00:00

Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

00:37

Hello and welcome to the show. Today, I am talking about why lead magnets fail for wellness practitioners and what to do instead. But before we get into it, I mean, like, why am I talking about this today? Why is it relevant? Why does it matter? Well, I mean, honestly, what I’m talking about today, it might not seem big to you, so just to get your attention a second, this could be costing your business six figures, and if you’re not yet six figures, this might be the reason why. Okay, so I hope I have your attention, but let’s zoom out a moment, and let’s talk a little bit more about why I’m talking about this today. So I’m talking about this today because at the beginning or end of each month, more like at the end of each month, I reflect on what will be the most valuable free workshop that I can bring to you. Sometimes, you know, I have got my OG, my signature workshop that I run kind of in September and January, sometimes again, in June. That one comes out several times because it’s basically around the core framework that I support people with the cushy framework to business success. However, in between that I like to kind of get into the nitty gritty of what it takes to succeed with funnels and creating what I like to refer to as a cushy business. And so one of the things I did at the end of February was I reflected on some of the biggest success stories I’d seen, both of my clients. And what am I doing for my own business that you know? Because one thing obviously my one to ones regularly say to me is, like, Paul, tell us more about what it is that you’re doing, because you know, if it’s working for you, I want to hear about it. And so that is where I recognized we need to talk about lead magnets, because people do not realize the cost of having the wrong lead magnet, and equally, they don’t seem to understand the benefit of what happens when you get it right. And I’m actually going to be I’ll share more on this in a moment, but I will be running a workshop on the 18th of March to talk about how you can make your lead magnet a premium client filter and actually allow it to be the thing that fills your group programs that alongside the rest of my everyday sales system, which I’m going to be Breaking down on March 18. It’s gonna be killer. But to give you a flavor of that, I wanted to talk more deeply on one of the points I raise in this workshop, which is why your lead magnet might be letting you down right now. Okay, because it is one of the conversations I hear the most often. I literally don’t get through a week without somebody sharing with me. You know, worst case scenario, my lead magnet just ain’t even magnetizing. Nobody’s coming in. Or in some cases, I’m hearing things like I’m getting 50 downloads a week or an open month, but when I open my program, nothing. So their list is growing by 50 a month, but it’s not making any difference to their results. Okay, and this isn’t unusual. My list is growing, but nobody’s buying and here’s what I want you to consider for a moment. Let’s think about those 50 downloads per month. Let’s think about those 50 new subscribers on your mailing list. That’s not a huge number, right? We’re not thinking crazy numbers. However, just with 50 new people joining your list alone, that’s 600 new people per year coming into your world. And if a very average conversion rate of 5% were premium ready buyers, that’s 30 potential clients annually, for most established practitioners, that’s a six figure swing. 

So when a lead magnet isn’t converting, this isn’t a tweak issue, it’s a structural issue, okay? And it’s really important we understand this, and this is honestly one of the reasons why I get so I rate people outsourcing all their brilliance to AI, and I don’t care how fancy people spin it in terms of, you know, custom gpts, and taking in all my frameworks and brilliance, and just put your stuff in and it will spit it back out. Even better. I just don’t see that. I do see how it tidies up. Words, I do see how, for my ADHD brain, it helps me kind of make sure what I’m sharing is coherent, like there are many, many values to AI, but when it comes to your positioning again, there are exercises that I’ve shared with my clients that 100% bring about clarity and bring about confidence and bring about the basically the confidence to get started and start speaking more confidently about what they’re doing, but to be able to design an entire office suite in a way that your positioning is perfect. I’ve not met an AI model that does that well yet, okay, and I’ve worked with so many clients who’ve come to me off the back of having done that kind of work, and it’s still just not meeting. The market needs to meet. Okay? And I’m only saying this in the context of, don’t feel ashamed if AI hasn’t worked for you yet. And also, what I really want you to know outside of what I’m sharing with you today about your lead magnet, is it really pays to understand the theory behind marketing, because when you understand that, you can understand if your AI is actually spitting out stuff that’s any good. Because AI can be so hit and miss. Some days it can be brilliant, and other days it can just sound like a word salad. Because let’s be honest as well. Well, let’s please remember that no matter how sophisticated AI is. It is still a word salad of pre existing ideas and concepts on the internet already. Take a take a moment to sit with that thought. It is a word salad of pre existing words and concepts that exist on the internet already. 

