Masterminds Unleashed Transform Your Approach and Move from Collecting Leads to Engaging Buyers with Christine Campbell Rapin

Hello everyone and welcome back to kick start the conversation and I am very excited today to have with me a fellow Canadian in the house. Christine Campbell Rapin is a business advisor and the owner of clear accelerations Inc. She is energetic and it tell it like it all advisor, which I love, mentor consultant speaker with more than 25 years experience in marketing sales and operations, working with startups all the way up to the bigger companies in the planet, she might remind you somebody being me, that she believes that business can be elegantly simple, which I love, when you know what to focus on for your to create your success. So Christine is also an international best selling co author has a Bachelors of commerce and an MBA in international business. And she now helps business owners that are struggling with the questions of how to scale and make more impact and income without more hours or spending more time in the hamster wheel of life that we call entrepreneurship. So Christine, welcome to kickstart conversation. And I love this idea of simplifying because I have spent the whole summer actually going back through my back end systems. Because as I started and as I started to grow, it was a whole bunch of duct tape and bubble gum back there. And it needed like at the foundation, just like I didn't start with a solid foundation, in order to scale and you and I were talking about that briefly when before we got on camera. But I'd love to know how to make it simple. And so that it's not taking so much time and and you know kind of energy,

you know, people really like to complicate the world of business. And I didn't realize to the extent of this until people kept saying when I built my first business one hour a day. And that seems like hyperbole. It's really not. But I have spent my whole life in the world of business and my business backgrounds quite unique because the connecting of the dots was my skill set. I was so curious by nature, I was like, it looks pretty. So what that was marketing, that led me to not being loved by marketing, and I ended up in sales. And then I was in sales, and said, Okay, now we have somebody who cast the vision and see it and then I would look at operations and go, Oh, why aren't we delivering what we promised. And that it led me into maybe you should help the processes so that we have this great execution, this great, predictable path that people could believe in. And then it looked really great across the touchpoints. And it delivered. And so I will tell you, where I start when the conversation is what is business, I said only two things predict your revenue, only two. So let's start with an orientation to them, and then audit yourself to be clear. The first one is your business will be built on strangers. So getting in front of more of potential buyers. And there's a big difference between visibility and identifying buyers, the better off you will be because you always will need to make friends with strangers and learning to get in front of more people more ways more often. And to know how to move people is a critical skill you must develop. So I always tell people 1000 people a month is your goal line. That doesn't mean 1001 to one coffees, please don't go break yourself. That's crazy. But leverage strategies to get in front of new people is in a really important element to this. The second key piece of the puzzle, which is without fail, something people go, Oh, I should know that. How many offers are you making, because two things grow revenue, how many people you're talking to, and how many offers you were making. And so anytime that I'm working with a business owner, even myself, I always go audit those two metrics, because they will predict your revenue over the next 90 days most service based businesses have this cycle from first contact to an offer that's accepted of generally 90 days or more. So the more predictable, you can do those two things, the more consistent you get off the train and said anytime you feel busy, or you're not seeing your numbers hit, I want you to audit and track those two things because that is going to tell you that you're off track with the fundamentals. And then from that place, there are three things that shore up your success rate in those things. But first off, you have to say that's the measure of what you need to be focused on everything else is noise.

It is and it's the the shiny object syndrome and it's it's learning for the sake of learning and not for actioning I am a lifelong learner. I love to take new courses and new things. And I've had to really stop myself to like wait, I haven't even action the last thing that I spent $1,000 on Let's do that and go forward from that before, you know, moving on to the next best thing.

