Be(a)ware of the Blueprint - EP 022

In this episode, I share a personal experience that brought to light a pattern I've been noticing in the online business and coaching industry. We often see broad advice being given without fully understanding an individual’s unique circumstances and needs, which can lead to solutions that just don't fit.

I dive into why it’s so important to ask the right questions and qualify people before recommending any blueprint or solution. We’ll explore the responsibility we all have—whether we're sellers or buyers—to be honest and discerning about what works and what doesn’t, and who solutions are best suited for.  

It's time we all take a step back, look beyond the surface, and commit to finding what genuinely aligns with our goals and values. 

Join me as I unpack how we can move away from one-size-fits-all advice and start making decisions that are genuinely aligned with our unique journeys.

Key Takeaways

• When giving advice or recommendations, it's important to ask questions and understand the individual's circumstances and needs.
• Not every solution or blueprint works for everyone all the time. It's crucial to qualify individuals and determine if a particular solution is a good fit.
• Sellers should be honest about who their solution works for and under what circumstances, and buyers should be discerning and ask questions before making a purchase.
• The online business and coaching industry needs to move away from making unrealistic promises and focus on serving the right people with the right solutions.

Episode Chapters

00:00 - Introduction and Personal Experience

02:26 - The Pattern of Giving Broad Advice

14:39 - Not Every Solution or Blueprint Works for Everyone

22:25 - Being Honest and Discerning as Sellers and Buyers

31:12 - Conclusion and Call to Action

If you’re ready to have a deeper conversation about how to maximize impact, profit and pleasure in your business and life, you can schedule a time to connect with me right here >>> 

Did this message resonate with you? If you are enjoying the show, it would mean so much to me if you would take a few minutes to leave a review. Reviews like yours help podcasters like me get my podcast into the ears of more people. Thank you in advance for taking a minute to share your kind words.

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome to Pleasure and Profits. I'm your host, Rachel Anzalone. And today I want to share with you a story of an experience that I had recently that was very eye-opening to me. It shed some light on an experience that I have had over and over again that I have participated in from all sides and it really was kind of a light bulb moment for me of realizing what the pattern was that was happening, how this happens again and again and again in the online business, digital marketing, and probably particularly in the coaching industry and maybe how we should be approaching these things or at least looking at them differently. 

So here's what happened. I was attending an event. And I found myself in a group of people of which the majority were business owners, entrepreneurs, you know, online business people with a lot of experience in digital marketing and online business operations and quite a few with experience in brick and mortar business as well. Everybody was sort of pretty well-versed in various aspects of owning and operating their own business. 

And one individual asked a question to the group, it was very conversational. There was no formal setup to this. It was very conversational. This person asked about what they should be doing to grow their business. It was a very broad question to a group of people with a ton of information. If you ask a very broad question, you're probably going to get a wide variety of answers, especially when you're surrounded by people who have tons and tons of information about what could or should possibly be done depending on the situation. 

And what happened was multiple people jumped in and started responding with answers of things that this person could or should do. And there was this moment where I felt inside of me this uprising of like, “Oh I need to jump in on this too.”

And I'm really happy I didn't. There was some little part of me that said, just hold on for one second. And I took a breath and I just sat back and I watched what was happening. And as the people providing advice, information, recommendations were directing this information at the person who asked the question, what I saw was the look on this person's face being the recipient of all of this, that their eyes sort of started to glaze over. There was like some overwhelm that was clearly happening. And, you know, maybe part of that's because they didn't ask a specific question. They asked a very general question. And so they got a broad variety of answers. 

And what was happening was people were just sort of like firing coulds and shoulds at them. You know, you should get on LinkedIn. You should raise your prices. You should engage with your mailing list more. You should go to events in person. Sort of just all these things that could be done to grow a business. And as the conversation continued, the voices sort of got louder and louder and more forceful and people, it was like a competition to see like who could deliver the information to this person that they were gonna take and use and… here's the thing, this group of people, every single person was brilliant. Every person is skilled, every person is capable, every single one of them I believe could help this person to grow their business. Now what they weren't doing, what I noticed and what sort of came up for me while I was sitting there was that yes, all of these things they were saying were relevant and true and valid, but were they relevant to this particular person and their particular circumstances? 

And so what I realized is that I didn't actually want to jump in and start firing more things at this person. I wanted the whole conversation to stop and I wanted to ask about 52 questions to this person to get a better understanding of where they've been, where they want to go, what their vision is, what's important to them, what their values are, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy, what they've tried in the past and has worked or hasn't worked. 

I wanted to dig in and I realized that this wasn't the place for that. That there was no way that around this table with all these people, there was no possible way to actually get the information, to get the clarity, to be able to provide this person with advice or recommendations that might really be useful. And then what I realized was that in the past, and I would say very particularly early on in different entrepreneurial roles or adventures that I've had, that I have done this too. I have been the person to just like jump in and start firing information at someone. I've done it over and over and over and over again. 

