It took me 7 months of grinding and obsession with X to sign my first client.

The problem?

I had no leads.

Or so I thought (more on that later).

The biggest problem most people have is getting leads they can sell their product or service to.

I would argue that leads come before your offer or at least at the same time.

Having leads helps you to find what you're good at through market research which helps you refine your offer.

But getting leads can be difficult.

Most people try doing cold outreach.

There's nothing wrong with it inherently but as a beginner, it can be difficult and exhausting to do cold outreach.

As a beginner, it's hard to sign someone who hasn't built trust with you from consuming your content (especially because you likely lack authority and experience).

It might work if you have high skill and authority but if you don't you're just one of the 100+ people reaching out to these people.

With the clients that you can sign it will be unlikely that they are high quality. My first "client' was a free one that I got from cold outreach. It was a painful process and a client that I did not enjoy working with. If you start with cold outreach it can be difficult to become the person that attracts the kind of clients that you want.

One of the biggest things I notice when I talk about business with others is people's aversion to the words sales, money, business, advertising, etc.

There is a negative connotation that comes with these words. These internal processes that are running in the background could be what is stopping you from achieving financial freedom.

Sales doesn't mean that you're a sleazy salesman.

That doesn't mean that there aren't sleazy salesmen. But the problem isn't the principles of sales and marketing but instead how they are applied and the intention behind that application.

Then some people will overly become attached to one approach or view when it comes to business.

• Niche down!

• Only do direct response marketing!

• Only focus on content and inbounds!

This prevents you from taking a holistic approach to business and puts you in a box.

There's nothing wrong with any one of these however if you become overly attached it can be to your detriment.

If you lack leads it will cause you to go from paycheck to paycheck constantly stressing over whether you will have enough money to get by and what you will do if your current client leaves you.

A lack of leads along with low-quality leads is the best way to destroy your business. It will be impossible to make money online.

Even if you have an abundance of leads (which if you have an audience you likely do). If like I mentioned earlier you are stuck in a narrow view of I only want clients from inbounds. You will cut yourself off from all the potential leads you have that will buy. I know this because this is what I did.

You might even have the leads and not be opposed to outreach but just have no idea how to go about it.

Do you get them on a call?

Sell them in the DMs?

Do free work for them first?

All of this stops you from being able to get leads and turn them into clients

Becoming a Creator Business

When you become a creator business you take a holistic approach. You don't become overly attached to direct response marketing principles or brand/audience building.

Instead, you incorporate both.

This means that you build your brand to get inbound leads by building your authority as well as reaching out to potential leads with warm outreach.

You build a skill stack. Instead of boxing yourself into "I'm a creator" or "I'm a copywriter" you build many skills that stack on one another and make you irreplaceable in the digital marketplace.

When you become a creator business you understand that sales and marketing are not bad things. You understand that you are always selling something. Whether it's your product or someone else's. This means that instead of posturing and saying that sales and marketing are bad you learn the principles and apply them ethically to sell your product that improves other people's lives.

Instead of doing cold outreach to people you don't know and competing with the masses. You warm outreach to people who you have built trust with because they have consumed your content and interacted with your brand. This means the people you reach out to are more interested in the skillset you have to offer.

You may wonder why anyone would want to become your client. You might wonder why anyone would listen to you.

I had the same questions when I started but you need to understand this…

You are an expert to someone. You are 1-2 steps ahead of someone in some area of life. This means you have something to sell.

Remember you have a skill.

A skill is your ability to solve problems. You've solved lots of problems in your life so you have a skill.

Even if you have learned a high-income skill. Only having one skill can make you replaceable.

Any problem you have solved in the realms of health, wealth, relationships, and happiness can be turned into a high-income skill.

Overweight → Healthy

Now you can make a product on this transformation

Distracted and can’t do deep work → 4 hours of flow state daily

Now you can make a product on productivity. The process can be based on the unique methods and experiences that helped you get your transformation.

I'm 16 and I've made almost $2,000 so if I can get someone to pay for my knowledge and expertise they will pay for yours.

