Stop Selling, Start Serving: The Key to Coaching Success

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:02.644 --> 00:00:05.068
Welcome back to Deep Dive Dialogues.

00:00:05.068 --> 00:00:21.769
I'm your host, dan Warheide, and today I wanted to talk to you about something that I found to be a bit of a myth, if you will, in the coaching industry, and that is the idea that you need to define a niche.

00:00:21.769 --> 00:00:23.312
It's a French word.

00:00:23.312 --> 00:00:28.402
I learned this from the person I'm going to be talking about in just a little while, steve Chandler.

00:00:28.402 --> 00:00:32.932
So it's correct pronunciation apparently is niche.

00:00:32.932 --> 00:00:37.651
Either way, however you pronounce it I've heard it a hundred times.

00:00:37.651 --> 00:00:44.246
You probably have too you need to find your niche, narrow your focus, market your specialty.

00:00:44.246 --> 00:00:56.432
But here's the thing focusing too much on finding a niche can actually work against you, and if you're anything like me, it actually caused more frustration than anything.

00:00:56.432 --> 00:01:04.387
So bear with me on this one and I'll walk you through the key ideas that sort of contribute to this realization.

00:01:04.387 --> 00:01:09.983
Ideas that sort of contribute to this realization.

00:01:09.983 --> 00:01:18.710
Before I go on, let me just say that if you have a niche and it's working for you or you haven't chosen, excuse me, you have chosen a niche because it's an area that you love working in, then there's nothing wrong with that.

00:01:18.710 --> 00:01:24.647
That's wonderful, and what I'm about to cover will still make sense for you as well.

00:01:24.647 --> 00:01:29.795
There's no reason to change what you're doing at all unless, of course, there is.

00:01:31.081 --> 00:01:41.310
Let me tell you that you know I kind of alluded to it, but for several years I beat my head against the wall on this one and you might already be curious, like I was.

00:01:41.310 --> 00:01:44.088
You can probably relate to that feeling.

00:01:44.088 --> 00:01:48.942
Curious, like I was, you can probably relate to that feeling.

00:01:48.942 --> 00:01:51.567
So there's a lot of experts and trainings that teach this concept and perpetuate this ideology.

00:01:51.567 --> 00:01:56.706
But here's the real deal right, it just never felt right for me.

00:01:56.706 --> 00:02:11.435
In fact, I just said, it became frustrating when I was speaking with different coaches and they were telling me this is the one thing I was missing and it's what I had to do in order to be successful or to enhance my success.

00:02:11.435 --> 00:02:30.692
And I just had a lot of difficulty with this idea as a coach, choosing this specific area of focus, and not because I felt like I wanted or could serve everyone, because that's simply not true but I knew inherently that something was just off for me.

00:02:30.692 --> 00:02:42.414
But then I heard something shared by Steve Chandler and in fact it was my coach whom I was speaking with about this particular topic and my frustrations that every time this had come up.

00:02:42.414 --> 00:02:48.395
He shared this with me originally frustrations that every time this had come up.

00:02:48.395 --> 00:02:49.259
He shared this with me originally.

00:02:53.159 --> 00:02:57.151
Steve Chandler is a coach that I would consider one of the true pioneers, if you will, in today's coaching.

00:02:57.151 --> 00:03:00.461
He's the author of the Prosperous Coach, co-author with Rich Litvin, which I've mentioned here before.

00:03:00.461 --> 00:03:12.471
He's got several other great books, such as how to Get Clients and 37 Ways to Boost your Coaching Practice, among others, and in there he shares a lot of these ideas.

00:03:12.471 --> 00:03:15.810
And when you culminate these ideas, is that the right word?

00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:29.544
When you put all these different pieces together, you kind of come to some of the conclusions that I want to share with you here today, of the conclusions that I want to share with you here today, and I believe he truly has a powerful perspective on this.

00:03:29.544 --> 00:03:34.354
He argues that a niche is not only unnecessary but counterproductive.

00:03:34.354 --> 00:03:54.352
Instead of narrowing your focus to a niche, he suggests and I suggest focusing on serving one person at a time, focusing on creating impact for that person, one conversation at a time, and this distinction between selling versus serving we're going to talk about as well.

00:03:54.352 --> 00:03:58.986
It's the key to building a truly prosperous coaching business.

00:03:58.986 --> 00:04:11.118
So let me just read to you what was shared with me and offer it here for you to consider, and then I'm going to break it down just a little bit.

00:04:11.330 --> 00:04:22.026
So Steve Chandler says most coaching certification programs urge novice coaches to find and choose a niche, a specialty.

00:04:22.026 --> 00:04:25.781
I've never encountered such counterproductive nonsense.

