Ep #103: Deepen Client Connections

Hi coach, you’re listening to episode 103 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you build the deepest client connections. Let’s go.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hello coach, how are you doing today? I hope you’re doing fabulously. I know the confident coaches are doing pretty damn fabulous right now because we just came off of a two day live virtual event. It’ the kickoff to the October class. More than one client said that the even was worth the cost of the entire mastermind alone.

I can’t wait to share more with you about how I created that. It was intentional, that wasn’t happenstance and there were definite steps that I’ve gone through to help make that happen. But I’m still downloading that and evaluating that, and I’ll be sharing more good stuff.

But as you know we’ve been on a connection kick the entire month of October and that’s actually what we’re going to still be focusing on today because the last 100 days of 2021, now four weeks have already past, so whatever 100-ish minus 31-ish is. So we are already counting down even more days to the end of 2021 and we are redefining what it means to be unstoppable and building your business through connection in these last 100 days.

How are you guys doing so far? If you haven’t already, I would love to hear from you on my social media posts. Every Tuesday when the podcast episode drops you can always find posts on Instagram. You can find Instagram stories on Friday and Saturday over the weekend. We talk about the podcast episode again. You can reply to emails, tag me in a story.

How are you doing with this connection? Have you been implementing the content of the episodes that I’ve shared so far plus the one I’m getting ready to share? And how is that going for you? Because I really want to note that when I used to think about what it meant to be unstoppable it was more of a hustle and grind, go, go, go, don’t stop until you create what you’ve wanted.

And from my brain I made that mean I never stop working and I was always thinking about my business and everything was always about my business. And it’s really interesting because we’re finally getting to, this is the fourth episode in a four episode arc about connection, and we’re just now getting to the actual clients. Connecting with our audience and our clients. So what the heck have we talked about in the previous three episodes?

I know I used to flip flop these things. I was all about how can I attract more clients? How can I get more clients? How can I make them want to work with me? How can I connect with them? And it was very needy graspy. And instead, what we’ve done in this series is we’ve flipped it on its head and we’re just now talking about it. And we’re going to dive into why this is so important that this is the fourth and not the first episode in connection.

But before we do, I don’t want you to forget not only do I want to hear about how these connect 100 days ideas are going for you, but don’t forget there are prizes to be had. That’s right, one of you is going to win a connection prize pack.

I’ve been scouring the internet and going into my brain thinking about the best things that I can put together for you guys. And all you have to do is commit to a connection a day for 100 days. Now, if you are connecting with yourself, connecting with friends or family, or connecting with your audience, your people, your potential clients, your ideal clients, it all counts.

And all you have to do is include @Iamamylatta and #connect100days over the course of these 100 days, through January 12th capture your connections, screenshot them, and then just in January send me a Dropbox or a Google Drive folder that has all that in there and I’m going to be drawing a name and somebody is going to be winning prizes. Maybe it’s going to be you. Who doesn’t love free amazing stuff, right?

And in this episode right here we’re finally talking about where everybody typically wants to start. I know it’s where I wanted to start. And how familiar does this sound? Where do I find clients? How do I find clients? How do I make them want to work with me? What can I do to make them say yes on the phone? How do I keep the clients I have happy? How do I keep them happy and how do I get them even better results so that they’ll want to re-sign with me? And repeat and repeat and over and over again.

And I don’t know about you, but everything that I just said I suddenly feel very graspy in my body. I have this real like needy anxiety feeling, even just stating all of that out loud. This is not a great energy for connecting with your people. This is not a great energy for connecting with your clients, for attracting them to you and signing them, and providing brilliant results for them so that they do want to keep working with you.

So what if we just try something else? And what’s that something else? Oh yeah, that’s right, what the hell has Amy been talking about for an entire month? Connection, because y’all are going to burn yourself out if you stay in that energy of graspy and needy.

You’re going to be spinning all of this graspy, crappy energy all over the place in a desperation. And your clients are going to feel that kind of desperate feeling. That desperate feeling you start to get to that people will like you, and that they’ll sign with you, and they’ll stay with you.

And it doesn’t have to be this way at all. And if you haven’t already, listen to the past couple of episodes. You will see that I started with, we start by deepening the connection with ourselves, and then deepening connection within your community. And only then do we focus on connecting with our audience.

Because believe it or not, that is not where you need to spend the most amount of your time in a given week. My mentor coach, my coach that coaches me repeats over and over again in her entry level program that making money as a life coach is as simple as meeting as many people as possible, telling them that you’re a coach, and making offers to help them.

