#42: How to attract more qualified leads using a business review site

So this isn't instead of testimonials, it's a way, it's another lead generation. It's something that's driving more traffic to your site. It's got those links into directly to your site.

Hey coach, my name is Lindsay and I'm here to help heart-centered women like you build the money-making coaching business of their dreams. I've been coaching since 2019 and this pod is about It is about using your gifts to build a life and business you are 100% obsessed with. I went from working 50+ hours a week as a first grade teacher to building a sustainable business that replaced my job salary and gave me back 30+ hours a week of my time. Tune in to join the ride and learn from other Coaches and experts along the way. Welcome back to the Aligned Coach Podcast, everyone. So excited for today's interview. My voice is a little like I am still kind of getting over a cold. Kind of congested. So y'all just like bear with me today, like adjust the volume if you need to. But I'm very excited for today's chat. I have a special guest here. Her name is Angela Bryant. She's the founder of Angel Rated, which I think is going to be very juicy for us to dive into what exactly that is. I think you're going to be very surprised, my fellow coaches, course creators, and those of us that are in the online education industry, I'm very excited for this chat. I'm very excited to see how Angel Rated could serve you all and how it could serve you as a client and you as both as a coach. So let's go ahead and dive in. Angela, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

Yes. So as you said, I've been, so I've been in the online business world for about 9, 10 years now. And so I, about 5 years ago, I was traveling in New Zealand And I was building my online business and I was doing various things and I was still quite new to it all at that point, trying to find the right coaches to use and the right courses to invest in, all those things. And I kept looking for reviews and all I found everywhere were those really polished testimonials or reviews written by affiliates that were, you know, really just bigging something up. And there was nothing that felt independent or genuine. And I was just like, every day while we're traveling, we're using TripAdvisor, which is like Yelp or, you know, anything like that to just sort of say, where should we eat? Where should we stay? What should we do? And one night I just had this like, why isn't there a TripAdvisor or a Yelp for online business? Why doesn't it exist? And it wouldn't leave me as an idea. So that is, I'd been doing lots of other things before then. I still do lots of other things in terms of coaching and various other online sort of roles and responsibilities. But AngelRater came to me as this mass download and just wouldn't leave me alone. So I then had to create it and build out this online sort of independent review site for all the courses, the coaches, the tools you've used to build your online business. So you can write reviews on it, or you can add your own products and services and get other people to review them just like a restaurant would, or a plumber, or a bookshop, or anyone else. So it's just the idea of having one place where things aren't edited and they're not, you know, they're not biased in any way. They're just, you know, independent. You can see lots of different views from all different sorts of people in one place for any course and get sort of almost a list of different things doing the same subject. So if you want a course on Facebook ads, you can find all the courses on Facebook ads and then work out which one's right for you, rather than only thinking about the one that you know about or the big famous name or the, you know, the one that is being shouted about the most in Facebook groups.

Yeah, and the one that keeps like popping up on your newsfeed because you've been targeted with it because you visited their website. So then it feels like they have like this omnipresence, like Does that happen to anyone else? Like if you know, like you go visit someone's website or even their Instagram page, and then just checking them out, right? Just browsing along the internet, and then all of a sudden they're everywhere. And you're like, oh my god, this person must be so big. But really, it's just really good targeted advertisement.

So absolutely.

Yeah, definitely. Which is great as a marketer, right? It's great. You know, as an online marketer, it's wonderful that we have those things. But I think that what you're doing is so super practical and like it's so helpful in making empowered decisions in our businesses and even for our clients to make empowered decisions, right? Because I think that this is a theme that has come up a lot over the past few months is having clients come in with a very clear idea and a clear expectation of what to receive, right? Inside of a coaching container, whether it's business coaching, health coaching, mindset coaching, no matter what it is, like having a very clear and realistic expectation of like what you're going to walk away with, because I'm not promising you sunshine and rainbows. Like, you're gonna have to put in some elbow grease, you know, like, it's gonna be hard work. So I think that this is so awesome what you're doing. So tell me, what is it like for a coach to get it, get their stuff into this platform? How does it help them? Like, how have they really seen the benefits as far as calling in the right clients into their space as well?

