Antimarketing for the Help Industry with Tiago Faria

In this LMScast, Tiago Faria, a coach and course developer, emphasizes the value of a client-centered strategy in getting outcomes.

Tiago advises include short victories to keep participants motivated as well as offering continuous assistance and accountability measures all through the program. His strategy revolves upon crafting precise, targeted offerings that cater to consumers’ urgent need.

According to Tiago, the online education sector offers a means of making a significant contribution to society. In the end, Tiago and host Chris emphasize how crucial it is to put outcomes first since they both feel that real customer success spurs organic business development.

Here’s Where To Go Next…

Get the Course Creator Starter Kit to help you (or your client) create, launch, and scale a high-value online learning website.

Also visit the creators of the LMScast podcast over at LifterLMS, the world’s leading most customizable learning management system software for WordPress. Create courses, coaching programs, online schools, and more with LifterLMS.

Browse more recent episodes of the LMScast podcast here or explore the entire back catalog since 2014.

And be sure to subscribe to get new podcast episodes delivered to your inbox every week.

Here’s Where To Go Next…

Get the Course Creator Starter Kit to help you (or your client) create, launch, and scale a high-value online learning website.

Also visit the creators of the LMScast podcast over at LifterLMS, the world’s leading most customizable learning management system software for WordPress. Create courses, coaching programs, online schools, and more with LifterLMS.

Browse more recent episodes of the LMScast podcast here or explore the entire back catalog since 2014.

And be sure to subscribe to get new podcast episodes delivered to your inbox every week.

Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMS cast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Tago or excuse me, Tiago Faria. And we’re going to be talking about the course creation industry membership, sites, coaching, and most importantly, how to get your students and your clients to get results.

Cause if we don’t get them results. They’re not going to be successful with the program. They’re not going to refer you more business, but let’s just dive right in there, Tiago. How do we get our clients results and not just sell them products?

Tiago Faria: Amazing question, Chris. Thank you so much for having me.

First of all, it’s a true honor to be here. And yeah, in terms of generating results, I think it’s not, but it starts before the course even is created. I believe in my own in my own experience doing this for like already five, six years is we have to start first of all, defining exactly who we’re trying to help.

What kind of person, what context does she have? What kind of problem do we want to solve with this specific problem? Not just any kind of thing has to be something that they actually want to solve right now. So that we, they don’t fall into the trap of maybe someday I’ll do that or, and I don’t buy it.

Or if they buy it by pressure, then they don’t implement it because it’s not something that is urgent for them to solve. So it starts with that, the definition of, the niche. And then we have to what I love to do in my anti marketing approach is to just talk to people. I love to tell my, clients to, okay, you already have clients you’ve worked with before or leads you’ve worked in the past.

Let’s just interview five to 10 people. that you know you could help and ask them questions like what are the main frustrations, what are you dealing with daily, how do you, how does it make you feel, what are your objectives, because then you can collect all those emotional words that are super useful not only for you to craft an offer position your offer in a way that is super attractive to whoever is listening to and so that we are super clear also on what’s the outcome what, are we gonna what results can people expect from it.

So that’s the key thing. So talk to people, be very clear who you’re helping out and what is the outcome. And then also when you’re, in terms of definition of people, you will accept your courses. You also, you should also be very selective on where you’re most valued. Who will be more likely to succeed with you.

And You should be more selective and only accept those that you know. Okay. She’s the right, this person has the right mindset, has the right resources, has the right ability to implement, this is super crucial. Because imagine if you’re trying to help C level single moms to improve their relationship with their.

Child or something like that. If you have a course of 80 hours, it’s quite unlikely that person will implement or even finish the course or even get results. So we have to be extremely clear on exactly if the person has the ability to, implement, not only to buy, of course, if he has the resources, etc.

