It’s time to learn how to educate your clients, not just sell to them

The first large amount of money I invested in my business was learning how to educate my clients. And to this day, it’s still the most transformative thing I’ve ever purchased. (Unfortunately that program is no longer around – but you can check out Breanne’s book.) Which…not surprising. I’m the child of two educators. I watched my mother teach herself a science when she got shifted from a topic she knew to one she knew nothing about…and her students SOARED. I watched both of my parents help teach students who society would have marked as uneducable, and again – those students rose. The common theme – in order to help someone find their success, you have to meet them where they are. Knowing how to serve your students/clients, how to educate them, and how to connect with them are crucial pieces of both your success and theirs. For the past 6 or 7 months, I’ve been having private conversations with friends and clients about problems I saw emerging in the coaching industry…and this is one of the things I keep coming back to.

 WHEN DID THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF THE INDUSTRY BECOME SELLING MORE…NOT ON SERVING OR TRANSFORMING OUR CLIENTS’ LIVES?

“Everyone is a teacher.” “Everyone is a leader.” “Everyone can be a coach.” These are the words we hear all the time…but unless you’re adding in a big asterisk, these aren’t actually accurate. Everyone CAN be a teacher – if they focus on how to educate their clients. Everyone CAN be a leader if they make the efforts to learn how to better lead (and some personality types may not enjoy that fully…and that’s okay. There’s no shame in aligning with your personality or energy – in fact, that’s more likely to bring you the joy + success you desire!). Everyone CAN be a coach…if they learn how to mentor others, how to guide them, and how to uplift them. Think about the last sales page you looked at. Was the focus solely on growing your business…or was it also talking about how to provide the most transformative experience? On how to educate and lead your clients in a way that helps them get results? I know I’ve looked at programs on course creation – which….at the foundation is about educating your client. Guess what wasn’t mentioned on the sales page? Anything about how to best educate your client…or how to create a fantastic experience for them…or even how to keep them engaged.

SO ARE WE TEACHING OUR CLIENTS TO JUST PUMP OUT MORE CONTENT AND EXPERIENCES…OR ARE WE TEACHING THEM HOT TO ACTUALLY SERVE WHO THEY SUPPORT?

Why aren’t clients seeing results? Because we’re not teaching them. Because we’re handing them scripts and templates. Because we’re teaching AT them – not guiding them to implement. Because we’re simply passing around other people’s teachings like some weird jerk circle. Which, there’s nothing wrong with sharing other people’s teachings – with credit given – if there’s something behind it. If it’s solely, “To grow a next level business, you have to [take credit cards over the phone/keep sales conversations about the program not about them/make sure your clients don’t see you as a friend/insert whatever that doesn’t feel aligned with you here]” because that’s what this successful mentor does, let’s pause a second. Is it that those techniques really work – or is it that they just get passed down over and over? There’s a reason why history repeats itself – because it’s human nature to simply keep doing what’s been done before. What if….instead of just teaching people to coach other coaches, or to sell…we taught people HOW to guide others? How to know themselves and to connect with their clients? How to WORK with their clients + serve them? This is an evolution for all of us. This summer I realized that there was one theme with all the clients I’d ever seen who were struggling – they all weren’t sure how to best support their own clients. They knew they were talented, but worried about how to best create transformations with their skills. Which – maybe they needed to know about how to best create packages, or maybe that’s how to guide clients who are stuck and spinning out, or maybe it’s simply to be the leader in conversations and direct 1:1 calls. But it got me thinking about why those aren’t the main focuses. Because if our clients were creating the strongest experiences that they could, they’d probably be more confident selling. And they’d be receiving more referrals, because those experiences would be so transformative that their clients wouldn’t be able to shut up about them. Yet we just tell beginners that they need to pick a niche, and get out there. To just keep trying, to have tons of conversations, and eventually it will all click. Something I read recently really stood out:

“Most coaches have spent more time and money learning how to get people to buy their stuff rather than investing in how to create success for their clients.”

Which is true. We get coaching to tell us to grow. Get courses to teach us how to record courses and market them. Or how to create a sales page that converts. But where’s: how to lead your clients? How to structure your 1:1 so it creates solid impact? How to help your clients when they start experiencing fears? I want to change that. And hopefully you do too. I imagine an industry where there’s a difference between coaches, mentors, and strategists – and you know which one you’re getting when you hire someone. Where before someone takes your payment they have a conversation with you to determine where you really are, and where you’re really trying to go…instead of telling you that “we’ll get to it once we dive in together!”. Where your personal energy is accounted for every single step of the way. Or hell, where your mentors even know how much you’re making before they give you advice and guidance. And yes, I know this is a terrible title for someone launching a sales course. If I wanted to be super launch focused, I could have called this article “why your mentors aren’t helping you get sales.” But this isn’t about smoke or mirrors, or fancy wording. We’ll save that for sales pages – but not mine. And hopefully…not yours. If you want to do it differently, you’re free to join Spellbinding Sales. It IS about sales…but it’s really about connecting with your client. It is about attracting in aligned clients through communication, messaging, and energy. It is about how to make sales conversations feel good…and be about alignment, not just about accepting everyone and filling your bank account. It’s about creating positive experiences and offers that support your client and help them reach their goals. And in case you’re curious – it’s entirely designed around how people learn + implement those lessons, with individual feedback for EVERYONE. Because I want the coaching industry to rise above everywhere it is…and that starts on the individual level, with each of us shifting and rising. Here’s my part.