 So, we are here to hopefully learn something new or to gain clarity on the things that you already are doing but haven't been aware of. And the purpose for today's workshop goes two ways. For me, to help you learn how to craft better selling messages, elevator pitch, whatever it is that you're doing. And for you to learn and implement it towards your job so you can better present and sell yourselves, your businesses and the offer that you have. Because whether we like it or not, we all sell. Whatever we do in our private or professional life, we sell. I really struggle with it for a long period of time because I don't think of me as a salesman or salesperson. But in order for me to be here today, I needed to sell the idea. And it was good. And we are all here today. In order for you to be the best version of yourself, you need to sell yourself to your employees, to your colleagues, to your family members, whatever it is you want to share. You do it in the form of selling. And sometimes it's good, sometimes not so good. And hopefully by the end of this workshop, we'll gain more clarity and focus on what it needs to be done to succeed in that. But who am I to really talk about it? Yes, I've been in the business of digital marketing for a little over 14 years. I started as a hobby, then years of freelancing, outsourcing services, and from 2015 I have my own digital marketing agency where I consult in regards to story selling, content marketing, copywriting, social media strategy, you name it. But is this introduction relevant for you enough? I could do one even better by saying I'm a consultant who works in digital marketing environment, helping brands and people present themselves better so they can sell themselves or their offers. And this is something that I created by doing this exercise that you will be doing today that is called So What. So here goes a brief introduction before you start doing the work. I will help you along the way. That's why I asked you to come closer so I can step out and try to help you the best possible way. So let's say you are a developer, business owner, or your content creator. And the idea you have is to present things that are important to you that you care a lot about to the people that you are trying to sell it in hopes that they will care enough. Well, wrong. People don't care. Not about you, your services, your offers. They only care about themselves. So whenever you are thinking about presenting yourself to your future employer or pitching that new development idea or thinking about selling your offer, you need to step into your client's shoes, your ideal customer shoes, and to think why is it important for them to talk about whatever it is that you are trying to offer or to sell. This is something that goes along to the story features versus benefits as well. And this exercise, So What, will help you clarify those key benefits in regards to your target audience. So what exercise is really, really simple one, and it is one of the most used copywriting exercise and formula, so to speak. It tells you to ask this question as many times needed in order to get more focus and clarity in your mission statement, selling the statement, whatever it is. So let's say, OK, I said I told you I'm a digital consultant. So what? Who cares? I mean, we all do it one way or another. You always need to put yourself in your customer shoes to come up with the ideas, why would that matter to them? Or you are having some new software putting in place. Why should people care? We have so many sponsors out there, and I took my time to see their promotional packages, and it really sparked some interesting conversation. I will share that at the end. But once you finish this exercise, I can guarantee you, you will see it all over the place in all communication materials, marketing materials you came across, and you will find the difference between people who use it and the people who don't. And mostly people who don't use it lack clarity, focus, and that clear conversion. And this is something that I want to help you change today. So the purpose of the SOVA exercise is for you to undo all that clutter that you have in your messaging to really be not just visibly the best version of yourself, but outspokenly the best version of yourself. We're talking about you or your product, your offer, whatever it is that you are trying to sell. And in order to help you furthermore, because again, some of you might use this exercise and didn't know that you are using it. I want to tell you two more examples. So let's say we have a new software to improve efficiency of our data workers. So what? Like, who cares? I, as a future customer of this software, I don't see any relevance for me or value. Why is this important? Okay, our best team worked on it for several months. Again, who cares? Like, it doesn't matter. I don't care who, no. I do care who made Yoast because I'm their true fan, but for somebody who's not familiar with them, who cares who are the people behind some tool? Okay. So what? Well, it's the most advanced technology and no one still has it. So many companies use this kind of information when trying to tell about their product and services is still totally irrelevant. Nobody cares. I don't care. So what? Introduces data research by 50%. Okay. Now we are getting somewhere. By doing this exercise, either for the external target audience or internally for your team, it really declutters and forces you to focus on what's important. So you can have clear messaging and understanding. So just by doing this, you can further play it around and say, hmm, tired of doing overwhelming tasks? Do you want to take the time to get the data 50% quicker and have the rest of the time doing something else? Come join us and try test out our new software. Try out version seven days a week and so on. So you can really play around and get that message that really resonates with your target audience by doing