Transcription

Are you running your online business like a hobby? A lot of people now have the ability to start a business online, and within our space, they can setup a coaching business or sell products online. The barrier to entry in setting up an online business is lower than ever before, which is awesome, right? It gives so many people the opportunity to become entrepreneurs and run their own businesses, but the downside is that there’s never been an easier time to setup your own business and do everything I just mentioned.

 

The business-building opportunities online and the work it takes to build them

So it’s really a double-edged sword. The ease of entry is very, very low and that means that a lot of people are getting into business for themselves, which in some cases, maybe they shouldn’t even be doing so. Because what I want to challenge you here with is building a business is not easy. Whether it’s online or offline, it’s not easy. I’m all for setting intentions for reducing friction and setting a good intention and having the universe bring awesome stuff into your life. Hey, I do that all the time. But the reality is you can live in that space, but also understand that it’s going to take time, right? There’s things that you have to work through. There’s going to be challenges and obstacles, and problems never really go away. And if you don’t approach your business like a business, you’re just gonna fold up shop.

I see this so often, so often, with so many people in our space, so many coaches and entrepreneurs. I don’t even want to call them entrepreneurs because they’re not. They’re not entrepreneurs, they’re want-trepreneurs, they’re want-to-be’s. Because there’s a huge difference between building a hobby and building a business. People talk about, like you know, build your side hustle, screw that. There’s no such thing as a side hustle. All that is, is split energy and when you have split energy, you split results. The only way to get results in your business and in your life is through focused commitment.

 

Why you won’t succeed if you play it safe and don’t commit

And if you don’t take your business seriously, if you don’t fully commit and burn the bridges, you will never succeed. I’m telling you, man, I’m going to bring you the no BS reality today and hopefully this stimulates you in some way, shape or form to level up. Because you have a message, a lot of other health experts have a message, and they’re playing rinky, dinky, hobby business because they don’t want to take risk. They don’t want to put themselves out there. They don’t want to put in the work. They don’t want to commit just in case it fails. Listen, if you’re gonna fail, go all in and fail. Don’t just fail somewhat. Commit and then figure things out. And that’s that only way you’re gonna serve yourself, it’s the only way you’re gonna serve the people you want to serve, and it’s the only way people are gonna take you seriously.

We’ve talked about this. We’ve talked about how it is more competitive than ever. That’s not breaking news. You know this. And if you want to be considered by your perfect clients, you need to show up as the best possible option. It is not good enough, it is absolutely unacceptable to show up as average and mediocre. If that is the game you’re gonna play, do not even play the game. There’s way too much mediocrity out there. There are way too many businesses that are being run as hobbies and not serious endeavors. And I want to challenge you to really look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, “Is this a hobby? Is this a side hustle for me or is this everything?”

 

Our guarantee and when to see red flags

We had a client recently who enrolled with us earlier this year, probably seven months ago as of this recording, and as you know, we spend a lot of time with our clients. It’s not like a product you do on your own. We’re in the trenches with you. She wanted to leave the program and get a refund, and we told here, first and foremost … Well, let me give you some back story. She had said to us in her message that she had a change of heart, that she thought she was getting into this because it was gonna be like a nice hobby to kind of build on the side. I’m like, nowhere in the history of our marketing have we ever said that. But anyways, she was just a dabbler. She was a dabbler. She wanted to build a hobby. You cannot build a hobby with this level of involvement. You can’t just dabble at this and figure this stuff out and have “passive” income coming in.

And so, anyways, it was a just good reminder to talk about with our team because we have two guarantees with our company. The first guarantee, ’cause we have a lot of people ask us, “Hey, Yuri, does your health business accelerator program have a guarantee? We want to make sure it works.” Yeah, the guarantee is that it’s a 100% guaranteed to work, if you do the work. Because you will have a winning strategy, you will have more coaching and support than you can ask for, and if it doesn’t work, that’s your fault. And we tell people that, straight up.

The second guarantee is that we have a zero money-back guarantee. Which means, if you work with us and you don’t get the results, that’s your fault. It’s not our fault because we know it works.  It’s like a marriage, you have to meet us halfway, do the work and show up. If you’ve a change of heart in the journey, if you want to start selling hotdogs in the side of the street or do whatever else you want to do, that has nothing to do with us. That is 100% on you and if you don’t take responsibility for that, too bad for you. So, those are our two guarantees. A 100% results guaranteed if you do the work, 0% money-back guarantee.

Okay, I’m just gonna be very honest with you and if you don’t like that, too bad. But here’s what I would say is when you’re working with your clients, you should have a similar guarantee. I understand if you’re selling a book or a course or someone is gonna do it on their own, if they don’t like it, whatever. They can get a refund. There’s no investment of your time really, but if you are in the trenches, if you’re walking through the Valley of Death with your clients, it is unacceptable for someone to ask for a refund. If that person even brings it up in a phone conversation before they enroll with you, that’s a big red flag because what’s that showing you is they’re already considering the exit. They’re already looking for the exit. They’re on the plane, they’re expecting the plane to go down, and they are looking for where is the nearest exit.

And if that’s coming up in your conversations, that’s a big warning flag. That has probably someone who’s not fully committed to the outcome they say they want. So in our case, we only want to work with people who are building a business, not a hobby or a side hustle. And in your case, why would you work with people who are looking to dabble? Only work with people, and I think you know this, you only want to work with people who are motivated and committed, who want to do the work. And you need to be super clear in your messaging. You have to be super clear in the conversations you have with people to be … Listen, you can’t just enroll anybody because you want the money. If they breathe and fog up a mirror, you can’t just enroll them.

 

Why most coaches suffer, especially the “hobby” ones

You have to be able to turn people away confidently and the only way you can do that is if you have a predictable, incoming flow of clients and leads. And that’s why most health coaches suffer because they don’t, so they end up settling for anybody. And if you want to be a lot more discerning with the people you’re working with, number one, you gotta be very clear about who you want to serve and your messaging has to be spot on.  But second is, you need a pipeline that, regardless of people who enroll, all right, whatever, next. So, it’s very, very different when you are hoping for, “Oh my god, is this like … When am I gonna get my next client. Hopefully a referral comes in.” That’s a very different ballgame and it’s a terrible place to be in your business, to be hoping for clients to come in.

That’s why the only thing we focus on with our clients is the perfect client pipeline until it’s built out and doing its thing, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars a month because nothing else in your business matters until that’s happening. Everything else is a massive waste of time, the websites, the funnels, whatever else you want to do on social. None of that stuff matters in any way, shape or form unless you have a predictable pipeline to bring new leads and clients into your business. And if you disagree with me, please let me know because I would love to know what the alternative is, okay?

 

Investing in your business to make it grow

So if that’s the most important thing you need to focus on and if you’re committed to building a business, you have to focus and commit to doing this. It’s not like I’m gonna do a little bit of this, and if it doesn’t work out initially, I’m gonna go back to what? What else are you going to do? You gonna do some blogging? All right, good. We’ll talk to you in five years. What are you gonna do? You gonna post on Instagram and social media and post some pictures of whatever? Great, awesome. Let us know how that works when your cellphone ends up in the toilet or when you don’t feel like posting on Friday ’cause you’re not feeling too good.

You see, if your business is dependent upon you efforting everything, you don’t have a business, you have a job. You have a job. And that’s what I’m saying here, is that you need to treat your business like a business. A business is a system … Really an ecosystem, a system that works independently of you to produce results for your clients. And that means, it gets leads, it gets clients, it get results for those clients largely independent of you. Now in the coaching business, obviously there’s gonna be your coaching involved, but as you scale and grow, you need to start thinking about how do I start to systemize this so I’m not the only cog on the wheel here.

Anyways, I hope that make sense. Where am I going with this? Yeah, hobby versus business. So if you are treating your business online like a hobby, it’s not gonna grow. Another way to think about this is, if you setup a retail store or a clinic, would there not be some costs involved?  This drives me crazy. People are like, “I’m looking for the cheapest solutions to do whatever. I don’t want to spend $100 a month on this or this thing.” I’m like, “Seriously?” I understand not everyone is in a financial position to make those types of decisions, but again, what would happen if you setup shop? If you were setting up a clinic, you probably go to the bank, you get a loan or a line of credit, right? $30,000, $40,000, boom, you setup shop.

