The Strategy to get to 30k+ Months with Laura Higgins
Jul 10, 2024Episode 822
Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie
Laura Higgins is an expert at coaching creatives to hit those impressive 30K+ months while keeping life fun and free. We dive into the unexpected strategies that boost revenue, and trust me, her tips on making effective offers are gold. Want to boost your business? Laura spills the secrets right here.
Laura Higgins is an expert at coaching creatives to hit those impressive 30K+ months while keeping life fun and free. We dive into the unexpected strategies that boost revenue, and trust me, her tips on making effective offers are gold. Want to boost your business? Laura spills the secrets right here.
Welcome back to the Art of Online Business. I have Laura Higgins with me. She is the host of the my Business Playbook podcast and get this. She has a healthy seven-figure business. She's a business coach for creatives and she actually helps creatives get to 30k plus months without losing freedom or their fun. I think this is really cool. Well, hi, laura, how's it going?
Speaker 2:
Hi Kwejo, so good to be, hanging out with you.
Speaker 1:
Right again, it's like we just recorded this episode and now we're recording this one. Yeah, the question I want to start off with as soon as I finish the housekeeping stuff, is when people sign up for your program knowing that the promise is to be able to get, or be empowered to get, to follow your framework, to get to 30K plus months revenue as a creative, like, what is the thing that actually gets them the 30K plus months that most people are surprised about? Like I thought I was signing up for this and yet you told me this other thing. Oh, wow, I'm gonna have to go do that. That answer I can't wait to hear. And before that, listener, if you're like Kwejo, who are you? This is the first time I've met you.
Speaker 1:
Well, it's 5pm. It's been a long day, but I am the host of the Art of Online Business. And if you're like hi, where did Rick go? Head down to the show notes. Below there is an episode where Rick shares all the cool AI things that he's doing in order to help online course creators, membership owners and coaches increase their impact and reduce their overwhelm in their business. And then, if you want to learn more about me and why Rick chose me as the new host of the art of Online Business. There's another interview episode where he interviewed me down in the show notes below. What really matters, though, is that this podcast remains the same, as I'm dedicated to helping you with the business tips and tricks and strategies and behind the business scenes peaks, so to speak, and all the Facebook ads goodness since I am a Facebook ads manager to help you scale up your online course business from low six figures to high six figures exactly $900,053.28.
Speaker 1:
I just came up with that, but if you haven't watched on YouTube yet and you want to see Laura smiling, then click down in the show notes. Below there's a link to subscribe to the YouTube channel and you can see us. Thank you for listening in and, laura, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:
Kwejo, I am so excited to be hanging out with you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
You're absolutely welcome. So that question that I have, because I'm super curious too when somebody wants to go to 30K months, what do they think gets them there? But what actually gets them there? That surprises your clients the most, Because you've helped hundreds of people reach this milestone since 2017, right?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the thing that I think a lot of people underestimate is making offers. So we actually have to invite people to take the next step, and this is the thing that I have to remind people anyone who comes into our programs it's the first thing we get them to do is this thing that we call shake the tree, which is where we go through and we go cool, let's take a look at your audience and let's shake the tree and see what falls out. And so the first thing we do is we're like you're going to send an email blast and you're going to post an Instagram story and we have a script that they follow. And it's like let's just see. Like, if we make an invitation in a way that doesn't feel like promo, that doesn't feel like marketing, that just feels like an invitation to serve people and help people, if we make an invitation, who responds? And then, from there, it's like well, let's, let's like actually get scrappy and let's sell by chat, sell in our DMm, sell via email.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like, I think a lot of people go laura, I've got the sales page, I've got the link in my bio. Why isn't anyone buying? And it's like you haven't, you haven't invited them. Like, think about it like you're hosting a party and you've got this beautiful and your offer is the party right. You've got this amazing offer. You've got this beautiful and your offer is the party right. You've got this amazing offer. You've got this beautiful sales page. You're planning this party, you've got the menu set out, you've got the table set, you've got beautiful like linen and candles and tableware, and you've got the perfect playlist. It's all amazing. And it gets to 7 pm. You're like, okay, the people are about to come and you realize you didn't invite a single guest. So you've got done all this work for nothing. You've got this beautiful thing but not a single person is going to experience it because you haven't made an invitation yeah so I think a lot of people they think I made an invitation in 2022.
Speaker 2:
And it's like well, it's 2024. Like, do it again, like we need to be doing this regularly. Like people are busy, people are living their lives, they don't read all your emails, they don't see all your posts. So we need to get out of our own way and actually share our invitations and our offers far more regularly than we think. And it's uncomfortable because we might feel like, oh, people are going to think I'm just harping on about this one offer and the reality is people actually don't see all your content, so you've got to make more invitations.
Speaker 1:
I believe it. I like to throw parties. Quick analogy Whenever my wife and I invite people, I expect if I'm going to invite 10, like I'll just over invite, knowing that the way the numbers shake out, well well, we have to invite a certain number of people in order to have the certain size party that we want. And it's like why? Why do we act all weird when it comes to online business?
