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There is one place where fat is pretty much always better: your pipeline of great-fit potential clients.
They’re reading your email missives or subscribing to your blog. They’re following you on Twitter, connecting with you on LinkedIn—maybe they’re even watching your YouTube channel.
These are the folks who—eventually—will hire you, refer you or buy from you on-line.
Fat is good.
So how do you start filling your pipeline with the right tribe?
Think of it in three stages: targeting your audience base, creating content exclusively designed for them and engaging with those who cross your path.
Declare your tribe. This is about being positively certain whom you want to align yourself with. If you’re still struggling with this try my client avatar exercise here . You can also think of this as buyer personnas—what are the profiles of the people you most want to reach?
Once you have your core audience identified (generally, you’ll want to keep this to three or fewer avatars or personnas), then you can ask yourself the sourcing question: how do I reach these people? Where do they go to get information related to what I do? Who do they trust—who is uniquely positioned with a platform or relationships with this audience?
Take the financial advisor who has declared his tribe to be same-sex business-owning couples with children. That clarity allows him to speak directly, clearly and enchantingly to the life and financial topics his audience must navigate.
Create just for them. Once you’ve got your audience clearly defined, create EVERYTHING with them in mind. Your articles, blog posts, emails, videos, training materials, website and marketing collateral should call to them like bees to honey. What do your people struggle with? What tools will change their lives? What secret desires can you help them reach?
One of the great joys of assembling your tribe is that you can ask what they need. What they crave. Or even—when you know them intimately enough—you may discover something they never imagined but suddenly can’t live without.
That direct communication—if you listen carefully—will short-circuit the if-I-build-it-they-will-come mistakes that can cost you dearly.
Engage, engage, engage. We humans rarely respond to a 100% analytical approach. I don’t care how smart you are, if you don’t bring some humanity—an authentic emotional appeal—to your content marketing, you’ll always fall far short of your potential.
Don’t just take my word for it—look around your industry or specialty. Who has the big kahuna platforms? Those who inject their authentic personality and consistent message into everything they do. Even if you vehemently disagree with their premise, take a closer look at how they engage their tribe—there may well be some gold nuggets there for you.
The key here is to reach for YOUR tribe. To engage them where they are right now. To treat each one as the beginning of a long, mutually satisfying relationship. Because when you are exquisitely targeting your ideal sweet-spot, every single interchange has the potential to leverage ten-fold. That conversation you have with someone not ready to “buy” you right now may reverberate five days, five months or five years later.
Karma, baby.
Think of fattening up your pipeline as a bonding process—you’re investing in your present AND your future.
You’re doing your best work, while surrounding yourself with your perfect tribe.
Which makes marketing and selling—wait for it—FUN.
Yep, fun. And couldn’t we all use some more of that.