Transformational > Transactional: Sell Identity, Not Steps  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Amy Porterfield Show]] - Full Title: Transformational > Transactional: Sell Identity, Not Steps - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/0d987840-34e3-42f7-845c-0a2ea17e8a83 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Scale By Being Seen As More** - Scaling comes from being seen as more, not doing more. - Julie Solomon says authenticity and congruence convert faster and retain clients longer. Transcript: Julie Solomon So for me, what this really means, and this came from my own revelation that I had, Amy, that I realized that the more that I kept trying to live for the likes and the applause of followers, The more that I would die slowly from the lack of it. And so I knew that I needed to get to a place where my value and my worth wasn't being constantly tied to what was happening on social media, which if I'm just being honest, at least from My experience and a lot of the women that I work with, that is hard when your entire business and your entire quote unquote marketing machine and your message is on a social media platform. It is really, really hard. And so I had to just get really honest with myself that we've been sold, we've been sold a few lies, but one of the lies was that scale really came from more of this tactical transactional Output of visibility, more content, more funnels, more offers, more consistency of showing up when the truth is, I don't think scaling comes from doing more. I think it comes from being seen as more. And what that means to me is that my audience doesn't buy my work. They mirror my truth and my worth. And the online space is already so saturated, I think, with women performing productivity, performing content, performing whatever it is that they think they need to perform to get The likes and to get the follows, thinking that their next level is just on the other side of that. But what I think actually scales us is that mirror messaging. And what I mean by that is actually showing up and messaging and marketing and being seen from the true authenticity of who you are. Because when people feel that you are anchored and you are congruent and you are certain, they don't just trust you faster, but they buy faster. And most importantly, they stay longer. But if we don't give them the opportunity to really know our truth and to really know who we are, it's going to actually dilute everything that we're putting out there. And so the real work is not about adding more strategy. It's really about subtracting anything and everything that dilutes that signal that you are putting out into the world. ([Time 0:07:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/01912c0f-1945-44a6-90f2-836e6dc3ecaf)) - **Message To Buyer Readiness Stages** - Most entrepreneurs keep speaking to buyers who aren't ready to invest. - Julie's Identity Elevation Framework reframes messaging to match buyer readiness stages. Transcript: Julie Solomon Yes. Okay. So going back to kind of my own evolution of this, when I really started to realize that I couldn't have so much of what I was doing and what I was saying being dictated and tethered by followers And likes. And that I knew that if I really wanted to attract the women that I wanted to call in, the women that I wanted to serve, that I needed to realign who I was speaking to and how I was speaking To them. And so this framework was really born from watching myself and so many brilliant women that I work with burn out. And it's not because of lacked skill, but really because they kept speaking to buyers, quote unquote, who actually aren't buyers. They kept speaking to people that are not ready, mind, body, and spirit to actually invest in their offers and services because that was the safer way to show up and speak and share online And create content. And so what I know to be true now is that every message that you write, whether that's emails, sales pages, social media posts, every offer that you sell, every client that you attract, It has to mirror a version of the identity of the woman that you actually want to work with. And so this is where the buyer stages were created. So as you mentioned, what I uncovered from this is that there are three buyer stages that most of us, whether we're conscious to it or not, are actively showing up and selling to every Single day. There's only one of them that really buys, two of them that one buys, one sometimes buys, and then there's one that never buys. And that's actually the one that most people are showing up and speaking to and trying to sell to every day. Okay, tell me right now then. Amy Porterfield Yes. I gotta know. Julie Solomon So here they are. So the first one is who I call the former self buyer. The reason why I coined her former self buyer is because it came from this idea of this other lie that we ([Time 0:10:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eb5f99b6-13a7-48cc-8c11-9c144ce5dc8b)) - **Stop Targeting Your Former Self** - Avoid targeting the former self buyer after year zero of your business. - Do not rely on origin-story-focused, step-by-step messaging that requires heavy convincing. Transcript: Amy Porterfield Now then. Yes. I gotta know. Julie Solomon So here they are. So the first one is who I call the former self buyer. The reason why I coined her former self buyer is because