00:04:25.781 --> 00:04:30.817
Most of the coaches I know who are extremely successful have no niche at all.

00:04:30.817 --> 00:04:33.442
A niche would actually limit them.

00:04:33.442 --> 00:04:37.978
It would shut them off from many categories of people who are yearning for their help.

00:04:37.978 --> 00:04:44.057
I know coaches who emerge from certification programs crowing about the niche that they've served.

00:04:44.057 --> 00:04:47.403
They have no paid clients, but they have a niche.

00:04:47.403 --> 00:04:48.545
Let's see.

00:04:48.545 --> 00:04:54.218
Only time I see a niche working in a coach's favor is when it emerges on its own.

00:04:54.218 --> 00:05:07.130
If you have a certain success in a certain category and it can happen by accident you can now go to other people who are interested in that category and they are more likely to listen to your success stories.

00:05:07.130 --> 00:05:11.658
But even then, you don't have to let it be a tool to restrict you.

00:05:13.321 --> 00:05:19.100
So most coaching certification programs will tell you to pick a niche before you do anything else.

00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:25.574
They'll have you focus on a specific market and create marketing materials and define a message to sell your coaching.

00:05:25.574 --> 00:05:36.242
But, as Steve would argue and I would too this approach puts your energy in the wrong place.

00:05:36.242 --> 00:05:41.726
You end up spending more time defining your niche than actually helping people or serving people.

00:05:41.726 --> 00:05:49.774
He also says that I know coaches who come out of a certification program crowing about their niche.

00:05:49.774 --> 00:05:52.901
They have no paid clients, but they have a niche, and that's the problem.

00:05:52.901 --> 00:05:54.872
A niche doesn't bring clients.

00:05:54.872 --> 00:06:08.884
What brings clients is connection, connection with people through conversation, and when you focus on serving others rather than selling, the pressure to define a niche suddenly disappears.

00:06:09.891 --> 00:06:10.937
Now let's be clear.

00:06:10.937 --> 00:06:16.802
If you're in the business of selling coaching as a product, a niche would make perfect sense.

00:06:16.802 --> 00:06:24.855
It gives you a target audience that you can market to, but coaching isn't a product, it's a relationship isn't a product, it's a relationship.

00:06:24.855 --> 00:06:38.250
And when you focus on the person in front of you, serving them, one conversation at a time, that need for a niche fades into the background.

00:06:38.250 --> 00:06:46.021
This is where that distinction between selling and serving becomes wildly important, because selling is about convincing someone to buy what you're offering.

00:06:46.021 --> 00:06:57.442
It's very transactional, it's focused on you and your agenda, and what your needs are Serving, on the other hand, is about helping the person in front of you, living into their world.

00:06:57.442 --> 00:07:03.043
It's relationship-based and it's focused on what their needs are, not yours.

00:07:03.043 --> 00:07:11.798
When you're focused on serving, you're not trying to enroll a bunch of people at once or trying to target a broad market.

00:07:11.798 --> 00:07:19.817
You're simply present in each and every moment, engaging with one person and seeing if you can make a difference in their world.

00:07:19.817 --> 00:07:27.653
That shift from selling to serving is what's going to open new doors for people and it creates new possibilities.

00:07:27.653 --> 00:07:36.718
And I say people, not just coaches, because there are a lot of businesses can benefit from this shift in mindset from selling to serving.

00:07:38.723 --> 00:07:40.930
I used to think that I needed to sell my coaching.

00:07:40.930 --> 00:08:10.702
I've been there, I mentioned it before, I've done all of the low fee hourly rates and these are all things that I'm hoping to get to sharing more about in the future, you know, but, like you may have experienced, you know I talked about all the benefits, the frameworks that were incorporated or that I had access to, and all the different features and breaking it down into productization of what my coaching could look like.

00:08:10.702 --> 00:08:21.625
But when I shifted to serving and just having those real conversations, helping people with the challenges they were experiencing, things started to change.

00:08:21.625 --> 00:08:34.066
People stopped feeling like they were being pitched to and started to see the value of working with me and that I could potentially help them with different challenges that they were experiencing.

00:08:34.066 --> 00:08:46.144
That they were experiencing, and what's probably most important, is that I get to enjoy these conversations so much more than any conversation where I felt like I was pitching my services.

00:08:46.289 --> 00:08:53.033
I've said it in different forums, but I don't entertain the conversation about tell me why I should hire you.

00:08:53.033 --> 00:08:59.572
I'll slow somebody down at that point and say wait a minute, I'm not sure that I want to work with you.

00:08:59.572 --> 00:09:03.822
I don't know if I can help you and I don't know what your challenges look like.

