Getting clients is hard work. But what do you do when no one seems to be coming through?
Perhaps the problem lies in your foundation — there could be cracks that are preventing potential clients from aligning with you and your offers. It all goes back to you realigning with your why. Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why does it all matter? Once you do, everything will fall into place. It will cause a ripple effect in your business, pulling in the clients you want.
In this episode of The Pollen Podcast, Diana talks about tactical ways to get your ideal clients, including re-evaluating the cracks in your foundation. She delves into the power of realigning with your why and how it extends to your clients and offerings. When you lead with connection instead of transaction, you get back on your frequency and magnetize the right people naturally. 🙌
Listen to this episode to learn how to bridge the gaps in the foundation of your business and start attracting the clients you want!
Create your own creative entrepreneurship story of clarity, professional confidence, and profit. Join Diana’s 90-day group course Camp Clarity and learn everything you wish you already knew, like how to land dream clients, harness the power of social media, and make the money you deserve. Learn more here.
🔥Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn tactical ways to get clients and build your creative business.
Discover how realigning with your why can cause a ripple effect of clients coming through your door.
Understand why you should lead with connection versus transaction.
📘Resources
Get access to Diana’s FREE Aligned and Empowered Sales Call Training here!
Join the waitlist for the Diana Davis Creative Spring Retreat on the island of Lefkada, Greece, from May 4 to 9, 2023! 🎁 Be the first to know when the doors open!
Achieve the life, career, and clients you’ve always wanted (and fully deserve!). Join the waitlist for Camp Clarity!
Want your creative business to go even further? Sign up for ASCEND, a four-month immersive mastermind experience for elevated entrepreneurs who are ready to scale their next mountain. Join the waitlist here.
Want to have one-on-one coaching support from Diana? Check out the brand new Voxer Coaching Container.
Attract your dream clients with Diana’s free masterclass!
Access other courses from the Diana Davis Creative
🎧Episode Highlights
[01:42] Diana Davis Creative Spring Retreat in Greece
The retreat will be from May 4 to 9, 2023, in Greece.
The last Diana Davis Creative Retreat in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, was the most magical experience.
Join the waitlist if you want to transform your business while experiencing the beauty of Lefkada, Greece, with a community of creative entrepreneurs like you.
[03:04] Stuck and Can’t Get Clients?
You may find yourself unable to bring clients through the door, despite social media marketing and networking efforts.
The problem often lies in the core of things.
Diana: “Something is cracked in the foundation. You built your skyscraper too quickly, and it needs to be reevaluated.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[04:07] Realign with Your Why
Realigning with your why causes a ripple effect of clients coming through the door.
Your interactions with people are more than just transactional.
Go back to why you’re doing what you’re doing. This gets you back on the frequency to call the right people in.
Realigning with your ideal client comes after going back to your why. Pay attention to what people are asking you, and start showing up for them.
[07:58] Realign with Your Offerings
Do your offerings answer your ideal clients’ questions and solve their problems?
Identify where the crack is. Then, evaluate how you can bridge the gap between your offers and ideal clients.
Can you adjust your audience to align with your offering? Or can you realign your offers to match your audience right now?
[10:27] Offer Something for “Free”
Nothing is free. Everything is an exchange of energy.
The exchange for doing a photoshoot for “free” might be a new connection, exposure, portfolio building, target market research, and experience.
Offering something for free gets people in your energy. They experience you with a low barrier to entry.
Tune in to the full episode to hear powerful examples of offering free coaching sessions!
Diana: “We start to have momentum. We start to have clients, and one after another, they start sharing, and the windshield cracks more. And those people start sharing, and the windshield cracks more, and we eventually have this big spiderweb.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[15:21] Raise Your Prices
You may have to start with a really low price to give you room to increase it, but not so low that you’re “going to throw up.”
When you start to fill up your client roster, it’s time to raise your prices.
You will eventually find a price that calibrates with you for a long time.
Don’t screw up your momentum by not charging enough.
[18:22] Offer Valuable Freebies
You can also offer freebies to attract clients and leads.
While offering freebies isn’t an active approach like offering free sessions, people can opt in to your email list and still get a lot of value.
Diana offers a free 30-minute recorded sales call training in exchange for getting you on her email list.
It’s a fun way to keep your pipeline filled with clients and connections.
[20:23] Leading with Connection vs. Transaction
Diana: “I never lead with transaction; I lead with connection.” - Click Here To Tweet This
Begin with the mindset of connecting instead of looking at people only as potential clients.
Diana likes to create connection and community.
Enjoyed this Podcast on Getting Your Ideal Clients?
