Episode Summary
Have you ever wondered why your “perfect” offer still isn’t converting—or how some entrepreneurs seem to attract dream clients with effortless ease?
Most high achieving entrepreneurs think they have a marketing problem, when in reality, it’s a connection problem. This episode reveals why even the most talented, hard-working business owners struggle to make their offers land—and how to shift one simple thing so your audience feels instantly seen, understood, and ready to buy.
In this episode, you will:
Learn the real reason your “perfect” offer isn’t converting, and how to shift just one thing to make your audience instantly feel seen and ready to buy.
How to fall in love with your people again, so connecting and selling feel natural, grounded, and genuinely fulfilling (not like pulling teeth).
How to create resonance so strong that even one piece of content—a single post, a short call, or your website alone—can transform complete strangers into dream clients.
Press play now to uncover the five most game-changing concepts that will expand your thinking, simplify your path, and help you thrive on your own uncommon terms.
Episodes Mentioned:
Ep #5: Knowing Your People 101
In this episode you’ll discover How to Connect With Your Ideal Clients (and Create Buyers Sooner Rather Than Later)
The Uncommon Way helps ambitious women entrepreneurs and leaders rewrite the rules of success with confidence and clarity. Hosted by top business coach Jenna Harrison, this podcast blends high-level strategy with deep mindset work so you can achieve more by doing less—without guilt, burnout, or compromise.
Each episode dives into topics like leadership for women, business growth strategy, time freedom, and mindset mastery, giving you practical tools and proven insights to simplify your path to success. You’ll learn how to create magnetic messaging, design offers that sell, and step fully into your authority as a visionary leader.
If you’re ready to scale your business sustainably, elevate your thinking, and finally experience spaciousness and flow while creating extraordinary results, you’re in the right place. The Uncommon Way is your roadmap to building a business and life that feel as good as they look—because training your mind to think uncommonly unlocks a whole new level of impact and possibility.
Work with Jenna
The Clarity Accelerator Mastermind — If you want to be surrounded by other visionary entrepreneurs while rapidly aligning your business to the conditions and strategies that let you thrive and excel naturally, this intimate mastermind will stretch you into your next level. Schedule your call today here or visit this page to find out more.
Private Coaching — If you’re craving the highest level of support, strategy, and partnership to create all the freedom, impact, and success you’re designed for, this is the space for it. Schedule you call today at the link
Social Media
Find Jenna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theuncommonway/
Full Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] In this episode, you'll discover how to connect with your ideal clients and create buyers sooner rather than later. Welcome to the Uncommon Way where high achieving women, entrepreneurs and leaders pitch the rule, book and design success on their own terms. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, a top ranked business coach sharing business growth strategies of mindset, mastery, and power moves to help you attract ideal clients, leverage your unique genius and scale with freedom.
Let's dive in. Welcome. Welcome back to the Uncommon Way. I'm bringing back a most valuable episode today. That is really a complete masterclass in how to connect with your ideal clients. Help them buy sooner rather than later, and also love your work and the process of selling. I can't even count all the women who have told me this one episode totally changed how they thought about marketing.
Totally reordered the steps they were prioritizing in their business, and most excitingly created actual clients. And I'm so [00:01:00] excited for you to experience the same thing. In this episode, you will learn the real reason your quote unquote perfect offer isn't converting, and how to shift just one thing to make your audience instantly feel seen and ready to buy.
You'll find out how to fall in love with your people again, so that connecting and selling feel natural, grounded, and genuinely fulfilling instead of like pulling teeth. And you'll discover how to create resonance so strong that even one piece of content, a single post, a short call, or your website alone, can transform complete strangers into dream clients.
Not always, of course, but it shouldn't be surprising to you when it does happen. Okay, let's dive in, and now let's talk about how to better connect with those amazing clients of yours. Because the number one problem that I see across [00:02:00] the board with entrepreneurs, I'd say at least 80 to 85% of new entrepreneurs, but a lot of more established ones too, is that you don't put the time and attention into really listening to and then speaking directly to your people.
