Ep #66: Facebook Group Strategies & Live Coaching

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. Today we’re going to talk about Facebook group strategies. Y’all are always asking me for these, so we’re going to talk about it because we’re home quarantining now and this is the perfect time for you to figure it out and since you can’t go out to networking events out in the world.

But here’s what I want to offer if you have thoughts about social media, if you have thoughts about Facebook, coach yourself on them because now is the time to get virtual. You ready to go? Let’s do it.

So here’s how I want to talk about this. I am going to break it down into other people’s Facebook groups and then I’m going to talk about if you have your own or create your own Facebook group and the different strategies and mindsets. And then if you stay to the end of the episode, I’m also going to include two snippets from – not really snippets, but two live coaching sessions I did with my 2K students.

In 2K, we do live group coaching every week. Right now, we’re doing it every day to help people manage their brains through the quarantine. But I’m going to include two of those. I think it’ll be really helpful to see me actually coach people live on it because I think it’s not something that you – you just have to get down and dirty. You got go get in the arena to figure it out.

You can’t just learn it intellectually. I’m going to help you today, but you are going to have to get out and do it and again, the thought you should choose about this is, “Now is the perfect time. This is the perfect time to get over any thoughts I have about social media, embrace the fact that we have it, what an opportunity we have in this world, and it’s a free way for me to connect to millions of people all over the world right now in a time where people want connection more than anything.”

So those are the thoughts I want to encourage you to choose. So let’s dive in. Let’s talk about other people’s Facebook group, and this is the first thing I want you to know; other people’s Facebook groups are other people’s groups. You have to remember someone else owns that group and you are going into someone else’s group and their audience.

So they have spent time and energy marketing and making offers to get people in that group. There’s a purpose for it. They’ve done the legwork. They did not do it for you to get clients. They are not your charity funnel. You have to be respectful of their rules.

You need to go into every group you go into, paid or free, the first thing you should do is read the Facebook rules and coach yourself if you have any issues with any of the rules. None of them should be a problem. They’ve created a space for you to come meet people and engage with people. It should not be difficult or drama-filled to abide by those rules.

So in 2K, we have a no selling policy. It’s zero tolerance. If you buy 2K to go in and have access to my clients, which people have tried to do, if that’s what we even think that you’re doing, you get refunded immediately and kicked out. We do not play and we have done it many times.

Because coaches pay me to learn from me and my 200K students. Not to be sold to. That’s not the group. I feel like the moment everybody starts selling and people feel like they’re being sold, they stop being vulnerable in my group, in my specific group, and they don’t feel free to talk about their problems because they don’t want to be sold to.

And I spend $10,000 a month on Facebook ads to bring clients in, on a low month. Like right now we’re in a low period of spending while we rehab my account and we’re spending 10K a month. Higher months are more like $20,000 and $30,000 a month to bring clients into my paid group to create a safe environment to talk about everything coaching and making money and selling and to get help from people who are paid to be helping in that group, in that course that my clients purchased.

So you need to think about that when you are in free and paid groups. It’s not your client funnel. It’s not your way of getting clients. It’s not your client resource. It’s not your marketing method. Some of my students in 2K will go into Facebook groups and they post in 2K and feel mad if they get kicked out of a group and they want to blame the person who runs it and call them scarce in their thinking, that they’re being bitchy and kind of talk bad about them.

And I want you to think, if you ever feel that way, no, you’re the person being scarce. If you get kicked out, you need to take a serious look at why that could be. Who are you being in that situation? Were you being honorable coach to coach? Were you being respectful? Were you honoring boundaries? Were you behaving the way that you would want people to behave in your group?

This is the best way ever to interact in Facebook groups and meet people and be a source of value to the world and serve is to do in a Facebook group onto others the way you would want them to do onto you. Just show up the way that you would want people to show up for you. It’s the easiest rule. It will save you so much drama.

Now, don’t worry. I’m also going to tell you how I used Facebook groups to grow my business. But it’s not what you think and I felt that it was really important that I started with the golden rule first because I see so many people break it all of the time, and they get mad at the group owner for enforcing a boundary for their group and their audience and their clients.

It baffles me every time. So I’m going to tell you how I use Facebook groups, but again, it’s not what you think. So I didn’t sign a ton of clients from other people’s Facebook groups. It’s just like, networking and the purpose of networking. To become, to self-identify as a coach, to learn how to explain coaching, to get to practice, to learn how to engage with other humans and not be a weirdo, to feel connected to the result that you are trying to create always.

Every time you talk about coaching, think about coaching, every time, you are putting that energy in your brain, in your body, and you’re working to create that result by the way that you show up. I use them to offer value. Not so that the value comes back from the group specifically.

It’s not like I wrote a post and I’m like, okay, where’s that return from that value? Remember that the return on your time that you invest and the value you give is none of your business. You just want to give it everywhere. You want to be adding to your value bank all of the time. Facebook groups are a great way to do that.

You can add value by contributing to conversations, but notice if you’re contributing from a place of wanting to sell coaching. A lot of my clients in 2K, they don’t even see it. They don’t think that’s what they’re doing, but then when we pick it apart and we coach on it, they’re like, oh yeah, I was definitely trying to get clients there.

