Ep #167: The Value of Your Content vs Your Offer

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey, coaches, welcome to episode 167. Today we’re going to talk about the value of your content versus the value of your offers to your audience. But first I feel I have to just make this little announcement that hopefully we don’t have many disruptions and there isn’t a lot of sound in the background. But if there is I apologize, I am recording this the same week that we are tearing down one of our guest bedrooms and putting up our nursery. So, we have lots of people in the house. Our designer is here from California, Blue Spruce Interiors, just give her a little shout out.

And we have movers in here, and a handyman, and my executive assistant, [inaudible] is here and everybody, there’s lots of chaos and things happening at the house. However, I’ve got to record a podcast. So, this is what we do. We get it done. We have instructed everyone to be very quiet but if you hear door openings, and door dings, or dogs barking, or any of the things, just know that it’s because baby B’s nursery is going up over the next couple of days.

I will share posts. I’ll share a little highlight or something, a story, that’s what you call them. I’ll share a story on IG for the followers at Stacey Boehman. I don’t know what Instagram things are called, a story. And then we’ll put it in the highlight that it’s for the baby if you want to see the baby room once it’s finished. And I have my baby shower this weekend. What? We’ve 10 weeks to go, are you kidding me? It’s so exciting.

And baby B is kicking right now as I record this. I just ate lunch, chipotle, and he is very happy about the queso. So, he’s having a little kicking party right now. So that’s what’s happening with me, with chaos happening at the house, baby kicking in the belly. Are you ready to talk about the value of your content versus the value of your offers to your audience?

So, this is really what inspired me, so Making Offers Bootcamp is coming to an end. It has really truly been invaluable to our students. And I just have to plug this, I have to offer this that when you join 2K now you get it all on demand. So, you can go through the 2K process and then you can go through Offer Week. And then you can go through Making Offers Bootcamp, or vice versa.

You get to choose but I want to just say, I try not to add a bunch of content to 2K because the 2K process itself, if you just did that, you will make 2K and lots more. And it’s very simple and it’s very easy to understand how to sell and how to get your business going from even just if you’re starting from the very, very, very beginning. It’s just so simple.

But when I do add things they are always very purposeful. And this last six weeks has really been that, it’s been very purposeful. The coaches in our community really got to work through real issues that come up when they’re out in the world and they’re actually making offers and selling their coaching. And I’ve taught making offers in ways I never have before. There is an entire module in 2K about making offers and a lot of what I taught is the same information, but it’s delivered differently. And we’re able to expand upon it and we’re able to have deeper conversations.

And so, I just love this opportunity to expand my students’ brains but also my own on how I teach. And so, today’s episode is really an extension of that expansion of my teaching on making offers. And things that came up when real coaches were going out there and actually selling their offer in the world and coming back with, “Here’s my issue. Here’s what’s coming up for me.” Brand new content, brand new concepts, brand new ideas were brought forth to the surface which is just so exciting.

So, one of the things that came up during the bootcamp was the idea of – so there’s the content that’s leading up to your offer and then there’s your actual offer and which is actually more valuable. I kind of blew my students’ minds because the way most of them have been thinking is that there is the valuable content and then there is the sales offer. And I want you to just think about if that’s the way you’ve been thinking about it. Many of you believe that selling is just what you have to do to try to get a client for yourself after you give value.

So content, the way you see it is content is for your client and selling is for you. And many of you believe on top of that that your clients want your content and they don’t want your offer. They would prefer, you think that they would prefer, you imagine they would prefer, they don’t tell you this, it’s all in your thoughts which is an important thing to see. But you think they would prefer that you just left part off your webinar, or out of your consult, or out of your email, whatever form it is, Facebook Live, whatever is the delivery system for your content.

And it’s important to know that when you believe this, that the client wants only what’s for them, and what’s for them is only the content and that selling is what you have to do to get what you want, it will come off that way. And here’s how, you will overvalue your content and you will undervalue your sales pitch. So, you will spend more time thinking about coaching on and preparing for your content. And then you will deliver your content in service of your client humbly for them.

Many of you understand that idea of being in service, humble service and being in total love for the client, focused on the client. You get that. And so, you deliver your content that way. It feels amazing. And then you turn into this needy convincing weirdo who is self-focused and wants something, and sort of just throws it out there quickly and then retracts it right away many times. And it will be kind of a mess. It will feel that way to you. It will feel that way to the client.

Here’s how it will feel, it will feel completely uncomfortable for you. This is what I want you to always know. It never lies. You’re not able to mask it, you can’t cover it up. If it feels completely uncomfortable for you backed by or being that discomfort is created by lots of negative thoughts about selling it will feel uncomfortable for your client. They may not even know why it feels uncomfortable, it just will. Now, I don’t want to go too deep down the rabbit hole, but I do want to say this.

