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Oma Edoja – On The Record

Here’s a full transcript of an interview with Oma Edoja, founder of www.GetClearGetKnownGetClients.com:

NB:     Okay. Good morning Oma.

OE:     Hello, good morning Nick.

NB:     Thanks very much for joining me on this call. As you know one of the things I’m trying to do is to help my own coaches that I’m working with on Smart Minds to really get to grips with how they build their business and grow it from the start. Now I know that you’ve been successful in growing your business fairly rapidly and making some really strong inroads. So it’s really good of you to join me and I would love to have a chat with you about how you’ve done that. I want you to start off by just telling me a little bit about yourself and how you came into all of this.

OE:     Okay, as you know I’m Oma Edoja. I’m mom to four kids and I’m a happy solopreneur. I love the fact that I’m a solopreneur because I’m the kind of person who values freedom. I value the right to self-determination and like to be what I want to be and so I’m happy not to be hampered by employees and stuff like that.  So I’m happy to work as a solopreneur and I’m also very happy to work from home because as I said I have four children and I love to be there in their lives and I don’t want to be away at an office.  I have worked as a school teacher because of my talents and things I love to do and because it helped me to be there with my children when they were on holiday and lot of time I tried to arrange things so that they went in the same schools where I taught. So I’ve always chosen things to do that worked well with being a mom and like I said I value freedom and I value the right to self-determination. Family is very important to me and my faith has helped me and because I used to be a school teacher, I kind of still walk around tidying things us and putting things away which annoys people but it’s a habit that I’m happy to live with.

NB:     [laughter] Okay. And when did you come into the coaching world? When did you start your business?

OE:     That actually has a two-step answer because I first started out in 2008.  That’s when I finished my training and then I started off as a life coach but soon found that it wasn’t working and that I would have to introduce a niche.  So I stopped my business for a while and went back to the drawing board, found a niche to research my target market, did some pre-launch stuff and then came out again around June last year.

NB:     OK so around about seven or eight months now.

OE:     Yeah.

NB:     So when you say you started as a life coach and you found it wasn’t working so you chose a niche. What niche did you decide to go for?

OE:     I chose to work with femal small business owners who offer a professional service and need help getting regular clients.  The reason I did that is this: I decided that I wanted to work with women because one, I’m a woman and I know about women’s lives, woman’s values, the way women think and stuff like that and two, because my purpose is empowering women and I find that in lot of the things that I’ve done in my life it’s been about empowering women. I feel especially empowered as a woman because my family is originally from Africa and women in Africa don’t have the kind of opportunities that people have in the Western world. But because my father was an educated and enlightened man he chose to educate all of his daughters and in Africa you have to pay for your education, it isn’t free. So he chose to invest his time and resources in educating all of his daughters. He got laughed at by lots of his friends who said, “You’re spending all your money training your daughters. They would soon get married and go away and somebody else would benefit.” But he was resolute about doing so and because my father sent all of us up to university, he said he wouldn’t leave us alone until we at least had a degree after that if we chose to go further we could.

So all of my sisters have university degrees and it has empowered us greatly and I’m all about empowering women. So that’s how I came to be working with women and then I had to decide what class of women would be able to afford the kind of fees that I wanted to charge because I wanted a business that empowers me financially not just something to pay the bills. So I looked at women who are earning good money. Women who can afford to invest in coaching and support and I chose women small business owners.  I set had up my several businesses and so many of them failed, I learned what works and so I bring to my business the experiences that I have had, all the training I have got to overcome this hurdle and that’s how I got to working with women small business owners who offer professional service and need help getting regular clients.

NB:     That’s great.  Oma, when we talked previously you mentioned this phrase “failing forward” and you’ve just mentioned that a few times at the concept that you started a number of businesses. Now what all you meant by failing forward?

OE:     Well, at the time I didn’t think it was failing forward but I learned later on that there was such a phrase. I failed in so many attempts but the desire to have my own business like I said I value the freedom and the right to self-determination so I’ve always wanted to have my own business and because I wanted to have my own business I could not give up the idea even though my businesses or my attempts were failing I just couldn’t give up the idea. So I would go back get a job while I learned a few things till eventually I did find what works because I went on trainings and stuff like that but looking back only I can see that through learning all of the things that do not work I was now kind of ready or primed to embrace all the things that do work because I’m not struggling since I don’t work any more. I have learned what they are and why they don’t work.

