What if you didn’t need to know everything about your offer and who it’s for before you fully commit to creating and serving your audience?
And whoever your “avatar” ends up being.
What if the fact that you’re standing still attempting to think your way to clarity is what’s creating more confusion?
And keeping you stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed.
Better yet…
What if you start to take action by creating content with the intention of gaining clarity on different aspects of your offer and who it’s for?
Too many well-meaning coaches think…
- I don’t have a big enough audience yet, so I really need to focus on growing that first
- I don’t know what to offer, there’s so many things I can do
- I don’t know who my avatar is
- I don’t really know what problem I solve
As a result, the dream of a wildly profitable business comes to a screeching halt.
Maybe that translates to inconsistent months while still continuing to take action.
Maybe it’s the start-stop pattern we see in a lot of coaches and creators.
Either way, you don’t have to be crystal clear on what you’re selling and who it’s for in order to start massaging and marketing to grow your business.
And you can easily get started right from where you are.
Where most coaches fail
Most coaches and creators fall into a number of traps around content creation, offer creation, and generating sales.
You’ve likely run into some of these yourself…
- Thinking you’re just one funnel away from success
- Get too deep into new tech, AI, or similar, without having a baseline of activity that’s reliable for producing predictable results
- Say yes to everything (in person and online) in an attempt to meet the right people or be in the right place at the right time.
- Get certification after certification because they don’t feel ready or qualified (even though they know more than enough to get results)
- Spend way too much time consuming and comparing and not enough time creating
- Set goals (10k months, 20k months) but don’t have a concrete plan to achieve that objective
- Thinking you need the right gear (camera, microphones, background) and that you can’t really create until you have those
- Doing more of what you’re already doing but faster hoping something will eventually pan out
- Getting distracted and going down the rabbit hole of your ideal client, creating a grand slam offer, or diving into a new niche and either changing it too often or not actually putting it out there in a way that appeals to a buyer
- Not being strategic about the content you’re posting and just creating when you feel “inspired” or something is “coming through”
- Not messaging around or understanding the problems, dreams, desires, and real-life scenarios of your ideal client and just focusing on your process or method
- Inconsistent messaging – not posting enough
- Waiting for FULL clarity before really diving in and taking action, relentlessly
If you’re doing any of these things, most likely your business isn’t producing the results you hoped for.
In this article, I’m going to break down what you can do to arrive at clarity through deliberate action so you can get out of the cycle of overthinking and inaction and see growth, and more importantly, sales.
How I got here
Just to give you a little context, this is not something I just cooked up after reading a bunch of books or repurposing someone else’s stuff.
This practice of deliberate action in the face of seeming confusion came from years of struggling with…
- Identifying my ideal avatar and doing 8,354 exercises around it (yes, I’m exaggerating and I KNOW you can relate)
- Trying to create complex sales funnels because that’s what the experts told me to do even though I didn’t have a clear offer
- Having inconsistent months to the point where I would have 14k come in one month but then not being able to reliably replicate that to the point of wanting to throw in the towel (or more accurately, throw my computer out the window 🙂
- Spending over $100,000 on products, programs, and coaches in an attempt to outsource my certainty
Here’s the thing though.
Even after all the programs, books, YouTube videos, and coaches, I still was trying to grow my business with organic content without the intent of clarity.
I would still produce “what felt good” and then get annoyed when it didn’t convert.
The shift happened when I realized that I had to be more intentional to go from the general, broader kinds of content to more specific, targeted content.
It’s a subtle shift.
But it’s often those simple and subtle shifts that come with a high return.
I started doing this with small shifts.
Focusing on different aspects of my interests, speaking about how I could help people through authoritative posts, and sharing personal stories that really resonated with people… all with the intent to get clear.
As I got more clear through consistent action those inconsistent months started to become more consistent.
And I knew exactly who I was talking to.
So now it was just about speaking to them better.