But online, we’re like, “I’m just gonna do everything for cheap. I’m gonna do everything for free and then I’m gonna figure this out somehow to generate revenue. Now if you take that approach with your business, whether it’s online or offline, you’re not gonna grow your business. The only way to grow your business is to grow your revenue. If you have a money problem, you have an income problem. And if you have an income problem, as I’ve said, you have an in-coming problem, not enough leads and clients coming in. And you have to take your business seriously because if you only look at it as a hobby, it’s not going to fly.

So that’s my two cents. I’ve love to hear from you. Join me on Instagram at healthpreneur1. Let me know what you think about this. At the end of the day, we’re helping health and fitness experts build businesses, build great brands, not side hustles. So, I just want to be very clear about that, okay? And I would recommend you do the same for your clients. Do not work with people who are dabblers, work with people who are committed to mastery, right? To really figure out their health, master it, to get the outcome that they want ’cause that is where the true fulfillment comes from. They get great results, you love working with them, it’s all good and it starts with you. You have to set the standard. You have to set the bar for what is to be expected, of what is to be done when you guys work together. Okay?

So again, if you want our support in this and if you want a more predictable pipeline built out in your business, then we’d love to support you if you are a good fit. If you’re looking to build a hobby or a side hustle, don’t even talk with us. But if you are committed to building a great business, hey, let’s have a discussion. But again, it all starts off with attending our free training, The Seven Figure Health Business Blueprint. If you like what you see, then and only then, can you book a call with us. So again, it’s over at healthpreneurgroup.com/training and for now, I’m signing off. I hope you have an amazing day. And remember continue to be great, do great, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Transcription

Alright a couple of months ago we had a $40 million man on the show, John Berardi the co-founder of Precision Nutrition with a great conversation, and today we have his partner in crime, Phil Caravaggio on the show.

Now this is an interview I did with him about two years ago about what Precision Nutrition has done to become this amazingly successful recognized brand in the fitness and nutrition space over the past close to 20 years now, and in this interview he’s really going to give you the secrets sauce. He’s going to share exactly how they run their business, they business model they’ve chosen, why they’ve chosen it. We’re also going to get into how to create something really amazing, whether you talk about it as a product or service, how do you create something that is really, really amazing and really get that out into peoples hands so they can transform.

Phil is a good buddy. I feel bad that I haven’t even connected with him for the past year or so, we’ve both been super busy. But he also lives in Toronto, we were in strategic coach together, we’ve had lots of amazing conversations on business, philosophy of life all this great stuff. He’s a big thinker, he is a very, very big thinker. And side note, if you’ve read the book Principles by Ray Dalio, if you haven’t, it’s an amazing book. Phil is the guy who made that book happen. It’s a long story, but honestly just read the book and you’ll see how it all came about. He’s a really great person. So I’m really excited to bring this interview out of the archives to highlight the one and only Phil Caravaggio, so let’s welcome him to the show.

Phil Caravaggio:                It’s going great Yuri, how are you?

Yuri Elkaim:                         Very good, thank you very much. So I’m really excited to have you on the show because you and I have had a lot of conversations over dinner about strategic coach, about business developments and all this stuff, and you’re probably one of the savviest CEO’s that I know and you’re still young. I mean you’re not a 75-year-old Warren Buffet here. You’re a young guy but very sharp. So I’m really excited to kind of dive into your mind and bring some of that goodness out for our audience to kind of benefit from.

So for everyone listening, if you guys know about Precision Nutrition you probably know more about John Berardi who’s kind of like the content figurehead of the business, but you’re kind of the man behind the madness with your systems, and your processes, and your product creation stuff. So for you what’s been … How … What’s been the secret sauce to growing Precision Nutrition from where you guys started out as two personal trainers to where you guy are now, impacting hundreds of thousands of people with your amazing coaching programs?

 

The secret sauce to Precision Nutrition’s success

Phil Caravaggio:                Well I think the secret sauce is a commitment to really do right by the customer. That’s where we began. John and I have very different backgrounds, but they’re very complimentary and John the co-founder just a highly, highly regarded nutritionist who’s just brilliant. One of the brightest guys I’ve ever known. And his research acumen and ability to kind of suss out what’s really going on the human body was number one. So the subject matter expertise is the basis of it, and I can get into what I think that looks like in other subjects than the one we’re talking about right now.

From my perspective, my background is business and engineering, engineering primarily. So I thought about things in terms of systems, and products, and how do you create things that help people? And sort of the engineering degree that I was working on, although I eventually left because I was painfully bored by it, was called systems design. The design of working processes and systems that deliver a result. And from a business perspective, my dad was an entrepreneur, I king of grew up watching him sell. I mean I think I didn’t realize it at the time, but later it kind of clicked for me that’s what he was doing, and he was selling in a different way than I’d seen people sell before. He was selling by building relationships.

So between JB and I, I think we put together a sort of formula that I’d become fond of, and I think it’s the crux of PM, sort of four things. So the first is, superb content. When we got started we focused exclusively on how do we produce things that people can consume that will help them right away without them having to buy anything? I’m a real fan of Frank Currens, and Frank has this thing he calls Results in Advance. How do you actually deliver a result before you ever ask for something? And so that’s what we tried to do in our content. So number one was content.

Number two was product. Pretty early on we figured out that to get any leverage on life so that one hour of my time or John’s time now would be worth 100 hours that we spent last year, 1000 hours two years ago, was to create a product. It’s the only way to stop trading hours for dollars, which is the scenario that we’re all in when we begin. So we focused … As soon as we had content out in the world that people seemed to like, what kinds … how can we consolidate this into a product that can work while we sleep? And we can talk a little bit about product if you want to get into that, because I consider myself a product guy. I love building products and in fact I think that’s one of the things that I do best.

So number one content, number two product. Number three is launch. So we’ve kind of always had from the beginning, mostly out of necessity in the beginning, but it’s become a core capability of ours, which is launch marketing. So everything we do is about a launch event. Our coaching programs you can only get into them twice a year, you can’t come on an average Wednesday and just say, “Hey I’d like to become a client of Precision Nutrition”. You have a spot. There’s January and July, and it’s always worked that way. And I think the idea of orienting ourselves around a launch market where we create a big critical mass of attention moment in time, and then just kind of relax and the audience after that they just consume content, and they’re getting help, and we’re not asking for anything.

And then every kind of six months there’s this cadence of, “Hey you’ve learned a lot about us, if you like what we’re doing now’s the time to make a decision about whether what we do is appropriate to you, and no big deal if it isn’t. But if it is, you have to act now because there isn’t going to be another moment in which to do this.” So launch marketing for is the third sort of pillar of what we do. And a lot of people talk about this other than us. In fact, I didn’t know it at the time, but when we first started I realized a lot of how we approached launch marketing came from Jeff Walker. I’d sort of heard it third and forth hand from different people I knew, and kind of picked up little pieces of it when we started to build our own system. But as I become more attuned to the origins of these things, I see that Jeff Walker was kind of the King Pin of launch marketing.

And also Apple does a lot of launch marketing. That’s their whole method. And so they create this whole fuzz around the product, that you can’t actually buy, with their key notes and all this sort of thing. Then you go to the store and there’s this huge line up, and all the dynamics are advent or launch marketing.

So there’s kind of content, product, launch marketing, and then the fourth thing is reputation. So at PN we’ve always put our reputation before anything else. So if anything comes up, if we’ve accidentally done poorly by a client, or someone doesn’t like what we’re doing, or if we have a decision to make whether to take the short term money potentially at the expense of our credibility, or take no money, or the long term money while burnishing our reputation and sense of trust, we’ve always chosen the latter. We always put our reputation first.

