3 Things Stopping You from Landing Your Dream Clients

if you've ever tried reaching out to your ideal clients or people that you would love to work with and you've just not had the response that you wanted to have there are probably only three things that are keeping you stuck in this video I want to talk you through a system and an idea that will allow you to get a much better response from people that you've never worked with or that you don't know and enroll more clients for your creative business I've had the privilege of working with award-winning designers internationally recognized photographers and just some incredible creative business owners over the last six or seven years and one of the things that I've been fascinated with is the way that they think about themselves and the way they think about their business and how that has the tendency to often limit them and often actually prevent them from achieving a a lot of the things that they want in their business now I'm a big advocate of the power of mindset and the way that our thinking can actually determine the types of results that we get in our life whether it's in our business whether it's in our relationships whether it's in our finances and I would argue that 80% of the results that we get in our life and business are determined by how we think about those things and 20% of the results are determined by what we actually do and so I want to introduce you to a framework and to a concept that I think is going to really help you if you've been reaching out to people or even if you've wanted to reach out to people in order to get more work and to get more business whether that's called emailing whether that's through Linkedin and social media whether that's going to networking events and get you a much better response rate and actually change the kind of results that you're getting with that active kind of Outreach and that active communication so when I'm working with creative business owners when I'm working with agencies um we talk about this concept of limiting beliefs and a limiting belief is really just something that is preventing you from getting the result that you want a pattern of thinking or a way of thinking that is preventing you from getting the result you want and having done uh lots of Outreach myself having grown a coaching business you know to multiple six figures in the early days from really just reaching out to people that I'd never met before to form Partnerships and to uh you know get clients I know for a fact that these three things will come up for most people these three uh ways of thinking these three concepts and these three strategies will be blockers for most people and these are mistakes that I see all the time when we're working with our clients so the reason this relates to limiting beliefs is because it's not necessary that they're saying the wrong things in these Outreach messages um it's often to do with the way that they're thinking about what they say and what they do and so if we're going to get the results we want we kind of have to break through these limiting beliefs now I'm not going to talk too much about um limiting beliefs in general terms uh in fact what I'm about to share with you we've actually got a a guide we've got a system that we use with our clients um and you can actually grab that for free if you want I'm going to give that away in today's video you there's a link down below this video um which actually links to something that we call the limiting belief Crusher and this is actually a framework and a workbook that you can use in your life whether it be in business in relationships whatever it is um and this actually has created transformation for people so I'm not going to dig down into that massively today but if you want to learn more about that then you can grab our free guide I will'll just quickly talk you you through um the concept of beliefs and kind of how they're formed and how they relate to outreach and getting more of your ideal clients because I think it's important to understand this this framework so this is something that I've been teaching for a while it's something I created called the momentum map and I call it the momentum map because it's literally one thing feeds into the next and it can create momentum either negatively or positively so we all have um beliefs it starts up here in the top leftand Corner we all have beliefs about ourselves about the world about other people and those beliefs um tend to kind of inform how we feel about that thing uh I'm going to give you three really tangible examples that relate directly to outreach getting higher value clients and winning your dream clients in a minute but let me just take something not related to business so that we can use this as an example so let's say you have the belief um right now that you that you aren't an attractive person right so imagine you have the belief that you're not an attractive person how does that make you feel well it probably probably doesn't make you feel great maybe it makes you feel um kind of uncom confident um maybe it makes you have kind of low self-esteem maybe it makes you feel a bit shy um maybe it it makes you feel not too good about yourself so if you think about that um as a concept if there's somebody who feels quite shy and underconfidence and not very great about themselves if they go into I don't know a bar or if they go to a social event or something like that how do you think they're going to show up to that social event how do you think they're going to come across what's their body language going to be like what are their words going to be like what sort of actions are they taking well if you think about it think about anybody you know like that they're probably not going to start many conversations with people right they might they might kind of Hide Away a bit they might just stick to people that they