Have you ever been a situation where you needed to sell without selling?
It may sound odd, but let me give you an example.
I had a client, Tristan Bond, who was in a really tricky position. He coaches healthcare practitioners (dentists, chiropractors, etc.) and was approached by a big health fund about running a webinar for them.
On one hand, he was super excited about the opportunity to connect with loads of people in his target market. On the other hand, he was a bit let down because they gave him some very strict rules.
They told him he wasn’t allowed to do any selling, whatsoever. He wasn’t even allowed a copy of the contact list of who would be in the webinar to potentially sell to at a later date.
If he followed their law to the letter, it wouldn’t help his business. Flashing a name and website at the end of a presentation doesn’t cut it as far as sales go.
If he disregarded their rules entirely and gave a sales pitch, he might get a few new clients but he’d destroy the relationship with his joint-venture partner. He’d never be allowed to do webinars with them again.
This isn’t a wildly unique situation. Coaches encounter this dilemma all of the time.
In a fifteen minute call, we were able to come up with a plan that worked beautifully. He was able to keep his JV partner happy AND walk away with incredible sales numbers.
I’ll show you the exact sales figures later, but for now, let’s look at the first step of the plan.
Invite Them To An Education-Based Marketing Event
Nobody woke up this morning and said, “You know what I need? I need a coach!”
No one woke up thinking that, especially in the webinars hosted by JV partners.
In these types of webinars, explicitly promoting your coaching is pointless – not to mention against the rules. Instead, you need to promote something the attendees care about, and they only care about two things: their problems and their goals.
At the end of the JV partners event (in this case, it was a webinar) invite everyone to an education-based marketing event. This could be a webinar or live event.
Since you can’t give a full sales pitch, pick your title and topic carefully.
Make a list of your target market’s top three goals and top three problems and create a workshop around it.
Avoid vague or general topics like “Why Coaching Is For You” or “Seven Steps To A Better Business.” Instead, pick a specific itch and invite them to an education-based event that promises to scratch that itch.
The invitation needs to be short but effective. It should follow this basic formula:
If you’re struggling with [this problem] come to [this event] and I’ll teach you [this solution].
Nobody wants be sold something, but everyone’s interested in solving their own problems. That’s the goal of this event. It’s education-based, not sales-based.
Stay tuned to the blog for the next steps on how to sell without selling.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your coaching business:
1. Grab a free copy of my book
It’s the roadmap to attracting prospects, signing clients, and scaling your coaching business. — Click Here
2. Join the Coach Dojo and connect with coaches who are scaling too
It’s our new Facebook community where smart coaches learn to get more income, impact, and independence. — Click Here
3. Join our Implementation Program and be a Case Study
I’m putting together a new coaching case study group at Black Belt this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me on your client-getting and scale plans… just send me a message with the words “Case Study”. — Click Here
4. Work with me and my team privately
If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 6 to 7 figures… just send me a message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Click Here
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