07
The most brilliant solutions are worthless if they do not fit your needs and situation. A solution can be fool proof, but if it requires a lot of dedication and hard work, you have to be passionate about the process and/or the outcome for it to work for you.
Many entrepreneurs experience this major problem:
Letting the genuine greatness of their product blind
them from the truth about the individual customer.
They become so excited by the solution that they forget to make sure there is a problem or need to begin with. They become so entranced by the possibility of a sale that they do not allow the customer to entertain alternative options that may better fit their lifestyle, needs or desires. And finally, they end up convincing the customer to buy rather than respecting the customers right to choose from a set of viable options.
The biggest mistake is to solve the customers’ problems instead of empowering them with the tools and knowledge to solve their own problems.
If you practice attraction marketing, then you are putting a lot of valuable content out there, which may involve some great advice. In order to be successful with this, you have to identify your target market, anticipate their needs, and address those needs in the value you put out there.
However, once you have attracted an individual, it’s time to set the ‘target market’ aside and establish a relationship with them by building trust and rapport.
Despite what you may have previously thought…
It can actually be harmful to try to
solve your customers’ problems for them.
It leaves you at risk of making erroneous judgments and assumptions and offering advice that does not align with your customer’s desires.
So how do you earn the trust and loyalty of your customer? How do you help them without solving the problem for them?
1. Give Only The Information They Ask For
- Don’t anticipate their decision by giving them information that is not relevant right now.
- For example: “If you decide this, go to this website and look at this product because it will help you succeed.” This might make them feel pressured to make a certain decision. It could make them feel like you think you already know what they are going to do.
- Instead, try “If you want, let me know what you decide because I might be able to give you some helpful resources.”
- Too much information may overload and overwhelm your customer or make them feel like they are hearing a sales pitch rather than an honest attempt to help them. When the focus is only on the passing of information, regardless of the customer’s needs, it’s a turn off.
2. Promise Only What You Can Control
- Remember, even the best solutions may not work for everyone… Acknowledging this to your customer will put the responsibility back onto them.
- If the product doesn’t work, it might be because they didn’t put enough effort into it or did not properly think it through. However, sometimes it’s easier to blame the person who pushed a product on them. They might even feel lied to if the promise of success does not pan out, regardless of the real reason behind an unfortunate outcome.
- Therefore, promise them that you will help them explore possibilities and walk them through the process of determining which options are available to them.
- Let them know the most common reasons why your product does not work for people, then try to find out if they are ready to get the most out of your product or if this will ever be the right product for them.
3. Ask Questions
- When you ask the right questions, your customers will feel heard and understood.
- Follow your intuition without making assumptions. Ask them about their needs.
- Most importantly, LISTEN to their answers and respond accordingly.
- By remembering that you are not a mind-reader, your customers might think you are one! With the right skills, you can uncover the underlying thoughts and needs of your customers, putting you in a great position to help them fulfill their needs and solve their problems.
4. Empower The Customer to Own Their Solutions
- Give them options (your product, other products, resources for further research, etc) and then let them choose which one is right for them. Help them remember that this is their decision.
- Set boundaries rather than offering services. Don’t tell them they can hire you when they are ready. Instead, let them know the extent of your free services and that you charge for continued service. That way it is up to them to pursue your services and they will appreciate that you are not pushing it on them.
- When your customer feels like it was their idea to purchase something, they will own the decision, put more effort into making it work, and own the outcome. Their satisfaction and success rates will be much higher.
You are not the problem solver, no matter what you are selling. The goal is to provide your customers with the tools and knowledge that will let them solve their own problems. They will build confidence and become empowered to succeed with you on their side, thus earning you their trust and loyalty.
Remember, your initial marketing tactics should be much different than working with an individual. To sum up this concept, I like to say:
Attract them with answers…
….keep them with questions.
Some of the points listed here require skills that might take some time and experience to develop. Or you can accelerate this development through our training program at Coaching Cognition, where you will learn how to ask the right questions, follow your intuition, recognize and respond to nonverbal cues, and help someone discover and align their values, goals, actions, and solutions. The skills you can acquire are not just for becoming a great coach, but will also help you move your business forward at record speeds.
By coaching a customer through your marketing funnel, you will enjoy more satisfied and loyal customers, and ultimately more success in your business. After all, the more quality time you spend with your individual customers, the more time (and money) they will spend with you.
09
Are you a Coaching Cognition student who has just graduated? Do you experience feelings or doubts that you may not be ready to call yourself a coach? You are in the middle of the wonderful transition from student to coach. Here you will discover how to change your perspective on transition and how to shorten your transition in order to reach your goals even faster.
There are many kinds of transitions that we experience in life. Some are more defined than others, such as moving to a new home. You know exactly when you are fully moved in to the new home because all of your belongings are there, and you no longer possess the key to your previous place.
