Helpful Advice.
Healthy Boundaries.

Transcript from the episode recording, with speaker names added and paragraphs formatted for readability. Automated transcription may contain errors; the audio is the original record.

Brad Hauck 00:14

Let's challenge your thinking for a second. Most experts believe being helpful is the fastest way to build trust, but they explain everything clearly and they share it all freely. And that sounds right, but there is a hidden cost. When you give away the full information to someone, you remove their reason for them to actually contact you and get your help. So here's the real question. Are you explaining things so well that people never need to hire you? And at what point does generosity quietly turn into self-sabotage? In this episode, we're going to look at the tension between value and authority, what to share, what to hold back, and how to stay generous without giving away the very reason people should pay to work with you.

Good morning, Dixie.

Dixie Carlton 00:58

Good morning, Brad. What an amazing topic and so timely.

Brad Hauck 01:03

It's a good topic. I always find this, and I'm guilty of this. I'm a strong believer in the value of free, and it's my nature to help people. So I give away a lot. And I've worked out over the years that I've probably given away way too much and probably taken a lot of money out of my pocket. So I think we need to look at what we're doing, whether we're just doing it because we want to help people or whether we are actually helping them by giving it to them for free, because sometimes people don't value free.

Dixie Carlton 01:29

I completely agree. And it's timely because I myself this morning uh ended up having a conversation with someone that I'm not going to work with, at least not for a while. But I ended up having originally told them that I wasn't able to work with them, still ended up having a conversation with them that lasted well into 45 minutes. And it was very helpful for them. And I had painted myself into a corner where I wasn't able to charge for that information. And for the last few months, I've been thinking, well, instead of giving away free starting or discovery call opportunities, that I should be charging for those.

And then again, it's so hard sometimes to actually bring that round to being a reality. You and I both know we've sat in conferences for many years and heard people say, well, you're only going to give away a little bit of the tip of the iceberg. All of your real content is like an iceberg under the water level. And if you give away a little bit of stuff, then you know, it's still saying that you've got a lot more. You can't give away at all. And yes, that's a good leap magnet concept. But at the same time, if you end up spending several hours a week just on the free stuff, your business suffers.

Brad Hauck 02:43

So what's Yeah, and I think I don't know there's really a good answer to that. I mean, my favorite book probably of all time is a book called Free by Chris Anderson. And I really like it because he looked at the free economy and how it's developed and how people have tweaked their what they do. Singers don't make a lot of money out of their music online, but they make a lot of money out of their concerts. So the music's free online almost, and they make so there's all that sort of thinking that goes in there.

But I think the biggest mistake that we make realistically is we give away everything. So it's okay to give away step one, but giving away step two to ten is where most people fail. They give all the steps away, they give all the information away. And I think we you need to set some boundaries for yourself on what you do. Working on a lead magnet and I was running it through ChatGPT and things like that to get feedback on it. And I actually said, Am I giving away everything? And it kind of came back and went, No, you've actually kind of given away some interesting stuff, but not enough to take away from the point of the lead magnet.

And it is kind of a funny question, you feel like, to ask, but well, that's what AI is good for in some ways. So I think that if you're explaining too well, people just don't need to hire you because they'll think that they can go ahead by themselves. Now, when I say think, I mean they probably can't, but they think enough that it basically puts a pause in the conversation and they don't move forward to actually buy from you or hire you or whatever.

Dixie Carlton 04:13

Yeah. Well, I mean, I just spent the last few weeks doing a series of webinar training programs for a fairly large association. And I've given away downloadable PDF worksheets, et cetera, and then another checklist and quite a lot of things and a lot of information. And I've workshops and pieces throughout the sessions when I've been running them as well. And so I've been able to exhibit my brilliance, get some great feedback, have people say, well, that was amazing, grab my giveaways, et cetera. And what we've done is I've put a very clear call to action within each of those downloads that reminds people if you need some help working through this, because I know there's a lot of things to do in this, if you need some help, this is how you get that help from me.

