Ep #365: Lessons from 10 Years in Business: Selling Is Coaching and Coaching Is Selling

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.

Hi coaches. Welcome to episode 365. Today is the fourth lesson in my series on lessons I’ve learned from 10 years in business. Today we’re going to talk about Selling is Coaching and Coaching is Selling. But first, if you have not taken my How to Sell Life Coaching training, it’s a free course I did. It’s five trainings. We last week aired day one of that five-day training, and you can get the rest at staceyboehman.com/howtosell.

I have a funny story to tell you all about this. So everyone knows, maybe everyone knows that I’m not a super huge fan of AI. But my producer that does my videos has cleaned up my eye contact before, on like a short video that we released on social media, to have me looking more at the camera. Because I don’t tend to look at the camera, and I tell people in my coaching containers all the time. I mean, it’s like I know that other coaches do it, and they do it well. I’m actually not sure how they do it.

For me, I lose connection if I look into the camera hole, like what, the little camera thing at the top of your screen. I have to be looking at humans. And then I’m also reading the chat. And then if I’m teaching, I also have an outline. So I’m like reading the chat, outline, focusing on people’s, my connection to the people, and watching their facial expressions and seeing what’s landing, seeing what’s not, judging the room virtually.

So my eyes are all over the place. And I was thinking about you, a podcast listener, coming into this training and seeing my eyes like all over the place and being like, what is happening with her eyes? And so I thought maybe that would be weird and awkward. And so I said, “Hey, clean this up and make my eyes look like they’re looking at the camera.” And he does.

And this is a lesson in always double-check all the work. I decided to look at it the morning this training went live. And within five seconds, I was like, “Oh my God, demons.” And I had to quickly email my team and be like, “Change it back. Change it back.” It seriously looked like Satan had taken over. Like the soul had left my body, and there was an alien inside. It was the craziest, craziest thing. So we won’t be doing more of that. But I’ve been laughing about it all day. It was shocking how disturbing it was.

Okay, so that’s one thing I wanted to tell you guys. Make sure you go to staceyboehman.com/howtosell and get that five-day free course. It’s really incredible. I want you to have it. I want you to make sure you go through it. If you loved last week’s episode and you’re caught up to the podcast and you heard it, you know what I’m talking about. If not, go back and listen to it. It’s so good. So that’s the first thing.

And then I was thinking about this because I am going to mention this on a lot of my podcasts up and coming, while we’re offering it, because I do want you to have access to it. But I was thinking, like I don’t know how long ago this was, but I had been looking for a podcast episode, and I accidentally saw my podcast reviews. And mostly they’re very good.

But this one happened to be really bad. It made me laugh out loud, actually, when I read it. I mean, it’s like it never feels good to get bad reviews, but this one made me laugh. The person had said something like, “This podcast is just an ongoing or running advertisement for all of her services.”

Yeah. That’s true. So I just thought I would say that here on the podcast. That is true. That is what we’re that’s what we all do here. If you’re a coach and you want to have a podcast, why do you want to have one? So you can sell your services. Like, I think it’s so funny when coaches shame other coaches for doing the things that they do and that they want to do. No coach is like, “Let me do this podcast, but I never want to get a client from it. I never want to market my services.” Like, what?

It reminds me of when I was pitching, like when I would sell like the products that do the demos in the Walmarts. People would always think that they like got me, like got you with this statement. We would like, I would get the crowd around, and I would start my little demo, and inevitably, at least once a day, someone would be like, “Oh, she’s just doing this demo to get you to buy something.” And if you let that bother you, you would lose the whole crowd because they’d be like, “Oh yeah, she’s just trying to sell us something.”

And I always had the perfect line for this, which was always the truth. I would look at the whole audience, and I would say, “Yeah, I think we all knew what was going on here.” And immediately, everyone would look at the person to be like, “Yeah, we all knew what was going on here.” So I thought I would just do that here. Like, yeah, we know that I’m selling my services here. That is what we’re doing and what every coach is doing that has a podcast. Every human is doing.

And if they’re not selling their quote unquote services, they’re probably being paid by a company to advertise on their podcast. And I actually find that way more annoying. When I have to fast forward through the like four different commercials that happen in the middle of the podcast, so that you have to listen to them through listen to the remaining part of the podcast. Like, I actually find that more annoying.

So I could easily like have Boll & Branch, for example, the people that I buy all my sheets from. You could easily be like, “Hey, want to sponsor me? Pay me $100k a year. I’ll play, you know, I’ll talk about your sheets.” People buy everything that I sell. So like, if they’re going to buy your sheets, right? Like I’ll be your, what do you call it? Advertiser. I could do that. I don’t want to do that. I want to sell my stuff. So yes. Hi, I’m Stacey Boehman. I have a podcast in order to sell you my services. That is true.

But I also happen to give a lot of value in the in-between. Like, I think I’ve earned the right to make those offers. I don’t know. Y’all tell me. But I think I have. I’ve probably put in a thousand or more hours into this podcast completely for free, and I don’t hold back. I create these episodes to be as valuable as like to be valuable for my paid clients. I’m always telling them in my programs, like, “Hey, make sure you listen to this episode. Make sure you listen to this episode. I created it for you.” And then anyone who doesn’t ever pay me still gets to listen in for free.

