Find Clients NOW

"Shut up and take my money" strategies for selling a service.

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You don’t like selling? 

I call BS. 

Look, people spend their money on things they want every day. 

No one hates selling when clients are like… 

The question is, do people want what you have to offer? 

If yes, where do you find these people? 

If no, how do you reframe your service so they want it?

By the end of this post, you’ll have the answers to all these questions. 

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Sell the right service. 

Finding clients is easy when you sell something people want. 

This doesn’t mean you should change your service; you just need to frame it right. 

Services that are easy to sell: 

• Are specific. 

• People look for them already. 

How to know whether people are already looking for what you offer? I usually: 

• Research Fiverr to see whether solopreneurs offer that service and whether they’re successful. I talk more about this research and selling on Fiverr in my Fiverr Launcher course. 

• Research Semrush, looking for keywords with commercial intent*.

• Use ChatGPT to generate ideas for keywords with commercial intent.* 

*Keywords are the words people use to search Google. Semrush has a few categories of keywords, including Information, Commercial and Transactional. Informational keywords are used when people just need information. Commercial and Transactional keywords are used when people are ready to purchase a service. If there’s a commercial or transactional search for your service, finding clients is effortless. 

Here’s an example search for a relationship coach. 

We do a search on Semrush, and this is what we see. 

The “I” next to the keyword shows that most searches have informational intent. 

Relationship coaching isn’t specific enough of a service to sell easy. There are all kinds of relationships, and they have different stages. So what service can you offer as an alternative? 

Let’s try with “dating coaching.” 

A lot of informational intent again, but if you notice, the transactional intent is already a bit higher just because we went specific. 

Now, the conclusion I’m making based on that is that dating isn’t a big pain point for people. It’s not where they struggle. 

So what parts of relationships are the hardest? Let’s check “marriage counselling.” 

Now we’re talking. First of all, the volume is MUCH higher. Second of all, almost all search is commercial or transactional. 

When people look for marriage counselling, they’re ready to buy NOW. They need this. They’re in pain. 

“But Maya,” I hear you say. “Relationship coaching is different than marriage counselling.” 

Be that as it may, you now have two options: 

• Look into marriage counseling certificate (that’s the longer route) 

• OR present your relationship coaching as an alternative to marriage counselling. You can say you offer “modern-day marriage counselling” or “the best marriage counselling alternative”.

If you don’t know how to come up with commercial keywords in your area (meaning services people are already looking for), you can ask ChatGPT for help. Here’s a screenshot with a (somewhat chaotic) prompt I just tried out. 

And here’s the response I got: 

• Affordable life coaching services

• Personal development coach for hire

• Life coaching consultation

• Executive life coach

• Life coach for [specific need, e.g., anxiety, career, relationships]

• Certified life coach

• Professional life coaching services

• One-on-one life coaching

• Life coaching for [specific demographic, e.g., women, entrepreneurs]

Note: if you already have an e-mail list to sell to, you can still do this research, but it would be even easier to send a poll asking people what type of service they need most. 

Does that mean you have to do SEO?

No. The point of this research is to understand what services people already want. In the next part, I’ll share a few ways you can reach your potential clients. 

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Now that we know what we’re selling, let’s sell. 

Use buyer-focused platforms. 

Buyer-focused platforms are different from social media or content-focused platforms. They’re designed to attract buyers and help them get to the purchasing decision as fast as possible. 

These are freelance platforms and professional directories. 

For example, when I first started as a life coach, I got my first few clients from Life Coach Directory. One of my SAAS clients invests all his ad budget in Capterra, a platform for technology. 

These days, there are platforms for everything — you want to research the right platforms for your service. 

Then, when creating profiles/offers on those platforms, you’ll phrase your services in the way people look for them. 

Get more recommendations. 

Most of you don’t ask for recommendations and don’t promote themselves. You feel uncomfortable when you do, right? 

You need to overcome this fear NOW (if you want to sell). 

When I realized I didn’t want Fiverr to be my only revenue stream, I messaged every friend I knew — both entrepreneurs and employees — to tell them a few words about my services. 

It worked. Within a few months, I had a few high-ticket clients, two of them regular.

No one would recommend someone who’s not confident enough to recommend themselves. 

If you want my totally non-creepy system & template messages to start getting recommendations instantly, paid subscribers will find that below. Put it to work and start meeting with qualified leads within days.

Upsell to old clients. 

So many people don’t reach back to old clients at all; or they do it *once*, with something vague like 20% discount.

Newsflash: people don’t care about discounts. 

If you feel the need to give discounts often, you’re either not priced right to begin with or (more likely) you’re not communicating your value. 

To get people to say yes to an upsell, here are the strategies to use: 

• Upsell a new service that’s a natural extension of what you already did for them. 

• Give them the price & details, unless you’re upselling a high-ticket offer. Then, invite them on a call where you tell them more. 

• You’ll make the opportunity available for a limited time. 

• You’ll do a serious sales push during that time. You’ll mention it to them at least 3–5 times, using different angles to describe benefits. 

If you want to have some fun, go to ChatGPT and ask it to suggest upsell ideas for the services you’ve already offered. 

You’d be surprised. 

Cold outreach. 

Listen. Cold outreach works. 

I haven’t done it in ages, and I honestly thought it was over (people are so bombarded with offers these days). 

It turns out, if you know how to create an irresistible offer, people will say yes to a call. 

I found that out recently when I designed a cold outreach for a client. He insisted on it, so I did it the best way I knew how, even though I didn’t believe he’d get any responses. 

Well, I was wrong. We sent the e-mail to 1000 targeted clients and got 15 meetings. That’s not bad at all!

To make this work: 

• Choose a specific type of client you’re after so your cold message is specific and relevant. 

• Create an irresistible offer. You can learn how to do that here. 

• You’re sending emails that are likely flagged as spam. To avoid this, send them individually and personally. I know it’s more work, but you can hire someone to do it, and it increases your chances of reaching the primary inbox. Using tools like MailChimp will probably result in most of your messages going unseen.

So if we’re sending out “spam”, why do it? 

I know you feel icky about this. I did, too, before my client got 15 meetings. 

Sometimes, you don’t know you want something until you hear more about it. Sometimes, you don’t even know it exists as a solution. 

So even though it’s “unwanted mail” — for some people, it may be a fantastic opportunity. 

Plus, did you know that even Mercedes Benz does cold outreach for their corporate programs? 

So. Don’t be shy. Go out there and get those clients. 

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Now, you can sell anything. 

In the Smarter Solopreneurs community, we bring all of you awesome solos together so you can: 

• Commit to your solo business. 

• Add $50K minimum to your yearly income.  

• Set your stretch goals for the year and achieve at least one of them. 

Paid subscribers get: 

• Monthly webinars (On August 22nd, we’re doing the Irresistible Substack where we’ll talk about your Substack description.) 

• Direct messaging coaching. Ask me anything and I’ll get back to you with know-how, ideas, clarifying questions and whatever support you need ❤ 

• Additional tools in every post. For example, the Smarter Solopreneurs paid subscribers will get my referral system & messaging templates below. ↘