Ep #249: Simple Consult Fixes

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 249. I have a special episode planned for you. And I’m so excited to be here, can I just tell you all that, I’m really, really excited to be there. I recently had a really major health scare and I’m not ready to quite talk about it yet. I’m still going and getting tests and still trying to figure out actually what happened, but it was really traumatic for me. And it kind of just felt like a deep recalibration of my life in a really good way, not in it was really traumatizing and scary and there are still effects of my health lingering in some aspects.

But it’s like post traumatic growth, I think a little bit, of just being so grateful to be here, to be alive, to be talking to you today, to be doing what I’m doing. It’s made me question everything in my business. Am I having fun with this? Do I love this? Is this what I want to be doing? If I just started from scratch would I be doing things differently? I’ve come up with so many ideas for where I want to take my business that will allow me to really give value in the way I want to give and also be able to live my life the way I want to be able to live it.

I’ve even been questioning, I built my business and was a little bit of a nomad and would travel around and I was just always traveling. And then I would just work as I traveled and it was no problem and it was just everything was kind of fluid. And then I decided I wanted to build a professional business. I wanted to be in my office working. I wanted to have a very constrained calendar when I’m working and when I’m not working.

And it’s been really useful over the last several years in my brain to know these are the hours I’m working, these are the hours I’m off. And really create separation for myself especially as a new mom to be able to just walk out of my office, leave that behind and then go spend time with my family and then when I’m working, I’m getting stuff done. It’s really made me even question that. I’m like, what if I started traveling a lot more? And what if I just had a little bit more freedom and flexibility in my business and took calls from hotel rooms? And I don’t know. I know how I’m gonna do that.

But I’m in a place where I’m just questioning all of it and opening my brain up to all of the possibilities of what my business can be and how I can serve my students. And I never make changes quickly, so I’m just kind of sitting on all of them and feeling really compelled to connect with all of you in a really powerful way, in a way that feels really good to me.

And so I was thinking about that, and I decided that I wanted to do something really special for the month of October that really gets me engaging with all of you in a really compelling way. And gets me talking about things I get really excited about, teaching on things I’m excited about and just engaging in a way that fills me up. And so I am really excited to introduce to you, for the month of October, consult month.

A whole month dedicated to a conversation about creating more consults, doing them better, getting people to show up to them, all the conversations around consults. It’s my favorite. And I have so much advice and coaching and content. When I came up with this idea, I just jotted down 20 things that I could teach you and made a whole list, and then even more keep coming. And so if you are in my world for the month of October, I’m going to deliver you an insane amount of value. And specifically, here’s the way I want you to engage with this value.

Here are the options, the availability, the opportunity to engage with this value. So if you follow me on Instagram @staceyboehman, we’ll link it up in the show notes, but if you follow me there. I’m going to be posting, not my team but me, I’m going to be posting lots of things about consults. I’ll probably be posting daily. And just really giving you things that you could take tangibly and go out and incorporate into your consults if you have them immediately.

And if not, you can use the same things that I’m teaching and the advice I’m giving on consults, you can apply it to your marketing, they’re very, very similar, to get consults. And so that’s one way is if you’re not following me on Instagram, jump over, even if you don’t spend a lot of time on there, just make sure that you’ve followed me and that you’re actively seeing my posts in your news feed so that you can take advantage of what we’re going to share daily on our Instagram account, me personally.

And I’ll be there to answer your questions and engage with you and really create a conversation that serves you at the highest level. So that’s one way that you can engage with consult month. The other way that you can engage is via the podcast. And I highly recommend if you are going to follow me on Instagram and really take and utilize the daily tips that I’m going to give you on Instagram. Even if you’re not fully up-to-date on the podcast and you found this one because it was exciting for you, just follow along for the next month.

Every week I’m going to have a podcast that will help you on your consultations as well. Then I’m also going to be hosting a half day virtual experience with me, to come and learn the 14 biggest mistakes that people make on consults. What? Are you ready? We’re going to use the time very well. It’s going to be a very meaty experience where I’m going to cover all 14 mistakes. And I’m going to walk you through with each one, why you do them because we don’t ever do anything in our brains having a good reason for it or having thoughts that are behind it.

And a lot of people have a lot of thought errors about how to interact with people on consultations. So I’m going to pick them apart. I’m going to tell you why you do it, the thinking you have behind it. Then I’m going to tell you how your buyer experiences it and what they’re thinking, that has them experiencing it that way. What they’re needing from you in that moment. And then I’m going to tell you how to fix it.

And I’m also going to tell you how you know you’re doing it because sometimes our brains are a little tricky and we don’t think we’re doing something. But then we get behavior from other people that feels very confusing, they were confused why a consult behaved that way. So I’m going to tell you what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, how you know you’re doing it, the effects of doing the mistake on your client who’s on the phone with you wanting to buy coaching and then how to fix it.

For 14 consult mistakes, so it’s a three hour class. Actually I’ve done this class before. I did it a year and a half ago, I think in 2021. It’s my most successful, most engaged virtual experience I’ve ever done. And I actually think we ended up being on for three and a half hours because we just kept riffing about consults and answering questions and having a really deep conversation about consultations. So here’s how the class is set up is I’m going to teach you right away all 14 of the mistakes.

