I Audited My Freebies—Here’s What I Found

Colie: 00:00:25

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another solo episode

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on Business First Creatives.

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So a couple weeks ago, maybe a month

ago, I noticed something weird in my

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email marketing program, which I use Kit.

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And while it's a little difficult in kit

to see who is enrolling or subscribing

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for which freebie, I have all of that

information fed into my client hub

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inside of Airtable to give me the

bigger picture of who is coming into

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my email list, what freebies they are

signing up for, and then eventually do

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they end up becoming a paid customer.

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So I've been watching this because I love

to make data-driven decisions about my

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business, but when I noticed recently that

when someone signed up for my email list

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for, let's say, the workflows freebie.

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Within 10 minutes, they were

typically signing up for at least

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one or two additional freebies.

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Now the truth is I have an

inkling of how this was happening.

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Um, about a month and a half

ago, I created a new everything

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page where everything that

I offer from free resources.

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To paid templates to my signature course,

the CRM blueprint, and also the two ways

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that you can currently work one-on-one

with me, which is a client experience

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audit or a 60 minute strategy call

once I put all of those on one page.

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I realized it became easier for

people to find all of my freebies

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in one place, and so they were

treating it like a smorgasborg.

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I mean, they were downloading so

many freebies, and my freebies cover

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a very wide range of topics, and I

also have them in different formats.

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Some of my freebies are in a 20 minute.

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Video training format, while

others might be a private podcast.

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I have a couple of quizzes.

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I have some checklists.

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I have some PDF download guides.

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I mean, I have a very wide variety

of freebies, but what I realized

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when I saw that all these people

were downloading multiple freebies

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is I felt a little confused.

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By their customer journey, because should

I be trying to optimize the fact that

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people are downloading more than one

freebie at a time, and is there a way that

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I could kind of put these in front of them

to make a more meaningful path from them?

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Okay, so that's my first observation.

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The second thing that happened is

I was listening to an episode of

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System Save Me from Jordan Gill.

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In case you are unaware or you did not

know, Jordan Gill used to run a program

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for how to create VIP days in your

business, which I was a student of.

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And then I also hired Jordan for

strategy Saved Me, which was her

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quarterly one-to-one coaching program.

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So I mean, I listen to everything

and anything that Jordan puts out,

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but more recently she has stopped.

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Recording podcast for her podcast.

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She is allowing other business owners

to record two episodes that kind of

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lead you into whatever their offers are.

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I mean, it's like a visibility activity,

and one of those people was Jenn Green.

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Now Jenn is an email marketer.

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She is someone that I have met twice

now at Jordan's in-person events.

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Love Jenn.

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Love everything that she says.

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I don't know why.

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Listening to her on this particular

podcast episode just made me think

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about all the freebies that I've ever

created in a completely different way.

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So on this episode of System Saved Me,

Jenn was talking about her idea of where

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everyone needs differentiated freebies,

and you can classify them as a mini.

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A medium or a large freebie, and

immediately my brain starts going to

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Starbucks, like tall grande, venti.

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I mean, I honestly wanted to change

her framework and redo it that way,

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but I mean, that would be rude.

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Right?

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But I was curious, and with this

curiosity came, okay, I should really

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go through all of these freebies that

are available out in the world that I've

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put out there, and I should figure out.

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If I in fact have a wide variety,

like how many of my freebies would be

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minis, how many would be mediums, how

many would be large, and then it got

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me thinking about even bigger picture

questions like, does one freebie lead

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into a second freebie more easily

than they would if they were reversed?

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Does one particular path lead to sales?

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More often than another path.

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So I mean, I took her framework and

I was like, oh my gosh, how many

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different directions can I go in?

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And then this week I got the idea

of asking ChatGPT to help me do it.

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So that is what I wanna

talk to you about today.

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I wanna talk to you about what I did.

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When I made this observation and then

listened to this guest episode on someone

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else's podcast, and how it has made me

completely rethink and repurpose some

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of the freebies that I already have.

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So the first thing that I did was I went

and got a transcript of that guest host

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episode from Jenn Green on System Save

Me Podcast, and I fed it into ChatGPT

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and I said, listen, this is an episode

that I am absolutely obsessed with.

