How to Stop Waiting For Leads and Get Fully Booked | AOAB Episode 37 w/ Laura Higgins

24:10Chris Cruz:How does someone, okay, in that question, I think the wrestle people have is they internally feel their value. But then when they go up against a client, they question themselves so much that they're like, I've got to win this job. Yeah. So then they compromise their value because they got to put bread on the table. Like how are you navigating that for them? Yes, this is a great question. So the frame that I have is I don't think any of us like to get rejected. I don't think. You hear those people that are like, I love being rejected. It helps me. I'm like, I don't love it. I get it gets me somewhere I need to go next.

24:45Chris Cruz:I don't love the feeling. I don't love the feeling. Yeah, so, but the thing that I think for a lot of creatives is they think, if I don't convert at 100%, that's not success. It's great. And that's completely wrong. We actually, if you're converting at 100%, that tells me. Something's wrong with the offer price. Yes. Or something like that. Yeah, you are either grossly undercharging or. Yes. Maybe you're just saying yes to any single person. That's great. walks in the door and then you're like, cool, let's figure it out. And you're working with a thousand different niches and you feel flustered and chaotic because you can't possibly be an expert in that many industries.

25:25And so actually we need to kind of switch the goalposts a little and go, okay, if I could convert at 60%, that's probably a better marker for me. So four out of ten are going to say this is too expensive or you might say, hey, you're not the right fit for us. Also fine, also really good. So changing the frame on that is super helpful and understanding, okay, maybe it's 60%. Maybe in certain niches, it's 30%. For some of my clients, if they work with much bigger corporate where they're putting in like big tenders and big proposals, 30 % might be a really good conversion rate. So you've got to find your number.

26:05But I think practically, just switching the goalposts a little so that you don't feel like, oh, my gosh, I need to discount. I need to add in all this stuff. I need to bend over backwards to land this client. I have this frame that, you know the line, the kind of phrase that is beggars can't be choosers. My whole frame in business is I'm a chooser, not a beggar. And so when clients come to me, because I'm doing the work to generate enough leads, I'm qualifying my leads. When they come to me, I'm like, hey, if we're a good fit, we'd love to help you. And like, if you are a good fit and we invite you in, dude, you are going to absolutely crush it.

26:51And we're very excited to help you. But if you're not a good fit, that's cool. We'll point you in the right direction. And so that energy is just like, hey, I don't work with everyone.

27:03Chris Cruz:okay you said something there that made me pause and i had to write a note in my journal because you said something that for you feels like it's breathing and i'm like wait a second hold on you said if i'm doing a good enough job generating enough leads then i that part right there yeah i don't think people actually spend enough time breaking that down yes like the fact that you're going i have enough leads to actually choose or not choose i think so many people are in this spot like even for us we'll feel this like this dry and we're like okay cool we're not getting as many leads what is this and you're going i'm spending enough time unpack that phrase and what you're doing yeah almost every problem in your business can be solved by more leads like truly i think almost every problem in your business can be solved with more money yes and so i think a lot of the time we think oh i better optimize this and i better fix this and it's like Like, no, no, no, you're already very good at what you do.

28:00So, but if you are only spending your time on the delivery and you only market when you need leads, then the energy is not that chooser energy. It kind of flips into that beggar energy because you're like, well, actually I kind of need the work. And so what we work on with our clients, and this is like the second thing. So the first piece is like really communicating your value, getting clear on your offer, your niche, your messaging, your pricing, all that stuff. The second thing is, well, we have to attract leads. And this is not a once and done thing. It's not a like, oh, cool. I'll pop my head up and post on social media.

28:38This is actually building a content and lead generation system.

