Resources mentioned in this episode:

👉 Sign Up For Clients Week Here

👉 Start The Profitable Practice Free Course Here

👉 Learn About The Profitable Nutritionist Program

Episode Summary:

We're talking ALL about clients around here for the next few weeks.

More clients, more consistent clients, better quality clients, more resourceful clients....you name it, if it's a client consideration, you're going to be learning all about it.

On today's episode we are going to talk about not knowing HOW clients are going to find you. It's not what you think.

But before we get into that, I have to tell you all about what's going on next week, starting March 7th, where I'm hosting a totally free 5 day training series called CLIENTS WEEK! 

Clients Week is where we're taking all of the marketing and client acquisition strategy you’re learning here on the podcast to the next level. I teach marketing and sales VERY differently than anyone else, and my framework is so simple you will cry tears of relief.

Transcript:

Note: The transcription below was provided for your convenience. Please excuse any typos or mistakes the automated service made in translation.

0:00
We have so much to discuss today, my fellow service provider, weird title, who says, but that's what you are, if you provide services, even in the form of digital products, or whatever it is to clients, you're a service provider, just like me. Why does that matter? Well, it's because we're talking all about clients around here, more clients, more consistent clients, better quality clients, more resourceful clients, you name it, if it's a client consideration, you're going to be learning all about it, we have to talk about it. And I have a lot to say about it. So lucky. That today's episode, we are going to talk about not knowing how clients are going to find you. And it's not what you think. But before we get into that, I have to tell you about what's going on next week starting March 7, where I'm hosting a totally free five day training series called clients week. The hell is clients week, you ask? Well, it's where we're taking all of this marketing and client acquisition strategy. to the next level, I teach marketing and sales very differently than anyone else. And my framework is so simple, you will cry tears of relief when you learn it. And in client's week, you are going to get it front row seat to actual content from inside my premium program, the profitable nutritionist, where I teach you exactly how to get higher quality clients and more of them consistently, every single month, even if you're starting from scratch. So in client's week, you will learn exactly what to say to people. And even more importantly, what not to say to people so that you have high quality clients coming out of the woodwork practically throwing their credit card at you every week. Even if you've struggled with getting clients in the past, my friend, don't worry about it. No one teaches marketing and client delivery like I do, and you get a mix of teaching and live q&a In clients week to make sure all your questions are answered. And that you're gonna leave our five days together with your 60 day marketing plan for signing at least 10 New perfect clients over the next two months. That sounds good. Of course, it sounds good, it's gonna be great. So to register for clients, we you have to go to the magical page, I will give you the URL in a second. And make sure you fill out the full registration so I know where to send your training to because we're going to start on Monday morning, March 7, with video number one coming to your inbox and I have to know where to send it. So go to build a profitable practice.com forward slash clients that's build a profitable practice.com forward slash clients and don't forget the s at the end. Okay. Alright, now that that's handled. Let's talk a little bit about where clients come from. I always think of this as a question like, Where do babies come from?

2:34
And I know I've said it before, but I giggle every time because it's kind of a taboo topic no one wants to talk about with too many details. Right? Like it's a secret. Except it's not a secret. It's just isn't important. What I know. I know you're thinking you misheard me did I just say it isn't important where clients come from? You didn't miss hear me, I totally said that. Quit trying to figure out how the clients are going to find you and how it's going to work, quit, quit trying to map out their whole customer journey, because you read that in a book somewhere. And it sounded like an important use of your time quit. Here's what I want you to get from this episode, which I wish that someone had spelled out for me in very simple language when I was starting my holistic nutrition practice online in 2015, which feels like a bajillion years ago, and yet it wasn't it really wasn't that long ago. But can we agree that in internet years, that was a really long time ago, things were very hard and very different in 2015 than they are now luckily for us. But back to the point, you don't have to know exactly how it's going to work. You don't. The internet isn't mysterious, are hard to figure out because actually clients are everywhere. They're everywhere, and they will find you. If you focus on helping the people who are already paying attention. Just start helping the people that are there and allow the magic to happen. I teach this a lot I say it in a lot of different ways. Want you to really hear me when I say this, just let the magic happen. Start helping people right now. Even if it's just one person, start with that one person. And I promise the clients are going to come. This is why I don't worry one bit about not being on social media. And you shouldn't either. No, it's probably very confusing to some people that I talk about having an online business and no social media because most of the time people assume anything digital, anything online means being chained to five to 10 different social media platforms and engaging in air quotes day in and day out. So I understand when I tell people I have an online business. I'm not on social media. They're very confused. When I tell people I've never seen a real before. They're like, who are you? What planet are you from? And I love that moment, by the way makes me very proud.

