Business Love at First Sight? Becky L Duncan

Speaking with TJ Walker, dissecting the communication skills and practices of world class leaders. Have you ever looked across the room? It was the most beautiful woman or man you'd ever seen. It was love at first sight. Well, we've seen that in the movies. We may have experienced it in our own personal life. Our special guest today helps people do that, but in a business setting. Imagine business love at first sight. Boy, wouldn't we all love our prospects to do that. My guest today is Becky L. Duncan. She's a well known sales expert, marketing guru, communications expert. She's here with us today to share some insights on how we can communicate more effectively to our clients, our prospects, and some of you don't like this term, the sales funnel. Becky, thanks for joining us.

TJ thank you so much for having me and giving me some of your time. And to everyone that's listening who's downloaded this and is listening wherever they are, thanks for dedicating the next chunk of your day to listening to TJ and I talk about, you know, all things communication.

So it's a great marketing term and phrase. Market business love at First Sight because you've got the pop culture imagery, the emotion, it's a little bit different and yet it sounds like something we instantly know. I think of one of the best book titles ever written, but frankly one of the worst books. And I don't mean to suggest yours book is bad, but the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, John Gray book is a fantastic title, but the book has absolutely nothing that isn't in every other single relationship book. But it's got a great title. Anyway, don't mean to besmirch your product just because it has a good title, but it evoked that image for me. Tell me what it means to you.

So business Love at First Sight is a result of a conversation I had with Marcia Chander. She is a storytelling expert and she works with people to condense their stories down into a manageable time frame and to tell in a compelling fashion. And I was talking to her about, you know, what I want people to feel like I can help them do. And as we were talking, I cited I just want that moment from a movie where they look across the room and they have the music playing. And I just want people to have that experience when their clients read their copy. And so we were toying around with love at First Sight. We were trying to be all clever with it and then finally one of us suggested just calling it Business Love at First Sight. And I've Been rolling with it ever since. And every one that I've explained, you know, people always ask you, what do you do? What do you do? And I say, oh, I help your clients fall in business love at first sight. I almost always get the reaction of, I don't know what that is, but tell me more. And so to Marcia's credit, it's a great opening line because people feel like they know what it is and yet still are like, oh my gosh, tell me more about that. So hats off to Marcia for coming up with it. It was really a genius moment and.

Similar title that was wildly successful, the Four Hour Work Week. You can sort of figure out what it is, but it arouses your curiosity and you want to know more. And Tim Ferriss obviously was highly successful with that book title. But let's dig a little deeper now. The conventional wisdom of course, is don't go for the quick sale, go for the long term, build trust. In fact, in my own business, I have people who are on my newsletter list, sometimes for more than half a decade before they ever call me to hire them. It's a long term trust. And since I have a pipeline that works, but all things being equal, would I love for people just to come to my website, watch a video or two, call up and say, tj, we love you, here's a contract. Sure, that would be better. Tell me how that works.

How it works as far as the time frame goes.

How does that work of getting people to love you right away? Because it seems to take people a long time to love me. And not coincidentally, my wife had to know me for about 10 years before she would marry me and dunked me about three or four times in between. But now we're happily married and she's sticking with it, so I hope I didn't jinx myself.

Tj, if you were ever at a loss for a topic for one of your episodes, I think that story would make a fantastic episode that we all want to hear. Well, the idea behind business love at first sight is not to get your client to buy right away necessarily. Again, like you said, if they all did, that would be fantastic. But the idea is for them to fall in business love at first sight and for them to be attracted to you. Because UIs are a good match and that means a two way good match. That means not only am I going to be able to help you, you're the right client for me. I'm the right either coach or business or whatever product it is that you put out, you're the right person for them too. So it's really ensuring that there's a two way fit there and whether they're on, you know, and I'm in the same boat as you. I've had people on my list forever and they'll finally write me. And I remember this thing you did and it'll be something I did like three years ago. And I always think, well, I was just planting seeds and I just didn't know it. And so it's not necessarily about getting someone to buy immediately. It's about attracting the right kind of people that you can help that are going to be good for you to be working with as well.

So how do you do it in your own business? And what's the most common mistake others make? Because a lot of people say, oh, I appeal to everyone, everybody wants me. And we know that's not the right approach.

Right. Well, that's obviously the first mistake that I would say is that if you don't appeal to everybody, you just don't. And you don't want to. You absolutely don't want to. If you think about my favorite kind of cookie is an oatmeal raisin cookie. I love them. I would push my own mother down to get an oatmeal raisin cookie. And not everyone likes those, but I'm crazy for them. And that's what you want to be. You want to be the oatmeal cookie to your people. An Oreo, I can take it or leave it, but an oatmeal raisin cookie, get out of my way, I'm eating that thing. And so that's who you want to be to your client, the person that they'll read any email you send. They'll listen to any webinar that you do because you guys click so well. So the first mistake is thinking that you are for everybody you're not. And the second mistake that people make is thinking that they know their ideal client. And the longer you're in business, the deeper into that trap people fall. They'll think, I'm putting out this new product and I know what they want and I'm just going to whip up the copy page for it. And they don't necessarily know what their people are asking for. So I think that would be the second biggest mistake is thinking that you know your ideal clients.

