Business Growth Architect Show

Ep #137: Shelly Niehaus: Practical Steps to Find Your First 20 Clients

• Beate Chelette

Share episode

Had an AHA or Insight? Share it:

Shelly breaks down practical, easy-to-follow steps to help you find your first 20 clients. Learn how to simplify your marketing, connect authentically with potential clients, and build a strong foundation for your business!

In this episode of the Business Growth Architect Show, I speak with Shelly Niehaus, published author, speaker and the host of the top-rated EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED podcast. Shelly shares how to break free from the complexities and crazy making ideas of traditional marketing strategies and instead embrace a simpler, more intuitive approach to connecting with your audience. If you're tired of feeling overwhelmed by the endless advice of buying-one-more-thing in internet marketing and are ready to find a method that truly resonates with both you and your clients, this conversation is for you.

Shelly begins by addressing one of the most common challenges faced by entrepreneurs and business owners today: the tendency to overcomplicate marketing. With so many voices in the industry offering conflicting advice, it's easy to lose sight of what matters—building genuine connections with your audience. 

She breaks down how to eliminate the noise and focus on what truly matters—having authentic conversations with prospects about their real needs and challenges. By simplifying your approach and focusing on building genuine relationships, you can create content that not only connects but also invites your audience to engage with you on a deeper level. This, Shelly argues, is the key to attracting your first 20 clients and beyond.

One of the central themes of our discussion is the importance of aligning your inner compass with your business strategy. Shelly explains in simple terms how your internal state—your faith, spirituality, and overall mindset—directly impacts how you show up for your clients and the opportunities that come your way. 

Shelly explores the concept of “meeting yourself where you are” in your spiritual development. She shares that it’s not about adhering to a rigid set of beliefs or trying to outdo others in spirituality. Rather, it’s about finding a connection to something greater than yourself—a source, energy, or belief system that guides you in your personal and professional life. 

Shelly also touches on the importance of giving yourself grace and the freedom to explore different ways of connecting with your inner self. She encourages listeners to break free from the confines of how they were taught to connect spiritually and instead find what truly resonates with you. 

To dive deeper into Shelly's approach and learn more about her work, be sure to check out her podcast, the Educated Empowered Inspired Podcast, where she continues to share her wisdom on personal and professional growth. You can also explore her resources and offerings at ShellyNiehaus.com. Shelly’s gu

_____________________
We appreciate you, thank you for listening. Let us know in the comments what resonated in this episode, we want to hear from you.

Leave a comment, like, share with one person who needs to hear the message our guest shared.

Take our QUIZ and find out what your talent is worth in this market: What's Your Talent Worth (http://WhatsYourTalentWorth.com)

Follow us on Instagram:
Check us out on Tik Tok:
Work With Us

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

Hi. This is Shelly Niehaus podcast, host of the "Educated, Empowered, Inspired" podcast, and in my episode of the Business Growth Architect Show, I share how to really stop over complicating your marketing. Marketing can be simple. It can be fun. Marketing is freedom. And I'm going to share with you how to really create content that connects and invites and allows you to start creating conversations that will really help you land those first 20 clients.

BEATE CHELETTE:

And hello, fabulous person! Beate Chelette here. I am the host of the Business Growth Architect Show and I want to welcome you to today's episode where we discuss how to navigate strategy and spirituality to achieve time and financial freedom. Truly successful people have learned how to master both a clear intention and a strategy to execute that in a spiritual practice that will help them to stay in alignment and on purpose. Please enjoy the show and listen to what our guest today has to say about this very topic. Welcome back everyone. Beate Chelette here with Shelly Niehaus from Shelly Niehaus Coaching, and today we're going to talk about slaying the myth of online marketing. How many clients you really need? Why are you always making this so unbelievably over complicated? What should you do to get your first 20 clients? And Shelly. I couldn't think of anybody better in the room than you. Welcome to the show. Thank

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

you so much. I'm super excited to just simplify this and make this easy fun and approachable for everyone. That's

BEATE CHELETTE:

what we really like to hear on this show. So tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and what problem do you solve for your clients.

