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Our words are some of the most powerful things that we have control over. 

As health professionals, we learned how to counsel, how to communicate and how to talk with clients in our practices and our offices. 

But we didn’t learn a lot about the written word outside of what we wrote for our professors. 

As you are thinking of what to write on your website, in your emails and in your social media posts, how you felt lost between the world of academic writing and this new way of writing online?

Today we have another amazing guest, Copywriter and Launch strategist Katie Momo, and she shares her insights and strategies to use with your written words online, to make that connection with the people that you’re wanting to help. 

Here’s what we talked about:

• What exactly is copy? (and the difference between content copywriters and sales copywriters!)
• Tips on how to write copy that your ideal clients will resonate with (you always need an end goal for your sales copy!)
• Ways to think of sales conversations (you’re helping them avoid a bigger problem!)
• The different kinds of guarantees that you can offer (and how health professionals can approach testimonials!)

Your business online is almost fully built on written words. Your goal is to connect with people in a way where they know what you offer is the solution to their specific problem, so you can reach and support more people with your expertise.

About Katie

Katie Momo is a sales strategist responsible for her clients selling over 12 million dollars in online product (and counting!) – without being ‘salesy’.

She’s usually hiding behind the scenes strategizing launches and writing punchy, persuasive copy that’s loaded with personality and gets people clicking the ‘buy’ button. 

Even though you may not have heard of Katie, you might’ve bought something from ‘her’ already, since she moonlights as ‘big names’ of some of the biggest web celebs.  She loves helping people unlock conversions, one click at a time.

You can find her online here: thecopychat.com or on Instagram: @hellokatiemomo

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may enjoy these 3 other podcast episodes about content creation:

• Ep. 05: Do I need an email list to launch an online program?
• Ep. 06: How to Grow an Email List as a Health Practitioner

• Ep. 32: Content Strategy for Program Launches with JessCreatives

Prefer reading? Here’s the transcript below

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Stephanie: Words are some of the most powerful things that we have our control over. We’ve learned a little bit about this as we went through our schooling and learned about how to counsel, how to communicate and how to talk to clients in our practice, in our offices. But we didn’t learn a lot about the written word outside of that really, I want to say astringent, that’s not the right word, but that really academic way of using words in the written form.

When we were in school, we wrote not for real people but for our professors. So, I’m really excited about our guest today on the podcast who is going to share with us a little bit of insight on the words we can use to communicate with people, the written word on our websites, in our emails, on our social posts, just wherever you are talking to people and help us maybe break a little bit of the bad habits we have from that academic mindset.

You’re probably like me where you’re lost now in between the world of this old way of academic and this new way that you talk to people in your office and wondering where’s the in-between? I’m sure you have so many questions about words and copy, so we’re going to dig into an incredibly wonderful amazing episode here with a friend of mine that I am lucky to know. A fellow Canadian and a copywriter, and Katie, would you say a launch strategist? Is that your title?

Katie: Absolutely. You got it, girl!

Stephanie: Well, thanks so much for being here with us.

Katie: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so grateful to be here. I love what you guys do, I love health professionals. I’m so grateful that you guys are doing the work that you do. And I can be there to help connect the two between your world and the patients and people that you’re trying to help.

Stephanie: Yes, so we’re talking to Katie Momo and you can find her at katiemomo.com. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Katie. I’d love to know your story and how you got into this. Another incredible thing is Katie’s words are amazing. Every time I read an email from her or I’m on her website, I’m like, “Yes, here’s my money.” She’s brilliant at it so you can take a look after this podcast, or even while you’re listening, at her website and the words she uses. But tell us a little bit about you and how you got into this and what you do now with your business.

Katie: Sure, yes. My business was a complete accident. I’m sure that all of you were probably very intentional about what you did. You went to school to study a certain thing and now that’s what you do. I completely fell in the rabbit hole backwards. One thing that I started doing as I was working in sales years ago and I was like, “Oh my gosh, sales are scary.” I realized that if I was going to succeed in that job I had to just buck up and learn how to do this.

I realized that it actually wasn’t really scary at all when I realized it’s really just about helping people. Then along the way I started doing other jobs in marketing. It was just sort of this natural transition and people started coming to me for other things in their small businesses. I was doing corporate social media after I left that job and small businesses would come to me, “You know what? My social media isn’t working, can you help me with it?” I was like, “Sure, I can give that a go.”

All things sort of came full swing when those clients were like, “Hey, now I want to sell this product. I created this program. Do you think you could write some email to help me sell this thing?” And I was like, “Yeah, I sold in person, I guess I could do that. I guess it’s kind of the same thing actually.”

