Make Money as a Life Coach® with Stacey Boehman | MVP: Lessons from 100 Nos with Laura Dixon

On this week’s show, I’m bringing back one of our most valuable podcasts where I interviewed Laura Dixon. Laura is a true example of someone who is willing to go all-in to create the business of her dreams. She is a weight loss coach for high-achieving women, and at the time of the original recording, she had made $25,000 in her business despite being rejected 100 times! She didn’t let it stop her and she’s become even more successful over the three years since.

Entrepreneurs generally fear being told no on consults. This makes sense, but it’s keeping you stuck. Laura realized that being told no, while feeling terrible, is just part of the process, and she was willing to feel all the negative emotions so she could learn some valuable lessons from receiving 100 rejections.

Join us this week to discover the top lessons that Laura learned from getting 100 nos on her consults. Laura is sharing the thought process that made her willing to show up for consults, networking events, and invest in Facebook ads, even if she received a no from everyone she spoke to. You’ll hear the growth she’s experienced as a direct consequence of this willingness, and how you can adopt what she’s laying down today.

 

Click here to sign up for the waitlist for the next round of the 200K Mastermind!

If you want to start making serious money as a coach, you need to check out 2K for 2K. Click here to join!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • How Laura decided that being told no was part of the process.
  • Laura’s work of being willing to fail and receive all the nos.
  • Why self-awareness is crucial on your consults. 
  • The biggest lessons Laura learned from getting 100 nos.
  • How to start thinking about the future of your business instead of getting caught up in your current results.
  • 2 things that will help you see how you’re showing up to your consults with a needy and graspy energy.
  • How to set your energy so you can maintain control on your consult calls.
  • The thought process Laura developed that created 100 consults.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

 

Featured on the Show:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

 

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.

Stacey: Hey coaches. I have a really awesome episode planned for you today. I am interviewing my client, Laura Dixon, who is a weight loss coach for high-achieving women. She helps them become naturally thin, which I think is super fun.

But here’s what we’re here to talk about today. Laura is in our 2K group. She also just joined the 200K mastermind and she posted recently something that blew my mind and I had to get her on so that I could ask her all of the questions that I know that all of you are going to want to know the answers to.

So here’s what Laura posted. She has done 100 consults in the last two months, gotten 100 nos, and has now made $25,000 in her business from those nos. So what? Tell me about that. I mean, we talk about this all the time where we’re like, are you willing to get 100 nos? But I’ve never actually seen anybody be willing to do the challenge.

We’ve gotten to 49 nos I think in 2K before the coach started making a lot of money. And so I have all the questions. So can you just kind of tell me about it and then I’m going to just pick your brain for the rest of the podcast.

Laura: Perfect. So I joined 2K last July actually, so it’s been about a year. And at the time I was eight months pregnant and I was working a corporate job and then I had my baby, and then I didn’t really get serious until kind of the fall. And I remember seeing people saying they got all these nos or 10 nos or 12 nos or 30 nos, and I was like, that’s never going to be me.

And I had all of this fear around all these people saying no. And I remember thinking about am I willing to get 100 nos. And I thought really like, long and hard about it, and I thought like, that sounds terrible, but for sure, if I knew on the other side of it, it was everything I wanted, I’m totally willing to do all of the nos.

And I was kind of tiptoeing around having consults and doing consults out of the fear of getting all of the nos, and then I thought – I got really serious about how I wanted to create consults, and I was trying all the things that everyone else was doing. And then I just kind of decided really specifically, for me and my clients, how did I want to create consults and was I willing to go through all of the nos?

And I just thought like, I will do anything, literally anything to create the business that I see so clearly for myself in the future. I was like, we can totally do this, it’s fine.

Stacey: That is so amazing. So there’s so much to unpack here. The first thing though that I think is so important for everybody that’s listening is – and I think what keeps people from willing to be – whether it’s 100 nos on a consult or just 100 fails, I think what keeps people from being willing to do that is they don’t have a very clear picture of what’s on the other side.

And when you have the belief of like, okay, on the other side of this 100 fails, these 100 consult nos, or whether it’s 100 Facebook Lives they’re willing to do or 100 emails or 100 posts they’re willing to do, on the other side of that, if you have a clear picture of what your success is going to look like and you know in your bones that that is going to be you, it’s so much easier to get through.

I don’t know that it’s easier, it’s just you’re able to do it versus when you don’t have that clear picture, what keeps people from failing is that doubt that I’m going to go through all this pain and it isn’t going to result in anything. Did you ever experience a time through these 100 nos where you questioned that, where you had to work really hard on that? Or was it just in you from the beginning, you were very sure about that?

Laura: So I definitely wasn’t sure, especially in the beginning. And even before I started getting all of the nos, so even prior to the last two months that I kept having all of this pressure and this kind of panic around it because I was like, if I don’t make this work, I’m going to have to go back to my corporate job and all of these other things that I kept telling myself.

And then what really started to change for me and my willingness to go through all of it is I imagine, in my mind I actually do this almost every day and I close my eyes and I think about being on this path. And I imagine my future for myself. And so I imagine myself right now standing with my existing clients. And then I imagine being on this path, and it’s a path in a forest and it’s paved and there’s all these people in front of me, and there’s this other version of me with 20 clients and I have a full practice.

And it’s like, this path kind of goes up this hill, and then at the top of the hill I imagine looking out and seeing thousands of women. And for me, I think like, to go through the nos right now to get to that, to get to working with 20 women and then in the future, getting to the place where I’m working with thousands of women, going through 100 nos is like, that’s fine. It’s clearly just part of it.

And that doesn’t mean there weren’t times that I wasn’t crying with my husband and feeling devastated and feeling disappointed and feeling like it’s never going to work. But I allowed myself to feel all of that and to have it feel terrible in that moment, but then also think about I’m willing to feel that right now for my future, for my business in the future, and that’s totally okay.

And that doesn’t mean it feels great all of the time, but I’m willing to do that for that reason. And when I think about failing in particular, like you said, whether it’s on a consult or sending emails or making offers, whatever you’re trying to do or whatever you’re thinking about as a failure, we often think that money is what determines our success, which I think is true when it happens.