So I'm trying to really breadcrumb that whole call to action in as many ways as I possibly can. But it's very hard when your primary market isn't necessarily someone who's going to pay you to speak, for example. So I don't get a lot of people saying, oh, you speak on publishing, come and speak at our conference, because most publishing conferences, for example, don't chart, don't pay their speakers. So you do end up in that sort of situation too, which is so frustrating because you know that you put an awful lot of work and effort into making sure you are professional, that you've got everything right right on stage, that you've rehearsed, that you've uh set aside the time to deliver at your best possible abilities.

And then you've got the opportunity to maybe sell at the back of the room or do a follow-up or something. But again, you're not actually getting paid for all of that time that you put in. And it is sometimes a hit and miss as to whether or not you recover your costs through the ongoing work that you might get from the people attending.

Brad Hauck 06:06

Absolutely. And I mean, coming back to that, like what do we give away? You'll often hear them say to speakers, oh, well, you need to talk about what to do, not how to do it. That's quite a common thing that we hear in the speaking world. And I actually think that's a little bit confusing in a lot of ways, because if you show people everything what to do, then a lot of people will try and move forward on their own, even though they can't. And of course, again, they won't call you, they'll just kind of start doing it, they'll fail, and they'll go, oh, I need to do something else, and they'll move on.

So you actually lose that ability to connect with them and get them to hire you, whether that be to speak again or to do actual work for them, whatever your business is on as part of your speaking business. And I think one of the ways I like to look at it is can you help them analyze the problem but not fix it? So I've kind of gone more down that route now, where I'll talk about the problem and I'll show them little 10-second tests and things like that they can do to help analyze whether this is a real problem for them and things like that.

And it'll take them through and they'll realize that they've got an issue that they need to fix. But then when they actually need help to fix, that's what I hold back. So I've actually started to change my thinking a little. And I think that's the key. It's all about how you think about it. Maybe that's an angle for someone else. Help analyze, but not fix.

Dixie Carlton 07:32

Well, I like that concept. And one of the things that I've started to do a lot more of is create checklists or quizzes to say, well, where are you actually sitting? These are all of the things that you need to be thinking about. Now, here is something that will help you sit down in your office tomorrow morning and go through and see where you actually sit. And then what is that costing you? Identifying what is the pain, and then how do you feel about that level of pain? What do you need to do now to either slowly work through that yourself, or do you need someone to help you and handhold for you the ability to get through each of those items or prioritize each of those items?

And so checklists and quizzes can be a really useful way of helping to analyze. Um and I've found that people come back often and say, Well, I worked through that and I realized that actually I can't do this by myself. I start, I stop. Now I need some help. And that can be a really good way of getting business. Now, while most of my speaking is done for free, I recently did my CSP application and realized that the amount of work that I get from when I speak is phenomenal. So I always get good value out of the presentations that I do when I put my best foot forward and can convert people into becoming clients without being a self-on the stage for the back of the room type person.

But I do know that there is value for me in giving away a lot of information and appearing to be the expert that I know.

Brad Hauck 09:06

I hope I am.

Dixie Carlton 09:07

Yes, but I hope I am. But I do know that if I get to showcase some of that, that I get real value back from the people that do want to work with me. So again, that comes back to that same conundrum. How much is too much to give away? And at what point do you say there's too much?

Brad Hauck 09:24

Yeah, exactly. I think you make a good point in that like you are making good sales from stage, so to speak, but also you can maybe look at it and go, can I do better? Can I get more leads? So even when we think what our formula is that's working for us, maybe we can actually do better. Maybe we're still giving away too much if we look at what we give away. So just say you're giving away, say, five checklists or something like that. Are most people only getting to the end of the first one before they're calling?

Maybe there's actually a spot there where you can still feel like you're giving away a lot, but you're actually not having to give away as much. Well, you know, I just I just think it's an interesting question.

Dixie Carlton 10:07

There's another way of looking at this. Every lead that you get, you have a conversion rate over whether, you know, how often you then turn them into someone who buys at the next level on the next level. So if you are really clear on your funnel and you know that, for example, you might do a free presentation, which might then lead to a keynote or a training session, or your your book might lead to that. And then you've got the next part, which is a let's say a low-fee webinar. And Zach Hestenberg, whom I've been doing some conversations with and I think is amazing, he talks about the sweet spot as around about the $7 investment for a good low-cost webinar to get a lot of people onto.

