Coaches swimming naked

Warren Buffet once said:

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked”

He was speaking in the context of investing, of course.

And how, only when there’s a downturn in the economy do you see who the real investors are and who the pretenders are.

But this happens in many different parts of life as well.

Let’s take us Coaches as an example.

Specifically, how we Coaches (and our potential clients) sometimes experience the sales call process.

Here’s what often occurs:

The Coach invites a prospect to a discovery session.

The prospects books themselves onto said Coach’s calendar because they feel this Coach is a real expert.

The prospects shows up - eager to learn about how the Coach can help them.

But once the Coach starts talking, the tide goes out.

The Coach is naked.

What’s happened is that the Coach has let their nerves get the best of them.

They’re not confident.

They feel like a ‘fraud’.

And they project this right onto the prospect.

Because of that, the prospect (whether consciously or subconsciously) feels this Coach is someone entirely different than who they thought they were.

“This person is not an expert!” they think to themselves.

From there they give the Coach a whole bunch of objections to get off the phone ASAP.

This comes in the form of the typical “now is not the right time” or “I’ll need to speak to my husband” or “I just don’t have the money at the moment” objections.

And this makes total sense.

Because initially, they thought were getting a fully clothed expert, but when the tide went out…

They found themselves speaking to a fully naked pretender.

Any of this sound familiar?

It does for me.

Because that’s what used to happen to The Ol’ Aussie Hermit. A lot.

What’s going on here?

And most importantly, how do you fix it?

Well, to answer the first question, I hinted at it above…

A lack of confidence (or more specifically - *certainty*) in yourself and your ability to get results is the key reason we self-sabotage these calls.

The more certain you are you can get amazing results for the prospect sitting in front of you, the easier it’ll be to sign them up.

Sure things like sales scripts/frameworks help. But only to a certain (no pun) extent.

Certainty and certainty alone is the biggest factor in drastically increasing your sign up rate.

At least in my hermit opinion.

The reason I believe this is because over the last 2 years I’ve probably helped over 1500 Coaches.

(Much more than the previous 7 years I’ve been in business)

This means I got a lot of experience solving pretty much any marketing/sales problem a Coach (at any level) has experienced.

And I got good. Really, good.

Because of this, when I now get on a call to speak with a Coach about helping them, I’m very certain I can help.

This certainty then projects onto the prospect, and that makes them feel more certain about signing up. And they often do.

(My close rate is many times higher than what it used to be)

Yes, certainty is key in sales.

So the question then becomes, how do you become more certain?

Well, it’s pretty simple…

You’ve got to start working with a lot of clients.

The more clients you work with, the more problems you solve, the more certain you get.
But how do you work with clients if you have no clients?

Then very thing you need to gain certainty is the very thing you don’t have.

And that’s the conundrum.

It’s a “chicken and egg” scenario.

However, The Aussie Hermit will give you 2 solutions.

Both work, but one I enjoy much more.

The first (and most common way), is to continue to grind.
Meaning…

Just keep jumping on sales calls and recognise that your closing rate isn’t going to magically quadruple over night.

Be OK with a low closing rate.

Know that you’re going to have to make a lot of calls to sign a few clients each month.

That’s just part of the process.

Then over the coming months and years, as you work with more clients, your closing rate will increase as your certainty does.

As mentioned, this way is perfectly fine and I did it for many years.

However, there is a second path that can drastically speed up your results.

And that is, you work with someone that already has a lot of clients, and are looking to hire a Coach to help them.

That way, they send you a bunch of clients and your job is to work with them and get them results.

(The other great thing about this option, by the way, is that they’ll pay you as well!)

I did this with 2 different companies.

First, with an ad agency back in 2016.

I sucked at managing ads. So I applied to work with Jason Hornung at his agency.

This was an opportunity to learn from him and get paid to do it.

I applied and got the gig out of 50 people.

Point is, though…

Literally overnight I went from working with not many clients, to working with a bunch of *very high level* Coaches running their ads.

Throughout those 2.5 years I worked with Jason, I spent over 5 million on ads.

I also saw (and solved) so many marketing problems that before I’d never even seen.

My knowledge and skill set increased exponentially.

And as mentioned - I was paid to do it.

(Pretty cool considering he charges something like $70k/yr to join his private coaching program)

The other company I did this with was Grace Lever’s.

I had been running ads for her since 2016 (through Jason’s company, then through mine in 2018), and she hired me to coach her Coaches in her private mastermind.

First, it started off with just 40 Coaches.

Then it ballooned to 100, 200 and at last count before I left there was something like 500 Coaches.

So over 4 years of coaching in Grace’s programs I probably helped about 2500 Coaches. Maybe more.

But again…

This increased my skill set exponentially.

It gave me so much certainty that I can walk into any Coaches business (whether they’re earning $500/mo, $5,000/mo or $500,000/mo) and know how to get them to the next level.

Because I’ve done it over and over again.

Bottom line:

By finding another expert that needed a Coach to help them, I was able to exponentially increase my skill set.

Something to think about if you’re low on confidence (and income).

Finally, one thing I will mention…

If you go down this second path, make sure the Coach is OK with you continuing to work on your own business.

Don’t sign anything that says you’re not allowed to.

Further, make sure the gig is not full time.

Part-time is best, obviously, as this allows you to continue to sign your own clients.

With that being said…

This email was based around a big problem Coaches have with their sales calls.

Another problem they have is that they’re not getting many sales calls to begin with.

If that’s you, that’s what The Aussie Hermit’s 15 Minute Client program can help you with.

Specifically, I show you how to get pre-sold prospects booking in your calendar sending just one email per day.

And you may already know this, but…

Pre-sold (or warm) prospects are much easier to close than cold ones.

In fact, using your email list to fill your calendar will often dramatically increase your closing rate without doing any of the stuff I mentioned above.

Along with sending emails that get pre-sold appointments, I also show you how to fill your list with quality leads using paid ads.

And as mentioned, I’ve spent a lot on ads (now in excess of 16 million), so I know what it takes for you to make them profitable.

If that sounds like a program you’re after, put your name on the waitlist here:
https://The15MinuteClientWaitlist.com

-Luke Charlton
The Hermit Hole, Somewhere Near Byron Bay

Posted in Sales

Free Guide Reveals: The 9 Email Offers that Get Coaching Clients Free

LUKE CHARLTON

Coaches swimming naked

Free Guide Reveals: The 9 Email Offers that Get Coaching Clients Free