Kickoff Sessions

#320 Laura Higgins - Why Most Content Never Makes Money (And How to Fix It)

• Darren Lee • Episode 320

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Guest: Laura Higgins
Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@laurahigginsofficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurahiggins

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Laura:

The bulk of what grows a business in 2026 is the same. You need to get leads, you need to know how to convert them, you need to have a system so that you can deliver what you promised and scale.

Darren:

When should people make those shifts into more of a broader CEO role? Because I find sometimes that people are just trying to get out of delivery so much, they haven't figured out how to deliver an amazing product yet.

Laura:

If you are not concerned about your clients getting results, then that needs to be what you work on. Yes, there'll be people that don't get the result. That's part of it, especially in coaching. There will be people who don't get the result, but for the people who show up who implement, do they get a result with you? And if the answer is yes, amazing. Now you can scale. But if the answer is no, don't scale that because it's going to affect your reputation and it's going to suck. For a lot of creatives, they will come to me and they'll be like, oh, sales isn't my issue. Okay, cool. Let's like talk to me about your numbers. And they'll be like, oh, I convert it like 90%. And like, okay, so maybe sales isn't your issue because you are undercharging so, so badly. The degree to which we're prepared to repel people is the degree to which we can attract the right people. And I think we forget about that. We think, oh, I'm just gonna grow on Instagram, I'm gonna grow on social media, and it's gonna be all daisies and smiles. But actually, you do have to repel people, otherwise.

Darren:

Something that I really admire about your content is the fact that it's really sophisticated, but then it's also really warm and really inviting at the same time. So it's like anyone, no matter what level they're at, can listen to you and feel like they're talking with you and they're part of your tribe versus against you, and you're almost shouting at them. How do you design that brand to be more inviting for your prospects?

Laura:

Thank you. That's that's really kind. I think for me, because of who I serve, I work with creatives, I work with designers, photographers, agency owners. I am that person. And so I ran an agency for a long time. I've kind of worn all the hats and done all the things. And so I think for me, I create content from definitely a place of empathy and being like, oh my goodness, I get it. And I think, you know, relating to the pain and the frustrations and even sometimes the humor and the funny parts of running that kind of business, that definitely makes the right people lean in to my content. And so I've just learned that for me, that's it is kind of who I am. But also from a strategic perspective, I've learned that the more I can make someone feel seen, make someone feel like I understand their unique situation as a creative or whatever niche you serve, the more we can do that, and more we can articulate that in our content, the more the right people lean in and go, okay, you're my person and you get me, and I like you, as opposed to another person kind of shouting at them on the internet.

Darren:

I'm laughing because I remember your clip about having the fake email name.

Laura:

Yes.

Darren:

That was firstly, it's awesome. So basically, you were mentioning how having a fake alias to do all the dirty work with following up with clients. That went super viral as well. That's a funny thing.

Laura:

That one went viral, and I had no idea that that was gonna happen. So I I did that as a creative because I was like, I don't want to be the one following up the invoices, like how awkward, you know? And most creatives they hate even sending invoices. So the idea of following up a client who you've already delivered work to to be like, can you please pay me? Like that for a creative person is like their worst nightmare. So that strategy has worked for so many of my clients. I used it, but when I shared that, I just thought, guys, this is a great strategy. How like, how are you not doing this? And this is a really good case in point of like the we we talk a lot about like, you know, how do you create content that's magnetic? And the thing about magnets is they attract, but they also repel. And every magnet does that. It attracts on one part and repels on the other. And I think a lot of the time when we think about becoming magnetic, we think, oh, well, it's just gonna make people fall in love with me, and that's all I want. But also part of being magnetic is repelling. And that piece of content repelled people. It I had so many comments being like, you're so inauthentic, like just have boundaries and be honest, like a normal person. I was like, well, if only I could. Truly, if only I could. And so the right people were like, oh my goodness, this is brilliant. How, how funny. That sounds great. I'm actually gonna do that. And then the wrong people like are like, oh no, I don't, I hate that strategy. Why can't you just figure it out and be a normal person? And it's like, that's actually really good because the degree to which we're prepared to repel people is the degree to which we can attract the right people. And I think we forget about that. We think, oh, I'm just gonna grow on Instagram, I'm gonna grow on social media, and it's gonna be all daisies and smiles. But actually, you do have to repel people, otherwise, you're just like everyone else.

Darren:

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Laura:

A hundred percent. And I think what I find interesting is the bulk of what grows a business in in 2025, 2026 is the same, right? You need to get leads, you need to know how to convert them, you need to have a system so that you can deliver what you promise and scale. Like those those fundamentals are kind of the same. And so you would be sharing very similar content to me, but the voice and the tone and the angle is slightly different because you know your audience and your audience is different to mine. And so I think in our content strategy, if we can be thinking about, okay, if 80% of the stuff is pretty similar, yes, the delivery and the packaging is is different, and like your brand is different, your voice is different, but if the philosophy is kind of the same, then what are those, what's the 20% that makes me a bit different? And what's the the perspective or the story or the piece of advice or the insight that I can give that only my person understands and only my person goes, oh my gosh, she gets me or he gets me. And I think if we can approach content from that lens of going, okay, what's my like, what's the 20% that sits, you know, around the core fundamentals that probably everyone is teaching? And if we can figure that out, and if we can have a really strong brand so that there's this through line of the tone, the style, the voice that feels congruent and we deliver the same messages in a slightly different way, that's when our content really starts to sing.

Darren:

And this is why this conversation is almost like a coaching session for myself, because my question would be like, how do you do that in an entertaining, inspirational, motivating way? Because if I'm helping people build out, build out like a sales strategy, it's not only boring, but it's also not applicable to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. And I find that because not everyone loves building out sales stuff, it's less just like applicable. So you found a way to find that marriage between semi-viral or at least in hyper engaging for the niche, yeah, but then it's also really engaging. So my question here is how did you do that? Like the genuine question that I have.

Laura:

I think for me, I this is kind of weird, but I have like notes in my phone of things I observe that I find funny or that I think, oh, what an interesting like that's so weird how that person does that. And like I think about um, did you ever watch Seinfeld?

Darren:

No.