28:42Chris Cruz:Yeah, unpack it. Let's go. Take us through it with you right now. Okay, so there's like, there's organic content. So posting on social media and there are so many different content strategies out there. but I like to think about it as there are three types of content that we need to be creating. The first is how I content. Everyone talks about like creating how-to content, which is like, hey, here's how to design your brand in three easy steps. And it's like that worked in like 2019. It doesn't work anymore. And so we want to add value. We want to show our credibility. but the way that we do it now is actually showing how I do this so an example for you might be okay cool here's how I use me as a guinea pig I'm gonna ask all kinds of questions and dive in and yeah I'm getting a free mastermind whatever the offer is I'm getting I'm the student right now so an example might be um what's one of like an example client um for us yeah so we would go with a so we have a leadership consultancy that we work with that on a consistent level we build content for them okay amazing yeah okay cool so it could be okay how i worked with a leadership consultancy to help them to do xyz like whatever the result is so instead of it being like team everybody hold that right now we're going to use that for our next back recording day but but the frame it's it's the same content but there's a slightly different frame and so all of a sudden you're telling a story yeah it's great this is how i've done this thing yeah or this is how I helped this person or this is how I think about this thing and that adds a lens and a personality that in a perspective that AI can't touch and it just it does elevate the content and it makes people feel more connected to you it's great oh Chris is a legend I'm going to work with him because I saw how he helped this person yeah that's good and so how I is a really great content piece really great for creatives because you can just show your portfolio hey here's how here's a website we designed here's how we did it yep here's how we think about it here's the framework of how we actually approach this and what it's doing is it's showing your work from a lens of telling a story yep okay so that's like pillar number one pillar number two is like i call this your heart content and your heart content an example for me was me sharing my burnout story.

31:10I didn't want to share that. I didn't want to. I was like, I don't want to talk about this. This is not what I talk about. This is vulnerable for me. But the heart content is, if the how I content is how we show credibility, the heart content is how we actually develop connection. So this is how we build trust. This is how we help people to like you. So an example of heart content might be sharing something vulnerable or sharing something that you you struggled with or something about your story or your how you got here so and in your mind here

31:45Chris Cruz:is it less about the actual business and more about you as a person it can be both okay it can be both so the reason i think we we've got to show parts of this is that people are actually buying you right especially as creatives yep they are buying you they're buying your taste they're buying your style they're buying your vibe do they want to hang out with you it's why i remember being in a meeting with another large agency that had a long track record of working with big name brands and they're in this spot and transition we're talking about lots of things and i said you would laugh at the amount of time i've spent this week on content for my personal brand versus just going out and doing x y and z networking doing all these things because of what you said right there like the way that this is working right now i see that as just as valuable as the way other people look at going to all these networking, all these other things.

32:38Chris Cruz:I look at creating content and the relatability through that as just as important as anything else you're doing for your business to grow. But people don't always see it that way. They don't line up those dots. Well, I'm here from Sydney in Australia hanging out with you because your brand connected me. And so I think that we underestimate the value of the connection piece. Yes, that's great. That's a great call out. I love that. The other piece about the heart content is that, and you guys say heart. I don't know. How do I say it? Heart, heart, heart. I'm saying heart. In the South, right? They'll say something else.

33:11Chris Cruz:I'm not really from the South. I moved here, but so heart is how I say it. You say it the same as me. Okay, so the other thing about the heart content is that it can also be humor. Yes. So if you can entertain somebody, like that's how you get attention. And also it's how they're like, oh, he's pretty funny. Okay, I'm going to call out a piece of funny content that you did that I thought was hilarious about the spider in your bedroom. Like what's, there's nothing worse than, what was it like finding a spider at 9 p.m. and then the second one is losing that spider in your bedroom. Oh yeah, the loss of the spider right before you go into bed is, and in Australia spiders are truly, truly terrifying.

33:49Yeah, that actually happened to me and I was like, oh my gosh.