And then from there you upsell them to something that's either $49 or $79 or $99. And that's maybe another webinar. And so that's not necessarily his specific methodology. It's close. And so then you've got the free book or the book that might have cost them $20 or whatever, $30. Then you've got the opportunity to do a one-on-one with them or a one-to-many thing that might be seven or eight dollars. And then that's several touch points so far has gone into there. Then you've got another part which leads them into a maybe a more full rounded webinar or series of three or a challenge or something, which they're paying a little bit more for.

And then you're getting them to book you for a keynote or a full breakout session that you're getting paid for. And then after that, you still want to say, well, okay, now how do I get you from keynote workshop and then into a series and then into a full program that may be a year-long program? Then you need to be looking at the whole concept of, which is standard sales stuff, the whole concept of every single client maybe is worth $30,000 to me over a lifetime versus three to five thousand dollars. All right. So if you are then looking at that and saying every single touch point could be worth $30,000 or even $300,000, whatever it is, if you then say, well, this is how much I have to get really savvy at closing on every single point along the way.

So maybe the real answer to this question is how well do you structure your sales process, set up your funnel, and get good at closing everyone that comes through the door?

Brad Hauck 12:34

Oh, look, I think you make a really valid point. When we talk about the lifetime value of a customer, which is a really common thing you'll hear the Kennedy and people like that talk about. You look at, okay, a lifetime value of a customer is $10,000. How much can I afford to spend to get a customer? And that's where we look at on return on ad spend and all sorts of things. But, you know, that I suppose when we go into paid side where we're paying for ads, that's a different world entirely. We're not talking about free giveaways there.

But it is a good point that we still need to get people in there. So we need to come up with a point where people do fall into our funnel. And I suppose the question I wrote down here was, how do you leave them hungry? Meaning that they want to take another step, they want to know more. And I think that's a really key question. You know, if you look at it in a fishing terms, you've baited the room, you're waiting to see what jumps on the hook. And while some people would say that's a bit mercenary, and that's the facts.

We're in business here. And that's what we do. We help people, but we are in business to help people as well. That's the other side. So, you know, how much do you need to put out there to help people in the room to show that you're an expert, but to leave them hungry enough where they want to take the next step with you, whether that's a $10 webinar or a free download or whatever it is, what do you need to do and how much is too much? Because as I said at the start, we can give away 20 checklists and we will inundate them with information and we can leave them in a position where they're actually they feel like they've got everything they need to get started.

And in fact, that's not where you really want to leave people if you want to lead them into buying for you. You want to put them in the first step of the process so that they are ready to move forward and they realize that's what they want and they want to do it with you.

Dixie Carlton 14:28

Well, I've just you've just been giving me some really interesting insights into the way we approach this whole process of giving away knowledge and information and helping people to feel like they are making progress with their own ability to do what they do better. So that's essentially what most of us are in business for as a speaker and as an organization, is to make sure that we help people to achieve more for themselves. So if we start out with the concept of that there is a specific process for us, which starts with a lead magnet, be that a book or a checklist or whatever.

A checklist or whatever. So we start out with a lead magnet and then we have them hungry for something more because they've thought, oh, that person's making a lot of sense. That sounds like a bit of me. So then you're selling them on a one-to-some engagement basis. Then the upsell from there is a one-to-many upsell basis. Then you're selling them on a one-to-one upsell basis, which enables you then to move them forward through the funnel that you have created into a one-to-one and then one-to-there people. So one-to-one being that person, but then their people might be their tribe or their work colleagues or their conference or their event or their whatever.

So then you are moving from your one to their tribe. And then from there, you are looking at what is the overall objective with me having one to a bunch of people that are all aligned together and in the same room or the same company or the whatever. So that becomes a program. But how often through those various steps do we sit down and say this is my methodology? This is how I need to approach this. And I think what we're missing is often we don't sit down and we map it out and say, this is what each part is, this is how much each part is going to engender to create for me.

