The Power of Workshops | Increase Clients & Revenue

All right, we are live with another YouTube Hangout Strategy Fantasy Sesh number 14 with Jennifer Price, the Fantasy Copywriter. Jen, welcome back.

Thank you. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. I like your new background. It's super cool.

Yeah, I guess since the last one we did, now there's a new background. Have I told you the thing with the Nina story here? Have you heard that one yet?

I don't think I've heard that yet.

Oh, okay, so this is my background. The idea is when I walk in, I'm inspired and there's, you know, all these people looking at me and everybody has their own kind of story as to why they're up there.

Right, right.

This is Nina and Hayden. So my computer's set up like this and then I have a spot right here where I usually keep their picture.

Okay.

So that while I'm working, like, I don't see these guys while I'm working, right? Yeah. So I can see Nina and Hayden while I'm working. That's just where his usual spot is. But Nina gets upset that her picture is not in the shot when I'm doing Hangouts. So I have to adjust so that during Hangouts it goes here, and then—

I love it.

There, so.

That's awesome. So do you move it back so that when you— because when you're working, you want to be able to see them, right?

Exactly. No, I move it back. But then Thursdays, I have to move it here just so that we do the Hangout. And also when I do the— I do a morning YouTube thing with Marisha, with Rishi Kheb TV, playing League of Legends. And so I have to move it back in for that. So constantly on the move between the two spots.

That's awesome. I did not know that you did that with Rishi. I did not know you did League of Legends with her. Are you kidding me?

Yeah, Wednesday and Friday morning we do a stream. And we answer questions while I play League of Legends.

Oh my god, that's awesome. Does she play too, or does she— is she just on a call with you?

No, yeah, she doesn't play. She, she, she, uh, moderates the stream, and then she asks the questions and then also answers some of the questions.

So, okay, yeah, cool. Awesome.

Yeah, it's fun. It's good. It's a test. It's a new test. I like experimenting.

Yeah, yeah, me too.

Uh, so it's been a while. May was our last, our last call, number 13. What's that? What's the quick update? What's been going on?

Um, let's see. Well, since May I have continued doing some workshops. I think I did my first workshop last time we talked. So I've done 2 more since then and I've had like a 400% increase in my attendance because I think the first one I only had 1 person come, which was, which was totally great, right? That's, we got to start somewhere and she hired me. So that was great. And then I had 2 more and I've had 4 people at each of those. And so that's been great. And I know one of the suggestions you made was to introduce at those workshops how people could continue to work with me. And so I have done that. Um, and that's been really great too. And I've also offered to help them, um, continue writing their pages because what I'm doing is I'm helping them either write an about page or a sales page. And so that's been working out great too. Um, it's been a great reason to follow up with them and then help them out and I show them what I do and my skills. And that kind of thing. Cool.

Have any of the other ones led to sales?

They haven't led to sales yet, but they— but the other thing I've done is I've sent feedback to them, you know, via survey to get feedback from them. And, and at both of the most recent ones, they suggested that they really felt like one workshop wasn't enough, that they, you know, they got late, they didn't realize how intense it was, right? And that they would love to be able to do more. So I might— so I might— that's the whole goal, right? To show them how much work that goes into writing it. But I think a lot of them do want to write on their own. So I think I may consider doing some kind of a series or a two-part thing. Um, you know, I'm thinking about that because that is definitely feedback that I got.

This is a free workshop, right? You're putting on—

it's not free. Um, I offer it, um, it's super cheap. I offer it for $40 per person, um, and then I offer a discount to people who are in my networking groups.

So $40 for how long, an hour or two hours? Two hours. $40 for two hours.

Okay.

Yeah, not bad. And then in May you were talking about workshops with Connectors. Are you— how are you promoting these workshops?

