Do you want to learn how to be instantly irresistible to anyone you meet?
Have you ever wondered how you can be the most magnetic, powerful, and influential person you know?
Why go through life with words unsaid… emotions unexpressed… and interesting people unmet? All because you feel like you’re not interesting enough, smart enough, or ‘good enough’ – even though you’re good looking, smart, and ‘successful’?
This is about to change after reading and taking action on all the actionable stuff you’re going to learn in this guide and interview!
To learn how to be instantly irresistible to anyone you meet, I interview elite communications trainer, Felicia Spahr.
Feature Download: Download Your FREE “Instantly Irresistible” Guide! (Download Now)
Listen Now – Interview With Felicia Spahr
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More About This Show
The Lifestyle Architects is a podcast and web show that will help YOU design your life, build your business, and live your dream. It features the most inspiring and successful lifestyle entrepreneurs, thought leaders and other change makers in the world doing extraordinary things.
The show format is both a podcast and web show (YouTube).
In this episode, I interview Felicia Spahr, who is an elite communications trainer, direct response copywriter, coach, and author of the book Selling for Success.
Our mutual friend and fellow lifestyle entrepreneur, Primoz Bozic introduced us a while back, and we all met through Ramit Sethi’s network and courses. Pretty cool ha!?
Felicia has been responsible for dramatically growing businesses and changing the lives of customers in a variety of markets, such as health, personal development, and business opps. On her blog, Instantly Irresistible, she writes about communication, power, leadership, sales, persuasion, and charisma and teaches successful entrepreneurs and leaders how to be instantly irresistible so they can get people to like them in seconds and explosively grow their teams, and businesses.
She has been featured in The Huffington Post, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, KISSmetrics, Entrepreneur On Fire, Mind Body Green, Under 30 CEO, Elephant Journal, Set Your Mark, and many more.
Watch Now – Video Interview With Felicia Spahr
(Click the play button and watch the video interview above)
If you want to watch this video on YouTube you can do so here.
Here are some things you’ll discover in this show:
Using master social skills to connect with powerful people no matter what stage in your life or business you’re at
Using vulnerability to connect and get people to like and trust you instantly
How to use storytelling when selling yourself and your products & services – what to use and say and what NOT to do (no matter who you’re taking to, or how nervous you are!)
How to get people to think: “WOW… who’s THAT?” and put your popularity on autopilot
And much, much, more!
Now, let’s break down everything that Felicia Spahr shared about how you can be instantly irresistible to anyone you meet, and much, much more actionable stuff you can implement today to achieve greatness in your business and life!
How to Be Instantly Irresistible to Anyone You Meet
This is the flow of the guide you can download here:
1. What is a direct response copywriter?
2. Recommended reading
3. Using master social skills to connect with powerful people
4. How to get people to instantly like & trust you
5. How to tell people what you do the right way
6. How to position yourself as an expert in your field (to charge premium prices)
7. How Felicia closed her first clients
8. How to do client outreach the right way
9. How to use storytelling to sell your products & services
10. Storytelling mistakes
11. How to write compelling copy like a pro
12. Storytelling
13. Instantly irresistible challenge – take massive action now!
14. Relevant resources and links mentioned
Feature Download: Download Your FREE “Instantly Irresistible” Guide! (Download Now)
What Is A Direct Response Copywriter?
Direct response copywriting is that you’re getting immediate results from your writing. Mostly direct response is associated with sales. When you see those long form sales letters, those are designed to sell on the spot.
If you want to make really good money as a copywriter, then direct response is a great little niche to be in, because that’s where you make a lot of money.
Anything that gets a response is direct response.
Even if you’re writing a blog post, you can use principles of direct response, especially if you want people to comment, tell you a story, sign up for something etc.
Rather than calling it direct response, a better way to classify this type, would be brand copywriting. The stuff that ad agencies do is not necessarily always designed to sell. It’s more designed to build awareness but those brand can do that because they’ve been around for like 50-60 years.
