Episode 16: How to Get Clients Online

Episode 16: How to Get Clients Online: Part 1

The #1 question that online service professionals are asking right now is “How do I find my ideal clients online?” In the first part of this 3-part series, Pamela walks you through the critical first step of online client attraction.

You’ll discover:

• The #1 thing that most people miss when looking for their ideal clients online.
• A simple (and fun!) exercise that helps you zero in on your ideal client.
• The critical distinction that can skyrocket or tank your marketing – knowing this will save time and effort!

Timecode Guide:

01:52: Pamela explains the first step you need to take when looking for your ideal clients online.
06:26: Defining your target market and creating an avatar to represent that.
12:19: Discover the critical distinction that can skyrocket or tank your marketing, and complete an exercise to help you implement it.

Podcast Transcription

Episode 16: How to Get Clients Online: Part 1

Intro to Online Client Attraction

Intro (00:00):
You’re listening to ‘A Profitable Impact.’

Pamela (00:02):
When people ask, “Where do I find my ideal clients online?” there is one thing that they often miss in answering that question. And it’s the key to everything.

Gene (00:13):
Welcome to ‘A Profitable Impact,’ where every single week we help experts like coaches, healers, course creators and other online professionals to expand their reach, increase their impact in the world and to be well-paid for their extraordinary skills and talents. My name is Gene Monterastelli, and I am the lead coach in Pamela Bruner’s Impact Accelerator coaching program. And please welcome my friend, my colleague, and the CEO of Attract Clients Online, Pamela Bruner. How are you doing today, Pamela?

Pamela (00:42):
I’m doing great. Thanks, Gene.

Gene (00:44):
I’m really excited because we are actually at the beginning of a three-part series. Over the course of the next three episodes, we’re going to be answering one of the questions that you and I hear the most, and that is, “How do we find clients online?”

Pamela (00:59):
You know, it’s always been a question that people ask a great deal and since the pandemic started more and more, it’s not just, “how do I find my ideal clients” or, you know, “what door are they hiding behind,” but “where do I find them particularly online?” And so we’re going to break that down into three sections of things that you need to do, things you need to say and do, and be in order to find those people.

Gene (01:21):
So, as we are having this conversation today, as you are listening to this, if you recognize the fact that you’re looking for a little more guidance and a little more help in your business, so that you can continue to find clients online, we would like to offer to you a free conversation with one of our coaches. All you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. That’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. And you can get on the calendar with one of our coaches to continue to explore in the context of your own business, how you can find more clients online.

The First Step When You’re Looking for Your Ideal Clients Online

Pamela (01:52):
We’re going to start today is with the very first step that you need when you’re looking for your ideal clients online. And it’s a step that most people miss, then we’ll go into a simple, and I think fun exercise that helps you zero in on this ideal client location. And then finally the critical distinction that can skyrocket or tank your marketing and knowing this really saves time and effort. And this is actually something, Gene, that you taught me. And I can’t wait to share this with people.

Gene (02:22):
Excellent. Why don’t we just dive right in? Like, what is that number? One thing that people are missing when they’re doing that.

Pamela (02:27):
There’s an old joke about someone walking into a room and finding a man down on his hands and knees seemingly searching over a carpet. And the person who walks in says, what are you doing? And the man down his hands. And he says, I’m looking for my contact lens. The one who walked in says, well, well, where did you lose it? And the man says, I lost it down the hall. Then the question is, well, why are you looking here? Because the light’s better. And while it may not be the funniest joke in the world, I think a highlight something really well that often we look in a place that is convenient for us to look rather than a place that is logical for us to look. One of the reasons that it’s not logical is because we haven’t defined our ideal client. And if you don’t have your ideal client defined, you definitely can’t find them.

Let’s Break This Down: Defining Your Target Market and Avatar

Pamela (03:23):
So, let’s talk about the different ways that you start honing down that definition because that’s gonna determine where you’re looking for them. One of the things is you’re saying, where do I find my ideal clients online is this idea of who is your ideal client? And for a lot of experts, coaches, healers, speakers, trainers, authors, they’ll say, “I can help lots of people.” Or they may divide the entire world in half and say, well, I help women or I help men or I help adults. Well, that’s great, but it’s not very specific. And so if you don’t know who you’re looking for, then you can’t find them.

