Are you Needy for Clients? 4/5

Hello, everyone. I'm just going to turn the light up a little bit so I can see. Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. I'm coming to you for segment four of five of you. Are you needy for and desperate for clients? Now, I want to just acknowledge that I was supposed to do this yesterday, but I was so tired, I just opted to take a nap. And I wanted to share that because I want to just let you know that sometimes your job when you own a business, when you're low energy, is to take care of yourself. Sometimes you just need to take a nap, and that's part of your job. So if you're part of my napping crew. Hello, welcome. Welcome to the family. I'm going to be doing episode five tomorrow, so you'll want to tune in for that today. I want to dive back into this thing that happens to so many of us when we're starting out. We are needy and desperate for clients because a, we don't know how to get them, so we're not getting them and we're not making any money. And for business to survive and for humans to survive, we need money. So I'm going to be talking today more about thought leadership and more about the things that we hold ourselves back on that result in us not having clients. And these things are super critical to just get over. And I know I say that and it's like, okay, well, if that's so easy, Katie, I would do it already. But sometimes you don't realize you have to get over it until you realize what the it is. So I'm going to dive into that today. Okay? So the thing that you need to get over is and hi, whoever's watching a little housekeeping. So I do this live through Streamyard to the Facebooks, LinkedIn and YouTube. Sometimes Streamyard doesn't show me all the comments, though. So if you comment and I don't call you out, it is not you. It is just the technology. I'm not mad, I promise. But if you do comment, I and have any questions, I love this to be interactive. So I hope you have any questions, you pop them in the chat. Okay? So oftentimes, if someone is needy and desperate for clients, what is actually, actually happening on a core root level is they are holding the bar too high on the wrong things. Okay. And I'm going to be talking about how this shows up in a few different ways. Now, when I say holding the bar too high, I know many of you are going to Go to, oh, no, she thinks I'm charging too much. Or oh, no, she thinks my idea is bad. Or oh, no, whatever. Enter your story here. Not necessarily what I mean, I'm going to get very specific on the things that you're holding the bar too high on. Okay? First and foremost, you're holding the bar too high on expecting your clients or potential clients to understand your value. Okay? So let's look at what this means. Okay? So you have poured your heart and soul into a website. This website explains where you went to school, what your hobbies are, where you got trained for this thing, who you've worked for in the past, yada, yada, yada, yada. You are expecting your clients to make the logic jump from, okay, they went to Notre Dame to their great copywriter for my business. Okay, That's a huge jump to make. Okay, great. You went to an amazing school. So proud of you, good job. That your parents are really happy, too. They're not still paying it off, but you need to be very specific about why your clients should see value in you. Should see, should see this and the s. Sometimes I get them jumbled, especially when they're back to back. Hi, Jason. Welcome. Happy Friday. You're expecting your clients to understand your value without laying it out for them. And I am going to speak specifically to my coaching friends here, because here is what we tend to do when we are first starting out. We just learned all these coaching skills, right? And we are really excited about it. We learned some modalities and some exercises. And so we go out there and we start talking about values and balance and fulfillment and getting in touch with your feelings. Great. In the coaching world, it's great in a coaching context. But your clients, the people who haven't started working with you yet have no fucking idea what any of that stuff means. They also don't understand why it's valuable to them in their lives. Okay? So you have to translate what you're saying into their speak, okay? You have to talk about the problems that are happening in their lives, the symptoms that are coming up. You can't expect them to make the logic jump that they're suffering in their marriage. And really, they have to just figure out what their values are. It's not going to work, okay? So that is one way in which you can be holding the bar too high is you're holding the bar too high for your potential clients. And you're not making it easy for them to understand why they should be working with you. You're not making it easy for them to understand how to access you. Okay, so. So that's number one. Okay, so you're holding the bar too high for your potential clients. Now, the next couple