Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 294 with the amazing Samantha Riley.

Samantha Riley [0:08]
Hi, this is Samantha Riley and you’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:14]
I can’t wait to dive into this episode with Samantha. It was such an amazing conversation about getting clear on who you are serving for more impact and more clients. And I hope you’re getting a ton out of this episode. Samantha Riley is a speaker, International Business Growth Strategist. She is a number one best-selling author, the host of the “Thought Leaders Business Lab Podcast”, where I also had the opportunity to be a guest. So make sure you definitely check that out. And she has over 25 years of personal experience in building and growing businesses. Today, Samantha helps thought leaders and experts to scale their business by leveraging their knowledge so they can have more income, more freedom, more impact. How amazing is that? Let’s dive right in. Well, I am so super excited to have you on Heart Sells! Podcast today. Sam, welcome.

Samantha Riley [1:11]
Thank you. I’m very excited to be here with you. Finally.

Christine Schlonski [1:14]
Yes, I know. And I just love your work. And it’s so impactful, especially for coaches, consultants, who want to take that knowledge and bring it to the world in a way that the world understands. What they do, how they do it, how much it’s going to be. So let’s start with the challenge that a lot of people have, they have a gift, but they don’t know how to communicate it. What do you see as the biggest challenge people actually have?

Samantha Riley [1:50]
I think that the biggest challenge has and you actually alluded to already in the first like 10 seconds, like bang you did it, is that a lot of coaches and consultants find it really difficult to express clearly what it is that they do. And when they can’t express what it is that they do, who they help. It’s very, very difficult for your ideal prospect to say, ah, that’s the exact problem I have. That’s the exact person I am. And I’m going to come to you to find out, you know how to solve that problem. So I think that that’s the very first problem that they have. And then off the back of that, the second biggest problem they have is explaining exactly what it is that they sell.

Samantha Riley [2:36]
And I’m sure that you see this as well to Christine often is that people will reach out and say, oh, my goodness, Sam, I need more leads. I don’t have enough leads. And I say sure start to tell me about what it is that you’re selling? And they say, oh, well, you know, it depends. And it’s a bit of this and maybe it’s a bit of that. And I’m like no, just tell me, what is it? How much is it? And they’re like, well, I don’t exactly know. So even if they did get more leads, they wouldn’t be able to explain, this is the package, this is the thing that you’re signing up to, to purchase. And I see that these two problems are the biggest problems that most coaches and consultants have.

Christine Schlonski [3:18]
Yeah, and I think everybody else too, like as soon as you want to sell something that you have to create, like if you are creative or a healer, right, you need to package your services in a way that the other person gets it. Because if they don’t get it, they can’t buy it. Right.

Samantha Riley [3:37]
It sounds so blatantly obvious when you say it like that. But I think and this is a problem that we all have. And I say all because it’s definitely me included. It’s very difficult to read the label from inside the jar, or we need other people to help us, to see what we can’t see. It’s like where we’re in a muddy pond. And we’re pedaling as fast as we can trying to grow a business. But all we’re doing is making that pond murky, you know, we need to stop and sometimes let other people help us. Let the dust settle and say, this is what it is.

Christine Schlonski [4:11]
Yeah, totally. And I include myself as well right, finding out what I wanted to sell and how I wanted to sell it and to whom I wanted to sell it. That was a journey.

Samantha Riley [4:22]
I know.

Christine Schlonski [4:23]
Yeah, it wasn’t, it wasn’t an easy one. Right. I wish I would have known you back then. But I did now.

Samantha Riley [4:29]
So it was funny because I find it easy to do this for other people. But for myself. No, I still need other coaches to help me. And yeah, a journey is an understatement, I think for many of us to finally get to where we are.

Christine Schlonski [4:44]
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. It’s so easy to do for others like I bang out core concepts, in minutes and I’m thinking like, wow, where did this come from? And you can get like the sparkle in their eyes and they’re so excited about how they now can do it. And then when you think about your next thing and how you want to do it, and what’s the benefit, and why people should come and get it, it’s like, oh, it’s more complicated. So I always like to have someone to discuss this with like a mentor or coach, or, you know, like maybe a sparring partner where we exchange ideas. And that’s so interesting. And I’m, you know, people just stay tuned, we have a wonderful checklist that we’re going to talk about at the end of this episode. So you definitely want to stay tuned and pay attention to how to get that. But I just love that it’s not about the lead generation necessarily. And a lot of people think that.