The Minimalist Lead Generation System

In the minimalist lead generation system there are 5 pillars that we will be covering. Each one is designed to help you get leads and turn them into clients.

Pillar 1: Offer Creation

Most people come to X “Twitter” and they have no idea what they offering. They think they’ll figure it out as they go. This can work, but if you want to do everything you can to increase the chances that you will make money then it is good to create an offer.

The reason an offer is important isn’t just that it’s how you make money but it also gives your brand direction.

You might be wondering what I mean by this…

An offer gives you an idea of where you are leading people in your brand.

Your goal is to take your audience and get them to buy your offer.

Without your offer, you’ll be more confused about where you are leading people. Which can make your brand more confusing and less understandable for those who come to your profile.

And if your brand message and content are confusing no one will follow.

As the copywriting saying goes “A confused mind never buys”

The solution is to create an offer. But how do you do that?

There are 6 pillars to a good offer:

• Promise/Outcome

• Timeline for result

• Scarcity

• Pricing

• Bonuses

• Risk Reversal

If you study these pillars and include them in your offer you will be able to sell.

At this step, you must be clear about the transformation you will create for people.

If you have created results for your productivity, you can create an offer to help people complete two hours of work in one hour.

Or whatever it is.

The key is to focus on a transformation.

For my first offer, I targeted the beginner level.

Create an offer for the person two steps behind you.

You can click here to look at my current offer for inspiration.

Pillar 2: Knowing your Target Audience (IBA and IRA)

Most people don’t know who they are targeting or don’t even like who they are targeting.

If you don’t like who you targeting with your offer then you likely won’t be able to get good results for them.

And if you don’t know who you're targeting or how to target them then you will never be able to sell to them.

That’s why you need to study your target audience…

You can study your target audience by getting on Market Research calls, chatting in DMs, looking through comments, hosting spaces, collecting surveys, and more.

Whatever resonates with you the most is what I would do.

However, getting quality information about your audience is much easier on a call rather than just through text.

Spend a couple of hours weekly researching your audience.

I like to categorize your target audience in two ways.

IBA: Ideal Buyer Avatar (person who would buy your product that gives specific transformation)

and

IRA: Ideal Reader Avatar (the person you are speaking to that is a few steps behind you. This is a broader audience. And a lower level of awareness)

In a nicheless brand, you speak to both of these throughout your content, newsletter, etc.

IBA:

This is for your specific offer.

You can write different content for your IBA vs your IRA.

IRA:

This is for your broad content. You make money from this audience by educating them about your IBA or selling a low-cost digital product at scale.

Pillar 3: Content

Most people’s content sucks.

Now I don’t say that to be offensive it’s just the truth.

If you don’t stand out as a person of authority for the person you are targeting they will not buy from you.

If you don’t have content that attracts leads then you will have to stay working a job you hate or be stressed out month to month biting your nails and wondering if you will be able to get enough clients/sales to get by.

Content is part of the solution as it helps you get leads. Retention is another part which is a topic for another day.

The bottom line is that if you're not growing or attracting your target audience for your offer you're doing something wrong.

I recommend being a niche of one or nicheless because it has what has worked best for me.

However, this doesn't mean you can't create targeted content for your offer.

You must create high-quality content that is related to the topic of your offer.

You might be saying...

"But Christian, I have no client results or experience, so I have nothing to write about."

If you are writing about a topic in which you have had a transformation, you have a client result.

Yourself.

Write about your transformation in the topic related to your offer.

If you're selling brand coaching, write posts about how you grew your brand.

If your offer is productivity, write about your transformation from distracted to hyper-focused.

Overview of how to create good content:

1) Study your audience (do market research calls covered this in pillar 2) and study yourself

Ideally, you can do market research by studying yourself (targeting someone 1-2 steps behind you)

2) Pick a problem

Once you’ve studied yourself and your target audience (you and your target audience should be similar) take one of the pain points you wrote down from your research.

3) Emulate other high-performing hooks

Once you have a pain point emulate other high-performing hooks. Notice structures in their writing. Plug in your pain point/desire from your market research into a structure.

Don’t be creative in the beginning copy what works with your own ideas.

