In today’s cutthroat business world, having a strong marketing game can make all the difference between a company barely making it and one that’s thriving. But let’s face it, marketing is no walk in the park. It’s a complex art that demands a keen grasp of consumer behavior, staying on top of market trends, and knowing how to make the most of different marketing avenues.
In this episode of Influence by Design, we discuss how a good marketing strategy can make all the difference in a thriving business with marketing buff Ross O’Lochlainn. Ross is known as the “conversion engineer” due to his background as a Mechanical Engineer. He is the founder of Conversion Engineering and the author of the Open Every Day book.
Marketing is an art of capturing attention, creating desire, and ultimately driving action. It involves understanding your target audience, crafting compelling messages, and selecting the most effective channels to reach potential customers.
Get ready for an exciting adventure in this episode with Ross O’Lochlainn, as we unlock your marketing superpowers! Take your business from being just another face in the crowd to becoming a standout success story and create a lasting impact.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- From engineering to marketing – what inspired Ross to make his career transition (01:45)
- The three things that make marketing work (04:19)
- The importance of unique positioning in your marketing (09:20)
- The outcomes of making your message specific (15:17)
- The power of segmenting your audience (20:40)
- Playing the long game for increased sales (25:30)
- The difference between being sold on an idea vs deciding to purchase (29:59)
- The not-so-secret elements to convert prospects to clients (31:10)
- How to add personality and warmth in your marketing (36:40)
- Ross O’Lochlainn’s book, Open Every Day (40:09)
- The numbers you need to know in business and why they are important (42:01)
QUOTES:
- “Your personality is your strongest positioning; no one else can be you.” -Ross O’Lochlainn
- “You don’t have to close your character; you can make your business open every day.” -Ross O’Lochlainn
- “Organic marketing makes sure that you get your offer really dialed in.” -Samantha Riley
RESOURCES
The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
Open Every Day by Ross O’Lochlainn
WHERE TO FIND ROSS O’LOCHLAINN
- Website: https://conversionengineering.co/
- Website: https://www.openeverydaybook.com
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ABOUT ROSS O’LOCHLAINN
Ross O’Lochlainn is a former engineer-turned-marketing strategist who runs Conversion Engineering — a company that helps education entrepreneurs sell more programs without relying on the launch model through his proprietary Open Every Day System.
TRANSCRIPTION (AI Generated)
Ross O’Lochlainn Snippet (00:00):
Your marketing is engaging, it’s entertaining. It’s enjoyable, it’s insightful, like you can maintain that relationship and maintain people’s attention. And it’s an easy like one two step to lead them to the front door. So when the time is right for them, they’ll raise their hand and step forward.
Samantha Riley Intro (00:19):
Welcome to the Influence By Design Podcast. I’m Samantha Riley, authority positioning strategist for coaches and experts. If you’re ready to build a business that gives you more than just a caffeine addiction, and you dream of making more money, having more time, and having the freedom to be living your best life, then you’re in the right place, it’s time to level up.
Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design, I’m your host Samantha Riley.
I’m your host Samantha Riley. And today we’re going to talk about how to feel your programs without launching. And I know that this is a question that lots of people ask me all the time. Is it possible Can we do it? So I’ve invited Roscoe Lachlan, who is a former engineer turned marketing strategist. He runs conversion engineering, which is a company that helps education entrepreneurs, so more programs without relying on the launch model. And he’s got a proprietary system called the Open everyday system, which we’re going to dive into today. So welcome to the show. Ross. I’m really, really excited to be diving into this topic with you today.
Ross O’Lochlainn (01:22):
Yeah, me too. Samantha was excited when we connected by the topic of this potential for this podcast and the globe beer.
Samantha Riley (01:30):
Absolutely. So engineer turned marketing specialist. Very both both very nerdy, I guess industries or niches? What actually made you the do the jump from engineering to marketing?
Ross O’Lochlainn (01:47):
Yeah, it’s a great question. Like I said, marketing is such a broad space. And there’s room for everything, right? If you’ve got technical marketers, you’ve got the analytic people. You’ve got the copywriters, the graphic designers, and we’re all kind of doing some level of whatever, whatever it is. And yeah, for me, you know, I come from a family of engineers and do math, I had the number capability growing up. So you know, my route to engineering was pretty predetermined for me.
But when I got there, I was like, working for companies like Intel and just it was not me big, multinational companies. I always had a creative like streak to me that wasn’t really forefront or like, wasn’t it wasn’t obvious to me, it was just like a passionate and a thing that I enjoyed, like writing.
And I would I would hang out with the artists and I would draw when I was a teenager, but I never considered like that would be a career because there’s, there’s no money in that. But then I discovered I discovered marketing, through Tim Ferriss actually reading his book, The Four Hour Workweek. And he really did an amazing job in that book of just presenting the concept of like, what is marketing and messaging and split testing.
