Learn how to sell a lot more of your course or membership with copywriting expert and sales strategist Marc Allen in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Chris and Marc discuss how course creators can increase conversions and make their offer more valuable.
Marc is the founder of Bigger Pie Promotions, a site dedicated to helping businesses turn their past buyers into higher ticket program clients. Marc is a strategic thinker and a copywriting pro, and he really knows how to get inside of the mind of customers.
In this episode, Marc shares a great analogy for marketing and sales. He compares the process of selling to a customer to a game of basketball. Marketing is analogous to dribbling and passing down the court, whereas sales is taking the shot to close the sale. Many course creators and online business offerings try to shoot the ball from half court or even farther back by jumping straight into selling their students. This is a useful analogy, as it allows us to think about ways we can get customers farther down the court and closer to the basket in order to make the process of selling a slam dunk.
In Marc’s experience, talking to the right people encompasses 60 percent of sales success. If you’re not talking to the right people, it’s like trying to sell hamburgers to a vegetarian. You could have the best copy in the world, but if you are not talking to the right market, then you’re not going to close that sale.
Understanding the end goal of your sales funnel allows you to have a jumping off point when strategizing how you are going to get customers to that point. If the end goal for leads is to have them purchase a 12-month coaching program, then you want to make sure you’re initially marketing to people who can afford and are interested in a 12-month program.
At BiggerPiePromotions.com/Friends you can find the free resource Marc has put together for the LMScast audience. It is a simple email template you can use right away to convert your audience into paying customers.
At LifterLMS.com you can learn more about new developments and how you can use LifterLMS to build online courses and membership sites. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates, developments, and future episodes of LMScast. If you like this episode of LMScast, you can browse more episodes here. Thank you for joining us!
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re a course creator looking to build more impact, income, and freedom. LMScast is the number one podcast for course creators just like you. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of the most powerful tool for building, selling, and protecting engaging online courses called LifterLMS. Enjoy the show.
Chris Badgett: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name is Chris Badgett, and I’m joined by a special guest, Marc Allen from Bigger Pie Promotions. Marc’s got something for you over at biggerpiepromotions.com/friends. Welcome to the show, Marc.
Marc Allen: Hi, Chris, thank you for having me on your show.
Chris Badgett: I’m starting to get into it, Marc. I’ve learned a lot from him and the guy is a strategic thinker, a copywriting pro, and he really can get inside the mind of an audience like I’ve never really seen before. I’m really excited to have this conversation with you today and help the course creators and the membership site builders out there increase conversions, make their offer more valuable. But first, if we put on the entrepreneur hat and we get under the sales and marketing aspect of that, what is the difference between sales and marketing and where do you like to focus your efforts? What’s your sweet spot in helping business owners increase profits?
Marc Allen: Well, that’s a very good question. I often think more of having a framework and an analogy. So for me, marketing and sales is like in a basketball, marketing is more on the dribbling and passing and sales is more on the shooting the three points or having a layup or a dunk. Basically, most people take a three point shot far away from their own court. That’s why people are not converting something like that and that’s the problem. For me, the closer you are on the court, the easier the sale. But the question is how do you bring people closer to the basket? So how do you bring them closer to the basket so that you can get an easy layup or a dunk.
Chris Badgett: I love that analogy. I’m just picturing somebody, who’s a business owner, on the far end of the court bringing the basketball between their legs and just throwing it up in the air. That’s what a lot of people are doing.
Marc Allen: Exactly.
Chris Badgett: The goal is to reduce friction. One of your really specialties is around offer creation and increasing the value of the offer. I think in business, especially in teaching or offering some kind of training program, if you get the offer wrong, it doesn’t matter what you do, and where are you trying to do a hail Mary with the basketball and try to make it work? What makes a good offer?
