Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So, I was getting ready the other day and I went down an absolute rabbit hole of watching this really funny guy on reels and it got me thinking, cuz normally when I get ready, I listen to a podcast or I listen to a book or I normally do something. So where are you listening right now?

I want you to like take photos, screenshot, whatever it is, and tag me in on Instagram stories and let me know where you're listening. I'm really interested to know, like I said, normally mine is kind of getting ready in the morning in the car. Not that I go in the car a whole lot really, cuz I don't travel unless I'm speaking.

But yeah I'm fascinated to know where are you listening to this? Please come and let me know on Instagram by tagging me in a post. So a few weeks back I sent an email to my lovely community and it was titled Why I Think, or Why I used to Think coaches were full of, and I won't say this swear word, but you can guess.

And I also shared it on social media and I got a really good response and I got a lot of people coming back to me saying, yes, this really resonates. This is what I thought. And I thought it would maybe make a good episode to talk about why I thought coaches were full of absolute rubbish and. What is coaching and why you need one and why I don't think that anymore.

Because I did. I genuinely thought for a really long time you don't need one and, and I and I, the problem was the coaches that I knew and saw when I first started my business were middle-aged, white, straight men. And. They had no idea about me and my business. And the problem is, I guess this comes a lot from me, not necessarily from them.

I'd worked in a very male dominated industry. I'd worked in the car industry. I worked with a lot of white, middle-aged, straight men and corporate guys, and they were really patronizing. And I was a girl and I was young-ish at the time, and they really did patronize me and made out like, because I liked to laugh because I was chatty, that obviously I wasn't very smart.

And I guess my problem was that I looked at these other guys and thought, you can't relate to me. And by this point, I was older and I'd got my daughter and I'd gone through a divorce and all this kind of stuff. But I genuinely still thought, you can't relate to me. You don't know who I am. You dunno what my life is.

And I had fallen into the trap that most people fall into. And I'm not saying it was all bad cause I think there is an element of it that's good, where you find these big, massive gurus and. You start to follow what they say and then after a while when you get confident, because actually you find someone who does pay attention to who you are and makes you feel worthy, that you realize that all the stuff they were telling you to do you can't do because that's not your life.

And when you've got a four-year-old waking you up at God knows what time I can't get up and do a morning routine and work out. Not that I want to. Thanks very much. And actually, you know, now I'm much more empowered to do what I wanna do and what works for me and my season of life and where I am. But back then I wasn't.

And I guess, like I said, I looked at these coaches and I guess the coaches I knew were only local and thought. Yeah, no, you don't know me. I'm not interested. And I actually used to think, if you're that flipping good, why don't you do it yourself? God, I was so naive, so naive. And then I found my coach and, and all I knew was, and it was actually my team member at the time, lovely Katie, who said to me, do you think you need a coach?

And I was like, I don't even know what they do. I dunno why I'd want one. I dunno where I'd find one. And I was really kind of like, I don't understand it. And I really didn't, I didn't understand what the purpose of a coach was and why I would need one.

And it was through having a conversation with her that kind of got me thinking about it. And as the universe would have it, and I'm sure, well, I'm not sure. I know I've told this story before, but I'm gonna tell it again about how I got my coach Mary. So I was sat in San Diego and I had been to trafficking conversion, and I was on my way to social media marketing world.

Just so happened that in one particular year they were right next to each other, ie. Like trafficking conversion were the first three days and then the next four days were social media marketing world. So I ended up being out in San Diego for about two weeks. It was Ace. Obviously I'm heading in San Diego and at the time there weren't many people who did that.

Like not in my world. Now a lot more people I know go out there and do social media marketing world. But back then it wasn't like literally no one I knew would do this sort of thing. Anyway, so, and I was out there with my team member at the time, which was Ace that we both went and we were sat in trafficking conversion and it was huge.

It was like 4,000 people. And all I could think was, who the hell do I think I am. Like what on Earth am I thinking this is what is gonna make me different from any of these other people. There's too much competition out there. There's, it's ridiculous. And instead of feel all inspired and motivated, cuz I was in San Diego at a conference with loads of business people, I actually felt completely overwhelmed and a little bit like just not good.

I felt really kind of sad and just not in a great place. So anyway, I wake up at four o'clock in the morning, which you do when you got jet lag. And I'm sad and I can picture myself now cuz we had a really lovely room on the harbor looking over the boats and I'm working away and the sun's coming up and while I'm working away I've got my headphones in.

Cause my husband's sleeping. Obviously he was in the military at the time. He's very used to jet lagging and could sleep through it and I'm listening to Amy Porterfield, who at the time I was a huge fan of, and very much wanted a business like hers. And as I'm listening to a podcast, she starts talking about her coach Mary Hyatt, and she talks about the fact that Mary is Michael Hyatt's daughter, and how the Hyatts are a phenomenal species, which I can confirm they are.

They are amazing humans. I basically, You know, amazing She was, and all this sort of thing. So I thought, let me check out this person, Mary Hyatt. So I went onto Mary's website and I can't remember what it said on her homepage, but I remember just thinking, oh my God, that's me. Like, yeah, 100% totally me. So she had a form which you could fill out and it had a, a salary requirement, as in you had to earn X amount in your business.

And I did in dollars, but I didn't in pounds. So I thought that'll do, filled it in, sent it off. Go off to the conference. A couple of hours later, I get a message, an email from Mary go in. How weird is this? Oh, that was the other thing. Sorry, I missed a bit in the form. You had to say why now. What made you at that point decide to reach out to her?

So I put, I'm in San Diego, should be feeling amazing and all pumped and excited and I'm not, I feel completely overwhelmed and sad and all the things. And she messaged me going, oh my God. I'm in San Diego. Well, she was actually in Carlsbad, just down the road, not like, not too far. And she's actually based in Nashville, so she's like, and I've got some free time before I go to the airport.

Do you wanna meet for lunch? And I was thinking, are you kidding? Like, this is crazy. So I was like, yes, obviously jumped at the chance to have lunch with the, you know, amazing Mary Hyatt, who I didn't realize at this point how amazing she was. And. Anyway, left the conference, met Mary for lunch. Had a really lovely chat to her, started to understand more about what she did and what she could do for me.

And then she told me her price. Right? And Mary at the time, this isn't the case now, but Mary at the time was, I think it was $15,000 for six months. And I was at the time. I was like, that was lovely. Thanks for lunch. See you later. Bye. Never gonna see you again Mary cuz I obviously could not afford that.

And I, she said to me, get back to the UK, let's get on a call. Let me show you what coaching is and what it can be and then make a decision. So said my goodbyes, thought you're amazing. What a shame. I'd love to coach with you. Looks like I'm gonna have to go with one of the, you know, dudes from my local chamber of Commerce or whatever it's gonna be.

And anyway, get back to the UK. Mary contacted me, let's book in a call. And I was like, okay, thinking I can't afford it, but I will book the, the call in and see what it's like. And anyway, book the call in. It was really good. Had a great session with her. And so she's like, you go away, you have a think about it.

So I messaged her going, can you do part payments? She went, Nope. And I was like, okay, can you do this? Nope. And I was just like, oh God, would you do three months? Nope. Anyway, I. She messaged me going, what's, what's up? And I said, this is huge amount of money. Like let's get on a call and discuss it. She said, I thought I don't wanna get on a call and discuss it.

Just realized I've been telling this story for a really long time. I hope you're not bored. So anyway, I get on a call with her cuz she makes me and she says, what's your concern? And I said, what if you're not worth it? And she went, good point. What if I am. And I was like, yeah, I don't know. And basically crazy.

Long story short, I signed up and I paid the money in full and it scared the living bejesus me. And within a very short space of time, I'd made that money back because of something that she coached me through. I basically was working with two clients, and both clients were seriously going over their hours.

And she coached me through how to ask them, have the courage, how to reach out to them, and how to put together an email, which she read. And basically both of them ended up paying me big chunks of money, which I would never have got if I hadn't have had her as coach. So that is the very long-winded story of how I met Mary, but she completely changed my mind in terms of what a coach is.

So what is a coach? What do they do and why do you need one? The first thing that you have to remember and think about is if you are a, if you are Beyonce or if you are an athlete, or if you are anybody else, you have coaches. And no one bats an eye at that. It's really funny, like no one thinks, you know, well, if Beyonce's coach was so good, why aren't they Beyonce?

Well, because that's not what they do, is it? And if you know, I don't know. Michael Phelps's coach is so good. I literally just pulled a random sports person name out my head. I dunno where that came from. You know, if his coach was so good, why isn't he doing it? Well, cuz that's not the job they do. But none of those people have an issue having a coach, none of them.

So why do we think we can do it without one? So when I did my coaching qualification, one of the things they talked about was like some of the basic stuff was, you know, what is coaching and all that sort of thing. And I got a few different definition. So the Association for Coaching, which is who I'm qualified with, says it's collaborative solution focused, results orientated systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning, and personal growth of the coachee. Did you get all that? Bob Thompson, who has got a book who I've read is says, A relationship of rapport and trust in which the coach uses their abilities to listen, ask questions, and play about what the client has communicated in order to help the client to clarify what matters to them and work out what they want to achieve in their aspirations.

