3 Surprising Content Mistakes that are Costing You Clients with Brandon Lucero

Welcome back. It's the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast. This is episode 159. And today I have a guest joining me, who's gonna reveal the biggest content mistakes that online entrepreneurs make, which causes their posts to go completely unseen, completely overlooked. And completely unengaged with is that a word unengaged. Anyway, you know the feeling, because we have all been there, right? Whether you're new to growing a business, or whether you've been at this entrepreneur game for a while. One thing that we all have in common is that we want to grow our audience, we want to create a greater impact. And a lot of times we measure our impact through audience growth through audience engagement, those are not necessarily the metrics that you should be looking at. But it is the focus of our conversation here today, because my guest is here to show you how to increase your engagement and not just to a spike it not just to go viral one time, but how to steadily increase your engagement day by day by day, through unlocking the secrets to persuasive communication. All right, that's all coming up next. So stay tuned. 

Courtney Elmer 

Globally, ranked among the top shows in growing a business and education, we're known for one thing, helping overworked entrepreneurs like you learn how to growing a business like a true visionary leader, because when you get the right systems support, and structure in place, you can spend more time in your zone of genius. So if you're tired of listening to today's grow a business business influencers teach this same old worn out marketing strategies that aren't making you any money, it's time to take a look under the hood to grow a business and fix the engine itself. Because the truth is, you don't have to work as hard as you are right now to scale beyond six figures, and create the greater influence income and impact that you deserve. The secret to scaling starts on the back end of your business. This is the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast.

Courtney Elmer 

Now, you may or may not know this, but in the early days growing a business, I went through so many coaching training programs, I got tons of certifications. And one of the most memorable coaching training programs they ever participated in was with James Wedmore, the creator and founder of growing a business by design, and I've had the privilege of working under James and with his team for quite some time. And during that process, I got to know James's good friend, Brandon Lucero, who is here with me on the show today. Now I say got to know because you know how this online space works, right? I had never met Brandon in my life, never message him never talked with him. I just knew of him through James. But because of Brandon's messaging because of his content, because of the way that he teaches, and because of all that I was learning from him, I felt like I knew him. I felt like oh my gosh, Brandon's a cool guy. Brandon's really smart. Brandon knows a lot about this communication stuff, and about this messaging stuff. And his content was always so spot on by spot on. 

Courtney Elmer 

I mean, it always spoke directly to the problem or problems that I felt like I was experiencing in my own growing a business. It made me feel very seen and understood. And he always gave me very practical steps that I could take to apply to growing a business. And he did it in such a way that I didn't feel overwhelmed. Because you know, there are so many people out there, right? You listen to podcasts, and they give you this laundry list of things to do they tell you Okay, first, you have to do this and do this and do this. And you're like, Ah, I'm just exhausted thinking about it. No way in heck am I going to be doing that. But Brandon does things differently. And through his podcast alone, we were able to apply many of his principles to growing a business of our own. And I'm going to have you listen till the end of this episode to find out exactly what happened. But I will just tease it here right now to let you know, it completely changed the trajectory of our launches of the engagement of the people signing up of the people enrolling into our programs. 

Courtney Elmer 

So naturally, I have been an avid follower and enthusiastic supporter of Brandon and his company and all that he stands for, because he is a self taught expert. A lot of people in the online space are coming with some sort of background in whatever their area of expertise is. But Brandon is self taught. And he's built a multimillion dollar enterprise in just a few short years, through testing his own strategies on himself within his company. And today, he's going to show you the biggest mistakes that you're making with your content right now that's costing you clients, as well as the fundamental elements of your messaging that you need to get right. If you want to grow your following, increase your engagement and ultimately enroll more people into your programs. So be sure you listen until the end of the episode where I reveal just how much Brandon strategies impacted growing a business this past year and listen really closely, because Brandon is going to be giving you some specific language patterns that he mentioned throughout this episode that you can start using in your content today to provide unmatched value, and help you stand out from the competition online.

Courtney Elmer  5:29  

Brandon, welcome to the systems made simple podcast. It is so exciting to have you here today. I have really been looking forward to this conversation.

Brandon Lucero  5:36  

Yeah Courtney Elmer , I'm excited to be here. I'm grateful to be here. And I appreciate you inviting me on. 

Courtney Elmer  5:43  

you teach on is something it's a topic near and dear to my heart, particularly because you you speak about messaging, you speak about content, you speak about marketing, but you speak about it from a psychology perspective. And it's something I see so lacking in this space today, right? There's a lot of people out there that are teaching marketing that are teaching messaging, but they're not going deep. They're scratching the surface, they're not getting underneath to really figure out like, Okay, why do we buy what motivates us? What are the beliefs that we have that prevent us from buying and then helping us as entrepreneurs navigate all of that as it relates to our ideal clients, so that we can ultimately growing a business and sell more of our stuff? Because we're out there to help people. Right. And I think that, you know, for those listening, I know, this is something because I've heard from, from our listeners, what they struggle with, is getting people to see the value in what they have to offer. I hear this time and time again. So I'm just curious as a jumping off point for our conversation today. Brandon, what is it that you see is the biggest problem with most of the content that's out there today?

Brandon Lucero  6:53  

Yeah Courtney Elmer, so I think the biggest problem that we see is kind of you I mean, you kind of touched on it already is like people just don't go deep enough with the content. And what I mean by this is, we don't focus on how we communicate. And so when whenever we have a problem with something in our life, like let's say, our relationships on the rocks, or we have issues with our kids, or whatever, like 99% of the time, it's a communication problem. And then what do we do we go to a therapist or someone to help us with our communication. And then the therapist uses psychology sort of tactics to better our communication. And it's the same thing with our audience and with our content, what happened, what's happening right now is there's an oversaturation in the market, meaning there's so many experts and there's not you right now as a course creator have never had as many competitors as you do at this moment in time. And so what happens is most of us will speak from our perspective, which again, gets us in trouble with communication in any relationship, friendship, whatever it is, we speak from our perspective, which means that most of our communication, most of our content stems from, hey, here's what I do. Let me teach you what I do. 

