Build trust with ideal clients & create 'superfans'
The Power of Personal Stories for Small Business Owners
Imagine you're at the grocery store.
You're picking out some oranges, looking at cucumbers across the way, and a stranger comes up and pitches a $4,000 website build.
How likely are you to pull out your wallet? Probably not at all.
They have zero credibility with you.
I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and I want to help you avoid being the online version of that off-putting stranger.
In this episode of The Weeniecast, "Build Trust with Ideal Clients & Create 'Superfans,'" I'll guide you through the process of turning total strangers into devoted superfans.
You'll discover why sharing weird and seemingly mundane details about yourself is critical in building trust and memorability with your ideal clients.
You'll walk away from this episode understanding how to create a connection with your audience that goes beyond business.
No more blending in with the crowd and being 'just another expert' in your industry.
You'll feel empowered to be authentically you online, making your business not just memorable, but magnetic to your tribe.
Timestamped summary
00:00 The grocery store.
05:14 Create holes in the canvas.
09:17 Former clients aligned.
12:17 ADHD minds & diverse interests.
20:07 Being overly generic hinders hiring and memorability.
21:21 Prefer human connections; embrace your authentic self.
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Honorable mentions
30 Rock
Taylor Swift
WWE
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Here's how you can take people from stranger danger to super fan
Speaker:by simply sharing weird factoids about yourself and building trust.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And
Speaker:welcome to the Weeniecast. I want you to
Speaker:imagine that you're at the grocery store, you're picking out some oranges, you have your
Speaker:eyes on some cucumbers across the way, and a random stranger
Speaker:comes up to you and tells you that
Speaker:they can build a website for you for
Speaker:$4,000. Would you give them
Speaker:$4,000? Probably not. You'd probably get a little
Speaker:skeeved out. You'd probably think, oh, a stranger danger. This is what my parents always
Speaker:warned me about. Next they're going to tell me they have a van full of
Speaker:puppies and candy, which honestly, like, if someone came up to me and they're
Speaker:like, I have a van full of puppies, would you like to come see? I'd
Speaker:be like, I love puppies. Yes, absolutely. And
Speaker:then that's how I would disappear.
Speaker:You're not hugging. Hiring strangers for big jobs. So why are
Speaker:you expecting your clients to do the same? It
Speaker:feels counterintuitive. But when you start a business and you're promoting it online,
Speaker:yes, you need to post about your work. Yes, you need to talk about your
Speaker:ideal clients and the results that you get them and share
Speaker:testimonials. But you also have to share about
Speaker:yourself because otherwise you get lost
Speaker:in the noise of all the other people who do what you do.
Speaker:How many executive coaches are there out there? How many consultants,
Speaker:how many lawyers, how many email marketers? They all do what
Speaker:you do. So the fact that that's all you're talking about,
Speaker:you're never going to stick out to your ideal clients, you're
Speaker:never going to be memorable. And that's really the crux of it. Ooh, I just
Speaker:got to use the word crux. That's an exciting day. I love it when I,
Speaker:like, throw in a vocabulary word that I know but I don't usually get to
Speaker:use. This is gonna be, this is like an auspicious sign for
Speaker:today, especially since I only got like 5 hours of sleep last night.
Speaker:I'm using impressive vocabulary words, at least impressive to me. You're probably like,
Speaker:that's not an impressive word, Katie. I don't know why I'm so excited about this.
Speaker:I'm gonna move on. The crooks of it is that
Speaker:as small businesses, we do not have a marketing problem.
Speaker:Okay? We're not sitting around a boardroom wondering how we're
Speaker:gonna spend our $17 million on our commercial for the
Speaker:Super bowl. Okay, well, maybe you are. I know I'm not. And I
Speaker:know all of my clients are not having that problem. We have a
Speaker:memorability problem. We simply need to be
Speaker:remembered by the right people at the right time when they're
Speaker:ready to invest in the thing that we help with. I have a client
Speaker:who's a litigation attorney. He's not relevant to everyone at all the time. Thank
Speaker:God. If everyone were getting sued and suing other people all the
Speaker:time, I mean, it would be great for him, but miserable for the rest of
Speaker:us. Right? So his social media content has to be memorable.
