Sue Begent Full Interview Transcript
Welcome and the Origin of the Diamond Buyer Idea
AJ:
Welcome to this week’s episode of the Thriving Through podcast. Today, my guest is Sue Begent. Sue, I am so delighted to have you on the podcast. I met Sue at a Society of Professional Consultants workshop she hosted a couple of weeks ago, and I loved what she talked about and thought it would be so valuable for podcast listeners. So Sue, welcome to the show.
Sue:
Thank you so much, and thanks for inviting me to speak today.
AJ:
So Sue is going to be talking about the diamond buyer concept. But before we get into the framework itself, take me back. What was the moment, or the client situation, that made you realize most consultants are chasing the wrong buyers? Tell me the origin story of the diamond buyer concept.
Sue:
That’s a great question. So perhaps I should first explain what a diamond buyer is. The best place to start is the beginning of my own journey as a solopreneur. I work with solopreneurs. Like everybody, I left my corporate career — my sales and marketing career — and I started my own business. I quickly realized there was an enormous amount I didn’t know. So I invested in help. I worked with multiple people over several years. I’ve been doing this for 10 years.
I came from a pretty sophisticated marketing background. I’d been in pharma marketing for the best part of 20 years, and in sales before that. I worked at the global launch level, so we’d done positioning and messaging at a pretty sophisticated level. But I quickly realized we didn’t need that level for solopreneurs. We weren’t going into crowded marketplaces where everybody was trying to find their spot.
Back then, it was enough to dial in on an ideal client. Anybody who’s had business training rolls their eyes — really, you’re going to make me do this again? I used to feel the same way. But the reason every business coach says narrow in on an ideal client is because if your message is going to land with somebody, it has to resonate. If you stay at a high level because you’re trying to reach an expanded group, you can’t get the specificity you need to connect — particularly online, through the screen, which is the most challenging way to connect with a potential client.
So I went along like everybody else. Back then mine was “women solopreneurs.” Which is a huge group.
AJ:
Not particularly narrow.
Why the Last 18 Months Changed Everything
Sue:
The market has changed. Anybody who’s been in business any length of time knows we change, we grow, we learn, the market evolves. But I would say the last 18 months in particular, most solopreneurs trying to get clients online have noticed a huge shift.
Multiple things drive it. One is agnostic to the type of business you’re in: everybody is being marketed to so much online. Any screen you look at — TV, social platforms, anywhere — it doesn’t matter. I read the other day that our grandparents made a handful of decisions a week. They went to the store, they bought toilet paper, they bought toothpaste, and there were two brands. It really wasn’t a decision. Today, every micro thing we do involves decisions, and we all have decision fatigue.
That bombardment is just reality. We open our email and people are selling. Wherever we are online, and we’re all online, people want something from us.
AI has amplified all of this, because it’s allowed people who may be excellent at what they do but haven’t mastered marketing to suddenly produce content. Now everybody sounds the same. Most people are still at level one of using AI — the prompts they’re putting in aren’t very sophisticated or targeted. So everybody sounds similar, and we’re all asking, “Was that written by AI?” If I see another m-dash… a lot of us are fed up, because it makes us wonder what’s behind it. Is it somebody real? Somebody with depth? Or is it somebody who’s been doing this five minutes? We default to thinking either they’re better than they are, or they’re not, because we assume AI wrote it.
So this shift means that average messaging — that time is over. A year ago, okay messaging would actually bring in clients. Today it doesn’t. We have to be much more sophisticated about positioning. The way you position yourself has become absolutely pivotal.
What Positioning Actually Means
AJ:
Before we go on — define positioning. What do you mean by positioning?
Sue:
Technically, it’s the space you want to occupy in your prospect’s mind. But in practice, it’s really this: for your ideal client, when they have a problem and they’re ready to make a decision, they look around. There’s a choice they would naturally make. Positioning is about creating contrast against that choice.
Let me give you an example I use a lot. Somebody came to me — she was an ADHD coach. Highly qualified. At one point she said, “I’m thinking of doing a PhD.” She already had a master’s degree. I said, “Whoa, stop. You are well, well qualified.”
She was marketing to people with ADHD. She was basically saying, “If you have a problem because of your ADHD, I can help you.” If you read all the way through her About page and her LinkedIn profile, that’s what it said. It wasn’t speaking differentially. It wasn’t positioned for anybody in particular.
