Save time in your business by knowing how to attract your ideal clients

Save time in your business by knowing how to attract your ideal clients

by | Feb 15, 2022 | Business coaching for women, Profitability and business growth, Sales Mindset, Womens Business Mastermind

The quality of your sales conversions comes down to the quality of your sales conversations. And this starts with knowing exactly who you want to work with and how you can get in front of them. 

If you’re finding that you’re wasting time on enquiries that aren’t converting to paying clients because they expect you to be ‘cheaper’ or ‘quicker’ or you just know they’re not the right fit…it could be because you’re not clear on, and therefore not attracting your most ideal client. 

Working with your ideal client is the sweet spot of finding the person you can help the best who is also the person you want to work with the most. 

Let me ask you this… if you were to hand over your sales and marketing to someone else in the team, would they be able to pick it up and keep running with it? 

Getting clear on who you’re targeting means you can put processes in place so that all the sales work in the business isn’t reliant solely on you. This saves you time, and money.

There are two key parts to making sure you’re being as efficient with your time as possible when it comes to reaching your ideal clients. 

  1. Be crystal clear on who your ideal client is and how to get in front of them
  2. Know if they’re cold, warm or hot (and I don’t mean in a sexy movie star kinda way!)

Be crystal clear on who you want to work with and who you can best serve and help.

Do you know these things about your ideal client?

  • Likes and dislikes
  • Needs and desires
  • Hobbies and interests
  • Pet peeves
  • Demographic 
  • Stage of life they’re in
  • How they’re feeling
  • What they want instead of what they have now
  • What keeps them up at night
  • The problem you’re helping solve for them
  • Why are they looking for you

If you don’t, take some time to map it out. If you want a hand with this, let us know as we have many templates and tips to help you go deeper with this! Email Nicky here. 

TOP TIP: Give your ideal client a name, it makes it more relatable and personable so you can really start to speak to them in your marketing and messaging. 

Now you can start to look at where your ideal client is hanging out. 

What media are they consuming, what social platforms are they hanging out on, do they go to in-person events? Can you see that if you position yourself in these places you’ll start to get noticed by the right type of people… your type of people. 

Cold, Warm and Hot Leads.

Now, to know if they’re cold, warm or hot is to first understand what the difference is and which of these phase’s people are coming into your sales and marketing funnel from.*Don’t have a funnel yet? Book a chat with Nicky and she can help make this happen. 

Cold… brrrrr oh so cold! These are prospects that either don’t yet know you, who you are, your brand or they’re not familiar with the type of work you do. What does a Coach do again…?!? 

They also might not realise that they have a need so they’re not yet in the ‘awareness’ phase of the buyer’s journey. 

Warm… things are starting to heat up! Now they’re starting to get to know you, trust you and like you. They’re familiar with who you are and the work you do, it’s just not the right time to work with you… yet. 

They might be getting into the ‘consideration’ phase of the buyer’s journey which means they’re aware that there’s a better way but they’re not quite sure what to do about it and they’re considering their options. 

Hot… we like it hot baby! Okay now, these types of leads (prospects) are either really familiar with you and/or the work you do, they’re hot and ready to buy. 

They’re not only aware there’s a better way of doing things, but they’ve also considered you as an option to help them and they’ve decided (yes this is the ‘decision’ phase of the buyer’s journey) that you’re the one to work with. 

This is the stage that your prospects (leads) become paying clients. And fingers crossed, if you’ve done the work above, they become clients that you adore working with who see value in what you provide them.. win/win! 

Understanding if you’re working with cold, warm or hot prospects allows you to manage your time efficiently and you can set up systems to move cold leads through to warm and hot without it being too hands-on… because let’s face it your hands are full enough running every other aspect of your business! 

If you want to learn more about attracting your ideal client or creating a funnel that speaks to cold, warm and hot leads come along to our Masterclass on the 8th March 2022. We’ll also be covering off ‘How to open and start a sales conversation with your ideal clients’ in the Masterclass. 

 

Nicky is a Sales and Business Leadership Coach with over 2 decades experience in sales and leadership. She’s been running successful coaching businesses since 2015 and is obsessed with helping business owners and teams thrive. She helps her clients install smart business growth strategies and leverage leadership for peak performance.
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The 3 best sales beliefs to have in your business are…

The 3 best sales beliefs to have in your business are…

by | Feb 1, 2022 | Behind the Scenes, Business coaching for women, Profitability and business growth, Sales Mindset, Womens Business Mastermind

The biggest thing holding you back in your business when it comes to sales and business growth could be you! 