Not the people you were serving two years ago, but the people in front of you now, so many of your business woes will disappear. Once you change that, it's like igniter fluid for your business. And you'll just feel better too. More grounded and confident for sure, because you won't be wondering if this is all landing.
You'll know and you won't have that icky feeling of resenting your audience, which we all get at one time or another. But since connection is a two-way street, you'll feel the warm fuzzies in a way you might not right now. So do this quick exercise with me. Think about how it feels in your body when you're thinking, Ugh, how do I interest people in my services?
Feel that, [00:03:00] okay, now compare that to how it feels when you're really so interested in them. When you're fascinated, curious, enthralled feel that, yeah. That feels way better. I remember I heard Brooke Castillo say, you need to learn to fall in love with your potential clients. It's true. The same level of interest you have from learning about yourself from that Buzzfeed personality quiz or your psychoanalyst unraveling your childhood trauma, you need that same level of interest for your people.
Personally, I am honored to get to help my people, even the ones that'll never buy from me. I've overheard Christian parents saying things like, God gave me one of his children to raises my own, and I'm honored to be given that trust. I'm not Christian, but that's how I feel about my clients and my audience.
Each part of the work of knowing my people is to me like a spiritual practice. From that place of service or curiosity, you can [00:04:00] so much more easily stay in the energy that'll bring in more clients, and it is possible to connect with your future clients much more quickly than many of you realize it's not better or worse than any other way, but it can absolutely happen in a flash.
This is how I made 90,000 last year from Google alone with zero nurturing other than what people read on my website. What we talked about on a single call, even if they were interviewing a bunch of other top business coaches, and the same phenomena happens sometimes with random Facebook posts that I or my clients put out too.
But that kind of stop the scroll reaction doesn't happen by accident. First, you need clarity on your zone of genius so you know exactly what you're offering. And then you've gotta know your people well enough that you can describe it to them in a way that lands, you've got to get really intimate with your people.
I just said intimate, and it reminded me of when Ben and I were first dating [00:05:00] and I thought I might want my home base to be in Panama. So I drag him down there with me. We're house hunting and in typical style I choose like an island off an island, off the main island in Pogo del Toro. 'cause otherwise it'd just be too on the beaten track, you know?
So we're staying in this tree house in the jungle. This was not glamping by the way. And we walk in and the bathroom door is nothing more than a few rows of beads hanging down very seventies. And Ben turns to me and he just sighs. He is like, okay, well, we're gonna get to know each other really well on this trip.
I just lost it. So yeah, you don't wanna get that intimate with your people. Not bead curtain intimate, but yes, intimate enough that they're probably telling you things they haven't actually expressed to anyone before. And intimate enough that when you overhear them talking, you're like, yep, that's one of them right there.
To do that, you [00:06:00] need to have old school analog person to person conversations with the kind of person that you'd like to work with. You need to ask them good questions that go way beyond surface level. You need to analyze and contemplate the information that you gather, and you need to verify that it's useful for calling in more of the people you wanna work with.
Now, you might be thinking, but Jenna, I used to be my person. I know exactly what she's going through. For some reason people aren't responding. Listen, even if you are helping people with a transformation you yourself went through just a few months ago, there is a world of difference between how you see the world and the language you have to describe your experience and your clients perspective, and it's your job.
Literally your JOB to speak to your audience in the way they understand, not the way you understand it, or worse the way you want them to understand it. [00:07:00] Let's say you're using coach language, like I help women increase their self-worth so they can feel empowered to make transformative decisions. But what they're saying is they wanna get brave enough to tell their loser boyfriend to take a hike.
They might think that what you're saying sounds nice. They may even think, oh, maybe someday I should do something like that. But they're not going to be all, oh, let me whip out my credit card because I need that exact thing right now. That's an oversimplification. But it paints the picture of the huge disconnect between what so many people are selling and what most people decide to buy.