But the ability to implement and that, those are two important things for us to make sure that people actually that come in have the ability to implement and succeed. And then of course, in order to make them feel like they’re progressive progressing during the course. I love to not only wait not, only make the person wait until the end of the course so that you can have the outcome, but also think of some strategic quick wins that we could add to the beginning, like the first week you, if you do this, you’ll immediately have this cool momentum going on and the person will be motivated okay, this is working.

I can see this, happening. So those, things I think are, yeah. Super, important. And then of course the accountability part, which is something that all my courses, I had this problem that people implement or they got blocked somewhere, or if there has to be some sort of access to, you, the course creator I know most people say, ah, I want a completely passive just create something and sell it to people.

But there has to be some sort of Access to you, it can be live, like Q and a sessions or creating community where you manage that part. They can also be like offline support where the persons can submit the question, something that’s blocking them and you can answer on a loom video something offline.

And there’s, in my opinion, there has to be some sort of access to you. I think I rambled a bit about, I don’t know if it answered your question.

Chris Badgett: I love that. I love that. Tell us more about if we give them access, whether that’s like. An email form, a contact form, or a forum, or group coaching calls, or one on one coaching calls.

How can we best support them when we have that, when we’re holding that space for them and in communication with us?

Tiago Faria: How can we best support you if we have, if they have access to us? Yeah. I think one of the things is to have goals for the people to implement during the week or something something to keep them accountable.

Like in this week you achieve this specific goal or you have this thing in mind that you should be implementing. I think it’s a matter of having something for people to implement. And then simple asking, did you do this, but that you promised you had before. And then I’m trying to unblock, try to find out where people are actually being blocked on.

There’s something that they’re not, it’s not allowing for them to continue. And we should be there in those moments, either in real time and Q and a sessions. And, also I. I I learned that even in group programs where there’s like group Q and A’s and, et cetera, I think it’s, for me, it’s super important to still have one on one access to you.

Either it’s like by chat only or by some, platform or email support. Because I think in my opinion, that’s the way for you to guarantee that people actually reach like as close to possible to a hundred percent implementation and success in your courses. Yeah, I think that’s those are key.

Chris Badgett: You mentioned earlier before getting to results, the offer needs to be clear and the niche needs to be defined. Can you give us an example of what a strong offer in the health industry or the expert industry looks like?

Tiago Faria: Yeah. So imagine, you’re like a relationship coach. And you say something generic like I help you improve your relationship with your partner or something like that in that sense, since there are already so many offers in that area, that message dissipates it is not a strong reason for me to buy now because, okay, it doesn’t resonate with me.

It’s not, I feel it’s something very distant. It’s it’s, not something I’m feeling right now as a problem. So instead of that, of being too generic a good offer is, something that actually solves a now problem, something that is specific and urgent for the person that is on the other side.

So for example in a relationship niche, you could do something like focus on, on, on specific person and a specific context. I help like men that are on the verge of divorce to go back to, to, to normal relationship and, save your, marriage. So it tackles a problem that the person is feeling exactly right now.

It’s urgent for them to, solve. And that, that, that has by itself a very strong urgency attached to it, right? The people, the person wants to back now and it’s more likely that she will buy it from you and really want to pay a premium to, to have you solve that problem for them right now.

So I think that’s probably the, strongest component. Then of course you also have to have the, outcome has to be super clear on what the person is actually going to achieve. How is her life going to be like once it goes through you with, through the work with you? And the way we get there is what, I said at the beginning is by interviewing people actually talking to people and recording those conversations, instead of you interpret, interpreting their words, you actually just record it and transcribe it and okay, these are the emotional words people are using.

And if you use that in your own communication it will resonate. It’s, inevitable that people think, Oh my God, this is my, me right now. This person understands me deeply. So if she understands me deeply, it means she can actually help me. So I’m going to work with Chris or I, yes, those are two, two strong, components that if you’re, if you nail this down, it’s already halfway there halfway there to, have an offer that sells by itself.

