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Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

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Hello, and welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

And today I am talking to you about stop creating content for your peers. This post I shared on Instagram about two weeks ago now, and the engagement was so good. In fact, one of my most respected copywriter friends shared it with her friends, which told me I was onto a hot topic. So I really wanted to bring it to a podcast episode too, because I see so many people who are guilty of this. And it really, really makes sense why so what am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that I always conduct social media audits as part of enrolling my new one, two ones. And as part of that, I also always look at the competition, and the industry as a whole to kind of see what kind of content they’re sharing, to get a feel for what really differentiates my one to one, and what makes them unique.

Now, as part of that process, I started to see particular trends in various different industries. And I’m gonna be honest here, this was particularly the birth industry, where I saw a lot of very educated opinions, where it felt like it was being more of service to other people in the birth space than the ideal client. I found, you know, for example, there’s a lot of activism in the birth space. And alongside that activism, there’s a lot of sharing the horrors of what can happen in hospitals. Now, they’re also selling Hypno birthing programs, some of these people, and I’m watching it thinking, your ideal client is pregnant right now. And hearing the statistics as to how many things go wrong for people in hospitals, probably is not what they’re looking for. In a hypnobirthing. Instructor, they’re probably hoping for something that’s going to help them feel calm, and peaceful, optimistic, and positive. And we can know all the way things can go wrong. I mean, equally in my industry, I have a few horror stories I can share as to ways things can go wrong. But is that going to motivate my clients? And are there ways I can share advice that will, instead of scaring them away from things that kick that can go wrong, instead, just put them on a path that will ensure they are best supported to make the most empowered decisions for themselves? Well, I think it’s very much the same in the birth space. But what’s interesting is my copywriter friend said equally, she sees this happening a lot in the copywriting industry, too. And I’d imagine to be honest with you, to a certain extent, it’s the same in the business, mentorship space, there’s certainly a lot of industry wide talk, which isn’t necessarily relevant to your ideal client, okay, they probably don’t care so much about what’s going on industry wide. They just want to know how you can help them. Now it makes sense why so many people accidentally fall into this trap, it’s very much down to our conditioning. When you think about what it was like at school, you would be rewarded for your knowledge. I know certainly, as someone who’s approaching her 40s, that when I was at school, the emphasis was very much around. The more intelligent you are, the better you’ll do in getting a good job, having a nice, safe, secure life and career and have that lovely house with the children and that pets, and it’s all going to be perfect, that the emphasis was very much on get the grades, go to university and make some money. And obviously it got worse and worse.

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As time went by, and the right yeah, we’re not gonna give you grants anymore. Yeah, we’re gonna leave you with lots of debt. But don’t worry, you’re going to be so clever. You’re going to make loads of money. Yeah, come and do your language degree. Of course, you’re going to make loads of money. I mean, I look back and think what a scam, learning French and Greek expecting to get rich off the back of that. By the time I’d finished my four year degree, I remember thinking I can’t afford to do a master’s I need to go into employment. And I remember going to recruitment agency and they were like, yeah, all your experience so far is in the hospitality. I’m like, I have a thirst in Greek. Does that not count for

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anything and they’re like, well, they’re not ready. So yeah. Oh, I didn’t know that was gonna come up. But yeah, I mean, come on the degrees that people were doing back then are I mean, insane, I just don’t hear of so many people anymore doing those kinds of degrees, because there’s more awareness. I mean, we’re now living in this day and age where, you know, we’re not just getting one career. And that’s it for the rest of our lives, a lot of people are moving between various careers between various different employers and all the rest, you know, so more education does not equal more money. Being the brightest person in the room with the most knowledge doesn’t mean you deserve more sales. Okay. So this is where the whole premise of if I give value all the time, or if I share, like industry wide knowledge, people will see me and go, Wow, she’s the most educated person in industry, she’s obviously the person I should learn from. That’s not how most people’s brains work. Most people’s brains are overwhelmed. We have got way too much information being flung at us day to day, from WhatsApp groups, from news pings from businesses from schools and everything else that goes alongside it, we have we are up to the gills. In information, we are not seeking information that we don’t necessarily need, which most of the time, what the minimum viable method to our desired outcome. You know, like, I don’t want to learn how human biology works to go to a personal trainer at the gym, I just want her to tell me the moves I need to make to have a nice ass, I’ll be honest.

