AMY PORTERFIELD:
Hey, there. Welcome back to another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and today we are talking about objections, specifically what to do when you sell a digital course online or maybe a group-coaching package or a done-for-you service. You put it out into the world, and then you start to hear things like, “Well, I'm interested, but it's too expensive right now. I don't have enough money,” or, “I want to do it, but I'm not really ready yet to jump in, so I’m going to wait a little while, then I’m going to come back. Maybe I’ll buy it next time you offer it,” or, “I need to talk to my husband before I take the leap, so I'm not going to buy just yet, but I’m going to talk to my husband and see what he says.”
These are common objections that you're going to hear. And here's the thing: there's no way around them. I've been in this game for ten years now. I've been selling digital courses for ten years, and I still hear all of the most-common objections. Now, truth be told, I hear them a whole lot less than I did years ago. And also, I know how to navigate them now, but I didn't know back then.
So let me paint a picture of what it used to look like for me when I would hear these common objections. I'd be on a webinar, and I feel like I just did such a great job. I taught on the webinar, I offered value, I transitioned into selling my digital course on the webinar, I nailed all the important parts, and I discussed it in a way that I highlighted the features, and I thought I did it all right. And so at the end, I was ready for the sales to start rolling in.
And then I'd start looking in the chat, and people would say, “Well, I'm not ready to buy yet, because it's too expensive. I don't have the money. Maybe next time,” or all those other objections I told you about, like, “I'm not really ready just yet, but maybe down the road.” And all of a sudden, on a live webinar, I would start to think, “Holy cow, I am totally an idiot. I did something wrong. I obviously didn't position this program right. Nobody wants it. I'm an imposter. Who am I to be teaching this? I have totally screwed this up,” and I would freeze, and I would also start feeling major anxiety. So the Q and A would go downhill, because I would start second guessing myself, thinking I screwed up, thinking no sales are going to come through because these people are telling me all the reasons they can’t buy. And so in those moments, I would really screw up the Q and A portion of a webinar.
And anybody who has learned webinars from me, you know that I believe there’s so much selling power in a really well done Q and A. It is the time that you can really start seeing the sales roll in if you do it right. So, you can imagine my freak-out I would have in my head, knowing I'm screwing this whole thing up right now, because I would see those objections and instantly I would think, “I have screwed up. I have done something wrong. Nobody’s going to buy.” So I never, ever want that for you.
And I want to help you navigate through the most-common objections so that you as the course creator or business coaching consultant or service provider, I want you to be able to mind your mindset. I want you to be able to be very careful as to what you're making those objections mean. And I also want you to be able to look at them, hear them, and then navigate through them to a point that you actually are changing the minds of those who are telling you the objections. I want you to address them head on. And I'm going to give you some practical tips and strategies so that you can address them, so when they do come up, you can flip them around, and then, also, like me, they come up a whole lot less because there's things you can do on the front end of your offer and in your marketing and in your communication in general so that they never even make an appearance, which is awesome, right? So, we're going to address them, and I'm going to get into some specific objections.
Okay, so, let’s go ahead and jump in. Author and sales expert Brian Tracy says it best. This is what he wrote: “Treat objections as requests for further information.” Treat objections as requests for further information. Now, I wanted to start there because as an entrepreneur and course creator, you have to manage your mindset around these objections that are going to be coming your way. And with that, if you start to look at objections as just requests for further information—they're not a no. They have nothing to do with who you are or the type of course you created or if you're good or if you're bad or anything. All the negative charge can be taken out of an objection, but instead, look at it as a request for further information. So that's where I want to start, because you got to get your mindset in the right place when these are coming your way. And that's something I struggled with for many years and why I'm so passionate about teaching you a different way so you don't have to go through that struggle that I went through.
Now, we’ve talked a lot about knowing your ideal customer avatar, and inside of all my courses and on this podcast, I've talked about really drilling down on who you serve, knowing who they are, what they want, what they desire, where they're struggling, their pain points, when you know your ICA, your ideal customer avatar, you definitely can anticipate many of the objections that will come your way when you put your product out there. So that's the first thing I want you to pay close attention to.
And if you're still struggling with your ideal customer avatar, go to the show notes of this episode. I'm going to link you to my ideal-customer-avatar podcast episode. That's where I'd like you to start. So amyporterfield.com/276, in the show notes I'll link you to my ICA, knowing your ideal-customer-avatar episode. Really valuable.