Recommended Reading
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - Reading that book really changed Felicia’s life (and mine!)
My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins – Claude Hopkins talks about his life in advertising. It’s like a pseudo-memoir, but he talks about why the advertising worked, what tests they ran etc.
Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
Influence by Robert Cialdini - It’s breaking down certain persuasion principles and how and why they work. It’s a must read!
Master Social Skills To Connect With Powerful People
If you want to build your network, there are a few things you can do:
Do a lot of research on the person before you reach out to them. Try to find out what they’re up to, what they’re doing, if you have mutual friends etc.
3 ways to connect with people via cold pitch
1) We kind of know each other technique – find mutual friends, for example that you saw that they were in this program with so and so and we’re good friends.
You can say something like: “Oh, I saw you in this picture with so and so… how do you guys know each other? We’re good friends”.
That kind of pre-qualifies you so that the person is cool if they know this person, then they must be legit. Felicia and I have done that many times, especially with connecting more “out of reach” people because they want to connect with people who they like and a way for them to see if they like you is to see if they’re friends with your friends. So that’s something you can do.
2) See if that person has a great blog post or if you’ve listened to a podcast episode of theirs, or course, or whatever it is.
Then you send them and email and tell them:
“Hey, these are the things I learned from you. I just wanted to let you know this was incredibly helpful for me. And here’s how applied …”
Felicia has also done this many times and not because she want to get something from this person, but because she really thought this was amazing and she wanted to let that person know about it.
People are very grateful for that because a lot of people who do what they do, they just want to help people and see that they’re actually making a difference. It’s a nice reaffirmation that they’re doing the right thing.
3) Find someone who is really interesting and just tell them that.
“I think you’re really interesting, here’s why…”
Then ask them what they’re excited about with what they’re working on right now. That’s more of a clearcut approach, and you can still do it right, and who doesn’t want to be told that you think they’re interesting.
What’s the best way to reach out to an influencer?
Email is the best way, but Facebook message can also work if you think that makes more sense. Facebook message is particularly good if you have mutual friends with so and so etc.
LinkedIn can also work because if this person is super busy, and sometimes you can just try to get in at an unexpected angle. They’re not expecting a LinkedIn message from someone.
Felicia says that email and Facebook message have worked well for her. I personally use the same method when I do outreach.
Twitter also works well, especially when they don’t respond to your initial email. I just send them a Tweet or direct message and and ask them if they received my email and if they would like to be on my podcast?
So Twitter is kind of my plan B, but I also use Twitter to build relationships with influencers before I even reach out to them via email, for example by sharing their content on a regular basis.
I’ve also found that leaving really thoughtful comments on their blogs works well to get on influencers radar. That’s how I built many relationships when I first started out.
The problem Felicia has found is if you keep asking questions, the other person starts to feel like they’re being interviewed and it might come off as weird. Something Felicia talks about is kind of like using reciprocity.
Use “I talk, you talk, I talk, you talk” in your communication with people. Especially in email, when you start a conversation, and you start getting to know the person a bit, you can kind of sprinkle in a few “I” statements, for example “Oh, I also like that kind of Whisky”, or “Oh, I also went to that event and met so and so and I really enjoyed it and here is what I learned”.
Just open yourself up a little bit so the person feels like, “Okay, this is a real connection… They’re not just trying to get to know me so they can get something etc…”. You want to make it engaging and interesting for someone.
When you have this great connection with them, how can you actually get them on for a call or interview?
How to craft an email that will have a higher chance of getting a positive response
There’s a few things you can do:
1) Felicia doesn’t recommend asking for it right away.
When you start the conversation, get it going back and forth. Then you’ll start to see… okay… this is awesome, we’re interested in each other, we’re connecting, this is cool, and something that I’ve done before is, I might be like, “Hey are you ever in SF” or, if I know where they live, I’ll be like, “Hey I’m actually going to be in NYC, why don’t we meet up for drinks?” It works almost every single time.
