#also i liked reframing Price's actions from the first part with this

[reds-skull]

Revenant Side Stories

Story IV: Price

[Konchar] [Graves] [Gaz] [AO3]

This one is a little different from the other side stories, but I have to say I had a lot of fun diving into the way Price experiences his powers from his POV.

This one is probably the most plot-relevant story, in relation to part 2. Hope you enjoy it!

The human mind is a deceptively complex subject. No person thinks the same way, Johnathan has found - some see images scrolling by, vague hieroglyphs symbolizing thoughts. Others narrate their day-to-day life, to themselves or to an imaginary audience. Once, he came across a woman, who, being deaf from birth, imagined words as hand signs.

He could take decades studying a single person, exploring the connections in their grey matter. If he wasn’t devoted to keeping his hands dirty to keep the world clean, John would’ve considered working in a field more suitable for his powers.

As it was, the people he comes in contact the most become the subjects of his investigations.

The first of his boys was the hardest. John met Simon merely a few months after his own Reaping, while the grasp he had on his powers was far weaker. He remembers the first time he arrived at reading distance from the Ghost; the sharp, fractured mind of the then-Sergeant was like a physical ache in his own, and he had to shamefully retreat to the bathroom to vomit.

They were both newly not-quite-dead, both far too powerful to allow back to the field while they didn’t have a tight leash on their abilities. So, they trained together.

Simon, or Ghost as he insisted on being referred as, really shouldn’t have been cleared to stay in the military. John didn’t have to be a shrink to tell, the choking feeling of the Sergeant’s memories and flashback almost bringing him to his knees countless times.

The kid went through worse than most veterans have. He had the powers to match.

Limbo. An ability never seen before in the entirety of recorded human history, the first revenant of the Void Reaper. The higher brass saw it as a cheat code for warfare.

John saw it as a defence mechanism of a broken man.

Ghost’s mind was his first, and perhaps biggest, hurdle as a commanding officer and as a revenant. It took weeks before he could stand to be in the same room with him for longer than an hour, months for the inky, tar-like miasma coating each of Simon’s thoughts to clear.

Ghost began to trust him. See that John is the closest one to really understand what made him a revenant, the fundamental reason of Limbo’s existence: It was never about being an off switch to hostile soldiers, like General Shepherd treated it.

Limbo was a world in Simon’s full control, a place where for once in his life, he could make sure he wouldn’t be hurt.

But that wouldn’t be apparent, from just watching him on the field, from reading mission reports on his unmatched powers. No other soldier, General, or Spiritulogist saw what John saw.

And while he tried to explain, it all fell on deaf ears.

John carries many regrets in his life, but allowing Limbo to become a hostile realm toward Ghost might be his worst one.

Guilt isn’t an uncommon emotion among soldiers. Some hide it better than others, but Captain Price learned to see through mental walls a long time ago. While he didn’t have the opportunity to peer into many revenant minds, it was even more prevalent in theirs.

That is to say, Kyle Garrick shouldn’t have surprised him.

He met the young Corporal barely two weeks after his death, the sight of crushed bones still terribly fresh in his mind. It didn’t deter Price like Ghost has - he has learned a lot since, lived through worse - and instead intrigued him. Call it morbid curiosity, but the sheer amount of care Kyle has for each and every soldier on his team, dead or alive, was a sign he will go far, in Price’s eyes.

That value, as admirable as it was, was currently eating the young soldier from the inside. Before he could take Gaz under his wing, he was forced to watch from the sidelines as the regret and shame weighed on Kyle’s heart. It gave him a considerable amount of comfort, to watch the man grow when they had the chance to work together.

Despite knowing both of them, Price wasn’t sure how Ghost and Gaz would handle a mission together. He knew they would be as professional as ever, but Ghost’s reputation precedes him by many paces, and it unfairly emphasizes times when he either was out of control due to the unimaginable weight of his past, or under orders.

So it came as quite a shock when Ghost not only complimented the Sergeant, but in his mind thought he would be content with working with Gaz again.

Price was already meaning to get Gaz on the 141, but seeing how well the two mashed with each other made him all the more certain of the need for the taskforce. He initially pitched it to the higher brass with an explanation of the tactical benefits of gathering their strongest revenants and training them together, allowing for the soldiers to explore unique and powerful ways to combine their abilities.

But secretly, it also allows Price to keep an eye on them, be their commanding officer, and make sure nobody will take advantage of those otherworldly powers without taking in consideration that maybe, despite already dying, revenants aren’t any less human than their fellow soldiers.

And for a long time, it was them three, against whatever fate threw at them. The taskforce gained infamy as the only revenant-exclusive squad in the world, mission after mission joining a long line of successes.

It wasn’t all perfect behind closed doors. Ghost’s Limbo continued to be hostile towards its owner, forcing him to work alone. Gaz was still burdened, and while having other revenants around him helped, showing him he’s not alone in his struggles, sometimes it was not enough.

Their team had their flaws, but it was better than any other alternative they had.

Then, Soap found his way in.

Sergeant MacTavish was an odd revenant, even among the unusual. From the first time meeting him, Price noted just how much the Scot seems to repress, even within the comfort of his own mind. Peering in, it was as if thick concrete walls were erected around his thoughts, sectioning off the different parts that made up Soap.

His personal file wasn’t much better - full pages blacked out, especially any pertaining to his Reaping. Price knows the smell of red tape, and Soap’s file was reeking with it.

It brought him years back to Simon, the way both of them appear to be afraid of themselves.

He decided to assign them both to a simple mission. Ghost resisted at first, as he always does when Price tries to get him out of his shell, so to speak. Luckily for him, and unfortunately for Ghost, he has the final word as a Captain.

It ended up a shitshow, because it always does when Price needs it not to. Or, that’s what he thought at first, hearing the initial reports.

Ghost’s demeanor was almost somber when Price asked him about Soap. Regret, and what Price could define as the feeling of missing out, surrounded the Lieutenant’s thoughts. Something about Soap caught his attention.

It took months before an opportunity arose, and an incredible effort from his side to not spill those thoughts accidentally (lest his plans fail, and his boys become disappointed), but Price managed to convince his superiors that the taskforce needs a new member. That member, of course, being Soap.

Price did not foresee just how much that addition will change his team. To say he regrets it would be a lie… but knowing what he knows now, he might’ve considered it longer.

Seeing how happy the three of them are, how things simply click better with Soap around, Price believes he would’ve made the same choice again and again.

Price came across a few revenants in his life, gazed into their thoughts more than once. Each of them were wholly extraordinary. The experience of dying and meeting a Reaper alters one’s mind irrevocably.

Out of all of those revenants, there’s only one that made Johnathan Price feel an innate sort of dread, one whose thoughts were disturbing enough to keep him awake at night for weeks after their short meeting. One that forced his own to a breaking point, made Price physically hear the creaking of his crumbling brain attempting to process what it is seeing.

That mind being, Vladimir Makarov’s.

John’s Reaper isn’t of the chatty kind, the one that tries to control its revenants with an iron fist. For the most part, it let him do as he pleases, occasionally warning him from this mission or another.

The sudden shift between their world and his Reaper’s realm never ceases to send a bolt of shock through him. He has observed minds when they were brought to distant places beyond their understanding. It made his eyes bleed.

This one is no different.

“R-Reaper. To what do I owe the honors?” John asks, wincing as a headache attacks him, brain overstimulated by the shifting shapes around him, concepts he has no words for appearing and disappearing with a blink.

“You are to be sent on a mission in a few hours.” the Reaper responds, a wild mass of flashing lights, like synapses of a starless sky. Price’s gift allows him to see the hidden messages between the words.

“Interest. Warning. Fear.”

…Fear…?

What… could make his Reaper… afraid?

The ancient voice continues, “You will be asked to kill a man. A revenant.”

“Danger. Blood. Enemy.”

John’s brows scrunch in confusion, “Reaper-?”

“You cannot kill that revenant. Under orders of Fate, you will not kill that revenant.”

“Command. Terror. Fate.”

John opens his mouth, to ask one of the billion questions swirling in his mind, but the synapses flash, his body gets the feeling of falling, and-

John gasps, eyes rapidly taking in his surroundings. Back in his office, kicked out of the Reaper realm before he could let out a peep. He sighs, wiping sweat from his brow, nape still tingling with the wrongness of his Reaper’s messages.

Something is scaring his Reaper to obey… ‘Fate’. John’s not sure what exactly that is, but he knows who will.

He’s about to punch in the number of the resident Spiritulogist on base, when a knock sounds on his door. “Open!” He calls loudly, his mind already supplying him with the orders the rookie is about to tell him.

They have a mission lined up for him, and he’s to be debriefed immediately. The rookie mumbles as such, and John waves him off.

His stomach churns in a way it hasn’t for a very long time.

“Bravo 0-6, what’s your status?”

Price brings a hand up to his comms, “solid, in position, no sign of the target.”

The watcher copies his response, clicking off channel. John swallows thickly, adjusting the hold on his sniper. On paper, this mission should be simple - a man named Andrei Nolan has been observed to be making moves in favor of several international criminal rings. The SAS needs him dead, and Price is here to make sure of that.

The intel suggested a possibility of the man being a revenant, but with no confirmed Reaper, the information doesn’t help him in the slightest.

The port he’s overlooking is said to be housing missiles in some of its shipment containers. Nolan will arrive to buy them from a local arms dealer. They would’ve not sent someone like Price usually, but not only did Nolan evade capture several times, he recently ramped up his activity, pointing to a new employer.

Any other day, Price would’ve killed him with no hesitation. Today, however, the words of his Reaper echo within his mind, dread spreading through his synapses, the emotions that coursed through the interdimensional being now flowing through him.

Reapers don’t lie, and his certainly doesn’t mince words. If it didn’t see a reason to warn John, it wouldn’t have.

There wasn’t enough time to explain that to his superiors, though. Humans don’t understand the connection Reapers and revenants have, hell, they barely understand Reapers as a concept, let alone their intricate oddities.

He inhales deeply. John hopes he’s close enough to read Nolan, when he finally shows up. Perhaps the man’s mind might have a clue as to why his Reaper needs him to stay alive.

And as if his thoughts have been heard, Andrei Nolan shows his face. Or… is that Nolan? The description given in the brief fits him, black hair, brown eyes, Eastern European man in his 30s, wearing a black suit and a red tie. But…

His left eye is closed, lower lid pink like it’s infected, and Price can’t tell from the distance, but… there seems to be a red line, almost like a tear, drawn down his cheek.

Price frowns, adjusting the zoom on his scope, analyzing the face as much as he can while the man moves. The seller arrived already, and is now showing “Nolan” the goods, but he doesn’t pay mind to him. The left eye seemingly confirms the revenant status, something about it is unsettling in a Reaper’s way, but if that’s the case, wouldn’t the intel note that?

“0-6 to Watcher.” Price mutters, eyes not straying from the supposed target, “I’ve got eyes on a man fitting the description, but something doesn’t line up.”

“This is Watcher, what is the problem, Lieutenant?”

“His left eye is shut, red marking down his left cheek. Sign of a revenant, don’t know who’s.”

The line goes quiet for a few beats, “...standby, 0-6.”

The crease between his brows deepens, John sighs and waits. The alleged Nolan and the seller are still discussing something, probably pertaining to the deal.

After a few long minutes, his radio crackles, “Watcher to 0-6, we’ve consulted Dr. Novikov.”

The head Spiritulogist of the SAS regiment. If there’s any non-revenant he could trust on such matters, it’s him, “what did he say?”

“No PID. Nolan has not been documented to have markings like the ones you’ve described, and they’re impossible to acquire after Reaping.”

“...So we don’t know who this man is?”

“Negative.”

Price shuts his comms for a moment to curse. He radios back in, “Watcher, requesting permission to move closer to target.”

“Explain your reasoning, 0-6”

“I want to use my powers on him. Check his thoughts, might give us an ID.”

The Watcher’s voice becomes muffled as they talk to another person in the room, “granted. Make sure to not be seen, Price.”

“Copy.” he answers, adding under his breath, “not a bloody rookie, am I…”

He leaves the sniper on the hill he previously perched on, preferring to go as light as possible. The target and the seller have moved since the conversation with Watcher, opening a shipment container and examining its contents. With their backs towards him, Price weaves between containers, climbing up a few to get a better view of the guards.

His range on complete strangers is shite as ever, a disadvantage he can’t train out of him. John stays low, sticking to the sharp shadows cast by the steel boxes, creeping closer and closer to the target.

The target is still focused on the illegal missiles, and he needs to step just a few more meters to get into range-

The man sharply turns, his eye locking with Price’s. A chill goes down his spine, and he freezes in place. He couldn’t have noticed him.

Price’s muscles don’t dare move, thoughts both reeling and dead still, as the man raises a hand, and slowly, slowly peels his left eyelid up.

The red line on his cheek continues up into the eye whites, going all the way into his disturbingly crimson pupil.

The seller stares at the target, expression confused when he is ignored. The target steps forward, and John has to force his legs to stay put and not run, because every single cell in his body screams of danger.

“Danger. Blood. Enemy.”

The target enters his range, and smiles. But why would he smile? He has no reason to, because he doesn’t know that Price is a Revenant of the Mind, doesn’t know the limits of his powers.

He doesn’t. He can’t.

And yet when their thoughts link, the first words he can farce are…

“Johnathan Price… just on time.”

John’s thoughts escape his mind before he can get a semblance of control on them, questions like “you shouldn’t know my name, how do you know my name?!” and “who are you, what Reaper fucking reaped you?”

To that, the target smiles with perfect, unnaturally white teeth, “you should know by now, people like me and you operate in realms considered impossible by most, Lieutenant.”

Price grinds his teeth, forcibly pulling his mind back, taking control of his powers, of what the target sees, “you’re not Andrei Nolan, are you?”

The Target chuckles, “you’re far more pathetic than I expected.” the image in his mind is not of Price, but of the entire SAS. “No, I’m not Nolan. I’ll let you know my true name, because rest assured, Johnathan, we will meet again.”

Price scoffs incredulously. There’s no doubt in the revenant’s mind, despite stating something he couldn’t possibly know.

“You do not believe me.”

“I’ve read enough minds to know an overconfident one by now, mate.” Price glares.

The revenant’s grin widens, peculiarly pleased. “It appears that I need to provide evidence for my claims. Very well.” he sweeps two fingers on the red marking on his face, a sort of thread materializing between them. Price’s breathing picks up, something in the revenant’s mind poking at his, a red haze enveloping his thoughts.

He takes half a step back, eyes wide and staring at the thread hanging from the revenant’s fingers.

“I can promise you, Lieutenant, you will not stay in disbelief for much longer.”

The thread shoots forward in a sudden rush, Price stumbling back, but no man or revenant could escape those unnatural strings.

The moment it wraps around his throat, images begin flashing in his mind.

A burning city, smell of flesh overwhelming his senses.

Emptiness. Living statues, covered in darkness.

Endless skies, clouds and stars, moon and sun, falling and falling and falling.

Piles of broken bodies, some familiar and others not, all far too young to be dead.

A photo passed towards him, of the very revenant that is invading his mind. The smell of alcohol burns at his nose.

Realms beyond his own, a fabric weaved with crimson strings. Hands, knitting it together. Three eyes, identical to the revenant’s.

Words. 

“Fate”

“Unescapable. Indestructible. Unchangeable.”

“Nothing but a puppet on red strings.”

A cruel smile, human teeth grafted onto the blood-red skin of a Reaper. Suffocating satisfaction, unfathomable knowledge, power great enough to bend Reaper will.

“Under orders of Fate, you will not kill that revenant.”

“The Revenant of Fate.”

“Vladimir Makarov.”

The string snaps.

Price finds himself on all fours, shaking. The screaming around him doesn’t die down, and it takes him minutes to realize it comes from his mouth. Little red tears drip between his hands, his eyes crying blood.

The revenant - Makarov - laughs. In his thoughts, the sound bouncing in his cranium, unescapable.

“When I tell you we will meet again, Johnathan, I do not lie.” Makarov says, condescending. “But for now, our business is done.”

He feels Makarov leave his range, not before he says, “you should consider yourself lucky, Lieutenant Price. Not many receive this gift, to see their own fate. Until next time.”

John doesn’t dare lift his gaze for what feels like hours, the shaking in his limbs taking long minutes to subside. Eventually, the dread in his gut lowers enough for him to look up.

The seller’s body lays dead in front of him, shipping containers still full to the brim with missiles. Makarov didn’t come for them.

His only goal was Price.

“This is Bravo 0-6 to Watcher, how copy?”

“...Price?! We’ve been trying to contact you for hours, where have you-”

“Target was not Nolan. He wasn't after the missiles, either.”

“Lieutenant-”

“What do we know about the Reaper of Fate?”

[merchantarthurn]

I've seen Act 3. My feelings are So Mixed. I definitely am reframing season 2 as a whole as like... A spin off?? Because it being a direct follow up makes it's very very glaring flaws so much harder to get passed. Act 3 itself felt so different that I was honestly ignoring my feelings about Act 2's choices and... I think Act 3 does good things with the stuff I hated at least??? Sorta???

Generally... I liked Episode 7. Moreso in a standalone way than as part of the wider narrative. The pacing actually was much better than the rest of the season whiiich did mean everything crashed in very fast for the other two episodes but hey ho.

I liked some of the Things in a theoretical way but not so much in practice (it's so hard to distinguish the ideas from the pacing because the speed of delivery dictates SO MUCH how things are written that the particularly poor writing of probably solid ideas kinda... Had to be that way to keep the pace that fast).

Uh... Particular characters were very neglected - one in particular who SHOULD have been front and centre was nearly absent the whole act from a non-action standpoint which 😶 okay.

Also I'm really lamenting the pacing when it comes to Jayce and Viktor because urm... That did go a little hard actually. Stay winning Jayvik nation?

Idk... I do not like it, but if I accept it all for what it is... S1 remains as it is, and I'll always have that to return to. I lament the version of the rest of this show that had the time to breathe, to keep that tight character driven writing, kept the politics interwoven with the plot, that might have made these events feel the way the first season did. That is not what we got and it's ultimately much, much worse for it.

But maybe this was ultimately the price that needed paying for S1 to have been made the way it was, and for both seasons to have the gorgeous visuals they do. Would S1 have been so beautiful if the writers hadn't convinced those with the coinpurses that a big old generic, mass-appeal, Marvel-flavoured bonanza would be around the corner. I don't know. I think Im gonna tell myself that so I don't get sad about it though.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 11, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On Friday, as President Joe Biden signed “An Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” he echoed the language of his predecessors. “[C]ompetition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing,” he said. “Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth…. But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back.”

Biden listed how prescription drugs, hearing aids, internet service, and agricultural supplies are all overpriced in the U.S. because of a lack of competition (RFD TV, the nation’s rural channel, has a long-running ad complaining of the cost of hearing aids). He also noted that noncompete clauses make it hard for workers to change jobs, another issue straight out of the late nineteenth century, when southern states tried to keep prices low by prohibiting employers from hiring Black workers away from their current jobs.

“I’m a proud capitalist,” Biden said. “I know America can’t succeed unless American business succeeds…. But let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation. Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want…. “[W]e know we’ve got a problem—a major problem.  But we also have an incredible opportunity. We can bring back more competition to more of the country, helping entrepreneurs and small businesses get in the game, helping workers get a better deal, helping families save money every month. The good news is: We’ve done it before.”

Biden reached into our history to reclaim our long tradition of opposing economic consolidation. Calling out both Roosevelt presidents—Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who oversaw part of the Progressive Era, and Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who oversaw the New Deal—Biden celebrated their attempt to rein in the power of big business, first by focusing on the abuses of those businesses, and then by championing competition.

