0:00:00 - Betsy Jordyn
Learn exactly how I help my clients not just find the words that express the value of what they do with clarity and confidence, but also intentionally grow the right business for them that delivers on all of their priorities, purpose and profit. On today's episode of the Consulting Matters Podcast and welcome to the Consulting Matters podcast. This is the show for purpose-driven consultants and coaches who are ready to own the power of what they do and position themselves for greater impact and income. I'm your host, betsy Jordyn, and I am both a business mentor and a brand messaging and positioning strategist. You can find out about all the things I do to help my clients turn the best of their careers into thriving businesses that they actually love on my website at wwwbetsyjordyncom. Don't forget Betsy Jordyn. The Jordyn is with a Y.
So today what we're doing is I'm continuing my series on the power of brand messaging, specifically for consultants and coaches. So if you've missed the last couple episodes, what I've done is I've talked about how to tell if you have a brand messaging problem and why it's absolutely in your best interest to fix it, and then how the sneaky culprit behind fuzzy messaging actually is the curse of knowledge trap that is so easy for consultants and coaches to fall into. So if you missed those episodes, you definitely want to go back and listen. But this week we're getting into the fix or more accurately, my fix because I am super excited to take you behind the scenes of my brand positioning and messaging process that all my clients begin with before we do anything else, before we frame their offers, before we build their websites or create their website copy or strategize on exactly what they will do and say to attract and land strategic, high paying client engagements. We start here with the brand positioning and messaging. So this is my signature process that I've been honing In some ways. I could look at it for nearly 10 years, but it seems like it's a whole lot longer.
But this is what I've been honing. In some ways. I could look at it for nearly 10 years, but it seems like it's a whole lot longer. But this is what I focus on ever since I first got really serious about pivoting my business to work exclusively with consultants and coaches, and so there's a lot of different ways that you can get your messaging needs met. You can go to marketing agencies. I'm sure other business coaches may offer some of that, but I really go deep where everybody else goes light, and what I focus on is I'm not a marketing person per se.
Everything that I do is grounded in my 30 years in the consulting and coaching industry. So it's all about how to position you for the clients that you want. And I get the clients that you want because I've spent all of this time in our industry and I also get you. But the other thing about my process is it's customized for consultants and coaches who are at that mid-life, mid-career pivot. You know most consultants and coaches don't really pick consulting or coaching as a first career. It's usually a second career or third career, and so what my process is is also to help you navigate, you know, inflection points where you're at different crossroads in your business. So whether you're starting your first business, building something of your own after relying on referrals and subcontracting, or pivoting your focus, what I do is I help you make sure that your messaging matches with where you're at or what you want in the next phase of your career or your business. So if you are in that in-between space where you're ready for and what you want in the next phase of your career or your business, so if you are in that in-between space, you know where you're ready for more, but your messaging just hasn't caught up.
This episode is for you and to get the most value out of this episode. If you haven't done this yet, download my free messaging guide on my website. So head on over to wwwbetsyjordyncom. Forward slash confused. Hyphen. Two hyphen confident. And this is a guide that I'm not going to only be focusing on what's in that guide, but I'll definitely be touching on parts of those guides throughout the whole episode. So it'll be definitely something for you to to have with you to reinforce what you're learning here. And if you don't have the guide, make sure you grab a notebook, a pen and, without further ado, let's dive in to the steps that I take my clients through to help them to go from confused to confident. So, number one the first step I do is really establish our partnership.
So I didn't realize that this was actually a step in my process. I was working on this episode when I had a client come to me and she was sharing her frustration and her concern that her clients weren't following through on all the actions that they agreed to in the coaching session. So she was worried that it was going to hurt her track record and referrals and I started asking her about like, well, what do you do with your onboarding? You know how do you set up expectations and build accountability? And then it's like, oh my gosh, that's when it hit me that I do this with all of my clients. We always begin with an onboarding session, but it's really a partnership setup session and I realized through that conversation with her it's not a step before the work. This is the first step in the work and here's why, at the end of the day, brand positioning and messaging really isn't about marketing or even business development.
For people like us, consultants and coaches, where we are trying to build businesses that achieve significance, not just success. You know, purpose not just profits. All of this is about our identity. You know we're building personal brands. We're not building some sort of organization brand, so it's very personal and the clients that I work with aren't just trying to just get out there and get clients. They want to intentionally build a business that aligns with the truth of who they are and what they want in their life.
I use this process of brand positioning and messaging as an action learning container for that kind of career, business and life transformation, an action learning container for that kind of career, business and life transformation. You know you're on this type of transformation that I would compare to, the heroic journey which requires you to walk from the unknown of like. This is all the ways that I know how to make money and how to deliver results into some sort of unknown world. And so there's a lot of unknown and the fear of the unknown really is underneath all the other fears the fears of visibility, the fears of money and the imposter syndrome, all of that stuff. And so by really intentionally focusing on the partnership, I want to be able to chip away at whatever of that unknown that my clients have and I can give them a more clarity from the get go.
