Ep #251: Consult Strategies During Economic Recessions

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 251. Today we’re going to talk about consult strategies. What you need to be thinking and doing during times of economic hardship in the world, during economic recessions, downturns, contractions. Whatever you want to call them, when the world is being a little bit tighter with their money spending, what’s the power you have? What can you do and how can you make sure you still get paid? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. I’m super excited.

And I’m going to give you lots of thoughts to serve you as part of consult month. Are you ready? Before we dive in, are you coming? Higher Converting Consults is happening. If you’re listening to this in real time, it’s happening Wednesday October 25th. You want to be there. I am spending, I say, an entire business day. For me, an entire business day, almost four hours with you. If you only have three hours, come for the first three hours. But I’m going to have a panel of my six figure students come on who have really mastered consults to answer all of your consult questions.

And we’re going to take as many as we can and go for as long as we can. It’s going to be so much fun. I love doing the panel at the end of this training because we just fight over all the answers and everybody gets a different perspective and it’s so, so helpful.

I’ve actually invited Megan Wing. She was on the podcast on a prior episode. She has well beyond a six figure business, but she actually joined 2K for 2K after she attended this class, this half a day workshop. And she actually got her question answered on the panel and signed a client that day. And now she went from being a teacher to a multiple fix figure earner. The last time I did this class was 2021. So just since 2021 you all. So much is possible.

You could have a completely different life if you are willing to do the tedious, sometimes tedious, disciplined work of understanding how you are communicating. And what you are doing when you are selling life coaching, what’s happening with you, what’s happening with the buyer, how they think. This is my wheelhouse. I think I am such an expert at selling because I just understand the buyer. I think of the buyer in everything I do. I think about their experience participating in buying from me, from us as life coaches. I think about what they’re thinking about.

I think about how things come off to them even when it’s our best intention. And how sometimes our best intention is the opposite of what we actually want to reflect. I just think so deeply of them. And I’m going to just open it up and I’m going to teach you 14 really common mistakes that coaches make on consults from really good intentions or from not meaning to or because you’re going through your own stuff. And I’m really going to show you how it affects the buyer and how it comes off to them and what they are thinking when it happens, when you make one of these mistakes.

And then I’m going to walk you through how to not make them. and what that impact would be on a consult with a real human being. And we’re going to have real life conversations. And I’m going to teach you my five step consult process. And really why it’s designed to very methodically help a client with every single thing that needs to happen for them by the end of a consult to be a yes. There’s a lot of psychology that goes into this that I learned selling mops in Walmart. And if it works in Walmart it will work for any person you get on the phone with no matter where they are in the world.

I promise this applies to every niche, every coach, every part of the world you live in, every type of thing that you coach on, every price point. So it’s going to be a really good day. It’s going to be a very meaty class, but I’m even going to give you a workbook, so everything I teach is on the page, so you don’t have to frantically write. You can think and you can absorb. You’re going to get so much value out of this class. You can sign up at staceyboehman.com/hcc2. So it’s Higher Converting Consults 2, so hcc2.

And you can also follow along at social media, it’s consult month and I have been dropping every single day without fail, a tip for you to improve your consults. We’re going to talk about consult strategies during economic recessions right now. But you can get a lot of real time things that you can apply right now from my Instagram @staceyboehman. If you’re not following along, make sure you do that here.

And make sure you come back next week because I’m going to have another podcast next week about advanced consultations. If you’re already doing well and you want to improve even more and get better and better. I’m going to give you some tips for that.

Alright, so let’s dive in. Here’s what I want to tell you. Number one, some people right now over the last year are experiencing it feeling harder to sell than it ever has before. Some people, some coaches are making more money than ever before and they’re on fire and it feels easy, which I know is so weird because we’re like, “Wait, is the economy an issue or not?” And what I want to say from what I’ve seen, because I’ve been paying attention for the last year. I’m in rooms with really big named coaches making lots and lots of money.

I know, and I’m personally friends with coaches making triple the amount of money that I’m making. Having lots of conversations with the eight figure earners in this industry. And I’ve been paying attention in my program with 5,000 coaches in 2K for 2K, in my 200K Mastermind, in my Two Million Dollar Group. And across the board, this is what I’ve seen to be true. Some people are experiencing a more difficult time selling and converting and some people are not. And the only explanation I have for that.

An economic contraction or a recession affects everyone differently. So some aren’t affected as much. Money isn’t changing as much for them. I do think everybody is feeling inflation. They are feeling that everything costs more and their money goes less far. And I think when that happens and not everyone, my husband and I follow this, well, I don’t follow him, my husband follows this guy who’s a billionaire. And he was talking about how he doesn’t fly private anymore. And he’s worth 100, I don’t even know how much money, but he’s talking about not buying private anymore. And it’s not that he doesn’t have the money.

I just think in times where we are not as certain about the future of the economy, the natural model, the thinking model that happens for people is they think harder about spending their money, whether they have it or not. And I would even say, this is just my own personal experience, so this is not the word of God or law. Don’t take it as that. But the last time we had a really hard economy in 2008 when we had a really deep recession, I had no money. I didn’t know there was a recession happening. So I was spending my money mostly the same.

So it’s not necessarily, I want to challenge your thoughts that you might think, well, my people have money. So it shouldn’t be impacting them or I’m confused why it’s so much harder when my clients, I know they have money, but they’re not converting. And then I don’t want you to think, my clients don’t have a ton of money. And so for sure they’re not going to buy. It could be the opposite. It could be the people that have lots of money are thinking harder and the people who don’t have any money aren’t thinking about it at all.

And then lots of gray areas in between, I want to just say that that’s such a generalization, such a generalization. But I think it’s an important one because I don’t want you to latch on to some thought error that you decide that’s the thing. So my people should be buying. They have plenty of money. I don’t understand why they’re not buying. It’s all or nothing thinking. Or if my people are already not people who tend to have a lot of money then of course they’re not going to buy now.

