If you’re really expert at a certain thing right at this moment, you don’t necessarily need to become an expert at a bunch MORE things before you can create/sell a high ticket offer, help clients effectively, be paid well, etc.
The expertise you already have may well be more than enough to help people get a result – and therefore you’re ready right now to start serving/selling at a higher level.
I’ll give you an example.
At the beginning of my business journey I wasted at least two years, and God only knows how much lost revenue, thinking that I had to become an expert in ALL things marketing/lead generation/sales before anyone would hire me to help with their business.
When I was starting, the main thing that I was good at (intuitively, without any real training/education) was helping people to channel the right words to describe the clients they served and the problems they solved, so that they could get more of the right people interested in their work.
And that’s still my superpower today… clients tell me over and over that no one has ever been able to dig as deep as I did to understand what they do and how they do it and for whom they do it, so that I can find the right words for it.
Yet, at the beginning of my business journey, I believed that this was not “enough.”
My thought process was, “Well, yeah I can help them to get a lot more people interested in their work, but what then? What if they don’t know how to create an offer for those people who are now interested? Or get them to book sales calls or actually close the sale or run FB ads? Then they won’t make any money from having my help.”
It’s interesting to note that none of the business coaches I hired challenged my thinking on this.
A couple of them said things like, “Well, you could always hire a sales expert and FB ads expert to work for you so that your clients have access to the needed expertise.”
And, “You could create a referral list for the stuff you’re not an expert in, so your clients can go to them to learn sales or ads after they work with you.”
That was about the extent of the advice I received.
And I now realize that it wasn’t really good advice!
As a solopreneur who didn’t even have a profitable business yet, I certainly was in no position to hire other experts to coach my clients.
And the idea for the referral list didn’t really give me confidence – why would clients want to hire me if they couldn’t get a result without hiring a bunch MORE people too, once they were done with me?
Well, I eventually stumbled on the answer to this quandary completely by accident.
(Not really though… there are no accidents 😉 )
After a super long time of struggling and not getting many sign-ups to my various offers (because I always doubted the value of what I was offering), I ended up having a couple of clients sign up for a messaging session who were actually THEMSELVES experts in things like sales and ads.
What?!
It had never occurred to me that those people might need messaging help.
And then I got the most delightful messages from them after we worked together, saying things like, “I am getting so many more leads now that I know how to better describe what I do. And of course once I have the lead, closing the sale is no problem as that’s what I’m an expert in.”
BOOM.
That was when it clicked for me – that my target client didn’t have to be someone who was a “blank slate” and had no knowledge of anything related to marketing, lead generation or sales.
I initially thought that had to be the case because I was a beginner to all of those things and therefore I wasn’t credible or helpful to anybody except other beginners.
Turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.
People who were really strong in almost everything except messaging were happy to hire me to help strengthen their “weak link.” They didn’t care that I wasn’t an expert in other things because they had those things handled!
Imagine that.
(And, even some people who WERE already good at messaging also came forward to ask for help to become even BETTER. That blew my mind also.)
Now, quite a few years later, I DO help people with more than just messaging to attract leads, because I’ve had enough experience to develop my own thought processes for creating offers, building audiences, and closing sales.
(All of those things link together and build on each other, and my ways for doing them have become known as the Strong Method™, which is so cool.)
But even so, the messaging to attract leads is still my primary focus and what I spend about 80% of client time on. The other stuff is just added value.
You can take these lessons of mine into your own business to get paid a lot more – and get more leads and clients as well.
It’s all about pinning down what kind of person has just about everything handled EXCEPT the thing you’re an expert in – kind of like the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place.
Interestingly, that kind of person is often willing to pay more than somebody who has lots of problems.
There’s a school of thought in marketing that says people who have a “bleeding neck” (a huge problem; their life/business are a big mess) will pay more, but I actually haven’t found that to be the case.
The people who’ve paid me the highest fees with fewest objections have been the ones who were doing really well already and just needed me as that last piece of the puzzle to optimize their results.
So, who is that ideal client for you? Think about it.
Usually there will be 2-5 “qualifications” that you can express regarding what they already know or have in place in their life or business.
And you can use those 2-5 things in your descriptions of your offers and who they’re for.
In the Strong Method™ offer post framework, we put those qualifications in a certain spot at the end of the offer.
For an example of how I do it, see here and here. Or any “invitation” post on my Facebook timeline.
This thought process for defining the person who ONLY needs what I offer is partly responsible for my being able to earn over 875K in a few years, from about 150 clients, without sales calls or objections.
Because it is so clear who I work best with, I don’t need to have long conversations to filter people. The right ones just come forward.
It is so awesome and has given me a much more joyful AND more profitable business.
The best-fit clients get much better results, too, of course – so everyone benefits.
If you’d like help to think through who is the best-fit client for you, what you do for them and how to express that in succinct words, it’s part of what I do in my 30-day 1-on-1 program.
The rest of the program consists of helping you craft your offer post (and your offer/program itself, too, if needed!) and your lead-generating content according to the Strong Method™ frameworks, as well as how to easily close over DM and grow your organic audience too if needed.
I also periodically offer group workshops (you can always find out when the next one/s will be by clicking this link) to help you pin down the wording for JUST the outcome you provide and who your work is best for.
This group workshop offer also includes an individual review of your clients and business (which I spend about an hour of my time on – just your stuff, no one else’s! – before we meet as a group).
So if you’ve ever wanted to get my eyes on your business and the wording you’re using for things, these are both great options.
You can simply send me a DM on Facebook if you’re interested in either of these offers.
I’m also gearing up for a certification program that will train you in how to teach the Strong Method™ to your own clients. DM me on Facebook if you’re interested in that!