I think it’s a good deal. I think it’s a good exchange. I also think we all know what’s going on here. I’m not shocked when someone sells me their services when I’m listening to their podcast. So I thought I would tell you that one too, since today’s episode is about selling.

So this lesson is actually specifically on this idea that if you really get it, it will change everything for you. Because I do think there is a rub, which is why you get some of this in the coaching industry, the little like sales shaming from coaches. I think this happens because coaches have such like big coach hearts and such a deep desire to serve and to help, and they feel like selling is in direct contrast to that. Like, “Oh, I have to step out of my service. I have to step out of who I want to be in the help that I want to give to people in order to sell them.” And I don’t think that’s true. I actually think it’s the exact same energy. It’s the exact same thing. Selling is coaching and coaching is selling. And on this episode, I am going to do my absolute best to prove that true for you. So let’s dive in.

The first thing I want you to think about is what is coaching? Like what is it? What are we doing when we’re coaching? I’m going to give you my answers, but I would love for you to think about it for yourself. What is coaching?

To me, the answer is helping people to believe new things, compelling people to take action, helping someone see thoughts that don’t serve them in living intentionally and on purpose towards what they want. Coaching is saying the truth even when it’s hard for them, not for me. It’s not judgment. It’s truth. It’s observation. It’s showing someone their brain. It’s supporting their future self. Sometimes like you have to choose their future self over their current self. Like you have to stand for their future self when their current self doesn’t want to. Right? And what they’ve told you they want, not what you want for them, what they’ve told you they want.

But often, doing that, what’s required is saying the hard thing. I also believe coaching is fighting for someone. It’s helping them make decisions in alignment with their future. And that is hard. Getting someone to make a decision for their future self that requires discomfort for their current self is very hard.

And I believe that the first step towards their future self is often saying yes to getting help and to investing in a coach. So the very first step to decide for their future self and the future gains that they want, the future results that they want to create is the uncomfortable, painful yes of getting help and paying for it. It’s the first part of the coaching.

Like the moment that you’re talking about money and the conversation around overcoming objections, like that really is the first time, like I don’t teach my clients to like if you’re in 2k for 2k, I don’t teach people to coach on consults because it actually doesn’t work to help someone make a decision to buy. It does quite the opposite a lot of times. And I have a podcast on that, I believe. I’ve talked about that before on the podcast. I’m not going to dive into it here.

But I do think you’re not coaching on the consult, but the first time that you really exercise your coach skills and your coach thinking and your coach energy, the first time you demonstrate being a coach is in the conversation around making a decision right then and there on the phone and investing, paying for help. It’s the first step to starting to get the results they want. It’s actually the first step of the coaching. That’s what I believe.

Now, I think it’s all at the same time, selling is coaching and coaching is selling at any point, right? When I’m on social media, when I’m sending emails, like at any point when I’m marketing or selling, I am in my coach energy. So then I want you to think about what is the energy of being a coach?

And for me, and again, I want you to think of this for yourself, but for me, I only ever say the hard things or believe in someone very deeply so much so that I don’t see their obstacle or their objection as what they see it. I’m like, “Wait, what?”

I could give examples of this. Maybe I won’t go down in a tangent, but I only can do that when I’m in service with courage, with conviction for my client. Right? So many times when I’m coaching, I have to say something that would personally make me very uncomfortable. I’m a very nice person in real life. I’m very kind. I’m very warm. I’m a little mama bear. But I am like a wolf, like a tiger when I coach for my client, not for myself. I say the hard things all day long for them. Not for myself. It doesn’t feel good when I have to say something hard. In fact, usually I even ask them for permission first. Like, “Hey, I’ve got something to say, but it might feel kind of hard to hear. Do you want to hear it?” Right? Like, I don’t even just give that stuff away in life. It’s going to be tough. That’s the energy.

So for me, that type of energy, the courage, the conviction, the being in service of someone else, saying the truth, not from judgment, but observation, supporting their future self in what they want, but seeing what’s incongruent with getting there from their current self, that is also for me the energy of good, clean selling. Good, clean selling.

It gets muddied up, the selling gets muddied up with attachment to making money and getting a sale. It gets muddied up with people pleasing and wanting to be liked or not wanting a negative response from someone. It gets muddied up in general with all personal agenda. Any personal agenda muddies up the idea that selling is coaching and coaching is selling.

The clean channel, if you think about it of coaching, like the clean energetic channel of coaching, is about the other person saying what you know to be true, saying what you see and what you don’t see, for the purpose of helping someone change, helping someone take action that they haven’t taken before, helping to empower someone.

Like one of the things that I’ve taught on one of my recent trainings is like how does it feel to be empowered? Not after you’ve empowered yourself. To empower yourself, it feels awful because you have to step away from your victim story and your pity party and why you can’t do it and all of the limiting stories that you’ve reinforced maybe for years and years, you have to effectively tell yourself that all of that isn’t true and that you’ve been doing it wrong and that your perspective is not correct to step into a new one.