know if they saw someone that they found attractive they probably wouldn't um approach them they would probably avoid other people and so the result they get is they don't get anyone who's particular Ally interested in them right because if you're acting in that way and you're being shy and and whatever maybe even if someone does engage with you and you believe you're attractive you're not attractive you'll tell yourself well that person's never going to be attracted to me and so you won't even ask them for a drink or you won't even um make any kind of Advance on them right so what that means is you probably don't get that many um opportunities with people that you find attractive and so what that does is it reinforces the belief that you're not attractive and that's why we call it the momentum map because it goes round and round and round and it just reinforces our beliefs it's called cognitive bias it just keeps us where we are and that's why most of us will have the same kind of beliefs for years and years and years because our our brain finds the evidence and even if we're presented with evidence that's outside of that belief because the belief is so strong we tend to dismiss that evidence as oneoff right so let's take something extreme um UFOs are a big topic right now if you are an avid believer that there are UFOs and we're are not alone in this universe you will find lots of evidence to support this because there is actually evidence out there too support that right and you'll find Clips on the internet you'll find this person that said that now if you avidly believe that it's all a load of rubbish and there's no such thing as UFOs then any of that evidence that comes to you you will find ways to prove or to see that that was a that was fake someone um someone manipulated that footage or that's just the government doing x y and said and that's why people have these conversations because they believe so strongly that that thing is true and so therefore they feel um confident in that they feel um a particular way um which means they they they wouldn't maybe look at YouTube channels that say um U UFOs exist they wouldn't maybe watch documentaries on UFOs CU they're like no just dismiss it that's the action they're taking the result they get is they don't see any evidence that aligns with their belief and that continues to fuel it so as I said if you want to understand the power of beliefs and limiting beliefs and how they affect your life and business there's there's a it's a huge topic and I will do another video on that and but for now you can grab the workbook in the link below and you can actually uh work through that yourself and just kind of uncover and see if there are any beliefs in your business or even in your relationships or your personal life that might be be kind of holding you back but today I want to talk about beliefs in the context of Outreach in the context of finding higher value clients in the context of actually getting more of what you want um because this is the thing that I see over and over again and there are actually only really three main what I would call limiting beliefs or way of thinking that prevent us from getting better results from our Outreach and finding higher value clients so I'm going to talk to you about them right now the first one is this concept of passive versus active um having worked with lots of incredible creatives who have incredible portfolios of work and have worked with big Brands one of the key beliefs that they have is that my work should speak for itself right it's like um if my work is good enough then people will just find me and once I get to a certain stage of my career everybody should just be coming to us and this is one of the most dangerous beliefs that you can have when you're growing your business because it will stop you from actually reaching out to people who could be potential Partners who could be incredible clients who could be just people that are a perfect fit for your business right so this is a really kind of fundamental principle that if you want to get more of the work that you love you actually have to actively go out there and find it and there's so many good examples of this you only need to look at some of the world's biggest brands that everybody knows McDonald's Coca-Cola Tesla virgin like whoever you think it is and you can see them continuously spending millions and millions of pounds a year on Advertising getting in front of their audience getting in front of their client saying hey don't forget our product it exists and and pushing on people right and the reason that they do that is because it's so important to continually be engaging with your ideal clients with your target clients right it's not enough just to sit back and try and let this work speak for itself so that brings me to my first big idea of active versus passive so let me just kind of give you the definition of what I consider to be active versus passive so when I talk about active communication I'm talking about going to networking events going to things where you know your ideal clients are going to be going to places where you know that the kind of people you want to connect with are hanging out that's actively making an effort to engage with people reaching out via email via LinkedIn via social media actually saying hey nice to meet you what's your name and actively engaging with conversations with the people that you may be able to help and that may be your IDE your clients um engaging with people who comment on your feed um engaging with people who like your posts you know how often do you actually take the time to look at the people that have liked an Instagram post or a LinkedIn post or whatever it is and actually go and reach out to them and say hey thanks for liking that content what was it that sparked your interest or what specifically did you like about that right