Expanding your audience to get more clients (ep. 44)

It’s so much easier to get clients through referrals or word-of-mouth. But when you’re eager to scale your business, you need to look for people who don’t yet know you – ‘cold traffic’. In today’s episode, Pamela unpacks the timing and methods for accessing this incredible source of new clients.

In this episode, you will:

• Discover the two phases of client attraction, and which one you should be in
• Learn the #1 thing you need to do in order to attract cold traffic
• Identify the 3 best ways to turn new people into high-paying clients

Timecode Guide:

• (01:51) Discover the two phases of client attraction, and which one you should be in
• (06:53) Learn the #1 thing you need to do in order to attract cold traffic
• (10:58) Identify the 3 best ways to turn new people into high-paying clients

Podcast Transcription

Episode 44: Expanding your audience to get more clients

Intro

​​Pamela Bruner: (00:00)
You’re listening to A Profitable Impact. It can seem so much easier to get clients through referrals or word of mouth, but when you’re looking to scale, you need to access an incredible source of new clients, which is cold traffic.

Gene Monterastelli: (00:12)
Welcome to A Profitable Impact where every single week we help experts like coaches and healers to expand their reach, to 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 Bruner: (00:38)
I am doing great and very excited about talking about different phases of business and how you expand your audience. I don’t know if anybody else geeks out about this but I do and I know you do too.

Gene Monterastelli: (00:51)
It’s always good to have a plan to make sure we’re doing the right thing at the right time. So yes, that is something to get excited about.

Pamela Bruner: (00:58)
That’s true. So here’s what we’re going to do today. It’s often easier to get clients through word of mouth or referrals, but when you’re trying to scale, you need to access people who don’t know you yet, which is cold traffic. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about the two phases of client attraction and which one you should be in for where your business is. And also, you’ll learn the number one thing you need to do in order to attract cold traffic to you, and the three best ways to turn new people into high paying clients.

Gene Monterastelli: (01:27)
So as you listen to our conversation today, and as it sinks in, if you’re looking for some help in how you can implement these particular ideas, we would love for you to have a free conversation with one of our coaches. All you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. That’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com and you will get onto the calendar of one of our coaches that can help you to take these amazing ideas and start implementing them right away in your business.

Discover the two phases of client attraction, and which one you should be in

Warm

Pamela Bruner: (01:51)
So let’s talk about these two phases of client attraction, because we see this a lot, depending on how clients come to us, it’s really important to know which one you should be in and it’s probably one of the biggest mistakes that I see with people who come to me saying, “Can you just run Facebook Ads? Can you just get people in for me?” And the truth is the first phase of client attraction, we sometimes jokingly referred to as your first 20K, your first $20,000. And your first $20,000 is almost always in your current network and your close referrals. And the reason that you want to look at it this way is that this is for testing both your message and your sales skills.

Pamela Bruner: (02:32)
Because if you have a message that is unclear and you start doing cold traffic processes, and we’ll talk about those in a minute, you won’t know what’s wrong. You’ll just know that people aren’t responding and you won’t have any idea how to hone your message. But as you’re accessing your current network and talking to people who already know you or who you know well or who are friends of people well, you’ll be able to get better feedback on your message. Also, it’s often easier to sell to people who have that close relationship with you. So your sales skills can be honed and perfected while you’re working with an audience that’s a little bit easier.

Gene Monterastelli: (03:12)
And the word that I want to underline what you just shared right there, Pamela, and that I think was so good was the word feedback. Oftentimes, people think I’m going to come up with a marketing message and I’m going to get maybe help from a professional copywriter and I’ll go out in the world and I’ll share it and everything will be great going forward. And when we’re communicating, even when we think we’re communicating really clearly about the stuff that is our expertise, getting that feedback is so key because we’re constantly just learning from every single interaction that we have and because initially we’re reaching out to the people who we already have a good relationship with. They’re going to feel comfortable sharing that with us. They’re going to feel comfortable giving us that time. So not only are we getting get an opportunity to get some initial sales and grow our business, but we’re going to learn so much in that feedback piece that you were just talking about.

