Why you keep getting the wrong clients

One of the things people most complain about when they come to me for help is that they seem to keep attracting the wrong kind of clients. Instead of well-paying clients who really value what you do, you end up with people who expect you to drop your price, don’t do the work, and then blame you for their lack of results.

If that sounds horribly familiar to you, here are four things you probably aren’t doing:

1.     You’re not asking enough

If you’re getting clients, but they’re the wrong type, the chances are you aren’t valuing what you do enough. That has two unhelpful outcomes: you’re not asking for the business often enough or openly enough, and you’re not asking a high enough fee.

If you’re not asking often enough, at least from the people you’d really love to be working with, they may not even realise they could be getting your help. People are reluctant to ask for help, they need to know that you’re available to help them and that you’re excited to work with them.

Its’ not about selling

You may think you’re avoiding being ‘salesy’, but they just think you don’t need or want their business. Make that offer very clear: “I’m here, I’m just what you’ve been looking for, and I would very much love to get started with you.” And ask it often, you have no idea what might be distracting them the first time they see your message in a post or ad, seeing it frequently will bring familiarity, and that brings confidence, and that brings clients.

If you’re not asking a high enough fee for your work, you’re under-valuing it. And if you under-value what you can do for people, so will they! If you’re asking for the business from the people it’s specifically designed to help, why would you sell it cheap? Your perfect client is one who wants to pay you well for the amazing things you can do for them. Help them to value it properly.

Whatever the going rate is in your profession, make sure you’re asking for at least above average rates (and preferably towards the top of the range). Your work matters, you make a difference in their world. And that makes you worth a premium rate.

Price-conscious pain

When you under-value your work, your best clients will doubt the value you can bring. That means that the people who will ask to work with you will be the people who buy on price. They are probably not your best clients. In fact I’d go so far as to say they are almost certainly the wrong clients for you.

People who buy on price tend to be looking for a quick fix without investing resources in achieving real transformation.  Put bluntly, they won’t do the work. And they’ll blame you. We’ve all had clients who fell in love with the promise of change, but then made all sorts of excuses why they couldn’t change. Don’t attract those types of clients by making your fees ‘attractive’ to everyone. Instead price out the tyre-kickers and dilettantes.

Charge what you’re worth, and only attract the clients with a strong desire for change.

2.     You’re Not Working with the Right Avatar

You need to be completely clear who your ‘right’ clients are. Without that clarity, you won’t be expressing what you do in a way that attracts them. At a general level, today’s market is stuffed full of people who ‘do what you do’. To attract those perfect clients you need to be speaking directly to them, not the whole market. But unless you’re brand new to business, you know this stuff.

Casting the net too wide

And yet it’s amazing how many people I speak to, who say they don’t want to exclude anyone who might engage them. I can see how that makes sense if you’re desperate for business. But that very desperation is why you’re not getting enough business; nobody buys from desperate people.

There’s a bigger problem with casting your net too wide, one that actively discourages your ideal customers. When you work with the wrong kind of clients, that confuses your perfect client, because they’re not like those guys. Why would they want to work with a generalist when there are specialists out there, who understand their problems and speak their language?

So they move on, and spend their money with someone more selective. And the worst of it is, if they really were your perfect client, they’ll never find anyone who can help them like you could have. Your fear of not finding enough people to serve in your niche means everyone misses out.

Niche means premium

Give yourself permission to work with the premium customers who are looking for a premium service. That means fully understanding the clients you enjoy helping the most. The best way to do that is to build up what marketers call an ‘avatar’ of your ideal clients. Essentially, that’s a made-up person who has all the attributes of the type of client you’d love to work with.  

Your real customers may not have every attribute, but you’ll make sure they have enough to mean they are still a joy for you to work with. And more importantly, that they’re the kind of person you get great results for. There are plenty of Avatar builder tools on the web, and here’s one I created for myself, and then decided to share: www.joyful-genius.com/avatar

Take the time to totally connect with what makes them tick, and what they read, think, and dream about.  Then make your offer speak to them like nobody else, and they’ll know they’ve found their perfect provider.

Then the question becomes not “How much?, but “How soon can I work with you?”

3.     You’re Not Staying Unattached from the Result

To understand how to attract the right customers for you, stop being attached to the outcome of your sales conversations. Attachment to the result means you enter the conversation with an agenda other than to explore what else is possible and to serve.