So we’re very aggressive and guaranteeing our services, and customer service. If somebody had a problem it’s not like, “Hey can I try and convince you to stay as a client? Can I … Here’s all your money back.” We’ve done things where if someone comes to us, and for whatever reason, they don’t love the experience they had, we’ll actually buy them something else. Hey, if you think closely about what it is they were really looking for, not only give their money back but say, “Hey, you also invested a bunch of time in this that could have been better spent. Here’s … Let’s put you on the right track, you really should be going to this person or that person. Here’s their book or whatever.” Anything we could do to make our reputation stellar. So content, product, launch and reputation, it’s kind of in my opinion on top of the subject matter expertise, is the secret sauce for PN. And we can go into any of those if you like.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well coming to stores near you. PN secret sauce. There we go.

Yeah but it’s, I think for anyone listening who’se followed Precision Nutrition for a number of years, you guys know that … I mean the reputation you guys have build, it really proceeds you. It’s incredible content, it’s trusted content. And as you said, because you are basing a lot of your coaching programs on a launch or event model, there really is a ton of goodwill that’s built up within your market place, or within your audience at least that really positions you guys as kind of a non-promotional typical kind of business. Which I think is very, very endearing to a lot of people looking to change, their bodies or their eating habits.

So with that said, let’s say somebody comes into PN, they’ve heard a lot about it and they want to lose 50 pounds and transform their body, and they have to wait four months, or five months, or however long it is until the next launch, or the next program begins, how do you guys … I mean have you dealt with people saying, “Listen I just want to get started now, I don’t want to wait four months.” How do you mitigate that and is there, or are there things other than your content that people can start doing before they get into the lean eating coaching program as an example?

 

The products, programs, system design, and building trust

Phil Caravaggio:                Yeah. So there are a number of things they can do. We have a whole host of products that they can purchase that aren’t kind of 12 months programs like our coaching programs, which are intensive and require a significant commitment. So we have books, and we have a gourmet nutrition cookbook, we have a product that was kind of the core of what we did before we got into building out programs, it’s called the Precision Nutrition system. It’s sort of somewhere between a book and a course, like a self-study course. So it’s kind of a binder and it covers every aspect of doing it on your own. So what we’ll typically do is say, “Hey, start here. I really appreciate your interest and we have these things available to you.”

And we try to be pretty honest about the rationale for the launch, which is that A, it works from a business perspective. Economically it makes the most sense, because it allows you to focus your coaches on one group of people all the way through to the end without having, “Oh here’s this person who’s one day in, this person’s been here for three years, this person’s six months.” It’s cognitively impossible to deliver a good service that way. But also it’s super helpful for the client because there’s a social momentum in coaching programs when everyone begins at the same time, and sort of progresses at the same pace, and ends at the same time. Then you’re forging these social bonds that are unexpected.

You can’t really market the social bonds. You can’t say, “Hey, one of the great benefits is that you’ll meet people.”, because I find that people are not really intrigued by that. And you can’t promise it, but it is what happens and it’s one of the things that people value the most. And that’s really difficult to do when people are starting at different times. They don’t have the sense of comradery or the sense of experiencing.

So with all of that said, I think every business has to make hard trade-offs and there are no easy answers, and our model is very different than other’s models. In fact, every time we hire a new executive or a new leader into the company at PN, one of the first things they say is, “Well wait a minute are you telling me that if somebody comes tomorrow with 1500 or $2000 in hand saying, “I’d really like to work with you” my answer’s going to be no? That sounds crazy to me.” And I have to explain every time it happens, because it’s a rational response that, “Yes that’s actually what we’re going to say. And it’s better for the client, it’s better for us, and it will still work.”

And one of the things you’d notice is that on a philosophical level I think people sense the authenticity and they start to build trust when they see this happen over time. When they see that the business operates in a very kind of straight forward, trustworthy way. And also I feel like the sales cycle for big products like this, like 1500, $1000, $2000 in that range and above, is the sales cycle is very long. A lot of times people will sign up for an interest list and say, “You know what I think I really … I think now is the time for me.” And they’ll go through a launch and they won’t sign up, and they’ll go through another launch six months later and they won’t sign up. And they’ll go through another launch a year and half later and finally sign up, or two years later.

It takes a long time, and I think that our system is designed specifically to build trust. And if you can do … you design a business where you can make enough money that you can eat, and you can pay the people you need to pay, the longer period of time you can build trust with clients, the better those clients are going to be. And the less you have to take the short money, the better your long term prospects are.

 

Marketing deep commitment and what makes a great product

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. I mean that’s a great perspective on it, because it’s almost like planning a trip right. You plan a trip six months out and you’re excited about it, you’re almost budgeting for it as well. So I kind of feel that there might be a similar type of process happening with people on the early bird list, where they know what they’re getting into, or they have a sense of it, and then there kind of is this eager anticipation and there’s probably a greater stick as a result of that as well.

Phil Caravaggio:                Yeah, that’s a great point. I think that’s true that people … it deepens their level of commitment when they … And this is one of the things Dan Sullivan talks about and you and I’ve talked about over dinner, and it’s something that I’ve become more aware of. I didn’t know this kind of explicitly or consciously when we were doing it, but I think it’s true and it’s that, you sort of have to disqualify people rather than qualify them. And so the proc … The act of saying, “Here’s what we do, and here’s what we don’t do”, quickly allows people to decide whether or not they’re … this product or this service that you’re offering is right for them, and make a good decision. And those who end up wanting it even after you’ve laid out the who it’s for and who it’s not for, become so much more committed to the idea.

And in educational products, or in transformative products, which is the space that you plan so do we. We’re trying to help people change their lives and solve kind of intractable problems that they’ve been dealing with often for years, if not their whole life up to that point. It requires that level of commitment. You can’t just go in and read a couple of things, and then think that the problems going to be solved. If we’re talking about big problems like changing your … getting healthy, getting fit, dealing with money, dealing with whatever people are marketing. If it’s a transformative change that’s required, you’re going to need deep commitment from the client. And I think the way that we market that and an advance point about disqualifying actually deepens the commitment.

So it has this unanticipated consequence of making the product experience better, because the customer is so much more invested in it.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure. Yeah, that’s great. So speaking of products, you obviously self describe yourself as a product guy. What in your eyes, what really makes a great product, and whether that’s a book, or a course? For you, when you guys, because I know you spent a lot of time on this, when do you know like, “Yes, we’ve hit it, this is it, and this is what we’re looking for”?

Phil Caravaggio:                Yeah. I think it’s the … I think a great product is the intersection between real deep subject matter expertise, and deep listening and understanding of the customer. So the subject matter expertise can’t really be fake, you have to have paid your dues or really learned something here. And you have to … The saying goes, you can’t take someone somewhere you’ve never been. You have to have gone there in some form or another. So if it’s nutrition, if it’s fitness, if it’s finances, marketing, business development, you have to be able to lead the customer with real authority.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure.

 

Client feedback; understanding why people become and remain clients

Phil Caravaggio:                So that’s one. But the other one is the critical one, and that is a deep understanding and listening to the customer. Because I find that this is what typically doesn’t happen. You can sense right away when a product is great, because it feels as though it’s made for you. Like somehow it got in your head and knew what you really wanted. And I found that the most reliable way to do that is to have meaningful conversations with people who either have bought an early iteration of your product, or purchased a service from you. And even better to start with a service than a product, because one thing that’s often overlooked is that most great products are the synthesis of someone doing that work manually for someone.

In other words, before we built a Precision Nutrition product, we were doing Precision Nutrition coaching without any systems, without any technology, without any books, or videos, or anything like that, and you would just sit there and listen to what people were … what problems they were facing in their life and solve them however we could in dialogue, send them an E-mail, point them to other things, buy other products for them and say read this. You’re just scrambling to figure out what you can do to help that person.

So mostly products start as a service I think. Manually, not automated, not technology driven, they’re just, “Let me understand what this problem is this person’s facing by actually listening to them and hearing their story. And then let me just see what I can do without having planned it out in advance.” And then over time as you start to get some traction, figure out that what you’re doing is helping someone, you’ve figured how to simplify and automate it, and that becomes the product.

So that’s kind of what we did. The first thing we did was coach people. We didn’t have any … Now we have this incredible software that manages all our coaches, and manages our clients, and tracks their results, and delivers on the right program at the right time, it’s phenomenal and it’s super complex. But in the beginning all we had was a phone and an E-mail account. We started off working with the lead athletes, ones that were traveling around the world, and we would just talk to them, “Hey, what’s going on? Hey, what’s happening? What problems are you facing?” And then we would just shut our mouths and listen, and then we would just kind of convene and say, “What can we do for those people?”