Speaker:It has to stick out. He has to seem like a friend. He has to
Speaker:seem trustworthy so that when you do get sued
Speaker:or when you think, hmm, today feels like a
Speaker:litigious day for me, I really want to go and sue someone.
Speaker:And not just sue someone. I'm gonna sue the pants off of them. You're gonna
Speaker:think, oh, I should call David Frymande, right?
Speaker:Versus, oh, there's legal issues.
Speaker:Who do I know? Who's a lawyer? And then you go and ask a bunch
Speaker:of people, do you know a lawyer who handles this? That's the magic of
Speaker:being memorable. That's the magic of sharing a little bit about yourself. Not a ton.
Speaker:You don't have to be super vulnerable online, but you have to share enough so
Speaker:that people feel like they kind of know you.
Speaker:Let's talk through the client journey so that you can really understand
Speaker:how sharing a little bit about yourself can take people from absolute
Speaker:stranger to super fan. So I want you to imagine, if you want to draw
Speaker:this, long as I describe it, go for it
Speaker:on a line. There are five points. The point all the way to
Speaker:the left is stranger. These are people who have no idea
Speaker:who you are. They've probably never seen your content. If they have seen
Speaker:your content, it didn't catch their attention, and they have no
Speaker:reason to see your face or your name and think, oh, my God, I know
Speaker:that person. The whole world starts off this way.
Speaker:I mean, honestly, you come out of the birth canal, you don't even know your
Speaker:mom. You've never seen her face. You don't know her name.
Speaker:You don't know your dad's name. Everyone is a stranger to you when you're
Speaker:born. Throughout our lives, we tend to close that gap.
Speaker:Not a lot. There are a lot of humans in the world, right?
Speaker:But we tend to make friends. We tend to get to know people.
Speaker:Your goal with starting a business and promoting
Speaker:yourself is to turn as many of those strangers into people
Speaker:who know you. Our goal is to share content
Speaker:that is interesting enough to those strangers that they think,
Speaker:oh, I want to see more of this. I'm going to follow this
Speaker:person. So they go from stranger to follower. And
Speaker:it could be something funny you shared about your life. It could be something helpful
Speaker:that you shared about the thing that you do. It could be a
Speaker:testimonial. It could be anything. I always like to have my clients
Speaker:just imagine that they're standing on stage and
Speaker:there's an audience of thousands of people in front of them, but no one can
Speaker:see my client because there's a canvas in front of
Speaker:them blocking them from the audience. Their job
Speaker:is as the performer, as the person on stage is to
Speaker:jab their finger through that canvas as many times and create as many
Speaker:holes so that the audience can see them. And one
Speaker:hole is gonna be, I don't know anything about sports. Another hole can
Speaker:be, I love dogs. Another hole can be, I've
Speaker:watched West Wing 47 times. Plus, I've lost count.
Speaker:This is me on stage. This is all my stuff. Another one can be, I
Speaker:talk about hot dogs all the time and weenies, but I don't actually like hot
Speaker:dogs. Another hole can be I help people start businesses. Another
Speaker:hole could be, I have adhd, and I work with people with adhd.
Speaker:Another hole could be, I love cheese. It literally doesn't have to be
Speaker:anything that is super interesting or
Speaker:exciting. It just has to be stuff that people can read
Speaker:and think, oh, I like cheese too. Cool. Oh,
Speaker:I also am not that interested in sports. Huh? Oh,
Speaker:she's telling people not to be a weenie. I think I'm kind of being a
Speaker:weenie. Maybe I should follow her. She'll get me to stop being a weenie. It
Speaker:doesn't have to be anything groundbreaking. And I think this is, like, where we
Speaker:get really, really flipped out when it comes to
Speaker:creating content for social media, is we think that we have to go skydiving every
Speaker:single week. We have to have big, elaborate trips. We have
Speaker:to be impressive. No, you don't. Literally, if you go
Speaker:and share how you take your coffee, like, think of the
Speaker:reaction people have to how people take their coffee. When
Speaker:I see someone putting a bunch of sugar in their coffee, my teeth starts to
Speaker:hurt. Okay. The amount of sugar just makes me want to recoil.
