Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 226. I am so excited to be back with this month's edition of Making Good Book Club. This month, we are talking about Ask by Ryan Levesque. So first of all, more about book club once a month, my amazing book club co host Charelle Griffith, and I discuss a book that we think can help move the needle in your small business.
And then we share our takeaways specifically for small businesses. Like yours this month. Again, we talked about. Ask the counterintuitive online method to discover exactly what your customers want to buy by Ryan Levesque. So, listener, from this title, from what we could see, this book sounded perfect for the podcast, and Sherelle and I were super excited to get into it. And actually, I'm really glad we got to review it together and share our conversation with you. Can you hear the butt coming?
But it was not quite the read that we thought we had signed up for, or at least I say that on my part. This isn't to say that there were not useful nuggets to pull from Ask, there absolutely was some excellent advice that I think we can all put into play, but there were also parts of it that were just not my or Charelle's cup of tea. So this book club episode is slightly different in that. Yes, we do go through and highlight the useful material from the book, but we do.
So alongside some healthy criticism, there are so many methods and ideas about how to market your business and which one works best for you. will vary from person to person. I would never discourage anyone from reading or trying something new, but there was at least one or two things in here I felt I needed to push back against. And when you listen to this episode, I think you'll see why.
Stay tuned through the end of the episode for our announcement of our pick for next month's Making Good Book Club. Just a quick reminder that if you want the updates on Book Club, you can sign up to get notified at makinggoodpodcast. com slash book club. Okay, let's get into this month's book club episode all about ASK. Hey, Charelle, welcome back to Making Good Book Club.
Thanks for having me back, Lauren. Ooh, yeah. We're going to talk about Ask today. I'm excited. I'm excited to hear your thoughts on this more than I think I'm excited to talk about it. I'm
Of your thoughts on this book this will be good. Cause Charelle and I have not really debriefed the book yet. So this will be this, everyone's hearing it at the same time, what we each thought. Let's start with what I always ask you, which is- This book, Ask by Ryan Levesque, what would you say it's about if someone asks you what it's about? And maybe start by like the subtitle. So the subtitle is what got us really excited about it.
And it's the counterintuitive online method to discover exactly what your customers want to buy, create a massive raving fans and take any business to the next level. So why did we decide to read this
So we decided to do this book because it sounded like it was going to be good for us. It sounded like, don't we all want customers that want to buy and rave in fans and take our business to the next level. That's what we want. This actually was a book I read before, but I realized on rereading it, I'd forgotten what I read. And my short. Takeaway from it is, I don't think it's a counterintuitive online method, that's for sure.
And actually what I would summarize it as is a book about how to understand your customers better. I definitely feel as if that bit of the sub-line about understanding exactly what your customers want, I think that is true. I think it's about a process of questioning that will enable you to understand better your buyers. Silence.
think that it's The subtitle is very good. And so I was also really excited to read it. And I actually, there are a lot of things I really liked in the book. My take is that this is really like a funnel strategy. And for those who don't know what a funnel is basically a set of experiences that your customer goes through from when they first hear about you till hopefully they become a customer.
It's just the structure that you're walking them through to take them from, not being a customer to being a customer. Sometimes that's, it usually involves a lot of emails. Sometimes it's like a lead magnet or a video or a webinar or a discount code, whatever it is, a funnel is that intentional process that you're taking people through.
Yeah, and I'd agree and I love sales funnels so I, maybe that's why it doesn't necessarily seem so counterintuitive because I've read a lot of books that are on sales funnels as well so maybe that does play a part.
Yeah, and I think I thought it was going to be more of like a customer research book, and there is that element, and we'll talk about some of the good stuff there, but it's also like a fun, it's a funnel strategy. So there's a lot of different ways that you can intentionally design to take people through This process of hopefully becoming a customer. And this is one specific way to do that. So my overall take is let's pick out what we like of this.
And we'll share as much as we can about what the actual method is. But most people, I think listening, it's probably notgoing to be the kind of thing where you just take the whole process and that becomes your funnel. And I don't know, maybe some people will, but just my understanding of my listeners, I feel like that's not going to be the case.
So I think this is a book where let's pull out the really useful bits and there are a lot, but it may not be like a copy paste the whole approach and use that
I think that's a good thing anyway. you could probably argue this book has some, similarities to like reading some like Russell Brunson books I'm sure it's not actually a thousand miles away, like from the same thing, like with product launch formula. And it's actually all of those books that will teach you their specific way of doing it doesn't mean. That you can't take like elements of it and that doesn't improve your own marketing for your own business.
