“if you feel like you can’t quickly and easily explain what you do in a very concise manner, how can you expect anyone else to do the same?”

Do you feel totally confused trying to explain what exactly it is that you do? or the services you offer? Do you get exhausted as soon as someone ask you what you do? This is something that has actually been coming up a lot with my clients lately, so today I thought we would go over it here on the podcast.

We’re going to talk about;

• How to perfect & simplify your elevator pitch.  Explaining what you do in 150 words or less
• Being aware of the language we use when talking to clients.  Are we speaking to them? or are we speaking to impress our peers?
• Do you understand who your ideal client is?  Where they are struggling? What they need? How you can help?
• And so much more…

This episode is full of a lot of great tips so make sure you are taking notes!  Also, don’t forget to head to the link below and apply for my new 21 Day Intensive Business Coaching program.  I only have a limited number of spots available and I would love to work with you.

Looking for references from today’s episodes?  Find them all here:

Apply now for my Private 21 Day Intensive Business Coaching

Episode 215: [BIZ TIPS] How to Vet People, Brands & Companies to Work & Collaborate With

Are you ready? Get listening right away by clicking the link above, or if you’re more in the mood to read today keep scrolling for the full transcription of today’s episode! Let’s do this!

Hey, Hey, welcome back to the Room To Grow podcast, Emily here and today we’re going to be diving into who you are speaking to. So this is a business episode, and we’re going to be diving into who exactly you’re speaking to and getting very clear on that, including some of the language that you use in your marketing and your social media posts, how you speak to clients, all of this.  We’re going to get into all this today, because this has been coming up a lot with some of my actual clients and I know how tricky this topic can be. I also know how important it is to get it right. This can mean the difference between booking more clients and getting your name out there more, gaining publicity and all of those things or not, and sitting around wondering why nothing is changing. So this is gonna be a really, really important one.  Before we dive in, I just want to let you know that I recently just opened a handful of 1:1 private business coaching spots. So this is something that I do privately, but I don’t typically talk about it publicly very often because I’m pretty particular about who I bring on. I have an application form that is pretty thorough, because we need to make sure that if this is going to work that it needs to be a good fit for you as much as for me, it has to be a good fit both ways. This is a little bit unique in that I’m doing it as 21 days of business coaching. So this is going to be short, sweet, straight to the point, very direct, kind of like my personality. Part of the reason why I’m doing it in such a short period, because normally I would work with people on a longer term basis, but I’m offering this as 21 days because right now the world is changing so quickly, that it can feel like almost too much of a commitment to dive into a 6 or 12 month coaching program. For some people that is the right fit and I do work with clients in that regard as well, but I want to do this 21 day business coaching because what we do is we start with a 90 minute intensive call, followed by 21 days of Voxer Support. If you’re not familiar with Voxer, it’s like this little virtual walkie talkie app and it is the best thing ever. Don’t get me started, I’m so obsessed with Voxer, I just recently got introduced to it and it’s amazing. So we can talk to each other back and forth. What this is going to do is to help you come up with a clear plan of action for your business and how to scale so that you can actually make more money and reach more people who need to hear from you and then more of the people that you’re trying to serve will actually be able to learn from you. Because we’re all about impact over here. And the sort of fact of the matter is, if you can’t reach as many people as you want, you can’t have the kind of impact that you want to.

So this is going to be really powerful and this is going to require you to really commit, step it up and be ready to actually take action to really dive in headfirst and to move past a lot of the blocks that are holding you back in a really rapid way, and to force your hand a little bit because you’re gonna have to keep you accountable. This is all personalized. It’s just one on one unique. So I’m really, really excited about this. I’ve never offered anything quite like this before. Make sure to go and fill out the application, the link is in the show notes, or you can jump over to roomtogrowpodcast.com, all the information will be over there. Okay. Okay!

So let’s dive into this, who you are speaking to?. Okay, I had to gather my thoughts on this a little bit because one mistake that I see being made a lot is people in the coaching space, will use kind of very high level language. I feel like in the coaching space, we’ve almost developed our own language and set of words that we use, we kind of understand each other, but the words that we use with our clients don’t always make sense or resonate with them. The people that would actually purchase from us, or actually be our clients, the people that we’re trying to ultimately work with don’t understand what we are saying when we use that super high level language.  So one question that I want you to ask yourself is, who you’re trying to impress? You know, are you trying to impress your colleagues or your peers? because they aren’t the ones that are going to buy from you. When I was in the health coaching space, I had a lot of other coaches talk about this and times that we would end up admitting to each other that sometimes it felt as though we were trying to use language that would prove how much we knew in terms of you know, the sort of sciency words and stuff like that, is sciency even a  word? I’m pretty sure it’s not! In fact, I’m certain that it’s not, just ignore that! 

