[00:00:00] All right, it's Friday. Welcome back to Selling Your Expertise. I'm your host, Renee Hribar. Your Straight Talk and sales coach who believes selling Should feel as easy as sending a voice memo to your best friend on Monday. We talked about anchor content, what it is and why it's your sales secret weapon, and if you missed.

Go back, give it a listen Today, I wanna share what happened when my student, Kelly actually used the anchor content that we built together. Quick refresher. She was getting asked the same question all the time by her clients, Kelly, how do I stand out in a saturated market? So I helped her turn that question into a story based authority building piece of content that I call anchor content.

Here's the real lesson. She was using words like brand archetypes, which she understood, but our audience didn't. She simplified it. She [00:01:00] painted a picture and she told a story. She stopped assuming people knew what she meant. That is huge. Just that alone. I definitely struggle from that as well. I'm sure you do.

There's a great little quip that someone shared with me once, and I just laugh and I think about it every time I walk past a fish. And here was what it is. You ask the fish, Hey fish, how's the water? The the fish goes, what's water? You are the fish in the water. Hey, how's this? You're so in it that you don't see it because you've been in it for so long.

And so we become experts because we've worked so hard on one focus and we've become very good at lots of things that help get somebody somewhere that they wanna go. And it's hard for us oftentimes to remember what it's like to not know. So in this case, Kelly finally stopped [00:02:00] assuming that people knew what she meant.

'cause she would say it and she would say it in such an enthusiastic manner. She's a super like, hyped up girl and uh, I say girl, she's in her thirties, so she's not, she's not a child. She spent, you know, 10 years. Being an amazing brand designer. And when she would talk about it, she, because she was so excited, people would nod and yeah, yeah.

But then I would ask them questions later or they would get pulled later. 'cause we did do this research and they were like, no, I don't really know what that means. So she stopped assuming people knew what she meant with brand archetypes and that. Is when the magic happened. So she created this post and people didn't just like it, they loved it, they replied, they, then she used the post in an email.

They replied to her email. So those of you who have email lists, if you're listening to this, I have. Tens of thousands of people on my email list. And there are times when I even have a really bold call to action on the email and I'm like, hit reply and tell me the que, you know the answer to this. And it's [00:03:00] usually like 10 people might reply and I'm like, oh, yay, 10 people I get to talk to.

And those are, those are my favorite people now all of a sudden. Right? And so if you have an email list, you know this, that when you even invite people to reply, they don't. So she got. Ton of replies on her email. They commented on her content. They dmd her. It was because she invited them again. If you didn't hear Monday, go back.

She invited these key people. I think it ended up being like seven people to check out this new. Post, you know, this long form written content anchor content that she was trying out as another way to explain and share more about branding and how to apply it to your business, why it's so important, how it can benefit you, when you should be thinking about it, the questions you should be considering, and that one post got her so much juice because they finally got it.

So here's what I want [00:04:00] you to really wrap your head around. Number one, clarity equals conversions. The more clearly you speak, the more people can say yes. Keeping it simple is hard for us experts. I get it. I know, I, I literally have to run it past. People that aren't in business at all. And then I'll know that I got it right.

And I sort of go back to my journalistic roots of, you know, write copy that's for a third grader. Well, heck, I'm saying make it for a 5-year-old, make it for a kindergartner. And seriously, I say that with love. It's not because people are stupid, they just not. Into what you know, they just haven't honed the expertise you have, and so someone could be a literal rocket scientist, but when it comes to branding, Kelly had some work to do to teach that person about.

Branding. She didn't have to teach her about rocket science. She needed to teach her about branding, and that's where sometimes [00:05:00] we let our own self-doubt come in because as experts, we're often in the room with other experts, but not in our field, in their field. Don't you think that Kelly could certainly help?

Rocket scientist launch her speaking career with the right branding. Heck yeah. In fact, she did. I already know the story, but the reality is this, is that if Kelly had gone into creating this. Huge brand plight with this rocket scientist of using all these big words. The rocket scientist might understand the big words, but she might not understand how it applies to branding, right?

So just because someone else is smart, very smart in their own way, doesn't mean they understand how to do what you do. So, all right. Number two, anchor content is a litmus test. So if number one, clarity equals conversions. Number two, anchor content is a litmus test. It helps the right people say. That's exactly what I've been looking for and lets the wrong people keep going.[00:06:00]

So again, like I said, back on Monday's episode, make sure that before the anchor content is even published, that you've got at least a handful of people all the places and where you might find someone in your digital Rolodex. Ask them, I've got something I'm about to publish. I'd love some friendly eyes on it.

I'm not even sure if it's any good or if it's gonna make any sense, but I'm trying my best to help share what I'm doing and the value of branding in this case with Kelly to the world or more broadly. And I definitely need somebody to check my back, right? Make sure I don't have any spinach in my teeth, make sure my fly's not down, like all this stuff, right?

And so. Whatever your personality is, and, and Kelly is a little bit more straight laced than I am. She's a preacher's daughter, and so she definitely was not using things like fly down, but, but in her own Kelly way, she was able to ask. A few more people than I [00:07:00] actually recommended and got those people to understand what she was doing, and then guess what?