Getting clients is hard enough work as it is, but attracting your ideal clients is double the challenge. When you find yourself in this position, it helps to go back to your why. Once you do, then you can also realign with your clients, offerings, and every decision you make in your business. As you continue with this mindset of connecting versus transacting, you’re sure to thrive and attract the right people effortlessly.
Pollen is a podcast for Creative Entrepreneurs — just like you! If you enjoyed this episode of Pollen Podcast, subscribe and help us spread the word by sharing it!
Leave a review and share it! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐If you enjoyed tuning in to this podcast, we'd appreciate it if you wrote us a review. You can also share it to help other creative entrepreneurs.
Have any questions or want to leave a suggestion? Come say hi on the 'gram @dianadaviscreative! You can also subscribe to my newsletter for travel updates, learn about special projects, and get tips and tricks for the creative entrepreneur life!
Connect with me on LinkedIn: Diana Davis Creative.
Thanks for listening! Stay tuned to my website for more episode updates and other exciting programs and resources.
Transcript
Diana Davis: Realigning with my why caused a ripple effect of clients coming through the door. So instead of looking for a transaction, instead of thinking about people converting, I want you to go back to why the hell you're doing what you're doing in the first place.
Welcome to Pollen, the podcast for creative entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Diana Davis, multi passionate creative, business coach, Gemini, manifesting generator, matcha drinker and travel junkie. I'm also the founder of Diana Davis Creative, where I went from a six-figure photography business to coaching creative entrepreneurs like you.
If you want to have a career and a life you love, you're in the right place. On this show, I'll be coaching on all things creative entrepreneurship, and you'll hear stories from fellow creative entrepreneurs that will show you it is possible to do life the way you want to. They'll share the nitty gritty of their journeys, like the real shit, and how they are doing it differently. I'm stoked to have you along on this journey. Let's go.
Hi, Pollen. It's so amazing to be back with you. I'm coming at you from Paris. I am back for my second time this year, right before I'm headed to Australia, which is next week — so excited about that. It has been kind of gloomy and rainy in Paris, and I'm ready to get back to perpetual springtime.
Speaking of springtime, something I want to let you know about that is probably one of the most exciting things we've done over here at DDC is our retreat coming up in Greece in May, so mark your calendars, May 4th through the 9th. We have a waitlist in the show notes or on the website. The spots will fill up. You will want to get on the waitlist to get a spot. It's going to be incredible.
Our last retreat in Steamboat this past summer was the most magical thing I've ever experienced. If you haven't listened to the retreat episodes, another one will be coming out next week, but there are two previously that you'll be able to find just by looking for a retreat in the title, where we interview all our attendees and their experience of this experience. It's incredible being in person. It's incredible traveling to a new place. It's incredible to have this as a business right off, I'm not gonna lie.
So it's going to be among the beautiful sea. We're going to be in the water. We're going to have business coaching sessions, hiking. There's like infinity pools in all the villas. It's just gonna be incredible, so stay tuned for that.
So on today's episode, I want to talk about what to fucking do to get more clients when you are in the desert, when you're in the void, when you are in a place where you just can't bring them through the door, what do we do? What do we do to get more clients? What can we do, right? There's only so many Instagram posts we can make, so many reels we can make, so many places we can show up. But usually, it is more the core of things that is off. Something is cracked in the foundation. You built your skyscraper too quickly, and it needs to be reevaluated.
So we're going to talk about that, how to kind of reevaluate, just in a quick little episode here, how to reevaluate and search for any cracks in your foundation, as well as tactical ways to get clients. So the first thing I want to talk about is realigning with your why, right? Last week, I talked about the launch and how I really made it my vibe. I realigned with my why of empowering creative entrepreneurs.
Realigning with my why caused a ripple effect of clients coming through the door. So instead of looking for a transaction, instead of thinking about people converting, I want you to go back to why the hell you're doing what you're doing in the first place. Why it matters. Why does this help people? Whether it's a photoshoot or you're a financial trainer, or you're a coach, or you're a yogi, why are you doing this and why does this matter?
Just by going back to that, just by journaling on it. My favorite way to journal is to voice note in my phone, if you just type in like voice recordings. I love to just audio journal and just brain dump while I'm on a walk. Digging back into why you're doing what you're doing gets you back on the frequency, tunes you back to the right radio station to be able to call the right people in. They will be magnetized by your passion, magnetized by your why.
They don't care about your how. They don't care about your what. They don't care how many zoom calls you're running a month. They don't care what size your SD card is in your camera. They want to know why the fuck you're doing what you're doing, why you care, and why they should work with you versus someone else. Are their values aligned with yours? Can they relate with you? Can they get behind why you're doing what you're doing?