Oh, true. And it's common because I said, You're forgetting that knowledge, we're past the knowledge age, I would say our consumers, our buyers, ourselves, we we have got that piece of the puzzle knowledge if now if you if your issue in your brain is I don't know how to do something, I'm just going to be that straight talker that says that's a lazy excuse. Because knowledge in fact is everywhere is the easiest thing to attain, it's never been as easy as it is today. The bigger challenge is you don't know what to do with the knowledge. And so connecting the dots in terms of now that you know what you need to focus on, then the connecting the dots becomes the most critical piece of the puzzle. And it's hard sometimes if you don't have the marketing sales and operations experience to know how to connect the dots. But here's the other kicker that makes it super, super simple. The 8020 principle is real. Apply it to your business, what is the 20% of things you do today, around meeting new people and making the right offer to the right person that creates the revenue. So we want to talk about scaling without complexity. Whenever I looked at my number I go, what's the last thing that brought my last client to me was the last thing where I had a unicorn client, which is those that come in that you don't have much interaction with before they say I'm ready to hire you. And you're like, where did you come from? But you create the engine that makes that predictable? And I said, What's the 20%? Because any marketing strategy will work, whether it will work for you is a different question. But when you go what is working for you to master that 20%?

For sure. And stop looking for the silver bullet? Yes, right, like so, master that 20%. And it's likely the 20% that lights you up. It's like the 20% that you love doing. It's likely the oh my gosh, I was I went on Facebook Live just messing around with my sister. And somebody like hired me off it like what like how weird I am random and weird is that. But that's that's the kind of thing. And I tell people, or I advise people all the time. Like, settle down with the threads and the tweets and the like the all of the things, you're never going to do all the things, it just is not possible. There are millions of ways to market your business. Like literally like an all of them work for somebody, all of them work for somebody. And there's like whole library full of ways to market and ingenious, innovative really, you know, like off out of the box thinking but 20% 20 What's the 2020? And yeah, 20 Yeah, because

your business, the way you deliver it the way it grows, and scales should feel like oxygen. And not that you're starving for oxygen, you know. And so I said if you slow it down, understanding what moves business, any business on the planet, and you go, I could focus on 20% That it's I have a very clear destination, I can master my craft and stay in my lane, and you can pick your lane. And that's one thing, I'm very different on a mentorship because there's a lot of business coaches out there. They're like, this is the one way to grow business. I'm like, here's my background, I've helped more than 400 clients create combined revenue of more than a billion dollars in every industry you could possibly imagine from solopreneur to big business, no two people have done at the same. And I have been at the table through lots of different strategies, some that have worked really well in different seasons, and some that have not. So leverage the thinking partner of what I bring to the table when I said find your lane. And then let's master it, because it will one take all of the stress off the table and to feel lit up because it's like oxygen. It's like this feels like play. Yes. Hello, welcome to your business. Let me reintroduce, it should be

right. Like I was at a at a boot camp the last week and you know, somebody said like, if it's not fun, you're not doing it right. 100% and that's that's actually, you know, like it's true. And we get we get so lost in the weeds sometimes that that it's hard to it's hard to see the forest for the trees. So how do people rein themselves back in? And just like, you know, okay, what is my lane? And how do I scale that like out? How, how does that happen?

Well, the first thing I always say to do is think about the things that feel like play in your business. Because to me when we talk about scaling, I want you to understand that scaling doesn't mean the same thing for any two people. So to me, I'm a service based business. So for me, it's about value creation more than volume. And so I know most people didn't get out of bed to hire me today because here's the stats. 3% of buyers are ready to give a yes on any given day, which means 97% of the people are not. It's why you need to constantly be meeting more people. But then you need to understand that there's three things that every business owner needs to master whatever lane you're 20% is all of the businesses have to master this. First off, you need to Know that you must be able to build an audience of buyers. That's not the same as visibility, you can't be the best kept secret that is true. But building an audience of buyers, nobody's teaching you. And while you may have grown to six figures and beyond the big thing, you realize, you start to feel like I don't have oxygen. And that's because you haven't built an audience of buyers. And that's the first important pillar. The second one is understand what what is marketing. In essence, I don't care what the tactic is, I mean, what is marketing as a whole. And it's about movement, moving somebody from Curiosity, to pay client, predictably. And that's where he said, you can choose any tactic you like, find your tactic that feels like oxygen. But everything you do must be intentionally moving somebody forward. And at safe distances until they're ready to make a decision. And that's the whole premise of marketing. And a lot of people lose sight of that. When we say, Where's the movement? It sounds good. Is it true? Does it create movement, if not, you haven't got it, we need to keep iterating. And then the third pillar, of course, is the offer has to be about value creation, for the buyer, if it's not valued, and it's not seen as an urgent need, and they are actively seeking a solution, guess what, they're not a buyer. And so many businesses get caught in the lane of education, trying to convince somebody or they're a buyer. It's exhausting section, how you go broke, mentally, and financially, too. And so I said, You got to really get clear, stop justifying yourself as the business owner, because that's what you know, that scarcity that shiny object creates is, I'm just not enough. So then I start to get really stuck into the features and said, Nobody buys for that. If nobody

