Find Your First Clients Fast: Corinne Crabtree's No-BS Guide to Business Growth

Kris: Welcome to from Click to Client, where we transform a confusing message into a clear, compelling story that sells. I'm your host, Chris Jones, StoryBrand marketing expert. I'm here to help you attract more dream clients with the power of story.

Welcome to the podcast Corinne.

I am so thrilled to have you here and I've been very much looking forward to this conversation. For those of you who don't know Corinne Crabtree, she has turned her personal 100 pound weight loss journey into two thriving businesses that, that have helped over 50 thousand women worldwide.

She brings her signature no BS approach to both weight loss and business coaching. So thank you for being here.

Corinne: Yeah, I'm excited. We're gonna I'm sure rip everybody a new one by the end of it.

Kris: Yes. In the best way possible. So, tell me a little bit about you. I know [00:01:00] you've built an eight figure coaching business from scratch.

Tell tell us about, your very first sale and how that happened.

Corinne: Oh my gosh, it's such a good story. So when I, when I first started, so I lost my a hundred pounds and I knew I wanted to help women lose weight. Like, I mean, it was probably one of the first times in my life where I clearly knew what I wanted.

I had, um, like when I got outta high school, I married some douche bag and blew a full college ride to nursing school, which I'm so glad I did. 'cause I. This person should have never been a nurse. Like caregiving is probably the worst thing. I would've been like nurse ratchet. So I, uh, got married and I had been like, I'd had a corporate job for a while.

I'd been a like an HR type trainer. I'd just done a lot of things, but I never. I kind of knew what I wanted to be and so we got married, we had a baby and I a hundred percent knew that I did not wanna be a stay at home mother. Like it drove me batshit crazy. And so [00:02:00] that was how I ended up losing weight 'cause I had been overweight all my life and I was really like afraid I was gonna pass on. All the eating habits, the bullying, the miserable life that I had to my son. So that was like my first motivator. And when I lost that weight, I was tucking my shirt in one day and I looked at my husband and he was like, why are you smiling so much?

And I said, I, I've never been able to tuck a shirt in and like looked like something. And I started crying and I told him that I was just so happy for the first time in my life that. I didn't just lose weight this time that I felt like I'd actually changed as a person and I wanted to help other women do the same thing.

'cause I told him, I was like, I don't think very many women are happy. I think we are all like eating our way through life and we've settled and I wanna help women lose weight, but also feel as amazing as they deserve. So. I like didn't know what to do with that. Um, I had started, uh, answering questions in the Weight Watchers message boards.

This was [00:03:00] like 2007. So we didn't have Facebook and we didn't have all those things. And I thought, well, where do people who wanna lose weight Hangout? Well, weight Watchers was the game on the, on the online back then. Yeah. And I just started a little thread called Ask the Trainer, and every day, more and more people, I had gotten an ACE certification, but I didn't do anything with it.

Mm-hmm. And so. I was taking questions like more and more every single day and lots of women were asking me about how I did it. They just, all the questions and eventually I. I started a little blog because I was getting too many questions and they were all repeating. So I was like, well, I'll start a blog and then every time somebody asks this question, I'll be able to send them there and I can just get through more of them.

So I'm not even charging at this point. Mm-hmm. I am just reading it like a job.

Mm-hmm.

Corinne: And then one day I looked at my husband and I said, did you know there are trainers online that you can pay and they'll work with you. You don't even have to go to a gym. And he said, really? I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do that.

And so everybody that had signed up to get my blog, there was like 120 people. Mm-hmm. I sent an email out, [00:04:00] it was on Valentine's Day, and the very first person that replied who wanted to work with me, her name was Corinnene. Right. And that was my maiden name. And I literally, I am serious as a heart attack.

And I looked at my husband, I was like. This is meant to be, this is who I'm supposed to be, like all the things. And so I had like a handful of people who reached out and said, yeah, and I was charging $20 like a month. I mean, not much. Yeah. But that was my first clients and I treated those ladies. I mean, they might've, they, they were getting.

$20,000 a month worth of service. I did everything but fly to their house and sit with them to help them with their weight problem. But that's how I got started. Just, um, being brave enough, like I just, like, I wanted to help people and I just solved the problem in front of me each day. It was like, all right, I'm getting too many people asking me questions here, so I'll start a blog that solved that problem.

[00:05:00] Then people were wanting to know, do I have to check your blog or is there a way that you can email me? And I was like, I, I'll find out. We didn't know anything about email service providers back then. And so I like went on Yahoo and figured out how do you do that? And then had a small email list and then I just sent them like literally from my own email box.

Mm-hmm. Like

Corinne: the offer to work with me. And so every single time I had a new problem present, I just. Basically Yahoo. The, I wouldn't say Google, but we didn't have Google then I was yahooing uh, the answers and then just creating the next solution to the problem.

Kris: Right. Wow. I love that. I love that. I think now in this day and age, there so many.

Solutions, right? A MailChimp and which platform is your website on? And, and all these constraints that you had, you had to figure it out one at a time, but you weren't overwhelmed with options. You were, you were just like, okay, this is how I can solve this problem. How do you, how do you help your. Business [00:06:00] clients, um, get going.