00:09:03.822 --> 00:09:06.936
So let's just have a conversation and see where this goes.

00:09:06.936 --> 00:09:14.634
So there are three principles that Steve shared for a prosperous coaching practice.

00:09:14.634 --> 00:09:23.485
There are three powerful principles that align perfectly with this idea of serving and not selling.

00:09:23.485 --> 00:09:25.196
So let's jump into these.

00:09:25.196 --> 00:09:30.942
The first powerful principle is selling the experience, not the concept.

00:09:30.942 --> 00:09:36.341
It's to sell the experience of coaching, not the concept of coaching.

00:09:36.470 --> 00:10:00.193
Most coaches are trying to explain what coaching is, how it works, what it includes, what the benefits are, and that's simply just an abstract idea and it doesn't really help someone decide whether they trust you, whether you can create a safe space for them, whether or not they want to work with you, to save space for them, whether or not they want to work with you.

00:10:00.193 --> 00:10:07.654
Instead, you want to give them the experience of what that coaching feels like and what the potential is in those changes that you're able to make in that person's world.

00:10:07.654 --> 00:10:15.173
If someone were interested in coaching, for example, I don't start by explaining my methods or outlining a program.

00:10:15.173 --> 00:10:22.644
I say something along the lines of what's the biggest challenge you're experiencing right now and tell me about your world.

00:10:22.644 --> 00:10:32.032
You know where are the challenges in that and then we can dive into a conversation that really is coaching around that challenge.

00:10:32.032 --> 00:10:41.066
By the end of the conversation, they've experienced the value of, or potentially the value of, the coaching that I offer all by themselves.

00:10:41.066 --> 00:10:46.062
They don't need me then to sell them the experience or sell them the coaching.

00:10:46.062 --> 00:10:58.732
They've seen what's possible and when you highlight that possibility for people, that's what really leads to enrollment of new clients, really leads to enrollment of new clients.

00:10:58.753 --> 00:11:04.063
The second powerful principle that Steve shares is to stay in the prospects world.

00:11:04.063 --> 00:11:13.222
We've kind of talked on this for a second, but this means that you want to focus entirely on them and their challenges, what their goals are, what is their vision for the future?

00:11:13.222 --> 00:11:14.515
What are they trying to create?

00:11:14.515 --> 00:11:34.115
Too often coaches fall into this trap of trying to impress people or their potential clients with all of their different credentials, the frameworks, the expertise and all the benefits again, but that shifts the focus away from that person that you're trying to help back into your world.

00:11:34.115 --> 00:11:41.437
He goes on to explain that when you make the conversation about you, it actually can intimidate the prospect.

00:11:41.437 --> 00:11:48.120
They might think this coach is too good for me or what if I can't live up to this person's expectations.

00:11:48.120 --> 00:12:00.905
But if you approach the conversation with curiosity and humility, you meet them where they are and you can much more connect with, relate to their experiences.

00:12:00.905 --> 00:12:26.273
An example if someone shares that they're struggling with confidence, you may be able to say something like you know I've been there, I know what that feels like simple act of connection that can make all the difference and shows that you're relational with them and you're still focused on their world, not coming back to yours and how you believe you can make a difference in their life.

00:12:28.336 --> 00:12:38.302
This one that he shares is the third powerful principle that he shares is what Steve calls the samurai point Die before you go into battle.

00:12:38.302 --> 00:12:44.299
In other words, let go of any attachments to the outcomes of that conversation.

00:12:44.299 --> 00:12:49.758
I've talked about this a number of times in different forums and I might've shared it here on the podcast.

00:12:49.758 --> 00:12:58.861
But I started this podcast with no attachment other than creating the content that I wanted to create.

00:12:58.861 --> 00:13:01.899
This podcast was for me more than anybody else.

00:13:01.899 --> 00:13:10.220
It's about tackling a writer's block challenge that I was experiencing and I wanted to work on shifting my mindset towards that.

00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:21.235
So I set out to shift from interview-based podcasts, which I'd done previously, to creating a solo podcast that may have some interviews interspersed in here.

00:13:21.235 --> 00:13:25.724
We're not sure yet, but it really is.

00:13:25.724 --> 00:13:35.638
That's the outcome I want from this podcast is simply to enjoy the process of creating and to work on a mindset challenge that I was having around.

00:13:35.638 --> 00:13:39.951
You know, expressive or creative writing, so to speak.

00:13:39.951 --> 00:13:44.962
Again, I don't know the word for blank page for a podcast, but you get the idea.

00:13:44.962 --> 00:13:46.312
I hope so.

00:13:46.413 --> 00:13:52.211
He goes on to say you know the outcome of that conversation if you let go of that.