Marc Allen: Well, before I answer that, I think I just want to help course creators, have some clarity on what’s really important when it comes to their messaging because most people thought that it’s all about the copy. It’s all about the words, what’s in their website, what’s in their email, something like that. But in my experience, 60 percent of sales success comes from just by talking to the right people. If you’re not talking to the right people, it’s like selling hamburgers to a vegetarian, whatever great offer or whatever… no matter how great is your copy, they will not buy because they just don’t eat hamburger, things like that. So 60 percent-
Chris Badgett: How do people end up in that situation where they’re just talking to the wrong people or they haven’t… how does that happen?
Marc Allen: Well-
Chris Badgett: Let’s say I have a fitness course, because it’s like a certain type of training or health transformation. Let’s use that as an example, what might the creator of that be doing incorrectly to talk to the wrong people?
Marc Allen: Well, one of the biggest problem is people tend to focus on what’s there in front of them rather than what’s that end goal. Because basically, as you mentioned earlier, I focus on helping clients do offer make-overs so that to position their offers as much value as possible to help their business grow their profit and transform more lives. The problem is I think people just forget about their end goal. Where do the funnel goals? What’s the end goal? What would it be that the end goal for them? Just focus on the lead magnet, because if you focus on the lead magnet and you don’t know where to go, I think that’s where the problem is.
Marc Allen: That’s why they create a converting lead magnet, but they don’t convert those people into clients or into a customer because they focus on the wrong Marcet. What do you mean by focusing on the end goal is? What’s your back end offer? I think for example, for the fitness course creators, is it the coaching program? Is it the 12-month mentoring program? Is that your end goal? If that’s the end goal, then the people you want to attract on the front end must be capable on buying your 12-month programs, things like that, if that makes sense.
Chris Badgett: That helps. Let’s say we want to do a high end offer and you’re helping with the offer make-over and if we use our keep going with our example of a fitness transformation and we want to make it high ticket or not cheaply priced, we prefer to work with a smaller number of people, but give them really good service and have a massive number of people without a lot of personal touch but we want smaller paying more, how do we do sales in such a way that we’re getting qualified buyers that have budget to afford this type of transformation work?
Marc Allen: I think the importance on that, like I mentioned earlier, 60 percent of sales successes we’re talking to, so I think businesses who wins are businesses who understand their audience better than anyone else. So if you know your audience, what do they really want or what do they buy? If you have that, what they call a customer avatar, things like that, and you dial in not just the demographics or psychographics, but more on the psychology of how do those people think? What are they really buying? It’s not about the coaching program and it’s not about you teaching them, it’s more about the transformation that they’re going to get from your program. Is the solution help them lose weight or gain more muscles or things like that?
Chris Badgett: That’s cool. I want to ask you, in terms of messaging and communication, one of the brilliant things that I learned from you is this idea that what do they need to believe before they can become a customer or make the buying decision just a no-brainer, easy, not a lot of friction. There’s these core beliefs that if we’re in alignment on those, then the selling is actually fairly easy. If we go from lead magnet, we heard somewhere they’re like, “You have to build a big email list, focus on the email list.” I know what you mean. People get really on the lead magnet and they start building an email list, which is good, but how do we go from belief to purchase and go through these beliefs either installing them or resurrecting them or just talking about them? How do we do that?
Marc Allen: So that’s really a good question because like what I’ve said earlier, the marketing is like the passing and the dribbling so that’s the time where we have to establish belief, and the first belief is I think that people need to talk about, like for example, when they get into the lead magnet and then you started emailing them and messaging them is more about what’s their present pain because sometimes when you can explain the problem much better than the competition, your authority skyrocket, right? [inaudible]
Chris Badgett: So you’re not even selling yourself, you’re just talking about the problem?
Marc Allen: Exactly. The key point here is you’re just putting the flashlight on a different angle when it comes to explaining the problem. It’s not you’re losing weight because you’re not working out or you’re not eating the right food. We can talk on a different angle. It’s more about habits. The reason why you’re not losing weight is because it’s not yet your habit to do working out and eating the right food, things like that. If you can shed light, the light on their present pain and then you do it with a different angle, then you become one of a kind, in their eyes.
