Kat Millar

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Need to Attract New Clients Fast? 3 Things You Can Do Today!

A lot of people say to me, ‘I need new clients and I need them quickly, I’m desperate.’ If that’s you, I have 3 really powerful strategies to attract new clients, that you can implement straight away.

There are many long-term strategies we can employ to attract new clients. An example is creating a workshop, creating a webinar, or creating a whole marketing funnel with emails and a nurture sequence.

However, these strategies take time.

If you need clients fast and time is of the essence, then these 3 tips are for you.

But remember; The power lies in doing them! Some of these take courage to do and some mean stepping out of your comfort zone to do them, but they are worth the effort.

So here are the 3 things you can do to get clients fast:

1. Private Message a One-on-One Free Offer

Write a list all of your contacts on Facebook and Instagram, and identify who would be ideal clients and potential prospects.

Message each ideal client an offer of a free one-on-one strategy or discovery session with you.

Use clearly defined questions for that conversation to find out your potential client’s problems, current challenges, goals and desires. Offer a 30 or 45-minute session with you, to get to know what challenges you can help them overcome.

You might want to add a ‘there’s zero sales pitch’ at this point also, so people don’t feel like they’re being sold something right away. I have a template that you can use for this. Just email me to request it.

My template states: ‘Hi… I hope you’re doing well. I thought of you because I know that you have an interest in …’ If you are approaching a nutritionist, you might say, ‘I know that you value your health…’ Then you would say, ‘I’m offering support and help for your biggest challenge.’

At this point you would add some credibility for example: ‘I’m a qualified coach and I specialise in …’ You would then continue, ‘I’m opening up spaces for 5 people for 45 minutes, free of charge next week.’

Then add in some scarcity, so you need to include an expiry date or make it a limited offer.

In the book ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini, he shares that scarcity is one of the key pillars of influence.

Then include your calendar link for them to book straight in, such as Calendly.com.

There are a few do’s and don’ts to follow for this strategy:

  • Do value yourself and position this opportunity as valuable.
  • Don’t come across as apologetic. Your time is precious and you need to position your time as being valuable.
  • Ensure you only send messages to potential ideal clients.
  • Add some scarcity and urgency by making sure there is a clear cut-off point for your offer.

2. Post an Offer on Your Facebook Page

I find most people don’t make offers as much as they should as they are scared. They don’t want to use social media as a sales tool. But you should be making offers on your business social media platforms!

No doubt you are giving people lots of value on your social media pages, but when was the last time that you told people on your business pages exactly what you do and what your paid program is about?

Tell those on your business page exactly what you do and make them an offer! Make a 2-minute video detailing exactly what you do and how you help people. You can even do a flash sale or offer a reduced rate, but give it scarcity and make sure you put an end date on your offer. Back yourself and make an offer!

Remember, we’re talking short-term strategies to gain clients today. The long-term strategies are things like webinars, workshops and creating a sales funnel.

3. Contact Potential Ideal Clients on the Phone

Most people do not want to do this and don’t like speaking on the phone. There is an element of facing fear and rejection when making calls to prospective clients. We also don’t want to bother people. However, hearing a ‘no’ is part of the process. It’s one step closer to someone who says ‘yes’.

To do this, write a list of your potential ideal clients. Have a script pre-written and stick to your script. Make them an offer of a complimentary strategy session or another offer you feel is appropriate.

You’re not saying you want to hold the session today; you are offering to book them in for a future strategy session.

You could say, ‘I’ve been looking at my calendar and I was thinking of you. I was wondering if you would be interested in having a one-on-one discovery session with me? I believe I can help you with your challenges…’

In this call you’re ringing to give, you’re not ringing to take from them. You’re ringing to give them a great offer! And all you are asking them to do is take up your offer for a free one-on-one session at a later date. Then text your calendar link.

And if you’re not a match and they don’t need your services, then you are one step closer to finding your ideal client! A ‘no’ is just one step closer to your ‘yes’!

Click here to email me to request my script for private messaging potential clients.

Remember, the world is waiting for your brilliance!

Kat

P.S. Want an effective content creation game plan, so you can start attracting more paid clients FAST?

? Check out our new upcoming workshop…

CREATE CONTENT THAT CONNECTS

A 2-day live ‘get it done’ workshop in Sydney

Get Your Entire Client-Attracting Content 6 Month Game Plan DONE… in one weekend!

Learn More About The ‘Create Content That Connects’ Workshop

 

 

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5 Essentials of Influential Social Media Content

Creating consistent content is so important in growing your business.

But to attract your ideal clients, it’s not about just posting any content; it’s about posting influential content.

It’s SO important that your content on social media is influential. You can spend so much time in your content, and if it’s not influential, that time can be wasted.

You could have been investing and doing something more important in your business that was actually going to get you a result.

If you post influential content, you’ll be way more likely to help people to move along with the journey towards you, and have them take that step closer to becoming a paying client.