Brandon Lucero

Here's the benefits I give, without really showing or demonstrating that we understand someone's specific unique, you know, situation. And so when I talk about going deeper inside of the content, there's a couple of things that I'm talking about. Number one is don't rely all on how to content and educational content. And when we look at like Mel Robbins, Grant Cardone, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brene. Brown, they're not sitting there reciting tutorial after tutorial after tutorial after tutorial. And what we want to start doing is different sorts of content in combination with that how to content but really, what we want to do is we actually want to get very clear on the audience's perspective and start speaking from an audience perspective, sort of communication and our content versus our perspective. And it's kind of give an example. What I mean here Courtney Elmer is if I had a message, and I was talking to my son, and I wanted my son to clean his room, I could say like, Hey, William, go clean your room now and do because I'm your dad. Or I could say, hey, Superman cleans his room. In five minutes, can you beat Superman? Same message, two different communication styles, two completely different results I'm going to get from that. 

Brandon Lucero

And the problem is, is that most of us are sitting here preaching and talking out our audience, without actually being intentional with what we're saying, why we're saying it, how do we get beneath the surface? How do we communicate in a way that allows us to stand out that's different than everyone else? Because that's exactly what most people are doing. You know, like, Simon Sinek is another perfect example. It's not the only person talking about leadership. But the way in which he talks about it the way in which he communicates the way in which he creates content, puts them in his own space, because no one's talking about it the way he is. But he always starts with the perspective of the person he's talking to. He doesn't talk at them from his perspective. He meets them where where they're at and then brings them along on a journey. So I would say that's probably the biggest issue is that the For the longest time we've just been preached, give away your best stuff for free at a ton of value. And value means information. And it's like, we're not seeing encyclopedias at the top of the best selling charts. We're seeing, like thought provoking perspective shifting, connection based books at the top of the best selling list yet, almost all of course creators are not creating content that way. Does. Does that make sense Courtney Elmer ?

Courtney Elmer  10:22  

It makes so much sense. It's so true. And I'm laughing to myself here as you're sharing this because I feel like you know, thinking about every argument my husband I have ever had. And it's like, it's not what you said. It's how you said it. Right? Yeah. And it's so true. It's like, okay, it's in our arguments. But it's also in like, to your point, how we communicate. And I mean, I don't know how old your son is, mine's almost five. That works like to tell them how fast can you do it? I have actually tried that myself. And I'm like, Look, how fast can you actually get this done? And like the first time I asked him, he's hemming and hawing. And And inevitably, every time I say that, it's like a little switch goes off in his brain. He goes, and he does, whatever it is. 

Courtney Elmer 

So I think, you know, again, to your point about communication, like, first of all, we have to recognize how we're communicating and to become aware of how it's not working, right. I think many of us sense that it's not working, we're not getting the result that we're looking for. We're not getting the leads coming in, we're not getting the sales coming in. We don't necessarily know what to fix or what to pinpoint. So I'd like to go a little deeper with you there and talk about like, what is it that you're seeing? What are some of the ways that most people are communicating effectively? And what should we be looking for? As we're communicating with our clients? Right? We might be talking on a sales call, or maybe we're doing a podcast episode, or maybe we're writing copy for an email or for our website or sales page? What are some of the things we need to be looking for in hat like how we're communicating? Because that question makes sense?

Brandon Lucero  11:45  

Yeah, it does. And it's, it's a, it's a loaded question Courtney Elmer. So I'll do my best and feel free to interrupt me if I'm just kind of going off on tangents or whatever. There's a couple of ways that I like to look at it, there's, there's, there's going to be language patterns that we want to use. And so you know, language pattern might be like a counter example, or a metaphor. So I've been using it already on this podcast, when I said, we don't see an encyclopedia at the top of the best selling charts, or, you know, what we do see our, you know, Ted Talks, doing really well, that gave great lessons. Like, I'm using examples or metaphors or analogies to prove a point. So what I'm not doing is just saying something, and then assuming you're going to believe me, because I'm the one talking, because we have to understand that 95% of our decisions every single day are subconsciously made and that you can argue all you want, but that's been scientifically proven. And we see it all the time in our daily life. Like, if someone says something to you, you're gonna have an automated response of boom, here's what I'm gonna say, without even thinking about it, you don't make a logical conscious decision, you just do it.

Brandon Lucero

And so you have to understand Courtney Elmer that your audience is doing the same thing your audience is when they see your content, or your ad, or your headline, or your email or your subject line. They're not making a logical decision whether or not that they want to click on it, or when they consume it, whether or not it makes sense. So you have to do a good job communicating and teaching to and speaking to the subconscious mind. So when I use examples like that, when I said something like, we don't want to just rely on how to content and then I'm saying, Look at Gary Vaynerchuk and Brene. Brown, I give those examples. Those are counter examples to prove to the subconscious mind that what I just said makes sense. And so when you hear me talk, you start having automated responses of Oh, my gosh, that makes sense that I totally get that. And again, you don't have to think about whether or not it makes sense. It's an automated response. And that's the way you consume content. So even when you click on an ad, and you're not making, in most cases, a logical decision, you're making a, a an odd, it's an automated response that your brain tells you, they're speaking to you, they're talking to you, this is valuable to you. 

