Learn how to visually communicate your unique value proposition with process models, maps and frameworks 💥

So you have a ton of information in your head that you use to help your clients…but when you try to pull it all out of your brain to create something like a signature program or course, you feel overwhelmed, chaotic, or frantic?

Pulling the information out of your brain is really 90% of the work of a scaled offering, and my guest Renée Hasseldine, founder of multi award-winning visual teaching and proposal system Think RAPT^Ⓡ, is here to show you how to do just that.  

Hey, it’s Samantha Hartley of the Profitable Joyful Consulting Podcast. This season we are talking about Performance and Success Metrics. Today I wanted to talk with you about visual frameworks and models, even something we could call a pitching and presentation system. So I have a special guest to help me to explain what we’re talking about. Her name is Renée Hasseldine. 

Renée Hasseldine is the founder of Think Rapt, which is a multi-award winning visual teaching and proposal system. She’s an international speaker and the bestselling author of three books, including her latest book, Get Visual!. A self-proclaimed weirdo, she loves nerding out on intellectual property and getting excited by visual models and spreadsheets. Please help me welcome Renée Hasseldine. 

Renée Hasseldine: Hi, Samantha. It’s so great to be here, thanks for having me. 

Samantha Hartley: Thank you for joining me. I’m really excited to talk about this topic. Before we get too far into the ‘what on earth are we talking about,’ would you just give us a big picture story of ‘before, during and after,’ that explains to us what this would look like in practice with a client? 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, absolutely. One of my favorite client success stories is Katie Germain. She started out her career in the mining industry in Australia and she reached C-suite, and then decided to go out on her own and become a career coach. In her career coaching business she reached a $300,000 annual turnover with one-on-one coaching. So she was doing pretty great on her own, but she had big aspirations and wanted to scale up and go further. But of course, if you’re working one-on-one with clients there are only so many hours in the day.

So she came to me and said, “Look, I want to start running group programs. I want to run a mastermind. But when I’m working one-on-one with a client it’s very individual. The client has all the answers and it’s very much tailored and personalized to that individual client. How do I take 20, 40, 50 clients through one process when they’re all different?”

That was the challenge that she had when she came to me. That’s where developing the intellectual property and actually working out with her that we pulled out all of that IP and realized, “Oh, there is a system that is actually a process and it’s consistent. If we take them all through this exact same process, we can guarantee results.”

So with creating her Think RAPT System, creating her intellectual property and visual models, she was able to then scale her business to $1,000,000 business in just 15 months. She was using those visual models to pitch and propose. She basically would run a half day workshop, which she still does to promote the mastermind program.

During the half day workshop, she’s using these visual models to show her expertise, to add credibility, to actually demonstrate her curriculum and why it works. So that adds all of those fabulous things and actually gets the sales. She’s able to have high conversion rates, higher prices, get people in the door, and then the models, the IP actually helps her to deliver that mastermind program.

It helps with the sales and the pitching, but it also helps with the delivery of content through a program. That works for the mastermind, but also within one-on-one clients as well. It really is a game changer in terms of how we run a service based business and particularly consulting, coaching, that type of realm. It really, really works well. 

Samantha Hartley: I agree with you and I’ve talked with many of my clients about a proprietary approach or a signature system or something like that. But you’re taking this a step further. So it’s not just getting the step by step process out of someone’s head and onto paper. You’re doing something else with it. So what is that next step that you’re doing? 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes. What we actually have is a four model system. When we pull everything out of the expert’s brain, if we take it all out and put it into one picture, it’s going to look like what I call a dog’s breakfast. I’ll give you some Australian lingo here. 

Samantha Hartley: I love this expression.

Renée Hasseldine: You can’t pull all of the information out and put it into one thing. One of the key principles when you’re creating these visual models is they need to be clear and succinct; they need to be obvious to your audience, what they’re trying to convey, right?

Your audience wants to have a look at it and make sense of it within a few seconds. They want to get the gist really quickly. We have short attention spans. So if you’re trying to put everything into one picture, it’s not going to help. 

What we’ve actually established with this system is there are four different categories of information we want to pull out. With that information, each of those four categories becomes its own picture. Then Samantha, a lot of people say, “Well, Which one do I want? Which one should I create?” You want all four. Just in case you’re wondering which model should I create first? Which one do you actually want? All four of these models that I’m going to share. 

Samantha Hartley: Perfect. So there’s one for each sort of situation or occasion, right?