You want to think about what the purpose of your content is, (rather than just posting for posting sake).

You want to ensure your content is really helpful, relevant and influential, meaning you’re helping people to actually take action to change their life, not just to entertain them.

Recently one of my clients said to me; “Kat, I’m thinking I need to post more funny stuff on my Facebook business page, because the funny stuff gets the most likes.”

I’m not sure if you’ve fallen into that trap before, but likes are not the goal. Getting people to take the next step towards you is the goal – the step towards becoming a paid client.

Be careful not to just chase engagement – in terms of likes, but actually encourage a relationship with that person, inspire that person to become someone to change, and to take action for themselves.

Really the test is: Are people coming through your funnel? Are you getting people off social media and onto your website, onto your landing page and onto your online domain?

Ask yourself; ‘What is going to get people over the line?’ ‘What is actually going to make people want to sign up for you?’

People will sign up with you because you inspired them to want to take action. It’s because you educated them on the importance of taking action, of the cost if they don’t take action and why you’re different. Entertaining them is important. I’m not saying don’t post funny stuff. Use funny stuff as a break from your day, but it doesn’t lead to paid clients.

Paid clients purchase premium products that inform, inspire and educate. The purpose of social media is for potential clients to get to know, like and trust you, so they want to take the journey with you.

We need to make influential social media content that brings our clients across the line.

Here are 5 Essentials of Influential Social Media Content:

1) Design the Purpose of Your Post First

Decide prior to commencing your post what the purpose of your post is. Use strategy and intentionality when developing your social media posts. Think through what will lead to bringing money into your bank account.

Remember as a business owner if money is not going into your bank account consistently to cover your lifestyle and bills, you will always be stuck in a job, working for someone else.

If you really want to be an entrepreneur and get money into your bank account from working with people, you’ve got to think about the journey your potential clients will take to get there.

Usually, a future client’s journey starts with interacting with your social media post. That post leads them along the journey to become a paid client.

Be helpful, relevant and have a purpose and reason for your post. Building rapport, connection and trust with your future client is the beginning of their journey with you. A piece of content might be made to overcome a specific objection a client had. It might be to show a little bit more about your story, so they relate to you a little bit more.

It might be to showcase how you can help them by telling an example of a great story that you’ve had with a client, a case study or something that happened to you that week that was an excellent lesson. The lesson should help them to take more action towards you. Be strategic and ensure your posts all have a purpose.

2) Speak Directly to Your Ideal Clients’ Desires and Challenges

A lot of people don’t have goals, but they know what they want. A lot of people have dreams, but they might not even think that they can achieve their dreams. Many people may have goals, but how many are actually realising them?

If you were to ask a person, ‘What do you want?’,  most people know what they want. Ask a person, ‘What are you struggling with?’ and they will be able to articulate their struggles to you.

Speak directly to your ideal client, not broadly as thought talking to friends or family. Speak directly to the person that you want to work with, to your target market or avatar. Speak to their desires. Speak to their challenges. The deeper you go, the better for your potential future client.

It’s not all about demographics. It’s about psychographics. What are their thoughts, their feelings and beliefs? What are they thinking about themselves? What are they thinking about you?

Go deeper. WHY do they need to change? WHY do they want that goal? WHY do they need help with it? Start talking about that. Be really specific about their desires and their challenges.

3) Help Them Overcome Barriers to Action

‘How To’ videos are abounding on the internet. It’s the most searched term on Google. But we’ve got to remember, that it’s not just about people learning, it’s about people doing. It’s about people taking action on what you’re teaching them.

When you’re thinking about your content for your social media, ask yourself; ‘How can I help them overcome their resistance to changing?’ ‘How can I have them overcome their biggest objections to investing in themselves?’

You can address these questions through your social media content. So when you’re thinking about money in your bank account and your potential client becoming your paid client, you must work your way back to this regarding content. What is going to stop them from getting to this point?

And it’s not just about getting a paid client. It’s about transforming someone’s life. It’s about helping them become who they want to be. It’s about helping them out of their pain and helping them get relief.

You’re helping them to avoid, become or create something in their life and to be the person they want to be.

4) Show Them How Else You Can Help Them

Build into your pre-planned strategy, a way to incorporate further development for your future client. Show them how else you can help them. It might look like: Giving them one thing that they could go away and do. One small result so that you’re showing them that you actually have seven. ‘This is one part of my ‘7-step strategy’.

Or it’s one recipe that you’ve got, out of your 50 recipes. Or it’s one technique to overcome a limiting belief, out of all the 50 interventions that you do with people.

You’re not just giving them enough that they feel satisfied. You’re giving them a little taste, so they go, ‘Oh it tastes good’ and they want more. You’re showing them how else you can help them.

You’re not just giving them this false illusion that their problem is solved. We know that no one is going to change their life from one piece of social media content. It’s a layered journey. So build that layering within your strategy document.