Brandon Lucero

This is interesting to you this, you're now curious. And so if you're not learning how to communicate in that way, then you're going to have a really hard time standing out in the field. And so that's that's kind of part one. Part one is just learning, what are these language patterns? What are these messaging elements, and so we have a total of 16 elements, we have a ton of different language patterns to use. And really, what it comes down to is just like, let's figure out what they are, Let's memorize them. But then we have this all this whole other side of the equation, which to me is actually the most important part. There's two pieces to it. Number one, learning how to add value without giving out more information is number one. And number two is getting very clear on who you're solving a problem for, and what specific problems that you're solving for them, why those problems exist, and what have they been doing to try to fix those problems that don't work? So I can dive into those two areas a little bit more, if you want me to do want me to go deeper with both Courtney Elmer?

Courtney Elmer  14:48  

I do. Actually, can we start with number two? Because this is something that I see all the time with our clients that come to us, and I'll say okay, so what problem are you solving for your audience, right, because we're looking at it in terms of either their growing a business as a whole right because we're help Anyone with the systems within their growing a business want to make sure everything's aligned to be able to attract those people with that specific problem, or we're looking at it in the context of their podcast, because we want to make sure their podcast is aligned as a marketing system to attract that ideal person, right? So what happens is that people come in, they'll say, okay, problem, problem problem, and they'll give a laundry list of symptoms. Yeah. And they'll say, Well, my ideal clients are burnt out, they're overwhelmed. They're this, they're that they're struggling with this they overthink. Right, right. And it's like, all of these symptoms. I'm like, okay, but what's the problem? Right, and I think on a fundamental level, a lot of people struggle to understand what the actual problem is that their person is experiencing. So can we start there? How do we pinpoint that?

Brandon Lucero  15:43  

Yeah, and I love that use the word symptoms to be symptoms and problems are almost the same Courtney Elmer. It's, it's, there's a slight difference. And so I like using the analogy of like a doctor. And this kind of brings a lot of clarity to people is like, when we go to a doctor, let's say you had some sort of health issue, you go to the doctor, and no doctor knows what you're doing, like, what's wrong with you there, you tell them all these problems? I have no idea, I have no idea, I have no idea. Then you go to this one doctor, and he just looks at you, or she looks at you. And all of a sudden just starts going, Oh, do you wake up at seven o'clock at night, every night and sweat? Like sweating? Do you have do you then wake up in the morning and you have hives on your on your chest. And then, you know, like noon, you have like swollen ankles. And let's say all three of those specific things were happening to you, there's a couple things are gonna happen, you're gonna be like, Oh, my God, this person gets me and understands me, but you're always going to go, this person knows exactly what's wrong with me. And you're going to create an automated response of they have the solution. 

Brandon Lucero

And the all the examples you gave are great, because they were all there. Like, that's where most people go is very generalized. They say, Are you overwhelmed? And are you this? And are you that? Here's, here's the difference between my example and that, when you say overwhelmed, that's going to mean 1000 different things to 1000 different people. When a doctor says do you wake up at seven o'clock at night? When like sweating? There's no room for interpretation, you either do it or you don't? And if you do, it's like, only you get this automated response of Oh, my God, that's me. So let's say you're a parenting coach, instead of saying, Are you an overwhelmed mom? Or Are you overwhelmed? I would say something like, look, are you waking up every single day, and to get your kids out the door and time for school, you're yelling at them at least twice. And three times during the week, your kids don't even finish their breakfast, and you're not sure what to do to get them to listen, like there's no room for interpretation. 

Brandon Lucero

You're either experiencing that or you're not Courtney Elmer. And if you are, guess what, I just connected with you on a subconscious deep level. And I demonstrated that I understand your specific situation. So the biggest issue that people have is that they just don't get specific on the problem. And and they do very generalized problems, which is like, Are you overwhelmed? Are you tired? Are you plateaued? Are you whatever. And so, to go a little bit deeper with this doctor example. The next thing a doctor does after they go through your symptoms is they diagnose you. And they will tell you, here's what you have going on. And so now you have something to solve. And so what I tell people is like this should be a part of your messaging, you should integrate this in your content and your webinars is get specific on the problems. And then give that problem a name. So when people when you say you have this, this, this and this, it's very specific, you say I call that the six figure hamster wheel, people start going like, oh my god, I'm on the six figure hamster wheel that the brain is talking about, I diagnose them. And what happens is when you become the person who diagnosis them, you become the person they want to solve the problem that they that they choose to, to help them solve the problem. 

Brandon Lucero

Much like a doctor, you go into a doctor, they diagnose you, they specifically tell you exactly what's going on, why it's going on the mistakes you made, the composite mistakes you did to try to fix it probably don't work and what it is, you're just me like, Doctor, can you please just help me? Like, give me the answer. And then they move to like prescription or whatever. And that solution. The problem is, is most content creators and course creators, they actually started the solution. They go, here's what I do. And here's the data. And here's why. And like, how do you know those people even have the problem that you're trying to solve? And so what we like to do is integrate a lot of this specific, there's three things, specific problems, the specific mistakes causing the problems, and then the specific mistakes that they've used to try to fix the problems that didn't exist. That didn't work. Here's why this is so important. When you nail those things, and this takes time to figure out like you're gonna have to test and tweak and put things out and see and pay attention. 

