Intro: Welcome to the Masterful Coach podcast, with Molly Claire, where coaches learn skill mastery, business mastery, and life mastery at a whole new level. If you’re ready to create a meaningful coaching business that makes a difference, you’re in the right place. And now your host, master coach instructor, Molly Claire. Molly Claire: Hello, Coach, welcome. Are you ready to dive into a little business mastery? Let’s get to work. I’m going to talk with you today about an essential when it comes to coach business building. As you build your business, your freebie or opt-in or lead magnet, whatever you call it, is the first touch point oftentimes that your client will have with you. And this is really how you invite your client into your world and start building a relationship with them before they ever become your client. Now, if you’re listening and you already have a freebie, this is a chance for you to tweak it, to do an audit of that freebie and make some simple changes to make it even better. And if you don’t yet have a freebie and especially if you’ve been putting it off, dreading it, stuck in perfectionism or overwhelm or indecision. This episode is for you. I want you to get started to do it, take a step forward. I’m going to be sharing with you common well-meaning mistakes and very easy shifts that you can make to make your freebie even better, and really the antidote to these mistakes. So first, who needs a freebie? You need a freebie. Now there will be very rare exceptions where a freebie does not make sense for your business. But for the most part, no matter your business format or style, a freebie will be helpful. If you have a primarily referral based business, it is helpful for you to have something on your site, on your landing page, whatever it is, where you are offering something of value. When people are referred to you, this gives them a chance to get a taste of who you are and what you have to offer. If you speak in small groups, even, this freebie allows you to add some extra value and to keep those clients with you. So the bottom line is, if you don’t have a freebie, make one; and if you do, schedule some time to make these tweaks because it really is a great foundational piece of your business. All right, what does a freebie do? A freebie allows your client to get to know you. A freebie can be a quiz, a workbook, a video series, cheat sheet, checklists, the options are endless. Now in my program, 90 Days with a Master Coach, where I’m working with coaches to meet those goals in 90 days and make traction in their business. This is one of the primary things that we do whether they’re creating it or whether they’re tweaking it. Why is there such a focus on this? This freebie is the entry point for your clients. In a practical sense, the freebie gives your clients something useful and gives you the clients email address. In a personal sense, your freebie is the first time your client gets a feel for who you are and what you do. A freebie can communicate that you care really care about what your client’s experiencing. Your freebie can communicate that you’re interested in helping them, you’re available to help them, and your freebie can communicate to them that what they want really matters.        You can actually help your client to start to connect where they are with where they want to be. And once you’ve got that client in your world, of course, you can start to change their life with that continued nurturing and connection that you have with them. The best part about this is even people who never hire you, can have their life changed by the value that you offer. The truth is that most people who get your freebie will never hire you, and that’s okay. The ones who are supposed to, will, and all the rest, you still get the opportunity to make a difference in their life. What a gift? What a gift it is. So you need a freebie. A freebie helps your client, a freebie helps you grow your business so you can help more clients. Magic, right? Magic. Okay, let’s talk about these common mistakes that are well intended and easy to fix. I’m going to help you think a little bit differently as you approach your freebie. Now, hopefully, many of you will be joining my next 90 Day group, and I will be helping you with a little personal help on your freebie. If you’ll be coming with us there, this is really the perfect way to practice episode. You can take notes, you can start to create that freebie or change or audit it now. And then of course, in the group, you’ll get more guidance, feedback from me from the 90 Day Masters and an amazing support team for you, and also in your small group of peers. So it’s phenomenal, and you’re going to love it, but no need to wait, you can definitely take this in now. Now, if you’re going at it alone, and you’re ready to just dive in and put this to use, go for it, take notes, implement these tactics I’m giving you. I’m confident that no matter what stage of your business you are in, these tips and perspective shifts, will help you create a more powerful freebie. Okay, mistake number one, looking good. As you are building your business and putting content out there, of course, we all want it to be professional, right? We want to do a good job, we want to give a good polished, professional product. But sometimes, when you are building your freebie and creating it, you can be much more focused on you looking good or looking like an expert enough that you miss out on what your client actually needs in that experience. So imagine if you’re focused on what’s going to make me look good? What’s going to make me look very knowledgeable? What’s going to make me look like I’m really an expert in this product? You’re missing out on asking the question, what is my client feeling and experiencing when they come to me? What does my client actually need here? And I think when you can make that shift, and get out of your own head and your own insecurities, that’s when you can meet your client where they are, you can understand what your client needs to hear or know, in order to click on your freebie. You’ll understand what your client needs in that freebie to actually have it impact them. When you can shift and be more client-focused and focused on truly what they need, what they want, rather than how you want to