buys for that, nobody buys for the features, nobody buys to the features hashtag, nobody buys for the features,

what's the result? Because nobody will pay for your time. What they're paying for is the result. So when you're thinking about your marketing, you're thinking about your buyer. What's the pivot point that triggers their movement? What makes you I call the bind like a child? If say this the so what factors might you? What is the problem cost them not describing the problem? But please don't describe the problem that just makes me feel shameful, or I don't know, you're talking to me, and I'm not moving at all in either case. And that doesn't help you. And then why are you uniquely positioned to guide them to the result? If you can't own that value? You don't get the Yes. Right. It's really simple. Yeah. And so you want to find when you think about what's your 20%, I would go back to what's done. Your last client, what made your phone ring? What created curiosity, and you have to be able to craft curiosity, not amplifying your own self to justify your features

is not about your bio. No, nobody can

support you. And you can be honestly right now, I think the most important simple thing I can tell people is show up as human. Yes, as all of you, because the reason you know, you get distrustful. And then if you're the buyer, or if you're the audience member going I don't know, but maybe maybe I'm curious and I want to move towards you, if I feel a disconnect, or that you're not being all of you. Or if you're only talking about the highlight reel I move on.

Where and I think clear beats clever. All the all, like every time hands down clear will be clever. Because sometimes we out clever ourselves trying to be like this, you know, marketing, you know, Ogilvy Mather, person or whatever. And it just it comes off as weird and wonky. And it well, you're selling to

your peers, when you are trying to be clever, you're selling to your peers, guess what? Your peers are not your buyers. Hmm. That's important. Yeah, you need to remember and this is where I think marketing, I think the whole world has convinced marketing they've done they've done you a disservice. And I spent all of my years some very big brands. What most people misunderstand marketing when they are stands about movement. And two, they think the answer is let me describe the problem for you. And said, That is the worst thing you can do. And I'm quite controversial about this. But I've 100% would go to the bank on this. Stop describing the problem, right, because two things are happening. One I'm not problem aware, which means I'm not your buyer. Or two, I'm so aware that I'm your buyer that I feel shamed, called out and I have zero chance that I want to go work with you. That doesn't help you either. Instead, I always say people, you need to stop describing the problem because it gets you nowhere. You sound like everybody else. And you're coming from the place of enlightenment. Yes, you are able to describe it and articulate it and judge people on it and you know what? Your buyer is not in the place of enlightenment. Your buyers in the dark googling simple words for simple solutions looking for an expert If and when you understand at a human level, what are the consequences when they have done their own Bs, and they have tried everything free, and they have not broken the pattern and they for the 1,000th time, say, Yeah, enough of myself, I'm tired of myself, you need to be aware of that intersection point, because you actually need to sit the non judgmental in that point, because it's the only way you will get to be credible to get the moving. I love

this is free. Yeah, yeah. And this, this is exactly what I talked about when I talked about three aim question. And really understanding your ideal clients 3am. The, you know, the three questions that they're waking up with, because they're not waking up with all the articulated words they're not waking up with, you know, like the solution in mind or anything like that. They're waking up thinking, how do we get more clients?