Like you work with a lot of people who are just getting started and it's very easy to get overwhelmed or kinda spread yourself too thin. There's so many tech options out there and everyone's trying to kind of get their initial degree and, and business ownership. Um, how do you guide them? In a way that that allows them not to get overwhelmed with all the tech and all the different rabbit holes that you can go down.

Corinne: Well, in my program, I just tell 'em what to do. I think that's the easiest thing is like, just do this, don't do that. So I have a lot of experience, not only in building one business, but then I had to build a, a second business. You know, I built the business business after, you know. I guess it was 14 years of doing the weight loss side.

I wanted to expand, but just telling them. But if, if you don't have someone to tell you, um, my husband uses this phrase, it's called the tyranny of choice. Mm-hmm. You have to be very careful about that because it is nice that back in the day there were no choices. In fact, there were not solutions to some of the problems.

[00:07:00] Like, um, you couldn't go out and find a course on building a funnel. No one was talking about it. There were a few people that had funnels, but no one talked about it because they, it was just, I mean, you just have to think about how brand new all this stuff was in the day. I didn't even learn about funnels until 2015.

Kris: Nobody would've even, no one would've known to use the word funnel for it. No. And we

Corinne: didn't have a lot of ads, so I couldn't even get some, like even when I was, I don't even think Facebook ads were technically a thing yet. It was like you literally, you had to go find these things and you just had to try things all the time.

We still have to do that now, but I, for someone who is just starting out. The very first thing that I think is the most important is your personal network. A lot of people wanna like get their website going and they wanna do all these things. I am like, you need to tell everybody about what you're doing because most of your first clients always come from your personal network.

You either already know the person who needs it, [00:08:00] or they are one or two people away from the person who needs you.

Right. And

Corinne: we all have access to those people. So I always tell people before you invest in a lot of tech and stuff

mm-hmm.

Corinne: Talk to everybody around you and just see if you can get someone to just purchase the problem you're trying to solve.

Mm-hmm. Otherwise, I watch a lot of coaches spend a. Fuck ton of money on, uh, branding a website. Get now I'm gonna hire someone to write this part and write this part and stuff, and you haven't even validated yet if anybody will pay for your shit, if anybody. Do you have enough people with this problem? Do you have access to the people with this problem?

Do you know how to talk about your problem yet in a way that people are like, well, hell yeah. Sign me up. Like that's my problem. So I always like to tell people, start running thy mouth first, because then as you're talking, like if you talk to your network. They are going to ask you questions like, well, what does that even mean?

Or, I don't really understand how you help. Tell me more about what you're doing so I can tell other people. Those [00:09:00] are the questions that you haven't answered yet. And if you pay, let's say you pay somebody $5,000 to build you a website. They don't know how to talk about your problem. All they're gonna do is ask you for the copy.

Mm-hmm. And now you're gonna be paying $5,000 for a beautiful website. You haven't even validated yet. Anybody understands what it means, you know how to talk about it, or, uh, people know, um, that this is a pro or this is a problem worthy of my cash,

Kris: right?

Corinne: Like for new coaches, I just think that's so important.

Otherwise, you spend a lot of money you don't have yet. You know, and I don't want people wasting their money. I don't like wasting mine, and I don't want y'all wasting yours. So,

Kris: yeah, nobody, it doesn't matter how much money you have, like there's no point in, in throwing it down the toilet. I, I think in addition to everything that you just shared, I.

Number one. Uh, what I like to say is you can't, there's no shortcut through that first year of bootstrapping, meaning talking to people, solving the problem, practicing this [00:10:00] new job, working with the clients, because so much learning happens in that year around. How, you know, how do you, what are the words that you use?

What are people responding to? What are the questions that you're getting over and over again? What are you talking about that's confusing people and you're having to clarify deeper, but. In addition to that, you also in that first year, get clarity around the people that you wanna work with and how to qualify those people and do you even like solving this problem?

So, so many people, I think after that year realize. That's not exactly the problem I wanna be solving. It's actually a little bit different. Yeah. And then if you're going to build your website at that point, then you've really got some data and some information and some experience under your belt to actually know that it's worth investing in.

Corinne: Yeah, and I think, I think in this day and age, um. Just creating a [00:11:00] social media channel like Instagram or Facebook, like LinkedIn, wherever you wanna be, use that as your free ass website. They're so user friendly. You can set everything up right there. And if you wanna, like let's say you spend six months on a problem that you're just like, I hate, like I hate my life solving this problem.

I don't like talking about it. I don't even like coaching the people. You literally can just start over, right? You just change everything out and within about. 12 posts. No one ever knows that you did anything else. And it's, you know, it's free and cheap. You know, I always. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Kris: And it takes all of an hour.

Go back in there and change up the copy, change your bio, change the things that you're talking about. And all of a sudden, like I love that piece about business ownership and entrepreneurship, that you get to show up however you wanna show up. Do you wanna be the expert in this, this, and this? Then be that, like go to your LinkedIn and step into that role.

