to create a platform, you've got to find someplace to host your course, usually you have to have a website somewhere to sell it, some copywriting. It's definitely great if you have an audience that's been building a relationship with you. Which is why we didn't launch a course right away. We wanted to really add value to our audience. We wanted to get to know our audience before we opened that course up. Since then we've launched quite a few different courses and we'll definitely be launching additional courses down the road as well.
So, the one-on-one coaching is what I started with. I still have one-on-one coaching in my business right now. I don't work with as many one-on-one coaching clients as I did in the past, I usually only work with anywhere from two to three at a time. So around two or three at one time is usually what I like to do. Who I like to work with in terms of private coaching clients really depends on the time of the year, the launches we're going through, what capacity I've got based off of my other programs and other masterminds, because I'm fairly hands-on with all of my programs.
So one-on-one coaching will provide you the most experience learning. This is the one I usually recommend starting with, especially if you have a smaller audience, it really allows you and gives you the space to experiment, to test, to collect testimonials, and to put a few beta clients through your program. Um, I usually always recommend starting with this, and then as you build your one-on-one coaching program, you can start to add on. If you're going to create any kind of video modules and worksheets and things like that, you can start to build that. That way, once you feel so great about your one-on-one coaching program, you can then very simply transition it into a group coaching program because you have everything already created and it's going to be so much easier for you.
So that is my recommendation for if you're just starting your business, what you should offer, usually recommend one-on-one coaching first and get some people through that program to test and experiment, and then you can expand, start to move into, move away from the one-to-one into the one to many so that you can start to serve more people because that's the goal, right? The goal is to help more people. The goal is to create an even bigger impact in this world as well. So, so much to do, love it so much. We have such an expanded product suite, and I love my products that we have in our business because we have something that goes through from the beginning to the very end of somebody's business journey. Right? We have our academy for women who are starting their online businesses and wanting to scale to the 5k month, we have our six figure mastermind to help you reach consistent 10K months in your business, we've got a new mastermind coming out at an even higher level, we've got private coaching. I've got a few incredible things coming in 2021 as well.
I'm not getting any bites on my offer. Any tips?
Okay. Let's grab question number three, shall we? Okay. Question number three is “I'm not getting any bites on my offer. Any tips?:” So, I'm assuming it’s a higher ticket offer and not a digital download. However, as I mentioned, it is just as easy or difficult to sell a $50 offer as it is a thousand dollar offer, but would love to definitely get into this question. So something that I say all the time, If you're only talking about your offer once every two weeks, I guarantee that your audience does not know about it. So selling is serving. Now, how can your audience buy from you if they don't know about your offer. So, I want you to go and look through your recent content and check to see how often you were actually asking for the sale and go and check. How often have you asked for the sale in your Instagram stories? How often have you actually talked about your program and given your audience direction for how to purchase or how to book a call or how to apply? Right? How often have you done this in your Instagram captions? How many sales captions are you doing every month? We do at least one every single week. How often are you talking about your offer to your email list? Right. Are you being direct or, are you beating around the bush? So what I have seen become a pattern for a lot of beginner coaches or beginner business owners is many tend to beat around the bush when it comes to sales, because most are afraid of rejection and avoid actually asking for the sale. Now, I want to give you an example for what this can look like. Like, “What does that actually mean, asking for the sale, Melissa? You keep saying that.” And before I explain it, I do just want to mention that rejection is not a bad thing. Rejection says nothing about you or your business. If someone says, no, it says nothing about you or your business at all, they just were not the right fit or maybe it just wasn't the right time. So there's a lot that goes into why some people may say no, there's definitely some other factors. Maybe they don't see the value in your offer yet, which is why we get to talk about our offer and the transformation and the ROI, those results, what that really looks like after working with you. But let's go through and give you an example first about how to actually ask for the sale.
So again, many avoid actually asking for the sale, and tend to beat around the bush. So here's an example. In your Instagram stories, what you can do this week is promote your offer. Whether it's you speaking to the camera or Instagram graphics, how about do both, right? Earlier in the week, speak to the camera, promote your offer later in the week, do some infographics or swap that and direct your audience to how to apply for your program with the link in your bio, or to DM you to learn more, we get to give them direction and know that your audience needs to see your offer over and over and over and over and over and over, and about 10 times more after that, they need to see something so many times before they take action. Okay. So that's one quick example for how you can be direct. Now, here's another example in your captions. Directly ask your audience to DM you to learn more after you've pitched your program in a sales pitch, in a sales caption, right? Not everyone's going to see every single post, not everyone's going to see every single story, not everyone's going to see every live. So we want to give them direction and how to reach out to you or how to apply in every word on all your platforms. So those are a few.
