Getting More Clients For Consultants And Coaches With Dov Gordon [PODCAST 173]

 

Are you a consultant, coach or expert who struggles with getting more clients? Dov Gordon talks about how to consistently attract high value clients without stress, hype, or overselling.  Right now we live in a technological gold rush. Businesses jump into hyped-up marketing trends like Facebook Ads and funnels, often without examining the rationale behind them. It is important to establish a solid foundation and today’s session will give you the insights to get more clients…

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Getting More Clients For Consultants And Coaches With Dov Gordon [PODCAST 173]

Welcome to GrowthToFreedom.com, the show that brings you inspiration, transformation, and leadership. We’re helping you connect the dots, see the blind spots, get unstuck so you can go out there and get more new clients, and have an ability to grow your reach, grow your impact so you can make a bigger contribution. We’ve got a special show. Let me ask you this, would you like a way to get a predictable way to get a steady stream of new clients for your coaching and consulting practice in business? What if you could get off the rollercoaster of the ups and downs? You know what I’m talking about, that feeling of anxiety at the end of each month because a new month is starting and guess where you start at? Zero. How great would it be if you could actually get off that rollercoaster and have a steady stream of clients coming to you that are pre-motivated, pre-interested, prequalified and ready to do business with you because of a new way of looking at getting clients?

Our guest expert is going to be able to give you some insights and strategies on how to do that. His name is Dov Gordon. He can be found at DovGordon.net. He helps consultants, coaches and experts maybe like you get your ideal clients consistently. Dov has led CEO peer advisory groups that attracted CEOs of companies between ten million, and 150 million in annual sales. He’s transformed that experience to be able to work with small business entrepreneurs who love what they do but are having trouble getting their consistent clients. Here’s the bottom line, Dov is an expert at being able to help you get more new clients. Dov, welcome to the show. How are you?

Thank you, Dan. Glad to be here.

I’d love to get some context because I love technology. Where are you?

I’m actually in Israel. I’ve been living here and we work with people around the world. I’m in the perfect time zone if you want to work eighteen hours a day.

The beauty of technology, it allows us to connect from all over the world and you’ve got worldwide experience and you’ve had just a wealth of success over the years. I’m curious because everybody’s got their story and journey or why they’re doing what they’re doing. Why are you focused on helping coaches and consultants and experts get more clients?

That was my journey. I’m not one of these natural marketers and salespeople and not one of the celebrity type who naturally attract a crowd. I’m more of the kind of person who’s really good at what I do. For my first seven or eight years trying to build a business, a consulting and coaching business, it was a real struggle. I was following all sorts of advice. I spent a lot of money on the mentoring and coaching and courses and books, and it was like a real uphill battle trying to figure it out until eventually I really came to understand that there are really two paths to thriving or succeeding as a consultant, coach, or expert professional service type person. One is what I call the path of the charismatic group and the other is the path of mastery. I realized I was on the wrong path. I belong in the path of mastery. I also came to realize that there are more people like me struggling on the path of the charismatic guru without realizing where we are and without realizing that there are other alternatives that are far better suited for us.

How would you describe the path of the charismatic guru?

There are a lot of people who are very strong personalities, and that’s great. Everyone should build on their assets. There are some people who are just really outgoing, they want to be the celebrity type, they want to be in front of everybody. They want to be posting the photos of their latest trips around the world, wherever it might be. As long as they also have something valuable to communicate, to convey, and help people build skills and so on, that’s great. Unfortunately, there are some people in every business, there are people like that, they’re a lot better at selling than actually delivering, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about most of them are legitimate, but there are tens of millions of people who are really good at what they do. They’ve mastered their craft. All they really want is to just be doing great work with great clients, making a great income and they want it to be consistent.

That’s really me, I think that’s what I’ve come to understand over many years. That’s what all these people are looking for. I just shifted my focus at some point from really just working with larger corporate clients like I used to, to working with other consultants, coaches, professional service firms, and consulting firms who are struggling because they’re more of an engineering type perhaps. They’re more of a structured thinking type. That’s their strengths, but it’s also their weakness. Does that make sense?

