Copywriting

July 23, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

3 Essential Skills For Getting Fully Booked With Clients

If you are a coach or service-based business owner, or you want to be, and if you want to get fully booked with paid clients that are going to pay you what you’re worth, you’re in the right place.

Over the years I’ve been so blessed to work with hundreds of business owners, and I’ve noticed there are 3 main problems entrepreneurs face when it comes to getting more clients.

The first problem is a lack of strategy.

When you don’t have a clear, effective strategy with actionable steps, that you’re doing on a day-to-day basis, it’s very hard to grow your business.

In my last blog, I shared how to create the right strategy. If you missed it, you can check it out here…

The second problem is a lack of skills, and that’s what I’m going to be sharing with you today.

The third problem I see is a lack of support.

Many entrepreneurs don’t realise the power of having a supportive community and a mentor. When they come up against roadblocks (which we always do in business, right!), they get stuck, discouraged and many businesses fail.

In this three-part series, I’m unpacking each of these three problems and how you can overcome them.

There are 3 essential skills that you need to have to attract the right clients – and not just any clients, but the right people for you who are going to pay you what you’re worth, and that you’re going to be able to help create breakthroughs and a brilliant transformation in their life.

I noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs, coaches, service-based business owners are really good at what they do.

For example, if you are a mindset coach you’re probably skilled at helping someone to release limiting beliefs, overcome fixed mindsets, and barriers.

If you’re a relationship coach, you’re probably skilled at helping someone overcome conflict and create a deeper connection.

If you’re a career coach, you’re probably skilled at helping someone find the right job for the.

But it doesn’t matter how good you are at these industry skills or at your craft, if you don’t have the right business skills, it’s like having half a business. And without these skills, you’re not going to make it in business.

There are 3 main skills you need to get more clients.

1 – Client Attraction Skills

The first skill is client attraction. There are a number of parts when it comes to marketing and being able to attract the right clients for you. Client attraction skills is about marketing specifically to get clients.

There is a difference between the way you market a service, compared to how you market a product.

So if you’re a coach or have a service and you’re selling time with you, or you’re selling your expertise as a subject matter expert, you’ve got to get good at marketing specifically for client attraction.

Content Creation

Getting really good at creating content is key. You’ve got to create valuable written and video content, and consistently provide value to your target market.

Are you consistently showing up and giving valuable, helpful, relevant content to your clients, at least once a week?

Are you regularly sharing valuable content on social media, on your website and on email?

There’s a saying in marketing “Don’t build on someone else’s land”.

What that means is don’t just try and build your business on social media. Social media is an amazing way to connect with people, to build rapport, to get people to know, like you and trust you.

Social media is about building relationships. It’s relationship marketing.

But you also need to be able to have your own land, which is your own website and your own email service provider.

You need to be sending out regular emails at least weekly, because email open rates are so much higher than you’ll ever get on social media unless you’ve got a massive budget to spend on Facebook ads.

It’s very unlikely you can build a really profitable, successful business just through social media. I don’t know a way to do it. And if you do figure out a way then let me know! But I’ve never seen it happen. Every successful business owner I know has a great email list.

Your email list doesn’t need to be massive, but you need people who you can market to, nurture, look after, and give value to through email. You also need to be consistently posting on your website.

Copywriting is the words you use to attract clients. You need to develop the skill of copywriting, because copywriting is usually what is letting you down if your marketing is not working.

If you try to launch an online course, a webinar, or a freebie and it didn’t gain you clients, more than likely it’s because of the copy you used.

Your video skills don’t have to be perfect, but your copywriting has to speak to your ideal client. You need to hone your skill of copywriting and it’s so important that you know the language that your ideal client resonates with so that you connect with them.

You want people to read your writing and think, ‘It’s like they have been overhearing my conversations!’ You want to have so many conversations with people so that you understand how you can best help them.

Ask people what they’re struggling with, what roadblock they are encountering, and ask people how you can help them overcome their problems.