Speaker 2:
So you start there I think, yeah, well, the big thing that I find, and like this, I work with a lot of creatives, so photographers, graphic designers, web designers, copywriters, and you know they're they're wearing the technician hat, so they're in delivery, they're doing all the things, and so marketing and lead gen often falls to the bottom of the list because there's a an urgent, pressing matter, that is, the client. The client needs X. My emails are like crazy. I've got to make sure my team knows what they're doing. I've got to like there's always something urgent and important that we have to attend to. But if we don't focus and build a system for how do we generate leads, then how do we convert those leads If we don't?
Speaker 2:
have a system, for that we're kind of just going to be in a really stressful day job and we might as well be back in our normal job, where we don't have to generate leads, we don't have to drum up work, we don't have to sell, we just get to do the work. Have to drum up work, we don't have to sell, we just get to do the work. So I think it's this understanding of I've got to take off the technician hat and I've got to put on the business owner hat, the entrepreneur hat, and go okay, what does my business need in order to survive? I need leads and I need sales. And so it's like okay, I've got to focus always on generating leads.
Speaker 2:
And I think a lot of people in this, when they're below 30 K months, they're focusing on like, they're focusing on the delivery, they're focusing on like maybe they get their clients through word of mouth, and the switch is okay, now I've got to generate my own work, I've got to generate my own leads. And so that piece once it's like, okay, I've got to make invitations. Then it's like, okay, well, now I've got to figure out how do I best generate leads for my business. And if you can systemize that.
Speaker 2:
That's where you really can start to scale up to 30K months.
Speaker 1:
So I can very much identify with what you just said about having to generate leads. I went through the same process where I became the host of this podcast. I'm like leads people who are listening will just contact me to run their Facebook ads. And then I hired a business coach. You're a business coach. It's like hire a coach who does what you do only at a higher level, so you can get rid of the thoughts that got you to where you are right now I'm preaching to myself here and then take their thoughts right. And so the first thing my coach told me was Kwejo, you're relying on your podcast to bring in leads, which is fine, but that's passive lead generation. You have to go actively generate leads, and I'm like wait what you want me to do? What? How many times a day? Like my schedule doesn't have time for that. Like I'm a busy Facebook ads manager. And so she's telling me this and I had to. I still am learning it.
Speaker 1:
So my question for you then, laura, is you work primarily with creatives who, I'm assuming, most of which love to create and are super passionate about what they do and are like sales lead gen, what? So how do you kind of I don't know if the word is like kick them in the butt or like what kind of? I don't know if the word is like kick them in the butt or like what is your go-to strategy for somebody who is not in lead generation to grow my business so I can serve more people mode? What's your go-to strategy to get them into lead generation? And then, what do you tell them to do for lead generation? You know the thing that's relatively easy, so they won't quit.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, totally. So there few, a few strategies that we use, the big thing like shake the tree for us, where we go cool once a month, once a week you choose the frequency but I want you to do this post, send this email and get scrappy, and that that kind of model of like. All right, we're going to kind of interrupt the pattern of the promo because there's so much noise online. So the idea of pattern interrupting it, making it feel really personal, making it feel kind of scrappy and like it's an email from my Gmail account to your account, that's where we can really start to see people go. Oh yeah, I'm curious about that. So that would be the first thing. Second thing is you've always and and I think we said this earlier before we hit record.
Speaker 2:
People are taking a bit longer to buy, particularly if your product like, because I work with a lot of online coaches and course creators as well sure cool and actually a lot of creatives come to me because they're like I'm a photographer and I want to move into photography education or whatever it is, or I want to start selling website templates. So they want to do this leveraged passive income piece, and so I help them with that as well. But the big thing is we then have to go all right. If customers are taking longer to make a buying decision, how are we working with that? What is our nurture process? We've always got to be working the leads, and so if you're not focusing on your marketing and your lead gen, you're leaving money on the table because a competitor even though I don't love, I don't think much about competitors, but I think it's important to think yeah, I don't find it that helpful, but it's important to think okay, there are thousands, if not millions, of graphic designers in the world. Why are they going to choose you? Why are they going to choose you? Why are they going to choose you? And so it's like you're another graphic designer, might get back to them more quickly and they're going to go with that person. So we need to think okay, lead gen is part of my job description, marketing is part of my job description and that mindset shift of okay, I, I can't spend 90% of my time in technician mode, in creative mode, I can't do that and generate leads, so I have to pay back some of that technician time and or you make enough money that you can pay someone else to generate your leads for you. But even so, it's still part of your job, it's still part of your role and I think it's just when we abdicate responsibility for lead gen and marketing and sales, we we can't actually say that we really want to scale our business, because what gets you to a million dollars is marketing and sales and a really good offer.
