Ep #83: 5 Keys for Confidently using Facebook Live with Molly Mahoney

You are listening to The Design You Podcast with Tobi Fairley, episode number 83.

Welcome to The Design You Podcast, a show where interior designers and creatives learn to say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth, and joy. Here is your host, Tobi Fairley.

What’s up, my creative friends? Are you ready to blow your own mind with your ability to put yourself out into the world at a whole new level? Have you been wanting to do stuff for your business? Say on social media or Facebook, on video even? But just haven’t felt like you had the confidence or the tools to do that very thing?

And do you watch brands like me and other people that really show up in that way and think why can’t I do it? I never can think of anything to say or I feel so silly, or it’s just uncomfortable. Well, if any of that describes you, you’re going to love my guest on today’s episode.

Today I’m talking with Molly Mahoney, and she is amazing. And she’s bringing us her five keys for confidently using Facebook Live to build relationships without losing your mind. So if you’re ready to hear this fabulous content and make it so much easier than you think it is to show up online in a big way and get clients and meet financial goals and just be dang proud of yourself in the process then enjoy this awesome episode.

By the way, I was taking tons of notes for myself to use so enjoy them all. Take a ton of notes, and I’ll see you at the end and we’ll talk about this amazing show one more time.

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Tobi: Hey Molly, welcome to The Design You Podcast. I am so excited for myself about today’s topic on doing Facebook Lives, so thank you for being here to teach us about this important thing.

Molly: You are so welcome. I cannot wait to share this with you so that you can implement it right away, and also with all of your amazing friends who are here with us today too.

Tobi: Okay, awesome. So tell us, you have a really cool, clever, but I think perfect description of what you call yourself and what you do, so tell us so that you get it exactly right because it’ll be way better than my delivery of it. Who you are, what you do, what you offer so everybody can understand why you’re bringing us this expertise to the podcast today.

Molly: Yes, I love it. So my name is Molly Mahoney. I am the CEO of The Prepared Performer. And in my past life, I actually was a professional musical theatre performer. So that is where that name started. I was coaching performers to have a business, which was pretty fun and awesome.

And we switched everything and instead of teaching performers how to have a business, we started teaching business owners how to perform. So taking my bajillions of years of experience as a professional performer and bringing that into the business space, which affects more than just video. It’s everything that we do, whether it’s a sales conversation or speaking from the stage. There are so many pieces that we can use with that.

Tobi: I love it. That’s so good. I love it.

Molly: So I’m really known as a camera confidence coach. We have a program called Camera Confidence. Another program called Go Live and Monetize, and our goal is helping business owners to unlock who they actually are as human beings, to elevate that and to share it with the world so they can make a bigger difference, they can make more money, and I think it’s our way of actually changing the world because the more we can be exactly who we are as humans, the greater impact we can have.

Tobi: That is amazing. So we’re actually going to get into these five keys that you have and you’re going to tell us what they are and really the description of what they are. But before we go there, I just want to hang for a second about what you just said because I think that’s really fascinating.

There are two really sides to that story of stepping into who we really are, which I love, and we all hear the authenticity buzzwords in conversation these days, but I think there’s a flip side of that that so many of us are sort of detached or disconnected, or maybe don’t even know who we are, especially when it comes to like, this type of a personality or having a voice if they’re writing a blog or a podcast or on video.

So tell me a little bit about what you see. Do you agree? And how do you help – what if people don’t even know who they are? How do you step into something that you don’t know?

Molly: That’s actually the whole point. And so thank you for highlighting that because I think a lot of people miss it. And they don’t understand why their content – you’re so right. Whether it’s writing or whether it’s on camera, what they don’t understand why it doesn’t feel authentic, and it’s usually because they’re trying to be somebody else because they don’t know who they are.

So great point. And actually, this goes all the way back to Konstantin Stanislavski. Do you know who that is?

Tobi: No. The only Konstantin I know was some guy on the American Idol eight years ago.

Molly: Oh my gosh, I bet he knows about this. So Stanislavski was an acting theorist and he has this huge chart of what it takes to be a really renowned actor, a really developed, crafted actor. And the bottom of this chart, the biggest little box – it’s like a giant box on the bottom that says work on one’s self.

And you know, whether we’re sharing ourselves or it’s just like dealing with the craziness of having a business, if we aren’t sure of who we are, we can completely get derailed. So this is the thing. In coaching performers and I’ve even supported Les Brown in his Facebook Lives.

He calls me his Facebook Live mentor, which is – I used to skip this piece once I started working with people who are more successful and I realized oftentimes, people who are super successful, this is even harder because there’s further to fall.

Tobi: Being vulnerable. Bring a little Brené Brown into it, right? But a lot of us have spent so many years trying to create a certain facade, a certain persona, not look vulnerable. Especially through all the years where we were faking it while we made it. I think we continue to kind of create this kind of version of ourself that’s maybe not really the authentic version of us, and that version never connects with our audience, in my opinion, the way the real version of you does.