Then I noticed one line at the bottom of her profile. It said, “I’m thinking of launching coaching for couples where one person has ADHD and one does not.” As soon as I saw that, I went, “Oh my goodness, that’s it.”
Can you see how she went from being a general ADHD coach to a very specific one? “If you’re a couple where one of you has ADHD and one doesn’t, I’m for you.” Now here’s where positioning comes in. It’s about contrast. If you’re a couple where one is neurodivergent and one isn’t, you’re probably going to go to relationship counseling. And you may have already done that and come unstuck, because the person with ADHD has their behavior misattributed. It’s actually due to neurodivergence.
So when she positions herself, she says, “A logical choice for you would be relationship counseling. Here’s why I am a better choice.” She talks about the fact that she had a 15-year relationship with someone who was not neurodivergent — she is. She talks about the ways that leads to misattribution of behavior. She talks about the risks of not addressing it. She positions herself as differentially better for those people by creating contrast against the choice they would make.
She was always amazing — many hundreds of hours of coaching experience, perfectly placed to help people with ADHD. But positioning herself with that contrast made it very easy for the right clients to go, “Oh my goodness, that’s us. She’s talking to us.”
AJ:
And it also came out of her own experience. How many ADHD coaches were in a relationship where one was neurodivergent and one wasn’t? That makes her more credible. She’s been there, done that. She can relate to them on a personal level.
Why Your Past Self Is Often Your Best Positioning
Sue:
Absolutely. One of the things — particularly for women, but it’s not confined to us — is we tend to think there’s nothing unique about us. We don’t think we have anything outstanding to say. But when you put it all together — life experience, professional experience, the wisdom you’ve gained, the trainings, the talents, the aptitudes — all of a sudden it makes sense. For the right client, you do have something important to say. We tend not to see how powerful it is for those right people, because we think, “Doesn’t everybody know this?” They don’t. For the right person, they absolutely don’t.
AJ:
My strength was the fact that I can really relate, because I was there.
Sue:
100%. I often find when I’m working with people that, in some fashion, if we’re really dialed into the right client, we’re reaching back to somebody who’s in a place we used to be in. We learned so much, and now we have so much to offer them. That really inspires people. Even if it didn’t end with you earning a million dollars every year, it makes sense of all of that experience. And it absolutely needs to be part of every step of your client’s journey.
AJ:
When you’re working with clients, do you find that they hesitate to work with who they were before? Is there resistance to that? There certainly was with me.
Sue:
It depends person to person. I have a client right now who is like, “Absolutely. I had all of this experience, I have so much to offer, I can’t wait to get out there.” Then I had another client whose daughter was diagnosed with autism at age 16. She had her coaching qualification and needed to narrow in. She had multiple options, and she came back and said, “I want to help parents whose kid has just been newly diagnosed. Because when I look back, that nearly floored me. For a year I flailed around — I had no idea what help was available, no idea what resources we could tap into, and I didn’t feel as though there was anybody around me. I wanted to protect my daughter, and there was just shame. Shame that I hadn’t understood this was going on before.”
Lots of things can come together, but once it’s claimed, it becomes hugely powerful.
Diamond Buyer vs. Ideal Client
Sue:
I want to go back to where you started, because I have a Diamond System, and it starts with the diamond buyer. So what’s the difference between a diamond buyer and an ideal client? This has become very, very important as a foundation of marketing today.
AJ:
I absolutely agree. When you gave the workshop, I thought, yes, that’s who we have to go to.
Sue:
What I talk about is the 15 to 20% subgroup of your ideal client. Ideal client remains an important concept, but some of those clients are ready to buy now. They have a very different psychology — by nature, they’re decision makers. Some of us are, some of us aren’t, and some of us get there. But if we’re going to be successful, we need to focus on the people who are ready now. There’s a difference between being aware you have a problem and being ready for a solution. Marketing to people who are already ready for a solution makes all the difference.
Going back to the ADHD coach — she wasn’t different for everybody with ADHD, but she was differentiated for couples where one partner had ADHD and one did not. So the question becomes: who do I have a standout differentiator for? And what was great about choosing those clients is that they were already aware they had a challenge. They were already seeking a solution. They were already ready to invest. Their first question wasn’t “How much does it cost?” Their first question was “Will this work for me?” and “Do I feel seen?”
