Do the Work
Welcome to Do the Work.
The podcast where health pros learn what actually moves the needle in their business… minus the fluff, hacks, and “manifest it harder” advice.
Hosted by Reuben and Terri Driedger, this show gives you a front-row seat to how they help health professionals grow to $10K–$20K+ months using clear strategy, powerful content, and systems that make your business simpler, not heavier.
He’s the ideas guy. She’s the systems brain. Together, they break down what’s working right now in marketing, sales, and leadership… with plenty of laugh-at-ourselves moments along the way.
If you’re ready to stop consuming and start building, this podcast is your playbook.
Do the Work
Freebies That Convert, The KPIs That Matter, and Why Awareness Changes Everything
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of Do The Work, we’re breaking down two of the most important levers for growing your business right now: creating freebies that actually convert and tracking the numbers that drive growth.
We start by diving into how freebies have evolved and why the old “educational PDF” approach no longer works. Today, the best-performing freebies are simple, actionable, and focused on solving a specific, immediate problem your ideal client is facing in their day-to-day life.
We walk through real examples (including some from our clients) and show you how to shift from “teaching information” to driving implementation because freebies that get used are the ones that turn into clients.
Then we shift into a conversation every entrepreneur needs to hear: tracking your numbers. We break down why most people avoid data, how simply increasing awareness can improve results, and the exact KPIs you should be tracking each week if you want to grow consistently.
We also talk about how to analyze your data without emotion, identify your biggest bottlenecks, and focus on the actions that actually move your business forward, not just the ones that feel productive.
In this episode, we cover:
• Why most freebies don’t convert anymore
• The difference between teaching vs solving in your free content
• How to create simple, actionable freebies your audience will use
• Why PDFs often fail (and what to use instead)
• The key numbers every coach should track weekly
• How awareness alone can improve your results
• How to identify your biggest business bottlenecks
• Why data should always come before emotion
Free Resource
Want help creating a freebie that actually converts?
DM us on Instagram with “FREEBIE” and we’ll point you in the right direction.
About Us
Coaches Creating Impact helps health professionals scale to $10K–$20K+ months using proven systems for content, lead generation, and sales.
Connect with Us
Reuben IG: https://www.instagram.com/reubendriedger/
Terri IG: https://www.instagram.com/terridriedger/
We're your host Ruben and Terry.
SPEAKER_03He's the ideas guy. He's the system brain. And together we help you get clients, grow your audience, and actually run a business at work.
SPEAKER_01Expect real talk, tactical strategy, and the kind of perspective you can only get when you're building two things at once a company and a marriage. Let's jump in. Welcome, folks. Welcome. Hope you're having a great Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, sorry, or Sunday.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01I don't know when people listen. I guess I could just say hope you're having a great day. You could, but what if it's a night? What if it's a night?
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I hope you're having a great day night. Sounds like a date night.
SPEAKER_03Oh, we should do one of those.
SPEAKER_01We should do a day night. Anyways, we have a great episode for you folks here today. Um, I'm gonna be talking about uh some of the stuff I've been training our clients recently on when it comes to freebies. Because gosh, if you still use freebies like people did back in 2020, you're so far behind. Uh-oh. And then Terry, I wanted you to talk about some like data, metrics, and tracking stuff. Because I've just noticed that like whenever I actually focus on numbers, things automatically get better. Which is so funny. I mean, it's like those finance people who are like, hey, if you just look at your finances more, like where you spend and how much you make, like if you just are more aware.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Kate, wasn't there a weird study about that? About like, even if you don't really have a budget or a plan or whatever, but if you just open your bank account first thing every morning and look at look at it, most people had like dramatic improvements to their finances. They did. Did you hear something? I should really have factors.
