The S.L.O. Framework and How To Use It To Engage More Prospects

Hey team,

It’s your boy Steve Salvia here from blackwing.com.au

And this month our focus is all about Marketing and Scale and how to get your message out to the right market place so that they consume it, but also act on it as well.

And specifically today I wanted to talk to you about a simple little structure that my Coaching Club planners use, to make sure that we give out content and education based marketing in a way that gets you closer to your target market (and the type of clients you want to be working with), and do it much, much easier.

In fact, if you follow these steps, they’re actually going to want to come to you…!

So we’re about finding the line between Value on one side… and Interest on the other.

And how to get people motivated to find out more by relating YOUR knowledge to peoples every day situations.

We want to Teach… And we want to SELL.

I’ve got a great story to share today.

Let’s do this Blackwing Boost Your Business tip right now.

So the tactic I want to talk to you about now is what we call the S.L.O. Framework™.

And SLO stands for:

STORY

LESSON

OFFER

S.L.O. – Story Lesson Offer

It’s like Soft Teach!

There’s a difference between hard teach and soft teach.

Here’s the situation….

You know you need to be in regular contact with your clients and your prospects…

Whether it’s sending a regular email or a blog or a newsletter or even your FDS’s…

I think everybody knows that you need to be in regular contact with your people right…?

You need to have some type of ‘keep in touch strategy’ with your market.

But you say to yourself…,

“What do I say…?”

“How do I say it in a way that people respond…?”

“How do I position myself so that I don’t feel like I’m trying to push ‘product’ down their throat…?”

There’s heaps of apprehension when it comes to how to communicate and how to do it regularly!

But here’s the thing…

The very best way to communicate regularly with your ‘sphere of influence’ and not sound pushy, or salesy or boring…

Is to Mix Up your communication styles.

That way, you can communicate and give heaps of valuable, useful, education based marketing…

And do it in a way that is fresh and keeps people interested in what you’ve got to say.

Now, I reckon there’s actually 7 different styles or ways that you can communicate with your people…

But one of the very best ways to get people engaged with your content is to TELL A STORY!

The moment you start to tell a story – a real world example…

People can’t help but listen in!

We’re all trained from childhood to pay attention to stories – and to ignore facts and figures….

In fact, I’ll give you an example….

I was running a training course about client attraction and communication not long ago…

And someone asked why this telling stories stuff works…?

So I asked him a question…

I said:

“Can you remember the top 3 things you learned at High School…?”

And he said “Well….. NO!”

He drew a bit of a blank….

Then I said:

“Name 3 characters out of Seinfeld…” and he said:

“George, Elaine, Kramer!”

See how easy it is?

We remember stories BUT we forget facts and figures!

So, what we want to do is Story Sell instead of facts and numbers.

Instead of numbers and technical stuff (that people either don’t care about or don’t relate to…)

We want to be talking about case studies, testimonials, client #wins, client lessons, experiences that you’ve had…

Things that you’ve seen that can be turned into other peoples situations…

Anything that you could relate a story to!

The Framework itself…

So like I said, there’s 3 parts to this S.L.O. teaching framework…

The very first part is the STORY!

It’s like: “Let me tell you a story about…. BLAH!”

It’s like the ‘Set The Scene’ bit.

And it’s normally something like…

Here’s the Person and their situation…

Here’s the Problem that they had….

And here’s the Outcome we got for them…

Or this is what happened or what it cost them because they DIDN’T take out advice…!

It can either be a Winners story

Or a Losers story – someone you met with but didn’t take on what you said – and the consequence of that.

The second part is the LESSON.

So what’s the Lesson here…?

Well, the lesson here is that abc, xyz and 123…!

It’s either a lesson – YES, you should do what they did…

Or the lesson is AVOID what these other people did and get some quality advice before you……. Blah, blah, blah.

So it’s Story – here’s these people and here’s what happened…

It’s Lesson – here’s the big takeouts or things to avoid…

Third part of the framework is your OFFER!

What’s the next logical steps…?

“So here’s what to do next…” or

“Here‘s how to sort this for you…” or

“Here’s where to go to get….”

Just guiding them…

Nudging them…

Helping them make good choices or the right decision…

And in this case it’s a decision to reach out to you and talk to you (or whatever your CTA is).

But what I want you to get is that you Tell a Story.

You teach the Lessons (good or bad) from that story…

And you make whatever offer you want that’going to take them forward and improve from that lesson.

Is your content hard? NO

But what it is is a STORY!

It’s Soft Teaching.

You want a perfect balance between Value and Interest…

Between WHY vs How.

There’s value in telling stories and I really hope it’s turned on a light bulb for you and they way you position yourself…

So that’s your Boost Your Business marketing tip for this week.

Think about some ‘financial jargon’ and stuff that you talk about consistently and see if you can turn it into a Story, Lesson and Offer.

I think you’ll be amazed how easy it is.

It’s a totally different posture when you do it this way…

Hey, if you’d like to see a copy of the S.L.O template and I might throw in a couple of other marketing and communication templates for you as well…

If you’d like to grab a copy of it…

What I’ll do is put a link in this video somewhere and you can jump in and grab those so you can use them in your own communications…!

Would that help? Cool.

Happy to share.

Here’s the link to your Boost Your Business Show.

In the meantime, I’ve got a question for ya…

And I’d love it if you could type into the comments box and lets chat about it in there…

How Could Story Selling Help You Communicate With Your Marketplace…?

We talk a lot about financial GUFF…

What would turning some of that into a story do for your engagement…?

I’d love to know what resonated with you.

Leave me a comment below.

And I’ll be happy to help you out.

Anyway, that’s it for this week.

Have a great week ahead.

Do me a favour.

Hit the Like button.

Ask me a question in the Comments box…

Smash the Share button and share this in your LinkedIn or Facebook page if you think it might help some other financial planners…

Lets spread the love around shall we…?

Make sure you be your very best this week.

Take really good care.

Talk soon.