 When you learn marketing, you might hear the term conversion rates. What does that mean? A conversion rate, which I think is an unfortunate terminology is the rate at which people convert to whatever action you, the business owner wants the person to take. So, for example, having someone join your email list from a webpage. You could count a conversion rate from that to say, well, out of every 100 people who came to my website, you know, five people joined my email list so that's a 5% conversion rate. It's also applied to selling things. So, out of every 1000 people who came to this sales page for this service or product, 10 people purchased it. So that's a 1% conversion rate. So, naturally, you would think, wow, that is such an important number. We should all focus on conversion rates to improve our conversion rates so that more of the people who come to our website or to see our message will convert and become buyers or to join our email list or whatever action, we're asking them to take. So, when you first discover a conversion rates, you know, that's the kind of feeling you have that wasn't gosh, my gosh and then I that's that's what that's the worthwhile use of my time is to try to optimize my conversion rates on my marketing. There really is a whole marketing school of thought called conversion rate optimization or CRO is the acronym conversion rate optimization. And essentially when you start going down that rabbit hole. You have to learn a lot of persuasion techniques and ways to make human beings do things. Because you changed some wording, or you made the page somehow different the web page somehow different, or you use a different graphic, or you use a different call to action use a different color button. Yes, even the color of the button can change the conversion rate. So let me tell you why I don't think we who are self employed professionals. You are talking to those of you who cannot afford a marketing agency or who don't work in a marketing agency. We don't need to worry about conversion rates, or rather, let me just be even go even further. We who are heart based self employed people probably would not enjoy doing all the psychological and persuasion tweaks that would supposedly increase our conversion rates. Well, let me talk about the word conversion rate conversion. Where does that come from I mean that reminds me of religion, right, you convert someone to a different religion. And I often say that authentic marketing is basically making new friends at scale. Because with authentic marketing, you are continually putting out authentic content as a personal growth project, and as a ministry to your audience. So, just like you would in any authentic friendship, you are continually exploring yourself and also trying to serve your friend also to better understand them as well. So, basically, authentic marketing is making friends at scale and let me ask you the question. Do you think it's a good idea to try to convert your friends to your religion, whatever your religion might be, or to try to convert your friends to your political leaning. Some of you might think it's a good idea. And that's, that's up to you. But as your friend, I would probably feel anxious or uncomfortable if I knew that you were trying to convert me. Right. And think about any of your friends. How would you feel if you knew that every time you talk to them they're trying to find ways to psychologically bridge the conversation over to trying to convert you over to their religion. So, then how do you feel when you go to someone's website, and you find out that they are using this technique or that tactic to try to get you convert you to their religion or their way of, you know, taking the action that they want you to take. Our heart based solopreneurs don't enjoy thinking in that way about our audience or taking those actions because what's not authentic, because if our agenda was made clear to our audience that's really the key, the key question about what is authentic is, if our agenda was made clear to the audience, would they happily continue going with our agenda or would they be like, wait a second. I didn't know that that's you were using these techniques to try to get me to do this or get me to do that that's that feels like you were trying to gain power over me, rather than collaborate with me on a transparent basis. So, we don't. So this is why I, I warn you, I mean, you can of course if you're interested in conversion rate optimization, you can go down the rabbit hole and learn all about it. But what you're going to find are your what you're going to find in that school of thought is the idea that the person you're talking to your audience is distractible. They are impatient. They are also manipulatable because they are just like going along. Oh, I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, look, there's a red button. I'll click on that red button. Oh, look, this is a bigger button. I'll click on that bigger button. You know, it's, it's like, it's treating your audience like, you know, they're, they're controllable lemmings that you just control here, go here, go here, go here, which is also the similar mindset to sales funnels. Right. What's the sales funnel sales funnel is a carefully contrived series of messages or videos or whatever that lead people into converting buying from you or signing up for something. And all of that is, again, like I said, if you knew the person was doing that to you, would you feel, oh, Graham so glad that they didn't tell me that they were trying to do all these things get me to do this and get me to do that. Or would you feel like, yeah, I wish they could just be honest and forthright and and and approach me with a childlike authenticity. Right. Like, wouldn't that be a better