Chris Badgett: I was talking to somebody who went through a health transformation program with a coach and got some seriously awesome results. They were explaining to me how at the very beginning this person was talking to them and a bunch of other people about basically like, “Who here doesn’t like what you see when you look in the mirror?” Or, just looks at yourself and feels disgusted, and basically he was positioning just the truth of what people fell and then at the end of it, he was saying things like, “Who here wants to look good naked?” Which it’s a bold statement but that my friend was describing how this room of people just really became alive, came all in, committed to the program, did the work.
Chris Badgett: It wasn’t about the coach, it wasn’t about the program, it was about these psychology of where these people were at, and surfacing some of even the pain, which is hard, but then be like, “I’m here to help” and just being honest, it was not about building muscle, it was about something like liking what you see in the mirror or how somebody else perceives you. He was just being completely honest about the pain and the transformation.
Marc Allen: Correct. So that’s the first belief that we have to establish versus being the person who can explain the problem better than anyone else. Then after that, I think the next belief that most… because we’re doing the journey, we’re having a journey here. The next belief is… the next question we must ask is, why it’s not working now? What are the things that they’re currently doing and why is it not working right now?
Marc Allen: So if you can answer that and then again the key here is to having at least an insight on why they’re having the problem, I think that’s very valuable because information right now is all over the place. We can easily google, how to lose weight online and then find some content and information. So people don’t need information right now, what they need is the wisdom to do what they need to do and what they’re not supposed to do. Yeah, I think that’s lacking.
Chris Badgett: People aren’t… you’ve got to give people credit, they’re not stupid or whatever-
Marc Allen: That’s correct.
Chris Badgett: … like you’re saying, [inaudible] Oh, now you found me. Now, here’s the solution. They’re probably trying some things that just isn’t working that maybe is even a popular belief in society, but it just doesn’t work. They’re trying to I don’t know, do something like intermittent fasting or Yo-yo dieting or something, but they’re not fixing the problem and it bounce back or whatever. So you have to like… it’s not that they’re not trying or they’re lazy or whatever, people are trying, they just might be trying the wrong things, right?
Marc Allen: Exactly. So that’s the reason why we’re focusing on just shedding the light on a different angle just so to help them having that aha moment when it comes to your messaging. I think after we talk about their present pain and then we talked about why things aren’t working right now for them, I think the next thing that is really powerful that will make them ready for your offer, especially for high ticket offer, is that we must help them realize that what you’re offering is different.
Chris Badgett: So differentiation like how [inaudible 00:14:45].
Marc Allen: Differentiation like what’s different now from the things that they’ve tried in the past. It’s not about being the best or being the number one, although it’s good to have a quality program. I am not saying that you sell a crappy program and just be different but people love to try new things and if you can position yourself as the new solution for them and have them realize that this is the thing that they’ve never tried before, you’ll make them so excited to want to know more about your program.
Chris Badgett: Could you give an example of good differentiation that people may be aware of? But then maybe they’re not consciously aware of, like for example, I’m just going to throw some ideas out there, like Apple products or Tony Robbins or I’m trying to think of a famous author person, like David Allen has a book called Getting Things Done that’s really popular in productivity circles. Use those or something else, how is somebody famous we know really positioned as being different.
Marc Allen: For example, let’s use the Apple as an example. What’s good about Apple is that they really make their products different that some of the features that are available out there are only available on Apple, things like that. They make it in a way like a mini-monopoly style where they have these iTunes and other apps and softwares that are only available through Apple. If you don’t have an Apple, you cannot use that, so that’s one of the differentiation. Another thing is most people are not seeing that the value of personal support your identity as the course creator, your uniqueness as the course creator.
Marc Allen: Most of the time that’s what makes you different amongst the rest. Your personality, your uniqueness, your core gifts that you can offer and how you be with people, things like that. Those are the things that makes you different and people buy from people not from businesses. So it’s really important that if you can show your own personality and your own uniqueness on your marketing then the ideal clients for you, you will naturally attract if you do that, and yeah.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I think that’s often overlooked where if you have a similar program, like if you look at weight loss, transformation, fitness, you can do different things in different styles, but at the end of the day if as a coach or trainer or whatever, the way you make somebody feel, while they’re going through the process, especially when they’re being vulnerable and uncomfortable and like committing to this big transformation, which is difficult, the way you make them feel in your communication and through your program just emotionally is a point of differentiation.