Laura:

Okay, so Jerry Seinfeld is obviously a comedian, and he had this bit where he talked about how he would have this piece of paper beside his bed at night, and he would have an idea right before he went to bed and he'd scribble on the piece of paper, and then he'd wake up in the morning and be like, What was that idea? That idea is dumb, whatever. I just kind of anything I notice or I see, I, or conversations I'm having with clients, or conversations I'm having in my DMs, or just like I'm out at drinks with my friends and I notice something, I will write it down. And so if there's if there's something humorous, or if there's a story or an analogy or a metaphor that I'm like, oh, that's that's heaps similar to this thing. I I take note of those things. And then when I go to create content, I've got this little bank of a lot of ideas that are crap, but some ideas that are good. And so it's like, okay, cool. This this analogy makes a lot of sense. Like recently I was, I had an event and I had a hundred people coming, sold-out event. Um it was like a lot. There was, I was prepping all the content, I was doing all the things in the lead up to an event. And the night before, I oh a couple of days before, I had these tablecloths for the tables at the event. I bought these tablecloths and they arrived and they were all creased. And I was like, okay, well, I've got to iron them. And I hate ironing. Like I hate ironing at the best of times. I don't buy clothes if I have to iron them because I just am like it's so annoying. Anyways, I said to my husband, well, okay, I'm gonna iron these tablecloths because they've got creases in them and uh I'll just do that. And he was like, babe, like it's it's like they're it's very thick fabric and you hate ironing, and this is gonna take you hours. And I was like, no, no, no. I'm gonna put on friends, watch some TV, have a glass of wine, iron the tablecloths. He's like, Okay, like I think you should outsource this, but fine. Anyway, I was like, cool, all right, ironing the tablecloths. And he came back about half an hour later and he's like, How many have you done? And I looked at him and I was like, I've done half of one. I didn't even finish one stupid tablecloth. And so I that was a moment where I went, oh my goodness, how many creatives are doing this in their business? Where they're like thinking, oh, it's gonna be easier if I just do it myself. That's crazy to outsource this. Like, it won't take me very long. It's silly if I get someone else to do it. But that was gonna take me hours and I don't like it. I'm not good at it. And so I immediately took it to the dry cleaner the next day and it cost me 120 bucks for the dry cleaner to do it. And so that was a moment where it was like, I am doing this thing, and it's ridiculous that I'm doing this. And as I thought about it afterwards, I was like, oh my goodness, there's an analogy in that for business because how often are we ironing the tablecloths in our business when we should get someone else to do it or delegate it to someone else? So thought those are the kind of the things I think about and write down when I have those ideas.

Darren:

What comes to mind for me there is I listened to uh a podcaster, Rick Rubin and Rory Sutherland. Yeah. I've interviewed Rory a couple of times, a great guy. And he was talking about like preparation experience when you're getting ready for something. And it's not the notes that you were making before the event, it's been the last 10 years of business or however long it's been. And like that is what preparation is, so that you can then show up and be your best on the day. So it's all those small intricacies, which is why like my preparations on the podcast are going down because hopefully my experience is going up. On the same side, the tablecloth is just basically not your zone of genius, and arguably, even if it was, that was like the old you, and now the new you is not these $20 tasks effectively. So it's it's important to realize like when you're on the pursuit of leveling up and when you should be more confident in okay, I'm creating this piece of content, I know my stuff now. It's all about the other intricacies that I need I need to dial in together. And I think that's where you look at yourself and you become irrecognizable five years later of the progress that you've made.

Laura:

100%. And and I think, like for anyone listening who is wants their content to become more interesting, I think it's just good to think about what you're doing in your day and think about okay, what's interesting here? Is there a story I could tell? Is there something I'm thinking about? Has there been an insight that I've had this week or a conversation I've had with a client or a conversation you've had with your partner or like your your friends? Like thinking about, okay, some stuff probably happened in the last week. What what is there that's that I could use as content that's that is a good story that's gonna help the right people to go, oh cool, I I resonate with that message.

Darren:

Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you. Have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today. Something I really wanted to chat to you about too, which I feel like we've had a very similar story, was almost like the the natural cap of organic content and then your move into paid content. So I'd love to get some of your experience there and just my own experience with that is you know, we trottled organic for four years at a pretty high level in terms of production value, volume. So not only the value, but the volume to the point that it grew our business seven figures, but it 100% with the with the way that I was doing it wouldn't have brought us the eight figures. Now we're not there yet, but at least I can see the path. And then we moved into a few different vessels. I'd love to get your thoughts on that as well and some of your some of your own uh insights.

Laura:

Yeah, I think I think the organic organic content changes uh frequently and it can be quite stressful if the algorithm changes and you're like, oh my gosh, like my reach has just halved all of a sudden, and or there's a new feature that I've now got to wrangle and figure out. Those those things are they change so quickly, and so relying solely on organic uh can be challenging and as you scale, not a good business move, right? And so I, for me, we we really figured out, we have a different strategy for ads than we do for organic. Our organic content is is really about connection, it's about how do we add value, how do we, how do we um we still treat it like top of funnel, but at the same time, it's also our middle of funnel. So our top of funnel kind of content, an example would be that viral video that goes off that we get thousands of comments on. That's like a very top of funnel thing that's not predictable. It's not um, I'm not hinging my whole lead gen strategy on a video going viral. It's nice, but it's not what I'm hinging my whole strategy on. So my organic strategy is really about how can I show that I've got expertise, like show my credibility in a way that helps people and be insanely generous to those people. How can I connect and really help people to see my story and see themselves in my story? So it's it's not about me, it's about them. And then how can I kind of stand up and stand against certain things in my content? So, um, an example, I held up a sign that said, using Canva doesn't make you a graphic designer. And like for my audience, they're like, amen, sister. But for other people, they're like, how dare you? You know, so it's standing up for something and standing against certain things. So that's what I'm doing in my organic content. But in my paid content, my strategy is like so different because I'm thinking about, okay, I've got to make them problem aware really quickly. I've got to show them who I am really quickly, I've got to get their attention visually so much faster than I do in organic. And so, yeah, for us, when we moved into ads, I love creating ads because I think they're really fun. And it's like, what hook is gonna work best? Like we we trial 10 different hooks and we can see through the data and through our like ads account. Okay, cool. This particular hook worked way better than these other ones, and that's really fascinating. It gives it gives us really good feedback right away. So our paid strategy is slightly different. It's less about the connection and more about the attention.