It’s confronting. It feels terrible. It’s awful. Like the worst feelings to empower yourself. And then after you empower yourself, you feel more alive than you’ve ever felt before. But helping someone do that is challenging. But that’s what we do as coaches. And I want to call everyone in, so that is also what we’re doing in selling.

Now, we’re not being jerks about it, right? Saying the hard thing isn’t saying the hard thing with judgment. It’s not saying the hard thing without compassion. And it’s not always even required to say the hard thing, but sometimes it is. Like in the moments where, and I’m going to give you an example of this, but in the moments where people are deciding to buy, those are the moments. All the other moments, you can be like in service, selling, and it’s going to feel great.

The times where it doesn’t is when the making the decision to get help comes with conflict and discomfort from the current self of your client not wanting and then their dissonance, their resistance to wanting to feel that way even though they want these other things and they want to strive and they want to create new results and they want to live a different life. The thing that happens in between there is something really uncomfortable, and you usually have to be the one to steward that.

But it can also feel really great, right? Like being in service and just coaching someone, like I was talking to a 2 Million Dollar Group student and she was like, “Oh my God, when I get off my coaching calls, like I just, it’s intoxicating the way I feel helping someone.” And so selling, if you believe it’s the same, instead of this like dreadful thing you have to do to get money, it could be this intoxicating thing of serving someone and helping them change their life. And it could feel like the greatest honor of your life. Like this is the way I feel about selling.

And I think sometimes it’s like just you’re saying simple observations, and it’s not even like maybe life-altering for you, but it’s just can change someone else’s life to hear an observation that’s different than the one they’ve had.

So an example of this is when my husband and I were dating, we had gotten to this point where I was in love with him, I knew he loved me, and we weren’t really, like there was like a small period of time where we weren’t really moving forward. And I investigated a little bit. I don’t remember the exact details, but I just remember at some point we had a conversation and he was really honest with me and he said, “I’m just, I have this idea in my, like, I love you very deeply and I have this idea in my head of the life I’m supposed to be living and who I’m supposed to be with.” 

And it’s like basically it was this like demure, this demure woman that is, you know, a Catholic, like really wholesome, you know, they buy like a really small house and live in Jasper, Indiana, and have the white picket fence. Like he had this image of this like perfect Catholic girl that he’s supposed to marry. Clean, you know, non-cussing, non-attitude maybe, woman that is like, you know, completely in his values that maybe he grew up around.

And without judgment and without like any attachment, I just said, “Oh, that’s interesting because that’s not who you date.” And it changed his whole life. It was a simple observation. I wasn’t trying to convince him. I didn’t have any sort of agenda. I was just pointing out an observation neutrally of all the girls I know that you’ve dated, and me, doesn’t seem to be what you’re attracted to.

It blew his mind. It blew his mind. And he went out and bought my ring that week. Like it helped him see something in himself, what he really wanted, and without him like ever seeing it. Like it was so clear to me and so hidden to him. In fact, like I was like, “You don’t even live in Jasper. Like you’ve moved multiple times to get further and further away from Jasper, and you don’t date these type of women. You’re very attracted to a very different type of woman, in fact.”

And I was just curious. I wasn’t judging him. I was curious. I wasn’t trying to convince him. I just noticed something incongruent and pointed it out without attachment in like in my coach energy. I wasn’t even trying to coach him, but it was just like that’s how I am, right? And I think about that a lot.

Like I sold him on being my husband without either of us realizing it. I had no idea that simple statement would have him like break his brain, blow his mind, and have him go out and buy me a wedding ring. And he still talks about it to this day. He’s like, “Oh my God, the time that Stacey blew my mind and showed me something about myself innately that I didn’t even see or wasn’t even aware of.” It’s the best, like to me, it’s like that’s selling is coaching, coaching is selling.

I think selling in general is the highest level of service. Selling coaching, especially, but really, I think that selling can feel like the highest level service for anything. In fact, this episode could be renamed Selling is Service. Try that on. Think about that. Like, I believe coaching is service. Selling is service. And all good selling feels like service to the client.

I don’t know if you all heard my story of buying a $200,000 Porsche. I listen, I know how that’s going to sound. But I bought a, like a roughly $200,000 Porsche. And the first time I went to the dealership, I had the most terrible experience. I had this was an episode I put it on the podcast. I did a live stream right after, and then we put it up here on the podcast.

But it was awful. The person was so focused on the money, or really the lack of money, that he perceived that he would not be getting from me and that I couldn’t afford for whatever reason. I have no idea. And it was like a little, you know, just like putting me down here and there and little comments here that would just, it was the worst experience ever. It was so much judgment, so much like, “Oh, do you guys own a home?” Like, “What? Yeah, dude, we do.”

And then I found out that my Audi sales guy could actually sell me the Porsche. And how he treated me was like, I mean, especially because I had both experiences to compare and contrast with, and it was wild. I mean, he’s there’s a reason we’ve bought so many cars from our sales guy. And he’s a young guy, and maybe that’s what it is. He doesn’t judge me because he’s also young, but he was he’s so amazing.