So by reevaluating that and realigning yourself with that versus having a transactional process gets you back in that energy, like I said, tunes you back to that radio station. I love [inaudible] analogy of that frequency of like, we're not going to listen to NPR on a first date, right? We want to get back to the easy listening radio station, and it's always there. We just have to tune into it.
So realign with your why and realign with your ideal client. Pay attention to what people are asking you. If you're a financial trainer and you are being asked, how the fuck do I get out of debt, but you are teaching people like crazy, you're just forcing it, how to start a 401k. No one's biting, because your client, the person who is in your audience isn't ready for that yet. They are asking you these questions, and you're skipping ahead. You're not listening to your client, right?
So realign with who that ideal client is, what they want, what they need, and what they value, and start showing up for them so that they can hear the beacon you are putting out. They can find you and hire you, right? So realigning with your why and realigning with your ideal client, realigning with your offerings, that kind of goes like the trifecta.
Is our offering actually answering the questions and solving the problems of the people in our audience that are our ideal clients? Can we adjust our audience — just going back to that example — if we're teaching 401k, but everyone's asking about debt? We're going to need to find a new audience, or teach them about debt, so they can be empowered to put money in a 401k, right?
Or if you are a photographer, for example, and your audience doesn't know how to pose in front of the camera because they've never had a shoot before, but you're over here selling $3,000 model vibe shoots and no one's buying them, there's a disconnect. Why are you doing that in the first place? Is your audience available for it? Is that what they're asking for? Are you answering their questions?
Have you developed a bridge from them to get to “I've never done a shoot in my life” to “oh my God, I feel so confident that I could be in front of a backdrop with a fan blowing my hair with lights all around just stoked to be in a shoot with this person, with this photographer”? How do you get them from that point A to point B? Do we even want to?
Do we need to find a new audience? Do we need to be clear on our messaging that we're not the first time person’s photographer, but we're the experienced models photographer? Do we need to start interacting with models and bigger brands versus just people out in the normal world who haven't had a photoshoot before? Really do some digging, really get Nancy Drew about it.
Where is the crack? Where is the disconnect? How do we need to bridge the gap? Do we need to totally reevaluate? Do we need to pivot? Do we need to reevaluate the strategy of community and interaction? Or can we rely on our offers to match who is here now, right?
The tactical piece that I want to tell you about is offering something for free. So if you know me, if you've been in my world, nothing is for free. Everything is an energy exchange. We never do anything for free. But say for example, you do a free, air quotes, portfolio photo shoot. The exchange might not be money, but it is a new connection, exposure, portfolio building, maybe word of mouth potential, target market research, just experience, right? That is really powerful.
When I first started coaching, I offered 20-minute strategy sessions for free for really anyone who wanted to sign up, and they were people who turned into my full-time coaching clients because they got to experience my energy. Yes, they were not just discovery calls, which I'll talk about in a second and a little freebie for you. They were full-on coaching sessions, where I offered as much advice as they wanted to receive and could receive in 20 minutes. Then yeah, at the end, if they felt like a good fit, I invited them to work with me further, and that's how I built my coaching practice.
I also know another coach that is a life coach — and this isn't just for coaching, just caveat, but this is just an example — who would do a free coaching session after doing a market research call. So for example, he would reach out to me and say, “hey, I would really appreciate doing a free market research call with you. It's 30 minutes. This is how it will be. If it's a good fit, I'll give you a free hour long coaching session.”
Then, we did the market research for him, 30 minutes. Most people love to talk about themselves. So I signed up, including me, and then he was like, “seems like a great fit. I would love to offer you a free session, no obligation.” I had a free session. It was actually life changing. I didn't end up signing on with him, but he has come in to many of my Camp Clarity containers and guests coached, and now he has just a full roster of clients. He's usually not even accepting new ones, because he's always filled up. His name is Ben Easter, if you want to check him out. He's incredible.
But what he would do in exchange for the free coaching session is say, “will you introduce me to five people who you think could use my services?” So he probably did, I have no idea, at least 20 different calls. Literally, his network spread out like a cracked windshield, because every person he did a free coaching session with he asked very diligently, please introduce me to five other people that you would recommend my services to or even two. Now, he has a fully booked out service for years he's had that.
So to offer something for free gets people in your energy, allows them to experience you with a low barrier to entry. All they have to do is say yes. Yes, I want it. “I want that free session” or “I want to do a photo shoot with you” or “I want that portfolio building brand project” or “yes, I would love for me to be your guinea pig on that VIP design intensive,” right?
