Ep #143: How to Respond to Clients

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 143. So today we’re going to talk about how to respond to clients. A lot of my students will have a client say yes. And then text or email later with a reason they’re a no. They will get messages from their clients wanting to quit. And they will get clients pushing against their boundaries and behaving in ways that they don’t like. And the inevitable question is how do I respond to this?

And often they come to 2K coaches, they come in our Facebook community, they come to the Facebook page and ask what the group’s response would be. They are searching for the right answer or an answer. They don’t know how to proceed. But I want to share with you today that what you want to be searching for is not what to say in the event that a client wants to quit or emails later that they’re a no or goes beyond a boundary of yours. It’s not what to say or how to handle it from what other people would say or do, no matter what their experience level is.

But how to feel before responding and then how to be thinking to feel that way. And finally, the thing that you want to do is think about your client’s model, their brain, their behavior, what’s happening for them. And you always want to do it on an individual basis, assuming no two situations are alike. You don’t already know the why behind their actions. And because of that you don’t already know the thing that you need to say and neither does anyone else.

You won’t know what to say until you gather more information. And if you do already have more information then how you respond is never what you say but what you are thinking and feeling when you say it. I used to get messages of people wanting to back out or quit. And I’ve done entire coaching sessions on clients thoughts about me back in the day when I did one-on-one coaching. And it was never what I said. There are no magic responses.

So that’s the first thing I want you to know when you’re thinking about how to respond to clients are there are no magic responses, there are none. Even if this is a response to someone’s objection, if you’re on a sales call and they have an objection, there is no magic response. It’s why when you join 2K, I’m not going to give you a sales script and I’m not going to give you objection scripts. I’m going to teach you how to respond to your client, it’s such a more useful skill that will make you so much more money in your business and have you interacting with your clients at such a high level.

So, there are no magic responses. There is only the root cause of what drove your client to the action they’re taking. And then your patience to find an emotion within you that helps you find the root cause within them to possibly have the opportunity to coach them through it. Okay, I’m going to repeat that.

There is only the root cause of what drove your client to the action that they’re taking, to their interaction with you. And then your patience to find an emotion within you before responding to them to take that time, to be willing to take that time, to find that emotion within you before responding to them.

That helps you find the root cause within them so that you may possibly have the opportunity, the opportunity. It is an opportunity to coach someone through something that’s going on for them, that’s making them want to back out of coaching, that’s making them want to quit coaching, that’s making them want to leave your group, to ask for a refund. To pause their coaching, that’s causing them to say no to getting the help that they truly want, that found them there on that consult with you. It’s an opportunity to coach them through it, one that we have to earn. An opportunity that we have to earn.

I spend a lot of time teaching this and helping my students understand this in 2K because this idea, what I’m going to convey to you in this episode today is really the secret to overcoming all objections. So today I want to give you a thesis and then I want to give you some examples of questions we have gotten in 2K just recently. And then give you a way to think about them in each situation with this coaching in mind. And then I really want to invite you into 2K, to join 2K and really get good at this, to learn and master this.

So, these are just some questions I grabbed from the page that are perfect examples of when you might need to respond to a client, where you might need to pause and find an emotion within you that helps you focus on finding the root cause for them to possibly have that opportunity to coach them through it. So just some examples to put this into real life situations.

Alright, so here is question number one, or example number one. This was a message from someone who is set to begin this week. We went through a consult plus a follow-up where she was a yes right away. So, she just messaged me, “I’m so sorry but we have come into a family situation that is putting me in the wrong headspace to begin this process right now. Can we hold off? I’m not sure when I can begin but I definitely want to keep in touch. I just want to be able to put everything into this and I can’t right now. Again, I’m terribly sorry.”

So, then our 2K client said, “How does this response sound?” So, this was what she was going to write to her client. “Hi, so and so. Thank you so much for your message. As a coach I actually see this as making this the perfect time to lean in to support, help and accountability. You’ll find with coaching so much of it is about getting you in the right headspace to handle the chaos of life with calm and poise. How could this family experience feel different if you allowed yourself the opportunity to lean into support?”

Okay, so this was her question, how does that response sound, would that response work for responding to her client? So, here’s what I want to do. Before I give you the coaching that I would give this client in 2K, I want to tell you what my response would be and then I want to tell you why it would be that way to help you understand this idea of coming with an emotion that’s open to trying to help your client. So, here’s what I would say.

I would say first of all, “Oh my gosh, are you okay? I’m happy to jump on a call and talk about it. This is something I do for my clients and I’m happy to do it for you. Even if you need to pause actually moving forward with the coaching, of course we can do that.” And then if she didn’t feel safe or want to talk about it, depending on how she responded to that message I might say, again, I don’t know how she would respond so my response to her response would be different after I heard and read and absorbed her response.

But I’m just going to pretend she said that she wasn’t 100% comfortable or she didn’t have time or things were really crazy. So, then I might say, “Is it a money thing or a stress thing that makes you not be able to continue or to move forward with our coaching?” The money thing I totally get. Sometimes you’ve got to put family first. If it’s a stress thing, something that’s going to consume you, this could be, notice I said this could be, the best time to have a coach.

Even if we don’t always work on what you thought you wanted to coach on, and we sometimes have to work on what you need support with now, either way you’ll have the tools to address the emergency now and to address what you want to work on later. I just want you to know it’s an option, you don’t have to go at this alone. I’d love to give coaching on this situation one shot before you decide. So, here’s why I would respond with those two responses.