Ex Framework:

[CURIOSITY]

[BIG RESULT] + [EASY/QUICK]

[BIG PROMISE]

Post it was pulled from:

4) Create an outline

This step is simple enough. Create an outline of how you will deliver on what you promised in the hook.

Also, think about all the questions a reader would have after reading the hook and outline how you will answer their questions.

5) Write the body(don’t give too much away)

Once you have an outline it’s just time to fill it in. However, something to keep in mind is that you don’t want to give too much away. This depends on the type of post you are writing.

There are two general types: Insight and Value.

Insight Example:

Email is 10% of my audience but 95% of my revenue.

Value Example:

My Exact Email Templates [STEAL THEM].

If you're doing insight you don’t want to give it all away. This will make them interested in learning more and buying from you.

This is like telling your friend about a movie. You don’t give everything away. You give them just enough info to make them want to watch the movie (buy your products/services).

If you are doing value-based content you give away a lot of your secrets. This could help boost your authority and expertise in the eyes of your audience. It helps increase their trust in you.

I’d recommend experimenting with both styles.

This newsletter you're reading is an example of a value piece rather than an insight piece.

Pillar 4: Leads

Most people send hundreds of cold DMs to try and sell to people they don’t even like.

This causes you to burn out and also deliver poor results for your clients (since you are not even interested in working with them).

This might work for some people but most people dread sending Cold DMs (myself included).

It also means that to keep your income up you have to keep sending DMs if your retention is poor (which it likely will be if you don't like the people you work with).

This goes hand in hand with quality content. Once you’ve attracted a following you need to understand that everyone who engages with your content is a potential client.

Before we go deeper you need to understand the levels of awareness:

Unaware - Your reader is unaware they have a problem that needs solving

Problem aware - Your reader knows they have a problem that needs solving but don’t know of any solutions

Solution aware - Your reader knows of solutions that will solve their problem but don’t yet know your product can also provide the solution

Product aware - Your reader knows of your product but isn’t fully convinced they want it yet

Most aware - Your reader knows of your product, knows exactly what it does, and knows they want it.

You can determine their level of awareness when approaching them by understanding the kind of content of yours that they engaged with.

If you wrote a post targeting a specific pain point that is related to your offer then they are likely higher up your levels of awareness.

However, if you write a post making people aware of a problem they have. For example problem could be not knowing how to write. This is one that Dan Koe leans into a lot to sell his products. If this is the case you know they are at a lower level of awareness (unaware or problem-aware).

Based on this you will have a better understanding of them when you reach out.

Send 5 DMs daily to people who follow/engage with you or are somewhere else where they are sort of warm. Understand everyone that who interacts with your brand is a lead. In the DMs try to get them on a call and land them as a client.

I can't cover everything that goes into the DMs here as it's one of the things I cover in my mentorship program so it wouldn't be fair to my students but at a base level it consists of:

• Finding their root problem

• Branching their problem out

• Asking what they have tried

• Playing on Dream/Haven State

Those are the basic principles. If that doesn't make sense right I'd recommend researching more into how to close people/get people on calls from the DMs.

Pillar 5: Sales

Once you've gotten people onto a market research call it will also operate as a sales call. But you have to make sure that it's clear to the lead before getting on the call that you will be presenting something to them.

In the DM that you use to transition to getting on a call with them you could say something like:

"And I have something else that you might find interesting"

You don't have to say explicitly in the DMs that you are going to pitch them or sell them anything. You just have to hint at it so when you transition to selling they don't feel surprised or betrayed.

When it comes to sales itself the best way to improve is with practice. Watch your sales call recordings and see what you can improve in how you handle objections, present your offer, etc.

At the beginning of the market research/sales call, I recommend that you give free knowledge and just try to understand their problems the best that you can. This will help you build trust with them and let you know if you can help them.

When you start and build your creator business if you're not growing or getting engagement, you’re doing something wrong, and you probably need to educate yourself on how to build an audience.

Here are a few places to start:

• How to grow a brand (9 lessons on building a creator business)

• How to position yourself online

• Work with me 1-1

That’s it for this letter.

Thanks for reading.

– Christian