So how else do you different? Let's just drill down specific to you. One of your hats is you're a sales expert, a marketing expert. You told me that. My first reaction is, oh, I know Jeffrey Gittamer. Great friends, but I've had dinner with him. I've been to his compound in North Carolina. Steve Shifman's company. Steve Shifman, who's written like 300 books on sales, has stopped by my office before. So these images instantly pop up of basically guys over 65 who are talented and they've written a lot and are wildly successful and make $25,000 a speech or more. How are you different from them? What are you going to do for me, different than what they do?

One thing that I do differently for my clients is that I definitely don't think that there's one sales technique that works for everybody. And hats off to the Shipman's and the Grant Cardone's of the world. They've made a ton of money and they absolutely know what they're talking about. But I definitely feel like those sales techniques need to be tailored to fit you, and you need to be building an authentic connection with people. And not just a I'm going to do step one, step two, step three, step four, and you're going to buy. My style is much more of a, let's attract the right kind of people and build an authentic relationship with them. Because if you're building passionate fans, they're never going to go anywhere else.

So give me an example of someone who either was attracted to you, your website got into your sales funnel, was a great fit for. For you and for them. Why did they feel comfortable with you? Then walk us through the steps. How did you change their marketing, their sales funnel, and what were the results?

I have a client who I actually just touched base with her a couple weeks ago to check in and see what was going on with her. I think we met in a Facebook group somewhere. And the reason that she reached out initially was because I had posted something in a group that was an advertisement of a product of mine. And the format for the group was very strict. You could only answer these four questions about your product, and then that was it. There was really no real pitch, but one of the questions was, who is this product not for? And so I wrote, this product is not for you. If you like clients, they're pitas p I t a s pain in the asses. And she thought that was really funny. And she just liked my upfront, honest style. And so she sent me a message and we started chatting and she just over and over said, I just really like your style and I want to talk to you more about working with you. And she was about to do a launch. And you know, people don't go into business to become best friends with mailchimp. They go into business to do the thing that they love to do. And so she didn't know how to write a sales funnel. She didn't know how to write copy, shouldn't know how to write any of these things. And I said that's not a problem, that is what I love to do. That's what I'm going to help you with. So I wrote her launch emails for her from the get go. She had an opt in that was leading up to now I'm launching this school. And then the actual now we're in the sales funnel where we're selling it. And it was her very first school. She sold 100 seats, which was her goal and she sold them for two grand a piece. It was her very first launch.

Whoa. Now you got my attention and you have the attention of a lot of the entrepreneurs in this audience. How in the world did you do that? Because I could tell you I've been in the online training space since the 1990s. I've never had a sales success like that. What did you do?

Well, her name is Eliza. To Eliza's credit, she had a mailing list of, I want to say 2,500 at that point. And she had sold little products to them but never a full on program. And so she had a good sized list, she had a good product. But the real secret, because then she wanted the same reaction. She said, I want the same reaction from my clients that I had to you, which was I love this person and I want to work with them. What does it cost? I don't care, I want to work with this person. And so, and this is the business love at first sight workbook that I have on my website and we basically worked through it together. And the idea of it is that you need to talk to your ideal clients and you need to interview them and hear the words that they are using, not just have them fill out a survey. Because as you know, you and I have talked before that the way that you write is not the way that you talk. And so when people are filling out a survey online, they're using different words than they would if they were speaking aloud to you. And so I make all of my clients track down 10 ideal clients and get them on the phone and interview them and they record the call and they record their exact words and they talk about what were the troubles that you were having before we worked together?

You know, what was so you mean I'm not supposed to just guess or just go off the marketing brochure copy from five years ago?

No, not from five years. Absolutely not.

Interesting insights. Our listeners who want to dive even deeper into this, you can do so by going to BeckyLDuncan.com that's Becky, just like it sounds. And we're posting this in the show notes as well. Becky. B E C K Y L Duncan D U N C-A-N.com and if you really want to go deeper, there's a freebie available to you by going to BeckyLDuncan.com TJ Walker. She's nice enough to provide a little extra for the listeners of this program, which thank you. And by the way, I think you're the first guest on this program to do that. And a little sidebar conversation here. We've never met before. We've talked for just a couple of minutes before the show started. We're not, you know, long lost, buzzy buddies who hang out late at night at the National Speakers Association Conference. But I could tell you that Becky practices what she preaches because I've had an awful lot of people pitching me to get onto this show. And her pitch stood out because the first thing she did in her pitch was she talked about me. And a little confession. If you give sodium pental to any talk show host, even a podcast with two listeners, every host has a massive ego. And I like to think I'm not an egomaniac. But the first thing she did in her email, she didn't just say, oh, tj, you're the greatest. Because while that might be true, it wouldn't sound very genuine. Instead, she took the time to look at a couple of elements on my, I don't know if it was my YouTube channel or my podcast feed, she isolated one, I believe it was a commentary on Michael Phelps, and told me what she liked about it. So it's just very hard for a host or producer to get specific, meaningful, detailed feedback about something they've created. And the feedback is positive, but in a detailed, non generic suck up way without concluding that that person isn't a genius. That's why you're here. You're obviously a genius.

Well, that's so nice of you to say to compliment my pitch letter. And you know, it was between that and your Fonzie story, your Fonzie impersonation story.