exercise like this or the other one. We need to publish 30% more blog posts. Something that I as content editor hear all the time from my clients and I say, okay, so what? And most of the times my clients don't know why they want this. They see their competition is doing this and they say, okay, if they're doing it, I need to do it. But okay, that's for some other talk. Okay, so that we can increase organic traffic. Okay, but again, why does it matter? So what? By doing that, we can generate more leads. So if you are in the position to be a content editor and working with your employees on conducting more content, you can explain them by doing this. You will get more opportunities for any future leads that come from your site. All from this like simple plain exercise, so what? But then I came late yesterday, so I didn't catch the justice talk, but I heard it's about sustainability. This exercise can be connected with sustainability as well and decluttering because you will have clear statements. You will know what you are talking about. You won't be using all those fluffy words and you won't be bothering your websites with overwhelming, unused, unvaluable information. On the other hand, I use Yoast as an example as well. And this is the time that I need to say they are not paying me. I am self-proclaimed living, breathing number one fan of their tool, which is more than a tool. It's a partner for me as a content marketer. People say they are like all sorts of SEO tools out there. And I say, yeah, okay, but SEO Yoast is not a tool, not for me. And this is someone speaking from the user experience. For me, everyone can come up with the SEO tool. But the difference and the thing that they do well, they help me not only in the on-site SEO part, but as well help me keep my message clear, concise, and on-point with the propositions and rules that Google implements and asks from us as content creators. So they are not just an SEO tool, okay, we are SEO tools, so what? We not only help you conduct SEO, but we also help you learn why you need to do something in that manner. So they are not just an SEO tool, they're knowledge-based tool for all people who use internet and blogs and websites to communicate with other people. And if you come across their site and their blog, you can see they really, I don't know if they use that exercise or not, but it's shown, it's visible throughout their content. So this was the brief introduction to the exercise. And now I will ask you to pull out your computers or pens, notes, whatever you have. And to think about either yourself or some idea, some business proposal, and to perform for yourself that exercise, so what? And if you get stuck, I'm here to come to you to do quick briefing. And then I will ask you the bravest ones to share their assignment with us. And again, if you have any questions, I'm here. Just think of the ideal customer or person you are talking to while doing this exercise, what it is that is relevant to your target audience in regards to what you're trying to sell. Not so hard. Ish, I already see one person who I will ask to share their assignment. That's the trouble when you know the speaker. They always come to known person. Yes? Would it be a nice idea to practice it with someone sitting next to you who you don't know? Okay, yeah, that's- To do the so-what exercise alive. Okay, who would like to volunteer? Like Jennifer Lawrence. I volunteer, I volunteer. Who will be my Jennifer Lawrence? Come out or I will pick someone right now. And you don't want that. She is volunteer here. Yay, thank you. You're welcome. Nice to meet you. Monique, nice to meet you. So what is your idea? What I sell, I mean? Yeah, what would you like to me? Well, what I usually say to people is- Sorry. Oh, that's nice. Thank you. What I usually say to people, if I want them as my client, I tell them I can help you keep your website up to date. I can help you make your website so that you can provide good content because I know that you know what you can win. And I can make the structure to help you do that. And I can also help you check it. And it should take you about one hour a week after I'm done. Okay, so, and you do what? I sell websites with small business owners. Okay, so you are approaching. And your target audience is who? Any small business or do you have a particular niche or industry- No, no, no, no, I go to a lot of- Yeah, but there's a saying that says, if you sell to everyone, you sell to no one. So, and this is not my saying- The only niche that I'm getting into in some kind of ways, I do get a lot of coaches that want to work. Okay. Do you want to add a little content? Niche and they are growing bigger by the day. Yeah, true. You can really- Somehow I always attract those and builders. Okay, yeah. The last talk to me. So, those are the kind of niches that I'm getting forced into right now. Yeah, and that's great. Side point, niching down whatever someone talks that is not important and it's a fluff world, the world it's not because it helps you declutter and focus on what's important and what brings you the most revenue and conversion. So, by knowing this, like you can focus your business towards people that are high in conversion. So, let's say you are selling, so you are providing websites for, and how would you approach them? Like, still for me, once you told your story, it wasn't clear. I was debating whether you are a hosting company or somebody who, so- I do both. Oh, so I asked as well. Okay, so full service. Yeah, okay, so- That's it. It is full service and when they provide content, I usually read over it so that if they're, I don't know, if they bake pancakes, they won't go into, they won't be found for the pens itself. So that's kind of what I do. Oh, of course. I have them along, they don't have a Google My Business yet. I tell them, well, get a Google My Business, get your reviews on there. So I can put your reviews in the website, so that's usually the organic way that it goes. So you say, we are a full service company for building your websites and online presence. And they could, someone could say, okay, so what? And then you can say, so that you can have ease knowing somebody's taking care of your online presence and you have spare time to do what you do best. Leave your things to us. Like security of knowing we position you well with the website presence and you do the rest. