The 5 Most Clever Ways To Eliminate “Ghosting” From Your Leads 👻

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the six figure creative podcast. I am your host Brian Hood, and I'm not here with my ball. Beautiful mustache. Co-host Christopher J. Graham, cause he's got, he's got COVID issues. And so, you know, because of that, we're not going to have him today. And instead we're going to be talking about a topic with a special guest, which I'll get into in a second, where he was talking about a topic that I think is relevant for almost every single freelancer on this earth, if you were doing anything worth doing.

And that is the topic of ghosting, that is when a. Has reached out to you, they've expressed some sort of interest in working with you. You've maybe told them a price or you've replied or you've done something and they. Ghost, they go off and disappear into the sunset and you never hear from them again, you don't know why, and that's one of the worst things in the world because you can't learn what to change.

So today we brought a very special guest, a substitute cohost I'm loving that, that kind of vibe that we got going on. We did that with mark Eckert recently, a substitute co-host John McLucas, who was the guest on episode 178. Uh, So not that long ago, John, welcome to the.

Brian. It's great [00:01:00] to be back. And this is like, this is an increase. I'm really excited about this because of the backstory, which I'm sure you're going to get into of what brought us to sit here. But this is something that I'm. Passionate about and helping just in lots of conversation I've had on the internet about it and just can't wait to get into it, man.

So thanks for having.

Yeah. Yeah. So this actually stems from a conversation that started in our Facebook community. Love it or hate it. Facebook is a thing. And our community is absolutely thriving. We have on average, any given week. 60 to 70% of that community is active inside the community, according to our metrics, which is utterly insane to me, like I would not expect a community to be that active.

Which if you look at other metrics, I don't know what the other metrics are, but just generally giant groups of people do not interact at that level inside of settings like that. So if you're not a part of our community to go to six figure creative.com/community, because you're missing conversations like this.

So John, on December 26, the, you were like, you were like hungover from the, the. Sweets, you were like not feeling very productive. So you [00:02:00] decided, on December, December 26th to post in our community, a pretty lengthy post giving the five methods for virtually eliminating ghosting. And it was such a good post.

It had really good interaction. And by the way, your episode, by the way, episode 1 78, great response from our community, I just wanted to make sure you knew that a great response from our community.

That's good to know. I'm

glad.

some people have brought that up to me. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that cause it makes you feel good.

Right. But you, you posted these five things and we're going to go through these today because I thought it was such a good post and so helpful for people. And I agreed with every single thing you had on that list. And I just kind of like, honestly, half jokingly posted in the comments, you should jump on the podcast and, and we should do an episode about this.

And then you just went through the link that I had sent you before and you booked it without really any, any real conversation. And I was like, well, you know what, we're going to do a podcast. And this is going to be a great one because I didn't know if you'd actually be able to do it or not. So this is cool.

I mean, when you said that, I was like, I think this is going to be, this could be. One of the more important episodes. I think, like you're saying for [00:03:00] universally, every single person going into the new year, or whenever the heck, somebodies listening to this, there's not a bad time to understand how to, to continue conversation and how to kind of close the, the, the doom purgatory Mariana's trench of getting ghosted and that frustration.

So I think it's something that I didn't realize we haven't, it hasn't been, it hasn't really been discussed on the podcast like this, and I couldn't say it any other way. I'm glad we get to go even deeper than the post.

Yeah. So last episode, Chris and I went pretty deep into lead nurturing. We talked a lot about lead nurturing. You could kind of lump this in with lead nurturing, but I'd actually consider this more of the sales process because a lot of the things you, you mapped out and we're going to talk about today, John they're all things related to sales and ghosting is a by-product of sales.

When you give out a price or when you're talking actual hard dollars being exchanged, that's when people start to ghost because. It's usually a sign that they, they just don't want to let you down. But let's just dive into these things. So I'm going to read these things off. John, we're going to read this.

I'm just going to let you go with it. And then I'm going to, we're going to discuss the, top to bottom on this list here. So five potential [00:04:00] ways to prevent clients from ghosting during the sales process. Number one. Number one, I feel like it's like the old countdown from like the, the like nightly shows, you know, like they'll a daytime or nighttime shows with Dave Letterman, the top 10 lists, number one, get on the phone or zoom ASAP with a qualified lead and get out of direct messages or the inbox.

If you use email, the DM or inbox is a great way to pre-qualify, but the rapport and the depth and the intimacy in conversations is unmatched.

All right. I'm jumping in. Okay. I don't even remember quite what I wrote because you're reading it to me and you're giving it to me blind against, I love this. I love the intensity. I'm like, what did I write? So I, I went through, I think, a pretty large ebb and flow of, of not of being anti, like phone call. It's too much time, like phone calls. It took a lot of work, all this stuff. So I was very in the, the email, you know, just keep the interaction like in this pocket, but what I found.

The things I talked about, but something really interesting too, where [00:05:00] I had a, a conversation with the client who ended up becoming a very term client of mine. And they actually told me it was very early on, but I was sleeping on the floor still. And they told me, John, the reason I hired you was it was actually not because of your technical prowess if anything, we thought your stuff was a little more unpolished than some of the other people that we were talking to.

But you picked up the phone and talked to. And we were like, wow, no other person. We talked to even offered to have a 10 minute call, but here's this guy we only spent 20 minutes talking. I was in the car with my girlfriend, like driving through LA and we was just on the phone. I was like, Hey, this, can I do that?

