The 3 Biggest Problems in a Pandemic (Selling in a Crisis Part 1)

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. How we all doing today? What is happening? Coronavirus. That is what is happening. We’re going to talk about it today. Here’s what’s really interesting. I have been sick. I think the world kind of fell apart a week and a half ago, from the time I’m recording this now, which is just a couple days before this is going to come out because I’ve been sick.

So everything shut down and then I got sick. And I was in bed, I’ve been in bed for the last almost three days now. I’ve been watching my brain and thinking and it’s been so fascinating to think that this is most people’s worst-case scenario is that they will get sick or that their family members will get sick with the virus.

And aside from yes, this virus is different than other viruses, it is a virus. And so I was sitting there thinking, “I have a virus. I have what everyone is afraid of.” Not maybe that one, but I am sick, and this is our worst fear is that we are sick. And we can do sick. All of us.

And it was just fascinating to watch my brain not freak out and just be sick and be in it. I was reading Glennon Doyle’s book and she talks about – I’m going to get the quote wrong, but she talks about waiting for the shoe to drop is so much more dramatic than dealing with it dropping. My worst-case scenario to be quite honest is that my wedding will be postponed.

But we’re already kind of working through that too, so I encourage you to work through your worst-case scenario of what that could be. And I also encourage you – there’s half the people the in the world who are not even thinking about it, and I encourage you, if it’s not affecting your day-to-day, keep on keeping on.

I’m going to do another podcast about that. I just want to encourage you also to not lose yourself in it and lose who you were and what you were thinking about and your goals and what you were excited about before the bottom kind of dropped out.

And I think that being sick has really shifted this for me. I’m also going to do a podcast about that. But it’s really shifted me in that I got sick, so sick that – it’s one of those sicknesses where you just don’t get out of bed. And I couldn’t really think. I felt so bad. So I either slept, I read a little, or I just watched TV. It was the only things I was capable of doing.

I watched an entire season of Killing Eve. Oh my god, so good. If you haven’t watched it yet, so good. It’s on Hulu with Sandra Oh. It’s kind of dark but really good. So I watched a whole season of that and I slept for like, 20 hour straight. You can probably still hear it in my voice a little.

And after, I’m starting to feel better now, and as I’m feeling better, I’m noticing that for two days I didn’t watch the news, I didn’t have conversations about coronavirus, and so I got corona out of my brain and now I’m here and I’m so excited about all the things I was excited about before corona entered my brain.

And I’m like, okay, so I’m going to do a little bit of teaching and educating and coaching on what we’re going through now to help you all manage your brain, but I’m also going to go back to business as usual. That, to me, feel the most compelling for me, and I’m going to work on some things I’m really excited about.

I started writing the first chapter of a book I’m creating for a live event that I’m going to do for 2K people. Once the corona stuff passes and we can travel again, I’m going to do a live event for 2K. It’s going to be so fun. And I’m also coming up with some new trainings, some new webinars.

I outlined a whole new webinar that I want to do. Super excited. So I’m going to do a whole podcast about this. Just don’t forget, don’t lose yourself in the group think that’s happening right now, not that it’s wrong. Just don’t lose yourself. You can be a part of it, you can be a powerful mover in the conversation. We’re going to talk about that today. Selling in a crisis.

But don’t lose yourself. What were you excited about before all of this? Before corona happened. So the other thing I want to say before we get started is whether you’re listening to this right as it comes out or five years from now, what we’re going to talk about today is selling in a crisis, will be useful for any crisis that comes up in the future.

Looking back, it’s going to be so interesting, looking back and once we have hindsight like, will it have been in history considers as big of a crisis as it feels right now. It’s so interesting to think about. Maybe not actually at all, but these are the things I think about.

But if you’re listening to it five years from now, no matter what this ended up being, don’t skip past this episode because you’re not in a crisis, because selling in a crisis is no different than selling any other time of year. It’s the same thing. It’s just going to reveal all of the stuff. It just makes everything heightened.

So selling in a crisis is only different because the selling is heightened, but it is the same as selling any other time of the year. But I believe as life coaches specifically, that in any crisis, the why to be selling is just so much stronger. There are people to help.

Right now in the world, I’m going to use this specific crisis, but I think this will always apply to any crisis that ever happens. You could have applied this to 9/11. We could have applied this to SARS. It can be applied to anything coming up in the future, the financial crisis of 2008. Any past crisis, any future crisis, this could be applied.