And then I’m going to bring on a panel of students to answer your questions. I’ll be on there with them and we’re just going to fight over who gets to answer the questions. So you’ll ask a question about the class or about consultations that you’ve had or that you’re trying to get or that you have coming up and I’ll read the question out loud and then we’ll all fight over who gets to answer it and then we’ll answer them.

And so you’ll get a bunch of different perspectives from a bunch of my students who have done this process and made over six figures using my sales process and the way I teach about the consults as really the foundation of their sales skills in their coaching business. So it’s going to be extraordinarily valuable.

So if you want to partake in that, we’re giving you lots of advance notice because it’s really, I want you to imagine we were selling this as a live event. You would come to me and basically spend almost an entire day with me, almost four hours with me. Except I’m going to do it all virtual so you can do it from your house, no travel expenses, no travel fees. And you’re going to get a replay of it. So you’ll have one full week, if you can’t come live, you’ll have one full week to watch it in replay and you can watch it many times.

But I only give you a week because I don’t want it to be something that you invest in and then it sits in your inbox. I want to give you high motivation to get it done. And the way I have found that that works is by having a time limit of availability. Also, if you’ve ever desired to work with me and really be in my world and learn from me, it’s the cheapest offer I’ve ever made. It’s really so affordable, so accessible, $97 to come spend the day with me mastering consultations.

The class is called Higher Converting Consults. You’re also going to get a workbook where I have everything that I cover in my presentation in the workbook. So that you don’t have to spend your time on the class quickly writing the things that are already showing up for you. You can actually write your notes, the things that are coming up in your brain or things that maybe I say that aren’t in the presentation, you want to jot those down. You have lots of room to do that.

And I’m also on that class going to walk you through my five step sales process. So I’m going to go over the 14 mistakes. Then I’m going to tell you my five step sales process. And the reason why I do the process and I teach the process that I do is to keep you out of those 14 mistakes. So once you learn those mistakes then you see how you’re supposed to do it. I really think this class, I know it’s a bigger time investment, but it really is the container that really allows you to deeply let it click, what you’re supposed to be doing when you’re selling life coaching.

And again, you can apply this to your marketing as well. My five step sales process converts very, very well to all of the content that you need to be talking about online and in email to get consults. And also if you’re making mistakes on your consults, you’re for sure making them in your marketing. So it’s really going to be an extraordinary event and sort of the end cap of consultation month.

So if you want to get the information for that and sign up for Higher Converting Consults, you can go to staceyboehman.com/hcc2, that stands for Higher Converting Consults 2.0. This is the second time I’ve taught this class. I don’t teach it very often, but it’s been a fan favorite. I actually host it inside of my 2K for 2K program. I’m going to invite all my clients, if you’re already working with me, you get the class for free. So if you’re in 2K, 25K, 200K, Two Million Dollar Group, you get the cost for free, but if you’re not, you get a chance to come spend the day with me for $100. It’s so incredible.

And the class is so valuable that I’m offering it to my students and the previous version lives inside our 2K member portal. And I’m going to teach it, because I’ve done it again, you’re going to just hear me say different things, hear me say it differently. So if you’ve already taken the class, please come back because you’re going to get nuggets you didn’t get the first time. Okay, so that’s what’s happening with me. I’m very excited.

We’re going to be talking consults on the podcast, on Instagram. If you’re on my mailing list, I’m going to be sending out emails as well to help you on your consults. And then we’re going to be really ending the month with Higher Converting Consults. I want to make sure that you really finish your year out very, very, very strong. If you sign five or six consults between now and the end of the year, I want you to think about what would be different for you.

For some of you, one or two consults by the end of the year could be a really big deal. For some of you, it’s maybe 10 new consults. I have a client right now who’s killing it on consults. I think she has 15 lined up and she’s closing a really high rate of them. So she’s filling up her coaching practice. She’s starting a wait list and we’re getting ready to launch her into group.

I also want to tell you I have a client who’s been on the podcast, Megan Wing. I did not know this, but something, I was searching for Higher Converting Consults to see what people had said in my 2K or 2K program and I stumbled upon a comment that she had made about having just joined from Higher Converting Consults back in 2021. I just had her on the podcast, so she was a teacher, hadn’t made, I don’t think very much money in her business at all.

She joined Higher Converting Consults and she actually asked a question during the Q&A panel. I think Maggie Reyes answered her question and she had a consult that day, she closed that consult. She joined 2K for 2K after Higher Converting Consults. Now she has been in multiple rounds of my 200K Mastermind and she’s a six figure coach. So in 2021 she was a teacher. In 2023 she is a six figure coach because she showed up to this workshop, to this virtual experience with me and paid attention and went out and implemented what I taught.

So that’s what I’m really excited about. And I know that this is a little bit of a lengthy intro. If you’ve stuck around, I want to give you a little bit of a window into what Higher Converting Consults will be like because I want to cover five consult mistakes that are not in Higher Converting Consults. So I couldn’t narrow it down in that class to less than 14. I was like, these 14 feel like they happen so often and I coach on them so often that we have to talk about them and we can’t leave any of them out.

