Ep #150: How to Market Yourself as a Professional Coach

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey, coaches, welcome to episode 150. Okay, so today on the podcast we are going to talk about something near and dear to my heart. You all loved the How to Respond to Clients podcast. I got so much feedback from that podcast. I want to do more like that, kind of helping you dissect my brain in the way that I think about being a life coach, selling life coaching and interacting with clients as a coach. So I know you’re going to love this one.

And this episode is more like how to be with the people in your life that you love while also selling life coaching. How not to alienate them and lose friends. And how to keep getting invited to do things with the people you love. So we’re going to call it, how to market yourself as a professional coach. Ready?

So here’s what we’re going to talk about, marketing yourself as a professional coach, the key word being, professional. And what not to do when selling coaching. And we’re going to explore what happens when you are desperate for sales and how you come across to the world that can again really alienate you from your friends and family.

So I recently saw a comment in a Facebook group that I’m a part of. I am a part of one that is not coaches that I love to be in as no one knows me in that group. And the comment was that coaches were the new multilevel marketers. And at first, I was outraged, and I wanted to respond like, “Bitch, please.” That was my immediate response. All my feathers got ruffled and stood straight up. And I messaged a friend quickly to be so angry about it.

And then my friend pointed out and as I thought about what they were probably likely, that person was likely picking up on is the coaches that they may have encountered who are selling from desperation. And who might be missing normal social cues from other people and crossing boundaries and forgetting to be human and instead being weird and salesy, which is the vibe that people often get from multilevel marketers that has created that reputation with that industry.

And I want to just offer that there are amazing coaches who sell really professionally, there are amazing multilevel markets who sell professionally. And it really is all salespeople that can be affected by this. We’ve all had a sales experience with someone who pushes too far, and crosses boundaries, and misses social cues. But people who sell products or services online and market organically tend to be the biggest perpetrators of this behavior especially to their friends and families.

Now, here’s what I will say, this also comes up more heavily I think in multilevel marketing or in networking marketing, businesses like Rodan + Fields, and Amway. And I can think of other ones. But the reason is it comes up is because they’re often encouraged to market to friends and family. And that’s not necessarily wrong for that business model but I just want to say, okay, I do actually think it’s wrong. I’ll talk about that in a second, but it doesn’t have to be wrong.

But I do want to say that I think the biggest difference is that coaches are not. We are not encouraged to market to friends and family. In fact I think it’s the opposite. My rule is absolutely do not work with friends and family, don’t charge them, don’t coach them unless you’re coaching them for free for six weeks as part of your practice. It really truly is a recipe for disaster, complete disaster. And here’s why. You have too many unintentional biases about them floating around in your head, first of all. So it will be difficult to hold space for them.

And also you love them too much that you get wrapped up in their problems and offended for them, and stressed out with them, and worried constantly. It’s just you have so much attachment to their wellbeing and their success and then so many biases on their maybe worst behaviors or their worst traits. So on both ends of the spectrum, having negative thoughts about them and then having too positive of thoughts about them that make it hard for you to be neutral and point out hard or difficult things for them and have hard, difficult conversations with them.

It’s just, it’s too messy, so just refer them out. That is my number one rule is refer out friends and family. There is enough business in the world, enough abundance, enough clients wanting coaching that you don’t need to be accessing your personal network. And I also want to say if you’re a multilevel marketer, listening to this podcast, so this is maybe the other piece of this is if I were your coach.

Because I do know I have some multilevel marketers who do listen to my podcast, is if I were your coach and my niche was multilevel marketing instead of coaches. I would also tell you not to market to your friends and family. Now, I would say with that since it’s a business and it’s not coaching someone’s mind. It’s not as much mental health and along similar lines to therapy, I think if they want to come along, great. But don’t hit them up for sales and end of month pushes. Don’t spam them with sales offers.

Don’t forget that you love this person and have other things in common with them than face cream and makeup. This has happened to me. When I think you are my salesperson first and my friend second, you will get cut fast from my life. I might still buy from you, but we won’t be hanging out. So a little bit of my MLM rant for those of you that listen. I know there are still some that listen, over, rant over, let’s dive in.