There are three problems that happen in a crisis. For us it’s a pandemic right now, and as life coaches, we can solve two of those problems. There are three, and we can solve two of them. The why is so much stronger than ever. So here are the three problems.

There’s the physical problem. Right now, we’re in a pandemic and people are getting sick and there is a physical problem of not enough supplies, not enough hospital beds. So they’re telling us. I’m going to just assume those things are Cs for this conversation. I don’t think we need to argue that.

Then there is a fear problem. The problem of people fearing being sick and fearing all of the other things that come along with a physical issue. So a lot of people are experiencing distrust about the quarantine, about supplies, about their family members getting sick, about trips being canceled, about life as they know it being canceled, about kids being home that weren’t supposed to be home.

There’s so many fears right now. It’s like we have the coronavirus itself affecting people physically, and then the coronavirus affecting people’s brains and consuming them. The fear that is being created in the news. And without spending a ton of time on that, I just want to say that the job of the news is to keep people watching, to keep people fearing, so they keep tuning in.

So I have just been watching the news and watching what is circumstance and watching what is thought, and what is circumstance and thought and then exaggerated thought. It’s so fascinating. The mayor of Kentucky was on the TV talking about there are thousands of people dying, and it was just so dramatic.

And then I looked it up and it was 4800 people, compared to eight billion people in the world. So just notice that the fear problem is being exasperated by the way that people talk about the physical problem.

And then there is an economic problem. We are in a time where so many businesses are being forced to close and much of our workforce is not being able to work, and the stock market apparently is dropping. So fascinating because I don’t invest in stocks at all. We only invest in my business because it returns so much greater every single time.

My fiancé invests in the stock market so he talks about it. But I don’t, so I’m like, so fascinating to watch his reaction and then me not have a reaction at all because I don’t even choose to invest my money that way, which totally goes to show that it’s a thought problem, even though it feels like an economic problem.

But we can say that even that can be a C, where the stock market is going down. People are out of work. For this argument, we’re just going to give all of these things as Cs in a way, as circumstances. So we don’t need to spend all day arguing with them. I’m just going to talk about selling during them.

So we have the ability to affect two of these. As life coaches, we can help the fear problem, we can help the economic problem. Actually, I just want to offer – I heard this story and it was so powerful. I was talking to my sister who’s a nurse practitioner the other day. She actually works on the ICU unit.

So she is actively seeing corona patients being incubated and all of that. So she’s the one that does that as an NP.  And one of her friends, the other day, she was on her way to work and one of her friends created a care package for all of the nurses of like, these travel-sized candy pieces and then she called dentist offices that were being forced now to close and asked them to donate the proper masks that have even the shields that nurses are running out of.

And so she went and collected them and delivered them to my sister to take to her hospital in Indiana. And even if we’re not nurses and doctors, we can actually contribute to the physical problem too when you’re willing to think about it and see how you can contribute.

But as life coaches, we can contribute to the fear problem and the economic problem. So let’s talk about the economic problem for a second because that is so contributed to the selling. I was talking to my fiancé about this and as a leader, as a business who is already virtual, I really believe the best thing that I can do is keep my workers working.

The best thing that I can do is make sure my contractors and my employees aren’t contributing to the economic lack, that they are still working. I can keep people working by keeping my business bringing in revenue.

I love that my employees and my contractors don’t have to fear not working in this time and not getting paid. I love that my business can continue to provide for them and they can continue to spend as usual as well. They can keep the economy going.

And for me, because I help life coaches make money specifically, I can keep as many life coaches that work with me making money and contributing to the economy as possible. For every dollar that comes in and goes out, the economic problem is less.

One of my colleagues in my mastermind posted something Russell Brunson said, which I also love. He said the best thing we can do to help the economy is keep selling. The economy suffers when money isn’t being exchanged. We need people to keep buying and selling things now more than ever, and I think that is so true.

And I think – we’re going to talk about this in a second, the haters that will try to shame you for selling during a crisis. But I think that the people selling right now, everyone selling anything at all, even laser hair removal. The people who are selling right now are solution-focused. The people buying right now are solution-focused.

I think people are searching right now from a salesperson’s point of view, I’ve been thinking about this. People are searching right now with the predominant thought, “What can I buy right now to make this easier?” All across the board.

I was giving my sister book recommendations. She went to target.com and ordered them right away. I am buying a Peloton and some home gym equipment and I ordered some books. People are buying supplements, they’re buying games, education, puzzles.

