What Marketing My New Coaching Program Has Taught Me About Finding and Keeping a New Job (part 1)
Last week, I told you about the biggest lesson I’ve learned when it comes to persuading other people to see things your way.
Whether you’re selling a product to customers, selling yourself to employers, or selling a vision & direction to your team…
When you run into rejection, skepticism, or total silence from the people you’re trying to reach…
Your brain will WANT to change your fundamentals.
But what you need to do is keep your fundamentals the same and troubleshoot your funnel FIRST.
Here’s how this plays out for me when I market my course & coaching program…
And how it may be playing out for YOU when you’re trying to sell a product to customers
The first week that I posted about my course & coaching program, I got no response.
And my brain freaked out.
It immediately assumed that the problem was in the fundamentals: me, the product, and the customer.
Me: I’m a bad coach. I’m bad at marketing. I’m the wrong person to be doing this.
Implied solutions: Get more coach training. Do a marketing course. Hire an advisor that can tell me how to market.
The customer: Nobody wants this. Nobody cares about this. I’m not targeting a problem that matters to anyone.
Implied solutions: Change who I’m targeting. Or change my content to better educate people about why they should care about what I’m offering.
The product: Coaching is weird and hard to sell. My specific product terms are probably wrong.
Implied solutions: Sell something different. Change the price, terms, positioning, or overall product. Go back to my old product.
Now, I’m not saying you should never make these kinds of changes.
I’m saying that, after one week of posts, it’s WAY too early to make these kinds of changes.
And yet, after a week of silence, I was feeling afraid and rejected…
And I wanted more than anything to DO something about it…
And this was the first place my mind went: Change yourself. Change the customer. Change the product. You must be doing this all wrong.
But if I were to follow along with any of the solutions above, I would be making big changes based on very few data points…
And I would establish the habit of making these kinds of big changes based on very few data points, again and again in the future.
Do not do this. Not at this point.
Instead, here’s the alternate game plan that emerges when you keep the fundamentals the same and troubleshoot your funnel first.
Step 1: My confidence and conviction in the fundamentals.
I got this far for a reason. I DO know what I’m doing.
I chose these customers and this problem for a reason.
I designed the product the way I did for a reason.
(And the same goes for you, with the product you’re currently selling in your job.)
My reaction to this one week of silence is just spotlighting all the places where my own confidence is wobbly.
And when your confidence is wobbly, you talk about your product in a wobbly, hesitating way…
And talking about something in a hesitating way is NOT likely to persuade someone to agree with you.
So it’s not that my fundamentals are wrong. It’s that I’m not yet confident enough in them to talk about them in a compelling way.
Which is not a problem! This is where everyone starts.
Confidence is built, brick by brick.
So here are the next steps:
Pinpoint all the specific things you’re feeling wobbly about. No generalities. Get very clear on your own specific concerns and objections about yourself, your customer, and your product.
Firm up all the wobbly points. Address your own objections. For example:
“The price is too high.” Why is this worth every dollar and more?
“This isn’t a high-priority problem.” Why IS it a high-priority problem? What impact does it have when this problem is solved?
“But there’s XYZ drawback.” Why is XYZ drawback not that big of a deal, on balance? Could it be a feature, not a bug?
Take your time. Work through the whole list, one by one.
Step 1 is the most important step.
It is very, very difficult to sell a product that YOU are not sold on.
It is very, very difficult to address someone’s objection if YOU agree with the objection.
All the funnel optimization in the world won’t save you if you’re feeling wobbly about what you’re selling.
Stay in Step 1 until you’re 100% sold on every aspect of the product you’re selling, and you’ve addressed every objection you have.
ONLY once that’s fully done, move on to Steps 2-4.
Btw, this does NOT mean “Don’t talk to anyone until you’re 100% confident.” Go talk to people now. Do that LOTS.
Explaining yourself to people again and again is the BEST way to spotlight all your wobbly points and build your confidence.
I’m just saying, WHILE you talk to people, keep the focus on building your own confidence & conviction until that’s totally solid.
THEN move on to tweaking the things below.
Step 2: Your reach.
Have you figured out where the people you want to reach hang out?
Are you actually reaching them?
Next steps:
Make a list of ALL the possible places where you could reach your customers.
Make a plan to go talk to them in all those places.
Step 3: Your message.
Are you explaining what you offer in the most clear and compelling way possible?
Have you tried a LOT of different variations to figure out what that is?
Next steps:
Make a list of ALL the possible ways you could explain what you offer and why someone should take you up on it
Make a plan to explain it in ALL those different ways.
If you really want to turn up the heat, evaluate how each message performs and continue making adjustments over time.
Step 4: Your exposure.
Have you given your customers enough points of exposure to get over the hump to buy?
Think about the last few purchasing decisions you made. How many points of exposure did YOU need just to become vaguely aware that this thing even exists?
And then how many MORE points of exposure did you need to actually be persuaded to buy this thing?
It often takes a LOT more exposure than you realize.
There are times when your conviction, reach, and message are 100% on point, and you don’t need to change anything.
All you need to do is keep hammering away at exposure until it clicks.
Next steps:
Estimate how many points of exposure someone might need from you to be persuaded (you can benchmark based on your own experiences buying this kind of product, or you can look at market data if you want).
Estimate what portion of your messages actually reach your average customer (e.g., if you make 10 instagram posts, your average follower might only see 1).
Go out there and deliver that many points of exposure. (e.g., if you think people need 50 points of exposure to buy your product, and your average customer sees 10% of your posts, you need to make 500 posts).
If you build strong confidence and conviction in your product…
And then you go out there and meet your customers in all the places they hang out…
And you tune your message to be as compelling as possible to them…
And you deliver enough points of exposure to get them over the hump to buy…
You’ll definitely make sales.
And more importantly, you will gather REAL data from real customers.
And THIS is why I’m saying to troubleshoot your entire funnel FIRST, before you tinker with a single fundamental.
You will want to make changes to your fundamentals at some point.
When you do, I want you to make them based on real data from actual customers.
NOT based on the insecurities and fear-monsters in your own head.
Your freaked-out brain is going to want to start messing with the fundamentals after the first few rejections.
It’ll even offer you very reasonable-sounding solutions. “Just try lowering the price. Just test a new positioning and see.”
Don’t be fooled. Your own insecurity is a bad basis for making decisions.
Troubleshoot your entire funnel first.
Keep the variables steady and go gather the data.
And THEN decide what you want to do.
I love coaching because it’s all about practically, systematically solving problems.
You take a problem. You break it down and diagnose its root cause. You build a solution. You implement the solution. You troubleshoot and adjust.
And you’re always working toward concrete results.
There’s no such thing as “I’ve been getting coached for a year but I don’t know if it really got me anywhere” (at least not when you work with me).
We set specific mental, emotional, and tangible goals. We identify what’s blocking you from achieving them. We solve each problem one by one. And we keep going until we get there.
And if that sounds like something you want to do, then get on the waitlist for my 2023 course & coaching program—
From Imposter to “I Got This.”
The High-Stress High Achiever’s step-by-step guide to:
- Eliminate work stress and imposter syndrome
- Get clear + get moving on their next career step
- Create a life they love living
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