I started actually doing what turned out to be product launches, which as you grow your leveraged practice, you begin to know that this is the foundation really of the revenue of your entire business. And it just scaled up from there. I became more and more niched into helping online programs, memberships and courses launch, and I just started working with more and more people. And now with online courses alone, I’ve helped clients do over $12 million in sales.

Stephanie: Wow. Wow. That’s amazing, and you know what? I just talked about this in one of my previous podcast episodes about choosing who you work with. And Katie Momo is someone who has agreed to be one of our The Leveraged Practice advisors. She helps members and clients within our program and within our system and our company with additional workshops on copy, on launching, on things like that.

The reason is because I know how hard it is to find good people to work with. I’ve been in business for eight years now and I’ve spent a lot of money and a lot of time working with people who didn’t really know what they were doing. I’m saying that because Katie is sharing with us a little bit about her experience in copy but also how she’s been a part of real launches, making real money, being someone who is helping with those words, helping with that copy and that content, and that’s who we need to continue to choose to work with.

We need to really vet the people that are trying to pitch us, to work with us, to help us with our websites, with our copy, with our sales pages, with our design and whatever it is, and really work with people who have done this and have experience and have tried things and tested things and know what they’re doing. I’m so happy that you’re here on this podcast and that you’re helping all of my clients and all of us figure this part out of our business. Because like I said, you need to be working with the right people. That is the first takeaway.

Please vet everyone that you work with and don’t give your money to anyone unless they have real clout and real experience. That’s really interesting, and I love that you kind of slowly it sounds like, got a little experience here and a little bit of experience here and you got better at this and then took more and more opportunities and then you’ve been a part of these like really big launches.

Sometimes we want all this to happen really quickly and we just want to, “Do those big giant things,” but sometimes it takes a little bit of time and I think that’s how it is here. With my listeners and with my audiences, we grow our practice and launch our online program and we just want to be there right away. But it does take some time, so that’s amazing.

Thank you for sharing your story. I just want to start with the basics. Tell us what is copy? I think sometimes people are like, “What? What do you mean copy?” What do you mean when you say the word copy? What is copy? What is that, and what does a copywriter do?

Katie: It’s a great question, and there’s so many flavours of copywriting because there’s so many specialized versions of it. I think the first thing is define the two big ones you’re probably going to run into as an online business owner. You are going to find content copywriters and sales copywriters. Content copywriters are going to be doing regular content, like blogs, all that sort of stuff. It’s a very different style of writing than a sales copywriter who does what I do or what I tend to specialize in, where we are writing the words that promote action.

When you think of copywriting, sales copywriting, you think that. You wanted someone to take an action, whether that is clicking a button for the first time, liking your page, opting into something, clicking the buy button and actually joining your program. You always have an end destination for this copy.

Those words are leading to some action and you’ve got to know where you’re going in order to start writing. Because I find that most people will start a website and they don’t really know what their end goal is. I mean, they want to have a business but they do not know what does their home page have to do, what is the goal here. I’m going to take someone from the top of this page to the bottom of this page and by the time they get to the bottom I want them to do X.

You always have to know what that X is in order to write great copy. Because if you start writing, it’s like taking a Sunday drive not knowing where you should be, not knowing what you want that visitor to do, and to advance that relationship with you. Your first goal is knowing exactly what’s the point of this page, what’s the point of this post, whatever you are doing, even if it’s just connecting with someone, even if you’re just sharing your story, and you don’t want them to take an action, you still need to know the goal of what that is. It could just be consumption.

Writing Sales Copy for Your Health Online Program

 

Stephanie: We can think through the strategy of how we want to communicate with people, and then how do we find the right words to fit in there to communicate? Just at the top, what do you advise your clients as they get started, or what can you advise people as we maybe struggle with getting the right words down on the page or feeling like we have the right words?

Katie: Yeah, well, I’ve got a great hack for you which will save you so much time and frustration and get you better copy than you can ever write. It’s actually talking to your dream customers and clients. Get on Zoom just like you and I are right now, record it, send it to be transcribed and you’re going to have the most amazing copy.

I always say that the best messages are found, they’re not written. A copywriter is not sitting in their office having no contact with that business and just writing words that make glory happen. It’s actually having the real words of your real clients and real customers. Because especially as medical professionals, it’s very clinical. It’s very academic, as you were saying in the intro. But us regular people don’t understand that. You actually have to use the words that your people are using in order for them to understand it.

Stephanie: Yeah, I love that. Sometimes I have these conversations with my clients where they might have me look at a web page or look at their program or look at their landing page or something just to get a little feedback, just to get another set of eyes on it. And often I’ll say like, “This is an interesting word, is this your word or did this come from your clients?” Because that’s where the words need to come from.

