DM selling is not spammy, you're just doing it wrong

DM conversations account for probably around 50% of all of our client sales.

He followed me up later. Like a couple of hours later, he messaged me again. I opened it and he said, sorry, man, that was a copy and paste. I'm actually going to email you something personalized. And I was like, man, that's just like, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross.

The easiest and fastest way for you to stand out is to actually treat that person like a human being and not just a number on a screen. Foreign.

Welcome to the Success School Podcast. This is the business podcast for you if you want to grow your business to high six and seven figures for free by just listening to us give you advice, tips, tools and hacks right on this show. Steph, how are we feeling about today?

I am very lit up today. We get to talk about something that I am obsessed with and that is selling anything to do with sales. I am just like, let's go.

Yeah, I'm pumped for this one as well. There should be tons of value bombs in here. So we're just going to start with our Life Updates segment. So someone on Instagram DM'd me because I've been doing a lot of reading in 75 hard and they said, why don't you get a Kindle? And I kind of thought it's a little bit lame, a little bit nerdy. I have this little digital book thing. How cute. And then I was like, oh, fuck it, I'll go buy one, see what happens and see what the fuss is about. I got one. And honestly, it is a game changer. Anyone that has a Kindle, I can see why you guys are bragging about it. It's incredible. So I would like to get in bed sometimes and then read. And then I'll go on my side, which is my most comfortable position. And then the book just collapses and it feels like 400 kilos in your hand trying to hold it up. Then you can't read it at night. It is the biggest first world problem that I could explain on this podcast. But the Kindle, E Reader, or whatever it is, the paperweight that I have makes it so easy. And your reading efficiency is amazing. So if you want to read and you want to get better, get a Kindle. It's the best thing ever. Promo code is Tim is jacked. Okay, that Tim is jacked is the promo code.

He does not have a promo code. He wishes he had a promo code. I love that so much. Also, something you should know about Tim is that he has become The Oprah of Kindles. So. So he came home. I'm going to tell you. He came home today and he was like, walked in the house and our housekeeper, who is this amazing woman named Diane, she had been like, oh, I've always wanted a Kindle. And so Tim came home today from the shops and he was basically like, oh. He was like, you get a Kindle and you get a Kindle because he was just, like, showering Kindles around our house. I got one. Diane got one. I'm surprised Luna and Felix didn't get a Kindle at the same time. He is obsessed and he's making everybody else obsessed. And he doesn't need a promo code. So if you're listening Kindle, please give it to my promo code, because I think that we could sell you some.

Do you think Diane likes me more?

Diane definitely likes you more. I'm usually grumpy when Diane's around.

She's like, tim, you're so funny. And I'm like, I'm really not.

Also, Diane thinks Tim's handsome. So I think there's definitely a flirty, flirty situation going on here. She's like, how old is Diane?

Like, 60 year old women come at me.

Yeah, they have a lovely little relationship going on. It's very cute.

Steph, what's going on with you?

I have been trying my hand at cooking a little bit more.

So over the last few years, definitely trying, keyword trying.

Over the last few years, you know, as we've been really growing and scaling our businesses, one thing that we kind of stopped doing was cooking because we were so hyper focused on money making activities and making sure that our time was spent in the best position possible in our businesses. And so, you know, we would work like nine hours, ten hours a day. And then the last thing I feel like doing is, like, gross. Shopping and cooking and preparing meals. And like, honestly, I'm not very good at cooking, so. So that the Tim's like, amen. So, because I'm not very good at cooking, like, my most annoying frustration was that, like, after a huge day of work, like 10 or 11 hours of work, I would go and I would cook something and it would just turn out terrible. And so I was just getting, like, really bad. And so I was getting really frustrated because I was like, I'm not going to keep spending all this time and I was wasting money because, you know, you buy things and you let it go off in the fridge and all this stuff. So we started, like, outsourcing cookies. We use, like, Hellofresh. And we had, you know, macro meals delivered and. And, you know, we ate out a lot for a period of time there because it was a better use of our time to, you know, really focus on growing the business. But in the last couple of, I'd say six months or so, I've been really focused on working less. And so because I've been working less, I've had more time, and I'm like, I should probably get back into cooking. And so I have been trying, but I have really higher requirements for cooking recipes. And so it's really hard for me to find recipes that are easy, fast, simple to purchase, taste good, easy to count macros, they must be high protein. And honestly, it's like, quite tough. And so poor Tim is just getting basically three meals on repeat at the moment. And sometimes I nail them and sometimes I don't. And. And we're learning. So if you have recipes that meet all of those, you know, those requirements, please send them through to me because I need your help.

What did we have last night was a cardboard pizza.

Made pizzas, and I didn't put enough sauce on, and so it was not very tasty.

I've had cardboard that tasted better.

Yeah, that base. So, okay, so I think, well, so, like, I was limited because the base that they had at Woolworths was not the base we usually buy. And so, you know, anyway, guys, please help me because, like, I don't want to hate this as much as I do, and I want to be better at it. So if you. If you know somewhere, if you have recipes, please let me know.

All right, guys, we're going to move into our lesson of the week, so I'm going to kick us off. And the lesson is about always adopting a beginner's mindset. So for me, where it goes wrong is if I go into a situation, I think I know everything okay. So probably with that was, you know, something about landing pages or copy or ads or something like that. Instead, I should go into things thinking that there's always more to learn, therefore I'm going to get better. And I've seen this played out in business lots of times with lots of people that we coach. They honestly think they're better than they are or their skills are higher than they are. They, therefore, they switch themselves off to the possibility of learning new stuff and they don't grow. So if you are stagnant in your business and your revenue is not growing, your profits are growing, your relationships with your staff or your team or your leadership or Whatever it is, ask yourself, do I have a beginner's mindset going into anything that I'm doing? Am I willing to learn more from the right people? And I can assure you, if you adopt this winner's mindset or this winner's mindset, this beginner's mindset, you will be a winner. Okay? And that's a long term winner.

