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Want to know how to gain more clients?
If you’re a business coach or business consultant struggling to get clients or anything of that nature, then you NEED to read this – it’s written for you.
Not speaking to your market is a calamity.
It leads to frustration, exhaustion, and failure.
The problem with a lot of start-ups, entrepreneurs, et al. is that they sell their ideas, solutions and products before they’ve been validated.
But what is validation?
Well, there’s a process to it and it looks something like this:
- First, you need to know that money is made in solving problems. People who solve problems will always make money, and will never be without a market or clients. So, you need to find a problem to solve. What do you know or have that can help someone else?
- Secondly, you cannot be a generalist. An arrow that is shot randomly into the sky seldom hits anything, and if it does hit something then it's chaotic and random (and random events cannot be measured or repeated). So, you need to niche down. What are your passions and interests? What pulls you? (As Steve Jobs used to say.)
- Thirdly, and this is the most crucial part of all, you need to talk to your market.
(Let’s come out of the bullets to explain this one…)
Talking to your market involves locating them, contacting them, and recording what they say – without any bias or lead on your part.
This means going online, performing Google search after Google search, going into Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, forums, blogs, etc. and reading what your market is saying.
But that’s not enough…
Because although reading is great, you need to actually talk to the market participants.
This will start with private messaging on social platforms, sending emails, etc. and getting onto a phone call as soon as possible.
The great news is once you’ve got someone from your market on a call as part of market research – you’re doing what 99% of wantapreneurs don’t do.
How come?
Because you’re not selling anything. You’re not trying to lead the conversation to fit your biases or what you saw on Google or Youtube.
You’re asking them open ended questions and getting valuable data that should be recorded and kept for review.
(Questions differ from market to market, but generally you need to know how they operate, what they want, what gets in the way of what they want, what they wish didn’t happen/exist, their current situation and where they want to be, etc).
Once you’ve spoken to one, you rinse and repeat the process to speak to another, however you keep all questions open.
A way of messing this up is allowing bias to lead the next conversation.
An example of this is saying: ‘Oh yeah I was speaking to another X and he said that X is a problem for him, is that the same for you?’
Any answer to that is not worthy of recording.
Questions must be kept open to ensure answers are genuine – and once you’ve spoken to 15-20+ people in your market you’ll start to notice organic patterns emerging.
Let’s return to those bullets:
- Fourthly, there will be a problem that keeps coming up - this is what you need to find a solution to. So, is there anything you know, are good at, or could quickly learn, that will solve this problem?
- Fifthly, if the answer is yes - then you should start crafting an offer because the market will always want its problems solved. As simple as that. So, what is your solution to the market's problem?
(Classic Yay-Nay statements that sum it up work best, such as, in the case of a fitness coach: I help busy entrepreneurs get in shape without gym memberships or restrictive diets.
Of course, under that there is a process and system, but that’s the crux of it.)
- Sixthly, validate your offer. This means performing the same outreach as before, but this time to pitch your services.
If you want to (and it’s completely optional), work for free or at a big discount the very first time you get a client, or at least agree to result-based pay. Some people will frown here, but they’re wrong for two reasons:
1) Getting a free/cheap client is quick (and most people quit at the client stage because they can’t find someone who will pay them premium prices for something they’ve never done before – free/discount/result-only-pricing solves this).
2) All you need is validation (i.e. does my offer actually work?).
(Don’t worry too much about the quality of client in the beginning – you just need to get started and test out your offer, that’s all. Everyone has had their share of bad clients; good ones appear once you get some momentum going).
Also, make a client testimonial part of the deal – you need social proof.
- Seventhly, review and refine your offer. No doubt the first few times you provide your services there will be things you can change or improve. Be open to it and go with the flow - your focus is on getting your clients results and solving their problems. The moment it just becomes about you and your special process that can't be criticised you're heading downhill (and fast).
You will now have performed meaningful market research, got exclusive insider data, crafted and tested your offer, refined and improved your process, plus you’ll have some social proof in the form of testimonials. (Not forgetting the confidence and assurance that comes with all of this.)
This is how you validate.
And once you’ve done that, you can rack up your prices and keep going!
Admittedly, it takes some time.
If you’re committed, focused, and plan it all out, it could be done within a couple of months. Possibly less, depending on what your offer is and how long it takes to see results.
It could also take forever – solid processes like this one reveal a lot about human nature and personality.
For example, discovering that you’re extremely shy, introverted and find it suffocating to have sales conversations isn’t nice. Nor is coming to the realisation that you’re a procrastinator who operates in victim mode as default.
It’s not all pretty – but it is necessary and 100% worth it.
Facing demons and defeating them is part of that.
I hope you gained some more knowledge on how to gain more clients in my article.
If you’re a business coach or consultant struggling to validate your offers, or even get any clients at all, learn from some of the best entrepreneurial, business and marketing minds on the planet at EE global on 14/15th April.