Okay. For our listeners not familiar with that, who've seen me in person once in the 70s, had a beautiful head of thick hair and I was slicked back. And I won a Fonzie lookalike contest in 1975, and that created my very first media experience. I was delivering the news as the prize for that contest for just my local junior high school closed circuit TV newscast when I was 12 years old. So. But enough about things.

Oh, I will never be able to forget that story. And honestly, there needs to be a picture of it somewhere because we're all imagining you looking exactly like you are right now, but with Fonzie hair and jacket, and it's just not working. So I think we all hope that you also post in the show notes a picture of this Fonzie impersonation.

You know, I was. Well, unfortunately, they. I don't have any pictures.

It's a loss.

Although I do. I actually do have a picture of myself maybe a year later. At that point, I'd become a big public speaking aficionado. I'd become student council president my junior high school. And we'd raised a bunch of money. It was some gimmick. We were raising coins and it got in the local paper. I do still have that picture. And I have the perfect thick, feathered hair. Sad part of all this. Yeah, I was 12 years old and Henry Winkler, who was the Fonz, seemed like, you know, he's practically old as my parents. He was, I guess, 32 at the time. I'm on an airplane boarding an airplane coming back from LA a couple years ago, and who's sitting right there? It's Henry Winkler. And he's got a perfect full head of hair. Now it's gray, but he's got all of his hair. And I don't. But anyway, enough of. And he was in first class and I was in co. So we didn't get to talk. How did you get into communications? Because you obviously have a passion for this. How did you get your start?

Baby steps. I was the narrator in my second grade school play. While everybody else had a costume, I got to sit off stage and read aloud, which sounds horrible, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I took improv classes at I.O. in Chicago and realized I had just no stage fright whatsoever. Just. It just doesn't bother me to get up and speak in front of a group of people. And then I took an online class about selling and really loved the copywriting portion of it. And that for me was where it all came together. Okay, this is how you can connect with people online via copy. And then just started studying it in great depth. And years later, here I am. I Went to school to become a sociologist. And so I've done a lot of sociological research and just kind of pulled all of those things together. I didn't know I was heading in this direction years ago, but this is just kind of where it all, where it all ended up.

The study of groups of people. Obviously a relevant discipline to what you're doing now. Yeah, let me play devil's advocate a minute because I have a lot of respect for copywriters. I know a lot of them. It can really work, especially for low dollar sales, information, products, books. But for high dollar sales, million dollar contracts or even five figure contracts, the sales funnel, the email pitches often do what they're intended to do, which is to get the phone to ring and have the person set up an appointment to come see you. And I see so many people spend a fortune on copywriting. Copywriting consultants, digital marketers, they spend all this time to get people to come into their office for a sales pitch. And then when they actually are there face to face with a prospect who could give them a 5, 6, 7 figure contract, their presentation is awful. So what good is it if you've got the greatest email marketing, if the weak link in all this is the spoken communication? I obviously have a bias in this, so it won't come up front.

So I won't say that I'm not limited to just copywriting, but for me they work in tandem. But you're absolutely right, if I have the greatest copy in the world and I can get you in my office and then I blow it in person, it's useless. But also vice versa, if I can't get you in my office to show you how good I am, then it doesn't work either.

So for me it doesn't matter how.

Good your presentation is.

There's no audience.

They work in tandem to get you there. Which brings me back to earlier in the call you mentioned the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and the four Hour Work Week and what great titles they are, and they really are. But when you open the book and read it, and I confess I haven't read Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, but I'm not surprised to hear that the information in there is pretty is not surprising. We'll say it's the same with your email subject lines, which I'm that's a super passion of mine is email subject lines. If you can't get people to open your emails or you can't get people to attend your talk in public, it's not going to do any good. You've got to get them to open the email, you've got to get them to listen to your talk so that you can deliver the message. And so that's why those titles are so great. Because even if the content of the book is not good, people still bought it and they still read it and they're still talking about it. But you've got to get them to listen to your talk, you've got to get them in the office, you've got to get them to click on that email. And so really you just have. I mean, I think a couple years ago they did a study that said you have eight seconds online to get someone's attention. And I'm willing to bet cold hard cash it's way less now. And so when you're speaking to someone in public, when you're in someone's email inbox, you've got seconds to get their attention. And so those first words that you use are, and I hate to put too much pressure on your openings, but they are really important. Just like your opening for this show was really dramatic, it was great.

Thank you again, ladies and gentlemen.

She's clearly brilliant, but that opening is just crucially important to get someone to listen. Because if first impressions are really everything.

But let's address this link you mentioned. Eight seconds short. I have people come to me all the time, you know, TJ, teach me to be concise and you know, I want to be concise. And then they give seven second answers to media interviews and they didn't communicate anything. I always tell people, you don't want to be concise, you want to communicate. You want to use the amount of time you need to communicate your idea. But there is this idea in pop culture that, oh, no one has an attention span so you got to be short, short, short, short, brief 30 second videos. And yet when I listen to surreal marketing experts, they tend to say the more you tell, the more you sell. And I don't know if it still holds true, but historically in the old fashioned paper direct mail world, the most successful fundraising letter ever was for George McGovern in 1972 and he raised like untold millions. And it was a 17 page letter. And certainly some sales pages online can go on for what looks like 10 pages. What's your thought there on link?

