When someone I respect enough to joyfully pay money for coaching or mentorship raves about their coach, I pay attention.
More than one has pointed me to Steve Chandler.
Steve is a coach for coaches, best known for his Coaching Prosperity School and books on growing a profitable coaching business through service. His students and clients are formidable coaches themselves: Rich Litvin, Michael Neill, Michael McDonald and Melissa Ford.
I’ve learned from Steve myself through a collaboration with Michael Neill on financial freedom. I’ll be honest:
He didn’t wow me.
I liked him. It was hard not to appreciate his humor and kind demeanor. He just wasn’t the coach for me. Chalk it up to chemistry.
But there was one story about him that has stayed with me for years, even though I heard it second (or maybe third? hand.
The story goes like this:
A coach Steve was mentoring was struggling to get clients. He understood and appreciated the idea of “creating clients through generous service,” but in every discovery call he felt so pressured to make the sale that he botched it every time.
The coach asked Steve, “How do you NOT feel pressure to book? Don’t you need to book clients to pay your bills?”
“Of course, I do,” Steve said. “Just not that one.”
That one line shifted something for me.
When I’m thinking about getting the client, I’m not fully with the client. I’m thinking about ME, my needs, my goals, my bills.
That energy makes for crap coaching and gross selling.
Heartfelt selling is service, and it has nothing to do with my personal needs.
When I show up with a clear intention to serve – period – it changes everything.
Sure, I still have bills to pay and financial targets to hit, like most humans. But my stuff does not belong in the conversation.
My job is to be present, listen and share honestly what I see and how I can help. That’s it.
As Tad Hargrave says, ethical selling is a conversation about getting to the truth of whether we’re a match; it’s not a pitch. It’s clean and simple.
That’s what I heard in the Steve Chandler story.
Yes, you have your needs and intentions to make money. But your needs have no place in a conversation about service.
What I’ve found is that when I have a clear intention to create clients and money, that’s enough. I don’t need to control how it happens or who says yes. And I certainly don’t need to think about it while I’m coaching.
My focus stays present on serving the person in front of me, without thinking about my need for money.
The truth is that some of the people I serve end up paying me. Many of them do not.
But when I sell from presence and clarity, it feels clean, kind, and even fun.
That’s the approach I teach and model in the IMPACT Membership.
In fact, our August theme is “Follow the Creative Spark,” and on August 13th we’re donig a brand new workshop to help you make offers without pressure or perfectionism.
Sell Your Workshop in 72 Hours
A playful, practical workshop to help you get your next offer out the door and into people’s lives — fast.
We’ll do parts of it together live, and you’ll walk away with a 72-hour step-by-step to sell and deliver your next online offer.
It’s perfect for coaches, solopreneurs and creators who want to make a clean offer without the ick factor.
https://www.theawakenedbusiness.com/impactinvite/
Yours in love and play,
Steph
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