As a coach you have it made in the shade! But sometimes you don’t realize it. The skills you use to coach — listening, asking powerful questions, intuiting, using perspective, messaging, reframing — are aces for enrolling too.
But sometimes when you’re enrolling new clients, fear sneaks in on little cat’s feet and you forget all that you have going for you. Here’s how it happens:
Things are going along swimmingly in a sample session, enrolling consult or preview teleseminar. You are connecting with potential clients, enjoying them, engaging with curiosity. Then, when it comes time to invite them to take a next step with you, you shift… in dramatic ways like when Dr. Jekyl turns into Mr Hyde:
Suddenly you’re performing when you were connecting.
Suddenly you are attached to outcome when before you were detached.
Suddenly it’s all about you when before it was all about them.
But in fact, nothing had to change.
That’s the secret to enrolling: use all the same skills that you do for coaching. Move into your invitation seamlessly. Connect rather than perform. Stay detached. It’s still all about your potential client.
So even if they ask you “big scary” questions like these…
How will I afford this?
Why do you charge so much?
How do I know you can help me?
How do I know it will be worth it?
What makes you qualified to do this?
Why should I choose to work with you?
Can you tell me what results your other clients had?
What experience do you have in helping people like me?
… Listen. Stay connected. Resist your ego’s impulse to make it about you. It’s not about you.
Hear where they are coming from when they seem to have an “objection”. Stand in their shoes for a moment and understand what’s really being asked. What’s really at stake for them?
Here’s the thing: they wouldn’t ask if they weren’t truly interested in your offer. Something wonderful has happened during your time with them that has caused them to hope again. They’ve reconnected with their dreams and, because something big is at stake if they pursue those dreams, their stuff is in their face big time!
They are wondering… could this really be it? Could I get where I want to go with the help of this genuine human being? Can I truly invest in myself and my future? Am I worth it?
Once you’ve reconnected and put your ego in the corner with a lollypop, you’ll be able to be fully present once again. You will realize that this moment isn’t about getting another client or losing the chance. This is about fit. This is about supporting the person before you to make a decision from their wholeness.
Now whatever the “objection”, you’ll find it’s easy to respond from that connected place.
And here’s a bonus tip for you about enrolling. Take that list of questions up there and any others you can think of that a potential client might ask, and write up an authentic answer for each one. But don’t just package an answer. Create an experiential type of response. It could be a powerful question you ask them. Invite them to tell a story. For example, to the question…
How will I afford this? (or, I can’t afford this!)
… invite them to share a time when they invested in something for themselves and it felt like a stretch. What did the action of investing in themselves do for them? How did it make them feel? What were the benefits of that investment? Help them dig deep into this. How were they able to find a way to afford it? Is this another time when it feels right to invest in their future?
Bottom line: be a super coach when you are enrolling. You cannot lose. Because even if your potential client doesn’t hire you now, because you stayed in your authentic self and your integrity, the floodgates of prosperity are full open… wait for it!
What “big scary objection questions” or statements have you been asked recently? How did you dance with your potential client in that moment? Share those things or anything else related to enrolling in the comments.
