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AMY PORTERFIELD: When I was crafting the questions for today's interview, I had to hold myself back. Honestly, my guest is a wealth of knowledge, and I wanted to hear her insight on so many things, but I had to reel myself back in and remember the length of my podcast episodes. So I can thank good old Clubhouse for this interview, because I found my guest on that platform, and instantly I thought she was brilliant.
Her name is Jereshia Hawk, and the first time I heard her speak on Clubhouse, I was really blown away by how thoughtful she was in each of her answers, not to mention I loved that her brain works in frameworks—a girl after my own heart. When she spoke, it was clear that she had an extremely high-level understanding of not only how people work through content, let's say in digital courses or just any online programs, but also, she knows how to get people results. And at that, I knew I had to have a conversation with her on this podcast.
In today's episode, I ask her questions with you in mind, knowing what you would need and want to learn from her. I think what she has to say about knowing when to sell will absolutely blow your mind. In fact, so many different segments of this episode will blow your mind, get your pen and paper ready to take some notes. Let's dive in.
INTRO: I’m Amy Porterfield, and this is Online Marketing Made Easy.
AMY: As I hinted at, today I'm sitting down to have a conversation with Jereshia Hawk. And let me tell you just a little bit more about who she is and the nuggets of pure digital-marketing gold that she's sharing today. First of all, Jereshia and her team help coaches and service providers transform their one-on-one service into a sustainable coaching business that is set up to automate the necessary aspects of their offer so they have the energy to show up, serve their clients, and increase their business growth month after month. I have a feeling a lot of you in the audience are thinking, “Yeah, I want that.” And today you're going to learn more valuable insights from Jereshia to help you take a step towards creating a business just like that. We're talking about getting over the fear of charging too much, how to create consistent revenue, how to know when you're ready to sell, how to help your customers get through your course or offer, and how to sell in your DMs. It’s all so valuable, so get ready. I’ll see you on the other side.
Well, hey, there. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
JERESHIA HAWK: Amy, it is a pleasure to be here. I'm super excited to be here today. Thanks for having me.
AMY: This conversation’s going to be great. And I really want to start from the beginning, because your story is really inspiring, and I want my listeners to hear, basically, how you got started and how you got to where you're at today. So will you share a little of that story?
JERESHIA: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a civil engineer by trade. I was working at a large utility here in Michigan when I graduated from college, and I was a pipeline engineer working there. So working in the natural-gas space. And being in my career, I was in the leadership track. I was kind of in their entry-level engineering program, kind of like on the fast track for leadership and opportunities around that.
And one thing that I really noticed about my experience there and really what allowed me to have access to opportunities that I “wasn't qualified for” on paper was 100 percent based off of my ability to articulate my value and really understand how my contributions were impacting the bottom line of that organization or within the department that I was in. And that started to matriculate a little bit. My peers were asking me for, like, “J, how are you getting these mentors? How are you getting tapped on the shoulder for opportunities? How are you even getting certain positions or access to opportunities that… you know, you've been at the company for a year and a half,” and I was leading a $400 million pipeline project as the lead engineer, which is—I mean, I had never seen that much money ever in my life. Like, it was nerve racking, even, like, signing invoices for contractors. And so my peers were just asking me how I was able to position myself for those opportunities and succeed in them.
And I started just doing live-stream videos on Facebook, answering questions that my peers at work were having about how I networked my way to getting mentors in the C-suite, or how I would learn how to understand what the bottom-line metrics and numbers were of this organization and how to correlate that back to my learned experience as an engineer. And that's kind of what kicked off this whole coaching business that we have today, and I think it's the baseline of all the offers that we create and how we coach our clients. It's really understanding how to articulate your value; how to price your programs and your services based off of the value that's being delivered and the value that you can articulate, not your worth as an individual; and how to really infuse how people are making buying decisions psychologically, how to infuse that into your organic marketing to generate new leads and to attract new clients without having to use paid ads or really complicated funnels.
So it all started with my engineering days and peers asking me questions and me being willing to do some live streams on Facebook, and that’s what really kicked off this whole coaching business that we have today.
AMY: Okay. That list that you just went through, the ways that you help those you serve, I know some of my listeners, their ears perked up. Like, I want to know that, or I want to dive into that even more. And so that's why I wanted you on my show, because I know that there's a lot of alignment between what you do and what I teach to my students, and I think you can take it even further.