I coached hundreds and hundreds of people with so many free discovery sessions. I would pour my heart into people, even if they weren’t going to sign up with me, because of all that I learned.

The coaching experience was such a valuable experience. Doing these sessions helped me understand what people needed help with, and where I could come in and help them. These sessions helped me understand my target market’s language.

The best way to get good at copywriting is to do it and to follow other people who are great at writing copy.

I consume a lot of copywriting. I love reading Facebook ads, because someone is investing money into making sure the copywriting on those Facebook ads is good. If you scroll past Facebook ads and you just use Facebook for fun, it’s not going to help you grow your business.

You might want to create a file of Facebook ads. I do this on Evernote, an organisation system. I have created a file called ‘Facebook ads’ and I put a whole heap of Facebook ad wording in there, to get ideas to get better as a copywriter.

Communicating your value

You also need to get really good at communicating your value and influencing people to take action – through your written and video content.

It’s so important that you know how to effectively speak to your ideal clients’ frustrations, fears, dreams and desires and clearly articulate how you can help people.

2 – Sales Skills

The second skill is selling. Many people cringe when they hear the word sales and selling.

I used to as well – I thought sales people were pushy and I would avoid it. I thought of sales as having to try to convince someone to buy from me. I didn’t realise that there’s a way of selling that feels enjoyable for both people.

If what you offer people improves the quality of someone’s life, you are doing them a disservice not to share it with them.

After doing a sales course, something clicked in my head that I was thinking too much about myself and what others might think of me, rather than actually helping them.

I had to totally reframe what I understood sales to be.

I now see selling as service. Selling is helping. Selling is caring.

If you’re ethically and authentically helping someone improve their life, why would you not want to tell people about how you can help them?

Every time I’ve bought from a mentor or an expert, or I bought a course or some form of education, my life has improved. In fact, the return on investment that I’ve had in investing in education and coaching is unbelievable.

I love buying education. I love buying from coaches and mentors. That is what accelerates your growth and gives you rapid results. When I started investing lots of money, I got incredible results.

By buying education, I now don’t ever have to work for anyone ever again! That is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

I can work for myself at home. I can make a six-figure income, because I’ve invested in coaching and education. I could never repay those people for how much they’ve helped me.

When you think of sales like that, when you think of the things that you’re so grateful that you purchased, it makes you want to inspire people to buy.

The word sales can have connotations of an 80’s car salesman. If you have that feeling, it may help to reframe it and think of sales as inspiring people to buy.

Think of it as sharing your message so someone can breakthrough into a new place in their life.

Developing the skill of sales is extremely important if you want to make it in business. You’ve got to learn how to do it correctly and authentically and then practice it.

When you have the skill of being able to sell, you can make money anytime, anywhere and that’s priceless.

3 – Presenting Skills

The third skill I recommend that you develop in order to attract your ideal clients is the skill of presenting. The world has changed and people are realising how easy it is to build a business through being at home.

But to make it as a coach or service-provider, you’ve got to get good on video. You cannot hide behind words anymore. People want to connect with you.

It’s different if you’ve got a product you’re selling. People don’t necessarily need to connect with you as a person.

But if people are buying time with you, they want to see you and hear you.

How willing are you to put aside your self-consciousness and show up on video?

A lot of people aren’t willing to do this. They hide behind written words. They don’t jump on video. Or, they jump on video but they haven’t practiced. They haven’t organised their knowledge and they haven’t put their knowledge into clear, actionable steps.

And when it comes to video, people are watching to see how consistent you are at showing up.

The skill of presenting is learnable. You don’t have to be an extrovert. I’m not. You don’t have to be super confident either. You just have to believe in what you’re sharing. You have to know it’s true. You have to have done it yourself, so you share with authenticity and integrity.

You’ve got to be willing to present yourself, show up with confidence, and give value.

If you take the time to hone these skills, learn from an expert, keep growing, improving and showing up, there’s no reason why you can’t get fully booked with clients, make an incredible income and help so many people.

You’re building an asset and a legacy that will keep going and going, once you know how to attract clients, know how to inspire them to buy and know how to present.

