Creating Your Next Client

by carolineleon | Apr 21, 2021 | Client Creation

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
~ Peter Ducker

Years ago, when I worked with a Business Coach for well over a year to set up my Life Coaching practice, there were two things he repeated to me regularly.

Clients are created not attracted.

And

No client is ever created outside of a conversation.

Which meant for the purposes of growing my business, I needed to be in conversations every day. I duly followed his advice and grew my coaching practice quickly and relatively easily.

Clients are created

This approach to client creation is best laid out in a book called The Prosperous Coach by highly successful coaches, Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin. Here’s what Rich has to say in the book:

“You don’t get clients. You don’t acquire clients. And you definitely don’t attract clients.

Clients are created.

‘Getting’ clients is an old-fashioned, hunter-gatherer approach to growing a coaching practice. It’s outdated because it puts all of your success in the hands of other people. It puts you in an aggressive mindset that isn’t conducive to having people say yes. And it has your clients on edge, waiting for that moment when you are about to manipulate them.”

If you’ve spent any time at all on the internet looking into how to get clients for your service based business, you’ll likely have heard that having certain things in place, such as beautiful branding, a fancy website, photos of you looking amazing and sun-kissed, enticing copy and highly converting marketing funnels, are all a must if you are to attract your dream clients.

The key to this approach is attraction — make yourself as irresistible as possible to your ideal client and they’ll be putty in your hands. But what to do if you don’t have $15–20K to spunk on professional branding, web design, copywriting and a set of personal branding photos? Or if, like many of my clients, the whole idea of portraying a perfectly polished image online, leaves you feeling cold.

Well I don’t mind telling you that I have none of these and I’m doing just fine on the client front thank you very much. I’ve also pretty much DIY’d all of the above.

For the bootstrapped business owner who has little choice but to DIY it, not needing all of these fancy bells and whistles to enrol clients, often feels like a blessed relief. But if we don’t need to go to all this trouble of attracting our ideal clients, what then?

Well my lovelies, this is where the fun beings. Instead of trying to attract clients, we get to create them. And we create clients by doing what we, as purpose driven, conscious folks love to do.

We connect with people and we help them.

Before we get into that though, I want to share another thing my business coach used to say.

Your next client is right in front of you.

This one has been a game changer for me because it has allowed me to a) focus fully on the person right in front of me and b) put my attention and care on looking after the people in my network rather than have my focus on the growing the number of people on my list or following my Facebook page.

When you seek to help the people you already know and take the time and effort to cultivate deeper connections with those people (regardless of whether or not you think they can afford to work with you), you will inevitably create your next client. And you’ll also grow your audience because when people are blown away by how you’ve served them, they go and tell everyone they know about you.

All too often I see business advice that encourages business owners to be looking out at the horizon for their next client rather than focusing on the people and followers they already have.

How often have you put a piece of content out and bemoaned the fact that only 1 or 2 people commented or shared it? Rather than focus on the lack of engagement, I invite you to celebrate those who are showing up, reading, commenting and/or sharing your work. When we do that, people feel seen and appreciated, which inevitably and organically leads to more business.

Being of Service

This is where I favour 1:1 connection versus 1:Many. So much marketing advice would have us shouting to the masses, posting on social media and churning out marketing designed to attract clients to us.

But there absolutely is another way.

What if rather than spend your time trying to attract clients, you spent your time simply serving people. Showing up to your network and being generous and helpful with your gifts and your content? Read blog posts here and here for more on outreach and activating your network.

Finally, I’ve also created a graphic that simplifies the distinction between the attract and create approaches below. I think I can already guess which approach you’d rather take!

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How Willing Are You To Get IT Wrong?

by carolineleon | Apr 14, 2021 | Business Growth

In this blog post, want to talk to you about audacity. In particular, your willingness to take surprisingly bold risks when it comes to your business.

Something I see time and time again, is bright and capable business owners, failing to really move the needle forward in their business because they are playing it too safe and allowing perfectionism to stifle their capacity for growth.

And I totally get it, being a small, online business owner can feel very vulnerable, unlike the safety of a 9–5 job with a steady paycheck, it can feel like we’re putting everything on the line when we show up for our business. Of course we want to get it right, we want to do what we know works and repeat those things that we’ve already tried and tested. But here’s the thing, if you are relatively new in business or you are early on in your business growth journey, then limiting yourself to what has been tried and tested is a one way street to stagnancy.

