Hey, you guys! Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited for today's episode. I feel like it's really building on what we talked about last week with renewals and referrals. I'm calling it Seven Lessons to Being Fully Booked, and it's a Little Optimistic. I wish it was as simple as applying seven things.
And you guys know, I think this whole industry is more nuanced than, “Do these five steps and get the result no matter who you are in three minutes!” Right? Like I know that you guys believe that success is possible, and I think I, unlike a lot of other people, am very conscious that it is not as simple as I think we would like it to be.
And yes, the title of this episode is very simple, and I know it's a little bit more complex when we apply it. And so I just wanna say it at the beginning because I want you to listen with ears to hear the things that matter to you and the things that you can apply that make sense. But to also not worry about getting it right, quote unquote, to be doing it perfectly or to do it the way that I did it.
And so like a lot of things, this is principles, these are lessons that hopefully serve you. And it is not a simple solution that always works. I wish that existed. I do think that building your coaching practice and becoming the coach that you wanna be happens as you evolve as a coach, and as you get experience and as you figure out what works for you. And so listen to this for how you can apply it in a way that works for you. Seven lessons to being fully booked.
Number 1. When in doubt, give. I think that's something that has always served me. I've been fully booked for my one-on-one for a long time, but even before I was fully booked and booking into the future and working with amazing clients and all the things that we talk about in this industry, I would just give a lot. I would do free calls, I would give in content. I really just follow up with people with love without pressure on the client. Whenever I felt doubt, whenever I didn't know what to do, I would just think of ways to give more.
And that has deeply served me because the coaching industry and the coaching career truly is based off of service to other humans. And so I think it's a beautiful business model. We can give in content. We can give by sharing resources with people. I know for me, I've sent books to people. I've sent podcast episodes to people that have never paid me.
I create content like this for free. I've given away my time when I was less busy, I would do a lot of free calls with people. And I didn't really expect anything in return, and that has come back tenfold. And so I just wanna encourage you, if you feel stuck or if you don't know what to do, think of ways to serve other people and I promise it will come back. I don't know exactly how, I don't know exactly when, but it will come back.
Number 2 is speak as if it's happening. This is something you train your mind and lips to do. It's easy to think you're just reporting the news when you're talking about your business not working, or that clients don't come or that clients don't get it. But one of most powerful things I can offer is that the more you speak things as if they are happening the way you want them to, the more they happen the way that you want them to.
So I used to think and say things like, I love that clients come to me from places known and unknown long before I was fully booked. I used to say things like, “My best clients reach out to me” way before that was ever actually true. I was thinking and speaking things into existence because there's three ways to create. We've talked about that on this podcast. There's our thoughts, our words, our actions, and all creation starts with our thoughts and our words.
So to create a client, you have to start speaking them and thinking them as if they're already here, as if it's already truth that they are reaching out to you. I know it sounds a little weird if you are not practiced at this, but it really will change your life when you start to speak things into existence.
And so, I would talk about my clients like they're the best. I love my clients. I love doing this work. When people would ask me how my coaching business was, I would always say, “It's such a gift. I'm so grateful I get to do this work,” regardless of how many clients I had or didn't have. I think that was really helpful for me because it helped me be in the miracle of what a coach means.
We are not entitled to clients. We are not entitled to a certain amount of revenue, no matter how much you've invested or how much time you've spent in the industry. And so I think being grateful for it and speaking that out loud, it really helps you be a match for more great things to come. And so if you've been speaking things like my clients just don't get what I do. My clients are cheap. They just don't buy coaching. Just notice that is what you're creating.
With love, I want you to see this. Not with judgment. I don't want you to feel called out, but really this is where it starts, is the way that we think and speak our clients. And so for me, this was something that I was doing years before my reality was what it is now, right? Where it's like fully booked. I don't really struggle for one-on-one clients anymore. And even though I still take them, and I still love doing one-on-one work, I'm at a different place than I used to be, but the thoughts are the same
And that's really powerful to see for me, reflecting back that I believed this long before it ever came about. And now it's just my dominant thought, so it is my dominant reality. But it starts with our thinking. So speak as if it's happening. Speak your business, speak your clients into existence.