And it was really the split testing idea that spoke to me as an engineer with like running tests and data and statistical significance. I was like, wow, you could just test your way to a winning message is like, what really, you know, Shawn to me, and I was into copyright I was into writing at the time would write all sorts of articles for websites and magazines, and for nerdy topically video games, granted, so there’s a theme of like, the nerdy analysis and enjoyment of creativity through all of that.
And yeah, when I discovered that you could, like merge the analytics and with the writing, with like, making money and creativity and like researching and understanding people, it was just, you know, it’s like the center of the Venn diagram there. And I was just like, this is this. This is fun. Like, it’s not just Hello, here we go. Yeah, so so that was like the transition just a lot. Not enjoying the rigid engineering stuck in a spreadsheet all day, but it still does give me some enjoyment. It just I needed. Some other things. Some other things to kind of throw in the mix.
Samantha Riley (04:07):
Yeah. Love it. Love it. Love it. So we often hear people saying, if you don’t launch people won’t buy. Can we start here? Obviously, you know, the way that I have introduced this episode, we’ve already you know, shone a light on well, you can what sort of brought you to this type of marketing and not the launch model.
Ross O’Lochlainn (04:35):
Yeah, so so when I switched from engineering, like I did an engineering side assessment of okay, what makes marketing work, like what makes conversions work? And you can really boil it down to like three things, right? There’s, there’s the product like, is it good? Do people want this? Then there’s the list, which is the people that you were pretreated.
Getting to. And then there’s the copy, like the words and the messages that you use to send to the list about the product. And, like copy was like the thing that really spoke to me, oh my god, I could use my words, like many people do things like that when people discover that initially, it’s like, it’s almost like black magic, like when people will just give you money from reading. And so I went deep down, like when I started freelancing and leaving my engineering career behind like, I started as a freelance copywriter. And when you go into that world, like it’s a small, intimate, like World of other people doing this crazy thing that no one talks about in like university college or university education or anything like that, but there’s almost like this mystique to the legendary copywriters in this space that are doing like multimillion dollar launches.
And so that kind of becomes a goal for a lot of copywriters, like I want to be, I want to write a million dollar launch, I want to be part of a million dollar campaign or a multi million dollar campaign. And then you’re looking at all the celebrities in the space, the celebrity marketers, and who’s the copywriter for this person, and that you start getting into that world, which is what I did. And then I was doing launches at every level, like, you know, five, figure six figure seven figure multi seven figure like, launches, and it’s, it’s all it just gets more intense the further up you go, obviously.
But I kind of got to the point where other copywriters wanting to get and I completely burnt out, because the whole launch culture is just like, it’s insane. Like, there are regular, like self care practices that get prescribed in these masterminds. So you don’t like basically kill yourself during these launch campaigns because it’s so ridiculously stressful, particularly at the multi seven figure level when there’s a lot riding on it. And and I just when I got there, I said, this is like I left this other career for this, like, this is not what I want. Not at all. Yeah, as like it’s as well, there was a couple of big like, it’s great when the the payout happens. Like is it okay? What he said a bigger launch if we hit our goals, but like if you’re aiming for a multi seven figure launch, and you only get like 1 million or one and a half million dollars, like you could be in the hole that by a lot. Yeah.
And at that point, I was like, I don’t know how valid Lee sound this strategy is, like, it’s great if it’s, if it’s kind of a supplemental spike of income, but to be banking your entire business, and team on like landing this war chest once a year, twice a year, like it just seemed, from a systems perspective, it seemed a little flawed. And I was like, alright, well, I don’t want to do this. I don’t like clients don’t want to do this, like talking with them. Like they all just want regular people coming to them and joining consistently, but they haven’t like they had tried to build evergreen funnels, none of it had worked. So they were kind of stuck with the launch. And I was like, alright, well, how, how would you solve this problem. And that was kind of the path I went down being sort of thought of as self preservation. And also out of not admitting I’d made a massive mistake. Career. Well,
Samantha Riley (08:17):
I mean, some could say a mistake, other people could say learn to law. And it’s also brought up. Because, you know, one of the pieces there, and I don’t know if people picked it up, is to do that multi seven figure launch. You know, if you only do one and a half million, you’re in the hole, ie you’re spending a lot of money to get there.
So this is why I love and talk about a lot about organic marketing, to really make sure that you have got your offer really dialed in, you know who your people are, you know, your ideal clients or Ballinger clients, as I call them. I think you learn a lot more than got diving straight into paid marketing, one of the first pieces, and you and I sort of talked about this before we started recording was getting really clear on your unique positioning.
So I love your take, and some tips for people to position themselves. Oh, look, they let’s start off with you know, what is that unique positioning and why do people need to really ensure that they get this right or spend time in this place?