So, on this partnership setup conversation, you know what they're going to. What we're going to do is we're going to get clarity on what they're going to walk away with. We get on the same page. We're on exactly what their goals are, the process that we're going to use and how we're going to work together. So I ask intentionally, like what do you need from me, you know, as your mentor and guide, and how can I help you and how can I support your learning style and also what do we need to do to plan in advance for the fears that will absolutely come up? They always come up again, as I just said, because there's the fear of the unknown that's going on. You know if you're stepping outside your comfort zone, you know outside of your comfort zone is the unknown. So the money fears are going to show up, the fears of being seen, the imposter syndrome. So the money fears are going to show up, the fears of being seen, the imposter syndrome. And so by having this conversation, you know we are able to strategize like how are we going to productively meet them when they do arise? And also part of that process is to normalize them because we're planning in advance. So the result of really being intentional about how we're setting up the partnership is trust and safety.
So my clients walk away from this session with confidence that I can speak to both of the conflicted parts that they have going on inside them. You know there's part of them that's like, yes, I really want this elevated success and impact, I want control over my career, I want this business that I love. And then there's another part of them that quietly jerks back from it saying, oh my gosh, you know? Do I have what it takes? Can I pull this off? And I'm able to say to both of them, like I got you and I got your back? And that's the value of working with somebody like me, rather than spending more time like piecing things together from books or podcasts, or even spending hours on chat GPT saying, hey, chat GPT, please tell me what the business is. That's meant for me, you know. And the other thing about it is that when they invest in me, it's like now they're really actually going to go do this.
So the partnership setup is really important because this is really vulnerable work and so if you haven't gotten traction on your messaging and your clarity and if you have been in that spin cycle, this could be some of the other stuff that's going on and why it's really hard to do on your own. So I want you to think about this for yourself. Like, if you're working on your own brand clarity, ask yourself, like, how are you approaching it and is it working? You know, are you DIYing it and is it actually making those fears even worse? You know, are you trying to talk to other people who are saying, hey, you don't need to know that you could just go out there and get clients Like which. I know that. I know that, yeah sure, maybe you could do that for a little while, like sometimes, like when you just leave your job and all of a sudden people will know like oh my gosh, you're a consultant or coach, like opportunities will come your way. But it's not sustainable.
And you know you got to work on your brand positioning and messaging at some point. You know you need to get clarity on what you do and the value that you create. So how could you get to that type of clarity faster If you had a partner walking beside you through this unknown? Like, what value would that create for yourself? So ask yourself those questions. Those are the specific questions as it relates to applying this step to your brand messaging clarity. But the thing is is that I can't help myself because I'm also a business mentor, not just a brand positioning strategist.
So I want to speak to those of you who might find yourself in the similar struggle as my client who revealed to her the challenges of like hey, I'm doing all these coaching sessions and the client says, yes, this is what they're going to do, but they don't follow through. I want you to think about. If you're in that same boat, what are you doing to establish the partnership with your clients? On the front end of your work together, you know, are you making sure that you are both of you are on the same page with regards to the goals and the joint accountabilities? You know what you're going to do and what they need to do in order to create the results. So that's a big part of what I do in my onboarding is I also ask my clients. You know, what do they need from me? But I also tell them this is what I need from you in order to get the results that you're looking for. Or these are some of the things that my best clients agree to in order to get the results that you're looking for. So if you're in that same boat as the client who came to me, who helped me realize that this is actually my step one, you know, just think about how you can improve that. So that's it for step one. Let's get into step two. So step two is what I call listen to your life and, honestly, I'm not exactly sure where this part of my process came from, because it feels like I've been doing this forever, you know. So here's some of the context around listen to your life, as a terminology.
When I left Disney back in 2007, you know, I was at that midlife point where it's like, okay, I really want to have like more control over my time, I want more control over my career. But there was other things that are going on for me at that midlife, like it wasn't just about starting a business and it wasn't even 100 percent for my kids. You know, I really left Disney for the potential of achieving my potential, and so I was reading lots of books about that, and around that time I read this book by Parker Palmer and if you haven't read any of his books, I would highly recommend him. But I read this one book called Let your Life Speak, and there was this one line in his book that really brought to clarity what I believed about purpose and that what I was intuitively doing with other people, because I've always been this person that people come to when they're at some sort of career related crossroads, and I've always believed in, like, doing what you are, you know. So this is the quote he says before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. And so this is what I really believed, and this is what I brought into my brand positioning and messaging process is that we really want to ground your business because the right business for you is going to emerge out of you, your story and your strengths for you is going to emerge out of you, your story and your strengths. It's not something that's just like created by and for the market, like if you just are always chasing the market, you know that's not necessarily sustainable. You know just because, like, even like, let's say, some people back. You know 2020, you know a lot of businesses were trying to figure out, like, how do we move our workforce and go more virtual? So it's like people might say, hey, I'm going to build that as a foundation of my business and you know, a few years later, the market's saying, oh, no, no, we need to bring everybody back in the office. So, like, if you build an expertise there and it's just based on the market, you know it's not really sustainable.
So when I started doing this branding work this is really where I started I didn't really have all of the official brand messaging kind of frameworks. I just started here and I began with this idea of listening to your life and over the years it evolved into a really powerful first step and specific reflection inventory. So let me go through the inventories I take my clients through as part of listening to your life. So the first inventory is to uncover the expertise you want to build your business on. And you might think like, oh well, it's obvious, I know exactly what I want to do and I would say nine times out of 10.