The sky will be your limit and your income will have no ceiling.

Then you don’t have to rely on someone else paying you every single week. You can make your own money.

If you can stop being distracted by everything that you could be doing in business and start honing these three skills, you can make money fast.

Something I LOVE about entrepreneurship is that the playing field is equal for everyone. You don’t have to have a formal education. You don’t have to have been born in a certain generation that understands tech. You don’t have to be a ‘natural’ marketer, sales person or presenter. All of these skills are learnable for everyone.

If you want to develop these three skills, then I highly recommend that you join me next week on Facebook Live in my Amplify Your Influence group.

We will be talking about the third problem that most entrepreneurs make, which is not having the right support that is what accelerates your growth.

I will be unpacking how you can develop these skills in a free workshop that I’m holding on August 8^th, 2020.

This is a new full-day online workshop. I will be showing you how to develop these skills, how to attract clients and I’ll also be giving you feedback on your own business, and helping you with where your gaps and your weaknesses are.

You’ll walk away with a clear marketing roadmap and you’ll also get my 5-step client attraction formula, with all the slides, the workbook, and resources.

Learn more about the ‘Attract New Clients With Ease Workshop

Looking forward to seeing you!

Kat

June 4, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

7 Reasons Why People Don’t Buy & How To Overcome Them Through Your Content

Are you a service-based business struggling to get clients?

It’s so important that we understand the psychology of the people who are in our communities and following us…

…and understanding the deeper mindset of people who may buy your services.

I’ve found there are 7 reasons why people don’t buy. In this video and article, I unpack those 7 reasons and give you the keys to overcome them through your content.

1 – They Don’t Trust You

Now more than ever, building trust is key for connecting with your ideal client.

How we can overcome this through our content is by showing our credibility.

You want to remind people of your experience, skills, knowledge, and make sure you do it confidently.

(When was the last time you bought a service from an unconfident person??)

You might be thinking you don’t want to come across as bragging or being vain, but if you don’t sell yourself, no one else will. You need to be confident in order to build trust.

Think about someone who you have invested financially in, whether they are a relationship coach, a business coach or someone similar. You invested in them because you trusted them right?

Another great way to build trust is to be consistent in our content.

As a service-based business, trust is built through consistency and repetition. It’s about regularly showing up, putting out quality content in blogs, videos, Facebook Lives etc. and giving value. This increases your credibility.

Show up consistently and share about how you have helped people.

Talk about your years of experience and highlight your strengths. Talk about how many people you’ve worked with and who you’ve trained under for example.

If you haven’t got any clients yet, talk about the education that you’ve done.

You could state that over the last 20 years you’ve been fascinated by personal development and you’ve done xyz courses and you’ve read specific books.

You can say you’ve been researching your topic for xyz number of years.

You can also talk about your mentors and their success. No matter where you’re starting from, you have to show your credibility, you’ve got to play to your strengths.

2 – They Don’t Trust Themselves

The next reason people don’t buy is because they don’t trust themselves to get a result.

This is one of the hardest reasons to overcome. People may trust you and know you can get them results.

However, they may not trust that they are going to do the work to become successful themselves.

People have to be pretty vulnerable to admit this. There are not many people want to admit that they procrastinate or may prioritise other things over your service. Often people will give an excuse rather than admit.

Who of you have downloaded a course and never logged in? I have started so many online courses and haven’t finished them! I know I’m not the only one!

The success rate is less than 10% when people undertake online courses. This means 90% of people who sign up for a course don’t actually complete them.

People don’t always trust themselves to complete a course. You can layout how easy it is, in a step-by-step manner and still, some people don’t trust that they are smart or savvy enough to actually do it.

3 – They Don’t Trust External Factors

There may be a problem with your industry in general, so the trust may be low in the public’s perception of what you do. This is where you’ve got to show how you’re different.

For example; someone may have had a bad experience with a yoga teacher and they may paint you with the same brush if you are a yoga teacher. So, it’s really important that you show how you’re different.