I think you have eight seconds to get someone's attention and then as long as you're interesting, all the time in the world to keep it.

The key phrase there, as long as you are.

Interested, as long as you're interesting and I will listen to you talk all day long, provided you're interesting. I will read as long a sales page as you have provided that it's speaking directly to me. But I do think you have a very short amount of time to get someone's attention. But then once you have my attention, if you're compelling, I'm in it with you. And they say a sales page needs to be as long as it needs to be to sell. And if you can do that in two paragraphs, go for it. If it takes you 17 pages, do that too.

Not one word more, but not one last word either, which is, I definitely.

Go through my copy and how can I edit this down and get to the point more quickly? But I don't go through my copy and say, oh gosh, it's six pages long, it must be too long. I just go through and say, is any of this extra? Is any of this not working? If so, cut it. But I don't limit myself to how much you can write.

A question facing many of our audience members, and it faces me with respect to email marketing. And that is what is the right integration of video, audio and text? For years, text was really the only way you could do it easily. It was too hard to send video and audio. YouTube solved that problem for video. Itunes, other applications have solved it for audio. But what do you find works? I will confess, mostly out of laziness and time constraints. I basically get rid of my text portion of my newsletter and the only text in my newsletter is the title of the media training or public speaking training tip or the title of my podcast show. So my newsletter is fairly lean. It may have just basically eight to ten titles. So on the one hand, I'm lazy. On the other hand, I am creating more content in a week than most companies, 10 times bigger than I am produce in a year. So it cuts both ways. But do you think that's a mistake? Do you still need mostly text to be effective? Or are people just as happy with a link to a video or an audio?

It absolutely depends on your ideal client. And you have no idea how delighted I am to hear you, a public speaker, say, oh, I just cut out all the writing and I just do videos now. Of course you did, because you're a public speaker and those are the people that you're targeting. That's what they want to see. And all hats off to your writing. We want to see you speak because that's what you do.

Well, thank you for saying that. You say of course, my competitors really don't do that. My competitors either don't have. And look, I'm friends with a lot of them. There's a lot of great competitors out there, but for whatever reason, they don't use much video or audio. And that they do. It's like one per quarter. I know a couple of people who have maybe one video a week, whereas I'm doing again, more is not always better. But by the time I've done half a dozen podcasts, another half a dozen videos, in a slow week, we're up to a dozen pieces of audio and video content, and often more than that because I have other I have Evergreen. You may get a kick out of this. July 4th week was a slow week for everyone. I'd already had a bunch of vacations, so I had four free days. So I said to myself, why don't I just do five new podcasts, weekly podcasts for the next year. And I just shot 260 videos on Evergreen content related to public speaking, crisis communications, and I just automated it so it goes out. So I don't even count those. But anyone who subscribes to my stuff, there's another five videos and audios they can get every week. But anyway, that's me. What are your thoughts? What's your advice to people who currently are only using text but are thinking about how to do audio and video? I don't want to be some crazy person like TJ doing half a dozen or dozen videos a week.

Week it would be. I have two thoughts on that. The first one is if you are someone like TJ who is a public speaker, or maybe your company specializes in doing photos or videos, or you are a copywriter and that's your bread and butter. Those are the things you should be showcasing people. So if you create videos for a living, you should be doing a lot of videos for your blog posts and your newsletter so that I can see what you do. If you're a copywriter, I want to see your copy, I want to see you write. But also you need to be in touch with your ideal client. And you're going to get tired of hearing me say this, but I'm going to come back to it over and over. You really need to touch base with your ideal clients and find out what it is that attracted them. And so if it is, you know, oh, I love the videos because they're all under two minutes. I can get them done. Or I just love the way that you write. It gives me time to sit down and and Just read what it is that you have to say. You really want to touch base with those ideal clients and find out what it is that they liked. And keep in mind things like, you know, if you're targeting a stay at home mom of a huge family, maybe she loves the videos because, you know, she can't get a quiet moment to read. Or maybe your ideal client is the person who says, I just want to take my laptop in the bathroom where the kids won't bother me, and read those two pages that you sent me. It's the only quiet time I had today. But you're not going to know that until you reach out to your ideal client and ask them.

Can you necessarily trust what people say, though? Because in my experience, people will say, oh, sure, sure, sure, I don't want to read a lot. But it doesn't mean that that really works on them. It's kind of like in the world of politics, if you ask 100 voters in a poll, what do you think of negative advertising? Do you like candidates who use negative ad? They'll also, oh, I hate negative advertising. I'll never vote for a candidate with negative advertising. And they're just not being honest. Now. They're not purposely lying, but that just isn't what works. Candidates who don't use negative advertising, if their opponent attacks them unanswered, the one who did the negative ads is going to win the vast majority of the time if other factors are roughly the same. So I have found, certainly you want to listen to people, but what they say they want and what works on them is often different than what actually works on them. Isn't that true?

That's absolutely true. So you definitely want to ask your ideal clients all of the questions. And I remember we actually had a class in grad school that was just on question construction. Because the question that you ask, the way that you ask it, the words that you use will affect the outcome. So you want to ask the most neutral question that you can. So all the questions in business, love at first sight, are as neutral as they can be to avoid biased.

