How to Sign Your First or Next Client

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers, to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and burned out than I already was while managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business. I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness. Welcome back to the Business with Chronic Illness podcast. I'm super excited to talk to you about how to sign your first or your next client living with chronic illness, especially for those of you who are thinking about starting a coaching business. Now, I wanted to do this episode specifically around coaching because I'm a coach and I have been coaching for over 5 years. It's almost been 7, I think. I can't ever get it right, but I think it's about, probably been about 7 years. And when I was thinking about this, because I've gotten questions about this from clients, from sales calls, from feedback on Instagram, this is a question that comes up a lot. It's a question that comes up a lot and I wanted to answer it. And a lot of you often ask me like, well, how did you do it? And I like to share my story just briefly on how I booked my first coaching client and how easy it was, but how complicated I made it so that you don't have to make this mistake either. So first and foremost, signing your first client is probably the hardest part if you've never done it before. Like, especially if you don't have a business, you've never done kind of like a businessy thing like this at all, and you're learning new quote unquote skills, and you're probably consuming a lot of information on how you book your first client. So there's a lot of mindset drama, there's a lot of overwhelmed. There's a lot of like not knowing what you don't know, right? And so you're just kind of throwing things at the window hoping that a client comes in, right? And so for all of you who are in that space, I totally feel you and I want you to know you're not alone. You're totally not alone. And the reason why I titled this episode How to Sign Your First or Next Client is because some of us are in business and have been in business for a while, at least 3 years or more, and you might be in a client drought. You might be in a place where you haven't signed a client in the last 2, 6, or 12 weeks, and you're like, what is going on? What is happening? And I wanted to talk about the common things that first come up in the space of why booking your next or your first client is difficult from a mindset point of view. I wanna share my story, like I mentioned, about how you can do it no matter what you're going going through and also the things to keep in mind to make it easy for you to actually accomplish booking your next or your first client. Okay, so first and foremost, as always, you guys know this, because strategy is nothing without mindset. And I mean that in the context, like, you can't create what you want if you're in the mindset of not knowing, or in the mindset of you are not enough, you're not doing enough, you are judging yourself, you are second-guessing yourself, getting to the result of signing your first or next client is so much harder when you're in that space. So I of course wanna talk about that first, and I wanna talk to you first about this because as I mentioned, I don't think there's enough content out there that talks about how signing your first client can feel like a marathon race. Like it can feel like you are, it's not even a marathon, it's kind of like one of those obstacle marathons where you're like, feel like you're going through the water, the mud, the the tires, the swim course. Like, you're like doing all of these obstacles in order to bring in that first client. And you are probably seeing a lot of marketing out there that's saying it's so easy and I can— like, it's the, it's the easiest thing you can do. And if you haven't done it in such and such amount of time, then you're doing it wrong. And all of that kind of content that makes it even harder, right? And so I just wanted to like give you space and grace around the thought, like, We all know, like if you talk to any business owners, like a lot of us, the first client ha— was the hardest. It was the hardest, right? If you had never done it before. So it makes sense that if this is the first time you're trying to sign a client, that it feels like you're going through all of the hurdles and you're kind of swimming in waters you've never been in. That's normal and you're normal and it's okay. And hopefully in this episode you will feel less alone and feel like, oh, I just need to tweak these things, or I just need to focus on these things and it'll be okay. For those of you who have been in business for 3 years or more and you're in a client drought, I find that for us is that we've abandoned some of the fundamental things that we learned in the very beginning that we trialed and error and figured out. We've literally abandoned those things and we've forgotten the mistakes of those things that we did, and we've forgotten the things that actually worked. And now we're in a season of like feeling like we don't know what we're doing, but really we just need to go back and remember what I'm gonna teach you all, even for those of us who have first time trying to sign a client. So when it comes to your mindset signing a client, you have to think about it as they are coming. You have to believe that. They're around the corner. You have to believe that clients can come from anywhere, anywhere, anywhere. And you have to open your eyes in capacity of not thinking about that they have to come from the one place you might be showing up the most. So for example, I find that clients who are constantly on social media and they're there