Samantha Riley [5:45]
It just can’t start there, we have to start off with knowing and being able to clearly articulate what it is we do. And I’ve got a process for that. Because I think what, what most people do is they think about, well, what is my expertise? Or what is my background, and that’s all they think about. But that doesn’t give us a really deep understanding or a way of explaining it in a deep way. So I’ve got a principle called the keep principle. And I call it the keep principle because it’s what is that thing that is going to keep you getting out of bed every day. And I think I know that you deal with a lot of creatives and my backgrounds in dance, I’m very creative. And I kept getting caught in this thought of, but I like all these different things. I’m really scared to niche, I’m really scared to tell people I do this one thing because I was afraid of getting bored.

Christine Schlonski [6:38]
Oh, yeah.

Samantha Riley [6:41]
I know, it’s not just me. And I was like.

Christine Schlonski [6:42]
I hear you

Samantha Riley [6:43]
But I can do all these things, I don’t want to just niche and do this fun thing. So it’s from me being that creative, that has pulled this process out in a way that you can bring in different ideas to create something that’s unique. So the keep methodology is about knowledge, expertise, experience, and passion. So it’s not just, you know, what we would write in a resume is really just our expertise. But we need to bring all of these different things in a way that is unique to us. So starting off with knowledge, your knowledge is just what would be in a CV or a resume, it’s that thing that you went to university or college for? It’s you know, the certificate that’s on your wall? And then your expertise is? What is that specific thing about your personality? That means that you are the go-to person in that, like who would who all the people in the office? Why did they come to you, there’s that one thing that you do differently to everyone else, what’s your, your specific expertise that you’re nine or 10 out of 10 in.

Samantha Riley [7:53]
Then your experience, this is where we start to really bring in some cool things or experiences are things like you know, possibly you’ve had a life-changing, a career move or you’ve lost a lot of weight, or you’ve you know, had a family, all these different things that bring in experience in a way that gives you empathy with your target market. And then your passions. I think it’s really cool to bring your passions in. And these can be used in different ways they can either be used to, they used in your branding, they could be used in your messaging so that people are attracted to you, you know, I pick up clients because their ex-dancers, they hear me talking about dancing. Or they could be used in metaphors, in your teaching. So it’s really cool to bring these out and when you mess up these four areas of knowledge, expertise, experience, and passion together, you come up with something that’s very unique. So that’s the starting point. And then from there, exactly like you said before, who is that person? Who is that ideal person that you could help with all of those things?

Christine Schlonski [9:04]
Yeah, I just love it. And you just made me smile when you talked about the experience like your, your personal blend like nobody is like you. Nobody has experienced the same things as you did. Right? Just gonna throw a personal example in like you got married in Alaska on the glacier.

Samantha Riley [9:25]
I did.

Christine Schlonski [9:25]
that’s such fun, right where you only could get by helicopter, and now you live at the beach in Sydney, Australia. I mean, how cool is that like the cold, the hot, the beach? But you know, it’s just it’s so beautiful. And that’s like a very unique blend. Nobody else in the whole wide world has these experiences in the way you do?

Samantha Riley [9:47]
Absolutely. So it’s funny I was, I was at a mastermind the other day, we managed to get out of, you know, house arrest in this COVID period. I think we’re about to be locked down again. So it was only two one of the few weeks that I was allowed out, but I walked into the room and someone said, Ah, congratulations on getting married, you know, the photos were amazing. And like that was two years ago, people still remember that. It’s a great talking point and it’s great to bring those things into your brand. Because people will remember them.

Christine Schlonski [10:20]
Yeah, totally. And it makes you human. Right? It’s not just about the knowledge or the, you know, the degree you’ve gotten or whatever. Like, it’s, it’s that personal, like, what do you like? What do you love? Right. So like, in the beginning, for example, when, when I started to build my personal brand, I did not really talk about you know, I have four cats and two dogs because I thought when I talk about, you’re gonna think I’m crazy. Well, but also I have the property to, you know, host two dogs, and four cats, they have space, it’s pretty big. So they work themselves. And you know, for someone in a little town apartment, obviously, that would be a lot of animals in one place. But here, it’s just, you know, it’s pretty big and fast. So they, you know, they go about their days, and they check-in when they are hungry or want the cuddle. And so I did not really talk about it at the beginning. And I realized so many people love animals, and that’s how we connect like they have a dog or they have a cat or maybe even two and they have the same size.

Christine Schlonski [11:29]
Like all people think I’m crazy, you know, I have three cats. Like oh well, I can talk that out for, you have a different kind of communication, or when you share pictures, maybe on social media or on your website, people get more like the human part of you, the authentic part.

