Here’s The Thing – They Don’t Care About You The Coach

On our webinar on Monday we talked about coaches at a networking meeting talking to prospective clients. What usually happens is that we want to dazzle our prospective clients with how highly qualified we are.  How many courses we’ve done, that we’re not just a basic coach, oh no we are a super-duper professional coach!

So just like when we fill in a job application we tell them everything.  We say: “I’m a Whizz-Bang-Pop qualified coach, with a million hours of coaching under my belt. I’m also a qualified This That & The Other coach, as well as an SOS master practitioner. If you want to transform your business/life/relationship come and have a chat with me.”

Occasionally we might get a response but usually this is where the horrible realisation sets in; they don’t care, they’re not interested. “But, but, but,” we plough on; “we can work with everyone! We can work with anyone who wants a coach anyone at all. Anyone?”
How can they possibly resist???

Why Don’t They Care

We can work with anyone so why don’t they care? There are 2 things here; the 1st is that “anyone” is just too vague.  It just gets discarded as noise, nothing of interest here, move on. And 2nd they don’t care because this is exactly what they would expect to hear. Why wouldn’t you be qualified, professional and experienced? They would be more surprised if you told them you had 1 Art O’ level but were giving it a go anyway.

Going up to someone and effectively saying ME ME ME ME ME: you, is absolutely not going to work. Remember they don’t care.  They don’t care about you, who you are and how you have devoted your entire professional life to the betterment of others. (AND whilst we’re here it’s what most of the others do too).  Here’s the other thing; they only care about what’s in it for them. They will care, later on, but until they have worked with you they don’t know you so they don’t care.

We Can Make Them Want To Talk To Us

Whilst we might not be able to make them care we can ensure they will listen to us. How? Again 2 things; 1st get them to talk about them selves / their business. Find out exactly who they are, what they do and most importantly how well it’s going and is there anything they want to do better. Then and only then is where the ME comes in the form of what you can do for them, how you can solve their problem. So what we do is turn the whole interaction round: simply make it YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU; me.

So before you start with the me me me know exactly who your YOU is.  Know where you’re going to find them, what the things are that keep them awake at night and how you can help them.

The Coaching Revolution™ by Coaches Supporting Coaches; a whole new way of looking at the business of coaching.