Episode 46 The DM Strategy: How to have productive conversations that take people in your audience From Follower to Client

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Six Figure Systems podcast. Today we are going to be talking all about touch points, which are ways that you can start creating relationships online, building that connection and moving somebody from a perspective just person who's viewing your content all the way to a purchased client. So let's start first off by talking about different ways for you to start thinking about posting and getting your messaging out there and ways for you to think about DMing other people. Then we're going to get into what different touch points are. There's going to be an explanation of soft, medium and hard touch points. And last but not least, I'm going to give you ideas and examples on how to get people moving. So for first and foremost, one of the things that I get that is something that I had a lot of trouble with was when I first started my coaching business, I realized that I was getting a lot of messages that felt kind of funky. And what I mean by that, these are the kind of messages that you might be getting. First and foremost you might be getting people who want to work with you and they are sending you things that are like, get 10,000 followers from like sign up here or you also might be getting, um, and it might feel uncomfortable for you to be getting those messages and also doing what you know you need to do to grow your business, which is talking to people. So I'm going to give you some mindset reframes that I want you to think about as uh, you go out and start talking to people. First and foremost you want to be thinking about when you're talking to people online, you want, want to think about it like talking to somebody in person. So for the main reason that you need to start talking to people online, the reason why it's so important is with the invention of AI, there is a lot of content that's going out there that is, could be from people, but it also could be from bots. So one of the things that I think is so important is just getting content out there to show that you are actually a person and being consistent with it. But you also want to think about when social media platforms were invented. And I'm talking LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, if it still exists, um, YouTube, all those platforms when they started, the goal of the people who run those programs is to keep people on the app. Ah, like that's their whole point is to keep people on the app for longer. So when you're thinking about their goal, in order for them to push your content out there, you want to be thinking about. What would uh, what would a person who is creating a social media platform, what would they be thinking to keep people on the app? Now I did an episode a couple of weeks ago all about like the engagement method and talking all about creating um, a way that you can engage with posts by doing like the 10-10-10 method, which is by commenting on 10 posts, commenting on 10 stories, and then commenting on um, 10 posts from a hashtag. So that is going to help you. But if we're thinking about the long term of your business and the way that the algorithm works, that means that you need to think about what's going to keep on people on even longer than just reading a post, seeing uh, if you have access to like short form video content like reels or, or something that's going to be longer than just seeing a comment that you're posting. What really keeps people engaged is a direct message or a D. Um, those things keep people on the app for longer because they have to think a little bit, they have to respond to you. And if you're thinking about somebody who is trying to keep people on the app for longer, that's for sure going to be the best method for you to get people to stay on their app longer. That will typically help your content get post pushed out even more. So that's the reason why you need to do it is social media now more than ever because of the invention of artificial intelligence, shows that you want to stand out in a different way than a robot. And having a real conversation as a real person, talking to another real person is the best way to do that. Now one of the things that I have found is that you might know that intellectually, but maybe you're like me. And when I first got on to social media, I saw those people that were sending me direct messages, they were like, get 10,000 followers. And I was like, um, don't really love that. That doesn't really feel aligned to me. So what I had to do is I had to figure out a way to have direct messages and conversations with people online in a way that felt really authentic to me. Now all, uh, one of the things that I have found is I teach my clients the engagement protocol, which teaches them how many people to reach out to, how many days a week they should do this, what they should be doing on each day and things like that. But I just want to give you an overview of a concept from the engagement protocol which talks about how to transition people from touch points. So what happens is when you're having a direct conversation with somebody and uh, you are creating a relationship with people in person, it's a lot easier. You, you feel like you know how to make small talk, you can bridge the gap to different conversations and it feels a lot easier. We're going to take those same principles of having a real conversation with a real person in person, and we're going to translate those to work online for you.

