Copy that converts for practitioners who are Selling the Invisible®

INTRO: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Catherine Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be the Sought After Entrepreneur podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson. 

Kathryn Thompson: Hey. Hey, super smarted that you're tuning this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive in today's topic [00:01:00] because I wanna build off of last week's episode. And if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly suggest that you do.

I'm just gonna give you a quick Kohl's notes version of it so that you can understand where we're going with this episode. But basically, I shared with you. A client's story and she had come to me not wanting to build a traditional funnel because she doesn't sell a tangible outcome or a result or a step by step or how to or anything like that.

And I used what I do and what most messaging and marketing people do, business coaches, you name it. Who sell a skill acquiring experience versus somebody who is selling something like energy healing or a program or a course that's walking someone through how to navigate grief or, uh, an energy healer of any sort.

And the difference being is that when I'm teaching somebody how to. Do marketing. I'm teaching them how to acquire the skills, and so there is a step-by-step process or framework that they're following. [00:02:00] But when you're a Reiki healer or a energy healer or whatnot, you're not teaching people how to do reiki.

Some of you may be absolutely, absolutely. You may be. But for many of you, you're a practitioner that's selling an experience and they have to be sold differently. The problem is most marketing is designed to sell. That tangible outcome is designed to sell the, you know, the toss or the step-by-step specifically in the like course creator coaching space online right now.

One could argue that there's lots of a amazing marketers that specialize in, you know, that experiential marketing. And there is, you think of Disneyland, you think of theme parks, you think of events, those sorts of things. They're all designed around selling an experience rather than selling sort of this product or service.

So it's not that it's unheard of, it's just that we don't see a lot of it [00:03:00] in the online space. And I shared with you just a quick snippet of my own story and how. That is really what I did in the offline world was create experiences for people. And I often worked for organizations that were more of gathering places or wanted to share stories about the experience of what we were doing so that we could get more funding or my own brick and mortar business where I didn't really sell, quote unquote, the product.

I was more selling an experience and we even designed our store layout to sort of reflect that and. It's probably been one of my struggles coming into the online space because I really thrive in direct experience and I really thrive in designing experiences for people, which is why I gravitated towards supporting people who sell the invisible because it's so different than selling the tangible products that we see.

And to me. You need to know how to talk about that. And so I shared that story. Have a listen [00:04:00] to it. But what I want to share with you today in this quick episode, and I'm saying quick and like half laughing about it because I know that once I get going, I can really start to talk. But I want to share some practical ways that you can do this because that story is just a reflection of what was possible and what we sort of did.

But now I want to get to sort of like the nitty gritty ness of. What it looks like in your copy and in your language, and I wanna do this in a very, you know, bite-sized ways that you can go away and start to play with this. So, as I mentioned, a lot of marketing sells through describing what somebody does, right?

So for example, I will help you. Dish, the cookie cutter, one size fits all marketing approach and create an aligned strategy for you. That's describing what we do, right? Whereas if you're selling an experience, Reiki healing [00:05:00] any, anything that's, you know, a transformation, it isn't tangible. You are helping people understand.

How they're going to feel after the work is complete. For example, I don't ask my massage therapist what his technique is. I don't care what his technique is. I don't care what his, I mean, sure he has credentials and all the things, but I. I don't care what processes he uses, I don't care the names of the muscles he's working on.

I don't care any of that. I care how I feel when I leave and I care how I feel, not just right after I leave, but like how that makes me feel, you know, months later. Right. Well, the same is true for an energy healing. I'm not going to an energy healer to say. Can you tell me what your methodology is and then can you walk me through it?

And then can you describe to me how we do this? No. I only care about how I'm going to feel after the fact based on why I visited that particular [00:06:00] practitioner for that particular thing. Right. Can you see the difference? You're not. You're, you're moving from describing what you do and why you do it and how you do it to helping them feel what their life, their body, their relationships, are going to look like, sound like, and feel like once the work is complete, I.

And so there's a very different approach that you want to take. You're not wanting to describe the features, the benefits, the logic, which is what most of us are taught on how to do. Right? Which is what I just demonstrated with the marketing, right? I. I, I spoke to the pain point, quote unquote dish, the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing.

