STP 63 Strategies to have Genuine Conversations with Your Ideal Clients
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[00:00:00] James Marland: Welcome to the scaling therapy practice podcast. This is a podcast of course creation studio.com. My name's James. Myland your host. This is the show where we empower mission-driven helpers to launch. Life-changing online courses. So glad that you're here with us today, we're going to talk about having conversations. With your ideal client.
[00:00:38] James Marland: And in fact, one of the big problems is you might ask, where do I find these people? Where do, where does my ideal client hang out? So I will. Share some tips and tools with you today on how to engage in real conversations with your dream client online. Specifically, where do you find them?
[00:01:02] James Marland: Before we begin. I want to talk about Kajabi. Kajabi is the online course hosting platform that I use to host the scaling therapy practice podcast in the course creation studio webpage. In course, Kajabi is a great platform where you can have. Your course, your webpage, your email list your videos, your audio. Community. And a host of all other things, all in one platform, you don't have to buy. Multiple platforms, you just learn the Kajabi platform. It's real amazing that if you search up Kajabi, your Facebook feed will be filled with all these Kajabi creators and how they said how easy it is and how much money they made. I am going on the, how easy it is.
[00:01:55] James Marland: That is the main, one of the main things that I use Kajabi for is I just have to log into one platform and I don't have to learn. A an email system platform, a webpage, a course learning management system. I can just do Kajabi. So it's real easy for people who don't have time to. Learn a whole bunch of systems and they even made it easier as as they, they just rolled out their Kajabi creator. Platform, which allows you to create, I think it's 40 different pieces of content from one video. So that's pretty exciting.
[00:02:33] James Marland: You get one free video a month that it creates all that stuff from, and if you want more, I think it's up to 30 or 40 video, 30 or 40. Video elements. Then you pay an extra price for that, but. You do get one free a month and it's really easy. Where it helps you create from your, let's say you have a 15 minute blog. Video, it will create. A multiple short videos, like a five minute, five minute video clip of one minute video clip a ten second video clip. It'll do all that for you.
[00:03:07] James Marland: Plus a blog plus show notes. Plus social media captions. It's pretty nifty. So the, another time-saver from Kajabi and I recommend you take, check it out, go to the show notes and look up. The Kajabi creator. Link that I will have for you. And then if you click that, it supports the show.
[00:03:28] James Marland: So I thank you so much. So C moving on season three. Is all about creating online courses and.
[00:03:37] James Marland: Reaching your ideal audience, having something that you can launch into the world. That you're proud of but one of the, one of the problems with launching online courses is who do you launch it to?
[00:03:48] James Marland: Who are you going to, how do you know it's going to hit. And. We've talked about this in a little bit, but you have to launch it to the right people and to have your message hit your signal. Hit and connect with people. It has to be. A signal that they understand that you can help them, that you understand their problem, you understand their pain and you can get them to the promised land.. So you have to have conversations, but where do you find these people? Like where do you find the people. To talk to. To get to know them well enough that they understand, oh, this person can help me. This person knows what I'm going through. They understand my struggles.
[00:04:34] James Marland: I have to figure out what they're doing so I can get to the promised land.
[00:04:39] James Marland: So you have to have conversations with people. You have to talk to them, you have to get to know them so that you get to, you have to get to know them so well that if your ideal client walks into the room, you pretty much know that they are it like you can tell by what they walk and what they say.
[00:04:57] James Marland: And if they. Came in. And they sat down next to you and at the Starbucks and they started telling you about what's going on.
[00:05:05] James Marland: You would be able to understand. And identify with them and then provide some solutions to them. So. Where do you find these people?
[00:05:17] James Marland: I'm going to give you three suggestions. The first is just the people that, you know, And who do you work with? Who do you engage with in your. Day to day life, that might be an ideal client for you. If you talk to them and you said, Hey, what are you struggling with in this area? They would just spill their guts.