Molly: Yeah, and then it becomes something like, oh my gosh, how much do we love Brené, right? But people hear all of that and they’re like okay, more vulnerability, more shame, get rid of the shame, not more shame.

Tobi: Right, we want less shame and more vulnerability. We got plenty of shame going on. In fact, everybody listening’s like, oh my god, I feel shame every time I step on to Facebook Live.

Molly: So true. So what I did is I created this exercise that allows us to identify with who we are as humans and it’s a list – this exercise is something that you can redo every day. It’s even great for kids, it’s great if you’re walking into a – I remember the first time my kids went to kindergarten. I was like, oh gosh, all these new parents, what’s happening? And I used this exercise for that.

Tobi: Like to build up your confidence to enter a room or meet new people or any of that stuff?

Molly: The fake it until you make it, I think there is some power in that, but when you walk into a networking event, you don’t want to be putting on this persona of I’m going to prove to you how cool I am. Instead, if you can just know how awesome you are internally.

Tobi: I agree. I mean, I agree and I sense there’s some truth in fake it until you make it but I was joking. I don’t really like that personally as a belief system because I don’t ever want to be fake. So it’s more like, to me, instead of fake it until you make it, to me it’s more like believing I’m enough all the way up until I get to the goal or the outcome that I want to be.

Molly: And something – total side note on that. I said something yesterday accidentally on a coaching call. We were all sharing what we were grateful for and I said that I was grateful for something that happened next week instead of last week. I was like, this is what I’m going to start doing. And every Thursday in our Facebook group, we’re going to share our gratitudes for what’s going to happen next week.

Tobi: I love that. I’m a big believer in the whole idea of like, your future self and the wisdom that comes in that and I do a lot of work around that because I’m actually a certified life coach too and I come from a whole training and approach that includes that, and I love that. So I’m so grateful of what’s going to happen or what happened next week. I like it said that way even like it already happened. Not like it’s going to happen. That’s awesome.

Okay, so let’s dig in. So we’re on the same page. I love it. I can tell we have so much in common. So let’s get into these five keys. So what is this? Tell me, what is this framework or this concept and then let’s get started going through understanding these really kind of five steps or five ideas or concepts that we need to know so that we can really rock Facebook Live.

Molly: Yes. I love it. Okay, so the little overview first is it’s how to develop the confidence to create juicy content that allows you to make genuine connections with your ideal clients in a way that converts so that we have actual conversions happening and they throw credit cards at our face.

So and then how to collect the credit cards at the end. So it’s pretty good. And I do say, we like to focus on the fact that we’re generating revenue with this, but really, the reason that we’re focusing on the revenue generation of this is because that’s a direct correlation to the amount of people whose lives you’ve been able to affect at a deeper level because they have invested.

Tobi: And when you were telling me this, you were even saying it is the five keys to confidently use Facebook to build relationships without losing your mind, which I loved. Because there’s a way to do this that feels like struggle and pain and we second-guess the whole way, and then we quit not very many episodes in for a number of reasons, or you’re saying it’s possible to do this without literally going crazy and making yourself crazy over this process, right?

Molly: And there’s two things that can make you crazy. I’m sure there’s like, 50, but the two main ones are the confidence piece and the gremlins that creep up while we’re doing this, but also even if you do it and it works really well and you start getting lots of engagement, then it’s like, how the heck do you follow up with all these people? So that’s a whole ‘nother thing. So we really have a way to create genuine deep relationships and scale those relationships without not sleeping.

Tobi: And before I forget this I just want to throw this out here too because I’d love for you to speak to this. I know specific people in my own membership that struggle with this so they don’t worry so much about the gremlins at the moment because they don’t really even have those people yet.

The biggest fear they have is what will my own friends and contacts and peers think of me when I step out? Especially if they’re talking about a specific niche or new area or they’re really taking a stand on something that their business now stands for, and that all this fear of rejection and like you said earlier, the shame and the stuff comes up because they’re like, my friends are going to think I’m crazy.

They’re okay with me saying I’m in interior designer but if I’m saying that I’m whatever, this other kind of new version that we’ve really worked hard to create in our business on purpose, it’s so funny. It sounds so good on paper, but when it’s time to actually speak it into being, I see so many people – myself included, who feel really weird and uncomfortable in owning that whole process.

So I want to talk through that too because I think that, to me, the first step is if you can’t even talk about it with the people who know and love you, then how can you even get to kind of the larger audience or the cold audience or any of those gremlins or anybody else? I’m sure it’s part of what you’re going to teach us but I just wanted to make sure that that’s part of kind of this conversation. Okay, so how do we start? What’s step number one?

Molly: A really big piece of this also is when I say gremlins, it’s your own gremlin in your own head. So it’s not trolls, people commenting on things. This is like your own stuff that comes up.

Tobi: Awesome. So how do we go?