Renée Hasseldine: Yes

Samantha Hartley: So before we get into that, like what is a framework, a process map, a model? What’s the thing that we’re even talking about? 

Renée Hasseldine: It’s probably going to be best when I show you. 

Samantha Hartley: Perfect. How about we just go ahead and jump right to the models and you take us through what you’re talking about? 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, let’s do it. As I was saying, when we’re pulling everything out of an expert’s brain, and I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like this, Samantha, but for me, before I developed this system, when I was trying to pull out information from my own brain, I would be like, “Yeah, but that connects to that, and then that connects with that.” It’s not linear because it’s like a web.”

Samantha Hartley: Yes

Renée Hasseldine: It’s a mess in there, our brains are not structured like a linear process. It kind of does look like this image. This is a real life example of, we’re pulling out things and the technology we have available to us today is fantastic because we can do all this online now, too.

We use a mirror board. We’re pulling out all of the information and it all connects into everything. This is actually a real life client extraction, so it starts as a mess. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah and just for our listeners, what we’re looking at is a whiteboard that has like a million different Post-its on it that are color coded, but it’s still a million different Post-its. Then there’s lines connecting to something and it goes on from there. 

I’ve seen this and I’ve also done this process, which is when you’re pulling this stuff out of your brain and putting it onto paper, it at first does look kind of a mess, like a million Post-its on a whiteboard. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes and I used to sort of feel this panic as well and just think, “How am I ever going to untangle this mess?” I know a lot of clients who come to us and they’ve tried to do this themselves and say, “I just can’t work it out, I’ve tried to do this for four years.”

A lot of them will say, they’ve been trying to unpack this for so long. So hopefully what I’m going to share is going to help all of your listeners to actually make sure that they can get past this challenge.

This is what happens when you try to put too many different types of information into one picture. You’ve got a couple of fruits and we’ve got yes without a no, we’ve got a country and we’ve got 76%. That’s not even 76% of the shape. This is the kind of dog’s breakfast I was talking about. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah. 

Renée Hasseldine: So this is really obvious. No one’s going to do it this poorly, but the equivalent of this does happen with those four models I’ll share. You get a little bit of a results model, a little bit of process model and a little bit of a target model. That’s what happens if you try and shove it all in. 

Samantha Hartley: So this is a pie chart that kind of mixes, I would say, apples and oranges, except for in this case, it’s nectarines and peaches. It’s a pie chart that does not necessarily represent things.

I think this is actually a really good example because I would say all the time when I have tried to develop process maps and models, I’m like, “Is it a flowchart? Is it this kind of chart?”

A lot of times what I’ll be limited by are the preloaded things that are in a PowerPoint. I know there’s two kinds of people in the world and one of those kinds of people begins everything with like the x-y axis and the other one begins everything with like a Venn diagram. So I think the point is that one size does not fit all in terms of visual models. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, I really love what you just said because I felt this massive tension in my body when you were talking about starting with the shape. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah 

Renée Hasseldine: That’s actually a mistake. 

Samantha Hartley: Right 

Renée Hasseldine: Because then you’re going to try and fit a square peg in a round hole. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah 

Renée Hasseldine: Starting with the shape is going to make it harder. What’s best to do is start with intellectual property. Start with the knowledge first, and then find the appropriate shape for that information. That’s going to make life a whole lot easier. 

Samantha Hartley: It sounds much easier. 

Renée Hasseldine: As I go through this as well, if I forget to mention the appropriate shape times for each one, please remind me to do that. That’ll definitely help.

What we have is the four different categories which form the four different models, and that makes the RAPT System. We’ve got a nice little acronym to help us remember the RAPT. So we start off with the Results model.

The purpose of the results model is to demonstrate to your audience the gap between the results they are getting and the results that they want. What we know, human nature, human behavior says when there is a gap between those two things, we want to close it. So that’s what we want to show our audience, it helps to inspire them, motivate them, get them ready to make a change. That’s the purpose of this results model.

We’ll have a look at some examples, a few different ways that we can do that. This is your classic hero’s journey style of results model. We’re telling the hero’s journey as a beginning to the story, a little bit of a build up, then there’s a massive complication and there’s some progress, and then a happy ending.

We can use icons in a model like this to demonstrate KPI as the key performance indicators. I’ve got dollar signs here for the money and we’ve got clocks for the time. How much time is spent in your business? Then you can use language that is relevant to your audience, to your brand.