My clients don't, because something has changed that led them to want to start their own consulting or coaching business. You know so there's two types of expertise we can use as the foundation of our business. So there's this formal expertise we gain from our formal education and paid experience that is on our resume, so this is easier to see. But then there's this hidden but just as valuable informal expertise we gain along the way. So this is very true, especially for people who want to move into coaching. You know, people who are consultants a lot of times want to take like what they learned in their organization and they want to bring it to other organizations, but people who want to take their leadership career and turn it into a coaching type of experience with their clients. That is a lot more of the informal expertise. So you're going to hear next week from Pamela she's one of my clients and we had a lot of fun getting into really clarifying her informal expertise. So she was a real estate agent who became a coach, and so she was coaching a lot of people about what it means to be a real estate agent and how to achieve success as a real estate agent. But through the process she discovered what does it look like to grow a coaching business, one that thrives, one that you have more control over. And so now she has this new expertise around business development for coaches. And so it was through this process, through this inventory, that she realized like, yes, this is what I absolutely wanna build my business on.
The second one is the one I have the most fun with. I love the strengths. So we really focus on pinpointing your best at strengths. So we're not talking about what you're good at or what you're really better than most people at. It's what you're best at. It's like the zone of genius. So strengths are different than your expertise. So expertise is like a formal body of work that you've developed. This mastery and strengths are how you apply that body of work. And so it's really about like our, our skills that will show up. Are I mean not I mean necessarily a skills Like I don't even know why.
I said that I think this is a lot of times we make the mistake where we come compare our strengths to our skills. But these are strengths of what we do that comes so naturally to us and it's so marketable. Like for me, I didn't realize like my most marketable skills is my ability to frame ideas, like I have this unique ability to sort and organize ideas into like these logical categories. And people have been coming to me throughout my entire career, especially when they're at the work-related crossroads, no matter what I do. When I was an OD consultant, this is what I did. This is what made me a really good facilitator of meetings, a really good trusted advisor and sounding board for my clients. This is what I brought to the brand messaging and positioning work that I do now.
So the thing about strengths is when you know you're in the zone of genius and somebody says, oh my gosh, you were so great at it and you're like, eh, nothing, it was just nothing. That's your zone of genius. So this is what happened with Corey and I when we were working through her process, her listen to life, her life inventories, and we were trying to identify her strengths and we started getting into like I think that what people are really saying is, you have, like this wisdom gifting. You know, you have this ability to offer deep insight into complex situations. And she's first she was like well, you know, duh, like that's so obvious, like that's such an easy thing, and it's like no, that's really unique to her. And so once she saw that, it's like wow, like that made her clear that she wanted to really build offers around being that trusted advisor and sounding board, versus other ways that she could deliver her consulting or coaching. But that might be primary and that's really how she wants to show up with her clients.
So when you think about your strengths, they're really important because they do indicate, you know, what types of products and services you would most want to offer and what other people would want to buy. There's so many ways to deliver consulting or coaching services. Like you can do assessments, you can also, you know, facilitate meetings. Like I mentioned, you could do lots of project management. You know you could do the one-on-one advisory work and even in the one-on-one there's nuances, like there's a difference between a mentor versus a coach, versus an advisor. So it really informs, like how you want to show up with your clients and what you want to monetize.
So the second is the strengths. Now let's get about get into the third inventory, your stance inventory. And this is all about how your story and life experiences shape your unique consulting or coaching point of view. So what you believe about how your clients gets results is your stance, and so if we don't see our stance, we'll miss up part of the passion behind what we do and our differentiators. So I really got focused on the stance when I was working with Rochelle.
So Rochelle was a meeting and event planner and she was in the process of becoming a coach, and so when we were working through her messaging we were getting stuck and then we talked more about her burnout story. So we back ended into what motivated her to give up this lucrative career to become a coach. And then she tells the story around how she was working so hard on so many different things and she hit burnout and she said, or her life literally imploded, like those are her words, not mine. And once we got clarity on this burnout story like this wasn't like a side story to her coaching business. This was like the main story of her coaching business, and so what this helped clarify is she wanted to help others not to not suffer the way she did, and so she really wanted to help high achievers create success and navigate transition without burnout. So you'll see a lot of times she will talk about like avoiding burnout, recovering burnout or achieve whatever you want without burnout, and that's the core of what her business is all about, what she's gotten known for. So that's the third.
Now let's get to the fourth, and the fourth is when you are going external from you to get internal information. So this is where you are doing a market scan and you're mining what other people are already saying about you and the value that they get from working with you. So there's lots of ways that you can get this. So you can. You know you could send out a survey you know to to past clients or people that represent your past clients, or you could do one-on-one interviews, or you can just send out an email Like one of the easy peasy ways to do. It is just like send out emails to a handful of people and say you know these two questions like what's the value or outcome that you got as a result of working with me and what do I do that's different or better than other people Like that could be an easy peasy way, but the whole idea is also just to. It's really just to listen to the words that people say. You know you can do some mining on LinkedIn and what your recommendations are. You can pull out your rate review folders and see what people say.
