This dilemma keeps many coaches from raising the investment for their services in the first place, or makes them fearful of making their fees high enough so that they , and worse yet, from earning the income they desire, and deserve. Understanding the psychology behind the sales-process is crucial to breakthrough the “it doesn’t work” mentality, or what I call, “stinkin’ thinkin’”.

When I help clients deconstruct where their marketing process needs more support, the answer of why clients say “no” to investing usually lies in one of three very important parts of the sales process:

First, understand that clients are interested in investing in solutions, which is a key distinction from “hiring a coach.”  In fact, most people don’t dream about “working a coach someday”, or have photos of famous coaches on their vision boards.  It’s harsh but true, people don’t roll out of bed and think, “today’s the day I’m finally going to find me a coach!”. They also don’t thumb through Vogue, O Magazine or Home Beautiful and see a coach on the O List or the “spring trends” checklist and run to their MacBook and credit card, right?

Here are three fool-proof ways to raise your coaching fees, keep them high, and get clients who are willing to pay them:

1. Be crystal clear about the results and benefits clients receive in working with you: Clients hire coaches to get the results that they are dying to have. They hire us to increase their incomes, save more money, attract more clients, look better, to feel better, to stop worrying about stuff, etc. So unless the client has a very clear understanding of how they will benefit by working with you, and precisely how they will get the solution to with whatever is keeping them up at night, they won’t pay any fee (no matter how small) to hire you.

Therefore, to get high-paying clients, your consultation/break~through session MUST be very clear about how working with you with help them to achieve their goals, desires, dreams, etc. You have to show them how your work will make a difference for them in a very personal way. Explain to your client in no uncertain terms what their end results will be after working together.

2. Become comfortable with your fees: Sometimes it takes a consultation (or five) to get comfortable with saying your new and upgraded fees out loud, and clients pick up on this anxiety and then pass on signing up. To get comfortable with your higher fees, practice saying your fees aloud, to your mirror, and to your family. (Pets are often willing listeners also). Or, make a list of the top 25 ways clients get amazing results from hiring you and refer to it often.

Remember that even IF half as many people decline to work with you at your higher fees, but you’re charging twice as much, that’s half the work for the same amount of income you were making before. So don’t worry that less people are saying yes, another bonus is that you will attract high quality clients who are a pleasure to work with at your higher prices.

3. Have a systemized marketing funnel: There has to be marketing plan for encouraging cold leads to become hot prospects who are ready, willing and able to hire you and pay you what you’re worth. For this to happen, there needs to be a relationship established with your prospective client. This is where the sales process comes into place. Most clients come into the funnel by trying something for free. They might download your freebie from your website, then read your newsletters, browse the articles on your website, and attend a teleseminar.  Then they may buy an entry level low-risk type of product.  They then will become more likely to advance through a series of products and/or programs which become progressively higher of an investment.

Once customers have become familiar with you and like what they have experienced at a smaller investment, then they will become more likely to invest with you at a higher level, such as group coaching program or a product.

Which of these three marketing strategies do you need to implement? Feel free to leave me a comment, I’d love to get your feedback.

I know “think bigger!” was something I often heard from friends and family when I was first starting out with my business.  If you told me five years ago that I would be the founder of several successful businesses that help other companies increase revenue by leveraging technology and strategic marketing techniques, I wouldn’t have believed it.   Not in a million years!

What I love the most about what I do is helping my clients paint a big vision for themselves and then showing them how to navigate the marketing landscape so they can reach their goals and make their dreams a reality.   What I’ve noticed during this process is that thinking big is something that doesn’t always come naturally, it often needs to be learned and practiced. 

Here are four key steps for thinking bigger and getting what you want from your business and life.

1. Paint the Picture: The first step in creating any blueprint for success is to paint the vision.  Look forward five or ten years into the future and have clarity around where you want to be.  Maybe you’d like to live in Hawaii, maybe you want to have a house on the ocean in the Caribbean, or possibly traveling the world as a speaker.  Write as many details as you can about what your future holds for you.

It may seem ironic that the starting point is actually in the future. However, once we have a crystal clear picture of where our future lies, we can plan more easily for the steps that will take us down that path.