The 3-to-5-Second Rule and Why Your LinkedIn Reads Like a CV
Sue:
The key to connecting with a buyer like that — what I see most often is amazing consultants and coaches and solo business owners putting out content that looks more like what they put out during their corporate career, because that’s what they know. It looks a little bit like a CV. “I have 30 years of experience.” A bit about their personal journey. A list of skills. They think that if I say all of those things, the person whose screen this is on will assume I have depth. Of course they have depth — they sat in that chair and did it for 30 years.
But the truth is, they have 3 to 5 seconds to get the attention of their ready-to-buy person. And the way they’ll get it is by having a headline and first few lines that reflect the exact internal experience of that ideal client.
For instance, I’m currently working with somebody in the building industry. Her ideal clients are owners building 30 to 50 homes a year. They know their system is breaking down somewhere, but they’re not sure where. They know profits are down. Their staff isn’t happy. Customers might start out happy, but at some point become unhappy. So they either come in needing to fix this problem, or they’re stuffing it down because they can’t see exactly where it is and don’t have a solution. Everything’s landing on their plate.
What gets their attention is: “You know there’s something wrong, but you don’t know what to do about it.” Then details, so within three sentences they go, “That’s me.” That’s enough to make them keep reading. Then the job of your copy is to take them on a journey that starts with where they are and walks them through a solution, so that reaching out is the next logical step.
That’s what I see missing most of the time.
A New Approach in the Age of AI
Sue:
I recently changed my approach because in this AI world, there are additional opportunities. When somebody comes to me, speed is of the essence. They don’t want to wait weeks or months for a result. So I work with them on their messaging — they understand the principles — and then I’ll often write copy for two or three pages of their website, or write their LinkedIn profile for them.
Instead of going back and forth trying to apply principles on their own, I show them what it means in their voice, in their business, for their ideal client. That brings a huge “oh, that’s what it means.” Now they have a solid foundation. I support them to write the posts, the emails, the podcasts. They’re pulling that single-minded message and positioning through everything they put out. It all flows from that foundation. And if they feel uncertain, they have something to go back to.
AJ:
I love that approach. Learning the framework theoretically, intellectually, makes sense. But when you roll up your sleeves and try to apply it, that’s when the back-and-forth, the “Am I doing this right? Am I saying this right? Why isn’t it working?” — the self-doubt — comes in. So you give them the basis of the framework, and then you say, “This is what the framework looks like for you. Now go put it into action.” That’s a brilliant pivot.
Sue:
It’s an opportunity created by the technology. The technology created the challenge, but it also creates opportunities, used the right way.
AJ:
Because then you can use the copy you wrote for them, and especially if they use Claude, create skills or About Me files that incorporate that language, so when Claude writes for them, it’s in their voice. They’re not getting standard AI garbage. If AI doesn’t know who you are and what your voice is, of course it’s not going to sound like you.
Sue:
That’s exactly right. It’s about getting there quickly. There are so many other things to learn — but this is foundational. This is the front door. Once you get the path from the road, which is the internet, up to your front door and through it, then you can actually do what you set this business up to do in the first place. That’s the exciting bit. Once that works, it’s like, “Oh, I cracked the real puzzle.”
Messaging and positioning — ideal client, messaging, positioning, differentiation — is a no-shame zone. It’s really tough to do from inside your own self. I’ve had plenty of help from more experienced people along my journey, because you can be staring at it.
AJ’s Headline as a Case Study
AJ:
Mine is, “I help self-employed consultants break through to six figures. 35 years in the trenches, never hit six figures, then I built a system. Revenue and Marketing Coach for Consultants.”
Sue:
As soon as I saw that, I thought, that’s brilliant. It creates resonance, because there are so many really smart coaches, consultants, and solopreneurs who think, “I am a really smart person, I’m really good at what I do, I have depth and experience — why can’t I figure this out?”
It also has that vulnerability. If you’re going to come and be vulnerable about the fact that this hasn’t gone nearly as well as you’d hoped — “I’m struggling, I’m working too many hours, I’m not getting traction” — to have that on the other side makes it safe. “This is a safe place. You are safe to come and have that conversation.” I love it.
AJ:
Thank you. You made my day when you said that.
Stop Educating, Start Attracting
AJ:
I want to go back to something you said in the webinar. You said the diamond buyer is someone who has a problem, recognizes they have the problem, and is actively looking to invest to solve it. That really hit me — because how many of us know what their problem is? In our LinkedIn posts, we’re busy trying to educate them on the fact that they have a problem. How are you going to open their minds and make them realize they have a problem? That’s a really long uphill battle.