But there's a lot of power of doing the surveys and then the surveys followed up with interviews. So this is what we did with Katie Anderson when we were working on leveling up her messaging for her Japan trip. So this was such a powerful experience. So we sent out surveys to past participants and we had it in a certain order, and what we were able to do from that is we were able to take each one of those surveys, turn it into a case study and a testimonial and then analyze them across the board to say, all right, what was it that people wanted? What were they trying to create or achieve in their careers and their organizations by going to Japan? What was the problem that made them consider it. Why did they choose Katie's and what was the value from it? And so that's when she changed the name from Japan Study Trip to Japan Leadership Immersion Experience. So not only did we have clarity on that, but we were able to steal some of the language from the surveys for the sales page. The results have been dramatic in terms of her ability to track more participants and raise her rates. So there's a lot of power in the surveys.
But if you don't feel comfortable yet with the surveys like cool, like just send out the emails and the thing about all of these inventories I just want to be clear is there's some magic of this process? Is I'm asking questions that maybe people haven't thought about? But really the magic isn't the questions that I ask, but it's really more of this process that I do with my clients when we go over this, where I can use my outside perspective and my insight into strengths to mirror back to them what they're too close to see, you know. So that's where some of it is. So I need to recognize like this is a unique process to me and there's some things that are repeatable and there's some stuff there's like an x factor of what I bring into it and I really can't. I've been trying, I've tried to train other people like I don't know exactly what I do here, like I just sense into the strengths, like I just sense into what they're saying and I don't really know. I don't even know where that come from. So that's probably where my zone of genius might come in and I don't really know about that. But you know anyway.
But there's lots of things that you can do to apply this in terms of the listening perspective, you know. So I want you to think about, like the expertise, like what are you a master in? You know, and how do you want to use it as a foundation of your business? You know, like, what are the best set strengths? Like you're so good at it. When people compliment you, you're like, eh, that's nothing you know.
Like, and then, what is it about your consulting or coaching? That's different. Like, what do you believe you know and who's coming here for and who's already coming to you for help? You know, and what are they saying is the reason why you know and why you know? And if you don't have the answer to these questions or they're not clear, believe me, it's not because you're not gifted or that people don't want your help. It's just that nose to the window pain syndrome. You're just too close to see all of this clearly. So that's. The problem here is that you're probably good at too many things and you could probably solve a lot of problems, and it's really hard to refine it down.
So that's step two. So step one is our partnership setup. Step two is listening to your life. Step three is creating your ideal client archetype, and so what's exciting here is the pre-work is done. All the other those two steps were pre-worked to get us ready for the real work of brand positioning, then messaging. So now's the time to grab that messaging guide that I mentioned. That is on my website. Again, it's wwwbetsyjordyncom. Slash confused, hyphen two, hyphen confident. We're gonna get into that guide now. So I wanna make sure we're on the same page around where your ideal client fits into the overall part of the brand positioning and messaging process.
So brand positioning is your strategy. Brand positioning is the unique space you own in the market and in the minds of your ideal clients. So your brand positioning is the strategic focus for your business development. It defines your competitive advantage. It defines why you're the best choice for the clients you wanna work with.
Brand positioning is the strategy, messaging is the words that you use to describe that brand positioning, and so you need to define your brand positioning first in order for you to get to the messaging. So it's actually two separate things. You can't really jump to brand messaging without clarifying your brand positioning, because what you're doing at that point is you're trying to figure out what you want to say. At the same time you're trying to figure out how you want to say that, and it's two different parts of your brain and it's going to be impossible to move forward. So it's almost like put put future you over here to say you know, future is going to worry about what words you need to do to say what you do and the value of it's gonna resonate with your clients Like that's a future you problem Today or right now. Actually, all of this is today, but the current problem that you wanna solve in step three starting a step three is really your brand position, which is determined by who is your ideal clients, which is really who do you help and the problems that you solve, or the context for your help, what you do, and then what's the value or outcome your clients get from working with you. That is your brand position and it's in that exact order.
You begin first with who, then what, and so that's why your brand positioning work begins with crafting your ideal client archetype, who is a representation of your ideal client. So I get, if I say, oh, you know, I want you to create your ideal client, there's definitely going to be resistance comes up, you know, because this is a big shift of what you might be thinking about building your brand, where you might be thinking like I need to get super clear in what I do and then find people who want it, but it actually is the other way around. So your ideal client is not anyone who wants to hire a consultant or coach. I know you could work with tons of people and lots of people could have value from working with you, but you're not a fit for everyone and everyone's not a fit for you. Your ideal client is also not a list of just everybody who you worked with in the past, because some people you got better results with than others.
And your ideal client is not anyone who happens to call you or and it's not an organization or company. You know that there's a person within the organization or company that will reach out to you. Your ideal client is actually the person who will look for and ultimately hire you. So if you are targeting your consulting or coaching business to an organization or company, you need to figure out who within that company is the person who's most likely to look for and hire you. Now somebody might say I want to work with CEOs Like awesome. But the chances are most CEOs do not go and look for a consultant or coach. They're going to turn to somebody else in the organization who has more of the relevant knowledge and accountability, and that person's going to go look for you.