I love one of the concepts you share. If you’re going to put a balloon up in the air, it’s not the color of the balloon that matters, it’s something else. It’s that something else. It’s like oxygen in business in many ways that many people underestimate the power of that. It reminds me of the great quote from Gary Halbert, what you just said, which is there’s really no correlation between being good and actually getting paid. One path leads to perhaps celebrity, the other actually leads to getting paid. What I hear you saying is the path to mastery is just a great path to follow either way. We can be well-known or we can be well-paid. As to the audience, which would you rather be? What Dov is bringing to you is an ability to be well-paid doing great things and being a great servant leader. Dov, what would you say is one of the biggest myths or biggest mistakes that you see a lot of coaches, consultants, experts or influencers making on this path or on this journey overall? There’s a lot of nonsense out there, I think you and I both agree with that. I’d want to get your take on this too.

The biggest mistake that I see people make is that they’re trying to learn how to market and sell their expertise in a way that they would never occur to them. For example, they would never learn their core craft in the same way. Let me ask to explain what I mean. There’s way too much focus on tactics. “Do this, do that. Everyone’s got to be blogging, you’ve got to be on LinkedIn, you’ve got to be doing Facebook ads or ad words or search engine optimization and webinars and you need marketing funnels and all that.” Good smart people who maybe in their core engineering, they understand that before I go out and do things, I actually have to understand the thinking behind it first.

When it comes to marketing though, we often don’t even realize that we’re not understanding the thinking. We didn’t set out to become marketers, we really just want to do great work with great clients and make a greater income. At some point you come to realize, “I do have to do some marketing and sales because otherwise it’s not going to happen.” Then you look around, you wake up and you say, “What do I do?” You go online, “What do I need to do?” You sign up for this email list and that one, and before you know it, you’re being pushed this course in that program and this live event and so on. There’s so much information out there. Then you try to do some of this, you try to do some of that.

I was talking just the other day to a woman who was making $300,000 as a consultant. She left her corporate CFO job and then she had to move out of the country for family reasons. Suddenly she didn’t have the referral network that she had built up. She wasn’t able to be onsite with clients and now she had to start over in many ways. She bought some core system program where they had her building a sales video and then running Facebook ads to that and months of that it didn’t feel right to her and it didn’t produce anything. Then she hired a marketing agency and that thousands of dollars out the door altogether. This was about $40,000 that she spent. It had nothing to show for it, not one client. The reason is because there’s this focus on, “Everyone has to do this.” I’d like to share the thinking behind the tactics because it’s not what we all see. If we look around, every tactic can work and every tactic can fail. It’s not the Facebook ads, not the ad words, it’s not the networking and the cold calling, the billboards, whatever. What I’ve come to really realize and for myself and in others is that when you understand why it works when it works and why it fails when it fails, then suddenly you have the certain power and freedom and you’re no longer dependent on all the experts out there and everyone telling you to do something else, but nevertheless they all sound the same.

What would you say would be the number one strategy to focus on in the case of the girl? Starting over, no referral network, not focused. What would be the first step for someone to take to get clarity on who they’re serving?

The first step is you have to realize that the first job of whatever you’re going to do is to get the attention and interest of your ideal client. It doesn’t matter whether you want referrals consistently or you can do conference speaking or an online funnel of whatever kind, the first job of everything you need to do is you’ve got to get the attention and interest of your ideal client. What few people realize is that there are only two things that anybody’s ever interested in. They’re not interested in your degree, they’re not interested in your methodology, they’re not interested in your experience. There are only two things that get their attention and interest, and that is if you talk about a problem they have and don’t want or if you talk about a result they want and don’t have. That’s a light bulb moment and it has been for tens of thousands of people who have heard that. Really think about it. That’s all you’re interested in, right down, and that’s all I’m interested in.