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

So I am a business coach for service based providers and entrepreneurs and small businesses. And I spent 20 years in the service based industry, and in that industry, I learned a lot of things the hard way. And so my goal now is to help other service providers really learn how to market their business in a way that is authentic to them but also is effective, and that really starts with creating content that not only connects, but it converts. And so we really work on creating that content that's authentic, connects and converts, and we do it in a very simple way. I don't think marketing needs to be hard. We don't need to make it all these different levels and funnels and structures. We can make it simple and really think about creating conversations that connect with the person that you can help and then show them how you can help them. So I really just help service based providers market and sell their business and really attract that ideal client to help them monetize their passions. I really

BEATE CHELETTE:

like the simplicity of this, and one of the things that you and I had spoken about in a previous conversation is that you said that business owners have a tendency to make it really complicated. Where is this complication coming from? Are they themselves making this complicated? Are they listening to the wrong people? Is what the market is telling them the wrong thing. Where is this coming from? Well, I

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

think when you start out, everyone goes into business because they want to do whatever they want to do, whether it's practice law or do hair or be a photographer. Their passion is to be a technician in their business, and to really do that. But then along the way, they realize I have to actually be able to get people in the door. I have to attract a client. And that in some for some people who do not have a business background, is is scary in itself. You say the word marketing, and you get this deer in the headlights because they have seen and heard from other people all these complicated formulas and structures and psychology. I mean people in the marketing space themselves, the gurus, and I'm putting that in quotes, have made it hard, because they need you to buy into their products and services. Whereas I always say, let's start with what marketing is. What would you do in the online space that you would do in in person? It starts with creating conversations. So if you're on social media, how are you creating the right conversations with just the people that you want to be talking to, that you want to help, and let's take it down and to start with that and see how we can start the conversations. And then where would they naturally lead the next step and the next step to lead that person that you want to work with into creating an informed buying decision you want to create, let them make the decision, because you only want to attract the people that are a good fit for you. So an informed buying decision could be no that we're not a good fit and they don't want to continue to work with you or buy your products or services, but you're going to be attracting the right people that do feel in alignment with you and are going to want to do business with you and will be a great fit.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I have this this thing, very much like you. Where I look at a lot of this internet marketing stuff, and I talk about this excessively, is that it is designed to make you feel and it is designed to keep you wanting more, because if you would fix it, and if you wouldn't need them anymore, you wouldn't have to buy their subscription. You wouldn't have to buy the next affiliate offer. You wouldn't. Have to have this one more thing to solve, until you finally get there, when the domino finally will tip over and everything magically falls into place. So how do I get out of this mindset? So I want to take the beehive through this methodical today. So let's say I'm in the state I'm listening to Gary V. Gary V is telling me you need to have a team of eight people that just plast out content. And Alex hermosi says the same thing, I cannot do that. I don't have the team, I don't have the money, don't have the content, but I'm in this mindset now that I need to do something that I cannot even do. Where should I start to rail this convoluted brain of mine that's now somewhere out there. How do I get that back to reality?

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

So I think one of the things that we often do in our business is we compare our middle to someone else's end or wherever they are. And you have to first of all look at where you are in your journey. Are you in your first year of starting a business? Are you bootstrapping it and trying to get everything just together? That's a very different place than someone who's three years into their business, who's five years into their business, so that you need to give yourself a lot of grace, and first of all, assess where am I and what is my current bandwidth, and what resources do I have. And then we have to look at those, I call them, creative constraints, to allow us to start figuring out how we can be creative and work within those constraints. Now, with that, you also have to have the end in mind, where do you want to go? Not everybody wants to have a seven and eight figure business and be burning the midnight oil. I mean that that's a model, but that's not for everyone. So what I always tell my clients to build a business that allows you to build a life. So when you think about that when you build a business. For me, building a business that allows me to build a life gives me freedom. I want freedom. And what does freedom look like for me? It looks like freedom of my time and freedom of my money and just to be in freedom of my relationships. And so with those filters in place, where do you want to go and where are you now? That's where you have to step back. And if you don't even have a VA if you're doing it all on your own, just to start with, how can you start to just think about what you can do. What's your minimum viable option to start your the needle moving forward, if it's creating content three times a week on each of the social media platforms, and now you're creating three posts a week versus what Gary V saying? Content, content, content, I'd rather you show up and be consistent and focusing, then show up, burn it for six weeks, burn yourself out, and then ghost your audience for six months because you don't have the bandwidth. So your bandwidth and your resources are where you have to start, and then you have to just figure out your minimum viable option. Momentum is messy. Where can you just start creating that and progress over perfection? Where can you make progress this week and not have to be looking at to the right or the left other people's businesses look aiming for that perfection, because you're not there yet.