Your ideal client is the person you'd love to work with the most and who also is most likely to love working with you, and somebody who has a problem you're motivated to solve. So this is the person who sparks you to both compassion and action. One of the phrases I use with my clients all the time is if I had it on my way. If I had it on my way, who do I want to fill my pipeline in? Or if I had it on my way, who do I want to fill my pipeline with? Like that's part of the secret of your sustainable success. Part of it is to use your expertise and strengths that bring you joy, but a big part is is working with people that move you to compassion and action. You know, when you're working with people you love, you don't feel like you're working. I'm recording this on a Saturday and I am not working technically, because I'm just sharing this information because I'm really passionate about my clients and I'm really excited about helping them, you know. So your ideal client is somebody that you would love to help and who is you're motivated to jump in.
What we're trying to establish with your ideal client is the relevant demographics, so it could be age, gender, gender identity, role, line of business, company size, company industry. We're also trying to establish, like, what are their defining personality traits? Like it became really important when I was pivoting my business from consulting to working with individuals that, yes, I could identify that I want to work with consultants and coaches, but I also got clear that I really wanted to work with strategic, intentional, purpose-driven consultants and coaches. Got clear that I really wanted to work with strategic, intentional, purpose-driven consultants and coaches. That's a different kind of psychology of somebody who's intentional and purpose-driven and strategic and they're looking for sustainable success versus somebody who's competitive and they are looking to make a million dollars as consulting and coaching. Like that's a very different person.
And then the other thing that you're looking for, that's the most important. It's almost like the big bogey that's out there, like the million dollar question, like what's the context for your help? So the context for your help is equally as important as like who you want to help, but what problem you want to solve. What is it that they're trying to achieve and what's in their way? You really want to understand the context you think about. Like all great branding is there's a context. Like if you want to create magical memories with your family, you know there's nowhere else that you would go than going to Walt Disney World. You know if your nose was runny, you know you wouldn't just like grab anything, you'd grab a Kleenex, because there's a relationship that has been forged in the marketplace between a client and a problem, which is the context and you. So you really want to forge that connection and you know you've done your ideal client well is when it can pass what I would call the Lin-Manuel Miranda test. I love Lin-Manuel Miranda. He creates characters like nobody else. I love Hamilton. I've been obsessed with it for years and it's because he was able to create really rich detail about that particular character. So can he write his next Hamilton based on your ideal client archetype?
Big test I use with my clients to know that we've landed it or not is when I can clearly see who I'd refer my clients to and when. Like if I can't visualize like anybody that I would introduce them to, then it's not clear enough Because if I can't see it, they can't see it, then your referral network won't be able to see it. So it's one thing to say, hey, I want to be able to get referrals, and if you're just waiting on referrals from past clients, that's not a big rich well to go from. You want to be able to have all of your nexus people being able to refer other people to you, and if you're not clear, they're not going to be clear. The other thing that you would know if you've done this work well is that you know exactly what networking events you should prioritize or who you target in an ad or a LinkedIn search, like if you're going to a big networking event and everybody's in a bunch of little rooms and you only have like five minutes to connect with as many people as you want. What room would you go into?
And if you've gotten behind like generic messaging like or generic ideas around who you help like leaders or business owners or men or women where you can be specific, you know where you could really articulate. You know at least one defining attribute who they are, what they want and what's in their way. Maybe you say something like I help high-achieving women in the sports industry who want to break into the executive ranks but aren't getting a second glance when applying for executive roles or don't have a serious versus a ceremonial position in the succession plan. Or I help visionary tech startup founders who want to scale and sell their businesses and they know all about building tech products, but they don't know how to build the business underneath the business that attracts investors and buyers. Or maybe it's for accomplished and intentional mid-career professionals who want to leave their nine-to-five and start their own consulting or coaching business but they're stuck because they lack clarity and confidence on how their vast experience translates into a monetizable business model.
How are you achieving women over 40 who've achieved tremendous success at work but not in love? Dual income, professional parents have young children who want the best for their children, their families and their careers, but they struggle with not knowing how to handle challenging behavior issues. Like you could see this level of detail, like I can imagine, if somebody came up to you and they explained that this is who they help with that kind of detail, you'd know who to refer them to. So that's what we want to get to. So let me tell you where you will get stuck, because this is probably part of the process that's the hardest for my clients.
So the thing about coming up with an ideal client archetype is it literally goes against everything you know about getting jobs and what professional associations, while well-intended, will tell you about your expertise being client agnostic. The other thing about choosing an ideal client is it will absolutely stir up scarcity fears that you're going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm leaving money and opportunity on the table if I niche down. It also stirs up imposter syndrome, because when you make a choice that reflects what you actually want to do, you'll question like am I the right person to serve that audience? You're going to hear next week from Pamela, who I mentioned. She struggled with that when she was choosing her ideal client. But this part of the process is where the gold is.
I promise you and this is where some of the value of having someone like me help you with it because this part can feel like a wrestling match, like I feel like when we are doing this work around the ideal client, it's kind of like that because it's like really just wrestling that clarity out of you. But the reality is is when you're on the other side of the wrestling match is you get this clarity that you've been chasing maybe for weeks, months, years, and you get a different type of confidence than maybe what you were expecting. You know, maybe you were getting trying to get confidence and like, oh, my methodology or my area of expertise, but it's not really getting that kind of confidence. It's not about seeing your expertise as valuable in a vacuum. It's seeing your expertise as relevant for a person, but the problem that you're deeply motivated at a passion level to help. So this is what will get you over your marketing fears. Your passion for service will grow bigger than your fears of putting yourself out there.