And as we did that, we sort of simplified it. The act of actually listening and figuring out what people are going through that really catalyzes the whole thing, that plus subject matter expertise over time equals great products. But either one of them missing sends you off track.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, that’s great advice, and it’s so simple too. And I think it’s an area that I’m guilty of overlooking for the first several years of my business, because for a lot of creative types who are just, “Oh, I’ve got this amazing idea let’s just make it happen”, without really listening to what people want or where their problems lie. But I think there’s also, as you mentioned, there’s a huge benefit to those who for instance worked as a personal trainer, or worked as a one on one coach, because they’re actually dealing with people in person or on the phone. And I think a lot of people online, they miss that important element to that interaction which is so important, and now it’s like getting on the phone with somebody is almost like a huge chore and it’s like something people want to avoid. But I think, as you’ve mentioned, that’s where the real … that’s where the gems are kind of stored in terms of finding out what people need solved and really just delivering it to them.

 

Product development and the value of a meaningful conversation

A little while ago you were telling me about a really cool process that you guys had gone through with respect to getting feedback from your customers, and I remember it was a small distinction for instance a lot of people or business will ask their customers like, “Why did you get this program?” But you made a small distinction, you said something like, “What was happening in your life before you bought this program?” Something like that. Can you ..

Phil Caravaggio:                Yeah.

Yuri Elkaim:                         I mean that was so brilliant. You’re almost kind of creating a timeline of events leading up to the purchase. Can you describe that a little bit, because I think that’s invaluable for our audience to really understand?

Phil Caravaggio:                I think that’s such a powerful tactic. And the idea is to have a meaningful conversation with a customer in which you don’t ask them why they bought what they bought from you, or whatever, and you don’t ask them what they want in the future. Because both of those questions will … they trigger the part of the brain that makes things up, and that’s what you don’t want. You don’t want someone creating a story that doesn’t actually map the reality. So you ask someone why they did what they did, often they don’t know. They’re creating a story on the fly in their minds to explain this often sub-conscious desire. And so if you listen too closely to people’s answers as to why they did what they did, you get led astray.

If you ask people what they want, they often don’t know and they’ll kind of make things up, and they don’t know what’s possible either because they’re not the subject matter expert. So, “What do you want in fitness?” “Well I don’t know. I can give” … I’m going to answer the question. As a human being when someone asks me something, I’m going to answer. The question is, is that answer going to be any good, and as non-subject matter expert the likelihood of it being good is probably low.

So instead what we do, and I learned this from a guy named Bob Mesta, who is kind of a marketing genius in his own. He is a former engineer, but moved into marketing in major products. Like products for fortune 500 companies, like cars, consumer packaged goods, things that … We probably in our house, each of us, own four or five different products he’s developed as a result of this system. And this system is basically this, you figure out the action you want people to do more of, like buy your product, and you have a meaningful conversation with them in which you ask them what their story was.

You ask them not why they did what they did, but when did they do it. What was happening right before that? What was going on in their life at that time? And what about before that, what about before that? And you sort of reconstruct the timeline that led up to that decision, and figure out the events that were happening in their life. More like a journalist, or like a documentary film maker then like a typical marketer.

What you find when you do this is that, what drives peoples decision is often … It seems so obvious in retrospect, but you can’t possibly predict in advance. And I’ll give you an example of that. One of the reasons that people buy our coaching, for example one of the things that happens in their life is that they suffer a loss. A parent that they’re taking care of will pass away, or something like this, and you’ll see this … I’ve done so many of these conversations with clients, and you hear, it’s different variations on a similar theme no-one is talking about. And what does that have to do with nutrition? Well we didn’t know, except when we started to dig into it, what we found is that what people are looking for is someone to care for them the way they care for others.

In the act of caring for others, they do so at tremendous cost to themselves, their own health and well-being. If someone’s caring for an elderly parent, they’re often very proud of the effort that they’ve put in and the degree of love and care they’ve shown for their parent, and how much extra time they got to spend with them. But at the same time they also realized that in that process of maybe a year, two, three years of intense caregiving it comes at tremendous cost to their body, and health, and they often encounter … they gain weight, and encounter health problems that they hadn’t before and all this stuff.

So they’re looking for somebody to care for them. They’ve suffered in sacrifice to the person they were caring for, and when the person passes away they have this space and void in their life and their way of living that now is empty, but can be filled in a new way which opens up the possibility of an intense commitment in a coaching program like ours. And so when we in a certain segment of our client base, we were hearing this story over and over again. And you’re in the nutrition and health field, have you ever heard that in anybody’s marketing?

Yuri Elkaim:                         No. I mean that’s the thing. You would never, and even if you ask somebody they would probably never disclose that.

Phil Caravaggio:                They would never … They don’t even know. Even if they wanted to disclose it because they were a very forthcoming and honest person, they had never connected the dots on their own. And often at the end of these conversations when you get the story out of people, they’re like, “Oh my God, I never saw it that way.” Because it’s a different part of the brain, the kind of emotive part of the brain is different from the cognitive part, and the cognitive part creates stories for the kind of emotional part. And so so many of these decisions are driven by pain, and suffering, and things that people don’t have conscious access to. And they can only be gotten to by figuring out the story, and when you figure out the story and you talk to people and you see, “Okay here’s what’s happening.”

The why, the reason why they did what they did becomes obvious, you don’t have to ask them. You can see it clear as day, and they can see it clear as day, but only after you’ve asked the factual questions about when, where, how, with who, all this kind of stuff.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure.

Phil Caravaggio:                And this is what people don’t do. In terms of product development one of the best things that people can do is just go out and talk to people who have bought your product, if you’ve developed one. So the rationale for doing weight, what you were talking about earlier in your career, where you’re doing a first draft of something. You’ve got this real creative impulse and you create a product and you’re like, “This is great.” And some people buy it. I don’t know, maybe they didn’t buy it in the amounts that you wanted at that stage, but some bought it. And the best thing you can do is then go to those people and have this kind of conversation with them. What was going on?

And then do another revision. Build iterate on that product based on what you learned, or maybe even create an entirely new one, this has happened to us a number of times, based on what you learn in those stories. And if you don’t have a product, what you can do is actually do interviews like this with people who have bought products you like to compete with or emulate. They’re not that hard to find. If you were trying to get into personal training and figure out how to sell more personal training, you can actually interview people who have bought personal training and figure out what their story is, and then use that in the way that you sell. Those people are out there, there are already personal trainers out there. You can figure out … They’re not that hard to find.  If there’s a book you want to … you like, you can figure out why people bought that book.

And even better in product development is figure out why people stop using a product that you created. Figuring out, doing the same sort of interview, and this is very difficult to do. This is why people don’t actually do this. People don’t like to hear real challenging feedback about themselves. They don’t like … No-one … None of us like to … I don’t like to see my shortcomings in my character, or in my personality or in the things that I’ve made. But actually getting that access is so powerful. If you can figure out why people stop using something they bought from you, you can figure out what about it needs to be fixed in order for those people to keep consuming it, keep using it, and stay lifelong customers of yours.

So we do the same thing when people leave our coaching programs with a very low attrition rate. But it does happen, and one of the reasons it’s low and getting lower is that, when this happens we’ll often go to someone and we’ll say, “Hey, look I know you’ve made your decision. I’m not going to try and change your mind, I totally respect it. But what I would like to know do is learn about it. If I give you $100 Amazon gift card, would you be willing to speak to us in kind of a really casual way about your experience maybe half an hour, 45 minutes on the phone?” And most people are dying to be heard in that way. They don’t want to be challenged, they don’t want you to come in and try and convince them that they made the wrong decision. The decision’s already made and it can’t be changed in my experience, but they’re dying to share their story because often they wanted it to work out, and they have a pretty good idea of why it didn’t. And as long as you can create a safe environment where they feel like they’re not going to be judged or challenged, they’ll tell you exactly what happened.