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's a shorter, more focused version of the thing you told me. Would you agree? Absolutely. Yeah, so does anyone else want to chime in to try to do this live exercise? No, why are you so scared? I'm not biting, like it's totally, it's like sitting in the living room. Walk up to someone and say, what do you do? Yeah, yes, do that. And while you're doing that, just. What do you do? Okay, I know your e-mail is probably. You? I did something, no, I didn't. Tech, tech? Oh, okay. E-mail? Thank you. Yeah, you can talk, whatever is more comfortable to you. Okay, come on. A round of applause for this brave man. My name is Ivana. My name is Berkei. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. What do you do? What is your idea? What do you want to sell? I got a little company. I'm a software developer and I have a little company of mine, yeah, developing software and yeah, myself, I work in nine to five at a company. And yeah, what I'm doing is mostly I look at problems I face myself and then yeah, I look at opportunities, what I can do better to solve those problems of mine. So I'm a product, we're just still in development and what I do with it is I'm lacto intolerant. Okay. So if I go to a restaurant, I have difficulty finding things that I can eat, like for instance, for instance, I go to Onnem and I look at a place where I want to eat. I normally don't know where to go. So, for example, McDonald's. I don't know what to eat there, what I can eat. I need to ask someone or look up an allergy board with all those things. And it could be a reason for me to not go to a place because I just can't eat there. So what my product does is it gives the user, you have the option to look it up easily. Yeah, so your product has basically two different kind of ideal customers, ones end users, people like yourself and the other ones are such restaurants because they will benefit from it and talking about the theme of this conference, inclusivity, so they will become more inclusive by using your tool. But if you come to them and say, okay, I have a little software that no little, like expel that little, you are brave, you are confident enough and it's all about presenting yourselves, no diminishing yourselves even if you are one main team. So I have a software company that comes with solution to a problem, two generic, so what? I provide resolutions for problems that I face, okay, so what? Then you can reframe it. Do you want to have an easy meal? Knowing you want to end up in the hospital or with the sore throat and stomach ache, then use our app that will show you around where to eat lactose tolerant food, something like that. And by framing it that way, the people who are your target audience will immediately see the value for themselves and ultimately you will be able to sell them that product better but also to offer it to all those restaurants and hotels and to everyone who has a team of people feeding them, this is something that can be very beneficial. So some free advice for you. Yeah, thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Yeah, so like we are improvising. I don't know him, I don't know, like this is something from top of my head and but I like those kinds of things. This is something I do on all of my coaching sessions and education that I do. So are there any more people interested to share their tasks or to come up and to do a live performance as well? You see, it's not that hard. And I'm all up to it. I slept only for three hours and I'm totally like, yeah, this is waking me up. Yes, yes, thank you. A round of applause. Even I see me too. I see me too. I'm Sophen, I'm a local and I'm working for a company that produces websites as well. While we do programming in plugins for WordPress, of course, and Elementor. Okay. So we produce plugins that help to improve the workflow when working with WordPress or Elementor. Okay, you lost me. I have no idea what that means. I mean, I totally, what do you mean by workflow? It's too generic and too broad. So people might get confused. I'd like to give an example. One tool that works with Elementor. Elementor is a page builder. Yeah, I know that. You know that. And you open a website in Elementor, a page where you work in it and you say, I'm finished. Well, I could need this. And with our tool, you make a copy of it. It loads directly into Elementor. You don't have to leave it before you leave Elementor. Go to the pages. This is the page. I'm going to open it. And this improves the workflow. Okay. And the learning curve for knowing Elementor and how things work. Would you say it's easy? I would say it's easy, yes. For someone who is not coming from the development background. It's a shortcut. It's one click and it's finished. Yeah. So that's very easy. So your target audience is who? Do you have a specific industry you're selling to? Developer for websites that work with Elementor. That's our target group. And what would be the main difference from, let's say, Gutenberg, who is also block-based? I do know something. Yes, of course. It's true. The target group is users for Elementor. You can't use a bit of Gutenberg. There are other tools that work with Gutenberg. But with Elementor, you leave the usual back dashboard from WordPress. So you're in a completely different area. So we like to help to work there. Within the dashboard and the... Exactly. When you work with Gutenberg, you're in Gutenberg. You work there, but our tool can't work there. So it's target