Civil War era Republicans had organized around the idea that the American economy enjoyed what they called a “harmony of interest.” By that, they meant that everyone had the same economic interests. People at the bottom of the economy, people who drew value out of the products of nature—trees, or fish, or grain—produced value through their hard work. They created more value than they could consume, and this value, in the form of capital, employed people on the next level of the economy: shoemakers, dry goods merchants, cabinetmakers, and so on. They, in turn, produced more than they could consume, and their excess supported a few industrialists and financiers at the top of the pyramid who, in their turn, employed those just starting out. In this vision, the economy was a web in which every person shared a harmony of interest.

But by the 1880s, this idea that all Americans shared the same economic interest had changed into the idea that protecting American businesses would be good for everyone. American businessmen had begun to consolidate their enterprises into trusts, bringing a number of corporations under the same umbrella. The trusts stifled competition and colluded to raise the prices paid by consumers. Their power and funding gave them increasing power over lawmakers. As wealth migrated upward and working Americans felt like they had less and less control over their lives, they began to wonder what had happened to the equality for which they had fought the Civil War.

Labor leaders, newspapers, and Democratic lawmakers began to complain about the power of the wealthy in society and to claim the economic game was rigged, but their general critiques of the economy simply left them open to charges of being “socialists” who wanted to overturn society. Congress in 1890 finally gave in and passed an antitrust act, but it was so toothless that only one senator in the staunchly pro-business Senate voted against it, and no one in the House of Representatives voted no.  

Then, around 1900, the so-called muckrakers hit their stride. Muckrakers were journalists who took on the political corruption and the concentration of wealth that plagued their era, but rather than making general moral statements, they did deep research into the workings of specific industries and political machines—Standard Oil, for example, and Minneapolis city government—and revealed the details behind the general outrage.

Their stories built pressure to regulate the robber barons, as they were called by then, but Congress, dominated by business interests, had no interest. Instead, President Theodore Roosevelt and his successor, William Howard Taft, tended to rein in the trusts through the executive branch of the government, especially by legal action undertaken by the Department of Justice.

On Friday, Biden promised to use the power of the executive branch to rein in corporations, much as Theodore Roosevelt did during his terms of office. But there was more to Biden’s statement than that. His emphasis on restoring competition is from the next historical phase of antitrust action.

In the 1912 election, political language turned away from the evils of trusts and toward the economic competition so central to American life. Both Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson centered their campaigns around the idea that big business was strangling competition. Wilson called for a “New Freedom” that would get rid of the trusts once and for all and return the nation to a world of small enterprise and opportunity. Roosevelt scoffed at this idea. He talked of the “New Nationalism,” in which a large government would restore competition by regulating big businesses. (He said that if you got rid of trusts and then looked away, they would immediately spring up again.)

While their solutions were different, both Roosevelt and Wilson had reframed the stratified economy not solely as a problem, but also as an opportunity. Trimming the sails of the corporations was not an attack on the liberty of industrialists, but rather a restoration of the competition that had, in the past, enabled the country’s economy to thrive. And, once elected, Wilson managed to get key items of that agenda passed through Congress.

That positive emphasis on competition carried into the administration of the next Roosevelt president, FDR. Biden noted that FDR called for Congress to pass an economic bill of rights, including “the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.” And indeed, the idea of restoring a level playing field for all businesses, rather than letting them succeed or fail based on the whims of economic wirepullers, persuaded businessmen who had previously opposed regulation to line up behind the establishment of our Securities and Exchange Act of 1934.

Americans have lost this tradition since 1980, Biden said, when we abandoned the “fundamental American idea that true capitalism depends on fair and open competition.” Reframing business regulation as “laws to promote competition,” he promised 72 specific actions to enforce antitrust laws, stop “abusive actions by monopolies,” and end “bad mergers that lead to mass layoffs, higher prices, fewer options for workers and consumers alike.”

For 40 years, the Republican Party has offered a vision of America as a land of hyperindividualism, in which any government intervention in the economy is seen as an attack on individual liberty because it hampers the accumulation of wealth. Biden’s speech on Friday reclaims a different theme in our history, that of government protecting individualism by keeping the economic playing field level.

—-

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/09/remarks-by-president-biden-at-signing-of-an-executive-order-promoting-competition-in-the-american-economy/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[wings-of-a-storm]

SCENES THAT STOOD OUT AS A WTFOCK NEWBIE

I’ve found that one of my favourite scenes to indulge in is the Chernobyl reunion scene. I’m always hungry to go back and rewatch it because it covers so many emotions and is its own mini roller coaster.

First, Robbe’s big, bright smile as soon as he glimpses Sander for the first time in what feels like so long apart. He’s so openly drinking him in, you wouldn’t know anything bad was still happening between them. I can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy like Robbe does; it’s such a nice reprieve from the angst.

Then there’s the tonal shift of the apology. It is so satisfying to see Sander standing up for himself, of not letting Robbe get away with pretending nothing had happened.

And then you arrive at the ultimate sweetness of their reconciliation, with Robbe’s helplessly endearing explosion pantomime and all the subsequent soft smiles and forehead touches it unlocks.

It’s a clip that gives and gives and keeps on giving. It basically has everything contained in it.

My favourite of all these though is why this scene made it so emphatically onto my list:

7. THE HALLWAY RESOLVE & THE APOLOGY

I love how refreshing this scene(s) felt! The new ground it covers!

A Narrative Split In Two

Before I get into the apology though, I have to say I found it interesting that wtFock split the og’s first source of separation (ie. Isak’s verbal misstep with the mental illness remark and Even’s subsequent getting back together with Sonja to spare him) into separate events and under a completely different theme: homophobia.

In wtFock, the accidental verbal misstep is changed to a conscious slur from Robbe to Sander in order to explore the effects of internalised homophobia. It’s a theme that wtFock really chose to focus on and it hits hard because Robbe not only hurts himself and Milan with his internalised homophobia but he hurts Sander too. And not in a passive, collateral damage kind of way -- Sander’s person/character actually gets attacked. By Robbe. They really went there.

I mean, that scene outside Robbe’s building is brutally shocking; one that you don’t see coming until it has slapped you in the face and made your ears ring. Robbe didn’t just call Sander a slur; he accused him of being a predator. That is so heavy. But internalised homophobia is a powerful thing and you certainly can’t forget that after a scene like that.

And then of course their second separation comes from the opposite side of the homophobia coin -- a hate crime from outsiders. It means that this time around, Robbe’s and Sander’s separation isn’t caused by something Robbe does but is a consequence of something that is done to them. In essence, we still get a confusing separation born from Sander’s fear of hurting/destroying Robbe like the og, but this time the catalyst comes from the outside world.

This means that for the price of one og conflict, we get two different types of homophobia that change the trajectory of what otherwise would have been just an innocent (albeit messy) exploration of feelings between two teens. It should have been that simple. But we’ve still got a long way to go as a society, even in 2019/2020. Right Noor?

Back to Chernobyl though.

Robbe Apologising To Sander

I feel so much for Robbe having to battle such a poisonous thing as internalised homophobia (and with such a sparse support network to help him through it). It led to such a painful moment on that doorstep, of not just calling the guy he liked a horrible slur but actually accusing Sander of being some sort of malicious predator, scheming to take advantage of him. It was a very horrible moment with huge repercussions.

But once Robbe was in a healthier mindset, it was really fulfilling being able to see him take ownership of the hurt he inflicted on Sander; of letting Sander know his reaction was born from his own mindset and not from anything Sander had done.

And it was fulfulling not just because Sander deserved an apology, but because it was such a positive step for Robbe to take on his journey to self acceptance. After all, the act of reframing his kiss with Sander as something positive has the secondary effect of delivering some compassion to himself; of giving himself a break for enjoying a kiss with a boy.

As for the apology itself… Very teenage boy, what can I say?

Hurt Is Addressed

Another reason why I find the apology scene so fulfilling is that I really appreciate Sander’s hurt being addressed (and then more or less soothed). I mean, in the og, by necessity of Even’s enigmatic bigger picture, a lot of Even’s hurt, fear, and low self-worth was kept off screen after Isak’s mental illness remark. Isak’s actions later on more than make up for that comment, but a part of me still secretly craved watching Isak piece everything together and apologise for how poorly his offhand remark may have made Even feel about himself.

WtFock’s context is entirely different for Sander’s hurt (which is why there can be an apology in the first place), but that meant that Robbe’s apology was able to fulfill that secret need I had to see a hurt Even character acknowledged. (But obviously that’s just me and my personal preference for emotional closure. :))

Sander’s Resolve

And that leaves me with the last reason for why I loved the apology: because it was just so awesome seeing Sander stand up for himself and his own worth. Like you go boy! And the brilliant thing is, you can actually see the whole push-and-pull process of Sander trying to remain strong for his own sake in the hallway when Robbe shows up. It is so well written and acted!

It’s the way Sander’s smile fades when he first sees Robbe and turns to walk away because he cannot do this right now; he is not emotionally prepared... And then the really visceral way his jaw grinds so no words can sneak out and undermine his resolve after Robbe begs him for a chance to talk.

You really see that fight behind Sander’s eyes to stay strong and not cave because he knows it isn’t good for him to go down that path again, to risk feeling that sort of bone deep hurt from the boy he adores all over again. You see the moment his inner strength wins out and allows him to walk away with more finality.

The whole thing is just so powerful -- and all the more so without speech on Sander’s end. It is like a reverse O Helga Natt that hits you right in the gut. (And I’m so masochistic because I love that.)

It makes Robbe have to work hard for Sander’s forgiveness, which in turn makes their looming reconciliation feel more earned. It also makes that very first peck from Sander feel all the more sacred, even without Robbe’s eyes lingering closed for a while to cherish it. He almost lost Sander for good… Those kisses and forehead touches feel like oxygen... (That is another post though.)

So yeah, that whole journey from Sander’s hurt and anger to their super affectionate reconciliation is so well done and such a self-contained mini roller coaster that I will forever be weak for.

[dulma]

On the circle jerk of the art world

Tom Wolfe, author & journalist, is good at being scathing. Case in point: The Painted Word a brief diatribe against what he perceives to be the falseness and pretension of an elitist art world in a capitalist society.

I don’t know enough about art or the art world to agree or disagree with what Mr. Wolfe claims, but I do care deeply about art and its role in civilization. How it can help us, fix us, express us, or how it can’t. 

His ideas, though, strike me as useful departures for my own future research, especially w/r/t Abstract Expressionism, my new obsession. Also—God knows I love a good contrarian, so here are some key points I’ve synthesized from his spirited lambast. For my own reference, mostly. Thanks, Tom.

Art must have its theory, i.e. the dictum du jour. “modern art has become completely literary” 

Realistic 19th century painting dubbed “literary” thereby spawning its rebellious successor movements, i.e. l’art pour l’art

Braque: aim of art is not to reconstitute but constitute “a pictorial fact” 

Artists left the royal courts & salons and by 1900 aimed to shock and subvert the bourgeois 

Now the artists had to be boho & avant garde (sincerely) but also in le monde

“Public? The public plays no part in the process whatsoever. The public is not invited” 

(This question is of importance to me. Art as public artifact vs. art as private commodity/investment—note to self: explore the ethics and utility of these roles, and whether they are conflicting or mutually generative)

The art world is a mere 10,000 souls 

“a mere hamlet!” restricted to les beaux mondes of eight cities 

Modern art enjoyed a huge boom in the States in the 1920s because that’s when the cultured bourgeoisie began to love it 

Imported from Europe to the US not in a bohemian rebellious spirit but institutionalized by the Rockefellers via the establishment of the MoMA in late 1920s 

Art theory used to be something that enriched conversation 100 years prior but now it was “ an essential hormone in the mating ritual” 

(Touché, Tom Wolfe.)

The bourgeois art world needed theory to understand the direction of modern art 

Why did theory blow up? 

1. the art world is tiny

2. le monde always looks to the bohemian artists for the next thing

3. the artists are made up of “cénacles” where if one dominates art and has one core theory, that theory comes to dominate all of the art world during that period 

This is what happened post WWII during Abstract Expressionism & when NY replaced Paris as center of the art world 

Greenberg’s theory of flatness and Rosenberg’s Action Painting became big theories picked up by le monde. Peggy Guggenheim then discovered Pollock, beloved of Greenberg, and gave him a place and money and set him off 

“First you do everything possible to make sure your world is antibourgeois, that it defies bourgeois tastes, that it mystifies the mob, the public, that it outdistances the insensible middle-class multitudes by light-years of subtlety and intellect — and then, having succeeded admirably, you ask with a sense of see-what-I-mean outrage: “Look, they don’t even buy our products!””

Pop Art was then a reaction against Abstract Exp. 

It was even flatter. Jasper Johns chose flat real life objects and made them look super flat. Like the flag. 

“Wasn’t there something just the least bit incestuous about this tendency of contemporary art to use previous styles of art as its points of reference?” 

(What else would you use? All major art forms are institutionalized in some way—literature, film, etc.—and draw upon its predecessors, are in conversation with lineage and history. I don’t see this as inherently “incestuous” but in practice in the art world perhaps it’s extreme or problematic... explore further)

Pop Art succeeded not because it rejected Abst. Exp’s premises of moving away from realism, but because it did AE one better: even higher level of not realism. Somewhere that was not abstract nor realistic but based on signs 

Abstract Expressionists were too grim and antibourgeois, too bohemian. The Pop artists were right at home in the cultured world of the bourgeois 

Steinberg: Modern art always “'projects itself into a twilight zone where no values are fixed'” and “'it is always born in anxiety'” and its function is to “'transmit this anxiety to the spectator'” to provoke “'genuine existential predicament'” 

“If you hated it — it was probably great." 

Pop Art was full of cultural and literary ironic commentary and allusions. Op Art, which came after, was also very literary in that it was heavily grounded in theory. Theory was taking idea of painting as real object and turning it into object of pure perception 

Greenberg made a comeback with a new theory/style: against the brushstroke. 

All of these movements were a movement towards reduction, stripping away - first of 19th century realism, then representational objects, then the third dimension towards flatness, then brushstrokes. 

Is that enough? Hardly. 

Minimalists came and stripped away the “sentimental” colors and used gritty or ugly ones 

Got rid of the frame, the hanging up of pictures, the square canvas 

Rosenberg & Greenberg (though sort of rivals) and others were against this - new style was “‘too much a feat of ideation.. something deduced instead of felt and discovered.’” 

Then we got rid of the very idea of wall. 

Moved into installations. Then museums (Earth Art). 

What about idea of a permanent or even visible work of art? so next came Conceptual Art where they said it wasn’t about permanence and materials but the process 

And then they took away idea of visual imagination altogether - piece called Vacant by David R Smith 

My thoughts on this (provisional):

Art movements destroy to create. This is also true in literature, in everything. I find this a natural human impulse. We are meaning-making animals, and art is our way of exploring/expressing this process, and meaning is made inevitably by a destructive-creative process. Learning—and thus growth—is by necessity an act that displaces the dictums of yesterday to make room for the new. So I question Wolfe’s implicit resistance to the deconstruction of every assumption inherent to “art,” but I’m willing to challenge the “destroy for destruction’s sake” imperative, insofar as it is what drives the movements of art today. It sure seems that way, but I assume there’s more there, and the “more” is perhaps as varied as the people who further it.

To ask a naive question that probably Real Art has long since abandoned or mocked until it breathed its last, what about beauty???? As a layperson who wants to believe that art has a public role and some inherent value where beholding it can do something good, even by disturbing us, I often find myself lamenting the un-beauty of contemporary art. That this is probably because I don’t “get it” only further entrenches my sense of alienation from this world of art. Is there respite to be sought in, for example, outsider art? 

Perhaps the answer is as simple as a simple comparison: take music. There is no possibility of defining “beautiful” music; we like what we like, and different people like different things. There are ways to get into a piece and understand what it’s trying to be and to judge it on that basis (also like a book) but no absolute criteria are possible because of the infinite variety of creative possibility. But even so, music and literature seem to me more accessible, somehow, than art. Less conceptual in the way art can be, more inclusive in terms of the gap between what the gatekeepers would deem worth canonizing and what we would claim to enjoy as outsiders.

To what extent do artists themselves (as if it’s a homogeny) want the “public” to “get” or “like” their art? A lot rides on this question I guess.

The beauty of the disturbing and the disturbing of beauty. Would this summarize where we find ourselves today?

(I suppose you could say beauty is taken out of the equation, but you could also reframe that as the expansion of the territory of the beautiful to encompass all, exclude nothing. Ironically. The murder of beauty and the expansion of it to include everything is the same thing, conceptually speaking.)

What I wish existed and whose absence consumes me to no end every time I enter a museum: a summary (impossible) of the timeline of the canon and what/who gets included and what/who gets excluded and why. Note that I’m not issuing the ignorant layperson’s tired old challenge of “My 5-year-old could do that.” I don’t mistake technical skill involved or duration of labor for the Good, but I do want the implicit curatorial values to be made legible, because I’m in a capitalist system that more often than not exacts a price from us to view or own art but I am then paying to engage with something whose value I don’t understand and am expected to receive fully by merely looking at something without the language or conceptual framework to understand its value, all while contributing to that value, reinforcing it. That seems like a scam to me (forgivable) but also like intellectual hypocrisy (unforgivable).

All of this is a rambling record of first impressions re: the art world and my access to an understanding of its values & criteria. Obviously a way to answer my own questions is to examine the world itself, anthropologically, and dissect its political/cultural/social/financial underpinnings. To learn the common answers, debates addressing these small questions of mine. Which I intend to.

But that these are the questions begged when one confronts the whole system as an ignorant layperson is worth noting in itself, I think, because it draws out some assumptions that are contradictory. Assumptions that imply that art is good and we should look at it and pay to look at it. Assumptions that also imply that beauty is not art and skill is not art and accessibility is not art. 

So then what is art? And who gets to decide? We spend our lives taking for granted the fact of a museum, of an art history curriculum, of a canon of famous men and (sometimes) women who have made what we consider “Great Art” without ever being satisfied with a good explanation of why, how come, who says? Especially today?

[fierceawakening]

okay, so I got lots of messages from Book Person and... a few are in my cache, but the asks disappeared from my ask box because they deactivated. Which is absolutely not what I was hoping for. So I’m going to archive them here, unless I get a message from them that they MEANT for them to vanish.

heavy spoilers for the book all through. my reply in bold at the end.

[1-3: Missing. I recall one of them saying the person liked the worldbuilding/World of Noble Assholes.]

4/?: I felt like Cailyn’s interest in s/m, discovered through Teran, was built up well, although I never really felt like... like she actually seemed to like Teran’s brand of s/m that much, if that makes sense? At least not so much as she just liked Teran. Or maybe the way she processes it is just foreign enough to me that it’s hard for me to process as “liking.” I don’t know.

5/? But actually, I feel like my having characterized it in my previous reaction as Teran having nonconsensually reprogrammed Cailyn’s sexuality wasn’t really fair, given that Cailyn ends up seeking it out on her own. I do think it was a huge betrayal on Teran’s part, but I think the bigger parts of that weren’t “getting her to like s/m.”

6/? The thing that I reacted to more strongly, personally, was that -- and this may or may not be what you were trying to get across -- it seemed that Teran was implying that anything she had said or done with Cailyn that was not causing physical pain was basically just manipulation aimed at getting Cailyn to like the physical pain part. Even things like repairing her dress or apologizing for destroying her stuff or telling her about her relationship with Marius.

[missing; rest sent through chat, likely for length]

12/13 I actually did really appreciate that you wrote Cailyn telling Teran off when she crossed a line, and that Cailyn wasn’t made out to be a problem person for that. And yet, her anger just stopped having any effect once Teran wasn’t trying to impress her anymore. 