I love, because I used to do this. I used to hold the bar too high for myself to be perfect. Okay? And when I say perfect, like, perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect outfit, I wanted everyone to believe that I had the perfect life, especially when I was more in the life coaching realm, because who the hell was I to coach people on their lives if my life wasn't perfect? Okay? This was the mindset I have, and this is the mindset I hear a lot. Oh, Jason, that's such a great point. Thank you, Jason. I love being told I'm making great points, and I agree. But anyway, so we hold ourselves to this standard that we have to appear perfect. And I think. I don't know, I'm just gonna assume here that it comes from seeing beautiful movie stars in magazines and seeing airbrushed photos and going on to Instagram and seeing influencer working poolside in their bikinis with their laptops. Let's just pause on that for a second because I don't know if you've ever worked on your laptop outside. The sun overheats it. And if you're in the sun, guess what? I hope you're wearing sunscreen. I really do. Because melanoma is a serious concern. And I don't know if you've ever tried to be on your. On your laptop while you're covered in sunscreen. Your keyboard gets super oily and disgusting. Okay? And then it can leak into the machine and just make it go haywire. Okay? So those pictures are not real. Okay. And if they are, they're not actually working on their computer. Okay? So this whole perfection thing, I want to use an example. So say I. Well, yeah, I'm a little overweight right now. We've been in a pandemic. Who isn't? I'm not going to hire the personal trainer who. Who is stick thin and has never struggled with her weight and who doesn't eat bread. Nuh. I love bread. Bread is one of my favorite food groups. Anyway. No, I'm going to hire a personal trainer and nutritionist who has also struggled with her weight, who maybe is way overweight right now, but comes up with realistic strategies and fun workouts that keeps me invested in it, rather than someone who's just like, well, this is just easy. I've done this my whole life. Okay? The person who can. Has gone through the same Thing I'm going to relate to a lot more. They don't have to be perfect. Actually, being perfect would make me not trust them. Okay? So you're out there trying to look perfect and act perfect and say the perfect things. What you're actually doing is creating dissonance between you and your audience, okay? Because they want someone who understands their unique ways that they're screwed up, okay? They don't want to hear how the perfect person has the perfect life. No one is reaching out to Gwyneth Paltrow to. To have her change their life. I mean, Goop is just like that. One of these crazy companies. I don't know how they make money. It's probably just. Anyway, I'm not going to speculate, but. So that's one way in which you're setting the board, the bar, too high. Okay? You don't have to be perfect. Far from it. You can be open about being imperfect. It makes it so much easier for your. Your clients and your audience to be like, oh, my God, they work on this thing, and they struggle with it too. Oh, cool. So I won't feel embarrassed about struggling with it if I work with them. Okay? So perfect is. Is the worst thing you could be. The next thing I see a great deal is people trying to prove to the world at large that. That they are an expert in this space, which. Oh, someone's calling me. Oh, I'll call them back. Anyway, it's the guy who I think is going to be moving my stuff from San Francisco to Philadelphia because everything's still in storage out there, but we're three hours ahead, so I'll be able to call him after this, and it'll be fine. Anyway, just so you guys know my life. Anyway, so here's the thing. If you're an expert in something, you don't have to prove you're an expert. Okay? That's it. We don't see Anthony Fauci going out and trying to prove that he knows stuff about viruses. Just doesn't happen. So one of the things that happens when you try to go out there and prove that you're an expert in something is you talk over your audience. Let's say, for instance, that you're a lawyer. And I'm already regretting using this because, I don't know, a lot of lawyers speak. So you're a lawyer, and you're going out and you're saying, um, you're talking about the problems that happen in your area of the law. Maybe it's like real estate Law. And you're Talking about Section 1A of the Pennsylvania statute and, oh, I do know a lawyer speak and how it can create problems in this amendment and that. I don't know what you're talking about and neither do your clients. Okay, so you're out there trying to show, see, I'm smart. I went to law school. I learned the words, I know how to put them together in a sentence that kind of makes sense to other lawyers. So you're showing off that you're an expert. Here's what's actually happening is your audience is seeing this and