Month: June 2021

4 Ways to Attract Perfect-Fit Clients at Scale

Micheal O'Neill 5 Comments
4 Ways to Attract Profitable Perfect-Fit Clients Today

4 Ways To Attract Profitable Perfect-Fit Clients Today

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I firmly believe that everyone can build a profitable and massively enjoyable online business. Every single week I see success with courses and memberships in the most unusual and unconventional niches.

I see course creators and membership owners who start just a couple of steps ahead of their Perfect-Fit Clients who go on to build massive communities and achieve the time, lifestyle, and financial freedom that they desire, without being the go-to industry expert.

Here are four tips to help you build your online business faster by attracting Profitable Perfect-Fit Clients at Scale.

 

Know And Have 100% Confidence In The Transformation You Can Provide

You have to be confident that your program or membership can achieve the transformation that you offer in a step-by-step, efficient, and effective manner?

If you have any doubts about your ability to achieve this transformation it isn’t the end of the world, there are a couple of options. You can:
i. Change your Offer
ii. Change the program or membership
iii. Refine your process or framework through 1-to-1 work until you achieve the result you want

Map Their Journey From Start To Finish

You don’t have to be an industry-leading expert to achieve the transformation that you offer. But you have to break your subject into manageable bite-size actionable chunks.

Map out the steps that your Perfect-Fit Clients will need to get them from where they are to where they want to be.

If you have followed my other posts you will have come across my Value Ascension Roadmap which is the transformation plan on which your business is built and which your Perfect-Fit Client will use to chart their journey to the ultimate transformation you provide. 

Your job is to always have them primed to get to their next milestone and then graduate to the next level of your Value Ascension Roadmap. Remember small steps are better than big ones and clarity of outcome is the most critical factor in creating a Roadmap that excites your Perfect-Fit Client. 

4 Ways to Attract Perfect-fit Clients at Scale

Make It A “No-Brainer” Offer

Can you verbalize the transformation that you offer? Can you make it sound and feel real? Believable. Concrete. Unique. Is your OFFER truly compelling for your Perfect-Fit Client?

Without a doubt, this is the number one problem I see when analyzing launches that flop. Online business owners invest massive amounts of time, effort, energy, and cash in their copy and their funnel and they throw together their offer last minute.

Your Offer is the core promise of your program or membership. It’s the very essence of why your Perfect-Fit Client needs to join. Aspirational, vague, high-level, ambiguous promises that their lives will be better just won’t work. You need to be super specific about how exactly their lives will improve and then you need to convince them how you can help them achieve this.

Whether you are a membership site owner, an online coach, a course creator (and you might not like this, but) you are a direct response marketer. In order to get someone to pull out their Credit Card and spend their hard-earned money, you have to get them excited and show them a better future that they can believe in. 

If you do this job properly your Perfect-Fit Client doesn’t have to read a long-form sales page or be battered over the head by a 27-part email sequence. Often, they don’t even need to see the price. With a knock-out, no-brainer offer, your Perfect-Fit Client will be falling over themselves to give you their money. 

Be The Solution to a Massive Problem 

Our job as Course Creators and Membership Site Owners is to provide solutions to problems people already have rather than coming up with ingenious solutions to problems people don’t yet know they have.

Selling a solution is hard enough but selling a problem that people don’t know they have is even more difficult. That isn’t to say you can’t introduce highly innovative solutions it is just that those solutions have to be rooted in some pain that your Perfect-Fit Client feels regularly.

One of my mentors Perry Marshall coined the phrase Find Bleeding Neck when describing this. Your job is to find your Perfect-Fit Client’s bleeding neck. One of our overriding instincts developed over millennia is to conserve energy. If something is a slight annoyance in our lives, we will put up until we have “time” to deal with it. 

And guess what…. we never have time to deal with the little things.

When you have a bleeding neck it isn’t a mild inconvenience, it is a treat to your future survival and guess what…. you take massive action, and the cost of the solution is inconsequential.

And remember, you sell your Perfect-Fit Clients what they want and then give them what they need. The best solution is not always the best offer. The key to this is developing a deep level of intimate knowledge of your Perfect-Fit Client. 

