Episode 133. Step-by-Step Guide (Part 1): If You’re Trying to Sign Your First Clients

At the time of recording this, we have just entered into the month of July, which means that we are now at the start of a brand new quarter and also entering into the second half of 2023.

We’ve got 6 incredible months ahead of us and that is ample time to create a lot of cool things in our life, career, and business. In celebration of the amazing 6 months ahead, we are going to do a 3-part series on this podcast to help you level up your business and thought leadership in the rest of 2023.

For this 3-part series, we will be dedicating each of the upcoming 3 episode to those of you at different parts of your business and thought leadership journey:

For each phase, I will offer some practical tips and action steps you can start to implement after this episode. I will also touch on some of the biggest blocks that I see come up for our clients who are at each of these stages.

And even if one particular episode/stage may not initially seem relevant to you, I promise there will still be some really foundational nuggets in each of these 3 episodes that will be applicable to you irrespective of which stage you feel like you identify most with.

In This Episode:

If you’re starting from absolute scratch, start with the basics

If a client does not have any online presence (meaning: You don’t have a social media account that you post actively on and/or you have not started posting about your business online) and/or you don’t have a coaching offer yet, then I will classify them as being in phase one. Meaning, they’re starting their business from ground zero.

When I work with clients who are at this stage, they’re usually in a 9-5/career and their current goals is to sign their first paying clients, and also build their confidence to position themselves as a coach, show up despite the feelings of imposter syndrome, increase their visibility online, and also learn how to structure their schedule and build their business in a way that doesn’t burn themselves out.

By the way, this is a really fun stage to be in. Because for our clients who are starting out in this phase, they’re essentially immersing themselves into scenarios that really stretch them to reach the goals they desire and this is often one of the first times ever where they themselves are defining success on their own terms.

If you, too, are in this stage, you might also feel super excited about the people you want to serve, the vision you have for how you want to eventually blend your work and your life, and also start to finally take action on things you might have been wanting to do for a while but you’ve been putting it off.

Now, you’re ready to work with a coach to poke your assumptions, hold you accountable to your highest standard, and to experience what coaching is for yourself.

For clients who are starting their business from the ground up, here’s what we coach them on right away. This is also what I’d suggest you to focus on if you are in this stage of your business as well.

Area of focus #1: Practice showing up online by sharing your story

I know that if you’re wanting to build your coaching business, there’s a reason why that is. There’s likely something that you’ve gone through in your own journey that prompted the idea of potentially starting your own coaching business and helping people in the capacity of a coach.

Put another way, I know that there’s been past personal experiences, some parts of your story, which led you to now help people through the vehicle of a coaching business. There’s a part of your story that now fuels the “why” behind the business you want to build.

And honestly, this “why” needs to be shared with your audience. Whether it’s an existing audience or an audience that you’re growing or your future audience that will discover your work a few months down the line.

In order to really attract clients who share the same values as you, those people need to know that you hold the same values as them. And your story is embedded with your values. Sharing your story is one of the easiest ways to connect with potential clients who share the same values as you, and it also lets your audience see how you think and how you make decisions.

I find that clients are now faced with no shortage of potential coaches who they could consider working with. Now more than ever, it’s so important to showcase how you as the coach thinks. Your thought processes, perspectives and decision making processes are super helpful indicators to your clients as to whether you are the coach for them.

What this looks like tangibly, is that when I work with clients on practicing sharing their story, we focus on:

1) helping them share their story in a genuine and honest way, so that the audience can feel the sincerity of the story

2) positioning their story in a way that is also helpful to the audience, where the audience can take away something from the story that will add value to them in some way.

I know that for many people, they don’t want to share their story simply because they want attention from strangers online, but rather, they feel compelled to share their story because they’ve learned something along the way that has helped themselves, so now they want to share those helpful nuggets with others

A super practical tip I can offer here is whenever you’re sharing the details, don’t just state the story step-by-step or matter of factly.

For example, when I’m sharing my law school drop out story, I don’t just say “I went to law school”. Instead, I will also share my thought process behind why I decided to go to law school in the first place.

I might paint a picture by saying “When I first decided to go to law school, I thought that having a prestigious job title and a sexy salary was my top priority. At the time, I really really cared about what people thought of me, and the image of me wearing a nicely tailored suit and high heels and really looking the part and having a fancy job title to back it up – that had a lot of appeal to me.”

Here, I added the very specific details and thoughts that literally went through my mind, in addition to stating the facts, which was “ I decided to go to law school”.

