Coach Mindset vs Sales Mindset
Feeling bad about charging money for your services? Read on 👉
As an aspiring, coach you might have these conflicting thoughts in your head:
- I want to help people
- But I also want to get rich and position my services as high-ticket
What should I do?
Read on. I want to share some puzzle pieces with you 🧩.
So let’s talk about 3 things:
- Your Sales Mindset
- Your Coaching Mindset
- And the Mindset you can build at a point of convergence between these two + things you can experiment with
First. Sales Mindset.
Examine carefully how exactly are you thinking about Sales. If it was a coaching session, I would be asking you questions. But since we are limited by the constraints of an article, I will just have to share some mental models with you.
1. Sales — is the most powerful skill you can have.
It is the ability to create an opinion i.e. the ability to influence people.
2. Becoming a better salesperson makes you a better coach.
Why? Because your power as a coach is a function of your ability to influence people.
3. If you want to understand how to sell, understand how you buy.
You don’t buy stuff because you don’t want to buy it. You don’t buy stuff because it is being pushed/imposed on you. You buy stuff because you see the value it can give you. In other words, the perceived value that you get justifies the transaction. This brings me to my next point.
4. Are you delivering Value?
If yes and your clients can see the value that you bring to the table, then buying from you is just a no-brainer. THEY WANT TO BUY FROM YOU. They have real pain, and they are willing to pay anything for this pain to go away. Your solution is the painkiller. Now, what is the perceived value of your painkiller? If you know that your solution solves real pain, are you engineering the Perception of Value? (If you do not believe you can deliver real value to your clients, this becomes a whole different conversation — a conversation about the Imposter Syndrome and your competence as a coach).
5. You are not your own client.
Maybe you were in the past. You have solved the problem for yourself and today you find yourself in the position to solve this problem for others. But at this point you are not your ideal client, you don’t have the pain and it makes it really hard for you to relate to how exactly your potential clients feel and what the perceived value for them is. So…
6. Do not sell the way you buy.
We all struggle with this. Intuitively, we want to set up a not-so-aspirational hourly rate. It makes sense to us because this is what we think is reasonable to pay for this kind of service. But this is not what your ideal clients think. They buy differently. Imagine. There is this thing that you want more than anything in your life right now? This real pain. How much would you pay for this pain to go away? What is the price tag you would put on a transformation? Exactly. This connects us to the next point 👉
7. You are not selling your time. You are selling a transformation.
Your clients want to get from point A to point B. What you are selling is an optimized way of getting there. In my sessions with my clients, we break through beliefs that would have taken them years if not decades to resolve on their own. Hell, some people spend all their lives having failed to break through those beliefs. Sad. It’s bloody sad. Spending your life sinking in your own delusions — this is a tragedy of human life. What is the price you would put on shattering your delusions?
8. They want to buy.
Ask any sales professional and they will tell you all the same — the client wants to buy. Otherwise, what the hell would they be doing there on the call?! They want to believe that there is a solution to their problem. And there is. You are the solution. You can get them to their point B and you can cut their travel time in a way that would justify all expenses. You are the voice of reality for your clients. A Wake-Up call. You are the conduit of change. The vehicle. Make it the best ride of their lives.
9. Remember, we buy from those we like.
Build trust. Guide with empathy. Show up with authenticity. And you can’t show up with authenticity if all that’s playing in the back of your mind is how to transfer the dollar bills from their pockets to yours. Be honest & transparent. That’s a weird thing to say but be a decent human being. If they like you, they will buy from you. Don’t try to manipulate them into buying. Seek to help.
10. We like those who are similar to us.
Again, not telling you to manipulate anyone but find common threads. And there is always something in common that we all have. We are human. We are all connected. The ultimate driver for any human is to create the ultimate human experience (whatever it means for each one of us). Show them that you understand them, and you will get 1 step closer to signing the coaching agreement.
Second. Coaching Mindset.
1. What got you on this path in the first place?
What got you into coaching? You wanted to help. So help. What is a success for you? Closing the deal or helping another human? If your answer is “helping another human”, then help. And if you succeed to help, you are a successful coach. If your leading thought is making a quick buck, quit now. You are in the wrong profession.
