Welcome to the six figure business mastery podcast, where every week

Kirsten and Jeannie dive into the essential topics to fuel your business

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So get ready to unlock your business potential and take it to the next level.

Welcome to our new episode.

We're thankful that you're here today.

We have the amazing Melanie Childers is here from Melanie Childers consulting.

She's a master business coach for values led coaches, course creators, and CEOs.

She can help you grow and scale your business while ditching the hustle

culture so you can have a sustainable, successful multi six or seven figure

business that supports you and your community without burning out.

So welcome to the show, Melanie.

We're thrilled to have you today.

Oh, thank you for having me.

I am so excited to talk to you.

So today we're going to talk about how to talk to ready buyers.

So tell us a little bit about how we can talk to ready buyers.

What I have discovered just through, I've been in business for, I think this

particular business for eight years, I ran a yarn company before that.

I love knitting and crochet and I hand dyed lots of yarns and that

was a very successful business.

But what I discovered once I got and spent a couple of years in online

business is that a lot of us are taught.

To speak specifically to pain points and not just talk to pain points,

but like almost twist the knife.

And what happens when we do that is that we end up talking to people who

are actually in a place where they are struggling or they are still

healing, and they are not actually ready to get the best results from

whatever it is that you are offering.

And a lot of.

Teaching out there teaches this.

And part of that reason is that marketing and selling in its current

iteration came from guess what?

Capitalism, which is run by all white dudes who are, they're using their

like quote unquote, alpha aggressive, assertive type of ways of operating to.

Get us to buy things we may or may not need.

And so their way of talking and their way of marketing and selling is to strong arm

people into taking action and speaking to people who are mostly in that survivor.

Struggling or even just dreaming and contemplating, not the people

who are actually already ready.

And that's why I think this topic is so incredibly important because

so many of us have been trained to speak to an audience that is not

actually ready to work with us or get the best results if they do hire us.

And that is a online marketing problem that I see out there in the world and

one that I am really determined to help.

Fix because you have an audience or a business full of people who weren't

really ready for your offer and who aren't in a place to get the best results.

They're going to have a miserable time as your client, and you're going

to have a miserable time delivering.

It's going to affect your confidence.

It's going to affect the way that you show up to sell everything else.

They're going to ask for refunds.

They're not going to do the work quite as much as you were hoping them to.

And we want people in our containers and in our offers who get incredible results.

Otherwise, why are we doing this?

I totally agree.

And it's interesting because I saw a post the other day and one of the coaching

programs that we're in and she was saying, how do I deal with this person?

And it was somebody who said, I love your program.

I really want to be a part of it, but I just can't afford it right now.

I don't have enough here, or I'm going to dip into my savings and

we don't want people like that.

We don't want people who are so desperate.

That they're giving you their last penny.

We want people who, like you said, who are ready, ready to invest in

their business and in a position to juice, because can you imagine if

they don't get out of the business?

The coaching or the program, what they needed.

Now they're even more sunk.

I love what you're doing and how you articulate that.

And I think ethically, I don't want someone to give me their last dollar

if they need to eat, if they need to keep a roof over their head or

keep a car so they can keep a job.

Like I am not okay with taking people's money who can't

actually afford what I'm doing.

But I do believe that there is a difference between, is this my last Or

am I stretching myself in a way because I believe in myself because I know that

I'm going to do the work and I'm going to get what I came for because like I

personally believe in credit, right?

Like I use credit is leverage.

Debt is leverage in my opinion, but that is because I'm not in a place and

I'm not the kind of person who just dreams and who goes, if I throw money at

this, it's going to solve my problems.

No.

That's my problem.

I am the type of person, and this is why I encourage my clients and my whole

audience talk to the people who are, I call them the resourced and ready.

They are resourceful.

They have the funds or they will find the funds, but they get inside your programs.

They do the work.

They are ready to get started.

They are ready for the outcomes and the results that you offer.

And they are just ambitious action takers because that's me.

And I know that's me.

I'm not going to invest in something and then not do the

work to get what it came for.

I'm not afraid to go into debt or to use credit as leverage, but I'm

also not in a place where If I didn't have that 200 or 2, 000, I would

starve and we would be on the street.

And that's what it sounded like she was saying.

And the answer was, is this an ideal client for you?

Are they in the right place?

