00:00.97
fsb
If you're a man on a mission, ready to serve the world with your gifts and support people on their own personal transformational adventure, how do you build so much trust that you don't even have to sell to them? I'm Gareth and welcome to another episode of the Father's Sons Brothers podcast, where we have inspiring conversations that support men to level up health, wealth and relationships. Today's episode is the third in a three-part series, which is supporting listeners of this podcast to be able to identify how to be able to bring their unique voice to the world, how to find your ideal client, and how to get paid to do that.
00:42.46
fsb
If you've missed episode number 43 and 44, I really recommend going back and checking those out. In episode 43, we spoke really about the idea of personal brand and the importance of personal brand in getting clear on what it is that you're gonna bring to the world.
00:50.16
Alexandra Marostica
00:59.11
fsb
In episode 44, we spoke about who is your ideal client, how to identify your ideal clients, what are their challenges and how you can be positioned to serve them. And in today's episode, Alex is going to be sharing some practical questions that you can use as reflection to position yourself so strongly you don't even have to make sales. Your clients are going to be banging down your door to want to work with you. Alex, thanks for joining us again. Welcome to the show.
01:25.94
Alexandra Marostica
Thank you great to be here again.
01:28.86
fsb
All right, cool. So we have identified that if someone's listening to this episode, they've probably been through episode 43 and 44 already. And they've got to this place where they know that they want to be in service to the world. They know that they've got something unique that they want to bring. And they might be ah a coach or an author or a speaker or a retreat holder, or maybe you want to write a book and bring your unique experience, your life experience to the world in a way that serves other people. You will have then identified in episode number 44, the one before this, who your ideal client is. And today we want to talk about how do we position ourselves to be able to get this person who is our ideal client to say yes to working with us. How on earth do we do that?
02:17.50
Alexandra Marostica
That's a great question. And it is often the very piece of the puzzle that will make or break trust.
02:30.99
Alexandra Marostica
One of the biggest challenges is that when we are marketing ourselves and our service. We make ourselves the center of the brand and it becomes quite egocentric instead of being service-centric. Now one of the goals is when you are presenting yourself as the potential guide to your ideal client, you've identified them, you've connected with them, they're engaging with your brand and now they need to decide if you're the person to help them
03:06.67
Alexandra Marostica
you need to be able to do two things. One is you need to be able to build empathy with their client or show them that you have empathy for their situation. And empathy means that not just understanding it, but that you understand what it's like to be in their shoes. And if you can actually show you have been in their shoes, That's ideal. And then secondly, it's building authority. And authority really is showing that you actually have the knowledge and the skills and the experience to to guide them.
03:45.30
Alexandra Marostica
The challenge is that many of us focus only on that authority bit.
03:46.14
fsb
to let them know that you got the goods, exactly.
03:55.12
Alexandra Marostica
We're all very quick to say I've got this qualification, I've studied under this person, I've done XYZ, and it makes it very focused on the knowledge side, but it misses the heart side, and that's where the empathy is so important. So how do we show in empathy? How do we let the ideal client know that you get them. And so it's really about expressing your story in their terms. So in the last episode, we spoke about how when you are trying to identify your ideal client, one of the things that you can do is look at who you were five or 10 years ago when you started your similar journey.
04:57.13
Alexandra Marostica
Now would be the time to tell them that story.
05:02.92
Alexandra Marostica
Tell them about what it felt like for you when you were in this place, when you were that archetype which we spoke about in the last episode, and you embodied that. Explain how that played out in your life.
05:25.14
Alexandra Marostica
but you're going to go beyond that. You're going to go also and talk about that journey that they haven't started yet that changed you and how and how it has led you to where you are now and explain in detail what you've gained from that journey. Now usually when we tell our story
05:55.89
Alexandra Marostica
There is a moment in the story or a phase or a transition moment where something changed for you. Sometimes we refer to this as an epiphany moment or it's a change catalyst of some kind, but there's some moment in your story at which something happened or you had some kind of realization that shifted you to embark on this journey of growth, development, et cetera. So I'm going to use as an example my own journey just to give an idea of how I position the catalyst. So in my coaching brand, a I help women overcome
06:55.69
Alexandra Marostica
the hardships of breakup and use that as a catalyst for a foundation to an amazing life. So use the break breakup as an opportunity for a breakthrough. This mirrors my own experience. I had a great life worth and when you read my my origin story. I explained about what that looked like. i I had a great career. I had the perfect, in inverted commas, marriage. I explained all this in detail. Something's missing. I don't know at the time what it is. For some reason, I just can't be happy. I explained this in detail, how this made me feel, how I felt guilty for having materially this amazing life, but something didn't resonate.
