Episode 97. What to Do if You Haven’t Signed a Client for Months

There’s something a lot of coaches and entrepreneurs dread. And let’s be honest. It’s natural, if not, expected at times. Today we’re diving into the topic of “client droughts” aka not singing clients for X number of months.

In the episode, we’ll discuss what to do if you haven’t signed a client for months. My intention for this conversation is to help you make some decisions about what you want to do next so you can keep moving forward and sign your next client.

First, we’ll talk about what decision you need to make right now.

Second, I want us to look at how you’re currently showing up to sell your offer and how you’re talking about your work.

Third, make offers. Like, literally.

Fourth and finally, I want to have a conversation about whether you’re exercising agency over your experience and business, and whether you’re learning the lessons you need to learn to get out of this client drought.

In This Episode:

Decisions you need to make right now when you’re in a “client drought”
Showing up to talk about your offer
Making offers, literally
Exercising agency over your experience as an entrepreneur and taking control in your own business
Entrepreneurship is a skill that’s available to all of us

Decisions you need to make right now when you’re in a “client drought”

What decisions do you need to make right now?

If you’re in a phase of your business where you are feeling frustrated and discouraged and you’re asking yourself, “What do I do?” Please. Answer that question.

Right now I haven’t been signing clients. I haven’t been booking sales calls. What do I want to do? What decisions do I need to make as the decision maker and leader of my own business?

If you haven’t signed clients for several months or longer, I want to acknowledge that it is very natural and normal to feel deflated and question whether you’re going to make this work.

Maybe for some of you, you’re even thinking what’s the point and that you should just focus on your full time job since this business thing isn’t working out.

But here’s the thing. Thinking about your business is different from doing the things your business needs from you.

Right now, how much are you actually doing the work your business needs from you, versus sitting in frustration and discouragement and feeling like nothing is working?

How much are you actually curious about what you’re doing or not doing and problem solving from there, rather than feeling bad about how you’ve been doing this for so many months and still not seeing results?

Perhaps the most important question here is, “In addition to doing what your business needs from you, how much are you also thinking about how to help someone, right now, even if it’s for free?”

If we think about it, the entrepreneurs who we follow and look up to are impacting way more hundreds and thousands of people than we are, for free!!!

Think about it. Whether it’s your favorite author or a coach or a local leader in your city, the people you respect and admire are likely currently helping way more people for free than you at this moment.

There’s even more responsibility, at the next level, to help people.

If growing your business and being at that next level means you will actually be expected to help even more people for free, then how can you start to help someone for free, right now?

How can you start impacting others, right now? How can you start taking responsibility, right now?

Because the truth is, someone who is signing clients consistently, making $10k months or with a multiple six figure coaching business, how would you be showing up if you were signing clients consistently? How can you show up as them, right now?

How would someone making $10k months or someone with a multiple six figure business be showing up, making decisions, or taking action, right now?

Even if literally their entire life or circumstances outside of the business looks identical to yours, how would they be making it work no matter what the circumstances are?

Really marinate on that question.

Here’s another thing to consider. Just like any job, your business is still inherently a job. But it’s a job where you have full decision making power over and hence you get to build it in a way that you want. But it’s still a job nonetheless.

Right now, you’re feeling some type of way about your job. But you still have to get your work done, just like any other job, right?

That’s why I also want you to examine whether there’s anything in your business that you’ve been avoiding or you haven’t been thinking about.

Could it be that you haven’t been talking about your offer?

Could it be that you’ve been copying other coaches because you haven’t been using your brain to think of content that reflects your own unique leadership?

Have you not been using tools such as self coaching or getting coached?

Have you been sleeping or eating foods that nourish and fuel you rather than drain you physically?

Start taking responsibility by looking at what you’ve been doing or not doing, and what you could do differently moving forward.

Everything in your business is cause and effect. Every outcome, even the outcome of no clients, is a result of something you’re doing or not doing AND/OR the energy or lack of energy in which you are doing the action.

What I mean when I say energy or lack of energy is, put simply, if you’re in a client drought, then your current thoughts or way of looking at your business, likely isn’t going to produce the results you want.