So here, that client’s chosen to talk about the growth of a business. This owner works with small businesses and she helps them with their systems and processes. Now she’s talked about when you start your business, you’re kind of childlike with excitement, and then you reach this adolescent stage–really kind of grumpy about this isn’t how it was supposed to be. Then you start adulting and then you reach a more mature style of business, and then you become the director.

So the language that she’s chosen works for her. She’s playful with it, and she likes to talk through that kind of mode. So that’s that system. 

Samantha Hartley: Awesome 

Renée Hasseldine: Then we’ve got here. So Sally is in marketing in the tourism industry and she’s also obsessed with hiking. So her brand is all about this great adventure out in the great outdoors. So for her results model, it’s like climbing up a mountain. We can use metaphors in terms of the shapes. For her clients, building that tourism business is: they start off with a passion, then they get warmed up and then, boom, the burn kicks in and it starts to hurt. 

You can either crash and burn there or if you have some grit, power through, you can reach the peak. So she can tell her story in terms of what it’s like to climb a mountain, but also what it’s like to build a business. The idea is when you’re sharing a model like this, the audience is going to say, “Yeah, I’m in burn.” I am burning right now so tell me the grit I need so that I can get to the top. So this is the purpose, again, of the results model.

I think what you can probably see and hear is that we want to use evocative language. We want to use emotive language here because this is an emotional type of model and storytelling as well, especially if we’re using this hero’s journey style. 

Samantha Hartley: Totally and it’s combining branded language with really evocative imagery. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yeah, absolutely. As you can see, this is not a stock PowerPoint. 

Samantha Hartley: I didn’t even know that was in the PowerPoint when I was looking. 

Renée Hasseldine: Absolutely not. This is why it’s worth getting the knowledge right, IP development is most important. The graphic design part is 10%, that’s making it look pretty. That’s the icing on the cake. That’s what the client was saying, and everyone thinks it’s about that. But actually, it’s the understanding and the thinking that goes into it beforehand that is 90% of the work. 

Samantha Hartley: Awesome

Renée Hasseldine: Then another example here just to show different types of shapes for the results models as well. For example, this is this one we’re showing here is a psychologist specializing in relationships. The relationship doesn’t sort of track with the hero’s journey style of being. We all know of one relationship that there’s no happy ending, and that’s the end of the story, right? 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah, right. 

Renée Hasseldine: You can’t use a hero’s journey unless you’re Disney, it just Doesn’t work. 

So what’s more appropriate for, when you’re measuring something like relationships where we all have lots of relationships in our lives and the quality of the thing we’re measuring is fluid. It changes over time, right? So we can go up and down a spectrum in terms of power in relationships. We’ve got broken at one end of the spectrum and unbreakable at the other end, and then there’s the places in between. So my relationship with my husband might be unbreakable, but my relationship with my mother might be broken. 

Samantha Hartley: Right, right. 

Renée Hasseldine: That’s where we’ve got a situation where the quality of what you’re measuring in your business for your clients is fluid. Then you might want to sort of go for more of a spectrum in terms of your results model shape.

Samantha Hartley: So these five things that we’re seeing along the spectrum are going to be the major aspects of her program, right? So from broken we go to shifting and healing, conscious and unbreakable. 

Renée Hasseldine: No, but That’s a great question. So actually, the results model is not the curriculum of the program. That’s a really great distinction. So here we’re actually this is kind of all this is. The result model is ultimately more about one of the possible results you might already be getting, and the possible results you could get. It’s showing the possible results. 

The third one we’re going to get to, which is the Process model, will be that model. This one here is giving context. This is the lay of the land. Imagine if you’re doing a keynote presentation, for example, this allows you to do some storytelling.

So if you’re going to have that hero’s journey style, you can tell The Hero’s Journey story as the opening story. For example, with Katie Jane, when I’m telling her story, I’m thinking through a hero’s journey.

Even if you’ve got a spectrum which you might think, well, that’s not really storytelling, but you actually can tell a story for each of these stages along the spectrum. Like I could talk about the story of my mom broken, and the story of unbreakable from my husband, and I could talk about other relationships, the different places you might each have client stories is probably more appropriate than your own. 

Samantha Hartley: Sure, but this so this is much more for the potential client to identify where they are on the like the readiness level. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, exactly. It’s to demonstrate the need, it’s for them to realize they need help. 

Samantha Hartley: Got it 

Renée Hasseldine: Without you telling them that they need help. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah

Renée Hasseldine: It allows them to self-assess and say, “Yeah, actually I’ve got a lot of relationships in this healing stage and I’d really like to help them be a bit more of the unbreakable kind of relationships. 