I know based on her message to me that her model, which she’s doing in her A line is shutting down. She’s clamming up. There’s been an emergency and her response is to flight, to run away from the coaching. I don’t want to tell her she is wrong for that, she’s in fight or flight. So, we don’t want to combat that with you’re wrong for flighting. I also know that she has perfection in her model. She wants to do it right. I know that there will be no such opportunity but it feels very important for her that she’s exchanging money and she’s getting it right.

So, I know that whether I help her with this or that, what I do know to be true is that she will become a person who learns how to use her mind to problem solve her life, whether it’s this problem or what she came to me for. But here’s what I also know is that I have to build trust first. So, I can’t go in with, “You’re actually wrong about how you’re thinking about this, I know what’s best. And what’s best is that you keep your commitment to coaching.”

We can’t go in with, “Now is the perfect time.” That can’t be the leader, it’s like it can’t be the way that you lead the conversation. It’s like they come with an objection and you can’t come back with why their objection is wrong, why their thinking is wrong. That turns the conversation into an argument. It turns into you’re wrong, I’m right, I’m talking at you, I’m telling you what to do. Instead, we have to earn the right to help. We have to earn the trust to help.

And I think the way we do this, especially in situations like this where something comes up, that comes in the way of coaching which will always happen frequently with many clients as they say yes to coaching. I always say the moment we put the intention out in the world that we want something, the universe is going to send us all of the opportunities to overcome obstacles in order to get it. And those opportunities often that are obstacles are the reason people don’t move forward, they give up on that first obstacle.

However, one of the most important things to know is that this will happen, knowing that as a coach, as soon as your client says yes, they’re going to have obstacles that show up. So, I think the way that we earn trust to help is by showing that we understand, that human things happen, by having compassion that an emergency has come up.

And I think even beyond, I will just say, even beyond obstacles come up and it’s our growth to overcome them, let’s set that aside and let’s say even if that wasn’t true, we understand that human things happen and we can have compassion for emergencies that come up. Sometimes I think as coaches we forget to be humans. We’re like, “There’s a coaching solution for that.” But I want you to think about the things that come up in your life that you don’t want coaching on, that if someone tried to coach you on it, you might want to punch them in the face.

When people told me my honeymoon being postponed was the greatest thing ever because really what’s best is to have two weeks break so that you can really rest up and you’re not exhausted from the wedding. And it’s so much better this way. And how they did it that way and it was the best thing ever. I don’t want that shit. I’m like, “No, this is my experience, not your experience.” My experience is I wanted the honeymoon right away and this was really devastating for me.

I always love when I have a human experience that’s really devastating for me. I just had this horrible experience with my interior designer, horrible. I won’t even get into it here. Horrible. And I was talking to my one-on-one coach about it and I was telling her the story. And my favorite part about her, she doesn’t get in the pool with me but she’s so human and she’s like, “What? I can’t believe that. Are you serious? I mean, what?” The whole time she was giving me the most human reaction. Of course, she was going to coach me once I was done.

But it was like while I was telling the story, she was allowing me to have my human experience and then she was there with me as a human. And what that does, when someone is really having something terrible happen or some extraordinary experience that feels really big for them, what happens is when they’re in their humanness and you meet them with humanness, that is what creates the trust to allow the coaching to happen. She’s very ninja, my coach.

But I think that that’s true for everything. Even if you don’t know what the situation is, sometimes I think we diminish the word ‘emergency’ or ‘family emergency’ as coaches. We’re like that’s a thought. And I think one of the most powerful things we can do is when we hear something like that is actually meet that person in their humanness with our humanness first to earn the right to coach on that humanness. So that’s why I would first ask my client is if they are okay. And then I would first offer to jump on a call and talk about that scenario obligation free.

It’s not another consult, and I wouldn’t offer to do that over, and over, and over but I would offer to do it one time. I’m happy to just get on the phone and listen, and hear, and see if there’s anything I can do to help at all, even just in the one conversation, no obligation, of course you can still put it on hold. I’m going to tell them, “Yes, of course, you can put it on hold, of course we can do that.” I’m going to tell their brain, yes, this is possible. That’s going to calm them down. It’s going to tell them I understood what they need, that I’m hearing them.

If I just come back with, “You’re wrong and this is the perfect time to coach and here’s why.” What they’re going to experience is I haven’t been heard. They didn’t hear me, it’s a family emergency. They didn’t hear me. It’s not a good time. That’s the thought they’re going to have when you meet their objection, when you meet what they’re going through and their experience with – you’re thinking about it in the wrong way. And then when you tell them what their experience could be without having permission to do that.

So, I think one of the most important things when you have a client message you like this is having compassion for what has come up for them and then finding out how you can help within the parameters of what they have said. And maybe you can’t. We don’t know the emergency so you might get on the phone with them and it may not be something that you can help. I highly doubt it but we don’t know. I like to be in that space of I don’t know. When I’m in that space of I don’t know, maybe I can’t help but maybe I can. But I’m willing to get on a call and talk about it.

This is what it means to respond from clean service. So, if you’re in 2K, the entire module on clean selling, this is what it means, to be in clean service. I’m operating when I’m thinking about responding to this client, from two thoughts that The Life Coach School taught me that I want to offer you. And not every coaching community and school teaches these thoughts. I want to offer even if you are not an LCS coach that you can adopt these thoughts.