Because you’re currently taking action from that stressed, frustrated, discouraged state of being, it makes sense that the content, marketing and all the touchpoints you put out, between you and your potential clients, are contaminated by that stressed, frustrated and discouraged energy.

But remember, even if you aren’t signing clients, you can still help someone and be of service. There’s still someone who would want to work with you, but you just aren’t reaching them or sharing your offer in a way that lands with them.

So here’s a tip I want to offer, especially for anyone who’s feeling really low about their business overall.

First, make a list of 20 reasons why your offer matters.

For example, why does it matter to your ideal clients? Why do you care about it? Why is it helpful to others?

What is possible when someone learns what you’re gonna teach them inside the offer?

How will people around them benefit from their growth and transformation after working with you?

Make a list of 20 or more things of why your work matters. This is important because I need you to remember why your offer is amazing rather than occupying your brain with thoughts like “no one wants it” or “no one cares” or questioning why it’s not selling.

Take the focus off of yourself and put it back to the people you want to help.

Then, for every point you wrote, make a piece of content on it.

I don’t care how you deliver the content, where it’s a text-only caption or a carousel post or 30-minute podcast episode, it doesn’t matter.

You can even create marketing materials inspired by your list.

Ultimately, I need you to start thinking about your offer with that renewed sense of belief in it, and amplify that belief out into the world, through the vehicle of your content or your marketing for the offer.

Like literally create content from each of those points you wrote down.

For example, if you’re a health coach, one of the reasons why your health and fitness coaching program is important is because now that the world is opening up again.

People have to restabilize to a new way of living and there’s way more social activities going on, it’s likely that people will put their health, wellness and fitness goals on the back burner since everyone is traveling, going to concerts, etc.

You can literally create a piece of content that says “Okay people, listen up. I know that you’re now more busy than ever with your social life. And it’s likely that your health and fitness goals are the first thing to go because you are now so busy with living your best life. But how can you continue to live it up if you aren’t taking care of your body?”

Right now, we need to remember that it’s your job to continue believing in your work, even if there’s no clients for months. That is your responsibility as the entrepreneur to hold the belief in the importance, relevance and value of your offer, no matter what.

If that means literally making a list of why your offer matters and creating content – if that’s gonna help you ground back into the energy of believing in your work, then I strongly recommend doing so!

One more thing before we move to the next point: Some of you may be thinking but the reason I’m feeling disappointed is because I really want to help a client inside my coaching program. However, the truth is, that sentence alone just shows that you’re still thinking about what’s in it for you.

The sentence of “I want to sign a client so I can help them” is still thinking about yourself. And I say that because you can help for free, right now. You can literally coach someone through your content, right now. That’s how I know when someone has fallen out of connection with thinking about their ideal client. Because all of their frustrations, anxieties and disappointments are all focused on themselves.

Remember that you are in this coaching-based business or service-based business to help other people. Stay there. Only amazing things can happen when you stay in service to others.

Showing up to talk about your offer

I want to start off by sharing a client example.

One of our clients recently signed her first client after months of a client drought. She recently joined my coaching program because she felt very discouraged about her business to the point of thinking that it was pointless and why not just focus her efforts on her career.

But the reason why she still decided to work with me inside our coaching program is because she still believes in what she’s doing. She still wants to help people. She still believes that her coaching program is needed and can really impact someone’s life.

As of recording this, we only had three sessions together so far and guess what. She just signed her first client after months and months of a client drought.

The reason why our client was able to do this is because in the first three sessions, we coached the client so much on grounding back into why her work matters and then showing up in a way that reflects her belief in her work. Then she had the capacity to start creating content that reflects her unique thought leadership in her niche.

We had to start with coaching the client on how she is showing up because let’s be honest. Energy sells. Confidence sells. Your belief in what you do, it sells.

It matters. Why? Because clients want to work with a coach who actually believes in what they’re doing.

Clients want to work with a coach who genuinely cares about helping people just like themselves who are struggling with the problems they’re currently struggling with.

Clients want to know that you are committed to doing what you do. Even if you might be going through a client drought.

