How to Create Velcro Offers and Attract Coaching Clients Who Stick

April 7, 2012 · 38 comments

When I ask clients what they do, especially clients who are coaches, they often reply with if-Eckhart-and-Oprah-had-a-baby-it-would-talk-like-this answers. You’ve heard them, too:

“I help people find their best life.”

“I help people live to their full potential.”

“I help people find their purpose.”

Noble goals to be sure. But… that’s not how people (i.e., your potential clients) think in the real world of “get along with the boss, earn some money, raise kids, take care of parents,  lose some weight, decide what to cook for dinner, and plan a fun-filled, memory-making summer vacation.”

If you are struggling to earn a living as a coach, there is a good chance that what you are selling is not instantly definable. How does one find one’s best life? Here’s the problem: bright shiny goals like “best life” and “full potential” always feel a little out of reach, no matter how great one’s life is.

Here’s something you need to know. Bright and shiny equals slick and hard to stick. Make your offers like Velcro for your potential clients: easy and painless to stick to. Every little problem that you can name and address is like the hook and loop that makes Velcro so powerful, even in small strips.

Want to discover your Velcro offers? Ask this: What stands between my client and a better life? What are the problems that are making her life less than wonderful? How can you speak directly to those problems and offer specific programs that lead to concrete results?

Consider Heather, a coach who wants to “help people live empowered lives.” She is a great coach and her clients love her – she just wishes there were more of them! But “empowered lives” isn’t a need that her clients recognized in their own day-to-day situations. Why? Turns out the real source of disempowerment for many of her clients was that they don’t know how to set strong boundaries in relationships. But “boundaries” is still a high concept phrase. Why aren’t they setting strong boundaries?  Because they want people to like them. What problems in their lives are showing up because they want people to like them so much that they aren’t setting boundaries? Over and over again, Heather hears comments like these from her clients and prospects:

“People are taking advantage of me.”

“I can’t seem to get everything done.”

“I’m overwhelmed.”

“I feel burned out.”

“Whatever I do, people around me never seem satisfied.”

Imagine if Heather offered a monthly free call and promoted it with topics like these.

  1. “How To Stop Being Taken Advantage Of” (content: set boundaries)
  2. “Get More Done With Just One Word” (content: learn to say no)
  3. “Overcoming Overwhelmed” (content: discerning what is important vs. what is urgent)
  4. “How to Light Up Your Life Even If You Feel Completely Burned Out” (content: recognizing energy drains)
  5. “How to Deal With People Who Are Hard to Please” (content: letting go of pleasing everyone and energy tactics for calming relationships)

The topics are highly relatable and attractive for her ideal clients. The conceptual coaching content is still an essential part of each offer; it’s just not the theme. The topic is the Velcro hook, and the content is the loop. Together they attract clients who stick.

Imagine how much Heather’s listeners could benefit from these calls! Heck, I could benefit from several of these calls!  :-) Don’t you think some of her participants would then like to continue in a supportive group, pursue personal coaching, or would at least think to recommend Heather when they hear friends mention similar problems?

As a coach you probably have nothing but optimism that your clients can find their best lives. That’s essential if you are in the business of supporting people! Your marketing will be more effective if you apply your optimism to sticky goals that are specific. Potential clients can intuitively sense that “best” is not immediately attainable (or, on some level, they don’t believe that they are worthy of “best”). You’re swimming upstream trying to convince them to pursue slick goals – and all that struggle will wear you out before you can ever get the traction that leads to those über-valuable referrals from happy clients. Potential clients are much more willing to invest in addressing problems that are more urgent than “best life” – and more immediately satisfying.

Want to play with some hooks and loops in the comments? Pick a small problem that you know your clients have. Share it in the comments and let’s discuss how you could create Velcro offers that will attract clients who stick.

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How To Stop Polishing Poop

March 30, 2012 · 10 comments

We’ve all seen the productivity suggestion “Do What Matters.” Can’t argue with that one.

But if you’re a person who sees the possibilities in everything, then suddenly everything seems to matter.

Here’s a filter you might try instead: stop polishing poop.

We all do it, messing around with things that we know aren’t exactly fresh and aren’t ever going to be.

Did that make you feel relieved or just a bit anxious? If you’re relieved, then it’s probably because you instantly recognize the poop in your catalog of activities with procrastination and distraction at the top of the list. Checking email every 30 minutes or popping by Facebook every time you think about working on your blog post are both flagrantly fragrant examples.

But what if you’re working on something, polishing away, and you’re just not sure if it’s poop or not? That desire for certainty is a huge crusher for so many of the creative entrepreneurs that I know.

Here are some ways that I separate the poop from the pearls.

Create – and finish! – one big thing at a time.
This one’s hard for me, really hard, because I like to have multiple projects going at once. But when I have too many projects going on at once, they all slow done and, inevitably none of them get done. When I go months at a time without a big thing getting done, then the huge monster of self-doubt creeps in and starts to call all my little simmering pots poop, even if they really aren’t.

Have creative partners who tell you the truth.
I’m not saying that your partners will always be right but having trusted colleagues who believe in you and who will lovingly argue with you is invaluable. That mutual trust and faith in each other will liberate you to flush the poop quicker than almost anything that I know. This doesn’t mean you can stay in your Creative Lab forever, debating away the time that your project could be earning or gaining traction. Treat your creative discussions like the Supreme Court: very limited time for arguments, then make a judgment and move on.

Let the market speak.
I won’t lie: this is the hardest one of all for me. Shipping. Releasing. Putting it out there. Holding your nose and jumping in the deep end. Tipping from dreaming and creating into delivering. It feels raw, it’s scary, and it hasn’t gotten easier for me. Yes, the mechanics of production get easier with practice (hallelujah!) but the emotional part of putting my pearl on the platter and hoping it’s not poop, well, that’s just excruciating. The only way I know to make delivering easier is this: I trust my creative self. Whatever happens with the project I’m releasing now, I keep reminding myself that there is another one in the lab that is queued up next.

I’ve got more ideas but I’d love to hear yours in the comments first. How do you stop polishing poop?

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The Only Real Shortcut

March 23, 2012 · 22 comments

During a conference I attended recently, the audience was asked to consider “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”

This question always makes me feel like my brain has a kink in it. I know it’s meant to be expansive and invite people to possibility. But it doesn’t do that for me. Maybe it’s because I wrestled with being a “good girl” and avoiding failure at all cost earlier in my life.

I have wasted a lot of time by spending so much energy on avoiding failure. After studying my own relationship with failure, I learned to embrace it as the fastest possible way to learn.

Of course I don’t set out to fail but I’ve learned by failing and surviving that failure is an unavoidable part of what ultimately becomes success. When we do hard things, when we do big things, we will encounter failure. It’s the nature of execution: things don’t go as planned. Introducing the idea that failure isn’t possible seems to reinforce the belief that failure is bad or even limiting.

It’s not. Especially if you learn to bounce.

The question that is much more compelling to me these days is this:

What would you do if you knew there were no shortcuts?

What magic “offer” would you not buy? What infoproduct would say no to? What blog post would you finally write? What career would you embark on?

What great mountain of work and significance would you start steadily climbing?

If you knew failure, large and small, was around every corner but that you already have the mettle that you need to bounce back every time that you meet it, what would you do?

Because you do. You’ve got that strength. And, really, there aren’t any shortcuts except to start. Now.

image credit: van Ort

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