SPEAKER_01I think it might have been Ramit who said something like that. Yeah, maybe. Where it was just literally like more awareness of something, you thinking of it more and seeing it more, allowed you to then in your day-to-day life do things that improved the situation.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, energy goes where intention flows.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I think you just dropped your water bottle. Energy went to the water bottle and it fell over. So we want to talk about that because entrepreneurs, especially if they're like me, sometimes they're scared to look at the numbers. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because or just have too much ADHD for it, let's be honest. Like, there's a lot of different reasons why people are. There's a lot of different reasons. A lot of people also have this belief that if they have a small business, they don't need to look at numbers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're like, oh, it's not that big of a business. Yeah, I know my numbers. I know my numbers. Oh, I've told people so many times, oh, I know my numbers, and I did not know my numbers. I'll tell you right now. So, anyways, let's let's dive into um the freebies kind of stuff that we want to talk about today. So, most of you will be familiar with the term either freebie or a lead magnet. Um, do people call them anything else? We call them value pieces. I love that terminology. I love that term because it's like I'm giving value to someone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, but basically the whole idea, if you don't know, I'm sure most of you do, is that you give something for free through your content or through the conversations you have to people who basically everyone who grabs the free thing would be like an ideal client. Yeah. So, I mean, some kind of examples I'm gonna say in the real world, is like at Costco, they have like you can taste test things, right? Love Costco freebies, right? When you get like so they're like, hey, test this barbecue shrimp, I don't know, or this little pizza roll, and then you can taste it and you're like, ooh, that is good, and then you can decide if you want to buy the thing or not.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's funny. Your brain went to food, whereas my brain went to like the amount of amazing like coffees, and I remember once trying an energy drink there that I hadn't had before. Like, they have good drink samples.
SPEAKER_01Good drink samples.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think I'm hungry. We're always hungry when we record this podcast.
SPEAKER_03Maybe we should just conclude that we're always hungry because we're training.
SPEAKER_01Maybe we should flip lunch time and podcast time. Nah. Nah. So that's one type of freebie, um, which is basically like taste a small part of it. Yeah. So then you buy the whole part of it. Another great example is oftentimes at bars, people get um pretzels for free.
SPEAKER_03Have you experienced this?
SPEAKER_01I don't really go to bars.
SPEAKER_03If you guys didn't know, we're we both grew up Mennonite, like we have Mennonite last names.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So drinking.
SPEAKER_01We don't really go to bars. It's not a lunch or a lot, but I have heard.
SPEAKER_02So I just love when you always use this example because I've heard you use this example so much recently, and I'm like, ah yes. When Ruben goes to the bar.
SPEAKER_01Ruben goes to bars, yeah. Anyways, where they get pretzels for free, but here's why it's so tactical, this type of freebie, is because it makes people thirsty. And guess what people do when they're thirsty? They buy drinks, and the drinks are so expensive at the bars, I hear. Which is I hear! I hear. I cannot say for sure. No, I'm kidding. I have been to bars at least 15 times a year.
SPEAKER_03Okay, when was the last time you entered a bar?
SPEAKER_01When we went out with our friends Ellie and Alex to that Crown Royal place or whatever?
SPEAKER_03I think that was 2022.
SPEAKER_01Anyways, we're gonna move on. We're gonna not talk about my bar behaviors. Um, but that's another version of a freebie where you give something that solves one problem, but it actually creates another problem. A good example of this actually is when we give people access to our mini ads. Yes. So I we give a lot of free stuff out that's like, hey, like learn how to separate mini ads and get followers, right? So we have a lot of people grab this freebie of ours, they start getting hundreds of followers, and then guess what? They're like, how do I turn these into clients, right? So I solved one problem, but then they have another problem. We purposely create the next problem, but then they have to join our program to learn the next things. Exactly. And so that's what a freebie is. The whole idea is that only your ideal clients would want it and want to grab it, and it basically attracts the right people, repels the wrong people, and because it's free, or sometimes people do low-tick it, but most of our clients it's it's free. People are much more willing to say yes to it off of a post, like comment or DM you something. So that like you're getting more people, basically, more people will raise their hand for something free versus even something that's a dollar or like two dollars, right? Um, there was actually, this is funny, there was a test done in some university in the States. You know those Hershey kisses, like those little chocolates. So they did a test, one day they gave them out for free. Then the next day, they made people pay one cent for them.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And it was something like they got out ten times the amount when it was free. Even if it was one cent more than that. That's actually faster. Way less people purchase it.
SPEAKER_03Which is an interesting concept, seeing as we definitely are seeing in the coaching space right now people charging for things that used to be free, like workshops.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Like it's an interesting It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01Anyways, so anyways, the whole idea is give stuff for free. You get a bunch of people raising their hands saying they want it, they grab it, it warms them up a little bit, and then they maybe want to buy your program. So I wanted to talk today about the difference between what used to work well when we started, like in 2017 to 2020, versus what type of freebies work well now in 2023.
SPEAKER_03Do you remember what your first freebie was?
SPEAKER_01I don't actually. It probably was like how to pack on muscle.
SPEAKER_03And like a PDF or something like that.
SPEAKER_01PDF. And it was probably like eat this amount of protein per day, do this type of workout in the gym. Something like probably super stupid.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01Anyways.