Take a moment to think about what area’s in the business, and sales you’re holding yourself back from? 

Do the words ‘closing the sale’ make you want to run a mile, or stay and dance*?

*This is a reference to a recent article I wrote comparing sales to dancing… check it out here 

Let’s dig in. If you know what your limiting beliefs are about sales, you can work on them, unblock them and replace them with different and better beliefs that serve you, and your clients, well! 

Here are 3 of my top picks when it comes to sales beliefs you can work into your vocabulary right away. Try them on and see how they feel. 

Epic Sales Belief To Have # 1: Sales is Helping (Sales is Serving also works). 

Imagine if the product or service you’re selling was literally saving lives. 

What would stop you from having as many conversations with as many people as possible to tell them about it? What would possibly stop you from reaching out and following up more than once? I’m sure you’d feel pretty comfortable asking the question ‘shall we get started’?

When you truly believe in what you’re selling, it becomes a genuine service to offer it to people, and a true disservice not to. 

Now, you might not be saving lives but I’d put a bet on it that there’s a pretty great benefit to what you’re offering out there!? Hone in and focus on that to help embed this belief. 

 

Epic Sales Belief To Have # 2: The right people want to hear from me!

I’m going to let you in on a little secret… despite what we all say, we (as humans and consumers) want to be sold to. 

Yep, you read that right! 

We want to be sold to. We have needs that need to be fulfilled and problems to be solved. 

The caveat is, we just want to be sold to WELL! 

In other words, we don’t want to be talked at, belittled, tricked or pushed into something. 

So if you’re getting a little self-conscious around talking about your offer and putting your message out to market, remember the right people want to hear it.

BTW – By right people, I mean your ideal clients and customers, the ones that you know you can help. Rememer, they’re the ones who want to be sold to by you (in an authentic helpful way). And for the rest, the people who don’t need your service or product, it will just be white noise for them anyway so no loss there. 

 

Epic Sales Belief To Have # 3: There’s no such thing as a wasted opportunity!

Every conversation you have with someone, even if it doesn’t turn out to be a sale or a client today, could become one in the future. 

The number of times I’ve had clients reach out to me 6 months down the track, or even longer because they were talking to someone and heard of what I was offering. Or we’d had a conversation in the past and it’s now the right time to connect. 

Honestly, as consumers and buyers, our needs are constantly evolving and changing. Just because someone said no or not now once, doesn’t mean they won’t have a need to work with you or buy from you in the future. Or they’ll know someone else who does. 

So every opportunity is an opportunity to plant a seed and make an impression (and ps. the best impression you can make is by being authentically you!).

This is why it’s important to keep in mind that people don’t always remember what you’ve said, but they will remember how you made them feel. 

Nicky is a Sales and Business Leadership Coach with over 2 decades experience in sales and leadership. She’s been running successful coaching businesses since 2015 and is obsessed with helping business owners and teams thrive. She helps her clients install smart business growth strategies and leverage leadership for peak performance.
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the 3 essential numbers every woman in business must now

the 3 essential numbers every woman in business must now

by | Jan 25, 2022 | Business coaching for women, Money Mindset and Management, Profitability and business growth, Sales Mindset, Womens Business Mastermind

When it comes to your business plan, if you don’t have clear targets in place or know your numbers then you don’t know how you’re tracking. Can you hire that new team member or outsource that piece of work? Or what about paying yourself?

This means you end up going blindly and your business becomes hit and miss. Or you’re not quite sure about the recipe for success… highly successful businesses are built on replicable results. Meaning you know the formula for success and you can do it again, and again.

Understanding the formula for success – for your unique business is key. And a big part of this is knowing your numbers.

What are the numbers to know? At a minimum, have

  1. A revenue target,
  2. A profit % target,
  3. An income goal that you want to pay yourself.

It’s not about putting pressure on yourself, it’s about making smart decisions in business. And the right process around this helps make it easy. These systems take into account your particular skills and natural abilities.

Need more support with this? We are going deep into this topic at our next Strategy Day in the True North in Business Mastermind. You can find out more here.