The only thing about getting on the phone is that it can be weird if there’s really not a purpose behind it. If you were introduced by someone else, it’s a lot easier to ask, “Hey, why don’t we get on the phone for 15 minutes and just get to know each other?”
It works extremely well, because it’s super low pressure, no obligation way to just get to know someone and establish a connection on the phone.
It works when someone introduces you, because you’re already pre-qualified. But if you’re just having a great conversation with someone, and there seems to be a “pull”, just say “Hey, let’s just get on the phone for 15-20 minutes”. That’s something you can test out and see if it works. Feel free to leave a comment below with your results using this strategy.
How To Get People To Instantly Like & Trust You
Be a really good listener. Go deeper on that for a second, what does that actually look like.
Something that you can do is that you can tilt your head a little bit. It’s kind of a very subtle signal… “Okay, this person has their full attention on me”. That’s a really good, subtle body language indicator that you’re actually listening and paying attention to what the person you’re talking to are saying.
When you’re deeply listening to someone, that gets into doing a lot of mirroring.
If you were to say to me, “Hey, I’m having a really tough day, x, y, z happened”, I’d just be like, “Hmm, can you tell me a little more about it, I just want to understand more”.
Instead of just jumping in with advice, it’s better to ask questions, dig a little bit deeper:
What happened?
Why do you think that happened?
That’s kind of a blend of being really empathic with someone. Then when you tie vulnerability into that, maybe as you’re talking, you might be like, “That actually happened to me… I don’t normally go broadcasting this to everybody, but I did this”.
It’s like you’re revealing a really special part of yourself to someone. It’s not something you do with everybody, so it’s very powerful when you root it in this way: “You know, I feel the same way, I honestly don’t talk about this much, but I felt this way too and here’s why”.
When you share that special part of yourself with someone, they feel like you understand and trust them.
How can you you actually get the conversation going without running out of things to say?
Think about it like how a child would. Children have a beginner’s mind. Children don’t go into conversations and say things like, “How are you today” and “How’s everything going?” or “Oh, that’s interesting”.
Children don’t do that!
What children do is that they take one topic, and they drill down on it. They just “why, why, why, why, why” etc. When you translate that into when you’re talking to someone influential like Chris Brogan, or someone else who’s maybe a celebrity, or maybe someone really powerful, something you can do is just to ask questions like “why”.
For example, you can say something like:
Wow, how did that happen?
What was the biggest challenge that you had in that moment?
What did you do?
How did you feel?
When you ask questions like that, it’s like you have transcended the surface level of the conversation if you’ve made them feel like they can trust you.
There are usually some really subtle cues. At first they may be a little bit tense, but then they’ll start talking. When you first get on the phone with someone, you’re not obviously going to say something like, “Okay, what was the most crazy challenge that you had and what did you do?”
That’s something you have to build up to, and rather start off the conversation by asking the “why” and “how” questions like children do. They just drill down on things that they’re really interested in, because they’re genuinely so curious and interested in whatever is in front of them.
What questions should you ask and what questions should you avoid?
The first rule is trying to avoid the open-ended questions, things that you know will lead to yes or no answers.
Something that you can do is to prepare a few questions in your head in advance.
For example, let’s say the person you’re meeting or talking to has a very interesting career. Then you can ask “Why are you interested in that? Why are you so fascinated in this kind of stuff.” That will get them talking, guaranteed, for hours. They’re going to tell you their life story. They’re going to tell you all the little tangents they went off on and what they learned, and what they failed at.
That will open a pandora’s box for you by just asking “why are you so interested?”, “what got you so interested in that?” etc.
How To Tell People What You Do The Right Way
Something a lot of people do when they introduce themselves, they tend to have this very long paragraph of things they do and things that they’re doing.
