Signing Up New Clients: Why We're Not In The Business Of Convincing People

It’s not your job to convince

When it comes to signing up new high-ticket clients, your job isn’t to convince them that you’re the right coach or consultant for them. That’s THEIR job.

The dictionary tells us that ‘something that is convincing makes you believe that it is true or persuades you to do something’

How does that feel to you?

Personally, I don’t want to make someone believe something - I just want them to believe it.

I don’t want to persuade someone to work with me - I want them to LONG to work with me.

You know how uncomfortable it feels when you’re told you have to embrace ‘selling’ or your business will fail. So you try to do all the things the gurus tell you: countdown timers / fast action bonus / price is going up tomorrow / make sure husband and wife are both there / crush their spirit by catastrophizing what will happen to them if they DON’T sign up with you…

Urgh - I feel dirty just typing all that!

So how DO you sign up new clients?

So if it’s not your job to convince them, and you’re certainly not going to play those hard-sell games, how DO you enroll new clients?

You give them the information they need to make the right decision for them.

Feeling compelled to do anything more than that comes from your own scarcity/lack mindset. Your worries around ‘where the next client will come from’.

I want you to try this shift in perspective: if someone isn’t desperate to work with me after I’ve given them all the information they need (including a taste of what it’s like to work with me - more on that to come), then I’m not the right coach/consultant/mentor for them. There is something they’re looking for that I can’t supply and therefore the service I could provide to them would be limited from the outset.

If I then ‘convince’ that client to work with me, I’m setting myself up to fail.

Conversely, if I present the right information to the prospective client and give them a taste of what it’s like to work with me, and the time and space to think about the investment, the timing, their goals, etc. and they come back to me with an ‘I’ve thought this through carefully and I’m 100% committed to working with you, Gill’ - then I KNOW this is a client I can help. This is someone whose life and business are about to change, and I feel confident and excited to start with them too.

What Does A Client Need To Know To Know They Need You?

So what is the information we need to put before our prospective clients?

Remember the old cliche - ‘people work with people they know, like, and trust’? Yeah, that’s a cliche for a reason. It’s 100% true.

So the information about you that your audience absorbs needs to tick those boxes.

Your brand needs to be authentic, transparent, and consistent and be positioned to speak directly to your ideal clients. They need to feel straight away that you ‘get’ them. That you understand their pains and desires in equal measure.

Your offer(s) need to be EXACTLY what your ideal clients want and need.

Your pricing needs to reflect the value you deliver.

You need to be serving your existing clients at an incredibly high level and collecting testimonials and recommendations accordingly.

What does ‘give them a taste of what it’s like to work with you’ mean?

For me, as a business coach/consultant, it means inviting my audience to apply for a breakthrough session with me.

(There’s an application to complete because this is a true investment of my time and I can only offer that to those for whom I believe I’m the right coach.)

A Breakthrough Session is a full 60 minutes of business coaching where they get to set the agenda. I then coach them intensely during that time, just as I would if they were a paying client.

At the end, (and only if I think I AM the right coach for them) I ask them a simple question: ‘would you like to know what it looks like to work with me moving forward?’.

If it’s a ‘yes please’ then I run through the logistics of hiring me - the slots I have available for weekly calls, the email support between sessions, and, of course, the price.

I actively encourage prospective clients to ‘think about it’ if that’s what they need because as I said before, anything less than a 100% commitment & desire to work together means it’s not right for either of us.

Have I convinced you? ;-)

I hope not! But I DO hope this has given you food for thought and that you’ll mull over how you can use this paradigm shift when it comes to enrolling YOUR perfect high-ticket clients.

Finally...

If you’d like to experience that taste of what it’s like to work with me, click HERE to apply for a Breakthrough Session now.

Suggested Listening

#013 - Word of Mouth - The Platinum Standard

#026 - The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

#037 - What It REALLY Means To Be Authentic with Tamsin Jardinier