Ross O’Lochlainn (09:30):
Totally. Yeah. So when I was first coming up, short story, I was first coming up with the whole transition from engineering to marketing. But one of the guys that really resonated with me was a guy called Perry Marshall and legend in the copy space but reason he resonated with me was because he was a former engineer as well. And one of the things he talked about was the importance of having a unique selling proposition that if you do not have a unique selling proposition, you are in really You’re on shaky ground?
Because it’s, it’s not obvious to people why they should choose you over someone else. Right? And if if it’s not obvious why someone should choose you, you are really exposed in the decision making process that’s going on in the mind of your of your customer, right? Like, as they say, being different is often better than being better. Because yeah, if you’re, if you’re differently, at least, it’s obvious why you’re different. And you’re a choice. But if you’re better, it may be harder to communicate that you’re better. Yeah, it’s
Samantha Riley (10:33):
more How do you even tell people you better and have them believe you write, you know, and I think that this is a trap that people get caught into thinking, oh, I need more clients, I’ll do another, you know, I’ll get another degree or, you know, I’ll do some more study. And no one else knows that. But positioning, you know, this is how you articulate how different you are?
Ross O’Lochlainn (10:55):
Yes, yes. And Perry Perry said all of that. And if you’d like Grade Categories of work on a incremental scale from like, $10 an hour work, to a $20 an hour work to $50 an hour work $200 An hour work to $1,000 hour work, and then $10,000 per hour work. He says working on your positioning and your unique selling proposition, all of that is $10,000 An hour work now that you’re not going to get $10,000, you do an hour work on that, you’re not going to get that $10,000, the hour after or even the month or months after.
But for the amount of time you spend on that, like when you do a good job of it, it’s the sort of thing that will have a huge impact on your revenues over over the course of of a year or two as those additional sales come in. Because you have you have spent that time on on your positioning. So like, I always say that’s my clients like this is the $10,000 an hour work that I am always trying to work on, it’s hard to always be working on it. Because there’s only like, so much you can do before you have to go and test it to the market. But I’m always like paying attention and listening to the market and like looking for ways that I can work on my unique positioning or improve the communication or why what I’m doing is different to other people. So I just encourage everyone listening here, like, you know, figure out what it is that you’re doing. And for who and like you’re asking how to do it.
Like, the key word is just be specific, and be comfortable excluding. Right? Like there’s I think there’s a, particularly when we’re at the earlier stages of a business or business growth. Like this, there’s a desire for more and more and more, because we haven’t got enough, like, if you’re trying to get 10 people, your first 10 people into a program, like it’s a different game than if you’re at 2030 4050 clients. And like some are going and some are coming in the door.
There’s like a regular rotation of them like initially, like you’re you’re trying to take anyone, right, like that’s the Yeah, that’s the vibe. And if you’re good at what you do, the danger is that you can likely get results for a lot of people. Right? Like you could do this. And you also could do this and you can do that. But the issue is that the more people you include, in your own word, then you have to play this kind of verbal jujitsu for how do I describe what I do, that kind of encapsulates all of these things.
So that it makes sense to me. But like when you do that, like I like you, my clients will come to me before we start work on this work. And they’ll say, I do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, I have no idea what you just said like it’s very articulated, but I can’t piece apart like what group of people you’re serving the problem that you solve and why you do it in a different way. Like that’s, that’s not clear.
And if it’s not clear to the like a stranger that you’re talking to on the street, it’s probably not going to be clear to the people that you’re communicating, you’re in your marketing. So like getting specific and excluding a big comfortable excluding certain categories from the group of people that you serve a specific problem that you solve, right? And the way in which you solve it like that, like really, you just have to drill down and find which group you’re most comfortable serving and the problem that they really want. What help with.
Samantha Riley (14:37):
Yeah, I think that it’s really important to also understand because I have a lot of people coming to me going Yeah, but I enjoy to do all of that stuff. And I what I also explain is that it’s okay to do all that stuff. It’s just that you don’t talk about it at the at the front game at the front door. And that may be that you do all that stuff.
Once people come into your world But you do need to be really articulate right up front, this is who I serve, and you will get different sorts of people coming in anyway, just because you exclude lots of people doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get those, you know, extra people coming in, it will happen a little bit. I’d love you to give a an example for people. For the person that’s listening right now that goes, alright, I kind of get that.
Who’s someone that you’ve worked with where they’ve come to you with this? Very wishy washy, you know, I serve everyone and help them with anything kind of message. And how did you dial that in? I’d love you to give an example. So people go Ah, okay, get it.
Ross O’Lochlainn (15:42):
Yeah. So here’s an example. And just to what you said there, like is totally true, like you by excluding people from a message, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to work with them, it’s just if you’re trying to put a message to the market, that is going to resonate, like you have to you have to get specific, and the easiest way to do that is exclude.