Yeah. There, you know, internally there might be a little bit of a [00:12:00] disconnect until you get more confident and more comfortable showing up as that expert. But you've got to start somewhere. And that's what one thing I love about the work that I do. With messaging and websites is I help them, their website helps them step into those future shoes, the ones that they really kind of want to become.

Um, and then they, when you show up that way online, eventually in like a short period of time, you embody that and it's so empowering. Yeah,

Corinne: and it's, you know, like in the early stages, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a website and stuff. I just watched so many coaches not figure out who they are as a coach, and then they.

Invest a lot of money in getting like the bells and whistles pulled together.

Kris: Right. And they

Corinne: don't know their messaging and who they are yet. Yes, totally. And that's why I think it's so much more important to talk to people. Put yourself out there, start creating like social content, [00:13:00] see? Mm-hmm. I mean, even if it's likes from your friends and family and it's not potential clients, you start quickly seeing like.

Your friends and stuff. If they're not commenting that probably they're probably thinking, I don't understand. Or this is some who nanny, if they're commenting and saying, good luck, or, oh my gosh, such an important message, they're not gonna stop and do that unless you're breaking through the noise. And so there's just so many ways to dial this in, but you owe it to yourself to do that stuff so that you know you protect the biggest thing, which is.

If I'm gonna actually make this my career, the, I just find it very difficult as a coach to go into exorbitant amounts of debt and then try to go get clients.

Kris: Yes. I

Corinne: just, I'm a big believer, I've just watched too many people lose too much of their savings and stuff, and it's, you know, only in the coaching world for some reason, would we ever do that if you're gonna open a restaurant.

You're not just gonna be like, I wanna open a restaurant. I think I'll sell fried chicken [00:14:00] and I'll just throw it over there. You know, like you do some planning, you make sure you pick a location where there's traffic, you know, like you do these things. Now in those businesses, you do have to go into some debt.

You know, a lot of times you have to borrow money to start something. Mm-hmm. But you just have like, it's all, I just watched this epidemic in. It's almost like when we're starting a coaching business, we're starting Barbie Dream Store. We're not starting a business. Right. You know? And I'm like,

Kris: I do. Yeah.

This is

Corinne: your real. If this is your dream, right, let's treat it really seriously. Mm-hmm.

Kris: Yeah. I mean, you've got to have the proof of concept. You've got to have proof, like living proof that this is actually going to work and going to thrive before you invest anything into it. I think often with, with the branding and like all the things that you can pour your money into before you.

Even really get started. I think it be, it can become for many like perfectionist type people, it can become [00:15:00] yet another thing to distract you from being vulnerable and just putting yourself out there, okay, if I get all this stuff perfect, the visuals, the photos, like if everything is perfect, then I can guarantee that it will succeed.

And the reality is. You know, you're way better off just getting out there doing the work and proving to yourself for $0 that, that it will work. Yeah,

Corinne: yeah. There's like the cheap way and there's the broke ass way, you know, and when we were building my business, like, and it wasn't that my husband wouldn't have spent money on it, but I'm so glad that I, I built my business on the back of basically sweat equity.

And not like us spending money on things because it made me scrappy, it made me think different. It made me become a problem solver. Like there are so many skills I learned through those years where I wasn't spending money on it, that when we decided to start spending money on my business, I had already overcome a lot of the stuff.

[00:16:00] Like every, you know, when I started spending money on my business, I was getting a return on every dollar spent.

Mm-hmm.

Corinne: You know, in the very beginning, before you have, you know, vetted a lot of stuff and done a lot of things, there's no guarantee you're gonna, like, you know, you build a website, like, and I know I keep going back to website, but website is always like the, the crown jewel to me.

Everybody wants to put out a website as if it's, you know, 2002. When you're gonna be ranked number one and people are gonna find you nowadays, like there's probably a million websites built a day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. A day. Yeah. Yeah. And the likelihood of your website being found by anyone ever? Like, I mean, I have like almost 500 podcasts.

I have got years of content, like all the things, and to get my website ranked. On like the fifth page of Google is a real win now.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Corinne: You know, like you're gonna, like the first page of Google now is all sponsored ads. Right. Right. You know, so you just have to remember when you're building these things, you're never gonna [00:17:00] circumvent the day where you have to go and get eyeballs on it.

Right. At some point, you are the one going out and saying, here's what I do. I would love to help you. What do you think? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kris: Yeah. And you know, if you've got a great website, you can send those people to your website knowing that, that it's going to help you convert. But you've got to, I have a metaphor that I use, which is really, your website is like the sun in your marketing universe.

But you've gotta go on to the planets and point people back to your website. Yes. Pick two planets and my, my planets are podcasting and email marketing. I don't wanna be on social media all the time. That's not one of the planets that I chose 'cause I don't enjoy that. Some people love it. Pick that as one of your planets, but point people back to your website.

That's how you get those warm leads versus trying to compete with Google algorithm and trying to get on that front page. I mean, it, the, the industry, especially the coaching industry is so saturated. It, [00:18:00] it's, it is hard to stand out and, um, even when you do it just. It's so much more effective when you can kind of bring those warm leads to your website and then convert them.