Samantha Hartley: It’s really informative. I love self-assessing and I love something like this that allows your view, it’s not you selling them. It’s you presenting the thing and they kind of choose where they fit in when they see it. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, absolutely. I never considered myself to be a salesperson. I always had this uncomfortable feeling around the world of sales. So one of the things that I love about having this system for me is it allows me to just be the expert. It allows me to add value and teach my audience. Then the side effect of that is that they buy. 

Samantha Hartley: Right 

Renée Hasseldine: It allows me to come from a place of serving, adding value and sharing, and not feeling like I’m being salesy and harsh. 

Samantha Hartley: Perfect 

Renée Hasseldine: It really helps me to come from that heart-centered place. 

Samantha Hartley: Definitely, it’s more creative. 

Renée Hasseldine: Again, another example of a spectrum. So this one here is an intellectual property lawyer. Of course, I know a lot of intellectual property lawyers working in the IP space.

You might have lots of different assets in your business and some of them might be really well protected and some of them not protected at all. In fact, they might be at risk of creating some big trouble. That’s why we’ve got to get a spectrum here, because it’s not a hero’s journey in terms of protecting your property. It’s not a happy ending, it really is a spectrum. So that’s why we would go with something like that. 

Then the third type of results model is a matrix. If you worked in corporate then this is probably really familiar to you. We do find that because the types of businesses that we work with these days now tend to be consultants, most of them are using a matrix style of results model. It’s clear, it does what it does, right?

We’ve got our two variables on our axes and then we can demonstrate the stories. We want it to be evocative, we want it to be emotive. It really helps to be able to think about each of the quadrants here, and what is a story? Think of a really specific client for each story you’re telling in here so that you can really paint a picture of it.

Yes, we’ve got some evocative words here like erratic. You can tell you if you’re lost in resistance, but actually painting the picture of a real case study for each of those quadrants that’s going to bring it to life for the audience.

When I’m on the audience side, when I’m getting my clients to talk to me through their own models. I usually feel more of a connection to what they’re saying when they can give me real detail. I feel like they’re telling me about a real case instead of just making it up and being really general.

You’d know this from a marketing perspective and say if we’re talking about ideal clients, or we’re talking about people generally like, “Oh yeah, my ideal client is a woman from 20 to 60, and, you know, she lives anywhere in the world.” 

Samantha Hartley: “Working in companies.” 

Renée Hasseldine: Yeah, it’s useless. So if you can really get specific on a real story, even if it’s not exactly the audience, the story that you’re telling, they’re going to resonate with some of the details. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah, love it. I really love the idea of having the quadrants and coming up with stories for the quadrants, because it really turns it into something theoretical and to something very actionable. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, absolutely. Just to make the distinction again, this is not actionable, this results model. This is trying to evoke inspiration and motivation.

So looking at this matrix and I’m like, yeah, my business is in frustration. My team’s frustrated. Now I’m going to say, “Yeah, wouldn’t it be nice to be in that thriving quadrant?” 

The expert who shared this, okay, tell me how we can move there? This is Adam Johnson’s work and Adam hasn’t told me what I need to do. What Adam’s doing by sharing the stories about these four quadrants is allowing me to go, “Yeah, I’m in frustration, now what?” 

Samantha Hartley: To self-diagnose 

Renée Hasseldine: Now I’m going to listen to the next model. 

Samantha Hartley: Well, by actionable, what I mean is, I know what to do when I have this thing. A lot of times I feel like when we have models, it’s like, well, just go from here to here to here. I feel like with a model like this, as a presenter, now you know how to bring this model to life for your audience. So they can do this kind of self-diagnosis thing, which I think is super powerful. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yeah, absolutely. I would also say that one of the hot tips, if you like, in terms of presenting a Results model as well, is to try to avoid using the word “you.” Let’s not tell the client that we know everything about them, because as soon as you get one detail of the story wrong, you’re going to get resistance.

The purpose of presenting a Results model is to build rapport and connection with the client, so it’s important not to use the word “you.” You want to tell the story in first person. For example, you are an example of what they want to be. Or in third person where you’re telling it about a case study story. 

Samantha Hartley: Love it. That’s a great note. It’s the thing that I talk about all the time. You have to be very judicious when using the word “you” because it’s very powerful and people can feel sold and they can feel put off by it. So I love the reminder when you’re doing this kind of presentation to avoid that word. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes. For this particular model, because in the next one, the Answers model, we do want to use, “you” because what we’ve done with the Results model, we painted the picture of the possible results that the audience might be getting.