As hard as this might be to hear, it’s only when we step out of our comfort zone and risk falling flat on our face do we get to experience the kinds of opportunities that can create big jumps in our business growth. Allow me to share a couple of examples.

In June I was invited to participate in an all day online ethical marketing event alongside some of my all-time business heroes such as George Kao and Tad Hargrave. As you might imagine, I was excited and terrified in equal measure and as if presenting my slot wasn’t audacious enough, it was going to get a whole lot more scary.

During the back and forth with the organiser of the day, I asked if I needed to be present for any other part of the event or if I just needed to show up for my slot, his response was this:

There will be a discussion panel at 20.00–20.50 BST with other presenters from the day (Tad, George, etc.). Would you want to join that?

I don’t mind admitting that I seriously considered saying no, of making my excuses and basically running for the hills. There’s one thing to fluff my presentation in front of a few hundred people who don’t know me but getting it wrong next to/in front of two of the most established leaders in my field left me feeling nauseous.

Of course, I said yes. There is no way I could have lived with myself if I hadn’t, but it really did feel like a make or break point in my career. On the one hand it was my opportunity to shine, to share my point of view and business expertise alongside some of the most respected experts in ethical marketing and on the other hand, if I messed up, it could see my credibility and reputation go down the proverbial drain.

In case you’re curious, personally I think I nailed it, for sure I ummed and ahhed through a few of my answers, but I loved every single minute of it (which is the most important thing) and it was thrilling to know that I could handle every question they threw at me. One of which was the inspiration for this blog post:

What’s the most audacious thing you’ve ever done in your business journey?

Of course I didn’t mention that it just might be accepting the invitation to be part of that very panel! Days after the event, especially given how many people reached out to me because of it, I found myself ruminating more and more on this question and the crucial role that audacity plays in our business success.

To see my presentation, click here.

Now just in case you’re thinking well that’s all very well Caroline, but I haven’t been invited to speak at any big events lately, I have another example for you.

This one is about one of my dear coaching clients, Lauren. Lauren is a copywriter for coaches, a truly great copywriter (she wrote this sales page in case you want to see an example of her work) and during one of our sessions, the idea of doing a critique of one of Tad Hargrave’s sales pages came up.

Lauren decided to do it as a video and once created, she sent it to me. You can watch it here if you’re curious or you need some sales page writing tips!

Once I saw the video, I told Lauren, in my capacity as her coach, that the next step was to send the video to Tad. Now Lauren won’t mind me telling you this, but she was not at all excited by this idea. Much like my reaction to the discussion panel invitation, it felt like a huge risk to take. But being the courageous soul that she is, Lauren bit the bullet and sent it off to Tad with an email inviting him to share it with his audience and also asking if he wanted her to create any other content for his website.

Tad’s response was enthusiastic. Within 48 hours he had shared Lauren’s video with his entire list and had invited Lauren to interview him, which they then recorded and which he promptly shared with his audience. Talk about exposure!

To give you an idea of how large Tad’s audience is, he has nearly 18,000 followers on his Facebook page so you can imagine the impact this kind of endorsement had. Lauren took a huge and, in her own words, “petrifying” risk here and it paid off big time but she had to be willing to fail in order to get an opportunity like this.

So my question for you is this.

What surprisingly bold risk could you take in your business over the next 7 days?

Maybe it’s inviting someone to become a client or asking one of your business heroes if you can interview them. Perhaps it’s finally pitching yourself for that podcast or guest post. Whatever it is, I know if you spend 5 minutes tuning in to what feels edgy for you, you’ll think of something suitably audacious and if you do it, you’re business will thank you for it.

If you want some accountability for your bold risk, feel free to leave a comment below and let us know what you are planning or alternatively, head on over and share your audacious goal inside the Conscious Business Collective — a group on Facebook I host for conscious business owners who are over the sleaze and manipulation so rife in online marketing these days.

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Ten Bold Moves I’ve Made in Business

by carolineleon | Apr 7, 2021 | Business foundations, Business Growth

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
~ E.E. Cummings

In this blog post I share with you 10 bold moves I’ve made over the past 10 years in business, each of which I believe have contributed to the success I am enjoying today. All too often, when we’re in the throes of trying to get a business off the ground we forget the importance of being bold. I share these with you for inspiration.