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I love her framework, and you already know

a lot about my freebies and my offers.

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So just so that you know, I have been

taking recordings and transcripts of

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previously recorded video trainings,

and I have been feeding it into ChatGPT

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to ask for help in repurposing that

content into new solo podcast episodes.

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Um, new blog posts.

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New evergreen emails.

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I have been repurposing that

content because I create a

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lot of free training videos,

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. I do it inside of summits.

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I do it inside of private Facebook groups.

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Anybody that wants me to come and talk

about systems, I mostly say yes, and

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every single one of those presentations

is absolutely packed with value and

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always has actionable steps for people

to do afterwards and I don't wanna

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spoil the rest of this episode, but

I was not taking those free video

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trainings and saying, Hey, let's create

a new freebie in a different format.

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Let's take this content, these ideas,

and turn it into a downloadable PDF.

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But that is where I ended up going.

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So fed it that episode so that it could

get the framework and analyze it for me.

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And then I put in every single

freebie that initially came

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to mind that are currently

actively available on my website.

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Then I said, ChatGPT, please

use this framework to analyze my

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freebies and tell me what I already

have, and it spit out a table.

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And I will say I was absolutely

fascinated because ChatGPT didn't

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think that I had any large freebies.

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Now I should tell you what Jenn's

framework is so that you know,

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a mini freebie is something

that has a very low commitment.

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It's a checklist.

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It's a quiz.

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It's something that a cold lead

can consume quickly, and it might

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give them a very quick, small win.

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A medium freebie is something

that's a little bit more in depth.

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Think short trainings, multi-page

guides, and things that require

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a little bit more engagement.

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And then large freebies are a high

value experience, a challenge,

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a masterclass, a video series.

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They're perfect for warmer leads

that are on the edge of buying, and

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they just need a little pushover.

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Now, I honestly thought I had

mostly large freebies and no minis.

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And so when ChatGPT spit this table out.

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My first inclination was,

um, okay, no, you're wrong.

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I don't agree with how

you've analyzed my stuff.

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And it turns out that I was

adamant about that for good reason.

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So then I said, Hey, ChatGPT, can

you suggest a few large freebies that

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would align with the freebies that

I already have, but also push people

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to particular offers that you already

know that I am currently selling.

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This is where it got really interesting.

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One of the ones that it suggested

to me was that I create a video

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training that walked people through

the process of automating their

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workflows from inquiry to delivery.

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I.

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I was like, uh, wait, hold on.

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Hold on.

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ChatGPT I have two trainings that

actually do that, and you have

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the transcript of one of them.

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I said, please reanalyze this

transcript and tell me why you

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decided it was not a large freebie.

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Well, chat, GPT went

through it and it said okay.

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I initially categorized it as a medium

training because of the length of time.

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But you are right.

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It hits all of the other markers

of being a large freebie.

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And so I thought to myself,

well, that's interesting.

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Because it was thinking that anything

that was at about the 20 minute

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mark for a video training wasn't

in depth enough to be considered.

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Large and large trainings were something

from like 45 minutes to 90 minutes.

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Now I feel like that's very outdated.

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I feel like I would never.

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Put a free training out

there that was 90 minutes.

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I don't wanna hear myself talk

about anything that I'm offering

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for 90 minutes, and I'm sure that

you don't wanna hear it either.

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I mean, these podcast episodes,

I'm pushing it to 45 minutes, maybe

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60 minutes when I have a guest.

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But when it's just me.

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Talking at you y'all.

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My limit is like 15 minutes.

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And for the video trainings,

they're a little longer because

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I have slides to go with them.

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But I think that 20 minutes for me

and my teaching style is perfectly

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adequate to bring somebody from

curious to perhaps ready to buy.

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So then I asked it to kind of reframe

how it was categorizing mini, medium,

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and large based on my beliefs of what

it takes, particularly in a video

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training to get somebody over the edge.

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So it agreed, and my workflow magic

training was now labeled as large.