And yet so many of my clients come to me and they’re making each single one of those steps so much more difficult than it has to be. So how can we make that easier for you?

So first and foremost, let’s remember, meet as many people as possible, tell them that you’re a coach, and make offers to help them. Those are all actions, these are things that you do. And I can give you a lot more actions on deepening connection with your audience at each of those steps.

But unless this is your first rodeo, you know that I can give you all the actions on Earth, but if you’re not paying attention to your thinking and you’re not paying attention to your feeling, you’re going to be spinning that shit spaghetti all over the place. You’re going to taking those actions from a place of neediness, and graspiness, and fear, and disconnection.

And this is where so many people say, “I keep doing everything I’m being told, and it’s just not working.” And I am going to follow up in just a couple of minutes with my favorite tips and tricks, my practicals and my tacticals on how to deepen connection with your audience. But you have to pay attention to what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling.

And personally, I love coming at deepening connection with my audience and deepening connection with my clients from the feeling line. That’s really what my love language is in the first place. And so if you are new here, the way that I coach is a tool called the model. The first line would be your circumstance, this is just a fact. In this instance, we’re talking about connecting with potential and current clients.

Now, your next line would be your thought. What you want to think about connecting with potential and current clients. What do you need to believe about attracting and connecting with potential people, deepening a connection with your audience? Because how you think is going to drive how you feel.

And we don’t want to be graspy and disconnected and needy and fearful, which is probably where most of us are starting, right? Because we want to attract as many people as possible. And we don’t want to be left behind and all these other fun thoughts that we’ve talked about in other episodes before.

And the reason we don’t want to feel that way is because those feelings are going to drive your actions. Now, you can take all of the practical and tactical tips I’m going to give you in just a minute. But if you’re taking those actions from a place of graspiness, and disconnection, and neediness, and fear, and doubt, it’s going to look very different than if you take them from an entirely different set of feelings that feel a hell of a lot better.

Because those actions are going to create your results that you have. But do you want your actions fueled by neediness and graspiness? Or do you want them fueled by connection, love, and presence? Because you’re going to get very different results and your results always verify what you were thinking to begin with.

So I find it easiest to come at this from how I want to feel. I know I don’t want to feel disconnected, graspy, needy. How do you want to feel? And I want you to actually take a moment right now, and unless you are driving in a car, in which you should definitely keep your eyes open, I want you to close your eyes for a moment and just imagine how you want to feel.

I want you to put two feet on the ground and drop your shoulders back just a little bit and breathe into your chest. And imagine yourself on a Zoom call with an ideal client and there is her face, and you’re coaching her powerfully. There’s so much connection between the two of you. And how does that feel in your body right now? Imagine a sensation of grounded, centered, firm and strong.

You’re going to want to define what this feeling is, and I’m going to throw a few feelings out to you right now. You’re going to want to pick what resonates with you. And it might actually be different than something that I share.

And this is the difference between having me in your ear with the podcast every week and having me in your head with weekly coaching. I can personalize it with you in Confident Coaches Mastermind, a little bit harder for me to do here on the podcast.

But from that grounded, centered, firm and strong, how do you want to feel? I personally, my favorite feeling is presence. I want to feel present. I have an ADD squirrel brain and it likes to bounce all over the place. So all I have to do is just remind myself, “Amy,” I just be present, “come back to center and be present with this person.”

Maybe focus works better for you. Maybe it’s love, curiosity. Maybe it is connected. But if you’re feeling present, focused, curious, love, connected, what would you be thinking in order to create that feeling?

Mine’s pretty simple. I just love this person so much. I just love my audience so much. I just love my people so much. That’s my thought feeling combination that gets me feeling very connected and allows me to take some of the next steps. I just love my people so much, I feel very present in that moment. And then I can follow through on the practical and tacticals.

But what’s going to create that for you? What’s going to work for you? I love my people so much. I’m the best coach for my ideal clients. I am capable and I can help them. There really is an endless number of thoughts that you could choose here. And I’m going to invite you to explore that outside of this podcast episode.

Think about how you really want to feel in your body and some different thoughts that might help you get there. Sit in the feeling of that thought. Don’t just think it and then go, “Yep, I feel connected,” and then jump right in. I’m going to invite you to actually slow down and stay there for a moment, really feel it in your bones. Get it out of your head and into your body.

