Recently I was talking with an ‘amateur' coach who wanted support on how to grow his business. (Amateur, as in, didn't yet have a paying client).
After a 30 minute, ‘pure' coaching session, where I asked questions that lead him to having a few insights, it became blindingly obvious to me that this guy was a super-smart, successful entrepreneur with a track record of a very successful business outside of coaching… but he absolutely no clue how to get people to want to hire him as a life coach.
The reason he was stuck (little did he know at the time) is that he was too much ‘into' coaching.
In other words, he had bought into the total BS that many top coaches out there believe and teach about running a coaching business and ‘attracting' clients. And because he's a good student, he read all their books, went through their programs, and unwittingly adopted their limiting beliefs about getting clients.
Here are some of the classics he had fallen for:
- If I give people an ‘experience' of coaching, they'll want more and hire me
- If I create enough value up front for free, people will want to pay for more coaching
- I've been told I'm so good at coaching that I should charge double or triple than I'm currently comfortable with (even though he didn't have anyone paying him yet).
- If the client didn't sign up, it's because the session wasn't powerful enough. Maybe I should give them more free sessions until they're ready
- The type of coaching I do changes all areas of a person's life, so it doesn't feel right to narrow myself down to one ‘niche' or group of people who want one specific goal. That would be incongruent.
- “Coach So and So” signs up clients using magical language and questions and hypnotic phrases – maybe I need more training so I can do that too.
My response?
I told him that I didn't want to coach him on these issues.
Heck I could ask ‘open coaching questions' framed around the outcome of ‘getting clients' all day long… but he had been receiving that for YEARS from other coaches.
And bottom line – as long as he believes some of this non-sense, it's going to take about 10x longer for him to see through it and 20x longer to actually start getting clients.
Instead, I offered to be his ‘consultant' or ‘Commander in Chief' or straight up “Dictator” for the next couple of sessions. (In other words, NOT his professional coach!)
I told him that, with all due respect, I could tell him exactly how to get clients, with zero hoping or wishing and zero doubt, without worrying at all about how ‘powerful' or ‘impactful' his coaching is.
Instead, I would tell him exactly where to go and exactly what to do and say to get people practically begging to hire him as their ‘life coach'.
Want to know what I told him?
It's the exact same thing I've taught to hundreds of coaches over the years, many of whom are now 6 and even 7 figure coaches.
A few of my clients followed these teachings to ramp up to 6-figures of coaching income within less than a year, and many replaced their jobs and are able to just work a few hours a week as a coach.
Anything is possible, when you solve the ‘getting clients' problem.
What were these magical teachings I gave them all to get clients lining up around the block?
They're all available in a condensed form, broken down into 5 specific steps, which I call the “Never Ending Stream Of Clients” system. I've been using it for years myself, as do all my clients.
You can read all the details on the 5 steps to get you plenty of clients, here: