TCC Podcast #376: Super Thinking with Jereshia Hawk

Too many of us get caught up in the doing of our business instead of thinking about our business. So for this 376th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we are flashing back to another one of our best interviews… this one from business strategist Jereshia Hawk who went deep on selling to high ticket clients as well as what it takes to truly grow your business. She calls it super thinking. We call it CEO time. Whatever you call it, you definitely want to hear what Jereshia has to say about it.

Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

Things we mentioned to check out:

The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground

Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  Welcome to the New Year. Whether you’re back at your desk today or still taking a few days to ramp back up for 2024, this interview is just what you need… or at least, it is just what I needed to hear to kick off the new year.

It is the perfect compliment to last week’s throwback episode with Seth Godin. Because Jereshia is another expert that I love to learn from. When we interviewed her a little over three years ago, she shared a ton of great information about selling to clients with money… what is often referred to as high-ticket sales. And that’s what we focused the title and promotion of that interview on.

But we also covered the idea of super-thinking. That is the idea that we need to be creating space for coming up with new ideas and insights and not just reacting to what’s going on. And quite honestly, a lot of us spent the past year reacting to economic issues, artificial intelligence and a lot of other stuff that impacted the way we work.

So I think you’re going to like the throwback interview with business coach Jereshia Hawk.

Before we get to that, if you want this year to be better than last year, better clients, better projects, and better opportunities, you absolutely need to visit thecopywriterunderground.com and check out the resources waiting for you there. That’s thecopywriterunderground.com.

Now let’s get to our interview with Jereshia…

Kira Hug: All right, Jereshia, welcome. We want to kick this off with your story. How did you end up as a high ticket sales coach?

Jereshia Hawk:   Well, I kind of stumbled my way here. I was an engineer by trade before even knowing this whole online world existed. And I started doing some of my videos, started getting into coaching, just people asking me to give advice or insight on how I was able to navigate my corporate career and how I was able to position myself for upward mobility opportunities in a nontraditional way or in a way that just wasn’t the same beat and path of how you’re supposed to excel in corporate. And one thing I started recognizing during my coaching calls at the very, very beginning, when I was charging $60 for a month of coaching, less than what you would pay for a fitness class, and the biggest thing that I noticed was the transferrable skills that I had acquired in corporate America.

I was a lead engineer of a $400 million pipeline project, I was responsible for managing our money on a day-to-day basis, making decisions based off of input and output, and so I understood how money moved from a corporates perspective, but then I also understood kind of a gap that I noticed in the industry, or that I noticed just from people that I was discussing on, how do you effectively articulate your value in a way that whoever is in the other position, the buying decision or the position of authority to make a decision, how do you articulate your value in a way where they get it and that it also correlates to how it impacts the bottom line or impacts the thing that’s most important to them, and how do you position yourself to be able to do that repeatedly.

And once I started to recognize that those three things were really my sweet spot and as I started growing in the coaching business, that’s where high ticket sales was my natural zone of genius. Because I think when you are selling offers that are $2,000 to $20,000, it’s usually the range most of my clients are in, there’s just a different way that you have to articulate your value than if you’re selling something for $500. There’s a different way that you have to position yourself in order to attract people to know just know, like and trust you, but to believe you, respect you and align with you from a value base perspective, to want to be able to invest with you at a higher level.

So it was definitely a work in progress. It took about two years to feel confident in myself to be able to kind of own that as an identity in this online world before I really dove head in. It’s really recognizing these transferrable skills and also identifying where is the gap that I see in the industry that we’re in and where can I really be adding value from a unique perspective.

Rob Marsh:   So before we jump in to all of the aspects of high ticket sales, I want to ask about your engineering background because this seems really unique to me. I talk to a lot of people who’ve built online businesses, who are working in the online space, and I don’t think any of them are engineers. So is there something from your engineering background in education that made you especially good at what you’re doing today, skills that you learned there that you apply to how you help today?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. I have clients that joke and say I’m never hiring a coach that was an engineer after working with you now. I think one of the biggest things is that as an engineer, we’re trained to use the resources that we have to creatively solve problems. So I think that was a mindset shift that individually helped me as a business owner in the online space, or just with my business, because I don’t look at problems as, I don’t know, opportunities of failure exactly. It’s more of a big experiment and it’s like, okay, I’m willing to test and try and experiment until I can figure out a solution rather than if I try once, feeling ridiculously defeated if it doesn’t pan out.

And I think that’s a mindset aspect that really does correlate to how I coach my clients is really getting them onboard that it’s really progress over perfection. We’re really here. It’s continuous improvement, not get it right on the first time. And so I think that it correlates into how we teach and coach our curriculum. And I think it makes me a bit different but I think the other thing that really has been a huge advantage for me because of being an engineer is I think very process-oriented. So all of my curriculum is designed in a way where if a client comes in, it’s like an assembly line. How can we design our curriculum in a way that moves them through that assembly line so that they are getting consistent results from client to client, and it’s very predictable, it’s very repeatable.

And I think that is a huge reason why we have a very high success rate of our clients. We have a coaching program that’s around the $2,000 price point. I’d say 75%, 80% of our clients earn a full return on investment within the first 90 days, which traditional courses or online programs, they normally have about a 10% to 12% completion rate in our industry on average with our higher programs that are in the five-figure price point, we’re just able to help people grow pretty fast pretty quickly, and I think that’s 100% attributed to how we design our curriculum, and that is something I learned from being an engineer. How do you think about the step-by-step process that would guide somebody through knowing when they need to do what and where their focus needs to be, to be able to produce whatever the desired end objective is that was promised to begin with.

So I think just how I think about curriculum is more aligned with maybe how Apple thinks about creating a new product or how maybe software companies think about developing software, it’s this alpha beta, delta launch is through this continuous improvement and this feedback loop that you get from clients to enhance your curriculum. And I think even the clients we get to serve, when they start to think about their curriculum and their client experience journey, it really puts them at a huge advantage against their peers because most other coaches or service providers or copywriters in the industry, they may be amazing at what they do but they may not know how to deliver their client experience and the delivery of whatever they do in that predictable of a manner. So I think those are two things that I 100% attribute to my engineering background, for sure.