Nail these four elements and I can guarantee you that you will see a dramatic improvement in the results of your next launch or promotion. If you would like to discover how you can implement your very own Profitable Perfect-Fit Client Attraction Strategy click the link below and apply for a FREE Focus-Strategy session.

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3 Quick Ways to Identify Your Perfect-Fit Client

Micheal O'Neill 5 Comments

3 Ways To Identify Your Perfect-Fit Client

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Having a long-term view of the transformation you want for your Perfect-Fit Client is crucial to the success of your online business. As Course Creators and Membership Site Owners, our sole business focus should be on helping our Perfect-Fit Clients achieve the transformation they seek.

Not everyone will want to move at the same pace or invest at the same level to achieve their desired transformation and that is perfect. Our job is to meet them where they are and help them move forward at the most suitable pace for them.

Therefore, a Value Ascension Roadmap is essential for your online business. It makes sure that your Perfect-Fit Client always has a destination to aim for and always has a next step to take.

Your Value Ascension Roadmap will begin with your free content. This may be your blog, social, podcast, or YouTube. From your free content, you want to entice them to opt-in to your email list through a Lead Magnet and then offer them entry to a front-end membership or course. 

From here they will step into your signature program/membership and if they are suitable, all the way to your coaching program and high-end masterminds.

Your job is to know what your Perfect-Fit Clients’ most important next step is at each level and how you can best support them to take that step. 

Often online business owners run into difficulty when their Value Ascension Roadmap isn’t fully aligned from one level to another, or the groundwork hasn’t been laid well in advance of the next milestone on the Roadmap.

In order to attract and hold your Perfect-Fit Clients’ attention there has to be a number of things in place:

  • The first one is your Value Ascension Roadmap, with clear descriptors of the transformation on offer at each level, any pre-requisites, or qualification factors. In addition, you much have a clear and compelling offer for each level.
  • Your Perfect-Fit Client needs to see evidence of the transformation that you have helped others achieve at the next level of the Value Ascension Roadmap so that they are compelled to do what it is that you’re asking them to do. You may be able to transform someone’s life but if that person doesn’t believe in you they will never take the necessary steps.
  • And finally, you have to enroll them in a better future for themselves. This is where you enroll them not on you and your product or membership, but you enroll them in themselves. Very often you are showing them a future that they may not have even imagined was possible for them.

So now that you have created an environment to attract your Perfect-Fit Client how do you distinguish between Perfect-Fit and ok client. Here are 3 quick questions to ask yourself:

Am I Excited by The Prospect Of Speaking To This Client?

When you have an opportunity to engage 1-on-1 or in a group do you get excited when you are about to speak to that client? Do you feel energized, on top of the world, having a sense that you’re making a difference in their life? 

Because if there is an ounce of reluctance the chance is that the person is not your Perfect-Fit Client. There are two reasons why I am so passionate about people attracting their Perfect-Fit Client 

  1. If you’re not excited about helping your clients achieve their ultimate transformation, showing up day after day and playing full out is going to be hard.
  2. If you are not showing up 100% every day and feeling even a tiny bit of reluctance, your Perfect-Fit Clients are going to pick up on that.

If you are genuinely excited about the thought of every single interaction with your clients, this is when your business will take off.

Can This Client Achieve The Ultimate Transformation I Know Is Possible For Them?

As described above, your Value Ascension Roadmap should have different levels of transformation that your Perfect-Fit Client can attain. Some people are going to move at a different pace to others and that is fine, but, do you think the Client can achieve the transformation that is possible for them on that level.

Your goal shouldn’t be that everyone makes it to your top-level mastermind. That is only for a select few people who want to get the maximum results, in the fastest manner possible and are willing to invest accordingly.

Often when I am working with my Perfect-Fit Clients on their Value Ascension Roadmap we discover that the most appropriate level for their Perfect-Fit Client is in their Group Coaching Program.

Are They Ready For The Next Step? 

Depending on their Value Ascension Roadmap, you’re going to have different stops. Each stop will come with a different price level that people will pay.

Price resistance is often a sign that either people don’t believe in themselves, or they don’t believe in you. More often than not, however, it comes down to self-belief.

You are going to start with free content and lead magnets. From here you’ll have front-end, self-liquidating offers, then mini-courses and programs all the way to your signature program or course. And at the end of their journey, you’re going to offer them high-end masterminds.