2. Face Your Fears: Almost 100% of the time, the clients I work with are being held back by their own fears more so than any other challenge.  Whenever I do a strategy session, I ask “what are you NOT willing to do to move your business forward?”.  It’s the things we are afraid of doing most that keeps us within a comfortable space and preclude us from moving forward.

The reason we stay comfortable is because there are fears around stepping out in a bigger way, fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of investing in ourselves, etc.  It’s crucial to identify what our specific fear is so we can face the enemy and move past it.

3. Seek Successful Examples: Take a look around and identify colleagues who have successful business models.  Identify the visionary leaders in your industry, and evaluate their marketing strategies and techniques.  Align yourself with mentors who understand your industry and work with them to save yourself time and expense.  Get past viewing investments as expenses.  If you’re not willing to spend it, it’s virtually impossible to make it.

4. Understand Opportunity Cost: Visionary entrepreneurs are those who have a clear vision of the future and are able to skillfully navigate the course.  Successful business owners must be willing to embrace new ideas, accept the inevitable, and be decisive action takers.

New ideas might come from industry trends, advances in technology, or innovative changes. The opportunity cost comes from delaying the inevitable.  Not working with mentors, delaying the implementation of technology, and not embracing new ideas can be expensive mistakes that will cost you in the short-term as well as the long term which adds up to cumulative damages.

Small companies usually justify delaying investments on budget and pricing.  However, the opportunity cost of not investing costs much more.  The price usually goes up as more time passes, and the opportunity cost rises exponentially as well in the form of lost clients and revenue.

There is only one question to ask in order to make a quick and decisive decision.  “Will this help my  business reach it’s goal?”.  Ask the question and then get quiet to hear the intuitive answer.  If it’s a yes, decide and take action immediately.   Don’t let fears and doubts rise up and muddle your path toward success.

What resonates with you about this article?  Please leave me a comment, I’d love to know your thoughts.

Lately, I have been having conversations with people about the places that feel crappy in their lives.  It doesn’t matter what part of their life they are speaking about, the story is always the same-

This is what I have to put up with in order to have the: job, money,  family, relationship, or the lifestyle that I want.

My response to them is: “Who says?”

I want to know who made up this rule!

The one that says you “have to” put up with something in your life that feels bad on a regular basis in order to have what you desire.

It appears like lots of people have bought into this rule! I see people struggling with this on a daily basis. They dread going to work, or they are not getting the affection they desire from their relationship. They may feel stuck in something or uninspired by their life. They settle for a less than satisfying situation because they think that is the only option. Then they suffer through it.

I wonder when it became “OK” to feel like that? I have to imagine that on some level you feel that it  is OK for parts of your life to feel crappy if you resign yourself to staying in that place.

I was stuck in this trap too!

I had bought into the story that  certain things in life were supposed to feel bad especially work!  They don’t call it work for nothing right?

I thought I was supposed to make things happen by working long hard hours and always striving. You always took the highest paying job no matter if you liked it or not, because it was all about the money. It did not matter that I was exhausted, disconnected, uninspired, watching too much TV and needing to get “my party on” a few times a week.

I was stuck in a story that said this was just how life was.

I had to suffer, tune out, feel stuck, and be uninspired so that I could do the things I was supposed to do in order to have the things I wanted in life. It seemed to me that everyone around me was caught up in a similar situation.

Boy did it feel crappy!

Funny thing is, I was so caught up in this story that I did not really know the difference. I thought that was how life was supposed to be. Sometimes, I would suspect that there could be more to life. I would glimpse it every now and then in other peoples eye’s, but I could never figure out what it was exactly.

A New Perspective

Then I read a really cool book called the Four Agreements . It suggested to me that life was meant to feel good. I did not have to struggle in order to have what I wanted. I could make my own rules for how I lived my life.Opening up to this possibility shifted many things for me.

I made the choice to find a different work environment that felt better to me and I still made money. It was no longer OK to feel stuck. If it felt bad on a regular basis- something had to change. I had to change. I began working with a coach. I started to question my old story that said work was supposed to be hard and I had to suffer through in order to be successful.

Now my Reality is Different!