So once you can say who you serve and what they need and what they want and their pain points, that's half the battle right there. But there's still another battle. There's still another half that we have to deal with. And we'll get to the specific objections and how you can address each of them, but before we do so, let's look at the big picture.
When can you start to combat these objections that are going to come your way? When can you start to address them? Well, one of the best places to address them is during your prelaunch, during your prelaunch, meaning before you start signing up people for your webinar to sell your digital course, before that, the weeks or months leading up to it, you could be doing weekly Facebook Lives. And in those weekly Facebook Lives, you can decide on, okay, what are the three to four common objections I'm going to get, and how can I create a little content around each of those in order just to hit them head on?
So I am a huge proponent of just addressing the elephant in the room or saying what people don't want to say and just putting it out there. I cannot handle when things are unsaid—a little personal side about me. So with that, I also feel very anxious when I'm not addressing what I'm pretty sure my ideal customer avatar is thinking. So I just put it right out there, and then I address it.
So I do want you to start thinking about some of the common objections you already get. If you've ever sold anything online, you probably know what they are. I want you to jot them down just really quickly, or if you're on a subway or driving or whatever, try to make a really good mental note and don't forget them, because I want you to start thinking, “How can I tackle these in just my content in general, whether I write a blog post about them, record videos about them, do Facebook Lives, put them on an Instagram Story, how can I start to talk about these even when I'm not in launch mode so that when I do launch they've already been discussed over and over again?” So that's one thing I want you to think about.
Also, during a webinar, you can bet that I am addressing objections left and right. So I get really clear on my audience’s objections. I'm very well aware of what they are, and they depend on the product. So my list-building course, my students have different objections there than they do for my digital-course course, which is so meta, my program on creating and launching digital courses. Some of the objections might overlap, but there are definitely distinctive ones as well. So you want to look at your product suite or what you're offering, your coaching packages, and choose two or three objections for each that are specific for those different offers. And then if you do webinars to sell, I want you to start discussing them in a webinar.
So, if you're part of my Digital Course Academy®️ program, you know that I teach you how to do this inside of webinars. So there’s a very popular training inside of Digital Course Academy®️, module five, where I walk you through slide by slide by slide of how to do a webinar. And I mention, “This is where you address your objections. This is where you put them, and this is how you talk about them.” So I teach you all in Digital Course Academy®️, but if you do webinars, you should be definitely bringing up those objections and talking about them. So in the prelaunch and in the launch, specifically your webinars, this is where you're bringing them up.
And then, of course, objections are going to show up in your live Q and A on a webinar if you're doing a live Q and A. And that's where it would really throw me off. When I started to see my potential customers typing in all of these objections and I didn't know how to handle them, that's when it threw me off. So that live interaction really rattled me, and I don't want that for you, and so that's why we're going to address some of these common objections.
Now, I don't know your business. You and I probably do very different things, so I'm going to address this in general terms. You make it specific. Deal? You're going to make it specific.
All right. Let's talk about the first one. I don't have the money. We've all heard it. Here's the crazy thing: my students who sell a ninety-seven-dollar program have told me that they battle this one. My students who sell a two-thousand-dollar program tell me they battle this one. So it doesn't even matter—ninety-seven dollars to two thousand, beyond, my students are hearing this objection when they are selling their digital course or their coaching program or their service or whatever it might be.
And here's what I firmly believe. Here is your mindset shift I want you to adopt. I want you to change your mindset here, and this is what I've done. I believe to my core that if somebody wants something bad enough, they will figure out how to get it. If someone wants something bad enough, they will figure out how to do it. You and I have done that. There’ve been many times in my past that I really couldn't afford something, but I figured it out. I figured it out, whether I took an extra babysitting job in high school or if I took on another client in my adult life or whatever it might have been or asked for it as a gift on my birthday and said, “No one buy me anything. I want money because I want to buy x, y, z.” Like, I have done it all. I have figured it out. And this is human nature. If you want something bad enough, you will figure out how to get it. So I want you to believe that of your ideal customer avatar. So if they're not buying and they're telling you it's too expensive, they don't see the value in it. They’re not seeing the power of what you can do for them through, let’s say, your digital course. They don’t get it. They’re not seeing it. And that comes back to you.