4:39
So let me just set the record straight on all of this. When I say online business, it's because I don't have a brick and mortar office that you can come and see me at all of my client work is done via zoom and through my students online member portal in my full program, and the resources are all housed digitally for them to access along with our live coaching call. So it's all digital, but that doesn't

5:00
mean that I'm on social media? What? How does it work? I know, I know, most of my clients also have online practices, which means that they work with their clients on Zoom one on one or in small groups, and some of them also have memberships and online courses where their clients have ongoing support there as well. I have to bring it back to notice how none of that has anything to do with social media. It doesn't have to, let me tell you, it's absolutely possible and wonderful, in my humble opinion, to have a totally location independent online business with absolutely zero likes and shares and posts and pictures and groups in DMS to manage No, Mama's not doing any of that.

5:38
And yet, I have no shortage of new clients. How can that be? What? Guess what neither do my students regardless of whether or not they want to be active on social media or not? I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, but for real, you're going to get to the point and tell us how do people find you if you're not on social media personally, or for your business for that matter? Because for the record, I don't have personal social media accounts, I don't have business social media accounts, all of it canceled done. nuclear destruction, it's all gone. We're gonna circle back to the answer for that question in a minute, my friend. But first, let me say that it doesn't matter. What you use for marketing, none of it matters, the medium is not important, you are never going to know how they're coming these clients, these future clients, these wonderful humans that want your help that are going to pay you for you to change their lives forever. You're never going to know how. And here's why repeat after me, clients are everywhere. Opportunities are everywhere, everywhere, the how are you I'm air quoting here, the how you can't see it, just trust me the how that they're going to come your way. It's just the details, I tell my students that I have no idea how they're going to make their next 1k 3k 10k 100k, I have no idea how, but I know they're going to do it. And they kind of freak out for a minute or two, we talk about it a little bit, we coach on it. And then their brains open up with all of the possibilities and the genius house that they're going to try. And it's like this faucet that just explodes in won't turn off with all of the ideas. Personally, I have no idea how I'm gonna make 500k this year either. But I know it's gonna happen. That's the fun part. It's a mystery. It's like a puzzle that you don't even know you're putting together piece by piece while you're doing it. But is it totally as that's how your business is. And when one of the pieces doesn't fit? You either turn it a little you try to put the piece in a different way. Just like iterating, right, tweaking on something that you're trying in your business you like, turn it on, is this gonna work? No, no, you just throw it back in the pile and grab another piece and try that one is trying a new, imperfect action, taking a new action, trying something out. So what our business is all the time, it's like this puzzle that we're just always fitting pieces together in. So to clarify, do I give suggestions to my students on possible house of where these clients are gonna come from and what they can do in their marketing, and then coach them to come up with even more puzzle piece ideas to execute and try that we can evaluate? Yes, I do. I absolutely do give suggestions and help them with this. And do I have some ideas for my own business this year that I think is going to get me to my revenue goal with fun and ease, which is part of the goal for me has to be with fun and ease. Absolutely. I do have ideas about this. I'm not attached to those ideas. And I'm not attached to those house of where the clients are coming from and how it's all going to work. I'm not. And I suggest that you're not attached to your house either. Can I say that? Again, I suggest you're not attached to your house either. These best laid plans, they change sometimes. And that's a good thing. Don't be too attached. stay nimble, stay curious, keep evaluating and tweaking things as you go. Don't be afraid to try new things for God's sake. Don't be attached to just one course of action. I see this a lot. So I have to mention that I see this a lot. With both websites and social media posts. People will pick one of those two avenues as the way that they are going to market their business. It seems like it's just one or the other. I'm not really sure why that is. But it seems like there's two lanes and you got to pick one, which isn't actually true. But this is what I see. And then these people are so tunnel visioned about that being the only way that clients are going to find them, that they miss all the other opportunities along the way that are very obvious if you're looking for them. So just want to say that there is not a right way and a wrong way to tell other humans in this world that have big problems that they want help solving, by the way that you can help them solve those problems. There's no right or wrong. So just get creative with all of the weights. And then start truth is we never know how things are going to work out until after they work, then you're going to know how after it already happens. I feel like I should repeat that as well. We never know how things are gonna work out until after they work out. Then we can look back and go oh yeah, that's how we did it. That's the way so don't spend too much time trying to figure out the how everything's going to work in your business.