Just stay out of those thinking. It’s a big gray area. This is a thought I would have is each individual person I get on the phone with, I have zero idea how a slower economy is affecting them and how much they’re thinking about it. And are they thinking about it more than the problem they have? And I want to offer that if they’re on a consult with you, probably not. What?

So just know this is the way I think about it is during an economic slower period, people might be thinking harder about spending their money. And they might be more reserved and slower to buy and need more help from you to buy more assurance from you. But they still need and want help. It’s the other most important thing you have to hear me on. They still need and want help. They just might have more brain hurdles, thought hurdles, emotional hurdles to get over. And they might have more circumstantial hurdles to get through.

If their money is actually going not as far as it used to. That’s a circumstantial hurdle. If they are on a fixed income and the prices of all the things in the world have skyrocketed and so that’s not going as far. That’s not a thought. It’s a circumstance. So they might have those hurdles. And so then the answer becomes, we don’t really know every single person that’s going to get on the phone with you, we don’t know what it is for them. If it’s an emotional hurdle. A thought hurdle, a circumstantial hurdle or they have no hurdles. We don’t know.

So I like to think of the individual level and coming in from an assumption, being very unassuming, very curious, very open for each individual person. But then aside from my sales, and if I were doing sales calls, aside from my sales calls. I would maybe be thinking about how the world as a whole, as a whole might need you to be able to sell through these thought, emotional and circumstantial hurdles. They might need you to sell differently than you have in the past. And they might need you to sell better than you have in the past, period.

So, that’s just something to consider is this is a time to really double down on your skill sets. Things that were issues before when there was just an amazing economy and everyone, the COVID times, I think really made us. I’ve had this conversation with so many people, and even with myself. I think the COVID times really gave us an unreasonable expectation of the way business will just always be. It’s unreasonable to think we’re going to get the same amount of attention and time and things were going to be as easy as they were at a two year period.

Where every single human was home locked in their house on the internet, being on the internet and that was their entire life and we had all of their attention. And they were at a time of deep discontent and wanting to make a change. And the life coaching industry just soared. And it doesn’t mean that we’re never going to have success like that again or that things won’t be as easy as that again. But I do think things were easier because of that factor of the human at home on the internet factor. We didn’t have to work as hard.

However, during that time I know personally I still had sales issues. I still had things that I was noticing could be better in my sales. I was still seeing areas where my copy could be better, where we could get better open rates. If I were doing consults, it would be, I could have had a better close rate. And I was still coaching people on raising their closing rates. So that hasn’t changed at all. It didn’t stop in the pandemic, the need to get better at sales. But whatever was happening, if you were having an amazing year at the time.

Or just if you started your business then and whatever issues you had with your selling pre economic slowdown, it’s just going to be magnified during this time. I think this is actually brilliant. I want to give you a thought. This is brilliant because sometimes I think the most frustrating thing on the planet is to not know what’s going on and to not have an idea of where you need help and to not know why something isn’t working. And so sometimes things can be a little more ambiguous. And you don’t really have your finger on the pulse of what’s actually wrong unless they go really, really wrong and it becomes very obvious.

And so I think that a thought I would choose, if you feel really affected by the economy, the thought I would choose is this is such a great magnification time for me. This is a time to magnify and truly show me where I need work and where I need to get better. And that will be true no matter what’s happening in the economy. So it’s just going to be easier for me to solve it. It’s going to be easier for me to see it. It’s going to be easier for me to define it. It’s going to be easier for me to direct where I get help on it and then to ultimately solve it or improve it.

And I also love to think if I can do it in these times, I can do it in any time. It’s kind of like if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. This is going to be so cheesy, but we’re just all building businesses on the virtual streets of New York right now. We all just have to harden up just a little. And for those of you that live in New York will probably laugh at this, but I seriously feel this on such a level because I live in the Midwest and everyone is so friendly and nice and just accommodating.

We all look each other in the eye. We say hi. We hold doors open for each other. We do small talk, it would be rude if you were standing in a Starbucks line in Kentucky to not ask the person how they’re doing and comment maybe on the weather or be engaged in some way. There’s been a couple times where I lived on and off in New York when I was acting. The first couple of weeks or months, I would have to really acclimate. I would get eaten alive, my feelings would get so hurt. And I would just leave all the places crying.

The way people would speak to you. The harshness, the fastness, the, we just don’t have time for this. And I remember one of my friends once was like, “Listen, if you’re going to make it, you’re going to have to toughen up.” My phone had died and I’d gotten lost in Tribeca for hours. I was taking acting classes there and we were meeting for rehearsal and I was an hour late because I literally was asking people on the street to give me directions and they were giving me directions as a New Yorker. And so I couldn’t figure out the directions.

And I was on and off the subway trying to figure out. My phone’s dead. This was years and years and years ago. I arrived crying and she’s like, “You’ve got to toughen up. You’re never going to make it. You’re going to get eaten alive.” There was no hug. There was no, I’m. so sorry that happened to you, toughen up from a native New Yorker.

So that’s my little story to say that we might be in those times right now in the online world. And so we just have to learn to sell better. We just have to improve in the areas we already needed to improve no matter what. And it’s going to toughen us up to a place where we are better forever because of it. But I want to come back to this idea because I saw this on the news the other day that people are spending more money than ever before on travel.

If you have seen all of the humans, including myself, go to Italy this year, I mean everyone’s just flocking there like crazy. So people have money. That’s what you need to know. They have money. So what we have to do is put forth a good argument for why your clients should spend that money with you. What emotional experience will they have because they invested with you? That’s the one thing I want you to really be thinking about. They have the money, many people have money, not everyone, many people, millions and millions of people. Our only job is to put forth a good argument for why they should spend it with us.

Now I’m going to give you 10 things and then some more thoughts, but 10 things that you need to do to better your consults from this episode. You should definitely come to Higher Converting Consults, but I’m going to give you 10 to just think about as far as what’s happening with the buyer and what you might need to do in a specific situation like an economic downturn.