07:52.51
Alexandra Marostica
I ignored all the signs from the universe, and then the universe pulled the rug out from under me, and that came in the form of my divorce. and I explained what but that was. That divorce is my catalyst moment, or my epiphany moment. That's the moment where I've been faced with two forks in a row.
08:21.66
Alexandra Marostica
I can be bitter, I can be a victim, or I can get better and be a victor.
08:32.12
Alexandra Marostica
and it's you So you tell your story from where they are now, where that fork is, and that choice you have to make. The choice is usually a choice of courage of some kind, but there is some kind of difficulty there. and that takes you down a path.
08:55.70
Alexandra Marostica
And essentially what you're talking to is you are looking for people who are your ideal client but are at that point where they're ready to make a choice. So you are showing them that if you feel ready for a change, this is the choice. I have made that choice and look where it's brought me and i can help you get this
09:25.60
Alexandra Marostica
only once
09:26.11
fsb
So good, I want to just quickly stop you for a second there because there's something in that for for those of you listening you've probably heard this analogy before this hero's journey which is the the natural arc of storytelling which is available in almost every single movie that you watch in every single book that you read. And if you're going to be a creator that's going to put your message out into the world, you are becoming a storyteller.
09:46.78
Alexandra Marostica
I can help you get there.
09:49.97
fsb
And you're going to tell stories over and over and over again. And this story that Alex is talking about now is sometimes called an origin story. But this is the story that you tell that really builds trust with your ideal clients so that when they are out there looking for a solution to overcome their painful divorce, And they come onto two websites. One of them is like, here's how to overcome your divorce. It's a seven-part course with all of these amazing things. That doesn't resonate. That doesn't build trust with somebody.
10:16.13
Alexandra Marostica
Okay.
10:18.28
fsb
If you go onto another website, which is called The Flying Phoenix, and Alex Marostica has a video there talking about going through the pain, having been through this transition, and she shares this transition point, this power moment in her journey, which is where your ideal client might be, There's suddenly a resonance that's like, ah, this person has been where I've been. And this is the empathy building piece that's important in this and this particular story.
10:47.74
fsb
What do we do once we've built empathy with our clients, Ellicott? What's next?
10:53.82
Alexandra Marostica
Yes. so when we yeah So the next thing is once we've built empathy and part of building empathy, which I think I didn't touch on, but it is about being vulnerable. You you do need to you can't tell the superficial version of your story.
11:14.39
fsb
Mm hmm.
11:15.23
Alexandra Marostica
You might I guess it also depends where you're telling the story. You may have different versions of how deep you go, but ultimately, especially if you're a solpreneur and you are operating in the space where you need that level of high trust because of how much you're asking of people to give when they work with you, is you need to display that same level of vulnerability and introspection that you're going to be expecting of them.
11:47.45
Alexandra Marostica
So when you're sharing about what you've been what you felt, about what that that a catalyst moment was like, what you went through to make the choice you made, you really and should be expressing the true emotional cost of that.
11:48.46
fsb
Great point.
12:08.90
Alexandra Marostica
in order to show what the emotional and life change return was that you got from that. So the vulnerability is a very important part of that empathy step. But that empathy step is the step that earns you the right to then go to the authority step. you actually can't share all your qualifications and experience and what makes you a great leader if you haven't first done the empathy step. But if you've done that well, you can then go into this is why. what And also if you can link the two, that's even better. So for example, say in my case, my decision
12:59.18
Alexandra Marostica
to become a coach. Actually, I shouldn't say my decision to become a coach, but my decision to become a coach in this specific field and then to do the necessary trainings and qualifications came in because I felt called as a result of having done this hard work.
13:25.05
Alexandra Marostica
And so your story gives you the license to then share why you're qualified to help them.
13:39.54
fsb
Beautiful. So. If you're listening along and you're thinking about your particular offer, whether you are wanting to share your framework of being a better parent or your own journey from heartbreak to the version of you that is wanting to guide people in relationships, maybe you've got a money program or ah a money methodology, you need to go through this experience to build empathy with your ideal client so that they know that you have the ability to be able to support them and to serve them.
14:01.00
Alexandra Marostica
Okay.
14:09.33
fsb
And just as Alex said, The journey of the solpreneur is really a transformational journey. So it doesn't matter if you've got a parenting program or a money program or a sexuality or dating, whatever the niche is, it's ah underneath all of that is a personal transformation that's required, which means you have to get this empathy part right. I'm not making a decision to buy a blender. I'm making a decision to share my heart with you about where I really am. And in order for me to trust you enough to do that, as Alex said, I need to know that you've been through this and you've shared in a way that can really resonate. And that's the piece of empathy that you're going to need to work into your origin story. And you're going to need to start practicing telling that if you're going to build trust so that you can get people to want to work with you.