10:00
How clients are going to find you how how, oh, when your time testing ideas, and just taking imperfect action, that's what's going to actually work. This is especially true when it comes to figuring out how clients are going to find you. So we have to keep talking about it. Now I am almost two decades deep in this work as being a commission only sales person where every penny I bring home to my family comes from services rendered to individual clients, and I still 20 years in, do not know how clients will find me. So just think about that. It's crazy, right? But it's also very freeing. I think we just need to be honest about it. I don't know. I don't know how either. When I was 22 years old, and I started selling real estate. What did I do? I mean, first of all, I was just a baby. Where were the grownups? Where were the grownups, I was just just a baby. And I was doing this thing called selling houses. I mean, hey, it worked. How did I get started, I started calling friends and family, I put the word out for them to pass my name on to anyone they knew. I sent emails, I attended some networking events, I placed Craigslist ads, I cannot even say Craigslist. But I did do a quick check before I did this episode. And just you know, Craigslist is alive and well. And I'm not sure if it still works anymore. But it's still there. I was a little bit surprised. I did Craigslist ads, I can't even say it my tongue doesn't even use this word it was so long ago. But I did lots of these different things. And they all worked. And the reason I need to say this is because I didn't like networking events. So I quit doing those. But it turns out that the Craigslist ads that I can barely say, or a jackpot. So I kept doing those. And I was thinking about these early real estate years. That was one that really stuck out in my mind. I remember the painful networking events and thinking I'm playing dress up. This is awful. I hate this, which obviously yielded no clients, because my thoughts about myself in that moment and attending those events or not client attracting thoughts. I will tell you that. So they didn't work. But Craigslist turned out to be a place where I had a lot of fun. And I got a ton of clients. So the reason I give those examples is just because I kept being curious, I kept trying new things. I was 22 years old, I didn't even know anything about anything. And yet here I was, over a decade later, after working solely on commission now from clients that I brought into my real estate business. Luckily, I got pretty good at it. I started my holistic nutrition practice. And by that point, I had gotten really good at this organic marketing thing. I didn't even have a website for my real estate business. So believe me, all of that was very foreign. But I had done organic marketing. And I had filled up my pipeline with real estate clients for a very long time, I took that scrappiness into my holistic nutrition practice, when I started it over a decade later. And this time, there was this new thing called the internet.