The thing that many people that come into my world don't like. Right? That's the logic. That's the, like I, I, the pain point that I want to bust, and then I say so that we can create an aligned marketing strategy for you, which is. The benefits, right? And then we get into, well, how do we actually do this?

What does this look [00:07:00] like? You know, in module one we'll do this, and module two we'll do this. And module three we'll do this. And I'm laughing because it's so true and it's so evident when I. Explain it in this way, right? It's features, benefits, logic, and then creating sort of that demand through that sequence.

When you are an energy healer or a practitioner or you're creating those experiences, those deep transformations, you're wanting to paint the experience rather than talk about the features. You want to show that future state, rather than talking about all the benefits in, in bullet point, and you want to create this felt sense.

Rather than talking about the logic, right? That felt sense of understanding, that felt sense of being seen and understood. That felt sense of, oh man, that's exactly what I'm looking for, but I'm feeling it in my body. And I want to give you examples of what I mean by this. When [00:08:00] I'm talking about let's, I'm just gonna use Reiki energy healing as the example.

You can apply this obviously to your business, but. If we were to sell the features, the benefits, and the logic, we would say things like a 60 minute reiki session with a certified practitioner, right? That's selling the features of what you're doing. If we're selling the benefits, we would say something like reduces stress and promotes relaxation.

And, and you can probably see this in your own language that you're using. Instead of when we're using logic, we're saying something like energy healing addresses, root causes, not just symptoms. And I see that a lot in marketing copy that comes across my plate, right? I'm gonna get to the root cause of this and not just treat the symptoms.

Yeah, that's really speaking to the, the logical brain. And I'm not saying that we don't always want to use logic, but it doesn't really create that sort of felt sense. And I'm gonna give you an example of what I [00:09:00] mean by painting the experiences, showing that future state and really creating that felt sense among your people.

So. You know, instead of the feature, as I mentioned, we talked about like the 60 minute reiki session with a certified practitioner, right? Or a six month experience with a leading, um, hypnotherapist. Right? You can see where the feature is, but I just wanna give you an idea. If I was to paint that experience in a way that was visual, that tapped in, sort of to the sensory.

Of people, right? Our senses. That moment when tension you've carried for months finally releases from your shoulders. I. Can you see the difference in that language? The 60 minute reiki sessions with a certified practitioner has like no emotional draw. It has no felt sense. It, it's like, it's just logic.

It's just a statement. There's nothing emotive there. But when you paint the picture that it's like there's this moment when your [00:10:00] tension finally releases from your shoulder or from your jaw or from your forehead or whatever it is, right? That is like the, like I even felt it in that moment, right? My shoulders instantly sort of dropped.

When I read that statement, and that's because it's visceral. That's because it's a motive, and that's because it speaks to the senses, right? We can, there's a sensory feeling in it because we've probably all experienced, maybe not all of us, but for many of us, we, we experienced that tension that we carry in our shoulders.

We experience that tension We c carry in our jaw. And when you know the. Human that you're speaking to, you can really connect on those points that that is going to hit them right in the heart. And not from a manipulative place, but from this place of. Wow, I, this person actually gets me. Yeah. Like I feel like my shoulders are in my ears, you know?

I constantly feel like I've got this tension headache that I just can't [00:11:00] get rid of. There's just such a difference. You've painted that experience and it doesn't take a lot of words. It's not that many more words than a 60 minute reiki session with a certified practitioner. Right. It's, it's just a few more words in a sentence, and I think that's one of the misconceptions that oftentimes will.

I do this depth work and I do this deep work, and it's not surface level, and so it's gonna be this really long-winded written thing and no one's gonna pay attention, yada, yada. I mean, that statement right there almost released tension from my shoulders just reading it. So. You can see the difference. Now I want to give you the example of, instead of using benefits, how to show that sort of future state or what they can expect from doing the work with you.

'cause that's what they want, right? That is what they want. They don't wanna learn your process. They want to know how is this gonna impact me as I go forward? So. The benefit that we often list is something like [00:12:00] reduces stress and promotes relaxation, right? Again, it's a very logical, very analytical statement that really carries no emotion Now.

You can frame this however you want. If this sounds cheesy to you or it doesn't sound realistic or whatever, put it in your own words. But the idea is that we wanna get a motive with it. Sunday evening anxiety becomes Sunday evening anticipation. You actually look forward to the week ahead, right? I mean, that's just one example of how it reduces stress and promotes relaxation.

