Recently, after years of deep questioning, I have accepted the fact that I am autistic. (Whew! This is the first time I’m really publicly owning that, in broad daylight for the entire internet to see!) Which in many ways finally gives me a concrete reason for why the heck my clients particularly love the way that I teach and lead.
You see, since I first transitioned into business coaching back in 2021, I’ve found myself inadvertently working with a LOT of neurodivergent clients, many of which make a point to tell me things like, “I’ve tried doing this with so many other people and in so many other programs, but this is the first time it’s actually making sense to me.”
I always chalked it up to the fact that everything I teach is foundations-focused instead of strategy-focused—because where there is one strategy, there are hundreds if not thousands more, all of which could achieve the exact same aim but not all of which are going to be right for every single business owner and the business and audience they are building. That’s still true, only now I know that the reason everything I teach is foundations-focused is because that’s how my autistic brain works. I don’t stop digging until I find the core essence that’s underneath everything, the foundation/s that actually make/s said thing work effectively.
(If I was more mechanically inclined, I’d 1,000% be the person who builds computers from scratch lol. Which, to be clear, is said in admiration of people who can do that.)
But here’s the thing: the reason I’ve attracted so many clients who like the way that I teach and lead is not because I’ve been out here publicly saying, “Hey, I’m neurodivergent! And my work really makes sense to people who are also neurodivergent!” but because, even before the (self) diagnosis, I’ve let myself show up as, lead from, and be me. People who “click” with me being me are therefore going to really like how I teach and lead, because I teach and lead the same in my paid products as I do in my marketing. Therefore, they’re going to be much more likely to succeed with the way that I invite them to approach their business.
Now, you don’t have to have a diagnosis to find people who jive with your approach to the work that you do. Heck, I didn’t, and yet it’s been working for three odd years now!
What you do need is to know and acknowledge, even just for yourself!, what a prospective client needs in order to be Best-Positioned to Succeed. Which basically means: what characteristics, values, and/or past experiences does someone need in order to be set up to thrive in your work, specifically?
Not everyone is going to love how you do your work. (And that’s ok!)
Knowing who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work is kind of like understanding compatibility in romantic relationships. If you don’t understand compatibility before entering into a romantic relationship, you’ll spend a lot of time in said relationships either trying to change who you are to meet the needs of the other person, or trying to change them to meet your needs. If you’ve ever been in an incompatible relationship, then you know: this is not only extremely painful and exhausting for everyone involved, but it very rarely can succeed, let alone thrive, over the long term.
The same goes with our clients: we need a certain level of compatibility in order to mutually thrive in the “relationship.” And yes, this is true whether we’re working 1:1 or we’re selling self-paced courses (or anything in between), because regardless of how much live and/or personal interaction you have with your clients, you’re still interacting with them through the way that you teach and/or lead.
Just like in dating it’s worthwhile to get really crystal clear on what you want and need in a romantic partner, especially before committing to any long(er) term relationship, in our businesses, it’s absolutely worthwhile to define “compatibility.” And just like in dating, having a certain level of “compatibility” with your clients allows you to show up and do your work as yourself (and be celebrated for being yourself) while also making the work more mutually beneficial and supportive for both you and your client/s. All of this leads to more positive, more consistent, and more sustainable outcomes, including but certainly not limited to client results.
Who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work?
Deciding who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work is sort of an ongoing process, informed by the actual client work that you are doing as well as the personal development work that you’re also likely constantly doing. (I always say: business is one of the best catalysts for personal growth, whether we want it to be or not.) Which means that completing the exercise I’m about to share with you is not something you’ll do once and then never adjust again.
Rather, you’ll want to complete this exercise, keep your response somewhere that you can easily access (e.g. your business brain in ClickUp or Notion), and then edit, revise, add to, or adjust it as you go about your business, learning new things about the type of client who is best-positioned to succeed.
Identify your Best-Positioned to Succeed Client (in 1 simple step!)
To identify who is Best-Positioned to Succeed, get out a piece of paper or an open doc and answer this question:
What would need to be true of your client so that they are best-positioned to get the intended result of your work?
Aim to come up with 10-15 characteristics, experiences, and/or values of your Right Fit client.