00:13:52.211 --> 00:14:02.836
If not, the client can see that you may be desperate, that your energy is different and it might push them away.

00:14:02.836 --> 00:14:17.855
But if you approach that same conversation with simple curiosity and a desire to help them with the challenge that they're experiencing, then you're both able to relax more and connect at a more authentic way.

00:14:17.855 --> 00:14:21.832
In a more authentic way Again, words can be challenging, right?

00:14:21.832 --> 00:14:24.678
So here's how you can think about that.

00:14:24.678 --> 00:14:30.782
Yes, like you, I need clients to run my business, but I don't need this client.

00:14:30.782 --> 00:14:38.432
There are billions of people in the world and I'm just here to see if I can help this person that's in front of me right now.

00:14:38.432 --> 00:14:51.130
That mindset frees me from any pressure to sell anything, any pressure to create an income from this particular conversation, and just really allows me to settle in and truly connect with that individual.

00:14:51.130 --> 00:14:57.663
And when I'm not trying so hard to sign somebody well, they're more likely to want to work with me.

00:14:57.830 --> 00:15:19.504
When you're relaxed about it and you approach this from a you know hey, no pressure here, no strings, no obligations, no expectations that you'll ever become a paying client, let's just see if we can figure this out together they're more inclined to want to see what else you can do to transform something in their life.

00:15:19.504 --> 00:15:33.850
So when you focus on serving one person at a time, you're not just building a coaching business, you're creating relationships, meaningful relationships, and, as you can.

00:15:33.850 --> 00:15:47.717
If I could talk again, here we go, as you can see, hopefully at this point, that if you're creating relationships with individuals, people, each person that stands in front of you, each person you run into, that may have a challenge.

00:15:47.717 --> 00:15:54.004
It doesn't require a niche, a niche approach Whichever word you choose.

00:15:54.004 --> 00:15:56.392
It does require presence.

00:15:56.392 --> 00:16:03.092
It requires the ability to be curious and ask questions and a genuine desire to help.

00:16:03.092 --> 00:16:15.615
One powerful conversation at a time you can build a prosperous coaching business without ever needing to box yourself into any specific category.

00:16:17.202 --> 00:16:22.042
So here's what I'd like to say, one if this resonates with you at all.

00:16:22.042 --> 00:16:25.951
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and you don't have to agree with me.

00:16:25.951 --> 00:16:27.523
I'd still love to hear your thoughts.

00:16:27.523 --> 00:16:30.129
What's worked well for you, feel free to share.

00:16:30.129 --> 00:16:36.028
You can reach me if you go to my podcast page at podcastdanwus.

00:16:36.028 --> 00:16:41.644
You can leave me a voicemail there or send me a note If you sign up for my mailing list.

00:16:43.528 --> 00:16:45.272
I don't send out a bunch of spam.

00:16:45.272 --> 00:16:46.494
I don't send out newsletters.

00:16:46.494 --> 00:16:56.370
I send out podcast updates at the moment, and there is a couple of things that may be coming up that I'd love to share with you, but you can feel free to opt out at any time.

00:16:56.370 --> 00:16:59.140
If something isn't a good fit for you, I don't mind.

00:16:59.140 --> 00:17:06.925
But you can sign up on the same page for my mailing list and when you get that welcome email, simply reply back to that.

00:17:06.925 --> 00:17:12.583
You can email me there, but I'd love for you to reach out with me.

00:17:12.583 --> 00:17:25.034
I'd love for you to reach out to me and share what your thoughts are and what I'd love also to hear what's one way you can shift from selling to serving in your next conversation.

00:17:26.819 --> 00:17:42.029
Finally, I'd love it if you can share this episode with someone you might think would find it helpful and, of course, if you'd like to explore what a conversation with me could look like for you if you have a challenge in your business or you have a challenge going on in your world.

00:17:42.029 --> 00:17:47.976
I don't know if I can help you, but I'm happy to talk to you and we can have a conversation around that.

00:17:47.976 --> 00:17:51.931
There's no pitches, no pressure, just a genuine connection.

00:17:51.931 --> 00:17:57.412
So, again, just reach out to me and you can visit my website to apply to work with me.

00:17:57.412 --> 00:18:03.040
Again, there's no strings, no obligations, no expectations, but you can reach me that way.

00:18:03.040 --> 00:18:09.309
That just allows me to get some additional information beforehand and then I'll shoot you over a link to schedule our time together.

00:18:09.309 --> 00:18:26.773
So thank you for joining me today on another episode of Deep Dive Dialogues and until next time, remember this one conversation, one person, one step at a time can create a world of new possibility and a prosperous business.

Stop Selling, Start Serving: The Key to Coaching Success

Listen On

Recent Episodes