And then Tony Robbins says, the life coach definition is someone professionally trained to help you maximize your full potential and reach your desired results. They are like a supportive friend and a trusted advisor rolled into one. They are someone who will push you to identify your goals, hold you accountable, and provide encouragement throughout the journey to become a better version of yourself.

I actually really like that one. I think that's a really nice example of what it is. So that's basically what. You know, the professionals describe as coaching, but then. The general consensus is that a coaching relationship is between a coach and a coachee. They have an assumption that the coachee has all the resources they need inside them.

So sometimes coaching, it's not about like, you know, yeah, there's tools and things to help you get to them, but ultimately, if you know you want a coach and need a coach, you've got the resources inside you. You just need someone to help you get them. The coach helps unlock their answers and potential through gentle questioning, listening and playing about what they've heard from the coachee.

And it's about, it's about facilitating a move towards something, whether it's growth, development, goal or aspiration. So basically, My role and how I see A, me being coached, and B, me coaching is that I get to understand you. I get to understand what's important in your world and what you want. And sometimes that is a task in itself.

Sometimes people don't know what they want and that takes some work to get it out. So that sometimes is like the biggest hurdle that they're not entirely clear, but when they are clear, it's like, oh yeah, now I can see it. And then that next bit's easy for both of us. Sorry, if you can hear my crying downstairs he's moaning cause he's just been put back in his bed.

So yeah, so sometimes it's that space and then once we find out, think they want, then it's about going, let's put a plan together. Now the way I differ slightly from coaches is I kind of do three main things. So I coach, I mentor slash strategy, and then I'm account, I hold you accountable.

For me, a coach will hold you accountable. A coach won't always give you strategy. So for instance, I've been on a coaching call on a group thing, and I've told you this story before and it makes me laugh so much. And this group I was in had different types of coaches for different types of things. And one of the coaches was a Facebook ads coach, right?

And this Facebook ads coach was great, by the way. She was really, really good. And. Kind of, you know, had a conversation with me in private that basically she was told she wasn't allowed to give answers, she had to coach. So what would happen is someone would come on and go, I've done this ad, you think it's any good?

And she'd go, well, do you think it's any good? It's in a Facebook ad. Like, tell them. And obviously she couldn't cause she was looking for someone else, but it just really makes me laugh. And sometimes you just need to be told, okay, do this, do this, do this. Like here's the strategy. So for me, I span all three. I offer the coaching side, I offer the mentor strategy side, and then probably the most importantly of all, I give you that accountability.

So that's what I see and define as coaching in terms of what they actually do. How does it look? Well, you'd get on a call with me and the first call would be, let's sit and talk about who you are and what you want as your business and what your business look like today, and what's your family done and like, what's important to you and what's the dream and all this kind of stuff.

And then that's where I would kind of flip a bit over. I'd probably do the coaching side there, but I'd flip a bit over then after that first session to the kind of strategy mentoring. But then what happens inevitably is we will get to a strategy that we both agree is a good idea and for some reason you don't wanna do it.

So then we'll go. Why is that? And then the coaching comes back into play. And then once we coach through that, then we get into action and go, right, when are you gonna do it by? But by that point, you're feeling much more confident and much more happy about it. Okay, so what's the difference? I wanted to address the difference in group coaching programs.

Dog is crying again, real life over here. Group coaching programs versus one-to-one now. None of these are good or bad. They're just different ways of doing it, and it's just important that you know the different ways of doing it. So I have been in group coaching programs that have been massive, and I have been one of 80 plus people, which I would say is not a group coaching program.

It's no, okay. It is a group coaching program, but it's not what I needed at that point. I needed...

Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So this week I am going to talk all about your perfect customer. Because I was putting together a freebie that I have about visibility. If you want it, you can go to teresaheathwareing.com/visible, and basically it's like a five day email challenge where I email you every day and I give you something specific to do.

And it's all about getting more visible, getting in front of other people's audiences through things like podcasts and speaking on other people's in other people's groups, or doing a guest blog or whatever it might be. But it's a really brilliant way to increase your audience and a really successful one.

So I've put together this visibility challenge, and when I was putting it together, I was going to record a video about how you come up with your perfect customer, how you know they are. And I just didn't get time cuz I really gave myself some tight deadlines, which. I'm actually finding that I really need to do at the moment to get stuff done.

Sometimes you're over productive and sometimes you need a kick, and I'm, I'm in the season of needing a kick right now. So I was gonna do a video, didn't do a video, and then I thought, oh, I know well, it was actually not my idea. It was one of my lovely members' ideas. Why didn't you link to an old podcast?

Well, I couldn't find one for ages and ages, and I thought, surely I've done an episode recently on how you come up with your perfect customer. But evidently I haven't. So I am going to do that today, but it's quite good actually because I've recently talked about this in lots of talks I've given. And I've got some new examples and some new things to maybe put your way, which might help you come up with your customer a bit easier, or at least give you a different way of thinking about it.

So if you've seen me speak about this before, you will have seen me talk about that we can't just look at the demographics. So when I started back in marketing all those many, many, many, many years ago, when I did my degree in it, We literally used to just look at like what age is our perfect customer? What sex are they?

Where are they based, or what's their location? What's their marriage status? Do they have children? And what kind of job might they? It was really basic information, and that doesn't work any longer, and it doesn't have to because we have so much more information available to us now and in this amazing world that we're in.

And the example I gave when I did this, I talked about an estate agent, so I was saying, let's say you had an estate agent and I went to them who's your perfect customer? What age are they? Well, there could be any age, you know, basically from the over 18, right the way up to whenever it is, someone might buy a house.

Well, what sex are they? Well, they could be any gender. What location? Okay. You could argue that they're going to be in the location of the estate agents, but. You've also got people moving into the area, so what location are they coming from? Well, anywhere. Are they married? What's their marriage status?

Could be, might not be, could be divorced, could be separated, could be single. Do they have children? Well, some do, some don't. Some won't ever, some will. What jobs they do? Well, there could be any jobs. So this just doesn't work because the whole point in getting to know who your customer is, is that you are marketing, you are messaging your social media, your, your content should always be leading them to, to you and your stuff.

I, as your perfect customer, should read your content, should see a social media post and think you're talking directly to me, and that's really hard to do when you don't know who these people are, or you are only looking at them from those points of view. So for a long while I've been talking about can you answer the following and it's do you know what their behaviors, motivations, and aspirations are, what their pain points are and how do you meet their needs?

Now I put together in one of the many presentations I've got, I've gave a few different examples. One example is my business. And another example I've done recently because I did a talk for a big, big company over in Greece and they had like FedEx there and they had like the Greece's largest telecom company and it was huge.

So I didn't wanna use me as an example cause I felt a little bit small. So I ended up using Dove as an example. And actually it's a great example and, and I'm sensed kind of falling in love with them and their marketing. So let's talk about behaviors, motivations, and aspirations. So when I look at my customers, so if you are a customer of mine, I'm assuming you might resonate with some of these.

So you have a business that you love and you know you want to make a difference to the people you serve. All of my customers are that you work really hard, but just not just in the business. So you. It isn't just about the business. You have other things, and it might be that you have a family. It might be that you have a partner, you might have hobbies.

This is okay, but could be better. I think that's standard for everybody who's in business. You might get nervous meeting new people, and you might lack confidence in your business skills and your own self-belief. So you know that you are good. Well, you might not always know, but I'm telling you, you are good at the thing you do.

Sometimes you just might lack a bit of that confidence in terms of running a business. And you want your business to grow and be successful, but you don't necessarily want it to grow at the risk of something else. So if I said to you, well, actually, some of you might say yes to, and I was about to say to you, if I say to you, right, you can't see your kids in the week, but you can have a successful business, some of you might say yes, some of you might go, no, I love my children. I want to see them.

But you know what I mean? Like if I said to you, okay, you gotta work every hour that God sends and then you might be successful. A lot of you are gonna go, yeah, no, I don't want that. And you wanna grow at a pace that's realistic, right? So you want to know that you do wanna succeed. You do know you are, you are meant for more.

You have got huge aspirations, but actually your behaviors and motivations are around doing a good job and showing up authentically. So that is my customer. So then if I whip over to the one that I did for Dove, When it came, so in case you're not sure, I'm sure you know who Dove is, but they are a brand in the uk, not just a UK brand.

They're an international brand and they do skincare and haircare, and they do do it for males. They do male products, female products. But when you look at their stuff, their marketing is predominantly aimed at females. So behaviors, motivations, aspirations for Dove customer is that they want to take care of their body, but they don't wanna spend a fortune on skincare.

So dove's customers do want nice products, but they're not willing to spend a huge amount of money. They care about their planet and themselves, so they are not necessarily into. Like, you know, really fake toxic type stuff. If it makes 'em look good because they do wanna look good, but they don't wanna spend a, a fortune and they don't wanna put it at the risk of the planet or themselves.

They love and value natural products. They want to see real women and they want to see themselves represented. So when they look at their people's marketing when they buy from companies. Dove's customers want to see themselves represented in the marketing and they love seeing empower messages about women.

So these are kind of the behaviors and motivations and aspirations of a Dove customer. So as you can see, they're much, much deeper. They're going in on a really personal level. So now let's go to the next point, which was pain points. Now, what often here happens here is people get really focused on the thing they sell and the thing they fix.