So, I want to talk a little bit about this fear of charging too much. So many of my students often ask me, “What should I price my course?” And in my program, Digital Course Academy, I walk through a formula to figure out the pricing of your course. But beyond that, there's this fear that, “Oh, my gosh. What if I charge too much?” So can we dig into that? Like, how do you get over this fear, and how do you attract the right clients who are willing to pay what you're worth and what your course is worth or your group coaching or whatever that might be?
JERESHIA: Yeah. Well, I think the first thing is recognizing that, like, I am not a believer that you should get paid based off of what you are worth. So that's probably one thing that maybe goes against—
AMY: Okay. Break that down for me. Break that down.
JERESHIA: Yeah. I don't think anybody should be charging based off of what they think that they're worth, because I think your worth as a human being is infinite. It is priceless. I do believe in business that you get paid based off of the value that is—the perceived value of what something is and the value that you're able to articulate. But compensation, money exchange, to me, should be 100 percent dependent on value, not based off of your worth.
And I think being a woman, being a woman of color, I think culturally women or women of color were very much conditioned to believe that we have to get paid based off of what we are worth, and I just want to maybe introduce another perspective that you're worth is infinite, that you're worth is a birthright, that there is no dollar amount that you could ever charge or somebody could ever pay you that would equate to what you're worth is.
But value is a different thing, and I think perceived value and value that you can articulate, that's normally what dictates how much you get paid in a job, what your salary is, what you can negotiate for, what you can charge for a course or what you can charge for a program. And I think part of that value, and I'm a really big believer in having a very clearly defined program promise, so it's not just, like, what is my offer? I help people grow their business, or I help people create a course, or I help people launch coaching programs, or I help people, I don't know, like have healthier marriages. That's an offer. But I think that when it comes about value and where the price is associated, it's really about how well defined you can articulate a program promise. And you talk about this a lot of, like, what is the outcome or the result that your program is going to create for somebody? And I think the larger, not necessarily the larger the promise, but the more clearly defined the promise is, the more niche the promise is, the higher perceived value of that offer, of that program, the higher price point that you can attach to it as well.
So, and we can dive into that a little bit more as well, Amy. But, like, that's the initial thing is that I just want to introduce a perspective to stop charging based off of what you're worth, charge based off the value that you can deliver, based off the value that you can articulate, and based off the perceived value of what's happening in our marketplace as well.
AMY: Okay. You're already blowing my mind. I'm loving this. And although I have so many more questions for you, I know right now some of my listeners are like, “Amy, don't you dare move on. Ask her some more questions around this,” because it's an area where they get stuck a lot.
So let's just say someone were to create a digital course, and they're sitting down—and you and I might do it differently, but I'm so open to new ways to do this, so I want to hear your way—you're sitting down and you're thinking, “Okay. I've got to price this course. And I just learned that I'm not going to price it based on my inherent value as a human being.” And so beyond that, can you get us started a little bit? What kind of questions should we be asking? What are we looking for in terms of how to lay down a price for that?
JERESHIA: Yeah. And even the inherent value—I want to spend a little bit of time here as my clients struggle with this as well. Like, we teach clients how to charge three to 30K for their coaching programs. And I think that's even something different to maybe even address here, that if you're selling a program that is less than $3,000, just understanding it's a different approach to different buying-decision criteria that prospects are going to move through. There’s a different perception of value that they're going to consider when investing at that level versus investing at a higher ticket-price point as well.
AMY: Okay. I'm glad you brought this up, because a lot of my listeners, they will be selling something $3,000 or less. And I know that's not necessarily your specialty, but can you talk about it a little bit?
JERESHIA: Oh, for sure, for sure. But I just want to even say that there's a difference in how—I think sometimes we confuse, like, what am I offering, and what am I selling, what am I packaging? versus what is the buying-decision criteria that my prospect is going through to make a decision on whether or not they spend money with me?
AMY: Okay. This is what I love about you. When we were on Clubhouse, where I first met you, this is what you talked about, and I thought it was gold. So get into that a little bit.
