Don’t Build an Audience YET... First, Reach the Ones You Already Have.

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, 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 assumptive, presumptive, whichever the word is, about what the universe actually wants you to do. Okay, remember this. Your. The difference between your business and your hobby is that in your hobby you can do whatever you the f 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 the 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 going to 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 three the best. These three. I had just an easy, wonderful, flowy time working with these three. 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 three. No. Yeah, okay. And then These other four, pretty good. 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 want to 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 want to pay for? Great. Wonderful. Say, George, isn't that market discovery? Yeah, but market discovery is also, also talking. Okay, so you, like, you have two paths. Define your ideal audience. Try to find those people and build an audience. Think about how much work this is. Let's, let's, 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 want to 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, because I just, I'm just picking one that I have heard many, many, many, many times in my, in my, 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 going to 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 want to spend money on their own? That's a hard, that's a hard one. That's, that's A very hard niche, by the way. Okay? And then you discover five years later, after you built a mother, an audience, a mother of young children, they don't want to buy from you. They don't want to buy anything. And 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, you become a child, child 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 two, right? Path number one, check what ChatGPT is going to tell you, right? Define your audience. Go build that audience, and then sell them what you want to. No, they're not going to buy what you want to sell them. They're going to buy what they want you to sell them. Okay? Path number two, 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 going to say yes to this. The people you can already reach, their spending patterns is your current market. And you don't have to build. And 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 three people you can send an email to who will probably open your email and those three people probably have hundreds that they can tell about your thing. Path number two, 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 going to 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 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, hey, what are you, are you doing anything for your own growth? They're going to tell you, no, probably, honestly, I don't want to 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 five 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 to tutoring for their kids or whatever, whatever they're going to spend money on. You know, I don't, they're going to watch a channel where it's like, you know, AI kid videos or whatever. How can I learn how to learn how to make AI kids video? 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 want to offer. And they don't want to spend any money on that. Right? If they don't want to 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 want to offer, actually, so I can shape shift 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 him, they 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 going to find something, they're going to say. They go, yeah, 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 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, 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 want to buy what you want. Hard path, okay? Which is what everyone does. Just about path number two, be in your heart of service, which I know you have, because when you're talking to somebody, right, you're talking, 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 netcaring 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 soul printers. We are so isolated. We are working on our own thing with chat GPT, 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, 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 three 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. 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.