"Base your ideal client on a former version of you," is bad advice.

That's been coming up a lot since we opened registration for our mini-retreat about getting to the heart of your right fit clients.

And it always takes me back to my first coach.

She fancied herself an 'ideal client whisperer'... and her whole shtick was to base your avatar on a prior version of you. Some of her suggestions were.. just wow, inappropriate.

FYI 90% of the cohort failed to make even 1 sale while working with her, and spent most of that 3 months just constantly re-tweaking that stupid "I help" statement.

My friends...for the majority of coaching services, prior versions of you weren't ready to do the work that brought you to this new "solved" state and are not the right person to be trying to attract...

It took you YEARS to get to this new state of being you are in because there were stages of change you needed to go through that included attitude, knowledge, and experiences:

First you became aware. You could name the problem. Not all its causes, just the problem.

Then came the transition from aware to acknowledge. Where you started noticing it was having bigger impacts and implications in your life.

Then from acknowledging to accepting, when you finally accepted the problem exists, is having a bigger impact than you first realised, that it's not going away on its own and you need support...

THEN the time it took to shift from acceptance to action...

The reason this process takes years is attitude, beliefs, and mindset. Those don't change overnight... not even with an epiphany.

Because we tell ourselves it will resolve, we'll figure it out, it's not that big a deal. We externalise, make excuses, ignore, delay... we are human!

Then when we start changing attitude, thinking of fixing it, and there's a period of time where we say things like:

"oh, I don't need it that bad," because we start to see what other things will change, if we fix this. And we are like "nope, staying where it's comfy for a while longer, thanks."

These are all delays to change. Mindset changes. And they take time to shift.

YEARS!

And in addition to evolving slowly, most happened with emotional kicking and screaming along the way.

Please don't base your business on that person!

They are not ready. They are not set up to succeed even if you convince them they need you. They won't have the secret formula for success in change management which is at the heart of your program whether you realise it or not:

• Acceptance

• Desire to change

• Knowledge, skill, experience

• Ability

• Readiness to reinforce

Your ideal client is not a former version of you, unless you can pinpoint the moment you decided change became necessary and you took action.

Dig deeper, friends.

D 🤘🏻