You have to be self-aware. You have to catch yourself if that’s what you’re trying to do. You have to notice how you feel when you’re doing it. That will always be a great indicator. Anything that you do from trying to “get a client” will come off sales-y. And I don’t want you to get discouraged about this, especially if you’re doing it now or if you feel this way. This is just your chance to figure out how not to be sales-y.

We have a module in 2K called How Not to be Sales-y. But it’s like, I want you to think about this. When you have no clients and you see a group of people that could potentially be your clients, especially if you’re selling general life coaching and you’re like, everyone could be my clients. Your brain, when it’s desperate for clients, it’s like, “Oh my god, clients, there, there, there, oh my god, clients everywhere.”

And it has a little bit of a freak out. So you can get either too excited or too discouraged. You would not be in that energy if you weren’t feeling lack about clients. If you saw yourself as valuable and wanted and needed, your energy would be completely different, even if you were in a room full of potential ideal clients. So your mindset when you’re networking in person and online is everything.

You can’t be bringing desperate coach energy. You got to leave that behind. Every time you walk out of your house or every time you walk into an online room, because that’s what a Facebook group is. It’s an online room. This is the thing that you want to focus on. You want to focus on engagement when you’re in a Facebook group.

You want to be a part of the group. Don’t be a weirdo. This is a rule we have in 2K. We talk about it all the time. It’s such a simple rule and it’s so easy to understand what it means. Just don’t be a weirdo and you’ll be fine. Act like a normal human that isn’t selling something.

Choose groups that you love that feel fun. I do this with live networking events too. I choose things that I enjoy that feel fun that I would want to be a part of. Choose people who lead groups that you’re super into, that you really dig this person. Go in with the desire to connect, not to sell.

I know I’ve told this story before but I went to a networking event once with 500 people, and the leader before we started, he asked everyone to raise their hand if they were there to sell something and everybody raised their hand. And then he asked everyone to raise their hand if they were there to buy something and one dude raised his hand. Poor guy. One guy.

Only one guy was there to participate in an exchange of value. So you have to remember, if you’re only in there to sell, you’re not really in there to exchange value. You’re not in there to participate, you’re not in there to receive value. You’re just in there to try to give it and really, to get it back for yourself in selling coaching, but you’re not really playing the game.

It’s so important that you’re playing the game. You got to be all in with just I enjoy being here for me. I don’t need to get a client to want to be in this group. Now, another thing you want to focus on when you’re engaging is don’t coach people who haven’t asked for you to coach them.

If someone asks for help, give it. 100% don’t hold back. Give it all. Just be very careful. I like to play with the rule that I don’t coach unless someone asks to be coached. And sometimes a way that I will do that if I want to contribute something and I know I could really help is I’ll say, “Listen, I don’t know if you’re open to this, but if I were offering this to my client, this is what I would say. Feel free to take it or leave it.”

That’s the way I show up. It’s like, everything is for you. All in the highest good for everyone. Serving, playing, but also none of it matters and take it or leave it, and I’m just here being who I always am. That’s the energy that I bring.

But don’t try and help them a little bit and then get them on a consult. Just help. This is what I did. I loved the groups I was in. I participated in them as a participant, I shared, I was vulnerable, I played in the group, I offered help when people asked. But I actually gave them all the help. All of it. I didn’t hold any of it back, I didn’t try to give them a piece of it. Not sort of help and then try to get them on a side conversation out of the group.

I gave them all of the help with no expectation of return. My goal was to be the most valuable player in that group in the arena. Not to get clients, but to grow my belief in my value because I know value always comes back. And I always wanted to be the most engaged as a participant. I wanted the group leader to feel great that I was in their group.

I would also shine light to them. For example, one group I was in, it was like a podcast group for someone who had a podcast and I would always reference her podcast, and I would reference her teachings. I was there to also be a great student of hers.

Now, people did friend me from outside of the group and some people would join my Facebook group. A few people became my clients. But it wasn’t like it was the main source of my clients or even close. It was just my main source of connection to people and connection to showing up in my business.

And mostly what it did was it helped me manage my brain. Facebook groups are a neutral circumstance, and then there is your thoughts and your feelings and your behaviors and the results all of that creates. One of my main thoughts that I would choose deliberately was, “I want to have fun.” And another one was, “I’m in this group for me.”

Think about the feeling “I’m in this group for me” brings you, versus, “I’m in this group to get clients without getting caught, without getting in trouble or kicked out.” Think about that. I’m in this group for me. Those thoughts made me attractive to other people. I want to have fun, I’m in this group for me.

You would think what you’d have to have to be attractive to other people is like, thoughts about selling, but it’s the opposite. “I’m in this group for me, I want to have fun” made me so attractive to other people. It was like the byproduct of me having fun and playing full out as a participant and not relying on that group as an income source was it brought in income.

But it wasn’t like, okay, I’m going to try to trick the universe. I know that I have to just be having fun and be in there for me, but really, I’d really like for it to be an income source but I’m going to pretend to serve, I’m going to pretend to give value, but really, I’m expecting income to come in from it. That doesn’t work.

