Hello beautiful people!
Our February 2023 meeting will take place on Tuesday, February 14th at 11:30am PST at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85965793555 and its replay will live on this page within a day of the live mastermind session.
Reminder: We’re using the same Zoom link for all of our JFDI hotseat sessions. Keep it handy! And keep an eye on my events calendar for any changes to our dates (time will always be 11:30am Pacific). So excited for where we’ll GROW from here!
If you’d like a refresh on any of the JFDI with Bon curriculum goodness without having to comb through alllllllll the content we’ve covered since March 2020, check out this lovely orientation page over here. Yay!
AND, if you’d like more support or just some hang time each month, you’re welcome to join in for Connect with Bon (check for all the details here). No RSVP, no replay, no pressure.
Links to some of the goodies we explored together through the Zoom: the progressive offers hierarchy graphic (with examples), the growing library of on-demand free and low-cost offers we have at Teachable, the tripwire offers now integrated into our online scheduler (where the year-long mentorship lives), and the quiz-builder we’re looking into for a future lead magnet that’s super sticky (specifically for us: What’s your missing element? And then, of course, Chart Harmony has the fix for that).
(BTW, I realized I was remembering sharing Airtable with y’all, not Interact Quiz Builder. I’m happy to go over more of the quiz-as-lead-magnet concept in a future meeting if you’d like.)
As always, I love seeing you do the workout, out there. Continue the convo in the comments below and be sure you tag me and use #JFDIwithBon out on social media so we can *all* celebrate you as you build your best life!
All my love,
Definitely will want to talk about the children’s book and publishing next week. All my research in that regard is a bit outdated and from what I found I’m limited in options.
If I self-publish through a service then Amazon KDP is out. They have limited hardcover book sizes, none of the being landscape or square, and a minimum page count of 76. Essentially, you can’t publish a hardcover children’s picture book through them. At least not right now. Ingram Spark seems to be the only option, since they have a variety of book sizes, BUT, from what I’ve read, their site is less user-friendly, they have poor customer service, set up costs are more with lower royalties AND Amazon will suppress any books coming from them, since they’re competitors.
So, looks like my options are:
-Go with Ingram Spark and get creative in distribution/promoting without Amazon
-Go the Bonnie Gillespie (and Kathi Carey?) route of DIY-ing *everything* on my own (or am I incorrect in that?)
-A third option I may not be aware of?
Glad I double checked thing before spending more time figuring out how to make square pegs fit into round holes (how to make the pictures I already have work within the confines of industry standard book dimensions.)
Definitely we can talk through this. We’ve got you covered on the fully DIY route inside-out, due to sooooo many years/books going through. We also have friends/colleagues who’ve gone the Ingram Spark route and they do just fine on Amazon. It’s not that they can’t exist there; they’re just gonna have a less advantaged positioning than something done through Amazon/KDP. Doesn’t mean it’s not possible to thrive there (see: Self-Management for Actors, for 20+ years now).
Write up a list of pros and cons for each method and come up with where you’d go for doing this IF you had all the money in the world and no matter which choice you made, it was gonna all work out great.
From THERE, we can go through pros/cons for making shifts to your expectations and/or needs to get you where you need to be without having to sacrifice much. š
Hi everyone? Can I request a āflow checkā on this webpage, please? I just finished an extensive update, adding a good amount of copy for SEO, and some proper sales language for actual humans.
http://TheDancerSpeaks.com
I specifically have two questions to ask:
1. Does the āstoryā or ājourneyā flow smoothly in order for you?
2. Does the freebie arrive at an appropriate moment in that journey? Iāve been going back and forth, balancing the order of the āaskā with the āgiveā, so Iām curious.
Of note: I expect someone coming for the freebie will enter this page via a FB or IG post, not via a general Google search. Also, just fyi, I canāt do a pop-up for the freebie. Iām using WordPress .com, not .org, so I donāt have access to that code. Plugins are only an option on a much more expensive planā¦ One that would also mean opening a can of worms with the design of my entire site (since TDS is just a redirect to a page on StephanieBergeron .com). So, button it is for now. š
Thank you!!
*That should be an exclamation, not a question mark at the top. Lol. “Hi, everyone!!”
Question about SEO and search dominance:
I currently have my pre-show demo embedded in my site from Vimeo. (All my website videos are embedded from there.) After our discussion re: Youtube and playlists, Iām thinking it would be good to upload that demo to Youtube as well. Iāll put it in a playlist with the few other pre-shows available there. There’s only a few, all from Broadway. Not bad company. š
My question: will it improve my search ranking if I embed the Youtube vs. Vimeo link on my webpage? I prefer the cleanliness and lack of ads in Vimeoās player on my site. But, if thereās a significant difference, maybe itās worth it. I can always pop a little āWatch on Youtube!ā below the embedded Vimeo, but I suspect Google doesnāt weigh that as favourably as an embedded video. Thoughts?
