Many business owners don’t realise they can fall into the trap of thinking they are their client, with the same problems, same scenarios, same solutions when in fact it’s not always the case.
I always come back to sharing the analogy that a surgeon doesn’t need to have the illness to treat the illness - what I mean by this is; you can be solving far greater problems than the ones you experience in your business, you just need to be reminded who it is you help best.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
How your identity in business shapes your business actions
How to separate your identity from that of your clients, and why this is critical
Where to find the sweet spot between your knowledge and how you help your clients
This episode will be quite the catalyst for those really listening in.
Many business owners don’t realise they can fall into the trap of thinking they are their client, with the same problems, same scenarios, same solutions when in fact it’s not always the case.
I always come back to sharing the analogy that a surgeon doesn’t need to have the illness to treat the illness - what I mean by this is; you can be solving far greater problems than the ones you experience in your business, you just need to be reminded who it is you help best.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
How your identity in business shapes your business actions
How to separate your identity from that of your clients, and why this is critical
Where to find the sweet spot between your knowledge and how you help your clients
This episode will be quite the catalyst for those really listening in.
If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.
Shannon Stone:
H ey guys. Welcome to the podcast.
Shannon Stone:
Super excited to jump into this episode today. We are talking about the fact that you are not your client. Very, very excited to talk about this one today. It is a conversation about identity and, if I can get the right words out, I'm hoping this conversation will be quite the catalyst for helping you to move in the right direction and even replay this episode to act as a reminder anytime you steer away from this idea that you are not your client, because when we act too much like, or if we project who we are in our business onto the type of clients that we go after, we can actually be leaving a lot of money on the table. We can start working with the wrong people and if you don't pick up on it, it can months and years can go by. Where you're, I guess, having so much unfulfilled potential, so much people you could be helping, so much revenue you could be producing, and that's why I am wanting to mention this, that it will hopefully be a catalyst and act as a reminder of here's what you do and here's who you can really help.
Shannon Stone:
So there's three different verticals I want to dive into around this and I want to start by saying this common thing I say where a surgeon doesn't need to have the illness in order to treat the illness. So I know you're probably not a surgeon, I'm not a surgeon, but when I think of this as an analogy, a surgeon doesn't need to have the illness that they're treating in order to be the right person for the job. And myself, being a consultant, I absolutely know this. So sometimes we'll see, especially in the small business world, we're often seeing things like you have to be your client in order to be able to help them, or the clients you're helping should be past versions of yourself, and there is an argument for that that can be true in a certain respect, but let's dive into what I have for you today. So the first vertical is knowing the identity of you. So you yourself, your business, you as the business owner.
Shannon Stone:
So, for me, I'm a consultant, I work one-on-one with businesses and I have an assistant who helps me with a few backend things. She'll edit the podcast, but nothing to do with any client facing things. She's just an amazing extra set of hands that helped me to do more of what I love doing, which is consulting. Now, that is who I am, and I work with service-based businesses, particularly in the B2B sector. So I'm very clear on who it is that I am and very clear on who it is that I help. Now I could definitely be showing other people how to be a consultant, how to do what I do, how I structure things, how I attract clients, all the bits and pieces. But while I can definitely do that, I believe and my passion is more about helping and I'm passionate about that I'm such an advocate of consultants and this consulting world but I always bring myself back to who it is. Who is it that I really, really help? Who is it that when I see the changes and the impact and the bigger transformations happen. I love to see it with those more bigger clients or the people where I'm not just showing you exactly how I do my business, because I think I would do that in a completely different way. I probably wouldn't do it in a consulting model if I were to show people how to be a consultant Isn't that very trivial? But I'm very clear on who it is that I am, what my business is and who is it that I actually help. So that's the first thing. It's to have the clear identity of who is it that you are. Are you a mindset coach? Are you a branding strategist? Are you a sales trainer? Are you a mortgage broker? So, very clear on who is it that you are. That is number one.
Shannon Stone:
Number two, the second vertical I want to share is what is the identity of your client? So for me I've mentioned it's service-based businesses. I find they're typically in two segments B2B predominantly, and professional services being the other. There's a lot of subsets. I can go into and further explain that, but I'm very clear on who they are, as well as the size of who they are as well. So I tend to not work with brand new, fresh started businesses. I think there's amazing people to help them. I much rather and I think I get great results for established businesses of a certain size. They've got a few set of hands in their business or they've got a small team or they're close to being able to start that team as well. I've helped a lot of people to hire their first team members and go through those transitions and keep building their business up from there.
Shannon Stone:
So the second vertical here is have a very clear identity on who your client is, who your ideal client is, and just painting the picture of who I am and who my ideal clients are. I'm hoping you're seeing that they are different people. I'm not saying I'm just attracting consultants or just focusing on consultants as my client. It's never been an angle that I've really specifically gone after and excluded the rest of the B2B market, the rest of the professional services market and all those kind of people that I work with, but they're different from who I am. So with knowing who your ideal clients are, having the identity of who your clients are, it's remembering who is that market of people that you can actually help and want to help and like. I'm definitely an advocate of getting yourself amongst other businesses, having peers in business, having a business bestie, all these kinds of things. But we have to sometimes step outside that circle so that when we are looking at our business, looking at our marketing, looking at who is it that we want to work with, we kind of clear not the chaos, but clear the noise that can happen and just remind ourselves of that's right.