Can you see the challenge you are faced with here when you are looking to create something original. AI will always try to default to what is already mainstream to what already exists. So that is why there is so much value in taking the time to listen to this podcast episode. And you know, if you choose to work with me, all the better. But you know, this is where people like myself aren’t going out of business anytime soon, because it just, quite frankly, while it’s still based on other things that already exist, being original is going to be really hard, okay? And being original really matters in in a space that is saturated by samey thoughts. Okay? So here’s what I want you to know about lead magnets. It’s not just the front door to your email list. It’s the front door to your entire business, and if it’s designed wrong, everything downstream struggles. I want you to take a moment and visualize that door. Is it bougie? Has it got a big brass knocker, or does it look like some rundown, dilapidated, not really thought about, you know, take a moment to think about this, because that first impression is everything, right. That first impression is not just, can this woman make a good lead magnet? It’s somebody’s first impression of your business. Are you making it count. So like I said, this is going to be one of the three core pieces I’m teaching in my free masterclass on March the 18th. And today, let’s break down kind of what’s happening with your lead magnet if it’s not converting. So here’s the main issue I see with lead magnets. 

Most of the time, they are designed to attract everyone, which means they attract the wrong people. So the conventional wisdom is to cast a wide net, grow your list more people equals more potential clients. And actually, I have massive umbrage with the concept that volume is the solution to all our problems, because here is why this fails. When you design for maximum downloads, you attract curiosity, not commitment. You end up with curious readers, professional researchers, all those people who love to like make a swipe file of all your content, I see you that I love your work. Commenters, do you have those and people who download everything but invest in nothing? Look, don’t get me wrong, if you are in that phase of growth and in life and in business, you know, I get it in the earliest stages. We have more time and less money, so that’s what we’re doing. But as a business owner, as someone who’s looking to run a profitable business, we do not want the cost that comes alongside being opening our doors to absolutely everyone, because when we do that, it means we can spend months nurturing people who will never invest. We can be spending hours in our DMS having conversations with people who will never invest. We could be having discovery calls with people where we are convincing instead of confirming that working with us is the next best decision. We could be rewriting messaging that’s not the problem. We could. Be running ads. That’s just compounding the same problem. Can you see how big this can become? So it’s so often that the issue is not your expertise, it isn’t your pricing, it isn’t your messaging, but it is about who’s listening. It is about how you position who you are creating, even your free assets, for not just your paid assets, but your free asset. You know, when I say free asset, I mean quiz, I mean webinar, I mean PDF, guide. You know, whatever it is that you’re creating, well, who you speak to really matters. So if it’s attracting everyone, it’s a problem. The solution is building a front door filter. Your front door filter determines which phase of buyer you attract. So there are two buyer phases that you need to be aware of. I mean the two most important anyway, if I mean that there are, if you there are marketing books out there that would break it down to six or more. 

