44. Mastering Instagram Sales with Molly Cahill

[00:00:00] Burhaan Pattel: Welcome to The Marketing Stack Podcast.

[00:00:01] Burhaan Pattel: And today I'm talking to Molly Cahill who was actually on a with me through a health pro summit that we hosted last year, while he teaches holistic wellness pros, how to leverage Instagram for business growth in less time without, and here's the kicker: without obsessing over likes comments and follows.

[00:00:23] Burhaan Pattel: Molly, welcome here. Is that beer? I know it's Easter Fridays. Is That? Are you kidding me? It's coffee.

[00:00:32] Molly Cahill: It's 10 in the morning here, so.

[00:00:34] Molly Cahill: Right,

[00:00:35] Burhaan Pattel: I'm winding down. It's almost 10:30 here. So, yeah, cool. So welcome, Do a short introduction: How did you get into wellness? How did you get into Instagram?

[00:00:47] Burhaan Pattel: And we'll take it from there.

[00:00:49] Molly Cahill: So, I think with a lot of entrepreneurs, it's kind of an accidental journey, right? Nobody wakes up and they're like, "You know what, I'm going to do this thing." I was in medical sales , my college degree is actually in [00:01:00] public or public relations. And I quickly found out that I hated being behind the desk, you know, the cubicle life.

[00:01:06] Molly Cahill: So I went into outside sales and I was in outside sales for nine years. The last six of those, I was in medical sales, which I don't know what it's like in your part of the world, but for here, it's a great. I mean, the money is great. It was, you know, I was making more money than all of my friends in my twenties.

[00:01:21] Molly Cahill: Right so it's like, "Well, what's wrong?" Well, I was stressed. I was burned out. I was never home and a large part of my job was dictated by insurance companies as well. So that, that always sucks. So when I got pregnant with my daughter, who's now five, my husband is in the military and we timed it just perfectly.

[00:01:42] Molly Cahill: He deployed when I was 37 weeks pregnant. So I was at, "You know, I can't continue traveling." We had no family. We were living in San Diego, California. I had no family can't, I can't continue traveling and keeping up the schedule and raising a baby. And so I quit with no plans. I had socked away some [00:02:00] cash and I became friends with my chiropractor and she said, "Hey, do you want to run my Instagram?"

[00:02:07] Molly Cahill: Sure, I've no idea what I'm doing. I had an Instagram, you know, just for personal use in, but I certainly had no idea what I was doing. Might she worked for trade. She adjusted me for free, and I did her Instagram, and it snowballed from there. She had a massage therapist and an acupuncturist and our office and assume started doing their accounts and then we're get out with our friends.

[00:02:28] Molly Cahill: And then I thought, "Well, I'll just make this a legit business." So the reason I'm focused on the wellness industry is because when I was in medical sales, I called on pain management and addiction clinics. And it's heartbreaking to see- it's just heartbreaking to see what these like really strong drugs and things have done to people.

[00:02:51] Molly Cahill: I do believe I've had a couple of personal things in my life with missteps and conventional medicine that have happened to me and my family. And so I'm just really, I [00:03:00] really want to get out like the whole functional medicine, holistic wellness message to more people. So it was a beautiful synergy. So, here we are.

[00:03:08] Burhaan Pattel: Very well, I guess it's one of those things of you knowing the industry, which helps you obviously know what to post and the guidelines, what you can say and what you can't say and things that are on there. Especially on the advertising side, but I know, you don't run advertising - Any specific reason why no advertising?

[00:03:30] Molly Cahill: I don't run advertising because my brain I'm a creative brain. And when I get into facebook ads manager my creative brain starts to short circuit. So, anybody who's watching this, you've been inside Facebook ads managers. It makes my eye Twitch. So leave that to the pros. Its to me, that's a whole totally different.

[00:03:52] Molly Cahill: Now I can help you set up the copy and, you know, create a piece of content and that would perform well as an [00:04:00] ad, but as far as actually setting up the ins and outs of the ads, that's not my brain.

[00:04:06] Burhaan Pattel: No, that's cool. And I mean, there's a place for everything right. And you know, Instagram, as I said to you before the interview started, I'm kind of focused on Instagram at the moment.

[00:04:18] Burhaan Pattel: Just experimenting, playing around. One of the questions, "I wanted to ask you was as a marketer, how important is it for us to have an audience as Marketers?"

[00:04:30] Molly Cahill: That's a great question so, it's kind of one of those double-edged sword things on one hand, do you have this saying -The cobbler's child has no shoes.

[00:04:40] Molly Cahill: Is that a saying everywhere? Okay, so on one hand I often feel like a cobbler's child because of course my content comes last, all my clients where it comes first. But then on the other hand, if they're coming to you, they want to see that you are doing well and you kind of have some clouds. [00:05:00] So, you know, most of my business is referral based at this point, honestly, it's I haven't run the numbers recently, but it's, it's above 75%.

[00:05:11] Molly Cahill: So I don't have to worry about it as much because when it being so niche, it's a small, you know, people tell their friends, whatever. So I really think it just kind of depends on your niche, but our mutual mentor, Sunny Lenarduzzi was actually the one who gave me the courage to niche down to just serve in health and wellness.