And so some of that I believe, and I can only speak for myself, I don't know what other people's motivations are. Some of that when I think back to when I started working as a holistic health practitioner, I was working as a naturopath and an herbalist and I was really becoming very well versed in holistic nutrition and whole body wellness in an era and in a location where that wasn't common. And so I was excited about what I was doing, had all this information and I just wanted to share it with people and definitely would do that thing where I would be like, “You should eat this. You should try that,” sort of all these things. 

Well, the fact is that any of that information is only as relevant or as useful to the person as it applies to their unique circumstances. Like there is no one size fits all way to address someone's health or wellness. And of course there are things that would be good for all of us, but firing that information at somebody who's not ready to hear it and doesn't understand the context in a circumstance where they can't actually receive it and utilize it, really is kind of a pointless exercise. And I think I used to do that because I was excited and I wanted to share it and I wanted people to know what I knew because it was so important and so valuable to me. 

And so as I, my work and holistic health and wellness progressed, that desire, that drive to do that really reduced. And even though I don't work in that world anymore, I'm not a naturopath anymore, I'm not a holistic wellness practitioner, I still like, I keep up to date on this stuff. I'm a little bit obsessive about it and I'm constantly learning and for myself, for my own wellbeing, for my own experience. And I have learned that there are times and places to share that information with other people and that is really, really not helpful to people to just be telling them what they should or shouldn't be putting in their body. 

And the same thing applies to this world of digital marketing and online business and how to grow your business, strategy, all of these things. And so if you could imagine the scenario where somebody is, say, l sitting at a dinner table and they say, “Man, I've just been having a lot of indigestion lately. I wonder what I should do about it.” And then all of sudden, people start firing advice at them about all the ways they could possibly address their indigestion. That really wouldn't be useful unless you know that person's entire medical history, unless you know what they've done. Unless you want to spend the next two hours sitting around this table talking about this person's health, you can't just fire a couple of solutions at them in five minutes or 10 minutes and think that that's going to have some sort of lasting impact.

And so this is what I've seen happen again and again in the online business space, digital marketing, et cetera. And as I've said, I've done it myself. I look back and I think, “Oh my God, I used to go to these networking events.” Especially early on when I felt like I had all this information that was useful and relevant to share in spaces where people were trying to grow their businesses.

And I would do that too. And what I realized is that part of it was excitement and that also part of it was about having a desire or a need or a drive to prove myself, to prove what I know. And this, think, is a part of the dynamic where I think it starts to get a little icky.

And I say that knowing full well that I have done it and admitting and confessing that I have done it. And when I did it, it was icky because it is self-serving to dump, to vomit, to fire hose all the information that you know on a person. Even if your objective intent is that you're going to help them, you're going to somehow serve them, you have the desire and the drive in you to solve their problem for them, that's not what you're doing in that moment. You're not actually solving the problem. 

In that moment, you are wrapped up in your ego trying to show how much you know so that they will then like you and trust you and ask you for help and engage you, maybe hire you, etc. And it's not an effective sales tool. And there's another deeper, longer conversation I want to have around the sales conversation and how doing that in the sales conversation sets up a really shitty dynamic, which also I have done. If you haven't noticed, a lot of what I share on here is because I have made all the mistakes and I've learned from them. 

And so I had a big awakening around doing this very specific thing in sales conversations and then what that resulted in. I will record a whole separate episode about that. But in this circumstance, there is an element of thinking that because you have helped yourself, because you have helped other people, even if you've helped tons and tons and tons of other people, that you have the answer that this person needs. 

And here's the thing, maybe you do, maybe you do have the answer the person that this person needs. Maybe all those people firing information at that individual could help them in massive ways. But the technique of trying to prove what you know and firing all this information at them only results in them feeling overwhelmed, lost, confused, behind, stupid, I don't know. I know I've been on the receiving end of that where someone is like, you just do this and this and this and this. And then I'm like, “Oh apparently I'm an idiot because they think this is really, really simple. And I cannot wrap my head around what they're saying to me,” right? And often I think that when we're on the receiving end of this, we feel it's disempowering. It's disempowering for us.

And it sets up a power dynamic in the relationship where we, as the person with the problem, are now under the belief that the person with the answer can solve it for us, when the person with the answer doesn't even have all the information to know whether or not they can solve the problem for us, because they haven't asked us any questions yet.

And that is the absolute heart of this, is that…

There are a million solutions and any and all of them can work for some people some of the time under certain circumstances. And absolutely none of them will work for all people all of the time under every circumstance. And so no matter how many people you've helped, no matter how many problems you've solved, no matter how many circumstances your process has worked in, you have to understand that those circumstances are very specific and they do not apply to everyone. And so when you're having individual conversations with people, that's where getting in and asking the right questions to see if somebody qualifies, if they're a good fit for your process and what you do. 

