Episode Summary
Jenna shares a smart and simple way to attract the clients you want to work with.
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Show Notes
If you are in a situation where you’re not attracting the number or quality of clients that you want, you might think that the solution is to do more. You might ask yourself, “What action can I take?” However, this approach often becomes a drain on your time and leads to overwork and overwhelm.
This week's episode is intended to help you attract more clients, especially those you dream of working with. I discuss the simplest and wildly effective ways to find and attract your ideal clients, and I talk tactics, mindsets, and energetics.
Tune in to learn how to work smarter rather than harder, so you can lean back more and hustle less. Discover the common painful pitfall that even multiple six and seven-figure entrepreneurs fall into, so you can avoid it. I also share the type of energy that kills consistency and how to recognize if you're experiencing it.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
How to get clear on the people you want to work with.
What potentially blocks you from attracting your ideal clients.
Why you need to know what’s important to your target audience.
How to avoid overwhelm and overwork by working smarter.
What the common pitfall entrepreneurs fall into is.
What effectively attracts your clients.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
If you’ve felt frustrated bringing in clients or finding and attracting ideal clients, you are not alone. But because it brings up that frustration, we start trying to solve for it in ways that lead us further from what does actually work, which, it turns out, is really simple and wildly effective.
You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the podcast that helps women entrepreneurs get clear on signature offers and strategies that sell themselves so you can lean back and stop the hustle. You will learn to maximize your mindset, messaging, and strategy, and step into the uncommonly successful business and life you are creating. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.
Hey, hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Uncommon Way, I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode is meant to help you bring in more clients, and specifically those that are a dream to work with. I will help you reorient yourself to the most important thing to focus on, so you know what really matters, and then you can keep calling them in over and over again.
You know how when you're hiking the trails have different colors, and sometimes you're walking along and you realize you’ve veered onto a completely different path? That's kind of what's going on here for a lot of you. I want to help you get back onto the yellow path, let's say.
And in the process of doing that, you are going to find out how to work smarter, not harder, so you can lean back more and hustle less. You’ll learn the painful pitfall, that even multiple six- and seven-figure entrepreneurs fall into, that you will now hopefully avoid.
I'll tell you exactly what to do if you're hearing people say the opposite of what you want to hear. And I'll share the type of energy that is a consistency killer and how to know if you're in it.
I have some exciting news. First, I found this really cool software that allows me to talk to podcast listeners, we'll have it loaded up soon. But I just wanted to give you the heads up that soon you're going to be able to send me audios or type in questions, however you want, about specific things that are happening in your business. And I will be able to give you and all the other listeners free coaching.
As per usual, I will be giving you a tactical tip, a mindset tip, and a tip that has to do with energetics. So, start thinking about that and getting your questions ready because that should be coming within the next month.
And now, some personal news. You know how entrepreneurs will say things like, “And then I retired my partner, it was so emotional,” and they'll start weeping? It's kind of cheesy, right? Well, I had something similar happen in my life recently.
I have decided to share it with you because even though I find those things cheesy, I know that deep down the more and more evidence that I can build for myself about what's possible, and about the benefits of walking this often difficult path of entrepreneurship that I'm walking, the more evidence that I create for myself, the better.
And so, I'm going to contribute to that body of evidence by sharing this story. If you've been with me for a while, you might remember that my husband, Ben, is retiring from active-duty military service this summer. They retire very young in the military, but he is actually retiring a couple years earlier than he otherwise would if I didn't have the successful business. I don't know if I've shared that yet, but that's true.
We have decided, when he retires and we have location independence, that we are moving to Spain. So again, I don't know if I’ve shared that that was definitive, we did actually make the decision.
We found an amazing school for Dylan, and that was really the piece that had to fall into place. He will be learning four languages. The school is right near the beach, and they can walk down to the beach and do different marine biology lessons. There's a sailing club where they get to learn sailing, and they have a pool. It's just a really beautiful experience that I'm so excited about for him.
But we're flying over next week to start looking for houses, and we know we want to rent for the first year or two to really get to know the island and find out exactly where we want to live. We would like it to be furnished because we don't want to move all of our things over right away. And let me tell ya, rental prices on Majorca are not cheap.
