Ep #18: Making Offers with Confidence

You are listening to episode 18 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you become a compelling coach who feels confident making offers.

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 my confident squad. How are all of you out there? The Latta fam, we’re doing so good. I have to be honest. Business is good, my clients are doing some of the most amazing things, the handsome hubby is happy, the kids are thriving. I mean, sure, there’s a possible coronavirus pandemic happening out there right now, but seriously, let’s all just remember that life is still really damn good.

And I am no scientist in any way, shape, or form, so I’ve just told all my friends, all my family, even my 13 and 11-year-old boys who do not understand this at all, let’s all just remember to wash our hands like you got a hand stamp at the club last night and mama can’t find out. That’s what we’re doing around here. That’s what’s keeping me sane so that we can talk about what we still can do and need to be doing from day in and day out, and that is being the amazing life coaches that we are, right?

So I’m super excited about today’s podcast episode because it’s work that I’ve been doing with my clients for about a week and a half, the past couple of weeks now, and now I’m going to be sharing it all with you. But just a quick reminder before we dive in about my upcoming birthday.

I mean, did you listen to last week’s podcast episode where I might have mentioned my birthday is coming up? And what I asked for for my present from all of you, which is have you left a review for The Confident Coaches Podcast yet? We’re up to 81 reviews for this podcast, which is so fabulous. Like, for real. I’m so grateful for the 81 of you who have already left a review.

But let’s make it 100, shall we? I mean, wouldn’t that just be fun? And I’m nothing if not fun, right? And this fun woman is going to be 46 years old on April 10th. And I would love to celebrate with 100 reviews for this podcast, which I pour so much love into for you all each week, right?

I’m not meaning to sound guilt-mom here on you or anything like that. I didn’t mean for that to come across that way, but it might have, but still, I do love you all. This is all I’m asking for in return. So if you’re listening right now, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts. Yes you, even my dear Android listeners. You can do this on your computer.

And I will totally send out all my good vibes your way. All my good healthy vibes coming out to you. I might even read your review on the air. And let’s do that right now. So shout-out to Confident Coaches listener Amber Thomas, who wrote this review.

“Amy’s podcast is incredible. She’s spot on with her thoughts and action steps. Her stories are real and raw. You can tell she’s genuine and sincere about helping others. It is clear her bigger picture is to empower others to make positive impacts. I can’t wait for more episodes as her story is one I will continue to follow as I have tremendous respect for the way she’s building her dream. Thank you, Amy, for allowing us to see the inner workings and for creating a safe place for action, celebration, fear, and failure.”

Thank you. That was an awesome review, Amber. Thank you for being awesome. Thank you for sharing that feedback because what you just described was exactly what I was hoping to create when I decided to launch this podcast. And that’s actually how we’re going to dive into today’s episode.

Because when I first let the public know that I was launching a podcast, I invited my early adopters to a podcast interest list. Basically, sign up for this list, you’re going to get a little bonus from me, and I have a built-in launch team. But I also took that as an opportunity to learn what life coaches just like you are struggling with the most.

So I was able to reach out and make personal contact to everybody that was on the podcast interest list, asking them what they wished they felt more confident for, what they thought their struggles were. And one that came up so much, and it comes up so often in my coaching sessions with my current clients and past clients at some point or another is, “How can I feel more confident making offers?”

I get asked this all the time. So let’s be really clear by what I’m talking about, if you’re not familiar with that language, making offers. Making offers is you offering to help another person by coaching with you. Making offers is selling your life coaching services to another human being. There are a ton of ways to make offers, and in fact, I created a list of ways that I make offers with my clients a couple of weeks ago and I’m going to share that list with you at the end of this podcast.

Let’s talk about feeling more confident to actually make those offers first. Remember, the action of making an offer isn’t nearly as important as the thoughts and the feelings that come before the offer itself.

And as we have talked about from the beginning of this podcast, the secret to feeling more confident in anything is your willingness to create purposeful belief behind it, embrace the discomfort of it, be your own mentor and ask what she would do, have your own back when things don’t quite work out the way that you want, and learn to evaluate what you’re doing so that you can keep going.