It's like actually when people have these tried and tested processes that they swear by they usually have gone through a fair bit of testing. So I'm like actually even if you just pick up some elements that can still improve your marketing.
Yeah, absolutely. The structure of the book is really simple. There's two parts. The first is,
My worst nightmare.
Yes! Oh my gosh. The first, part one is about the first third of the book. And it's, ask the story. Which is, we'll talk. And then the second part is the actual methodology.
So the difference between these parts is the story is he's telling how he came up with this and we'll get into it a little bit, I'm sure, and part two is very tactical this is not like a theoretical abstract methodology, you could really use the book as a instruction manual to set up these different funnels and we'll talk about what we want to pull out of that. But let's start with part one and you mentioned your worst nightmare. I'll just cue you up there.
Because we know how I feel about the story part of the book and this was just like a whole third that's just the story and like the letter to his mum about how he's going to start this business and like what it means to him and all that and I was just like oh my gosh I had to really hold myself back from just flicking to part two, because obviously I knew I was going to have to chat about it. But I can't still remember any of it. I was just like, this is just my worst nightmare.
Yeah, I do not get this section and you know me, I like a good story. I didn't think that almost anything in this section had anything to do with the methodology. It was like the author's story. He had a really big health crisis. He was like a really smart, successful kid, but changed gears a bunch of times and felt really unfulfilled. And it's basically the story of how he came to own his own business.
Huh. It's
none of part one really gets into what is the ask formula? What is this methodology? There's nothing about it. yeah, I love a good story. I love a good story. But this is not a story that felt relevant to what we're trying to learn from the book. So I was very surprised because it wasn't like, it wasn't like, 10 pages. It was 33 percent of the book or something like that, according to my Kindle.
I'm really glad you felt like that though, because obviously I'm just like, Oh, this is me. But I trust you. And I'm like, you do like story. You do like a bit of personal anecdote and like human connection. So I'm like, if even you were like, this was not necessary. Okay. The author got it wrong.
Yeah I don't understand. It felt like two different books. So part one, if you're going to read the book, you could read it. I don't think it's necessary at all to understand what he's teaching about in the book. So let's get into the methodology. Methodology is called, he calls it the ask method or the ask formula. And basically this is a framework for, like we talked about a little bit earlier, a funnel that you put your customers through to ultimately result in a purchase.
A big part of this also is. This is not only a sales pitch, but it's also a way of getting to know your customers better. And that I think is where I took most of the value from this book is his insights on that. But this is essentially a multi step process, which he lays out very specifically how to do where you're walking people through this process of going from maybe they're already on your email list, or maybe they're just learning about you for the first time.
And he shares different ways of doing it, depending on the scenario, but walking people through going from a deep dive survey, which is where you start, where we're really like digging in to get to know our ideal customer. And then we're going from that point to. Ultimately taking them through like a sales process that includes a survey. And so there's multiple different steps in this and the process is prepare persuade segment prescribe Profit and pivot. So he almost got all P's
no, I really feel sorry for him. Could you not work it out?
I know no synonyms for segment that start with a P. Parts
Yeah, what are you doing? You missed the opportunity there.
I know. So in his process, this is a step by step thing This is like you do one step and then you move on to the next this is not like I don't know pick and choose like this is A to Z You Like step process. So I think that's what we should do is just talk through each of the steps. And step one is prepare the deep dive survey. And this is the part that I liked the most personally. What was your take on this step?
really like this as well. I think what you just said, what you said about the market, like getting to know your customers better, like the market research side of things, like the questioning, that was definitely the bits that I really lit up about. And I think it's something actually a lot of small business owners struggle with.
Like we don't have necessarily all the tools Big businesses have to understand our audience and so this whole thing is about having an open ended survey and that you only have to conduct it once. So This first thing, the deep dive survey, this is what happens before you actually build your online sales funnel. And I think that's actually really useful because even if you're someone that's listening to this and I don't want to even build an online sales funnel.
Actually, this just shows this is just a market research survey. This is just to help you actually understand your clients or your customers better. And so the emphasis is on asking them what their single greatest challenge is. So that's what we're trying to find out through the deep dive survey.
Yeah. And I think one point that he makes. really well in the book that I think is really compelling is we actually don't, as customers or consumers or people in general, we don't know what we want specifically. And this is true and he gives the example of imagine you're like with your partner or in a group of friends and it's like, let's go out to eat. What do you want to eat? The answer is never it's almost never someone knows exactly what they want. And let's go do that.
