127: What’s Not Working to Increase Sales in Your Online Coaching Business: Part 1
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Welcome back! This week, my purpose for this episode is to dive deeper into 3 common struggles that I am seeing online coaches have this year. The episode where I laid out all 6 things we may be doing online that is not bringing in revenue, it’s just not working, that was episode 126.
Next week will be part 2 of this series, where I’ll be laying out the other 3 common struggles that are not making you money online.
3 Things That Aren’t Working To Get Clients Right Now
There are three of 6 things you may be doing in your business that are NOT bringing in revenue, and they are all trends I’ve seen online.
Adding new marketing channels only because your current one shifts
Creating an abundance of low ticket offers
Networking only to make a sale
You may be wondering if I’m going to provide solutions, so you can increase your sales, and of course I am! In fact, the solutions will be laid out in a free masterclass that I’m hosting on May 17th, 2023. The masterclass is 3 Things Smart Coaches Do To Increase Revenue Online.
I will be spending 2 hours with you so this is more like a getting clients and making money VIP day! The first 90 minutes will be dedicated to each of the 3 solutions to making more sales in your coaching business, and going really deep on those. The last 30 minutes will be for Q&A, where you’re also going to network with your fellow coaches all wondering how to do the same thing.
Reserve your seat and let’s get to the rest of the content!
We learn by doing, failing, and trying again.
Disclaimer here: if you are doing any of these things, I want you to know that this is not an episode to attack you or tell you you’re wrong. It’s just to show you another perspective, and I believe feedback and perspective is one of the best tools we have as coaches. Also, some of these things I have done or my clients have done - and I’ll be telling you stories to illustrate these points.
Basically, I want you to feel safe and heard as an online coach who’s amazing at what you do, but may be having a hard time doing it right now
Is there too much pressure on your social media activities to get clients?
I have wondered a lot, maybe too much, about the importance that is placed on SM platforms, and why we teach coaches this immediately when they get into online business. It feels like something we all have been told to grab and not let go. When I think about it, I see chaos and if I could see a color it would be red - like an angry energy.
I think the main reason why is because we don’t own social media platforms. They aren’t ours, and they can change based on their own business plans (as they should). We know this, but we still want to master it even if it can’t be mastered - and that’s costing us as online coaches.
I can’t imagine what this must be costing us, not to mention that it has hardly anything to do with getting clients. You may be thinking, “well Allison, I have to get in front of them first” and I totally agree with that. But I wonder if we’re going to chase anyway, if we can change up our thoughts around these marketing platforms and lean into what we can control, and how we want to show up.
Here’s a story for you that comes straight out of a client’s business. When this client started working with me, her posts were plentiful and straight to the point. This was easy for her to (1) create (2) post (3) check - she did her duty for the day. But the feeling behind the post was manic because it was a total sales pitch every time. It was like reading a billboard on the highway, but like 100 of them because she posted that shit everywhere!
She was really making a presence for herself and people knew who she was - but not in the way she wanted to be known. She wasn’t making the impression she wanted to make. It was easy to just scroll on by her stuff because it never got more than surface level and only asked for money, basically.
Once we changed this strategy, the SAME places she was posting in, she started getting clients from. The same FB groups where people were likely starting to roll their eyes, now they were interested.
So what changed?
We let go of the “strategy” on social media where we think we have to perform a certain way. We allowed for her and her true essence to shine through in her content, which ended up being the best thing for her business.
We are way more than coaches who want to make money. We have values, families, struggles, interests, and things that make us a 3-D person, not just a salesperson. Once she peeled back that layer, changed her thoughts around the importance of using social media to get clients, she got results she wanted.
The bottom line is - take the pressure off - this is not your only chance. Remember what you can control - and control that like crazy.
Don’t remove yourself from the sales process.
Here’s the problem (there’s many, but here’s 1) with the low low low ticket offer ($7-$37 mostly).
On the surface, $7 seems like a no brainer. I could part with $7 really easily when it’s something I want.
My Starbucks order is a perfect example of this. I love Starbucks and I get coffee there a few times a week. I never bat an eye when they tell me the price of my coffee. I don’t even pay attention to how it’s a slightly different cost depending on what area you’re in, even though my logical brain knows about this.
I know I’m not alone with the Starbucks obsession, or maybe there’s something you’re thinking of that you buy without even acknowledging it.