Speaker:Even though I'm not even drinking their coffee. It's their coffee, right? My
Speaker:sister, like, I'm gonna share something that's gonna make you think she's a
Speaker:sociopath. I promise. She's not. She's a very nice person. But she drinks her
Speaker:coffee black with three ice cubes. Cause she doesn't want to wait for it to
Speaker:cool down. So she drinks black, kind of watered down
Speaker:coffee. Like, people have a reaction to that. Right.
Speaker:But, like, when you know something like that about someone, it makes you feel like
Speaker:you know them. It makes you, like, that's something that you would know about
Speaker:a friend that you went to coffee with. Right. So as
Speaker:we're creating content and we're sharing it online and we're sharing parts of ourselves,
Speaker:like, I want you to think about. You're poking all these holes in this canvas.
Speaker:You're letting people see and have more details so they can add it
Speaker:to their little folio of who you are. And eventually,
Speaker:that person who has gone from stranger to follower, we'll jump
Speaker:to the third point on our line of our client journey, and
Speaker:that is friend. Now, the funny thing about this friend
Speaker:point is it doesn't necessarily have to be an actual friendship. They can feel like
Speaker:they're your friend and you still won.
Speaker:You're not responsible for becoming friends with tens of thousands to people online. That's
Speaker:not what I'm saying. That would be totally overwhelming, and your birthday parties
Speaker:would be very expensive. We don't want that for you. Although I do love a
Speaker:good birthday party. I'm starting a nonprofit called the Gay Birthday Club, and
Speaker:it is a organization where we're going to call anyone in
Speaker:LGBTQ community who wants a phone call. They have to sign up for it. It's
Speaker:not like we're just going to randomly call everyone, but we're going to have volunteers
Speaker:calling folks on their birthdays, singing happy birthday to them.
Speaker:And this is specifically for folks who have stopped
Speaker:getting a phone call from loved ones, from family members because
Speaker:of who they are. And I'm a big believer that everyone
Speaker:deserves, like, really bad, cringey singing on their birthday, whether
Speaker:they want it or not, as a show of love. And just to know
Speaker:that there are people in the world who are happy that they're there.
Speaker:And so I'm really excited about that. But, like, speaking of
Speaker:birthdays and there's more to come on this, I will be sharing more. I'm
Speaker:super excited about it. I also am so excited because I actually have some
Speaker:clients, some former clients, who are going to be on the board and getting involved,
Speaker:and I just want to share this a. Because it was relevant because I mentioned
Speaker:birthdays, but also b to point to this is the beauty of
Speaker:being who you are online. This is the beauty of
Speaker:showing up exactly who you are and building trust with people because you
Speaker:literally attract the clients who are not just willing to pay
Speaker:you money for the thing that you do, but who become friends,
Speaker:who become super aligned to what you do, who want to
Speaker:get involved in anything that you're up to. It makes your life
Speaker:that much richer. It also makes the like your
Speaker:power to have impact in the world that much greater.
Speaker:So anyway, back to the client journey and building trust to his
Speaker:people. So we have people who've moved from
Speaker:stranger, absolute stranger, don't know who you are. If they tripped and fell over you,
Speaker:they still wouldn't know who you are. At some point, they tripped and fell over
Speaker:you. They saw your content. They thought, this content's kind of good. I'd like to
Speaker:see more of this content. They became a follower. Oh. After becoming a follower
Speaker:and seeing more of your content because it got pushed to their
Speaker:newsfeed, they felt like, oh my God, this person just told a
Speaker:story and I'm going to tell the story, but now I don't really know how
Speaker:to refer to this person because they feel like a friend to me. At some
Speaker:point, these people who are your friends online
Speaker:are going to go to one of two places. Either they are your
Speaker:ideal client and they have the problem that you solve.