Other transitions are less defined, but as a society, we define them in other ways. “Growing up” is a seemingly gradual process. When did you first say, “I am now a mature adult”? It’s difficult to tell when you have finally arrived at adulthood.
So we look to our age and our ability to handle various situations as signs of our maturity and adulthood. Once we begin to see ourselves as adults, we are more aware of what it means to be an adult, and we act accordingly.
We look for these signs or milestones to help us determine when one phase has ended and another one begins. We tend to lean toward defining and labeling our current situation so that we no longer feel like we are in transition. Why do we do this?
Transitions commonly
make people uncomfortable.
But is it the transition itself that causes stress? Or is it the struggle to avoid the next step due to fear or lack of confidence that keeps you in a perpetual state of discomfort instead of enjoying the journey?
If you are in a transitional stage, you may feel unstable or nervous. When you focus on transition as a negative experience, you may slow or halt your progress and this could cause you to remain in the transitional state indefinitely.
Transitions are a part of everyday life and
are essential to achieving your goals.
Therefore, it is important to identify your transitional stages, define the next stage, enjoy the transition, accept when the next stage has arrived, and learn more about yourself. Through these five steps, your transitional period will become shorter and more enjoyable. It will become I.D.E.A.L.
I – Identify the Fact That You Are In Transition
Sometimes you may feel unstable, and you are not sure why. Everything is going smoothly, you are taking the right actions, and you are moving toward your goal successfully. However, you may experience an uncomfortable sensation, as if something is askew.
When everything is going according to plan, and you feel unbalanced, there is a good chance that you are going through a transitional stage. This is not a bad thing, and the instability does not mean that your life is unstable. Instability, when associated with transition, simply means that you are outside of your comfort zone.
If everything always remained stagnant, you would always be ‘comfortable’, but you would never be achieving more for yourself. In order to succeed, you have to experience transition. It is the only way to get from Point A to Point B.
For example, if you have just completed the Coaching Cognition Certification Program, you may be feeling nervousness and loss. Are you nervous about becoming a coach? Are you unsure of weather or not you are ready to call yourself a coach? Is there a sense of loss because the training is over? These are all very natural emotions, and they are valid and healthy.
But do realize that one stage (training) has ended, and the new stage (coaching) will begin soon. The time in between is a transitional stage. Recognizing this will help you validate your emotions, understand why you are feeling them and why it is normal, and be able to move through the transition more smoothly.
D – Define the Next Stage
When you are in transition, sometimes you might lose focus due to the fact that you have breached the boundaries of your comfort zone. To avoid losing focus, take the time to define the next stage and what it will take to get there.
For many of our recent graduates at Coaching Cognition, the next stage will be to become a coach. How do you define a coach and how is it different from a coaching student? What do you need to do to begin your practice? What will it take for you to be able to assume your new role as a coach? What do you think you have to have in place before you begin calling yourself a coach? What are the things that you do not have to have in place before you begin, things that can be developed as you learn from your experiences with clients, such as your niche?
E – Enjoy the Transition
If you watch the sun rise, and you try to follow its movement as it creeps above the horizon, you will not necessarily be looking for the moment in which it becomes ‘daytime’. You simply enjoy the changing colors in the sky.
Keeping a similar attitude in the midst of your transition will allow you to enjoy it as it happens, instead of focusing on when you are ‘ready’ for the next stage. As long as you continue taking steps, you will arrive. So take the steps, but ENJOY THEM!
As a student of Coaching Cognition, you have transitioned from student to certified coach. You are already a coach! Your goal may be to become a practicing coach, so now is the time to take steps to start your practice. While it may feel strange that the training calls are over, what can you do with this new time to move you closer to your goal? Have you looked into how you will start your practice? Are you planning to apply to be a Coaching Cognition coach?
Again, take the steps, but don’t forget to enjoy the process. Every moment of your journey is special.
A – Accept and Embrace the New Stage
As long as you are focused on the positives, this will be much easier! Fear can get in the way of this step in the transition process because it is the very step that allows the transitional period to end and bring the new stage upon you!
If you have mapped out your action plan and followed it accordingly, then you will have all of the confidence you need to succeed. Does this mean you will be 100% sure? Of course not, every step into new territory comes with a hint of doubt. Otherwise, it would be easy, and everyone would do it. Taking a risk becomes less of a risk if you are prepared in as many ways as possible.
Those of you who just completed the Coaching Cognition Certification Program are no longer students. You are coaches! How does it feel to say this? Say it out loud.
“I AM A COACH”
Say it again and again until you embrace it. And when the time comes that you are a practicing coach, perhaps with Coaching Cognition, it will be even easier to accept and embrace that title.
L – Learn About Yourself and Continue to Grow
Take this transition as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and your career. Specifically define what you have learned so that you can apply it to the next transitional stage. You will begin to notice that they get easier and easier.