Gene (04:02):
And Pamela, I think there’s actually a double whammy that goes along with that. Not only if we don’t know who we’re looking for, is it hard for us to find them on a subconscious level? There is a part of us that doesn’t want to waste time and energy. And so if I do not have a clear target to work towards subconsciously, I’m going to prevent myself from taking action. So then we’re in a circumstance where if we are putting ourselves out there or we’re looking, we’re looking in the wrong place and the other is we just start putting ourselves out there as much as we would like to. And so then it feels like our efforts aren’t being fruitful because we’re not actually taking the action we need to be taking.

Pamela (04:36):
Such an astute observation. I love that, Gene. I can imagine that happening for me. And I’ve certainly seen it in our clients where they’re thinking, you know, I want to make sure that I am reaching out, that I am marketing, that I am searching for someone who guaranteed is going to want my services. And the truth is that there are ways that you can at least have a better idea that the person that you are reaching out for the person that you are spending effort for is someone who’s going to be amenable or very interested in your services. But you have to define that person first. So let’s talk about another distinction. It’s not just, I need to narrow it down more than just people or people online. There’s a difference between a target market and an avatar. And this distinction is one that I think helps people in their copy.

Pamela (05:33):
It helps people write. And it’s very, very important. A target market is a group of people. Often, I’ll say, who do you serve? And they’ll say, you know, potential client will say, well, I serve people or they’ll say I serve women between the ages of 35 and 55, who X, who blank. And when I hear that, especially if, if there’s any kind of detail behind it, a woman who is 35 and a woman who is 55 often have very different motivations. If we’re talking about their family a woman at 35 may have young children may be interested in schools. A woman, 55 may have kids that have already gone off to college. Somebody who’s 55 may be looking at retirement rather than beginning or at the early stages of their working life. So that’s a very broad spectrum in terms of what someone is going to want.

Pamela (06:26):
When we talk about the concept of an avatar, an avatar in my definition, and there are many definitions, an avatar is a character in a game that you’re playing with. An avatar is a single person description of someone in your target market. So instead of I help women 35 to 55, who struggle with blank, I can say I help Anna. Anna is 43 years old. She left the corporate world six months ago, and she’s trying to establish her own business where she, and as I start, as I keep talking, you get an idea of exactly who Anna is. That clarity is immensely helpful when you’re trying to write copy or when you’re trying to figure out what someone will be interested in.

Gene (07:16):
You know, as you talk about that, the place that I learned that lesson most powerfully is a story that Warren buffet tells. For those that you don’t know, Warren Buffet is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He’s an investor. And because he is the CEO of a company that has stocks every single year, as part of his SEC requirement, he has to write a shareholder’s letter explaining what the company’s been up to over the course of the last year. And the very last thing that he changes in that shareholder’s letter is who the letter is to up until the very last minute he is writing a letter to his sister because he knows how much she understands about stocks. She’s active, but she’s not a technical trader. And so, as he’s telling the story of the last year, he knows really clearly how to explain it to this one person who he knows intimately. And then the last thing he does is he takes out her name and he puts in the word shareholders. And then the shareholders are able to get a literally clear understanding of what is going on because it’s written in such a clear, specific way.

Pamela (08:21):
It’s a great example. And I love that example from Warren Buffet. As an example of something that I did with a client just the other day, I remember a clients posted a Facebook post for my evaluation in, in our group of clients and said, you know, here’s a post, is this useful? And at the top of the post, it was, I’ve created this resource. Here’s what the resource is. Here’s what it does. Who wants a copy? And I said, you know, that might work. But the truth is that every person reading this post is an individual person. When you say, who wants a copy it’s as though you were addressing a room of people, if you say, do you want a copy? You’re addressing one person to think in terms of this one person who is reading, reading your post, or reading your email or reading your article online, and who is that one person who’s doing that?

Gene (09:20):
And Pamela, actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but when we sit down to record these podcasts, I always just hop over into the Facebook group for our clients. And I pick one of the clients. And I imagine that as we’re having this conversation, we’re actually having that conversation with one of our clients, because it makes it so much easier for me to communicate in a clear, sharp way, because I know exactly who I’m talking to.