Number 3 is remember the power of renewals. I talked about this in my podcast episode last week, but I really feel like this is such a beautiful part of the coaching business is that you can keep working with people for years and you can grow with people not from a codependent place, but truly from an expansion and evolution place where as you evolve and they evolve, it still makes sense to work together for a lot of people, not everyone.
And what I found is the more renewals I have, the more predictable my business got, in the one-on-one sense. And that is a beautiful place to get fully booked from. When you have people resigning over and over again, it takes less effort to stay fully booked or to sign clients because how you're signing clients is actually just keeping clients.
And so I wish I really understood the power of renewals when I was a newer coach and to lead those conversations powerfully back in the day, like I talked about in the last episode.
Number 4 is make conversations a priority. In a world of content, I love content, but content is like step one. And conversations is the most powerful step in creating a one-on-one client. And so if you want more one-on-one clients, have more conversations with real people, invite people to conversations with you, sell quote unquote conversations with you on your social media, to your email list, talk to people in your real life, invite people to do free sessions with you.
Whatever it takes. Schedule more conversations because those are the kinds of things that do lead to clients, or referrals, right? Maybe the person you're talking to isn't your ideal client, but they know someone who is. The only way that they could feel safe enough to refer you or to share you with a friend is to really feel and experience you.
And so I think the more conversations you have, the more likely you are to be signing one-on-one clients. In fact, you might do this exercise and just jot down how many conversations have you had in the last month, and how many clients did you sign? I know for me, the more private, powerful conversations I have with people, the more one-on-one clients I sign.
And so my job description gets really fun and really simple. Talk to people, let people experience me as a coach. When people talk to me, their life changes. And so I want to be talking to people. In fact, if you have to choose, I would pick a conversation over content any day, cuz that's how we create these one-on-one clients.
And so for you and whatever you're thinking through in your business. How can you have more conversations? How can you have more powerful conversations? How can you get in rooms with people you'd love to speak to? Those are the kinds of things that you wanna consider. Not necessarily, how do I go viral?
I have a pretty small audience compared to a lot of people, but I make a lot of money because I know what matters. I know the things that move the needle in my business and I don't get distracted. Talking to people is absolutely one of my non-negotiables. I care about people and I nurture relationships really well over time, and that comes first more than content.
Content is a way to take care of people. I do think it's a way for me to stay connected. I do think it's a way for me to serve, but I don't prioritize it over having conversations with real people. So that is definitely something that helped me get fully booked and stay fully booked.
Number 5 is give people experiences of working with you. I don't resonate with people who teach to overcome objections and to not coach on consult calls, because for me, I want to experience my coach coaching me. And so I wanted to give that experience to my clients where this is how I coach.
These are the things that you're gonna experience when you work with me. And I don't want you to know it in theory, I want you to know it experientially. I want you to feel it. I want you to experience it so that you know exactly what it's gonna be like when we do work together. So I do coach people if they ask me to.
And what I mean by ask me to is they signed up for a consult or they wanted to talk about working together. I do coach them with love and with authenticity because I don't know how people could really understand what I do without experiencing what I do. In fact, on my little website where you book a consult with me, I'd say something like, “The only way for me to explain what I do is for you to experience it. I can't wait to chat.”
And I remember writing that and I was like, this is pretty true. Because it's hard to put a one-sentence explanation of what I do. It's hard to really let people know the depth that I go with my clients, with words because it is experienced, not discussed. And so I think part of our work is to get experiences of coaching for people.
If you have more time than you want, if you'd rather have more clients, fill that time with conversations and coaching people. Coach people for free. Coach people for short time - 20 minutes. Coach people for an hour. Just make offers to coach. That really served me in the beginning of my business.
