5 things you can do to get clients- TODAY!

Hello, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Good evening. It is Tuesday, 8:00pm Eastern. Well, a little after. I'm getting a late start to my live this evening. I just took the dogs for a beautiful sunset walk and oh my God. So they are bunny crazy like. And this is springtime in New England. So the bunnies, little cottontails are out and we saw about 20 of them. And these poor, this poor poodle and doodle, all they wanted to do. The poodle wants to eat them. The doodle thinks that they're gonna be her friend. My arms almost got ripped off. And then we saw the most beautiful fox that was being chased away by a bunch of ravens. So you know who's causing some trouble. But anyway, I'm here and it's just been a glorious, glorious day and welcome. Thank you for joining whoever has just joined and just a little housekeeping. So you know that I do this through Streamyard. If you've tuned tuned in before. Streamyard is an awesome technology. It allows for me to go live to the Facebooks, to LinkedIn and to YouTube. However, sometimes the comments don't all come through from all places. So if you're commenting and I'm not calling you out because I do like this to be interactive and I love to say hi to you as you join, know that it's not you, it is just the technology that we're working with. If you're commenting and I'm not saying hello, I'm not mad at you, it's just I'm not seeing it. Anyway, the topic I want to talk about tonight is near and dear to my heart. This is what I work on with my clients. Okay. The sole purpose of my job is to help other people build a business that makes money. Makes money and allows for them to have impact on their world. Okay? Because my clients are mission driven entrepreneurs, meaning they either are offering a service that helps change lives or they're doing work that will impact the world in uncalculable ways. Incalculable. I can never say that word. Incalculable ways. They really want to make a difference. They're not just out to make a million dollars. And I got a thumbs up from someone, thank you, whoever that was. That's the other bummer about this, is that when someone does a thumbs up on streamyard, normally on Facebook you can see it, but on here I can't tell. So thank you whoever did that. But here's the thing about these businesses. If you have a mission and you want to have impact on the world. Guess what? You need to have clients. You need to start making money. And I did a post today on LinkedIn about the five things that I will never do for my clients. Number one is I'm not going to help you do a traditional old fuddy duddy business plan, okay? Because my clients aren't looking for a loan from the bank, okay? They're not looking to sign a lease for commercial space, okay? It's a service based business that you can operate on your computer or your phone. The fastest path to cash is through one on one clients. And so here are five. Oh, and I just hit my mic. Sorry, I hope that didn't hurt your ears. We knew it was going to happen. We can't put. I talk with my hands. You've seen me, I'm part Italian. It just happens. So apologies, apologies if it hurt your ears. Anyway, so the fastest path to cash is getting one on one clients. And so I'm going to be talking about five ways for you to get clients today. Literally today you could go out and do this. Well, maybe tomorrow, because it's night now, but you know what I mean, like if you started doing this, you would get clients. Number one. And this is the thing, this is the one that is the best way to do it when you're first starting out, when you don't have any clients is asking for referrals, okay? So reaching out to your family, your friends, former colleagues, former classmates, former, I don't know, underwater basket weaving classmates, you know, whatever. Anyone who knows you, likes you and trusts you. And you just reach out to them very simply and say, hey, listen, exciting news. I just started my own business. Here's who I help, and this is what I help them with. Do you know one to three people who fit that description? And would you mind introducing them to me? Simple. You reach out to them and you just say that you can do this via email, you can do this via text, you can call them, I don't care. You can send them a carrier pigeon, I don't care. But you can ask for referrals, okay? And here's the thing. This is what people get so hung up on. We feel like we're using our friends and family for they know our means. We're not. Our friends and family want to support us. They see us building this thing, putting ourselves out there. They want to support you. They need instructions. Okay, Your friends and family and former colleagues and current colleagues, everyone wants to support you. You just need to tell them the Best way to support you. They also might not understand exactly how to describe what you do, like, forever. I don't think my parents still really understand what I do. My dad basically explains that I get on the phone and I boss people around for about an hour. And my mom, my mom talks about. Oh, she's really sweet. She's like, oh, Katie has so much confidence. She just loans her confidence out to her clients. But they have no. No frame of reference for what I do. You have to tell them. You have to tell them exactly what you do and who you're looking to work with. They're. They're dying to help you out. And don't. Don't worry about it, like, making the relationship weird. I get it. We've all had those. Those friends reach out to us because they joined an MLM and they want us to, like, host a party and, you know, like, sell cookware that no one really needs because we all have