There were already too many people calling themselves coaches and consultants before COVID-19.
Now, COVID-19 has made it so much worse in such a short time.
So many people now think they can become coaches and consultants overnight and charge big bucks from business owners who need help during this pandemic.
Such new entrants include laid-off corporate executives and fresh college grads, who've done a few courses in business or psychology.
Unfortunately, the prospects have no easy way to know who's the real deal and who are fakes.
The competition is getting worse ...
It is obvious that the situation is never going to get back to the pre-COVID-19 era.
The question that really matters is, "What can good coaches and consultants do now to consistently attract high-quality clients who pay premium fees?"
A book establishes you as an authority on the topic.
Relatively very few people in our society read books, but those who are successful tend to be readers of books and that is why books attract the highest quality clients.
Books are what made them so famous.
They're known and command high level fees because of their books.
But, now there is a big difference in the books you need to attract high-quality clients.
Your book doesn't have to be a bestseller. And it shouldn't even include everything you know. You just need to address one issue that's vital to your dream clients.
Then craft a book title that will attract your dream clients to get the book and enter your world.
Fact: Many marketing greats from Frank Kern to Russell Brunson use book funnels as the most important method to get tens of thousands of new customers.
Why?
Because a book is an ideal lead magnet to attract new customers into your world and that book positions you as an expert.
As a result, new customers trust you to solve their problems and help them get more success.
And some of those are ready to get your help at premium fees.
Book funnels allow you to sell a book at profit, even though it costs much more than what you charge for the book.
Because the advertising rates per click have been increasing over the years, and, as a result, it is impossible to use advertising to profitably sell a $7 or even a $20 book.
That is where a book funnel comes in.
A book funnel offers additional offers like an order bump and one-time offer on the thank you page.
Usually, about 20% to 35% of the buyers take up some of these additional offers, and, as a result, the average sales amount per buyer becomes 2 to 5 times the price of a book.
This is how experts use book funnels to use the paid media to bring customers at profit or at a relatively small upfront loss.
That is why book funnels are becoming so popular.
That is how, a book funnel can transform a loss-making book offer into a profit opportunity, allowing you to use paid advertising to bring a large number of new customers on demand.
It is like adding new customers for free, allowing you to serve them and sell to them over and over again.
Because book funnels allow you to advertise on FaceBook, Google, Bing, etc to consistently attract high-quality clients willing and able to pay your premium fees, you can focus all your energy and time to help clients succeed.
Once you have the peace of mind of new clients coming in consistently, you have the freedom to work in your "zone of genius," where your "unique abilities" can help create greater impact for all of your clients and then their clients. This greater impact generates more profits for your client, and, in the end, part of that profit flows to you effortlessly.
You can advertise on Google, Facebook, etc. and soon you'll know how many dollars you need to put in to get a client.
When done right, after testing and tweaking, you may be able to get clients at a profit. And, when that happens, your ad budget practically becomes limitless. What that means is you can tell, "Get me as many new clients as possible at breakeven".
When I was studying for my BE (BS) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, I happened to help a famous professor write a book on an engineering subject.
My name appeared twice in the acknowledgements, and I was hooked.
Later, I worked as a software engineer at Intel in both Hillsboro, Oregon and Santa Clara, California.
That was 30 years ago, and at that time, Intel was as powerful as Google and Facebook combined today.
Intel's name helped me get publishing contracts, and I became co-author of two computer books published by SAMS/Macmillan USA. One of them was a world-wide bestseller.
My books published in the USA 30 years ago
I was a hotshot programmer, and in the single month of December 1990, during the recession, I charged clients $18,002.
Then life took a turn, and I decided to help poor students in India.
I wrote a book to help them with speed reading, memory, and study skills. I distributed the book by mail order. But we kept the price at a few dollars, and so profits were impossible. That is when we discovered that once a student buys a book, you can sell them something else.
That was my discovery of "offline book funnel" three decades ago, and it helped us serve over 500,000 students.
Over 500,000 copies of my book were sold profitably
by using book funnels (offline + online)
Fast forward to now, we specialize in helping coaches and consultants to use book funnels effectively to get a consistent flow of new customers and clients at a profit or a small loss (depending on how fast you want to grow).
We can really do a good job because we have picked up some tricks and secrets over these decades.
Your books, offers, and funnels should be designed to move a prospect or client to the next step, whether it is to give you their email address, or buy your product or service.
And we help you get it all done the right way.
The book works at 3 different levels:
Getting the book title right is most crucial for the success of your book. As a lead magnet, it has to attract only the ideal clients and nobody else.
When your dream client sees the book title, they should feel compelled to get the book. Only if they feel "I want it" has the book title done its job.
While previewing the table of contents, your dream clients should feel, "These are exactly the issues I need help with."
