00:00:00 You are listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast and if you are an online coach or course creator, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. I’m an Ads agency owner that gets an inside look every day on what’s working and what doesn’t in the online coaching space. I’m here to share with you what we see works in our agency as well as what we see happening and changing in the industry. Stay tuned to up level your coaching business to have the freedom you want. Let’s get started.

00:00:31 Welcome to episode 183. In this episode, we are going to be talking about whether you have to be a “bro-marketer” to make it. So before I get into this, if you’re not familiar with the term “bro-marketer”, I’m going to go over the term. There’s lots of definitions, but I’m going to go over what we mean whenever we say that. I’m not talking about men in marketing.

00:00:54 So I want to make that clear that this is not like a man bashing episode or something. I’m talking about a specific term, a specific way of sales that we talk about a lot in marketing. And I’ve heard a lot of coaches in the space say that they don’t want to be inauthentic or sleazy. And I’ve even heard people say that they don’t like funnels or ads, which is kind of crazy because those things just amplify your business and your impact and all of these things, but it’s because they associate them with being salesy or sleazy. So I’ve heard people say that if you want to make money that you have to do it this way.

00:01:34 It’s not true, but I’m going to go over that in this episode. So the first thing is what is a “bro-marketer”? So there are lots of definitions and it’s not a formal term, so there’s no formal definition of it. But these are some words that I put together that describe what we mean whenever we say bro marketer. So it could be manipulative. I cannot say that word, I don’t know why. Inflammatory sales, sleazy, false urgency and scarcity. And these are words that I was kind of like googling around and looking at what other people like how other people described bro-marketing. And these were very common words from everything that I looked at. So just think like really hard sales.

00:02:21 So think of that really hardcore sales guy. I don’t mean to say guy, but it’s just the theme of it, right? So just think of someone who is very big into sales, into older traditional sales. So again, I’m not referring to men in marketing, so I just want to make that clear. So this is just a phrase used to describe a specific type of marketing that’s a little bit more traditional. And things have been moving towards more authentic for many, many years. And it’s just becoming, I think, more and more authentic as time is moving forward. It might not feel that way with social media, but trust me that people are craving that authenticity and it absolutely works. So all of the coaches that are our clients in the agency and none of them do this, we don’t work with people who do this kind of marketing. And I’m going to go more in detail of what that is.

00:03:20 So let’s talk about the things that specifically bro-marketers do that you want to avoid. So the first thing, and there’s by the way, there are many things, but I’m going to go over basically three things that go over that really cover everything as far as all of the little details that people don’t typically like that they do or this type of marketing does. So the first thing is that they create a story of lack. So they make people feel like they’re lacking something or that they are less than. So this is a tactic to and this is different from pointing out pain points, by the way.

00:04:01 This is a tactic to paint a picture that they don’t have what they need to be whole. And so it can make someone feel like the purpose of it, the intent behind it is to make someone feel like if they don’t purchase, they will be less than. And this is something that as you can imagine, probably works really well, which is why there are people that say there are people that believe you have to be like a bro marketer if you want to make lots of money. There’s like a cap of what you can make without doing these kinds of tactics. It’s absolutely not true.

00:04:37 Many people now are debunking this. So I feel like people are saying this less now. But I’ve been in marketing for quite a while, and there was a time where I kept hearing that you have to do these things. And people are still saying it for sure. Because I’ve even had clients come to me and say that their last agency said that this is the way these are the things that you have to do. And it just didn’t feel right for them. And some people follow suit because they think that that’s what you have to do, but you don’t. And that’s not what we do here. And so just creating that story of lack is a really common thing. The second thing is creating fake urgency.

00:05:17 So you can still have a cart closed date by the way, and be authentic about it. The difference is that you’re being authentic so they create an urgency that isn’t actually real. Just saying things like this offer will never be here again. It will never be this low of a price. I don’t know the next time I’ll be offering this things like that. And if those things are true, then you’re being authentic. But if they’re not true and you’re just saying it to create this urgency to that’s just not real, then that’s obviously not authentic. And that can be like a hard sales tactic. So that is the second thing is the fake urgency and the third thing that I’m going into is really it kind of explains why the fake urgency or the story of lack but mostly the urgency that I’m addressing is the third thing is that they attempt to manipulate the person reading the copy or whatever it is. So they want to make it where basically the user can’t make an informed decision.