So one of my favorite quotes about this is actually, you can be the teacher, but you should always remain a student. And I think that, you know, so often when we get to a level like Tim and I, you know, we're business coach. That's not to say that we know everything there is to know about business. Like, we really genuinely believe we're just getting started, we're just scratching services. So much more to know. But we can still teach our clients even because we do know things that we know really well. But that doesn't mean there's not more to learn. And so I think that that's really, that, that, yeah, you can be the teacher, but still always remain the student. My lesson of the week is actually off the back of our Bali business retreat. I think that loneliness might actually kill your business. And it was. We went out for dinner one of the nights at our Bali business retreat with a good friend of ours and she had mentioned we'd done this activity throughout the day that had said, you know, it was a mindset day. And it asked the question, it asked you to fill in the blank. And the question was, business is right, my business is. And you have to fill in the blank. And the blank for her was lonely. And Tim and I had a kind of a really big realization at the table that night at dinner that we don't find business lonely, obviously, because we have each other. But I put myself in the shoes of all of a lot of our clients whose husbands work or who are single and who sit their desk all day and then they have no one else to talk to because, let's be honest, most of your friends don't get it. You know, your dog is great, but doesn't walk back. You know, your kids aren't going to get it. Often if your husband works in a day job, he's not going to get it either. And so I realized that business can probably be pretty lonely. And we really saw this reflected in our Bali business retreat. You know, people came into the room on day one and they were scared and they were deflated and they were doubtful and, you know, they were craving that, like, ability to connect and that ability to feel seen, and not just seen, but like normal. I think they just were craving that ability to feel normal. And so, you know, we saw one girl, like, since being in the room in Bali and just since having the reflections for other people saying, you're doing great or you should try this, or I think you're amazing, or I've been watching your stuff, or all these things that people will say to you in real life, they just often don't say online. We saw the confidence in the room and the audacity in the room and the level of energy in the room just light up day after day after day to the point where, you know, one girl landed a $45,000 job while we were there. Another one came in with a projected month of 5000 and left knowing that she was going to be making a $20,000 a month and locked in sales for 20,000. Another lady locked in a $2,000 consulting job, which was four times the price of what she was charging before. Okay. And all of these things happened simply because they surrounded themselves with people who saw them, who believed in them and who wanted better for them. And so they wanted better for themselves too. And I really, really believe that too often we're just trapped in our bedrooms alone, not making enough opportunity for connection.

Do most people do business in their bedroom?

I mean, I'm trapped, I'm locked away, my bedroom alone. This, literally the room that we're in right now is a bedroom. Let me tell you, this room, I mean, come on, it technically is a, it's an office, but it could be a bedroom. Yeah, it's a freezing cold bedroom. I don't know if you guys have this.

You guys can feel this.

I don't know if you guys could have this thing with your partners, but like, Tim runs hot and I run cold, and so we're forever arguing about the temperature in our rooms. So our topic today, guys, is the non creepy way to actually send a direct message, a dm and, and get replies. So one of the activities that we did at our Bali business retreat was develop a DM chat script for every single client. Now not. And like we're doing it, we did it with everyone, including people who had like beauty businesses, including people who had workshopping businesses. So while they might not use them all the time, at some point someone's going to dive into their DMS and ask questions. And it's really helpful to have a script to go back with that is a high converting script that that means you're going to land that person As a client, as a guarantee. And so today we are going to be breaking down the five step process to start more conversations and drive more of the right leads into sales money in your bank account, clients in your programs, in your offers, in your services so that you can win too. Tim, what did you. Because I think this DM conversation thing is a fairly new thing in the last few years. What did you think the first time that you were told to. To have more conversations in the dm? Maybe it was by a business coach or maybe it was at a conference. What was your first initial thought?

Initially I thought it was spammy. I thought it was scammy. I thought it was a little bit gross. I was thinking people don't want to hear from me in the dms. That's like their private sanctuary for their friends. But that soon changed. Yeah.

How has it changed? Like, what are your thoughts now?

So in terms of it changing or my thoughts of it changing, I think that if a business or a coach or whoever I want to work with is DMing me, I feel like they're more available, they care, they have time, they have the ability to develop really fast. Know like and trust which you're going to get. They have a personality like they're available for their clients. So I think it's a really great tool to bridge the gap and really to get someone from sort of interested to I'm ready to have a call with you or buy a product, which I think is a really cool and a really good transition to make. So there are a couple of sayings around this. It's like, you know, conversations equal conversions and the dollars are made in the DMS. I think that's 100 true. Like in every way. I think DMS need to be a vital part of any business's strategy, especially 2024 going into 2025. And the more personal you make them, the better they will be. Which we're going to get into in this episode.

Both of those phrases were coined by me.

Were they? Yes.

Yeah, yeah. I was very proud. No, but seriously, guys, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I feel those things about dms. I feel it's spammy. I feel that's gross. I feel it's, I promise you, it's, it's a block. And once you get past it and you see the results of it and you see that people actually love it, like I dropped into my DMs this morning and I sent a heap of voice drops off to people and they Were like, oh my God. Steph is so lovely to connect with you. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to message me immediate. No, like, trust immediately. I'm connected with my community immediately. We're making, you know, more opportunities to help people. More opportunities to, yeah, of course. Get them on a call. Yeah, of course. Have a conversation with them, see if they're the right for our program. But most importantly, the biggest thing that Tim and I are most passionate about is building really high level, high value communities so that we can help more people thrive.

So, Steph, tell us, what is this work? Why do dams work? What's the, what's the whole thing about?