Okay, so number one, you need to be clear about the value you will bring to them for what you are charging. For you in your own brain, you have to understand that. This is the value I’m bringing for how much I’m charging. And you have to be sold on that yourself. And you have to be prepared to answer questions about that.

If you are in 2K for 2K, you can go to Offer Week and you can learn about my irresistible offer protocol. You can answer all the questions and you can make sure that your offer really is aligned for you and your beliefs and really serving you. And that it’s going to be an offer that is a slam dunk for you to sell. If your offer doesn’t feel like a slam dunk for you to sell and to communicate the value of, you will see that in the form of objections on all of your consults.

Number two, there shouldn’t be any questions at the end of a consult after they’ve maybe found you through a conversation or through your marketing and then they’ve gotten on a consult with you. After that there should not be any questions about the work that you two will do together or the steps in your process. It can’t be intangible and it can’t be ambiguous. If you offer something that is intangible like I help you feel better. You have to be able to explain how you’re going to do that. The steps that will happen, the process you will take someone through even if it’s intangible.

If it’s intangible, that has to be clear too, if it’s both, all of that has to be clear. The work that you two will do together, the steps in your process, they have to be focused and clear. They have to be simple and they have to be doable no matter where they are starting. So if you’re in your brain on a consult thinking, oh my God, this is going to be so hard. This person, they’re really starting from the bottom, some version of that. You’re totally getting an objection or a no.

You have to feel when you are listening to someone’s problem, your thought has to be, oh my God, this is so clear, I know exactly what’s going on, the fix is so simple and I know they can do it even if it’s hard. Simple does not mean easy. Even if it’s difficult, even if you know that it is hard to create change in your life, I believe that. I believe it’s very difficult to change your life from scratch otherwise everybody would be doing it. But I don’t think it’s complicated. And I do think anyone can do it from wherever they are because of where I started.

So you have to believe that your process is clear. I can’t tell you how many coaches I coach on a daily basis. Their number one thought is it’s, I’m not clear. My marketing isn’t clear. My messaging isn’t clear. It’s not clear what I offer. It’s not clear what I do. It’s not clear how I help. I’m not clear in my communication. Just so you know, being clear starts with your thoughts, I know what I’m doing here. I know what I’m saying. I know what I’m teaching, I am clear.

If you struggle with this, we have an entire workbook that helps you get clear on what you’re offering and the value of your offer inside 2K for 2K. We have so much support on this one specific area. And I am going to teach this on Higher Converting Consults in my process. I’m going to teach what I teach my students called bridging the gap. I’m going to teach you how to bridge the gap for your students. But that ability to tell someone how you’re going to take them from where they are to where they want to be, your process for that. That’s bridging the gap.

That is the single most important skill you could ever, ever learn. You will use it in your marketing. You will use it in your selling. You will use it in webinars. You will never stop using it. So we’re going to talk about that in Higher Converting Consults. That is a whole entire classroom inside 2K for 2K. It’s so, so important, but you have to believe that you know what you’re doing, you know what you’re talking about. You have to think when you’re listening to someone talk, oh, my gosh, this is so simple. They can do this.

If you don’t believe they can do it, don’t sell them life coaching, truly, be in integrity. But if you have those thoughts, you’re going to get much, much closer to actually delivering a clear message that makes it clear to your person, being able to answer questions, overcome objections. All of those things get easier when your brain, truly, when you feel like it’s clear and it seems very simple to you. And then you’re able to explain a very doable process to them because you believe all of that.

And then when they’re confused, you’re like, “Okay, don’t worry.” You have so much patience and you’re like, “Okay, tell me and let’s break it down.” Because it doesn’t feel overwhelming. I see a lot of people at the end when people do have questions or when they’re confused, because they don’t think it’s doable and simple and clear. They get very frustrated like, “Well, I said this. Well, I told them this. Well, I just really couldn’t get her to understand this part.”

Whatever that frustration is, we’ve got to fix that because it will show up when people are thinking harder about the money they spend. When they’re not thinking as hard, any of those loose questions may not deter them as much.

So the third thing that you need to know is there will always be confusion, I think. It’s very common, it’s very normal when you do lay out a simple, clear, doable process for your person. You believe it’s simple, clear, and doable. You explain it in a simple, clear, doable way. There will always still be confusion. Nothing’s gone wrong if that happens.

I was just explaining this to a group of my clients this week. I said, “People are listening to you. They’re trying to hear what you’re saying, conceptualize what they’re saying and imagine applying it to themselves all at the same time.” And their brain doesn’t work that fast if it’s the first time they’re hearing the information. So they’re just processing so slowly on the consult. And if you, especially if you talk a lot, you make it even harder for them to process and you give them even more information to process and so then there will be confusion.

But you can be in charge of creating a space to open a conversation where that confusion can come out safely and directly and be addressed. That’s one of your number one roles on the consult. And one area where if you are not getting true, honest thoughts from your people that are very direct and they don’t feel really open to tell you all of the reservations they’re having. It’s because you have not created a safe space for them to be able to do that.

And typically what happens is if you are needing the sale or you’re really wanting them to buy, you’re really nervous, you want them to like you. Anything you need from them, they sense that. Their thought is, oh my gosh. And you’ve probably been in sales situations like this, where you’re like, “This person won’t be okay if I tell them no. I’m going to harm them financially if I tell them no. I’m going to harm them emotionally if I tell them no. They’re going to be so disappointed. They really want this sale.” That’s the most unsafe place to be as a buyer, you just feel not good.

And so you would never say the real thing on your mind. You want them to feel so safe to tell you no, that they would tell you all the things they’re thinking. That’s when the real conversation starts. Even if they’re originally a no or they have an objection. You might turn them around just from them being able to safely talk about it, from not fearing. I used to tell people, “Tell me anything that’s coming up for you. You will not hurt my feelings. You won’t tell me anything I haven’t heard before. Everybody has similar thoughts around this time. You can say literally anything to me. It’s my job.”