Molly: Obviously we can’t see each other because this is audio, but you’re going to take your hands and hold it as if there’s a ball in your hands. So your fingers are touching and you’re holding a ball. Inside this ball is everything that you offer in your business. So the new cool way that you’ve crafted with Tobi on how you’re going to launch your business as a dance and studio designer.

I don’t know. Whatever it is. You’re going to hold it. You got it there with all the benefits and the amazing transformation you provide, and now you’re going to throw it up into the sky. And now it’s floating above us like Willy Wonka. What are you left with?

Tobi: I mean, I want to say nothing.

Molly: Okay, this is what so many people say, especially when I’m speaking on stage, people will say nothing. You’re left with you.

Tobi: Dang it. That’s what nobody wants to be left with. They’re like crap, it’s just me.

Molly: And this is what happens is we try to talk about our fancy new stuff. We try to talk about this major powerful thing that we’ve created that we know is so valuable but sometimes when we start with that thing that we’re going to lead people to or to sell, we skip the place where we can actually connect with people as humans and bring them to it.

Tobi: Right. So it’s kind of like the difference of just selling features or benefits versus selling your story or who you are or the transformations or any of that juicy good stuff, right?

Molly: Yeah. So it’s kind of before even before we get to the transformation piece, it’s like, how can we connect as humans. So what you do is you have to figure out who you are as an uniquely amazing human. And so this exercise is called the quesadilla of awesome because…

Tobi: I love that. Hey, if you love food and you want to be awesome, this sounds perfect.

Molly: I mean, hello. And because everyone has something that makes them uniquely awesome, even if it’s just that you make an amazing quesadilla. And quesadillas can be made with all kinds of stuff in them so it’s a whole thing.

Okay, so you’re going to make a list of 20 things that make you a uniquely awesome human being. Now, oftentimes, like I worked with a client who had a million-dollar business, and she got three things on her list and she was like done, that’s all I have.

Tobi: Isn’t that funny? What’s that saying about me if I had 730 things about myself that are awesome?

Molly: I mean, you have done the work.

Tobi: It means I’m an eight no the enneagram, which is a whole other conversation. That’s hilarious.

Molly: Oh my gosh, so on enneagram, I’m the performer, which is duh…

Tobi: Three. Yeah.

Molly: Okay, so I actually have an acronym that will help you to get started for those people who don’t have 750 things on the list. So it’s the word save. It actually has five letters because I can’t spell, so I spell things wrong on purpose right away so that you don’t worry about it later when you find my spelling mistakes and I don’t have to feel bad about it.

So it’s SAAVE. And it’s your skill set, so the things that you’re naturally gifted at that you’ve been gifted at since you were a kid. Like if you’re good at organizing things, that goes in there. Your appearance because when we’re doing Facebook Lives, we’re looking back at our own face.

And this isn’t about what somebody else thinks about us. It’s about what we think about us. So we have to find things and write them down. Four things about your appearance that you love. So when you’re feeling like, not that fancified and you don’t really want to go live, you can be like, girl, I love this hat. I’m going to put this hat on because it makes me feel good.

Tobi: Like, I have really good skin or my eyes twinkle, or anything that’s going to make you feel good about yourself. Perfect.

Molly: Yeah, awesome. So then the third thing is the activities that you love. So this is separate from your business. So knitting, crocheting, hiking, swing dancing. The things that you could just talk to people about without them feeling like you’re leading them into buying something because you’re connecting as humans.

Tobi: I love that.

Molly: I like it. And then V is your values. So the more you celebrate your values, the more you’re going to attract the people that you actually want to work with. So do you have values that you guys celebrate here that you’re really specific about? What would you say are your top two?

Tobi: I don’t know if I’ve put them in that word before but I’m sure we do. I mean, I know kind of like, what’s most important for me to help people transform in their business, and I know the things that we want to help people do is say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth, and joy. So we have some of those types of things.

Molly: Health, wealth, and joy. And I remember hearing joy in your podcast intro, which I was very excited about because one of our values is joy as well and we have this hashtag that we use, which is stand for joy, and it actually makes people mad sometimes that we find the positive that we do.

Tobi: I’m such an optimist so that’s me. Silver lining sister right here.

Molly: Me too. Oh my gosh, so good. But do you see how that instantly connects you, right? And the people who don’t vibe with that, they can go somewhere else.

Tobi: Like ugh, she’s so positive. Love him or hate him, not to be religious, but I once heard Joel Osteen say that a lot of people just hate him because he smiles too much.

Molly: Totally.

Tobi: I’m like, how can you hate someone because they smile too much? They’re like, just…

Molly: We could do a whole episode about that because it’s true.

Tobi: Yeah, but you know at least if you want to be joyful and they don’t, then they’re going to check out instantly is what you’re saying.

Molly: Yeah. And that’s what you want is you want things that are polarizing so that people can say heck yes or no thank you. Okay, and then the last thing is – and this is the most amazing that you’ll maybe have heard all week is the things you like to eat.

