You did it. You made a sales page, a checkout link, your Calendly links, and a value-add piece. Then, either you dove head first into the LinkedIn Process and started connecting with your market and getting to know them, or you launched your videos

How will we know that it’s working? What are the bench marks? What are the statistics? What do we change if things don’t turn out the way we wanted?

Back to Fundamentals

First things first, let’s remind ourselves of something crucially important: The Golden Triangle. Always remember that the fact of the matter is that if you have something that solves an urgent, high-stakes, presently harmful problem people have, and you’re communicating a solution in a way that people can truly see, understand, and “get it”, then you should have no shortage of business. If you had a stack of gold bars in the garage and you invited someone to come stack up a layer 2 bars high in the bed of their truck, it doesn’t matter how fancy your web page is, how much automation you’re using, how much you paid for a brand package – that’s all secondary. Because your offer is so good.

But on the flipside, if you’re inviting somebody to come scrub your toilets and pay you $500 for the privilege, it still doesn’t matter how fancy your web page is, how much automation you’re using, or how much you paid for a brand package – you won’t get any takers, and nobody will want to take you up on that offer, because it’s a terrible offer.

So let me just affirm one more time – if you’re looking for ways to improve the performance of any part of this process, your focus needs to be first and foremost on the golden triangle: how do I show up for my people in the way that they will receive it best? How can I eliminate the pains in their life in as fun and energizing a way as possible? How can I communicate to them that working with me will totally alleviate their pains and difficulties? The closer you can get your prospects to viewing your offer as a stack of gold bars, the better.

With that all said, what can we expect in terms of KPIs? What should we be seeing if these various parts & pieces are operating well?

Let’s think of this in terms of a funnel. That’s really what these are, after all. They’re funnels that take people closer to becoming a client of yours. So what should we expect?

Let’s start with LinkedIn Organic Outreach.

LinkedIn Organic Outreach Troubleshooting

So, we’re going to assume for a second that you do have a good offer, and you know what you’re doing on the phone. OK?

No assuming that either of those is the problem. Still, your prospecting on LinkedIn is not working. Everything we are doing leading up to the phone call when it comes to marketing just isn’t pulling down a positive result. Let’s pose a few questions.

What are our numbers?

I’ve created a spreadsheet for you and your VA to plot the objective performance numbers and make some assessments. So let’s jump in and take a look at this tool.

Please make a copy of this – don’t ask for permission to edit it, you will not receive it. Make a copy so you own the template, and then make another copy of this template for each month you’re running the OOO process. That way you can keep accurate track from month to month.

A few important points to be made:

• You AND your Virtual Assistant should be making notes here. The VA should self-report the number of connections sent, the non-connection messages sent, and all that. You fill in the rest. Both of you can add Notes.
• Remember that everything is on a slight time-delay. The 45 minute calls come from previously booked 15 minute calls, the 15 minute calls come from good content and conversations, and a person’s being exposed to content & conversations comes from their accepting a connection request. The later stages in the process come from having done the work on earlier days.
• If you aren’t sending enough Connection Requests, we’re hosed. It is THE MAIN first thing. Nothing works without it.
• But, if you aren’t messaging those people after they accept the connection request and reach out, that is a waste of everyone’s time.
• We want call-invitations-to-call-show-ups be about the same. They won’t, but the closer to equal the better.
• If we’re not inviting people to 15 minute calls, we are being too timid. We need to do that and not be afraid.
• If we’re not inviting people on the 15 minute calls to jump on a longer one, or to purchase our thing, then we screwed up somewhere. Maybe they were a bad fit, but again – maybe we’re just being scared.
• We should be posting value-add content. A minimum of 3 a week is good, more is obviously better.

So, now that we have this in place and we can look at some objective data, let’s talk through some possible scenarios.

Are you just not getting any phone calls?

Remember, the purpose of prospecting is to get people on the phone who are interested in having conversations with us.

The main question → have you actually done the prospecting?

• [ ] 20-30 Connections a day?
• [ ] Have you or your VA actually sent out follow-up messages and nurtured conversations?
• [ ] Have you posted 3 times a week for 2-3 weeks?