But usually what happens when you do that is it resonates more, and you get more people saying yes, and as you said, other people will see that message who aren’t exactly the right fit. But the power and the specificity the messages is what’s going to get people to come that step forward. So as an example, there’s a lady in my, one of my clients, and so she’s, she’s a speaking speaking coach.
So she would help folks who want to put together a talk that like maybe, you know, you’re you’re up in front of a crowd, there’s an opportunity, and you want to deliver a talk that will get you business. And so she is very talented. And she’s kind of part comedian, stage performer, prior business coaches parked like, professional speakers. So she’s got this ability to like merge all three of those things into really being able to have someone put together a talk, that’s going to resonate from a sales perspective, while also educating the audience and getting them to like, show up at the back of the room, right. Like, that’s really what a lot of her clients would would want.
Now, when you have those skills, like she could help a lot of people, right, like coaches, consultants, who maybe got, you know, offer to go on a podcast or to like speak at someone’s in person event, then you’ve got experts, and you’ve got authors who like want to go on a on a speaking tour, or they just wrote a book. And now they want to turn their book into a talk. And she can help them create the talk from the book. And then there’s consultants who want to get hired at conferences to, to get hired by b2b, like executives or whatnot to come in and do work with them. Like it’s all range of people.
And she had helped them all. And one of the things that we did was one of my favorite tools, called the Target Market Selector that I take my clients through, it’s a simple enough tool where it’s like, list out all the groups, and then like, list out the trigger events for the people who have paid you. And then like, what’s their story when they’re coming to you that they’re looking for help with, and like looking for the patterns. And she listed a lot of her clients and we kind of reverse engineered them. And there was a lot of people in there, across those categories. But when she looked at it, like most of them, were fitting into like one, two categories, which was someone who had been booked for a talk.
Like someone had offered them a talk and they’re like, I don’t have a talk, you have loads of content, but they had no talk. And now they were like coming to her saying I need to talk and I want to show up at this person’s audience. I want to deliver value, I want it to be like use it to grow my brand. I don’t want to come across as salesy, but I also want to close some of the audience and get some business. And when we double clicked into just like experts and coaches, who had just been booked for a talk, and just focusing on that, like her her entire offer, as we looked at it was much muddier because she was trying to include all those other groups, right, who are in different contexts.
Because if you’re like if you’re if you’re a professional speaker, and you’re trying to get more speaking gigs, but you get paid for those gigs, right, like, that’s your, your, one of your main revenue sources. And so for that person, like they’re trying to get on the speaking tour, right, but like, they’re their expert speakers, they’re very good at speaking already.
So her offer was kind of talking about we’ll come up with a topic for your thing, but what also practices and then we’ll do this other thing, and it just wasn’t landing for anyone, because she was trying to talk and make this this this offer of like, well, it will be able to do something for everybody. But you know, One person will say, well, that’s not relevant to me at all. Another group would say that’s not relevant to me at all.
And when we double clicked in just in on coaches and experts with the book to speak at another event, and didn’t have a talk and needed to get one done in the next 60 days, like that offer was crystal clear. And as soon as she put that together, it started to convert like way, way higher. And she knows now, as soon as she’s talking to someone, oh, that person’s exactly for this offer, or this person is not the right fit, they need to go to like one to one or this other. This other program I have about getting booked on more speaking.
So by double clicking in and segmenting into like, well, who are these people? What trigger events of the experience that’s caused them to go and look for a solution? And what are they looking for? Like the patterns became very, very clear. And then it was about deciding? Who is this offer not for? And who is it for? And making it clear and compelling at that point was like a walk in the park for her?
Samantha Riley (21:03):
Yeah, and just just for your listening to that, just think about your copy. And when you write because I think so many people get caught trying to, you know, as you mentioned, Ross, right for Well, for this person, and for that person, it doesn’t actually land. You know, once you get really clear on that, it’s a lot easier to go. I know exactly what I need to write about. I know exactly how to articulate that. But what I’d love to know is, how do you get those? Or how do you discover or find out or uncover what those trigger events are? What is your process to uncovering those trigger events?
Ross O’Lochlainn (21:46):
Yeah, so So how I can think about it is, you probably know them already. And so the secret the secret is, take a list of 1015 20 clients, right? For most people listen to this podcast, you’re probably in a situation where you’re still personally interacting with, with most of your clients, and you’ve probably spoke to them, if not as part of the sales process, probably through the delivery to understand where they’re at, what they’re looking for, and where they’re, where they’re going. If you haven’t, that’s fine.
You could go talk to them and reverse engineer it. But for the most part, like with a little rememory, and thinking, you can go back and figure out well, no, that person came to me because they had just done this thing. Right, or like the types of trigger events, I’m always looking for our previous efforts that failed. And the person then had to go look for an alternative way of doing things. end of a chapter.