JERESHIA: Yeah, for sure. So I'm just glad that I—I want to rip those two things apart because I think that there's a different approach that you take, depending on which route you're trying to position yourself in. But if you're selling a program less than $3,000, I think that there is a couple of things that I—I don't have, like, a perfect formula. I think first line that we do talk about is just what are your actual lifestyle expenses? How much money do you actually need to be making? And that's a really good, I think, initial gauge for you to start when it comes to pricing. How many clients you actually have. Capacity is a huge part of pricing that we talk about, in the sense of, what is your actual energetic and time capacity available, because that will dictate the number of clients you could potentially serve and/or your marketing approach if you want to track those clients. And that should be considered when you are determining what your pricing should be and which business model makes the most sense for you, for where you're at.
The other thing that I like to consider when we're talking about pricing is not just, like, market saturation, but market sophistication. Like, how sophisticated is my marketplace, and how does that need to now be correlated to what my program promises? And then that, then, matriculants back to, how much should I actually be charging for this?
But I know you talk a lot about picking a niche and really drilling down on your offer and who it is for. But I think the more niche your offer is, the higher you can demand, because it's just like a doctor. If you're working with—if you go to the doctor and you're working with a general practitioner, they're going to get paid less than maybe the brain surgeon who specializes in a particular type of cancer. And that brain surgeon, inherently, just because there are a more specialized, a more niche skill set, they can automatically charge more for their offer or for their service. So I think that's maybe—depending on the depth of the niche that you have or how niche your offer is, in addition to how specific and/or niche your end result is, I think those things could also correlate back to what you should be charging.
I do have a ten-question—like, a ten-point questionnaire that can help people determine whether or not they should raise the rates based off of their previous experience or their previous expertise, if that’d be helpful for any of your audience listeners to go through as well.
AMY: Yes. We'll link to it in the show notes, and people can grab that. So that would be really helpful, because I know that even when people come up with a price, whether it be for their coaching or their digital course, they're always like, “I'm not sure if I got this right.” And so any kind of guidance, I think, would be incredibly helpful.
JERESHIA: Yeah. I mean, the ten questions, I think, is supportive. I mean, I'm not—just my approach to pricing is not just a simple—we do have calculators and things like that to help our clients determine what their lifestyle expenses need to be and how they need to be thinking about pricing just based off of what their expenses are. But a lot of how we approach pricing is less calculated and more like how niche is your offer, how strong is your program promise, how sophisticated is your marketplace? And I think the market sophistication also informs what the pricing should be. So our approach is more around that end.
And I think, too, even from—we're very metric driven, and we look at how many of your clients are paying in full versus on payment plans, and that can help influence what the price should be, just market supply and demand. Like, what is the industry telling you about your rates based off how you position yourself and based off how strong your program promises? And that also will influence what those rates should be. Normally, if we have clients that are getting 70 percent of clients or more paying in full, it's probably an indication that they can actually raise their rate just because of what their data is telling them and what the market is telling them, based off of how they position themselves, based off of how they've articulated their promise, and based off of people's buying behavior as well.
AMY: Yes. Okay. This is gold and so many great insights there.
I want to move on to my next question, but it still has to do with money in general. And that is I want you to talk a little bit about creating consistent revenue, because what does that mean and look like in your world? And how do you talk about that with your students and your clients?
JERESHIA: Yeah. I just did a livestream on this. I used to, personally, I used to have this belief that if I wasn't having six-figure launches, that I was a failure in the online-business world. And I'm like, if it's not six-figure launches, it doesn't count. Like, I'm failing. Like, I'm not rising up in our industry. And it was this aha moment that I had, where I started having—I had 100K months before I ever had a 100K launch. And it made me shift so much of my perspective around how I thought about consistent revenue and consistency. I think a lot of the time people are, especially for coming from an employee background, we're used to getting paid in paychecks, where it's the same, exact dollar amount every single week. You put in forty hours, and that's what you get. And I think that we subconsciously step into building a business, thinking that if we just put in a lot of hours that the way that I can define my success from a compensation-earning perspective is if it is a similar or consistent dollar amount week over week. And, well, you probably know this, too, that in business, it's not that cut and dry.
AMY: Right.