But before it does, the way I think about failing is money is directly correlated to the amount I fail, or my willingness to fail. And so I’m willing to fail in the moment right now to compound the money for the future. And so it’s like, I’m making money right now, it just hasn’t come yet. It’s just coming.

Stacey: Yeah, it’s like when you’re failing, and this is what people don’t realize because they get so stuck when we talk about the value bank. They’re like, okay, how do I keep putting value in? And part of that is yes, giving value to other people through service, but another piece of that is becoming valuable, adding self-value to yourself. And I should clarify, business value. Making your business value higher. And the way that you do that is you grow yourself.

You grow your mind, you grow your experience. And so as you are failing, you are adding to the value bank as well in a different way. You are adding to that value, your business value, your experience, your resilience, your knowledge, your wisdom, everything. You’re growing that. And I think that that is so important, and people don’t – they’re like, oh, I just have to serve, serve, serve, and they don’t really think about the level of personal failure they’re going to have to experience to also compound that money on the other side.

Laura: Yeah, for sure. And that’s – when I think about it that way, it just gets me out of the immediate, oh, this feels so terrible. Not that it doesn’t feel terrible, but I’m like, oh, I can totally do this because I know what’s coming ahead and in the future, and for me too, I was never on social media before. Even before this, before I started my own business.

I never even went on a Facebook Live. I thought I was going to lose my mind the first time I did that. And that was less than a year ago. And now I just got on the phone, like a Zoom call with 100 people and they all told me no. It can happen so quickly I think when you’re willing to be able to go through whatever it takes.

Stacey: Yeah, that’s so good. I was really thinking about this too like, I remember very – within my first year, spending a lot of time, because I used to sell mops and slicers and all kinds of things all across the country. So I used to drive a lot. I mean, it was nothing for a store to be eight hours away and I just pack up my little stage and drive four states away.

And so I was always in the car, always driving, and I had so much alone time to think. And when I’m there for two weeks, I’m by myself in a hotel room. So lots of alone time to think. And I think that that ended up being one of the advantages because I spent so much time imagining my future. And I spent so much time just the way you described it, thinking about the small – I shouldn’t even say small when you’re looking at 100K or 20 clients. That’s still huge.

But like, thinking about my year goal, to me, I think that is a smaller goal in the scheme of things. So I would think of my 20 people and then I would think of my thousands of people too. Just the exact way you described it. I spent so much time doing that, and I also had the awareness of that isn’t going to happen overnight.

So some coaches come in, they just launched their business and I’m like, how much do you want to make? And they’re like, oh, I want to make $500,000 this year. And it’s just not realistic. And it’s not that we’re saying it’s not possible, it’s not that we’re putting limiting beliefs out in the world. It’s literally not self-aware of the amount of effort it takes to create even 20 clients, to create even 100K.

And so I just spent a lot of time knowing that my big vision is going to take years. Not just years of building an audience and having success, but years of failing and trying a bunch of things and putting myself out there. And I really was much more willing to do it because I did develop that very clear vision of what my future is going to be, and I think that’s so – on the hardest, hardest days, I spend a lot of time crying to.

Even when I scale, I think that my scaling year was just as hard as my going to 100K year. To me, those were both very difficult for me, and the year I scaled, I did so many webinars and I would get off the webinar and just bawl my eyes out. I mean, I would wake up in the night, my brain would just be spinning trying to figure out how I’m going to make a million dollars happen.

And I had so many emails go out that didn’t convert, and really, I set a goal for 50 people to enroll in 2K every single time I did a launch and we would get like, 15. And then we would get 26. And I don’t think we got 50 the entire year that I started selling 2K, for 12 full months.

People see it now, 1500 members. They see the success that it is now, but for 12 straight months, I sold 2K and felt like I was getting no traction and felt like I was getting nowhere. So here’s what I’m curious to find out from you because I know, I learned so much about how to sell 2K from those 12 months. Those 12 months are the reason I make the money I make now in 2K. So what are the things that you learned with these 100 consults?

Laura: Yeah. So I have several notes that I wrote, and there are several things that I learned. But some of the biggest lessons that I learned, and not just about myself. The first one I think is just never give up. If you think about – you were talking about the future and your business, and I think about this moment and how our brains are programmed to worry about his moment and think about all these things about this moment.

And I have a very Type A brain that just goes and goes and goes and goes all of the time that to remember, if I’m going to have a business for the next 50 years potentially, does it really matter that I had 100 consults or that I had a month where I didn’t make any money? It doesn’t. Because when I think about in the grand scheme of things, it’s nowhere even close to what I know I’m capable of producing and creating, and so just never giving up no matter what.

And the second big thing that I took away is I got away from thinking about my clients. I got into this kind of I need to get more clients. I wasn’t thinking about the clients I had, I wasn’t thinking really strongly about where are they at, what’s going through their mind. I was so focused on me, and I think that’s why I had a huge fear of failing in the beginning, and then why I went through so many nos.

I did get into this very like, not very good place. We got to do more, we got to do more, we got to do more, trying to get the clients to make me feel better. And really understanding that I need to shift what I’m thinking and think about my clients, what’s going through their mind, what are they struggling with, thinking about my clients now, thinking about my future clients, even if I didn’t have anyone yet, what is going through their mind and how can I help them and that’s really when I started to see the shift and that’s when I signed this client that put me over the 25K to get into 200K.

But also now, even I’m just seeing people are responding to my emails and telling me and tell me about the podcast and all of the things, and I can just see it’s starting because I’m just thinking about them and it’s not about me anymore.

Stacey: Yeah, that’s what happened when I was first selling 2K. That was the biggest thing. It seems like such a small thing, but really, I mean, I’m sure you know her from the podcast, Maggie Reyes, but you get to meet her in 200K. One of the famous things that she told me and said and told in her story is that she unsubscribed at one point from my email list.

And then she was just like, this is not vibing with me, I’m not resonating, this message isn’t resonating. And then she ended up coming back on my email list, and there was just a period of time where my brain was obsessively thinking about my failure, about what the goals I wasn’t achieving, the things that weren’t working for me, the way I wasn’t measuring up in my mastermind, in my opinion, the ways that I wasn’t – just all about me.

