Make Marketing Suck Less

You don't have to work with shitty clients.

There, I said it. In fact, you don't even have to have sales calls with potentially shitty clients. One thing that breaks my heart is when my clients are working with people who don't appreciate their skills or talents, or they're working with people who just are not ready for the transformation that they are offering through their work. You don't have to work with these people. In fact, you can use your marketing and your messaging to screen them out, to repel them.

I realize that sounds scary to repel people, but it's exactly what you want to do if you never want to work with another crappy client again.

So how do you do it? Well, that's exactly what we're talking about on today's podcast. So let's dive in. 

During the past year, I've had to have several difficult conversations with clients. One of the activities I do with my clients is called an audience deep dive. And the purpose of the audience deep dive is to allow me to get into the head and the heart of the people they are working with. So it's a series of five questions, and as I was reading a couple of my clients' answers to these questions, I had one or two reactions.

The first reaction was, wow, these people sound like nightmares and they don't appreciate you or your expertise or your skills and talents that you're bringing to the proverbial table. Is this who you want to create your new messaging for?

Or, I've had the reaction of, wow, these people are not ready for your work. They don't need a coach. It sounds like they need a therapist, they just wouldn't get any benefit and wouldn't see the benefit of working with you.

Considering this is a conversation I have during the first session with a brand new client, things can get a bit awkward, but I want all of my clients and I want you to know that you don't have to settle for who you've been working with.

Whenever you're working on your messaging and marketing, it is a chance to upgrade to evolve who you've been working with. Well, I know for me, I don't want to create a 3 Word Rebellion for people who are not your people who you really don't want to be in your audience or to be a part of your movement.nI want to create 3 Word Rebellions that your right client hears and is like, yes, tell me more.

Now I realize some business owners like a challenge. They like challenging clients. And that is totally fine for me. I love a good messaging challenge, but I learned working with people who I could go grab a beer with, who when I see their name on my calendar, I'm not like, oh, this person, I can feel the energy sucking away. I want to look at my calendar and be excited about who I'm talking with.

And I know when your business is new. Or you, you're an established business owner and you've been relying mostly on word of mouth marketing. You kind of have to take what you can get, or it feels that way. And I'm here to tell you that you don't need to do that. Here are three ways to start repelling the wrong people right now.

The first way: it's a mindset shift. Don't fear repelling people. I see this all the time when I'm working with clients, especially in bold messaging sessions, that they're worried that they might lose someone or they might turn someone off. The fact is you're not for everyone. I am not from everyone. None of my clients are for everyone. 

Our message and our marketing should be a filtering device and we should want to filter out the people who aren't the right fit, who aren't ready for our work, who don't get the best results for our work and who are miserable to work with.

So don't worry about repelling people because for every one person who decides no, you're not for me, there will be another person who says, oh, yes. I think I found my person. And that's the kind of client you want to be working with.

Number two: please be super specific about who you are for. The other day I got a consult request and I was reading through his application and I was just like, ooh, he doesn't really have a business yet. He doesn't know what his offers are. It is not time to work on his messaging. Like he is not ready for messaging. It's much better if I send an email and say, hey, this is what I'm thinking. Is that true? And if he's like, oh no, no, no, no, no. You know, like, I am further along. I do have offers. I know it could have been seen that way, but that's just not the case. Then I know like, okay, I can have a call with him, but if it's somebody who's so new to business, they don't have anything to sell, then messaging is never the right step for them.

I was working with a client in a BOLD Messaging Session the other day, and she does operations and she's brilliant at it, and she was like, but I work best with like, multi-six figure and seven figure businesses, like, okay, say that on your website, say that this is what you do for multi six-figure and seven-figure businesses. She's like, but isn't that a little like bro marketing? I'm like, no, you're not. Promising the result you're clearly stating who your services are for and who gets the best result.

So be super specific about the kind of person who is ready to work with you and then speak to that person.

Finally, third: match your messaging with the kind of client you want. Your messaging that you have on your website, that you use in your marketing, should showcase what you are for what you believe, what you're against. It should showcase your values.

It's not like these are my values, although it could be, but your values are baked into everything you say and do in your business. They're baked into every key message you deliver along your client decision journey. So what needs to happen is auditing your message for where you're giving people the wrong idea.

One of my clients recently thought that the only people who really would work with her are people who are broken and in so much pain because, well, that's what bro marketers teach us. Right? Like pinpoint marketing, make them hurt, make them hurt a lot. And the fact was that the people who were most broken were not at all ready for her and what she offered, they needed something completely different before they could be ready to work with her.

So audit your message and get rid of any of the leaks that are attracting the wrong people, because here's the deal when you evolve or refine your message, you're creating an opportunity to evolve who you're working with. Let me say that again. When you evolve or refine your messaging, you create an opportunity to evolve who you're working with and isn't that the best thing ever? Your message can repel, like mosquito spray, those shitty clients who don't appreciate your work and your message can be the breath of fresh air that your right fit clients are thrilled to discover.

Your words are the lighthouse for those right people to say yes, “I finally found the business that can help me.”

So draw that line in the sand, say no more shitty clients.

If it is time for you to evolve or nail down your message for the very first time, I wanted you to know that I am taking clients for Q4 for the 3 Word Rebellion Messaging Intensive. So if you've thought about working with me either at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022. now is the time to go ahead and apply for a consult.

The bottom line is don't settle. Don't settle for working with people who don't appreciate what you bring to the table. Instead, evolve your messaging to fit the client and to communicate the value that you're creating with your business to that client that gets the most benefit from working with.