And so in our coaching programs for example, we found that if someone wrote us an E-mail and got a long delay in the response, that was a huge predictor of them quitting. Or if they wrote us an E-mail and the E-mail overlooked something personal about them that they believed we should have known because they’ve been a client for six months or whatever, that was a big predictor of quitting. So for example if someone … We had one woman who was a vegan, or a vegetarian, I can’t remember, and she was sick. She wrote an E-mail to her coach saying, “Hey, I’m looking for … I’m getting bored with the protein that I’m eating, could you give me some more suggestions. What else would work for me?” And the response was … from the coach was, “You know what you should … Here’s some kind of things that people typically overlook, like” … I can’t remember what it was, turkey or halibut, but they included things that a vegan wouldn’t eat.

And the coach just in that moment made a mistake and didn’t connect this is a vegan, and they’re asking for more protein, here’s what … they just saw this E-mail that had a very specific question, and they answered the question but they just didn’t incorporate the context that they should have known about that person.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So a lot of times people just … it’s almost like they’re not feeling appreciated or recognized?

Phil Caravaggio:                Yeah. And that would lead to them dropping out. So that would be a predictor of quitting. And so that allows us to fix the experience for other people. You get in there, someone will tell you this in half an hour, 45 minutes. You give them 50 buck or 100 bucks and they’re thrilled, and they feel heard, and you get the information you need to go and re-engineer or redesign the product, and you prevent yourself from doing one of the classic product development errors, which is over engineering. You start to fix problems that people don’t actually have. Because it’s one of the worst things that can happen in product development is this idea of, “Wouldn’t be cool if, or we should, blank.”

Those are always … Whenever I hear that I ring the alarm, because I’m like, “This is … If we do whatever finishes those sentences we’re screwed.” Because we’re going to spend a bunch of money doing something that we don’t actually know makes any difference to people. Whereas when you see someone just stop using what you’re selling, you know if you fixed that they would have stayed. And if they leave with a bad experience it’s powerfully negative word of mouth. That person is going to tell 10, 20 people how much their experience sucked. So now you’ve got negative marketing out in the world.

So there’s such a powerful tool available to everyone. It doesn’t cost very much money, you do what you need to do to get them on the phone and that’s it. But you don’t need to have any special software, you don’t need to have any special training, you just need to have a meaningful conversation where you ask people what their story was leading up to the action that you’re trying to examine, and either get more of or less of. More of if they’re buying, less of if they’re quitting, and take what they say seriously.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So in your experience a lot of the, at least in our business, and I would assume a lot of businesses, the biggest reasons for refunds or cancellations is the money issue. Either it’s too much money, it’s cost too much, or I don’t have the time. Do you find that when you go deeper that those are BS, and those are just kind of like surface answers that cover up the deeper … the real reason?

Phil Caravaggio:                Yes, yes I do find that. I find that those are the things that people say. It’s like a break up, it’s not you it’s me. Like, “Oh the money, or I don’t have the time, or whatever.” But what we know is that at some point they thought that the money was fine because they bought, and at some point they thought they’d have the time because they bought, and at some point that changed, and it’s about figuring out the moment that it changed. And there’s always a moment, there’s some event that happened, an experience they had, not always with you. Not always something that you did in your product or in your service, but something that happened in their life that changed things.

And not all of them you can fix, but knowing what they are gives you the opportunity to do it if you can. And just accepting all the money or the time, because how many times have you probably said that to someone? I’ve said it to someone, “Well you know it’s a little too much money. Well I don’t have the time.” But it’s bull shit.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well the thing that I’ve recognized with myself as well as some of the customers that have refunded some of our products, is the moment in time where they go from excited to this is not going to work out for me, is when they download or open up the material. And they’re just like, “Holy cow this is too much stuff.” And there might something else obviously going on in their lives, or they’re maybe hoping for a magic pill, or maybe they thought it would be easier to implement. But let’s just say that’s the case, if you have that intel then as you’re saying, it gives you a really good idea of how you can for instance craft a follow up sequence for buyers to help them consume the information–

Phil Caravaggio:                Yeah, absolutely.

Yuri Elkaim:                         — and use the products. Because if people aren’t using it they’re going to … it’s going to sit there and they’re like, “Well why am I getting billed for this if I’m never using it, and I might as well refund it.”

Phil Caravaggio:                Absolutely. And you know what, it’s exactly … that’s the kind of stuff we learn all the time is, “Hey that person at that moment felt like, “Oh my God” they were overwhelmed.” So can we go back and change that experience, so that instead of getting this massive download, they get one E-mail, or one one-pager, or one … Do you know what I mean? I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is but I know that once I’ve identified the problem where I need to start experimenting. And often you also get to know in what direction. Like if someone feels overwhelmed the opposite of that is the feeling of kind of calm directed simplicity. So what kind of experiment can I run at exactly that moment in time in exactly that direction, and then bang there’s where you product efforts go.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, that’s brilliant. I mean there’s so much value in what you just said here in the last couple of minutes. Well the whole interview has been great. But for all of you listening, because I’m telling you this is probably the most common question I get asked is, how do I get my first product out there? And I don’t even know if that’s the right question.

I often tell people, the first question you should be asking is maybe, who? Who do you want to serve, and what are the issues and problems before you even think about what do I want to develop? But if you are in that product creation mode, or if you do have an existing product is, reach out to your customers, I think especially as a CEO of your business is they would appreciate if you’re the one who jumps on the phone with them–

Phil Caravaggio:                Absolutely.

Yuri Elkaim:                         — as opposed to just some customer service person, and to really show them that you care, like, “Hey, listen we want to make this better for what else can we do?” Stuff like that. So I think this is just really, really valuable Phil, so thank you so much for sharing. I mean we can talk about this stuff all day long.

I just want to ask you one more thing.

Phil Caravaggio:                Sure.

 

The key to lasting success

Yuri Elkaim:                         In your experience with … I mean you know so many amazing entrepreneurs and business owners. What do you think is the number one key to their lasting success?

Phil Caravaggio:                Well I think what the key is, is finding, maybe it’s your who question. It’s finding the who and the particular problem that is vexing to you that you really, really are consistently motivated to solve. Like there’s a person you want to help, there is a problem you want to solve and it gets you up in the morning. Because the path of entrepreneurship as you well know, is a challenging one. You don’t get to turn off your brain at the end of the day and say, “Okay, I’m done.” It’s really difficult to compartmentalize, and so the thing that makes it go is the constant fascination with helping. Doing something that makes a difference in someone else’s life, and seeing the change. That’s a … What you call heart centered entrepreneurs, that’s a I think what drives them.

I mean there are different types of entrepreneurs, there are sort of sociopathic entrepreneurs, there are all … But the types of things that … the people you and I like being around, the things that drive them is this fascination with being a service. Figuring how to take whatever gifts they’ve been given, whatever experience or talents they may have, and apply them to the benefit of someone else. If you can do that and find an area or problem which the work you do you’re really proud of, just you, you of your own accord, you’re really proud of it. And if you can do that in a way where you don’t have to get a real job, you can make enough money out of it, you can make a living and beyond, that’s the dream come true.

And it’s not easy but it’s possible. And I think the thing is you have a bit of a willingness to go places people aren’t willing to go, hear things people aren’t willing to put effort out in order to have that little bit of an advantage. And if you have that and you have the desire and the fascination, I think that’s the formula.

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Wrap up with Yuri:

So there you go. Pretty awesome stuff right. Again if you want to follow Phil and Precision Nutrition, precisionnutrition.com is the website can follow Precision Nutrition on social media. They’re pretty much everywhere, and if you’ve enjoyed this episode remember to subscribe to the Healthpreneur podcast on iTunes. Many more amazing interviews coming your way. If you’ve enjoyed the interviews that we’ve had, if you’ve enjoyed the solo rounds, if you’ve enjoyed the result coach sessions, hey this is just the beginning.

This is actually a pretty exciting time because we are what, we’re … Beginning of December, and we officially started this podcast last September, so we’re now what? 14 months into it, and it’s actually pretty cool to see how this thing is starting to take off. So I’ll keep you posted with some stats, and maybe I’ll share some of our stats in the beginning of January to kind of give you a sense of how our podcast has done from a traffic and download perspective. But in the meantime you’ve got to subscribe otherwise you’re going to miss that episode.