It’s this internal personal suffering that we experience when we’re so self-focused. And when you look at the 2K process, you cannot underestimate that third step of clean selling and getting your brain off yourself and off your own internal dialogue and fear of failure and fear of not making money and fear of not signing the client and fear of not being able to overcome the objection that you’ve already decided is about to happen.

All of your shit that comes up on the consult, every thought that you have that you’re thinking about you keeps you from focusing on them. And when you’re not all in focused on your clients and exactly what you said, their problem and how to help them, when that’s not where your entire brain space goes, I think they can feel it.

I think they don’t know for sure what it is, it’s just a no. It doesn’t compel them to overcome their own objections. It doesn’t compel them to want to figure it out. I think it’s like, you know that you’ve done that when you’re on a consult and you can tell me what your experience is, but when someone isn’t willing to even coach on their objections at all, I don’t think it’s that they’re unwilling to think about it differently or to explore options to work with you.

It’s that they weren’t sold so they just don’t – it’s probably a lie to begin with the objection they say. Like oh, I’m going to have to talk to my husband. It’s like, really, you just didn’t sell them well and they don’t want to keep going. What are your thoughts about that?

Laura: Yeah, for sure. And I would have thought, listen, if you tell me I have 100 consults coming up, inevitably, someone will just say yes, right? Out of sheer numbers, but it didn’t happen until after 100 because I was in that headspace of like, I need to do more and I need to get more and I would see the consults coming in.

And I literally got to the place that I had more consults than I even could put on my calendar, and I was like, see? It’s just going to happen, I know it’s going to happen. I know I’m going to make money. It was so focused on me and me getting clients and me making money and me, me, me all of this time that it’s like you said, there was always something that was a little bit off.

And I would do evaluations and I would do kind of really think and reflect about what had happened on the consult. But they can sense that. It is that intangible piece that you talk about like, they can sense that and it comes across in very different ways. And I mean, I had some people that were just like, that’s just a no, that’s an F off, goodbye.

And I also had a lot of people that were like, well – they kind of gave an objection and when I would ask, can I ask you some questions about that, are you open to coaching on that, sort of lead into the conversation, very few – some would be like, I suppose. But very few were like, yes of course, until the end of the 100 consults because I was in that headspace that it was just so much about me.

And the other way I knew it was about me is because there was a time, several days that I had four or five consults in a day like back to back to back, and I was like, that’s not helping her. I’m just trying to put them through an assembly line. How am I thinking about helping her if I’m not giving her the space for me to have time between them to think and process and get my head clear to go into the next one? It was just so about me that she knew that.

Stacey: How do you develop that self-awareness? Because there are people who can do 100 nos on consults, or they could do 100 Lives or 100 posts and not develop that awareness at the end. That is possible. You could just keep doing the same thing over and over again and get the same result indefinitely. That is possible. You have to grow awareness along the way. So do you remember like, how you created this awareness? Was it little steps along the way? Was it one big a-ha moment? What kind of happened to you there?

Laura: So I would say there were two things. The main thing is just getting coached yourself, through self-coaching and through getting coached with someone else. And I remember at one point telling my husband, and he was like, that’s a little ridiculous that you’re doing that.

And I thought, you know what, no, it’s fine. And I was working with my coach. I work with Lindsay, and she was like, that’s just a no. That is too much. Think about that energy going into your consult, and still for a couple of weeks I just kind of ignored her. I was like, nope, this is just what I’m doing.

But it kind of was always there in the back of my mind and what really shifted for me too was in my self-coaching, and I think in your interview with Jennifer Dent Brown was where she talked about the surface level coaching, that the way I used it because I’m so action oriented and I’m so I’ll do all the action, tell me what to do, I’ll do it all, no problem, that my self-coaching turned into idea coaching.

And so it was like, I would start to write down some thoughts, and then it would turn into all the ideas, into all the action I was going to take. And so I wouldn’t go back and really see what thoughts were driving it. I would just do all the things. So it was like, alright, let’s just do all the consults, let’s just create more consults and create more consults.

And I would never really look at the thoughts driving all of that because I loved taking action. And so I use action to try to create my belief instead of doing them both. And so then once I really saw why am I doing all of this, what is creating that, it was this very needy, graspy energy.

And as soon as I really saw that, it was an immediate, oh, I need to let this go, I need to think about this in a different way because this is all about me and this is so needy and desperate. Of course, everyone is saying no. It was like, duh, all of a sudden.

Stacey: I experienced that so much when I was pitching. I think that’s something that I got to inherently bring with me from the piles upon piles of failures after seven years of pitching. I mean, I would go sometimes entire store runs where I would just be all about me and thinking about the money and thinking about – this is another one is like, the anticipation of how you think you want to feel or should feel during the selling process.

This should be fun for me. It should be really exciting. They should participate a lot. They should be really engaged. They should be willing to go super deep. They should be really open to all my questions. They should be really excited. Like, the way that you imagine it should be.

So I would get on stage in front of 100 people and have an idea of the way I thought I should be. And then nobody would buy. And when you have 100 physical people in front of you and they all look at you and then turn and walk off, really painful experience. I mean, for seven years, even when I was the best in the industry, I would have days like that where I would have one show like that and then it would get in my head and then I’d get up and do the next show 20 minutes later and I’d do the same thing.

And then 20 minutes later, I’d get up and it’s in my head now. That’s why I talk about the selling intangibles. I had just been in another store making $3000 in one week selling 30 sets every time I do a show. I come into this store, I have one bad show, I let it get in my head, I’m doing the exact same movements, saying the exact same words, the same product, the same grocery store or same department store.

No circumstances have changed, but my brain gets fixated on the feeling of 100 people walking off, and it just spirals. And I could literally do 12 shows a day, interact with 2000 people, and have them all say no all day. And I was 100% commission. So like, zero dollars. We’re talking walk out to the parking lot, get in my car, bawl my eyes out, get my shit together, get back to the store, do another show, have another 100 people tell me no.