Felicia Spahr thinks a good formula for being really crisp about it is to say something like this:
I’m a X who helps Y do Z.
If you just want to do the bare bones of it, Felicia would say that she’s a direct response copywriter who helps these kind of entrepreneurs make this kind of money or sell this kind of product.
It’s really simple, so people get right away what you do, and what you help people with. You have the immediate outcome or benefit right there. It’s like your headlines for yourself.
How To Position Yourself As An Expert In Your Field (To Charge Premium Prices)
If you want to learn more about how you can position yourself as an expert (to charge premium prices), be sure to download your FREE “Instantly Irresistible” Guide! (Download Now)
Additional Resources
The Secret to Positioning Yourself as an Expert to Charge Premium Prices with Nick Reese (episode 17 of The Lifestyle Architects Show)
How Felicia Closed Her First Clients
When Felicia first started out, she used a lot of Ramit Sethi’s free material to help her out with that.
The biggest insight she had was that she really need to be directly reaching out to people since no one knew who she was.
Felicia started with no connections, no experience, and basically absolutely nothing at all.
So what she did was that she directly pitched people. She spent probably two days or so just looking for people online that she could reach out to.
Felicia tried to find things she could do to improve the copy on their websites. She sent out pitch email and after pitch email, and within around three days, she had three clients.
In the pitches, Felicia would gently tell someone that their copy wasn’t good. She phrased it elegantly. And when you find people, before you ever write a pitch, try to get a sense of what they really care about.
That’s the thing about the pitch. Sometimes you don’t know exactly what the priority is for them. Felicia made educated guesses about it.
She phrased it something like: “Hey, let’s get on the phone. Let me help you do this.”
Whenever she got on the phone with people, she would be walking them through all this step by step. She was like “change this, do this, do that, do this, do that” etc. They basically wanted to hire her right away. That’s how powerful it is to do this.
After these initial clients, Felicia says that she didn’t really have to do any selling. People just really wanted to work with her because she provided so much value to them.
But as she keeps moving higher up and positioning herself more premiumly, she doesn’t really use this approach as much anymore.
Of of the core lessons, is to actually provide as much value as you possibly can for someone and if they do what you say, they will also get them results.
How To Do Client Outreach The Right Way
Try to understand your market.
What exactly do your prospects/clients need in order to get a specific result?
Usually businesses want to do a few things, either make more money or get more clients.
Let’s say you’re in the very competitive SEO space and you want to differentiate yourself and stand out in your niche. How do you actually do that?
The best way is to research the people you want to reach out to, and figure out what their problems are. Most likely, you can see their pain points, and then you can just email them.
Tell them how you can solve them.Then, get on the phone and have a conversation with them. It’s important that you help them immediately in some small way. It doesn’t have to be a big project at all.
Just figure out a way to help your clients with something small and immediate that can get them desired results. Click to tweet!
In reality, it’s a very simple concept. It just takes a little bit of time to figure out what that market exactly needs and how you can fit yourself into that.
In reality, it’s a very simple concept. It just takes a little bit of time to figure out what that market exactly needs and how you can fit yourself into that.
For someone who is doing websites and branding packages, you might offer an analysis of their web page, and all the things you could do to improve it.
Also remember that you’re going to get rejected a lot, at least in the very beginning. It’s just going to happen. It’s pretty much like guys and dating, you have to face the fact that you’re going to get rejected quite a bit.
But that’s also how you get really good at crafting the right pitch and keep learning. You will eventually know what works and what won’t.
Tell the truth, even if your voice shakes. Click to tweet!
Even if you’re super nervous, even if you feel like you can’t speak, your legs are shaking, or whatever it is, just do it anyway! That’s really hard to do but you just have to face the fear, take action and just do it. You’re going to get rejected, but after the 10th rejection, you don’t mind as much. Tt’s like a muscle you grow, the more out of your comfort zone you get.