cookware. Like, we've been living our lives and cooking food just fine. Yeah, I get it. Like, we lean away from that. This is not that. This is your baby. You are creating a business. You are offering a service that you provide based from your expertise. All right? You can ask for some support there. And the worst they're going to say is, I don't know anyone there. You're good. Okay, so referrals. That is, number one, your fastest path to getting clients. Number two, networking. Okay, so building your network if you don't know a lot of people, I mean, we're all stuck at home now anyway, and some of us, you know, we're back in the world depending on where you live. But Eventbrite, oh, my God. Eventbrite is the best invention for solopreneurs because you can literally go onto Eventbrite and you can search online events, you can search networking events, and then you can also search the industry that you focus on. Okay? So if you are a coach who works with sales professionals, you can go on. Oh, hi, Danny. Nice to see you. And hi, Gabriel. Welcome. So if you're a coach who works with sales professionals, you can literally go on to Eventbrite and search salespeople networking, online event. And then you'll have a whole list, a whole calendar of events that you can sign up for, you can attend. And when you arrive in those events, what you're not going to get all hung up about, like, here's where I went to school and this is what I do, and blah, blah, blah. You're going to say, this is who I Help. I help this type of person who struggles with this type of problem and who really, really wants this type of solution. That's what I do. And then anyone who's interested, anyone who, like, leans in, you just. You just DM them. You just message them and say, hey, you know, I saw you leaned in. You know, were you trying to read something small on this, on the screen, or was there something that I said that appealed? Or if they start asking you questions, then you can start answering them, and you just want to let it through and just say, hey, listen, this is something that I work on with clients. If you'd like to book a call, you know, here's the link to do that. You're. You're constantly inviting people to book a call with you to see if it's a good fit. Just so you know, on all these things that I'm going to be listing. Oh, and Gabriel, it's good to see you as well. Thank you for joining this evening. So, networking, networking. The other thing about networking is that you don't go into it trying to, like, make a sale. Okay? This is. This. Networking isn't like that. When you try to do networking that way, it comes across as, like, gross and sleazy and no one wants to hang out with you. Go into a networking event with the intent of making friends, with the intent of connecting other people, of giving referrals for other people that you meet there, pay it forward. That is the best way, and join a community. So if you're going to do the networking circuit, pick a networking event that is recurring so you can become well known within that group. Okay, I've been doing this, guys. It works. It works. You know, it takes time, but it's effective. And bonus, bonus if they allow for people to do presentations or to do a talk or to run a workshop and you attend a few times and you get the hang, and you know what the vibe is. You can go to the organizer and you can say, hey, you know, I'm a coach or I'm a consultant, and I work on. I work with these kinds of people solving these kinds of problems who want this kind of solution. I would love to run a workshop for your members. And then, boom, you just have. You have a captive audience within this organization. Okay? So networking magic, by the way, guys, I'm giving you this stuff. This is exactly what I work on with my clients. See, I'm doing it. You know, it is explaining a little bit of what you do, giving people a taste so they know exactly the kinds of things that you can help them on. Okay, I do this every night. It works. There's a reason I go live every night, because it actually works for my business. Okay, so that is, number two, networking. Okay, so referrals and networking, they're basically the same thing. You're just making new friends to ask for referrals from. Okay, number three, and this one, you have to do homework first. Okay, so you need to post to social media and you need to speak to your ideal client. You need to describe the problems that they're having in the same way that they would describe their problems after they had a couple glasses of wine. So imagine your ideal client is just a little bit drunk, and how are they describing what's going on in their life? Okay. They're not saying, oh, you know, my life is lacking fulfillment and I need more balance and I really need to tap into my inner leader. No, that's not what your clients are saying. I know as coaches and I know I'm being bad, so I poke fun at us life coaches because I'm a trained life coach. Ok? I know it. And we get so excited about that language because we know the tools and the exercises, we know how magical they are, and we know the transformation that can come from it. And the vocabulary attached just seems just so ethereal and fun. It doesn't translate to marketing. It does not translate to marketing. So that can be what you do in your coaching sessions, but in your marketing, you need to say, hey, listen, I see you today at work was miserable. You got pinged again by your manager because you missed out on a deadline on a project. Your spouse is irritated with you because you are terrible at guesstimating how long things will take. And you've been working on organizing the garage for about three months now, and it doesn't seem to be