Episode 154. How to Sign More Clients: Communicating “Why NOW” to Your Audience

Recently, I did a launch evaluation for the most recent launch of the Thought Leader Club Program, our flagship 4-month 1:1 and community program.

I’ve been doing launch evaluations after every launch for several years now as a way to explore what worked, what didn’t work, and what I’d do differently for the next launch.

In this most recent cohort, which runs from November 2023 to February 2024, we have four amazing people who joined me inside our first-ever cohort. Honestly, I’m having the best time ever alongside these four people right now. So in my eyes, the launch was a success.

That said, as part of the launch evaluation, I had to ask myself to be honest and come up with hypotheses about what could have made the launch better, so I can do things differently next time around.

One thing that came up for me was that there wasn’t urgency. When I read back through my marketing assets and content for this recent launch, the impression I got was, “Thought Leader Club sounds awesome, but maybe I can keep doing it on my own for now, and maybe I can join at a later time.”

In today’s episode, I want to unpack how I plan to address the question of “Why you should TOTALLY join the Thought Leader Club NOW. In this next cohort. THIS MONTH”.

I hope that for any listeners who are also thinking about how to communicate the value of someone working with you RIGHT NOW, sharing my thought process can help you think more about how to approach this in your own business or marketing for your services or offers.

In This Episode:

Conveying the value of working with you
- “I can do this myself first… Let’s see how it goes”
- “I can join later”
Answering the question “Why is NOW the best time to work with you?”

Conveying the value of working with you

“I can do this myself first… Let’s see how it goes”

First, let’s talk about how oftentimes, even as the consumer or client, how we have thoughts of “let me just try this on my own first.” Just like how others may be thinking this for themselves, I’m sure all of us have also thought the exact same thing when it comes to a product or service that we know we want and we know can make a positive change in our lives. But we put it off because maybe, just maybe, we can keep going for a bit longer without it.

I think about the people in my audience who are looking at Thought Leader Club and they want to join and they know that the process we work on inside can help them, they’re still thinking, “Well, maybe I can just keep trying to make things work on my own first.”

Here’s my thought process behind what I’d say to anyone who’s thinking this: Just because you can do something yourself, doesn’t mean you don’t get a coach.

For me as the coach, I’ve got to think about how to convey the value of doing things with a coach.

For instance, behind the scenes, I think a lot about what I can do to make sure each client gets to the finish line. There’s a lot of things going on behind-the-scenes that I do to ensure that our clients are able to equip themselves with the skills they need to become known for their thought leadership and become a prolific and consistent creator in order to build their body of work, so that they are able to see clear, tangible progress towards their goals and 1-3 year dreams at the end of our four months of coaching together.

I as the coach am committed to doing more work behind the scenes, more than what you may see on the surface. My job is to figure out how to communicate exactly that, to our clients and to anyone who’s considering joining us inside the next round of Thought Leader Club. There’s legit value in working with a coach because you’re working with a coach who is committed to your coaching experience and also to your results.

That said, I as the coach also need the client to have their head in the game. And let me tell you, there is tremendous value for the client to have their head in the game. Meaning. There is value in working with a coach because you yourself are now in an elevated level of commitment to yourself and to your goals.

This is why a conversation that I literally have with every client is, “How can we ensure we get more of what you want in the next 4 months? How will both you and I show up to ensure that this is the case?”

Because me, as the coach, am not going to let you let your own goals slide, so how can you also make sure you won’t let your own goals slide? Ultimately, I want you in the room. I as the coach expect our clients to show up for their own goals and for themselves. There is tremendous value in you showing up for yourself. When it comes to my marketing and selling of my program, I’ve got to be able to communicate that to our audience.

Another way I can convey the value of working with a coach, as opposed to doing it on your own, is to showcase the value of being in a group/community container. Because on one hand, you could do it on your own, but what is the value of doing it alongside a community?

For instance, inside Thought Leader Club, there is a CULTURE:

There is a culture of doing your homework and following through on what you say you’ll do (COMMITMENT)
There is a culture of thinking of the longer term picture (1-3 year goals) instead of immediate returns (next month) (BEING IN IT FOR THE LONG TERM)
There is a culture of sharing your story, lived experiences, opinions, and perspectives (THOUGHT LEADERSHIP)
There is a culture of keep it light and keep it moving (TAKING QUICK ACTION → BEING PROLIFIC)
There is a culture of being who you want to be and choosing to be this version of you (IDENTITY)

Even if you can’t stay accountable to your own goals or yourself, you can still stay accountable to the group and to your coach. Use this to build up your own self-trust and self-commitment.

When you immerse yourself in our community, you will be committed to building your muscles, even from scratch. This is the container for you to PRACTICE building those muscles, habits, and skills, over and over and over again.

And if it’s feeling overwhelming, remember that we’re not aiming for 0-100 right now, we’re aiming for 0 to 1. Then 1 to 2. Then 2 to 3. We are going to keep moving forward.