I've noticed it causing Ben a little bit of anxiety. Because you’ve got to remember you all, he has had a steady paycheck his entire life. He's never even switched jobs; not even momentary periods without a paycheck. The military does give you a housing stipend. So, the fact that he's retiring, he'll have lower income because of it, and is faced with these rental prices, that's naturally kind of daunting.
What I finally realized I could do was, I said, “Honey, you know what? I'm withdrawing the money from the business. I'll put it aside, in an account, in order to pay for an entire year of rent for us, so that we don't have to compromise on where we are going to live, or what type of house we're going to live in. And so, that it's nothing that we have to even worry about. Done. Paid. Off our plates.”
That sense of deep security, I'm sure all of you can relate to how it just can't be under emphasized. But on top of that, I still remember the day when I overheard my husband and his dad talking on speakerphone. Ben was saying, “Yeah, Jenna's working on a new website. She's revamping her website.” His dad said, “Oh, yeah? How much is that going to cost you now?”
I remember that piercing feeling, that I'm sure any of you high-performing, independent women can relate to. Maybe you, like me, grew up saying you would never be dependent on a man, and you would always make sure that you were your own breadwinner. And to be in that situation, carrying a lot of debt from what I put into my business, and also not contributing to the family income…
Even though we were, of course, in a place of privilege where we were living very humbly, but we didn't need me to be contributing a salary in order to survive. So, to go from that situation that was eating me up to fast forward a few years where I'm able to say, “Honey, don't worry, I got this. The rent is paid for the year.” I mean, it just feels amazing. The moral of the story here is that there is no better investment, I'm convinced, than a woman with a burning drive inside of her.
Alright, my friends, let's get down to business, shall we? As we always do, we'll be talking tactics, mindset, and energetics. Because that combination is fire when it comes to your business. Now, typically, when we're faced with a situation where we're not bringing in the number of clients that we want, or the quality of clients that we want, our reaction is to do more, right?
And even if it's not “more” in terms of putting out more Instagram posts, or doing more webinars, or whatever it is, it's context switching. So, having to learn something new and test it and gain mastery, and possibly invest in order to learn it, that's still “more” y’all.
That's where our brain moves to, ‘what kind of action can I take?’ But that is a net drag on your time. It leads to so much overwork and overwhelm, and unfortunately, some women even dropping out of business. Again, it's a natural consequence, right? Nothing's gone wrong, there's no shame about this. It's a natural consequence of that uncomfortable feeling of frustration or hopelessness that then triggers our fears.
Our mind starts getting involved. “What if this isn't going to work? What if it's always going to be like this? What am I doing wrong? There must be something wrong with me? Maybe I'm not cut out for this. I've gone as far as I can go. I obviously can't break this plateau and reach the next one.” And that activates our nervous system so that we spin into action, which is the modern-day manifestation of our fight response.
But I am here to tell you, it's not the most efficient, or expeditious way to your goal of a booked-out business filled with amazing clients. Because the truth is, you can find clients anywhere. Deep down, you know this. Your next client could be your neighbor's cousin. They could be the stranger you meet in line at the coffee shop. Or the person whose post you comment on in a Facebook group.
And yes, the person who finds you on Instagram or through an ads funnel, those are both amazing tools and strategies that my clients utilize. But you are not dependent on any one of them. And it doesn't mean that another one will necessarily be better for you.
By the way, doing more of something that isn't working for you, doesn't mean it's going to start working either. You know, I wrote blogs for three months and it didn't bring in any clients. Then I kept writing them for nine months, and guess what? Still no clients.
There's this great interview with Trevor Noah, he's interviewing Oprah. And he's saying something like, what is the common denominator that indicates that people are going to reach their goals? And Oprah says the common denominator is knowing what they want.
Most people don't know what they want. They're too busy in their heads thinking about what they should do, or what so and so wants them to do, or they're filled with stories of what they always thought they should do. But they aren't bothering to ask, “What do I want?” And create that clarity, and then make sure that every single decision aligns with that.
Actually, on Monday, I’m going to be posting this clip on Instagram. So you can check it out there. It is very powerful when she speaks. And let me paraphrase that in a way that applies to this topic today. Clarity creates attraction. I'll say it again, clarity creates attraction.
