Jason Leister: The Client Attraction Paradox – How To Attract Clients Without Needing Clients When You Actually Need Clients (Part I)

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Today, I’m going to tell you about something I call, The Client Attraction Paradox. If you understand this, you can go far. If you don’t understand it, you can struggle.

Working with clients is a crazy business. We are in the business of helping people. And yet, if you’re too eager to help people, you end up helping no one. Because everyone turns you down!

When my wife and I were in the music world, she introduced me to an entire group of people across the world called oboists. These folks are crazy, poor things. I’d end up crazy too if I had to endure what they do. Oboists live and die by the quality of the reeds they use to play their instrument. They sit at their desk for hours and hours making these little reeds just hoping that some are going to turn out OK so they can play well.

WARNING: You never want to annoy an oboe player who is in the middle of a reed funk. Why? Well, oboists use very sharp knives to make their reeds. And they have spools of very strong thread. Kind of reminds me of the wire assassins use to strangle you. But I digress… Annoying a somewhat psychologically “unstable” reedmaker while she is in the middle of a reed funk is just not a smart idea.

The reason I tell you all of this is because it’s a little bit similar to the type of crazy we encounter when we work with clients. Often times up is down and down is up. You get things by not wanting them. You attract by not pursuing. But how do you do it when you actually have to eat?

If you’re in the client business, of course you need clients. The trick is not to NEED them. There’s a difference.

As Dan Kennedy always says, people are attracted to people who ARE somebody, who are DOING things and GOING places. There’s just a natural attraction to that. It’s hardwired into us for some reason.

So the short answer to this issue is to simply BE one of those people. BE somebody, DO something, GO somewhere! (GO is a relative term here. I rarely, if ever, leave town.)

The Problem With Pursuing What You Want Directly

I worked with a client once on a very close basis who was a self-made success. I watched each month as tons of cash flowed through his hands and into various places. The guy had a real knack for attraction. He was able to communicate, in no uncertain terms, that he was going this way. You could either follow or not. Just understand that, if you chose not to follow, no one would look back to see what happened to you. His skill was the ability to communicate that without actually saying it.

One day, I heard him say something that jumped out at me and has stuck with me ever since.

He basically explained how he had learned that money cannot be pursued directly. If you try, you tend to repel it.

Crazy Me, Pursuing Money Is Exactly What I Had Been Trying to Do For Years!

Needless to say, his way of operating opened my eyes to the true power of attraction when you do it right. Pursuing money directly is the same as when you try to pursue clients directly. It just doesn’t work out well. Because they feel hunted.

The Big Bad Wolf didn’t chase Little Red Riding Hood, he showed up different. That’s much more effective, even if you never find yourself in the middle of a fairytale.

But we’re not animals, are we? We’re not that far from animals. That’s why these “natural laws” are true out in the wild and are true here in our “civilized” society. Things that are pursued tend to run.

Stay tuned next week for more on how The Client Attraction Paradox…