Because whether you’re a different type of entrepreneur listening to this podcast or you’re a coach, I really do want to teach all of you all how not to be spammy, how not to be weird and how not to cross even the most subtle lines. And I have an example that I will talk about later in the podcast that is super subtle, and it might blow your mind, the kind of subtle I’m talking about. And I think you learn the subtleties of not crossing boundaries, you learn that nuance with awareness, awareness of your own behavior and awareness of other people’s cues socially.

And so I want to teach you how to market yourself as a professional because I know that there is so much more money in it this way. And because mostly you just don’t have to market yourself in any other way than as a total professional, which is different with professionalism. And that’s not what we’re going to be talking about today is how to act professionally, that’s not what this is. It’s marketing yourself as a professional. So being spammy, pushy, marketing to your friends and family.

Hitting up anyone that you know and love for sales is not required, not one of your friends or family members ever need to hire you for you to make millions. What? They don’t ever need to work with you or engage in your business in any way for you to make millions. I want you to just sit with that for a second, even if you’re like, “That can’t be true, that can’t be possible.” If your brain goes to, but then where would I find people.

I want you instead of going to the how to just sit with that possibility, that it is possible that you can make millions of dollars without your friends or family members ever needing to take part in any part of your business. You just sit with that. Spend some time with it. Be willing to sit with it for weeks, just let it noodle in your brain. I promise it’s true.

I marketed my business online and made hundreds of thousands of dollars and now have made millions of dollars. We’ve sold 18.5, 19ish million dollars of coaching since 2015. And I’ve only had one friend ever pay me, ever. And it was for one retreat, and it was her idea. I marketed my business on and offline as well without losing any friends or family members or without anyone thinking that I had joined a cult.

We will also talk about why these social selling businesses, these online businesses also give off that cultish vibe that also comes up with coaches and network marketers a lot. So we’ll talk about that. But first I want to start with an exercise. I want you to imagine if you were a therapist, especially as coaches I think that’s the closest thing to what we do. Now, if you can’t get there you can also imagine a doctor or a lawyer, whichever one is the easiest for you to imagine as someone who is a professional, that you would consider a professional.

So when I think of a professional, I think of someone highly skilled, highly sought out with experience and maturity. Now, I also want to just give you some more coaching here that you can try on is thinking of yourself, what would it feel like to think of yourself as I am highly skilled, I am highly sought out, I have experience and maturity in this coaching that I am offering. The definition I looked up of a professional, again, we’re not talking about professionalism, acting professional. This is not what this podcast is about, I can’t stress it enough.

So when I looked up the definition of a professional, as an identity, as a self-concept. The definition I looked up said, a person engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than a pastime. Now, I think both definitions are really important. The one that first came to my brain when I thought about it and the online definition which really lends to someone who’s fully employed in a profession rather than a hobby or a side business, someone who makes all of their money with this occupation.

And I would go a step further and say someone who is highly sought out and makes a lot of money in this profession or in that occupation. So I often tell my clients, “How would you be thinking, and feeling, and behaving if you were a full-time coach?” But I think that some of you get stuck on not being able to imagine that because you’re so much in the, I don’t have any clients, I’m in such lack, that feels untrue, I’m not making any money so I can’t imagine how I would act at 100K.

Or you imagine it as you are now if you had 100K, which is not quite the same as if you had earned 100K coaching clients. Do you guys hear me on that? Imagining yourself having $100,000 cash is not the same as imagining yourself having the experience of having sold $100,000 worth of coaching and coached $100,000 worth of clients. But you can also imagine a full client roster or having 10 clients. But what I want you to do is kind of step out of the coaching world and just try on how would you be behaving as a professional?

Professionals have expertise that people seek out. Now, that’s a key there. People seek you out when you’re a professional. You don’t seek others out because professionals are fully booked, and clients are always coming to them. Now, here’s another important one about professionals, if you think about what a professional is. And I really recommend that you do this for yourself is even with – there’s my definition and the thoughts and ideas I’m giving you. And then there’s what immediately comes to your brain.

