Transcript
Cal Fussman (0:00)
Is there a way of thinking to not leave money on the table?
Heather Monahan (0:06)
First of all, there's market research that we can do, right? So we know with keynote speeches they start at 5,000 and they go to $500,000. So just being familiar with how wide the gap is and what people are offering, you can pretty much feel confident going in that whatever your number that you think is big, there are people offering the same services for much, much more. So know that you're not the highest price point. You know, I had the opportunity to speak with a lot of across the country over the past year. Some of them were getting $150,000 on the same stage I was on and I was getting 15,000. Here's the thing, Cal. You can always negotiate down, right? Say you go into a meeting and you're asking, here's my virtual speaker fee. Let's take a look at what dates work for you. So you put the fee out there and then you ask for the date and then they'll say to you, kal, wow, that's a little bit more than what I had budgeted. And that's when you say, great, great. What did you budget? What had you budgeted?
Unknown (1:01)
Come on this journey with me each week. When you join me, you're going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and.
Heather Monahan (1:09)
Set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up.
Unknown (1:13)
Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited that you're here with me. So this has been an interesting week for me. I'm launching my first, first ever. Well, when you hear this, I'm already going to have done it, but for me, I'm recording this a couple days earlier. I'm usually a few days ahead of you, but right now I'm almost a week ahead of when you're hearing this. So I am conducting my first ever live workshop with a Harvard professor tomorrow for a group of people who have bought tickets to attend. I've never done anything like this before. Right. And this all stemmed from the pandemic happening. Speaking engagements canceled, revenue dropping. I launched this May mentoring program which has evolved into me learning all about this online coaching seminar masterclass mastermind business that if you're like me, I had no idea was a business, much less it's multi billions of dollars and actually more and more people are moving learning online as I believe everyone is right now. Right. So it's just how can we repackage our value proposal and bring it to market virtually? Sounds simple. However, it's not. So my mentoring Program was kind of, that was easier. It's me coaching people one on one and then once a week as a group, which is, you know, essentially what I did in corporate America. So that's easy. But this is different, number one, because I've partnered with another person, right? So anytime you partner with somebody else, you're gonna bring their strengths and talents. However, their uncertainty or questions or, you know, disagreements or whatever. Their. The person I partnered with is a wonderful human being. I absolutely love John. Amazing guy, so talented. But you know, it's our first time working together in this capacity. We both want to deliver value. So it's taking up quite a bit of time. We've had some run throughs, we've had a number of changes to the deck. We, you know, I've been in charge of the marketing end and I'll tell you, marketing right now, there's so many things to look at, right? So yeah, I might have a career in sales and marketing, but everything is different now, number one. Number two, I don't have a team of people to hand things to. So you have to assess in your day, where can I walk away from a few different things and invest time and effort into this right now? Cause that's what I need to do. I needed to really get behind. How am I going to market this? Who am I marketing it to? Who's the right fit? You know, can I get testimonials from him and I to share online? Can I target specific people? Are there people out there that could help me? Are there businesses I should be going after? Which is sort of a new. Taking this instead of B2C business to consumer, now taking it B2B business to business is probably the better approach. We're learning as we go. And I want you to know everyone just needs to be learning right now. And that means sometimes failing and sometimes making mistakes. And yeah, I'm sitting here right now saying, gosh, I put a ton of time into this. The ROI will not be there for me and not for John on this one. But we did have a call today that now that we've figured it out or are figuring it out, it can become more of a low touch product. You know, we are more comfortable working together. It's part of the process, right, the journey. So we'll reevaluate after. And obviously our goal will be to extrapolate testimonial social proof because social proof drives new business ideas. John had was maybe we ask on the call guys, who here is works for a company that they could Connect us with that. You know, we could create or customize a specific class for you and for your team. So I think that's an interesting idea because businesses are looking for ways right now to support employees, invest employees, and help them decipher how to communicate during this very challenging time. And I see some people doing it successfully and some are not right. And every advantage we can give to ourselves, to our companies, to business right now is a game changer. It's that small sliver of a difference that can make a huge impact. And I noticed this when I was running, that someone was 10 seconds ahead of me and I thought, I can catch that person. But if you don't speed up and do something different, that 10 seconds after 10 laps has grown immensely and you are so far behind. And that's what we're seeing happening right now in business. And with innovation or lack of innovation, small changes are really impacting business. And the ones that aren't changing are going to be left behind in the dust. So this is why I'm jumping into this seminar and this online virtual world. I've got to change. I've got to evolve my business. Some of it's going to go great and some of it's going to cost too much time and effort and money and not going to be worth it. But I'm only going to learn if I do it. So I'm in. That is since I got fired. That's my new thing. Step into fear. Fear is a green light. That means go and we're going to make it work. So, so we did offer a money back guarantee, which I think for everyone right now is really smart. We need people to trust us and feel safe with us. That is paramount. Those are the two factors everyone is interested in. How can I trust the other person and make sure I do trust them if I'm going to work with them, collaborate with them or do anything with them and make sure I'm safe and my family is safe. So we've got to answer those two questions. First and foremost, money back guarantee does that right. And establishing some credibility with these people. So I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. No idea how it' going to go. I put quite a bit of time into it, hoping that it goes great and, and if it doesn't, that we evolve it into something better and bigger from here, just go bigger. I was reminded that today on a coaching call with one of my mentees, she was explaining to me that she's just having this epiphany that she hasn't been wanting to go bigger for fear she would hurt other people or intimidate them, and that she's finally getting to this place of freedom where she realizes she's got to show up as the real her, as big as that can be. Otherwise, she's not shining her light to bring brightness and positivity to others. And that's an epic fail. So just go bigger. Just take the chance it really will pay off for you. But you've got to move through that fear moment, which I'm constantly doing. Okay? So one of the ways that I do that, moving through the fear. I got frustrated a couple days ago. I wasn't selling enough tickets for this, and I had set up my page on Shopify, which is pretty simplistic and straightforward, and I've got all the credibility in the world on there, My books on there, my testimonials. My partner is from Harvard. He's a Harvard teacher. He's got testimonials on there. We've got so much credibility and experience between us. However, we weren't converting. So I look at the pricing, I look at the call to action, I look at the incentive, I look at the audience I'm communicating with. I tried a number of different things. Posting on social, obviously. Obviously, Right? That's the simple answer, which I did at frequency, and I didn't see a big conversion on that. So I thought, okay, if it's not working on social, I've got to look at email, right? And I don't like to overwhelm the people in my email list because I send them one email a week. My goal is to add value to them and tell them a story that's going to inspire them and. Or give them a tactic or teaching they can apply to their life. So I don't want to lose them because I'm trying to push a product that seems shortsighted to me. So I. I didn't want to send out just a standalone email on this and bombard them. I went to social media and I sent a bunch of DMS to people that I either have been a guest on their podcast and, you know, given up an hour out of my day to support them or whatever, done things to support other people. I reached out to a few people just to say, hey, you know, if there's any chance you could help me or you have any ideas, how could I market this better, what am I missing?