[00:05:32] Molly Cahill: And I think this is hopefully a really helpful nugget for your audience. I was really scared to do that because for a while, I did have mostly health people as my clients, but I also had a couple like real estate agents, I had a hairdresser. I just didn't enjoy doing their content, but I was so afraid to say, no, I just do these peoples.

[00:05:55] Molly Cahill: And when I did my business tripled in one month, because you become [00:06:00] that magnet. So there really is something to say for being so niche, especially in the beginning, which I know that word just like gets beat to death in our space. I hear the word niche one more time, but it's true. So I do see, there's this fabulous woman I follow on Instagram.

[00:06:19] Molly Cahill: It's glo graphics. GLO graphics it's glow autonomy. Or do you know her? So she's a creator, she's a traveler. She started off as a travel blogger, you know, really big into Instagram about probably 10 years ago when it first started. And so her content is kind of all over the place.

[00:06:39] Molly Cahill: She got Travel content, She has inspirational content, she has some Instagram tips certain in there, but she can get away with that because she's built this audience over 10 years. But when you're first getting started, I really think like if you're a health coach, you have to say, I treat thyroid. You know what I mean?[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] Molly Cahill: You, really have to, it's not that people aren't going to come to you for other things. I mean, I have a CBD company who is one of our clients. I have a kind of have some peripheral people, you know, who are like, well, this is close enough. I have like a birth doula, you know, things like that.

[00:07:16] Molly Cahill: So it's not saying that other people aren't going to come to you, but it really does help you, grow your own audience and do your own thing faster in the beginning, because you could become the go-to, that's kind of a roundabout way of answering your question, but what do you think.

[00:07:35] Burhaan Pattel: I, this is also the drive for me.

[00:07:39] Burhaan Pattel: Referral traffic is great. Referral clients are great. I've had the experience where it kind of dries out for a few months. It's like people are, I don't know, maybe not talking about me, not thinking about me, whatever. And so it's not quite feast or famine as freelancers or, marketers would say, but, you know, Yes, I think [00:08:00] I need to have at least a following or at least a few numbers of maybe vanity metrics, but at least some activity, not only for the education piece, but also for my own practice, because if I can practice what I'm telling my clients to do, then, you know, I'm know I kind of look a little bit more credible.

[00:08:18] Burhaan Pattel: That's my,

[00:08:19] Molly Cahill: approach. I agree with you. And I've even had Instagram marketers, for example. And it depends on what you're, what it is that you're marketing. So my business coach, now she's a good friend of mine. She hates Instagram. So she's not, she gets all of her business through SEO and organic traffic, which is brilliant strategy because you own that.

[00:08:38] Molly Cahill: And, you know, so she doesn't post on Instagram, but that's also part of her messaging is, "you do not have to be on social media." So if I go to her Instagram and see that there's tons of activity, I'm like, "Well, she's a fraud because she saying you don't need Instagram yet she's posting." But just last month I bought this hashtag program thing just cause I was [00:09:00] curious, I'm always tinkering.

[00:09:00] Molly Cahill: You're probably like this too. I'm always tinkering, just seeing what other people in our space are doing. So I'm like, do they know something I don't? And the answer is usually no, but you know, that's also validating as well, right? Like, okay, this is, this is stuff I know. So I bought this hashtag program and I go to this particular hashtag programs, Instagram, and there's three posts on it total.

[00:09:19] Molly Cahill: And so I cancel my subscription because like you're not even using your own software. So yeah, I think there's something to be said for that, for sure. For the marketers who are listening.

[00:09:32] Burhaan Pattel: So I know you're a fan of Later.com and

[00:09:35] Molly Cahill: Planoly is actually my go to.. Oh,

[00:09:38] Burhaan Pattel: interesting. Go ahead. Sorry. I called you out there. A lot of people are fans of later and it's nice to see, you know, when these software companies Later Canva , Planoly like all of

[00:09:52] Burhaan Pattel: these companies are actually putting out content, that's getting, that's going viral. That's getting activity, the response, you know, responding in [00:10:00] the comments. There's a lot of social engagement there, even though they're like seen as more sort of, what's behind the scenes support type things. And I really love that about, because again, it's like, if they're not practicing what they preach, then their software can't evolve.

[00:10:18] Burhaan Pattel: Right. So.

[00:10:20] Molly Cahill: It's the same for us. I love later too. It's just, you know, when you get used to one particular program and you're just like, I can't learn something else, so that's why we do play, but they're all six in one half dozen them. They're they're all the same. Maybe I'll do the

[00:10:33] Burhaan Pattel: same work. Yes, obviously with Instagram going to video and kind of focusing way more on video from your point of view, and also from your client's point of view, how has that transition affected your business?

[00:10:48] Burhaan Pattel: Affected their business?

[00:10:50] Molly Cahill: This is a hot topic right now, isn't it? Yep. So, I just had the conversation with my, I have two lovely [00:11:00] counterparts who helped me always say, I'm the creative and they're the make sure things go out on time for our clients. But I just had the conversation with them yesterday.