I just heard there was an ad playing right before we went live for snoring. It’s some snoring device. They’re talking about a problem certain people have and don’t want, and results they want and don’t have. They’re talking to that. Very few people are clear about, “What is a real problem that I helped solve result that I enable?” It’s simple, but it’s something that’s a little hard for people to do. I can give some examples. Going back a number of years, someone’s website said, “We sell dashboards and reports that help executives deliver better business results.” There’s no problem there, there could be 100 different things. This guy’s ideal client, let’s say Joe’s a CEO. Joe’s running $100 million a year business. What’s on Joe’s mind is he’s like, “I just spent $3,000,000 on this new ERP system and I still can’t get the data I need to make these difficult pricing decisions.”

If we can’t make the right pricing decisions and we’ve got a big problem, what are we to do?

We’re saying that the only two things that get the attention of your ideal clients, the interest of your ideal client is if you talk about a problem they have and don’t want or a result they want and don’t have. I used an example of a somebody who was selling software dashboards and reports and his website said, “We sell dashboards and reports that help executives deliver better business results. The point that we didn’t notice there, is that there is no clear problem and no clear result that can be trying to solve 100 problems.” Joe CEO, this guy’s ideal client, let’s say the head of a $100 million a year business. His problem is he wakes up in the morning and he’s thinking, “Why can’t I get the data that I need from this multimillion dollar information system that I just installed?”

Imagine these two scenarios. Scenario number one, Joe CEO walks out of his house and there’s a billboard right opposite his front door and the billboard says, “We sell dashboards and reports to help executives deliver a better business results.” I bet that Joes CEO doesn’t even notice the billboard as walks to his car, gets in the car, and drives to the office. What if instead that billboard said, “We help you get the data you need from that multimillion dollar information system you just installed so you can make difficult pricing decisions.” After Joes picks his jaw up off the floor, he’ll be on the phone with your company before he’s rear end is at the seat of his car. That’s the power of speaking aloud, the problem they have and don’t want and the result they want and don’t have. A lot of people are resistant to that and that’s why so many people don’t do it. That’s why if you do, do it, you stand out.

You can imagine one of the reasons that people don’t like to do that is because they think, “I can help with so many problems. I can get so many results, I don’t want to risk picking the wrong one.” The problem with that is that it doesn’t work as well because keep in mind, there are only two things that get the attention and interest of your ideal client, and that is if you talk about a problem they have and don’t want and the results they want and don’t have. If you talk about what you do, you help them get dashboards and reports to help them get better business results, they won’t even notice. You talk about the mistakes that people make. It’s probably the most foundational mistake that people make, is that they’re not building their marketing on a clear problem/result and we know we can look at this from different aspects as well if you’d like.

I think this is one of the biggest problems most people have in their business. Over the years in some of the businesses that have been a failure that I’ve had, I’ve dealt with this and struggled with it. Keep going.

I want to refine this distinction even further. We said that the thing gets attention and interest. You need to understand the distinction between attention and interest. A lot of things will get your attention. If I send you a YouTube video with two dogs eating with a fork and knife, you will get your attention for a few minutes if you haven’t seen that one yet, then you go back to what you were doing, whatever you actually have to do to get stuff done. If something gets your interest, it changes your plans. Let’s say you have a booth at a conference or convention, people may pass by if you have something funny or a clown or whatever it might be, or magician or whatever, you might get attention, but you’re not really after just attention. You’re after interests, and this is where so many people fall down because they’re focused on getting attention, but they don’t realize that you need not just attention, interest, loud noise would get your attention. A funny joke would get your attention. A tragic story, but then you go back to what you’re doing. You need to get interest.

Interest leads people to change their plans and head in your direction. They’re walking by and they see your message above your booth. It gets not just their attention if it does the right job. If it’s rooted in a problem they have and don’t want, results they want and don’t have, like the example I gave before or some others I’ll mention, they will change their plans and head in your direction. The guy was planning to just keep thinking about his problems while driving to the office. Instead he’s on the phone with your company because of the billboard, because of the strong message that got his attention, but also his interest. It’s really powerful and almost nobody does it. Let me give you a couple of more examples.