Yeah. So I was like, I just have another phone. And that person went on to spend nearly $10,000. Working with me over a period of several years, purely because of the phone call. And like, that was the moment where I feel, I was like, holy crap. I, I just out quote out, did so many other people that they were considering purely because I took the time to get to know them [00:06:00] and not in a kind of a leechy way, but just as like, Hey, like here's who I am, Kat feel my energy, who I am as a person.

And that depth in that personability was like, I'll be wanting to spend more time with this guy. So let's hire him. So they kind of said also that they weren't my favorite tech. They weren't the favorite technical answer. The personability ended up winning and that's really what sold me on the current.

I have a couple of videos on YouTube right now. You should go watch if you haven't already, one is. It's something about to the effect, why everyone should be doing phone sales or zoom, sales, whatever. And the other one is why everyone should double the rates. And these things go hand in hand because I think there was, I'm going to, I'm going to talk about why that is in a second, but I think there was a, there was a blip on the internet probably like five years ago where everything moved to automation and you wanted things as efficient as possible.

And you want to spend as little time doing things as possible. And I think that's, it's kind of reversing now where people are looking more like high touch. High quality. But the problem with that is you can't do those things. You can't spend a ton of time with people. If you're charging minuscule amounts of.

And that's why the pricing thing is so important because you have to, [00:07:00] you have to be able to charge a rate that makes sense to be able to hold someone's hands through the entire process. And John made a really good point saying like he wasn't the most qualified person, but at least he was the person that was willing to speak to them on the phone and the by-product of that.

I don't know what your rates were back then, John, they were probably decent enough, but the byproduct of that was you picked up a client whose lifetime value was over $10,000. And when you put it that way, Like think about it. I just, just think about that from a logical perspective. Are you willing to get on the phone for 20 minutes with someone?

If the lifetime value of that person is $10,000. To me. That's an absolute yes, it's a no brainer. Absolutely. But I think it goes hand in hand with the pricing thing too, because so many people are trying to do this whole fully automated lead, nurture and sales system. They don't want to get on the phone and they want people to actually buy the service on the website through a checkout process, you know, and then collect files and then you do the stuff and you never send it.

I'll poke at Chris Grammy when there was not a here that was kind of how he ran his mastering business for years. He's shifted away from that, thankfully, but I think a lot of that was just going back to the business model. [00:08:00] When you charge such a small amount of money, that's your only option.

If you're going to scale it to any significant amount of money is doing all this automated stuff that. It takes it from a relationship to a transaction. And when you take it from a relationship to a transaction, that's when it's just not a business, a good business anymore.

It's not enjoyable. It doesn't work as well. And yes, going to the ghosting thing. When you actually speak to someone face to face or on the phone, or actually have a genuine human connection with them and can build a relationship they're much less likely to simply go see you and never reply to you.

It's much easier to go. Somebody who you've only talked to through DM or text or social media or email, it's much easier to go to those people than someone that has taken 20 minutes out of their day to talk.

Yeah. there's a reciprocity that they feel to at least give you the politeness to say, Hey, I not interested or. You know, you'll be hired somebody else either just tell you no, or to be honest about whatever the thing is, that's going on in their life. So if you can, if you can offer that to them, like, Hey, I'd love [00:09:00] to jump on a call about it.

That can help you get out of the zone. But this is also, I think, of these five. This is the one that's like a preventative measure where it also, the medicine is is before the issue exists. We'll prevent this from happening more is to get them on the call once the moment that they say the handful of like basic preliminary things, just shoot them a link, have them book, a Calendly, whatever you use, and that depth will then prevent them.

Being like, oh, well that guy I talked to who was like really chill and it really cool person, like, I don't want to talk to them ever again. They're not important. They're terrible. Like, it's very hard to say when I just spent 30 to 60 minutes, like connecting and just trying to understand their story and get to know them that that's a very dissonant thing.

They'd have to really think that I suck,

Yes. All right. So I think that's number one. Number one, get on the phone ASAP. Let's move on to number two here. And this is your lot longest of all the posts. So I'm just going to read it word for word, and then we're going to talk about it again. Number two. To prevent or eliminate ghosting [00:10:00] with clients.

And this is don't throw out pricing and direct messages. And I would assume, I would say the same with texts and email is way as well, more often than not. If I get. I provide a range of what it's been in the past and let them know the best way to make sure I provide accurate pricing is to have a quick chat, which actually goes back to number one there, which is getting on the phone.

Um, I typically do it over a voice memo or a video clip when I'm saying as well, it makes it much more disarming and you control the tone instead of leaving them. instead of leaving it to them, and then you go on to say, don't just, this is not just supposed to be like a move, some sort of trick you're playing. You should care about providing a service based on what they need. Even as someone who is typically has a fixed rate on the phone, you can find out if they need additional things or if they need to solve additional problems.

So, so often I've had this be the case, and then I prescribe a solution accordingly.

Yeah,

the. The hardest thing, like, like the ghost, this is another similar ghost preventative measure, but it is both so true. And, and, and [00:11:00] not many people phrase it that way. Where, when we're talking about pricing, like you said, yeah, we, a lot of us have a fixed number that we have, like in mind, like. Basic version the most middle of the road version of it.

But hardly people fit into that box. I've found somebody wants that our castles, okay, we got to get the arranger you want, you want the, you know, this thing to do this kind of experience, we need to change this variables. If you just throw out a blanket number, first off, you're probably wrong. That number is probably incorrect.