Tim already kind of touched on it. Guys. This is about building no, like, trust in a world where there are more and more competitors coming into your industry. In a world where, you know, everybody is trying to make a sale and everyone's trying to make a buck and no one wants to do the work required to make the dollars. Like, everyone just wants to build a landing page, run some ads and get rich. Right? And unfortunately, like, one, that's not the way it's going to happen. But two, because everyone's doing that, the easiest and fastest way for you to stand out is to actually treat that person like a human being and not just a number on screen. And so I think that now more than ever, there is a really good opportunity for us to use the DMs, especially if you do it well. Like, I know that people are sliding into your dms right now and you're like, this is actually spammy and this is actually gross and this is actually disgusting. And so, you know, I know that those things are happening. And I promise you stay, we're going to share a way where it won't feel like that. Okay? But I would say that DM conversations account for probably around 50% of all of our client sales. So they might generate the lead somewhere else, whether that's in Facebook groups and emails or whatever. But a lot of the time the actual conversion mechanism will happen within the dm. So conversion to sales call, conversion to, you know, direct sale, conversion to booking, those things will happen in the DM. And so we're talking about millions of dollars here. 50% of our clients are converting mostly in the DMs. Like, that's. We're talking a lot of money is being made just in our program off of DMs. And so in a world where, you know, everyone is doing the same thing, it's really easy for you to stand out just by being human to human with somebody. Tim, based on that, tell me what do you think is the ick? What's the ick with the dms? What's not going to work?

So this is so funny, but this morning I got one of these dms, so it was actually by a guy called Alex. I'm not going to tell you his last name. I have met him once and I've had him on my Instagram for you know, let's say two years or so. And like he's a strippery dude. He does a few different things. He's a bit of a like, you know, he's. He literally does a bunch of things.

Alex now knows exactly who he is.

So he messaged me and he said, hey man, just started a copywriting business, was just wondering if you want to be my first client. And I was just thinking, man, you're going for a home run on the first message, which is where you went wrong immediately. Secondly, I run a multi seven figure company. I'm not going to use someone that is just starting as copywriter because I don't want my stuff to suck. So he's just picked the wrong market there and he went in way too strong and then he just started talking about himself like in the rest of the message. And I was like, this all is just so wrong on so many levels that I didn't even respond. So I was like, oh fuck, this is just so weird. And then he followed me up later, like a couple hours later, he messaged me again. I opened it and he said, sorry man, that was a copy and paste. I'm actually going to email you something personalized. And I was like, man, that's just like cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross, cross. So if you've ever done that and people haven't replied, that is why I.

Want to point out the message that he sent. Can you say what it was again?

He was like, hey, it's Alex. I've just started a copywriting business. I'd love you to be my first client.

Okay, so guys, what happened there and what you're hearing that is so wrong about this is the fact that nothing was about Tim and everything was about the guy. Okay? Everything was about Alex. He was like, me, me, me. I started my copyright business. I want to know if you want to be my first client. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Every single thing. Whether that's. We spoke about web websites and landing pages last week. We're speaking about dms right now it should be what's in it for them? If he'd have reached out and said, hey, Tim, I've just started my first copywriting business. I actually haven't. You know, I still wouldn't even recommend signing with this offer. But, you know, maybe he's three or four messages down. After checking in, after starting a conversation, he'd said, look, you know, I'm looking to get some clients that I'd love to test out on. Would you mind if I, you know how to go at writing your landing page? Happy to do it for cheap or free for. In exchange for a testimonial, then maybe Tim would have been like, hey, I'm going to get a cheap or free landing page written out. I'm going to give this guy an opportunity. And if he's great, then I might have more work for him. And if he's great, then I might pay him. And how awesome is that for Alex? How awesome that for Tim? Alex, I get a testimonial, he gets feedback, he gets to practice his craft. It's win, win, win, win, win, win. But what he did was he just made it all about him. Unpersonalized, unstructured. It was wrong on all levels. So what else gives you the ick in dms?

So secondly, you know, the other bad thing that can go wrong is just not sending any communication in dm. So, you know, if you never initiate a conversation with anyone or they don't initiate a conversation with you, there's no way of connecting with them and bridging the gap between, you know, not knowing you and no luck and trust. So you have to be initiating conversations. Really simple strategy for these guys is just send 10 DMs a day, and then over the year, you're gonna have thousands of dms. Heaps of practice with that. Thirdly, guys is getting their name wrong. I actually did this yesterday to a client. It's pretty funny. So Michaela messaged me. So, hey, Michaela, if you're listening, shout out. And I said, hey, Mick. And then the autocorrect said, mike. And I just did a comma and then I wrote the rest of the message and I sent it and I was like, oh, it says Mike. And she just laughed it off, which was funny. But that will break rapport if you're doing that in a sales, you know, conversation or you're trying to sell someone something in the dms. The third thing, or the fourth thing here, guys, is what we just touched on is you're trying to make the sales Straight away. So if you're sending someone a wall of text like old Alex did for his copywriting business as well, you're just going in way too strong, man. Like they don't even know you. And then you're going for a home run or you're trying to take them home on the first day, literally in that first message where they're probably not even following you, they, you're not even on their radar. And then you go in with the biggest hit in baseball history, expecting to make a home run, and then you are left there and that you're going to say that dams don't work. Dams work, you don't work. Okay? That's the issue here, is you don't know the actual strategy on how to pull this off. And it's just really ick and gross. The next one, guys, is ignoring what they say to you. So, you know, in most of our DM scripts that we have with our team or that we give to our clients is there's a part called acknowledge. Okay? And an acknowledge means acknowledge their reply. So if you've got like a five step process for DMs and then you're just copy and pasting the same message over and over without actually acknowledging what they say, people can feel that and they feel like it's bullshit. So if someone says, hey, my top three goals, I want to lose 10 kilos, I want someone to find me more attractive and I want to run a 2k faster. You need to acknowledge that and say, hey, that's cool, that's a great goal of losing 10 kilos or 2K, that's going to make you so much more fit. How much more confidence will you have, you know, to go out X, Y, Z, wear a swimsuit, wear like whatever Speedos, whatever it is on the beach, you need to acknowledge what they actually say.