Pamela Bruner: (04:00)
Yeah, I have a great story about that, and I think I’ve actually shared it on the podcast before, but it’s good enough that it’s worth repeating. I was trying out a new elevator speech because I do that all the time and this was a few years ago and I was at an event and I shared this elevator speech with two different women and said, “I help coaches, healers and experts to overcome their difficulties with marketing and sales.” And both of the women said to me, “Oh, I don’t have any problem with sales. I only have a problem selling my own stuff.”

Pamela Bruner: (04:31)
And I was very clear in that moment that they were both ideal clients for me. They literally each said the same thing, even though the two conversations were separate. So I then changed up my elevator speech to talk about how you could have difficulty with marketing and sales as you sell your own services, even if you’ve been comfortable in sales before, and that would have reached those women lost I’d that opportunity. But as I went forward, it accessed a lot of wonderful professionals who may have had a background in sales, but then when they go into coaching and expert services, realize that their sales skills for their own products, their own offerings or their own services just weren’t as comfortable. So that was feedback that I got literally by being face-to-face with some people. There’s really no better way to get feedback than to do it like that.

Gene Monterastelli: (05:23)
Another really great version of that particular feedback where we’re going to get the language of our target market is when you say something and the person you’re talking to goes, “Oh, do you mean?” And they repeat back to you in their own words what you have been saying and it’s just one more version of it and a client version of it that becomes a useful way. So sometimes we get feedback where people say, “Oh no, that’s not me, I’m actually this.” The other time is like, “Yes, I know what you’re talking about. What you mean is,” or, “Do you mean this?” Which even gives us more information, more vocabulary to use when we’re talking about what we do.

Cold

Pamela Bruner: (05:55)
Yeah, such a great example. So now let’s talk about the second phase because that first phase is perfect when you’ve maybe created your brand, created your message, created your high ticket offer, and you’ve gone out and you’ve shared it and hopefully sold a few of them and you’re feeling pretty good about your message. Then the second phase is, now you need to expand into a new audience and people that I’ve talked to always assume that they’re going to immediately sell as many offerings to a new audience as they did to their warm audience. “Well, remember when I made $20,000 in the first three or four weeks of doing this or working with you, Pamela. It’s been so great. Where am I going to find my next 20,000?” And it’s like, well, if you’ve already accessed your warm and your hot network, you’ve got to build a new network and then work with that network.

Learn the #1 thing you need to do in order to attract cold traffic

Pamela Bruner: (06:53)
So often there’s what somebody today said, I’ve heard about the dip. Like you have initial success and then you have a dip and that’s as you’re building your expanded audience, you’re building your pipeline. So with new audiences in the second phase, you need to have your message honed very, very well. You need to have your target market, or as we call it sometimes an avatar crystal clear. Who is your ideal client? How do you describe them? Including in a fairly detailed way, and you need to have your offer and your pricing very, very solid. So now let’s talk about the number one thing you need to do to attract cold traffic. And the truth is that this is all about message. It needs to be really exciting on the surface to your ideal clients. Now let me explain what I mean by that. Transformation almost always has a deep component to it.

Pamela Bruner: (07:46)
And if you are trying to sell a modality, especially a modality that’s not well known. If you’re trying to sell acupuncture in your local community and that’s a fairly well-known modality if you have a town that you’re in. I always give the example of Asheville Acupuncture because that’s where I live, Asheville, North Carolina. And that’s actually not a bad name or not a bad brand because it says, “Here’s a well-known modality in an area that you probably live in and you’re interested in finding out more about us.” But if you have a less well-known modality and I would put coaching in that, I would put a lot of alternative healing in that or some other expert services, and you’re not going for a local or regional audience, instead you are looking for or able to serve people all over the country or all over the world, that modality in that region will not help you.

Pamela Bruner: (08:38)
And that’s where having a message that is based not on your process, not on your modality, but about the outcome that you provide, that’s when that message becomes so very important.