Chris Badgett: What got you passionate about the help industry? The whole online course, coaching, information, product online education industry.

Tiago Faria: What got me, it’s it’s, just that I love helping people. I always loved helping people. And once I work at Google for eight years. And I was feeling very limited there in the corporate world.

So when I decided to come back to Portugal to start my own business, I was helping people. I was helping local businesses, helping small, companies. And I feel, I think I started feeling like the person that can help the best is, me. I’m, someone that is providing a service or a consultancy for others and trying to help others generate results.

And, I felt that, okay, I understand myself the best. I’m, my ideal client. And and I think it’s the most abundant business area because you really are helping. People make a difference in the world, you’re you’re helping the community around you, you help, you make others help others, and which is like a compound effect.

And that’s what, yeah, that’s what fascinates me in this industry. But of course, there’s a lot of a lot of, people in this industry that are not focused on generic results, which upsets me. But, we are here to make a difference, right? You and me, Chris, we’re focused on this is the results business.

So we should be focusing on that. And every, if you focus on that, like generate results to people the rest will, come eventually. Because you’ll get some testimonials, you’ll get case studies. People will be very happy to, work with you. They will tell others and it’s inevitable that you have success.

Chris Badgett: I think you mentioned it was about six years post Google that you’ve, come into this industry. Tell us about your experience as a helper, as a course creator, and how you figured out how to package your knowledge, experience and expertise.

Tiago Faria: Yeah, sure. So the first course I created was I made all the mistakes possible.

I made it like an encyclopedia course with everything I knew and, something else, of course. And which is, it was crazy because People to go through a huge program, they become overwhelmed and they will never implement it and they get lost. So this was the first mistake. And then the second mistake was not having a clear, like I said, a clear niche, a clear person that I was helping a clear outcome.

And also I created everything before I, sold anything, I spent like weeks or months creating that encyclopedia to then understand when I sold it Oh, okay. Just one or two, three people bought it. And it really didn’t, it didn’t work out as I wanted. So yeah, it was was many, years of experimenting and mistake, having huge mistakes all the time.

Until I, of course, working with other coaches, mentors that helped me out. Okay. Let’s clarify your message. Let’s make sure you simplify your processes to something that is easy to implement and generate results. It took me, a while, it took me a while to get there. At first I was focused on providing services.

I was a service provider for small businesses and then I transitioned to help industry. And for three years I did all those mistakes and I was falling into complicating my life and my clients lives. With overly complex strategies like funnels and ads and SEOs and crazy stuff like that. And it was only when I started simplifying everything, reached this anti marketing approach to, generate quick results to people and focus on a specific outcome.

That’s when things start to start, started working out, but it was a long, painful process.

Chris Badgett: Tell us more about the anti marketing angle.

Tiago Faria: Yes, it’s not exactly that I’m anti marketing. I love marketing, of course. But it’s, I’m more anti shiny objects for you to get distracted with funnels and ads and those, the same traps that I was involved in the first few years.

And I truly believe that you already have everything you need. Around you in your own world to start and grow a very cool sustainable business and if you focus on your established relationships you have everyone all of us have a contact list we all have a with friends, family, colleagues, LinkedIn connections, we have an audience that’s some of some sort and we have also a customer list, our previous clients we work with.

So tapping into those established relationships to help you craft an offer that reflects what they actually want to buy your ideal clients. That’s why I say you should interview 5 to 10 people in your network because if you do that you create something that people actually, want to buy and implement and then you can go back to those people to interview and say, Hey, I created this offer.

That answers this problem you said you have. What do you think? Do you know someone that would be interested in that? Only with that small interviewing process, you can start already selling your course or coaching program, et cetera. And then I love to do tapping into your own audience using social media as a, an excuse for you to generate conversations, to talk to people using those kinds of hand raising posts where you say, when you create a video that solves a problem that shows how people can solve a problem in a specific way that’s interesting for them.

