You're listening to the Life Coaching Secrets Podcast, episode 180. Did you know that life coaches are needed now more than ever? I'm Frank Macri, founder of Thriving Coach Academy. I've trained over a thousand coaches and helped them launch their own successful coaching businesses. If you want to make an incredible income and impact as a coach and have a lot of fun doing it, I'll show you exactly how to get it done. This is Life Coaching Secrets.
What's up coaches, in this episode I'm going to talk about the art of selling coaching and really this is the art of selling anything. I've spent many many years being anxious and afraid and feeling very gross around selling coaching to learning a really genuine heart-centered approach to selling that I've found to be very inspiring and authentic. So I want to share with you just an overview of one of the principles to selling that.
I know and that we teach our students in Thriving Coach Academy. This is going to be really helpful for you to utilize when you are having consultations with potential clients. So often when you are building up your business, When potential clients find you, they will book a consultation call with you. And then in that consultation call, you will go over what kind of support they're looking for and then also navigate their decision of whether or not they want to work with you.
and we give all of our students in the academy a consultation template it is one of the many business resources we give our students and actually just yesterday we had one of our students jen she had her very first consultation with a potential client and used our template and that potential client said yes and is paying for her coaching services so we hear stories like this all the time we want to make it as simple as possible so i want to share with you what are the four main
that you want to address with your potential clients. And if you're already doing consultations, you might notice that you are not getting enough yeses that you'd like to be getting. And it might be because you're missing one of these four. And the four areas are why change, why you, why them, and why now? Okay, so they're why change, why you, why them, why now? And I'm going to explain what all four of these mean.
These are, again, all questions you want to make sure you are addressing with your clients, having them reflect on. and making sure they're clear about so that way they make the most informed decision. None of any of this is about needing to convince anyone to do anything they don't want to do. There's no manipulation involved. It's really about getting people in touch with what they most want, getting the most.
awareness they can have about their life and where it's going and then making the decision from there. So the first one is why change. So first, we need to make sure that our potential clients are clear about why it is they want to change the problem that they have. So in what ways will addressing this problem benefit them? If they're not really clear about that or if they don't really think it's much of a problem, then they're going to be very indifferent.
They're going to keep going through the motions. They're not going to want to receive any kind of support. So some questions that you'd want to make sure you are exploring with your potential clients are questions like, how does having this problem make you feel?
It's just surface level if they recognize there's a problem. We want to understand what feelings are associated with this problem. What ways does it have an impact in their life? We might also want to know why is it important for you to address this problem. One example could be if you are doing career coaching and let's say you help people that want to find different careers.
You might find someone that is interested in a consultation with you and you ask them, well, how does it make you feel to be in your current career right now? And they might say, it makes me feel very exhausted. I feel very drained. I feel burnt out. So from there, you might ask them, how does having this problem, how does feeling this way impact your life and other parts of your life? They might say, well, I'm so drained when I come home from work.
I don't have any energy to exercise or take care of my health. I just want to go to sleep. And it's also impacting my relationship with my family and my loved ones. So I really want to figure out a way to address all this dissatisfaction I have in my career. So now your client is becoming more aware of their problem and really the impact it has on their life. We're not.
We are not changing the problem at all. We are not trying to tell someone why their problem is a problem. We are just asking questions to help them become aware of what's already there. Okay, that's what all this is about. You might ask them questions like, what have you already tried to address this? What hasn't worked well so far? What is it that you still would like support on?
And then I really like exploring what possibilities do you see opening up for you when you solve this problem? How do you see your life changing? How do you see it benefiting you when this problem is fully resolved? So this allows your potential clients to realize everything that's on the other side of their problem. that solving the problem will have. So these are great questions to ask to help hit on the first part of selling coaching.
