Don’t Build an Audience YET...

The question is, what further clarity on my target audience do I need in the beginning when I am trying to come up with offers and trying to get my first, you know, dozen clients, let's say? What clarity do I need about my target audience, about my ideal client? And having been in business for myself for 16 years And pretty much all those 16 years I was helping fellow small business owners and figure out what to offer, how to offer it, how to get an audience, how to sell effectively, all that stuff. I've come to this conclusion. You don't need to understand your ideal audience in the beginning. You don't need to understand who your client, ideal client is in the beginning. Because you're probably going to be wrong. Or at least you are ossifying an idea that might be very presumptive, presumptive, whichever the word is, about what the universe actually wants you to do. Okay, remember this: the difference between your business and your hobby is that in your hobby you can do whatever the fuck you want to do. It's great. Do it by yourself. Do it with some— if you can find some hobby friends that love this, great, do it. In business, it's by definition a partnership and a dance with the market. And the market is the spending patterns of the people you are able to reach. This is very important. Your market is not some type of person you've got in your head go, That must be the type of buyer that I will have. That must be the ideal client that I will have because I want to create this service and I'm imagining the person who wants a service is just like this. It's like, however, I'm just imagining. And I'm gonna use the law of attraction to bring them to me. Now there is something to that. Yes, there is something to that. But I've noticed that reality is usually much stronger than our law of attraction in the beginning of our business. Okay, law of attraction and manifesting the ideal client is much easier once you have some people paying you for your services or your programs or your webinars or your courses or whatever. You have some people paying you, and then you study the buyers and go, okay, I've got these 10 people who have paid me I like these 3 the best. These 3 I had just an easy, wonderful, flowy time working with. These 3, oh, that was so hard to work with them. It was just, they were complaining about this, or they really didn't get it, or I felt like I had to really perform for them, whatever. These 3, nah, yeah, okay. And then these other 4, pretty good. It's okay. They had some characteristics that I thought were, were really good fit for what I do and some characteristics not, not less, less of a fit. You need to have a bunch of people paying you first before you can understand your ideal client. But you can say, George, isn't that putting the cart before the horse? Don't you need to clarify your ideal client so you can write the perfect copy and create the perfect offer for them? No, no, no. Because I've had so many clients over the years who've done what seems logical, right? In fact, this might even be what many— this is what ChatGPT is telling you. First, define your ideal client audience and then write the perfect copy for them. But the effing problem is that your ideal client audience might not wanna pay to solve the problem that you want to solve. So let me ask you the question. You have two ways of going about it. Okay? You really do. You can find, you can either define your ideal client audience and then go and talk to those people and go, what are you paying for? Market discovery. And then how do I shape-shift myself and my offerings so that I will sell you what you are paying for and what you wanna pay for? Great. Wonderful. Say, George, isn't that market discovery? Yeah. But market discovery is also, also talking. Okay. So you, like I said, you have two paths. Define your ideal audience, try to find those people and build an audience. So think about how much work this is. Let's say this, I want to reach mothers of young children because let's say I'm not, but let's say I was a mother of young children. I'm a mother of young children and I wanna reach them because I know how much work it is and how hard it was. By the way, I'm not saying this to anybody literally who is here 'cause I just, I'm just picking one that I have heard many, many, many, many times in my life thus far. I want to reach them. So I'm going to build an audience of mothers of young children and then try to sell to them. Do you hear yourself? Do you know how hard that's gonna be? Like how many steps that is? Are you kidding me? First, build an audience of mothers of young children who, by the way, are extremely busy. They just want the best for their kids. And sure, they might be looking at social media, but do they wanna spend money on their own personal growth? Hmm. That's a hard, that's a hard one. That's a very hard niche, by the way. Okay. And then you discover 5 years later after you built an audience of mother of young children, they don't wanna buy from you. They don't wanna buy anything personal growth related. And then you end up selling diapers. You end up selling, I don't know, whatever they buy. Mothers of young children, what do you buy? You buy, I know you buy diapers probably. You buy maybe education for your kids. Now you kind of become a, You become a child, child, um, educator. And you're like, I totally didn't expect that that was what— but some people do that. Some people, they build an audience and then they realize the universe, the audience really speaking, the universe speaking to their audience, wants them to totally change what they, what their skill set is. Or they're like, I did not expect it, but I had to learn a totally different skill for these people because that's my audience now. Path number 2, right? Path number 1, check what ChatGPT is gonna tell you, right? Define your audience, go build that audience and then sell them what you wanna sell. No, they're not gonna buy what you wanna sell them. They're gonna buy what they want you to sell them. Okay? Path number 2, look at what the universe has already given you as an audience. The people who already listen to you, starting with your friends, obviously, starting with your colleagues and who they can reach. Your colleagues, the people who like you can bend their ear and go, hey, let's talk. Who can they reach? Because they're like, hey, let's talk. And then eventually you can say, hey, would you mind sharing this with your audience? If it's appropriate, if it's, if it's totally aligned. If not, then let's go back to the drawing board. Help me figure out what to share with your audience. Obviously, they're a friend. That's why they're gonna say yes to this. The people you can already reach, their spending patterns is your current market. And you don't have to build a whole— you have to build a whole audience. You already have an audience. It's called your friends, your face. How many Facebook friends do you have? How many? Chat below. How many? Because people go, I don't have an audience. Really? Do you have a Facebook account? Some people don't. Okay, fine. Do you have an Instagram account? How many followers do you have? Do you have a LinkedIn profile? How many connections do you have? Do you have an email account? Do you have an email account? How many people can you send emails to in your email address book? How many people are in your email address book that if you send an email, you're pretty sure