Another very common example is let’s say I’m a leadership consultant or in marketing or management consultant. A lot of the people that we help are corporate refugees. They leave the corporate world and they figured, “I’m tired of the politics. I’m tired of the restrictions.” I just want to do great work for great clients and make a great income. The skills that you need to thrive and succeed as an independent consultant, coach, and expert are not the same skills to help you do really well in the corporate world. She wanted to be a leadership consultant. She had been the head of a 50-person marketing department of a billion-dollar construction company and a year or two after leaving her job, she was struggling. She found herself making cheap websites for people down the street. That was not what she wants to be doing, but she was just lost. She was all over the place running in any direction. She started working with us and what we helped her do, I said, “Make a list of the problems that you can help solve and the results that you can enable.” She made a list and we’re looking for specifics. You’ve got to enter this conversation at the level that it’s happening in your ideal client’s head. I looked at her list and I said, “That’s it. You can build a business on that.” What was it? It was rather than saying, “I’m a management consultant, I’m a leadership consultant,” it talked about how she said, “I can help companies solve the problems they have from that employee who is too valuable to fire,” and that’s it.

Imagine my client and a competitor at some event and they are both introduced to CEO of a billion-dollar company who needs some leadership development training or some organizational development help. The competitor, he’s like, “What do you do?” The competitor says, “I’m a management consultant.” The potential client thinks to himself, “Yes. I had my experience with the people like you,” and then turns to my client and says, “What do you do?” My client says, “I help companies solve the problems they have from that employee who’s too valuable to fire.” The potential client is very likely to say “Tell me more. That sounds very interesting,” because if you have one employee, you’ve got an employee who’s too valuable to fire. If you’ve got no employees, the employee is too valuable to fire too. That is an example of speaking aloud a problem they have and don’t want and results they want and don’t have.

That immediately gets their attention and interest because you’re speaking aloud something that’s going through their head. You’ve articulated it perhaps more clearly than they could do themselves. That suddenly leads them to go, “Should I pay attention? Is it interesting?” Their brain goes, “Yes, absolutely.” You asked me earlier, what is the biggest mistake that most people make that gets in their way, prevent them from getting ideal clients consistently? They don’t recognize the first job of your marketing and sales, is that you have a clear problem they have and don’t want, they have a clear result they want and don’t have, you build everything on that.

Dov, as I am sitting here putting myself in the shoes of our listener or viewer who’s hearing this right now who might be saying, “Yes, I’m struggling with setting myself apart and being unique. I can get attention, but I’m not necessarily getting people to lean in because of interest in differentiation.” You’ve given a good blueprint here. If someone is sitting there saying, “I’ve tried exercises, I’ve tried unique selling proposition strategy, and it still hasn’t worked for me.” What would you say would be the first steps for someone to unpack this and to come up with their version of how they solve the problem for their marketplace in a unique way?

The first step is to list. You’ve got to start your marketing message based on a problem they have and don’t want and results they want and don’t have. Make a list of specific problems that you can help solve and results that you can enable and then look for the one or two that really seemed most compelling. An example we gave was, “I help companies solve the problems we have from employees that are too valuable to fire,” as opposed to saying, “I’m a management consultant.” Don’t talk about what you do, talk about a problem you help solve and result you enable. Make a list and then pick one out and then get to the point where you can articulate it the way your ideal client would articulate it.

We talked about the cup of coffee test. If your ideal client was sitting with a good friend after a long day’s work for a beer or a cup of coffee and describing the problem, what would they say? In our example from before, they probably would say, “Hey, I’ve got this employee, she’s just too valuable to fire, but she’s causing me so many headaches. I’m not sure what to do with it.” We can easily hear them say that. When you could talk about what you do with that kind of language, then you immediately get the attention and interest of your ideal client. I’ll give another example, a lot of people talk about a lot of life coaching, or at least it was common a few years ago. It’s a legitimate skill set. Nobody wants life coaching. I had a life coach who was struggling because she was trying to sell life coaching and I had to make a list of the problems you help solve and the results you enable, and I looked over the list. I said, “That’s your opportunity. We can turn that into something.” What it was that she can help families who have a teenager who’s really like having a rough time and getting into trouble. I said, “Here’s your message. This is what you do.” “I help parents take control when their team drops a bombshell.”