Attracting the right customers is not about you

Put more bluntly, you’re making it all about you and taking any rejection personally. If you’re allowing fear of rejection to hold you back, that’s because you are making it too important to get a Yes.  And we know people can smell desperation a mile off.

Here’s the thing: if they decide not to go ahead with you, it’s not YOU they are saying No to,   it’s them. If you’ve got your Avatar right, then you’ll only be having serious engagement conversations with the right people. People who need what you do, and who also have the money to pay for it. If they choose not to work with you, they are making a choice not to have their issue resolved.

That has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. It’s frustrating when they choose to keep hold of their issue, of course.  Especially when you have the perfect solution for them. But it is not your job to fix that – not unless they value your work enough to pay for it.

An invitation to attract the right customers

Coming from a place of “I have this really cool thing we could do, and it would be wonderful if you wanted to come play” has such a different vibe to “Buy my stuff, it’s the very best I have to offer and I’ll be really disappointed if you say No!” And a completely different energy to “If you reject me, I’m going to make that mean I’m not good enough.”

The trick is to stop thinking you have to sell yourself. Make it an invitation instead, to the world of possibility you can create with them. When you show up as an invitation to a new and improved reality, they are far more likely to take you up on it. Especially if you’re coming from a space of it’s perfectly OK for them to not want it right now.

Don’t sell so they can buy

If you’re fixating on getting their business, even if that’s because you know how great it will be for them, you create pressure. That creates an energy of want, and want, or lack, makes it hard for people to part with money. When you remain unattached to the sale, that creates an energy of abundance. You make it safe for people to take up your offer. Paradoxically, because you’re not stressing about whether or not they’re going to buy, they’re far more likely to.

In the end, being an invitation to work with you is the best way I know to attract the right customers.

4.     You’re Not Being True to Yourself

Of all the things you can get wrong when seeking to find clients you love, this is probably the biggest. It underpins all the other changes you might make.

Imitation won’t find clients you love

There are so many gurus out there telling you this way and that way to become an overnight success. And if you’re not careful, it’s easy to end up looking rather inauthentic. Nothing scares off your perfect clients quicker than feeling they’re not seeing the real you.

It’s natural that you’re going to follow some experts. We all need to learn new ways of doing things, whether that’s your actual delivery or the way you market it.  But you can’t simply do exactly what the guru tells you they did – because you’re not them.

Whether that’s personal development or internet marketing, trying to simply replicate somebody else’s success is a recipe for losing yourself.

Playing ‘Let’s Pretend’

It’s like a teenager putting on her mother’s ball-gown. It may seem to fit pretty well, but the young girl doesn’t yet have the poise to carry it off. Any more than the mother can rock that strappy party number with quite the panache of her daughter. Each in the other’s style looks slightly ‘off’, like they’ve been in the dressing up box, playing let’s pretend.

But it all changes when you stand on the shoulders of giants. Take the guru’s wisdom and add your special difference to create something uniquely you.  That’s when your perfect customers will find you and fall in love with your work.

Find clients you love and who love you

You have your own unique set of skills, experience and attitudes. It’s that unique combination that makes you perfect for your ideal clients. By taking the guru’s knowledge and adding your authentic way of being to it, you get to create something uniquely special and uniquely suited to your favourite avatar.

And that means you finally get to find the clients you love.

Quote: Take the guru’s wisdom and add your special difference to create something uniquely you. That’s when your perfect customers will find you and fall in love with your work.

So to sum up, we have what I call the 4 A’s of Attraction:

Asking - Ask for the business, frequently and with a genuine confidence in what you do.

Avatar - Get to know your perfect client, and form a real connection with your tribe.

Attachment - Detach from the result, make the invitation, trust yourself and trust them

Authenticity - Use your own ‘voice’ even if you’re adapting another guru’s tactics.

And all of this is in aid of you actively managing to get the clients that you love, doing work that you adore, that's meaningful in the world.  There’s a whole community of us here in the Joyful Genius Global Community, all wishing the same thing for ourselves and for you. Use us as a safe place to experiment: play with how you can Ask more, get feedback on your ideal Avatar, start to lose the Attachment to getting the client even if they’re the wrong kind, and most importantly of all explore what the genuine, Authentic you really is.

And if you need any help, of course, Ask for that too!

Join us in the community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/joyfulgeniuscommunity/