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The Predicament

You’re great at what you do. Your clients love you. You get results.

But turning that into a steady income is hard.

You’re sure that building an audience will make it easier to get clients.

Don’t Start Here

Not everyone gets pulled down this path, but it’s common enough that I need to point it out, just in case it’s where you’re headed right now.

‘Build an audience’ feels like a logical first step.

After all, before someone buys from you, they must first find out you exist. And the more people in your audience, the more potential buyers you have.

And audience-building activities like creating social media content or commenting on other people’s posts can feel productive and safe at the same time (if a little boring).

But this isn’t how your online marketing needs to work:

Step 1: Build an audience

Step 2: Nurture audience

Step 3: Sell something to your large warm audience

Yes, if you want to sell 1000 x a £99 course each year, you will need to get in front of tens of thousands of people.

But if you want enough clients to make a steady, comfortable income while working part-time flexible hours, you need a marketing strategy that prioritizes selling to people who are most ready to buy.

Low-Hanging Fruit First

Start by focusing your marketing efforts on the people who:

• Are already aware they have a problem
• Are committed to solving that problem
• And have decided they are willing to invest in getting help to solve it.

I call these your Ripe & Readies.

If you overlook them, they’ll spoil.

While you’re busy attracting new people into your world, they’re giving their money to someone else who made it easy for them to say ‘yes’.

Here’s how you focus your marketing efforts on your Ripe & Readies.

Step 1 – Have offers you are really excited to sell

If you don’t love delivering the service, or package, or the program, then you’re going to resist making sales.

Step 2 – Making it really easy for Ripe & Readies to understand your offers

Write down what the offer is, what’s included, what the person is getting in exchange for their money, and how the process works from the moment they hit buy. This is your sales copy and it will make it easier for you to explain, and for potential clients to understand. You can present it as a page on your website (sales page), or as a brochure, or a Google doc, or a page on Notion, or any other way you can think of that people can easily access and read. It does not need to be fancy. It needs to be clear.

Step 3 – Make it easy for Ripe & Readies to choose to kick-start the sales process

Someone arrives at your website. They have a problem you can solve and money to spend. A friend sent them, or they heard about you on a podcast, or they’ve seen you mentioned on social media… they are coming in hot. But like all humans, they’re in a hurry. How do you want them to let you know they need help, but don’t yet know which of your offers is right for them?

Or if they’ve gone to the trouble of reading the sales pages and narrowed it down to two options

Or they’ve chosen a winner – how do you want them to get started?

Make it easy for Ripe & Readies to let you know they exist, they need your help, and they’re eager to start a conversation with you.

Step 4 – Find them

There is someone out there right this very moment who would benefit hugely from what you have to offer, and is able and willing to pay for it.

It is your duty to make it really easy for them to find you.

• Do you have something to sell to past clients?
• Is it easy for your clients to refer a friend?
• Who in your network could send you clients?
• Look for other businesses that serve your client base in a different way.

Step 5 – A different kind of funnel

Sales funnels in online marketing typically work by pouring a lot of people in at the top and taking them through a series of stages and some will become paying clients at the end.

If you use a funnel in a kitchen, that isn’t how a funnel works.

You use a funnel to make sure something precious (sugar, your potential client) gets into a container (your brand new sugar cannister, or your 3-month coaching program).

Look at each of the scenarios by which a new potential client could find you.

Where do you want them to go?

Where do they go next?

Is it easy for your contacts to send people to you?

And is it easy for those people to buy once they arrive?

That’s not all the marketing you need to do ever.

But if you have offers to sell, and not enough buyers, this is the first step I suggest.

Kick-start Questions

• Do you love what you’re selling?
• Do you have a great sales page or brochure that explains it clearly?
• Are you making it really easy for eager buyers to just get on with it?
• What have you done before that’s worked – can you do more of that?
• Is it easy for friends, contacts and former clients to refer people to you? And what is the experience like for that new lead?

Speedy Summary

Before building an audience to sell to, focus first on making the experience as easy as possible for those people most Ripe & Ready to buy.

Creating the right call-to-action

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