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I mean, I’m exaggerating somewhat, but you know what I mean, I don’t want to know the ins and outs of macros and nutrition, I just want her to tell me the basics that I know I can comprehend and work with. And again, that’s not just me, and my personal trainer, this is human beings across the board, you know, you’ve done the longer route, so you can show them the shortcuts, okay? That’s really important to know. So it’s really important to understand that education, knowledge isn’t the thing that inspires confidence and make somebody want to work with you. When you bear in mind that most buying decisions are done 80% Emotionally, with about 20% being backed up by logic, what do you think creates more sales? Do you think it’s a super knowledgeable educational piece? Or do you think it’s one that truly connects to your ideal clients? It’s connection that leads to sales. It’s truly understanding your ideal client and their situation right now. And what that means for them, their hesitations, their reservations, the things they’ve tried, the things that they desire, the things that, you know, the areas where they’re just seeking clarity, for God’s sakes, they just want to know what foot to put in front of the other to get to where they want to be, they’re probably a bit disgruntled because they’ve already tried things that haven’t worked out. And they want you to know that and understand that, and reassure them as to why this is different. So you know, you want the ability to communicate in a way that speaks to your client’s deepest desires. And communication isn’t just words, your brand, your images, the way you show up, will all create a feeling for your ideal client. So sometimes I’ve seen people in nurturing spaces, using bold, aggressive fonts, using colours that are alarming and startling, or, you know, nurturing spaces where the fonts are barely legible. They look pretty and curly and stuff, but you can’t read them. So, you know, take a moment to be in your ideal clients shoes, because what do I do?

When I audit social media for my one to ones, or my VIP day clients? You know, it’s not that complicated, really. I am just the person who’s slowing down long enough to look at the content with a fresh set of eyes. And I just put myself in the position of who their ideal client is. I think about what they’re searching for. I think about what they’re fearful of, I think about the questions they probably have. And I look at your content, and I see does does your content, answer those questions? Does it provide clarity? Does it make it easy for them to move forward? And you know, there’s so many different tactics out there in terms of marketing and content that tell you this is a way to make more money, but ultimately, that’s what it boils down to. It boils down to creating content for one person, not for your peers, and that one person

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And is the person who is seeking a solution. And it’s understanding what internal urgency is behind them seeking that solution. So for example, you know, if I go back to my days when I was pregnant, I was seeking a solution to my fear of the unknown. And wanting to feel I had some strategies under my belt that would help me feel less afraid of going into labour. And beyond that, I probably would have then been looking once I’d seen there was a variety of people out there to find somebody who had values that were similar to mine, so that it wasn’t so deeply immersed in Wu that I felt uncomfortable, but also not so straight talking that it didn’t, you know, there needed to be some middle ground, something were adjacent, I’d say. But I would be looking for all of those things, and probably for somebody who communicates in a way, that made me feel really reassured, really connected to them, and invested in them in a way that made it really easy for me to want to share my money with them.

Okay? It really is that simple. And yet, we so often over complicate it. And we so often default into thinking, Well, I know I’ll get great engagement, I know I’ll get lots of likes, hey, I might even get some shares. When I share stuff that my peers like, but your peers aren’t buying from you, they’re probably not even referring you. So if you are using social media to make sales, then please bear in mind moving forward to create your messaging for one person, I’ll let you in on a little secret. My social media strategy is pretty crap. In that I’m not very consistent, I don’t follow a lot the guidelines I give my clients, I don’t really have a very consistent approach aside from I post three to five times a week, rarely at the same time, rarely on a particular theme. But the one thing that means that I’ve always always attracted clients via social media, is because I always make it for my one ideal client. Sometimes I’m talking about business growth. Sometimes I’m talking about program design. Sometimes I’m talking about hiring. And yes, I could be more consistent in terms of, you know, the themes that I write around to ensure that I’m really showing off my area of expertise. But the reason why my content still lands a why consistently attract clients via social media, is because I’m so clear on who I’m speaking to. And it’s that, that means that I’m constantly building connection with the people I write my content for. And that is why inevitably, I get several inquiries every week via my DMs as to how people can work for me and new people joining my list every day.

Okay, so it allows you to be very lazy with your social media strategy. When you know who you’re speaking to stop wasting your time, entertaining your peers and focus on your ideal client. If you’d like further strategies to help you grow from coach to CEO, do check out my free resource, the cushy CEO roadmap, it’s a little ebook that you can get access to immediately. When you either go to my website www.pollylavarello.com. Below, it’s on the homepage or smack bang, just like a tiny scroll down or equally just DM me the word roadmap or post it on anything on my Instagram and you will get access to it via the DM so whatever works best for you, but do get your teeth around it. It’s going to be one of the most helpful resources that you have read this year. All right. Okay, so next week, I shall see you and I will talk to you about my controversial strategy for growing my online business. Oh, I can’t wait to share it with you. Controversial yet slightly boring and highly effective.

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It’ll be in your I’ll be in your head next week. See you then.