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A NEW WAY OF WORKING IS AROUND THE CORNER

The top 5 ways to make more sales (and money) in 2022

The top 5 ways to make more sales (and money) in 2022

by | Jan 18, 2022 | Business coaching for women, Profitability and business growth, Sales Mindset, Womens Business Mastermind

Well, here we are in 2022. Who else remembers New Year’s Eve 2000 and the excitement of tipping over into a new millennium? There was so much uncertainty of what to expect and what comes next (sound familiar?!). 

Now, 22 years later (sheesh!) business, and life has changed a lot and so have the key components of how we sell. The changing landscape of sales has (thankfully) moved on from a pushy, aggressive approach to being more consultative and caring. 

And this is a space that women in business, typically thrive.

What hasn’t changed is how we, as humans, make buying decisions. Along with the subconscious behaviours that help achieve sustainable and long term results in sales and in business. 

SO Here are the top 5 things FOR YOU to have in place

to make the most of 2022

1. Be across your numbers. How do you know you’ve ‘arrived’ if you don’t know where you’re going? 

To get the foundations in place, we recommend starting with these 3 main areas:

  1. A clear revenue target
  2. Profit % target  
  3. Breakdown of KPIs which will be the roadmap getting you to points 1 and 2

TOP TIP: Have some fun with this! And make them meaningful for YOU!

When you have your revenue target in place, think about how many amazing clients you get to help and work with. Then, instead of focusing on the money target, you can focus on the number of customers that will benefit from your product and service. The smiling faces and the great feedback you’ll receive from working with them.  

This links back to PROFIT FOR IMPACT. The more profit you make, the more people you reach, serve and help. So find and focus on a metric that feels meaningful and incredible to you. 

2. Get clear on your lead generation strategy. Consider how you’re getting yourself in front of your ideal client. Who are they, where do they hang out and how are you (consistently) getting in front of them?

3. Polish your questioning skills. Questioning is the backbone of any great sales conversation so make sure you have a good understanding of the best questions to ask to truly uncover your client’s needs. 

Make sure you’re covering off:

      • Asking questions to uncover their current reality, in other words, where they are now
      • Getting clear on their future ideal scenario, where they want to be
      • Identify what’s the gap between where they are now (current) and where they want to be (future). 

TOP TIP: The bigger the gap between current and future, the more value they’ll place on the solution. Meaning the bigger the gap, the more you can help. 

4. Clear your mindset of sales blocks. It doesn’t matter how much external work you do, if you don’t do the inner work and have a really resourceful belief around sales and selling, you’ll always be limiting your external success. Grab our Mindset of Sales Playbook here to unblock any lingering limiting beliefs that might still be hanging around. 

5. Be crystal clear on your service (or product) offering so it’s super-duper easy to articulate and for your clients to understand. 

Remember a confused mind says no and if you’re not absolutely clear on your product or service and the problem it helps to solve, how will your clients and customers be on these points?

Nicky is a Sales and Business Leadership Coach with over 2 decades experience in sales and leadership. She’s been running successful coaching businesses since 2015 and is obsessed with helping business owners and teams thrive. She helps her clients install smart business growth strategies and leverage leadership for peak performance.
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3 Ways To Improve Profitability of Your Business.

3 Ways To Improve Profitability of Your Business.

by | Nov 2, 2021 | Business coaching for women, Money Mindset and Management, Profitability and business growth, Sales Mindset, Womens Business Mastermind

I’m going to give it to you straight.

Revenue is important! But it means nothing without profitability. 

Sales matters! But not if you have so much debt you can’t even pay yourself a wage. 

Businesses need to grow! But not if it’s giving you more pain and stress than money in the bank. 

So what’s the secret sauce? 

Making sure you focus on profitability. 

Profit is where the magic happens. It’s what gives meaning and power to revenue, sales and business growth. 

Here are 3 simple things you can do right away to increase your profit immediately.

 

1. Get really clear on where you’re spending your time aka what’s the ROI on where you spend your time?

I remember my very first Sales Director role. I was so excited about the red Chanel lipsticks we’d bought our clients for Christmas gifts that I got caught up in the detail of packaging them up and sending them off. 

As a novice (and possibly overexcited new senior leader who wanted to do everything), there was something I failed to realise. 

If I was spending my time on tasks that our EA could do, this meant I wasn’t spending my time on tasks a Sales Director needed to do. 