Sue:
It’s a very long uphill battle, and you can’t make somebody ready. We know that from every aspect of our lives. We have to speak to somebody who’s already ready. They’re saying, “That’s not the question. The question is, I’m finding a solution here. I just need the right person who can get me to the result I’m looking for.”
So when what you put out really resonates with them in that moment, with the solution they’re looking for, those people come in. It makes an enormous difference. You’re not getting onto a sales call where you’re spending an hour walking them through their problem and helping them become aware of it. No. If they read the right messaging, they come in already pretty sure this is going to be a go. They’re well on the way to being sold. They want to make sure it adds up in real life. Is the chemistry there? Are you really the person behind what I read? Where do I sign?
For most of us, that’s what we want. We don’t want to spend an hour and then find out, “Well, I need to think about it.” We’ve all had that experience.
This is the power of messaging and positioning. If you’re someone who’s good at what you do, your clients get great results, you have depth and experience — once you fix your messaging and your positioning, you are light years ahead of most people in your category. If somebody is a decision maker and they go to LinkedIn and put in the headline of what they’re looking for, they’ll get 15 profiles. 14 of them will read like CVs — years of experience, list of things, personal story. “But I’m not interested in your personal story until you grab me.” That’s what’s needed in today’s world.
Once you get your messaging right, everything else becomes possible. Until you do, it can be like an invisible block. Why is this not working?
The Five Beliefs That Lead to Yes
Sue:
There’s one other thing I think is a big challenge for solopreneurs and consultants. Okay, great, I’ve got my core message and I feel really strong in that. But what do I write each week? Maybe I’m going to write a newsletter. Okay, but what am I going to talk about?
That’s a legitimate question, and the answer is: there are certain beliefs somebody is going to embrace if they’re the right client for you. For instance, I talk about messaging and positioning as the root of the problem. But somebody might be in a different place — messaging and positioning might be their core problem, but they’re not seeing it that way.
So the very first belief is, “You know what, I’ve tried everything else. I’ve tried clarifying my message, I’ve tried posting in more places, I’ve tried to get on every platform under the sun, I’ve tried ads, and I’m still not getting traction.” That person comes to that conclusion: “I think it’s got to be the message. I’m putting it everywhere, so it’s clearly the message.”
Then a series of other beliefs. They have to come to the conclusion that it’s not about posting more. That messaging actually is the challenge. And then everything we’ve talked about. Knowing your diamond buyers gives you five beliefs that lead to the yes. That’s a framework for everything you produce.
There’s purpose. You’re helping somebody move through a series of logical beliefs so that you become the obvious solution. Once you have the eyes of the right people, they self-select out if they don’t believe what you’re putting out. But you select in committed people — those who are like, “Absolutely, I’ve tried everything else, everything you’re saying makes complete sense. I want to have a conversation with you.” That’s why they come in already pretty much sold.
It gives structure to all of your communication. It stops the whole Monday-morning-staring-at-the-blinking-cursor problem of “Oh, what am I going to write this week?”
AJ:
Let me ask you a question. Those beliefs you talk about — is part of the content you create to help bust the opposite belief, so they can get to that belief?
Sue:
For instance, what we’ve covered today — everything lands, it starts with your ideal client, but a diamond buyer is somebody very different. If somebody doesn’t think that’s true and as I talk about it they go, “You know what, that resonates. That makes sense.” Okay, great. Got it.
AJ:
So you don’t try to change their belief. You communicate in a way that gets them to say, “Yes, I believe that.”
Sue:
They look at it and go, “That makes sense.” We can never — and I would say neither you nor I operate this way — we’re not here to manipulate anybody. Sometimes they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t want to read that,” and they’re gone. But if what we’re putting out is quality and helps them with a different lens on a challenge they’re already ready to solve, that’s the point at which they go, “I think this person knows what they’re talking about. That makes sense to me.”
AJ’s Five Non-Negotiable Beliefs
AJ:
I want to talk more about beliefs, because you wrote a recent LinkedIn article about the core beliefs your ideal clients need to hold before they’ll work with you. I went through and did mine — my five non-negotiable beliefs:
* I’m capable, I just don’t have a system.
* Random acts of marketing will never get me to six figures, no matter how hard I work at them.
* Foundation comes before tactics, always.
* Investing in expert guidance is faster and cheaper than another year of trial and error.
* I want to own my system, not rent it. I want to create my system, and then maybe outsource it. I don’t want someone else to create it for me.