When I was a personal trainer, I had to always overcome people’s negative perceptions. Some people thought that I was going to be nasty and make them do horrible things that they didn’t want to do. People were surprised when I told them that I won’t make them do anything they don’t want to do.

You’ve got to use your content to overcome these objections that potential clients are thinking and show how you’re different.

4 – They Don’t See The Value

When people don’t see your value, it’s rarely a problem with affordability.

You may think about having having some lower price-point products, so that people could jump onto your online course or group coaching program, for example, if they can’t afford your one-on-one services.

Creating a payment plan is another good option to offer people.

Obviously you’re not targeting people who are completely broke, but you’re targeting those who are your ideal client and have money to invest. You can’t build a business trying to convince people who have no money to pay you money.

People will invest when they can see a return of investment. You need to show people the possibility of getting more back than what they are paying for.

Fear of change is the number one fear in humans. Offering people a solution in which they have to change can be daunting. So you have to show them that change is safe, that they can do it and you are going to support them through it.

You also need to show people that they are going to get more back from investing in you and your service. We typically fear change because our brain doesn’t want to suffer a loss.

So you need to show people that they are going to get a great return for their investment.

Give evidence-based case studies and examples to support your claims.

5 – Fear of Negative Emotions

Fear of negative emotions can range from disappointment, that people may not get a result.

The negative emotion could be guilt. Guilt could come from people paying and feeling guilty because they’ve wasted your time.

Someone may have issues of not wanting to invest money if they’ve got a partner and feel guilty for investing in themselves.

Any kind of worry, doubt, any type of fear, guilt, or shame can stop people from wanting to buy. You can overcome these doubts and fears through stories and FAQs.

For my Accelerator program, on my website, I have commonly asked questions, so people that are asking ‘What if…’ or “Can I put this as a tax write off?’ I give them answers to their questions through the content on my landing page.

6 – Fear of Failure

Fear of failure can be a massive one with people. It’s similar to the fear of negative emotions but it can stand alone, especially if they’ve tried a whole lot of things before and you have perceived themselves as failing.

Taking another thing on could be a challenge for them.

If you’re a weight loss coach, for example, and your ideal client says they trust you and they trust themselves, but what if it fails? What if they fail?

You need to call these things out in your content by saying something like “You might be wondering…”

7 – Fear of Success

Fear of success is fearing that something will actually work! This can be tricky, but people do have fear of success.

What happens if I do get that result? What might that mean? What if I lost my relationship due to the success? What if I lost my job?

This is where you call it out in your content. So in your Facebook Live videos, in your content and your blogs, you just say, “Some people ask; “What if it works, and then because of this success I have other problems?”

And then you overcome the questions in your content, by using a story of one of your clients who had the same fears.

One of their fears may have been increased responsibility. It might mean that they may have a team of people relying on them and that brought with it a fear of success.

I’m personally getting to that stage where I need to hire more people in my business, and there is a real fear of responsibility that I’m wrestling with. I don’t want to let people down, so I’m struggling with a bit of discomfort of going to the next level.

Subconscious marketing or neuro-marketing is where we really focus on the psychology of people who are consuming our content.

Giving them answers to their questions within your content helps build trust and overcome their objections.

Many times people don’t attract the right clients because their content is not connecting with them.

By content I mean anywhere we you show up online, such as Facebook live videos, social media posts, blog posts, emails, landing pages, in your Facebook group – and anywhere else you show up online and give value.

Content is not only King… content is the Kingdom. If you don’t get your content right you will not attract the right clients.

There are people who are out there that think that clients are just going to come to them by posting on social media, without understanding that content has to be written in a certain way to overcome all these objections.

Would you like to know exactly how to put these types of strategies into your content?

I have a workshop coming up THIS weekend, it’s going to be a value-packed workshop where you’ll walk away with your content game-plan DONE!

‪Join us at the ‘Create Content That Connects’ Online Weekend Workshop THIS weekend Sat and Sun 6-7 June 9.30am – 3pm

‪

‪You can check it out here

Hope to see you there!