Yeah. And I think the best thing that you can do, and I know Tim's going to lead into this shortly for me, but like the best thing that you can do, guys, is like, you've got to think of it like it's a conversation in a, in real time, in real life. So if Tim, if Alex walked up to Tim on the street and he hadn't seen him for years, he's known him, he's met him once before. He's never, you know, spoken to him in years. And he walks up, he's like, hey, man, I just started a copywriting business. Would you be my first client? That would be pretty bizarre behavior from a human being. I Was like, hey, man, how's things going? It's been a while since I've seen you. What's going on? That would make a lot more sense as an opening starter conversation to be like, yeah, man, things were really good. Business is blown up. Like, I could see that you're doing some stuff. What are you doing now? He's like, yeah, man, I'm doing some copywriting. And actually, you know, I was actually reaching out. I'd love to know, like, are you looking for any copywriting work at the moment? Do you have any projects on that I might be able to sink my teeth into? This is a really natural way of having a conversation, I think. So often you go into this conversation just trying to sell. Like Tim said, you know, you're going for the home run and you haven't even stepped on the field yet. Like, say hello, ask them a question, build rapport. Like, this is just human connection 101 basics. And so if you don't want your DMs to be gross and salsy and ick, then you just need to treat that person like a human and not a sale. It's a really quick win for this.

Yeah. Also, this is just not even related to selling in the dms, but I'm guilty of this all the time. If someone sends you a really nice message in dm or they reply to your stories or whatever, and you give them a thumbs up back, like, imagine doing that in real life. Someone's like, oh, my God, you're amazing. You're so beautiful. I love what you do. Great lift, you're so strong. And then you just give them a thumbs up. Or like a. Yeah, no, like, imagine saying that in person to someone like you. Someone's like, you're amazing. And you just like, yeah, double tap. You know, imagine that.

Yeah, Tim is guilty of this. To be fair. You're working on it. It's something that you've been really working on, really, really consistently working on.

All right, Steph. So you know what won't work? We've covered that to bits there, and poor Alex just got roasted on our podcast. But what will work?

What will work? Okay, so starting conversations, genuinely. So like I said before, you know, if Alex reached out, said, hey, man, it's been a little while. How's things for you? That would be a lot better than starting with, hey, man, buy my stuff. Okay. Um, the second thing is, like, there are a lot of different ways you can start conversations naturally. So in that conversation, it would be really easy for Alex to Reach out. Cause he knows Tim, but in a lot of cases, you're not going to know this person. So we personally recommend DMing every new follower. Okay. Um, and one of the ways that is really natural and really easy to start a conversation is how did you hear about me? Or how did you find this page? Okay, so like, hey, thanks so much for the follow. How did you hear about me? How did you find this page? How did you hear about our gym? That's just a really nice opening. Super low key, super chill, very easy, really easy for them to reply to. Doesn't feel salesy, doesn't feel pushy, doesn't feel spammy. Okay, so start a conversation that is genuinely like, like, hello, if I, if I just met you in the street, I'd say, hey, how you going? Like, what are you doing here? That would be a really natural way of starting a conversation. Okay, then very similar to what Tim said before. Listen to what they tell you and respond naturally. So if they, if you ask them what their problem is right now, like, what, you know, what's going on, like, what's not working for you right now? And they tell you, don't just be like, yeah, well, I can solve that. Like, oh my God, I'm so, so sorry that you're going through that right now. That's absolutely awful. You know, and then ask a few more questions, like, what else have you tried? Or have you tried this? Or whatever. And like, actually have a conversation with this person and be like, look, I'd be happy to offer you some help if you want to jump on a call. Okay? So just really acknowledge, again, acknowledge what they're saying, making sure that we're not just following the script, copy paste, like, take your time. We don't want this to. I mean, it is a numbers game at the end of the day. The more DMS you send, the more conversations you have, the more opportunity you have to, you know, build connection, build community, and at some level, eventually have more conversations. Therefore, you will have more conversions. Okay? However, I would rather you do quality over quantity when it comes to DMs. I'd rather you have really great, incredible conversations and less of them than having really, like, fast and not caring. So I think that's going to damage your brand rep over time. Last but not least, I would say to focus on doing it because you care. Okay? So have conversations because you care. Tim and I genuinely just love building community. We love checking in on people. We. We want to make an impact whether you're in our community. Or not. Which is why we, you know, podcast, which is why we do our free Facebook group, which is why we have so many freebies we give away. We genuinely just want to help as many people as possible. So do it because you care. DM somebody because you care about them. DM them because you know they're a person that might be in need. DM them because, you know, you vote. You put some polls up and they voted and they needed some help. Do it because you care, not because you're trying to get the sale. Okay? And if you show them that you care, you actually will get the sale, which is the craziest part of that. And then please, please, please, please make an invite. Okay, so this invitation can be a lot of different things, but make an invite. So how do we get people into our DMs, Tim? Because we talked a lot about what won't work, what will work, but a lot of people like, the roadblock that we get here is okay, but I don't have enough people to message.

Well, obviously the most straightforward answer is to start a conversation, but before that, we're going to talk about the other, like, tactics and strategies you guys can use. So the first one that we talk about on this podcast all the time is lead magnets. So creating a lead magnet is going to solve a problem. They download it, you get their Instagram handle, or if you sell it on your Instagram or you give it away on your Instagram, you're going to know what their Instagram is. So get their handle or whatever messaging platform you use, and then you are going to be in for a conversation. So the conversation could start with like, hey, Steph, did you get my download? Or did you get the name of the Instagram or the name of the lead magnet, whatever it is, and then that's going to start the conversation for you. The second way is new followers. So anyone that follows you depends on how viral your account is or how good your marketing is. But it can be one person a day, could be a hundred persons a day, could be whatever that is. But you're going to start conversations with all new followers. Really fun, easy opener for that one is, hey, how did you hear about me? Okay. And you can use their name in there. If you know someone's name in the NCM bio is Timothy. Like mine. Don't say Timothy. Maybe just say Tim. Or the shortened version. It feels a little bit less robotic. People message me and they say, hey, Timothy. I'm like, this is some kind of app. Okay, so you Want to make it seem as least spammy as possible. The third way is with ads. Okay, so we do a bunch of this. We do heaps of ads. So our ads, our form says, what's your Instagram handle? What's your name? What's your email address? So we have those three data points. That way we can form a really strong silver chat or you know, getting down in the DMS process with them. Because we have the vital pieces of information, even if they don't respond to our DMs, we end up in the other folder. Whatever it is, we still have an email address as well, which can help for some follow up. The fourth way is boosted reels. So if you're not really tech savvy or you don't really have the time to do ads, just boosting a really good popular reel of yours can bring in a lot of followers. So I've seen, you know, some of our clients get followers for less than a dollar. Okay, so $1 for a follower. If you think about having a hundred DM conversations that you know, or a hundred new followers for a hundred bucks, that's going to cost you, you know, $100. You could create or generate enough business to pay that off. And then that's just a self fulfilling prophecy in terms of a lead generation tactic for you. So my suggestion would be, if you're going to go down that route, you know, commit a hundred dollars to it, see how many followers you get, DM them all, get a process going and see what that turns into. Because if you look at it from like a purely business ROI point of view, it could be well worth just boosting reels as one of your number one marketing strategies on that.