Tobi: Which is why we have the quesadilla.

Molly: Hello. But it gets even cooler because the people that we are serving are humans. Even if you’re working with dogs, you’re designing a veterinary office, it’s a person who’s going to pay you and make the decision. And all humans eat.

So if you go on your personal Facebook page and you write these five words, “Brussel sprouts, yes or no,” it will blow up your Facebook page. I am telling you, you are going to thank me. You’re going to get a million comments and then you’re going to have humans to talk to. And if you do that right before you go live, it’s going to wake up the algorithm on Facebook so that the people will actually show up.

Tobi: That’s amazing.

Molly: You can do it with black licorice, foie gras, with sushi…

Tobi: Liver and onions.

Molly: Liver and onions, yeah totally.

Tobi: Anything that’s very polarizing.

Molly: Yeah. And it gives you something to talk about as humans. So now you have these five categories that you’ve covered in this list and you’re going to take this list and you’re going to take your fingers and kind of tap them on your chest so you have this bubbly sense of goodness that comes up.

Tobi: Okay. So it’s kind of like the EFT thing in a way? Like the tapping?

Molly: You know what, as I said it that time because I was trying to describe it where you couldn’t see it, it probably is and I didn’t even mean for that to happen. But I’ve done tapping before and it never even really…

Tobi: That’s kind of cool because when you do that to yourself, it does – not to get into that whole conversation, but it has to do with like, meridian points or something that I pretty much know nothing about. But I know in theory how it works, but I do think there might be some in those areas, but even so, just as I’m tapping on my chest right now, I mean, it almost even feels like Tarzan, I’m strong, I have this – I don’t know, I can see how there’s an energy shift with that. I like it.

Molly: Yeah. And if you’re looking at this list and these things, it’s like, yes, because this is who I am and this is the energy that I’m going to bring to the camera. I’m not going to look at Molly’s video and try and be like crazy like she is. I’m going to come and be exactly who I am and that’s going to help me to really connect with those people.

Tobi: And I think that’s huge because I do think that that’s one of the first things people try to do is like, gosh, we know one of the biggest problems we all have is when we start comparing ourselves to other people and especially if we’re holding them in some really high regard, often we hold their kind of highlight reel next to our worst day, all that stuff.

Molly: Our lowlight.

Tobi: Yeah, exactly. And I do see people a lot of times, and they even say it to me, like Tobi, I don’t have this whatever spark you have, or it factor you have, or experience you have or whatever. So I love that because you’re saying forget everybody else, we’re going to the SAAVE five things and that’s awesome. I love it. So practical. Thank you.

Molly: You’re welcome. Okay, so I can go through the rest of the tips pretty quickly too, so that’s the one that really takes the juiciest amount of time and digging in. The next one is you have to know exactly who you’re creating content for.

So the next one is like, how do you create this content that allows you to have real connections? So the content piece is you have to identify not your ideal target market, but you have to identify the human being that you’re speaking to. So when you start your videos, you’re looking right into the camera, just like Mr. Rogers did when he said hey, welcome to my neighborhood.

Tobi: Hey friends.

Molly: Yeah, hey friend. He wasn’t saying hey everybody, I’m so excited to be here on this video.

Tobi: Actually, he says hey neighbor.

Molly: Neighbor. Exactly.

Tobi: Hey neighbor. I’m so glad you’re here. That kind of gives me chills. That’s awesome.

Molly: I just got chills too because I think we can all come up with our own word. We don’t have to say neighbor, but we’re saying like, hey mollstar, is what we call everyone in our community. You have a name. Hey you.

Tobi: Exactly. Yeah, you. You, right there, I’m talking to you. That’s awesome.

Molly: Okay. So that’s that connection piece. And then the content piece is you literally just make a list of the problems that they experience and start solving them. You want to make sure that not every problem is tied to your offer because if everything is tied to your offer…

Tobi: Your sales-y.

Molly: Oh my gosh, I love you so much, that’s what I was going to say. You’re a sales-y weirdo.

Tobi: Yeah. And that’s what so many people are afraid of. Like, even in my own community, they’re like, I don’t want to be that slimy sales-y weirdo that feels either too woo-woo or too pushy, and so many people – let’s talk about this too of what I was going to say about the connect piece, and it kind of even parlays into what we’re saying about being sales-y.

I was going to say the connecting to a human being is all the more reason for them to stop worrying about their friends who are watching and literally, they’ve forgotten about them. They’re focusing on this person they’re serving, which gets rid of that whole piece.

But I think also what comes up with the don’t be a sales-y weirdo is a whole lot of what I notice is kind of unconscious belief systems or things we were taught, even by our parents, of everything from be ladylike to a lady or gent wouldn’t talk about money, or don’t be bossy, or don’t be – there’s all this stuff. All this baggage and all this stuff, and I love what you’re saying about that is if you’re only feeling like you have to be sales-y and making an offer every single time, I think that’s where we get into that territory of maybe not liking that person and feeling like it’s out of alignment with who we’ve kind of believe we are or even taught to be.

