6 Ways to Use Neuroscience to Get More Clients

Welcome to episode 116 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, the business growth coach. As we set off into the next part of the year, I thought it would be really important to talk about neuroscience. Now, this has been a buzz topic. I feel when we think about coaching, we think about all of the AI trends, how our brains work, how our brains are wired.

We hear the word neuroscience bandied around. I thought I would cover a topic that really was kind of close to the heart of business owners, but also, more importantly, looking at what it means in our businesses. So, in this episode, we're going to talk about six ways to use neuroscience to get more clients. This is a topic I absolutely know inside out.

I love this topic, and it brings me great joy to talk about it because it's something that I share each and every day. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, we talk about all things marketing, motivation, and mindset. And my absolute passion is about scaling and growing businesses, but doing it in a way that feels free, that feels easy, and feels in flow. Now, neuroscience for me, there has never been a more interesting topic for business owners.

Why? Because it's all about understanding how our brains work, how we are wired, but also looking at what is the purchasing behavior, what goes on in people's minds when they're looking to buy. So let's kick off with number one, which is understanding the brain's decision-making process. Because by understanding how the brain makes decisions, you can tailor Better messaging, okay, and your marketing efforts are going to appeal to your potential clients in a far greater way, in a far more persuasive way than ever before.

So, for example, if you're using specific language that triggers emotions, that can engage the limbic system and increase the likelihood of a potential client taking action. So we'll dig into this deeper as we go, but this is something that I feel we don't spend enough time on. Business owners always find the most difficult part in their business is getting the fundamentals, getting the business model in play, and then getting the proposition and the messaging right so that they can get it to market and get clients and potential customers buying, but buying at the level that they want and desire. Now, often if something doesn't launch or we don't get the amount of sales that we wanted, it's because of the messaging.

So I want you to really think about the brain and the emotions that we think about when we buy. Now, crazy thing here, even if you are buying something like toilet roll, something that is a necessity every day in the household, it's an emotional purchase. It's going into the supermarket or buying online and looking at, you know, whether it's quilted, three-ply, it's got koala bears on it, puppies, you name it, it's scented, it's got aloe or balm on it. I mean, these are things that are an emotional decision.

So think about your proposition, whether it's a product or a service, and how you are selling that item. The reason I'm so passionate about it is that when I get people into this, it's like an epiphany moment. People start to go, Ah, Dawn, that makes sense. Take my book, for instance, my book, Dynamic Digital Marketing.

It's my second book. It was published by Wiley, and what is it about? Well, let's think about the emotive language. I could say, It's a book all about digital marketing.

Or I could say, well, the book aims to empower our readers to master the world of online marketing and social media to scale their business. Which one is more emotional? Yeah, number two. So if I walk into a room and someone says, Hey Dawn, what do you do?

I won't say, I've got a property business, an academy, an agency, a coaching business. People will just be bored by that because it's all about me. Now, when we think about the emotions of our buyers and we think about neuroscience and we want to trigger these firing emotions and get their emotions going so that we get interest that goes to desire, and that's when people want the product or service or they want to know more. Think about how we position things.

So if I walked into a room and I was talking to potential business owners and let's say the room was full of people who were service-based business owners, my ideal client for my growth coaching certification. What could I say that was more compelling than, I've got a coaching academy? I would maybe think about using this more emotive, persuasive language, tapping into the minds and then taking their interest and piquing it as far to desire as possible. Now, how am I going to do that?

Well, I might say if they said, Hi Dawn, what do you do? I say, Hi, I'm Dawn, the Business Growth Coach, and I help my clients learn the key steps and processes and strategies to start or grow a coaching business that can generate 100K or more within 90 days, even if they're just starting out. Again, this brings emotion, it brings conversation, and it's a powerful tool that I would urge you to start looking at. And this is all about the power of persuasion.

This is about messaging. It's about being able to articulate your proposition in such a succinct way that it sounds so fabulous that the person wants to know more. So let's look at some other ways we can use neuroscience, and that brings me on to number two. Now, if we're trying to use neuroscience to get more clients and get more visible, then one of the key things we can look at is not just social media, not just social online presence, but social proof.

Now, the brain is wired to seek social validation. This is when social proof really becomes such a powerful tool when we look to attract new clients, because testimonials, case studies, and referrals can serve as a social proof and influence a potential client's decision to actually want to work with you. So think about this. If we look at different types of content, there are different stages that we would use different types of content.

To give you a whistle-stop tour on this, imagine the types of content that we have. We have educational content. We have entertaining content. We have inspirational content.

These pieces of content are all there to move us closer through the buying cycle, through the decision-making process, to actually purchase. So think about the different things that we need to know at different stages. So if you just met somebody, what would be a really good piece of validation content, piece of social proof that would start to pique their interest? This is fascinating because then we think about once we have their interest and they're really like, Oh, I want to know more, and this sounds amazing, and this would be ideal for me, what would be the tipping point, the piece of content that moved them across the line so that they weren't just a potential client, but they're now a paying customer?

So I think about the different stages. So I map out my customer journey, and I think about the different social proof that they want at that time. We have to move from sort of higher-level proof, and then we dig deeper and we dig deeper and we get more personalized as we get to know that person, because we are constantly trying to build the know, the like, and the trust. We're trying to resonate with that person through our messaging, and we're trying to build a relationship.

Now let's take this a stage further and go to number three, because incorporating storytelling. Storytelling can help you connect with potential clients on a deeper level like never before. It can help you engage their emotions and create a memorable experience that sets you apart from your competitors. This is the key, because stories do sell.