Well, right now I'm promoting them primarily through— I have 3 different networking groups that I belong to. And so I'm putting— I created a little mini sales page for them and I put it up on their Facebook pages. And then I've also been just putting it out on people that I know who I think might wanna come. I've considered putting it into my mailing list or maybe on my Much Facebook page. The problem is, they're local workshops, and so my Much Facebook page actually is primarily, most people that are on that are actually outside of the Portland area. Yeah. Yeah, so I've actually considered, that's one of the things I was thinking about doing actually. I think you saw on Mouse From My Group how bummed I was about Blab going away. Right. One of the things I was thinking about doing was doing little mini workshops workshops once a week on Blab, just so that anyone and everyone could kind of get benefit from that, and kind of for free, maybe not quite as intense as I do in these 2-hour workshops, because there wouldn't be enough time to really get into it, but you know, a good way to kind of introduce the subject and let them know what I do. But unfortunately, Blab's going away, so I'm considering what might be to replace that. I might do it on YouTube Live, or I don't know, I might see what Blab's gonna do too.

We'll see how the whole YouTube thing shapes out too, because they're getting rid of that.

Yeah.

And so we'll see because I use Hangouts all the time, so we'll see what that ends up becoming, how to bring people in.

Yeah.

I think your best bet— I mean, what you're looking at— I mean, it's great that you're making a little bit of money at least now, so you got like, you know, $40 times 4 people, you know, to take your time there for the night.

It basically just covers my cost because I just have to pay for a room and, you know, snacks. I mean, it's basically for free. you know, but—

Right. Yeah. I like playing in either the free or the high value, right? Where like I'm getting paid a lot and you use the free to filter out the people who want to go to the next step.

Yeah.

So what you do is basically free, right? 'Cause you're not making money on it. I think it's much more now about trying to get the right target audience to come in.

Right?

So you don't want people who want to become copywriters unless you have some kind of coaching program or training program where you can teach them and earn more money doing that as well. Um, so understanding the point of the series, because if you're getting feedback saying, hey, we want more, like, that was really intense, we want more, uh, like, you may not want to do more if that's not your business model, right? If you're not trying to attract writers, you're trying to attack business people who don't want to write.

Yep.

And maybe the focus shouldn't be expanding the course to do a part 2 or part 3.

Yes, I totally agree. That's exactly what my thought was too. It was like, really, it's really meant to show them that it's intense. So if they want to continue doing it on their own, they have— I give them a lot of intense materials so they can do it on their own. But you're right, like, that's not probably the person I want to attract. Most of these people aren't necessarily writers, but they're just newer business owners that might just want to pay for— they don't want to pay for a writer right now because they can't afford it or whatever. And so they're they're wanting to write their own page. Um, one of the things I've sort of, you know, encourage them to do is to hire me as a consultant so that they can still do the writing and they, I could give them feedback on their writing. Um, and that way it doesn't take as much time for me to do the writing itself, but to consult with them on an ongoing basis. Um, I think that might make more sense because then they can afford it. And, um, and it also helps, helps them establish their brand a little bit better and the messaging behind their brand. Over a longer term, and then it's worth it for me. If, you know, if someone's willing to pay me a consulting fee for a couple hours a month, you know, for 6 months, then it's totally worth it for me. So I think that's a better route than, than having a longer workshop series. I totally agree.

I would also see if they're open to doing it as a live coaching session like this, right? Public, where it's going to go to YouTube, because that also benefits— it benefits them and they get some exposure if they're willing to share you know, what's going on, but it also helps you build content to try to attract other people who want to get advice on how to— like, it's, it's still a lot of free stuff that a lot of people will come and will just consume and hopefully help them with their business and maybe earn a little bit of ad dollars off of it, but helps become a funnel for people again who look at that and say, wow, that's a ton of work, I don't want to do that, can I just hire Jen to help me?

Yeah. I love that idea. That's actually kind of what I was thinking about with the Blab thing. So maybe, yeah, maybe it's just a one-on-one thing instead. Yeah, I'll think about that. That's, that's a great idea. And then I wouldn't have to pay for the room fee either, so I could actually even offer a lot less money, right?

