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James Kemp · YouTube

How To Get Clients In 2026

A six-minute talking-head read on why a level-five marketplace rewards proof, past clients, and offers so simple they take one line.

Posted

June 24th

4 months ago

Duration

06:02

Format

Talking Head

educational

Views

399

10 likes

Big Idea

The argument in one line.

In a cynical level-five marketplace, clients come from visible proof and from people who already paid you, sold through offers so clear they take one line to say yes or no to.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…

A coach or consultant who has past clients sitting in a list and has never systematically gone back to them with a new offer.
An online service seller whose offers need a long call to explain, and who suspects the pitch is too complicated.
Someone starting out who wants to know what to focus on first when the market is full of escalating claims.

SKIP IF…

You want a paid ads or cold outreach tactic breakdown, since this video covers neither.
You need case study formatting advice. The speaker says testimonials work less well than people think.

TL;DR

The full version, fast.

Kemp says the online market has reached level five, where years of escalating claims and look-alike unique mechanisms have left buyers cynical and only proof matters. Proof here means documenting real results happening in real time inside client communities, which also shakes loose past clients. He shows one client who sold eight $2,000 offers to former customers. The second working tactic is the lightweight offer: one clear line, a fixed timeframe, easy to refuse, with roughly 20 percent accepting. Both favor people delivering real results.

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Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

In a level-five marketplace, the only thing that matters is proof that you are who you say you are.
Escalating claims (10 leads, then 100, then 1,000) pushed every seller into unique mechanisms that look the same under the surface.
Documenting results as they happen inside your client community beats polished case studies and testimonials.
One client sold eight $2,000 offers to former clients by simply reaching out and asking where they are now.
Past clients fall into two useful groups: those who got the result and those who didn't finish the job.
It is much easier to sell to someone who has already given you money than to a stranger.
A lightweight offer is a line or two: we do this, and this happens over this timeframe.
Lightweight offers are easy to say no to, which is the point. Clarity filters faster than persuasion.
Around 20 percent saying yes to a clear, pre-sold offer is a healthy outcome.
Buyers are pension poor and time starved, so they respond to clear offers over bigger promises.
If you are starting now, you only need to deliver one result for one person and keep proving it.
Level-five markets push out below-average and average providers who can't get results.
Target-rich environments give you lots to talk about because real things happen every day.

Takeaway

Sell proof, past clients, and one-line offers

WHAT TO LEARN

When buyers distrust every claim, the winning moves are showing real results as they happen and making offers so clear a stranger can decide in seconds.

Escalating promises and look-alike mechanisms trained buyers to distrust claims, so visible, ongoing proof of real client results now outweighs any new pitch or bigger number.
Past clients are your warmest audience, including those who didn't finish. Reach out, acknowledge the past, and present a faster, better version of what you do now.
Write the offer as one or two lines covering what happens and over what timeframe, accepting that most will say no and a fifth might say yes.
If you're starting out, deliver one result for one person and keep documenting it, because the market removes average providers and rewards real outcomes.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

Level five marketplace: A market stage where buyers have heard every claim and mechanism, grown cynical, and trust only proof of real results.
Unique mechanism: A branded method a seller claims makes their approach different, even when it is similar to competitors underneath.
Lightweight offer: An offer described in a line or two, with a clear outcome and timeframe, that a buyer can accept or decline almost instantly.
Binary offer: An offer so clearly defined that the buyer's decision is a simple yes or no, with little need for explanation.

The Script

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How to get clients in 2026 in the simplest way possible. While chaos is going outside because the swimming lesson today is happening and this one is not happy about the swimming lesson. So getting clients in 2026 is very different than it was five years ago and I'm going to give you a couple of things that work super well right now that myself and my clients are using.

But first you have to understand what marketplace we're in right now. We're in a level five marketplace. And as you go through the stages of a marketplace, at the very beginning, it's all about claims and promises and they escalate and people make bigger, bigger claims.