That's not always the case. So in my instance, in my business, some of the pain points that I help with, or some of the pain points that my customers have is they're worried their business will fail and they'll have to get a job. Now that's like the ultimate fear and the ultimate pain point. It's like, I really, God, I couldn't imagine anything worse than myself.

Honestly. My husband tries to convince me that I should get a corporate job because he sees how hard I work, and he's like, but you could earn really good money really easily. You wouldn't have to do half as much as you do already. You're like, yeah, but I love what I do, so no, thank you. So, you know, the idea of getting a job is just the worst in my head, and some of that pain points might be then not making enough money, and they want their income to be important, so, They are bringing in money.

That's without doubt. People in my world, they do tend to be bringing in money, but it's not enough, and they want it to be important. They wanna feel valued about the money that they bring in. They're not sure if they're doing all the things right. So they've been delivered a million different ways to do things.

They've heard that many different experts. They're a bit lost in the weeds as to what is the thing they actually need to do and what is, what is the next step for them? Like they just wanna know the next thing. They get overwhelmed with everything they should be doing in their business, and they wanna be taken seriously.

Like they don't want people to think they're just playing at this and they are serious business people. They really wanna be taken seriously and they want to become more confident. Not only about their business, but also with them. The people who come into my world, they do the work on themselves. You know, they've maybe had a therapist, they've maybe had a coach in the past.

These people cared. They've probably done the Enneagrams and the Myers-Briggs and all that. And now they just want it to make sense. And they want, they want their, their life and their business to become more of one. And they wanna work out how they use all these amazing tools and bring it together to be the best possible version that they can.

So those are the pain points that my customers have. So let's whip over. I'm literally going between two presentations. If you hear my mic's moving. To the Dove presentation. So what are the pain points of people who buy Dove products? So they're a busy person who doesn't have time or money to spend hours on themselves.

So people who buy Dove products, they're not the kind of people who necessarily go into a department store a weekend and spend ages at makeup counter, like having everything tried on and you know they haven't got time for that. They're tired of seeing what women should look like. They're tired of seeing the filtered, perfect versions of women that once felt like we had to be there, but now feel like that's just such a rubbish, so let's just be truthful about it.

They want a good product without spending lots of money and they wanna be seen, they want to feel beautiful. They want to feel empowered, and they want to educate themselves on self-care. So they know that self-care isn't just about taking a bath. It's a lot more than that, but they want to be educated around that. And they want, they know they're beautiful and they want people to see them as beautiful and therefore the world to kind of be a bit more realistic about what beauty is.

Okay, so then the last thing, how do I meet their needs? So let's go back, flip back to my business. So in terms of how I meet their needs, what often happens here is we often go, well, I do one-to-one, I do one to many. I do, you know, small coaching groups. I speak on stages. I have the podcast. That's not what we mean.

So when we say how do we meet their needs, how do I meet those problems? So for me, it's things like I have a community of like-minded business owners for support. So the people in my community are the nicest humans. I say this all the time, and people don't get it until they come in. They really don't, they don't understand.

We're doing a, an open house soon, so do come in for that cuz people don't quite get what I mean until they come into my world and then they're like, these people are phenomenal. They are phenomenal. So I provide that. We obviously have online training that they can do in their own time and doing in their own time is really important because of the fact they're busy and they're juggling a million things.

We give really straightforward and no BS and no fluff advice. So they can get those direct answers. We offer accountability. Now, in my mind, what has been the biggest change in the online world, and certainly for me and what I offer, is that people are getting a bit tired of the courses, and I've actually stopped offering any new courses in my group because they've got a shed load of them.

And if there was something in particular that they were all like, we really need help with this, then of course I would bring someone in to do it. And actually instead, I'm offering up the space to my members and I'm saying, come and teach us what you know. So one week we'll learn about Feng shui, then we're gonna learn about art, then we're going to learn about Google ads.

Like it's really cool. Anyway, so we offer that kind of space where they can learn things, but it's the accountability that people need. So for me, I have been bringing in more and more and more accountability to get them to get the work done. We give them live coaching calls where they can ask me anything.

So when they're overwhelmed and they're not sure what to do next, that's why they have those coaching calls. We do the mindset stuff so they can develop themselves further in terms of becoming a more kind of, you know, I was gonna say rounded human, that's not the word I wanted to use at all. But you know that they have these tools in their toolbox in order to whip them out when life gets hard.

Cuz it does and it, well, we run businesses this stuff is not easy. And they want the safe space to grow where there's no growth shaming. So I've been in groups before where it really has been, unless you're bringing in this amount of money, you're really, you're not important. And that is just shocking because.

First off, if we all go back to the last time we were employed and how much we got paid, you know, it's probably kind of unbelievable that we could ever earn the money we earn now through a job. So somehow when you get into your own business, people just kind of lose their minds and think if they're not earning seven figures, they're not successful.

Well, that's absolutely madness. And the other thing that I, how I meet their needs is I get to know them and their business. So if I genuinely know the people in my world, I had an amazing testimonial written for me the other day. Which fyi, I just paused this recording so I could run off and get it not physically run off.

It was on my computer, so it was on LinkedIn, which was really lovely. It was as a recommendation and it was lovely Sarah Jane, and she put, I've been a member of the Business Dream Club and I don't know. Dream Business Club. I don't know the name of my own club. I've been a member of the Dream Business Club for about a year, and I followed her free offerings for a couple years before that, when I wasn't her client, she always had time to personally reply, to answer my replies to her emails, which gobsmacked me, but is part of the course for her.

She genuinely cares about helping people, and that's part of it to her. Now I'm in a membership. I can tell you there's nothing she wouldn't do for our members to help us help ourselves. The monthly group coaching calls is always helpful even if you listen, because she digs down right down into what's going on and make sure she understands not only the exact situation you're asking about, but also the most important.

What's most important to you? I hate reading, you know that. She deeply understands that different people have different priorities. There's no one size fits all answers in business, she's cultivated a fabulous membership filled with similarly kindhearted, positive minded entrepreneurs already to help and encourage each other.

In many Facebook groups, I see people routinely bash for not, for not somehow already knowing things, but never in the dream business club. And she goes on and says lots of other things, which is just amazing. But that was so, so lovely to hear. So when we talk about meeting their needs, it's not necessarily about here's what the product is, is about how you meet the needs.

Like so I could have a different type of product and still meet the needs. Does that make sense? So for instance, if you do Facebook ads for a living, someone doesn't have the need, they might, but most often they don't...

Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So this week I decided after a couple of weeks where we talked about practical things, I was gonna mix it back up and we'll do some mindset stuff. And this is kind of my plan going forward. So I really wanna make sure that I give you some of the practical things that we really need for business.

But I also wanna make sure that we look at the mindset side because that is as important. If not, I might argue more important than knowing how to do a strategy or something like that. So today we're going to look at fear, which sounds like a really fun podcast episode, but I promise this is gonna be a good one.

I am gonna give you lots of practical things that you can do to help you get over fear or move past fear, or to make sure that you don't make terrible decisions when in fear. Fear is a very natural thing. We all feel it and it's like nature. It's important that we do feel fear. Obviously back in the days where we were cave people, we needed fear to basically help us protect ourselves.

And even though we are unlikely to be chased down by a lion today or whatever it might be, I dunno what it was back then, I wasn't around obviously. What we do is our brain still perceives things the same kind of way. It still thinks that we need to kick into that fight or flight or freeze or thorn kind of situation.

So it gives us fear and, and it's doing a good thing. It's trying to be really good by going, this is a bit scary. I need to tell you, this is a bit scary because what I want to do is keep you safe. and it wants us to stay in our comfort zone. That's what it's trying to do. It doesn't want us to get those emotions of feeling nervous or scared.

It wants us to stay where we know in our brains that we are safe and we will stay alive. But obviously the difference is now it's not a matter of life and death, it's the matter of doing a live or not doing a live or posting that thing on social media or not posting that thing. And it might seem like these are really little, silly things that I'm talking about.

But really fear can be anything and something that one of you might think, well, that's easy. Like I'm never scared of that. Someone else might be absolutely petrified and that's absolutely fine because we're all very different people with very different life experiences and very different feelings.

So, like I said, the main gist of it is that it wants to keep us safe. It wants to keep us in a safe place. And like I said, the brain unfortunately has not quite caught up with the fact that keeping us safe doesn't mean protecting us from death or being malled or eaten alive. That actually thank you, but I'm not gonna die if I go and post something on social or send that email or put my price up.

So we need to be mindful that that's the case, that that's where the fear is coming from. However, we also, there are some advantages to having fear, like I said, one, the initial thing of let's not get malled by a bear, but actually having fear can be really helpful. So for instance, as you know, I speak a lot and I love it, but does that mean I never get scared before I go on stage?

No. And I actually really like the fact that I am nervous because it proves to me that I'm taking it seriously, that I'm not at a point where I'm thinking I'm so good at this stuff. I'm not scared, I'm not bothered because I think at that point I'm probably not giving it the respect that it's due. So actually sometimes that fear, that feeling of fear can be really helpful.

It can make us just understand actually this is, you know, this is something I'm doing here and I need to, to bear that in mind. What I tend to do when I speak though, when I feel that fear, cuz obviously I do love it. What often happens is the minute I get on stage, it goes like within the first minute of me talking, I then start to relax into it and it's fine and great and I love it.