Now, you could use an example like. I finally am able to read my book without constantly have to reread it because I am in the moment and present and I can finally enjoy my books or something like that, right? I mean, I'm just riffing there with another example, or for the first time in a long time, I was able to go to the park and play with my kids without my brain constantly racing.

I mean, that's just another example, right? When [00:13:00] we can. Show what that future state, the potential of it and the beauty of your work is, is that it, there is variety to it, and so one of the other big issues that I often hear is, well, I can't sell one big tangible thing and I can't sell one future state.

The point isn't that you're selling one future state, just one. Right? You get to paint. The experiences of what you do, you get to paint and show all of these future states that are possible and specific to the people that you ultimately wanna work with, and that just shows the depth of your work. Right.

So I want us to reframe that a little bit, that you're not being constricted to just picking one future state and one way to describe your experience. That's not the point of this. The point of this is to. Really be able to use your language in a way that sells your experience rather than. Selling the benefits, the features, and the logic that really create no emotional connection at all.[00:14:00] 

Right? And so when we talk about logic, right? So energy healing addresses root causes, not just symptoms. That's logic. Like, duh, okay, cool, great, awesome. But it doesn't create that felt sense. You know, that quiet surprise when you realize you haven't reached for your usual coping mechanisms. Your body simply doesn't need them anymore.

Like. Whoof, right? Because that's almost like a cue to the system. And sometimes transformation just happens and we don't even realize it's happening. And some people will probably say this to you, right? And you've probably experienced this many times where I. You worked so much on yourself that you don't realize how far you've come.

And then you say something like that and it creates this like, aha moment or this what I call this felt sense, like, woo. That's amazing. Right? So hopefully these examples have given you. Some insight into how to shift out of just talking about things in a very logical matter of fact, sort of direct kind of [00:15:00] way.

And also busted the belief that well, in order to create and paint those experiences, show that like future state that people want and really create that deep felt sense that I'm gonna have to use a bunch of words I just showed you that. That the sentences that I just shared with you are not drastically different in terms of the actual number of words being used.

And so that's really no excuse there. So just to give you a quick summary is instead of using features, we wanna paint those experiences instead of. Using the benefits or talking about the benefits in a very matter of fact way, we wanna show what that future state or states are that are available to the person.

For example, when I go to my massage therapist, I honestly can say that my I, the, the tension in my shoulders and in my back and in my front body, as I call it, right? Because I sit at a desk. A lot is that my shoulders roll full forward, so I've got this tightness across [00:16:00] the front of my chest all the time.

Well, this, my massage therapist allows me to open it up and of course there's other things I do yoga and you know, strength training and different things like that, and stretching and mobility and all those sorts of things. But my massage therapist just helps with that, right? And so it's like, oh, my chest finally feels open.

I finally feel like my, my shoulders aren't as as tight. I'm not cramping in my back area or whatever it may be. I have increased mobility in my shoulders. These are things that I share about the future state of it, right? Rather than it's reducing muscle ache. Right and promotes better, you know, interior module, shoulder rotation.

I don't even know if that's a thing, but you know what I mean. Right. It's very technical and when we can apply it to somebody's like lived experience, I often say, what does it look like, sound like, feel like, and I've shared this on other episodes of how to really put in that sensory language into what it is you're talking about.

Now [00:17:00] you might be asking. Okay, Kathryn, how do I go about doing this? And I wanna give you a very practical tool that I share with my clients. If you're in the selling the Invisible Space, I know you have experience in Somatic. I. Work and tuning into your body, and that's what I want you to do and practice, right?

So if your writing right now is really selling the features, the benefits, and the logic element of it, the very technical language, I want you to. Take out your words. For example, stress relief, right? So if you're selling, quote unquote stress relief, or increased confidence or increased clarity, I want you to take that word and I want you to ask yourself, where would somebody actually feel that in their body?

If they were to write it based on a sensation, where would they feel it, right? So for me, stress relief would be something [00:18:00] like that. Slow exhale when my jaw finally on clenches, or the feeling that my shoulders have finally dropped after, you know, being up near my ears or something like that. That to me is a description of stress relief or where I actually feel like my breath is that much more expensive.