So here's just another thought that I want to give you before I get into the different kinds of ways that you can have different conversations with people and what the different touch points are. So I think, uh, that as online businesses, we forget the principles of running a business that would be a brick and mortar in person business. So I want you to imagine that your social media presence is like a virtual store, like a virtual brick and mortar store and you are the owner of the store and you are standing at uh, the cash register. And what has happened is you have done enough marketing that you have gotten people into the door. So you got people that might be following you, you've got people that might be, um, liking things that you're saying, they might be commenting. People are entering your store. And what we want to think about with the marketing side of things, the way I like to frame marketing, is that we're thinking about one to many. So maybe people saw your billboard, AKA your posts. That's like billboard marketing. It's getting your posts out to as many people as possible. That is you a one person speaking to many people. So it's one to many. That's the form of content that you're creating and that can be really, really helpful for you to just get information out there, get people in the door of your store. But once they have, huh, created that, they've taken the first step to join into your store. What you want to do is you want to create a relationship with them, find out what they need and how you can help them and then also get them to start working with you and potentially purchase something from you if it's a good fit. So what you want to do is if you think about again, going back to the metaphor of a physical storefront, I want you to imagine that somebody has walked into your physical store by connecting with you, by following you, subscribing to your email list, whatever it is. And I want you to imagine that you're just sitting there right behind the front desk and you're just smiling. You're like. But you don't say anything. It's kind of awkward. So what happens is then the person might be in your store and they see a shirt that they like or a post that you do that they might like, and they pick it up and they're like looking at the shirt and you're just sitting there. You're sitting behind the cash register where it feels safe and comfy, and you're like, just have that wall that. I don't want to engage with you. I don't want to feel, I don't want to. Whatever your thoughts might be, whether it's that I, uh, don't want to overwhelm them. I don't want to feel salesy, I don't want to feel pushy. But what's happening is you're creating a really awkward experience for the person that is in your storefront. Your purpose of social media is to get people to buy from you. It's a store. That's your job as a solopreneur. You're not an influencer. That means that you're just going on to get van metrics of likes and comments and followers. And you're also not just posting for friends and family. You might have started out that way. I would recommend that because that's how I got started with my social media is I had my friends and family that were liking that were my current audience, and I wasn't just going to throw them out. Maybe they could use life coaching at some point. Maybe they could use business coaching at some point. So I still have friends and family that follow me, but that didn't become the purpose of my social media anymore. My social media, the purpose of it became marketing. That was the purpose of it. It's to market through my business to get people to work with me. So when we think about that, that you're not an influencer, that's just out to get followers, likes and comments. You're not just posting for friends and family. Your purpose of social media is to market your company and build your business. What you want to do is you want to think about your business like an actual store business. So instead of just chilling and waiting for somebody to come and actually check out from you while you're just sitting awkwardly, you want to offer to help them. These are.

Now, this language is creepy, but getting into the next point of touch points, yes, I didn't know. I did not make up that word. But statistically, there was a data study that went out in 2024 that said on average people need to get 11 different touch points. They need to talk to you. On average, 11 times in order to buy this is statistically significantly higher than it has been any other year for business. So this is just really important that you know, going in wise open, eyes wide open, that you know that people need to be have that personal connection now more than ever as a service based business, you have to have that actual connection with humans. Okay? So this is again super important. And the way that you have the connection is through touch points. Now I promise I did not make up this language. It is something that is business lingo that you could feel free to take or leave. I think it's hilarious, but just go for it. But touch points, there is different scales of touch points. There is a soft touch, I kid you not, that's literally what it's called all the way up to a hard touch. Again, the language just hilarious. But those are the things that are going to happen is you need to get somebody from a soft touch to a hard touch. And we're going to go in the scale and you're going to be moving back and forth and building an authentic, genuine relationship with people. So the first thing that you want to do if somebody walks into your storefront is you want to say, hi, nice to meet you, uh, thanks for coming into my store. So that's the first thing that you want to do. Just say hello. That is called a soft touch point. So with a soft touch point, those are things that are just, um, just introducing yourself. And what I do is I have my clients send a video to all new followers. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll probably get a new follower video. Now I have my amazing va. Send them out for me because that would just be a lot. But, but you want to just be like, hey, I'm an actual person, I am real and I'm here to help you. Now what I see a lot of people misconstrue or have a misunderstanding about small touch or soft touch is that uh, this has to be conversations that are not related to your business at all in order to build up rapport. So again, this person, let's say you sell shirts, has come into your store to buy a shirt. That's their purpose, that's the whole reason they're there. So you don't want to take somebody who has uh, walked into your store and is going to talk to you about shirts and start talking to them about their dog and start talking unless it's related to the shirt. You're not just going to be like asking them random, random questions. You're going to ask Questions, Questions. As uh, a professional, as a business owner that is running a store that is going to be related to them buying something from you. So you could ask them what are they looking for? Like I get like going back to the store analogy, small touch, soft touch questions as uh, combined small talk and soft touch questions. Small talk or soft touch questions would be things like hey, thanks for coming in and you can keep it. There are two different kinds of questions that you can ask. I would recommend following up every single conversation that you have with a question because it uh, invites a response. Again, think about like if you were just talking with somebody in general and you're just having a conversation with somebody, if you didn't ask a question about them, you would seem slightly narcissistic and self absorbed. If you were just saying things and just trying to like prove your yourself. We don't want to do that. That's awkward, right? So what you want to do is you want to have a conversation that is focused on them and asks uh, a question. Okay. So for me you could keep it. And there are two different forms of questions that you can ask. There are open ended questions and there are closed ended questions. Open ended questions are harder for people right away. You know what I mean? They are harder for them to answer. It's something that is um, open ended would be like what are you in here for today? Like are you looking for anything? Like um, like that? It's like what are you looking for today? If you were thinking about the T shirt store analogy, they could uh. That's a harder question for them to answer. It might take them a while to think about it. Versus a closed ended question would be like is there an event you are looking to buy for today? Is there something? And then they have an answer that could be yes, no. It could speak to a specific event. But those are questions that are easier for people to answer right away. So for me as a business coach, I say hi, I'm Megan. Welcome to. Thank you for following me for Six Figure Systems.

What, um, who do you help with your business? Usually people who are following me are business owners or are looking to start a business and have a, an idea of the service that they're going to provide. It's a very quick question and answer. So that takes them into a soft touch, closed ended question and we are building a rapport from there. So then you want to continue the conversation with soft touch, closed ended uh, questions for the most part at the beginning of your relationship. Again, think about it like small talk. If you were hanging out, you would just ask them questions about themselves, get to know them a little bit more. But these questions wouldn't necessarily be random questions. Like, for me, I'll ask, like, how many years have you been in business? I would ask them, um, are you part time or full time? These are all giving me a better example and helping me understand how I can help them best. Now, this doesn't mean that the people I'm having conversations with are going to buy immediately. I'm taking my time and building up, uh, a rapport and building a relationship. Now what I see a lot of people feeling scared about is feeling scared that, like, people are going to think that they're just trying to get them to buy something, but that's the whole purpose. You do eventually want them to either work with you, or they're just like a good friend that you just want to keep up a regular relationship. But the purpose of your social media is to get people to buy your product, get you buy your service, right? So what I see a lot of people do is they just kind of like, dance around the bush and they're like, so tell me about yourself. Like, what kind of trips do you have planned this year without actually tying it back to their purpose? I am asking, like, if I ask about, like, trips, I have direct things that can help them to make trips easier that I've created resources for that I could send them. But for you guys, what I see happen a lot of the time is it just becomes like this, like, an amorphous conversation that doesn't really go anywhere. And they're like, I don't really know. I'm having this conversation with you. And you're like, I don't really know I'm having this conversation with you. Why haven't you booked a consult? And it feels weird. You got to get them, um, from the soft touch to a harder touch. Now, coming back to the example of the person that is just messaging you is like 1,5000 followers. Like, send me a message and I'll give you 5,000 followers for free. Blah, blah, blah. I see that a lot of people avoid having conversations in the DMS and building these real relationships because that's happened for you before, that you've seen that happen. You might have experienced it on your own. And it feels funky, right? It feels like, um, don't know if I love this. That's because there isn't consent. There isn't, like, an actual rapport. There isn't an actual conversation there. And what. And I firmly Believe in consensual conversations. I think it's extremely important. But the other thing is, is they go straight for the hard touch. Get you to buy something, do something right away. Now there are many people that talk about like making just as many offers as you can possible to people. First and foremost, if you are using different forms of social media, there's a limit to how many conversations you can have every day. So for me, I didn't know