And don't do it the way I just did it, which I basically browbeat you into agreeing with me. It was a horribly constructed question.

That's like when someone says, these pants don't make me look fat, do they? There's really only one answer to that question. There's just no way out of it. And you don't want to do that to your ideal clients either. You don't want to, you know, push them into A corner where they have to say something. So one definitely you want to ask the most benign non leading questions that you can come up with, but you also want to compare those answers to your CRM data. So like if you have mailchimp or.

You have customer relationship management.

Yes, sorry. So like your email management system, if you have ontraport or you know, mailchimp or whatever it is that you're into, there's all kinds of data you can get on which of my subject lines actually got people to open it. Which of these links did they actually click on? You can do a lot of split testing. If you're not familiar with split testing, it's basically sending half of your list one type of email. So perhaps TJ would send half of his people a video and the other half he would send copied. It's perhaps the exact same words, they're just typed out. And then we would see which half clicked on the link more. And over the course of time we could tell pretty easily the people that get the video are way more active and do way more clicking and engaging. Then he would want to stick with video. And it's impossible not to be biased going into something. But I would suspect that is true for your list because you're a public speaker. That's what we want to hear from you. And so the videos are far more compelling than would be text. Not to mention if your competitors are all doing text, you want to stand out and do video. If that's what your. If your ideal clients can do it, then you want to stand out and do video.

That would be our special. Our special guest today is Becky L. Duncan. You can find out more about her by going to BeckyLDuncan.com she's been nice enough to create a freebie just for the listeners of speaking with TJ Walker. If you go to BeckyLDuncan.com TJ Walker, you'll get a special free report and diagnostic there and we'll link to that into the show notes so you don't have to write it. I know for me once someone goes beyond.com there's no way I'm going to remember. Could have one extra digit. It just doesn't stick with my brain. You can also connect with Becky on Twitter. BeckyLDuncan is her Twitter handle and you can ask her questions following up on anything we've said today. Thank her for spending time with us. Disagree, debate with her. She'll be there for you.

And also if you if you do grab business, love at first sight. There's a link in there to join the private Facebook group. And a lot of people will submit things to me and say, I've been trying this subject line. It's not working. Or what do you think of this? And I'm happy to help you rewrite stuff or give you my opinion. I always have an opinion. I'm happy to give it to you in the Facebook group.

Tell us about your private Facebook page. More and more businesses are doing that. A lot of our listeners are still thinking, what is that exactly? Is that a place of scam? Is that like a dating thing? What does that actually mean, a private Facebook group?

Well, I don't think there's any dating going on in there, but I could be wrong. It's a private Facebook group so that people online can find the group, but they can't see who's in it and they can't see what you're asking me. So that if you have any sort of, you know, copy business meltdown, no one's going to see it happen. You get a link when you download Business Love at First sight. You get an invitation to it. Then you're just a member of the group. And I do a lot of free training in the group, a lot of videos that I don't publish anywhere else online. And you're free to come in and ask me questions at any time. Hey, Becky, I want to get an interview on TJ Walker. How do I do that? And I will help you write a pitch letter that apparently he will like or any questions that you have in there about anything that I've published or something that you're working on. I'm happy to help people and answer their questions in there. So it's a nice little group. It's very lively. Lots of copywriting and selling strategies and ideas popping around. So once you have Business Love at First sight or really any of my freebies, you can get a link to that group where I answer questions. It's totally free. There's no. It's not charged. It's just a service that I do to help you guys figure out. Because copywriting is not a science. It's more of a science and an art, and that can lead to a lot of uncertainty and questions. So I'm happy to help guide you through them.

You mentioned the video you put on Facebook. In no place else, I am hearing more people doing that Facebook. Not that I don't know if it's been a year, but it hasn't been that long where they have this system where you upload it and it plays live when someone's on your page. But it's not obnoxious because the audio isn't on, but they can see you and then with one click, they can hear it. This is like saying the sky is blue to some of our listeners, but others of you have not been following that. So I just wanted to remind people of that. I've noticed with my own videos that there's a huge difference between putting a YouTube embed on a Facebook page versus putting it live or native within the Facebook environment. Because Facebook, they want to keep you there. They don't really want to send you away to YouTube. I don't blame them. And so the engagement level, the watch level, is much, much higher when you put it there. But what I haven't done, and I'm interested in your theory here, what I haven't done is put any video exclusive to Facebook because I found traditionally I've just gotten so much more audience on YouTube and the long tail viewership is so much bigger on YouTube than anyplace else that I kind of feel like I'm wasting time if I don't also put something on YouTube. But you have a different thought. I want to hear about it.

