As online service providers and coaches, our biggest currency is our reputation. Specifically, our reputation for delivering the results through our work that we say we will. But just “doing your work well” doesn’t automatically create reliable client results. In fact, you doing your work well is only one aspect of what it takes to deliver the results you promise or promote in your messaging and marketing.
If you’ve already worked with a variety of clients, you know this to be true: you could do the exact same work for one client as another, and one of them will see amazing results but the other won’t. What gives? It’s often a case of a wrong fit (or not yet Right Fit!) client for the specific offer you’re selling.
(It could also be a case of misaligned messaging. More on that later.)
In order to reliably facilitate results, you need to attract a Right Fit client into right-for-them work. That requires that you understand, first and foremost, who the two Right Fit, Purchase-Ready clients are—as they determine everything from the types of offers you build to how you talk about, market, and sell them.
In this blog post, you’ll learn the difference between the two Right Fit, Purchase-Ready Clients as well as what attracts one versus the other. I’ll also show you a behind-the-scenes example from here at WholeCo of how these two Right Fit, Purchase-Ready Clients interact with each of the offers in your offer suite. But first…
What is a Right Fit client?
A Right Fit client is someone who satisfies four criteria:
- They’re someone you actually want to work with (your Ideal Client),
- Who has the characteristics, past experiences, desires, and potentially also values required to thrive in your approach to facilitating results (your Best-Positioned to Succeed Client),
- Who is actively searching for the solution your work provides (your Purchase-Ready Client),
- Who is also not, particularly at time of making an investment decision, experiencing physiological activation around the subject/area of life you work in or with (your Physiologically Ready-to-Transform Client)—unless physiologically activated clients is specifically the focus of your work and you have specific, trauma-informed training to do so.
The combination of these four criteria creates a Right Fit client, AKA someone who is ready to step into the work, receive support whilst maintaining personal responsibility for their own success, and experience a true transformation (defined as: one that they, themselves, can maintain after/beyond working with you).
- Related post: 4 Questions to Find Your Right Fit Client
While all four criteria are important when it comes to a client being able to reliably see the intended results of your work, purchase-readiness is where many—I might even venture to say most—business owners are accidentally attracting wrong fit clients. It’s also what defines how you build offers, what style of messaging you use, and pretty much everything else in your business from your marketing tactics to your sales process and, well, all of it. We’ll therefore focus our attention on purchase-readiness for this post, though you can always join our comprehensive business training program, EXPAND, if you want to learn how to identify all four Right Fit client criteria in your business.
The two types of Right Fit, Purchase-Ready Clients
There are two types of Right Fit, Purchase-Ready Clients. These are:
- The Solution-Oriented Client
- The Transformation-Ready Client
The Solution-Oriented Client is seeking a single solution to what they perceive as being a single problem. The Transformation-Ready Client is seeking a holistic solution for what they now understand is a deeper/more “core” problem.
Let’s take a deeper look at who these Right Fit, Purchase-Ready clients are, the types of offers that are attractive to each of them, and what type of packages and offers they’re actually ready for (and which they aren’t!). We’ll even take a glance at the messaging styles that are most attractive to each, though we’ll save a more thorough discussion on that for another post.
Who is the Solution-Oriented Client?
As mentioned above, the Solution-Oriented Client is someone who is looking for a single solution to what they perceive as being a single problem. The specific language used here is important: they’re looking for a single solution to what they perceive as being a single problem.
They see: I have this one problem. I need to specifically solve that problem.
I don’t know what to do when my toddler is throwing a tantrum (problem). I need to learn how to soothe their tantrums (solution).
I need a sales page for my new offer (problem). I need someone to design it (solution).
Naturally, these clients are going to search for whatever it is they think the solution might be, and be interested in purchasing an offer that provides that specific solution. The person wanting to learn how to soothe tantrums is going to purchase something that seems to specifically solve that problem. The person needing a sales page design is going to purchase something that gives them that design.
In order to meet this Solution-Oriented Client in the moment when they’re ready to purchase, you as the business owner can create an offer or offers that provide a specific solution to a specific problem. (This is called a Single Solution Offer.) You also need to use messaging that speaks specifically about the problem and about the solution (this is called Solutional Messaging). More on all of this in a sec.