It’s like, that would happen and it was common, it was frequent. And all it would be is sometimes one – that little shift of oh, I’ve got to make it about them, I’ve got to focus on them, I’ve got to be there just for them, what do they need?

And one of the things that I would have to do is figure out what does it need to be for them, for them to engage? So I’ll give you an example and everybody an example. We have this store where my fiancé is from in Jasper, Indiana. It was a Walmart.

And they’re like, farmer folk. Like, really wealthy farmer folk where they have like, the giant farms, they do all the canning and all the stuff. And we were doing kitchen slicer that does slicing and dicing. And the show they needed to see was a show where you kept going, you needed no engagement from them.

They would just stare at you like, arms crossed, stare at you the entire show, 20 minutes. And they needed kind of like – they needed you to be in a place where you were tough enough to not be shook by that. You had to give them a very bland, monotone, no intonations, no inflections, no wow for 20 minutes straight.

And that is the show they needed and if you did that and you could bear – every time you would tell them to raise their hand, they wouldn’t. So we would adapt and just not ask them at all and just be like, oh, I’m sure everybody cuts tomatoes here and just keep going. And if you could do that, if you could not give in and break down from just being stared at for 20 minutes straight, they would all buy. It’s the craziest thing.

Laura: That is crazy.

Stacey: Because it was like, what do they need it to be? Not what you – I want to do a show where when I make French fries and throw them in the air and they land on the table, everybody oohs and aahs and freaks out and you hear people like, hollering all through the store and everybody’s like, what’s going on over there?

I wanted the fun show, the energetic show, the high energy. That didn’t sell most of the time. So I think that we get on consults and we have – or webinars. And we have this expectation of how it should feel and the way it should be, and we’re all thinking about how do I create this environment that I want to experience for me. And none of it is thinking about the client.

Laura: Yeah. And I used to go too in the consults, thinking I can only sell if I’m in the perfect energy. Like I have to be in my perfect model and I would do the self-coaching before the consult in order to like, get myself to where I thought I needed to be.

And then I was like, alright, we have to connect. So I would almost force this connection from a disingenuine place, disingenuous place. I love how you make up words sometimes. I’m like, I think it’s a word, we’re just going to go with it. And I saw someone post in 2K recently, she was like, I don’t really like small talk or something like that.

And I felt like, I don’t either. But when you try to force it, they start off the conversation feeling like something is a little bit off. So when I really started to shift thinking about them, I thought like, this isn’t about me making a connection. I can actually say almost nothing and they feel connected to me because I’m just sitting there listening and I can be in my energy, whatever emotion I’m having, and just allow it to be there and still connect to them.

Even if I’m feeling disappointed, even if I’m feeling a little bit down, even if I’m feeling excited or motivated, whatever it is, I can still have that. It doesn’t mean I kind of come into it with like, a wamp-wamp energy. But I can still not be in the “perfect” energy, but as long as I know what that is and I’m aware of it and I bring that awareness with me to the consult, all of a sudden, I notice I said way less and they just were so much more connected to me because I wasn’t trying to force anything.

And so understanding that I can sell in any emotion was like, I was like, even if that’s just something I learned from doing 100 nos, I’m like, this is going to be unstoppable in the future because it doesn’t matter.

Stacey: That is one of the most powerful lessons. I really want everybody to stop, rewind, take that back another 15 seconds, hear that. You can sell in any emotion. I really believe that. And I teach in 200K, you’re going to learn at the live event, I’m putting it together right now.

And one of the things I teach is that positivity often doesn’t sell. In the Advanced Selling book, I talk about that oftentimes what we think, especially with copy, that you have to be this rah-rah really positive energy, and I say in the book that that just makes people want to punch you in the face. No one even wants that. It’s not normal.

And that’s what we have this expectation that it has to be that way. And I think value sells, and I think that you can be valuable in any energy. That’s just who you are. That’s just using your expertise and your knowledge. It has nothing to do with – some people think I think life coaching, you have to be positive and that you’re only a valuable life coach if you’re positive.

And the way I love thinking about life coaching is I’m not teaching you how to be positive. I’m teaching you how to feel. I’m teaching you how to manage your brain. I’m showing you your mind. I don’t need to be positive for any of those things. And I don’t need to be positive to help you make a decision about getting the result that you want.

Laura: Yeah. And then it’s so much more freeing too because it’s not like I have to spend all this time and energy to like, almost convince myself to be in a different headspace. Even when I think about doing a post or writing an email or doing my podcast, I used to think I have to feel really inspired in order to be able to sit down and actually do it, which isn’t the case at all.

I can sit down and do it whenever it’s on my calendar because that’s how I know I’m going to move forward. I don’t have to wait until whatever emotion I think I need to feel if I just do it. And the doing of it, I was reading Steve Chandler’s book, Time Warrior, and he was talking about the doing of it creates some of the inspiration of it. The act of just starting.

Stacey: Sometimes you have to take action in order to even get into inspiration.

Laura: And people feel that when you’re trying to convince yourself into an energy before you talk to them or before you post or before you do whatever, I also feel like that comes across. And then when I started thinking too back to them, they’re not in that energy. They’re not in the life is amazing, I love my life. They’re in the thoughts of like, I’m really uncomfortable in my body.

And I see myself in the mirror and I hate seeing my reflection and I’m thinking about food all the time. They’re not in the space that when we’re on the other side of the problem we’re solving, and so it’s no longer something I struggle with, but I have to remember they’re coming to, especially a consult, they’re coming with this problem that weighs so heavily on them. And then for me to be in this kind of fake, hey, how’s it going, sort of high vibration energy, especially when it’s not authentic, they don’t connect to that.

Stacey: Yeah. I call that meeting people where they are, and I think it’s one of the most important things I learned doing consults is it is a necessity to meet someone where they are. And I think you have to be willing to go into the consult open to figure that out. I call that positive neutral, which is – I don’t want people to get caught up on the word positive when we’re saying you don’t have to be positive.

Positive neutral is just open. I’m creating an open space in my body for any emotion to be on the table in this conversation, for anything to be said, and I’m creating this space where I’m kind of waiting for the client to determine the energy of the call. I’m waiting to find out where they are and I’m always going to set my energy – if they’re energy is high, one level below theirs so I can maintain control of the call, so that we can keep moving forward.