Brandon Lucero

But the reason why having all three of those Dialed In is because when you start to integrate those into your upfront content messaging, you actually start to attract people that have those exact problems made those exact mistakes and the Third one is if you can find the mistakes they've tried that don't work, you've actually will start to attract action takers, these are people that have raised their hand and said, I have a problem. And I've been trying to fix it. And I am aware that I can't do it. And so now your leads become a lot more qualified. So we like to use this in like ads a lot, I still use it in like slider images on Instagram. The holistic psychologist, if anyone follows her is amazing at doing this other content, she self diagnose you, like gets you to self diagnose yourself, like Oh, my God, I have these issues, I did make those mistakes, I did have that experience in my childhood. So we started to integrate that into messaging. And again, it just speaks to people on a deeper level. And also just brings in more qualified people. And there are ways to do it, where you still talk to the masses, like I think most people are like, well, if I get specific, I won't talk to everyone. It's like, no, there's ways to do it where you can, we can talk to everyone. But I'll pause here and see if if all that makes sense Courtney Elmer. Or if there's any questions on that?

Courtney Elmer  20:59  

It does. This is so great. And I'm just curious, too, because I have a story to share with you actually about how your technique actually helped us. But before I get to that, I want to just ask you, Brennan, how did you get into this? Like, how did you? First of all, figure all of this out for yourself? I'm imagining in growing a business, right, and then start to teach this and really land on this as your niche?

Brandon Lucero  21:24  

Well, yeah, that's a great question Courtney Elmer. I have no formal training. And at this, I have no degrees, I have no no certifications. There's a little bit of a woowoo side to this. And there's a little bit more of a logical side. I started working with a shaman about five years ago. And what he has been able to do is open up my awareness to so many things that I just was blind to before. And, you know, a couple examples are, you know, I would just see people interact one day, and I would be like, Oh, I understand why they think that way, or I would see my my own experience of like, why am I doing this, this one thing this one way, and I realize, oh, because three years ago, or when I was a kid, I was told that this was the right way to do and I just my subconscious just automated it. And I never realized that I had a choice in believing this or not. And I started, you know, questioning a lot of things, I started seeing a lot of things that I was doing in my life, that I realized were nothing more than just an indoctrination or an experience that it just never questioned. 

Courtney Elmer 

And so I started questioning all of this stuff Courtney Elmer . And I started to realize how much of our reality is actually formed by past experiences, or indoctrinations, or things we just didn't question. And then I started to see it through a lens in the marketing space and in our communication space. And that leads me to the more logical answer, which is, once that process started happening, I started just consuming things and looking at how they made me feel. So I read like Simon cynics book, and I'm like, Man, how did he? How did he get me to believe his point? Like I didn't like, I just automatically was like, Yeah, that makes sense. And I was reverse engineer what he was doing. Or I would look at an ad I'm like, why is this ad pulling me and what specifically and I'm like, Oh my God, they're describing my situation to a tee. And so I just started consuming all of this stuff, all these books and ads and content and videos. And I would just use myself and just ask, like, Why did I feel that way? What did they do. And then I started to test and tweak and use it on my own stuff. And then through the last four years of testing and trying and tweaking, we've been able to form our own kind of like methodology and philosophy around all of this stuff. And that's kind of how we came up with everything we have today Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer  23:42  

That's fascinating. It's been so cool to watch your journey. I followed you for a long time. And I know you did not start out in this right it was video and it was marketing and all and it's like Whoa now to see like, how much you have grown and the time that I mean, gosh, that's for you to say five years ago, it was kind of when you started this journey makes me think like, I've been on this journey a long time to write this time goes by so fast, but to see your progression and now to see the impact that you're making on the world with the work that you're doing right. I know you say you know you work in messaging, but in my mind, I'm like, You're a communications expert, you are a persuasion expert. And that is what you are helping people learn how to do is to persuade through psychology, this is not twisting people's arms. This is not cajoling them into making a purchase. This is not you know, saying oh my gosh, you know, we're gonna give this amazing guarantee so you can buy right, it's none of that. It's not tactically it's not salesy. It's not slimy. It's actually teaching people how to communicate because of the way we're naturally wired the way our brain naturally already thinks.

Brandon Lucero  24:40  

Yeah, humans process information a certain way. And if you're not communicating to work with that, it's going to feel very difficult like and that's the biggest problem is there's so many people that are very smart, are very knowledgeable, can help a lot of people. They just don't know the proper way to explain or demonstrate or to communicate. Hate why someone needs it or what problems they solve or any of that stuff. So you can be like the smartest person in the world. And you'll just never make any sales because you just haven't learned how to communicate in the way humans process information. And on the flip side of it, we have people with really crappy products who don't know what they're doing, but are great marketers and communicators, who can sell all day long, really crappy things, and is because they've mastered the art of communication. And that's really all it comes down to.

Courtney Elmer  25:28  

It's definitely a skill I never expected to have to learn. And it's something that I feel I do have a bit of an innate gift for. So I had that to my advantage initially, but all the mistakes you were describing, you know, when I first started growing a business, I'm like laughing to myself, like, I totally get that, you know, because it's so true. And I'm like, Oh, my goodness, I'm gonna just talk about how wonderful it will be once the person has the transformation that I can help them bring about. And it's like, nobody cares about the transformation, you can help them experience or the life or the desired result, or all these amazing things, until they care about how can you help them solve their problem, can you make the problem go away, because the problem is what's causing them all this pain, and they can't see beyond that they're living in this bubble of pain right now, right caused by this problem. And I want to circle back to the first of those two points that you were talking about earlier about how, you know, we need to learn how to add value without more information.

Brandon Lucero  26:23  

Yeah, and that brings it next point is another problem,

Courtney Elmer  26:24  

too. So I checked before, I'd love for you to share more.

Brandon Lucero  26:28  

I was just gonna mention is that, you know, like you said, you can talk about the transformation all day long. But if if, like you said, you don't demonstrate that you actually understand their situation, why it's occurring, things like that, it's gonna be really difficult. At the same time, if they don't like you, they won't buy and they're, you know, like, I'll cuss from time to time on training calls, and I'll drop the F bomb from time to time. And that's just who I am. I like I do it around my kids too. And, and I just, that's just who I am. And I, you know, unapologetic, unapologetic about it. It's not over the top, but everyone's gonna happen. So I did this one time, I dropped an F bomb on a training. And because I was really passionate, it usually comes down when I'm passionate about something. 