And then I’m posting on, social media, something like I created a video that helps you do this. If you want to watch it comment below or send me a message and I’ll send it over to you just as an excuse for you to start generating conversations with your current audience. You can find those people that are ready to buy.

Now, if you do those kinds of posts and you interact with them and use DM Messenger, whatever. So those, for the people who actually want to buy your offer and for those people that are around you, that don’t need your offer right now that you can still make them help you because everybody needs money.

So you can, why not creating a cool referral partner, a referral program around your course. That incentivizes people to send you over potential clients and you can then pay them a commission. But as you see, you only use your tapping into your network. You can immediately get clients and you can immediately have access to big networks because people know people that know people and you can start having people helping you out motivated to help you.

And yeah that’s, the basis of, the on time marketing approach.

Chris Badgett: I love that. I know you created or completed in 2021 a YouTube 120 day YouTube challenge. I’m a big fan of YouTube. As a place to practice making videos and also reach your people and create valuable content. Can you tell us about the challenge you did?

Tiago Faria: Yeah, sure. It was inspired by Mr. Miles Beckler. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. Yeah. He’s one of the good guys of internet marketing. Yeah. So I, was incentivized because I was very introvert person. I even hated public presentations. And I knew that video was a super important skill to, to have.

So I just told myself, okay, I’m just going to destroy this silly belief I have that I am not a creator. And I’m just going to commit to 90 days of 90 consecutive videos on YouTube. And yeah, it’s it’s amazing because you, actually start breaking the silly beliefs that you have by brute force.

You’ll hate the first video, hate the second video. But you just keep going and forgetting what you just published. And at some point you find your voice you, get much more comfortable with the camera. And also you start positioning yourself as a cool partner of of YouTube, for example. It starts seeing you, okay, this guy is answering all the questions people have in his niche.

I’m going to put more eyes on him. And of course I was using. Some kind of SEO little skills for, to make sure that my videos are searchable on YouTube to leverage the search engine of YouTube, because at the beginning, you’re not going to have a lot of suggested videos going on to your site.

So I made a combination of those things, brute force, creating content, answering questions that people have in my niche. And yeah, and then start having comments, a topic of one video gives me an idea for the next video. The, ideas will never exhaust and at some point you became a creator, you suddenly.

Start your life kind of changes because you’re just a consumer before and suddenly after three months you’re a creator now and it’s a skill for life for to create courses, to create content, to sell your programs, et cetera. And yeah, and I, extended for 120 days just, because. Just because I wanted to extend it and overachieve at some somehow.

And it’s amazing. It’s the 90 day challenge is really life transforming. If you want to acquire a new skill of some sort that you’re not comfortable, but you feel it’s important, it’s for me, it’s the best way I did. Afterwards, I did email 90 day challenge. I did also I started with the blog 90 day challenge.

And yeah, it’s super recommended.

Chris Badgett: I’m looking at your YouTube channel. I see you’ve got some great interviews on there. What’s your advice to people to not just make all the content yourselves, but bring in experts and do shows. Like how did you develop the interview skill?

Tiago Faria: Actually, I started interviewing on my YouTube before the 90 day challenge.

I started that podcast because it was my first attempt to start becoming more comfortable in camera because you’re interviewing, you’re passing the ball to the other side, the attention is on the guest. And it was also a cool way for me to. Create a network of very influential people in this sphere.

Cause I was new to the business in Portugal in 2019. So it was, I was surprised at how easily people say, yes, people love to talk about themselves. And even if it’s someone you think it’s unachievable. You’ll be surprised by how people say yes, those the right people, the people that have the right mindset that know that it’s a matter of doing a lot of these things constantly.

And yeah, it was amazing to create that network to have access to other people’s audiences, right? Because those people bring their own audience. So people find me that way. And my podcast actually is still something that brings me people till nowadays. It’s a super abundant strategy. And then if you combine this, of having your podcast with also.

