Welcome to the UnCloned® Insider newsletter. My name is Audria Richmond®, and I am your marketing and launch strategist. Today, we're gonna be talking about samples. I know you may be thinking, I'm a coach. I am a consultant.

I'm an author. How can I give samples? And we're gonna be talking about the power of samples. And even though samples are old school, we're we are seeing them in a modern age, and I kinda wanna bring some things to your attention that you may have not thought about when it comes to samples. So I wanna give you a little backstory, and then we're gonna get into some ideas for you, to use for your business so you can get more eyeballs on your business and get more people to learn more about your products and services.

So, let I'm a I'm a give you the mall example, and then I'm a give you, something that I've done before. Okay? And then we're gonna get into some actual ideas. So the reason I wanted to talk about this topic is because we live in the age where everyone is extremely skeptical. No one knows who's legit.

No one knows who's going to take their money or who's gonna actually deliver. If you see a product online, even though the mock ups are pretty, the videos are cute, the social media is popping. There's still that little inkling in the back of your head that makes you think, Oh, really? No, right? We've all been burned online by buying something that we thought was gonna look amazing, then we got it in person.

It was dusty, dirty, small, you know, false advertising. Maybe, the book looked like it was a 200 page book online, but then when you got in person, it was a 30 page pamphlet. You know what I mean. Right? So a lot of the times when we buy things, we don't really know where we're giddy.

And, you know, when we think about the offline world, it's easy to go into the mall and, like, look at something and say, oh, I wanna rock that or let me go try this on. Online, you can't really try on anything. You can kinda read you know, the only way for us to try on is with the words that you use, with the descriptions that you use, with the photos that you use, with the videos that you use, with the testimonials and reviews that you use. That is the only way to try something on online. Right?

And which got me into this mindset of, like, okay. How do we get people the same experience they would get if they were going to the mall? But, like, how do we actually do this online? Now I kinda wanna talk about something that I did in 2015. I basically had created an experience called the 3 b experience.

Okay? Y'all might not know what this is, but back in the day, I had a program called Build A Big Brands. It was a $2,000 program. And then people would give me some slack around the price point, and it wasn't that people weren't signing up for it. It's just it you know, to some people, $2,000 was a lot of money.

And so I was like, how can I actually give people a a sample of the service and experience without taking away the full integrity of the people who invested the $2,000? So I created this experience, and it came with, like, this big Canvas book. It came with, a couple of workbooks, and I'm actually going to do a IG live on it. So by the time you get this, I should have done that live because I'm gonna do that live after this recording. I'm recording this on Sunday, so I'm probably gonna do a video that goes with this.

So just come to my IGTV, and you'll be able to see, like, what was in that package. But, anyway, the whole point of this package was to give people a 14 day trial to my $2,000 program, give them some tips and strategies to get them going even if they weren't going to actually buy the $2,000 program, and to get people into my my ecosystem so they can learn more about the brand. Now the 3 big experience was a $150, and we actually did sell quite a few of those when we put it out there. Now that was a great marketing strategy that I used in 2015, but here we are in 2021, and I have not yet done it again. Now shame on me because I should be definitely utilizing marketing strategies that have worked.

But I wanted to bring it to your attention because, I wanna talk about some ways that we can use samples in 2021 for our products and services to get like, to move people away from, you know, like, oh, I don't really know what this is about to, like, actually being able to come as close to ownership with our products and services. So if you if you sell food, right, the best way to to give someone a sample is to sell samples. So if you sell cookies, that's a little easier. If you sell perishable items, that's not necessarily, you might probably can't do that. But if you but if you sell something like cookies or, cake, something that you can turn into little bit bite sized pieces and, like, ship around.

And you may be thinking, why would I ship, you know, a little cake sampler when, you know, I could just sell to people locally? You gotta keep in mind, all it take is a taste. That's what I really want y'all to get. Right? It all it takes is a taste or a little inkling of ownership.

So, you know, if you sell food, that's how you would do it. Obviously, if you live somewhere local, you can always do, like, a little weekend pop up shop and invite people to your tasting. And that's a great way to pitch local influencers and business owners and people who can actually help you spread the word and come and actually test you know, taste your food and check that out. But if you're on if you're selling products, coaching, and all of that stuff, then how do you do that? If you're an author, you we can give samples of giving people a you know, the first chapter of our book.

Right? If the first chapter of your book ain't popping, then, of course, I'm curious to know is the rest of the book gonna be popping. So if you give someone, like, the first one or two chapters of a book, that should give them a good, you know, a good way to say, oh, this is gonna be a win for me. Let me get the full book. So that's how you would do it if you sold a book.

If you sold a course, you could actually sell a video well, you can actually give people a video where you're touring the course and breaking down what they're going to get. So, like, you know, like a walk through video. Those videos actually do very well. Also, believe it or not, a sale is a sample. And, actually, one of the people who, like, put this on my radar, and I never thought about it until she gave this analogy, in her class, My homegirl, TC Atkinson, she recently just had, like, a 6 figure day, which is crazy.