It's It's a lot easier actually to say what you don't want. What do you not feel like eating? And I can think of so many instances where I've had this exact conversation. And so he points out that easy questions to answer are what we don't want and what we've done in the past. And. We can use the fact that as humans, we're able to give pretty good answers to these two questions. We can use that in our survey. So in the deep dive survey, we're not asking, what do you want?
Like what kind of product will you buy if I make it for you? We're asking questions that get at these other questions that are actually easier to answer, which are, what do we not want mostly? Which is when you're asking what you, what your customer struggles with, that's really a way of saying What do you not want? So I think that's a really interesting point about How to ask questions and what to ask
Yeah.
I don't think this means like never ask your customers what they want but I do think it's an important perspective shift of like it's your customer may not always exactly know what they want. And he uses, he says the Henry Ford quote, if I had to ask people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse because people can only dream of things in their existing realm of what's possible.
And I think that's really important as, especially like entrepreneurs, it's we are meant to be creating the thing that doesn't necessarily exist and creating something that people don't realise they need until it exists. And so I really agree with you that it was a really important perspective shift. And I particularly like what he said about you can answer questions about your past behaviour.
This isn't necessarily in the book, but I definitely think it's something I could happening with small businesses in general, which is this idea of being like, when people say what else have you already tried? If you're, if you, someone's trying to solve something, like you're the solution, your business, it's what else have they tried? And that's usually really easy for them to today. They can say I've done X, I've tried Y, I brought this and it hasn't worked.
And so that really reminded me of that. Like actually, yeah, it's really easy to reel off. Questions about our past behavior. But it's harder for us when we have to like, actually think about the future.
He is emphasizing that you ask a couple open ended questions. And these questions are really the most important parts of the survey.
And it can be tempting when you're creating a survey to try to have everything be multiple choice and to try to force people into buckets of what you think they might answer because that does make it easier to understand and sift through the results like it's harder to find patterns and analyze results when it's a bunch of open ended, just answers, like paragraph answers, but it's really important because that's how you actually learn where people are really at without forcing them into like
where you think they're at by giving them options.
Yeah, I think it gives you like a really true picture and as an added bonus, if you're also someone that wants to use this information is that helps with your messaging. So often we talk about this idea of you've got to speak the same language as your customer. Giving people open ended questions, like it gives you their language.
And we are spending quite a bit of time on this one, but I think
The one that,
the chapter that I think is the most useful in the whole book. Okay. Another thing that's really interesting about this chapter is he says to be careful with incentives. Free iPad, I'm gonna raffle off For all the people who complete this survey or get a, whatever the incentive is, like some freebie, he wants us to be very careful with doing this because we don't want people answering the question who actually aren't likely to buy no matter what.
Because they're not really the people whose data is most relevant to us. So he says, if you're going to incentivize people for filling out the survey, the incentive needs to be very tied to what you're actually selling. So maybe it's a percentage off the offer ultimately, or. Something that would benefit someone who ends up buying. I thought that was very interesting. Yes, it will probably reduce the number of, full, complete responses you get.
But I think my takeaway here is not all responses are created equal. We don't actually want the responses from people who are not going to ultimately buy because We don't need to learn about those people as much as we do about the people who are likely to buy.
There seems to be, and that's a theme I think about, actually a little bit of friction is not necessarily a bad thing. So even when he talks about like how ugly the survey is, it's this idea that actually, and I think that, just tie in with the idea of like incentive and discounts is there are ways for us to make the amount of people that go through a process. Be more, but that is not what we need to do at this stage. Actually, I do think this is about quality over quantity.
And so actually, whereas we spend most of our lives as business owners trying to be like, reduce the friction, make it as easy as possible. This actually necessarily isn't a bit, isn't part of that journey. If they has a bit of friction, if it isn't great, that's good. Cause it just means those people are the ones that are going to give you the information that's probably the most valuable. And as we said, they're probably the most likely in the long term to be like, I'm, I want this solution.
Yeah. And another part of this section, which I think is really valuable, is he actually walks you through step by step how to analyze the data that you get. his approach to analysis, obviously like it It's going to apply if you do his survey methodology. It's not like a masterclass on survey analysis broadly. It's this is how you analyze this specific data. If you do it the way I said, but that just struck me reading it.
But I think it's the first time I've ever seen someone show you how to analyze. Survey data in, in any kind of like approachable marketing, I actually used to work in market research, so I have a different background here, but in any kind of marketing content, you hear people say analyze the data, see what the trends are, but that's it I've never seen anyone walk step by step, here's how to analyze it, here's how to weight the responses, here's how to find the patterns.
the waiting bit was a bit that really interested me, this idea of like, how do we. Like how are we scoring everything so that we can get this ultimate score at the end. And like you said I've read a lot of business books and marketing books and I was like, I don't think I've ever seen someone actually go through it in that way that I think, yeah, if you, don't even go on to the next stuff, I think for me, like just market bit of research, this is a really interesting chapter.