I use this quote all the time with my clients. It's one of my favorites. If you've listened to my show at any point in time, you know I probably mentioned this quote, but it's from Audre Lorde, who says when I dare to be powerful, when I use my strengths in service of my vision, it becomes less and less important whether I'm afraid. The best way to overcome fear isn't with some sort of like mindset hack. It's to make your vision for what you want to do with your business bigger and why it matters. So it's your reflection questions time for you on this podcast.
So do you know who you're consulting or coaching is meant to serve, and are you clear on the context for your help? And if no, what is in your way? So that's it for step three. Let's get to step four Now. It's time to clarify what you do and the value of working with you. We are at the part of the process where I kid you not, this part of the process becomes a breeze because of all the other work we've done. I know it's hard to visualize like wait, why is this so easy? This is the part I've been struggling with, but it's so much easier because now you know who your client is, what they want, what's in their way. Now we insert you, and so it's imagining yourself like your client is on a journey, and now you are brought into the picture and we just need to articulate you know what is it that you do that helps them get to where they want to go in a better way. So we're looking for what is your title, what do you do? And then what is the value they get from working with you? So let me tell you a specific story, one of my clients and how we work this out.
So JB is awesome. He's got decades in learning and development. He's done tons of learning and development for companies like Disney, and then he got a DBA and ICF certification and it was time for him to level up his positioning and so we got into work on his ideal client and there was so many directions he could take. You know, like he, he has so many gifts, he has so many strengths, he has so many experiences. He can go a lot of different ways and there's a lot of different people that he feels passionate about. But then when he looked at his past and he looked at who he was typically drawn to help, and who was typically drawn to him, it was CEOs and CHROs in growing service-based organizations. So he has experience with service-based organizations where there's a front line and the leaders who help more of those types of organizations, and these are companies who want to scale to the next level, but they don't have the executive leadership bench to make it happen. And then, once we got that clarity executive leadership bench to make it happen.
And then, once we got that clarity, it was easy to clarify everything else. So we were able to define his relevant expertise, which is executive development, no longer just learning a development, it's really executive development. We also got clarity on the role that he wants to play with his clients, where he is a combo of an executive development strategist as well as a coach. And then we got clarity on what he does. You know he offers customized executive programs that transforms strong managers into the trusted executives in the bench of talent his clients need in order to scale to their next level. So that's what he does, but that's not necessarily the value. Like that's just a description of what he does, but that's not necessarily the value. Like that's just a description of what he does. The thing about the value is not only do these clients get this executive talent they need faster, but they do this in a very different way, so they have the type of senior leaders that people trust and a culture of trust. So that's what they get only because they worked with JB.
So, do you see the difference? Is this one thing to describe what you do? But the value is is how do you enhance the results that your clients are getting that they would not have gotten on their own? So I know how hard it has been to not just describe what you do but how it's valuable. But I need to emphasize this again is the value of your expertise is not in isolation, it's in the context of your ideal client and how working with you enhances their ability to create or achieve their goals that they wanted to achieve, whether they work with you or not. And so this is where we get to the goal. We go back to the goal that your ideal client wanted to achieve in the first place and identify how your help helps them remove the obstacles that was in their way and what difference that made. You know, did they get to their goal faster, with higher quality, without false starts, expensive trial and error, with more confidence, with greater buy-in, all that stuff. You know how does working with you sweeten and enhance the goal that they were after, whether they work with you or not. So that's the value in your value proposition, that's the promise in your brand promise.
So this is where you're going to get stuck. If you can't get to this, if you're stuck on this step, chances are you didn't complete your ideal client work. You know you tried to skip ahead, so you need to go back and complete the work with excellence before moving on. That's a big part of my process with my clients is we do each step with excellence, then we move on. You know we start with really getting clarity on. You know not even just you know the ideal clients, but just like ideal clients in the context. If you don't have that, it's gonna be really hard for you to figure out the value of what you do. So let's reflect on this step. So, do you know why you're the perfect guide for your ideal clients? Can you clearly envision, you know what your clients get only because they work with you? And if not, did you complete your ideal client work or did you want to skip ahead? So that's it for step four. Now we are on step five.
Yay, it's time to craft your messages. This is the moment you've been waiting for. Yay, it's time to craft your messages. This is the moment you've been waiting for. So what you need to worry about with your messaging is not the perfect elevator pitch. I just need to make it clear Literally nobody wants to be pitched in an elevator. Nobody wants to go to a networking event and have you pitch at them. Nobody needs your perfect tagline. You know I have some templates for you to consider in my messaging guide, so definitely pull that out, but really when you want to, when you want to think about your messaging. So your brand position is the strategy. It's fixed messaging.
You could say in a thousand different ways and it's really about the compelling and meaning story of your client's transformation journey that they've gone on with you. So it's not your story, it's their story. They are the hero, they are the heroine. You, it's their story, they are the hero, they are the heroine. You are the mentor in that story. So when someone asks you what you do, you know you don't need to say like, oh, I'm a, I'm an organization development consultant. You know, like you don't want to say that, like nobody knows what that is. You put it into a context. So I think I've told the story in this series.