appear, it will make a huge difference. Okay, mistake number two, giving your client what they need to soon. So here’s what I mean by this. Most likely the work that you do, can be some pretty deep work with your client. And you probably know that what your client thinks they need, like a new tip, or a new habit, someone to teach them and tell them what to do. And certainly, sometimes that’s useful. Oftentimes, what you know they need is a little bit deeper work, right? They need to take a look at the emotions they’re experiencing, and how all of their thoughts and beliefs are impacting what they’re doing. And so oftentimes, as a coach, you can be so well intended and you can be so interested in truly helping your client that what happens is in your freebie in that first offer, you are too focused on coach speak, or going too deep with them too quickly. And so take a look at what you might offer your client and your freebie or what you are offering them and ask yourself: Am I giving them too much too soon? So much so that they’re not really ready for it, and it can’t really click with them. So this isn’t about holding back until they hire you? Absolutely not. What this is about is meeting them where they are. So ask yourself instead: what is my client looking for? What is it that will give them a quick win, and will actually give them something they think they need, what they are looking for? And along with that, I can plant the seed that there’s deeper work to come. Okay, mistake number three, following the recommendation for the most effective freebie right now. Now, you might be wondering, how in the world could that be a mistake? And I’m going to give you a little more context to this. So I will admit that I definitely seek out to understand what is really working right now, what are people paying attention to? And I actually do think that is a good thing to know and understand. I will ask Rita, my Facebook person, hey, what are the things you’re seeing converting on Facebook right now? So I actually do think that’s valuable. But what I’m talking about here is potentially missing the mark on your specific client and how they consume information. And a perfect example of this— and this isn’t related to a freebie per se. But when I wrote my book for moms and helping them with motherhood and the chaos of managing family life and all of this, at the time, I was in the world of coaching where there were a lot have online courses and video trainings. But the truth is that at that time, my ideal client was very used to consuming books when they were looking for help with the stress and overwhelm of being a mom. And so I chose a format that may not have been the latest and greatest thing, but was very familiar to them. So, going back to this mistake, it is definitely not a mistake to find out what is working, what are people doing, what are people interested in? But from there, the next step is to consider: and does this make sense for my ideal client? What does my client need? What is the format that they are used to consuming and what makes sense for my client? Okay, mistake number four, over delivering. Now, how can over delivering be a problem? Over delivering is a problem when you think you’re over delivering, but you are actually overwhelming your client with way too much. Oftentimes, over delivering means giving less, and giving it in a more effective way. And so as you’re thinking about your freebie, or as you’re auditing your freebie, take a look at how much you’re giving your client, and then take a step into their shoes. And think about how they may experience that. Are you giving them a dense novel? Or are you giving them something simple that’s a first step and what they need right now. This is another one of those instances of stepping into your client’s shoes, of meeting them where they are, and giving them just enough that they’re able to digest it, that they’re able to make use of it. And not so much that you’re overwhelming them. So take note and make sure that you are giving them what they need, and not turning them off by giving too much. All right, mistake number five, trying to help everyone. So what do I mean by this, of course, we want to help more people. And the truth is that by focusing on helping one person and focusing our language on helping one person, your language and the training or whatever you’re offering will be more personal and connected. If you heard my episode a couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Kim, who is an amazing copywriter. And as she’s worked with my coaches in our groups, one thing that she often teach us and we talk about is this idea of talking to one person, not many. And it’s true that when you’re writing to many people, and you’re thinking about your audience in a broad way, when you write, you will lose out on a little bit of that personal connection. And it sounds different. It sounds much different than if you are writing an email to one person. And in fact, go ahead and challenge yourself to notice the difference. Think about an email that you want to write with a certain message and write it once with the idea of writing to your list and write it another time with the idea of writing to one person and really try to be in these two spaces. And I promise as you go back and you read them, you will feel a difference as you read them. You will perceive a difference. One will be more personal, more connecting and it will communicate to your client that you are speaking to them. All right, Coach, these are the five mistakes and the simple antidotes. I promised that as you step into your clients shoes, thinking about what they need, as you step into your shoes, thinking about what they are looking for, stepping into their shoes and thinking about how they will want to consume this and giving them bite-sized pieces and also speaking to them as an individual, this is going to uplevel your freebie and make it more effective and change those amazing clients’ lives. All right, Coach, that’s what I’ve got for you. I’ll talk to you next week. Outro: Thanks for listening to the Masterful Coach podcast. You can check out www.thecoachingcollective.com for info about the ultimate program for coaches building a business. To find out more about Molly, you can visit www.mollyclaire.com.