And how I know some of y’all are doing this is you like to set aside time to go into these groups and you schedule it, like going in to give value into groups. I never did that. That felt like a marketing tactic to me. I never scheduled group participation. I don’t want you guys to have that motive.

I also wasn’t in a ton of groups. Some of you all are in so many groups it’s almost like you’re a part of a networking circle. There are actual live networking circles like that too where you guys just all go to the same events and you all network with the same people. It’s like, don’t do any of that.

I found a few I loved and felt connected to and I used that group to experience community, again, for myself, while I’m shut up in my house all day. Not in quarantine, just being an entrepreneur. Now, while I was in those groups, I did offer value in them and on my own Facebook page. Sometimes I would even share something that I wrote on my page if I thought it would be helpful to the group, but again, it would be from service.

Like oh, I think this would be really helpful. How you know if you have an attached agenda is when you do this, if you kind of panic when people don’t participate. Because these groups, a lot of times when you have a lot of people participating in groups, you’ll either get a lot of interaction on some posts and then none on others. It just depends on the algorithm of the group, what other posts are trending in the group.

And I never went back in to analyze it, like, were people commenting, were people not commenting? I never made it mean anything about me. When you’re just in the arena playing and having fun, you don’t even think about that stuff. The other thing I never did was I never did call to actions in other people’s groups.

So I never told people to message me or DM me. I always kept conversations on the page. Again, out of respect. If they wanted to take the initiative first, that’s fine, but I kept everything on the group page to be respectful of the person in that group. There was no need to take it off the page. If I’m willing to just give all of my expertise and all of the value, if it’s not a marketing tactic or a sales tactic, there’s no need to take it off the page.

Now, what’s interesting is another belief I had that allowed me to feel so confident to not need to have that call to action is I really believed that people, when they want coaching, will reach out to get it. They just will. And because of that, I just never felt like I had to be hounding CTAs, on calls to actions, on other people’s page or my own.

Some of you are like, “But I have to be making offers, Stacey. You say we have to be making offers all of the time.” And here’s what I want you to know; you are. You are making them with every offer of value that you contribute.

I used hard offers only when I was like, really feeling them. Reminds me of that song. Who sings it? “I’m feeling myself.” I don’t remember what it’s from. Is it Beyoncé? I don’t even know. But when I was really engaged with it and connected to it and I felt really strongly in that call to action in making an offer, I would. Otherwise, my offer was just here is my offering of value.

Remember, when you’re not desperate, when you are feeling confident and sufficient, people will be impacted by that energy. If you want to tell them that they can DM you to find out more or they can access a freebie you’ve created and you want to give a link, great.

But don’t get caught in those details. A lot of you get really caught in exactly what do I say at the end and exactly what conversation if I have if they reach out to me. What I want you to do is get caught up in spending time thinking about your brain and how you want to be thinking and feeling when you’re putting yourself out into the world.

Okay, so let’s talk about your Facebook group because you can go in and interact with other people’s groups, and you can also have your own. And there are three things that you want to focus on when you have a group. You want to focus on creating community and engagement. Getting people to engage with you and getting people to engage with each other.

You want to be contributing value all of the time and making your group the most valuable group to be in that people want to be checking that page every single day. And then that’s where you want to be selling and giving your offers and giving the opportunity for people to work with you and selling people on the reason why they want to work with you beyond that free group.

When I had a group, I did a lot of selling in my group, and I also did a lot of free value. But one of the things I did is I kept my selling mostly to my group. So I wanted to get people on my Facebook page to engage with me in a way that felt safe to them, and then give them the option to, what I call opt in for more into my group.

So if they say hey, I want to join your group, or if I say hey, if you want to join my Facebook group, I do more of – whatever. It’s been years since I had one. But if you want to join my group and you want to get five more marketing tips, I give them daily. Or if you want to get coaching, we do live Q&As or whatever you’re selling in that moment, you can drop a gif and I’ll add you to my group, or here’s the link to add to my group or to join my group.

And then I would continue to give value in my group, but then I would also sell because the people that had joined my group were at a different level of saying like, I want to know more, by being in my group. So on your Facebook page, this is the other thing I used to think about is like, on my personal page, especially if you’re using a personal Facebook page, that’s where friends and family are there, that’s where friends are connecting.

They haven’t opted in for you to sell to them there. They’ve opted in for you to be a friend and to be a human there. So I used to give enough value, a mix of personal engagement and value and then a couple of offers here and there and make sure everyone knew where my group was, and then get people into my group and that’s where I did the majority of me being a business leader and having a solution that I offer and selling that solution.

I did all of that in that group because it’s just another level of opting in of a client saying I want this, I want to be sold to. The other thing about Facebook groups that I encourage you to do, especially if you have your own, but even in other people’s is I treat everyone like my clients. And I also treat everyone like my friends.

It’s just how I show up in the world. I create authority and comfort at the same time everywhere I go because it’s just who I am. I treat everyone with a level of familiarity that is comforting to new people when they meet you. I just treat everybody the same, everybody like they’re my best friend. I talk to everybody with a certain level of comfort.