14:55.05
Alexandra Marostica
Yes, perfect.
14:56.40
fsb
Great. I love it.
15:00.36
Alexandra Marostica
Okay, so I'm going to just share two questions that you can use to create your the empathy part of your story. And they will be quite obvious actually from what we've just discussed. But they follow on from doing the questions in the last episode. So don't even start these questions. If you haven't done the questions we discussed in the last episode, go back and do those first.
15:31.99
fsb
Okay.
15:34.47
Alexandra Marostica
But once you've done those, and it's really clear for you oh who you're speaking to, which will then also have parallels with your own story,
15:47.82
Alexandra Marostica
The next question is, when you were that person, when you were your ideal client, what is the moment that things changed? What is the moment where you had to make the hard choice which which started to shift your life? and that So that's the first question. and
16:16.28
Alexandra Marostica
be really detailed about that moment and that moment can be can be a period it doesn't necessarily need to be a specific moment but it's a period something happened what was it and what was the choice you had to make and then the next question to answer is when you made that choice how did it change you how did that make your life better? How did it make you more of the authentic true person you were meant to be? Or how did that heal you?
16:59.41
fsb
So good, I love these questions and this is really again this is the meat of what's going to build out your offer page, it's going to build out your sales page and really what we've been sharing in these three episodes is is just a framework to get you going because many people that start this journey start in the wrong place. And the wrong place looks like I'm going to get a website and I'm going to get someone on Fiverr to design a logo and I'm going to be called Gareth Pickering, the relationship coach. And then they jump in starting to make a noise on social media without getting these pieces right. And so the reason that we've put these three episodes together is really to be in service
17:36.36
fsb
so that you don't waste your time barking up the wrong tree, shouting on social media to people that first of all may not listen to you, that may not be the right people, but even if you find the right people who actually have the problem that you're ready to solve, if you're not building empathy with them, if you're not getting to this place of resonating with understanding their particular problem and positioning, your message, your podcast, your blog, your program, whatever it is in a way that supports them, you're not going to have any success. And I can tell you this from personal experience because I've been, ah this is where I started and this is why we're teaching this is because you've been through this journey. We've invested in coaches that have helped us build this. We've built it in our own business and now we're built it into a program.
18:18.32
fsb
that Alex is going to share called Ignition, which is really a journey to help this solpreneur, to help you once you've identified these individual pieces.
18:18.69
Alexandra Marostica
you
18:26.87
fsb
How do I take this now and put it into a way that I can actually get onto social media or up on stage or in a small group of people, however the model best suits you and how you want to be in service? so that you can bring your message to the right people, get them to trust you enough to be able to start working with you and then get paid so that you can be in service to more and more people and to continue to expand your life. So Alex, maybe give a little bit of an update or a um a foreshadowing of exactly what the ignition program is and who it's for.
19:02.96
Alexandra Marostica
Brilliant. So the ignition program is a six month group container. where together with other Soulpreneurs, and this is for Soulpreneurs, it's for people who have soul work, purpose-driven work, that they feel called to share with the world and to be of service to the world. And together with other Soulpreneurs, we go through a process of taking that calling, creating a
19:42.57
Alexandra Marostica
tangible business idea and strategy and then taking that and practically implementing it in a way that attracts your ideal client and helps you to share your gift with them in a way that changes their lives. So that's in a nutshell what that is. and We have three key principles of how we share this. So the first one is the knowledge, understanding what it is that needs to be done. So it's a learning it's a learning journey.
20:24.48
Alexandra Marostica
The second part is the doing. So there is ah it's highly practical. It's and done together with peers so that you're never alone and um how to take every single bit of information in a practical way and apply it. But more importantly, there is the being part. And this is about understanding that As a solopreneur yourself, you are also on your own hero's journey going through this. And you are starting off with just an idea, and you or maybe even an existing business that isn't quite where you want it to be, but in order to get it to where you want it to be, where you are making that impact on the world, and you are being able to share that gift in a meaningful way,
21:21.07
Alexandra Marostica
It's not only the practical changes that you need to make in your business, but it is also about the changes that you as a being need to make. What are the internal changes, the blocks, the obstacles that need to be overcome? What are the fears that need to be allayed? What are the wounds that need to be healed in order to be the person who can confidently share their gifts in a way that is meaningful, powerful, and world-changing.
22:04.62
Alexandra Marostica
And that's the real work.
