When I work with clients to launch their podcast, one of the areas we spend the most time on is uncovering their Clear & Compelling Idea.
It’s the single idea that their podcast will be based around, and typically it’s the big mindset change or belief change they want to make in the world.
And then we help them use their podcast to deliver that Clear & Compelling Idea to their audience in a bunch of different ways, from a bunch of different angles.
So all their podcast content revolves around their Clear & Compelling Idea.
That Idea speaks very deeply to the ideal clients who come across them.
It grabs attention, it stirs up emotion, and it compels action.
When the right people hear about their podcast, the reaction is “WOW, I didn’t know that existed! I have to learn more!”
So a good business podcast should attract ideal clients first by speaking to the right people in a powerful, emotional compelling way. This attracts the people who are already primed and ready to be ideal clients, which is where we’ll see immediate results in terms of high-ticket sales and new clients.
Yet what about that other group of people – the folks who could be ideal clients if they were exposed to the right content over time?
That’s part of what makes a podcast so powerful for coaches and consultants.
When people hear the same Clear & Compelling Idea – over and over and over again – from different angles and perspectives, it chips away at the sticking points – the areas where they disagree or have limiting beliefs.
Every story, every interview, every solo episode, every client case study, everything that goes out on that podcast drives home one Clear & Compelling Idea.
So your podcast actually creates ideal clients for you- systematically – in 3 ways.
1. By attracting those who are already ideal clients who are drawn by your message
2. By attracting people who are 1-2 steps away from being an ideal client and open to your message
3. By delivering content that changes beliefs over time – converting some of that audience to your belief system and moving them closer to being an ideal client
An ideal client is more than just someone who wants to hire us – it’s someone who shares the key beliefs to actually take action and get results.
So the first step to a podcast that creates ideal clients is to uncover the Clear & Compelling Idea that our podcast delivers to the world.
The more people we try to appeal to, the more options we offer, the more we dilute ourselves and our message.
To cut through the Noise we need a message that’s razor sharp, crystal clear and positively polarizing.
I want to give you three concrete examples of thought leaders who understand the power of a Clear & Compelling Idea.
Mike Ferry.
John Maxwell.
Richard Koch.
First we’ll look at Mike Ferry, he’s The Godfather of real estate coaching, and one of the most successful business coaches of all time.
He’s built one of the most powerful, disciplined, cohesive cultures around his message that I’ve ever seen. If you’re in his world, you’re either a disciple, or you’re OUT. There is no middle ground. He is polarizing in his message and in his presentation, so he has lots of fans and lots of detractors.
For over 3 decades, he’s been delivering the same Clear & Compelling Idea to the real estate world: Hit the phones and master the fundamentals.
In fact, he told one of my mentors this: “I realized I needed to stop saying new things to the same people, and start saying the same thing to new people.”
That made a huge impact on me, and it’s one of the toughest parts of building a podcast for coaches and consultants – too many interests and competing messages. Which creates confusion.
In order for a podcast to create ideal clients over time, it must deliver a Clear & Compelling Idea over and over again, in a variety of ways.
Second, we’ll look at John Maxwell. He’s clearly an intelligent guy. He could speak and write on a range of different things. But odds are, his next book is about leadership.
What’s his Clear & Compelling Idea? I believe it’s this: Leadership is simply influence.
That’s the idea that stuck out to me from reading his book in high school and it still sticks with me today.
The challenge for him as a thought leader is to find 1000 ways to talk about leadership, without getting distracted and diluting the John Maxwell brand.
If he were to come out with books on other aspects of personal or business development, people are going to buy them. But if they don’t reinforce his Clear & Compelling Idea, over time, it would weaken his brand.
Third, we’ll look at Richard Koch, the author of the 80/20 Principle.
80/20 is his Clear & Compelling Idea.
Every book he’s written, from books like the 80/20 Manager and 80/20 Way, all revolve around the same core idea.
If Richard comes out with a new book, I know that at the heart of that book lives the 80/20 Principle.
Even books that don’t include 80/20 in the title, like Simplify or the Star Principle, still revolve around 80/20.
So Richard’s challenge is to keep finding new ways to apply this principle. 1000 ways to talk about the 80/20 Principle.
In fact all three of them have the same challenge.
Once you identify your Clear & Compelling Idea, your challenge is to find 1000 ways to deliver that same message.
That’s a great challenge to have! Because if you’re passionate about getting people results in a certain area, I guarantee you have more content around that one area than you give yourself credit for.
Visualize it like this.
