Hi, I'm Samantha Hartley of Enlightened Marketing. And I want to welcome you to the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast. Today's episode is starting at the very center of the very most important aspect of profitable and joyful businesses. And that is with perfect clients.

The key to having a profitable, and joyful business and the center, the very essence of profitable and joyful businesses, is working exclusively and only with perfect clients. Now, it may seem that this is an obvious thing. And in fact, I refer back to this expression from the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident. For many people, it is self-evident that you need to work with perfect clients only. But I am going to talk a little bit about why we don't want to work with what I call rotten clients. You know, it's a humorous way to refer to something that doesn't always feel really good when you're working with difficult clients are just those who aren't fit for you, It's a kind of rotten clients. So I'm going to talk about why working with rotten clients is so bad for your business. It's actually not even worth a little bit of a compromise or fudge to work with somebody who isn't a good fit. I am going to share with you, why perfect clients are so profitable and joyful and actually just make plain business, good business sense. I'm going to talk a little bit about how you can find those perfect clients and knowing what that is for you. So that's what we're going to cover today.

It's some of the most fundamental and perhaps basic but important ones that if you don't have this in place it can be way too difficult for you to grow your business. So first, a little story. I don't like to look back and look at painful things, but I do think so much. I'm very grateful to this client for being so difficult and showing me exactly what I needed to know about the kind of traps that I'm going to fall into. Many years ago, when I was a very young and junior consultant, I had a client who came to me. We did a small kind of a brainstorming project for her business, kind of when she's thinking about what business she wanted to be in. And then she went away and came back, decided which of those businesses she wanted to grow, and she did actually started it and wanted my help with that business, and the problems from the very beginning were evident because when I would give her some specific feedback about her business, she did not want to receive that feedback. So first of all, she didn't take any of that in. Well, then there was it, in the business itself with her and her team, there was a lot of conflict and turbulence and in fact, one day it kind of peaked with a kind of a ridiculous and probably symbolic incident, which is that the toilets in her facility began overflowing. I just took that as a sign. If I go back and I look at what was said specifically the thing that drew me into work with her, even once I saw that she was not coachable, she wasn't interested in taking my advice. And she felt not only that my advice wasn't a fit for her, but it was actually pulling her off track, even though I had a lot of experience and growing her kind of business. The important thing was she would turn to me and ask me for help and that would activate my problem-solver, which is one of my best qualities when used in the light, and she would activate my problem solver and then reject it, and so I would get stuck in the cycle because she doesn't want my advice, but she does want it, She doesn't. She doesn't, and one day I said to my husband, I said, you know, I don't know what I'm supposed to do working with this woman because she keeps asking me for advice and then she won't take it. I was like, she keeps pushing my answers button and yet not doing anything with it, and he said sometimes the best way that you can help a client is maybe just to let her make the mistake and do things her way. So she knows. I mean, maybe that will work, but maybe they're not going to work, and he actually phrased it was sometimes you just have to let them play their plane into the side of the mountain.

So that was very difficult for me because what I'm good at is solving problems and helping people avoid flying that plane into the side of the mountain. But what I needed to learn was I can't help everyone, and I tell you this story because I'm far, far from this, and now that every day I speak with clients who have rescued complex, hero complex, and you know, the Mighty Mouse thing of here, I come to save the day and our clients who we want to help, we truly want to help them. They may not be at this stage of being able to receive that help. She's a very specific example. I have another client, I call these my spiritual teachers, the clients who have taught me the most important lessons along the way. There was another one who was late for every meeting, was not prepared, was late with payments, you know, was respected the work theoretically, but didn't actually facilitate or make anything easier, and so that was a very difficult project to fulfill. Just because, you know, logistically, he just didn't have his act together, so it wasn't like I was being opposed as she was, he just was terrible, and I needed to develop and assert better boundaries. So if you think back to clients that you had who were teaching you something, you know, the difficult clients that you've worked with, what were they there to teach you? And what are you doing differently in your business now due to them? So I'm so grateful to those clients.