What I do, just out of interest, is I try and do the reframe thing, which is a, a Mel Robbins thing where basically the emotions for fear and the physical feelings in your body for fear are pretty much exactly the same as excitement. So lots of people, when they're nervous can go, I'm just excited. I'm really excited and try and kind of trick the brain that way, but I ground myself so I will breathe.

I will do some breathing exercises. I will imagine. This is where I'm like, does this sound weird? It's not. It's not weird, but I imagine kind of roots coming outta my feet and going into the ground and really steadying me and I'm breathing as I do this. And if I can, and I'm in a position where I can take my shoes off, I'll take my shoes off to do that.

But sometimes I'll be stood at the side of stage waiting to be called on and I'll be imagining and doing that grounding at that point. Now I do grounding because I am way too excitable. My nervousness and my excitement comes out in me speaking really fast and breathing really fast and just being a little bit much.

So I like to ground and kind of bring myself down a bit just and steady myself a bit just to not be that excited when I go on stage. So, , we do need fear. We are always gonna have fear, but what we don't want it to do is to paralyze us or stop us. And that is sometimes what happens, that the fear, and you won't know it's the fear.

Like you'll come up with every single excuse in the book as to why you can't do something, and it's not until the digging down and digging down or working with a coach that eventually the thought of fear might actually come out and you realize that it stopped you and paralyzed you. So what I've got is a couple of things I want us to look at today.

I want to talk to you about what to do when you are scared to do something, and how to step over that, and also why you shouldn't make decisions from fear. It doesn't normally have brilliant outcomes. So let's talk about the when something is stopping you. So the first thing you gotta do is kind of recognize that it's fear stopping you and all the other things you are telling yourself might not be the reason.

So it's not perfect enough. I don't like the way something looks. I need better copy. I need this. This isn't right. Like, I'm not saying those things aren't true, but usually it doesn't need to be the level that you are thinking it is. It can absolutely go out. And I was saying to someone just the other day, one of my one-to-one coaching clients, I was saying to her that she was putting together a website and she was like, you know, I need to, I and I, I said to her and she said, she just needs to get it out now.

And I said, listen, what you've produced is really good. I've seen people who paid people to do their websites and they're worse than what you've done. So there is nothing wrong. It can go live as is now. And I think. Like I said, that that's the kind of thing that stops people.

So that's the first thing to recognize. Am I saying something can't happen because I'm scared and because I'm actually fearful of what might happen, but I'm actually making every excuse under the sun. So if you identify, and you might need to work with someone to help you identify this, but if you identify that actually I'm just a little bit scared of what's gonna happen, I want you to.

Well, let me go back. I wanna explain something. So have you ever read The Chimp Paradox? So I did this in a talk recently and I dunno whether I've talked about it on the podcast, but if I have, I Well, I say I apologize. I don't apologize cuz it's flipping brilliant and like the reminder is well needed. So there's a book called The Chimp Paradox.

If you've not read it, I highly recommend it. Personally, I find it quite a hard read. Maybe I'm not smart enough. It's by Professor Steve Peters and basically in the book, he simplifies and gives an analogy for parts of the brain. So, and I am simplifying it further. So if you are very smart and you know about the brain, please don't come and tell me that I'm an idiot cuz we know that already.

So the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, these are the two systems in the brain he's talking about. I just like the fact I get to say those big words. So the prefrontal cortex, he calls the human and the limbic brain or the limbic system, he calls the chimp.

And basically the difference between the human brain and the chimp brain is that the human likes to find evidence. They like to be rational, they like facts, they like logic, they look at perspectives. They see shades of gray. So they know that it's not just a yes or no answer or a black and white decision, and it's normally the real you, whereas the chimp feels the feelings.

And I make this joke that I'm 90% chimp and my husband's 90% human. It feels all the feelings, it's all the emotions. It's irrational sometimes it's paranoid sometimes. It sees black and white. So it's like, so if you're not with me, you're against me type thing. And it wants to win and it wants more. So it's the chimp brain that doesn't let you celebrate when you do a win or when you have something amazing and it basically just goes. Actually move on to the next thing.

So what happens is when you have an idea in your head or a thought in your head and something happens at very quick speed, there's also the computer in other parts of the brain, which, like I said, I'm gonna keep it really simple for the, for the purpose of this. But basically it looks and goes, have I've done this before?

Have I got any experience of this? And if it hasn't, It kind of goes to the chimp and the human, except the chimp is so fast and so strong, the chimp will kick in first. So the example I give is, let's say you have cooked dinner for your partner who's coming home and they're late. So they're late leaving work and they're late coming home and you've ruined dinner.

And you think he's late and your chimp kicks in and your chimp is like, oh yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, just perfect. I've been slaving here all day. You've been at work and you turn up late. I dunno why I bother cooking dinner for you. You're so selfish. You're really horrible, blah, blah, blah. And your chimp is having a field day, right?

And your human has got no looking right. Your human. Try as it might. It cannot compete with the chimp. The chimp is too powerful, too quick part of the brain, and it's the emotional part. So it's getting really upset and really angry, and really frustrated and really annoyed and saying all sorts of words about your partner.

If your human brain could have kicked in, your human brain probably would've gone, oh no, it's he's late. I wonder, you know, he's obviously been stuck at work. Even as I'm saying this, I'm thinking, I'd never say this, laughing to myself, like, in what world would I ever be this calm, like you might be thinking to yourself, I feel bad because his days run longer.

He is probably really tired. He's probably fed up that he hasn't left work already. He's probably really annoyed. He's gonna be even more tired when he gets home. and you might think differently if you're human. I'm still laughing about this cuz like I said, I can't see me ever doing this. But also I can't necessarily, well, no, I can, I can't necessarily see me waking at home and cooking his dinner.

I do cook dinner obviously, but, but yeah, I don't start it until he is way on his way home. So, or I wait for him to get home. So anyway, that's a side. So you see what I mean? The chimp is super powerful. The human doesn't get a look in, but normally what we try and do is we try and shove that chimp down. We try and stuff down all those feelings, and we try and like hush the chimp up.

So what I want us to do instead is when fear kicks in and it's the chimp that's kicking in. The chimp is the thing that's like, oh, I don't wanna do this because this might happen and this is gonna happen. And what if no one, you know, if you're talking about going live, what if no one shows up? What if people do show up?

What if they hate what they're saying? What if they show up and then they leave? What if like all the things. So what I want you to do is get a piece of paper, obviously not right now. You can if you want, get a piece of paper and I want you to write down what's the worst that could happen and let that chimp go to town.

So I did this exercise with someone who is gonna be speaking. and we work through all the things that could happen. The slides don't work. I fall over. That's always a fear of mine. I, another fear of mine is I pee my pants on stage. I thank God touch word today. I've never done it, although I like. No, we're going into too much information here.

I was gonna say , it's not too much like, doesn't matter how many wis I go for, I still write from on stage. I'm like, I really need a wee. I don't. It's just my fear. So too much info. So yeah, so like we wrote down all the things. So instead of trying to shush the chimp and hush the chimp and squash down all those feelings and that fear feeling.

We allow the chimp to have it say, so we write down all the things. I might forget my words. There might be someone in the audience that knows more than me. There might be someone who thinks I'm an idiot. There might be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. What is the worst that can happen? Then once you've written down, and I want you to imagine your, your page is in columns, so that's one column, and then in the next column against each of those points, I want you to then think about what would you do about it?

So, If I went on stage and the tech failed, what would I do? Well, luckily it has happened to me, so I can tell you what you would do. I blagged it a bit. Wonder they had a complete power cut, so I had to do it without my slides, but luckily I had a laptop so I could look at my slides, so they just couldn't see them.

But it's not my fault. Like, so it's like, well what would I do? Well, I carry on as best as I can, but they're not gonna judge me about it cuz tech things happen. I forgot my words. What would I do about it? Well, they don't know what I'm going to say, do they? So, and worse comes to worse. And I've done this fyi.

I have gone, oh hang on, I've lost my train of thought. Let me come back to it. I think that was in a much smaller group talking thing rather than a big stage thing. I think I wouldn't be happy to do that. I would try and blagged it. But exactly I would blagged it. What if I tripped over? I'd be really embarrassed.

I'd feel a bit of a fool, but I'd get up and carry on because I'm not the first only person ever to fall over in my life. So you basically, the human then kicks in. Once we've worn the chimp packs, that's the only way to get past it. We ask the human, what would we do about it? If that happened, what would we do?

And by the time you go down that list, you start to realize that I'm not gonna die. Like speaking on stage. I'm not gonna die. I might like look a bit stupid or I might feel a bit stupid, or I might not be the way exactly how I wanted to be, but that's not that horrific. That's okay. And it helps calm the brain down and it helps calm the chimp down and it helps you see very logically.

What's the fear with it? And I've told this story a million times, but it's such a good one that I was too scared to launch a course. And the coach I was working with at the time did some like deep diving with me and, and discovered this. And then they said, you know, what's the worst that could happen?