And I think things are better in that realm where we're having one-on-one conversations. Again, I will address the sales conversation specifically and when we get off track with that in a separate episode. What I want to talk more about now is this idea that there is a way, a blueprint that works all the time for everyone. And whether that's in a one-on-one work capacity or as a service provider, having a process that you deliver, whether that is a course or a curriculum or a training that you know works, you have a blueprint that works, it's worked for you, it's worked for other people. What I think is really important is that we acknowledge that a blueprint does not work all the time everywhere under every circumstance, no matter how good the blueprint is. 

So I'm going to give you an example of blueprint of a house. So you could have a beautifully designed, perfectly illustrated blueprint of the most epic house and there's nothing wrong with this blueprint. It is perfect, 100 percent dialed in perfect. If you take that blueprint and you deliver it to an incompetent contractor who has poorly skilled team members, who are using shitty materials and building it on the wrong surface or in the wrong environment. If any one of those factors is out of alignment, out of integrity, not the ideal, then it doesn't matter how good that blueprint is, the house is not going to be great. Now think about that in terms of your business. If you have a blueprint that you deliver to other people, if you buy a blueprint, it doesn't matter how good the blueprint is if all the other variables that go into the execution of that blueprint are not optimal. 

And now that's not to say that you can't execute on that blueprint in a pretty damn good way, regardless of what your circumstances are. But you have to understand that you're buying or you're selling a blueprint and the end result is going to be affected by all of these other factors.

And so you have to take into account all these variables in order to determine whether or not it's the right blueprint for you, or if it's something you're selling, if it's the right blueprint for the person that you're talking to. And so when I think about this in terms of business, in terms of what sorts of programs, offers we're buying and selling, again, one-on-one, you can have the conversation, you can discern, you can figure out, and there's a level of learning for yourself in the one-on-one conversations, what makes somebody a good fit to work with you or not.

What I see happening a lot, is people selling blueprints online, and because they're selling it at scale, which means they're running ads or they're using organic social media posts and they're sending people straight to a sales page or even to a sales mechanism like a webinar or something like that, to purchase a blueprint that works for lots of people a lot of the time. And you may see testimonial after testimonial after testimonial of how well it works. 

What you don't see is the percentage of people that it didn't work for. And if it didn't work for them, it's not because necessarily that the blueprint was bad. It might be the people that didn't work for didn't have the skill set, didn't have the funds, didn't have the right circumstances, whatever those things are. And so it's about really becoming mindful whether you're buying or selling that you are not.

It's about really becoming mindful about understanding that a blueprint works some of the time for some of the people and that there is no guarantee, right? And so if you are selling blueprint type material, I believe it's your responsibility to make it very clear who this works for and who it doesn't and what the criteria are gonna be to make it be successful or not.

One of the things that I get fired up about is the promise of an outcome based on a blueprint. And then once you get into the materials, finding out that you have to invest a whole bunch of money in some other aspects in order to make the blueprint work. If the promise is like this blueprint will get you there, you're not taking into account that maybe everyone doesn't have that extra money to invest. They're thinking that this is the solution, not that this is gonna be the information that then is going to lead them to the next piece and the next piece and the next piece, right? And so it's really about positioning. 

And so it could be about they’re needing to be additional financial investments. It could be about they’re needing to be additional team members support. 

I've seen people talk about their social media marketing strategy. And once you get into the nitty-gritty details of it, you know, they have a team of six people who are executing this, and yet they're selling it to brand new entrepreneurs who are maybe not even doing six figures yet and certainly don't have a team of people to execute at the level that is being presented to them is like the way to do the thing. 

And so if you're selling, you need to be mindful of what you're promising and whether or not it's real. And this will go against everything that most people who are teaching how to sell in market will tell you because most of the time the goal is to just sell as much as you possibly can and take the testimonials from the people who it works for and forget about the people who it doesn't work for. So many people operate that way and teach that. 

And they might not be consciously verbally teaching it, but it's just an assumption that if you sell a thousand of this, that if it works for a hundred of those people and you get a good testimonial, then you can just keep selling it. But it doesn't take into account that there are 900 people who it didn't work for and nobody will ever know that it didn't work for them. You're just never gonna know that it didn't work for those people or why it didn't work for those people. It might be their life circumstances. Maybe they got into it and realized it wasn't what they really wanted. Or maybe there were all these factors that needed to be in place in order to execute it that they just didn't have the capacity to do. 