Being a guest on other people’s podcasts, it’s an amazing way to reach to new audiences that you would never reach in, another way, unless you play for ads or you play that game. But yeah, it’s super recommended.

Chris Badgett: Before we hit record, you were talking about expansion outside of Portugal.

And I’m curious one, if you could tell us about your ideas around thinking bigger and two, how you think about. Multiple languages like you have Portuguese content and you have some English content. So how do you, and there’s so many different languages in the world and we really think big.

That’s a, it’s a big challenge and not everybody speaks one language or whatever. So yeah, tell us about thinking big.

Tiago Faria: Yeah, I was not actually thinking big until last year I was focused on Portugal. We were talking offline because I thought it’s easier here. No smaller market less competition.

I know the language. But yeah then my, coach at some point told me, Tiago, you’re. Portugal is 10 million people and there’s 1. 8 billion English speakers that it’s there’s space for everyone. Yes, there’s more competition, but also there’s nobody like you you’re unique, you have your own unique perspectives and and it’s completely true.

It’s, a massive market that is out there that I was ignoring for too long. Yeah, I’m expanding my reach now. And of course having Portuguese and English, I think it’s opens up even more opportunities because there are Portuguese people that don’t actually speak English why not also help those out.

And I think you, if you speak second, third language. I think it’s a great idea to just not limit yourself to one. And if you work online, of course if you’re in this industry, that you can actually help people online, there’s the world is a limit I don’t believe that you should be limiting yourself.

But I was not always like that, right? So here we go. Now I’m the world is the limit. That’s

Chris Badgett: awesome. Tell us more about. Just your your journey into being a coaching client yourself. Sometimes I think it’s helpful to invert, like you help people, but you’re also asking for help from coaches and stuff.

What have you learned from your own. Experience as a client under a coach.

Tiago Faria: Absolutely. For too long, I was trying to do everything alone. I think it’s a natural tendency that we have sometimes at the beginning, you’re talking to everything my own. I’ll just use YouTube buy some courses here and there and just assemble it all.

And it’s possible. But that’s the hardest way. And actually understood it after interviewing all those experts on my podcast, that was a pattern that they all. Early on in their career, they reached out to someone that is already at a higher stage to, to ask for help ask for a mentor for a coach.

And that’s just the short, shortcut for, you to succeed and go faster to where you want to go. It’s But I think it’s crucial and I think it’s the earlier we do it, the better it avoids so many headaches, so many like frustrations. And why, wait? If, you can have a shortcut, someone that already went through your same path and that you avoid many mistakes.

Of course you still make mistakes, but at least you have a clearer path. Someone that already organized the information into Kind of a a guided way for you to, implement and it keeps you accountable. And when I, so after three years, 2021, I finally decided to work with a mentor. His name was Terry Dean.

And he, yeah, he helped me out let’s make a vision. Okay. To be clear where you want to go to keep you like avoid distractions and keep you focused, make a plan, yearly plan, weekly plan. And actually be concrete about who I’m helping. Simplifying my processes. So if I didn’t reach out to him, I would probably still be firing everywhere and trying, falling into all the traps, all the shiny objects.

While I could already be right now, I’m helping the people that actually need me. I will be postponing this, situation, right? And it’s the smartest thing to do, I believe. How do

Chris Badgett: you define your nature, your avatar, the people that you help?

Tiago Faria: How do I define, so I define it as I’m working the people that work in the health industry, which are coaches, consultants, service providers people that actually help others achieve some sort of results.

And my people are trying to get results consistently, but They cringing to think that they’ll have to post reels on Instagram every day, or they’re tired of wasting money on, ads that are just eating their budget. And they think that’s the only way to do it. So then that’s the kind of people that I would really love to help that it’s me in the past basically.

