Ep #15: Learning to Diagnose Your Client's Problem
Episode Summary
Jenna shares the reason you’re not actually converting clients even though you’re doing all the things you’re supposed to do, and how to start turning interest into sales.
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Show Notes
Why can’t my clients get out of their own way and see how much they need my help? Why can’t they put their fears and scarcity and excuses aside? Why are they signing up for my webinar but not to work with me? These frustrations are examples of one of the biggest clarity gaps that trouble all entrepreneurs at one point or another. You're doing all the things you’re supposed to do, putting out tons of value, but not actually converting clients. So what gives?
When you lack the skill of properly moving a prospective client through to a sale, you start to become resentful towards your audience. You feel like you are giving everything, and they are taking it, and you don’t know what the next step is. But developing the skill of diagnosing your client’s problem can do wonders for your business, and I’m showing you what that entails this week.
Your prospective clients want all the results, and they want them now. But giving them everything all at once isn’t productive for your business nor does it actually help them, and in this episode, I’m explaining why. Discover why you need to learn to diagnose the problem your clients are having, what that actually means, and how developing this skill will help you turn interest into sales and completely transform your business.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
Why you need to be willing to not give everything away to your clients.
How to develop the skill of diagnosing your client’s needs and why doing so will help you transform your business.
Why people don’t need accountability from you and what they really need instead.
How you could be holding yourself back from creating the revenue you’re capable of.
Why you can’t impact your people with free content the way you can by coaching them.
The reason it feels so hard for you to not give everything away, even though you know it isn’t serving your clients.
Why you aren’t helping your clients by giving them all the information upfront.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Let's talk about one of the biggest clarity gaps that troubles all entrepreneurs, at one point or another. “I'm doing all these things I'm supposed to do, I’m putting out tons of value, but I'm not actually converting clients in the way I'd like.” More often than not, especially for newer entrepreneurs, when I take a look at their messaging, it's clear to me that they could improve their skill of diagnosing the problem. So, let's start closing that gap for you right now.
You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life, by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top ranked business coach and reformed overanalyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.
Hey, welcome back to the Uncommon Way. I am now back home in Pennsylvania. It's about a 30-degree temperature difference, but beautiful fall weather. When we get home, we always play this game of how long can we maintain our Italy mindset. With, like I talked about last week, that absence of micro stressors.
So, we do things like have wine and cheese nights with, you know, wine that we brought back. And we promised to watch each other and work as a team, right? We're both high performers, and we tend to get wrapped up really quickly in the doing, doing, doing.
But there's one thing I do not want to maintain from the Italy experience, and that is my son's behavior. So, he goes into serious regressions whenever we travel, or basically anytime there's a big change in his life. And even at home, it's not exactly a cakewalk with this human. He has very strong leadership skills, shall we say? Or, he will one day, but at least there's some level of cooperation.
But when we travel, we started referring to him as “the pissed off più piccolo,” which is not grammatically correct, but it basically means, the pissed off very small one; angry about everything. And at one point, we had five adults tag teaming to manage this one little four-year-old, and keep ourselves sane and not absolutely lose it. I'm proud to say we made it through pretty well.
The reason we have some of these management tools is because I hired a parenting coach a couple of years ago, to help me with this. Now, the way we came to work together is such a great lesson, that I want to use it as a basis for this episode. Because if my coach hadn't spoken with me the way she did, I might not have gotten the help.
Or, I would have delayed getting the help, to the detriment of my family and my son's early conditioning. And when you lack the skill of properly moving a prospective client through to a sale, that's when you start becoming resentful of your audience. You start feeling like you're giving, giving, giving and they're just taking.
Or, you look down on them; why can't they get out of their way and see how much they need this help? Why can't they put their fears, and scarcity, and excuses aside? It's when you put out webinars with nobody signing up for a call. It's when you finish a sales call only to hear; oh, I need to think about it. Or, I'm just going to try it on my own for a while. This was great, thank you. Or, even worse, when they say yes, but then don't follow through.
But before I go into what you'll need to do to reverse that, I want to highlight one of our listeners. This is from Blue Azalea. It says, “Great content. Really helpful and insightful. It made me look at my business in a different way. Look forward to your next episode.” I love that.
And, I want to thank all of you for your interest in the Clarity Accelerator. I've been receiving lots of notes about that. And we have been welcoming in new clients, which we're really excited about. If you want to make this happen for yourself, to really start off 2023 with this level of clarity in your business, all you need to do is go to the link in the show notes, where you can schedule a call.