And I was like, well, what if no one buys it? What if like, I'd never sell it. This is what I do for a job and I, what if I can't sell my own stuff? And they said to me, Well, how many of you sold? And I was thinking, well, none cuz I haven't launched it. And he said, well, you failed already then, haven't you? And that is the truth.

That is a hundred percent the truth. I was so scared that no one would buy it, that I never offered it, which meant no one bought it, which meant my biggest fear was coming true, but through my own hands. So, That's what we do when we think about fear. And then the last thing we write is what could be the best outcome?

What if it went really well? What if I stood on that stage and gave a talk that was a good, great talk and people loved it. What would that do for me? What would that do for my business? What would that do for your brand? What if, what if I launched that course and someone bought it? Well, what's the best that could happen?

They'd give me money. Fyi, I did launch that course and I sold 28 of them, and I was dead pleased and proud. I didn't make the six figures that the coach is promising, but 28, I was happy with that. So yeah, what is the best that could happen? And start to visualize that. Start to get it into your head that like I walk on stage and people clap and I get to speak and I love it.

And they love it, and people come

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I'm your host, Teresa, as always. How are you doing? Okay. We've done a little theme these last few weeks, so if you've been listening, which hopefully you have, two weeks ago we did an episode on creating an online course, and the three things that I thought were key in order to have in place, if you wanted to think about having an online course.

So the first thing was content. So last week I did an episode around content and looking at the kind of long form content and how you maximize that content, especially if you've been doing it for some time like I have. And then this week I want to talk about the second thing that was on that list for an online course, which is an audience.

Now I have seen some unbelievably crazy, what is the word I'm looking for claims. That's the word I'm looking for around audiences and whether you need them and don't need them. One I saw on a webinar where basically they said that they sold an online course and only had an email list of a hundred and like 30 people or something, and they made 30,000.

That was the first amazing claim. Now, am I saying that's not true? No, I'm not saying it may not be true. What I'm saying in this case is they may not be telling you the whole picture, i.e. they could have had a Facebook group, they could have had a podcast, they could have had like any number of ways that audiences came to them other than on the email list.

They could have had a ginormous social media following. So I feel like you, you just weren't told the truth with that one. And then the second one I heard was that you should be getting 10,000 people a month on your email list, or you're doing it wrong. Absolute rubbish. Like I can assure you, I've been teaching this stuff for a really long time and no one organically is getting that many people on their email list.

Now, if you wanna put a ton of money behind ads, and actually this person who said it, obviously, as you may or may not know, you can actually view if anybody is running any ads, and this person consistently runs huge amounts of ads to their lead magnet. So yes, they might expect to get that, but God knows how much they're spending on it.

So organically you are not gonna get anywhere near that far, far from it. But I wanted to talk about lead magnets cause I haven't done an episode for ages, and that is one of the key ways in which you can get people onto your email list. I'm not gonna go into why you need email list. You are very smart.

I'm sure you know that by now. We do. Everyone does. Every business needs their own list of people and prospects, and an email list is that way. Social media is lovely, but we do not own it. We are marketing on borrowed ground. So. When we talk about lead magnets, we talk about things that are going to attract someone to get onto our email list, so what I call hand raises.

So basically something where they might have seen some content about something and then it says, do you wanna find out more? Or, those aren't the exact words, FYI or so for instance let's say I am talking about lead magnets, and I tell you, I have done a step-by-step how to create a lead magnet that you can have for free.

You just need to gimme your email address. Well, if you are sat here listening to this thinking, Actually, that's great. Could you, Teresa, then you would download it and you would happily give me your email address for it. That's what I call a handraiser. So I've introduced you to something, into a concept or a content or something and I've said if you want to know more, I do have something, but it's behind this wall.

And then to get past it, you've gotta give me your email. But I would make sure it's good enough that actually you'd be more than happy to give me your email address cuz you haven't gotta pay for it. I see lots of things out there that people are saying you know the downloading pdf, the five things doesn't work, and I just thought I would do an episode about lead magnets, but address that specifically, is it that PDFs don't work anymore?

Is it that we have got much cooler things and much more exciting ways in which we can get people on our email list so that actually the PDFs are a waste of time. So let's look at how you can get people on your email list for starters. These are all effectively lead magnets. These are all effectively ways in which people can go, yes, I want some more.

So it can be as I've already. You know, said it can be a PDF download, it can be quizzes, it could be challenges, and they can be email challenges as well as full on five day challenges in a Facebook group. It could be things like video series. It might be like a white paper or something a bit more in depth.

It might be things where you're getting them to sign up to a webinar or some free training or something like that. It could also be things like freebies, like a 30 minute discovery call or an entry to a competition. So there are lots of different ways to encourage people to get on your list. Also, if you're a product, it could be a discount off your first purchase, that sort of thing.

So when you look at all these cool and fancy things that we can do, does that mean that the PDF thing no longer works? Now. First off, I would say there's one thing more important than the media that you are using to give away your thing, because that's all it is. You are just using, I could talk you through a process, which I could do on a video.

I could do it via quiz, I could do it via a challenge. I could do it in a pdf. So really you are just looking at the medium in which you are using to get it out there. So the first thing to know and make sure is that whatever you are giving them in whatever format is good. I have just opted in to two lead magnets.

I used to do this all the time and I have it for ages, and now I'm like, well, one, I genuinely wanted to opt in and what I wanted to see what they were doing, one was by someone who's this huge, absolutely massive and it's an email challenge and it's like five emails over five days and it's rubbish. Like seriously, seriously bad.

Like these emails are saying nothing, absolutely nothing, and the thing that they are saying is not that good. It's like, yeah, no, I got that in email number one. Now what's next? So that's really disappointing. And the other one I opted into was a quiz, and I am a fan of the quiz. And again, the quiz was rubbish.

So basically it was like, tell me which of the following you prefer to do. So I said, which of the, I can't give away what the subjects were, but I was like, this is what I prefer to do. So then at the end it went, Hey, the results are, you'd prefer to do this. No shit Sherlock, like honestly, sorry, I just swear, yeah. Really?

So that was completely ridiculous and a waste of my time. So that's one of the problems with lead magnets. It's when you opt in and they're pants. It's not about the, the format. It's not that like it's a boring PDF, it's that it's just not very good. So that's the first thing. It really does need to fix a problem.

Now let's say, okay, let's take my course, Build My List. Lovely course. If you've not done it, do go check it out. And where it teaches you how to go through this whole lead magnet process, literally from start to finish. Now I have this very detailed, very good course that literally shows you like what your headline should be and how you should make it exciting sounding, how you should structure your pages.

I give you like Canva templates for it. I write your copy for your emails. I give you the onboarding stuff like. Literally everything, including the tech. Okay? So I go into all the detail. Now, obviously, I want to help you solve a problem, and that course solves every single problem you will have in creating your email list.

However, if I'm going to do a lead magnet, if I'm gonna do a handraiser running up to that course, then. I can't give you the hold of that course, but I have gotta make it good. So what I could do is look at that whole course section and I could take a section of it where I could, let's say I today kind of the terms that we use and what they mean, so I could explain what a lead magnet is.

I could explain what I mean by tagging, I could explain by what I mean by an onboarding like email sequence. So I'm helping you and I am answering a problem. However, I'm not giving you everything because otherwise how would I sell my course, or that's kind of across the whole thing. Or I could just take one section and I could say, okay, the section where the layout of how a lead magnet should look.

So there is, in the course I give you a template of the actual lead magnet. I give you loads of different templates and there's certain ways to lay it out that helps our eyes like want to read it. Often when people lay out lead magnets, they've got great information in there, but it's too much on a page and it's just big blocker text.

So I've created these templates to go, look, this is much nicer looking. This is how you break it up. So I could do a lead magnet about the fact of how to lay out a lead magnet. God, this is getting confusing, but I could show you in that. So I'm not giving you the whole course, I'm giving you that one section, but again, I'm answering a problem.

So I'm saying this is a problem people have. Here's the solution. So that's the key thing. Most people are so focused on. I just wanna get people on my list that they're forgetting to actually give them some value. Now, once you've got 'em on your list, if your lead magnets rubbish. How well received do you think your emails are then gonna be?

Not particularly like. I'm literally waiting until, I think I've got one day left on this five day challenge, and then I'm unsubscribing because it's been an absolute waste of my time. So I'm half thinking, well, what's the flipping point? Because I don't wanna get the other emails if they're all gonna be like this.

So like I said, the key thing is, Do you really fix their problem? Are you really helping them? The other thing I want you to think about with the lead magnet for you, and I've kind of demonstrated it in my example, is what is your next natural step for you and your customer? So having a lead magnet's great.

So this would be here, if I'd had a lead magnet for this episode, this would've tied it up just beautifully. So I've done an episode, I've done content on what is a lead magnet. You are listening for free to this episode. You have an act to opt in. You have an act to tell me, I don't know who you are, and then you could be going, this is brilliant.

I really want some more on this. So then I could have given you a lead magnet. I have actually got a lead magnet, which is the basics of starting an email list, which I think. I'm gonna check what that URL is. Okay? By the power of recording things, I've got the url, even though I've been paused for like five minutes finding it.

So if you go to teresaheathwareing.com/startyouremail, your email, then that gives you the link to get my five key steps to start your email list. Okay? So that's not a perfect lead magnet for this episode. However, it's, it'll give you the example. So I've created the content in terms of the free episode. I've created the lead magnet in terms of here's a natural next step, and then my lead magnet naturally leans and goes to my course.