Can you boost reels? And, and like when you boost a reel, there are like different options because you can get an option for followers, you can also get an option for messages. Does that work?

Yeah, so it does work. But I would suggest getting people to follow your page because you get them as a follower as well and then you can message them as well.

Yeah, okay, cool, cool.

So that's the main difference. And then you want to be selecting the option to show it to people like your current followers. Problem here. If you've bought followers, you're going to get heaps of people like your bought followers, okay. Which is not actually indicative of your target market. So hopefully your Instagram or whatever you're using is filled with your ideal client or target market. This works really well for that. And lastly, we have reels and posts and the Key with reels and posts. You've heard this a hundred times but you want them to comment a word below. So in the call to action at the bottom, if you want access to this, comment me or download or fire or literally whatever it is and then anyone that comments, you want to start a conversation with them. Steph, do you want to give us some examples of that one?

I literally just did one today actually. It was like if you, you know, want to hyperscale your business from $10,000 a month to $100,000 a month, comment me below and I'll send you a message and we'll strategize. And so I've actually sent like six messages out this morning that have just been like, you know, hey, like where are you at right now? And like what that obviously 100k months is the goal, like what's the biggest roadblock? And now we're having a conversation about it and it's like super, super easy. So get them just comment a word below if it's, if you, you know, you've got a way or if you have a freebie or a downloadable, you know, we have like a still my seven figure marketing plan. So I might go if you want a copy of my marketing plan comment plan below and I'll send it to you and then I will go into the DMs and I'll send them the DM. And so like these are really like Tim's just giving you five insanely easy ways to start a lot of conversations with a lot of different people. Some easier than others, some work easier than others for you. But the boosted reels one is a really easy way to get new followers and it's a double whammy because you're going to get more followers which is great. You're going to start more conversations, which is great. The more conversations you start as well, the more engaged that follower becomes because they're going to see more of your content. Honestly, it's just such a win win. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy.

So we have sold you on the idea that you need to be DMing. We've told you not to be like Alex and then we have given you some examples on how to start and get conversations. Now Steph is going to hopefully walk you through a step by step process on how do we actually make the magic happen.

So I'm going to use the example that we have for our gym because I think it's, you know, I think for a coaching business a lot of people like yeah, But I'm not a coach, so I think just showing how this can work for a service based business is, is really important. So, um, the first question we always ask, if I said it's a new follower, someone that's just dropped into the, you know, the page for the first time, maybe they've just dropped into our DMS for the first time, we might be like, you know, the question we would always ask is, how did you hear about us now? Often they've heard about us from another client, which is awesome because that means it's a really warm lead. Or maybe they've just found us through one of our reels, which is less common in our gym. More common that someone's going to have recommended us. Okay. Or someone's going to have shared it to their stories. And so we know that they're a really warm leader referral, which is great. Then we'll ask them, what's your fitness goal? It's so simple, guys. Like, what is your fitness goal? That's it. I want to know what their goal is so that I can see if we're even a right fit. Because if someone's like, hey, I want to run a marathon, we probably be like, we're not your people for that. Like running, go running. Like there's, you might want to hire a running coach, right? Because like, we don't do. We do a bit of running, but definitely not marathon length running. Okay.

Built for feed, not for speed over here.

So, you know, we're not going to try and get these people into a console if they're, if we can't even solve their problem, right? So figure out what the goal is. And then they might say like, I want to lose 10 kilos. Like, awesome. Well, like, what stopped you from achieving that so far? Because I'm sure that this isn't a new goal. I'm sure, you know, there's been some work that's been done here and they'll be like, oh, you know, I'm really struggling with motivation. I'm struggling with this, like, yep, super normal that you struggle with motivation. Totally understand. Really common complaint about clients. What have you tried so far? Okay, so what we're getting here so far is what's the goal? What, what, what's stopping them from getting there right now on their own? What have they tried so far? Because there's no point in us being like, yeah, come in and train four times a week and we'll give you a nutrition protocol. If they're like, yeah, I've already done that we want to try and show them something that we do that is different to what they've tried. So they re inspired with hope and they can see that maybe our strategy is going to work for them. Okay, so what have you tried so far? And then after they tell you, look, I've tried this. I've, you know, I've been, I've been doing F45 for a while or you know, I've been training anytime fitness and it just hasn't been working and I haven't been motivated. I'd be like, look, totally get it. Super normal, like super hard to get motivated on your own. That's why we love group fitness. Are you open to getting some help to hit your goal of losing 10 kilos? And they'll say yes. Most people are going to say, I would love some help, please help me. I would love some help. They go, awesome. Let's jump on a call, have a chat through Goals. I'll give you some suggestions and we can see if we can make a plan for you. How does that sound? And they're going to be like, great. Then you can drop in the call link. Okay, so the, the five steps of that process are slide into the DMs, like, how did you hear about us? What is your goal? What is stopping you from achieving it? What have you tried so far? Are you open to getting some help? Book a call. That is it. It is so simple. If you just follow that step by step process, I can guarantee you people are going to want to sign up to what you have.