And then two, they're going to say, they're just going to compare you as that number without having depth that, or even an understanding that you're the right person. You don't even know if you're the right person for this yet. And you're throwing out prices at them. Willy nilly. I don't like that. That's terrible.

That's the only thing I could think of. Shout out my Nana for that, but I don't really know where else to take this. I'm going to pass it off to Brian while I recollect my thoughts on

what more.

so I was actually having a conversation today with someone who wanted to hire me and we got to the point where I just realized it wasn't a good fit. And I told. And he wanted to know, and it was one of those things where like, maybe it makes [00:12:00] sense more in the future or whatever, but he wanted to know pricing when I charge.

And I actually told him and I was, I was being honest. I said so this is for my coaching business coaching, by the way. So that made sense in this context, not for freelance work, you know, but I told him, I said just a good sales tip for you. Don't give out blanket pricing When someone doesn't understand the full value of what you offer, because although the pricing is likely the same from person to person.

For me, even though it's a flat rate, I still make sure someone fully understands the value of what they're getting for that price. Before I give the number, and this is a hundred percent relevant in freelancing services as well, because as a freelance. If you throw out a blanket rate, you charged a flat rate for something, whether you're a mastering engineer, mixing engineer, you're doing a design, you're doing a logo, you're doing a photo shoot of some sort, or you're doing a wedding, whatever it is like when you give that price out, they are simply going to compare it to other prices based on what they know to understand that service entails.

But when you actually get them on the phone, Blake blatantly putting this text out in the world when you get them on the [00:13:00] phone and you can, and you can actually let them know, like understand their pain points, understand why they need what they need help with, and then be able to prescribe the actual solution to what they need and shape the thing that you're offering them around their pains and what they need.

The pricing makes much more sense within that context. So the number one, like I hear this all the time. People can't get the projects because of the pricing mismatch. Like people can't afford you. Usually ghosting is a symptom of that, by the way, people ghost you because they can't afford you or they don't think you're worth what you're charging.

It's likely really the issue of you not fully helping them understand the value that you provide. And when you send a text out or a DM of your rate, I am. I can promise you, they don't, they likely don't fully understand value that you're providing them in what you do, especially if you're doing anything different from your competitors, what you should be doing, because you shouldn't just be doing what everyone else is doing, or else you just are offering a commodity, which is a completely different conversation than we're having today.

Yeah, the, I think that's a great point because when, when it [00:14:00] almost kind of like put, put it in different way, if you throw it out in the DM, they're going to look at it. Like they would compare buying two pounds of this potato compared to buying two pounds of that potato. It's like, well, I'm making a stew.

What's the cheapest potato I can do to get me a stew. But like that, that's how they end up seeing all of these different options. But the beauty of being a creative freelancer and for everybody, who's, who's offering something who's listening right now. Even if we have a similar on the surface thing, it's going to be inherently different.

The way that your process works is going to be different than somebody else's and whoever can communicate those differences best is going to have a better shot at winning that project. go back to number one, get them on the phone or at minimum delivery in a video clip, you get to control the tone.

You get to throw up a realistic range that you have charged in authentic, actual range. You have charged people for a similar comparable service. Understand and communicate to them that it is important to get more information

Uh,

One more thing you said that I didn't address John was where you tell them, you'll tell them a, in a video clip, you might tell them like, you know, in the past has been this much, but you know, to really understand what you need. The cool thing about [00:15:00] that, that I forgot to even mention is that, that pre-qualifies people.

If they are not even in the same ballpark of that pricing budget range, then they likely won't book a call with you. And that's okay. Like in most cases you do not want someone who is outside of your league. Like if they literally can't afford you, your job is to go out there and. Higher quality leads more people that can't afford your services.

And if you're not doing that, if you're wasting time with the God, I hate to use the term and I'm not going to say it. People who are not at the top of the rung fire, I'm just going to say it. If you're working with bottom feeders, then they're going to waste your time and you're going to fill up.

You're going to feel beaten down. That's that's really the, honestly the reality of it. You're going to feel beaten down and you're going to not have the confidence to raise your rates because every single person you talk to just tells you the same story that they can't afford you because you got. refuse to actually go out there and get better leads.

Yeah. And without going into that rabbit hole, that is you're right. That's a, that's a positioning issue. And in a messaging issue, if you throw out a large range, Every [00:16:00] everybody's petrified, then there's a very different thing than ghosting. Then the reason you're getting ghosting is you're positioned and attracting the wrong people with your content, with whatever you're outputting.

And then that's a T that's not that it's not a goatee ghosting issue. And then we've solved it for you.

It's a totally different thing going on. And then you look up all the episodes that Brian and Chris have about positioning, but I think about a

boom.

Yup. exactly. Exactly. Yeah. If the income range, if the, if the range you give them gives them sticker shock, you're likely having a positioning. If you issue, once you full it, if you've got on the phone with them and talk to them and their sticker shock, meaning like their eyes get big.

When you tell them a number. that's likely a sells a process issue, or you're just bad at what you do. And they didn't expect it to be that much, but either way, the big thing about this, and let me just kind of let you know why we're going kind of off topic here, the whole. Of making people not ghost you is so that you can learn what the problems are when someone goes to you.

And I should have talked about this sooner. When someone goes to you have no idea why, like, you don't know what the problem was, why they went with someone else or why they didn't hire you. [00:17:00] So by doing some of the things we're talking about today, you actually learn. So you can adapt. So if you know what your pricing and, you know, you did everything right in the sales process, you know, you did everything right in the qualification and the nurture process, kind of going backwards in the steps here, then likely your price.