Brandon Lucero

And then someone wrote in and was like, I love everything. Brandon saying, I have been having this problem for years. I don't I didn't appreciate the F bomb, blah, blah, blah, it's just, you know, it's nothing gets written, I just wanna let you guys know, it just really turned me off and Mokena by I demonstrated I could solve their problem, I demonstrated that I knew how to solve the problem, I demonstrated that I was one of the best in the space. And that's even what they wrote in the email. But because they didn't like who I was, they weren't going to buy so So that leads me to the next thing is you, we have to be able to add value through connection as well Courtney Elmer. And so people need to be connected to you. And like you and trust you. And we all heard that you need to get to know like and trust. But no one talks about how do we actually form that. So that needs to be a part of our messaging, because that's a way to add value. It's validating people's beliefs, it's validating their identities, it's connecting off of those things. So that's method number one I'll talk about here in a second. The second way we can add value is also by telling people what to stop doing. So the example that I always give is, I was a collegiate athlete Division One NCAA cross country track. 

Brandon Lucero

And so when we run and you go into a race, you wear a shoe called a spike, it's a very lightweight shoe that has like spikes on the bottom for the grip into the track. But when you train, you don't wear that stuff, because there's no protection you wear like trainers. Well, when I first started running and racing, I didn't know the difference. So I was racing and trainers will trainers will add like 10 to 15 seconds to your mile time, I had no idea. So if someone's trying to break like a five minute mile, I know how to do that I could I could train you, I could teach you I can mentor you, I could give you all the How to tutorials and all of these things. But that's gonna require you to go work and do things you're gonna have to put in time and energy and effort to go do stuff to break the five minute mile. But if you're running like 510 515, and I give you all these things to do, I mean, shaving off 10 seconds is actually at that level is really difficult to do. It could take you months. But if I looked down and I see that you're wearing trainers, and I just said, oh, you know what, just put on Spike, stop wearing the trainers, you could break the five minute mile, you didn't have to spend months training, you didn't have to put out more energy. 

Brandon Lucero

And in fact, I made your process a lot easier and faster. And I think we get so we've been so conditioned to like, give value give tutorials give information that we kind of forgot that. Look, people are stuck because they're doing something they're doing something that's keeping them stuck. If you can make them aware of what that is and get them to stop. It's gonna be extremely value adding it could get in to the result faster, and it would require less energy from them because they're stopping to in fact, you could be saving them energy because they're stopping one activity that's causing the problem. So that's it That's one way to add value. The other way would be in we do need both we need all of it is is based off of connection. And so when we look at our best friend, and or even our spouse, when we first met them, it was like, wow, I'm really attracted this person, or it's your best friend, and like, I really get along with this person, which is vibe. And no one really looks at why that's happening. And there's a bunch of reasons why, but the main reasons why are because of a shared belief or beliefs, shared identities, and, and shared values, or it's a combination of all three, for example, I have kids.

Brandon Lucero

 So a lot of the friends that we have, are also parents, and that would be a shared identity, I identify as a parent, they identify as a parent, we now form a connection because of that identity. Now, if they have the same beliefs of our own society, or you know how growing a business should be, or life should be, well, great, now we even form a deeper bond, because we have shared beliefs. And I'm not going to say which side of the line I was on, but, but like, during COVID is a perfect example is like, you know, there were some people with very strong opinions. And a lot of our friends that we saw, during that time that we had before COVID, we started to spend a little bit less time with and we actually started spending more time with people that were parents shared identity, but also the same beliefs on all the COVID and vaccine stuff as as us. And again, it was not, it wasn't like, I didn't like those other people anymore, whatever it is, like admit, people may say, we just don't have things in common anymore. 

Brandon Lucero

It's like, well, no, you just had a, you just have a difference in beliefs now that you didn't have before. And now you're connecting more to people that you have beliefs with. And then if we add the third one in values, so if I valued, you know, my number one value in life is family. But if someone's number one value in life was like money at all costs, I probably wouldn't connect or want to be around that person. And again, it's not because they're bad, or whatever, it's simply coming down to we don't align on beliefs, values, and identities. So we want to take the same thing into account with our audience, if we can be very intentional with who we want to attract, like, I want them to have this belief, I want them to have this identity, I want them to have this value, you literally just start putting that into your content. So I'll give you an example. We worked with Caitlin Batcher, a few years ago, and she wanted to attract mom entrepreneurs. So we created a piece of content called parents should support entrepreneurship and their children or something along those lines. So we had the idea, the identity of parents, so she's gonna attract the moms, we use parents. 

Brandon Lucero

And then we obviously use like entrepreneurship to the kid teaching entrepreneurship to kids, which demonstrates the value. But then the branding. Yeah, it was like pink and like turquoise, it was more geared towards attracting, you know, a female. And so by using that, we were now attracting mom entrepreneurs into her brand and, and the message behind it was a belief based message. I think that entrepreneurship should be taught to kids. So now she's also attracting people in your audience that believe the same thing as her. And so now there's this deep connection starting to form where people like, I really liked this, this lady I really like, right. And they were, they may not know why. But it's because of the belief that she demonstrated, it's because she attracted and connecting with you guys off of identities, all of that stuff. And that style of content has nothing to do with what she's even selling. She's selling an evergreen program, how to go evergreen in your growing a business. But we specifically are creating content designed for connection. Then we combine that with that that thought reversal content, which is the making them aware of mistakes, like shifting their perspective on something, making them aware.