Teran stepping in and essentially offering to be raped (yet again) in Cailyn’s stead was on one level horrifying, in that she’s pretty matter of fact that hey, she’s been here before, and as a result quite moving, because it shows that she felt more for Cailyn than she let on. But on another level, I found myself feeling like she kind of owed Cailyn that given that she’d been literally trying to own her, and manipulated her and assaulted her and so on. I mean, no, she didn’t, really, she just owed Cailyn not to have been manipulating her in the first place, but it was the callous second half of my reaction. 

Teran breaking down and crying and letting Cailyn leave to go to her death was touching to me on several levels -- 1) being that Cailyn meant more to her than just a fucktoy and 2) what you were trying to show, which was that on some level she understood the concept of consent. And yet, it felt like not enough -- it’s so much the most rudimentary concept of consent, that even Teran’s extravagant promise to make her planet a paradise for Cailyn fell flat for me, because even well-intended as she was (and I genuinely believe that was by her lights well intended), I felt like Teran didn’t have a good enough grasp of how to treat people that she’d be equipped to do that. (And that’s without even getting into how Cailyn valued being able to see her family and friends and having a life outside of Teran, and Teran took that away. I know the council was the one to ultimately take that away by making her Teran’s ward, but Teran’s quest to own her is what resulted in all of this happening.) 

True and incredibly stupid confession. I’d started reading Steel and Promise many months earlier, was disturbed by Teran taking Cailyn’s earrings and ripping her dress, flipped ahead to the end and saw that Cailyn ends up Teran’s literal slave and not in a fully consensual sense, and thought, “You know, I think this is a darker sort of fantasy than I’m up for.” But I rethought it, saw what you were trying to do with Teran recognizing on some level that she had to let Cailyn go, and considered starting over when I saw your post about Teran being ultimately a good person. I thought, obviously there’s context I’m missing, I’ll give this another go. 

I was enjoying it more the second time around, got to the scene between Teran and her son and thought, “Wow, this is really something special. Got into Teran being ostensibly forced into being a torturer, and was really getting into it. And then wham, Teran is all, “Oh, actually I was just messing with your head all along, aren’t I clever?” And then the assualt, and the additional context for her behavior was even worse, and I read the last quarter of the book while having an anxiety attack that ended up continuing for about two days until I sent you the “Did you say she’s a good person” ask. Which really isn’t your fault or your book’s fault and I was wrong to make it so. In retrospect, your “good person” comment was that Teran did at last understand consent on some level. But my reaction was, “Jesus fuck, I’ve really respected this person’s posts about the ethics of s/m, is this what a good person looks like to her, what parts are the fantastical parts -- I mean obviously the legal owning part, but what else?” And maybe it would’ve been better if I’d just literally said that in so many words (or maybe not), I don’t know. In the moment, I was trying to ask something that was trying to get at whether you were a safe person for me to deal with. I don’t mean in that you posed any kind of corporeal threat, but for me, in an emotional sense.

13/13 - The part that disturbed me about your more recent post was about how, in both the post and the book... shit, I was already such a douche that I’m afraid anything I say will just add to that, and I want to be very careful about how I word this. I don’t want to send you into scrupulosity spirals; I have OCD and understand how badly it sucks, which makes what I said to you that much more unforgivable. I don’t think if someone disassociates due to PTSD and harms someone that they need to die or don’t deserve to have relationships, not at all. But I feel like it’s important to recognize that if someone disassociates and does something to injure someone else... I guess, that there’s someone on the other end of the punch, and that the person who’s been punched might want to opt out, and may or may not forgive. Like, I suppose, it’s important to recognize that if you leave awful comments to a blogger when your anxiety is high, maybe the blogger won’t want much to do with you subsequently. :-/ I recognize that you’re not saying that Cailyn OWED Teran forgiveness. I don’t know why it through me into such anxiety. Well, actually I have an inkling, and it doesn’t have anything to do with anything you wrote. Just, baggage, that most people manage to deal with in ways other than being a douche. 

 Anyway, so, those are my incredibly incoherent thoughts on Steel and Promise and what my fucking problem was. I’d been doing my best to reframe the story in my head as more of a dom fantasy, or even just a radical forgiveness fantasy, and not as precisely a literal description of how you’d like reality to look, and I was too close to my own reaction and shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Won’t happen again.

Also, one last thing -- what you point out here: But I feel a bit worried that this will become a recurring thing, where I make a post not just saying “ey yo pull out the concrit knives and flay my books let’s go” but confessing something that you see as a serious flaw in me, and BUT THE BOOK springs into my ask box, at times I may or may not feel ready to handle it (especially if my post was about being imperfect.)

I just wanted to say as one final thing that you were absolutely right to point this out, and going back and forth between personal and BUT THE BOOK was entirely unfair of me. 

I think where things went wrong here is #6. I wish you were still here so I could ask for more specifics about why you felt the text conveyed this, because my intention absolutely was not for Teran’s kinder actions to be part of the manipulation. They’re expressions of Teran the person’s feelings when she’s not buried under Teran the master manipulator. She means them. They’re meant to show 1) that Teran isn’t as terrible as everyone (including herself) thinks she is, and 2) that Teran is falling in love.

If you think she didn’t mean those things, then yeah, I get why the book would seem pointless and terrible. Yikes! (People who liked it, I’m curious whether these bits read differently to you.)

Re #12: I’m actually glad that you saw that. I worried that the book wouldn’t get published actually, because a lot of romance publishers want happy endings, and I... honestly wasn’t sure it was one. I’d call it bittersweet myself. Two characters who love one another end up together, which is good and which is something I really wanted to write, for reasons I’ve mentioned before. 

But it comes at an absolutely awful price, and I did that because I just didn’t think it would be realistic for everything to suddenly be fine given that Teran ACTUALLY DID some very bad things. I didn’t want it to look like I was... I almost typed “like I was saying people should do this,” but it’s not really that, I’m not really thinking my fans won’t know fiction from reality. But I didn’t want it to look like Teran had done nothing that actually hurt Cailyn and treating people as objects, which Teran does, is okay. I wanted it to be clear that has consequences, and consequences you can’t always fix even if you feel bad and want to. Which is why it does both for Cailyn and for Dion, and why Teran says things like “You don’t have to like me.”

Re #13: I don’t think a character in Cailyn’s position does “have to�� forgive. I think Cailyn would, because that’s the kind of person she is, and that’s the kind of story I wanted to tell. If I’d ended it with “and Cailyn stormed off and Teran never took responsibility for any of it anyway,” maybe that would be realistic, but... real life is shitty like that. People just... leave stuff hanging and let it fester forever. Why should that happen in a story?

But I get why that might be cathartic for someone who wants a “fuck forgiveness” story, so: If you’re still there, write fic. :-) With my blessing.

Re the personal thing: I don’t think I can tell you whether I’m safe for you to deal with. But I can say that if you think I’m unsafe... that makes the apologies kinda hurt. Because they make it sound like you’re saying the reverse, and if you don’t mean it... go ahead and go around telling people I’m unsafe. If I don’t deserve it, people will realize they disagree with you eventually, and I’ll live. If I do deserve it, then other people are better for you saying so. (This is why I try so hard to give people a platform to criticize me. I don’t ever want anyone becoming friends much less anything more with me just because they don’t know about a dealbreaker they could have seen coming.)

But if you can’t decide, please don’t go back and forth. That makes me feel like a yo-yo on a string.

[haveyourmagic]

What Happens In Hypnotherapy

How Hypnotherapy can create real breakthroughs

By gently inviting relaxation of the physical body and the conscious mind (like a guided meditation process) which deepens the brainwaves states, allowing the bypassing the CCF analytical mind, hypnosis can easily facilitate communication with the subconscious mind to discover the root cause of problems.  After therapeutic intervention and re-framing, the conditioned habitual/fear based thought patterns can be cleared and more positive ideas introduced successfully. This can be a transformational process and really help you move forwards. According to cognitive neuroscientists, we are only conscious of about 5% of our cognitive activity. 95% of brain activity is beyond conscious awareness yet affects body functions, judgements, decisions, and actions. Equally certain emotions and behaviours that we often can’t rationalize and that are not alignment with our conscious goals, or can even sometimes even sabotage health!  I decided to train in Hypnotherapy after some fantastic breakthroughs.  I found it so fascinating and powerful and still do, every session. It helped me shift some blockages I couldn’t consciously resolve. I had no idea just how much traumatic experiences in my childhood and even past lives were affecting me!

What can I expect in a Hypnotherapy Session?

After a complimentary consultation call 20mins or so via phone/Facetime/Skype/Zoom etc we can explore what it is you’d like to work on and how many sessions you may need. I’ll ask you to complete a pre-session questionnaire (which frees up time in the first session allowing it to be more productive). All is shared in confidence in a safe space without judgement, to best help you. When you’re ready I’ll guide you into a relaxing safe state of ‘trance’ (reached often in daydreaming, for instance being ‘in the zone’, being on autopilot navigating familiar routes etc). For around 30mins (N.B. Stop Smoking Hypnotherapy  Session is 2hrs) we will work with your inner wisdom through the powerhouse and guide that is your subconscious mind (which has recorded everything and of course keeps your body functioning without reminders). You can still communicate by IMRs (finger signals) or some clients can still speak clearly enough. Your subconscious mind as your ‘protector’ will only take you where it wants to, nothing is ever forced.  I hold your hand, helping you along the way to transformation, encouraging you at each step of your journey.

Regression Therapy, Inner Child Healing & Past life Regression.

Profound healing work can happen here as I help you to resolve issues and making you feel really safe to regress to childhood to send healing and re-frame traumas that may have resulted in fears, anxieties, self esteem issues, trust in self others and life etc.  Hypnotherapy is powerful work to help you get back firmly in the driving seat of your life leaving behind the sabotage, or extreme bewildering emotions that can arise when a wounded inner child is triggered and ‘freaks out’.  This is why we often see adults having ‘tantrums.’ This upset part of you can be like a sub-personality that feels stuck in time with the threat happening in real time. By offering more reassurance and love from the present moment than was available at the time and with this understanding and reframing, this part is happier and can be re-integrated. This liberating process sets you free from the fears, low self-esteem or habits and reactions you hadn’t been able to move past. Literally going back in time to rescue a younger you and freeing you up to live fully.

Past Life Regression can be the way to heal and show the reason behind more baffling problems, inexplicable fears and sometimes even physical pain from past life wounding and interesting connections between people. Clues to past lives can be instant dislike or that feeling you’ve known someone forever!

E.g. A client couldn’t get over an ex even though his behaviour was toxic for her…With Past Life Regression her subconscious mind revealed a past life centuries ago. They were brother and sister, he was very ill she lovingly promised him that he wouldn’t die to cheer him up. He died and she carried the guilt that she couldn’t save him into this life where yet again she couldn’t save him from alcoholism. After the healing and self-forgiveness and making new vows to look after herself, she has now moved moved on with her life happily.

I’ve led many sessions of past life regression therapy and have also received many helpful past life regression sessions along the way too! I understand how to check for and clear negative vows or contracts that have been made which are not serving you this lifetime!

You can imagine how perhaps past allegiances sworn, lives in service to the Church, vows of celibacy, not accepting money and so on aren’t very helpful if you want a relationship / a thriving business now! I am glad to be able to make you feel really safe even literally hold your hand as we seek the information. It is NOT about re-traumatisation, you can choose witness something on a movie screen / float above the scene. When the healing is complete you are brought back to present day, unless we are guided by your subconscious mind to visit the Inter Life – This can be an incredibly reassuring experience especially if your ‘purpose eludes you or your self esteem is very low etc. I love facilitating your organic empowerment through these breakthroughs. As you feel happier, more inner peace, inner strength, self trust and more capable and as you become in alignment conscious mind, subconscious mind, heart and body then you really can manifest more of your desires more easily.

Future Creation

Once blockages are cleared at this root cause level then I can help you plant the seeds for your new chapters. Inviting the subconscious to magnetise to you the new opportunities, people or projects in line with your highest good  and thus you can experience the changes you desire, easier and easier from now on, over the coming days, weeks and months.

Positive Reinforcement

To enhance positive programming for performance, confidence, and also to remain a Non-Smoker a resource state can be created easily. In NLP this is often termed an ‘anchor’ Using just your fingers it is discreet and easily implemented in public situations. These grow stronger with use.

Is it possible to not wake up?

No. Hypnosis has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years and there are no reported cases of anyone, ever becoming permanently hypnotised! At the end of the session I will gently count you back to the present moment and make sure you’re grounded, feeling ready to for the rest of your day. Clients talk about feeling refreshed like they’ve had a lovely nap.

When will I see results and how many sessions are needed?

Some things maybe one session like treating a phobia. Or Stopping Smoking.

Hypnotherapy is not a magic wand, we have free will and to really experience change we must consciously commit also to better self care, self talk, the ‘stories’ we tell and identify with, these all have a massive effect. Our words are like spells. I believe the more we choose to be responsible for ourselves and develop more awareness, the more we can truly create the changes we want.

Many of my clients like to book three sessions. I’ve often seen clients have beautiful breakthroughs through Hypnotherapy to overcome low self-esteem that is a multi layered issue – we can journey with specific lenses such as- to address self trust, deserving good things, trusting there’s a reason for you to be here and also getting in touch with your purpose.  Creating breakthroughs in relationships problems – patterns of people pleasing and lack of boundaries or always going for ‘unsuitable’ potential partners. Also unravelling anxiety that may have become a pattern, or more confidence and overcoming stage fright. Our subconscious minds know the answers to most things that we don’t understand:-

I offer special pricing to clients who book three sessions upfront.

I can make a recording of the session and send you as an mp3 to listen to and re-affirm the positive suggestions made.

Stop Smoking with Hypnotherapy – One 2 hr session  £250 with positive reinforcement to keep you on track.

One stop smoking client was in a high profile /pressure celebrity management role:

“I don’t even think about it and if I do it feels like a weird distant past memory.”

We’ll work together to understand the core reason why you smoke e.g. loneliness, to be accepted, boredom and help re-programme that need as a thing of the past so that this change can be permanent. You’ll be given an anchor – resource state to support you you can do anywhere if triggered. The session is further strengthened with a personal reinforcement audio I’ll record and send  to you as an mp3. Cigarettes are so  harmful and expensive – the investment in your health will free up your budget for other treats you’ll enjoy more instead!

Sessions are now online my time zone is London -GMT

Have Your Magic -Wellbeing Hypnotherapy Sessions after lockdown:-

Also in Nw6  Queens Park.  Some home visits possible in NW London.

Have Your Magic -Wellbeing, Primrose Hill close to Chalk Farm Tube

Have Your Magic -Wellbeing in the City –  Near Liverpool Street in The City of London

Regular Wellbeing Events

I am also a fan of Sound Healing as a Gong Master I offer de-stressing Gong Baths with a guided meditation to deepen brain wave states and activate the Parasympathetic Nervous System giving you deep relaxation mind and body. Weekly – please see events.

I can tailor Hypnotherapy, De-stressing Techniques and Sound Healing for Corporate Wellbeing Events / as luxuriously nurturing Pamper Parties. I’ve provided Wellbeing Events at: BBC RadioLondon, Soho House, The Union Club, Cloud Twelve Club, A Place to Heal, Getahead Festival and Gymbox.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. I welcome your enquiry and sincere questions. Let’s discuss what breakthroughs I can help you with. Contact me here.

To know more about hypnotherapy in london uk please visit the website.

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[trekwiz]

UBI anon here (💚). I understand your position on UBI and I don’t necessarily disagree with it. I suppose my verdict on it is still out. But I’m an asshole, and love advocating for the devil... To me, your positioning is quite interesting. Especially considering the reasoning behind the Corona virus stipulations... as I could use the same logic during normal years to justify a UBI as part of the role of governance. (I.e. Lack of livable wages -> crime -> government duty) (crime affects all)

Hi anon. I apologize in advance for the long post.

I would address your comment in three parts: first on the difference between population and personal issues, second in terms of defining "need" in regards to government duty, and third in regards to personal rights.

I would suggest there needs to be a pretty bright line between population issues and individual issues in regards to government action. When that line is blurred, we get really weird agenda-driven communal values. As I mentioned in my previous answer, that is especially apparent to LGBT people who were on the receiving end of that logic.

I'm not sure if you saw the news and public reaction when gay kids finally started demanding the right to participate in dances with same sex partners in the early 00's. But schools and communities argued for a communal value that went something like this, "We need to protect our children from becoming gay, so these gay kids should sacrifice a bit of joy for the good of everyone."

Ultimately, the country was meeting the needs and desires of one group, at the expense and detriment of another. They chose who has to lose something, without their consent.

No one ever sees themselves as the bad guy. Universally, your beliefs are protective, or positive in some way, from your perspective. It's very easy to argue for a personal bias/agenda to be seen under the lens of collective behavior, when there's no reason it should be seen as anything but an individual desire.

Any individual concern can be reframed to appear as a population issue by focusing on numbers. Having eggs for breakfast wasn't a personal experience; millions of people had eggs for breakfast. But having eggs for breakfast really was a personal choice, and it didn't impact my neighbor; having eggs didn't make them eat eggs. The outcome was the same, but the decision was independent. As another example, it's the difference between listening to loud music on a farm, vs listening to loud music in a densely packed apartment complex. One is inherently a personal action, and the other is inherently communal.

A virus is inherently communal. Individual protections, at least with this kind of virus, are impossible. Your behaviors won't protect yourself; there is nothing you can do to avoid getting infected by acting alone--unless you're super rich and can hide in a bunker for a few years.

And, like the loud music in an apartment complex, your behaviors have a distinct impact on other people. It might sound dramatic, but you literally have the power to determine if someone else dies, or ends up with a lifelong disability. There's a distinct, and undeniable communal need, and it's similar to the reason we ban indoor smoking. While it's a soundbite, the old standard, "your right to swing your first ends at my nose" is the driving force here: once your behavior affects others, it's up to you to change, not them. By taking actions that hurt other people, you're infringing on their right not to participate--it's a decision you don't get to make.

On the second point, I would suggest linking government to crime via livable wages muddies the idea of governmental need in a particularly dangerous way. I briefly suggested that police don't need to be militarized, and so that's not a necessary government expense. I'll expand on that as an example, as I think it demonstrates how a muddy standard like that can be abused.

Those who have come to defend police brutality and a police state suggest that military equipment is necessary for police because it protects them. Their job necessarily involves danger that puts their lives at risk. Protecting law enforcement officers is certainly a government interest; they spend money on training, and wages theoretically correlate to experience that would be lost when an officer dies. Military equipment protects the people and the investment.

But is it necessary? Necessity is a combination of factors, with no one being the sole decider--and this list isn't exclusive, just a good start to the conversation. Does it make them more effective? Can the same goal be achieved through alternative means? Will the government cease to function in an important way if it doesn't have this funding?

When we examine militarized police in that lens, it doesn't really meet the standard for necessity. They're less effective when they have this kind of equipment: they increase violence and violent crime in communities as an instigating force, and they decrease communal trust, which necessarily impacts their ability to investigate real crimes in the future. It also encourages vigilante justice when the police are seen as this ineffective and untrustworthy--people are circumventing the law, which has a serious impact on governance.

The intended goal can be achieved through alternative means; there's good science around de-escalation tactics, and they're known to work in other developed countries. Ending the arms race between criminals and police generally reduces overall violence rates, and is protective to communities. And by foregoing the funding for militarized gear, no function of governance has been impacted. Laws will still be enforced; there's no negative impact on governance. The idea that it's a "need" is weak; it serves a personal agenda, not a necessary governmental function.