Speaker:At some point they're going to see a piece of content that you share
Speaker:that is going to hit them in the gut and they're going to think,
Speaker:okay, I can't do this anymore. I can't keep struggling with this
Speaker:on my own. Here's someone who I know and trust, who I
Speaker:like, who solves this problem. It could be
Speaker:a legal problem. It could be you don't like doing your taxes on your own.
Speaker:It could be, I want to start a business. It could be, I want to
Speaker:get in shape. Whatever I need to just book a call with them. I trust
Speaker:them. I know them. I feel comfortable with them. Right. That
Speaker:basis of trust is there and they're willing to have that conversation about
Speaker:giving you money to have your services, or they're
Speaker:not your client at all, but they feel so connected to you that they
Speaker:actually jump over the fourth point, which is client, and go to the fifth
Speaker:point, which is Superfan.
Speaker:And superfans are people who know you, trust you, like you understand
Speaker:exactly what you do. They show up to your webinars, even if
Speaker:they're not your ideal clients. They comment on your content even if the
Speaker:content's not relevant. Them, because they want to promote your
Speaker:work, because they believe in what you do. They believe in the help
Speaker:that you offer. And these become some of
Speaker:your best referrers. Squirrel. Which that word
Speaker:referrers reminds me of that one episode of 30 Rock where
Speaker:Jenna Maroney is in that movie the rural juror, and no one can pronounce
Speaker:it. The rural juror. Yeah, that was a great show. Anyway, back
Speaker:to the point, squirrel. Either way, you're either getting a client or you're getting people
Speaker:who want to refer to you, which is incredible. And the
Speaker:beauty of this, for those of us with ADHD is we tend to
Speaker:have a lot of weird interests, and we tend to change interests a lot.
Speaker:So we always have something new and novel, generally, to talk about.
Speaker:And I know there's, like, this fear because we get made
Speaker:fun of for it. We have weird interests, and, of course, like, our friends make
Speaker:fun of us for this because we're constantly jumping from one thing to the
Speaker:other, and it seems, like, really scattered to them, especially if they
Speaker:don't have ADHD, because people who aren't
Speaker:neurodiverse tend to just kind of have a couple interests, and we tend to
Speaker:overthink this with our marketing because we're like, okay, well, I have to have content
Speaker:pillars, and I have to share very specific things about my life, and it has
Speaker:to be part of my quote unquote brand. And no, it
Speaker:doesn't. It doesn't have to be this, like, perfectly formulated
Speaker:brand image. It has to be you.
Speaker:One of the best compliments you will ever get on
Speaker:a sales call with someone that you've never spoken to before who has discovered
Speaker:you through social media is they'll show up to the call, they'll
Speaker:talk to you for a few minutes and say, oh, my God, you are
Speaker:exactly how you show up online. You are the exact
Speaker:person whose content I've been reading. You
Speaker:sound the way you write, you sound the way you summarize stuff
Speaker:on Instagram. Instagram or TikTok or wherever you're showing up. And
Speaker:it's that click of it wasn't an act.
Speaker:That nail in the coffin of, this is the person that I'm going to trust
Speaker:with my money and with my future. But here's the thing.
Speaker:Trust is two ways. Ooh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have
Speaker:to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel,
Speaker:squirrel.
Speaker:This is really scary. To go and be ourselves, our genuine selves
Speaker:on social media. We have to trust
Speaker:that we're going to find the right people out there. We have to
Speaker:trust that there are going to be people who are going to resonate with us.