Gene Monterastelli: (08:49)
I think this really rings true Pamela, and what you were just talking about in the last point about how we come into that dip where we’re working with our warm market, and then all of a sudden as we reach out, it becomes harder. And I think part of that is, is because our warm market, because we have a relationship with them is already super crystal clear about their problem and the pain points around that problem, because we’ve been communicating and probably working with them over time, which means that we get to offer them a solution. We get to be solution focused in what is going on.

Gene Monterastelli: (09:21)
When we step out to a cold market, they might not have the same experience and understanding about the problem that is in front of them. So now they are problem focused, they’re not solution focused yet because they’re still trying to get clarity about what is going on. And I think that’s the reason why what you’re saying is so important where we’re really crystal clear about where they are and what they’re struggling with when we talk about them, because they’re at a slightly different point in the journey than the people that we already have a relationship with. And then the messaging becomes even more important.

Pamela Bruner: (09:53)
That’s such a great example. Do you have a concrete example of the difference between problem and solution? Because I think that would drive this message home.

Gene Monterastelli: (10:01)
Absolutely. So a lot of the work that I do is I help small business owners to eliminate self-sabotage. So someone who is problem focused is, they recognize the fact that I am not doing the things that I want to do. People who have been inside of my tribe and listened to the things that I create, know that there is some sort of internal, emotional resistance and that’s the reason why they’re not taking action. So they’re looking for a solution to eliminate the emotional roadblocks, the mindset pieces are to take action where the people who are new to thinking about in this way, they’re only thinking of the problem of not doing the action they want and the pain of looking at that thing on their to-do list day after day after day, and then beating themselves up for not doing the thing they know they want to be doing.

Pamela Bruner: (10:48)
So basically the difference between people who just know they’re not achieving their goals and people who are wondering what the internal block is that’s keeping them from their goals.

Gene Monterastelli: (10:57)
Absolutely.

Identify the 3 best ways to turn new people into high-paying clients

Pamela Bruner: (10:58)
It seems like such a subtle difference, but I know it’s critically important. That’s a great distinction. So let’s talk about the three best ways to turn new people into high paying clients. And we’re going to designate these with fast, medium, and slow. So let me explain what I mean by that. Fast people take action quickly. And these are people who, even though they are a cold market, if they know that they want the transformation you provide, they want that outcome, they connect with you, whether it’s through a lead magnet, a Facebook Live, a webinar, perhaps a free call, and they immediately are drawn to you and they say, “Well, I really want to work with you.”

Pamela Bruner: (11:36)
These fast people need an early offer to avoid being bored with a bunch of nurture they don’t need. If you assume that everyone is slower than that, “Well, they just got on my list. So I can’t offer them anything for at least 30 days. And I just need to give them a great content.” The fast people will actually leave because they were looking for something in a much faster timeframe than that. Fast people, usually, I will say that is anywhere from immediate to 30 days. And then medium people, that’s 30-60 days. So they need a little bit more time with you. They’re not ready to buy on the call, perhaps, but they need consistent offers during the 30-60 day timeframe. And usually those are offers to a calendar, to have a strategy session. After they’ve consumed some of your content, you want to get them in a sales conversation, and they’re still fast compared to a lot of people.

Pamela Bruner: (12:34)
They don’t have to be on your list for a couple of years, but they’re just not someone who hears about something and five minutes later, they immediately take action. And then the slow potential clients are the ones who have been on your list for 60 days to maybe two years. These people will need to know you better. And the truth is that slow probably accounts for about 90% of the people that you’re going to come in contact with through cold traffic.

Pamela Bruner: (13:00)
So you’re going to get 2% or 3% or something like that who are fast action takers and another 7% who are medium action takers. So sometime in the next 30-60 days, you should be able to do something with about 10% of the new people who come into your arena, your purview. And then the other 90% that you will book will happen over the next 60 days to two years.

Pamela Bruner: (13:26)
Now, there are some caveats and there are some exceptions to this. If you meet people in person that tends to accelerate the process. People will move from slow to medium, and sometimes from medium to fast when you meet them in person. Perhaps you meet them at an event. If you are edified as a speaker and they meet you after that. So you come with some authority, that can sometimes shorten the timeline, even for someone who doesn’t ordinarily shorten the timeline.