Is you're either going after the wrong person or your pricing needs to come down. And that's the reality. In some situations, every market has a cap, like there's an elastic elasticity. So the higher you go, the less people there are to work with. And there is a diminishing return on rate increases. So at a certain point, there is no way you can increase the rate to that person.

And some of the stuff we're talking about today, eliminating ghosting is helping you understand if that is really the root cause and in your sales world. All right. Number three here. So just to reiterate, I'm going to keep doing this just to keep people on track. Your number one was get on this. Get on zoom or get on the phone.

ASAP. Number two is stop throwing out your pricing and DMS texts and emails through a text format. And number three, you say, find [00:18:00] ways to create authentic scarcity early on. Oh, this is my favorite one. I think find ways to create authentic scarcity early on as an. What are the most valuable things I can understand is a desired end date and deadline.

So that I can use that as a means to follow up. So you'll say, and you put in quotes here. Hey John, or, Hey Billy, remembered our chat earlier and you wanted to be wrapped up by, let's just say March 15th. So if the deadline is still the goal or if that deadline, so if that deadline is still the goal, I'd want to make sure we start by, let's call it February 1st So we can make this project the best we can without the extra pressure, if that is changed or you just hate me, just let me know and feel free to say something obscene or insulting, the more creative, the better. I love this so much. You actually kind of talk about uh, the end of that sentence right there.

And the next point. So we'll talk about the self-deprecating stuff in a second, but I love that dude's authentic scarcity. Talk about that.

Yeah, it goes back to. putting in scarcity people, or you have a lot of feelings on side, they're like, oh, they land on like some companies that, [00:19:00] so plugins that are very low quality and they like make you anxious into purchasing them. And that's what people think of as scarcity. So they get, they have a narrative built up in their own head about it

when

This software is 98% off for that only for the next three seconds. Hit the button to buy now quickly

After these 3000 licenses, we're going to shut it down forever until another sale. Like,

and then you think that any urgency to make, to, to, to try to get somebody off the fence is, is negative and bad. But what the point of like any conversation should be is to underwrite. This goes back to the whole point, which is understanding what they need and then helping them get where they told you they want to go.

And. It's authentic. scarcity.

is just that. It's just, Hey, you told me this is this still true? If, so we should, this should be our start date because this is the timeline that we talked about of if that's changed, let me know, but I just want to make sure that you are on track for 20, 22 or 22, whatever the fricking year it is, and that you're going to have a really successful [00:20:00] year with answer project scope.

So now it's just, it's an actual, authentic reason to follow up instead of doing the, this is like the typical thing, right? Hi, Brian, just checking in when you want to start like that, that tends to be it. And

then.

that hurts because that was my follow-up process for like, I think I actually have a followup guide. If you go to follow up.guide, that's the URL, you can get my 60 day followup sequence and I'm pretty sure, like at least two or three of those follow-ups are simply just that. So while not the best, it still does work.

It's just not as effective as something like this, where you have an actual date. Pushing people along. And the cool thing is, and you, you talked about this, is this the date they set for themselves when you had your sales conversation. So it is a date it's not just pull out of thin air that's the day they said they wanted this project done by.

So by saying, if this is the date, you still want this done by, you would need to get started by the sooner date. Let's just call it one month sooner. So let me know if the date has changed or, you know, or just tell me to go heck off.

Yeah. when you [00:21:00] send out a message like that to first off.

when it doesn't come off desperate, right? Like the whole, like, if you just you're dating a girl, you're dating guy, you're dating anybody and then you just text them again. Like, so how about another date? Yeah, it's just like, oh my Lord.

That's very uncomfortable. But With this way, it's an authentic way to come in and people will feel a lot more obligated to give you a response. Like they will feel like, oh, I should probably tell him something now. Cause he, he was, I, I did tell him I want to do it by April, which is true. It's like you told me that, like, I don't know.

I, my job is to keep you on track with the things you hit me up about

Yeah, there's a bit of like, there's a bit of a, like a mental thing there where you are genuinely trying to help make sure the project is going along. You do get a benefit of like maybe selling them and closing them because they're going to be like, oh, dang, I need to get this deposit into him. Or I need to book this, The thing is if they've already moved on or they went with someone else or the dates changed or something happened, they feel obligated to let you know, because you, you are trying to help them and versus like, [00:22:00] Hey John, just checking in. How's this coming along, you know, like that's easy to ignore.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll just open that and then go onto the next thing. Like I'm good, but yeah, it's just, it's nice. And then they feel, okay, this is a real reason to follow up, which it is. And I will at least tell them yet. We hired the other guy. We hired this other person. We hired them or I'm not interested, or, Yeah. I got in a car crash.

I just spent $30,000 on my deductible and I need to start in seven months and then, then you can adjust accordingly, but 90. 1% not science of the time. Eight will get some kind of a response in, so you can stop following up with them and change maybe your approach to how you would nurture them as opposed to keep knocking on the door and like talk to.

Yeah. So there's, there's actually something else to talk about here. And it's probably worth pointing out the difference. between. We've used two words and they both have similar effects, but they mean something different. We use the word scarcity and we've used the word urgency, and these are kind of like cousins [00:23:00] or brothers or something like what you're talking about, where there's a date attached to it.

And by not hitting this date we're gonna miss out. That's that's called urgency. There's an urgency to get it done or else you're not going to hit the state. And that's when you see the countdown timers and all that crap scarcity is saying, there's a limited quantity of something and you can use that same exact effect.