We can’t just get carried away with ourselves. Or I’ll set it one level above if their energy is low, one level, just one notch above to maintain the consult, still driving forward, so that it doesn’t get so low energy that we can’t get to the end.

So it’s like, just knowing where – being able to be open and kind of positive neutral to read the body language I think you can feel over a call. I think you can feel on Zoom. I think you can navigate that, even if you aren’t in person of where are they at, where do I put my energy to be very complimentary to theirs and guide this conversation in a way that they need.

Which if you go back to the Walmart example, that crowd’s energy, they were matter of fact people, they’re hardworking, German Catholic, they have a certain vibe about them. That’s just how they are in their life. They’re not big showy people. They can’t respond to that.

So everybody’s got a different energy, and mastery in selling is when you can figure out whoever’s in front of you, what energy do they have, and can I meet them where they are and be there and give them the experience they need and make it not about me at all, and then do my own work to find enjoyment with that process.

Find enjoyment with being able to serve my student or my client at the highest level that I can, for them to get the highest results they can. That’s the fun part for me. I don’t need to have fun and experience rah-rah on the call. It can be whatever it needs to be. I think that’s such a beautiful lesson.

And I want everyone to also remember that little piece. I just want to go back to it, where it’s like, saying less is more a lot of the time. I think that we think we have to talk, talk, talk and fill up the space on the call and tell them all of our knowledge and how experienced we are and how smart we are. And all that does is they feel missed. They don’t feel seen. They don’t feel like they got their story out.

Laura: Yeah. And I think especially for me too, I am an introvert. So that was also just thinking about my own energy and what I like and the type of people that I attract is to be able to just sit there, and who doesn’t like talking about themselves? Most people, to come on a call for an hour and have the ability to just tell someone about all the things and all the problems and talk about your future.

And when I was able to detach from someone saying yes or no, I was like, what an amazing gift that I’m giving to someone that we can go through this process together. And then like you said, after the call, even though I got a no, I still didn’t feel drained. I felt energized by it, even if we didn’t have that high vibration call, just knowing that I was able to connect to another human being in that way that most of us have never experienced before.

Like, I’d never experienced that before coaching. And I even think back to my corporate job. When we would be in meetings or when we would have a bunch of people around or being in a project, the people that the executives really valued and really understood and rewarded with promotions and bonuses and all of the things, and I became one of them, was someone who – I think about it as you use your words very wisely.

You’re not talking just to talk, which is kind of what I was doing in the beginning. You’re there and they know you know what you’re talking about because of the way you hold the space and because of the way you respond to them. It’s just in this very calm, grounded energy, and you can say one sentence and they’re like, oh, she knows what she’s talking about. It doesn’t have to be me trying to convince you with more and more and more information.

Stacey: Yeah, or even one question. One well-placed question and people get stuck in, well, what do you say? How do you respond to this? And it’s different every single time. I almost feel like when people post in 2K and they’re like, well, what would you say to this? They’re misunderstanding what the problem was to begin with.

The problem wasn’t that they didn’t know what to say to that person in that moment. The problem was they weren’t focused and paying enough attention to what the person was saying. The way I think about it is I’m listening for the incongruencies. I’m listening for the things that are happening that the client isn’t aware of. I’m listening just for anything that stands out or I’m putting a puzzle together.

So I’m gathering all the information. So what I’m doing is just like, thinking in my head, is there any information I’m missing that might be relative to this conversation, is there anything that they’ve said that I need clarification on, is there anything that something is not adding for me here? What is happening there?

And when you’re thinking really hard and strategically about what the person is saying and what you’re hearing and gathering the information, you will know what to say. You will know what questions to ask. That won’t be the problem.

So when you get to the point where well, what would you say to this, that’s not the problem. The problem is where was your brain where you missed the authentic conversation that could have taken place.

Laura: Yeah. And I’m someone that, I always did really well in school, I always did really well learning. And so I went through all the 2K modules and the consult code and all of the things, trying to memorize it. It’s like, I’m trying to memorize and write all my notes and do all the things.

But what I didn’t do, and now that I’ve gone back through several of the modules, like three or four times, how can I internalize one thing? How could I internalize one thing and not try to memorize all of it? And going back through thinking like, what is she thinking when she asks that, why is she thinking that way, meaning you thinking that way as you’re overcoming an objection, what’s going through your mind, that allows you to get to that space, rather than trying to be like, oh okay, if they say this, then I say this, and if they say this, then I say that.

And I’ve been through a program that’s very much like that, and it feels terrible on the call because it’s like, you have all of this pressure of like, I have to know what to say, I have to know what to say, rather than really listening and just knowing that if I am curious, it will be totally fine. Whatever comes out of my mouth will be the right thing to say.

Stacey: That’s why I’ve never done sales scripts. I know a lot of people – I could seriously do so well on a Facebook ad if I did a sales script or I mean, I know if I did it as a bonus, people would buy that shit like crazy. But I don’t think it’s useful. That’s why I’ve never done one.

Like in consult code, I do put together these are the steps, this is what you’re doing in this step, and these are the ways that I like to – I will transition. So I do like to have kind of like, this is a good sentence to transition.

But when you use a sales script, what you’re not doing is focusing on the client, and you’re not having authentic conversation. Does it feel scarier to not have a sales script in front of you? Of course. But you’re really never going to learn how to deeply impact a client if you have one, if you’re just saying the thing that you think you’re supposed to say. And it doesn’t feel good to them either. I’ve been on calls where they’re doing that, I’m like, this is awful. The best selling will feel like a natural conversation.

Laura: Yeah. And I think that too with something I really wanted. So I joined 2K, I signed my first client, and then I applied for 200K and I didn’t get in. So I was – part of me was a little bitter. I was like, fine, I’ll go find something else. And so I tried another program that had a lot more of here’s what you do and it was very action oriented.

And I did a lot of self-coaching to be like, alright, nope, I’m going to make this work, nope, I’m going to make this work, nope, I’m going to make this work. But it just didn’t, and then I decided very powerfully, I don’t want to continue to do the self-coaching to make this work because it feels so inauthentic to me, because when I’m coming from that place, it almost feels a little bit manipulative on my end.