all of the time and they're not, they haven't signed their first client, they're thinking something's wrong with them, right? They're thinking it's not right. Their focus is so pure on social media that nobody outside of their social media world even knows they have a business or even know what they do exists, right? So if you've been in business for a while, this can show up as in you've gotten into your groove and you found your stride of what you feel like you're really good at. And you haven't gone back to seeing where else clients have come from besides the one area you feel like you excel in. So if you're trying to sign your first client or your next one, you need to allow yourself to talk about what you do in different places. Can't just be on one social media platform. Can't just be when you're sitting down talking about your business to your business bestie, like Share it with your— when you're out and about, share it with the people in your networking groups, in your communities, in your hobbies. Let people know who you— what you do, how you help people. And I think that first mindset to really help you is to identify that clients can come from anywhere. And when you believe that, and when you step into that thought, you're not so focused on it coming from one place all of the time. And especially if you're first starting, your clients are 9 times outta 10 gonna come from people you know, or people that know the people you know, and they're sending people to you, right? And especially in a coaching business, one of the first things I have, so here's a tip I share with my clients when they're ready to launch their coaching business, is to actually ask people to jump on two different type of calls. So one is a market research call for what it is that you're offering to sell or you're offering to solve for people. And the other one is to just let people know what you do or what you're planning on doing and get their thoughts about it. That's it. Like, say you're like, I wanna help people lose 50 pounds in 6 months. And you're like, I don't know who's gonna, gonna believe me or who's gonna work with me. Here's how I kind of wanna do it. I ask my clients to talk to at least 3 people and to share with people like, Hey, I'm planning on helping people do this one thing and I'm planning on doing it like this, this, and this. How does that sound? Like, how does that sound? The reason why I give some of my clients this exercise is because it helps them one, start shifting their identity of like being inexperienced and not having a clue what they're talking about to being the expert. Secondly, it helps you to start building your network of support. So only ask the 3 people in your world that you know you know, will be honest and give you positive reinforcement and also some positive criticism in the context of constructive criticism, right? So that's one way you can start talking about your offers and things like that. Market research is beautiful because you're trying to get the words that your ideal client is looking for. And a lot of times when I tell my clients to do market research, this helps them actually sign their first client. And oftentimes that is coming from people they know, referrals from people that they know, and it's not coming from this place that they think they are spending a lot of their time, which is most of my clients are thinking they're gonna get their first clients from social media. It's not that you won't. I did. I got my first client from social media, but it's funny, it actually only happened because a friend of mine referred her to me who then started following me on social media, then signed up for a training I was doing, and that's how she became my client. So even with that, believe that your clients can come from anywhere. That's a mindset that's gonna serve you forever. Forever. All right, so this is the another piece of the thing that I think a lot of people forget or are afraid of doing, and it's, it's probably gonna like tick somebody off or y'all gonna be like, Nikita, we're trying to make money. I don't know. I don't know. Every time I talk about this, I get a little Whew, I get a little nervous. It's something I fundamentally believe and it has nothing to do with not knowing my worth or not knowing my client's worth. Matter of fact, I believe it actually helps you build even more confidence in your worth and what you are going to be creating for clients. So bear with me. Being okay with seeing that offering value for free is actually adding to your bank account for future withdrawals. So what I mean by this is offering to do a free coaching session with someone, offering to do a free speaking engagement, offering to do a collaboration where you're sharing your knowledge for free only is adding money to the bank account that you will later be asking a check from. I have seen in my own business and in my clients' businesses that if you are allergic, quote unquote, to free giving of your services and letting people know what you do, sometimes that can create this, this value-based kind of experience where you start attaching your doing to value. And I don't think that is serving us. I think that attaching your value to results of what people get and the result that you have within yourself to be able to help people is the ultimate value, right? Like you recognizing your own worth, your own result within yourself, the fact that you're human, the fact that you're alive and you're breathing, that worth, there is no dollar amount to that. Literally. And the things you help people with can, are, and will be valuable. But if you hold onto it until someone decides to pay you, sometimes you won't get someone to pay you for it. Like, it's really