One sentence decides whether your marketing works. It says who you help and what changes for them. Get it right, and every post and every ad sends you people who already understand why they need you. Get it wrong, and the rest of your marketing doesn’t work and never will.

I built my LinkedIn to 58,000 followers, and my profile tells a stranger who I help and what changes for them. Without that clarity, I’d never get clients from LinkedIn.

If your positioning isn’t right, it doesn’t matter how much marketing you build on top of it. It doesn’t matter how much publishing you do. People won’t understand what you do and who you’re for, so everything will just seem like noise. Here are 5 ways to make the marketing you already do bring in the right people.

Fix your positioning before you spend more on marketing

Your sentence structure is: “I help X do Y.” You have to be able to reduce your work down to this. X is your dream client, described in a way they describe themselves. Y is an outcome that they want and would pay for, or a challenge they have to do something about.

Read your sentence as a stranger would

Somebody hears your name once at an event and searches for you later. They find your LinkedIn headline and your website. They give you a few seconds. In that time, they decide whether you are for them or for somebody else. A clear sentence gets a click on your booking page. An unclear one gets a closed tab.

Read your sentence to somebody outside your industry. Ask them their impression of your work, and listen carefully to what they say. Their answer tells you if it’s simple enough. Then ask 3 people who represent your dream client. Their reaction tells you if it’s compelling enough.

Get intentional about where your marketing sends people

Every post you publish and every podcast you appear on sends people back to somewhere that says that sentence front and centre. It should be unequivocally tied to you and your name. Don’t let people hear your name without knowing your sentence.

After that, check for alignment. Your social profiles should agree with each other, and your landing page should continue the journey. Discovery calls, proposals, and networking events should all build on your clear positioning.

Be more specific about who you help

Sure, you help C-suite execs, but tell me more about that. What transition are they currently going through? What challenge are they currently facing? What dream outcome do they want? You might think narrowing down makes it harder to find clients, but that’s false. Being more specific means dream clients know that you’re exactly the person for them.

Someone should be able to read your sentence and instantly think of someone that could be your client. If they know that person has the problem you solve, they might make the introduction straight away. Speed happens with specificity.

Swap the process for a result

Imagine you’re a running coach. Your clients don’t just want to get better at running. They want to complete their first ultra by the end of next year. Or they want to run pain-free for the rest of their life. You’re not teaching a process. You’re delivering a result.

Write the result into the sentence, ideally with a timeframe. A number makes the result easy to believe. A timeframe makes it easy to picture. Your dream client should be able to read it and describe how their life looks once you have worked together. Without either, your dream client asks what they are getting and how you justify the price. With both, the price conversation is about the result.

Change it when people are not buying

You post every week and people engage. Nobody books a call. Likes with no sales mean people enjoy what you say and still cannot see themselves buying it. Look at who engages. If it is your peers only, the sentence isn’t speaking to your dream clients. Check that before anything else.

Change the person you are for, the result you promise or the way you talk about yourself. Rewrite the sentence, use it everywhere for a month and look at who gets in touch. If it’s your dream client, keep on going. If it’s not working, interrogate the sentence and make a change.

Fix your positioning sentence before you spend more on marketing

Your next marketing budget can go further than your last one. Spend an hour on the sentence first. Write 5 versions and pick the plainest one. Show it to a stranger, then to your dream client, and keep editing until both of them can tell you what you do. Every dollar you spend after that brings in people who know why they need you. The marketing you already have starts making sense to the people it reaches.

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