00:06:29 So the intent behind the tactics is to make someone act out of fear, which would be that story of lack that they’re creating or act out of impulse. So the fake urgency and things like that. So it’s not necessarily the tactics, it’s the intent behind it. Because if you say that the price will never be this low again, if that is absolutely true, like it really is true, you’re being authentic. The intent of that whenever you’re saying that, whenever it’s true, is not to try and make them act out of impulse, it is to just let them know, right?

00:07:10 So it’s the same tactic but very different intent. So we don’t want to basically make it where the person doesn’t have the ability to make an informed decision, where they’re bypassing this decision making process that they would normally have with themselves and they’re just acting and purchasing. We don’t want to trick them into just acting and working with us, especially as a coach, because you have to work with this person and you want the people that are in your programs, especially these more intimate like group programs, certainly for one on one coaching and things like that. We want everyone in there to want to be in there. You don’t want people to be disappointed.

00:07:53 You don’t want to be dealing with a bunch of refunds or a poor reputation. All of these things are the result of trying to trick people into your programs, right? So we want people to have time to make an informed decision and decide that you are the right coach for them. So let me just address, can you make lots of money without being a bro-marketer? Yes, you can.

00:08:17 And you can still also make sales by letting people know that you’re going to launch this program again or that it’s not going away, or even that it’ll be okay if they don’t join you, that they’re still 100% worthy, they’re still whole. Maybe your program will it obviously has an outcome, but it’s not an attack on them or their character. There’s nothing wrong with them if they don’t join you. So that’s super important. And even also you can still make lots of money by letting people know that they can shop around and to really find the coach that resonates with them and driving that point home.

00:08:58 You can still do these things and be authentic and still make lots of money. If anything, some people have experienced the opposite, that the more that they say these things, the more authentic they are, the more trusting people are. I mean, that no, like, trust factor. Trust is one of those components of that triangle. And this is a way to build trust, is to be authentic and consistently show up authentically.

00:09:23 And so this also means that people are going to be certain of their decision to work with you. Even better for coaching because we’re not necessarily we’re not selling towels. Nothing wrong with selling towels, but it’s a little bit different. You have a more intimate relationship with the people that are investing with you. And so it really is even more important to make sure that it’s an authentic decision on their end as well.

00:09:53 You want less or no buyer’s remorse. We don’t want that in coaching. Right. So they’re more likely to be a better fit client if they’ve also made out a well thought out decision to work with you rather than being tricked. And even if you are selling like a more passive product or like a digital course or something more low ticket, we still don’t want those sales either because our reputation is super important. Right. We don’t want buyers remorse. We don’t want people to be disappointed when investing with us, even if it’s this low ticket item. So that’s just addressing. Can you make lots of money without doing those things?

00:10:35 Yes, absolutely. All of my clients make really good money, and none of them do these sales tactics that don’t feel authentic and that would fall under the umbrella of, like, being a bro-marketer. So if you don’t want to be a bro-marketer or use these kinds of tactics with this specific intent, I’m going to go over some things, that what you need to do, what we do in the agency, and just some guidelines to go over for you. And you can even go through your sales pages, go through your email copy, and just do like a nice sweep through everything to make sure that you aren’t using any of these tactics in a way that’s not inauthentic.

00:11:22 Because sometimes the lines are blurred, sometimes it’s a little bit subjective. And it’s really easy because it’s easy to fall into some of these things because it is traditionally what sales has been and what marketing has been. So a lot of the things that you might have been taught fall underneath some of these more tricky it’s kind of like in what area are you being tricky? In what area are you just doing? Are you just marketing?

00:11:49 Right. So I’m going to go over some of those guidelines. So the first one is to be honest. So this is very simple. So don’t pretend like you don’t know when you’re launching again. So if you know when you’re launching again, don’t say, I don’t know. Just be authentic. Right? So just be honest. So I just have a couple of examples like that. But it really is super simple. So don’t act like they will never have a chance to work with you again. Like this is the absolute last time, blah, blah, blah. Like whatever it is, be clear on their potential outcomes. So be careful not to inflate things because this is a common thing in marketing as well.

