50:4 Your ideal clients' obvious choice?

Lee:

Welcome to The Trailblazer FM podcast. This is your host, Lee, and on today's show, we have the one, the only. It's Helen Knight from Creative Business Brain. Helen, how are you today?

Helen:

Oh, thank you. I'm amazing. Thank you. That was a lovely introduction.

Lee:

That's all right. I'm excited to have you on the show. Absolutely love your branding. Folks, if you're listening to the show, check out the link in the show notes and come and have a look at the YouTube video because Helen's background looks incredible. Do you want to look at that logo. That's incredible. Everything's just on brand. I'm loving it. So for the folks who don't know who you are, Helen, are you all right to give us a quick bio and maybe something that people don't necessarily know about you?

Helen:

Absolutely, yeah. So obviously, Helen Knight. I run Creative Business Brain Limited, something that people don't know about me. I'm a Third Dan Blackbelt Kickboxing.

Lee:

That's why clients pay you more money.

Helen:

Actually I'm out of practice recently.

Helen:

But no, it's something to do with that. But yeah, I do teach designers and agencies how to to great a stream of high paying clients using social media. That's the main thing I do. But yeah, and I love keeping fit and looking after myself because at the end of the day, if you haven't got your health, you've got nothing. Absolutely. I'm very much looking after your mental health as well.

Lee:

That's awesome. I'm one of those people who doesn't have time to go and keep fit at the gym, so I managed to fit in walking lots. Instead, I take my son, I've got a toddler, and we go out and do an awful lot of walking every single day and I've managed to lose, I've lost count now, I think it's 40 or 50 pounds over the last year, which is pretty incredible.

Helen:

That's great. Well done. It's important to keep fit and do stuff in the day as well. I can always encourage my clients to have a good routine and go and have a walk at lunchtime and clear your head and all that stuff.Yeah, absolutely. 

Lee:

Well, speaking of clients, we all know that we need better paying clients or a higher paying clients. But I guess my first question is why? Because can't I just pile them high and sell them cheap?

Helen:

Not really. Well, you can do if you want to have a heart attack. If you want to burn out and literally work every hour there is, which most people tell me when things aren't going so well, that's what happens when they're not charging any money, but they should be charging. And that also happened to me. When I was in my 20s, I was growing my business as a designer and trying to grow an agency. And it was the same story. I was trying to do everything for everyone and just, yeah, working myself into the ground and just neglecting myself massively. And that's why I've evolved over the years and decided health always comes first. But you need to really value yourself and value your time more than anything else, because you can never get time back at the end of the day. You can always make more money. I know a lot of people that obviously are in a situation where they're struggling at the minute might not think like that. They might be thinking, Oh, what do you mean? But if you're really just selling stuff really cheap, just bending over backwards with people and doing everything until the early hours of the morning or all night sometimes, which is what I used to do, which was crazy.

Helen:

You just you're so undervaluing yourself. I think once you have that realisation that I can't keep carrying on like that, I can't build the life I really want doing that, then you start to go down a very different path and you start to value your time, you start to value your skills and your ability and what you can really do for the world and other people. And once you start realising what impact that has on other companies and other people and start to really understand that, that's when you start to go, okay, yeah, this is I can actually gain control and I can actually have the business I want. I can have the lifestyle I want. I can have the future I want. It's all there. You just got to open your eyes a little bit more, a bit wider maybe and just realise that people are achieving those things. People are doing those things. There's no reason why you can't do that. I think we're just, yeah, we're all conditioned, aren't we, to think in a certain way to put, I guess, people are put in a box and like, oh, no, you can't do that.

Helen:

But you can do anything you want. So that's why I believe.

Lee:

Absolutely. I mean, looking back then when you were younger and hitting burnout, was there any one point that became a catalyst for change for you? Or was there a series of events that you can pinpoint that helped that mind shift? That helped that mind shift change for the... I just swore there, that mind shift change.