Don't let yourself get discouraged right now. I can honestly hear some of those internal groans all the way here in my walk-in closet in Pennsylvania where I'm recording this. But Jenna, it's not about being brave. It's about her low self-worth. If I help her with her self-worth, that solves everything.[00:08:00]
Don't worry. I'm not asking you to say anything you don't believe. Believe me, there's plenty of room for nuance in your messaging. I'll give you some examples of that in a minute. I'm all about depth and integrity and not dumbing anything down. But I stand beside my primary point, which is that we fall into the trap of using our language rather than our client's language.
She doesn't think it's about self-worth, otherwise she would've said that she's an adult with a. Fully functioning vocabulary. The link with self-worth is what you get to show her once you are her coach, and sometimes you might wanna do it very strategically in your content, but we'll save all that for future episodes.
For now, we're focused on their perspective. This disconnect is what leads to years of no or low sales or crickets on social media, which I don't personally care about. 'cause I've had [00:09:00] tons of clients that have followed me, but never even clicked like, but I know a lot of you do. And then when you're getting these results you don't like, you're making it mean something about you.
And maybe you start ping ponging among different offers or niches or throwing spaghetti at the wall and wondering whether or not to just give up on this whole crazy idea. Anyway. Which reminds me of my client Crystal. She came to me for clarity because she wanted to switch and start doing a different kind of coaching.
She was a health coach and when I asked her why, she told me she was so sick of dragging people along to the result that they said they wanted. Maybe some of you can relate to this, but that set little alarm bells off in my head because I know not everyone is like that. So I asked her. How she was marketing, what was her messaging like?
And she said that she would say things like, have you really been struggling with all different kinds of diets, but nothing seems to work [00:10:00] and you wish you just had something that was easy that you could actually do Something like that. Well, that is a tried and trusted messaging for weight loss, but it's also what's used on commercials for diet pills and for TV dinners.
Those are marketed to people that want the quickest, easiest solution. So Crystal was bringing in all of these people that were. In struggle would probably continue to struggle for reasons other than the scope of this podcast. And she was calling in the ones who just wanted the quick, easy fix. So I asked her if she could work with anyone, what would they be like?
And she said, well, honestly, it would be women like her, you know, career women that are, you know, used to going after what they want and they tend to get it. When they put their mind to something, they accomplish it. But those people she told me would never [00:11:00] actually buy from her because they could do it on their own.
So I suggested that she go out and just talk to some of those people, right? Find a few of them and just have a conversation with them. And there's a set of strategic questions I give my clients so they can draw out the answers and the language they need. Because what I knew is that she had an underlying belief that she couldn't create a business around what she wanted.
You know, we talk about money scarcity or time scarcity, but there's client scarcity too, and I see it a lot. So it turns out that after she spoke with women, she did actually find women like this. We noticed something very interesting in the client language, and it was this, those women never talked about struggle.
What they said instead was that it hadn't been a priority. They had [00:12:00] had families, kids, they were focusing on their careers and they'd put on some extra weight, and until now it just hadn't been a priority to get it off, but now it was, and they wanted someone to just help them get it done faster, easier, better.
So when she started speaking to those kind of people using that language, she immediately booked out her group program with clients she loved. Can you believe that? She was almost about to give up on what she loved? All because she had some limiting beliefs about what was even possible and didn't know how to gather and analyze client language.
This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy, and I wanna help you step out of that frustrated, throw your hands in the air version of Crystal and step into the after version. I wanna see you become the woman who confidently puts out content knowing it's [00:13:00] what your people care about and desperately want help with, or has conversations with people, or goes on TikTok, whatever.
It doesn't have to be social media. The medium does not matter. I just want you to feel that peace of mind. One of the thoughts I frequently have that I wanna share with you when I am wanting to hit a certain monthly goal, or maybe there's a potential client and I'm not sure if you know she's going to come through, and insecurity starts to surface.
I say, Jenna, they want this so much more than you want it. To me, it's another client. To them, it's changing their life. I know that because I've talked to so many of them about it, not because I've decided that's how they should feel about it, and I'm trying to convince them of that sense, the difference there.
So then I can just relax. I don't have to go chasing after anything or stressing about will they, won't they? And once you [00:14:00] feel that sense of clarity, you can focus on much higher value things in your business than what do I talk about today? You are focused on getting in front of your people. You're focused on figuring out how to move your people along the buyer's journey and into a yes or how to help them get the best results once they've said yes, I know some of you right now are like, but I'm just not a good writer.