But let’s just start with the two that you really need to be aware of, and that is the consideration phase. Maybe someday I will deal with this challenge I have, or the curious I think I might have this. Let’s try and learn more about it. I’m probably guilty of being that person. I’m the one who’s like, oh, I might have ADHD, I might have autism, I will download the guides, I will engage in the content. But have i thrown any money at getting a diagnosis yet? No, there’s a part of me that just doesn’t feel any urgency around it, like, what difference will it make to my tomorrow or my today or to my next year? I don’t see enough value in it to see, you know, so that’s an example of somebody right now who’s not feeling the urgency to do anything differently, and I’ve not seen an argument that’s persuaded me to feel otherwise. By the way, this is a very deeply personal thing as well. I’m not sharing this in the context of like so you should not do that either, but I’m just sharing this. I’m a really good example of someone in the consideration phase, because here I am consuming all the content. But do I have any intention to buy? No. So people can be very actively engaged in your content. It doesn’t mean they’re about to invest in working with you. And we need to understand that, because the other phase, the other buyer phase, is the decision phase. That is the person who says I need to fix this now. So for context, if I were to wake up tomorrow morning and go, You know what? Actually, I do want to understand. I do want to be able to say 100% this is who I am, and I want to now go like the only thing that would be on my mind is who and where and how and when. Those would be the only lenses that I would be looking at this decision through. It wouldn’t be, if it would just be, I need to find the person that I feel I will have the best experience with, and so the kind of content I’ll be looking for is different. You know, I won’t be looking for ADHD memes or relatable content about how I respond to time or work I would be looking for. Why should I trust this person? What case studies do they have to show that what they’re doing, you know, actually works? You know, what makes them qualified to do this? How are they doing it in a way that matches my values? Those are the kind of questions I’d have in mind. Okay? And that applies to any kind of investment we make, right? You know, there’s a reason why Amazon is full to the brim with reviews. People are massively motivated in their purchasing decisions by reviews. But there’s me going off on ironically, talking about an ADHD, ironically, going off on a tangent. Let me talk to you about why most lead magnets fail. They are built for the consideration phase buyers, and that’s why you get engagement without sales. So for example, I recently worked with a coach who said, here are the blood markers to understand if you have x. I can’t remember what the thing was, but that is useful to so many people. But those people aren’t necessarily looking for a way to manage what they suspect is, let’s say x. 

I’m going to use thyroid just to kind of not say x, because that sounds weird. What I would then change my freebie to would be, you know that the like, here are the five things you need to know to have, like, I don’t know that the blood sugar friendly diet to naturally fix thyroid, or something, something where, like, it’s proactive. And within that guide, you’re getting to demonstrate your method, but it would be for that person who’s at the stage where they want to treat their thyroid and they’re looking for natural solutions, and they’re interested in how nutrition plays a role. I’d be looking at all of those kind of things. I remember, like back in the day, when I used to work nutritional therapists who were earlier on in their journey. And so often they’d come to me and say things like, Oh, I’ve got a guide, which is like, I don’t know five ways to make healthy muffins this week. And it’s like. That is so relevant to I mean, my mum would download that my aunt would download that I would download that my daughter would probably download, that would all of them be in a position to want to invest in nutritional support? 

No. So this is where we have to be so careful. But let me give you more examples. So another example to kind of get away from the consideration phase to the decision phase is five tips for better sleep is going to be relevant to somebody who, well, again, anyone my mother, my me, but for the person who’s, you know, suddenly living with perimenopausal early morning, you know, wake ups and feeling exhausted the rest of the time, saying how to fix chronic insomnia that’s affecting your life in perimenopause is going to reach someone who a already identifies with your perimenopausal avatar B has a chronic issue, which they’re going to feel more urgency around, connecting, correcting and they’re wanting to understand how to Fix It, which means you now have the opportunity to demonstrate your unique methodology and how you specifically help people like her, same topic entirely different level of urgency. So your lead magnet determines which one you attract. And you might be thinking right now, if I narrow it won’t my downloads drop, and I’ll be honest, yes, they often do, but conversion rates increase, and personally, I would rather have 20 people who are 30% more likely to invest than 200% who are 1% likely. Filtering is not an exclusion, it’s a qualification. And certainly, when you have active campaign, and you’re paying for every 500 subscribers. Man, do you want them to count? Okay? But you know, even if you’re not making the silly mistake of having a very expensive mail software provider, it still really matters to care about who your subscribers are. I mean, for one beyond paying for how many subscribers you have, if you have a mailing list full of people who aren’t actually actively engaged with what it is that you’re selling, they won’t be opening your emails, and the risk of you ending up in spam or in promotions folder is so much higher. So there are so many reasons to really care about the quality of lead that you bring onto your list. 