Your belief system is like a pyramid. At the top is your Clear & Compelling Idea. That’s the tip of the spear, so to speak. Hopefully the first thing people associate with you when they discover you. It’s the key thing you want to communicate that drives the change you want to make in the world.
Right under that are your Buying Beliefs, the handful of beliefs that support your Clear & Compelling Idea and determine if someone is your “right people.” The more of those Buying Beliefs people agree with, the more likely they are to agree with your Clear & Compelling Idea and be the right kind of person for you.
And under that is your foundation of supporting beliefs, values and opinions, including your Bold Opinions – the beliefs that are controversial and polarizing.
Every one of those supporting beliefs, values and opinions are potential podcast topics, book topics, speaking topics, podcast interview topics.
And what do they support and lead back to?
Your Clear & Compelling Idea.
So if you’re in the early stages of a coaching or consulting business, and you’re trying to clarify your message and what you stand for, one of the best exercises is to map out your Point of View.
Map out your beliefs, your values, your opinions. Push yourself to uncover the supporting evidence, the events, the life experiences that helped shape your beliefs, values and opinions.
[PoV map sketch here]
I do it with new podcast clients, and it’s always one of the most powerful parts of our work together.
That process clarifies beliefs and typically uncovers an idea that can be sharpened and refined into a Clear & Compelling Idea.
And armed with that Clear & Compelling Idea, you can build your entire podcast around that one idea. It gives you the raw material to drive that Idea home over and over and over again to your audience.
Now let’s look at the 2nd element:
Tactical Content that Solves Urgent and Unique Problems for the Right People.
To attract ideal clients, our podcast should deliver content people have been craving but can’t find anywhere else.
I have multiple clients in the same small niche of real estate team leaders, all operating very successful coaching businesses in a niche of less than 25k potential clients.
Their podcasts took off because they shared tactical content people couldn’t get from other real estate podcasts. Their ideal audience was sifting through other podcasts, skipping a lot of episodes to get to ONE episode that spoke to their unique problems.
So when we launched new podcasts in that space, with content that was deep and laser-focused on their unique problems, building an audience was easy. The podcasts delivered content people are already craving and looking for, but hadn’t found.
One of my favorite examples is an episode like this: “How to Raise your Buyer Lead Conversion from 1 to 3%”
The only people who have this problem are those spending 10k or more each month in online lead generation, and watching that money go down the drain as leads slip through their fingers in the conversion stage. That’s an urgent and very unique problem for the right person.
The average agent can’t even identify with that problem, it just doesn’t apply, so the episode doesn’t speak to them at all. But to the right people, it was extremely compelling content.
For coaches and consultants, that’s the kind of content you want to focus on.
Finally the 3rd element, Strategic Content Based Around Your Buying Beliefs.
The tactical content draws people in because it solves an urgent and unique problem in their business. It’s something they’re craving and looking for already.
But in order for someone to become an ideal client, there’s a conversion that needs to take place. After all, if they shared all your beliefs, they’d already be ideal clients and they’d take the next step with you.
So your podcast needs to share strategic-level content that delivers and reinforces the most important beliefs. The handful of beliefs people need to share with you in order to be an ideal client. That’s what I call your Buying Beliefs.
Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re a business coach that promises to help entrepreneurs double their business.
It’s likely that one of your key Buying Beliefs is that an entrepreneur can double their business without doubling their hours. Maybe you even help them double their business while cutting their hours in half. But if your audience believes doubling their business means they never get to see their family or hit the gym, they’re not going to sign up for your coaching.
So in that case, you’d want to share episodes specifically designed to break limiting beliefs, and build up agreement with your Buying Beliefs. Those could be solo episodes, case studies, interviews with successful clients, conversations with influencers in your space. The options are many, but the content must have the goal of changing beliefs, not just delivering value.
When you change people’s beliefs, they move closer to you. Every step closer they take, every change of beliefs they undergo, makes them more of an ideal client. To the point that it becomes less about whether they will work with you, and a matter of when and if they can afford you.
As a coach or consultant, that’s a great position to be in. And it’s all possible through podcasting.
The difference between a podcast that builds an audience of listeners versus an audience of ideal clients is in those 3 elements and building them into your podcast before it even launches.
Now let’s say you’ve laid that groundwork, you have your content planned and you’re ready to launch.
How do you promote your podcast to reach the maximum number of the right people?
Especially if you don’t want to be on social media 24/7 shouting about your podcast?
I have another article/video for you; My #1 Strategy for Promoting A Business Podcast.
The strategy costs very little and has nothing to do with being an extreme social butterfly or dancing on Tik Tok. It’s perfect for the true introverts as well as “social media introverts” who love being social in person but don’t want to spend all day creating content and engaging online.