Most coaches are not sales people and most sales people don't always make good coaches.

However developing your salesmanship is a crucial part of any business.  Like most people, I am not a salesperson.  I treat potential clients as I would want to be treated by letting them decide and not force anything on them.  In fact, I feel quite the opposite, I am an anti hard-sales person.  The reason was that, like many, I mostly saw salesmanship as being pushy and forcing ideas onto people.  I never realized that that was not salesmanship.  That is being a pushy sales person.

Salesmanship is an art.  Some people have the knack, others need to develop it.  Selling tangible goods are fairly easy.  You build up the need and desire, hopefully based on truth.  For the last few decades salesmanship has been wedded to marketing with terrible consequences, pushing any products to anyone at any costs regardless of those products being needed or not.

True salesmanship is a subtle art, especially with services.  Coaching is a tough cookie mostly because people have a vague notion of what coaching is.  Coaching ultimately helps people get on with their lives and acquire a better sense and vision of their lives.  It helps them achieve their goals.  It helps get unstuck from situations.  Well, how does one sell that?

When I sold IT services, it was easy.  The need was there, artificially created by software and hardware manufacturers with the promise of an easier life.  I don't know about you but computers have not made life easier and certainly not been a great gain in productivity.  Selling coaching services is even trickier because how to do you define the value of what coaching does, unless you have experienced it yourself?

One obvious way is to tell your story.  How has coaching helped you?  Another is to tell the story how you got involved.  Why did you become a coach?  Another is to give concrete situations where coaching has helped you.  But ultimately, you will need to be out there, antenas wide open, fully turned to people around and near you, and be ready to receive whom you attract.  You need to be ready to help out and be of service, devote and unattached.

I don't believe in advertising.  I feel you attract anyone.  I'd rather depend on referrals.  Referrals, though not quite as fast, attract the right people to you.  They know the person who talked about you.  Nonetheless, you need to train your clients to talk about you.  Have them talk about you and how much you have helped them.  The word help can be a little dangerous.  Instead of using that word, find others such as, being there, offering a safe place to think and see things more clearly, whatever your unique catch phrases are.

All in all, develop your own sense of salesmanship.  Look for opportunities to be of service.  Be there for people and ready to act on a dime.

The first thing a client learns about is how everything is confidential in a coaching session.  Period!

I love getting in to that part with a potential client.  I love seeing the relief on their faces or in the tone of their voices.  However, it can be a drawback when people ask you for referrals.

One way I found to deal with this is to ask them to put themselves in the shoes of being a client and being asked to talk about the issues you discuss with your coach.  In other words, you have a potential client who asks you: "OK, it sounds great but I want to meet some of your clients."  You tell them that everything is confidential in a coaching session and that names and situation cannot be revealed unless otherwise permitted, which is rare depending on the sensitivity of the nature of the coaching relationship.  I usually ask them to think about being in a coaching relation ship with me and how would they feel if I would say to someone else that I have them as a client and we talk about this and that?  That usually gets their attention.

And it is a nice feeling knowing that nothing goes outside the coaching session.  You also get to share intimate things, if the time is right and the situation demands it.  It builds a bond and a relationship.  I know I feel very close and safe with my coaches because they know things about me and I know things about them.  Yet, the friendship line isn't crossed, or if it crossed, it well defined.

So using confidentiality as a selling tool is a good tool but you need to use it wisely.  Tell them about the confort and peace but tell them the same restrictions apply to referrals.  

I don't believe it again! TypePad lost my second post! That does it.

This post was about how we have that one day where we buy no gas. That won't do a thing. The oil company gets a chuckle out of this because the following day, we will buy it again. The only ones hurt are the gas station owners.
This post was about an email I received that said instead of boycotting all for one day, boycott only the most prosperous ones, such as Exxon and Mobil all the time. If their profits go down, they will lower their prices. Once they lower their prices, shun the ones who are expensive until we reclaim a little more control.

Yes, it is about how, we as consumers have the control to chose with our cards.

TypePad I am mad.