Chris Badgett: Some people may want to be in some kind of military, Navy seal, style environment and on the opposite end of the spectrum, some people want to be in a really calm self-care, go easy on yourself, like [inaudible] environment, but that those are very different, right?
Marc Allen: Exactly, what’s good about just being through and being authentic is that like attracts like, right? So you naturally attract the right people on your business if you just show your authenticity and true self on your marketing. I think that overlook is that the right word that I’m looking earlier and pardon me because my English is not my first language, so thank you for that. But what I’m trying to say is that on your marketing that’s the time where you answer those objections or what do you do and how do you do it? Things like that and what’s different for on your program than other programs out there? You do that on marketing, on the passing and dribbling so that you put people closer to the hole.
Marc Allen: When it comes to the actual sales, the goal is not to do any more convincing when they go to the sales part. Because like I said, when you bring people closer to the basket, all you need to do is just lay it in or if you’re tall enough you just dunk it in and it’s a sale. So yeah, that’s the goal. I think coming back to the beliefs, the last part will be more of answering objections. So the first one is knowing their present pain, then after that you will tell them why it’s not working right now, the things that they do, and then what’s different from you, your offer and your solution. Then the next part of your marketing should be more about answering objections the price objection, time objection, things like that, yeah.
Chris Badgett: What’s the difference between differentiation and positioning?
Marc Allen: Well, that’s really a good question because when it comes to positioning, I think that’s more of what you want to be perceived in the industry. Do you want to be this… Do you want to be known for a high ticket, an expensive but valuable content or you want to be perceived as more affordable, mass-Marcet, coach or consultant, things like that. Differentiation is just more about what’s different on your offer, like what’s the one thing that your offer has that the other programs out there doesn’t have? Most of the time the other differentiation that you can do is your unique mechanism or your unique method on how you do things. So yeah, I think positioning is more about what do you want to be perceived as an expert in your industry and differentiation is more about your offer.
Chris Badgett: Very cool. I’m just channeling the course building community audience and stuff like that. One of their fears is well, if I needed to talk to people about the beliefs and surface the method and handle objections and do differentiation and everything, there’s a series of emails they’re on, they have a fear of like, “I don’t want to send too much email.” What’s going on there and how can we get them through that idea or that fear of I don’t… sometimes people have a fear of marketing. Maybe because they had a bad… they think it’s like the used car sales lot or the I don’t know, just they had this image in their mind of a salesperson and they don’t want to be that.
Marc Allen: Correct. I totally understand that. I have an… I started doing sales back in 2010. So I know the type of the… I have basically a deep understanding on why people have that fear on sending too much emails, things like that. It’s always done with, again, talking to the right people because whatever messaging you do for the right people, no matter how many you send. I know some Marceters who are sending emails every single day and his people love it because he’s talking to the right who, because people there are into his information, his content. So they don’t care if that guy send them an email every day.
Chris Badgett: They look forward to it.
Marc Allen: Yeah, exactly. They are looking forward to it. It’s like part of their daily habit their email. But for the wrong people, you try to send them at least two times a week, they will be annoyed. So it always done with finding the right who and just targeting that ideal person that you want to target.
Chris Badgett: I want to get into some copywriting tips. If we’re in the content of an email, what are some guiding principles or simple rules for writing effective emails they have? What’s some general advice?
Marc Allen: Exactly. So that’s a good question, just going back to the… I’ve said that 60 percent of serious success comes from talking to the right who, and just want to finish that formula. For me, 30 percent comes from having the right offer and then 10 percent coming from the copy because the copy will breach the… you’re offered to the person. So even though copy is just 10 percent it’s you don’t value copy of that match, it’s like saying that your heart is just 10 percent of the body and this is not important.