All right, next question. Steph, what if they don't reply?

So this is something that I got asked a lot recently in our group coaching calls on success school. And what if I don't reply? Like, don't keep following up. Just, you know, it's a bit pushy and it's a bit gross. So we don't want to get the ick right. So don't push. I think one follow up is enough. A few days later, I like to just go and react to one of their stories because that's going to bump me to the top of their inbox again. Okay. After that, you know, I don't really follow up again. Eventually they're probably going to opt in again at some point. Like what we find is that people continually opt in on our stuff, like continuing more of our free resources and eventually they're going to have a conversation with us. So don't push. You know, you've started a conversation so they don't want to have it. That's fine. I reckon about 50% of our followers reply. So 50% of people, we start a new conversation with reply and you know, that's normal. And so that's fine. Like not every single person is going to reply to you and it doesn't mean anything about you. Okay. Now earlier, Tim, I mentioned before about the fact that you know what will work. And I said make an invite. And so I think that maybe we could clarify for our listener what invites can we make that aren't just book a call.

Okay, cool. So a gym example could be like a free trial, free session, free pass, something like that. We also have like a downloadable. So for a business coaching example, we have like a free mini course. Okay. That mini course will get them to X outcome or X goal. Okay. Not everyone's gonna be ready to, you know, spend 8 to $10,000 on a business coaching program or a hundred dollars a week on a gym membership. Still want to help those people out. I guess, like at the end of the day, we are here to help people and that's what we do. Money's great, we can buy cool shit, we can live a really good lifestyle. People, everyone's got to put food on the table. Everyone gets that. But we still do want to help people. Okay. The second thing here is like, invite them to a free Facebook group. Just because they aren't a purchaser or a buyer or a prospect now doesn't mean they won't be in the future. Okay. Their circumstances might change. So just blowing someone off and fobbing someone off because they can't afford it right now is not a good thing to do. So we have a free Facebook group. If you're not in it, go to one of our Instagram accounts, join it. You guys will see the kind of value and the stuff we give in there. It's incredible. We often just refer people to that group if they're not quite ready for successful yet and they want some coaching. So a free Facebook group is a really good idea and something to do. You could also send them a workshop or a masterclass or something you've done, you know, solving problems, getting closer to the outcome, etc. People really appreciate these things because it does show you care as well. Okay. And it also builds no like and trust. Also, people have a tendency to refer people they know to you if you've given them value. Okay. So just because you don't make sale with them doesn't mean you won't make one with their friends, family, colleagues, etcetera Then we have replays of some kind. Okay, whatever that is. Maybe you could do a YouTube link or something like that of a cool video that you've shot or you've made. That's around that. And then lastly, you could invite them to purchase something. Low tickets. You've got a course for $7, $9, 2799. Whatever it is, you could invite them to make a sale that way. I've seen this done in the DMS before. People do a full sales process in the DMS, and I've seen people sell things up to $5,000 in the DMS. The process is a little bit different to what we do. It's a little bit longer and drawn out. Okay. So I guess, you know, to get a warm buyer, there's going to have to be a longer sales process, especially to build that trust factor. Also, I did want to mention that if you're doing a lot of dms, especially on Instagram or Facebook or wherever it is, you want to make sure your profile is optimized for this. Okay? If you have a really shitty Instagram page that makes no sense and you've got no hooks, you've got no content, it's really, like, unprofessional. Your DM success rate is probably not going to be high. So, you know, Steph and I both take huge pride in what our Instagrams or our social media presence looks like, because people check that shit, okay? They really look into it. Like, what do they share? Do they share personal stuff? Do they share about their dogs, their family? They share content. They provide value. Do they show outcomes? Do they have social proof? All the stuff we talked about on the previous episode with landing pages, we like to think our Instagram is like a landing page. So first step, guys, before you go and send out a bunch of messages, make sure that shit's optimized, okay? You want it looking good.

I put some polls on my story this week, and one of the questions I asked was, you know, around like, do you feel confident with marketing? Is your marketing letting down? Is your lead generation letting you down? And. And I had a look at the people's profiles who said, yes, they were struggling with marketing. Yes, they were struggling with lead generation. Yes, they were struggling to get people inquiring on their stuff. And I had a look, and a lot of them, weirdly enough, just in this particular day, happen to be people who were in the health, fitness, nutrition, or at some level of, like, a medical field. And a lot of them in their bios, they just had like their name and what they did. So it's like they're a dietitian and their name and then they would just have like all these letters underneath, right? Bsc, msc, dire, fryer, boy, dot one. Like, all these things, I'm like, I don't know what that is. And I also don't care. Like, I actually don't care if I want to know guys, like, what do you do for me? Because I can see that you're a dietitian, but what does that do for me? Like, I think so. So many people are so focused on putting all their qualifications in because they're trying to create social proof. It's like it doesn't really matter. Like, I assume that if you're saying you're a dietitian that you're probably qualified. I hope so. And I, you know, would hope that that is somewhere on your website or somewhere else in your content or, you know, somewhere else that's more relevant. But like, literally this, I saw about six of them. Their entire bio was just like, each dot point on their bio was like different letters and syllables and courses and stuff that they'd done. And I was like, I don't care. Tell me what you can do for me, right? And I think that if you can just answer that question for people on your social media, if you go on to ours, it'll say, we'll help you build a seven figure business. We'll help you build a six or seven figure business. Like, that's literally what it says. We'll help you create time freedom, we'll help you create financial freedom. Like, we are here to help you create those things. And so when you fall on our social media, like you're a business coach, that's going to help you make seven figures. Boom. I know, I definitely want to follow your stuff, right? Where if I get on, I see a dietitian that's just got letters, I'm like, but why? Like, what am I going to get? Like, what am I learning here? Who's. What problems do you solve and for who? And so really that buyer, guys, is so important.