These days when I work with women small business owners sometimes when I guide them towards certain solutions or paths they don’t want to do those things but I know from experience that those things don’t work because I’ve tried them before. They don’t know because they don’t have the experience. Later on when they go out and make all the mistakes they come back to me. So why I call it failing forward is that because it was failure at the time, it was very discouraging and very embarrassing, very expensive but it was paving the way for a quick success. That’s why… I started my business only seven months ago but I’ve achieved a lot because I’ve learned from all of the failures so it is important to note that when you do “fail” with something learn from it. That’s the purpose of the failure. It’s not to get discouraged but to teach you what does not work so that you can embrace what does.

NB:    So on a practical basis how did you kick start you business?

OE:     Like I said when you fail so much you get to a point where you start to think there must be something wrong with you because if you only fail in one line of business or with maybe two things then you can put it down to one thing or the other. But I tried so many different kinds of businesses and I failed with them and there is a tendency to think there must be something wrong with you. And I read some studies that say women tend to think when things go wrong that something is wrong with them and those same studies said that with men they are more inclined to think the tools they are using there must be something wrong with the tools or the methods or the strategies. But women are inclined to think there is something wrong with them so that’s how I felt. So finally I got to hear of a four-day business training that was offered by my local small business centre and I decided to go. At that time I couldn’t afford to pay for anything so I looked out for anything that was free.

So I attended this four-day business training and that’s where the light bulb went on. I finally found out that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. It was just that I did not know how to plan a business and I didn’t know the basic things that you need to run a business. For instance they taught us how to write a business plan. Up until that time I had felt that a business plan was some big document that you need a management consultant or somebody to write for you but they took us through the steps of building a business plan and I could actually see the benefit of having a business plan. A lot of people that I speak to today think that a business plan is something you only need if you’re going to go to your bank or look for someone to support you financially. But a business plan will actually helps you plan your business on paper and if it works on paper then it’s more likely to work in the real world.  And then the small business centre after the training assigned me to an adviser whom I worked with for over a year in the pre-launch phase of my business. I really wanted to get started quickly but I realised that I would need to get the foundations fully in place because I didn’t want to fail again. So I worked with the adviser for over a year and I still go back to him from time to time. So these are the first steps I took. However I learned that free support and free resources will only take you so far. So eventually I got to access paid support.

NB:     Okay. So had a plan and you had this support for a year.

OE:     Yeah.

NB:     At the point you kicked off what were your steps, like practically speaking how did you interact with the outside world such that business starts coming to you?

OE:     It all started when I found out that I needed a niche. I think the reason why I failed with my first attempts with life coaching was that I was too general. I just had a desire to work as a coach but I didn’t know what I was offering. I kept hearing people say things like know what you offer, know what the value of your offer is but I had no idea how I could know what I offer and all I knew was that I wanted to help other women. But I soon learned that you have to have a specific thing that you help your audience or your target market to achieve and if you try to become known for everything you will end up getting known for nothing or not being known at all. So it all turned around when I chose a niche and then when I chose that niche that means I identified my target market and who would be my ideal clients so I went to great length to research my niche. That means that I sent out surveys, I networked online, joined lots of groups, listened in on conversations, read what my target audience was reading. I really got in and surveyed them and then not only record what their pressing issues were, I also recorded the words, the very words they were using to express themselves so that when I use those words in my marketing it kind of resonated with them. So as a result of this deep research I found that I was actually hitting the issues they were willing to pay money to solve and that’s how things turned around.

NB:     Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I read one of your articles yesterday about how you worked with the client and you treat it like a police investigation.  Where you decide to identify the suspect and I loved your phrase at the end which was to make the arrest.  And I guess in a way that’s the challenge, isn’t It?  Because most coaches could sit down and decide the niche, research the niche, write books but it’s making the arrest that’s the difficult part. It’s finding a suspect in the bar and you have to have them handcuffed.

OE:     [Laughter] Exactly.

NB:     So, how did you go and find the flesh and blood who you were going to slap the handcuffs on?

OE:     Well, like I said first of all you have to to create a profile of who you are looking for just like the police create a profile which what they go out looking for a suspect. So when you’ve got a profile of what you’re looking for then go out to the places where those kind of people hang out and it’s like trying to get someone’s attention. You will get people’s attention if you are dealing with the issues that concern them. So going out among your niche and learning what concerns them and then tailoring your solutions to solves those problems because a lot of coaches have in mind the things they would like to do with and for their clients but it’s not about you as a coach, it is about the client.  So I learned to put away a lot of things that I wanted to do that were not the agenda of my prospective clients so it is about focussing on their agenda and offering what they want And in the beginning I had to give away a lot for free and I still do that quite a lot and the reason is if you want to get people’s attention you need to demonstrate to them that you understand what pains them and you are able to solve their problems.