If they are not ready to move to the next level on your Value Ascension Roadmap that is fine. It may be that they need more time on the level that they are on to build their confidence.

The worst thing you can do is step someone up to a higher level before they are ready. Your Perfect-Fit Client may not always have the skills or experience required for the next level but as long as they have the attitude and appetite that is all they need.

If you answer yes to the three questions above it is a good sign that you are working with a Perfect-Fit Client. When you identify a Perfect-Fit Client the job isn’t complete as you now have to analyze their personality, traits, attitudes, and behaviors to build a profile so you can attract more and more of the same.

If you would like to schedule a free Perfect-Fit Client Mini-Strategy Session, simply click the link and we will build a customized client attraction framework for your online business

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Should I Build an Audience or a Community?

Micheal O'Neill
Should I Build an Audience or a Community

Should I Build an Audience or a Community?​

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If you want to attract profitable Perfect-Fit Clients at scale, then you should look at everything that you do in your business as an opportunity to build and grow a community. 

For the long-term success of your business, this is where the real value lies. 

If you examine the really successful course creators and membership site owners the one thing that they all have in common is that not alone do they have a large audience but they have taken the time and effort to build a highly active and engaged community.

What’s the Difference Between an Audience and a Community?

In simple terms, an audience is a group of people with which you have a one-way stream of communication. Think about when you are watching a TV show or movie, a single, pre-recorded, one-way, mass message is delivered to your device. In this model, you have no way to interact with the creators and if you want to interact with others who are interested in the same show you must do the leg work and find them online yourself. As an Online Business Owner, if you have an exceptional message and you are a charismatic presenter, things can work out ok, but you are missing out on a huge opportunity if you choose to go the broadcast route.

Community on the other hand is a gathering of like-minded people, built around a core topic or a person. This is where you give a platform to like-minded people to interact not just with you but with each other. In doing so they will not only identify you as a leader, but they also self-identify themselves with other community members and feel part of something bigger than themselves.

The Power of Community

Building a strong community, even if small to begin with, is one of the keys to attracting Perfect-Fit Clients at scale. In a community, people see other members engaging with each other, they can see the shared values of the group which is a reflection of your values. This will not only attract other Perfect-Fit Prospects but will also repel those who are not.

Building community is something you should focus on every day in your business. In many ways, your job is to hold a safe space for your community and to facilitate a conversation between community members.

Just take some of the viral companies that have emerged in recent years like Airbnb, Uber, and Peloton. These companies have leveraged intercommunity relationships to fuel their growth by creating a platform for their community to share values and preferences which provides a far better experience for the community members.

So it is not a surprise when you analyze the people who are delivering the big launches in the online knowledge space. They’re the people who are most intentional and proactive in this area and as a result, have the most active and interactive community. Yes, they had really good marketing. Yes, they had a good product. Yes, they had lots of JVs. But, What they also had, and what added that extra dimension to their launch success was the fact that they leveraged the communities they built.

In the online knowledge business world which is filled with immediate gratification and quick wins investing in a community can be frustrating as it takes time. But the long-term ROI makes it more than worth it. When an active and engaged community gets behind your launch the excitement and momentum it builds is a joy to behold. And, when you have momentum and excitement behind your launch you are already halfway towards a really successful launch.

So What Are the 3 Things You Can Do to Start Building Your Community Today?

Should I build an Audience or a Community?

Build Conversation Starters Into Everything You Publish

Yes, some mediums make it easier to build community than others. But when it comes to publishing content, don’t just post for the sake of posting. Make sure you have a very specific message you want to portray and ensure every interaction is a two-way stream.

Think about different ways to start a conversation with your community. Try asking people for feedback and once you get feedback use it not just to get to know your community better but incorporate it into your messaging and the products you create to serve your clients.

Ensure That All Your Content Is Focused On The Pain Points & Desires of Your Perfect-Fit Clients

Do you understand the pain points that are holding your community back? What challenges do they face, what are their values? You need to understand what they hold most precious in their lives.

Learn to speak their language, live a day in their life. You need to be able to read them a page from their diary with such accuracy that they feel you’re looking over their shoulders. And, when you make everything about them, they are going to respond favorably when you deliver your offers.