I carried thoughts with me that supported that. So the thoughts that I would use to create that comfort are, “These people like me. They want to hear what I have to say. I like them. I want to hear what they have to say. I am an authority. I am a student.” All of those thoughts served me. I was just creating connections everywhere I went.

Meeting people in person and online and in groups. Online as in on my Facebook page and in private groups. Giving value and having fun on Facebook. Inviting people to my group or to my webinar, to my five-day training, and then selling to them there, putting zero pressure on anyone to buy, creating comfort, familiarity, authority and friendships everywhere I went.

Being valuable and a coach everywhere I went. Those were my models. The value bank eventually, when you show up that way, tips in your favor somehow in some way. At one point people started tagging people in my posts, sharing my posts, adding people to my group, inviting people to my trainings, telling people about me for me.

So right now, we’re at a weird time in the world where we’re experiencing a world pandemic. And we’re all, for the first time in our lives, quarantining. So now more than ever, it’s really important to create thoughts that allow you to engage online and in a powerful way, but also always.

I just love social media because it’s such a great free way to meet people and just connect with humans, and I want you to think about that. Whether you’re networking in person after this pandemic is over and we’re allowed to leave our houses, or during a world pandemic, if there’s ever another one, no matter what the circumstance, online or in person, just connect with humans.

Keep it simple. Keep it coming from love and service and not trying to get clients and graspy-ness. You have to believe they will come. You have to believe that. They will come.

Okay, so those are the rules. They’re super simple. In other people’s groups and your own group. They’re not difficult, I promise. But here’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something fun. Recently, I have done some coaching on interacting in Facebook groups with my students in 2K during our live group coaching calls.

And I wanted to share those at the end of this podcast because I think there’s something that you don’t get intellectually all of the way until you start doing it, and in these two coaching examples, in these coaching moments, I coach on two major issues I see people face.

Getting discouraged when they don’t get it right the very first time and they don’t make use of every lead that comes their way, and then being too perfectionist with their engagement. So, getting discouraged when people finally do reach out to you from groups and you get it wrong and you ruin that connection, and being too perfectionist with your engagement so you never create connections in groups and make it a really big deal.

So we’re going to include those at the end of this podcast. If you want to keep listening, stay tuned, and enjoy.

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Speaker 1: So, I did – yesterday I did a Facebook post in a group where I shared my story. And a lot of people reached out about it. A lot of people were like, “Oh my god, this is so amazing.” And some people have even reached out and DM’d me like, “I really need your help,” and stuff like that. So I’m like, of course, let’s get on the phone together. On the phone, we can totally chat about all of it.

And I’ve sent messages back to that effect to everyone who reached out, especially as a message. And none of them have actually said yes or taken any step towards that. And so, I’m just wondering, what do I do now?

Stacey: Okay, so, you made a post and it was like, this is all about me and this is what I do and this is my story. And then people messaged you and said what?

Speaker 1: So, it wasn’t really – I guess it was about what I do, but I really just did a hero’s journey story. And I mentioned in it that I am a life coach sort of at the end, like if there’s something that you’re struggling with, reach out to me. And so they messaged me and some of them have told me about their problem and stuff like that.

And so, what I replied, I sent a voice message and I just basically said thank you for sharing that and we can totally get on the phone and we can talk all about that. I mean, I don’t think I said if we’re a good fit for working together, but I told them we can get on the phone and we can have a consult.

Stacey: Okay, and then they didn’t respond.

Speaker 1: It was just like, read message.

Stacey: Okay, so here is my hunch, but I don’t know if it’s true, but I have coaching either way. But this is my hunch. My hunch is your message was, like, you know, if you are experiencing something similar, reach out to me. And in their brain, they were like, “Oh yeah, I get to come tell you my story and then you’re going to give me feedback and coaching.” And then what you gave them as an option for a consult.

So what they were thinking is, “If I message her and I tell her my story, she’s going to…” because people still do this to me. They send me messages and they’re like, can you help me out with this? I have people that ask me if I can look over their website. Like, they Facebook message me, can you look over my website real quick and let me know what your thoughts are? No. Not even my clients, “Would you just mind giving me feedback?” That’s what they’re thinking.

And here’s what I want to offer is that you can be responsible for what they’re thinking and the language that you use in your posts. However, I don’t know that what you did was wrong because it depends on if it’s not your Facebook group, you may not be allowed to make super-direct offers like that. You might not be able to say, you know, this is what I teach in my consults, I help people do X, Y, Z, if you’re interested in learning more about a consult with me, message me. You may not be able to say that in a Facebook group.

So, if you have to deliver a message that way and you have the time, you could do a little back and forth. Like, this is not a problem at all, or you know, you may not say that depending on what they say. But you could be like, I see this a lot with my clients, one of the things I share with them is this, this, and this. Here’s what I want to offer.

And then if you go out and try this, come back if you want to dive deeper, we can do a consult. So you might be able to give them a little bit of value, which is what they’re expecting, and then give that value and say, if you would like more I’m happy to jump on a call. I do consults where we do X, Y, Z, you love with this, they’re completely free, let me know if you want to jump on a call. But you give them something.