Sometimes I’ll even explain to them if I felt like they were nervous, I’d be like, “Listen, I actually got trained in this. And I know how to go to a space in my brain and body where I’m just, we call it, holding space where I can really take on any amount of discomfort. There’s nothing you could say to me that would rock me. It’s what I do for you if you’re my client as well, it’s my job.” And they’d be like, “Okay, alright, so here’s what I’m really thinking.” You don’t have to say it.

You don’t have to use those words, but you just need to know that at a time where someone’s already thinking harder and feeling more reserved and processing things more slowly. And feeling the result of their money decisions more vibrantly in their life, more loudly in their life. They need to feel safer than ever before to be able to talk about anything with you and to be real with you and to talk about the real things, to get their questions answered. To say when you confuse them, to say when it’s not clear. They need to be able to do that.

The fourth thing that you need to know is there will also not only will there be always confusion, there will also always be objections. So in this time specifically, but always you’ve got to go to a place where that doesn’t freak you out and you are able to professionally address any money concerns. I don’t see this as much anymore but I used to see this years ago in the past where people would really be like, “I don’t personally overcome objections. I’m only looking for people who don’t have any, who are my best hell yes clients.”

I mean if that’s true. Great. I don’t want to even make that seem like I’m putting that down. I’m not, I promise. I think that can be great especially if you were in the place, and I’m thinking of my upper level 200K students, where you’re in a place where you are filtering it out. In 200K Mastermind, I’m not getting on consult calls, overcoming people’s objections. If they’re not ready, that’s okay. We already have to turn people away every round.

So we’re looking for people that are just already really ready to go. They can afford the investment. They’re prepared to make the investment. They don’t need me to hold their hand through that investment. They know exactly how they’re going to use it in their business. And so that’s a different caveat that, it’s a different thing. But what I’m saying is if you have not even fully booked your practice, I don’t know that it’s the best thing ever to say, “I’m only looking for hell yes people. I don’t want to ever answer any objections.”

Because I think a lot of people are yeses. And the objection, this is my belief about it, the objection, they were yeses, they got on the call to be a yes, that’s why they scheduled a consult with you. They wanted to pay you. And then there’s something you did that made them be concerned about their yes, that made them think about that yes a little bit harder, that made them question that, yes. That brought up additional thoughts that maybe were no’s, that they didn’t anticipate.

I’ve gotten on calls before where I was prepared to be a yes and I ended up being a no because the salesperson didn’t sell me properly. And I bet so many of you have had that experience as well. So the way I think about objections is not someone’s a hell yes client and they’re the best client. I think objections are our fault. I think most of them happen because of how we performed in the sales job. So when people tell me, “I’m not looking to ever overcome objections.” To me it’s, I’m not looking to learn how to sell better and to show up better for people on consults. Because I think that’s most of the reason we get them.

That’s very different, especially in a sales call situation, I just don’t believe people sign up for sales calls and don’t intend to spend some amount of money. If they’re a not right now or I need to wait or just there’s a better time for later. All of that is because of something that happened during the call. That’s my belief, it serves me really well in understanding my people and making lots of money.

The fifth one is you have to be able to emotionally handle no. This will help you with number four and number three. You’ll be able to clear up confusion, create safety and better handle objections if you are able to emotionally handle no. You’ve got to prepare ahead of time to be emotionally okay with hearing a no. You can’t be like, “Oh my God, I just can’t hear another no. It’s been this many no’s in a row and oh, my God, I just know they’re going to be a no.” You cannot be resisting this. This is the number one thing you want to work on.

I don’t want to sound like a broken label, but I kind of do because I want you to get help on this. Join 2K for 2K. We can help you work on being able to emotionally handle a no. That is something you can get coaching on daily if you need to. We talk about it so much throughout the entire process and we have so many exercises, pre-consultation worksheets to really prepare you to be able to emotionally handle no.

The one thing I hear about 2K for 2K is the pre-consultation worksheet, saves people because it just prepares them to be able to emotionally handle no and gets them in the right place of sufficiency to go into that call. So prepare yourself to hear a no, you can handle it, I promise. You can handle hearing no. You can handle hearing no as many times as it takes for you to learn how to sell. It means nothing about you, your ability to coach, your future capability of making money. I heard 12 no’s in a row before I ever made a dime as a life coach. You can handle it.

My client, Laura Dixon, you can go search and find this podcast, 100 no’s or getting 100 no’s. It was something about 100 no’s. She got 100 no’s in a row and now she has a multiple six figure business. So you can handle hearing any amount of no’s. It is just a word and then there’s the thought you have and the emotion that happens in your body. And you can handle both of them. They are just vibrations happening in the moment and they do pass.

Alright, number six is you’ve got to lay it all on the table. When I think about an economic contraction, when I think about money being tighter, when I think about money being more important than ever before. When money decisions and every decision you make, being very valuable or not valuable towards the outcome you want. For me, my job is to then lay it all on the table. There’s no time for worrying about my own liability and people pleasing. I’m not thinking about, if I say this, when I say liability, I mean if I say this, I’m going to get a no.

They’re going to get mad at me and say no. I’m going to make them mad. There’s something at risk for me. I have no time to worry about what’s at risk for me. I have no time to worry about people pleasing. I have no time to delay. I have to say the most direct thing that will be helpful to the person from a place of love in order to get a transformation and I’m going to do that more than ever before.

So I remember someone coming to me on a consult and this was at a time where my program was for Diva Business School and it was $100 a month. And my client at the time, who is now a six figure coach. She came to me and she was like, “I’m on the brink of divorce. My house is about to go into foreclosure. I’m in an extreme amount of debt. And I really think you might be able to help me.” And we had this consultation and I told her, “Listen, I don’t want you to say yes right now. I want you to take some time to think about it because it’s a big decision.

I know it’s only x amount per month but your house is heading into foreclosure. You’ve told me you’re heading into divorce. You are in debt. I just want you to really consider if this is the right move. If it is, I promise you I will show up and give you everything and teach you how to do it too. But there is a lot at risk on the line and I want to make sure you understand that before you say yes and you’re really good to go. I don’t want to sell you at all. I want this to be totally your decision, your conviction, your next move.”