→ If Yes, then it’s not a problem of effort, frequency, or momentum. Something within the actual prospecting system needs adjusting somewhere.

Are the people you are connecting with experiencing the pain that you solve in an urgent enough way?

Are you offering a glass of cool water to a man suffering heatstroke in the desert or a block of ice to someone living in the arctic?

Are you trying to talk to the average consumer rather than the decision-maker within a business?

Let’s say you’re talking about depression – are you talking about depression generally, or depression-mitigation strategies for CEOs? Are you talking about how hard it is to be self-employed? Read the room. Are you actually speaking to them?

→ If NO, then adjust your profile, your value-add piece, your Messaging Decision Tree, and your Target Market Guidelines to better fit a more urgent market.

Are you saying the things to your audience that they actually care about?

→ Careful about being too “motivational” or “personal development” in your message – that doesn’t show somebody that you know how to fix their problem. You’re just one of a million cheerleaders encouraging them to keep going from the sideline, but offering nothing of value toward actually winning the game.

Is it actually a problem they care enough about to get fixed?

Are you talking enough about the actual problem?

→ Seven ways to fix your broken prospecting system.

→ Here’s how I fixed client X’s prospecting system.

→ Did you know that you can get X prospects a week without having to ____?

Are you solving a specific problem?

“I will improve your marketing” → I will get you better open/click-through rates.

Are you too shy about helping?

[ ] Do you clearly tell people what they’re doing wrong?

[ ] Are you being a leader in your content and messaging?

[ ] Do you act confident in what it is that you can help people with?

[ ] Are you afraid to diagnose problems & prescribe solutions?

Are you playing the frequency game?

[ ] Are you making enough offers to get on the phone?

→ It is very easy to get good at making content, having the VA add 20-30 people a day, and starting up conversations – and then they get gun-shy about making invitations to book a call. That’s like running a marathon and sitting down on the ground 20 feet from the finish line. Bottom line → them getting on the call is the only reason somebody will get on a call with you. You have to get very good at being rejected without letting it hit your identity and security. Don’t be afraid to make the offer to help.

So, to repeat – If you are sending enough connections and making enough invitations to phone calls, then your problem may be some of these issues. But, if you’re not getting enough phone calls and serious conversations started with people because you’re not sending enough connections and invites, then you need to get with your VA and figure that part out together.

💡 So – if our numbers are good in terms of the inputs – the VA is doing their job and we are doing ours – but we still haven’t made any sales in spite of getting on the phone with people, what next?

It could be 3 main things:

1. Your offer is no good and people don’t actually want it.
2. The prospects you’re speaking with aren’t the right fit for an otherwise good offer.
3. Your sales framework stinks.

We’ve tried really hard to mitigate the likelihood that it’s either of the first two by how hard we went in on their needs and pains back in the earlier phases of this program. But you need to keep it open as a possibility that you’ve completely missed their needs.

What about your sales framework? I’ll have another video incoming on that really soon. I was in high ticket sales for a long time and have made millions of dollars for my clients as a sales consultant, so we can talk about that in depth in another video. There is hope if you’re stuck in that situation.

To recap:

• If you haven’t gotten enough connections or booked calls, your problem is in your prospecting.
• If you’re getting calls and nobody’s buying, either you’re not really following the sales system all that well, or your offer is broken somehow.

Facebook Primed Content Ads Troubleshooting

Now, a lot of this process is simpler for Primed Content Ads Troubleshooting, believe it or not! In spite of the fact that we had to do a lot more work to get them up and running, and in spite of the fact that it takes a bit higher budget to make it work, they are relatively simpler to troubleshoot because we get LOTS of data and Facebook actually aggregates it all for us.

A few principles:

The best targeting begins at the Ad level. Once again – most of this is going to come down to “did you successfully create an ad that grabs the attention of somebody who has a problem, educate them, and give them confidence that you know what you’re talking about?” The actual settings, the knobs, dials, switches and buttons inside of the ads manager are sort of the last domino to fall. It doesn’t matter near as much as “am I communicating effectively to other human beings about struggles and problems they have, in words they understand?”

With that said, there are a few stats we can look at that are really helpful.

