Episode 171: Can You Love Your Ideal Client Enough To Accept Where They Are Starting At?
What if we gave our ideal client the same grace we wished we found? I invite you to press play for a beautiful question to ask yourself as you explore the depths of who your ideal client is.
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Episode Transcript:
(00:02):
Welcome back FEMNation. Thank you for joining me for another podcast episode. It's a very snowy day here in my little area of the universe, the world. How is it for you? What's the weather like? What's your world? Anyway, I'm always grateful as you listen to this podcast and really just walk with me on this journey of thinking of who we are as coaches, consultants, course creators impact makers, leaders, all of those things, they all kind of roll into one. We all become bits and pieces of each of those, right? And I have a question I wanna present to you today that I was pondering this morning actually when I went to go record this episode. And truth be told, little side note here, I segue that's often how my topics come up. That's how I write when something is very fresh on my mind because then I'm emotionally in the moment when I do my podcast episodes, they land for me when I'm in the moment, when I'm with the topic, the topic makes sense to me and it it's important to me and I feel compelled to say something about it to address it from my point of view.
(01:27):
But the question that I want you to consider is, can you love your client enough to accept where they are starting at? Now, you see this is a deep, deep question and I want you to reframe that with putting you in all caps. So can you love your client enough to accept where they are starting at? Thing is that if we have not worked on the internal aspect of who we are, based on the transformation that our journey took us through, that we are taking others through in our practice, our business, in whatever it is that we are offering to them as a solution in our program, maybe. But the thing is, is if we haven't done the work to understand and identify and to heal how hard the struggle was for us, we are disconnected to a degree from our ideal client still. And so when I frame it this way, in a manner of love asking you if you can love your ideal client enough to accept where they are starting at means that you would've had to have gone through the process of loving yourself where you are now based on where you came from.
(02:48):
And that means that you have had to rectify and heal through the ups and downs of that journey. No single journey has ever gone without some level of needing
(02:59):
To reconcile some of the things, the emotions that come up. There are times in my entrepreneurial journey I have been angry. There are times that I have been frustrated. There are times that I've been happy and overjoyed, absolutely. But it's the times that I needed to look back and say, there is a level of healing that needs to come about so that I can love who I was at and accept who I was at that starting point in order for me to understand and be able to articulate the outcome to my ideal client at this point. Because you see, you have gone through, I have gone through, we have gone through that journey and that's what draws us into coaching or consulting or creating a program that offers change of some magnitude.
(03:58):
But the thing is, is that that ideal client, where they are today, if we have some unspoken wounds about that moment in time, if we have not identified those and addressed those, then we're going to have a disconnect from our ideal client and we are not going to be as powerful in the impact that we desire to make because of that. And you see, you don't want to use, not use in a bad way, but you don't want to use the experience of walking a client through a journey of transformation. Although you know the steps and you know the process and you have an idea of where you're taking them to. And you may have it nailed, you may know specifically what the outcome is. But if we cannot see them for who they are and understand the struggles that they're facing and identify that those emotions, those pieces, those relevant areas in their journey, at that point, if we can't see those for what they are and love them despite those, then we are not truly loving our ideal client enough to accept where they are starting at with us.
(05:23):
We have to know love, dive into fully accept, fully embrace all of the pieces of our ideal client's point A. There can be elements of my ideal client's point A that are not mine. Maybe I didn't go through them the same, but I have something that is similar. I processed my point a little bit differently. And so therefore they can process their way. But we see it for what it is that is honestly knowing them, getting into the heart of them, seeing them, believing in them, loving them at the root of all of this. We have to love them. And in order to love them, we have to love that version of ourself. If we do not, we will only be building a business that is strictly transactional. And if you listen to this podcast, I'm going to bet my money on the fact that you're building a business to make an impact, not just a transaction.
(06:36):
And so I want you to consider this, weigh it heavily, write it down, process it, work with it. Can you love your ideal client enough to accept where they are starting at their point? A similar to where your point A was this person, you know your version of this person, but you should be able to identify what that looks like in your ideal client. You should be able to call that out and see it and know it. You should be able to work with it and help them take that moment and make the first step towards a transition that you desire to take them through. Maybe it's the only the first step you're taking them through. Maybe it's a full transition transformation. Maybe it's both at different periods of time where they choose to work with you. It can be different periods of time. They could come to you for just one little step and then come back to you a year later for the rest of the transformation.