JERESHIA: And I think that there is, one, just being able to recognize that, are you bringing in an employee mindset into an entrepreneur playground? And is that the right mindset that you should be evaluating your success off of? And when I think, you know, we've had clients in the past, too, where they would do a launch, and they would, let's say their goal was to make $5,000 a month, and they did a launch where they had maybe ten clients enroll at $5,000 price point, let's just say. And they had a $50,000 launch, cash collected. Everybody paid in full. I literally would have clients tell me, “J, I had this huge month, and then I've been failing. I have not had consistent revenue after that because all the money came in paid in full during that one launch.” And I was like, “Well, what were your goals?” They’re like, “I wanted 5K a month.” And I'm like, “Well, how much money did you make?” They’re like, “I made fifty grand.” I'm like, “Well, think about it like this. Think about if you had a job and they'd paid you your salary of 50K day one. You just have to now manage that money over a consistent basis if your goal is to have that 5K consistent a month. You can control that base of how you manage your money.” And I think that's just a new approach that many of, even my clients had never thought about money that way. They were like, well, if 50K came in one month, and I have a launch-based model, if it's not “consistent,” they thought that they were a failure or they were forcing clients into payment plans and not allowing clients to pay in full because they were used to an old way of paycheck, that consistency there.
So, I'm not sure maybe that's what you're looking for, Amy.
AMY: No, it’s exactly, because I love—I've never heard it said like that, and it is perfect about, are you bringing your employer mindset into your entrepreneurial playground? And I think that's brilliant because I think we do that a lot. I came from corporate as well, just like you. And there are some times that I'll have this way of thinking, and it keeps me stuck. And then I think, wait a second. Entrepreneurship is very different, and we can have so many different ways of approaching something. And because I teach people how to live launch, I would love to teach them that mindset that you just shared with me about, okay, so you make $50,000 per launch, you want $5,000 dollars a month, let’s talk about how we can spread that out and be really mindful with our money. I think that's brilliant.
JERESHIA: Yes. And I think that's an option most of my clients never even considered, of like, wait a minute. Oh, I can just roll this out? I'm like, yes. You can put yourself on salary if you know that—I think that's just another—making money is one thing. Learning how to now manage this money when it does come in influxes, because we also teach a live-launch method using live video. And it's a different way of thinking about money that—I mean, the average American struggles with managing paychecks that are consistent every week. So I can understand you getting this large lump sum of money at a period of time, it's a new way of thinking about money in a new way, maybe a new skill set that you have to acquire to comfortably manage it to align with what your lifestyle needs are.
So, I also just recommend that clients look at what your revenue is at the end of the month, not maybe weekly; or look at your revenue quarterly versus just month to month. It depends on what your launch cycle is. Or look at it annually, because you could be hitting every goal that you set. It just is coming in differently than maybe how you maybe expected.
AMY: It's so true. It's so true.
Okay. So speaking of making the money, let's talk about how to know when you're ready to sell. So, a lot of the times, I hear from my own students, they're not sure if they're ready to sell. And it's easy to give, give, and give and then never sell, because you just don't know when you're ready. So how does an entrepreneur know when they are ready to finally start selling to their audience?
JERESHIA: If you're listening to this, you're ready to start selling right now.
AMY: Amen! Amen!
JERESHIA: Like, now. If you've signed up to Amy's email list, you're ready to start selling. If you have purchased her program, you're ready to start selling. I think it's twofold. I think there's a receiving block that a lot of humans have, I've had, my clients have had, where it's really natural for them to give; it's difficult for them to receive. And selling something with—money is just a resource, just like water, just like anything that, I don't know, air. Money is just a resource. We assign a lot more meaning to what money is than I think is necessarily warranted in certain times. But I think sometimes, one, is like people, it's not that they're not ready to start selling. I think that sometimes there's a fear of actually receiving and being rewarded from a compensation perspective for work that they've done. And I always say that if you've ever earned a paycheck for a skill set that you're packaging into a course or somebody else in the world has been paid for the thing in which you're trying to do, that, like, it's safe for you to receive money. But one, I would just maybe invite, like, what are you really afraid of when it comes to actually selling and maybe around that receiving aspect? But then secondarily, when it comes, like, how do you know if you're ready to start selling? like, I don't know. I feel like everybody is selling at all times, just maybe they're not putting a dollar amount associated with the exchange of value that's been taking place.
AMY: Oh, totally agree.
JERESHIA: You're selling always. You're selling to your kids to get them to eat their vegetables or to put their shoes on. You're selling to your spouse to, like, take you to that special restaurant that you want to go to versus you staying in the house to cook. Like, you're constantly selling people on a new perspective, a new belief, or a new way of doing something.
And I think, too, sometimes people just need a little bit of belief. Like, I'm a really big believer in selling something before you build it, because sometimes—and this is just how I've always operated—sometimes I just need a little bit of belief. I need a little bit of proof outside of my head to know that this is something that somebody would actually want.