Marc Allen: When it comes to copywriting, especially in emails or like the Facebook post or Facebook posts in the groups because that’s what’s in right now. I think you have to have… you have to think about having three sales during that conversation. The first sale that you must do is to get their attention. So that’s the first sale that you must you need to have. The second sale is about making the copy enticing enough for them to read the rest of the copy. The last sale will be the call to action.
Marc Allen: So what are you planning to do with your email? So basically the first day, at least I’ll have about the subject line. So how do you get their attention? So most of the time people write boring subject line because it’s what they’re planning to say inside their email, which is fair enough. You just want to give them a preview of what’s coming on your email. But if it’s not enticing enough, if it don’t get their attention, you will not be able to send them the message that you have.
Chris Badgett: Let me just give a really bad example; like if you were doing an email mini-course as a lead magnet where you have a series of emails to help people in some way, if your subject line is email lesson number one, it’s boring, and it’s-
Marc Allen: Exactly.
Chris Badgett: … You’re not even hinting about the content or the result they’re going to get by reading the email, you’ve just lost a big opportunity there.
Marc Allen: Yeah, correct. It’s like when you’re talking to a stranger, the first thing that you want to do is to have something that will make them stop. It will make them stop and whether… but I’m not saying that you write a spammy subject line like, “Hey” or “Marc” or [inaudible] I think even email service providers know the what most direct response Marceters do. I don’t know that term, but I think the target a spam, whereas if you do what most of the direct response Marceters do.
Chris Badgett: Yeah, there’s some certain phrases if you use the word free, if you use the word money, if you, gift, I think or something, there’s some certain ones that flat that make you more likely end up in spam folder.
Marc Allen: Exactly. It will affect your deliverability.
Chris Badgett: Well, how come with some curiosity in the subject line. How do we… what are some do’s or even more importantly, some don’ts when it comes to the body of the email?
Marc Allen: Well, I think what most people do when it comes to writing the body of the email is that they think like a writer.
Chris Badgett: Like a novel writer.
Marc Allen: Like a novel writer. You have to have this many sentences before you have a paragraph, things like that. But if you do that on email and you look at your phone and you see an email full of text, a wall of text, a block of text then you’ll not read that. So I guess a simple tip that I always do is just make it readable as possible, one short sentences and then one medium and one long sentence and then play around like that.
Chris Badgett: One of the things I noticed about your copywriting, which is awesome, there’s short sentences, there’s a lot of space, there’s questions, there’s, (beep). There’s conversational copy. It’s not a thesis about something. If we’re trying to surface a belief, it’s more of a conversation and like checking in and questions and then it bubbles up and it’s there. This is just one call to action. There’s not links all over the place. We may repeat the call to action, but you’re not trying to sell everything in one email.
Marc Allen: Yeah, exactly because on your email, you don’t have enough attention for one email. So the goal is… the beauty of email and posts and your ongoing marketing is that you can always do a new email. You can always send you email. So you don’t have to put everything on one email. I think it’s very important to understand that you want to write your email just like you’re writing to a friend because when we look at our phone and it’s coming from a friend, we always take time to read it. We always see at least give us enough seconds to hook enough to see what’s what’s happening in their lives, right?
Chris Badgett: Yeah. Like a blog post or email, I like to, especially if I know it’s a really important one, I’m going to read it out loud because I want to hear what it sounds like as somebody reads it in their head, not just me, being quiet, reading it on the screen. Because I wrote it, I all ready know what it’s going to say, but we read out loud you hear it for the first time.
Marc Allen: Yeah, that’s right.
Chris Badgett: While we’re on copywriting, one of the areas I see course creators struggle with is, or let’s say it’s a program that includes coaching and all kinds of stuff for monthly, some membership, recurring revenue situation where we’re doing some training it’s the description, it’s the sales page of the course or the program or the membership. What are some tips you have on even at the very beginning, like naming the thing and then also how to describe it in the description or the sales copy. What are the components that we should put in there?
Marc Allen: Like naming the products.
