Recently, I was invited to speak with graduates of a coach training organization. Most on the call were not yet earning a living at coaching and all were finding it difficult to repeatedly attract paying clients.
It turned out that each coach was selling life coaching, health coaching, confidence coaching — something like that. Their website, social posts and offers focused on the general benefits of coaching. People who had free sessions weren’t reliably progressing to paid packages.
This is a common problem for coaches and it’s my mission to change that.
I could see that 2 main things were keeping these coaches from financial success:
1. They were not addressing BIG ENOUGH PROBLEMS for their audience.
2. They were not charging high enough fees to help them stay in business.
Those 2 things are about mindset. It was time for the coaches to shift from student mode to professional mode to attract clients who do invest.
Let’s tease this apart.
Inspire Your Coaching Clients to Invest
In that talk I gave to the coach training graduates, I revealed two shifts needed to start earning well:
- Become the CEO and take up fiscal responsibility for your own business. In other words, earning well and staying in business are up to you. Shift from being at the effect of whatever is happening to being at the cause of your business success. This means being strategic. That’s what CEOs do.
- Create an OFFER worthy of investment. Rather than selling a certain track of coaching session packages, create a Signature Program designed for your specific audience. It addresses BIG SPECIFIC PROBLEMS they know they have. Give that program a high-ticket price.
Other mentors sitting in on the Zoom call were nodding their heads vigorously because they personally knew the power of:
- An ideal client’s investing mentality over a less ideal client’s buying mentality. Coaches can entrain the investing mentality into their followers.
- Making offers vs selling coaching packages. There’s a difference!
Have you ever invested in yourself? If you took coach training, I believe you have. You made an investment in your future with vocational training. It took an investment not only of money, but also of courage, energy and time. That feels very different than making a purchase at a whim or in a moment of bright shiny object syndrome.
You signaled to everyone who knew that you made that investment that you were taking a leap. You risked something big to change who you are and change your future. You empowered yourself.
Wouldn’t you like for your clients to do the same when they hire you?
When a person makes an investment in themselves, they show up, ready to do the work needed to transform. Serious commitment comes with that large investment that doesn’t come with an easy purchase.
Just ask all the people selling online training programs for relatively low cost how many of those people actually finish the training. I can tell you, because I used to sell online training, that it’s a low percentage. The commitment isn’t there.
I’ve bought and not finished programs like that … have you done that too?
So, if you charge low prices by the hour or session, the buyer takes a small but negligible risk, which comes with a small commitment. They may not show up ready to change. That’s not a fun client relationship for you as a coach, is it?
The individuals who might buy a session or ten are not necessarily the same people who will invest in a Signature Program — an offer custom made for that audience. I’m not talking about the amount of their disposable income here. I’m talking about the drive the person has to invest in themselves. They might come from nearly any walk of life.
So, the shift you need to make is an investment in yourself too. When youshift from selling low priced coaching to offering a transformational experience at high ticket, you are risking to become MORE than who you’ve been before.
When you become a professional, the CEO of you own business, you take on that professional mindset.
And, by the way, if you decide selling online training is something you want to do, I support you in it. It’s just a whole different ballgame from high touch 1:1 offers.
Why Coaches Need to Be Talking about BIG Problems
The other main thing I spoke to in that Zoom call was that coaches need to be talking about BIG Problems for one unique audience.
Coaching is not the solution. It’s a toolbox. You have an opportunity to become more problem aware and solution aware in your marketing, content and offer creation.
And before you get confused, we all know that coaches don’t solve their client’s problems. Coaches use powerful questions, listening and messaging to help their clients draw solutions from themselves.
And, that works beautifully once the client hires you. But the problem you’re having is about attracting paying clients who will invest in themselves at a high level. SPECIFICITY is what grabs attention!
I get it. Maybe you’re afraid of being specific because it will leave people out. And won’t excluding some mean less people will hire you? No. That snowball of fear is a misunderstanding about how the human mind works. I talked about this in Episode 284 – 4 Reasons Narrowing Your Coaching Audience Helps You and Your Clients.
In our scroll fast world, talking generally or vaguely about anything is not going to grab attention, earn traction and followers and turn those followers into clients who invest in their futures with your coaching.
What is a Big Enough Problem for Coaches to Solve?
You’ve heard about pain points. Some problems are annoying. Some problems are a hassle. You’re looking for the problems that are acutely painful for your audience and they are sick of dealing with it!
They want help so they go seeking solutions. And that’s where you come in.
If you are speaking the right language about those big problems in your posts, content and on your website, you’ll gain followers who become clients.
Think of the gap between what your audience wants and where are they are now. That great longing for something that’s been elusive because there’s a big, fat problem or several big fat problems in their way.
Ask yourself:
What specific BIG problem will prompt my unique audience to go looking for solutions?
And this is where your niche comes in.
Some examples of niches that solve big problems for one specific audience:
Helping HR leaders gain more impact and influence so they can gain a seat at the table.
Helping moms with a long career gap find flexible work they enjoy.
Helping people with fibromyalgia feel better and take their lives back.
Helping parents support their kids with ADHD to excel in school.
Do you see how these big problems and desired outcomes would inspire investment? And coaching can easily help each of these audiences towards their big goals but your audience won’t care how you help — they just want change!