That boosted her confidence to share that anchor content in more places, and that helped more people find out, I do need that. That's exactly what I've been looking for. And so that is why I love Anchor Con. It also acts as a filter because educating people helps them know if this is for them or not.

Right now. So number three, you might just be a tomato. Most people think a tomato is a vegetable, right? I have, my grandfather was a farmer and uh, I think in that era a lot of people were farmers because, you know, there wasn't as much. Distribution and, and massive farming. But one thing he taught me is that a tomato is not, a fruit.

I'm sorry. It's not a vegetable. It is a fruit. See, it's so hard because everybody calls tomatoes, vegetables. So how does this relate to you? Well, maybe people don't get what you do because you're being labeled wrong. [00:08:00] Being right anchor content helps fix that. In this case, with Kelly branding. When people were polled later on about what they thought she meant was hex codes and fonts and logos, and she's like getting sad in her heart when they say that because she's like, it's not that.

It's not that. It's not that. And she would just panic. Wow. The people don't understand. And she would almost get mad and frustrated about it, but it's not their fault. She was just being. Labeled wrong. And so with anchor content, that's where she was able to demonstrate what she was doing, share a specific story, that clarity led to conversions, anchor content, helped people know if it was for them or not right now, and she finally.

Was able to get the results that now she can forecast. So now she knows if she has a piece of anchor [00:09:00] content that she's gonna publish. Let's say she publishes, I recommend once a week, but she's doing it twice a month right now because she's real high ticket. You know, her average offer, if somebody does full branding, isn't in between 15 and 50 grand.

And so she takes on one or two new clients. A time. And so when she knows she's about to publish anchor content, she keeps hearing a question people are asking. She starts to see a pattern. She knows that's gonna be an anchor content piece, and then she's working up to it. Let's say she sets a date, okay, I'm gonna publish it on the 15th.

And she knows that by the 12th or the 13th, she's gonna start asking people, Hey, I'm about to publish this piece of content. I'd love to get some friendly eyes on it. Can you help me out? I can give you the link when I, when it, when it publishes, and they say, yeah, sure. And then she sends 'em the link. She's like, okay, here's the link.

Let me know what you think. I will circle back and in a couple days, or I'll circle back or, and tomorrow, whatever the timeline is for you. And when you wanna circle back, say, you'll circle back and then circle back. And then once you circle [00:10:00] back, say, oh my goodness, what did you think? I've been really getting some great feedback on this.

Uh, it's really inspired me to do something special. And then what are you gonna invite them to next? Now that they know a little bit more? Some of my students have taken their anchor content and invited people to a little group call just to talk about it like a fireside chat for 30 minutes about that one topic and how it's impacted them and what they got as a takeaway.

Other students of mine are inviting people to one-on-one calls where they can do a little. Audit of, or you know, assessment of the topic that they're focused on in their anchor content, and it just leads to better. Better conversations, better context, and better conversions. So what happened was is that of these seven people that Kelly was able to invite to her anchor content, whether they read it or understood it or not.

Three of those people ended up getting an evaluation, a [00:11:00] brand evaluation, and through that was a free, it was like a free 20 minute call. It's really a discovery call, right? She was discovering where their brand was and what they might need and what it might look like to do something different. And then she offered them a small project off of that free call, that free brand audit and that small project, I think she charged about 200 bucks.

Uh, I think it was, it was either 1 9 7 or 2 4, 9, something like that. From there, she signed a $15,000 client. It worked, and you, you don't need to talk to every person on the planet. You don't need to create content. That's for everyone who you might ever, you know, talk to or, or everyone in your ideal client avatar.

It might just be for one person. And you can actually invite that one person or three, or four, or five or six or seven people, that's that's enough to that anchor content. And then others can see it too. And yes, you can use it over and over again. I gave those examples on Monday. But the reality is, is that if you're [00:12:00] selling your expertise, you're selling high ticket, you don't need mass marketing and you don't need 100 clients this month.

If you do, you could probably do five or six anchor content pieces and probably get some real good traction. But, and the reality is, is that you are an expert and you want to cultivate that, whether you're doing done for you service projects like Kelly here, because she's doing their branding for them.

Whether you're doing just strategy, whether you're doing um, consulting, the idea here is, is that you are an expert and if you can share your anchor content in the right way, it will work for you now and forever. So here's your action step. If you wrote down your question earlier this week, but didn't publish it, no worries.

Today's the day make. This something you do like. I want you to pinky promise me right now, publish it, tell the story, start the conversation, and if you're ready to sell your expertise with more [00:13:00] ease and less stress and maybe a little bit of fun, I dunno, you know we can laugh. Join my email list. The link is in the show notes.

When you do, you'll get a free training that pairs perfectly with my book Selling Your Expertise. And yes, you can hit reply to any email I send you and ask me. I'll be back next week with another story, another lesson, and another step you can take to go from invisible to in demand. Until then, go be the tomato.

You really are fruit and all. Bye for now.