And obviously the answer is no, I loved resourced and ready.

And to your point, there is something I've heard the term smart debt.

And that is when you are investing money into, for example, your

business, knowing that you are going to have X amount of outcome.

Or you've tried and tested and are pretty certain that you're going

to have the outcome you want.

So then you can pay that debt back.

And I think that comes down to the type of person that you are and the

type of person that you're talking to.

And so it's a lot easier for me to talk to ambitious action takers because I am one.

So I know me very well.

I know my audience very well, but that's because I am also that person.

And so speaking to those people is a lot easier for me, but I was

also trained like so many of us.

Who we're coaches, we go and get our certification and we think I'm just

going to hang out a shingle and people are going to come to me and that's it.

That isn't true.

You have to learn the skills of marketing.

You have to learn the skills of messaging, of deciding on purpose who you're talking

to, of selling, of building funnels.

Like you have a lot to learn.

It's not just let me hang out a shingle and hope because that I

thought that's what it was going to be.

Initially I was a confidence coach when I started, I was like, I'm going

to help people have so much confidence and they're all just going to come

to me because I'm awesome and I'm a badass and everybody knows it.

And it was like, no, you have to learn how to sell and you have

to learn how to market a message.

But initially I was trained.

To do that, to speak to those people who weren't actually ready.

And everything that I wrote felt like I was dragging my audience through the mud.

I was trying to convince them to want what I was offering.

And it's just because so many of us are taught that is how you.

Create content.

That is how you talk to people.

And it's right.

I have to be that way.

Was that your experience too?

It's interesting because I have, Kirsten has a, my business

partner has a sales background that comes very naturally to her.

I have a marketing background.

So it is, there is a big difference between those two.

But what I have learned is what you're talking about.

And that is, it's not about convincing someone.

That what you offer is what they need.

It's about finding the people who need what you offer and standing

and saying, here, I can help you.

And that's through messaging and marketing.

And what's so fascinating to me is the difference between talking to people

who need what you have and the people who want what you have, because they're

thinking and perspective is different.

There's one thing that's, yes, I need that.

But that neediness can also come from a desperation or a still being in

the place where you're dreaming, but you're not quite ready to take action.

And it's very easy to market to those people because we talk about

marketing is really and selling is really, here's this aspiration.

Here's this thing that you want.

Here's this dream that you have.

I can help you get that.

But if you are still in a place where you are dreaming about what

could be, are you actually in?

Ready yet to take action, because there is a big difference.

Think about all the people in the world who are like, Oh, if I could

only lose 20 pounds, but are they actually willing to do the things

that it's going to take to do that?

Are they dreaming?

Are they actually ready to act?

And then the people who want what you are offering, who already want

it, you don't have to convince them.

They're like, yes, I want that.

And they are ready to go.

They're ready to take action.

They know that they will dive in and do everything that they need to do

to get the outcomes that they want.

Those are two very different people.

And it can be a challenge sometimes to learn how to shift from speaking

to one to speaking to the other.

And I think from a business owner's perspective and a coach.

You don't want people in your program who don't want to be there,

who aren't ready to be there.

I love helping people.

I love nothing less than or nothing more than teaching what I know so

that people can get excited about it and implement it for themselves.

If they're not ready, they're not in the right place and they're wide

eyed and then they'll disappear is ultimately what happens.

Usually what happens is they either don't show up or they don't do the work and then

they complain or they ask for refunds or.

They bounce to another program and try to get the results from somewhere else

because they weren't truly, truly ready.

And we've all experienced this.

We're not alone in this.

So if you're listening, and that has been your experience, just know

that, like, We have all been here.

There is no shame.

We've all accidentally sold to someone who was not fully ready or fully

committed or fully in the place in their journey, where what they bought was

what they actually needed in the, but like you said, if you are not ready and

committed to doing it, there are lots of programs that will work for people,

but only if you're willing to do it.

If they're willing to do it 100 percent when and if I have sales

calls, that is a question that I asked.

That is a thing that I bring up.

I'm like, look, I don't want you to buy from shiny object syndrome.

I don't want you to feel like you're throwing money at this and hope that

this is going to be a magic bullet.

There is work involved.

Are you ready to do the work?

They have to answer.

Yes.

Like they have to convince me that they are ready because I'm like,

I'm not selling to anybody who is going to get super excited and

hop in and then bounce in a month.