12:47
Okay, fine, there was internet what I was selling real estate. But I didn't have time to worry about any of that in my real estate days. And I didn't need it. But when I started my holistic nutrition practice I did, I was experimenting with social media and ads and website funnels and websites, and email lists and all of these things that were totally new to me at that point. And once again, I had no idea what was going to work. I had no idea about any of it. It was like this new thing. I had no evidence that any of it was going to work to be honest. But I know how to get clients that I'm going to try this stuff. I just got scrappy, and I started taking imperfect action and testing it out. But you know where most of my clients came from that first year, word of mouth, good old fashioned word of mouth. So here was me with my fancy website and my online practice. But the word of mouth was what was actually bringing the people to my website in the beginning, Do not overlook word of mouth and get stuck in the quicksand of online marketing, my friend, do not do it. That's like bending down to pick up pennies on the ground, while the dollars are just flying by in the wind above your head and you don't even see them. Use the word of mouth, get those first clients and serve the heck out of them. That will snowball into more people talking about what you do and spreading the word on your behalf, which is so much more powerful than a pretty website or an email marketing funnel. I promise just help people and more people will come. It's as simple as that. We want to make it very complicated. It does not have to be more complicated than that. Like I said, I'm almost two decades deep in this work of service to clients now. And I still don't know how new clients will find me. But I know the basics, which is just help people, they'll talk about it and more people will come I stopped worrying about where the clients were going to come from. Right about the same time. I said screw it and permanently deleted all of my social media, like I said, and never looked back. And the most freeing thing about that, for me, to be honest, is that the clients kept showing up in the most unexpected ways.

14:42
They were coming from social media, that's for sure. But they kept coming. I could never have anticipated how they were coming either. But they kept showing up because I kept showing up. It's probably sounding like a broken record because I know I say this a lot, but delivery creates demand. It's like my favorite

15:00
thing to remind myself, when you're delivering for your current clients at a high level, even if it's just one person, more clients will come from that referrals are the best marketing ever. Not to mention, when you are seeing the results that your client is getting, even if it's just that first client, that one person, you are going to be so much more confident in talking about what you do and selling your offer. So it just snowballs in compounds. The more that you do it, the more you talk about it, the more you love and deliver at such a high level for your clients want that to be plural. But if it is just one client right now, it still applies love on them, deliver for them at such a high level, get them amazing results, it will all come back to you. This podcast episode is a good example. Keep showing up every Friday morning email landing in your inbox teaching you things helping you make money if you're on my email list. That's another example. You are on my email list. Right? Just checking.

15:58
That's another example of delivery creating demand, I have no idea who will read my email every Friday, I have no idea who listened to this podcast, or who will share it, or who will revisit it five more times over the next three months because it resonated with exactly what they needed. Right now, I have no clue, like no idea. And honestly, I don't need to know, I just need to keep creating value for you. Because you have a problem. And I know how to help you solve it. So here we are. When in doubt, focus on delivering massive value for your existing people, the people that are already paying attention, no matter how many people that is just blow their minds help them with no strings attached. Don't try to figure out what to share for free versus what to charge for. That's going to suck your brain power dry. Just give the good stuff, promise help people, it will always come back to you in the most unexpected ways. And in the form of clients. Truly, it has been such a weight lifted off my shoulders to just focus on creating massive value for you and stop trying to anticipate and plan out intricate funnels, or marketing or client journeys. Like none of that. I don't have to think about any of that anymore. I don't know how the value in my emails in this podcast is going to come back to me as more clients in the future, but I just know that it will just trust that that's gonna happen. It's all good. And that's why I just keep showing up and trusting that the how that is all gonna work. It's just gonna surprise and delight me after it happens after it works. I'll look back and go, isn't that amazing? I would have never anticipated that's how that would work.

