Your "ideal client" is dead...
...And it's why you're struggling to attract inbound leads from your content.
“I doubt my past customers would want to work with me again.”
Recently, we were on a call with clients, walking them through all sorts of places they can find untapped leads in their business.
We were highlighting the importance of reactivating past customers, when one of our clients shared a sentiment along the lines of:
I doubt my past customers would want to work with me again.
They clearly left for a reason.
And what I always challenge business owners who feel that way is to think about how much has actually changed between that point in time and right now.
Maybe it was life circumstances.
They were going through a divorce, or recently welcomed a new baby and took some time off from the business.
They were diagnosed with an illness and couldn’t spend as much time in the gym working out, because medication had them feeling weaker than normal.
Or maybe their focus just shifted in that season.
Suddenly, 3 of their team members quit and they had to step back and figure out how they were going to move forward and reallocate those responsibilities.
Or, revenue constraints meant they had to pull back on advertising and focus more efforts on organic growth.
Or, maybe they got a little bit distracted with “shiny object syndrome” and wanted to try a new strategy that everyone in their industry was talking about before it was ever even fully vetted.
Whatever teh reason, it’s not always as personal as we make it out to be, but the top thing that causes business owners to leave SO. MUCH money on the table is that they never actually pause to assess how the “ideal client” in their head’s needs have actually shifted.
Because it is highly likely that the content strategy that was working for you 6 months ago, was built for a buyer who no longer exists.
The market is changing fast, and your buyers’ priorities are changing right along with it.
With new technology emerging in the age of AI, shifting economies, new innovations and breakthroughs, comes a brand new set of challenges that buyers today may not have been navigating when you last worked with them.
Even prospects that have been following you for months, or years, are likely in a COMPLETELY different headspace then tehy were when they first followed you.
I’ve watched this play out in real time through the era of Live Launch, when business owners came to us ready to capitalize on live selling and make millions live-streaming because they were tired of expensive funnels and high-tech strategies, and are now struggling to get people to even pay attention and show up to their live events.
You probably feel it too, regardless of your industry (think about how much the health coaching space has evolved since the normalization of GLP1s).
The version of your ideal client that you once knew: their fears, the language they used to articulate their problems, the solutions they dabbled in… there’s no question that it’s shifted. And the same thing is true for your entire market: not just those past clients.
Which means, if your content hasn’t shifted with it, it’s probably going right over their heads.
Lots of marketers will tell you to optimize for better hooks, specific platform nuances or posting frequencies… and while all of these things are important, so is actually going back to who your buyer is. And that needs to be the FIRST thing you assess above all else.
Because every single piece of your content strategy, from captions, to Substack notes, to articles and even DM conversations, are only as powerful as the accuracy of your understanding of the person you are writing for.
The “Symptom” Gap
Your buyers are not speaking about their problems the way you think they are.
I teach sales.
The people who follow me online aren’t coming to me asking for a sales system.
That’s not the actual language they are using to describe the problems they are having.
They’re saying things like:
“I feel like I’m posting into a void.”
“I’m having conversations but I don’t know how to pivot into making an offer without coming off salesly.”
“My launches used to convert. Now, people are showing up, but they’re not buying.”
Those are all symptoms.
The real problem, the lack of a solid sales system, lives underneath, but if your content is speaking to the root cause while your buyer is still in the symptom stage, your content is not going to land. You’re talking right past them.
The writer who names the thing they feel, not just the thing they need, is the one who stops the scroll.
And as a business owner, your job is to sell to the symptom, then solve the root cause. Your content should lead with the language your buyer is actually using today, NOW (not last year… this is important!) and earns their trust deeply enough to say yes.
They Don’t Need to Trust You. They Need to Trust Your System.
Here’s what the market has been telling us for the past two years, and what most content creators are still missing:
Trust in you is no longer enough.
Your audience can believe you’re brilliant at your craft. They can absolutely love your content, follow you for months, and still not buy because what they are questioning underneath is not you, it’s:
“Does this work for someone like me?”
It has nothing to do with your credibility. They wnat ot know whether your methodology, your specific approach, system or framework can make sense in their unique situation.
The woman who has d no team and is trying to grow a business while still working full-time.
The coach who doesn’t yet have that specific certification.
The single mom who wants to lose weight, but doesn’t have hours on end to spend in the gym.
The moment your content shifts from “here’s what I’ve done” to “here’s why my system gets results for people exactly like you” is when inbound traction starts.
This is why relationship-based selling has such a compounding advantage.
Every conversation, every DM, every piece of content that speaks to a specific person’s specific situation is accelerating trust.
Onlne business owners and substack creators who are driving revenue growth from their paid subscriptions aren’t doing so because they are better at their craft or have more experiece than you do.