And she messaged me a day or two later and was like, “I’m in, I know it’s a big decision, I’m in.” She said, “I’ve got a second or a third job.” I can’t remember. I think it was a third job at Starbucks to pay for it. I’m in. And I was like, “Hell yeah.” So I will also say in times of economic recessions I do not ever, ever, when I say overcoming objections what I’m never meaning is push to get a yes. I never want to do that. I want to make sure the yes is really their yes.

If they tell me that the money is tight and difficult then I want to make sure they’re committed. I want to make sure they’re owning their yes. I used to have this thought, I never want them to say yes to me because I’m so convincing and I push so hard. And then they look back and wish they hadn’t said yes. I never want them to feel like they were not in control of the yes. I never want them to look back and not think, I made this decision, this was my decision, this was not someone else’s decision. And I wasn’t just people pleasing.

I want to make sure if money is hard for them, I want to make sure that’s a yes. Not that I don’t in other times, but I’m just more aware of it. I’m really aware of it, if ‘times are tough’ for a person. And so I think this is again a beautiful time to notice that. Notice if you’re convincing. Notice if you’re pushing. Notice if you’re trying to drag them to a yes. You really want them to own that yes, you want that yes to be a real yes. And so I think for you being direct, laying it all on the table, not sugar coating, not dancing around the subject, not adding a bunch of fluff that adds confusion.

Just being very clear about this is what it is, is so helpful for you and for buyers. So say the thing, get the transformation, let go of people needing to like you, you needing to get the sale or anything else that you’re worrying about for you. This is about them and getting them to a yes, if it is a yes for them. And getting them to owning that and laying it just all on the table.

I like to think of it as seeking the truth and being very direct with the truth I have to offer. So I want to find their truth and I want to give them my truth and I want to make sure there’s no confusion. And that in the end that will either be a yes or a no and either is great.

The seventh thing is you want to stay focused on what you can control, what you can control. And you want to focus your clients on what they can control. So for example, they may not know if they’re going to get that new job. They may not know if their company is going to pay for the coaching. They can’t control that. But if they want the results no matter what, what they can control is saying yes and paying for it out of their own pocket as an example. What they can control is paying for it themselves.

What they can control is deciding now if they are a yes or a no and not deciding when someone tells them if their workplace is going to pay for it or not. What they can control is a great, great presentation of why their company should pay for it. I’m just using one example. If they have to talk to their spouse, there’s so much they can control in that conversation with talking to their spouse. There’s so many ways they can present themselves and present the investment and show up to influence that conversation.

And going back to what you can control, you can control preparing them really well for conversations that include other people making the money decision with them. You can control teaching them everything. If they were like, “I’m really worried about this investment.” I’d be like, “Listen, here’s what I know I can control. I know the process to get you what you want and I will teach it to you. And I will make sure you understand it and we will work to implement it every single week.

And if you can’t, we’ll figure out why and we’ll work on that. I can also help you every time you fail, getting back up. I can help you with all the little distractions that get in between you and the weight loss.” For example, you’re trying to eat on protocol and you have a death in the family. You’re trying to eat on protocol and you have a super stressful week at work. Your husband leaves you. I can help you during those unexpected times of stress.

I know that I can control that and I can teach you all the things that you can control along the way as well. So that if I’m focusing on everything I can control and you’re focusing on everything you can control and we’re coming together, it gives us the absolute best chance for the result that you want. There would be very little things out of our control that would keep you from getting it. And especially, don’t let your brain go to, well, the economy is bad. No one’s buying. No one has any money. Because you can’t control that.

But what you can control is a really great sales call. What you can control is how many people you meet, and finding people who have money. All of my clients when I first started coaching, I had no money to my name and all of my clients had lots of money. Many of them were either very upper middle class, upper class or rich. And what I could control is the value I had to bring them. I couldn’t give them advice on finances. I couldn’t give them advice on making more money than what they were making at the time. But I had things to teach them that they didn’t have. And I could control that.

So don’t take your brain and let it go to all the places that you can’t control. Look at everything you can within the sales process and actually getting your client results. And then look at also how can you help your people control what they can control.

And then number eight, I think this one’s really, really important, so I want to put a big asterisk on it. This happens in your marketing as well as your selling. People need to believe right now more than ever that they will be supported. They just need to know how much support they’re going to get from you. And that doesn’t mean that you’re hustling with Voxer Coaching in between calls and taking extra calls and email coaching between calls and IG messaging between. That’s not what I’m saying.

But they need to know how, when they purchase from you, how you’re going to support them in the journey. So it’s not just, I’m going to teach you this process, but I’m going to emotionally support you when you fail. If you come to the call and you didn’t do any of the homework. I never gave homework, but some you all do, or you didn’t implement any of the coaching in between, that’s okay.

If you need to come to a call and just spend the call being heard about something that happened in your week or something you’re struggling with in your life, I’m going to be there. They just need to know they’re going to be supported in everything. And not, you’re going to coach me on everything in my life if you coach me on this one specific thing. You don’t have to become a life coach if you sell business coaching, just with what you offer without offering all these extra things. Just how will you naturally support them?

What support will be available for them on the journey? They are feeling nervous already about getting the results and then on top of that, they’re feeling nervous about spending the money. You need to show them how you will support them in both. You’re going to make sure they make a good investment. You’re going to make sure that you are there for them to get them across the finish line.

And then the ninth thing is you need to give lots of value ahead of time, more than you’ve ever thought. So whatever you think is the proper amount of value, I’ve given so much value, give 10 times more. And you just need to work on you believing that you’re capable of doing that and it’s not even a stretch and it’s not a hustle. You have to find a different depth of value to yourself. Most of us underestimate the amount of value we have to give ahead of time in order to start receiving it back anyways, that’s already a thing.

