5 Simple Reasons Your Coaching Package Isn’t Selling

You completed your coaching certification training and despite some fear around coaching actual PAYING clients, you were keen to start making money from your passion. You were excited to begin helping your dream clients live their best life…amiright?

And then came the stunning realisation that attaining those paying clients was NOT as simple as your trainers had told you it would be, from the moment you opened your (real or metaphorical) doors it’s been a struggle and you now feel like a failure…in fact, you’re so OVER putting on a brave face and faking success that you’re just about to throw in the towel.

Sound like you?

If so I’m not surprised because this experience is far more common than you’d expect; it was also MY experience for far too long so I know just how soul-destroying it is to be in that place.

So…before you throw in the towel I have some good news for you, there IS a way to turn it around, but before we get to that I want you to remember a few important things.

You Began Your Coaching Certification For A Reason.

I’ve never come across a coach who decided on a whim that coaching was a good business idea; the coaches I speak with week after week are women who had a life experience, learned a shitload, then decided they wanted to help other women (or whatever market it is they were in) get to where they are, on the other side of that experience and better for it.

There’s a good chance that once you reached the other side of YOUR experience you looked back and wished you’d had someone to guide you through and support you so you could get to the other side a whole lot quicker and with a whole lot less pain and suffering….hence the decision to become a coach.

You became a coach because you KNEW you had what it took to help people get from whatever your version of A – Z looks like, you were not only convinced, you were convicted in the belief that your market needed this particular offer and that YOU were the best person to help them.

I want you to go back to that place in your mind now and remember your WHY.

You Had A Vision.

At one time you clearly saw yourself succeeding in your business.

In your mind you saw yourself kicking coaching ass, working with your dream clients, changing lives and being an awesome coach.

You also imagined the lifestyle this kind of success would bring, the lovely home office, the new clothes (and those shoes!), the trips to Paris, the new car, the house of your dreams.

I now want you to go there in your mind….revisit that vision, feel it in your gut, see it in great detail, pull out your old vision board if you still have it.

Plant that vision firmly in your mind once again…maybe upgrade the vision if you’ve outgrown it.

Once upon a time, you believed you could your dreams and I’m here to remind you that you CAN.

NO-ONE ever sets a goal for themselves that they don’t, on some level, believe they can achieve.

Even if the moment is fleeting, you had the moment and once that seed was planted you could never un-plant it. That deep seeded belief you can achieve your dreams is going to haunt you until you make it a reality.

If you’re an entrepreneur that’s the way we’re wired, you WILL spend your life chasing that vision because you once believed you could.

You may be able to push it down for a period of time but it ain’t going anywhere.

You once believed you could and I’m here to tell you THAT is enough for me to know you can.

Remember that feeling in your gut now…remember the time you truly felt you could make that vision your reality.

Okey dokey…now you’re plugged back into your why your vision and the belief you could make it happen let’s look at things with fresh eyes.

Here’s the deal…..

Chances are you’ve been hell-bent on becoming the best coach you can be and focused on honing your coaching skills so you feel confident you’ll be a great coach for your clients which is important but it’s not THE most important thing.

Marketing yourself is…and there are a whole bunch of ducks you need to get into a row before you can do that confidently and successfully.

And with that, let me share with you the top 5 reasons I see coaches failing to build the bare minimum of a 6 figure business (or oftentimes even 5 figure businesses!) and what you can do to turn your own business around.

REASON NO.1 – You No Longer Believe You Can.

When you’ve been failing at trying to gain clients for a long time it’s only natural that you begin to doubt your ability to really make this thing work, you can only handle so many rejections and so many weeks of zero leads coming in before you it impacts your self-belief but if you don’t believe you can sell your coaching packages no-one else is going to either.

I can’t express strongly enough just how important it is to get yourself re-aligned with your why, and your vision and again become TOTALLY CONVICTED about your ability to grow your coaching business to a MINIMUM of 6 figures (or beyond if you’re already there).

Without self-belief you have nothing so this should be your first priority.

Sure what you’ve been doing hasn’t worked and that’s ok, you now know how NOT to go about this! Believe you can and then get on to thinking about the how…Success is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when” if you’re convicted and committed.

REASON NO:2 – You’re Not Showing Your Value

You know the difference you can make in your client’s lives and you know what outcome you can deliver but are you making that clear?