Samantha Riley [11:48]
Mm-hmm.

Christine Schlonski [11:49]
And I think giving people that permission, as you say in your keep principle. But you have the knowledge, the expertise, the experience, what was the last one?

Samantha Riley [11:58]
And passion.

Christine Schlonski [12:00]
Obviously, the passion, and how can I forget? And you put that all together? That’s your unique blend? Yes. Right. And just talking to you about this makes me like, super, that’s so exciting. So how can someone start? Like let’s say someone is struggling, they don’t really have a clear picture of what they want to do, they are like all over the place. Right, they could potentially support so many people, and niching down seems to be impossible. And it feels like they’re cutting off a piece of them. Because now means like, they’re leaving out so many people that they could support that why is this important? And why is it good for that person to really get their business working?

Samantha Riley [12:46]
And this is such a good question. Because I think that we all go through this process of being really afraid of the niche. And the first thing to be really aware of is that people are afraid to niche because they think that they’re going to have fewer clients. But in actual fact, once you do get this niche at a deep enough level, you will attract more clients, because all of a sudden people understand what it is you do, they will refer you when someone’s you know, you’re at a networking event, or you’re, you know, talking like you and I are now and someone says I’ve got this problem, or I’ve got someone that’s got this problem straight away. It’s like I know exactly who you can help. Rather than just, you know, I’m a business coach, people aren’t going to remember you for that. But if you were a business coach for, you know, accounting practitioners, then that’s different. You know, at a networking event, someone says, I’m really struggling to grow my accounting practice this set, I know exactly who to connect you with. So that’s the importance of niching, you’ll actually get more leads, and more clients.

Samantha Riley [13:55]
So I think that if someone’s really really struggling, start to think about who is it that you love to work with the most. And you know, I always say, you know, don’t do this in front of your laptop and make it all logical. Pour a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and go sit in the sun and go and take your colored pins and your art pad and start to just let that flow like, who is this person that you love to work with? And you know, the person that you’re excited when it’s time to have a one on one call with them. The person that is constantly referring to you and telling everyone how amazing you are, the person that buys your products, they don’t ask for a discount, they purchase and they’re-purchase and they join all your programs, who’s that person? And then when you, when you’ve thought about that keep principle and you’ve to mind dumped that whole thing? How can you marry up this one person that you love to work with? What are they attracted to out of that knowledge, expertise, experience, and passion and start to, you know, cross out the things that they wouldn’t be attracted to, and start to see how that art, how their art comes together.

Christine Schlonski [15:15]
Yeah, I love it. I always call them my soulmate clients.

Samantha Riley [15:20]
Mmmm I love that.

Christine Schlonski [15:21]
They put a smile on my face. And you know, especially for those who do work one on one with me when they, you know, when they go to my calendar link, they book themselves, and I get the notification. If I don’t have a smile on my face, something went wrong.

Samantha Riley [15:36]
Can I share a story about the day that I realized the difference between the client and an A client?

Christine Schlonski [15:42]
Oh please, yes.

Samantha Riley [15:44]
So I had two clients booked in for one on one sessions back to back, and the first client logically ticked all the boxes that had a $17 million dollar company, they’d come to me, they’d come to one of my two-day intensives. You know, they were raving about me at the intensive, they were like, wow, I think you’re the first coach that’s able to get me past this 20 million mark, like, I’m so excited. But then sort of as we went on things, just they started to not flow. It wasn’t like Teflon, it wasn’t that things didn’t flow quickly. It was really grinding. And this particular day, we’ve been on the call. And it felt like on the call, we were going in circles, I couldn’t get her to this point that she needed to go. And I was thinking, What is wrong with me? I’m actually a good coach. But like, maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was. Because I cannot get, I cannot get her to answer this.

Samantha Riley [16:41]
It felt like everything was almost argumentative, like, we just couldn’t sell on anything. Anyway, I was on the phone with her for an hour, I feel like we didn’t kind of get there. So it’s a bit like, took a deep breath, went to call my second client and picked up the phone, she put a smile on my face straight away. And within five minutes, we had the answer. And she was on her way. And that it was, at that exact moment that I realized that that first client wasn’t my ideal client. And it wasn’t my coaching abilities that were lacking. It was that we should never have worked together, that we just weren’t in alignment. We weren’t a fit. But I’d allowed the logic to tell me that she was an ideal client. So it is, you know, there’s got to be a gut feel there isn’t all logic.