AMY: I love that you teach so much mindset in what you do. Is that just a normal thing for how you teach in general to your student?
JERESHIA: It has to be, like, inherently, because we realize that a lot of our strategy works—when people follow it, we have, like, a 97 percent success rate, of clients earning a full return on investment within the first ninety days. We know our curriculum is solid. We know our process works. We have the data and the client results to back it up.
The thing that gets clients tripped up is not the strategy, but is their belief around the strategy and their belief in themselves. And I think when you're selling a course—and this is something I think even strengthens your curriculum. It's not just about teaching, telling somebody what to do. But I'm a really big believer, and I need to teach my clients how to think as it correlates the curriculum that I'm walking them through. And like, Amy, you're like, “Okay, guys. It's time to go do your webinar,” and they can follow everything, build out their webinar deck, set up their email sequence, do all the things, but if there’s a huge block preventing them of sending out the invitation and inviting people to come to the webinar or showing up on camera, it doesn't matter how good the strategy is, they can't compel themselves to be willing to do it. And I like, we know, the question of, when are you ready to start selling? Yesterday, three years ago, you were ready to start selling.
The bigger question is, who are you afraid of disappointing in the process? I think people aren't afraid of failure. I think a lot of times that’s what people say, but who are you afraid of watching you fail? and getting really clear on what are these extra thoughts surrounding your inability to take the action that you know, that you already invested in the framework, you trust the process, you trust the teacher who is giving it to you. What’s really going on that’s preventing you to move forward? and reconcile that. But if you don't, I mean, you’ll just keep buying program after program and never doing anything. It’s not that the course was bad. It's just like, what are your thoughts that are holding you back from moving forward?
But to answer your question, yes. I mean, it's a huge part of how we're able to structurally design our curriculum so that our clients can succeed. It's beyond just the strategy. It's really teaching them how to think, not just telling them what to do, so that they can move through those blocks.
AMY: I love that. This is something I didn't know when I first started creating courses. And then I realized, wait a second. I just can't teach this step by step. Because you're right. People in my audience, they're not getting on that webinar if I'm not giving consistent pep talks and teaching them a different way to think in relation to actually doing the webinar. I love how you relate back to, how you think related to what I'm teaching you in this curriculum. And I think it’s not just a mindset shift overall. It's a mindset shift about how you're showing up around doing this strategy with webinars. I love that it's so closely tied.
Now, on Clubhouse, there was another thing that you talked about that I thought, “I've got to get her on my podcast.” I was so excited when you said yes, because you talked about having a high level of understanding around how people work and get through a course, which is a perfect segue to what we were just talking about. So can you share with us some strategies that you suggest a course creator could use or consider using when actually creating a course so that people are getting through and working the process?
JERESHIA: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. This is, like, I'm forever grateful for being an engineer—
AMY: Yes!
JERESHIA: —because the processes and how I just naturally think about systems, I think it just is such an advantage for clients who work with us. But when I think about creating anything, I mean, I think about, in our industry in the online space, people talk a lot about beta launching. But from, like, engineer, like tech world, there is an alpha phase, a beta phase, and a delta phase whenever you're creating a new product to go to market. And that's how we teach our clients to create their programs. And I’ll share this with you guys here.
So alpha phase is really, can I prove that my program, my product, my process will deliver the intended result that it's intended to deliver? Can I show this thing is going to have the outcome, the result that I expect it to, that it's designed to deliver? And that's phase one. And I think a really great way to do that is working with clients privately one on one, so that it's—because work with a client one on one is different than teaching a client inside of a course or a coaching program, or, like, it's just different. But the first thing is, how can I prove that my process actually delivers the intended result that it’s supposed to deliver for the person that it’s supposed to deliver it for? So whether you've done that for yourself, and maybe, I don't know, you're teaching people how to croquet, or I don't know what it is. I mean, Amy, you have such a wide range of course creators in your audience.
AMY: Right. We do have those that they're teaching croquet, so you hit it on the head.
JERESHIA: Okay. I’m like, I know I feel like I’ve seen you mention that before somewhere. It’s, like, wait, what? You can really create a course for anything.
So, either you have had to have proven that you've been able to duplicate this process for yourself more than once or you teach it to—I know I tell clients work with three to five one-on-one clients to prove that this process actually works.