[00:05:38] James Marland: You. And they would say. Oh, it's I definitely am struggling with this. One of the big classic examples for example, because I think most of us can relate to this is weight loss. If you talk to somebody, if you're, if your online course was on weight loss or dealing with weight loss. You could go to your, some of your friends and say, Hey, what are some of the struggles you've had with weight loss?
[00:06:04] James Marland: And you could also ask what, why is this important to you? What does it mean? And what are you frustrated with? And they would be able to, if they've had that struggle, They would talk to you and you could listen to them and identify with what is going on in their life.
[00:06:22] James Marland: So use your peer group.
[00:06:25] James Marland: A little bit removed from the peer group, but still included in your peer group is your email list. The people that you email on a regular basis, if you just sent out. A. Three to five sentence email. I said, Hey, I am really thinking about. Helping people with this issue. Would you be willing to spend five or five to 15 minutes with me talking about the struggles you've had with this. So that I could. No more about the, what is going on. Sure you can type into AI.
[00:07:00] James Marland: How do I send an email to people to ask them to give me a solution to this problem? Alright, so that they would have a conversation with me.
[00:07:08] James Marland: Your email list has a lot of people that it would be easy for you to talk to you, easy for you to email. And easy for you to get some really good responses from now. Remember, we're not. If I didn't say it at the top, we are not selling. To this email list, we are not selling to people. From your personal email list, you are just trying to figure out what is going on in their life.
[00:07:35] James Marland: You're trying to get some information.
[00:07:36] James Marland: Nobody really wants to be a research project, but everybody wants to give advice. If you said, Hey, could you give me advice on this? You're going to get a lot better responses than, Hey, I'm doing this research project helped me out with my research. And then the final thing that I wanted, the final place. That I wanted to share with you on where to get people. Is. Facebook. Affinity groups or Facebook groups. It could be there's other places.
[00:08:04] James Marland: Reddit is another place where you can find groups. But if you searched up your keyword, And.
[00:08:12] James Marland: Looked for a group that is centered around. An area that you can help with. You are going to be amazed. At what you find.
[00:08:23] James Marland: Here's my story. I wanted to help therapists create online content. So I put it out into my Facebook feed and I got a couple of responses. Can you help me? And I got some people who agreed to give me their feedback and got helping. And then I went to my email list and I emailed some people and I got some responses on that and I had some good conversations with the. And then. I ran out of people to talk to.
[00:08:54] James Marland: It's Now, what do I do? And I'm not a pushy sales person. I'm not somebody who's going to push my way into conversations. And it always seemed disingenuous to join groups, just to try to sell a product. But so I was stuck. And Until I searched for online course creators and also I do podcasts, et cetera, podcasts. Podcast groups. And additionally, there's a group. I think it's called additional streams of income for therapists. Which I joined. And then what I did. Is, I looked for people to help. I looked for people who asked a question that I could. Answer. And I would answer it. Without asking for.
[00:09:44] James Marland: For a sale, like I'm adding value. And.
[00:09:50] James Marland: For example, A common question is what's the podcast Mike, I can use. Or what's a microphone or what? Our lighting light thing, lights that I use for my video or I don't know there's all these questions. And when I see these questions in the group, I light up because part of my. The value add is I'm going to help people. With their problems.
[00:10:15] James Marland: I'm going to get in there and talk to people about what's going on. And every once in a while, There are. The every once in a while, there are people who ask me more and more questions, and then I can. They might ask a question about an online course. And then I can say. I can give my value, add about the online course and ask them about what their problems are with it. I'm still not trying to sell them anything. I am having conversations. Because one of the big. Things that people do.
[00:10:52] James Marland: Or don't do is have real. Th they, they buy the lie that you can. Create an online course without talking to anybody without talking to your ideal client, without finding their language, without finding their problems without finding their pain. You can just launch it. And then the lie is people are going to buy it. But if you don't do the work ahead of time, if you don't make sure it's connecting, if you don't make sure it's hitting, if you don't make sure it solves a real problem, a real need. Then it falls on deaf ears.
