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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 growth specialist.

And today we’re talking about how to become fully booked with your one to one services. Now, I’ve been reflecting on this as I looked at my notes for what I wanted to share with you today. And I initially was approaching this from a viewpoint of if you were starting out, this is what I like when I go back and look at what has worked best for me. Because my growth in online business has been pretty I don’t know if stratospheric is slightly perhaps hyperbolic. But it did happen very quickly. To give you some context, in 2019, I was a contractor, I was I was you know, doing kind of various kinds of contracts for various marketing companies. And that was off the back of years and marketing experience previously before we became a mum. But as a single mum, my way of getting by was being topped up by Universal Credit, and doing various contracts until I had the moment of inspiration where I recognised, it was time to start promoting myself as a business creating my own packages, and inviting people in to work with me. So in 2019, I was averaging maybe, I mean, basically I earn so little, I didn’t have to pay any tax. So I’m guessing that was under 12 grand in a year. So I think when I like worked with them and your business coach in early 2020, I called it average 1.5k a month, but I think it was maybe me being a little Yeah, even that’s probably not quite what it was. And by the end of 2020, I’d had to register as a limited company. So in my first year, I think I made somewhere around 88k, or something. So that was a huge jump up. As you can imagine that’s like quadruple more than quadruple and fat significantly more than what I was sorry, I was terrible math, significantly more money than I’d made the year before. And then the following year, I then pretty much borderline doubled what I learned that year, the following year.

So the growth has been pretty immense this year. Again, we’re I think 50% up on what we were the year before so and that considering my team size is pretty much not look too different, the entire journey, it’s been a ride, and I wanted to share some of the golden nuggets that have really helped me have that level of momentum. Now, it’s important to caveat this with the fact that, you know, I’m not coming in here with fresh knowledge and you know, a kind of lack of experience around what it was I was supporting people with, which you know, I appreciate for some people who are new in online business, they perhaps have only just done a coaching certification, they don’t have much lived experience of what it is they’re supporting people with. And I think it’s important to kind of mention that, that that does impact people’s confidence when it comes to selling. That does. Sometimes I wouldn’t say slow down the growth, it really depends on your mindset, I find those with really resilient mindsets can still still actually soar very rapidly, as long as they have real conviction behind what it is they’re selling. But for me, I could you know, when people had sales calls with me, they knew I knew what I was talking about, because I was coming to the table with a lot of experience to support them with so that definitely helped me a lot. So I think and the other thing I guess is to say is that we’ve should never too closely compare our journey to somebody else’s, because like I say, that’s one privilege I had one privilege was experienced another privilege is that I’m white, I’m a relatively young woman, there are certain things that come with that, that make my life easier. I speak in a kind of southern accent that makes people think I know what the hell I’m talking about, which still is always the case. So you know, there are various things that definitely were working to my advantage without me having to even do anything. Okay, so I just want to be clear about that. Because I think it’s really important to acknowledge our privilege when it comes to certain things that have helped us on our way. It probably also helps me that I grew up going to good schools, I grew up in a nice household, relatively stable household. And so my norm was always that I deserved to live a comfortable life.

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Which at some point, I will do a podcast about this alone because I think this plays a huge, huge factor like this is a huge factor as to what people believe they are worthy of is what they have already experienced. And if they’ve never experienced a life that feels comfortable, where they’re able to take holidays, wear nice clothes, then I think it’s much harder for people to kind of reach out towards those things and and really believe it’s possible for them. So I was very lucky that for me, that was where the balances on my life, right. And so as well, even when my life wasn’t reflecting that I was always moving back towards it. So there we go, mindset, privilege, whatever piece. So let’s get into it, shall we? So I’ve kind of basically summarised it into four pieces, some of this won’t be new to some of it might be some of it might just be a slightly different perspective on what you already knew. So let’s dive into it, shall we? So point number one is a really obvious one. But what I find particularly in the wellbeing spaces, I you know, I’ve supported a variety of different people, but I do find the most sensitive souls tend to be those in the therapy space and the well being space. And quite rightly so and understandably so because it’s our sensitive souls who want to go out there in the world and support other sensitive souls. But alongside that can come a real fear of visibility, a fear of rejection or fear of not having anything important to say or fear around. Do I feel like no, am I sounding out of integrity, when I mark it, what it is that I do? How can I be specific about transformation, when people will have no experience such different results? How can I be clear on a framework when it when I really break it down? It sounds just like every other person in my space. So I’ve heard it all. I’ve seen it all.