I remember in my practice, I grew my practice a little bit, I got to a certain place and then I realized that I needed to understand sales better. So years ago I started taking different courses, different people’s perspectives on sales and I remember learning that years ago. It’s so smart and simple and such a great hack, so that you actually talk to people, to real people, to real potential clients and you use the words that they’re using when you’re talking to them.

It sounds so simple and I feel like we are putting too much pressure on ourselves to make up the words that we think that they need to hear, and that’s not how it works, and that’s not what connects with them. They want to actually hear what engages with them. When I started using words that my clients in my digestive business with IBS were using, I never would have guessed them.

Stephanie: The words I was hearing a lot were, “I want to feel normal.” And I never would have made that up. And I’m someone with IBS, but I would have said like, “I want to get relief, I want to get rid of my digestive symptoms, I want to feel better.” Those are words I would think, but I never would have thought someone just wanted to feel normal. That feels just too plain.

I’d be like, “I want to be symptom-free,” like this big ideal, and a lot of my clients just wanted to feel normal again in their bodies and I was like, “Wow, that’s powerful.”

When I started using those words with people, I just want to help you get back to normal and feel comfortable in your own body, they were like, “Yes, that’s what I want.”

Katie: Exactly. My husband has just gone through.. well, they thought it was IBS, but it turned out that it was intolerances, but exactly what you were saying, like, “I just want to feel normal. I just want to be myself again.” That’s exactly what he’s been going through and he would never be like, “I want relief, I want symptoms reduced.”

Stephanie: Yeah, and what’s so interesting, Katie, do you find that people feel like they know? Because they know their clients, right? We’re talking to you and you know your clients, you know them, you’ve worked with them for hours and hours and maybe even years and years. And you feel like you know them, so do you find people are like, “No, I know my clients,” but then when we actually get to the words, maybe we don’t know the exact words?

Katie: 100%. Yeah, and I think it’s almost an illusion because you get to that confidence level where you’re like, “Well, I’ve worked with them forever, of course I know exactly what they say.” But they’ve already been through a process of where they’ve been through your intake form of whatever, so they still have different words in their heads that they would normally use to describe. They’re already sort of …don’t want to say this word but you know what I mean, tainted. By the time you actually get to that, you aren’t getting the fresh, the raw information that they’re saying whereas you need to get it just like straight out of the gate.

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely, it’s so interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about the impact that you’ve seen in your work with copy? How much does investing time and energy and potentially even money into our copy, into the words that we use on our sales pages, in our emails, during our launch or during our enrolment process, connecting with people. How much does investing time and energy into doing this really, how much does it affect the outcome, the business, the increase in clients, that kind of thing?

Katie: Oh my gosh, it’s everything. Literally your entire business online is built on words. There’s nothing else. It’s pages, emails, posts, you name it. There’s a few videos here and there but, at least 80% of it, if not much more, is all words.

Think of it this way, the average person will read a headline and leave. 80%, that means if someone’s on your sales page and you have a crappy headline, if you have a headline at all, let’s face it, I see a lot of pages that don’t even have that, they have no chance of survival. That means at your best, you’re only going to get 20% of the people starting to read your page, just starting. Now think of by the time you get down to the bottom of it, just this teeny-tiny hair fraction of people are going to consider joining your program.

The average sales page converts at 1% – 3% and if you only have 10 people viewing your sales page or scrolling down to the bottom, it’s going to be really hard to get anything out of it. The words can transform your business, literally a page will transform your business.

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s so interesting.

Katie: Yeah, it’s crazy how just the words in a page are able to connect with people in a way where they see themselves on the page and go, “Oh my gosh, I need that. This person gets me, they know my problem, they’ve got the solution, I’m in.”

Stephanie: Good. Okay, so how do we start to do this?` Help us understand how to connect better with our copy. You gave us one great strategy out the get-go. If you don’t have your exact client words, I don’t care how long you’ve been working with them, I know you know them, but if you don’t have their exact words, that’s a great place to start. Start recording those interviews, writing things down, getting real words from people. What else would you recommend we do to improve our copy? Where do we start with all of this?

Katie: Yeah. Where a lot of businesses go wrong is they make it all about them. “I do this, I can help you with that, my program, blah, blah, blah,. People don’t see themselves in it, they’re just sort of like, “Oh, it’s all about you,” where this person, no matter how selfless they claim to be, we’re still out for ourselves. We are survival-based and we only take in as little information as we possibly can. Everything on your page has to be oriented to them.

Often times, unless it’s your about page or you’re strategically using a story, reorient your page from, “I do this, I do this, my program, blah, blah, blah,” and instead change that and reorient the phrases so it uses the word “you.” “You feel this way, you want this, you want to do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s where this program comes in. “Just that alone is such a transformative copy hack for your page because now it’s not about you, it’s about them and they care about their problem.