Kira Hug:   Well, let’s break that down even more because I’m not naturally a process person. I don’t have a background in engineering, so if I want to create this incredible experience for my copywriting clients and also with my programs that we run together, I want high completion rates, I want them to be engaged, I want them to perform well in those programs, how can I do that better? What are some really specific steps I can take, especially if I’m not naturally process-minded like you?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah, that’s a great question. One of the first things that I recommend and I think really what elevates a client experience and really differentiates a person from peers or competitors in the industry is your ability to be able to anticipate your clients’ needs before they know they need them.

So I think in sales or in marketing, a lot of us can default to know, okay, I need to overcome some objections to get somebody to buy. And we think that’s the only time that we’re going to have to overcome an objection. Once a client enrolls and pays and signs on for the copywriting services, you still have to overcome objections that they are going to have to do to provide you the deliverables that you need to produce the website. They need to send over the copy… well, I guess you guys are writing the copy, but whatever the deliverables are, there’s still objections that we have to overcome once they become a client to get to the finished product.

So one of the first things that I recommend to enhance your process, even if you’re not process-oriented, is look at your client journey from the moment they enroll until a project is complete, and identify what are the two to four key areas where there’s typically resistance or resistance to doing whatever is needed to be able to move them forward in the process, and then start to creatively think of, okay, what could I be doing to help either remove that barrier altogether or to upfront communicate with the client and say, “Hey, at these points during the journey, you may feel some resistance, you may experience X, Y or Z, and I may not be able to remove that feeling or that fear that you may experience, but here are the tools that you’re going to need to be able to manage them so that you can still move forward versus stalling, stopping or quitting altogether.”

And I think that is one thing that everybody listening to this can absolutely do in their client experience journey or their curriculum delivery journey, depending on how you show up as a copywriter to be able to enhance that experience and help increase the likelihood that your clients are going to get the result that you promised when they enrolled with you.

Rob Marsh:   So those are client processes, what about personal processes for things like getting more work done, or maybe even we talk about morning routines, those kinds of things, how can we take those same principles and apply them to processes that help us be more effective?

Jereshia Hawk:   Oh, like in the business, like on the backend operations?

Rob Marsh:   Yeah. Business and just with execution in getting things done, and making sure that we’re actually moving forward with building the parts of our business that maybe aren’t client facing.

Jereshia Hawk:   Man, I wish I had the perfect solution for that because I struggle with that on a daily basis, Rob. But…

Rob Marsh:   Me too, that’s why I’m asking.

Jereshia Hawk:   Well, one of the things that has been really powerful for me as a business owner is either every Monday or every Friday, just depending on the week, I carve out about an hour in my calendar to do what I like to call super thinking. Brooke Castillo has an amazing podcast about it and there’s also a book called The Road Less Stupid that also really discusses just the importance of giving yourself time to think and come up with ideas and come up with solutions rather than just reacting. So that carved out time has helped me improve my processes from business owner and operational backend because now, I’m starting… I guess the way… a problem can present itself, right? Like, how do I enroll 10 new clients by the end of the month?

And if we just start… I think the natural default for a lot of us is just you kind of just start throwing spaghetti at the wall and waiting to see what sticks, without fully diagnosing what’s the actual problem that we’re trying to solve and really planning the process rather than planning the outcome. What is really required of me to accomplish that goal given the parameters and conditions that exist? And I think that’s I guess a process… developing a process on how you make decisions is probably one of the most important processes I have developed as a personal individual and has allowed me to lead a better team, a very lean team and being effective business owner is having a process for how you make decisions.

And that’s something that have been a work in time but it all started with me setting up time to just give myself time to think. What are the challenges that I’m currently experiencing this week? What is the actual problem that I’m trying to solve? Really giving myself space to diagnose a situation or a challenge or an obstacle beyond just what I’m seeing at surface level. And it normally always boils down to something like mindset shift or internal fear that I have that I haven’t reconciled yet that’s really the thing that’s preventing me from moving forward.

What I’ve noticed for me at some area or specificity within a self-sabotaging activity that is preventing me from taking to action or making the decision or making the hire or being bold and courageous enough in my marketing content, or whatever it is. So I don’t know if that’s the answer you were looking for, Rob, but I think creating space in your calendar to give yourself the opportunity to actually think and properly diagnose challenges and situations. And something I recently told my clients to do, and this is something I revisit on a quarterly basis personally, is look back at past over the last quarter, what were some key decisions that you made, but really think about how did I make that decision and what influence that decision? Did I make that decision out of fear? Did I make that decision out of an abundant mindset? Did I make that decision reactionary? Was I proactive in that decision?

Because then you can start to reverse-engineer. Like, I had this obstacle, this is the criteria that I used to make that decision. I maybe not didn’t recognize it in the moment, but reflecting back, I can kind of see it. And then I can now make a decision, do I want to continue making decisions that way? Does that actually serve me and serve where I’m trying to go? And that’s something that you can teach your team how to do as well so that when you start delegating and hiring team members, you’re not just delegating tasks, but you’re also teaching them how to make decisions to move the company forward. So that’s one that’s relevant. I literally did it yesterday, Rob. So yeah, I hope that answered the question.

Rob Marsh:   I mean, it definitely gives me things to think about here because the process for making decisions and the process for using your time more wisely, that’s something that I’m always trying to dial in too, so I love hearing your perspective on it. There’s some things here I’m going to try. I’m definitely putting The Road Less Stupid on my book list. I could use a lot less stupid in my life.

Jereshia Hawk:   It’s a good read, for sure.

Kira Hug:   Okay. So you mentioned you did this yesterday with your team, can we run through that and your process for making decisions with your team after you’ve already diagnosed a problem, can you give us some examples of what that conversation look like with your team? So we can start doing it within our own business, whether or not we have a team.