But if you use those types of words, the people that you’re looking to actually work with, wouldn’t even necessarily know what those types of words meant and then we get into kind of like buzzwords that are also found a lot in the online coaching space and these buzzwords sort of indicate to me that there’s a lack of clarity on what you do, like you are actually a little bit unclear on what it is that you do and who you’re speaking to. Because if you feel like you can’t quickly and easily explain what you do in a very concise manner, how can you expect anyone else to do the same? You know, would you say, I don’t know, “so and so empowers women to stop dieting”, about a random stranger on the internet that somebody asks you about? No, of course not. But there are so many coaches who and I like to pick on the word empower, because I feel like it gets so overused in the coaching space. There are all kinds of examples that I could give, that as far from being the only one, but I find that the word empower comes up a lot in these types of conversations. And if you have, if that’s part of your elevator pitch that you empower, so and so to do blank, you need to rethink that and to rework that elevator pitch line, you need to redo that. Because what does that even mean? Like whatever you say you do should be something that somebody else who has no idea about your industry would quickly understand and be able to repeat to somebody else who asked them about you. Does that make sense? It has to be that clear, like that level of clarity. And that requires you to get far more clear on what it is that you do. Because a lot of times, we aren’t sure ourselves and that sounds weird, right? Really like, Well, what do you mean? Like, of course, I know what I do. But do you? and do you know who you’re actually trying to reach? Like, do you know the person, the exact type of person that would be your ideal client? I struggled with this hard. I struggled with this so hard when I would try to sum up what I did, especially when I was still doing holistic nutrition. It felt like I was putting myself in a box or category that just felt incredibly restricting and as though I needed to explain my entire philosophy, and justify my thoughts and prove my worth, and be everything to everyone all at once in a single sentence or two. Honestly, it was fucking exhausting and I’m quite certain that it was also exhausting to be on the listening end of hearing me struggle to explain myself. When in doubt, I want to encourage you to break it down into the simplest possible terms. Somebody once told me that you don’t truly understand something until you can explain it to a child in a way that they would be able to comprehend and I want you to remember that when it comes to your marketing. Pay attention to the types of language that your clients and potential clients use, because they are literally handing you the exact language that you can use in your landing page, or in social media posts and in your podcast episodes, any of the above. Mirroring your clients’ language back to them is going to make them have those moments where they’re like, Oh my god, it’s like you’re in my head. That is exactly what you want, because people buy what they understand, and that also makes you feel more relatable, because it feels as though you understand them too. Like, would you want to hang out with someone that you felt like they didn’t understand you at all? Probably not, because that’s a huge turnoff. At the end of the day, we all want to feel seen, heard and understood, and that includes your clients.

 

Just as some more examples of this, there’s actually research that indicates that one of several reasons that the current president of the United States came into power is because he used language that was significantly simpler compared to his competitors. It’s actually an issue of comprehension and people are often more attracted to what they best understand in the simplest terms. I was talking about this to a client and she reminded me as well that newspapers are actually written at about a sixth grade level give or take, because it’s meant to be easy to translate, simple, to the point, and easy to understand.