Likewise, what thoughts are blocking you from doing it? Let’s get coaching on that so you don’t slow yourself down. Keep it light, keep it moving. This is the value of being in our room. That is the value of immersing yourself in a room where there is the culture of holding yourself to a higher standard and being committed to your 1-3 year dreams.

This thought process also applies to any other feature of the Thought Leader Club program. Yes, you CAN do it yourself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t support yourself with the features that we’re offering inside the program.

Our teachings , tools, and processes inside the Thought Leader Club are also meant to compliment what you’re doing. Everything inside, whether it be the group calls or weekly assignments and worksheets, are meant to support you with one of the follow objectives:

Choose what you want to be known for, then build a body of work where you talk about this over and over again, so that people literally associate you with exactly that
Create thought leadership. Meaning, creating interesting concepts, your story, or offer a thought-provoking angle to what it is you’re becoming known for
Building up your ability and capacity to be consistent at the platforms you’ve chosen
Don’t let any thoughts slow you down from outputting things you care about and believe in (i.e. mindset and identity)

For instance, rather than me setting up a step-by-step roadmap that every person in the room will work on, you and I are going to have a conversation and decide on the goals that matter to you, right now, in the next 4 months.

We will set benchmarks for measuring your progress for these goals. And we’re going to ensure that these goals feel expansive, that your plan of action is doable and stretchy at the same time, and set up indicators that actually measure progress and growth instead of making you feel like you’re so behind on your goals.

If you’re thinking, right now, about how you can create more “urgency” for your offer and you want to think more about how to speak to the subset of your audience who wants to try it out on their own for a little longer, here’s the key question for you to answer.

For every single feature of your offer, whether it be a DFY (done-for-you) service or group coaching or a Slack community or worksheets or other bonus tools and resources, what is the VALUE of that specific item/component of your offer? Why did you intentionally decide to include it in the offer? How does it support the client’s experiences and ability to create their desired results?

Another way to look at it is, if you were to take this feature away from the program, why would it slow down the clients’ progress or ability to get their desired outcomes?

Please, actually do this homework.

Now, I want to unpack a similar sentiment that might come up for clients when they’re thinking about joining the Thought Leader Club, which is, “Maybe I can keep doing it on my own and just join later…”

“I can join later”

For me as the coach, it’s on me to think about why it is important for the client to join now? What is the value of joining now, even if the program starts in March?

Simply saying, “Have skin in the game”, in my opinion, is not a sufficient answer.

Similar to my thought process when someone has the thought of, “I can just do it on my own”, my thought here is, “YES, you could totally join later, whether it be the day before the next round starts or the next round or the next next round, and so on. But what’s the VALUE of joining RIGHT NOW?”

Of course, I acknowledge that people may have different reasons for wanting to wait. Maybe the reason is that you’ve already invested in another coach, course, or mastermind in the past few months, so maybe you should hold off on joining Thought Leader Club. Or maybe you’re not sure whether you have the bandwidth right now to commit to weekly 1:1 coaching and weekly group calls and weekly homework.

Or maybe you know me personally in real life, and aren’t sure how I’d feel about working together in a coaching capacity. Or maybe you’re going traveling at some point during the upcoming cohort of The Thought Leader Club and don’t want to mess up our coaching schedule.

Maybe you low key feel like you’re copy-and-pasting ideas from other people and now feel like a total fraud so who are you to build thought leadership?

Maybe you’re looking and sounding like everyone else and although something deep inside you isn’t sitting right, you still feel like it’s a ‘smart’ thing to do because your logical brain is convincing you that others must be doing it right, so you should pay more attention to their content and analyze what’s working for them.

Or maybe you constantly think about whether your content is too surface level or generic, and that you need to brush up on these skills before working with me inside the Thought Leader Club. Or you just simply want to take it easy for a while and chill for the first few months of 2024.

Everyone has a different reason for why they should just wait a bit longer before joining the Thought Leader Club or whatever program it is they’re considering. Or heck, this applies to any product or service, like going to get a haircut that you know you need, but you’re like, “Eh. I can hold off for another month.”

But that’s the thing. If you know it’s something you want, why would you want to wait another month? That’s literally going to be my question now moving forward, if anyone ever comes up to me and says they’re interested in joining the Thought L e ader Club but maybe they’ll join later.

This “energy’ is different from what I’d use to do, which is more like convincing energy.

1) For myself, I find that my convincing energy tends to come out in one of two ways:

2) When I’m trying to speak to the non-best fit people in my marketing and messaging.

When I’m speaking to my best fit people, I’m speaking to their objections/No’s as opposed to speaking to their genuine goals, their genuine dreams, their genuine yes.

Let me share some examples.

First, non-best fit clients, generally speaking, are not interested in paying you and/or are not in a position to have the financial resources to pay you. They are not a best fit client if they don’t like you, and they’re also not a best fit client if they’re not actively interested in your offer or genuinely want to hear about your marketing posts for your offer. That’s how I’d define a non-best fit client.

