EP 386 - Why Your Coaching Offer Isn't Selling (It's Not Your Niche!)

MarketingCoaching LifestyleTechnology
Written By Debbie Shadid
 

Struggling to sell your coaching services? If you're a coach and you can't figure out why nobody's buying what you offer, this video's for you. There's one step almost every coach skips, and it's not your niche or your marketing. It's called validation.

If you're new to my channel, my name is Debbie Shadid. I'm a Business Growth and Life Coach and the founder of the Business Building Boutique. For over two decades, I've helped women learn how to become coaches, get clients, grow their businesses, and create meaningful income doing work they love.

When you validate your offer with real conversations before you build anything, you stop guessing and start building a business people actually want to buy.

Chapters:

0:00 The Hidden Reason Your Coaching Business Isn't Selling
1:05 The Missing Link in Your Business Strategy
2:04 How to Master the Art of Validation
4:19 What Happens When You Actually Talk to People
6:37 The Dangerous Trap of Relying on AI

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Connect with me, Debbie Shadid:

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TRANSCRIPT

Here's the number one reason coaches build a business and then they can't sell. They skip one step, not the marketing, not their niche, but this one step. Hey there, I am Debbie Shadid. I am so glad to see you here. I coach women over 50. I help them build beautiful boutique-style coaching businesses, and today I wanna talk about something I don't hear anyone talking about or teaching on. It's called validation. Here is what happens almost every time a coach starts a business. They get excited about their niche. They feel really great about it. They go straight into building mode, building their business, setting the foundation. They go and they build their offer, maybe even an entire website because you want to look successful. Then you go put yourself out there, and you cannot figure out why nobody is interested in what you offer. Here's why. You assumed, or maybe we're talking about somebody else, they assumed. Either way, if you do not talk to people and you put your business out there based on your own experience, my friend, there's a high chance that you're gonna run into an issue. If you have never actually asked anyone about what you're talking about, about your niche, if you have built the whole thing before you've ever had a real conversation with a human about this, that is the gap. The coaches who are already succeeding, they have had real conversations with real people before they built a thing. A lot of them didn't even know that's what they were doing. They validated their niche without calling it validation. That's what I want you to understand today. Validation is not complicated. It is not a survey. It is not a poll on social media. It is not a spreadsheet. None of us wanna work with a spreadsheet anyway. Validation is you having real conversations Validation is you having real conversations with real people that you believe are your ideal clients before you build one single thing. There is no money involved, no tech required. That's it. All you need to do is have a handful of honest conversations to find out more from those people than you're ever gonna find out on Google or with AI, because those conversations will tell you exactly what someone is struggling with in their words. And here's the part that changes everything. Those words will become the language of a successful coach's business. Is that gonna be you? When your ideal client eventually reads your offer, and it sounds exactly like the way she already talked about her problem in her head, that is not a copywriting trick. That's just what happens when you actually listen to somebody instead of guessing. And I must say, I want you to listen to several people. I'm not talking about one person or two people or your best friend or your sister. I am talking about finding humans within your niche that are, that are not related to you, that don't know your story. We want to get honest answers. We don't want to lead the conversation and help them answer the question in the way we think they should. We want to provide an open-ended question where they get to talk and answer. People skip this step for two reasons. Either they think they already know the answer, which is a problem, or they don't think they know anyone to talk to, which is a bigger problem. Both of those are your primitive brain protecting you from something that is a little uncomfortable, which is finding out the truth before you spend months building a business around your assumption. I am here to help you. I know it feels safer to build first, and most coaches, in fact, all the coaches I think, are not even aware that they're doing it. They think this is just what they're supposed to do. They think this is just what they're supposed to do. Pick a niche, build their business, get it all together, and then, like, the people are gonna come. Here's the deal. Doing all of that just delays the moment you find out whether people will actually pay you for what you're offering. and I hate it, when I see coaches who have invested so much time. They have created courses. They have spent so much time and energy and effort working on a business that does not work. When you actually do this validation process, four things happen, and this involves you talking to several people. I'm talking about eight or 10 people. If you cannot find eight or 10 people, my dear one, you might have a problem. You should know where your person is. This is great practice for you to have conversations with people and to learn how to talk about your business and learn how to engage with people. This is like the beginning steps of your business. Let's call it the hardest