What To Do Instead of Giving Your Best Stuff Away For Free

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 298. Today, I'm walking you through why giving your best stuff away for free might be the worst way to grow your business and what to do instead. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time that you are hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm so super pumped that you're here. I'm really excited to dive into today's episode. Also, I just cannot believe we are two episodes away from the 300 episode mark. And in full transparency, we do not have a plan or any type of idea as to what we're going to do to really celebrate this milestone. So if you've been hanging out for all 300 episodes, thank you. I am super, super glad and grateful that you're here because honestly, I have poured my heart and soul into this podcast and I know that this is not about me and that it is about you. It is in a full 100% effort to really serve the smart and struggling coaches. Because what I have just seen in my decade of coaching really incredible human beings is that the ones who are the smartest, that care about the science of training, the ones that. That really just pour their heart into education, tend to struggle the most. The more depth, and it depends, nuanced conversations, they are the ones that tend to struggle the most. And this is mostly because it's very hard to communicate nuance. And it's very hard to communicate. To communicate the unsexy part of transforming your mind, body, strength, soul. I mean, a lot of it is hard. And if we can't. And who's excited to say, hey, this could be the next decade of your life? No one is. No one's excited about that. So it can be hard to communicate that. So it's been my pleasure and my privilege to work with some of the most outstanding individuals that really, truly care about what it is that they do. And if you're listening to this episode and you're listening to this show, I know that that's you and you're included in that. So I'm not sure what we're going to do for our 300 episode. I'm sure it'll be great. We've got some things percolating in terms of, you know, if you're listening to this episode, it's December. We're really planning out the awesomeness of 2024 and how we expect to exponentially grow. And I'm just so excited. This year has been year 21 and 22 were super growth years and I have shared in the show and maybe we'll have some kind of PDF download that really organizes us and helps you, especially if you are a new listener to the show, that maybe you, you know, what are some of the best episodes to go back and listen to? Because honestly, there are some just incredible information inside of this show and also just from the just from the guests alone, which are outstanding, exceptional industry leaders. And so it's definitely worth going back and listening to it. In fact, what we're doing now, I'm putting together this program where to help you build out your passive program in a weekend. And one of the things that we did, of course, I layered in some of my expertise with disclaimers because honestly, I gave you the basics and it's been a minute since I have trained. However, one of the things that I have done is I have worked and been with some of the most exceptional and outstanding, outstanding professionals that I've recorded episodes in this podcast. So we've organized it so that you could go back and listen to it in a faster way. So that's also going to be inside of build your passive program in a weekend. However, I'm sure that we'll get it to you for free because it is it'll be an excellent resource just to help you organize some of the incredible information that's inside of this podcast. So let's just go ahead. Without further ado, I want to dive into some of the misconceptions and what I see a lot of smart and struggling coaches get into when it comes to really organizing their conversion content. So now if you're listening to this and you're wondering, well, what specifically is conversion content for me when I'm teaching businesses to set up to scale, which we'll talk about this in the next podcast episode. But there really are four main systems, three main systems, one fourth one that gets overlooked that needs to go into your business in order to set it up to get back more of your time freedom and generate More revenue without sacrificing your client results. And so one of the systems is called the conversion content. And the conversion Content System. And what we really need to look at when we're looking at our. The pieces that we're putting out together, is that they're really designed to do three main things. Attract a new group of audience that have never heard of you before. New people, new audience. The second is to grow and attract and connect and nurture prospects. So people who are just audience members, they're not necessarily a prospect until they've followed you, until they've opted in, until they've walked into your store and raised their hand and said, hey, I'm interested in potentially working with you. And you know, one of the things I'm super excited about for the accelerators that are coming either in early 2024 or this month, what we're doing is I actually have a really incredible guest who's coming to show us how we can grow these prospects without having them follow us. Because I think in the social media world, we get so. So we get so burdened or bogged down with this concept, this idea that we need to grow audience, we need likes, we need shares, and we're really. And people really often strive for those dopamine hits. But the problem that