The Truth About Why Your Content Isn’t Converting Into Sales

Hello, hello. Welcome back to the Thriving Therapreneur podcast. I'm your host Carly Hill, and oh my gosh, I'm excited about today's episode. I feel like this is one that's gonna hit home for so many of you, and I can feel it in my bones because it's something that I get asked all the time. And listen, if you're brand new here, with welcome arms I open you. This show is for big-hearted, high-achieving, ambitious wellness professionals, therapists, coaches, You wanna go all in, all in on life, all in, in business. And I just couldn't be more honored to be in your earbuds today as we dive into a two-part series. So today is part one, little heads up, a two-part series for someone who's been consistently struggling with getting clients. That's what I'm gonna talk about in part one and part two. So part one is gonna be the diagnosis. Why you're not getting consistent clients, even when you're doing all the things. We're gonna get really honest about what's going on under the hood of your business. And then next week is gonna be part 2, so make sure you are subscribed so you don't miss next week's episode. In part 2, I'm gonna bring you the prescription after we diagnose. Then I'm gonna give you a full cash injection marketing plan with the exact tangible action steps that you can take to start generating leads, actually booking consistent consult calls, and creating momentum now so that you can have now money in your business. Not later money, not someday money. No, you need clients and cash flow into your business now, or you wouldn't be listening to this episode, right? So first off, I need you to get really honest with yourself and with me. Are you posting consistently on social media? Yes or no? Consistently. Are you showing up consistently or are you at least trying to show up consistently? How about your consult calls? Are those consistent? Are you maybe just getting a consult call here and there and you're on what I call this revenue rollercoaster? If that is the case, I can take a guess that you have probably thought to yourself, Oh, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Oh, maybe my niche is just not landing and people don't want this. Maybe it's my offer, or is something wrong with me? Like, why is this working for everyone else, but it's not working for me? What does everybody know that I don't know? And again, that leads you down this path of, am I really cut out for this? And I want you to hear me loud and clear because I've been down that path myself and I have thought all of those things. It's probably not your effort. You're probably doing the right things, or maybe you're just not doing them consistently, or maybe you're missing a few of the right things that you need to do. But I want you to know that you're not broken. Your business is not broken. What's broken is your system. You need the correct art and science way of marketing to equal conversions. And I'm gonna talk a lot about that in part 2, like the tactical tangible things that I want you to be doing, but we're uncovering things slowly. Okay? We're uncovering things today and then we're gonna put things into action in part 2. Why your content isn't converting, even if it looks good. There is a difference between pulling in leads and actually nurturing the leads. Most people miss the nurturing piece. People are skipping the step. Entirely. They're just so focused on new followers and comments and vanity metrics and this vague messaging that you may or may not have. It's quietly killing your consistency. So here's what I see all the time, and I seriously mean all of the time. Coaches and therapists, they come to me saying, Carly Hill, I'm posting, I'm showing up, but Nothing is happening. And then when I look at their content, it looks great. It's valuable, it's educational. They're giving a gold nugget. Yay. It's consistent. However, I can see the problem. What is it? There's no bridge. There's no next step. So let me explain what I mean. You can have the most beautiful, valuable educational content in the world, but if there's no clear path from that content to an actual conversation that leads to a consult call, you're just broadcasting into the void. Think about it like this. You know how I always say, or if you're new to my world, you will learn this very quickly. I always say that trust builds conversations and conversations equal conversions. That's not just a cute quote. This is the reality. That's literally the formula for getting clients consistently. I'm gonna repeat that. Okay? Because if you take anything from this episode, take this: trust builds conversations, and conversations equal conversions. That's the formula. So your content needs to do more than just educate. It needs to move people somewhere. It needs to take somebody from, oh wow, that's interesting, or oh wow, she's speaking to me, to Wait, I need to know more. What is this that she's offering? Let me raise my hand to, oh, I'm taking the next step and I would love to have a conversation and book a call with her and/or her wingwoman. That is a journey. That's a client journey. You need to be very intentional about designing this client journey. Posting on social media is the very first baby step to getting a paying client. So you need to ask yourself right now, if somebody found your content today for the very first time, cold, okay? And you wanna go to sold, cold to sold. They've never heard of you. What is the path that they would take from that piece of content, that very first piece of content to actually getting on a consult call with you? Is there a clear next step? Do you have lead magnets? Is there a clear call to action? Is there a DM invite? Is there a conversation happening somewhere intentionally along this client journey? Most people don't have clear call to actions, and believe it or not, people need to be told exactly what to do. I'm talking exactly what code word to type in if you're using a ManyChat automation. Okay, exactly where to click and what to click and when they need to click it by, because What bonuses are gonna expire by X date? They need to be reminded again, over and over and over again. If you are not repeating yourself, you're not saying it enough. So many people are afraid that they're being annoying or they're too much. Listen, if you're not repeating yourself, you are not saying it enough. So if you can't answer that question clearly, like what is the next step? What is the client journey? This is your first gap. You need to lay out the exact client journey. You need to know the touchpoints that lead your potential client to a conversation, which would then lead to