Because it’s like, I’m trying to get you to this place and this is why I structure it this way in the beginning and this is why I’m asking you this question to pigeonhole you into getting to a yes that it felt so terrible for me that that kind of led me to this rut of having no consults for several months because it just was such an uncomfortable feeling.

And then when I started going back through the 2K process, it’s like the sense of relief because you don’t need to know exactly what to say. You just need to be a human talking to another human.

Stacey: I’m like, listen, don’t be a weirdo. Step one of selling. It’s really true. You just have to be a human talking to another human. That’s like, there you go, all you need to know about consults. I love it so much. So actually, that makes me think about tell me about how you’re getting all of these consults. Because I know people are going to be like – and I also want to say, I didn’t have 100, I didn’t even have a chance for 100 nos.

I think I did 30 consults my first year. So I didn’t get a lot of consults. That wasn’t my experience. I feel like in 2K we have half and half. We have people that have – they’re super action takers, they’ll get tons of consults, and then you have people that’ll get one every two months.

So before I ask you and have you answer, I want to first say, neither of those are like, a better situation or a worse situation. It’s just different. Everybody’s different. Some people will have way more consults, and then some people will have less. I just made use of the ones that I got. But I do think that it’s fascinating because people don’t believe that it’s possible to get that many consults. And so I do think it’s useful to have the conversation of what were your thoughts that created that many consults.

Laura: Yeah. So I was someone, like I said, because I take a lot of action, I would see someone post of, oh, I did this, I did this, and I’m like, okay, let’s try that. And so I would try all of the things. I went to maybe, I can’t remember if it was 60 or 70 networking events. My daughter was…

Stacey: That’s a whole ‘nother podcast.

Laura: But it was like, I went to all of the networking events to create the belief like you talk about, and it was like, I’m just willing to try all of the things. And so I got to the point that I was creating consults here and there, and I decided for me, I really worked and doing my own self-coaching and working with Lindsay and being in 2K of like, okay, what’s my woman doing and thinking?

So I would think about okay, where is she? And how can I meet her where she is so that she wants to book a call with me? And so rather than trying to do what everyone else was doing or what I perceived that everyone else was doing, I just decided how I was going to create consults no matter what.

Stacey: That’s so good.

Laura: And so I was like, I don’t want to be in Facebook groups. That isn’t my jam. That’s not something I like, that’s not something I was doing beforehand. And it’s not where my woman is. So she is a passive Facebook, Instagram interactor. So she passively consumes content, but she isn’t overly active.

And so I thought, okay, I am willing to do Facebook ads, I’m willing to pay thousands of dollars on ads, knowing it’s a long-term solution, knowing it’s going to be extremely difficult, and for anyone listening, I am not an LCS coach yet. I’m going through the training. But it’s not like I had any of that. I just figured that out all on my own because…

Stacey: I didn’t have any of it either. Listen, she did all the business stuff after. The class directly after mine, which is so good. Like the one right after, two months later. So I didn’t have it either. So I think sometimes we get a little bit spoiled on stuff.

We forget to be resourceful on – it’s amazing that Stacey gives us the consultation code and all of the steps for consults, but I still have to be resourceful. It’s amazing that LCS helps us, I don’t actually know what they do on entrepreneur track, but we’ll just make it up, like helps us create our website and whatever.

And it’s like, it’s amazing that we have those resources, but we can’t step out of our own resourcefulness of getting the job done. We have to still do that. And I don’t think having the resources makes it any easier. The same work.

Laura: Yeah. And so I saw my brain to go the place of well, we’ll just wait until we’re in entrepreneur track, or we’ll just wait until. I was like…

Stacey: I get so many messages from people that are like, should I just wait until I get through entrepreneur track? Or should I wait until I do coach training? Can you just like, remember what you’re going to say but just touch on that for a second because I do think it’s interesting?

I never want to tell people like, I never want to push people either way. But I do think there’s an opportunity missed of look how much money you’ve made not waiting until you get through certification, until you get through entrepreneur track, until you – you could put anything in that. There’s so much value to see how well you’ve done, being willing to just get in there and not know what you’re doing and do it anyways.

Laura: Yeah. And this is one other thing I was going to say too, and then I’ll go back to the thought that created all the consults is now I have the thought of like, okay, 2K is $2000. If you’re not willing to pay $2000 to invest in yourself and in learning how to sell, why not?

What are all of your thoughts that are creating that for you? I believe so strongly in investing, and this is not to make anyone feel bad or have any shame or judgment, but just to like, be curious about yourself that I invested in 2K a year ago and I was scared shitless to do it. I don’t even think I told my husband. And now…

Stacey: It’s the best. All these people with husband objections, what are you doing telling him? First mistake.

Laura: That to me is so fascinating too because now I’m in 200K and it’s like, the same thing. I mean, I told him I was doing it, but I was just like, this is just what I’m doing. I’m just decided. Just get on board. And so to go from I was afraid to invest in 200K and now I’ve invested $90,000 in just coaching and myself as a coach and my certification and I have a couple. That’s just how strongly I believe in it.

And so I just love having, with constraint, why not see how they can both work? Why would you ever want to wait? I want to help people and I want to help them right now to the best of my ability. And so I also have a brain that’s really productive and that’s really intelligent that can see information and hold it all in the space and then just decide what I’m going to do. And so to be able to do both, why not? Why wouldn’t you want all of the things?

Stacey: Yeah. I just think it’s interesting. I really acknowledge you for being willing to. I think it’s a mindset of being willing to just jump in and get your hands dirty. I was actually with Lindsay once in Texas. I don’t even remember – she was in a mastermind of mine years ago. And we did a little VIP day after, and so we were in Austin together.

And we were going somewhere, we didn’t know how to get there. And I just took off really powerfully walking in one direction. She’s like, oh, is this the way? And I’m like, I have no idea, but as soon as we get wherever I’m going faster, we’ll know whether it wasn’t the right way or it was. Let’s just get there, let’s get to figuring out what worked and what didn’t work very quickly. That’s kind of my personality.