Molly: Yeah, and there’s two things that people often do with Facebook Lives that I think totally damage what they’re trying to put out. One is when you lead with your products and everything is product or service based and it’s like, okay, we get it. You have cool fabric. What else can we talk about?

And then they tune you out or they just say I’m not interested in fabric right now, when really what they’re interested in learning how to drink more water, you teach them to drink more water and then all of a sudden they start paying attention to you.

Tobi: Well, and that is so important too. Let’s hang here for just a second because the work I do with a lot of people of helping them, a lot of them are interior designers but they’re not all interior designers. They’re creative entrepreneurs. And so often, I wasn’t saying it exactly this way but I was essentially saying the same thing, and it’s that if you’re just always saying here’s why you need an area rug, here’s why you need two lamps, here’s why you need this paint color, you’re really not connecting to anything emotionally that has any sense of urgency for them.

Other than a handful of people who actually might actually need a rug, but most people are not like going I have to have an area rug this afternoon, unless it’s the week before Christmas or something. So I’m always saying to them, what are you interested in? Are you working on your own health and wellness? And they’re like yeah, but I’m not an expert in that.

And I’m like, but you don’t have to be. Just talk about what’s interesting to you in that area or have you been struggling with figuring out your teenager, or have you been dealing with joint pain? I mean, not to be – we don’t want to be weird and boring and complainy, but I just – there’s so much stuff that I think we dismiss as a lot of times, our identity of who we are, an interior designer or some other thing does not align with me talking about health and wellness so that’s weird and that doesn’t make any sense and why would anybody want that information from me.

And you’re saying just the opposite, which is what I believe too is that they don’t really care who gives them value and tips. If it’s good tips, they’re going to keep listening to you. And if they believe you on the health and wellness piece, then they’re also probably going to then start believe you about the rug or the lamps. Is that what you’re saying?

Molly: So, so, so true. And actually, when you were mentioning those things, like the paint color or whatever, if you take paint color and you look back, there’s someone maybe who needs to paint their house. In the morning, when they wake up, the first thing that they’re thinking in the morning may be, you know, I just want to feel energized when I wake up. They don’t realize that paint color could help them to do that.

Tobi: Yeah, or I’m so stressed. I wake up already feeling behind every single day. And they think it’s their to-do list, and you’re like, no, it’s your room. It’s cluttered and dark and constraining you or something. Exactly. I love this because you’re giving so much permission for people to talk about things and you don’t have to be an expert in every topic.

In fact, you said with the SAAVE method, it’s just normal human stuff, some of it. Like what you eat and there was one of the other ones that had nothing to do with really your business, but it was just like I guess your appearance, and then there’s the value.

Molly: And activities, yeah.

Tobi: Love it. Okay.

Molly: Okay, so we were at the confidence and we talked about the connection and then we talked about the content. Now we want to get to that conversion piece. So the other mistake that people make when it comes to the content piece is that they sign up for these 30-day Facebook Live challenges and they go live every single day for 30 days with no strategy and have no idea what they’re talking about.

And then they come on the camera and they’re like, so I’m going live again because I promised I would go live for 30 days. People are not going to watch you.

Tobi: I love it. I love that, and you know what, I might have been guilty of telling them to do that myself because I’m like, I don’t know, just start, please, and just get comfortable. But I love that. I always love it when someone calls me out on something so tell us, without them being overwhelmed about having to have this elaborate strategy, how do you do that then?

Molly: Yeah, so literally, when you do your videos – and this is where that conversion piece comes in. You want to know that eventually, you want to actually convert people into something. Whether it is just to get them to comment so that then you can reach out and have a conversation with them in Messenger, whether it’s to get them on an email list, maybe you’re using a Messenger bot, which we love chatbots, Messenger bots.

Maybe you’re getting them into your bot list. You’ve got to have them go somewhere else from this video. And if you don’t get them to actually comment or go like the video, there’s no way to actually take them to that next step. A lot of people will lead with a link of some sort. They’ll have like, go to my free gift but that actually takes them off of the video.

So we don’t want to do that either, so here’s what we do. You start the video. I’m just going to give you the first little few steps. You know you’re solving a problem. You have that solution. And you want to have some sort of free gift. So it could be just a written guide of your show. Like, do you do show notes for these shows?

Tobi: I do show notes for the podcast episodes, yes.

Molly: Perfect. It’s exactly like that. And then that way, you don’t have to worry about creating a fancy PDF download, whatever. You just say if you’d like the written guide for the show, just give me the word, notes below the video and I’ll make sure I get them to you.

Tobi: Awesome. Love that.

Molly: So it can be super easy. So when you start your video – we have a couple of different types of videos. Some are casual adventure videos of the sunset or of our giant tortoise in the backyard. But on our business page, we do a weekly value video. And so that’s what I’m talking about here.