And I've used this for years as in my studio where it says like, Hey, I am booked up for the next six months. And so just so you know, like until I get a deposit, You're not on my calendar. So if you are genuinely trying to get on my calendar by June, then we need to get the deposit sooner than later.

And so that would kick people in the gear because there was genuine scarcity on my calendar, like in this kind of there's an urgency to, to get it done before it gets booked up. But it's scarcity. So they kind of are hand in hand, but it is worth noting that it's two different strategies like scarcity is and amount of time.

That's limited, which all of us as freelancers, our time is a limited factor. So if there's genuinely a scarcity in your time, you need to make sure you communicate that to your clients, [00:24:00] because that is a wonderful sales tool, especially when it is genuine. And then there's urgency. As we get closer and closer to dates that they have expressed need to hit deadlines on deadlines, create by default urgency.

And so that can be an effective sales tool as well. And both of these things by default eliminate are can reduce or eliminate

ghosting.

Yes, it gets great. And thank you for that. That's actually a great point and I hadn't even quite heard it articulated like that. It's almost like you have done a lot of podcasts.

This is episode 184. I believe if I'm, if I, if I'm not messing up my math here, but

I've done a few. I've done a

few. man. You have done a few, not as many as some, but I've done a few. All right, let's move on to number four. So just to recap, I'm gonna recap every time here. Uh, Number one to, to eliminate ghosting is to get on the phone or zoom ASAP.

Number two is don't throw out pricing, Willy nilly through texts and DMS. Number three is to find a way to create authentic scarcity or urgency. Early on or both. And number [00:25:00] four. And this is uh, a short, your shortest by far is you say self-deprecation works well for me, it gets a good checkup and response almost always.

So let me just kind of, before you comment on that, I just need to say like, just kind of frame. When people go see you, that is just them not responding to your emails, texts, or phone calls or voicemails or whatever DMS they're not responding. And so you're just saying really quickly here, when you put self-deprecation in the texts or emails that you send out, when you put self-deprecation in there, or the videos you send them, people tend to respond to that.

And their response by default is eliminating the ghosting. They're saying something back. So why, why John? Why does self-deprecation work well?

Well, the good news is I don't have the scientific answer. All I have is. With my life and trying this out and seeing how it's gone. So I will not give you the science answer, but I will give you the guy who's done a dancer. And expanding on the third point about having urgency scarcity, a reason to say something back.

The other side of that is that it can be [00:26:00] informational. What I've also found that when it's like super personal and kind of relatable and funny that. Totally disarms the awkward, invisible, like interrogation style interaction that it can, that it has felt like in the past for people, I'm sure. People probably sweating thinking about that.

You know, it, it just disarms that whole when you're like. Yeah. And if you think I'm just, I've told it on video, I'm like, if you just think I'm like really ugly or just like terrible or something. That's great. Just let me know. Like, it'd be kind of funny and I might screen cabin put on the internet, but it would be hilarious.

Either way, just let me know how you're feeling tears and, and they just have a good time and out now this is what it does cite in my head as a non science man, it takes it from like a business transaction to there's a little bit of humanity and it's just like, oh, it's not just this guy who who's wondering if I'm going to hire him.

It feels like we've broken that, And now we're just kind of two humans joking around and that's a really hard thing to do. You know, on, on a text even. Yeah. It's like always do that in the video or the audio [00:27:00] and it just creates personability. Right? The Chuck they're like laughing and then they're like, oh my God, like, yo, you're a great man.

I just ended up doing that. Or I ended up doing this or I need to wait two more months. This happened or actually I'm ready. I just last week, some crazy stuff happened. Can we start at that time? And it just, it's just very disarming. It takes off all the weirdness gunk and it just gets them comfortable to play into the joke.

And everybody likes having fun and laughing a little bit extra in their day. So why not bring that.

Yeah. And like that, just to kind of add to that, like, self-deprecation, that's just your form of humor. The one that you have chosen that has, has worked well for you that doesn't have to be the way everyone does it, but humor is basically like, is a great way to, to help with sales. We actually interviewed um, The one of the co-founders of the obedient agency on episode 177 fantastic episode, that agency, they specialize and humor based marketing.

And they have like a cult following, which is really cool to see like my, my wife's the one that, that showed them to me. and so that was an, an Austin episode. If you're trying to figure out a way to [00:28:00] include humor in your marketing, but also in your sales process, because like you just said to move it from a transaction to a religion, Humor is a great way to bridge that gap.

And when you've bridged that gap and you've turned it into a relationship and shown that you're an actual human, and you're not just a bot or an automated message sent out to them, they all of a sudden seem to respond more. Right. And so many keyboard warriors want to hide behind their keyboard and not actually speak to another human or do anything that might be misconstrued as humor.

It can be tough to, to, to break that mold. And I just, I just know our community well enough to know that a lot of people are, are like, they, they sh they sweat it. The idea of, of adding humor into things that they do, especially if they don't consider themselves a funny person, but that this is a great way to eliminate ghosting, because when they feel connected to you, they're not going to ignore you.

I don't know that many people that have really good friends that would just straight up ignore them. And it's because that relationship has been built.

Yeah, and I love that you expanded on it and just brought it back to humor. Cause that's super true. If people like, if somebody is like a good singer and [00:29:00] they want to sing a 12 second Diddy, just, you know, a little video clip, you know, Brian. It's okay. If you don't want to do the project and you don't have to do ahead and it's okay.