starting to lean into the thought of there are times to give of service. There is a principle that is a very generous one that helps us to appreciate that when you give free, you receive free, right? You receive well. So when you give to others, you're just adding to the value that you will be able to receive in the future. I don't think you need to be doing free calls forever, but I do ask my clients, many of them, especially if they have never sold anything before, to do a free coaching call to, one, learn more about their ideal client, and two, build confidence that what they already know, what they've already planned on doing is going to serve their audience even more so because they're gonna get testimonials back, they're gonna get information for market research. And it's interesting because I think we just have a lot— there's been talk in the past about how free is downgrading and all of these different things. Look, if free gives me a $2,000 or $3,000 client in 3 months, I'm good. I'm happy with that, especially when you're first starting out. This for all my newbies. So for my clients who are folks that have a business and have been in business for 3 years or more, and you're looking to sign your next client and it's been like kind of dry spell, the mindset that's helpful for you in this season is to not view reaching back out and offering some value bonus for someone coming back to you does not diminish your value. Okay. It does not diminish your value. If you reach out to a past client and you wanna offer them, you know, a sign-on bonus or a discount for being a loyal person, you don't have to make that mean or think that that diminishes the value of your package to someone who's gonna be paying, who's brand new. This is just a way of showing loyalty or showing support, you can offer that too. If you wanna offer a special pricing for the next 3 or 6 weeks to people who book a sales call, who are thinking about working with you, that they get an additional add-on or additional value for the fact that they are doing this now, adding some more urgency and relevancy to them. Don't get caught up in your brain of thinking, well, I'm too good that for that. I have, I'm past that stage. I don't need to do that anymore. I will put to put this little caveat in here. You don't have to do it free, but I have found that doing things for free for a limited amount of time, especially when it's your first clients, really helps you more than you can ever pay for. Like, I have found doing coaching, or like free coaching calls, have been more valuable than paying a marketing strategist to do the, um, research for me, literally. So choose your free, right? Choose your time and your energy, which one will give you the most value and return of energy back. And to me, I have found that every time I offer to do something free, I always have a return of investment energetically and financially. All right, so when I was talking with you guys earlier, I said I would share with you some ways that when I signed my first client, things that I did that I'm really proud of, but things that I would do differently. So when I first started my coaching business, I was actually working as a digital marketer. So I was like transitioning out of digital marketing. I was doing ads and landing pages and website design and social media management. I was doing all of that jazz. Hated it. Hated it. Like there was parts of it that I loved, but it just really wasn't within my, it just wasn't in my wheelhouse for a couple of reasons. One, I felt so much pressure to be like on all the time for my clients. And to like deliver the moment they needed something. And that was not helpful for me, especially during the time when I was going through all of my more critical health challenges at the time, right? It just wasn't helpful. So anyway, I digress. So when I was signing, when I was get looking to sign my first client, I was doing a lot of things that I would probably do differently. So at the moment, at the time I was doing a group coaching program, it was kind of like a group membership coaching membership program where people can sign up and they to pay for 90 days and then after the 90 days and then they could kind of do month to month or something like that. I was looking back at my notes, I'm like, that was an interesting offer. But for me to sell that offer, I ended up doing like a PowerPoint free presentation. So basically I was inviting lots of people to come to a webinar that I was hosting on the topic of, and I believe it was like 5 steps to reduce overwhelm and stress in your business, something like that. And it was a really great masterclass. It was super simple for me to deliver. It made sense. And I had several people sign up for that, but only one person ended up showing up to the masterclass live. And that one person ended up signing up with me. Now, if you're starting a coaching business, I do not, I repeat, I do not recommend that you try to create a workshop on our masterclass for 45 minutes and then try to market it and try to get people out there to come to you. I do not recommend that. That is like long, painful, especially if you don't have an audience, especially if this is the whole thing is new to you. It's not the best way. However, what you can do is take the idea of what I had and to help you attract clients. So whether you are, um, doing, um, social media marketing, networking, whether you are doing a blog or a podcast, you can take a, a, an issue, a problem, right? And create content that serves that person. So for example, this was like I said, 5 habits or 5 ways to reduce overwhelm in your business basically is what I, what I was doing. And I did a whole presentation on that. For