He treated me with respect. He paid attention to my needs. He really saw me and how to speak to me. And he had the thought knowing I can afford anything. And so his job was just to make sure I felt delighted. He had patience with me. He took his time with me. Like I remember at one point I was like, “How long have you been here with me driving cars?” Like we test drove everything.

And it was like I was the only person on his schedule that day. And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m here with you for whatever you need, and however long you need.” Like we, some of the cars we test drove more than once. Like, “Can I do this one again? Can I try this one again?” I was there for hours, and he was so patient. That to me is like the highest level of service to make someone feel so good when they’re thinking of buying something.

Now, it doesn’t always mean making someone feel so good by lying to them, by people pleasing them. Like none of that. I’ll give you an example of that with the Porsche experience. So apparently to get a 911, the convertibles, they don’t actually like you have to go on a waitlist for that. It’s almost impossible to get the turbo versions, but even their standard versions, they’re very hard to get. And almost all of them you will always buy used. Like that’s the ones they have at the if they have one on the lot, it’s going to be used because the waitlist is so long that any new ones are going direct to clients.

So the first thing that really turned me off when I went to this first sales guy is that I told him I was interested in a 911. I wanted to see the convertible. And he, without explaining this to me, just walked me straight to the car and says, “Yeah, this one’s a couple years old.” And so for me, my thought was like, “Wait, you just assumed I wanted a used car? You didn’t ask if I wanted a new or used car.” Like it felt terrible. I’ll just say it felt so terrible.

But then my sales guy comes in and says, “Okay, you want to look at the 911?” And I was like, there was a yellow one in the dealership, like on the sales floor. And I was like, “Oh my God, that one.” I was like, “It looks like Bumblebee. My son would die. Like he would literally think this is the Transformer.” I was like, “I want to sit in it.” And he’s like, “Yeah, so this one is only been driven for a year, blah, blah, blah.” And then he says, “So I don’t know if you know, but these are really hard to get.” And then he explains what I just explained to you. That’s a very different thing, right? Equipping me with knowledge and bringing me in on the process allowed me to feel like, “Okay, like I’m being educated, not I’m being judged.”

Right? So I really do think really good selling is such a service. It’s standing shoulder to shoulder with someone. It’s treating them with respect, but also it’s educating them. It’s letting them know things that they may not know. It’s giving them all of the information in a way that empowers them. So great selling will allow someone to be seen and especially when we’re talking about coaching in the way that great coaching does.

Like have you ever felt really seen by your coach? That’s how it should feel when you’re selling, when you’re marketing, when you’re talking through objections. Like when you really see someone, and you are on their level, like I always say, you have to meet people where they are, right? You have to know where they are. You have to have compassion for where they are while also maybe saying the hard thing or while also having deep and big belief for them. Right? Because you can also pass them up and do them a disservice when you believe so greatly, but you forget where they are in their belief, right?

If you don’t have understanding or compassion or just even awareness of what it’s like to be where they are and to walk in their shoes. If you can hold that and their future self so tightly in both of your hands, right? Like, just like holding both of those, like they’re both so important, like you’re going to be the best salesperson.

And I believe that you will fight for someone the same as you would in a sales situation, as if you were coaching them with the same exact energy. Right? So if you believe that selling is coaching and coaching is selling, and you never step out of that energy, you’re like, “I just stay in my coach energy all of the time, believing in people more than they believe in themselves, holding possibility more than anyone else holds,” right?

Like when I’m holding a bigger vision, believing in my people, I’m looking at their future self and what they’ve told me they want. I’m looking at their current self. I see where there’s incongruencies. I see what things need to change, and I’m going to say those things with honest truth.

So let me give you an example of this. I was talking to a client who, in my 2 Million Dollar Group, and she’s doing webinars, and each of her webinars have bonuses, and her people know that she does these webinars frequently. And so she said, “There’s no good reason for them not to buy on the webinar one, for example.” Like if they know they can also get the bonuses on webinar two. And I was telling her, “Number one, you have to sell something for what it is, and the bonus is always the cherry on top, not always like the reason to take action right then and there.”

But she gave me an example of a client who said that she couldn’t buy on webinar one because it was a Friday, and she wanted to reach her insurance and try to use her health insurance to pay for the coaching, and that wouldn’t be until Monday. And my client, not in her coach energy, said, “Oh, yeah, well don’t buy today. Buy whenever. Talk to your insurance people,” versus if I’m in my coach energy, it’s so interesting, right? Because sometimes we think being unattached is the highest level service, but I actually think making decisions as your future self is the highest level service.

So what I might have said is, “Don’t wait for your insurance to tell you whether or not you’re getting help or not. Right? What if they say no, then you’re going to decide not to get help? I would firmly decide whether you’re getting help or not. Then I would see if insurance will pay as a cherry on top.”