You don’t talk about life coaching, we help them put together some free training or free report on how to take control when your team drops a bombshell and then offer a free one on one consultation with you, which you’ll call the “Stop walking on eggshells” consultation. Suddenly you go from selling life coaching to actually helping people to actually talking about the problem they have and don’t want, results they want and don’t have. I think we could instantly see that the reason most of us don’t do this, as we mentioned earlier, is because we’re afraid of leaving people out. If I only talk about teens and parents like that, then all the other people I can help would realize, but if you talk about life coaching, nobody will realize who you are and nobody will care. You have got to do this.

I imagine you have your experience on this too, and it might even be the same, is when you narrow down the niche, you actually grow up and out. If we really get grassroots, Apple is arguably the biggest company in the world today, they started as a niche. They started focused on geeks and underground programmers. Then it grew out of that and they outgrew that niche to become something much, much bigger over time, but it started because of their focus upfront in my opinion, right about all the research that I’ve done. If someone is reading this and they’re like, “I’d love to do that, but I’m a little concerned I’m going to cut into my income, because I think that it’s not just I’m leaving people out, it’s that I’m not going to be able to make the money because I’m leaving people out if I narrow it down.” Have you found that actually when you narrow down you still attract people because they find you fascinating and unique and that you must be able to help them with their other stuff anyway?

It’s absolutely true because they figure if you can help with the teens then you can probably also help with dealing with families that have no boundaries or who knows what. The other thing that you discover also is just that people are very afraid of pigeon holing themselves, but actually take a look at this and like how many clients are you looking to have? How much are you looking to make?

With that, there’s a big difference between being a generalist and specialists. Specialists or experts get paid more than generalists, don’t they? Overall, what would you say would be one, two, or three action steps that you would hope our viewers and our listeners would take as a result of our focus, unpacking the idea of standing out and being unique and different?

A good question. There are three questions that everybody really should answer. One of the things that so many businesses struggle with is to pick a niche. Everybody knows you need to pick a niche and everybody struggles with it. Not everybody, but many people. A big part of why they struggle to pick a niche is because most of the experts advising them way over complicate what’s involved in picking a niche. They treat small businesses as if they’re consultants coaching, as if you’re like Proctor and Gamble or some big company and lead them through these avatar exercises. I had a client who came to us after spending $10,000 for some consultant to lead them through an avatar exercise for two days and he got nothing from it. For most consultants, coaches and experts, you do not get anything from knowing that your ideal client as the 35-year-old woman with two cats and whatever, it’s your kids and married and they were not, these types of things, it doesn’t really help. You have to get to the root and the way you get to the root is by building on everything we talked about beforehand. You can also build the foundation with these three questions.

The first question is what we talked about earlier, we’ll just reiterate, and that is, “What problems do you help solve? What results do enable?” Just write down as many specific problems as you can think of. Don’t worry about it. Just get them out. What problems do you help solve? What results do you enable from the perspective of your ideal client? The second question is, “Who has those problems? Who wants those results?” Organize that in any way you can group people in any way. Don’t fuss about It, just any way that you can group them. Sometimes it will be easier than not. Sometimes it will be like dentist. You can get a list of dentists in your city, for example. Sometimes it will be a little harder to identify. It will be, let’s say CEOs of companies who are looking to change their strategic direction or are looking to improve their product development, let’s just say. It’s a little harder to identify people like that. They’re more hidden and tactical, you’ll need to do things a little bit differently, but we’re not going to be able to get that to that. The third question is what are the qualities and characteristics of my ideal client? These are three questions and think of it as a three circle Venn diagram, the three overlapping circles. The first question, what problems will I solve? What results do I enable? Who has those problems? Who wants those results? Group them any way you can. Lastly, what are the qualities and characteristics of your ideal clients, the clients you do not want?

As you answer the questions to one, it’ll help you answer the questions to the other two and then so on. Two and three will help you answer a question one it goes through it several times, and it’s where those overlap, that’s where you have your niche. You don’t have to know everything about these people because the first job of your marketing and selling system is to get the attention and interest of your ideal client. Everyone says, “Pick a niche, you need a niche.” Why? We don’t ask that question often enough. We did understand the thinking behind it. Why? Why do I need to pick a niche? The answer is so that everything you do could be focused and add up.