Darren:

Such a good question to kind of focus in on because a lot of people are not really focused in on their ICP, so that's why they can't have an ad strategy. You know, they're they're not really, really dialing that in. Whereas if you're calling out creative people, your ICP, you're calling out the problem that they have that they're facing, and then you're constantly questioning yourself like what is that approach? It's it's super, super unique. Just double happening on the data. So it's really amazes me how you went from being purely creative to very CEO focused. Yeah. Where did that development come from? I know it's a bit of a side question, but it's very interesting to observe how your brain swings from one to the other. It's very unique and it's awesome to see, you know.

Laura:

Well, I feel like for me, I I never identified with the term CEO. I was always like, no, no, no, I'm I'm the creative, I'm the talent, I'm I'm just here to make things like you know, look good and and feel really good. And like I I like delivering on what we we say we're gonna deliver. But I think the shift for me happened when I realized actually, as our team grew, I realized my job is now not so much to look after my clients, my job is to look after my team and my Team looks after my clients. And that shift required me to level up my identity. I had to move from, oh, I'm just a creative. Oh, like I'm just, I just like do my little magic and you know, whatever. I had to move from that into no, I'm a leader, I have authority, I have to be across my numbers. I have to know how to give feedback and lead my team. I have to set really clear expectations. I have to say no to more stuff. I can't get pulled into certain areas that I used to get pulled into all the time. So it's such a tension, I think, moving out of, um, especially if you're the founder, moving out of the responsibility for delivering the outcomes to know now, my responsibility is to keep the business alive so that I can keep employing these people. Because they have mortgages, they have families, they have all these other things. And I am, it's my job to make sure that our business can operate and that they are empowered to do their role so our business can keep going.

Darren:

How did that feel for you initially? Because I guess I've had a similar journey, but the opposite way, where I was much more on the logical path, like getting shit done, all that kind of stuff. And I had to move more into more creative roles and let go of the stuff that I love most part of the business, so that I could leave other parts like flourish. Does that make sense? So it was it's again, as you describe, it's an identity issue, it's an identity shift. Um, but yeah, how was that internally for you that that change?

Laura:

It was massive. And I think it's ongoing. Like I think I'm in it again right now, honestly. I I've had I had a big shift when we moved from six to seven figures. I had to really, in fact, the the kind of catalyst for us moving from six to seven figures, it happened very quickly. But the catalyst was I let go of responsibility. I had to let go of I'm responsible for all my clients' results. I am responsible for everyone else's feelings. I had to let go of those things, which is big. It's like therapy, much, much therapy. But I in what I was unconsciously doing was I was sabotaging my growth because I had this belief that if I have more clients, they won't get results because I can't possibly hold that many people. So we were at about 40 clients. And I was like, okay, 40 is good. I can know 40 people, I can know their partner's name, I can know their dog's name, like I can know all that stuff about them. But it's like, no, no, no, we want to impact thousands of people. I want to have thousands of clients in my programs. And because I want to help thousands of creatives. So I had to learn, okay, well, how do I let go of this responsibility? Who do I need to empower and hire so that that's their responsibility? And my job is to lead that person. And of course, I'm still in in parts of the delivery, but that shift of, okay, I'm in the same way that like if you work with a PT, if you don't go to the gym outside of your PT sessions, you're not gonna get results. I had to frame that for myself. Okay, I'm gonna deliver what I said I'm gonna deliver, but the results are not my responsibility. And that shift was a huge catapult. And then at the moment, I'm like, where we really want to move to, I want to have a thousand members in our programs. And so we're at about almost 200 now. And I know that I'm in this shift again at the moment, where it's like, okay, what what are the parts in me that are holding this back, that are scared, that are sabotaging, and how do I work through them?

Darren:

And it's almost looking at how do you get the result for someone without having to handhold them? Let me explain. Like your clients don't care about how to get the result as long as they get the result. If you showed up in their house and you made their bed for them, they would only be as happy as far as if they got the result, you know. And if they could do it by doing no work, they'd even be happier. They could took a magic pill. So I think sometimes when you're going from like a small business to like a medium-sized business, you may think that you're letting go of the results, but it's you need to get rid of that process which held them back. And the typical example is someone going from one-to-one only to group. It's like I think some things sometimes people don't realize that whether it's group, one-to-one, or done for you, getting the result is a non-negotiable. Yes. So it's like you got to think about can you get the result in group? Now, more than likely, in d in completely um DIY, you're not gonna get a result, right? If you just buy a course, you're not gonna get a result because people don't have the initiative. So I think that's quite interesting as well, because I really wanted to ask you about that as like when should people make those shifts into more of a broader CEO role? Because I find sometimes that people are trying to get out of delivery so much they haven't figured out how to deliver an amazing product yet.

Laura:

100%. And I think the interesting thing for me is me being stressed about people getting results and feeling the responsibility, all of that, that was actually a good sign because it meant that okay, I'm not a jerk who takes people's money and doesn't care if they get an outcome. And so anytime we have these like little twinges, there's always like a, you know, a healthy side of it and an unhealthy side of it too. And so I think for me, I realized the the unhealthy side was I was over functioning in a lot of ways, and I was overemphasizing my role in their in their business. And what I needed to do was go, okay, cool. What are my expectations of myself? What do they expect of me? Have I been clear on that? And is what we're doing helping people en masse get results? The answer was yes. So it's an interesting. Like, I remember one of my first coaches said to me, uh, he was teaching me sales and he was like, Laura, if you're worried about being salesy, you're probably never gonna be salesy because you're you're thinking, oh, I don't want someone to feel pushed. I don't want someone to feel like yuck. So I'm never gonna be salesy because I'm just I'm that that's my brain is like, oh, I that's the last thing I want to do. And so I think with the responsibility piece, if you are not concerned about your clients getting results, then that needs to be what you work on.

Darren:

100%.