Yeah, and I guess the last thing I wanted to pull out of this chapter is this concept of hyper responsiveness. And Did this stick out to you, Cheryl?
I don't think so no,
Yeah, it's funny. We always take different things.
Um,
Things that he's suggesting you look for in your respondents. Which of the people who take your survey, you're looking for clues of who's really engaged. And one of the ways you can do that is by the length of their open ended responses. So he gave the example, I'm not reading this, but basically if it was a some kind of back pain specialist, if your question asked, what's your biggest pain point, And one person said back pain.
And the other person said, I got into a car accident two years ago where I injured my back, I've tried this and this, and they, they go on for like sentences and sentences to explain their pain. Basically, it is true that the person who. Provides the longer, more in depth response is more likely to buy actually because they are showing that they're more engaged and this is like a measure of hyper responsiveness.
And so he wants us to look for the people who are especially engaged and hyper responsive and pay extra attention to those people's responses, because we want to be finding ways to pay extra attention to the people who are actually most likely to buy. Okay. If I'm paying a ton of attention to responses that they would never buy anyway, it doesn't make sense for me to design my whole product and marketing strategy around them. I want to design this all around the people who are likely to buy.
So in back to the concept of like how to analyze this data, one of the metrics is like literally how many characters response is their open ended answer to that question. And there's a formula in Google sheets or Excel you can use to define this. And I just thought that was absolutely so fascinating. And I get it.
People, not that this isn't a survey format, but I have a welcome email in my email marketing and I get emails back and the people who send the like long, thoughtful emails do tend to be the people who are like my most engaged members of my world. So I just thought that was super interesting and super smart. So any other takeaways from this first section?
So the only other thing would be that after we've done all that analysis, the idea is to ultimately start choosing the buckets that you're going to be using going forward. And there was a line that just said everything about. Everything we do, which is having too many buckets is just as problematic as having no buckets at all.
Because so often we really struggle with this, this idea of like actually because you will have got a lot of open ended data, you do have to like sift through that and try and find like the common patterns to be able to then start making these buckets. And I feel like this is the same as like when I do goals with people and they want to have 75. And so it's you've got to be really strict with yourself. And this idea of how do we split our, all those surveys up and put them in buckets.
And I actually think even if, like you said, even if you don't go on to doing all the rest of the surveys, we actually, we know as business owners that. We have audience that are coming to us for different reasons.
People buy for different reasons and also like if you can identify that from this original, it will help you with your different messaging, like when you're going through messaging, a lot of this made me think about messaging any, you talked about natural consumer, natural consumer language? And I just felt like anyone that's got any problems with their messaging, this will help.
Yeah, and the key with the buckets too is that usually You know, you'll end up with I think you said no more than five
Three to five.
three to five main buckets of people's pain points essentially And oftentimes you are either
different,
different ways of selling the same thing, or you're actually selling different products for each of them. So these become like segments in your email list where depending on what you, like this becomes something, about these customers and it affects. the messages that they get from you so that you can actually send messages that are very specific to what they, what you know about them based on this.
So I think the final element is that all this data that we're getting, somehow this needs to make it into our marketing systems so that we can use it essentially.
And I think the one thing to point out is he's some people will get left behind. So it's ideally the three to five bucket should cover 80 percent of responses. And at this moment in time, that's fine. Like you can lose that 20%, it is what it is. And I think that's really reassuring as well.
Cause I know some of us are like, want to get everything and it's sometimes you can't, let's just get the 80%, let's try and get this into a manageable bucket so that actually we can do that either different products or different messages to those people and then call it a day.
Vocal people who, they want a certain offer from you, but this kind of analysis will show you whether there's enough of the market to make it worth offering. So sometimes, people, I'm sure we can all, any of us who have been in business for a while, relate to the experience of someone asking for something really specific that you don't currently offer and analysis like this will show you whether. Is it just them that wants this or is this actually something worth putting effort into?
I think this is so good for anyone with coming up with a new idea because I think everyone's been sidelined by someone being like, I want this and then you go after it and they were the only person that wanted it.
yeah, totally. this first element, the prepare section of this process is very good and worth reading and like really absorbing for anyone. I think his approach to Both designing this survey, which by the way is short. It's not a long 500 question survey. It's short I think his approach is really good and Anyone listening would benefit from basically doing it almost just like he articulates.