It’s just like you’ve invited them to do a private transformation ahead of time, if you have the time to do that. But you just want to be careful about your wording. In a Facebook group, if you’re going to be giving value, you want to make sure you’re following the ruled, you’re not breaking other people’s rules.

Now, if they’re like, it’s a free-for-all promotion, then I would just be more clear in your language about specifically what they’re doing if they reach out to you. But my guess is they were all very confused, they thought they were reaching out to you, that you were going to give them some value. Instead you sold them on a consult. They didn’t want a consult. They wanted value ahead of time, and so they just didn’t respond.

Speaker 1: Okay, so what should I do now? Do I just leave that alone?

Stacey: Yeah. You guys, this is my stand for everything always. I always just leave it alone. Like, in my brain, if I fuck up the consult in any way shape or form, if I mess up the sales process, I don’t go back and try to fix that. I learn from hindsight and then I go apply that to the next person I meet.

The reason I do that is because I’m so abundant in my thinking about how many people are available in the world to sell coaching to. I’m like, next. I messed that up. Because the way that I see it, I think about the customer. The customer who’s had a bad sales experience isn’t going to turn that around if the salesperson comes back and says, “Actually, I know I gave you a bad sales experience, one that you didn’t want.” That’s what we’re going to define a bad sales experience as, just one that they didn’t want or they weren’t expecting. “I know I did that, but round two, I’m going to do better.”

If you think about the customer perspective, they’re never going to be onboard with that Once you bur that bridge, once you cross the line of selling into a space where you sold in an uninviting way, once you’ve done that, you can’t go back. And I believe there are so many people in the world available for coaching that we don’t even need to.

So, some of you guys come to me and you’re like, you know, I was doing this consult with this persona and I said this and then they said this and then I didn’t know what to say but I’ve figured it out, should I reach back out to them? And I’m like, no. Learn for the next person.

The only reason you would need to reach back out to them is because of your fear of I missed these opportunities and they’re so rare and they’re never coming back along and I’ve got to make use of all of them that come my way. And instead, just apply this moving forward.

So, what you do moving forward is you decide, can I make a hard offer in this group without breaking the group’s rules? Or do I need to make the exact offer I made and have the exact same thing happen and just handle it differently. Does that make sense? What you did isn’t necessarily wrong. It might have been the perfect way to interact in a Facebook group. The difference is you just want to get them messaging you, give them a little bit of transformation ahead of time, tell them if they want more they can get on a consult with you. Keep it very brief and casual and see what they say.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Stacey: Because remember that these people are also going to be following you on your page now. So, some people need to see an offer 16 times before they take you up on it. So they saw this offer. Just because they didn’t respond, doesn’t mean they won’t. They might start following you and they might see you give value ahead of time on your own page over the next four or five weeks, and then they might come back along and be like, “Hey I’ve been following you and I really would like to do that consult, do you still have them available?” What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1: That sounds a lot better than the thoughts I was having, which was like, well you haven’t gotten to the consult modules yet, maybe you weren’t ready. Or I’ve been setting things up, I keep thinking I have to reinstate my Acuity account or my Zoom account or something.

Stacey: You’re doing it perfectly. What if that were true?

Speaker 1: That’s a good question.

Stacey: Like, what if this were the right way? A lot of you guys fail in your marketing, like you have things like this happen where you make an offer and people reach out and then you fumble a little bit and scare them off and they don’t respond and you think you’re doing it wrong. But in actuality, what’s happening is you’re doing it right, which is the craziest mind trip ever. But the only reason I’m so amazing at selling and I know how to not scare people off in my selling is because I learned scaring people off.

I learned from taking action. I learned from putting myself out there and experimenting. It’s the only way you’ll truly ever learn. Like, you could do all the modules in 2K and never do what you did and never interact with other humans and never learn a damn thing ever.

The only way to learn is to put yourself out there. You’ve got to do the 2K process, but you’ve also got to do it putting yourself out there. And then, when you out yourself out there, you come and you go to ask a coach, you come to the life coaching calls, you go to the Facebook community and you say, “This is what happened,” and then someone can help you figure out what went wrong.

You learn in hindsight and every time you learn in hindsight you’re going to get a little bit sharper in real time. And eventually you’re going to get so sharp that you’re going to start signing clients like crazy and you won’t ever miss on your selling. There will never be a miss. You’ll be like, nailing it, nailing it, nailing it, and nailing it because you’ll learn how to do it. but you can’t learn how to do it without having had this happen.

Speaker 1: Okay, be willing to be bad, right?

Stacey: Yeah, you’ve got to be willing to be bad at all of it. You’ve got to be willing to be like, “Oops, I got too excited. I went in for the sale too soon.” Everyone gets so in their head about networking and they’re like, “I don’t know if I should make an offer in person or when should I insert my business and how should I transition the conversation?”