it came from this idea of this other lie that we were sold in online marketing. And I have to admit, I am kind of at fault for this myself. This goes back to very basic marketing one-on Who has ever told that we are here to serve a former version of ourselves? And as long as we show up. Amy Porterfield Wait, I hear it all the time and I kind of believe it. So you're going to have to show me where I'm wrong here. But yeah. Julie Solomon That we are best positioned to serve that person that we just used to be. And as long as we do that, we will never run out of clients. Okay. And what I learned through my journey, and mind you, I have a major in journalism and communications with a with a minor in PR. I learned this in college. I remember learning this in college. This works for year zero of the business. Why? Because that's all you have. All you have is your origin story. All you have is your who you used to be and how you got to the other side of that. So of course, it makes sense for you to want to serve your former self. You don't really have anybody else to lend from. Where most people get mistaken and get caught up and really get stuck is that year two, year three, year five, year 10, they're still trying to serve this former self buyer, even though That's not who they are anymore, even though they have a wealth of expertise and lived experience and frameworks and sophistication under their belt. And that's why they tend to get stuck. So this former self buyer, she is the buyer, she is the woman that is in survival mode. She buys to escape her pain, or she's your window shopper or freebie finder that will download all those freebies to try to escape her pain. She needs constant reassurance. She needs step by step by step by step by step, and she needs so much structure. Not that any of this is bad, but if you stay speaking to her and your messaging and your marketing and your offers mainly go to her, you will always have to come from a place of convincing To sell to her. And that is so much harder and it takes so much time to do. ([Time 0:11:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6ae3c1e1-836b-4406-a234-6aac314053f8)) - **Why How-To Content Can Stall Sales** - The working self buyer craves tactics but remains stuck in hustle mode. - Over-educational content attracts seekers who often circle but delay buying. Transcript: Julie Solomon This is the type of buyer that is successful. This is why she's kind of, she can be a little sneaky because she's successful at what she does. She is smart. So there's more nuance to how she's approaching things, but she is still anchored in pain and over-explaining. That is the kind of messaging that she is attracted to. And so when we come from this kind of messaging, so this is the messaging that talks about step-by and how-tos and all of that sort of thing. You attract a lot of buyers who circle around a lot. They get really inspired and they sometimes buy, but most of the time they don't. And the reason why is because they are in that hustle mode. They are trying to do everything right, but they're feeling so misaligned. So even though they're showing up and they may be looking good on paper, they don't always have the right agency in that moment to convert at the level that you want them to convert at so You can really serve them at the greater level. ([Time 0:14:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d656c63d-7d37-4efd-832a-16433d5cdb9d)) - **Sell Calibration, Not Information** - The highest self buyer buys calibration, not information. - Mirror messaging should showcase desire and transformation, not tactical steps. Transcript: Julie Solomon So this is the third buyer. And what's important to know about this buyer is that she's not buying information. So if she's not buying information, then that obviously means that the content that you put out and the messaging that you put out does not need to be information first based. What she's buying is calibration. She's moving beyond tactics and she's investing in this place of proximity, alignment, and power. She's wanting to really see how she can take her identity, her values, and her resonance and really go to that next level that she's trying to go to. This is also the buyer who she doesn't need fixing and she doesn't need saving. So she's not going to be attracted to messaging like that. Be attracted to really premium, high level, even sometimes at feeling a little exclusive type of language to call her in because that's what she's looking for. Okay. Amy Porterfield So I want to get really clear. If she's not looking for more information and you're posting on social media to attract her, if you're not posting information, what are you posting? Julie Solomon You're posting what I call mirror messaging. So if you're not over teaching, you're not posting information, what you're wanting to post and wanting to share is the desire and the transformation that she's looking for. That's really essentially what you're posting. ([Time 0:18:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a5014adf-2a66-4fec-8c3f-0fa0065f6f7d)) - **Post Mirror Messaging Over Pain Points** - Use mirror messaging to reflect the aspirational identity your ideal client wants. - Post desire and transformation instead of leading with pain or step-by-step tactics. Transcript: Julie Solomon A lot of times people will lead their messaging with pain. So I'll