people face is that if you are focusing on popularity metrics that are not the same thing, what happens is people will focus on popularity metrics that are not the same as profitability metrics. You cannot take likes, comments, shares, and follows to the bank. That's why you need to have the third component of your conversion content, which is specifically designed to move them from prospects into purchasers. And your content, whether it's free, whether it's paid, whether it's short form, whether it's long form, is all designed to move people through that continuum, that content expansion experience, that messaging experience. And the best part is that the client or the prospect doesn't need to know that we're organizing it in a plan in a systematic way so that you get your time back. I promise, just to keep us on track, I'll break down the other systems that every single business needs. But for now, I want to just make sure that we are staying on track. And because this is important when it. Especially when we're talking about giving our best stuff away for free, because oftentimes this is said within the context of the content that we're putting out. And so there's a couple of things that we need to look at when we hear give away Your best stuff away for free. And there's two core things that we really need to look at when it comes to creation. Whether we're talking about free content, paid content, business building, we need to talk about two really key important factors. Number one, what is your relationship to selling? So what happens is people will say these off the cuff things like give away your best stuff for free otherwise and monetize another way. Or people here and feel things like why am I going to charge for this that they could get this for free. So this is a lot of things that come up when we hear things like make your free stuff so good that and better than people's paid stuff. So there's two things that we really have to unpack and look at here when it comes to looking at your business. And the first I've already mentioned, but that is your relationship to selling. If you do not have a healthy relationship to money and to selling, you will struggle in your business. I can hear my own coaching words in here is if you're going to make a claim like that, Beverly, you got to black. You got to, you got to back it up. You got to back back it up. And so how do I know that and why and what's causing me to say that? And. And there are two reasons that's causing me to say this is number one is that I know you didn't get into this business to be a charlatan. I know that you didn't get into this business to be sleazy, to be pushy, to, to sell lies, to, to make people feel bad about themselves. There's no way you could do this profession if that were true. Now the reason we fear it is because we have some context, we have some experience, which I'm talking about on Wednesday, the double edged sword of experience. But we have some evidence and experience that suggests to us that this can be true. We're living through that context of this could be true because either we have some experience or someone said something to us based on their experience. And as someone who has looked at hundreds, I'm not talking about a handful, I'm talking about a hundreds of sales conversation I have listened to. I can't even, I've lost track of how many sales conversations I have listened to over the 10 years. I know why people feel like selling is sleazy. Okay? Plus we have years of indoctrination in terms of our relationship to money. Feeling like there's not enough. Like we people, every people say, oh, you're greedy if you want More. I mean, there's just so many things to unpack when it comes to looking at your relationship to selling. And regardless of where you fall, the truth remains. You have the opportunity to shift your own perspective and relationship and break cycles to money. Because you are a business. And it is a business's responsibility to bring revenue into your business for no other purpose but to help and serve more people. Because I likely don't have to tell you that you can't pour from an empty cup. And if you're serving, for example, and if you're listening to this and you serve moms, how many times have you said to your moms, moms, you have to take care of yourself. You cannot. You have to put your oxygen mask on first so that you can help more people. The same thing is with money. It's a resource, and it's also a tool. And just like any other tool out there, look at a hammer. A hammer can break down a house and destroy it, as well as being essential to building it. So the tool itself is just an amplifier of who you already are. And money is the same thing. And so we need to look at our relationship to selling and to money itself and to asking for that energy and. And to asking for that resource. Because even if you became a charity and a nonprofit, the number one thing you would need to do is, is. Is raise money and raise resource, a collective sense of resources, money, and time. You need volunteers and you need money. So in order for us to really effectively have this conversation, we have to look at our relationship to money. And so now, in addition, and on the other side of the same coin, you've got people that say, oh, if people don't pay, they don't pay attention. That's true. There needs to be an energetic exchange of what's on the line for that person to say yes to themselves. However, it doesn't have to just be a money exchange. How many times have you asked someone to come to a call for free to get this free PDF to come do this challenge to