So I think that's a really great question, and I think a lot of people have a few concerns about putting themselves out there and having a sort of review site where people can actually say what they really think of them, and it really does worry people. And I think the thing to think about with that, if people are worried about that, you know, they can do stuff that would really help them get a great review. And as you've said, it's sort of like if you've got a really good product and you've got the right people only the right people taking that, your coaching, you know, and you're really targeting at the right people and you really deliver it well and you request, you know, the clients write a good review, they're going to write something. And even if it's not something that's really glowing, if you then respond to it in a way that is, you know, listens to any concerns that they've raised and does all those things that you see people doing on reviews for restaurants and everywhere else, you know, you sort of say that you're gonna that you'll take action or, you know, you don't make excuses, you just sort of take it as good feedback and thank them for their feedback and do all those nice things, then people love to see that on a review site. They love to see the course owner or the coach giving that response. So I think people shouldn't be worried, first up, about having the fact— I think this is where we're heading. Every other industry in the world has headed in this direction. And I think we're all getting a bit jaded with the fact that it is just very loud, big names and affiliates shouting about the same courses all the time or the same coaches. And I think we're going to get to the point where something like Angel Rated is just going to be exactly what's needed. At the moment, it's the only thing out there, so let's hope it's Angel Rated. But in terms of getting on there, it should be all very straightforward. You create an account, you add your name of your business first. Once you've got your business set up, you can add products underneath that business in case you've got multiple products. You send, you know, you fill in in the form and it's set up so it can take all different types of products in different sort of topics. I then just check it through and make sure it's all okay and approve it all. It goes live, you let your clients know to go and write a review, off they go, they go and write a review and then that is there so that whenever anyone starts Googling for either, you know, the best this, you know, best Instagram coach or the best whatever it might be, you know, somebody to build your website, it comes up, they've got reviews, they can see all the information, they can go straight through to your site. So this isn't instead of testimonials, it's another lead generation. It's something that's driving more traffic to your site. It's got those links into directly to your site, and it allows, you know, people who are prequalified, who have gone through and looked at the alternatives, seen that this is the one they like the sound of from the reviews, from the description, they come through to your site, and then your site is then there to do the selling with all your beautiful testimonials and all the other stuff that speaks to pain points and does all the good things that testimonials do. But yeah, it just has a slightly different role, and then it helps that. And the other things people can expect if they do sign up is that I have my own podcast. I love interviewing other business owners and promoting them and sharing on my newsletter just like who's been added, you know, what their latest, you know, I keep up on everyone's sort of discounts or their deals or, you know, anything they're launching, and I always get it out to the list so that people just know what's out there, what's changing, you know, who all the different people are. So That's a very long answer, but yeah, lots of benefits. And I love just getting to know new business owners and getting them involved and getting listed.

That's so exciting. Everybody always fusses because they're like, I don't want to be chained to social media and I want to be able to market off of Instagram or off of Facebook. Well, this is it. Like, this is literally the answer to that. It's like the Yelp, the Yelp for the online education industry.

Yeah, absolutely. Exactly that.

I love it. What approximately, like how many businesses do you have or how many programs or courses are like listed on there?

There's about 600 at the moment.

Oh, that's so awesome. And what are they like?

What's like the—

I'm just curious, like what's like the weirdest course? Like what's the like most off the wall like topic would you say?

Oh, that's a tricky one. There are a few that have come up that aren't quite— that are going more into the sort of personal personal development space or families that I wasn't expecting. So there's sort of books on children, you know, child development and things like that. I mean, they're not wacky, but they're just not quite what I thought people would add, but they added them. They want them on there. So that's great. I'm sure there are a few crazy ones.