Of course, do it how you want, but the benefit of laying it out as he's suggesting is you can use his form of analysis too. So we'll talk about more elements of the book, but this to me is like the best golden nugget from the book.
Yeah, I'd agree,
Yeah.
There's more.
There's more traction. Yeah.
this was in the prepare. And then the next section is around persuade. And this involves, what do we have? A new landing page where we're directing people to after having them gone through that deep dive survey. And the point of this one is we're going to start playing the role of doctor. And actually what's really interesting for me reading this book now is I can tell how many people use this technique.
It was really like a way of them like, Oh yeah, when people are like actually doing this in real life. So I'm obviously like the technique has. It's gone far and wide, yeah.
Yeah. So he's talking about persuade is basically you create some kind of landing page where people, you're trying to get people to be willing to take a survey basically. And the survey is, we'll talk about that in the next section, but the point here is that we've designed, he shares some tips about like how to design a landing page that will actually get people to say yes. I want to take the survey.
And the kind of TLDR, like short takeaway from this is convince them that it's worth their while, show them that there's going to be some value that they get out of it. And to me, like all I kept thinking is this is a quiz.
yeah that's what I mean you know when you think that's what I think that's what I meant it's like it's just a quiz it's just whenever you think that you're going to be like are you a x y or z like that's what exactly that there you go you said it's out of my head now
yeah. It's a quiz and maybe it's that when this was written, like the technology wasn't quite there for online quizzes, the way that they are now. There's a lot of quiz tools now. So he's describing it as a survey, but really ultimately where you have a landing page. You're inviting people to like. Answer all these questions. And at the end, they're going to get results that hopefully help them in some way based on their answers.
But also you're going to start to sell them something based on that. So this chapter here, persuade is really about how do you design that landing page so that people actually want to take it. And there's a lot of language in here. That's he had don't know, like people pay me 10, 000 an
Oh yeah!
and I can't. work with everyone. So here's how you get it for free. Take this and it's no, that's not, I don't, I wouldn't suggest that anyone use language like that. That's just so exaggerated. But what I do think is useful is show how people will get some benefit out of actually taking the quiz or the survey. And that's going to spit them out with results that are actually useful to them. And then you have to actually deliver on that.
And Provide useful outcomes, based on the answers, give something useful at the end.
I think it's really interesting how much, because he does go into quite a lot around the messaging to actually persuade people. And as someone that just loves every single personality type quiz there is in the world. I'm like, I don't need you to be persuaded, but if you're going to put me into any type of box. And then I'm going to get a report. I'm going to do it.
It's really, it's funny because he I agree with you, like the depth that he's going to, and maybe like you said, it's because of the time this was written. And actually made me really think now because there's a few other people now that have written books that are on quizzes and this technique of how to use it. Maybe that's what it was is maybe just then people got their email address a bit more and people weren't as willing.
Whereas now I think we're in a time where I could tell you 75 different quizzes. I've taken them. What? What I am, what the outcome has been. And I brought things off the back of them as well. It worked.
Yeah. I think we don't have to work quite as hard as he might. Suggest in this section, but I think the general the general motivation there of like how We need to answer the question like what's in it for me if I take this quiz I think that's for most of us We need more than like this is your result like we need to receive some kind of value from that
point is that by knowing the answer is then you can have the solution. And by understanding like where your problem is, for example. And I think there was one bit, and I'm not sure if it was here we were talking about there's not a one size fits all. And I think a lot of people still do quite lean into that idea of you can have a problem and someone else can have a problem. But that problem. It's created for different reasons. And so understanding what it is for you.
And I think even if we're not saying this is totally 100 percent personalized, even just being broken down to a further level does make most people feel better.
What's, what are you struggling with? It seems to me that the question is usually framed. What's preventing you from getting the results that you want. This isn't what Harry Potter character are you? It's it's, what is stopping you from getting what you want. You answer the questions, the quiz spits out the answer, gives you some context, and then ultimately probably tries to, then, or not probably, then ultimately does try to sell you something geared specifically at that problem.
So chapter 14 is Persuade, and it's about how to build this landing page that ultimately will get people to decide to take. The survey slash quiz which leads us to the next chapter segment, which is the actual survey slash quiz. And he calls this the micro commitment bucket survey. So Cheryl, let's say you about this bucket survey
About this. I suppose my thing was he had broken down the questions I used into three different sections. So he had like one that was grease the wheels, basically ask super easy questions. that people can answer quick to build momentum and get people clicking. Then there was some that were, so there was a level of personalization, and then there's some that is to help you to actually do that segmentation so that you can be fitting them into the right bucket.