I learned them very early on in my certification and they have served me so well in being an amazing coach, just so well in interacting with my students is this thought. Number one, I can’t possibly know what’s best for someone. What? Because as coaches we like to believe that we know what’s best for someone. We’re like, “I have all of the answers.” And just notice if that’s the thought when your client messages you, no matter what it is, if your thought is I have the answer.

If your first thought is I have the answer when they message you, the only thing that you know is you haven’t heard them. You haven’t actually listened to them. You aren’t holding space for them. You’re talking at them. You’ve just decided, I know what’s right. I know the answer. I know what’s best for you. That is a really dangerous thought in coaching. That’s really not what we’re here for. We can’t possibly know what’s best for, I really want you to try it on.

I know that a lot of you are building the belief of the value of coaching and  believing how deeply someone can benefit from coaching and how coaching can change someone’s life. But on the flipside what happens is sometimes we take that too far and we believe coaching is the best thing for everyone and it’s the best thing right now, no matter if their account is negative and they have no money and they can’t pay their bills, and they should just be able to find the money. Should be able to come up with it. Coach yourself, get creative, be resourceful.

We think that we have all the answers so I love bringing myself back to I can’t possibly know what’s best for someone.

And then the second thought is I don’t know what the right answer is but I’m open to finding it. What? I don’t know what the right coaching is but I’m open to finding it. Sometimes we think we know what the right coaching is and how you know is if you respond right away with the right coaching. You’re like, I gave them the best coaching as soon as they message me, I don’t know what happened. But you didn’t give them the best coaching because the best coaching comes from exploring what’s going on with someone and giving them coaching that is specific to their brain.

And the only way to do that is to find out what’s happening specifically in their brain. And you can’t always know from one message or one email, or one time that they – I don’t know what the right word is, but break a boundary with you, cross a boundary with you. You don’t always know. So how we want to respond to clients is with curiosity, that I don’t know what’s best for them and I don’t know what the right answer is or the right coaching is. I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t know what the best next move is. But I’m open to getting on a call with you to find out.

I am open to supporting you in this decision. Because one thing I do know is that they’re in a fight or flight response with the word ‘emergency’. And I know that their brain might be interacting and problem solving from that place. And I’m just open to getting on a call and getting their brain out of fight or flight into calm sufficiency and then helping them explore what they want to do, not even what’s best for them but just what they choose and want to do because they’re a whole individual without me as their coach.

They are perfect and whole as they come to me and capable of choosing what’s best for them in the moment. Think of how much, I’m thinking of my client that way, what I’m really believing about them. I’m seeing them as whole and perfect. I am seeing them as knowing the right answer for themselves. I’m seeing that they are fully capable of making good decisions and then I’m just saying it is possible that your fight or flight might be cutting off access to that part.

And I’m willing to come in if you want, if you’re willing, and help you gain access to a different part of you to make that decision so that you feel really great about it. Or just open to supporting you. Even if you know the decision, you’re not in fight or flight, you feel really clear about your decision, you really want to wait, you feel great about that. I’m still happy to jump on a call and hear you and what’s going on with you. And see if there’s any way in just one call that I can send you on your way with support.

Because I just desire to serve you as long as you’re willing. And I know that if it isn’t the right time and I take this compassionate moment with you to hear you and to help you kind of unwind some of the thoughts and feelings and give you some tools to help you on your way until we work together, it will be more likely that we will work together. Versus tell you you’re wrong and here’s what you needed to do and why.

Curiosity can be your best friend when you’re learning to respond to clients. It will keep you open to finding the best solution for your client and truly wanting that for them even if that means not continuing working with you. Even if that means not moving forward with the yes. Could you be truly curious for what’s going on with your client? Can you believe that you don’t actually know what’s best for them and what’s really going on and be open to talking through it with them to find their best solution for them and truly want that for them no matter what that ends up being?

Could you approach a conversation that way? That will make you a master. And the reason it will make you a master at overcoming objections or responding to clients, at coaching is because you will build so much trust and I think your outcomes might still be the same. They could still be 50/50. The client doesn’t continue on. It’s not about doing this in an effort to build trust to get them to still get on phone with you and still move forward with the coaching. It’s not about that. 50% of the time it really might not be the best time for them.

For example, in 200K if someone messages me and they’re like, “Well, I applied for 200K and I really want in.” But it turns out that I have this diagnosis and I’m not going to be able to sell for the next six months in my business. I’m going to tell them they should wait. I’m going to tell them to apply again. I’m not going to say, “You should definitely join and just learn as much as you can and then apply later.” I’m like, no, my mastermind is about making money.

You can’t make money in the round, you want to wait until you’re going to make money. If you’re going to choose to take six months off your business, don’t choose to be in the mastermind. I’m going to believe that and I’m going to hold space for that. So, I want you to just have in your brain, I want you to have space where you’re willing to consider that sometimes 50% of the time when people want to quit or say no or hold off that that might be the right move for them. It’s the most efficient place to be.

And 50% of the time you’re actually going to talk them through it and they’re going to want to keep going with you, 50%. And I’m just all in for a 100% of it, a 100% all in it.

