 I'm going to talk about one of the least popular topics that I talk about, which is selling and getting clients. Now, you might say, well, why is that, why is that the least popular, right? Because everybody, most of the people I'm talking to here are solopreneurs, small business owners, and we need clients and customers, otherwise we can't stay in business. But yet, because my audience is also much more heartfelt or heart-based and spiritual, or I would say people who are more driven by relationships than profit and transactions, now, because of that, a lot of you don't want to talk about selling because you wish just people would, you would just be doing your thing and then people would inquire with you and say, oh, gosh, you seem so brilliant and your presence is amazing or I've heard about you and can I please work with you. That's the fantasy that many of us have. And yet, do you have enough clients or do you have as many as you would like? Most of you are probably going to say, yeah, I could probably use more clients. Well, this is why selling is necessary because you don't have as many clients as you would like and selling doesn't have to be a bad word and doesn't have to have a bad feeling if you do the kind of thing that I'm going to talk about in this video. All right, so hopefully you agree with me that, yeah, to get enough clients or as many as you would like, you need to sell. Yes, you need to sell your services, your programs, your events, your business, essentially. All right, but how do we do it in a way that feels good rather than feeling like we're persuading? Because when we're persuading someone, when we're trying to get someone to do something, this is why we don't like selling because we sense into the fact that that act of persuading instantly makes us inauthentic. We lose the grounding of our integrity when we say, when we act as if I need to do something and say something so that the other person will like me enough or will find my product or service valuable enough to then want to take a closer look or want to buy it. We know we lose our grounding and our authentic power when we have to contort ourselves or to figure out the best words to say to get someone to be interested in what we're selling. So we know that. So let me suggest why don't we do the opposite, which is only describe our services and products and our message, only describe it to the people who we imagine are already eager. This is what I mean by sell only to the eager. Now you might be, for example, right now I'm making this video not knowing exactly who's on the other side. There could be hundreds of people, maybe thousands over time who watch this. I don't, I mean, there's been possible for me to know exactly who's going to watch this video. Now I might know based on a few comments below or a few likes, I might be able to look at who it is. But right now as I'm making this, I don't know who's out there. And so it's up to my imagination, you see. So if I am imagining someone who is skeptical of me, you know, who doesn't know and doesn't care about who I am and what my message is, you know, they might be going, well, prove to yourself that you're worthy to be watched for the next five seconds. If I'm talking to someone like that, I'm going to, like I said, contort myself or try to perform in a way that, oh, I got to get the person to keep watching, you see. But I'm not imagining that person because I can imagine anybody. I don't know who's out there right now. So I'm going to imagine somebody who is so eager, as I mentioned, to receive what I'm going to say and who is so patient with my presence because there is an energy signature match. There is a resonance between what they find interesting and meaningful to the way I show up just as I am. That's who I'm going to imagine, not going to imagine someone who needs me to perform and be super entertaining or, you know, inspiring or whatever it is that is not already naturally how I want to show up, how I feel is true for me to show up for this message in this moment in service to my ideal client. So if I imagine my ideal client, my ideal viewer, then my shoulders drop and I'm relaxed talking to you, the ideal viewer who is like part of my soul group, perhaps, right, we might say that, and who just has a deep felt sense that something is right between us, that it's meant to be that we talk with each other or something like that, right, and that who is interested in this message. That's what, so same thing, when you think about selling your services and your programs, you might be blocked because you naturally imagine someone who is skeptical and who is not eager to work with you. So like I said, when you are writing your sales copy, when you're writing your website, when you're writing your email newsletter or your social media, like I said, if you want any clients, if you want enough clients beyond the few friends and family who are kind enough to say yes and let's try out your service and let me refer my best friend to you. I mean, after you exhaust your friends and family and their referrals, which happens sooner than you think, you need to sell to stay in business, don't you? And let me first say, one day if you are doing the kinds of things that I always urge you to do, encourage you to do in these videos, authentic content marketing, collaborations, content caring, gentle launches, being consistent in your joyful productivity and doing these things, if you are, one day you only have to whisper whenever you have a service you want to fill with clients or a program you want to fill, you only have to whisper and you get more than enough. I mean, I'm grateful that the day has come for me. This is what I experienced now. When I have a program to fill, when I have courses to sell, I just whisper and I get more than enough people who sign up. My launches are so gentle compared to other people in my industry, mainstream marketers who are so much louder