SPEAKER_03Now you know what you're supposed to ask me what mine was.
SPEAKER_01Terry, what was yours?
SPEAKER_03That's like on Love is the Spectrum. Do you want to ask me a question?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, I do want to ask you a question. Um, what was your first freebie?
SPEAKER_03Oh, I went so over top because that was my personality.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so first of all, I made everything like photos that properly fit into people's phones so that they could easily carry it around. Do you remember this?
SPEAKER_01I remember this.
SPEAKER_03So I called it like, I don't know, the holistic morning or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then it was like, like I had categories. Like it was like, okay, your first category of a healthy morning is like a nutritious breakfast. And your second category is your mindset. Yeah. And your third category is exercise, I think.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03And then for like category one, I had like a whole list of like things they could pick from. So it was like um, whatever, like different ways of teaching people how to pair foods.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_03So it's like, okay, now you pick your thing for category one and then category two, then I would have like a meditation I'd recorded and like a journaling practice or whatever. So it's like everybody, like it was like you pick your nutritious breakfast, your like type of mindfulness for your morning, and then your exercise for the morning. And then everybody would hashtag holistic mornings or something like that. And whole, do you remember that? Like it blew. Like I was sharing everyone's to my stories every morning, and there would be like 30 to 50 of them.
SPEAKER_01It was actually pretty cool. It was great. It was great. Wow. Anyways, freebies have changed a lot. Yep. So what we have noticed is that we used to more so in freebies, teach people things. Yes. And what's working right now is for us to solve things. Yeah. So people are not as wanting to like learn something and be taught something and like basically get like all like the breakdown of why they need to be doing something. They just want something solved today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I was training our clients on this yesterday, and I was like, the way that I think through this is I think of my ideal client going through their day, and what issues come up that I could solve for them in a second. So I was thinking, okay, my ideal client, they open up Instagram in the morning and they're like, oh, I should post something. What should I post today? Like, my posts don't ever generate leads for me. So I was like, great, we came up with the freebie five content prompts that are proven to generate leads for our clients. We give them to you for free so that you can use them. And basically, you don't have to come up with an idea for content, it's yours, use it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The second thing, RDO, clients go into their DMs and they're like, I need to have conversations with these people. I don't know what to say to get them onto a sales call. So we created a GPT that basically you put your conversations into this GPT. Our team created it, by the way. Wait, yay, Cam. Um, and they basically, the GPT helps them literally take their conversations to book calls, right?
SPEAKER_03Do you want to also give some examples of some freebies our clients have created, like in the health realm that has worked well for this?
SPEAKER_01100%. Yeah. So I wanted to start with ours because it kind of shares the idea of like we the whole idea is not to actually solve a massive issue with a freebie. We're not trying to, I said, we're not trying to heal a broken leg. We're trying to like basically like take a splinter out of someone's finger. Like it's like we're it's a small solution to a small problem, but it's it's very visceral.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I was chatting with one of our clients the other day, and we came up with this idea of like a lot of her clients are constipated, right? And so the guide was basically like how to poop today.
SPEAKER_02Really? I love that.
SPEAKER_01And so there's a couple different ways you could do it. You could put it in a PDF, just being like, hey, here are the steps to poop today. You could also throw it into like a GPT, which is basically asking you, like, how long has it been since your last bowel movement? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What have you all chosen? Yeah, and and I see that this is where I caution away from PDFs because they are difficult to use on mobile. They are. And so, like, even like figure out how to put something into a photo, like a photo that someone has on their phone, yeah, um, is gonna be way more used actually day to day than a PDF.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, exactly. So that was a great guide.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing. I love that.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_03So all So what now, now I'm interviewing you. Yeah. Um, what is an example of something you've seen people in our type of a client niche do that's not useful?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so some people have written these like 20 to 30 page PDFs. Yes. And what they're they they And they're preaching. They're yeah, they're they're lecturing, right? They're they're they're in they're in teacher mode. They're in this like basically they create something that a lot of their peers actually might like. Yes, we talk about like don't talk in textbook language. Um, and like people will say yes to grabbing that type of freebies. Just don't get me wrong, people will say yes, they will never digest it.