Okay, first, the YouTube embed of vids YOU upload? You can turn off ads/recommended vids on your own stuff. So, while a YouTube embedded vid is always a little less sexy than a Vimeo embed, it’s still possible to clean it up a little bit!
Next, DEFINITELY a YouTube vid is going to get better traction from Google than a Vimeo vid. Google IS YouTube. They really don’t want to promote/send traffic to/reward anything that is something you could be doing on THEIR platform.
And even if you don’t use it for the embed factor, use it for the search traffic. Make sure you put good keywords in the title and description. Use a compelling thumbnail. And yes, do the playlist thing to catch ripples from others’ waves/build association/teach the algorithm things. š You’ve got this!
I actually had fun creating that playlist, hunting down some really fun pre-shows (mostly from Broadway). They’re all in a public playlist as I type, with my demo first. š
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdVzW6XJgcygkjGSi-ZiULQgU3o-D-Esv
I rejigged some old copy as the description at the time… I needed to sidestep some resistance to JF get it up. But, maybe a variant on my “Imagine…” copy would be a better play? Thoughts welcome. (I’m also wondering if I’m painting myself into a corner when I am just as easily able to do plays, musicals, concerts, music recitals… it’s why the copy spreads a bit.)
I guess my lingering question here is still whether Google actually favors the webpage on which the embed exists. Sure, the Youtube URL will show in a search result, but I’m splitting a hair because I’m curious if it’s a “shortcut” to having Google rank my whole site higher.
In addition to embedding the YouTube vid, you want to ALSO have the exact title — as it exists at YouTube — on your page. You want to not only embed the vid but also link it from some text. This is all “how to get prioritized in search” stuff I learned years ago and it still works.
As for the concern over specialization pigeonholing, keep in mind that it’s better to be seen as THE expert, THE go-to for the ONE thing and then get asked if you could also do X, Y, Z. Or slowly offer up some X, Y, Z after establishing your top position with the ONE thing.
Bonnie is THE go-to for actors.
Bonnie is THE go-to for actors who create their own content.
Bonnie is THE go-to for hyphenates.
Bonnie is THE go-to for creatives.
Bonnie is THE go-to for creative entrepreneurs.
Bonnie is THE go-to for creative folks who are woo-curious.
Bonnie is THE go-to for the woo-curious.
Bonnie is THE go-to for people who want their lives to be better and are open to being creative and woo about how to make that happen.
š
Lily pads.
A free little copywriting email course mentioned this a couple days ago as a metaphor for anadiplosis in writing (gosh, I love fun new words… but I love metaphors for ’em even more). So, what you’re saying is landing in a similar place and imagery.
I’m reminded that I know this process by a different costume- it’s in GiG. Thanks for the nudge. š
And thanks for the additional Google strategy. That’s easy to adjust, since I built the page! Given this convo, I’m feeling like the tradeoff in prettiness is worth the search dominance edge for TDS (especially since VO is competitive af).
Right on!
Iād like to prep some language for posts to get people interested in downloading my āTop Tips for Pre-Showsā freebie (and therefore get on my mailing list) in advance of recital pre-show VO season.
Since our Zoom, Iām a little concerned about just throwing it out thereā¦ I donāt want to repeat the āscareā mistake I made with my mailing list survey by reminding them recital is looming. (I was going to mitigate by sending some fun/funny Broadway pre-shows in a sort of advent-y series, but haven’t decided on that.)
I think my window for freebie posts is April, then more sales posts in May/June. Of course, Iāll be responding to any organic FB posts as well.
Iām thinking of going along the same lines as the VO sales language, but obviously donāt want to just repeat myself. Right now, that sales pitch is usually something like this (much thanks to Bon for a lot of help/co-writing here):
āImagine being perfectly at ease backstage, knowing your audience will be welcomed by a warm, friendly, and confident voice. No worrying that you’ll forget to mention something (or someone!), no hesitating or sweating as you try to sound natural. Everything perfectly laid outā¦ā
So, for freebie posts, I’m spit-balling around something like:
āYour recital welcome speech is a valuable momentā¦ want to make the most of it? Letās set the stage with Top Tips for Recital Welcome Speeches- direct from a pro voiceover and speechwriting artist! Free, here: [link] ā
I think that buries the lede a bit, though… Any thoughts on this workout?
So, I want to play with/tweak “want to make the most of it” because THAT line does 2 things I’m not that excited about. 1. It’s such an overused phrase that it kind of doesn’t mean anything anymore. 2. It’s higher-stakes than it needs to be, especially if you want to stick with the “imagine…” language and vibe in your offers/brand.