Whatever makes it easier, whatever will get people through this. That’s the thought. What can I buy right now to help me get through this? What can I buy to make my life easier? What can I buy to make my life more comfortable?

But news flash – sorry, I don’t mean to be yelling at you. I get very passionate about it. This is how people think always. Remember, selling in a crisis is really like selling always. The world just keeps moving. People are always thinking. That’s what motivates every person to buy. What can I buy to make my life easier? What can I buy to make my life more comfortable? What can I buy to guarantee me this result? What can I buy? How can I solve this problem?

That is the way we’re always thinking. It’s the way we buy all of our things. So you can sell right now in this time more than ever. You can step up and sell harder than ever before, or you can be like, part of the world and be jobless and contribute to the downfall of the economy.

But unlike the rest of the world, it will be by choice. And just make sure you feel good about that. Think of the workers who weren’t given a choice. If they could make money and be at home behind a computer, even if it felt uncomfortable and even if people told them that they shouldn’t be selling and they had all these thoughts and opinions, when they’re stressed and worried about having no money coming in, do you think they’d overcome those fears and make an offer and go out into the world and sell?

Hell yes. So personally, I want my decision to work to be in part to honor those who can’t, to keep money circulating in the world, contributing to the economy. Now, you can decide not to work and it’s totally fine. But just make sure you know that it is a choice and know how lucky, how fortunate, how amazing it is.

I don’t love the word lucky, but we’re just going to go with it, how amazing it is that you have the ability, the opportunity that you have a business that’s already set up and ready to go for this specific thing. You already have a virtual opportunity pre-done. You’re not having to scramble to come up with things.

I’m watching gyms scramble to come up with virtual classes and hospitals even interacting and holding meetings virtually. Everyone trying to figure out classrooms, figuring out how to keep teachers teaching and students learning. Everyone’s having to scramble to figure it out, but you don’t have to because you already have the opportunity to do so and you can contribute to one of the biggest problems that we may face right now just by showing up and just by selling.

You have that choice and it’s just such an incredible choice to have. The other thing to think about, because remember I said selling in a crisis is just like selling any other time of the year, think about this; people are spending money. People are spending money on coaching who aren’t life coaches.

A lot of you think, “Stacey, you make money because you sell business coaching to life coaches and it’s a money exchange.” No, people are spending money on life coaching who aren’t life coaches who aren’t seeking business coaching. Don’t let that thought hold you back.

People are actually spending money on things that have nothing to do with corona. So one of my clients, Kristen Parker posted in our 2K group, she said, “PS, for anyone doubting that people want coaching right now, I just had a consult with an ER nurse. We have a follow up scheduled for Friday so I’ll report back if it’s a yes or a no, but this is helpful for us all to know I think, at least for me. Not everyone has lost their jobs. Not everyone is making less money. Not everyone is spending less money. Everyone needs some kind of help. Some people are actively looking for that help.”

She said, “I know a lot of the coaching this week has been reinforcing the abundance mindset. Hearing what this woman is dealing with was so helpful because none of it had to do with coronavirus. Repeat: she’s an ER nurse. She wants help with job satisfaction, career direction, and self-trust, and a sense of peace and being able to process emotions. People will have all of these problems and they’re looking for help. Coach on, coaches.”

Yes, isn’t that fascinating? She had a consult with an ER nurse who didn’t mention coronavirus at all. She wanted job satisfaction and career direction and self-trust and a sense of peace with being able to process emotions. How could she have that conversation with all this happening in the world and not mention it?

Think about that because that’s not necessarily people’s number one pain point right now. So also make sure you’re not assuming that that is people’s number one pain point. My client Jill Byrant said, “I signed a new client today. She paid in full and she’s a travel agent, y’all.

Think how easy it might have been to believe the thoughts, “The travel industry is going to hell in a handbasket. No one in the travel industry will have money to hire a life coach.” Or, “The stock market tanked so of course people don’t have money for life coaching.” They absolutely do,” she says, “and we are the ones to show up and provide it for them. Now is the best time to be a life coach. People need us more than ever and I am more grateful than ever that this is my calling.”

Yes Jill. This is so good. In fact, here’s what I will say, a lot of travel agents, on this specific topic, are not losing money. People aren’t canceling travel. They’re rescheduling it. I had five trips planned that have been canceled so far.

I had a trip to Vegas, I had a trip to New York, I had a trip to Scottsdale, and I have – okay, so maybe four. And then I have a trip to California. Actually five. So a trip to California, that’s my wedding, and a trip to Bora Bora, my honeymoon. None of those are getting canceled. They’re all getting rescheduled.