And I’ve talked about this practice throughout the first 100 episodes of this podcast. It’s a skill that I teach inside Confident Coaches Mastermind. And that is how to actually sit in your belief. How to actually sit in your thoughts and feelings so that it’s not up there in the ethers and this isn’t just a checkbox that you’re doing. Like, “Yep, I thought the positive thought and yep, boop, I felt it. And now let’s go do this stuff.” But that you’re actually slowing down.

Here’s the thing, this practice honestly only takes a minute or two. And yet we will skip it. We will jump right over it, “Yep, I just love my people so much and I feel present. Now let’s get to work.” And no, I want you to be willing to slow down just a little bit more and really feel whatever your combination is in your body.

Say the thoughts out loud, breathe into it, allow it to drop out of your head. Say it out loud again and breathe into it again. And you want to do that cycle three to six times until you can really feel the sensation of that feeling grounded in your solar plexus, grounded in your core, in your gut. And then move into the actions of connection.

And, side note, I also want to invite you and point out your willingness to do everything that I just said, to be able to do it really shitty until you get much better at it. Because I know you. I know you. I know you people who struggle with feelings, those clients who come into CCM and they say right way, “I don’t know how to feel and I think this is going to be a real problem because you keep telling me I got to feel before I take action.”

So your willingness to sit in that thought and feeling combination and not be that great at it and maybe move on before it’s fully grounded, but at least it’s more than you used to do. I teach a concept called gradient models in Confident Coaches Mastermind. It’s a really simple concept, it’s basically the slightest shift in thinking and feeling creates more powerful actions and more powerful results.

You don’t have to have perfect thoughts and feelings to create better actions and results. You really just need to be willing to make a deeper internal connection than you have before, knowing that the more you do that, the better you’ll get at it. And you’ll get slightly better actions and results along the way.

Now, guys, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but at this point we’ve gotten to three and a half episodes talking about connecting more to sign more clients, and we haven’t even spoken to a single potential client yet. That’s what we’re getting ready to do.

Three and a half episodes on deepening connection across the board and we haven’t even made an offer yet. Because connecting with yourself, connecting with the world around you, and feeling this connection in your body will make making offers and connecting with your audience so much stinking easier.

Now the funny thing is, is that doesn’t mean you have to take four and a half weeks before you do anything. Just notice that we’re prioritizing taking care of you, taking care of your family, and sitting in this emotion and feeling for one to two minutes before you go and meet as many people as possible and tell them that you’re a coach and make offers to help them.

And this is where we get to the practicals and tacticals. This is where we get to the action line, what you can do action wise that will deepen your connection with your clients. So first and foremost, listen. What? That’s not action, Amy. Yeah, it is. It is action.

Listening, talking less and listening more. When you are meeting people, when you are engaged with them are you really listening to what they’re telling you? And not just listening to respond, but listening to really understand what they’re struggling with?

Are you listening in your client sessions? In the sessions that you actually do we have the clients that you do have? Are you holding space for them? Are you letting your desire to fill the air and fill the space because you think you have to razzle and dazzle your clients? Pay attention to that. Or are you really listening to what they’re saying and giving their brain space to reach their own conclusions while you are just holding space for them?

Are you listening to the struggles that they’re sharing with you? Or are you trying to tell them what you already know? Are you running the coaching session with an agenda? Are you listening to what they’re actually telling you is their problem and is how they’re thinking and feeling?

This is where we’re like be a human when you’re meeting people and you are making offers to help them. Be a human in your client and coaching sessions. Watch that desire to prove yourself, and maybe it’s possible that the way that you show yourself and your potential client that you understand is by listening to them and really holding space for them, so that you can understand what they’re struggling with.

This is where you are really practicing that feeling that we talked about just before, that feeling of presence, that feeling of curiosity, that feeling of love, that feeling of connection. When you’re really feeling that it makes listening to understand so much easier. And then you can take note, jot that shit down. I love keeping a notebook.

So I actually have an endless supply of notebooks that I use that I have at the ready for my coaching sessions. And I’m taking note of common thought errors that I hear. I’m taking note of the thoughts that they’re thinking, the feelings that they’re thinking, the actions that they’re thinking.

And then I’ll go back and I’ll make stars. So I will star during a client session of like, “Oh, this is a theme that keeps coming up again. This is something that my people seem to be struggling with.” Because I’m listening. I’m listening to understand I’m not listening to teach. I’m not listening to fill in the dead air.

It allows me to actually pay attention like this seems to be a theme that keeps coming up. This sounds like something that maybe I need to speak to. Make note of what you see people talking about on Facebook, what you hear people struggling with on Instagram. What you hear during networking events or anywhere else where you are meeting people and you are engaged with people as the life coach that you are.