Not only that, there’s a reason why Instagram bio’s are capped at 150 characters. There’s a reason for that. I know that sometimes it can feel like you have to wear different hats and you have your hands in different boxes and you do different things, how could you possibly narrow everything that you do down to a single sentence, or 150 characters, but if you can’t fit it into 150 characters, you’re doing something wrong and you need to gain more clarity before you proceed. Something that I tried to practice, and I have a long way to go to improve upon this by the way, is every time you write a sentence, ask yourself if that sentence propels the story forward? Is it necessary? Can the story be told without it? Be ruthless in your editing and this 100% takes practice. Actually Twitter could be great practice to get better in delivering bite size amounts of knowledge and shorter instagram captions, for example, rather than the books that we, meaning I, will sometimes write that can take off far faster sometimes, like sometimes people just want that short, easily digestible bit of information, like boom done. It almost gives the person reading like a little bit of a quick win because it’s almost like a quick mindset shift or a little piece of knowledge that they can carry with them. Whereas sometimes, and I am again, the first person to admit that I’m guilty of this, sometimes we can write these really, really long, long captions and they’re great and we have so many things to say, but I think that sometimes we need to shake it up once in a while with shorter ones, just to keep people more engaged as well. And then those times where you do write a much longer one, then people will potentially be more likely to read the whole thing. This varies depending on your audience, by the way, so some people write long captions all the time, and their people love it. They love it and it’s awesome. Some people don’t really want anything to do with long captions, and they would prefer to always have short captions. I’m not saying that you’re always going to please everyone, but you need to figure out what works best for you and for your audience and make it exceptionally clear what it is that you do. Any random stranger should be able to look at your Instagram account, or your website or whatever, and be able to pick up in a single sentence or two. exactly what it is that you do. Setting aside the fact that some people don’t actually understand technology.  There are all kinds of people that hear that, you know, I am a podcasting coach and they’re like, What? What’s a podcast? So that’s a different situation. But if they don’t know what a podcast is, they’re not listening to this episode. So I think we’re good. But if you feel like you don’t know, what your clients need, or what they’re asking for, then you don’t know your ideal client very well. That’s okay because there’s things that you can do to change that. If you feel you don’t know what kinds of questions your people are asking, or what they’re struggling with then you also maybe aren’t speaking to enough people. Both of these things are really great opportunities to take more action, and action breeds more action. The thing is that when we get stuck, and take it from someone who has felt stuck many times, particularly over the last few months, it feels paralyzing. It feels like it’s so fucking hard to get started, like a car starting from a dead stop. It’s so much harder than when you already have some momentum built up. But that car has to start sometimes if you’re ever going to move it anywhere. You have to put something out there. And then something else. And then something else. And talk to people in the DMS as well. Like that’s one of my favourite ways. You know, send people audio messages, reach out and ask if you can talk to people for a few minutes. Ask them a few questions about what they’re dealing with. And make it clear to them by the way, that there’s no pitch attached, you can maybe tell them that you’re working on a specific project, if that’s something that you’re doing. If you’re coming up with a new program or something like that, and this is what’s triggering, needing to get to know more about what people are dealing with. Just be honest with people, but let them know that there’s no pitch attached, you are just trying to get to know people better and what they’re struggling with. Facebook groups, you know, lurk around Facebook groups, ask them questions, as long as it’s according to that particular group’s rules, if that’s acceptable and all that stuff, but people want to help other people. They do. They really do. People want to be helpful. A lot of times, we just aren’t even asking the questions to get the answers. So when it comes down to getting to know people, ask yourself what they’re struggling with, what their biggest fears are, if they could wave a magic wand what would they be able to change in their life or their business? And mold this obviously to what it is that you offer whatever service it is that you offer. What do you think they’re afraid to say, you know, jump on the phone with them, too. It’s going to be really, really common as well, for your ideal listener or your ideal client to be a former version of you because we teach what we know. I’ve talked about this before and in a couple other episodes, especially there was Episode 215 is a great one to check out about how to vet people, brands and companies and there’s a couple other episodes that I’ll mention as well in the show notes, but a lot of times we do end up sort of speaking to a former version of ourselves. That’s not always the case but a lot of times we do because we have really felt those struggles on a deep level and after we have moved through them or as we have moved through them, we know that we can help others move through that same thing, because we went through it. So start reaching out to people, put yourself back in the shoes of that former version of yourself and figure out what it is that you were struggling with the most. What did you need the most help with? What would have been the best thing ever to have fallen into your lap when you were struggling the hardest? and talk to people, talk to people, ask them what they want. Ask them what they need, ask them what they’re dealing with. Make sure that you’re getting very clear on what it is that you do and who you’re trying to reach. Because otherwise it’s going to feel like you are just spinning your wheels. Okay. 

So thank you so much for listening.

Don’t forget to check out the application for the 1:1 Business Coaching, my 21 day Business Coaching. I’m so excited about this, it’s just gonna be a lot of fun and I’m really excited to see a ton of action being taken. Because that’s the other thing about a longer coaching program is that a lot of times we can end up feeling as though you know, we’ve got more time, we’ll sign up, and we’re super gung ho at first and then things kind of die down a little bit, and it’s like, oh, it’s fine, it’s fine. You know, I’ve got five more months, I’ve got four more months, I’m good, there’s still time. But then a lot of times, we tend to procrastinate. And I don’t want that for you. I want you to gain some quick wins under your belt, because that is also going to help to breed even more action. Again, action breeds more action, right? When you take action that is going to help to build that momentum that will allow you to take even more action and to get to know more people to have more conversations with the people that you’re trying to reach. And it just continues to snowball from there. I’m super excited about this. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll be back on Thursday.

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. I’m so grateful you took the time and it means the absolute world to me. For any references in the episode and all show notes. Be sure to jump over to roomtogrowpodcast.com, and if this episode touched your heart, it would mean so much if you would take a quick second to hit subscribe, write a review and share on social media or with someone who really needs to hear today’s message. It makes such a difference to keep this podcast going so I can continue to bring you amazing content and absolutely incredible guests. Be sure to tag me on Instagram over @emilygoughcoach so that I can thank you in real time for listening and connect with you. We’re back every Tuesday and Thursday with brand new episodes and I’m looking forward to growing with you

Questions?  Comments? Want to connect and chat about this episode? You can email me at info@emilygoughcoaching.com, or DM me over on Instagram @emilygoughcoach or Facebook at Emily Gough Coaching.  I would absolutely love to connect with you and thank you for listening in real life and here any takeaways you had from this or other episodes!.  It makes me day to see you listening to the podcast and fills me up with pure joy. Seriously.  See you on the ‘gram!

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