And these are not things that I cover in my 2K for 2K process. So this isn’t me pulling out pieces of my process. This is a whole separate thing that I did that I even want my students to go through because it’s not in my 2K for 2K process. Things are woven in there, but the way I’ve taught this is really more of an in addition. But since I’ve taught that I went through and I was looking at them. And I’m like, “Oh, my God, these are all still so relevant.”

And I’ve been coaching a lot on consultations in my programs recently and there were five more that popped up. Some of these are simpler and some of them are a little more complex. And so I just wanted to give you an idea of what it might be like. Now, the class is a little more in depth. I’m not going to go through the entire thing with you here on the podcast. But I am going to just give you my thoughts about five new ones that have kind of popped up and just my thinking around them. And so a little bit of a tease if you want to come to the class.

Okay, so without further ado, and I’m going to give you the simple fixes with them. So the first thing I see people do, again, these are not in the Higher Converting Consults class. These are just a little bonus to give to you to entice you to come to the class so that we can talk about things like this. So this actually happens before the consult, but this is the first thing. So this happens before the consult and I’ve seen this happen a lot is coaches try market free coaching calls as an attempt to get consults. So you don’t say they’re consults, you sell free coaching calls.

You’re like, “I’m going to be doing free coaching calls this week, come on, sign up and get some free coaching.” I’ve seen it done a bunch of different ways, but the hope is that they’ll see so much value that they’ll ask about working with you or that you’ll talk about so much. It will naturally turn into a sales conversation, in which you will be able to sell them coaching. Or that you will do the sales, the free call, they will find it so valuable that they will then reach out later to you to then book a call or you can figure out your own thinking behind offering free coaching calls.

But I will tell you, these don’t typically work, doesn’t mean they won’t ever work. It doesn’t mean there’s no coaches in the world, it’s never, never, never worked. But I’m going to tell you why it most frequently does not work. First of all, there is a difference between a coaching call and a sales call. I’m going to teach that on Higher Converting Consults the major difference between the two. And a lot of the thought errors that you all have and why you don’t commit to doing a sales call and why you think people would prefer a free coaching call where you coach them on the call.

But the person on the other end, the buyer, they need to understand that there will be a conversation about working with you. They do not want to be surprised by this. If they are surprised by this, they will feel a little bamboozled. They will feel whatever trust you build on the free coaching call, your sample coaching, whatever trust is built there will be completely broken down if you try to transition it into a sales call.

I actually believe so deeply in needing to have a powerful context and container set to discuss working together and discuss a buying situation that I’m going to give you an example of this. I actually had someone that I met in a coffee shop with a friend. So I met a friend for a coffee, this was years and years ago. She might have been my client at the time in a group I was doing, or something but I was offering one-on-one as well. And this girl came and she was like, “You’re a life coach.”

And then my friend ended up leaving early and we stayed because we hit it off. And then she kept asking me a ton of questions about my coaching. And she wanted to ask my pricing and she wanted to ask how it works. And we’re just having coffee together.

And I actually told her, I said, “Hey, listen, I don’t mind answering any of these questions, however, I actually have a sales process that I run people through, a consultation process. And it’s really important because the way I’ve set it up, the way I run it, it’s designed to get information from you that I really need in order to give you a proper analysis of what I think the problem is and what solution I would recommend. And then if you were to work with me, what that would look like for you specifically.

And if we don’t have that kind of presence and attention”, and we were being interrupted by people at the coffee shop, it was loud. I said, “If we don’t really have that space to do that effectively, I don’t know that I’ll be able to really do like what coaching can offer you, justice. It really needs to be a separate conversation.” And I was like, “You can reach out to me and we can set it up whenever you want it. But really, we want to be in that space where also my mind is prepared and ready for you and I’m holding the proper space for you.”

This person totally got it. She was like, “Oh, my God, that makes so much sense. I want that level of attention from you. I want the process that you’re going to take me through. I want the space to make sure you understand everything that’s happening with me. I want to be able to think for myself, be in an undistracted environment where I can hear what you’re saying. And process what I would need to do to make a change and really understand what’s on the line here.”

And I just left it at that. I just gave her my information. I was like, “Feel free to just stay connected with me, but if you do want to do this call, just let me know and we’ll get it set up,” And two weeks later she messaged me and she was like, “Hey, is that call still available?” And I was like, “Absolutely.” But that’s the difference. You have to make sure that you’re not mixing up networking, coffee chats or free coaching calls as a sales call. I believe they are so valuable.

I always gave my people a full hour. I don’t think I ever skimped on that. I could be wrong in my memory, but I think it was always, we want a full hour. We’re going to do it right. We’re going to do it well. It’s going to be highly valuable whether you buy or not, whether you decide to move forward with coaching or not. Going to be highly valuable and that’s the only way I do it.

When someone comes knowing that’s the value they are going to get on a sales call, when you’ve positioned it that way. When you’ve explained to them and sold them on the level of importance of doing it in that undistracted way, taking them all the way through a process, not cheating on any parts of it, not taking anything out because you’re in a hurry. When you sell them that way, you’ve already done a huge leap in showing up as a professional, showing them the value of what you do and the attention you give to things.