They know how to create content in a way that makes their readers feel seen and their problems feel solvable. That’s the difference between a publication people admire and one they can’t stop reading, one they save to refer back to, and one that immediately makes them hit “upgrade” after subscribing for free.
The one thing actively working against you right now:
Most entrepreneurs assume their content isn’t doing enough. In reality, much of it is actually closing the gap it was meant to open.
There has to be a balance between the types of content you create, and in the Substack monetization training my team just hosted last week, we talked about the different note types and what happens when you lean too heavily on one.
When, say, educational content (think tips, how-to’s, breakdowns, roundups and examples) becomes 80% of what you produce, it trains your audience to DIY instead of buy. You become a resource, not an authoritative guide.
Pure inspiration alone (think the quotes, the “keep going” posts, the you-can-do-this energy) creates a dopamine hit… but nothing else. People share it with their friends. They aren’t thinking about how to take the next step.
Too much feature-heavy content, especially during a launch or pitch, overwhelms a reader who is already on information overload. When you overwhelm someone who is overwhelmed, they don’t lean in. They check out.
Your content isn’t just missing the mark. Sometimes, it’s actively talking people out of buying.
The frame shift: your content strategy should work together to move someone toward a decision, not just giving them more to think about or do on their own. This doesn’t mean every post is a pitch. It means every post has a direction.
The Four-Part Framework That Creates Inbound Leads
Whether you’re writing a Substack article, recording a podcast, posting a Note, or sending an email, there is a through-line of content that converts:
1. Showing the reader their current reality. Not in a fear-mongering way. More like a “Wow, I feel seen.” way. Name the symptom they are experiencing right now, in the exact language they’d use to describe it to a friend. The more specific you are, the harder it is to scroll past.
2. Diagnose why it exists. This is how you earn authority: not by talking about yourself, but by being the person who finally explains why they’re stuck. They’ve been trying to fix the symptom. You’re showing them the root.
3. Dismantle every other path forward. The solutions they’ve already tried, or the ones they think they should try next… name them. Show why they’re either incomplete or outright harmful. This is not manipulation.It’s you saying: I know what you’re considering, and here’s what I’ve seen happen when people go that route. Here’s why it works for some, but not all.
This is conviction marketing in practice: you’re not tearing down competitors for sport. You’re clearing the path.
4. Position your solution as the bridge. Not the features. Not the deliverables, but the outcome (specifically the outcome for someone in their exact situation, with their exact constraints, who has already tried the things they’ve tried).
When you do these four things consistently, you don’t need to chase leads. The leads arrive already half-convinced.
This framework works in a caption. It works in a long-form article. It works in a live stream, an email sequence, a podcast episode. Platform is the delivery vehicle. But this is the engine.
If you feel like this could be the miss that’s been happening in your own strategy, my team is hosting a 4-hour content co-working session on May 28th from 10-2pm EST.
This will focus specifically on Substack content that drives inbound interest and ultimately, sales: from crafting the right balance of notes, to designing articles that turn readers into paid subsribers, from mapping out an actual DM conversation strategy that activates conversations meets people where they are now, not 6 months ago.
This is a perk for all annual subscribers of The Sacred Art of Selling. Not a paid member yet? Upgrade here to get access:
The Compounding Power of Relationships
The only way to truly hone in on the exact needs of your buyer right now, in their words, is through two-way conversation (which is exactly why strategies like The Miracle Hour work so well).
When you’re in consistent conversation with the people in your world, responding personally, following up, creating connection points, asking questions, getting feedback, you no longer have to think about what to create, what to post, what kind of freebies or opt ins would drive action. You are hearing it directly from them.
Sales don’t feel like sales when relationships come first.
If you’ve read this far, one of two things might be true:
1) Either your content is already built on these principles and you’re looking to sharpen the execution; or
2) You’ve been doing the work without this framework, and you’re not seeing the results that you should or could be from the effort you’re putting in.
Either way, the next move is the same: implementation.
And that’s exactly what we’re doing on May 28th.
Our team is hosting a free live Substack co-working day from 10am–2pm EST, exclusively for annual members of The Sacred Art of Selling. For four hours, we’ll be side by side, batching your Notes, articles, and DM strategy using the frameworks above, with live coaching on hooks, prompts, and our custom GPTs to sharpen every piece of content you create to speak to your ideal buyer TODAY.
This is not more information in theory; we are taking action together, live on the call, so that you leave with actual assets built (with real feedback from my marketing team).
If you’re an annual member, you get access. If you’re not yet, now is the time, because access to May 28th is only available through May 25th.
Kelly
Ordered your book