How to Craft Great Cold Emails That People Open and Respond To
Something that works is being really clear and crisp about it in the subject line.
Think about it this way. First of all, these people don’t know who you ware, so if you were to try to be really clever about it (which you could), they’re just going to maybe think it’s interesting, but why would they trust you.
Think about how often they might be getting pitched. Your subject line needs to immediately benefit them in some way.
It has to have the curiosity benefit in the subject line.
Example Subject line:
“I’d love to help you double your sales”
Felicia used this subject line, because the people she’s targeting probably really care about making more sales. That was a hypothesis she had, and after testing it, she found that this specific subject line had a 70% response rate. What’s worth noticing here is that Felicia made an educated guess by trying understand what her target audience really wants.
It’s important to figure those things out before you write an email. It doesn’t have to be perfect every single time, but you’ll learn very quickly along the way by who responds and how they respond to you.
How To Use Storytelling To Sell Your Products & Services
In terms of selling, something that Felicia does a lot with storytelling, and this is good if you’re on the phone with somebody or even if you’re just getting to know somebody over email.
Felicia calls this weaving a story into your sales pitch.
For example, if Felicia and I was talking about working together, Felicia could say:
“You know… it’s actually funny that you mentioned that. I know someone who is just like you who also has a podcast and we did XYZ together. He felt this way too and here’s what happened”.
This is an elegant way of doing it, because it shows you have social proof.
Having a great case study also helps.
“You know that’s actually so funny, because this other client of mine felt exactly how you do about approaching people. He was super shy, he wasn’t confident, and then we did this thing together, and he could go up to anyone and start a conversation with them”.
That’s something that gets people’s ears lit. The light up and think, “Oh, this is someone just like me. Okay, I’m interested, I’m curious”.
Storytelling Mistakes
People tend to go on way too long. It’s hard to fix that problem with some people.
It’s usually because they haven’t understood what the main message of their story is. Rambling is a symptom of not knowing where the story is going.
If you’re playing around with stories to tell, before you tell them, it helps to have a document filled with possible stories that you could actually tell. They’re all connected.
What’s the main message in the story?
What do you really want to teach people?
When you know that, you’ll know what information that needs to be in the story and what can be left out of it.
When people start talking about mundane details, for example “and then I want to the fridge and I got a coke and then I got this phone call”… people don’t care about that. Leave out those non-interesting, mundane parts of the story. It has nothing to do with what you actually want to tell people, and convey with your story in the first place.
How to Write Compelling Copy
Assuming that you have a solid market and you know who they are very well, and you have a good product or service.
When it comes to writing really compelling copy, there’s a few things:
1) Great copywriters steal like I am a chief.
What that means is that you take all of the research you have, testimonials, basically anything that you’ve collected, and you steal the language from what people say.
Steal language, and keep it really simple, clear and concise. Even if you’re not a master copywriter, just getting that part of it right, will immediately draw people in.
2) You need to be really good at hearing what they’re saying.
There are things that people will never admit publicly to you unless you’re their therapist.
For example, let’s say you’re a health coach and you work with women, focusing on their body, weight loss, and stuff like that. Something that women will not admit publicly is that “I want to be beautiful”, “I want to be hot”, “I want people to look at me and admire me”.
They think all those things but saying that is considered vain, it’s taboo and kind of weird.
So understanding what some people’s core desires are, like universal emotions that they’ll never publicly admit.
For instance, people don’t really say, “I want you to praise me”. People want that, but it’s really weird for someone to be like “I want your praise right now”.
You can do this in terms of psychoanalysing some of the research you do. Always dig deeper… why would someone say that in the first place? Try to understand what the reason for this is. Is it because they want to be attractive? Is it because they want to be loved, praised, acknowledged, or that they want to make more money?
Whatever it is, always try to bring it back to those core things that people won’t admit to anybody else.
Storytelling
How can you actually tell your own story in a very compelling way?