they're thinking, okay, cool, I don't know what any of this means, so I cannot comment here because I don't want to look dumb. So you're making yourself look smart at the expense of your potential clients who don't want to look dumb. But they do feel dumb and they're not going to engage and they're not going to ask you questions because what if they ask you a dumb question and you come back with them with more stuff they don't understand? Your honor, I quote the precedence of the US versus the state of Georgia henceforth, and forthwith. Exactly. Jason knows. I mean, I'm sure that means something, but I don't know. So anyway, when you try to be an expert, what ends up happening is instead of showing your audience how much you know and impressing them and getting them, you know, banging down your door wanting to hire you, you completely alienate them. You make them feel small, you make them feel stupid and you make them think, okay, cool, well, if I need a lawyer for my real estate issues in Pennsylvania, I'm going to go to someone who talks to me on my level because this does not work for me. And the other thing that happens is, you know, if you're speaking expert speak, who are you talking to? Okay, if, if you work in a very specific area, your. Your post is going to be very specific. So that means that not a lot of people are going to be available to engage on it. Jason, you don't make yourself look great by making others look stupid. 100%. Exactly what I'm saying. So, you know, there's. I wanna. So there are very specific posts that you can make. For instance, like this, this is for business owners, right? This is not a crowd pleasing live that everyone is gonna tune into and be completely engaged on. I know crazy. However, if I were to do a live with my puppy and show you guys like all the fun tricks that she knows that she doesn't know how to do that's a bad example. But if it was a crowd pleasing thing that everyone could engage on, it would get a lot more views, it would get a lot more comments, it would get a lot more likes. When you are trying to get known, you want to have a variation between here I am, here's a crowd pleasing post and here's something specific that I do. And you want to have a very clear call to action. Now if you're doing expert speak in either one of those a, the first one's going to flop because people want to hear about babies and dogs, new homes and what you ate last night, whatever. They're not going to comment on your post about the specific thing. And if you're talking over people and then having a call to action, no one's going to book with you. So it's just across the board, not an effective tactic. The other ways in which this shows up is that like, say you're holding yourself back to go live because you're waiting for like the perfect camera and the perfect ring light and you have to invest in all this equipment and it has to be amazing. No, you don't. This is literally the camera on my, on my computer. I don't use any special equipment. I have a ring light. I had a smaller one until a former work husband, Jeremy Kunkel, if you're watching hi. He sent it to me just as a random surprise gift. And so now that's the ring light I use before I had this little like 12 inch one. So if you're holding yourself back because you don't have the technology, you don't have the right things. Cut that out. That's the dumbest ass reason to hold yourself back from going out and being of service to the world and making some money doing it. Okay? You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have the perfect setup. You have enough just as you are right now, okay? You are enough. Don't, don't hold back just because you feel like things aren't exactly how they should be. You're. If you're doing that, I guarantee you're watching people like Marie Forleo or Gary Vee. And let me tell you something about them. They're multimillion dollar businesses. They have marketing teams that follow them around. They constantly go to events where they're speaking and they set up times where they're talking to people behind the stage and giving them advice with a camera crew right there capturing it. And as soon as it's captured, that Camera crew is sending the footage to the studio where it's getting cut into a million different pieces of content, and then it's being dispersed around the world, okay. Through all the social media platforms. I don't know about you, but I'm not independently wealthy. I'm not making millions of my business yet, so I can't do all that. I have actual clients to serve. And so don't hold yourself to the standard of the big fish when you're still a guppy. There's nothing wrong with being a guppy. You're meant to grow and you can get there if that's what you want. And Jason, just so you know, you're headed there. Okay, finally, finally, the last one. You're holding the bar too high on being interesting. That's it. You're holding the bar too high on being interesting. We think that to go out and