There is a difference between – I talk a lot about in 2K and I’m sure I’ve talked about this on the podcast, the idea of risking the relationship, being willing to say the uncomfortable thing in service of your client. I want you to always know that there are two different types of emotion and there are negative emotions that are in service of you and your client.

And I think when you’re willing to feel that, that feels very different to your clients than if you are feeling uncomfortable because you’re not in service and because you’re having a negative experience of what you’re doing, that’s all about you, that’s self-focused. So self-focused discomfort will translate to your client. They won’t know exactly what it is, but it will not be good, and it will make them uncomfortable. Service based discomfort will not feel negative to your client. They won’t experience a discomfort that feels like I don’t know what’s happening here, but something is off.

So, you just want to know that those two things are different. So, service based discomfort, that could be a whole podcast, created a new concept right here, service based discomfort versus self-focused discomfort. They are very different. So, what I’m saying is, when you’re completely uncomfortable in a self-focused way, your client will also feel uncomfortable. So having said that I want to offer a radical alternative to this. What if the offer you make is actually more valuable than the content you provide?

What if all of the talking about coaching ideas, and concepts, and methods, and all the teaching that you do, and the stories that you offer, and the conversations that you have on a coffee date, or during a consult. What if all of that was just the beginning of the most important and valuable moment of your client’s life?

So, let’s take a consult for example, at least my consult method anyways, I can’t speak for other methods. But mine is designed to be very powerful and very valuable. When you’re doing my consult method you get enough information from the client to explain to them their problem very clearly, better than they often understand it themselves. And then for you to give them a very simple solution and clearly explain the process of how you will help them get to where they want to be.

And that is very valuable for your client to have that presented to them this way for maybe the first time ever. And it may differ from what they thought the issue was and what they thought they would have to do to get what they want. And if you do it right it will also feel more doable than they expected without some of the heartache and the pain that maybe they anticipated, that’s kept them from wanting to do the work. You’re the relief for them, it doesn’t really have to be that hard? It really is that doable.

That is very valuable but please hear me on this, until they agree to work with you it’s just a lovely plan, it’s talk, it’s theory, it’s a wish, it’s a dream. What bridges the gap into reality is your offer. You actually offering to help them, you saying the words, “When can we get started? What are your thoughts on getting started right now? I know I can help you, so I want to make an offer for you to work with me and for us to actually make this happen.”

So, this moment, that moment right there where you say, “I want to make an offer to you. I think you will be a great fit for my coaching, let’s work together.” No matter how small in comparison to the time that you spend with the client, talking about the problem and how you’re going to get them the solution, no matter how small this sales moment is, this offer moment, it is the most valuable moment. And I want you to consider that your client wants this moment with you. They want you to make this moment comfortable and safe for them.

Rather than you thinking they don’t want it all, I want you to think, no, no, they just want me to make it comfortable and safe for them. Let me just tell you this, if someone doesn’t want a sales experience, what they really don’t want is something that’s unsafe and uncomfortable for them. That’s what they’re really saying no to. If someone were to actually be like – for example, when I was pitching people, they’d go, “Is this a sales pitch? Are you going to sell me something?”

And really what they were saying is, “Are you going to make me feel uncomfortable, and unsafe, and annoyed?” And I always knew that, so that’s how I would address that. And it didn’t even matter what I said, I would say different things every time, I had lots of little quippy things to say. But no matter what I said it was the energy that I said it in. It was always an energy that was designed to make them feel comfortable and safe. And let me just tell you because I feel your brain is like, well, what’s that energy? That energy is you feeling comfortable and safe.

If someone came up to me – we could really go down a rabbit hole here. But if someone came up to me when I was pitching and was like, “Is this a sales pitch? Are you going to sell us something?” If that comment, I went into I’m unsafe and I’m uncomfortable, whatever I said next I lost everyone. But if I heard that and I felt comfortable and safe, whatever I said next I kept everyone including that person. So, here’s what I want you to know is that they want you to make it easy for them to say yes. They want it to feel comfortable and safe, those two things.

So, any time someone says, “I don’t want something,” or they’re thinking that, they just don’t want to experience it, it’s because they just don’t want to feel uncomfortable and unsafe. And they don’t want it to be difficult to say no, that’s what they’re thinking, it’s going to be difficult to say no. What you want to do, your job, what you’re in control of, what you’re in power of is making it feel comfortable and safe and making it easy for them to say yes, or even easy to say no. I make it very easy for people to say no when I’m willing to hear no, just willingness to hear no. It could be a no.