Laura:

Okay, am I how am I making sure that I am getting them results? Because there are a lot of people out there who unfortunately don't care about their clients' results. And so the business owners and the the founders who care deeply about, okay, does my product deliver what it says it's gonna do? And yes, there'll be people that don't get the result. That's part of it, especially in coaching. There will be people who don't get the result. But for the people who show up, who implement, who have the goods, can you do they get a result with you? And if the answer is yes, amazing. Now you can scale. But if the answer is no, don't scale that because it's going to affect your reputation and it's gonna suck. Like so I think I think it's this dance of um responsibility and also backing yourself at the same time.

Darren:

I think a lot of it comes down to conscientiousness, you know. It's kind of like if you're worried about putting on weight over the holidays and then you're deliberately not eating seven mince pies, that's the reason why by the end of the holidays you didn't put on weight, right? You're thinking about it, it's front of mind, it's uh what's focal is causal. That's in pre sway persuasion. So if we can focus on, okay, results non-negotiable. We want to make sure that's dialed in. Okay, how do we build out our service or a product or whatever it is around that initially, and then only kind of trottle the results based on this? Is a it's like an interesting thing, right? Because then as a result, we can we know for certain that's what we care about.

Laura:

Yeah. And for you, like what was the step into this CEO space? Like what were the identity shifts you had to make?

Darren:

So we've had the agency since 2021, and that grew really quickly, and it's a content, it's a content uh agency to keep it simple. So it's fully done for you marketing, uh, outsourced marketing. I had a COO since we were basically making like six figures a year, because it was so difficult to deliver that at scale that we needed editors, designers, um, operations managers from basically the beginning. And when that kind of hit seven figures a year, it became like so chaotic because delivering a service with 30, 40 clients, even 50 clients, is even more complicated. So it forced me to think how could I get more out of what we have at the moment? So that's when we started doing fully done for you, end-to-end product development for clients, where we would have like rev shares either on the business or on the product. Um, and that took so long to build. Because think about it, we're building their programs and running their programs fully done for you. So then we had to get to the point of like looking at okay, is this person who wants to work with us um someone that we want to work with? Can they get to seven or eight figures a year? And can we run their sales team, their content team, run all their ops at the same point?

Laura:

And do we believe in that person? And do we believe in that person?

Darren:

And there's there's so much um I think it's called idiosyncratic risk. It's like there's so much dependency risk on that one thing having to work, which which allowed me, which made me get out of any sort of delivery. So if I see an issue with a thumbnail, I'll leave it until the designer comes in and fixes it because I just it just wasn't possible. So that was stage one. Stage two is when we moved into education, we had really flogged that horse for a long time that it was just like really brutal to get like another inch out of. And we simply turned our notion docs public. That was it. We just sold the notion docs with coaching, and that kind of for me was like, okay, this is the next jump up. And I was never really kind of in the weeds thinking to myself, we need to optimize this and this and this. It was more like done is better than perfect. Let's keep moving forward and then let's keep refining things. So, since then, which was 2023, we've made three teardowns of our program, and we launched we didn't launch it again, but we just redid the whole thing three times every year. We've redone it once, yeah. And I mean everything, even the same videos. We might even record them the same way. Um, but we just update them because that that's that's life, right? Like life has to be a combination of extreme teardowns and then for the right plant to grow underneath.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, 100%. That makes so much sense.

Darren:

Yeah, it's like I think a lot of times, as I said, it's conscientiousness. If you're worried that something might be dragging you down, maybe it's time to to improve it, to improve it or to kill it, you know? Yeah. So let's just look furthermore on more of the tactical side. So one thing that I really get impressed by your work is is the sales side. I think this is really, really interesting. Um, do you find that a lot of the creatives you work with are like scared of sales or they're scared of money? It's an identity thing with money as well. Are you an agency owner, coach, or consultant looking to scale your online business? At Vogue's, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high-ticket offer, create content that turns into clients, and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025.

Laura:

100%. Yes. And and the the interesting thing I think for a lot of creatives is they will come to me and they'll be like, oh, sales isn't my issue. I'm like, okay, cool. Let's like talk to me about your numbers. And they'll be like, oh, I convert it like 90%. I'm like, okay, so maybe sales isn't your issue because you are undercharging so, so badly. So it's it's like we always start with, okay, let's start with your offer. Let's figure that out. What's your message? How do you communicate? Who's your person? Let's start there. Then we look at, okay, what's your marketing look like? What's what's your strategy for leads? How do we create content that attracts the right people? Uh, what's what's a basic funnel look like? And then we move into, all right, when someone's on a call with you, most of our people sell by calls. If someone's on a call with you, this is the sequence you need to go through. And this is what we need to do. We need to actually get clarity on, okay, what's their big vision? Okay, cool. This is their big goal. This is what they want from this particular project or this particular piece of work that they're doing. Okay, amazing. What happens if that doesn't happen now? What does like we kind of pick, I position it as like, this is what thriving looks like, this is what drowning looks like. And so we go, okay, big picture, amazing. This is so exciting. This is thriving. This is what it really feels like, looks like, this is the outcome. Let's get really specific. Now let's look at, well, if this doesn't happen, if things continue as they are, what's the cost of inaction? All of this stuff that we know is like if you've learned sales, you're amazing at sales. But framing it in that language helps, framing it in that language helps my audience to go, okay, cool. I can, I can do that. The thriving and the drowning, I can, I can do that. And it doesn't feel salesy. It just feels honest.

Darren:

Do you find that your clients or creatives in general are open to following a process?

Laura:

Yeah, they love a process. It's it's really. We have this, one of our um coaches, his name's Adrian Smith. He's an amazing, amazing salesperson. And he teaches this framework, which is like essentially a six-question framework for sales calls. And the video that in that's in the portal is so old. It is so, so old of him like teaching it on a live Zoom call. But it is so good that we can't delete it because we we've been like, oh, we need to re-record it, we need to make it better. But our clients love it because it's like, okay, cool. I've only got to ask these six questions. And I can, and it's called the one-page sales process. This is his thing, but it's like, cool, on a sheet of paper, I can answer these six questions and then I get the sale. It's just like, okay, cool. If I do this, I actually make the money. And I think, I think for our people, a lot of the time they go into a sales call and they they want to serve so much. And we've had to move them and and show them, okay, cool. Selling is actually service because you can give them all the advice on this free call, but they may not actually implement it. They probably won't. And they certainly won't implement implement it to the skill that you could. So let's actually get them into your offer so that you can deliver and really, really help them. That's where the impact is.

