Last week I shared why online business owners must separate marketing from publishing in our minds.

The quick recap? It’s eating our businesses by limiting the possibilities that we see. Specifically, we start thinking about social media platforms and publishing first, and our business goals second.

We need to think bigger than platforms.

We need to put our business goals first.

But it can be tough to do that when social media takes up so much of our collective mental bandwidth!

To start shifting how my clients and I thought about marketing, I started imagining my business as having an attraction engine – like a magnet for my dream clients.

So if you want to level up the clients that you’re working with and raise prices? 

If you want to pivot to teaching online courses?

If you want to offer your first retreat, or launch a clothing line?

Your attraction engine is what’s responsible for delivering your results. 

You may not know what it is yet, but your business already has an attraction engine. (It just might not be working as you want it to.)

…The more I used mine and thought about it, the more straightforward and more clear it made running my business, and it’s become a core part of how I help my client’s businesses to grow.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that income isn’t everything. Your work matters and has value regardless of if someone wants to pay you. Full stop.

But as the sole income earner for my family, I need to aware of what brings income into my business. I want to make sure that time away from my family has a return on that investment.

Your situation might be different, but since your income and mine depend on our attraction engines, I think they’re worth knowing about it!

What’s an attraction engine?

An attraction engine is a strategy, tactic, or set of actions that you use to get in front of potential customers or clients who have never heard of your businesses before.

Traditional marketing is often vague to the point of being useless to anyone who doesn’t actively study it.

For example, the following are widely accepted as ways to grow a business:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Facebook Ads
• Speaking

…but what does any of that actually mean? There are no specifics. Not even a verb in sight. 

We might as well be saying that we grow our business with internet magic. No wonder so many of us get off track!

How to attract customers who buy your products

The reason I like speaking in terms of attraction engines is that they define exactly what actions you need to take.

That means they’re wildly specific, actionable, and allow you to take full ownership of your business growth.

For example…

Examples of attraction engines:

• Engaging on Instagram Hashtags
• Engaging on relevant LinkedIn hashtags and posting videos that add value
• Facebook Lookalike Audience ads to my lead magnets
• Pitching speaking engagements

A plan that’s centered around your attraction engine is immediately apparent as to how to helps you support your goals. And it’s measurable.

Suddenly, you have this strategy that may as well be a button you can push to immediately put you in front of 5, 25, 100 (or more) new people who might be interested in working with you.

Do you know what that button is for your business?

Most people don’t.

(And some people don’t think that it even exists!)

So if you like the idea of that button – or if you think it’s total BS that doesn’t exist – that’s really important to pay attention to.

Is being self-employed part of your dream life?

I don’t know a better way to kill your dreams than not knowing how to make sure your business is seen by enough people or avoiding measuring what’s working for you and what’s not.

At the end of the day, solving these are important for one reason:

When it comes to earning a living? 

Fuck luck.