The level of integrity and responsibility that you’re going to take in helping them with their problem, there’s so much. I just want you to go back and just rewind, hit that little back button, the 10 second or 15 second back button, relisten to that if you need to hear me explain it the way I did. But there is a very big difference between someone thinking they’re getting something for free and they’re actually signing up to do a sales call.

The people who are going to be ready to spend money with you are the people who know they’re signing up for a sales call. I will also tell you, even when I did the demos in the Walmart and the grocery stores, I worked for two different companies and they did it differently. And actually it was really interesting, I really struggled the second way. But the first way we did it is we said, “We’re handing out free gifts.” We invited people to our counter. We gave them the free gift immediately and then had to try to keep them there to watch the show even though they had really no reason to.

I think that’s actually what made me so freaking good at what I did. But then the second company you showed them the free gift then you explained to them that the store is giving those gifts away. To introduce a new product into the store, you’re going to do that quickly and then you’ll hand out the gifts and send everybody back to shopping. And you had to really sell them on being on board for that. So again, it’s very different than here’s this free gift and I’m going to give you this free gift. You’re going to get this, also there’s going to be this sales component.

And even then the clear distinction about the free part and then the sales part was one of the most important distinctions we made when interacting with humans in Walmart. And so there’s so much psychology behind it. But I want you to trust me on this, that you don’t really want to just be promoting free coaching calls. And if you do the free coaching calls, that’s fine, but then don’t try to turn it into a sales call, book a separate call.

I recently coached someone though, I want to just tell you, in my 25K group who said she was doing four free coaching calls before she offered a sales call. It was wearing her out and she wasn’t making any money. She got lots of practice and got really, really good at coaching. So at one point it really served her. But then she was like, “By the time they get to the fourth session there were so many things happening that weren’t really conducive to a great sales situation.”

So I really want to offer that the other piece of this is you really want them to do that sales call right away. On Higher Converting Consults, I’m going to teach you why you actually don’t want to coach someone. You don’t want to coach someone on a consult call and if you’re offering free coaching, you need to understand that likely those people won’t convert to clients. And that if you are going to bridge between free coaching and paid coaching, you need to make that distinction very, very clear.

So what I did, for example, six weeks of free coaching when I was just clocking coaching hours and getting good. All of those clients, we did free six weeks of coaching. I didn’t sell them at all. And then at the end of that I said, “Hey, if you want to work together long term, I’d love to do a consult with you and talk about what it would look like over x amount of time”, whether it’s three months or six months or 12 months, what it would look like in an actual relationship where you have hired me to be your official life coach, not just the free sample coaching.

So that’s the way you would want to really transition them. But the free coaching and the sales call, there has to be, even if they’re, for example, if you’re moving on to webinars, this is more of an advanced version. but when you’re moving on to webinars, again, it’s very important to have the free part and then the sales part, you’ve distinctly transitioned. And I do think most people know when they’re signing up for a webinar that there will be an offer at the end if you’re doing webinars. So that’s an important aspect of it.

You don’t want to be weird at all about the sales portion. You want to understand the value. So that’s one.

The second one, I’ve been coaching on this a lot, that I see a lot of you do because you want to be really professional and you want to seem professional. So you send people scheduling links to sign up for a consult with you versus giving them direct contact with you through the entire process. This will change the game for you.

If you are experiencing really high rates of people signing up for your consult and then not showing up, this could be if you’re using a scheduling link, why. The other one, there’s two and they’re kind of similar. So I’m going to kind of talk about them at the same time.

So the third mistake that you might be making is that you sell them on a freebie. So you sell them to sign up for your freebie rather than a consult. So this is a part where you’re not list building, but you’re actually engaging with people directly. Maybe you’re under 100K and your goal is to just get consults. If you’re under 100K, your number one goal is get consults, sign them, that’s it. You can build an entire six figure coaching business off of getting consults and closing them and that’s all you have to do.

When you try to start list building with individual contacts that you’re meeting and you don’t have this big online presence where you’re pulling people in and you’re really, really list building. When you send them to a freebie rather than a consult, you’re adding more steps. You’re adding more labor on their part. They have to do more in order to get on that consult with you, there’s more steps in between. They have to have more commitment then to having a conversation with you. And you create more opportunities for doubt, confusion and delay.

The other thing is when someone signs up for a freebie instead of actually coming and engaging with you, either through a webinar or an event you’re doing or a consult. When they engage with a freebie, what can happen is their brain, the moment they sign up for it, gets relief believing that the problem has been solved, even though they’ve done absolutely no work towards it, and even if they never open the freebie. Their brain got enough of a dopamine hit to think that their problem will get solved to not push them, compel them to take more action.

I bet some of you have even done this. You sign up for someone’s freebie and then you completely ghost it and you’re like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” I’ve even done this before where it’s like, I don’t know, getting on someone’s list. I sign up for a freebie, and then I’m like, “Great, I’m good.” And I never look at the freebie. For me, I really have to pay for something, even if it’s a small amount. I’ve got to pay money, put money on the line to have that skin in the game. Just a side note.