I no longer struggle against things that feel bad. I know that there is always a solution and it is possible to find a different way of approaching things. It does not mean I abandon something, but rather find a new way of approaching it that works for me.

If something is not feeling right, I determine what will make it feel better and I take steps to change it. I am back in a place of choice.

I make the rules for my life now. My number 1 rule is that I feel good in every aspect of my life.

What’s your number 1 rule going to be? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Leah Shapiro works with rebelicious, rule breaking, free-spirited entrepreneurs who buck the system and are ready to make some serious money! Leah shows you how to attract more freedom, fun and cash by boldly flying your freak flag in your business.  When she is not focused on working with clients, and writing for her blog you can find her making pottery, playing with her two cats or whipping up something delicious in the kitchen. A self admitted hedonist, Leah is frequently off engaging in pleasurable pursuits and is known to be a mighty temptress.

You can find Leah at –http://www.DefytheBox.com

Create Your New Year Marketing Plan

It’s that time of year again to look ahead in your business and put your 2012 business and marketing plan together.  The first weeks of the New Year are ideal for planning the amount of income and success you’d like to create, and mapping out a detailed blueprint to follow during the months ahead.

Begin with deciding how much REVENUE you want to create this year.  Take a look at what projects and endeavors were the most profitable for your business last year, and see what you can duplicate in the coming months.  Look for materials, resources and work that you can leverage to save yourself time and effort.  Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t need to.

There are four main criteria that MUST be included in any plan for success.  Use this as a step-by-step checklist as you create your New Year marketing plan.

1. Master Your Mindset:  The secret to success always starts with having the right frame of mind. It’s impossible to manifest success if you don’t absolutely believe to your core that it’s going to happen.  Create a vision board, write a letter to yourself dated December 31, 2012 and describe all the fantastic accomplishments you achieved this year.  Ask yourself every day if you’re following the path of a million dollar business owner, or at least a six figure business owner.

When your mindset is focused, determined and has the unshakable belief that success is yours for the taking, you will be guided to make all the right decisions for your business.  For example, investing in yourself and your company becomes second nature, and less fearful when you feel in your mind, heart and spirit that investments will bring you BIG returns.  Mindset makes you a fearless leader.

2. Marketing Strategy: Once you have mastered your mindset, you are ready to create a fail-proof marketing strategy for your business.  This is your business plan and blueprint that will guide you toward your revenue goals.  Be sure to include the following key elements:

• Ideal clients/customers
• Your USP and proprietary process
• Graduated marketing funnel
• Marketing strategies and plan
• Products and services
• Pricing
• Branding
• Technology and automation

All of these need to be considered and planned out in order to be best positioned to attract more clients and revenue than the previous year.  Consider having a business coach or mentor work with you in creating your marketing strategy.  An expert who has experience in creating yearly revenue of at least six figures is a smart investment to help you see where you may be leaving money on the table and where you can find hidden sources of revenue.

3. Services, Products and Programs:

Every business needs services and products that offer tremendous value for it’s clients and customers. Cast a critical eye to your past sales information to determine which offers have been the most profitable, and where you may need to tweak or update.  Send client surveys to get a pulse on what your tribe is interested in, how they like to receive information and what ideas and comments can be gleaned from completed surveys.

Be sure to have a wide range of offers at multiple price points and a strategy that encourages customers to invest in your company on a regular basis.  Consider adding a loyalty or affiliate program to encourage referrals and repeat sales.

4. Technology: Technology is a part of marketing that can’t be ignored and brings all of these steps together so that your marketing is effortless and automatic.   For instance, a well planned website will attract your ideal clients, entice them into signing up to receive information, offers them an irresistible opportunity to invest in a value rich product, creates revenue consistently, and builds a relationship with subscribers in a way that converts them into clients.Technology is an investment that many business owners put off until they can “afford it”, yet technology is what entrepreneurs can’t afford to neglect.  It allows you to reach a wider audience that can be lead straight to your door, and builds your business and bank account while you’re doing other things.

Successful companies stay ahead of their competition by first mastering their mindset so they can be fearless leaders.  Make this the year to align yourself with mentors who can help you work smarter and harder with less stress, so you can have your most profitable year ever.

Wishing you a happy, healthy and peaceful Christmas!