How to Make Sure You’ve Done Your Marketing Homework with Connor Marriott

Connor’s found that most businesses think their problem lies with marketing, but often it’s something else: like their core offer. They don’t seem to understand all the pieces it takes to build out their entire business and how they all come together (especially when it comes to what to do with leads), and instead they think they need to just keep throwing money at ads.

When I asked him what’s most important on the front end, he said the offer, and getting that right. People think they need a broad market with a big offer, but they don’t. For example: there are LOTS of people wanting weight loss… so it sounds like an easy market, right? But now you’re competing with every other person selling weight loss in every which way you can imagine!

You have to break down their problem, your solution, and how you can help them achieve the solution… and these things should be VERY narrow, so you can speak to someone specifically. Consider the exact problem they have. Instead of “I’m a 42 year old father that wants to lose weight,” it should be “I have low energy, and I need to lose weight.” The issue is more specific.

Once you’ve articulated exactly what you do, you can put your messaging and marketing anywhere. If what you do is NOT clear and concise, and not something people inherently want… paying for ads to tell MORE people about that unclear thing they probably don’t want won’t be your answer. For that reason, most of the work comes right from the beginning: clarifying your offer!

When it comes to figuring out how to market a skill of yours, there’s SO much noise around what you need to “get right” and people tend to make it complicated. Connor’s job is to simplify it: How can we articulate your offer as SIMPLY and easily as possible?

Then, once you’ve nailed down your offer and gotten very specific (so you’re not competing against everyone else in a HUGE category), your next step is narrowing down your messaging. HOW are you going to fulfill your promise? How will that offer be achieved?

Then, once you’ve nailed down your offer and gotten very specific (so you’re not competing against everyone else in a HUGE category), your next step is narrowing down your messaging. HOW are you going to fulfill your promise? How will that offer be achieved?

The next step is marketing. I gave Connor a common example of an offer coaches have, such as a gut protocol, and asked him how he’d back it out to form a problem then solution. He said first, you’d normally want to identify the PROBLEM, not the solution… but in the case of many coaches (especially in BeachBody), we understand that often you have the offer before you have the problem because new products are launching, so your job is to identify the problem you can solve with it. So let’s consider the benefits of a gut protocol: they can be MANY. Increased energy, sleep, lower stress levels, and beyond! So what’s our market? Say, corporate execs with low energy, due to poor gut health because they’re eating crappy lunches on the go every day.

Market:

Corporate Execs.

Problem:

Low energy.

Solution:

Improving their gut health.

The solution is for the problem, the problem is for the market.

Reminder:

People don’t want gut health. They want the outcomes it brings. You can also consider OTHER roadblocks keeping them from that outcome, and expand your offer to address those things, too. (Example: A PDF with tips for the best night’s sleep of their lives.)

**Connor’s methods he uses to determine the actual problem:**

First: He starts with a list of possible outcomes the offer can achieve.
Second: Based on those outcomes, he reverse engineers the problems.
Third: He considers who would be suffering from those issues, and the easiest way is by talking to people. You can simply ask, “Hey there, do you have low energy?” “Would you like to increase it?” “Would you like to do it via your gut health?”

If you get 3 people saying yes, you have a proven concept and know that people want it. A technical way to do this would be to run some experimental Facebook Ads with test headlines. Use a basic image, swap out 5 differently worded headlines that say “Want to increase your energy?” “Are you ____, looking to increase your energy? Click here!” For a few bucks a day, you can test those questions and based on click through rates, see which hooks or messaging is getting the best response.

Connor’s agency’s mission is to help business owners grow. You can’t grow a business without changing the owner! Most people want a strategy, or a button they can click that will make a million bucks, but it doesn’t exist. He’d rather change someone’s behavior then give them a great strategy, because one day, platforms change and strategies stop working… but the right behavior will guarantee success forever.

There’s a quote that had a huge impact on him: “To get what you want, but you must deserve what you want.” He’d always wanted to be successful in the past, but most of the time he was either working out or hanging with friends… so he didn’t deserve it. Once you understand that concept, the process of fixing something that’s not working becomes a lot more simple. Often, a client comes in and says something isn’t working, and when he asks them how long they spent trying it, they’ll say something like “...I spent 10 minutes on it last week.” (Well…)

Once you’ve figured out your offer, you can work on sales. You need to make sure you nail these three components:

1
Make sure your prospect actually WANTS to solve the problem
2
They need to believe your solution will solve it
3
They need to believe the value of solving the problem outweighs the cost.

If you have those, the sale will happen every time.

Next is marketing, and this is where Connor focuses on social media. He strongly suggests starting with just one platform, because you probably don’t have the skills to make is super effective right off the bat- so you need some time to improve. Set your profile up in a way that makes what you do and who you help VERY clear. There is a LOT of resistance around “organic marketing,” because sales people try to start a conversation as a friend… then suddenly they try to sell you something. It feels slimy and uncomfortable! If your profile is set up in a way that clearly states who you are and what you’re about, people can instantly decide what they’re there for. It’s transparent, with no bait-and-switch.

Next, the process is 5 steps:

1
Get attention
2
Interaction
3
Conversation
4
Ask qualifying questions
5
Get on a call to dive deeper.

To make these convos feel authentic and less like a sales interaction, be clear from the start that it’s moving in that direction. If you’re going back and forth about random stuff for like 20 interactions then suddenly surprise them with a sales pitch, it freaks them out! Know who you’re trying to talk to, then ask questions that show you genuinely care. Based on their answers, give guidance, feedback and acknowledgement. If you can help - and ONLY if you can help - THEN move to the next step.

Position each step as “value” in order to get someone through each one. Example: “Thanks for the follow! I want to give you some free training. Can I ask a few questions to figure out which training would fit you the best?” Because there’s free value there, they almost always say yes.

Once you send them the training, you can say “If you want to learn more, we can jump on a call and create a strategy to get more clarity for you beyond this generic training.” There needs to be a benefit for each step- they’re not going to do anything if they don’t see value in it. At each step the value always needs to come first, and you can start a conversation after.

So good!!

Want to connect with Connor? Find him on Instagram at @conner_marriott!

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

The smaller the problem, the smaller the promise required… and the more easily it’s fulfilled.
You always want to make what you do very clear, instead of pretending to be their friend then switching into a sales pitch.