People often know what to do but they don’t know how to apply it to them and that’s where you can come in and help. It’s about planting seeds in their mind so they think, ‘Ah, when I need to work on that, I will go to the go-to person’. Planning your strategy is key.

5) Have a Call To Action or Engagement

Your call to action is your next connection and interaction with a future client. It could be, ‘Jump onto the call with me’ or ‘Come to my free webinar’ or ‘Join my five-day challenge’. It could be, ‘Download my freebie’, or ‘Drop a comment or put a yes in the comment box’.

Your call to action is asking your potential client to do something with you and it also works to build engagement. The reason that asking for ‘comments’, ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ works on Facebook, is that Facebook sees these actions, and then pushes your content out to more people in the community.

To recap my 5 tips;
  1. Decide the purpose of your post first
  2. Speak directly to your ideal clients’ desires and challenges
  3. Help them to overcome barriers to action
  4. Show them how else you can help them
  5. Have a call to action or engagement

Applying these 5 tips will help you lead your potential client on a journey towards being a paid client.

P.S. Want an effective content creation game plan, so you can start attracting more paid clients FAST?

? Check out our new exciting upcoming workshop…

CREATE CONTENT THAT CONNECTS

A 2-day live action workshop in Sydney

Get Your Entire Client-Attracting Content 6 Month Game Plan DONE… in one weekend!

Learn More About The ‘Create Content That Connects’ Workshop

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3 Tips For Growing An Entrepreneurial Mindset

 

Would you like to know how successful entrepreneurs think?

In this video and article, I share with you three ways to grow an entrepreneurial mindset. 

You might be wondering, what is an entrepreneurial mindset?

If you Google it you get all sorts of things that people say are an entrepreneurial mindset.

If you compare it with the 9-5 mindset, you’ll see that there are some crossovers. 

Being a high performer, working hard, having excellence in your job, being great at what you do. These are some of the crossovers between whether you’re working for someone else or you’re working for yourself. 

But there are some unique things that entrepreneurs have in their mindset if they’re going to be successful. 

When I’ve been asking this question to people, I ask them – what do you think is the actual mindset that’s different?

Based on my research and my own observations, I’ve come up with the 3 that I think are the most important.

1. Be Committed

If you want to grow an entrepreneurial mindset, you must be committed.

Committment covers a lot – resilience, the ability to figure things out the ability to go through, failure – the ability to just keep going and not give up…

If you’re committed to figuring things out, no matter what it takes – you’re going to figure it out, then that means that you’re going to have a mindset of growth, right? 

You go all-in on it, rather than just dipping your toe in the water and saying “I’m just going to stay safe. But if it doesn’t work out, then I’ll go back to another job”. 

If you’re committed to being the identity of an entrepreneur, then it’s amazing how the resources flow to you – how the people flow to you how the money flows to you.

When you’re committed, you say “This is what I’m doing. This is who I am. And no matter what it takes, I’ll figure it out:. 

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the entrepreneurial mindset and watching a lot of videos of people talking and TED talks about the success entrepreneurial mindset, and people are saying – it’s not that I’m any smarter, it’s not that I’ve got a super personality. 

Which is good news!

It’s an even, equal playing field when it comes to entrepreneurship.

In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs, say that they don’t feel smart and that they haven’t got a traditional education or had great marks at school or anything like that. Any of us can choose to be an entrepreneur because everything can be learned. 

With technology the way it is, with courses, with the amount of information that we have access to, any of us can choose this, as a venture or a vocation is something that we get paid for. But we’ve got to be committed, we’ve got to be committed to no matter what happens because it is going to be tough.

Be committed to what you want. Be committed to that vision that you have, of your future best self, have your dream life, of your vision. 

When you know yourself when you know your vision, your goals, when you have a plan, and you’re working towards it every day and you’re committed to it.

It doesn’t matter how you feel. It doesn’t matter whether you wake up in the morning and you say, I kind of can’t be bothered today. 

Because you’re committed, you’re all in and you’re saying, I’m going to set deadlines and I’m going to stick to them because I don’t have a boss telling me what to do.

When you’re the entrepreneur, you are the leader, you’re the CEO. And you’re also the person doing the grunt work until you have a team. You must come from that mindset of I have to show up no matter what, I must be committed. 

There’s some research that shows that when we set a deadline It doubles the likelihood that we’re going to achieve it if we have a deadline.

If we set a goal that’s specific and not ambiguous like…

I’m going to make 10 phone calls every single day for a month. That’s a clear goal.

Or I’m going to get five clients by the end of this month.

Or I’m going to run three meetup events for webinars in this quarter.

Those goals that are very specific they have a deadline.

With a deadline, you double the likelihood of achieving it than saying my goal is to have a great business.

Ambiguous goals don’t work. Goals without deadlines don’t work.

2. Be Curious

Number two is to be curious.

When you’re curious, you will ask yourself a lot of questions. You will also ask other people a lot of questions.