Now, for a BEST FIT CLIENT for Thought Leader Club, a “No” from them might look like “I really love what Cheryl talks about but I honestly don’t think I’m capable of being a thought leader”.

For someone who might be in this phase of their thought leader identity journey, they’re simply not in a stage where they see themselves as capable of building thought leadership.

Later on, they may start to see that yes, they are capable of building thought leadership and becoming known for something. But right now, at this current moment, if I were to speak to their “No”, it would look like me explaining why they are totally capable of becoming known for something.

And for me, energetically, it would require more “convincing” and I personally would not choose to market from this angle. Instead, I’d much rather speak to a best-fit client’s “Yes”.

A “Yes” from them might look like, “Yes, I want to get started on building my thought leadership now. I see the creator economy growing and growing, and I want to be at the forefront of it. I know that if I want to make an impact in whatever industry, field or discipline that I’m in, building a body of work and becoming known for something is a non-negotiable skill for me. I’M IN. NOW.”

To speak to this “Yes” of my best fit client, it makes sense for me to literally talk about the early bird bonus because the early bird bonus is something I know my best fit clients genuinely would love.

For example, if you join in early January 2024, you’re basically getting 2 extra months to start getting ahead in the program before we kick off in March 2024.

Why this matters is because you start seeing results earlier, even before the program starts. By starting now you’d have added more to your body of work and brand than, who knows, maybe more than the past year combined!

By starting now, you’ll have something to show for and people are able to start to know you for something. By starting now, you’d also have started to build muscles and habits that you’ve struggled with for years. You’ll have increased capacity and consistency to continue building your body of work, week after week, even when life happens.

This is also additional months of 1:1 coaching and building a relationship with your coach matters because it helps you start to feel comfortable with your coach.

And quite frankly, when the cohort actually starts, you start in the cohort as a leader instead of someone hiding in the background. You literally get an extra 2 months to get your head in the game, to start working on the curriculum. So when we start in March, you can fully take advantage of the program and already have results to show for.

Because you decided to start now, the transformation starts now.

You also get to feel like, “I AM doing something. I’m not just wasting time and letting another month fly by me and having nothing to show for.” You get to feel better about yourself and have control over your results.

Versus, if you joined the day or the week before we kick off, you’d feel like you’re scrambling to catch up compared to everyone else, like you’ve wasted the past few months when you could have gotten started earlier, etc.

And honestly, 6 months of coaching for the price of four, that’s a steal. Just saying 🙂

Answering the question “Why is NOW the best time to work with you?”

Generally speaking, when it comes to answering the question “Why NOW?”, in your marketing, an exercise I’d love for you to do is to first identify who are your best fit clients and who are your non-best fit clients, and discern the different questions or hesitations that each of these two categories will have.

Then, focus only on the best fit client group. Among this best fit client group, identify their “NOs”, which is where you feel like you need to do a lot of convincing even though someone is, on the surface, a great fit for your program.

And also identify their “YES”, which essentially is their truest, genuine desires and goals. Focus on the latter. Speak to this. Speak to your best people’s “YES” instead of their, “Uhhhhh, I don’t know.”

One more thing. A helpful metaphor I sometimes like to think about is: You want to get fit, lose weight, eat healthier, etc, during the year ahead, and right now, let’s just hypothetically say it’s November. Are you gonna wait a whole ass month before you do something about your health goals? Or are you going to get started on it right now, so that when January 1st rolls around, you have the momentum going for you already? At that point, there’s no way you won’t hit your goals by the end of the year? Right?

It all comes down to making a decision to start now on your journey.

Especially when it comes to thought leadership and when it comes to building your thought leadership. It’s a journey.

This is precisely why it’s important for me, as the coach, to make sure that for those who the program is a fantastic fit for, to get them into the room, the next round, because your thought leadership journey starts as soon as you commit to it.

The sooner you sign up to the Thought Leader Club and commit to this journey, the sooner you put in the reps to build your thought leadership and body of work. Imagine how many more opportunities you’d have brought in by the end of 2024, because you started in this upcoming cohort in March 2024. Imagine how your self-concept and identity would be like one year from now because you started today.

The truth is, you won’t magically be a thought leader overnight or even by the end of one round. Because if you are someone who values integrity and knows it takes legit time and effort to create a substantial and deep body of work, you’re willing to put in the reps, starting now, and commit to the journey ahead.

It’s so important to start the journey now instead of waiting another four months. And another four months. This is exactly what the Thought Leader Club is for: it’s the room for aspiring thought leaders to start putting in the reps to create their body of work and build thought leadership for the years to come.

As we start to wrap up today’s episode, here’s a fun question I want to leave you with today.

To whoever is listening right now, if there’s something you want to do, and it doesn’t even have to be making an investment in something. It can literally be anything that you want to do.

My question to you is: What are you willing to do? Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself?

Because if there’s something that’s been on your mind for months and months, or maybe even years, then it’s clear that you want to do this.

So why don’t we see what you’re capable of? Wanna try? Let’s do this.