17:31
Do you know how this is true? Because I asked some of my current students in my program, how they found me. And like you guys, where did you come from? Do you remember? I think it would be so fun to talk about. And we had a whole thread in the lounge going about this. And we were laughing so hard. Okay, I'm going to tell you what they said. And then I have some thoughts about it. So the first one was I'm pretty sure it was through a Pinterest ad. Do you do Pinterest ads? No. I've never done Pinterest ads, which is so interesting. So it must have been something that I wrote at some point something on my website that someone pinned to Pinterest, and then that showed up in her feed. And that's how she found me. Totally unexpected, right? The point of sharing this is put value out there. You've no idea how someone else will share that value. Right. Okay, here's another one. I searched Google for Kajabi membership review, because I was trying to understand how Kajabi memberships worked before I considered purchasing Kajabi and I came across a video you made you either mentioned that you did or I looked you up because I liked your personality and thought you did such a great job on the video. After learning your business coach to help nutritionist coaches, I was blown away because I was in the midst of becoming a health coach and wanted to start a business and I began searching for other videos or articles you wrote my note here. This is great validation because every time I record a really crappy video, I'm thinking I don't anyone's gonna even see this. But what the hell am I just we'll just record it, throw it up there. That's always my thought. And yet several students said the same thing that they found these videos of mine. It's fantastic. You just never know. Right? Okay, here's another one. Either my memory is bad, or were you running a Facebook ad with a free or low cost tool? I loved your energy in the videos.

19:04
Oh, how the times have changed. Yes, I did run ads for a while. And they were very successful, which is just such a bummer. Because now it is a principle issue to me. I cannot spend a single cent to support social media platforms anymore. So I love that even though this was years ago, when I was running some ads, the right people from those ads are still on my email list and they're still getting value, even though the ad that they clicked in from was for something totally different. But they're still here. Like I think that's so fun to think about right? Here's what another person said. Another recent NTP graduate shared your undercharging podcast on our private telegram thread that we use to stay in touch and share resources. I'm not sure how she found you. It listened. It was only about 30 minutes long and my mind was blown about having permission to charge fairly for our service. joined your free five day dream client program a few days later and heard about the profitable nutritionist open enrollment and joined. Is this not an example of exactly what we're talking about?

20:00
Share, share, share. Yes, personal referrals happen when we just keep showing up and delivering, you do not need a huge network, you do not need any of that just help people and they will spread the word. I want you to think I think this is so cool that people were sharing my content amidst a small group of my ideal future clients. But where are your ideal future clients hanging out? And how can you inspire them to be sharing something of yours amongst themselves? I truly just cannot say this enough times and in enough ways, personal recommendations from someone who has had success or been interested in something and shares it on your behalf will go so much further than any thing that a stranger on the internet finds a verse, I promise you think about these small groups of people and helping them so they share it. That's it, just put the value out there and actually help people, they will share, I promise. It's human nature, we always want to tell everybody about the cool things that we find. That's just the way people are, which is so cool. All right, one last one. I met you in real life during NTP training, you reached out to a handful of us via email when you were transitioning from nutrition to business coaching, this was another I wonder how this will work that process where I took very imperfect action to test out some of my business coaching concepts with a few people by invitation, which has now grown into the profitable nutritionist program. And everything that I'm able to share today comes from that imperfect action of just testing it out, I could never have known how any of that would happen at the time. But I'm so glad that I just got started. Again, I could have never anticipated this podcast and how clients were going to be finding me now and that I would be off social media and just all of the things that have changed on my journey could never have anticipated any of it. So why even try, right? That's what I want to break you free from is that desire to want to plan everything out, because you can't anyway, and it just wastes so much time, and so much bandwidth and so much energy even trying to so let's just let go of that. We don't know how it's all gonna work, but it's going to, because you're just going to keep showing up, you're going to keep helping people. And you're going to just evaluate and tweak along the way deal. Alright,