And you’ll start by saying something that taps into that problem right away. So you’ll say okay neighbor, have you ever woken up and been so tired because you are working so hard on your business and you just want to be able to have some more time in your schedule? I hear this all the time from the people that I support and I am going to help you today to be able to find an extra hour every day with the strategies that I’m going to share with you.

So right away, at the very beginning. You’ve not introduced yourself, you’ve not told them to go anywhere. You’re just telling them, I get your problem and I’m going to solve it for you today.

Tobi: Awesome. And they don’t really care who you are. If they hear extra work, they’re like, I’m in. All in.

Molly: Exactly, yes. Totally.

Tobi: I don’t know who this lady is but give me the hour, lady. Let’s roll.

Molly: I love it. So then after you tap into that problem, you’re going to ask for engagement and say, you know, and if you want the written guide for this, just give me the word below this video, I’ll come back and get it to you. And if you think this will be valuable for your community, go ahead and sprinkle it amongst them.

Let them know that this video is happening. Don’t say the word share because Facebook will sometimes demote our content if we say the word share. So we say sprinkle, but you can use whatever word you want.

Tobi: I love sprinkle. That’s awesome.

Molly: And then you introduce yourself. So after you’ve done all of that, then you introduce yourself on your video. And when you do it this way, you’re setting yourself up to actually bring conversions in. Like, to allow people to comment, even if they’re not watching your whole video.

And even if no one shows up live, these videos are now content that you can repurpose forever and when they watch the beginning of the video in that replay, they know you’re solving their problem. They begin to trust you, give you more credibility, they start to engage right away from the top.

Tobi: This is good. This is so good. Awesome. I love practical. I’m just a practical, give it to me, tell me what to do, and this is great. Awesome. Okay, well, the conversions actually usually probably happen, what? Either in a bot, some kind of email follow up, in some kind of direct messaging somehow or something else, but this really…

Molly: That first conversion is just getting them to comment and then from there, you either use a Messenger bot or you reply and give them your landing page to opt in. And then, the credit cards in your face come when you actually use wonderfully human sales strategies that lead people through nurturing and stuff like that, leading them to an actual sales conversation or however you actually do sales.

Tobi: Right. So in a way, that conversion could also be called an action. Like you want them to leave a comment or you want them to do something. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re buying directly from the Facebook video, but that’s the first step in the sales process.

Molly: Yes. There’s some really ninja ways that you can actually attach products to the bottom of your video so people can purchase directly from your video, but you want to make sure that not every video is leading to a sale. You want to have some that are bring those leads in.

Tobi: And that’s the building relationships piece. That’s why you’re saying you don’t want every problem you solve to be about one of your offerings. I love that. So is there a ratio? Is it like, two out of every four is about your offerings, or it doesn’t matter, you just kind of mix it up or what’s that look like?

Molly: We have a pretty clear system that – we’ve tested so many different ways of doing this and I am loving what we’re doing right now, which is we do four value-based videos a week – not a week. Oh my gosh, a month. Holy smokes. I’m like, without losing your mind by going live four times a week.

Oh my gosh. A month. Four value-based videos a month. The same time on your business page, and then we do one Facebook Live video that’s a webinar, a masterclass, or something where we’re making an offer. And that’s been working really well for us actually and for a lot of our clients too.

The one thing is that sometimes we’ll be on a video and someone will say hey, how do I work with you or whatever, and I don’t stop myself from being like oh, if you want that, just give me the word glam call below this video and we’ll reach out to you. So we add it in randomly, but for the most part, it’s once a month that we make a big offer.

Tobi: Okay, and let me just clarify. So when you say once a month we teach a webinar or a masterclass, you’re teaching it just exactly like these other videos as a Facebook Live. There’s no opt in, there’s no gatekeeper on the outside of it. They don’t have to go sign up for a webinar somewhere.

You’re literally just coming on and teaching it just like the other videos, but it’s longer and more really structured like a webinar or masterclass. Is that what you’re saying?

Molly: Kind of. So we actually – we do use a landing page where we have people opt in for it, and then they’ll get reminders about it. They’ll get some extra Q&A support but we just do it on our Facebook page as a Facebook Live. So people can show up and for a while, we used to do it in these pop-up Facebook groups.

So I have 35 to 40 pop-up Facebook groups for masterclasses because at one point, I was doing it every week, which was a lot. So we used to gate it inside a Facebook group. We’ve started just doing it on our business page. The replay is available. It’s Thursday through Sunday. I do it live. It’s not evergreen. I show up once a month and I do it, but we have people opt in for it.

Tobi: And do you leave it up there all the time or after a few days do you take it down?

Molly: On Sunday night at 9pm it expires. You can actually set it on your Facebook page to expire automatically.

Tobi: Awesome. But you want to have saved it before then so you use it for something else if you want to.

Molly: Yes. So we have all of our videos automatically downloaded into Dropbox with a tool.