relationship than someone who's calculating how to get you to do something. So, um, so, so what is the alternative to worrying about conversion rates and conversion rate optimization. The alternative. And I'll call this worthwhile marketing or noble marketing. The alternative is like I said, authentic marketing is like making friends at scale so how do we make friends in an authentic way. Same idea worthwhile marketing is to continually seek the product market fit. And on the one hand, doing that. And on the other hand, continually serving your audience with authentic content so that they naturally tell their friends about you. So on the one hand, it's about finding fit. And the other hand, it's about growing your warm audience. Find these two actions you have worthwhile and effective marketing. You have authentic marketing. So let me describe these things. So on the one hand, we are, we are always finding better and better product market fit. What does that mean. That just means that what you are selling is just what the other person already wants and is looking for. Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing. Instead of you coming up with a product or service in your own closet in your own head, being inside your own head, and then not knowing if your audience is interested in this. You just try to push it on them and hire some marketing person hire a persuasion copywriter, hire a branding expert to say no, no, I've come up with my product now it's your job marketer to make it so convincing and beautiful and charming and hypnotic so that the person whoever is looking at it will go my gosh I want to convert. That's the mainstream dream about what marketing is supposed to be. And it's frankly kind of gross isn't it. It's kind of like you being out there and go. I don't care how compatible someone is for me. I want to put on the right kind of makeup and have some whatever it is I need to do to myself contort myself into some shape, so that wherever I am in whatever gathering, people will naturally be magnetized towards means everyone wants to be my friend. Later when they find out who I really am. We're not compatible. Some of them are incompatible with me. Do you want everyone to be your friend, or do you just want the compatible ones to be your friend. Once you learn about them and they learn about you you find wow we are soulmates. We are kindred spirits. We just naturally buy our relaxed and natural cells are really good fit for each other wouldn't that be nice. Instead of having to contort ourselves into some really charming, hypnotic magnetic attractive shape. To make sure everyone we're talking to wants to become our friend and buy from us or join our email list. Authentic marketing is finding product market fit so product market fit means that you do the market research to find out what your audience is yearning for of and also of the things that you could provide for them you give them a list to say here are the things I could provide for you. Which of these is naturally interesting to you. Which of these have you already been thinking about working on in your life or buying or studying or learning more about which of these. Oh, you're interested in item number three. Okay, great. Well tell me more about that like, have you ever worked with somebody on that topic before. Have you ever bought a product or a course on that topic before. Oh, tell me about that how was that what was, what was it, who was it from who, and then you can further research what they bought if they bought something, or if they have worked on that topic what was it that they, what led them there what motivated them to study this topic or to work on this issue or to go for that goal. What pitfalls are they finding as they try to go for that goal or work on that issue or study that topic you see what I mean so market research means just like making friends. You learn about somebody to find out what it is that they have an interest in that you also have an interest in, and then you can talk about that you can go to events about that interest. You can also create a party and invite them if it's on that topic you see what I mean so so that's how we with that's how we find that's how so so in other words, please don't just create a business create a product or service in your own head experience, and you think gosh I have a peak experience I had an experience with God, you know, and I had a method now that God gave me that will solve everyone's problems. So that must mean I can help everybody or I should be able to charm everyone hypnotize everyone magnetize everyone persuade everyone, or anyone into working with me. Marketers job marketers supposed to be persuasive and I'm just supposed to do the work. I'm here just to do the deep work with my clients, and it's the marketers job to make everyone buy from me. You see. No, because the marketers going to make you look like a jerk, or, or make you look fake. You see what I mean the marketers I could either going to make you look fake, or make like or look like a jerk, or look like a manipulative, you know, psychopath. If you just say, do whatever you need to to get people die from me. Right. Or if you're learning it, you know you're learning whatever is needed to get people to buy from you. Think about making friends. That's not how you make authentic friends. Right. You learn about the person and you find a common ground find common interest, and then you do more together in that common interest and by the way, continuing on this analogy. Once you have a common interest with a friend, and you do stuff together on that topic with that hobby with that area of interest that you both have, you become better friends. And then as you become better friends that means you might have a new topic that