Area of focus #2: Practice sharing your own perspectives and opinions in your content

I think it goes without saying that when you share your own perspectives and opinions, you start to differentiate yourself from all the other coaches doing the same thing as you.

Also, as you start to practice the act of sharing your opinions and perspectives, you’ll start to get clearer and clearer on what your thought leadership is and what it is that you want to become known for.

Here’s the thing. I know that for a lot of people, even though they really resonate with the idea of becoming a thought leader, they sure as heck don’t feel like one right now. Imposter syndrome is a very very natural feeling that creeps up.

Even if you have ample practical or industry or professional experience or even entrepreneurship experience, whenever the topic of thought leadership comes up, a lot of people want to shrink and hide because they feel like they simply aren’t “there yet”.

If right now, the concept of thought leadership feels too much of a stretch, that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be the goal we’re striving towards right now. Instead, the goal right now is to literally just practice sharing your opinions and perspectives.

Overtime, as you work with more and more clients, continue to build a larger body of work, you’ll naturally become known for your thought leadership without you having to try to convince yourself that you are a thought leader.

A practical tip I want to offer here is that whenever you state your opinion or perspective, support your statement with either a story, a metaphor/analogy, or a really concrete example.

This will be a really helpful habit to build up because it’s really easy for us to make a statement or share a concept that makes sense to us, but when we put ourselves in the shoes of the audience member, it’s not that the audience member is confused or doesn’t “get it”. Rather, it often just doesn’t really seep in.

For example, we often use language that is considered industry jargon, and although our audience member kinda understands what we’re saying, it doesn’t really impact them deeply because they kind of just have a surface level understanding of what we mean.

Help your audience really understand what you’re saying by practicing the habit of always supplementing what you’re saying with an additional story, metaphor/analogy, or concrete example.

Here are some prompts that could help guide you as you think specifically on how to practice sharing your own perspectives and opinions:

1) If I were to give you one month to prepare for a TED Talk, what would be the key message of your talk? What do you want to speak about next month? The key topic or message of your TED Talk is likely a great indicator of what you want to build your thought leadership and body of work around.

2) Why is this message important to you? What personal examples and experiences will you use to explain why you’re speaking on this?

3) Why is this message important to the people you want to serve? How will this message change their way of thinking or benefit their life on a practical level? What will life look like before and after they hear your message?

4) What are things you kind of want to say, but you’re not going to say it out loud to your audience or mention inside your content because you know it may not sound “good”? Or maybe you’re worried it’ll rub people off the wrong way?

5) For those things that you’re hesitant to share, how can you position it in a way that explains to your audience why this is a story, idea, message, etc that they NEED to hear? How will this benefit them?

6) What are some most popular narratives (from your colleagues) that go against your thought leadership or what you believe in? How can you stand firm in your viewpoints and continue to share it relentlessly?

7) How are you currently embodying your message, thought leadership, and work? Or, what would it look like, for you, to really be a champion of your thought leadership?

Area of focus #3: Build your content creation and showing up online muscle for just one social media platform , and build your overall capacity to show up online regularly

Right now, I highly recommend selecting one social media platform to practice creating fresh new content on. For me, Instagram was the platform I chose. At the time of recording this, I find that either Instagram or LinkedIn are the two most common social media platforms that my clients and peers tend to use. They’ll create content specifically for the platform, and they might consider repurposing this content onto another platform.

For example, some of my clients will create for Instagram first, and then repurpose the exact same content into LinkedIn content. But for the purpose of this conversation, we’re talking specifically about creating fresh new content for one platform of your choice.

Unless you’re already actively and regularly sharing content online, I would suggest practicing using one platform first. Once you feel like you are able to use one platform regularly and you have a certain cadence going on, then you can add on a new platform. Which, I would suggest a long form content platform such as a podcast. We will talk more about this in the next episode.

But for this episode, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of practicing your consistency habit with one platform first.

For myself, when I was a side hustler, I typically spent no more than 16 hours a week on my business, outside of my career and personal life. Today, as a full-time business owner, my optimal work schedule is to spend no more than 20-25 hours a week on my business in order to allow me to make time for the other parts of my life that matter, such as family, physical and mental health, meeting up with friends, and also solo me-time.

It was specifically my three years as a side hustler that truly helped me master the skills of learning to manage my time, my mindset, as well as my physical energy and capacity to work on my business while prioritizing other areas of my life.

When I was a side hustler, I learned to leverage “pockets of time” to help me consistently create content and marketing for my business.

For example, when I was balancing both my PhD, personal responsibilities, and business, a typical morning might look like this:

During that year, I practiced using only Instagram, and focused on building my consistency and capacity showing up on that platform regularly. I was able to create Instagram stories quickly and efficiently, so I now had additional hours back every week.