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. I mean, my team is two part-time employees. We’re a seven-figure company. We are very lean, and I was doing this before I had the team. But I think sometimes, I want to point this out before even diving into this, Kira, if this is okay, is I think sometimes, when we’re solopreneurs, we forget that we’re also employees to the company that we’re building. And I think it’s so important for us to not lose sight of that. Yeah, it might be just you building this company but also think about yourself as an individual. I’m also an employee of this company, and that means, am I giving myself performance reviews? Am I sitting down myself and being an active participant in the strategy meeting that you would be having if the team was bigger? So I just wanted to point that out because regardless if you have a team or you don’t, it’s super important to be having these conversations.

But with the team, one of the ways that we’ve been doing this. Before, I was very terrible at this. I would just have a list of tasks. It would have very clear outlines of what… well, a lot of the time, it actually didn’t have clear outlines on what success looked like or how to get it done, and then I would hand them over to somebody. What I realized is that I’m still the one making all of the decisions and I stop necessarily having to execute the task but now I’m having to answer all the decision questions that they have, which is you now become the bottleneck in the business and can stall the growth of the company.

But how this looked this past week with the team, I did this yesterday individually, but about a week ago, we did this with the team. When we are creating new projects, so it’s like, okay, this is the end objective that we’re trying to get to by the end of the year. That was what this discussion was, is how do we finish the year based off of these goals and metrics that we set at the beginning of the year. And we kind of start from a clean slate. That’s something I also learned from corporate is I think it was called a zero sum budget where every year, we would start from zero. You would have to basically reestablish necessity for purchasing things, hiring things, where we spend money, where we spend time, we’d have to do that every single year. So I kind of take that same approach on a quarterly basis on when we plan goals.

If we had to start from where we are right now, not obligated to doing anything we were doing yesterday, not obligated to do anything that we said we were going to do tomorrow, what are the things that we would do to hit the objective that we try to hit, and everybody submits their project ideas. And once those project ideas are established and set, then we start to diagnose. Is this scope of work clearly defined? Is this something that we can complete in the next six weeks? So, this is something we also learned from Basecamp, the software company. They have a really great book called Shape Up, and the Shape Up book walks through the process of how they plan projects. So a lot of the inspiration for what we’re doing now for our company is actually based off of some of the framework that they teach inside of that book on how to break down problems and clearly define the problem that you’re trying to solve and all of that.

But one of the things that we have all of our team members do is, okay, what are the things that have to happen in order to accomplish this project? But then also, it’s the responsibility of the team members to say what decisions would somebody need to be able to make, to be able to complete this task? And now this allows us to start shifting ownership. It also allows them to see themselves as owner as a part of the process because it’s not just about you doing what Jereshia told you to do, but, okay, what are the decisions that I need to be able to make to be able to complete this task and kind of thinking about them before the project actually rolls out.

And what Shape Up kind of calls it is identifying the rabbit holes, what are the potential pitfalls that you might run into, and how can you do more of that thinking on the front end rather than being reactionary to it once things roll out. So that it something… it’s very collaborative. There’s some work they do ahead of time and they bring that to the meeting so that we can be a bit more efficient, because we have a remote team, during our time together.

But I think just diagnosing, what are the decisions that we have to make. And then now, it’s been my responsibility. And I think as an individual business owner, if you have a team, it’s really important… this is new for us. How do we make decisions as a company, and then how can I start to coach my team members on how to do that more effectively while we’re learning and growing so that they can feel more confident in their decision-making ability rather than just running back to me, saying, “This is the problem. What am I supposed to do?” And me giving them the answer.

Rob Marsh:   So I’m really taken with this idea of running a performance review on a single person in the business. That’s not…

Kira Hug:   Me too.

Rob Marsh:   I’ve never considered that before. And there’s a lot of talk, when you start as a freelancer or whatever, that you may have the worst boss in the world, right? Because we are our own bosses, we don’t hold ourselves accountable to the things that we maybe say we do. Do you have a formal, like a form, or a set of questions that you ask yourself when you do that kind of thing? Or is it informal and you’re just thinking, what am I doing to reach my goals, what is the goal that I’m trying to reach. What does that look like?

Jereshia Hawk:   Well, I’m working on creating it a bit more formal. I’m laughing because the first question I ask myself is would I hire myself again.

Rob Marsh:   Yeah, that’s a terrible question.

Jereshia Hawk:   It is. It is, but it’s very enlightening. I do it with my team members every question or every six months, I’m like, knowing what I know about this person’s performance, their interactions, would I hire them again? So when I do my own performance reviews, I’m like, “Well, would I hire myself to do the things that I say that I’m supposed to be doing?” And I’m laughing because I’ve had to fire myself multiple times and luckily, I’ve been able to rehire myself multiple times. But it’s a really good reality check. And if the answer is no, why is that? And it’s really having these conscious, radical conversations with yourself.

And, I mean, I always say I think entrepreneurship is the best form of therapy if you allow it to be, because some people, well, one, not maybe give honest answers to that question, and two, if they are saying that, okay, yes, I’m dropping the ball here, here and here, are you going to operate with the level of self-integrity to say, okay, take ownership for where I may be had been dropping the ball and recognize, this is what I’m committed to doing moving forward. But that’s usually the question I start with.

And then, asking myself, okay, well, why or why not? What’s actually coming up? And then that starts to peel back the layers of where the actual… again, it’s going back to really properly diagnosing the actual problem, because then it starts to say, oh, well, maybe I’m not doing a good enough job actually communicating expectations to my clients that’s why I’m having this issue with boundaries being abused. And it’s like, okay, well, what do you need to be doing to better communicate expectations with clients so that there are healthier boundaries between your working relationship rather than you burning yourself out or getting to a place where you absolutely resent your clients?

That has always allowed me to actually dig deeper and actually find out, take ownership of what’s going on rather than saying, well, this is just what it is and kind of, I don’t know, crying wolf to the circumstances. But it’s actually been a really empowering exercise as long as I maintain that angle of perspective. It normally starts with that question, then it’s a series of, well, why is this happening? Well, where is this coming up? Okay, well, what caused that?