Now we’re going to say, okay, you’ve identified the gap and you want to make a difference. Let me show you the answers to what you need. That’s the Answers model, right? So here we can say, you need this, you need this, this and this. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah

Renée Hasseldine: So as the expert here, this is your opportunity now to to show off what you’re good at. First, we’re going to do the diagnosis of why our clients are not in that top right quadrant, for example. Why are they not at the happy ending with their diagnosis? These are the obstacles, the problems and the challenges that they’re facing. That’s about to be a brainstorm, Post-it note mess.

Then you’re going to say, right, what’s the solution to all of that? As the expert, if they do this, they do this, study that, and do this, they’re going to get the results that they want. They will be in the top right quadrant. They will have a happy ending.

So examples here, let’s come back to Sally, if you remember, she had been climbing up the mountain for her tourism industry clients. Well, now for her Answers model, what do you need in your backpack if you’re going to make it to the top? So we’ve got that she needs promotion, distribution packages, visitors objectives, gear. You need all of these things. Get this stuff in your backpack and you’re going to reach the top. 

Samantha Hartley: Awesome 

Renée Hasseldine: Try and get to the top of the mountain without one of these. Then you’re probably going to fall over and not make it to the top. So this is all about what you need to get to the top. 

Samantha Hartley: Love it 

Renée Hasseldine: This is Melanie Collings, she’s working in project management. So for her, she talks about people led and purpose driven projects. For those project management teams to be successful, these are the six things that they need. They need a compelling vision. A collaborative team needs to be client centric. They need a strategic plan, clear procedures and confident leadership. Have these six things, Melanie says you will be successful. So as the expert, she’s demonstrating what she believes you need to be successful. 

Samantha Hartley: Now, what I really like about these is that I know a lot of people are thrown off when their signature system isn’t linear. You’re saying this is what you need to do. And for a lot of people, what they want is to be linear. That’s the thing that we were talking about earlier. They want it to be like, well, here’s the six things, but they want the six things to be, first, you do this and then you do this and then you do this. In both of the cases you’ve shown us, that isn’t necessarily linear.

I would sometimes call it iterative, or these are the pillars that hold up the building that you can do the pillars in different order. So I like to see these two examples of what a visual model looks like for a system that isn’t necessarily sequential. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes these are like the ingredients. I like to think about, if you’re baking a cake and you’ve got a recipe, these are the ingredients. These are all the things that I need. We’re not getting to the method yet, that’s the third model. The Answers model is not linear. It’s like if you need all of these ingredients, if you don’t put flour in the cake, you’re not going to have a cake. If you don’t put all these six things in, you’re not going to have a successful team that you want. So here again, we’re saying all of these ingredients are important and you need them all the same time. So there’s no order. That’s another great distinction.

This is our IP lawyer just showing a few different shapes as well. So again, don’t be limited by PowerPoint. Get a graphic designer to do it properly for you, or get my team to do it.

Here we’ve got Dixie Crawford, who is a First Nations woman here in Australia, and she helps people to be better active allies. If you’re going to be an active ally, you need to face the naked truth. Do the shadow work, have human connections, take practical action, have courageous conversations. So, yes, it’s not in order, it’s like you got to do all this. 

Samantha Hartley: It’s a beautiful hand shape model that looks compelling. I would think this is very attention getting to present this. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yeah, absolutely. This is probably one of my favorites because her brand was so fun to play with. Beautiful dot painting artwork, it just made it so different to all the other models that we’ve got. 

That’s what I love about all the models. I could work with 100 relationship coaches, but none of their models will look the same. It’s our job as intellectual property developers to make sure that the intellectual property is unique for each person, right? It’s crafting and making sure that everybody has their own USP. It needs that, your value proposition is what is unique about you. This is demonstrating your value proposition visually and it’s got to be different to everybody else. 

Samantha Hartley: It’s beautiful 

Renée Hasseldine: Now, the different shapes, his one here Janet’s got ‘Care’ in her Answers model. It’s great when you have an acronym because it can be easier to remember, I love them when they work. Similarly with alliteration, we’ll have lots of models where all the things start with the same letter. Another thing that’s fantastic is rhyming. Our brains are kind of funny. If we have acronyms, alliteration or rhyming, our brains make the assumption it’s more true.

I can’t explain to you why they know the neuroscience behind that. I just know that’s what we do. We assume that it’s got to be more real if we’ve got that. That can be a temptation then to like, let’s always make that happen, but we can’t force it.