22:12
that feels like a good place to wind down on where my clients found me, I have a few more examples here. In another Facebook group, someone posted about what business coach they use, and your name was on there, I checked out most of the websites and the ones mentioned. But I didn't find much of interest because my friend knew you and was in your first program and had a fantastic website from that training. By the way, I joined your email list back in June of 2020. I wanted to include this one in particular, because just because you are not on social media doesn't mean that other people aren't just because I'm not on social media doesn't mean that people don't share my valuable content or my name or my resources on social media. So this is another mental block that I kind of want to break down. I think I've said this now, like 20 times, I'm gonna say it again, don't underestimate that people will talk about things that work for them yourself might still be on social media, even if you aren't, so just want to offer that. Isn't that wonderful to know, I actually love that. Okay, here's one more, you were promoted through a Trello training years before I even purchased your Trello course I remember your name. And I purchased it about a year later. And I've been on your email list ever since. Okay, so that may not make a lot of sense. But it makes sense to me. Here's what that was all about. This was a free video training that I did for a doTERRA network marketing leader and her big doTERRA team over four years ago, how I got roped into doing that is she loved how I organize my business processes on the free platform of Trello have a very specific way that I organize all my ideas and my workflows and my systems and processes and plan out emails, like I have a very ninja system that I use on Trello. And so I was teaching, I had taught her how to do it. And she's like, Oh my gosh, you have to teach this to my doTERRA team. By the way, I teach this. It's one of the bonuses in the profitable nutritionist program. I'm just saying, if color coded templates are your thing, you will love it. Just shameless self promotion there for me, okay. But anyway, she had also loved this. And so she asked me to come and teach my Trello system to her team. So I did that. And that was really fun. I just I taught them for like a half an hour, I gave them the templates, it was really great. And then I have as promoted a $37 mini course with the Trello templates in it at the end of the training. I had no expectations that this would amount to much Believe me, I could not even have anticipated anything that has come from that. But a lot of my clients have come from that in like a roundabout way that they were exposed to me. They got on my email list. This particular client, she remembered my name from that training and she didn't even purchase the course like she didn't even buy the $37 course but a year later she purchased it, then got my emails. And then can I just tell you what happened? Have to jump ahead because here's what happened. She tuned into that free Trello training four plus years ago and then kept reading my email since then. Well, when how do we say some policies shifted in her in

25:00
industry recently that forced her to resign, I'm sure you understand where I'm going with this. She went full time in her wellness business. And she joined my program, she made double her investment back in the first 48 hours of joining my program. And then she set this impossible goal for herself for the following month that she was going to make $10,000 in her health and wellness business on her now first full month of not having her regular corporate job anymore. Guess what she made this $10,000 By the fifth of the month and blew her own mind. Do you know why this happened? Her words, not mine, because she let go of trying to plan out the how she just started taking imperfect action and delivering value making offers to people saying I can help you. And guess what, it works really stinking well, but she could not have anticipated the how I certainly could not have anticipated how this valuable training like I just knew people were going to want to hear about this little Trello hacks that I had seen valuable. Put out some helpful content to people, and how has that come back to me years later that I never, ever could have known about, I tell you this, because the same is possible for you and is true for you and is probably even already happening for you. If you're looking for it. Just a great reminder, we never know how the magic is going to happen. And we never know on what timeline it's going to happen. We truly do not know how it's going to work. We do not know how all the clients are going to come, we just need to stop trying to figure it out and let it happen.

26:35
Feels so good. Just let it go. I don't have to figure out how I just know they're coming. I'm just going to make some informed decisions and guesses about what might work. I'm going to take imperfect action and focus on delivering immense value and transformation for real humans, real people that need my help right now I'm just gonna focus on them whether they've paid me yet or not. And I'm going to evaluate the results as I go, I think you're gonna find that those results are going to blow your mind and all the exact house are not even the ones that you're going to reflect on as the how it all worked. You have no idea and it's going to be so fun to look back for you and to evaluate like, oh my gosh, this is not even what I expected. And here's how it actually worked. I know that's true for me. I think it will be true for you too. And I want to hear about it. So when that happens, even you're reflecting right now on all of these magical ways that people have found you that you can't really repeat and you don't even know how it happened. What I hear about it seriously, you are getting my emails, I'm sure right. So I want you to hit reply. And tell me all about it. These are like my best stories. I want to know.

27:36
Have we gotten the point? You don't know how neither do I? That's a beautiful thing. We don't need to worry about it. Go help people. That's it. I'll see you next week.