and like they send 85 emails instead of two emails like I do when I want to launch something. So I'm at the stage now where I can simply whisper, but it wasn't always like this. Obviously, I started where many of you are, which is like I, George, I just need clients, I can't whisper, right? I got to do what the mainstream marketers, I got to yell, I got to shout, I got to create sales funnels, I have to be clever, persuasive, I have to be polished and have all my branding amazing together. I can't just whisper, right? If you continue, like I said, with joyful productivity to do authentic content marketing consistently, which is the intersection of exploring your passion and your service to humanity, that intersection is called authentic content marketing. If you keep doing that consistently, you will grow, grow, grow an audience of true fans, the people that you are imagining you want to talk to are going to show up, they will. That's the miracle, but you have to be consistent for several years. You do. I'm sorry to report that to you. If someone else is saying something different, I don't know that they're telling the truth because I've seen, I've seen this again amongst hundreds of people that this is how this is how it works. Not not not everyone takes years depends on, you know, obviously depends so much on your content and the match between your content and what the world is wanting at this time and, you know, the collaborations are able to form. If you know how to run ads like on Facebook, Instagram, I mean, it depends on so much how long it's take you five, 10 years or take you three to five months. I don't know. But but what I do know is that the consistency of authenticity and service creates an audience of true fans of eager people to whom you just have to whisper. So I when it comes to selling when it comes to George, I need clients. I need to talk to people about my services or I need to post about it. I don't I don't want to think about the selling stuff, George, because I just want people to come to me. I just want and yet I know I need to because they're not they're not just randomly showing up and not enough of them are. And so I need to at least make my services available that people need to be aware that this exists. Now, I don't want to think about that, George. But let me tell you, if you think and imagine the person who perhaps is suffering because they need something like what you offer, or they have this deep yearning to experience something, the kind of thing you offer, if you imagine that person, they're looking for you, they might not have the words to know how to search for you. They might not even know exactly how to describe what it is, but they have this deep yearning that when they see what your offer is, they will lean in and say, Oh, my gosh, can you tell me more about that? That sounds fascinating. I've been wondering about that. I've been thinking about this. Maybe maybe I've heard of this kind of thing before. I'd like to give it a try. There are many, many people like that out there looking for you right now. And so selling is just making yourself available to those people. My marketing, right, is, and I want to thank Gil Friend, my colleague, Gil Friend for coming up with this, marketing is to share something you love with the people you care about. I'll say that again. Marketing is sharing something you love with the people you care about. And I'll say authentic selling is making yourself and your service available to those who are eager and deeply want what you offer. It's up to your imagination. Are you willing to use your imagination for a little bit? That's what defines us as truly human, is we are able to imagine and envision the kind of person we want to draw forth to us. And so I want you to use your imagination a little bit now and say, OK, what is that person like who is so eager to receive what the service and product is and is naturally resonant with who I am just as I show up? Who is that? Imagine that person. Describe that person. If you would like to, you can describe that person below this video in a comment if you wish to. But whenever you write your website or write your social media posts or write an email newsletter or even reach out individually to someone, I want you to imagine that eager person so that your shoulders can drop. You can feel relaxed in the presence of someone who genuinely likes you for who you are and who is eager to know about your service because they need it and they want it. In the presence of someone like that, you feel confident. You feel alive because they want, they say, please tell me. Please tell me what it is you offer because I know it's going to be something that I'm so excited about and inspired by and are deeply interested in signing up for. Be in the presence of someone like that when you write, when you make videos, when you record your podcasts, when you sell, again, selling, authentic selling, being, making yourself available to those who eagerly are seeking your service. So let me give you a couple of, I guess analogies. Keep getting confused analogies, I think, or metaphors of what this is like. So it's like having your own Ivy League program, Ivy League meaning one of the top colleges in the world, imagine you're a college student and you're trying to apply to colleges and then this top academy, this top university, your college is available to you or you can apply to that college. How are you going to approach that opportunity? Are you going to be like, yeah, prove to me Harvard or Stanford or Oxford or whatever place that's top in your nation, prove to me that you're worth my application, my attending your university. College students don't. I mean, they're like, really? Harvard is interested in me? Stanford's interested in me? Oh my gosh. Okay, so imagine your ideal client, your eager client is like that college student who is applying to your Ivy League unit, your service, your