Christine Schlonski [17:31]
Yeah, I thank you so much for sharing the story. And I’m gonna share something that complements this. So when I learned to like, I wanted to be in business, and I was supposed to find my ideal client avatar, I didn’t know where to start. And it felt so heavy. And then, you know, I went back to the task again and again and again. I was like, what I can’t figure it out. So then, you know, I had the first idea. And then the next idea flew. And then the next idea next, so I had four all of a sudden, and from these four my logic came in. And my logic was like, how can I grow fast? Who of these would have the possibility to pay me for my services? How can I make a fast and big impact now? That’s what I chose, only to figure out after I was into it. Some weeks had paid someone to build a simple landing page, that this was not at all what I wanted to do, it was totally out of alignment, it was just a logical decision, thinking of the impact and the money piece. So I could feel safe, and I could feel accomplished and successful. And it wasn’t at all aligned. And then when I allow myself to drop this and to really go for the ideal client that puts a smile on my face. Everything was aligned. Mm-hmm. And it’s funny when yeah, when we allow logic to come in, instead of listening to the intuition to the gut, as we find ourselves in places we do not want to be in.

Samantha Riley [19:14]
I totally could not agree more.

Christine Schlonski [19:17]
Thank you so much for sharing this because I know that a lot of listeners go for logical reasons like this should be working because this ideal client might not have the funds to pay me but this one for sure does. So I’m going to go down this route. And usually, we end up in a bad place. But the good thing is you can add the money piece into the equation of your soulmate client.

Samantha Riley [19:42]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [19:42]
They have the money to pay you right?

Samantha Riley [19:44]
Absolutely.

Christine Schlonski [19:45]
This was like mind-blowing once I got the concept. Obviously, my ID client has some money to pay me or they will find the money to pay me and they will pay me upfront. Simple,

Samantha Riley [19:57]
Yep.

Christine Schlonski [19:58]
Right. Just put it into your client. avatar, not everyone will do it. But you know, when they commit, they commit.

Samantha Riley [20:06]
You don’t want everyone to, anyway, do you? You do not want everyone to work with you, because there are some people that we can help at a high level, and there are some people not so much. And that’s not because of our skills, it’s just that we’re not necessarily aligned, and they are better off working with someone else. And that’s where we have to be really aware of our personality as well. Like, I’m a very day type of personality. So I work with, I work with a lot of men, I don’t just work with women, which a lot of women just work with females. Because I’m quite direct. So the women that I do work with are a certain type of woman. They’re not, funnily even though I’m a creative, you know, if it very softly spoke women, I think sometimes I scared them.

Christine Schlonski [21:00]
Yeah, and that’s fine, you just need to know about you, right?

Samantha Riley [21:03]
Absolutely.

Christine Schlonski [21:04]
Yeah. And I think that’s why they also say like, you know, finding or having your own business is the best personal development path, you can walk.

Samantha Riley [21:13]
Absolutely.

Christine Schlonski [21:15]
So I, you know, I discovered a ton about myself over these last years. And, you know, it was always triggered in some kind of like business, right? Because you’re thinking like, how can I have more impact? Or how can I attract more of these wonderful soulmate clients? Or how can I do this, and this, and then you find, oh, well, the bottleneck is me. Ha, interesting. So let’s get rid of this blog, or this belief, that’s not serving me anymore. And let’s shift into that higher version. And all of a sudden, you attract the right people. And I’m, like, always amazed when I get stuck, like having, or allowing the thought, right, it’s not the others, it starts within, it’s that there’s me like trusting, knowing, having the ability, learning, and shifting into that space where I can provide the space for that soulmate client is so so crucial.

Samantha Riley [22:15]
And I love, I love soulmate clients, I just think it’s so beautiful. And because it’s such a good feeling, it’s a feeling that puts a smile on your face, when you’re very clear on who that is. And when you can picture them. And when you can feel that feeling that they give you. And when you know what it is that you are able to do to help them, you are energetically going to attract them to you. Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s that clarity of knowing who they are, and what you can do to help them.

Christine Schlonski [22:46]
Yeah, I love it. So what means Heart Sells for you.