So I'm going to give a little bit of a crude example here. And I am someone that has, I have 2 degrees, 14 certifications, I have every letter under the sun. If I actually put all the letters behind my name, It'd be like 50.

It actually would even fit in the buyer.

So you go on my Instagram, I don't have any letters on there. Okay. I've spent like nearly $400,000 on my education. But I think it is like a bit of a circle jerk of smart people also.

You think it's them doing it? Yeah, they're doing to each other.

Like, it's like a status or a signaling. It's like, I've got a PhD. I've got a master's degree. I've got X. I'm better like I am.

Your clients don't care.

Yeah, they don't give a.

Your clients don't care. You could be the smartest person in the room, but if you don't know how to help someone with that intelligence, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's like you could be the, you know, the smartest guy in the room, but if you can't get a result for the person at the other end, because you can't take all that knowledge and give it away or share it or distribute it in a way that moves people to action, that inspires them to do something different, that actually helps them implement and sustain a result. They won't care because all the information is already out there. They could read a book. They could go to YouTube, you know, and so it's your ability to actually take all of that information and. And share it with somebody, go, hey, I hope you solve this problem. And I know what I'm doing because I have all these degrees and all this stuff. Like, Tim, you know, like, yeah, we run a gym. And I feel like that overly simplifies just how much Tim has studied to just own a gym. Right. Like, it sounds so basic, but like, Tim has put, like, our programs are better because he's put like five, six, seven years of education into actually writing those programs. And so, you know, we know that we're better because of that, but nowhere, anywhere, even on our website. I don't even think it lists that out unless you go to, like, the coaches page. So I think guys really making sure that we're leaning into, like, anyone who's falling on your page needs to be able to say very similarly to your website, who are you? What do you do, and how does it help me?

Steph, would you rather a Lamborghini or letters after your name? Because I feel like one without the other is tough.

Oh, what do you mean?

I think if you're taking space on your bio or website focusing on the letters after your name, you're taking space away from focusing on the outcomes that you can get for your clients.

Is the outcome. I can get a Lamborghini.

The outcome is you can Help them.

To get a Lamborghini?

Yes.

Well, yeah, I mean, damn, like I'd love to help my clients get a Lamborghini.

All right, guys, so for that episode, we have a DM script framework available. So it's in the show notes. Head to the Show Notes, download that. We're going to walk you through step by step on what that is. You're going to set that up for your business and implement it right away. If you get some cool takeaways or you get some results from that, please let us know. Steph and I do this podcast for free. Obviously, like the other benefit is we would like you to join Success School IO, but we do this to help you. So we would love to help you grow your business. Even if that is like we've never met you before. You've never spoke to us, you've never sent us a dm. Now is the time. Send us a dm. Try to sell me something, but don't be like Alex.

Guys, we give so much like the stuff that we're sharing with you, like this DM script that Tim just told you about that we've put the show notes for you today. It's taken us years to perfect and develop and try and error and we've, you know, turned people off and we've broken rapport and we've messed up and we've stuffed up and we've gone to home base on message one and we've done all that shit so that you don't have to. Okay, so you know, we're giving you this stuff like it's like super high value stuff. So please give it a try, please implement it and yeah, like Tim said, let us know.

All right guys, we're gonna get into listener questions segment. These are spicy. Just having a look through. I know Steph and I are going to have some different answers to these which is going to be funny, maybe conflicting points of view. So Steph, I'll start you off from Xenia. That reminds me of Xena, Warrior Princess.

Zenia. Zenia.

W W Don't know what business this is. So if you guys submit a question, please let us know what your business is. It'll allow us to give you more context with the answer. What automations have you implemented that helped you scale and or get a ton of time back?

Such an interesting question. Yeah, I think I might have a really disagreeable position on this. Automating is great, but I think it is massively overhyped. I think that people think that they can like automate their whole business and just like never do anything again. And I think it's just so like we're laughing because it's, it's so like, it's so like you can definitely automate stuff for sure. Like for sure. But you are definitely not going to get a ton of time back unless you're being really inefficient with your time right now. So I'll give you an example. Like you know if, if I, when I first started coaching like I used to you know, do a lot of one to ones at the very beginning of course when I was getting, you know, good at it. And so what I would do is we'd have the one to one session on Zoom and then afterwards I'd have to type out the notes and then I'd have to send the email and then I have to send another email trying to get them to book in for the next session and then I would like ask them what like time would be good for them and then they would email back and then I would send them a calendar invite and then like you know, so like when you have processes that are really time consuming like that. So like it would take me like I would you know, see five or six one to ones a week and I'd spend probably like five hours doing admin afterwards. Yeah, like there's definitely ways to automate all of that. So you know, you could have, after the Zoom, you know, recording is done, you could have that could be automated to send an email out with the recording. You could get that immediately transcribed as well. So they could you know, drop the transcription in there as well. Obviously that email could also include a calendarly link that goes to your, to your emails. And so like that entire process practically or the admin side of it could have been completely automated. Right. So I think if you are not doing any automation right now like and, and you know like for example if you're creating invoices manually every day for your clients where like you can use a payment processing platform at Stripe as an example is going to save you a lot of time and money not having to create invoices every single day. Like recurring invoices. I used to create manual recurring invoices for my clients which is like obviously so slow. And so you know over time like there are a lot of automations that you can implement that are really good. They're going to save a lot of time and however there's no way of like clicking a magic button and then like your entire business runs without you yet. I think probably in the future it will get better and better. Um, but yeah, I think that the biggest automation that we use in our business right now is just getting people to like sign up and log in. So like if they. That's simple. It's so simple. But like, you know, you sign up on our Thrive cart, link to success school and automatically an email pops out saying like thank you so much. Like here's how you log in, here's what happens next. I think that's probably the most. There's probably another one in terms of leads filling into an, into a Google sheet. I think that's probably like all of the automations in our business.