Well, for me, I feel like there are two different things you would be doing. There are two different kinds of people I'm attracting. For me, I am more interested in cultivating a relationship with people that already follow me. And so I won't tell you that I know every single person on my mailing list. That would be impossible, I think. But I know a lot of them. I recognize a lot of the names because I have them in the Facebook group. I interact with them and I see them a lot. Putting things out onto YouTube is fantastic, by the way. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's a great list builder. It's a great way to get your name out there. But when I put things out on YouTube, they don't necessarily come back to me as much. I don't get as much interaction from people or as much engagement. And for me, it's much more about, hey, let's you and I build this relationship together. And whether that's, you know, you read my blogs for years and you never buy anything from me, I'm okay with that because you get a lot of referrals from those people. And I'm not just about how much money can we make. I genuinely just want to help people be able to write copy in a more compelling fashion. So for me, I like keeping it Mostly to Facebook, just because that's my little group of people. I can put out videos to those people and get feedback from them and kind of we're all sort of growing something together. Not to mention, if you're in the Facebook group, if you, it means you've gotten an invitation from some sort of opt in of mine, which means we're sort of at least speaking the same language.

And that was really my next question is how much of the effectiveness of this is because of the sort of sense of, oh, I'm on the inside. It's not just a generic YouTube page. I'm in a community and there's a personal level to it. How much of that is the component that makes it work?

I think it's huge. But again, it goes back to your ideal client. Is your ideal client the kind of person that craves that sort of community or do they just not care? They don't care. Then you can live on YouTube. That's great. But for me, my ideal clients really do crave that. Hey Becky, can you take another look at this? They've met friends in there, they're building things together. And again, like I said, you have that shorthand of I can talk about pain points, benefits, ideal clients. And I don't have to stop and explain what that means because they've all at least gotten through one opt in of mine and they kind of know like, okay, when she says ideal client, she means people that she can help and people that also like her in return sort of thing.

How does someone know what their ideal client. I mean, if someone asks me that, I could certainly tell them historically, I mean, my business is not that different from a lot of other business. On the one hand, it's a weird niche business because I really do two things. I do media training, public speaking training, and increasingly I'm training people on how they can create video and audio for social media consumption. So it's a niche business. Although if you Google media training online, you'll find 54 million websites come up. But at some level, I work in every single industry and I work in every side. I mean, I've had 14 year olds who have very rich parents have hired me for a day. I've had some of the largest banks in the world. But it really is almost no rhyme or reason in terms of percentages in the last few years. It's a higher percentage of work with United nations and NGOs, but I do a lot of work with financial services, oil and gas, but it's really all over the map. And at some level, what I look for in a prospect is someone who has a specific need to improve media training or public speaking training has a need by a specific date, they have an upcoming interview or speech or conference, they perceive that they need to get better, they want to actually improve. And the fifth element there is they have somebody to pay for it and it doesn't come out of their own pocket. So somebody who makes $2 million a year in their own private law practice, who has a big case is actually a much worse prospect for me than somebody who makes $200,000 a year as a mid level manager for a financial services company and has to do a trade show interview with a trade publication, but has a large corporate training department with funds for outside trainers. So people would think, oh, the hotshot lawyer who makes $2 million a year is going to be on NBC is the better prospect. No, actually entrepreneurs, people say, oh tj, I bet you work with entrepreneurs all the time. They're having to give pitches and speeches and go on Shark Tank. And frankly, I love entrepreneurs. They're interesting, they're exciting, they're full of passion. Horrible prospects for me, biggest time wasters in the world because they don't spend money on a service like mine. So at some level, a lot of my scrutiny is just based on their budget. And that sounds horrible. It sounds like they're saying, oh, I'll work with anyone who has money. How do you help people really figure out who their ideal client is?

Well one, no, everyone's ideal client is someone who can afford their services. Like that's, that's not horrible at all. That's on everyone's list. A lot of people out there will tell you your ideal client. You need to know, are they a man or a woman? How old are they? What color are their eyes? Let's give this person a name. And there's nothing wrong with that strategy. It definitely helps to know to whom you're speaking. Generally speaking, is it men, is it women? Like that kind of information is absolutely useful. But when it comes time to write copy, what I really want to, to know and need to know in order to connect with you is what are your deep down pain points? Not just like, let's say you're a weight loss coach. Not just that you want to lose weight. That's not enough. I need to know that you never want to spend another summer in sweatpants. I need to know that you are tired of the chub rub. I need to know that the siren song of the breadbasket is the bane of your existence. Those are the kinds of things that I need to know in order to reach those people. So I need to know your ideal client's pain points. I need to know what they want to get out of working with you. So not just I want to go on Shark Tank and land the deal. That's not enough. What is landing the deal going to give you and how do you think that's going to change your life? Those are the kinds of things you need to know to identify your ideal clients.

Well, I have a client who came to me many years ago to one of my public workshops and her specialty was weight loss. Very, very specific niche of American, African American women. That's her niche. That's perfect. And she is so you can't imagine how much money she makes. She has a Facebook private page that people pay a membership fee and she has videos on Facebook. Wildly successful rabid following. Just such an enthusiastic I'm on her list. She does a great job of email marketing and integrates video live hangouts and live sessions with Facebook live for her community and really communicates in video, audio, live speeches, the whole ball of wax. And it's put together just a fabulous, fairly lean, low, low overhead, seven figure kind of information business that is I think highly inspiring to a lot of the listeners here but also frankly relevant even if you work for the largest corporation in the world. Because everybody's trying to reach out to customers, prospects and this particular. And I'll ask her. I don't think she minds me mentioning her name, but I always like to ask first. So I won't mention her name in person, but I know that as of six months ago she was reaching about 7 million people a week. As far as just contacts on her Facebook page, her email list, her YouTube page, you put it all together, that's a fabulous reach.