They want to fix their problem and just that reorienting of the perspective of the copy, just makes it about them and they’re like, “Oh man, now I see that this person has what I need.” It definitely takes some time in order to massage that because we’re so used to talking about ourselves. But when you’re able to really go through and then make those changes and sort of flip it around, I always think of it like literally flipping a page. One thing after the other, every section, section, section, you will start to see how much better it comes out.

Stephanie: That’s a great thing that I think people can actually take away and start to look at.

The Sales Copy Framework

 

Stephanie: What about when you’re crafting something in regards to sales? We want to get more sales, we want to get more clients to want to work with us and that comes into the conversations that we have.

Now we have conversations on the phone, we have conversations in emails, we have conversations on a sales page, there’s so many sales conversations. Do you follow any kind of flow or framework in how we actually have those conversations? Can you give us any tips on that kind of thing? Is there a standard process you recommend about how to talk about what?

Maybe you can even speak about that. We talk about where they are, where our clients are right now and then where we are and how we can meet them there. And then what we do and then how we do it. So there’s all these little parts. Is that a flow or do you have your own kind of flow to a sales page or sales email and things that you would always want people to include that maybe people aren’t including?

Katie: Yeah, actually that flow is really similar because it works, right? You use a lot of these simple things but slightly different tweaks for different areas of your copy. Definitely the contrast, where it’s like where you are and where you want to be is so super powerful. The brain thrives on contrast because again, we are really about survival and spending the least energy we possibly can to make the right decision. Black and white contrast is one of the fastest ways for somebody to make a decision and go, “Oh yes, this is exactly what I need.”

You’ve probably seen the late night infomercials where they have this sad black and white before, like the colourful happy after, you can actually do that if you practice some sort of photographic result. You can use images to do that or you can do that in a miniature story. It’s so incredibly powerful if we do this contrast.

Where they are right now, like you were saying how people want to feel normal. What are they feeling right now? I think like my husband has been suffering with this, thankfully we’ve found the solution. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and his tummy is rumbling. He just didn’t have a good sleep and then he was exhausted all day because he wasn’t able to rest. People can picture that, it’s very visual.

When you’re able to use the different senses and what people are feeling, that connects with people instantly. It’s such a deeply powerful thing instead of just being like, “Oops, you feel tired.” Yeah, okay, you feel tired, but how tired do you feel? Why are you tired? How is this affecting you? All of this really visceral things are so important.

Then contrast it with after. You are able to eat and to know exactly what to eat. That way you wake up full of energy throughout the day. You know you can go from sun up to sun down, you don’t need a nap, everything is good. You don’t even think about your digestive system, what’s that? No one thinks about it. That’s the ideal, when you don’t think about it.

Stephanie: Yeah. That’s a good place to start.

Katie: I like to think of it like where you’re giving little snapshots throughout their day contrasting the two, what the reality is now and the reality that you want.

Stephanie: I have a couple questions for you. One is I heard from somewhere that when you start with where they’re at to the struggle, the problem and then you go to the solution, that you don’t ever go back to the problem again. Would you say that, like in that you want to paint that before and then paint that after and then move on into how they get it?

Katie: Well, it depends on how long the page is. If your page is very short, yeah, you just need to hit it once and get out. If it’s a long page or a long form sales page, you will probably go back and forth a few times.

Stephanie: Okay.

Katie: It’s actually proven. There’s a great book, I feel like it’s called Resonance or Resonate by Nancy Duarte, she’s fantastic. She’s actually gone through and layered on the most powerful speeches of all time and they’re very similar to a sales speech. You’re selling someone on a speech, like Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream. She compares that to some of the Apple speakers, from Steve Jobs. She shows that continuous contrast is actually a lot more powerful for us to see because again, contrast is powerful. So you get bit of it, you get another bit of it. It depends on the length of the page, how much space do you have.

Reframing Sales as Health Professionals

 

Stephanie: Okay, cool. I had a client once I remember her saying that she previously had a coach that she didn’t like this message from. I think a lot of people may be a bit sensitive to sales and making sales. One, because we’re not sales people. We feel bad and we’ve gone through schooling so we just help people and we don’t take money and it’s a bit weird for us. For some if us, we feel that way.

But then I feel like I have met people who have worked with other coaches or they’ve heard something about sales somewhere along the lines that they did not like. One of my clients said they had a coach that said you have to stir the heart, and they hated that idea of making someone feel bad. I believe and from what I’ve learned and what I’ve also heard, is that there are some important parts to maybe not stirring the heart, maybe not making people cry on a phone call or something, but speaking to what we are talking about which is that pain.

