91. How to attract clients who already trust you

Who Are You Really Talking To in Your Marketing? My friends, please listen carefully today. I'm about to tell you something that is so important, that is such a huge part of what determines whether your marketing works, that if this is all you worked on in the next three months, if this is all you honed in on, it's going to dramatically change your marketing for the better. A lot of the times when I feel like my marketing is going a little bit off the rails, I'm like, oh, that this is probably what it is. And then I hone in on it and then it gets right back on track. So here's the thing. The the the thing that's going to make or break it is the invisible person who is the silent receiver, the invisible reader listener whom your copy is addressing. In other words, who the fuck you're talking to? Every time you write something, every time you record something, there are two people in the room, you and the person that you're talking to. And because who you're talking to when your marketing is invisible, they're not right in front of you physically most of the time. It's easy for this other person that you're talking to to be someone kind of random, like something that you didn't really pick intentionally. For most people, this is totally unconscious. So who is this invisible person that you're talking to? Have you really taken the time to stop and think about it? Have you really decided on purpose, strategically who you want this to be? And let me be very clear, this is not the same thing as like the demographic ideal customer avatar sort of exercise. You know what I'm talking about. Oh, you know, age 40 to 45, suburban mom with two kids and a golden retriever. She loves to touch up at Target, drinks, matcha latte. That's not what I'm talking about. I don't mess with that kind of thing at all. I'm not talking about who, what demographics they are. I'm talking about your relationship to them. Because you could have two severe moms, both aged 43. Both of them like to shop at Target and drink matcha lattes, but you could have an entirely different relationship with 1 compared to the other. So it's about how it feels to be in that relationship. Do they like me? Do they already trust me? How much do I have to explain? Like, are they already coming in like loving me and supporting me, or do I feel like I'm auditioning for them? That's what changes the writing. The demographics don't change anything. Attracting the Wrong Clients by Speaking to Distrust What I see in the vast majority of ineffective marketing that I see out there is that this person is random. It's been decided by some amalgamation of the default assumptions and anxiety limiting beliefs, fears of your unconscious mind. Many of you are writing like the other person. The invisible person that you're writing to has no idea who you are. One cue that this is happening is that you over explain everything like you need to fill them in on everything. Many of you are writing like the other person doesn't even really like you or trust you or what you're saying. One cue that this is happening is that you over justify and there's a slight defensive tone to what you're saying. You're imagining that they're standing like 10 feet from you, looking at you askance with their arms crossed, being like, wait, what is your deal? Like what? Some, sure, even marketing to someone who is hostile, like actively hostile to who you are and what you're here to offer. I can sense every time that's happening because there's a real contracted energy in your copy, you're shrinking and beating around the Bush and censoring and editing your messages hard to make sure that you don't accidentally get misunderstood by this other person or you don't accidentally piss off the other person, this invisible person who's looking at you like, what is this like? Unless you say it just right, someone's going to get mad at you. People are going to come after you. If you're doing this, you're talking to an invisible person who doesn't even like you. Why on earth would you want to market to this person? Guess what? If you speak to that person again and again and again, that's who you're going to get more of. That's who you're going to attract. You call in who you speak to, whoever you think you're talking to. You're literally creating room for them. And this is not some kind of mysterious spiritual principle. It can be understood on a very logical level, right? People understand and sense tone, and they sort themselves by tone. Actually, I think that an easy way of understanding this is, for example, we all know of a certain politician, even though they're not the only one, there's many. But let's say a politician, like every time they give a speech, they're talking like they're coming from anger, right? Their tone is very much like angry. Like it's these terrible people, it's US against them and they're ruining everything for us and we have to fight. And very much like grievance oriented, right? Anger and grievance. Well, guess what kind of people they're going to attract to both for them is other people who resonate with anger and grievance. The same thing with audiences, same thing with the customers and clients. If you're copy is very busy being convincing, you have a convincing tone, then the people who are going to stick around are the people who need convincing. On the other hand, if your copy is assuming trust, you're giving off a tone of trust. The people who come in and want to stick around are going to be the ones who feel trusted. How to Intentionally Attract Your Most Delightful Clients So if you're like, Oh my God, Simone, you called me out. This is what I've been doing. My invisible person sucks. I don't even want to market to them. Like here. OK, that's you. Don't worry. I got you. OK, here's how you're going to turn this around. You got to give this a good bit of thought. You have to choose one person that you want here in your marketing. The person who wants to buy, somebody who can't get enough of you, someone who's fascinated by all that you do, even if they're not ready to buy right now, they're like, give me all of your marketing because I cannot wait to hear more. I always just want to hear more. If it helps, think of your very favorite store or brand, The kind of store where it just makes you happy to just browse. Even if you're not buying anything. You're always buying things in your mind, but you're happy to just hang out in that store because you love everything they sell so much. You love what they're about. I have tons of stores like that for only I just love that store. Or don't even think of a store or a business or a brand. Think of someone you love following, someone whose work you adore. Who are you a major, major fan of? Whose work do you