Once you can prove at alpha phase that this product delivers the result that it was intended to deliver, next, you go to beta phase. And beta phase is really about, how do I enhance the client experience? And I think, too, now that you're switching into going from one on one to maybe doing this and delivering this in a course format or a coaching-program format or just in a group container, how do you now refine the curriculum? because you're not just telling somebody what to do, but now you're teaching them how to do it for themselves. And that's, like, phase two. How do I enhance the client experience? How do I make sure that I can actually teach this material and still be able to get that intended result without dependency from you as a creator?
And then third phase is delta phase. Now that you know the product actually gets the intended result, you know that you've maybe enhanced the client experience, now, you put gasoline on the fire, and it's like, how can I really take this to the next level? How can I really increase lead generation at this time?
I'm a really big believer in not focusing on going ham or going crazy on, like, lead gen first, because you want to make sure that—imagine if, I don't know, like, Apple, when they come out with the very first iPhone. If they were trying to get 50 million people to buy the iPhone at the very, very first time, it can be really detrimental. Their product can’t actually sustain the demand and especially that product hasn't been fully vetted out.
This actually happens a lot with Oprah. When people get on her Oprah Christmas wish list, there's been a lot of businesses that went out of business because they couldn't handle the demand operationally—
AMY: Whoa.
JERESHIA: —or the product wasn't strong enough to handle the demand. Nobody ever talks about that on Oprah's show, though.
AMY: No. But it makes sense.
JERESHIA: Yeah. But it makes—so I'm a big believer in, like, build a really, like, make money while you're building the product or improving it. Between your alpha phase, your beta phase, and your delta phase, you're constantly refining. I would say most programs I would recommend is that you probably are—like, what you've done with your programs, Amy, like over the years, you notice how you do it. Like, every launch, I feel like you're making some sort of—listening to client feedback, probably paying attention to where clients are having gaps in curriculum or understanding, and you're refining it.
AMY: Yes. So true.
JERESHIA: So I wanted to maybe throw that in there. When I think about program creation or course creation, it's, like, I think about it in those phases, and then I think about it that it's not going to be perfect, and you should not allow it to be perfect before you start selling it. That perfection comes through feedback from clients, and then you make those iterations into the program and enhance the curriculum as you go.
And probably, the last tip I would give here is document every single question, in correlation to where the client asked that question as part of your curriculum. And that really gives you a ton of insight. So if you notice at phase one and phase three of your program that you're getting repetitive questions around the same thing, that's an indication to you that maybe there's a gap in your curriculum, there's a gap in understanding, and that you can now infuse that back into the curriculum itself to strengthen your curriculum so that when the next client comes through, now you can actually track that metric wise. “Okay. This time we had fifteen people ask the exact same question. We made that enhancement. We only had two people ask that question after we made that change.” You'll notice a reduction in questions or a higher caliber of questions coming from your clients because you're fixing the issues in the curriculum based off the feedback and data that you're getting.
AMY: Ah, these tips are so good. And I totally agree. Every question you get can actually help you make your course or program better and better with each iteration. So documenting that from the get-go, something I didn't do either. I mean, everything I teach, I learned from making mistakes and saying, “Don't do what I did in the beginning, and do it right the first time out, and it's a lot less stressful.” So I'm really glad that you're sharing these things with people that might just be starting out so they don't have to make the same mistakes we made, or at least I know that I made.
JERESHIA: Oh, I made them, too.
AMY: Okay.
JERESHIA: But I guess that’s the beauty of why that's so smart to invest in somebody who's further ahead of you, because now when you guys joined DCA, you can avoid those problems that Amy has gone through for the years in which she's been building her business, and it fast tracks your ability to have success. It’s not to say that you're not going to have problems or not have challenges, but so many of those problems can be alleviated because you've invested in somebody else's framework who's further along, and they've already made a lot of those mistakes for you and have built that into the curriculum.
AMY: It’s so true.
Okay. So, for my final question, I wanted to make this as actionable as possible, although this whole conversation has been so incredibly actionable. But we're going to take it one step deeper. And I know you have a system for direct message, DM, selling. And a lot of my students who are selling digital courses, after the webinar, let's say they didn't make a sell on the webinar, but someone's interested, most likely the person who's interested is going to jump into the DMs, so let's say on Facebook or Instagram. And can you give some pointers and tips for how to close the sale in a DM?
JERESHIA: Yes. Oh, my gosh. Literally, 85 percent of my sales in my business is through direct message.