Another question that I always ask in my performance evaluations is where am I not taking ownership, and where do I need to be taking ownership at a greater level. And then another question, I might need to pull this up, I might be able to send this to you guys to put it in the show notes later, because I do have some questions that I ask myself every single time, but another one is just what decision am I delaying out of fear? What decision am I not making because I’m afraid?

Kira:   Those are good. Those are really good. So yeah, I definitely need to fire myself. I’ll do right after this recording.  Let’s pivot a little bit here, and I really want to talk about high ticket sales. Let’s start with where we mess this up. And maybe, I know you work with some copywriters, maybe we generalized it a little bit more, but where do we typically fall down when we’re trying to make the high ticket sale?

Jereshia Hawk:   Well, I will talk about copywriters because it’s really interesting that a lot of writers that, when they initially come to me, there’s this huge mindset that copywriters can’t make money online or that writers don’t get paid high ticket. And I’m not sure if this is the same for listeners here, but that…

Rob Marsh:   Yeah.

Jereshia Hawk:   Okay.

Rob Marsh:   Yeah, it is.

Jereshia Hawk:   I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just my pool of people in the world. But they come to me with this belief that, oh, because I’m a writer, unless I’m Rachel Hollis or Oprah and have this New York Time’s bestselling book, I can’t make money as a writer. And I just think that belief is where a lot of individuals go wrong because they don’t even give themselves permission that clients paying them $2,000 or $15,000 or $40,000 for projects is even available to them. So, Kira, I think that’s the first where people go wrong, especially copywriters, is they don’t even give themselves permission that, that’s available to them as an option in their business.

Rob Marsh:   So, yeah. So let’s assume then that I want to start adding high ticket sales to my business, whether it’s projects $2,000 plus, I’m not even sure, maybe high ticket’s more than that, $5,000, $10,000. What are the steps? How do we start figuring out what it is that we should be offering and how do we sell it?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. I want to say… look, I know somebody, a friend that’s a copywriter. She sells a $40,000 copywriting contract for a 12-month agreement, and she literally sells out every single year all of her spots, but how did she do that or how can somebody listening to this do that?

I think the first thing is, one, actually getting clear on defining what the offer promise is going to be. And this is where the mindset typically needs to shift because it’s not like, well, I’m… we have to really think about it beyond just like I’m writing emails for somebody, or I’m creating a sales page copy, thinking about it from what the deliverable is, but really start to think about it as what is the promise that I’m guaranteeing with this? Let’s say you’re doing a sales page for somebody’s coaching program launch, and I know most people that I know in the space, they charge $5,000 to $15,000 to do that. And it’s not just because of how much “time” that they spend writing, but they understand how to articulate the value from I know that me giving the sales page is going to produce X amount of money for them.

So, really thinking about what is the promise or the guarantee, what is the outcome that is able to be produced by the copywriting that you’re delivering to that client and you getting clear on what that is.

I think the second thing is aligning your price, understanding what does it operationally take from an expense standpoint to be able to do what you do, or a time perspective. But also, think about it of what is the return on investment that this client is going to experience by the work that I’m writing for them and just making this healthy balance between those two things.

And then when it comes to the actual packaging of the offer, you have to keep it simple. Confused clients do not convert, and one thing I noticed with copywriters who are selling lower ticket and then start transitioning in a high, they offer way too many freaking options, too many à la cartes. And I know for me, the one making the buying decision, if it’s too convoluted, I have to figure out what I need. I think as a copywriter, when you start elevating your price points, it’s not like, well, let this client just decide what they want, they’re also hiring you because you’re the expert. They want you to come to the table saying, “This is what you need and this is the package that delivers it,” versus giving them all the variable options of, well, give me this but take out that, like they’re trying to, I don’t know, customize the bill to bear.

I think when you start stepping in the high end, there’s a level of expertise and certainty that somebody is also paying for. And while they’re willing to pay premium, because they’re working with somebody who… and this is really where niching down, we call it the POP method, pick one problem, pick one person, package one process. So when you start elevating into high ticket, it’s really important to, one, synthesize down, really narrow a niche down on what the actual deliverable is going to be, who specifically it is going to be for, not necessarily having this wide swing of customization from client to client, because that does allow you to more position yourself as an authority, as an expert, rather than being a generalist. I call it like the spork analogy. You guys, know sporks? Like there’s spoons…

Rob Marsh:   Yeah.

Kira Hug:   Oh, that’s right.

Rob Marsh:   Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Kentucky Fried Chicken utensil.

Kira Hug:   Yes.

Jereshia Hawk:   You can’t eat a $500 steak with a spork. The spork is trying to do too many things, and a lot of the time, in business, when you start elevating… a lot of people, and myself included, when I started my business, I was a spork. I was trying to be a spoon and a fork. I was trying to do all the things, customize and bend and shape, well, I can serve everybody. But when you’re trying to move in to elevated price points and higher end premium services, you got to decide, are you the knife? Are you the fork? Or are you the spoon? You can’t successfully eat a high end steak with a plastic spork. So stop being a spork and you really have to start stepping in to being a specialist.

And the POP method is a really great rule of thumb of pick one problem that you’re going to be solving that’s specific, that’s tangible, that is results-based. Focus on one minimum viable audience, one specific narrow niche target client to go after, and really focus on developing packaging one process that, I would say, 80% is pretty consistent from client to client, and there might be a little bit of margin for variable or customization.

Kira Hug:   Okay. So let’s say we’ve figured this out, we’ve worked through the POP and we figured all that out, how do you structure the sales call for high ticket? What are you doing differently compared to just selling a regular package? What do we need to be thinking about, asking and doing on those calls?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yes, I love this question. I love talking about sales and making money. It makes me so happy. And I love other people making more money. But we call it the champagne closer method, and this came from… when you see luxury, high end real estate, a lot of the time, the real estate agent isn’t selling the house, the house kind of sells itself. All they have to do is just bring the champagne, pop the bottle and pour the glasses. But the house sells itself. And when you start elevating your price points in handling a sales conversation, I want you to think about it from that type of perspective. But we are really big on… I use organic marketing to sell, and I’m giving you guys context because it’s not just about what… there’s a lot of selling that happens before we ever get somebody on the call.