So I didn’t think it finished and I had to figure out what was next creeping problem that gets to a point of unsustainability slash, I’ve got to figure this out. Right. It’s the it’s the booths, the stone in the booth, kind of Exactly, right. The life transition period, like, you know, something happens, and there’s an awakening. Like, there’s usually some element to the person wants to do something differently.
But there’s a there’s a cause that happened previously. And if you just were just a little thinking most of the time you can you can remember what it what it was, if you can’t, just looking for that in the conversations you’re having with people going forward from this point. They just using that as part of your sales conversation is really important, right? Like, what are the questions I love to ask on my sales calls is, so why now like what’s going on in your business that’s caused you to look for help now rather than six months from now. And usually they’ll tell you well, you know, I’m, I’m sick of launching, or I built this evergreen funnel, supposed to do all this stuff, and it didn’t work.
Or I just had a launch that was good that tanked that I’m about to go into the Reds like this. For me, the patterns are usually typically fairly straightforward, or someone has a hit a plateau and they were expecting to grow on to the next level over the last couple of years that just didn’t happen. And they’re like, I don’t know what’s wrong, but I just know, I’m stuck. Like, you’re the market will tell you what they what they are.
But I just always use the template. Write out all your clients and then break them down with the structure of group of people who experience a trigger event and are looking for specific outcome. And just make sure as you’re deconstructing like Brian and Mary and Sheila, like, was that a coach? Was it a membership site owner or was it an online course creator? Was it a therapist, like, what group were they from?
What was the trigger events as best as you can understand it or remember it and And then what was the specific thing they were looking for. And by breaking individuals down into that, like structure, like, it’s becomes very easy to start to see the patterns, right? Like all the memberships are looking for this, the therapists, they were kind of experiencing this, like, it’s just it lets you start to group people in a more functional way. Yeah.
Samantha Riley (25:21):
And when you’ve got that data, it’s so much easier to understand what to do next. So much easier. Now, we’ve covered off unique positioning, let’s talk about playing the long game, because that’s the opposite of a launch that mind you, I still think the launch still has a bit of a long game.
But let’s not go into that. playing the long game, to enroll people into your courses and programs. What does this look like? And what is a long game like is a long game? You know, because what is long for someone that starting their business might be like two weeks, and someone that’s been in business? While I’ve been in business? 30 years, I know a long game can be years and years and years and years and years. You know, what does it look like in this scenario that we’re talking about?
Ross O’Lochlainn (26:12):
Yeah, well, I want to go back to what you said there, because it’s quite interesting, right? Like the launch has a long game at launch. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against launches, I think launches are awesome. When strategically used with intention, I think the issue I have with them is that they’re constantly prescribed as like the main tool to get people to join. And that if you’re not using them, like you’re not, there’s no other way to get, get people into your program.
And but there are a lot of benefits, like there’s a big awareness, like everyone kind of measures the measure of the success of a launch based on sales. One of the big, I think long game elements of a launch is also the awareness like, you can get so many so much eyeballs on a new thing, and get it in, in the mind of the market to start considering. But the long game, from my perspective is that you take a launch list, right?
Like usually people are, are running a launch for two to four weeks, if you’re paying high level game, it could be a two, maybe three month campaign, right, depending on how sophisticated your marketing is, and how big of a team you’re running, and how many JV partners you’re operating with. But for those people, I’m listening to this podcast, I’d imagine it’s probably going to be two to four weeks, right? Like, if you look at the data for when people purchase, like the number, like a percentage of buyers that will buy over two years, right is about 50% of all leads. So if you got 1000 leads into your world, right, like 500 of those folks are going to buy something from someone over the next two years. Right?
Now, if all you’re doing is focusing just in on this 714 30 day window, like the maximum number of people that could buy during that window is going to be like what, you know, maybe two or 3%. It’s a lot smaller. Yeah, it’s much smaller. And as soon as you start to realize that there’s an upper limit to the number of people that will buy, and it’s not based on how many webinars you’re running, right? Like, the reality is, people buy when the time is right for them, but they only buy, if you’re only selling and promoting.
They’ll only buy during that promotion period. If that’s the only time you’re, you’re leading them into your into your business. So I’m a big fan of like, yeah, use the momentum and the energy from a launch. You don’t have to close your car to get people to buy like I’ve run tests every single way. Like, yeah, you can have a deadline. And you can have reasons to start now. But you don’t have to use the language. I’m closing my cart, and you don’t have to stop taking transactions. Right? And the real name of the game is not how many people that I get during my launch. It’s how many people do I get to join my program over the next six to 12 months? Right? Like that’s really the measure?