Oh yeah, those are the numbers we all dream of, right?

Big corporate. There are a lot of big corporations who would love to reach that many people in ways that weren't just about writing big checks for super bowl ads.

Oh yeah. And I bet you anything that she is able to speak to her clients in their hyper specific language. So like I'm more familiar with overweight midwestern ladies. That's the family I grew up in. And I could talk to you all day long about the jello salads and the little Debbies and the. I bet you 20 bucks that she's able to talk to her ideal clients and cites hyper specific foods and traditions that are involved in that community and they're all saying yes. How did she know that I. How does she know that that's my weakness, that that's my treat food, that that's my problem? And when she says those exact phrases, her ideal clients are saying, oh, my God, this woman totally, absolutely understands what I'm going through. And they don't want to work with anybody else because she's the one that understands them. And that's how you attract your ideal clients and make them fall in business. Love at first sight. You echo their exact words so that they know that you understand where they're coming from.

Becky, you had me at Little Debbie.

See, that's the power of using exact words.

I had to eat those. I'm not from the Midwest, but my parents grew up in the Midwest. My mother from Lafayette, Indiana. Maybe that's where it started, because I did eat that. I can see Little Debbie's face burning in my conscious right now. I haven't had one in decades. Probably wouldn't eat one if you gave it to me. But I did eat them at one time. That certainly is a powerful way of communicating. Now, one of the things I have noticed is that there's nothing my audience loves more than me talking about my screw ups, my misfires, my speech blunders. Can you tell us about any either spoken pitches, presentations, talks. You've had media appearances where it really didn't go well. And it was a big lesson to be learned.

Oh, well, it's funny that you asked that, because I used to do this thing, which I haven't done in a while, where I tried to fail. I called them epic fails. And my theory was, if you're failing a lot, it means that you're trying a lot. And so I set a goal to try, try to fail five times a month. And then I would keep track of them to see, am I failing enough? Because that means that I'm trying enough. It sort of backfired. At one point, I applied for a job that I wasn't really qualified for and I didn't get the job. But I ended up getting an interview with somebody who's pretty famous. And I was like, that was amazing. I'm trying to think of one that just is an epic.

That sounds like it worked out well for you. There's no downsides.

No, that one wasn't a downfall, but that was.

I mean, I've been. I've been booed off stages, I've fallen off a stage. I've had a host pull a gun on me. I've My. What I thought was my best talk show appearance ever about five years ago on Headline News. I thought I was funny, insightful, interesting. I'm walking down Broadway back to my office. My publicist calls. I think he's calling to praise me and say, okay, they're ready to give you a contributor contract. He said, tj, they hated you. You've now officially been banned for life from Headline News. And it was because I had been critical of Donald Trump before. I guess that was politically correct for some people to do.

You were just ahead of your time. You were just fashionable and you didn't know.

And don't even get me started about the time I got fired from my job job for a media interview. So can you. You don't have to top those, but.

I don't know that I can.

Have you had any bad public speaking or media experiences?

I have. I was once actually two. One that turned out well, one that turned out bad. I'll tell the bad one first. I was giving a talk in a rather well to do area. Like, I was doing it for my Fortune 500 company. And I was talking to them and they had me up on this stage and they had warned me ahead of time. Whoever had hired me had followed me and knows that I might swear occasionally or tell a slightly off color story. And they had warned me ahead of time that they would prefer I not do that at this event. And I said, oh, that's what it's called.

And forgive me for interrupting, but I would ask you, when you tell the story, don't swear here, not because I'm approved, but because with. And just so our listeners know, with itunes, if you have any off color language, you're instantly banned from certain countries, like India, which has more than a billion people. So that's why I keep it not even pg, but sort of G rated. So forgive me for interrupting, but go ahead.

So they had warned me that they would prefer that I keep it G rated as their. Well, that's not a problem at all. And so they had me up on this stage. And now remember, I've gone through improv training, so I'm really well trained to like, just go with whatever's happening. Like, that's totally fine. So he had me up on the stage and I felt something and I didn't know what it was. And my first thought was, are we having an earthquake? Like, I've never been in an earthquake. What's happening? And the stage completely collapsed. And I was wearing a microphone. And so of course I swore pretty Loudly. And I swore more than once. And it's. Of course it's picked up. Everybody heard it and they're not on the stage, so they're just sitting there and just watching it. And they didn't really react that much.

Now, are they seeing you fall flat back? I mean, are your legs. I'm envisioning your legs splayed up in the air and it being awfully embarrassing.

Collapsed toward the center. And so I just like sunk down into the stage and was just, as far as they could tell, was just gone and had done a vanishing act. But I was now surrounded by like wires and broken boards and cords. And I swore a couple of times and they didn't. In my mind, I was like, come on, your stage broke. You can let the swearing go. But they, they did not. They did not think that was okay. And I was not asked back.

I was like, did they think it was okay to almost kill you with their.

No, no. They were super apologetic, but at the end of the day, the swearing was too much and they couldn't, they couldn't handle it. And I said, and that's when I was like, you know what? Then you're just, you're not my people if you can't handle a little swearing.

That does seem appropriate.

If you try to trap me live, then I guess we're not meant to be after all. So we parted on good terms, I think.

