[0:00] Music.
[0:13] This is crazy, but in the past three-ish months, I've done almost 40 messaging makeovers for 40 different women in different forms. And this work is lighting a fire inside of me that's feeling so, so fun. And I want to share some of my discoveries that I've had from these calls that are, first of all, just really fun for me, but I think will also be useful for you in your marketing and in your messaging. Basically, I've realized that if you're a a coach or a service provider, it can be really challenging to articulate what you do that helps people. If you've ever had someone ask you, so what do you do? And you're like, ah, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. I just help people with their businesses. I've fallen into that camp too. But I want to help solve that problem for you so that you can feel confident talking to people about what you do in a way that makes them want to buy the thing that you have. This work that we do as coaches and service providers changes people's lives. And it covers so many different topics and it has such a wide scope and so many different aspects. And that's part of the reason why it can be really challenging to describe that transformation with words.
[1:27] And then to put that transformation in just a few words that doesn't take you 10 minutes to explain is even more of an art. And then if we can put those words in a specific arrangement that makes other people want to buy what you have, every time you talk about it, that is the goal. And you just heard me call this an art form. And if you're like, okay, Kaylin, don't get ahead of yourself, I actually don't think that's a stretch at all. I think the work that you do for your clients is a form of art. And I think that the work of figuring out how to explain what you do with words is a form of art. How could it be anything less? The purpose of art is to communicate. It's to convey ideas. It's to express. It's to move and to impact. And so I don't take this work I'm trying to help you explain what the heck you do with words on a page lightly, and I don't think you should either, especially when words are required for so much of what we do. So much of the marketing that we do looks like creating content. Every single one of you listening to this episode is a content creator in some form or in many forms, whether that content is Instagram marketing, emails, podcast episodes, blogs, workshops, teachings inside of your programs, the ability to use words to convey what you're trying to say is kind of really important.
[2:51] This is where we insert that John Mayer song that goes, say what you need to say. I actually love John Mayer, but I hate that song. It's one of my least favorites. Anyway, I digress. Back to the words. Another less SEO friendly title for this episode would be, do you have fluffy cotton ball messaging or pinprick messaging? Those are two terms that I've coined myself, so let me explain what they mean. First, fluffy cotton ball messaging. This is the most common that I see from coaches and service providers. Fluffy cotton ball messaging sounds like generalizations that we make. It sounds like talking to a wide variety of people same time who all have a variety of different needs and interests and desires. This can sometimes happen on purpose when you're scared of leaving anyone out of your marketing or excluding anyone who could possibly be a good fit for one of your offers. And sometimes it can happen on accident just because you haven't sat down long enough to really make a clear, honest decision about who this offer would really genuinely serve the best. Fluffy cotton ball messaging speaks to people's surface level problems instead of to their deep desires. It can look like or sound like trying to be cute or clever instead of trying to be clear. It can look like or sound like saying things that make people feel warm and fuzzy inside instead of saying the things that they really need to hear.
[4:21] The alternative to fluffy cotton ball messaging is what I like to call pinprick messaging that's so clear and so pointed it could poke a hole through a piece of paper. This kind of messaging cuts through the noise of all the other marketing that's out there that your dream clients are consuming on a day-to-day basis. This kind of messaging gets people's attention. It gets people to move. It creates a reaction. That's what I want for you because you're going to have a lot easier time selling your offers when you have that kind of messaging that is so clear that talks to that girl so specifically that she's like, oh my goodness, how did she know? Is she talking to me? I feel like she's talking directly to me. So let's talk about some fluffy cotton ball examples and talk about how to fix this problem if you've noticed yourself falling into this trap in your marketing. Fluffy cotton ball messaging sounds like phrases like this.
[5:17] Unlock your potential. create your dream business, live your best life, become your best self, reach your next level, transform your life, gain more confidence, quantum leap, step into your power, embrace your greatness, elevate your mindset. These are all fluffy cotton ball phrases that we, I'll just speak in generality here. A lot of us as coaches use these phrases frequently. And first, no judgment, because I probably said every single one of these phrases at some point. But second, it makes sense why we're using these phrases because a lot of them are actually true. But what's happening is that we're trying to make a sweeping generalization to tie up all the loose ends instead of saying what we actually need to say.
[6:04] And by the way, I love you, but you are immediately banned from using any of these phrases in your marketing. Again, with no judgment. I'm not going to be like the big brother that's watching your stories and calling you out and judging you. But I think that you owe it to yourself and the clients who need your help to take the time and do the mental gymnastics to figure out what you're actually trying to say.