I'm really grateful that I had them very early in my consulting career because I don't need to relearn those messages anymore. Those lessons, and when I get into a situation where something is kind of reminding me that somebody doesn't really actually want my advice, even though they seem to be sincerely asking for it or that somebody is being really bad with time boundaries or payments or things like that, I can go.

I really need to remind myself of this kind up my game again. So those are my personal stories. I'm sure you have your own stories. Hopefully, they're not too painful and they're very far in the past. But in general, I want you to always mind those for all the lessons you can take away from them. And I wanted to just summarize why rotten clients are so bad for a business. The thing is, I think people feel like, well, they're you know, they're emotionally bad or they feel bad to work with, It's not a joy right, It's not a joyful thing to work with these kinds of rotten clients. But, you know, I kind of need them to keep my business going. Well, the fact is they're not profitable, It's a bad business decision to work with a rotten client. If you think about the two that I just mentioned, super not profitable and not just because they weren't fun. So rotten clients, they require more time and effort. Very often they're pulling you off your zone of genius and out of the flow in order to work with them. So way more time and effort, especially the ones that are showing up late and unprepared. But very often they just are not in the flow of what you're doing. And more time spent with clients, very often is going to mean less profitability and that getting you out of your flow makes you way less profitable, rotten clients push back on your prices and your value. They question your value. So you know that paying late is a message. It's not someone being scatterbrained or forgetting about you. Paying late is almost always sending you a message that they're not happy with the value, they're not sure about the value, and if you've ever signed on a write-in the client. If you look back at that process in the very beginning, you'll notice that there were probably some negotiations around price, haggling, pushing back on, you know, finding kind of small things or big things that they don't like about the price. So questioning your value, in general, is a quality of rotten clients. Those who are just not a good fit for you, and I mean, I could go on and on and on with ways that working with perfect, rotten clients is bad for you. But the last one I'll just bring up is, sure you can do a short term thing, you can do some work with a client who is not a perfect fit for you, knowing that they're not a perfect fit for you.

But what happens? It means that, sure, you get paid for that, but you don't get any testimonials or referrals because you don't want a testimonial from someone who's not a fit for your brand, and when they refer you very often, they're referring you to people who are like them, and if they're like them, then they're also not a fit for your brand so that the referrals from imperfect clients are usually not perfect for you either. So to summarize this, working with rotten clients, those who are just not a good fit for you, even a little bit, not a fit for you, is bad, is not joyful, and it's bad business because they're less profitable and we know they're just not nearly as much fun. So I want you to keep that in mind going forward. And the one thing I will just add here is as you grow as a brand and as a business owner and as you mature, you're going to find that your perfect client also evolves. What makes a perfect client for you today will be, you'll look back and you'll be like, oh, wow, I probably never worked with them today. You're going to evolve and your clients will get ever more perfect and as you're clear on what you do, and as you evolve in your own skills of what you do to people who want that and need that will show up for you. So, keep in mind that perfect client is going to be a moving target for you.

So what I want to talk about next is when you're working with perfect clients, What can you expect? Well, first of all, they get your value, they understand your value. One of the lines, I have a perfect client profile and share that with you later. One of the lines in mind is that they pay joyfully and on time, the checks that are written to you should be written with joy in your clients’ hearts. They should be so happy to be paying you for the rewards, the benefits that you're bringing to them. So perfect clients pay joyfully and on time they get your value. They feel that they're deeply benefiting from the work that you're doing, and they can almost always explain that value to other people. They respect you as a person and they also respect your time. So you're going to find it when you work with perfect clients, it's super-efficient. The time flies by because you're having a great time. But also, you know, there's not all these kind of like time lag and things in the work. They value what you do and they pay full price. It's always been very interesting to me, this desire to want to give the more perfect someone is the desire to want to give them a discount or some savings or knock something off the price, but perfect clients actually value you at your full value.