Share The Success Stories of Your Community With Your Community

Your job as an online knowledge business owner is to get results for your clients. Your sole purpose is to bring about the transformation you promise in those that you serve. Once you start getting these results for your clients, share them with the rest of your community. Make your clients the heroes of your stories.

By doing this, not only will other members of your community better understand what it is you do and see the results you can help people achieve they will also recognize themselves in and identify with the success story. As a result, they will interact more and it strengthens your community.

And remember, it’s not only the big success stories that you should share. In some ways, the little wins and the small steps are even more powerful as they are easier for your community to believe it is possible for them.

Three Tips for Growing Your Community 

Your goal is to start conversations and get the community members talking. Number two is to make everything you talk about your Perfect-Fit Client. And third, you want to share success stories from your community. 

Building a community around your product or membership is one of the most important things that you can do to grow your online business and it is a key part of the work that I do with my Impact Inner Circle Coaching Clients.

Every month I make a small number of slots available for FREE Focus Strategy Sessions where we roll up our sleeves and assess the biggest challenges and opportunities facing you and your business. If you would like to apply for a session you can do so here. 

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3 Essential Building Blocks of a Successful Online Business

Micheal O'Neill 1 Comment

3 Essential Building Blocks of a Successful Online Business

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If you are an online knowledge business owner, course creator, or membership site owner, and you want to attract more, Perfect-Fit Clients at scale then this post is essential to the success of your business. Having built many 6 and 7 figure businesses and helped countless others launch and scale online courses and memberships these three factors above all else will dictate the long-term success of your business. Even successful online business owners can overlook these fundamental building blocks, and they do so at their peril.

Every time I have been drafted in to debrief an underperforming launch the underlying cause can be traced back to one of the three elements that I share in this blog. No matter what promotional strategies, methods, or tactics you use if you hit a home run on a launch, you can be guaranteed that you have dialed in these three areas perfectly, and based on the evidence you can rinse and repeat again and again.

Applying this way of thinking in your business will vastly simplify your decision-making process and will focus your attention on the key elements that will bring about the greatest returns on the time and thought that you put into creating and refining promotions.

The 3 Key Components of A Successful Online Knowledge Business

Unfortunately, what I am about to share is not a bright new shiny trick, it isn’t a silver bullet, it isn’t sexy, it isn’t a new platform or a magic sequence of words.

But it is a tried and tested marketing principle which has withstood the test of time from way back in the days of direct mail (postal) which is as relevant (if not even more so) today as it was back then.

So what are these three essential building blocks?

  1. Your Offer
  2. Your Copy
  3. Your List

If your promotion exceeds your wildest expectation and “knocks it out of the park” the one thing that you can be sure of is that you have optimized all three areas. If your launch gets ok results, you have probably hit 2 of the 3 areas satisfactorily but you have missed the mark on one. If your launch flops you have probably missed the mark on all three or maybe scraped a C- in one of the three.

Across all my coaching and done for you agency clients the element that makes the biggest difference is the Offer but it is normally the area that is given the least amount of time, effort, and energy. A knockout Offer can overcome bad copy and even a bad list. Unfortunately, the best copy in the world cannot overcome a bad offer, however, a strong engaged and loyal List can sometimes make up for a weak offer. There are always some people who will just buy whatever you put out, but trust me this is no way to build a business and trust me if you rely on this your business will have a short shelf life.

The Most Important Component Of Your Online Business – Your Offer!

This is the one element that most online business owners do not spend enough time and effort on. They spend a huge amount of time focusing on tweaking their copy. Many obsess overgrowing their audience and their list. But so often they don’t spend time thinking about their core Offer.

I think often this can be explained because we have spent so long thinking about the content of our course or our membership and we are so familiar with the transformation that people can achieve that we never sit to think about how we can verbalize it in a concrete way that gets people reaching for their credit cards before we have even given them the full picture.  

Your offer is the most important element of your business. You must have a compelling offer. One that makes people want to jump into action. And that action is to sign up for your course, your membership, your virtual event.