[00:11:08] Molly Cahill: And I said, you know, I'm wondering if like our current done for you services or three grid posts a week and one reel per week. Usually the client will film something for us, but plus they usually about half of our clients filmed something for us. The other half were kind of struggling like what can we make into a video?

[00:11:30] Molly Cahill: Whether we're doing like a photo montage and stock video from canvas. We get creative right. But I said, I wonder if we need to start replacing that and just see what have I would love to just track the metrics over a month and see, because something you said to me, when we went in your intro, you said I'm playing around with Instagram.

[00:11:50] Molly Cahill: I think that is the key word. And I'm going to go back to your video question, but I did want to touch on what you said about playing around. Because, I think so many people see these [00:12:00] quote gurus and they think this is the way this is the roadmap like the Jedi has, you know, so really you just gotta play around because what works for you might not work for me, might not work for someone else.

[00:12:10] Molly Cahill: So I love that you said that. So, first things first is like, don't be afraid to experiment because there are accounts who are still doing well, who are just posting infographic carousels every day or memes every day. Right? So it's not like you have to do this things a certain way, but we are going to start testing out instead of three grid posts in one reel per week, we're going to start doing two and two, just to see if it does anything with the metrics, but I have a blog post.

[00:12:39] Molly Cahill: If any of your listeners want to go refer to this. I am just a fan of very simple reels. If you notice mine, I very rarely, I mean, sometimes I'll do the funny lip dubs and stuff, but typically I'm like, just use your voice. I mean, like you, you have a lovely accent, right? So if I never got to hear that, [00:13:00] like that's part of your brand and the spoken word is what sets humans apart from every other thing we.

[00:13:07] Molly Cahill: I think people just hide behind these lip dubs and these dances. I'm like, I want to hear you talk. There was this one marketer who I finally heard her voice and she was Australian and I love Australian accents. I'm like, are we watching your videos more? If you, if I could hear you talk. So with video and with reels, I think one thing that keeps people from like, to your question that keeps people from wanting to do more videos, they think it's going to be more work.

[00:13:34] Molly Cahill: But really, I find a lot of times it's actually faster than creating a post because you can just get on, put on the automatic close captions in the story feature, throw it up on a reel, just say, Hey, here's the top three questions. My clients asked me this week, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it does not have to be fancy.

[00:13:52] Molly Cahill: And the other thing I like is college is like the five second video, because if it's a five second video, it loops, you know, my number one [00:14:00] tip for growing your email list in the caption and that's it. It's a five second looping video of whatever it could be, your dog running through the field, whatever it doesn't matter.

[00:14:10] Molly Cahill: So you still harness the video, but you're treating it more like a normal grid post. So that's what I should say about the idea. We're going to be testing I'll report back.

[00:14:21] Burhaan Pattel: Awesome, Yeah, as I think I've, come to this conclusion of playing because I've, I don't want to say failed on YouTube, but YouTube is just not as fun for me.

[00:14:35] Burhaan Pattel: And looking at your numbers as well. It's challenging. It's really difficult. YouTube is

[00:14:41] Molly Cahill: My goal for 2022 is to do like a weekly YouTube video and I just can't stick with it it's hard.

[00:14:50] Molly Cahill: Yeah,

[00:14:50] Burhaan Pattel: YouTube is hard and it's, you know, it's, requires a lot more dedication, a lot more editing, a lot more thought and process, versus, [00:15:00] you know, like I put up a reel yesterday, it was Monday night already and I was like, oh shit, I don't have a reel today.

[00:15:05] Burhaan Pattel: Because I'm trying to do daily and I had some, I was standing on the side of the road and I just took the cars like driving by and I put some text on it and I found a song and I was like, okay, boom done. And I went to bed and I didn't know that I couldn't sleep, but that reel got like 1100 or 1200 views and like 30 or 40 minutes or something.

[00:15:27] Burhaan Pattel: Yeah, Oh goodness. Like here I am with this fancy camera and the audio and the fancy stuff. And I was just standing on the side of the road and I took this video that I had no idea what it was going to do with, and then out of desperation, I posted it and it's doing something. Yeah, so play, I think play is the right attitude to use.

[00:15:49] Burhaan Pattel: No matter what platform, whether it's Instagram or reels or, YouTube or any of the platform.

[00:15:56] Molly Cahill: Yeah, and on the same video topic, I don't know if you [00:16:00] have any data on this, but one thing we haven't done a lot of is longer form video on Instagram, because I just think, and I don't have the numbers to support this.

[00:16:10] Molly Cahill: Right. This is just my being on the platform a lot conclusion. I think they did away with ID TV for a reason. Yes. And now for those of you who are listening and you're like, I don't know what that means. They now have it. They just call it Instagram video. It's literally the same thing, but it's just any video that's longer than a minute.

[00:16:30] Molly Cahill: And you can go up to, how long is it now? 60 minutes, I think. Or 30 minutes. Yeah, I just don't think people go to Instagram for long form video. I don't think that's their intention when they go to the platform. And I think that's why longer video? Like I said, I haven't done many, unless it's like an Instagram live that I've been, you know, made and they pushed out to my feet, but I don't know.