The five steps to self-confidence still completely apply here as far as making offers. But when it comes to feeling more confident about making offers, we also need to be talking about becoming more compelling. Compelling to the person you’re making an offer to. You want your offer to be compelling. Why does this person want to give you their email address?

They get enough email. They may not even open emails they already get. They’re tired of spam emails and emails from people always wanting to sell them something. So why should they open up your email and read it? Why does this person want to read your blog post? There’s so much information coming at them all day long. No one wants to “check out your latest blog post.”

Why should they click that link and go read it? Or even if you’ve posted it just directly on Facebook, why should they continue to read? What are you sharing with them right out of the gate that makes them want to read the next paragraph and the next paragraph and the next paragraph?

Why would this person want to listen to your podcast, Amy? I mean, you could be watching TV or watching a funny cat video or reading a book on Audible or listening to 100 other different podcasts. They don’t want to just give my new episode a listen. I have to give them a compelling reason to want to listen.

Why does this person want to get on the phone with you? Listen, the last thing modern humans want to do is talk to a stranger on the phone. Why do they want to take 20, 30, or 60 minutes out of their time to talk to you about life coaching?

Now, hold on. Before y’all go and jump off a cliff like, “Amy’s right, no one wants my shit, no one wants anything I have to offer,” that’s not what I’m saying at all. People want your offer in general if they understood what was possible for them if they took you up on it. But we, promoting our own stuff, get caught typically into two traps when making offers.

We’re either too in love with our own shit, or we aren’t in love with it enough. Sometimes we’re a little of both, right? Sometimes we really know we’re a great writer but we’re not sure we’re a great person on video, so we might be a little more in love with one of those things but maybe not another. Maybe you just aren’t in love with any of your stuff. Maybe you’re over in love with all of your stuff.

This is a spectrum here and you may fall in both camps or either camps. But the first trap is being a little too in love with your stuff. Like listen, we should love our shit. We think we’re sharing genius information and that people would be lucky to coach with us. And the reason this is a trap is because then we can be like, hey, I wrote something genius so click on the link.

Like, the sheer act of you making them an offer should be enough for them to want to take you up on it. Listen, that is possible for some people, but I want to offer you that that only comes after years of making offers. Most of my mentors are to the point that thousands of people would take them up on any offer just because they’re offering it.

Oh, you want me to jump through hoops and count backwards from 127 at the same time and pay you $25,000 for the privilege? Sure, perfect, where do I sign up? I’ll do it. Like, I hate to break it to you folks, but that isn’t us. That isn’t you. We have not earned the right to just say hey, I’m offering something and have thousands of people clamor for it just because we made the offer.

That’s certainly not me yet. And because that’s not me yet, I don’t beat myself up, I don’t sit here wishing that it was me because remember, everything that I’m thinking is driving how I’m feeling, and that’s going to depend on how I show up. So if I’m wallowing in any kind of self-pity, and I wish this were easier, and I wish it could be as easy as so-and-so over there, we’re never going to get to the place where we are learning how to make our compelling offers.

I spend a ton of my time thinking about why the person that I’m sending this to or talking to or posting to would want to take the time out of their day, precious time out of their day to do the thing that I am asking them to do. And you should be doing this also. Getting into their head.

So when I created my current freebie that I offer in Facebook ads and on my website, I know that I am sharing three secrets about confidence that life coaches have likely never heard of or considered. It is truly not well-worn information. For so many people, they’ve never heard it before, and even if they have heard it before, they’ve definitely not heard it in the way that I’m presenting it.

And I know that just that one value video can light a spark under someone’s butt and help their business take off. I know that. But they don’t. And I want them to give me their email address in exchange for watching that. How do they know that it’s not well-worn? How do they know that it has the possibility of lighting a spark under their butt?

So I have to go into their head. Not my head who already knows that it’s awesome, but their head. Remember, everybody has self-fulfilling prophecy models going on. Everybody has a thought and a feeling that’s driving all of their actions. And right now, their actions is not taking you up on your offers. So what are their thoughts and feelings that has them not taking you up on their offers?

