Franklin Taggart's Unconventional Life Blog

There is a place for networking with peers and colleagues. It's a great way to learn new skills and develop capabilities. It's a good place to find mentors. And for some, it may be a good place to find clients, but for most of us, the group of people we need to reach will be somewhere else. In Nashville, I went to a songwriter's open mic almost every night. The writers I met there were mostly at the same level in their careers as I was, just getting started in the professional realm. The writers who were successful were rarely seen at events like this. They still had their peer circles, but they were smaller and less publicly visible. In coaching, I don't see the top eschelon of coaches hanging out in the 20k member Facebook coaching group. That group is facilitated by a coach who coaches coaches. He's building his client list, and he limits every other member from trying to do the same in the group. A big part of success is finding the places where our people congr

Would it be easier to find Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster than to find your ideal client, customer, or audience? The trouble with ideals is that they are difficult, if not impossible to reach. In this Coffee Break, I'd like you to think differently about the people you want to make a difference for. If you're struggling to identify an ideal client, you may just not have the experience yet to recognize them. There are some other ways to start. You could always start by identifying situations where you are the best person to call. Your unique qualifications to do what you do can tell you a lot about who needs you. What about serving people who are going through the same things you went through within the past year? Is it possible they could use what you do? Maybe you could look for communities first instead of trying to imagine a perfect person. The communities you belong to are often a great place to start. When in doubt, go for the obvious. Do you know anyone personally who n