33:53Chris Cruz:So you said humor and I immediately went to, I remember she posted this thing about a spider. But the humor and the relatability, it's like, oh, we lean into people like that. We lean into people that feel human. And again, if everything that we're producing in our content is to go, how can I prove this is not AI? And how can I make people feel - That's a good new metric to think about. Yes, I like that. Yeah, it does anything in this stink of AI. And how can I remove that? So the heart content, again, you can use this sparingly, but it just gives people a bit of a picture of who you are. An example, I was chatting with Donald Miller yesterday and I was talking about how in his brand, he obviously has his core offer.

34:40He talks about story brand, he talks about messaging. But outside of that, you kind of feel like you know him a little. So you feel like you know, okay, he has this beautiful home in Nashville. He has his beautiful wife, Betsy and his daughter, Emeline. You feel like you know them a little. And that's all heart content. So it's the stuff that makes you -

34:57Chris Cruz:We're closing the trust gap there at that point. 100%. We're making the skepticism you have get smaller and smaller. Yeah. Oh, he seems like a good dude. I'd like to spend time with him. All of this is still like, just to remind everybody who's listening, all of this, we're in the like generating leads. Like this - Yes. What people will do is they'll hear that. And I'm just giving this caveat here because what people, we see it over and over again. They'll go into like, well, that's just social media content. I don't want to be, and we're pulling it back into the conversation of leads. Yes. Like this is about leads.

35:25Chris Cruz:This is not just about, I want to build a personal brand because I like to talk. I'm going, I'm trying to build a business. 100%. And that's truly like, if I didn't have a business, I probably wouldn't be on social media. Like the whole objective of this for me is how can I reach as many people and help as many people? But ultimately, I want to make more money. Like that's it. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no villain in that. There's no greed in that. No, that's the reality. the metrics we're thinking about is income, impact, and influence. Those three metrics matter. I love that. So I have to do this for that.

36:01Chris Cruz:So don't get all mad at me because I actually call a spade a spade. Yeah, and a personal brand is not to be confused with being an influencer. I'm not selling someone else's product. I'm going, cool. That's a good call out. I like that too. Yeah, if you like the things that I like, even like my taste in music or an example of a heart piece of content is I talked about, hey I'm an I am obsessed with coffee and I went on decaf for five months and here's what I found the amount of people that they didn't sign up because of that post yeah but when they signed up to my program they were like oh Laura I did decaf because I saw that you said it and I was like this is so interesting because these are just little things that make people feel like they know you yeah so heart content and then the final content piece is hot take and so a hot take piece of content is something that frustrates you about your industry a hill that you would die on in relation to your product service niche and something that you could rant about and so for me an example of a hot take piece of content I um held up a sign in Sydney that said and my audience similar to you like my audience are graphic designers photographers agency owners and I held up a sign saying using canva doesn't make you a graphic designer and and shout out to canva i'm like i love canva and one day one day i hope canva like sponsors me oh i love it i know truly i was like oh you probably got some heat for that i copped so much heat from that but people like you would be like amen sister friend i'm so happy you said that in fact you can use a template and throw something in there.

37:45Chris Cruz:No, this ain't the same. I'm sorry. And, and I love Canva. I use it every day, but I, I'm like, no, but the tool itself does not make you a graphic designer. Just like using chat CPT doesn't make you a copywriter. Correct. Like anyway, people got upset. People got upset. Of course. But I was like, do you know what? The percentage of people that get upset that's fine yeah the there's a like the people i actually really care about that attracted those people those people that looked at that and said i think like her yeah they leaned into that so that's an example of okay if when we're creating content we want to be magnetic but people forget that magnets do two things they attract and they repel gosh that's great But if we don't ever share anything that might repel because we're afraid, what will people think?

38:37Chris Cruz:Which we're trying to get the widest possible net here. Like their thought is that I don't get, because I think pulling it back to that point, they're going, I have no leads. So how does cutting people out help me get more leads? And so they're like, I can't alienate anyone because I'm trying to get anybody through my door right now. And not even on a niche basis. We're not even talking about you chose to do sports only. We're talking about the fact that you have no leads at all. And so you're kind of going, I can't alienate anybody at this point. But you're saying like there's a part of this process that you have to be able to cut off a group of people that you wouldn't work with that don't think like you.