And he does go into detail of what each of those he's used previously, but I think just that structure of being like, okay I need to do some easy questions that people are going to find. Like a click on easy, some that's going to split your audience. So cause he's a business in the business space, for example, his questions were like email size and turn over your business, like things again, that are easy to answer, but that will enable you to be on the back end.
You can be segmented as a business owner. You're still finding out more and more information. And then you go into the actual questions that are going to allow you to put the people into the bucket.
he suggests start with one so like we're you're probably not going to build out all of these funnels simultaneously. So start with your biggest opportunity. What is the biggest bucket of your audience? Build that one first. But yeah, the outcome of the survey is that yes, we're going to deliver them based on their results, this valuable information and resources, whatever it is. But also we then know which product to sell to each of each person.
And that information is stored in our email system somehow.
And then as like a side note for someone who's not going to do the whole thing possibly, for example, even if you stopped now having that information that you have managed to split these people up and they are in buckets, even if it's something that you don't necessarily use all the time.
That data is in your email server provider in a way that means you could do some targeted activity in the future like it might be when you're like creating something new that you're like actually this is really going to appeal to this set of people and you send them an email first for example or it has different messaging so I think again like we're saying obviously this because if you were to build out all these funnels it is a lot like there's no denying that but actually Even just doing these
two first parts again, like the first part is really great, and I think even this will just give you more data and more information that will help you to be even better with your emails going forward.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So the next section after you've built this survey is prescribe the post survey sales prescription. And again we've talked about this a little bit, but this is basically just how to set up that. experience that comes after the person finishes the survey. So first, they get their results and they are, provided some resources or value of how to solve the problem that they're, they've been diagnosed with as essentially he uses the doctor analogy a lot.
So I think that's useful. But then there's some kind of sale based on their answer, a specific thing where your language is, because you struggle with this, Here is something that I have to offer that will serve you in some way.
So that's where that starts and I think that's really the main thing here I will say one thing I like probably one of the only things I highlighted in the book actually Because it's very technical so I didn't highlight much but he's suggesting the problem agitate solution Method of selling, which I don't like. And so I just want to call that out.
So he says the most adaptable universal script method I like to use in virtually every video script is where appropriate is called the problem agitate solution. This is where you introduce the prospects problem, reinforce the severity and urgency of that problem by agitating that problem in your prospects mind. And finally introduce your solution to that problem.
He says the reason you want to do this is because the problem you're helping your prospect solve could be just one of 50 things causing anxiety in your prospect's mind. He says what you need to do is agitate the problem to intensify it in such a way so that everything else disappears.
I really hate this like marketing advice and this is really common this concept of agitating pain points and so I just wanted to call that out because this idea of making something so painful for someone that like You They have to buy your product. So to relieve that pain in some way, that just feels so gross to me.
So I just want to give you permission to ignore any advice that like, doesn't align with you when it comes to things like copywriting, which this is really copywriting advice and this agitate word, you'll see a lot in marketing copywriting really would be the main place. You'll probably hear that word, but you don't ever have to agitate. And what I. Like to do instead is think about just acknowledging.
So it is good to know your customer's pain points and even to mention them and say I know that you struggle with this. I don't think it's right to really rub people's face in it and pour salt in the wound and make it really painful for them so that the only thing they can think to do is buy from you. So that's just something I wanted to call out is yeah. If that doesn't sit right with you either, like you don't have to do that. You can write great.
really powerful and impactful copy and marketing language that doesn't use this kind of strategy. So getting off my soapbox, but I had to mention
I was interested to listen, but we'll now move on to profit which is about the profit maximization upsell sequence. And what I think is really interesting.
He spoke about this idea that how once someone has made their first purchase and they're in a buy mindset they're much more likely to spend more money right there and then and whether that's true, but also this idea of like, when someone's brought from you, once they're being a repeat buyer, the reality is that this technique, obviously some people do end up spending ads to drive people to it.
Or even if you are, you're trying to organically or trying to social media, for example, to get people there, it's costing you time. And so you want to make sure that you are. Got a real process to make the most sales off the back. And yes, a percentage of people will buy instantly, but some won't.
And so therefore this whole, this process of there's upsell framework that we're gonna go through now, but then there's also then further emails that happened to try and catch people that didn't buy in the first place. I just think for important because I think it's really easy just to be like, here's my one sale or they didn't buy. And then that's it. And actually I think lots of us have people in our world that we could get more sales out of.