And now my conversations with potential clients are usually even in paid containers. And that works too. A lot of my clients come from my group programs now or from conversations with me. From masterclasses or whatever. So I do get that interaction. It might not be like the official consult. I think that still counts. You want people to just experience you doing your work in a way that resonates for them.
The next thought I have is, so Number 6 is I wrote down long term versus short term. I've always played the long game and it has deeply served me. I do not look at people as transactions.
I don't enter a room and think, who's my next client? Who can I sign next? I really look at people as complete, like they are good. No one needs a coach, at least at the level that I coach at. And so I don't wanna operate from, “You need to hire me.” It's, “Do you want to work together? And if not now, that's okay.”
I'm still gonna nurture the relationships so that if you're ever ready, I'm there for you and you know where to find me. That's how I operate in my relationships. For the long run. Because long run feels way more authentic and true to who I want to be than like a short-term payday.
And that sounds lame when I say it like that, but I think a lot of times, at least what I see online is coaches want that short-term win. And they sacrifice long-term relationships. One of the things that's always been important for me is that I have relationships with my clients beyond our container together. That means that they would feel comfortable celebrating a win with me a year after we worked together.
That they're comfortable liking my photos on social media without a fear of me reaching out to them trying to get them back into my world. That they feel like if they saw me on the street, they'd come up and give me a hug. That's okay. And for me, it feels better to do it this way, but it's also why I got into coaching, right?
I wanted to experience that long-term relationship with people so I could see their growth so that I could be invested in their life. And so, I'm okay if a potential client stays a potential client for a long time. I'm not in a rush. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just doing my thing. And when they're ready, they will let me know.
And I really believe that. And when we get into the trap of short-term thinking, I think sometimes we sacrifice our values like we overwork or we say things that we don't mean or we put false pressure on our clients to say yes when it feels out of integrity. And so when you have the choice to make a short-term win or a long-term win, I think the best thing to do is to choose the long-term win. I think that feels better. I think it works better, and I think it's sustainable.
Number 7. I want my clients to want to work together. So my whole mission, and this is what we're gonna spend most of the rest of the podcast talking about, is how do I create space for that to happen? How do I create a space for people who want to work with me?
Not coercion, not persuasion. It's like truly giving people the space to say, “I want to work with you.” There is no element of urgency or scarcity to make that happen for one-on-one. And I think my clients would even agree with this. I really give them a lot of space to make a decision and I don't try to persuade them.
And some people would say that's not a good sales advice. And they might be right, but I think if you have to convince someone to work with you in the beginning, that feeling doesn't go away. And it's almost like you spend your whole coaching relationship convincing them that you're supposed to coach them.
And I don't like that. And I don't think my clients like it either. And it doesn't serve the relationship that we're trying to have or the results that we're trying to create. And so I really think in the beginning we have to give our clients the space to want to work together. That includes risking that they don't want to work together, and that's okay.
A few episodes back, I talked about universal laws and the law of detachment. I feel like this really comes into play. If you give people the space to want to work together, that means they could also say, “I don't want to work with you.” And if you're detached from that, it's okay. You're just gonna go about your life and your business and keep creating.
I would never let myself be attached to a singular person becoming my client. Let's say my client's name is Ashley, and I'm really wanting to work with Ashley. If I'm obsessed with making her my client, one, it feels really icky, right? Like no one wants to feel that from their coach. “I really wanna work with you. Say yes.”
Not that my clients don't think I want to work with them. I do, but I'm not attached to it happening. Because the moment we're attached, the moment we need something to work, Rich Litvin says, “Needy is creepy”, right? We are blocking our ability to serve and our ability to give our clients space to choose.
And so I always wanna give my clients the space to really choose to work together without persuasion, without false timelines, without false urgency from me, so that it sets up our relationship and the container in which we'll work together for success for the long run. Because the clients who want coaching do incredible things.