Or I don't think I want to find my purpose. I want financial freedom, like it is the unicorn to them. And you're describing you want the unicorn? Yeah. It's not that they don't love unicorns, kind of honestly, unicorns, kind of magical, everyone wants one. But we're not motivated to step towards it. And that's sometimes the other piece of simplicity is you need to slow down your service. Because what they're looking for as the first win, yes, you're trying to sell the mile long journey. And it's not that I don't want that. But I'm not googling that. I'm not searching for that. And that big disconnect, is why you may have had this crescendo of success, but you feel like you've created this vacuum, you're starving for oxygen? And what you do, unfortunately, as you look to your peer group, and start to emulate them, which which totally leaves you lost in the sea of sameness, yes. And does counter active what you want to do, right? Because then everyone starts to like your comments, I would tell people candidly, 98% of my clients do not engage in my social media before they hire me. That doesn't mean I don't get create great, amazing content is that they're still going I hear you in my head, and I'm a little uncertain. And so my whole strategy is how do I build trust? How do I show I'm capable? How do I show I'm human completely flawed and still work in progress. So that when they start to pull themselves out of the crowd, I intentionally get them moving towards me. And I always allow this analogy. In my mind, it's really simple. It's like people are in three lanes of traffic, you want to be auditing what lane of traffic they're in. The slow lane is I have no idea you're talking to me. Most business owners get caught there, especially when they're struggling with client growth, because they're trying to convince somebody by features. That's not getting you anywhere, but that's what happens. The middle lane is I know, I'm human, I have patterns, they're not particularly helpful. But my comfort zone is awesome. And you need to be able to disrupt the pattern says What if that wasn't your pattern, that's where you will connect with people. But you'll do it at a human level. First. You need to nurture that relationship. That's where your money bulk of your scalability in terms of value creation and more people comes from and it doesn't have to be 1000s, it could be three. But three, the right people is going to make you feel like

my business. Yes, I love my business.

And the unicorn, of course, is somebody who's been aware of you a long time has a shortlist of people they're actively ready to do because they have done everything else. And they're the unicorn clients and they pop up and they show up to you often in a first call and say, I want to hire you and you're like, who are you? Before I make an offer? I don't just make one personally. I'm like, why are you here? What are you hearing? What do you think I can do for you? And why is it non negotiable? And until any of that is answered? I don't have an offer to make for you. Right, because I choose my clients very specifically. And that's kind of a fun thing that I just choose to do. And it's a mutual win, because we're building thinking, we're building how do we make good decisions? How do we iterate our business? How do we go back to those three fundamentals? And how can when I asked you, so what you go, I know where I'm moving to? Or when I say where's your numbers, and they're like, I didn't meet anybody this month, I suppose. Don't expect to have a whole bunch of offers made. Yes. And if when's the last time you made an offer? And you're like it was recent? I'm like how recent they're like, oh, shoot, it was six weeks ago. Yeah. Okay, well, what else have you been doing? They're like, I've been networking. I've been doing this, I said, are you in the rooms that you should be in? Chances are you're in the Enlightened rooms with your peers, and it feels great, but your buyer isn't there. And so I usually rattle the cage really politely saying, You need to figure out and audit regularly get into the right rooms. You're in the dark, you need to be credible. You need to talk about yourself as human and ask yourself like a toddler. I've said that is it true. So what what's the other side hearing what's what are they believing? And really, this is where all of that magic bullet comes from. Because you then start to iterate and say I'm very clear on who I want to serve. I'm very clear that a lot of capability to get there. But if you're not ready to pull the pieces together, you're not my client yet, right? That's okay, I have ways and strategies to support you. But I won't be making you an offer, because I'm not going to set you up to fail,

ever, right? Because you're, you know, your ideal client, right. And I and I talked about this all the time, where you want your ideal clients in your, in your, your kind of your communities, because you don't want to be talking to everybody, they're not your people. So you know, attract the best and release the rest, because there's somebody else's best. And that's what you want to be doing with, with any, any conversations that you're having, whether you're networking, whether you're speaking to sell, whether you're, you know, on posts, in social media, etc, you really, you do need to be clear on that, on the 3am question that you're trying to answer for your ideal client.