Helen:

Yeah, well, absolutely. It's probably several moments. Just yeah, I remember being... I was trying to think of the key ones, really. I had loads of moments where things were really rocky and I was really struggling financially and obviously as well with my mental health as well, because when you're, especially if you're trying to build a business on your own and you spend a lot of time on your own, it's not healthy sometimes, especially if you're not in a good place. I think I just started to realise that I needed to get out of my comfort zone. I needed to stop having a pity party. I'm all good at those. I think sometimes at certain stages of your life, you realise and you look back and you go, Oh, my goodness, I was just feeling sorry for myself. I should have got help sooner. I should have reached out and talked to more people that I could relate to more about what was going on. I just felt like I was the only one in the world going through it at the time. And yeah, and it was not an easy place. But luckily, I met my partner through a creative industry website.

Helen:

He helped me a lot, actually. And I was talking to him a lot. We were friends for a long time before we were together. We've been together over 17 years now, which is amazing. Thank you. I think it's just finding people that are going through that as well. You start to think, Actually, it's not just me. Everyone else feels like this. It's not just me. Because I think if you start to think, Oh, it's just me. There must be something wrong with me. I must be rubbish. All those negative thoughts go through your head. There's only one way you're going when you think like that, and that's down. If you can realise you're doing that and you start realising it's only the direction you're looking in that's the problem. If you start actually thinking other people are doing this, so why can't I? Then and start to take some steps forward into looking at what are your strengths? What are you really good at? There's always positive points there and there's always things that people need, and it's just the fact that most people take that for granted. I think it is just working out what you really enjoy doing the most, what are you really good at, what are your genius zones?

Helen:

What are the things that get you excited as well to help people? Because I think that's it. Sometimes a lot of creative people are treated like order takers rather than these people are absolutely creative geniuses like any creative person. I think everybody that's in that world is a genius because they can create things out of nothing. They can solve any problem in a creative way, which is just absolutely mind-blowing when you think of it like that. You have got the power to do amazing things and once you start realising that and you start talking to yourself in the right way, I think that was one of the things that I noticed early on where I really struggled a long time ago. It was like, what was I telling myself? I was telling myself all the wrong things. I was in such a negative place and then I think just because I'd been around a lot of negative people, it just got me in that situation. As soon as I realised and I managed to start, you start getting a whole new peer group, people that are actually supportive and excited for you, people that are cheering you on rather than putting you down.

Helen:

And you start to see the whole world in a different way, totally different way.

Lee:

I think it helps as well. You mentioned your partner there. You are starting to see yourself through the lens of your partner's vision of you. Your partner could instantly recognise what your strengths are, what was valuable in you. And by him pointing that out, that starts to solidify that in you, doesn't it? So as you surround yourself with more and more people like that who are willing to share with you what they see in you and to give you that positive feedback. So much better. I used to hang out similar time with other people who were in difficult situations, who were quite negative, who would say, Oh, that will never work. And we're all feeling sorry for themselves, too. So I was just stuck in this rut of this big... Do you remember the Yorkshireman skit? I'm going to put a link in the show notes. There's a Yorkshireman skit. Everyone has to go and watch it on YouTube. It's hilarious. And it's Monty Python. And they're all sat talking about how when they were kids, they had it really hard and every next guy keeps trying to one up them.

Helen:

Oh, I know.

Lee:

It's such a funny thing. We were in that zone until I started to listen to people who were saying those positive messages like, Lee, you are really good at web design. You are really good at communicating and those sorts of things. And that started to have me thinking, Oh, yeah, I am actually good at that. But because I'm scared about paying the mortgage and scared to put myself out there at a higher price because people might not pay me. I'm just going to carry on in this forever loop of not charging enough. For me, maths was the catalyst where I eventually realized that there wasn't actually enough hours in a year for me to possibly work to be able to pay the bills if I carried on selling what I was selling at 100 %. I couldn't even sell 100 % of what I was selling. I was like, Okay, I need to change.

Helen:

Well done. Yeah, because there are certain things that creative people aren't so good at, usually maths and spelling. Now that I work with a lot of creative people, I was very Reassuring that we were.

Lee:

 I did wonder why you're called Creative Brain at the back there, but anyway, carry on. You're getting a check now, are you? carry on.

Helen:

But once you realise there's nothing wrong with not being so good at some things, and it just means you're a genius in other areas. And yeah, it's exciting when you realise that thinking differently is a really good thing. It's a really positive thing. And it means that you're going to be so successful if you just have the right mindset, if you just really believe in yourself and you get the right support and you figure out basically what you want to achieve and the steps to get there the most effective way to get there is definitely important. Yeah, it's an exciting journey. It really is. Definitely took me a long time to get there, but hopefully I'm saving people a lot of stress and worry and sleepless nights.