Vibrating or, you know, like levitating course, you know, like anything quirky like that.

Nothing quite that quirky yet, but I know there's those courses out there. One of the examples that I always hear about is the one that teaches rock stars how to scream without hurting their voices.

Oh wow!

And there's another one in the UK which is about how to make 18th century corsets. I mean, you know, there's so many interesting things out there. I want to gather them all, gather them all in one place and just, you know, and then yeah, feed people, ferry people into the right— into things that interest them.

You need to go here, you need to go here. I love it. That's awesome. Okay, so tell me, so typically someone comes to this site, do you have a lot of people who are like course searching? They're trying to figure out, okay, what's the best ads course? Or hey, like, how do I set up my website or my first funnel? So they'll come here and they'll kind of like filter through, right? And they'll decide that, oh, I think that it's a, it's a toss between these three. What type of feedback do you get from those people that come there to make a really good decision? What's some of the feedback that you've gotten from them? How has this helped them?

Oh, incredibly so. And I recently was doing a survey of people on the mailing list to say what's really useful to them. And what they really love is just having that comparison, is just seeing if I want to say— well, recently last week I did a blog post all about different copywriting courses. Like, these are all the different copy courses out there because, you know, Marie Forleo gets a lot of noise and attention for The Copy Cure, but there are so many others out there and lots of other people doing things that might be a better price point for you. It might be somebody who's in your country. It might be some— a style of education that you gel with more. It might be some business ethics that you gel with more. You know, there's lots of different things that people should take into account when they're thinking about, you know, not just going for the biggest one, you know, take into account. And, you know, a blog post like that where they can, or even doing a search like that where they can go through and say, right, there's these 12 different courses. They range from something that's $27 to something that is a 9-month one-on-one coaching program that is thousands and everything in between. And, you know, this one's for beginners, this one's for advanced, or this one's for those, you know, people in the UK, or this one's for people who really like visual learning. You know, it's just really trying to compare and contrast, you know, the options that are out there so that you make a much more informed decision. And I think that's what people love about it, is just being able to see all the options in one place.

Being able to see all the options in one place. I love it. That's so good.

Cool.

So you said that you had some other, and I'm just curious, you said that you had some other endeavors in the online space, Angela, what else do you dabble in?

Oh, so when I first started, I was using all my corporate background and was doing a lot. And I'm just beginning to start this again. A lot of sort of more like a really high-end online business manager, accountability, business coach, all sort of rolled into one. I love doing like all the tech integration and trying to see how everything joins up. But I've also got, so I'm really in the detail. I'm a real detail queen. And by And I'm also really strategic and see the big picture. So I'm doing lots of that sort of work. But very recently I have just launched a business with a mastermind buddy of mine for virtual coworking. So it's called Cowork Crowd. And we have an online, really low-cost virtual coworking membership that people are paying like $5, $10 a month for. And we just have Zoom rooms on a schedule during the week, put people into breakout rooms, and we have 3 or 4 people just co-working for a couple of hours with somebody else on screen. Anyone that needs that extra bit of accountability or they want some company, it's all done silently, but you declare at the start of the session what you're going to be working on for the next 2 hours, what you're committed to delivering, and because there's other people on your screen with their heads down working, you don't get distracted. And, you know, it feels competitive to some people. And by the end of the session, everyone's done what they've said they're gonna do, really focused inflow work. And we started it because we were doing it ourselves within our mastermind, and it worked so well. We're just like, we need to offer this out to other people. So yeah, that's been running a couple of months now. And it's, yeah, that's a cowork crowd. So that's, yeah, that's another little thing. But I also trained as a health coach. In my sort of self-development journey and trying to work out what I want to do, but I'm not doing any of that at the moment. But I think we have to try all these different things to work out what lights us up.