I get quite surprised sometimes when I ask people questions, and they don’t know the answer to it, and I know that they haven’t been asking themselves that question. 

For example, I’ll ask someone to tell me about their dreams. Often people fumble over the answer and they don’t really have their dreams articulated or they don’t have any goals.

I’ve always set goals and it’s always really helped me; it doesn’t mean I achieved them all. But the pursuit of a goal is what makes you stronger.

When I was working nine to five it was; you learn your job, you get good at it. And then you just rinse and repeat every day. 

I wasn’t having to bring creativity or innovation or growth to it. I was having to just turn up, do my job and go home. And for me, that was hard. Because I’m a very curious person. I like learning why I like figuring out how to do things better.

I was working for this insurance company, and we would have to post people a claims form. I remember saying to my manager at the time, why don’t we scan it in? Or why don’t we go paperless?

And she was very opposed to the idea – she said no, this is the way we’ve always done it. This is the way we do it.

I wasn’t trying to rock the boat; I was trying to bring in some new ideas and I was curious about how to do things better. But that kind of thing got shut down. It was more this industrial mindset of just churn out the factory linework and just get it done. 

When you’re an entrepreneur, you can get curious – you think, how can I do things better? How can I plan better? How can I be this person, is this best version of myself?

Entrepreneurs constantly think, who’s the best version of myself that I’m working towards, and they start living that out on a daily basis.

For example, let’s say you want to be a great speaker.

Instead of saying, I’m going to do that in three years, you start turning up on a smaller scale, you start doing Facebook Lives now, you start getting in front of groups of people and practising and being that identity of a speaker in order to live that best future self now.

Rather than thinking – I’ve got this goal I want to achieve in the future, start living it now. Start acting as if you’re that now, because you’re not going to get better until you show up as that person and practice and get better.

Successful entrepreneurs, they don’t mind showing up and getting it wrong. They are not attached to perfectionism.

A friend recently told me; perfectionism is fear in high heels. It’s just doubt and fear and keeping us small and keeping us stuck. 

When you’re curious, you think, what’s an even bigger goal?

What’s an even cooler thing that I can aim towards instead of just staying stuck at that status quo?

Being curious is thinking – how can I update my skills? How can I get more knowledge? It’s being hungry to learn; it’s placing yourself in learning environments all the time.

If you have curiosity naturally, it’s an asset as an entrepreneur. If you don’t have it naturally, how can you start incorporating it into your life is just start asking yourself more questions – more quality questions and write them.

Questions like – How can I make this week better than last week? How can I make this event the best event that I’ve ever run? How can I be the best version of myself for people today? How can I show up differently?

Always be curious and ask questions and do your research.

3. Be Outstanding

Number three is to be outstanding.

When I first heard this concept of being outstanding, Tony Robbins was talking about it and when I was at his “Unleash the Power Within” event.

I thought that it was almost like better than excellence. I researched the word outstanding. The definition of it, it talks about being the best, you’re being almost a level above great, because good enough, is not good enough anymore with a competitive marketplace we have now.

We can’t just be great, and we can’t just be excellent. We’ve got to be outstanding.

When I heard that I thought, wow, I’m already working hard. I’m already trying to push excellence in working on improving. What else do I need to do?

But I realised it wasn’t about necessarily going up, but it was more going lateral.

How can I go laterally, to be different to stand out? If you’re not willing to stand out, which has an element of risk and has an element of fear. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not going to make it as an entrepreneur.

Outstanding means you show up and you’d be visible consistently. Even if it’s not going to be perfect. Because you will never do a perfect Facebook Live video, I’ve never done one.

You’ll never do a perfect workshop; you’ll never do a perfect speech. It’s never finished. You never arrive. If you’re creative, if you are high-achiever, you never arrive.

But you can just keep showing up and standing out and be willing to have a voice, which is not always easy because you’re going to get judged. You’re going to get some doubters some haters.

The most successful people have the most people not liking them. If you see anyone that’s doing well, you’re going to see people that don’t like what they’re doing.

But if you want to be successful, you’ve got to be willing to be outstanding to stand out. And that means being truly authentically you.

You don’t have to go and change. You don’t have to go and do crazy stuff. You don’t have to do anything crazy. You just must just be yourself. Because if you’re being yourself, you’re being outstanding, but I mean truly being you.

That means showing up in your full authenticity, which can be tough. It’s vulnerable, especially in this world where we can Photoshop everything, where we can edit everything, to be willing to stand out by just being who you are.

It is one of the bravest things that you’ll ever do.

There was a study done of over 20,000 people who are extremely high performance. Through this study, they discovered that the most outstanding people are the ones who really understand who they are and perform out of their own authenticity.

A lot of people are trying to change themselves to be someone that they’re not.

You just must turn up. Be the best version of yourself. Meaning, you’re always curious, you’re always pushing the boundaries.