Lee:

I mean, on that you are working with an awful lot of agencies now, helping them get out of that. You've been through that journey. What are some common myths that you hear or some common lies that agency owners believe that holds them back?

Helen:

A lot of... So their own limiting beliefs, is what you mean? 

Lee:

Yeah. Maybe one of them is that I'm just not good enough, or maybe another might be I've got to do more to charge more or You know. 

Helen:

Yeah, I'd say that's the first thing I talk to my clients about when they say, Yeah, come on, let's go for this. Let's do it. And we have our first Zoom session. That's the first thing we talk about is mindset and what they really believe about themselves, about their ability and also about money, because they're the two things that hold people back the most. I would say, if you believe that money is hard to get, if you believe that there's some reason why you can't achieve certain level of success, like you're not good enough, like you said, or you just don't feel like if you're in a certain situation, you don't feel like you could be confident enough to do something or there's all kinds of things that come up. And I try and share with people the things that helped me along the way because I used to have really bad anxiety when I was younger. I used to be so shy and timid and I really forced myself out of that. When I was networking with people and I used to study all sorts of things to help with my mindset.

Helen:

I looked in hypnotherapy, I looked into EFT, I don't know if you've heard of that, the emotional freedom technique. There's all sorts of things I looked into and had a go at myself that helped me massively along that journey. And it's just teaching people little things they can have in the back pocket in case they don't feel quite confident in one day or they don't quite like how to stay motivated, all that stuff. Anything that really is holding them back, like procrastination. Most people procrastinate because they're scared of something. So most people stop themselves doing the things they need to do to get to where they want to go, even though they really want to get there. They stop themselves getting there because they're scared of what will happen if they get there. So it's like the next problem that's going to come along. But if you think about that and you journal about it and you write down the things that are scary, why are they scary? What's the worst case scenario? And if you can be okay with that worst case scenario and you'd be like, okay, if that happened, what would you do?

Helen:

And you can work out, okay, actually, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I could do this. You're not scared of it anymore. So it's about just working out in your mind, working out yourself why these silly things hold you back, basically.

Lee:

Yeah, there are a lot of lies that hold us back. And it is a lot of it. It's just that self-belief portion, isn't there? Because if you look at any of them, I need to do more in order to charge more is something that I used to think. But that goes right back to the limiting the self belief and the belief that what I have is not valuable enough to charge more for. Therefore, I must throw more in, more freebies, more value, more value in order to be able to say, Yes, this is 10 grand instead of 1 grand. That's certainly something that I would do. Again, born out of that realisation that what I have to offer is extremely valuable. I'm the one who needs to see that because the client probably already needs to see that. But that leads to my next question. How do we find those clients that see that? Because we've probably started off in agency life attracting businesses based on price. Therefore, we're currently talking to the wrong audience. How do we find those people who recognise our value, like your partner, like my friends, and are willing to therefore pay?

Helen:

Two ways I can answer this. Let's have both. It's important to obviously like the if you're not perceived in the right way, then people aren't going to see the value you bring, because most people just are very generic in the way that they come across online to the outside world because you've been conditioned a certain way to talk about certain things to you know what's in your world, basically, and that's what you want to talk about. But you have to remember the people that are your ideal audience, these people aren't in your world. The way that you talk about something and what you talk about isn't really what they want to hear. You've got to understand who you're talking to, understand everything about their world, what's really going on in their world, and be able to relate to those people so that when they come across you, they really resonate with you and they go, Oh, my God. Yeah, I get it. That is totally what's happening right now. That's why I need that solution that you're talking about. It's not about just talking about branding or talk about how to fix your website. It's about really understanding the people you're talking to, knowing what's going on in their world, caring a lot more about them and what that's really going to do to them in their lives so that they can actually resonate with it, they can actually relate to it rather than just reading about colours and fonts and all that stuff.