[6:23] So this is test number one. I'm going to give you three tests in this episode that you can use in your messaging to first of all see if you have fluffy cotton ball messaging and then second to know what to do about it if you do have fluffy cotton ball messaging so that you can then turn it into pinprick messaging. So test number Number one is this exercise that I want to teach you that I call get one layer more specific. If you need help eradicating some of these phrases from your vocabulary because you say them so often, here are three questions that can really help. What does this phrase that I'm saying even mean? What am I actually trying to say here? What's a concrete example of this?
[7:06] So this is an exercise that I actually do for myself when I'm writing out my own messaging and with and for my clients. So I will actually get out either a piece of paper or my Google Doc. Those are the two places that I'm always writing my messaging or actually in the notes in my Apple Notes app too. Those are the three places that my messaging occasionally all the time comes out. So when I'm writing my messaging, I will write and I catch a phrase like this that comes out. I'll actually stop and skip to the next line and add an indent at the beginning of the line and push myself to get one layer more specific and then I'll write out what I'm really trying to say on that line. If it still comes out fluffy after the second version I'll do it again on the next line and indent again and write it out again getting one layer more specific. Sometimes I have to do that exercise three, four, five times until I get the most specific version that I can access. So I want to give you a couple of examples. We can do this work together to sharpen up your messaging right now.
[8:15] If you are a marriage coach and you've caught yourself saying the phrase, level up your marriage or improve your marriage or elevate your marriage or any version of anything like that, let's play the get one layer more specific game. So level up your marriage, Get one layer more specific. What does that actually mean? Connect more frequently with your spouse. Okay, that's good. If I get one layer more specific about that, what does that actually mean or look like? Well, it would look like spending more time together. What would that look like or what does that mean more specifically? Well, maybe going on dates more often. If I got one layer more specific about that, it would be like going on dates and having a conversation that lasts through the entirety of our date. If I get one layer even more specific about that, it sounds like going on a date without ending up scrolling on our phones because we don't know what to talk about. Oh, see how that's so good. See how that like creates a little bit of an emotional reaction. That's what we're going for. Here's another example. I'm going to do two more. Improve your money mindset.
[9:20] What am I actually trying to say? How can I get one layer more specific about that? Well, improving my money mindset would look like or sound like believing that money is abundant. Okay, that's awesome. What am I really trying to say with that? Believing that money is more abundant. If I got one layer more specific, it would sound like stop worrying about money so much. If I got one layer more specific than that, it would sound like swipe your card at the grocery store or the gas station without feeling that pit in your stomach.
[9:47] Oh, see how it's just like so good. It just like makes a chill go up and down my spine. I always tell my clients when I'm messaging sessions, when I get chills, that's a sign that we're onto something because it's like creating a tangible physical reaction in my body. And that's what we want it to create in your clients too. That's what we're talking about when we create, when we're talking about pinpricks. Here's the last example. Feel more confident about your Instagram marketing. That's awesome. That sounds great. Of course we would all love that, but what are we, what does that actually mean? One layer more specific would look like, well, getting more confident or feeling more confident would look like getting more engagement. It would look like people actually engaging with my content, the likes, the comments. If I get one layer more specific, it would look like seeing new people liking and commenting on my posts. If we get one layer more specific about that, it would sound like seeing new people liking and commenting on my posts who I've never met, but they go in like three or four posts in a row because that tells me they're binging my content like it's a Netflix special. See how fun that is? That just sounds so much more fun and engaging and exciting
[10:55] than feel more confident about your Instagram marketing. Okay, cool. What does that even mean, right? I'll tell you what it means. It sounds like this. So if it starts to create an emotional reaction inside of you when you say it, it's like, dang, that's exactly it. Or I totally do that or I have totally felt that before that means we're on the right track.
[11:15] Let's go to test number two, because I think the combination of these two tests together will really help. Test number two, I'm calling the fly on the wall test. Something that will instantly make your messaging sharper and clearer is using concrete examples. Again, concrete pinprick instead of the fluffy, ethereal, non-specific, floaty, out there ideas that are great and awesome, but just hard for us to wrap our brains around. So I want you to imagine that you're a fly on the wall in the home of a girl that you want to help. What would you visibly see that she's doing or not doing that's driving her crazy? What are her sneaky symptoms that she thinks no one knows about, but that are totally happening to her?
