Photo courtesy of Jesper Rønn-Jensen and Flickr
‘The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have.
The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.’
Simon Sinek
Welcome to part 8 in the series of articles on the 10 professional practice multipliers from the Exponential Practice Scorecard https://www.jamiesmart.com/scorecard/. Each week I’ll be explaining them and looking at how you can leverage them to grow your practice, and here’s the thing: 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). This week, we’ll be looking at Multiplier Number Eight: Tribal Engagement
NB The next three weeks’ professional practice multipliers are focused around what I call leverage: your commercial transformation. This is important because most of us have been educated for a world of jobs and employment. We haven’t necessarily learnt the key elements you need if you want to run your own practice and work for yourself. If impact is about what people pay you for, leverage is about how you get paid, how you get scale and how you multiply your impact in a variety of ways.
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 column, 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 column 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 column 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 column 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 46 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.
That’s it for this week. Enjoy!
Big love
Jamie
PS Quick question: What’s the number-one RESULT that you believe would have the biggest positive impact for you? You may already be aware of my dear friend and colleague, Garret Kramer (author of the bestselling books Stillpower and The Path of No Resistance. For years, the principles behind clarity have been the foundation of all my work, and of Garret’s work with world-class professional athletes, teams, individuals, and organizations. Pointing people in this direction has transformed careers and lives. It’s led to extraordinary results.
Last time Garret was in the UK, we created an amazingly productive experience for members of my “Inner Circle” group (a group people had paid £5,000+ to be part of). To coincide with the release of my new book RESULTS: Think Less, Achieve More, we’re going to do something a little different. On the weekend of December 3rd and 4th, 2016, Garret is coming to London for the first time in five years, and joining me for an intensive, 2-day workshop with a small group of people. We’ll be hosting an exclusive two-day masterclass called “The Principles Behind Extraordinary Results.” In a stimulating and fun atmosphere, we’ll bring our grounding, skills, enthusiasm, and our extensive experience to help a small group of people achieve the results they envision. The event will be very limited in size so that everyone gets the personal attention they need to create the results they want. Here’s what we’re looking for:
– You already have a grounding in the principles behind clarity / the Inside-Out understanding
– You want 2017 to be a breakthrough year; you’re ready to move to a next level, personally and with your work/practice/business
– You’re in a position to experiment with new business models (e.g., monthly retainer, percentage of client’s earnings, multi-day intensives etc.)
– You want to be able to talk about this understanding in a practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense way (this is essential when you’re talking to entrepreneurs, athletes, teams, and corporations)
– You’re coachable, and at a point where you’re ready and willing to change
If this sounds like you, then email me at info@jamiesmart.com saying “Jamie and Garret – tell me more” and we’ll get back to you with the details.
Speak soon!