Don’t burn money
If you feel this could be you, please do not invest in ads or someone who does your social media marketing. It won’t help. Instead, take a step back and work on your base.
That might feel tiring, maybe you’ve tried tons of times already to gain more clarity in this area. But rest assured: all the efforts are worth it. The small efforts all come together one day and result in huge outcomes.
In this blog post, I’ll give you lots of tips on which direction you should think when it comes to positioning. But I also include advice in case the thinking just does not get you any further.
So, let’s define your ideal client, shall we? 😀
The main goal of your soul client
The first thing you need to figure out is: what’s the main goal your soul client is striving for?
Your soul client has one main goal. One thing that keeps them up at night. One little something that is dear to their heart to achieve. What is it?
That’s what you want to help them achieve with your offer. So you need to be very clear on what that is.
As an example, in my own case, the main goal of my soul client is that they want to be free to travel more, work from anywhere, and plan their time freely.
This needs to be something that they want, not that you want for them.
Tangibility
The next point is: this goal needs to be tangible. Something Rosie Freiha said about this really stuck with me: there are basically 3 categories that the goal you provide should be in and that is relationships, money/career, or health/body. If it’s not in any of those, chance is that it’s not tangible. For example, “unlocking your full potential” or “re-connecting to your intuition” is VERY far away from being tangible.
I think that’s pretty appropriate for coaches. As I also work with interior designers or travel advisors, I’d add the categories “life enjoyment” and “beautification“. But usually, these professions struggle less with getting to a clear goal.
If you have no idea yet, what this tangible goal could be then it’s helpful to think back in your own story. How does your life tangibly look different now than 5 years ago? Which topics have you mastered to an extent? Don’t be a perfectionist here, you don’t need to know ALL about something. There will always be potential for growth and you’ll learn a lot on the way.
Mastery
At the same time: don’t pick a topic that you have not mastered at all. I made this mistake at the beginning of my journey when I tried to sell “how to get clients” without actually having clients. If you’ve not mastered a topic, you’ll have a hard time selling that topic. And probably you also don’t fully know how to achieve that goal.
What you can sell is a step that leads to that topic. For example, I could have sold “how to position yourself clearly”, because that’s what I was really good at.
The main problem of your soul client
The main goal is directly connected to a main problem. Again in my case as an example, the main problem of my soul clients is that they have no clarity yet on what they would like to offer. For months if not years, they are thinking about what they could offer but just don’t get to anything that convinces them.
Awareness
It’s important here that this is a problem your clients are AWARE of. Especially coaches often make the mistake to talk about the underlying issues, because they can see them. But the thing is: your ideal client can’t, otherwise they would likely not have the problem. It’s really crucial that you talk about the problem your clients think they have, not the ones that you think they have.
If you now have sort of an idea of what the main goal and problem could be, I’d advise you to start going into connection.
There is no amount of thinking you could do to really get to know your clients. What’s necessary here is to talk to them and ask them questions.
- Go into contact: where are your soul clients hanging out? Can you meet them in real life? Are there Facebook groups? Which # on Instagram do they follow? Are they on your profile already?
Find them and talk to them. I’d advise doing so-called market research calls. You do them to find out more details about the next categories we look at.
Why your soul clients are not reaching their goal
Now here we are at those underlying issues. The ones they probably do not know about or do not know how to solve or do not have the time to solve.
These are the root causes behind the main problem and the reason why they are not reaching their goal.
Some examples in my own case:
- Fear of choosing the wrong direction and then all the money and time invested will be lost.
- Low self-confidence. doubting that they can really do it.
- Fear of putting themselves out there and of what other people could think of them.
This is just some examples. Make this list as long as possible, because it’s all great for your marketing.
The more you can help your soul client to make small steps already before they pay you, the more likely they are to pay you. So help them to connect the dots. Let them feel that you understand them.
The mindfucks
This is a bit of a different take on why they are not reaching their goals.
It’s not just the underlying issues that they do not know about or don’t know how to fix them.
Often some part of them does NOT WANT to fix them!
It’s their subconscious mind that protects them.
Let’s do a little excurse into brain theory:
The very primal goal of your organism is to keep you surviving. So, all your primal brain knows is: so far I’ve survived. No matter how good or bad your life is at this moment, you’ve survived. Otherwise, you would not be reading this. So your brain thinks “All I’ve done so far was GREAT, it worked out, we’ve survived, yaay!”
And whenever it’s about doing something new, this part of you goes: “HELL naaah, that is new, that could kill us. Let’s not do this! Let’s stick to what worked so far.”
This can be new behaviors like speaking into a camera, new goals like “I want to be self-employed”, or new lifestyles like moving to another town. Just anything that is out of the ordinary for that person.
The Excuses of your soul client
So, in terms of your clients: they probably do not know or even realize this. But they will find excuses. The classics are “Oh I don’t have time/money right now.” But it could also be that they are like “I can fix this myself.”
When in my case again: they are often simply scared of the road ahead if they do make the step forward and commit to building their business.
What are the things that your clients are scared of that come with reaching their goal?
Talk about this. Help your soul client to handle that fear. And it will be a reason to buy instead of one not to buy.
The celebration
Aaand a crucial last one that is so often forgotten:
People want to be seen.
You can’t just lecture your soul client all the time. They are amazing already, without you. So what is it that they want to be celebrated for? What are their strengths that they know about? What are they proud of? What are they great at?
If you can see them in their bigness, then you will be able to connect to them. If you always just think of your ideal clients as “they need my help, otherwise their life sucks”, you will repel most people. Certainly, the ones who know what they want in their lives and are ready to change it.
Your content should be helpful and show your expertise. But in the end, empowered clients book you because they feel safe, supported, and guided by you.
Test clients
Once you’ve done market research calls and know at least some of these answers: get your first test clients.
Again: any amount of thinking won’t ever be as useful as simply talking to people. And working with them. Test clients are so so so beneficial in many ways.
- Actually helping people increases your confidence that you CAN help people massively.
- Every person has a network of other people that could benefit from your offer.
- It gives you tons of info on what works and what doesn’t. What they like and what not.
- If they are happy, they often turn into paying clients.
- It helps you so much to clarify your positioning and to answer all the points of this post in more and more detail.
Conclusion
This is really the base of your whole business and offer. I invite you to go over this blog post again and again until you feel crystal clear about who your client is, what they want, and what they struggle with.
Hint: you’ll know if you are crystal clear or not by looking at your social media community. If you’ve nailed this, people will start to engage with you.
You can send this blog post to your own email and save it that way. Or share it with friends on Whatsapp if you found it helpful.
Wishing you a wonderful day now and you got this, I believe in you! I’d be excited to hear what this post changed for you, so let me know in a message. 😀
Hugs,
Rebecca