[00:11:25] James Marland: And so this whole podcast episode is about. Having conversations with real people who have real problems. That you can solve and you're solving them, but you're also gaining so much value. As you hear their real pain. And they're real language. And one of the things. That you'll hear that you might not get, if you don't talk to people, is there a real reason for taking your online course? As I've said over and over again, people don't want to take online courses if they could get the result without taking the course or without, if you wanted to lose weight, if you could take do it without lifting the weights. Are going to the gym or eating different food, you would do it. But because you want the end goal, your dream is bigger than those problems.
[00:12:14] James Marland: And you'll do anything to get to the . You'll do anything to get to that safe Harbor or the promised land.
[00:12:23] James Marland: And if you don't have the conversations with people, you're not going to find out. What their promised land is. For many therapists is they are. They're spending too much time in the office and not enough time at home. And there they're running running ragged, solving other people's problems while things at home are falling apart, or they're not living, they're not maximizing their life.
[00:12:48] James Marland: They're not getting the return on investment that they thought they would from their online degree and their solution is just to work harder. And then they burn out and they don't experience the freedom that there. Degrees and education and experience and life experience. They thought they would get and.
[00:13:12] James Marland: If I talk to you and ask you, do you have a problem in your business? Where. You are you. Tell me about your business. And tell me about what problems are going on in the business. And maybe an online course would solve that or maybe it wouldn't, but we could at least have that conversation and talk about how that could help.
[00:13:34] James Marland: So the encouragement here. Is.
[00:13:40] James Marland: You have to have conversations with people. You have to have conversations.
[00:13:46] James Marland: With people who are your. Ideal clients, the people that you want to help the most, the people you can help the most. You want to have conversations with them. Their pain, their problems, what they're suffering with and where they're they want to go. And to do that, you have to go out and add value and I recommend going out doing a keyword search for your course topic or your business topic. Finding five to 10 groups that you want to join.
[00:14:18] James Marland: Visit them regularly. And then. After a week, or to narrow that down to a primary, two to three groups that you become a value added expert in that group where you can help people and have real conversations. With people who are experiencing the problems that you can solve. Then you'll get the language, then you'll get the problems.
[00:14:44] James Marland: Then you'll be able to craft your course your titles and the content and the lessons. To be able to solve. Exactly the problems that they are having, not the problems you think they're having, but the problems that are having so that you can get them to there. To their Oasis, to their dream destination, their safe Harbor. That it fulfills their needs and dreams. With what you can do.
[00:15:11] James Marland: You can't. You can't do a good job of doing that without having conversations with people. So where do you find those people? From your irregular relationships. The your email list and then the Facebook groups.
[00:15:28] James Marland: I challenge you to find, do at least one of those this week, either have a real conversation with the friends in your community.
[00:15:35] James Marland: Send out a three to five. Sentence email to 15 to 20 people. Or join a couple of Facebook groups and narrow it down to something that's primary where you light up and every day you could go in and add value and add a question and get more. More real world experience with your ideal clients.
[00:15:59] James Marland: If you haven't already signed up for the newsletter, please go to the show notes and click. Click the page. That'll take you to the newsletter. You'll get some free tools with that. Would that newsletter? I have the course navigator. And I've name your course. I have a name, your course workbook.
[00:16:15] James Marland: If you email me, I'll send that to you. So go to the show notes and click that out. Make sure you check out Kajabi, the Kajabi link and the Kajabi creator. It is pretty fantastic. I'll save you a lot of time. Next week, we're going to be talking to one of my friends. Joey I've talked about him quite a bit.
[00:16:34] James Marland: He has heart-centered marketing and the Atlas program. And he's going to talk, we're going to have this conversation about your dream business and your dream client DNA. You'll hear some familiar themes with them, but he is just a fantastic communicator and he's super excited. About helping people. Live. Work and live in businesses that fit their ideal lifestyle.
[00:16:56] James Marland: So you won't want to miss that next week.
[00:16:59] James Marland: Scaling therapy practice is for information and educational purposes only. If you need support with legal matters. Accounting or other areas. Please seek a professional in those areas and get your unique advice for your specific situation. Scaling therapy practice is a proud part of the site craft network.