I always create my definition before I look it up online and see what the internet says is the definition. And so I always find that is super useful to see what is already in your brain that you already believe. So what do you think marks a professional, someone you consider is really a professional in their occupation? What traits do they have? How do they behave?

What are the markers that differentiate them between someone who does it as a hobby? Like a professional author versus someone who writes on the side for fun, someone who makes all of their money submitting articles for different publications online versus someone who hopes to do that. You can find a bunch of different ways that you can enter this. But that’s the main difference that I think is that professionals have expertise. And so because of their expertise people seek them out and they’re not having to chase other people. And there are always interested people coming along.

Here’s another important one. They give professional opinions only when asked. What? Some of you all need to hear that one again. They give professional opinions only when asked. Do you know any doctors, think about this, my sister, she’s not a doctor but she’s a nurse practitioner and a really good one. She worked on the neuro unit for 10 years and now she works in the emergency room. So she’s actually on the COVID units right now and has been for the last couple of years.

And I have to say, she works at one of the biggest hospitals and the leading trauma centers in the entire Midwest, so she’s around good people. So she for sure considers herself a professional. And what she does not do is go around diagnosing our family and friends. She would only, and I will often say, very, very begrudgingly give her medical opinion or advice if specifically sought out and asked. And even then, it’s more like – well, it’s my best sister impression. “Well, I’m not your doctor so you should probably go in and be seen,” with a huge eye roll.

She’s not like, “Oh my God, I can totally diagnose you and tell you exactly what medicine to take and all of the things,” every time I have a runny nose. She’s more like, “You’re not bleeding, you’re not dying, you’re fine.” Yet this is what so many of new coaches do, so many of what you all are doing. And it really comes from this excitement and desperation. You might be online scrolling on Facebook, and you see someone has a very obvious problem. And you want to jump in and be like, “I’m a coach, I can help you with that.”

But it’s so misplaced and misses and steps over so many social cues especially if you have not been asked. And professionals would just never do that. They would never insert their opinion. I haven’t seen people do that. Professional lawyers, I’ll ask some of my coach friends who are lawyers and I’ll ask them about something and Cara, I ask Cara a lot. And she’ll be like, “I don’t know, that’s not my specialty. I mean this is what I do know but you should probably find someone.”

It’s like, “I’m happy to give you my knowledge and expertise or anything I have that could lend you if you asked me. But also, I’m going to tell you if it’s not my specific area and I’m going to tell you, you should go ask someone where it’s their specific area.” Because that’s how professionals think. They’re not in the excitement of wanting to be a professional or the desperation of not being one yet. They’re grounded, they’re calm.

So what I find especially with new coaches who are very excited about coaching. You might be having your very first breakthrough to yourself and be just really excited about yourself, your business, your life that you’re imagining. And you get too excited about coaching, and you think that everyone should have a coach and be coached, and every problem is solvable and coachable, and every person could be coachable.

And you know all of the answers and you just have to tell your friend who’s venting to you because you could change her life if she just knew this one thing. Even though she didn’t ask you once what your professional opinion is. Now, here’s the PS, this is why people think coaching or multilevel marketing companies are cults when you stop being a normal human and start trying to enroll everyone you meet in every situation to the cause.

Now, listen, I do think everyone in the world should experience having a life coach with the same vibe as everyone in the world needs a Breville espresso machine. What? Get the one with the touch screen, it makes all the different kinds of lattes, flat whites, cappuccinos, all of the things. It’s amazing. It even does the self-foaming. You put the little carafe of milk under it and the steamer goes off, but it has a time sensor, when it gets hot enough and just clicks off and you can just walk away from it. What? Do it right away, it will change your life.