In this podcast, I'm going to be breaking down for you how that's true on a tactical level, a mindset level and energetic level. But basically, it's like a gravitational pull, or a candle in the darkness, however you want to look at it. It is literally the most powerful thing, I would argue, in the universe: human consciousness. And specifically, clarity of consciousness toward a particular objective.
I just finished delivering a new training for the Clarity Accelerator, and it's on the topic of reinventing ourselves. We're talking burn the bridges, caterpillar-to-butterfly reinvention, not just incremental change. One of the things I said was, what could possibly be a more significant thing to do with our lives than create possibilities, and then live into them? And for that, preach it Oprah, we need clarity.
You need to know exactly who these clients are and who they are not. I can't tell you how many times I speak with people who tell me they're clear on who their clients are, but they're talking about some broad demographic niche. They don't understand that within that there are so many different psychographic properties. Psychographic, meaning psychological.
There are so many different hopes and dreams and motivators, and comfort with risk, and comfort with spending, and motivations. All of this needs to be taken into account. You need to know what's important to your people. Because only when you're that clear can you call them in and say no to the ones who aren't the right fit.
So, on a tactical level, it might seem very straightforward to you. Your messaging is clear. Your messaging is calling in those people and none other, because your people need it. Very, very few people are tuned in enough to their intuition that they'll move forward if the logical part of their brain isn't satisfied, it doesn't feel reassured. So this is how you speak to that logical side.
People who are looking for clarity arrive at my website and see me saying “I can help you create this laser sharp clarity.” And the logical part of their brain goes, “Great. That's what I was looking for. And, she offers it.” But there's much more depth in my messaging too, that helps them resonate with it and know that this is the place for them. And that is what inspires them to book a call so quickly with me.
Now, that's very different than the person who says, “Maybe I want to work with these people. But I also want to work with those people. And I don't want to rule out these other people because they could be good client,” and then their language really speaks to no one. Again, if you are not clear, they're not clear.
This holds true for your offer, as well. If you're like, “Well, we could kind of do this, or we could kind of do that,” your people aren't going to know if this offer is for them. Again, that creates frustration when you aren’t easily attracting in clients. And that stress response pushes us into hustling into action.
Again, I've seen this with new entrepreneurs and seven-figure entrepreneurs; hustling into action, rather than what we really need to do, which is get quiet, focus in, make some powerful decisions, hopefully guided in large part by your intuition, with a full complement of smart business sense.
Because guess what? At the end of the day, all the marketing in the world can't make up for a lack of clarity. I can see it immediately when I read someone's messaging, I can see how clear they are. And your clients may not be business coaches that are lasering in on that, but they feel it. They feel it, they're not finding the resonance, and that uncertainty for them translates into going another way. Or hanging out, just to be sure. Just to try and get sure.
Again, go to my website if you want to see this in action. Specifically, the Work With Me page, the Services page, of the Clarity Accelerator, because that is what ranks so well on Google. And it ranks well because people stick around and read it.
It's telling you exactly who you are, in what situation you're in, what your hopes and dreams are, what I will help you accomplish, and how I'm going to help you accomplish that. It's all right there on the page. There's both that conscious and subconscious resonance that helps people say, “This feels right, I think I want to talk more.”
On the mindset level, because you know who your people are, because you've done the work to clear out the limiting beliefs that say maybe you couldn't work with those people, or maybe there aren't enough of those people, or maybe those people would never work with you. Because you've created that strong, clear mindset you aren't blocking your ideal clients through being really grasping and weird in your messaging or on your discovery calls.
You don't have hidden agendas, that on the one hand have you beckoning someone in, but with the other hand giving them the big ole stop sign, and telling them don't come any closer.
Such as, “Deep down, I feel out of integrity offering this to you. So, I want to get more clients, but please don't actually become a client because I don't want to compromise my integrity. I'm not really sure I'd be able to help you in the way I'm saying I could help you. I'm thinking I want these independent clients, but really, deep down, I believe I need to save people. And so, I'm unconsciously calling in people that need to be saved and will be challenging to work with.”
So you're not wasting your time with the wrong people, or on the wrong strategies… I know I've shared this before, but I had a friend in a mastermind with me. And when she hopped on sales calls, people tended to say they didn't have the money, and she found that so frustrating. She thought her problem was that she needed to learn to better overcome objections.