2. Always coach.
We are coming back again to the conversation about the perceived value. Deliver value and the value will be perceived. How easy do you think it will be to close the deal if you explode the mind of your prospect 10-min into the conversation? You won’t need to sell anything. They will ask you themselves how to wire you money. Trust me. Delivering transformational coaching is the only goal. Being a transformational coach is the only standard you should aspire to.
3. Coaching is a long-term game. Be a long-term player.
In SaaS unit economics there is a term called LTV — Customer Lifetime Value. LTV is the average revenue that a customer will generate throughout their lifespan (i.e. time working with you). Always think LTV. If you deliver for a client they will:
- a) leave you an amazing testimonial that will forever serve as a lead generation vehicle;
- b) will become the champion of your brand and a source of referrals;
- c) will be a returning customer (some of my clients come back to me to work on a new set of problems or to get to the next level).
Being a short-term thinker will make you very ineffective as a coach (and as a human in general).
Now, how do we synthesize these two mindsets?
1. “Sensible people get paid for doing what they enjoy doing.” — Alan Watts.
Are you a sensible person? If the answer is Yes, then it is your duty to find a way to amalgamate the Coaching and the Sales mindsets within your own mind. You should be doing what you love (Coaching) and get paid for it (Sales).
2. What are you earning money for?
I don’t know what drives you. You will have find an answer to this question yourself. But I can share with you my thought process.
For me, it’s simple. Money = Freedom. Freedom to build and create more. The question that I ask myself is: “How many more people can I help if I have the resources to leverage?” This mindset alone unblocks the limiting belief about charging for my services for me.
My current mission is to help 1M people. If my income can enable me to build solutions that scale, how many more lives I can change for the better? This is the question that I am asking myself.
So ask yourself the same question. Find your Ultimate Driver. Make it ethical and you will feel congruent. Even if it is selfish it works. Your rationale will evolve with you but for now, choose to fill your cup first before you give to others.
3. Know your Value.
I know my Value. Things that I can do, no one I know can do. And that is not me being arrogant and absolutely blind to my own ignorance. I am well aware of my limitations as a human and as a coach.
What I am saying is — this is true for everyone.
You are a unique and unprecedented human being. Your job, however, is not to settle with the status quo thinking that you are a beautiful snowflake. Your job is to follow your curiosity and natural strengths and sharpen your uniqueness so that you become so special that:
- a) you become a monopoly — a niche of 1;
- b) your unique reputation becomes an opportunity magnet for you — people know that there might be other people in the space but there is only one {insert your name here};
- c) your specific knowledge makes you one of a kind specialist — people come to you to solve those specific problems — you create your own luck.
Know your Value. Your confidence to charge premium for your services will stem from your knowledge that you can deliver transformational coaching.
Things you can experiment with.
Here are different models you can play around with:
1. Research calls.
Reach out to folks and collect your data points. Understand what real problems that real people have and how much are they willing to pay for those problems.
Example — Career Coaching. You can ask the following questions:
- What are your current challenges in your career?
- Are there any specific obstacles or limiting beliefs that you feel are holding you back in your career?
- Are there any specific resources or support systems that you currently use or would like to use in your career development?
- How much would you pay for a career coach? Why?
You can create your own variations. The point is that you start collecting real data with real people and at the same time expand your network.
If you are in the beginning of your coaching journey, you can offer to coach them for free in exchange for a testimonial.
Alternatively, if you can see that most people can’t really give you a solid answer to the last question (“how much would you pay for a coach”), you can ask them to react to the pricing you have created.
“Currently my package is X$. Do you think it is too high? Too low? Just enough to have a skin in the game?”
More often than not, your clients wouldn’t know the market rates so they will be reacting based on their personal financial situation. And this is exactly what you want.
Have the ability to discern. When people say that they are not willing to pay for your services that doesn’t mean that your services are worthless. Maybe it just means that they are not your clients.
2. Be firm with your numbers.
When you deliver your numbers and you have a gasp as a reaction — you can be sure you are on the right track.
My business coach has shared a cool perspective with me:
“Your executive clients are not boasting about their inexpensive coach on the golf court with their buddies. They brag that they spent thousands of dollars on you.”
Indeed so. Having a coach is not like having a therapist. “I have a therapist” signals “I have a problem” and no one wants to be seen as ‘problematic’.
