Important Information On What You Need To Know RIGHT NOW To Ensure SALES of Your Professional Coaching

Let’s all take a moment and imagine “one day.” “One day you’ll be able to make money doing something your really enjoy because you’ve got the structures, you’ve got the skills, you’ve got the systems, and you’ve got the complete confidence, so you’re more motivated to get out there and successfully sell your solutions to your ideal clients!”

Many people shared with me challenges and what has them nervous going out a earning from their coaching:

• Getting enough clients in this bad economy and coping with not having a stable income.
• Finding the time to really put myself out there, make the contacts I need to make and work my business.
• Lack of support
• To get out there and sell my services

Yeah, I get what you’re thinking about challenges. It’s understandable to feel this inner pull between your fears and your desires; it like this tug of war between your ego and your soul.

I acknowledge you for being here reading this article because it means somehow you know this tension is what you need to really make something happen; propel yourself forward. And I honor all it has taken for you to get to this transition point in your life and profession.

Now, let me ask you one question before we move on, and I want you to keep your answer in mind for the rest of this call.

“If you had the help to devise and implement some strategies to help you feel you were bringing yourself one day closer to that “one day” when you are able to make money doing what you love, what would that be worth to you?”

Keep that in mind as you read further.

Before my coach training I led service teams in a specialized area of human resources that dealt with the compensation and relocation of executives and their families around the world. For 10 years, I worked in this niche area and created some rather innovative internal and external service partnerships in the different companies I worked for including E&Y, Cisco Systems and Kraft Foods. But I started to realize that in many ways my role did not suit me and my leadership was shall I say catabolic. And the negativity inside of me and around me was taking its toll on my health so I took my money and came home and took an overdue time out….

So I jumped into coach training and certification in Pilates, not knowing a thing about what it would mean to run a business or a studio, let alone if my personality and natural instincts supported that type of work. I knew that I learned best from direct experience. Just like I knew that if I was ever going to become fluent in French, I needed to live in France. So I did it. I created an opportunity and started working in Paris back in 1998. So I’m a big fan of immersion programs and I’ll tell you more about one in particular in a little bit.

Now my background in this niche expatriate area helped me create an opportunity to coach while I was still figuring out what I wanted to do next. I approached a company I knew provided transition support to expatriates. It worked out that they needed someone to cover maternity leave. So there I was getting practice coaching for a company that provided me with the clients and their systems. Along with this I created another revenue stream with a 6-week introduction to Pilates class, renting some space at a small studio.

Even when I came for the Master level training with iPEC (and really it was for the personal transformation I knew was possible in the program) I still didn’t have my mind around being in business for myself and I was reading about programs targeting coaches who were tired of exchanging time for money, exhausted by all their marketing hours and so few clients to show for the effort, etc. I knew I didn’t enjoy being a Director of Operations but I knew that I sure did enjoy creating and launching solutions in partnership with other service providers.

"True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

As I did with the programs I created in my corporate role, one of my success strategies is to look outside my industry and map over the concepts into what I’m doing. So I looked outside the coaching profession and found mentors who not only taught but shared why what they were doing and what they’ve learned from their mentors was working to market and sell services.

We all know there is a big difference between learning and doing. I’ll be the first to say I get so excited about concepts but I know it takes action – consistent, in the right order, and over time - to get clients!

I mean it’s like learning to ride a bike. How did we learn to ride bikes? Did anybody read the book “How to Ride a Bike?” No! We learned by doing it, by shifting our weight from one side to the other, and leaning and turning and pedaling. Just like my 3 ½ year old nephew is learning ride a bike right now with training wheels and help and a friendly push from time to time. We learn to ride the bike by riding the bike. Learning takes time and practice. And you know this is what we do starting out as professional coaches – we build in practice.

So what is it going to take for you to make SALES?

FIRST and completely NON-NEGOTIABLE – You do not pass GO, You do not collect $200 without this!

• What SOLUTION can you offer that people already want, RIGHT NOW?

You buy what you want. You future customers and clients will buy what they want (not what they need).

As coaches you know that you can coach anyone on anything at anytime. And in that you also – and you can’t help it – you get so wrapped up and identified with your label of coach. I raise my hand and still do this. I’m so excited what coaching helped me create and still create in my life. I want everyone to have a coach and have coaching skills. But I don’t get clients selling coaching. Coaching is a tool that helps me help someone with a specific result they want in their life. They buy the result, not the process.

So we need to take our expertise and map it across to another context, marketing and sales. You can become one of the best listeners of what people want, what they are challenged with, what they want to see in their lives in the next 90 days. Use your coaching talents to get to the rest of the story – get people to coach you on what they want! Without a focus on what you want to sell people or think people need, you can start to see other needs being expressed that you can respond to.

So here are some concrete questions you can apply some holographic thinking to and start to tune in around you. Put these up on Post-it Notes to let you subconscious work on this.