39:15Yeah.

39:16Chris Cruz:You just have to do that somehow. Yeah. And you're saying you're going to do that through having some point of view. You're going to have a stance on things. 100%. And I think people are too scared of upsetting. people that are never going to buy from them. It's like this person is never going to buy from me. That's so fine if I upset that person. And, again, this is not me poking fun at being like using Canva as a new graphic design. Like that is not me directly kind of calling someone out or anything like that. It's me poking fun and being silly but also going, you know, If you know, you know.

39:59And so when we're talking about this hot take content, a lot of the time people can go, oh my gosh, like.

40:04Chris Cruz:I don't want to make enemies. Yeah, totally. She's going to make me do like weird political rants or something. And it's like, no, no, no. It has to be related to your niche. So we're not doing random rants that are completely unrelated and a clickbait. We're talking about. We're not trying to do rage bait here. We're not trying to get you to be like, all right, how do I get a bunch of people mad? No, that's not our intention. The attention is how do I get the 20 % to actually love me and advocate for me? That's a great perspective on it. Versus the 80 % who will never buy from me anyway. And that's okay.

40:41Chris Cruz:Yeah, that's great. And so in this, is content in this way the main bucket that you're saying to generate leads from? Or is there more to this that you're saying? Okay, let's hear the rest of this. If we think about content, if we think about the three steps of a funnel, Content sits in the first step, which is like this is how we get attention. The second step of a funnel is, well, how do we build authority? So how do we actually get people to go from, oh, they're funny or, oh, I like them. Oh, I just discovered them on Instagram or wherever you hang out. How do we actually build authority from there?

41:12And so there are different ways we can do this. We can build an email list. I recommend every single person build an email list. Email list is a massive moneymaker for your business. it's a platform that you own it's an audience that you own as opposed to LinkedIn no algorithm changes here

41:28Chris Cruz:you still have it you take it with you exactly so this authority piece is okay how can I build more trust and a lot of the time it can be as I said email list it could be through long form content like a conversation like this is a way to kind of warm your leads up and get people to go oh okay cool I can get a bit more of who they are what they're about So those are examples of how we actually build this authority piece so that we're not asking for someone who's just discovered us to, hey, do you want to buy my thing? That's not what we're doing. Another way that we can build authority, if we're going from Instagram, we can use Instagram to drive direct messages.

42:12So getting attention, sharing, let's say you're sharing a how I thing and you're like, cool, this is the project I did with this leadership consultant. If you're interested in working with me, I've got X amount of spots available for the month of August. DM me whatever it is, start or August or whatever the thing is. And you would have seen this a thousand times on social media. But all we're doing is we're getting people that have been observing and hanging out and maybe seeing your content to learn, okay, cool. If I want to work with Chris, then I've got to take action quickly and this is how we do it.

42:48And so we're not just waiting for them to inquire on your website or like randomly find you through Google. We're actually going, hey, here is the next step that you can take without leaving this platform. So then in the DMs, you can have a conversation with someone. This is where we build that authority. So that's like second step of the funnel.

43:07Chris Cruz:Now, in the DM process, because I want to make sure I'm being student here. I'm taking notes. I'm listening. so the in the dm process you're are you talking about using many chat as the main way to do it or are you going no i actually like you as a person do it because there's it's so funny i have i have interactions with friends i know that use many chat and i'll dm them and the many chat thing is responding back to me and i'm going we know each other just so you know like we're friends I'm not a lead. But you're saying there is, are you saying using ManyChat or are you saying also do it yourself?