It can be kind of pointless to tell your whole life story from the time when you were three years old up until now. But a big part of storytelling is to first understanding
For example, Felicia’s Instantly Irresistible site is all about how she uses social skills in her own life to get all the things that she wants. It’s also how she met her boyfriend that she has been with for 8,5 years, because she had the guts to go up to him! She actually went up to a group a random group of strangers, and said “hey”, and just started talking.
It’s also how Felicia received raises and job offers, because she talked to the CEO. It’s how she made connections with people who are considered celebrities and millionaires, but they like talking to her because they don’t see her as some “weirdo” that wants something from them (like most other people do).
Writing a great about page
How you were able to do that
Why is it important for the people that are reading it?
How they can get more of it
Personal Branding & Storytelling
Why is that part of what you are doing today?
What were the 2-3 events that led up to where you are today?
What has it helped you do?
How can it help other people?
A good framework to use is:
Who you are
What you do
Why you do it
It lead into that you do all this because you help people do XYZ or whatever it is.
The first thing you have to ask yourself is what the main thing is you want people to learn (it relates back to your about page).
What do you want to teach them? What do you want them to take away?
Act with a singular focus on that.
A while ago, Felicia remembers that she really wanted to drill home the idea that in order to get what you want, a lot of it has to do with really boring stuff that you have to do constantly.
Watch or listen the show to learn more about an example Felicia Spahr shared of the main message that you want to convey.
If you want certain things, then you have to put in a lot of consistent effort. Click to tweet!
How to write blog posts and get people to sign up for your list (and take the right action!)
You should have a core message tat you want to convey. Maybe you have a story you want to share on your blog.
There should generally be something actionable for someone to do. It can be three steps or some sort of framework etc. It’s something they can do today if they really want it.
From there, that’s the moment where you’re being entertaining and you’re also educating people.
Then you kind of transition to the call to action of the post. For example “if you want to do this, or you want to learn more, sign up for my email list”.
It’s a very similar concept to once you add value or once you give something to someone else, they want to give back to you. That’s one of the principles of Influence – “I take, you give”.
People are naturally inclined to do something. If you provide your audience massive value, then they want to learn more, and sign up to your email list or leave a comment on the blog post.
So there you have it, a very simple, easy way to think about it!
Instantly Irresistible Challenge – Take Massive Action NOW!
Identify three people that you want to not only reach out to, but someone that you might like to build a long term relationship with.
When you identify those people, research them, write an email and send it to them within the next seven days.
Share your results in the comments section below. Felicia and I will respond to all of your comments and interact more with you there.
Relevant Resources And Links Mentioned In This Episode
Instantly Irresistible
Felicia Spahr’s Personal Website
Selling for Success – Pick up a copy of Felicia’s book on Amazon!
Private Mentoring by Felicia for Copywriters (Women Only!)
Connect with Felicia on Twitter
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins
Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich
Earn1K - Earn Your First $1,000 on the side – and much more!
Zero To Launch - Launch and automate your next online business!
Interview with Primoz Bozic (episode 8 of The Lifestyle Architects Show)
Michael Alexis
Chris Brogan
The Freaks Shall Inherit The Earth by Chris Brogan
Gary Vaynerchuk
If you love listening to audio books, just like me, get your free audio book today, my gift to you for taking your time to watch and listen to this interview with Felicia Spahr!
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Now It’s Your Turn!
What do you think? Do you believe you have what it takes to be instantly irresistible to anyone you meet? Leave a thoughtful comment below sharing the MOST IMPORTANT insight you got! Be specific – tell a story, please. I’ll respond to every one.
If you enjoy this in-depth guide and interview with Felicia Spahr on how to be instantly irresistible to anyone you meet, please feel free to share it with them!
Stay inspired,
Navid
The post How to Be Instantly Irresistible to Anyone You Meet with Felicia Spahr [@felspahr] appeared first on Navid Moazzez.