actually engaging starting conversations with people and then the final one is is email marketing and when I say email marketing in the context of active communication I'm not actually just talking about bombarding your whole list with like an email hey do you need websites one of the things that we do is when people join our email list and you can test this out for yourself and hopefully this doesn't backfire on this video but when people um download something and they become part of our email list we'll actually ask them questions and people reply and me and my team we actually have conversations with people we actually reply manually to those emails and say hey thanks for downloading this tell me more about your business and we actively engage in those conversations right we don't just kind of be like oh they're on our list now so they're just going to get a load of our emails and hopefully they'll like them so it's really important to actively engage with people so that's the difference between active and passive communication we find that most people um are kind of 80% passive and 20% active and we really want want to swap those numbers around um we really want to be 80% active we actively want to be getting out there every single day and 20% passive we still want to be doing the passive communication most people are relying on Word of Mouth most people are relying on referrals to grow their business um they're letting other people do the communication for them they're letting other people find them through their website and fill out forms and and etc etc um you know people if you've got some SEO great if you're being found that's good we want to keep that right and and it's good that word of mouth and direct inquiries are working for you because if they weren't um then it might mean that you're not very good at what you do right or people aren't happy with this level of service so these things are good but we really want this to be the 20% if we want to grow a business right if you just want to kind of Coast then that's fine but if you actually want to grow a business you want to have more people that want to work with you than capacity to help people so what Daniel Priestly calls oversubscribed if you want to have that if you want to have a flow of opportunities then you have to switch these things around you have to be 20% passive and 80% active so that's the first big idea that's the first shift in thinking that we need to make the second shift in thinking and this is usually the the next thing that comes up for people when they get active and they actually get out into the world is they say to me you know Matt this is great I I do want to be more active I do want to get out there but I just feel salesy I just feel spammy I just feel like you know I'm going to go to this networking event and hand out business cards I just don't want to be that person and I get it right no one wants to be that person no one wants to be Wolf of Wall Street sell me this pen no one wants to be picking up the phone and bothering people especially not creatives so we've got to switch our mindset from selling to serving right because selling is hey I do this thing do you want it serving is like hey what problem or challenge do you have right now and maybe I can suggest some ways that you can solve it right and that's the key difference is that we actually in order to be active and not be salesy what we have to do is we have to stop talking about what we sell so stop talking about our services like web design and branding and uh you know social media marketing and all of the stuff that we do as creatives we need to stop talking about that because the only people that that's attracting are people who are currently looking for that thing and I'll tell you a little bit more about this in a minute but I won't go too deep serving is about understanding that there's someone out there right now who has a problem or a challenge or or a goal or a desire that you can help with right and we have to take ourselves out of the mindset of we just build websites because there's so much more that you can offer people so this concept of selling versus serving is about engaging with people actively and just trying to identify what they actually want what they actually are struggling with right now what are their frustrations what are their fears and just being human human to human starting um conversations with them and this is one of the most important things and this is one of the biggest mindset shifts that I had to have to grow my agency but also to grow kind of coaching and Consulting business because not a lot of people are are waking up in the middle of the night thinking oh God I need a business coach right um one of the biggest shifts I had to have was that I needed to be detached from the outcome so I needed to go out there and be active but if I wasn't the person that could help them then it was okay to say I can't help you but I know someone that can or I'm not sure if I can help you but I know a really great book that you should read or I know a great article that you should read or a video you should watch and just genuinely be helpful and genuinely be somebody who cares and wants to help even if my specific service isn't a good fit for you right now and that is the difference between selling something to somebody and serving them is the salesperson is always trying to get their agenda in they're always trying to filter those problems through the thing that they sell and they're always trying to get them to buy this thing serving is really about just helping people to get clarity on their problems and present some solutions and some ideas and some things that might be able to help them if one of those things is what you do and you genuinely believe you can help that person then great talk about that but if it's not it's also okay to just be like I'm not the