they did that they've never heard of or that they didn't know they were interested in. And you because because they trust you now right, you guys are friends, they trust you now they're willing to hear you talk about something that they had never considered before. They never considered being interested in something new that you're interested in. And then they hear as you hear you talk about it. They're saying, Wow, that is interesting actually. Wow, yeah, let me do let me do stuff with you on that. Do you see that this is the same thing as authentic marketing same thing as you first come to the market with something that has common interest between what you are of all the things you're interested in, which one is most interesting to the people you're able to reach at this point. Right now it's probably your friends and your colleagues, if you don't have an audience, you don't know how to grow your reach of your content, it's just your friends in your colleagues you start there. Everyone hasn't has a market. Everyone has a market. Even even a newborn baby has a market and an audience who's a newborn babies audience newborn baby, they haven't done any marketing how did I have a market. Yes they do. The newborn babies market and audience is basically everyone who's taking care of baby, right, their parents, their, the family friends, oh wow what does baby need, you know. So you also have a market did you know that you have a market, you do, you have an audience, you do. It's just everybody you know right now that you can access. That's the start of your market the start of your audience, you got to find out of all the things you do what do they have interest in that you could sell. And then you work with them to make the thing more and more interesting for them so that you can sell it to them, or people like them that they can introduce you to. You see so product market fit is on the one hand and on the other hand is growing your warm audience, growing your warm audience was a warm audience warm audience are people who feel warm towards you. It's really real simple a warm audience are a bunch of people who feel warm towards you well how did they feel warm towards you. They feel warm towards you because you have put content out there that resonates with them. How do you put content out there that resonates with them well I talked so much. Look at all my other videos about creating content and content marketing and all that stuff. I don't go into all that here because I have tons of tons of free videos about creating content right that's one of the key things I talk about all the time. So you grow a warm audience by creating authentic content distributing that content, and more and more people start to resonate with your content, just like making friends. More and more people become your friends start to trust you. And as a result, they're willing to listen to you. And when you have a new interest or new area that they had never considered, they're more willing to listen to you now about that new thing. And over time as your audience grows your warm audience growth, you'll be able to sell almost anything at some point. For example, I'm grateful very grateful that my warm audience has grown to such a level that I am now able to sell just about anything to my warm audience. As long as I sincerely believe it's a service to them. I won't sell something otherwise, but something that I'm interested in that I believe it's a sincere interest. I think I'll get at least some of my warm audience will buy it because they trust me enough to say, well, you know, I always use the silly example of, you know, I see I see a flower here so I'm like, what if what if I, what if I do you know, do you have ever talked about flower arrangement before. No, I've never talked about flower arrangement, except to use as a silly example like this. But I bet you, if today or tomorrow or next week, I say I'm going to sell a flower arrangement course. I'm going to teach it myself. I have learned flower arrangement I'm passionate about I'm going to teach you how to do it. I bet some of you will buy it from me. You're like George, I've never heard you talk about flower arrangement and you know you're going to sell a class on it. Some of you are going to be skeptical or some of you might not be interested at all in flower arrangement and then you just scroll on by the no worries, but some of you're like yeah I'm actually interested and I like George I trust George and I'd be curious to see what George has to say about sold. See this is what happens. So at first, you do product market fit to find commonalities with the people you already know. And then at the same time you're growing your warm audience. And as your warm audience keeps growing. You can still do product market fit, but it becomes less and less necessary because you can sell almost anything to a large enough warm audience and they're going to buy enough people will buy. And your conversion rate doesn't matter anymore because enough people will buy as you have a large and larger warm audience that you'll just have enough sales. And of course, if you want more sales, the noble way of doing it is not to optimize your conversion rate. The noble way of doing it is find better product market fit just like you're making friends, rather than finding out ways to trick your friends to do stuff with you, finding ways to get to know your friends better and do something you both want together. So this is worthwhile marketing, noble marketing and authentic marketing. So, I hope this is helpful. I hope this gives you some food for thought as you continue working on growing your business. I look forward to seeing if you have any comments or questions. And I wish you well. I'll see you in the next video. Take care.