I'm not doing that like shallow breathing. Right? But it is that slow exhale. You can feel it in your body when you say that like. Whew. Like stress relief is like a, a sigh of relief, right? In a lot of ways. So how does that actually feel for somebody in their body? If you're thinking about the word confidence, right?

Standing taller without thinking about it. Um, walking into rooms without feeling anxious or nervous. Posturally, what does that actually look like? What does that feel [00:19:00] like in their body? Right? These are things you want to ask yourself because then you can get really descriptive around these words.

Stress relief, confidence, clarity, the stillness behind your eyes when the mental chatter stops, like just think about that language and the texture of it, the stillness behind your eyes when the mental chatter stops. Like, that's wild because that's exactly what it is. When we are overwhelmed or we're not clear or whatever, right?

Or we're, we're running a mile a minute in our brain. And to me it's the stillness and you can sense it, you can feel it. It's like almost like your body's exhaling, right? It's almost like that combination of stress relief and clarity being combined. So that's what I would love to invite you to do. That's just one really simple tool and method that you can do.

And again, like anything when we're mastering copywriting or messaging or marketing or anything [00:20:00] like that. It. It takes mastery, right? It takes practice. And so this isn't about just getting it right straight outta the gate. It's about taking bite sizes, pieces of your content, and just asking those questions.

Am I painting an experience or am I just talking about what I do and why? Why I do it and how I do it? Am I actually painting that future state that's possible for people or am I just listing a bunch of. Benefits, like reduces stress and promotes relaxation. Am I creating a deep felt sense of what my work can do rather than just speaking to someone's logic like energy healing addresses, root causes, not symptoms, which is very logical rather than that.

Surprise or that aha moment or that realization when you no longer reach for the coping mechanisms or you're no longer reactive when somebody triggers you. You know, like it's those [00:21:00] moments of, of, oh wow, I've, I've really matured in that moment, or I've really grown in that moment. It's that realization.

Rather than, it's just deals with the root causes and the symptoms, which really means nothing, right? Yes, it's logical and it tells you what it does, but it a absolutely means nothing in someone's life because let's just say someone's wanting to be less reactive in their relationships, and they're wanting to be able to process in a non-reactive way, and also be able to respond in a healthy way.

Then that's the felt sense that they want. They could care less about root causes and symptoms. They care about the fact that they're no longer gonna snap at their kids because they are doing something that they're not supposed to do, or they're not gonna snap at their husband because he left something out again that he wasn't supposed to, or whatever it is.

Or the coworker or the sister-in-law or whatever it might be, that there is a response [00:22:00] that is. Healthy and not reactive. And that's, that is the felt sense that, that they want. Right. And, and that they desire. And so, um, hopefully this has given you some insight into the practicality of how you can do this.

And then also that body check method that I. Just shared with you around taking these words that we use, and this is really great for like labeling as well, right? I think sometimes we label things, you know, methodologies or names of things and they don't really mean anything to anybody unless there's context, unless there's that emotion that felt sense, that feeling, it taps into the.

The senses, it's visceral. There's some texture there. The other beautiful thing about this is, is that when we start to take these words like stress relief, confidence, clarity, life purpose, next level, and we start to unpack them and get more descriptive, we become that much more nuanced and that much [00:23:00] more specific.

In what it is that we're talking about, and it's that nuance and specificity that I harp about all the time that is so vital. It is so, so vital for really connecting with the hearts, the minds, and the souls of the people that you wanna work with. It really truly is, and for calling those people in because they feel seen, they feel understood, and they don't just feel like they're being sold to based on what you do, because that's all you're describing.

Where you're just describing what you do, why you do it, and why they should care in a lot of ways rather than. Really helping them feel what their life is gonna look like after working with you. What, what it's gonna look like, feel like, sound like. So with that, I hope this has been beneficial to help you go and sort of practice some of this stuff and to really give you an idea of what the difference is.

Based on those features, benefits, and logic, [00:24:00] compared to really being able to paint that experience, show that future state and really create that felt sense, that that is really gonna help you sell an experience and a deep transformation rather than one big tangible result. I. Like we all know and see, see out there.

So with that, I hope you have a Fab Day, and if you have any questions at all about this, please don't hesitate to shoot me a DM over at Creatively Owned. I love hearing from you and I hope to see you all soon. Cheers. 

INTRO: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com.

Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.