Do you see the difference there? I know this is crazy because it’s like you would expect the way that people think is my answer is coming from a salesy perspective, like being attached and graspy and salesy, and that my client’s answer is coming from being unattached and in service, but it’s actually the opposite, if you believe selling is coaching and coaching is selling. And if you believe the same things I do, which is that our number one job is to fight for what they say they want and who they want to be. And if you understand that their current self is going to have to do some uncomfortable things in order to take action towards the life that they want to be living, or the results they want to be having.

But also, this is the thing I think about. As a coach, so remember, I’m going into my coach brain. As a coach, what I also know is that I want them to take action right now for the thing they want because if they don’t take action now, they may not, period. Right?

The moment you delay the decision for anything, it does not matter what it is, to talk to your spouse, to go check your budget, to check your insurance, to ask if your job will pay for it. The moment you decide to wait and delay the decision-making, the moment you abandon the cart, metaphorically or physically, the moment you do that, you may never come back. That’s the way the human brain operates.

I think about how many carts you abandoned when you’re looking at things. And I told her, I was like, “You could ask them that. How many abandoned carts do you have? How many times have you added things to carts and never gone back to get them?” That’s what the brain does. Because the opportunity, the only opportunity we ever have to take action is right now. You either decide now or not. Some people do come back. They do. Some people do come back.

I’m one of these people. I’ll start a bunch of carts, and then I’ll leave them open, and then I’ll swoop in and close them all at the same time. Usually, I’m like putting outfits together or thinking things through, especially if it’s for my kids. I’m like, “Oh, I got to find a sweater that matches this, so I don’t want to buy this until I find the sweater.” I’ll start a bunch, but then I close them out all at once. And I’m an unlikely person. A lot of people just abandon.

If you don’t decide right now, if you don’t take advantage of the energy, of the excitement, of the belief, of the decision, it may never come back. If you wait even 24 hours, there’s something about your brain that’s able to talk you out of it. Like even in very small amounts of time, like an hour or two, might be too late if you really want to get help.

This is also why people say yes and then they email you later. They say yes, and then if they don’t pay right away and they don’t get their first call on the books… And I’m not saying they need to call on the consult or pay on the consult, I never did that.

But if they don’t take action very quickly, every moment that goes by, their brain is starting to pay attention to the discomfort in their body of thinking about changing, what it’s going to take to change, getting help for that change, paying for that help, the possibility that they may not get what they had hoped for, the potential for failure, all the things that are going to be required, like all the pain, right? Their brain’s going to start thinking about that. It’s going to start alerting them with fear.

So the decision has to happen in the moment, and then you have to take action in the moment. Even when you do the work, right? Like if you’re coaching, you know, like you’re coaching a client to lose weight, the decision is in the moment to not eat the cookie. They either decide or they don’t. But it’s got to be right there in the moment. It’s the only opportunity they have to lose weight, is the moment they’re thinking about eating the cookie.

The only opportunity that your people may ever have to change their life is on that consult, is on that webinar, right? When they’re reading the email and they could click the link to sign up, right? Their brain is doing something. It’s like I always tell them, whatever has you taking action to sign up for a consult or to read the email and click the link to go to the sales page, whatever has you on the webinar considering, buying, thinking about it, that little whisper inside of you is your future self. It’s the version of you that really wants it. It’s the version of you who believes you can do it.

It’s just that it might be like the tiniest little flicker, like turning on a gas fireplace. You know how it has, like the flicker first and then the flames get bigger? That little low-level pilot light. Right? It’s the pilot light. That little pilot light is often what compels someone to get on the consult, get on the webinar, read the email, go to the sales page.

And then there’s the current self and the current self’s thinking that’s going to fight that flicker. It’s the one in charge right now. How we know is because of the results that the person is in or the results that you are in, right? If it’s ourselves. That person is like 90% of the thing is driving the car. It’s doing 90% of the decision-making. And then there’s this flicker inside trying to do the 10%. So, of course, it’s going to be very hard.

So if they don’t sign up bonus or not on that webinar, if they email in to their health insurance, all it’s going to take, and this person helps people lose like a lot of weight to be like healthy again. And if they wait and their healthcare says no, the 90% of their brain who doesn’t want to change and do the uncomfortable thing is going to snuff that pilot light right out. That’s what I know to be true. Right? They are either going to listen to the little flame, or they’re not. And so for me, the way I think as a salesperson and a coach is that we only have that moment to turn that pilot light into a roaring flame. That moment.

So no, we don’t want to go check with our health insurance. No, we don’t want to go check our budget. No, we don’t want to go talk to our spouse about it. No, we don’t want to go think about it and think it through because, you know, we don’t like to make rash decisions. What we want to do is just make a good decision. Let’s talk about it right now. It’s the only time that we can. It’s the best time. It’s the time where you have the highest percentage of taking action and seeing it through. Now, it may not feel like that for you if you’re a coach and you’re really good at making decisions towards what you want in your life. But for most people, it’s that moment. That’s it.

The moment they go off to think about it, it’s not happening. It’s a very small percentage of people who do think about it and come back. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, it’s just not typical, normal human behavior.

