I never thought I’d hear the words ‘porn addiction’ on one of my coaching calls.

I just hosted a coaching call all about identifying your hubs called “Seven Places to Find Your Perfect Clients”. We had five folks gathered who I was personally working with to help them sort out where they could find people. It’s often the biggest question folks have: ‘where should I advertise? where do I find people?’

And here’s the first lesson: when it’s a struggle to find clients, don’t try harder – get clearer.

When you can’t find any clients it’s usually a chance to step back and get even more clear about who is it you’re trying to reach. Doesn’t it always come back to the niche thing?

On the call there was a woman from France named Rosine Caplot who shared that she wanted to work with “Men, 20-40, computer type of guys: programmers, computer scientists, physicists, left-brained technical geeks, and more generally guys who are into computers, who work on the computer, socialize online, even spend their free time in front of the computer.”

Their problem: Porn addiction or related sexual issues: excessive mental focus on sex, compulsive unwanted fantasies or fetishes that turn them on but also make them feel bad and that they don’t really want to have, sexual dysfunctions, sex drive and/or erection problems, or just plain never getting laid. They are ashamed of it and want to stop, but can’t.

Her offer: healing sessions to help them heal these issues and create the kind of sex life they really want to have.

I’ll let Rosine (pictured here)  tell you what happened from here with my commentary interspersed.

 

My problem: I didn’t know where to find those people nor how to reach them. I know they hang out on technical blogs, in technical forums, or in MMORPG’s, but I don’t hang out in these places, and doing so just to promote my business is out of question because it’s insincere. Plus, it’s not the appropriate place to talk about sexual issues. “I bought a cool ethernet shield for my bf’s microprocessor. Btw, are you addicted to porn?”  . . . that would be just weird.

My perfect clients are rather introverted. Relationships don’t come to them that easily and they tend to not open up quickly. Plus, there is a lot of shame and guilt attached to these sexual issues. They are not likely to talk about it with strangers nor to join support groups. Science guys also usually aren’t into spiritual healing. So I really had no clue where and how I could meet them. Google is already flooded with stuff about overcoming porn addiction, I thought I’d have no chance of ranking high enough there. Finding enough clients seemed impossible.

You get the idea.

Sometimes the core, underlying problem you see in the people you want to serve is not something they want to look at yet.  There’s too much shame attached to it.

You think that men want to look at their addiction to porn? You think they want to go to a public workshop about it and out themselves? You think they want to ‘share’ it on social media?

Wrong.

So, what do you do if you are passionate about reaching people in this kind of boat?

My experience on the Call:

I signed up for the call partly because I was clueless about where to find clients, and partly simply because my intuition was telling me Tad was the right person for me to engage with at this time.

I liked the call very much. So much great input! I liked the nice atmosphere and friendly sharing with others. It was interesting to listen to Tad working with the other participants. I got a lot out of it even though they were working with completely different niches.

I especially like his structured, strategic, precise and clear way of thinking. I hate the guts of marketing but he made it look really simple and easy and explained everything exactly. I so appreciate that. 🙂

We clarified my niche and refined it a bit, which was helpful. I also decided for myself that the long list of symptoms including erection problems, lack of sex drive or never getting laid was too broad. Although my sessions definitely can help with that, I silently decided to focus just on porn addiction, excessive mental focus on sex and unwanted, compulsive fantasies or fetishes.

It’s easy to think of narrowing one’s focus as limiting – but the truth is that it’s liberating. Once you make a decision of a target market to focus on (even if you have more than one) all sorts of ideas for hubs and offers and events etc. start to appear.

Toward the end of the call, I started to feel anxious. I now knew how to manage and approach hubs and how to build relationships with them, but I still had no idea which hubs to approach and how to reach my perfect clients.

Fortunately I said it, and that’s when another participant on the call suggested I find them through their wives or girlfriends.

Porn addiction and shameful fantasies usually put a strain on the relationship, so I could find unhappy partners through support groups for partners of porn addicts.

Lightbulb!

This realization is kind of the key point in this blog.

Sometimes you can’t sell to the person directly. Sometimes to reach them you need to reach out the people most affected.

You think a heroine addict is going to sponsor their own intervention? Think again. But – his friends and family would.

You think a stressed out bride is going to buy a relaxation CD for ‘bridezillas’? Unlikely. But her bridesmaids and mom might love having something to give to her to help her relax.

And, in fact, then the affected party might just become a new target market.

In this case, the headline: “are you addicted to porn?” might or might not be more successful than, “is your boyfriend addicted to porn?”.

It’s worth testing. My gut says there would be a strong response from women on this.

Also, consider the word of mouth marketing implications. Do you think men talk to other men about their porn addictions?

Hell no.

Perhaps women share this with their friends a bit more readily? Worth exploring and I’d guess that, while there’s still shame, it’s more likely.

What if Rosine developed materials for the partners like videos or ebooks on . . .

– 5 ways to know if your man is addicted to porn and what to do about it.
– three phrases to never say when talking to you partner about their addiction
– how to get your partner to seek help and face his porn addiction
– when to end the relationship and walk away

Etc.

If she did this she might just become a hub for women around the world who are passionate about having their men back and seeing men living more fulfilling lives. This also speaks to the whole theme I’ve been exploring lately about exploring the deeper cause of your business.

There are a lot of possibilities here.

There was a short brainstorming session and within just a couple minutes Tad and the ladies on the call came up with more ideas. Relationship coaches! Couple therapy counselors! And for the single guys, online dating websites or pick up and dating coaches, sexual health counsellors, women’s groups.

It was so awesome! So many ideas suddenly coming in! Genius. I would never have thought of these myself. I was so thankful.

The Impact it Had on Me:

Before the call, I thought it would be impossible to find clients in that niche.

This is just one project out of six, so I thought it didn’t matter that much whether it was successful or not. I thought it would simply be the smallest and least successful of my endeavours. I love computer type of guys very much and I really want to help them, so I was planning on going for it anyway regardless of the money, but I was counting on, like, one session a month in that project. I thought even if I help just one person in that area, it would already be worth it.

Now after the call, I think it could actually work! Even pretty well! Which also means I could actually help lots of people to heal their sex life! How wonderful is that?! I’m soooo excited about it now. 🙂

It’s like a whole bunch of doors suddenly burst wide open.

Feeling very happy.

If you know of anybody I could talk to, like relationship coaches, couple therapists, support groups for partners of porn addicts, ‘pick up’ teachers, David Deida style manliness coaches for men or online dating website owners, would you please let me know? That would be so cool. <3 You can email me at rosine (at) rosinecaplot (dot) com or check out my website here: www.rosinecaplot.com

 

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Want Help? If you’d like some more direct guidance and hand holding on figuring out your niche then go and check out my Niching for Hippies coaching program https://marketingforhippies.com/niching-for-hippies/