you, I'm thinking about a good friend of mine who is starting a YouTube channel on motherhood. Motherhood, birthing, natural home birth, and sourdough bread. Like, that's her thing right now. And if she were to say, hey, I want to consult and support other moms, I would recommend to her, like, great, let's create some content, little bite-sized content on some of these things that you've learned. So if you had to break it down in 5 steps in order for a mom per se to prepare for a home birth, What would those 5 steps be? Like, just go ahead and jot it down, right? So think about that for you and your business and your niche. Like, if there is one thing you would want to help your clients do that is a problem that they're having, what are 5 steps, 3 to 5 steps that they need to know in order to create the result that they're looking for? So for this mom, she would, might, you know, come up with a list of 5 things. And in that list she would identify some missteps that she made and ones that she would offer those who are listening ways to overcome them. So then I would tell her, yeah, let's make a YouTube video for each one of these things. Like just do a 10-minute video on step 1 of this, another video of step 2, another video of step 3, another one of step 4 or 5, et cetera. Then when you get feedback, when you start hearing people like, what about this? This, but this, or have questions about that, or all of these things, you start creating content from that place as well. You just take each little thing and at the end of every piece of content, you have people, you, you ask them to do two things. If they would like to have more support in whatever it is that they're trying to accomplish, they can book a call with you. So have an easy link for them to reach out to you and book a call with you on a calendar. And have that be automated. It's so important. I have found for clients who are trying to book their first client that they don't have a system in place for people to easily book a call with you. We are in 2024, y'all. There are so many tools out there that makes it super easy for people for free to book a call with you through a link, right? So make it easy that, make it easy that they can book a call with you. Make it clear on how they can book a call with you. In your content. Now, if you're like, I'm not doing any social media stuff, I'm doing in-person, great. When you're talking with people, identify a problem that they have, give them a tip or a solution, and then follow up with another question on details of how that might support them. And then at some point in the conversation when it feels natural, let them know that this is the thing that I help my clients work with in their life or in their business, and I'd love to jump on a call with you. Have an easy way to exchange information and be like, let's book a call as soon as you can, right? Maybe do it on the spot. If that feels uncomfortable, just send them, send them an email that says, hey, I remember I talked with you. Here's the information. If you would like to book a call with me, here's the link. Make it easy. Don't make these people working hard for it, right? And for those of you who are like waiting for the next client, cuz you've been in business for 3 years or longer and you're like kind of in a client drought, I want you to look at your content and your places of where you're showing up in marketing your business. Are you making it clear and are you saying it enough of how people can work with you and where they need to go to work with you? Okay. That's kind of how I did it. So I, I'm sharing with you kind of how I did it, but kind of just breaking it down in a different way. But that's how I would do it now, right? If you're first starting or, and if you're first starting, you're looking for the first client, this is how I would do it. I would literally just start creating content from the problem I'm trying to help people solve and always have a really clear call to action on what they need to do next to learn more about working with you. Super simple, super simple. You don't need a webinar, you don't need a masterclass, you don't need all of that. However, if you are in business and have been in business for 3 years or longer, it might be beneficial for you to do some type of masterclass, especially if you have an email list, especially if you have not been like, um, as active and you want to kind of create a challenge or you want to get people excited again. You can do that, but really the fundamental of that is that you just need to solve problems more for people. That's it. Solve problems. Help them today with the issues that they've got going on. All right, the next thing I want you to keep in mind is oftentimes the biggest thing that's getting in the way of you signing your first or next client is thinking, why hasn't it happened yet? When you think, why hasn't it happened yet and why is it taking so long, you literally almost like restart the clock over because your actions reflect that thought. What happens is you start slowing down, you start like kind of being like not talking about what you do. You start questioning your identity as a coach or as a business owner. So you start looking for other options of like how to make a client come to you and all of that jazz. There's a lot of drama that happens when you start thinking it hasn't happened yet. Why is it taking so long? You stop taking the actions that are required for you to actually bring in a client. Next, market where your people are. Market where your people are. If they're not on Instagram anymore, go to LinkedIn. If they're not on LinkedIn, go to TikTok. I don't know if TikTok will still be alive at, at some point, but go to