So, she was doing all this work on how to overcome objections and analyzing every single second and detail of that call, once it happened, to find out where she broke into being less effective with her objections. She was spending so much time on this, when it was clear to me that those people were not her aligned people.
She was an executive coach and was specifically speaking to women much further down on the executive ladder. They weren't executives, in fact. She was an executive coach but that her mindset was leading her to target non-executives, and then wondering why there was this disconnect. But the people she was talking to, they didn't have skin in the game. They didn't believe they could become executives. And so, they didn't have that burning level of commitment yet.
Okay, let's talk about energetics, because this is where it gets really, really juicy. In fact, I'm going to recommend that you listen to this section twice. Remember, I said earlier that clarity creates attraction. Of course, you become attractive on a tactical level. You become attractive on a mindset level… I forgot to mention this… because you show up more confidently and with more conviction knowing who you're for and who you're not for. You don't have that graspiness and that need to please everybody and be everything for everybody. You can be you for your people. And that is very attractive.
But there's also attraction as in the law of attraction. Because, are you ready for this? It's not actually the words of your copy, the words of your messaging, that calls in your clients. Yes, it can all help their logical brain feel safer once they get to you. But what calls it in is your clarity.
The words are a reflection of your clarity, nothing more. They are your sign to the universe that ‘hey, this is what I want. Bring me more of this, please.’ And the universe wants to know what to bring you. But if you're not clear, it's not clear.
When you, in your head, are bouncing around from this possibility to that possibility, from this strategy to that strategy, it is chaotic energy, and you get chaos coming back to you. You get all sorts of rando clients saying all sorts of things. You can tell I'm a heart-centered person when I call people randos, right?
No, but seriously, this chaotic energy is a consistency killer. You will know if you're in it if you're seeing chaos in your business. And if you're not seeing chaos, but you are seeing a steady stream of something you don't want, then guess what you have to do? You have to say no. I get it.
I get it, it's hard when you don't have the booked-out business, when your brain is still telling you you're not there yet. I get that it's hard to say no to something that's not for you.
There are degrees and levels in there with this. I’ve talked to a lot of my earlier entrepreneurs, where they're wondering,” Am I getting a little too picky?” And so, I would take this on a case-by-case basis with my clients, to understand where their growth edge is and to understand where their mindset is about these clients.
If they're in a completely clean place, and they just are practicing working with different types of people, great. But if they're taking on these people out of scarcity, or out of disbelief that they could really help the people they want to help, then you bet we're going to have a conversation about that.
Because one of the most powerful things that you can do is say no. That just helps the Universe see, okay, it's finally sunk in for her. She's finally clear that she is no longer going to serve these kinds of people. We don't have to keep bringing them to her to help her understand that.
It's just like women that have the loser boyfriends, and then they keep dating the loser guys until finally they say no. Even though they don't have anyone to warm their bed at night. And even though, “Meh, what could it hurt? A little longer.”
When they start saying no, and definitively draw that line in the sand, then the Universe can start sending them a different type of person. And they're now at a frequency that can easily attract that kind of person. Again, our outside world is usually a reflection of our inner world, in many, but not all, cases.
I just caution you to bring your brain to where that is true. Because of course, the natural tendency is to be like, “Well, it's not true in this case. That is not true in that case. And it's not true in this other case.” Quiet that comment, give it a steno pad and a note and a pen, so that can jot down all the places where this isn't true.
Instead, redirect your energy to how this is true. When has it been true in your life, that you have drawn a line in the sand in some way, and then had fewer of those types of events or people reoccur for you? It's so fun, because Oprah actually says this too, in the clip that I'm going to post. She's like, “The reason people's lives are so chaotic is because they're chaotic up here,” and she taps her forehead.
So again, you can see that on Instagram @theuncommonway on Monday. But luckily, when you see these patterns within yourself, when you know what's coming up, you can pivot quickly.
Just to give you a couple of examples of what I've been talking about in this energetic section, is the completely unexplainable, in any other way unexplainable, fact that the types of clients that come to me through Google change over time based on my mindset, and based on my clarity and my desire of who I want to bring in.