[00:16:58] Molly Cahill: What are your thoughts on that? [00:17:00]

[00:17:00] Burhaan Pattel: I think there's a long term play here because tiktoc also now at 10 minutes you can do 10 minutes.

[00:17:11] Burhaan Pattel: And so I think there's a long-term playground. Where what the heck, you know, that kind of phasing hashtags out, or like nobody really knows, but you know, hashtags are not as important in my opinion is as an, again, like it's testing.

[00:17:26] Molly Cahill: Because they remind me to remind me to talk to you about that after, but go ahead.

[00:17:30] Burhaan Pattel: Yeah so, this is my theory anyway. So because they're focusing more on the SEO side, it's like, Ok, if it's becoming a search based platform over the next 2, 3, 600 years, whatever, then long form content on Instagram makes sense because they are going off to YouTube traffic. So, this is that kind of in the, in the long term play.

[00:17:59] Burhaan Pattel: And then there's [00:18:00] metaverse, and there's all this other connection to Facebook and people searching on Facebook and there's like, there's a much bigger picture going on. Tell me about hashtags. I'm

[00:18:09] Molly Cahill: curious. Well, no, I was just going to go back to you talking about the search function, because that used to be my biggest gripe with Instagram videos.

[00:18:17] Molly Cahill: Its like I wanted to go look it up for makeup tutorial. It's not like it's YouTube where I can easily go search it. Right? It's like, you have to hope that they use the right hashtags so, maybe they rank and maybe you find them. So, yeah, that's actually a great point. This is why I love having conversations with peers.

[00:18:32] Molly Cahill: You're like, something to pontificate. So, hashtags, I, the majority of my business is, are our businesses local. So they draw a local audience and I think I look at hashtags a little differently. I don't look at hashtags as did I rank right. Then how much reach did these hashtags get me? [00:19:00] I incur when, and for our clients, we use very niche, hashtags that even if they're really small, I think of it as their little corner of Instagram where they kind of get to live on forever.

[00:19:12] Molly Cahill: So. One really good example from, well, I'll give you two examples, one that's brick and mortar, like local business. And one that's not, when we first moved to where we live now, I was looking for a hair stylist. And so it's a pretty small town. So if I were to type in like, you know, Chicago hairstylist, I would have gotten a bajillion, but I'm in a small town.

[00:19:33] Molly Cahill: So I did, you know, like Gulf breeze hairstylist and the results were pretty limited, but I found my hair girl that way. And it was a post from like two years before. Did she had you, but I found it that way and I'm actually going there. My I've been going to her for years now. So that's one way to think about it with hashtags.

[00:19:49] Molly Cahill: Another way to think about it is I recently, switched, well, not Rosebud about a year now. Everything over to Kartra. I think we've talked about that. And I [00:20:00] was looking for a Kartra specific virtual assistant and I'm like, I'm willing to pay more that I can just be hands off. I don't have to train you.

[00:20:07] Molly Cahill: You already know the software. So on Instagram I search the hashtag Kartra VA and it was a very small pool, but there are people, I mean, I didn't end up going with any of those people, but it's just an example that if that small pool, and it's your little corner of the internet, where you live. But on the flip side of immediate reach, we've still seen I was running, I don't have my phone in front of me.

[00:20:30] Molly Cahill: I was running the numbers, all of our clients who are brick and mortar and virtual who pull a virtual, they're still getting reached from hashtags. We're still maxing out on 30 hashtags on every post and we're getting at least let's see, what did, what would that be like? Anywhere from 40 to 200 extra eyeballs, which for really small accounts is a lot of extra eyeballs.

[00:20:57] Burhaan Pattel: Yeah.

[00:20:59] Molly Cahill: I don't think they're [00:21:00] dead. I think people like to think things well, you know, Adam Moseri said that he's like, "oh, well, they don't really, I'm like, not true."

[00:21:10] Burhaan Pattel: Well, I don't think they can turn it off instantly because the whole of Instagram is built hashtags Right? So, you think of early days, Twitter, was, also very hashtag friendly, the very hashtag crazy as well.

[00:21:25] Burhaan Pattel: But today people don't use it as much unless it's like a very specific, you know, community that's using just that bad hashtag or it's one hashtag. In the, in the tweet. But yeah, this is a space to, look out for. I'm honestly just lazy to go look for hashtags and think of what hashtags, I have many lists somewhere on my, on my Google drive or somewhere.

[00:21:51] Burhaan Pattel: But yeah, the process of putting them in. It's sometimes tricky again. Well,

[00:21:57] Molly Cahill: again, being so niche, it's easier for me, I think because it's [00:22:00] like chiropractic marketing, it's like a pretty small hashtag and I like to be ranking there because that's where I want people to find me. And, so yeah, when you are me, it's, easier.