Corinne: Yeah. And you know, it's so smart of you to pick email and um, podcasting because even in social now is like the Google algorithm these days,

Kris: right? I mean,

Corinne: you, like I always tell people. I want you to post on social. It's free. Like it's hard to compete with free in the beginning, right? But you posting on social doesn't get you clients.

When you're posting on social, you have to go to the places where the clients are on social

Kris: right?

Corinne: Offer value there. It's like, it's almost like a. Social is like the mini sun. It's like the mood now, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get 'em to your social where they are like, oh gosh, she has this free thing. Oh gosh, she talks about this.

I wanna follow her. I wanna do all these things. And then that points to the sun. That is what points to your list and [00:19:00] whatnot. Yeah. So it's all like, I think for newer, for newer people involved in all this, like the real lesson though, is. Your job is to get eyes on your product. I think when we focus so hard on our branding and our logo and our websites and we, the components of our product, we forget.

No one sees it unless you go get them. Totally right. And that's why I always like to tell people at the beginning. Do the cheapest thing first. Mm-hmm. Get really good at getting eyeballs right. Get really good at directing people to you. Mm-hmm. And then you can layer in a website, you can layer in the other things because now you've got traction.

The hardest part is getting the eyeballs. That is the absolutely hardest.

Kris: Yeah, and I think that's what I, one thing I love about podcasting is that you get immediate a, as a podcast guest, right? You get immediate access to a group of listeners that somebody has cultivated and built over time, and you get immediate trust because they've welcomed you to the show and you.

Get to have this [00:20:00] very fruitful, organic, enjoyable, pretty effortless conversation. Right? Just talking about the things that you love to talk about, people with the people that resonate with you. You're in their ears. Like you can't get closer to their brain than being in, in their earbuds. And then they can come find you if, if you're, if they're a right fit client and, and they resonate with you.

So that's, that's one way. And, and it's also ridiculously affordable, like pretty much free usually. Um, a lot of podcast hosts are looking for guests and that can be a great,

Corinne: oh gosh.

Kris: Yeah. Way to get eyeballs on your website and also to practice talking about your area of expertise. I know my first year of podcasting was really fun, but I, you know, it took me a while to kind of get comfortable with talking about what I love to talk about, so.

Um, you, you are known for something called your Money Hour practice. [00:21:00] Mm-hmm. Can you walk us through like what that, what that actually looks like in a typical, typical day?

Corinne: Yes. So I just redid it and we're getting ready to. Change it up for our members. So if any of my members are listening, this is a little different than the way I teach it inside, but we're gonna reshoot that video for y'all.

So money hour is where I tell everybody there is nothing more important in your business every day that you work than getting clients. If you're not actively looking for those eyeballs, if you're not actively looking for clients, you do not have a business period. So when you're first starting out, money hour is very tactical.

The first 20 minutes I tell people to go and look for groups. Places where people are hanging out on the internet talking about the problem you solve. So let's just use weight loss as an example. I might go join the Weight Watchers Facebook group. I might start following, um, some people on Instagram who, uh, have.[00:22:00]

That do weight loss similar to me, but not exactly like I do. So like I follow a lot of people who are big into macros and calorie counting because I teach emotional weight loss. So we do a lot of emotional eating stuff. So I follow people who are gonna naturally have people looking to lose weight. And a small group of those are probably gonna be women who are struggling with emotional eating and on these major accounts, they are going to be commenting.

Saying, oh, I, you know, I do so good on counting, um, my calories, you know, until the weekend. I don't know why I always blow it. They're not going to get that help on that account. So that's where I kind of swoop in and I come in and I'm just hoping there. So the first 20 minutes is dedicated to offering value.

You are not saying, come work with me. You're not sliding in the dms, or, you know, DM me and I'll give you more information. You're not doing any of that shit. You are literally just being of service and getting known in groups and whatnot as someone who is of service. Now, the second 20 minutes is where you take [00:23:00] something that you answered and you literally create a social post from it.

So. If somebody asked a question, you just would create a quote graphic that just had that question, and then you take your response copy paste, and that is now your caption. It is the easiest way to have a full social account. Yep. Without doing any extra work. You don't gotta brainstorm or nothing because if your social account is literally quote graphics of questions your people ask all the time.

You're gonna become like, like people are gonna wanna follow that. If you don't like typing, you can always just shoot a quick video. I mean, every single day in Facebook or on Instagram, if you prefer to do it video style, you can just, like today I'm answering this question and you just riff and post.

That's all you gotta do. So that's your second piece. The third piece is now where we are gonna go and we are going to dive deeper with people who are commenting and following every new follower. You ever get, you DM them and you thank them for following you, and you ask them, is there anything you would like for me to post about on [00:24:00] my account?

That opens up a conversation. They will say, I would love for you to do this. Then you're just gonna create that post in a few days, and then you're going to DM them back and say like, Hey, I just, I wanted to let you know, read my post today. I answered your question. And then you are going to, people are naturally, when they start following you, they're gonna start commenting.