Speaker:We have to trust them enough to accept us as we
Speaker:are. Often people shy away from this. There are a few ways
Speaker:people shield themselves from having to trust their audience.
Speaker:One is they become the teacher. They spend a ton of time
Speaker:giving away their knowledge for free and shoving
Speaker:infographics at people and creating all of these slides
Speaker:on canva and carousels and all that jazz, and
Speaker:they just shove knowledge in people's faces. And sure, yeah,
Speaker:that proves that you know some stuff, but there are a lot of people who
Speaker:know stuff. Doesn't necessarily mean that I trust them enough with my money. And also,
Speaker:if you're teaching me how to do the thing on my own, why do I
Speaker:need to hire you? You've just given me everything I need to be powerful on
Speaker:my own. Right. Even if it's just the surface knowledge,
Speaker:which normally it is, it's not actually gonna help anyone, but it gives them enough
Speaker:confidence to think that they can go and do it on their own, and then
Speaker:they just get themselves into trouble. A recent client was creating kind
Speaker:of a Persona on LinkedIn, in particular, a Persona of someone who is, like,
Speaker:way grouchier than he actually is. Wonder who I'm talking about,
Speaker:Neil. Hmm, I wonder. And of course, I just want to
Speaker:name. I don't divulge information from my client sessions. Neil has
Speaker:volunteered for this to be featured on this podcast. I do
Speaker:honor confidentiality with my clients, unless they don't want me to.
Speaker:And of course, like, you know, we see, we see actors doing this, we see
Speaker:personalities doing this. We see a lot of public figures doing
Speaker:this, right? And of course they are. There's. There's
Speaker:protection in that. But as small business owners, we don't
Speaker:necessarily have to do. They go to the same lengths to protect our privacy as
Speaker:Taylor Swift does. We, we're also not in an industry
Speaker:where we have to, like, put on, like, a particular Persona, like the
Speaker:WWE. You know, a lot of those wrestler guys, like,
Speaker:they're not going around being the villain or being Mister
Speaker:America or whatever. I don't really watch wrestling, if you can tell.
Speaker:As business owners, we get to just be human beings. We do not need to
Speaker:have a Persona. One of the things about starting a business is learning, you know,
Speaker:you have to learn how to sell your services. And it feels so icky, right?
Speaker:Because we've all been in those buying situations where we're working with a
Speaker:salesperson who we do not trust, they have not given
Speaker:us any reason to trust them. They're using every
Speaker:single pushy, manipulative tactic in the book,
Speaker:and we just feel super grossed out by
Speaker:them. Right. And oftentimes we don't buy from
Speaker:them. We. We peace out sometimes. Like, we're in a situation where we can't.
Speaker:We can't peace out. Like they have something that we genuinely need and we just
Speaker:have to deal with it. But I can personally think back to
Speaker:several purchases I made and investments I made in the beginning
Speaker:of my business with people who I had red
Speaker:flags from the very beginning that I didn't trust them and I
Speaker:overlooked them and I regretted it, like, literally
Speaker:had this whole arc in my head and
Speaker:then went off on that one little tangent and I lost it. Those of
Speaker:us with ADHD, one of the most magical
Speaker:situations we can set up for ourself is where we're surrounded by people
Speaker:who get us, people who get our weird sense of humor, who have
Speaker:some similar interests, who have the same values.
Speaker:We launch ourselves into, like,
Speaker:the stratosphere of our best selves, of our favorite
Speaker:selves. We become so creative. We have
Speaker:clients where we're not worried if we're good enough for them. We
Speaker:can take chances that oftentimes work out when
Speaker:you focus on building trust with your audience,
Speaker:showing them enough of yourself that
Speaker:they can think, oh, man, I really want to hang out with this person. And
Speaker:actually, I want to do more than just hang out with this person. I want
Speaker:to invest in working with this person. You're not just getting business.