come into your Facebook group to like a post that is all free, and I'm putting free in quotes because it's not free. It's your time and your time you can't get back. But it's free in the sense of there's no money exchanged, so your potential client needs to have enough on the line for them to say yes to themselves. So the first thing is, we can't have this conversation without truly looking at our relationship to monetization, to selling, and to Growing a business. The second thing that we need to look at when it comes to giving your best stuff away for free is that we really need to look at how your potential client evaluates and determines value. Because what we have to understand about this age is that we are no longer in an information age. Everything that we create, it's not about information, it's about the implementation and the fastest implementation, the speed of implementation to get to the desired outcome. The people who are the most successful are the ones that fully understand this and they can fully communicate on a subconscious level the problems that their client, that their dream client are in and the out in, in the context of the desired outcome that they want. Not what you want them to want, not what you want them to need or not what you want them to want, not what they think that they need and not what they need. It's what they want. And when you can communicate that and demonstrate, not just tell, demonstrate your expertise from the position of knowing you're an authority. And when you can communicate that and you're very clear on the value, the value proposition, or from, from the context of how a client evaluates what's valuable or determines what's valuable, you'll be golden. And you can make the impact and help the people that you want to make. And there are really five main things that people are looking at and thinking about when they're determining value, either on a conscious level or a subconscious level. We do it without even knowing it. People are so worried about being judged when the truth of the matter is we are judged out a hundred percent of the time. So the. And think about it. Whether we, we are judging someone by we love this or judging someone with I don't think that's for me. So the real question to ask yourself if you know that you're going to be judged a hundred percent of the time is isn't it more important to do what it is that you love than to spend your time focusing on the stuff that you know isn't going to help you or serve you? And if you don't believe me and you don't think we're being judged 100% of the time, go to Rotten Tomatoes and look up your favorite movie of all time. Even the Lion King has negative reviews on it. Which if you're anything like me, you're like, what? How can anybody hate that movie? Well, there are people out there that do. So it's not that it's a bad thing, it's more a question of where are you going to Put your intention and focus on. Are you going to focus on the people that said yes or the people who hate. So really, the five ways people really evaluate and determine value is they're looking at what is the desired outcome? What is it that they want? What is the belief in themselves that they can do it? What is the level of effort and sacrifice that they have to, that is required of them to get to the desired outcome? And then what does this speed of implementation to get to the desired outcome, all wrapped up in the actual experience of the process, that's really how they're determining value. And I have gone really deep on that in other podcasts, so I'm happy to link those up in the show. But for speed sake, I'm just scratching the surface to reiterate that concept about how people evaluate value in an effort to show you that your job is to communicate that the value is 10 times worth the asking investment, whether that investment is time free, email, real estate, or money exchange. And so this conversation is all in the context now of, well, then, how do we give our best stuff away for free? So the other the, you know, how do we give our stuff away for free and still get paid? Okay, so now that we've taken a look at our relationship to money, and then also we've taken a look at how people determine value, the next thing that we really need to look at is fully grasping the concept that we are no longer in an information age. Meaning if you are trying to sell information, here's how you do it, then you are likely going to struggle, because anybody could go to Google, they could go to podcasts, they could go to YouTube if they could figure it out, then learn the information themselves. So how then do we communicate and demonstrate the implementation component? Because it's not about information, it's about implementation and the speed of implementation to get to the desired outcome. So what we need to do, once we've looked at our relationship with selling and we know that we're a business and whatnot, you can give all of your best stuff away for free. All of it. Because what you really need to fully understand is that you are actually selling the speed of implementation to get to the desired outcome. Because remember, your people are in a problem, because if they could solve the problem, they would. And the example I always think about is the fact that I can speak to Americans specifically, which is that, you know, the fitness industry is a $1.2 billion industry, and yet the majority of Americans, 88% of them, are metabolically inflexible so it begs the question, if information was the only thing that people needed and information was abundant, why do so many people struggle? And