43:44Chris Cruz:Like what's the way that you recommend? That's a great question. So I use ManyChat. I think about it like, you know, there's a lot of people now that are plugging ManyChat into Claude and then Claude is having the whole conversation. What I am finding and what I see in my DMs is people are very skeptical. They're like, is this a bot? Is this AI? Is this all automated? Is this actually Laura? So what I recommend and what I do is I automate the front end. So if there's a keyword that's, hey, DM me scale and I'll send you some details. The first message would be ManyChat, just going, hey, would love to know whatever the first question is.

44:28Then you could automate a couple of the questions, but honestly, we just automate the first message. and then there's a person responding. Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's someone on my team, depending just because we get hundreds of DMs a day. So I can't respond to everyone, but sometimes it is me. So I recommend automating the front end and then using a human for the actual sales part. And to be clear, what we're doing in the sales conversation for most creatives, the end goal is, hey, let's just book a call.

45:00Chris Cruz:Let's just jump on a call and we can chat about your business, right? But for some people it might be, hey, like some photographers I work with, they're just going straight to the booking link of book a session. For most there is some sort of sales call process. So there might be four or five questions we ask before we invite someone to book a call. So what we're doing in this process is we're going, okay, hey, I'd love to know an example would be what kind of business do you run? If you only work with a certain type of niche, than if they're, for me. So you have a first qualifying question that gets them to articulate and then after that you're engaging.

45:39Yeah.

45:39Chris Cruz:Okay. Yep. So an example for me is I would ask, okay, hey, awesome to hear that you want to learn more about how I can help you. I'd love to know what kind of business do you run? Tell me about what you do. That might be the many chat message. Then once we've got the answer, we can go, okay, if they run an e-com business, then they're not going to be the right fit. And so we can very quickly go, hey, listen, I just want to be really transparent. We don't actually serve people like you. He's an amazing person that I recommend you check out. So we're just asking whatever those qualifiers are for you, if it's a location, if it's an industry, if maybe you only work with people of a certain age or any other qualifier you can choose.

46:23But we just kind of want to make the conversation feel really natural and casual. and then all we're doing is we're kind of getting a gauge of, okay, talk to me. What's the big goal? It's just a sales conversation. What's the big goal? Okay, cool. That sounds awesome. What's the thing that's holding you back right now? Okay, cool. Yeah, that sounds challenging. That sounds like something we'd want to solve. Awesome. So here's what I'm thinking. Next step is let's jump on a call together and we'll just chat about this, this, and this. I help people like you all the time. Are you cool if I send you a link to that?

46:54Chris Cruz:Okay, so I'm going to pause there again because I'm going to ask another question. so in this process you have um because what i'm what i'm doing right now in my brain is going through all your steps you're telling me i'm going okay if every person listened to the call whether it's a service-based business through creative services or another kind of service-based business the the models are the same it's just we're using different kind of deliverables here it's like whether we're doing staffing on one side or whether it's a leadership consultancy on the other side we're selling this service and we're trying to get leads in in this process of qualifying a lead getting that next step in your journey of burnout i'm seeing two things i'm going were you taking every call or did you start to like how were you taking those leads and going here's how I the next step after they said let's book a meeting were you still doing that because a lot of people don't have a team what were you what were you doing there yeah so back when we started this conversation we talked about how I jumped from like 30 to 40k a month in my coaching company to 100k in six months the shift I made was outsourcing sales okay so I hired a closer to come into the business.

47:56She was actually a coach in the business, so she really understood the company. She really understood our clients. She jumped in and started doing those calls for me. Because I got to a point. Yes. I got to a point where I could only do, I think I only had capacity to do two or three calls a week, which meant that, I mean, I had a pretty good close rate, but it meant that we probably only signed, I don't know how many clients a month because of my own capacity. So that's a really great question. understanding what lever to pull and when um for me outsourcing sales was a massive unlock of capacity because i didn't have to pump the brakes on lead gen because i was like well crap i've got to be able to do all the calls so that that was a big one like for you that's you have to trust