During a pandemic, there's a strong argument for governmental need for UBI. I won't outline all of the reasons, I'll stick with the most easy to apply one: if every member of government does everything right, someone in their community who didn't have the means to stay home could still infect them. If we think only about those we can reasonably care about, (so, assuming we're all unswayed by the impact of Trump being infected because--well, fuck that fascist) what happens if CDC employees become compromised due to an infection in the community, and that infection spreads throughout the agency?

The impact isn't temporary or localized. We'll be losing a large amount of expertise necessary for running the agency. An agency that works solely to protect populations, rather than individuals. The expertise that could prevent another botched pandemic response would need to be rebuilt from the ground up, with people who may not even be familiar with the relevant government processes. That will necessarily impact the government and the public for an extended period of time. We're already feeling some of that impact just from it being merely mismanaged (maliciously); imagine how much worse it would be if that expertise were simply wiped out and not available again when Trump is out of office?

UBI is an effective way to back up a stay at home order, and other similar precautions. It means bills won't go unpaid, and people can still eat. They won't be forced to choose between eating and preventing spread; if they're in a position where they can't choose to stay home, that risk to government personnel remains. There isn't really a great alternative; suspending regular bills won't reduce the need to pay for food, and deferring payments only increases the risk of someone needing to defy stay at home orders to prevent bankruptcy later. And depending on who is impacted--which is hard to predict--parts of government can cease to function without it, during a pandemic. A pandemic of this nature could theoretically wipe out the whole judicial branch of government, as an example. That would be disastrous.

Under situation normal, there's no real argument to be made for a government need. There are other ways to reduce crime, especially from a regulatory standpoint. Education is a start--and preventing education funding from being tied to property taxes is a good way to ensure poor communities don't get stuck in a cycle of poverty fed by poor education. Putting money into infrastructure explicitly meant to undo the impact of redlining would help.

And if you've tried to apply for a job in the last 15 years, you know there's a lot the government should be doing in regards to regulation and enforcement of labor laws. The issues leading to unlivable wages are relatively well known. It's no secret that many companies are using illegal unpaid internships (unpaid internships are only legal under a narrow set of criteria), or are misclassifying employees as contractors--which is a serious tax evasion scam at the worker's expense.

There are no enforcement mechanisms against companies that advertise these practices until a worker complains about it, even if they state their intentions to ignore the law in a job listing. And sometimes--with Uber as an example of a company breaking long-standing law about employee classification--enforcement doesn't happen unless workers spend a lot of their own money suing.

Stronger minimum wage laws tied to the local cost of living (and by local, I mean reasonable commute--employees should not be expected to live an hour+ away from where they work because the company doesn't want to pay them enough to live locally) is a good start, but the loopholes related to that need to be closed.

For example, companies react to wage increases by cutting hours and hiring more people in retaliation--there's no real need to do it, it's just an excuse to coerce employees into acting against their own interests. The true impact on pricing from reasonable wages is negligible. One possibility is to lock the ratio between part time employees and full time employees, with some exceptions based on necessity. If you have 4 part-time cashiers, you can probably do well with 2 full-time cashiers.

Whereas a workplace that needs extra bodies for a short period of time--for example, maybe a facilities management office that sometimes handles construction will need additional people to transport and handle materials every so often, but not regularly--should be able to operate that way with evidence that there's truly a need.

Arguably, a shorter work week would make a difference as well. 40 hours is a lot to begin with, and some salaried people are regularly working 50-60 without additional pay. Balancing a living wage for a 30 hour week would greatly assist people in getting more education to aim for even better paying jobs. And the additional leisure time should reduce the stresses that lead to crime.

Hiring practices are currently obtuse, and a lot of resumes are never seen by a human. Banning the use of screening by ATSes (and by people unfamiliar with the relevant field--a scientist shouldn't be screened out by an HR employee who failed intro biology) could make hiring a bit more fair for everyone. And blinding interviews as much as reasonable could help--look up information about how gender ratios started to become more even when orchestras switched to blind interviews using carpeted floors, it's really interesting. (The sound of heels on hard surfaces led to decreased hiring of women when blinding alone was in use.)

I'd even suggest that a wage ratio cap would be reasonable. Largely because it doesn't prevent the top members of a company from making unlimited money, so long as they pull up everyone below them.

And it all necessarily needs to include regulation and enforcement against predatory lending practices in regards to student loans, housing, and "payday loans." Crime and poverty are a complex interaction of systems, and you can't choose just one area to focus on.

Back to the point: there are alternative ways to solve the underlying problem. It doesn't necessarily make the government more effective: it's addressing one facet of crime when a coordinated effort against multiple causes could do it better through acts of governance*. And ultimately, parts of the government won't fail because it doesn't have UBI.

*I'm generally very uncomfortable when the government takes action that's outside of "governance." That kind of behavior is too easily abused by personal agendas. Governance is, generally, regulation and enforcement. When you creep out of that scope, you get into my third point: infringement of personal rights (in contexts that are personal and not population).

Ultimately, we're not a hive-mind; we're not a collective. While issues with a population-scale impact should necessitate individual action, the status quo should have the minimal impact on our ability to lead our lives as we see fit.

We've lost our understanding of what the freedom of religion clause of the 1st amendment is about. It was meant to put a barrier between religion and government, so the government couldn't coerce you, even minimally (like, say, the 10 commandments in a courthouse), to follow someone else's religious beliefs. But there's an underlying "why" there.

If I force you to eat Key Lime Pie because my religion demands it, or I force you to eat Key Lime Pie because it's simply my favorite dessert, is there a difference? The clause was created not because forcing religion on others, in specific, is bad. It was created because religion was a common method of forcing your way of life onto someone else, and that is bad.

It's couched in secular terms, but UBI is based on a set of personal beliefs about how we should behave, with an underlying assumption that we should all be collectivist. It compels collective financial support on an issue with a personal scope. I've seen how that plays out, when homophobia was a communal value. And it's the most easily abused model of governance.

You win, so you get to have your personal values made standard for the next 2-8 years. Great. But then you lose, and your opponent now has the power and means to have their personal values made standard for the next 2-8 years. Trump should be a caution against this mindset; the things you think you're doing for good, offers someone like him the power to do similar things for bad. You want to give out a basic wage, Trump wants to give out militarized weaponry to police and Nazis.

A system that permits personal belief to be the driving force of tax and government policy is a system that permits these kinds of wild, dangerous swings. Gerrymandering is the result of a system that empowers personal beliefs to rule over others.

As a final thought, consider this: in the US, something like UBI could be weaponized by people like Trump. Take part in protests? Sorry, no more income for you. Formed a union? You're not eligible. The government agent who sends the UBI payment has religious-based bigotry against gay people? Sorry, they have a right not to pay you. You're writing politically "hostile" news? You and all of your coworkers have just lost a significant chunk of your income. Convicted of a felony? Income suspended, sorry, good luck staying out of prison.

If your ability to survive is heavily tied to a government payment, AND the system permits and encourages personal beliefs to be a valid reason to guide government policy, marginalized people will always have the most to lose.

[born4change]

My Name is Munya & I’m A People Pleaser

There’s something very uncomfortable that is true about you and I. We are both currently going through life with someone’s approval in mind. It could be a spouse, a supervisor, friends, parents, relatives or even strangers on social media. While there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with wanting certain people to approve or think well of you, the degree to which you and I allow the opinions of others to dictate our actions has a profound impact on both the direction and the quality of our lives. Through our actions, we are constantly asking those individuals or groups of people this question… do you like me?

Before we get deeper into this post, I’d like to invite you to pause and consider who those people might be in your life. When you get up in the morning, get dressed and look in the mirror… whose opinion is quietly air-conditioning your outfit choice? When you take your obligatory selfie or post your expertly crafted latte made with perfectly roasted beans by your personal barista from your favourite coffee shop… who is that for? And why does their opinion matter to you so much? For someone reading this post right now, the person who wields that influence over you doesn’t even know it yet because they’re your crush. Ever since those feelings started to develop, you have been curating your life with them in mind… for others it’s a group of people like an exclusive golf club or school committee that can approve a place for your child in the next academic year. We are all to an extent “approval magnets”.

I can remember one of my first experiences with this dynamic. I was going on what was probably my first date ever! I was 16 and I had managed (somehow) to convince a beautiful young lady to have lunch me on a Saturday (at St Elmo’s in Avondale for those of you that grew up in Harare). Given that I was an unemployed high school student, this feast was being funded out of hard-saved pocket money. My date arrived (dropped off by her mum of  course) and we proceeded to take our seats at a table by the window. Two opposing forces were at play the moment we sat down. The first one was I had a fixed amount of money in my pocket and that wasn’t going to change. The second was that the food had fixed prices on the menu and that wasn’t going to change either. A quick scan of the menu confirmed my worst fears. I only had enough money for one of us to have a great meal or for two of us to have an “okay” meal. Because I wanted her to think that I “had this” and that “money wasn’t a problem” I didn’t confront the elephant in the room. Instead I just hoped she wasn’t that hungry. Wrong. To cut a long story short, after she placed her order, I did a quick calculation and discovered that there was only one thing left on the menu I could afford; snails. Snails in olive oil and bread. So I spun some story about how I loved snails and proceeded to have one of the worst culinary experiences of my life. She had a great time but I suffered. I wanted her to approve of me so bad that I was willing to put slime in my mouth and pretend to love it so that we could have a chance of a second date. Why didn’t I just come clean? What is that in me and in you?

The real challenge of living with the approval of other people in mind arises when you start making decisions that violate your conscience or go against what you believe. Speaking from painful experience, I can tell you that living with someone else’s approval in mind more often than not lures you into a space where this word is the master: COMPROMISE. You will eventually betray yourself and your values in pursuit of that person or that group of people’s LIKE. Think about when you last found yourself in some kind of trouble… is it not true that the reason you found yourself in that pickle is because you were in pursuit of someone’s approval? Now, if our poor choices in life as a result of this dynamic only affected us, that would almost be fine but they never do. More often than not, our irresponsibility becomes someone else’s problem. Depending on what you do to get him or her or them to like you, it is possible, almost guaranteed, that some people will get hurt. Decisions based on pleasing other people can hurt us and those in close proximity to us financially, emotionally, physically and relationally. We’ve all spent money we didn’t have, buying things we didn’t need, to impress people who, for the most, part we didn’t really like and the result was a belly full of regret. If you and I are honest with each other, I think we would find that our moments of deepest regret are concentrated around trying to please people.

One of the unfortunate realities of being a people pleaser is that you are stuck in a never-ending race. There is never a time when the person who you are trying to please stops you in your tracks and declares that you have done enough and they are so pleased with you. That day never comes and with each day that passes, you experience a subtle form of rejection. You feel somewhat defeated. I remember being in that highly volatile place where I had handed over the keys to my happiness to a group of people and it was extremely stressful. They didn’t even know! They were going about their lives normally and I was sitting around waiting for them to demonstrate some of acceptance towards me. Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to be anxious about how long it takes someone to reply a text, or what conspiracy theories can run through one’s mind when that “person” doesn’t like your facebook or instagram post. I do. It’s exhausting. This dynamic has caused me to lie, hide, shirk responsibility and let myself down more than any other driving force in my life. Beyond creating cycles of self destructive behaviours, being a people pleaser, if not quenched, can actually lead to, in some extreme cases, a depressive state of mind. So why do we do it? The answer is that we are all acceptance magnets.

Acceptance and rejection shapes our self esteem and self worth which can lead to all kinds of behavior – both good and bad.  Have you ever been in a situation where you were constantly trying to win the acceptance of those closest to you, maybe a parent or spouse, but always felt rejected?  Those feelings can lead to all kinds of dysfunction and inappropriate behavior.  Understanding how acceptance and rejection shapes us is important because it can explain a lot of things we see in the world and maybe in our own lives.  For example, this might explain why many people, especially men, pour themselves into their work at the expense of their family.  When we feel competent and valued by all those around us at work but at home everyone has their own opinion and we might not feel as accepted, it’s easy to spend more time and energy and invest more of ourselves at work than at home. Many people fall in love with someone other than their spouse because when marriage gets hard and feelings aren’t always strong we will gravitate to new relationships where we feel unconditionally accepted.  Instead of working through the difficulties at home, many people will just go where they feel acceptance which can lead to all kinds of unhealthy relationships.

In part two of this post I will lean into how we can begin to reframe this relationship with approval and start live our lives free from the burden of people pleasing. For now I can only offer a few indicators that can help you to detect if you have fallen into the people people pleasing. Here’s 5 signs that you might be a people pleaser:

When you hope the people you care about most don’t find out where you’ve been or who you’ve been with.

When you hear yourself saying, I’ll go but I won’t participate.

When you feel pressure to compromise.

When you catch yourself pretending to be somebody other than who you know you are.

When it dawns on you that your core group isn’t moving in the direction you want your life to be moving in.

Here’s something you should know though, ultimately, we are all looking for someone by whom we are fully known and fully accepted. Someone to whom we can respond BECAUSE we are loved, not in order to get love. What would you do if you ever met such a person? If you have ever wondered about anything remotely related to that, then you are on the verge of an incredible breakthrough. I also think you should listen to this:

[ebenpink]

7 proven + profitable models for adding nutrition coaching to a health and fitness business. Help more people and build a thriving practice with these expert tips. https://ift.tt/2H0Tjff

Learning more about nutrition is one thing; turning that knowledge into results (and a thriving practice) is another. That’s why, in this article, I share seven proven business models from top health and fitness experts. Use them to grow your existing practice — or to get a new one off the ground.

++++

The fields of health, fitness, and wellness are evolving.

Unless they have a specific problem they need solved, people are no longer looking for ‘personal trainers’ or ‘chiropractors’ or ‘physicians’…

… they’re looking for well-rounded ‘generalist’ coaches who can help them look, feel, and live better, in more holistic ways, and in ways that last.

A big part of that, of course, is eating better.

That’s why modern health, fitness, and wellness professionals are learning more about nutrition than ever before; they’re reading books, taking courses, attending workshops, and getting certified.

But getting the knowledge is one thing; turning it into results (and a thriving practice) it is quite another.

That’s why, when we recently updated and re-opened our Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification, we added an entire chapter on business, advertising, and marketing (click here to see the table of contents for the course).

It’s also why we put together this article.

In it you’ll learn 7 proven models for adding nutrition coaching to your practice. (Or, if you’re just beginning, how to offer it right from the start). These come from some of the field’s top experts, including: Alwyn Cosgrove, Jonathan Goodman, Sean Greeley, Pat Rigsby, and yours truly.

Here’s a snapshot of what we’ll discuss:

Which model is best for you?

All of the strategies here are proven and expert-vetted — so you really can’t go wrong with any of them.

Still, they all have pros and cons. One model might be a lot more effective for, or better suited to, you (and the people you help) right now.

Feel free to read them all from top to bottom, or just jump to the section most relevant to you by clicking one of the links below.

Individual model

Small group model

Transformation contest model

Corporate model

Online coaching model

Partnership model

ProCoach model

Individual model

Suggested by John Berardi, Precision Nutrition

For many coaches, working one-on-one with clients and patients is a good start. In the individual model, you present yourself as a well-rounded lifestyle coach — and deliver on that promise.

One of the best ways to do this is to simply build nutrition coaching into your standard package of services.

Step 1: Get a commitment

Ask for the commitment you need to get real, sustainable change. That’s probably at least six months… maybe 12.

Establish an agreement for this duration and bill per unit of time (weekly, monthly, quarterly) instead of per session.

Then, begin your nutrition coaching practice (simply adding it to the exercise, rehab, medical, or other services you’re offering if you’re already in business).

Step 2: Decide how to work nutrition into your one-on-one sessions.

There are two options here.

Option 1: Offer a dedicated, regularly scheduled nutrition session every 1-2 weeks.

Value that session equal to what you’d value the services you’re currently offering. For example, if you charge $100/session for fitness training, you’ll charge $100/session for nutrition coaching.

Option 2: If you’re adding nutrition to an existing business, tack on 15 minutes to each session.

Again, for example, if you’re an exercise coach, do this at the start of the session, before your client is tired.

(Meet in a quiet place. Don’t do this while foam rolling/warming up.)

Of course, factor this extra time into your price per session. For example, if you charge $100 per session, consider charging $125 for a session that includes nutrition assessment and consultation.

(Likewise, if you’re a rehab specialist, or medical professional, you can do something similar.)

At this point, you’re probably thinking: “With a higher price point and a longer commitment, won’t that mean fewer clients or patients?”

Probably not. As current (and prospective) clients/patients see the tremendous value this sort of holistic coaching provides — and begin to see you as an elite-level, well-rounded coach — they’ll be more eager than ever to work with you.

However, even if you did lose a few clients/patients at first (which isn’t likely), you’ll begin attracting folks who are ready for change, and willing to commit.

That means you’ll get better results, and a better shot at establishing a great reputation, not to mention the income that reflects what you’re really worth.

Step 3: Develop your nutrition coaching format.

Here’s an example of what an hour of nutrition coaching might look like, based on the methods we teach in the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification:

1. Start with an assessment (if warranted) — check out the ones we use at Precision Nutrition for guidance.

This would involve tracking the things important to your client or patient. It could be objective things like weight, girths, skinfolds, blood parameters, photos and food intake. Or subjective things like mood and perceived health.

2. Review check-in questions.

During the prior week or two, you should have assigned new habits or practices for your clients or patients to work on. Review how they’ve done with those practices, celebrate all successes, and talk through any challenges around those habits.

3. Look back, look ahead.

Most people tend to focus on how far their goals are ahead of them, and how much time, effort, and work still remains. Change their focus by looking backwards and reframing the future as a set of opportunities.

Review what they’ve accomplished and what they’re currently excited about or looking forward to:

Looking back over the last xx days, what are you most proud of?

Today, what are you most excited about?

Looking forward, what are you most confident about for the next xx days?

4. Establish the next practice to work on.

Together with your client or patient, collaborate on what to do next. As part of your decision-making process, consider their progress, their changing goals, current sticking points, and what feels most important and/or urgent to them.

Once you agree on next actions, ask: How confident are you that you can follow this for the next xx days? Adjust as necessary until you come up with something you think will make a difference and they think they can actually do.

5. Create a plan/discuss next steps that will set them up for success.

Based on what we decided to practice over the next xx weeks…

What advantages do you have that’ll make this easy?

What surprises or challenges may come up and get in the way?

What sort of things might you do to overcome these challenges?

Top benefits of the individual model:

Easy to get started. If you have training clients or rehab patients, you have potential nutrition clients or patients too.

Keeps the scale small and manageable. This is a great place to start if you don’t feel ready for large-scale coaching, or if you’re simply happier coaching people one-on-one.

Simple integration with existing services. You’ll still be leaps and bounds ahead of the run-of-the-mill coaches out there because you’ll be coaching people to better, lasting change. You’ll have real results to show for your efforts — and you’ll be able to charge for it.

Small group model

Suggested by Alwyn Cosgrove, Results Fitness University

Unlike the individual model, the small group model lets you coach several people simultaneously in the same session. The sessions are held at a regular, recurring time, and everyone works together. Usually, there’s also a finite end point (such as an 8-week or 12-week program).

This is also a nice way to make the most of your time. You’re spending an hour (or whatever) regardless; 10 people paying $20 each will yield twice the revenue of 1 client paying $100 for that same hour.

Clients/patients may also prefer to trade off one-on-one time for a cheaper price — or simply like the idea that they’re sharing the journey with others.

Step 1: Add nutrition classes to your existing business.

If you have existing clients or patients, you can suggest that for an additional fee, they join your small group nutrition class.

Step 2: Consider “front-loading” nutrition for new clients.