So Healthpreneur podcast on iTunes. While you’re there if you’ve enjoyed this, leave a five star rating or review. And for now have an amazing rest of your day, have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing you on Monday and continue to be great and do great.

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Transcription

What’s up Healthpreneurs, Yuri here, and welcome to another session of Between the Ears with Jackie, Amy, and Steph. Good morning to you all. If you’re watching this in the group, good morning. If you’re listening to this in the podcast well, good for you, that’s awesome.

So, today we’re talking about the importance of mastering the fundamentals like a pro, so you can eventually break them like an artist. I believe Picasso once said that, so I can’t take the credit for that quote, but, it’s an important concept.

Yuri Elkaim:                         I want to spend a few minutes today talking about this because the reason we have these episodes is we see stuff happen with our clients and we’re like, “You know what, we should talk about this.” Whether it’s mindset stuff, specifically in this session or in these sessions. This one kind of applies to that as well. So, recently, I had a couple people submit their feedback in the group like, “Hey, can I get some help with my funnel or  I’m spending this much money on ads, I’m not seeing the return I want to see.” I’m like, “Okay, cool. Send me all your stuff. Let me have a look at what’s going on.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         Right away, it’s glaring, it’s boom. Alarm bells right away. It’s like, “Wow.” Number one, the landing page doesn’t look at all like the way it should. I mean, there’s some … I mean, template wise, layout wise, it’s okay. But, there’s some really basic concepts that are missing from that landing page. If you don’t understand that, if you don’t have it on there, naturally people landing on your page are not going to register for you webinar. So, I want to talk about this guys because this is so important. I think it’s important that we’re breathing …

Yuri Elkaim:                         Not breathing, that’s a terrible word. We’re developing and harnessing leaders, but I think it’s really important to learn how to follow first. Because if you can’t follow, I don’t think you can lead properly either. So, I just want to get your thoughts on this, guys. Whoever wants to jump in first.

 

Following first, leading second, and seeing rapid results

Amy:                                     I’ll jump in because I’ve been in a lot of coaching programs, high-end programs and I will admit that I did it my way. It didn’t work, right? Because I hired a coach, so they could give me the step-by-step blueprint and support me, which is exactly what we do for you. That’s exactly what we talked about in our results accelerator calls, you call us and you’re looking for show me the path, show me the steps, and then we get in and that thinking brain, because it’s unfamiliar and we don’t know what it’s going to look like and we don’t really know how to do it yet. Our brain is trying to make sense of it. We think we’re going to do what we know, right?

Amy:                                     So, we go back to all those things that weren’t working and we go back to doing the things because they’re familiar. So, what we’re asking you to do is step out, right? When you joined the HBA or if you’re a future client, when you step off that precipices, the health business accelerator workshop is the parachute that’s going to open, so we’re asking you to trust yourself and trust us because Yuri, you are amazing at simplifying and providing step-by-step instructions. When we see clients that follow the blueprint exactly, they’re successful.

Amy:                                     The people who deploy quickly and who have results with their ads are following every single step. So, do that first. Once you’ve got that down, then you can let your creativity shine. We want you to be you, don’t get us wrong. We want you to have your authentic voice. We talk about that a lot, but there is a framework to put your voice in, so you can reach your tribe. Join this program, don’t make the mistakes that I’ve made in the past before I joined you, Yuri.

Amy:                                     I came to Yuri as a client and before that, I’ve joined coaching programs, but same thing, I kind of did it my way, right? It all crashed and burned. When I joined the HBA, I was like, “I’m not doing that anymore. I deployed … everything rolled. Right? I totally followed the step-by-step blueprint, got my ads running and boom, everything was rocking. If it’s not rocking and you’re following step-by-step, fall back on to us. We are the safety net, we’re going to help you, but when we see you say, “I need help with this and it’s nothing like the blueprint,” we’re kind of like, “Aah.”

Amy:                                     So, just go back to the portal, that’s what I see a lot of people are not taking the time to be resourceful and we talked about that in another episode. So, be resourceful. Don’t just go in the Facebook group, go in the online portal because that’s your flight plan, that’s your blueprint. Use that and then jump in that group and we’ll absolutely support you, but follow the blueprint so we don’t have to tell you to go back and follow the blueprint.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Also, the parachute can’t open if you’re pulling the wrong string or it won’t work.

Amy:                                     Right. Exactly.

 

Understanding where you fall short and pushing through until you reach success

Yuri Elkaim:                         If you’re expecting certain results, you have to just look in the mirror, “Am I following this?” As you said, Amy, every single little detail, the how-to is laid out inside the online portal. You don’t know how to set up your audiences in Facebook, watch the video, it’s going to show you how. If you’re targeting entrepreneurs, I’m not going to mention the name here, if you’re targeting entrepreneurs but your audience is Weight Watchers, there’s a massive disconnect there. Okay. You have to understand where these leaks are because if you can’t identify this stuff, you’re going to be in trouble, right?

Yuri Elkaim:                         The reason we put this training together the way it is, is so that you are empowered to understand what’s going on beneath the surface, so you can see where things, again, down the road, five years down the road, 10 years down the road are not working in your business and you can make decisions yourself. But, if you’re trying to get stuff done so quickly that it’s almost like setting up a computer without looking at the owner’s manual. I don’t know if any of us read the owner’s manual anymore because it’s just so simple. But, it’s tough to deploy something if you’re not following instructions at least initially.

Yuri Elkaim:                         If you’re not already the master of doing this stuff, you have to follow this step-by-step.

Amy:                                     One last thing is that I don’t know … I’m terrible with exact quotes but Albert Einstein said that he wasn’t the smartest, he just stayed with the problem long enough. So, if it’s not working or you don’t get it or your brain hurts, celebrate because we’re in this world where we expect everything to be immediate and easy, you guys have taken on the challenge of living and being … Expanding and being more than most people. You’re not just on your phones and instant gratification, that’s why you joined. So, let your brain hurt. Sit with problem. Get up and go outside, but stay with it long enough, so that you are successful, because you got everything you need for it.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Awesome.

 

Laying a solid foundation to leave a legacy

Steph:                                   So, if I can chime in here too. This framework is the fundamentals of your foundation. So, why would you try to build a house just by winging it, is my whole concept, it’s what I tell people all the time. They’re like, “What about this?” Or, “I just saw that.” “But, this is kind of a cool different idea that I can make it work.” It’s like, “Okay, let’s play with that once we have a solid foundation because now you’ll have also the resources to play with that, right?” Why bleed yourself thin on spending money, time, and energy, and other people’s wisdom and knowledge, when you don’t even have the fundamentals down, right?

Steph:                                   So, it’s kind of like saying, “Hey, I’m going to put this bike together, but I’m going to put the wheels on top and see how fast I can go.” It doesn’t make any sense. It just doesn’t.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Exactly.

Steph:                                   It might look a little different, it might be a cool concept, but until we have the fundamentals, I just drive it right back to that because it really is a foundation and we’re building a legacy, we’re building an empire. If you are not building it and setting it up right from the beginning and you have the step-by-step process, it’s not like we’re giving you a little bit and you have to figure out the rest. No, we’re giving you it all. Every piece of the pie, just put the pieces together and then launch, right?

Steph:                                   I always say, “Before you even think about your website.” “Well, what about this?” I had one person even say, “Well, now that I’m taking all these phone calls, people are going to research me and they’re going back to my website. I got to get my website looking good again.” No, we don’t bring that word up in our community.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Nobody cares about your website.

Steph:                                   Nobody cares.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Nobody cares. Nobody cares.