Brandon Lucero

And then we also combine it with educational content. And when we start to do that, we get this trifecta, which by the way, educational doesn't mean just tutorials there's so many ways that create educational content but educational this thought reversal or mistake, stopping content and connection and you get this trifecta going on. And when people sit inside of your brand they go I really liked this person, I really connect to this person, they're very smart because I can see all their their educational content, but they're also speaking in a way because we're gonna use language patterns in a way that I've never heard before. And they're also kind of a thought leader because they're making me aware of these things I was never aware of before which no one ever did. And you get this huge effect going on and this is why people blow up really fast is when you can hit all three of these you blow up because you're getting again this like Trifecta effects going on within your your audience on like a psychological level. And that's it Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer  34:48  

it's so just do all that right? Like just okay guys go out there do that apply these things. This is why they need to come listen to your podcast and get inside of your programs because this stuff is so valuable and it's something that I feel So few people are teaching not at the level that you teach it. And it's so you know, everything that you're sharing today, I just want to share a story of how, even just in listening to your podcast, because you could deliver so much value that you're not you're not teaching how to do things, right? But you're doing exactly what you're telling us here today to do to stop doing this. Focus on this, try this instead, look at this a little differently, right? You're shifting our perspective. So after listening to your podcast, many episodes, I don't know the specific episode numbers. I've listened to many. 

Courtney Elmer 

But I said, Okay, for this next launch that we're doing, this was the latest launch that we did, we're going to change a lot of how we're talking about what we're talking about, right? So we're pretty clear on the problem that our person has, right, which is, they're not getting leads consistently in growing a business. And we know what's causing that. And then the solution that we're selling them in this particular instance, for this program, is they need a reliable mechanism in place to generate leads with low energy and effort and costs. We believe that's a podcast, we believe a podcast is the best way to do that. And we talked about why. And so that's the you know, the the just kind of laying the groundwork for this launch, right, so So previous launches, we were always focused on how a podcast could help you increase your status or be seen as a recognized leader, right, or to get leads in sales. 

Courtney Elmer 

And we were talking about it from the benefit side, and not from how it was going to help you solve the problem of inconsistent leads in growing a business or solve the problem of feeling overlooked in your space or solve the problem of just feeling like you don't know where your next person is going to come from, where's the revenue going to come from, because I don't know where I'm even going to get someone next right. And to help how a podcast can help solve those problems. So we made that one subtle tweak, we tweaked the landing page, which was the major tweak, and then the sales page, we tweak some language on there. And I will tell you, Brandon, first of all, our conversion rate as a whole increased, we noticed that the people first of all registrations went up, and the people who attended the webinar was a three day event. So they attended, they stayed till the end, which before we'd have people drop off, you know, in the middle, or halfway through or whatever, they would stay till the end, they came back all three days and stayed till the end, all three days, just because of this, these little tweaks that we were doing. 

Courtney Elmer 

And I wasn't necessarily saying anything different. I'm still teaching on podcasting, I'm still teaching why we believe it's such a powerful mechanism, you know, for you to generate leads, but I was communicating it differently, thanks to you. And it was our best launch that we've had to date. So I share that story just to kind of bring it home for our listeners like this is stuff a lot of people just discredit because they think, oh, it's gonna take so much time to figure that out, oh, I don't know where to start, or I just want the result right away, you know, yeah. But this is the real work this is it's the deep stuff that you got to do that's going to accelerate you faster and farther than you would, if you hadn't invested the time to do that.

Brandon Lucero  38:05  

I mean, in your 100%, right Courtney Elmer, and it's kind of a shame. But what we've realized is that we were not the first stop for a lot of people. What we are, is when you've experienced a plateau, and sometimes it's at a million dollars, sometimes it's at, you know, 500, or 100,000, or sometimes it's zero, and you've been stuck in this plateau for three to six months. That's usually when people come to us because they don't realize that messaging is actually the very first thing that you have to figure out. Because it's the foundation of everything. It's the foundation of your content. It's the foundation of how you're going to position your offer. It's the foundation of how you're going to sell your offer. Its foundation of enemies, the foundation of everything. And it is it's kind of a shame, because a lot of people get so sucked up into, like, I need the best strategy. And I need this and I need like what's the best platform to be on? And when I tell people, it's like, it doesn't matter. Like you can I've seen people be successful on just tick tock or tick tock in podcasting, or just podcasting or just YouTube. Like, there's Yes, different platforms have different benefits to it. 

Brandon Lucero

But if your messaging is broken, it doesn't matter what platform you're on or what you're using. And if your messaging is also working, it doesn't matter what platform you're on, because you will excel on either one. And it doesn't matter what strategy you're using. And so it is it is my opinion, like the very first thing that we'll have to figure out and be mindful of, but it is one of those things where like, people just get started and then they come to us when they finally have a problem. And we've recognized that and so that's one of the things we've done in our own messaging is like, what's the biggest problem? Where are they at? And that's what we've, we've come up with and you know, one one more thing I want to tack on here when it comes to problems too is what if you guys are plateaued? It's definitely you know, mostly a communication problem 99% of the time, but even if you're like Brandon, I get what you're saying like we are focusing on problems and I'm still plateaued that It is something that comes up from time to time. The problem with that is, you probably picked a problem that people are not willing to pay for in order to get fixed. And there's a story that I've heard with this guy, and he's walking down the sidewalk, and he hears a dog whimpering.