a consult call and hopefully a conversation. And every piece of content that you create, it should have a purpose inside of that client journey. That content that you create for a cold audience, that's gonna look completely different from. Somebody who is in the nurture phase. Okay. That content that you create for somebody in the nurture phase, that's gonna be much more in depth. Your call to action is gonna be different. Okay. Your call to action should reflect where the person is in the process. I always compare this to dating. You're not just gonna meet somebody at the gym and ask them for their hand in marriage. You gotta get their phone number first, then you gotta go on a few dates. Maybe date for a few years, then you can propose, right? So your call to action would be different in marketing as well. You wouldn't go straight for the kill and go cold stranger, hey, buy my shit. No, that would be weird, right? Just as it would be weird to ask for marriage prematurely. You need to have some sort of exchange first. They need to trust you for the email exchange to even happen. Okay, then once they're on their email list and that exchange happens, you guys need to date for a little while. They need to read quite a few of your things. Maybe they need to watch some of your live trainings that you're doing. Then your call to actions can be different where you're even gonna invite them to get on a Zoom call with you. Just a casual shoot the shit call, a no pressure call, just to see if it even makes sense working together. You see how this client journey is? Is unfolding. So when I work with clients, this is one of the very first things that we map out is that actual client journey, because without it, you're just posting and praying. You're just posting, praying, crossing your fingers and toes, and it's not a strategy. It's a hope and pray. We don't want that. We wanna post with intention and strategy to get a paying client. And this is why a lot of people feel like social media is a chore. Because they're doing it without intention and strategy, and they are posting into the void. It's not a chore when it's working, and social media is the best way to make money online, and it's free, and it's so easy if you just have the blueprint to follow. Okay, so let's say you do have some people in your world. Maybe they follow you on Instagram, maybe they're in your Facebook group, they downloaded your freebie. X amount of months ago, they're on your email list, they opted in. Here's the next question: are you nurturing them? So many people only focus on top of funnel, and then they're not focusing on the nurturing phase. Pulling leads in and nurturing them are two completely different things. And I see so many coaches again, just focusing on attraction, getting new eyeballs, growing their following, and they're completely neglecting the people who are already in their world, and already warming up to them, which are the hotter leads. The people who have been lurking on your page for 3 months or watching your stories or reading your post, they're there, they're watching you, and you never know who's watching you. They're just not ready yet. And the reason they're not ready yet is because the trust hasn't been fully built yet, rightfully so. And I want you to sit with this for a second because This data changes the way that you're gonna think about social media marketing or email marketing, marketing in general. On average, I want you to write this down, put it on a sticky note and look at it every single day and remind yourself this, okay? On average, it takes 7 to 11 hours of somebody consuming your content and 8 to 12 touchpoints before they're ready to buy. Let that sink in. 7 to 11 hours, 8 to 12 touchpoints. So that one post that you spent an hour crafting, that's not going to convert them. That one email that you sent, not going to convert them. That one conversation you had in the DMs, not gonna convert them. It's not, not on its own. None of those things are wasted though. They all count towards the total, but none of them alone are going to close the deal. And when the coaches don't understand this, they post once, they get no response, and then they think, ugh, this isn't working. And then they disappear. And then they go down that mindset drama spiral of they're not cut out for this, comparisonitis, yada yada. And then they've reset the whole entire clock. And then the potential clients who were gonna work with them, they go to work with somebody else because you didn't follow up. Fortune is in the follow-up. And I think that this is the point that most people miss completely, and it's the one that hit me hard when I first heard it. People tend to buy from the last 3 people who stayed in their world. Not the best coach, not the most qualified coach, not the coach with the fanciest website or the most followers, No, the most present coach who cared to follow up and have a conversation, the one who kept showing up, who stayed top of mind, the one who was still there on a random Tuesday when that person finally decided, okay, I'm ready, and shit was hitting the fan in their life, and they're like, I'm doing this— you were top of mind, hopefully, okay? Because You chose to be consistent and follow up because your next client, they are very likely already in your world. They're just still warming up. And the only question is whether you're still gonna be there when they're ready. When I'm talking to my clients about this, I always make an example out of this. So I'll be on a coaching call with like 20 clients, for example, and somebody will come to me and be like, ugh, Carly, like You know, I have all these people in my Facebook group, or I'm having these conversations, or people are opting into my lead magnet, but nobody's buying yet. And I say, I need everybody to do me a favor. Raise your hand if you were a silent lurker in my world for 6 months to a year. 90% of the room raises their hand. They just weren't ready to buy yet. They didn't trust me enough yet. It took them more than 7 to 11 or 8 to 12 times. It took them more than 20 touchpoints. This is also where testimonials and case studies become your absolute currency. It's one of the best things— I cannot stress this enough— that you can do in your business. When I think about what's gonna move people from a warm lead to a hot lead, it's going to be social proof. It's them seeing someone just like them got a result with you. This is gonna shortcut the process. So if you're not actively collecting testimonials, sharing client wins, telling transformational stories, I'm talking weekly, multiple times a week, you need to start today. This is gold. And if you don't have