hopefully this is also a call to your heart, to your soul, to know that you can trust the desires of your heart and go all in on you. Because I don't know about you, but it comes up for me. What comes up for me is why would someone listen to me when so and so is so much better at this than me. They're farther along than me, They've got a bigger so and so than me. They make more money than me, they have looked more shredded than me, they seem healthier than me. They've got a bigger transformation story than I do. Whatever that nonsense and noise is that comes into your mind, this is a call to remind you that if they were really meant to serve your people, then why are your people still struggling? And what would it look like if you could just go all in on the desires of your heart, knowing. Knowing that you're meant to do this, otherwise the desires of your heart wouldn't be given to you. You would be listening to this podcast, wondering and dreaming of being a kindergarten teacher. And I'm so grateful that my teachers want to be kindergarten, first grade, second grade teachers, because I sure as heck do not. So what happens to a lot of struggling people when they are like, oh, when they are bound by their money stories or they're feeling uncomfortable selling us, they're like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna over, I'm just gonna give everything away. I'm gonna tell them what to do and blah blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah. And then what happens to their client is their client actually might even feel overwhelmed. And for me, overwhelm shows up in three core ways. There's too much to do. I don't even know where to start. There's too much to do and there's not enough time in my day to get it done or there's too much to do and I'm never going to get there. And sometimes when we just bombard our clients with information like that, they start to feel like, oh, I can't do it. So we have to inspire. Or we get to inspire them to take one small action that will have a compounding effect.

Bird by bird.

It's a book on writing. But the story of how that name was called always reminds me of this experience. So when you give away your stuff for free like that and you information dump with without building competence because that's how you build confidence. Confidence in your client that oh, this person knows what they're doing. That's how you deepen the sense of trust. But not trust in you as a person. Trust in you that your offer can do what it says that it could do. And when you build a profitable sales system, a profile pressure free permission based sales system that takes what it takes until it takes, you no longer have to worry or think about the time that it takes to deepen that sense of trust. Because it's not about you, that is about your client. And some people it takes a minute, some people takes an hour, some people it takes years. And it's not for you to decide that. It's for you to continue to show up and demonstrate not telling, demonstrate your expertise and your competence in doing what it is that you're saying that you could do. And you're not going to be able to do that for a long period of time if you are not. If you don't have the resources, time, energy, effort and money. So by all means, of course give your best, best, best stuff away for free. Just know that it is in context to taking the next step. It's to remind you that you are not selling information, you are selling and communicating the speed of implementation to get to the desired outcome. And it doesn't have to be expensive. There are so many accessible ways for people to have their transformation. Look at Disney. Netflix memberships are excellent components. And what I like to teach my accelerators is how they can really maximize low ticket offers so that they to move them into high ticket because you really need an offer stack, you need free stuff, you need accessible stuff and you need high ticket premium stuff. So what happens to people when they just information dump and that there's no clear path to go into the next step. They run the risk of overwhelming their clients client and then their client doesn't take action and then it starts to break a sense of trust and oh, this process doesn't work for me. So instead by all means give your best stuff away for free of course. But we also want to create the gap. What is the next problem? So it's either going to solve the first problem and then what's the next problem that your course or program or your coaching is going to fix? The next thing that you can do is expose the real problem. So this is shifting perspective. A lot of people are operating from mistakes and misconceptions. So what's the real problem that they're in? So that's providing clarity. The next thing that you could do is give them the first win and then show them how much farther they could go faster when they take the next step. That's what we want to be doing with all of your stuff that you're creating. So hopefully this was helpful for you. Thank you for hanging out with me today. If you if you enjoyed this episode, it would be a huge favor to me if you would screenshot it. Share with me in the SocialSimpsonFitness DM me. Tell me what your big takeaways were. Would love to hear from you. I love to connect with you. This show has been a pleasure and a privilege to create and so I want to help you and help more of you faster. So when you share this episode it helps me help more people. So thanks so much for hanging out with with me today. I'll catch you in the next episode.

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