Don’t start with the word peace and try and make everything fit there and then you suddenly try to come up with whether it starts with p and you end up shoving a penis where it doesn’t belong. 

Samantha Hartley: Right, right *laughs*

Renée Hasseldine: Don’t force a word, don’t force an acronym or make up words that start with a letter that you need and then lose the essence of what you’re actually trying to deliver. It’s so, so important that they remember the purpose of this is to communicate to our audience, to grab their attention to transfer information clearly and distinctly in a short time, in our short attention span days. If you need to explain what the words mean and why they’re there, then you’ve missed the point.

Use really clear language that your audience, and I’d say go back to market research as well. Do the market research first, make sure you’re recording the exact words your clients are already saying and reflect that back in the models. You want to avoid jargon and made up words. 

Samantha Hartley: Unless that’s the language that they themselves are using. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, exactly. That is true. 

Samantha Hartley: Right 

Renée Hasseldine: This one here, this is just showing you what it looks like when it’s animated. When we’re creating models for our clients, we do animate them because it’s more than just having a static image. We can create videos out of it as well. That’s great to use in social media because we know that’ll stop the scroll. So having these animated versions of models is also a great thing to have. 

Samantha Hartley: Super, I love that idea. 

Renée Hasseldine: Another shape choice, if you like, for an Answers model, here we’ve got the gauge. When we’re creating this, we talked about whether we are going to have the diagnosis of what we want, and what we don’t want.

On this one here for Solution Focused Change, Rod’s talking about whether your team has confusion or clarity, competition or collaboration, control or trust, imposition or engagement, rigidity or flexibility. We’ve got about five spectrums here. Where could you be along each of these five things? That’s going to determine, obviously you want to be all in the green over on the right hand side, if you want to have the success that Rob would have demonstrated in his first model. 

Samantha Hartley: It’s such  a good example of how something can be so simple and so compelling. I’ve set up visuals like this before where it was like, not this but this, and I would have it in a little grid because again, back to the PowerPoints in our corporate backgrounds, you’d have some little boring grid. Instead you have this beautiful spectrum with the old speedometer and it goes from left to right and pointing at like, here’s the right answer. It’s just so much more effective than basically the exact same information presented in a slightly different visual. This is so much more compelling. 

Renée Hasseldine: We instantly recognize the gauge, right? Our brains dedicate more than 50% of their processing power to processing visual information, which can make things so much easier for our audience.

It’s Really, really powerful. I don’t know if anyone’s listening has read the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It’s that system, system one and system two thinking. These visual models speak to system one, which is fast. It’s that system one is the system. 

When you’re driving the car and you see a stop sign and you automatically step on the brake. That’s what we want with the visual models. We want to grab our audience’s attention with that super fast system one. Then when they’re excited, we can now choose to engage system two, which is where they actually are deliberately choosing to listen and choosing to pay attention. Making that deliberate effort and choice to understand what is obviously more complex because as the expert you deliver your solution to what is complex. We need system two to understand, but we can’t start in system two because our audience doesn’t have the capacity to deal with system two conversations all day long. 

Samantha Hartley: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. It’s both. 

Renée Hasseldine: The third type of model is the Process model. You’ve been alluding to this one Samantha. I know because I feel like this is the one, if people are creating a signature system, for example, this is the one that they will mostly assume that they need first. It is the process of how we get our clients from A to B.

Samantha Hartley: I was thinking that this is the only kind of model that there is. Already I’m seeing two entirely different kinds of models that I’ve never even realized. So now we’re getting to the nuts and bolts, but this is the only one I thought existed. I’m excited to see it, but I’m already so enlightened about all of the other kinds of models we can have. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, yes, yes. If anyone already has a model, this is probably the one that they’ve got. Even if they’ve got their signature system written as a list or it’s like they know generally, even if they haven’t specifically written it down, they know when they get a client first they do this, then they do this, then they do this, then they do that. When we take these steps every time we’re going to get the result.

Now you go back to Katie Jane’s story at the start. She hadn’t explicitly worked this out when she came to me, but she had a very successful business without it. To take a group through it you really do need to get this right. Otherwise it’s not going to be scalable. So this is about now articulating. We know if we do these five things, we’re going to get the results. The Process model is linear, this is the linear one. 

In terms of the number of steps we want to aim for between three and seven is great. Any more than seven, you’re going to overwhelm your audience and they’re going to feel like it’s too hard. 