But I will say most people, most of my clients, especially the ones from the writing space, how they used to handle their sales calls were they get on a sales call, they may talk to the client about what results you’re looking to accomplish, what exactly it is they want, and then on that call is when they really start to sell the offer, breaking down all the things that are included. Then they start getting objections or questions that are, not closing questions, but more of maybe objections or those types of things, and they’re trying to handle a lot on one call conversation.

And I know a lot of clients, especially in the writing space, in the past, I feel sleazy, I don’t want to feel misleading, it’s kind of too much spotlight at one time for me to be able to handle that on that one phone conversation, and I kind of crumble in either discount or down-sell versus enrolling them in the thing that I know that they need, because there was just too much to kind of manage and handle on one call. So we kind of like to, not even kind of, we like to break up our sales process a bit. In our free content, instead of teaching people what to do, we start teaching people what to think.

In all of our marketing content, and if you’re selling high ticket, I highly recommend that you start to do this, is what are the objections that you’ve always gotten? What are the limiting beliefs that somebody has? What are all the other options that somebody might consider over you that’s preventing them from wanting to work with you. And then what is the belief that they have and how can you shift that belief in your free content? Because if people are consuming your free content and you’re shifting their beliefs in that free content, you’re kind of taking some of that load of convincing that you have to do on a sales call and you’re doing it before you even ever make physical contact with that person.

So that’s the first thing that I would change about your sales process to help alleviate and streamline the actual sales call. But stop teaching people what to do in your content. No more this how to, here are three copywriting subject line hacks. We want to stop… and that works really, really well when you’re selling low ticket, but when you start raising the rates, the buying decision criteria of a client significantly evolves. So we want to use your free content to not teach them necessarily what to do all the time, but start teaching them what they need to think, what are the beliefs and the mindset that we need to shift them into.

And then once we invite them to the call, once the call is actually starting, you’ve already done some of these belief shifting in your organic content, then at the beginning, we will kind of build rapport. We talk about where they, future wise, want to go. We talk about what challenges they’re experiencing now. And then I pause and say, “What about this conversation has been the most valuable for you?” Because that gives me some… now, I’m not having to sell myself on why I’m so good, they’re now selling themselves on why I’m so good. They’re the ones saying it versus me convincing them. So, it’s permission based sales. It’s leading from a very permission based perspective. So instead of me forcing myself on them or trying to convince them of how valuable I know that I am, I give them the opportunity to tell me instead, and that’s a minor tweak, but it has a significant impact.

Once we talk about value and why me, why now, why this is important for you, I never lead with the closing information. I always ask, “Okay, where would you like to go from here? What questions do you have for me?” And it completely change the dynamic of the call because now I’m not selling anything, all I’m doing is holding space and they’re asking questions. They may ask, “Well, how much is this?” “Really great question. Let me explain to you how the investment works.” Or, “What is the timeframe?” Or, “When can I expect deliverables?” “Excellent question. Let me break that down.” And again, it shifts the dynamic of me convincing them or having to tell them to them asking and me just responding.

So, that’s really how I would handle, and that’s how we do handle, that’s how we teach our clients to handle high end sales conversations, but it starts with the organic marketing ahead of time because your free content is doing a lot of the heavy-lifting for you so that you’re not doing it on your sales call. Does that make sense?

Rob Marsh:   Yeah, makes a ton of sense. And I love this conversation and the way you’re kind of shifting my thinking, hopefully, other people’s thinking as well around changing from what to do to what to think. I’m curious, what does that whole presale period look like. So, the typical copywriter maybe has a lead magnet that then leads to some kind of a form or engagement, but with a high ticket sale, it feels like that process is going to be a little bit longer and maybe more complex, but maybe I’m wrong about that. What does that… and again, I know this is probably going to be different for different clients, can you give us maybe a template for what that should look like?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. We teach all of our clients the same process, whether they are copywriter selling high ticket or a wellness coach, but I’m a very lean approach perspective. It can be complicated if you choose for it to be, but where I found my greatest level of success is when we kept it lean and kept it simple. So our whole sales process and our marketing process starts with live video content. And in today’s world, especially when you’re selling high ticket, especially if you’re focusing on organic marketing methods, live video’s going to be your best bet because, one, all of the social media platforms prioritize live video content over stagnant posts or prerecorded uploaded videos. So you’re going to get naturally a higher organic reach than you would of other content.

But we call it the lean launch. Well, I want to go back to your first thing, Rob, of, well, I think maybe it’ll take me longer to get somebody to buy. One metric that everybody who’s listening to this should start paying attention to is what is your actual sales cycle. From the moment that somebody discovers you to the moment that they purchase, how long does that take and what type of touchpoints happen in between that would cause somebody to buy? Because it’s really important to know what that is. We’ve been able to help our clients get down to about a three-month sales cycle for a high ticket offer, which, some of them do it significantly faster, but I’d say, on average, that’s usually the timeframe, three to four months.

But we focus on live video content. We teach our clients, if it’s a targeted launch period where they’re trying to sell something specific, we will typically do their lean launch, it’s nine videos over three weeks. And the important thing that I think will be most valuable for somebody who’s listening is not just turn your camera on and go live. Well, it is that simple. That is the thing about it. But really thinking about what type of content do I need to be introducing in those videos to be able to shift beliefs before I get somebody on a sales call? And this is really where you start to break down how buyers make decisions at a higher price point level.

And there’s really three phases of awareness that very prospect goes through before they’re willing to make a buying decision. There’s a unaware, there’s a problem aware, and there’s a solution aware. Unaware, they don’t actually know what their problem is or they have misdiagnosed what their problem is. If we’re talking about copywriters, maybe it’s a coach who just thinks that they need to just learn how to write copy on their own in order to sell their thing when in actuality, it’s not [inaudible], they actually just need to hire a copywriter. But that’s a belief that we have to now shift them into. This is the value of why you hire a copywriter. This is really what copywriters actually do. This is why you should hire an expert versus you trying to do it on your own.