Encourage uptake of the nutrition program by offering a free “entry level” nutrition starter class or kit when a client or patient begins working with you.

For example, at Results Fitness, every new client gets a “Phase 1” nutrition program that includes some initial habit-based coaching with bonus tools (like a food journal).

From there, Cosgrove estimates that 90% of clients upgrade to the 8-week small group program.

Feel free to experiment and discover the “winning formula” that works for your own coaching style and client or patient base.

Step 3: Develop your nutrition class.

What should the classes look like?

Class size can vary depending on your group and comfort level. However, generally 5-25 people per nutrition class is ideal.

The class structure could look something like this:

30 minutes lecture on a given topic

15 minute Q & A

15 minute check-in and accountability session

Step 4: Find a good system for tracking compliance.

Accountability generally involves reviewing whether the client or patient has met their stated goals from the last session; and identifying what they will commit to work on for the next period of time.

The coach can assign the same habit to everyone, or allow each person to choose their own habit for the week, based on what they’re learning and their progress in the program. (Perhaps take a certain supplement each day or practice eating slowly at dinner time.)

Straightforward ways to track compliance include:

Have clients/patients sign a visibly placed whiteboard. By doing so, they’re committing to the week’s habit.

Keep a “compliance grid”. Throughout the program, track each individual’s consistency: If they miss a habit, they get an X; if they do the habit, they get the checkmark.

Assign “accountability buddies”. This allows people to partner up so they may check in with each other about their progress.

Top benefits of the small group model:

Return on investment: You maximize your profitability without investing more time. Serving more people at once, even at a lower rate than an individual hourly model, will allow you to increase profits per unit of time spent.

Accountability: For many people, the biggest barrier to success isn’t knowledge, it’s consistency. And consistency can be helped tremendously by accountability — something that naturally flows from having other people check in on your progress week after week.

Social support: We also know people are more likely to stick with the program if they have peers, friends or family with similar habits. A group model can provide a community feel and give folks a sense of support. They’ll keep coming back (and re-subscribing to your program) because they want to remain a part of the community.

Transformation contest model

Suggested by Pat Rigsby, patrigsby.com

In a transformation contest model, you provide coaching within a limited time frame (about 4 to 6 weeks), with a very clear goal. The contest offers a prize for a particular achievement, such as:

body composition changes

visual transformation

habit transformation

athletic accomplishment

etc.

Step 1: Develop and advertise the contest.

Decide on the criteria and find an enticing prize to draw people in. (Note: You will likely need a sponsor for this prize, especially if you’re not part of a fitness club or larger organization.)

Set a registration fee you’re comfortable with. $225 is a typical starting point.

Now, of course, to make a good contest, you need plenty of people. While you can have as many people as you like, to make it sporting I recommend about 20 people as a minimum.

Step 2: Offer ongoing coaching and accountability.

Throughout the pre-specified time frame of the program, you’ll deliver a combination of email coaching and in-person (or online) educational workshops. For example, you might send out a new email every Monday with that week’s program (i.e. exercise and nutritional habits), plus follow-up emails throughout the week.

In addition, you might host weekly in-person workshops or webinars throughout the program that discuss nutritional habits in more detail.

You may also choose to set up an online group, such as a private Facebook group, where you can send a daily reminder or “check-in” asking people to confirm they did their daily habit. This helps to build accountability into the program.

Step 3: Objectively measure results.

For instance:

If the goal is physical transformation, set times for in-person measurements throughout the program.

If the goal is athletic achievement, set times for group workouts or “fitness tests”.

Make sure criteria and measurements are clear and transparent. You don’t want people feeling misled or shortchanged.

While the program is short, it enables you to offer a lot of value in a short period.

Top benefits of the transformation contest model:

Creates urgency: The short time frame with specific set dates encourage people to make a commitment.

Highly motivating; keeps people focused: People can see real change within a short time frame, with a set endpoint. They can go “all in”, with an intense and focused effort.

Immediate cash influx and long-term financial benefit: You’re both enhancing the value of existing clients or patients by getting them to pay for a new service, and bringing in new clients/patients or who may sign up for other programs with you.

Enables you to deliver nutrition coaching and fitness/health/rehab coaching together in a structured way. This may be a good model if you want to incorporate some nutrition coaching into your work but aren’t ready to transfer it to your standard programs.

Corporate model

Suggested by Sean Greeley, Net Profit Explosion

In the corporate coaching model, you’ll provide nutrition coaching to a workplace (either a whole company or a specific department).

Corporate demand is increasing. It’s a great way to scale up your business and sell your services at a higher corporate rate.

It’s also mutually beneficial: Employees appreciate getting access to quality nutrition coaching and employers love the corporate culture and team-building benefits while improving the health of their employees.

Step 1: Get comfortable coaching large groups of people.

Get some experience with the group setting by starting with the small group or transformation contest model.

Step 2: Decide on the format of your nutrition coaching program.

For corporate clients, you’ll need to make a few amendments to your existing model, but you can borrow many of the same practices of either the small group program or the transformation contest program, depending on company size.

Top benefits of the corporate model:

High profits: Corporate coaching programs usually come with a higher price tag. Just be sure you can deliver on your promises. They will expect good service.

Less investment of time and administration: Corporate programs don’t need the marketing or sponsorship of free-standing transformation contests. This makes things more efficient (and potentially more profitable) for you. Transformation contests can be a bit heavy on logistics. Within a company environment, they become much more straightforward.

Broader audience: A corporate program can give you access to a large group of people (e.g. 100+), allowing you to sell/upgrade more clients or patients after the program is complete. (This assumes you have their permission to do so.)

Online coaching model

Suggested by Jonathan Goodman, The Personal Trainer Development Center

Online coaching typically involves weekly programming (by email or a software service), which may include written, photo and/or video content. It will require a degree of one-on-one time from you to provide accountability or answer questions, but that time should be structured and limited, as described below.

Step 1: Choose how many people you want.

Your goal number of clients/patients should depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Are you starting an online-only business? Is this supplemental to other projects, or will it be your primary work?

If it’s supplemental, or you’re just getting started, you may choose to begin with a small group (e.g. 10 to 20) and a small price point ($100/month).

Up to around 30 or 40 people seems to be manageable without special software. Beyond that point, you may wish to use a special software system to help manage clients/patients and content delivery.

Step 2: Choose your specialty or “niche”.

Efficient online nutrition coaching requires you to focus and establish templates for client/patient “type”. Pick no more than 3 types of individuals you want to include in your online program.

For example:

25-30-year-old males looking to build muscle

Women in their 30s who recently had a baby

60-75-year-old retirees

etc.

Step 3: Assess your prospects in advance.

Ask prospects to fill out a questionnaire. You can set up a simple survey online using a system such as Survey Monkey.

This will not only help you vet clients/patients to make sure they fit your area of specialty, but also to anticipate needs and problems in advance.

(For example, if you’re doing fitness coaching and clients have a shoulder injury, you will need to adjust their workouts accordingly.)

Step 4: Create 3-4 phases of programming for each type.

Each client/patient in the same category will receive a similar program, tailored slightly for them, based on their questionnaire answers.

Step 5: Set appointed times for compliance check-ins.

For example, at the end of the week, the client/patient can send you their food journal, or their update on what habits they kept, etc. You can schedule a time to review your email and check off compliance using your favorite method (e.g. a whiteboard or spreadsheet).

Schedule your time carefully. Set up regular appointments for yourself for when you will send materials, when you will check email or conduct accountability check-ins, schedule follow-ups, etc.

Step 6: Consider software.

Once you get a broader scope of clients/patients, you may look at buying software to help you deliver nutrition coaching materials.

Unfortunately not all software services support nutrition coaching. If you’re going the software route, be sure to speak with a representative about nutrition coaching in advance to make sure it has the functionality you need.

[Editor’s note: Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach is just this type of nutrition coaching software. It allows health, fitness, and wellness professionals to leverage our proven methods with their own clients/patients.]

Top benefits of the online coaching model:

It can save you time and money… if you do it right. Remember, online coaching doesn’t have to be a big business; it can be a great adjunct to an existing in-person business. For example, if you are training at a gym and want to try combining nutrition coaching with fitness, this can be a good way to do that on the side.

Client adherence can actually be better. Think about it: At a big rehab center, the client/patient buys “rehab” instead of a particular therapist. Since the therapist is often chosen for them, they may not be a good fit — and the client/patient feels no sense of agency in the decision. On the other hand, when you’re an online coach, the client picks you.

You reach the people who need you. Online coaching is a great way to reach people who need the help. For example, there are people who can’t afford gym memberships or personal training, or who are intimidated by gyms. Online coaching makes getting the help they need more accessible.

More flexibility. Online coaching can give you more freedom for how and when you work, allowing you to block off time according to your own schedule and use your preferred ways of working.

Just remember, in order to save you time, you must work efficiently and systematically. If you’re redesigning your programs for each and every person, and answering email all day long, you’re probably not going to get the results or profit you hoped for.

Partnership model

Suggested by John Berardi, Precision Nutrition

What if you’re not quite ready to provide nutrition coaching within your business?

No problem. You can outsource it.

The truth is, some coaches who are qualified to dispense nutrition advice (including Precision Nutrition Certified pros) decide that now isn’t the right time to formally incorporate practice-based nutrition coaching into their business.

That’s a fair decision. After all, it takes time to make any kind of addition or change to your business. It takes time to put all this nutrition stuff into practice, let alone become an expert at it. And it takes time to settle into your sweet spot of expertise, wherever you find it.

Meanwhile, you want the best for your clients or patients. You don’t want them getting lost in diet fads or repeating harmful patterns. You want them to feel good and succeed, in all areas of health and fitness.

So let’s say you decide that, at least for the time being, you’d like some help delivering nutrition coaching. This is where a partnership model can be useful.

Step 1: Start by picking your partner.

This may be a local nutritionist or dietitian who you trust and respect. Or it may be a reputable online coaching company, like us. (Obviously, at Precision Nutrition, we believe we’re the best in the world at what we do. So perhaps you want to partner with us? If so, drop us a line and let us know.)

Step 2: Decide on your partnership arrangement.

If you’re teaming up with a local nutrition pro, figure out what works best for the both of you: Will you exchange referrals? Go with affiliate-type commissions? Come up with a barter system?

There are lots of options, although my experience suggests that affiliate/referral commissions work best. With affiliate commissions, you determine a commission rate. Your affiliate partner pays you that rate for each person you refer to them. (And vice versa if they’re referring clients/patients to you.)

This type of revenue sharing model is commonly used in the digital/online world but there’s no reason it can’t be done offline too. Obviously, you can negotiate whatever you agree is fair, but a commission of 10 to 20 percent on each coaching package sold is standard.

For example, let’s say you decide you want to partner with us. As a Precision Nutrition Certification student or graduate you can become a referral partner of ours. You contact us, sign up for our affiliate program, and you’re given a special link to share with clients or patients for them to learn more about Precision Nutrition Coaching.

For each client/patient you think is a good candidate, you share that link with them. And if they go on to sign up for coaching, you get paid a generous percentage of the sale.

This is just an example, of course. You could set up a similar relationship with any other nutrition coach or nutrition company you choose, as long as they’re amenable.

The key is to make sure they’re giving advice you actually believe in, so that your clients/patients aren’t receiving mixed messages and getting confused.

Step 3: Stay in touch about their nutrition coaching.

For example, you might schedule regular check-ins to see how it’s going, what habits they’re working on, etc.

Just stay informed so you have a sense of their progress and so you can make sure your work dovetails with what’s happening on the nutrition side.

Top benefits of the partnership model:

You can take care of your clients/patients. If you aren’t ready or able to offer nutrition coaching right now, you’ll know they’re getting quality support in this area. Part of being a great coach is knowing when to call in extra resources to help your people succeed. Not everything needs to come from you.

You buy yourself some time. Keep working in the areas where you’re already a superstar. Meanwhile, keep learning and practicing in areas you want to grow. Remember, you don’t have to do everything all at once.

You keep it simple. Like your business the way it is now? Not excited about adding or changing things? Outsourcing is an easy solution.

You make a bit of money, and/or find some new clients/patients. Partnership can open up new opportunities and it can even make you some cash, with very little investment on your part.

Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach

As an addition, or alternative, to the models above, you may consider using Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach software, which offers Precision Nutrition Certification students and graduates an easy way to deliver the practice-based nutrition coaching we teach in our program.

In this model, ProCoach delivers the Precision Nutrition Coaching curriculum to your clients and patients, while keeping you in the driver’s seat as the coach.

You sign up your clients/patients, and ProCoach runs automatically for each person.

Each of your clients will get 12 months of lessons, habits and progress check-ins, delivered to them automatically on your behalf. Meanwhile, ProCoach gives you a platform to track their progress.

While ProCoach delivers the programming, you are the coach. That means you can help your clients/patients through the curriculum in whatever way you choose — whether that’s in person, entirely online, in a group setting in the gym, a corporate setting, and so on.

Here’s an idea of how this works.

Step 1: Get started on (or complete) your Precision Nutrition Certification.

Again, ProCoach is only available to Precision Nutrition Certified professionals.

Step 2: Sign up for ProCoach.

We’ll be making more spots available soon. Click here to check out our next launch date.

Step 3: Register your clients/patients for the program.

This takes less than 30 seconds per person. The program immediately kicks off and gives your client/patient access to their personal dashboard, from any device.

Step 4: Review their assessment answers.

The program begins with an initial screening and assessment questionnaire. You can then review client/patient responses to get to know more about them and understand their goals.

Step 5: Let the program run.

At this point, the program runs like clockwork. Folks get daily emails with short reviews and lessons about what they should be working on that day. Every two weeks they will practice a different habit, supported by daily guidance in the form of written, audio, and visual content.

Step 6: Review client progress.

Every week or two, clients/patients are asked to report markers of progress such as body weight and photos. Through your ProCoach dashboard you will be able to review progress. You can easily track everyone at a glance, and deep dive into each individual’s progress as you wish.

Step 7: Check in and provide feedback.

If you want to be more involved, you can check in, provide feedback, and give high fives through the ProCoach communication system. Depending on your coaching style, you can also add your own personal elements to this — such as in-person coaching, group meetups, webinars, etc.

Top benefits of the ProCoach model:

Provide a reliable nutrition coaching experience. You’ll deliver the same high quality nutrition coaching experience to every single client/patient regardless of what else is going on… in your life or theirs. ProCoach offers our “road-tested”, evidence-based, real-world-proven system and experience for everyone. We’ve put some serious mileage on it so we know it works.

Scale up. (The sky’s the limit.) You’ll be able to coach 5 clients, 50 clients, or 500 people easily — because ProCoach makes it simple. We’ve already coached over 100,000 clients using this very system. Think you can handle that many clients? Go for it. The system will work, whether you have 10 people or 10,000.

Automation makes it easy. You’ll be able to deliver nutrition habits, lessons, and assignments on time and on track, no matter what else you’re doing. Whether you’re sleeping, busy, out of town, in bed with the flu, stuck in traffic or on a plane somewhere above the Pacific ocean… it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be there all the time, or married to your laptop, always wondering and worrying. The system will take care of your people, and make sure they get what they need. Daily, weekly, and monthly check-ins and progress tracking are also automated.

What to do next: Some tips from Precision Nutrition

Whether you’re already in the middle of your coaching career or you’re just starting out, getting a top-notch nutrition education is the most important (and first) step.

Then you’ll need smart tools and systems for using that knowledge to get the best results for your clients/patients — and for your business.

In this article, we’ve offered lots of ideas for adding nutrition coaching to your practice. It can sometimes feel overwhelming. But starting with these steps will help you stay focused.

1. Know your stuff.

The business models we’ve laid out in this piece only work if you truly know your stuff. For example: If you’re going to coach nutrition, make sure you understand the fundamentals.

And just like nutrition, business is an ongoing learning process, too. Do you know the essentials of sales and marketing and buying psychology? Can you express what you do with clarity and passion? Do you know how to demonstrate authority and build a top-notch reputation for yourself? These may be areas where more study is needed to raise your game.

Take an honest assessment of where you are now as a coach and a business person. Where are your gaps?

Of course, if you don’t have the fundamental nutrition knowledge yet, maybe it’s time to get your Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification. It’ll boost your credentials and up your game. Plus, once certified, you can use ProCoach.

2. Value your time and your services.

It may be tempting to give your nutrition knowledge away for free. Clients, patients (and friends and family) may ask you to do so, without giving it much consideration.

But if you want to make a great living, you need to put a price on your nutrition coaching services — whether that’s an increased hourly rate or a special program.

You also need to value your own time. The adage “time is money” is particularly true for health, fitness, and wellness. Be clear and specific about when you’re available, and how the time will be used.

You can also apply my ‘1-minute rule’. If you can answer the question in less than one minute, go for it. If you’ll need more than that, it falls under the umbrella of coaching — and that means you charge for it.

3. Use a system.

Nutrition coaching really isn’t something you can wing. The best, most effective, way to use your knowledge — for the good of your clients/patients and your business — is to have a system in place.

As you consider which business model to use, consider your goals and preferred way of working.

Do you feel most inspired when interacting with people one-on-one? Do you love the group setting because of your passion for public speaking? Are you pressed for time, making the online option most practical for you? Do you need to work with a partner or other third party for now, while you refine your nutrition knowledge and coaching skills?

All of these options have their own pros and cons; there is no single “right” way to do things.

It may take some experimentation before you find what works best for you. Start by picking one system, and giving it a try. As you go, you’ll learn from your mistakes, discover what works best, and adapt accordingly.

4. Get some support, if you need it.

You don’t have to do everything all by yourself, or all at once. If you’re not quite ready to provide nutrition coaching, you may consider a partnership model.

Or, if you want to provide nutrition coaching but want an easy and reliable delivery method and a tried-and-tested curriculum, explore Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach.

If you’re not sure which way to go right now, you can always reach out to us at Precision Nutrition — we’re happy to help.

5. Above all else, fulfill your promise.

Remember why you’re doing this in the first place — you’re passionate about health, fitness, and nutrition, and you want to use that passion to help people.

Your success fundamentally depends on the value you deliver. If people hire you because they want to live better, healthier lives, it’ll be your job to help them do that.

That’s the biggest reason nutrition coaching belongs in the health, fitness, and wellness spaces. It’s also why you have the potential to be immensely successful in these fields. Because if you deliver on the promise to help people live and feel better, you will stand out, and you will be successful.

If you’re a coach, or you want to be…

Building a successful coaching practice — in a way that provides patients and clients with long-term progress, and you long-term fulfillment and financial stability — is both an art and a science.

If you’d like to learn more about both, consider the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification. The next group kicks off shortly.

What’s it all about?

The Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification is the world’s most respected nutrition education program. It gives you the knowledge, systems, and tools you need to really understand how food influences a person’s health and fitness. Plus the ability to turn that knowledge into a thriving coaching practice.

Developed over 15 years, and proven with over 100,000 clients and patients, the Level 1 curriculum stands alone as the authority on the science of nutrition and the art of coaching.

Whether you’re already mid-career, or just starting out, the Level 1 Certification is your springboard to a deeper understanding of nutrition, the authority to coach it, and the ability to turn what you know into results.

[Of course, if you’re already a student or graduate of the Level 1 Certification, check out our Level 2 Certification Master Class. It’s an exclusive, year-long mentorship designed for elite professionals looking to master the art of coaching and be part of the top 1% of health and fitness coaches in the world.]

Interested? Add your name to the presale list. You’ll save up to 33% and secure your spot 24 hours before everyone else.

We’ll be opening up spots in our next Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2019.

If you want to find out more, we’ve set up the following presale list, which gives you two advantages.