Y'all definitely check her out. We hung out, this past weekend. But one of the things that she said in her training that I was watching was, like, you know, oftentimes when when you do a sale, especially if you have, like, a 30% off off or 40% off or a 50% off, this is a perfect time for someone who was never going to buy from you, a chance to buy from you. And I think that's why we have to change our mindset away from discounts. I'm not saying become an impulsive discount giver.

However, what I am seeing is making sure that we take the time to actually think about our audience and the people that we are serving because some people some people might be like, oh, man. I would I would have totally bought, you know, this $100 class, but they don't know if you're legit. And then you run a $50 I mean, you know, 50% off coupon. Now they're like, oh, well, I'll I'll definitely test you out for 50. And now they fell in love with giving you 50, and now they're willing to give you any kind of money whether it's on sale or not because you've built that trust.

Right? So think of it like that. Another thing is coupons. That's a great way. Another thing you could do is starter kits and bundles.

So any type of starter kit bundle, anything that allow people to group your experience and be able to to, like, get a feel for it. And then one thing you could do with your sampler sampler, especially if you're, like, in a cosmetic space or something like that, is that, you know, if you sell wigs, for an example, a lookbook, it can definitely be a sampler, or some type of video tutorial showing people how to install the wig. Right? That's a great in a great example of a sampler. I recently came across a company that sells soap, and they had little cute little sampler packs that you could buy.

So you could totally sell your samplers if it makes sense. So if you sell lipstick, why not have a little swatch swap? You know, swatch that people can order and you send that out to them. That is your marketing cost. It's no difference than when you go and buy perfume from the mall, and they give you, like, the little perfume samplers.

I have definitely went to the mall plenty of times from and bought some stuff just from getting, the samplers. So I highly recommend that you all do samplers. So just a recap, you know, if you sell food, figure out a way you can if it's a non perishable item, figure out a way you can sell, like, a little inexpensive sampler pack so people can can taste the variety or get a feel for what it is that you sell. Experiment with coupon codes and sales, especially if it's going to allow people to see what it is that you have. You could do starter kits, bundles, video walk throughs, tours.

What else can you do? Lookbooks. Right? Lookbooks, program guides, those type of things kinda give people a vibe. And even if you show people, like, step 1, knowing that they're gonna need, you know, step 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, that's also a great way to get people on board and excited about what you have.

So I'm it's safe to say that I am going to be doing samples. And, actually, let me tell you something. Freebies are samplers. Believe it or not, your content that you post on social media is samplers. Right?

So if you all are looking at my IGTV videos or you're looking at my live streams, and you're like, man, Audria legit, that is a sampler. You're getting a sample of what it could be like to actually work with me and exchange money with me. You know? If you're getting value from my free content, AKA this newsletter, then you'll be like, you know what? Let me go buy a book.

Let me go buy a course. You know what I mean? Because you're getting to you're getting able you're you're able to actually experience me. And so just keep that in mind when you're putting your brand out there that your freebies like, we have the grow your audience challenge, which is free, and that's doing very well. And, you know, that's that's people ability to be able to see how I operate and how I move.

Believe it or not, if you're doing a hot seat coaching or group coaching or you're doing, you know, a free monthly group coaching call every month to the public, that's a great way to build your email list, and get people excited about what you have. If you're in the ecommerce space, why aren't you touring and demoing and breaking down and showing and talking about the quality of the products and how it works and how your shipping works and the story about why you do what you do? Like, there are so many ways that we can demonstrate in sampler, offer samples. But one thing that I want you to never forget, you have to give people, the feeling of ownership before they own it. Because if you don't have good photos, good product descriptions, good marketing, You're not going to sell anything that you have.

I don't care if you got it manufactured, in a gold bold a gold bow, and you sent it in on a plane. And when it got to your house, cotton candy popped out and balloon start popping. That doesn't mean anything because your customer don't know that it's dead lit. So if you're not breaking down the process, if you're not breaking down what happens when people do business with you, if you're not breaking down what happens after payment and what to expect and how people can experience you without feeling like they're at a risk, then you are definitely definitely definitely, can take advantage of what I'm sharing with you today. So I really do hope that you found this newsletter to be popping.

I'm curious to know what kind of sampler would you create for your business? You already know the drill. If this is your first time tuning in to the Unclown newsletter, hey. What's up? Glad to have you.

If you've been listening to this newsletter series and you've been, like, checking in and you're, like, having fun, you already know the drill. Below this audio, you're going to see a little image that you can click and leave comments. Click on that. Let me know the sampler that you plan to execute and launch your business. It could give some of us some ideas, and I'm curious to know what you think about this topic.

So I would like to thank you so so much for tuning in to this newsletter. Oh, by the way, we now have bundles of the books. So you can now buy all 3 books with one purchase without having to add multiple products to the cart. That was a move. So just keep in mind, guys, like, we're here to serve you, help you win, and most importantly, help you build an uncloned brand.

And until next time, have an amazing day.