(07:39):
But that's something that they needed to work on, but you gave them insight into working on it. And this is not just for coaching in the regard of life coaching or personal development. This is for service-based businesses as well. You have to understand, fundamentally understand where they are starting at and be at peace with that point, a version of yourself in order to be able to give them even one step forward. Recognizes the slight differences, recognize the variations, but understand what that is. Understand the elements that they could be bringing to the table and in fact, sit with those as well.
(08:24):
If you want to work on this for yourself, if you wanna clear that this is something that you have already done the work on, then write that down that question and sit with it and process it. What was it like as a human at point A for you? What are the possible variables that are at your ideal client's point A that mirror yours or not? Maybe parallel yours but they're still in the same lane, but get good at knowing what that is for you so that you can be successful at making the shift with them.
(09:08):
This is about being a part of the success part of your program. When you ask yourself this question, when they begin to work with you, you will be able to take them on that journey and you'll be able to confidently take them on that journey. You'll be able to walk with them. This is part of why writing is so pivotal for any coaching or consulting business. This is where you flesh that out. This is where you work on your point A for you, cuz you can speak to that, that is your truth. But when you speak not, but, and when you speak to your truth, even if your ideal client who is watching you, listening to you reading, you speak to your truth, they will be drawn to the parallel. If it's not a mirror image of the exact same part of point A as you, they will be drawn because the parallel comes closer than anything else they've seen before. That's what sets you up for success. That's what sets you up for your unique process. And that's how you get to the bottom of what you create in your program. That cannot be duplicated, cannot be replicated, cannot be stolen from you because you spoke to the core of who your ideal client was at that phase, that starting point, that journey.
(10:47):
You spoke to that person then because and spent time and got to the base and the root of that person you were then as well. So I challenge you to use this question, write it out, journal it. If you're a journaling person, take notes on it. Sit with it in your meditative quiet time if that's the way you process. But I want you to focus on this and answer that question deeply. Can you love your client, your ideal client enough to accept where they are starting? Get good at knowing what that is. And a little bit of a side note here, if you want to work on writing this out, if you want to flesh this out in a writing capacity, in a writing container, I encourage you to join an amazing little
(11:52):
Organic community that has just really kind of built itself. It's called letters to her, it's in Facebook, but it's powerful. And the fact that you get to come in and be uncensored in writing, following simple guidelines, but writing to her or him, you come into that community to start working through what does that point a really look like? And guys, I have been around this industry for years now, working deeply in it for every bit of five at this point. And I have yet to find anyone. Not saying that they don't exist out there, but I have yet to find anyone that even breathes an attempt to really get to the bottom of knowing who your ideal client is. Everybody wants to go to the program creation. I get it. Program creation. Oh, that's so sexy. That's fun. That's where your creative gets to live.
(12:57):
And I mean, if we could make money sitting in creativity nonstop all day long, that'd be great. But we gotta put it out there somewhere, right? It doesn't help anyone if it only lives with us. So we have to communicate to that ideal client, to our ideal client. And in communicating to our ideal client, we gotta know who that is. And to know who that is means that we love them at that starting point. Not just trying to rush through the transformation or the journey, but we love them at that starting point because we have accepted and processed who we were at that start. Same starting point as well. So I invite you, join this group, find the community. I'll put the link in the show notes, but join the group. Check it out, see what it looks like. It's different in a beautiful, powerful, impactful way.
(13:57):
So letters to her, it could be letters to him too. It's not gender specific, but I just like to write it that way. And because I was coming up with the title of the group, that's what I wanted it to say, but it, there's not really a question as to what it is then when her is an ideal client or him is an ideal client, it just rolls that way. So I invite you to join me. Come into that group. Look around. There are some people in there already. A lot of people actually that I have seen in the social media world, the social media space, because I really only ever invite anyone to come into this group from Facebook and LinkedIn. But I have seen people share their first letters to their ideal client, raw and vulnerable, that I turn around and look and say, holy crap, you need to put this out there. This needs to be seen. You already have the platform to do it, but she or he needs to know that you see them at their struggle, their point A at their most vulnerable.
(15:19):
And you don't have to show up as an expert that way you speak your truth and say it authentically and she or he will hear you or find you and will understand without having to prove it to them or having to say it to them that you know exactly who they are. I think that's a good spot to leave this podcast episode. Wrap it up. But here's that question one more time. Can you love your ideal client enough to accept where they are starting at? And it starts with you, loving you at that exact same point. As always, guys, keep moving forward.