Darren:

I'm I'm just thinking it with creative work, it's really interesting because their skill is their moat, which gives them a lot of edge on calls versus like business owners, they may ask questions to go off and do it themselves. Now, not always, but you know, that is a thing. But I feel like in the creative world, it's a little bit easier. Um, you surprised me you said they they follow a process. I'm just I'm just trying to think, you know, I think obviously business owners, entrepreneurs, they're naturally more rebellious and they want to do things themselves. And I'm I say this completely candidly. Uh, like we run a sales program, effective, it's effectively a sales program or a seven-figure program. We just teach them sales, yeah, basically. Love it. And I was getting feedback from people, they were like, oh, like close rates down and stuff. And then I was looking at their calls, I'll watch, I'll watch their calls, and I was like, none of these are a problem. Like, there's like no financial qualification done, no decision making done, no temperature check done. And I asked every person, these are these are individual people, mutual exclusive. I was like, Did you follow like this process? And they said, Nope. And then it made me really think. And I was thinking, like, we help people build out scripts for themselves. And I was thinking, like, scripts are such a bad rap. And I was like, but what is it though? Like you break the whole thing down uh philosophically. All a script or processes is a probability that the past will influence the future because you're following a process that was used in the past that gives you a probability chance of the outcome that you want may happen if you do it. And it's like you have I believe you have to know the rules before you can break the rules. Whereas a lot of founders will try to just make up stuff, and this is why they're both brilliant but terrible at the same time. Because you can be a Brian Chesky and break every sort of UX design and build Airbnb, or you can be a struggling business owner who breaks every single rule and can't hit six figures a year.

Laura:

Yes.

Darren:

So it's a double-edged sword, of course.

Laura:

I think too, there's I 100% agree, like you need to know the rules before you break the rules. I think that's really important. And I would say for a lot of our people, they they kind of are like, well, I don't know how to sell. So I'm I I have sold, but probably by chance. If it's been a really warm referral, if it's been my perfect fit client, tick, tick, tick, all the boxes, but they haven't actually had to handle objections. Yeah. Because if someone puts up an objection in the past, if they'd like before they're working with us, they're like, okay, no worries, I'll just send you an email. Well, just check in later. And they just then that person is gone. They've ghosted, they're no longer. And so it's like the it's this interesting thing of going, okay, well, if your price is a bit higher, if we price your offer up, if you're not getting leads purely from referrals, which is we love referrals, but we want leads that are not reliant on referrals either. So if we've got leads that are a bit colder, if your price is a bit more expensive, then the natural progression is you're gonna have to learn how to sell a bit better because you can't wing it anymore. And so I think that's why they enjoy the process. And and like I I know with my sales team, the amount of times I've been like, hey, it's the same thing. If the if it stops converting and we look in and we go, okay, cool, like what's what's happened here? And then it's like, oh, you stopped following the script. Why? And it's like, okay, go back to the script, see what happens. And then the next day they're like, oh, I I'm converting again. I'm like, yeah, the script works. So like follow the process. And it's not about the words, it's about the the framework beneath the words. It's like the psychology and the structure that is happening within the prospect as you take them through that journey.

Darren:

It's the metaphysical.

Laura:

Yes.

Darren:

Yeah, it's just what happens in real life and that's what happens underneath it. So that's where I would say, I know it's a bit blunt, but I'm saying like never ever trust what someone says on a call. Ever. Just whatever they say, their word track is generally incorrect. You have to see what do they mean by that. So if someone's like, oh, I'm not ready to get started next month, it's like it's probably they're probably scared. So why are they scared? And I would double tap on fear and do they invest and have they previously invested? And there's a different ways to slice and dice it. And um, it's interesting because like we're only hiring roles people now with experience with probably three or four years, three or four years' experience. Experience in specific roles, and I've found that they will come with a lot of their own insights, which is amazing, and then that's where this these rules break, which is great. Yeah. Um, I actually had an example literally the other day, it was from a client, he hired an experienced closer, and he said, Hey man, could you look at this for me? And I was like, Yeah, in other words, the closer said that he does a price drop before he gives the offer. And initially, my head, I was like, Whoo, I was like, holy, I was like, I don't even want to look at this, but I couldn't react like that. I was like, let me just let me see his numbers. And he sent me on the offer, he sent me on the who it was. It was an extremely sophisticated buyer and all things like this. It was a very advanced offer, it was like $15,000. And I'm like, Yeah, man, everything works. So, under different variables, that there is a there's a world where giving someone the price before you give them the pitch works. Not in any world that I've existed in, but maybe the world that you've existed in. Yeah, which is why life is so fluid and it's so multifactorial and it brings so much joy and misery, because not everything is the same, which is why it works.

Laura:

And I think too, there's like the emotional intelligence required, and I think that's underrated for salespeople because a lot of the time it's like the the rap that they can get as closers or whatever is I'm gonna close at all costs. I don't care if this isn't the right fit for you because I need my commission, baby, and I'm just gonna close. And I think we, especially in the online space, in the online education space. I remember like the first time I launched a course was in 2020. People hadn't really done online courses much by then. So people hadn't been burned. They didn't have trauma. Now they have trauma. They're like, oh, I did a thing and I was locked in for seven years. And it's like that.

Darren:

I got married to this person.

Laura:

And now I'm stuck. You know, it's just, I think a lot of people are coming now with much less trust, a little bit of trauma from, you know, little tea trauma, not real trauma, but like they're coming with it, with like, okay, I've got a bit of baggage here. And so I think as salespeople, we have to become very good at reading people and we need to be emotionally intelligent. And so that person who's like, I'm gonna drop the price here because I have data that's, you know, I've got past experience that tells me that this person is gonna respond well to this. I can tell with their body language this is gonna work, then that use that emotional intelligence. I think it's it's when people, again, it comes back to exactly what you said of like follow the rules before you break the rules, like do the reps before you start to get fancy, I guess is the thing.