Speaker 2:
So like, if you're not prepared to do that, yeah, that's it. If you're not prepared to do that work, you're not going to get to the whatever your goal is. And also, if you don't want that goal, then that's also cool. If you're like you know what? I just want to be a freelancer and I just want to do creative work and rely on word of mouth and I'm happy to make 150K a year or whatever that looks like, that's also totally fine. I think it's just about also identifying what is your goal. Is your goal to scale? Because 30K months is very different to 10K months and it's triple. It's triple the revenue, like it's a huge jump from 10k to 30k. And so it's also about going what actually is my goal, what, what do I want to do? And then you know we get about like doing the stuff that's going to get you there.
Speaker 1:
I like how succinct your advice is, like it just when you hear it it's like okay, I could, I could finish listening to this episode right now and just go and do it. So I think my last question for you is, since you're very accustomed to taking somebody from beginning to work with you in your program and showing them and then like kind of coaching them not kind of actually coaching them how to get to 30k plus months For the listener listening right now, like what are the top two? Like most common we'll just call them mental resistance, like roadblocks that you see over and over and over again that you've just seen like siphon away or block somebody from their potential to scale up their business.
Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh. Yes, I love this question. So for online business owners, course creators, coaches, if you sell a digital product, the biggest thing that is going to stop you from succeeding is perfectionism. If you cannot put out something at 80% and go. This is my founding members beta launch of this particular offer. I'm going to put it out as is. I'm going to get some sales and then I'm going to build it. If you can't do that, you are just going to kick the can down the road over and over again. You're going to get caught in perfectionism. You're going to get caught in procrastination because it all feels too hard, it all feels too big.
Speaker 2:
So my biggest piece of advice, when people come to me and they're like Laura, I want to, I want to hit 30K months or I want to create an online offer or a digital course or whatever it looks like, my biggest thing is it is not build it and they will come. It is get them to come and then build it. So get them to actually buy into what you're selling the solution, the outcome that you're selling and then build it out. Live, build it with them. It's so time consuming building these offers out and a lot of the time you might build something that people actually don't want, and so we have to be okay, like I think a lot of people. Look at people like amy porterfield or rick mulready or donald miller and they go, but don Donald Miller's course platform.
Speaker 2:
it's beautiful and I've had this moment where I've been like Don your platform is so nice.
Speaker 2:
And he's like, yeah, like I really spent a lot of time on it. I'm like it's so nice and everything in me wants to have the platform that is so beautiful and so designed. And he's spending six figures on a video, like he is spending so much money on his course content. But I can't do that because I'm not Donald Miller, and so it's like also, what got you here won't get you there. So, like he has the reps and he has the backing to actually produce something really, really high quality, and I can't compare myself to where he is. I can't, and you can't, compare yourself to where Amy Porterfield is or whoever it is, jenna Kutcher, whoever it is, and so we need to kind of go that's their day, but that's their day, like 2000,.
Speaker 2:
they've been doing this for years, if you're on day one you don't have to look like they do.
Speaker 2:
You don't have to have the following that they do. You don't have to have the following that they do. You don't have to. It doesn't have to be all slick. There's going to be stuff that's a bit clunky and that's not going to work. That's okay, because I just think we can't compare the like polished, produced, beautiful, seasoned course creator to ourselves on day one and it's. I think it's the same in anything with business. You have to be committed to progress over perfection, and every time we make a mistake, every time we something doesn't work, it's just a lesson, it's just we're not going to do it that way again. Awesome, keep moving, and I think we have to get out of our own way.
Speaker 1:
That would be the big thing so thank you first of all for sharing, and the creative or course creator that's listening to this and it's like you know, 30k a month sounds good, laura. How can you teach me more like where can they go, find out more about ways to get to 30K or just more about how to work with you?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely so. I hang out on Instagram. I'm at Laura Higgins. Definitely send me a DM and let me know that you listen to this podcast and we can have a chat about what you loved, what was helpful and if we can potentially help you. I'd love to have a chat and you can also head to laurahigginscom. I have my podcast on there. I've got some cool free resources as well that you can check out. If you're a creative, if you're a course creator who really wants to build a business that makes you more money and gets you more of the right clients but also is fun, I think that's the big thing for me. I don't think it's cool to build a business that you're like. Actually, this doesn't give me freedom, this doesn't feel fun, this doesn't feel good. We really want to make sure that you're building something that feels like you and is actually fun.
Speaker 1:
I agree, because otherwise it's just a trap. And making a lot of money but not enjoying it or not looking forward to the daily things that go into it, that's not fun. That's not fun at all. So thank you for sharing, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, of course I totally think that I forgot to tell the listener if we had a whole another episode together, but you're listening right now. If you want to learn more about Laura in the link in the show notes or the description below is a link to the episode that she was on previously. It's called Before we Hit Record and I really liked that time that Laura and I got to spend together, because we're just getting to know each other and you get to learn more about who Laura is and how she came about to be and kind of like her history with business and the fact that she toured around two continents in a band, right, and that I won't spoil everything for the episode, but it's a special one and that's linked up in the show notes below. We're going to end here, so until the next time that you see me or hear from me, take care and be blessed. Goodbye.