But I will tell you, so many people do this. The dopamine hit happens, they get an increase in good feeling, a decrease in bad feeling from actually being aware of their problem, and then they’re not inspired to fix it anymore. And then I’m going to go back to the scheduling link in a second. So I want you to just think about the typical person. I said this on a recent webinar that I taught. I actually think I said this a couple of episodes ago as well, maybe the last episode.

A lot of people who want help, their biggest fear is they may not be helpable and that if they sign up for something like a consult, you’re going to tell them that that’s the truth. So they’re very gun shy to reach out for help because they don’t want to find out that ultimately the problem isn’t fixable or that their marriage isn’t fixable. That you’re going to tell them that they really need a divorce or that their weight isn’t fixable or whatever’s happening, anxiety, it’s not fixable. Trauma, not fixable. So they’re very, very gun shy.

So we don’t want to increase their dopamine and tell them that they are headed in the right direction and then they just get enough of it that they delay the decision making again. And they end up on your list and they’re not even sure how to sign up for a consult. But then if you send them to a scheduler or whatever you call it, there’s a scheduling link, you’ve put technology between you and them. And technology is inhuman, it lacks connection.

And if someone is, I gave the analogy of a scared kitten, if someone’s feeling a little bit like a stray kitten, scared kitten. And they’re not sure if they trust you or the process really or themselves, there’s just some fear built up. Any points, any steps between them and the consult that do not involve human connection, give them more opportunities to back out, more opportunities to not be held and feel safe and for it to feel far away or complicated.

Okay, this is the best analogy. Have you ever called a customer service place, you called a number, you just really needed to talk to a human. You’re like, “I just really need to talk to a human.” And you get that automated thing. It’s not even the one where you can press the numbers, one for this problem, two for that problem. It’s just, “Tell me a little bit about your problem.” And you’re like, “Oh, my God, I’m not going to be able to explain to a computer, the complexity of this problem.” And then they’re like, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

You spend 10 minutes, 15 minutes just trying to punch numbers and say your problem and help the computer understand so that you can get to a human. And then by the time you get to the human, you’re enraged. You’re just like, “What is happening?” You’re so frustrated or you give up and you hang up because you’re like, “I don’t have time.” I literally do not call places. My assistant or my husband call places for me because it just stresses me out so bad when I have a problem and I need it to be solved and I get a computer instead of a human.

So I want you to imagine that a lot of other humans in the world feel this way. So they have a problem, they want it to be fixed and then they are getting a scheduler instead of a human. So what I used to do and I’m telling you, I have such a high show up rate, such a high show up rate, is if someone reached out to me and wanted to do a consult, I would tell them personally. “Send me three times over the next week that work for you. I will make one of those times work no matter what.” What?

I know some of you all have some thoughts about that right now. There’s no way I could do that. Do you want to make $100,000, $200,000 and do you want to make it simply? There’s no reason to overcomplicate this. If I had a coaching call, if they gave me three times and I had coaching calls on all three times, I would ask my best client if it was okay for us to move the time and I’d find a time that would work for them. If it was at night, I would just do it at night. Doesn’t mean I would sign them to be a client and have to be committed to night calls as a client.

But I was committed to at least do the consult if it was a weekend, whatever it was. It was hard and I want you to imagine this person. It’s hard enough for them to get up the courage to ask for help. It’s going to be hard enough for them to check their schedule and decide a time to commit to getting help. If you tell them, “Well, that time doesn’t work for me”, I’m going to check my schedule, here’s all my availability. If they see that none of the times that you have available work for them, they’re like, “Well, see, figured, won’t work.”

You’ve put so many obstacles in front of them so many times for them to be like, “This isn’t going to work, this isn’t for me. See, she doesn’t have availability that will work with mine”, whatever it is. I promise you, there’s so many people, I try to talk my students out of this all of the time. If you want to get people showing up committed to calls ready to buy, they need to know it’s a sales call. They need to deal with you as a human directly. And they need to go straight to you as a human directly onto a consult, from interest and reaching out to you, to on a consult, not to a freebie.

Now, if you’re running a Facebook ad, I do know my coaching school, for example, at one point was teaching run an ad, they sign up for the freebie or something. They get a video that sells them on getting on a consult, okay, fine, great. You still need to figure out how to get a human connection in there, whether that’s you reaching out to them, whatever way that you can find some sort of human connection in the process, that’s what you want to do if at all possible.

Even if you’re doing it that way, you’re probably not listening to me if you’re doing it that way, but if you are doing it that way and you’re listening to me. One of the ways you could do it is even if you have to have a scheduler because you’re running ads and that’s how you’re getting all your leads, fine. Then maybe just email them and touch base with them, not a pre-sent email that just goes out, but like, “Hey, it’s Stacey, I saw you scheduled a consult. I just want to check in and say I’ve got you on my calendar. I’m super excited to chat.