Darren:

It's huge. It's huge. I'd love to know more about some of the events that you run. Do you run a lot of online events, workshops online? Have you found that to be helpful for your acquisition that's not purely based off, let's say, organic people coming inbound? Has that been a yeah?

Laura:

So we do we find actually the uh online workshops are one of our biggest uh lead and conversion drivers. So we do once a month, we'll do a workshop on a topic that is really um kind of a hot topic for our prospects. We used to do, again, back when I started in like when I started in the course world in 2020, you could do a topic on like a webinar that's like how to grow your business. And and you'd have hundreds of people show up and they'd be like, I'd love to grow my business. Now it has to be far more uh pointy. Yeah it has to be really specific. And the broad topics don't go as well as a really narrow topic. So, an example for us, we um did, we've done this workshop quite a few times now. It's called funnel fix. And it's like this is the three-step funnel every creative needs. And it just walks through these are the three pages. I give them a the AI tool that writes all the pages for them. Like it's a very deep dive workshop. It's like a 90-minute workshop. And that, like we sell tickets for it. So we we used to do free, now we do paid workshops. Um, I find that paid workshops get you uh A, it kind of solves a bit of your acquisition cost, but B, uh it gets you buyers. And so I found that if someone purchases even a $29 thing, like one of our products is $9. If someone purchases that $9 thing, they are far more likely to be qualified for our $18,000 thing. And they're far more likely to actually buy it, which is super weird.

Darren:

And this is from workshops specifically.

Laura:

Yeah. So the $9 thing is a pre-recorded um like mini course, but from workshops, we'll charge $29, sometimes $49, um, depending on the workshop.

Darren:

Two questions for you on that. So obviously you've less leads, but they're more qualified. Yes. Um do you put them through like a type form to qualify them so you know who they are? And then obviously you think is your show-up rate a lot higher as a result.

Laura:

Yeah. So first part of the question, um, yes, we have less people that come. So it might have been that in the past we'd get a thousand people to a free webinar. Uh now we'll maybe get two to three hundred to a paid workshop, $29 thing. Um, but the show-up rate is 80, 90%, as opposed to, yeah, even for a $29 thing. As opposed to $80. Yeah, 20 to 30 on a free.

Darren:

What? I'm blown away by that.

Laura:

You should totally do paid workshops.

Darren:

Hold on, hold on, hold on. So are you are you running paid to this or is it all organic?

Laura:

Uh a bit of both.

Darren:

A lot of paid. It's splendid, right? It's blended. So whoa, that's crazy. So then someone goes through 60 minutes and 90 minutes with you. Do you run calls in a back or do you do straight to carts?

Laura:

Yeah, so we do um for the most part, it's it's the call to action is book a call.

Darren:

Do you have dialers?

Laura:

We don't do any outbound.

Darren:

I could teach you that.

Laura:

You could you? I would love that. Well, at the moment. I'll tell you the story.

Darren:

I'll tell you the story. Please. Uh we had an issue with our time zone because we're in time, we're in La La Land in Bali. So it's like awful for everywhere. If you try to hit all three, now we're running two webinars at once. Yeah. And we were collecting phone numbers and we already had like close set up. And I just said, let's just ring everyone and give them a lead magnet. And this was for the workshop specifically. So we rang everyone, had a 35% pickup rate. Of the 25% 35% of people, most people never added it to their calendar because we asked them, and other people didn't know what was happening. So then, as a result, our show rate went way up. We had activated everyone, which is most important. They had felt and seen us. We had delivered stuff to them, like proper, really, really heavy like material they could use, whether they want to show up or not. So they had lots of stuff, and then they their warmth barometer went way up. Most people didn't know what my Instagram username was. Swear to God. People were like, Who's this darn guy? And they showed up, they were super intentionful, intentional, and then they either booked a call or afterwards we would yell them and say, Hey, do you want to book a call? They said, Yeah, absolutely, that's fine. Because I think a lot of people, it's I I compare it to dating. It's like before you met your husband, you would have loved to go with him on a date. I mean, we had a couple, I'll give you an example. I'll tell I'll tell you Dash example. So let's say you met your husband, first time you met your husband, and you're at a bar and he's chatting to you and everything, and you establish like that you're a friend and you know this person and so on. There's a certain point innate in yourself where you're like, is this guy gonna ask for my number or not? And if he doesn't do it, and he walks, he's like, Oh, I'll see you tomorrow, and he walks away, you're like, What the hell? I was gonna give you my number. Why didn't you do why didn't you just ask? So somebody has to ask somebody out, and some people are too shy to ask them out, and that's what actually like dialing someone is. It's just like, do you want to book in a call? We'll put you in manually. Yeah, absolutely would love to. Sometimes they're a bit, there's there, there's a they're just a bit scared to get take the step, but they'll do it. They just haven't been asked.

Laura:

I love that's such a good reframe for me because we don't do any, we we do very, very little outbound, even though we get phone numbers. I think we just rely on well, the booking rate's pretty high and whatever. But I love that. And I'm definitely gonna do that next time because there's it seems like low-hanging fruit to actually just call those people, especially when they're qualified. And you asked earlier about okay, how do we qualify them? In our checkout form, we actually get their revenue. We ask them a revenue question. And so we know right away. Um, like a lot of people actually book a call before the workshop anyway, because if they are qualified, we redirect them to a thank you page that books the call. But doing an outbound piece after or even before just scoops up those people. I love the idea of delivering a lead magnet before super smart.

Darren:

So I have a crazy story for you. So one of the guys I know quite well, like I'm mates with him, his name's Ryan Clogg. He owns a company, he's part of a company called Warrior Babe, and it's women's fitness. Women generally in their 40s to 50s, pure B2C fitness. And they hit five million a month.

Laura:

Amazing.

