Episode 152: Adria DeCorte on Calling in Your Potential Clients

January 23, 2019 | Maggie Patterson

Clients are the lifeblood of our business, but sometimes, it can be challenging to figure out where to find them. Adria DeCorte shares a fresh take on finding clients by calling them in and making them know you’re the right choice.

On the show we talk about a lot of ways to find clients for your business, so when I recently talked to Adria about how she was having clients consistently come to her based on her podcast, interviews on other people’s shows, and Instagram, I knew I wanted to have her share HOW she was doing that. Adria shares some practical advice on how to have your clients coming to you — even when you’re not butt-in-chair working.

Adria works with women who are serviced-based business owners — especially people like coaches that have a big mission behind their business. She helps them get clarity on what it is they actually do in terms of the clients they want to serve. So, from the perspective of their people, that means they also need to get clarity on who their people really are, and then shape that into the messaging that they’re seeing online. How they show up as a personal brand for their business creates a lot of deep connection with their people, builds their audience, and essentially, ends up calling in their people to work with them. Not just any people, but the people that are the right fit for them.

Finding Your “Right” People

People have such a challenge with finding out who their right people are, and it can be super overwhelming. Adria agrees: “I just came from a client call right before this and this is one of the things we were talking about. I feel like we need to define the right people first because in business — especially when you have a service based business — a lot of times I get clients coming to me wanting to do everything for everyone. So a lot of times what we’re looking at and getting clarity on first is, who do you actually wanna work with, and what is it you would actually do for that person that matters to them?

“Finding the right people can be very personalized to you as the business owner. It can be like what are the types of people you actually enjoy working with? Who do you vibe with? How do you talk? Are you a really practical person or are you more woo? Who are you, actually, if you show up as you in your marketing, if you’re being real? Who are the people that are going to want that and will be drawn to that need your specific energy to do the specific thing that you do? What is it that you are gifted at doing and that you actually feel an alignment delivering for clients? So many of those different things all play a part in answering that question.”

Keep in mind that just because you could do something or you could serve this person, does not mean they’re your right client. Just because they have money does not mean they’re your right client. It’s easy to fall into that trap — especially in your first few years of business.

Channel Your Clarity

Along with helping her clients find their right people through her group program, Get Clear, Get Clients, she also offers one-on-one work that provides clarity generation. Adria explains, “A lot of my clients are lacking the direction, lacking the clarity, and so I help them channel it, pull it out of them, and see the connecting dots. I lead them through finding that alignment in what they’re doing, who they’re talking to, how they’re showing up. Also, I help them with the messaging side of things: What is the marketing copy and how do we put this into a written language?”

No Clients, No Business

As a services business owner, I always like to find out how other businesses find themselves booked up with clients. When I asked Adria this, she provided insight into how she gets clients to come her way: “The way that has felt really good for me, just in my personality and how I’ve shown up this past year, has been through doing interviews — much like this one — through my own podcast, and also through Instagram. So, by showing up on all those platforms in a really consistent way, both in my messaging and in weekly, daily, being there, being seen, being present, creating connections with people. And then, honestly, how all those things interact together, too. So someone might find me on an interview and then kind of feel connected, feel like I have the solution to the problem that they have, come back to my podcast, binge on episodes of the podcast, and then want to check me out deeper on my website or my Instagram. They end up booking a call, already feeling like they know me, already feeling like I can help them, like I’m the one to work with them. I’m not just one out of a number; I am the person that they’re specifically looking for.”

By the time someone gets to the point where they’re booking that sales call or that consult call, they’ve already done like 75% or more of their research on you. They’re contacting you at a point when they’re pretty close to making a decision. So, I agree, we need to have kind of all those pieces interwoven so that they can get all that research done and feel really, really comfortable before they reach out to us.

Calling in Clients

Adria has an interesting phrase she uses: calling in clients. I asked her to go more in-depth and explain where this came from. Adria explains, “When I talk about calling in clients, I’m really talking about that process of how all the places people find me and this kind of chain event that happens and how they’re all synergistically working together. So, it’s totally that flow of the interview leading to binging on my core content, leading to checking out my website, leading to booking a call, leading to showing up already wanting to work with me. It’s that complete chain of events. And the thing that really ties it all together, though, is the clear messaging. It’s having that deep sense of who my people are, what motivates them, what they’re thinking, what’s going on in their head, just having that deep knowing and how I fit into the picture. Like what is the problem I actually solve for them and how am I connecting with them? That is what creates the whole effective calling in your clients.”

Will Travel…and Book Clients

Adria traveled a ton last year and was still able to call in clients and book them. She let us in on her secret to success: “In 2018, I took at least 16 different trips. This year, 2019, is shaping up to probably be pretty similar. And, yeah, even when I would come home from trips to like Malta or London or backpacking the Grand Canyon, I would have calls with potential clients who were interested in working together booked. I really believe one of the things I saw especially happen last year when I really focused on being consistent was that this really locked into place. I focused on alignment in my messaging even deeper, and I mean I’ve been doing this for years, but I still need to continually realign and do what I call clarity resets.