AJ:
You’ve had a fundamental impact, because it really got me thinking — what does somebody have to believe? I teach a system in a 9-month program. That’s a big investment of time and money. What do they have to believe to be interested in investing 9 months in a program?
Sue:
What’s so powerful is that it gives focus to all your posting, all your speaking, when you’re putting together a talk — you know you want to hit each one of those points. When you’re in a podcast interview, you just articulated those beautifully. It allows everything to be focused.
And here’s another important point. Your client isn’t somebody who can already do this for themselves. If they can read an article and do it for themselves, they’re not a client. But if it helps the right person go, “Wow, that was an important insight, and I need more,” — that’s the goal.
AJ:
What it did for me was, okay, I could figure out these beliefs. But how do I integrate that into my LinkedIn, into a webinar, into a newsletter? I don’t know what to do with these now. So I think, I need to work with Sue. Because I need to know how to translate them.
Sue:
Into something really compelling, that in those 3 to 5 seconds is going to make that connection through the screen. That’s the key. That is absolutely the key.
How to Work With Sue and the Diamond Diagnostic
AJ:
We’re kind of at the end — I don’t like the podcast to go more than 45 minutes — but I want to talk about how you can help people. I want to talk about two things. The offer you have for $297 — tell us about that. And then tell us how we can work with you and who you’re looking to work with.
Sue:
Sure. The offer is the Diamond Diagnostic. It’s a great place for somebody who’s experienced to dip their toe in the water. You send me a link — it can be part of your website, your LinkedIn profile, or some recent writing you’ve done — and I’ll do a diagnostic on it. The lens I use is exactly what we’ve been talking about: are you really honing in and speaking differentially to a diamond buyer? Are you claiming that so you stand out for this person? Are you positioning yourself powerfully? I look at those three things.
That’s usually very illuminating. There are always things that are really powerful, and I’ll see them and say, “Wow, that’s a strength, and it’s being overlooked right now. That should come out.” It brings a lens — “Oh, okay, translating these principles, this is what it would look like in my own work, to make what I’m doing stronger or even give me new opportunities.”
That’s a great way to start the conversation. From there, somebody can say, “I’d like to take this forward myself. I already feel pretty confident about messaging.” Beautiful. I love it. Or, “I really want to take this to the next step.” Then there are a couple of ways we can go.
What I’m doing now — and I just started doing this — is, if you’d like me to redo some of the messaging you’ve shown me, I’ll do that. I interview you for about an hour. I provide the questions ahead of time so you can prepare, but then I say throw them away. Send them to me, but throw them away. I want you to talk to me in your voice, the way you say it. Tell me stories. Tell me client stories. Out of that, I capture your voice and find what you’re really looking for: how do I engage my ideal client out of the gate?
Then we work through an outreach plan, so all the communication you’re putting out is as powerful as the piece we just worked on together. At the moment, I’m making it pretty tailored, which I’m loving. My ideal clients — my diamond buyers — are often ex-corporate or ex-professional. They had a professional career, and now they’ve decided to consult with their expertise or become a coach. They want to reach those clients quickly. The beautiful thing about the done-for-you approach is it speeds up your ability to have that footprint immediately, and gives you a foundation to anchor in. As we work together, you start to get this, and now you can write your own stuff and feel confident. People start to come in. That’s really exciting.
The Diamond System and Where to Find Sue
AJ:
As we close — is there anything else about your concepts or the diamond buyer that we haven’t talked about that listeners need to know?
Sue:
I have a whole Diamond System. Essentially it has four pillars, and we’ve talked about them today: the diamond buyer; your unique ground, which is your differentiation; your powerful position, which is how you create contrast against the choice your client would make; and your buyer’s beliefs, which gives you that solid foundation for everything you’re doing promotionally — to bring those clients in.
AJ:
Wonderful. So the final and most important question — if someone wants to learn more about you and working with you, where do they go?
Sue:
My website is subegent.com. I’ll spell it in case you’re listening: S-U-E B-E-G-E-N-T dot com. And you can definitely reach me on LinkedIn.
AJ:
Listeners, that link will be in the show notes, as will Sue’s LinkedIn URL, so you can go check her out. And I know I will be contacting you.
Sue:
I’m really excited. Fantastic.
AJ:
I look forward to it. Thank you so much for this fantastic podcast episode. And for those of you listening or watching, until next time, keep thriving through!
Sue:
Thank you, AJ.