48:46Chris Cruz:that that salesperson very distinctly oh because you're like i know i can do this and now you're going to do it for me and I'm going, your close rate's got to match mine to some level. Like, did you train that? Like, what was your step? Yeah, so the first thing I would say is you can't expect their close rate to match yours because as the founder, you have so much natural conviction and authority. You're the one kind of doing the work or you're the one leading the process. so you know i was closing at 80 and i had to be comfortable with this person closing at 50 love that and then go okay ultimately our goal is to get you to 60 but let's start at 50 if you're closing significantly below 50 we're handing you qualified leads there's a problem here yeah uh you can hire there's there's a bunch of companies that will like place a closer in your business that they've trained yeah that that can be a good way to go we've had some some success that way I have actually found though the best sales people have either been past clients or people that we are, people that we're kind of friends with.

49:59Because there's an element of trust, like you said, that needs to be there. When they're a past client, they understand the process. They have so much conviction. the cool thing about having someone else sell for you when you get to this this point is they can kind of brag about you yeah and be like oh man chris is so freaking good and like there's this element of they almost you're not you're not talking about yourself at that point they're validating you yeah they're like oh when you when you meet chris you're gonna love him he's he's and so they edify you and i think that that's really that's interesting valuable as well

50:34Chris Cruz:and so in this process we're still in that we're in that pulling it back to the leads you're like Like, okay, we got this process, this process, start the conversation. You're going through your funnel. Keep us on there. Okay, so that's the authority piece, right? So this is where we've got the email list. We've got long-form content if you're doing that. And we're using your DMs. Now, you only need to pull one or two of those levers. You don't need to do all, just to be clear. And the final step of the funnel is action. So we've got attention. We've got authority. The final step is action. So how do we actually get people to take the next step?

51:07So in a DM conversation, the next step is getting them to book a call. Then when they get on the call, do we have a script? Do we have a really clear proposal? Do we have an awesome offer? Do we have a good follow-up process? That all happens in this action piece. And I think a lot of, actually, like a lot of the creatives I work with do this part really well. They don't do the attention and authority part as well. Because they're like, once someone gets on a call with me, the conversion is pretty good. especially if you've got referrals and warm leads coming to you but once we start kind of throwing in cold traffic yeah if we don't have the attention and authority and action working it means that people are coming to you kind of going sell me yeah and and we want people to come to us pre-sold we want them to come being like i know you are the person i want to work with yeah i've seen your stuff i i really vibe with how you do things you've built this credibility and this trust yeah so you are the only option and that gives us the the power in the conversations and it means that we're not it means that we're coming into those conversations where you know how if someone has a like a bigger business than yours and you're trying to pitch them let's say you're trying to pitch them design services you can sometimes feel like a bit of an imposter yeah for sure in the sales conversation because you're like well you got you guys run this multi-million Oh my gosh, you're doing all this revenue.

52:36Chris Cruz:Oh my gosh, that's so intimidating. I'm just a little creative. A lot of creatives can fall into that trap where they go, oh, I'm just this and I'm just that and can get a bit smaller. But what we're doing is if we have this funnel in place and we're building trust, we're building credibility, when they come to us, we can actually be peers at the same level, regardless of, you know, they're a massive CEO or they run a massive company, it doesn't matter because you are the expert in your craft. And so what we are doing throughout this whole process is we're showing them, okay, why should you choose me?

53:11And then in these sales conversations, we can actually show up with that lovely, calm, composed energy that's like, hey, we do this stuff every day.

53:22Chris Cruz:So, okay. Yeah. This is where I'm going to go again, put my, I'm going to do a live. I did this even with Don. Let's do live interactions with me around this process. You know a little bit about our content. You have a sense of it you were encouraging to us before the show about our content. If you had to develop from what you see and know of us, and if you need fillers, I'll fill you in. How would you go and say, like, from the outside looking in, here's how you can increase your leads. Like, I'm going to put that, like, live coaching, put me on the spot, do it, like, see where we land and see where it gets us.