Brandon Lucero

And he looks over at the porch and his dogs on the porch whimpering and the owner sitting next to him, and he asked the owner, like, why is your dog whimpering? And he goes, Oh, well, he's sitting on a nail. And the guy in the sidewalk says why? Why isn't he just get up and move. And the owner says, because it doesn't hurt bad enough yet. And so a lot of the times when you're like, oh, Brandon, I'm doing everything that you told me to do. And it's not working, it's like, Well, you probably picked a problem that people are just willing to deal with. Because if you've picked a problem that people are aware they had and they don't want anymore, it's like worst thing in the world, sales become so much easier. And when people aren't buying, there's two things that they're basically saying either this problem doesn't hurt bad enough yet, or I don't trust in your ability to actually solve that problem. And when your messaging is dialed in, both of those questions should be completely eliminated from their mind.

Courtney Elmer  41:04  

This is why I'm so grateful to people like you who are out here doing this kind of work, Brandon, because it's something that's so needed. I mean, we have seen, especially post pandemic, such an explosion of people now, you know, in the online space, trying to make it, there's so much competition, as you said earlier in this episode, and the dynamic is changing online growing a business is different now than it was six years ago when I got started. And it is changing it like light speed, like just so fast. And so all the more reason, you know, for for the work that you're doing and to start paying attention to this, you know, to not discredit this or to not say, Okay, this is something I'll deal with later, when I have finally have the money, right? I'll invest in that. It's like no, no, do like you said, do this, first, do this, now do this, immediately, it's going to make everything else easier. And it may even save you money in the long run. Because you won't be wasting time, energy effort and resources on the wrong, whatever strategies or, you know, technology or whatever it is that you're investing in. 

Brandon Lucero  42:10  

Right, right. And just to get this dialed in, soon. And immediately, I'd rather start going in the right direction, then go in the wrong direction for six months only they come back in the beginning. And when I actually got started the space like 11 years ago, I was looking at doing our tech stuff. And I was looking at like when growing a business was formed. And I was like, wow, it's been 11 years. I mean, I got started selling real estate videos like 11 years ago, and now we're doing this. But when we got started back then it was there's no competition. So you could like you could say or do whatever you wanted. And you just made sales because it was like you're the only option. But now, if you can't communicate in the market, now, if you're having a plateau, you're having issues now, I guarantee you, it's only gonna get worse because there's more and more people coming into the space. But what's really exciting about that, is that also means there's more and more customers becoming aware that there are courses online and can content online. So you have more competitors, but you also have more potential customers and you get dialed in, you get a bigger piece of that pie sooner. So So yeah, I agree with you. 100%.

Courtney Elmer  43:09  

I do have one final question for you that I just thought of. And I'm just curious to hear your take on this because now we're starting to see all of these AI powered copywriters and all this stuff coming onto the scene. And I saw a post recently the chat GPT thing is the newest thing, right? And my husband is like super into it. And so like this is over the holidays, our family kind of has a tradition of always having like a scavenger hunt, or like, someone has to go hunt for whatever the gift is, right? And so this year, it was like, Okay, I'm gonna make them go look for it. It's gonna be in the back of our car trunk. It's gonna be hidden under a blanket so Alan's like, just pull up chat GPT and see if chat GBT can write like these clues for you. And time and again, I would like prompt it and try to say and it would just it was writing really cool stuff. But I was like, this is not this is not it, you know, so I wanted to writing it myself. 

Courtney Elmer 

And I felt the same way for the podcast, because for our show, and you might have run into this as well. We're getting pitched a lot right now with like, copywriters that can write for you based on AI and this and that. And the other thing, and I don't know where it's gonna go, I definitely think it will be a viable part of what we see in the future in the technology space. But how will that impact us as creators? Right? I personally, my belief is that there will always need to be a human element to the work that we do, at least as consultants as coaches, right? It's even authors. But that is also kind of crazy and cool and scary to think about how you could have Chad GBT, maybe write a 60,000 page book for you. And you just like, tweak and edit it right. So I don't know. I'm just curious to hear your take on that and how you think that will impact how we communicate and our ability to communicate? Well, we will we be competing with people who are relying on technology like AI and do you think that will be better or do you think it won't, we won't replace the human.

Brandon Lucero  44:56  

I think we will be competing at some point against that. I have have a couple of different takes on it. Number one is, is I believe in like, energy is everything. And I believe that when you create a piece of content, and you could say the same words, but if your intention in feeling behind is like, I don't really care, just need to get this out there, or your intention was like, Okay, this is going to blow people's minds and change their lives, when people consume it, their their reading and feeling the energy that you put into that. And, and I've seen it numerous times. And there's been times where I've been hard times in my life. And I've just my intention behind stuff was like, I just need to get through this. And like, like a live event or something. And it's the same content I did like six months earlier, but six months earlier, I was like energetic and ready to go into same content, but I had way different results. I think AI won't be able to give that sort of experience that No, there'll be no like energy behind it. 

Brandon Lucero

Number two, is that part of messaging is a discovery process. It is like working with people it is figuring out what is the specific situation it's, it's what are they actually going through. And there's no way an AI bot or something can know that unless you plug it into a database somewhere. So there are always going to have to be a discovery process in the evolution of your messaging that is going to be human related unless an AI bot is like growing a business for you or something or working with your students. So I think we might see, I think AI will be really good for things that don't need that sort of element to it. Like maybe you already know the specific problems, you can plug it in. And maybe you're going to create like a really simple PDF download for like a workshop or something and you're like, I just do that. And like I think I think that sort of thing will will probably take over for this idea that they're going to create all of my ads for me, and they're going to be successful. And it's going to replace like my job of figuring out my messaging. Like, I don't, I don't ever see that happening, because it is a discovery and observation process. 