Kat

April 11, 2020 by katmillar Leave a Comment

Crush It In Crisis

You might be thinking “Crush it in crisis? I’m still dealing with the uncertainty, let alone crushing it!”

I hear ya. So let me define what I mean by crush it.

Firstly, what ‘crushing it’ is NOT:

* Being insensitive about people’s current situation

* Profiteering from people’s struggles

* Focusing on your goals at all costs

What ‘crushing it’ IS:

* Thinking like a successful business owner and being brave as a leader in these uncertain times

* Making necessary pivots in your business methods, delivery, packaging and messaging

* Crushing your fears so you can grow in this challenging season (IF you want to!)

Journeying through a crisis time, especially one that’s completely new can create a range reactions.

Some of you want to stay in bed, pull a blanket over our heads and try to avoid what’s going on.

Many people have told me they are wondering at the moment…

“Should I be retreating back or pausing my business goals until all of this is over?”

This is fair to consider, since there is so much uncertainty at the moment.

Let’s acknowledge the fact that the way we need to do business now in this current economic climate is different.

Things have changed and for most of us, our business needs to change as well.

But if you want to crush it, I encourage you to step up, pivot your business where you need to – and jump into all the opportunities that are available you.

I believe that the world NEEDS us as authentic, heart-centred business owners to continue to operate our businesses…

…IF our products and services genuinely provide a REAL solution to a REAL problem.

The only way to do this is to keep offering our help to people who want and need what we offer.

Many people still WANT to buy what you’re offering.

People are not going out and spending money on entertainment, dining out, travel etc. And they’re at home online.

Many people still need your help. And people often don’t value what they don’t invest in.

People pay for what they truly want and need.

Despite the uncertain times we are living in, we can be absolutely certain about ONE thing at the moment…

…ONLINE is THE way.

We have NO choice BUT to be effective online if we want to survive in business.

Here are 5 skills you need to utilise in this time to make consistent money online:

Number 1: The Skill of Providing Value

Providing value is the Number 1 skill you need to have in business.

Value is not necessarily monetary value. It is not always about money changing hands, but it’s still an exchange.

It’s the value you are giving to those who invest in you, whether that is someone paying for your time or if it’s someone opt-in to an email.

What is it costing your ideal clients in their time, money, energy and attention? Are you giving value by being helpful and relevant?

Are you speaking directly to your ideal client, not just to the masses? Are you speaking to the people who you can really help with your level of mastery?

If you can show up and be genuine and give quality information, then you’re adding value. Remember quality, not quantity. This includes your free offers, and also your paid clients and those who are a part of your paid community.

Number 2: The Skill of Copywriting

The Number 2 skill you need at this time to make consistent money is the skill of copywriting and now is a really good time to learn this skill.

Copywriting is a very underrated skill and it affects your ability to influence people positively through your writing online.

All your Facebook ads, your blogs and captions need to be influencing, engaging and providing value. These are what help people take the next step towards you.

A good investment in the next 30 days is to consume copywriting education and focus on increasing your copywriting skills.

Number 3: The Skill of Presenting

The third skill you need is the ability to present. This could be presenting an offer to a one-on-one client on a phone call. It could be presenting on video, which is what we all need to be doing at the moment in this socially distanced world we are currently living in.

How good are you at your presentation skills and your ability to craft words, videos and webinars?

Number 4: The Skill of Marketing

The Number 4 skill we need to boost our business presence online is marketing. Marketing is your ability to attract clients through social media, blogs, emails and other platforms and channels.

At the moment we don’t have a lot of offline options, so online is where we need to shine.

Number 5: The Skill of Sales

Sales is your ability to get money into your bank account and to get people to pay you.

It doesn’t matter how amazing you are at providing value, at marketing and doing pretty posts or creating amazing pieces of content. If you can’t get someone to actually part with their money, then your business is going to fail.

Think about the above skills and give yourself a score from zero (meaning you’re really bad at these skills) or a 10 -which means you know you can’t get any better.