So what a front door filter asks, and this is what I mean by a high quality lead magnet is not what will get the most downloads, but what will attract people ready for working with me, ready for transformation. So one of the reasons why this conversation feels more relevant than ever is because what worked in 2022 no longer works in 2026 we’re in what many call a trust recession, which means that buyers are more cautious, more discerning, and slower to invest at premium levels. The distance between free content and your 1000 2000 plus programs is now too wide a PDF alone doesn’t build enough trust, okay? And this is why I’m going to be sharing more beyond what we do with our front door filter to what happens at the next stage in the masterclass, which is why I really want you there. And one of the reasons why this feels hyper relevant is because this was me. This was my story. My own funnel slowed down in 2023 and I didn’t rewrite the copy, and I didn’t add urgency, and I didn’t lower my prices. What I realized at the time was that my lead magnet back then was built for fast decision buyers, and the market had shifted to cautious decision buyers. So I rebuilt the front door, I introduced a structured bridge, and that stabilized revenue and changed the quality of conversations. So you know, it wasn’t about being louder with my marketing. It wasn’t about doing cold outreach or anything icky like that. It was about better architecture. And now my front door filter actually reflects how people buy now. So this is why I would love for you to come along on March the 18th to really learn about how everything in your office suite, from your free front door all the way through to your core signature system, how they all get to work together with ease. 

This isn’t about building some crazy underground kind of funnel, roadmap with 10 different avenues you can be exploring. This is about keeping things simple, keeping them strategic, keeping it effective, so that you get to be making sales in a way that is phenomenal. I’ll also be sharing some case studies like my client, Helen, who no longer does discovery calls because of her everyday cell system that she implemented, and yes, it all starts with the right front door filter. Because what I really want for you is I want you to have a higher lead to cell conversion. I want you to have easy discovery calls where you get to lean back and simply just be there to help support answer any logistical questions people may have about getting. Started and never from a place of persuasion, and maybe you’ll be as lucky as some of my other clients, who’ve eliminated them all together, so that you can be bringing in buyers who are ready now and not someday, because, like I say, I don’t want you wasting time on feeling that you know your offer is wrong, or your expertise isn’t in demand anymore, or that your messaging needs tightening? I mean, yes, messaging plays a role in this, but it’s all part you know, like the messaging means nothing if you haven’t got your front door filter in place, if you don’t understand what that needs to look like for your business. So this masterclass that I’m running on the 18th of March is especially for established wellness practitioners. And when I say wellness practitioners, I mean coaches, I mean psychologists, nutritionists, therapists, I mean I’ve supported all sorts of doulas, Hypno birthers, parenting, I mean, you name it. But essentially, this isn’t about supporting business coaches, how to make more money. This is about supporting those who support people in the realm of wellness, transformation, how to succeed, because I know the unique challenges that you face. I know that. You know it’s not as easily quantifiable. We can’t be putting on sexy dollar signs to the kind of work we do, and we still get to make it just as high converting and just as profitable, and that’s what I’ve supported so many clients to do, and I’m really excited through sharing this information, how it’s going to be possible for you, too, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect, because why am I also sharing this with you in March? I’m sharing this with you now because we are just a few months away, even though you might not believe it, from summer.

21:38

And so when you learn this information and when you implement between now and June, that means come July, you can have your everyday sales system set up, and you can actually go into the summer being able to switch off, being able to not take your laptop on holiday with you, and just truly live the life that you became a boss for. So that’s it. That’s what I wanted to say. If your lead magnets been failing you, I hope you found this helpful. I hope there have been some valuable insights. I hope you’ve recognized where AI might be letting you down and the kind of questions you need to be asking. It. Moving forward, I will be bringing so much more nuance and so much more context to the conversation on Wednesday the 18th of March at 1pm GMT, so please do come and join me live if you can. The link is in the show notes. You know, it’s a great opportunity to bring me your specific questions. If you want me to look at your existing lead magnet title and give you feedback as to how well it’s performing as a front door filter. We can do that on the 18th. So my invitation to you is to sign up, get involved if you want to DM me that question in advance, so I have it so I can make sure I touch on it at the live workshop. You know, anyone who’s attended these workshops will know it’s super interactive, and I will stay on until all questions are answered. So I’m really looking forward to it. I hope you can come and in the meantime, I’ll be in your ears next week to go even deeper into this theme of how to build your everyday sales system so that you get to have the most spacious and profitable year ahead ever. I’ll be in your ears then. And as always, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with others who’d enjoy it too.