BEATE CHELETTE:

There's so much good stuff in what you just said. So let me just sort of recap that I like the idea that you first empty your brain and just say, That's them. That's what I'm seeing. Is the result of 1015, years of hard, hard work, millions of dollars in ads and other things and teams to get to this particular point. But do I even want to be there? I do not desire a life like Gary Vee or Alex hermosi Or even Russell Brunson or Tony Robbins. I have a criteria that is, family, friends, enjoyment of life at the end of our life on the tombstone. What is it going to say? Here's a woman who really liked to work very hard. Kudos to her until it killed her. Says nobody ever and it's not desirable. Says he has a woman, a mother, a wife, a partner, a friend. So we forget that this race sidetracks us. So, so now I have a clear mindset. Then I'm going to sit down and I'm going to say, What do I do that I normally do that brings people to me. So let's say I do really good in person, which is why I do podcasts. People need to hear me speak. I do better in speaking than in writing. I find I like to write, but it's a lot more difficult for me than speaking, even though that sometimes when I read what I just said and I read the transcript, I'm like, does this even makes sense, but people seem to understand what I'm saying. So so let's say that I now have this honesty to say to myself when I show up in the world with either in writing or with my content or my images or my videos or my spoken word, that's how I get traction. Now, how do I now create the content you were talking about? What type of content does work?

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

So I think back to let's talk about how we would do this in the real world. In the real world, we would want to connect with people first. We've got to connect, and you're building that connection. So create content that connects. I call them first date questions, what kind of. Things would you take if you're taking someone on a first date? What? What kind of things would you share? Because if they don't like you, they're not going to want to do business with you, so you've got to connect with them

BEATE CHELETTE:

first so no no show, no showing up on the first date naked. That's right, and

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

we don't want to ask them to marry us on the first date. I think sometimes when they get into this online space, we forget our just our normal manners and human interactions. What would you do if you were hanging out with a friend for a first time, or if you were hanging out with your neighbor, like just talk and be casual and let them get to know you. You've got to connect, but then you've got it and position yourself. They're obviously there because they want to learn more about you and the problems that you solve and how you can help them. So talk into the pain points. I connect with them on the pain points that you solve and really hit them where they're feeling it, because you want them to be like, Oh yes, she gets me, or he gets me. And he was he like, listening to me talk to my partner last night in the kitchen. You want to get in their head, and you want to let them know I get you. I understand you. And that's putting out content that positions you and just allows you to become the expert, the go to expert in whatever problem it is you solve. And the last one is inviting. No, we want to invite them like we don't want to hang out on social media forever, like we wouldn't want to hang out in a restaurant. We don't want to hang out on that first day spot. So where can you take them to the next spot? What's the next logical step in the relationship? Whether it's, you know, getting on an email list, connecting with the dams, but where's the next thing? Invite them into the journey.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I love this so much. It covered one thing, don't do things that you cannot do, and get real. We sit. We talk about in the show about the first 20 clients, right? Because you don't need 100 you don't need 1000 if you had 1000 clients right now, you probably couldn't even serve them. If you had 20 clients next week and they all came at the same time, you probably had a completely different issue. You need to call me or Shelly to help you with all the workflows and the processes to figure all out how to solve working with 20 clients all at once. So let's just focus on 20 clients right now. Now you say, I now need to go and look at myself, how I show up, and what resonates in how I show up with other people and have a conversation about something that is meaningful. Do I ask people permission to to approach them? Do I do have any tricks that we can share on this is a really great way to do to open a conversation. Maybe can give them a tip or two? Well, I