I'm not going to hold your feet to the fire.

I'm not going to make you do the work.

You have to have that quality already.

You have to be the person who's going to do the work.

It's and I can equate this only because I have a teenager who it's like going from

high school to college and high school.

Somebody is there to say you need to turn in your stuff, whether it's

your parents or your teacher, but in college, it's up to you working in

a 9 to 5 job to being my own boss.

That was a hurdle for me, and nobody is here to tell me what to do or to make me

do things or to hold deadlines and I can just kick this can down the road forever.

I better figure out how to get disciplined.

I could better figure out how to be consistent in a way that feels

right for me and have goals and have meaning behind those goals other

than I have to make money because that's just not strong enough for me.

No, I'm, I'm in total agreement.

I did the nine to five for many years and it's a different mentality

when you go out on your own.

Like you said, you can.

The ladies I follow says you can was procrastinating, but it was, had to do

with just changing your brand or your colors, or you can spend all day long

doing that, but procrastinate branding, she called it and it's like anything else.

But if I'm not making money, if I'm not moving forward, if I'm

not especially marketing, then I'm not going to be around in.

So the mistake that 80 percent of online marketers are making is talking

to those people who are surviving.

Or who are dreaming.

If you think about, I love to think about like your audience

as like a continuum, right?

There's people in your audience who are never going to buy on one end.

They are not in a place.

They're not interested in what you have.

Some of them may just be surviving.

They don't want what you've got, or they are never going to be in a

place where they are ready for that.

And then the next moving forward up is like the people who are

still in the contemplation phase.

They're dreaming.

They're thinking they want a thing, but they haven't decided to act.

And then you have the people who have great things in

their life and they're fine.

They don't want it anymore.

And then you have the segment of your audience that is ready to go.

They are ambitious.

They are action takers, they are resourced, and they are the people that

I usually say between 10 to 15 percent of your audience is those people.

And your job as a marketer, as someone who is selling services is

to get in front of them often enough that they can see you because the

algorithm facts are these, right?

Like only 10 percent of your audience.

On a given day, if you're lucky, see your content.

So if you're using social media and market, you gotta show up often enough for

them to see you more than once, multiple times, until they decide that they're in.

Yeah.

And I think the challenge, because it's really easy mentally to go, well, but

I posted it and no one bought, but I posted it 10 times and no one bought.

And it's what I tell my clients is like, welcome to the ride.

90% of what you're gonna do is going to look like failure.

And I use quotes around failure, but it just hasn't worked yet.

And your job is to keep trying shit and until it works and get

in the roller coaster, baby, it's going to feel like crap.

Sometimes you're like you're failing, like you're in the

free fall a lot and it's okay.

Sometimes it's going to catch, sometimes it's going to work and you

never know what it's going to be.

I love that.

I was listening to a YouTube video the other day and she was talking

about how business owners tend to focus on the wrong things and get

frustrated by the wrong things.

And you have to understand there, there's always things that you're

going to have to do in your job or your business that you don't like to do.

And some of them are worth your time and effort, are necessary,

and some of them are not.

So let go of the knots and, and deal with the, with the

necessary stuff you don't like.

Can you outsource?

And I think it's so important to, to remember that data is important.

Like everything that you're doing, you should be tracking in your business.

What are you marketing?

What are you saying?

What are people responding to?

What are they not responding to?

But don't use that data against yourself.

Don't use that to destroy your own confidence.

Like, I only go look at my Instagram data, like maybe once a week

just to look at how are we doing?

What are metrics happening?

Are people clicking?

What are they clicking on?

So I'm looking for what are the trends, what are the patterns, what are the

words that are landing for my audience?

But I'm also not using that to beat myself up if it's not

going the way that I thought.

And just so everybody knows, 90 percent of the time, the posts that you share.

That our sales posts are going to get less engagement because

their job is not engagement.

Their job is sales.

Their job is not to get likes.

It's to get sales for the right people.

Everything else that you do that you want engagement on those things, but

don't use that against you either.

If that's like a vanity thing, you need to check your ego at the door.

If you're posting for vanity, if you're posting for the likes, are

you selling to the right people?

Are you marketing to the right people?

Is when you decide that you go to launch, are you going to have the

right people filling up your offers?

So yeah.

Yep.