I think, okay, well, if they're gonna have stages collapse on you, that was what I was just like, perhaps that's not a gig you want on a yearly basis.

And then on the flip side, I dated a gentleman once whose family was from Winnetka, which is a rather well to do community in Illinois outside Chicago. In fact, at one point, I think they were one of the richest communities in America. I don't know what their ranking is now. And I grew up in a home with no indoor plumbing. So you can kind of imagine for me being taken to this cocktail party with like crystal glasses and this gigantic house was a little overwhelming. And they had one of those communities there that was just like, you see on tv where it's very tight knit and everybody knows everybody else and they don't want outsiders. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be terrible. So we're at this cocktail party and they had known my sweetheart, this gentleman's time since he was a little kid. And so these ladies, there was probably eight or nine of them. And I found out later that they are the social nebulous in this town, like they are it. This is the queen bee of all the social cliques. And they asked me very offhandedly, how did you two meet? And we met in a fine way, but just a way that he preferred that I not mention to them. And he had warned me ahead of time, I would prefer that you not tell them that. And I said, oh, okay, that's fine. And so these ladies asked me, well, how did you two meet? And so I said, well, do you want to hear the story he told me to tell, or do you want to hear the real story? And they all leaned forward and they said, tell us the real story. And from that moment, I was in. And that is the power of speaking somebody's language.

Did you offend your boyfriend by breaking his confidence?

Yeah, he was fine. In fact, he walked into the room in the middle of the story, and I literally. Three ladies waved him away and said, get out, get out, get out. And made him leave while I finish the story. And then he just rolled his eyes and said, okay, well, I guess they know now. Yeah, they're fine. But that is the power of using someone's language is.

So now you've aroused all of our curiosity. How did you meet this guy?

I had been seeing somebody else, and that didn't work out. And this gentleman and I were friends for a while, and he. He let it be known in a physical way that he'd like to get together. And then I chickened out and said, no. And it was very awkward for a while, and then I decided, okay, fine, let's date. So it's not a story that really makes him look great. And so we did finally end up dating for quite a while, but it just wasn't his favorite. How we met.

Did he steal his best friend's girlfriend?

No, no, no, no. The first guy and I had split up, and then it was like a year later that the second guy and I started to start dating, but he just wasn't a fan of the idea that I turned him down several times and then finally said, okay, well, then let's try it and see. So he wanted me to do that.

Oh, I didn't realize that was something we're supposed to be ashamed of. I shouldn't talk about how my wife turned it down, dumped me many, many times.

It was for him. But you're a man of confidence. It's fine for you.

Well, a thick skin. Having been a former political commentator on talk radio and tv, you get used to people saying you're an insane communist. You should Be killed.

I don't think I could have. I don't think I could do that. I really don't. My hat's off to you. I do not.

It's not for everyone.

Well, and you have to be. So you have to get these meaty ideas across in a couple of sentences, and then these people just yell at you and tell you, well, that you.

Would have no problem. You're doing that right here. It's not like we agreed upon a script in advance here or practiced our question. We're just having a conversation, which all great radio and podcasts, that's what it's all about. Becca, we certainly appreciate the conversation today. Any final tips you have for our audience on how they can communicate more effectively, whether it's in email, spoken word, video, audio. And then the final, final question, what medium are you most excited about at this moment? And I don't want to lead you. Whether you say podcast or whether you say Instagram or a particular app, whatever it is, it's up to you.

Well, the two tips that I would offer up before I leave would be in order to connect with people, no matter what genre you're using, I would say use specific details. So, for instance, when I said Little Debbie, T.J. was like, yes, that specific detail. So use specific details.

You could have generically said a pre wrapped package.

Dessert, candy bar.

Dessert, candy.

Yeah, I could have said candy bar.

Abstract.

Gone by the side.

Specific.

Yeah. So use specific details and echo back your ideal client's exact words. And I'm talking exact words. If she says she's tired of the chub rub, you don't say back, oh, you're tired of being overweight. You don't want the chasing. No, no, she said chub rub. You say chub rub. So use specific details and echo back exact words. Those two tips will get you so far in speaking or in writing, no matter what you're doing, it will absolutely help you build connections. And the medium I am the most excited about right now, I would have to say video, and I'm really not letting TJ sway me. But I don't enjoy watching myself on video. But I have recently decided that that's bollocks, and I'm just gonna do it. So I've been doing it in the Facebook group and no one has written, what's wrong with you? You're insane. Why are you making videos? Everyone has seemed very receptive to it. So I'm going to keep making videos and getting better at it. And I think it's a great way to not just showcase what you have to say, but I think it helps people connect with you even more when they can see you as well as his hear you talk.

And for more connection, you can go to BeckyLDuncan.com we've listed that in the show notes as well. Plus, she has a special freebie for you, the listeners of Speaking with TJ Walker. Check that out in the show notes. You can thank her, question her, praise her. I won't ask you to criticize her, but you can communicate with her on Twitter eckylduncan. Becky, thanks for being our guest today. We appreciate it.

Tj. Thank you so much for your time and all the listeners. Thank you again for you guys spending the afternoon with us.

Thanks for listening to Speaking with TJ J. Walker, where the communication skills and practices of world class leaders are dissected.