You're gonna always be answering your comments and then people will start DMing you. You would be surprised that when you start helping people, that they will DM you. 'cause they won't wanna ask you publicly do you work with people or whatever, but they may slide into your dms. Mm-hmm. And that's always the holy grail.

The other thing you can do during that 20 minutes is if you've noticed that someone is now becoming a routine commenter. You're and, and you're like working back and forth with them or stuff. There's usually what I call a natural point to where you want to slide into their dms. It's no longer in the like cold area.

You are both warmed up and you kind of go in and you just say like, Hey. Um, I just wanna make sure, you know, I have this free resource. [00:25:00] I think it would really help you or, um, if you're a podcast or you've been on a podcast, you can like, offer them a podcast and you could say like, I would love to get on a consult call with you.

I just feel like I could really help you and if you wanna book, here's where you can book. Mm-hmm. But we've like, the way that I like to do it is, I think it takes a little longer, but. Most people don't like feeling sleazy. If you wanna be super aggressive, you can, I don't think anything is sleazy. I honestly don't.

I just know that we sometimes feel sleazy. Mm-hmm. And so if you're okay with speeding that process up, you can. But if you don't, this is such a good way of getting known, getting followers, getting people into your ecosystem, and you can be like, as people start following you, that's when you, if you've got a free thing about every third or fourth day, just put into the, the post that you do.

Sign up for my free thing, DM me and I'll send you the link. You can do things like that, but that is what I call the minimum baseline If you are in business. Like if you can't spend an hour a day [00:26:00] working to get eyeballs, it is going to be really hard to have a coaching business unless you have access to a market.

So let's say I've, I have a few coaches who have quit a job, but on good terms. And where they work, like had, you know, 20 or 30,000 providers or something, and they're like, well, now that you're leaving, we would still love to contract. You. Could you come in and speak and you can pitch your program and stuff?

If you already have access like that, you do not need to be doing this. You need to be working with those people. But most of us who are coaches, we have a wild hair up our ass that we wanna help people do X and we don't have access to the market. We've got to go get access to them.

Mm-hmm.

Corinne: And so that's the money hour.

And then I tell people now, if you've quit your job and you were seriously making a run at being a coach, let's say you've got five days a week and you're gonna work eight hours a day. If it was Corinnene, and this is what I used to do, I had, back when I first started, I had two and a half hours every single day, Monday through Friday, while my [00:27:00] son was at Mother's Day Out, he was autistic.

And so when he was home. There was no working. Logan was full time.

Kris: I can relate. Yes. Yes.

Corinne: So when he was at Mother's Day Out, I spent two and a half hours in the Weight Watchers message board. Well, I spent two hours in Weight Watchers message board, and I spent 30 minutes turning it into a blog, and that is what I did every single day.

Mm-hmm. And then if I needed extra time, I worked at night when he would go to bed. But most of the time that was all I had. But I spent like all my time. Networking, making sure that I was driving eyeballs, and then it ended up paying off when I was ready to turn it on. And then when he went to, uh, like regular, like preschool type stuff, I had more time.

I still spent the most of my time was spent still answering questions in message boards, getting my blog up, and then interacting with people who had expressed interest in the email. That was like the old school dms, right? I was working that email and I mean some people to get 'em to pay me that $20, I had to talk to [00:28:00] them for like eight hours in email time before they were ready to convert, and I was happy to do it.

Kris: Yep. Wow. It's so beautiful. I love how you break it down into those three steps and it's, it's truly timeless. Yes. The technology has shifted a little bit from Weight Watchers message board to Instagram dms, but the fundamental. Process is the same, and it's, it truly is timeless. It's about connecting with people, building trust, showing up with a, a helpful, kind, generous heart, truly wanting to serve.

And then, you know, letting that organically shift into a conversation where you can naturally. Ask, do you wanna solve this problem? I can help you do that. And then they get on a call like the, the fastest way to get a client is to get them on a call with you. But there's a process to nurture their relationship before they're ready and willing to do that.

So

Corinne: especially calls, 'cause [00:29:00] people are these days. Like I have bought some really expensive programs through texting and they wanted me on a consult call so bad. And I'm like, no, if we can't bang it out in the text, I'm not doing it. Because I just felt like I barely call my mother much less wanna be on a consult call with anybody in the world.

Right?

Corinne: And so, yeah, we just have to think about how people are nowadays. You know, like, you know, used to be a consult call. Sounded like a damn good idea to a lot of people nowadays. People move faster and I, I am not poo-pooing the consult call I tell my people to get 'em on a call too. But you have to remember, you've got to warm that relationship up because getting on a phone call nowadays for most people, I gotta really trust you.

I don't wanna waste my time. Right. Time is rush. And once we came through Covid, I think everybody had a collective reset over how much they wanted to spend their, like how they wanted to spend their time. Mm-hmm.

Kris: And Well, and how valuable it is, right? Yes. And how, yes. I, I know I used to give away my time a lot.

I think between pre [00:30:00] Covid V and just preki, you know, I gave away a lot of my time 'cause I had a, a, an abundance of it. And now it's like, I'm kind of like you, where I've got two and a half hours, I've gotta make the most of it and do the thing that's gonna get me the biggest return. And I think as far as, um.