And I love to help them with the anti marketing approach. Okay. Let’s simplify everything. Let’s use the anti marketing method to craft something that your people really want to buy, that you are happy with, that excites you and them, and then tap into your network and then tap into other people’s audiences through podcast guests, guesting or podcasts creation.

So yeah, that’s my main focus.

Chris Badgett: What do you think the biggest challenges or problems that people in the help industry or have, what are the main buckets? It’s like One to five challenges that they have. And I, one of them you mentioned already, which was the, they’re trying to do it all alone and figuring out everything from scratch, like that’s a problem.

What and shiny object syndrome, but what else are they struggling with?

Tiago Faria: And I think the main tendency is also to try to help everyone like anyone that gives me money is a potential client and that’s a bit complicates your life too much because your, messaging is too bland dissipates in the ether and you don’t attract anyone specifically.

Yeah, drilling down the niches, I believe is crucial finding that person that you can actually help the best, the easiest, the fastest. That actually can buy your courses and they can actually implement your courses. It’s super, super important. So being super clear about that and solving the, problem that we talked about the, now the urgent problem.

So super, super clear. It makes everything so much easier. Your communication. Selling, you know exactly what are the object objections and you know exactly what the person wants and also the delivery of your course, right? If you’re super clear on that, you know that you don’t need to put everything inside the course, everything that you know, in the course, there’s only just a couple of things that are crucial for that person to achieve that specific result.

And you just put that and magic can start happening, right? So the niche and the clarification being too generalist is one of the biggest mistakes. And then maybe also the mistake I was making the creating everything before you even sell it, right? I’m a big fan of, selling it first and then going through the program with the first clients to, to make sure it reflects what the market actually needs and wants that answers all the main obstacles.

And I love that a lot of this approach of selling first. And then going through the problem with your first beta users, basically. Because we’re always in our own mind, right? As creators we, think we just create something in our own minds and then I hope that people will buy it. Why not just invert the process and have fun creating it together with, people, and and then it will be something that.

People really want to buy and achieve. So those are the, I think the main things that I find when people I talk to.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Tell us more about your vision, the world you want to create. Or the the, vision of you’re, committed as a creator, like what, is your vision?

Tiago Faria: Yes. So I had the vision of I was limited to Portugal. I wanted to help 3. 14 percent of the population here to start finding their own purpose helping others and get, rewarded by helping others achieve results. And but probably not just by, by my own, of course I will by, my own content, by everything I create until then, by maybe my team in the future that will start spreading the message.

But yeah I, really believe that this is a super abundant area and industry that helps each other out and creates a community of, people willing to help each other. That’s, just something that fascinates me and it’s, super abundant. Yeah, my vision is to keep keep growing, keep keep helping people because the more people I, help the more they will help others and it just multiplies the effect and that’s, fascinating to me.

Chris Badgett: I love that we have a similar vision. I call it accelerate the accelerators

Tiago Faria: and, ah, accelerate accelerators. That’s cool.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Tiago is at Tiago Faria pt. How else can people connect with you and, work with you and, what can they do to go deeper with you? Yeah,

Tiago Faria: I think the, easiest way is to shoot me an email, with any questions you have about what we talk here today or anything you want to know about what I’ve been doing in the past. So it’s tiago at tiagofaria. pt. Or you can, if you want, you can go to my website to book a call at tiagofaria. pt forward slash call. We can have a chat. I just love to meet new people in this industry, brainstorm some simple strategies that people can implement today.

And that’s, those are two ways that I would love to connect with people.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome, Tiago. Thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it and I wish you all the best on the journey. And it’s fun to be with you on the journey cause we do very, similar things and yeah I’m, excited for you and I’m really glad that.

There’s people like you out there in the world that are trying to help the helpers because when somebody is called to help people, particularly the helpers, it can have a massive impact on the world. So keep up the amazing work. Thank you so much,

Tiago Faria: Chris. Chris was a true honor and I hope people take something out of this conversation today.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS. Go to lifterlms. com forward slash gift.

Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.