53:55Chris Cruz:It's going to expose a lot of holes I have. but I'd rather like get some real insights in a way that's like okay cool let's apply this to something right and this is for the agency yeah for the agency okay cool so I think a massive untapped thing for you is if you're selling branding strategy and content right those are like the core buckets the content that you're producing for this podcast for anatomy of a brand I would almost be using, I would treat anatomy of a brand as if it's like a client. So I'd be using that as a case study of, hey, we went from X to Y in this timeframe. Here's how we did it.

54:37So if you wanting to attract other brands who really want to level up their content gain, using yourself as an example is so helpful. So that's like a how I content, right?

54:48Chris Cruz:That's really, what's super funny because just so everybody knows, nobody's you and i have not talked about this this is not but the way that we've even built things is to be able to go back and say we want to get to a spot where we can because building a podcast the way that we've built it is like building a garden versus using a butterfly net going all right i'm going to build a garden that will attract the right types of people to us versus i'm gonna go get a net and i'm just going to swipe at whatever i can get so our podcast got guests like you connected to us got guests like don connected to us where we our authority in our space grew faster than our client load because we had this we took podcasting we doubled down on it we said we think this could be one of the best levers for us so the fact that you're even calling it out goes i need to take that now to that next layer and go here's how we did this versus we internally know it like we like we we did it on purpose but you're going yeah but you're not talking about it like dang it you're right that's good totally i would i would treat your own the things that you have done for yourself i would treat that as as a case study to be like okay cool this is how we did these things and this is how i think about personal branding or this is how i think about company branding i think that there is also you've got a lot of clout with guests that you've had.

56:11You've had Caleb Ralston, you've had Donald Miller. So thinking about, okay, I've talked with the world's leading, I mean, Caleb Ralston would be the personal branding guy. So talking about, okay, I've connected with these people. Here's what I've learned and here's what we've implemented ourselves. So almost treating it like you're bringing people on the journey of, hey, I'm building this thing. And these are the type of people I hang out with and I work with.

56:41Chris Cruz:It's great. Come hang. Yeah. And so the other thing that's interesting about the podcast too is that I'm curious, do many of the podcast guests go, do you love your content? Can you help me? Our biggest client came, one of our biggest clients came from being, they were a guest on the podcast. Part of the process was, I can't remember exactly if it was before the podcast or during the podcast. I can't, I'm honestly going, I don't remember if it was before or after, but the podcast helped. No question. Because I think any bigger company, they are recognizing that they need to be producing content.

57:22They need to be building a brand for the company, but also a personal brand as well. So I would be thinking about, okay, maybe there is an offshoot of part of your offer is servicing the kinds of people you have on the podcast anyway. Because if you're working with, like if we think about, it's way better to work with the leaders in the space than the folks that are just struggling to get started. Those people that are struggling to get started, they may be the leaders eventually.

57:51Chris Cruz:And they usually don't have the honestly top-line revenue to be able to afford any of the services we offer. Of course, of course. So yeah, I guess I'm just thinking about these people that you've worked with on the podcast could probably be good clients. Yes. Like I'm thinking, okay, next time I come to Nashville, great, I should have you do some content stuff with it. So it's just funny to think maybe there are people in your world already that you just haven't articulated, hey, these are the ways that I can help you. And I think this happens a lot in agency where you do so many things and you serve so many functions in the business that sometimes people can be unclear on, well, what is it you do?

58:34And so showing examples of this is how we did strategy for this person, or this is the strategy behind anatomy of a brand. You literally could just be using anatomy of a brand to show every piece of your offer and how you do things.