Then once you can get them and buy them in to the belief that they understand what their actual problem is as it aligns with what your offer is, then you have to get them to buy in to what is the actual solution to that problem. Do they hire a generalist copywriter? Do they hire a freelance copywriter off of Upwork? What type of copywriter should they actually be hiring? A conversion copywriter versus maybe more of a nurturing and engagement type of copywriter? But you have to enroll them in to what solution that they need to buy, and then once they’re solution aware, why you? And so that’s the… we do one live video… well, if it’s a targeted launch, it’ll be nine videos over three weeks, walking through those three phases of awareness. If it’s ongoing content, we typically like to do at least one live video a week.

But really, the thing that makes it magical or the thing that makes it really work is… I always say sales is a contact sport. The more contact that you make with your prospects, the more money that you will naturally make. But many of us are not making enough contact. So how can I increase my contact with my prospects without me as the business owner or the individual having to make 50,000 pieces of content every week? This is where we start to leverage our live video. So we’ll take our live video and we’ll repurpose it into a podcast episode. We’ll take our live video and transcribe it and turn it to a email newsletter. We’ll take that live video and transcribe it into an Instagram caption. We’ll take that live video and turn it into a small video that we upload on our newsfeed. I’ll do Instagram stories, recapping the things that I talked about in that live video.

And because our approach is organic… I only know how to play two video games, The Sims and Call of Duty. And in Call of Duty, you want to surround the flag. You want to surround your prospects. And how can you… you want to surround your opponent. How can I do the exact same thing from a marketing perspective? Instead of trying to create all these assets of content, create one hero piece of content, which I like to use live video, and then strategically repurpose that so that you’re increasing the likelihood that you’re going to make contact with the prospect and also increase the likelihood that you’re going to shift that belief that needs to be shifted for them to be even in a position to make a buying decision.

Kira Hug:   Okay. That was amazing. So, we definitely need to work on our content and how we’re approaching our content. Jereshia, I kind of want to step backwards right now, and this might be repetitive, but I just want to make sure I understand it because I love the way that you structure your sales call. And so it sounds like you’re asking questions, finding out about what they’re struggling with, a couple questions, and then you’re asking them a question and throwing it back at them. So, what did you learn from this conversation, or what was your biggest takeaway. And then maybe a little bit more chatting, and then at the end, you’re asking them again, what questions do you have? What would help you make next steps forward? Can you just break it down a little bit more? Because I want to do this. I want to test it.

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. That’s good. So I would start the conversation of building just natural rapport, but I love to always have the conversation of why now, why me. And this is really important because I think… they schedule so we just assume a lot of the time, well, they’re here because they want to be here. But I think it’s really important to re-solidify from there onwards, and them being the one say it of this is why I chose you. Again, now they’re selling themselves on you again, but they’re doing it verbally. And why now, you always want to understand urgency because you can talk to people all day but if you don’t clearly understand why this is urgent for them, why this is a priority for them now versus them investing or doing something else, we can really drop the ball by not having clarity on that upfront.

So I like to get that out of the way and really dig in to understanding what their urgency and the priority factor is now and why is it important for them right now versus waiting another week or waiting another year to solve this problem. And if there’s no urgency and there’s no real good reason as to why they want me, I will end the sales conversation because the whole goal of the sales call, my goal is not to get them to buy, my goal is for them to make a decision. Whether that decision is with me or not with me, it’s very service over selling. And I think from a selling perspective, it allows you to detach from what the outcome is but it also just ensures that you’re operating from integrity and enrolling people into something that is aligned and is a good fit.

So that’s the first thing. If there’s no clear level of urgency and there’s not really a clear understanding of why me and why now, I will just say, “Hey, I’m not really seeing there’s alignment. I’m not sure if I’m actually going to be able to help you solve your problem. Let me refer you to somebody else,” or, “let me just wish you well and be blessed.” But if we can get through that, then as we talk about the future, where is it that they’re trying to go, what outcomes they’re trying to accomplish, what’s slowing them down or stopping them or getting them in the way from getting the results that they want, what are the challenges that they’re experiencing, sometimes, we’ll talk a little bit about what else have they tried that hasn’t worked so that I can get a good understanding, again, of what their beliefs were before this.

Well, I bought this email copywriting templates but then I got them and I didn’t know how to necessarily make them aligned from a messaging standpoint, I didn’t know how to make the story connect. That gives me insight on how they made buying decisions before that I can leverage in the conversation to communicate value when the time does come. So, normally, that’s how we like that, the first third of the call. And then I just like to do, I always love to just do a quick check-in to say, “Hey, what about has been most valuable? What about our conversation thus far has been enlightening for you?” And most people don’t do that in sales conversations, so it’s a really nice breakup in pattern.

A lot of people get on calls, and it’s like this, “I know this person’s going to try to sell me into something.” We want to do what we can to let down the guard and just create a safe environment and establish a trust from that perspective. So I like to just have a check-in, how are things going, how are you feeling, what about this conversation has been most valuable. It’s really good insight for me to see what things have we discussed or have they shared themselves that are really standing out and it just gives them a moment to reflect and again, kind of break up the pattern of what they probably expect to happen on the call because of what they’ve experienced with other people.

And then from there, it’s, really, I’ve been asking a lot of questions. I think this is probably a good fit. What questions do you have for me? You want to have control in the beginning of the conversation, lead as the authority, lead as the expert, but you also want to give them control. And again, it just shifts the dynamic of the emotional state this person is going through, both you and them, again, to create a safe environment for this conversation to be happening. Because there can just be a lot of tension on sales calls and fear and, I don’t know, nasty expectations that are not always true. But that allows them to be asking the closing questions, which puts you in a really strong position.