The table of contents needs to further convince the prospect, "Yes this is the book I need."
The book's goal is to give the readers a sense of certainty that you are the right expert to solve the issue they've been facing.
Reading your book should create certainty and conviction in the mind of the reader that you know exactly what is needed for them to solve their problems or have breakthroughs to take their life or business/finances to the next level.
There also needs to be useful contrarian content in the book as well.
There needs to be some training they can use. In fact, a good strategy is to help them complete an easy first step in the book as well (as a major proof point).
But there should be some content that gets them to say - this system is different from what I've seen before.
Crafting book titles is extremely tricky. The difference between a good title and not-so-good one can be as much as 10 to 20 times or more sales, as shown in the case study below.
Did you know that Tim Ferriss wrote the best-seller The 4-Hour Workweek?
What you may not know is that he originally came up with the book title shown by the red arrow below.
But, fortunately, he tested different titles to find a winner.
Tim Ferriss tested different book titles to find the winner.
(Note: The second book cover is an artist's imagination.)
You need these types of funnels:
These capture the email address, so you can follow up. These can offer free stuff or a low-priced product. Adding a low priced product on the thank you page can work well and pay for part of the ad costs.
Many coaches and consultants have low-priced products for front-end sales. The funnels to sell them work well with 1-click upsells after the initial purchase and increases the average cart value.
These are at the core of making good profits.
Your tribe already knows you, likes you, and trusts you, so backend offers tend to be higher priced. Therefore, this is where the real profit comes from for the successful coaches and consultants.
Marketing automation is a part of funnels. Automation moves a prospect to a customer list when they buy your book. Then they are automatically sent follow up messages to help consume the purchase and then get ready to order your coaching and consulting services.
If you have multiple products/services, each sale moves a client to another list with the goal of selling them the next product/service. And so on. All this happens automatically in the background -- it is set up just once and occasionally improved.
We ensure all this is implemented correctly to maximize profits for you.
Making compelling offers to your dream clients can immediately make your business very profitable and grow rapidly.
When an offer is "compelling," you don't need great copywriting and persuasion skills to get orders.
If your ideal prospects are convinced that your solution will give the result that you are promising, without them taking risks, then they are more likely to buy your service.
Warning: The famous marketer Russell Brunson has popularized the "free + shipping" book offer. Russell is exceptionally good with videos and has a big ad budget, enabling him to sell thousands of books per month to a wide audience. But Russell's approach does not work for most coaches and consultants, who have a narrowly focused small audience and a small ad budget.
These questions help you focus on what really matters and create compelling offers that your dream clients would find irresistible.
When I was studying for my BE (BS) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, I happened to help a famous professor write a book on an engineering subject.
My name appeared in acknowledgements, and I was hooked.
Later, I worked as a software engineer at Intel in both Hillsboro, Oregon and Santa Clara, California.
That was 30 years ago and Intel at that time was as powerful as Google and FaceBook combined today.
Intel's name helped me get publishing contracts and I became co-author of 2 computer books published by SAMS/Macmillan.
My books published in USA 30 years ago
I was a hotshot programmer and in the single month of December 1990, during recession, I charged clients $18,002.
Then life took a turn and I decided to help poor students in India.
I wrote a book to help them with speed reading, memory, and study skills. I distributed the book by mail order. But, we kept the price at a few dollars and so profits were impossible. That is when we discovered that once students buy a book, you can sell them something else.
That was my discovery of "offline book funnel" three decades ago and it helped us serve over 500,000 students.
Over 500,000 copies of my book were sold profitably
using book funnels (offline + online)
Fast forward to now, we specialize in helping clients use book funnels effectively to get a consistent flow of new customers and clients at a profit or a small loss (depending on how fast the clients want to grow).
We can really do a good job because we have picked up some tricks and secrets over these decades.
A Clear Roadmap for Coaches and Consultants
We help coaches and consultants who are already successful, as well as those who are new or switching from other careers.
If you already have books and funnels, we'll review them and work with you to get them right.
If you don't have books or funnels, we'll work with you to create them the right way.
You've already got some new ideas and learned some specific steps you can follow and get more profits.
You have two paths in front of you.
Once profits start pouring in, you don't need to go after shiny objects and change your marketing/business on a weekly or monthly basis. You can let it work like a well-oiled machine and enjoy free time with your friends and family or with a hobby or a charitable cause. Or, you can continue to focus on your business to grow faster.
In our 60-minute call, I will audit your books, offers, and funnels.
We'll discuss the strengths and weaknesses of what you have, as well as potential breakthroughs, and we'll map out a plan for increasing your impact and profits in the next 30 days.
If you don't feel you've got at least $1,000 value at the end of the call, you can ask for a full, courteous refund.
