How to Cement Yourself as the Obvious Choice for Your Ideal Clients – In Just 7 Minutes with Steven Lewis

Resources/Links:

• Get these 39 types of proof that are powerful conversion optimisation tools you can start using immediately. Click here: https://taleist.agency/proof/

Summary

Struggling to make your business stand out in a crowded market? Many skilled professionals find themselves frustrated as their expertise goes unnoticed and potential clients slip away. Without a clear and compelling message, even the most talented individuals can remain invisible to their ideal clients.

Steven Lewis is a copywriter who works with established business owners to position them as the obvious choice for their ideal clients. He’s well known for his no-bullshit approach.

In this episode, Steven shares his no-nonsense approach to positioning yourself as the obvious choice for your clients. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on the transformation you provide rather than just your credentials and offers actionable tips to articulate your value effectively.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 02:06 – Steven’s ideal clients: Coaches or consultants, sometimes maybe they own a small agency, often they’re a digital marketer.
• 02:56 – The problem Steven helps to solve: They don’t talk about what you get.
• 04:09 – Symptom of the problem he helps solve: People who should convert don’t convert.
• 05:18 – Mistakes his clients commit before meeting him: They talk about their credentials, how long they’ve been doing it, and those don’t mean anything to their client.
• 06:29 – Steven’s Valuable Free Action [VFA]: Picture what your client woke up in the morning wanting.
• 08:03 – His Valuable Free Resource [VFR]: Get 39 ways to talk about yourself that prove you’re good at what you do without saying that you are leading or innovative. Click here: https://taleist.agency/proof/
• 08:51 – Q: How do I know how to make you the obvious choice for your ideal client? A: I talk to you because you wouldn’t believe how many people tell me something and I’m saying to them, why the hell isn’t that on your website? And they’re like, oh, I didn’t know that was important. And the other thing is, I talk to your clients because your clients will always talk about what they get and not what you do.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“They don't buy what you do, they buy the transformation that they're going to get.” -Steven Lewis Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome everyone to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. I’m Tom Poland, beaming out to you from the sunny Sunshine Coast here in Australia. Joined today by Steven Lewis. Stephen, good day sir. Very warm welcome to the show. From down under, where are you hanging out?

Steven Lewis 00:23
Tom, I am in the inner west of Sydney where it is sunny but not warm.

Tom Poland 00:28
Go north, young man. Folks, for those of you who don’t know, Steven, he’s a copywriter who has no bullshit approach. This is no longer a family show, so that’s okay. He works with established business owners to position them as the obvious choice for their clients. And the reason I wanted to interview Steven is that I had the good fortune to read some of his copywriting and I was pretty impressed. And whilst I wasn’t a prospect for the particular product on offer, I reached out to Steven and said, hey, I’m probably not a good prospect for you, but I’d love to have on you on my show because I’m really impressed with how your copywriting gets cut through and how you layered fruit in the copywriting and all those things that I wish I had known kind of 40 years ago you seem to be doing. So there folks, that’s why Steven’s on the show, not because he’s paid us money or we get an affiliate commission or anything like that, it’s just he’s here because he’s got the real oil. So title, the official title is How to Cement Yourself as the Obvious Choice for Your Ideal Clients. Now, I’ve had a look at Steven, your website, Tayleist Agency, Tayleist, that’s T-A-L-E-I-S-T agency. And one of the things you do very cleverly there is you show people how to not just cement themselves as the obvious choice, but to kind of make folks what you are offering so proprietary, you are essentially the only game in town. So, I think you’re underselling yourself, Steven. I think the obvious choice, you could almost say the only choice. Anyway, enough of me, let’s get me shutting up and you talking question number one, sir, our seven minutes starts now. Who’s your ideal client?

Steven Lewis 02:06
It’s people who are good at what they do. So they are usually coaches or consultants, sometimes maybe they own a small agency, often they’re a digital marketer and they’ve got as far as they can get with bringing in new clients through word of mouth or doing what they’ve been doing. They need help beyond that.

Tom Poland 02:24
Right, so, they may be going to business networking meetings or posting articles on LinkedIn or something. It’s all about random results or a little bit predictable and they really want something a bit more certain, a bit more systemized. That’s right. A bit more scalable.

Steven Lewis 02:37
A bit more systemized, and a few less blank looks when they’re introduced to somebody, who says, what do you do?

Tom Poland 02:44
Or you put out an email to your list and there’s nothing coming back.

Steven Lewis 02:48
That’s exactly right.

Tom Poland 02:49
All right, so let’s unpack that a little bit. What would you say, question two, six minutes later, what would you say is the problem that you solve?

Steven Lewis 02:56
When you are an expert, you’re really close to what you do. So, you know where your work begins and your work ends and you know what somebody’s going to get and you know why someone will call you and not somebody else. So you are a chiropractor, you know why someone should speak to you, not a physiotherapist or the other way around, right? But the rest of us don’t know that and you need to talk to us in a different way from what you are used to.

Tom Poland 03:20
You already said that they’re good at what they do and the clients they get on board are really happy with the results and so on, but they struggle with how to articulate the benefit of that. They’re probably doing things like our mission is, and we’ve got a vision and we’ve been in business for 30 years, et cetera.

Steven Lewis 03:38
They don’t talk about what you get.