What do you say about that, about that idea of stirring the heart or doing in a way that’s not mean but does allow people to identify with the problem so that it is visceral like you were saying that they do feel and sense and connect to it?

Katie: That’s exactly it. They have to connect to it. I do understand why people are like, “I don’t want to make people feel bad.” Yeah, of course but sometimes it has to get worse before you get better. I was cleaning my house yesterday, you know when you’re cleaning your room and it gets worse before it gets better. It always happens. You have to poke at the wound because it’s so easy for them to ignore something, right?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Katie: It’s very easy to turn a blind eye or be numb to it and you really have to sort of shake them out of it and be like, “Look, this is what’s going to happen.” What’s going to happen if you stay on this track? What’s going to happen in six months? What’s going to happen in a year? How is that going to affect your family? How is that going to affect your relationship? How is that going to affect your mobility or whatever it is?

By letting someone future pace their own reality, that hurts and they’re like, “Oh, I want to solve it before I get that.” So you’re actually helping them by doing that because you’re saving them from a worse reality. You’re actually speeding up the process of transformation and getting the result that they want by reminding them of how much worse things could get.

Stephanie: Yeah. I don’t know everyone who’s ever gone into health, but I would guess that the majority of people have gone into health because they really do want to help people. One of the things as health practitioners and clinicians that we struggle with, is people wanting to make change or not. I feel like my whole job is just inspiring people to make the change and then I can give them the program that does it, but we want to inspire and motivate and encourage people that they can make the change.

So, I can see that some of this would be super important to that, is talking about the problem, talking about it if they don’t fix it but then also talking about the hope, the solution and where they can get to. That makes a lot of sense.

Katie: That actually happened to me. I went to go talk to my doctor about something and he was like, “You should go see this specialist, blah, blah, blah,” I was like, “Ugh.” You know? Because drama, like I don’t want to, there’s all of these appointments. I was like, “It’s not a big deal,” but he’s like, “Well, it’s actually a lot easier if you deal with it now because, blah, blah, blah.”

He future paced the things that might happen and I was like, “Okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. Now is the time to do it. Okay.” And I was like totally on board and it was like drama was over, I made an appointment, I got in and it was good.

But if he hadn’t future paced that for me and have made me feel the pain that I’m avoiding by dealing with it now, I probably wouldn’t have taken action and I would have been in a lot worse of a place.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I love that we’re talking about how he verbalized it to you, because I bet a lot of us actually do some of these things naturally in our conversations with people. But when we go to sit down and write it out, we get all freaked out and we don’t know where to start and we get that fright of writing.

So, I love going back to your earlier first tip which was talk about it, record yourself with a client or talk it out, that kind of thing. Because I bet we probably have some of the words already somewhere like you said, we find it. We don’t make it up, we actually find it somewhere. So I love that idea, that makes so much sense. Leaning into this idea of the people that the people that I’ve talked to, who have been like, “Sales, I don’t know how to do it, I don’t like it.” And someone maybe sold to them an icky way and that’s the only way they remember selling.

How would you help people go about being able to sell with language that does encourage people to make the change and do the thing and take the program and get better in a way that feels comfortable for them? In a way that’s like they don’t feel sleazy and snaky and gross? How would you advise people if they want to have better sales conversations but they feel weird about it?

Katie: Well, I think honestly, you’re probably using the right words but you’re coming to the conversation with the wrong energy. I honestly think it’s a real mental reframe on our part, on the practitioner’s end, in order to come to the conversation with a different energy. Realize that you’re showing up to help, just like you always do. Good selling is helping. Yes, we’ve seen the snake oil people, you’re not them, you don’t even have to worry about it. Case closed then, moving on.

I feel like you need to set your intention before the call or before you write. What do you want to happen with this conversation? You probably have an idea of what their issue is before you meet with them or you get on the call. So set your intentions before it, so that way you can show up with that great energy, the loving energy, the attentive energy of doing whatever makes sense for them.

Letting go of the outcome is really important. When you have that air of desperation, it’s like when you were dating, you meet this person and they just seem so desperate for a date. Even if they were a great person, just the desperation fact, you would be like, “Oh no, I don’t want to.” When you’re able to just let that go and realize like, “You know what? Maybe they’re not ready to join your program,” and that’s okay. Be completely okay with that at the outset and you know that you’re only going to push the issue if you know that it’s the right decision for them at the right time.

Some people will be ready in a month, some people will be ready in three months, that’s okay. But if they show up and have a wonderful experience with you on the call and you have the long view in your business. Even if you don’t make a sell that day, that doesn’t mean that they are not going to come back to you. I feel like being able to judge when to push and when to not, is going to give you so much more confidence when you approach this.