Your offer also has to have a unique mechanism. Your unique mechanism is what gets your clients the solution or the outcome that they are looking for. First, you figure out what they want. Then you tie their wants, desires, and their pain to the solution that you have. And this is the whole concept of becoming the bridge from pain island to pleasure island.

So, if you imagine your Perfect-Fit Client, they’re in pain because they don’t have something that they need. Or their current reality is not what they want they want. In other words, they want a different outcome for their life. Your job with your offer is to first show them what pleasure feels like for them. Paint a picture of a future life where they are happy and living their life in the way that they feel fulfilled.

Your Offer is the unique mechanism “the bridge” that will take them from pain island where they are living at the moment to pleasure island where they want to live. You can see why if you do a really good job with your Offer you can overcome bad copy and even a poor list.

Imagining A Better Future For Your Perfect-Fit Clients Than They Can Imagine For Themselves

The job of your copy is to connect with the challenges that people face, what they are going through on a day-to-day basis. It’s to get inside their head, to understand the language they use, and to enter the conversation that is already going on inside their head.

When you have a level of understanding of your Perfect-Fit Client that enables you to verbalize their innermost dreams, ambitions, and fears (often which they haven’t even verbalized for themselves yet) then and only then can you draft truly compelling copy

And not alone will you then be able to draft compelling copy but you will also build a bond and a connection with your Perfect-Fit Client. When you demonstrate that you understand the challenges they face, their dreams, goals, and ambitions. They will feel heard and they will feel understood.

In many ways, your job is to see a better future for your Perfect-Fit Clients. A better future they might not even have imagined for themselves. And if you can demonstrate that in your copy, you will build an engaged, loyal army of Perfect-Fit Clients.

So the first thing that you need is a knock-out offer. Then you need to back up your Offer with emotionally compelling copy that connects with your audience and lets them know that you understand them.

Strategically Aligned Community Building – Growing A Raving Group of Perfect-Fit Prospects

If you are going to invest time, effort, and money in building your list, you have to be strategic about it. Some things to consider as part of your strategy are:

  • Who am I building the list for?
  • What are their next steps? Where are they going?
  • What do I want them to do once they are on my list?

It’s important to have this throughline from your very front-end content. Through you lead magnets, front-end offers, signature program, membership, and coaching program. And one of these components is the ultimate destination that you want your Perfect-Fit Client to arrive at. Some may go onto higher levels, some may be happy at lower levels.

The first thing you need to decide is where on your Value Ascension Roadmap would your very most Perfect-Fit Clients want to live? Once you have decided this you can set about creating the content that will attract your soon-to-be Perfect-Fit Clients. One strategy is to create pillar posts with associated lead magnets around the 4-7 key topics that your ultimate destination deals with.

A personal favourite of mine is to have a lead magnet, leading to a self-liquidating front-end offer as it prequalifies people for the launch of a signature program or back-end offer. Being strategic about the development of your content is how you get your list, launch-ready. This is how you optimize your list and get them ready to buy the offers you present.

How Do The 3 Essential Elements Overlap?

Now, the funny thing is that if you have a strong offer, you can get away with a weak copy or a weak list. A strong offer will overcome everything and it makes finding your Perfect-Fit Clients easy.

If you have a good copy, but a weak offer, things get harder. You are still in the game. But you’re not going to have an amazing promotion. If you have a really hot list with people who enthusiastically engage with you regularly, an audience who knows you understand them, you will probably get away with an okay offer and copy but your promotion will not achieve its full potential. But when you combine a hot list that is engaged and responsive with strong copy and a strong offer that’s when you crack the online business code. That’s when your business is going to take off.

So, to recap. Think about your business, think about where you are. Think about which of the three areas your business is strongest in and which needs the most work? How can you optimize each area, and which one are you going to start with? My personal preference is to always start with the Offer as it is the one where you will get the greatest return on investment.

If you were to ask the big names in the info world what they obsess about most they will all tell you “My Offer”. This is also the area I spend the most time refining and tweaking with my Impact Inner Circle Coaching Clients. So if you would like to set up a Free Focus Strategy Session to review your Offer I would love to hear from you. Simply complete the application form here and we will be in touch.

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3 Ways to Overcome the “But…I’m not an Expert” Feeling

Micheal O'Neill

3 Ways To Overcome the "But...I'm not an expert" Feeling

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But I'm not an expert. I’m never going to be able to start or scale my online business to the next level.