Now here's a third. I'm going to give you another way to actually ask for the sale. So you can do this week as well. So go and poll your audience with some of the pain and pleasure points that are related to your offer, and then go and directly message those that answer your poll and ask if they have any questions and start to pre-qualify them in the DMs. Start the sales conversation in the DMs. Yes. You are allowed to do this. We close very often in the DMs without hopping on sales calls and you are most definitely allowed to do this as well, or you can simply start to pre-qualify before hopping on a sales call. That way, you're not just hopping on a sales call with everyone that comes your way. You most definitely want to pre-qualify. Okay. So there's a few tips there for helping you get a few more bites for your offer.
Any tips on what to automate first in my business?
Let's get into question number four. Question number four is: “Any tips on what to automate first in my business?” Ooh, this is a really great question. I mean, these are all wonderful questions. Automation is so fun in business. If you don't believe this, or if you haven't felt this yet, we're going to help you feel this. It definitely is fun. What I want to recommend first is to go and take a look at your current process, your processes that you have right now in your business and ask yourself what is taking the most time right now in your business. What takes you the most time? See where you can automate here. So for example, what I tend to recommend my clients to automate first is things in their business, such as serving. Like, one to many. How can you improve your client experience? Things that are taking a big chunk of time. So, I want to go through and provide you some examples.
So, what I mean by automating things where you're serving one to many, things that you're doing with a lot of people at one time. For example, your freebies that you have, that gets to be automated. So, when somebody comes to your freebie and puts in their name and email address, that all should be automated, they should automatically receive that first email, with the freebie inside. Automatically, hands-off. When I first started my business back in 2014, I did not know that it could be automated. Right? We all start somewhere. So, I could remember. When I started to get my first few email addresses, I would manually send out my freebie. So, I do not want you to be doing that because it took so much of my time, me doing this manually. So, all of this can be automated very simply on the backend. Email sequences, right? You're sending out an email to a lot of people, many people on your email list. If you're doing a challenge, all the challenge emails, your weekly newsletter. Like those are all things that can be automated. Anything that you're doing where you're serving or sending something to multiple people.
The second example for how you can automate things, it will also help improve client experience. So onboarding, right? When someone purchases from you, we want to make sure we can create some type of communication with them. Very quickly. Most people these days want something or want access to something right away. At least I know that is how it is for me. So I usually want to be able to get my hands on something the minute I enter my credit card information and press submit. So creating automation on onboarding, right? An immediate welcome email on the backend, immediate access to the course hub, etc. You can start automating that so it's hands off. So it does hit a few birds with one stone. It helps you improve your client experience and it also gives you more time back in your business because you're not having to do that by hand.
So a third example, ask yourself, you're like, what is taking a big chunk of your time right now in your business? Is it you posting on social media? Is it you tracking different things in your business, your company metrics or KPIs, is it you sending out emails to your applicants? That can be automated. Yes! That can be automated. Scheduling calls with either clients or potential clients, a failed payment response, all of these things can be automated. So, I hope that you're learning something new. If not, that's okay. We've got another question coming up too, but there's a lot of your business, a lot more than you might think, that can be automated. And if it can't be automated, it can most indefinitely be delegated and outsourced.
How do I start to scale without working so much?
Okay. Here we go. Question number five. This is a great question. So question number five is: “I am burnt out from private coaching. How do I start to scale without working so much?” This is a question that I receive from a lot of people, especially when they're about to move into the next level, right? If you are completely filled, if your coaching roster, your private coaching roster is filled at the moment, I first want to say, congrats! That's amazing! That's so exciting! You're helping people, but now it's time to take it to the next level so that you can help even more people, right?
When you start to move the one to one to the one to many, that is where you get to help and serve more people. So I want to help you and answer this. I do want to say that I can definitely relate to this, because a few years ago I was working with, I want to say it was about 10 private clients at one time. I think that was my max. I had a business coach and I was giving every single one of my clients who I loved so much weekly calls and private access to me. So it was a lot of my time. I was spending so much time with my clients and providing incredible results. However, I was so just burnt out and I had no idea where I was going to find the time to grow my business. Like I had no idea. I thought I was going to be stuck doing private coaching forever. So, I definitely want to help you and help you think about the next steps to scale.