Too often we’re in our own head when it comes to spelling out the benefits of our work, we’re thinking about what we want our clients to know when what we should be thinking about BEFORE we write a stroke of copy is “what does my market really want?”.

If you can tap into what it is your market truly desires along with what they fear most your copy will write itself.

Know what your market wants and then let them know you know what they want and that you can deliver it PLUS what that whole experience looks like.

For example, a Personal Trainer is NEVER going to sell me on price or the list of qualifications they’ve achieved because those things mean nothing to me.

I’m interested in where I’m going to BE at the end of our time together; if the PT has done their job right, identified a niche and smashed out a message that hits home for me (for example deadlift like a pro & smash out 20 chin-ups in 4 weeks ) then that will grab my attention because I can see what I’m getting, I can clearly see the outcome.

This also tells me that this trainer knows their stuff, if this is SPECIFICALLY what they’re selling they MUST know how to deliver it.

Think about your own positioning and marketing messages…are you telling your ideal clients exactly what they can expect from working with you? Or have you been spelling out what YOU think is important but can now see is irrelevant to your ideal client?

REASON NO:3 – Your Message Is Confusing & You Stand For Nothing

In my experience, the coaches who fail to gain traction are the coaches who try to be everything to everyone (life coach, relationship coach AND business coach??!! I don’t think so) and their message becomes so muddled it’s just too much like hard work figuring out if this is the coach for me (or you) and my (or your) needs.

I am NEVER going to take on a business coach who is also a life coach, I want my coach to be excellent at ONE thing, not half-assed at 75 different things.

You don’t want anyone coming to your website (or chatting with you at a networking event) to have to work hard to understand what it is you do and how you do it or what the next step is.

Pick a single focus and drill down deep into that, they say that while a niche is only a foot wide it’s miles deep, you’re far better off speaking DIRECTLY to your intended market and have them hear you than you are speaking to anyone and everyone and have no-one hear you.

Be super clear in your message about what it is you’re offering, the outcome the client can expect and how your clients will get it, for example, if you’re the best relationship break-up coach going around focus on that, STAND for that, make your brand ALL about that, THIS is how a brand gets noticed by an intended market.

REASON NO:4 – Your Coaching Program Isn’t Solving An Easily Recognisable Problem For Your Market

When I work with clients and help them develop their product offerings we always begin with identifying the key challenges their target market faces and work backwards from there making sure that my client’s skills, passions and zone of genius all align with one or more of these challenges.

From there we create the packages, pricing and marketing messages that will engage that market.

Offering “Life Coaching” is beige and isn’t offering me much in the way of what PROBLEM this is solving for me.

Creating a coaching package that will solve a specific problem for me will get my attention.

Money Coaches are on the rise and now you’ll find women searching online for a “Money Coach” rather than a life coach they can talk with about their money issues.

Money Coaching is a great idea of niching done well AND a great example of offering the solution to recognised problems within their market.

Are you offering packages and if so are they solving a specific problem for your market?

If not spend some time thinking about how you can craft some coaching packages that do just that, I promise you this will be 100 times easier to sell than generic “coaching”.

REASON NO:5 – The Risk Is Too High

I learned this lesson the hard way!

If you’re offering a pricey coaching package (whatever that is for you) you MUST ease your ideal clients into the idea of investing with you.

If you don’t have an established reputation with hoards of potential clients knocking on your door it’s rare that someone will meet you at a networking event or stumble across your website and buy your core coaching program without first engaging with you; the risk is just too high, especially with so many snake oils salesmen (and women) out there on the interwebs. So you MUST provide a way to reduce the risk of doing business with you.

Providing awesome free content (hopefully like you feel this is) and running great quality Discovery/Sales Calls are two ways of reducing the risk for your potential clients and besides, it’s always good to know the coaching relationship you’re getting yourself into, particularly in the high-ticket coaching space, so you can screen your potential client to ensure this is someone you both WANT to work with and can help.

Please DO NOT feel overwhelmed by the information I’ve provided here……

If your coaching business isn’t making money and you’re not doing these things then that’s great news!

It’s great news because this means you have SO much you can now do to improve your bottom line, if you really, truly want to grow a successful coaching business (online or otherwise) then it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work, you now know where to begin.

I wish you well and if you want a partner in crime to help you navigate your way through this process then either check out my latest offer below or if you prefer private mentoring you can schedule a call HERE.

P.S: If you know a coach who would benefit from this article please share it with them, your shares are always appreciated.

Michelle xo