Which is why change? So having your client realize what's the benefit of changing things and what is the consequence of keeping things as they. The second part is addressing why them. I'm going to go with why them before I address why you. So why them? And I think this is one of the most inspiring parts of selling coaching and having consultations.
is helping people build belief in themselves because they might realize that it's necessary to change things, but they might feel like they're not going to succeed. They may be worried about failure. So one of the things that we want to do as coaches is make sure that.
your clients are selling themselves on themselves. They're selling themselves on themselves and their ability to be successful. If you're noticing that your potential clients are having lots of doubts and fears, they're lacking confidence, and that's causing them to not want to move forward, then this is the area that you want to address more when you're having consultation. So some ways that you can address this is by asking your clients to examine the worst case and the best case scenario.
Whenever we have a new opportunity in front of us, we often think about the worst possible case scenario. There's the catastrophizing that our brain often does. And this is not really a fair way to look at something by just assuming the worst case scenario will happen. So instead, invite your clients to identify what's the worst case and also what's the best.
And then after that, you can have them assess how likely it is that that worst case scenario will happen and how likely is it that the best case scenario will happen. So a lot of times when myself and our team talk with potential students interested in Thriving Coach Academy, we'll ask them questions like this. If they're afraid to dive into coach training.
We ask them, well, what's the worst possible thing that could happen? And oftentimes we hear things like, well, I'm afraid that I'll invest money in this and that it won't pan out. I won't find a single client. And then I might ask, well, how likely is that really to happen on a scale of one to 10 that you put so much energy into this and you get absolutely nothing and zero client?
And we hear potential students say, well, it's pretty much like a one or a two. It's so unlikely. It's pretty much virtually impossible. And then we look at what's the best case scenario. So what would that look like if things really took off, if you really blew your own mind? And we often hear students say things like, they see themselves enrolling clients and growing their business. And then when I ask them, well, how likely do you see that?
scenario to be the score is always drastically higher than the likelihood of the worst case scenario so what does that tell you right what does that reveal around what's possible and what your likelihood of success is So you want to explore this with your potential clients so that way they can calm down that really fearful part of their brain, which is just there to protect them and keep them safe, keep them small and really invite.
a more empowered version of them to really see what's true and what's possible. So you can explore these with your potential clients and invite them to recognize really the likelihood of both different cases. Now, one of the other great ways to support clients in overcoming their own doubts is by sharing success stories and testimonials with potential clients.
And some people, you might feel like a testimonial is just there to showcase you and your coaching. And that's not actually true because one half of sharing a great success story is inspiring clients. and future clients that might share similar doubts to the potential client that you have right now, to the doubts that they might have.
So we have a structure that we teach our students on how to capture really inspiring, heartfelt client success stories that are going to feel like really amazing when your potential clients, when your future clients hear them. sharing success stories with your potential clients will help them recognize other people had the same fears that they had, and yet they were still successful. So stories like this can be very transformational when someone doesn't really have that belief in themselves.
The why the concern that your potential client might have where it's like, why me? Why am I going to be successful here? We've got to make sure they sell themselves on themselves. The third area is why you. Okay, so now that your potential client, they're sold on the challenge that needs to be resolved. They're really sold on themselves making it happen. Now it's like, who am I going to hire? Which program am I going to go with to get support?
So this is where you want to differentiate yourself as a coach. You don't want to blend in with all the other coaches out there. So there's a few ways you can do this. One is by having your own framework or method. that you have and you apply with your coaching that no one else has. This allows you to stand out from just any other coach that's just offering generic coaching service.
And in Thriving Coach Academy, we have step-by-step exactly how you can create your very own coaching framework. And it becomes like your signature sauce, your special sauce that you have that no one other coach has that will make you stand out. Okay, so we're making you stand out here. This is what helps.
have your potential clients realize, I don't just want to go with a coach. I want to go with this particular coach. I want to go with you. All right. So that's one way you might also have your own beyond just a framework, your own program, which is your own process that you take your potential clients through.
Once you have your own program, then it's like, all you need to do is have access to this program. And this is what's going to give you the success that you want. And again, in our program, in Thriving Coach Academy, we show you how to create your own coaching course or program, which is a great way for you to stand out.
Now, even like potential students that are interested in our school, they often have those questions like, what is it that makes Thriving Coach Academy different? And we often share with them. Things like our lifetime support, you know, giving our students ongoing coaching feedback and ongoing business mentorship, even beyond certification. The lifetime support is often one of the major things that allows our school to stand out from any other out there.