Or with the same zest of everyone in the world should go see Hamilton on Broadway. What a luxury. It’s the greatest thing. But not from the place of everyone needs a life coach or even life coaching solves every single problem and will work for everyone. I don’t believe that. There are many people who are not open to self-development, they’re not open to coaching, they’re not open to dealing with feelings, they’re not open to dealing with thoughts. They’re not open to seeking help for emotional problems.

I just don’t think that. I don’t think it solves every problem for every person because not every person’s open to it. And I also think that sometimes even if they were, it’s not the right fit for everybody. Some people need therapy, or meds, or both. Some people wouldn’t be able to respond to life coaching because of what is chemically happening in their brain. So there’s just a lot more discernment I think with professionals. Professionals are discerning who is right for their offer. That’s another one, think about that.

Now, many of you likely have a friend who sells doTERRA. And listen, if you sell doTERRA, this is not meant to be offended. But this is something that I have seen online more than any company, or anything ever is that oils are literally the solution to everything. The people who sell them they’re like if you get shingles, your friend is like, “You just need this peppermint oil mixed with lavender.” Or if you have diagnosed anxiety, they’re like, “Try calm, it will totally shift your mental state.” I’m being dramatic here.

But we all have that friend whose answer to literally everything is an oil. And I’ve literally seen comments where people are asking for help and they go, “Please, don’t sell me oils.” It’s that bad. That’s when you are so biased about your own product that you miss – what is even the thought or the term that I’m thinking of? But it’s like you’re so heavily biased in favor of your offer that yeah, you just stop being human. You miss normal social cues. You miss the other half where an oil doesn’t solve every fucking problem, it just doesn’t. It’s not going to cure every single thing.

If I have a sinus infection and an ear infection at the same time, peppermint oil is not going to cure me. Actually I’ve had this happen in coaching too before where I’ve been really sick, and I need actual antibiotics. And someone will say, “You know I can really help you with that with your energy. It sounds like you’re really burning yourself out and making yourself sick. And I can really help you stay healthy.” And I’m like, “Or we live in a physical world where viruses get spread around and we just get them, and we get sick and that’s why there’s medicine.”

Someone doesn’t get COVID because they had a negative day the day before, because their mind is negative, because their thoughts are negative, because their energy is bad, because they’re burnt out. That’s now how it works, folks. It’s just not how it works. But that’s the extreme bias we have when we’ve overstepped from excitement or desperation. Where it’s like either you’re so excited it’s the solution to everything or you’re so desperate that it has to be the solution to everything because you’ve got to get some clients.

So when you appear to have stopped being human and you start becoming a robot representative to what you are selling, when what you are selling is literally the solution to everything to getting past the pearly gates and meeting God. You can no longer carry on in normal human conversations without mentioning your business or coaching, when you alter every aspect of your entire life and become consumed, this is when people think you have joined a cult and for good reason. It really does come off like you’ve been brainwashed.

And it really is just obsessiveness coming from the excitement or the desperation, the lack and the fake confidence about your offer. And I don’t want this for you. It’s just not what you have to do.

So here is a litmus test, are you ready? Can your family and friends, just think of some people in your life, can they still call you without you trying to coach them on their problems or their thinking? Can you still listen and react as a friend or a family member would? My friends who are coaches, we ask each other, “Do you want a friend, or do you want some coaching?” And I might be like, “I want a friend.” And then they might respond with, “That is terrible. They are horrible. What are you going to do?” Or I might respond, “I hope you don’t want coaching because I’m in the pool.”

So for coaching I think that this is also about embracing negative emotion and negative thoughts, and not believing every negative thought needs positive coaching right away. You can still be human. Get pissed, be offended. Have a manual, complain. It’s okay to be human. It would be weird if your friend who was a therapist always tried to get you to do therapy with them when you called them to vent, Or if you were just talking and they said, “Tell me why you think you do that.” They would never do that.

Or think of it this way, imagine a lawyer is at a cocktail party and this lawyer is going around telling people, “I could help you with that. You could sue them. You could sue them.” Likely not because they only work with a small percentage of the law and a small percentage of clientele and likely that isn’t you. So people think when I say, “Go out there and meet people and tell them you’re a life coach and make offers to help them.” You guys think I mean sell your Uber driver some coaching.