Stephanie: Yeah, I love that idea of entering into the conversation without expectations and also knowing that you may have a conversation that may result in a sale a year from now, six month from now, three months from now. Or even maybe not from that person, but they had such a great conversation with you that then they tell a friend who ends up buying from you.

I just want to back that up with a little bit of data from my own business because this is what I often teach to my clients. When I look at data from my IBS program from 2018 and 2019, so over the course of almost two years, we can see that people who are purchasing sometimes have only been in our email list or in our world for a couple of days, a couple of weeks.

We have this bucket of people who buy right away, but we have this other very big bucket of people who have been on my email list or been followers of my company, of my website and on our email list for 12 months, 24 months. I think the longest we’ve ever seen is someone on our list for 28 months.

What was so interesting was that these people that had been on my list for a long time actually opened up some of the sales emails. A lot of people read the same sales email, the same information more than once, which is so interesting and I shared that along with what Katie just said to help you calm your nerves a little bit about this getting on the phone with people, sending emails out.

Know that there is a huge bucket of people that need to hear the pitch or the sales offer or the thing more than once. They need to think about it. Their dad is sick in the hospital so they can’t join this time round, or they just had a baby, or they’re pregnant, or work’s too busy. There’s so many reasons that people are still interested and that they will buy in the future. I.

When we saw those numbers I was like, “Oh my gosh, that is so interesting.” I would have thought my list is full of people who don’t want to do anything, but it’s totally timing. So I love that you shared that and like I said, I want to back that up with some data of my own experience.

Katie just said good selling is helping and I think that’s just a great way to reframe it. I don’t know if I heard you say this Katie, or other people, but if we enter into selling conversationally and with the intentions of, “I really have something that I believe and I’ve have seen help people, and if you want that help I’m here to share that with you.” I think, for me, that’s when it really flipped, when I stopped feeling uncomfortable with selling, when I was like, “Oh, I believe in my program.”

Making Health Online Program Guarantees

 

Stephanie: Now, not everyone will get results. I don’t guarantee that everyone gets rid of their IBS. That’s impossible in health, we would never do that, that would be unethical and horrible. No one’s asking you to say that. That was my real struggle was the ethicalness of promoting a program knowing that not everybody gets that health result.

But something happened to me one day when I was like, “But I believe in this program. I know it helps people and I want more people to get that kind of help.” And so, I came to terms with that and was able to completely flip and just start to be able to sell and promote my program in a really encouraging way. What do you think about that when it comes to health programs? How do we find that place of being comfortable promoting something or encouraging someone when it has to do with their health and we can’t guarantee that everybody will get those results?

Katie: Yeah, and you know a lot of different businesses can’t guarantee results, but that’s only one kind of guarantee, right? There’s multiple kinds of guarantees. There’s results, there’s satisfaction, and then there’s knowledge. You can guarantee that they will learn what foods will not cause inflammation, for example. You can guarantee that.

You can’t necessarily guarantee results but knowledge is a whole other guarantee, and then you can guarantee satisfaction. They’re going to learn so much during this process. They’re going to feel supportive probably in ways they haven’t felt supported before. They don’t have other people probably in their life who are dealing with whatever problem that they’re going through. So there’s lots of ways you can guarantee something without necessarily seeing results.

Stephanie: That’s such a great way to look at it and that’s what we do. I guarantee that you will feel supported. In my program, we do unlimited email support, Monday to Friday. Obviously there’s things around that I won’t get into. But we promise that you will feel supported and if you don’t, you can have your money back.

There actually have been times when something happened with our emailing system or technology and we weren’t able to get back to people quick enough and we will process refunds. I’m sad if I can’t show up properly for you because of damn technology, which sometimes will get you. But I’m happy to stand behind that guarantee because that’s what I want to do and what we should do for people to support them in that way.

I don’t think I have had any refunds actually from someone who didn’t get results, but went through the program and felt supported and got that knowledge. I’ve had people go through a program and they don’t get symptom-free. They don’t get that, because it’s not possible for 100% of people, but I’ve never had a refund that was like, “Stephanie, I went to your program, I felt supported, I felt heard, I felt listened to, I learned a lot of new things but I didn’t get results so give me my money back.” No one has ever said that to me.

This way of looking at it, Katie, like you’re saying with these guarantees and being able to sell it in a way that you’re saying, “Hi, I promise I guarantee that you will learn things, that you will get new knowledge, that you will feel supported,” that’s what people really need. They want the results too and we could do our best to get them. But yeah, I think that’s a great way to look at it.

Katie: I think people really underestimate that. When you take an online course, Stephanie, you’ve probably gone through a bunch of them, right?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Katie: Have you got every single result from every program that you’ve ever taken?