Here’s a tip, if we truly believe that when we’re being of service, we get paid.

Then how can you work on your belief that you can help someone, right now?

Because when you believe you can help someone, your skill of selling and talking about how you can help, it naturally gets better.

Simultaneously, after you hone in on your belief in what you are offering and ability to help someone, then you will have much more capacity to hone in on your unique thought leadership and create content that reflects your thought leadership.

And guess what. When you are confident in what you’re selling and what you bring to your niche /industry, how do you think you’d show up for your audience or followers or community?

My guess is that you’ll be showing up with a lot more confidence, commitment and conviction.

Right now, thoughts like “I believe that I’m a thought leader” or “I believe I can create a $5k or $10k month” might feel like a stretch.

For some, that might feel like you’re going from 0 to 100.

But you don’t need level 100 confidence to be able to help someone. That’s why you can also still sign clients and make money even when you aren’t at an overall level 100 confidence.

But I’d personally argue that you need, at minimum, to believe that you can help someone right now. Because that’s what your coaching or service-based business is for – it’s to help someone with something that you are skilled at. You get paid for helping someone.

That’s why although I don’t need you to feel confident overall, I do need you to strengthen your belief in being able to help someone right now.

That one belief, when strengthened, can then protrude out to other beliefs and strengthen those as well. But at the core, I need you to remember why you do what you do and stay rooted in service and believe that you can help someone.

Side note. If you really really aren’t confident in being able to help someone with XYZ right now, and that XYZ is what you’re selling, I strongly suggest changing your offer to something that you do have your belief behind.

An analogy I recently gave to a client is, imagine if a teacher is interviewing to teach a high school biology class, but they are only 30% confident in their teaching skills. How do you think they’ll be showing up at the job interview?

How would they be answering the questions or what energy will they be giving off in the room? Versus someone who may be a fresh grad straight out of teacher school, but they have been teaching students for free during their training and they’re so confident that they can teach a biology class right now. How would they show up to that interview?

I will even take it to an extreme and ask us to think about this scenario: What do you think your ideal client will think if they know that you’ve been going to your own coach, and you’re getting coached on all of your limiting beliefs and doubts about your own offer or being able to sell your offer? How would your ideal client perceive that? Just something to think about.

So, yes, do consider what you’re selling if you find that your belief in your offer is shaky. Because I personally believe that our clients really deserve to work with someone who not only deeply cares about the quality of their work and service, but is also confident in their ability to help someone create results.

If you’re someone who deeply cares about the quality of your work and are committed to being of service, AND you are confident in your ability to help someone create results right now, you’ll naturally show up better and that energy and confidence is what sells your offer

Finally, a gentle reminder, you’re doing AMAZING things right now. Both for free and inside your paid container. Your work in both settings MATTER so much.

Both are reasons why your business will continue to grow.

When you continue to help people, even for free, more paying clients will come.

Likewise, when you help your paying clients create awesome results in their own lives, you naturally have more client testimonials and social proof. Hence more paying clients will come. Both matter. They go hand in hand.

For anyone who’s in a client drought right now and isn’t working with a paying client, really think about how you can help an ideal client right now.

Making offers, literally

I really just want you to get honest about how often you’re talking about your offer and explain how you can help someone.

I want you to legit go through all of your content and count how many times you mentioned your offer.

Also, make a note of HOW you were making the offer, what language you were using, whether you were using your ideal client’s language, the examples you shared, and basically do an evaluation of both the quantity and quality of how you were talking about your offer.

That’s the homework I’m assigning to you.

The reason why I want you to examine, in particular, how often you’re making offers is because people need repetition. Different people consume content in different ways.

Sometimes, people need to hear the same thing but in another way before it lands.

Right now, you can sit and sulk and think that it’s your offer that isn’t working, or you could spend time thinking about how to market your offer from different angles, how to turn up the energy of each touchpoint, how to give a different example of what’s possible when talking about how you help someone, and so on.

Fun fact about one of our clients who recently went full time into their business. I remember in their first month of being a full-time entrepreneur, they messaged me and said, “I wanna say I’m so happy I started making offers because in my first month of working for myself. I already have 9 clients hahaha.”

