The Dog Consciousness Theory Of Client Acquisition

When my wife and I started dating, I bought her a Boston Terrier.  Lily the dog grew to be about 11 lbs. which is pretty small for that breed.  We loved that tiny dog and she eventually became relationship insurance.  The deal was that if we broke up, whoever did the breakin’ the other person got the dog.  This mutually assured destruction of puppy love strategy resulted in us having to get married rather than somebody having to part with that dog.

(I refuse to watch that movie All Dogs Go To Heaven for fear that such a philosophy would be revealed to be a sham whose only purpose was to sell tickets to the cinema.)

To say that we did not train that dog appropriately is akin to saying that communists have killed a few people here and there over the years.  If there was some kind of issue we just picked her up off the ground.  That dog got away with murder because we had a fundamental misunderstanding of a dog’s nature.  

I was the last person in the world to learn that they cannot be reasoned with in the moment.  “Lily could you please do this?”  was uttered in befuddlement many times.

I have discovered that it is better to think of their mind as an amorphous blob that must be molded over time by executing the correct action, in the correct way, every single time.  If you can pull that off for a few months you get what you want for the next decade.

I have learned this reality out of necessity.  Our current dog is 44 lbs. of thunder, wrapped up in a Border Collie/Pointer mix, that was rescued from underneath a downed barn in a hurricane with her 11 siblings.  Daisy the barbarian dog is relationship insurance as well but in reverse.  Our rule now is if you leave, you take the dog.  

(Our marriage bonds are stronger than ever given this state of affairs.)

If you can understand the difference between how we handled Lily versus how we handle Daisy, you will be well on your way to getting more clients for your Writing as a Service business.  Read on you newly minted dog enthusiast to discover how.

Assets Versus Transactions

A dog is an asset to your family.  It can provide love, protection, and companionship relentlessly without fail.  However, you must treat them fairly and put them in a position to succeed by always acting in their interest to the best of your ability.  If you are a shortsighted person, or lazy, you will fail to see that this approach is also in your best interest as well.

For example, if your dog is acting out and you pick it up to end the problem versus calmly ignoring the dog until it settles down, you are shooting yourself in the foot for the sake of convenience.  The former approach is transactional in the moment, while the latter approach increases the value of your dog over time into an asset.

The same holds true for the client acquisition game.  Most methods of bringing in writing clients quickly are transactional based.  Ads, cold prospecting, and job marketplaces are examples of this.  I have no truck with these methods but if you deploy them it is important to know that they are an end unto themselves.  They are a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

There is another way.

You Cannot Know What One Person Will Do But You Can Predict What A Group Will Do

I have an X/Twitter account which means that I routinely get bombarded with thot bots and cold DMs trying to sell me things.   This approach doesn’t work on me but it works on somebody with low awareness of what is actually happening at scale.  This is a brute force transactional approach.  I understand when people complain about this but I don’t get it when people quit the platform citing this reason.  X/Twitter is one of my strongest client acquisition assets.

Why?  Because it provides direct access to decision makers at every level, in every vertical. 

I ghost wrote for a venture capital newsletter where each week there was an interview of either a start-up founder, or someone on the angel investing side.  I would then take that interview and turn it into a newsletter.  At the end of each podcast/interview the host would ask “Where can people get in touch with you?”.  Without fail everyone in that vertical would say “I’m on Twitter, DM me there.”

One of the best things about writing newsletters for heavy hitters is you learn who the players are and where they play.  All of these people said to reach out to them so I took them at their word and started doing that.  It is important to note that I don’t have any kind of audience to speak of.  I currently have 700 followers on the app and got my best client from DMs when I was sub 500 followers.  How can this be?  Because all I did was ask people about what they did, what they are doing, or what they were planning to do.  I was curious about their product, service, or company in general without any agenda.

Not fake curiosity.  Not “I’m going to target who has the money”.  Just “I know about this” and “I would like to know more” type of inquiries.  I just started talking to people in the verticals I wanted to write about because I bought the products already as a consumer.  For me this meant alt-health, regenerative farming, and firearms.  I know about stuff there so I can write about stuff there.

(My wordsmithing really is quite something.)

Here is the entire plan that I still do today:  Be relentlessly curious until a void arises that I want to fill.  Not I can fill, but I want to.  The goal is to create a business that I can always be curious in.

Be forewarned: I have talked to a ton of people that we never even get close to discovering “the void” but each person helps to build my knowledge base of the vertical so I can credibly talk about it when the need does arise.

This may not work for anything else (and probably doesn’t) but I know that it works like a charm in writing.  Why?  Because there are very few genuinely curious skilled writers out there.  People that fit that bill stand out among the crowd.  

You must have faith that the people who need you will find you with this approach and keep doing it until they do. If you can’t take that kind of leap of faith, don’t do it. If you can, get going.

It CaN’t BE thAt SiMple!

It is.  Stop trying to be so smart.  Stop trying to be transactional.  Become curious about what interests you enough times and a need will appear that only you can meet.  Build a network of connections on X/Twitter that is an asset for all involved, like a big huge amorphous dog consciousness. 

That’s it.  That’s the newsletter.

More in a bit . . . Wade, The Understory Bard

P.S. - Tonight (Friday, April 19th, 2024) at 11:59 EST is the deadline to sign-up for the 4 week group coaching cohort with James Carran aka @getpaidwrite on Twitter/X. Here is the content schedule and it will be recorded if you can’t make a session:

There are only a few spots left so the cart closes when they are all taken or the clock strikes 11:59 EST Tonight. In the words of Taylor Swift “We are never ever charging this low again” (or something like that).

You can get to the cart here:

https://getpaidwrite.thrivecart.com/ghostletter/

At midnight, or when the spots run out, it will all be over but the crying after reading Ole Yeller while at All Dogs Go To Heaven so don’t dawdle.

FYI - The two client acquisition strategies in the course are different than today’s topic if you can’t bring yourself to take a leap of faith or be genuinely curious on X/Twitter.

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