So yeah, and if you're getting, if you're getting paid for it too, you're getting paid for your time, um, how we position is, is good for them, it's good for their business. Uh, you can also start getting some feedback from people watching and getting their opinions and their advice and ideas, and you can you can rally your community around saying, hey, you know, this Thursday I'm doing a session with Jill and we're going to talk about her business. Come and give feedback. And so the way I always approach it is I don't, I don't ask for permission on it. Like, hey, would you mind if I did this thing? Because then it makes it look like it's a favor to you, right? Or position it as where it still is. It is good for you, but I position it as being good for them in that I like to do it this way. I want to give you more exposure. I want to give you some live real-time feedback on what you're doing, both from myself and from the live audience that we'll bring. Even if like 2 people show up, it's still some feedback. And it helps them grow too as an entrepreneur to be able to, you know, be on camera and practice being vulnerable. Some people will absolutely hate it and won't want to do it, but it'll surprise you how many people who would take, like I've never had anybody turn it down. Anytime somebody wants to interview me or for their podcast or for their, if it's a YouTuber, it's easy 'cause they're used to YouTube, but podcasters or people writing an article or somebody who wants mentorship, I've always said, let's just do it as a Google Hangout and I'm happy to promote you to my audience and we'll get some live feedback. And they've always— some of them have been really scared. Like, this is my first time going on camera. Oh my God, I'm live.

Yeah, totally.

But, you know, they need a little bit of handholding through that process. Like, don't worry, you'll be fine. You know, we'll just walk through it. You'll be great. So I've never had anybody say no. And that helps me build up, you know, content for my channel too, but also helps give them exposure to the audience. So, yeah, I would— whether it's free or ideally it's a paid session, I would look at trying to make that into a live event. So you have content for your channel too. Even if you're doing your workshops, I'd love it to be filmed.

Right.

So you have content for your channel. Thinking back to the strategies of workshops, you know, the idea is we want to get ideal clients coming in there, and your ideal client is a business owner, is an entrepreneur?

Yeah, it's an entrepreneur who— I mean, probably the most ideal client is somebody who's got, you know, a couple of of employees and they're doing, and they need help because they're doing some kind of a launch of some kind, whether it's like an online, you know, course or they're doing something where they need, you know, help writing a page on their website about it to get sales.

Right, so I would start looking at who was already dealing with these people, like maybe it's not your networking groups, maybe those people are just solo entrepreneurs and they love the idea but they can't afford your services, which is very real. Right?

Yeah, totally.

They'll pay $40 for a couple hours and maybe a consulting gig here or there, but it's not really the kind of client that you want to bring on and build your business around, right? Looking at who is dealing with these kinds of ideal clients and how can this be something that they can do for their clients. Um, so as an example, there's a, a local SEO company here who built his business by partnering up with business coaches.

Okay.

Business coaches in the area, and they have enough budget to hire a business coach. So it's not right now. It might be a pure startup, but still is a pure startup that has enough money to hire a business coach. And they would do a free workshop for all of the clients of the business coach. So the business coach would then go out and say, hey, you know, I've got this SEO expert coming to talk about SEO for your company. It's a free event on me as my, you know, appreciation for you guys as little clients. Let's meet up at, you know, whatever their office or some location. And so he used that to hop around to different business coaches. And it was value-add for the business coach to be able to provide that to their clients as a free service. So, you know, if you can get into a room of 20 ideal clients, right, people who have the budget, people who have a need, there's a good chance you're going to land, you know, at least one sale coming out of there. So it's more about finding those people who can be good connectors for you. Yeah, whether it's business coaches or accountants or lawyers or website design companies, if they're talking about landing pages, they'll need some copy. SEO companies, anybody who's working with these entrepreneurs. Maybe there's already some within your networking group that you can, yeah, instead of just trying to target the people in the group, maybe targeting their, the people that they work with, right, clients or people that they work with. Exactly. And so if you could do some of those, if you can do a couple of those workshops a month, you'll quickly end up having a pretty full stable of Yeah, cool.

I like that idea. Especially website developers are a great target because they obviously work with people who, you know, they're working doing website work for people. So even people, because a lot of times too they do work on a project-by-project basis, but maybe offer them some kind of incentive for referring me to it for a workshop.

Yeah, you, you could. Some, some people, I think you want to approach it to make sure that they know it's not just gonna be a hard sales pitch.

Right.

You're not just gonna go in and try to sell their clients, 'cause they're putting it as, hey, here's some value add. Thank you for being my client. I'm bringing in Jen to talk to us about how to write better copy for your website and business.

Yeah.

So I think if people have the need, they'll naturally want to talk to you about it and you can explain the next steps. Some people are very money-oriented and then will wanna see some kind of kickback or commission. Others aren't and doing it because they want to provide the value. And that could be off-putting. Like, no, I'm bringing you in to provide value, not to sell my clients.