Pay attention to what you’re hearing and you can absolutely make offers in those moments when you are engaged with people. And then also, you can build time into your week where you are running full models on what you have noticed. Take those thoughts that you heard, take those feelings that people were talking about, take those actions that they are telling you that you’re struggling with, and put them into that model format.

Circumstance, thought, feeling, actions, results. You only need one of those to fill a full model out. Spend some time looking at the models of your clients that they are currently struggling in. You’ll start to notice common thought errors. You’ll start to notice common feelings. You’ll start to notice common actions.

And as a little side note here, if your ideal audience is also who you used to be, as is frequently the case when it comes to us life coaches, you actually do know a lot more about what the rest of these models might look like, even if you’re just engaged in a networking conversation. You remember what it was like to think and feel and act that way. So use some of that knowledge that you have, if you are. That’s for those people who do coach people who are in a place where you used to be.

Remember some of your past models that you would have been in and that you would have engaged in. And then with those models, you can up-level your coaching. And this is where I was kind of jumping ahead of myself before. Create some results for those clients you don’t even have yet. Take those models that they are currently in and start solving for them outside of coaching sessions, this is some fabulous results ahead of time.

I love this concept called Gigi thinking that I teach my clients. It is the answer to the I don’t knows. It’s the answer to every time your brain goes “Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to help that client with. I don’t know how I’m supposed to coach them.” Yeah, you do.

Trust yourself that you know a heck of a lot more about helping your clients with these struggles. Ask yourself, what do I know about these struggles? How can I help my clients with these struggles that they have, outside of a coaching session and outside of a conversation?

Really challenge yourself to say, how would I coach somebody who has this struggle? What questions might I ask them? How might I help somebody who’s struggling with this? How can I help my clients that I’m getting results for already? How can I help them get those results even faster? Where am I holding their hand that maybe I don’t need to anymore? Where am I providing more support, and I’m actually not giving them more responsibility?

That was something that came up in the two day live event that was very powerful. And very uncomfortable in the moment that we were coaching on it. How can I help them get deeper results, faster results and deeper results? If they’re already getting results, how can I help them go even deeper than we ever have before?

And really see that when we’re running models based on what we’re hearing because we’re listening and we’re up-leveling our coaching and are challenging ourselves about what we know about that and how we can help people with that, that really helps deepen connections. Because then you take that challenge that you’ve given yourself and you turn that around. You start making more offers. You start engaging in new conversations, in a way where people are like, “Holy crap, that’s me.” Instead of just thinking, “Oh, that’s nice.”

You’ll start engaging with people more from a place of like voyeurism, “Holy shit, I think she’s got a camera in my house,” as opposed to just coach speak inspirational porn. You’ll create connection with people you’ve never met before when they read your email, when they see your post, or when they listen to you speak, or when they watch your reel because they’re going to be listening to what you’re saying. And you’re going to be talking so much more specifically than you ever have before.

And no, you’re not reading their mind. It’s just that you sat in that presence and that curiosity. Or whatever your feelings were that you wanted to create. You listened, you paid attention, you were a human being with the human beings that you are engaged with.

You made note, you paid attention. You took some time outside of engaging with them to actually think about those models that they are in and challenged your brain to solve for those models. And challenged your brain to come up with results ahead of time for them. That’s how you know your clients on a deeper level than ever before.

Now, you might still need some coaching on overcoming the discomfort of saying things you’ve never said before. You might need discomfort on your worry about naysayers or haters or people who say, “Hey, who the hell are you to talk about this thing?” You might need some coaching, some peer coaching sessions on how to make that offer more powerful. How to make that transition from, “I know what you’re struggling with, and I can help you and let’s get on the phone together.”

You might need some peer coaching or some group coaching sessions on removing any lingering layers of doubt from your engagement, from your conversations. And this is everything that we do every single week in Confident Coaches Mastermind.

It’s already so much easier to do that because of the deeper connections that you’ve made. Because you connected with self, because you connected with your community and you gave your brain a rest. Because you’ve learned how to get in the thought and feeling of connection with your clients before you’ve even engaged in conversation with them.

And because of that, your offers become way more powerful. And that leads to more consults, and that leads to more signed clients from those concepts, and more powerful results for the clients that you have.

All right, my friend? So find that thought feeling combination and get connecting with your people. I just love you guys so stinking much and until next week, let’s go fuck shit up.

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