This is a comment I hear so regularly in the online world. And I hear it not only from people who are just starting out but also from experienced online business owners who feel they need to be a true expert in their field to succeed.

Not alone do I disagree with this sentiment but what I have found is that very often being “the” category authority in a field often works against people when it comes to launching and scaling an online business.

Because What You Do As An Expert Matters

Having worked with thousands of entrepreneurs across the world I believe that not only can you start or scale your online business, but you also have the responsibility to do so. I’ve witnessed first-hand the impact that online entrepreneurs and knowledge business owners can have in the world and more specifically the impact they can have on their community.

But it all starts with that first step, committing to the transformation that you know, only you can bring about for your Perfect Fit Client.

Far too often people sit back and complain about governments or big corporations, that they are not doing enough to improve society or to give back to the community. For me this is the easy way out, shifting responsibility away from ourselves. Away from the very people who can have the biggest impact in the world.

The World is Looking for Leaders Now More Than Ever

Imagine the feeling of having built a profitable and successful online business. You’ve scaled your business, you have met your own income and saving needs, you are looking after your team and your business has the capital to grow and expand, now you can start giving back to your community and to other communities in the world who needs it the most. 

And this is my call to you, to step up and to be counted. To take responsibility, not for making the world a better place, but for making your corner of the world a better place.

Never before has there been so much uncertainty in the world. And, wherever there’s uncertainty, there’s an opportunity for leaders to step forward. 

I have seen this happening in so many niches from parenting, sales, coaching, historical dressmaking, currency trading, art, knitting, business, marketing. Online business owners stepping into their power as leaders, providing comfort, inspiration or just a safe place to hang out and connect with others in an ever more divided world.

So whether you are beginning your journey in the online knowledge world, or you are an established online entrepreneur, a real opportunity exists to create a safe space to help like-minded people connect and feel a sense of belonging around a specific topic.

Three Things To Keep You Moving Forward When You Feel Stuck

You Don’t Need To Be “THE” Subject Matter Expert

You don’t need to be “THE” subject matter expert. You only need to be “A” subject matter expert. This is a subtle to important distinction. Whereas “THE” subject matter expert is the go-to authority in a niche who has written the No.1 best-selling book or who’s processes are widely adopted.

“A” subject matter expert is someone who can get a result for their Perfect-Fit Client. The truth is, you might only be a couple of steps further down the road from your audience. I do believe that everybody can start an online business. It is a matter of picking the area of in which your expertise can best helps others.

Commit to Lifelong Learning

The second thing is committing to lifelong learning. Nothing stands still. What got you here will not get you there. And if you’re coming on this journey, you have to be committed to a life of curiosity. Willing to grow as a person and as an online business owner.

This is hugely liberating because if you are committed to constant growth you don’t need to know everything today. As you are learning every day you know that you will be a little bit better tomorrow than you are today. And, by better, I mean that you will be able to help your Perfect-Fit Client get the transformation they desire, quicker, easier, and with less stress.

Become an Expert In Delivering Results

The third one is that technical expertise is only a fraction of what will make you a successful online business owner. Understanding the psychology of your Perfect-Fit Prospects is far more important. What do they want, what is holding them back, what are their fears, what motivates them, why do they not have what they want right now?

You need to become an expert in delivering results. Helping people move past their barriers and take their next steps towards their goals. Results are all that matter. It’s about taking your expertise and your knowledge, figuring out what your Perfect-Fit Client‘s next steps are, and giving them what they need to move forward.

It Isn’t a Matter of “IF”, It’s a Matter of “WHEN”!

No matter where you are, right now. Whether you’re looking to start your online business or take it to the next level. Remember that it isn’t a matter of “IF”, it’s a matter of “WHEN”.

I can show you people with less knowledge, less skill, less ambition, who had fewer opportunities in life who started after you…And they’ve made it in the online world because they moved to pass the “But I’m not an expert” feeling.

It’s about getting out of your own head and thinking about those that you can help today. Those who need you right now. Those who will continue to struggle unless you get your message into their world. And provide them with the support they need to move to their next level, whatever that is for them.

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