Right, right.

So you just wanna, like, you know, play that by ear.

Okay.

Website developers would be an interesting choice. Yes, there's a strategic fit. You could also be their competitor depending on—

Right.

The company. Copy is a part of their business. They use copywriters. Sometimes they do it in-house. Sometimes they outsource.

Yeah, I found a lot of them do outsource, but they do have their preferred people. But one of the things I have noticed is a lot of them like to not have the copywriter work directly with the client, almost like an agency, which I don't really prefer. I don't really necessarily want to work with those web developers because I think it's so important that I work directly with the client. So I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, they do kind of, they might consider me a competitor. I wouldn't because I don't want to design websites. I don't have, you know, I wouldn't form a threat to them of any kind, but I get sometimes they just for control reasons, they want to control the situation, so.

Yeah, it's more that they, you know, you don't do all of their services, but you do one of theirs, right?

Right, right.

They sell copy and you sell copy. That's a competitive situation. You may be able to work out a deal where you, Like, if talking to the client is important, obviously, for you to get to know them and create the best experience and best result. Yeah, you could also sign a, like, a one-year—

yeah, like some sort of, like, agreement that I won't contact them for other projects.

Yeah, right. And, and, or if, like, anything that comes to— anything that comes has to go through them for one year or whatever. Um, and I would put some kind of timeline on it, but I'd be willing to offer that up to the agencies because at the end of the day they want to provide the best, well they should, want to provide the best result to their client, one that works.

Yeah.

And if you have a process on how to get that and it needs to come from talking to the client directly, I get the fear, I get the fear you're just going to poach clients, right? You know, the website development business is highly competitive and, uh, you know, they want, they don't want you poaching a client and then even if it's only for the copy, but then it could be like, oh, you know what, there's these other website guys who are really good too, you should go with them. Right, now they've lost.

Totally. Well, they like the control too, I think. I think it's more a matter of— and sometimes they'll upcharge it, or, or even if they don't upcharge it, they want to control the cost for their client, make it really low. So they have this, like, they might say, okay, I'm developing your website for you, and you know, this will include the copy. And then they want to, like, you know, they want me to bid low because they want to keep it under a certain control cost, which doesn't make sense to the client if it's not gonna be good enough.

So yeah. Yeah, and a lot of agencies don't respect the subcontractors enough and want you to underbid. I mean, I think the pricing, the payment will still likely go through the SEO company, the website company. Yeah, you could be fine with that. Say, hey, you guys invoice, I'll invoice you, and then you invoice them. There's a lot of companies that start off that way doing those kinds of partnerships and then just end up finding their own clients because it's a more ideal situation. Yeah. So what, you know, it really depends on the personality of the people who own that business. If they see you as value add or if they just see you as a, you know, piece of meat, you know, like, hey, another copywriter, another copywriter.

Right, right.

Some people really value it and some people don't.

So yeah, I agree.

So it's one avenue worth looking at, but I'd also be looking at who else is is selling to your ideal client base, business coaches, accountants, lawyers, anybody who's working with entrepreneurs. Again, like hyper-local to your area so you can go in and make a presentation, maybe film it if there's an opportunity, but really this is kind of lead generation to help you get some ideal clients for yourself.

Yeah, and I also plan to sort of leverage it. I mean, I think I like the idea of filming it just if nothing else for feedback for myself, but I also, you know, really do want to develop an online course of some kind. And so my thinking, you know, was I can— this is kind of repurposed material that I can use to develop an online course for other people that I can sell online then. So it's not even just workshop, but that it provides another source of revenue for me.

Sure, I would look at— I would look at that, especially doing the $20 one or the $40 ones, or if you're gonna do some free ones, you can do some coaching or consulting. And do those in the live Hangout sessions. There's a possibility of doing it when you're working with— like if you work with a business coach and he's bringing 20 of his clients in, my focus would be on giving those 20 people insane value and not necessarily worrying about videotaping it.

Yeah, I totally agree with that, yeah.

Right? Because that, you know, you get one good client out of that, that's—

Yeah.