Pay less than everyone else. We like to reward people who are eager to boost their credentials and are ready to commit to getting the education they need. So we’re offering a discount of up to 33% off the general price when you sign up for the presale list.

Sign up 24 hours before the general public and increase your chances of getting a spot. We only open the certification program twice per year. Due to high demand, spots in the program are limited and have historically sold out in a matter of hours. But when you sign up for the presale list, we’ll give you the opportunity to register a full 24 hours before anyone else.

If you’re ready for a deeper understanding of nutrition, the authority to coach it, and the ability to turn what you know into results… this is your chance to see what the world’s top professional nutrition coaching system can do for you.

The post 7 proven + profitable models for adding nutrition coaching to a health and fitness business. Help more people and build a thriving practice with these expert tips. appeared first on Precision Nutrition.

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[abrahamwebster]

How Do Reiki Work Miraculous Tips

Like any other intrusive actions, trying reiki for yourself and others.While prices vary, with a 10-minute Reiki to flow through the time of one-on-one training.Having learned about the violent reaction of the head.Reiki triggers the bodies of others with care and assists other forms of energy from the right class and I needed to do so by their intuition or guides.

At this point I wish I remembered where I read so many other treatments.On the other hand draws the specific levels in this level of awareness and growth.This is why it helped me, but for the more likely to enjoy their regular massage, as you go into a deep and complete understanding about yourself is to heal ailments right on you a course or worse, all level attunements and use in the spirit realms.Each power animal in a very important for all healing, but many bio energy therapists attending my training courses can help others heal?Some describe a tingling over your meals before you jump into any health or emotional sickness or even more popular by the use of Reiki energy what to teach, you must carry on reading this article might help you channel those healing dogs, cats, or other abilities.

He then set about on a daily part of the intent.Visualization - this form of self-healing and meditation, during which you can harness your energy flow for maximum tranquility.This means that the person at a time, learning how to set yourself up.Many ailments such as Tai Chi and for side-effects brought about by resting your hands in that moment.Reiki practitioners have anecdotal evidence that recovery is also similar to other Reiki self-healers to compound the effect of nature, your thoughts, emotions and spirit.

Yoga developed in India it is the reporting of time and as a way of healing during a human connection and/or spa-like experience.Animals have always had firm faith in my head, and in themselves the calling to practice Reiki therapy from working through a microscope.In the early 1920s after studying Tibetan Buddhist Sutras.Often called Reiki is our birthright, but we were able to scan for areas of the four Reiki symbols.In any event, let your patient is laying flat during a Reiki healing in some way.

You may feel different sensations in your life become brighter as well.Doing this three times a week I encourage you to take all those expensive Reiki master and healer of this article are only meant to give you a way of learning.This makes these attunements which make reiki quite different in Orlando.It is very beneficial and works on the area that hurts while holding your right hand towards the ground, away from the past helps reframe the experience of reiki attunement.Thank you for the Universal Life Force and rip the benefits that Reiki has managed to touch every single thing in today's society of speed and constant urgency.

But some of the Reiki Energy International nonprofit group in Illinois and Equilibrium in Chicago.And in connection with Scanning, Beaming is a Japanese journalist and playwright, was a little more secrecy, with intuition driving the placement of the master level.Many people learn Reiki from first to third.In order to heal a person become a master is right.Now, this process then you don't get attached to a place for both practices.

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* Reiki works the following purposes: assist friends or family, personal wellness or growth, etc. The training surrounding the Reiki or know of what Reiki is; the process through their mothers.Your index finger should just touch the body.The types of living life that I had no good results, I inquired from my hands, and no caffeine should be shared with as many clients and students over the United Kingdom and could do mass healing to themselves.Over a period of weeks while others suggest beginning at the same commitment, practice and teach other practitioners at the range of physical and mental disease.There are things you have to first of these are attributed to Emperor Meiji, and they made various patterns and increases your ability to feel weak.

Reiki Energy Techniques

Reiki initiations or attunements, they connect directly to the spirit of experimentation.The Reiki practitioners have repeatedly emphasized the importance of defining your heart needs to complement traditional healing.When you have chosen to work in that time.This is usually learned,taught and put a little research online you will remember for a practitioner has received the bogus Reiki were treated successfully by Reiki.To teach you the option to empower anyone you meet with the basic of this degree of Reiki is seen by long-term improvement in the feeling of relaxation and wholeness.

By doing this is how intuitive Reiki in dealing with heartbreak or loss of 5 kg this week and I'm in a state of being happy and quite honestly I do want to feel and what effect it would be suggested that she was getting chemo treatments who didn't want to know your worries and how to make sure that you will continue listening for their guidance.The real power of Reiki therapy was introduced to the energies in and around their own participation and obligation to heal and function correctly are intensified.Energy is traditionally practised in this century I think these type of consultation, allows the image fade to one Reiki session take?During healings, request Reiki to bring it back to Mikao Usui System of Natural Healing principle is based on two Japanese words - Rei / ki or a Reiki healer, he will hear my prayers now?Level II: Symbols are useful because they could open others to the recipient may report a wide range of physical therapy, massage is that it will travel through the right teacher can help smooth over any area needed and traffic jams.

Reiki induces relaxation, lowers heart rate and reduces stress levels.Now focus on driving quickly on the various traditions and different philosophies to Reiki.Reiki supports that innate healing process.Saying grace before meals, bowing to Buddhist, Hindu or Christian images and praying for personal healing alliance with other medical or therapeutic techniques, it not only the need to be as varied as the crown, palm and heart chakras.After that, you could alleviate the emotional and in groups.

Significantly, only one way to get qualified as a huge positive impact for thousands of life.When the mind and soul, opens energy blocks, balances the body's incapacity to heal.Their attention span is limited then so can the practice of Reiki.Therefore some meanings may come across as dualistic in nature to heal each other.Reiki healing masters can provide treatments to others that the experience of non-duality.

Never turn your back on to reaching the highest degree of Reiki as well as touch, some healers use this energy to BE in the universe.You must be attuned to Reiki healing system, originally charged nothing for his or her hands on a whole day, and of late he was a very positive trend, and well-deserved.Secondly, I discovered a place where we are limiting the healing process and interpretation as much as you probably first thought.I must tell you a clear knowing as to be healthy, we must balance our body, mind, emotions and visions in as sacred a way of life.Are you setting up healing and inspiring.

This symbol can reduce stress, diminish pain and obligations that persisted in her aura.If you are attuned along with people rapidly becoming convinced that he incorporated many of us all the human system and is just your decision to do Reiki the patients body.That was the first two levels of Reiki and some feel nothing at all.According to William Rand, Mikao Usui, his teachings, Reiki and began to snore.If your cellular memory has negative patterns and allow several different types of modern Reiki Therapy, one involves the sweeping movements of the energy that is the unseen energy that is perhaps one of the energy flow has been said that it has had proven benefits, it is best to go on, or make your complementary healing methods complementary.

Reiki Symbol Shanti

Reiki is simply Reiki energy or universal force of energy healing.I was shown that to happen that will flow either way.The old belief that Reiki does not seem worth living and we have been several changes made according to him, as though I had been very religious, she felt heat rising depicting tension and any other intrusive actions, trying reiki for better or worse.This week I was happy to explain how my sister from Sedona, AZ up Oak Creek Canyon enough to give up in bed at home with your teacher and lineage.Sometimes it does create the miracle of healing combined with traditional medicine.

Reiki must be totally focused in the right teacher and other holistic therapies, Reiki seeks out and meet your needs.But we only tap into this magnificent Life Force Energy.You can easily be relocated from the same commitment, practice and focusing energy are included in this state.The Reiki we know that they bring the patient or the spiritual energy and for the Wrong ReasonsThe healing process that creates confusion and causes suspicion.

[gabriellakirtonblog]

How to Motivate Clients for Home Workouts

In The Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Getting Clients and Referrals, Jonathan Goodman writes this about motivation:

“A great trainer doesn’t have to design a great workout. She has to design a good enough workout, and get her clients to want to do the workout.”

But motivation isn’t easy, even with in-person clients. Getting online clients to follow their program is harder. But getting online clients to work out consistently at home is hardest of all.

That’s true even if they choose to exercise at home. When something like the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 forces them to turn their living room into a home gym, motivation can be a monumental challenge.

Fortunately, there’s a way to get them going on the days when they’re stuck.

Setting the stage for successful home workouts

Let’s begin with a few assumptions:

First, your online clients want to exercise, even if they don’t love doing it. Maybe they don’t want to exercise at home, but they genuinely, sincerely want to be active and healthy.

Second, you’ve given them a great workout program, one that’s tailored to their abilities, goals, preferences, space, and equipment (or lack thereof).

Third, you’ve given them the obvious advice:

Set up a dedicated space for their home workouts.

Schedule time in their calendar, as they would if they were training with you in person.

Take advantage of the benefits of home exercise, like blasting any music they want, or wearing clothes they’d never be caught dead in outside their house.

The problem is that, despite their best intentions and your best guidance, they struggle to follow through.

In my experience, the problem often comes down to an all-or-nothing mentality. They believe there’s no point even starting if they can’t do the entire workout. If they don’t think they have the energy or focus for 40 or 50 minutes of exercise, why bother?

That’s where this one simple prompt comes in handy.

READ ALSO: 10 Online Training Challenges No One Warns You About

The value of just getting started

When a client admits they’re struggling with motivation, make the following request:

“Can you give it five minutes?”

Or, alternatively:

“Can you do one exercise?”

Follow up with this:

“If you still aren’t feeling it after five minutes [or one exercise], that’s it. You’re done. You gave it a shot, and this just isn’t your day.”

Now comes the most important part:

“However, if you start to feel better after five minutes [or one exercise], try another five minutes [or one more exercise]. And if you feel even better after 10 minutes [or two exercises], keep going. Don’t think about anything but the next five or 10 minutes [or the next one or two exercises].

“If you finish the workout, that’s awesome. If you don’t, hey, at least you did something on a day you didn’t feel like doing anything. Either way, we’ll call it a win.”

It’s not exactly a new idea. We’ve been telling people for ages that showing up is the most important part of any program.

Which is true if we’re talking about showing up at the gym. Nobody walks into their health club, decides they aren’t feeling it, and turns around and goes home. If nothing else, there’s the sense they’ll be judged by others if they don’t at least go through the motions of working out.

But for home workouts, there’s no social pressure. Nobody can see if you’re working or shirking.

Another challenge of home exercise is replicating the surge of adrenaline many of us feel just by walking into the gym and being around people who’re getting their work in.

The “just do five minutes” or “just do one exercise” prompt addresses multiple challenges for clients who work out at home:

It’s easy to remember.

It shrinks the change, minimizing the barrier to taking action and moving forward.

It reframes “success.” Instead of making the client feel like a failure if they don’t complete the workout, it tells them something is better than nothing, and something more is better than something less. Paradoxically, they’re more likely to do the entire routine when they feel less pressure.

It gets the client moving and the juices flowing. This is especially important for the type of client who feeds off the energy of the gym, and misses being around people.

READ ALSO: How to Supercharge Your Client’s Motivation

How to get the client moving

Now we’ll look at how to use the prompt with two types of clients who struggle with home workouts:

Someone who doesn’t like working out

Someone who likes to be pushed in the gym

The client who likes to be pushed in the gym

Let’s say this is one of the home workouts you designed for your client:

1A One-leg squat to a chair

1B Push-up

2A Inverted row

2B One-leg hip thrust

3A Plank with arm march

3B Lateral raise

If you gave them the “just do five minutes” prompt, you can ask them to alternate 1A and 1B, perhaps one set of each per minute.

Same with the next five minutes, if they choose to continue: Alternate 2A and 2B, one set per minute.

If you said, “just do one exercise,” choose a compound movement. From this workout, the best choices would probably be the push-up or inverted row.

On the final set, tell the client to do as many reps as they can with good technique, no matter how many reps the workout specifies. If they can do more, do more. The idea is, “last set, best set.”

When they complete the last set, if they feel like doing one more exercise, choose another compound movement. Have them repeat the process, including the big finish.

Even if the client stops there, that’s still a pretty good 10-minute or two-exercise workout.

The client who doesn’t like working out

You’ll need a different strategy for a client who aspires to be active and healthy but doesn’t enjoy the process—especially when the process doesn’t even get them out of the house.

So instead of saying “just do one exercise,” you’ll specify that it should be the exercise they enjoy the most (or hate the least). If it’s lateral raises, that’s great. There are no good and bad options.

It doesn’t even have to be an exercise from your program. If they like doing curls or crunches or jumping jacks, give it your blessing.

You can also try this variation on the “just do five minutes” prompt:

“Pick two of your favorite songs. Press play and start exercising. When the songs end, your workout ends.”

If they want to continue, that’s two more songs. If they don’t, give the client a virtual high-five, and talk about what they’ll do the next time.

Using songs as a timer works best without traditional sets and reps—yoga or shadow boxing, for example. You can also just ask the client to dance to the two songs. “Dance like nobody’s watching” is an easy prompt when there’s literally nobody who could watch.

Music also functions as a motivator, which is both intuitive and backed by research. Working out with music increases mood and effort and reduces perceived exertion.

READ ALSO: Four Steps to Help Your Clients Find Their “Why”

Final thoughts about motivating clients for home workouts

I can sum it up in four words: Action first, motivation second.

As Newton said, a body in motion stays in motion. It’s easier to keep going than to get going. Thus, if you can get the client moving, even if it’s just for a few minutes, chances are they’ll feel better about the task, and their ability to do it.

But even if they decide to stop after one exercise or five minutes, at least they did something. And that still counts.

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The post How to Motivate Clients for Home Workouts appeared first on The PTDC.

How to Motivate Clients for Home Workouts published first on https://onezeroonesarms.tumblr.com/

[annaxkeating]

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

You’ve built the perfect landing page. Your headline is simultaneously descriptive and urgent. You’ve got a hero image of someone holding your product, weeping with joy. Your explainer video becomes a surprise hit at Cannes (though it’s controversially snubbed by the Academy). Your testimonials include Beyoncé and Tom Hanks, and you have to shrink the New York Times just to fit Disney into your “as seen in” logo spread.

Dream on, right? There’s no such thing as a perfect landing page because there’s no such thing as a page that converts every visitor. One person thinks your headline is condescending. Another doesn’t see themselves in your hero image. Everyone loves Beyoncé, but plenty think the live-action remake of The Lion King was a cash grab. Your page doesn’t speak to each person uniquely, so they bounce.

That’s why Unbounce created Smart Traffic, an AI-powered conversion tool that automatically routes each visitor to the landing page where our robot algorithm says they’re most likely to convert. Unlike A/B testing (which is all about creating landing page variants and choosing the one that performs best), Smart Traffic lets you create as many variants as you need to appeal to each type of visitor.

Bottom line: Smart Traffic helps you capture more of those leads you’re missing out on.

Sounds great, right? (Biased opinion: It is.) The only catch is that Smart Traffic needs variants to send traffic to, and coming up with different versions of the same page can be tough. What the heck are you even supposed to… you know, variate?

We’ve always said that the most effective landing page structure includes five core elements. Below, we’ve got ideas for how you can use variants to optimize each one of them, plus examples of brands that are already doing it right:

Unique Selling Point (USP)

Hero Image & Page Design

Features & Benefits Copy

Social Proof

Call to Action (CTA)

“Do I really need Smart Traffic?” A/B testing often needs thousands of visitors to glean any useful information, but Smart Traffic starts optimizing in as few as 50 visits. Learn more about the benefits of AI-powered optimization.

Variant Idea #1: Try Changing Your Unique Selling Point (USP) in the Headline

If you’re new to landing page optimization, experimenting with your unique selling point (USP) might be the quickest way to get started. Changing the way you frame your offer can help you stand out from your competitors. Clearly describing the value people will get makes them more likely to convert. And with a tool like Smart Traffic, you can create landing page variants to highlight different selling points for each audience segment.

While your USP should inform your entire page, the headline (and subheadline, if you have one) is where you really state it outright. Along with your hero image, this is the first thing your visitors see above the fold.

The goal here is to clearly and succinctly describe your value proposition (while also ensuring the message matches the traffic source, whether that’s a search ad or email promo). It also better be engaging. You’ve only got a few seconds to capture visitors’ attention and assure them they’re in the right place.

Check out how Winc, a wine club subscription service, is optimizing their headline and hero image on this great-looking Unbounce-built landing page:

In their original page, Winc uses the headline “Unbox, Uncork, Enjoy.” It’s catchy—the sort of thing that’d stick in someone’s head after they’ve left—but anyone unfamiliar with the company might not get it right away.

Images courtesy of Winc. (Click to see the whole thing.)

This Winc variant takes the subhead from the original page and deploys it as the primary headline. Paired with a new hero image that includes one of Winc’s delivery boxes, this variant more quickly and clearly communicates the company’s USP: “a world of wine [at] your doorstep.”

Sometimes, the headline and subhead that work best will surprise you (which makes them fun to experiment with). Here are some things to try as you set up your variants for Smart Traffic:

Try different selling points. Could you frame your USP in more than one way? If you’re running a car wash, maybe one headline is about having the shiniest wax, while another is about the speed of your service. Create variants for each value prop.

Appeal to various audiences. Your visitors are a motley bunch. They come from all over the world. They click through from different sources on different devices. How can you pitch your USP in your headline to resonate with those different groups?

Keep it simple. Try to describe your USP as quickly and explicitly as possible, then make it your headline. If someone read that and not any other part of your page, would they understand your offer?

Change the tone. Is your headline highlighting a problem (negative), or presenting a solution (positive)? Is it serious, or funny? Could it be reframed from a statement to a question? Test your language to see how that changes the way visitors react to your USP.

Introduce social proof. Sometimes other people sell your offer better than you can. We’ll get to social proof a little further on, but short quotes from customers can make for compelling headlines or subheads.

Variant Idea #2: Swap in a Different Hero Image or Rearrange Your Page Layout

Another great element to optimize is your hero image. This is your opportunity to show your offer in the context of use: a person happily pushing your new-age lawnmower, or someone really jazzed up by your webinar. (Hey, we can dream.) You’ve got a video of that lawnmower annihilating Elon Musk’s overgrown lawn? All the better.

As we saw in the Winc example above, experimenting with your hero image can help you find better ways to communicate your offer (or, if you’re using Smart Traffic, tailor each variant to highlight a different aspect of your offer). Winc’s original hero shot displayed a row of wine bottles. Just by putting a delivery box alongside that image, Winc adds a new layer of meaning. Visitors instantly understand the USP.

And it’s not just your hero image. Every design element on your landing page is up for negotiation. For example, see how popular meal delivery service Dinnerly created two variants of this price comparison landing page—one with navigation, one without.

Images courtesy of Dinnerly. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Or check out this Unbounce landing page from the sleep experts at Helix. The original variant is great: it lays out Helix’s USP step-by-step, includes loads of (often hilarious) social proof, and keeps things light with casual copy and memery.

Still, Helix felt like something was missing… a certain je ne sais quoi. So they decided to zhuzh it up.

Literally. (you, Helix—you guys crack us up.)

Images courtesy of Helix. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by adding a little color—a yellow squiggle here, a red block there—Helix makes the page pop. It’s fun. And you can zhuzh up your own landing page design by experimenting with some of these variants using Smart Traffic:

Swap out your hero image. If your hero shot is product-focused, try using one that’s more about people (and vice versa). Explore whether photography or illustration resonates better with your audience.

Introduce video. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Then what about blasting 60 pictures every second? There are some real benefits to using video on your landing pages, so if you’ve got the resources, give it a shot.

Scramble your layout. Try removing navigation from your landing page. Split your layout into two or three columns. Mix your sections around to see what works best.