People booking calls. Nobody wants to get on a sales call. Nobody, nobody wants to be sold to. They want help. They wanna solve their problem and they want to get value from that call. So it's really important that we position. Honestly position those calls as ways to serve and truly help and yes, potentially give them an aha or solve a micro problem so they can really experience what it's like for us to help them.

Then they're much more likely to wanna take that next step. So, absolutely. Yeah. Tell me, um, you know, in today's climate right now, I feel like. [00:31:00] Politically, and we don't have to get into politics, but I feel like there's a lot of uncertainty and I think a lot of people are holding onto their money in ways they haven't in the last decade or so.

Um, I'm curious, like what, how are you communicating about this with your, your students? And are you hearing about this from your students?

Corinne: Yes. I like for sure, like this is, I think, the problem to solve overall for all of us, but it's, it's so funny because I don't think the solution is any different than it used to be.

I do think people when pre COVID. The, the nice thing was, is that we still hadn't really hit a boom yet on like, ads weren't that saturated just yet. They were becoming more saturated, but they still worked really well. There was just a lot of things that were, it wasn't like it was when Covid hit and then when Covid hit, people were spending money because they were bored.

Lot of people were home and a [00:32:00] lot of people were wanting to get coaching. People were at an inflection point in their life. They had the time finally to work on things. So selling became pretty easy online during about a two year window. So from 20 to 22, um, you could put out about any course you wanted, you could, you could put out anything.

And people were, um, like outside of the first, about six weeks of covid. People suddenly like just wanted to spend money, they were bored. Totally. You know, and it would, it became like a coping mechanism. Then about 2022, I think when inflation kind of started hitting and people and everything was opening back up and time was getting more scarce and you know, I've already taken like 400 courses and like I'm so, I, you know, I spent two years on a Zoom call.

I don't want any more Zoom calls. You know, things started changing and so I definitely think it's. Harder to sell now, but the, the only thing I think that's really changed is prior to Covid and the very beginning of co, [00:33:00] prior to covid, it was a lot of, you could use a lot of urgency, you could use a lot of scarcity, you could use a lot of psychological hacks.

Mm-hmm. And that was enough. Then when Covid hit, you could use that. And even if you just said, I got a new thing, you should buy it. People were just buying like, I mean, there was a lot of people that, uh, businesses took off simply because it was easy, so we weren't as afraid. Now you need a little bit of the psychology, but we have to go deep in relationship now.

It is, it's going to take longer to get your clients. When I say that there is a way to speed the process up. Um, but it still is gonna take, uh, I, there's a study that Google did, um, I think it was last year or something, but like the average person before, they're buying something kind of like more in our space.

One, they wanna see you in like four different places before they trust you. Like, and that means I've seen you on social, I've heard you on a podcast. Um, Ooh, I, I caught a video of you one day. Whether that's on social, you know, like I've seen it video, I've seen you, you know, and [00:34:00] emailed, like, you emailed me.

I got your free thing. Mm-hmm. I visited your website. All of those are like the different touch points. So there's a million of them and you know, yeah. Then. They need seven hours of consumed content now.

Mm.

Corinne: The average. And that includes reading time, listening time, all this other kind of stuff. And then the average person doesn't buy until they've been asked to take a step with you about 11 times.

Wow. So like, let's say you want somebody on a consult call, the average is about the 11th time you've asked about the, you know. Talked about a so, uh, consult call and stuff is about when somebody's going to flip. And so I don't say that to scare people. It's to show you that, you know, when you complain that you've sent three emails, well, I DMed them once.

I don't understand where my people are. Mm-hmm. It is because you haven't really even scratched the surface with them yet when it comes to trusting you and valuing you.

Hmm.

Corinne: So the way we speed that process up is to make sure you have [00:35:00] processes. So if you know if you're gonna have a podcast, you better, you better do it every week.

Don't be a ghoster if you're gonna have a social channel. You better, like regularly post. Don't be a ghost poster. If you're gonna DM someone, you should DM them. Like you've got to come up with the things that you're gonna do. If you're gonna have a freebie. You need a good follow up sequence, an automated one.

Mm-hmm. And like you just have to think through things. You can get people through all of that stuff pretty fast. Seven hours sounds long, but it's not really long. Mm-hmm. Not. When you think about the amount of emails that, I mean, you're gonna have a weekly newsletter, you're gonna have your funnel emails, you're probably gonna have social posts they can read, you may be guessing on podcasts that you can send them an email and say like, Hey, it was just on this podcast.

Take a listen. You know, if you've been thinking of this, there are ways to speed it up. And so I think what I'm telling my people is you've got to be willing to talk to people and be there for them. Hold their hand through the sales process. Now, um, there's automation, but we have to put the, the real person back in.

So [00:36:00] like in our business, you know, we have automated funnels, but every email always says, you know, if you have any questions, please reply. We get replies every single day. Mm-hmm. And a real human is talking to them about their real problem. Then now walking them through joining our $59 membership. We used to not have to do that stuff, but now we get better conversions doing that.

