#64??5 things my most successful clients have in common

If I asked you what you thought my most successful clients have in common, I wonder if feelings would be the first word that popped into your head? Probably not!

A book I’m reading at the moment is all about how your feelings dictate your life, and how powerful your thoughts can be.

Continuously telling yourself that you’re stuck on something, or that you’re overwhelmed, or that there are no clients out there for you, will make it your reality.

It’s right there in front of you

If that’s what you think, and that’s what you see mapped out for you, then you’re never going to see the opportunities that are right in front of your eyes.

Have you ever had the experience of thinking about the car you want to buy? Suddenly, you see that car everywhere you go. You wouldn’t have noticed it before because you weren’t looking for it.

Whatever you’re focusing on grows and grows. It works both ways, positively and negatively, so why would you want to invite more of the negative stuff into your life?

Even if there are no clients in your roster right now, keep reflecting on your previous clients and, if you haven’t had any clients yet, remind yourself that thousands of other coaches have got clients so it’s likely that you will too. It’s just a matter of time.

The right mindset

It’s about having the right mindset. That’s what is going to carry you through in business, not just the day-to-day nuts and bolts and practicalities.?

In business, the importance of having the right mindset and the significance of being part of a supportive community are both massively under-rated.?

Let’s put the spotlight on the five mindsets that I see consistently demonstrated by my most successful clients.?

1. Celebrate your wins and look for the positives

Make sure that you always celebrate your wins and focus on what you’re grateful for. It doesn’t always have to be about getting new clients. There are always other wins to be thankful for.

For me, this week, it was about pairing up with one of my most successful clients as an accountability partner. We've just had our first call and in the 30 minutes we spent chatting back and forth we both made huge progress on things that had been keeping us stuck for ages.

The first thing I do when a new client signs up to my Business of Coaching programme is send them a gratitude journal, to encourage them to practise a positive mindset and find their wins.

What’s gone well?

And, at the beginning of every call with a client, I always ask them what's gone well this week, because it's not a question that you ask yourself which means your brain is never seeking an answer to that question.?

When you're not asked that question, which puts you in the mindset of seeking the positive, you can quickly sink into ‘lack’, telling yourself it’s not going to work, and you start procrastinating and feeding all those other negative behaviours.?

I really do think that looking for the positives is the key to a successful business.?

If you can’t focus on what has gone well, you are going to continuously focus on the negatives, which is then going to attract more negatives into your life. So, it's a really, really important behaviour to work at.?

James Clear backs up this theory in his book, Atomic Habits, where he says that, in order to stay motivated, your brain needs to measure incremental progress. So, remember, your brain will not allow you to see your own progress unless you consciously look for it.?

And, if you can’t stay motivated, you simply will not succeed.?

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2. Be committed to your ideal clients?

I am completely wowed by my most successful clients’ level of commitment. They show up so consistently, with so much care and thought about their ideal client. And that's the nub of it. They show up for their ideal client. It's not about what’s going on with them that day, and how busy they are and that they don't feel like it. However they feel, they show up anyway.?

They show up because they know there are people out there who need their help. So they’re there for them, regardless of their own ego and their own schedule.?

I think that is such an admirable quality and something that I am so lucky to see in my clients, because it makes me raise my own game every single day. Ask yourself if you’re being your own best client. What would your best client be saying and doing? How can you be that person??

3. Push yourself out of your comfort zone

For most people, this will mean increasing your visibility. Getting out there. It’s so easy to stay behind the scenes, buried in your laptop, finishing off your website for example, when what you’re probably doing is avoiding the really scary part of building a business, which is actually telling people what you do, and reminding them. A lot! You might not even realise you’re avoiding it.

It's a numbers game

We can often massively underestimate the importance of volume when it comes to our outreach activity. I heard a great podcast where a gym owner talked about his mentor telling him to distribute flyers advertising his gym.

He sent out 300 flyers and didn’t get a single response. He was about to have a go at his mentor, saying it was a rubbish idea and was a complete waste of his time and hadn’t worked.

When his mentor asked him how many flyers he’d sent out and he said 300, his mentor replied that, when he carried out a similar activity, he put out 3,000 flyers every day, and that was just for testing.

He suddenly felt such a fool – there he was, complaining about what he’d been told to do, when actually he should have looked at it a different way and done more and done better.

Like the moment he experienced then, when you start your own business it’s a huge wake up call when you put so much effort into your first ever LinkedIn post, then realise you need to produce more content tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day after that. It can feel exhausting and overwhelming.

And it’s at that time, when it feels so hard, and so relentless, that it’s good to remember the story about sending out 300 leaflets to advertise the gym versus sending out 3,000 leaflets every day.?

4. Take responsibility for your actions

One of the first books I read when I started my coaching business was Carol Dweck's Mindset book.

It was a real game changer in helping me to let go of my victim mentality, where I would view everything as being outside of my control. Instead, I think about how I can take radical responsibility for my own progress and know that I have choices. That I can make decisions and I can learn and change.?

If you ever tell yourself that no one's ever going to buy your services, then you need to recognise that you are in a fixed mindset. You’re seeing the situation as completely outside of your control and that you are powerless to change it.?

But you can change it. Compare yourself to others in the coaching industry who are successful in your niche. What are they doing that you’re not?

Are they posting consistently? Are they collaborating with people and, if so, who? Yes, you might find this exercise triggering, but it's really crucial to ask yourself these challenging questions in order to work out how you can act as if you are that successful coach. What would the top 1% of your niche and the go-to expert in your space be doing and saying??

Know that you have a choice. If you don't take responsibility and build your own dream you can go and get a job and build someone else's dream. It’s tough to hear but it’s the truth.?

5. Be willing to experiment and fail

This is a big one. It takes huge courage to do something like hosting a workshop, worrying that no one will sign up or show up. And just that fear alone will stop most people from even trying.

So, if you have ever put yourself out there and tried, know that you have the strength to be willing to experiment and fail, which means you have the key to entrepreneurship and success.?

It's all about you. It’s about having the right mindset and finding your strengths and using your skillset to make this work. There is no ‘one size fits all’, and I bring this philosophy into everything I do in my programme.?

Some people are successful on TikTok, some on Instagram, some on LinkedIn. Some people are natural networkers and some like doing public speaking.

There are so many different ways to market yourself and your business, and the right way will be the way that feels right to you and works for you.?

If it feels quite daunting, think about it like an experiment, or like a game. How can you make it more fun?

Rather than worrying that a discovery call might lead to a ‘no’, challenge yourself to think about how many no’s you can get this week. If you aim for the no’s, turning them into something light-hearted will shift your perspective and help you to become braver.

That’s it!

I’d love to hear which of these behaviours you’re already demonstrating,? and which of them you’re wanting to work on.?

It can go in peaks and troughs. In the first few years of my business I felt constantly out of my comfort zone but I’ve now settled into a rhythm and it’s time I shook myself up a bit.

That’s why I’m about to go to an in-person networking event for only the second time since I started my business. I've built my entire business online so walking into a room where I don’t know anyone feels a little scary.

But I am ‘walking the talk’ and taking my own advice. I’ll let you know how I get on!

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