Yeah. Yeah. So the, it does not end after that initial pitch when the survey is over.
No. And so he goes through three different types of upsells. So one is selling value. And so he had an example of if the first thing was one tub of protein powder, it might've been that you're now going to give them like three extra days. And because there's so many, they will then get free shipping. There's one that's based around speed and ease of implementation so that you're going to help people So yeah, basically do things faster. And then the last one was future pacing.
So this is about a problem they don't have yet, but when they use whatever you've just sold them, it's going to be a new problem, which was something that I was like, I have not seen many people talk about that and it sounds a little bit crazy, but then when I read The example, I got it because the example was a bit like, oh, this person, they were selling something to help people get a pay rise.
But then it's like, when they get that pay rise and they've got all that extra money they need to know how to manage that extra money. So it's this will help you with that. And I thought that one was just a really interesting thing for me. All of us to think about do we actually ever have anything that's like for the next step? And that and if you do anything else like I was like even I think like for bonuses for things I've never thought about that.
Like I just thought it was a really interesting idea
yeah, I agree. And I think upsell is, and he also shares like a downsell suggestion. These are concepts that might resonate with you, but if they don't, I think the takeaway is like just finding creative ways to offer additional products that people might be interested in.
So if you're an e commerce person, maybe this is suggested product that goes with what someone adds to their cart or bundles or, Visual tracker of like you've spent 60 spend 15 more and you get free shipping like any of that kind of encouragement to add to their cart, essentially, I think is along the same lines as this.
This language is not going to resonate with everyone, but the idea of if someone is already spending with you, they're going to be much easier to sell to, essentially, and much more open to Possibly adding something else that could be of use to them than the, the average person. So just trying to make the most of that opportunity to sell and also provide them with something of value.
But, some people won't buy at all. And so the next stage, pivot, is actually about what do we do in that instance. Because yeah, there's going to be a load of people that don't. And actually, in this pivot section, he actually goes through Two different email sequences. So one is for the people that do buy and one is for the people that don't buy. And this chapter, like again, as we've said multiple times, the book goes into a lot of detail.
It's actually a 12 part email sequence, which even for me, I was like, Oh, 12 parts. But again, it's not as if he's leaving you like in the dark, like there is a breakdown of. What that would look like from both a non buyer and from a buyer perspective.
Yeah. And this includes two different surveys. Depending on the path. So there's a survey he calls the, why do you hate me survey, I just couldn't have rolled my eyes harder at, but
Is this so funny? I was like, I want to do this so bad. Like I
Oh, really?
because I do think I sometimes when people don't buy things, there's I do want to find out why, do you get what I mean? And I have received it on the end of like launches and I have filled it in. So it's funny. I love how we're so different
Okay. No, I like the concept of why didn't you buy, but
the title.
the language of why do you hate me, which he actually suggests that you put that somewhere in because it's because people want to respond then because they're like no, I don't hate you. I just, it's not the right time to buy or whatever. This, why do you hate me survey? I take back because it is a useful survey of asking why did people decide not to buy? That I think is great. But the language, I just rolled my eyes at.
I think it's quite clear you and Ryan and language is just not the one it's very broad marketing. Let's be real.
a little bro y. Yeah. And then the other survey is. For people who do buy or for people, I think I'm getting this right. Correct me if this sounds wrong, but it's for people who either buy or get to the end of the did not buy and still haven't bought, and then they get a survey that's basically geared out. What can I sell you next? What are you? what's the next bucket to put you in so that you can then get that funnel of, of the landing page and then the quiz and then the emails.
Which I don't have strong thoughts about either way.
Yeah, I think, again, this is the type of thing where I'm like, obviously, I think it's going to be useful if you can get there. I think, obviously, this is, if we've gone through this whole process, there are a lot of steps. You're not going to be able to get all of them in straight away in your business. You might not want to get them all in. All right. The pivot survey is what it's called. I thought it was good. Do I think I'm going to use it in my business now?
No. Do I think I'd be recommended that much? Not. If I had a team of five people. No, but if I had a team of five people and I had, you get what I mean? I think it's that, I think I can see how everything would have. Benefit, but also we're all time constraint. Also, what I think is really useful to say there is a lot of this is once it's set up, like actually would probably give you a water quite a long time.
And I think that's something that's quite valuable is actually the, like that email sequence might feel like a very long thing to do, but once you've done it, that can run for ages. And so I think actually, if you are someone that does have that, Bandwidth or the time or the resource to be like, this is something I want to put in really just keeping your mind that it's a lot of upfront work, but does have long term potential for the business. Yeah.
here, but I think we've actually dug into a lot of it. What would be your like takeaway or your one to do for someone listening? If they were to just take one thing.
would say trying to do that deep dive survey is a thing. I think everyone could really learn a lot. And now like that type of software so we should have mentioned like, he does try and like sell his software the whole way through the book, but now that software, you can access it so many, like super accessible from a price perspective that I'm like, actually.