And when I started using these strategies with clients…
- Greg was able to go from just starting out and having some brand partnerships to having a full roster of coaching clients and hitting mid-six figures in just 18 months
- Ellie brought in 60k in contracts in the first 30 days of us working together when previously she was generating 4-6k per month (and sometimes lower)
- I supported Samson in creating a group coaching program and the launch produced his best month in business to date with organic content marketing alone
The most effective starting point I’ve discovered is your offer.
Everything should point to your offer even if you don’t know exactly what it is
Now, before you get all wound up about not having crystal clarity around your offer, remember, that trying to be 100% clear is likely what’s keeping you in the unproductive cycles you’re in.
Centering it around your offer makes sense because that’s what everything should point to.
That is what you’re selling and that is what will bring money in the door.
You can have all the followers in the world but if you have nothing to sell, then well… you have nothing.
And here’s the thing…
You can work a lot of your ideas out through social.
The act of creating, writing, and shooting videos forces you to find simple and effective ways to communicate what you want to say.
You also have to flex the muscle of coming up with ideas consistently and thinking through those ideas and concepts in order to produce great work.
When this process is done strategically you will gain far more clarity than you will by study and ideation alone.
Let’s unpack what this looks like and how you get into consistent intentional action to arrive at crystal clarity around who you work with and how you help them..
And how to do that through your messaging.
The Step by Step… ish
There are a few categories to look at that point to your offer and how you create content around that offer.
The components of your offer can be simplified into 4 categories.
Person-Problem-Promise-Process
- Person – Who your offer is for
- Problem – The problem (or problems) that person is facing that you can solve
- Promise – What result that person can expect (assuming they put in the work)
- Process – Your methods, strategies, mindsets, and tools that help this person get the promised results
Whether you’re creating an offer from scratch or you want to refine the offer you currently have, beginning to message in these areas will give you clarity on the full picture of what you could call your niche.
Let’s look at each of these individually.
The Person
The way a problem manifests in someone’s life, the pain that causes, and what they want to experience instead is different across the board.
A mom
CEO
A coach or creator
Regular Joe
All have very different realities.
One aspect of your marketing and content creation needs to speak to the situational awareness of your ideal client.
They need to see themselves and what they are experiencing in what you are describing.
This is what makes people raise their hands.
Example
Relationship coaching for a married woman with 3 kids…
Juggling the responsibilities of parenting with creating intimacy with your partner can be a tall ask. Oftentimes, the last thing you want to do after a busy day of running the kids around is connect with your man.
But here’s the thing…
If you don’t find creative ways to connect, you will continue to feel alone.
Relationship coaching for a busy executive…
At some point, you have to choose.
The job or the relationship.
It’s not that you can only have one or the other.
However, if you’re constantly canceling date night to stay at the office late, you have to be okay with the potential reality that your relationship will not last.
These are very different situations. They are unique to those individuals.
If you’re unclear exactly who your ideal client is you can zoom out with the intent to zoom in as you gain more clarity around who your offer is for.
You can speak to the cost of putting other priorities in front of their relationships.
You can point to how no matter what you have going on you have to be able to shift gears and go from handling the responsibilities of life to creating a deep connection with your partner.
Then, depending on who starts to raise their hand as you make invitations, you can start shifting your messaging to speak to the type of person you are attracting in order to bring in more of that kind of person.
As you’re testing you could even list out these different scenarios in bullet points in your organic marketing, on a blog post or email, or even a YouTube video or short.
Example…
Whether you’re…
– A Mom who’s constantly putting your kids first at the cost of a deeper connection with your partner
– An executive who’s needed at work but you feel guilty when you have to text your wife and let her know that you’re running late AGAIN.
It doesn’t have to be singular as you’re gaining charity on who your offer is for.
The Problem
What problem do you solve?
If you’re a relationship coach you may solve the problem of poor communication and constant fighting.
The problem here is always getting in fights with your partner because you just don’t understand each other.
If you’re a transformational coach you may solve the problem of trauma getting in the way of someone achieving their goals.