You’re committed. You’re always learning, you’re always trying your best.

And you’re willing to just keep showing up consistently.

Not easy, but it’s doable, and worth it.

Success Secrets of Successful Female Entrepreneurs

On Thursday, I’m running an event in the city called ‘Success Secrets of Successful Female Entrepreneurs’.

If you haven’t registered, it’s nearly full. Make sure that you register your space because we’re just about full up. 

Learn More about Secrets Of Successful Female Entrepreneurs
How to Create Content that Connects

I also have a workshop on Saturday called How to Create Content that Connects. It’s all about how to write copy for your business and how to create consistent quality content through your blog, articles, workshops, webinars, and on video. 

Learn More about How To Create Content That Connects

I’d love to see you at one of the live events soon!

And remember – be curious, be committed and be outstanding.

Kat xo

 

 

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3 Crucial Keys To Creating Content That Connects

 

I’m excited to share with you in this video three crucial keys to creating content that connects.
 
And by connects, I’m talking about connecting with your ideal clients.
 
We can so easily get lost in a sea of noise, especially online, especially on social media. And if you think about where you’re putting your content, a lot of it is going to be driven on social media.
 
Social media is sending people away to your blog, to your email, to your website, to your landing page.
 
It’s crucial in social media that we know how to connect with our ideal clients to stop the scroll.
 
Because people can so easily just flick on by if we are not writing content that’s engaging and compelling and interesting, and is going to hook them and make them want more.
 
I’m going to be sharing three crucial keys on how to create content that connects, that lands, that stops the scroll, and is connecting with the people that you want to connect with.
 
Not everyone, not all of your friends and family and thousands of Facebook friends, but the people that you would like to have as clients, people that you’d love to do business with.
 
1. Be specific
 
The first way to create content that connects or the first key is to be specific.
 
When you’re posting your content, like you’re putting up a social media post with an image and a caption, you want to make sure that you’re not using vague, ambiguous, fluffy language.
 
You want to use very specific language. The type of language that you want to use that has specificity, ideally creates a visual in the person’s mind.
 
I gave an example on my group training program before, where when you have some something that’s vague, for example, “Be the best version of yourself,” it’s quite hard to grasp that and actually have an image of what that actually looks like.
 
Or you might say, “Go to the next level.” When you use that kind of language, it’s hard for that person to picture what you mean.
 
What does it mean to go to the next level? You want to actually spell it out for them in your content.
 
When you’re putting out a piece of content that maybe is talking about going to the next level or being the best version of yourself, you might describe specifically what that looks like.
 
If your ideal client is a busy, stressed out mum and you want her to be able to be a better mum, let’s say that’s what you’re coaching her on, you might say something like
 
“Be a mum that your child would be really proud of, with a house that you feel relaxed coming home to,” for example, because it’s very visual, it’s very specific.
 
It’s not just, “Be an awesome Mum.”
 
Or let’s say you’re coaching someone around their money mindset.
 
Instead of saying “Improve your money mindset, go to the next level in your finances and have a better relationship with money,” you would give some actual tangible examples.
 
You might say, “Every time you open up your wallet, you know that it’s fat, that you’ve got your savings in there, and that you’re free to go and purchase that really beautiful dress, because you’ve got your splurge fund waiting for you in your wallet.”
 
You can actually visualise the money in the wallet going to buy the dress, as opposed to just having a great money mindset.
 
Spell out examples for your clients through your copy, and do this through numbers and dates if you can.
 
So, for example, instead of saying, “I’ll help you grow your business” if you’re a business coach, you might say something like, “I’ll help you to attract five clients in the next five weeks.”
 
Or if you’re a personal trainer, “I’ll help you lose five kilos in five weeks.”
 
These kind of numbers that are very specific and tangible and concrete, are important in creating content that connects.
 
How can you be more specific in your numbers?
 
Let’s say for example, you’re sharing a statistic about some percentages. Instead of saying something like, “20% of people feel that blah, blah,” you might say, “One in five people feel blah, blah.” So if you’ve got a family of five, that’s one of you.
 
Suddenly it’s a bit more tangible, it’s more concrete. Someone can think, “Ah, I get it. Like one in five, that’s one out of me and my five group of friends.”
 
And it’s very specific. I know it means the same thing, 20%, but it’s having things that people can grab onto and feel and see and visualise and experience through words on the page.
 
2. Be consistent
 
If you want to connect with people, it’s not going to happen with a post once every two or three weeks.
 
You want to create consistency so that people start to trust that you’re going to keep turning up and giving them great value for free.
 
Pick a time, a date, a day of the week where you’re going to consistently show up.
 
So for me at the moment this year, I show up every Wednesday night, usually around eight o’clock, and I share great content with you guys.
 
This is something that’s consistent, that I do every single week. And then I actually get it transcribed into a blog and I put it up on my blog every week.
 