Just let me know. Cause I'm a book, some other shit soon, like, I don't know,

but

that's okay. Yeah.

What's funny. is I, I can't wait for people to hear this at like two or two and a half X speed. Some people listen to our podcast really

fast. That's great, but actually that, that little song, that little Diddy you just said brings us perfectly into number five, the last on the list. And one that is probably the least utilized. Uh, But before we get to number five in this list and the final thing on this list, I'm going to recap again, number one, to eliminate ghosting, get on the phone and zoom or zoom ASAP.

Number two, don't just throw out pricing Willy nilly through. Number three, find ways to create authentic scarcity or urgency early on in your sales process. Number four [00:30:00] self-deprecation or humor works well for getting responses to people. If they start ghosting you and the number five in the list is video clip.

You said video clips are so dope when interacting in general, be concise and don't go longer than 40 to 60 seconds, but people are so all caps that so much friendlier when they are responding to your flesh and face than a DM or text. Personally, I've always seen more success in DM versus. Side note and hope this helps you all get out of the ghost zone.

Ultimately remember that it's about discovering if you're the best person to help, not trying to suckle their toes for every dollar possible. Now go forth. Love you fam.

I mean it is, it is how I write pets.

That's unfiltered,

it's similar to our other substitute cohost uh, mark Eckert, who kind of writes similarly, it was just like really, really free with the language of like, just fun, funny thoughts and imagery and, and like suck all your toes. Okay. Get outta here with [00:31:00] that. But the point is video, video or audio, and you, you kind of send your little song and it's because you would do something like that when responding to somebody to try to get a response from them.

When you're, when you send a video like that, if you try to sing to someone. In order to elicit response, that's a way of being humorous, kind of self-deprecating all through video and an effort to keep them from ghosting from you. So you can actually learn from what didn't work or did work, or just spur them on further into actually booking with you.

Yeah. I think now more than ever, but even more so. The pandemic and the shift to the digital world, people have always, but are, especially now even more craving, personal interaction and connection to something.

And a simple video clip is so. Powerful to again, write This right? If we're going back, like the principles of disarming personalization, you feel like who the heck takes a minute out of their day to actually film a video. Like, I'll go and I come on a walk and then I'm like, Hey, like on a second. [00:32:00] And I was like, Hey, what's popping into that.

Like, not even just for ghosting, but this goes beyond that. This goes from people reach out to me. I almost always now, because all of my stuff comes from. Almost always sending video clips or at worst audio clips back in response, this is just a move. This is like a move and approach that I have that builds such a depth right off the bat.

And they'll almost always respond with that was so cool. Nobody's ever sent me that. And then in ghosting phases as well, very specifically, they are going, it's a lot harder to get. When somebody takes the time to send you a video and you say their name, and then you would combine number three with scarcity, urgency, authentic scarcity, urgency about their deadlines.

And then you throw in a little bit of humor. Like this is the Mecca. Like this number five is like bringing it all home into an incredible outreach process. That is, it's just hard to say no to like in our hearts. When somebody takes the time, if you send me a video clip, Brian, like I, how could I not respond with at least like two sentences?

It would be very uncomfortable.

This is true. So [00:33:00] honestly, if I were to put this together and my tick-tock, editor's going to love this, cause he can just turn this into one little clip here. If I were to put this into like one little nice and neat guide for everyone here, just to kind of recap everything, it is first don't throw out pricing in a DM.

So when someone reaches out to you for rates, you don't have to send out a price, maybe send out a range to make sure they're in the right ballpark, but you get them on a call so that you can. Figure out what they need and prescribe the solution that they are actually after and what that might cost. And then during the call, you also get a deadline, what are they trying to reach their, their goal?

What are they trying to get the thing done? Which creates. Immediate scarcity and urgency to get the project started in time to get the thing done by the deadline. If they're looking to get it done by. So now when you follow up doing all the things that John talked about in this episode, which is sending video messages with humor, self-deprecating humor in John's case uh, using video, audio clips, making stupid songs.

There's genuinely no way on earth. You'll get ghosted by your client. If you do all these things because [00:34:00] you like, this is, full-proof like to me, this is foolproof. You will not get ghosted. I will go out now and say like with my flag in the ground, you will not get ghosted. If you do all of those things in your sales process, moving.

Yeah. And an onto, Oh, no, I had a great point where to go. Ah, thank goodness for James. Could you imagine that this is live? I'd be so anxious.

Okay.

Oh, you think that John, you think he's going to edit that out? No, there's no way that's staying in.

No. It's okay. It's all right. I did a lot of live streams back in.

the day. So when I, when, when I, that was my main method, but I think what I was going to say to you, I wanted to actually expand on point. I'm going a little out of order,

Ah, cyan. Okay. This is a, this is our podcast and we always do this. So

you're not you're right in line with Chris Graham. That's fine.

roasted. So the, when talking about the third point where.

We want to find out about deadlines. That's also something you can do as an initial response to reaching out. Like you don't even have to wait if, if you are in a position where you are getting a little choosier, like I started doing this a while ago where I would just be like, Hey, oh son, [00:35:00] video, Clippy.

Hey, Hey, Jimmy, what's popping. Thanks for reaching out. I would love to hear a little bit more about it, but actually before we even get into that, like, do you have like a general timeline when you wanted to get started or, or just when you want it to be done? Because I want to make sure that this would even be something I could accommodate and really serve you well with in, in the next coming months.

