Ep #198: The Importance of Aligning How You Sell and How You Deliver

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 198. To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, I am so happy you’re here today, as always. And before we get started, I want to remind you that in a couple episodes from right now, we are going to be at episode 200, which is so exciting for me. And in the show notes you will find a link where you can submit any questions you have for me that I will be answering on that episode.

The deadline to submit these questions, absolute latest, is August 19th, 2024. So if you’re listening in real time and you have a question for me, whether it’s about anything that has to do with coaching, coaching businesses, my business, me personally, how I think about things, how I make decisions, anything, whatever you want. But that deadline is approaching, so go click the link and submit your questions and I will answer them.

I love answering these questions. Sometimes y’all have some really creative questions and some fun things to answer. So get those in and I will answer them for you in episode 200.

Today, I want to talk about something that I’ve been thinking so much about. So if you have been paying attention, if you’ve listened to the last few episodes, you may have heard me talk about this new mastermind that I have been launching, which has been so fun in the launch, talking to some of you, getting you enrolled and letting you ask all the questions and just doing some, even some consults, which I haven’t done in a while. Or I don’t know, I say consults, they’re not really consults. It’s like 15 minutes of basically you asking me any questions that you have just to be sure it’s a great fit.

But because of this, and because it’s a business mastermind, I have been really thinking through, like spending some time thinking through all of the topics where you are going to be going over in the mastermind. If you’ve seen the information for it, it’s kind of a different topic each month with a little wiggle room there around some of the topics.

But so I’ve been thinking through each of the topics, right? Thinking about marketing, selling, client delivery, just all of it. And one thing that I’ve really been thinking about, actually, I’ve been thinking about it for quite a while. It just is coming up a lot more now that I’ve been thinking about teaching more on business and some of the things that we’re going to be doing inside the mastermind, Reimagine.

This concept of considering how you sell your coaching, this is for every coach, it doesn’t matter what offer you’re selling. How you sell your coaching is how the client who buys it, or who comes to a consult or a sales call or something, is going to expect you to deliver it. I want you to think about that for a second.

The way you sell your coaching, and when I say the way, I mean kind of the energy that you sell it with is going to be the energy that the client expects you to deliver it with once they get inside. Or when they sign up for a sales call or a consult or however you handle that in your business. Let me explain what I mean by that. And I’ll also tell you why I’ve been thinking a lot about it.

One thing that I have seen coming up for some of my clients in my current containers, and then the ones that are enrolling in Reimagine, one thing that a couple of them have said is that there’s something about their marketing and their selling that feels kind of not aligned for them.

And after listening to them talk, the couple of them that have talked about this, it really does go in, like plays into this concept I’ve been thinking about, which is maybe you’ve been taught to sell and to market your coaching in a specific way. And you’ve kind of copied something that someone has told you to do or shown you to do, which there is no problem with that, right? Like that’s how we all learn. It’s where we all start.

But then when they get into your container, so now they’ve signed on to be your client, you’re their one-on-one coach, or they’re joining your group or your membership or whatever, something feels off about that. Like something isn’t lining up.

And one reason that’s happening is because of the way you’ve learned maybe to sell and market, and it doesn’t fully align with who you are and how you do things. But then you’ve created a container maybe that you love, or if you’re working with one-on-one clients it can be pretty flexible and there’s a lot of kind of you and your energy showing up in those containers, and they may not match the way you are selling or the way you’re thinking about selling and marketing your offer.

So for example, if you sell, and I see this all the time, right? I see, I follow a lot of coaches on social media and I talk to so many coaches and this feels like, this is just my opinion, but it is just an observation, very general, but I see it all the time. And I want you to really think about this for your business.

So if you have learned to sell with tons of urgency, right? Maybe even a little bit of fake urgency, you know, saying like, “Oh, this offer closes now,” but it doesn’t really close. Like you would still take people after the deadline. Or you have to hurry and get in or it’s a one-time offer. Anything that’s not totally true, to me, that’s what I would call fake urgency, right? Like that, get in now.