1. Started a blog (2011)

Someone asked me recently if I thought they should start a blog and I nearly leapt out of my seat to say yes! I discovered the online world of blogging back in 2010 and after a year of devouring other people’s content, I decided to start my own. It is not an exaggeration to say that creating my first blog, Life is Limitless changed my life completely. The accountability that came from sharing my goals online and with my growing audience, motivated me to do things I might never have done had no one been “watching”.

The other, fairly significant, thing that happened was that I built an audience. By regularly publishing blog posts for years before I ever sold to people, I built a loyal and fairly sizeable following. Before I even knew what it meant to practice generosity in business, I was sharing my best content with people and asking for nothing in return. When I finally launched my business in 2014, it was pretty easy for me to create paying clients from my existing audience.

2. Made a huge leap of faith (2012)

In early 2012 I quit my lucrative career in program management, sold everything I owned, bought a one-way ticket to Thailand and planned to build a coaching business while travelling the world. Things didn’t quite go as planned initially. For a start I never got all the way around the world because I fell head over heels in love with Thailand where I embarked on a journey within, which included doing a lot of healing and personal growth work. This in turn led me to finding the love of my life, my life partner and now father to my two boys.

Once I had settled into my new relationship, I set about the business of building a business and even though it took a while to get there, the journey from that initial leap into the unknown to starting my own business was life-changing. I had to walk away from everything I knew and had to create the space for something new to emerge.

3. Hired a coach (2014)

Before I share more about this, I do want to say that I am not one of those coaches who says that in order to be successful, you must hire a coach. There are many business owners who have succeeded without investing heavily in business coaching.

However, I can’t deny that the work I did do with my coach definitely helped me to achieve success faster than I might have done alone. He also helped me to build my business from the ground up on a foundation of service and much of what I learned from him, I’m still teaching my clients to this day. I feel very fortunate to have had his guidance so early on in my business journey because what he taught me about authenticity and being of service, I now realise is so very rare in the online business world.

Coaching isn’t for everyone though. Personally I thrive on accountability. If I’ve told someone (such as my coach or you my subscribers!) that I am going to do something then I’ll do everything in my power to get the thing done. So you can imagine how powerful it was to have a coach who would set me bold challenges on the regular.

4. Accepted a crazy outreach challenge (2014)

One such bold challenge that my old coach set me right at the outset of our work together was to reach out to 50 people in 7 days. When he first said it, I thought he was crazy and tried to argue that I didn’t even know 50 people. One quick look at my Facebook profile put that argument to rest and I was left with little choice but to accept his challenge and go for it. I can’t begin to tell you the magic that challenge created in both my life and business.

My current, and totally amazing, personal mastermind partner, Eli Trier, was just one of the people I reached out to as part of that challenge over 6 years ago and we’ve been collaborating and hanging out online ever since.

Once I saw the magic of outreach, my business life was forever changed, despite being a hardcore introvert, practicing authentic outreach is not just how I keep my business network activated and alive but it’s also a true source of fulfilment for me in my work. Deepening relationships is one my favourite things to do in life and business and it just so happens to lead to more people buying from me too. If this sounds like a challenge you’d like to take on, feel free to message me for instructions.

5. Set myself a crazy coaching challenge (2015)

Riding on the high of the outreach challenge I completed the year before, and looking for the next bold move I could make in my business, I decided to set myself the challenge of offering 77 Complimentary Coaching sessions to my people. This was a huge undertaking and in the end nearly 100 people applied to have free sessions with me. And we’re not talking taster sessions here, we’re talking deep dive, 90 minute, powerful coaching sessions. I met SO many new and amazing people and enrolled a heap of new clients as a result. If you want to see what that offer looked like you can check out the page I created for it on my old website here.

Whilst there were times during this challenge that I felt completely overwhelmed and exhausted because there were many days I had up to 5 sessions in a day, doing these calls led to exponential growth in my business and expanded my business network 10-fold.

6. I started a new business (2017)

Then after a few years of business growth, a move back to Europe and a (shock) decision to start a family (I never thought I would have children), I became a mama in March 2017. Something about being pregnant made me face the fact that I wasn’t enjoying life coaching as I had hoped I would and I decided that the successful business I’d built no longer served me and decided to pivot into business coaching.