Pamela Bruner: (13:52)
But when you start thinking about people in fast, medium, and slow, often it can help you, number one, feel better about things like building an email list and bring people along and nurturing them. And it can also help you understand just the numbers, just the math of, “I’m going to have a certain percentage of people that I need to make an offer to right away and I still want to take care of the other people, because there are still some potential clients in there. They just need more time.”

Gene Monterastelli: (14:19)
Interesting as you share all of that, Pamela. I think of some of our clients who are in a situation where they know that a bulk of their people are going to be at the slower end of the spectrum. And because of that, they get afraid that, if I make an offer too soon, that they’re then going to leave and they’re not going to want to listen to what else I have to say, because I’m going to look super, super salesy. So they think, “Well, since the bulk of my people are slower, I’m going to make the offer later,” but that’s not actually the case. One thing that’s really important to recognize is that when we are offering information, if I’m making an offer that isn’t useful to you at this particular moment, you’re not thinking, “Oh, Gene doesn’t have anything good to offer to me.”

Gene Monterastelli: (15:00)
It’s like, “Oh, just not for me, not right now.” So the people who are slower, even if it’s very early on in the relationship, if you make an offer of some sort, if it’s not right for them right now, it’s not going to be a mark against you. It’s just going to be something that they’re going to file away and they’re going to continue to continue in the way that we are nurturing them. But if we don’t make an offer early on, those fast action takers who are really ready to go, we’re going to miss the opportunity to serve them because they’re going to go find someone who’s going to make an offer to them. So it’s important we recognize slow, medium and fast, and make sure that we have offers that meet all needs of those three groups so that we don’t miss out and have someone slip through the cracks.

Pamela Bruner: (15:42)
I’ve actually had a client talk to me in a strategy session and when I introduced them to the offer that I knew that they had heard before, I knew they’d been on another training, I knew they’d been in some other marketing endeavor and I would introduce the offer and they’d say, “Oh, that sounds so interesting. And I didn’t know you had that.” And it’s just funny that not only were they not hearing it for the first time, but they had actually filtered out the offer before just because they weren’t in the right place to hear it.

Gene Monterastelli: (16:16)
It’s kind of like the conversation that’s happening at the next table in a crowded cafe, that our brain is really easy to tune out the things that aren’t essential to us in this particular moment. So it’s not this scale where it’s like useful, un-useful, useful, it’s useful or white noise that I just forget about five minutes later and I don’t even remember the email or the offer coming in because it didn’t resonate with me in that moment. But when the time comes for it to resonate, if there’s another offer there, they’re going to hear it then.

Pamela Bruner: (16:42)
So the good takeaway about this is, yes, you can weave in offers to all of your nurture and know that people will be converting at different times as you build a cold traffic audience and that is a great thing.

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Conclusion

Gene Monterastelli: (16:54)
As you are hearing these strategies and you’re recognizing the fact that as you’re moving from your warm traffic to your cold traffic, that you need to be approaching this strategically and tactically in a different way. If you’re looking for some help in doing that, we’d love for you to have a free conversation with one of our coaches. All you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. That’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. Get on the calendar with one of our coaches and they will talk you through the nuances between warm and cold traffic and how you can position yourself for both of those audiences. If you’ve enjoyed the conversation today and you know another coach or healer in your life who would appreciate this information, please pass it along. The most common way someone finds a new piece of content that is useful from them is from the recommendation of a friend.

Gene Monterastelli: (17:38)
And it would mean the world to us if you pass it along. If you have a question, a comment or a topic that you’d like us to cover on a future episode, we would love to hear from you. All you need to do is go to AttractClientsOnline.com, click on that contact link. When you send in an email, make sure you note topic for the podcast so we get it in the right place so we can talk about it in the future. If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the show. Subscribing and podcasting is always free. You can get the show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Audible, basically everywhere you get audio online. Just search for A Profitable Impact, click follow, click subscribe, and most importantly, turn on those notifications, so each time a new episode comes out, you know right away. For A Profitable Impact, I am Gene Monterastelli. Until next time, I hope you have an impactful week.

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!