3-5 Minute Video Ads

First, let’s look at some stats for the 3-5 Minute Videos.

1. Hook Rate → 3 Second views per number of Impressions: 40%+If below 40%, we need to change the look and feel of the first 3 seconds to be more attention-grabbing. When you edited the video in Descript, did you leave 3 seconds of silence at the beginning from when you started recording? That’ll crater the effectiveness of your ad.
2. Hold Rate → 15 Second views per number of Impressions: 8%+If below 8%, you hooked them and then didn’t keep their attention. The most likely culprit, if you’re following the ad copy & script framework, is probably your “promise of value” section. People aren’t really responding to the way you’re promising to bring them value. You’re taking too long to get to the point.
3. Cost per 25% VV → under $1If you’ve cleared both of the previous 2 hurdles and you’re tripping up here, then people either don’t like your Call To Action, you’re taking too long in the Get to Know Me section, or your content itself is not passing muster. It’s any one of those 3. Or maybe you’re not actually following through in your Content on the promise of value you made at the beginning. Maybe people felt like it was “click bait” – you over-promised and under-delivered.

Let me actually go to my ads manager and show you how to set up these metrics in the backend.

First, let’s open the Ads Manager, then go to “Customize Columns”.

Don’t freak out, OK? This looks complicated, it’s not. We’re just looking at all of the different pieces of data that Facebook tracks. So, let’s uncheck all the ones that really aren’t that helpful.

Now, let’s come up here and click on “Create Custom Metric.”

• Name it Hook Rate, then come down here and click in the text box then start typing. Remember, it’s “3 second views” divided by “Impressions”. Nice and simple.
• Next is Hold Rate, same thing, but now it’s ThruPlays divided by Impressions.
• Last is Cost per 25% view. That’s “amount spent / Video plays at 25%”.

Then, you can drag them into the order you want by using this little panel over here to the right.

I recommend that you save this as a custom set of columns as “PCA Video Metrics”.

VERY IMPORTANT → We need to be hitting these metrics for at least 3 different videos! 1 or 2 isn’t enough. We want to be giving a 3D educational experience to our Facebook people.

And that’s it for the 3-5 Minute Video Ads – you want to see these metrics, and if you hit those numbers then you’re in good shape! They’re performing well.

Direct Offer Ads

Direct Offer Ads are going to be a little bit different! Remember that in our ads ecosystem, we had different goals for the 3-5 Minute Videos than we did for the Direct Offer Ads.

• For the 3-5 Minute Videos, we literally are trying to get people to watch the videos. And then those people all form a list of folks that you send Direct Offers to.
• For these, what we are trying to do is literally just “get them to click on the link”, whether that goes to Messenger in the beginning so you can speak with them immediately, or eventually to an application page or something else. We very simply want to get them to click that link.

So there are a few stats we need to track here, as well.

1. CTR (Link) → 1%+CTR Link is literally people who have clicked the button to go do the thing you asked them to do if they wanted to work with you. This is how we gauge if people are actually responding to your Offer text at all. If it’s below 1%, 9 times out of 10 it’s the combination of headline and text. Something there isn’t resonating.
2. CTR (All) → 3%+CTR All is any click somebody made on your ad. Could be to check out the comments, or the “Read More” text on your ad text, OR the like or share buttons, OR the link to go through to your page. This is just a straightforward metric gauging engagement on your ad.

And those are default metrics, so we don’t need to make custom ones. They already exist. You can see them really easily using the “Performance and Clicks” preset columns, or you can make a custom one and call it something like “PCA Direct Offer Metrics” that includes other relevant data like CPM (which is the cost per a thousand people reached, the lower the better), or other aspects.

And what’s great is that the Retargeting Ads have the same exact metrics. If you’re doing something a little more advanced and you’re trying to see if a testimonial carousel will work, or what-have-you, then the metrics are the same – we want CTR Link above 1%, and CTR All above 3%, and we should be good to go.

BUT, we’re not done here. There’s one more variable, and it’s a little bit more nebulous and hard to quantify.

I call it “Messenger Conversation Quality”. You need to keep track of this yourself.