Tom Poland 03:41
Yeah, so it’s probably, I mean we all tend to, we are all the center of our own universe almost. Well literally, I guess physically we are, we, we can’t get away from that. So we tend to be self-focused on what we do, what we believe in, what our passion is, et cetera. Well, that’s sort of a sprinkling of small symptoms there, but question three, what would you say are the other typical symptoms that people are experiencing before they find Tailest?

Steven Lewis 04:09
The biggest problem is that people who should convert don’t convert. So they’ll be introduced to somebody who’s got exactly the problem they solve. And that person will say, oh yeah, no thanks, or ghost them or say, oh, I’ve got to speak to my partner and to my clients. It’s like you are having a heart attack. I come up and say, Tom, I’m a doctor. I’m in the ER, can I help you? And you are saying, oh no, that doesn’t sound like what I need. No. Oh, yeah. But I’m exactly what you need. What is it you don’t understand? And my clients don’t understand what you don’t understand, and they don’t know how to bridge that gap.

Tom Poland 04:47
Okay, so, coaches, consultants, trainers, they’ve got their own business. So we are talking about people, they’re very proactive, they’re very growth-orientated, they’re very committed. I mean, they’re probably left a good paying job and want to make this thing happen. So they’re going to try stuff, is what I’m saying. They’re not going to be sitting on their date, just going to do little business for me. Question four is, what would you say are some of the common mistakes that these folk who need a systematic approach to their marketing, what would you say that the common mistakes they’re making, they should stop doing?

Steven Lewis 05:18
They ramp up talking about their credentials, they talk about their credentials, how long they’ve been doing it. Classic is, I work with a lot of lawyers, for instance, and they always want to tell you, I’ve been doing this for 26 years. And as I always say to them is, okay, that’s great, but what happens when I meet someone who’s been doing it for 27 years? Do you immediately go out of the window and they want to say they’re leading, they’re innovative, these are the kind of things they do, and those don’t mean anything to their client.

Tom Poland 05:46
They definitely say, yeah, and it all becomes blah, blah blah for the prospect. It’s like eyes glaze over and that’s probably why you know your metaphor about the doctor who’s with someone who’s having heart attacks. The articulation of the benefit is not clear, it’s not getting cut through. It’s not specific and explicit. So it’s just words, it’s just meaning general motherhood statements that don’t really present a point of difference. Let’s flip it then. Let’s leave behind the ugly stuff that hasn’t worked. Let’s have a look at stuff that does work. Two and a half minutes left. What’s one valuable free action, like a top tip that someone could physically take, not going to solve the whole problem, but it might take them a step in the right direction.

Steven Lewis 06:29
They don’t buy what you do, they buy the transformation that they’re going to get. So what you need to do, and I say this to my clients all the time, is picture what your client woke up in the morning wanting. And they didn’t want a lawyer, they didn’t want a contract, they wanted to be able to conduct business with more confidence. Or if you are a leadership coach, they didn’t wake up thinking, God, I’d love to talk for an hour a day about leadership. They wake up thinking, I wish my bloody team wasn’t so dysfunctional or I’d really like to get that next promotion. That’s what they want to get from you. Once you’ve identified that thing, talk about that thing.

Tom Poland 07:11
Right? So lead with that, get the cut through, lead them by the hand based on where they are and where they want to get to. And then perhaps some of the credential stuff can come later on once we’ve got them motivated. One of the things I love about your copywriting is that when I read it, it’s interesting, and it’s engaging, but it’s also got a quite clever way of blending the psychological stuff that you need to get the cut through along with the logical stuff. And that’s quite unusual for copywriting. So there is this nice balance between the psychological stuff that needs to happen and the rational stuff that helps people understand how it happens. So under a minute left, so I better go giddy up, free resource. Where can people go to find out, and I know you’ve got a cracker because I’ve subscribed to it, where can people go to get the proof document you’ve got? Tell us about that.

Steven Lewis 08:03
So if you go to taleist.agency/proof, that’s Tale as in Telling Tales, Taleist, T-A-L-E-I-S-T dot agency, you’ll get 39 ways to talk about yourself that prove you’re good at what you do without saying that you are leading or innovative. It’ll teach you how to say things that people will listen to.

Tom Poland 08:26
Right? So folks, it’s tale as in story as Steven just said, Taleist, T-A-L-E-I-S-T dot agency slash proof. There’s also copywriting tips there as well, but in particular, I’ve subscribed to that, downloaded that proof document and it’s very clever. So that’ll get you started. Question 7, 29 seconds left, sir, what’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t and the answer please?

Steven Lewis 08:51
The question is, how do I know how to make you the obvious choice for your ideal client? And it’s a two-part answer. One is, I talk to you because you wouldn’t believe how many people tell me something and I’m saying to them, why the hell isn’t that on your website? And they’re like, oh, I didn’t know that was important. And the other thing is I talk to your clients because your clients will always talk about what they get and not what you do. And that’s what you want your marketing to be about.

Tom Poland 09:16
Perfect. One second to spare. Steven, been a pleasure. Thank you much for your insights and your wisdom. Folks, the website is taleist.agency/proof/, T-A-L-E-I-S-T dot Agency slash proof. Go get it. Thanks, Steven.

Steven Lewis 09:28
Thanks Tom.

Tom Poland 09:30
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.