When you’ve got a consistent schedule, people will start to trust you; people start to realise that you’re the expert in that area and that you have a lot to say about your topic.
 
Because whatever you’re talking about, whatever your topic is, you want to position yourself as the go to person, as the expert, as the authority about that topic, right? And it’s quite hard to do that. In fact, it’s very hard to do that if you’re not being consistent.
 
How often are you showing up with content? If you want to grow your business faster and get more clients, you need to be regularly showing up.
 
Ideally, I would recommend two social media posts a day. So something in the morning and something later on in the afternoon or at night. You want to have one piece of valuable content every single week as well as your social media posts.
 
Your social media posts are like your micro blogs, little pieces of education, inspiration, information that educates people, gives them value, and it’s just small snippets.
 
They’re getting to know you, like you, trust you through your regular posts. If you’re not doing much at all at the moment, start with what you can do.
 
You might think, oh twice a day, there’s no way I could do that because I’m only doing it let’s say once every two weeks.
 
So you might say, “Okay, I’m going to do it three times a week, and then by let’s say come January, I’m going to be doing it five times a week.”
 
And so wherever you’re at, I recommend that you set a goal to move up to one to two times a day.
 
And for your one weekly piece of content that you show up on video and/or on blog or an article or some piece of written content that you put on your website and then you point people to it through social media like through LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook for example.
 
You share that piece of written content.
 
You might put it in your Facebook group and you might write the article on LinkedIn and you’re doing that piece of valuable content at least once a week.
 
If you aren’t a huge fan of writing, then show up on video. It’s a lot quicker.
 
It’s easier to prepare; people are more forgiving if you stumble over your words as opposed to getting it wrong in a written form.
 
If you don’t want to show up on video, then you’ll need to write. Write an article, go back the next day, tweak it, change it, run it through Grammarly.
 
Make sure that it’s well-written and professional, and get that up onto your website every single week.
 
3. Be emotional
 
If you want to connect with people, be emotional. There’s so much research overwhelmingly saying that even the most left brain amongst us makes decisions based on emotions, not logic.
 
We justify it and back it up with logic, but we make the majority of our decisions based on emotion.
 
So if you are wanting to influence someone for positive change, to take action, to download your lead magnet, or come to your event or sign up for a free coaching discovery session with you, to use that influential language that connects with them, we need to move people emotionally.
 
And we can do this through emotional language, through feeling language. And we can also do it by telling stories.
 
Instead of just chucking up some stats and facts and data, you might throw in a story.
 
You might say, “Today I was having coffee with a friend, and we got talking about blah, blah.” And you just paint a little scene of when you came up with this concept, and now I want to share with you … “Based on that conversation, I want to share with you my top three ways to blah, blah.”
 
So you’re just adding that little story in so that it’s not just, “Hey, here’s my tips and …” Anyone on the internet could share their tips, but no one has the same stories as you. So that’s that way to also make it pretty unique.
 
Ok to recap: number one, to create connect that connects.
 
Number one is to be specific. Number two, be consistent. And number three, be emotional.
 
So which one was your favorite tip and which one are you going to actually take action on?
 
What are you going to go and do?
 
How can you be more specific in your language? How can you give concrete, tangible results and benefit-driven language through your content?
 
Is that something that you feel like you need to do more of, or do you feel like you just need to work on being more consistent? Showing up more often, maybe having a schedule?
 
Maybe like me, you want to commit to doing a Facebook Live every week or doing a blog and maybe having a theme around it, like you might have Motivation Monday or I used to have Feel-good Friday.
 
I know a lot of people don’t want to commit, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done this year, actually.
 
It’s the first year that I’ve committed to every single week, and it’s amazing. I’ve never produced so much content because I’ve committed, I’ve told it publicly that this is where I’m going to be showing up, and so I make sure that I do it.
 
Whereas if I was like, “Oh, I’ll just do it when I feel like it,” it definitely wouldn’t be that often. So you just want to put it into your schedule, put it into your life.
 
Or maybe you feel like your content is a little bit too logical, a little bit too bland, a bit stats-heavy or facts/how to-heavy and you might want to start adding in some more stories into your content.
 
If you’re in Sydney tomorrow I have an event in Sydney called ‘How To Create Content That Connects‘, it’s a Meetup in the City.
 
I’m going to be sharing more of my top secrets on how to create content that connects.
You’ll pick up lots of tools and examples of powerful words and phrases that you can use in your content.
 
Also, you’ll learn the mistakes to avoid; there’s a lot of mistakes that I see all the time that people are making on social media and on their emails and blogs with the content.
 
I’m talking about the biggest mistakes to avoid, the most important words to use, the words that keep the brain going. I call it “green language”. And also the red language, which actually stops the brain.
 
There’s neuromarketing in there where we’re actually talking to the subconscious mind through our content to help people take action through planting seeds, through the copywriting.
 
I’m going to be sharing some of my best content creation secrets.
I’d love you to come along, meet some new people, meet some other like-minded entrepreneurs and have some free snacks and drinks and have a great night.
 