making any progress. Also, you don't have any time for yourself. You haven't worked out in about six months. And yeah, you could probably say that that's because of the pandemic, but let's be real, you weren't working out much before then either. You have a really shitty relationship with time. You also have a really bad relationship with setting boundaries. It seems like everyone and their mother is walking all over your life and you don't know how to tell them you don't want them to do that anymore, and it's driving you crazy. But you know it's your fault because you're not setting the boundaries correctly. But you also have no idea how to do it by the way this room that you're in right now, because I see you in this room, it's kind of a crappy room, isn't it? You know, do you want to stay in this room because you created this? There's something about it that works for you. But also, if you want to leave this room, I have this door open. Do you want to walk through my door? You know, like, post it on social media in a way that names the wake up in the morning problems that they are actually having. And when I say wake up in the morning problems, I mean, like, they wake up and that's the first thing they worry about. Okay, shit, I didn't get that project in. Or oh, my God, I'm going to miss this deadline again. Or, wow, these pants are really too tight. Or I'm in over my head with this thing at work. I need some help. I need to bring in an outside consultant. I want you to think about the wake up in the morning problems they have and also think about what their dream is. What is the thing they want more than anything, okay? Maybe it's to be able to go on a vacation and not check their email. Could you imagine for someone who doesn't know how to set any boundaries around their time? So you want to, you want to post to social media and you just want to say, hey, listen, this is the person who I work with. They struggle with X, Y and Z and they really want A, B and C. Okay? So that is number three. It does require homework. If you don't know how your clients talk or your ideal clients talk. When they've had a couple glasses of wine, go out and get some people drunk, okay? Jot down what they say. Get them complaining about their lives. Interview them. This is one of the things that I have my clients do very early on is conduct ideal client interviews so that you know exactly the language they're using to describe their lives. Okay? Because you can talk about it in your expert speak, but, you know, say you're a lawyer. Say you're a lawyer because I know we have some lawyers watching. Say you're a lawyer and you know, you have your, your legalese that you speak in. Your ideal. Clients don't speak legalese. They did not go to law school. If you start talking about, I mean, I don't speak legalese. I can't even fake it. So they're not going to understand you. So you have to really speak. Speak to them in their language. You know, what are the things that they're worried about? Okay? That's going to be the most transformative for your business, okay? Because if they're going to be listening to you or reading your thing and think, oh, my God, if this person understands so perfectly where I am right now, I'm already automatically giving them credit. They know how to get me out of this. That's literally what happens when we read copy or we hear someone describing exactly what we're stuck in. We. We think, oh, my God. If they're that familiar with where I'm stuck, they must know the path out of being stuck. They must know how to fix this if they understand this problem that well. Okay? So you have to do your research. You have to get to know your ideal client. It's going to make the rest of your business so easy. Anyway, number four, again, based on your client research, host a webinar that addresses a common problem that all your clients face. Okay? And this takes practice. My very first webinar, no one showed up. My second webinar, no one showed up. My third webinar, one person showed up and he was my marketing guy who I paid. Oh, hi, Ron Joseph. Ooh, hello, young lady. I love being called a young lady. Thank you. But anyway, third webinar, my marketing guy, who I paid, showed up. My fourth webinar, two people registered and confirmed that they were coming. So I immediately panicked and went out and got my dad, my sister, and my friend Palmer to show up. Okay? Because I didn't want to be seen as like the loser who only had like two people at our webinar. Hi, Brian Wang. Oh my gosh, Long time to see. And hi, Maria. Welcome, everyone. So your webinar, you're going to host a webinar and you're going to address a problem. And during the webinar, you're just going to very cleanly invite a few of the people, the people who are really serious to a one on one call with you if they want to learn more. So for instance, if anyone is watching this and thinking, oh, my God, I don't have any clients, she's saying all this stuff. And it sounds good, but I like, need more details. And also it sounds really scary to do that, but I want to make this business work. I want to start making real money and I want to start making real impact in my world. You can book a call with me, okay? Book a call with me. It's 30 minutes. You can learn about my one on one coaching practice and what the options are there. And I can give you some direction in your business. You See how I did that? That's just super clean. It tells you a little bit of what to expect and I really set the bar high. I'm not just offering to anyone. I'm offering it to those of you who are serious about starting to make money in your service based business. Okay? You get to do that. It is your time. And that's the