So I knew when creating that lead magnet, where's that leading to? Now I'm actually in the process of creating a new lead magnet around visibility, which by the time this episode comes out, it may or may not be out, but at this point. Yeah, as I'm doing it, I'm not entirely sure what the natural next step is, and I've gotta make sure that's clear cuz otherwise I am bringing people into my world.

I'm attracting them onto my email list and then I've got nowhere to send them. And it doesn't always have to send them to a sale. It doesn't always have to go, okay, now buy this thing, because some people getting new to your email will not wanna immediately buy a thing. So understanding that next step.

So in all that being said, Do I still think PDFs still work? Well, if you've got those things that I've just talked about, if you're really fixing the problem, if you're really helping them, if it's a quality lead magnet and you understand what their next step is, I don't think the medium matters that much.

The reason I am not averse to creating PDFs is because they're one of the simplest things to create. It's one of the easiest ways to get started. Now, I have done quizzes. My quizzes currently paused, but I have done quizzes. I've done challenges. I haven't done a video series as such. I have been in lead magnets of video series, and they are immense.

The production that goes behind those other things is way bigger. So if you are getting started, I would much rather you got a PDF out there, A S A P, than spent forever trying to work out how to do a quiz or a challenge or a video series and recording all the videos and coming up with all the stuff.

So for me, I still think there's value in it. It more comes down to what you are actually giving them in it. If I said to you, I could literally tell you, how, to make a million, if I knew that I'd have done it myself, but if I could, you wouldn't give a hoot whether I said it was in a video or whether it was on a pdf.

You just like, give me the information, tell me now. So I think. Yes, there are fancier, more interactive ways of doing these things, but if you are getting started and even if you're not getting started, that is a PDF I've just sent you to like, I've done many different types of lead magnets. I still think there's no problem with doing those things as long as the content is good and as long as you download it and go, yeah, nice one. That really helped.

I don't think they're going out of date. I do think that if you can do other things, then they can be cooler. Quizzes gives you lots of information back, but I'll be really honest, one of the reasons I paused my quiz is there's a huge cost involved because my quiz is very technical. I couldn't have the basic version of the system that I used and therefore I have to have the more expensive one and I have to weigh up and go actually for the amount of leads I'm bringing in.

Is it worth me paying that money out? The new lead magnet I'm doing is an email challenge, which is just basically five emails over five days. And actually that's pretty basic. That's a good one to start with. When I say basic, the content isn't basic. The content's amazing, fyi. If you wanna be more visible and grow your audience and become bit more of a go-to expert in your industry, it's gonna be a phenomenal lead magnet for you.

However, the process of creating it, Is not that difficult. You know, you can just do five emails over five days and you don't even have to create a pdf. So like I said, it's not so much about the medium, it's more about the content and the quality of the thing you're putting out. So don't be disheartened when you see people going, PDFs are boring and they don't work.

They do work. They're only boring if you put boring stuff in them. One other thing I wanna say. So you might be listening to this thinking, yeah, great, I've got pdf, I've got a few lead magnets. So great. We're onto the next stage. So the next stage for you to think about is the customer journey. So you might have one or two lead magnets, but now it's time to think about where do people come into you in your world.

So for instance, I have people come into my world when they're just getting started, but I don't have anything at a Just getting started cost at this point. So my membership is $222 a month, or $2,220 a year. My executive club, which is my mastermind, is $444 a month. $4,440 a year, you get two months free when you sign up for the year.

And my one-to-one work is, well, that's negotiable on a conversation. But if you were to have the standard 90 day package that's around the $10,000. So I don't have anything that is a getting started price. So for me, when I say that some people come into their business with a chunk of money and that's fine, and they're willing to invest from day one and amazing go them, but lots of people normally have to wait until they bring some money in.

So for me, I need to think about my...

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Okay, so last week I talked about having online courses and the three things that I felt were super, super important to have in order to have a more successful chance at having an online course and selling it, and those three things, were creating content, building an audience, and making sure that you understand your customer's problem and the transformation there're after.

Because obviously that's effectively what your course is. You're helping them get a transformation. So what I thought I would do is this week I thought I would talk about content. Now, we've done a fair few episodes over the many, many, many episodes of the podcast around the theme of content, and they've always gone down really, really well.

And one of the things I thought about was the fact of like, is there ever any new content, right? Not only from a point of view of there is a ton of content out there in the world, and obviously I'm talking about my industry, but your industry too. There is so much out there. We are all content producers now, and we have Google and you can literally search anything.

So is there any new content from that point of view, but also what do you do when you get to my level of 285 episodes of the podcast? So effectively, like every interview was round an hour and every solo is probably less than half an hour. Like that is a ton of me talking for starters, you poor people, but also a ton of content.

We have talked about so much stuff, so what do we do? Like how do we keep coming up with content ideas or what do we do with the fact of we already have so much content out there? So today I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about coming up with ideas and then what you need to do in terms of repurposing those ideas or how you make the most of them.

If you are serious in your business, if you are actively trying to grow and you know, be seen by more people, then content is one of the ways you're gonna do that. Even, and I'm gonna kind of stick my neck out here. Even with a product-based business, there is still content that you can produce. So what do I mean first off, by content?

I'm confident you all know by now, but let me just cover it of. So we've got long form and short form content. So long form content tends to be things like podcasts, blogs, articles, videos, lives, anything that's a bit more meaty where you're going into a bit more depth. Short form content tends to be things like social media, tends to be posts, tends to be kind of quick, short stuff.

So often businesses are pretty good at the short form content. They know they need to be on social media. They know they need to show up. They're not always great at the long form content. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and say you have to have long form content, cuz no one has to have anything. It's your business. You get to decide.

However, it is a very helpful thing to have, especially when you are in a knowledge based industry. If you are offering something that is based on your knowledge or that you think needs some explanations. Let's just take one of my lovely members of the club, one of my members does inflatables and soft play hire, and for instance, long form content for them might be blog articles around some of the common questions that they get asked.

So even with something like that where you think, well, I don't need a blog or a podcast for that, somewhere where they can go and get more confidence and more comfort around the thing that you are selling or how good you are at your service. So yeah, so I would recommend that most businesses have some kind of long form content.

Now, the first thing is you need to decide what you like to do. I do not like writing, therefore, a blog is not for me. I do have a blog on my website. If you go and look those three blogs written ages ago, I should probably just remove this now. But I tried. It really wasn't for me, and I'm just not big on writing.

You know, I do write, I'm gonna stop saying I'm not being write. I do do a lot of writing, I journal and stuff. But when it comes to this sort of thing, put me in front of a mic, put me on a stage. That is where my zone of genius is. Writing is not where that is. So the first thing to decide is what do you actually like to do?

And start with that. So if you like talking, then a podcast or a live might be good for you. If you like writing, then a blog might be good for you. So, and I didn't really wanna get into too much of like getting started cause I'm hoping lots of you are well and truly started with your long form content. But it's about then taking that bit of long form, which takes time and effort, and how do you then maximize that time and effort to really, really work for you.

Now one of the things I think I'm gonna do an episode on, like things I wish I'd thought about when starting a podcast. because if I was to start my podcast today, I'd do it very differently. Anyway. One of the things I was thinking about and, and maybe you guys should think about this too, is we are put in a world where I produce weekly content.

So every single week I do a podcast episode, or every week you might do a blog or that is a lot of work. So who says, we've gotta do it that often. So what if you did a podcast that came out every other week? What if you did a blog that came out every other week? What if you over went only went live every other week?

It's more about the consistency than how often you are doing it. And the other thing is, if you are spending a few hours creating a blog or you know, for me it's probably like 30 minutes for 20 minutes worth of podcast. Now, bear in mind, I've done a ton of episodes, so I can do this fairly quick. Although I have to say I yawn every time I do an episode.

It's really weird. So the reason it takes me 30 minutes or a 20 minute episodes cause have to keep pausing so I yawn do like, am I really finding myself that boring? I think it's like constant talking about anybody interrupting you. So if you are spending a chunk of time doing that bit of content, then why do one every week?

Why not do it every other week? But the thing is, it's not about, I think lots of times people will create a bit of content and do one post and go, there you go. I've created a blog. I put it on social media. Done. No, no, no, no, no. You've gotta be absolutely maximizing that content. You have gotta be pulling out as much as possible.

And if you've been doing anything for length of time, and if you have a team with you or you have processes that you put yourself in place for yourself, then this is what you should be doing. Like you should be trying to maximize the core bit of content, and if you have a team, brilliant. You have to do the core content.

Okay, I have to record the podcast. If suddenly one day one of my team turned up on the podcast, you'd be a bit like, what the what? So I have to record this bit. That's fine. That's my job. But I don't need to do any of the things subsequent. And you know, hopefully by now, if you've listened to the podcast for a while, I have a team who helps me with all that good stuff.

But we could be doing more. And you know, we often talk about this, and it's probably me who's to hold upon this, but like when you have a bit of content, so if you are doing a blog, for instance, You might wanna think about like what happens after you've done that blog? Okay. You created a post, you put it out.