Similarly, for podcasting, I would type my ideas and notes on my phone during my commute wherever inspiration hits.

When I have some small blocks of time to sit down at my laptop, I’ll chip away at my podcast episode script. I’d do this several times throughout the week, until my script is flushed out and I’m ready to record it on the weekend.

Today, in 2023, I am able to continue building off that foundation and also layer on new skills to work on, such as email marketing, posting more on LinkedIn, and repurposing my podcast content to more platforms.

I’m now also able to continue managing multiple responsibilities outside of the business (ex: home renovations, traveling overseas regularly, working towards my health & fitness goals, etc) because I learned to master time, mind, and energy management while side hustling.

All of this is only possible because I took the time to master one platform at a time.

Area of focus #4: Practice making invitations to work with you

If you are in the very early stages of your business but you already have a good grasp on what it is you want to help people with and you have the details of your program mapped out, please start practicing the skill of talking about your offer and the skill of inviting people to book a sales call with you, to apply to work with you, or to join your program.

In a nutshell, it is our job as the business owner to make it easy for prospective clients to know that there’s a way we can help them, and to confidently be able to make a decision on whether or not they’d like to work with us.

Your virtual shop needs to be open in order for prospects to come in through the doors.

Here’s what this could look like:

• Speaking about your offer regularly in order to invite people to come and take a look at what you’ve got
• Posting content regularly so people know that your business is still alive
• Replying to messages in a timely manner so people know that your business is open

Because if you only talk about your offer once or twice, every now and then, not only does that suggest a lack of confidence from you, but it also isn’t compelling enough for people to want to check out your offer.

Oftentimes, we need to see something multiple times before we even start to register it in our awareness. If you aren’t confident in your offer or if you aren’t demonstrating your confidence and excitement for what you do, your audience will doubt whether or not you truly know what you’re doing.

Now, when it comes to how to make an offer or what the hell do you even say when you’re making an offer, it’s important to remember that we each have our own voice or style when it comes to this. What feels natural and genuine to me may come off as super unnatural for you, or it could feel super cringe for you.

I want to invite you to first look at your previous experiences with sales from the perspective of a buyer (or someone who was sold to)!

First, looking at other coaches, entrepreneurs, or businesses that you enjoy following or buying from, what is it about their sales process that you like? Why do you like this? How did it make you feel or what did it make you think?

Another way to think about this question is when you’re making a purchase, what are the factors that usually lead you to say yes and buy? Keep these points in mind as you develop your own marketing or launch plan for sharing about your offer.

If others were able to resonate with you via their marketing and sales, these are likely approaches that you will enjoy implementing for your own business (without feeling weird about it).

Second, what were incidents where you were completely turned off by the person trying to sell you something? What happened? Why did it rub you off the wrong way? What is it about their sales process that you don’t like? Make note of these points as approaches you may want to avoid implementing in your own business.

Chances are, if they left a negative impression on you, then using these same marketing or sales techniques will make you feel highly uncomfortable.

Generally speaking, the main reasons why an ideal client will choose not to work with you are:

So how can you help your ideal clients become aware of their problem?

• For example… How can you articulate to them what is actually keeping them stuck (as opposed to what they think is keeping them stuck)?
• Or, how can you address common misconceptions people have about how to solve a pain point or achieve a desired result?

Second, how can you clearly articulate to your ideal clients that your offer is the ideal solution to their problem?

• For example, how can you communicate the value of working with a 1:1 coach?
• Or what is the industry telling them to do, which you disagree with?
• Or what is your ideal client currently already doing to try to solve that problem, and how can you show them that what they’re doing is ineffective?

Third, how can you showcase your authority and credibility related to what you do?
• For example, what results have you gotten for yourself or for others?
• Or what was your transformation or your clients’ transformations?
• Or what is unique about your approach or perspectives when it comes to helping clients?

For all of the points you’ve written down for the past three questions, now it’s time to intentionally weave them into your messaging. Whether it’s your social media posts, long-form content such as a livestream or podcast, website copy, sales pages, or anything else, make sure you explicitly highlight these points.

More often than not, your audience and ideal clients need you to be straightforward and direct about the value of your work and message so that this is crystal clear to them.

Your energy behind what you say, create, or do in your business is what attracts people to you and compels them to want to work with you. So if you’re simply *whispering* about why your coaching program is going to help your ideal clients rather than speaking about it confidently, then don’t expect your audience to instantly understand why they should work with you.

