So you may remember a while back I did a review of my friend Adrienne Graham’s book, No You Can’t Pick My Brain It Costs Too Much. Well, I just wanted to give you an update on how that is going for me.
For a writer with a solid funnel in place, it’s easy to take a look at the number of subscribers at each level of the funnel and predict pretty accurately what the sales are going to be from day to day or week to week.
If you’ve got a funnel in place, though, and your numbers aren’t looking great, chances are you have a leak somewhere. Your funnel has a hole (or two or three) where subscribers are falling through. There are four common causes for funnel leaks, and once you spot them, they’re pretty easy to fix.
For writers, a sales funnel is probably the most important marketing tool you have. And yet many entrepreneurs – both new and established – have no clear understanding of what a funnel is or how it works.
As you can imagine, failing to fully understand this critical part of your business means fewer sales, lower profits, and ultimately, an unstable business.
A Simple Sales Funnel
At its most basic, a sales funnel consists of free content, which typically requires nothing of your readers. Many sales funnels begin with blog posts, YouTube videos, Facebook content, and other information readers can access at no cost. This is the “top” of your funnel.
I am usually not a first run movie goer. I like to wait a couple of weeks to go see a movie because the movie theaters are usually too crowded during the first weekend it is in theaters. However, for this movie, I had to make an exception. Wonder Woman has been one of my favorite superheroes since I was a kid. So quite naturally, I have been anticipating this movie. I was absolutely thrilled that they were finally giving a female superhero her own movie. As usual, I noticed some business applications. So here are some things entrepreneurs can learn from Wonder Woman. (Spoiler alert: I may give away some scenes, but nothing too integral to the story)
This is a little different from the normal type of post I make. This is for my fellow workaholics that may be reading this post. This is a holiday weekend for most people in the US. Take some time for yourself this weekend. Even if it’s just an hour. Find some time to pause. It’s easy to fall into the trap of, “Oh I have to work on my business every free minute that I have.” While it is true that you do have to invest time in your business, if you don’t take care of yourself, you will burn out.
Want to know what keeps a lot of writers from charging what they’re really worth?
It’s that all-too-common belief that ‘I am not a sales person.’ Combine that with a healthy dose of ‘It’s rude to discuss money’, and you can see why it’s just easier to keep your rates low.
It’s time to think of your services from a different angle. Not only will you see things in a clearer light, but selling suddenly won’t feel so salesy.
Here’s how traditional pricing discussions go:
You talk to a potential client, and you explain what you can offer, how your coaching or service works, what he or she can expect (how many calls/emails, phases of work, length of contract), etc. And then you say, ‘My rate is $XXX.00.’
Your client either says yes, no or (the kiss of death) maybe. Here’s how you can make this conversation turn into a yes more often.
Focus On Your Potential Client’s Goals.
Your client is looking for a writer for a reason. Ask your potential client what she plans to accomplish as a result of using your services. Once you know this information, focus on what they will achieve as a result of using your services.
It might just be the most stressful decision you ever have to make: how to set your rates.
You’ve got the competition to consider, your own skill set, what you perceive to be your skills (yes, this is different from the former for most of us), what your market will pay, your location, and a host of other variables. Working it out can feel like a hurdle you can’t quite get past.
Of course, there are some strategies you can employ. You can just pick a random price that you like. You could also decide what you want to make per month and then figure out how much you need to charge per piece to get to that number. I have a calculator that can help with this on my site at www.writerresourcesite.com.
But what about all those other questions? Creating a solid pricing structure requires you to do a little more digging. So with your starting number in line, take a look at:
This is going to be a brief post. It is just something that I wanted to get off of my chest. So I saw a post on Facebook asking people what they would do if Facebook or Twitter ceased to exist. I would be absolutely upset if Facebook ceased to exist because a lot of the friendships I’ve made, I have made because of Facebook. I would not be able to keep in touch with my family that lives in different states. It would just be awful.
I’ll admit it. I was once one of those, “Oh you must blog x many times a week to be a successful blogger.” I tried to blog daily. That didn’t work. I tried blogging three times a week. That didn’t work. So now I’ve come full circle and I am going back to blogging once per week. I would much rather be able to give you meaningful posts than to feel forced to throw something together just so I can say that I have a blog post put up. Now if you are one that can blog more than that and not lose the quality that your readers have come to expect from you, then, by all means, blog away. Just don’t feel pressured to blog a certain number of times per week because some expert has said so. My advice: Find a schedule that works with your lifestyle and stick to it.
For some reason, the smart folks at Facebook seem to think that we want our newsfeed to be on Top Stories instead of most recent. They are sneaky and will change your settings to Top Stories even if you have it set to most recent. They do this several times a day. So here is how you change your settings to Most recent if you find out they have changed your settings AGAIN. These instructions are for the desktop site. I haven’t figured out how to do it on the mobile app yet. I’ll make another post once I figure that one out.