I actually posted once that I was so excited that Uber had given you the option to say that you want quiet time. You don’t want your Uber driver to talk to you. I hate small talk especially when I’m in the car. I get car sick. And often especially when I’m getting – I do car services now. But when I’m doing an Uber or a car service, often I’m on my way to some coaching event. And I don’t even carpool with coaches because I want to just be in my mind, and be calm, and preparing.

But I had posted some funny thing, this is back when I used to use Facebook and it’s actually the thing that made me stop using Facebook personally. Is all my clients were like, “Oh my God, you tell us to meet people, and have conversations, and offer to help.” Almost like I had been lying to them about that coaching because I don’t want to talk to my Uber driver. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I do think that you want to tell everyone that you’re a coach if they ask you so that you get used to talking about it and you get comfortable saying, “I’m a life coach.”

And if your Uber driver is super interested and you have this amazing conversation, it’s going to light you up inside. But I’m not suggesting that you try to sell random strangers, coaching. I’m not saying give them your card and try to set up a consult unless by some crazy miracle that actually ends up being a thing. And it doesn’t mean it won’t be. But it’s not like every time I get in an Uber, I have a chance to sign a client. And I’m going to try to sell them that, I’m going to try to sell all my Uber drivers, life coaching.

That is not what I am meaning when I say, “Meet people, tell them you’re a life coach and make offers to help them.” I am saying meet people as a normal human, tell them you’re a life coach as a professional and make offers to help them when they’re qualified, it makes sense and it’s the right timing. And you’ve got to meet a lot of people for those things to line up, you do, yes. And the whole time, even when you’re not meeting the people that are not going to be someone who’s going to actually ask you about life coaching and be interested and want it for themselves personally.

Every other chance, if you haven’t done my five day training on the three simple steps, the reason you still keep doing it is so that you solidify your own self-concept, so that you can become a professional in your mind. Because you will have explained to 1,000 different people what life coaching is, why it’s so valuable, how you help people, who you help, what type of problems you solve. And you’ll get so well versed that when the person comes along that’s genuinely interested, you nail it with confidence because you’ve said it 100 times already.

But again I’m not suggesting that you sell random strangers, coaching. That’s not what a professional would do. I’ve said this a couple of times already, but I want you to take this in that professionals sell coaching to qualified clients. They only engage in a sales conversation with qualified clients. So let’s talk about what qualified means.

Let’s say you sell general life coaching. That could technically be anyone, ‘anyone,’ even the Uber driver, technically, but it’s not. Qualified, this is the way I want you to think about it is looking for help, wanting help, actively asking for help. Qualified means looking for help, wanting help, actively asking for help from you, all for those things.

So for me, I would never sell someone that I met out, when I was selling just general life coaching, or even when I went into selling network marketing coaching, selling business coaching to network marketers. I would never sell someone that I met out or a friend of a friend who was interested in coaching. I wouldn’t even have a serious conversation about it without us scheduling a consult to discuss in the container of a consult, working together. Because for me a consult is where we qualify the client for coaching.

I will answer their questions about coaching all day long if they ask them. I will tell them anything they want to know but I will not coach them or start talking about their problems or start talking about how coaching – I might blanketly talk about how coaching would work. If they told me their problem I might say, “Yeah.” I totally have lots of clients who do that. But I’m going to suggest to them if they want to take the conversation further, that we need to get on a consult, that we should schedule a time to actually sit down and talk about things specifically.

Because the consult is where they opt in that they want your help. So I remember, I’ve told this story before, but I remember once a friend of a friend showed up for coffee with me and my friend. And after my friend left because she was on lunch break, her friend stayed and was still chatting with me, and she wanted to know all about coaching. And she wanted to know if I could help her. I told her a lot about coaching and then it turned into, “Okay, well, could you help me? Here is my issues, this is what I’m facing.”