Absolutely. I love coworking. I am very much like squirrel. Like, I will get distracted or like jump task switch. I'll jump from task to task. So I love to cowork. We've actually just started a coworking sprint in, like, I have a sales collective. It's called the Aligned Coach Collective. It's focused just on like sales and really generating consistent income in your business. But it's very like self-led. So basically the members in there basically get in what they put in, you know, like I'm not going to hold their hand. I'm not meeting with them every week. Like it's you come to the calls or you don't. But we just started this a week of where we're doing like 3 or 4 days straight of coworking and it's like, let's jump in, like, let's get it done. And they love it. Like they're like eating it up because it's like, oh my gosh, we need this accountability. You miss that from going to a 9 to 5 or going to a traditional corporate job where you sit down at your desk and you do work to now, oh, you're working from home and you mean I can just like hang out all day if I want? Like what?

It's magic. It's magic, the amount of work that gets done. And I think we just wanted to create something that was available to everyone that wasn't part of a sort of a membership, you know, or coaching, you know, something a bit more accessible, higher priced, and that is just available to everyone to just, if they're not doing anything else, come and join it and have that experience.

I love that. Is that open to the public?

Yeah.

Yeah. Can we put the link for it in the show notes in case?

We can, absolutely. It's coworkcrowd.com.

coworkcrowd.com. That's so cute.

I love it.

I love it. Do y'all do coworking every day?

We do pretty well. We've been doing Mondays and Wednesdays pretty much all day and doing some sort of feedback sessions on Friday. And then this week we've added in a Tuesday and Thursday as well. So we're going to start As we get bigger, we're going to start adding more and more sessions in, and it helps me do all my work as well. So, you know, it works for everyone.

Yep. It's like, I'm going to be here working anyways. Might as well open up the Zoom room, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

Okay, Angela. Um, all right. So tell us, how does someone go about getting listed on Angel Rated? Should it be a priority for them? How do they know if they're ready for it? Do they need to be at a certain level of business? Do they need to have a certain number of clients? Like, is this something they need to do now, or do they need to like wait until they've had 50 clients coming through their program? What would you say to them?

I would absolutely say get it done now. The sooner you can get— I mean, it's another link, inbound link into your website for starters, just at a very simple level. But it's the sooner you can do it, the sooner you are coming up on those lists of, you know, in that search against, you know, anyone else who does the same topic as you or the same type of work as you. And, you know, and then people who are searching for you know, someone else, you might then come up alongside and they go, oh, what's the alternative? It's this person, I prefer them because of this, you know, there is an alternative. So I would get it in there as soon as possible. It doesn't matter to start with if there's no reviews against you and you, you know, there's no clients, you know, reviewing you. It can sit there just as all the information and then as clients go through, you can start getting them to review you as soon as you've got the clients. And you can then, one of the things you can do in the back end is download those reviews yourself to use in your own marketing, so then you don't even have to ask for testimonials, you can just take the reviews that have already been written and sort of repurpose them. So it's another thing off the to-do list, and it's, you know, it's— I think it's, yeah, just incredibly helpful. And what they can do to do that, just go to angelrated.com and there's a, you know, a sign-up in the top right-hand corner to create your account and get started. If anyone has any questions, I'm always happy to jump on Zoom and do 15 minutes, talk people through it, and help them with the process.

What is the price of it? What's the investment for it?

Completely free.

Free! A free source of lead generation. Get out of here.

It is for the moment. It is. It's the, you know, it's been a massive investment of time, money, energy, all the rest of it over the last couple of years. It's been an awful lot. And it's, it's one of those things that's growing and growing momentum and at some point will snowball and will become the platform to go and the Yelp equivalent, as you say. For the moment it's free. Anyone who gets on while it's still free, it will remain free. At some point we're going to have sort of higher tiers to allow you to respond to reviews and to download reviews. You know, that will be in a sort of higher tier that will need paying for. But for the moment it's still free for everyone. It's, you know, it's not generating revenue for me at the moment, but, you know, it will do in the future. And it's something that it's— I'm just passionate about the fact it needs to exist and that people need to have that choice.