So, when you hear “I don't have the money,” from now on, I want you to never, ever believe it. Now, sure, there's a few cases where it's true. That's fine. They're the outliers. Let's go for the people that if they really wanted it, they'd figure it out. Okay, those are the people we're focused on. And so I never want you to truly believe that, but instead, I want you to tell yourself, “Okay, I need to dig a little bit deeper and figure out how I can demonstrate the value in terms of how my course will solve a painful problem or super-important desire for my ideal customer.” So I want you to look at how you're talking about it, how you've positioned it, the details that you're giving about your offer, and I want you to say, “How can I make this even more valuable?”
You can tell stories of your students who have gotten results. You could tell your own story of how you've made the transformation. You can definitely focus more on the befores and afters of experiences, of before, when somebody didn't have access to what you're giving them; and then, when they got access, what did life look like before, what does it look like now? I think stories are the most valuable way to demonstrate what you can do for somebody else. You want them to see themselves in your stories. I know when you’re just starting out you might not have a lot of stories, but you can always beta test your course. You could always give it to someone for free and help them go through the program, and then you get to tell their story. There's always a way. That's the thing: you've got to get resourceful here. There's always a way. So when they tell you, “I don't have enough money,” I want you to dig deeper.
Now, if you are an overachiever, you will find a few people that have said they don't have enough money, and you will get on the phone with them, and you will say, “Tell me about your situation. Tell me about what you really want. Let's say that money wasn't an issue. What do you think might be missing here, or what are some concerns you might have about joining the program?” There is something deeper there, I can promise you. The more you listen, you will uncover that. So I'm here to tell you that most-common objections, there's something deeper, and a lot of times it stems from someone being nervous that they're not the right fit or they're not good enough or they won't be able to get results like everybody else. So that's why there's always value in addressing how someone's thinking or feeling.
And that’s why stories are so important, because if you tell your own story, you could say, “Look, I remember when I felt this way and I believed this, and then I decided to make a shift. I did x, y, z,” which x, y, z is what you’re teaching in the course, “and now here’s how life looks like for me.” So, when someone tells you they don't have enough money, you paint the picture for them of what life will look like, what their experience will look like, how they will think, how they will feel on the other side. I want to challenge you to get gritty here, to dive deeper. They can figure out the money. Most people can.
Now, to make this even more practical—I don't want you to jump here right away. This is just kind of in addition, a little extra layer—when you do a payment plan, you tend to hear less of “I don't have enough money.” So for many, many, many years, I did a twelve-payment plan, and I suggest it to my newbies because it’s a no-brainer. So let’s say your program is a thousand bucks. Doing a ninety-seven-dollar twelve- payment plan wipes out many of the people saying, “I don't have enough money. So right there, that's going to help you.
Number two, offering a money-back guarantee takes away some risk, and that tends to help all objections that might come up. So having a money-back guarantee, whether it be thirty days, sixty days, you formulate it how you want to do so, but that also helps. But a payment plan and a money-back guarantee do not take the place of you drilling down more on the value.
Now, this is—I'm kind of giving it all away right from the beginning because I have more objections to talk about. But in addition to all of that that I just shared, also, if you talk more about the benefits versus the features, that’s going to help you a lot—and I’m going to come back to this one in a moment—but what I mean by that is when you talk about what the course can do for you—like I said, what life will look like, what you’ll feel like, what you’ll think, that’s a benefit—versus a feature like, well, it has ten videos and three PDFs, no one cares.
In the whole scheme of things, when money might be tight—it could be very true that money’s tight for them. I’m not saying it’s not. I’m just saying they’ll find a way if they want to buy. So when money’s tight and you’re talking about ten videos and three PDFs, I’m not sold. When you’re talking about, I will feel more calm—let’s say you’re teaching meditation—I will feel more calm, I will have more clarity, I will make smarter decisions, my relationships will be better, oh, now I’m listening. Now I'm starting to think maybe I could take on another client in order to have a little extra money. Yeah.
So that's what you want them to start thinking about. You want them to start getting creative on how they can make this work because they really want the benefits. In the end, people don't care about the features. You can mention them really quickly on a webinar. You'll never see me drill down. I used to. Back in the day, I used to drill down so much on the features it was ridiculous. You'll never see me do that anymore. So, anyway, just remember that. I’m going to come back to that one.