person for you and if you can go out and if you can show up in your network as that person as the problem solver who genuinely cares and has that be that person's best interest at heart you will Skyrocket your business because what you're creating is a network of Advocates you're creating a network of people who are having positive interactions and positive experiences with you and you'll have more opportunity than you can handle so I just really want to talk about for 2 seconds and then we'll wrap this video up with the final thing which is one of the most important I just want to talk about the decision-making process now I'm not going to go deep into this cuz again this could be a whole video on its own but what's important to understand is that when we're making a considered purchase we all go through these six stages we start where we're not really aware that we' even got a problem or we're satisfied with the thing that we've got then we become aware cuz something happens maybe that thing breaks or there's a need that we identify then we decide we're actually going to take action I'm going to do something about this right I'm going to invest time ony and energy to fix this problem so we go into the market and we look at hey what should we do about this problem right then we make a purchase based on a few different factors and then we review that purchase right we think oh was that definitely the right thing to do okay so we're all going through this when it's considered purchase now if you're going out into the world and you're just talking about what you sell then you're only actually engaging with people at stage four who are aware that they need that thing and they're currently assessing the options right should I go with this person or that person and the problem with these people is they're assessing predominantly on time price and Quality quality should be a t in there somewhere um time price and quality right and so we get sucked into this good fast cheap trap we're always being compared to other people we're always trying to do things price competitively and it's just the race to the bottom so really when we're being active we want to be engaging with people at stage one and two and we want to be focusing on really getting to understand their problems and being able to articulate those problems better than they can because when we can do that consciously or unconsciously those people give us permission or credit us with having the solution and that's really the difference here is that we're not just going out selling stuff to people we're engaging with our ideal clients people we really want to help people that we think are cool that align with our value values and we're just having human- to human conversations and understanding what's going on in their world and genuinely wanting to help them and so that's the difference between selling and serving and that's the second big idea so let me talk to you about the final big idea and this is something that if you do the first two and you miss this last one you can still come unstuck so the final big idea is that the fortune is in the followup and this is massive right because often especially when we're in this way of thinking or this belief that maybe we're bothering people or we're being salesy if someone doesn't reply to a message we automatically assume that they're not interested but there could be a million and one other reasons why they haven't replied maybe it landed in their spam fold or maybe they haven't seen it maybe they're busy maybe they got personal stuff going on right now maybe all of the above and so I genuinely believe that if you know you have the ability to help somebody and you know you're good at what you do and you create great results results for your clients then it's actually your duty to go out there and engage with people but more importantly follow up until you get a response because it's okay they can say no now you know that's absolutely fine right but if they say Yes And as someone you've helped there you've actually changed someone's business or changed someone's life because they're there struggling with that thing so this is big and this is a massive shift that I've had for me and you know I've got lots of great case studies which I didn't include here cuz I didn't want this to be about our program and how we work with clients and all of these things but I just love it when clients say to me I was about to give up on this and I sent one last message and they apologized that they hadn't got back and they were really grateful for our time and we ended up working with them and they became one of our best clients and it's happened to me I've I've genuinely got like thousands of pounds worth of business simply from sending a second or third email or picking up the phone just saying hey I'm not sure if you saw this or you expressed an interest in this and we sent you a few messages but you didn't reply and it's amazing like we've literally had some of our best clients from that and I don't worry about bothering people anymore because I'm serving I'm not selling right if it's not a good fit or there's not something that we can help them with it's absolutely fine I'm not there to pressure them into something just want to get a yes or a no so here are some facts right that we all know this because they apply to us people are busy right we're busy getting on with our lives we're busy with all the different things that are happening in our business and often times when we're at stage two of that decision-making process and we've identified something that is a bit uncomfortable it's a bit painful it's very easy to just try and sweep it under the carpet or forget about it and focus on more shiny objects and so often people are hiding away from these really important problems that they need to solve that if they don't do something about it in the next 3 