And I do think that it’s innately in my personality, but you can foster that. You can question that. You can question why you don’t want to just jump in and could you just jump in and could you figure it out before you don’t know how. I just think it’s a really interesting question to examine. Because that’s probably the number one comment we get on my Facebook ads that I run is, but I’m not certified yet.

And people don’t realize so many people have made the money in 2K to get certified at The Life Coach School. Like they want to get certified there or some other place. I’m very open about my bias of loving The Life Coach School, but we have all kinds of coaches in 2K.

But they have used that money to hire a one-on-one coach, they’ve used the money to invest in another mastermind or invest in 200K. They’ve used it to join LCS. And so I think that’s a creative, resourceful decision to say I’m going to join 2K, I’m going to sell some coaching in order to pay for my certification or my one-on-one coaching or whatever I want. I’m going to create the money. If I don’t have it, I’m going to create it, I’m going to learn how to create it.

Laura: Yeah. And I think too, the best way to become a coach is to coach people. So whether or not you’re still in certification or coaching people, why not do it all together? And when I think about that fear of investing, I don’t necessarily try to make the fear go away.

Stacey: Just do it anyway.

Laura: Yeah. So I do it anyway, and I also turn it to my fear of my regret. I like to go to my deathbed sometimes and think like, okay, on my deathbed, I don’t want to regret a single thing. And so if I back that up to today, am I going to be like, I’m really glad I waited a few months to invest in 2K? Absolutely not. I’m going to be like, get your shit together, let’s just go, what are you waiting for? And so if I don’t want to regret anything, why would I wait to get started?

Stacey: So good. Okay, so now do you remember what you were saying about your thought that created 100 consults? I’m curious what you’re going to say, but it’s also like, you were willing to get out there and get it done. 60 to 70 networking events and Facebook ads, that’s impressive. Just in itself. You were willing to get it done.

I think this entire conversation is like, for everybody thinking I really want to have success, I really want to have a six-figure business, are you willing to go to 100 networking events and are you willing to get 100 nos? Are you willing to invest money to make that dream business happen for you? It’s just beautiful. But what was your thought?

Laura: Yeah. It was I wanted to create consults consistently. So my thought was I’m figuring out how to create consults consistently, I’m figuring out how to create consults consistently. And then I just decided I’m going to create consults with Facebook ads, and this is how I’m going to do it, and I’m going to keep trying.

And so once I decided, then I just did a lot of coaching around my decision. It’s kind of like when you talked about doing the launch of here’s what we decide and then I just coach myself around it and I have all my actions. So I would decide and put aside time and decide here’s how I want to do it, and it’s Facebook ads, and I know jackshit about Facebook ads.

So now I got to figure it out. Then I would do all the coaching around figuring it out and the ads getting rejected and all of the things. And no one told me what to do or where to go. But I had the thought I’m creating consults consistently and I know how to figure out anything, let’s just figure this out.

Stacey: I love this so much. Like, I think you are just the best example of being willing to go all in to make your business happen. And I just can tell you’re at this point where it’s really going to take off. You’re going to start to see this compound effect, which is so beautiful. And I do want to say one more thing to everybody listening because I think this is like, one of the things that made me want to have you on the podcast very quickly, as soon as I saw that post, I was like, Michelle, we got to get her scheduled next week.

We had another podcast scheduled. I’m like, no, this one has to go out because I just did the one about success expectancy. And so many of us have that belief of what the consult should look and feel like, what your business should look and feel like, what money should look and feel like. So you signed a client and made money right away and then had 100 nos.

So many people make that mean something has gone wrong and they quit and they give up. Some people have a belief that they should invest x amount of money and make x amount of money. And when that doesn’t happen, they’re like, something’s gone wrong, I’m quitting and I’m giving up. Versus you’ve invested, what, 90K? How much have you made from that 90K so far?

Laura: 25. And that doesn’t include ads or anything else.

Stacey: Yeah. So like, they could easily say something has gone wrong, whereas I look at it from the perspective of almost a six-million-dollar business now. And can see, oh, 100%, 100K is inevitable for her because I can tell where your mindset is in taking action towards your business. I just know it’s going to be inevitable.

Laura: And that’s really how it starts to feel too because when I think about that fear of spending $2000 and kind of how that’s grown over time, it’s just like, I know and it comes back to that vision in the future of I know all the people are going to be there. There’s just a time lag between the money.

And I think about this is a skill. Learning how to sell, learning how to coach, learning all of that, it is a skill that I’m developing, and the way to make money is to develop the skill and for my brain to have that skill. And I know that I have to develop it and learn it first before I can help all the people.

And of course they’re coming, but how can I expect people to pay me if I don’t value my own brain enough to put money into it. So if they’re going to pay me for my brain, why wouldn’t I pay to work on it myself?

Stacey: Yeah. And we’re not entitled to like – this is something I don’t think people understand. It goes back to the success expectancy. We’re not entitled to have all the skillsets in ourselves to just go out and build a business. And some of us start way further behind than others. Some of us are going to have to invest a lot more money to get to that point. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t.

Laura: Yeah. And I think too, being in especially a corporate environment, it’s so different. And so I feel like not that you have to invest $90,000, but…

Stacey: Yeah. Some people wouldn’t have to at all. Just notice if you have an expectancy about it.

Laura: Yeah, and I totally did have that expectancy. When I listened to that podcast, I was like, oh, I totally thought it was going to work like that. I was going to sign my first client and then several more, and then I’m just going to start making my corporate salary, which was a very nice six-figure salary right away, and then I just won’t have to worry about it anymore. And now it’s so much like, oh, that’s just not how it works. But when I look five years into the future, it just doesn’t matter.

Stacey: Yeah. It won’t matter when you’re making millions of dollars. Like, oh, that was cute that time I invested 90K. I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I feel like people are going to listen to this 100 times. There’s so much value in it. Is there anything that you think we didn’t cover that you want to say before we jump off here?

Did we miss anything? Because I felt like we covered a lot of ground and we went really in depth. People are going to make so much money from this podcast.