We'll talk about whether this is right for you and your business, right now. And, whether or not the specific tools that we teach will maximize your growth at this level. As I tell everybody that hops on a call with me, I am very clear that I am great at helping a very specific person build a specific type of business. If you're not that, I will definitely direct you to someone that I think can help you.
Because I would never want to invite anybody in that I didn't believe was going to get the results, and I am willing to commit to those results with you, because I know that this process works. So, when you're ready, I would love to talk. I can't wait to help you transform your business. If there's one thing I'd like to accomplish, it's that we radically shift how we think about this thing that we're doing.
I want to bring you all into a place of power and knowingness, which leads perfectly back into what needs to happen to turn interest into sales. And, it's pretty simple. You just need to learn to diagnose the problem your clients are having.
What does that mean to diagnose? Well, it's like when you go into a doctor's office. You present all of your symptoms, and then they take all of their experience and knowledge, and filter through what you're saying, to come up with a diagnosis; they tell you exactly what's happening. They do not dive in right away to giving you the whole protocol beforehand.
Imagine if a doctor did that, and you didn't even know why? You were just being told what to do. How overwhelming and disconcerting that would be. And, what are the chances you'd actually remember all of it? It's the same with coaching, you need to be able to get to the real problem or problems for your clients.
They're going to come to you with this big brain dump of all the things going wrong. But their perspective is inherently skewed by their perception, by their stories. You are the objective expert, and they can't see what you can see. When you can say, it's okay, I see exactly what's going on. It's just X. I see this every day, here's what we're going to do. And then, here's how things will change for you.
Basically, here's the real problem, and here's the solution. When you can diagnose in this way, there is nothing more powerful. I have clients come to me that say, “But I've done this famous sales course. I have the sales script or sales framework; the selling is not the problem.”
I want to see their conversion rates, and I want to see their messaging. Because there is no generic script that can do this for your particular people. It'll end up feeling hollow and scripted for your people. It's just like how you can work with the best copywriter, the best ads expert, but the results will fall short because they can never know your people like you do.
Now, if you've done the work of knowing your people, which, right, is the second part of the three-part success formula, I teach in the Clarity Accelerator. Part one is, know yourself. Part two is, know your people. And part three is, speak to how the two connect. Then, they'll be able to take that and do their magic.
Just like when you can take that knowledge and apply it to your sales framework, your sales framework comes alive and you start converting at rates you can only dream about, 90%, 100%. As long as the people are your ideal clients. Because this sales psychology of your specific people, is something that you need to know. It's something I work on personally with each of my clients.
So, in part three of the system, which is module nine of the Clarity Accelerator, it's called Selling It. And of course, it includes a sales framework that I recommend, the same one I've used to create a 90% conversion rate with my ideal clients. But then, you and I hop on a call and we work together to personalize it to your clients. Based on the work you've already done in the earlier modules.
We design your personal sales strategy, which yes, you'll use in your sales calls, but also in your content, and all your conversations with people. So, that you can feel confident and at ease when you hop on a sales call. Knowing that your ideal people will resonate with this.
Kind of like when I speak with a Clarity person who's telling me about all the different ideas they've come up with, and how they've talked themselves out of each one. And I say, “Oh, you haven't learned to connect the dots of your life. Because your thing has been showing up for you, again and again. It's just you're too close to it, and too in your head to see it.”
My right people, they know right away; they feel that truth in their bones. All that's left is for me to show them how we're going to do it. How we're going to connect their dots. And those that don't feel it, not my people. And, that's okay. There are plenty more where that came from.
I wouldn't have wanted to speak anything other than my truth in order to hook that sale. It's not worth it. We're just queuing up a very difficult coaching relationship. But imagine having this figured out for yourself, and really believing that if they don't resonate, they're not your people, and that's okay. Rather than crying into your soup about how this proves you're not enoughness.
We've all been there. And listen up, this is important: In order to do this, you've got to be willing to not give everything away. You aren't giving the protocol and prescribing the drugs, remember; you are diagnosing. And this is so hard for so many of my clients, sometimes years into their businesses.
Even for my physician clients that do this in their day job. Why? You guessed it, it's about mindset. As women, we feel compelled to give, give, give. Why? Well, in part, because we want to be loved. We want approval. I was talking to a woman the other day, who told me she needed accountability to just get the things done.
She was berating herself for how she does this for so many others, she always shows up for her clients, and she could even remember back in college, like, she always showed up for her sports team. But when it comes to her own business, she's not showing up for herself. But I could see that what was going on was a form of people-pleasing. That that drive not to let people down was strong enough to spur her into action.