So just like, let me know really quick. And if not, I could, you know, all love, but just let me know. Right. So it's just something where, where I'll get that information upfront. And then now if they kind of don't book the. If I send a link and they kind of, aren't looking to call, I could S I could reach back out after enough time has passed and then say like, Hey, didn't know if that yeah.

April deadline was like, so it gives me kind of that ability to, to mention it sooner than having to get on the phone and I feel like I've had conversations about this with people in the community where they're like, oh, but that's like, this is kind of a scummy thing.

It's like, They just told me they want to get This done and it's my job to get it done. I don't want them to hit me up in six weeks after they said they want to get [00:36:00] started. And then like, can I still have an an eight days? No, it's my job to make sure that I can also help you well. And because of that, it is my duty to follow up with you.

If you told me that you have specific deadlines, you want to meet, I couldn't actually help you as well. If I let you just, like, eat yourself into my life, whenever, whenever you thought it was the right time. and then you're like, oh, it's three more months than I thought. Like, like, and then we have this whole awkward thing.

So I think that's the one part I want.

and this is just honestly, part of good sales, in my opinion is understanding what their ultimate goal is. And then creating value by helping them get there by the time that they wanted. And so some people call that sketchy, I guess, maybe for using it for sales, but it's again, at the end of the day, if your genuine goal is to help someone get the outcome that they're looking for, then it's your, it's your obligation.

And especially if you are the right person for the job, if you're the best option they have given their budget, location and whatever else, whatever their next best option is, if you're the right person for the job, then it's your [00:37:00] obligation to help. Keep on the path that they want to go on. So that's just, to me, it's a, it's a subtle mindset shift when it comes to sales to like, get yourself in that place.

But if you don't genuinely believe in what you do, that you're the right person for the job, that's genuinely, probably the, one of the reasons that people get coasted in the first place, because you were so like, unsure that you're right for them. And it came through on the conversation you had, and they just don't want to ever talk to you again, because they're just like, God, this guy was.

This guy was weird and I don't want anyone in our community falling for that sort of stuff. So just to kind of wrap this all up, I want to say one thing kind of kudos to John. And, and challenge our own community. That's listening right now, John I should've mentioned this earlier. The episode title was 100 episode, 1 78 from homeless to $130,000 a year in just three years with John McLucas good episode title episodes done really well.

Great feedback. all that to say, John is successful. And despite that, and John John's relatively busy, like I imagine he stays pretty busy if he's running 130 K a year, Within mental [00:38:00] health reasons. Maybe you're not over exerting yourself, but all that to say, John still participates in our Facebook community and adds really valuable post and replies to comments, some comments, which people never really see.

It's just something he's genuinely helping. One person one time and one comment and like a reply thread and spending a lot of time typing things. And I think this goes, this is a good distinct to bring up because the reason John is so successful is because he is willing to go above and beyond in all things that he does.

He's excellent in all things, he is, he does. And he doesn't half-ass any of the things that he does. And so many people can learn from that because they think, well, what's in it for me. Why should I spend time typing out this long reply to this one person who's struggling with this one thing, even though I'm excellent.

This one thing I'm not going to give the time of. And for that reason, you will likely continue to struggle because it's a mindset thing. John is a Go-Giver and the people who are go-givers meaning they give without expecting to receive back. Those are the people that have the most success. So now that I've done complimenting you, John, and you can just [00:39:00] fill all awkward.

I just want to say, thanks for participating in our community and posting wonderful things like this, and I see your, your stuff inside of there and what you're helping people with despite being successful and busy and all the other excuses you could make for not participating in the group.

Thank you so much, man. I appreciate that a ton. I have a few things I want to, I wanted to add a couple of things really quick. That think would be super important for people and a half things. One being, what you said was like, this is almost a very uh, Dan Henry thought, like something that I think I've really picked up from him was when you view the, the Go-Giver concept as like, why should I give to my people?

But like, why should I give to others if they're not going to give to me? But if that's your mindset on building a business, that's why you're attracting those kinds of people. nobody's getting magnetized to the selfish, whiny turd person who who's very crabby and grumpy that does not attract and magnetize,

I'm working on my prickliness John I'm working on it. Okay. I'm trying to

be, I'm trying to be less

prickly.

You're glowing. You're a

glowing,

that [00:40:00] I got there. Look any

you're glowing Blowfish. It's beautiful luminous. But then the other part too, like I want to add it. Uh, Ninja sixth point to this because I think everything we talked about getting ghosted, the other part that's been really huge or myself personally, and what I really built the back of my like entire business on has been through content marketing and through content output.

And when you are continually releasing things, even if, and it's so weird, I will have. Well, he reached out to me how I've watched a lot of mice dimension. It, things that they've watched and seen and observed or heard. And they've never liked. They've never commented. They're just, they are in the shadows,

They're called lurkers lurkers. We have a lot of those in our, in our, committee.

And that is first, like first off is shocking to me, but then I realized like, well, Yeah. even when somebody goes to me, I've had. Come back at over time because they continually see my content come out. They continually see me posting wins from people that work with me. They continually [00:41:00] see the things that I have going on for myself.

And I say, wow, this guy continues to XYZ. Man. I, I better, I, I should probably get back with X. I just worked with a amputee. Boop. That experience with them was, was very lukewarm soggy pancake. And so like just the output of, of regular content alone is that subliminal nurture where I don't have to tell them I'm actively doing this.