6 12 18 months it's going to become massive and it might even become insurmountable it might even become re irreversible so really there's like people heading off the edge of the waterfall and it's our duty to keep tapping them on the shoulder and reminding them that that's where they're going right um so I really do believe that as I said before if you know you can help someone it is your duty to help them and and if you can show up as that person that just genuinely wants to help and you get over all of your other stuff around money and all of the stuff which I don't have time to go into right now but that workbook is actually great for because you will have I promise you you will have limiting beliefs of things that are keeping you stuck whether it's around how much you charge or what it means to take money from someone in exchange for a service we all have it you know we have to work through it in order to grow our business but really just your duty to actually help someone and really get them just Clarity on their problems and actually give them some direction is massive and if you can show up as that person your whole business will change we've actually found doing the research that 60% of replies come in the third or fourth message how crazy is that right so this works in lots of different ways sometimes you know it'll happen to people watching this video they'll go and download that workbook and they'll see something they like and they'll inquire and they'll say I want to have chat with your team I want to uh hear how you work with creative agencies I want to understand if you can help us so they'll genuinely Express an interest in working with us and then they'll just go silent right and so sometimes we'll send a followup and nothing and then we'll send a second message hey just checking that you're still interested in this and nothing it's only until the third one where we say hey we're going to assume that you're not interested in this anymore and stop reaching out that they then actually come back and say no no no no like I am interested I've just been busy this has been happening that's been happening and again some of those people have become our best clients right so what you need to know is sometimes you won't even get a reply until the third or fourth message message that you send and all I want to know I'm not there to try and sell somebody something all all I want to know is are they interested in this or not and if the answer is no then that's absolutely fine we can stop reaching out cuz now we know that they're not interested right and the thing is through this process you'll have to get NOS you'll have to get comfortable with getting people saying no that's okay because yeses and NOS they give you Clarity they allow you to move forward or to not move forward the danger is the maybe or the people that just ignore you because that's just time that's wasting time oh maybe this person will reply or they'll let me know in a certain amount of months or whatever like we're just kind of wasting our time and energy on that what we really want is just to clear yeah I'd love to hear about the next step I'd love to hear about where we go from here or yes I'm really interested in getting help with this challenge or this this goal or no right now this isn't for me and that's absolutely fine and you don't need to take it personally because this isn't isn't about you it's about them and their problems and their situation so I hope this video has given you some clarity about what's really standing in your way and some of the things that may be blocking you when it comes to reaching your ideal clients engaging with your ideal clients getting more work from being active and communicating so just remember there are three big shifts that we need to make in order to get more work that we love more work that gives us fulfillment more work that pays us what what we're worth number one is that we have to be active more than we are passive we have to go out there if you want to win the work that you want to be doing the clients that you love you actively have to be going out there and creating those relationships right second thing is we want to do that by serving not selling so not going out and just bothering people and sending them lots of cold emails about how great our website design is we want to be starting humano human conversations about their problems their challenges their goals their aspirations their fears getting to know them and what's going on in their world and we work with our clients on something called an irresistible offer and and I have um talked about this before if you Google my name an irresistible offer um one of the things we do is actually help them for free upfront not work for free we actually have assets we have things that we do to help them get more clarity on their problems for free so we're actually delivering some value up front so we can't be sales here cuz we're not actually selling anything so that's the second thing serving versus selling and then the final thing is that the fortune is in the followup right you have to follow up with people you have to give that people a nudge cuz people are busy I hope this helped I know some of you will probably have some questions or some thoughts so drop them in the comments below and I will do my best to read every single one and reply to every single one so uh please let me know what about this video resonated with you maybe what are some questions that you have or some things that aren't 100% clear and I'll do my best to help you my name is mattess and I'll see you again soon so if you'd like to dig down into some of these strategies a little bit further then click the link below and you can apply for my live Workshop where I will be showing you behind the scenes of what's working for other creative agencies and giving you a custom road map to grow your business