Baby wipes, for example. Moms never want to be without baby wipes, even for an hour. I used them so much as a new mom that I wanted the brand I liked the most and didn’t care to stand in the wipes aisle at Target, with a baby who has a dirty butt, comparing the prices of all the different brands.
So what does Starbucks and baby wipes have that you don’t? It’s not just value - it’s lifetime value. They provided a product that’s so good, and so necessary to a good life, that I’m going to keep coming back.
Does your $7 offer meet your clients where they are? Does it provide a simple but necessary solution to their problem? Does it give them something they want so much, they don’t care how much it is?
If you can honestly say yes to that question, your offer should be way more than $7.
But if you aren’t sure, then we need to work on this - because creating lifetime value is one of the best ways to increase your revenue. If you’re not positioning yourself as the expert, how are you ever going to increase your revenue?
Taking yourself out of the equation is not going to work because you won’t be able to give your buyers that next step of working with you deeper or for longer.
We know that clients are actually not looking for this anymore. They are looking for results, not to gather courses and workbooks and “stuff” for under $50. They are a lot more discerning, mostly because they haven’t gotten results from their pile of courses and downloads. The shaky economy doesn’t help, but it’s not the only reason. Make sure that you’re giving them a unique experience that they actually want.
One more thing: marketing a $7 thing is just as hard IF NOT HARDER than marketing a $2000 thing. You’re not saving time or energy, you might be feeding the ego and that’s not going to get you to your goals.
When sales are slower, be a beacon of hope.
It’s no secret that sales are harder to come by these days. I saw something on Instagram from a service provider who said that coaches don’t like to talk about the economy and how it’s affecting them. I know that I’ve talked about it, to the extent that I’m comfortable, because like all personal things, we have to draw that boundary for ourselves and not apologize for it.
I found it interesting because for a while I’ve felt like networking has been more pressurized than normal.
Maybe we are all on a road, driving in our cars towards the goals we have. We know that a service-based, relationship-based networking strategy is helpful, so we’re using that as our steering wheel. But then the economy started to be funny, dinging your windshield and adding unforeseen potholes to the road, and sales aren’t as easy to come by anymore.
People were making hard lefts and hard rights with their offers, pivoting their businesses for no other reason than they were fearful. And when it comes to networking, I think we just have completely gone into overdrive. We don’t want to be vulnerable about some of these hard lefts and rights we’ve taken. We don’t want people to know that things are actually really hard in our businesses right now.
Building relationships will be affected by that, there’s no way it can’t affect how you talk to people about your business.
In the last episode, I gave you permission to be a human when you are networking. This is what I mean - being a human in a relationship is based on many things, let’s focus on 2 for now.
First is self-awareness: how are you coming off to other people? Where are your boundaries, so that you know if you’re testing the limits?
Second is your values: I truly believe everyone listening to this came to their business to help other people AND make money - it can be both. If you value money, awesome. You also have to value service if you’re going to survive being an entrepreneur.
Let me give you a quick example to illustrate this. This has actually happened to me twice and I love telling this story.
You have likely been in Facebook groups or some other social media platform where someone lays out their business, why it isn’t working or how they are feeling about it (which is usually negative) and then asks for help - wants to work with someone to fix their problem.
One day, I saw a post like this - and I also saw that the responses were all sales-y , as though it were the last chance on Earth they’d ever come across a client who’s willing to pay them. So the responses were “hey, I’m an expert in that, can I DM you?” or “I do exactly this, DM me and let’s chat” and then who knows what was going on in the background with cold DM’s and stuff.
I answered the person’s QUESTION and addressed her PROBLEM and then yes, told her I was available to chat about working together. Want to know what happened next? I got a DM from her saying that I stood out because I didn’t have desperation breath in my pitch, and we closed a 5-figure investment that day.
As I said before, this has happened to me on 2 different occasions, in the same FB group.
Listen, I know the economy is weird right now. But please, please don’t change who you are because of it.
Want more clients in your coaching business?
To recap, some things I want you to consider in your business today:
1. Am I controlling what I can control, and not trying to control what I can’t?
2. Am I removing myself from the sales process by adding more offers just to get a sale?
3. Am I being genuinely me in my networking conversations, especially because people probably need that more than ever?
I’d love to hear what resonated with you from this episode! Please share on social and tag me, I will reshare as a thank you and give you more visibility as well. You can tag me on Instagram @theallisonnelson.
And don’t forget to grab your seat to my free masterclass, 3 Things Smart Coaches Do To Increase Revenue
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