It's so hard. This isn't about how you write. Don't confuse messaging with copy. There's a difference. I do teach some copywriting in the Clarity Accelerator. I'm happy to talk about it here. If you want that, just let me know in the reviews, but messaging is different than copy. You could be standing in line at the coffee shop and deliver great messaging to the person next to you and never write a word.
Messaging is what reflects your understanding of your client's psychology, their way of seeing the world and moving through the world. And since your [00:15:00] clients are the most important part of your business, this is where a large percentage of your time should go, especially in the beginning. You need to be like a detective.
That's why in my three-part clarity formula, part one is know yourself, and part two is know your People. They have equal weight, and they're both the precursors to the final part, which is talk about how you and your people connect. Okay? Here are some key mindset shifts you'll need to adopt in order to reap the benefits of this work.
If you aren't in a place where you can pause this and take notes, make sure you check the time on this episode so you can come back to this point. Number one, I've got five of them, by the way. Number one, you can form a business around whatever you want to form a business around. If you're convinced that those people would never buy, then you're not going to open yourself up to testing and getting to know that audience.
Number two, your people are telling you what they [00:16:00] want. There really is no mystery about this. You just have to ask the right questions to get key answers and actively listen to what they say. Number three, you aren't exactly the same person you used to be. You perceive the problem and solution differently, and your language is different now.
Number four. Okay. This one's for my entrepreneurs who have been in business for a few years. Markets grow increasingly sophisticated over time. You can't rest on the messaging that used to work for you. And number five, you'll always end up helping your clients with much more than they expect, but you've gotta become comfortable selling them what they want.
I'm gonna repeat that. You have to become comfortable selling them what they want as long as you say it with integrity, of course. So let's break those down. Number one, you can form a business around whatever you want. [00:17:00] I have a feeling I'll get some strongly worded feedback on this one, but I've seen the limiting belief in action too many times to not address it.
People get so convinced that a certain type of client doesn't exist or would never buy, that they force themselves into something that's not a fit. Now it's true. Sometimes you do need to make some adjustments to where in the buyer's journey your people are, et cetera. I mean, yeah, you can't sell a Mercedes to homeless people, but you can still sell Mercedes to people who will then feel like they found home.
Two, your people are telling you what they want and they're telling you how to sell it to them too. So many people, especially people that have a habit of confusion, stay in the energy of, I don't know, and worse, I can't figure this out. I just don't know why I'm not connecting with them. I don't know what they want.
I can certainly empathize. I have [00:18:00] been there, but that is very disempowering. Trying to create content and lead from that place will not bring you the results you want. I want before you, I can attest, but when you shift into how can I ask a better question, what do I already know for sure and what's left for me to figure out?
That is a very different energy. Number three, you aren't exactly the same person you used to be. I gave more detail on this earlier with that example of self-worth and relationships. This is especially true if you've gone through a coach certification or done years of personal development work. Now you can of course, choose to market to people who are anywhere along that spectrum of whatever started you on this journey up until where you are today.
Those are all valid options. But the closer they are to where you are today, the less help people will need from you. The transformation you're [00:19:00] offering will not be as great. They may or may not still value it highly. You'll have to test that, but for sure the people that are right where you are now.
Spoiler, they're probably not gonna pay money to get where they already are. So figuring out this nuance, the question of where is that sweet spot between who will pay me for help and who am I actually interested in speaking to is really part one type work. It's know yourself, work. You need to make that decision, especially if you're just starting out.
Some of you might have picked up on the fact that I market to entrepreneurs at different stages in their journey, but I've also been in marketing for years and I'm very clear on the psychographic undercurrents that tie my people together. That's why I can have a group call with very new entrepreneurs and seven figure business owners, and we can all derive benefit from the call.
We're talking about a lot of common themes just at different levels. Speaking [00:20:00] of which, let's talk to those entrepreneurs that are further along. Number four is markets grow increasingly sophisticated over time. This is something that my first coach, Louisa, Joe, I love you. This is something that she taught me.
