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!