If you just go around telling people that you’re able to solve their problems you wouldn’t get much attention. So you will need to demonstrate to people – so I have lots of complimentary sessions. I give away quite a lot of information in my marketing and that helps people to see that I actually know what their problems are and I have solutions for their problems and they can seek testimonials from people whom I have worked with. So that makes the people whose problems you solve come to you instead of you going out looking for them. It’s important to put yourself out there be visible and get known then you’ll have the people coming to you, it would be so much you going to look for them, they will come to look for you.

NB:     Okay.  Everything you say makes complete sense but how do you get to the point where they know to look for you?  What are they looking for such that they find Oma?

OE:     I learned a bit about… For instance I use the internet a lot because, there is a great leverage with the internet and I found out that people go online to look for information and they use key words to carry out the internet searches. So I had to learn what are the key words and phrases that my people are using to search online and pick those that relate to my business and use that in my marketing. I use it in my web copy, my articles and everything I do online. So quite a lot of people who come to me say that they found me through an internet search which means that my key words are bringing people to me.

NB:     Is it organic search or you’re using Google AdWords?

OE:     It’s mainly organic. I have tried Google AdWords but it’s something I’ve put on the shelf for now so at the moment it is organic.

NB:     Yeah, interesting. Well that’s the best way if you can get organic its completely free, isn’t it?  On that notion of free product I think it seems to me nowadays that everything is going to the point we have to demonstrate value through doing free stuff and I think you’re absolutely right to identify the way forward and any coaches listening to this need to recognise that yes you definitely need to get paid for your service ultimately but you prove your expertise through that free stuff. And there is a wonderful book called “Free” by Chris Anderson who also wrote “the Long Tail” with the classic work on internet marketing and future of marketing.

OE:     Yeah.

NB:     Okay just in terms of your first few months, you’ve got all this stuff going on, you’re probably full of hope and aspirations. What is like the first few months?

OE:     It was really terrifying because like I said my first few months were as a general life coach and it wasn’t working. So I just started thinking, “Is this going to be another business that does not work” and I was not as young as I was when I first started out. So you kind of get to think how much in my life do I have left really make my dreams come true so I really dived in this time and got the help when I needed. But the first few months were terrifying. One, because I wasn’t achieving what I wanted to achieve from the very start and two, because marketing takes time to yield. It takes time to create the impact that you want. So anybody who is listening to this, who is starting out as a coach or who is struggling as a coach needs to understand that your marketing will take time. If you start off fully focussed and fully targeted with a viable niche even with that kind of sharp focus it will take you at least three months of relentless targeted marketing before you start to get results and if you are not focussed on a start off it can take you even longer, so it is important to understand that.

NB:     Wonderful. Thanks Oma. And what’s your primary source of business nowadays?

OE:     My primary source of business is the internet.

NB:     And you do a lot of blogging… The business is coming from you blogs, your newsletters?

OE:     Well they all work together actually. All of my marketing both online and off. I’ve created a situation where they all work in synergy.  What I’ve done is this: all of my marketing whether online or off is geared towards sending people to my website and I set up my website as a lead generation tool and I’m happy to say that that’s what it does for me. I learned what keywords people are searching for so I’ve optimised my website and my blog and everything I do as much as possible around those keywords. So that sends people to my website and when they get there on the homepage there is a free offer that’s based on the things that I know that people are looking for, I created a free offer which is my eBook “12 Reasons Women Business Owners Struggle to Get Clients”. So anybody who is struggling to get clients wants to know the 12 reasons why women business owners struggle. So a lot of people end up signing up for it.

At the point of sign up they are told that they would receive my fortnightly newsletter with further tips to help them attract more clients and when they join my newsletter list they are placed in some kind of sequence where they get periodic messages from me and I make sure that all of messages add value. People even tell me that I’m actually over giving but I enjoy doing that and it’s working for me. So whether I meet you at a networking event and you come to my website through my business card or you listen to me on a talk or you read one of your articles or you read a newsletter forwarded to you by someone else you will always be invited back to my website. Hopefully you will be enticed by all the great value that I offer and you want to hear more. Sign up to join my list and then the relationship builds and begins and it’s through that relationship building that my subscribers and my readers turn into prospects, they access my free complimentary sessions, my webinars and stuff like that to find out that I have the value that they need and then they sign up for my products and services.