And I told her, “I don’t really discuss coaching without first doing a consultation. It’s really important that we actually schedule a call to discuss only this, that we’re giving this conversation the proper attention and the proper container. I can really be in my coach space, not in my friend space and you can really be in a space where you’re focused on you.” And I told her, I said, “I can give you my number and you can text me if you decide you want to set something up.” And then I just dropped it and moved the conversation along.

And she ended up messaging me a couple of weeks later. And was like, “Hey, are you still available to do a consult with me, to have a conversation about coaching with me?” And I was like, “Absolutely, we can get something scheduled.” But remember I am a professional.

Just like a doctor wouldn’t pull out a stethoscope at dinner with friends when someone says they’ve been experiencing shortness of breath. They might suggest, “You should go see a doctor for that.” They certainly wouldn’t suggest seeing them for it. But if the person asked, they might say, “Yes, call my office Monday and we can get you scheduled.” They wouldn’t say, “Let’s do it right now.” Now, maybe if it was, okay, shortness of breath that actually seems like an emergency, then I’m sure any doctor would step in to try to help someone.

But you guys get the point, they wouldn’t just start seeing you as a doctor and a patient at a dinner party. Because here is the other thing with professionals. With professionals there are procedures. With hobbyists, often there are not. It’s kind of like let’s do this anywhere and everywhere with everyone because it’s my hobby and I’m just having fun. And I know that you guys don’t mean that. But what happens when you think of your business like a hobby is you don’t treat it from day one as a profession. And whether it’s like you treat it like a hobby or a side business.

What happens when you think of it like a side business is you don’t treat it as a profession. And when you don’t think like a professional and treat your business as one, this is the other thing, if you do actually sign clients, you will get really unprofessional ones. The kind of people who respond to hobbyist behaviors are clients who are hobbyist clients. They’re trying coaching on and treating it like their little fun side thing, not this life changing thing I’ve invested in to very specifically come and get results and ensure that I get them, and stay on top of them, and be committed to them.

When you have clients who forgot what results they even came for, it’s likely you’ve got a hobbyist client from being a hobbyist coach. And I want to offer that I had many clients like this when I first started out too. I was taking calls while driving, and folding laundry, and packing. And so I have clients who were like, “Hold on one second, I’m in the drive-thru, let me order my McDonalds.” Or “Hold on one second, I’ve got to get the kid’s pool floaties on really quick.”

I was multitasking, they were multitasking. So you have to start thinking like a professional, treating yourself in any situation like a professional. And then you will start getting professional ass clients, people who are serious about investing money, serious about their results and they come and show up that way. And I’ve said this over and over, but remember that besides excited, a professional is not desperate. Desperation, you’ve got to know when you’re in that energy. You’ve got to know when you are feeling that in your body.

Desperation for a sale puts blinders on you. That is when you miss social cues, excitement, or desperation. But I see a lot of it from you all with desperation. You will miss social cues from your friends and family, you’re going to overstep and cross boundaries and you will come off salesy because, think about this. When you’re desperate all you can think about is the sale. So many of you are afraid of being salesy.

But salesy only happens when all you can think about is the sale, and making money, and getting a client. It’s the only time that happens and you’re totally in control of that. You forget to be human to be a professional. And this is where it can get very nuanced, where you might not realize you’re doing it. Excitement and desperation can be subtle. So this is where I love the model and having the model as a self-awareness tool.

Before responding in situations especially online or to friends and family, I like to check in with how I am feeling. And that will always show me where my mind is. It’s like it doesn’t lie, if you just check in with your body, if you’re willing to take that pause which is what we talked about with How to Respond to Clients is just being willing to slow down and take the pause and find out what’s happening with your body in order to find out what’s happening with your mind and to see where you are.

Because it doesn’t have to always be really high emotions or really low emotions, really high excitement, really extreme desperation. It can be nuanced and subtleties along the way. And I’m going to give you an example of this. It’s also really good to have coaching and to have people that you can run situations by to gain perspective. So that’s why I love our 2K community and you’re able to post things that happen before you respond and get people’s perspective to see what you might be missing before you make a response.