If I look at the thousands of coaches in my 2k for 2k program, the number one thing that happens is people say either yes, and then they don’t make it to paying and getting on the first call if they say no, like if they don’t sign the client. Or they said they had to think about it, and then they email in and say, “I’ve thought about it.” And my current self has a stronger belief system and decision-making, has more authority in my decision-making than my future self. Like that’s really what they’re going to say, no matter what they tell you. No matter what they tell you, what they’re actually saying is my current self has more authority in my decision-making than my future self.

And you just have to decide whether you’re going to be like, “Okay, bye,” or not. We joke about that a lot in 2k when people get objections, and they’re afraid to be a coach in that moment, and they don’t want to be uncomfortable and say the hard thing, or they don’t want to have the energy of fighting for the future self and believing deeply and stroking the pilot light. They’re like, “Okay, bye.” When they’re people pleasing. “Okay, bye.” But that’s not good selling, and it’s not good coaching.

I heard this example years ago of someone who went on a job interview, and they thought they nailed it. They did every part of the interview perfectly. And they were meeting with the actual CEO, and the CEO said, “I can’t give you a definite yes. I want to check your references, and you know, but you pretty much have got the job.” And then he didn’t get the job. And so he was asking this coach, like, “What did I do wrong?” And the coach said, “Well, you didn’t have him call your references right in the interview.” Like, “If I’m the best fit for the job and the only thing holding you back is the references, let’s call them up right now. What do you want to ask them?”

Now, that’s a radical approach, but coaching is radical. We do the thing now, right? The CEO had time to think about it and ended up going in a different direction, or not hiring, or whatever. But it went from like you’re pretty much the candidate to like you’re not getting the job because of the time in between the decision-making. That’s the way that I sell, not to convince someone, but to serve them. That is my thinking about it.

So my client, so this is where it gets really interesting. So my client said, “But I, in my culture, we don’t push hard,” essentially, “and it looks bad if we try to really like sell hard.” And so I asked her with what she does, she helps people on weight loss and people who are addicted to things. It could be food, it could also be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be things like that.

And so I said, “Okay, let me ask you this question. Would you in your brain internally say the way you are with money right now and the way you are with sales,” because she was saying, “I’m unattached, I’m unattached.” And I said, “Would you say that you’re unattached, like if you’re talking to someone and they may or may not do heroin in the coming future, do you feel unattached to that?”

And she said, “Well, I have to, because if not, I can’t sleep.” And I said, “Okay, let me redirect you here. Would you say something hard in order to keep them from doing heroin?” And she was like, “Oh, yes, absolutely.” And I said, “Okay, I believe the same to be true about selling and coaching. They’re the same thing.”

I can be completely unattached, like if I’m thinking about my clients because I also have to live my life, so I can’t stress out if you’re going to quit your business or not in the middle of the night. I’ve got to like feed my baby. And she can’t stress if her client is going to do heroin or not. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to do this work.

And I can hold very strong, like the belief that my client is going to make money and isn’t going to quit and is capable of pulling through and I can say the hard things and I can fight for my client very hard from that energy of not trying to get money or a sale, but for my client knowing if they make the decision to move forward, like this moment, it could change their entire life.

Right? It doesn’t matter to me if they buy or not. The way I think about it, especially on webinars, and is someone’s going to buy, and even on consults, I believe this. Someone’s going to buy, even if they don’t buy. But also what I know to be true is if my clients figure out how to do consults, it could be the difference of them not having to work their full-time job anymore. It could be the difference of them being home for their kids. It could be the difference of them being able to take radically different vacations and having a radically different lifestyle, a radically different retirement. It could be the difference of them being happier or not. It could be the difference of them quitting their business or not.

Like I know what’s on the line with their future if they say yes to themselves, regardless of the discomfort of what they’re in now and the discomfort that it will take to grow. So I’m going to say the hard thing. I’m going to tell all of the truths that I know, including that if they don’t buy when they’re thinking about buying, that they might not. If they don’t invest, they may not make the change. That if they don’t take action now, they may never. Right? I know how their brain works. I know their brain’s going to talk them out of that. It’s the truth of what I know about human behavior.

And it has nothing to do with me saying that from the place of wanting them to buy, so I hit a goal. And in fact, I was even telling my client, like, there are times where if I even feel a remote attachment to the sale, I won’t say the hard thing because I know it won’t land. But if I’m in the energy where I’m going to battle for someone as a coach, knowing what I know about human behavior and knowing what I know is on the line, then I’m going to do it. I’m going to say the hard thing, but it can’t be about the money.

So in a sales situation, especially in like a one-on-one or on a webinar, if someone’s like offering you and you’re going to say different things than I do. Right? I’m a little more blunt. I’ve had a lot more practice. I tend to go from A to B much more quickly than I was when I was newer at coaching. But you’re going to say the thing as if you’re fighting for someone to not take heroin.

And so then I asked her, “How could selling hard,” because that’s what she was having an aversion to, “how could selling hard save people’s lives?” And she said, “Well, most people that come to me are not in deadly situations.” And I said, “But I don’t believe that.” And this is what I said to her. I believe there is a difference between being physically dead, obviously, and emotionally dead or unalive or unawake.