And then this is what the next step is. And these are the people that I will weed out or bring into my garden along the way.

Brad Hauck 16:40

Yeah. And this brings us to the next point, which is psychology. Sales is all about psychology. And so we're not just looking at the fact that we've got steps. We need to look at why would someone move? What am I saying? What language am I using that encourages people to take the next step with me? Am I advertising to move from the room to the webinar to the group or whatever? And do I need to basically restructure things? Because some people will be in the room and they'll take the small step. And then there's other people like, I'm ready right now to write a book with you in your case.

Or with me, it's I'm ready to sit down and talk to someone about my brand clarity and my SEO. So we need to make it so that first step can lead people almost to a choice. You know, now that good thing about a webinar is if you were to go to a webinar or something like that, is you can actually say in that, now some of you are going to be ready to work directly with me right now, in which case, click this link. Now, if you really feel you're on the journey, but you'd like to do it as part of a group, click this link.

You can actually make choices. But we need to sit down and think about those people and what they're thinking, what's going on in their head when they're sitting in the room with you, because you do have a mixed audience. Now, obviously, we can't tell everything's going on in their heads, but we've all spoken in front of enough groups. We've all had feedback. We do kind of know what the sort of questions people ask and things like that. So, like getting people to make that first step is probably the hardest. I made a note about the old timers.

When we talk about the old time speakers, they always used to say, Go to the back of the room right now, and you can get my tapes and books or whatever. They actually were very smart. We've got extra steps in compared to them because now what we're trying to do is say, okay, you're in this room right now, you like what I'm saying. You should buy, but I've got nothing to sell you right here. Everything's online or everything's virtual or whatever. You kind of got to make them jump onto this other form and then you've got to try and sell them again.

In fact, that's probably from a sales perspective. I know from selling shoes my first job, that's the most dangerous thing you can do, send someone away and then try and get them back. So I reckon we need to just even think even further into psychology. These guys sold from the back of the room for a reason, not just because they didn't have virtual, it's because that's when people were actually the hottest to buy. They were ready, they're keen, they wanted to move forward. And I've had a little bit of a belief for a long time that we need to go back to something physical people can take away straight away.

And that leads to, like it might be a book, and in the front of the book is a QR code that leads to the course, but they can pay for the course straight away, or they can go and pay for it online, whatever. But I think we need to kind of, I don't know. I think there's people go for physical things. They want something to take away right then, they want something of you to take away and a downloaded sheet or something like that. I don't necessarily think it it cuts it from the human perspective.

So, what do you think of that?

Dixie Carlton 19:55

I think you're completely right. And I love the concept of having something physical for people to be able to download or purchase immediately. That's a really powerful thing. But I want to bring this back around to where we started and how much we give away. And as I said to you this morning, I ended up sitting with someone for 45 minutes longer. Well, probably 30 minutes, a good 30 minutes longer than I should have, for the sake of explaining to them all the things that they could be or should be doing, even though I wasn't going to follow through and maybe make them the customer.

When I think about it, I would waste anything up to 10 hours a month on either pitching or explaining or answering one more set of questions about the quote that I've given them. Now, obviously, okay, some of my quoting is for high-value dollar item things. But when I think about the amount of time that I spend on, I don't want to say justifying, but reiterating or answering one more question, or not necessarily closing the deal straight away, uh, or giving so much information because let's face it, what I do is quite complex. There's so many moving parts.

And if I explained everything right from the very beginning, it would blow people's minds. So I can't sit there and spend two hours explaining the entire process step by step because there's so many moving parts to that. You know, you start a book and then you know it's going to take nearly a year, and I'm not going to explain every step of the way in that first initial meeting or in that first initial quote. But you leave enough room. But if you then sit there and explain yourself to the nth degree in order to close that deal, it becomes problematic when you've also potentially given away too much information and you've still got a news to prospect.