You, meaning there's free
Yeah. Like I was like, I'm not 100 percent sure, but I'm like, I'm pretty sure there's free. There's some very cheap, do you get what I mean? So I feel like everyone could gain a lot of insight from that survey that yes, that could just be, you improve your language for your messaging going forward. Yes. You might actually make those buckets and then you can use that going forward. There is, there's so many things you could gain from it that, and again, it's one of those things that.
Once you've set it up, you can continue to send people to it in the future. I definitely think it's worthwhile to giving it a go.
Yeah. And that's what I was going to say too. I would try to find something else to pull out, but that really is the thing that I would say is if you're going to get this book, read that, what is it, chapter 13, follow instructions, and most especially, follow his process on how to analyze the data, and I think you're just going to get so much out of that. That would be my takeaway as well. Yeah, I think overall a book with a lot of interesting useful things in it.
This wasn't like a I loved every second of it type book, but there is good stuff in here for sure.
And also now that we've read it, you can just skip the beginning and you don't need to read the end. Like you just need to be the middle. Like I'm like, it's a, it's like a 200 in what, just under 200 page book and realistically actually the values in like the a hundred pages. So just read
you really don't need to read part one. Like you just don't
but we should say Lauren, because you mentioned before you did listen to an audio and you were like, I'm really glad I had a Kindle to look at. Okay. Okay.
without looking at something so just a recommendation to make sure you have some visual way of looking at it. I don't think this is one, especially if your goal is to just take this process and go create this deep dive survey. I think You'll be much better served by either having a print or digital viewable version of it. Yeah, so that is Ask. What are we doing next?
The next book is Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hershey. And I'm so excited to read this book. Lauren recommended it quite a while ago and they're just about to republish it. So I'm so excited to get my copy and read it and come back on the podcast and talk about it.
Yes. And just, I have to just read the
Subtitle?
Google Books description just, I think, Because folks will like it. This was an instant New York Times bestseller. It says, disrupt and push back against capitalism and white supremacy. In this book, Tricia Hershey, aka the nap bishop, encourages us to connect to the liberating power of rest, daydreaming, and nap. As a foundation for healing and justice. I am so excited about this and I've heard such good things about it.
I am so excited for this conversation to see how different we respond to this book. I can imagine I'm going to have a lot of resistance to resting.
Yes.
Alright,
a copy yourself and yeah, I'll talk to you next month.
So those are our thoughts and opinions about ASK. If you had a chance to pick up the book or if this episode sparked something for you, we would love to hear from you. DM us on Instagram. I'm at Lauren Tilden and Sherell is at Sharelle Griffith. Now I am so excited to dig into our book for next month. Rest is Resistance, A Manifesto by Tricia Hershey. This is going to be so good. You can find details from the podcast on the show notesPage@makinggoodpodcast.com slash 2 2 6.
If you enjoyed this episode, and I so hope that you did, I would be grateful to have your support. Here are three ways that you can give back to Making Good. First, I'd be so honored if you'd leave a rating and review and your favorite podcast player, and don't forget to subscribe and follow. Second, if you have a friend that you think would enjoy the podcast, send them the link. This episode is at makinggoodpodcast.
com slash 226. And finally, take a screenshot while you're listening and tag me and Sherelle on Instagram We would love to connect with you. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. Talk to you next time. So those are our thoughts and opinions about ASK. If you had a chance to pick up the book or if this episode sparked something for you, we would love to hear from you. DM us on Instagram. I'm at Lauren Tilden and Sherell is at Sharelle Griffith.
Now I am so excited to dig into our book for next month. Rest is Resistance, A Manifesto by Tricia Hershey. This is going to be so good. You can find details from the podcast on the show notesPage@makinggoodpodcast.com slash 2 2 6. If you enjoyed this episode, and I so hope that you did, I would be grateful to have your support. Here are three ways that you can give back to Making Good.
First, I'd be so honored if you'd leave a rating and review and your favorite podcast player, and don't forget to subscribe and follow. Second, if you have a friend that you think would enjoy the podcast, send them the link. This episode is at makinggoodpodcast. com slash 226. And finally, take a screenshot while you're listening and tag me and Sherelle on Instagram We would love to connect with you. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business.
Talk to you next time.