It’s actually been proven by science that if you don’t stretch your brain, if you don’t grow your awareness and your skill in making intentional decisions, if you don’t learn new things, if you don’t really use your brain, it will go on autopilot. By the time you enter adulthood, your brain can be on so much autopilot that it’s actually like you’re going through life completely asleep. And I don’t want people to live their lives that way. I want them to break out of that. And some of them even know that they’re living on autopilot, but they don’t have the tools to break out of it. And that is very painful.

So for me, I actually do believe I’m fighting for their lives. And I know that people will think that’s like, ugh. They’re going to roll their eyes at that. Like, “Oh, Stacey said she’s fighting for people’s lives on the podcast.” But that is the truth of how it feels for me. Like, I know what it’s like to feel like I’ve lived four lives in this one lifetime because I have been so present to my life. I am so engaged that it’s not slipping away. I’m not living a life of regret.

It’s my one and only life, and I’m living it the way I intentionally want with what matters most in my priorities. I’m experiencing it with presence and engagement. I’m soaking and anchoring in every moment of joy of my children’s childhood, of my life, of my every waking moment, every experience. I want to give that to other people. I want to help other people do that. I want to help all the coaches that I serve go out and help all the other people do that because otherwise it’s literally a wasted life.

So I really do think there’s a lot on the line, and I fight for that. So there’s like kind of two energies when you think about selling is coaching and selling. One of them is like you don’t have to dread your marketing and your selling because you think it’s a means to an end in order to get someone to buy, but it could feel like you’re lit up and in total alignment with the work you’re meant to be doing in the world. It could feel like the greatest adrenaline-like hit. It can feel like, I mean, dopamine, like it can feel amazing. It can feel in service. You can feel like you’re doing your life’s purpose that you’re doing God’s work. It can feel that way when you’re in service, and you’re having fun, and you’re believing in people bigger than they can believe in themselves.

Then you can also turn on that coach energy, that is coach energy, right? But then it also can be that fighting energy, that courageous energy, that saying the hard thing energy. It can be both of those. But both of those are coaching energies.

So here are a couple of things I’ve said to my clients in service during sales situations. I had one client years ago, like literally nine years ago, who I did like a husband and wife consult, but it was the wife who was going to do the coaching for her network marketing business. And he told the wife on the call, “Well, if you don’t make this investment back, then we’re not going to be able to give our kids Christmas gifts.” And his energy was like, really like not cute. It was not good.

And with my coach energy, I said, “Listen,” whatever his name was, “pressuring her about the kids’ Christmas gifts is not going to help her succeed. And I don’t think you’d really be considering that, considering this coaching, if that were actually true. But either way, she needs your support, not your pressure, or it’s never going to work. You guys have got to get on the same page.” Something I’ve actually said to a client.

I also had a client once come to a consult call for the 200k Mastermind, and she, like, said at the end, “Well, my husband and I talked before this consult and decided we were a no.” And I don’t even remember what I actually said to her. I just remember my energy was I was so outraged. Like shocked, not outraged in a bad way, but like shocked. It felt outrageous to hear that. And I go, “Wait, what? You came on this call deciding to be a no? Like having already decided, then why did you come to the call?” Like, I was baffled, and it just came out of me. Like same thing I would have said as a coach. I wasn’t thinking about the sale. I wasn’t thinking of people-pleasing her. I wasn’t thinking of like, “Oh, okay, bye.” No, I think what I said is like, “How many of your clients do you think are doing that to you? They’re getting on a free consult, but they’ve already decided it’s a no.”

Whatever, something similar to that. Whatever I said, she ended up signing up. She was like, “Oh my God, you’re right. What am I doing? I’m in.” And she ended up working with me for a long time, creating $100,000 business, and that like woke her up. Like, I think good coaching and good selling wakes people up.

On the alternative, I’ve also said this. I think this is important to include in this episode. I’ve also said to someone, “Listen, your house is in foreclosure. You have a lot of debt. Your marriage, you’ve told me, is heading towards divorce. This is a big risk for you to spend any money on something other than your mortgage and your debt. I do believe I can help you. I know that, but I want you to take at least 24 hours to think it through if you are really going to show up for this and give it 100% because you cannot afford not to. You’d have to like really think, am I willing to listen to everything Stacey says? Am I willing to do everything Stacey says to do? Because that’s the only way I want you to do this with me.” I’ve said that before.

I’ve also said to a client who was considering renewing in my 200k Mastermind, and she only had six months to spend with a loved one. And I said in front of the entire room, who was also considering renewal, “If I only had six months to be with a loved one, there’s no way in hell I’d be working. Or I’d be doing the absolute bare minimum to keep my business going, and all my extra time and energy would be to with my person. Don’t do next round. Be with your loved one. 200k is a luxury. It will be here waiting for you when you come back, but this is the priority.” I’ve said that in front of everyone.