Oh, I don't have to be like, well, you know, I make cool stuff. It's like, You'll see it it's a lot. I put out a lot of stuff and then you just hear me building up vocal stacks, and then you put out a song with subpar vocal production and you're like, oh man, that thing sounds way better than my last experience was like, holy crap.

So like that's, I think that's like the ninja backside of all of this too, where even one to two things a week, if kind of people are very. First, if, if they haven't done it just that little minimum effective dose can be really helpful if kept consistent [00:42:00] to still nurture and let the ghosts that if they've been lost, he cannot break your, it cannot recover them from whatever the circumstances they can still digest it.

And then they can come back when they're ready, but they will remember you because you're top of mind through the content you're putting out.

Yeah. And if you want to go deeper on this topic, we covered it. You know, we didn't talk about any specific platforms. I don't think we just covered nurturing in detail in episode 183, the one before this. So this. Last week's episode. If all things come out on time, the way we expect them to maybe it hasn't come out yet.

Who knows? But and just to add one more thing to that uh, I think there's, there's, this is a whole other discussion, but I think a lot of people are averse to doing content because they think it's an all or nothing approach. They think that like, you have to put, like, I think we put out for Tik TOK videos.

For six figure creative right now. And people see that they're like, there's no way in hell I'm doing that. Like I'm not putting out for Tik TOK videos a day. That's stupid. And I would agree with you. It is stupid, but that doesn't mean you can't put out to. Because two a week is better than nothing. It may not grow you to, like, I think we're at 11 and 12,000 followers now.

And like, you know, relatively short amount of [00:43:00] time in less than six months. But it will get you somewhere and it'll keep you top of mind or some other content, Instagram, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's just something to keep you top of mind with the people that are in your world. And if you're not willing to put in enough to at least do bare minimum on that, then it's gonna be, it's gonna be, it's gonna be tough.

Soggy pancakes for you as

well. Put it for John. so I think we can wrap this episode up cause we're kind of off topic now, but John, thanks for first of all, posting that in our community. Thanks for coming on the podcast to dive into all of this stuff.

Again, work with people, go to connect or do whatever with our substitute. Co-host Mr. John McLucas.

I actually do have a, a pitcher and offer to make

Ooh, you didn't have one last time. Fun. Fun. Yes. Go. Yeah.

Okay. I would love to because. I don't even know if we've discussed this, but over the last 15 months, I've worked with eight people in their business with content marketing and building. Out there business through an attraction approach where we work to get people to come to, to them, instead of doing outreach, it's all [00:44:00] based upon creating things that are very specifically targeted.

Getting conversations, started turning those conversations, discovering how we can help them and doing very quick and dirty trials of offers on small scales. And then we find that magic and then we've been able to blow it up and have it go really, really well. I've literally never discussed. Publicly only ever I've

when somebody DMD me.

I feel like. For inbox, you send these people to is going to blow up. So, first of all, who is this for? And who is this? Not for? Cause that's

an important step.

they know that this is actually a very specific. Offer for people to also say off the bat, because one thing I find really important for myself is that I'm always implementing in the field. Like I I will only bring things to other businesses or to other creative freelancers that I feel very strongly about and have done myself.

So I keep this small because I, I will never just do that. I want to be running actively my business here and then say, Hey, these are the top 10% that I've done for the last 12. Refined down [00:45:00] distilled for you guys, go do this. And then B I'm always talking about what I'm doing that week or that month. The, it is very specifically for people who have a service business or a mentorship offer.

There's a lot of actually a handful of people I've done where they have an audience that wants access to them. And they've been doing like 60 to $80 an hour, just like one off lessons. And I sh I shamed them

I hit them on the head and I say, stop.

Yeah.

So really between those two, if you are a creative service provider or you have some business where you are working at like a medium rate and want to get much higher and attract the right people through content and build something that, again, this isn't like a two weeks, you're going to be huge, but the guys who have been doing this for the year now, it's, it's just on autopilot.

They just get people coming in and they have the conversations they get to talk to. And it's just a matter, almost always of like, how do we figure out the logistics of offering a couple of payment plan options, and then they get them on board and work. So it's about finding the right people and building something that will pay dividends.

10 years, not like [00:46:00] flash in the pan, do a crypto offer and then

Oh, God don't get me started on. that stuff,

So it's very specifically for that. It's a long-term commitment. So this isn't something where we sit down for an hour. This is 12 months in the depth in the weeds together. If that sounds like something you're interested in working to attract the perfect client who is ready and eager to invest with you and doing it through content and through building, like what I consider like the ultimate trust factor through content marketing.

Then you can go to, John mclucas.com/consulting, and you can fill out some information there. One thing I had to talk to my assistant about is this is probably gonna be maxed out of 10 people because that's probably what I can handle and like deeply serve. I could probably take on like more, but I'm more again, I think talking about go giving mentality.

It's about legacy. I don't want to be the guy who, who like said yes to everything and then serve people. Mediocrely. But yeah, if that sounds appealing to you, John clues.com/consulting let's have a conversation. I actually fun fact turned on the last two people.

And [00:47:00] if that happens, that's totally cool because I can't help a chiropractic business. Who's opening a brick and mortar store as dope as the guy with. I have no idea what to do there. So I sent him, I sent him a bound and I'm actually going to meet him for lunch in the next two months in Atlanta and was going to hang out with him and do that.

So that's my offer. If people are interested, you can go there and it'll be in the show notes or wherever. I'm sure that's put and excited to have a conversation with you. If it seems like that's where you want to take your business and you want to build something that'll last the test of time.