I could’ve been using that time to coach and support my team, create sales strategies, liaise with top tier clients, build relationships with key stakeholders. 

I’ll never forget the look on my boss’ face when she walked into my office to see me up to my eyeballs amongst Australia Post packaging and red lipstick trying to match envelopes with addresses. 

She asked me straight out – what my hourly rate was. And then she asked me if I felt it was worth the investment of that hourly rate to be organising postage for our Christmas gifts. 

That was a lesson I’ll never forget and a hugely valuable one that has served me as a business owner since. 

So I ask you..

  • What tasks are you spending time on that you know deep down you could outsource?
  • What’s your hourly rate (assuming of course you’re charging what you’re worth 😉 and if you’re not, keep reading to point 2)?
  • Is where you’re spending your time giving you a good return on investment (ROI)?
  • What could you be doing with that time instead that would make a bigger impact on your biz?
 2. Charge what you’re worth

Here’s the thing. There’s a lot of undercharging going on out there. 

The double whammy of combining a sales conversation and increasing prices can be too much, resulting in an avoidance of both sales conversations and increasing prices. 

Service-based businesses can particularly struggle with this as it feels exceptionally personal to ‘sell’ yourself. 

You’re not alone. We’ve been there. 

What can you do?

There’re some practical things like 

  • Do some market research to get a feel for the market value of what you’re providing.
  • Consider how long you’ve been providing this service and when you last increased prices along with your expertise and experience.
  • Map out a communication plan and consider the rollout to both your existing and new clients so everyone still feels taken care of (depending on your business, you can increase existing clients incrementally or set a date from which they’ll be charged the higher rate)

And then there’s the inner work…

  • Dig deep into your mindset and uncover what limiting beliefs are holding you back
  • Be aware of, and change, your inner dialogue – what’s your inner critic telling you?
  • Work with a business coach who can help you discover what’s really holding you back and provide strategies to create the change you desire
  • Always remember your external success is limited by your internal progress
3. Use a clear and simple sales process. 

Many business owners (especially women) will avoid sales or don’t believe they have to be (or are) good at sales. 

Having a good sales process in place has several benefits:

  • Saves you time
  • Helps increase conversion rates of a prospect to client
  • Provides a better client experience 
  • Qualifies (in and out) the best type of clients for you to work with

All of these benefits have a direct impact on your bottom line. On your profitability.  

Top Tip: a good sales process takes the ‘thinking’ out of it for you. You can organically follow a process without having to think of the next step each time. Aaaagh the gift here is giving you back some brain space to focus on other cool things in your business. 

Myth Busting: You don’t need a big (or any size) team to have a sales process in place. Even if it’s just you in business, it’s worthwhile. 

Despite having decades of experience in sales, I still had a sales process that I used for 5 years when I was a solo business owner.

Remember: Simple is good. Tailored to your business is even better. 

The most important message to take away today is to make sure you get started on finding ways to increase the profitability of your business. And don’t forget to put a metric in place to measure each month, quarter and year to show how you’re tracking with profit numbers. 

Stay in the loop with more great business, sales and money tips here. 

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A NEW WAY OF WORKING IS AROUND THE CORNER

5 Reasons Women in Business Fail and How Not To Become Another Statistic

5 Reasons Women in Business Fail and How Not To Become Another Statistic

by | Oct 19, 2021 | Business coaching for women, Profitability and business growth, Sales Mindset, Womens Business Mastermind, Womens Business Retreat

Okay, so I’m a pretty optimistic person. I believe, especially as women, we can do anything we put our mind to. And I was taught from a very young age that girls can do anything boys can do… 

BUT

To achieve our dreams and goals some realities need to be faced. 

So I want to help out my fellow businesswomen by sharing the 5 most significant things that could hold you back from success.

1. Breaking down systemic cycles and belief systems about women making their own money, creating independence and wealth, building a business on their own terms (to name a few). 

It was when I read Jane Caro’s book – Accidental Feminists that I realised our grandmothers and mothers were the first generations of women to earn their own money. #WTF

This actually blew my mind.

I mean, of course, I knew this on some level yet it’s always been the norm for the women in my family to work and earn money. 

I guess I’d never actually considered the generations that came before. 

So really, women earning their own money is a reasonably new construct (in the scheme of things). Hence there are a lot of underlying beliefs about women and money, women in sales, women in business, women creating wealth, women running businesses that are unresourceful, and unhelpful.

