Foolproof messaging framework by 7-figure branding coach Maya Elious
How did a college drop-out charging $35 to brand MySpace pages become the first millionaire in her family and build a seven-figure coaching empire?
We sat down with brand strategist Maya Elious to find out how she turned her humble beginnings into a $4 million coaching business by mastering her message and packaging her expertise.
Maya is the CEO of Built to Impact, where she’s taught thousands of entrepreneurs and coaches how to build a profitable business by mastering their message.
Your messaging is what helps you find your people and have them immediately say “hell yes” to your offer.
Why is that so important?
Because once you really find your messaging sweet spot and start using it consistently?
- You feel confident about the value you offer
- You deeply understand the people you can truly help
- They believe and benefit from the transformation you get them
- Their success 🔄 your success
We’re revealing the proven brand messaging framework Maya uses to transform your pitch from cringy to confident—and your business from poor to profitable.
The goal
If you’ve ever frozen when somebody asked you your prices, or dropped your price as soon as you felt any hint of hesitation…
If you’ve ever wasted time on calls with prospects who ultimately ghost you…
If you find yourself being unable to articulate what people really get from working with you…
Getting clear on your brand messaging gives you the confidence to sell your offers with pride.
A clear, sharp brand message is much easier to monetize because it makes it easier to find high-fit customers, sell the perfect offer, and get results for your clients.
This creates a self-sustaining cycle of building on the results you get for others into your marketing to build a pipeline of new high-fit customers.
The goal of good messaging is:
❌ NOT about appealing to everybody
✅ about attracting the best-fit prospects (and repelling bad-fit ones) to make providing value and selling your offer easier.
The plan
Now that you understand why brand messaging is important, let’s dive into execution mode so you can elevate your positioning and make more money.
Reminder: Brand messaging compiles who you are, who you serve, how you serve them (as well as what makes you stand out from your competition!)
What does poor messaging look like?
- Vague
- Generic
- Cliche
- Broad
- Wordy
- Predictable
- Unclear
- Confusing
Are you seeing a trend? When your message is poor, nobody really understands what you do and how you add value.
How do you up-level your messaging from poor ⏩ profitable?
- Clear—Not overly wordy or explanatory. The quicker you can get people to understand what you do, the better.
- Specific—You’re clearly calling out your ideal customers, your unique value-add, and the methods through which you provide your services.
- Non-inclusive—Good messaging intentionally excludes people. You can’t serve everyone—and you’re losing money by trying.
- Unique—Actively think about your competitors in the space. When Maya gets on customer calls, she specifically asks who else they’re considering to understand who she’s being compared to, and how she can set herself apart.
The point of this is not to feel bad about yourself or your message if it sounds like the above. Just because your message isn’t up to snuff, doesn't mean that what you’re offering isn't valuable.
It’s a process that requires refining over time based on your experience, growth, and targeting.
Just look at Maya’s.
The playbook
If you’ve never thought about how your brand comes across online, or used to think it’s just “marketing fluff”—think again.
The entrepreneurs (and millionaires) from our past playbooks—Codie Sanchez and Ali Abdaal—have laser-focused messaging across their entire web presence. They know who they’re speaking to, what’s special about what they bring to the table, and how they uniquely solve their target audience’s problems.
So, how do you get your brand’s messaging to millionaire status?
Maya’s Dating Method
When you’re dating, your headspace will change how you approach choosing partners: Are you desperate—or picky?
When you’re desperate or unsure about yourself, you don’t have a filter. You date anybody.
When you’re confident about what you want and what you bring to the table, your options decrease because not everybody fits your criteria.
This is a good thing—and it comes with time, experience, and wisdom.
5 Tips for applying the Dating Method
The goal with crystal clear messaging is to feel SO confident selling your services or courses, you worry about your potential customers missing out on the transformations you could get for them.
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Narrow your niche. Set yourself up for success by going niche. The top 3 most profitable industries are health, wealth, and self.
- Health: Holistic wellness, personal training, weight loss, nutrition From wellness coach > holistic coach who helps people lose weight naturally.
- Wealth: Money mindset, career coaching From career coach > Career coach for mid-career professionals who want to increase their salary by $25k
- Self & relationships: Romantic, familial, self-relationships. From relationship coach > Relationship coach for those in relationships 7+ years
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Define your audience. Your target customer is either a version of who you once were, or a group of people your heart is drawn to and for whom you can solve a very specific problem. If you’re confused about who your audience is, take a look back in time 5-7 years to who you used to be.