Who is a Transformation-Ready Client?
The Transformation-Ready Client, on the other hand, is someone who recognizes that all of their single, specific problems are surface manifestations of a deeper problem, and that if they want to see a full transformation, they need to pursue a holistic solution that solves the true core problem.
In order to meet this Transformation-Ready Client in the moment when they’re ready to purchase, you as the business owner need to create an offer or offers that provide a holistic solution for their core problem, that facilitates a lasting transformation. (This is called a Full Transformation Offer.) You also need to use messaging that speaks broadly and holistically about the problem and about the solution (this is called Transformational Messaging).
“Wait, are the Solution-Oriented Client and the Transformation-Ready Client the same person, just at different points in their individual buyer’s journey?”
Yes, they are. A Solution-Oriented Client eventually becomes a Transformation-Ready Client. (See an explanation of the Transformational Journey—aka the journey customers take to purchase—in this blog post.)
Towards the beginning of their purchasing journey, when they were a Solution-Oriented Client, they very likely tried many different single, specific solutions trying to solve several different (or sometimes even the same) specific problems. Through that process, they realized that even if they were successful in solving one single, specific problem, they kept running into other problems (or new variations of the same problem), which then needed other solutions. They become a Transformation-Ready Client when they can see that all of the single problems they’ve been attempting to solve are actually surface manifestations of a deeper, core problem.
An example of this journey that many of our clients here at WholeCo go through:
Problem: “I need to find my niche!”
Solution: Find your niche in Niche on the Problem, Not the Person (free training).
Problem: “Great, I found my niche, but I don’t really know how to talk directly to my Right Fit client.”
Solution: Clearly explain who you help and how while showcasing exactly what makes you/your work unique in The Aligned Niche (course).
Problem: “Ok, I now know my audience better than I ever have, I am SO much more confident that my offers will deliver on the results they say they will, and I have messaging that is so concrete, clear, and—most importantly—can be used literally everywhere, from my emails, to my social posts, to my sales pages, even when I’m networking! However, I still need to create a stronger marketing and lead generation strategy so that I can strategically bring even more clients into these offers I’m now so stoked about delivering.”
Solution: Craft extraordinary and effective content that attracts Right Fit, ready-to-buy clients into your sales process through Marketing Magnified (course).
At this point, our client is still a Solution-Oriented Client. However, typically after they complete either The Aligned Niche or Marketing Magnified, they realize: “I’ve learnt so much about offer-building, messaging, marketing, lead generation, it’s been amazing. But I really want to bring all of it together now into a cohesive system that empowers me to truly love building, running, and growing my business. Not just today, not just this year, but for the rest of the time I choose to remain in business.” At this point, they’re recognizing that things like “finding their niche” and “getting better at marketing” are all surface manifestations of a deeper, more core problem (or, in this case, desire): their desire to build a Sustainably Successful business.
Now they’re a Transformation-Ready Client, and it’s at this point that they join our comprehensive business training program, EXPAND.
Let me be clear that clients—ours and yours—don’t have to start with a freebie, then progress through increasingly large monetary investments in order to prove themselves “Right Fit” or even “Purchase-Ready.” Some clients will step straight into your Full Transformation Offer, as they’ll have already tried Single Solution Offers elsewhere. Some clients will join a Single Solution Offer with you, and then go elsewhere to try other Single Solution Offers and/or fulfill their Transformational Journey as a Transformation-Ready Client. And some, like the “ideal” example given above, will go all the way through their buying journey with you.
How to Attract the RIGHT Client into the Right-for-Them Offer
I mentioned at the beginning of this blog that in order to maintain and build our reputation as business owners, we need to reliably deliver on the results that we say we will in our messaging and marketing. That first requires us to attract Right Fit clients, who we then funnel into right-for-them offers, based on which phase of Purchase-Readiness they’re in (Solution-Oriented or Transformation-Ready).
Solution-Oriented Clients need to join Single Solution Offers in order to be best-positioned to succeed in achieving the intended outcome or result of that offer. Transformation-Ready Clients need to join Full Transformation Offers in order to be best-positioned to succeed in achieving the intended outcome or result of that offer.