Now, not all urgency is like this. Sometimes things are urgent. Sometimes, for example, right now when I’m selling Reimagine, I’m not selling with any urgency besides this is urgent maybe for your business, you should definitely do this. But there’s no false deadline I’ve created.

The deadline technically is either it’s going to fill up because I’m only taking a certain number of people, which is my guess of what will happen. Or the deadline would be the day before we start because you have to be enrolled before we begin, right? Like I want you to be there for the first calls because they’re going to be pretty important. So there is some urgency. That’s just like real life urgency, you have to be in before the deadline. Some of you may sell like that.

And especially, I see this often, this kind of fake urgency that’s created, I see it especially with people selling one-on-one coaching because you aren’t really sure how to sell without it, right? Because technically there is no deadline, unless you only literally have like one spot open or two spots open or whatever, right? Like that’s real.

But if you don’t and you just have lots of spots, but maybe you’re saying something like two spots left or saying things like that that aren’t necessarily true, there’s a certain energy that comes with that, that when you’re being very loud about it and pumping your clients up and the people watching you get very caught up in the energy of the urgency.

Then what happens is they come into the coaching container with that same urgency. Okay, you have spent all this time telling me how important it is, how much of a hurry I should be in to be here. And now I expect you to deliver it just like that. Like I am in a hurry.

If you relate to this, I want you to just consider what that feels like for you as the coach and how it kind of sets you up for immediate, not failure, I mean, you can obviously work through this and work it out. But how it kind of sets you up on this path right away of the client kind of coming to you with like, okay, this is urgent. We have to fix it immediately.

Now I want you to consider if you are selling with maybe some confusion or hesitancy around your offer, right? A little, like you aren’t totally sure, you have some confusion around it and the way you’re talking about it. You might not know that this is what you’re doing, because if you did you probably wouldn’t be doing it. But you might not see it in your selling.

But if you just ask yourself, like, how do I feel about the offer that I’m selling? Am I super clear what it is? Is it fully aligned with who I am as a coach? Am I an expert or great at coaching on these things that I’m offering? Do I feel super confident that whoever signs up for this can get the results that they want when they hire me? All of these things.

So if you’re confused around that, or if you feel lots of hesitancy, or it feels like every time you’re selling, it’s like, oh, like pulling it out of yourself and you’re not slowing down to take that time to answer the questions and to feel more confident, then there’s a good chance your clients, if you somehow get them to say yes through that confusion, through that hesitancy, it’s very often that they will then show up into your container with that same energy.

Now, again, this is not 100% of the time, right? So if you’re like, oh my gosh, I have a client who comes to calls with lots of confusion. I’m not suggesting that 100% of the time, if that’s happening, that that means you are always confused in your selling. But if all of your clients are showing up with confusion, with hesitancy, with not kind of wanting to move forward, it’s just something to consider.

How are you selling your coaching? How are you talking about it? How are your thoughts around, like you aren’t quite sure what you’re doing or how to say it, how are those coming out in your selling and creating that energy moving forward into your coaching?

Now I want you to consider, and I think that there are, I’m sure there are other options. These are the two that I’ve spent a lot of time witnessing and just thinking about, the urgency and the confusion or just hesitancy, right? Now I want you to consider the third option, which is you feeling very clear. Being very clear what your offer is. Being very clear about the results that your clients can create, right, that are possible for them.

When you are talking about your offer, when you are maybe on a consult, when you are creating a sales page, when you are posting on social media, any of those things. Anywhere you’re marketing, anywhere you are actually selling your coaching, the more confident you are and the more clear you are. When you show up that way, it really helps your clients be very clear in that moment when they are deciding, is this offer for me? Is this coaching for me? It helps them be so clear and make a clear, solid decision with all of the information.