Desire to only hear yes for the right people who are going to not waste my time or their time and they’re going to be really great clients to coach, the kind that you love working with. I’m like, all of those, we of course want to be yes. And anyone that’s not going to be that, I want you to be a no right away on the call. So really they want you to make it easy for them to say yes or no. But I want you for the sake of this episode because I could go down lots of tangents, I’m going to try not to.

But for the sake of this episode, we’re going to talk about the majority of people, and I will tell you why. But they want you to make it easy for them to say yes, that is why people get on sales calls. You’ve got to hear me on this. I’m going to say it one more time. The reason people get on sales calls is because they want you to make it easy for them to say yes. And you do that by you feeling comfortable with making an offer, with you feeling safe with yourself, within your body and your emotions to make the offer.

You don’t, you won’t feel safe when you’re thinking, this is the part where I have to do the sales thing, or they don’t want this part or when you’re focused on getting a yes for you. When you start the call out with your agenda being for them and then you switch it when you get to your offer, and it becomes about being for you. When you have any negative thoughts about the point at which you make an offer, if you have any negative emotion around it, your client can’t feel safe and comfortable.

Okay, now, let’s just play devil’s advocate and say that they don’t want you to sell them anything. We’re just going to say, I’m going to agree with some of you, yeah, they didn’t want you to sell them anything. That they want to get on your consult, or your webinar and they want to just hear what you have to say for an hour. And then they want to say, “Okay, bye, thanks for the advice. I’ll go try this on my own. Yay.” They plan ahead to hang up on the webinar as soon as you get to the sales part or they plan to cut you off and they go, “I’ve got to go,” on a consult.

I’m literally trying to think of what their thoughts could be if they didn’t want you to sell them coaching at the end because it seems so far from what I believe to be true. But I want you to just for the sake of this playing devil’s advocate, insert your own thoughts, whatever you think it is, of what you imagine they might be thinking as to why they would be bothered that you would discuss a plan with them and then not offer to help them with that plan.

Whatever you think it is, just insert your own thoughts of what they could be thinking, where they don’t want you to sell them anything, what’s that reason? And once you have it here’s what I want to offer. Even if they are thinking these thoughts they are just confused. They misunderstand. They think talking through something one time is enough. They think making the plan is the same as doing the plan and recovering when the doing doesn’t go as planned. And working consistently on the plan until you get the result, they just misunderstand, many of us do that.

We think setting our alarms is the same as actually getting up to work out. So that’s fine. Even if they don’t want to be sold it’s not a problem, they’re just confused. And I want you to think about what they’re actually saying or thinking. Try this thought on, if you’re like, they don’t want to be sold, what if what they’re actually saying is, “I don’t want you to offer to make sure that this happens for me 100% and see it all the way through with me and hold my hand through the hardest parts.”

That’s what they’re really saying, “I don’t want you to do that for me. I don’t want you to guarantee that it happens for me, and hold my hand and take care of me and see it all the way through with me.” If they knew that that was what they were actually saying, and that was actually what they were saying no to when they said that or thought, she’s not going to sell me something is she? They wouldn’t think those thoughts.

They would likely think the opposite, you’re going to work with me through everything, right? To make this happen you’re going to hold my hand and see it all the way through with me, keep me on track, make sure I do it right and I go the right way. That’s what they really want if they knew that that’s what they were saying yes or no to. They want help. So maybe an offer and being sold to is confusing for them because they’re making it mean the same damn thing you are, that it’s for you.

And your job is to show them that it’s for them, to explain to them why your webinar is just the beginning, why the consult is just the plan. And the work is hiring you, that’s where it’s brought to life. So, the offer is offering to bring the plan to life. How could you ever feel bad about that? If that’s what you’re really believing, how could you not find that the most valuable thing you do in your 16 minutes with someone or in the five minute read that they give your post or your email?

You’re offering to bring the plan to life. You’re not bothering them, you’re standing for them. It’s the greatest thing you could ever do for them. Imagine if someone fell in the street and you didn’t help them up, you were like, “Well, I don’t want to bother them.” What? Help them.

Okay, before I get off on any more tangents. Let’s talk about what’s different when you start to see your offer as the most valuable thing for them? I’ll give you an example for me because yes, this happens even to me. So, I remember the year that I made 500K, or I had made 500K in a time period. I don’t remember, I just remember the webinar I said something about having made 500K. But I did this webinar and some of you will remember this because you’ve been following me for a long time.

