Your prospects need to believe THIS before they can buy from you

If you are a coach trying to sell 5-figure contracts for mindset, leadership, empowerment or mental/physical wellness offers to corporate clients, there are some things that your prospect must believe before they can buy from you.

I call it the belief ladder. đź’ˇ

First step – Be specific about the solutions you provide 

It is your job to help them believe:

âś… #1 That what you offer is a solution to their challenge or will help them achieve their goal.

That means being really clear on the benefits of your offer – not in vague terms like “better leadership” or “more productivity” but explaining how your work helps them get the results they want.

[Here is an article that sets out (with examples) how to charge $15k for a couple of day’s work as a mindset coach]: http://impactfulnesslab.com/here-is-how-you-can-land-a-5-figure-contract-with-corporate-clients-if-you-are-a-mindset-coach/

Second step – Convince them you are the right person who can help

âś… #2 That you are the right person to deliver this offer.

Meaning that not only do you have a great offer but you are someone who can get results for your prospect.

For example, there are lots of people who can use DISC profiling or NLP practices, but you need to explain why you can help this specific business with your tools, skills and specific experience.

Often enough, this isn’t actually about your professional qualifications but your value and own belief systems.

[I have written more about what qualifies you to work with corporates here]: http://impactfulnesslab.com/am-i-good-enough-for-corporates/ – and btw, very often you do not need the DISC, NLP or other tools to create a compelling corporate offer!

Those two first things are fairly well known, even though they could be better executed.

But the third rung of the belief ladder is less well understood:

Third step – Get your prospects to believe in themselves

âś… #3 You have to get your prospect to believe in themselves.

This means you have to help them believe that yes, they actually can achieve their goal or solve that problem they’ve been struggling with.

Because deep down, they will have doubts.

See, they will have tried other things in the past, in-house solutions or maybe hired other external experts, and yet, they are still stuck with issues they cannot resolve.

It’s no surprise that they have doubts about their own ability –  When you spend some time in corporations you will quickly hear them complain about how many people don’t like change or prefer lots of discussion vs taking action.

đź’ŁBUT – and this is a big one to note đź’Ł

– Most managers and leaders inside of corporations will either not admit or most likely not even realize themselves that they are having those doubts.

It takes someone very emotionally intelligent and secure to acknowledge that they have failed in the past and it’s not something that managers and corporate leaders are very used to.

So what tends to happen instead is that they quote obstacles, such as policies, corporate culture or history, even budget constraints as reasons why your proposal cannot work. 🤷‍♀️

However, what I have found over the last 9 years working with corporates is that when the prospect actually believes that they and their team can resolve their challenge, those obstacles frequently disappear or become less important.

So how do you help your prospect believe in themselves?

There are three approaches I use and teach my students and I recommend that you use all of them.

Part 1 – Draw similarities between your prospect and others

👉 Firstly, point to others who were in similar situations as your prospective client and outline how they achieved their goals. It’s important to choose case studies and situations that are as close as possible to your prospect.

For example, if you are speaking to a quickly growing tech company with high employee turnover due to stress and burnout, it’s more useful to speak of another company that was also growing fast than of a business that has been large for many years.

This does not have to be a lengthy case study. I find that a few sentences thrown into conversation, emails or marketing materials are very effective.

If you’re a mindset coach, you might say something like: “I recently worked with a similar-sized firm of project consultants who struggled with effective work/life balance now that people are working from home a lot more – being an established firm, they had found it difficult to adjust old habits (and then explain how you helped).”

Analyze the experience that you had with past clients and find similarities. If you haven’t had corporate clients yet, don’t worry – you can use famous case studies and research findings instead or even translate your 1:1 experience.

E.g. As a wellness coach, you could point to a recent study that highlights that helping employees in your industry niche need different approaches to maintain physical and mental wellbeing in a hybrid working environment.

Or you might talk about the results you got with 1:1 clients who work in a similar environment to those of your prospect.

(Tag me below if you want to know more about how to do this)

Part 2 – Be specific on how your offer works 

👉 The second way to support your client believing in their ability to achieve results is to give them details of how your approach or method works.

This does not mean bombarding them with technical aspects but giving them enough information so that they can mentally picture themselves working with you.

Give them the concept of how you deliver your work and how this is relevant to their goals.

So you might say (as a wellness coach): “In my program, we cover both the building blocks of wellbeing while working from home but we go beyond just theory by creating practical implementation plans that fit into your employees’ working reality – despite heavy workloads and other commitments.

This means you help your people to protect their physical and mental health in the new working realities.”

(I have written more about this here): http://impactfulnesslab.com/how-to-package-your-corporate-program/

Part 3 – Bring your work to life

👉 And thirdly, help your prospect to imagine what a typical session of working with you would look like, why it’s important and what outcomes they can expect from each step.

I call this connecting the dots – explaining the actual value and short-term successes they should see when they start working with you.

This last step is what is generally overlooked from many corporate offers.

They usually state features (e.g. the number of sessions) and overall outcomes (e.g. “at the end you will….”) but rarely explain why this number of sessions is necessary and how they will know that they are on the right track as they are going through the program.

But unless you give them at least snippets of this, you are essentially asking them to take a leap of faith that your program will work. And they’ll have to wait for X months before they know for sure.

Instead, it is much more powerful to share with them that after 1, 2 or 3 sessions they should notice a certain outcome.

Or that after spending just one or two weeks taking certain actions, they should see certain results.

What I can offer you 

Going deeper on how to create the right belief ladder for your prospects is one of the things we do in my 3 months, 1:1 coaching program.

This is in addition to identifying what niche is just right for your business and of course, how to find the right corporate people to reach out to.

I also show you how to go beyond outreach by leveraging your network without ever worrying about being sales-y or desperate and even attracting prospects to come to you. The result? Your diary will be jam-packed!

I even help you create your corporate offers and teach you how to have simple but effective sales conversations and create proposals that convert approximately 80% of the time.

Using my program, you should be able to have 4-8 discovery conversations with ideal corporate clients per month.

Typically, this should land you 1-2 contracts per month at $4k-20k for a few days of work while also getting repeat work every or every other month which usually is in the range of multiple 5 figures per contract.

The investment for my program is between $7k-9k (depending on when you’re reading this post), which is low in comparison to the potential return of $100k+ from 5-8 corporate clients just in your first year.

I have a very simple process for those who are interested: just DM me and I’ll ask you a few quick questions to assess whether you’re a good fit to get results (no pressure to get on a hyped-up sales call). If my approach is likely to work for you, we can get started at a time that suits you right away.

Tatyana

Tatyana

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Miriam Gilbert, founder of Impactfulness Lab, smiling

About Me

With more than 20years experience as a corporate decision-maker and CFO, 8+years running my own 6-figure consultancy I KNOW exactly what goes on in corporate mindsets – and how to sneak into their brain, charm their mind and get them to throw their budget at you.

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