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But ultimately, there’s no getting around the fact that at some point, and earlier, the sooner the better. In your journey, you need to find a way that you feel comfortable with being visible, whether that’s like I said, I’ve in the past, I’ve seen it referred to whether that’s a podcast, whether that’s a really well written blog that people want to actually read your words, you know, you see, I think it’s really important to express that online, you’ll see lots of people saying, you have to do a real challenge, which, you know, I’ve seen so many people come off the back of those 30 days later go, I haven’t exhausted. Yes, I got more engagement. Yes, I got more followers. Yes, I got three discovery calls. But this is not sustainable. Okay. So you know, the things like that there’s people constantly peddling, this is the way to be visible. But ultimately, to me, if I can share my experience over the last few years is similar to any habit, you know, where you want to see results in and I love that I see a personal trainer, and I love that I’m learning the ukulele, because all of these things I do outside of business are a permanent reminder to me that ultimately, there’s a bit of like a bit of natural talent, there’s a bit of perseverance and patience. And there’s a bit of kind of recognising that we bring where we’re already at and, and then need to improve upon that. And sometimes things just drop in, when we’re least pushing. And other times, it can feel like you’re pushing and pushing and nothing’s coming back. So with visibility, I highly recommend finding a way that feels good for you a way that you can be consistent because like my ukulele classes, which always have people struggling and like my personal training, where I’m starting to see good results, and believe me, it’s taken a while to get there. It’s from where I found a way that I can continuously commit to myself and be consistent, and where I’m inconsistent. That’s where I struggle. If I push too hard, I burned myself out need to rest or injure myself in the case of training, if I just want to hide away and just hope that it will materialise. For me, similarly, I just see myself, I come back to the table, and I’m still where I was when I last left it. So consistency is really important. I always use the word momentum. Momentum is what comes through for me when someone is moving forward when someone’s trying things, when somebody’s having conversations when somebody’s promoting an offer.

Even when we’re not immediately seeing results, there is momentum, we can’t always force what the results going to be, we can’t force how many sales are going to land through our door. But what we can know is through taking the aligned action, it’s far more likely to happen than if we’re not. Now visibility is one of the first ways that someone’s going to learn that you exist. And beyond that, you build up that like no trust factor through regularly showing up on their screen. Like at the moment I am sharing a gazillion Instagram posts very much inspired by some soul and her garbage post challenge. And it’s been really interesting to see how many conversations have started off the back of just being visible. So this is also your reminder, by the way that no matter how deep you are into your business, even sometimes when it feels like we’re going back to doing something that we told ourselves, we’d never have to do again. It’s not always necessarily moving backwards. And it’s I’m actually thoroughly enjoying the experience of being way more engaged my online community. So being visible, okay is important. And alongside that a lot of people in the early stages might kind of realise Oh, every time I share a picture of my cat, the internet goes wild. Well, that’s wonderful. But unless you’re working with cats or on cats are about cats, then please also, you know, at some point, you know to begin with, it might just be flexing the muscle of visibility in and of itself is a thing. But once you’ve gone beyond that stage, I highly recommend that you

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Do you think about what is unique about how you support your clients and ensure that you are warming them up to those themes. So for example, regardless of what it is I’ve offered across the board or my clients, what is always a common theme is that I support people with strategy, strategy, systems, and sales, which very conveniently all begins with us. What’s nice is that for my very first group programme offer, to my most recent, some of those clients who joined me in the early days are still coming to join my newer programmes. And to a certain extent, that’s because they know that that is the core theme that they’re always going to be supported with. And sometimes it just looks a bit different. The first time I did it, it was around how to kind of set up a basic lead funnel. And now it’s about how to create an automated evergreen funnel. But it’s, it’s all based in the same three core areas, as well as also understanding your strengths. So ensure that you’re not just helping people understand what you like, what you dislike, what your latest thoughts are ensure that you’re actually wrapping them up in a way that you’re warming them up to whatever it is you want to sell to them. And don’t underestimate how much warming up people need. One of the things I’m regularly citing is that people on average receive 100 emails a day, okay, so when we recognise that that’s just an emails, you know, social media is even less effective than that. So where you may feel like you’ve mentioned something for the 10th time this week, they may only be seeing it for the first time. So don’t assume just because you’ve talked about something a lot that they’re seeing it a lot of repetition is also helpful for those who are in if they’re that engaged and still following you, when you’re talking about the same thing all the time, it means that they’re looking to be convinced by you, they want to hear that next thing that helps them recognise, yes, now is the time to work with this person, or they’re just building up to a time when they will be ready to work with you, it doesn’t really matter, the most important thing is just be conscious of what it is you’re sharing, allow yourself to have fun with it, allow yourself to show your personality, but don’t forget what it is that you’re helping them warm up to. And don’t be shy to kind of almost annoy people, okay?