For those of you who are in the stages of figuring out what your coaching offer is, although this may seem like a really daunting task and feels like everything hinges on you “building an irresistible offer”, please remember that all “building an offer” means is making a decision on what you’ll coach clients on and the logistics of the program itself.

Here are some questions to help guide you in making these decisions:

First, when it comes to what you’ll support clients on:

• What does life look like for your client before and after they achieve the transformation that your offer provides?
• What smaller transformations or “milestones” do your clients need to go through in order to achieve that complete overarching transformation?
• What will they need to learn or do in order to achieve each of those smaller transformations/milestones? What materials, skills, tools, or support does your offer need to provide to facilitate this?

Second, regarding the logistics of the program:

• What is the duration of your program?
• How often will you have coaching calls, and how long will each call be?
• What type of support will clients get from you? (ex: email support between session, Whatsapp or Slack messaging support, etc)
• Will there be any pre-recorded video training, or is it 100% live?
• How long will clients have access to the offer and its materials for?
• Are there any bonuses will you add on?
• What is the name of your program? How about a tagline?
• What is the pay-in-full price? Will there be a payment plan option?

Ultimately, if you’re just starting out, I strongly recommend just making some decisions and actually working with coaching clients as soon as possible. That will then inform any tweaks or adjustments you want to make to your program. So get your program out there and start getting coaching experience with clients as soon as possible.

How my client Betty started her social media presence and coaching business from scratch and signed 5 high ticket clients

To really ground this conversation, I want to share a particular client testimonial.

One of our clients, Betty, at the end of our first round of coaching together, shared the following, “I would like to say the biggest win is having signed 5 high ticket clients and doubling my investment. But honestly, building the muscle and mindset to run a coaching business is a much bigger win than the immediate result. I feel good about running my coaching business and I know I can sustain this momentum. Doing the bare minimum, works. I am a full believer of this now.”

This is why concepts like doing the bare minimum really really well, or skill stacking, or mastering one thing at a time, matters.

Betty was a side hustler juggling multiple professional roles at once when she first started her business, and burnout was not something Betty could afford to go through.

We first set up Betty on Instagram and helped her start posting on that platform week after week. Every week Betty would go deeper and deeper into her content. She would share her story as well as her unique perspectives on her industry and specific coaching niche. She would make invitations to her audience to book a sales call with her and join her coaching program.

Soon, Betty was known for her thought leadership as a coach for creatives. She also started signing clients despite starting her business from literal scratch.

The key thing I want to emphasize here is that Betty was practicing all of these “fundamentals” that we’re talking about in this episode.

Betty was just like anyone else at the very beginning, who was starting their social media presence and coaching business from scratch. She too had a lot of worries about putting herself out there and marketing herself. She thought it was going to take a long time for her to build this foundation.

Through working on the exact things we talked about in this episode, by the end of our first few months of coaching together, Betty felt much more confident in running her business.

“I feel that the last few months have been a journey of breaking through one limiting belief after another. I would never have thought I would show up on Instagram consistently and don’t feel like it’s a burden. I also feel that I have such a high degree of agency in choosing what I do and not do in my coaching business. And I am loving my work of coaching creatives.”

What’s possible for you and your business even if you’re just starting out

With that, I hope this episode gave you several practical nuggets that you can think more about and implement right away. I hope it helps you see what is possible for you and your business even if you’re just starting out.

To quickly summarize the four key areas I would suggest you to focus on if you’re just starting out:

If you, too, have really, really big dreams and a vision for what you want to make happen, the Thought Leader Club is where you want to be. I want to extend an invitation to those of you who have an inkling that TLC is the room you want to be in, in the new year.

To join us, you can head on over to cheryltheory.com/program to learn more about the program and submit a brief application. Afterwards, we will book a sales call.

For those of you who have never been on a sales call with me, let me give you a quick rundown of what you can expect. When you book a sales call with me, you walk away from the call with the exact next steps in your business and you’ll get even clearer on your vision for what your path looks like to become known for your unique thought leadership.

By the end of our conversation, you’ll confidently be able to pinpoint the exact 3 blocks that are slowing you down and keeping you from moving forward. And guess what? It doesn’t have to do with not having enough time or money. The sales call is also where you can ask questions about my process, coaching style, and how our community can support you and provide tangible help with your specific business goals. It’s also a super fun space for you and me to get to know each other more!

Whether you’re just starting your business or you’re continuing to grow what you’ve already started for a while, I want to offer a gentle reminder that you are already doing something that most people will never even try to do, even if they deeply desire it for themselves.

As we enter into the rest of the year, let’s continue to take committed, relentless, aligned action to make incredible results happen.

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