[00:22:10] Molly Cahill: And if you're, in the health space, I would say. If you just draw a local audience, definitely look at your local hashtags as many as possible. And then on top of that, I have found symptom-based hashtags to perform better than, like what's the word I'm looking for? I want to say disease-based but say you have PCOS which is the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome instead of using a POCS hashtag, if that's something you treat.

[00:22:40] Molly Cahill: A symptom of that they might have usually does better because when you go with the more condition, that's where I'm looking for. If you go more, condition-based really, you'll just see a lot of other people who have that, or like a lot of other health coaches in your space who do that. So I've found the symptom-based tends to do a little better and [00:23:00] draw a little better audience, but I know the thing to keep in mind, excuse me.

[00:23:04] Molly Cahill: Is that if you put your hashtags in the caption itself, not in the first comment that still gets picked up in Instagram keyword, as you said, SEO. So if you have a green smoothie recipe and you didn't actually use the words green smoothie in the caption, but you used a hashtag green smoothie, you would still pick up in that keyword search.

[00:23:27] Molly Cahill: So, that's an another thing with, you know, if you can't find a way to weave these keywords into your caption, you can still put them in this hashtags and then get picked up that way.

[00:23:37] Burhaan Pattel: Right? Similar to your tags on YouTube, even though they say tags are not so important.

[00:23:41] Molly Cahill: One thing we're going to start trying, and I've no idea if it's going to work, but we're going to start putting almost a little like bio at the bottom of every caption for our clients.

[00:23:52] Molly Cahill: So yeah, Dr. Sam Smith is a Chiropractor in the city of Arlington, Virginia, who treats PDA, you know, almost like a [00:24:00] little blurred. And I'm just curious I just want to see what it does. Might do nothing I don't know.

[00:24:06] Burhaan Pattel: I haven't seen a few marketers do that. Not every post, but maybe strategically. I mean, obviously people are, you like DM the word so-and-so I will send you my free blah, blah, blah.

[00:24:20] Burhaan Pattel: Like, yeah. That's in the captions and I guess that's a good segue into selling.

[00:24:27] Burhaan Pattel: I said that what we initially were going to talk about so ,"what's the strategy to sell?" Because you know, sometimes it feels a little bit icky, you know? Like you're making content, it's fun, you're dancing, you're bloating, you're miming, whatever the case may be. And then it's like, we're trying to take people seriously. We want them to go to the website or whatever.

[00:24:51] Burhaan Pattel: What's the process like demystify this thing for me, please.

[00:24:56] Molly Cahill: I don't think it's any mystery. I think people make it, I [00:25:00] think as marketers as a whole, we need to get the whole like icky sell without being salesy, like all of that out of vocabulary, out of our brains, because here's, the way I look at it.

[00:25:11] Molly Cahill: And this is not a novel idea that I came up with. I mean, but you are doing someone a disservice. If you do not promote your products, your services, they need what? Now, if you're trying to sell ice to Eskimos then sure. But if you know, you have service that actually provides them with the solution they are looking for.

[00:25:34] Molly Cahill: Then you are actually being, doing them a disservice by not talking about it. So that simple little reframe to me just trickles down through everything. And I've seen the results that my clients and students because I have a, holistic marketing hub as well. It's more of a, DIY, you know, for people who can't do full Instagram management.

[00:25:59] Molly Cahill: And I've seen the [00:26:00] results they've gotten and they're getting new patients in their clinic and new clients. And I know it works, so I'm doing them a disservice if I don't talk about it because I'm not helping them. So that's, that's one key thing and that's another, that's not a tactic or, you know, it's just kinda more like, woo.

[00:26:18] Molly Cahill: But it's true, it's important. Yeah It's so important and the other thing is I was just researching this last week. You know how they used to call it the marketing rule of seven. People need to hear, see something seven times to take action. I think now I saw something in Forbes it was like it's up to like 21 times.

[00:26:40] Molly Cahill: So I use, actually I, if you're watching the video, the eye shadow I'm wearing is from a company called thrive cosmetics. I saw those ads for a year. Oh, goodness, just for the eye shadow. Okay and I finally was like, you know what? I'm almost out like, I'll, buy [00:27:00] it. And I spent like 50 something dollars and I get to their website and little do I know they've got mascara and lipstick and all this other things, but going back to the whole niche thing, the only thing I ever saw ads for was the, eye shadow.

[00:27:15] Molly Cahill: And so it was like fire eye shadow, eye shadows. So I think the first thing about demystifying is don't give people too many options to sell. Like, don't be like, Hey, you can do this program or you could have this, or you could download this or you could go to the, so, a few ways to simplify as is one is your call to action.

[00:27:36] Molly Cahill: Don't have multiple calls to action in your caption. Don't ask people. Comment their favorite emoji like this post and it to a friend and go to this link in your bio. They're like, which one do you want me to do? And just know that if your call to action is click the link in my bio. It's okay to see fewer comments or likes because you don't want them taking their time to comment.

[00:27:59] Molly Cahill: You want that? [00:28:00] To be clicking. And then you want to check your website clicks right? For that post. Yes. But that's why I love the word DM, the whole DM me the word, blah, blah, blah. A lot of people have the automated software. That'll send stuff I personally, most of my sales and things are made in my DM's and relationships.