Because you won’t be like I said, no one is paying as much attention to your business as you are. Okay. So secondly, the next thing is, and this is a really big one, for me, it’s about being curious and don’t have so much kind of ego or pride that you feel afraid to reach out to people and say, Hey, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you would actually be my ideal client, you’re exactly the kind of person I love to work with. And I’ve created something. And this isn’t by no means a sales pitch. But I’ve just really liked your feedback on this at this stage, because I’m wanting to nail this messaging. And if this doesn’t resonate with you, then I’ve got problems on my hands. So if you wouldn’t mind just taking two minutes, five minutes to have a look at this, and then perhaps jump on Voxer with me, and we can just talk about it for five minutes. I would love to thank you for that by giving you a free 30 minute consult or, you know, whatever it is, however you want to angle it. But to this day, regardless what I’m doing my business, I always reach out to people, I always have conversations about what it is I’m developing. And quite often those end up in sales as well, very fortunately. But the main point is, is I learned so much from that when you turn around and go, Oh, but why is this not included? I’d be interested if that is included? Well, that is included. Okay, my messaging is not tight enough, because it’s not clear that they’re going to be supported and whatever regard they currently feel is missing. So this is one thing I see all the time in online business, whether it’s because people are starting out and they have impostor syndrome around reaching out to people, or whether they feel so developed and well known and their brand is so strong that it’s almost embarrassing to have these conversations, or that they feel a bit spammy. This is part of you being of service. So I highly, highly, highly recommend it. I learned so much from those real conversations that ultimately you know, your ideal client knows themselves better than you do. So don’t be afraid to ask the questions that help you really understand what it is that they see in your offer and what they feel that might be missing so that you can tidy it up before you share it with the entire world. And speaking of conversations, this will go also goes for talking to people who are in a similar space to you who perhaps could be referring you or if they’re not referring you, they could be sharing your most recent masterclass or something now just to reach out and say, Hey, I’m doing this master class, I want to get as many people to it as possible. Would you be happy to share my most recent posts, like make it really easy for them, send them the URL and say, would you be happy to share this in your stories. And just don’t be afraid to moment people want to help people enjoy helping and as long as what you do is relevant to their following. And it doesn’t compete with them most of the time, they’re more than happy to do it. Sometimes even if you do compete with them. They don’t care because ultimately, you’re not them and they’re not you. So don’t be afraid to do that. Because, you know, again, it’s just delaying things or slowing things down for you. And I found as my business continues to thrive, that the relationships I’ve formed across time through these kinds of interactions have been some of the things that been most monumental to some of the easiest sales have come my way is through having those conversations is through people getting to know you.

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Those Business Connections are equally as powerful as any sales that come through later. And like I say, they tend to generate sales too. Okay, and the final one is, well, there’s two things here, actually, one of them is, please, please, please, it’s never too soon to be building your list. Every time you do anything on social media, you should be thinking about a way of how you’re steering people back towards your list. So whether it’s promoting your newsletter, whether it’s creating a freebie that you then say, if you’re interested in this, come and download my freebie, build up your mailing list, your mailing list is going to read your words have far more attention than they would on social media. Sales are six times more likely on a mailing list. So please, please, please don’t underestimate the importance of it. It’s not something that suddenly lands in your lap. Once you’re really established. It’s something that you build from the ground up. And to begin with, yes, you will feel like is there any point emailing 50 people that I have on my list? I remember having that thought. But I always always treated it like, well, who cares? At least 50 people? What if 10 of them want to work with you. And in the earliest stages, you do tend to find the earlier people that say yes to being on your list are those who are the closest to wanting to buy from you.