There's a post that I put out on LinkedIn maybe six months, eight months, could even be 12 months ago, and this one particular post was all about a story about how I'd failed and how I'd gone back to the drawing board, reworked my marketing and my messaging, looked at the proposition, and it just felt off point. And I owned the responsibility of it not doing as well as it did, and then— I set it back to launch and remarketed it, and it did a million in 17 months. That one product, that one course, I could have just literally disbanded and said, Oh, I've tried launching it. It doesn't work.

Nobody wants it. But actually, it was my messaging that was off point. As I got deeper into storytelling and it started to sell, I started to understand my audience better and better because I could see what the tipping point was. I could see how my stories were really helping to connect, but on this deeper, more emotional level.

Number four, this is an amazing, amazing point because this is about simplifying message. When I talked about the LinkedIn post, I put a post out that generated 75K. The story that I told about failing, reworking, and going again and making a million in 17 months, the reason that it worked, it was a simple message. It was—

It was authentic, but it was a story. And the whole story was about actually simplifying my message and going back to market. Now, when we think about your simplification of message, the brain prefers simplicity, simple, clear messages that are easy to process. One of the things that happened when I launched my course, it did okay.

It did about 30K, but, you know, that's not a million pounds. We put a lot of time and effort into it. We spent about six months creating it, trying to get it perfect. We should have, which I would do now, is I get it to a point and then I would keep testing.

I would utilize everything as a test and then improve and optimize and test, improve and optimize until we got to that point where the message was so simple, so succinct, like I said to you before about being able to share with somebody what I do. So these are all interlinked. And when we go to look at the first one we talked about here, which is decision-making process, looking at social proof in number two, incorporating storytelling number three, but simplifying your message, being able to clearly articulate what you do so that people instantly grasp it and they can see the value in that proposition. So by understanding how the brain processes information, we can simplify our messaging and we avoid overwhelm for potential clients.

Because when we give them too much information, what happens? They stall, they back away, they start coming up with objections. So simplicity is key. So think about KISS: keep it short and simple.

Think about your message. Think about your elevator pitch about you, your brand and your product. If you entered a room, what do you do? What does your business do?

What do your products and services do? And carve out these messages so that if people ask you about different services or products or divisions or different businesses you have, that you can clearly articulate it. And again, the same is for you as a personal brand. You need to be able to say what you do.

I have branded my name as Dawn McGruer, the business growth coach, registered trademark globally. And this is important to me because I don't want to be seen as maybe doing a particular type of coaching. I want to be seen for doing business growth coaching, and this links in with the certification and everything else. So branding is really important to me, and being able to say to people exactly what I do, how I do it, and why is just so, so important.

So when I think about me and my businesses, I need to be able to clearly articulate to somebody what they want. You might have your bio, and, you know, this might be a paragraph, two paragraphs, three paragraphs, but you're not going to recite that out. You need to be able to say to people what your mission is, your vision is. You know, I'm on a mission to empower entrepreneurs to be powerfully present to shine online.

I need to be able to say clear, distinct points. I need to be able to carve out what my edge is against my competitors. I need to use statistics and numbers so that people can understand the vastness or the quality or quantity of whatever I'm trying to articulate. So, for instance, if I said over the past 20 years, I have worked with over 30,000 clients and helped them make more than 45 million building their businesses, there will be something numeric that you remember from that.

Or I started my first business at the age of 21, was mortgage-free by 33. These are the things that start to stick when we build our story, we craft our brand, and we start to get our messaging out there. You know, when I talk about who I work with, I work with business owners and entrepreneurs to scale their businesses to consistent cash months while spending less time, effort, and money on their marketing. And I think the key is here is that when we get super clear that it just literally rolls off the tongue, we start to speak with clarity and conviction.

And this builds confidence not only around us as a brand, but our products and services. Being able to show that power is magical. Number five, we are nearly there. Using visuals.

Visuals are so powerful and are processed way faster and more easily by the brain than either text or verbal communication. So when we incorporate visuals in your marketing materials, we can really start to help your message resonate, getting it landing with potential clients in a way like never before, because they start to see it, they immerse it, and it's imprinted on their brain. It's almost like playing a story in the mind's eye. And this is the great thing.

So for everything I do, I have a separate brand. So for my growth coaching certification, my Strategize and Energize retreats, our 100K 90 Days Challenge, every single thing has its own visual, its own brand. And there is no person in history that has ever bought anything without consuming some form of content, whether they read a label on a jar in a supermarket, whether they pick up a brochure, they skim through your website, they watch a video. Everyone is consuming content.

So the more powerful and distinctive these visuals are, the faster the brain is going to get them. They're going to grasp the messaging, and we're going to have that recall of maybe branding, colours, messaging, you know. And this is all amazing from taking people who are unaware to getting brand awareness, even with people who maybe are outside your ideal client. Last but not least, leveraging the power of curiosity.

I love this because the human brain is hardwired to seek out new information and experiences. Which is why leveraging the power of curiosity can be one of the most effective ways to attract and engage potential clients. If there's something that we're like, Oh my goodness, what is this? This looks interesting.

Or, Oh, I wonder why it does this. We need to pique curiosity, and we can do that with all of the above. We can use every single one of these, from looking at the decision-making process and the language we're using, using social proof, incorporating storytelling, simplifying our message so that we've got utter clarity and conviction behind it, using strong visuals that are going to have a memorable, lasting impact. Leveraging the power of curiosity is about zigging when everyone else is zagging, looking at ways that we can do things differently.

So, is there a more exciting, a more interesting, a more experiential kind of way that we can create a connection with our potential customers? So by incorporating these neuroscience-based techniques, you can attract and engage a far wider audience of potential clients and grow your business. So I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, and don't forget to show the love to help us out. This is a podcast that we create, and I record every other week.

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