Okay, before I move on to the next example I want to give you one more example in this, for this question, or this type of question that I think will be really useful, that happened with me in 200K a couple of rounds ago. Three or four rounds ago I had a student, a returning student who had been in the mastermind several rounds from the very beginning when it was very small. And she had made her money back and she had messaged in and she said, “Hey, I just want to let you know I want to leave the mastermind.” And this was halfway through.

And I was like, that’s very strange. And I don’t ever get on consults with people anymore, I don’t do conversations but I thought she’s a returning student, this is very strange. So, I asked my assistant to set up a call with her if she was willing to. I was like, “I’d love to just talk to you about it and hear what’s going on.” Notice that I said, “Hear what’s going on.” So, I got on the call with no presumptions, just I want to hear what’s going on.

And one of the things that she said to me was, “I’m feeling unseen. I just don’t feel seen anymore. And I want to be on a one-on-one small container where I can be seen.” And so, I started asking her more and more questions about that. And through being very open and being willing to uncover what’s going on and just looking at her models and being a coach and serving her, regardless of whether she still wanted to move on or not.

One of the things that we uncovered in the conversation was that her thought was I am unseen and I want to be seen by Stacey. And then what was happening from wanting to be seen but feeling like she wasn’t seen is she was removing herself. She hadn’t asked for coaching the entire mastermind. She hadn’t raised her hand one time.

What’s so fascinating is we only have seven or eight people that raise their hand every call, most people just get what they came for from hearing other people. And so, I’m able to get to almost every single person that raises their hand every time we do a call. And so, I was like, “I’m just so fascinated that you haven’t raised your hand, you haven’t given me the opportunity to call on you. She had really removed herself.

And then from a desire of wanting to be seen and feeling bad that she wasn’t seen she was going to remove herself completely which was going to give her the opposite of what she really wanted. What she wanted was to be in the mastermind. What she wanted was to be seen. What she wanted was to feel important within the room. And so, I was able to show her how she was removing herself and keeping herself from being seen and actually being in the room.

And I was able to show her, if you remove yourself completely there is no option for being seen. Versus if you stay and you raise your hand you can be seen and you could work on that thought that I am seen. And regardless of whether you weren’t seen or not, I told her, “I want to give you access to the mastermind because you’ve paid for it for the rest of the round.” At least, if you never wanted to come to another call, you can do the member portal and you can go through the process and you can still have access to the learning that you’ve paid for.

And she was like, “I didn’t even know that was an option.” And I was like, “Of course it’s an option. I’d rather you get what you came for to the highest level of what feels best for you, even if you don’t want to come to the calls.” So, notice what she said was, “I don’t want to come to the calls.” And what I met her with is, “Fine, you don’t need to come to the calls but I don’t want you to lose out on what you paid for, what your investment, what you came for.” And what ended up happening was she came to all of the rest of the calls and she started raising her hand.

She wanted to be seen. So, if I had gone in and told her, “Listen, here’s what’s happening.” If she had said, the moment she said, “I want to be seen.” If I had jumped in with, “Well, that’s your job to make yourself be seen. Your thought is that you’re not seen.” And I started telling her what her model is before actually asking questions and digging in. And the questions that I asked her from curiosity just revealed the model, which I love about coaching. And the model is it just reveals itself, if you ask enough questions and you listen hard enough, it just reveals itself.

You never have to tell someone what their model is. And so, it just revealed itself. It was just there from being open and curious. And being willing to believe that the best thing for her was to leave. I was totally open to that. I was like, “And let’s compromise. Leave the calls but keep the content so that you can keep learning.” For me my ultimate desire was just that she felt like she got what she came for, in any way that I could support her.

So, I just want to offer that to you is can you keep open and curious enough to let – even if you don’t follow the model, to let the coaching reveal itself by how many questions you’ve asked and how hard you’ve listened.

Okay, example number two. So, my student said, “Celebrate.” The circumstance is, “In my business I allow for one emergency cancellation and after that I have a 24 hour cancellation policy in place stated and contractual. One of my clients cancelled via text this week, the morning of and then rescheduled for later in the week. That day came and sure enough the same behavior, only this time their reason was looking to reschedule for the coming week. My original thought was what the eff, are you kidding me.

This person owes me for two cancelled sessions and expects to reschedule. My feeling was anger, disbelief, a little confusion. And then in my action I started going into feeling victimized.” And then, she mixes models here but we’re going to with it. She says in her A line she stepped back, owned the fact that this is her business and she has a clear policy in place. She called her client and left a message stating that she would like to continue working with them but that she would not be rescheduling an appointment until she’s paid in full for the two missed sessions.

And she said she let them know that they need to call and when they need to cancel, not text. Then followed up with a text mirroring her voicemail. And then she said her result was that she received a phone call from her client within 10 minutes, they paid in full via credit card, rescheduled for the next available appointment and thanked her that they were just so shocked and appreciative of the fact that this client’s excuses weren’t working with their coach.

So, this was actually a celebration. This is what happens sometimes in 2K and 200K is you guys come with celebrations and I coach you. I give you coaching instead, this is what happens sometimes. So okay, here’s what’s interesting. Here in this situation my client’s actions ended up working for her, success for what she wanted. She successfully got the client to behave the way that she thought they should behave. And it worked for the client. It woke the client up and they were like, “I’m so glad my coach isn’t taking my excuses.”

