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Do you know who you are meant to serve as a coach?

Hi beautiful,

 

Sat overlooking a dreamy beach on the island of Gili Meno off the coast of Lombok. Indonesia, I’ve been thinking about the importance of knowing who you serve as a coach.

 

One of the most fundamental parts to building your dream coaching business all starts with you dream client, yet this is often the part many women gloss over or even disregard entirely.

 

Knowing who you serve is at the heart of every decision you make in your business from the language you use, the content you create, the platforms on which you focus your marketing efforts, the images you share, the price of your programs, the content you put into your programs and the list goes on.

 

All of these decisions can be made for easier once we really have it locked down on whom we really want to work with.

 

If you feel you are putting yourself out there in your business yet still aren’t seeing the clients coming in, chances are this is because you haven’t got a detailed enough grasp on who your ideal client really is…..even if you think you’ve got this sussed, my guess is it could still use refining.

 

Don’t beat yourself up over this – it’s natural for new entrepreneurs to cast their net far and wide in the hope of catching as many people as possible or to think they’ve narrowed their niche enough yet their client avatar is still too vague and general.

 

I can totally relate to this.

 

When I started out in my coaching biz, I was a “business coach who worked with women who wanted to leave their corporate job to launch a business that they were passionate about.”

 

I assumed that this was pretty specific, yet it still felt something wasn’t quite clicking. I was signing up clients yet not nearly as many as I’d have hoped. I was also finding myself working on projects that weren’t really setting my soul on fire and finding there was no real consistency in my work. I felt a little bit all over the place as I was unable to predict what problem the next client would come to me with, what their “why” was, what the values were, what kind of messaging they would respond to, what they feared, where they lacked confidence, what they really needed from a coach.

 

I had cast my net too wide because I didn’t really have that ONE perfect client described in detail and I was afraid to commit to anything too specific out of fear that it would turn other would be clients away.

 

This all changed when I finally found myself working with who appeared to be a perfect client. She valued all of the things I value, needed help in the areas I loved working in, had the same kinds of big vision for her business as myself, was coachable and took on board everything I said, was experiencing the same kinds of struggles I’d been through, was being held back by the same limiting beliefs that once kept me playing small, had the same worries around money I’d initially had.

 

Working with her made me realize that I didn’t want her to be a one off or a lucky find. From then on, I wanted to attract more of this dream client and knew that to do so, I’d have to really ask myself who my ideal client really was.

 

Once I really refined whom I wanted to serve and made this a non-negotiable, things began to take off in a way I could never have predicted.

 

I’d now love to share with you some of the steps that helped gain clarity on my target audience in order to attract a consistent stream of dreamy clients into my life.

 

#1 I got clear on what kind of work really lit me up.

 

Whilst I help women do they work they really love, figuring out my dream client first meant figuring out what I really love too.

 

I got specific about the areas of coaching that got me the most excited.

 

For myself, I realized that as much as I loved business strategy, I also LOVED the mindset work, particularly in relation to money and wealth consciousness. It was therefore imperative that my clients valued this kind of work too and needed this inner work as part of their journey.

 

If a client wasn’t open to mindset work, didn’t believe in it or wasn’t willing to give it a chance, I knew that this client would not be for me.

 

#2 I allowed myself to be vulnerable with my story.

 

Allowing myself to open up about my story – my terrible financial situation, a failed engagement, my lack of self worth, my feelings of inadequacy, my fear of putting myself out there – helped me identify with those I knew I’d be best placed to serve.

 

Rather than trying to hide my previous mishaps, I decided to be transparent about them an in doing so, women who connected my story started to appear into my life and many of them then converted into paying clients, dreamy clients whom I loved working with.

 

Sharing my story was a reminder that I could turn my wounds into wisdom and made me realize that my ideal client was a woman who had been through similar experiences and had similar fears and doubts to what I had. It was this woman who I knew I could connect with and help the most.

 

#3 I took myself back to my fears about investing in coaching

 

In an ideal world, our ideal clients would have no reservations about investing in us – they know that they need help and they are excited to start working together.

 

What I discovered however was that I was having a lot of calls with seemingly DREAM clients yet the only blip was that they had reservations about investing.

 

Rather than disregarding them as leads, it dawned on me that my IDEAL client isn’t someone who has the confidence to say yes straight away.

 

I reminded myself of my own fears about investing and I knew my ideal client would have similar reservations. My ideal client comes from a place where their money mindset isn’t the best it could be, they are suffering limiting beliefs and are new to the coaching industry. As a result, it’s only natural for them to experience hesitations about investing.

Realizing this allowed me to understand my ideal client better and therefore enabled me to help them feel at ease in us working together.

 

#4 I thought about what my own biggest pain point was starting out.

 

I knew that I wanted to work with women who I connected with and so tracing back to my starting point helped me get clear on what my ideal client may be suffering with the most.

 

When I first started exploring becoming my own boss, whilst it was partly for the freedom and to do work I enjoyed, it really was the money stuff I had going on that was weighing me down and that was my main catalyst for action.

 

I was maxed out on credit cards, in over £20k worth of debt, was hiding statements under my bed and had a huge amount of debt shame and guilt lurking over me. This in turn totally knocked my self worth.

 

Because of this and because of the fact I’d gone through my own money mindset transformation, I knew I wanted to help those also experiencing a scarcity mindset, those who had money blocks that needed to be shifted.

 

I knew my ideal client therefore would love the idea of creating wealth for themselves as much as I did, yet were still at the stage of fearing whether that was possible for them.

 

My advice for you is to really ask yourself what kind of client would bring you the most joy.

 

She needs to be someone you’d enjoy working with and spending time with, someone who needs help in the areas in which you love exploring, someone who has experienced something you can relate to, someone who is willing to let you guide her and trusts in your process.

 

When starting out, it can feel like the ‘safe’ option to take on any client who comes our way but in doing so, we are closing off space for our really dreamy clients to appear into our life.

 

Create your client avatar and get really specific on who your dream client is. Use this avatar whenever you create anything for your business. Visualize this client being on the other end of a call each time you book a discovery call. Give yourself permission to say no to working with clients that don’t really excite you.

 

Trust that your dream client is waiting for you and I promise, things will really start to blossom for you.