Darren:

Okay. And I had a call with this guy, I had a podcast with him, and I was like, How is this done? And he calls it a game of 1%. There comes a point in your business where you have a webinar, you have a content strategy, you have a paid strategy. There's nothing else. There's nothing else you can deploy. So it's just the 1% changes, which give you a 100x exponent. So that putting in the dollars is like a perfect example. The numbers were there. We already had the sales reps, they just never hit ring. When they rang, it was a huge exponent. So I kind of think about it through that lens is like, what can I get way more out of for the current team resources process that I already have? Yeah. So I'm running a webinar in a week. I wrote the outbound script myself yesterday, and I gave it to the guys. They said it was super valuable, and that they've ranged people, we've given them a resource already. And generally the right people are receptive of this. And this is Australian people, it's UK people, and so on. So I think again, it goes back to the tone and the message, right? It's how's the mess, how's the message message, messenger delivered? And uh the the best part about that offer of my friend, the product is 7200, and a lot of and a lot of the women are stay-at-home parents, so it makes you think, right? If that's B2C, zero financial gain you get from buying it, what about the business program that finally fixes your business? It should be so much easier.

Laura:

100%, you know? Yeah, it's interesting. Oh, that's so smart. I love that idea.

Darren:

It does food for thought, and it's like if we're looking at the things to really fine-tune stuff for 2026, maybe you don't have a strategy or listen to this. But if you do have a strategy, like is there something you can squeeze, squeeze the juice on?

Laura:

Yeah, and like a really good thought, you know, we're talking about like the one percenters. Sometimes you don't know what needs to be optimized too. And I think for a lot of us, we just need to maximize. It's just like, let's just throw more fuel on the fire, let's just get more in, get more leads in, blah, blah, blah. But I think there is when you are in that, okay, cool. We we are running a bit of a machine now, and there's all these different strategies, all these different pipelines, lead sources, team, all the things. We had to, we had realized our constraint was our show-up rate. So we like by dialing in our numbers, we realized, okay, cool. Actually, our show-up rate is not where it, where it used to be, and certainly not where it could be. So I had to, I was like, okay, cool. I'm gonna rewrite the funnel. I'm gonna make sure that it's it needs to freshen up. I'm gonna rewrite all the emails, we're gonna reimagine what this looks like. We're gonna add in some more personal touches, blah, blah, blah. Now our show-up rate for calls is almost at 80%, which is amazing. And so it's like, oh, we don't need to book more calls, we just need more of them to show. And so that like simple distinction of that that's a one percenter that's like, cool, if I could fix my show-up rate, my conversion rate doesn't even have to improve. But by default, I convert more people.

Darren:

Even to double tap on that, because I love this stuff so much. If your close rate is even 20%, yeah, bringing that to 35% is a huge upskill in learning, development, concentrating, and so constant training. Whereas if your show rate is 50%, you bring it to 75, that delta of 25 will actually make way more money than even improving your close rate. So you don't you don't even need to improve your skill, you just need to put another video in the pre-call sequence. And this is the irony sometimes, it's like sometimes you don't even need to get better. You just need to change what you're doing. It's like you don't need to learn more because if you're an eight out of 10 in sales, well, it's it's the golf analogy, right? Like anyone can hit a ball, but if you want to play at like a low pair, it's gonna be a completely different ball game. So I kind of look at it through that lens.

Laura:

Um and we can get so I think I think what the problem that we can have as we scale and we start to look at our numbers, we we don't go top down, we go bottom up. And so we go, conversion rate is my issue. I need more clients, therefore it must be conversion rate. And it's like, no, no, no, it may not be conversion rate, it may be another part of the funnel that's that's broken.

Darren:

Where did you learn that thinking that that's a theory of constraints? Where did you learn that? Just curious.

Laura:

Um I I think I learned that through I I feel like just through podcasts. Also, my friend Jay um is my one of my friends Jay Wright, he's very, very smart at constraints. And he sat with us and was like, have you considered it might be this? We were like, ah, that's so smart. Okay, cool, let's fix that. And then it's funny because some of those pieces are simple to fix, but not fast to fix. So our show rate, it probably we didn't realize we'd fixed it until this month when it was like, oh, cool, we're almost at 80% now. That's amazing. And so it it just took a bit of time and implementation to get it there. Um, but once you identifying what the problem is is probably half the battle.

Darren:

Yeah, it is a delta where the result kicks in, right? Yeah. It's like trying to lose weight, and it's like, I didn't lose weight today. It's like, oh, it's gonna take three months, and you're gonna have to throw away all the food in the fridge. Yeah, yeah. It's like that delta, just it just doesn't happen straight away like you like you want it to. Yeah. Sometimes. Hmm. So many different ways. I have so many like personal questions and so many questions for other people as well at the same time. I think one area that's really impressive as you guys scale is your levels of programs and how you develop them and so on and so forth. How did you intentionally design your programs? Because my understanding is you have more of like an inner circle approach and then more of a scalable, repeatable program for more entry-level people.

Laura:

Yeah, so we have our core program is called the Next Level Club, and that is where we help creatives to scale. And so we're helping them to scale from 10K ultimately to a million dollars a year. Um, that is kind of my where I hang out most. That's my main zone. And then we also have a front-end program um called Foundations, which is a 12-week like deep dive coaching program where it's really for freelancers, it's for um beginners or creatives who just haven't been able to crack that 10K a month. And so we help them to get booked out, we help them to craft their offer and and really build their confidence. And so those are kind of our two core things that we do.

Darren:

I'm curious. For your program where you help people get to a million a month, a lot of them are service-based business providers, right?

Laura:

For us, it's a million a year.

Darren:

But sorry, sorry, a million a year, sorry. They're certain they have a service-based business.

Laura:

Yes.

Darren:

Are they mainly moving more into an agency model where they're scaling up into an agency?

Laura:

Yeah, people are either moving into agency. So they're like, maybe they're a solo, you know, solopreneur, and then they have one or two team members to, no, no, no, I want to provide a full scale, a full service agency. Um, or some people want to move into more consulting. So they're like, I don't want to do the doing anymore. I want to consult. And so we have some folks who are like, great, I'm gonna consult on your marketing strategy if they run a marketing agency. So they're trying to do hybrid, um, move out of the done for you. And then we have others who are moving more into courses and education. So coaching, courses, that kind of thing. Um, we probably have a quite a good mix. There are plenty of people who are like, Laura, do not ever make me create a course or a coaching program. And there's plenty of people who are like, I don't want to scale an agency, I don't want to manage a team, I just want to keep it really, really simple.