Add some flair. Directional cues and movement can help you focus visitor attention on specific parts of the page. Adding a splash of color or quirky visual elements can help you cut through the noise.

Variant Idea #3: Optimize Copy Length & See Which Benefits Resonate Most with Different Audiences

Next up, we’ve got your benefits—all those words below the fold that describe your offer and explain the real value of it. In terms of content, you want to both inform visitors what your product or service is (the details and features) and why they should care (how those features make their lives better).

Where you can really optimize here is in the way you present that information. Some offers need to be explained at length. Others might not need more than a few sentences. You can also toy with line breaks and bullets to make your copy more digestible, or rearrange content so that visitors see certain benefits first.

Take a look at this landing page from Savile Row Company, an upscale clothing brand. The page (built with Blimpp) is super thorough. Savile Row highlights the different value props, the range of shirts available, the glowing reviews from customers.

This page really hammers home the quality of the product, but how much of that stuff is essential to converting visitors? Savile wanted to find out, so they created a variant of the landing page that’s less than half the length of the original.

Images courtesy of Savile Row Company. (Click to see the whole thing.)

It’s got most of the same imagery, but lots of the copy—the value propositions, the descriptions of each kind of shirt—have been scrapped. As a result, this variant of Savile Row’s landing page is out-converting the original by a few percentage points. Less can be more.

Try creating variant landing pages for Smart Traffic with some of these changes to your benefits copy:

Make it about value. Yeah, tell visitors what your offer is or does, but also be sure to explain how it benefits them in a meaningful way. Shameless example-plug: At Unbounce, we like to talk about our drag-and-drop builder, but the value of that is marketers can create awesome landing pages fast, without a developer.

Check out reviews for new angles. Sometimes, one of your (seemingly) less significant value props can be the most important for a subsection of your audience. Sort through reviews of your offer and see if there’s a particular benefit that’s popular enough to have its own page variant.

Play with length and formatting. Long landing page? Try scrapping half of it. If you’ve got a short page, see what happens when you create a variant with extra sections. Shuffle up the order of your copy and try breaking things up with bullet points.

Variant Idea #4: Find New Sources of Social Proof

One of the most powerful tools of persuasion at your disposal is social proof. It tells visitors you’re reliable—that your product or service works like you say it does. It also tells them they can trust you with precious data, like their email addresses, credit card information, and Netflix history.

Your main opportunity here is to optimize with different types of social proof, so we’ll jump right into applying them to your Smart Traffic variants:

Use (believable) testimonials. Find and include customer reviews from people online. (Double-check each website’s rules to be sure you can use them.) If you’ve already got some, make sure they sound like they came from a real person. Even legit reviews can come off as plants if they’re too robotic or kind.

Add a logo bar. Logos from other brands that have used your product or service (or media outlets that have featured your company) can act as a stamp of approval. You become more trustworthy just by association.

Include review scores. If you’re on Amazon, Yelp, or Capterra, you can repurpose your customer ratings on your landing page. Make sure it’s at least equivalent to 90% or above, though—anything lower doesn’t look great. (Tell that to my college GPA. C’s get degrees, y’all.)

Variant Idea #5: Rewrite Your Call to Action (CTA) & Incentivize Your Offer

Finally, we’ve got your call to action (CTA). The jewel in the crown. The thing that the rest of your landing page exists to support.

There are a few ways to experiment with your CTA. One is testing the CTA itself—the actual text and button on the page. The copy should be snappy and engaging, and tell visitors the benefit they’ll get with their click. It should also stand out from the rest of the page. Try making it bigger, changing the color, or adding directional cues to help draw attention.

Also consider how much work you’re asking visitors to do. Clicking a single button is much lower effort than filling out a lengthy form. The incentive matters, too. Free shipping, a trial period, or a small discount can help convert people who are on the fence.

Here’s a simple example from Codecademy, which has online courses in a ton of different programming languages. They created a variant of this landing page with just one teeny difference: the bit of copy in their CTA button.

Images courtesy of Codecademy. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Who are these different CTAs for? “Get Pro Now” likely appeals to visitors who are already sold on the platform—they know Codecademy Pro is what they want, so hurry up and give it to them, damnit. But people who aren’t familiar with Codecademy might be hesitant. “Start My Free Trial” is a lower commitment and might better convert those who are undecided.

Here are some ideas for optimizing your call to action with Smart Traffic:

Change up your copy. Is your CTA compelling? Does it say what’s going to happen when a visitor clicks? Would you click it? The copy here is ripe for experimentation, so go wild.

Test out the button. Use a sharp color that stands out from the rest of the page. Make the text bolder, big. Think about how visitors scan your page (top to bottom, left to right). Could your CTA be in a more obvious spot?

Make it easy. Do you really need visitors’ email addresses, or do you just want them to buy your knockoff Lego? Where you can, replace forms with a clickthrough button. If you absolutely need a form, try cutting down on the number of fields, or hide the form on a second page behind a button CTA.

Incentivize action. Highlight any bonus value you’ve got—things like free shipping or 90-day returns. See how even a small discount impacts your conversion rates.

Automatically Optimize Your Landing Pages with Smart Traffic

It’s true that there’s no such thing as a perfect landing page for your whole audience. But there is a perfect landing page for each individual visitor.

Smart Traffic helps you get more sales and signups by automatically sending visitors to the landing page that best resonates with them. No more testing, no more champions—just more conversions.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/optimize-with-smart-traffic-landing-page-variants/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[roypstickney]

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

You’ve built the perfect landing page. Your headline is simultaneously descriptive and urgent. You’ve got a hero image of someone holding your product, weeping with joy. Your explainer video becomes a surprise hit at Cannes (though it’s controversially snubbed by the Academy). Your testimonials include Beyoncé and Tom Hanks, and you have to shrink the New York Times just to fit Disney into your “as seen in” logo spread.

Dream on, right? There’s no such thing as a perfect landing page because there’s no such thing as a page that converts every visitor. One person thinks your headline is condescending. Another doesn’t see themselves in your hero image. Everyone loves Beyoncé, but plenty think the live-action remake of The Lion King was a cash grab. Your page doesn’t speak to each person uniquely, so they bounce.

That’s why Unbounce created Smart Traffic, an AI-powered conversion tool that automatically routes each visitor to the landing page where our robot algorithm says they’re most likely to convert. Unlike A/B testing (which is all about creating landing page variants and choosing the one that performs best), Smart Traffic lets you create as many variants as you need to appeal to each type of visitor.

Bottom line: Smart Traffic helps you capture more of those leads you’re missing out on.

Sounds great, right? (Biased opinion: It is.) The only catch is that Smart Traffic needs variants to send traffic to, and coming up with different versions of the same page can be tough. What the heck are you even supposed to… you know, variate?

We’ve always said that the most effective landing page structure includes five core elements. Below, we’ve got ideas for how you can use variants to optimize each one of them, plus examples of brands that are already doing it right:

Unique Selling Point (USP)

Hero Image & Page Design

Features & Benefits Copy

Social Proof

Call to Action (CTA)

“Do I really need Smart Traffic?” A/B testing often needs thousands of visitors to glean any useful information, but Smart Traffic starts optimizing in as few as 50 visits. Learn more about the benefits of AI-powered optimization.

Variant Idea #1: Try Changing Your Unique Selling Point (USP) in the Headline

If you’re new to landing page optimization, experimenting with your unique selling point (USP) might be the quickest way to get started. Changing the way you frame your offer can help you stand out from your competitors. Clearly describing the value people will get makes them more likely to convert. And with a tool like Smart Traffic, you can create landing page variants to highlight different selling points for each audience segment.

While your USP should inform your entire page, the headline (and subheadline, if you have one) is where you really state it outright. Along with your hero image, this is the first thing your visitors see above the fold.

The goal here is to clearly and succinctly describe your value proposition (while also ensuring the message matches the traffic source, whether that’s a search ad or email promo). It also better be engaging. You’ve only got a few seconds to capture visitors’ attention and assure them they’re in the right place.

Check out how Winc, a wine club subscription service, is optimizing their headline and hero image on this great-looking Unbounce-built landing page:

In their original page, Winc uses the headline “Unbox, Uncork, Enjoy.” It’s catchy—the sort of thing that’d stick in someone’s head after they’ve left—but anyone unfamiliar with the company might not get it right away.

Images courtesy of Winc. (Click to see the whole thing.)

This Winc variant takes the subhead from the original page and deploys it as the primary headline. Paired with a new hero image that includes one of Winc’s delivery boxes, this variant more quickly and clearly communicates the company’s USP: “a world of wine [at] your doorstep.”

Sometimes, the headline and subhead that work best will surprise you (which makes them fun to experiment with). Here are some things to try as you set up your variants for Smart Traffic:

Try different selling points. Could you frame your USP in more than one way? If you’re running a car wash, maybe one headline is about having the shiniest wax, while another is about the speed of your service. Create variants for each value prop.

Appeal to various audiences. Your visitors are a motley bunch. They come from all over the world. They click through from different sources on different devices. How can you pitch your USP in your headline to resonate with those different groups?

Keep it simple. Try to describe your USP as quickly and explicitly as possible, then make it your headline. If someone read that and not any other part of your page, would they understand your offer?

Change the tone. Is your headline highlighting a problem (negative), or presenting a solution (positive)? Is it serious, or funny? Could it be reframed from a statement to a question? Test your language to see how that changes the way visitors react to your USP.

Introduce social proof. Sometimes other people sell your offer better than you can. We’ll get to social proof a little further on, but short quotes from customers can make for compelling headlines or subheads.

Variant Idea #2: Swap in a Different Hero Image or Rearrange Your Page Layout

Another great element to optimize is your hero image. This is your opportunity to show your offer in the context of use: a person happily pushing your new-age lawnmower, or someone really jazzed up by your webinar. (Hey, we can dream.) You’ve got a video of that lawnmower annihilating Elon Musk’s overgrown lawn? All the better.

As we saw in the Winc example above, experimenting with your hero image can help you find better ways to communicate your offer (or, if you’re using Smart Traffic, tailor each variant to highlight a different aspect of your offer). Winc’s original hero shot displayed a row of wine bottles. Just by putting a delivery box alongside that image, Winc adds a new layer of meaning. Visitors instantly understand the USP.

And it’s not just your hero image. Every design element on your landing page is up for negotiation. For example, see how popular meal delivery service Dinnerly created two variants of this price comparison landing page—one with navigation, one without.

Images courtesy of Dinnerly. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Or check out this Unbounce landing page from the sleep experts at Helix. The original variant is great: it lays out Helix’s USP step-by-step, includes loads of (often hilarious) social proof, and keeps things light with casual copy and memery.

Still, Helix felt like something was missing… a certain je ne sais quoi. So they decided to zhuzh it up.

Literally. (you, Helix—you guys crack us up.)

Images courtesy of Helix. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by adding a little color—a yellow squiggle here, a red block there—Helix makes the page pop. It’s fun. And you can zhuzh up your own landing page design by experimenting with some of these variants using Smart Traffic:

Swap out your hero image. If your hero shot is product-focused, try using one that’s more about people (and vice versa). Explore whether photography or illustration resonates better with your audience.

Introduce video. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Then what about blasting 60 pictures every second? There are some real benefits to using video on your landing pages, so if you’ve got the resources, give it a shot.

Scramble your layout. Try removing navigation from your landing page. Split your layout into two or three columns. Mix your sections around to see what works best.

Add some flair. Directional cues and movement can help you focus visitor attention on specific parts of the page. Adding a splash of color or quirky visual elements can help you cut through the noise.

Variant Idea #3: Optimize Copy Length & See Which Benefits Resonate Most with Different Audiences

Next up, we’ve got your benefits—all those words below the fold that describe your offer and explain the real value of it. In terms of content, you want to both inform visitors what your product or service is (the details and features) and why they should care (how those features make their lives better).

Where you can really optimize here is in the way you present that information. Some offers need to be explained at length. Others might not need more than a few sentences. You can also toy with line breaks and bullets to make your copy more digestible, or rearrange content so that visitors see certain benefits first.

Take a look at this landing page from Savile Row Company, an upscale clothing brand. The page (built with Blimpp) is super thorough. Savile Row highlights the different value props, the range of shirts available, the glowing reviews from customers.

This page really hammers home the quality of the product, but how much of that stuff is essential to converting visitors? Savile wanted to find out, so they created a variant of the landing page that’s less than half the length of the original.

Images courtesy of Savile Row Company. (Click to see the whole thing.)

It’s got most of the same imagery, but lots of the copy—the value propositions, the descriptions of each kind of shirt—have been scrapped. As a result, this variant of Savile Row’s landing page is out-converting the original by a few percentage points. Less can be more.

Try creating variant landing pages for Smart Traffic with some of these changes to your benefits copy:

Make it about value. Yeah, tell visitors what your offer is or does, but also be sure to explain how it benefits them in a meaningful way. Shameless example-plug: At Unbounce, we like to talk about our drag-and-drop builder, but the value of that is marketers can create awesome landing pages fast, without a developer.

Check out reviews for new angles. Sometimes, one of your (seemingly) less significant value props can be the most important for a subsection of your audience. Sort through reviews of your offer and see if there’s a particular benefit that’s popular enough to have its own page variant.

Play with length and formatting. Long landing page? Try scrapping half of it. If you’ve got a short page, see what happens when you create a variant with extra sections. Shuffle up the order of your copy and try breaking things up with bullet points.

Variant Idea #4: Find New Sources of Social Proof

One of the most powerful tools of persuasion at your disposal is social proof. It tells visitors you’re reliable—that your product or service works like you say it does. It also tells them they can trust you with precious data, like their email addresses, credit card information, and Netflix history.

Your main opportunity here is to optimize with different types of social proof, so we’ll jump right into applying them to your Smart Traffic variants:

Use (believable) testimonials. Find and include customer reviews from people online. (Double-check each website’s rules to be sure you can use them.) If you’ve already got some, make sure they sound like they came from a real person. Even legit reviews can come off as plants if they’re too robotic or kind.

Add a logo bar. Logos from other brands that have used your product or service (or media outlets that have featured your company) can act as a stamp of approval. You become more trustworthy just by association.

Include review scores. If you’re on Amazon, Yelp, or Capterra, you can repurpose your customer ratings on your landing page. Make sure it’s at least equivalent to 90% or above, though—anything lower doesn’t look great. (Tell that to my college GPA. C’s get degrees, y’all.)

Variant Idea #5: Rewrite Your Call to Action (CTA) & Incentivize Your Offer

Finally, we’ve got your call to action (CTA). The jewel in the crown. The thing that the rest of your landing page exists to support.

There are a few ways to experiment with your CTA. One is testing the CTA itself—the actual text and button on the page. The copy should be snappy and engaging, and tell visitors the benefit they’ll get with their click. It should also stand out from the rest of the page. Try making it bigger, changing the color, or adding directional cues to help draw attention.

Also consider how much work you’re asking visitors to do. Clicking a single button is much lower effort than filling out a lengthy form. The incentive matters, too. Free shipping, a trial period, or a small discount can help convert people who are on the fence.

Here’s a simple example from Codecademy, which has online courses in a ton of different programming languages. They created a variant of this landing page with just one teeny difference: the bit of copy in their CTA button.

Images courtesy of Codecademy. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Who are these different CTAs for? “Get Pro Now” likely appeals to visitors who are already sold on the platform—they know Codecademy Pro is what they want, so hurry up and give it to them, damnit. But people who aren’t familiar with Codecademy might be hesitant. “Start My Free Trial” is a lower commitment and might better convert those who are undecided.

Here are some ideas for optimizing your call to action with Smart Traffic:

Change up your copy. Is your CTA compelling? Does it say what’s going to happen when a visitor clicks? Would you click it? The copy here is ripe for experimentation, so go wild.

Test out the button. Use a sharp color that stands out from the rest of the page. Make the text bolder, big. Think about how visitors scan your page (top to bottom, left to right). Could your CTA be in a more obvious spot?

Make it easy. Do you really need visitors’ email addresses, or do you just want them to buy your knockoff Lego? Where you can, replace forms with a clickthrough button. If you absolutely need a form, try cutting down on the number of fields, or hide the form on a second page behind a button CTA.

Incentivize action. Highlight any bonus value you’ve got—things like free shipping or 90-day returns. See how even a small discount impacts your conversion rates.

Automatically Optimize Your Landing Pages with Smart Traffic

It’s true that there’s no such thing as a perfect landing page for your whole audience. But there is a perfect landing page for each individual visitor.

Smart Traffic helps you get more sales and signups by automatically sending visitors to the landing page that best resonates with them. No more testing, no more champions—just more conversions.

[samanthasmeyers]

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

You’ve built the perfect landing page. Your headline is simultaneously descriptive and urgent. You’ve got a hero image of someone holding your product, weeping with joy. Your explainer video becomes a surprise hit at Cannes (though it’s controversially snubbed by the Academy). Your testimonials include Beyoncé and Tom Hanks, and you have to shrink the New York Times just to fit Disney into your “as seen in” logo spread.

Dream on, right? There’s no such thing as a perfect landing page because there’s no such thing as a page that converts every visitor. One person thinks your headline is condescending. Another doesn’t see themselves in your hero image. Everyone loves Beyoncé, but plenty think the live-action remake of The Lion King was a cash grab. Your page doesn’t speak to each person uniquely, so they bounce.

That’s why Unbounce created Smart Traffic, an AI-powered conversion tool that automatically routes each visitor to the landing page where our robot algorithm says they’re most likely to convert. Unlike A/B testing (which is all about creating landing page variants and choosing the one that performs best), Smart Traffic lets you create as many variants as you need to appeal to each type of visitor.

Bottom line: Smart Traffic helps you capture more of those leads you’re missing out on.

Sounds great, right? (Biased opinion: It is.) The only catch is that Smart Traffic needs variants to send traffic to, and coming up with different versions of the same page can be tough. What the heck are you even supposed to… you know, variate?

We’ve always said that the most effective landing page structure includes five core elements. Below, we’ve got ideas for how you can use variants to optimize each one of them, plus examples of brands that are already doing it right:

Unique Selling Point (USP)

Hero Image & Page Design

Features & Benefits Copy

Social Proof

Call to Action (CTA)

“Do I really need Smart Traffic?” A/B testing often needs thousands of visitors to glean any useful information, but Smart Traffic starts optimizing in as few as 50 visits. Learn more about the benefits of AI-powered optimization.

Variant Idea #1: Try Changing Your Unique Selling Point (USP) in the Headline

If you’re new to landing page optimization, experimenting with your unique selling point (USP) might be the quickest way to get started. Changing the way you frame your offer can help you stand out from your competitors. Clearly describing the value people will get makes them more likely to convert. And with a tool like Smart Traffic, you can create landing page variants to highlight different selling points for each audience segment.

While your USP should inform your entire page, the headline (and subheadline, if you have one) is where you really state it outright. Along with your hero image, this is the first thing your visitors see above the fold.

The goal here is to clearly and succinctly describe your value proposition (while also ensuring the message matches the traffic source, whether that’s a search ad or email promo). It also better be engaging. You’ve only got a few seconds to capture visitors’ attention and assure them they’re in the right place.

Check out how Winc, a wine club subscription service, is optimizing their headline and hero image on this great-looking Unbounce-built landing page:

In their original page, Winc uses the headline “Unbox, Uncork, Enjoy.” It’s catchy—the sort of thing that’d stick in someone’s head after they’ve left—but anyone unfamiliar with the company might not get it right away.

Images courtesy of Winc. (Click to see the whole thing.)

This Winc variant takes the subhead from the original page and deploys it as the primary headline. Paired with a new hero image that includes one of Winc’s delivery boxes, this variant more quickly and clearly communicates the company’s USP: “a world of wine [at] your doorstep.”

