Thank you for reading this far into the article, because hoo-boy is that title a weird mouthful that’s apt to make eyes glaze over; LIKELY for lack of clear meaning, which of course means no substance to compel you to read on.
So why didn’t I write a better title? Because your clients might have a similar problem when they read YOUR website, so this is actually a rather meta lesson in empathy.
Alright, enough abstract talk. Let me explain myself already before I get the internet equivalent of being boo’ed off the stage.
I had an exchange with a coach who works with business leaders, and good things do come of that work. He was lamenting being a poor marketer despite being a great coach. When I pointed out that his website homepage is actually pretty compelling, even in spite of missing pretty much all 8 of the things would-be clients want to know1What sort of results? How will we know? Will results last? Is this the real deal? How much money? How much time? How much effort? What must I bring? These are explained in the CoachAccountable webinar titled Pitching Prospects and Winning Clients, he said the following:
The 0 of 8 things people want to know is very on point and probably THE thing I’ve struggled most to communicate. In part, because when I consider the different people I help, the outcomes, time, etc. are avatar specific and varied or generic. The outcome IS that they are more emotionally coherent, calm, connected to their life—less prone to blame, guilt, fear, or judgment, which is pretty generic.
I know many coaches can relate! This coach does on his website what most coaches do: describe the outcomes in fully generic and abstract terms, and completely omit any concrete details pertaining to cost, time, effort, commitment, qualifications, etc.
And I don’t blame him! This is ostensibly the most appropriate (and thus defensible) position to take in the writing of coaching marketing copy: it is as specific as it can be while remaining generally true to all pertinent readers, i.e. would-be clients.
It’s like a horoscope: specific enough to be flattering, vague enough to be true.
The problem is that those would-be clients now need to infer for themselves how all that abstract talk might pertain to them. And your average would-be client, ESPECIALLY those uninitiated in the world of the magic coaching is capable of, will fail at this. Spectacularly. To the tune of “Yeah, whatever / I don’t get it / this sounds like a bunch of fluff / more emotionally coherent and calm sounds great but I have a business to run / where’s my browser’s back button, again?”
When you do this, you both overestimate and underestimate your would-be clients.
You overestimate their ability to successfully interpret those abstract outcomes as something that could actually apply to them in their situation. Turns out that that interpretation is actually quite hard to do from their end, because they haven’t seen that sort of magic play out dozens of times like you have.
You underestimate their ability to generalize from a few specific examples laterally to their own situation. It turns out that, by hearing a few specific instances, they can easily imagine what that sort of outcome would look when mapped on to their specific circumstances.
So stop leaving the work you do up to their imagination, and start trusting them to recognize themselves in one or more of the “avatars” you serve. And this doesn’t have to be a set of lengthy case studies! Case studies are a lot of work to write, you need to get permission to do and share the write up, they take too long to read, and they are too specific for your audience to see themselves in (i.e. “Yeah, that’s great for them, but my situation is different because…”).
Instead, just quick blurbs will do:
John hated to be the bad guy and hated having to probe into the details of what his team was doing each week. After 3 sessions of working with me over 6 weeks, he created a strong rapport with his teammates rooted in clear (and clearly communicated) desires that left them calmly empowered to act effectively. That in turn leaves John feeing much more at peace, enjoying greater affinity for his teammates, and with far greater results being produced for it.
Anonymize it however you need. One blurb not painting enough of the picture? Cool, stack 3, 4, even 7 of these to better cover the gamut of outcomes and avatars. This level of detail gives us would-be clients a clear enough sense of what you do and how we fit in. We love bite-sized nuggets that give a voyeuristic look into what others are dealing with; gaining the sense that we’re not the only one? Well that alone is enough to keep us reading until we come across the one that we resemble.
And that brings us back to that god-awful title of this essay, “Prototype the Sorts of Outcomes That Happen”. When you write up and share these blurbs, congratulations, you’ve just prototyped the sorts of outcomes that happen when people work with you.
And we’ll read them.
And if we’re a fit, we’ll resonate with them.
And if we resonate with your work, we’ll engage.
In which case: congratulations, you are no longer a poor marketer of great coaching services.
If you do, you don’t need CoachAccountable’s help.
If you don’t, however, working with clients using CoachAccountable as designed tends to produce a lovely paper trail of the experience, one that naturally documents the before picture, the measures, the breakthroughs, the key insights, and the accomplishments.
Perusing those records (as naturally collected over time) makes the sussing out of patterns easy. Each client is their own story. Review a few and you’ll know just what to share to demystify your coaching in terms your clients will actually understand.
Notes:
- 1What sort of results? How will we know? Will results last? Is this the real deal? How much money? How much time? How much effort? What must I bring? These are explained in the CoachAccountable webinar titled Pitching Prospects and Winning Clients