22:05.07
fsb
So good. Yep. this ah This container is very practical. So as Alex said, it's really about understanding what your unique message is. We're going to work one-on-one with everybody inside the container to make sure that not only do you do the theory, as Alex said, and some of the practical stuff of understanding how you're going to bring it to the world, but we're also going to be holding your hand to make sure that the vehicle that you choose resonates with you, your ideal method. you know If you don't feel comfortable on video, maybe you want to do a podcast or maybe you want to write a blog, we'll help you understand those technical elements.
22:39.06
fsb
But one of our main goals is at the end of six months, we want you to get paid.
22:39.22
Alexandra Marostica
Silence.
22:42.47
fsb
We want to get you to a place where you attract your first clients and get paid so that you're off to the races already.
22:44.84
Alexandra Marostica
Silence.
22:47.99
fsb
It's not just the theory and you've got a whiteboard and now you're waiting. At the end of six months, you will do something that we call a founder's launch, which is actually connecting with a couple of people that resonate with what you're doing bringing your first version of your work to the world or version 1.2 or 2.2 if you already have an existing business, but actually getting paid so that you can start to cash flow. Because the problem with most businesses is not that they run out of energy or that they run out of ideas, it's that they run out of money. And so we really want to make sure that in addition to some of the pieces that Alex spoke about, personal work that you need to do,
23:21.17
fsb
the container of helping you get clear on what you need to do and how you need to do it. We also want to hold your hand and make sure that you get out there and get paid so that you can keep flowing and bringing your message to the world. So if that's something that's interesting for you, below this video, we're also going to include a link to a limited time offer to work one-on-one with Alex. She's working through a series of one-on-one interviews with soulpreneurs that are looking to get clear on this initial piece of their
23:45.50
Alexandra Marostica
Okay.
23:53.65
fsb
offer to the world. And we call this part a personal brand. If you listen to episode number 43, you'll have heard us talking about the importance of personal brand. Alex is going to help you with a personal brand audit. So whether you've got something out in the world already that you'd like us to take a look at and assess and give you critical feedback about how you can enhance and improve that personal brand, Or whether you're brand new to this and you don't know quite where to start, work through these first three episodes. Get some idea of what this personal brand or your unique offer may look like. And then jump on a free call by clicking the link below this video in the show notes.
24:28.17
fsb
Give us a little bit of information about your business. There's a three-minute form for you to fill out, giving us some information about what it is that you want to bring to the world.
24:34.29
Alexandra Marostica
Thanks.
24:35.69
fsb
And then take one of these limited spots with Alex to jump on a call with her and let her assess what work you've done. Get her to support you in refining your messaging. That's something we spoke about in the previous episode and support you so that you have this playbook ready to go out into the world and to be in service. And that personal brand audit is completely free. There's no expectation that it's a buildup for the ignition program, which is kicking off in September, but there's no expectation that you have to do that. We want to support you to get your workout into the world.
25:07.62
fsb
If you're vibing with us and you want to go on the ignition program and you want the additional training, support, personal work, the reflection on who you need to be, overcoming your money blocks, all of that stuff, we didn't even get into that.
25:12.77
Alexandra Marostica
Okay.
25:19.42
fsb
There's a whole lot of stuff that we will support inside that container and we'll make sure that you actually get paid at the end of six months That's going to be the ignition program. Those two are completely separate, but the link to the personal brand audit is below this video. And if that feels like something that'd be interesting to you, we would love to support you. So Alex, thank you for being in service. Thank you again for the ways that you've supported me. in getting clear on my personal brand, both as Gareth Pickering and Father's Sons Brothers, and which have developed and so resulted in the success that we've seen through this podcast and through the creation that we've been putting out into the world. So thank you for the work that you're doing and for the time you've put into this creation for for those listening.
26:01.92
Alexandra Marostica
Thank you so much. And thank you for having me. And it's been such a pleasure working with you and father son's brothers. And there's nothing more gratifying for me than when I see the clients and brands that I work with succeed like it it is just that's my soul work. It just absolutely makes me sore. So I'm i'm just, ah as in flying.
26:35.56
Alexandra Marostica
and yes so i am Thank you. And I'm so so pleased to have been on the show.
26:42.44
fsb
Thank you everybody for checking this out. Please consume these episodes in sequence 43, 44 and 45. Use the journal prompts and the questions that Alex has shared with you to get clear on this first part. And yeah, if you've got this far in this journey, Take the opportunity to grab one of these slots with Alex to do the personal brand audit, and we'll see you in the next episode. See you soon. Thanks, Alex.
27:07.22
Alexandra Marostica
Thank you.