NB:     This is fantastic. It sounds to me like, what I’m hearing is like an absolutely single-minded focus on one outcome which is to get people to your website.

OE:     Yeah.

NB:     When you go to a networking event you mentioned a moment ago that you still focus on getting people to go to your website.  Do you also try to get business there?

OE:     No, I don’t try to get business there. I learned that that does not work and if you think about how you would feel if someone pounced on you…I call is pouncing…someone pounced on you and started to try to sell things it is distasteful. I learned that people buy things from those that they know and can trust. So the important thing when I go to networking events I want to get known. Then from getting known I take things further because I learned that the power in attending networking events is what you do outside of the event not what you in the event or at the meeting. That is you go there to meet people and get known by people and then you take things further by contacting and later on building a relationship offering great value, inviting them to your website sharing your articles with them. So it’s what you do after the networking event that actually brings people to want to come to your website or want to sign up even if you have great value to offer but you are so pushy and so salesy that you pounce on people the minute you set eyes on them, it pushes people away and they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you.

NB:     Yeah, fantastic advice. What made you chose “Get Clear Get Known Get Clients” rather than, say, OmaEdoja.com?

OE:     I wanted a URL that tells people what I do. If I just say Oma Edoja that could belong to a plumber, a cook, anybody.  So “Get Clear Get Known Gets Clients” gives people an indication of what I do.  And how I came about that name is I created my own signature system which I call the “Get Clear Get Known Get Client” system. There are seven steps in that system that take people from utter confusion to clarity and focus where they’re attracting their ideal clients and how I came about those three part of the URL or the system are because I did some research on my target market and found out that their two biggest problems were how to get regular clients and how to earn a regular income. And then I researched why they were struggling, what are the things they were doing that were making these two goals unattainable to them. I found out that a lot of them were not clear, a lot of them had no clear target market, no clear picture who their ideal client was. They didn’t know exactly what they were offering, they didn’t know what is different about what they offer that would convince someone to come to them instead of someone else.

So the first step in my work is to help people get clear and focussed on that. Then once they are clear I help them to get known because it’s one thing to have everything going but if you’re hidden away at home somewhere or in your office you wouldn’t get business. So we put up their marketing engine that helps them get known in the marketplace and then once all that is in place and they are generating targeted leads I teach them how to take people from leads to prospects, to paying clients. So that’s the get client aspect of it. And apart from getting clients I also teach them how to generate peak business referrals so by the end of following that “Get Clear Get Known Gets Client” system a person will go from being confused and not knowing what they are doing to knowing fully well what they stand for what they have to offer and how they’re going to go about generating interest and turning that interest into paying business.

NB:     That’s fantastic. I mean, one of the things I noticed when I first came across your site some months ago now was the clarity of what you do and I loved your website title and I loved the fact that it made sense to me that you get clear by what you want, you get known for doing it and then you get the clients from doing it. I love that clarity and I notice that clarity seems to spread through everything that you do and how you communicate even your style of writing. Particularly it’s kind of a soft narrative that you have in your blog. I wonder if you could say how you decided to kind of approach… You’ve got the cafe idea and so on. What’s behind the whole concept?

OE:     Like I always say all started from my target market research because everything you do in your business you want to be successful, it all boils down to research. You need to find out what the people want and give it to them the way they want it. So since my target audience is women business owners I found out that women want a soft approach at least those in my target market. I found out that they shied away from aggressive salesmanship.

They just wanted a place where they could go and be understood. They would not be judged where they would be encouraged and supported and so I decided to create my website that way. When I was building my site a lot of web designers that you go to they have own ideas that they want to download on you but I insisted and asked my web designer to do things the way I wanted and I learned that there are certain elements in your web design that appeal to women and there are certain elements that appeal to men so I learned to put the elements that appeal to women in all of my marketing down to the colours the shapes and everything and things like lots of white space making things easy on the eye. Women want to be chatted with, women love chatting and I decided that I wanted to create an atmosphere. I had actually told my web designer I wanted to feel like you’re having a chat with a friend in a cafe at lunch break and you’re discussing your problems and you’re friend is giving you some support. So that’s what I set out to create from the beginning and I’m happy to receive feedback that’s what I’ve achieved.