Okay, so, objection number two is I don't have the time right now. Now, there's a Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the second best time is today. So this stands true for this common objection as well. You need to make sure that if your audience is telling you they don't have time, you paint the picture of what waiting another day, another week, another month, another year will look like. You paint the picture that without—you do your own style of this—but there is a pain, there's been pain with them waiting this much, this far. They've waited this long, is what I was trying to say. There is already a pain that they've waited this long, why would they wait any longer?
Now, if you like to put a positive spin on your marketing versus focusing on the negative, which I know my audience, a lot of you do, which is great—you want to say, “Look, here's where you could be six months from now. You choose. You could be right where you're at, still struggling, still frustrated, still depressed,” whatever it might be, whatever they're feeling, the pain point right now, “you could stay right where you're at. It's your choice. Or six months from now, here's what life could look like.” So you future pace them. You’re future pacing this idea of, like, “Well, I don't have the time right now. Life is busy. I don’t think it’s the right time,” or, “I’m not ready,” that’s another big objection. “I don’t have the time. I’m not ready. This isn’t the right time.” It’s all around timing. If you can future pace and let them know what life will look like, but also, I do believe you need to inject a little of the pain of “What's going to happen, what are you sacrificing if you just stay where you're at? Let's talk about that.” So illustrating the point with stories and scenarios such as life now, life in the future, that's how you can overcome this objection.
Also, I like to make it really actionable, so here's a layer. I want you to always focus on the thoughts and feelings and the mindset of your customer or potential customer. But here's another layer. If they feel as though they don't have the time right now, you show them how to find the time. So you suggest that they need two to three hours a week to go through your program, and then you say, “That might mean that you wake up thirty minutes extra, before all the kids and the husband and everyone gets up. You wake up thirty minutes early every morning for five days of the week. That's your time. And you're going to knock out the time you need to go through the course. You'll find the time, and you make that time sacred and special.” I call it tiger time. So my students know this is your tiger time; no one's touching it. So you can make a fun name around it. You make it so. You say, “This is how you're going to find the time,” or you say, “All right. Two hours on the weekend, you tell your family this is my time. That’s when you’re going through the course.” So you help them make the time or find the time.
Also, you can point out, if you go a little bit, this is more of the pain, of all the areas where they're likely wasting their time. You want to do this in a careful way, but scrolling through Instagram—we are all guilty of it or most of us. I am. It is a waste of time. So if you point out the things that are likely sucking up some of their time, and saying, “Gosh, you could get thirty minutes a day back if you just stop scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. Use that time and block it on your calendar right now. Go do that. Go do that. I’ll wait for you. Go do that.” Like, in the video, you could tell them that. So pointing out where they can find time, pointing out where they might be wasting time, could be incredibly valuable.
Also, put it in perspective. You're not asking them for a lifetime of time with them. Say, “Look, the program is six weeks. six weeks total immersion. Do you know what can happen in total immersion if you say, ‘I’m going strong for the next six weeks. I’m giving two to three hours a week, no matter what, come rain or shine.’” Let them know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel as well, so put it in perspective. We often create a little more drama than we need around time. We don’t have enough time. We’re so busy. There is some drama in there that’s not necessary. So you also might want to point that out, just so they’re aware, okay, this is doable. This is very doable.
And for those that feel as though it's not the right time, they're not saying, “I don't have the time;” they're saying, “Well, I'm not ready yet.” This is where I like to address the elephant in the room. So if someone says, “I'm not sure I'm ready—“ I get this a lot. Like, “Amy, I want to create a digital course, but I don't think I'm ready yet because I need to first figure out x, y, z in my business and do this and do that.” And I’ll tell them, and this is very honest, “You will never feel 100 percent ready to do anything really big in your business. It's very rare to say, ‘I am 100 percent confident that I am 100 percent ready to take this on.’” When it's a big project like creating and launching a digital course, it's really easy for a lot of doubts to pop in and that little voice saying, “Well, you're not ready. Maybe you need to add more people to your email list, or maybe you need more social-media followers.”