If you got out of your head and into theirs, you could gain some insight into what thoughts that they are struggling with, and understanding what thoughts they are struggling with, what would they need to think so that they do the thing that you are asking them to do? What would make that ad copy of my Facebook ad so compelling that they’re thinking, I can’t not click on this link, I can’t not give her my email address. I have to hear what’s in this video that she’s offering me.

And I spend time thinking about the subject lines of my emails. Remember, they get tons of emails a day. What would make that subject line so compelling they can’t not open it when they see it in their inbox? I do weekly Facebook Lives. And when that Live is over, I spend time rewriting the description of the Facebook Live, telling them what’s waiting for them inside.

They don’t just want to watch me because I’m on there. I mean, maybe some people do, but most people don’t. Let’s just be really honest. Most people are not as in love with our stuff as we are. So I need to write a compelling description, giving just enough away that they want to know more. I do this by being thoughtful and intentional and always thinking in my head, what would make this description so compelling they can’t not click on that video and watch?

The same goes with making offers to get on the phone with me for a consultation call. I know that call will transform their lives. I’ve had people tell me that phone call alone created a shift, whether they decided to work with me or not.

But the fact is no one wants to talk on the phone with a stranger. I mean, do you blame them? Do you want to talk on the phone with a stranger? I don’t even want to call my doctor’s office to make an appointment that I need to make. You want me to schedule a phone call and show up for that phone call with a stranger so that you can sell me something that is probably going to cost thousands of dollars? No thanks. I’m out.

I mean, if you think about it, it’s kind of a tough sell, and yet we’re sitting here going, “I don’t understand why no one’s getting on the phone with me.” Because we haven’t made it compelling enough. So when I talk about that consult call, I am always brainstorming and trying out new ways to convey what’s possible for them in that call.

What could I offer them where they’re thinking, “I can’t not schedule one.” What would make what I write or what I say about that consult call so compelling they can’t not sign up? And our work is not even over there. They still have to show up for the call, right?

So scheduling a call with me is not necessarily a done deal, especially if it’s someone brand new who doesn’t know me very well, so I send a reminder email and I text a personal video to their cellphone, thinking what would make these communications so compelling they can’t not answer the phone when I call?

So it’s not that no one will ever give you their email address or read your shit or watch your video or schedule or show up for a call. It’s that they’re only going to do that if your offer to do so is so compelling to them they can’t not do it. Now, I’m going to circle back to that in just a moment, but I want to make sure I cover the other trap that we fall into, which is not loving our stuff enough.

And when we do this, we get so damn quiet in our offers that no one knows what we’re even asking them to do. I definitely did this when I was a brand-new coach. I was like, “Um, hey guys, hi, hi, hi, it’s Amy. I don’t mean to bother you but I wrote this thing and maybe you might find it useful so here you go.”

I mean, I know not everybody falls into that trap, but I will fully disclose it’s totally how I used to post my stuff. Or like, “Hi, hi, Amy again, hi, it’s me. I’m offering a free mini session and if you think that you might want to do one of these maybe sometime, just let me know, okay? Alright, thanks, bye.”

Like, “Hi, yeah, I don’t mean to bother you but I have this thing you might maybe want. Maybe. I don’t know, maybe not, but here you go.” They have no idea what the thing is, right? And they have no idea what to do with the thing because you’re not telling them. And you’re not sticking out in the very crowded field on social media, full of political posts and funny cat video and cute dog pictures and like quizzes to find out what kind of bread you are.

So not only do you have to make it so compelling, like, what’s in it for them, why can they not not do this thing, why can they not not sign up. You got to tell them exactly what to do and why it’s awesome. Do they need to click something? Do they need to schedule something? Are they supposed to enter their email? Tell them that. Make it so obvious.

Click here. Use arrows if you need to. Tell them, click here to read more about this. Click here to watch more of the video. Enter your email address here. Be so specific that there’s no question as to what you’re asking them to do. And the other thing that we got to do is we got to offer it again and again and offer it again and then some more.