If you want to send me over any thoughts that you’re having that would feel better to just write them out ahead of time, happy to read through them. But just know we’re good to go. You don’t need to do any of that. You can just show up to the call. And when we talk I’ll get everything I need from you to make sure I understand your problem and see if I can help you.” So your goal, again, between them finding you and getting on the consult is really truly to make them feel safe.

Don’t send them a bunch of homework. That’s another tip. Don’t give them a bunch of homework. You want to make them feel safe. You want the process to be simple. And all they have to do is get on the call. And you want there to be human connection. If you do those things and they know it’s a sales call, you’ve saved yourself from three mistakes right off the bat.

And the fourth mistake is that you focus, getting them on a consult. Now, I’m going to take you to the middle of the consult and then I’m going to take you to the end of the consult. So in the middle of the consult, here’s what happens that is a huge mistake. It’s the main reason people don’t buy. And we are going to cover this on Higher Converting Consults. But you don’t achieve understanding their problem clearly and then you don’t give them a tangible explanation of the fix, a tangible explanation of the often intangible fix.

So a lot of what we offer in coaching is intangible. It’s thought work. It’s emotional work. Some of you, all are more action oriented coaches and that’s great. But you really have to be able to help them bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be. You have to be able to really understand where they are. This is how you know if you understand what their problem is so clearly is that you know the fix and it feels so simple. They say it to you and it feels really complicated to them. And you’re like, “Oh, my God, I see this every day, I got you.” That level in your brain.

If you’re a new coach and that feels really, really, really big, that’s okay. There are so many different things that you can do to slow yourself down and really be able to figure out what the person’s problem is and really give them a tangible solution to that. I’ll give you one of them now, but I will tell you in my 2K for 2K program we have so many worksheets that guide you through helping you ahead of time, practice this part of it and practice breaking down what someone’s problem could be and what your solution will be.

For some of you, it’s a little bit easier because you already know who you want to work with, you have a niche. You already know the problems that your clients have, and you already know the solution available to them. So your thing is you need to be able to explain it clearly and simply and really help them believe they could do it. But if you’re not at the point yet where you really know who you want to help and you don’t really know who your people are. And so you’re going to go the general life coaching route, which is the route I went.

I didn’t really know who I wanted to help. I didn’t have a clear passion yet. So I just wanted to help everyone with everything, coach all the things. And so for me, I would practice, I would make up problems that people would come to me with and then I would practice breaking down the solution. Another way I would do it is go to networking events and work on that at the networking event. I would hear people talk about things and then I would, in the conversation, either break it down or go home later and practice it.

I would do this when I was talking to friends and they were giving me their problems. I would later after we got off the phone, I would be like, “Okay, if that were a consult, this is what I would do.” Now, I wouldn’t go back to that friend and try to coach them, but I would just use as many examples that I could think of. Or if I saw a Facebook post and someone was really struggling and they were posting about it, I’d be like, “Okay, if this was a consult what would I tell them the solution was?” I just was practicing all of the time, But I’m going to give you some examples of this. So I’m going to give you one now.

I want you to imagine someone comes and you’re a marriage coach, and they’re telling you about their marriage and how it feels very, very broken and they’re fighting all the time. Every fight feels like 1,000 fights all in one. They never get anywhere. Neither of them ever are hearing each other. They’re telling you all of this and they’re blaming their spouse a lot. And I’m not a marriage coach, but I’m just going to make this up on the spot.

You have to be able to say, “Okay, listen, I’ve got you. The first thing I’m going to teach you is going to seem really simple but it’s going to be profound. I’m going to teach you how to pause and not react to your spouse.” I would say, “Have you ever had that moment, the moment where your spouse says something and it triggers you and you feel the anger boiling up inside and you know you’re getting ready to explode?” And they say yes. “If you don’t in that moment, if you learn how to sink into that emotion, breathe into it and pause, it’s going to change your entire marriage.

When you can feel that emotion, allow that emotion and not react to it, what will happen is you will learn that the triggers that your spouse creates for you are not an emergency. Our brain tells us it’s an emergency, that we are emotionally unsafe. I’m going to teach you in those moments of those triggers, how to find emotional safety and to believe that those triggers are not going to create lack of emotional safety and lack of love.

Then I’m going to teach you how to process it in a way where you can really clearly articulate what happened to you and what you experienced in the trigger to your partner at a later time. Where you have a more compassionate heart, a clearer brain and you can just explain it a little bit better and you’re softer about it, so the person doesn’t feel attacked. That’s what’s going to help them hear it better. Then I’m going to teach you how to have a powerful rip and repair conversation.

And then what’s going to happen over time is you all will be able to communicate ever so slightly more effectively because you’re not coming from this place of neither of you is feeling attacked anymore, so you’re able to talk about how each of you are feeling from a place that’s a little bit, emotions are cooler and calmer. And you’re going to hear each other more and then it’s going to impact your daily life more. And you’re going to start to see subtle signs of it.

And the moment you start seeing subtle signs of it, you’re going to get hope that your marriage can be fixed. That is really where the work begins. Once you believe there’s hope, you start seeing tangible signs. Here’s where you really start working through my process.” That might be how I walk someone through it. I would not even say it, that’s a rough draft, That’s just me coming up with something on the spot. But you have to be able to really walk someone through something so clearly that they can tangibly imagine it in their brain.