[12:04] These things like that I'm talking about, like things that you would see that are driving her crazy, sneaky symptoms that she thinks no one knows about, those two things are what some marketers will call pain point marketing. There's another type of marketing that is called desire marketing. And that sounds like what would you be able to see, or maybe you can't visibly see, but what would you know or understand that she's hoping for or wishing for? So some marketers preach that you should only use pain point marketing or you should never use pain point marketing and only use desire higher marketing, but I actually like the combo of the two because I think it's important to be able to show like you understand what's frustrating her or at least bogging her down or bugging her if it's not like keeping her up at night and also show that you know where she wants to go. I think that you need the combination of the two to paint a clear picture for her that you're the person who can solve the problem for her. So here are some examples from some of my past clients.
[13:05] Here's an example from a done-for-you email marketing offer. Stop stressing at your computer late at night in November to patch together a last-minute holiday sales email, and instead let someone else do the work to collect those low-hanging fruit sales during your busy season. See how we use the combination of a little bit of a pain point, a little bit of a frustration point, to this is what you really want. This is what you in your heart of hearts would love to have. Here's an example from a life coaching offer. You stop building your day around your to-do list so that you stop feeling constantly rushed to get the next thing done and are finally able to read a book in your bed in the middle of the day with no guilt.
[13:50] I don't know about you, but that's like my dream life right there. That creates a reaction in me. Here's an example from a pitching confidence offer. Go from breaking out in hives when someone asks you, so what do you do? To having a simple elevated elevator pitch formula to follow so that you know exactly what to say without missing a beat. Like I said, I really like the combination of the pain point with the desire marketing together. I heard an analogy the other day that I really loved that you can use your messaging like a dog whistle that might be silent to everyone else, but to the ones who can hear it, they really hear it. And I think it's important to be able to identify what is the problem that's keeping this girl awake at night, or if that feels too extreme, at least being able to identify like, what's the thing that's just stuck in her craw that's just bugging her a little bit. Maybe it's not keeping her up at night.
[14:48] She's something about this girl's life that's bugging her. There's some kind of a problem that she would love to solve. And I also think it's important for you to be able to clearly answer the question, what is the job my clients are hiring me to do? If you can't answer that question, it will probably answer the reason why you might possibly be struggling to make sales. And be able to speak to what she would really love to have or create instead. If you can put words, words, put vocabulary, create an actual sentence that explains what she would love to have or create, even if she hasn't totally identified that for herself yet, she's going to go, holy cow, this girl gets me. How do I work with her? What do I have to pay? And what do I have to do to get into her world?
[15:33] Test number three, I like to call the grandma test. This is an actual test that I do frequently because every time I go over to my grandma's house, she asks me, how's work going? And I'm always like, I don't know how to explain what I do to you because it would take me this whole tangent to even like catch you up to speed on what I've been working on, right? But I think it's a really good test. When your grandma asks you, what are you up to? Or what are you doing for work? How would you answer her? Because whatever you would say to her is probably the same thing that you should be saying in your content because even though there's people following you who have followed you for probably a long time who love you and are obsessed with you and hang on every word you say, sometimes you might be surprised at the people in your audience that are having a hard time actually wrapping their mind around what do you really do and what can you do for me. So here are some ideas or phrases that I found coming out of my mouth when I do this test with my grandma or with a lot of people in my life actually.
[16:29] A super common one you you probably heard is an I help statement. It sounds like I help da da da da da so that da da da da da. I think an I help statement is a really good like basic level requirement. I think it's a great place to start, but it's also like the least interesting in my opinion. So if you've never written an I help statement before, start there. But here are some other options that I like even better that I find myself using more frequently. This is one that I got from Rich Litvin from one of his podcast episodes, but he says the phrase, I've noticed that... So that's what I help them with.
[17:05] This is what I find myself actually saying pretty frequently. This one's helped me a lot because this is how I actually say it. And it's actually how I said it at the beginning of this episode. I've noticed that a lot of coaches and service providers struggle to articulate the thing that they do that helps people. And they struggle to articulate it in a way that makes people want to buy it. So that's what I help them with. It's one of my favorite ways. The next one is doing these blinks. Well, a lot of people think that da-da-da-da-da.
[17:33] But I think that da-da-da-da-da, and that's what I help them with. Another option could be telling a story about how you know the principles that you teach to your clients or how you got the education or experience that makes it so that you are able to serve your clients in the best way. I also sometimes like to just tell a story about how I helped a past client. When my grandma says, hey, Kaylin, what's up with you? What's going on? And I say, man, work's going awesome. I just had a client a couple weeks ago and she was struggling with da-da-da-da-da and I helped her da-da-da-da-da and it was a really cool experience. I think that really helps, first of all, me be able to wrap my own mind around what is it that I actually do for people that really helps them. And if I can clearly communicate it in a sentence that succinct, I think that's a really beautiful gift that, you know, my grandma can first of all understand what I'm talking about. But also that if I have that kind of clarity, that's going to start coming through in my content. I'm going to start talking about my offers that precisely and that concisely. And it's okay if when you first start practicing this, it takes a lot of words to get it out. I think it's important to just let yourself get it out, brain dump it, verbally process it the first couple of times. And the more and more you do this, the better and better you're going to get, the more succinct you're going to get, the more concise and precise you're going to get. The thing about messaging is that it's sometimes hard to identify what's on the label when you're inside the bottle.