Exercising agency over your experience as an entrepreneur and taking control in your own business

Right now, for anyone who’s been in a “client drought” for months, I get it. It’s not fun.

I also get that it’s really, really easy to get caught up in the downward spiral of thinking you just aren’t cut out to be an entrepreneur and wondering if you should just delete your social media accounts and stop this all together.

I get it because I’ve been there before too.

I want to wrap up this conversation with a few thoughts to anyone who’s feeling discouraged about your business and wondering when you’ll sign your next client.

First, entrepreneurship is a life long, long term journey. The X number of months of no clients, in the grand scheme of your journey as an entrepreneur, is really truly just a little blip on that timeline.

Right now, everything you do, every action you take, every decision you make, every thought you think, are all contributing to that long term brand you’re building.

Because even if you decide to stop selling one particular offer, you will still have a brand.

Your brand and the offer you are currently selling are two separate entities.

So, no matter what you decide to do about your business or the specific offer you’re selling, just know that nothing is ever wasted. None of your efforts are ever wasted because every touchpoint snowballs together and compounds together. They all feed into your overarching brand, and your brand is what will sell whatever offer you create.

Even if you decide to change your offer or change your business model entirely or quit entrepreneurship altogether, your brand is still there.

Again, entrepreneurship is a long term game. It’s not a one year “Let me try this out and see if it works” thing. It’s an ongoing journey of self-development and learning.

Second, are you a lifelong learner? Like truly. Are you committed to growing and being comfortable with growth and constantly learning from failure and mistakes?

A lot of people say that they love to learn, they’re lifelong learners. But are they really?

If they fail or make mistakes or have a flopped launch or have a client drought of eight months, how many many people are gonna keep learning from the past eight months versus just quitting altogether?

Sure it would be nice if signing clients was “easier”. But it’s the growth, the process, the journey itself that shapes us into the entrepreneur and overall person that we’re becoming.

This is what shapes us into who we become. We can’t become a multiple six or seven figure entrepreneur or [insert income goals], without going through the actual journey of entrepreneurship.

If it was really smooth sailing, then can you really even call yourself an entrepreneur?

Because without failure, challenges, months of no clients and months of questioning whether you’re cut out for entrepreneurship, there is no growth.

I mean, think about it. There’s a reason why a lot of people feel “stuck“ in their full time jobs, because they feel like they are not growing.

Here, in your own business, you get that. You get lost in that. It’s exactly what we all signed up for.

We signed up for the discomfort, the failures and mistakes, and all the roller coaster of emotions that come with it.

Entrepreneurship is a skill that’s available to all of us

So if you KNEW that entrepreneurship requires us to go through all of these emotional experiences (let’s just call it that), would you still do it?

Now, after months of no clients and really getting a taste of the highs and lows of being a business owner, would you still do it again if you could go back in time and decide whether to start this business?

If your answer is yes, then my next question is: Okay, so now what? Do you want to keep going? With all of your hindsight awareness, what decision do you want to make?

And if your answer here is also yes, I want to personally say, I’m really happy for you and I really believe in what you’re doing.

Even though I legit have no clue who might be listening to this or at what time point you’re listening to this, I really, really believe that entrepreneurship is a skill that’s available to all of us.

That’s how I see it. It’s a skill.

And the best part about skills in my opinion is that we can all develop skills and hone in on them.

For those of you who have experienced some form of failure in your business, and you’re still choosing to continue, I have so much belief and respect for you.

I know that you’re choosing to continue because your work matters to you, and that’s why I also believe in your work as well

Right now, I totally understand if you feel like you’re falling out of belief in what you’re doing.

Right now, let yourself just sulk and feel bad about your business.

But when you’re ready to get back up, I’m here for you.

All of this might feel frustrating or discouraging. But what if you had to go through a client drought in order to learn the lessons you need to learn to get to the next level?

What if a client drought season is what you need to strengthen your identity as an entrepreneur who makes six figures every year?

You got this. I believe in you and then work you do in this world through the vehicle of your business.

Keep going.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.