Clients, Your Way (Rather the “Right” Way)

Learning How to Work With Clients

My client journey started when I was in coaching school. Every job I’d had before that, someone else was in charge of clients – even when I was a sales manager for a winery, my clients worked for our distributor, a prescribed group rather than people I had to hunt for.

As part of my coach training, I needed to practice working with people, so I put the word out to my friends, family, and colleagues. I offered four sessions for $100, $25 per session being the least I could charge to have my hours count. I got some takers: my stepmother’s work colleague, who wanted to look for another job; my boyfriend’s best friend’s wife, who wanted to start a dog walking business during her maternity leave; and a colleague who wanted to build the habit of playing the piano more often.

Getting those clients meant I needed to figure out a lot about working with them. Things like how to pace a coaching session so we accomplished what we were after, where and how often to meet (Zoom didn’t exist yet), how many sessions we should have, what to charge once we graduated beyond the 4 for $100 special offer, and what felt like 100 other little things that go into taking care of clients. 

I was terrified of all of it. What if I said or did something wrong? What if they didn’t like what we were doing? What if they didn’t show up for their session? And once these people wrapped up, how was I going to find more people?

It all felt like too much… and yet, I was loving it.

What I Learned From Early Clients

Not every client was a great fit, yet every person helped me learn more about who I liked working with, what I enjoyed talking with them about, and what was unique about the way I approached things.

In marketing lingo these are called your ideal client, your niche, and your unique selling proposition. Don’t even get me started on the panic those phrases induced! So I stuck with my simplified view of the world, using what felt like normal language, and lived my way into these answers. 

The Kinds of Clients I Naturally Connected With

• People who allow their business to call them forth
• Interested in personal growth  
• Fun & Funny  
• A bit unconventional  
• Creative  
• Curious  

How My Niche Revealed Itself

It started with these client conversations:

• How to deal with my current job, and make it better?
• How to find a job I like better, and that feels like a better fit?
• How to leave my job, and start my own business?
• How to have a better time, and be more successful, doing my own thing?

And morphed into this: 

I work with solo business owners who are looking to take good care of themselves, their clients, and their businesses, even on days when it all feels a bit much. They like being solo, but they’re tired of feeling alone, so we do things in community to make our entrepreneurial Hero’s Journey easier, more fun, and more prosperous.

The Clues Were There All Along

Looking back, the seeds of my niche were there all along – I just needed experience and confidence to step into it. I’d had a lot of jobs across multiple industries, looking for the right fit, and found places that were almost but not quite right, and several gigs I couldn’t get away from fast enough. 

Here are a couple of the doozies:

• That job with the shady company that had me call people to recruit them into buying space at a trade show. 
• The travel agency that said I could use their space to work in, but I’d have to generate all my own clients and gave me no support.  
• And my last job before going off on my own, where everything was good enough yet I felt like my soul died a little every day I worked there.

These experiences – and many more – allowed me to relate to what my clients were going through, and make a plan about how to support them best.

Trying to Do Marketing the “Right” Way

This is when I started learning more about marketing, and why finding my way of doing it really mattered. Calling it marketing still felt scary; nonetheless, I read books about marketing and sales, took classes on how to do sales the “right” way, and participated in groups aimed at getting me my first ten clients. I was given a sales script, guaranteed to convert clients if I followed it faithfully. I attended networking events, and started practicing giving talks with a sales pitch at the end.

I was corrected for being too soft, not emphasizing pain points enough, and not effectively showing how working with me would solve someone’s problem. I was told I wasn’t direct enough, and that I was taking everything too personally. And the script that seemed to work for others? It just didn’t feel right to me, and I started to wonder if I’d ever figure things out.

The Moment Things Clicked

That’s when I caught myself in the trap of trying to be someone I’m not.

I reminded myself that I’m highly relational, and if finding and taking care of clients was what this whole working for myself thing was about, then I was going to figure out how to do it in a way that fit me. My marketing and sales process revealed itself to be all the things I was criticized for: being empathetic, conversational, and yes, softer. Being hyper-personal is my unique selling proposition, and the more I lean into that, the more my business flows.

Clients Feel Different When You Stop Performing

The number one thing clients say to me when they’re considering starting or expanding their business is that they don’t want to have to find clients. They don’t know how, and it doesn’t sound fun or easy.

I totally understand this, having been through the peaks and valleys myself.

Early on, I thought finding clients meant proving myself; now I know it’s really about recognizing my own uniqueness, and leaning into it unapologetically.

I lived my way into these answers — by paying attention to what felt true, what worked, and what didn’t, and by finding a way of working that actually fits me.

When you find that sweet spot for yourself, clients will feel a lot less like work… and a lot more like being yourself.