Also the intimate classroom size that we have, how we have like a nice intimate number of people in the classroom. So you have lots of space for your questions to be answered. And then even our coaching tools that we teach make us very unique and different because we're not teaching generic coaching tools. We have a signature method of coaching that we teach called the rulebook coaching method. And you may have heard it if you've listened to some episodes already.
It is the method that helps you really pinpoint what is at the core, what's at the root of your client's biggest challenge and how could you address that efficiently to help them get great results. So you pinpoint what is the rule that's holding your client back.
And then you help them rewrite that rule so they open up new possibilities. And we've had our students say that once they start using rulebook coaching with their clients in their sessions, their clients are having breakthroughs within minutes.
When we just had a coach recently share that she enrolled a client and that client had already worked with other coaches, but When that client started working with our trained coach, they were having faster breakthroughs and they were getting coached at such a higher caliber and level than any of the other coaches that they've worked with.
okay so this is like one of the the cool things that you have as a student in our program, but also it sets you apart because you have a method of coaching that is way more efficient and powerful than generic coaching styles out there. So what you want to make sure your clients are, your potential clients are realizing why you, what makes you different and unique.
The fourth and final way that the fourth and final art of selling is on addressing the question, why now? Now this one's big and it's often the one that a lot of coaches miss. when they are talking with potential clients, because you might have the most amazing potential client. You may have an amazing program for them. They may believe in themselves, but they just don't have a reason to get started now.
Whenever we don't have a reason to get started now, our brain will look for a reason to procrastinate, to prolong, to delay. And this is not an empowering way to live. So therefore, the most empowering thing you can do is invite your client to sell themselves on why now is the best time for them to get started as opposed to wait.
So some questions that you might ask them are, why is now the ideal time for you to get started? Or what might be the impact of you delaying this decision and holding off, right? There's always an opportunity cost. If we decide to not do something. then there is the opportunity we've missed out on and the benefits of that opportunity. And then what are the risks of you not taking action now? Like one of my favorite questions to use in a consultation.
is if nothing were to change in a year from now, how would that be for you? What would that be like? And often that is a question that really gets someone so focused. on why now is the time to change because they don't want things to get to that point. And you're not convincing anyone of anything here. You are just getting them in touch with what was already true.
Because if your potential client were to say, oh, I would still be totally fine if things were exactly as they are, then that's fair. But if your potential client is saying, I would be upset, devastated, regretful, disappointed, frustrated. If they're saying these things, then it becomes. so abundantly clear to them that things need to change and things need to change now.
Now you can also have some time sensitive incentives that you have in your coaching. Like you might have some different bonuses that you give clients if they enroll by a particular time. you might have limited spots in your coaching business. So maybe if you're running a group program, maybe there's a certain number of people you're allowing in the group. And even if you don't have a group coaching program, you already have some capacity.
to how many clients you're willing to work with. And I often recommend for our students that you don't work with more than three clients one-on-one in a single day. Any more than that, you might start to feel a little bit exhausted or you might feel that your presence starts to get impacted when you have more than three clients in a day.
So if you think about that right now, that would mean maybe like 15 clients a week if you were to work five days a week. But maybe that's even fewer for you if you want to run a part-time coaching business and work fewer than five days a week, which is totally fine. You want to make this clear to your audience, your network, that you have so many spots in your calendar and it is first come, first serve.
Okay, so you want to make sure your clients are aware if there are any types of limited spots. If you're doing a group coaching program and there's a cutoff date for when they can register and enroll, make sure this is clear for people so that way they have a reason to take action because they don't want to miss out on an opportunity. So in summary, all of this encapsulates the true art of selling, making sure that your potential clients are clear about why change things.