The only way you learn that stuff is by trial and error. You have to be willing to put it out there and see people’s responses and see what you did based on their response. That’s how I learned to pitch. I would do stuff. I would handle a heckler, someone interrupting the show and trying to ruin it, and I would handle them and I would watch the audience hate me all in one second and all walk off. And I’d be like, “Oh, that was not the way to do it.” I lost everyone. That definitely didn’t work, right? I see that I was feeling aggressive when I did it, right?

And then I’d have the same circumstance happen again and I’d be like, “Okay, so next time, I can’t be that aggressive with it.” So, this time I’m going to make a little joke. I make a little joke and then I see everyone laugh and the person shut up and I’m like, that worked, okay.

So, I just had to experiment and I learned that powerfully. I would have 100 people walk off and none of them buy. But I learned that the next 20 minutes, I’m going to make another announcement and 100 more people are going to show up. So you have to be willing to be like, I’m going to learn what I did wrong selling based on other people’s reactions and what they do and how they behave. And then I have to remember that my number one job is to meet as many people as possible so that I can always get another crowd as soon as I’m ready to try selling again.

Speaker 1: Right, okay. I feel like I was definitely making it like, oh my god, I just messed up selling to like 30 different people…

Stacey: To 30 different people… You’re like the news people with the Coronavirus. All the people. I messed up selling with all the people, or 30. Or like Whitney, I’m going to lose all the clients, or three. Why are we such exaggerators as humans?

It doesn’t even mean that we shouldn’t take note. But we have to be careful when we over-dramatize the facts. It makes us freak out more and want to have a more dramatic response that isn’t necessarily useful all of the time. So, just be careful. It’s just 30 people. There are millions of people in Facebook groups across the world.

Speaker 1: Right, okay, great. And lots more who are going to message me after hearing my story. So that’s great.

Stacey: Yeah, and you’re going to tell your story over and over and over and this is just the beginning of people messaging you. And you might still mess it up. And that’s okay. But you’re going to keep coming and getting feedback and you’re going to keep getting better and you’re going to keep paying attention to what they’re doing. If they don’t respond, it’s always because you made them uncomfortable. And that’s not a problem. You just ask yourself, how might I have made them uncomfortable?

And when you ask yourself that question with curiosity and you make yourself answer, you learn about selling. When you catastrophize, you’ve lost all of the opportunities that you were ever going to have to sell and it didn’t go well, then you didn’t have the time and the space in your brain to ask yourself from curiosity how you made them uncomfortable and what to do differently next time.

Speaker 1: Okay. Great. I’ll do the conversation with people a little bit and make my offer.

Stacey: Yes, I love it. you’re welcome.

—

Stacey: Look at you, bright ray of sunshine.

Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, my heart is racing. I feel like all the last few calls I was like, that’s exactly what I wanted to ask about.

Stacey: Perfect, so you’re going to be even more specific with something different.

Speaker 2: I have so many. So, I have been working on networking and doing about two events a week, all live. And I work at night as well. So, with having kids at home, the past few weeks I haven’t done evening events. So, I made a commitment to, this week, start doing more online networking. And I notice that I’m in these Facebook groups and I just get really – like, I feel like I’m a lurker. I feel like I just read and I’ll put a little bit of helpful…

Stacey: Let’s grab a model. This is super helpful for all of you when you’re kind of trying to figure out how to explain the problem or you even may not know what the problem is, grabbing a model is one of the most important things you can do. So, when you grab a model, you can either find a result that you want to create that you have created. You can start with a thought that you know you’re thinking or that you want to think, a feeling that you know is happening, or an action that you’re taking or not taking. So, in this case, we’re going to grab the model where in the action line you’re lurking. So what do you do? What’s the lurking behavior?

Speaker 2: Okay, so for instance, there will be someone posting and I’ll read all the post and I’ll read all the other comments. And a lot of times I’ll think, everybody’s already said really great things. And if I do go to start writing something, I start judging it and I’m like, I don’t really know if that’s helpful or maybe I sound stupid, I don’t know. And so then I either don’t post it or I wait until the next day to post it, and then it seems like it’s already done. It’s like past being relevant. And overall, what that’s creating is I’m not doing any online networking.

Stacey: So, I would be careful because really, you guys never want to have the result that you’re trying to create online networking, which is the way you just said it. like, really, the result that’s creating is no online networking. And that will never make you money, creating the result of online networking. Online networking is just what you do to create the result of making money.

There’s a reason that’s important because whenever you’re networking, you want to know what the purpose is. What do you think the purpose of networking is?

Speaker 2: To be more articulate in how I help people.

Stacey: Okay, and why is that important?

Speaker 2: Eventually to sign clients and communicate with people. I mean, I know you say networking isn’t for the purpose of getting clients but…

Stacey: But most of you guys think that it is.

Speaker 2: I’m like, oh I have to do that.

Stacey: I mean, Stacey says that the purpose is not to sign clients, but really, let’s be honest, we’re going to sign clients…

Speaker 2: I would really like someone to just throw money at me anytime.

Stacey: Yeah, that’s what a lot of you guys do. So, you’re like, meet people and then make money. So, there’s some things in between. And the thing that I want all of you to think about is the purpose of networking, yes, is to get better at explaining what it is that you do and getting more confident in your delivery and who you are as a coach. I mean, it’s really just to become the identity of I am a coach, because selling really is a self-concept, the way that you see yourself.