Stephanie: No, I mean some programs I didn’t finish. Different people are going to get different results and maybe I was expecting something different out of one program than maybe someone else was.

Katie: But did you get value of it?

Stephanie: Some of them. Some of them no.

Katie: There are some garbage ones, yes. But most of them, you take out of it what you will. And so, don’t feel like you have to get 100% results for 100% of the people 100% of the time. It’s not possible and they’re not getting that in any other area of their lives, too. You probably have people that you work with who have been to university and they’re not using their degree at all.

Stephanie: Yeah. Absolutely.

Katie: It doesn’t mean that they didn’t to learn something and they didn’t get value.

Describing The Benefits of Your Health Online Program

Stephanie: Perfect. Okay, cool. Are there any other mistakes that you see people make very often in your line of work that you can help us avoid, since this is kind of a new area for us that we’re learning about?

Katie: Sure. I think the big thing in the health industry is really when I start going to their site and again, you will fix some of this already when you go through and change it from “I” to “You.” I go to someone’s site and they just list out 10 different certifications they have. They have an RPP of a CMYZ and I’m like, “I don’t know what any of these stuff means.”

So you need to put into plain language what you can do for somebody. What is the benefits of working with you? If you mention that you would have a certification and then use the words, “so that”, and then tap on the end the benefit that somebody’s going to get out of it.

Stephanie: So one of the things I did is culinary training, which you would be like, “Why did you do that?” I spent three months studying culinary training, getting culinary certificates, so that I could be better at creating delicious recipes that weren’t just healthy. So that was a way that maybe I would talk about my culinary training.

Katie: Yeah, exactly, that’s awesome. So you can actually bring in different things that you’ve done that may not seem super related, but when you actually put it all together and tie it up with a bow for them, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, yeah, I don’t want to go to a dietitian because you eat lettuce and don’t have any fun with food anymore, like goodbye to that enjoyment of life.”

But it’s like, “Oh, if I go with Stephanie, she’s actually going to give me something that will fit my specific dietary requirements and it’s going to be delicious.” That’s a huge benefit. So when you’re able to break down what you’re doing and draw out the benefits for your actual clients, it’s like, “Oh, now I understand why I need that. Now I see why that’s a benefit.” And that can actually really set you apart from other people in your field.

There might be thousands of other dietitians even within your local area, but when you’re able to draw out these little tiny differences, you can really make yourself a signature service or something that completely competition-proofs you, because you are able to draw these little minute differences that do make a huge difference at the end of the day.

Stephanie: There is no lack of services or dietitians or health providers. There’s no lack of options. So I think today, Katie, I don’t know what you think, but I think today that people are looking for someone that they can connect with and they’re looking for those differentiators. And so, using it in a way that it’s not about you but it’s like, “I did this so that I can help you in this way, or so that I know more about this for this problem.”

I think a lot of health practitioners have other trainings or other experiences that they bring in and they have this unique perspectives. Or for those of you that are moms, you don’t have to be like, “I’m a mom of two boys,” but it’s like, “I’m a mom of two boys, so I know …” I don’t know if I can say “So that,” but I would say like, “So, I know what it’s like to have very limited time to run your business. I know what it’s like to really need to be productive.” And you can use those kinds of things that way. I love it, that’s such a good tip.

Katie: Absolutely. And now with social media, that’s such a great channel for you to show your personality as well. Maybe you’re really into golf or something and you do an Instagram story of you playing golf. And somebody else is like, “Oh my gosh, I play golf, too.” These little things you can do to just showcase your personality can really draw in the right people because again, there’s probably thousands of other people within the metro area that are going to be doing the same things.

When you’re able to connect on a personal level, it’s like “Wow, you’ve crossed a huge bridge there,” because you know they can trust you. When you’re able to bridge that gap to sort of close the distance between you and them, which is again, very different from how you were taught in school, but now with going online, it’s very different. You do want to close the gap and do feel closer to people. You can showcase that bits of personality that really separate you from everybody else.

Stephanie: Yeah, I love it. That’s such a good way to do that. So we have a couple of takeaways. In the beginning, we had that great technique to use real language to get on the phone with people, to record it. I love the idea, like Katie said, recording it and then transcribing it. It’s hard to make notes as you’re on a call with someone, so that’s a great way if we use real language from real people. We also talked about changing the “I” to “You” which so many of us can look at our pages and do those two things and sounds like it will make such a big change.

We talked a little bit of a flow and a framework and making sure that we do talk about the pain and talk about the current experience, as well as what the future experience could be. And then we just got this amazing fourth tip right here from you about connecting these things with … What were those two words that you said?

Katie: “So that.”