this, uh, back in 2023, um, I just thought that like I could just message everyone that I was talking to. So I sent in one day, I kid you not, I said 120dms to people who had been to all of my past webinars. And I said, hey, doing a webinar, let me know if you want to come now. Especially because of bots. What happened is Instagram flagged me and my account got reported for an entire month and it went down. You don't want to do that. So I would look up what specific. And I did a whole uh, podcast on webinar or on social media platforms last week. But you want to look up uh, which platform has, in the number of responses. Currently I'm recording this on February 2nd or February 4th. But as I'm recording this, you can do 50 dms on Facebook or Instagram and you can do I think 100 dms a day on LinkedIn. So you got to be really careful about which platform. If you're using a different form of social media, check it out, make sure you know. But you can't just send messages to everyone all the time anyways because again I bought those things, you will get flagged. So just be careful with it. But the other thing is that when people are saying just go and make as many offers as possible to as many people as possible. That typically works if you are selling a, uh, typically a product. And that could also work if you're selling something that is what's called a low ticket offer or something that is not expensive. So this could be um, like a, like a cup that you're selling. That could work for people who are buying cups, but for more. So it's like the lower ticket offers, people will be like, yeah, yeah, like what's $10? Like even under a hundred dollars? I would consider a low ticket offer. So that's kind of like the way that you can think about like that kind of person. People who are just like, oh yeah, sure, and use. Play the odds, play the numbers. That works for low ticket or product based sales. But Currently, if you're listening to this podcast, you are selling a service that is typically high ticket, that is hundreds if not thousands of dollars. So what you need to do is you can't just go with the same approach and this is a part of managing leads. You can't just, just blow up every single person that you have in the world and just see if they'll buy. You need to have a better strategy that creates more of a relationship. That's why we're talking soft to hard touch points. So uh, if you, what I would recommend is you start with the soft touch closed ended questions. And so what you want to do is you want to just be getting to know people, getting to know a little bit more about them. And for me, one of the things that I like to do is then I like to make posts that are resources. I also now have the podcast as a resource. So I have all these things that are resources that as, um, I'm having conversations with people, I can start sending them things to support them.

So I want you to go back to the T shirt store analogy and I want you to imagine that your job, you were at, uh, the T shirt store and you encounter a person and they're like, okay, I want to buy from you. They are probably gathering. They, you're like, hey, I can pull out a couple of shirts that I think would be a good fit for you for this event. So you start talking to them, you get an idea of like what they're looking for, the color that they're looking for, and then you start giving them stuff that you think could help them. So it's like, this shirt might be a good fit for you. Have you thought about wearing something like this? And you start giving them help, right? So then what you want to do is, is you want to move the conversation along. These are what I call medium touch points. I don't know if this is actually a term or just something I've made up, but I needed something that's not a soft, not a hard touch point. So it became a medium touch point. So for the medium touch points, what I found is this is where I start to ask them more questions and start sending them value. So for me, my posts would be valuable. And I'm like, if, hey, are um, you thinking about raising your prices this year? And I'll find out things like, okay, it's like, do you know what your financial goal is this year? What is the price of your offer currently? Okay, now I know if you're selling a $2,000 offer and you want to bring in 100k this year, that means you're going to need to bring in 50 people. That's a good, fair plan. But unless you want to keep coaching 25 hours a week, I would recommend raising your prices. Have you thought about raising your prices yet? If so, I have a worksheet that tells you, um, a post that has three question that can help you raise your prices. Have you thought about creating? Um, another post that I did was like, I would look at their social media and be like, hey, I think this is really great. I actually did a post all about making your social media function a little bit more like a website. Let me send it your way. And this could help you. So then you start sending them a ton of stuff that's actually relevant to them and solves problems for them. Um, that's the way I like to think about posts anyways. At least my warm post of the week is all about providing value. It's about giving a mini transformation. Tips, tricks, things that could help them. And so then I start sending it to them. Instead of just waiting for the algorithm or your current audience to look at stuff, I'm like, sending it to the people that are in my audience. I'm like, check this out, listen to this. Do this. I've, uh, got this. I thought of you. Let me send this your way. And so what you're doing is you're giving them all this value and they're like, wow, this is so helpful. I feel like I'm really like getting what last minute? I'm getting what I needed before I even work with Megan. She is great. So not only they're going to start consuming your content more, but they'll start to ask you better questions. And when people say like, uh, what do I say in the dms? Like, sometimes I do give people like direct coaching. I'm like, I would change your offer. I don't love this. Have you thought about this? Like, I will give people actual feedback and DMS and things like that.