Brilliant. Can you create a quote post from a quote that you've said in the blog? Can you start a discussion thread on Twitter? Can you do a poll on Instagram story about something you said in that blog post? Can you create a reel about the content of the blog post or a kind of discussion point, and then go, go read my blog post to find out more.

Can you create it as an article in LinkedIn? And the other thing to think about is, Not only do we have to choose our long form content in terms of what we like and what it is, i e I like speaking, I do a podcast, but we need to think about the social platforms that we're on and are we using them in a way the platform likes us to use them.

So for instance, yeah, great. Say I'll hold my hand. I'm not the best of this. Becci, my social media person has been kicking my butt to do reels and for whatever reason I seems to have a bit of a mental block with it. But we'll get there. But like, you know, I could be doing a reel for every single episode of the podcast.

I do. I could be doing a live with a guest if I have guests anymore. Like there is so much we could do round it and that you could do round it. So if you are getting to the point where you're like, do you know what? I'm really tired, or, I've done a lot of episodes and I feel like this is. Like doing the same thing over and over, then why not either pause.

And I had this conversation with someone recently. They had an episode and not an episode, they had a podcast and it went into like the hundreds of episode and they were like, I'm just falling outta love with it, but I feel like I need to keep it going. And it's like, you don't need to keep it going if you are falling outta love.

And this is the other thing. Yeah, it's all about consistency, but don't do something you hate and don't forget you still have all that content just because you pause and do something different or you know, whatever it is you wanna do instead, doesn't mean that all that content goes in the bin. She could effectively re-release an episode every week for the next hundred and something weeks, because that's how many episodes she got.

I have that much content. In fact, I was listening to podcast myself, Dr. Chatterjee, I hope I've said his name right, and I can't remember what his podcast called. Anyway, I was listening to his podcast and he does these bite-sized podcasts of old episodes, and I was like, brilliant, we could do that. Like, and, and in my head I'm thinking, how could I make that happen without me being the person to make it happen?

Because I know I'm the one that will hold it up. So it's about kind of really using that content and stretching it and exploring it and molding it. The other thing I want to think about, and like I said, this is where I am currently. You know, 285 episodes is a ton of episodes, so the fear is about repeating myself.

So what I did, Becci and I did Next Size not so long ago, where we went through the stats of the podcast and we looked at the ones that were really popular. And content is a really popular like subject. Whenever we do a content episode that seems to get really good download. So doesn't it make sense to do another episode on content?

This in itself is creating more content. You know, it like this weird, paradoxical world we're in. But what is it that really gets people talking? What is it that people really enjoy to hear from you or what episodes are most popular? And do it again? Like there's a part of me that would love to re-invite some people back on because they were such good episodes.

But whether I could get them again and if I, you know, it's a big thought for me to have really, but, but yeah, like what episodes are really good? Why can't you do those episodes again? The other thing that we thought about and we talked about is my opinions have changed a lot. Like I have learned so much in, and I can't, it's it 2018.

I started my podcast, I think it was 18, 19 21. Yeah, I think it is 2018, like me in 2018 and mean 2023 is very different. Like what I speak about is different. What my opinions are on things are different. So again, there's no harm in me going back to some of my old episodes and rerecording them because I have different thoughts and opinions now.

So this episode's a little bit all over the place, but the key thing for me to talk about is, one, you don't need to keep creating brand new stuff. Also the other way to do it. So let's say you are thinking about starting some long form content. Go to your short form content and see what work. So if you've done a social media post and it really resonated with people, or got lots of comments or started a conversation, then great.

Use that as a kickoff to do one of your episodes if you're doing a podcast, or go live and talk about the thing or write a blog about it so you can use it in both ways. Don't think that you've gotta sit there with a blank sheet of paper every time and try and come up with more ideas. So next week I'm gonna do an episode on lead magnets because I haven't done one for a while.

And in this kind of little theme that I've given myself where I talked about the online course and about, first thing is create content. Second thing, as an audience, I thought a lead magnet would be great. And one of the things I'm gonna talk about is do PDF lead magnets still work? Because there is lots of people out there go and they're boring, they're dull. No one wants them.

So that's gonna be the theme of my episode next week. Now, the very first lead magnet episode I did was episode number two. Don't go back and listen to it. I did. I regretted it. I sounded very professional, like maybe I should take some hints from the old Teresa. I think so. I was probably very nervous.

Also like there was a lot of stopping and starting and probably a lot of editing in those episodes. But yeah, like so why wouldn't I do another episode, 200 and something episodes on? So, Think about that long and short form. Think about how they can support each other. How you can extend short form into long form.

How you can tweak long form to drop it into short form and think about maximizing that long form content. You should be really, really maximizing it and in an ideal world. I wouldn't be doing something every week, like I'm in the habit now and it's the way it is and it's the way it always has been. And personally, I don't think I'd wanna change it.

And I think podcasts are a wee bit different because they are, they do tend to be a weekly thing, unless you do seasons and then you check a season out. but, If that means you get to maximize, I nearly said milk that content. That sounds horrible. If you get to maximize that content by giving yourself more space in between, then great.

Do that. Like that is cool, but make sure that you are trying to maximize it as much as possible, but also put those processes in place. So like I said, I have the team now and once I've recorded it the rest just happens. And that's, that's brilliant. I'm very happy with that. So where can you bring in some processes in order to maximize the content that you're putting out there?

Okay. I hope that help. I hope it's given you a few ideas. If you are starting on your content journey, as in you are looking at creating long form content and you need some help. Then do please come and check out the club, and if you wanna work one-to-one with me, do please check out coaching. I'll make sure all that's linked up the show notes, because sometimes this can be hard and sometimes you need someone to walk you through the process and get you going.

I've had someone just start, one of my one-to-one people have just created a podcast. We've done it in a very short space of time because I was able to do it in a very succinct, right, do this thing, do that thing, send me this, do this, and I'm really excited for it. I think it's gonna be amazing. So yeah, if you are wanting to start it, then come and have a conversation with me. I would love to help.

Okay. Have a wonderful rest of your week. As I've already mentioned. Next week I'll be talking about lead magnets. Do they still work? Is it still right to do PDF ones? What other ways can you bring people on your list? So if you are interested in that, then please make sure you check that episode out.

Also, if you have a friend that you think would find these episodes really helpful, I would appreciate it massively if you would share this episode or share my podcast, that would be so very kind. Okay. Have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will see you then.

Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. As always, I am your host, Teresa Heath- Wearing. I am very grateful to have you here listening with me today. So what are we gonna talk about today? If you are new to my world, the podcast now predominantly talks about marketing, strategy, tips, tools, but also with a whole host of mindset stuff. And I've done quite a few mindsety type episodes recently.

So I thought it was about time I did some practical stuff again. And one of the things that constantly comes up in my world, and this is probably because I'm an online business, is the fact of having a, now, I'm not gonna use the word passive income cuz fyi, there is no such thing as passive. But having a recurring income or an income that is from something that is created that can be sold over and over.

Now I'm not gonna make out like this is, you know, the easy dream and you can come rich it quick overnight, cuz that really isn't the case. However, there is definitely some real benefits to it. And one of the things that I'm talking about in terms of creating that kind of reoccurring income is an online course.

Now, often when I work with people on a coaching capacity, we are focusing on their main business, but always in the background and always as a thought is, how can I create something that brings me in some regular income? And often this comes down to a course. When we're talking about, like I said, I, I don't agree with the word passive because it's really not passive, but when we're talking about things like memberships, you have gotta show up.

I am in my membership all the time and I have to show up every week and every day and do the things cause it's my membership. That's what people expect when they join. I know that doesn't happen in lots of memberships, but it certainly does in mine. and that's what they're paying the good money for. They're paying for me to come in and help them and support them.

So that's not normally what my clients, my coaching students want. They want a course. So I thought it'd be really good to talk to you today about what are the things that you should be thinking about if you are thinking about having an online course or if you are at that stage in your business where you are like, do you know what, I'm killing it from a one-to-one point of view, or from a one to group point of view.

And I'm really loving what I do, but I really want to find another way I can bring in another element to my business. And normally this is the case. It's not normally the case with most people I work with that go, I wanna shut down my one-to-one or in-person side, and I only want the online and, and the course side.

They normally want it as an add-on, which is a great thing to do because the fact of if you've got, you've, you know, and not, if you have got so much knowledge and so much content that you produce. Like I know for instance, when I, when I first started coaching, I would suggest something or I would talk about a process and then think I could probably just come up with like a, a form or a worksheet or something for you to use, and actually that'll make it so much easier.

So then I would create it. So then when I spoke to the next person I was coaching and say, actually, you know, this could be good for you as well, I would then have the worksheet. So by the time I've done this so long and worked with so many businesses, I have created a lot of content, which you could turn into a course.

So this is where most people get come from. So there are really, for me, three main considerations that you need to think about if you are going to create an online course. If you are sat there thinking, I love my business, I'm very good at it, and now I want to find a way that I can bring in some additional income.

So the first thing is that you should be creating content about the thing that you do, which if you are like the people that I coach, then you are already doing this. I had an example once of, I was part of another group coaching program and I am a bit of a nightmare. I can't help myself. Like, because I have all these ideas and, and you know, I like to think I'm really good at what I do and I get good results.