So, it worked, sometimes when it works it feels like a win. But I want to caution, and I thought this would be the perfect example to talk about boundaries. Sometimes it comes at a cost, maybe with this client, maybe with another in the future, a cost that you may not even know is there. You’re not even aware that there could be a cost to that particular A line, action line and the thoughts fueling it and the result. It might feel like a win, that it just works and so you keep doing it over, and over, and over.

But here is why there is a cost to this model. It wasn’t clean. And what I mean it wasn’t clean is it wasn’t in service for the client. This is why it’s so important that before you respond to a client, before you coach a client you pause. You receive the communication and then you pause. And you take a step back to look at your own thoughts, your own model around this, around what’s happened. You see your thoughts and your feelings around it. And you get into allowance of all possibilities. You get to a place of unattachment.

We have a module specifically in 2K about this if you want to dive deeper into getting unattached. But you get to the place where whatever happens next I am really okay. I feel truly unattached to what happens and I don’t have an agenda for this client. I don’t need this client to behave in any certain way for me to feel okay, for my thought and feeling to be one I like. How do we know this client doesn’t like her thought and feeling? It’s her thought started with WTF all caps. And her feelings were anger, and disbelief, and confusion, and victimization.

So, we know that that model doesn’t serve her because of the way her thoughts feel. And so, when you get messages, communications like this from clients, when you have clients behaving a way that you don’t like, you have to get clear about your manual, your preferences, your boundaries and decide. Is this a time where I am coaching a client for them or am I showing up as a business owner with a client for me? Either is fine.

But I want to caution you that you can’t be moonlighting as a coach when really you’re being a businessowner with a manual and an unmanaged mind which is what happened in this celebration. She was a businessowner that has a preference for how she does business, an unmanaged mind, thoughts and feelings that don’t serve her. And then she took that into being a coach for her client. Again, it worked that time but it won’t always work.

And you want to be really careful. You can be a businessowner and assert a boundary, and assert your business practices, but you want to make sure you’ve stepped out of being a coach when you do that. This is just what we do. And then you want to be a coach. And when you’re a coach the only thing you’re doing is helping your client make their best decision for them, understand their mind, you’re neutral. You don’t come in with an agenda. That’s why you can’t be both at the same time.

You can’t have an agenda and then sell someone on your agenda as to why it’s the best coaching for them and give them coaching on it. It’s unclean, it’s biased, and it’s a little manipulative. So, one thing that you can ask, if this is a situation when you’re thinking about how to respond to your client where they have encroached on a boundary or if they need coaching about you, they have all these thoughts about you. And I have coached people on thoughts about me. But before I do I might ask myself how am I making this about me?

And what would I be thinking and behaving if weren’t making it about me? What would I be thinking, how would I be behaving, how would I be feeling if I weren’t making this about me? If I were being this client’s coach and only showing up for this client, what would I do? If what I say is only for them, this is how you respond to a client as a coach. It’s never about you. Your coaching can never come from a place where it’s about you. It’s no longer coaching when it has anything to do with you. When you’re trying to get something for you it’s no longer coaching.

Now, if you’re going to set a business boundary, you can totally do that but that’s for you. So, I would not make it for them. Business boundary for you. So, it has nothing to do with a lesson for them to be a better human and how honoring your boundary will mirror work they need to do in their lives to get what they want and not honoring your boundary is the reason they are held back in their life and aren’t getting their own results. Yes, often that is true. But it’s manipulative to use how I prefer you to show up for me is how you will learn to create the results you want.

You need to be clear in yourself between what is for you and what is for them and never mix the two. That’s just going to be the most clean coaching you can ever do. How we know that not cancelling and rebooking, and paying for unused sessions is for you, the coach, or for this coach in this example is because not all coaches have the same rules and response. I never once charged anyone for cancellations or no shows, ever, even if it happened multiple times. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, I’m just telling you, I have different thoughts about it.

You’re not wrong. I’m not wrong. It doesn’t matter, you can charge or not. But it just shows that it’s for you, whatever your rules are. If it’s for them, as a coach you might ask them what’s going on with them to see what thoughts are creating it, just so you’re both aware. I might do that but there wouldn’t be repercussions. I’m not their mom. I never wanted them showing up for me to please me, believing somehow that that will make them a better person, or student, or more likely to get results.

In fact, I will tell you, most of your clients that show up for you as trying to be a better person by being a really great student to please you will most likely not get results, which is always really fascinating. My people pleasing clients never get the best results. So, you could ask them what’s going on that’s creating that for them, for example, if they’re never making their payments, you could say, “As your coach I’m just curious what’s going on.” But I would make a separate conversation for you as the businessowner who has someone who’s not meeting their payments.

Now, on the other hand I have really clear business boundaries, we should probably do an entire podcast just on business boundaries. For example, in 200K, we do revenue reporting. And it helps me track what’s happening with my students because I have a money back guarantee. And if you don’t do it, you don’t qualify for the guarantee. It’s super clear. If you want to be part of it, and we tell them at the very beginning.

If you want to have an option for a guarantee you have to revenue report. It’s the only way I know whether to help you or not. It’s the only way I know, hey, this person needs extra attention. We need to figure out what’s going on with them. They’re not on track to make their money back. If they don’t tell me how much money they’re making, I have no idea. I’m helpless. So, in order for me to honor my guarantee they have to report their revenue every month, period.

