I love coaching. My first coaching job was as a basketball coach. I did this for many moons coaching various levels at camps, specialized summer teams and even coached youth basketball abroad.
If you’ve ever coached a sport you know that motivation, strategy, and accountability are critical to keeping a team successful, driven and inspired. But so is Information – info of your opponent, their offense, your own offense, etc…
So imagine my surprise when, after becoming a health coach, all business coaches where telling me “there’s a delicate balance between giving out free information to prospective clients and holding back so they value your services.” In other words, don’t give away the farm or people will never pay you for your programs/services.
Ugg. But how do you know what’s too much and not enough to ‘ignite curiosity”? I studied this coaching approach for years and throughout that time I experimented with how much was the right amount. Afterall, I hadn’t reached the financial 6-figure level of success these other coaches had so clearly I needed to streeeeetch my development, get uncomfortable and try it out. Plus, the advice does make logical sense, right?
Wrong. I now call bulls&^%.
Look. One of the fastest ways you can attract clients NOW is to be open and help them out NOW by telling them what you know. It’s just information. Remember, as a coach people are not just working with you for your unique knowledge. What they really want is your motivation and strategies which shows up in your coaching as support, a signature system and accountability. That’s what you are really charging for with your programs. (And yes, this approach works too even with info products because you need to get people to know, like and trust you first before they will purchase from you. So helping clear the noise of conflicting health information by sharing information will help you sell more products).
So, what about the idea that as a health coach you can easily overwhelm prospective clients with WAY too much information? Again, I call bulls&^%.
FACT: Your prospective clients are already overwhelmed with too much information. Answering their questions and bringing clarity to their minds, helping them sift through all the conflicting diet, life-style and exercise information is what they’ll LOVE to chat with you about. That’s not overwhelm, that’s clarity. And where there is clarity, there begins to emerge a clear emotional need to change + they now have a solid relationship with you who can help them change = a new client.
It’s not giving away information that’s the real business strategy here, it’s creating boundaries. But I’ll save that for another blog…stay tuned.
I challenge you to experiment with serving your prospective clients through information sharing over the next week. Leave a comment below to let me know if you’re up for the challenge!