Elementor. Very specifically, yeah. And the reason why I'm asking you this is so that we can get more clear message in... The differentiation is the exact thing that will help you be more clear with targeting people you are trying to. That's why I asked so many questions. And this is something that you should practice in your day-to-day businesses. Always ask questions. The more you ask, the more you will know. And you will be able to differentiate that. And in regards to your... Okay, so we are a software development company who provides you quick, easy website solutions. Okay, so what? Everyone does it. Yes, but with our Elementor One Click solution, it can be as easy as one, two, three, and you're done. So let's say if you know how to use word processor, you'll know how to use Elementor and you're done. And you get along, go away with your day. So something along this, it's easy. It's quick to learn, it's fast. And it's something different. And still, it saves you a lot of time and energy so you can transfer that to doing something else. Does that sound okay? That sounds very good. Thanks very much. You're welcome, thank you. So... Also, as we are approaching to the end, I wanted to share while you're still doing these tasks, a few more questions that can be beneficial while performing these or similar tasks. Always ask, whom do you sell to? Who is your ideal client? Because the more you know about the person and the people that are aimed for your offer, then you will know their struggles, their issues, their disbelief maybe. And you can tackle all that in defining the more clear message if you can provide the answer for all of their worries. What value do you provide? Again, this is something that should speak to your target audience, why does it matter? And you won't know the answer to that question. If you don't know who your ideal customer is and if you don't know who that is, you won't know their struggles and issues and you will get yourself in the circle not knowing what to do, let us write up whatever just to put it out. And why you? What it is that sets you apart from your competition? What it is that you offer better in the latest example when I asked what's the differentiation between you and Gutenberg? So you need to always ask yourselves or your team members questions in order to get more and more information. Like the first example, data mining, the more information you have, the more options and versions of useful answer you can provide. So these are the sub-questions, additional questions you can ask apart from so what to get that clear, concise and a message that resonates with your target audience. Now, so-and-so, is there anyone else willing to maybe share their task with us if finished? I'm looking all over the room. Maybe you. Yeah, I sense. I know you're a bit nervous. Question. Oh, okay. You can then ask me. Now this is, let me see how much time do, okay. So this is something I wanted to share at the end, but thank you for anyone who's interested and this is me coming at myself now because I want you to talk freely, but until the end of the day, everyone who is willing can share their tasks with me, look me up on Twitter, send me a DM and I will work with you on briefing and getting clarity on that task and that message. So you have by the end of the day, this is my nickname on Twitter, so you can like, I'm totally open, just ping me and I will help you all the way. Other than that, who is ready to share their task or their idea with me on the stage? We have a little more time, why not? One more, just one more. Let us see who is, or I can maybe, yes, you, yeah. Thank you. Boys are very brave. I don't know who tells they are not, but they are. Ivana, nice to meet you. Ujwal, nice to meet you. Ujwal, okay. So. Mike. Yeah. So what we do as an agency, I'm part of CMS Mines. Okay. And we help agencies globally with their development needs. So it's a vital partnership. Okay. We are flexible in working with them. As some of the agencies need us to do the design, some will ask for plugin assistance, for some we will do the whole development. So it's flexible with each agency, but I target all agencies, agencies globally, whom we can partner and support with them. Okay. So you are like an outsource for them when it comes to website development and plugins and all that relevant things? For the support that they need. For the support that, yeah, okay. Again, it's a bit generic. You need, the more specific you get with your messaging, the easier it will be to convert people. So that's why I'm like, it feels like I'm attacking, but I'm not. I'm just trying to clarify my thoughts and my propositions and advice. So you can say, okay, and there are a lot of agency, companies that do similar things as you. So white label, it sounds like an overused word nowadays. So you could reframe it and let's see. Again, I'm totally doing it out of my head. Let's say, this is an interesting task. Challenge, yeah, challenge accepted. So you can say that you are a secure partner and do you have a specific industry of agency that you target or is it broad? So it's marketing and web design agencies. Okay. So you say we are same as development company, we do white listing, okay, so what? We are your go-to design, production, development, production, development, department you lack in order to be a full digital marketing development agency. So you are bridging the gap they have by having you on board as their partner because you are not providing just white label, you are providing what they lack in order for them to be more presentable to their clients. So you are there on the go partner and the right hand. So something like in the areas of that. So you really, you are not bragging about yourself, you are not talking in the sense of something that isn't there, but you are just reframing it in a way that speaks directly to those agency and to see with more clarity why they need you. And if you say it like that, again you are differentiate yourself from your competition because everyone is using now we are white listing, white paper, whatever, yeah. But white label, yes, thank you. English is not my native tongue. So by using phrases differently, you can also spike up in regards to your competition. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. So I can say, I can help you and your agency bridge the gap to be a full stop development solution. Yes, you see, you see. And now they don't need to ask again, so what? Because they know what you provide for them. And you took yourself out of the equation. If there's any, one thing I want you to take out from this is that you really remember it's not about you. It's about the people you're talking to and you're trying to sell to. And this is excellent. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. So yeah, we came close to a final five minutes. And with that, I want to thank you and to say, to look me up on Twitter, Instagram or TikTok, yes, I'm present there as well. It's a very powerful tool to use, whatever business you are on, no matter what some people say, but TikTok is really, really powerful in getting the message spread exponentially faster than any other social media tool out there. So we came close. Does any one of you are willing to share their assignment with us if you finished? Yeah, Val, thank you. You want me to read it? Yes. If that's okay. And she's also not my native, so I'll read it. Okay, so I wrote this WCNL exercise, which is the taco. And I said, I help my customers to have a relevant social media presence that offers engaged audience, creates leads, and builds a motivated team, internally, but also ambassadors for the brand. And you came up with that statement. Or in your speech. Yes, but how did you start? Let us go backwards. What did you do? My possible customers are companies or people that need social media presence. But then again, it's very generic. Everyone wants to be a social media. So then I said, okay, what should be the differentiated between everyone having an Instagram or Twitter handle? And I said relevant. Relevant means creating content that actually speaks and responds to possible needs people have. Not only that, but say, okay, people read or like or they look at your video, but they also want to be engaged, meaning, oh, it creates a reaction. I want to ask people right now because I saw the video she just put on TikTok. How exactly are you doing that? Because on TikTok you can show one minute video like very snapshot of your... Up to 10. Yeah, but how many people do that? More and more, side notes, pause. Why I recommend TikTok? Because TikTok is becoming, or it already became social media surchanging tool. So they are doing what Google is doing. So if you want your presence online to be spiked and to be even further abroad to more people, you can implement the same basic SEO principles you use for Google, for TikTok as well, and to see results. Thank you. And then I would want to say further, saying that it creates leads. So it's not just people like your posts, but actually, at least express their interest in buying your services or progress. And then also a motivated team internally because if you're in police, so you need to have influences inside the company, or if you just yourself, of course, if I'm gonna apply for me, in my case, I have a big company that I work for. So I need my internal people, all the teams, to know, oh, we're just creating a new, whatever, product or feature. I'm gonna ping Val, see who can share in the social media because we saw all those steps, people already reacted, they sent up lead, I wanna buy this thing, and so on. And also ambassadors for the brand. So if you have users who already purchased, I'm gonna say, oh, I'm gonna share that. It's like, you mentioned yours and all these features. If you like them, you don't need to share. How are you going to do this, I'm just... Totally okay. I don't use the old records. Yeah, so how difficult was it for you to come up with that statement? And how useful was this task? So it was very challenging to narrow it down because I wanna bring in more text. Yeah. You know, being president of a workshop, so. I think using the last words that have meaningful notification is better for marketing these days than having five pages of blog posts which nobody will read. I usually go to a video, for example. I rather watch 60 seconds of meaningful video, even if it just slides with text because it stays in my brain and reading pages and pages of, this is why I'm so great. Yeah, we're the best in the world, and I know we're not the best in the world, but I looked at source code. So thank you for that, actually. This exercise is something that you can find useful both in textual and video, audio, any form of content, any type of content, to be exact because it's, and thank you for this great addition. It really helps you clarify in more depth and more importance your messaging. And you can really try to use it in whatever form and type of media to share it as well. It will still resonate. And, but still, I need to debate one more thing. Long form text. People who are interested and people who need what you have to offer will read a book if it comes from you. So it's all depending. It's all depending on the customer journey path step you're in. So if you are on the first step, awareness, and in the consideration, you are tempted to read more about it, to get familiar, to gain that credibility and trust. And then once you come up to purchasing decision, then you need more focused, narrowed, and shorter version of conversion to help them buy from you. So it's a bit of challenge and it's a mix of using both. So thank you. We are coming to this very end. So I thank you for your patience, for your willingness to learn. And I applaud to all of you for sticking to the end and sharing your thoughts and ideas with me as well. Thank you.