give you an example. Let's say that you are a weight loss coach and you will say something like, aren't you so tired of not being able to lose those last 10 pounds? Just by saying that statement, that message is going to instantly attract someone who is tired of not being able to lose weight. Even though your offer is meant to help someone lose weight and be excited and propelled and be ready and willing to lose the weight, you're literally calling in people who are tired And not losing weight. So guess who you're going to get? A bunch of tired people who are not losing weight, who probably aren't committed to that belief system that it's actually possible for them. Maybe they've tried other things and it didn't work. So that's going to take so much longer to essentially poke that pain, to have that person go from the belief of this doesn't work, I'm overwhelmed, I'm tired, I'm burnout, nothing ever Works for me, to, oh, no, this is actually possible. Or if that was a working self buyer, let's say that your messaging, if you were going to attract that person in, it would say something like, here are the five steps you need to lose those Last 10 pounds. So who you're attracting is someone who's like, yes, just give me the other step. What's the tactic I need to know? What's the strategy? What's the other step? But a lot of times with this type of buyer, it's never enough. Those five steps are going to then need to lead to 10 steps, which are then going to need to lead to 25, 30, 50 steps. And they're always going to be in this kind of seeking phase, looking for the next hack or the next trick or the next thing that's going to really get them where they want to go. ([Time 0:20:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2a26ae87-2fdd-4ee0-bd69-aab8ca644ee2)) - **The Cheerleader Who Never Buys** - Julie described a long-time follower who consumed everything but never bought. - The follower admitted she didn't need to pay for Julie and used her as a free mentor instead. Transcript: Julie Solomon So several years ago, I was creating content and there was this one person in my world that she responded on everything that I posted. She opened every single email that we had. She showed up to every free training that I did. She downloaded every freebie. She was my biggest cheerleader. She was my biggest, you know, inspirer. And after a while of just kind of seeing her constantly show up and show up and show up and never buy, I finally just simply asked her because I was curious, like, hey, Renee, you know, I Noticed that you've been constantly showing up in my world over the last few years, but you've never really like gone to the next phase. Is there something that's kind of keeping you from making that buying decision? And she simply said to me, well, Julie, I don't need to buy you. Give me everything that I need for free and all of your content. Amy Porterfield Oh, the worst. That's why I love you so much, Julie. Julie Solomon You're, you're so inspiring. You're so helpful. You're my mentor that I don't have to pay for. And I was like, Oh, and that was when I saw in myself and then I started to see it in a lot of women online. And then some of the clients that I started to work with was like, oh, this is the biggest mistake is that we keep speaking to non-buyer energy. So non-buyer energy sounds like you're so inspiring. You're on my vision board to work with one day. It's very hypey. It's very cheerleader-y. But at the end of the day, they're not ready to buy because in order for them to actually get into a place of making a buying decision, they would need a lot of, again, proving, explaining, Convincing, and teaching. And that's what was happening with this one person. She was showing up to everything. There was nothing left that I could have explained to her or taught her or convinced her. She was a non-buyer. So it didn't matter what I did or said, she was not in a place to buy. I can't control that. That's the beauty of buying decisions. ([Time 0:29:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a1336242-a341-4339-b460-9b2294fe5111)) - **A Reel Born From An SOS Call** - Julie spontaneously recorded a reel after an SOS coaching call observation. - That honest, in-the-moment post resonated strongly and attracted similar high-level clients. Transcript: Julie Solomon So I was on a call with a client of mine, or actually we were, we were kind of going back and forth in our Slack channel. And I could tell that she was spinning out. She was about to go into a launch. She was getting way too in her head. She was having this moment of friction. And so I offered her, I said, do you want to get on an SOS call? Because inside my accelerator container, we offer, it's not publicized or marketed, but we internally offer what we call these SOS calls. And they're 10 to 20 minute calls that I will get on a call with my client on the phone, one-on just kind of give them this moment for this SOS. So we'll call this woman, Barbara. She was having a frequent moment. So I reached out to my team and I said, Emily, we need to get Barbara on an SOS call. So we scheduled a call for a few days later. I get on the call with her. I'm talking to her for 20 minutes while I'm literally making my bowl of yogurt, just reframing, mirroring, helping her, supporting her. And at the end of the call, she said, Julie, I just want you to know that I have been doing this