Clients who desire coaching, who don't need it, who don't feel persuaded to get it, who don't feel like they have to, who want to are coachable. They show up and are ready to do the work. They have excellent conversations. They apply things quickly, and those are the kinds of people that I wanna work with. And so for me, in the beginning, that was not a thing, I really felt like I had to sign clients. It was almost like this frantic energy. And I know I repelled people in that phase of my life and business. Now it's like I really give people the space. I really believe my clients are geniuses and that if they wanna work together, they will reach out to me.
And that started with my thinking and my words, and now it really is my reality where I'm constantly getting people asking me about coaching. I rarely rarely promote it or talk about it publicly. And I think that's a beautiful thing because it just feels like a clean space to sign a client from where it really is their idea and desire to have you in their life.
And it's not your desire to sign a client that causes the relationship. And so when I think through that, it's yes, like I wanna give my client space. I wanna trust their timing. I wanna create situations where they don't need to say yes this moment. I'm responsible for making money in my business for sure, but I'm not gonna persuade or coerce someone in order to get my goals.
That's something that I'm not willing to do. And so I just wanted to offer that because for a lot of people, I think they wanna keep their ethics. They wanna keep their values. And then we're taught principles of marketing and there's this disconnect. I would never sell urgency and scarcity if it wasn't real.
In one-on-one, it's not real unless I truly don't have space. And that's happened more recently where I actually don't have space for clients and I just let them know they could start a month or two later. But that doesn't feel manipulative to me because it's true. And so I think, when in doubt, tell the truth.
And if it doesn't feel good, I would pay attention. Are the things that you're saying to potential clients, do they feel good to you? And if they don't, maybe there's something to look at there. I think part of our work is to really not be afraid of not signing clients. I think the less afraid you are, the more creative you'll be, the more real human you'll be.
The more you'll be able to see people in their power and trust them, which is what coaches are supposed to do anyway, right? We really are supposed to believe in people. That is our job description, at least part of it. And so the more you can do that before they hire you, the more they're gonna really see what that could look like in a paid container together.
And I think all of this really hinges on my belief that people have their own agency. And it's not that I don't sell. Because I do invite and I let people know what I see. And I let people know what I really believe is possible and how I can help them. But at the end of the day, I really give them the space to make a powerful decision because that has to be the beginning of a powerful coach relationship.
They have to be able to make powerful decisions, including a powerful decision to work with me. And if I trust people, which I do, I give them the space to choose. And if they still don't choose me, that's okay. There's plenty of other people for me to go and serve. And so I've never been attached to a singular person saying yes for my business to work. And I think that has really served me over the years.
So just to recap what we talked about, seven lessons to being fully booked. When in doubt, give. Number 2, speak as if it's happening. Number 3, understand the power of referrals and lead that conversation really powerfully. Make conversations a priority. Number 5, give people experiences of working together instead of just the concept of working together.
Number 6, long-term thinking. Don't try to be transactional. Really see the long-term benefit of creating relationships and nurturing them over long periods of time. I promise it is worth it. And then number 7, let your clients want to work together and give them the space to make a powerful decision.
I feel like these things have helped me be fully booked in a way that feels so good, that allows me to live my life and have so much fun along the way. I don't feel a lot of anxiety about signing clients, and I really think that it started one, with me speaking things into existence and learning to trust people.
If I had to sum it up into a really simplified way of saying it. And this might feel hard depending on where you're at in business. If you want to be fully booked and you aren't. It can seem like this is very ethereal and there wasn't a lot of tangible stuff, and I get that.
But that goes back to number one, when you don't know what to do, serve other people. If you want to be prosperous, help someone else be prosperous. If you want to feel powerful, help someone else feel power. If you want to feel happy, help someone else feel happy. Like that is the mission of a coach. We help people get what they want in life.
And it's funny, the shortest path to get what you want in life is to help other people get what they want in life. I really believe that. And so all of these lessons is about you doing your work in the world in a way that let’s other people opt in to working with you. And I feel like that just paves the way for a beautiful coach-client relationship.
So I hope this was helpful. I hope you get something that will help you get fully booked if you already are fully booked, I hope this was a refresher for you. Okay, I'll talk to you in another episode. Bye.