Then, you get people going, “wow, it was amazing to work with her even for free. Now, I'm going to tell everyone I know about it. I'm going to shout her out on social.” You also have a lot more capacity to say, “hey, do you mind sharing this? I gave this to you for free. I would really appreciate you sharing that. That would be a huge gift.”
Then, we start to have momentum. We start to have clients. One after another they start sharing, and the windshield cracks more, and those people start sharing, and the windshield cracks more. We eventually have this big spiderweb, and we can't have imagined having no clients.
The next part of this would be to make sure that when you do start to fill up, raise your prices. So I always recommend to my clients set your prices where you're not going to throw up, but they feel a little stretchy, and sometimes that's really low.
For example, when I first started doing photoshoots on my own after getting laid off, I was offering photoshoots either for free to people with bigger followings that would shout me out, or doing a discounted price off of my $250 hour long shoot, which is super low, by the way, and I would offer it to them for $180. Those were some of my first clients. Therefore, I had portfolio to start posting on my Instagram of the type of clients I wanted to work with, which were women in wellness. I also had them sharing and spreading the word, right?
Then after a while, I made sure to do $250 photoshoots, and after a while, my hour was $550. Then after a while, literally, I was doing $30k photoshoots, not for an hour, mind you, but $30k photoshoots, which is wild. But I want to make sure that you're not booking out 100 clients at $250 bucks.
I always tell my clients, “set your prices, and once you book three to five people at this price, it's time to raise it.” Eventually, you're going to find a price that pretty much calibrates with you for a few six months, a year, two years. I haven't raised Camp Clarity in a really long time, the price of it. It feels good for me right now. I want to keep it accessible, and I feel a really good energy exchange with how much I show up and how much information they get. We're good now for with the price, right?
But make sure you're not just getting this momentum, eating it all up, and then screwing yourself because you're not charging enough. Because I've had friends saying, “I'm just booked out. I have the ‘problem,’” air quotes again, “of having too many clients that I am working Saturdays and Sundays. I have six shoots a day, and I'm only making 50k a year.” I'm like, “wait, what?”
If you have a booked out client roster, by the way, you should not be making 50k a year, and mind you, that was in New York City. So I know 50k a year can be a lot in some places and not a lot in others. But you should probably raise your prices. You're doing blogger shoots for 100 bucks a pop, triple that shit. If you lose people, great, you will have more time on your hands for triple the amount of money, right? So make sure you're raising your prices after you get this momentum going.
Another quick way, along with the free session, along with that vibe and something I want to offer you and you can use it as an example, is a freebie, which isn't as active, right? It's not, “hey, I'm offering these free sessions. I would love to invite you to participate in one.” A freebie is more something you opt into.
Say for example, you go to someone's website, which I'm going to use mine as an example, empowered and aligned sales calls. I have a training that I just recorded right before this podcast for all of you that is free. It is a half hour training — so much value in it for real. No smoke and mirrors here as you know, and it will be on my website as a pop up. It'll say freebie, free sales call training, and then in exchange for your email, you will get this training.
Now, you're on my email list. I'm able to market to you more, right? No smoke and mirrors. I'm able to market you more. I'm able to have you on my inner circle. I now have you as a warm lead. Then in return, you get this freebie that's like, epically packed with value, that's not just a bunch of fluff. You get to experience my energy because it's recorded and it's my voice and it's a training and it's just very raw.
You might then want to work with me down the road, and I now have your email to be able to market to you. So that can be a really fun way to make sure your pipeline has clients always coming down it. But the free session is definitely a more active way, like if you don't have any clients right now to really drum up some business. So I hope this all helps. I have dropped the aligned and empower sales call training in the shownotes, so please check it out. It's all yours. Enjoy.
I would love, as always, for you to tag me on social and let me know you're listening to this. Sometimes with podcasting, specifically, because there's no DMS. It's like, hey, is anyone out there? I know you are because I can see my stats, and there's tons of you listening to these episodes, but tag me @DianaDavisCrative. I just want to say hi.
That's where I'm at is I never lead with transaction. I lead with connection, as I said at the beginning of this podcast. It was so funny, because this French dude, when I had meetings the first time in Paris was like, oh, yeah, so are they like a potential client? So do you have like potential client meetings? What does she do? You went to coffee with her. You're gonna convert her? I was like, ew, no, I'm just connecting with this person.
If it leads to something down the road, maybe it leads to an intro, or maybe they actually sign up for something. I don't know. But right now I'm just connecting with people because I'm a human, and I like to connect. That's part of one of the whys of my job. Why I do what I do — to create connection and community. So lead with connection, I lead with connection.
Come connect with me. Post on social if you listen to this episode, if you end up using this aligned and empowered sales called training. I would love to hear from you.