So don’t be trick-or-treating. Come to this event instead. You can wear a Halloween costume if you want, and you can go trick-or-treating before or after, but come, because you’ll love it.
 
If you as a business owner or wanting to be, then you don’t want to miss it.
 

Here’s the link: bit.ly/content-oct

 

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3 Secrets To Creating More Engaging Content

 

I did a poll recently in my Facebook group Amplify Your Influence asking “What do you need the most help with?”

And a lot of people said how to create content, and how write in a way that’s influential and engaging and compelling.

As business owners, we need to be able to capture people’s attention and to be able to keep people engaged with what we’re saying.

This so that people can get to know us better, because the more that people get to know us, the better we can help them.

If you’re not getting to know your people and if your people are not getting to know you within your tribe or community, it’s very hard to influence them.

Think about the people who most influence you, for example.

It’s probably people who you already have consumed a lot of this stuff, maybe you’ve watched videos, maybe you’ve read their articles, listened to their podcast, maybe they’ve got some stuff on YouTube.

The people who influence our lives are people that we know and respect. And I don’t mean we necessarily know them in person, but we know them because we’ve consumed a lot of their content.

Why have we consumed a lot of their content?

Because they know how to engage. They know how to be compelling, influential. They know how to hook us in. They know how to keep us watching, keep us listening.

And in this economy where attention is so valuable, it’s so valuable to be able to capture people’s attention and to be able to inform them, educate them, inspire them, empower them, entertain them, all of those good things, we need to know how to have engaging content.

Also, Facebook really likes it when we are getting engagement, when we’re getting comments and likes.

When Facebook sees that people like your stuff, that people are engaging, that people are responding well to it, they are going to show it to more people.

So if you’re about to launch a program or an offer or some kind of course that you’re putting out, maybe you’re about to release a book or a coaching series, something like that, one of the most important things is to plan out your social media content really well before the launch.

This is so that Facebook has seen that you’re getting a lot of engagement and they’re going to push your posts about that launch out to the community even more.

There are two main reasons that we want to have engaging content to build the trust with our following.

Firstly, to be able to help them provide value, help them go from A to B, help them solve their problems.

Most people are consumed with their problems.

So if you show up and you give a solution, if you give them help, tips and tools and tricks and secrets, things that you’ve learned along the way, they will keep you top of mind.

They don’t need to be groundbreaking, earth-shattering things, by the way, because a lot of people just need reminders.

They need to bring things top of mind.

So if you show up and go, “Hey, have you meditated today?” … it’s not like no one’s ever heard that concept before. But it refreshes it for them.

It doesn’t have to be a brand new concept to be valuable, it can be a reminder.

You could be that breaking someone’s day up with a little bit of inspiration, something funny, something that that’s helpful, depending on your ideal clients, your target market.

I teach a lot of secrets to attract clients through content. But here are three of my favourite secrets to creating more engaging content.

1. Wrap your posts with questions

Wrap your posts, sandwich your posts with questions.

When you start with a question and your caption and your social media caption, and by caption I mean you’re posting your image and you’re putting the writing with the image, you want to start with a question as much as possible whenever it’s relevant.

A question hooks people in as opposed to a statement.

So you might say, for example, you’re posting a photo of you at an event. So you can either say, “Here’s me at this event, amazing event.”

Or you could say, “Do you love going to live events? Do you love the energy of a live audience? What’s one of your favorite things about going to an event? Do you ever find that awkward moment when you ask someone to have a selfie and they don’t want to? Has that ever happened to you?”

You’re hooking people in with a question.

You might start with a problem.

“Do you ever feel frustrated at this? Do you ever struggle with this? Do you ever wonder blah, blah, blah?” So a question at the start of your post and then a question at the end of your post. So a question at the end gets the person thinking.

You might want to say, “What’s your favorite tip?”

You might share three tips and you say, “What’s your favorite?” You might ask, “What’s one thing that you can do today to feel blah, blah, blah.” like whatever you’ve just talked about in your post.

So you’re not just posting for posting sake, you’re posting so that you can actually provide some value and get someone thinking, get them thinking outside of their normal way of thinking outside of their box and challenge them.

Throw out a challenge to get someone thinking a little bit differently.

You don’t want to try and change everything in one caption. It’s just having one main idea. In speaking we call it knocking over the one domino. The domino effect that you knock over this one domino and it affects everything else.

So think about your topic, the thing that you help your clients with. Think about your topic and what’s all different ways to share about that topic. And you’re wrapping that caption about that topic or whatever…

For example, my topic is influence, but underneath that, I’m talking about content for example, in this video.

So one thing is how to engage, how to get people to engage. That’s my one domino purpose for this live video. And then within that one big idea, there are three different secrets.

You don’t want to try and push over too many dominoes. It’s just one domino, one big idea, how to get people to engage, but then there are three secrets.