[00:28:17] Molly Cahill: And so I don't want a robot talking to my people. But I know for a lot of bigger people, they do that and again, if you, do the word DM me, the word. You know, free guide then again, you're not going to see a lot of comments and that's okay. You want to see DM's, right? So simplifying your offers. Do you know Denise

[00:28:41] Molly Cahill: duffield-Thomas? You ever heard of her? She's an Australian money mindset coach. She's a riot and she's always talks about how, like she's a multi-passionate entrepreneur. But she's like made herself just focused on her money bootcamp course because it works and it makes money. And she's talked about it for years.

[00:28:59] Molly Cahill: So I know as [00:29:00] entrepreneurs, we're always like, oh, what's the next new program? I'm so guilty of this. I'm like, oh, maybe I'll do this. And maybe I'll do this. It's like, okay. So for a year I got these thrive cosmetic eye shadow ads. And I finally bought, you know, Simplify your call to action, simplify your products, make it super easy.

[00:29:21] Molly Cahill: I am not a fan of complicated funnels and, you know, people who have like a launch method, a lot of times it's like, well, you can't buy it these times, but you can, but you gotta get on this wait list. And now you're on a deadline time or not. I'm all I'm very, I do give people incentives to buy and do use

[00:29:39] Molly Cahill: deadline timer's but also it's like very simple. Like you want to buy it now you're going to pay full price. But every once in a while I'll give a hundred dollars off and that's it. You can buy it any time you can wait for sale. It's not that big. You can always go find it. And the other big thing I see with selling is the link in your bio you've ever gone to someone's LinkedIn bio and there's like 10 links on there, [00:30:00] or 15 links.

[00:30:01] Molly Cahill: Yeah, you want to have it as simple as possible. Don't give people tons of different options and things to click on. And instead of having like website or blog, you'd put like free marketing tips, click here, very clear. And if you are in launch or promotion mode, I usually just change out the link in my bio to be just that one thing.

[00:30:26] Molly Cahill: So if you're having a 20% off sale supplements and you just have that one link in your bio and you don't have a whole bunch of other stuff. And one thing I saw yesterday that was a total reframe. And it was, I'm so glad the universe put this in my inbox right before our conversation, but it was like, you wonder why cold outreach in DM's and cold conversations feel weird because they are, you want people to come to your DM's, primed, they've consumed your content.

[00:30:56] Molly Cahill: They already know you're an authority. You're not having to prove that [00:31:00] in your DM's. I thought that was an excellent reframe. I'm like, heck yeah. That's like the to have a lot of multi-level marketing things out there. Is that the thing? Right. So for us like, Hey girl, I know we haven't talked since high school, but I've partnered with this great company.

[00:31:14] Molly Cahill: It's like, nobody wants to see no show me your products work, you know, on with, through your content. And then if I'm interested, I'll contact you or you can still contact them. That's why I love Instagram stories. You know, somebody who's got a story up, you reply to their stories, just like a normal conversation.

[00:31:32] Molly Cahill: Not like you went to Starbucks and said, you know, say I was trying to make a mom friend and here I'll do this. I'll say I was trying to make a mom friend and my new city and I'm on the playground. And I'm like, Hey, could have your phone number. You look like you have a kid my age, you know, instead I would be like, Hey, I have that struggle.

[00:31:50] Molly Cahill: You know what I mean? You find that common ground,

[00:31:54] Burhaan Pattel: your eyes are blue. Like mine.

[00:31:57] Molly Cahill: Love that sweater anyway. So [00:32:00] talk to them like a normal human instead of just going straight into like, Hey girl, I love what you're doing with your business. Can I show you what I have to offer? Like, no, I don't know you.

[00:32:10] Burhaan Pattel: Yeah, that's more directly. So, just to summarize, right? So we've got court actions in the caption. So maybe that's like a DM me or go to the bio or something of that nature that we've forgot, obviously the bio, the link in the bio. So keep it simple, keep it strategic based on the thing that you're talking about right there.

[00:32:32] Burhaan Pattel: And then, okay, fine. And then we've got stories where we've got. The URL, goodie Bob. So we can send people to specific places. And then also, you know, comment below alert or send me a message, DM similar story thing. What else is there?

[00:32:55] Molly Cahill: So I've been doing a lot of the I've been doing a [00:33:00] lot of comment below instead of DM me, the word, whatever I've been doing, comment the word.I find that's easier because then people don't have to leave the post Right? And then I'm, DM-ing them. The thing is there's that little reply feature write in comments now the other thing I was just going to say it in terms of selling iswell, I'll say two things, but one is, if you're trying to get somebody, if you have a blog with organic content or a lot of lead magnet, you're trying to get people to your email list.

[00:33:30] Molly Cahill: Because that's to me the goal, that's the goal is to get people on your email list. I don't like to just promote a lead magnet or a blog post. Carte blanche like, Hey, go, go, I've got this sleep and go get it. I like to give a little snippet of it in the caption and say for the rest, you know, here's the first five tips for the other five, go download my thing.