But now more than ever, people really want to make sure that they are getting what they pay for, that they are getting value out of their money. The best way you can show them that is to show them that ahead of time before they ever get on a consult with you. If they found your marketing to be so valuable, when they go to pay you it will be such an easier decision. And then if they pay you and that’s extraordinarily valuable, they maybe want to even pay you again at some point. So you just want to always make sure that you’re giving lots of value ahead of time.

One of the ways you guys take yourself out of this is you’re like, “I’ve got to save something for when they pay me.” Because you don’t feel as confident in your coaching or your processes or the paid experience or you don’t feel like you’re an idea factory. So it feels like if I tell them my best ideas then I’m out of ideas. I tell myself I’m an idea factory. I believe the best ideas if I give them away, better ideas come to me because I’m more practiced. I have to think more. I have to produce more. And so I get better and better and better and better. And I’ve always proved that to be true.

Some of you also give less value because you’re like, “I don’t want to give too much ahead of time.” There’s no such thing as too much value. Now, I am going to talk in Higher Converting Consults about why you shouldn’t coach on your consults, which is different. Sometimes you guys think the only form of value you can give is coaching which is not true and you actually don’t want to coach on a consult. You don’t want to give free coaching sessions ahead of a paid consultation. I’m going to tell you why in Higher Converting Consults.

But there is a lot of value that you can give ahead of time in your marketing that isn’t too much value. So just if you’re thinking, is this too much? Be like it’s probably just enough. It’s probably just enough.

And then the tenth thing is, have fun. I say this a lot. It’s actually a whole module or a whole classroom inside 2K for 2K but have fun. People love to buy from salespeople having fun, first of all. But in times of depression, contraction, restriction, worry, low energy, whatever the world is feeling right now. People are looking to feel better and lighter and have hope. That’s why they turn to life coaches. Make sure that’s the experience they have.

So I want to give you two final tips. One of them is, don’t decide to stop at the circumstance on evaluating. So even if it is the economy and they can’t afford your coaching, don’t get off the call and be like, “Well, that was the only reason so no point in evaluating. It was the economy or it was they just literally didn’t have the money. You need to be sharper for the next person who can pay you. Make sure you evaluate every single time. It’s not for the one you just had, it’s not a sunk cost of time and energy from someone who already told you no.

It’s for the next person who could tell you yes. You want to be very, very sharp for them and evaluating makes you sharp. What worked, what didn’t work, what you’re going to do differently, being very specific with only things you can control. You’ve got to be sharp for the next person. So that’s one thing.

And the last thing is imagine if someone comes to the call with you and they are worried about the economy. And then you missed one of the 10 things that I told you in this episode, you didn’t give them a full on best consult ever of your life that made it very easy for them to feel safe to say yes. One of the frequent objections you might get is it’s not the right time. And that will feel very true for even them. It’s just not the right time. Maybe in a couple of months, maybe next year. What I want to offer are a couple of ways you can address that, some just super tangible things.

Number one, I really love to just ask people to tell me more. As soon as they give me the objection, instead of going into why it’s wrong, instead of just addressing the objection I just want to hear more about it. Tell me more. I want to hear other thoughts than just it’s not the right time. What are the thoughts that made them say that, that’s what I want to know. If you’re in 2K for 2K if you go to the module called Client Coach Models. That’s where I walk you through.

They say something and then your job is to find the things behind what they’ve said. One of those ways is to say, “Tell me more.” I might ask them, “What made you set up the call now?” Isn’t that an interesting question? They say it’s not the right time. What made them set up the call now? Something else I might ask them if I’m in the right energy and we’re in the right place and we’ve built the right rapport is, “What will be the financial, energetic and time cost if you wait the three months or the six months or the year? Let’s talk it through if you’re interested.”

Now, that one is a tricky one. The rapport has got to be there. Your belief has got to be there. Your energy’s got to be there. It can’t come from trying to get a sale. It has to come from genuine curiosity and wanting to show someone as if you were coaching them in a coaching relationship, as if they said, “Well, now is not the right time to stop eating cookies.” And you were like, “Well, let’s just explore, if you keep eating them for the next three months, six months or a year.” I wouldn’t actually say that by the way. I’m just giving you an analogy.

But if you keep eating them for the next three months, six months or a year, what’s going to be the toll there? And let’s just make sure that we really think it’s not the right time, if we compared them. If we compared what you’re going to have to give up in money and energy and time right now, even though it’s inconvenient, and we compare that toll for another three months, six months, a year. If you want to do that, we can look at both of them and it can still be a no afterwards.

I also might say it’s never that you can’t wait. That’s always on the table, obviously always because it’s their choice. I think it’s important to know that you can wait and it never actually gets easier to fix a problem, to get started on hard work, to spend money, to spend more money than you had wanted to solve a problem.

My husband, our dishwasher is not working and he just kept calling repair people out to fix it. He has a very different money mindset than me. And finally the guy was like, “Listen, don’t call me out here again. Buy a new one.” But the buying the new one’s more money than he wanted to spend to solve the problem so he kept trying to solve it other ways. It’s not working. We’ve got to buy a new one, it drips every time we run it.

So sometimes you do, you’re going to spend more money than you wanted. And that never gets easier. It never gets easier to do the hard work to face the problem, never. And sometimes we think that there will be a different right time where it will be easier. And I just want to make sure that’s not where they’re making the decision from. It’s not going to be easier. And I also genuinely believe we never find that right time. I would also be curious, this is another way I might approach it. Again, depending on the situation is, what will the right time look like? What will it feel like?

What will you be thinking when it’s the right time? How will you be feeling when it’s the right time? What would be the circumstances that would align for it to be the right time? And once I had a really good picture of what the right time actually looks like for them, I would ask them if they believe that’s actually going to happen sometime. And what if the right time were now, what would they need to think about that? What thoughts would they need to have to believe this is the right time?

And if they couldn’t find any. Fine, that’s okay, but maybe they can. Maybe they can find thoughts that are available to them now about now being the right time and they just haven’t explored them. And then how would it be harder to not get started? This goes from, my coach, Brooke told me last year, I was working on believing something. And I was just telling her,” I have a new baby. I’m breastfeeding. It’s just too much.” I don’t remember exactly what I told her but I was like, “It’s just too much. It’s too hard.” I think I told her, “I don’t think I have the energy to believe that right now.”