We rarely have an issue with this. But if we did I wouldn’t coach them on, “You’re not reporting revenue, I’m sure this is showing up somewhere else in your business and it’s the reason you’re not making money.” No, the reason they’re not reporting 100% if they didn’t would be because of their thoughts about their revenue. And maybe a thought about having to do it which has nothing to do with the amount of money they make. It won’t make them a better coach to revenue report. It doesn’t make them a worse coach to not. I just have a rule that they have to follow if they want a refund.

And if they don’t, they don’t have to follow it. Do you see the difference of a boundary? You get to behave however you want to and how I respond to you will be very clear in my mind. How I respond will either be as a business owner or it will be as a coach and I won’t mix the two. I also don’t let people eat, or walk around, or do other things on the call. It’s super distracting. You can do it, but if you do it I just bump you off the call and you can’t get back in. I’ve actually never had to do that, but I would do it.

People take it very seriously in 200K, but I would, I would just bump them off. And if I bump them off say four or five times, they missed four or five calls I wouldn’t say, “Let’s talk about how else this is showing up in your business.” Or if you start showing up on the calls is it really going to start impacting the rest of the results you get. You’re like, “No, you just can’t come to the calls.” Or you can come and then every time you do one of those things I’ll just bump you off.

That’s my business boundary. And then when you want coaching, I’ll coach you on whatever you want coaching about. That has nothing to do with that. Do you see the difference? So, I say this to say you don’t want to enforce a boundary, a fee in order for you to feel a certain way and to get your clients to behave in a certain way. You can feel however you want about your coaching and your client regardless of how they behave. You can have a fee but they cannot pay it and then what? You still have to decide how you are going to feel.

And then as the businessowner and what you’re going to do and then how you’re going to be as their coach when you’re coaching them. When my clients don’t follow a boundary I still love them. And I still feel however I want to feel in my business. My model doesn’t change. So, this is why it’s so important to differentiate your thoughts and your emotions around a client’s behavior and then your business boundaries. And make sure you aren’t creating and enforcing those boundaries as a way to change your client’s behavior in order to change your thoughts and feelings. It gets really messy.

Now, what’s great, I will tell you is even when you do, do this, when you mix them and you’re being a businessowner and a coach at the same time and sort of manipulating your client unintentionally. When you do this your client is still available to get their transformation, which is so amazing. I loved this client. When I was reading my post, I’m like good for them. Their coach’s mind was completely unmanaged. And they were asserting boundaries trying to control their client in order to feel better. And their client was like, fuck, yeah, I’m still getting my transformation, yes, sign me up. So great.

This is why I also like when you learn from me about bad program PTSD, no matter what happens you get to decide how you’re going to show up as the client. You still get to get your transformation no matter what. So great. So, when you respond especially in a boundary situation, you respond after cleaning up your thoughts and emotions around the situation. You get super clear where you are not triggered. You are not offended by their terrible behavior, by their irresponsible behavior.

You’re like, they’re a human, being a human is totally fine. There’s what I’m going to do about it as a businessowner and I’m only going to decide that once my emotions are cleaned up. And then once I’ve decided what I’m going to do as the businessowner with cleaned up thoughts and emotions, where I’ve gone back to taking responsibility for how I feel, then I can go in as a coach, maybe. Maybe. I often do not.

I just think it’s like for me, especially where I’m at in my business now, if I have a boundary or a rule in my business, or there’s something I’m not doing and my clients have thoughts about it, I’m happy to coach them if they ask. But other than that, I’m not. I had a student once post in 200K and she was asking. I was going on vacation and she was asking how she would get a hold of me while I was on vacation. And I commented, “You won’t. And that’s it.”

I didn’t try to go coach her, she gets to have whatever thoughts she wants to have about not having access to me while I’m on vacation. She gets to feel however she wants to feel. And however, she wants to feel is not wrong. It’s not wrong if she feels mad. She gets to her own reaction to that. I’m not going to tell her that she’s going to become a better coach if she chooses to feel good about not having access to me while I’m on vacation. No, that was just my choice. I’m not giving you access. I’m on vacation. I won’t be available for coaching while I’m on vacation.

That’s my rule, my boundary. Now, if you want coaching, if she said, “Hey, I’d really like some coaching on this, I want to feel better about this and I know my thoughts aren’t there.” Of course, I would give it to her. But I’m not going to try to make her see how my rule benefits her. That’s where it’s a little manipulative. You guys have to be willing to have a rule and for your clients to have thoughts about it.

This is kind of the opposite, where they haven’t broke any. It’s almost like you have broken their manual and you’ve got to be willing to let them have their thoughts about it especially if it’s your rule, and not try to sell them, that it will make them a better person to not be mad at you.

Alright, so listen, you get clean on your boundaries and why you have them or you simply don’t respond as a coach at all, especially if you haven’t been able to get clean. You decide to respond as the businessowner. You can do one or the other or you can do both but not at the same time. There is the businessowner and there is the coach. You have to be really clear about what role you’re in and who you’re serving. As the businessowner you’re serving yourself. As the coach you’re serving your client. You have to be clear about that.

So, what I might say to this client is, “Would you still like to work with me?” If they weren’t paying and they weren’t showing up, and they were constantly canceling, I would just ask them how they feel about working with me and if they still want to keep working with me.