I think that’s one of the most brilliant things about being in a mastermind or being in a program where you have access to lots of people’s brain on your situation and what’s happening for you so that you can catch anything that you might not be seeing. Because it’s always the nuanced subtle things that get us in the most trouble. So before I give you this example, I want you to know, I have already said it, but my hard and fast rule is no friends and family.

I also want to give you guys this caveat because I’ve said it twice now, is that it’s cool to become friends with your clients, that’s kosher with me. It doesn’t have to be all of them. But you will develop, especially when you work with people for a while, friendships that develop over coaching. So I have friends now who I coach, and they are my friends outside of my life and I coach them in their business. But they weren’t my friends first. So it’s easier for me to establish the line. And I will tell you that I rarely step over it when I’m in friend mode.

I commiserate with them, we do all the things, the gossiping about our friends and family and all the things that girl friends do. All those things we do like normal human beings unless we get talking about business and we are coaching each other or I’m getting asked about my opinion. Or I just sometimes can’t help myself and will just tell them as their coach. But it’s very rare that I do it on the friend zone. Sometimes I’ll even say that and be like, “By the way I want to tell you this,” the other day when I’m in the coaching relationship.

So there are nuances to that too, you can have friends that are your clients but become friends with them through the relationship. Don’t coach your friends that were already your friends first. I just wanted to clear that up because I’ve said it a couple of times and you guys also know that I have some really close friends who are my clients. So that’s how that works. They became friends with me after we established the client coach relationship. But you can do, whenever we go into these nuanced situations one of the things you can do is just do the professional test.

Would I do this if I were thinking of myself as a highly paid, highly experienced professional? If you can’t get to highly paid just insert experienced. What would I do if I were thinking of myself as a highly experienced professional? So here’s the example I’m going to give you. And I want to say thank you, I’m not going to read who the client was but thank you to this client. If you listen, you will know that I am sharing your example. And I want to say thank you because it was such a beautiful example.

So many people are in trauma in the group and now there’s an entire podcast. This struck me to do an entire podcast on this based on this post. So I love when we are willing to be vulnerable and offer up these situations so that everybody gets to learn from them. So someone in 2K posted this. She said, “How should I react? I have a little situation, a friend of mine wrote this after I asked her to review my new website. I asked her if the copy is enticing. And she replied, “The wording is very striking and clever, I really like it. Based on the text I would book immediately.”

So my client says, “What would be the right or clean way to react to that? I would love to get one to two extra clients for my first free six sessions. And I feel that she would benefit well from that, also practicing consults would be very helpful. I just rewatched the Allow People to Come To Me module. But I’m still not sure how I reply to this statement. Just thank you, I really appreciate it. I feel like if I don’t even tell her that I have this opportunity available, how will she know and ask for it?”

Okay, so this is what I responded and then I’ll talk you guys through it. I said, “Yes, just respond, thank you, I appreciate it. Remember her model. If she was actually considering coaching with you why on Earth would she wait for you to bring it up? She probably meant, if I were someone who was looking for a coach, I would book immediately.” Her friend had just put herself in the shoes of someone who is interested in coaching when being asked to read her friend’s sales page. I had also responded this to everyone, I said, I was reading the comments that people were responding.

And some of the coaches were saying, “You could totally have her hop on a call,” blah, blah, blah. And I said, “Please do not ask your friends to review copy and then if they give you positive feedback, approach them to work with you, even if it’s free and even if they say this because I really want you all to keep your friends.” So this is what you guys have to remember is even if someone, if you ask someone, “Does this sound like a great offer? Is this copy amazing?”

If you ask them to give you a review, and they give you a great one, it doesn’t mean that they want to buy coaching from you. If they tell you that your content is amazing and super inspiring it doesn’t mean they want to buy coaching from you. They have to actually say the words, “How do I work with you? What would it look like to get started? Hey, I’m really interested.”