Helen:

Yes, if you're wanting to increase value and attract the people that do value you, how you communicate what you do is so important. Most people just say, Oh, I'm a designer or I'm a design consultant or I'm a, I don't know, web designer or something like that. They just say, Oh, we build websites, we do branding so that you stand out, all that stuff, but it's very generic talk, okay? That's what everybody says. What you need to do is think about the journey that your ideal audience is on, and you need to tailor your genius to their journey. You need to think about the key things along their journey that you know they're going to struggle with, because you know the audience really well. You've done your research and you've worked out. It's really common in that industry for them to go along this scenario. They're going to struggle with this, then they're going to struggle with this, then they're going to struggle with this, and we can think of really creative ways to solve these problems with the things we're really good at. I call it an offer. You tailor an offer that really matches what they're needing, what they're wanting, what they're needing, so that they can clearly see the value you bring.

Helen:

That's how you get people to really appreciate the value. If you communicate that value in the right way, they will understand it and they will be so excited. Once you explain that to them, you'll perceive value massively goes up, like the pricing thing goes out the window. You don't have to do quotes anymore. You just talk to people explain it properly and they're like, okay, let's do it. So yeah, it's quite exciting.

Lee:

So for me to understand that what we're saying here is first of all, I'm going to look at my business and say, all right, for me, these are the things that I'm amazing at. I'm really good at it. I really enjoy doing them. And that's my, I think you're saying is the genius zone. And then the next thing I need to do is look at my ideal client and look at the industry that they're in and look at their overall trajectory. Based on my customer avatar, what is the average journey they're going to take? Step one, they need to solve this problem in order to get to the next stage of which they will probably meet with this problem, of which so on and so forth. So I've now created this journey of the client, and I can now looking at my genius zone, apply that to each one of those steps. Therefore, I'm going to build my platform, i.e, what I talk about based on all of those. Presumably explaining to people what it is I do helps, but equally talking about those particular problems or those particular hurdles or those particular aspirations, and perhaps even offering them things like a few minor quick wins in order to get people to recognise that you definitely know what you're talking about.

Lee:

I think what you're saying here is niche. Are you saying niche into, say, a particular industry? Could you unpack that a little further? Because I know a lot of people talk about niching, and I know a lot of people also roll their eyes at the idea of niching. So maybe explain a little bit more about how we hone in on the ideal group, industry client type.

Helen:

Yeah. So I call it the focus phase, because when I meet people, they look like my logo. So they look like my logo, base. And yeah, it's all about focusing down on who they want to work with the most, too, like in an ideal scenario. So if I waved a magic wand and they could have their ideal client coming through the door every day, who would that person be? Who would that business be? I take people through a process of working out what would be a really good choice for them by understanding what makes a really good niche. How do they actually make sure that that is a good fit? Obviously, you need to do some research. You need to really work out what's going on in their world, understand them really well, understand what they talk about, and making sure that what you're offering is like the obvious answers to their problems. It's got to be that moment where they land on your page on LinkedIn or wherever you are and they go, Oh, my God, I need to talk to you. That should be an automatic response if you're position in your cipher in the right way, if you've niche down enough, if you're very specific, very clear about who you're communicating to and how you're helping them, basically.

Helen:

Does that make sense?

Lee:

It does. The niche then, I'm guessing here, from what I'm hearing, the niche doesn't necessarily have to be an industry. What you've highlighted there is the ideal person, and the ideal person could be a coach, somebody who coaches people in multiple industries, or it could be an entrepreneur of a certain age that has a certain set of dreams and aspirations. I don't know, maybe you're focused on entrepreneurs over 50 or something along those lines. There are I guess there are niches beyond, aren't there? Just I'm going to go after accountants, which is not very exciting sounding.

Helen:

The more specific it is, the easier it is. So it just depends how quickly people need clients. Because I say, okay, obviously we assess the situation and work out how quickly they need to get people through. And if... If they desperately need people, I would say go for something really, really specific and very narrow. If you're not quite as desperate to get people through quickly, but you're still wanting to hone down into an area and you want a gradual momentum to build, then you can still obviously do it that way as well, where you're focusing on a person. But I would say if you're focusing on a type of company or something very specific in that company, then that's going to be a lot more obvious to your audience.