Darren:

I think the be a beautiful model is having that done for you component, if like that's yours only genius. So the way I describe it is like you wouldn't hire like an overweight personal trainer or a broke financial advisor. So it's great if you're a service-based provider of an of an artistic craft like graphic design, but you still do that thing, right? That's like a service, and that could be quite high ticket, it could be like 5k a month or 8k a month or whatever. But then adding in a consulting component just gives you so much more room to make more money, and it's not niche hopping. I think the feedback I would get from people all the time is like, oh, like I feel like I'm like, you know, jumping on the next thing. It's like, no, these are I the way I describe it is you have your core service offer and then you have ancillary stuff that you can add on, and you should be looking to add on those things continuously and kind of miniature upsell is a wrong word. It just the way I describe it is better ways to get better results for your clients. So if you can advise them, consult them once a week and it helps them get their goal, then so be it.

Laura:

Yeah, 100%. And I think I think consulting is such a low-hanging fruit. And for me, when I because I ran an agency, then I moved into consulting, and then I moved into coaching. For me, I loved consulting because it was like all strategy and ideation, and hey, these are the possibilities. This is what I think you should do. You're responsible for executing it. I loved that. Because it was like, okay, amazing. And the problem for me was when I consulted to people, um, because I moved away from retainers, I would start doing like, hey, you can book me for a day. I'm gonna map out your entire plan with you. It's gonna be amazing. We're gonna love it. Then I'm gonna check in with you a month later, we're gonna see how we're going. And then it's peace out, all the best. The problem with that model for me was because I wasn't running it in tandem with my agency, because I I'd started to wind down the agency. Because of that, and because I didn't have a coaching offer yet, it meant that they kind of didn't implement what I said. So that's when I launched our coaching program because I was sick of people who had the strategy, had the playbook and the plan, not implementing it.

Darren:

I did the exact same thing, but the inverse order.

Laura:

Right.

Darren:

We started with just pure consulting because I was in tech, my background was in software, and I had no time. So I was like, Yeah, I can come and help you. And these are generally bigger companies. So I'm like, you have a graphic designer, you have an editor, you have a strategist, just run away and do it. And next month nothing will be done. And and and it's not like they were complaining, they were like, Yeah, we just don't have capacity. And I said, I'll just do it for you. He said, All right. I didn't even know what an agency was. I literally didn't know what it was. I just said, I'll just do it. And then you can we can figure out the payment. They're like, yeah, perfectly fine. And a lot of those people are still with us to this day. Wow. Because they were companies doing like 20 million a year and now they're doing like 200 or 300. And they're still just they have a vendor, just a vendor engagement. Yeah. I think it's I think it's very funny, right? Because we get caught up in our minds so much, like, are we a consultant? Are we an agency owner? Are we this? It's like you're just a human. 100%. Solves problems for prospects. Yes.

Laura:

Yeah. And and maybe too, people have been burned by working in big agency models and then going out on their own and thinking agency equals this and it equals, I've got 10 account managers and all this stuff. And it can feel like it feels like complexity. Whereas for a lot of my people, they they still want to be close to the work. They love the work. And so it's like, yes, I don't want to be responsible for, oh, there's a typo in that thumbnail. Can you please fix it up? Like they don't want to be responsible for that minutiae of detail, but they do want to be involved in the creative direction, the strategy, all of that fun stuff. Um, so yeah, I think, I think a lot of the time when it comes to business model for creatives, the challenge I actually see for for so many creatives is that they do niche hop and they do launch too many offers. And so we're always saying to people, hey, let's just have one offer and one niche and just stick with that for a bit and let's see what happens. Trust the process. And consulting can be, okay, maybe it's like once you've launched your website, once you've launched your brand, then I'm going to consult on how we can make sure the brand stays really strong. So it's like that can be a next offer or an ascension offer or a retainer offer. But I think a lot of the time creators want to do all the things all at once and love the chaos of that. But it confuses the audience. It's stressful and not as profitable to deliver that way. And so we're always bringing people back to okay, let's just have one really core offer with one really cool niche that you can become known for and you can become famous in that niche. And then we can start to think about all your other crazy wonderful ideas.

Darren:

And if you look at some of the biggest companies in the world, like Apple is a perfect example, they have the phone and then they have like a laptop, and then they have ancillary, airpods, and a few other things. I was, I don't want to admit this, but I was in Five Guys last night, and I looked actually genuinely in the process of me eating like a triple burger. I actually looked at the menu and I was like, the reason why this works so well is because there's like two things, three four things on the menu, yeah, and there's just like two different types of fries, and that's like it. That basically is the entire menu. And what does that give them? It actually gives it's actually ironic because they have lots of add-ons and sides that you can add to it. It gives them a lot of versatility, so less is more, and then allows them to be so dialed in with their delivery. It's a McDonald's effect, right? Yeah, everything has a process, less is more.

Laura:

So it's like the product goes further. They have to order less, like less variety of stuff. Yeah, I feel like uh one thing I say to our clients all the time is like, there's nothing worse than when you go into a restaurant and you look at their menu and you're like, is this like Thai food or they've got pizza, they've got burgers, they've like, what is this place? This is confusing. That is like disconcerting for a consumer because we're like, I don't think they're gonna be good at any of these things if they're doing pasta and ramen and like all of the things. And I think for a lot of business owners, we think, oh, I'm gonna be everything to everyone and they're gonna love it. And actually, they go, uh, I'd rather if you just did burgers or if you just did bagels or whatever your thing is, just do that one thing really well. Like that actually gives people more trust in you, and that builds more trust and more credibility. And so it's interesting that in trying to serve everyone, we end up kind of losing trust with the people that we really desperately want to help.

Darren:

Yeah, when you want to help everyone, you help nobody.

Laura:

Yes, a hundred percent.

Darren:

Big thank you for today. This was so awesome. I feel like we could have kept running for four more hours. But this is so incredible, though. And it's been amazing to see your journey, amazing to see just I think how you've changed identity is the biggest thing and really just embraced everything. Like that's that's been the biggest lesson for me today, and hopefully for people, is that you know, you just super ordinary, super down to art was in that struggling phase, but you've just kept running with everything that's been thrown at you, and I think that's why you've begun getting such amazing results.

Laura:

Thank you. I so appreciate you having me, Darren. It's been so fun.