But I did a webinar where I walked people through the five step close that I teach in 2K, my five step sales process. And my action, if you self-coach using the model or if you’re familiar with the module. We have circumstances in the world and then we have thoughts about them. And then that fuels the way that we feel about things. And then what we do. And then the results we create. So, my action, my A line of the model in preparing for that webinar was to spend hours on the presentation, on the content.

And then the morning of the webinar I was rushing to write out my sales pitch. And that webinar got endless amazing reviews. People talked about it seriously for years, I’m not even kidding. They said it was the most valuable thing they ever attended. They passed along to people, everyone they knew. They said it was genius. And then they didn’t buy. I sold some, I always sell some, but it was my lowest converting webinar that year, maybe ever.

I devalued my offer by overvaluing my content. And I didn’t spend the time where I needed to spend the time on my sales pitch, on my offer, on making that moment seamless, and comfortable, and safe, and easy. I actually teach this in 200K in the webinars course, I go even more in depth specifically for webinars. It’s not really what we’re talking about here today, but I will say, if you’re doing webinars and you’re like, wait a minute, how did you do that, if that brought up another question for you about making that sales pitch on a webinar seamless.

I will just tell you I really teach this very in depth in the webinars course in the 200K Mastermind. But the thing you need to know now is that it was rushed. It was not well thought out. And it was on the fly. And I just want you to think about if you’ve done consults or webinars where your sales portion feels rushed and not well thought out and on the fly. Because many of you do this just on consults, which is what we really study in 2K.

You spend the whole consult on talking about the problem and the solution. And then you run out of time to make an offer and talk through the offer, and cover objections, or questions, or any thoughts they’re having when you tell them the price. So, if this happens to you, you have actually devalued the most important moment and overvalued the least important moment. Some of you get into deep desperation and gloom and doom that you have not signed a consult in forever, or that you’ve had a bunch of consults and not closed them.

And I want to offer that the simplest thing, it could be that this is your problem. It has nothing to do with your coaching or your selling capability, nothing about your ability to make money and be a successful coach. You’re just valuing the wrong part of your marketing. And in doing so, you’re teaching your client to do the same. Just like I did on the webinar, I was making tons of money then and I just taught them to value the content, which they did. They took it out, they used it, they thought it was amazing.

And I taught them to devalue working together and that important aspect of seeing it all the way through. Okay, so here’s how I fixed it. So, the next webinar I worked on the sales pitch first. I wrote it out on a whiteboard, clearly and concisely. And again, it’s not really about the process I went through on the actual webinar. This is all about the mindset that’s happening in your consults, your webinars, your emails. So, you can input anything but if you specifically want to study this with webinars, you will get to when you join 200K.

But I wrote it out on a whiteboard clearly and concisely. And then I typed out, I actually went into my computer, I typed out the entire pitch from my mind, exactly what I would say starting from the moment I introduced my offer all the way to the close of the webinar. Even imagining questions that people would ask me and how I would answer them. And then how I would get back to making the offer again. And I went over it and over it until it was so comfortable I could do it any time, anywhere. And I will do this with consults too.

I did this when I was actively selling on consults, this is what I would do. So, I would walk through that conversation 100 different ways, I would write it all out. If you guys are like, “I don’t know what to do in my business. I don’t know what to do with my time, I don’t have any consults,” do that. Write it out, an imaginary consult and exactly what you’ll say and how it will go, and objections that they could give you and how you’ll answer them. Do that, practice your sales pitch.

I don’t really believe in fake consults but it’s when you guys try them with each other, mock consults, I don’t really believe in those so much because I don’t think that the person can really give you a real reaction, or real things. But I do think when you imagine it in your mind, what you’re really doing is solving for your own belief systems. And the more you solve for your own belief systems the easier it will be to solve for others. So anyways, another, we could keep going down all the tangents.

But then once I went through my sales pitch that’s when I wrote the content for the webinar. And from that moment on my webinar sales skyrocketed. I don’t remember a 100% what I made on the five step close one. I know it did not do well. It was not good, maybe 26 sales total, $50,000. What I do know is after I worked on my sales pitch I started doing 250,000, 125 plus sales. That’s a huge difference. And when I was pitching, we’ll go back to pitching for a second, I love to give those examples too because it’s just so different than coaching, it takes you out of your coach brain for a second.

We would do a 20 minute demo with 12 minutes of that time being the demo and eight minutes of the time being the selling. And if I messed up any part of the show, if I lost them anywhere, my thought was always, I’ll make it up to them by making them a really great offer, by delivering my eight minutes of that offer like it’s the first, last, and only chance I ever have. So, I want you to think about are you delivering your offers that way?