SPEAKER_03And and it will become a red flag to working with you. Because truthfully, people believe that freebies, and not only believe, it should be. Your freebies should be a taste of working with you, which ours are. Like, we want to know that our ideal client is is ingesting our mini ads and actually doing something with it, or taking our chat GPT and actually doing something with it, because that tells us that you'll likely also be a good client. And you want to do the same thing with yours, like you want to know that this person actually took your advice on fiber and implemented it. Exactly. Because that'll be a good client. Um, it should be a taste of working with you. Whereas if you're doing a 30 to 50 page PDF lecture, they're gonna think, oh my goodness, what she spits out is not something I am gonna be able to implement because she talks like a professor. And so I don't want to work with her.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I was looking back at like where the bunch of last clients came for us, anyways, from CCI. It was people who had grabbed something of ours and done something with it. Yeah. Right? And so, like, I was just like, get people to do something. Yeah. Um, I think we had I had a couple other clients yesterday I was chatting with as far as like what the freebies could be. One of them was talking about um blood sugar levels. Yes. And we came up with this idea of like a lot of people, they feel like they keep on like getting unbalanced with their blood sugar levels in the day, they just feel terrible. And so I helped them come up with this idea of basically um the freebie diagnoses why they were unbalanced and how to change it next time. Terry doesn't like that idea.
SPEAKER_03Well, I just know so many practitioners legally can't use the word diagnose.
SPEAKER_01Right, so maybe not use the word diagnose, but basically like understand why you feel terrible and what to do tomorrow to change it, basically. So it was very much because like a lot of people, like they have these kind of repetitive issues. And so if you can help them understand this is why it happened this day, basically, like tell me what happened today, this is what I hate or whatever, is like, okay, this is probably why. Yeah, this is how to change it next time. Yeah, it allows people to number one have clarity around, like, oh, that's why this is keeps on happening to me, and number two gives them a solution. Yeah, that's great. And so, anyways, a lot of these freebies, if you can get someone to grab something and do something, that's fantastic. Yeah, if your freebie does not change someone's thoughts or behaviors, it will not be very beneficial in getting them as a client. Absolutely. And so just think about that. So, anyways, the way I thought about it is think about your audio client's day-to-day life and the issues that come up, and then think about what you teach your clients in those situations. Like if you had a client whose situation was they struggled with X, Y, and Z during the day, what would you teach them if they were clients? And then just put that into a freebie that's it. So, anyways, that's what we've been talking about a lot. Keeping it short, keeping it simple, and like you said, like PDFs aren't great on mobile, right? So making it something that's easy for people to use, right? Not clunky. Yes. We used to just have like a lot of clunky stuff. Now, like we want people to like be able to like very easily use it.
SPEAKER_03Although to toot my own horn, I clearly thought of this from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01To toot your own horn, you did a pretty good job, babe.
SPEAKER_03Thanks. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So if you have questions about freebies, send us messages on Instagram. More than happy to look over your stuff. Now, Terry, I wanted you to chat through metrics and data. Because frankly, most of the clients who join our program, they're not tracking stuff. Nope. And I mean, I'm curious in your thoughts. Why do you think most people aren't tracking? Do you think it's like a fear? Do you think they just don't know how to? Like, what do you what do you think is going on for why people aren't tracking?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think actually a large part of it, when I look back to the programs that I joined a decade ago to start building my business, a lot of them just never mentioned it. Like, I actually don't think tracking is as normalized as we think it is. This is where CCI does differ from a lot of other programs. Like, we're actually trying to teach you how to be a business owner, not just someone who works on the beach for four hours a week. Like any entrepreneur in any setting has KPIs. Um, and so if you want to be a true entrepreneur, if you don't want to just be a hobbyist, this is something that you absolutely need to do. Yeah. Which is why we teach you how to do it and we teach you how to do it straight from the beginning. Um, which I yeah, I think a lot of people are simply not taught it. And then I do think there's a whisper in a lot of people's brains, like, oh, I'm not big enough. Like, I know how many sales calls I had, I don't need to write it down. Like, like people have this thought process that they're so small that they don't need data, and that is a lie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, when it comes to data, number one, how often should people be looking at it? And I think a big thing that you're really good at is helping people realize what they should do differently off of it. So let's well, I'll break that up into a couple questions. Number one, how often they should they be looking at data?
SPEAKER_03I would recommend at least once a week. Like have a trigger for yourself. Um, for our team, our trigger is 5 p.m. on Friday. Like, that is the end of our week for all of us, and so everybody needs to have updated their KPIs, updated their dashboards by that time, and figure out what that trigger is for you. Um I used to enjoy, like my end of week used to actually be Monday, 9 a.m. Right. Then I would gather all the data, like this was when I was a solo printer, um, all the data from my previous week, and then would immediately analyze it. But um when you have a team, things are a little bit different. So just figure out what your trigger once a week can be when you take time to A, collect your data and B, analyze it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. What's your thought process like when you're talking to a team member who like um, or even looking at your own data and you're not where you want to be, how do you go about starting to like brainstorm how to fix it? Like whether whatever kind of data it is.