Why them? So why will they be successful? Why you and your coaching? And then why now? This is the art of selling and we go way deeper into this in Thriving Coach Academy. So if you're interested in having a successful coaching business, then head over to our website and we'll see how we can help you out. Now, before I go, I'm going to include a snippet from an interview that I had with one of our students from the program. They're going to share with you their experience and also their tip.
or people like you who want to become successful coaches. So enjoy their story, and I will see you in the next episode. My name is Brandon. I found my way to coaching in the middle of a global pandemic. I am a performer. I was working with Sesame Street Live. coronavirus shut down our production and I was left jobless essentially and I was looking for ways to kind of pivot through this trying uncertain time and what happened was
some random divine intervention spark came to me and said, you know what, Brandon, maybe life coaching should be something you can look into. And I pushed it away for a little bit, but then when I was journaling and kind of reflecting on that moment, life coaching. With that whisper, I started to do some searching and I scheduled an admissions call to get more of my questions answered. And someone on the team was very knowledgeable. They were very thorough. They were very reassuring.
set this goal to become certified as a life coach and i made it happen i'm making it happen actually i'm in the middle of certification process i've seen so much growth i've witnessed so much growth in myself and i'm showing up differently in the world now i'm showing up differently in my relationship with people i'm showing up differently for myself as well
My initial thought was how could you possibly coach other people through life when you've only been on I had some very ageist beliefs towards myself thinking that I wasn't old enough which means I thought that there were other people out there who are much wiser, much more knowledgeable, who fit that coach mold more so than me. I was allowing those feelings to. really dictate my life and i realized that i do that and not just with coaching i did that with a lot of other
But when in reality, my life, my journey, and what I've gone through is what makes my brand of coaching so unique. And that's something that thrives. Every one of us is on our own journey and our journey is what informs our coach. and makes us the perfect person to be a coach. It's because of who we are that we should be a coach, not because of what we think we are, what we believe.
The team that I work with is so supportive and so engaged and so committed to my success that it helps me believe in myself. Coaching has allowed me to bring all of myself, my age, my background, my sexuality, my gender identity, all of it together and allows me to let it all come out in the sense. be able to create connections with my clients and to help understand and inform myself about how I can best support and encourage others.
Prior to my training with Thriving Coach Academy, I didn't understand the business side of coaching. I actually pushed it away an awful lot when it came to... marketing things and to really stand in my truth as a coach. I knew that I wanted to be a life coach but I didn't know what that would look like in a business.
when i started to reach out to my social network and offer up my services i kept on telling myself that no one would need my services like no one would be interested in what i had to say and when i allowed myself to really give in to the process of opening myself up I found myself overly blessed. So many people were interested. So many people signed up to the point where I had to limit who could sign up and how many people I could help. And that's something that I certainly didn't expect.
I thought that I would hear crickets and I'm hearing cicadas. I technically already opened and launched a legal business. since enrolling in this course. What I see for my future, having gone through Thriving Coach Academy, It makes me incredibly happy and joyful. And I'm smiling while answering this because I see myself being a beacon of light for other people to heal the relationship that they have with themselves.
in order to let their authentic selves shine through even further. Thriving Coach Academy is helping me show up in the world in the way that I truly want to and I know will truly help others. The impact this training has had. is profound going into a professional training with my experience I didn't think that I kept on telling myself that I really didn't And I felt invited to share. I felt invited. I felt that there was no extra pressure to be in.
It's the most fun I think I've ever had learning. If I'm going to be completely honest with you, like it's super exciting and the connections that you make both with other people, but also the connections that you make about who you are as a person. are incredible. Thriving Coach Academy has given me so much already and I'm not even through my certification yet. I see the potential for my business and I'm... already beginning to see some of it manifest.
all the prospective students out there who are like on the edge of making the decision. Do it really. You're doing it for yourself and you're doing it for the people that you'll be able to. Our desires and dreams are placed within us for a reason. And that reason often goes far beyond who we are. And it's because someone else can benefit from it, from what we do and what. It's the path that's meant to be for you. Because if it wasn't meant for you, you wouldn't be.
hey would you like access to powerful coaching tools you can use on yourself and clients right away for being a listener of the podcast i'm giving you a vip guest pass to get a sneak peek into my coach training program I'll see you on the inside.