Because now, again, it just changed the dynamic of the conversation. So they’ll ask their closing questions. Usually, it’s about, well, what happens next? How do we get started? What’s the investment? What’s all included? Is this going to work for me? And you’ll just answer whatever questions they have, but how do I say this? It’s kind of… even in relationships, you’re not forcing yourself on them. It’s permission, you’re asking for permission. That’s healthy conversation and healthy relationship in normal personal life. Just a lot of us don’t translate that over really well in a business environment, especially in a sales conversation.

So, it’s leading with that permission-based perspective. And then, they’ll ask their questions and they’ll get to a place where it’s like, well, where do we go from here, that’s really great, and then you start your enrollment process. We collect payment over the phone. We teach our clients how to collect payment over the phone rather than sending invoices, and that’s because they have very pretty structured processes. There’s not a lot of variable or customization. But I always try… even if you do need to send a proposal or send an invoice, schedule a follow-up call. Do not let them… how do I say this? You don’t want to leave the sales loop open. So even if you do need to send a proposal and it’s like, “Hey, I’m going to send you this invoice,” or, “send you this proposal in the next couple of days. Let’s schedule a follow-up call so we can discuss your decision and determine what next steps need to be.”

So you want to maintain control of the entire sales container from the moment they book and to the moment they make a decision. And a lot of the time, most people do not… that follow-up, most people don’t do and they let the person make the decision on their own at home. And especially if you’re selling high ticket and you’re moving them into… they’re investing and some of it’s maybe the most they’ve ever spent or is going to force them to up-level in a way. Again, we don’t want their fear to cloud their judgment on making their decision, so how can we maintain, again, that safety, security and control of the conversation. Schedule that follow-up call so that, that decision can be clearly communicated rather than a prospect, like ghosting you or not responding or, “Hey, I thought about it some more, even though I was all in yesterday, I’m pulling out.”

It’s normal if you’re selling high end and dealing with clients, this is their first time investing at that level where they can kind of talk themselves out of it, not because it’s not the right fit, but just because it’s an up-level and they’re afraid. So that’s more of a detailed breakdown of our champagne closer method and how we handle sales calls.

Rob Marsh:   I do want to maybe change the conversation just a little bit, Jereshia, because I think some people may be listening to this and saying, “Oh, well, that works when things are going really well, but recently, the economy hasn’t been so great,” or, “I’m working from home and I’ve got all of these other things going on in my life and I can’t focus on the kinds of stuff that I need to focus on,” how would you say that buying behavior has changed in the last six months or so, recording this five, six months into the coronavirus stuff that’s going on? How has buying behavior changed? And what do we need to do to make sure that we’re staying on top of that?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. I feel like people’s sensitivity is ridiculously heightened right now, which is a positive thing and can also be a challenging thing to deal with. I think people are very, very hyper aware of where gaps, challenges, problems are, what uncertainty actually is. This uncertainty in the world has always existed, pre-COVID and post-COVID. We have way less control than we convince ourselves that we actually have, and it’s very, very prevalent right now. But I think it’s really important. If you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I think people are very… if you’re selling an offer that… if you were selling an offer before that was more on the higher end of that pyramid, highest level of identity, more non-tangible, I think for the general population, your positioning or your messaging is going to need a shift to be more focused on those first two rungs of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Your baseline, psychological needs being met of shelter, food, day-to-day life, getting by, safety of personal security, employment. And then that middle tier of love and belonging, relationship, friendships, connectivity and intimacy. And I’m just bringing that in because again, understanding the psychology of how your buyer makes decisions is really, really important when you’re trying to sell, and especially if you’re trying to sell high ticket, because there’s other variables that are now at play. And the biggest thing that we’ve helped our clients do and myself has done is really looking at where… I can’t keep… well, I guess we really have and never have, but you have to really be dialed in on what your promise is and your ability to articulate it in a way that coincides with one of those base level needs or security and financial needs, and being able to communicate how your offer is going to give them that security and safety.

And I think before, some of us could kind of get away with that not being very clear because times weren’t as sensitive as they are right now. But I think that is, literally, right when COVID… well, our business has tripled since COVID hit, which has been insane. Most of our clients have grown significantly since COVID hit, either doubling their revenue or tripling their revenue. And it’s been because they have been able to realign and readjust the positioning of their offer to provide not just the idea of or the confidence that, yes, I can deliver what you’re asking me to do, but I can also communicate and create this trust of security and safety making this buying decision with me.

And I think that’s just a really important thing that I don’t know if it’s going to change any time soon, but even if things go back to normal, whatever normal even might look like for us after all of this, if you can maintain that confidence and that certainty and safety when you’re articulating your value, you’re always going to do really, really well. It’s just a stronger way to sell, especially if you’re selling high end.

So one thing I had my clients do, what we did is we really looked at what are we selling. The first thing is what do we actually need to cut. There’s probably offers that we’re selling that are not profitable, there’s probably things that we’re doing that are not actually producing results and aligned with where we’re trying to go. The very first thing is remove any confusion in your offers, remove anything that’s not profitable for you and your own business, because that will give you capacity to actually show up and sell and articulate your value in a way that’s more convicted and with more confidence and more certainty by not having distractions in your own business.

But then from there, what is my program promise? What is the guarantee that I’m selling somebody? How confident am I in my promise and my guarantee? How strong am I in my ability to be able to articulate the value of it in a way that, yes, communicates that I can do what they need to do, but also gives in this feeling of safety and security. And maybe this might be helpful, a tangible thing that we’ve done is we used to just have client contracts, very legal jargon client contracts, but one thing that we started doing at the beginning of this year, this was actually before COVID hit but it’s been a huge asset to us once COVID did happen, and especially even when all of the racial protesting and things like that started, is we created what we call a program promise or an offer promise.

And this goes beyond what’s listed in the contract, but it really just clearly details out, this is what you can expect from us, it’s 12 or 15 bullet points of how we’re going to treat them, how they can expect communication from us, what they can expect from us from a deliverable standpoint. And then this is what we expect from you. And there’s five bullet points or things that what we expect for them. And that document has been really helpful because it creates security and safety. There’s no ambiguity of the relationship or the agreement that we’re stepping into and it just allows everybody to be on the exact same playing field to make decisions that are clear and we know what we’re both getting and we’re both choosing to step into this.