Steph:                                   Yeah. The website is fine the way it is, that’s another whole strategy, right? That you want to follow a specific framework as well. But, it’s not your PCP, it’s not your perfect client pipeline. Just focus on that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s kind of like … So, you mentioned building a house. What we’re doing is we’re building a house on a cliff off Malibu, okay? That’s what we’re doing with this business model because it’s not like we’re building the website and then hoping people eventually come. So, there’s no … Less risk if you have that type of … “All right, I’m just going to set this up and if no one comes, no big deal.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         What we’re doing is we’re setting up a pipeline that is then driving paid traffic to it, which means you’re spending money to attract leads and clients. If you don’t have this setup properly, you’re going to waste money. That’s the last thing you want to do. So, you don’t want to spend a $1,000 and then go, “Nothing’s working.” No shit, right? You didn’t have the fundamentals down first. So, it goes … We’re not saying delay and get everything perfect and become a perfectionist because that’s not what this is.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Because we’ve had a few clients who have deployed so quickly and then we look at their stuff and it’s like, you have to do this all over again because the landing page is not on. I don’t know what the bullets are saying. I don’t know what the headline’s saying. The ads are completely different from what we’d recommend. It’s so important to do this because it’s your business, we don’t want you wasting money. Yes, we want you spending a lot of money with Facebook, because you should see ROI, but if you’re doing stuff along your own path and not really following our guide, you’re going to be wasting money, we don’t want that to happen.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So, great analogy. I just thought I’d put that into the Malibu cliff because if you don’t build this properly, it’s going to fall off the cliff very quickly.

Steph:                                   Yeah. It’s kind of learning … Let’s say salsa lessons or anything else. You’re going to learn the basic steps first and then once you have those down, then you can add your own flare, right? So, don’t add the flare before you even know or else it’s not salsa dancing and it’s some other dance.

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s just salsa for nachos.

Steph:                                   Exactly. Yeah. You know what else I was just thinking, I was sitting here thinking, Yuri probably doesn’t even remember this. Probably like five or six years ago, I was like, “Yuri, will you talk to me about this idea that I have about a weight loss thing, right? Jackie actually worked with me on this. You asked me, “What’s different about it, why do you want to do this? Is this something you’re really passionate about?” The truth was that the reason why I wanted to do it is because I knew there was a lot of overweight people in the world and that was a big market.

Steph:                                   This is kind of circling back to niching down or niching down. I’ve had a lot of clients come in from HBA that they don’t quite understand that part and the fact is that, that’s part of the PCP, that’s why it works, right? So, it’s like people are wanting to create all of these other things, doing a million webinars about 10 different things and all kinds of stuff, but it’s like you have to get down and again, it’s just following that system because it’s proven, it’s just a proven strategy, right?

 

Finding your specialty and the benefits of a group-based program

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s important, let’s talk about that quickly because that is part of getting the fundamentals down. So, for everyone listening and are watching, who are not aware of this, we highly recommend a group based program, right? We’re not saying you cannot do this with one-on-one because you absolutely can run this exact same model with one-on-coaching. The challenge though is because we have so many amazing experts in our group, naturopaths, functional medicine doctors, health coaches who are like, “Well, I can help people do this and I can help them with this and I can help them with that.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         What that’s doing for your business, it’s just going to create a massive amount of complexity and you might not realize that now and that’s why we’re here, that’s why we’re here to give you that wisdom because we’re like, “Hey, we’ve already done this.” Just to give you … I just walked the path and I’m going to tell you what I just saw and here’s the reality. Let’s say you wanted to help people lose weight, prevent cancer, get over birth control, solve menopause … Solve five different issues, okay. You’ve created yourself five different programs right now because we’ve got five different protocols.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So, let’s say you had five different protocols, you cannot speak to those people in the same way, which now means you need five different webinars. In order for those webinars to convert, you now need five different sets of Facebook messages, each within those, a number of different variations for each angle of menopause, weight loss, because now you’re speaking completely different to the perfect client you want to attract. So, the level of complexity that you just add to your business is just exponential.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Now, when you bring those people in, if they enroll, now you’ve got to run five different programs at the same time, which is essentially a one-on-one coaching model or if you have five people in each group, it just becomes a nightmare. So, guys, we’re saying you have to focus on one single target market at a time. It’s not to say that you’re going to be boxed into this forever, but even if you were, who would be the best clients for you to work with? Who do you enjoy working with the most? Who can you create the best results for? Right? Just ask yourselves those questions.

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s like, “I can help people with menopause and this.” Well, choose one. Choose one. There’s no shortage of anyone with anything, just choose the one thing where you can create the biggest impact, where there’s the most pain, that you can solve that, and you’ll have a thriving business. But, if you start trying to think about all sorts of different stuff, you’re just going to … You’re going to overwhelm yourself.

Steph:                                   Well, I’ve also run into people who picked a niche that they thought was just … There was a lot of people, right? There was just a lot of people out there that they can target. Then, once they get on the backend, and they start the actual sales call or doing the actual program, they’re like, “I hate doing this. I hate working with these people, I don’t like it.” So, that is why it’s so important to just follow the system because we are guiding you to actually pick your perfect client. Not like an, “Okay, client. There’s a lot of them.” No, the perfect one that you want to work with, right?

Steph:                                   So, that’s again, yet another way of reiterating it. It’s just so important to follow the system. So, in the backend you’re not miserable. “Yay, my ads worked. Yay, I closed a lot of stuff, but now I’m miserable because I have to work with these people every day, right?

Yuri Elkaim:                         But, it’s also true though, because it’s okay to experience that, like Dan, one of our best clients, he started off with female weight loss and then he ran that program once or twice and he’s like, “Honestly, I don’t want to work with them anymore. I want to be the body transformation coach for male entrepreneurs.” That’s what he’s doing, but he built everything out for the female side and then after running that for a few months he was like, “You know what? This is not my audience.” He pivoted and he’s only focused on male entrepreneurs now and he’s crushing it. So, guys allow yourself that it’s okay. I had a conversation with another one of our clients, he’s been having the toughest time trying to figure out who he wants to serve. I’m like, “Dude, I know who you want to serve, we talked about it in LA, do that and allow yourself to just work with those people. Down the road, if you don’t like it, you can always change.

Jackie:                                   Well, the key with Dan too because I’ve been working with him as well is when he pivoted, he just went back to the fundamentals and followed it step-by-step. That’s why he did it so quickly. He didn’t say, “Oh, I did this with the females and that didn’t really work. So, I’m going to change some of this up.” It didn’t really work because he just didn’t want to work with them. He was very successful with the females, right? He just realized, “My perfect client …” Where he gets excited is the men.

Jackie:                                   The second thing is when we talk about the fundamentals too, when we go add our flare, we go to change the dynamics and try something new and different, we always have the fundamentals to fall back on. So, if that doesn’t work, it’s not like, “Oh, shit. Now, I’m stuck where I’m at, right? Or, now I’ve just wasted all that and I have to start completely over.” No, your fundamentals are still running in the background, right? So, it’s not like you have to never be able to go off and build your own trail or pave a new way. We want you to do that. We’re Healthpreneurs, right? This is why we’re thought leaders.

Jackie:                                   But, we say do the fundamentals first because when things happen, because things will happen, challenges, issues, things will break down, your fundamentals will hold you steady and solid and you’ll never be hungry, right? You’ll always have that foundation to pull you through with any moment.

Amy:                                     That’s a great point Jackie, and you know, it never takes as long, I always … When I talk with clients and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, but I’m not passionate about this and I have to switch.” Once you go through the perfect client pipeline developing at once, it will never take you that long again. When I started, I was just targeting high … I wasn’t targeting high achieving women, excuse me, I was targeting women over 40. I developed my entire pipeline and I was running my ads and I realized it wasn’t just women over 40 who wanted to ditch the diet and get permanent weight loss without feeling deprived or overwhelmed, I didn’t want to work with busy people, but it took me launching and working with people and realizing that was who’d I’d been working with and I didn’t like it.

Amy:                                     All the tweak that I made was high performing women over 40. Once I did that and that seems like a small tweak, but it furthered niche down and it allowed me to really target my perfect client and it really allowed me to work with people in a way that felt good to me because when you’re not working with the right client, it feels kind of icky, right? There’s a push and pull on it and then you get annoyed with their things because you don’t feel like doing that. So, then you feel that energy. So, really sit with yourself when you’re starting with your perfect client. Like Stephanie said, don’t just choose weight loss because everybody needs to lose weight or diabetes because there’s a million people with diabetes.

Amy:                                     If that doesn’t turn you on, you know what turns you on, you’re going to feel what turns you on. My perfect client’s changed again. That’s okay. Right? So, I’m developing a new perfect client pipeline because I’m being true to me because I’ve got to, because I want to transform lives and I have a system. So now, since it’s brand new, it’s going to take me a little longer. The last one was like literally tweaks. It’s still not going to take me as long, right? Just review the fundamentals.