Sometimes there can be slight lags when things are readjusting, but I have seen this again and again, and I really haven't changed the copy. In fact, I didn't change a word of copy, for a year or more, when I was specifically working on energetics with myself.
So, I would only change my mind. And again, this is why, a big reason why, I wasn't spending time and I didn't have any movement on social media. We repurpose podcasts and things on social media, but I was not on there at all. That ad account was a dead. If you scroll back far enough, you'll see a family photo of me with Ben, and Dylan when he was young, and the dog.
It's sort of like, “Alright, y'all, we’re in COVID now and I'm suspending this account for a bit. I'm doing these other things.” And then two years… I don't remember how long went by until I came back on there. My business continued to grow in that time.
Now, the types of clients that I was bringing on through Google in the beginning were people that felt really scared about even paying, I think it was like $2,500 for a coach, for private coaching. Remember, I had been a coach for years by this point.
If you don't know the story, what happened is that when COVID hit, I decided I no longer had any interest in being the business coach who was like, “You can still make sales even when the economy's tanking. Come on, sell, sell, sell.”
Really, what I cared about was this huge shift that people were going to be going through when they were really confronted with ‘all right now in the face of this huge upheaval of COVID, what really matters to me? What do I really want to do?’
I knew people would be feeling that call to clarity, and I wanted to answer that call. Again, the reason that I went back to business coaching is because I realized that I had to, in order to walk my talk about decision making from the point of view of ‘who are the best people in the world to create this kind of vision that I want to create?’
I realized that would be entrepreneurs. Because if I'm helping people create this very uncommon life, and uncommon way of living based on their unique choices, that's vastly more difficult if you're in a corporate environment where other people are calling the shots, and you only have a couple of weeks’ vacation a year.
It actually made more sense for me to work with entrepreneurs who were already taking steps in that direction, that already had a longing for that anyway. And then, I could help them develop the resources and the mindset in order to really go do it.
But in the beginning, I didn't fully believe that anyone would pay me for business coaching unless I was writing all of the copy for them; for their websites, for their Instagram posts, for everything. Because that's what I'd been doing in the past. And so, because of that, I was drawing in tentative people who reflected my uncertainty.
Now, fast forward a year or two, and this was in the past, but I remember when my first seven-figure entrepreneur came through that very same page asking for my help. That was a $25,000 client. Not that premium pricing is in any way better than other pricing; and $2,500 is still a premium price. There's a majority of people in the world would never be able to afford it. But it was right for me.
I'm talking about it here to highlight the difference in people that came through the same words. So again, the words reflect your clarity, and they help you create that logical resonance for people, that safety on the logical side. But it is not what calls the people in to you. What calls the people in to you is your gravitational center. I'm not the only one that can do this, I promise.
I have a client, and I asked her, “If you were on your deathbed, and you were looking back, what’s something that you would wish you’d dedicated yourself to more?” She said environmental causes. And within a week, a client came in whose business was working to improve the environment.
And so, I encourage you to at least just play with this. Make a bold declaration, follow it up with some proof of action, where you're either writing something different, or you are willing to say no to something in the past. Show the Universe that you're serious, and tell me what comes back. I want to know.
All right, before we end, I'm going to share one bit of inspiration, as I do, from a powerful woman who decided to make a change in her life. Here's exactly what was going on in her head, and it speaks to so much of what I've been saying here. Here's what she said when she joined the Clarity Accelerator.
“I knew going into this that I needed someone to help guide me and provide clarity that I just can't get on my own. I've tried so hard to build a successful business by myself, and I keep failing because I'm running my head against a wall of my own ego, fears, and limiting beliefs. I realized that if I wasn't willing to do this, then I would need to suck it up and find a regular job. Yuck. Happening upon you, who so clearly spoke my language on your website, in podcasts, and then in person, was just an absolute yes.”
Okay, my friends, that is what I want for you too. No matter where you are in business, we can all use more of those kinds of people coming into our sphere. I wish you so, so much success, and deep fulfillment and enjoyment as you call in your soul aligned clients whom you are meant to meet and help, just as they are meant to meet and help you.
Alright, my friends, have a wonderful week. Remember, you know who you are, and each day you're stepping further into what you're here to create.
Hey, if you want true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you, so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this.
Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.
Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.
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