Nobody Wants Wimpy

Entrepreneurs ask me all the time “How can I get more clients and make more money?” At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my answer is always the same: “learn to sell well.” No one ever wants to hear this answer, but selling well, with ease, grace and authenticity is the single most impactful thing any entrepreneur can do for their business. Fortunately most coaches and conscious entrepreneurs won’t take this advice, which creates a great advantage for those who do. There are many reasons why coaches and other servant entrepreneurs must learn to sell; here are four of my favorites:

Nobody wants a wimpy coach.

Potential clients assume that the way you sell to them is the way you will work with them when they become a client. That the mood and energy you bring to the sales process is how you will be in the coaching relationship. You can’t blame them for that; it is really all they have to go on. If you are timid, shy, uncertain, unclear, unsure or wimpy they will think that is how you’re going to be as their coach, whether it’s accurate or not. Same is true on the opposite end of the spectrum, if you are aggressive or disrespectful they will assume that is how you will be in the relationship. In the sales process you have to be totally authentic, clear, and certain. How you sell is how your prospects will assume you will coach them and nobody wants to pay for a wimpy coach.

Do what you love—more often.

If you sell well, you get to spend more time coaching and get paid well to do so. Simple as that. End of story. If you don’t sell well, you have to rely on other things to get money through the door. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be coaching than selling eBooks, CD’s, DVD’s. I am a coach, not an internet marketer. Selling well allows me to spend my time doing what I love—Coaching.

Certainty sells.

Every sales interaction comes down to one distinction—certainty and doubt. Your certainty as the sales person has to be stronger than the doubt of the buyer. And let’s be real here, people have a lot of doubt when buying and even more doubt about hiring a coach. When talking to a prospective client you must certain about four things:

1. your value
2. how you are different from everyone else
3. what the client REALLY wants out of the coaching relationship
4. your ability to sell your service and get the check.

If your certainty is lacking in any of these areas, you will likely struggle to get enough clients at a respectable fee.

Get ahead of the competition.

Like it or not, there is competition in the coaching arena. Potential clients are shopping for a coach. They are interviewing more than one coach before they decide who they want to work with. How well you can express your value in the sales conversation determines if you come out on the top of the heap.

The better you are at selling, the more likely you are able to put yourself ahead of the other coaches that they are talking too. More than a few times in my career, I have learned, after the fact that a client had already decided on a different coach before we talked. But after our meeting, they decided I was the better coach for them and they hired me, despite the fact my fee was much higher. I attribute that to my sales skills and my certainly. Learning to sell well improves both.

The inability to overcome resistance to learning to sell or selling can be and is often fatal. Entrepreneurs really must embrace selling as an integral part of the their business, there is no way around it. Those who do have a competitive advantage over those who don’t. If you only do one thing to grow your business in 2013, learn to sell. If you do want to learn to sell from one of the best join me and Julia Stewart, from anywhere in the world, for Real Selling for Real Humans, beginning January 10, 2013.