Brad Hauck 21:53

So I wrote down the question what should stay unshared if you want to be perceived as premium? And it's interesting. What should stay unshared is the key word here. And I know myself I like to sit down with people and look at their websites and tell them what they can fix and all that. And I'm happy to do that. But you're right, you do spend an inordinate amount of time through a month sometimes. Doing that. And one of the things I've actually started doing is basically I just say to people, Do you mind if I record this call?

I want to review some of the content I'm talking about. And then I will get AI to actually review the transcript and I get it to go through and look at what did I do right? What did I do wrong? How could it have done it better? All those sorts of things. So I can actually get feedback on what I'm doing and try and improve. So I look at those times where I'm giving myself freely as a learning experience for me. How can I do it better? Or was there an opportunity there? Did the person say something actually indicated they really were interested, even though they're saying they weren't?

Maybe there's some phrases I can use or something like that. So it could be a learning experience when we're doing these things, even though we're giving it away for free.

Dixie Carlton 23:01

Yeah, that's a great question. Can you repeat that question, actually?

Brad Hauck 23:05

What should stay unshared if you want to be perceived as premium?

Dixie Carlton 23:09

Yes, that is that's a great question.

Brad Hauck 23:12

If you think about the top speakers, the people you really respect who have really nice materials and resources, they closely guard what they give away. But it is very specific. I've noticed this watching people, and it's the same stuff over and over. They don't reinvent the wheel necessarily and might do a new layout or something like that to make it look fresh, but they are not giving away ever their premium stuff. And it's really interesting when you watch the best speakers work that they have learnt to draw a line in the sand and they just will not cross that line.

Everything above that is premium, meaning there's a dollar value attached to it. And funnily enough, it leaves you wanting to spend money with them. That is brilliant. You want to be part of their ecosystem, you want to be part of their world. And that's again a psychological thing. And so I think something I've always observed.

Dixie Carlton 24:15

I think that's where we need to challenge everyone listening to this today is to actually sit down and consider your entire ecosystem, what it is that you hold back to keep you at a premium level, and how much you will spend time on giving things away. Just going through those steps. What is your lead magnet? What is the next step that you're selling up from there? And what is the next step from there? What is the next step from there? And what is the ultimate way you end up making someone a $30,000 or a $300,000 client versus just selling them the book or the program or the workshop or the keynote?

That's the first part. But then, okay, so now you know all of the things that you have got on the table. What do you hold back? I think that's a really good advice that we should all be doing.

Brad Hauck 25:06

Yeah. Well, I think that kind of brings us to the end of today's episode. We probably go on forever, but there's so much to discuss there. But I think psychology does play a big part of this. And I encourage people to look into the psychology of selling because it really is an important tool to have in your toolbox and to understand yourself as well as the client and how you think when you buy will also influence how you sell. So it's a fun area to dig into. There's some really great books out there. But Dan Kennedy has some really good books on this sort of topic.

So look him up.

Dixie Carlton 25:39

And I love your idea about using the transcript, putting it into AI, and actually getting AI to help you analyze your own process around all of that. That's a brilliant idea. Thank you. Very good.

Brad Hauck 25:51

That's what tools are for. We've got to use those tools. They're all there to help us. So let's get into them.

Dixie Carlton 25:56

For sure. That is fantastic.

Brad Hauck 25:58

Excellent.

Dixie Carlton 25:58

Thanks for great conversation, Brad.

Brad Hauck 26:00

No worries. So if this episode has you thinking about writing a book or you're not sure how to shape your ideas, structure your thinking, or turn your expertise into something people actually want to read, reach out to Dixie by indiexpertspublishing.com. She'll help you turn what's in your head into a clear, compelling, best-selling book that builds authority the right way and gets you more recognition. And if you're doing the work but not getting enough clients, start with clarity. When your message is clear, everything else works better. And that's where I come in. The brand clarity blueprint helps define what you're really known for.

Then we use SEO and AI-driven content to amplify your message consistently so the right people find you. Details will be in the show note, but look, take the step that fits best with where you're stuck right now, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Dixie Carlton 26:47

Fantastic. Have a great week.