5 Actions You Can Take To Crush it in Business

Number 1: Cut Back on News and Social Media

I recommend you cut back on the news and social media that you are consuming.

Please stay informed, be healthy and know what’s going on and don’t put your head in the sand.

But check-in with yourself and be honest with yourself with how much time are you spending consuming media.

We need to be bringing inspiring, helpful and positive messages to our eyes and ears during this period.

If you’re digesting things that cause you to worry, drop your confidence or cause your mood to drop, then that’s a sign that you need to cut back and protect yourself.

Your confidence and emotional wellbeing is so important in business. It will make you or break you.

Number 2: Create Daily

Spend your time and energy on daily creation. Just show up and write, show up and practice your videos everyday.

When we create and produce during this crisis, we will crush it, because we’ll feel good about ourselves. We will feel purposeful as humans because we were designed to create.

Focus on quality, not quantity. It doesn’t mean going live on Facebook every day. It doesn’t mean writing a blog post every day either. It just means writing or speaking every day and focussing on improving your skills.

I recommend that you focus on video during this crisis season, because people are craving connection even though it’s through a screen.

Number 3: Get your Marketing Funnels Live

The Number 3 way to crush it in this crisis is to get your marketing funnels going live as soon as possible, even if they’re not perfect.

You might need to create a freebie like a downloadable guide or a cheat sheet.

Focus on making it relevant, helpful and VALUABLE – and get it up there and start building your email database.

This is one of the best ways for you to leverage your time and help more people.

Start running online events for people if you haven’t been doing that already. You know enough about your topic to help people right now.

Number 4: Focus on Getting ONE Thing Finished

I’ve talked to quite a few people this week who have started a lot of things and not finished them.

We need to develop blinkers and get the thing we started completed before we move on to the next challenge.

People don’t pay for a half built bridge. They pay for a FULLY built bridge.

Please don’t be tempted to start a book and then move on to starting a podcast, and then move on to a five-day challenge then a webinar. Finish one thing.

Focus and finish!

Number 5: Choose ONE skill to develop

Developing your online skills is one of the most valuable things you can do at the moment.

I recommend that for the next 30 days, focus on ONE of the 5 skills.

Or maybe you want to dive deep on one of the skills for 7 days. Consume all the books, articles and podcasts on that one skill.

Pick the skill that is your weakest link or the skill that’s most holding you back.

Remember, if your service is helping someone improve their life, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t show up and offer it. And in fact, if you don’t, you can’t help anyone.

You’re improving people’s lives and it’s a value exchange, so do not feel guilty about offering what you offer – IF it’s ethical, authentic and genuinely helps people get a real result.

Remember, we don’t have a lot of certainty about a lot of things at the moment, but we do have certainty that business is now ONLINE.

If you haven’t got marketing funnels in place, then that is one of the most important things that I strongly recommend you focus on during this time, is creating a funnel.

Having a good marketing funnel gives you an ability to capture people and continue to nurture them and provide value and help them.

Due to the amount of people online during this time, we need to make sure that we stand out.

We also need to make sure that we get people away from our social media pages and onto our email lists. This gives us control of sending marketing material, nurturing and providing great value to people.

A marketing funnel is a series of steps that takes someone from being a stranger into a client. A marketing funnel is the number 1 asset you need to make money online.

If social media suddenly crashed and you didn’t have access to your friends and followers, how are you going to market yourself?

Your email database is one of THE most important assets in your business.

A funnel will help bring people into your email list and from there you can continue to market to them for weeks, months even years to come.

Building a marketing funnel and getting it live is one of the essentials for your business to survive and thrive in this crisis.

Want help creating your own funnel to attract more clients?

‪You can book a free 30-minute strategy session here

*First-time sessions

I’ll help you clarity your next steps to building your own, profit-producing marketing funnel, fast.

Looking forward to helping you get more clients online!

Kat

November 13, 2019 by katmillar Leave a Comment

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

October 30, 2019 by katmillar Leave a Comment

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.