I remember a woman told me, “So, I want to get 1,000 people on Instagram following me, then I’m going to create a digital course.” And I said, “Listen, it does not matter if you have 1,000 more people or not on Instagram, if your course is going to be successful or not. That is an excuse because you are scared to take the leap.” And I just hit it head on, and it resonated with so many people, and I know so because they said in the comments while I was on a webinar.
So I like to just address it head on, and we can all use that. When someone says, “I'm not ready. I'm going to wait,” like, “No, that is fear; you are playing small. Imagine—“ this is a term I love to use in all my marketing, and it's real, and it feels right for me—“imagine what it would feel like if …” and then you fill in the blank as to what that transformation is in your own business. But when they tell you, “I'm just not ready yet.” “Well, imagine what it would feel like if you move past that fear. You said, ‘I'm scared. This is awkward. I'm not sure if I can do this, but I'm going to give it a really good shot.’ Imagine what it would feel like if you actually hit those big goals that you set for yourself. Life changing. So we don’t have time to waste. The time is now.”
And so that is something as long as it feels right to you, as long as you don't feel like you're being scammy or too marketing-ish—I made that one up—but it has to feel right for you. And when you're on a webinar and it feels right, they will feel that. And so let's address it head on. Don't be scared to call it out. When you see your audience playing small, being scared, acting in fear, using excuses, call it out. You are the expert. If you do it with a lot of compassion and heart, they will really appreciate that. And that's something that I've really stepped into. So, something to think about.
Okay, so, here’s another one, and this one's super valid, and so I want to address it. Objection number three, I'm interested but I need to talk to my husband, or I need to talk to my wife, whatever it is. Let's just use “I need to talk to my husband” as the example. And this one I learned from Marie Forleo when she—years and years ago, she was selling B-School, and she came out with a script, because her audience of many, many women, and so many were saying, “I need to talk to my husband.” So she said, “Okay, that's valid.”
Many people make decisions with their spouse. If they're going to spend $2,000 on a program, lots of spouses—I think it's really cool—have a rule, if we spend more than $100, we're going to consult each other before we spend it. If we want to spend more than 100, we consult each other. And so a lot of my students have that type of rule with their spouse. So I think it's valid. I'm not saying this is not real. I'm saying give them tools to do it in a way that's effective. And this is what I learned from Forleo.
So she put together a script, and basically, she said, “You can use this to talk to a spouse or a business partner or somebody who is involved with your financial decisions.” And in the script Marie focused on the idea that it was important to learn from somebody who has gone before you and has had proven results and the fact that this person who wanted to spend the money on the course wanted to learn what's working now, staying in the know, the cutting-edge strategies versus wasting time guessing on what they should or shouldn't do. They wanted a fast track to success, they wanted to focus on hitting their big goals this year, and they believed that a course like this was going to help them get there.
So she went into it a little bit more, but notice what she did not put in the script. She didn't mention anything about, there are eight modules, and there are five videos in each module, and there are PDF guides, and there's a community in Facebook where you can ask questions. She didn’t even get into that. None of that. No features. So she gave them a script of how to position the conversation so it was productive. I thought that was brilliant. I've never done this, but it's something that I would definitely consider, and I've addressed it on webinars in terms of, if you do have to talk to somebody before you make a decision, here's some things to think about. So I love this, and I do believe having to ask a spouse is valid, so why not give them the tools and the language and help them communicate in a way that they're going to get the result they want? They want a yes. They want their spouse to say, “Babe, this is a great idea. I fully support you.” You can help make that happen. So, something to think about.
Okay, so, we’re moving on to the next objection, and this one is something like, “Okay, I really want to buy your course, but I’m nervous about this one area. I’m not good in x, y, z,” whatever it might be. Now, a really simple example is a lot of people want to join Digital Course Academy®️, but they're nervous about the technology, the platform to upload their course, the software to do a live webinar, the fact that they have to do live videos; all that technology freaks people out. And so I've heard it for years and years and years. Now, I'm going to give you a simple solution to this one example, but then, I'm going to dig a little bit deeper because I think that's the part that's even more important.
So for you it might not be technology. For the course you're selling, it might be something totally different. Let's say you're teaching bookkeeping, and the biggest objection is, “I am terrible with numbers. I do not trust myself to be able to figure this out.” So it might be something like that. And so what I do, surface level, the easiest thing is I say, “Look, I'm going to show you exactly how to do it. When it’s the technology, I'm going to take you behind the scenes of these software and show you where to click, what to do, how to do it. And I'm also going to give you a how-to guide.”