Let’s quickly review the I.D.E.A.L. Transition:
I – Identify the Fact That You Are In Transition
D – Define the Next Stage
E – Enjoy the Transition
A – Accept and Embrace the New Stage
L – Learn About Yourself and Continue to Grow
What are you doing during your time of transition? Share your plans at the Coaching Cognition Facebook Page and see what your peers are up to.
30
Dr. Jim Parks
I just had the pleasure of interviewing a student of our Coaching Cognition Certification Program, Dr. Jim Parks. Jim has a strong educational background in psychology with a Masters in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. His career path has led him in many fascinating directions, from teaching at the University level to law enforcement.
This background has provided Jim with formalized training in human behavior, which applies directly to his coaching studies and practice now. However, as Jim tells us in our interview, we are ALL experts on human behavior, we just don’t know it!
Jim Parks’ attitude about coaching is one of great fulfillment. He has been involved in the counseling world for so long that he enjoys the action-oriented method of coaching. Where counseling focuses on thought processes, emotion, and working through past issues to bring you to where you feel you ‘should’ be today, coaching encourages you to start taking ACTION today to bring you closer to where you want to be tomorrow. In Jim’s experience, coaching people helps them reach their goals faster. He has now seen it work within 6-8 sessions, and even in as little 2-3 sessions!
In our interview, Jim gives a great example of how a bottle was getting in the way of the dreams of someone he knows, and how coaching and a 5 hour car ride helped this person take action and move forward.
Jim Parks has embraced his training with Coaching Cognition in a way that benefits his fellow students as well! He organized a series of student led calls that will allow students, including himself, to recognize when they are exhibiting the ability to cover the coaching competencies set forth by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). He talks about this in more detail in our interview.
Because if this initiative that he has taken, Jim Parks has now been asked to collaborate with us on our advanced level training at Coaching Cognition, which is currently being developed.
Dr. Jim Parks is certainly a name to be watching out for. His ability to find value in his training and use it to provide even more value to his community is admirable to say the least. This tells us that the name Dr. Jim Parks is an immediate indication that incredible value is within close reach. To learn more about Jim, visit his blog at www.drjimparkscoaching.com and listen to his interview below.
To learn more about the benefits of coaching, come to the coaches’ community at the Coaching Cognition fan page.
Want to find out how you can provide incredible value to your potential coaching clients using social media? Check out the article here on Renegade Professional News, “How to Find, Attract, and Give Value to Your Potential Coaching Clients”.
31
We’re opening up PBN again! We had to close in December because of overwhelming response.
Did you miss what it is?
PBN (Professionals, Businesses and Non-Profits) teaches you to become more Valuable, how to create your own products, produce and charge for training, become a paid marketing consultant & more.
New info will be coming soon, but you can catch up at the PBN Newsletter.
Mike Klingler
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I stumbled across Renegade Professional about 16 months ago. I was enthused to have found it. I started to diligently study with Steve Anderson, Scott Rogers and Ann Seig.Then I got distracted by all the other glittered training that was being offered out there, which wound up leading me NOT where I wanted to go.
Then one day I picked up one of my notebooks I had been keeping all my information in from Renegade Professional.
I begin reading through it only to discover it was what I had been looking for all the time.
So I signed up again and began a disciplined study with one of your great trainer/coaches Mike Klingler. With him, I am learning the art of internet attraction and the use of web 2.0, and how to write content for my Squidoo Lenses and blogs.
To go from not knowing about the value of internet marketing to where I can finally see the light of success, having being stuck in the old school way of network marketing, is due to the great training offered at Renegade Professional.
Tommie Bell
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Recent Comments
- Kai Druhl: This is a powerful technique. I will target some new article topics and keywords based on this. Many...
- Kai Druhl: Thank you for sharing this story. Really, coaching is the next step after attraction marketing, following...
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Mike Klingler
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Oregon, USA
Kendall Silva
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Lisa Holcomb
Marketing Merge, Inc
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Great interview Kendall Jim shone through.
Comment by Morris Fisher — April 30, 2010 @ 3:36 pm
Thank you very much Jim, for your insights about the benefits of coaching. As you said, learning how to coach can be used by many people to help people grow. I shall be using coaching for my network marketing business. I have also found it useful helping a friend get through a marriage bust-up – rather that ‘giving advice’which is a normal instinct for a friend to provide, my caoching learning has helped to shine my light for my friend to work out what she wants. Coaching Cognition is one of the best things that I have done.
Comment by Helen Wenley — May 1, 2010 @ 3:58 pm
Helen,
Coaching skills can be used in so many ways as you have pointed out. To be able to add value to another persons life is fulfilling in so many different ways. There is no doubt that acquiring these skills would be extremely beneficial for anyone in the people helping profession.
Comment by Jim Parks — May 4, 2010 @ 6:14 am