And what will get the moment, its clarity around it, and then what creates the movement and I said, if you can distill this simple things of slow down to the speed they are capable of moving at, and their desire to move at is, you will start to see a real big difference in your conversion rate. And that is counterintuitive. Especially if you're wobbling, and we're not maybe having consistency in our business, or feels abroad a practice with the offer and the engagement. And those conversations I said Remember, everything moves with conversation. Yeah, especially if you're a service provider with a high end services, they are really needing to say I trust you, I have confidence, you know what you're doing? And here's the most important that I believe you can guide me to build those capabilities. Yes. And so often we can get caught up in the it's about me if it's so not about you. So not about you,

right? It never was never one.

How can you show up with that intentional piece of movement in mind? That slows it down? And I must say it to myself? And I say to my clients all the time to slow it down? Yeah. What is the safe next step they can take. So this, that 1000 People turn into 30 People that turn into 10 that want to have a conversation, and maybe seven that you're ready to make an offer to. And those numbers are really easily digestible. They don't lead to you know, if a capacity is a solvable problem, but go into this knowing what does scaling look like? What does value creation look like for you? And no, you're saying you might not be ready yet. But I have capacity. I'll take two new clients in this month. If you want to put your name on that start window. Let's make the offer. Take payment and commit. Yeah, and don't worry, you wobble. I totally get that. But you have a safety net in place now.

Yes. Yeah. I love this. I love this idea of slowing down. Because often what entrepreneurs do is they identify a pain point, they go out and market that pain point. Somebody says yes, I have that. And then they go straight into great, I have a solution. Let's go. And there's no, there's no pathway in between. There's no building that know like and trust factor. There's no, you know, getting to know each other a little bit. There's no courting, right, you've gone straight to the proposal jumped into marriage, you've forgotten to court. And one of the things that I love about quizzes, is they take the person from that 3am question or that wish, or that desire in their language, and is able to connect the dots between that and the solution that you that's the business have, through a series of simple questions. So one of the things Christine that I like to do in the in the second half of of my interviews is actually work on your quiz, or an idea for for a quiz. So as we were sitting there, as we were talking through this, you know, if you're going out there and you're getting, you're talking to 1000 Strangers, you really want to make sure that they are your buyers and your ideal clients, and you don't want to be like the coffee chats, don't try to do 1000 coffee chats with people. So there has to be a system to make sure that they're you know, not getting on your calendar right away. And that you know that there are some questions or some, you know, something in between, you know, them talking to you directly. And just the question of I wonder if this is going to work for me. So, how do you currently go through that process?

So a lot of what I do is actually in many ways it's guide my calendar because I don't give the link out to all and sundry I'm very particular about different types of meetings that I have and who gets what kind of link and that it comes into a. I have a process where if I'm general audience building, I have everybody come to an event. That event is free. I will give you the roadmap if you think You don't know how to grow business come to that event. That means you know, you need clients. That's the first thing I know you've taken a step in the movement. In that session, I will give you the exact roadmap I used to grow my business, you're showing up also indicates you're prioritizing this, I'm watching the movements in the steps. The third thing I will do is in that session, I will have a small group of meetings available for people that want a 50,000 foot reflection of where are my gaps, I know that the person who's it takes that is a more committed buyer, we're still not making any offers here, I have that session and say, let me give value. And at that point, I said, I'm going to follow up with you in a certain defined period of time. And if progress is made, awesome, if not, you need help, we're going to talk about an offer to help you because this cycle that you're in, needs to break for you to get to where you want to go. So I have a quite a multi step pattern where I'm moving people through things. And as I'm doing that, I'm identifying your slow lane, you're a middle lane, and you're a fast lane. And at that point, you're getting a specific calendar link in that process. And I said, you know, and at some point, I'm also very aware that this isn't just pick my brain, and this isn't a coaching session, you know, coaching sessions are a little different than these. These are 50,000 feet, what do we see? What do we hear, and it's a little bit of the BS barometer.