Remember my friends, funny cat videos and cute puppy dogs are fighting for their attention. And as soon as they find out what kind of bread they are, they’re going to want to go find out while Golden Girl they are. They got a lot of stuff fighting for their attention so they may not have even seen your first 17 offers.

And even then, they may not register exactly what you’re offering them for another seven times. And then even then, they might forget. True story. Like, last fall, I did a bunch of Christmas shopping online at Old Navy and I earned some Old Navy super cash. And damn it, if Old Navy did not email me every single day to remind me to use it.

And then even the last few days, they emailed me multiple times a day to remind me to use it. This was literally cash. Free cash, friends. And I still woke up that Monday morning, the day after it expired, thinking, “Damn it. I forgot to use my Old Navy cash.” We are either so sure it’s obvious they want the thing or we’re so timid in our offers, and our people don’t even realize what is waiting for them on the other side.

So even when – for me, I knew what was waiting for me. I had like, $30 in free money to spend at Old Navy on anything I wanted and I didn’t remember to do it. So even a really compelling offer, people can still forget. So we have to keep showing up and offering it.

Okay, so making a compelling offer is still something that we do on an action line. And if y’all been paying attention, you have to address your thoughts and your feelings beforehand. So, so far we’ve covered the two traps that we can get into, that we are not conveying why this is so compelling and why they can’t not do the thing, and to make sure that we are telling them exactly what to do and to make sure that we are doing that over and over and over and over again.

And now it’s time to address our thoughts and our feelings about all of this, and it starts with this. Do you believe you have something of value to offer? You’re offering life coaching, right? Maybe it’s for a specific group of people or a specific problem, but do you believe that life coaching is valuable and that’s what you’re offering them?

Do you believe that people want what you have to offer, that there are people who would love a solution to their problem? You are offering life coaching that is a solution to their problem, and they want a solution to their problem. Do you believe that?

Do you believe that they’re waiting for you to offer it, that there are people who know this is a thing and would love to see your offer, they would love to see your posts, they would love to have a conversation with you, they would love to watch your video, they would love to have you come across their radar and think, oh my goodness, this is the solution I have been waiting for, even if it’s a solution they don’t know currently exists?

But your post is going to tell them. Your conversation is going to tell them. So I’m going to share with you the thought that I personally practiced over and over again that kind of summarizes everything that I just shared with you right there that I practiced so much until it became a solid belief. So feel free to borrow this. Absolutely make it your own and put it into your words.

And here is the thought that I practiced over and over again. I have something of value to offer and my ideal client is waiting for me to offer it. And then what I did is I practiced sitting in the belief of that thought and how that thought feels in my body. How does it feel in your body? Confident? Certain? Committed?

I mean, only you can know for sure, but practice sitting in your version of that thought and let it sink into your bones. Practice doing that and then practice taking action every day. I’m going to get to that in just a second. But before, one last thing about compelling and becoming a compelling coach.

You’re not going to be great at it at first. Becoming a compelling coach is a skill and skills take practice. You’re only going to get better at it by doing it. There’s no shortcut. There’s no workaround to this. If you’re waiting for me to give you a workaround, I’m going to break it off hard right here and tell you, there’s no workaround to this. You have to actually take the steps every single day.

We’ve practiced the thought, you’re going to practice sitting in the belief. I’ve talked about the traps that you’ve gone through, but at some point, you’re going to actually have to do the thing. Study how your mentors are doing it. See if you can find what makes their offers compelling. Try different phrases. And if something isn’t working, try something else.

The confidence isn’t going to come by sitting in your office and thinking about making offers. The confidence is going to come by making the offers. It’s going to come because you’re practicing the overall five steps and you’re taking the action and you’re learning from them.

Friends, we don’t learn how to drive a car by practicing driving while sitting on the couch. You got to pull out onto the road. You got to get in the car. You got to turn the car on. Okay, so this is your work, my friend. A couple of weeks ago I challenged all of my clients to making an offer a day.

Make an offer every day. At least Monday through Friday. The goal was not to hit a home run every time. It’s to build the muscle of making offers and thus feeling more confident at making offers. And I am offering that challenge to you. Commit right now to making an offer a day for the rest of the month. You have nothing to lose and only confidence and clients to gain.