And if that’s the measure, then what is your game that you’re playing after that launch period to find and to scoop up all the people that you want over during your launch? But time wasn’t wasn’t right for them to join. Yeah, right. Because you convert so many people during the campaign they’re like, oh my god, I never thought about this problem this way. Like if your marketing is good, and if you’re getting sales I’m guessing it is like you’re probably getting a bunch of people excited about and going oh my god like your your way of doing things. It’s awesome. I definitely need to do that. But like isn’t I haven’t got the money in the bank account right now. Yeah, yeah, I’m on vacation for the next two months or all
Samantha Riley (29:56):
all sorts of things. Yeah.
Ross O’Lochlainn (29:58):
Yeah, bright, but like The difference is a key distinction between being sold on an idea and purchasing a product. Those are two very different things. And a launch will get a lot of people sold. But they’ll only get so many purchases. So what’s the game that you’re playing? To make sure that you do get those purchases, you continue with that momentum you you continue to build a relationship and your authority with people while offering ways to get started or not pushy, right.
And that’s really one of the long game principles is, like, if you’re just doing back to back to back launch after launch after launch, like, all you’re doing is setting and you’re putting no deposits in the emotional or Trust Bank Account. Like eventually, people just tune you out, because you’re not worth listening to you become predictable. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
But, but if your marketing is engaging, it’s entertaining. It’s enjoyable, it’s insightful, like you can you can maintain that relationship and maintain people’s attention. And it’s an easy one, like, one two step to lead them to the front door. So when the time is right for them. They’ll raise their hand and step forward.
Samantha Riley (31:09):
Yeah. So I mean, Gary Vee talks about this with, you know, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Is this the kind of thing that you’re talking about here? For people that don’t buy? Is it just, you know, putting out good content? Is it paid? Is it organic? You know, what does this look like this nurture sequence? And what needs to be put in place to get people to hand over their credit card when the time is right for them?
Ross O’Lochlainn (31:38):
Yeah, yeah. So
Samantha Riley (31:40):
question I understand. No, no,
Ross O’Lochlainn (31:42):
it’s great. Great question, right? I know exactly what you’re what you’re aiming at, right? So the way I think about it, as you’ve got, you’ve got two elements to converting someone. Right. The first is nurture. and nurture is a word that gets used a lot.
So I want to give the specific definition I have for that. And then the second is convert, which is like, once someone is has been nurtured to the point that they trust you enough to say, yes, how do you actually get them to say, to say, yes, now, I think you want to be doing both things all the time. And you can absolutely do things in both in a single in a single email, right? I would say the definition of nurture, is, it’s not about like, keeping people warm, or adding value like that is that is true, that is like partly what you want to be doing.
But is that really what you’re trying to do? What nurturing is about, it’s about building two beliefs in the mind of the market, right. And I want to install these two beliefs in your mind. So that when you are ready to take action, like you’re already pre sold on me as the person, right, and those two beliefs are number one, you can get the result, meaning you have the capability. Right, so like, I could look at them and say almost mad as well able to help me solve this specific problem.
Like, she’s, she’s got the experience, she’s, she’s got the track record, she’s got her unique system, like all of that stuff would be demonstration of like the capability, right? And then the second is your character, you will get the result. I believe that if I, if I go and work with Samantha here that like, she is going to get me there, I am going to be able to get the result by going with her like she’s going to follow through, she’s going to be like, the right person for me. Right. So that’s more kind of like no, like, trust element.
But it’s no like trust in you. There’s also like knowing and liking someone, but trusting that they have the capability. Like those are two elements and all of your marketing needs to be at some level, like dripping and dripping and dripping on both of those cases. And making those cases constantly, right, through telling stories, case studies, like giving insight with clients, like demonstrations, give it away free tools, like all of these are great ways to do both of those things, demonstrate the capability and then as you show up and show your personality and like how you interact with your clients, like the demonstration of the other element that you will get the result will come through because you’re not just some shady you know, fly by night person who’s you know, just looking to hoover up someone’s credit card details to the to the engine so like that’s that’s really what the nurture element is about.
And then the second part is the convert and that’s about how you make asks. Right and there’s different ways to make asks you can make asks with different level of force. And like by that I mean like you could like a launch is a very high pressure ask because it’s like would you like to do this but it’s like all this emotional pressure and Time pressure and opportunity pressure that’s kind of orchestrated into this social event where there’s a million partners, promoting as formal and everything and, like, you know, there’s this elegant ways to do that. And this kind of child is brutish, teenage ways of doing that. And like, you know, take what you will from each, but like, that’s one method of doing it.
But you can also just regularly invite people to come in saying, like, Hey, I’m doing I’m starting a new group next month, would you like to join us in classic kind of Dean Jackson style, and looking to see who’s paying attention and making the offer to them, because if you do a great launch, a bunch of people will be sold. And then all you have to do is actually ask, and if the timing is right, the timing is right.