Mm-hmm. And that's, it's not that

Kris: hard, right? It's not that hard. It's not that hard. Mm-hmm.

Corinne: Yeah. No, it makes money. It's better to be doing things like that than it is to be sitting there and tinkering with dumb shit all day long in your business.

Kris: Right.

Corinne: I will watch people making almost no money. Worry endlessly about a process like building out something in Notion or Clickup and like having all these steps and stuff, and I'm like, what?

For the two clients you have like, go get more clients. You know, you don't need a system yet, but people will wanna piddle with stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Graphics and get photo shoots done and stuff. I'm like, who needs a photo shoot if you [00:37:00] got an iPhone? Oh yeah. Do not pay a photographer. Right. You know, I only pay a photographer now.

Right.

Corinne: But God, I'm at eight figures so I can afford, because I don't wanna take my own photos anymore. But I'm gonna tell you, girl, I didn't ever have a photo shoot back in the day, and we didn't even have iPhones working like. I was like just a Polaroid on the internet. Yeah. Like

Kris: yeah, that's all I got.

You know, back to kind of that nurturing the relationship piece, I find people wanna work with people that they've spent time with. Right. So I. You need to put out ways for people to spend time with you, and video is such a powerful way to do that. People don't wanna work with the best of the best. They wanna work with the one they feel the most connected to.

The way they feel connected to us is by spending time with us. And for example, if you have a freebie, you could do a downloadable checklist. Someone might download the PDF. They might open it, they might not, but if you deliver that freebie [00:38:00] in a five minute video, they have just spent five minutes with you and, and you're way farther ahead of, of the game.

In that way than you would be with a downloadable PDF. If you're feeling shy or timid or whatever, just get on the video. The production quality does not have to be good. People don't care as long as they can hear you. That's all they care about. As long as you can help them solve as small problem and as long as you can over not overwhelm them.

I think I've had clients that I've worked with, like their freebie is actually like. Um, loads of information, right? And it's too much. People need a micro win in a short period of time, and they just, they just wanna get to know you. So, um,

Corinne: well, if this makes your audience feel any better right now, the content that actually pops best, whether that's in social or just in funnels and stuff, is stuff that's filmed vertically on a phone.

Mm-hmm. Like, I

Corinne: mean

mm-hmm. I

Corinne: hate to say that [00:39:00] because I now have a hundred K studio built in my own home for filming. Yeah. And whenever we do, um, now when I do my courses and things like that, we of course, you know, zoom calls and what I, I use my studio, but when we want, uh, a freebie or, uh, we wanna test something

mm-hmm.

Corinne: Or we wanna put it on social, they make me get my phone out and they say, and don't wear your makeup. Like, can you look like you didn't shower today? Right. Because people wanna see authenticity, they wanna feel like you're talking to them. They wanna feel like we're just sitting around having a conversation.

Yeah. Right. And that is the concept that's doing the best right now. So whenever anybody tells me, like if you're a perfectionist sitting out there like worried about what you're gonna sound like, whatever. I'm like, you don't even need your earbuds in. Mm-hmm. People literally don't give a shit. They're just like, just talking to your phone.

I don't care if they're staring right up your nose.

Kris: Totally. Yeah. Go on a walk. You know, I, I did a video the other day and I was just on a walk around the park at my house and it, and it, if they're, if they can feel like they're with me on a walk, I mean, that's a pretty [00:40:00] intimate experience. There's an yes, an email marketing genius that I follow that he's just silly.

Like he is a, he is a comedian at heart and. He got on one of those like two wheel kind of things that people ride around and he had a gallon of milk and he was filming himself doing this. And it was just like, it was so wacky and you don't have to be wacky, but it was just, you know, he was just having fun.

And I think people appreciate that, like, that authenticity and, and a little bit of fun. It doesn't have to be so serious all the time. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. So Corinnene, I'm gonna ask you one more question and then we're gonna wrap up. What, what is the one thing, let's get back to websites a little bit.

What's the one thing that every Coach's website has to have that most of them don't have? Oh, gosh.

Corinne: That they don't have. [00:41:00] Well, here's what you, let me answer it this way. Okay. The one thing you must have is not a lot of shit on there. I know that sounds like kind of like answering it weird, but I think the biggest mistake I watch coaches do is they wanna have an about page and they want to have a work with me page and they want to have a freebie page and they want to have.

Like, here's every little thing. Here's all the other little freebies I've ever offered in my entire lifetime. And you know, in case you don't wanna work with me this way, you could work with me this way. I like I for years, for years, if you went to my weight loss site, the only button on there was get my free course.

You could not. Find my blog. You could not listen to my podcast. You could not find anything else on that page other than that. And unless you, like, I just, I was just like, if they can Google all that great

mm-hmm.

Corinne: Like everything was available on the internet, but there was one button because when they landed on that page, I didn't want them to know about my membership.

I didn't want them to know anything. I just wanted as [00:42:00] many people on my email list as I possibly could get. And I think that we forget that when we give people lots of choices, they make no choices. Yes. To. So if I, if I was first starting out, I'd have a webpage and it would have nothing to do with my coaching service.