for six years. I have invested in so many different programs and containers, and I've never once had a coach offer just to get on the phone with me and talk through this with me. When we got off of the call, that sprung something in my head. I was like, there's the message here. There's a piece of content here. So a couple hours later after work, I picked up my phone and I just did a talking head reel where I talked about how it's so interesting to me that people in the coaching industry, and I put Myself into this too, but they will have the audacity to charge tens of thousands of dollars to be in a container, but won't even have just the human experience of saying, hey, I'll get On the phone with you or somebody on my team will get on the phone with you to have this human-human connection because that's what you need in this moment. And so I just talked about how we as a coaching industry, if we don't see that part of being a coach and part of having this gift of doing what we do is to be in this shared human experience, We're missing the entire point. And I posted it and it went crazy. And it's not that it was polarizing, but it was because I was taking it from an angle that was, oh, she said most coaches won't do this. So let me share from that perspective. It doesn't make me better. It doesn't make other coaches bad, but let me share from this different angle and this different lens that my client is experiencing. This is kind of how I'm mirroring, mirroring her experience in this moment. I turned that mirror moment into a piece of messaging and content, knowing that if that attracted her, then that's going to attract other women like her. ([Time 0:34:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7854885c-da0d-4137-8770-7723d0291dbd)) - **Transformation Beats Transaction** - Transactional messaging sells process while transformational messaging sells identity. - Mirror-based transformation messaging lets premium buyers self-select without heavy convincing. Transcript: Julie Solomon Yes. Okay. So transactional marketing sells a product and transactional messaging sells a product. Transformational marketing and messaging sells an identity. So when you position yourself for transaction, you talk about the process. Again, we're going back to this is very, this is going to attract that former self working self buyer. We're talking about the process. We're talking about the step by steps. We're talking about our creations. We're honestly talking about a lot of things that don't actually matter to the transformation that they want to get. At the end of the day, it does not matter that I got a journalism degree in 2007 to help the person in 2025, 2026 that I'm helping get a transformation. And I think a lot of times we will want to either hide behind that or even as a buyer, I see a lot of potential buyers use things like that as an excuse to not invest. Well, you know, does this person have a master's here? What did they do here? Do they have this accredited? And it's like, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many accreditations they have. Have they actually been in the field? Have they gotten their hands dirty and doing what it is that you're trying to do and getting you where you want to go? And so that's really where I talk about the process. We can get so lost in the process of things. And really, I think a lot of us use it as a way to kind of hide behind and stay small. Whereas when you position yourself for transformation, you start talking about the becoming and the refinement of that. And that's why I always say you have to stop trying to convince people of what you do. And you have to start mirroring who they're meant to be. So, for example, I'll go back to that post that I made. The reason why I created that post, which might've been polarizing for some, because I was calling out the very industry that I'm in. I'm calling out, you know, coaches that don't have the courage or the kindness just to get on a phone call. But at the same time, I'm also wanting to mirror who I want my clients to be, who I want myself to be. I want to hold myself to that caliber. I want to hold myself to that level. Now, yes, it's not going to be completely realistic for all of us to get on SOS calls with our clients all day and every day. That's not what I'm saying. But if I'm wanting to hold my clients and my industry and myself to this next level, I have to start mirroring that. So it's not about convincing people of what I do or that I'm the best at what I do, but it's about mirroring who they're meant to be, who I'm meant to be, who this industry is meant to be. Because when your brand and your messaging becomes a mirror instead of a megaphone, your clients don't need the convincing. ([Time 0:38:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/72f8bd8a-cc16-43b5-8b77-d530fddc3dc8)) - **Evolve Messaging As You Grow** - Evolve your messaging as you grow because you'll outgrow old messages faster than your audience. - Keep one avatar but map its phases and meet each phase with appropriate offers. Transcript: Julie Solomon So I think that what most people don't realize is that scaling isn't just about reaching more people. It's not just about volume. It is, but it's also about refining who you're speaking to. And the truth is, and this is kind of what you're touching on, you will outgrow your messaging faster than your audience