Laura: I will say one last thing and I said this to someone else that I was coaching recently and it just kind of hit her, and so I thought maybe it would help other people is that I was listening to an interview Brené Brown was doing with someone and he was asking her about how do you get through the place where you feel so alone, you feel so alone being an entrepreneur and I think it was about writing her book.

I don’t remember the exact kind of scenario. And she said I have this thing that I do. She said I have five people that I’ve written down that I care about their opinions and that’s it. And I just can’t care about anyone else’s opinion. And she’s like, I’m one of them, by the way, so don’t forget that you’re one.

And so I thought for myself and I did this as I was going through all of the nos. For me, it’s myself and my daughter, and my daughter’s almost a year old, and that’s it. I don’t care about anyone else’s opinion. And so to go through the failing, I just think about what would I think and what would my daughter think and that’s it.

Stacey: I love that.

Laura: Like I don’t even care about – I care about what my husband would think, but not really. He’s not in this world with me. And I have a son and…

Stacey: That’s fine. I don’t care about Neil’s opinion for most business stuff either. I’m like, it’s fine. Not interested at all.

Laura: And even when I thought about investing in 200K, I thought like, if I worried about my husband’s opinion, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But when I brought it back to what about myself and what would my daughter think, and we’re both like, we’re just doing this, so get on board.

And so having that in your mind of if I just care about my top two or three people, just letting all of the rest go, it just helps me not care when I get nasty haters on my ads or when I have someone say a no. It kind of puts this bubble around how I view my failure in a way that it just is a relief that lets so much of it pass, and it puts a lens on to see what am I willing to do in just the view of myself and my daughter.

Stacey: I love it so much. How do people follow you? If they’re like, I got to see what Laura’s doing, I got to just figure out what her awesome sauce is, how can they follow you?

Laura: Yeah. So they can get on my list. So I have a six-day training. It’s at lauradixoncoaching.com. And that’s the only way to get all my emails, get all the good things.

Stacey: I do that too. I’m like, you can’t get on my email list unless you sign up for my five-day training. It’s the only way.

Laura: I maybe stole it from you. I’m not sure.

Stacey: It’s a good one. It’s a good one. I love it.

Laura: So you have to get this. And so that’s how. I have a podcast that’s called Live Thin. And those are kind of the two primary ways.

Stacey: I love it. I also think your niche is super awesome because I do think people want to be naturally thin. I don’t think they want to feel deprived. I think one of the biggest fears or limiting beliefs that we have is we were just made with a bigger body and it’s not available for us to be naturally thin.

I worked a lot with Brenda Lomeli on this of like, I don’t want it to be this weight loss that I gain later. I want it to be who I am permanently. And I do want to offer, for anyone listening because I just coach a lot of people that will tell me this is one of the biggest hurdles for them in their business is they are weight coaches who have not lost the weight.

And they feel out of integrity trying – maybe they’ve lost some. Maybe they’ve lost some and then they’ve gained some back. And so you know, they had a huge success and they weren’t able to maintain it. But they really want to help other people.

First of all, I think you can still help people if you haven’t lost weight, just by listening to them and coaching them. But if it’s something that plagues you where you’re like, I want to be a weight loss coach, I’m still struggling with my weight, I really think you should look up Laura and do a consult with her. She does a lot of…

Laura: I like consults.

Stacey: But really think about working with her because this is something I tell my weight loss coaches who come to me and they’re like, but I don’t have results yet. I’m like, then go get the results. If it’s a big pain point for you, you can’t move past it, it’s keeping you from selling, go do that work. Go do the work to lose the weight.

It’s one of the best things you can do to grow your business is step into integrity for yourself, what you think is integrity. I don’t think it’s out of integrity to do that. But if you were feeling out of integrity, it’s keeping you from selling, don’t hire Laura to secretly coach you on your business. But hire her to do the work of the weight coaching so that you can be a confident weight coach and go out there and feel like you’re a product of your product.

I just see that a lot. That’s the only reason I want to say it. We get a lot of messages about that. I have a lot of people come to me in the 2K page and Ask a Coach. That’s something that comes up for weight coaches a lot, so I want to send them your way. And you help them be a product of their product so they can go out and sell.

Laura: Amazing.

Stacey: Deal? Will you take them?

Laura: I would love to help them, yes. And that’s what I think too about hiring a one-on-one coach. To be a product of your product no matter what it is, not only is it so much fun to have a coach, that’s why I went and hired my one-on-one coach to work with Lindsay is like, I want to experience what my clients are going to experience.

Stacey: So good. We have to just shout Lindsay out too as we jump off here because I’ve had so many of her clients on my podcast recently. I think Jennifer, Brig, you, I’m like, she is killing it. So all of her students I always say, I’m like, when we do applications now for 200K, I text her, I’m like, Lindsay, what about this student? They work with you. And she’s like, oh yeah. She’s like, yes, this person is a definite yes.

She’s producing really good coaches. Coaches who really know their shit. They’re on top of their self-coaching, they’re very self-aware, so we have to just shout her out for a second because you’re the third person that has shown up in 2K in such a way that I’m like, listen, I got to have you on the podcast. So we’ll shout me out, we’ll shout you out, we’ll shout Lindsay out, we’ll shout LCS out.

Laura: Love it. There’s enough for it all.

Stacey: Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for giving your time today. We really appreciate it.

Laura: Thank you so much for having me. This was amazing.

Stacey: Awesome. Well I will see you later in 200K.

Laura: Cannot wait.

Stacey: Alright, bye.

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

 

Enjoy the Show?

Recent Episodes

Ep #274: Revenue Tracking and Knowing Your Numbers

Ep #274: Revenue Tracking and Knowing Your Numbers

One of my biggest missions is to empower women business owners around money, investing, and running a successful company. It’s especially vital for women to understand their numbers, engage in conversations about their revenue, and stay hyperaware of their metrics,...

Ep #272: Selling Exercise 1: The Everyday Value of Life Coaching

Ep #272: Selling Exercise 1: The Everyday Value of Life Coaching

Do you find it challenging trying to convey the true power of life coaching to your potential clients? Why does it feel impossible to explain what it’s like to experience a coaching transformation? How can you clearly communicate the problem your clients are facing,...