We’ve already spent the money. We’re not asking for our money back. We’re simply rescheduling. So all of their clients that have been spending money are simply rescheduling and we’re still actively booking travel. My fiancé just booked travel for much later in the year and he was like, “Yeah, I’m booking it. If I find out later that we have to reschedule, we will, but we’re still going to take those trips.”

And I don’t think we’re unlike most people in the world. Travel is still going to happen as soon as we can. I was just telling my brother-in-law that I’m like, “Listen, I think what’s going to happen is we’re all going to be quarantined and itching to get out of the house. So the moment we can, credit cards are going to go swipe, swipe, swipe, as soon as we can. People are going to want to get out and get moving again.”

So these are all powerful thoughts to think when you’re selling during this time. Okay, my client Erin just posted, “Just a little extra love and encouragement for you all today. I have signed two new clients in the past few days. Both work in businesses that they can’t do remotely. Both are off work without pay for two to three weeks minimum, and money wasn’t plentiful to begin with.

To echo what Stacey and many of the other coaches have been saying, people need us now more than ever, and showing up in service not only feels good, but it serves people and lets your clients know you’re the perfect coach for them before they get on the phone. I’m so grateful for this process and to all of you out there helping people manage their minds right now.”

My client Said Curry posted, “FYI, I coached a client on her relationship and weight loss for over an hour last night. Not once did she bring up the coronavirus.” Listen y’all, people want coaching on relationships and weight loss. People want coaching on career satisfaction. People want to buy laser hair removal.

I get laser hair removal and I’m on their email list and they’re closed down but they’re still selling laser hair removal. And you know why they’re still selling it? Because people still want it. Think about this. The world is still moving, even though for you it might feel like it’s not. It is still moving forward.

So whether you’re selling to contribute to the three problems that we face right now in a pandemic, or whether you need to remember that the whole world isn’t consumed by the pandemic and still wants things for themselves, either way, make sure that you are keeping on keeping on with the selling. People want to spend money right now.

I think it reassures them that life is still moving on, to be able to think forward, to be able to continue to focus on things that were meaningful to them before and are meaningful during, and will be meaningful after a pandemic. So either keep on keeping on with what you’re offering that has nothing to do with corona, and don’t feel pressured to jump on the corona train.

Just remember who your client is. Or jump in and help solve two of the problems that we can solve as life coaches. Either way, the answer is sell and keep selling and maybe sell more than you ever have been because there’s never been a greater time.

Okay, so here’s what I’m going to do. I had a lot of other points for this podcast about selling in a crisis, and I think that each one can have their due time and respect given and help you keep selling. So instead of having one really long podcast where I talk about all these points about selling in a crisis, I’m going to break them up and I’m going to offer them in little chunks to keep you motivated and keep you going so you can listen to them as you go.

And we will walk through this selling in a crisis together, and my goal for you is that you make more money on the other side. Alright, so keep listening, keep tuning in, and we will break this apart. Seven or eight points, and we’re going to break all apart and discuss them all as their own individual topic and keep you making money.

Now, if you are not part of 2K, make sure you join, especially if you’re listening live. You’re up to date, you’re currently listening as this podcast drops because we are doing extra coaching calls in 2K as well to be very focused on your selling, whether you’re selling towards the helping people deal with the coronavirus pandemic, or if you’re still selling and helping people with the things that they wanted before, during, and after the pandemic.

Whichever boat you’re in, we are keeping our 2K conversations focused on your goals. We’re keeping our 2K conversations focused on creating money and managing your mind in order to do so, in order to be a leader in this industry and in this world during this time. And so we’re going in there every weekday, we’re coaching, and we are keeping people empowered.

The replays are being uploaded immediately, as fast as possible, as fast as Zoom allows us, and we’re having powerful conversations. We’re posting about people making money. And for me, that’s been one of the most powerful things is every time a client posts that they’re still making money, it just reinforces my belief of selling in a crisis and that we can all keep making money and we can all keep contributing to the economy, and that people still want coaching, and people want coaching on things that aren’t even coronavirus.

Every time someone posts, it contributes to that thought process that serves us all so much as life coaches. So make sure if you’re not in 2K yet, there has never been a better time to have support and help with how to sell properly and raise your conversion rates, but also how to keep motivated to keep making offers and to keep serving people during this time. Alright, I’ll see you on the next Selling in Crisis podcast, part two.

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