In this week´s Friday Shot of Clarity, we’re going to explore Multiplier Number Eight: Tribal Engagement.
Once again, impact is what people pay you for. It’s your ability to help them create the results they desire and transformations they want to experience.
This ‘multiplier’ is the eight in a series of articles taken from a tool and a short book I created a few years back for helping people grow their professional practices. It covers 10 ‘multipliers’ that can amplify the impact and results you’re creating in the world.
And while I created it with coaches, therapists and other transformation professionals in mind, I’ve had plenty of feedback from people outside those professions telling me how useful it is.
Whether you’re a transformation professional or not, you’re going to discover that these 10 multipliers apply to almost everyone (at least, with a little creativity).
Multiplier Number Eight: Tribal Engagement
Tribal engagement is about cultivating an audience of people who you’re visible to and creating value for. It doesn’t have to be a big audience; it just has to be the audience of people you want to serve.
In the first row, you don’t know which audience(s) you want to serve. You wish people would find you, understand you and see the value in what you offer. I remember when I first started working for myself. For the first few months I was waiting for clients to start beating a path to my door and then I realized something: They don’t know you exist so you need to start cultivating the audience of people, you want to be visible to.
In row two of tribal engagement, you have identified specific audiences but are unfocused and unsystematic about how you engage with them. This is an important point. There is so much information coming at people these days that if you’re not being focused and systematic in how you engage with them, there’s a good chance your message will get lost in the sea of information. But by the same token, the internet and social technologies mean it’s never been easier to get your message in front of the right people either.
In row three, you focus your energies on people who are ready to do business with you now. People engage with your process. There are a lot of people out there doing very well by engaging with only those who are ready to do business with you right away. But there’s a missed opportunity in this approach; it misses the opportunity of working towards a lifetime relationship. You see there are a lot of people who aren’t ready to work with you today but will be ready in six months, next year or in three years’ time.
And that brings us to the exponential domain. In row four, you focus on lifetime relationship. Meeting your audience where they are now and educating them. You have steady streams of prospective clients. And this is key: Note the point, “meeting your clients where they are”. When someone first engages with you, they probably don’t know enough to make a good decision about whether or not to do business with you.
It’s your job to educate them to the point where they can make that good decision. If that education takes place in the context of a lifetime relationship, you’re going to be building a strong tribe of highly engaged current clients, future clients and referral partners.
To make progress and improve in this practice multiplier you need to identify a group or audience you’d love to work with and become curious about what they’re already looking for.
What would they perceive as a dream-come-true result? Most people try to get clients to see things their way. The power move is in finding out how your client sees the world, meeting them at that point and patiently leading them somewhere that helps them get the result that matters most to them.
A great example of this is Ankush Jain. When we first started working with Ankush he was working full-time for a Global 500 company. He started using his understanding of the principles behind clarity to deliver additional value to his employer while developing his impact as a transformation professional. Today, Ankush is a successful Clarity Coach and a leader in the coaching community. He has developed his tribe and has spoken at conferences in the USA and Europe. He’s further developed his audience by creating the popular show, The Relationship Podcast and now works with clients from around the world, helping them achieve amazing results.
Another example is Clarity Coach, Mamoon Yusaf, who’s a Quranic scholar. When we started working with Mamoon, he had some Quranic study products as well as a variety of other types of work he did. He realized that serving the Muslim community is what he’s most passionate about, so he started focusing the majority of his efforts on making a difference to this audience. As a result, he’s become the transformational coach of choice for the Muslim community and is now the star of the TV show the Quran Coach.
To your increasing clarity!
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart, Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PS You know how most people have a lot to deal with, a lot on their minds? We teach something that automatically clears your mind, and leaves you with the clarity and confidence that you have everything you need to solve your problems, make a difference in the world and enjoy life to the full.
Learn more at www.JamieSmart.com