So here's the deal: I don't particularly love to teach the technology. If I was being really honest with you, it's not my favorite. I like to teach course creation and webinars and marketing strategies and email copy and all that stuff. I love that. But teaching how to use a certain piece of technology, not my favorite. I used to do it all the time because it's needed. Sometimes you just got to be grownups and get it done. And I did for many years. And then, I hired somebody to teach the technology, someone that's way better at technology than I am. And his name’s Dave. You’ll hear from Dave if you join Digital Course Academy®️. He has the smoothest voice ever, and he's really good at breaking it down in a really patient way. So now I just have someone do it for me. So if you are a course creator and your students struggle in this one area and you hate that one topic, you don't even want to deal with it, you can get help to deal with it, but you have to deal with it one way or another, okay? I just want to put that out there.
So, all my students know I have step-by-step how-to videos on all the technology they need to know, but I don't think that's enough. I think when you get an objection like I don't think I'm capable of doing x, y, z, there's a whole mindset thing here. And it comes back to, I'm not good enough. And you have to address this with your students, in whatever way feels right to you. This idea that I am not good enough or this idea that I'm looking around, comparing myself to everybody, and I'm not measuring up, this is a topic we talk a lot about in my communities because it is really alive and well. I'm not good enough. I am not skilled enough. I can't figure this out fast enough. There's this enough-ness.
And so I believe—I know for some of you you're like, “I don't get into the mindset, Amy. That's not what my course is about.” If you're getting objections, then there is something underlying of I'm not good enough, so you find a way to weave that into your conversations. And it could be as simple as, “Look, right now if you're thinking this is a little over my head, I'm a little nervous that I won't be able to implement all of this, let's talk about your feeling that you're not enough. Let's talk about the fact that that is normal and common. However, let's look at your track record. Let's look at all the stuff you've done to get to this point. Sure, it might not be exactly what you're going to be doing in my course, but you are capable. You have proven yourself. You are resourceful. You've had times in your life that you have not known how to figure something out and you just said, ‘Bring it on. Let me at it.’ You have a proven track record of success. We're going to apply that here.” That's the conversation you can have with them.
But I'm here to tell you that many of the objections you're getting, it's a mindset thing. And in the simplest form, they're afraid or they don't feel like they're enough. And that is human nature, and it is our job to talk about it and to make them realize that it's normal. I'm not saying you take it away from them. I'm saying let them know that feeling is normal, and we're going to work through it anyway. We're going to keep going anyway. That's what I do with a lot of my students. Like, “Yeah, I get it. I feel that fear as well. Let's keep going.” There's that as well. You can just make sure they keep going. So just want you to think about how you might address that.
Also, you can always encourage them to get a little extra help. In my world, I encourage my students to hire a V.A. Even if it's two to five hours a week, you could always get a little extra help if you're a little bit nervous that you don't have the skill set or the knowledge or the time in a certain area, but you really want to do my course, you can have a V.A. help you do some of that. And I even have a bonus in my program of how to use a V.A. to help you through the course. So, I try to cover all my bases in terms of what might stop somebody from actually getting the results they're really after. So, something to think about.
Okay, so, we've made it to our final objection, and this one, I have a story for you. It feels very personal to me. It's come up so much in the past that I've had to find ways to address it head on, and I have, and I want you to steal this idea from me as well. So, for many years, I have taught list building and course creation and webinars. And truth be told, course creation and webinars are big topics. They take a while to dig in and get it done and see results, so they're more of the meteor-type programs. And so I would do a webinar, years back, and at the end of the webinar—it’s so crazy—I would tell my students what the program is and what they're going to get and how I'm going to teach them, so it's all there. And I say, “Look, I'll teach you step by step by step.” But still, at the end of my webinars, I would hear people say, “I'm so overwhelmed, though. I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm so overwhelmed. Well, what about this, or what about that?” And their mind is racing. And I'm thinking, “What the heck? I just told them I would walk them through step by step.” But what I realized is that they still didn't really get it.