And she said, “It’s so much harder to not believe than to believe. You’re spending so much more energy not believing than believing.” And I was like, “What is happening right now? Okay, let me think about that.” That call was recorded. My face was so great, it was like, wait, what? And I’ve thought about that ever since. It is so much harder to be stuck in disbelief. It’s so much harder to not get started. It’s so much harder to not work towards what you want. It’s so much harder to not give it all you have.

I’ve been coaching a lot of people, their fear of putting out a lot of effort and then not getting that effort back. They’re like, “I’m just really afraid that the effort won’t be worth it, that I’m going to work so hard for nothing.” And I’m like, “Isn’t it harder to not work hard for something?” If you think about that thought and you’re like, “I just can’t imagine working that hard and not getting the result.” Imagine then if instead of working really, really hard and not getting the result that you didn’t work hard and didn’t get the result. Isn’t that scenario harder?

Think about it really. You aren’t becoming someone better in the process. You don’t feel accomplished. You don’t feel purposeful. You don’t get to take any of those feelings with you of doing the hard work. You’re just sitting there thinking about not having the result and knowing that you’re not doing the work. That sucks, it’s so much harder. So I think that could be the one that will come up the most other than money, it’s just not the right time. Those are a couple ways you can address it, authentically is the most important.

I don’t teach sales scripts in 2K for 2K. I’m not going to teach that in Higher Converting Consults. I don’t believe in it. I believe in finding the thing that aligns with you in the moment that feels the most direct and truthful from love and compassion in service of your client, whatever that is in the moment. And I think if you get really good at that, you become a master coach. That is an art form to be able to tap into that and access that and not need to lean on a line. I also think if you are leaning on lines this will be the time people are not having that. They’re not interested in your pre-scripted sales pitch.

And the final thoughts that I want to give you are some of the things we’ve talked about on this episode. Can only be said, again, with compassion, love and total understanding for where your person is and how scared they are. You have to fully drop into your heart. I had a doctor’s appointment earlier today. I’ve been having some issues with my esophagus and I actually almost died and I almost choked to death when food got stuck at my windpipe during a work meeting, actually.

And I haven’t talked about it because I just haven’t had a solution and it’s been a really emotional thing for me. But we went to the third specialist today and we think we have an idea of what it is. There’s one more procedure I have to have, but it’s totally fixable. But it was really, really, really scary and it’s brought up my extreme levels of my postpartum anxiety, extreme levels. When you almost die with your baby in the house from suffocating, it’s very, very awful, it’s very scary.

And the procedure I have to have done, they have to put you under. And I already don’t come out of anesthesia well. It’s something that I’ve always had to inform my doctors. It’s like the exorcist for real, it’s really crazy. I don’t remember any of it, but the people like my grandma, the last time she was in the room with me cried for an hour in her car afterwards. From what I hear, it’s very, very terrible. So this is triggering a lot of anxiety for me to go under, being a new mom. I’m just so scared I’m not going to wake up. I know it’s illogical, but postpartum anxiety is not logical.

And so I was in this appointment, and I knew that they were going to tell me that I had to have this scope done on my esophagus, and I felt the tears bubbling up. I knew I wasn’t even going to be able to get it out. And I also knew because my husband used to work in surgery. And he’s like, “It’s so rare for that to happen. You’re so healthy. That would never happen.” And I knew that she was going to bring that up as well. I knew that her reaction was going to be like, “What’s going on here?”

And I felt the tears bubbling up and I stopped her and I said, “I’m going to need you to talk me through going under.” And I said, “But before you do, I really need you to understand where I’m at. I know that you see this every day and this isn’t a big deal for you, I’m a new mom.” And I just started bawling. I was like, “I’m a new mom, it’s a big deal for me and I need you to talk to me from that place.” And I was really thinking afterwards when we left and she immediately, I saw her shoulders drop. Her voice dropped. She got it. She was like, “Okay, I’ve got to take some more time here.”

And I really, I thought about that because we’re in consult month, right in the middle. And I was thinking, how many people are feeling the way that I felt in that doctor’s office? How many of our people are thinking that about their life and what’s going on for them and they feel at the brink of tears and they feel, even though it may be simple to you, it’s so big for them, it’s monumental for them.

Someone was telling me in 2K, I think, or it was 200K, one of them, that their person’s marriage was on the line and they were like, “Well, what if this doesn’t work?” For them, it’s not just a consult, it’s not just coaching tools. It’s their life, you all, it’s their life, their very, very precious life. I’ve been getting worked up thinking about it now. So I think sometimes people think the opposite of what is really my programs and what I teach about selling. And they think it’s this aggressive manhandling and confrontation of shove sales down people’s throats. And it is truly the opposite for me.

You cannot say any of the things that I say or I give you or any of the tips I give you. It will be very hard for you to do them and it not go well if you are not dropped into your heart and your compassion and understanding the suffering that someone might be coming to you with and what’s on the line for them. It’s so important. It’s everything. It’s the only thing, if you only did this on your consult, if you’re like, “Oh my gosh, Stacey, I have so much work to do on my consults.”

If you only did this, constantly dropping back into your heart, if that was the only thing you did you would serve your person so, so well. It doesn’t mean you believe their story. Because one of the things this doctor said that I actually thought, it kind of took me aback for a second because her voice went up and it kind of got a little aggressive, a little, not aggressive, it’s not the right word, but confronting. She goes, “But you need to do this.” She wasn’t going to be in the pool.

She was going to understand, but she wasn’t going to get in the pool with me. I know you’re crying. I know you’re a new mom. I know you have a lot of anxiety and you still need to do this. Because she said to me, what happened was actually it happened five or six times before, I would eat and food would get caught in my esophagus. And it’d be really painful, but it would go down. And this time I was in a meeting at my house with two of my people from my leadership team and it got stuck at my airway and we couldn’t get it dislodged even with the Heimlich.