Shannon Stone:
I'm a consultant and I work with these kind of people who are not me. I might have a lot of things that I relate to. I've just my background. I've ran an agency, so there's a lot of skills and knowledge and similar things about it. But who I am, just like the surgeon doesn't need to have the illness to treat the illness. I don't need to have established business with a team of 10 in the service-based sector, having the goals of wanting to grow their business, make their team more productive. I don't have to have that in its current standing right now, when I'm very clear on who my client is and, secondly, who is it that I am? What is my identity?
Shannon Stone:
So they're the two verticals first I wanted to share and the last one is the one that brings it all together. This is the crossover. So the crossover is here's what I do for the people that I help. So it's just bringing those two pieces together the identity of you and the identity of your client. Here's what I do For me. I assess businesses I've told you exactly who they are but I'll assess them. I'll figure out what's going on. I'll deep dive, I'll look for the domino effects of things that can really have a big impact on their business. I'll help them through different projects of here's how we can improve your sales process or improve your marketing, or it's time to onboard your first team member or a new team member, all these kinds of things. So I'm very clear on what I do for the people that I help. So this third vertical is that crossover of just bringing the two pieces together of here's who I am, here's the people that I want to help, and just seeing that complete circle come to fruition. So I share all of this with you.
Shannon Stone:
Like I said at the beginning, sometimes we need these reminders of who is it that we are and who is it that we can really help. And I think we can really do ourselves and all the people we could help a disservice if we don't really go after the people that are the true ideal clients, the true people that you really want to help. And I think when you go after that and focus on here's the people that I really want to help, I really want to help Like for me this, like pre these days, but my ideal client and my like dreamiest client of all was Australia Zoo. I wanted to work with them as a consultant and just help them on their marketing. It's not my dream client anymore. I found my pocket of people in service-based businesses not to say it's not off the list completely, but they were a dream client of mine. But did I have to own a zoo in order to help them? Absolutely not. That's like probably outside of the realm of possibility of anything I want to do in my lifetime. But it's again. It's like who is it that I really want to help? And of those people, let me start to identify them, let me start to see how I can help them, how can I bring my skills to the table? And where is that crossover being that third vertical?
Shannon Stone:
So the action step for us here today is to basically take what I've told you and to apply it. So, number one, honestly, for these action steps. Set aside 10, 15 minutes minimum, or more if you want to. You might get right into it, but set aside 10 to 15 minutes to do these action steps. And number one is what is the identity of your dream clients? What is the identity of the people that you really want to help? So I would do that first, because I think that makes it a lot easier to then work out the identity of you. Some people might do it the other way around, but that's what I've got here first, what is the identity of your ideal client? I wouldn't call this a complete ideal client exercise. I would do this as here's the people I really want to help, like a stream of consciousness, like what comes to mind when you first answer this question, and just bullet points. It doesn't have to be anything complicated, it's just a way to reset and realign you and your business and your actions and your marketing and your focus towards here's the direction I really want to go in.
Shannon Stone:
So, number one of action steps what's the identity of your client or your ideal client? Number two what's the identity of you? How do you fit into all of this? What are those skills that you bring? Get really clear on who is it that you are and who it is you want to help. And then the third and final action step is that crossover. It's bringing it all together. So what do you do for the people you help? And when we bring that final piece into it, it brings it all full circle. So I'm very clear on the people that I help, which is why I'm very clear on not being the consultant's consultant, not teaching other people how to be a consultant.
Shannon Stone:
As much as I can do that, as much as I probably will do that at some point in time, it's not the focus and I would probably do it in a different kind of model, possibly just kind of thinking out loud here, but just so you know, because I think a lot of people, especially if you've did into the online spaces in any kind of way, you know creating courses and showing people how you've done exactly what you do. There's definitely an argument for that. There's definitely valid points in all of that. But coming back to our analogy right at the top, a surgeon doesn't need to have the illness in order to treat the illness. So I wanted to share this episode because I see so many amazing brains of people who have so much amazing knowledge and if you just select the right market of people, if you just put your skills to use in the right kind of way, that is just the foundation of what can be an incredible business.
Shannon Stone:
And on the flip side, if you put those skills to the wrong market, if you put it into the wrong spaces and you don't have you can have. Say, your goal is a million dollars, for example nice easy round number. You could achieve that by targeting the right people with the skills that you have right now. Or if you put it into the wrong market, it's probably going to be like pushing a rock up a hill. It's not to say it can't happen or it won't happen, but it probably is something that is going to take a little bit longer. It's going to need a lot more building. So, yeah, this is what I wanted to share with you today a conversation around identity.
Shannon Stone:
Definitely listen to it again, bookmark it for yourself and if you have any questions, do let me know. I hope you found it useful. Share it with someone who needs this reminder as well. Share it with your business bestie or your peer group of business owners, just as a reminder to them and to everyone that when you choose the right things, I think a lot of the right things will follow. So that is what I'm going to leave you with today. Have an amazing day, and I'll talk to you soon.