That's a good meal ticket for the next, you know, good chunk of time. Yeah. So I would be looking up, you know, like type in Portland business coach and see who's coming up and maybe even help them, like give them a couple ideas for their website of what they might be able to do, how they explain themselves, so it kind of demonstrates your value of what you can provide. Yeah, it's hard because a lot of entrepreneurs, like the ideal clients that you're looking for, they don't go to networking events, right? For the most part, you know, it's herding cats. Like, they're too busy running their business. Most of the people who go to networking events are super early stage or haven't started yet. Um, and so it's really hard to get any kind of ideal client out of that. Um, there are other groups too, like, um, there's Tech, The Entrepreneurs, The Entrepreneur Community, Tech, uh, YPO. I don't know how many of them are based in where you're at. These guys might be bigger, like multi-million dollar businesses, right? Uh, I think YPO was $8 or $10 million minimum revenue. But so, I mean, they have the budget to be able to afford Right. So you help them with their company. It's worth looking into the different groups and organizations and like I would, I would just spend a half a day doing research on everybody in Portland who's connecting with entrepreneurs and then figure out how you can get on their radar and do a free event for their clients. Try to line up 3 or 4 or 5 of those. And if you've already done it a couple times, you got like the flow of what you're going to say and what resonates, and then I think it's like you want everybody walking out feeling like there was a lot of value there, and you're naturally gonna get people who want to come and work with you.

Yeah, yeah, no, I know exactly what you're saying. I think that's part of why I was doing these workshops too, just to kind of get practice for other events. Another reason is obviously to repurpose that material. That's, I mean, that is one of the challenges for me as a business owner, and I'm sure you can relate, you know, or come across other people who understand this, is I think people really wanna work with people they know, like, and trust, right? That they know you. I do a lot better, obviously, if I'm face-to-face with somebody. But like you said, a lot of my, and that's one of the reasons why I started going to networking events, but a lot of the, 'cause a lot of the people who really are my target are really online. They're online entrepreneurs who are launching courses or launching products online and selling things online. And so reaching those people with a cold call or email isn't always super effective 'cause they don't really know, they don't know me from Adam. It's just getting— it's getting into, into those networks. And so I like your idea of looking at other organizations because maybe there's other groups both online and here locally that have more of those kinds of entrepreneurs as members.

Yeah, and like every entrepreneur has a website, every entrepreneur needs copy for their website, for their store, for their product descriptions, for their resume, you know, like if they're going out and speaking, they may need to update their bio. Like there's a lot of different things that people could use. Like, every entrepreneur needs copy in their business, right? Um, it's probably the fastest way to get you— like, as much as I love YouTube and all of that, it's probably the fastest way to get you a stable of clients that are paying the bills and helping you, right, give you some breathing room. Um, YouTube is people who are searching for it and, uh, you know, hoping that one of them becomes, right, your client. Most people will never pay for anything or ever want to contact you, right? Right. That's just the nature of the game. But here you have people who are, um, I think it's a much longer term play. Like YouTube is a longer term play and allows you to build up an audience and allows you to make much bigger moves. You want to sell courses, then you need an audience to be able to sell it to. That you'll do much better at with an online strategy than with, uh, going to events where there's 10 or 20 people at and then trying to sell your $30 course or whatever. It's just the numbers don't add up. But in the short run, like in the trading time for money kind of business, that's, that's like, that's where I would spend most of my effort. Yeah, those introductions and trying to do those free seminars to build some connections and build some business going. It's exciting, like, it's great that you've done a couple. Now it's turning those into, let's start talking to a group of clients.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I agree, I think you're right. YouTube is more of a longer-term play, which is why I'm still committed to it, 'cause I think it's a great way to communicate what I do also, and then, you know, I think I just need to, that's one thing I've, committed to doing is leveraging that a little bit more. I've been making these YouTube videos and then not— I've been posting them on Twitter but not posting them on my YouTube channel, or I haven't been— or not YouTube, not posting them on my Facebook page, and then I haven't been really promoting it everywhere that I can. So I haven't been sending emails out, so things like that. So I think I'm going to start— well, I'm definitely going to start sending them out by email, at least my copywriting ones that I do once a week. I'm gonna start promoting, like, with little mini trailer videos on Facebook and Snapchat. I've just started recently on Snapchat. I'm loving it, by the way. My 14-year-old daughter, though, had to show me how to use it, and I still was so confused because it's, it's kind of confusing. But anyway, it's a great, it's a great fun, fun platform too. So anyway, just things like that so that I can really— I mean, I'm committed to doing it, so I might as well keep promoting it and try and build my audience more there.

