5 Reasons You’re Attracting the Wrong Clients, and How to Fix It!

Hey Friend!

Today, we are talking about attracting the wrong clients. Clients that don’t show up, don’t do their homework, quit on themselves and you… Guess what? There’s a REASON.

Today, we are talking about attracting the wrong clients. Clients that don’t show up, don’t do their homework, quit on themselves and you… Guess what? There’s a REASON. Grab a notebook and pen as I share 5 reasons you might be attracting the wrong coaching clients, and how to fix it!

If you have it on your heart to coach yet find yourself discouraged with the quality of client you’re attracting, this one is for you. Coaching can be so fulfilling and fun if you structure it in the right way. Dream clients can become a very real reality!

I pray this blesses you.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):
Hi, Stef! This is Heidi Bramm from the Covered Beloved podcast and Biblical Weight Loss blueprint. I just wanted to share some love and let you know that I launched my 12-week program and I’m having an amazing beta group experience.

(00:12):
I just wanna honor you and thank you for saying yes to your calling so I could say yes to mine. Podcast Pro University and Podcast to Profit were huge factors in my success. I don’t want fluffy. What I want and need is streamlined, focused, and effective and gets me results.

(00:27):
And that clarity and confidence I’ve gained working with you and your model has allowed me to step out and create solutions in areas where God wants others to set free. So since taking P2P exactly one year ago, I’ve grown my super fan number by 234%.

My Facebook group has grown by over 200% and I’m currently launching my second beta group and will have gone from a $2,600 launch my first time around to over 6,000 this second time.

(00:54):
Can’t wait to see what He does this year as I keep growing and fine tuning. I still have it in my heart to take P2P again now that I’ve had more experience and know a little bit more about my person. I just wanna thank you, Stef, so much for your heart to see others succeed.

(01:07):
And for laying it all on the table. You are His beloved and He is so proud of you. I just see His eyes lighting up as He’s smiling at you. And I just need you to know that you are highly favored and blessed to be a blessing. Have a great rest of your day.

(01:20):
I just came up in here in my office up on a Sunday to record y’all’s Tuesday episode and Heidi’s testimony dropped into my SpeakPipe. And I’m sitting here, laughing and crying, cuz it’s so good, Heidi.

(01:37):
I am so happy for you. Listen to that growth, girl, and hitting a 6K launch. Won’t He do it? Send people free up in here. I am so excited for you. Keep blessing the women that you are called to serve, Heidi!

(01:54):
And friends, if you want to have that type of momentum, did you hear what Heidi did? She took the courses. She took Podcast to Profit, and then she implemented, she put her head down and she got to work. Heidi took coaching. She took that initiative and she actually put it into play.

(02:13):
Didn’t look up and stayed the course. And now 234% growth, 200% growth, 6K launches. That is the type of incredible success stories that are coming out of P2P. And that was one short year ago that she finished that program.

(02:28):
So if it’s on your heart to walk out that same journey, I want you to know that we have a flash sale coming up. Start with Clarify Your Calling, move into PPU, and then into the next round of Podcast to Profit.

Save 20% off this Thursday and Friday only because I believe it’s your time, it is the moment for you. This pivotal moment in time, when you are called to figure out what your purpose work is, lock into an evergreen model, such as podcasting and start blessing the world with your gifts.

(03:05):
So 20% off, it’s starting on Thursday. You’re gonna head right back here to get your coupon code, or you’re gonna get on my email list, cuz you’re gonna be the first to know you guys are gonna get a sneak peek and get early access. So you can do that at stefaniegass.com.

(03:18):
Get ready to launch into the summer, knowing what you do, having the five pillars of your brand, title, tagline, description, avatar creation, all the content ideas you could possibly need. Then moving into Podcast Pro University, launching that show, getting it going.

So that you can finally do this work and do it for the glory of Him. I can wait. So I’ll see you over in the courses on Thursday. Now let’s dig into this incredible question all-around how to stop attracting the wrong clients.