And remember earlier I talked about this idea of illustrating what you're going to teach? Well, when people tell you they're overwhelmed or they don't know where to start, you definitely can combat that firsthand with some kind of framework. And this is something that I have done in all my courses. So List-Builders’ Society and Digital Course Academy®️, you can bet you're going to see frameworks. And I mentioned this earlier, but let me say it one more time. Basically, the framework is an illustration of either the steps they'll take to get through your program, or just the big picture of what success looks like: we're starting here, and then you're going to move into here, and then you're going to go here. So I want you to think what an illustration would look like. And you can use this not only in your course but on the webinar.
And I do this in my webinars. I'll go into the course, grab the framework. I'll put it on a slide. And you all know how I do webinars and how I teach. There's a part in your webinar where you're going to address objections spot on. Like, “Right now, you might be thinking, ‘I don't know where to start. I feel so overwhelmed,’” and then, boom, I show them the framework. And I'll say, “Don't worry. I've got you covered. We're going to start here.” And on the framework I might circle where they start. “We're going to start here, and I'm going to walk you through step by step to this next section, and then here, and then here.” So I'm visually showing them. So I'll say, “Don't worry about being overwhelmed, because I've taken all the overwhelm out of the process so that when you join my course, we're going to go through a very streamlined step-by-step framework.” And I show them; I don't just tell them.
So, a lot of our students are overwhelmed right now, and they feel as though what they want is out of reach. But when they see it in front of them, they start to feel very different about that overwhelm. They start to realize that they don't need to be overwhelmed, that you've got them, that you're going to take care of them.
And here's one more little thing that you can do. Inside of your course, you can make these frameworks downloadable as PDFs so people can print them out. And I encourage all my students. I'll say, “Print out this framework; put it on your bulletin board; and when you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're wondering where you are in the mix, go to the framework.” And so this helps them visually anchor where they're at and where they're going.
And for years, guys, I didn't have frameworks. I didn't have any visual of, here's how I’m going to teach you through the program, or here's what success looks like. For years I didn't have that, and about two or three years ago, I started to create the frameworks. And here's why it's great for you as well. It allows you to map it out in advance before you share it with anybody, and you get clear. So when you get clear on your framework, now I can talk about the Digital Course Academy®️ framework like the back of my hand. It's just normal; it's easy to talk about. List-Builders’ Society: define, create, attract. That's the framework. And I take people through the framework in an illustration of those are the three modules: define, create, attract; and then I tell them what's in each module. But this is a framework. So it allows me to be a better teacher because I've already gotten it clear in my head, and then I get to show it to my students and talk about it in a really concise way.
So if you've ever struggled to talk about your program or to explain it on a webinar, a framework allows you to do it in a really clear way. Something to think about. If you join Digital Course Academy®️, you'll see the frameworks. It will make perfect sense, so you can make them in your own course as well. Here's the coolest thing about me having a program where it's a course where I teach you how to create a course: everything I do in Digital Course Academy®️, you can copy and make it your own for your own course, meaning, “Oh, she's got frameworks? I'm going to do something similar in my course. Oh, she's got these PDF guides? Okay, how does she do this? Okay, I'm going to make this in my own course.” So you get to see example after example after example so you can model it for your own course as well. I don't know about you, but I don't learn just by you telling me what to do; I want to see it in action. So the frameworks allow you to do just that.
So there you have it. I really hope that this episode not only helped you address some of the objections that you might get the next time you promote your digital course or your coaching program or your do-it-for-you service or whatever it might be that you're promoting online, I hope that this will allow you to address those objections in different ways. But most importantly, I hope this episode helped you as the entrepreneur, as the course creator, change your mindset around what these objections mean. They don't mean that you are not good enough, that your course is not good enough, that you've done something wrong, or you're an imposter and you shouldn't be teaching this. They don't mean any of that. They don't mean any negativity. Remember where we started, what Brian Tracy said, that the only thing that objections really mean is that people want further information. And so give it to them. Give it to them in stories and solutions and strategies and frameworks and examples. Give it to them in a shift of their mindset. You can do this; I have no doubt in my mind. But it starts with you as the course creator, as the entrepreneur. And then from there, you can give those awesome solutions and a different take on the situation so that it's not about the money anymore, it's not about the time anymore, It's not about the stuff that they think it's about; you're actually addressing the deeper meaning of those objections.
All right. I'll talk to you again soon, same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