00:12:33 We don’t want to inflate all of these outcomes. Some of them. Like if you’re saying that their life is going to be changed and all of these things I’m not saying that those things aren’t true. Just make sure that just do a nice sweep. Make sure that all of the outcomes that you are promising in your marketing, they are actually pretty true for at least most of the people going through your programs. So be careful with that. Also, another thing too is when you’re sharing results, don’t share inflated results. Make sure they’re authentic. I don’t know if I need to say that, but maybe so I’m just going to put that there. Or at least if you do have a result, that it’s a legit result.

00:13:17 Make sure that you share the entire story. So that’s something that I do whenever I’m sharing something on Instagram. Sometimes I do share clients success, but I like to put in other things that you should know. Like this is not the first time we’ve launched this program or this client has this kind of team or whatever it is. I like to put in those notes so that people are they see the whole picture.

00:13:42 It’s not just like, oh, you just turn on an ad and then this is what happens. I don’t want to paint that picture. So I make sure to add in those notes. Make sure you tell the whole story. If you do have some results that are maybe not as typical or they require a little bit more than just simply signing up for your coaching program. So those are some things that just some examples of ways that you can be honest. Although, again, it’s super simple. Just be honest. Don’t say anything that’s not authentic because you think it’s going to give you more sales. People will still buy from you even if you’re being truthful.

00:14:18 The second thing that you can do also is to give people time to decide. So this can either be having longer launches or talking about an upcoming launch well before, so people have time to decide and sort of process and come to a legit decision on whether they want to work with you. So we don’t want to just be like, surprise, like I’m launching this program and you have three days to decide. We don’t want to do that because it might not depending on the price point of your program and what kind of decision this is for people. So there are a lot of variables there, but you just want to make sure that people are having plenty of time to be able to ask questions, to be able to come to a good decision for them and they’re well informed of everything that they need to know about it. That’s just going to help with all the things we talked about with the buyer’s remorse, not tricking people into working with you and things like that. Another thing too that you can do is to be clear on who your program is not for. So you want to make sure not to make sales from people that aren’t the best fit. Obviously, this might have some you might get more money in the short term.

00:15:34 And so if you don’t do this, you might lose some money if you are deterring people that are not for your program, but you’re going to have a stronger reputation and you can serve your signed clients even better. And so that, over time, will make you more money. So just make sure that you are clear on that too. It can also help people who are for your program to feel even more like they are for your program and paint that picture as well whenever you’re talking about who your program is not for. So hopefully that makes sense because I did a lot of, said a lot of not and for but hopefully that makes sense.

00:16:11 This is also I think a really common thing on sales pages to have who it’s not for. But you can also talk about this even more in your email sequences, in your content, on social media or whatever you’re using to nurture people and then talk about your program. You can talk about that as well. So that’s going to be something that’s going to help deter those people that are not for your program and not the best fit from actually investing with you. The last thing that I’ll go over is also to make sure that your messaging allows people to feel empowered and informed and not tricked.

00:16:50 There are phrases, I don’t have any specific in mind but they’re subjective so there’s no rulebook. But you can look up online different phrases to avoid in your marketing and these are also because they’re subjective and there’s no rulebook, they’re always kind of evolving and not everyone agrees on what these are. So just do what feels right and aligned for you. But you can, I have seen like list of things online that you can look at that you can take out of your messaging but again because that’s subjective, just really do what feels right and aligned for you. So these are the main ways that you can avoid falling into the bro-marketer tactics.

00:17:34 But overall the simplest takeaway and the main takeaway is to just be honest, is to just be honest, not try and trick people and just make sure that you are just being authentic. Like if everyone in your audience was your best friend and they have these characteristics or whatever, would you want your best friend to buy in that scenario from you? Just think of people as people because that’s what they are and it will all become a lot more clear as far as what to do. So that’s what I have for you today. We went over what a bro-marketer is.

00:18:12 Again, it’s not a guy in marketing, although it can be, but it’s not necessarily that. And I went over what to avoid if you don’t want to do tactics like this and address whether you can make lots of money, because you absolutely can and what you don’t want to do if you don’t want to be in this category of bro-marketing and you don’t want your marketing to fall into that category. So I hope that you found this helpful and you have a wonderful week. Thank you for listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact, see if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our agency at christinaburnhard.com/apply. Find the link in our show notes.