coaching clients yet, then get character testimonials. Guaranteed you're the go-to friend. You've helped family members. Okay, who can speak to your character? And the best way to get testimonials is to ask. You quite literally have to ask your clients, hey, can you do me a favor? They're gonna tell you something amazing that happened. Hey, do you mind if you actually type that up in an email and send it to me? I would love to capture that, and my intention behind this is to show other people who were in the position that you were in just a few short months ago. I wanna show them that this is possible for them. We can keep it anonymous, or if you wanna share your name, that's cool too. Okay? It can be as simple as that, but this is what's going to build trust and create conversions. I wanna add one more thing here. Your nurturing strategy needs to include email marketing. I know everybody wants to talk about social media marketing, and that is important, but your email list is an asset that you own. Social media could go away tomorrow. Algorithm doesn't touch email marketing. Email marketing keeps you in front of your audience in a way that Instagram, it simply cannot. If you are not actively building your email list and/or nurturing your email list, that's another gap that you need to look at, and we need to fine-tune your email marketing strategy. The third point that I wanna talk about is messaging, because everything comes down to this. If your messaging is too vague, you will fall on deaf ears. If I had to point to the single biggest reason coaches don't get consistent clients, it's absolutely their messaging. It's not a marketing problem. It's not an offer problem. It's not a niche problem. It's just messaging. And I know you've heard me say this before. But if you're speaking to everybody, you're speaking to no one. Let's go a little deeper on this because I think that this could be misunderstood. Vague messaging doesn't mean you haven't picked a niche. It means that your content is not creating urgency. We're not fusing sales psychology. It means that somebody could just scroll past your post and not feel immediately seen, not feel immediately understood, not feel immediately like, oh my gosh, she's talking to me. I need to consume more of this. Here's the standard I hold for my clients. Your ideal client should read your content and feel like you bugged their house. Like you somehow got into their private journal. Like you were a fly on the wall when they were venting to a best friend at 11:00 PM about this exact problem. This is the level of specificity that we're going for, because here's what happens when your messaging hits that level. People don't need much convincing. The right offer to the right person with the right message converts without you having to twist anybody's arm. You shouldn't have to convince them. That's not true selling anyways. That's not noble selling. They're already sold before they get on a call with you, just because of your messaging is speaking exactly to what they're going through. But when your messaging is vague, I call it flowery. Okay? It's flowery messaging. It's full of coaching industry buzzwords. It's full of ChatGPT AI slop. You're gonna create confusion and confused people do not buy. You have to be solving a persistent, painful problem, a persistent, painful, urgent problem. I must add, it can't be a nice to have. In their life. It can't be a, wouldn't it be lovely if? That type of problem isn't going to make you money. Okay? If your ideal client is desperately, urgently, actively looking for a solution, then you have a viable marketable niche that passes the high ticket test, and your messaging needs to reflect that. Clear, specifically in the exact language your ideal client uses to describe their own struggle. That's when the consistency starts to happen because your content starts doing the heavy lifting for you. So let's bring this all together. If you are struggling to get consistent clients, I want you to look at 3 things. One, do you have a clear, intentional client journey that creates a path from your content, just posting, to then getting an email address, getting that exchange like we talked about, getting a phone number and dating? That then leads to some sort of conversation? Maybe it's a consult call, maybe it's a DM conversation before that. Or are you just posting and hoping and posting educational content and your call to actions are hit or miss? Sometimes they're specific, sometimes it's like super passive. I, I'm here if you need me. Or are you telling them exactly what they need to do? So that's number one. Do you have a clear, intentional client journey? Number 2 is, are you actively nurturing the people already in your world, or are you only focusing on top of funnel? Are you building trust through consistency, testimonials, showing up with proof that you're a real coach and you get people real results? Number 3, is your messaging specific enough to create urgency, or is it too broad that the right person could just scroll past it without feeling like, oh my gosh, they need this now. Consistency in clients does not come from working harder and hustling and grinding. It comes from working smarter. I want you to be more intentional with what you're creating. Of course, you need to have a clear niche, and yes, you need to have powerful messaging. We talked about that. And a strategy that is intentionally designed to build trust and move people forward. We have to fix the system. That's what's gonna get you more clients. All right, so if this episode hit home for you, I have a feeling that it did. I want you to first share this episode with somebody else, and then number two, make sure you are subscribed so that you can tune in for next week because part two is where we're getting tangible and tactical, and I'm pulling back the curtains and I'm gonna give you the full visibility, lead generation, how to go live, how to create lead magnets, this whole cash injection framework. And it is packed. I'm literally gonna record this now for you. And then third, if you don't wanna wait until next week, if any of this is speaking to you and you're like, Carly, I'm ready to get support now. I am just, You know, beyond over this waiting phase, and I know I'm sitting on a gold mine. Well, this is the exact work that I do day in and day out, 365 days a year. This is what we do inside of my mentorship. We diagnose your business, we fix the gaps, we build the system that gets you consistent clients. So if you're curious, send a DM on Instagram. I'm @carlyhillcoaching, or check out the show notes for different ways that we can work together. I will see you next week.