So when I'm sat in a group situation and someone else is giving me advice, I literally have to sit on my hands and like hold my tongue. I just wanna give advice and I wanna give support, and I want to encourage, and I want to do all this amazing stuff, which I can't, cause it's not my, my space to do it in.

However, I was in a space once and this woman came to me afterwards and said, is there any chance you and I could have a, a call and, and inquired about being coached with me. This was quite a while back now. And I said, yeah, that's cool. So we get on a call and she said that the, the main coach, whose group we were in had said to her, "I need you to launch your whatever it is." and this coach was really kind of focused on people don't notch cuz they're scared. And they were so focused on that, that they basically blinded themselves to everything else. So she had started a brand, brand new business. She had done something previously.

She'd already had a business, but she had done something. She'd completely coveted, completely changed, and decided I'm gonna focus on this one thing now. However, she was not known for that one thing. She had no content, she had no following. She had no presence at all in that space. So basically it's like me walking into, I don't know designing handbags tomorrow and go, I'm gonna do a course on it.

Now I might know about it. I don't, FYI, literally just picked something up my head, but like, you might know about it, but no one knows, you know about it. So she came to me and we had a conversation and I said to her, in an ideal world, I would have you create content about this for some time, like three, six months.

Like that would be amazing to, to basically be sharing the world this is who I am. This is what I do. And, and proving that you are good at what you do. Anyway, the coach was very adamant that she had to launch and within a month and a half, I think it was, cause it had to be by the end of the quarter, she launched and sold it to three people, uh, which is amazing.

Well done. But two of those people were on the coaching program we were on, and one was a friend. And then she didn't launch it again and she pivoted again. And it's like, do you know what? If you just waited a bit of time and created some content, and I know that content creation can feel really, really long and boring and arduous, but honestly, like the first thing someone's going to do is they're going to want to see that you know what you're talking about.

And if there's absolutely no evidence of that anywhere. Then you are not going to give people confidence that you can teach them and help them. And also, one of the things I teach, and one of the things I work with, with not only the membership but also the people I coach, is we look at how you take people from that content through the customer journey to be a customer.

So again, the content isn't just there as a backup for when people find you. The content is designed to drive people through to your world. I have had people listen to the podcast for years and never buy anything from me to only suddenly appear like I didn't know they existed. And then they suddenly appear and go, I'd like to join your membership and I've listened to your podcast for years, and I had no idea.

So as much as sometimes and fairly I've had this conversation with Becci,, who does the show notes and does and does social with me. She's like, you know. We've gotta remember that like when the podcast is hard or when, cuz I, I'm really honest that I get a bit hung up with like the numbers and hate the charts.

Like the charts really get on my nerves because I am very consistent and I've been around a very long time and therefore I don't appear anywhere and it really winds me up. . Anyway, I'm gonna get over that soon. But like, you know, so when I'm feeling like that, I have to remember that the podcast is a great place for people to get to know me, get to hopefully like me, and trust me that I know what I'm talking about.

And who knows, today might be the day that you are listening to this that you go do you know what I'm gonna do that I'm gonna get in contact with you, Teresa and I'm gonna look at how I can work with you because I've listened to this podcast for a long time and now I'm ready to take action. So that's the first thing.

If you want to look at this course, you do need to be creating content, which I am confident you are already creating content. The second thing you need to do, and again, I will argue the talks with anybody that says this is not true, is you need to have an audience. Now, you can't sell something if no one knows it exists.

If no one knows who you are and what you do, you have to have an audience. I think it's Denise. What's it? I don't think it's Denise, the full Thomas. I know Denise Duffield-Thomas says this, but I'm just hopefully remember the percentages correctly. I might get 'em wrong. But she says it's something between like 1 and 3% of her email list that only ever buys.

And that's been the same when her email list was 500 people or when her email list was 500,000 people. It's still that percentage. So. You need the audience. You need people to know you exist. And even when you have a very loyal, amazing, wonderful audience, they might not buy. I know that very well. Like not everyone will buy.

Of course they won't. So you do need to be building that audience, and that's where your content creation comes from. Your content creation is proving to the world, you know what you're talking about. Is showing up consistently going, look, here I am, but also is helping convert those people into your audience.

In an ideal world, those people are going to be on your email list. So those people are going to have, so for instance, in some cases, and I haven't done it for ages actually, I've been a little bit off the ball and I need to, I am getting back into kind of kicking my own backside, but like, One of the things that that I would do on the podcast is I would talk about a given subject, and then during the podcast I would say to you, if you wanna know more about this, I have created this download or this video or this, whatever it is, and then I would send you to somewhere that is a lead magnet and I would send you somewhere where you can opt in to my email list.

And for me, it's funny, I, I did an interview with, oh man, her name just jumped out my head, Sarah. It was Humane Marketing, I'm sure it was Sarah. And we talked about the word lead magnet and she didn't like it and she called it something a bit nicer cuz it just sounds a bit faceless. And it is a little bit the name, but basically I also call it hand raiser.

You're basically saying, Okay, I really like that bit of information you gave me there. I would like to know more. So again, the content leads really lovely onto the audience and the audience is so important. This is why I have a course called Build My List. And it's funny cuz that is the only online course I have and it is an evergreen course.

You can buy it now at any point and you can learn how to create an email list. Little plug there for my course. I'll put a link in the show notes or just go to teresaheathwareing.com/buildmylist. But it's so, so very important. Honestly, if you don't have an email list or if your list is not growing very fast or you are struggling to get people on your list, then go check out that course.

Cuz honestly, it's, it's awesome. But yeah. So you need to create content. You need to have the audience. And then the final thing is like, these are like, your baseline is you need to have a transformation. You need to be clear on what the problem is that your customer has and what you can fix. Sometimes people wanna create courses that are content they wanna share and they wanna put out there without necessarily thinking about, well, is this a problem that my customer's got?

And is this something that they're gonna need help with? And they want fixing rather than, like I said, just thinking, oh, I'd love to do a course on this cuz this would be cool. Yeah, it might be cool, but are people actually wanting to buy it? Is that a problem that they're actually struggling with? So, and also the other thing is by having consistent content, by having an audience, you will start to understand what those people want and need from you, what the kind of transformation is that they're looking for.

So again, it's not just a case of, oh well, you know, it's better if you have an audience. You can really understand your customers if you have that audience. And again, I've heard lots of times you don't need an email list. No, you don't have to have one, but your results are gonna be significantly better if you do have one.

So, like I said, for me, the final one is understand that transformation, understanding what their problem is, what you can do, and how you can help them fix their problem. Now, some of the things that I find are really, really helpful and some of the things that have been more successful for me and some of the people I've coached is when the course is a live or has a live element to it.

So wonderful Michelle, who is in my community and is in executive club, she sells a number of different courses around Facebook ads. I will link up to her in the show notes, and she's actually gonna be doing a workshop soon. In fact, this is perfect. I, I didn't even think about this. She's doing a workshop soon about how to get more people on your email list through ads.

So basically using the knowledge that you've got for around lead magnet. And then promoting those lead magnets through ads and how's the best way to do it? So I'll link up to that as well. So do go check that out. But she's doing as a live workshop, I'm sorry. The reason I mentioned to her is because one of the courses that she does, she has this course called Billy Basics Ad Course, which basically takes you through the process of creating an ad with an ads expert holding your hand and it's live, and you literally build the ad and she reviews the ad and you look at the results together.

And that for me, I feel like is where, where the, the online kind of course aspect is changing and moving a bit. Now, I appreciate that if you want a residual income and you don't want that work, you want to effectively build it once and sell it over and over, then that isn't going to be the case. But then you need to be realistic about the amount of people who are gonna do the work or the amount of people who are going to complete it, and the amount of transformations you're going to make. Um, because I think I, I told someone the other day something like 12% of people who actually buy a course online, finish it. It's a really, really small percentage.

And again, you gotta look into why you're doing it. At the end of the day, it's not your responsibility to make someone do a course that they've bought. If they've bought the course and they know it's a complete self-study. Then that's up to them to do. It's not your responsibility. However, in selling the course, one of the things that I have found for myself and other people that have been useful is the element of live, the element of accountability, because basically that's probably one of the many reasons why people work with me.

It's for the accountability. I'm doing a challenge with my executive club at the moment, and every day I'm posting into our private group. Giving them something to do and keeping them accountable because they wouldn't do it if I wasn't keeping accountable. Now it's not the fact that they can't do it. They know what to do.

They're not stupid. They're smart people. These people in executive club, you know, they are working hard on their business, showing up, doing the work, but sometimes we need that accountability. I need that accountability. So that's why from a course point of view, that can be a real sales point and having that kind of personal feedback is brilliant.

But what I would suggest is if that's ultimately not what you wanna do, you might want to do it for the first few to really then understand actually, where are the questions, where are the transformations I'm looking at. What works what doesn't work and then you can help tweak the course.

So build my list. I did live I think four or five times before, it's now evergreen and anybody can buy it. So I am confident that A, it works and B, I've answered all your questions, so there we go. There is my brief overview about having an online course and really the three foundations you have to have in my mind in order to make it as successful.

Now, like I said, have there been people out there who have created a course and sold it without those things? Yeah, I'm sure there are. However, they are nowhere near or they would've been way more successful if they had actually, you know, had those things in...