Stephanie: “So that.” That’s a Katie Momo trick, “so that.” Is there anything else that you want to leave us with today? I think that’s just such great information so far. And literally, usually one of Katie’s tools or tips blows my mind and I’m like “Okay, that’s going to change everything,” and we got four here today in this podcast.

How Health Professionals Can Approach Testimonials

 

Stephanie: Is there anything else that you want to leave people with as they take action to look at the words that they use and how they’re connecting with people in order to convert more people into clients?

Katie: I think be aware of the success stories that you’re having. Keep your ear to the ground. When you see someone go from a huge transformation, you probably want to record that because stories are so powerful. It’s really how our brain organizes information, it’s how we remember stuff. If I was like 22% of my clients get X results, you’d be like, “Okay, whatever.”

But if I told you exactly what happened like, “You know what? I was working with this one client and he had a great idea for his business. We decided to work together. He had literally zero following, like his Facebook followers were zero. And within the month of working together he had launched his program and had a $23,000 launch.” That is a lot more memorable than just a clean fact.

So you probably need some disclosure in order to use somebody’s story and everything, but most people are super open to being like, “Yeah, I will share my struggle, because I know other people need to hear this as well.” So don’t be afraid to document people along the way, take their virtual temperature and be like, “Hey, how are you feeling right now? How are things going?” All these sort of stuff.

I love asking people questions. Everyone who goes through my programs know I ask questions all the time. Because I am always looking for ways that I can improve things or find out little gems that I can use to create people success stories after. So really keep your ear to the ground for client success stories because you can use that all throughout your marketing and it’s so fun to be able to talk about somebody’s success.

Stephanie: Okay, and I’ll just follow that with, I know that some people, because they’re regulated health professionals, are not allowed to technically use testimonials. I would say I want to you to think outside of the box. So for some of us, our colleges say you are not allowed to use testimonials, well, I think that stories can be used in a lot different ways.

So if you can’t use testimonials, can you use stories? It’s not a testimonial, but it’s someone’s story from your perspective. Is that possible? If you can’t do that or you’re not comfortable with that, one of the things, Katie, that we did in our business recently is we actually had a couple of clients who were really, really happy with my program and they wrote a blog post. And so, it’s not necessarily a testimonial, but from their perspective they wrote a blog post about their story, about their journey and put it on our website with an image and a name.

I know not everyone can do that or wants to do that, but for me having a couple of stories, real stories from real people, is so inspiring to people who are still suffering with IBS and can see that. And so, I don’t want you to be like, “Oh, I can’t use testimonials.” Well, maybe not, maybe you don’t use before and after shots, maybe you don’t use testimonials, but think about ways that you can potentially share stories whether it’s from your side of it and it’s anonymous.

Maybe there’s something like we’re doing with these actual blog posts from our clients who are really happy, for those of you that can use more stories and testimonials. You can have things written, you can do videos, you can do all kinds of things. But I understand that in this health field, it may feel a little tricky, know that I think it’s still possible.

I know some people who use Yelp reviews or third party review software, because some colleges will let you have testimonials if they’re true, which is crazy vague language that’s impossible to prove. How I know you can prove that is if you did some kind of third party integrated software that’s a verified purchase, that kind of stuff.

So just know that the stories are important from your perspective, from your client’s perspective, and keep your mind open in the different ways that you can use them. But that’s great. Honestly, I wish there wasn’t so much red tape and we could all use way more stories, but sometimes we have trouble with that.

Katie: The blog thing is great. I knew there would be some lines but like you said, there’s usually different ways that you can build that in. Get creative, keep your eyes out for the opportunities.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you and your time and being on the podcast, and giving us some of your brilliance about copy content, the words that we use and how we might be able to just start to think about it a little differently. Take some control and not feel like we don’t know what we’re doing. Your strategies today and your tips have been so useful, so thank you.

Katie: It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and I’m so excited to see everyone inside The Leveraged Practice Workshop.

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely, I’m so excited for some of the workshops we’re going to do together. And if you want to find Katie, again, you can find Katie at katiemomo.com and where else are you? On Instagram?

Katie: Yeah, I’m on Instagram @hellokatiemomo. Facebook also @hellokatiemomo.

Stephanie: So you can find her anywhere there and I’m telling you, when you read her words, you’re going to be like, “Oh my gosh, sold, here’s my credit card, done.” I hope that you all found this podcast episode helpful.

As always, if you have any questions or there’s anything else that you’d like me to talk about on this topic or any other topics, I’m always so open and happy to hear from you. You can find me at TheLeveragedPractice.com, send me an email or find me on Instagram @TheLeveragedPractice.

As always, it’s my pleasure to help you along this way of creating a successful online program for your practice and I’ll see you back here next time.