Speaker:You are attracting your tribe. You're attracting
Speaker:the group of people who will not just
Speaker:make you feel good about who you are, but will become that
Speaker:rising tide that lifts all boats. This is one of the reasons
Speaker:why, you know, when I have clients who come to me and they're like, I'm
Speaker:a witch and also I want to do corporate coaching, so I know I need
Speaker:to drop the witchy stuff completely, forget it, hide
Speaker:it, like, not bring it up at all. And I just need to go, like,
Speaker:really hard with the corporate stuff, I'm like, no,
Speaker:absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because here's the thing about
Speaker:people. People can sense when you're hiding something. People
Speaker:can sense when you're not showing up the way you actually
Speaker:are, when you're putting on a front. They may not be able
Speaker:to know exactly what it is you're hiding or, like, where the disconnect
Speaker:is, but, you know, when you're talking to someone when they're being
Speaker:fake, you know that feeling? There's like, this, like, creepy,
Speaker:crawly feeling under your skin? You're just like, I gotta get away from this person.
Speaker:It's not real. You think you're helping your business by hiding the thing
Speaker:that you think makes you weird and not hireable.
Speaker:By hiding it, you're making yourself actually weirder and
Speaker:less comfortable to be around and less trustworthy. And not only
Speaker:that, you're not giving the people who actually love the witchy
Speaker:side of you. You're not giving them access to you. They're
Speaker:out there thinking all these corporate executive coaches like, eh, they just
Speaker:don't feel like the right fit for me, for who I am, versus if
Speaker:you trust them enough to come out of the
Speaker:broom closet or whatever it is that you call that and be yourself and
Speaker:let them be themselves with you, you'd be able to
Speaker:do some really incredible work together. And again, we don't have
Speaker:a marketing problem. We have a memorability problem.
Speaker:If you're an overworked, really stressed out,
Speaker:overwhelmed HR rep who has to find an executive
Speaker:coach to do some kind of lunch and learn workshop,
Speaker:you're gonna go through the stack of resumes that are all the same
Speaker:generic leadership development, executive coach
Speaker:language around synergy and all the other buzzwords. Are
Speaker:you gonna think, oh, my God, that funny person on
Speaker:LinkedIn or on Instagram who talks
Speaker:about clearing energy and all this stuff like that would be really
Speaker:interesting to bring into the office? That would be entertaining, at least. And I know
Speaker:there are a few people who'd really connect with it. The ways you've had to
Speaker:dilute yourself to be able to fit into, like, a corporate
Speaker:environment and be acceptable, and that's made you have an
Speaker:easier time matriculating into school and workplaces and social
Speaker:events, that's not gonna serve you in running a business. You
Speaker:blanding yourself out blends your brand out
Speaker:as well. It makes you harder to remember. And if you're harder to
Speaker:remember, you're harder to hire. And there are enough
Speaker:robots on social media right now sharing
Speaker:generic information about whatever it is that you do
Speaker:right. I don't want to be friends with a robot. I don't want to become
Speaker:the client of a robot. I don't want to refer other people to robots.
Speaker:I want to be friends with a person, and I want to work with people
Speaker:I like, and I want to refer to people I like. And I don't
Speaker:care how weird your interests are. There are people out
Speaker:there who will like you for it. So go and be
Speaker:your glorious, weird, interesting
Speaker:hopping all over the place ADHD self. It will get you
Speaker:clients and it will build the trust that you need for those
Speaker:clients to stick around and actually become your tribe.
Speaker:Honestly, like, if someone came up to me and they're like, I have a van
Speaker:full of puppies, would you like to come see her? I'd be like, I love
Speaker:puppies. Yes, absolutely. And then that's
Speaker:how I would disappear. So if I ever disappear from
Speaker:the world, just know that that's probably what happened. That or I saw a bobcat
Speaker:and I was like, kitty, kitty, kitty, come here, be my friend. And then it
Speaker:mauled me to death. Something I need to work on is to increase that
Speaker:fear of wild animals. I just don't have it.
Speaker:Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