You know where I was working on this and when I was a consultant and it would be very different to say I'm an organization development consultant and I accelerate, you know, organizational transformation or ignite leadership and organizational potential that nobody understands Instead, I got better at telling the story, you know. So. You know, when companies are growing from this size to this size and the wheel starts falling off and everybody starts finger pointing and then all of a sudden you see the head nods like yes, that's it, okay. So what I do is I align a senior team who have very different points of view around how to grow the business and I get them on the exact same page or on a commonly agreed upon growth strategy. As a result, they can grow smart, not hard. No, yeah, grow Smart, I did that one right. I was like did I do that right? Yeah, I did do that right, okay. So it's that kind of story, you know.
But the thing about the messaging is you could change it up depending on who you're talking to. So let's say I was going to a networking event and it was a bunch of OD consultants. So I'm a part of the Greater Orlando Organization Development Network, so I can go into that networking event and somebody asked me what I do and I could say you know, like. So you know an OD consultants who really want to enhance, you know, leaderships and organizational cultures and they have like a really powerful mission and they just don't know how to say that in a way that resonates with the clients that they want. So they kind of get stuck and tactical, tactical, transactional work, you know, when they really want the more strategic work, you know, then I would wait for the head and on, so, like. So you know, when somebody has like, you know, like they really really great at what they do, but when it comes to translating it in a way that their clients get, you know, they, they, they get stuck, they get stalled, they get into that note, you know the um, you're in the headlights, kind of thing.
I might say it like that. You know. So it depends on where you go. You could. You could switch it If you're at a Christmas party and the person you're talking to you know has no context, so you might be a little bit more like, try to connect it to their world, like. So this is the beauty of messaging. You could change it for wherever you are, for the audience, and that's why it's so powerful to get clarity on what you want to convey, which is your brand positioning, your messaging is all the different ways that you convey it, but the key here is that you just want to start telling the story. You know you don't want to tell it in bullet points. You want to engage people in the story because people are storytelling creatures, like we are in our essence, in our DNA, storytellers. Like we try to create pictures in our mind when people are talking and when the picture is not clear, you know we tune out. But if you can paint that picture and of all the three parts of like, so you know when which is your ideal client, what I do is and then the value, the most important thing that you need to focus on is just painting that picture of your ideal client, because once you get that, the person is hooked. It's like I know exactly who I want to introduce you to, or you have your ideal client.
You're going to hear from Brad on the show in a couple of weeks. He's one of my clients and we worked on this and it was really powerful. So we got through his brand positioning and that took a while and he was struggling a lot with his ideal client and then he went to a client situation like right after that, he's like, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and try this script. You know, see how it goes. And he starts describing his ideal client and the person who was sitting there. He's like you know what? I know, I am exactly the person that you're talking about and I know 50 other people who I could introduce you to and it was like bam, that's the value, like you know, game over, and that's why it's so powerful. So what I encourage you to do is grab that guide and write out your script and just try it out. You know, like try it out when you're at the grocery store and you run into a friend who's like oh my God, I haven't seen you in a while. What are you up to? Like, just try it out, see how it works. You know, in the low risk opportunities, you know and just keep practicing it.
And this is one of the things that I offer for my clients when we have, when we wind up in mastermind groups, is we do practice sessions on these things, because it's really practice that makes perfect, because if you can go in the flow and you're really clear on what you want to convey and you could just be in the moment with your particular clients and and explain what you do in a way that resonates with them, like that's when this all makes the biggest difference. So that's it for this phase of the work. So this all makes the biggest difference. So that's it for this phase of the work. So we have completed brand positioning and messaging. This work is done, yay, but it's not the only step that you need to create thriving business. It's the first step. It gives you focus for everything that's next. So you need to also use this brand positioning and messaging to help you be clear on how you wanna frame and price your core offers. You need to get your website done. You need to write a website copy that's compelling and motivates action. You need to build your marketing and sales system all those other things. There's a lot more that goes into building the thriving business, but this is the foundation. This is the starting point.
So let me recap what is essentially what I would call my inside out brand building process or brand strategy process. That leads to the clarity and confidence in what you do, the compelling messages that resonate with the clients that you're meant to serve, you know, so that people are leaning in and not tuning out when you're talking about what you do, and an intentionally designed business that's set up for accelerated and sustained success, and the one that's right for you, the one that reflects your unique consulting or coaching business strengths, passions, all that kind of stuff. This is what we went over. Number one start with creating a growth container that matches the type of career and business transformation in your. Number one start with creating a growth container that matches the type of career and business transformation you're in the middle of. So you need to build a partnership with somebody if you don't want to do it on your own.
One of the big reasons why I decided to make my first step in this process, for this episode to be about establishing my partnership with my clients is the majority of the time, the driving need to work on messaging isn't just about getting better results from what you're already doing to get clients. It's usually a signal that something's changed. You know, either you're in the process of just getting started building something of your own pivoting focus, just ready to level up, and your foundational brand messaging and positioning aren't matching to where you want to go now. It might be connected to what you've done in the past version of your career, but it's not related to where you want to go. So it's a signal that something bigger is going on, and that's why it can be really hard to get results from a coaching program or just a marketing agency who provides you logos or design or other things, and that's why more personalized support is needed than maybe a marketing agency or group coaching program can offer. So you need to think about what is that growth container that works for you?
