How Creative Entrepreneurs Can Build Their Audience

Are you someone that's posting three times a week, and you haven't seen any growth for the last six months or more?

Maybe you're great at what you do, but you're not seeing the potential clients reach out to you.

And you're considering closing your business because at least twice a week or more you have these thoughts of 'How am I going to get more business? How can I make this grow?'

All entrepreneurs have had these thoughts at certain points in their business and even the most successful businesses today, like Apple, had situations or times where they had to dig deep to find out really how they could reach their audience better and develop that audience into true clients. I am a big believer that you only need 100 true fans to be successful.

I always ask my coaching clients, what's the biggest problem that you're experiencing in your business right now? And 40% of the time, the answer is getting leads, or attracting clients or getting new customers. Here's the truth - we want and need clients in order to have sales so that our business is a business and not just a hobby!

30% of the time the answer to the previous question is about pricing and selling which is actually intrinsically linked to getting new clients. 

The 3 Important Pieces to Building Your Audience

1/ What is your why?

Your why is made up of several things that focus on you, your relationships, and what you want to put out into this world. So once you hone in on those things, you get clarity beyond what you could even imagine, and why is that important? Well, it gives you the groundwork to be able to craft your message.

Do you know your why and where are you where you want to be with your business?
Is it about creating a better life for your family?
Or the freedom to make your own decisions as your own boss, and be able to make the decisions that bring your dreams to light, and craft the future that you want, right?
Or it could mean that you want to create a world where you're doing what you love and that lights you up.

When everything else may seem to go wrong, your "why" is what's going to keep you going no matter what. And I love to dig into that, because working with clients, and seeing what lights them up is what gives me joy, because I get excited seeing their success and dreams come true when they really tap into this. 

2/ Looking at your messaging

In order to stand out in a crowded marketplace today, you have to be able to communicate what your message is, what you're bringing out to the world. One of the best ways to do that is to craft your brand story. This is about stepping out of your comfort zone and telling people what is going on for you in an authentic way. Storytelling in your business is an art form and luckily a skill that can be taught!

Most creatives are great at telling their stories, you have things that happen in everyday life that your audience would love to hear about. And here's the secret. You use those stories to relate to them. And that's what draws them into you even more.

For instance, I was just on a coaching call with someone last week, and she was telling me about how she was working with someone and realised that she wanted to go back to being her own boss, again, it wasn't working out, the business had moved and it was much further away for her to get there every day. We spoke about how empowering it was for her when she made that decision to leave and start up another business again.

So we talked about it more, and she said she didn't have any stories to tell her audience. And I was like, hold on. You just told me the story of how you were empowered to leave that job and start your own business for a second time. That is a personal story to share with your audience. And she looked at me and said, but okay, but how do I use that to talk to my audience? So I proceeded to show her how to tie it all together so that she could talk to her audience and use the story to bring home the point that she was trying to talk about and interact with her audience in a new way. She was so surprised that we were able to do this.

When you become aware of the power of storytelling to deliver your message it really becomes a great way to build your audience. You can find connections in the most mundane of things that you might be doing such as how brushing your teeth is connected to subconscious thoughts and how in order to be successful we need to be aware of these automatic thought systems driving our habits.

When we start to view our days and lives as a series of stories that can help us connect with others it becomes easier to write our content from the heart so that it relates to our audience on a deeper level.

3/ Having a clear call to action!

This is a juicy one but often forgotten - you have to ask for the sale!

Why? Oh, why? Are we so afraid to bring up the sale?

As creative entrepreneurs we really need to be aware of our own money mentality! We need to be aware of our blocks - what makes you feel squeamish about money? Do you have a problem with money? Do you feel as if your service is providing something of value to potential clients? 

A lot of what is circling around asking for the sale and how much price to price things out is all based on fear. And so we get to work on that. Fear has a lot of energy when we feel it. And we are feeling it on the regular. But I'd rather fuel courage.

Courage is stepping out of your comfort zone. Courage is finding a way to do something even when you just don't know if you can do it, and it feels a little uncomfortable and you're going to do it anyway.

So whatever it is that you want your potential clients to do, whether it's subscribe to your YouTube channel, make an enquiry or purchase your service don't be afraid to ask for it!

Want free monthly trainings to support you on your business journey? Join me in my free Business for Creatives Circle community today.