Samantha Riley [22:53]
Heart Sells is a mixture of what we just talked about then, attracting that right person. And for me, selling is about solving a problem. To me selling isn’t, I have set my budget at this, or I have set my goals at this. And I will sell to whoever comes under my nose just to make sure I hit that. To me, that’s not what selling is about what Heart Sells is about a person coming to me and me knowing that, by selling to them, I can solve their problem. And it’s the right fit, not just a sale for the sake of a sale, it’s about me, it’s about an exchange of money for a service that is going to make sure that my client achieves the transformation that they’re looking for. And at that point, it’s not about the dollars, right? The dollars are just it just happens. But it’s actually about that beautiful feeling you get when you’re like I just want to help this person. And I know I can help them. And I can see that in you know, one month or six months that they’re going to be able to achieve this outcome. And that’s what Heart Sells is to me.

Christine Schlonski [24:08]
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. To me also, it’s like the authentic piece. You can be who you are, you don’t need to pretend, you are a certain kind of coach or mentor so you make sure the money gets into the door. But you really, you partner with your clients, you go that path together as long as they work with you and just having this amazing feeling and seeing the successes like totally excites me every single time right when people message me like I just had the other day a person that I’m helping to step into that bigger version, that higher version where she sells at a higher price point as well to attract better clients. And she just messaged me, she has had, sold, her next high ticket package. And she was like it’s so strange. doesn’t really feel like a high ticket anymore.

Samantha Riley [25:02]
Yeah, because all you’re doing is solving a problem.

Christine Schlonski [25:06]
Yeah. And it’s so beautiful to see people stepping in, right, all of a sudden they have more resources available, they struggle less, or they stopped struggling, and they can really focus on the impact. And you know, on the scale of their business and leveraging the knowledge, like what you teach, and I love that you brought us the “Thought Leaders Positioning Checklist”. Because that’s what we talked about, right? This is so important to get the right foundation. And so let us know what people get when they download your checklist.

Samantha Riley [25:46]
So the Thought Leaders Positioning Checklist is the five beginning of the key factors that you need to do to position yourself so that your ideal client is attracted to you. So I’m not going to share the five, the five tips, of course, but we have to remember that in a world that’s very online, we’re on social media, we have a blog or a podcast, we need to be positioning ourselves so that we’re showing up at the right level that our ideal client wants us to, to be at. And it’s very important to get these foundations right. Because if you don’t, you’re sending a mixed message to your prospects. And if they are, as we, you know, we talked about at the beginning of the episode, if your ideal prospect is confused, they still will purchase a product to help them with their problem. But it won’t be you, it’ll be the person who can clearly articulate what it is that they do.

Christine Schlonski [26:44]
Ouch. To prevent that, because, you know, usually, as we know, if yeah, the soulmate client comes, we are the person who can help them at their highest level. So you want to make sure that your positioning is so clear that you go through that checklist, and you check off those boxes, and you do the work so that your ideal clients, your soulmate clients end up with you and not with someone else.

Samantha Riley [27:15]
Absolutely.

Christine Schlonski [27:17]
Awesome. Thank you so, so much, Sam, I’m so excited to have the chance to go deeper within the next episode. And I have a ton of questions left. And so thank you so, so much for your time today. And yeah, looking forward to talking to you soon.

Samantha Riley [27:32]
Thank you so much. Me too.

Christine Schlonski [27:34]
I really hope you have gotten a lot out of this episode, because getting clear on who you serve is so important that you can actually have more clients, more impact, more business success, to create the freedom, impact, and income that you truly desire. And Samantha is just brilliant when it comes to laying these foundations. And I hope you have gotten this out of the episode. And you are either re-working or re-thinking these strategies, or you are starting with these strategies which both of these are so super important. And just as a side note, I always work on how to express what I do. This is an ongoing process. It’s nothing that’s written in stone. So if you are not really clear right now, just don’t worry, right, get support, and really flesh that out so that when you go to a networking meeting, you are not the person that just says, Well, I’m a coach, or I’m a consultant, you’re the person that’s entertaining, and that’s drawing in their soulmate clients right away.

Christine Schlonski [28:39]
Hop on over to christineschlonski.com, there you find the show notes of the episodes, including a transcript, including the resources we talked about, so you can download your free gift. And also all the links to Samantha are just right there. I highly recommend you check her out and her wonderful work. And once you’re over at christineschlonski.com and you have not yet signed up for “The Empowerment Notes” do that when you over there, because I will send you empowerment right into your inbox with some amazing strategies, tools, motivation, inspiration, and things I usually do not share on social media. So it’s totally worth signing up and getting your copy into your inbox to be more inspired. And let me help you grow your business from the heart with heart by simply selling more because we know that Heart Sells. Thank you so much for having been here. Have an amazing day wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I’m saying bye for now.