If they can’t tangibly imagine what you say you’re going to do and how you’re going to help them, they will not buy, period. It’s the number one reason people don’t close on consults is they weren’t able to help someone imagine the effect of how they would be helped. I also want to offer this is not because you will never be able to understand sales and you’re a terrible coach. This is because you’re just inexperienced. And so gaining experience in this as fast as possible is one of the best things you can do.

It’s why I set up my consult process the way I do, is this is really set up to get so much information from the client that truly their problem starts to become very obvious. And then how you would help them becomes a little more obvious to you. And then the more you do them, the more reps you have the easier it becomes, especially if you evaluate after, which is something that I teach in 2K for 2K. I think I’ve talked about it many times on the podcast, what worked, what didn’t work, what you’re going to do differently.

I used to break down my consultations. As soon as I got off the call, I would write down the whole conversation and be like, “How would I do this differently?” But here’s what happens when you follow a process, when you practice this as your number one business building activity to make money. And then you evaluate every time you do actually get to practice with a real person who’s interested in paying you money.

What happens is when you first get on these consults, it feels like the person’s talking so fast you can’t keep up at all. And then over time the conversation starts to slow down and your brain processes things faster and you get ahead of the conversation. That is where the close rates start increasing dramatically.

We were talking about this, my husband and I are watching Hard Knocks. Every season of Hard Knocks. They choose an NFL team and they film their training camp. This year they did it on the Jets. And I’m just so into Aaron Rodgers right now and the Jets. And the show just sells me, on whatever team they’re doing and then I’m their fan for a season or two. And one of the things that I just love watching sports, not because I’m interested in sports, because I just see things because I’m a coach.

So one of the things I was telling my husband, Randall Cobb, is one of their, I think, wide receivers. And he came over with Aaron Rodgers from the Packers and so he’s very seasoned. I think he’s been in the NFL for 15 years. He was going to retire and then Aaron asked him to come to the Jets. And so he came for one last season. And really the training camp is about the rookies coming in, especially the undrafted ones and they are literally doing the training camp to try to make it onto the roster. And so some of them will get cut. Some of them get to go onto the roster.

And one of things I was telling him when they were in, it’s one of those second to last episodes, they do this pre-season game. And I had been watching so much of the footage of the rookies. And then the starters, they weren’t playing because they don’t want them to get hurt. But this game the starters played and there was one play where Randall Cobb, he didn’t tackle someone or hit someone or something. Maybe he’s not a wide receiver then, I don’t know.

But I saw the action he took, afterwards I said, “Honey, you know what’s so interesting is that play was such a hard play.” He ended up getting a $19,000 fine for unnecessary roughness. But I was like, “That play seemed effortless to him.” And then he just walked off like it was absolutely nothing. It took no energy from him, yet the rookies are fighting for their absolute lives. They’re working so hard it looks like every player is exhausted and you don’t know how they’re going to get back up.

And he was like, “Yes.” He was like, “The benefit of the new people is they have youth and they have speed and strength. But the game is really fast for them and they’re so sped up, they make a lot of mistakes. The old people don’t have the strength and the speed and the health, but the game they’ve played it so many times it’s very slow for them. And so mentally they’re able to play better because the game is just so slow for them.”

And I told my husband, I was like, “Oh, my God, that’s consults.” When people get to that point and it doesn’t take 15 years, I promise. But when people get to that point, when the consult slows down for them, that’s where they really start to shine, when their brain is moving faster than the consult itself and the other person talking, when they’re ahead of the conversation.

That comes from practicing, clearly explaining the person’s problem and the tangible explanation even if you offer something intangible and then really evaluating afterwards. Every time you do that, and practicing ahead of time, every time you do that you slow the consult down for yourself.

And the final one, are you ready? The final one is that when you get to the part where they have thoughts about the monies and they give you those thoughts. What I see a lot of people doing, what they think overcoming objection is, we could pinpoint what your brain is lasered in on and focused on. You are focused on a yes or a no, rather than being a life coach or a success coach or a business coach, doing what you do best, which is helping people make decisions and find the thoughts driving those decisions.

And just being aware and noticing if it aligns with who they want to be and what they want to have and where they want to go. So it’s not overcoming a no. It’s not overcoming objections in that way, overcoming someone’s no. It’s not what I mean. Overcoming objections is overcoming the thought process that has kept them stuck and from getting help, that has them stuck in their life. It’s interrupting the thought loop that keeps their life the same.

If you’ve ever heard the saying, ‘you can’t solve a problem with the mind that created it’, you’ve got to help them be aware of their thoughts that are in the way. Because what they’re going to do is they’re going to come to the consult with the mind that created the problem. Then they’re going to try to make the decision to hire you with the mind that created the problem. And just helping them see that sometimes is so helpful, the same way you would if you were coaching them on any other decision after they hired you. So sometimes that’s the easiest way to jog that moment clear for you and let you know what you’re supposed to be doing there.