It’s critical to uncover the cycles you need to break to make sure they’re not unconsciously holding you back. 

2. Doing it alone, not having a solid support network 

Business can be lonely. 

Some would say the odds are stacked against us yet, the stats are moving in the right direction (yay!). 

35% of businesses in Australia are women-owned with a 46% increase in the number of women business operators over the past two decades (compared to 27% for men).*

With this growth comes more networking groups and communities of like-minded women in business popping up. 

When I first started looking (after almost 5 years running a solo business) there weren’t many around. This is one of the reasons Ness and I started Business Together (B2). In fact, it was the main reason. Because we know that as women in business, together we’re smarter and stronger. 

Have you ever heard the saying ‘A burden shared is a burden halved?’ Imagine sharing your problems with other women who ‘get’ it – trust me, it’s helpful!

You can find ongoing connections with other awesome business owners through things like Business Retreats, Masterminds, Business Communities. 

In fact we have an incredible Mastermind – designed to help you and your business grow regardless what’s happening in the world around you. Check it out here.

Remember this is not a new concept! Women have been coming together, strength in numbers, for centuries. Let me explain a little more about what I mean here. 

3. No up-skilling in other areas outside of your genius zone 

This is something that has been reported (by the ABS) as being one of the main reasons SMB’s fail. You might’ve gone into business because you’re passionate, or really good at your craft. But no one told you you’d have to get good at sales and managing cash flow. And even if they did – it always seems easier in theory. 

What I’m about to say is absolutely critical when it comes to biz success. 

You must learn how to manage your money! 

And you must learn how to sell and grow your business sustainably! 

We have so many resources on these two key areas for you to devour. To get you started check out this blog on the money management red flags your ignoring and how to fix them and how to abondon push sales techniques and embrace a new way of selling. 

4. Trying to fit into a male-dominated structure. 

A large portion of my experience before starting my own business was in Corporate. I learned first-hand what it’s like to be on the outer of a ‘boys club’.  

Then starting my business, I realised there’s a lot of hustle style approaches out there, a lot of ‘shoulds’ around how to run and grow a business. 

Honestly, it left me feeling a little less than inspired when it didn’t fit my natural style not to mention I didn’t feel like I could wholly be myself in my business. 

There’s a delicate mix of masculine and feminine energy that’s required to make the ultimate recipe for business success. 

Though we’re not often taught that feminine energy is a highly valuable business trait. Instead, we’re taught how to do it in a very masculine way, to make sure we fit into the mould. 

I encourage you to bring critical thinking to what you see and hear (or are told) about the way you ‘should’ be doing business. 

5. Subscribing to the belief that sales has to be pushy and fake

Here’s the truth of it. Women are often better at selling and sales once they overcome the barriers of not wanting to be too pushy or fake. 

In fact, when they do the opposite of this and tap into their curious, collaborative nature, they’re more likely to build trust easily. This removes barriers to the sale and instead the focus is on genuinely uncovering the need and solving the potential client’s problem. 

According to Harvard Business Review, high-performing women in sales are more likely to emphasise connecting, shaping solutions and collaborating. The need for this style of selling is becoming more and more desired by clients, particularly as we navigate the pandemic. 

Let’s summarise…

Now there’s a whole bunch of other barriers specific to women in business we could talk about like the increased expectation and demands on women outside of work or the fact that women-led businesses receive less support in funding despite research showing they generate more revenue – sometimes up to twice as much per dollar invested. 

But for now, why not use this checklist to make sure you don’t become another broken statistic in a system of failed businesses…

1. Work on breaking the cycles (and beliefs) that could be holding you back without you realising it 

2. Find a community that you connect with who support and understand you. You might like to join our Mastermind

3. Upskill in areas outside of your genius zone ie. sales and managing your finances 

4. Break the male-dominated mould and define what success looks like on your own terms

5. Embrace a new way of selling and get great at sales

*Source ABS

 If you want to uncover what else could be holding you back from creating a wildly profitable business you love, without having to sacrifice life, let’s chat! 

Nicky is a Sales and Business Leadership Coach with over 2 decades experience in sales and leadership. She’s been running successful coaching businesses since 2015 and is obsessed with helping business owners and teams thrive. She helps her clients install smart business growth strategies and leverage leadership for peak performance.
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