And she said, “From everything you’ve told me, that was not a fluke. It wasn’t an isolated incident, it was a progression. It was getting worse.” And she was like, “And what I’ve seen is that if it continues to get worse you could have to have emergency surgery because you can’t get it dislodged and you can’t get it out and hopefully it’s not at your airway.” She just had so much compassion and then she was like, “And we’ve still got to do this.” That’s truly the energy that I really believe all sales should come from.

We’re only fighting four people, not for our agenda, not for our needs. But we’re always coming from a place of compassion and love and understanding, for how hard it might be for someone to wrap their mind around where they are in their life and what it’s going to take to make a change. So I don’t believe in sales scripts. And listen, if this feels like, but this is the hard way, I promise you that even if you never learn anything about my sales process or you never join 2K or you’re like, “That seems like too much work.” It’s what you have to do.

The best sales scripts in the world aren’t going to make up for you fully dropping into your heart for compassion, for love, for understanding. And also for being willing to say and very firmly. You have to do it otherwise you’re always going to struggle with your sales. And if you use these things, again, if you use these things from a place of wanting to get money, needing money, needing them to say yes or from a place of judgment, it will not go well.

If this woman had judged me for crying about this or for having anxiety about it, I probably would not have signed up for the procedure. The fact that she didn’t and she walked me so well through it is the reason I was able to take the next step forward. And I literally cried the entire time. They had to go find me a Kleenex box. I was sitting making the appointment, I could not stop crying. I was telling my husband, I was like, “I feel embarrassed because no one else is in the gastrologist appointment crying.

And I know logically I can see that it’s not what I’m making it in my mind but I can’t stop the tears. So if she hadn’t had compassion for that I would not have been able to take the next step. I think your people are like that too. They have to be able to feel safe and just seen from you and understood by you so that they can take the next step that is so hard for them. And I want to tell you that sometimes you have to learn this line in real time.

Sometimes you’re going to push, you’re going to say it from judgment and you didn’t even realize you were feeling judgment until after the call. That’s okay, don’t beat yourself up. I promise you that I never will. I will never judge you for judging your client. I will never judge you for needing money and pushing someone because of it. I will never judge you for being hustly. I will never judge you for not holding the space because I believe that’s a human condition.

And I think what we have to do in sales is work really hard to understand that and work with it and through it, be a human on a call with another human. So I will never judge you for that. You’ve got to know that you’re going to make those mistakes and that’s okay. That’s how you learn. That’s how you learn, when you weren’t in alignment, when you weren’t in integrity, when you weren’t serving the client, when you were focused on getting. You learn by doing.

I don’t think you’ll be able to become an amazing coach and make a lot of money if you’re not willing to learn that way, if you’re not willing to sometimes get it wrong. And so all you have to think about if you take anything from this episode is throughout the entire consult, this isn’t just a pre-consult worksheet, throughout the entire consult. You’re refocusing back to sinking into love and connection repeatedly. It’s constantly finding your breath to relax, you just keep bringing yourself back.

And this will be needed the most throughout a recession, throughout an economic downturn or contraction or whatever you want to call it, this will be needed the most. People will be looking to feel connected instead of fearful and worried.

Damn, this was a good episode, did you feel it? I did. I will tell you one thing that has happened since I had this emergency, which has now been about a month. I’m going to probably do a whole another episode about it at some point or maybe it’ll be on little episodes here and there because it just is impacting me so much. But one of the things that made me very grateful I have coaching and I have emotional wealth and thought work. It’s really never shown me in this type of situation, it does not matter how much money you have. Death doesn’t care about that. Health doesn’t care about that.

My husband’s always saying, “If you have your health, you have everything.” But it’s really helped me to have coaching in between to be able to really focus on what matters most. And not that I don’t spend a lot of time with my son, but I’ve really let go of a lot of things to be even more connected with him and to really show up and be with him more than ever before. And the other thing is when I do show up for work, I’m really onto myself of feeling connected to my people. And that’s the number one thing.

I’ve either got to be with my son or I’ve got to be connected to my people and serving them from a deep place of love. Those are the only two things that can happen. I don’t have space for anything else and this just really lasered me in and focused me in. And my clients have been telling me, “Stacey, I don’t know what’s going on with your health, but you’ve never coached better.” You’re just in our minds and it’s coming from just every time I step into my office, I want to make sure that the time I’m spending feels worth my life and is so connected and so pure.

If there is a silver lining, that’s been one of them, there has been many, but it’s really, really helped me do that. And so I do think my coaching has been better. I do think I’m really tapped into what you guys are thinking about right now. And I’m really taking great care of myself. I don’t want you to worry, such good care of myself. I am on a mostly liquid and soft foods diet. I’m eating lots of fish. I have a juicery that is an hour away that is the best quality juicery for cold pressed juices. And I just have 30 of them sent to my house at once.

I’m making my own super, super healthy, very low sugar smoothies. And every food that goes into my mouth at this point, other than ice-cream, you all, I’m on the Jeni’s train. Other than ice-cream, everything that goes into my mouth, it’s so much fear, it’s not as much anymore. But it’s a question, I have to consider it. And so it has to be worth it. So, I’m not emotionally eating anymore. I’m not overeating. I’m eating so slow. That’s one thing I noticed is since we had our baby, we so sped up when we eat. And so now I’m the last person to get up from the dinner table, that’s okay.

But I’m just really slowing down, really taking care of myself, getting tons of sleep, really high nutrients. And just using my time so, so well for only the things that matter most and tapping into what I think can help you the most as well so that you can get your dreams up. And seriously, we have one life, you all, I have never thought about until this moment, I mean, I have, I’ve thought about it over and over a million times. But it’s never been presented to me this way that we have one life and we have to be living it intentionally and how important that is. And what a gift it is every single day.

Alright, I hope this was helpful. I love you all so much. I will see you on Higher Converting Consults and next week to talk about advanced consultations.

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.