Chris Badgett: Of course. Yeah, I see a lot of people get hung up. It’s one of the original copy. It’s where course creators first run into the business of copywriting is what should I name my course? I’m an expert in fitness transformation or weight loss transformation. What should I call it?
Marc Allen: Well, I think it helps to have your own… most copywriters, they have their own swipe files like titles, headlines or email, sales pages that caught their attention. Then just compile that because just by having that swipe file, you can see what are the titles and headlines that are selling. So you can use that to model how you will name or your course, things like that. When it comes to description what I like telling my clients is that when it comes to your description you sell the what and not the how.
Marc Allen: Most people try to tell everything under their description page, or their sales page. Because like most of the experts, we are passionate about what we’re talking. So we want to help as many people as possible. The challenge with that is we tend to over-explain and do so many writing that aren’t necessarily on our sales page. The goal of your sales page is to sell, what they say is to sell the sizzle and not the steak. To have that enough interest for them to take action. So I think that’s the tip that I could give for the description.
Chris Badgett: What’s the role of the whole concept of social proof or proof? What does that do? When we have a testimonial, or we have some reviews, should we do that? How does it work? What does that do in the psychology?
Marc Allen: Well, it means a lot especially today, in today’s world where people can easily look at the Internet for reviews, on what other people are saying about your program, things like that. So I think having some testimonials and having that social proof that people like your programs and that they actually get the transformation that you promise, I think that’s really helpful. The challenge is not all course creators have the resources to ask for testimonials right away, especially the new ones. In my experience, the second best proof that you can show is that just having a unique way of telling their present pain, what’s not working in them, what’s different with your products.
Marc Allen: Because if you can give people that aha moment, they will follow you and they will respect you. They will give you a high respect because you helped them have, you have them give that aha moment or breakthrough in their minds. As my mentor says, he said that, in my own words, that people tend to follow an authority for their lives until someone comes in their lives and actually solve their problem, because not everyone is their own their cup of tea. I don’t know how I can tell that but-
Chris Badgett: So there’s a celebrity that you might follow and then you meet a real authority that impacts you, right?
Marc Allen: Exactly, there’s an authority that you follow for years and years, but there’s someone who is unknown but actually helps you, give you insights and transform the direction of your business, I think that’s powerful.
Chris Badgett: That’s really cool. That’s like a chicken or egg thing. If you want more authority, you have to you come in as unknown, you help people and then that gives you authority.
Marc Allen: Exactly, yeah.
Chris Badgett: I wanted to ask about webinars. It’s never been easier and I see it in the course building community becoming more and more popular, especially for people who are offering premium price programs. It’s difficult to sell more than a $1000 without a webinar or a sales call. But let’s just focus on a webinar where there’s a sales conversion event and there’s an opportunity for somebody to ask questions in chat or even speak live on the webinar and offer their questions or objections or whatever.
Chris Badgett: Let’s say we have a lead magnet. We go through this email series and we work on the beliefs, the pain and the beliefs and the positioning and the differentiation. Then we go to a webinar because we’re selling 1000, 5000, 10,000, $20,000 program that we really need to present and have an opportunity for Q&A. We’re running it live. The tools have never been easier whether it’s Zoom or go to webinar or there’s other tools out there. I see what a lot of people be like, “yup, I need a webinar.” Then they get the tool and then they’re like, they publish a registration page or whatever, and then they get on the webinar. But they haven’t really thought about what are we going to do in this one to two hours, how do they do?
Marc Allen: It would be a problem for most course creators because most course creators I believe are experts in their field, but not in the actual presenting on webinars, things like that. So I think-
Chris Badgett: Maybe start with how is a webinar different from email? We’re doing something different here. What are we doing?
Marc Allen: When it comes to webinar, and as you said that in a way it’s hard to sell high ticket stuff just doing emails although-
Chris Badgett: And sales pages.
Marc Allen: … yeah, and sales pages although that’s what we do on bigger [inaudible 00:39:58]. But when it comes to webinar, I think the value of webinar is having the opportunity for them to actually see you in action.
Chris Badgett: So it’s like you’re being tested?