I tell my clients get real intentional with your marketing, with your

messaging, with your selling.

Like I share with them, like these are the four types of posts that position

you the way that you want that speak to your ready audience that speak to

the people who want to buy from you.

This is how to do it.

And these are the types of things you should be sharing.

Be really intentional, but not in such a way that you shut yourself down.

I know a lot of people have visibility, like almost like visibility trauma.

That was a struggle for me for sure.

Just letting people see you having opinions online and standing up and

boldly speaking and being an expert.

And I don't mean that in a way to shut people down.

But being intentional is what calls in.

Those resourced and ready, those best stream clients, because they get to

see that, Oh my God, you are a leader.

You're not just my friend who posts funny things on Facebook.

You're not just my friend who I know their dog on tech talk.

Oh yeah.

You are an expert.

You are brilliant at what you do that resonates and just makes so much sense.

And you just have to be careful about how you're saying things

because how you words matter.

And I are saying them and where you're saying them, which is why

we do a lot of we have a program that we help our clients with video

marketing, but then they repurpose it on all the different platforms.

So it's our voices.

It's our words.

It's just going out in different ways on different social platforms and email.

It's got to be on email as well, because there's a lot of.

Important people on your email list.

A lot of people who might be ready.

They just need to hear from you a hundred percent.

And that's why I think like being in the mindset of service is so important

and seeing like, I teach my clients in a course that the way that we think about

sales determines your energy and the way that you show up to selling, which

determines how much money you make.

Cause if you show up with desperate energy, you're going to be broke, but.

You got to show up from a place of service.

You've got to show up from a desire to help the people that are in front of you.

Otherwise, why did you create a business?

It wasn't just about you.

It wasn't just about making money.

It's also about the people that you're serving.

And when you focus on them, it's, you really get to disconnect

that, that it's about you.

When I show up from a place of, I really love the people in front of me and I want

to serve them, it's like suddenly my brain opens up and I have all of these things

to share versus like when I'm focused on me and I'm like, I have to make money

today when that is your focus, it's almost like your brain shuts off because.

Our brains don't work well under pressure in that way.

Oh, Melanie, this is amazing.

Is there anything that we haven't covered that you think that our

audience should know about as far as running a talking to ready buyers?

The most important piece of talking to ready buyers is using empowering language.

That is a big deal.

You want to think of your people as capable, whole, successful already

clients, and they just want the 2 percent shift that you're going to

give them that will help them get more of what they already want.

And so the difference really is if you're talking to people who are

struggling or still dreaming, you're going to use words like struggle.

You're going to use words like it's so hard.

And those people, when you're in that mindset, you have to think about like

when you are in the mindset of everything is so hard, this is a struggle.

Do you, are you actually ready to fix it or do you want

someone to commiserate with you?

And a lot of people don't want to fix it.

They just want to talk about it and they're in that place where they're still

processing and they're still healing and they need someone to complain to.

And when you use that language, they see you.

As someone who will just commiserate with them.

So they aren't actually ready to fix the problem.

When you are talking to people who are the ready buyers, those resourced

and ready people, those people grab onto mentally, I'm already successful.

You're already killing it in your business.

You want more clients.

You want to make more this year than you did last year.

You want to go faster or you want to save time or you want a more

efficient path or you want to do it more simply and sustainably, right?

Those people are ready and they want more.

It's in a very different language that empowers them to take action

to get what they already want.

Instead of you're struggling and hope that you're going to buy from

me versus I have exactly what you need to get where you want to go.

Very different ways of speaking to people.

Well done.

Thank you.

This has been amazing.

And it is interesting that sometimes you just need to get in the right mindset.

And then the words come out and the terminology and the posts and all of

that come out when you stop, like you said, stop thinking about selling,

stop thinking about convincing and speak from a place of authority.

And talk to people like they're whole and capable human beings who want more

of the good stuff they already have.

So Melanie, tell us where can people reach you?

So my website is Melanie Childers dot com.

I have a program called sell like a feminist.

If you would like to learn how to sell without feeling grass and I'm also

on social media, Melanie Childers, Instagram, Melanie Childers, coaching,

tick tock, the Melanie Childers.

We will put links to where people can reach out to you in the comments

because you obviously have so much.

Amazing information to share.

So this has been delightful, Melanie.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the six figure business mastery podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

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