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

think first of all, it's connecting with them on those pain points. If you, if you have the 12 problems that you solve when you're out there on social media, or are creating YouTube videos, and you're creating that content that actually connects with them, and you have a hook, and you're, you may be speaking into that a limiting belief, and then you're replacing it with an empowering belief. They're naturally going to a understand why they should care, and B want to know more, because you have shown them that you can help them with whatever problem it is that you solve. So you're leading with that value, that reciprocity out there, when I call the high level, the awareness, the social media. But that's not where the sale happens. That's not where the next step happens. You've got it that. You know, doing business on social media is like doing it in a restaurant. It's loud. It's noisy. The restaurant could be closed down at any time. You never know who's going to be stopping by your table. You don't have control of the lights, the menu, the you know, there's just a lot there. But when you naturally lead with some type of a lead magnet freebie, opt in something that says, I have something of value. Let's take this relationship back to what we would do in real life, away from this noisy environment and into a more one to one communication with an email list, and start connecting with them in a way to actually care about about topics they care about, away from these crazy algorithms of social media now you can control the tone, you can control the pace, you can control the volume, like you're in control, and you can start to show up in a way that as authentic to you and connects with them. And that's like taking that relationship to the next level, which is still what I think you should do before you ever start trying to say, buy my stuff. Buy my stuff, because that's the next level, before they're gonna get into that relationship, before you ask them to marry

BEATE CHELETTE:

you. So powerful. So I'm hearing you say, just drop the act. Yes, just drop the act of this internet persona, this I got it so together, and just share what actually matters to you and what you are, what you're encountering. The idea that a lot of what I see in internet marketing is an exaggeration of almost like a performance. That's kind of like where I'm arriving at in this conversation with you, Shelley, and you're telling me, just stop it. That's crazy, making focus on the things that really matter to me. Now, what would you say to somebody who says, Yeah, but I'm a service provider, maybe a business coach, consultant, like you and me. I do many different things. Where do I start? How do I know what matters to my clients? What are the most meaningful conversations? Can we help them identify how to narrow this down? Because. If that first conversation hits your first 20 clients are closer than you think.

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

I agree. So the first thing, and I see this so often in my own coaching clients, is we are so close to our products. We're so close to our services, that we have our expert hat on, and we are coming at it from the expert. We are coming at it, and we want to solve all the problems, and we want to solve them yesterday, and like we're passionate, but the person who is just coming into our world isn't ready for that. They are if you know, if your product goes from one to 100 you need to take them to one to zero, or zero to one, or zero to two. You need to take them just on that first step. So I say, think about the questions you get asked most often. What if you could just sit down and think of the 10 to 12 questions that your clients ask you all the time when they first start working with you. That's a first start, like get those 12 pain points that you really help them solve, and start with that. And then the next thing is, go talk to them. Go talk to them. I always say, just do a zoom call, do an interview, ask them a few questions. Say, Hey, you know what, you've been one of my best clients. I would love to get some feedback on how I can help other people. Record it. Just record the call, and use their languaging to help you in your marketing, because that's marketing gold right there, because they're telling you what kinds of questions they had and what their life was like before they came to you, and you can use that in your marketing to really help connect with new clients by using the research that you've done with your other clients.

BEATE CHELETTE:

So now what you just said is stop trying to push what you think they need, but listen to them what they're saying, and then reformulate what you're offering to that one problem that they can even identify with at this moment.

