Month: March 2013

Last week we looked at:
1.  Know your “Why,” what you deeply desire for you and your clients.
2. Demonstrate leadership.
 
Note: If you didn’t read Part I, just scroll down.  You will find it below.

This week, let’s look at the final three new mindsets for enrolling clients in a way that feels honorable and energizing.

3. Champion greatness. Acknowledge fear.

A potential client quickly begins to know, like and trust you when you champion their strengths and accomplishments and, at the same time, acknowledge their hesitation and fear.  Doing this without judgment, with compassion for their humanness and with a bit of humor, powerfully connects the two of you.  You demonstrate that you see and hear them and that you aren’t going to step over the fear, but rather coach them through it.
 
Even more important: champion your own greatness and acknowledge your own fear.  Most of us shy away from selling for fear of rejection.  If we look a little deeper, we may find that under fear of rejection lies fear of the other thinking we aren’t good enough. Or, maybe even more likely, we may find that we ourselves fear we aren’t good enough.
 
Work with your own coach and your daily practice to champion your greatness and move through this insidious dream-killer.
 

4.  Commit to serving the client even when you’re uncomfortable.

Often, when you explore the discomfort of where your potential client is now and what has kept them from already getting to where they want to go, you must ask tough questions.  If they stick with the conversation through the tough part, you will experience their commitment to moving beyond their fear.  If you instead back off, downplay, or don’t even ask the tough questions in an effort to be nice, you both miss the opportunity to hear their commitment, to hear an opportunity for coaching or to hear their unwillingness to move forward. You then will have allowed your own fear to diminish your leadership and your service to the potential client.
 

5.  Choose your “Why” as more compelling than your fear.

Work with your own coach to move through your fear of asking tough questions rather than squandering an opportunity with a potential client.  Then, when you meet with your potential client, keep what you want for yourself and for them top of mind.  Focus on your “Why,” allowing it to carry you past your fear. Take a stand for your potential client and for your Why.

When I was 15, I made a plaque for my grandma that read, “We are what we make ourselves.” I don’t remember making the plaque or how I knew that back then.  I am grateful to my grandma for keeping it all these years and putting a date and my name on the back. That plaque now hangs on my office wall as a powerful reminder of my Why.  It also pulls me past my own fear that I’m not good enough to do this work.  I have tangible evidence that I was born to do this work!

Where might you find and claim your own evidence?  Ask that question of yourself repeatedly until you have a solid answer that will serve as your anchor.

Work with your own coach or create a daily practice to transform any old beliefs that you aren’t good enough.  And, claim your evidence that you were born to do this work!
 
Feel free to post your progress in the comments below!

Many coaches tell me they don’t like to sell and don’t want to sell.  Conjuring up an image of the stereotypical used car salesman, it’s easy to understand their distaste.  
 
Yet if we don’t “sell,” we fail the potential client in front of us.  We also marginalize the miraculous value of coaching that moves that client through fear to bringing their Big Dream into reality. And, we diminish our own business, or worse, never get it off the ground.
 
Are you willing to pay such a high price?  
 
Or, would you consider allowing me to guide you in moving through your own fear to five new mindsets about selling that feel honorable and energizing?
  
 
1.  Know your “Why,” what you deeply desire for you and your clients.

One of my client’s commitment involves walking in her own shoes, rather than her mother’s. She’s passionate about telling stories that inspire her clients to walk in their own shoes, rather than their mothers.’  Another teaches diversity and inclusion by sharing her own bias, creating conversation that uncovers her client’s bias and then facilitating awareness to move beyond those barriers.  I came out of the womb passionate about self-employment.  One of my greatest joys involves creating my thriving business and helping my clients create their thriving businesses from the specificity of our own strengths and passions.  
 
What are you committed to, passionate about and deeply desiring for you and your clients? Dig deep until you’re describing something you must do.
 
 
2. Demonstrate leadership.

Leading your potential client flies in the face of typical coach training that tells us, “The client is in charge.  The client sets the agenda.”  Yet for your potential client to know, like and trust you enough to hire you, you must allow them to experience your wisdom and leadership.  
 
In your initial Strategy Session, Coaching Consultation, Sales Conversation, whatever you call it, you must help them paint a vivid picture of where they want to go, experience the discomfort of where they are now and explore what has kept them from already getting to where they want to go.  Then, you must coach them to clarity as to whether they are now committed to going through their fear and making the necessary changes. If you hear that they are ready and committed, then you must uncover and answer whatever they need to know from you, so that both of you feel energized, excited and committed to you coaching them on that journey. Hire professional salesforce consultants to give a workshop session.
 
Stay tuned for Part II with the three remaining new mindsets:
3. Champion greatness. Acknowledge fear.
4.  Commit to serving the client being more important than being “nice.”
5.  Choose your “Why” as more compelling than your fear.

Until then, take some time to get to your deep Why and to organize or re-organize your Gift Session so that you’re demonstrating leadership.

As always, feel free to post your deep Why in the comments section below.

“Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.”
– Walter Scott

What in you longs to blossom now?  Even though many of us choose to set goals and make resolutions in January, that timing actually contradicts nature – human nature and Mother Nature . . .

As Nature herself knows, attempting new growth in the dead of winter makes for a very short life span!  Perhaps explaining the reality of so many new year’s resolutions never taking hold?! 

Trees and flowers know better to wait for warmth to blossom.  And so we as human have this same blossoming opportunity now – when the air is cool and the sun is warm and we feel hope deep inside our limbs!

So, regardless of what did or didn’t happen with your new year’s resolutions, what longs to blossom in you now?  Can you sense more vibrant health inside you?  Do you know greater abundance in your business?  Are you feeling excited about new love blossoming?  Is a new project waiting to blossom?  New collaborations? Deeper friendships? New fun and adventure?  Spiritual awakening?  Travel to new places?

Let’s use this wonderful, fresh, spring energy to give voice and commitment to what longs to blossom from deep within us . . . looking forward to a wonderful autumn harvest because we’re taking the time now to tend the inspiration of new growth . . .

Feel free to post your spring blossoming urges in the comments below.

“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”
– Albert Einstein

Several years ago, I fell in love with how clearly and accurately the StrengthsFinder™ assessment tells each of us where our genius lies.  Yet, there is a tricky part: our top 5 natural strengths are to us like water is to a fish.  Without some contrast with other strengths, it can be hard to know the “water we’ve always lived in.” 

In the last few months, I have immersed myself even more deeply with not just understanding each of the 34 strengths, but also how a person’s top 5 natural strengths work together to create their specific natural genius.

If you haven’t taken StrengthsFinder™, give yourself a HUGE gift and do it immediately.  Buy the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and use the code in the back of the book to go online to take the assessment, which takes about 30 minutes.

If you’d like more info:
http://www.annstrong.com/strengthsfinder-coaching-you/

And as always, I invite you to share your own responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

“Your genius is precise.”
– Marcus Buckingham

To your natural genius!