Number one, you need to be able to speak in a way that earns the attention and interest of your ideal client. As we’ve proven earlier, the only way to do that is talk about a problem they have and don’t want and a result they want don’t have. Once you have that piece clear and then you identified certain groups that includes your ideal client and criteria for which types of people in that group you would love to work with, suddenly you’re in a position to build a simple repeatable marketing and selling system based on the simplest insight into your ideal client. You don’t have to worry about all that stuff, pages and pages of deep insights that all they do is they leave you thinking, “Now what?” With this, you know exactly what to do next. You just take that simple insight into a problem-result certain type of people have and you craft it into a simple compelling message and you use that as what we call the marketing helium for whichever tactic you plan to use in your marketing and selling a system.

As you’re listening right now, you can ideally start to get a glimpse and a glance at the wisdom that Dov has. I want to encourage you to go deeper. If you’d like to go deeper with Dov and you’d like to get access, I’ve had a chance over the last few days in prep for this interview to go through several of his resources. He’s got all kinds of stuff in different places. Dov, where can people go to go deeper, not only with this, but you’ve got a four-part video series on your site and on YouTube and some different things. Where would you want people to go if they want to go deeper and get better at this and coming up with their unique message and just being better and getting more clients as a consultant, coach or expert?

Probably the best place to go is DovGordon.net/ManualFree. That’s for what we call the manual and we sold that for $97 for five years but at that link, get it for free. The manual is called How To Systematically And Consistently Attract First Rate Clients, there’s no fluff in that. It’s 80-something pages, very actionable, beginning with a few pages of key insight followed by what to do building on top of that insight. That’s where I’d recommend people go because like I said, we sold that for five years and $97 and we’re giving away for free now.

I want to encourage you, if something that Dov is shared with you here has sparked your interest and this is just tip of the iceberg. You want to go deeper, go to DovGordon.Net/ManualFree. You get the $97 book that he’s making available to you for free. Go deeper with all these different strategies that we’ve been sharing with you today. Dov, what is something I should have asked you as it relates to this conversation that I didn’t get a chance to?

Let’s go back to something we started off with, which is what’s the mistake that most people make? We talked about how they’re not beginning with a deep insight into the only two things that get the attention and interest of your ideal clients. Let’s build on that because I said that the first job of your marketing and selling system is to get their attention and interest. What most people don’t realize because it gets so caught up in the tactical aspects and all the gurus pushing this tactic and that tactic, Facebook and LinkedIn and all that, we never deeply understand what is this tactic actually trying to achieve? This is such a key insight that almost nobody understands, and I’m going to walk you through this very quickly.

Your ideal client to go from total stranger will they never heard of you to where they’re happily investing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars with for your product or service, they only need to answer yes to three questions and these are the three questions. Question number one, when they come across to you, the first question they ask is, “Should I pay attention? Is it interesting?” That’s what we’ve been talking about. If you craft a simple compelling head-turning message by having a clear problem they have and don’t want and clear result they want and don’t have, their brain goes, “Yes,” just like Joe CEO in an earlier segment. As soon as their brain says, “Yes, this is interesting,” instantly they have a second question, which is, “You’ve got my attention and you’ve got me interested, but who are you? Can I trust you? Are you for real?”

This is why now, once you’ve got their attention and interest, you need to put something in place that leads them to conclude, “Yes, I can trust you. Yes, you have my best interests at heart. Yes, you know your stuff.” As they are exposed to whatever it is that you’re putting out there as part of your marketing and selling system specifically designed to help them answer yes to that second question, then they come to conclude, “Dan, I know you’ve got me interested and from this wonderful radio show you do every week, I see that I can trust you. I see you actually care.” That leads me to have my third and final question, “Is what you recommend right for me?” That’s where you’ve got the final part of the marketing and selling system, which we call the elegant sales conversation is, and then the easy yes offer.