You can't just keep reusing the messaging you used years ago. This is a product of more and more people entering the market, which means more and more people serving that market, talking to that market, more information available and shared among the people in that market, but also it's a product of our consciousness as humans.
It is evolving rapidly. Do you ever watch eighties movies? And you are just shocked at what people used to say? That's easy to spot, but it's happening at a more subtle level all around us every day. There's no way I could have spoken about some of the things I do now. Even just five years ago. Like nowadays, most of my clients that come to me with confusion or indecision, they [00:21:00] already know that their own brains are getting in the way of their clarity.
So I can end this podcast each week by saying, on a certain level, you know who you are and my people will be like, uh, yes, she's right. It's so true. That's languaging. I evolved into, through carefully paying attention to my people. And the thing is, it's not just your people that evolve. You evolve too.
You're called to serve a slightly different person, or you do your own belief work or personal development work, and your audience changes. The truth is you can see a lot of your own evolution reflected in the clients that are coming to you. I remember being so surprised when I was starting out because I saw a Facebook post with someone asking, why is it that clients always say they don't have the money?
And I was like, that's not how mine object. Mine say they don't have the time or now's not the right time. We were each attracting the people that reflected our own issues. [00:22:00] So I always say clarity is an evolution. It's never done. I never stop doing the work in the Clarity Accelerator. That's why I offer a lifetime access, because I know my clients will use it.
I get to my next level and it's time to start again. Likewise with my clients. I'll help them with their messaging in the bootcamp. That's the Clarity Accelerator main program. But six months later as a private client, and then for as long as we work together, they're learning more about themselves and their precise work and secret sauce and practicing owning that and stepping into it more fully.
And they're updating that in their messaging along the way. Number five, you've got to become comfortable selling them what they want with integrity. Of course, here's how you can massage your messaging to speak to your people, but still be in integrity. I still have people who tell me they need help 'cause they're just not finding their clients.
Now I know that their [00:23:00] clients are everywhere. I even believe that the universe will facilitate their connection with their clients for them. But that's another topic. I need to address their concern. Otherwise, they won't believe that working with me will help resolve their issue. So my place of integrity is to say that, yes, I'll help you call in your clients.
I'm going to the end result of what they want clients. And if someone presses me, yeah, but are you gonna show me how to utilize Nextdoor to get in front of my clients? I'm not going to mislead them. I'll say, I'm gonna show you how to create such effective messaging that you can put it out anywhere.
Depending on what other cues I've picked up from them, I might explain the mindset shift of believing that your clients are everywhere. But if I get someone that stands their ground and says, I really want someone who's gonna show me to use next door, then I will say, here's a coach that I recommend you speak with.
Because the last thing you want is to bring in a client that [00:24:00] isn't hungry for the magic that you're offering. And it might be that a year from now they come back to you. They're now at a point where they get what you were saying and they're a way better client because of it. Here's another example.
When I hired a parenting coach, I thought I just wanted someone to gimme a personalized guide for dealing with my son's issues. Later in the post-sale coaching, I learned that my thinking and behavior was more of a problem than Dylan's was. But if my coach hadn't been willing to meet me where I was, I probably wouldn't have hired her.
I just would've thought, oh, she thinks it's all about me, but she's never met my son. My coach addressed that in her messaging, which by the way, was just a conversation. It wasn't a fancy sales page. She said things like, I know for me, I just wish someone would gimme a personalized playbook for dealing with my son and I lit up because that's exactly what I think.
Well, she did [00:25:00] definitely personalize things for me, and we did talk about how to deal with my son. His behavior changed in many ways, and my experience certainly changed, and I wrote her a glowing testimonial, but it didn't happen in the way I expected when I was on that discovery call. So I'll give you some quick tips about how to become comfortable with this whole idea of selling them what they want and giving them what they need in case you're feeling resistance right now.
First, you have to clean up your judgment. If you're judging the person who wants to get skinny or the one who thinks her business will suddenly transform if she just uses a new app, or the mom who wants to change her child's behavior so she can feel better, clean that up. It often involves healing your own judgment of yourself.