I would have a webpage that sold my freebie. Mm-hmm. And I would always be directing people there. Mm-hmm. And just trying to get them there. And then like, let's say you have like coaching website.com, like slash free, free course. It's the main thing. Now you could have slash about me slash podcast slash whatever, but no buttons linking to it.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That means that if you're on Google and for some reason somebody looks up, you know, coaching website because they had a great podcast on X, Y, z, I might get indexed and be sent there, but you just have to think about this, y'all the most important thing. It's always to get people's email addresses.

'cause once you have an email address, you can talk to them anytime you want. You can promote your podcast to them. You can get them listening to your [00:43:00] podcast. You can get them doing anything you want. You can put out your consult calls, your offers and stuff. If you do not have their website or you don't have their email address and they're just listening to your podcast.

You gotta hope that they listen to it the week that you promote something. Mm-hmm. You know, most people don't listen to your podcast every single week. They listen to it every, not every now and then. Like I have people, I don't even have one podcast anymore, not one single podcast I listen to every single week.

I have a lot of podcasts that download, or that I subscribe to, and I listen to about every fourth or fifth episode. Mm-hmm. People just don't consume content like they used to. No. So if I'm gonna get their attention, I want to get their attention to the one thing that makes it easy for me to stay in touch with them.

And so that's probably what would be on my website. And it would just be talking about this is my freebie and how it helps you. This is the problem my freebie solves. Then you can have like coaching website.com/. Program. Mm-hmm. And then when [00:44:00] people, like, when you send out your emails, you're just sending them straight to that page and then that page doesn't have your freebie on there, buttons and stuff.

It's like that page is in the website, but it's literally, this is why you should schedule a consult call with me. So like, if I'm, if I'm gonna, if my first step to work with Corinnene is a consult call, I'm not telling 'em at all about my program. I'm telling 'em about my consult call. What, what are we gonna be doing on this call that's gonna help you?

Like, and I always tell my people, name it something really great, like offer to do an audit, offer to do something where they feel like they get some exchange for the time. Right. And I would be selling that because I always think that every step, you're just trying to sell them to the next one. Mm-hmm.

And so when you map out your ecosystem, like the first thing I need them to do is to have a freebie so I can then I can sell 'em my consult call. Then when they get on my call now, I can have a page that talks all about my program. If I don't convert them on the call, then I can just send them to the page where the payment link is.

But it kind of goes over the [00:45:00] stuff, you know, like you're just always thinking about what is the next thing, the next step, and then I would just only send people and make them lost in the one step. Most people send them to like, well, I've got like 50 things I have people do. So I send them and I'm just like.

Hope for the best that they pick the one that want them do.

Kris: Right? It's like choose. Choose your own adventure, right? You send them to your website and so many coaches feel like their website needs to be. A resume plus Wikipedia, plus educational and, and all the things. And your website is actually not the resource for that.

That's why we have Google, and I'm a big fan of the one page website with the one Call to action, like, don't give them another decision to make. Tell them exactly what you want them to do, and then when you get on that. Consult call with them. You're, you're the one to diagnose the problem that they have and how you can solve it.

You don't want to show them the eight ways in which you solve problems. You don't go to the doctor [00:46:00] and the doctor doesn't. Help you with your cough. And then also tell you, by the way, if you ever have chicken pox, I can help you. I'm really good at, you know, solving the chicken pox problem. Like we, they want to be told what to do and it's our job not to load them up with more decisions and, um, yeah, choose your own adventure.

Scavenger hunt essentially is what most websites are. So, yeah, I always,

Corinne: well, I was just. The only people that I think that can get away with having multiple calls to action are people that have been in this for a long time and they know. Best how to sell. Like they already know how many people are, like, how often they're driving free content, like people who are freebie seekers versus paid seekers.

You know, when you see people like a Jenna Kutcher or like bigger names that have multiple things, they have spent a lot of time watching people go through their website and organizing it in such a way. Where the people really aren't choosing their own adventure. [00:47:00] Things are put in particular orders until you get that level of marketing and sales skill.

A one page is always best. Even on my stuff now, we, we, I limit myself. I don't put a lot of stuff out there for a reason because I feel like even to this day, if I'm gonna make a error, I want unforced errors. It's like if we're gonna have an error, we're gonna err on the side of too many people signing up for the free thing that we're ready to buy versus not enough clients because they didn't know what to do.

Kris: Right. A hundred percent. Yeah. Wow. Corrine, this has been such a wonderful, insightful conversation. Tell my listeners where they can find you.

Corinne: So you can go, like, if you wanna get information, if you, if like if you need to work on emotional heating, just go to no bs weightloss.com and if you need help with your business, you can go to no BS business.com.

Kris: Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

Is your website turning away Potential clients? I can help you turn that around. [00:48:00] Book a moneymaking messaging call with me today and we'll transform your story into your most powerful sales tool. That's all for this episode of From Click to Client. Don't forget to subscribe and follow. I'm Chris Jones and I'll see you next time.