AMY: Stop it! Oh, my gosh! I came to the right person!
JERESHIA: It is insane. But I just think that I'm a big believer that, you know, conversions happen through conversation, and wherever we can be creating opportunities to have conversations with our prospects is a really great opportunity to be converting them and making sure that there is alignment with what they're trying to invest in and whatever it is that we're selling them into.
So I know most of you guys are maybe doing webinars. When you get them on the webinar, they watch the webinar, and it's, like, they start following you, but maybe they're not ready to make a decision yet, and maybe they need to have that conversation; or they reach out to you and it’s like, “I just have a couple more questions.” I'm a really big believer when I'm leading sales conversations—or just think about conversations in DM is, I like to leave from a very permission-based approach, and I like to constantly ask for consent. And I do that because I don't want to ever come off sleazy, pushy, aggressive, any of those negative terms that many of us have probably experienced buying something at some point.
And what that looks like is even when somebody, let's say I finish watching Amy's webinar, and I reach out to her, and I'm just like, “Oh, my gosh. I just finished watching your webinar. I'm not really sure if this program is right for me.” And maybe that's a normal thing that happens in our DMs all the time. People just kind of make a statement. One thing that I like to do there, instead of just saying, “Hey, I'm really glad that you reached out. Here's this link. Go to the sales page and buy,” I like to ask questions, and again, get curious and ask for permission. So I'll be like, “Hey, Amy. I'm really glad that you watched tonight's webinar. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions to see whether or not this program’s going to be a good fit for you?”
AMY: Ooh, that’s good. Okay.
JERESHIA: Something that simple. It's just asking for consent before you start just telling them what to do or telling them where to go. It completely shifts the energy of the conversation. It allows the receiver to, I think, heighten level of trust and just safety versus feeling that they're being sold to. So that’s an example of before you're about to do something or tell somebody something, how can you ask for permission from them first or ask for consent beforehand?
And then lastly, at the end, when somebody is kind of like, “I know this is a right fit for me,” I like to always, again, close it out with a very clear question of, where would you like to go from here? Or are you interested in—like, maybe they tell you all the great things of “Yeah, this is a great fit,” so on and so forth. It’s like, “Great. Are you committed to getting started with us on Monday?” and just making a very clear ask, where that person has the opportunity to make a decision. I think in sales, whether that's on DM, in a webinar, or whatever, your number one goal is to help that prospect make a decision, not just to give you their money. So it's like, how can you phrase questions and lead the conversation so that that prospect has an opportunity to make a decision, yes or no, versus leaving it open ended. I never like leaving conversations, like, “Oh, this was great.” And it’s like, “Okay.” And then it’s kind of, like, awkward, kind of.
AMY: Yes.
JERESHIA: Instead of like, “I'm really glad to hear this is meeting all of your needs. We get started on Monday. Will you be joining us?” And it’s just, like, yes or no. And that way it just, again, it asks for consent. It allows you to lead from my permission-based approach before just sending them the payment link or sending them to the sales page. But that's like, again, 85 percent of our sales happen because of direct message. And I have one call to action that I would like every listener to do, for those who are maybe afraid to start selling or haven't been selling, that, I think, Amy, this will give them a sale and/or at least a conversation started, like, almost immediately, if I'm able to share it.
AMY: Yes, please.
JERESHIA: Okay. So, if you're listening to this right now, you have to—if you're driving, download this episode to your feed, and you need to come back to this part. If you're somewhere stable, you need to pull out your phone and pull out your Instagram Stories, and I know somebody listening to this is going to be like, “What the heck is this girl about to tell us to do?” And I'm like, “I know, but you're in business to make money, and we're here to try to help you make money and create impact with those you’re meant to serve. So, we need to start making the ask.”
So I want you to open up your Instagram Stories, and I want you to say, “Hey, I'm listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast right now, with Jereshia Hawk, and we're working on elevating our confidence with our ability to make the ask.” And I just want you to say, basically, this phrase, and allow people to react and respond to you. So I want you to say, “Hey, I'm listening to this podcast right now, and Amy's guest is telling me to do this, so I'm doing it.” So say, “I have helped whoever you helped get whatever result that you've gotten. I'm really excited to take you along this journey with me. Are you, whoever you helped, looking to get this result? If so, send me a DM, and I'll share more details with you.”
And you can do any variation of that, but I want you to show your face. I know, Amy, I know your podcast is very action oriented, so we'll see how many people tag us in their Stories and do this.