Are you, even if it’s one sentence in an email, even if it’s the PS of your email, are you spending more time or as much time on those few sentences as the whole body of the email? Are you giving 20 minutes or more of your 60 minute consult to the offer and talking people through it or however long you do consults? Are you giving a third of that time to walking people through selling it? Do you dissect that moment, the part of the consult with the same level of scrutiny as the conversation when you do your evaluations if you’re in 2K?

When you do your evaluations, what most of you do, I see this on the Facebook page when you post them or if you put them in Ask a Coach. You’re spending all your time talking about what happened during the bridging the gap when you’re taking them from where they are to where they want to be. You spend so much time on that part and you kind of just give the least information you possibly could on what happens when you make your offer and any objections they had.

What if you did an entire eval just on that moment from the moment you make your offer to the end of the sales call and you just look at that? Do you consider that moment as the most important part of the conversation? Meaning as you go through the consult, everything is timed and leading to that moment and carefully paced to make sure you have enough time to talk about working together. If you don’t value it more than making the plan and talking through it you’re going to run out of time.

And sometimes you’ll feel you can’t move on because you haven’t given the client enough value to warrant making the offer. Many of you think that, that you have to give sufficient enough value before you have earned the right to make an offer. And that you have to fill your value bank up, especially with posts, you guys do this a lot with posts or emails. You believe you have to give four to five value posts or value emails before you ever make an offer. And that you have to kind of refill your value before you make an offer.

All because you think content is more valuable to the client than an offer. And I just want you to consider, even if it’s a big leap for you right now, that it could be at minimum equally valuable. And then if you can get to equally valuable, try on how it could be to be more valuable. It doesn’t mean that you go out there, let me just clarify, and all you’re doing is selling, selling, selling, and making offers without any value before it. If you have kids listening to this episode maybe now is the time where you stop it and listen to the rest at the end.

I’ll give you a second to catch that because I’m going to give you an analogy here that I just thought of. So, when you’re selling, selling, selling without giving any content before, that to me is like sex without foreplay. This is not quickies, this is not what I’m talking to you about. I just had to say it. It’s just knowing that just as foreplay is important to an orgasm, it would also start to just get foreplay and be left with the metaphorical blue balls. You all know what I’m talking about? When both happen that’s when it’s really good. I can’t believe this is the analogy that came out of me.

We want to give attention and intention to both. We don’t want to rush or devalue any part of the equation. My cheeks are red now. And we want to know that we are doing this for our client. Because if we don’t make a strong offer, if we don’t make that to them, we have left them with some advice and not a real tangible way to put it into action. We’ve left them with a good idea without any commitment. Making the offer and them saying yes, that’s where the real change begins. You have to know that, it’s so important.

So, you can think of your content like foreplay. And your sales pitch like getting it done.

Okay, so I hope that was super helpful. I have talked about this only in the webinars course inside 200K Mastermind and I’ve never talked about it with 2K. But I’ve never really had the opportunity to put it together this way. So, we have to thank Making Offers Bootcamp again for all of the ideas that have come out, and all of the podcasts inspiration that we’ve had, and all of the money that it has created in our community and hopefully for you even if you’re just listening to the podcast and you’re not part of the community yet.

And you can join now, and you can, I just want to reemphasize because we have had lots of people asking about this, is you can use 2K in a way that serves you right now for where you are and what you need to work on the most. People get very consumed that there’s a right way. So, shall I do Offer Week first and then Making Offers Bootcamp, and then the 2K process? How should I do it?

And my suggestion, actually just for anyone thinking about joining ever for 2K, would be to go straight to the 2K process. It’s just so simple and it just is so matter of fact and the basics of everything you need to know to make money in a very clear way. So, I always recommend just going to that first and then once you’re finished, going to use the bonuses as a deep dive into a specific part of the 2K process that you really want or need to work more in depth on.

So, we also have in the bonuses, higher converting consults. So, if you’re getting lots of consults but they’re not converting, maybe that’s where you would want to start. If you’re not getting consults or you’re getting some but they’re not converting either, but it really feels mostly it’s when you get to the part where you’re making offers and when you’re selling your coaching and getting people on consults, if that feels like what it is then maybe you do Offer Week and Making Offers Bootcamp. But you really get to choose your in depth experience.

So, it’s available right now 100% in full on demand, as soon as you join. We would love to have you and we would love to continue conversations just like this. We’re having them every single day in the community. Okay, I love you all, I hope this helps. I’m going to get back to building my nursery. I can’t wait to show you guys what it looks like. Go to Instagram @staceyboehman. I’m recording this.

I don’t know when this will go out but I’m recording it on February 28^th, so some time in the first week of March we will have the photos up for everyone to see. It will be so fun. Alright, have an amazing week. I love you all so much. Happy selling, happy making offers.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.