• Who near me is expressing an immediate want/desire?
• What are they saying to themselves, to others, to me?
• How might my knowledge, skills, experience, and passion help solve this?

And going into the second part of SALES, here are two more questions to tune your listening ear to:

• Who am I drawn to or for whom do I want to create solutions?
• And Why?

Let me tell you when you get that “click” between what you can and want to offer and what someone wants right now – it not only feels great, all the stuff that goes under “marketing and sales” becomes effortless and fun! You don’t worry about hear “no” you get excited about sending out the invitations to your party!

It’s an iteration process and you get closer and closer to where WHO you are and what you can offer DOVETAILS perfectly with what the people you want to work with are saying they want, right now.

You enter the conversations already happening.

And not just anyone’s conversations, your ideal client conversations. How do you know who your ideal clients are? Let’s do an exercise I’m taking from Lisa Cherney’s Juicy Online Marketing program.

I want you to draw a triangle with the widest part at the bottom. Now draw three horizontal lines so now you have three segments of the triangle. The widest part at the bottom – that’s a Target Market – the middle a niche – the top your ideal clients

You might find someone in your target market – fits the demographics - even your niche - but working with her could be anything but ideal. Because we’re also talking about doing business on your own terms; doing something you enjoy, right? Where an ideal client could be women over 50 getting divorced who are ready to make their transition into the best time in their lives. Big difference in how that feels and who that attracts!

At this point we step up as LEADERS!

Even without the webpage; without the tagline and 30-second elevator pitch, you can step up to lead (inspire and motivate) those around you who want what you can offer through your knowledge, skills, experience, talents. Are you going to be the one who responds to needs around you?

How willing are you to step into a leaders circle? You cannot ask your potential clients to invest in themselves any greater than you invested in yourself. I honor your commitment to your professional coach training and it is a transformational experience. Now you’ve made that level of investment in your coaching skills, you now need to look into the investment it takes to bring those skills to market.

Look into the success stories of any business owners and experts in their fields. Every one will tell you they saw their success is in proportion to the investment they made in themselves through mentors and mastermind groups. And they started to make decisions from the place of where they wanted to be – the direction they were heading - not from the place where they were. So what could look like an expense from where you’re standing now looks very different from the place of where you’d like to be because the question changes from how can I afford to do this to how could I afford not to do this?

So if you’re thinking that you just don’t have the money to invest in yourself and your business, then ask yourself what achieving your goals and dreams means to you. If you choose not to invest in yourself, then you will find it much harder and a much slower process achieving what you want to achieve – you may not even get there.

Now you get to focus your ENERGY right NOW so you will make the difference you want to make. And stepping into a leadership circle can help breakthrough any inner blocks.

Many service oriented leaders have lots of compassion energy; they want to be of service to others. This can lead to giving too much away or feeling uncomfortable charging for their service.

The thing to keep in mind as you focus your energy, you want to tap into the energy of opportunity. Where is there opportunity? Without a need to fix anyone through your service but more in partnership. In this way you can be detached but involved to give people what they are looking for and you are uniquely qualified to give them.

In the context of bringing your energy to sales, skills, beliefs, thoughts and fears all affect your ability to persuade and respond to objections. When you are clear, that is, without catabolic beliefs and fears, you will most easily attract and connect with your desired clients and motivate them to buy your services.

So the final piece in SALES is Sharing, not Selling.

How many people watch a trailer for a movie and knowing they saw the best clips, still go to see the whole movie?!

Those people marketing movies know these trailers work! People get a little and they want more!

Linking back to energy levels, there is a tendency for people, often called heart-based entrepreneurs to give too much. It might have happened to you in a sample session, where you resolve the issue with the prospect to such an extent they don’t see the value in paying to come for sessions. And back to feeling tension, that inner tug-of-war, it is important for sales, and if you want to make sales, you want to learn how to create productive tension. Now this is not the same as ‘pressuring them.” Tension comes from inside when you realize the gap between where you want to be and where you are. When you are sharing information, like the trailer in the movie, you do it in a way that gives enough to get someone to a point and they still want more from you, that you reserve for the more invested paid program.

And this is a big lesson I learned this past year when I didn’t ask for the sale. It is a disservice not to give someone what she needs so that she can decide right now while she’s with you – be it in person or on a teleclass - and here's why.

When prospective ideal clients are with you on say your teleclass, that is when they're connected to what you're talking about and that's when they're connected enough to themselves and to their Higher Coach to know inside themselves most certainly whether or not what you’re offering is a fit for them. They know that they need you – that's when it's time to make the commitment and out of that commitment have a transformation in their life. That's when it's time for them to invest in themselves through you. Let yourself get into that opportunity!

Now you can take this interesting information and start to make money doing what you love with the confidence that comes with having the structures, the skills, the systems, and a solution your potential ideal clients want. I invite you to find out more on this webpage: http://centerforenergeticleadership.com/letsdolaunch.html