Turning Conversations into Clients
This is following a series exploring Laurel Portié's paid ads strategy. If you are unfamiliar with the strategy and haven’t seen this post first, we recommend starting here.
So,
Let's say you've got yourself started with ads or even organic posts, and you're starting to get conversations in Messenger.
How do you turn those conversations into cash?
After all, conversations are the fastest path to cash, but what exactly do you do to get there?
The best answer is going to frustrate many of you, because it's not a prescriptive step-by-step solution.
A concept in The Guardian Academy that is woven through everything we do and can quite simply be summarized as "be useful."
There's a dynamic we observe called "Valid vs Useful."1
Smart people often find themselves with an identity built around being right (being valid). They get things right, they are praised for getting things right, and so they continue down this path.
If you're looking to have conversations that turn into clients ...
Being "right" is not going to serve you well at all.
The person who has come to you for help is a unique person with a unique situation. Showing up with a frame of being "right" is to impose *your* view of correctness upon them.
But the answer to nearly every situation is "It Depends"
If you shift your perspective from "being right" to "being useful," you will show up much differently, and your prospects will see this immediately.
This is the foundation of Laurel Portié's approach to turning conversations into clients. To understand further, we'd like to share an excerpt from her book Super Duper Profitable Ads.2
This is presented in the context of receiving comments through your Conversion Multipliers and Power Content, as detailed in the article “Getting Conversations.”3
Laurel’s methodology, program, and book are heavy in Guardian Academy principles that she reinvented and improved specifically for her domain - and has become one of the best advertising programs out there.
How do you turn those comments into CLIENTS?
I’m glad you asked.
First of all, I approach the conversation as if that person has just paid me $500 to help them solve their most urgent and immediate challenge in the next 10 minutes.
Sounds simple enough, right? But that one mental shift will forever change how you approach these conversations. Because it’s no longer a messenger spam fest where you apply external pressure to get them to do what you want them to do.
Instead, it’s now an actually helpful interaction that moves them forward (gasp! Imagine that!)
This is absolutely critical because way too often I see that my students are trying to solve too much for the client all at once.
You only have a few minutes with this prospect in Messenger, so you want to solve the most immediate concern.
For example, if someone wants to scale from $5k/month to $30k/month, I’m not going to be able to give them everything they need in 10 minutes.
First I would have to ask them a series of diagnostic questions to figure out what their most immediate next step should be. That way I can give them relevant counsel based on where they’re at.
In my case, I might ask something like, “Okay, what have you already been doing that got you to $5k/month?”
And let’s say they’ve been doing organic Instagram posts that sell their program but they only have like 2,000 followers.
The easiest micro-step that I could help them take in 10 minutes is showing them how to place a $5 ad on the posts that are already attracting clients. This will drive more volume so they can do their thing.
Most gurus would tell them to do something silly..
“Just build a webinar funnel bro”
That’s not a micro-step, that’s a huge step that will likely drive that person into a profit deficit and take weeks if not months, to actually get results.
I’ll give you an example.
One of my newest private clients in my Lean on Laurel program (this is my inner circle type program)... Came to me after spending over 22K in ad spend on a webinar funnel that resulted in ZERO booked appointments.
He was getting a TON of leads, meaning people were opting into his funnel and watching his webinar, but they weren’t moving on to book a call.
The coach he was working with kept telling him he needed to change his offer.
Within 5 minutes of diving into his metrics, the problem wasn’t his offer. People weren’t even getting to his offer.
His numbers showed that 34% of people gave him their name and email address in exchange for watching the webinar. That’s pretty good, BUT the problem was that only 9% of those people who had opted in were actually hitting play on the webinar and a mere .02% had actually made it to the offer.
What does that mean?
His offer wasn’t the problem, at least not yet.
Immediately seeing this “black hole” in his funnel, I had him break down his webinar into 1 “easy-to-digest” value bomb.
I then quickly wrote 3 “short” scripts using the SAME templates I just walked you through that promoted that value bomb.
I launched those short videos inside his ads manager for $5 a day and the messages started flooding in.
Long story short, he had over 170 messenger conversations in one weekend and booked over 65 calls, for less than $100 in ad spend.
So let’s recap.
- He spent $22K on a webinar funnel that yielded ZERO booked calls.
- I helped him launch this “conversion multiplier” short video strategy and he booked 65 calls with less than $100.
I have dozens of stories just like that one.
So many people are putting too many steps in front of having a conversation with a prospect.
What I am walking you through in this chapter FIXES that.
Now, to the goods…
How to handle diagnostics in Messenger. This will sound WAY TOO SIMPLE to work, but I promise, if you put this into practice, you will see results pretty quickly.
If you’re wondering what those diagnostic questions should be, here’s a fun little thought exercise that can help:
Write down the top 3 problems that your client faces
Under each problem, write out 5 questions that will help you understand the details of that problem
Now, this is not the be-all and end-all of diagnostic assessment. It’s just a way to get started if you’re struggling with what to ask specifically.
Quick example: let’s say you have a nutrition coaching offer, and one of your prospect’s main problems is that they have intense cravings in the middle of the afternoon, and those cravings push them to eat overly fatty, sugary, and salty snacks in the middle of their day. This of course leads to an energy crash later in the day, and weight gain long term.
In order to diagnose what’s really going on before sending that prospect a value bomb, you might ask “What do you eat for breakfast?” or “What supplements are you currently taking?” or “When was the last time you had bloodwork taken to measure hormone levels?” or “what are your sleep patterns like?”
Remember the frame -- I’m trying to help them take just the next most immediate step forward in the next 10 minutes. And those cravings could be coming from many different sources, so I want to diagnose what the most likely source is.
Now you can take this principle and apply it directly to your context, regardless of which niche or audience you serve.
To recap -- every single week you will only need to create 1-2 of these videos with the value bomb offer.
But wait, there’s more…
Once you have 3 videos that hit with your audience, you don’t have to create more. You would just continue running those 3 videos as ads and the comments and conversations will continue to come pouring in.
You’ve now proven that specific organic content works and that it resonates with your audience, so now you can put some dollars behind it.
AUTOMATED BABY!
Now the ads manager is doing all the heavy lifting and all you need to do is keep an eye on comments and respond to those comments in your messenger.
TGA Principles Applied
- Useful vs Valid
- Next Best Step4
You might be wondering "Where are the scripts?!" For which we'll say - master the principles and you won't need them.
Shifting your perspective into what's useful for the person you're helping, over what you find to be technically correct is going to take you a long way.
Add onto that what is essentially the TGA principle of "The Next Best Step," and you find yourself in a position to be taking anyone who comes into your messenger and asking yourself "How can I best help THIS individual take *their* next best step towards solving the problem they have?"
How valuable do you think that would be?
When you're ready to turn conversations you are having into customers, join Laurel Portié's Ad Coaching for $7 program,5 where you can learn step-by-step how to apply this ad strategy starting today.
Laurel Portié is a Guardian and has been a student of our founder for the last five years. Recently, they did a free training condensing everything Laurel has learned and implemented into five days. All five days are available for free here:
live to learn. give to earn.
The TGA “Out Of Print” Business Development Books and Letters are available by clicking here for Guardian Academy paid subs. A lot of marketers try and resell this stuff, just get it here.
The pre-req or “Starter/Self Stay Guide” to understand marketing and sales through the lens of TGA principles can be found right here.
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