And let me say, we have all been here. I have sold things in the past where I am not clear. I’m very confused. Like looking back, I can see that I’ve done these things. So this is not like, oh my gosh, if you’re doing this, you have to stop right now. This is more of just noticing and just asking yourself, how can I shift into being more clear, more confident, more willing to show up and answer any questions that they have?

My thought as I’m doing some consults or talking to people, answering their questions about Reimagine is I know exactly who this is for. I know exactly who it can help. And I’m going to be as honest as possible as I can with any question that they ask and with any application I get.

So even if it means possibly turning people away, which there have been a couple of people that has happened to, only because I can see just by the way they’ve answered the questions that it’s just not a space that will be growth for them, right? That it will be really powerful and the work that they need right now, just because their business isn’t in the right, the same place as everybody else who will be in the room. And it just doesn’t align with the work that we will be doing and all the questions we will be going through and the evaluating we’ll be doing, right?

But the more honest I am about that and the more clear I am about that, the more it helps the perfect fit clients understand what the room is about, what we’re going to be doing, and exactly what results they can create when they join.

And then when you do that, when you think of that selling, like part of your selling process, truly like setting your clients up for success in the delivery of the program or the coaching, the one-on-one container, whatever it is, that is exactly how they will come into it, right? They will come in now being totally clear of what their goals are, feeling like this is 100% the space for them, feeling confident they can create the results that you are selling because you are also confident and clear about how they will do it. And it just is like this perfect match energy.

And I know that most of this podcast is years of me talking about coaching and client delivery and really helping your clients create the results that they hire you for. But I do think this piece is so important to address because I think this is part of it. And it’s something that I’ve noticed over the years, but it’s something that I have just been watching and kind of taking notes and really forming this theory that the way you sell is the way your clients will expect you to deliver.

So I want you to just take a second and think about this for yourself. What is the energy, like if you didn’t know you and you came upon your Instagram, your TikTok, your LinkedIn page, your website, any of it, and you just asked yourself, what is the energy I’m selling these offers with? What is the energy that I am portraying when I talk about what I do?

And those were just some examples, but literally anywhere you’re marketing, anywhere that you’re selling your coaching, what is the energy that you’re approaching it with? And are there ways that you can be more clear? Are there ways that you can feel more confident?

Do you see this showing up with your clients anywhere? Oftentimes are your clients showing up confused? Are they showing up, most of them with complete urgency, right? Are they showing up with energy that’s kind of all over the place? And can you trace that back to any way that you have sold them?

I used to think, this is the last thing I’ll add in here before we go for today. But I used to think that it was like that energy that you’re selling with, attracts those types of people, right? So like if you’re selling with kind of all over the place energy, maybe you’re attracting people whose kind of thoughts are all over the place. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just like in that area of whatever it is that you’re coaching on, that their thoughts are kind of all over the place and that they are just already confused.

But what I actually think is happening, and that definitely could be true sometimes, what I actually think is happening more often is that they are, if they decide it’s a good fit for them, it’s because they have matched with that energy. Like they have brought themselves to that energy that you are offering, that you’re putting out there. And then that’s how they show up for their coaching.

They’re like, okay, I’m ready, let’s do this. Or like, okay. I mean, I don’t know. I think this was a good choice. I think I’m supposed to be here. I definitely should have hired you. Like they’re talking themselves into it, right? Were you talking them into it in your marketing? Something to consider, food for thought for today.

I hope this is really helpful. If you have any questions, obviously let me know, go to the show notes, click the link, put any of your questions for the upcoming episode in there. And if you are ready to join The Coach Lab, which I haven’t talked about in a minute, but it is still here going strong, better than ever. If you’re ready to join that, we will put the link in the show notes.

And if you are interested in the Reimagine mastermind, people are already joining. I’m so excited. The group is going to be so good. And if you’re interested in that, we will put that link as well in the show notes. Otherwise, have an amazing week and I will talk to you next week. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.