“I have a coach” signals “I am going after my success with everything I have and what I have is an elite support system that only VIP folks have access to”. Your goal is to have your clients rave about you. That’s how sales will happen.
Deliver your numbers cold. Poker face. Unflinching.
“It is what it is. It is your choice whether you want to invest in yourself or not.”
Meta-message (a meta-message is what you are playing in the back of your mind while you are talking to people): “I have people lined up waiting for an opening to get to work with me. I am so popular I am at capacity right now.”
No need to be an asshole about it. Project humble confidence.
“Hey, I understand that it is a serious investment. If you need any additional information we can talk about it. Here are the testimonials from my past clients.”
What if they say: “Oh, I need more time to think about it”. That’s BS. Call them on their BS immediately. They have been thinking for weeks, months, maybe years to take action. What they need is not time — what they need is more information to build internal reassurance that they are making the right decision.
You can always sweeten the deal. Throw in a free coaching session (which is not exactly free, but in exchange for a testimonial). OR even entertain an idea of a small discount if you feel like it will be helpful in closing the client.
“Hey, I know it is a significant investment. And I am actually running a promotion right now. I will give you an X% discount on the package. What are your thoughts on this?”
If they don’t budge and still want to have a way out, just give them a way out. You don’t want to look desperate. Sometimes the close happens not on the call but after when they are alone with all their thoughts.
“Sure thing. Take your time. In the meantime, I am gonna send you some resources, I think even if you work through my materials you will be able to break the ice on your problem.”
Underpromise and overdeliver. Always. Even if you don’t close the client keep the doors open for the conversation to restart. Their situation may change and they will come back to you with new information they have received from reality.
3. Be a CLOSER.
A CLOSER framework is something I stole from Alex Hormozi. Brilliant stuff.
What’s CLOSER?
C — Clarify why this person is there.
L — Label the problem.
O — Overview the pain.
S — Sell the Vision — Storytelling.
E — Explain away their concerns.
R — Reinforce the decision.
Let’s take a CLOSER look (hehe).
C — Clarify why this person is there.
What made you get on the call?
What’s the goal?
Why is it important to you?
What will happen in 12 months if you achieve it?
L — Label the problem.
“So what I am hearing is you have done XYZ but the missing links have been X. Is that right?”
O — Overview the pain (recap the pain).
So you have done XYZ. Why it didn’t work for you?
S — Sell the Vision OR Stories
Give them 3 stories — illustrative things that will show what you can do to help them solve.
There are 3 elements you need to make it work. And you were missing 1 (or more) — this is why you were not successful.
Example:
“Tried to lose weight? You need 3 things to succeed here. Fitness, nutrition, accountability.
You were missing — 1 or all 3 things that’s why you were not successful.”
E — Explain away their concerns.
They need to ask their partner.
“If you ask them, what do you think they would say?”
“If you close this goal would this make your happy? Would your partner want you to be happy?”
Read the room. Release the tension a little if can see that you are “unpleasantly pushy”. Apply pressure if you feel like this is what they need to make a decision.
R — Reinforce the decision
Get them super pumped about their decision. They need to feel good that they are making the commitment to themselves.
Now, things can get muddy if you lean on to a Sales mindset too much. You are a Coach first, and only after that a Salesperson. But if you look at it closely, regardless of the role, the core skillset that you need to develop to be successful is the same:
- Influence
- Persuasion
- Active listening
- Educating clients
- Empathy
Get the skillset right, and channel it with ethics into your work.
Last words
Everything is a narrative. Build the right narrative and be effective in both sales and coaching. Develop incorrect thinking and you will experience conflict during your coaching/closing conversations.
Study the market. Talk to fellow coaches. See what is working for them and how you can nail down your pricing. Once you have something you are fairly satisfied with, get your MVO (Minimum Viable Offer) out the door and test it on real people. Calibrate.
Pricing is both Art and Science. Closing too. Coaching 💯, obviously.
I think it would be fair to say:
Sales is Coaching — it is coaching your prospect through the process of buying.
Become a powerful coach. The Sales skills will not be so difficult to pick up.
With that, I leave you today.
Change Lives. Get rich. Help others get rich. Change more lives. Together.
Peace 🙏