one resource you cannot renew. Okay? You cannot renew time. Once it's gone, it's gone. Do you ever have one of those moments where you start talking about time? Once it's gone, it's gone. Then you get in your head and you're like, oh, wow, that second's gone. That second's gone and that second's gone. I just had that kind of go on add moment. Welcome. Okay, so you're going to host a webinar. And the key to hosting a really successful webinar is you want to follow up with people. Okay? You want to follow up. If you're offering a call and you know that there are people in it that could really benefit from it, send them a few emails afterwards. It feels stalkerish. Okay, I get it. It feels like you're chasing them down. But if you just do it with some clean energy, you say, hey, listen, thank you so much for coming. I just want to remind you that I offered this thing. You know, I'm only allowing for people to schedule this until Sunday. I really think you could benefit from it. Anyway, here's a link. I know you're super busy, but I would love to talk to you about this. If you're clean about it, they get to be clean about it. Okay? So you're going to host a webinar, you're going to invite people to calls, all right? And finally, the simplest thing that you can do is instead of getting hung up on how to describe what you do or who you are. One of the top questions I get from my coach clients is what do I call myself? Do I call myself a life coach or an executive coach or a leadership coach? Or am I, you know, what kind of coach am I? Am I like a sparkle coach, you know, or whatever? I'm a woo woo goddess coach. No one knows what any of that stuff means. Okay? So instead of saying what you are, I want you to start talking about who you help. Okay? So this is number five. When people ask you what you do, don't give them a job title. Do not give them a job title. It's just going to go over their head. They have no frame of reference for it. Unless they are also a coach. Oh. Brian Wang. Clean energy. When you understand that you are there to help your customers get to where they are looking to go, not the other way around. Yes, yes. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. You are there to provide a service, to make the world a better place, to make this person's life a better place. You're not just out for your pocketbook. You're not just out for your wallet, for your bank account, okay? That's when the energy gets unclean. When. When you're just looking to, like, make money off someone. No, no, no, no. If you're. You're doing coaching and consulting and that's what you want to do, you are in the wrong business. Okay? Yes. You can make a ton of money doing this, but it can't be your primary driver. Okay? We're here to change the world in whatever way we choose to focus that on. It could be helping people have better relationships. It could be helping companies, you know, be more time efficient so that their employees can go home and have a life. It could be, you know, fixing climate change. I mean, from really, really small problems to huge problems. Okay? That's. I want you to get really tuned into what problem you're trying to solve in the world and have that be your driver. So, for instance, I have a core belief that everyone deserves to make a living doing work that they love. Okay? That is my core driver. When I get on the phone with someone, my core reason for being on the phone is to see if there's any way I can support this person in front of me to make a living, a decent living, a living that allows for them to go on vacation and have a healthy retirement and to buy themselves gifts and gifts for their loved ones or whatever matters to them doing the work that they love. Okay? That is the only reason I get on the phone with people. Well, you know, and I'll call my best friend, you know, catch up with her, but that's personal. Anyway, but I want you to drop this whole what is my title? Kind of thing. No one cares, Okay? I want you to imagine, I want you to close your eyes. Maybe don't close your eyes because you know you're watching a thing. But remember when there are cocktail parties and networking events and you got introduced to someone, you asked them what they did and they said, oh, well, I am a cost structure and analyst. And you had no idea what they were talking about. Like, no idea what they were talking about. And also, because you had no idea what you were talking about, you had no idea frame of reference for how they might be useful to you and not just useful to you as a person. Like, you know, obviously there are a lot of people who have jobs that you can't hire. But, you know, if you say, oh, well, I'm a lawyer and I help people who are in car accidents get money from their, from their insurance companies, oh my God, I'm just going to automatically go to, who do I know who's recently been in a car accident, who has been injured? Because I want to introduce them this to this person. Because if I introduce people, that ups my social capital. Okay, so you want to tell people right off the bat how you are either useful to them directly or useful to someone in their network. And how you do that, it is super clean. You just say, hey, I help X kind of person who has Y kind of problem get Z kind of results. Boom. This is done so beautifully by someone I look up to in the coactive coaching world. And Cynthia Lloyd Darst, her husband told us this story once. I hope they're okay with me sharing this. It was when he was teaching a class. I think it was pretty open information. When she first started coaching, she decided to go to all these in person networking events for women in the. I think they were living in Washington, D.C. and