If you see yourself as a coach, if you see yourself as someone who sells coaching you’re going to make money, versus if you see yourself as a beginner, someone who’s trying to network, someone who’s trying to learn, someone who wants to make money, someone who’s figuring it out, someone who hasn’t been trained. That’s going to produce a certain result, right?

But that’s the result for you. You can also be thinking about the result you’re creating for other people. Which we don’t create other people’s thoughts and feelings or their results, but it’s helpful sometimes when you believe that you do.

So, we only do it in a way where it serves us for how we want to show up. So, the result that I’m trying to create is impact. I’m trying to be out in the world and be impactful for other people. That’s my goal.

Speaker 2: That’s what I meant to say.

Stacey: That’s just what’s in between. Yes, you’re meeting people. Yes, you want to make money. But the way to make money is to impact people. And that is super subjective and it’s wide and ambiguous. And that’s why I talk about the value bank is every single time you impact someone, you’re adding to your value bank, even if it’s someone that will never, ever, ever coach with you or recommend you to somebody else. It’s still you becoming a valuable person every time you give value.

So, you go to a networking event, you can impact someone by helping them out, by showing them around, by being more confident and grabbing them and bringing them along with you. You can be at a networking event and be impactful by just your energy and the way that people feel around you. You can be impactful by the words that you say, by the knowledge that you have. You can be impactful by sitting at a roundtable and someone says what do you do and you’re like, well it’s easier for me to show you than tell you. I’m a life coach but I teach people the model or I teach them the difference between, I don’t know what other tools are out there, I only use the model. But I’m sure there are other coaching tools. And you walk them through something.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t always have to be that direct. But if you impact someone else’s day – that’s why I say you can impact the person that is checking you out at Target. You can talk about – I’ve had someone literally ask me what it is I’m buying supplies for and I’m like, “I’m a life coach.” She’s like, “Oh my gosh, tell me about that.” And I tell her about that and she’s like, “My daughter needs one. Do you have a business card?” And I gave her my business card. Is her daughter ever going to hire me? No.

Does it make me feel more like a life coach when I walk out of Target? Yes. Which means I’m going to go onto impact more and more people. The more impactful I feel, the more I’m going to show up in my business. The more I show up in my business, the more people are going to start to rely on me showing up and the more they’re going to want more of me, the more they’re going to be more apt to reach out and want to work with me. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: Yes. I think I feel like I show up like that when I’m posting on my Instagram or on my email list. I feel much more in that energy. But when I’m in a group trying to add value, then I feel like I’m just like…

Stacey: Because your thought is, “I have to try to add value,” right?

Speaker 2: Exactly, I’m air-quoting over here and that’s not a good sign.

Stacey: Right, but that’s your thought that’s creating the lurking is I’ve got to add value, or I’ve got to try to add value, what’s the thought?

Speaker 2: Like, I don’t know what to say, or I don’t want to sound stupid, I don’t want to give the wrong advice.

Stacey: I don’t want to add value wrong, that’s really what you’re thinking. I don’t want to do it wrong. I’ve got to add value in just the right way to make money.

Speaker 2: Yeah, or at least be like seen as even helpful, you know.

Stacey: So that’s the thought, I have to be seen as helpful. So, if I want to be seen as helpful, I’ve got to read all the comments and be the best comment on the thread…

Speaker 2: And at least an hour editing my little comment.

Stacey: Right, but you’re thinking, I have to be helpful, and then you’re reading the comments and because, when you think, “I have to be helpful” what you’re really thinking is, “I’m not helpful. There’s a strategy that I have to follow in order to be helpful.” Is everybody hearing this?

Like, I’m not helpful and I have to be helpful to make money, so there’s a formula, I’ve got to do it right so I’ve got to read all the comments and ‘ve got to be the most helpful comment on the thread, otherwise no one will see me and no one will pay attention to me, so no one will buy from me, so I’m going to read everybody else’s comments. But from the lens of I’m not helpful and I have to be helpful. So, I’m going to find all of the evidence that the other people are way more helpful then me. So I’m going to think there’s no point to even posting my stuff and I’m going to judge my stuff so much so that I’m so unexcited to comment that I don’t until the next day…-

Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.

Stacey: Right, and you guys, I guarantee, this is coaching everyone needs to hear. Everyone’s doing this. So, what would it be like if you just believed inherently that you are helpful, you have it inside of you, you don’t need any specific way to deliver that helpfulness, you just are, it’s always true no matter what you comment and what you do. If that were true, how would you feel going into a group online situation?

Speaker 2: Well, I probably wouldn’t hem and haw and overthink whatever I was going to post. I would just be like, if I was just having a conversation with someone in real life, it could be short, small, and I would probably commit more time to sitting down and being in a space to just be like, this is my 30 minutes of networking or being online and communicating, versus kind of being on the go and trying to think on the fly, versus like, okay I’m showing up 100% to be present.

Stacey: Would you read the other comments?