In the past, maybe you used to be like that. There's some reason that you feel so strongly about this, or there's a reason you don't [00:26:00] feel in integrity. Figure that out. Otherwise, you're inadvertently telling people that they are wrong and not good enough. Who wants to work with someone like that? They don't know what they don't know, period.
They're doing the best they can with what they have, and you are so excited to help accelerate their journey because you know what awaits them. Only after you've cleaned all this up, can you make some strategic decisions about how you'll choose to speak about what they want. Where are you going to use direct client language?
Where will you massage it? Where will you speak to their humanity? Where will you speak to their higher self? Once you incorporate these mindset shifts and you lean in fully to this work and apply this work, you are going to have a very different business. Your clients will feel conscious, resonance, conscious, like what I told you about when I hired my parenting coach.
How is she in my head? That's [00:27:00] exactly what I think. But they'll also feel subconscious resonance. There's a form of subconscious resonance that happens when you bring forth your mission or your purpose into your messaging. That's not what I'm talking about in this episode. What I mean is they'll feel safe.
What you're saying feels familiar and they feel seen, and ultimately priming them with that sense of safety is what will help them get not just the results they so desperately want, but the totality of the transformation available to them with your help. The brain allows change when it feels safe to do so.
So for instance, I tend to drop some big words here and there. Contrary to marketing best practices. The women who work with me are comfortable with that. They're used to it in their own lives, and they feel a little safer investing with me because of it. Those who aren't comfortable with it don't stick around, even though they probably don't have any conscious judgment [00:28:00] about it.
Kind of like swearing. It's important for me to swear publicly because it's likely gonna come out on some coaching call, and when I'm in the middle of the coaching space, I don't wanna be putting my energy into thinking about what I should or shouldn't say. But for some people, swearing is a no-go. This kind of self-selection is a beautiful thing.
Resonance is a beautiful thing. It means less work and fewer upsets for everyone involved. Your business will get easier in other ways with this work too, you don't tire yourself out deliberating what to even write about or pivoting your business. You make decisions more quickly and decisively and you move more quickly.
There's a training I have in module five. It's the understanding your people. And I show clients how to create a social media post in about 60 seconds just by plugging and playing this information that people give you. And the combinations are endless because your people are [00:29:00] constantly feeding you new bits of data.
But you know what I love? Keen into the language and mindset. It helps me tap back into the emotional space of where my clients are. Honestly, sometimes it's hard to get my brain back to how it used to be. Now, sometimes there are events that trigger those old emotions. Like right now with launching this podcast, I'm feeling some of them and, and I love that level of connection and empathy that it's gifting me, but sometimes it's a little harder to get there.
You know what else gets you back there? Having a heartfelt conversation with somebody who's struggling, who is right smack dab in the middle of that pain or frustration, or however they experience it, and they're really searching for a way out, that brings me right back every single time. Now we've covered a lot of mindset and key concepts here today, so even though I usually like to share both mindset and tactics on each episode, [00:30:00] we're actually splitting this one into two.
In a coming episode, I'll be sharing the five step process I recommend for nailing your messaging. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please pop them into a review so I can make sure to address them. And now to recap, messaging is not copy, but it's why a lot of new entrepreneurs struggle to get clients and why a lot of other entrepreneurs aren't calling in the right clients or aren't maximizing their thought leadership.
It's your job to speak to your audience in the way they understand, not the way you want them to understand it. Luckily, your people are telling you exactly what they want and how to sell it to them. You just have to listen and ask the right questions to get the answers, and then you've gotta become comfortable selling them what they want, what they've told you, the way you do that is you clean up your judgment, you heal your own past.
You fall in [00:31:00] love with your client's journey, and you get clear on what you will and won't say out of integrity. Remember, you can form a business around whatever you want, but even once you're up and running, this work doesn't end. You evolve and markets evolve too. There's not an entrepreneur out there who should ever stop doing this clarity work.
And if you're starting out, begin this work sooner rather than later. It's not something you can afford to put off. Okay, my friend that.