So that's one of the best and most important things, is for you to receive from that client your full value and allow them to pay you your full value.

Perfect clients tend to be loyal. They tend to return to you again and again, which I think is one of the most fulfilling aspects of them. I've had clients who work with me when they just started out, they went away and did some cool stuff, they came back and now they're at a new level and we get to work together. So we see each other evolving in our skills, and that's been very gratifying. So your perfect clients will return to you again and again, and the best part, they joyfully provide testimonials and referrals to other perfect clients just like them. So when you get testimonials from perfect clients, they're there commenting on those things that you most value about yourself. It's like compliments from a friend.So they really know you and they really get your value. And that means when they give you testimonials, not just I love blah, blah, blah, it's a testimonial that really describes and serves you and the relationship, you know what I mean? They're very affirming of those things that you want to have affirmed for yourself. So the perfect client relationship, it just kind of gives and gives and gives. It's a virtuous cycle and it makes business both profitable and joyful. So there's every reason to be. I don't want to say picky because picky makes it sound like, you know, it makes it's own small, It minimizes the value of this. I want you to be discerning when you find these clients who you should be working with, you should choose carefully who gets this time from you because you have a lot of time. These are the ones who are going to get the time from you. So now we've talked about what? Makes a rotten client. And why you shouldn't work with them? We've talked about why you should work with perfect clients and what are the benefits of doing that.

And so the next thing I want to talk about is how do you find perfect clients?

Well, the interesting thing is the ability to identify them is half the battle in finding them. Right. We got to know what we're looking for. And if you can identify them for yourself and get a really clear picture of them in your mind, you're going to find that immediately you start to get ideas about where they are. Not only that, if you can describe them effectively, then other people can send referrals to you because they will also know where those clients are. So that's what I want to look at here. The first place that we do this, and it's a little bit of meditative practice, it comes from this wonderful book I read years ago that I included in the show notes, it's called Attracting Perfect Customers. And the exercise begins with you bringing to mind the image of who is the closest that you've had to a perfect client so far.

When you think about them and I have, believe me, I've ever done this process with someone who said I haven't had one yet.

So what I would ask in those situations is have you ever worked with someone who may be outside of your professional capacity who was very receptive. You really want to have a grounded and specific example of someone that you've worked with who was a perfect fit, like exactly what they needed was exactly what you do. This is really important that the problems that you're being called in to solve for your clients, the solutions they're looking for, are exactly like your zone of genius. We really want to make sure that it's that kind of fit. So think about, who do you worked with in the past? Who was the closest thing to a perfect client? And what were their qualities? What was, what's true of them? What were they like?

So when I do this exercise, I like to write down the names. Even just a first name. I’d write down Amy. She was a perfect fit for me. Why? I write down these qualities. Woman-owned business. Super loved to support her. A mompreneur. She's doing her work, and also raising kids. So her business has to serve a very specific role for her. Smart, creative. What she was not good at was building the business. She was a head of a creative business. So the creative piece, she was super brilliant at what she wasn't good at it, but it wasn't her strength. So what she needed from me was help in building the business side. Yay! That's what I'm good at. So that's a great fit there, right? That's a part of what made her a perfect client. Super valued me, really understood what my skills were and my gifts were, could articulate those that sent me referrals, by the way, to a couple of clients that I adored, one of whom sent me to another client whom I adored. So you see how this kind of multiplies. So just write down all the qualities of that perfect client that you worked with, and then I like to spend a little time and say if I were going to make them even more perfect, how would I do that? So I kind of polish it up a little bit and add a few more things to my list so that I come up with something where this is a very, very complete list and I will write down things in here. I already told you when they pay joyfully and on time, qualities from my list because it's they. Now it's not just it's founded and based on Amy, and then since then, I've had other perfect clients that I based it on. I write down all of these attributes. They think big about their businesses. They're creative, professional, you know, write those things down, write all those aspects down. They refer me to other perfect clients. That's the thing that's in my list. They implement the work that we have come up with,. they actually implement it because I know that when my clients implement, they get results. Right. So they implement is a quality, imperfect client. And not implementing a history of not implementing means that’s somebody that I don't want to work with,right? So get yourself clear on these qualities.