lap up every chance you get? Who can you not get enough of? Who are you delighted to hear from or about every single day? Because you think they are just so great and they feed some part of you that's really important. Who's the person? What's the brand? What's the store? Well, guess what? Your next client feels that way about you and that is the only person you need to talk to in your marketing ever. Now you have to conjure this person, this specific person in your mind. I really want you to spend some time here and do this exercise and answer these questions like if you want like probably a good idea to pause this podcast right now and answer these questions. The question is, who would be delightful for you to work with? Who do you want hiring you, the person that would be delightful for you to work with? What are they like? What's it like to be around them? How do they feel about your offers? How do they see you? How do they feel about you? How do you feel about them? What's it like when you're talking to them? Like literally stop and answer these questions because I really want you to get the feeling and I want you to marinate in that feeling. And as much as possible, I want you to think of a real person. It could be a client that you have or have had who has just been the most delightful client ever. You're like, if only I could get 10 more of these. If only I could get 100 more of these. Well, guess what? That's that's the person. Tell me what their name is. That person is who you need to talk to every single time you write copy. Or if you haven't had paying clients yet, it could just be someone that you know who adores your face off and thinks that you are everything and wants to know what's on your mind and just admires you and just wants to know everything about what you're doing next. Personal Examples: Writing to Your Past Self or Best Friend If you're like, I don't actually know anyone like that. I can't think of anyone. Well, let me tell you something. First of all, there's nothing wrong with that. And for the first many years of my business, when I thought about who I wanted to write to, I couldn't really think of someone like real. But it really actually every time who I really want to write to was my past self. It wasn't someone else. All of my marketing, was it like an intimate love letter to my past self. And you know, my past self obviously gets me. They love me and they want what I have today. They want what I have to offer today. And I had done so much work to overcome so much shit in my life, right? And I was just brimming with love for the past virgin of me and I knew her pain. I knew what she wanted. I knew what could help her. And I just felt like an older sister, right? I was like older sister who loves her little sister like I've so much to offer you that could make your life so much better. So I created things like marketing what offers product for me for past version of me. Every time it was a very specific person in that it was the past version of me. And in doing so, I got my very first clients who were obviously not past version of me, but they were in a similar place and they resonated with the kind of conversation I was creating. And nobody's an exact copy of who I used to be. However, when I am speaking to that very specific person, it creates like such a strong gravity center of resonance that calls in people who are in a very similar place. And the details never, it doesn't ever have to be the exact same. It's not about the details, it's about the resonance. And for the next few years, and mind you, the whole time, my e-mail list had like less than 100 people in it. In my marketing and my copy, I was talking to my best friend Julie. Julie was, shall we say, an early adopter of my work. When I created like an online product for the first time ever in my life, I don't know, it was like 2011 or something, was like APDF and an audio and it costs like $18.00. Julie was one of the very first and one of the only people who bought it, probably like less than a handful of people who bought it. And she always thought I was amazing. She always loved me. She always believed in me. She was always my cheerleader and whatever I made, she was like, this is so cool. And if I'm being 100% honest with you guys, for a few years, I always imagined that I was writing all of my marketing copy to Julie or someone like Julie. And if I'm thinking about it now, I think I'm still writing to Julie, even though my business now has 10s of thousands of people in the in the audience. And Julie now works for me. Setting the Tone: Attracting Trust Even When New Now I know that there's at least a few of you out there who are thinking, OK, so I'm completely new to see nobody knows what I do. And I, I don't think anybody adores me yet. Is it delusional to assume that they do? It's delusional to write like I'm writing to a super fan. And so this is the part that I really want you to get, which is that the toll is what does the work when someone new lands on your writing. And it always feels like a conversation between two people who already know and like and trust each other. They're going to want in. Imagine, literally look at walking into a room and it's warm and people are talking to each other and there's such good vibes and you can tell everybody likes each other. You want to be in that room and you want to stay. But if you walk into a brand new room and the air is like hostile and one person is defending themselves and the other person is looking at them all suspiciously, you're going to pick that up too, that, oh, I guess this person's under suspicion now. I think they're suspicious too. So it's how you write that sets the tone for how the rule feels when the other person walks in, metaphorically speaking. It's not like you have to pretend that somebody already loves you when you're like, well, I don't know, they do, right? You're setting the tone, you're setting the, the thermometer, you're setting the air, the terms of the conversation they're walking into. And that is so important. It determines who walks in and who stays. Final review. OK, here's a checklist #1 are you talking to somebody who gets you, adores you, trusts you #2 are you talking to somebody whom you would be delighted to work with #3 are you talking in a way that assumes trust and intimacy and mutual affection? And four, are you talking to somebody who's already obsessed with you and you're pulling them in closer by creating a kind of beautiful insider space between the two of you? Because that's what marketing is about. If you do all of that consistently, I promise you, you will not recognize how dramatically your marketing can change for the better. Mind the invisible other person once again, because you call in who you speak to. I'll talk to you next week.