And so it’s about moving people forward, asking, inviting, or orchestrating events, where you can have a conversation with individuals to see if now is the right time or not, that conversation can be a chat, it can be an email, it can be, it can be a call, but like, you want to be doing both at the same at the same time, like an email from me will have like, you know, demonstration of by capability and character, and then a call to action.
Right. And then once a month orchestrating some sort of time bound event for like, whether it’s an invite for people or or maybe I’m giving away something, or I’m doing a workshop, like it’s an opportunity for people to step forward and go, Oh, I’m here with Ross. And I can talk to Ross today. Like, it’s, it’s about that push and pull.
Samantha Riley (36:39):
Yeah, I think there’s something that you said in there, that was really important, and that was personality. And this, I think, is not talked about as being as important as what I believe it is. Because people buy us and what makes us different, because, you know, if if you don’t like someone, you’re not going to work with them.
Right? If there’s, you know, if they say things that don’t feel right, or your values don’t resonate, or, you know, there’s something about them that you don’t like the way they show up, then you’re not going to work with them. So I think it’s so important to ensure that we put personality into our content. And also going back to what you were originally talking about with our positioning, that’s what’s going to make us stand out because no one can replicate our personality. Yeah, is there any of
Ross O’Lochlainn (37:35):
your personality, your personality is your strongest positioning it no one else can be you, everyone will come a pale second, write any of your personality, you don’t have to create a cult of personality to make it work. But like having a business that is tailored around you to your strengths, where your personality shine through, like that’s hard to replicate, you know? And that’s, that’s part of the magic is how do you find the people that you’re meant to serve and that you enjoy serving, right, and then overlap with what you’re really you’re really good at. But it’s a simple formula.
It’s like, I have this specific group of people solve this specific problem in this specific way. Like for me, like I’m helping establish experts and coaches, right, sell online programs, which is a very plain, simple, common problem. I’m not the only person to do that. But I do it in a very specific way. Like I help you sell but out to launch model in a way that feels good and is authentic. Right? And so specific group common problem that like you don’t have to get, you don’t have to get creative with that second one, that people want to get creative and say, Oh, I saw this unique problems like No, no, no, no, you want to solve a common problem? Because that’s where the money is.
Right? Yes. Like, would you want to do it in a specific way that has demand and I knew a lot of my clients did not want to do the big launch? Right? They wanted to, they wanted to do this in another way. And I wanted to do it in another way. Right? So that’s the third way and then you do it with your unique system, your unique process, your unique method, right? And for me, that’s the open everyday system, right? And if you can find your combination of those four things, like it’s like that Venn diagram again, right, like you layer the four things over.
That’s where Samantha is, that’s where Brian is, like, Oh, I know exactly what they do and how they do it. And then that’s enough to get you chosen. But then if you show your personality on top of that, it’s like, oh, Ross is clearly the guy for me. There’s only like three people who do this thing that he does, but he has his unique system. He’s an engineer. I need this way of doing it. Like it’s just it’s easy for people to pick you the right people to pick you at that point.
Samantha Riley (39:59):
Yeah. I know we’ve covered lots today but also such a tiny little amount of what you do. You’ve got nine different levers that people can pull, and a scorecard that helps them do that. And I know that you talk about this in your book. I mean, you just did mention the the open everyday system. Can you tell us a little bit about the book? Yeah, it is the open everyday system, isn’t it?
Ross O’Lochlainn (40:25):
Yes. Yeah. So the book is, is a, like the encapsulation of what we’re kind of talking about here, right? Like, how do you sell stuff without the launch bottle? Well, you don’t have to close your character, you can make your business open every day. That’s like, the fundamental kind of thesis of the book, subtitle is like breaking free of the large model, with a simple system that makes new sales every day.
The idea there is like, a lot of people feel trapped with a large model, like they want to move away from it, but they have not found something that reliably produces the sales they’re looking for. So they can constantly have to go back. And they’re kind of trapped in this, like, I hate it, but I have to do it. And so the book is just talked about the the issues with the launch model. You know, there’s it’s very, don’t get me wrong launches have built empires. And they’re great. They actually, they worked phenomenally well, when used appropriately, but like, I don’t believe they’re the best way to run a business.
So the book and unpacks that give some strategies and methods that we talked about, for how to get, get those consistent sales coming in from your new leads, and also, like a big win for a lot of people. It’s how do you work that existing list of leads that you’ve already got to convert more of those folks, like we kind of talked about today with the nurturing? And with the, with the conversion? Like, what are some of the tactics and strategies you could use to do that? consistently? And regularly? Yeah,
Samantha Riley (41:47):
yeah, love it. And we can get a copy of that at or you can go get a copy of that open everyday book.com. We’ll put the links in the show notes over at influenced by design podcast.com. Now, you just mentioned then, that you do need to track, you know, what’s going on in your business? How important is it to know the numbers? And what numbers do we really need to know?