Pamela (09:45):
Mm that’s so great. And it’s a great segue into our next, the next part, and the next promise of this particular episode, which is the simple and fun exercise to help you zero in on your ideal client. If you’ve got an ideal client description, that’s a target market that is a group of people. Then I’m going to encourage you to define your ideal client as an avatar, create a client description of one person. And this could be a real person, or it could be a fictional composite. So perhaps you served an ideal client, and you’re going to pretend that everyone you’re attracting is that person you’re going to write to that person. You’re going to, to share, uh, tidbits and nuggets and, and all kinds of great content with that person. Or if you haven’t served someone who’s an ideal client like that, you might create a fictional composite.

Pamela (10:42):
Well, you know, I served this person who was an ideal client, always except these two. And I’ve replaced the characteristics of this person, um, with the characteristics of this, this avatar, this fictional character. And so, you know, Gene, you pick an ideal client of ours. You pick someone we’re already serving with, to talk to on this podcast. You can reverse engineer the same process. In fact, I’ve gone so far as to go out online and type in a name, just type in a name like Anna or Julie or Brenda, and see, um, pictures that come up when you Google it and choose an unassuming picture of someone and saying, that is my avatar, not choosing a famous person, but just choosing a picture that represents in my head, the person that I’m writing to, the person that I’m talking to.

Gene (11:29):
And when we do this thing, oftentimes people feel like, well, if I pick someone really, really specific, then I’m going to leave people out because I’m picking such specific details about someone. But the reality is people resonate with specificity and they’re able to apply it to their own life. And so the more specific we speak in, even if we’re not talking exactly the person. So for example, like if I was telling a story about how, when I emotionally eat, I reach for cookies and cream ice cream, because that’s the thing that warms my little emotionally bruised soul. Someone who’s listening to that goes, Oh, I eat chocolate chip cookies. So Gene doesn’t get me. That’s not what happens. It’s actually, when we’re able to speak to one person in a specific way, it actually makes it more universal because we’re being better communicators because of our specificity.

The Critical Distinction that Can Skyrocket or Tank Marketing

Pamela (12:19):
Exactly. So let’s use this idea of specificity in order to go into this critical distinction that can skyrocket or tank marketing. And this is one that I know you’ve explained to people many, many times Dean, and I thought that the, it was brilliant and it helps to break down the process of attracting your ideal clients online and keep you from skipping steps so that you don’t move too far too fast.

Gene (12:48):
Absolutely. So I think one of the things that’s really important for us to recognize is that there is a difference between our target market, our audience, and our clients, and the difference between those things are my target market is the type of person who I want to serve and who I can serve with my products and services.

Pamela (13:09):
And that’s the big, big group, right?

Gene (13:11):
Yeah, absolutely.

Pamela (13:11):
Yeah.

Gene (13:12):
And my audience is the people who actually know who I am, the people who follow me on social media, the people who subscribe to my newsletter, subscribe to a podcast, watch me on YouTube. All of the people that I’m connected to through the work that I do. And some of the people in my audience are the people who are my friends and family. They might not be ideal clients for me, but there are people who are listening to me. And so the first step when we are marketing is moving people from our target market, into our audience. It’s just getting them to a place where they’re consistently listening to us and they know who we are. Then once they are in our audience, we want to make them clients of ours. So moving someone from our target market to our audience is marketing, moving someone from our audience to being a client is sales.

Gene (14:02):
And so as we are looking at the people out there in the world that we’re trying to serve by separating those two groups of people, my target market, my audience, it helps me to communicate more effectively. And like you said, at the beginning of the question there, Pamela is that we’re not moving too quickly. I’m not trying to get you from not knowing who I am to being one of my clients. Now, sometimes that happens. But in most cases, what we need to do is we need to get them into our audience. Then once they’re in our audience, we get a chance to nurture them and deepen that relationship, which then can lead to them being one of our clients.

Pamela (14:37):
Exactly. And what I love about that three-step idea, or two steps between three groups, moving people from target market to audience is different than moving people from audience to clients is that if you’re trying do too much too soon, if you’re trying to say, you know, this person might be a client for me, they’re in this big group and I need to convince them to become a client of mine. It’s too much information. It’s too much of a leap for your reader or your viewer to go from. Wow, that person really understands me. They get me, they get the problem. I believe they can help me, I need to take the next step to see about working with them. It’s just too big a leap. But if you think about, I would like to control the conversation or control the means of conversation that I have with this person.