The second step is let your life, not the market, tell you what your business and brand is supposed to be about. The real secret to sustainable success is to build a business that you actually love, not the should-to-ought-to business that you might think is safer or more logical. What's not logical is to invest time and money in a business that you don't love. It literally takes the same amount of money and time to build an off-purpose business versus an on-purpose business. The marketing and sales tactics are exactly the same. The only difference is your passion or the lack thereof, and the clients that you're going to try to land will feel it or they won't feel it and, believe me, they're going to be harder to convert and get results with.
Number three before you work on your messaging, you have to land the plane on your brand positioning strategy. You cannot create compelling messages about the powerful story of transformations your clients get because of working with you unless you know what that story is all about. And that begins with putting the spotlight on the hero or heroine of your consulting or coaching story and brand, which is your clients, not you. Your brand position and your most compelling messages will reveal themselves to you once you get out of your head and get into the head and heart of the clients that you're meant to serve. Number four when the clouds part about your ideal client, what you do and why you're the perfect guide for your clients will appear. You know, when you clouds part about your ideal client, what you do and why you're the perfect guide for your clients will appear. You know when you see the journey that your clients are already on and then insert yourself in that journey. It will be obvious on how you help them get to where they wanna go faster, with better results, with greater confidence, alignment and with less stress, overwhelm, expensive trial and error or more. You'll see how you accelerate and expand what your clients can do now, what they can create or achieve now, not because they worked with any other consultant or coach, but you and then number five, with your brand position in clear, you're now going to be able to find the words that tell the story of your client's transformation journey, that the people that you're talking to can either see themselves in or see other people that they know in.
So, as a next step, here's what I would love you to do, not for my reasons, but for yours I invite you to read the stories of the clients that I've helped. I would love for you to read my success stories, not to say, oh, I need proof that this process works, but I want you to see yourself in the story. So I have a lot of videos that are on my success stories page. So if you go to my website at wwwbuttsyjordyncom forward slash success hyphen stories you'll see those stories. I have a lot of podcasts where people struggled with the clarity and how they got to the other side, and I don't want you to read them because I need you to see that, yes, this process works. I don't need that validation. I know the process works. I want you to see that, yes, this process works. I don't need that validation, I know the process works. I want you to see yourself in that story, you know, because there is a lot of power on the other side, and I want you to be inspired about what's possible for you. The second, next step that I would encourage you to do is I would encourage you to just start to notice and take seriously the data that is all around you about who you're meant to help and what you uniquely do that creates value for others.
So, when someone calls for you for help or someone reaches out, ask a few more questions about what is it that's going on in their lives that made them reach out to you. Don't ask them about you or what they love about you or what made them think of you. Ask them about themselves and their struggles. So tell me a little bit more. Like what's going on. Like if they say, hey, I need your help, like I'm thinking about leaving my job and it's like okay, so tell me a little bit more about what's going on. Like what is it that you're looking for? Like, ask them more questions like that and then, when you're motivated to help someone, you know, pay attention to what type of people and problems that spark you to compassion and action Like. Just notice that and then for sure go through your rate folders, you know, go to all of the thank you notes and the positive job reviews, the rewards of testimonials, and start to look at the themes.
The reason why I think my approach works isn't because somehow I've stumbled onto the right questions that unlock clarity. It's also, I think, in part because how I designed the process to force deeper contemplation on the existing data that's all around my clients and how I mirror back to them what's in that you know, like what they're seeing, what I'm seeing from what they are saying. So a big key to a lot of this is just see what people are saying and take it seriously and really take seriously what you are motivated to do and then definitely go ahead and work through the questions in my messaging guide so they really hit the four key questions of your brand positioning. It includes templates that you can use to turn your brand positioning into the messaging. But if you go through the guide and you're like I still have that nose to the window pane syndrome and it's not helping but it's hurting, it's making my imposter syndrome worse.
I would just say congratulations. That's awesome, because if you are struggling with that, it's a sign that you're normal, because this is what all my clients experienced before we worked together. I find it interesting every time I'm in this partnership setup conversation or the onboarding you know, people are like, oh my gosh, like I have all of this, what's wrong with me? And it's like you're like every single person I work with. It's really a sign that you're ready for greater success and impact, because you wouldn't be dealing with this if your intentions were to stay in your comfort zone. So these are all good signs and if you think I might be the right person to help you navigate your nebulous transition from, maybe, your leadership career to your consulting or coaching business, or from subcontracting referrals to something of your own, or from the clients you have to the clients you want, I absolutely want to talk to you. I am passionate about serving you.
So go ahead and book a free strategic clarity call. You can find it on my website. You can see a big pink button, you know, right at the homepage or on all the pages, and you can book a call or go to my calendar at wwwbetsyjordyncom. Forward, slash schedule whichever works best for you and you know if I can help and I'm in the right fit, awesome. And if I'm not the right fit, you know I can refer you to other people who might be more of a fit. So it's not a pressure pressure conversation.
So that is a wrap on my power of brand messaging for consultants and coaches series. Thank you for staying with me. I know this was a rather long solo episode, but I really wanted to give you this behind the scenes glimpse into the fix, because it's one thing to know that you have a problem. It's a different thing to know how to solve it. And if you found value in it, please pass it on to your colleagues who want greater insight into how to solve fuzzy messaging and business vision challenges. And until next time, thanks so much for listening.