[00:33:52] Molly Cahill: So that's one tip. That's one thing I see people doing wrong. Like new blog, post up, go check it out. I'm like, no, you gave me no incentive to leave this app [00:34:00] I have entranced. Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, I wouldn't do anything. Here's half of the recipe for the other half go

[00:34:14] Burhaan Pattel: and leave out the chicken, right?

[00:34:16] Molly Cahill: Yeah, No, you understand what I'm saying? But, and then the other thing is, collaboration and it was something we talked about. Like collaboration has been my golden goose. And I hate when marketers use hyperbole, but it really has, it has been my golden goose and it's a, what's better than one audience two.

[00:34:37] Molly Cahill: So just like you and I right now, or Joint collab reels are great, Joint Instagram lives. Those are all fantastic ways to, and then have a really strong call to action. So if you're doing a joint Instagram live with somebody in your, like complimentary in [00:35:00] your space. You can put that live link right in the live, you know, to learn more about what we're talking about, click this link and make it something to get on your email list.

[00:35:09] Burhaan Pattel: Okay So, here's a question which is from myself, right in booking this interview with you. I was debating in my mind whether to record this for the podcast. So this is on zoom and we're using zoom tools and all these things, and I'll be editing and it'll go through the sausage factory and come out the other side as an audio transcript and all this, these things.

[00:35:34] Burhaan Pattel: But I was like, we could have done an Instagram live. And so, I haven't done a collab with Instagram live, but for purposes of repurpose, That's a weird sentence to say, but what it have been possible for us to have done this live on Instagram and then downloaded that file and converted into a podcast episode.

[00:35:56] Molly Cahill: I need to, I don't know how she did it, but the one that I just [00:36:00] posted on my feed, the when you messaged me about this morning with Dr. Lauren, it was an Instagram live that we did. And then she took the audio and made it into a podcast. I will say the audio quality is not good because we were just on a live.

[00:36:14] Molly Cahill: And so, and I just read something last night, I'm reading this book called peak mind about focus and our attention. And apparently if audio quality is bad, it stresses out our brains. Yeah, and we won't, we'll, we're more likely to put up with bad quality video than we are audio. So I'm not sure that's the best strategy.

[00:36:37] Molly Cahill: I almost think it's better to just do it twice, which I know I hate to say that, like people say like, well, it's more time, but I've tried to figure out ways. I've tried to figure out ways to repurpose and just do things once. And you know, with this video where, what, 16 by nine aspect ratio for two, for [00:37:00] the non nerds.

[00:37:01] Molly Cahill: That just means that we're landscape. Yeah, widescreen. And if you try to turn this into a real. It's not going to get as great of reach because it's not vertical. It's not nine by 16. So it's, and this is that's something I even asked Sunny. I was like, has anybody crack this code on how I can, you know, I have turned reels into YouTube videos where, you know, on the outskirts we just put, we put like a stock 16 by 9 video in the background.

[00:37:35] Molly Cahill: And just put our reel in the center. I mean, I don't have enough data to be like, yeah, that works. But I've found that it just depends on where, like where do you enjoy creating, you know, make that your home base and then go from

[00:37:49] Burhaan Pattel: there.

[00:37:50] Burhaan Pattel: Yeah, I'm with you on the doing it twice. But that would mean, you know, us scheduling another thing and we could.

[00:37:58] Burhaan Pattel: But yeah, I [00:38:00] mean, you know, that makes sense. And of course, Instagram wants us to use the tools natively, which is why they haven't opened it up to like stream from other places and things they've kept it very tight, just native to the tool itself, which is..

[00:38:17] Molly Cahill: Yeah and it's a different field to me.

[00:38:18] Molly Cahill: It's a little more, not that this isn't casual, but it's a different, you know, I don't know, it's just different than you've got people chatting in and you can answer questions in the chat to me, Q/A's are great for Instagram lives. If you are going to do Instagram lives, I've found there's two ways that work.

[00:38:35] Molly Cahill: Well, one is just to have a recurring series which is like, you know, some people just know to expect you and go in and do some Q/A, the other one is just, if you're going to have a live, you would just promote it. Like you would promote any other that, but just popping on live. If you've got a relatively small audience, not a lot of, I mean, I don't know, but on the same hand it is like [00:39:00] you got to start somewhere.

[00:39:00] Molly Cahill: Right? Exactly. And it's low barrier to enter. You can just hop on and then you've got a video you can put to your. Your feed, but, on the Instagram live thing that you don't want to do, I'm just going to wait on a couple more people to pop on. You can't do that, you gotta just start talking. Because when, once it goes to your feed, no, one's going to watch that.

[00:39:22] Molly Cahill: Yeah.

[00:39:23] Burhaan Pattel: A hundred percent. Okay so, you spoke about mostly getting clients through referrals and obviously DM's. How are things going on? So you, you spoke about the hub and your sort of done for you services, you spoke about you're done that, you're sort of do it yourself services. How are things going just on, in business in general?