Lee:

I think the more you drill down as well, it actually helps you communicate to other people, the folks you're looking for. So if I'm just looking for accountants, I'm just going to get connected with accountants. Let's say I go networking, I'm looking for accountants. I build websites for accountants. That's super high level, super vague. If I'm looking specifically for tax accountants, or maybe I'm looking for accountants that deal with companies that are going bust or something, that's now made that a lot smaller. That's a smaller pool of people. And that's easier, A, for me, to communicate what it is I'm looking to help those accountants with, but equally easier as well for the people who I network with to connect the dots and go, Okay, Lee needs to talk to that particular accountant over there, or for that particular company that helps businesses who are potentially folding, etc. I don't want to give that example because I nearly folded back in the very first recession that I remember, at least back in 2007, 2008. I actually remember going to visit one of these accountants to talk about how we would close the company down. And thank God we didn't have to, but that was a miserable time.

Helen:

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I can imagine. Gosh. Niching down is always very personal to people as well, because I say to people always, when we're talking about niching down and helping guide somebody through that process, they will usually have, it might sound really weird, but they'll usually have a conversation with their head and a conversation with their heart. So they'll think, okay, this is what I think I should be doing with my head. This is like, sounds like the smartest choice. I probably make more money in this niche. All that reasoning stuff goes on. But then when they think about what they really love and what they really feel like they should be doing with their life and they just intuitively know what they should be doing and listen to their heart, then that's a very different answer. I always say to people, I always go with your heart because you'll never be fulfilled in life if you always go with your head. So always go with your heart. And I think most people know what I'm talking about when I say that, even though I know it sounds a bit bizarre.

Lee:

No, completely resonate. So in many times in business life, I have gone with the head decision because I know I can charge more for that one particular thing. However, I don't feel fulfilled by that thing that I can charge a lot of money for. As opposed to going for the things that I'm really excited about, really passionate about, the things that allow me to be creative or the things that allow me to go into a business and actually see some real change and see the smiles on people's face and see their success, that fires me up. I get super excited about it. I'm getting chills right now. I want to go do that thing. I don't want to go and sell that product that's just an off the shelf rinse and repeat. They use it. I have nothing to do with it, which is actually one of the products we still have to this day. I want to be involved in the other side of things where we're actually talking with people and building on strategy, etc. That's something we've doing in our agency unleashing me in that area a bit more. Otherwise I'd have the whole head to heart battle.

Lee:

Head wise, Oh, this makes money. Let's keep doing this. And then the heart wise, But I love being over here and doing all this cool stuff. I totally resonate there. And for me as well, the podcast is something that I just love doing. I actually don't really make much money out of it, to be honest, and that should probably change. Maybe you can advise me there in the future. But I've been doing this for eight years just because I love meeting people like yourself and learning stuff. I do apply to my agency anyway, and I know loads of other people apply it too. This has been for me, years long, a passion project, but it is something that I enjoy doing. Now, one thing I'd be interested in then is what things can we do to communicate to our ideal audience? Because I know there's the whole trope of posting on social media, and we all know, yeah, post on social media and educate your audience. But what other ways do our potential clients see us beyond what post on social media? How can we communicate our value and/or resonate with our ideal audience beyond maybe a few social media posts?

Helen:

Yeah. Everything that I teach is all through social media, mainly because, and I was younger, I used to do everything and I narrowed it down to the most effective things because I didn't want to exhaust myself because I was exhausted myself. I narrowed it down to the 20% and 80% of the difference. I narrowed it down to the four key things that make the biggest difference in your business. Obviously, one of those things is making sure that you have a strategy for social media and knowing how to bring in daily leads. So if you don't know how to bring in daily leads with social media, that was the most essential thing you need in your business, because when you think about it, social media, you don't have to pay for ads, it's free. If you know how to use it in the right way, you've got free leads coming in every day, which is like magic. But if you don't know how to do it, that can be people's biggest downfall. And that is probably the most valuable thing I've ever learnt how to do.