Marc Allen: Exactly. It’s the closest thing to a live seminar, a live event. We actually have that a personal experience with the other person. So I think webinar is really powerful. The challenge today is more and more people are seeing webinars. That’s why in a way people are… depending on the Marcet of course but in a way people are becoming more sophisticated that when it comes to webinar, they already know that at the end of that.
Chris Badgett: There’s a pitch.
Marc Allen: There’s going to be a sales pitch. That’s why for the webinar, I think it’s very important to focus on that webinars solving their present pain, their current problem. You don’t have to help them actually transform their lives during the webinar, but just help them solve their current problems like the mindset and the insights on what they need to do differently, things like that, so that you actually help them during the webinar.
Chris Badgett: So the webinars not just a giant sales pitch or you’re getting them some results, even if it’s early stuff like mindset shifts and things?
Marc Allen: Correct. I think the tip here is just look for the easiest problem to solve.
Chris Badgett: [inaudible]
Marc Allen: [inaudible] Go for easy wins because it’s like having a relationship, you go on a first date and then before you ask them to go stay with you. You don’t just go to a stranger and ask them to marry you or become their long-term partner.
Chris Badgett: If we’re doing some live training and we’re being tested and we’re trying to deliver some kind of result even to the people that don’t end up buying and we’re… How do we transition from the main content to the sales pitch gracefully? How do we turn that corner? How do we turn the corner into the offer?
Marc Allen: That’s really a good question because like I’ve said… like you mentioned earlier about the imagining business people, trying to make a long three point shot on the back court. So that the smooth transition for a webinar is during the first, I think maybe three-fourths, of the webinar is where you establish and answer the questions or establish the core belief that they need to have before you offer a webinar. Basically, the content is more about prepping them to buy your program.
Marc Allen: When it comes to technical part, it’s more of so you all ready know this, you have this problem, and you know why this is not working right now, and this is what you need to do differently and this is the solution. If you want to learn more, if you want to go deeper with this and let me help you and then offer them something.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. As we get to towards the end here, I just wanted to ask, since you really specialize in offer make-overs and increasing conversions and sales, especially at that offer point there at the end, what are the main objections in any Marcet that people have at the point of buying? What are the main objections there?
Marc Allen: That’s really a good question because this is one of the, I think one of the game changer in the way I do business right now is that typically there are five main objections that people have. That is time and then identity and then money and then energy and then reputation. So my mentor call it timer, so the timer principle. So basically what we need to answer when it comes during the end of our serious campaign is that we have to answer the time objection, identity objection, money objection, energy objection, and then reputation.
Marc Allen: Then most of the question that I was asked about what’s the difference between even though identity and reputation? Because, yeah, that’s my question too before. For me, identity is more about what they see about themselves. So is your program will make their family respect them or things like that? Or would their friends adore them if they get your program? When it comes to reputation, it’s more about… that’s the reputation when it comes to identity is more on how you feel when you buy that program.
Chris Badgett: How you see yourself?
Marc Allen: Yeah, how you see yourself.
Chris Badgett: Reputation is how others see you, I guess.
Marc Allen: Yes, correct. So when it comes to identity it’s like when… For me personally as a buyer, as a customer of online courses, there’s a sense of fulfillment when I buy the program that I really like, especially if it’s related to what I currently do right now. So if you can help them, make them feel that way that having your program or being yours, making them feel that being your student is an awesome thing, so that’s one of the objections that you. That’s very valuable.
Marc Allen: Then for the time thing, it’s more about the time that we need to invest in your program. If you can answer that beforehand, that school and Money staff it’s really common. The budget and when it comes to money, I think the best thing that you can do to answer that objection is that to me your course like a no brainer. If you can take all the risk in a way or make the risk as slow as possible for them and that’s a-
Chris Badgett: I just want to share some of Marc’s brilliance here. He helped me with this after LMS and we have a infinity bundle, which as of this recording costs $1,000 and he broke it down to if you’re paying daily for that, that’s like $2 a day and it’s an investment. What can you get for $2? You can get a cup of coffee, you can get all this stuff. You are showing how, and it’s like your business, you basically had a really elegant way of explaining like, yes, it is an investment, but this is how it actually breaks down. So it was just brilliant. There’s a lot because into it, it’s not just like, “Don’t worry about the money or it’s expensive to deal with it.” It’s there’s a whole psychology people have around money, right?