What I usually recommend is, we really want to create something where you have a very clear journey. So I call this a product suite. We want to create a very clear customer journey through our product suites. So if you're burnt out from private coaching, I want you to start to think about moving from one-to-one to one-to-many and think about your product suite first. So have you started expanding your product suite? Are you only offering one-on-one coaching? If that's the case, let's start to add some other items into your product suite. So, you always recommend having at least something low ticket, mid ticket and high ticket. So your one on one coaching is most likely your highest ticket right now. So start to think about, okay, group coaching programs, I can serve one to many, I can help so many more people in a group coaching program or a course or a digital product, right? We want to have something available for everyone in all steps of your customer journey. So, do you have various tier containers in your business? When people come into our customer journey, we have our Caption Capsule, a quick digital download. We've got a ton of freebies, we've got so much value. Then, when it comes to our paid offers, we have a few courses, usually all under $500. We have a launch course that's a little more high ticket. So that's $1497. Then, we get into our first group coaching program, which is the Fierce Business Academy. Once people graduate, we always have something ready for them for the next level, when they're ready to move up and move their business into the next level, because we are here to support them throughout their entire journey. So we're always ready for them and have material and resources to move them into the next level.
So starting to think about your product suite and look at your current offers again, if private coaching is your only offer, that's okay. Let's start to brainstorm what else we can create and add to your current offers to allow you to scale? So, now, every time that we create a new offer in our business, we're always looking at the structure of the offer and I'm always asking myself, “Okay, is this truly scalable?” We want to be able to always make sure something is scalable so that you can serve more and more people in that container, especially if it's a course or a group program. If it's a private coaching offer and you're only taking on a few clients. Okay. Yeah. That's not scalable. That's okay. But with everything else, we always want to ask ourselves, how can we scale this?
So for example, if you have a group coaching program, where you can only realistically bring five people in each round. Okay, how can we tweak this so that you can bring in 15 to 20 in that container for that group coaching program? Those are the things that we want to start to think about as you start to expand your product suite, as you start to scale and really move from the one-to-one to one-to-many because the more people you can impact, the more success that will come your way.
Another thing I do want to mention, you know, we have been talking about being burnt out from private coaching and how to get past that and start scaling. You may also want to consider hiring and delegating, starting to outsource. So start handing some of your tasks to another team member. Hand off items that are taking up the majority of your time and things that others can do for you, so that you can focus on your zone of genius and be bringing in more clients into your current offers. Then, at some point, you can also expand your sales team so they can help you with that as well.
Then, the last thing I do want to mention is if you are burnt out from private coaching, if you are really ready and really want to scale, find someone who's done it before. Really, I truly believe in investing and mentorship and investing will help you reach your next level so much faster. The question I want to ask you is “Would you rather get there fast and avoid some of those speed bumps along the way or take the slow route and hit a few speed bumps?” So I always believe in mentorship. I will always have some type of mentor in my corner with me as I continue. It's helped me get to my level so much faster than if I were going through this alone. So I definitely recommend that. So tons of things to help you to move out from private coaching so that you can continue to grow your business without working so much, without the hustle, and yes, you can still create an incredible customer experience and incredible results with your clients without working as much as maybe you are right now. It's a lot of different tasks, a lot of things that we can tweak in how you're running your business, how some of your programs are currently being run and a few things with bringing on potential team members and things like that.
Okay. Wow. That was all five questions. So fun! So, Take a screenshot, tag me on Instagram @TheMelissaLin, send me a message, and let me know what your biggest takeaway was. I would love to hear it! Thank you for hanging out with me today. I'm always going to be your biggest cheerleader. So you taking time out of your day to hang with me, truly means the world to me. I'll see you next time.
Topics we cover include:
How Far In Advance To Plan Your Content
What You Should Offer First
How To Increase Your Sales
Where To Start Automating
How To Scale While Working Less
And so much more!
Times to check out:
(7:36) How far in advance do you plan your content?
(10:12) I am starting my business. What should I offer first?
(18:39) I'm not getting any bites on my offer. Any tips?
(24:06) Any tips on what to automate first in my business?
(28:20) How do I start to scale without working so much?
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