[00:39:46] Burhaan Pattel: Like what's the market like at the moment

[00:39:49] Molly Cahill: For my business or for my client? Yeah. Things I'm actually been for me. I'm having I'm already ahead of [00:40:00] what I made last year at this time by devils. So things are going well. I think it's like finally. The first two years I was broke. I remember my business coach being like you're at the tipping point.

[00:40:14] Molly Cahill: I swear you are, you just kind of push over it. You're just like, oh, I'm so frustrated. But I think once you get past that point, and I think you start to just trust your own instincts and your own, this is what I enjoy. This is what's working for my business. I'm not doing what some other guru says I have to do to be successful.

[00:40:39] Molly Cahill: Just like you were saying, you know, I don't really like youtube but, enjoy Instagram or whatever. You know, there, are a million ways to get from point A to Z. And I think once you get a little more into business, you realize that there is no one golden path. And once you kind of find your [00:41:00] group, what works for you and like you said, you're not afraid to play around and experiment.

[00:41:05] Molly Cahill: That's when I really started finding the success and like I said, the referrals, collaborations have been, like I said, my biggest thing, anybody can collaborate. I've had people say, wow, there's nobody. Yeah, there is if you're let's go back to the, say your functional medicine doctor in you are helping people with thyroid issues.

[00:41:27] Molly Cahill: Maybe you collaborate with a habit coach, like a life coach that helps people through habits because what good, what good is any nutrition or supplement protocol? If the people can't change their habits. So, or if you're a local brick and mortar business, maybe you say, or a massage therapy place, you say.

[00:41:47] Molly Cahill: Hey, we're going to collaborate with this coffee shop and get an herbal tea after your massage, like you do a Joint Instagram posts, you do a joint. I mean, I saw the cutest, my own town that I live in has a little main [00:42:00] street and they did the cutest reel of all of them, just all the shops on main street, holding up one of their products.

[00:42:08] Molly Cahill: And then they like put it to the camera, then that was the transition. And then like the next shop, you know, did their product. And it was like, come shop downtown Palafox, you know? And it was just so cute. So it doesn't have to be any, anybody can collaborate,

[00:42:21] Burhaan Pattel: right? Yeah,, well, I think it's one of those things where.

[00:42:27] Burhaan Pattel: People have perhaps this competition mindset where it's like, oh no, I don't want to talk to my competitors. Well, okay fine, but there are other ways to do it. They are other people who have your clients who want to share your clients because it gives everybody a good, it gives the clients a good experience.

[00:42:46] Molly Cahill: Yeah, I like the compliment and if you can find something that's complimentary to you, it's fantastic. Or no, I have a lot of chiropractors who treat pregnant women, something like this. Maybe you find a doula or midwife for [00:43:00] birth center or whatever you collaborate with. There's the possibilities are endless for sure.

[00:43:07] Molly Cahill: Oh, I just did a bunch of freebie swaps going into my, I just did a little launch and It was just, I just emailed a couple of people in my network I'm like, Hey, do you have something you're promoting? Or you want me to share? I'll email it to my list and here's my thing you email it to your list.

[00:43:25] Molly Cahill: And I grew my email list by 225 targeted people in two weeks, which for me running zero ads, to me, that's huge. I mean, I know for a lot of people, I've got this huge list to me. I was like, whoa, is this so yeah, the freebie lead magnet swap thing was great.

[00:43:44] Burhaan Pattel: Cool, speaking of which, "what have you got for people on the podcast?"

[00:43:49] Molly Cahill: Oh my gosh so many things. Let me pick my favorite right now. Let's do go to Mollycahill.com/reels and that's C A H I [00:44:00] L L gives you 101 reels prompts. It's actually more than 101 now. I didn't want to change the name because hundred-one sounds cool like 109 doesn't really say, it's 101 reels prompts without, you know, lip dubbing,singing, dancing.

[00:44:17] Molly Cahill: They're just very basic prompts and a lot of them even have examples. So that's just Mollycahill.com/reels.

[00:44:25] Burhaan Pattel: Cool, the link will be in the show notes. Molly, thank you so much. Any parting words of advice to people who are scared to do video on Instagram?

[00:44:37] Molly Cahill: Yeah, parting words. So, first of all, just from a statistical point of view, usually videos with people's faces perform better. A.

[00:44:44] Molly Cahill: B Every market is saturated, and what's gonna make someone choose you over your competition. It's usually going to be because they see your face and feel some type of connection with you and if you still can't get past it, then start off [00:45:00] by filming things like, let's see, what have I got on my desk here?

[00:45:03] Molly Cahill: Like, oh, here's my favorite candle and just like, use your voice in the background. Right? And then you tip your toes in the 101 reels prompts has some of those as well. It's like, here's my three favorite supplements. Boom, boom, boom like you can just show you the product and your voice in the background and then work your way up There's my steps.,

[00:45:26] Burhaan Pattel: Molly.

[00:45:26] Burhaan Pattel: Thank you so much, always a pleasure. Yes. And thanks for doing this on a Easter Friday. And if you're listening to this after Easter Friday, hope you had a good Easter. It's been some time with the family. Thank you. Cool. You're welcome.

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