become known, we have to have a crazy, wild, exciting, super interesting story. We think that for people to resonate with us and, like, admire us and be inspired by us, that we have to overcome, like, the biggest hurdles in the world. Okay, not so. Okay. A post that, like, it's. It's just sharing, letting people get to know you on the most banal things. So when I first started really committing to posting on LinkedIn every single day, one of my first posts was about being in lockdown, you know, with my family and really getting to know my parents and my sister again and how, like, my sister's such a weirdo. You know, how people make their coffee? Like, most people put, like, milk or cream and some sugar or whatever, maybe some stevia. My sister very specifically puts three ice cubes in her coffee. Every single cup gets three ice cubes because she doesn't want any of the other stuff, but it's too hot and she wants people to drink it right away. Now, that fact is the most random, not important fact. It has nothing to do with my business, doesn't have anything to do with my beliefs, except for that, you know, you should be putting milk and coffee. And yet, for months afterwards, when I would talk to people in networking events, if someone messaged me, they'd be sending me pictures. Like, I tried the ice cube thing. It didn't work. It was gross. It stuck with them. It made me memorable. Okay, it was a stupid factoid about my family, about my sister, who, you know, she knows I make fun of her for this all the time. When she literally moved into a new house. This is funny. She. My parents got her a five pound bag of Coffee from the place we order from in California. And she came back the same day after, after moving into the new house because the ice machine in the, in the freezer hadn't been able to generate ice yet because they just plugged it in. So she came back to my parents house and grabbed a big Ziploc bag full of ice cubes. Anyway, back to the point. You, you're a really bad judge on what people will find interesting about you. Okay? And this is true for everyone. I don't care who you are. And like, people have a hard time. Like, okay, so say you did something really exciting. Say you became like president of a small country. Right? I can't relate to that. I cannot relate to that. Say you're a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Amazing. Congratulations. Good for you. I have no idea what that's like, but tell me like David Fryman did about the time that you put your coffee on the roof of your car and you drove off and you heard the plop and you're like, ah, that was my coffee. I was really looking forward to it. And you get out and you look and you see that it landed right side up and it barely spilled. Tell me that. And I'm like, oh my God, I. I would live for that moment. I can totally relate to that. Share with me about your Christmas family traditions. You know, what kind of cookies do you make? And I'm going to remember that. I'm going to feel like I know you. It doesn't have to be a big splashy thing. It just has to be an insight into who you are. Just enough so I can feel like I know you. So that I can feel like I trust you and that I maybe like you. And then at the point where you go and tell me another post, what you do, I'm going to give a fuck, right? Give me a reason to give a damn. Social media, I mean, it gets so much hate because, you know, everyone's out there posting the most perfect things and, and sharing, you know, airbrushed photos. But actually it's this beautiful gift we have. This, this. I can't even speak. Amazing way to build relationships across continents, around the world, in different time zones, hemispheres, everything. And relationships beget business. Okay? You don't have to go on there and just go for business. You can go on there and develop relationships that will feed your business. And it's not done by being super interesting. It's honestly done by being pretty boring anyway. And Jason, haha, I'm not sure what you were laughing at, but I'll take it anyway. So we're about 20 minutes in. Luna is going to be harassing me soon to go to the D, O G P A R K. I have to spell it now because she can. She knows the words and she freaks out and I don't want to have to put you guys through that. So I'm gonna sign out for now. Tomorrow I'm gonna be doing that super long live on the LinkedIn. I'm not the LinkedIn on the Instagram because I took a nap yesterday instead of doing it. So hopefully you'll tune in then. Jason. Oh, thank you as always for these amazing insights. Oh, always. I love sharing this and I'm so glad it was helpful and thank you all for joining. I hope you have a great weekend and I will talk to you all soon. Haha. Was he saying Jason, you'll be there soon? Yes, yes, you will be there soon with a multimillion dollar business and the marketing team. Exactly. That's exactly what I was saying. It's on the way. Anyway, have a good night. Happy weekend. Talk to you all soon. Bye.