Tobi: And to the point of like a Facebook group, so I have a free Facebook community for The Design You Podcast but it does kind of give some form of a little bit of that gatekeeper or like a group, an exclusivity. Is there a pro or a con to not teaching it inside the Facebook group versus just out for everyone to see?

Molly: Yeah, so I love being able to have those conversations in Facebook groups where only the members of the group get access to it. The only problem is they can’t share it outside. So you realize when it’s on our business page and people can share it, we actually get a wider reach with it. We get more conversions.

Tobi: Interesting. But you could do a combination if you wanted to alternate or if you wanted to grow your community you could do some that were just inside the group or whatever?

Molly: Yes. We mix it up back and forth. And we actually always do a Q&A inside the group. So when they opt in, they get an email and a Messenger bot response and even a text message that says here’s what the training is going to be and then after the training, Molly is going to do a Q&A inside our Facebook group.

Tobi: Oh, I love that. So you get the best of both worlds. That’s smart. You are smart, Molly. There’s a reason why you’re the camera confidence coach. I love it. Okay, so anything else? Because I want to talk about something before we wrap up but is that – anything else that they need to know about this process that is – because I mean man, there is a lot already right here to get them started.

Molly: Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing would be that a lot of people look at that go live button and then they freak out and then they don’t actually do it. So you have to know that if you don’t show up, your clients aren’t going to show up.

Tobi: And I do have one other question. So sometimes, when I do like, an interview with someone in my Facebook community, I’ve used different apps like BeLive.tv, which I have had some trouble with. There are some other ones, but just Facebook Lives are just going live on Facebook, but is there any reason or are there any apps or things that can enhance this process?

Molly: So we actually use BeLive non-stop. I do do videos straight from my phone, but for us, we won’t talk about it too much but I’ll send you. I have this case study of how we combine Messenger bots and Facebook Live. It’s so good and it’s…

Tobi: Because I do really want to know more about Messenger bots and maybe that’s a whole other episode. Okay, so I can’t wait to see that.

Molly: And we had a video reach one million organically because of using this system. So I just spoke at the conference about it. It’s super detailed in here of exactly what to do. It’s a little technical so it’s kind of – but it’s really, really powerful to use bots combined with BeLive because BeLive allows you to pre-schedule. And BeLive went through some major changes in the past couple of months and it is so much more powerful, more sturdy.

Tobi: Okay, perfect. Because when I was having some tech issues, it was right before the change and now they’ve sent me the links to all the changes but I haven’t taken the time to learn the differences in the tech or anything yet. So I will go back and use that again soon. Awesome.

So before we wrap up, here’s what I want to talk about. I have people that are really, really nervous about being on video, like terrified. And you know that that can fall into that category like, terrified of public speaking and spiders and death or whatever, and public speaking, which could be Facebook Live is worse than death for a lot of people.

So a lot of these people then decide that they’re going to have a script. And they’re going to read from a script. And my gut instinct is always no, don’t do it because I know the pitfalls of the script and being robotic and if you lose your spot and then you get flustered, and there’s so many reasons I believe not to use a script. But would you speak to scripting these videos?

And if you’re not scripting, is it just kind of like some bullet points in your head or on paper or things that you’re – because that’s more kind of what I do is something a little bit more fluid and a little just more like key points to keep me on track. But tell us about scripts. Yes or no?

Molly: Absolutely no script. And we have one client that is an office that different people from their office are doing it, without giving too much information about what type of office they are. But one of the people who has done their shows was a trained performer, and she was scripting every single word.

And it was so apparent. The whole reason that people want these Facebook Lives is it’s because it’s real. They don’t want this very calculated thing. And I think you are so right. When you are crazy committed to this actual literal script, not if something goes wrong. When something goes wrong, because it’s going to happen.

It’s technology, it’s live, it’s magic, but that’s part of the amazingness of it. You’re going to be totally flustered and it’s going to be horrible. So there’s a couple of things that you do want to have scripted. So you want to have what we call a value statement and practice it a bunch and a bunch and a bunch so you can say it over and over again.

It’s going to be great for interviews, it’s going to be great for networking events, and it speaks to who you serve, how you serve them, and the transformation that you provide. And when you have that, you can repeat it at the beginning, at the end of your video, and the more you go live, the more comfortable you’ll be repeating that little phrase, which is important.

In addition to that though, what we – and this is one of the reasons I love BeLive so much because they have that agenda feature. So if you’re not using BeLive, you can use Post-It notes. I’ve seen people with Post-Its literally on their right light. They have all these Post-Its all over the place. But I have – the agenda has helped me so much to remember things like to ask people to share because I used to forget that all the time.

So we have these little – and I have a little script that we have in our Camera Confidence program. It’s bullet pointed things of what you’re actually going to do and the pieces that you want to make sure that you come back to. Another reason that these bullet points are so important is you want to make sure that you’re checking in on the comments.