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

I think we as service providers and coaches, we think we know what they want, but if you listen, they will tell you, and that's what 90% of the world isn't doing. They're not taking the time to stop and listen to what do my clients actually want, what kind of products or services they need, not what do I think they need

BEATE CHELETTE:

myself included. I think this is, this is the problem of the expert in general. And I like that that we're talking about this in the show, because that pushes these 20 clients further out, because then the client will say something like this, there's something here, but I'm not sure, because they know, you know how to help them, but they haven't heard it. And so they keep going back to, well, I have to think about it. And then they push out the sale, because you have not been able to really narrow it down to what they're doing. I mean, here at Growth Architect, we do this with the signature growth system, where we then slice and dice the entire transformation journey into pieces. So how do you help your clients? When somebody says, Do you have a diagnosis of some sort? Do you have a strategy session like, how do you identify where they are at and have them tell you that? So you know what the product is you need to offer them? Well,

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

I think it starts with a strategy session or a discovery call. And you've got to get into their business, you know, what is their current, you know, revenue looking like? What is it? You know, that's working for them, what's not working for them? And nine times out of 10, the people that come to me have jumped over that first step of really getting clear on their offer, their audience and their message. And because we all want to chase those shiny objects. They jump straight into jumping on social media and creating content, and they're frustrated because they're throwing spaghetti at the wall. They're pushing, pushing more and more content, but in reality, they haven't done the work to make sure that their message is resonating, that they have the right offer out there back to do they are they actually putting what their clients want out there? Do they actually have their audience defined? And once we take kind of step back, when we start working through that, all of a sudden these light bulbs go off right and left. They're like, Oh, I never thought of it this way. Oh, yeah, that's great. And then once you get those core foundations that a lot of people nowadays want to skip over because it's seems traditional, but at the end of the day, it still has to be done. That's when you go jump on social media, and you jump into Canva, and you get the graphics, and you create all the fun next levels, but you've got to do the basics first. So we always kind of figure out where they are, and then I back up and ask them, Well, are you clear on this? Are you clear on that? And nine times out of 10, I feel like if they have done it, it's been a long time and they need to revisit it, or else they've never done some of that initial work in the first place. Um,

BEATE CHELETTE:

so simple, but that was our promise for this particular show. So I want to switch gears now a little bit Shelly, and talk about the spiritual part of the show. How does spirituality comes into what you do and how you help your clients and how you show up. Well, I

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

think first of all, with spirituality, you really have to and I think back to us talking about the internet marketing space, when you don't have confidence in yourself and you don't have your own clarity, you start looking to others for that confidence and clarity. And that's when. Start chasing all the shiny objects because you think this solution is gonna, you know, bring me the answer, and you start looking outside of yourself for the answers. And what I have found through spirituality is you've really got to know your why. You've got to know the purpose that's bigger than yourself, and you've got to know what your calling is for this specific season of life, and you've got to get quiet. You've got to journal, whatever it is that allows you to really connect with your core first, and your knowing, I always say, to know you know and your Knower. And once you know that, then you can go out into the world and start showing up. But if you're not really secure on how you are, your clarity, your confidence, through your own inner spiritual work and your own guidance, then it's really hard to go out and serve others, because you don't have that confidence and clarity, and you're starting to look for it through other mechanisms. I

BEATE CHELETTE:

like that very simple. Again. Do you think that people get disconnected because they've been told that there's business and business is business and your personal life is your personal life. Or are you seeing that these roles are now really changing and merging more and more, I think a

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

lot of people are really starting to live that intersection of faith in business. Because, I mean, I was a child of the 90s, and it was the culture. Everything was separate. And I feel like we lived that your spirituality and your business, they were siloed. And we have learned that we are complex beings. Our inner self drives the way we show up in the world, and we can't compartmentalize that. And I deal with a lot of especially women who have tried that way. And the old way of working is no longer or the old way of doing things is no longer working, and now they're like, I've got to figure this out. And a lot of the people that I actually work with are looking for that element of life, coaching spirituality, combined with business, because they realize that how they show up in themselves. And you know, your spirituality, your faith affects the who you are, your ideas, your beliefs, and it affects how you show up and how you serve others, and you really can't compartmentalize them. I