But from a client perspective, I think all of my clients to me was like, wow, I feel safe making this investment even though it may be scary for me or maybe a big leap. So I will just think of those questions that I just listed, but also what are things that you can be incorporating into your process at the very beginning to also instill that and even more than just what you can verbally say, what are other assets that you can build into your onboarding process to really make them feel safe and make them feel like, yes, this is the right decision for me beyond just your ability to articulate and align how their problem is going to be solved with the promise of your offer and why is it beneficial for them right now.

Kira Hug:   Okay. So I know you mentioned you’ve hit the seven-figure mark, and I read somewhere in your content about seven mindset shifts that positioned your business for seven figures. Can you share a couple of those mindset shifts? I know we’re at the end of our time together, so maybe sharing seven is too much, but what are some of your favorite or maybe most useful mindset shifts that copywriters could benefit from?

Jereshia Hawk:   I want to share one that I did not include in that podcast episode so that if people go back and listen, there are seven that are fantastic. But I want to share one that I didn’t share there that I recently was having a conversation with my girlfriends about. When I was starting, one, I didn’t know that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew I wanted to make a lot of money but I thought it was going to happen through corporate. I mean, I didn’t know that this world existed or that this is something that I even wanted for my life. So maybe somebody can relate to that versus I started this business because I wanted to make seven figures. That was an identity or a goal that has definitely evolved over the years.

But when I was in my business and I had crossed the six-figure mark, I was making maybe $150,000, $200,000 a year, I used to have this mindset belief that I wouldn’t be successful unless I have this massive launch. I just had this goal that I had to make $100,000 in one launch in order to be deemed successful. So one of the mindset shifts I would invite you guys all to look into is, one, what are your current beliefs around money. And do those beliefs actually serve you? Who taught them to you? Where did you learn them from? And are these truths that you want to continue keeping as you move forward? But I used to have this very strong belief. I had a lot of shame anytime that I would do a launch or had this targeted effort to enroll clients, if I didn’t hit the goal, I would feel so defeated.

I would have this internal embarrassment that I would experience. I carried the shame around because it’s like, oh, I only got two clients, or, oh, I only got seven clients, or, oh, I only got whatever it was, I never actually hit the bigger goal that I was going after. And there was two mindset shifts in that, that I think really unlocked my potential to be able to grow exponentially this year. Literally, at the beginning of this year, we were doing about $25,000 in revenue. Last year, we could not break over the $30,000 a month consistently. We would hit it and then it would drop, and then we would hit it and it would drop. But we’ve been having consistent $100,000 a month the past few months here.

And I attribute a lot of that to this mindset shift, is first and foremost, check your ego. I kept saying, I only got this. If my clients heard me say that, how would that cause them to feel or what would they think about me? If I was like, well, I only got three people or I only got whatever it was, diminishing the value of that person because it’s a pure ego thing. So that’s one thing of every human body that you touch and serve is just as valuable is if a thousand of them wanted to touch and serve you. You got to touch and serve a thousand, so don’t ever diminish the value of who has trusted you to say yes and to work with you. But the second thing of my success is not dependent on how big or not one launches. My business is not a launch. A launch is a vehicle or strategy that I can use to have a cash injection in my business but my business is not the launch itself. The success of my business is not dependent on how well or how bad a launch goes.

And that was a mindset shift, I’m not sure if this is an aha for you guys, but it was huge for me. Maybe you guys already had this figured out, but that my success or the growth of the business is not dependent on the outcome of one launch. And that really I think just freed me up to not focus or have all of this pressure on one targeted outreach, having this make or break type of mentality around it. And I really just started shifting my energy and attention on how can I increase my monthly recurring revenue? Instead of me focusing on getting one huge cash injection at one time, how can I focus on making micro improvements in my marketing, micro improvements in my client delivery, micro improvements in my sales conversations.

How can I just increase my metrics by 1%, 2%, 3% so that I’m increasing my monthly recurring revenue rather than having this huge cash injection? And that was a mindset shift that it catapulted us because my focus on diagnosing the problem shifted. I started going after different things or looking at different things as solutions rather than focusing on how do I make this one big launch, make all this money or else my business is a failure type of thing. So, that was what I did not include in that podcast episode or that live stream. That has been huge for me.

Rob Marsh:   Jereshia, you mentioned mindset shifts, I feel like I’ve had about about five of them on this podcast and maybe I should’ve had a few more. I mean, you’ve shared so much valuable information. Hopefully, our listeners are going to find it just as valuable. Maybe I just need to hear it in [inaudible] in my business, but if people want to hear more from you, maybe hop on your email list or connect with you in some way, where should they go to find out more?

Jereshia Hawk:   Yeah. The first thing that I would love to invite you to do is actually screenshot yourself listening to this podcast episode and tag Kira, Rob and myself over on Instagram stories and just let us know what your top takeaway was. I think listening to episodes like these are great, and you can leave motivated and maybe have an extra pep in your step if you’re walking or jogging while listening to this. But I would love for us like cement in one thing that either you can start to implement or one thing that you can start thinking about a little bit differently based off of what we discussed today. So, tag me over on Instagram stories. I’m @jereshiahawk, and my website’s jereshiahawk.com. You can find me everywhere on social @jereshiahawk, but I would love to continue the conversation in DMs about the dialogue we’ve had today. So, I’m just @jereshiahawk, and I will see you over on Instagram stories.

Kira Hug:   I love that idea of bringing everyone over to Instagram because I think you’re the first guest who’s asked our listeners to take action and post, so I like that challenge. And yeah, I echo Rob, I’ve had so many aha moments from this conversation. So, thank you so much for giving us your time and sharing your expertise with us.

Jereshia Hawk:   You guys are so welcome. This was such a fruitful convo. So, I had a pleasure of being here.