I've had wonderful examples and doing this exercise over the years. I had one client who said they listen to NPR. That's a description of her perfect client. You know, just all kinds of interesting things can fit in here. Whatever is an interesting thing, the only thing I would say is if there's something that is a deal-breaker for you, then you want to put this in your list. That's why I list implementing. You know, for others, you may have other things that you want to make sure fit in this list. But for me, if people don't implement, they don't get results. And, you know, nobody wins, right. So that's a non-negotiable or a deal-breaker that I will make sure to list in my list. The next thing you want to do is you want to describe them, so that a third party would recognize them. Why do I say it this way? Because so often people come to me and they'll say, well, you know, I work with organizations where they’re struggling with their culture, and I think, first of all, we're a kind of organization. And then what does it mean to struggle with a culture like with somebody? It needs to be something that would come up in conversation.

So we want to be specific about organizations. Maybe it's like large nonprofits, that's an organization or it can be, you know, 10 to 20 million-dollar businesses. More specifically, could be 10 to 20 million dollar manufacturers. I want that kind of specificity, because if you're telling that to me or someone else, you know, well, how would I recognize a referral for you? We would ask and you're going to say what? You would recognize it this way, so describe it so that I know what kind of business or organization that I'm looking for and then the next piece here is you want to name that problem so that it's not the root cause, it's the symptoms.

So if you say that they have a culture problem. How would I? And how would somebody I'm talking to describe a culture problem? Would somebody come to me and say, we have a culture problem? They might, right, but morals and probably what they're going to say is, oh, my gosh, we got four generations in the workplace and we're having trouble getting anything done or. Wow, the manufacturing guys came back along with the sales team, and that's stressful. So describe the situation, who you're working with, and the problems you're solving for them in ways that someone else could recognize that if it came up in conversation, and then the last thing that we want to do, the problem and the outcome, the outcome that you can get for those problems, that's the thing that I want you to be able to articulate clearly. We'll talk a lot more about that in future episodes. But for now, I just want you to know be able to kind of write these things down. If this is a perfect client for you, what's the outcome you're going to be able to get for that perfect client?

Now, we've talked about describing these perfect clients, being able to identify them clearly. And describe exactly who they are. It really gets you, you know, 90% of the way, at least halfway towards finding them. Because so often people say to me, well, I don't know where I would find these, I'd love to work with larger clients, but I don't know where I would find them, and I say, well, exactly who are we talking about? And then they start to describe them, and I say, well, you know, that sounds like people that you might meet here or here. So that could mean at trade associations, obviously, it could be at chamber meetings, It could be on LinkedIn, but even on LinkedIn, you need to know very specifically who you're looking for.

So all of this goes back to the idea that you want to work with perfect clients. You want to know who they are quite specifically so you can locate them. And you need to really have conviction and discernment in selecting who you're going to work with and who you're going to turn away.

So I hope that has been helpful. I hope it's giving you permission to work only with those who can most be benefited by your services and not with anybody who shows up, and then in times when you feel pressured to take on a client, just know that the times that you feel strongly that you shouldn't work with someone and you actually end up do working with them or do end up working with them, very often I've seen that those are the times that it's the worst of the worst working experience ever because you went into it with your eyes wide open and knew you shouldn't have done it. I've also seen and this is a bit of magical thinking, but I've seen over and over and over again that if you turn down the wrong client, which is very difficult right after them, three really perfect opportunities show up.

So I hope this information has been inspiring and helpful. I would love to hear from you what you'd like to learn more about in future episodes. If you have any questions or any pushback, it's all good. And so I would love to hear that, and for today, I'm Samantha Hartley signing off. May all of your business ventures be both profitable and joyful.