Pamela (15:30):
Then instead of, Hey, you clicked on a Facebook ad of mine. You read a Facebook post of mine. You listened to a podcast of mine. It is, you are now a reader of my email list. You are now a regular subscriber and you get a feed of mine of some kind that enables me to take further action to step from audience to clients. So right now, and in this conversation for the purposes of the series, we’re talking in terms of what does it take to go from target market to audience? How do we, how do we introduce ourselves to people in a way that they say, yes, I want more, I would like to be a regular consumer of your ideas.

Gene (16:09):
And not only is it easier to get someone to go from target market to audience because we’re asking them to make a small step. It also makes it easier for us because it makes what I am trying to do when I’m doing a step much clearer. I only need to get you to give me an email address so that you’re on my mailing list. And that is something that I know how to strategically plan my way to when I am taking action. And because the step is smaller, it’s easier to plan and manage because when we’re trying to do, like you said too much at once, it becomes too complicated for us, which makes it hard for us to do. And oftentimes when things are too hard for us to do, we just don’t do anything at all. And then we get stuck and frustrated.

How to Use Everything You’ve Just Learned with Examples

Pamela (16:52):
One of the clearest examples of this in a concrete way in the world is people who say to me, you know, I want to get in front of the president of a company, but to see if they want to buy my offer, to see if they’re interested in my services. And I said that the first sale that you have to make is to get 10 minutes of time to present your offer. It’s not, are you interested in, I offer it is. Can I get you to agree to 10 minutes so that we can talk further so that I can see if you’re even interested? And that’s the sort of the corporate equivalent of, would you like to give me your name and email and get on my mailing list? So as you’re moving forward and thinking about where do I find my ideal clients online, as you look to locate them, consider what is the target market that I’m looking for?

Pamela (17:41):
And more specifically, what is the avatar I’m looking for? I remember a few days ago, somebody asked me just this question, where do I find my people? And I said, well, it’s kind of like saying, I want to catch a fish. Where should I go? If you’re looking for Basser, you’re looking for trout, one’s a Lake and one’s a stream. And so until I know what kind of fish you’re looking for, I can’t send you to the right place to fish. The same thing is true when you’re looking for your ideal clients online. So determine your target market, determine your avatar by doing that exercise. And then ask the question, how could I move people from the target market to the audience? How can I take an avatar description and move that person into becoming one of my audience?

Gene (18:24):
So if you are in a situation that you’ve heard this and you recognize that you need to get a little clear on your target market, and you’re not exactly sure how to do that, we would love for you to have an opportunity to chat with one of our coaches and have them help you hone in and get clear about your target market. Because if you haven’t done this before, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what are those specifics that you need to do? If you’d like to have one of those free conversations with one of our coaches, all you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. That’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com, get on the calendar of one of our coaches and just let them know that you’re looking for some help and trying to figure out that target market. And they would love to help you do exactly that as we’ve had this conversation today, if you have found it useful and you know, other people in your life who are trying to find people online at this particular moment, so they can grow their business, please be our ambassador and pass this podcast along.

Gene (19:16):
There might be one or two people in your life who would really appreciate you passing this along to them today, because if they’re able to be successful, they’re able to share their gifts, which means that we’re all in a better circumstance when we get that happening. If you haven’t done so already, we would encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. Subscribing to a podcast is always free. All you need to do is search for a profitable impact. You can find the show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon music, audible, basically everywhere you get audio. All you need to do is search a profitable impact, click follow, click subscribe so that every single time a new episode comes out, you will get a notification. If you have a question, a comment, or a topic that you’d like Pamela and I to wrestle with and help you out, we can always be reached by digs, go into the website, attract clients online, click on that contact link and let us know that you have a question for the podcast for something for us to wrestle with to help you with so that you can be more successful in the work you are doing. For ‘A Profitable Impact,’ I’m Gene Monterastelli. Until next time, I hope you have an impactful week.

Want to know more about how to attract your ideal clients online?

Check out my blog post, “3 Ways to Attract High-Paying Clients Online” to learn more about how to find high paying clients today. I know that #1 will probably surprise you!

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Building a business as a coach or expert is challenging, especially if you’re trying to find your clients online.

Join business coach and online marketing expert Pamela Bruner as she uncovers the secrets of successful transformational businesses. If you want to make a difference in people’s lives, expand your reach, and attract high-paying clients, you’ll love this show!