Though we didn’t get too much into messaging: in order to attract Solution-Oriented Clients into Single Solution Offers, you need to use Solutional Messaging. And in order to attract Transformation-Ready Clients into Full Transformation Offers, you need to use Transformational Messaging. Using the correct type of messaging organically funnels the right person to the right offer, is called creating AOM Alignment™ (Audience, Offer, Messaging Alignment).
When you’ve created AOM Alignment within each of your offers, a majority of the people who enter your sales process—and, subsequently, purchase from you—are going to be Right Fits, and therefore much simpler to sell to while being more likely to reliably see the result of your offer. Your clients will consistently be satisfied with their experience of your offers, happily leaving rave reviews, giving referrals, or even re-signing-up to work with you. Meanwhile, you’re more confident in selling your work (because you know it works!) and you enjoy delivering your work even more (because it works and because the clients are truly ready for the work!).
“What happens when you attract a client into a wrong-for-them offer?”
Whereas if you use messaging that attracts the wrong client into one of your offers—e.g. a Solution-Oriented Client into an offer intended for a Transformation-Ready Client—then you’ll often find that the client and/or you are frustrated and/or drained throughout the delivery process.
Earlier on in WholeCo’s lifetime, we ran into this problem a good deal. (As do most, if not all, business owners!!!) I had a 6-month, 1:1 offer that was intended for Transformation-Ready Clients, but I kept (unknowingly) bringing Solution-Oriented Clients into it (or even sometimes “looking for a savior” clients). A really common manifestation of this was: the client believes that in order to achieve their desired business results, they need to get better at marketing. But “getting better at marketing” is just one very small part of building a Sustainably Successful business—there’s also ensuring your offer is right, and your messaging is aligned, and your lead generation and sales processes are aligned, etc. Which meant I continually had to educate (and sometimes try to convince) them that there’s so much more to a Sustainably Successful business than being “good at marketing.” “Yes, getting better at marketing is important. But right now, your price point of your main offer isn’t aligned with the audience you’re intending to attract nor the business you’re trying to build, the messaging isn’t clear, and you also have some beliefs around accepting money for your services that are preventing you from actively selling like you need to be.”
The client wanted a single solution to what they perceived as being a single problem, when my offer was trying to give them a holistic solution to the core problem. Because of this misalignment, I’m now exhausted trying to convince them to go through the whole process, and they’re beyond frustrated that I’m not just giving them the thing that they want. No one’s happy, and results aren’t flowing, which just compounds the discontentment on all sides.
This is what happens when we bring clients who—although they’re typically really great humans—aren’t a Right Fit for the offer they join. And this is what we prevent by ensuring we have AOM Alignment across our entire business.
AOM Alignment Empowers Reliable Client Results
AOM Alignment is how we cement our reputation as people who reliably deliver on what we say we will, and thus it contributes greatly to real, lasting Sustainable Success. Building AOM Alignment in your business is exactly what you’ll do inside our most popular course, The Aligned Niche.
The Aligned Niche™ is a step-by-step course where you will learn to clearly express who you help and how so that you can confidently showcase what makes you and your work unique everywhere that you’re marketing and selling your stuff.
Through six core modules, you’ll:
- Define your Niche Statement so you can check “find my niche” off your to do list, for good! (p.s. your niche is NOT your ideal client!)
- Identify your Purchase-Ready client so you can hone all of your messaging, copy, and content in on speaking directly to the people who are ready to buy, right away.
- Build offer/s and packages that deliver on what they say they will so you can begin to confidently talk about and sell your work.
- Get what’s in your head out on paper in a way that positions your offer as an obvious-yes for your Right Fit clients so that the right people get it and the people who aren’t yet ready for your work will naturally be filtered out.
If you’re still trying to figure out exactly who you’re talking to and working to attract into your work…
If you want to confidently communicate what makes you and your work unique and valuable amidst the sea of options…
If you are ready to finally define these core elements of your business—your Audience, Offer Suite, and Messaging—so that you can move your business forward how you desire to…
Then join The Aligned Niche today.
You’ll get lifetime of the course access to it from the moment that you sign up, and can begin building and/or solidifying your Right Fit client, sustainable offer suite, and core messaging as early as today. Sign up and get started now.
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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.