So yeah, I think, um, I think as well, just by keeping doing it, you focus on the content, keep getting the content better, right? Like, does somebody watch your video and want to instantly share it to their audience? Uh, you know, that's, that's a constant struggle for me. I think I probably go through this once a quarter where I look at my channel, look at my videos, like, ah, I should be— I should have more views, I should have more subscribers than I'm at now. And, you know, sure, I have, you know, 400,000 subscribers or whatever, but it still feels like the quality of stuff I know— and I mean, I know it's a lot, but it's still not a lot in the YouTube world, right? I feel like with the stuff I'm putting out and the amount of effort and hard work, like, why is it so low compared to where I think it should be? And about once a quarter I go through that. We're like, I gotta market it more. How can I market this more? You know, who should I talk to? How can I 'How can I pump this out more on my Twitter newsletter email list or whatever?' And at the end of the day, it always comes down to just make better stuff.

Right, right.

That sucks, because that's work. And so, you know, doing the quantity helps you get to the quality. Like, keep doing it every week, the consistency. Your videos now are better than they were when they started. You know, every video is better than the last. Yeah. And so, like, there is no magic bullet. Yes, like, absolutely put it out to the newsletter, put it out on Facebook, it'll drive a couple more views, but the real thing is gonna be making the videos better.

Yeah.

Honing the message better. When I watch it, I wanna instantly apply what you said or share it with a friend who's going through something similar. Uh, and that's a, it's a high bar. Yeah, it's a high bar. Like, even for me, for my videos, is a high bar. People will watch the video, and even if they like it, they don't share it. So I've got to get better, right? I've got to make my videos better.

Um, yeah, I mean, that is definitely one thing I— that was my first focus, is making it better, which I feel like they're way— like you said, they're way better than they were even like even 4 months ago. I just like the content's better, um, the headlines are better, you know, there's a lot There's a lot of improvement, but you're right. I mean, I could, you know, I could still make it better, right? You can always make it better and, you know, make it more intriguing for people to keep watching more and more. So I know you've got— I mean, you're insane how many videos you put out. I don't know how you do it. Like, yeah, I mean, I do—

well, I have a team, right? It's not just me. Yeah, right. There's 6 of us who just do YouTube, and it's, it's also You know, like, we could pump out— we could do 20 videos a day if we wanted to, but then the quality would suffer, right? This is the most that we can put out with the quality that I want at the moment.

Yeah.

Um, so, but, but like, my channel grew as I became more consistent, as I started posting more regularly. You can see the spike with views and subscribers as well.

Um, Yeah, it's helping me too. I'm at 95. I'm almost at 100.

Yeah, yeah, I love it.

It's coming, it's coming right around the corner, right around the corner. I'll, I'll be able to celebrate. Yes, great, cool.

Well, well, I still think like the most important thing, if you can get those workshops with those connectors, focus on that for the next month. Uh, you know, like, I don't know what your time looks like today, but sit down and make a list of all the business coaches in Portland and—

Yeah, I love it.

Reach out to them and see.

There's actually quite a few in my networking groups. I didn't think about like, you know, them specifically, so that's a great idea.

I mean, also, it's definitely a great place to start. I would just question, again, a lot of the people who go to networking groups are not successful yet.

Right.

And so they may not have the base that you're looking for for ideal clients.

Yeah.

So it's not a bad place to start. It's not a bad place to get a little more experience. Uh, just look at the room when you come in. Like, are these the people that you want to eventually sell stuff to or not? And it may, it may mean looking outside your current group to other, you know, more successful coaches who aren't going to network in the groups, but just make an introduction and saying this is what you want to do, or grabbing coffee or having a quick phone call. You can write a great email. You do copy, so— Yeah, no, I totally hear what you're saying, and I agree.

Yeah, totally.

Cool.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Evan.

Well, have a great month. We'll connect with you soon. Good luck on those 100th subscribers.

Thank you. Next time we'll talk, I'll be at 100.

Yes, yes, and have done a couple seminars too.

Yep, absolutely.

All right, thanks, Jen.

Thank you. I'll talk to you later, Evan.

Cheers.

Bye.