Ah, so you have a very dialed in system already for that, that, you know, visibility to buyer to talking to your ideal client. So what I'm hearing is that there might be some opportunity for if you don't already have one, like an onboarding, questionnaire or or quiz that could be a little longer. So most lead generation quizzes are about five day questions, what I'm hearing from from your process, that you have dialed in very well, there might be an opportunity to have more of a, before we get on to the 50,000 foot, you know lead audit, I want you to answer some questions. And that can be a little longer because they're already in like that they're already in they're already looking for that value. So I'm wondering if there isn't like a, an intake form for that either that question or even the follow up question may or the follow up meeting. So maybe there's a pre post kind of mechanism where pre that 50,000 Let's get a scorecard in place, and you give them the scorecard and then post, okay, let's measure yourself against what you you know, what we saw first, how far you move the needle? Yep. You know, like, we need to talk like when we talk, you know, next we're going to talk about XYZ, you could, you could send that post quiz out, you know, week before you talk and just say, make sure you do this so that we know how far you've moved. And then you get a sense of, you know, how big the gap is between what you were expecting or what you talked about and what actually happened.

I think that's great, because it's also one thing that we do know in that follow up. And I think that's great. So there's nothing in the follow up loop specifically to the check in the balance. And when we do that, it's, I'm watching it that time also people move from a fast lane, back, and sometimes back at a very rapid rate. But I always say and I say this to clients, I said a lot of people if they don't solve this problem, it might get too truthful in my ecosystem, but that's me and I'm not here to say anything else. But what happens is we'll come back a year later and said I should have hired you a year ago I said no problem no shame around that I'm What do you want now? And often that now is so much more effective? Yes. I'm like, I'll wait a year. I know I have zero doubt I will be in my business next year. Do you? Yes. There are like, that's my cup of question is, um, you must then take action, and I might not be the person for you. But even in that case, I genuinely mean this with absolute kindness. How can I connect you to a resource? Yes, but it's not me. I will do that for you because I truthfully, I get out of bed like what feels like oxygen to me. I want more of us to be succeeding and actually saying I feel like I'm breathing. It's a lot of fun and I'm doing this and it's awesome. Instead of this other energy that's out there.

Yes. It's like other energy. Yes. We've talked a lot about the other energy which is shifting, it's absolutely shifting so so for Christine, I would I would say maybe a pre post on the $50,000 or dollar 50,000 foot audit and and that might actually help people understand and almost self identify the gap and have you know have an even easier conversation with you. Especially in that follow up second question. And and I love your process is amazing. I love the you know invite to the event and then into the calendar and then into the follow up but I think that you that you have a freebie gift for our for our guests today.

I do. And this is the invitation if you are not sure how to scale and how to attract a client consistently, I want you to come to the webinars physically, I run them twice a month in my business in different time zones, because I have a very, very global business and solve the riddle. There's only three reasons you don't have the business you want. With client growth, you don't know how what you're doing isn't creating the movement you want, or you know what to do and you're not doing it, I will tell you all three are solvable, you're gonna get the answer, so you know, where you need to focus in that one hour. And I only do it live. If you want to see client growth, commit one hour live to your business, I will show you how I helped clients create a really significant amount of revenue. And awareness will drive your actions. That's it come to the event.

Excellent. So that'll be in the show notes for everyone and I, I'll be at the event. So I hope I'll see you at the event. And Thank you Christine, for for your your wisdom today. Really appreciate it. I got a bunch of hashtags, hashtag find your 20 and a whole lot of others that you'll see in the show notes. So thank you again, and any any final words?

I would just remind you everything you want on the other side of fear, build the business you want. It's your path. And the business is about supporting the lifestyle you want. Not just the business that you wanted.