The problem here is that they set goals and don’t achieve them. And they keep repeating the cycle.
Taking a similar zoom-out approach you could speak to the problem in a more general sense and then as you gain more clarity zoom in and be more contextual and specific…
Example…
There are many warning signs that point to severe disconnection in relationships…
– One or both of you never feel understood
– The inability to have a conversation on a sensitive subject without it turning into a full-blown argument
– The lack of emotional attentiveness
As you speak to a variety of problems you will start to see things that resonate with people more than others.
When this happens you can then start to zoom in and get more specific around that single problem and even begin building your programs and products to address those specific issues that people find useful.
For the relationship coaching example, that could end up being communication, sex and intimacy, or other more niche topics that you’re qualified to support people in solving.
The Promise
The promise is the dream outcome your ideal client envisions or the results they can expect to see working with you.
When done effectively (once you’ve ironed out what the specific result is) the effect it creates in your ideal client is “I want that!”
Example…
This is the more zoomed-out, general messaging…
When your relationship is working EVERYTHING else gets better…
– You have more energy and your mind is naturally open to seeing more possibilities in life
– You feel as if you genuinely have someone in your corner who will back you up no matter what
– Your performance at work skyrockets because you’re no longer getting over the lack of sleep from another fight that went on till 2 AM
As you gain more clarity on the specific result you provide.
When your relationship is working EVERYTHING else gets better…
– You wake up every day feeling energized. The brain fog you thought you had when you sat down to create was actually just the lack of connection with your partner bleeding over into your work.
– You feel completely supported by your partner and she’s even excited to support you during your next race. Something that seemed like a distant dream for so long.
– Your creativity is through the roof and cranking out YouTube videos is infinitely easier because you’re no longer constantly wondering if your relationship is going to survive.
The more specific version is speaking directly to a creator and YouTuber who’s also an athlete.
This is a very specific type of person with very clear goals, dreams, desires, hobbies, etc.
When someone can see themselves in your copy they can see themselves doing the work with you to achieve that goal.
Be okay with getting to that level of specificity by taking the zoomed-out approach first and getting more narrow and specific and you gain more clarity.
The Process
This is where A LOT of coaches and creators spend their time.
But a good friend and mentor of mine says…
“No one gives a flying fuck about your shiny shit.”
And he’s right.
Only talking about your process, method, or modality does not include your ideal client in the conversation.
It’s an important piece of the puzzle, but just creating how-to content around your process doesn’t work.
However, highlighting aspects of your process and showing how it’s different from other approaches (just to name a few) are great ways to point to your process.
Done well this sounds something like this…
Example…
Somatics and trauma work access what the mind cannot. You see, trauma is stored in the body, “the body keeps the score.” If you’re not utilizing things like breathwork, meditation, etc. then you’re just doing it from the level of the mind. Here’s a simple technique to add to your morning routine.
And then lay out the simple mechanics of a smaller process within what you do.
This is one of the four categories that’s a bit more challenging to go broad and then get more specific.
The reality is that it should be.
If you don’t have things on the tactical side that you can talk about then you may want to take a good look at if you actually have a process or way to work with people that’s effective for creating change.
In this case, that’s a good indicator that you may want to shift some of your focus from just creating content to acquiring more skills in your area of desired expertise.
The benefit of doing it this way
When you take the action action-based approach to defining your offer and audience, you get your ass off the bench and just get moving.
You could on one side of the coin just pick a niche, avatar, all the things and then message around it.
But often times that involves building up a whole bunch of assets, posts, and resources around your hypothesized avatar and offer, and then if that doesn’t pan out, tearing it all down and starting again.
When you gain clarity through action you can craft your avatar, what problem you solve, the results people can expect, and your process by keeping what resonates with people and what aligns with what you want to support people with and get rid of the rest.
Chat soon,
Jeff Agostinelli
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For coaches and creators who want to master their message and take their business to the next level