Why Does Promoting Your Business Feel Sleezy?

Look at me, I'm great, I'm so educated, I have tons of tools, I can do this for you, I can do that -- me, me, me. That's the idea that many coaches and counselors have about what marketing is.

Or -- YOU can be sexier, thinner, more confident, happier, make more money than Ever before, just one hour a week is all it takes and all your troubles will be gone, hurry hurry don't delay, this offer expires today, this chance won't come again, if you want the life you've already dreamed of, act now. Ugh, can you feel the slime rolling down your arms just reading that?

No wonder it feels sleezy to promote yourself and your solo practice.

Leaving aside the comforting fact that neither of those two approaches to late night guru fitness systems and ginzu knife promotions work for professionals in the healing and optimal performance arts, the deeper issue is that they touch us where we are raw -- in our self esteem, belief in our abilities to do our work well, or our lack of ease with feeling in the spotlight.

I want to pass along to you one of the most valuable things that was ever said to me when I was voicing the feeling of being not as good as the next therapist:

• Your clients chose you because they intuitively knew that you were the best helper for them, and it's an insult to them to not have the same belief in yourself that they do. They are trusting you, and you must return their trust by trusting yourself.
  

If you struggle with feeling not good enough -- whether it's an underlying personality pattern or a misplaced acknowledgment of being new in practice -- it is vital to the health of your business that you work on believing in and trusting your abilities.

When you believe in your abilities you won't need to put yourself in the forefront of your marketing message. When you deeply trust yourself to provide the help that your clients seek, you'll focus your marketing message on them, not on yourself.

If you already believe in and trust yourself, it can become easy and comfortable to promote your business without feeling like it's sleezy because you can approach it from the sense of being in service to your clients and their goals.

Isn't that the core of why we wanted to be a counselor, coach or ND in the first place?

The Art of the Soft Close for Business Phobic Solopreneurs

Solopreneur coaches often say that using a trial session is a way to discover if prospective clients are a good fit for us, and that it's a way for them to understand the benefits of coaching. New counselors are often tempted to provide a "free consultation" session for the same reasons.

But by itself, a trial or free consult session that has only these purposes won't necessarily turn a freebie into a paying client. What's needed is a comfortable way to "close the sale."

Yes, that's right, at some point we do actually have to ask for the business if we want it. We have to switch to the business-owner side of the brain and help the prospective client make the decision to hire.

I'm one of those who would rather not be put in that position. I'd much prefer that people would just automatically intuit, or deeply feel, or logically grok that my counseling or coaching services are so fantastic that they'd be super foolish to pass up the chance to pay me for them.

In the real world, it doesn't work like that. I've had to recognize that the REAL purpose of any trial or free consult session is to GET THE CLIENT. I've had to learn the art of the "soft close" -- that is, how to end the trial session with a comfortable way to talk about hiring me.

I have a brief outline for a soft close script I recently came across that I thought others who are reticent to be business-like in trial sessions might like to have. It's available on my wiki here.

Is This the Conversation Your Website Has With Prospective Clients?

Prospective client to counselor: My life is miserable, I can't sleep, my kids won't behave, and I'm scared I'll never get my head above water professionally.

Counselor to client: I'm a licensed clinical social worker in the state of OZ, a 13 year member of the faculty of the Advanced Psychobabble Academy, and an eclectic practitioner of DBT, CBT, REBT, Gestalt,and Technique Du Jour therapy.

Prospective client to counselor: I can't stop obssessing on what my sister said to me, she made me so angry I wanted to strangle her. I need help.

Counselor to client: Appointments are available Tues, Wed, Fri from 5 am to 8:30 am. My office is in the Endless Maze office park. Bring your insurance card and download and complete these 12 forms when you come to the first appointment. Pay online here.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Same prospective client to life coach: I'm failing at everything. Nothing I do works out.

Life coach to client: Great! Life is a journey and we all go through peaks and valleys, fall into potholes, hit roadblocks, get sidetracked or forced into detours. Coaching is the road map to get where you want to go.

Prospective client to life coach: I'm not sure what I need, but I know that I feel trapped.

Life coach to client: I congratulate you on knowing what you want and having the determination to go after it. I will be your cheerleader and partner. Are you ready to have the best year ever?! Let's go!

~*~*~*~*~*~

These examples aren't as extreme as you may think.

Take a look at your website right now, and see if your side of the marketing conversation is really hearing your prospective client and responding to the pain they are feeling when they are searching for help.

Do You Have to Sell Yourself to Succeed?

A lot of advice for coaches, counselors, and naturopathic doctors revolves around collecting lots of business cards, telling everyone you know you're in practice, and asking for their referrals.

Once you've done that, this extroverted approach says, you have to follow up with everyone and tell them again.

Pardon me, but UGH!

For those with a more introverted personality who might rather eat worms than promote themselves in such outgoing ways, I'd like to offer another set of activities that work especially well for us.

1. Develop a client-centered website with lots of helpful tips for the problems your niche market struggles with. Make sure the site is 80% about them, and only 20% about you. Have a way for people to pre-pay for an appointment or package on your website.

2. Develop a signature presentation topic, in multiple lengths and formats that offers a solution to your niche market's biggest, most desperate problem, and demonstrate your skills as part of the presentation. Approach potential allied professionals and networking/ professional groups who are your niche or who worked with those who are, and offer to be the speaker at one of their meetings.

3. Find an online forum where your niche market turns to when they seek help, and become an active helper. Become their go-to person on your specialty topic.

4. Start a meetup group, host a coaching tele-group, or offer your services to meet a need in an already formed group.

5. Blog daily, or nearly, on topics and powerful questions you'd ask ideal clients in person.

6. Learn to interact with your niche using Facebook and Twitter.

7. Write an emotionally compelling marketing message about your client, not about you, and not about explaining coaching.

8. Don't give away free services, but do give well timed and well placed perspective shifting questions freely -- these are the best intro to your work and the most intriguing taste of your value, while also providing something of immediate value to prospective clients. It leaves people wanting more, and feeling just fine with paying you.