Try: “Your recital welcome speech is *such* a valuable moment! Imagine feeling so confident as you deliver it because you scored Top Tips for Recital Welcome Speeches from a professional voiceover and speechwriting specialist… FREE!”
Or somesuch. Yeah?
Yeah. 100% agree. It’s well-worn language and as such, it sort of automatically shuts the reader’s brain off.
I quite like this adjustment! I have a small admission, that is I’m not super-comfortable calling myself a speechwriter yet… never mind a “specialist”. So, there’s that. But I mean… technically that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve just been using the term “script” with myself. Working on the enoughness! From a buyer standpoint, “speech” makes more sense than “script”. It’s just me.
I’ll likely use a few variants to cycle through posting over the next month, but here’s another stab, just trying out another way to center the buyer in the visualization:
āYour recital welcome speech is *such* a valuable moment! Imagine your voice flowing through it with confidence, all because you scored Top Tips for Recital Welcome Speeches from a professional voiceover and speechwriting specialistā¦ FREE!ā
Okay, this is such a good workout. Thank you for sharing your WHY behind the WHAT.
“Professional voiceover and speechwriting specialist” is clunky and long.
Could we — just like you centered the buyer — center the TIPS rather than YOU?
“All because you scored Top Tips for Recital Welcome Speeches, FREE!”
And could we change “Top Tips” to “The Pro’s Secrets to Rocking Recital Welcome Speeches” or something less weird but with that sort of point to it?
I don’t know that we need the FROM part of the pitch in here. It could always be in a later line that you share WHY your guide is the one they need/want.
How does any of that feel?
I feel as though you’re creeping up on this in the way that I did with “astrologer’s daughter” (giving me permission to be wrong, not hold position as the expert with any of this, keep me at a bit of a distance from the work, etc.) and I wonder what it would feel like to write a version of everything from the POV of THE expert. THE guide everyone goes to. THE top of the whole damn field. THE leader. And then, sure, back off from that version a bit if you’d like… but see how much of the clunkiness might stem from low enoughness vs. actual word choice/arrangement.
It is a bit clunky, you’re right. The FROM reasoning was to simultaneously mention the service on offer (and that it was coming from someone with some knowledge, not just random crap being reposted from the internet). I’ve caught myself scrolling by plenty of posts that are more than a line or two, so that was also me trying to get a lot into fewer lines. I’ll play with how to rework it somehow into the PDF’s title so I can center the tips in the FB pitch instead… that might solve this. BNTC…
Your intuition isn’t off with the sorta-kinda creeping thing that’s happening… This is me learning to give myself permission and trust. I’m building a voiceover business and client base from zero, so it’s a lot of feeling it out and discovering what I don’t know. My instincts and intuition are good, and I’m discovering I do actually know some stuff (somehow I got an award nom off my first pre-show last year), but yeah, there is a sort of creeping up vibe. I’m not mad at it. Growth like fingernails. š But I will be brave and try writing that version, too.
Also, just circling back as an accountability measure- I did engage with some writing re: AI for pre-show voiceovers. It got a little emotional, and this is still very much draft writing. I may not even need to go further. But, I think there’s some helpful untangling that happened while I did it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W2Ij7CaCXbHcUibiAV0ZBi6F1CA-j_ArF1h4hMesbJc/edit?usp=sharing
OMG, this is so yummy! THANK YOU for sharing it. I would say, “Not sure how I missed this,” but I am sure. š I’m launching a new business to a new tier and it’s taking all my focus right now. LOL ANYway, this is so good, Stephanie! I love that you got emotional. YES.
Thanks, Bon. And thanks for witnessing it. It still makes me emotional, but I understand why (and I’m not condemning myself for it whatsoever). If anything, it lessened the fear factor a tick. Not to zero, not at all. But it did help remind me that what I offer is valuable in many irreplaceable ways. Not sure I’ll ever need or want to put it all anywhere. But it’s good to have these thoughts inventoried and available. (And if Asshole on FB decides to come for me, I’m prepared with crafted arrowheads.)
For sure, the first time we say NO to someone asking for a refund, it feels like we will DIE. The second time we hold that boundary, it feels like a hole will open up in the ground, swallowing us whole. The third time, we get twitchy and we hate it and our tummy flips and we hate that too. The fourth time, we roll our eyes with frustration over having to deal with this nonsense. The fifth time, we just do the damn thing because we know how to do it and OMG it’s so not a big deal.
The same is true whether it’s about a refund, a cancellation, a 1-star review, a hater commenting on ads, etc. No matter WHAT it is, it’s the doing more of it that makes everything easier. The charge is lessened.
So… yes. Not to zero. But now you’ve gone from “I didn’t die” to “the ground didn’t open up and swallow me.” š That’s progress, baby!