Anything else, just be careful if someone’s behavior, you decide with your excitement bias or your desperation bias that you decide someone’s behavior is an invitation for you to sell them something they haven’t asked for. That’s never the case. And you will only be able to justify it if you’re feeling desperate or overly excited and being very biased.

And if you join 2K I will tell you I feel like the entire course is set up especially in the organic marketing module, that whole series of classrooms is designed to help you step into this, to help you not step over those very nuanced lines, to keep your friends and family wanting to hang out with you and talk to you. You can practice this. You can get very good at it. You can get very aware. I always tell my clients, “Even if you make mistakes the mistakes are what teach you how not to step over the line.”

So if you’ve made some of these mistakes, if you were this person who posted this, if you’ve done many of all of the things I’ve talked about that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible, awful coach, or salesperson, or anything like that. It just means you now know what it’s like to be on the other side of the line and I would just pull you back. So I want to just sum up the rules for professionals for you.

Number one, sell only in a sales container. That’s what professionals do. We sell only in a sales container.

We never sell to friends and family. We refer them out. It’s always a conflict and you are always abundant enough to refer them out. That’s number two.

Number three, people seek you out. You don’t seek people out even if they would be a really, really, really perfect fit for what you offer.

Number four is have the qualifications. Have a set of client standards or a client filter and sell to qualified clients only, clients who you know would be a good fit, who you know would actually utilize the coaching, who you can see getting results, who you believe in, who believe in themselves and are excited to sign up and buy.

And number five, give freely without expectation of returned buy-in. Now, what this last one means is if someone asks you specifically for your advice, give it to them. And unless they enquire about working with you, beyond that leave it at that. Let them come to you. Let them get interested. Let desire manifest in them, let it grow in them. And let it drive them to drive the conversation about you working together.

Desperate people don’t have time to wait around for people to come to them. That’s always true. So I want you to hear me say that again, desperate people don’t have time to wait around for people to come to them. So they have to approach other people. That’s how you know what you’re in desperation is if you feel I’m out of time. I’ve got to make money. I’ve got to sign up clients, so I’ve got to put things in my hand, and I’ve got to start reaching out to people.

I find with mental health, with coaching it doesn’t work that way. It’s not selling a product that they just haven’t heard about it yet. This is mental health. I want you to think of it like you’re a therapist, with that same level of professionalism. If your client isn’t resourceful enough to ask you about coaching, they’re not going to be resourceful enough to do the work in the coaching relationship. Hear me again, they’re not resourceful enough to ask to seek you out and ask you about coaching.

They are not going to be resourceful enough to actually utilize the coaching if you work together, hard and fast rule. So desperate people don’t have time to wait around for people to come to them. Professionals are too busy helping people to seek people out. What? I know, I mean drop in the truth bombs left and right on this episode. You’re welcome. I’m going to say it again, professionals are too busy helping people to seek people out to help.

Again, we have an entire classroom about allowing people to come to you inside 2K for 2K. And the entire organic marketing module, actually all of making offers and clean selling. The first three modules of the entire program really get you into this mindset of how to be a professional and sell professionally, to get you out of being too excited and too desperate, into giving value as a professional.

Now, I’ve said this a couple of times on the episode but I’m going to end with this. Here is what I’m not saying with this episode. I’m not saying you need to look professional, or act professional, or adhere to any standard of what society has deemed as professional as a way of being in order to please others. That’s not what I’m saying. This has not been the message of this episode. And if it triggered you in that way just make sure you go back and listen, knowing that that’s not what I’m saying.

I am saying you need to think like a professional coach, an experienced coach, one that does this as their only source of income, a full-time coach, 20 clients and a 100K business, like you are an expert. Which has nothing to do with your hairstyle, and whether it’s short, and pink, and spikey, or long, and messy, or not washed, or how you dress, or your makeup, or anything like that. This is about how you feel and how seriously you take yourself, and your business, and your coaching.

So make sure you heard this message from that place. And if you didn’t, go back and listen from that place.

Alright loves, let’s not sell like weirdos. Have an amazing week. I’ll talk to you next week.

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 5 step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.