Now, in 2K, we have an entire module on this because it is something that takes a little bit of thinking, what am I doing here and really understanding this moment. But if I could just give you a simple, tangible way to think about it, it’s if a client hired you and they were trying to make a decision about whether to go on a vacation or not. The way you would help them navigate that decision is the same way you should help them navigate the decision to buy from you.

You want to help them make a decision from a place they feel good about, that’s been investigated. They understand what would happen if they didn’t go and what if they did go. Not a decision you feel good about, a decision they feel good about. Your judgment has no place in that part of the conversation. And a place that they feel good about, that isn’t the kind of feel good when you let yourself play it safe. The kind where you feel good because you know you’ve honored your greatest truth of where you are right now.

So if they’re able to say to you, “You know what, this doesn’t sound like a good fit for me, this wasn’t quite what I was looking for.” You did your job, if they felt safe enough to say that to you, if you helped them get to that place or, “You know what, I’ve realized I’m not ready and that’s okay, I will be one day.” You did your job. If they’re able to even see, you know what, I’m seeing that I’m placing a higher priority on material abundance rather than emotional safety. I totally get that I’m making that decision and I don’t want to do that, okay, I’m a yes. You’ve done your job.

If they need to talk it over with their spouse, and they’re able to say, “You know what, I do still need to talk it over with my spouse, but after talking to you, I’m seeing that I was going to go into the conversation asking for permission out of doubt rather than knowing that this is what I want and explaining the reasons why I want to spend this money and the value I’m going to get and that I truly believe it will help me. I see now what a difference it’s going to make in the conversation. I really do want this. Thank you for helping me be able to have this conversation in a powerful way.”

Or if I really believed I could do this, I can see that I would be a definite yes. And now I’m seeing where all my doubt is. So I guess this is where I should start, just be a yes and start working on my belief. Our job is just to get them to a place where they’re aware of how they’re making their decision and then they feel good about how they made it, that’s it. And so many of you are going in and you’re like, “It’s got to be a yes or it’s got to be a no, I need to get to an answer.”

So I’ve seen this taught places. I have never loved this is when someone says, “I need to think about it and I can’t make a decision right now.” And then a lot of salespeople will teach that you should say, “Okay, well, it sounds like you’re not ready right now.” I don’t love that because that isn’t necessarily what they meant. That isn’t the only thing that that could mean. And this is also why I don’t love sales scripts or things that you say to every single person all the time, catchy lines because it’s not the same for every person. It’s wildly different for every person, wildly different.

If someone’s like, “I need to think about it.” The reason behind that, wildly different for everyone. I’m curious and interested and I want to ask questions that find out the why behind this specific person I’m speaking to. Not from my agenda of trying to get a yes or a no, but I just want to help them make the best decision for them. Every call, if I’m doing a consult I want them to leave feeling very clear about the decision that if they haven’t decided they have a decision protocol. I also did a podcast about this recently.

I want them to know that they’re going to make a decision. Here’s what’s important to them about this decision. Here’s what’s still undecided for them. This is what they’re going to be thinking about. This is what they’re waiting to feel. This is what they’re looking for. This is the conversations they’re going to have with other people. If they’re trying to decide between different coaches, I want to be like, “Okay, what are you looking for specifically? How will you know? Let me help you figure out your criteria. Have you really sat down to figure that out? This is what I do with my clients, I can do this for you even if you haven’t paid me yet.

I’m happy to spend the next 10 or 15 minutes helping you figure out what your criteria is so that when you leave me and you go to meet these other people, you don’t get confused. And the worst part is if you get confused then maybe you don’t choose anyone and you don’t get help. So I’m happy to do it, if you want to do it, doesn’t mean you have to commit to me, but I’m happy to just help you understand what your decision making process will be, how you’re going to know and how you’re going to decide what you’re deciding against what’s most important to you.

That’s what you’re doing. That’s really what overcoming objections is, you’re just overcoming thoughts that keep them from making a decision. Now, sometimes you’re overcoming thoughts that help them find that the decision is no, that’s okay. But I promise you, when you do this because I really believe people don’t get on consults unless they want to be a yes. If you do this correctly, you’re going to get more yeses than no’s I promise.

So the first thing you need to do is just notice whether you’re trying to get a yes or you’re trying to get a no, and how you show up when you’re doing that. Rather than if I were helping my client make a decision in our coaching relationship, what would I do with them? That’s it, folks, that’s it, all you have to do.

So hopefully that gives you a little bit of a taste of how we’re going to handle things on Higher Converting Consults. I’m going to give you 14 things, I’m going to cover them very clearly. Again, I’m going to tell you why you do them, how you know you’re doing them, the impact it has on your client. What they experience from you when you do it and how to fix it so you don’t do it ever again. Then I’m going to teach you my five step consult process that will help you stay out of the mistakes, these included.

So you can sign up for Higher Converting Consults at staceyboehman.com/hcc2. Follow me @staceyboehman on Instagram. And you can also find me on Facebook. We share the same posts from Instagram to Facebook, but I really get on Instagram a lot and engage. So if you want to take part in daily consultation tips and strategies and thoughts to get you better performing consults, please take advantage of all of these opportunities during consult month. Alright, I’ll see you throughout the month, let’s go.

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 2,000 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.