If you are a speaker, author or coach the #1 desire is to have more speaking gigs, more clients and places to write for; so where can you find & connect with your avatar and make that happen?
We get asked all the time:
· where can I find my customers?
· What groups should I be in?
· where can I find the connections I need?
One of the foundational answers to these is actually to know your avatar like they are your very best friend. The more you know about the person you want to work with, the easier it is to locate them. Please check out our FB live training: about discovering your avatar as it’s the essential step to EVERYTHING — we mention avatar in pretty much every training we do!
By knowing your avatar fully, you can start to work out where to hang out, what to say to get their attention and how to connect more deeply so you can begin a relationship that will lead to something — sometimes immediately, and sometimes eventually!
Here are just some of the questions you can ask yourself to help you know them more — which will help you understand where to hang our or look for them:
– What services do they use?
– Where do they shop?
– What do they buy — where from?
– What are the marks of their trade?
– Where do they learn more of their craft?
– Where do they get educated?
– What associations / memberships do they belong to?
– What kinds of holidays do they go on?
These should give you some clues to where you can be to be near them. As well as making sure you are hanging out where your avatar is (networking groups/Facebook groups/advertising in publications they read etc.), a really easy way is to work with people who have your avatar but don’t offer your exact services — so there isn’t any competition.
A small question that gets you thinking so much bigger!
We like to get all our clients to ask themselves this question — and often!:
“Who has my customers before me or after me?”
The more you liaise with those who also work with your ideal client, the easier it is for ALL of you to benefit; you, the client / prospect AND the other supplier. Thinking about who provides those services starts to give you a clue to the people you can partner and collaborate with — that then naturally lead into or follow on from what you might do with your avatar. It’s a tiny question with a LOT of power. Take some time out right now to think about it. To make it work even better for you though, read on to get prepared to reach out to those you identify in a way that makes it work for you.
What you need to work with others.
There are key aspects that you need to know about your business before you can fully take advantage of this way of working. You need to have:
– A clear & thorough description of your avatar
– A defined product funnel & user journey
– Crystal clear understanding of what problems you solve & where your knowledge/skills limits are
Then the next stage is to identify what clients bring you joy!
The prospects that you come across will be in 1 of 3 stages:
1) There will be people who are too early on in their journey to work with you — for example, for Kelly’s speaker agency — there are criteria around who is and is not suitable — they don’t represent people who aren’t trained in speaking, haven’t spoken on stage in a professional setting and received great client feedback.
2) There will be people who are at the perfect time to work with you — as they have the exact problem that you solve and are hungry to know how!
3) There are people who have overcome the challenges that you educate them on and they actually represent who your ideal clients become once they’ve worked with you. They’ve learned all you can teach them, done everything you’ve shared with them and they are now ready for more, but no longer from you.
Now your job is to find partners who LOVE to work with people who are too early for you and who can work with them after they have finished working with you — as you can feed these partners clients and arrange an introduction commission fee as part of your income stream.
Your job is to also work with these people to arrange systems and processes for them to introduce clients to you when they are at your stage!
Some ways to start thinking about who your partners might be…
Another way to look at this is to think about who can be an ‘ambassador’ for your project. It’s also valuable to ask yourself who can sell on your behalf? Everyone has people they ‘use’ for different kinds of things in their lives. These service providers may be a clue to identify who else can work alongside you.
– Professional — do your people have accountants, lawyers, services of some kind?
– Practical — valet, car hire, nanny’s, concierge
– Personal — luggage, haircuts, personal trainers
Again, this is just to give you more information and thinking prompts to identify your potential partners. Once you have got a list of who has your clients before or after you or who can sell on your behalf it’s important to:
- Ensure that these people align with your values, brand and ethics
- Know the offers & commission you are offering and how it effects your profit and budgets
- Set targets from how many prospects you intend to get from referral partners
- Put in place the systems & processes will you set up to refer prospects & pay commission
That’s where some more support and help may be required, so do come and join The Connection Hub where we provide a bunch of training and direction around getting these things right in your business. We want you to run it ON YOUR TERMS™, and will always share ways to do that in there!Speaker INsight
We support speakers, authors & coaches to monetise their message, market their purpose and create & manage their portfolio business, ON THEIR TERMS™.