And I remembered that she had admitted that one of the things that held her back putting out her own content, was worrying about what other people would think, specifically what other creatives would think. Because she was a creative herself, and she was worried about being judged. I could see that this was all connected, right?
Her same need to please others, like her clients are her sports team, was connected to her need to please these people on social media, or her peers, or contemporaries, and look good in their eyes. People never need accountability, in my experience; they need belief.
There's something there, there's some fear, there's some disbelief, that's keeping them from moving forward. And that's what I was able to diagnose for her on that call. And it makes sense, we've been taught to cater to what everyone wants. And of course, your clients want all the solutions, like yesterday, or your prospective clients, your audience, right?
That's human nature. Do you want the person who says, “I'll teach you mastery in 30 years?” No, we want the magic pill; give me the magic pill. Like my mentor, Brooke, says, “Everyone wants to be a millionaire. Nobody wants to make a million dollars.”
So, you've got this inclination to please. Remember, all your female ancestors survived and procreated because they were excellent people-pleasers, and they’ve passed it all down to you. You've got all that coming up against the very strong wants of your prospective clients. You can feel how much they need this help; how can you not help them in their time of need?
If you don't help, then not only do you have the cognitive dissonance of going against your biology and conditioning, but you're also getting triggered. Thinking that maybe you're becoming what you don't want to be; I don't want to be cold-hearted and calculating. I don't want to be salesy. I don't want to look bad or be judged.
And part of that might be, I don't want to be perceived as an amateur. Maybe, deep down you don't feel like an expert, you feel like an imposter. But you want them to see you as an expert. So, you overcompensate by throwing out all of these things that you know. That old programming ends up driving really counterproductive behavior.
We put out tons of content without calls to action. We hear people saying, that was so helpful, but never moving forward to work together. We solve their problem and give them all the steps on the sales call, or in the Q&A of the webinar, only to hear them say, “Thanks. I'm gonna go try it, and I'll get back to you.”
All of this not only keeps us from the revenue we're capable of creating, and all of the good that that's going to facilitate for ourselves, our families, and our communities. But it also keeps us from the impact; our impact doesn't reach its full potential. Because you cannot impact someone with free content, the way you can by coaching with them, or working on their branding with them, or whatever you do.
You can't. I don't care how powerful your free stuff is. So, what do we do? How do we create change, when it feels so hard not to give everything away? But we know that's really not serving us, or our people, ultimately.
Well, you've got to believe two things. Number one, the diagnosis itself, is a gift. It's insanely valuable and life changing. Therefore, this is already a more than fair exchange. And number two, the transformation happens after the transaction.
So, let's talk about number one; the diagnosis is a gift. This doesn't mean you can't ever give away actual steps. I do it here all the time, right. Don't use this to create black-and-white rules for yourself. Just open yourself to how valuable the diagnosis is. And then, you won't feel so compelled to keep going on and on after that.
Now that might be a stretch for you, right? How could the diagnosis be valuable? You can't really do anything with it. Well, remember at the very beginning I talked about my parenting coach? Now, I want to tell you our story. At the time, we were just coming out of the pandemic. And my baby, Dylan, was a COVID baby, he didn't interact with other children.
I think there were maybe two months of preschool that we started for him before everything shut down. And then, we had to pull him right out. And so, when things started to open up again, we, of course, wanted to take him to the playground, have him, you know, get to know other kids. He would see children walking down the street, and he would say very, very loudly with no filter, “Oh, no, not kids.”
He just had no idea how to interact with children. And, he just has no filter. He just says whatever he thinks, and so he was able to carry on conversations with adults, no problem. But we were really worried about him, like, how is he going to be in school? Is he just going to be this loner and, right? All the catastrophizing, all the possibilities of what could go wrong.
I had tried several different things. But they didn't seem to work, and the thought in my head was you don't know Dylan. So, all these books, all these experts out there, saying how things should be done, and I'm like; yeah, yeah, but you don't know Dylan.
When I talked to this parenting coach, who we just randomly met through another group, when I talked to her about it, first of all, she was able to empathize and say, “Oh, I know. I remember my husband and I just saying, ‘We wish someone had given us a manual for our specific child.’” So, right there, I felt that resonance.
But when I described the situation to her, do you know what she said to me? She said, “Oh, he just hasn't learned the skill of entering play.” Friends, it's hard for me to describe, even now I get shivers thinking about this. I was at a point where I was wondering if there was something seriously wrong with my child. If he was going to be scarred in some way.
And then, I have someone come along that tells me, “It's just this thing he hasn't learned yet, that he's definitely going to learn. And, we can teach him. And, we can expedite that process. And, it's not a problem.” For a scared mom to hear those words… Everything shifted in my life, everything became doable. My son's life, I saw it going down a completely different path. And, I was so relieved and so hopeful. And, I felt so much trust in that moment.