And if they said, “Yes, I love working with you, I definitely do.” If I found their thoughts and they were like, “It’s just I’ve been really crazy and I’ve got a lot going on. And I haven’t been making this a priority even though I really do love it. When I’m going minute by minute I have to go with what’s the priority and the coaching just isn’t the priority. But I really do love working with you.” So now, as the coach I’ve figured out what’s going on with them. I just asked them a question, “Do you like working with me? Do you still want to work with me?”

And if they were like, “No, I don’t like working with you. This is why I’m not making my payments.” Then, great, this is perfect time for us to end our coaching. But if they said yes then I might switch into the business owner. And I might say, “Okay, first of all, I’m happy to coach you on all of those things if you’d like.

However, as the businessowner if you do want to keep coaching with me I will need you to show up for the sessions or if you can’t or you don’t I simply charge you for the session and then we plan to meet again the following week when you’re available. And you have to be paid up to be able to do the next session.” Whatever your boundary is. But if this person didn’t show up and I charged them and they paid and then they showed up the next week I would have no thoughts about it. I’d be like, “Great, what are we working on today?”

I want you guys to think about that. Could you be that clean with your clients, that they could just not show up and then next time they do you’re like, “Alright, what are we coaching on today?” You get to decide. So, I’m going to find out what’s going on in your mind then I’m going to offer that I can coach you and then I’m also going to say, “But also, no matter where the coaching leads us and what happens I do need to tell you this as a businessowner, this is the deal.”

You have to show up for the sessions or I have to charge you, whatever your rules are. You get to decide. But then they are free to decide what’s best for them and what they want to do.

Okay, number three, example number three. And this is a good one because this example we get a lot inside the 2K community where people will lump, coaches will lump multiple consultations together and say there’s a trend happening. I’m getting lots of no’s, I’m getting lots of this objection. Any time you will lump or create a trend in your mind I want you to just know right away that what you’re not doing is individualizing each client experience. And when you don’t do that you make it really hard to actually know what the exact issue is.

And when you don’t do it on each individual consult, if you don’t do an evaluation on specifically what went wrong with that one specific consult, it is not often the same thing. If you do 10 consults in a row and you get 10 no’s, oftentimes the reason you got those no’s are not the same thing. If you’re in 2K you also have access to Higher Converting Consults. And in Higher Converting Consults I talk about the 14 mistakes you can make. And one of the things I say on the training is you’re never making all 14 of these at the same time.

And often if you do 10 consults in a row and you get 10 no’s in a row, you have done 14 things across 10 different consults at different times at different places. So, you want to be very clear each time what happened so that you can clearly fix it each time. When you lump it together it becomes there’s just no one has money and no one likes my prices. And it becomes this very all or nothing thing that is very difficult to troubleshoot. So, I love this example. So, this is a really short one.

So, she says, “I’ve had a few consults recently all telling me that they want to start at a later date once they’ve saved money.” Notice how she’s lumped them all together, a few consults, they’re all saying the same thing. “I agree and I don’t think it’s a problem but I’m also afraid I may just not be coaching them hard enough on their objections. I honestly believe they want to work with me and want to make it happen. I’m wondering if I’m releasing the reins too much or too soon.”

Alright, so again I’m going to repeat myself a little bit. But the important thing here is they’ve lumped a few consults and then their responses, their actions, how they responded to the client, they were all the same. They want to start at a later date once they’ve saved money, I agreed. When you respond to everyone the same you forget, again, to be curious about the individuals. What thoughts are driving this? What is happening with them? What if this result is showing up for five different reasons? You have to get clear with each individual.

For one, it might be that they didn’t really understand how exactly the coaching would work and so they want to think about it and the best answer to give to be polite is I need to save money in their mind. One might be thinking about a house remodel that they want and how they will need to do that first before they do the life changing work of getting coached and creating inner happiness.

One might ideally want to save money but actually have no plan at all for saving it and no idea where the money will come from, or how long it will take, or what they might have to stop spending money on to make it happen. And they will be left to figure out all of that on their own which they haven’t been able to do thus far otherwise they would have already saved money and hired the coach. And another one, it might be that they didn’t want it that bad. They might not value losing 10 pounds over $2,000. And so, it’s easier to give a half yes than just say no.

So, they say, “Well, I’m a yes but I just need to save for it.” Instead of, “I just don’t want to spend my money on that.” We don’t really know. Our job is to find out with each individual person. So how you respond to clients cannot be with these blanket coaching responses, it has to be as an individual. How do you respond to a client? As an individual. Each experience is unique, you have no idea what’s making them say that. You have no idea what the individual circumstance is.

So how we do this is by coaching ourselves ahead of time to (a) not get in the pool and agree with the response because of our own beliefs, circumstances and behaviors. You agree that they might need to save the money up because that’s how you operate and that is your truth, that you do actually want something, save the money and then pay for it. You don’t know if that’s their truth. You don’t know if they actually really want it. You don’t know if they have a track record of saving for things and then actually following through and paying for it. You have no idea.

From your experience you’re like, my experience, that makes sense. You don’t know what theirs is. And then (b) you have to coach yourself ahead of time so that you don’t have so much negative emotion to hearing the no, that you stop being a coach and thinking about them in the moment. When you start thinking about you, you’ve stopped thinking about them. You’ve gone out of watching their brain and showing it to them. You’ve lost the ability to give them a transformation by going into your brain and thinking about you and how you operate in the world.