Definitely does. It does. Like, as a coach and like a business coach at that, there's, you know, a lot of pressure on us. So I do feel that like, like, it's kind of scary to like open yourself up to those public reviews. But then again, it's like, there's nothing that I would want to hide from anyone, you know, if someone didn't get this result, and instead they got this, well, I want people to know that, that way when they come in, they know what to expect. You know, because you do gotta work for it and it's not gonna be a walk in the park. I don't care what kind of coach you are, you know, like, and anyone that's selling you unicorn poop, then like be skeptical, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, if you're selling the right product to the right people, they should be raving fans and they should be writing really positive reviews. If they're not, then you need to go and look at something and, you know, adjust what you're doing. But they, you know, And don't— I mean, you know, one poor review cannot ruin a business. It won't ruin a restaurant, it won't ruin anything else. So it's— but, you know, and you can respond to it. And doing a positive response to a poor review really does turn people around. You know, if you write something really, really lovely in response, people will read that and go, actually, she cares about her business, she cares about her clients, you know, she wants to make this right. So it's— yeah, it is scary, but I think, you know, it was probably scary for Plumbers, hairdressers, you know, shops, everyone, every other industry that's gone through it. You know, restaurants is the most obvious thing, but hotels, everyone, you know, has been through it. I'm sure it was scary.

Yeah, hotels, Airbnbs, I mean everything, everything has a review. You go to Google Review and look at it, look at the reviews. Yeah.

And you do, or you go on Amazon and you read reviews and everywhere else you can go somewhere and do it. Even unless you've got a physical location, you can't use Google My Business, you know, unless you use LinkedIn a lot, you can't ask for personal reviews, you know, online business owners, we haven't got very many public forums that can do that sort of proper review site. So yeah, that's, that's exactly what it's there for.

So good. I love it. I love it. So we're going to leave the link for the show in the show notes for the Angel Rated platform for you to go and get your courses listed. We're also going to leave the link for Cowork— say it again—

Crowd. Cowork Crowd.

Cowork Crowd. I'm like, Cowork Session, Cowork Craze, Cowork Crowd. Okay, Cowork Crowd. That's beautiful. And then where can our lovely audience, where can our listeners connect with you and to learn more about what it would be like to sort of get in your space and learn what you have going on? And to be a part of what you have.

So my personal website is angelabryant.co. So angelabryant.co. Angel Rated is where I do quite a lot of sort of social media, so that's just Angel Rated HQ across every social media that you can think of. But yeah, I'm pretty much around on Facebook, on Instagram, across the different socials as per everyone is, just doing things as I can. Very happy to connect with people or just to jump hop on a networking type call and just get to know people. I love that sort of networking. So, and I'm very happy to help people in any way I can.

Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much, Angela. This has been really cool. I'm excited. I'm going to go check out, check it out actually. I'm always here for some free lead gen, you know, and to let our buyers have more empowered decision-making tools rather than the FOMO of other people or rather than like, buying out of pressure or fear even. So I think this is really, really awesome what you're doing. I think that it's going to serve our community on such a greater scale. That goes, you know, it's, I think it's really, really great what you're doing. So thank you for the work that you're putting in. I know it has been no easy task. And I know it takes a lot of your time and energy.

Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me. It's been fab. Lovely chat.

Yes, I told you it would be fun. Awesome. Thank you, Angela. And thank you everyone for tuning in and listening. Of course, go leave us a review. Let us know what you love the most from this podcast. You can leave us a review here on our podcast platform, or you can, of course, message Angela or I. I'm @lindsay.badio on Instagram. We also have a new Instagram account for the podcast now. It's just @thealignedpitchpodcast. So y'all can go leave a review there as well. Come say hello, and I will see you all in the next episode.