Here we have Melanie Calling, she says you’ve got a six step process. It’s linear, beautifully articulated. She has alliteration. All of her verbs are starting with D. We want to use verbs in our Process model. So define purpose, defining? Discover people, develop collaboration, design strategy, deliver value, direct results. We’ve got all those beautiful D words, all verbs. We want to be very, very clear to the audience, we’re doing something here. 

This is about doing something. We’re taking action now, all of these things, this is like the method. We come back to that recipe analogy, right? This is in the recipe. This is the method. These are the instructions: first put the butter and the sugar in the bowl and mix it up. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah 

Renée Hasseldine: So this is the Process model. By completing this Process model, you should then have all of the ingredients we’ve talked about in that Answers model. 

Samantha Hartley: Yes 

Renée Hasseldine: You might be working on one at a time through this process. This is just the way that you actually will work. So it often is very, very similar here. We work a lot with consultants, the first thing is going to be about some sort of diagnosis or gradual change. It’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen. Then you come up with some sort of plan and then you’re going to do some simple steps. It’s going to be some form of that. 

That’s where it’s very, very different from what you need in that Answers model because of what we’re doing. 

Samantha Hartley: Got it. So it’s the difference between what we need to collect and then what the actions are. What we’re going to do in the model you’re showing us, these are like puzzle pieces almost that direct the eye to the right. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes. For English speakers anyway, we read left or right. So in terms of linear shapes, we want it to go left to right, and we can also have a vertical that does work as well. Sometimes we’ll have both versions of the model for our clients because if for example, you’re doing a proposal document and it’s a portrait orientation, then you’ll want the model to go down so you can fit it in nicely and design it well.

We could obviously turn this 90 degrees and have more space to lay out the content that you need. I will say, less is more in terms of these models, too. We’ve got two words per step here. One, two, three words per step is optimal. Don’t go shoving too many words in here because that’s going to start to move away from the clear and simple. We want to get the gist in a second. 

Samantha Hartley: Great 

Renée Hasseldine: Also using icons here, just to contrast what I said earlier in the Results model. First, when I showed you, I talked about those icons representing KPIs.

In the Process model, the icons are just aesthetic. They’re just there to sort of add a bit of design. They’re not actually adding any extra information in. 

Samantha Hartley: Got it

Renée Hasseldine: Just a couple more shapes here. I’ll contrast this one again with Dixie. We had her hand earlier about these are the things you need to be an active ally. Now, here she’s talking about the difference between the steps we’re going to take and how we work together. So first, confront the truth, then build relationships, then deep dive, then lean in, then influence change. That’s going through this five step process, then we’re going to develop those five things that she said we needed. 

Samantha Hartley: The visual here is feet, whereas that one was a hand. So I love really saying that we take the ingredients and now we put them into action, and the visual is not just the word steps, but actual feet showing the steps. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yeah, her brand was just so fun and easy to play with. 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah, very. 

Renée Hasseldine: The thing is if you’ve already got a great brand it’s going to be so much easier to pull this into something that’s really exciting and fabulous.

Then we can use stepping stones. This is another play on, it’s linear and we’re going in a direction. Just another way to demonstrate that with stepping stones. 

Samantha Hartley: Bringing it from the hiking model.

Renée Hasseldine: You can tell it’s from the hiking model, right? 

Samantha Hartley: Yeah, I love the consistency of it where you have the backpack and then here we have the stones in the river.

As you’re saying, if you have a clear brand identity, then doing this kind of thing is going to be much easier. If you don’t have one, then it’s going to probably get fleshed out as you are putting together the models. 

Renée Hasseldine: Yeah, absolutely. Then the fourth and final model is the Target Model. This is about what are the benefits, what are the KPIs that we are targeting with this solution that we are offering. The magic number of benefits is three.

Samantha Hartley: Got it 

Renée Hasseldine: If you think about it, if you’ve been presenting your models and you’re standing up doing a pitch and you get to this last one, the best thing you can do is have it be short, sharp and punchy. When we follow my step-by-step process, these are the benefits. You get this, you get this, you get this, boom, drop the mic. 

This is something we learned over time. In the first couple of years, I was still thinking between three and seven, like the other models. Actually what I found was presenting a Target model with six things in it starts to feel awkward for the presenter and it feels awkward for the audience–everybody feels it. You undo all the good work. Now suddenly everybody feels like you’re on an infomercial drilling steak knives. To avoid that, three is the magic number for a Target model. If you have to stretch, I’ll let you go to four, but please don’t.

Fun shapes again, Sally’s got her flag on at the peak of the mountain for hers. This is Melanie, so working with her requires more money, more time, more impact. A utopia for any team. 

