How To Talk About What You Do (And Why You Shouldn't Call Yourself A Life Coach)

Question for you...

Is it possible that your ideal clients, the people you're most able to serve in the world, would not want to work with you?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. But it's not because they're not the perfect clients for you and it's not even because you couldn't really help them.

The reason is because they don't understand how you can help them.

In other words, they have no idea what the heck you do.

This week's Facebook Live video will help you fix that. In it, I talk about about how to explain what you do and why it's probably a bad idea to call yourself a "life coach".

Summary:

-The ultimate test of how well you explain what you do is whether or not you are referable. If people can listen to your explanation and think of someone specific who might benefit from your coaching, that's a good sign.

-There are two problems with long, elaborate elevator pitches. First - they often convey insecurity. Second - they don't create enough engagement and curiosity.

-If you have difficulty explaining what you do, it's a symptom of an overall lack of clarity or confidence in your business.

-As a coach, you're a solution provider. If you're not sure what solution you're providing, start by thinking about the result that you want to be known for getting with people. Ideally that result is specific, tangible, and verifiable.

-This provides a channel for your ideal clients to be introduced to the deeper, more all-encompassing work that you can do with them. We have to start by meeting them where they are and speaking to the problem that they think they have.

-If you already have success stories, look for the specific results that people were most excited about achieving. It's great to also speak to the more transformational benefits of what you do, but only after you have paired it with the primary domain that you help people with.

-Often times people struggle with specializing because they have a scarcity mindset. In other words, they believe that there won't be enough people who fit that description. So instead they try to work with everyone. This ends up being counterproductive to getting clients.

-The benefit of putting yourself in a bucket is that then you get to choose the bucket you get put into. If you refuse to be put in a bucket, people are going to choose one for you because that's just human nature. Life coaching isn't the best bucket because there's already a lot of stigma and misunderstanding about what that means.

-When someone asks "what do you do" what they really mean is "what can you do for me?" So when you just use a label like lawyer, coach, or consultant and leave it at that, they don't have enough information to answer the question of whether you can help them or people they know (i.e. you're not referable).

-The most basic formula for describing what you do is "I help [this type of person or company] accomplish [this specific result]."

-Coaching itself is not a business. It's a modality that you can apply to lots of things. You need to show how your coaching translates into a specific result for a specific type of person.

One last note:

What you say to people is often less important that how you say it. Your body language, voice tone, excitement, and confidence are crucial because those things are what ultimately build trust in your potential client. Confidence + clarity = new clients.