Lee:

Well, you could probably tell from my question then that I don't know how to do that. That's intriguing. So for me, I have just shown you that I perceive social media is just one of those things that we feel we have to do, but surely there's more. So for our business, the way we've grown and we continue to grow is through networking. We go to specific events in the events industry and we work with other suppliers. And obviously that works, there's a lot of work involved. And to be honest, we focus on that because like you said, it's what gives you the best results. And in our experience, it's definitely been that in our industry. It's worked for, say, the last 10 or 15 years. However, on the flip side, we also recognize that we do have products within our agency that would be ideal for selling online, as it were, or selling through social media. We've tried paid ads many times, and frankly, we're terrible at it. We spend all this money on paid ads and we never get a bite. Could you, without giving us the keys to the cupboard, but could you just educate me a little bit on how I might be able to use social media effectively to generate one lead a year as opposed to every week?

Lee:

Because we don't generate any of our leads on social media as an agency. Everything comes through word of mouth on networking, et cetera. I would love to know something that we could be doing better.

Helen:

Okay, so first of all, I mean, we did mention this earlier, but first of all, if you're not positioning yourself in the right way, that's number one. So obviously, niching down, positioning yourself as the answer to an ideal audience is problem, they should land on your page and go, Oh, my God, I need to talk to you. Okay, just by reading that position in statement, they should understand, they should be crystal clear, can't say it sorry, crystal clear that they need you and want to talk to you. I want to talk toyou. Now, obviously just that on its own isn't quite as effective as having the rest of it. So obviously having an offer, which we talked about earlier, that explains to your ideal client everything you want, everything you need in the business and being able to communicate in the right way, obviously part of that, you're not going to just talk about that in your posts, otherwise it would just be like sell, sell, sell. You don't want to come across like that. But you need to know what that is first so that you know where you're starting from. That's like your your foundations, basically.

Helen:

So once you've got that and you've got your foundation laid and you know who you talk to, what you're offering, and you know how valuable it is to these people, then you can start to understand what you need to talk about. So you know these people really well. You've done loads of research. You start to understand where the problems are, what they're struggling with. I've got a whole strategy that I teach my clients that gets people ready to buy. You're taking them from Monday to Friday. You're taking them through a journey and you're helping them understand in a very clever way, because most people are on very different awareness levels. So it's a bit like consciousness. It's like, what are you aware of? What are you not aware of in your life? And obviously, when I was a lot younger, I wasn't even aware that there are people out there that could really guide me and support me and help me. And if I'd known a lot sooner, I would have moved forward a lot faster. So there are people out there that you can help with your skills and talents, but they're not aware that you can help them.

Helen:

Some people aren't even aware that they've got a problem. Some people don't even know they've got a problem and they're just struggling along. They just think that's the way it's got to be. They think they've got to struggle. It's like their limiting belief. I've got to struggle. Things are hard. And that's where they are. Now you have to lift them out of that and take them up that ladder so that they're in a really good place and they are excited. They're totally aware of what you're doing. They totally understand how you can solve the problem. And they really want to talk to you. So it's just taking them through.

Lee:

A journey. So the way I'm thinking of this then is obviously you and me have been connected on LinkedIn and over the course of maybe a month or two of seeing your posts come in, I've gotten an idea of what it is that you do, but I've also gotten an idea of the problems that your ideal client has through your posts. You've shared selfies, I think, with your mom. You've been on holiday at one point, but each one of your posts has included something maybe about your own past experience of struggling with an agency or struggling with attracting high paying clients and so on and so forth. I've gotten over time an understanding of what it is you're all about. Now, if I was your target audience, therefore, at some point, you're going to be front and center of mind when it comes to either A, you hit me with an offer social media, or B, one of your posts one day resonates with me enough for me to say, I need to give her a call and just get some help at this point. I think that's what you're saying. We're not talking here about, Hey, here is an end-to-end social media strategy where you're going to do this, this and this, and then these are just going to come in and you don't have to pay for paid ads and everyone's just going to be willing to part with their credit card instantly.

Lee:

This is a case of... It sounds to me like this is almost a form of online social media networking. So we're building them up, we're educating them. Are we getting them to an offer page or are we getting them to a call?