she'd show up and like the first few times, you know, they go around a circle and they'd introduce themselves, say, oh, I'm a life coach. And everyone would say, oh, that's nice, and they'd move on. No one would approach her. Afterwards, she stopped doing that. She started listening to what everyone else was saying before it got to her because, you know, they say, oh, well, the one thing I'm really struggling with is I don't have enough time. Yeah, I don't have enough time. And you know, or I wish I had more time for this. And so when it got around to her, she didn't say, I'm a life coach. She didn't say, I'm an executive coach. She didn't say anything about her title. She said, hi, this is my name. And, and I actually help people get more time in their lives. And after she started doing that, people would just come up to her right after and say, oh my God, I want to learn about what you do. And she would just book calls with them, you know, and it's just like that was, that was the beginning blossom of her business. And this is what I want you to do as well. It is so simple. It's such a simple reframe from going from this is who I am to focusing on who your ideal client is. And here's the thing that I want you to keep in mind is you are not, in that moment, jumping into. I'm gonna sell you right now. No, no, no. That is so creepy. That is so creepy. Okay? So I want you to imagine you're back at that. That cocktail party, and you run into a doctor who's a podiatrist, and he's a podiatrist, and he just says, yeah, I'm a podiatrist. I work on feet. Let me see your feet. You know, whip them out like, no, no, no, no. Don't look at my feet at a cocktail party. You don't. You don't want to be the version of that, okay? You also don't want to attract the kinds of people who, like, you know, take their shoes off and show them to the podiatrist at the party. You want to say, oh, awesome. You know, it's so nice to meet you. Let's schedule a time to talk. You want to tell them about your office hours. You want to invite them into a conversation to also see if it's a good fit for you. You want to create some boundaries around it. Of course. Like, this is all the stuff that I work on with my clients. If you're curious about more of this, then DM me and we can set up a time to talk. I'm a little breathless. I forget to breathe when I get excited about talking about this stuff. Anyway, those are the five things. So getting referrals, networking, posting to social media, hosting webinars on common problems that your ideal clients have, and nixing the title, and just talking about who you help and what you help them achieve. I list these five ways of getting clients, because these are five ways I actually get clients, okay? They work. They work. And these are five ways I teach my clients to get clients because they work. And if you are someone who is running a business that serves clients one on one and you don't have clients, you need to start doing this stuff, okay? Because, babes, you need to start making money doing work that you love so that you can go on and live your fabulous life, okay? It is just waiting for you, and you fully deserve it. There's nothing else that you need to do to deserve it or be worthy of that ideal life, okay? You just have to take action now and do this stuff so you can open that door for yourself. And, of course, of course there are millions of people like me. There are business strategists and business coaches. Find one who resonates with you, who you know is talking about things that like are a little scary to you. Like you'd be nervous to do it but you know it's the thing that you need to do. Do I have anything else I want to add tonight? I don't know. I have some really good exciting news coming up. I'm not going to share it now because the details are still to be teased out. Actually, two things. I have a personal thing that I'm like so excited to share but again the details are still being teased out. I don't want to like you know, jump it out of the closet before it's ready. And then I also have a professional thing like a new project that I'm working on. So I just want you guys to know, know about that. Please keep an eye out for it. I'm so excited about both these things and actually now that I've started talking about like one thing then two things, I'm thinking of more things that I'm excited about. Anyway, there's lots to come. We're, we're coming to the end of spring. We're about to hit summer. This is my, one of my favorite times of year this time of year and the fall, these shoulder seasons. I don't know what it is. It just feels like there's just, there's change in the air and I'm all about change. Anyway, just a little tease. If you have any questions on what I've said or you do want to book a call. Like I said, direct message me and we'll figure out a time to talk and we'll see if it's a fit both ways. Okay. So if you're working on something that's retail or not in a service industry, I'm probably going to refer you to someone else because those are not my sweet spots. But. But if you are looking for help in your service based business, that is exactly what I love spending my time on every day. And my clients tend to see some really awesome results as well. Anyway, I'm Katie McManus. That's all I have for this evening. Oh my God. We're almost at a half hour. That's all I have for this evening. Thank you for joining. I am going to be going live tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. So I hope to see you there. It may be pre planned and it may just pop up. Who knows? It's a mystery. But anyway, I hope to see you there and thank you for joining this evening. All right. Have a good night.