Jackie:                                   Yeah, Amy, that’s the best part. But, do it in order. Follow the fundamentals. Don’t rush through the very beginning, most people are like, “I’ve never done a webinar before, let me just jump through the webinar and I’m going to get through my avatar, my dream come true system because I need to get to the webinar. I need to get the webinar.” No, get that part done first, because if not, you’re going to launch and you’re going to feel icky. If you really do your best, not perfection, right? There’s a difference, right? So, do your best with each step, but make sure you check yourself and it feels good, it should feel like a little uncomfortable because it’s new and different.

Jackie:                                   When you’re working with your dream come true system and you’re working with your perfect client avatar, that should feel amazing. That should light you up. If it just feels okay, then you haven’t finished that step, don’t move to the next, right? It should really, like you said, turn you on.

 

Our framework and the three things you need to know about your audience

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s like guys you can’t write if you don’t understand the alphabet, it just then becomes gibberish. I’m going to make it even simpler for everyone listening or watching. So, we have the framework on how to build out your perfect client pipeline and all of that is really predicated on understanding three things, the fears, frustration, and desires of your perfect client, that’s it. So, everything hinges upon identifying who that person is you want to serve. Because if you know who that person is, your webinar’s a whole lot easier, your Facebook messages are a whole lot easier. The way you speak to them on the phone is all taken care of because you understand you’re speaking their language.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So, when I’m looking at landing pages and I’m seeing bullets like you’ll learn how to optimize your health, don’t stay stuff like that. That’s honestly, that’s part of our bad because we can do a better job perhaps on helping you guys with those specific bullet points. That’s why we hired a new copy coach, whose only job is to look at your landing pages.

Amy:                                     It’s exciting.

Yuri Elkaim:                         To give you that knowhow of, “Okay, this bullet makes no sense, it’s not compelling. I would not want to register based on what I see. Here’s what we can do instead. Because if you go back into the emotion inventory, which I think is the single most important worksheet in the entire program, if you focus there and you’re able to bring out not … These people have low energy, that’s their frustration. That is a frustration, it’s a surface level, but how do you make it even more compelling? How do you bring that low energy into that person’s world? Do you have a tough time getting out of bed? Do you find yourself hitting the snooze button several times first thing in the morning?

Yuri Elkaim:                         Do you find yourself nodding off or dozing off at work after lunch? Using word images that are very visceral, where someone’s like, “Holy shit, that’s exactly what I went through today, or this morning, or yesterday.” Is much more powerful than have low energy. So, again, all this stuff is, again, in the online portal, the walkthrough of how to do all this stuff, but it’s just a process of understanding this. I understand that most people, copyrighting is not their forte and that’s totally fine. That’s why we’re happy that this is not a copy intense process.

Yuri Elkaim:                         You’ve got your landing page, you’ve got your webinar, and you’ve got your Facebook ads. Those are the only places where you’re going to have written text, in some way, shape, or from. We help you to the best of our ability with our copy coaches, with our training, to help you understand what to put in that stuff. With our Facebook ad templates, just follow the template and put your words in brackets where needed. We tried to make it as easy as possible for you guys because words do matter. Words really do matter. Again, it goes back to the fundamentals.

 

What’s important about your slide-deck and what’s not

Jackie:                                   Same thing, yeah, Yuri, you said the templates are so, so, important. We’re not just saying, “This is how you do a webinar, here’s some copy that should … This is where you put stuff.” The slide deck tells you, “This is where your big idea goes, this is where this goes. Don’t talk about yourself till here.” Right? There’s a true framework that really is ingenious, don’t try to make up your own stuff, right? Because we know what converts.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. The other example is so our current webinar that’s running right now is me on camera with the slide deck. We had one of our clients ask me if he could watch that and I said, “Yes.” Big disclaimer, you do not have to do a webinar and I strongly recommend you don’t do a webinar with you on camera. I’ve been doing webinars for 10 plus years. I’ve created probably more than 50 different webinars that are slides alone. So, I’m at a point now where I feel confident and comfortable, where I can probably do some pretty good stuff on camera as well as the slide deck interchanging back and forth and get a little bit creative.

Yuri Elkaim:                         But, again, I don’t know if that works better. So, again, we’re testing that, we’re looking, “Does this make sense to keep doing this.” So, sometime … This is why you have to be careful of what you model, that’s why I made that disclaimer. I’m like, “Listen, watch this as just for viewing pleasure only. But, do not copy this because we don’t know if this works better yet.” Even if it does, don’t do it, until you’ve mastered the slide deck only with the voiceover because also we … But, we’ve done pretty well, just with the keynote by itself. So, you don’t have to make it professional and all this nonsense.

Yuri Elkaim:                         You don’t have to have a beautiful slide deck, you don’t have to have a designer create this … There’s so much wasted money and time on stuff like, “People are going to judge me based on how my slide deck looks.” No they don’t. What they’re going to judge you on is this person has no clue what … They don’t understand what I’m going through. That’s all they care about. Or, this person knows exactly what I’m going through. You can have the worst slides in terms of the way they look. Our slides are white with black text. It’s like Apple simple. That’s pretty much all you need.

Amy:                                     It goes back to-

Yuri Elkaim:                         … finish off here.

Amy:                                     One quick last thing, it goes back to … We talked about a couple a weeks ago, you’re not allowed to do your blog, your website, YouTube, Instagram, even Facebook Live, you’re not allowed until you complete your perfect client pipeline. All that stuff is just going to distract you and like Yuri just said, he’s testing things because he’s got the foundation and has the success. Knows what works. Now, let’s see if we can optimize and see if this is going to work. Oh, it doesn’t work, that’s cool because this is still running over here.

Amy:                                     So, just stay with the system, build the solid foundation, don’t build a Leaning Tower of Pisa. When you are complete and you are … You need something to do because now you’re just waiting for your numbers to come in, then you can go into the consistent content generator and that’s at the end. So, don’t even worry about what that is, but just … You’re not allowed to do anything else, until you get this done.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, totally. It’s so true because guys, I didn’t … I’ve talked about this before in a podcast, right? I wasn’t on Instagram for the longest time for a reason because I knew that … Okay, let’s say I was on Instagram, where am I driving people to? To an Ebook, to a free opt-in? No, you have to have that predictable sale’s process and it has to be converting. When it is, again, 95% of our revenue come through this very model, right? Facebook ad to perfect client pipeline, that’s 95% of our revenue.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Everything else that we’re doing, the podcast, Instagram, YouTube, it’s a long-term play. For me, it’s the legacy play. We’re building that out so that in the next five, 10 years, we are a major force. Everyone knows who Healthpreneur is. It’s not about, “I’m going to put this post up on Instagram and hopefully people are going to enroll with me tomorrow.” You’re not going to build a business like that and in fact, if you are, you should definitely talk to us because we can save you from a lot of frustration and lack of results.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So, with that said, we’ve got to jump off, but again, if you’re listening to this on the podcast, hopefully this episode has found you well. If you’re interested in working with us or interested in exploring how we can help you, watch the seven figure health business blueprint training. It’s totally free. You’ll get a better sense of what we’re talking about with respect to the webinar. You’ll get some really big ah-has out of that 75 minutes or so.

So, it’s over at healthpreneurgroup.com/training. If you like what you see and it resonates with you, then you can book a call with us and you’ll be speaking with one of these lovely ladies who are amazing on the phone and better than I am. That’s why they do … That’s why I’m not on the phone anymore because they’re awesome, way better than me.

Yuri Elkaim:                         If you’re in the group, if you’re in the HB group, then hopefully this message has resonated with you. If you’re one of those people, who’s the high quick start and just want to get stuff done, listen, I’m not … I’m the same way, okay. But, I’m just telling you, just follow the process until you have it working and then you can start tweaking stuff with your own flare. Cool. All right, guys. So, that’ll do it for us today, thank you so much for joining us. We’ll see you in the next Between the Ear session next Wednesday. Until then, have an awesome week. Keep up the good work.