New coaches often say “I’m not good at selling.”
That’s a fixed mindset based on misconceptions about what selling is. Believing it will make it so for you.
When I was in my 20’s, I worked in the shoe department of Macy’s. It was a prized job in retail because commission sales can mean significant income without management responsibilities.
I was good at it because I paid close attention to each single person I was serving.
I asked questions to discover what they wanted and then, brought them options that fit.
They felt heard and understood.
But when I became a coach, I got up in my head about selling and forgot about connection.
I worried what hearing ‘No’ would mean about me. And that was my big mistake.
Sales is not really about you.
Let’s dissolve old wrong-headed ideas about selling that get in your way with 5 selling secrets for coaches.
Selling Secret for Coaches #1 – Dissolve Fears of Rejection
Let’s start this exploration about selling by talking about the big scary thing that is unnecessarily attached to it.
(duh, duh, duh scary music plays) REJECTION!
Anticipatory stress is the most insidious type of stress. It’s worrying that something bad may happen to you in the future.
When you feel that anticipatory stress, your nervous system dysregulates. You feel unstable. You believe you’re not safe.
You don’t realize that your beliefs are generating this bad feeling inside yourself. And, if you spend a lot of time there, you might even manifest the very thing you do NOT want to happen.
You might be thinking:
“How will I convince people they want this?”
“What if my audience doesn’t buy what I’m selling?”
Can you hear the basic misunderstanding in that internal dialogue? It’s tremendous pressure to put on yourself and 100% unnecessary. Remove yourself from that pressure cooker right now.
You never have to convince anyone of anything in high pressure sales and if your audience doesn’t buy, you and your business will live to another day, with deeper wisdom.
Here’s the truth: rejection is an illusion. It’s a faulty construct.
Potential client + ‘No’ = Rejection
And your brain wants to take that personally.
Thinking that way holds you back from doing what will bring you what you most want—clients and income.
It’s time to bring your nervous system to a neutral state.
When a potential client says ‘No’ it only means that they are doing what is right for them.
Take that in. Let it settle in and bring you stability.
What your coaching prospect decides about enrolling in your program or not is about them and not about you.
Sure, it’s smart to be in a state of continuous incremental improvement in your coaching business. Consider how you can improve your words, your enrollment process, better ways to attract ideal clients…but you don’t need to sentence yourself with rejection ever again!
What a relief, huh?
Selling Secret for Coaches #2 — Reframe Your Definition of Marketing and Sales
Marketing is how you serve prospective clients BEFORE they ever consider hiring you. This is all the things you’ve done and do to create and maintain a client journey tailor made for your audience. Listen to Episode #362 for more about how to effectively create that at ProsperousCoach.com/362.
Marketing is all the nurturing things you do to build a community of future ideal clients by staying visible and relating directly to what they want and the big problems in the way of that.
You let them know occasionally how to get an opportunity to work with you. And of course, you need the right mechanisms set up on your website for that. More about that in a minute.
Then, when they are ready, they reach out for that enrollment conversation.
Hear how light and breezy that can be?
Selling is that enrollment opportunity. It’s simply a meeting between you and a pre-qualified person in your audience so you can
- get to know each other
- share details about your program, and
- both assess if the two of you are a good fit
Easy peasy. No agita.
Selling Secret for Coaches # 3 — Sell the Right Thing to the Right People
Where many coaches get stuck is in who they are marketing to and what they are selling. Let’s start with what you’re NOT selling.
You’re not selling:
1. Yourself
2. Coaching sessions
Although many coaches try this unsuccessfully, that’s like Sisyphus pushing that huge boulder up the hill over and over again. Listen to Episode 229 called Why Is It Hard to Sell Coaching? Find that at ProsperousCoach.com/229.
This is why I teach coaches to think of coaching as part of their toolbox instead of thinking it’s what their audience wants to buy. Don’t sell your toolbox, friends.
No one really cares about what’s in your toolbox. They care about whether YOU understand what they want and what’s been in the way of that. They want to be heard and understood just like my shoe customers back at Macy’s.
They want to feel that you have thought that all through and have solutions.
So, instead of selling coaching session packages, which puts the emphasis on the process of coaching—I show coaches how to develop a Signature Program specifically designed for their chosen audience.
That program is a structure clients can lean into. It illustrates a path to what that unique group of human beings really want that addresses the big problems that hang them up along the way.
I also invite you to stop thinking that you’re selling yourself. Dismantle that unhelpful construct of customer + ‘No’ = rejection. Believing that you have to sell yourself gets all tied up with the idea of selling out and being inauthentic.
You don’t have to sell yourself or convince your prospect to hire you!
Put aside the image of pushy selling.
That never has to be you!
Selling Secret for Coaches #4 – Be Transparent From the Get Go
This is simple, when you offer a Discovery Call, only offer it to people who have applied to work with you instead of having a free call offer on your website. Make it crystal clear that this call is not a working session. It’s a get-to-know-you call just for people who are strongly considering enrolling in your Signature Program.
That prep and transparency will keep you and your prospect from wasting time. And, it builds your credibility. You’ll be perceived as a professional who deserves top pricing for your program.
Selling Secret for Coaches #5 – Own Your Value and Let Go of Outcome
That’s really two secrets in one. Nothing is more attractive than when you own your value. After some preliminary questions about them, smoothly move into telling your potential client about what they will accomplish in your program and what they will get, then proudly share your fees.
Never discount your program.
And finally, release any attachment to whether they hire you or not.
If you do this, your enrollment calls will be painless.
You’ll never feel rejection. You’ll just know that whatever happens— whether they hire you or not— will be the right thing for everyone. And interestingly, your lack of attachment will help you enroll more ideal clients at higher prices.
In your Discovery Call, be yourself,
stand in your personal power, and DETACH from outcome.
Now go market and sell in the most natural way without anticipatory stress clouding your mind!