That meant walking away from a loyal and engaged following that I had been growing for 6 years! Including a list of nearly 1000 subscribers, a facebook page with 1.3K likes, an engaged Facebook group of several hundred people plus a source of regular income.

So, as you do, during my maternity leave, I built 2 new websites, launched a new business and a business academy and promptly looked on in horror as my income plummeted. Despite this, it was without doubt one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and once I started to get traction and made more bold moves, I watched (with some relief) my income start to grow once again.

7. Reached out to my business peers (2018)

After what felt like a year in limbo working hard to get my new business off the ground, I knew in my heart that there was a more meaningful way to do business, but I wasn’t finding as much evidence of it as I would have liked. This changed completely when I started to discover people like George Kao (authentic business coach), Alice Karolina (Founder of the ethical move), Tad Hargrave (Marketing for Hippies) and Mark Silver (Heart of Business). Here were four successful business owners doing business with authenticity and integrity and I didn’t hesitate to reach out to each one.

Over the course of that year and beyond I devoured their content, took their courses, shared their important work with my audience and even got got coached by some of them. Not having a clue that Just a few years later, I’d be sat alongside several of them on a discussion panel about Ethical Marketing at the world’s largest ever online conference. I’ve also been member of the the ethical move team, helping to shape the future of this important movement and getting regular client referrals from George!

Imposter syndrome could totally have got in the way of me making these important connections but instead of treating these people like heroes (even though of course they are to me!), I treated them as trusted colleagues and I showed up to our interactions, confident that I had something to offer. Don’t get me wrong, doing this required courage but I was determined not to let my fears keep me playing small.

8. Studied my craft hard (2010 — present day)

Since I first made the decision to walk away from an established career in program management to become a coach, I have never stopped learning. I knew early on that what I wanted to achieve was mastery in my skills as a coach and since letting go of my life coaching, I’ve committed myself fully to mastering what it takes to grow a business with integrity. What helps is that I have a growth mindset, so rather than see myself as limited in what I can do, I choose to believe that anything is possible if I put my mind to it. I then go put my mind to it and the impossible happens.

9. Set myself a crazy content challenge (2019)

In April 2019, aware that I had already fallen behind on my commitment to publish a weekly blog post, knowing the importance of content creation, I decided to set myself the challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days. This might not have been so crazy if I wrote short (Seth Godin style) posts but given that I tend to write around 1000 words per post, this was challenging to say the least.

It was an intense month, let me tell you! Aside from client calls and blog post writing I did little else, but the rewards were incredible. I deepened my own habit of writing, I created a huge raft of new content for my website and my audience and I learned a lot. To read exactly what I learned and to get links to all 30 posts, head here. One of these posts even brought me new clients! I have no doubt that it was this challenge that improved my SEO and web traffic stats. These days it’s not uncommon for new clients to find me on Google, something else I never could have imagined (given just how many business coaches there out there!) but my commitment to content creation continues to serve me well.

10. I spoke in front of the largest audience of my career (2020)

In many ways, this feels like a culmination of all of the above. First of all I was recommended by George to the organisers and when they approached me of course I said hell yes! Even though I didn’t make the initial move, this still feels like a bold move for me in a couple of ways. First of all, I took the invitation seriously, seeing instantly what an incredible opportunity it was offering me to spread my message.

Also rather than just doing what was asked of me, I was proactive when liaising with the organisers of the conference, and asked if there were other parts of the conference I might have a role in or be needed for, which is when I was invited to be on a discussion panel alongside some of my own mentors. I’m not ashamed to share that I was terrified, I even contemplated telling them I couldn’t make the discussion panel part as it was very late in the evening in my timezone. But the bold part of me won the inner battle and I said, yes of course I’d love to be on the panel!

The other bold move on my part was showing up as powerfully as I could. In my earlier years of business it wasn’t uncommon for me to sabotage my own success by leaving things to the last minute or not responding quickly enough to invitations. I did not do that here! I worked my ass off to create the best presentation I could and I practiced it several times before the day. The feedback and response I’ve had from that presentation has blown me away and I’m thankful that I chose to show up as powerfully as I could rather than succumb to self doubt.

And there you have it, 10 of my boldest moves in business over the last 10 years.

What thinking about these has shown me is the importance of making the decision to go beyond the confines of my comfort zone and, once past the border, going all in on my bold move. What bold move might you make in your business this week?

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Creating Your Next Client