SPEAKER_03So the first thing my team is sick of me saying is data over drama, facts over feelings. Like it. So we're not bringing in drama, we're not bringing our feelings in. We're just looking at numbers. Now, especially if it you're in a program like ours, you know what what you want those numbers to be. So what we're essentially looking at is which numbers percentage-wise are the furthest away from what the goal is, right? And whatever, like whichever ones are the largest percentage away from the goal, those are your biggest bottlenecks. Those are the things you need to be focusing in on, gaining skills on. And just so you guys know, like one thing I noticed from our clients or even new team members, when I mention, like, hey, we didn't hit KPI, let's talk about it. Sometimes when people don't come from environments where that's normal, there's a real nervousness that happens, and it's like, oh my god, I didn't hit KPI, and that is not helpful at all. Like, um, our business, I don't know how long CCI has been around. Nine years, yeah, so like almost a decade. And like, guys, we have bottlenecks every single week. Yeah. Every single week, I write out for Ruben what the biggest bottleneck is in our company right now. Like, bottlenecks aren't going anywhere. That is just a part of business. So, facts over feelings, like, put your feelings aside when you're analyzing uh data, let go of the drama. Don't let your mind dramatize what's going on. And it's just about the numbers, which numbers are suffering the most, and then why? Is it is it a skill deficiency? Is it a strategy deficiency? Like, what do we need to do in order to solve those numbers? And then trust me, you're gonna solve one bottleneck, and the next week it's gonna be a different one. Like that's that's business.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And I what one of the things that you said that I think is so important is like learning how to prioritize. Yeah, because I think there's a lot of people solving the problems that aren't gonna actually make the biggest difference.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah, I see that a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what and you kind of went over this, but like when people are looking at all the data, do you is it basically just like the numbers that's the worst, or do they how do you think through how to prioritize it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a great question. Um, first of all, one of the things I love about our CCI consultants is they're not making our clients look at 62 different points of data. That's really important because truthfully, the data that you are collecting within CCI is what is actually important. Like some business owners do too many KPIs, right? Whereas like in an ideal world, you have three max five KPIs per department. Um, and so then yeah, so like we definitely internally we don't track data that's not important, if that makes sense. So, like for us, it is whatever's the biggest discrepancy is important.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so I yeah, I think it's important to not go. I I love data, it is so freaking important. But don't go overboard to the point where you're tracking data that doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. I love that. We only got two questions today, kind of which also helped us with our topics today. We have a question on data from someone, and then we have a question on freebies. Nice. Let's start with the one on data. With data, they're asking what number should I track when it comes to getting clients?
SPEAKER_03Uh oh, okay. Um so you want to track how many new followers you are getting per week, and then um how many conversations you are getting into from those followers. Then how many calls are being booked from those conversations? And then this is an important one because I find a lot of people aren't tracking this. How many calls are actually being had? Yeah. Because that's going to show your show-up ratio. Some people are booking very much according to KPI, but then they're only having 50% of that, which is a huge red flag. Like that's a huge just drain in your business.
SPEAKER_01100%.
SPEAKER_03Then you want to be tracking how many of this, those sales calls close every week.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love that. Nice and simple. Yeah. Followers, conversations, leads, calls booked, showed, had, closed. I love that. Last question uh for today was basically like, hey, with my freebie, should I have links in there for people to like book calls with me? And I forgot to mention this. Absolutely. Um, at the end of the day, every freebie, in my opinion, should have a link for people to do more, especially because like a lot of people will love it. They'll be like, hey, I got a quick win. This worked really well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so within each freebie, I would say have some type of call to action. If you want help with X, Y, and Z and you're looking for one-on-one support or whatever it is, you can book a call here with me to learn more about it or whatever it is. So make sure that your freebies also, yeah, can lead people further. Because some people they're they're not gonna respond to DMs. Some people like they like to just digest content.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But then when they see that call to action in there, yeah, they're gonna be self bookers. So make sure that you're doing that. Absolutely. That is a great question. That's all the time we have for today, folks. Thanks for jumping on, and uh Terry and I are gonna go eat food now.
SPEAKER_02So thank you. Bye.