they'll, they'll actually open it? Seriously, I'm seeing numbers here in the hundreds, which is true for everybody. It's true. Do you have an email account? Go look at your email address book and go, how many people can I send an email to who will actually open my email? Probably in the hundreds, probably at least 100 old classmates, old lovers, old, you know, old friends, old clients, old whatever, current clients, current friends, current hundreds. Most of us are in the hundreds. And by the way, no, George, I've been a hermit for 10 years. Fine. You have 3 people you can send an email to who will probably open your email. And those 3 people probably have hundreds that they can tell about your thing. Path number 2, like I said, don't build an audience. Don't imagine who your ideal— no, you look at who you can already reach. You talk to them about the thing you— not— don't show them what you built and go, would you buy this? Because they're gonna say, yeah, you look great. Oh, I hope you do really well with that. And nobody buys it. No, no, don't do that. You talk to your current people about what they are already buying and working on related to, related to what you are doing. So if, again, if you are back to that example, if you're, if you want to help mothers of young kids and you happen to have a few friends who are mothers of young kids, you talk to those friends. You go, hey, what are you, are you doing anything for your own growth? They're gonna tell you no, probably, honestly. I don't wanna spend money on my own growth. I just spend money on my kids. This is a wake-up call. Then you don't have to wait 5 years to discover this. You go, oh my God, I have to become a childhood educator. I have to— because they're going to spend money on tutoring for their kids or whatever, whatever. They're going to spend money on, you know, I don't know, they're going to watch a channel where it's like, you know, AI kids videos or whatever. I'm going to learn how to learn how to make AI kids videos. You know, you save a bunch of years. You just talk to your current people and you find out what they're spending on related to what you wanna offer. And if they don't wanna spend any money on that shit, right? If they don't wanna spend any money on that stuff, then you, then you realize you have to pivot. Then you go, oh, what are you spending money on? Okay, you're spending money on that. It's kind of related to what I, what I wanna offer actually. So I can shapeshift myself a little bit, a little bit, not a lot. Still be authentic. But my heart is authentic. I authentically want to help you, right? That's my heart of service is authentic. I really want— if that's true, if my heart of service is authentic, then the person in front of me is more important than what I want to sell. Do you see what I mean? If my heart of service is authentic, then the person in front of me that I'm able to reach, I have true empathy towards them. I go, what are you spending? You're spending money on that? Really? I can do better than that. I can do better than that. You're gonna find something they're gonna say. They go, yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been buying this, or I've been buying that. You're like, really? You don't, you don't have to judge them, obviously, but you can, like, in your head you're like, I can do better than that. I can give you something better than that. I can give you something not necessarily better, but I can give you something that's a better fit than what you're spending money on. Okay? And then, and then you come up with your coaching package. And then you come up with your healing package, and you come up with your webinar, then you come up with your course, then you come up with your, you know, mastermind community that's better than what they are spending money on, or what they want, what they're still seeking, or like what they, they've been thinking about this day. So then, okay, then I tell them to summarize. You have two paths in front of you. Figure out your ideal audience in your head, your illusory ideal audience, build an audience of them, sell them what you want, discover they don't wanna buy what you want. Hard path. Okay. Which is what everyone does just about. Path number 2, be in your heart of service, which I know you have. 'Cause when you're talking to somebody, right, you're talk, especially on Zoom, like you can see them or even in person when you're talking to them, you can't help but care about them. I know you, you can't help but care about the person in front of you and their struggles. And when you hear about their struggles and when you hear about what they're working on or want to work on, you're like, God, you know, either I can do that for you or I know somebody who can help you. And this is where net caring comes in. I've got a bunch of friends in, you know, my, my, my Soulpreneur community, and some of those people can help you. And then you start making connections and then you help your friend make a connection to your new friend, you know, new solopreneur friend. And they're so happy together. Sometimes though, they describe a problem, they describe a goal, they describe an experience they want, and you're like, that's exactly what I love helping people with. I just didn't know to call it that. Thank you for giving me the words to know what to call my next coaching program. I didn't know to call it that. I didn't know to approach it from this doorway. I didn't know that you would walk through that doorway. I had a totally different doorway in mind. So this is what authentic business is, in my opinion. It's not authentic hobby. It's authentic business where you are dancing with the people you can already reach. You have true empathy towards them because you are, you do, you just, you just don't talk to them enough. That's the problem. I think that's the problem with most of the solopreneurs. We are so isolated. We are working on our own thing with ChatGPT thinking that we've come up with some great offer when we've just been working in our own garage without the benefit of the world, without the benefit of being in front of somebody who has a problem and go, my God, I care about you. I do. Now that I've talked to you, I really do care about you, and I didn't realize that's what you had a problem with. Okay, let me connect you with somebody, or let me create something for you, or let me just tell you what I got because it's perfect. So Once you do that, people go, you care about me, you actually care about me, you actually created something that I actually want because I told you what I want. And then they buy it, and then several people buy it, and then we're back to the original thing. Go, I got 10 clients now who paid me, which are the 3 that I really love working with. I'm going to manifest more of those people because those are real people, real characteristics of real people. And now I can really manifest in Law of Attraction them in. But before it was just an illusion. Before it was— I was playing with Maya, an illusion, right? Now I have real people. I can law of attraction them in. And I also know what kind of people I don't want, which in my sales page— do not sign up for this if you are this or this or this. You could be very clear now. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. I hope, uh, I look forward to seeing your comments and your questions below. Do you agree with this? Disagree with this? I'm open to questions and comments. Thanks.