And then from there I want you to go back to the T shirt analogy. And I want you to imagine that there are people who are standing with all this stuff and their hands and they're like, okay, hm. I'm ready to go to the next step. I want to actually think about, like buying these things. You offer them a chance to go into the fitting room. Okay. And so for you, then this becomes the harder touch. And this is where you offer them to book a consult. Now the mistake that I see Is that I, and this is something I did for the first, like four years of my business is I would be like, hey, would you like to book a consult? Here's the link. And then I would have no other way to follow up with them. I would just be like, here's the fitting room. But I wouldn't be like, tell them the next steps. So I'd be like, there's no pressure to book a consult. But on the consult, here's what we would do. This is up to you. Otherwise I'll continue to send you, like other things that might help your business as well. So you offer the consultation and then you give. And, uh, give an out. You give an out for people. So if they're like, I'm not ready to try on things yet, I'm not ready to do a consult just yet, then you still tell them that you're still going to keep sending them stuff, you're still going to give them value. All those things are going to be included, but it's not necessarily right away. So you're going to be like, hey, I'm going to give you this helpful thing that you can use. And then, uh. Or it's like, I'm going to give you a bunch of help in the medium touch points and like, we can move together to work together. Another option that you could do is like, kind of like a bridge between the medium and hard touch point is offer the chance for, if you're doing an event, like a masterclass webinar, something online or in person, you can offer to that person and be like, hey, do you want to come to this thing? So currently, when you think about the medium touch points and the examples I gave that, that is low. Um, that doesn't really require a lot of them. It's just like sending them things that they could read. Low time, low to no time and no money are involved. It's free. I recommend that. And then the consult is asking them for an hour of their time, one on one. Now you're obviously going to probably give them something when they do the consult. You'll have a conversation with them. I work with my clients to do the consult conversion blueprint. You'll have your own way of doing your consults. But with you, when you think about managing leads, you want to be able to offer them something and also give them an out. So it's like, hey, would you like to do this? This webinar. Here's a link to sign up. And then after the webinar you want to continue the conversation. And you want to be like, hey, book a consult. So that's like a bridge you can do from medium to hard is ask them to do a, a webinar, which is like a one to many, something bigger, and then you can do a consult. Do you need to do webinars to hit six figures? No, I have many clients that have not done webinars and they've still hit six figures, but it's still something that's really helpful. And then last but not least, you go for the hard touch. Now this is something that is so important for you to consider and consider doing. I'm going to give you an example of, uh, why this is so freaking important. I was in a mastermind and I was working with a coach and I really liked the coach, but I wasn't going to continue. I had already had that planned. It was in my mind. I was like, yep, nope, I'm done. I feel complete. And that coach reached out to me on the last day of enrollment and was like, hey, I think you would be a good fit for this. And this is stuff that you can also do on the hard touch. You could be like, here's how I think I could help you. Do you want to join this next round? For you, it could be like, do you still want, do you want to do a consult? And for me, the value that I got from that coach seeing me and being like, I have a plan for you that's going to make 20, 25 better. I literally was like, wow. And I paid $40,000. 40 grand for one conversation. One, one on one touch point with a coach. 40 grand. Okay, now obviously for you, it's not going to be 40 grand, but, uh, it could be. I mean, but for you, within your business, that's the value of giving these conversations. That is the important piece of it. The more touch points you have, the more trust you build beforehand. And it gets people, uh, in situations where they want to buy from you. So that was the whole podcast. We talked about the mindset to have when you're doing outreach and talking to people. We talked about the difference between, uh, soft too hard touch points. And then we finished up with examples and how to move people along so that you're not just chilling in your dm, um, not building actual sales, uh, and conversations. You are actually getting people that are good, valid, awesome people, and actually also talking about the things that you want to talk about in your DMs to get people going. Now that is our podcast for this week. If you have any questions, please let me know. I'm going to include a worksheet, as always, with this podcast to help you get these touch points going along, and I cannot wait to see you on the podcast next week.