I want you to really consider this. You can give them a pass with their objections because you’ve assumed what they meant, assumed that they’re right because of your own life experience. Or you can give them a possible transformation. And I’m always going to try and give them a transformation if they want it by getting curious and asking great questions, believing I don’t have the answer but I’m willing to uncover the answer by asking questions and through the coaching process.

I’m willing to find out the truth. I just want to get to the bottom of it. I want to get everything laid out on the table and find out what’s there. Lay it all out. It’s like your purse, it’s full of junk, you throw it out, lay everything out. You see it all and you’re like, “Alright, let’s see what we’re working with here.” That’s what I want to do when I respond to a client. I want to get it all out. I don’t want anything left in the purse, I want to get everything. Even if there is a little rip in the bottom of the purse and there’s stuff floating between the lining and the purse, I want to get that stuff out too.

So, my response to my clients are always going to be to pull as much information out of them as possible from a place of not knowing where it’s going to lead us and not believing I have the right answers but just from a deep place of service of I want to give them everything I’ve got.

Okay, you all, so here’s how you respond to any client situation. You first identify your immediate feeling and response. This is the number one thing most of you are not doing. You’re not pausing to figure out your human reaction first. My health coach recently asked or said this to me and it’s so good. She said, “Is this a signal there is something I’m needing to feel or is this a reaction to something?” When I’m having an emotion is this a signal that I need to feel something? Is this a reaction to something? What’s your reflex response?

Knowing what that is, do I need to feel this emotion? Do I need to understand my reaction to this emotion? And then does that ultimately serve you and does it serve your client? And if you have a negative response you need to pause and coach yourself. Be willing to take even a few days, get outside perspective, if you need it, get coaching. But you can also do this yourself by feeling the emotional response all the way through.

Then when you are unattached and clean in your mind and neutral in your emotions, when you’re actually in the coach space, you start thinking about your client’s brain, what’s their process of thinking around their decision or their behavior? What is their model that you know of? Likely you’ll not know their whole model and you need to make sure you know that. I don’t have all the facts. I don’t have the whole model. I don’t have every piece of information I need to actually coach this appropriately. So, I need to ask some clarifying questions.

And before I do that I usually respond with acknowledging what they have said. And I often say, “Yes, I acknowledge you, yes, this is possible.” And then I’m going to ask a question. Before responding you may need to decide, remember, is this just a simple business boundary that I need to notify them about? They have missed a payment and I’m unwilling to continue coaching until they catch up.

If someone says, “I want to join 200K but I have another business coach.” Again, I don’t coach them to quit coaching with their coach. I encourage them to apply again when they have finished up their work with that coach. Because you can’t have another business coach when you’re in 200K. We don’t coach people on that. We just that’s our boundary. So, I’m either communicating that boundary or if I know I’m coaching I acknowledge, I agree and then maybe I ask another question.

Then I may offer some coaching or I might ask them if they would like some coaching, that’s always a great one. This happened to a few clients of mine, “Would you be open to some coaching that might help?” I’ve had this happen before. I ask for permission to coach. And then I go from there with what feels right based on what the client’s thoughts are, what their model is. The takeaway from this lesson is to clean up your thoughts, your models, get coaching before you try and respond. And then respond from a place of calm confidence and sufficiency, from unattachment.

And there may even need to be some additional belief work before you respond. If someone messaged me backing out of a yes I might ask myself, what if this wasn’t a problem? I might think about, what if I had five other people saying yes right now, how would I respond? I might tell myself, of course this person is having fear and of course they’re going to sign up because they’re totally going to get the result they want. I might get into that space where they’re their highest self, even if they’re having a little bit of fear now and then respond.

So that’s my final piece of advice, go to the place where you are believing in their results and holding space for that. If someone is worried about a 50K investment but I know they’re going to make a $1 million, I’m not thrown at all if they have hesitation, or try to talk themselves out of not moving forward temporarily. Think about how differently you will handle clients wanting to quit on themselves or back out of the help that they need when you believe working with you is a no brainer. Because you see their results as a no brainer.

Think about how differently your energy will be responding to them. That’s another one, you can go to the place where their results are a no brainer. When the result is clear for you, when the belief is so strong for you. When your belief in your own results is so strong for you. When your own self-concept is so strong, when you’re not believing if this person quits it’ll mean you’re a terrible coach or you won’t make your goal. If someone backs out of 200K or I refund someone in $2 million group or we get 10 refund requests from 2K, that’s not changing my R line for the year for $10 million.

I am holding belief for my own results and being responsible for those. So, if a client quits I’ll find two more. And I’m holding belief for my clients’ results for them. It’s a no brainer, it’s done. Why on earth will we put it off? And I’m in this place for myself and them when I respond to anything. And how I know is I’m not dreading responding. I’m excited to respond, to have the conversation. I want to have the conversation. That’s the last little nugget I’ll leave you is how you feel going to respond tells you where your brain is and how well you’ve managed it.

Okay, coaches, I dropped a ton of nuggets on this, this could have been an entire masterclass. And I gave it to you on the podcast for free, because that’s how I am, that’s how I roll. Alright, listen to this podcast over, and over, and over. Every time you get a client communication that feels over your head, or complicated and you know you’re not clean about it, relisten to this episode. Do it every single time.

If you take the hour plus that this episode is and you give yourself this episode every single time, even if you listen to this podcast 12 times, you’re going to be extraordinarily different on the other side and so will your clients. Alright, have an amazing rest of your week.

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.