Ross O’Lochlainn (42:12):
Yeah, that’s really, really great question. As the first part, it’s really important to know your numbers. But I would say, knowing all the numbers is overwhelming. You do not really need to know the open rate on every single email, like you know, who cares, right? You want to use metrics like that, to diagnose if something’s going wrong in your emails, great. But like, I can tell you my average overnight, but I don’t care what the click through rate on any specific email. Now, the big numbers you definitely want to know, obviously, are going to be like, let’s assume that you know, your monthly revenue and the number of sales, the number of clients, we’re talking about the marketing performance.
The only number that matters, I’d say is going to be a return on adspend or return on lead gen. Right? If you’re doing paid ads, it’d be return on adspend. If it’s going to be organic, you want to like assess how much time, effort and resources Am I putting into my lead gen activities? And what’s the return on those?
At the end of the day, the only number that really matters is return on adspend. Like, you know, conversion rates, all that stuff is meaningless if you’re not getting money back from the money that you’re putting into the into the machine. Now, the big thing I would qualify for people to understand that though is there is an over fascination, and I think it’s a negative one on how much money am I getting back in the first 30 days. Right?
That that is something that you want to be mindful of, but don’t like don’t over emphasize that if that’s not one leg of that 100% return that you’re failing, like the biggest direct response companies in the world are happy if they see 30 50% Money coming back in the first 30 days, because they know if that’s the case, they’re really on to a winner because they have this long game in place. And they know when they’re going to break even they know the lifetime value of their customer. And they know how long it’s going to take for that money to come back. So I’m a big fan with my clients of understanding. You get your 1000 leads in this month or 100 leads whatever your number is, how much money do those leads bring back after 30 days, after 60 days after 90 days after 180 days and after a year? Right? Like start playing getting that those numbers out now, or at least get the things in place.
So you could calculate that in a year. Because that’s really what the game is all about is understanding how much money can I afford to put into the machine so that I know in six months it’s you know, a year from now that I’m going to get seven eight or 10 times the money, the money back. So yeah, if there’s one number 10 Understand it really is that because I see so many, so many experts and coaches, that they’re they were sold this evergreen funnel or whatever. And they were like, oh my god, I’m only making 80% of my money back. And in a month, I’m not, I’m not, it’s not printing money for me, like I’m not putting $1 in and getting six back immediately, this is a failure, and they turn it off.
And then we do this analysis with them. And in six to 12 months, they like have 10x to their money, but they turned it off, because they’re over, over emphasizing and putting too much importance on, did the money come back in 30 days or not. So that’s the number I’d encourage everyone to look at.
And also calculate your time, your average time to conversion. If you take this to your full list of your customers, right, as close as possible, you’re not going to have 100% accuracy on this, but look at the date that they purchased their first thing from you, and then find for each of those individuals, when did they enter your database, like as a lead as a contact, like whatever funded for this date back you can get and calculate the time difference between those two?
And then look at the average for all of your clients like on average, how long does it take a client of yours or customer or students or whatever it is to like be in your orbit before they come in to land? Because there’s a lot of internet marketing advice out there that it’s like, if you’re not converting in 14 to 30 days, like get them off your list or time wasted time and like out all the data ICs? Like, yeah, none of that is true. So yeah, those would be two numbers, I’d encourage everyone to look at, I don’t want to give like specifics outside of that.
Because depending on the funnel, like you might be doing like landing pages, or you’re not doing landing pages on your cost per lead. And all this is going to be in service of those two numbers. But that’s really, you know, how effective is your marketing? And how effective is it at getting people to get started sooner rather than later.
Samantha Riley (47:08):
I love the way that you explain that. And to remind me of that little meme that I’m sure we’ve all seen of the little man, that’s underground mining, and he’s you know, picking away and you can see that the diamonds are there. But he’s like, nope, stop it, we don’t know.
And, you know, we we always talk about that. And, and if we don’t know how far away they be, you could just be picking away forever. Or you could be walking away from the diamonds. So it’s really important to to know, kind of where that sits.
So I really love the way that you explain that. Bras it’s been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today. Where can people go to find out more about you because I’m sure that after listening to that they want to know more?
Ross O’Lochlainn (47:48):
Yeah, so best place I’d say to get started would be open everyday book.com You can go there, you can get a copy of the book. And then when you opt in, we’ll send you to the resource center, we’ve got a bunch of other guides if you’re interested in things like you know, lead Jain or white knights or coming up with the value proposition and etc. We’ve got a bunch of other resources that will send your way after you opt in. But that’s the best place to kind of get started. And that’s where I go.
Samantha Riley (48:15):
Love it so much. Thanks so much for joining us. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Ross O’Lochlainn (48:19):
Yeah, that’s the plan. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Samantha Riley (48:23):
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business to join us in the coaches, thought leaders, and changemakers community on Facebook, the links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com
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