So now, if anyone tells me, “Jenna, I feel bad about diagnosing, rather than solving the problem,” I tell them this story. And I say, “Look, if she tried to give me all the steps, then and there, I'm sure I would have forgotten some of them, right? And I probably would have thought, ‘problem solved. And I should try this on my own first.’”
I would have misapplied some of the things, or not had the support through all of them. I wouldn't have seen those results, and I would have externalized that and thought that the method didn't work for my son. We think we're being more helpful by giving all the steps. But what if that's not true?
My coach did one thing, she transformed this from a character issue, which is difficult to solve for, to a skill set that could be learned: basically, a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. And in that diagnosis, she not only gave me amazing relief in that moment, but she helped me take the step that I needed to take, to committing to working with a coach.
What if your clients just need to see their problem in a new light? Maybe one to three main things, that when addressed, will solve their problem. Using your secret sauce or methodology will solve their problem. Thinking through how to solve their problem is something that actually has come easily to me, right?
Maybe it's a product of growing up in the military and moving, so you have to assimilate and therefore read people really quickly, and see what's really driving them. Or, maybe I'm just a born strategist, I don't know. Whatever it is, I love using this skill, with integrity of course, in service of helping people towards truly bettering their lives. And I love helping my clients do the same, and I loved it when it was happening to me.
Okay, number two, you've got to believe that the transformation happens after the transaction. Really, really believe this. Because notice how I just said we were using all this diagnosing and psychology for the benefit of our clients.
If you don't believe that, you'll feel bad about doing this. You'll feel like this is salesy, or manipulative, or for your own benefit. Rather than believing you're acting out of pure empathy and altruism, on behalf of your very capable, but very human client's highest self.
And listen, I might be wrong about this, only you can decide for yourself, but for the next few minutes, I invite you to just try on this thought; that the transaction actually precedes the transformation. That there's something special that happens when a human is willing to commit with their money, time, and effort, to creating a change.
It's a signal to their brains, and I'd argue, it's a signal to the Universe. Freud believed it, he refused to treat people that weren't willing to pay some kind of a fee. Now, I do believe that people can create change without paying a coach, of course. They can get in shape without paying a personal trainer, but their level of commitment, and the ease and timeframe it takes, will be affected.
And if you truly believe that you don't want your people to be in that pain, even a moment longer than they need to be, then you need to become really interested in this. Do you know how many copies of Daring Greatly have been sold? Yeah, Brené Brown. Over 2 million. Do you know how many of those people are still not daring greatly?
I'm not saying that isn’t incredibly valuable and impactful, that book. I do believe it helped people think differently, and helped some people take their first steps. And maybe a few people even blow their own minds. But if those 2 million people had worked with a coach, call me an idealist, but I believe the world would be a different place.
No, fuck that; I know the world would be a different place. Whatever transformation you're helping people with, they want it and there are people that want to pay you for it. And it really helps to believe that your people want to pay you money. What? Yes! Most of my people tell me thank you so much. I can't wait to get started.
They're thanking me for letting them pay me to expedite and aid this result that they want. They're happy to trade money. What is money, right? They're happy to trade money for time. And I was grateful to pay my parenting coach.
Oh, my God, you mean I don't have to read 100 parenting books with conflicting philosophies, and try to discern which one's best? Or, interview 100 coaches? I can just work with you, someone I trust? You've done all that work for me, you've cherry-picked the best of everything, and will walk me through it and help me apply it.
And if I get stuck, I have support. Meaning, I won't just give up, I'll actually get to my results. Thank you. And now that I've committed with money, you bet I'm going to show up to the calls each week, and do my homework between. Like, this is happening.
This is likely how your ideal clients think, too. And if so, don't waste time talking to the others. Speak to them with this clarity of belief, of these two things; the diagnosis itself is a gift. And, the transformation happens after the transaction. It's what allows you to show up like you're the answer to their prayers. Because you are.
My parenting coach was, for me. And when you show up that way, it's easy for your people to step into trust. I've figured this all out, so you don't have to go through all that. I can see the real problem, and there's a simple solution. I got you. You're welcome. Try on some of that energy and watch your business transform.
Okay, friends, that's it for the day. And remember, on a certain level, you know who you are. And each day, you're just stepping further into what you're here to create.
Hey, if you enjoyed today’s show, you do not want to miss next week’s. Seriously. Follow the show wherever you listen to your podcast so you don’t miss an episode. And would you please, leave a super quick rating and review about this episode?
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