[19:02] This is what I think of with every single client who I've done a messaging makeover session. It's like the work that we do together basically looks like me asking you a series of questions to pull out the information that's already in your brain,
[19:14] but that might be a little bit stuck, that might feel a little bit fuzzy or unclear. You might feel a little bit unsure or maybe overwhelmed about the amount of information you feel like you need to communicate in order to sell your offer. And that's just because you're on the inside of the bottle. It's not because you're not good at what you do. It's not because you're not a genius and aren't able to help people. I have this exact same problem. That's why I think it's super valuable to have a partner who can help you with this process, who can sort of like check your thinking, who can help you ask the clarifying questions.
[19:44] And I think you can totally do this messaging work on yourself, with yourself. I do it in my journal. I do it in my Google Docs all the time. But there is a ton of value that you can gain by having a second brain to do this process with. This is a huge part of the reason why I still, two years later, I'm working with my coach. This is a lot of what she helps me with. And having a second mind to help me with my messaging. Also, who, you know, isn't just some random girl off the street. She has experience coaching women who have had a lot of similar thought processes and concerns is really valuable. So that when I say something that comes out a little bit fluffy, she can say, what do you actually mean by that? Let's get one layer more specific. I can't just go ask my brother who's really good at marketing but knows pretty much nothing about the women in my audience, right? I can't just go chat GPT it because chat GPT is not going to spit out these symptoms that I'm talking about when you do the fly on the wall test.
[20:42] So there's no one else that can do this messaging work. And that's part of the beauty of it. You have a lot of information in your brain probably about the perfect girl who you would like to serve. What is she struggling with? What's driving her crazy? You're probably having conversations with girls like this all the time. If you're not, that's your next challenge is to figure out a way to have more conversations with these women so that you can learn what is she actually struggling with so that I can speak to it and help her and serve her with it. I like to do that in my Instagram DMs. You guys always see me do polls. I do polls. Sometimes I will actually offer a money gift, a Venmo gift to people who respond to my polls because that information about what you guys are struggling with, what's bogging you down, what's driving you crazy is extremely valuable because I can then create offers that help satisfy those needs and I know how to speak to those needs. I've also done interviews.
[21:39] I like to do, I call these basically research projects. If you feel like you don't know what the girl that you're trying to help is staying awake at night thinking about, if you were a fly on the wall, would you even be able to see what she's struggling with? One way to really help with this is by having conversations like this. So Instagram DMs, quick interviews, Voxer messages, Voxer chats back and forth are some of my favorite ways to start gathering information for my audience to figure out what they need.
[22:05] If you would love some help with this and you want me to work my messaging magic on your offer, send me a DM on Instagram and let's chat, especially if you have a launch coming up. I would love to write your sales page for you and take it off of your plate. And as a side bonus, when you have a really good sales page, your content for your launch will be 50 bajillion times easier to create because you can basically repurpose the messaging on your sales page and transfer it over to a copy that you put in your stories or in in your posts, or in your emails. It's a really, really valuable asset to have and also to not have to worry about
[22:41] writing if you can avoid it because you have enough other things on your plate during your launch. So until next week, I hope these tests, ideas, and examples have got your wheels turning about ways to sharpen your messaging and turn it from fluffy cotton balls into little pinpricks so that you can get your audience's attention and get them to take action when you you tell them to, because the world needs more of the magic that you have inside of you. I'll see you back here next week for another episode of the Wholehearted Business Podcast. Have an amazing week.
[23:15] Hey, I hope you loved this week's episode. If you did, I know you would love to be a member of my community, The Greenhouse. It's where I teach you how to build an amazing, fruitful life while you build an amazing, fruitful business. It is a movement for women who want to unsubscribe from the traditional success path that says that life has to be a struggle and instead learn how good making more money can get, how fun marketing can be, and how much joy and presence you're capable of feeling as a woman and as a mother. Find out more and join at katelynpriest.com slash greenhouse, and I'll see you there.
[23:54] Music.