Marc Allen: Exactly, yeah. That’s the perfect example of shedding the flashlight on the problem on the objection on the different angles. You’re just helping them see their problem on a different perspective, so yeah. Then for the energy objection, it’s more about just answering the question of having the pain of change that doing what you want them to do that’s on your program. That pain of change is less than the pain of having the same problem that they have. If you can make them realize that if they could change right now, if they can do something different right now, their life will change forever.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. In our final question here, let’s just run a case study through this. Let’s look at the weight loss health transformation course. How do you justify or make the case for time, money, identity, reputation, and energy? Just using that example.
Marc Allen: For example, what’s… It’s a weight loss program, right?
Chris Badgett: Yeah, it’s a health transformation weight loss.
Marc Allen: For example, it’s a weight loss program. So the time objection could be how long will it take to see results in my body, things like that or how long it will take to see the results. So for that, you can answer the question through it depends, of course it depends. It depends on how much time investment they will put during the program and how long they will stick to their routine or in the diet. But if they can stick to your program and then you can promise, it depends maybe if they can invest 30 minutes a day by doing what you do, they will have results then you could say that.
Marc Allen: When it comes to identity of course, it will all depend on what you do before answering this objection. They don’t know you yet. But if they know you and if they respect you and if they follow every word that you say, then just by being your students, being one of your few students will be an identity booster. Then for the monitoring one of the things that you can do is that, it depends on your offer, but if, let’s say we’re offering a high ticket, 12 months program, coaching program to lose, let’s say, 50 pounds in 12 months so what you can do to answer their money objection is to answer this thing. I call it investment value qualifier. You can lose weight, you can lose 50 pounds in 12 months as long as… Most of my students lose 50 pounds in 12 months as long as they do this workout and then have this diet.
Marc Allen: So just positioning your offer that you focus on the value that they’re getting rather than the money that they’re investing. Focus on the transformation that you will have rather than the price. Then for the energy thing just if your program can do miracles by doing the workout 30 minutes a day and you can tell that. Then, of course, for the reputation, if they lose weight and if they actually hit their goal what will people, what will their family say about him or her? How would their coworkers treat them or things like that or the respect that they will get out of by just by doing your program. So those are the things that you can tell during your webinar or sales campaign, email campaign and yeah.
Chris Badgett: Wow, that’s awesome. Marc Allen, you can find them at biggerpiepromotions.com/friends, what can they find over there?
Marc Allen: Well, I prepared for you guys. This is for, because Chris Badgett is very special to me and I want to help his audience to improve conversion and to convert their audience into sales and customers. So I prepared you a three simple template, email template that you can use straight away to convert your audience into customer.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. Well, that’s super generous of you, Marc. I really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing so much today. You added so much value that I’d encourage the listener to go back, listen to this again, take notes and then take action on what you’re learning because Marc, I was trying to mind Marc for as much value as I could and we covered a lot from just sales, the buyer journey, beliefs, emails, webinars, handling objections. We’ve gone all the way through. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your words with us.
Marc Allen: I hope you learnt something and have some, be the insight on what you can do differently because that’s really the goal of this interview and I hope my being here actually help you and grow your business.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. So Marc Allen, he’s at biggerpiepromotions.com/friends. Thank you so much, Marc. We’ll have to do it again sometime.
Marc Allen: Thank you so much, Chris. See you later.
Chris Badgett: That’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I hope you enjoyed the show. This show was brought to you by LifterLMS, the number one tool for creating, selling, and protecting engaging online courses to help you get more revenue, freedom, and impact in your life. Head on over to lifterlms.com and get the best gear for your course creator journey. Let’s build the most engaging, results getting courses on the Internet.