When I first started selling online, it was get some leads and then it was get 10 leads a week and then it was get 100 and then it was get 1000. The claims just escalate until people start to have to differentiate and then unique mechanisms come in and everyone's got a unique mechanism and a unique way of doing things. But under the surface, it's kind of the same stuff.

And then the market becomes more cynical because they've probably tried. a lot of the mechanisms that everybody is selling and got in most cases no results or few results apart from the outliers and then in a level five market the only thing that matters is proof you are who you are what you're doing what's in the background do you actually look like you know what you're talking about and are you in places that prove that you have some level of status i'm not necessarily in case studies and testimonials because they don't work as well as people think but definitely in terms of this is happening right now in real time inside the client communities inside the society there are things happening every day and i document those and i show them about what is happening what this proof cycle starts to do and what people in society are starting to find out is that it shakes the tree of a lot of people who already know you.

So Janine here has sold eight offers at $2 ,000 each to previous clients who've come through and said, hey, it was great working with you before and now we want to do this. Now we really want to get the result. And in many cases, there's two classes of people who are great to work with together.

They're people who got the result that you promised after working with you. And they're also people who didn't. get the result or completely fulfill it or have time to do it.

Or if you are coaching someone, they didn't quite fulfill full opportunity and they become ready again. And this means reaching out to previous clients actively and acknowledging and asking where they are now, acknowledging the past and saying, I'm doing this right now. We've got a new and faster and better way of doing it and implementing it, which you should be innovating on.

It's very much easier to sell to someone who's already given you money. than sell to someone who's never given you money before. The second big component that's clearly and obviously working is what I call lightweight offers.

And lightweight offers are very, very clear and almost not even a paragraph, a line about what they do. They're going to write a book and sell you 10 books in 10 weeks. It's very, very clear.

And someone wants that or they don't. And this means that these offers are very easy to say no to. and lightweight offers are very easy to say no to because it's very clear what it does and they're generally pre -sold on the piece and the mechanism and you and then it's a matter of them saying no which the majority of people will or yes which a portion will you know 20 who actually accept that offer and go forward lightweight offers in many cases can be break down to a couple of lines we do this i will promise that this happens over this time frame And binary offers mean that they are very, very simple to say yes and no to.

Not a lot of talking about how it's done or anything like that. You might need to read them in on what the service delivery and what the expectations are, or if you're coaching or consulting, when they can get hold of you, what they access, how they access you, when the call times are in these pieces. But ultimately, lightweight offers are very easy to say yes and no to because it's very, very clear about what happens.

This is a blessing for a lot of people, but it's also extremely challenging for most who have been in a marketplace where the claims and the promises have just been escalating forever and ever. And again, that's responsibility of a few influencers, shall we say, where offers that you can't say no to. And these ideas just ended up in an arms race for bigger and bigger promises.

When the reality is that people are pension poor and time starved and they've got... varying things in terms of the to -do list that they have at the top of it when these offers come along they're very easy to say yes and no to and so it's a very simple kind of marketplace if you've got results and you've got things moving and your emotion it's a pretty challenging marketplace if you're starting now in many cases it's easy you need to do is deliver one result for one person and then continue to prove that that's what you're doing and that's what you're in the market of level five marketplaces generally push most people out of the marketplace because below average or even average providers can't hang with the people who are driving results and ultimately getting results for themselves and for other people.

And so it pushes a lot of people out of the marketplace. you'll see a lot of people become real estate agents in the next three to four years who are formerly online coaches so level five marketplaces i like because got you know a thriving client community and people are getting results all the time you've got lots to talk about i love working in target rich environments when lots are happening um there's just lots to talk about and selecting those and telling the stories around that's really important the market has changed human nature has stayed exactly the same people have been you know misled and misrepresented for a long time in marketplaces that had escalating promises and claims.

Here we are. It's simple if you want it to be lightweight offers and selling to people that you've already sold to and it's all a choice.

The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

Getting clients in 2026 looks nothing like it did five years ago. Kemp opens with the simplest version: understand the marketplace you're in, then use two tactics that are working for him and his clients right now.

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