NB:     Yeah absolutely you have and every time I read your blog entries your newsletter I’m so impressed with the way you connect with the audience as a storytelling level. So you talk about how you went to the park with your child and these kinds of things. I just think it was very very effective for any coaches who want to understand how to connect with the audience. I think reading your website is absolutely one of things they should be doing.

OE:     Yeah but I would like to point out here that to underline the fact that it needs to be what your audience wants because I have one client who deals with bankers and when I was helping her design her own website and stuff like that I told her that the kind of clients I work with are women so they like to hear about family and what you do in your spare time. So I share stories of what I do and all that but she points out that her clients are bankers so they wanted a more straight-laced approach so she wouldn’t be chatting about what she did in her free time and stuff like that. So it needs to be tailored to what your audience is.

NB:     Yeah good stuff. Okay. So let me just ask you a couple of more questions before we finish, one of things I’m intrigued by because I know my coaches face this all the time is that the kind of day-to-day challenges of keeping going and I’m intrigued by what challenges you face still and how you overcome them on a regular daily basis?

OE:     When I started off I faced financial challenges because starting a business there’re lots of expenses and so to start with before the money started coming in I looked around for everything that was free, I looked around for free support and I had a nose that was sniffing out grants.

NB:     Okay.

OE:     So I got grants here and there to get things going and that took me quite distance until the business began gradually started paying for itself. And then another challenge I face is getting things done. There are so much to do especially since most coaches are sole traders or solo professionals, there are such much to do in running a business – it’s not just that thing you’re passionate which is offering the service, there are so many backend things to get done. So I learned, at first I was doing all by myself but I learned that you just have to get support so I stretched myself and hired a virtual assistant and if there are other technical things I need to get done that are not directly involved with getting clients or earning money, I outsource those to other people who are more competent and who enjoy doing them. So another challenge was staying positive when things aren’t going the way I planned. So I’ve learned because I was into self-development, personal development and self-improvement before I became a coach I’ve learned how to keep myself positive. It isn’t easy but I have things like vision boards around me. As I speak I have one that is in full view right now. I have collections of testimonials that remind me of the value that I’ve provided to other people that they were appreciative of. I get peer supports by joining masterminds and groups and all of that. And then my faith keeps me going.

Another challenge for me is juggling family and work. That’s one that I’m sill working hard on but what I said that my children are gradually growing up and I expect to do things for themselves so they are not so dependent on me anymore and the most important is that I tailor my business to suit my lifestyle. There are lots of people out there doing great things but I tailor it so that I’m not trying to do anything that requires more time than I have and I take the points as I take a big break in the middle of the day because I have to do school run and when I get my children home I like to spend time with them. So I’ve tailored things, for instance I don’t have much work going on at night. I used to have clients at nights, webinars at night. Well I still have webinars once in while at night because my audience is international but I’ve tailored down a lot of the things that take away from family and generally scale my business to suit my lifestyle. So those are the basic challenges that I have had and that’s how I’ve dealt with them.

NB:     That’s fantastic. What would you say you feel about your journey now? You made a choice at some point to take this journey and there were going to be challenges ahead of you which you’re facing and face. How do feel about taking that step now?

OE:     I’m really happy and I’m glad I did it. At the beginning several times along the way I asked myself why did I get myself into this? Why I’m not doing what “normal people do” but I realised that I’m not “a normal person” so it’s not strange for me to be going after unusual goals but I’m really happy with my journey so far. I’m happy with what I’ve achieved in a short time and I’m happy with where I’m going because I’ve a plan for the next three years and I’ve learned to get support to make things happen. A lot of us have dreams but we leave them there. If you have dreams and goals and they’re kind of daunting the important thing is don’t need to let go off your goals. Go and find a support that can make your dreams happen and since I’ve achieved that in small ways it encourages me to go for bigger things. I’ve also leaned that nothing is impossible and whatever you need to succeed is actually in your life right now if only you train your eyes to find it.

NB:     Right. And would you like to let the guys who’re listening tthem know where to go if they want to find our more about your website and the details and the work you do?

 

OE:     To find out more about me you’re welcome to my website which is www.getcleargetknowngetclients.com.

 

NB:     Oma, it’s been absolutely amazing talking to you. I really admire what you’ve done and in such a short space of time as well. So thank you so much for your time today. This is going to be amazingly useful for my guys so thank you ever so much for your time and I look forward to catching up with you very soon.

OE:     Yes, it was a pleasure. Thank you.

Filed Under On the Record: Interviews

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