How to Attract More Fulfilling Clients
At the end of my client calls, I like to ask two questions:
How are you feeling?
Do you sense any objections in your head and your heart right now?
(I'm only slightly nervous about revealing my rationale to you, in the event you ever hire me to work with you. But you're a subscriber, so naturally, you're my favorite.)
(Don't tell the others.)
The first question is simple and obvious, but the second yields better answers. It lets them off the hook ever so slightly, like we can just blame a reflex inside of them for their feelings. They can be more honest with me because it feels less like a therapy session and more like a plumber stopping by to address something we can plainly see. "Woo, yeah. My heart's got a leak right there. We can fix 'er, but it'll cost ya."
By giving them a subtle way to blame something else (even though I said "your head and your heart"), I get more honest answers.
This week, I got an answer worth writing about.
I'm working with the owner of a podcast production agency who hired me to help him turn his expertise into a clear and differentiated premise and turn that premise into a signature speech.
The podcast space is highly saturated right now, especially for folks in production, and dollars aren't flowing to these projects like a couple years ago. This entrepreneur (smartly) decided to lean into thought leadership and public speaking. Rather than wait for the market to simply find him, then get lumped onto a spreadsheet next to 12 competitors and their pricing (a race to the bottom), this client has chosen something powerful yet possibly more scary:
He's chosen to lead.
He's raising his hand and saying, "I have a perspective on this space. I think the way we understand something is broken, and I want to help show others a better way."
But in hiring me, he also admitted in some sense, "I am not marketing that perspective. I am not even sure how to articulate it crisply or use it to inform my work."
We'd just had our first call. I think of my job differently than other consultants. I don't impose on you. I extract from you. I'm more practitioner-peer than coach with templates. This means, early on in my work with someone, I provide lots of prompts and questions to get brutal honesty from a client about how they view their space. Without good raw ingredients on the table first, we can't cook anything great later, so we refrain from word-smithing or judging whether something is good or original or insightful. Instead, we just let 'er rip.
And rip my client did. After the first call, I thought we'd landed in a decent place for the first hour together.
"How are you feeling?" I asked him.
"Pretty good!" he said.
"Do you sense any objections in your head and your heart right now?"
"Actually, yeah! This is definitely outside my comfort zone. I'm someone who likes to fulfill the work. I'm not someone who is out there and being vocal so I can..."
...then we both said it at the same time.
"...lead."
Our Goal: Fulfill Work That's Fulfilling
By "fulfilling the work," my client meant "execute the craft on behalf of clients based on what they ask for." He meant "do the work to spec." But what if their spec is misaligned with your desires? What if you're bored or underutilized? What if they treat you like a replaceable part?
We want to fulfill the work. Of course we do. But we also want to fulfill work that's fulfilling.
My client has a long history of loving his space (podcasting) and simply reacting to the opportunities that the demand for shows brought his way. This is a reactive place to be. However, it's worked for him so far. He's built a decent business, but he sees areas for growth, for additional margin (mental, emotional, financial), and for the work to become something greater. Something more fulfilling.
As an expert—whether you run a consultancy, lead an agency, or advise clients 1:1—I think you've actually earned the right to be selective. You've put in the years. You've developed mastery. You know what good work looks like, and you know what draining work feels like. You should NOT need to react to whatever clients come your way.
So how do we do that?
Don't just create content. Create IP.
Don't just share advice. Share your perspective.
Better yet, use your perspective to move your entire industry forward.
Lead.
The Current Approach: Share Expertise
The typical marketing approach for clients like this agency owner and for experts like us is to double-down on what got us to this point. We earned traction initially by sharing our expertise. We're obsessed with the craft (hey, listen: SAME!) But now we need to bring our perspective to the craft. We need to combine our mastery with our point of view, stories, frameworks, and emotions. We need to influence how others think, not just influence how they act or how they make decisions to hire contractors and firms.
Basic expertise has been commodified across nearly every topic. We need something higher-impact. Deeper insights (making us more valuable) and personal perspective (making us more original). This helps us escape the commodity cage.
When we continue with an approach to marketing that got us initial traction, we win the types of clients we started with. I know we all want more business, but we also want better business, deeper work. Again, we want to fulfill work that's fulfilling. Unfortunately, to remain in the commodity cage is to attract people looking for execution, not transformation.
They only hire leaders for the latter. They only hire someone with a point of view (clearly articulated) to help them transform.
The struggle can be condensed into a single symptom: your prospect's spreadsheet of options. If they put you on a spreadsheet with 12 of your peers, you're fighting a hard battle to win. Instead, the moment they think, "I'm ready to do THIS," they should also think, "I need to contact [Your Name Here]." That's the byproduct of showing up as a stronger public voice and thought leader. It gets you off the spreadsheet, helps you charge a premium and win better clients with less friction. In short, you stop chasing because you're more highly sought.
Becoming a stronger public voice isn't about needless fame for vanity's sake. It's actually not about fame at all. It's about impact. This creates the sense that you're ubiquitous, when you're not actually everywhere. Your ideas are just potent enough, clear enough, and repeatable enough that people around your prospects keep hearing about them and about you. I'm always thinking about 1 outcome of my marketing:
They think about you when you're not in the room.
Sometimes that means the prospect directly thinks about you. While competitors are forced to "get in front of" the audience 10 times per week, you've said something they think about 10 times per day.
Other times, "they think about you when you're not in the room" means people actively quote you from stages, over coffee, and in content. You aren't present and maybe don't even know a density of your ideal audience is gathering, but you are definitely present. Because your ideas are powerful, clear, and repeatable.
To me, that's what it means to be a "stronger" speaker, storyteller, and leader. Not "thought leadership" as performance. Not personal branding as vanity project. It's about resonance, not reach.
My client, the production agency owner, hesitated.
"I always see the nuance in things, so it's tough to take a stance."
I agreed with him. We don't want to manufacture some bold idea that we don't really believe in, then push it on the world as if it's a panacea. Those don't exist. Instead, I pointed my client to something I learned as a keynote speaker, giving how-to-think speeches. The best speakers are effectively saying, "I'd like to propose an alternative."
We say, "This alternative, I feel, is better. Here's why it's better, and here's my rationale for why you should embrace it."
Leadership doesn't mean ignoring nuance. It doesn't mean saying, "Burn it all down. You're wrong. The only way to do this is my way."
Instead, it means saying: "There's a more viable alternative that we're not seeing, and I'm here to show you new possibilities." Then you bring the full suite of communication and storytelling tools, plus all the elements of your IP—your premise, terminology, frameworks, etc.—to make the logical and emotional case for why they'd care about your ideas.)
It's time to get off the spreadsheet. It's time to stop reacting.
It's time to lead.
Because plenty of others around you sell services like yours. Plenty of others talk about similar topics through their content. Plenty of others also have similar expertise to you. None of that actually differentiates you. It just makes you a commodity: useful perhaps, but found everywhere these days. No, it's not WHAT you know or WHAT you do that separates you and attracts better clients. It's what you SEE that ensures they care. Or, said better, it's what YOU see.
Develop that. Share that. Lead your space through that.
Watch as the work you fulfill gets more fulfilling.
Now I'd ask you:
How are you feeling?
Do you sense any objections in your head and your heart right now?