Brandon Lucero

And it is also a testing and data driven process. Like for us when we do a webinar, I'm not just randomly picking something, I'm looking at what content had the best results, what wording and phrasing got the most shares, or the most whatever, what topic in our emails is getting the most open rates. And let me just do that and pay attention to what the data is telling me is working, and then I will use it. So an AI bot can't do that. Unless you're gonna plug it in it just it just it won't do it. And so I think there there there might be more like they will assist with things, I don't see it, at least for now being something where they completely take over and do all your messaging copy just I just don't think it's gonna happen. It's just too much involved in that process that they can't do yet.

Courtney Elmer  47:45  

Yeah, totally. And if anything, you know, I'm curious to see if it will actually put a premium on human touch in my because, yeah, you know, I mean, think about it, if it gets to that level, right. And we can go on all day and speculate, but, but if it gets to that level, where more and more people are relying on it, more and more companies are relying on it. I think as humans, we're intelligent beings, we're smarter than computers, we're going to know the difference, just like you said, there's no energy behind it. There's no communication in that way unspoken communication. And so with that, for those of us out there that are high touch right service providers, we're working with our clients, we're working with our students, it may even work in our favor to say, okay, that now that's at a premium. And I can even charge more for it. Because these other people out there, just, you know, they wrote their course and chat GPD. And it's just what she gets information. 

Brandon Lucero  48:37  

Right Courtney Elmer. But there's so much perspective, I didn't even I didn't even think about that. But I can 100% Now it's totally a possibility. But it will be interesting, it'll be interesting to see how it develops. And I don't know, like, you know, in the movies, it's always like, we see AI robots that have eyes that observe everything and like, they're like metal bodies and stuff. So I don't know, like, I don't know where it's going. But I think like at this point in time, it's I don't see it replacing anything. But and also allowing this, like you said to have a premium on human touch sort of

Courtney Elmer  49:03  

Yeah, stuff. Totally. Well branded. Thank you. This has been awesome. I could talk with you all day about growing a business. Given our conversation, though, is there any last thoughts or final words you'd love to share with our audience about growing a business?

Brandon Lucero  49:12  

I think the one thing that that I really stand behind that we didn't get to Courtney Elmer, I didn't get to mention at all is, you know, sometimes we get so wrapped up in what we do. And our knowledge that I want you guys to understand too, is that messaging really is standing out because you stand for something and you kind of have to take a stand for something inside of your brand. And I think a lot of people are sometimes afraid to do that. And I just want to be an expert. But the main thing with messaging especially being in a course creator or expert base space is that people will buy from you because of who you are and and what you stand for as well. And that goes into that connection piece that we talked about. But the last thing I want to leave people with is if you have something to say then say it and you can include break out into your brand. And I encourage you guys to do that. And I love the fact that we can stand out because we stand for something. And so I think those are great parting words Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer  50:08  

as we wrap up this growing a business episode. Yeah, That's tweetable I love it. It really is. Thank you, Brandon so much for your time today. This has been awesome. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. I hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Brandon as much as I did. This was a really fun one. And I also hope that you have already gone and followed him online. If you haven't, he is on Instagram at I am Brandon Lucero and his podcast can be found everywhere you listen to your podcasts. It's called the new generation entrepreneur podcast. And I promise you there is so much gold there. If you thought this episode was good, go listen to Brandon's podcast, you will not be disappointed. If you are an online entrepreneur who was trying to get to six figures or if you were trying to scale past six figures, all of what Brandon teaches is going to be relevant for you. And you know, as podcast hosts, and I say host because I know Brandon hosts a podcast of his own as well. 

Courtney Elmer 

One of the only ways that we know that the content that we're bringing you is valuable, is if you tell us so I'm going to give you two options today for you to pay it forward. Okay, option number one is to message Brandon to go look them up on social media. Go listen to an episode of his podcast and either shoot them a DM or leave him a review on his show. And let him know your biggest takeaway whether it was from listening to this episode or something else that he put out there. Okay, that's option number one, that is my preferred option. I would love for you to take 60 seconds and go do that. When you finish listening to this episode. Option number two, would be to let me know how we're doing with this podcast. Are you getting value out of what you're learning here? Are you enjoying the guests that we're bringing to you? Is there a growing a business topic you want to see us cover? And you can do the same thing with me, you can shoot us an email podcast at the effortless life.co. Let us know what we're doing right? 

Courtney Elmer 

Let us know what we could be doing better. Let us know if there's a guest or a growing a business topic you'd love to see hear covered on the show. And you could also leave a review here on the podcast too, if you feel so inclined. If you're listening on Apple, just scroll down in your Apple app, tap the five stars tap write a review and just write a sentence. I mean, it literally can be one sentence about how this show has made an impact in growing a business. All right. So I know I've given you a lot of options there, I simply ask that you choose one, pay it forward, you know how good it feels to get positive feedback on the work that you're doing. And in a particular way, I would love love love for Brandon to hear from you. And let them know that you heard him here on the show. All right now coming up next week on the show. I'm getting very up close and personal with you to share with you some of the biggest and hardest lessons I've had to learn this past year, and to share what changes we're making in our company because of them. But more importantly to share what these lessons mean for you and growing a business. Because if I can help you avoid a mistake, or avoid some heartache, or some headache, or some pain and worry and anxiety, then that's what I want to do. And that is my intention in sharing these growing a business lessons with you. This has been requested by some of our clients. 

Courtney Elmer 

And it's an episode that's unlike anything I've really recorded before you know, it's going to be a little uncomfortable for me because usually I am like systems in growing a business and podcasting. And these are the things I know and these are the things I talk about. The next week, I'm going to be talking about some unknowns, some question marks that I'm carrying with me right now, and hopefully in doing so, to help you learn how to better carry the question marks in your own life. How to better navigate periods of uncertainty, or just simply periods of not knowing in your life and in growing a business. All right, so join me back here next week for that. And in the meantime, go live your EffortLESS Life®.