Having a hard time coming up with your list? Here are a few more nuanced prompts to get you thinking about these characteristics, experiences, and/or values that could make someone Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work:
- Are there any non negotiable values or beliefs that someone needs to have in order to most benefit from or thrive in or with your work? (e.g. you might be committed to creating inclusive spaces for people who are queer and trans, which would mean that the version of your Right Fit client that is best-positioned to succeed would likely need to hold similar values and beliefs in that regard)
- What needs to be true about their identity or other qualities, characteristics, and/or lifestyle in order to most benefit from and thrive in or with your work? (e.g. a nutritionist could have a group program that doesn’t work well for people who are vegan, which might mean their best-positioned to succeed client is at least willing to eat eggs and fish)
- What experiences do they need to have already had in order to most benefit from and thrive in or with your work? (e.g. a divorce coach’s best-positioned to succeed client would already need to be divorced, or potentially could be in the middle of a divorce — depending on the practitioners personal preference)
- What foundations do they need to already have in place in order to most benefit from and thrive in or with your work? (e.g. a website designer’s best-positioned to succeed client might need to already have their brand identity and/or copy created before getting a website built and designed)
- What perspectives do they need to, themselves, hold in order to most benefit from and thrive in or with your work? (e.g. the best-positioned to succeed client of a Fractional CMO, chief marketing officer, might be someone who is not interested in using pain point prodding, false urgency, and other manipulative sales tactics to achieve marketing goals)
- What approach/es to this work do they most jive with? (e.g. the systems, frameworks, and approaches that I teach are very precise and methodical—which is part of why our neurodivergent clients often find so much clarity in them, since we’re breaking down otherwise amorphous concepts into more “tangible” things you can hold onto and actually work with—which means my best-positioned to succeed client needs to be looking for a more methodical, “roadmap” approach to achieving the transformation or result of my work)
Once you have your 10-15 list items, that’s it! You’ve now identified who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work. By the way, I don’t recommend having much more than 10-15, as that’s about the point where I’ve consistently seen that business owners are then becoming too specific and unnecessarily limiting who they can and can’t work with. After this “tipping point,” it tends to cause more pain and friction than clarity and confidence for the business owner.
If you’re feeling like the things you’ve listed out are “obvious” or “basic,” then you’re on the right track. And yet, these are things that might be obvious to us, but not necessarily to other people who do the same work as you do! (e.g. not all Fractional CMO’s explicitly aim to create and execute ethical marketing strategies) Which is part of why it’s important to name and claim these characteristics, even simply for your knowledge within your own backend of your business, because doing so can help you acknowledge what needs to be true for your audience so that you can get paid to do the work you most love doing, in the way you most love doing it, with the people you most love working with.
“How do I know if I’ve found my Best-Positioned to Succeed Client?”
Like I shared earlier in this article, the list you come up with today for who your Best-Positioned to Succeed client is very likely is not the “final list.” In fact, you’ll want to keep it somewhere that you can regularly reference and make edits or adjustments to as you continue interacting with clients and therefore learning who is and isn’t Best-Positioned to Succeed.
As a personal example, several years ago I worked with a client that I discovered was using what I would consider to be a manipulative sales tactic: inflating their price point so that they could offer a limited time steep “discount” to prospective clients. After inviting a curiosity conversation about this practice with them where I ultimately shared why I seriously advised against it, and them not seeing any problem with it and wanting to continue doing it, I decided to let the client go. Then I added to my Best-Positioned to Succeed list: explicitly wants to use marketing and sales practices that limit, prevent, and/or mitigate harm to all involved.
Again, it’s the things that sometimes seem obvious to us that often end up being really important for mutual thriving in the client-practitioner relationship. In this client experience, our values and approach to sales and selling were so far off that I wouldn’t be able to give relevant-to-them advice or coaching in that area of business, which hampered my work, diminishing the enjoyment for me and the value of our work for them.
Note that you also might have a core list of characteristics your Best-Positioned to Succeed client has, but then for individual offers, you might add a couple of additional, offer-specific characteristics. (e.g. in the example of the nutritionist that I gave above, perhaps when working 1:1, their clients can be vegan, but in a specific group program that requires at least fish and egg consumption, their clients cannot be)
“How do I use my Best-Positioned to Succeed list?”
Knowing the qualities of someone who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work is one of those pieces of information that is primarily important for the “behind-the-scenes” of your business. As one of the 4 core foundations of a Right Fit client, it provides a lot of key context for everything else that you do in your business.
For example:
- When you’re building offers, you can use what you know about someone who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work as influence in how you structure your offers. Reminder: when the Best-Positioned to Succeed list is done correctly, this will actually be quite organic. Because, again, someone who is Best-Positioned to Succeed in your work is someone who innately enjoys, appreciates, and even celebrates how you find yourself naturally doing your work.
- When you’re creating messaging and/or marketing your business, the things listed on your Best-Positioned to Succeed list show you where you can make assumptions about your audience. (e.g. in the example of the website designer I gave above, they wouldn’t need to create content educating their audience on “why you need a brand identity before I can make your website,” because they can simply speak to the people who already know they need their brand identity before investing in a website)
- In lead generation, you might choose to proactively share some of the qualities and characteristics from your Best-Positioned to Succeed list in order to help prospects self-identify as being ready, or not, for your work.
- In your sales process, you can use your Best-Positioned to Succeed list to determine the questions you ask on your application to work with you and/or the qualities you look out for in a prospective client in a sales conversation.
In this way, knowing and explicitly stating (primarily to yourself!) who is Best-Positioned to Succeed plays a crucial role in you getting to do the work you love, in the way you love, with the people you love, and therefore in your ability to experience a Sustainably Successful business.
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I’m Carly Jo Bell.
(Though you can just call me Carly.)
Carly Jo Bell is a business strategist and mentor, and fonder of Whole Co media. Through her courses and programs, podcast, and one on one coaching, Carly helps pulled-in-every-direction entrepreneurs create a business that brings in as much joy as it does revenue — by cultivating deep self trust, and solid foundations as the first step.
For more from Carly, and to learn about her signature “looking external for inspiration, and internal for answers” approach, join the conversation by signing up for her weekly email series, Carly's Couch.