AMY: Right.
JERESHIA: But I just want you guys to make an ask. Tell your audience this is who you helped and what you helped them with. Say that you're excited to be taking on a couple new clients, support them with this inside of your course or your program, ask them if they fit that demographic. “Are you a professional speaker looking to book more paid speaking engagements? If so, send me a DM, and I'll send you more details. I’d love to connect.”
And it just goes to show that an ask for a sale post webinar, in between launches, it can be that simple to start a conversation. And once that conversation gets going, you can either lead people to go register for your webinar or if you have, depending on what your enrollment is, you could lead them directly to a sales page and just allow them to purchase your program outright.
AMY: Okay. This is gold. I'm actually going to take what you just said and kind of paraphrase it and put it in the show notes. So, you all can go to amyporterfield.com/381—so amyporterfield.com/381—and not only am I going to link to those ten questions we talked about earlier, but I'm going to give you that little blurb so that you can use it right away. So you have no excuses. Like, right now you can go there, copy and paste it and make it your own, fill in the blanks, and get it on Instagram Stories, because you're saying you want them to hold up the camera, show their face, and actually say this on camera.
JERESHIA: Yes. And like, every one of my new clients, I don't force, but I heavily invite them to do this during our kickoff call. I mean, thousands of dollars has been made on day one of joining our program. And this is just scratching the surface. But anybody who's hesitant on selling or whatever, we got to just rip the Band-Aid off. You're more than capable. You're more than prepared, and just make the ask. A lot of the time, the money’s just on the other side of the ask, and we're just not making the ask.
But, Amy, yes, I want them to show their face, go on their Stories. If they're listening to you, they know that you don't play around. You are an action-taking woman. And yeah, I’m like, let’s go do it!
AMY: Let’s do it! Okay. I'm excited. I can't wait to see how courageous my listeners are, because I know they are, and they're actually just going to put it out there and do this.
So, this has been outstanding. I mean, this is one of the reasons I love Clubhouse, because I never might have found you if we weren't on that same panel together. Now, I'm such a huge fan. So, can you, first of all, thank you so much.
JERESHIA: Oh, yeah. This was a blast. You're more than welcome.
AMY: And second of all, can you tell my listeners exactly where to go to follow you? We will link in the show notes, but where should people go to learn more about you?
JERESHIA: Yeah, my Instagram is where I'm most active, so you can follow me @jereshiahawk. Definitely slide in my DMs. I love whenever I do interviews like this for people to screenshot, tag me and Amy on your Instagram Stories and just let us know what your top takeaways were. That's where the best place is to go. I also have a podcast myself if you're interested in learning anything more about high-ticket sales or just sales psychology. My podcast is called Jereshia Said. We're pretty much anywhere you can listen to a podcast. So those are a great way to connect with me directly or just to put me in your earbuds as well.
AMY: Ah, Jereshia, thank you so very much. I cannot wait for everyone to dive in. I so appreciate it.
JERESHIA: Any time, any time.
AMY: All right. Are you ready for your action steps? First, I want you to think about the conversation we just had. What really hit home for you? Was it maybe around the fear of charging too much? Or maybe you got excited when she talked about creating consistent revenue? I thought that was a totally different perspective, a new way to look at it. Or perhaps you realized that you're actually ready to sell. You know what she said? You're ready to sell now. You were ready to sell yesterday, my friend. Or maybe you loved the tips around helping your students get through your course and remembering that mindset should be part of your course, especially as it relates to exactly what you're teaching.
So, now that you've thought about the conversation, I want you to go back, and I want you to listen to that one section that really hit home for you. I want you to really get it, understand it at a deeper level. And then what I want you to do is I want you to start implementing. And here's where I want you to personalize it and really bring it to life. I want you to get clear on those action steps, write them down, whatever you learned, like what really hit home for you, write them down, and then add them to your schedule to actually work on. What? Yeah, you heard me. Add them to your schedule. You have to schedule it to make it real. When will you work on what you just learned? Maybe it's only, like, ten minutes or thirty minutes or an hour of implementing what you just learned. But if you don't schedule it, you're going to move on to your next thing, and you're going to think, “Yeah, that was a nice podcast episode,” but it won't change your business. And this podcast episode has the ability to change the way you do business. Schedule it to make it real.
All right, my friends, thank you for joining us today. I'll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.