So yeah, don’t hold back, look after your list, treat it, you know, get in the habit of sending a regular newsletter from really early on in your business, because it’s a habit that’s going to serve you really, really well into the future. And this is where we see the compound effect of people receiving regular emails from you, until at some point when they’re deciding who do I need as a one to one coach, ah, it’s going to be whoever whose name I’ve seen pop up on my inbox various occasions across the past however many months, this is the person I’m going to reach out to. So you know, it’s really important. I think, in online business, people are so regularly focusing on how do I make a sale today? How do I make a sale this month. But when we recognise that, particularly with high ticket offers, sometimes people need to be in our world like three, six, sometimes all the way up to 12 months, before they’re going to choose to work with you, I think the majority I read somewhere is between three to six months. So don’t you know, but then they’re not going to come back in three to six months if they’ve already forgotten you. So this is where your mailing list is really, really powerful. So look after your subscriber list.

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And finally, another one is the whole way through business at every single stage collect testimonials, like they’re going out of fashion, testimonials are really, really powerful. And one of the things that I’ve recognised has resulted in much faster sales for me, recently, people coming into my world and almost immediately choosing to work with me is off the back of the fact that I now have so many testimonials of clients who’ve had a great experience working with me. So those fears are allayed, right. You know, obviously, it’s still just a few, but it really makes such a huge difference. It’s why the likes of Amazon and various others make it really easy for you to read testimonials. Because it very often is the thing that helps someone kind of go from thinking about it to like, Oh my God, I need this. Things like testimonials help people recognise Oh, if someone else like this can get in, make this work for them than perhaps it can work for me too. Okay, so do not be shy to ask for testimonials. Again, it’s okay to annoy people a bit with this, you know, if it means you have to follow up and say, you know, you said you’re going to send me a testimonial, make it as easy for them as possible, give them prompts, tell them it doesn’t need to be longer than a minute, do all the things that you can to make it easy and and if they’re avoiding it, this is where I really love to invite people on for interviews. A lot of the time people enjoy that because they have the benefit of the exposure from being exposed to my list. And I get the advantage of being able to ask the questions that I really want to hear the answers to that I know my ideal client wants to hear the answers to as well. So whatever works, do it. Okay, cool. That is pretty much it.

My final piece I wanted to share as I wrap this up is there was a lot of things to get your head around, as you probably gathered just from me sharing those few tips. Because I mean, there’s still more I could add, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. And I genuinely believe those are the most important ones. But, you know, I will not lie and say that that progress I achieved in the first year was also monumentally supported by the fact that not only did I have a business coach, but I surrounded myself by other online business owners who were on that journey to that had a huge impact. Because there were certain mistakes I almost definitely would have made, had I not been guided and known to avoid certain things. So what you know, whether you’re you may be that you are or not in a position to do it. I personally spent the last my savings, not something I necessarily advocate for others to do. I guess I don’t know if I, to be honest with you, I think I was in a situation where the discomfort of staying where I was, was more uncomfortable than the risk of losing my savings. So that that was that. So like I said, it’s not something I advocate for this is just me being transparent about my journey. But it really, really, really helped. And I think having that accountability and having that sense of committing to myself committing to making it work and knowing that financially, I wanted to make that money back. I didn’t want to spend the loss of my savings that was also not just for me, but helping support my two children really meant I gave everything to it. And I’m so glad I did because here I am now. So yeah, look for support. There’s obviously free support everywhere. There’s you know, essentially if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, there’s a lot of free support you can get from things like this podcast for example.

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Pull. So there’s a lot of free support you can get as well. So if you’re not in a position to find naturally commit, please don’t let that hold you back. There’s various ways you can find incredible support online. And if you aren’t looking for some extra free ways of learning about how to avoid the kind of feast or famine cycle as someone looking for regular one to one clients, I do have a free masterclass called clients on tap, which I shall link to below which you can go check out where I also kind of go more in depth on how to consistently attract clients. And while there’s a bit of a system that there’s a framework there that you can implement into your business. Okay, so I recommend that you go check that out. Next week, I’m going to be coming back talking about the three mindset tips for scaling your business. Thanks for joining me today. I’ll be in euros again very, very soon.