steps. It might be the hardest thing you do, but it will set you up for success Your idea will stop being something that you feel excited about and could actually be something that real humans confirm. I wanna pause for a moment and I wanna tell you about the Profitable Niche Blueprint. I'm gonna leave it linked right here and right below this video. This is our complete niche guide. This has everything I'm talking to you about today and so much more. if you want to get your niche defined in one evening and then go have conversations, this will give you the exact steps to be able to do that so you can get your niche settled and you can get on with building your business. All right, let's get back to the episode You get their exact words instead of your own. You feel genuinely confident because someone told you that their problem is real, and you know you can solve it. And often you're already talking to potential clients that are sitting right there in front of you. Imagine that. These are people that you have said, "I want to have a research conversation with you." You get all of their details. All the while you're like, "Oh, my goodness, this is exactly what I coach on." That very person could be your very first client in your very first week. the certainty about how you talk about your business will show up when you know that you're talking about it in the right way. If you are still vague when somebody asks you what you do, if it takes you ten minutes to explain what you do, that is a sign that you have skipped a step. People can feel uncertainty. if you're talking to somebody and you're not even sure if your niche is a good idea, I can tell you what, the other person listening knows it's not a good idea either. They will feel uncertain too. Nobody's gonna buy anything. I'm just telling you, this is exactly the way the pattern goes. I have to say this next thing because I also see this consistently. AI will tell you your idea is great, and I know you hear it all the time, but I have to keep reminding you because it's not sinking in. built to keep a conversation going with you. So it will always find more reasons to work on your idea. You're gonna feel validated. It is built to find answers for you, and it will find an answer for you on just anything you ask. I literally have never stumped Claude or ChatGPT, and I have used it for thousands of hours, and I've never stumped it. You're not gonna stump it either. So you will feel validated, you'll feel confident, and you'll feel like you are completely on track when you might be completely off track. I watched a coach recently build their entire business through conversations with AI, no real people involved. Months later, she realized that the business that she had built wasn't even the one that she intended to start. AI had slowly reshaped the entire thing. She wasn't making offers because deep down she didn't even know what she was talking about anymore. I thought that was such an incredible awareness, and while it was a sad shame, thank goodness that she realized it now. she had a website already built. She had written a talk that she was going to give. She had her opt-in done. She'd been on social media. She already told people all about it. But the good news is she realized,"Wait a minute, I don't actually know how to coach on the thing that I am now saying I can do. The thing I know how to coach on is the idea that I started with six months ago So you must have real conversations. It doesn't know that your niche is what you know the best. It doesn't actually know your real ideal client. I can talk all day long to Claude about problems that coaches have, but I can tell you for sure when I talk to a woman who is sixty-three years old or who's fifty-seven years old and I know what her history is, like what her career path has been, I know exactly what her problems in getting her coaching business are. I know exactly what problems she has and what is keeping her from getting her coaching business started. That is not the same generic answer that Claude would give you. I know what she needs to do. I know what she needs to hear because I have real conversations with real people. AI cannot replace that. That's exactly why coaching, by the way, is more valuable than ever. Everybody is using AI to find answers and People really want to have conversations. They want to have human connection. So here's what I want you to sit with before you build one more thing, before you touch your website or finalize your offer or honestly anything else, ask yourself honestly, have you actually talked to real people about this or have you just assumed? And I am talking about having a conversation that's going to be uncomfortable. I'm talking about finding out, "Hey, tell me what your thoughts are on this. What-- how do you see this problem is affecting your life? What have you tried? Who else is it costing? What kind of help do you think is the best help to get to solve this problem? Would you pay for this kind of support? How big of an issue is it? How soon would you get help with it?" Can you see those kind of questions? That is validation of your offer If this one hits home to you, I want you to drop in the comments and tell me where you are in your business. Are you still in the assuming stage? Or are you gonna have some real conversations? I read every comment. I want you to hit Subscribe so you can stay connected with me Before I leave, I've talked to you about a complete guide on how to create a profitable niche. It is linked right here. you can create a business that will be profitable. All right, my friend? I appreciate you so much. Go have a beautiful day, and we'll talk to you very soon. Bye-bye.

Debbie Shadid https://www.DebbieShadid.com
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EP 385 - From ZERO to Coaching Clients: How to Get Your First Client