AP 0973: How Do I Generate Leads in a Saturated Market?

AskPat 973 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 973 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today; as always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

Sweet, now here is today's question from Amir.

Amir: Hi Pat. First of all, thank you very much for your super inspiring podcast that I listen to very often. And the question I have is, how would you go on creating qualified leads in a field where there is a lot of competition and lots of lots of content is free on YouTube? I am teaching guitar online, and people love it. And although there is a lot of free content on YouTube, many people who just start out on YouTube don't see any results. But for some reason they don't try, or don't want to try something new. So how would you go on to create leads and show the benefits of something that people believe they can get for free? Thank you very much, and looking forward to your answer to this. Keep up your great work. Thank you.

Pat Flynn: Hey Amir, thank you so much for this question, I appreciate it. This is a great topic, because it pertains to those of us who podcast as well, and I'm doing both YouTube and podcasting. For those of you who haven't checked out my YouTube channel yet, YouTube.com/smartpassiveincome. I'm focusing a lot more on video and those kinds of things in 2018, so feel free to go there and subscribe, please.

Now, what I like to do in this situation, where you're looking for people to work with you a little bit further—and that's essentially what you want them to do, right? They're finding you for free, you're getting initial exposure, well, how can you convince them to take further action with you, to get their email address perhaps, if that's the first thing you want? And I want to give you the ACE formula, A-C-E; so these are three different ways that you can end up doing it. You can do it in a combination of all three of these things, or even just one of them. So, A-C-E.

The A stands for access; that's something that people who are getting your content for free normally do not have when downloading or getting content from you on those platforms. Access to you is different. So you could potentially create something like a webinar, or a live Q&A, or something else that people can get from you at a specific time beause you don't want to just give all-out access to you at all times, but having a very specific moment, or moments, during the week where you do that, and you give access to people who offer you their email, well then that's the first thing. So access is one of the top things people will want if they enjoy the stuff that you have, and they can get their question answered, they could see behind the scenes of what you're doing. Give them access. And you can even do it, like I just said earlier, behind the scenes. Even if it's not live, you can show people your work space. On Instagram stories, or other places, you can show people behind the scenes. You know, people love to see what's going on in the background, so that's another way that you can, through access, give people some incentive to take further action with you; in order to get that access they'll have to give you their email. So that's the A in ACE.

Then it's convenience. I learned this lesson when I first started out in business, because my very first product that I sold—which was an ebook study guide to help people pass an exam in the architecture industry, it was actually made up of 95 percent of the same stuff that was available on my website for free. And I was freaked out, because I thought that people would complain, “Oh, why are you selling me this stuff, I can get it for free.” But the benefit of getting the book was people didn't have to go through the website, and all the different . . . You know, for you it would be all the different videos, and finding them, and getting it on YouTube; it would be in a more convenient area. So perhaps you could take those videos and put them into a course for free, that people would need to give you their email address for; that would make it a lot more convenient for them to get the whole thing laid out properly from start to finish. I can imagine, perhaps you have a lot of videos on YouTube right now, and you can put them all in a Teachable course, for example. Teachable is the tool that I use, I'm also an advisor for the tool; SmartPassiveIncome.com/Teachable. It's the tool that I use to compile information into a course-like structure. I've done it for free, like with my Will It Fly? companion course, and then I've done it for paid courses, such as Smart From Scratch, and also PowerUpPodcasting.com, and future courses too, just so you know. But yeah, so you could do that, and people would offer you something like their email address, or even potentially even pay you, like I said with my example, for the convenience. [Full Disclosure: I'm a compensated advisor and an affiliate for Teachable.]

So we have access, we have convenience, and then the E is exclusivity. So having exclusive content that's only available for people who are there, who have given you their email—exclusive content. So you'd have to work really hard if a lot of the information is for free on YouTube, but what might be step number two? What's step number two in the lessons that you're teaching? That's not always available, but exclusivity is something people will offer their email address for as well.

So we've got access, we have convenience, and we have exclusivity. Sounds like a course to me too, right? But you can take bits and pieces of that and actually offer it in exchange for an email address. So, Amir, hopefully this helps you. And all of you, remember the ACE strategy for getting people to take action with you: Access, convenience, and exclusivity. One or all of the above.

So thank you so much Amir, I appreciate it, and I'd love to offer you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page.

Thanks so much, I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Gertrude Stein: “We are always the same age inside.” All right guys, take care, thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.