business, your offer is like a Harvard University to that potential client. You see what I mean? So in that, if that's true, how will you approach your writing and your speaking and your communications where your ideal clients are involved? You're not going to be like, oh, yeah, let me try to persuade you. Let me do whatever I can. Oh, today only. You have to sign up today. Otherwise, you have this penalty or whatever or this bonus disappeared. I mean, all these shenanigans that means you market or stew. It's like, that's not an Ivy League. Ivy Leagues don't do that. You know, they're sitting back confidently saying, we know our product is amazing. And we know that if you were to get in, you'd be so, you'd be the lucky one. Sure. We are lucky too, because we recruited a great student like you, a great client like you. But really, you are very, very lucky to be able to work with us. Right. So I want you to understand that to the ideal client, to the eager potential customer, you are the Ivy League to them. They're like, oh my gosh, I'm so grateful I found you. How much, how much, I hope I can afford what you offer, whatever it is, I'm going to do my best to, you know, budget that money because it's so worthwhile to work with you. I want you to imagine that whenever you sell, again, I just want to transform that idea and that word for you sell, just making yourself available to the eager potential client. So you are the Ivy League for your potential client or your ideal client. Right. So especially if it's like a, especially if you sell something that's a higher ticket item or premium program that costs maybe thousands of dollars or someone, certainly that's a very apt analogy for you to think, oh, I'm the Ivy League here. Let me, whoever's talking with me as a potential client, they should be eager. They should, I'm only going to talk to the eager people because if they're not eager, they don't understand the value of what I offer. They don't understand the value of it. And I'm, why am I working so hard to try to persuade them of the value? No, no, there's other people out there who would be eager. And let me just find the, let me just only talk to those people and whatever I write online, I'm going to imagine it's, I'm talking to those people. Right. Like I said, over time, as you do your authentic content marketing with a spirit of joyful productivity, do it consistently, you are going to have plenty of those eager people saying, oh my gosh, how can I work with you? So that's one analogy. Another analogy that's also useful, especially for those of us who sell lower priced things, like if you're selling an online course or you're selling a, you know, something that's a few hundred dollars or less, maybe a few dozen dollars, then think of your offer as like your Black Friday product. Black Friday is those we don't know. It's in the United States. Well, it's probably global by now, but it's after the U.S. Thanksgiving when lots of retailers have the best deals of the year, Black Friday, you know, and then it's like, oh my gosh, I mean, waiting a lot of people, a lot of shoppers, you know, kind of wait all year for Black Friday to get the great deals on things that they've been looking at buying. But now it's a great deal. Well, think of your low price offering like the Black Friday offering, like I'm not saying you need to make a discount, but I'm just saying when you are writing, when you are speaking about it, when you are thinking about selling it, remember, selling is just making yourself available to eager buyers. When you're thinking of selling, you think about, wow, people are the people I'm talking to are going to be like, oh my gosh, what a great deal. Oh, wow, you offer that product for only that price. I'm not saying you have to offer at a super low price. I'm just saying whatever price you offer is naturally an amazing deal to the perfect buyer. And the perfect buyer are the people, either are the people that I only want you to talk to in your mind so that when you show up in your marketing and you're selling, it has a different energy to it. It has the energy of, I know my stuff has great value. And I don't have to bend over back or to convince you of anything. I'm just going to share. For those who are eager, I'm going to describe what this thing is and just to make sure that they understand what they're going to get and who it's for. You see what I mean. So whether you want to use the Ivy League analogy or the Black Friday analogy or maybe you have another analogy that you want to share below that's on this theme of selling only to the eager, I would love to get your ideas as well. So long story short, our energy and time is so precious that if we spend this life source, this life energy that we have, this limited lifetime that we have, contorting ourselves into various persuasive shapes and trying so hard to get people to do this or that, I feel like that's not the most meaningful use of our life. Rather, to use our life energy to imagine using our brilliant human capacities to imagine the eager ideal client or reader or customer and share and show up for that person who we imagine our mind. And over time, your network and your audience will say, wow, you seem really like you offer a lot of value. It does. Your energy signature changes or upgrades itself to be that kind of business owner. And that's what I've been practicing now for since, I would say 2014 or so is when I kind of made that shift. And as you can tell, I'm quite proxed about it. I'm quite leaning back, not trying to persuade you of anything, just leaning back when I sell something and then I get more than enough sales. So I wish that for you as well. And I know that it can happen when you understand that to the ideal person, your presence and your product is so valuable. Worth way more than the price, whatever price, that you're charging. I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much for joining me.