Before hiring my first business coach, all of my virtual assistant clients came from people I knew in person or referrals from previous clients, I hadn’t really landed a client through social media. At the time I only had a few hundred followers and I didn’t think that was enough to be seen as credible or professional.
I believed that you needed to have a large following in order to land clients and I took that belief with me and judged other peoples pages and businesses based off their follower count. If they had lots of followers, I believed they were credible and had lots of clients, and on the flip side, if they didn’t have many followers, I believed they weren’t credible and didn’t have any clients. So when I started my business my biggest priority was growing my audience. I was hoping that if I cast the net wide enough, A lead would also fall in there and that once they came there, they would see I had enough followers, believe I was credible and would hire me.
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But my problem was that even though these leads were seeing my content and following me, they weren’t hiring me and so this perpetuated that belief, that they don’t see me as credible because I don’t have enough followers and so the cycle continued.
It’s funny how we have these beliefs and then our minds look for things that validate and reiterate that belief, regardless of whether it’s true or not. (Listen to the “Your thoughts dictate your reality” episode here)
The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have enough followers, it was that I believed I didn’t have enough followers, it was that I didn’t know how to challenge that belief and so the problem was that I let that belief pull my focus from my actual goal.
Because even though my priority became growing my following, I didn’t want more followers for the sake of having more followers, I wanted more followers because I believed that if I had more they would be clients.
My actual goal was to land clients, not grow my following.
But I overcomplicated the process and added in unnecessary checkpoints and it’s so easy to do, because there are a million and one pieces of conflicting information out there around how to get to your end goal.
STEP ONE: you need to choose to believe that you can
So if you want to land clients with a a small audience, you need to choose to believe that you already have ideal clients inside your following, or inside your circle. Obviously for the sake of this episode I’m primarily talking about clients in your social media following, but don’t disregard the people you know in your real life too, the people you went to school with, the people you used to work with, family and friends, choose to believe that they too could be your next clients. Because when you choose to believe in the possibility, your brain will look for things to back it up.
If I had believed that a few hundred followers was more than enough, then the way I was showing up would have also been completely different.
I wouldn’t have been creating from a place of lack, where I was constantly trying to cast my net out wider and wider, only creating content to attract a new audience, I would have instead focused on nurturing my current audience and focused on learning how to sell and land clients. Knowing that my ideal clients were one step away from working with me, being excited at the possibility that my next client could come at any moment. Do you see how the energy is different simply from reframing your beliefs? and that showing up completely differently in the way you operate, leads to different results too.
So thats the first step, believe you can. Then once you’ve got clarity around your beliefs and you’re on board with your vision, you’re excited because you know you’re surrounded by ideal clients, you can move on to step two.
Step Two: make your mess your message.
It all starts with storytelling, because the people who fall in love with your story, will be your first followers and in turn your first customers.
But before we can take action, it’s important to have clarity, So I want you to do a profile audit. Zoom out and take a step back and be brutally honest with yourself. Pretend this is the first time you’re seeing your profile.
- What 3-5 words would you use to describe your profile?
- What words come to your head instantly?
- How does your page make you feel? Are you excited? are you curious? does it make you annoyed?
- What about the content? does it make you feel good? is it relaxing? is it chaotic? or does it bore the shit out of you?
- Does it feel aligned?
- And lastly Would you follow you? or a better question really is would you hire you?
I often find that when I do this practice with my students they come back and say “no, I wouldn’t”. And if you wouldn’t follow or hire you, why would they? When we dive into this and go over their reasons, they find their page is lacking in some way. Sometimes they say its personality, storytelling, information alignment or something just isn’t sitting right for them and they can’t put their finger on it.
For majority of my students whats missing is their ability to share unapologetically. Because it’s scary AF opening yourself up to judgement and criticism! It’s hard to admit you’re a beginner, it’s hard to admit you don’t have any clients. So they fake it until they make it, they hide their mess, they make surface level content and just expect clients to come.
I want you to think about any hero movie. The reason we are so excited for the happy ending, is because we’ve seen the struggle and what it took them to get there. The same goes for social media, if you show your personality, and all the ups and downs, that is what has us as viewers inspired to take action.
At the end of the day, the reason why your friends, family and people you know are often your first clients is because they know your journey, they like who you are and they’re willing to give you a go because of that.
Inside my coaching program I call this phase becoming their BFF. Think of your favourite influencer, celebrity or public figure. Odds are you consume their content, and purchase things from them because you like who they are.
A good example of someone who does this phenomenally is Emma Chamberlain. She is unapologetically herself online and has almost 12 million subscribers on youtube because of it. I watch every one of her videos ads and all because I like her personality and I want to keep supporting her because her content is like a breath of fresh air.
The Kardashians are another example, they’ve made millions, billions of dollars because people like who they are. People don’t purchase Kylie’s make up or Kims shape wear because they’re the best, they purchase because they like them, they want to be like them in some way.
When you can become that BFF online, people are more likely to purchase from you, and want to work with you.
And you can spend time building up your portfolio and growing your following and doing everything ‘professional’ or you can challenge that and fast track your impact by making your mess your message.
Step Three: Become the authority.
When you believe that you are credible and that clients are on their way and you’re practicing showing up making your mess your message, the next step is to open up the conversation and invite them in. You cant just be their BFF, you also need to show them how you can help, otherwise you’ll attract people who have no intention to purchase from you ever.
If you want to stand out as an authority, you need to be completely sold on your service. You need to understand the transformation you provide and share it shamelessly. Over and over and over again. Despite how cringy, desperate, spammy and salesy your ego is telling you that you are.
You can’t post once, or twice and then when you hear crickets you retreat back into the safety of your shell and don’t post again for a month. Because what if people know you have no clients, who the hell cares? How are you expecting to land clients if you’re not sharing it over and over again.
Practice continuous execution. You need to be willing to show up in times where you are either getting no response, or no’s as a response and this will test you, most people give up before they’ve ever truly given themselves a chance because their egos can’t take it.
Becoming the authority means putting your dream above your ego. It means tackling your fears head on, it means getting uncomfortable over and over again and I don’t say that to scare you or put you off pursuing your dreams, I say that to prepare you so that when it does happen, you don’t feel alone, that you don’t go into a self doubt spiral. This is a normal part of the process.
When you grow, things break. It’s why they say there is often a breakdown before there is a breakthrough. But on the other side is you waking up with your DM’s flooded with dream clients wanting to work with you.
As the authority it’s your job to host an epic opening party that no one will forget. It’s your job to make people feel so seen and understood that they are inspired to take action on their dreams right now.
This is something I work with my students on regularly and the results they achieve speak for themselves.
- One of my students landed her first client after 6 months of crickets with less than 300 followers after only working with me for a month because she started implementing these things.
- Another one of my clients booked out her services after 2 months of working with me with only 600 followers.
These are real results that can happen for you too. I have seen it happen over and over and I have no doubt it can happen for you too. So if you feel like you need some guidance around how to make it happen, send me a message and we can chat about what support could look like for you.
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