will outgrow you. Okay. Say that one more time. You will outgrow your messaging faster than your audience will outgrow you. What does that mean? And what that means is that as you grow and evolve as a business leader, and we can think about it in terms of the buyer, you're going to outgrow the message that you have been sharing that Usually goes to that former self-buyer or that working self-buyer faster than the audience will actually catch up to that and outgrow you. So a lot of times we've evolved to this certain level, but then we're sitting around getting frustrated and resentful that the audience hasn't caught up. And it's like, well, we have to remember we're going to evolve our messaging, our business, our offers faster than the audience will catch up and evolve or outgrow that as well. And so if your ideal client never evolves, then you're going to stay trapped in a business that no longer reflects who you are now and where it is that you're going. So as you evolve, your content, your offers, your language, your messaging, your brand, your visuals, all of that, everything has to rise to meet that new level. And so it's not that you outgrow your audience, you just outgrow your old identity. And so what I mean by that is that the moment that you align the external message with whatever's happening inside the business, inside you, whatever that is, you're going to start being Able to sell more with ease. Now, the way that I do that and the way that Amy does that and how I was explaining with Amy is that you could have this same avatar, but you have to remember that she may be in different phases Of her career. So for example, you don't create low ticket offers for people that buy low ticket things and mid ticket offers for people that buy mid ticket things and high ticket offers for people That buy high ticket things. You create offers for the same avatar. She's just at a different stage and level of her business. This is what allows you that even though you're outgrowing or evolving your messaging, it's going to allow your audience to stay with you and evolve with you. ([Time 0:42:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c4576c9f-af56-4467-ad0d-f4263a366c70)) - **One Hour Weekly To Better Messaging** - Fix messaging before blaming content; spend about an hour a week on strategic content. - Use frameworks and AI tools to create posts that stop the scroll and convert. Transcript: Julie Solomon Yeah. So the Growth Collective, I'm so excited about this. I decided to launch this last year. And I'll explain why once I kind of dive into this. So this is the place where women come. And I work with a multitude of different types of female entrepreneurs like Amy. I've got a lot of health coaches. I've got a lot of business coaches. I've got a lot of service providers. But it's women in the entrepreneurial space that want to simplify the strategy so they can amplify their results. And this is really for that Ava too, that is successful, but she's exhausted and she's doing all the right things. But her content and her messaging, they're just not converting at the level that they should based on the output that she is putting in. So she doesn't need another course. She's already done all of that, but she needs clarity and she needs support. So inside the Growth Collective, we take her from messaging, confusion, and chaos to content that really sells. And we do it in about an hour a week. I built this membership because I kept seeing a lot of brilliant women over posting and under converting. And even though their content might've looked great and pretty, it wasn't doing great. And the truth is most entrepreneurs, even though they think they have a content problem, they don't, they have a messaging problem. And they're creating content that sounds quote unquote, right, but it's not actually resonating. And so inside the growth collective, we fix that we use all of my frameworks, the same ones that I teach inside my $10,000 plus accelerator programs, but in a very simplified way, through Coaching, through custom AI tools called the content catalyst that's in there. And we use a lot of my proven frameworks. We use my power and pleasure content, the mirror messaging that I talked about today, my Trojan horse content, to really help you write captions, stories, posts, really things that Are going to stop the scroll and start conversations without spending hours creating content. And there's a four-stage success path in it, and each stage builds on the last. So we have stage one that builds trust and authority, stage two that turns your stories into sales, stage three really expands on reach and repurposing, and then stage four, we move You into that true authority positioning. And it's all supported through the frameworks, a live monthly call with me each month. So you're not just lost in a portal, but you're really getting that proximity. And our content catalyst AI tool is completely custom. We have created it so it literally matches all of these frameworks because I want you to be able to plug and play as much as you can. So that does about 80% of the heavy lifting. And it really just, it's rooted and it creates the psychological things that need to happen in terms of conversion as it relates to messaging. So it's not generic AI fluff. ([Time 0:50:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fea2624f-4c44-488f-a292-5cbbbd85f9aa))