Samantha Hartley: Perfect 

Renée Hasseldine: Then for Dixie, by working with her to be an active ally, you have more clarity, more confidence, and be the change. 

Samantha Hartley: Nice 

Renée Hasseldine: Then these four models together, they all wrap up and become the gift that keeps on giving in your business. They are a complete set. They each have a job to do. So as I said at the beginning, not one of these, all four of them to do the complete job. They tell a story together. They weave beautifully. If you’re going to be speaking at a conference or whatever, this is the backbone of any presentation that you do. Put these at the core of your business, your life is going to be so much easier. 

Samantha Hartley: Awesome 

Renée Hasseldine: Now we all know we make decisions based on how we feel. Results and the Target model speak to emotional decision making needs. Then the two in the middle, the Answers and the Process model, speak to our rational brain. That’s what we’re going to do to justify our decision. The RAPT® Model gives the audience an emotional, rational sandwich.

It’s magic. The Results and Target model speak to why I should work with you. The Answers model, what do I need to be successful? Process model, how are we going to get there? 

Answering all the questions, the decision making needs, both emotional and rational. We really are giving the audience everything they may need to make an informed decision. In a way that is adding value, even if they choose not to work with us at the end of this, they’ve learned something. 

Samantha Hartley: Love it, it’s informative. I really like your marketing to be, I always want it to be teaching, educating, and providing some entertainment. The storytelling does that and I think the models themselves are beautiful and kind of entertaining. 

When you see an idea expressed well, it is entertaining in and of itself. I think any of those that I would have seen on somebody’s presentation, I would have been excited to see expressed that well.

You’re using these and your clients are using these in all kinds of situations. It isn’t just pitching. You also mentioned social media stopping the scroll. What are all the ways that the models can be used?

Renée Hasseldine: So many ways. You said social media, pitching. You also have sales conversations, keynote presentations, speaking at a conference, making these webinars, running a half day workshop, and delivering a program.

If you’re running a mastermind program or even working with your one-on-one clients, let this be the basis of all of those proposal documents. Then the delivery, the Process model is the delivery, right? Every single thing you do in your business should come back to this IP.

If you do it right, it should be the umbrella for everything. That’s going to streamline the way you deliver everything. If everything is streamlined, that’s going to increase your profit margin on every single delivery. It really is going to make things better.

If you want to write a book, an expert book to increase credibility. I’ve written three books and they have taken me between two and three days to write. 

Samantha Hartley: Oh yeah? Wow

Renée Hasseldine: Now, that might seem insane, but I can tell you right now, if you have created this IP first and you want to write a book, all you have to do is talk through those models, record it, get it transcribed. I spent two to three days cleaning up the draft of a transcript. That goes off to the editor. Boom, books written. 

Samantha Hartley: So awesome. Renee obviously when I see this, I’m like, I need this and I’m not visual. When I visualize things, it’s words. So what would be our listeners’ first steps into getting started with process mapping? 

Renée Hasseldine: Yes, absolutely. I would say, how about I give a free copy of my book, Get Visual! to your audience. All they need to do is use the coupon code, SAMANTHA,, when they go to the checkout. I’ll make sure that the link in the show notes. 

Samantha Hartley: Perfect, we will definitely do that. I would love to read the book and to learn more about the models. I’m intrigued by what shape goes with which thing. Although I understand it has to start with the concepts first and then turn it into visuals.

As I said, I’m hopeless at that. My visuals are all going to look very corporate and not really align with the heart of my brand. So I’m excited to be able to learn more about that. If our audience wants to learn more about you, where should they go? 

Renée Hasseldine: They should go to thinkrapt.com. That’s “Think,” like what we do with our brain, RAPT.com

Samantha Hartley: Perfect. Love it. Well, it has been super entertaining to look at the models and it’s intriguing. I just also want to recommend on your homepage of your website where I’ve been is an amazing video using a lot of the models and explaining what you do using this. So you’re definitely walking your talk in that, as I would expect. I think that’ll be very informative for everyone.

I am looking forward to the next few years when more and more people are going to have visualizations of this abstract thing, these services, which we’re selling. So that’s super informative. Thank you so much, Renee. I have had a great time with you. 

Renée Hasseldine: Thank you so much for having me, it’s been a blast. Best way to start my day. 

Samantha Hartley: Yes, upside down there in Australia where it’s morning there and nighttime here. With that Renee and I are wishing you a Profitable and Joyful Consulting Business.