Do this challenge with me. Do it with my clients. Post your updates on Facebook and Instagram, add the hashtag, #anofferaday and tag @iamamylatta. It’s so fun, right? We’re all going to be doing this together. Alright, and so as I promised you, let me share this list of offers that you can make.

You don’t have to do all of them. You can just choose a few. Pause and rewind and write these down as needed, or just write down the ones that stick out. If you’re off driving right now, just listen to the list and make a mental note to come back and jot a few down. Remember, there’s no wrong way to do this. You don’t have to do all of these. You can just pick a handful, it’s totally up to you.

And so what you’re doing here is you’re offering people to get on the phone to talk about how you can help them, and on that call, offering them to coach with you. Alright, so I’ve divided these up into a couple different categories.

These are in-person offers. You can host your own workshop. You can attend networking events. Attend meet and greets. Attend meetups, Eventbrite events, attend happy hours. Attend friend parties. Wine nights, Pampered Chef parties, trivia nights. Any place your ideal client convenes. The line at Target, while waiting for your coffee at Starbucks.

Online offers. You can offer on your website or a landing page. You can do Facebook posts on a personal page. You can do Facebook posts on a business page. You can do a Facebook Live video. You can do a recorded video that you upload to Facebook. You can do a free live training. Maybe a one-day live training or a three-day live training or a five-day live training on Facebook. You can create a Facebook ad. You can host a live webinar. You can do any of those Facebook items on Instagram or on LinkedIn.

Okay, so here are some funnel/email offers. You can create a freebie that you have offered people to sign up for in-person or online, such as the value video that I offer, or maybe a downloadable PDF or a quiz. You can then create an email sequence. Maybe three to four emails they receive after the freebie and you can make an offer in each of those emails.

You can send weekly emails to the people whose email address that you’re collecting. You can send individual emails to those people in addition to the ones you’re already sending them. Send emails to the people who open the most but you’ve never heard from. Send an email to people who never open it. You can send a personal email to every single person after they join. Just for fun and to say hi.

You can send emails to your network, what I mean by that is people who are not already on your list but may be in your circle. You can send a how you doing email to an old client. You can send emails to maybe your no-shows. These are people that scheduled a call but never showed up. You can send emails to old consults. People who maybe told you no. Circle back around. Send them an email. You can email out the webinar that you just did. You can email out the Facebook Live that you posted.

Alright, and lastly, we have the phone offers. You can text a video to people who have signed up for a consult. You can send a text to old clients. You can text to your no-shows. You can text people in your network. You could pick up the phone and call any of the above. Side note, out of everything that I just listed, the phone call was the very last thing.

So many people think, “I don’t want to cold call.” You’re not cold calling. One of the most important things to remember when you’re making an offer is that you want to tell people that you are a life coach and then you want to be a human. You want to listen to them, hear what they’re saying, and then make an offer to help them if it’s appropriate.

I guarantee the list that I shared is not exhaustive. I’m sure there’s so many more that I didn’t even think of or that I’ve done in the past that I’m not even remembering. You don’t have to use them all. So repeat after me. I have something of value to offer and my ideal client is waiting for me to offer it.

Now, go make an offer and do that every day for the rest of the month. Post your updates on Facebook and Instagram. Don’t forget to #anofferaday. Don’t forget to tag me @iamamylatta. I cannot wait to read your fails and your successes. Alright my friends, until next week. 

Friends, I am so excited to offer you a podcast-only treat. I am sharing with you the five-day Unblock Your Confidence mini course. It is only available to The Confident Coaches Podcast listeners and the only way to get your hands on it is right here. Why do you need this course?

Well, in this five-day mini course, you will learn why it seems like you struggle with confidence when others don’t, how to build trust in yourself, how to get over your fear of failure, how to stop caring so damn much what other people think, and the best thing you can do to unblock your confidence today.

All of that in just five days. This is some of my best work waiting for you. Visit www.amylatta.com/unblockconfidence to get yours. Again, that’s www.amylatta.com/unblockconfidence. Go now and get started today.  

Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at www.amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.