We didn’t actually spell them all out. I can walk through the six pieces, but you have to understand that it doesn’t matter what tactic are you going to use. If it’s Facebook ads or if it’s cold calling or if it’s speaking at conferences, joint ventures, it doesn’t matter. Every single marketing funnel has to lead your ideal client to answer yes to the first question they should have paid attention to, “Is it interesting?” “Yes.” “You’ve got me interested. Can I trust you?” “Yes.” “I see I can trust you, is what you recommend for me?” “Yes.” Congratulations, you have a new client. The problem with the way most people think about their marketing and selling system, it is superficial. Getting across the surface, some expert says, you’re going to create sales video and run Facebook ads to it. They say, “Fine. What do I do? What do I say?” “Here’s what you do. Here’s a template. Say it this way, fill it in. Run Facebook ads to it,” and $10,000 later and they’ve got no results because there’s no soul to it. There’s no what we call marketing helium.

You mentioned at the very beginning that it’s not the tactic. Every tactic could work and every tactic can fail. Just like if you have a blue balloon and a red balloon and your blue balloon falls to the floor and the red balloon flies and I think to myself, “I want a balloon that flies too, I’m not going to get a blue balloon and I’m going to get a red balloon.” I go out and buy a bright shiny red balloon and I take a deep breath and I blow up my bright shiny red balloon. I tie a knot and I leave. I go and it falls to the floor right next to your blue balloon and I think to myself, “Dan’s red balloon flew and it looked so nice up there. Why did my red balloon fall?” The answer of course is because you filled your balloon with helium and I filled mine with hot air and it’s the same thing with marketing tactics. If you fill your marketing tactic with the equivalent of marketing hot air, nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear you. It’s like you poke your head in the LinkedIn group. Do you ever see LinkedIn groups? They’re just so full of hot air.

In order to get the attention and interest of your ideal client, you have to lead them to be interested and you do that with what we call marketing helium. You talk about a problem they have and don’t want and a result they want and don’t have. It should be specific. I have another client, we can call her a life coach, but she wouldn’t think about herself as a life coach. What does she do? After working with us, now what she’s saying is, “I help women who wake up each morning and wonder if I’m so successful, why am I still unhappy?” You can build a whole business on that. Whereas nobody would take a second look at you if you talk about life coaching if you say, “I help women who wake up every morning wondering if I’m so successful, why am I still unhappy?”

Instantly you get the attention and interest of your ideal client. This woman who comes across your Facebook ad clicks because she’s like, “You’ve got me interested, but now our brand is wondering who are you? What are you all about? Can I trust you? Are you for real?” Then you need to give her an experience, some additional know how and knowledge. It helps her begin to solve our problem, she begins to get the result that she wants. Then her brain says, “I do think I can trust you. I do think that you’re for real. You do seem to know your stuff. You’re not like everybody else and you actually seem to care.” Then she has her third question, which is, “What do you recommend for me in is what you recommend for me? Is what you recommend right for me?” That will usually be the sales conversation we talked about, the sales conversation that will lead to your next sales conversation and then your easy yes offer.

Speaking of that Dov, I would love to go deeper. If you’re getting an understanding of the power of what Dov has for you, I encourage you to go check out what Dov has at DovGordon.net/ManualFree  to go deeper. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you with us. I encourage you to take action with what Dov has been sharing with you. Do you never want to miss an episode? You can do that at GrowthToFreedom.com/Subscribe. Thanks for making us part of your day. Seize the day. Make it a great week. We’ll see you next time. GrowthToFreedom.com.

Resources mentioned on this episode:

• DovGordon.net
• DovGordon.net/ManualFree
• GrowthToFreedom.com/Subscribe

About Dov Gordon

 

Dov Gordon helps consultants, coaches and entrepreneurs develop a consistent flow of their ideal clients

Why “The Alchemist Entrepreneur”? Alchemy usually refers to turning lead into gold. Mythical or not, the idea is you must work on the underlying structure of the metal in order to turn something common into something priceless. Since Dov eschews flashy tricks and tactics and instead works on the core concepts of your marketing message and systematic implementation, the idea of alchemy spoke to him – and his clients agree, the results are truly gold.