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Position your value. Value is subjective. Just because you think something is valuable, doesn’t mean someone else will. That’s why to show value, you have to acknowledge what your customer wants. If you want to know whether your ideal customer thinks your messaging or offer is valuable… you have to understand:
- What do they deeply desire?
- What is the pain point that they're dealing with? (As a result of not having what they want.)
- What is the transformation or outcome that they're looking for when they come to you? What’s the consequence of not getting their desire or getting rid of their pain?
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Package your offer. Your offer—what your customer will buy—can be free to start, and paid to follow. The key is keeping it super clear and “you HAVE TO SAY THE PRICE!” says Maya, because if you don’t have something to sell, you can’t monetize your message.
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Differentiate your brand. It’s important to start out in a competitive and saturated market. If it’s saturated, that means you’re in a profitable industry. What can make you different?
- People you target
- Level of experience
- Brand story
- Statistics of your company
Maya’s messaging
- Niche: Branding that helps women entrepreneurs make more money.
- Audience: “Women of faith” (a word she heard her clients describe themselves as) who specialize in some form of coaching work.
- Value: The results she manages to get for her clients are eye-catching (her clients, on average, generate $20k/launch)—because she knows exactly the type of folks that can benefit from mastering their message.
- Offer: In-person training and 90-day coaching options.
- Differentiation: Every time she gets on a client call, she finds out who her clients are also considering, and why they choose her specifically—so she can do more of that.
Your brand profile = your dating profile
Consider the way your brand shows up online as your dating profile—because everything you put out into the world acts as a filter for people to either nod yes to, or click off onto the next thing on their to-do list.
- Your qualities = filters
- What you want = filter
- Who you are = filter
- What you offer = filter
What do you want the world—and your ideal client—to see at first sight?
Do you want them to feel like you’re the perfect fit for them?
Do you know exactly how they feel and what they’re struggling with?
Do you have solutions packed up to solve the problems that keep you up at night?
You’re responsible for attracting people with your message. The next step is to discern whether they’re truly a fit for you when they reach out.
Maya’s easy-peasy messaging template
The results
Nailing your messaging is a must for your business—but it’s not going to guarantee an overnight success.
It took Maya nine years to get to six figures ($100,000) and 12 years to hit seven figures ($1 million).
That’s a decade plus of pivoting, flexing, learning, and giving her ideal client exactly what they need to find success.
Now, her private coaching packages start at $20,000.
Maya is the first millionaire in her family and has undoubtedly changed her family’s life, all because she loves to see women succeed and make an obnoxious amount of money.
These days, Maya’s focused on nailing how to work hard and live soft—because she’s reached a point where she wants to operate from a place of generosity, and earn enough to make others rich.
“I don’t want to make 6-figures. I want to create 6-figure jobs,” she says. “Because the more you have, the more you have to give.”
Maya’s learnings:
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You’re not leaving money on the table by going narrow. By niching down, you’re targeting who you want your money from. "I've launched many offerings over the years: courses, masterclasses, live events, group coaching programs, monthly memberships, one-on-one coaching, and an agency model," said Maya, but she burned out trying to do it all.
Unfit people will cost you more money and time, so target the industry that you want to monetize, that you have experience in, and the people who will truly benefit from the transformation you offer.
- Powerful messaging allows you to transform someone’s life: their health, their wealth, their relationships. It’s a responsibility to live up to whatever you promise. That’s why, every time you send an email, create a course, write a caption, post on social media, or promote your service, your messaging should sing about your promise.
- Our personal testimony is our first testimonial. Starting with your own experience and sharing that story is how you’re going to find your initial alignment with customers. Then, when you get client results, those transformations will turn into your marketing.
- Use your client’s language. “My clients talk about themselves as ‘women of faith’ so that’s how I position who I target,” says Maya.
Key takeaways
- Your muddled message is expensive. “If your goal is to make $100k, and you’ve only made $3k… your unclear message is costing you $97,000,” says Maya. If your messaging is unclear, you’re actively preventing your success.
- Build your business like you’re dating in your 30’s. Be pickier and filter out the trash by knowing who you want and why.
- If you can’t get specific enough—get on the phone with 7-10 people. Don’t let fear, nerves, or anxiety get in the way. Go into your target community and find out how you can help.
- Your messaging will be EVERYWHERE, so do it justice. Keep it clear, specific, non-inclusive and unique wherever you use it: captions, emails, website, brochures, proposals, etc.
And if you’re a creator, coach, educator, or entrepreneur looking for an all-in-one community platform?
You’re in the right place.
Circle brings together your members, discussions, events, courses, and content—all in one place, under your own brand. Plus, you get access to our customer community full of handy resources and over 10,000 community builders on the same journey as you.