Often what happens, I felt this way myself, it took me some time on this because I worked behind the scenes supporting a lot of people and watched what they were selling and how they were executing what they were doing. And, more than once I enrolled in or engaged in a course or a program that they were delivering and somewhere along the way found that I couldn't execute what they were teaching for myself and my own business. And I have seen and heard leaders describe the people who don't succeed in those circumstances as, God, in the most terrible ways. I can't even, I don't even want to say the ways, but basically just saying you're like, you're a failure. These people are failures because they didn't do it. They weren't motivated, they weren't driven, they didn't want it bad enough, sort of all of these things.

And it makes my heart hurt to think about the things that have been said, the things that I have heard said about people who did not complete a program or did not find the success that they were looking for inside of various programs and trainings. It makes me sad because we don't know what people's circumstances are that prevented them from doing the things, from getting it done, from getting to where they thought they wanted to be. 

And I remember a particular environment where I was in where I just thought, “Oh my God, there must be something wrong with me because...maybe I just don't want, maybe I don't want it bad enough. If I wanted it bad enough, I would have gotten this done.” If I wanted it bad enough, or maybe I just, I don't have the skills that this other person has or these other people have. And now I look back on it and I think, “Oh my God, it was entirely just the wrong thing for me. The energy around the way it was delivered and the expectations I like to work on things where it is slow and thoughtful and I'm engaged and it feels good and I understand the whole context. And in this particular circumstance, it was like we're just like rushing through everything and just throwing stuff out into the world for people to see.” And that felt terrible to me. And it had nothing to do with the blueprint. It had nothing to do with the program. And it had nothing to do with me or my skill set or my ability.

What it 100 % had to do was a misfit. But when a person is selling a product or a program or a course or a blueprint and their goal is to just sell, sell, sell to anybody they could get in there to bring in that revenue and they're not qualifying, they're not checking to see if this is a good fit or not, then of course you’ll end up with people who are in there who it does not work for. 

And so… You know, maybe it's unrealistic to think that any of us would qualify every single person who purchases a product or a program. And I just feel like we're at this point in the online marketing industry, in the digital marketing industry, in the coaching industry, where we really just need to get more honest about what works and what doesn't work and who it's going to work for under what circumstances and stop making these promises that I have all the answers and I can solve everything for you no matter what. No matter who you are, no matter what's going on, I know how to make this work and you just need to do what I tell you. Because it's not true. It's not true under any circumstances. 

And it doesn't matter if you're buying or selling a $100 blueprint or you're investing in high level coaching or consulting or even implementation services, we need to communicate more about what our expectations are, who we love to serve, who we're capable of serving and get out of this mentality that there are blueprints, there are systems, tools, processes that work 100% of the time for every single person because it just simply isn't true. 

And I feel like it's a lie that as the coaching industry has grown and as online marketing has grown and grown and grown, this lie has grown and grown as well until it feels at this point like it is the pervasive energy is to just as a salesperson to show up and say like, “I have the answers, I know what works, I can do this, my process will work for you, you need to buy it.” Like it just feels, it's so artificial. It's so inauthentic. It's out of integrity, unless what's in integrity for you is to sell as much as possible to every single person possible, no matter what the potential outcome, the potential result. If that's you, then it's integrity. 

And for you to just sell, sell, sell no matter what. But I don't think anybody listening to this podcast is that person. I think that if you're listening to me, I believe that you have a desire to make the world better and to do it in a way that is in alignment and in integrity. And that means you need to scrap what a lot of people are teaching out there in terms of how you sell and how you market and how you make promises about what you do and what you deliver and who it can work for. And also, you also are a consumer. You also are on the buying end. 

And so there is a level of responsibility of knowing and understanding that when you buy something, really learning to read between the lines of, “Is this person making promises that can be and should be accurate for everyone? Am I just hoping that this will work for me because this person's sales page says it's going to work for me? Or can I read through this and say, yes, this is the thing that I need right now and I am ready to implement. And I have an idea or I will ask the questions to say, what else am I going to need in order for this to work?”

We need to ask more questions. We need to be more discerning as consumers.

We need to not get on the other side and feel like, shit, I just spent money on this thing and I can't actually do this, or I don't wanna actually do this because it really just isn't a good fit for me. And so, I guess where I'm landing with this, we'll land this airplane. To come back to that conversation that I heard, that I witnessed was that, all these solutions are great solutions and they will work for some of the people some of the time. And what we really need to do is figure out if they're the right solution for this person at this time. And that is the case whether we're selling a blueprint, a process, or whether we're buying one. And so this is how we get better. This is how the industry gets better.

This is how we serve more people. This is how we get better results for people. It's by making sure that we're actually taking care of the right people with the right solution.

And so I'm going to end there. As I said, I had a grand awareness, I think it was about two years ago, of a thing that I was doing in my sales conversations that relates very much to this. And so I will record an episode just about that and we'll get that out as soon as possible. 

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, I am wishing you even more pleasure and profits. Take care and I will see you soon.