Helen:

Yeah, we're definitely educating them. We're giving tons of value. I'd say that's the most important thing. You're giving a huge amount of value to these people and helping them as much as you can. And most people just want to feel understood at the end of the day, most people that you're talking to, like it's got to be obvious that you are talking to them specifically and they want to feel like, yeah, this person gets me, they understand me. They've definitely got the answer to my problem. Why haven't I spoken to them yet? Come on, let's go and have a look at their DM. Let's send them a message. It's got to be so obvious and it's got to be a no brainer. It's just got to be so obvious that you're the answer. And yeah, you do nurture people through your content and make sure that you're always top of mind. I've had loads of people reach out to me and say, Oh, my goodness, I see you on my feed all the time and I love your videos, and I feel like I know you already. There's that trust factor as well. If you're consistent with your content and people keep seeing your face, it's like an advert, isn't it?

Helen:

It's like, you've seen this thing and this nice smiley lady looks really friendly. I can definitely approach her. You've got to come across how you want people to feel about you as well. It's like, I always tell people if they've got a really grumpy photo on their profile, it's like well, do you want to attract people like that or do you want nice, friendly people? I always say you get what you put out in the world. If you want to attract nice, friendly people, be nice and friendly and helpful and supportive and encouraging and give loads of value. People will want to be around you. People will want to reach out to you. People will want to grab a call with you. It's not a hard process once you understand it. A lot of people initially think it takes a lot of time. It doesn't. Once you have the structures, once you know the formula, once you understand what works and what doesn't. I used to sacrifice a little bit of time. When I first started working out what worked really well, I'd just sacrifice a little bit of time on a Sunday evening to think about my week and what I was going to post about.

Helen:

But honestly, I've got so much stuff now that I actually reuse a lot of stuff. I reuse a lot of content. I do update a lot of it as well. I grab an old post and I'll look at it and go, Okay, how can I improve this? But it's much easier to do that than starting from scratch again. But yeah, I do give my clients everything they need, templates and things that they need just to make it as easy as.

Lee:

Possible for them. Well, what I've noticed about your posts is you'll start off with a story, then you will offer some form of advice and strategy or etc, but you then don't offer any sell. You ask a question in the comments, and I've noticed you seem to get then people talking to you. So I think what you're doing here is you're positioning yourself as, Hey, here's a story that will resonate with you. This is my experience. This is what you can learn. Let's talk about that online. Let's have a conversation. Are you building relationships and therefore people are there for naturally then connecting with you. I think what we've made a mistake in our agency is we've approached it as a brand. We've hidden behind the logo. We've often just published stuff about what the company is doing or celebrating other companies, which is great. But what we're not doing is having the people who are involved in sales. For example, Tim, my business partner, he could actually just start to show up in that manner, showing up as Tim and attracting other people in that way through social media. He does that networking anyway in person.

Lee:

And it sounds like we're able to transfer some of that strategically, what you're saying here on social media as well. What I'd love to do just to make sure that I've encapsulated everything in this episode is just do a bit of a recap of what I've learnt from our conversation before we let you go, and then you can give me some marks out of 10. I feel the pressure already.

Lee:

We started off right at the very beginning. We spoke about limiting beliefs. We all have limiting beliefs, and it would be great to be able to surround ourselves with people that are positive, people that can see our value, they can speak positivity into us. It's also important as well to have that self-conversation with ourselves as well and recognise our own value. From that, we then start to look at the people that we're serving and say, Well, who is it that I want to serve? Who are the ideal people in real life? Head to heart here. Who are the real people that I would love to work with? Also, what is my zone of genius? What is it that I want to do forever and absolutely love and enjoy that fires me up and makes me passionate, etc? Once you've got those two things, you can then start to look at, All right, well, this ideal person, what is it that they need to do? What's their journey to success or each stage of the transformation in their life, etc, and therefore, how does my zone of genius and how does my skill and talent help at each one of those points so that you can then turn up on social media and start to educate people around all of those key things that they need to achieve all those different journeys of their life.

Lee:

So you're sharing a story, you're sharing value, you're asking them questions, you're making sure you show up as you with a nice smiley face and not faking it at all, but you're being a real person. And the result of that is that in an ideal world, your ideal people who can pay you your ideal prices will pick up that telephone or send you an email and initiate a conversation. Would that be a fair summary of this entire episode?

Helen:

Yeah, absolutely. Well done. You nailed it.

Lee:

Oh, my gosh. Helen, thank you so much for your time. Again, I've learned so much. I've got some stuff to cry about later, but hopefully we can have you again on the show sometime soon. Have a wonderful day. Cheers, Rios.

Helen:

Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.