Speaker 2: Probably not much…

Stacey: No. You wouldn’t read any of the comments. You guys, this is seriously my secret sauce to networking online is I never read anybody’s comments. They’re irrelevant. I want you guys to think about this; other people’s comments, they’re irrelevant. My comment will be the most helpful. Do you know why it will be the most helpful? Because I decide that it is.

Do you know that there are people I comment in 2K in the Facebook community, I’ll go in and comment and people will, like, it goes right over their head? They just ignore my comment completely. They don’t let it sink in at all. They grab somebody else’s comment that felt more safe to them and more like they could grasp it and understand it, or they’ll try to ask a million more questions. They don’t always take my comment as the most valuable. That’s about them. It’s not because my comment is the most valuable. I’ve made the most money in this group. Of course, my comments are the most valuable.

But what determines whether they see it as valuable is their thoughts. So you have to be really careful when you’re networking that you’re not being in their thoughts and prejudging your comments based on what you think they’re going to think.

Speaker 2: And what other people on a thread will be thinking. It’s almost like an out of body experience of, like, then it becomes so uncomfortable that I’m like, I just don’t even process it all.

Stacey: Yeah, you just have to decide. My comment is clearly the most valuable, no matter what. And you’re going to have so much more fun commenting if you believe that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have actually, even within the 2K group and other groups, I’ve seen other coaches kind of step into that, and then I’m like so inspired by what they’re writing too. And just being like, wow they are coming with such different energy too.

Stacey: Because you never even know. It could be a comment that you comment on someone’s post and they completely ignore it, or they think it’s stupid and other people think it’s stupid but one person sees it and they’re like, whoa. I’ve had people hire me from comments I’ve made in groups that wasn’t even for their thread.

They were like, I kept reading your comments and I was like, this girl, I’ve got to find out more about her. So, it’s not even for – but it’s still got to be for you and then for the purpose of impacting whoever wants to be impacted by that comment. Like it’s none of your business, you just keep adding to the value bank.

You have to imagine like an actual piggybank and every time you make a comment that’s from a place of I have value to offer, I know what I’m doing, I am impactful, I have something to add here, every time you’re making a comment and participating in a conversation, from that belief in yourself, you’re adding a coin to your piggybank.

And eventually, those coins will stack up and they will result in a big fat cheque, but you have to really believe your comment. Some of you guys too, and this is for everyone listening, I see you guys even do it in 2K, when you’re trying to be the most valuable, you write like an entire book because you believe that all the words are very valuable. If you ever notice the way that I comment on people’s shit in 2K, it’s like one sentence. When you’re not looking for validation, you will say so much less, which will mean it will be so much more impactful.

Speaker 2: Totally.

Stacey: Like, one well-placed question could blow someone’s mind, but you have to be in that place of, “I have value.”

Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you’ve always taught, just being super-simple, how can I make it more simple, more readable, more absorbable?

Stacey: I encourage all of you not to try to pre-edit your comments and not to try to be like asking yourself how can I make this more simple before you comment, unless it’s useful in that moment. Like sometimes, I’ll write something out and then be like, no there’s a simpler way to say this, how could I be more simple? And that serves me. But if it’s creating this space where you’re questioning and second guessing yourself and causing yourself to not feel confident, it’s not useful at all. I want you guys to also work on being more clear, but also work on trusting your gut because the more you trust your gut, the more you’ll put stuff out there and then the more you’ll show up.

And then, when you’re consistently showing up all the time and it feels really great, then you can maybe start asking yourself, how could this be more simple? But only use it if it serves you. Otherwise, be willing to trust your gut that what you have to say really is going to be very impactful and is going to make a difference.

Speaker 2: Yeah, even if it’s just making a difference for me in the beginning too, like oh this feels so much better, and it gets me showing up more. Because right now, I feel like I’ll put it – at some point, I’m going to be joining groups and adding value, and the groups I’m in, I’m just not committing the time to just trying it more.

Stacey: Yeah, and then think about how you show up in the world when you feel like you’ve added value all the time, especially when you’re not being like, “Yeah, but where’s my return?” Because a lot of people do that in 2K too. They’ll be like, “I’ve been showing up. I’ve been giving value. It’s not working.”

But that just tells me immediately that the entire time they’ve been giving value, they’ve been thinking about when they’re going to get it back. When you are truly consistently focused only on giving value and serving and you feeling valued, all day long, you will not think to wonder when that value is coming back. How I know this is because you will be trusting that it will for sure because you believe it’s so valuable.

Everybody listen to that. You believe your stuff is that valuable. You’ll never sit there and be like, “Is it going to come back, is it? I don’t know?” Because that’s fearing that it’s not going to come back. So you could network for six months straight without results if you were truly in that place of like, it’s coming back, you would never question that it hasn’t.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I love it. That’s so helpful. And yeah, I feel like I can just merge that from other parts of my business and put it into this practice of networking online. Thank you so much.

Stacey: Let’s call it impacting online.

Speaker 2: Impacting online.

Stacey: Stop referring to it as networking. Like, today I’m going to go impact at a live event or I’m going to impact online, but that’s what I’m doing.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

Stacey: You are so welcome.

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.