And even if there’s not any comments there, you want to take some moment to say like, hey, and if you agree with this, let me know, for the replay of yours. Even if no one’s watching live. But if you spend all your time in the comments and you can’t get back on track, it’s going to be a mess. So you have to check the comments and then come back to your bullet points.

Tobi: Okay, perfect. Awesome.

Molly: And I know it’s scary but I promise you, the more that you do it, it’s going to make you better at everything in your business. I’ve been going live at least once a week for almost four years now, which is crazy. Like, since the day Facebook Live came out is when I started doing it. And when I am on interviews, when I’m in a conversation with a new client, it amazes me how much easier it is for me to share what we do because I’ve practiced it so much.

Tobi: That’s phenomenal and I’ve told so many people that too. They’re like, well, you’re used to teaching courses or you go on stages. And I’m like, yeah, but I was terrible at the beginning. I was horrible. But after doing it hundreds, if not thousands of times, it gets so much easier and you just get really comfortable. So I love that.

That’s really like throwing the gauntlet down for me because I mean, once a week for four years is – I love it. I love that benchmark for me to even think about in my own business. I do a podcast every week and I’ve done like, 75 episodes, but that’s a little bit different and they can be edited and so I love the really self-work that happens as a part of going live.

Molly: It’s an amazing side effect. And because I’ve done this – and all of our peeps have done this quesadilla of awesome exercise, you’re intentionally infusing more of who you are as a human into your videos. So I swear, it’s made me more of who I actually am and who I actually want to be in life.

Tobi: I love it. That is awesome. Thank you so – I mean, wow. You’ve given us so much. I love this episode. Not every episode on The Design You Podcast is really like, step-by-step, a how-to guide, but this really is. But if people want to know more about several of the things you’ve talked about or how to find out more about what you do, where do they find you? Where do they understand kind of what you have to offer for them?

Molly: Yeah, I actually made a super cool link just for you, which is – so like I said earlier, our community, we call them the mollstars, as in Molly. They voted on that name. But it’s like, hey now, you’re a mollstar. It’s mollstars.tips/design. Like Design You.

Tobi: And we’ll have that in the show notes and we’ll remind everybody.

Molly: That actually goes straight to our Messenger bot. So if it looks kind of weird at first, you might have to click get started. And when you do that, it’ll take you to Molly bot or Messenger bot and she will give you the chance to learn about Facebook Live, about bots, and then even to hear my jazz band.

Tobi: Awesome. So I think you need to come back on another episode and we need to talk just about bots because just bots by themselves are like, a whole thing and to me, I know what they are and I know a tiny bit about them but it’s not something that I’ve spent any time with yet.

So that’s really interesting to me, so we will definitely have you back. But in the meantime, thank you so much for sharing and I know we will get a huge response, especially in my community of Design You with this. Because this is one of the very things that we’re talking about all the time.

And so just knowing that you’ve gone live once a week for four years, I mean, that in and of itself is to say okay, until you have gone live, even 20 times, I don’t want to hear any whining, people. No whining.

Molly: Think about the amount of content that I know can repurpose. We didn’t even talk about that at all today, but all of that content can be turned into blog posts, graphics, Instagram stories, all of these things.

Tobi: Lead magnets. I mean, every kind of thing possible. Anything that they’re looking for, like, it’s all right there. And what I love about that too is when you do get ready to have other team members and have VAs or other people helping you, they know absolutely what you believe and think about everything and what your voice is because they literally can have a transcript of it because you’ve done however many hundreds of videos for four years. That’s awesome.

Okay, well thank you again and my audience thanks you, and they’re going to love this. And I’m so glad you were here.

Molly: I’m so glad too, and shout-out to Selena who introduced us. She’s the best.

Tobi: She’s amazing. Hey Selena. Selena’s going to be on the podcast soon so not everybody knows Selena yet, but they will really soon. Awesome. Okay, bye Molly.

Molly: Okay, bye.

—

So wasn’t she great? Her energy is just phenomenal. I love how straightforward Molly is. I love how she gives us practical tools, and I love that she gives us tools that aren’t just useful in showing up on Facebook. If you never have an intention on showing up on Facebook Live, but you just want to do a better job of closing clients and presenting to them and showing up in a way that really is your best self and most authentic self so your potential clients can say yes to all the amazing things that you’re doing, then use Molly’s techniques.

Because I can tell already that they really, really work. And if you want any of the things she talked about on the show, check out our show notes. That’s on my website at tobifairley.com/podcast, and if you’re loving the show and you’re loving my guest and you want to hear more on any topic like Molly’s or any of the other amazing guests I’ve had in the last few months then please head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and review and tell me what you love about the show, what you want to hear more of, how it’s changing your life.

I can’t wait to hear from you over there on iTunes and thanks for listening today. I’ll see you again right back here next week with another great episode of The Design You Podcast. Bye for now.

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Design You Podcast. And if you’d like even more support for designing a business and a life that you love, then check out my exclusive monthly coaching program Design You at tobifairley.com.