I evolve all the time. Am I still speaking to the right people? Am I still saying things that light me up or am I saying things that feel a little bit too contrived? Am I being real? So, I feel like a piece of how this all really locked into place was me making sure to take this time and this space to come back into alignment — because I was feeling a little bit off — and then continuing to be consistent. I’m going to show up regularly for my people, and I’m going to show up real. I’m going to let them see me, I’m going to talk about things that matter on my podcast, and I’m going to do episodes every single week. I’m going to allow myself to take a break but then I’m going to make that commitment.

“I also had a PR person, Cher Hale, who was pitching me for podcasts regularly, so it was like this concept of wanting to show up consistently in the ways that I knew worked for me. Like I know that being interviewed works, I love having these conversations — it’s so fun. I also know it leads to people coming into my world. I love recording podcast episodes. I really love the connection with my people, and I also know, this past year especially, that a lot of clients come down that road. So it was being able to see the things that are working and that are in alignment for me. It feels good to deliver and make that commitment to showing up consistently on those platforms.”

Consistency Is Key

So many people start things and they don’t assess from the beginning if it something they actually want to be doing or is it a case of they think it’s something they should be doing. It really shows through at the end of the day because they don’t follow through. They start the podcast and they abandon it because they actually really hate doing interviews, or they start on Instagram stories, and they do it for like two times. It’s that willingness to commit to showing up week in, week out.

Even with all of Adria’s travel, she’s not off the grid. Instead, she takes us along with her. Adria says, “When I’m traveling, I get to bring people into my Instagram stories, and then when I come home, I get to share about some of the insights I had while I was there in my next newsletter or my next podcast episode. The travel is something that re-energizes me and that gives me fuel and ideas and creative energy and that gets to then get translated back to my people. So, instead of being something that depletes my business energy and takes away from it, it’s actually something that’s adding to it, because like you were saying, I’ve found what is aligned for me.

“In 2019, when I was planning for the year, I decided I didn’t want to do anything new. I want to do the things that work, and I want to go deeper in them. My word for the year is depth. As business owners, we often times just keep trying things, and we don’t give it enough time to see if we really enjoy it, or we keep doing something that isn’t in alignment. I think the more and more we can find the things that work for us, that feel really good for us, and sink into them, the more powerful we will be at calling in our people.”

It’s so true because I really believe if you actually really detest doing a task, the energy’s going come through on there.

Adria elaborated: “I started the year last year doing a lot of Facebook Lives, and then I realized that I wasn’t actually enjoying them, that I was enjoying Instagram. I shifted my energy, and for the rest of the year, and still today, Instagram has been my focus because I feel better when I’m there, and that’s something I took note of and translated it into how I was marketing my business.

“It’s not always about just having more and more tactics; it’s about the couple that actually work for you and how you can use them with the actual intention. I think coming back to what we were talking about earlier, when you have that clarity on your people and on what you do and those things are in alignment, then your tactics are a lot more likely to work for you.

Wrapping this up, I asked Adria what the number one thing is that we need so that people can find us and we can call them in and they can do business with us?

Her response: “It’s the clarity. Clarity on who your people are that you are going to be calling in, what you do for them, how to say it in words that land and communicate the value in your work. It all really starts with clarity. If you don’t have that, you can feel stuck so easy and it’s hard to have any direction.

Summary: Three How to Attract Potential Clients Lessons:

Consistency is everything. Adria shared how she’s focused on showing up consistently with her podcast and via interviews to ensure that she’s consistently reaching out to potential clients. Consistency seems so simple, but it’s actually a challenge, and Adria’s success shows that when you do the work to show up week in, week out, it will pay off.
You need to get clear on your message. You can be ultra consistent, but if you’re not sure who you serve, how you do it, and what you have to offer, you’re going to struggle. Paying attention to what your core message really is and investing time in fine tuning over time means you’re able to articulate what you do and the right clients can raise their hand to work with you.
People make decisions BEFORE they contact you. At the point someone contacts you, they’ve already done their homework, meaning you need to have enough information for them to go on to decide if you’re a good fit. Adria shared how interviews, her podcast, and Instagram all work together — on a consistent basis — so people learn to know, like, and trust her before they book a clarity call.

Links for the Show:

About Adria:

Adria DeCorte, M.S., is a Message Clarity Coach, helping women coaches and mission-driven business owners uncover the marketing message that lights them up AND communicates the value in their work so they can call in their people and scale their business.

A TEDx speaker and former architect turned plant ecologist, she is the creator of the group program Get Clear, Get Clients, host of the Unforgettable Podcast, and her expert advice has been featured on the Huffington Post, the Fox Morning News Las Vegas, and on over 40 interviews.