TikTok. Look for collaborations, look for people. Your business needs people, so you need to be talking with people, connecting with people and collaborations, you need to tell your chiropractor, you need to tell your doctor's office, you need to share, you need to walk with the identity of that. I'm a coach and this is what I help people with. I think this is so important because it's something that took me a while to kind of like fully embody and fully embrace. But I used to like, you know, when you have to fill out a doctor's thingy and you have to put like what your profession is, I used to feel a lot of shame and weirdness around like putting that I was self-employed. Avoid, like, oh, but now I like put my business name and I put like business coach. Like I let people know because it is, I, I have a business and I'm really proud of that. And I'm not proud of it in like a haughty way. I'm just really proud of being able to help people and being in the space of like turning my pain into purpose. And the more people that know about it, the more I can help people and the more I can help myself. Right? So that is something to keep in mind too when you're trying to sign your first client and your next client. Is where's your identity work and around you telling people in all the different places of where they are, what they do. So simplifying this, check your mindset, check it. There's a couple things in here that I mentioned about checking your mindset. Give yourself permission to realize that sometimes signing the first client or the next client can be the hardest part just because of the season you're in, or just because of what's going on and all of the information you're trying to test and trying to learn all these things, that's normal. There's nothing wrong with you. Okay, there's nothing wrong with you. The other piece of the mindset thing is if you start thinking, why hasn't it happened yet? And this is taking too much time, you probably have stopped taking the actions that are required for you to bring in a client. So work on that mindset around like, it's been a while. Here's a great reframe. It's been a while. I've been working my business for a while, and I know that the client is coming. What else do I need to do? Like, what other questions do I need to answer? What other, what other places do I need to show up in? Shift that around to action-taking thoughts. Okay. Second, I don't, I don't know what number I'm on. I'm just not on numbers today. I'm sorry. It's like a really brain foggy day, even though I'm straight up looking at my notes, y'all. I love y'all. Y'all know that. Okay. So the next thing is you don't need to do, especially if you're just starting, you don't need to do a whole masterclass and get like a whole launch process and all that done. All you need to do is think about one thing you wanna solve, break it down in 3 to 5 steps, and create content for those steps and ask for feedback, and then have a clear call to action and a link that people can book a call with you. You can do that in content on social media, podcasts, blogging, your email, LinkedIn, wherever, and you can do that in person and in-person events, right? Look for ways you can support people with what you do and then let them know how you can help them further. That's it. Keep it simple. Don't make these people work for finding out how to work with you. Just make it easy. And that applies to my folks who have been in business for a while and looking for the next client. Think about where are you in your process? What things have you stopped doing? Don't be allergic to free. This is for everyone. Like, free is okay. Free is fine if you are doing it with intention and purpose, because you will receive a return of investment, both, both energetically and financially. I've seen it. It's been the truth for me. You can do it for a season, not forever, but for a season, and it can serve you. For my clients and folks out there who have a business and you're not signing your first client, your next client, it's been a while. Remember, you can offer something as an incentive. You can really solve more problems. You can— if you need the, the client to come in, you can look back at past clients, offer something special for those past clients. There are different ways. Do not get stuck in thinking about it has to be a certain way. Put all of your options to making money on the table and be open. Okay, be open, right? And I say that, be open, because oftentimes when we've been in business for a while, we get into our mindset like, oh, it worked this long and it's gonna keep working. And people are people, business is people, and people will change. So you have to be open to getting creative and doing things a little bit differently or talking about things differently and solving problems and doing offers in a different creative way so that people understand or see the value or need to know more. You might need to do a little bit more of just opening yourself up to how to talk about what it is that you do to connect with people. All right, y'all, that is it on how to sign your first and next client. I hope this was not as all over the place as it felt like me talking about it. Hopefully you found some ways to sign your first client or your next client from this episode. All right, y'all, it's been a week. I've been in a flare. I'm tired. You guys can even hear it in my voice. I'm feeling like drainage and stuff. It's like a weird, weird week, but But much love, and as always, remember, you are crafted to thrive, and I will see you on the next episode. That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at www.craftedtothrive.com. Thrive.com for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.