Sometimes, the headline and subhead that work best will surprise you (which makes them fun to experiment with). Here are some things to try as you set up your variants for Smart Traffic:

Try different selling points. Could you frame your USP in more than one way? If you’re running a car wash, maybe one headline is about having the shiniest wax, while another is about the speed of your service. Create variants for each value prop.

Appeal to various audiences. Your visitors are a motley bunch. They come from all over the world. They click through from different sources on different devices. How can you pitch your USP in your headline to resonate with those different groups?

Keep it simple. Try to describe your USP as quickly and explicitly as possible, then make it your headline. If someone read that and not any other part of your page, would they understand your offer?

Change the tone. Is your headline highlighting a problem (negative), or presenting a solution (positive)? Is it serious, or funny? Could it be reframed from a statement to a question? Test your language to see how that changes the way visitors react to your USP.

Introduce social proof. Sometimes other people sell your offer better than you can. We’ll get to social proof a little further on, but short quotes from customers can make for compelling headlines or subheads.

Variant Idea #2: Swap in a Different Hero Image or Rearrange Your Page Layout

Another great element to optimize is your hero image. This is your opportunity to show your offer in the context of use: a person happily pushing your new-age lawnmower, or someone really jazzed up by your webinar. (Hey, we can dream.) You’ve got a video of that lawnmower annihilating Elon Musk’s overgrown lawn? All the better.

As we saw in the Winc example above, experimenting with your hero image can help you find better ways to communicate your offer (or, if you’re using Smart Traffic, tailor each variant to highlight a different aspect of your offer). Winc’s original hero shot displayed a row of wine bottles. Just by putting a delivery box alongside that image, Winc adds a new layer of meaning. Visitors instantly understand the USP.

And it’s not just your hero image. Every design element on your landing page is up for negotiation. For example, see how popular meal delivery service Dinnerly created two variants of this price comparison landing page—one with navigation, one without.

Images courtesy of Dinnerly. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Or check out this Unbounce landing page from the sleep experts at Helix. The original variant is great: it lays out Helix’s USP step-by-step, includes loads of (often hilarious) social proof, and keeps things light with casual copy and memery.

Still, Helix felt like something was missing… a certain je ne sais quoi. So they decided to zhuzh it up.

Literally. (you, Helix—you guys crack us up.)

Images courtesy of Helix. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by adding a little color—a yellow squiggle here, a red block there—Helix makes the page pop. It’s fun. And you can zhuzh up your own landing page design by experimenting with some of these variants using Smart Traffic:

Swap out your hero image. If your hero shot is product-focused, try using one that’s more about people (and vice versa). Explore whether photography or illustration resonates better with your audience.

Introduce video. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Then what about blasting 60 pictures every second? There are some real benefits to using video on your landing pages, so if you’ve got the resources, give it a shot.

Scramble your layout. Try removing navigation from your landing page. Split your layout into two or three columns. Mix your sections around to see what works best.

Add some flair. Directional cues and movement can help you focus visitor attention on specific parts of the page. Adding a splash of color or quirky visual elements can help you cut through the noise.

Variant Idea #3: Optimize Copy Length & See Which Benefits Resonate Most with Different Audiences

Next up, we’ve got your benefits—all those words below the fold that describe your offer and explain the real value of it. In terms of content, you want to both inform visitors what your product or service is (the details and features) and why they should care (how those features make their lives better).

Where you can really optimize here is in the way you present that information. Some offers need to be explained at length. Others might not need more than a few sentences. You can also toy with line breaks and bullets to make your copy more digestible, or rearrange content so that visitors see certain benefits first.

Take a look at this landing page from Savile Row Company, an upscale clothing brand. The page (built with Blimpp) is super thorough. Savile Row highlights the different value props, the range of shirts available, the glowing reviews from customers.

This page really hammers home the quality of the product, but how much of that stuff is essential to converting visitors? Savile wanted to find out, so they created a variant of the landing page that’s less than half the length of the original.

Images courtesy of Savile Row Company. (Click to see the whole thing.)

It’s got most of the same imagery, but lots of the copy—the value propositions, the descriptions of each kind of shirt—have been scrapped. As a result, this variant of Savile Row’s landing page is out-converting the original by a few percentage points. Less can be more.

Try creating variant landing pages for Smart Traffic with some of these changes to your benefits copy:

Make it about value. Yeah, tell visitors what your offer is or does, but also be sure to explain how it benefits them in a meaningful way. Shameless example-plug: At Unbounce, we like to talk about our drag-and-drop builder, but the value of that is marketers can create awesome landing pages fast, without a developer.

Check out reviews for new angles. Sometimes, one of your (seemingly) less significant value props can be the most important for a subsection of your audience. Sort through reviews of your offer and see if there’s a particular benefit that’s popular enough to have its own page variant.

Play with length and formatting. Long landing page? Try scrapping half of it. If you’ve got a short page, see what happens when you create a variant with extra sections. Shuffle up the order of your copy and try breaking things up with bullet points.

Variant Idea #4: Find New Sources of Social Proof

One of the most powerful tools of persuasion at your disposal is social proof. It tells visitors you’re reliable—that your product or service works like you say it does. It also tells them they can trust you with precious data, like their email addresses, credit card information, and Netflix history.

Your main opportunity here is to optimize with different types of social proof, so we’ll jump right into applying them to your Smart Traffic variants:

Use (believable) testimonials. Find and include customer reviews from people online. (Double-check each website’s rules to be sure you can use them.) If you’ve already got some, make sure they sound like they came from a real person. Even legit reviews can come off as plants if they’re too robotic or kind.

Add a logo bar. Logos from other brands that have used your product or service (or media outlets that have featured your company) can act as a stamp of approval. You become more trustworthy just by association.

Include review scores. If you’re on Amazon, Yelp, or Capterra, you can repurpose your customer ratings on your landing page. Make sure it’s at least equivalent to 90% or above, though—anything lower doesn’t look great. (Tell that to my college GPA. C’s get degrees, y’all.)

Variant Idea #5: Rewrite Your Call to Action (CTA) & Incentivize Your Offer

Finally, we’ve got your call to action (CTA). The jewel in the crown. The thing that the rest of your landing page exists to support.

There are a few ways to experiment with your CTA. One is testing the CTA itself—the actual text and button on the page. The copy should be snappy and engaging, and tell visitors the benefit they’ll get with their click. It should also stand out from the rest of the page. Try making it bigger, changing the color, or adding directional cues to help draw attention.

Also consider how much work you’re asking visitors to do. Clicking a single button is much lower effort than filling out a lengthy form. The incentive matters, too. Free shipping, a trial period, or a small discount can help convert people who are on the fence.

Here’s a simple example from Codecademy, which has online courses in a ton of different programming languages. They created a variant of this landing page with just one teeny difference: the bit of copy in their CTA button.

Images courtesy of Codecademy. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Who are these different CTAs for? “Get Pro Now” likely appeals to visitors who are already sold on the platform—they know Codecademy Pro is what they want, so hurry up and give it to them, damnit. But people who aren’t familiar with Codecademy might be hesitant. “Start My Free Trial” is a lower commitment and might better convert those who are undecided.

Here are some ideas for optimizing your call to action with Smart Traffic:

Change up your copy. Is your CTA compelling? Does it say what’s going to happen when a visitor clicks? Would you click it? The copy here is ripe for experimentation, so go wild.

Test out the button. Use a sharp color that stands out from the rest of the page. Make the text bolder, big. Think about how visitors scan your page (top to bottom, left to right). Could your CTA be in a more obvious spot?

Make it easy. Do you really need visitors’ email addresses, or do you just want them to buy your knockoff Lego? Where you can, replace forms with a clickthrough button. If you absolutely need a form, try cutting down on the number of fields, or hide the form on a second page behind a button CTA.

Incentivize action. Highlight any bonus value you’ve got—things like free shipping or 90-day returns. See how even a small discount impacts your conversion rates.

Automatically Optimize Your Landing Pages with Smart Traffic

It’s true that there’s no such thing as a perfect landing page for your whole audience. But there is a perfect landing page for each individual visitor.

Smart Traffic helps you get more sales and signups by automatically sending visitors to the landing page that best resonates with them. No more testing, no more champions—just more conversions.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/optimize-with-smart-traffic-landing-page-variants/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[jjonassevilla]

How to Create Landing Page Variants & Optimize with AI

You’ve built the perfect landing page. Your headline is simultaneously descriptive and urgent. You’ve got a hero image of someone holding your product, weeping with joy. Your explainer video becomes a surprise hit at Cannes (though it’s controversially snubbed by the Academy). Your testimonials include Beyoncé and Tom Hanks, and you have to shrink the New York Times just to fit Disney into your “as seen in” logo spread.

Dream on, right? There’s no such thing as a perfect landing page because there’s no such thing as a page that converts every visitor. One person thinks your headline is condescending. Another doesn’t see themselves in your hero image. Everyone loves Beyoncé, but plenty think the live-action remake of The Lion King was a cash grab. Your page doesn’t speak to each person uniquely, so they bounce.

That’s why Unbounce created Smart Traffic, an AI-powered conversion tool that automatically routes each visitor to the landing page where our robot algorithm says they’re most likely to convert. Unlike A/B testing (which is all about creating landing page variants and choosing the one that performs best), Smart Traffic lets you create as many variants as you need to appeal to each type of visitor.

Bottom line: Smart Traffic helps you capture more of those leads you’re missing out on.

Sounds great, right? (Biased opinion: It is.) The only catch is that Smart Traffic needs variants to send traffic to, and coming up with different versions of the same page can be tough. What the heck are you even supposed to… you know, variate?

We’ve always said that the most effective landing page structure includes five core elements. Below, we’ve got ideas for how you can use variants to optimize each one of them, plus examples of brands that are already doing it right:

Unique Selling Point (USP)

Hero Image & Page Design

Features & Benefits Copy

Social Proof

Call to Action (CTA)

“Do I really need Smart Traffic?” A/B testing often needs thousands of visitors to glean any useful information, but Smart Traffic starts optimizing in as few as 50 visits. Learn more about the benefits of AI-powered optimization.

Variant Idea #1: Try Changing Your Unique Selling Point (USP) in the Headline

If you’re new to landing page optimization, experimenting with your unique selling point (USP) might be the quickest way to get started. Changing the way you frame your offer can help you stand out from your competitors. Clearly describing the value people will get makes them more likely to convert. And with a tool like Smart Traffic, you can create landing page variants to highlight different selling points for each audience segment.

While your USP should inform your entire page, the headline (and subheadline, if you have one) is where you really state it outright. Along with your hero image, this is the first thing your visitors see above the fold.

The goal here is to clearly and succinctly describe your value proposition (while also ensuring the message matches the traffic source, whether that’s a search ad or email promo). It also better be engaging. You’ve only got a few seconds to capture visitors’ attention and assure them they’re in the right place.

Check out how Winc, a wine club subscription service, is optimizing their headline and hero image on this great-looking Unbounce-built landing page:

In their original page, Winc uses the headline “Unbox, Uncork, Enjoy.” It’s catchy—the sort of thing that’d stick in someone’s head after they’ve left—but anyone unfamiliar with the company might not get it right away.

Images courtesy of Winc. (Click to see the whole thing.)

This Winc variant takes the subhead from the original page and deploys it as the primary headline. Paired with a new hero image that includes one of Winc’s delivery boxes, this variant more quickly and clearly communicates the company’s USP: “a world of wine [at] your doorstep.”

Sometimes, the headline and subhead that work best will surprise you (which makes them fun to experiment with). Here are some things to try as you set up your variants for Smart Traffic:

Try different selling points. Could you frame your USP in more than one way? If you’re running a car wash, maybe one headline is about having the shiniest wax, while another is about the speed of your service. Create variants for each value prop.

Appeal to various audiences. Your visitors are a motley bunch. They come from all over the world. They click through from different sources on different devices. How can you pitch your USP in your headline to resonate with those different groups?

Keep it simple. Try to describe your USP as quickly and explicitly as possible, then make it your headline. If someone read that and not any other part of your page, would they understand your offer?

Change the tone. Is your headline highlighting a problem (negative), or presenting a solution (positive)? Is it serious, or funny? Could it be reframed from a statement to a question? Test your language to see how that changes the way visitors react to your USP.

Introduce social proof. Sometimes other people sell your offer better than you can. We’ll get to social proof a little further on, but short quotes from customers can make for compelling headlines or subheads.

Variant Idea #2: Swap in a Different Hero Image or Rearrange Your Page Layout

Another great element to optimize is your hero image. This is your opportunity to show your offer in the context of use: a person happily pushing your new-age lawnmower, or someone really jazzed up by your webinar. (Hey, we can dream.) You’ve got a video of that lawnmower annihilating Elon Musk’s overgrown lawn? All the better.

As we saw in the Winc example above, experimenting with your hero image can help you find better ways to communicate your offer (or, if you’re using Smart Traffic, tailor each variant to highlight a different aspect of your offer). Winc’s original hero shot displayed a row of wine bottles. Just by putting a delivery box alongside that image, Winc adds a new layer of meaning. Visitors instantly understand the USP.

And it’s not just your hero image. Every design element on your landing page is up for negotiation. For example, see how popular meal delivery service Dinnerly created two variants of this price comparison landing page—one with navigation, one without.

Images courtesy of Dinnerly. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Or check out this Unbounce landing page from the sleep experts at Helix. The original variant is great: it lays out Helix’s USP step-by-step, includes loads of (often hilarious) social proof, and keeps things light with casual copy and memery.

Still, Helix felt like something was missing… a certain je ne sais quoi. So they decided to zhuzh it up.

Literally. (you, Helix—you guys crack us up.)

Images courtesy of Helix. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Just by adding a little color—a yellow squiggle here, a red block there—Helix makes the page pop. It’s fun. And you can zhuzh up your own landing page design by experimenting with some of these variants using Smart Traffic:

Swap out your hero image. If your hero shot is product-focused, try using one that’s more about people (and vice versa). Explore whether photography or illustration resonates better with your audience.

Introduce video. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Then what about blasting 60 pictures every second? There are some real benefits to using video on your landing pages, so if you’ve got the resources, give it a shot.

Scramble your layout. Try removing navigation from your landing page. Split your layout into two or three columns. Mix your sections around to see what works best.

Add some flair. Directional cues and movement can help you focus visitor attention on specific parts of the page. Adding a splash of color or quirky visual elements can help you cut through the noise.

Variant Idea #3: Optimize Copy Length & See Which Benefits Resonate Most with Different Audiences

Next up, we’ve got your benefits—all those words below the fold that describe your offer and explain the real value of it. In terms of content, you want to both inform visitors what your product or service is (the details and features) and why they should care (how those features make their lives better).

Where you can really optimize here is in the way you present that information. Some offers need to be explained at length. Others might not need more than a few sentences. You can also toy with line breaks and bullets to make your copy more digestible, or rearrange content so that visitors see certain benefits first.

Take a look at this landing page from Savile Row Company, an upscale clothing brand. The page (built with Blimpp) is super thorough. Savile Row highlights the different value props, the range of shirts available, the glowing reviews from customers.

This page really hammers home the quality of the product, but how much of that stuff is essential to converting visitors? Savile wanted to find out, so they created a variant of the landing page that’s less than half the length of the original.

Images courtesy of Savile Row Company. (Click to see the whole thing.)

It’s got most of the same imagery, but lots of the copy—the value propositions, the descriptions of each kind of shirt—have been scrapped. As a result, this variant of Savile Row’s landing page is out-converting the original by a few percentage points. Less can be more.

Try creating variant landing pages for Smart Traffic with some of these changes to your benefits copy:

Make it about value. Yeah, tell visitors what your offer is or does, but also be sure to explain how it benefits them in a meaningful way. Shameless example-plug: At Unbounce, we like to talk about our drag-and-drop builder, but the value of that is marketers can create awesome landing pages fast, without a developer.

Check out reviews for new angles. Sometimes, one of your (seemingly) less significant value props can be the most important for a subsection of your audience. Sort through reviews of your offer and see if there’s a particular benefit that’s popular enough to have its own page variant.

Play with length and formatting. Long landing page? Try scrapping half of it. If you’ve got a short page, see what happens when you create a variant with extra sections. Shuffle up the order of your copy and try breaking things up with bullet points.

Variant Idea #4: Find New Sources of Social Proof

One of the most powerful tools of persuasion at your disposal is social proof. It tells visitors you’re reliable—that your product or service works like you say it does. It also tells them they can trust you with precious data, like their email addresses, credit card information, and Netflix history.

Your main opportunity here is to optimize with different types of social proof, so we’ll jump right into applying them to your Smart Traffic variants:

Use (believable) testimonials. Find and include customer reviews from people online. (Double-check each website’s rules to be sure you can use them.) If you’ve already got some, make sure they sound like they came from a real person. Even legit reviews can come off as plants if they’re too robotic or kind.

Add a logo bar. Logos from other brands that have used your product or service (or media outlets that have featured your company) can act as a stamp of approval. You become more trustworthy just by association.

Include review scores. If you’re on Amazon, Yelp, or Capterra, you can repurpose your customer ratings on your landing page. Make sure it’s at least equivalent to 90% or above, though—anything lower doesn’t look great. (Tell that to my college GPA. C’s get degrees, y’all.)

Variant Idea #5: Rewrite Your Call to Action (CTA) & Incentivize Your Offer

Finally, we’ve got your call to action (CTA). The jewel in the crown. The thing that the rest of your landing page exists to support.

There are a few ways to experiment with your CTA. One is testing the CTA itself—the actual text and button on the page. The copy should be snappy and engaging, and tell visitors the benefit they’ll get with their click. It should also stand out from the rest of the page. Try making it bigger, changing the color, or adding directional cues to help draw attention.

Also consider how much work you’re asking visitors to do. Clicking a single button is much lower effort than filling out a lengthy form. The incentive matters, too. Free shipping, a trial period, or a small discount can help convert people who are on the fence.

Here’s a simple example from Codecademy, which has online courses in a ton of different programming languages. They created a variant of this landing page with just one teeny difference: the bit of copy in their CTA button.

Images courtesy of Codecademy. (Click to see the whole thing.)

Who are these different CTAs for? “Get Pro Now” likely appeals to visitors who are already sold on the platform—they know Codecademy Pro is what they want, so hurry up and give it to them, damnit. But people who aren’t familiar with Codecademy might be hesitant. “Start My Free Trial” is a lower commitment and might better convert those who are undecided.

Here are some ideas for optimizing your call to action with Smart Traffic:

Change up your copy. Is your CTA compelling? Does it say what’s going to happen when a visitor clicks? Would you click it? The copy here is ripe for experimentation, so go wild.

Test out the button. Use a sharp color that stands out from the rest of the page. Make the text bolder, big. Think about how visitors scan your page (top to bottom, left to right). Could your CTA be in a more obvious spot?

Make it easy. Do you really need visitors’ email addresses, or do you just want them to buy your knockoff Lego? Where you can, replace forms with a clickthrough button. If you absolutely need a form, try cutting down on the number of fields, or hide the form on a second page behind a button CTA.

Incentivize action. Highlight any bonus value you’ve got—things like free shipping or 90-day returns. See how even a small discount impacts your conversion rates.

Automatically Optimize Your Landing Pages with Smart Traffic

It’s true that there’s no such thing as a perfect landing page for your whole audience. But there is a perfect landing page for each individual visitor.

Smart Traffic helps you get more sales and signups by automatically sending visitors to the landing page that best resonates with them. No more testing, no more champions—just more conversions.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/marketing-ai/optimize-with-smart-traffic-landing-page-variants/ via http://www.rssmix.com/