Yeah, there's a bunch of other ones. I think when, when you hear the word automation or when I hear the word automation, I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Terminator, just like laughing and being like, I'll fucking show you what automation can do. But honestly it's emails, texts, anything that's related to Zapier, so Z A P I E R so you can check out Zapier. Anything that's related to that can be automated. Mainly for us it's like when someone signs up through Thrive Cart, they'll automatically get the logins to school and the platforms we use and get invited to the groups and all that type of stuff. So that's all super automated in terms of the call booking links. Like they're all popped on school but.

Other than we have some automated emails like so I like it's so funny.

They're scheduled.

They're scheduled. Yeah, exactly. So we have automated emails but like if someone, you know, like signs up for Elite Magnet, they're going to get some emails that go out but also like if they book a call with our team, we're going to send them automated reminders and like things like that, like for sure. But I mean nothing that the business can't run without. Yeah, I feel like, I feel like a lot of businesses are using those sorts of things. So Zenny, I guess it really depends on where you are at in your automation journey. Like we might have said stuff today that you're like, whoa, I didn't know I could do that. And we maybe take it for granted but I definitely think that a lot of people think that automation is much more like it's a bigger thing or there's more, they can be automated and they're not. And it's really just those little time saving hacks. So I don't have to remind every single client that they have A call coming up as an example. So, yeah, what about you? Anything else?

That's it.

Yeah. Cool. We have another question from. Oh, gosh, today's. Today's names. Yeah. Is it Rocio, Rockyo F? I love this question. How do you deal with a copycat? Do you block them? Do you address it in your social media? Especially when there are customers who actually think that it's you.

I've got two answers for this. Okay. Kind of threw me off when he or she said, especially when the customer's thinking it is you bit. But I will consider that I haven't seen that part of the question. I'll answer it without and then I'll answer the second bit. So you can see imitation as the highest form of flattery. Okay. So it obviously means that you're doing something super. Well, the other thing, if someone's just copying you or copying your social media, or copy and pasting captions or your ideas or your gym, which has happened to me a hundred times, they're always behind the eight ball because they don't have the innovation that you have. They're always three or six months behind what you do. So you can see it like that, as if, like just, you know, water for ducks back. Like, who gives a. Just like, don't look at their stuff if you're triggered by it. The other thing is you can block and delete them and address it. And you know, if it's really like a blatant infringement on copyright or intellectual property, you can send them, cease and desist and get lawyers involved in that type of stuff, which I'm thinking it's probably one of those situations for you. But I just want you to know, ratio, that if someone's copying you, they're copying you for a reason and you're obviously fucking killing it. So keep doing well, do what you have to do to make yourself feel whole or right in this situation. But you're obviously the market leader in what you do. And if someone's so inspired to copy you, I think that's an incredible thing.

Yeah, I think just on the last part, especially when there are customers thinking it's you. Like, if someone created another fake account, they called themselves Steph Gordon and they said that they were a crypto trader, which is usually what they say when they create the fake account outs and they're messaging all of our followers and all that sort of stuff. Then, yeah, of course you're going to report it to social media, Instagram, like Facebook, whatever, block, delete all of those things. Address it in my socials. I'll take a screenshot of the page. Like, don't do anything with this page. Blah, blah, blah. Like, definitely if it's a fake profile imitating you completely for sure. Like, do all of those things. However, if we're talking about somebody who's taken inspiration, like, we've had a. We've had a lot of copycats in the past. I have people who have ripped off entire courses that I've done and resold them. Or even worse, I had someone who ripped off an entire course I did, and gave it away for free as a lead magnet for her own program. And so, like, stuff like that is when I start sending things like cease and desists. You know, we block. We. We don't give them access to our world anymore. You don't get to access any of that. Most of the time when you send a cease and desist, most people will usually back down pretty quickly. But yeah, I, I personally don't slander people on socials, I think. I'm not saying that I wouldn't ever. I just haven't done yet. And I just really try to keep my social media really positive place. And I, for me, ethically and morally, it doesn't feel good to tear people down socially. And so, so I don't do that stuff on my social media. However, if something really grinded my gears, I'm not saying that I never would.

Yeah, I agree with all those points. And also, you know, if you get into some kind of legal battle, it always helps to have more money. Usually the person with more money wins those type of fights. So it's kind of why Steph and I, we always have a lawyer on speed dial. If this ever happens to us, we are ready. Not saying it's not going to, to that extent, but, you know, like, do you escalate the situation after a cease and desist? How do you do that? Or you need a lawyer. Okay. I would strongly suggest, you know, becoming friends with one or getting one in your world in whatever capacity that is for that day to event. Because the bigger you get, the more these things happen as well.

Yeah. Actually there was a saying about Elon Musk, I think, like this week, I think he came out that I think.

He has like 600 lawsuits running at any one time.

Yeah.

And they have an entire legal entity of Tesla.

Yeah, it was, it was Alex on Mosey that was saying it. Hey. And he was like, if you're not getting sued, you're not doing it right. So I think, like, Guys, like the bigger you get, like I think don't buy into the fear of of that because like that stuff will happen over time. But. But yeah, like I think definitely block and delete is usually 100 the the method for that.

All right guys, so if you got some value from the show, the number one way we grow is by you subscribing or following. So if you're new here, please do that on the respective platforms. It would be greatly appreciated. Steph and I have a massive vision for this podcast and we would like to share it with as many people as possible. And lastly guys, I did mention throughout the show, but we run an amazing coaching business called Success School and is to help entrepreneurs like you grow to six and seven figures and beyond. And that is with our amazing Success School method of sales, marketing and scale. Steph and I would love to open or invite you to join Success School or apply. So just go to our website, click on the Apply now button and you will have a call with our lead advisor Brendan and he will see if you're a good fit, you like the program and you see some value in it.

And if you got any takeaways today guy, please share it to your stories. It really helps us to see that you're getting value. Or sign into our dms just let us know because we do this for free and so we want to just know that you're getting some sort of value from it. So thank you so much for listening and we will see you next week.