58:49Chris Cruz:That's fantastic. That would be what I do. Everybody, you got in on my free coaching session here with Laura, so thanks for staying with me. um okay i'm gonna ask you like one kind of like one final question or in this area um pricing you have this post you did one time that you said someone dms you asking how much you charge say this not that yep someone asks you about pricing what's your kind of methodology there around pricing how are you going forward from that yeah so i think a lot of the time and this happens a lot for creatives i think it happens probably in a lot of industries the amount of times we have conversations with other industries that are service-based industries that they'll talk about pricing i'm like oh you're just replace the service you do with what we do and it's the same exact conversation yes 100 so i think sometimes you can just get the dm that's like hey how much and it's like how much how much dis and i'm like i don't know i like my answer is always i actually don't know even though i because my frame is i actually don't know a if we're the right fit for you but b i don't know what offer or package you need and so my framing is always from a place of service it's not me being sheepish about price it's going okay cool uh hey listen i'd love to share some pricing with you before i do i just want to make sure i've got the fat like the details of what you're doing right so that i can actually make sure i'm presenting the right thing for you okay i don't want to guess i want to make sure i'm giving you the that's being super transparent so i think so much of this is just framing yeah if you can go hey like i don't want to be a terrible person and and give you the wrong idea so i'm just going to be really up front i want to make sure that i can help you first so are you good if i ask you a couple questions yeah if they say no at that point then they already know that was they were price shopping and they were probably going to be a terrible client let's be honest so the i i think just honestly it's just going I don't know what the pricing is because truly you don't yeah like because you're not operating are you operating from this paradigm or this from this um way of going like there's some there's there's some that have like a this cost this this cost this this cost that yeah but you're saying don't even do that yet it depends on the it depends on your product like if your product is a hundred dollars say yeah you might go hey listen this is yes the price is on the website yeah hit the link there's a reason why things are on the website for the price of their this is easy to yeah this is clear but i think if you're doing a higher ticket service let's say it's more than a thousand two thousand dollars my preference for creatives is to always go okay cool uh i'd love to have a conversation first because price without value it just feels like a number and it just feels like a cost.

1:01:45And so what we need to do is develop the value.

1:01:50Chris Cruz:On repeat, on repeat. That's not a hundred percent it. I think that they're, that process is so real. Okay. So if you had to leave anybody with, this would be right now, 2026, thinking through the best insights I have on getting you fully booked. What would be the, your parting thoughts? oh my gosh i have so many parting thoughts okay so don't stop marketing when you get busy so that funnel that we talked about yeah the the one final caveat i'd put on this is that what's really cool about this is if you want this to run for you on repeat all you need to do is the instagram posts at the top of the funnel in that attention phase is you can put it like a five a day boosted ad on that.

1:02:35So we're just getting eyeballs every day on that piece of content that's driving people into a DM, but then you can pitch the call and then we can have the actual conversation. So what's cool about that is it, it's a pipeline, it's a system. And so the big thing I will say is that we need a system that's not reliant on you having motivation or inspiration. It's just like, let's just, let's actually build this out. Right. So we need this repeatable system. And this is something that we work on with our clients is like, okay, is lead magnets and there's like more advanced funnels and things like that.

1:03:13But the simplest thing is to just do an Instagram post, boost that post, use it to start DMs, use the DMs to sell the call, use the call to sell the offer. That's like top line, all we need. right yeah so i would say don't stop marketing when you get busy and don't expect to be converting at 100 actually let that's not a good sign let's if you are converting 100 please increase your prices because you're going to hit your capacity ceiling really quickly and the third thing would be hire before you're ready because when you get fully booked the problem with getting fully booked is that then you don't have time to market then you don't have time to actually work on the business so when you see in yourself that most of your time is in delivery that's actually when we need to hire because as the founder as the leader in the business you have to wear the marketing hat you have to wear the sales hat but if you are only in delivery and if you are absolutely maxed out in delivery it's time to hire you've got enough work maybe it's time to increase prices and let's get you back into the driver's seat again where you're working on the business still doing bits of the delivery you love, of course, but let's get you in some of the marketing.

1:04:29Let's get you in some of the sales. Fantastic.

1:04:32Chris Cruz:I love it. Thank you for today. This is amazing. Pleasure.