So it works both ways. Right? It works both ways to say, “I don’t think this is the right investment for you.” I’ve told people I don’t think they’re in the right energy. I tell them that all the time with 2k. They’ll come to me with all this, like unprocessed pain of past investments and like, “Oh, I did this, and it was a scam.” And, “Oh, I did this, and it was just not very good.” And, “Oh, I did….” And I just always tell them like, “You’ve got to process through that. Otherwise, you’re going to come into 2k with that energy, and you’re going to be looking for me to fix all of that for you, to be better than all of that experience combined, and that’s not fair.”

My program’s awesome, but I don’t want it to be full of coaches who feel like they’ve been burned by other things. Like clean that up first, and then from an empowered place decide if you want to do 2k. I tell people that in my DMs all the time. So it works both ways.

Now, I think people do not believe this to be true, sometimes that you could be in that type of energy when you’re selling, and that you could truly be in service and not be trying to get money, because it takes great skill to get here. It’s very nuanced. Once you have it for life, I think, you can direct yourself back to it. You don’t like have it like on autopilot for life, but you can direct yourself back. You understand what that feeling is. But if you don’t have it, if you’ve never been clean in your selling in this way, if you’ve never been in this much service, you can’t understand how someone else could. So I think this is where a lot of my online hate has come from.

People mistake my strong conviction and belief in my clients with and my the way that, I mean, it’s the same as I literally I sell the same as I coach. So if you’ve ever been in my coaching containers, you know how I coach. I’m a wolf. So I sell like a wolf too. But they take that as taking over my client’s personal choice and their own consent, which I also just don’t think I coach stupid people, and I don’t think I coach people who don’t know how to have consent. Right? But it’s just simply not true. 

My power in coaching and selling does not disempower someone else, and neither does yours. It’s impossible. They can be disempowered already and then make disempowering choices for themselves, right?

I just told a, I just told a story recently of we ordered a new Audi also. We wanted to have two SUVs, and we always have an Audi Q7 SUV on, like we have to have a third row to transport our dog and our children. And I was in a very disempowered place of being very pregnant and in a rush, thinking like one lease was up and we’ve got to get a new lease. Otherwise, we’re not going to have this car to bring home the baby in, and like all of that.

And I like ordered a car that we got it and I like hate the inside. It’s so ugly. And now I’m going to have to drive it for the we, my husband and I are going to have to drive it for the next three years, and we’re like, “It looks horrible inside.” Okay, I can take responsibility for that. I was not in my full empowered place. I was not I was very rushed and very afraid I was going to not have something to drive, and more focused on the baby. Like that’s fine. That happens.

So, like my clients who had the debt and the foreclosure, like she could have thrown money at me to solve her problems without considering the work required to change her life. But that would have been her disempowerment, not my empowerment overpowering hers. It’s not reckless to tell her I know I can help her win, I can. It might feel reckless to people who don’t know if they can help, but I know I can, so it’s not.

My confidence isn’t hope for both of us. It’s built on years of experience and a track record for success. And that will help it happen for you, too. The better you get at coaching, the more people you’re going to sell. The better you get at coaching, the stronger you will sell. The stronger you are at selling, the stronger you will be at coaching. The more people are going to get results. It’s kind of like the chicken and the egg. It doesn’t matter which comes first; they’re the same.

Coaching is selling, selling is coaching. It’s in service. It’s for their future self. It’s without attachment and without judgment. It’s believing in and seeing the other person as completely empowered, speaking to their empowerment, being in your own empowerment, being unattached, but fighting, knowing what’s on the line. It’s an active, alive energy. That, to me, is the art of clean selling.

It’s what I teach inside my 2k for 2k at the consult level and then all the way up through 2 Million Dollar Group. Like my conversation with my client about the bonuses on the webinars, she says she can do that easily and hold space and be in clean selling when she’s one-on-one, but on webinars, it doesn’t feel the same.

And so even at the million-dollar level, the work we’re doing is being able to stay in your coach energy even in the one-to-many model, right? Staying clean with 2,000 people on a call or 20 people on a call, like with an audience.

But when you master this, you will make tons of money because people will feel so good being sold from you. They will be so empowered. They will also get results because the same belief they have to buy is also the same belief they have to get results. And if they don’t buy, it’s that same disbelief that’s keeping them from getting results that also keeps them from investing. Someone’s got to break the cycle. It’s got to be you. You’re the coach.

And the best part is you’ll feel so good about the money you make. You’ll know you’re clean in your selling. You’ll know the times where you steer people away versus the times where you know to double down and empower someone. You can’t be right 100% of the time, but it doesn’t mean that you step out of your empowerment and your power and service and selling for fear that someone might be disempowered buying from you or for fear that they may not get the results, for fear that they are going to invest money, but they won’t get the thing that you’re talking about. Like that’s not useful for either of you.

So you’ve got to do your best to believe in your client, to fight for their future self, to fan that pilot light, the thing that had them get on the consult, the thing that has them considering coaching, the thing that has them looking at the sales page. You’ve got to do your best to stroke that flame and do it with your coach energy.

All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I love you all so much. Have an amazing week, and I will see you next week for lesson… is it five? Lesson five? All right, let’s go.

Hey, if you’re 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 using my simple five-step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to StaceyBoehman.com/2Kfor2K. We’ll see you inside.