BEATE CHELETTE:

couldn't agree with you more. One of the reasons we added spirituality to this show was that I I had a spiritual journey, and I in this journey, I was thinking about what really mattered to me, and when I connected to one source in I felt what Love feels like when you feel it in your heart, and I saw my daughter and my my grandchild being born, and I felt these overwhelming emotions of of love that put me into tears. And it's not that I didn't feel that before, but I felt it on a level that I never felt it before. And then when you go into the spiritual aspects of mindset of faith or belief, it is an energetic vibration of belonging to this source on whether that's religion, faith, Jesus, God, whatever you want to call it, whatever you're comfortable with. But I like you see that people are refusing to make it about one thing over here, and then somehow have to shed that code and then do something else over there. And I never understood when I grew up that was completely frowned upon. I mean, church was church, and that was that, and you just did not talk about it, and it would be completely inappropriate. So you said that for you, what you see in your work is that the spirituality really shows up, and how people show up for themselves is what I'm hearing in their work. So for somebody who now goes, I'm not getting the results. I'm not having these first 20 clients. Can we give them some idea on how do we, how do we allow this spirituality to emerge? And

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

again, I think it depends on how you get connected with your inner self, with your inner your faith. I think you've got to carve out the time to find that first. And it was actually through becoming a business owner that I really started my own personal development journey, and that's what actually got me curious and got me into journaling and really my faith, because I realized that they I couldn't have a weak side of one and a strong side of the other. They both had to be equally strong to be show up as my whole self. So I think you have to get in and figure out who you are, like, who you are inside, and what your why is, and what why you're here. What you feel your calling is in the season of life, where you feel the favor is upon you, like, what your gifts are, and how it can be bigger to the world. And then once you start to see that, you start to really get your inner compass, as I say in alignment. That's when you can start to go out and show up for your clients, because how you show up internally with your faith and your spirituality really does affect everything, and even if you're not openly talking about it in your business, it affects how you're going to serve your clients and show up and the doors that are going to open for. You, and the opportunity is going to come into your world. So you really have to get clear on what you feel is important to you, what your values are, and your vision and your passion, and that's when you go out from there. I could not

BEATE CHELETTE:

agree with you more. You put this so absolutely beautiful. Meet yourself where you are at in your spiritual development. And it doesn't mean that you have to be holier than anyone else. It just means that there is a connection to the source or to an energy or to a belief system that is greater than you. Because a lot of people that we work with are looking for purpose, and you cannot help people to find that purpose unless you are in purpose. I mean, that's what I'm hearing you say here and

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

give yourself grace to have that connection be in a different way. I mean, I was raised that your connection has to look very specifically and like different people connect in different ways. And just give yourself the creativity to go out and explore how you can connect and feel in alignment. And it might surprise you, what shows up.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I love that very much. Shelley, for somebody who's now listened to this and says, I must find out more about her. Where do we send them? What do you have? You

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

can find me at the Educated, Empowered, Inspired podcast and shellyniehaus.com that has all of the resources and everything you would need to know.

BEATE CHELETTE:

Wonderful. Well, you've been an amazing guest. So everybody for your first 20 clients you heard here, make sure you got your inner core aligned to where you get your energy from, your spiritual connection. Get clear about what it is that you want stop all the over complications of internet marketing, and have conversations with people where they are at about things that matter to them, and then create a product that solves that very problem. How difficult was that you heard it all here on the Business Growth Architect Show Shelly Niehaus. Shelly, thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. Oh, I

Shelly Niehaus - EDUCATED EMPOWERED INSPIRED Podcast Host:

enjoyed it. Thank

BEATE CHELETTE:

you again, and that is it for us for today. So if you know someone who has unnecessarily over complicated their business, please share this episode with them. As always, we are so incredibly grateful that you've been listening or watching this show and until next time and GOODBYE. So appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode. Please subscribe to the podcast, give us a five star, review, a comment, and share this episode with one more person, so that you can help us help more people. Thank you again, until next time. Goodbye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Beate Chelette

Host