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Then it also suggested to me that

I might want to try a free three

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day challenge, and it gave me some

things and I said, wait, hold on.

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ChatGPT.

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I already have that and

I told you that I had it.

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And I said, but you know what?

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You didn't have the

transcripts from the videos.

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All you had was like the landing page.

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So then I fed it all the information

and it read it and it goes, oh no,

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that's exactly what I was suggesting.

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Okay, so you do have a large training.

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So as we went piece by piece, I realized

I really did have the variety that I

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was seeking inside of my freebies, but

then it made me think, so if I have a

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mini freebie where it's a checklist,

or in my case, let's talk about emails.

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'cause emails are the ones that

I've actually done most recently.

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I have an email guide that you can get.

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Well, it's not available anymore

because as part of this process,

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I have now taken that away.

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But let me tell you what it was.

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It was 10 emails that I think every

photographer should create a template

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for in their business to save time.

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I didn't give you the templates because

I sell templates, but I did give you

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what each of the emails was, whether

or not I thought it should be automated

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or sent manually and customized.

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And then I also gave you

like what should be included.

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I mean, I didn't write the email for

you, but I told you the bullet points

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of what you should include in there.

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I did that for all 10

emails plus one bonus email.

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And what I realized is that I already

had this 40 minute video training

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that I had done in someone's private

Facebook group, that covered how

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to craft creative client experience

emails and what should go in each one.

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Like what is essential to go in

every single one of these emails.

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Okay?

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So I had this 40 minute

training, but I was like.

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You know, the 10 email templates

to write is directly related

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to this 40 minute training, but

they are not perfectly aligned.

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And I thought to myself, well, why don't

I just have somebody opt in for an email

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freebie, and then I give them the choice?

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So what I ended up creating is this new

guide, an implementation guide, which is

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going to walk you through my framework

for the three essential pieces that you

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need to include in every single client

experience email template that you write.

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And then I walked you through

the process of writing the

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three most important emails.

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Now, it can stand alone.

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You do not have to watch the video

in order to get value from the PDF,

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but now the PDF is directly related

to the video, so that if I put you on

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a delivery page and I have the video

there and you don't have time for a

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40 minute training, you can download

the PDF, run through it, and then if

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you're like, oh my God, this is amazing.

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Like this sounds great.

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I wanna hear about the whole framework

and the rest of it, that's when you

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can go watch the 40 minute video.

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So it really has made me

rethink what my freebies are.

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What I really want you to walk away from

the freebies with, because I want every

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single thing that you get from me, whether

it is free or paid, to be valuable.

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I never wanna waste your time.

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At the end of consuming whatever it is.

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I want you to be able to

create or finish something.

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I'm a big believer in micro wins.

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I want everybody to have micro

wins from every single piece

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of content that I create.

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That is my new goal for 2025 and beyond.

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And so I didn't really imagine that

this was where I was going to go

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after looking inside of Airtable in

my Client Hub to see what freebies

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people were downloading and then to

listen to this one podcast episode.

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So if this sounds interesting to you and

you're like, oh my gosh, I have a bunch

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of freebies, I wanna do this for myself.

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Here's how you start.

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Write down every single

freebie in your business.

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Yes, and then I want you to

identify what kind of freebie it is.

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Like what's the medium?

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Is it a video training?

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Is it a checklist?

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Is it a quiz?

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If you really like what I've said

about Jenn's framework, I am going to

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list that episode in the show notes.

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Please go listen to it.

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It was amazing and awesome.

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I mean, I think I listened

to it three times.

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At the end of creating this list of your

freebies, I want you to figure out how

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they are all related to each other and

how they are directly related to the

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offers that you sell inside your business.

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And then if you need to make

changes, ChatGPT to the rescue.

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Okay.

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I really hope that you have found this

interesting and that it has provoked

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your curiosity about the freebies and

perhaps the free trainings that you've

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done at some point that you've never

quite made publicly available as freebies.

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I hope that this has given you some

insight in how I use this to basically

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run through, organize, and start to

repurpose some of these trainings

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that I have, and I hope that you are

able to do the same in your business.

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Alright, that's it for this episode.

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See you next time.