So whatever your topic is, underneath that main umbrella topic, let’s say your main thing is confidence, you help people get confident.

So underneath confidence, you might have the topic of positive self-talk for example. And then you might say, “Here are my three secrets of how to use positive self talk to get a promotion.”

And so the whole idea of that post is to help someone get a promotion through their positive self-talk.

But you’ve got three tips. I hope that makes sense. So you’ve got that one big idea and you wrap it with a question.

So you put a question at the start, a question at the end.

Not every single post requires it, but I want you to challenge yourself to think before you just post statements, how can you actually turn it into questions?

All right. Secret number two, and it’s not a secret at all, a lot of people do it, but a lot of people actually forget to do it…

2. Share simple stories

When you share simple stories, not a whole hero’s journey and the turning point and the protagonist and antagonist or whatever it is, the hero and the villain.

You don’t have to make it complex, you can literally share a simple story.

You might say something like, “I was out walking in the Bush the other day and I came across a Kookaburra and blah blah blah…”

And you tell a little bit of a metaphor from that story.

So you just share stories behind the scenes in your life.

It doesn’t have to be complex. You just want to draw people into that story. If you’re just posting facts and figures and tips and how-tos in steps without any story, it can be a little bit dry.

People could just Google that, right?

So you want to inject your personality, you want to inject some visuals to what you’re sharing and actually bring it to life.

3. Have a balance between credibility and vulnerability

Credibility is basically sharing with your audience the experience you have, the qualifications you have, the cool things you’ve done.

So maybe you’ve spoken on a podcast or maybe you have been interviewed or you’ve written a guest blog post for someone, you share that with your community.

So you’re sharing, that’s credibility. That’s positioning yourself as an expert in your industry. And you’re also positioning yourself as the authority. So that’s your credibility.

But if you just show up and talk about how amazing you are all the time, people aren’t going to like that.

You don’t want to put yourself on a pedestal above people. You also want to balance that with vulnerability by being very transparent in saying something like, “You know, I still struggle with this sometimes.”

Or, “I still find this hard and I find myself in a hot mess on the bathroom floor crying.

And then I have to jump on and do a Facebook Live. Who relates?”

So you’re actually showing yourself to be a really real, normal person. You’re not trying to be all polished and perfect all the time.

And finding that sweet spot and the balance between being professional, and personal.

It should be in both. Not trying to be like everyone else and trying to have it super polished, but just showing up and being real and speaking from the heart. You can do this by not over-planning things.

So for example, with these Facebook Lives, I just plan my three points.

I plan the top title and then I just speak from the heart because I know my content.

So I haven’t planned word for word, so I’m not constantly losing connection with you by reading notes.

You’ll notice that I’m always looking at you. Well, I’m actually looking at a lens on my iPad at the moment, but it feels like I’m looking at you because I’m not so caught up in my notes. That’s where you got to stick with where your credibility lies.

My credibility lies in helping business owners to grow their business through specific marketing strategies. One of them being content creation. So I can speak about this topic all day. I don’t need notes.

So you just have your little prompts. I just put a little piece of card with a hole cut in the middle around my lens so I can just refer to my three key points, but other than that, I’m just talking to you about something I love talking about, something that I know about, and that’s what you can do as well.

So often people put off doing a Facebook Live because they think they’ve got a plan every word. You don’t. If you had to plan every single word, you’d probably not do enough of them.

It’s actually better to get something out there that’s unperfect, I’ve never done a perfect Facebook Live ever, but people still get value from that. I always get people saying, “I needed to hear that. That was really interesting. I’m going to try that.”

You don’t have to be perfect to be able to help people.

Now I’m going to recap the 3 secrets.

Number one is to wrap your post with questions, a question at the beginning, a question at the end as much as possible.

This is by the way, how to really get people engaging and hooking people in.

Number two is to share simple stories. Share a simple story that happened in your life recently, today, yesterday. You might share some big significant story from years ago, but you don’t have to.

And then number three is to have a balance between credibility and vulnerability. So that you are talking about your expertise and your authority, but you’re also balancing that with a good amount of humility, transparency, and sharing how you struggled as well.

If you would like to know more tips on how to create content that connects and engages and draws people in and builds that trust and that rapport with people so that they will take that next step towards you, I’m running a free workshop on Thursday the 31st of October in Sydney.

It’s Halloween, so hopefully you’re not trick-or-treating that night and you can come and check out the workshop, or maybe you go trick-or-treating afterwards or before.

I’ll be sharing how to create content that connects, lots more specific tips and tricks, the exact words to use and not use in your content, mistakes that people make when it comes to creating content and copywriting.

I’m to go through seven steps of how to create engaging content and loads more. It’s action-packed. I’m going to be putting on some snacks and you get to meet some other like-minded entrepreneurs, so come along and join us.

Learn more about the ‘How To Create Content That Connects’ Workshop

 

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