When it comes to direct-to-Messenger ads, pretty frequently you’ll get people who are either totally unqualified, trolls, or people who don’t even speak your same language. Facebook counts these as “Messenger conversations”, even though they aren’t useful to us.

If you’ve got a rate of at least 3 good conversations out of 10, you’re on the right track. Some people literally just scroll through their Facebook randomly clicking stuff. This might occasionally happen to you. Or they read English and think they’re qualified, but they’re really not. This happens.

If you’re only getting bad conversations, or 1 out of 10 is a decent conversation with somebody who’s basically qualified, there’s a sleeper problem – your audience might not be set up right. Make sure you’re excluding folks who aren’t a good fit, make sure you’re doing layered targeting (where you have a group of targets that all fit together, and you’re narrowing them down to include at least one of ANOTHER group of targets that fit together).

Now, it’s the same stats as the OOO from here – how many invitations to 15 minute calls are you making? How many of those are you then inviting to a 45 minute call or to sign up for your Mid-Ticket offer? You need to keep track of these stats. And just like earlier, if you’re getting calls and nobody’s buying, either your sales system sucks or your offer is broken somehow.

To recap:

• Make sure your 3 metrics for 3-5 Minute Ads are good, and your 2 main metrics for Direct Offer Ads are good.
• Check to make sure that you’re getting quality conversations from your Direct Offer Ads.
• Just like earlier, if you’re getting calls and nobody’s buying, either you’re not really following the sales system all that well or your offer is broken somehow.

Fixing a Broken Offer

So let’s talk, briefly, about a few things you can do to fix your offer if it turns out to be your offer.

1. More Urgency → Maybe this isn’t as big of a problem as you think it is in their minds! Maybe you can see how bad it is, but they don’t feel the pain yet. Maybe you’re trying to be the preventative care instead of the emergency room. Unfortunately, people usually only make decisions about what to do once they’re actually in pain from something.
   • Maybe look for a different group of people for whom the problem is urgent. Being overweight is different if you’re fine with it than if you think it’s holding you back in marital or business success.
   • There are 2 different kinds of urgency: I need to solve this problem right now, and I really, really want that thing right now. One is need, the other is a strongly held desire. One is for people who are really struggling with an issue, one is for people who really have few actual problems, but strongly desire to grow and change or reach the next level. Either one will do here.
2. More Scope → Maybe you actually need to do more or help them solve more or bigger problems.
   • Maybe “I will post social media” for you is not worth it to them. If we raise the scope to “using social media to generate leads and make sales”.
   • It’s very hard to do this for a mid-ticket thing – you should probably not boost scope in a mid-ticket thing.
3. Lower Barrier to Entry → Can you help someone sooner?
   • Don’t require the equivalent of a Navy Seal before you jump in to help them. Help people earlier in the progress.
4. Improvement vs Opportunity → Are you offering more of the same thing that people have already seen?
   • Don’t ask a high price for a commodity. Again, you need to make your thing unGoogleable. Make a proprietary framework, an acronym, something they can’t get somewhere else.
5. What you Do vs What they Get → Am I focusing too much on what lights me up about this process (the process), and ignoring what lights them up (the result)? People who go to others for help don’t really care about how that help is going to happen. They don’t need to know your process so much as
6. Proof → People just don’t believe the claims you’re making.
   • Help them. NO better proof than actually helping them.
   • If you’re doing something new, pull secondary proof from other sources. Peer reviewed articles. Recognized experts who are saying the same things you’re saying. Other people who got results doing something similar to what you’re going to have them do, even if they weren’t your clients. Be careful with this – don’t present these examples as if they’re you’re case studies. Say something like “this person went through a very similar process to the one we’re talking about here, and this is what their results looked like”.
   • Obviously, as you get your own success stories, go for them instead.
7. Practice
   • Selling for the most part is not really natural for most people.
   • There are no overnight successes in sales. It’s a skill that really does need to be cultivated.
   • You need to get into the uncomfortable situation of being rejected and objected to, and expose yourself to that situation and practice in it.

The next video will be our last leg of the main training – and it will only be relevant for what we do AFTER we get to $10K a month, at which point we get to ask: where do we go from here?

See you next time; further up and further in!