(04:48):
Hi Stefanie. This is Christie. I am a life coach and I was working with stay-at-home moms as my clients when I was first building my business before COVID hit. And within the first few months, my three 1 0 1 clients had to stop working with me because their husbands lost their jobs.

(05:06):
Two of them and then one was afraid of losing his job. So they basically were not allowed to work with me anymore. I then opened up to working with moms in general and some were great.

But there are some, and still are some that seem to have time issues, that they would cancel calls or not doing the work was a more common thing with some of them and money issues as well. Those are the ones that maybe get on the call and just do not have the funds.

So I didn’t know if it was a demographic thing, but then looking at myself, I’m a mom investing and I am driven and a time creator.

I don’t think it’s a reflected energy type thing either. Just wondering if you have any tips on why I may be attracting these clients and how to shift this. Thank you.

(06:02):
What’s up, Christie? I’m super excited to answer this quick tip question for you. Now, first of all, I’m sorry. It stinks when you get that coaching business going and you’re getting some people in the door and then you realize that it’s not really working or, oh my goodness, what’s up with this?

(06:19):
These people aren’t the exact people that I want or I’m not sure we’re in alignment here. What’s wrong with me or what’s wrong with my offer? And all of these thoughts go swimming around in your head and your heart and leave you feeling really confused. So I’m sorry. That’s hardcore.

(06:34):
But believe me, every coach who has built a successful coaching practice has been here before. And I found myself multiple times sitting with someone going like, huh? this is interesting.

I don’t think this is my person. And I’m able to trace it back exactly to one of the four things that I’m gonna talk you through right now so that you can really start to attract the right clients and clients that are super loyal.

(07:02):
They show up, they do the work, they find the money. They may not have the money, but they find the money and they stay and stick. So let’s do the things.

(07:12):
Number one, the first mistake that you might be making is you have the wrong messaging. So I know that you had mentioned you were working with specifically stay-at-home moms and then you pivoted into moms in general.

(07:26):
I think there’s something to be said for, instead of speaking, specifically to a demographic like that, speak about the, what. When you, guys, look at a niche, your niche is either the who or it’s the what or it’s a blend of both.

So it could be stay-at-home moms. And then you said life coaching, but what about life coaching? What are you coaching in their life? What are you transforming inside of their life?

(07:48):
And if you say mindset to me, what about their mindset? Why? What’s going on? We have to have a very specific thing that we solve as a coach because otherwise, we attract the person who doesn’t even know what the problem is that they wanna solve.

So when they show up to a coaching call with you, they have this really weird expectation that’s not tied to any particular outcome.

(08:11):
So it’s really hard to give them a tactical win and have them coming back. Does this make sense? So Christie, when you look at what you actually did in those coaching calls, I want you to dig really deep.

And I want you to transform your messaging on your sales pages, on your websites, on your podcast, everywhere that you market to the specific outcome that this stay at home or work from home or whoever she is, this mom gets after working with you.

(08:36):
And it needs to be so much more clear than life coaching. So much clear than mindset or whatever the thing is. It’s gotta be one specific tactical outcome. So when someone comes to work with me, I discovered over time, as I would say we’ll just do business coaching, I kept getting the wrong people.

(08:52):
But as I niched deeper and deeper to Christian entrepreneurs, and we’re gonna come away with your five-tier brand map, you’re gonna have your title, tagline, description so you can plug it into your podcast

I started to get the right people because they knew exactly what they were getting when they sat down with me. So that’s the first place you need to look. And the first thing you need to dig into.

(09:11):
Number two, you’re probably not charging enough. So the other big thing that I would discover is in the beginning when I started out my coaching practice.

I wanted to get clients, I wanted to validate my coaching ideas and see if I had a framework, and really figure out if I liked coaching and I wasn’t really charging that much.

(09:33):
And it was great cause I got to know people. There’s someone outside. It’s fine. Turn your ringers off you, guys, when you are recording a podcast. This is life. This is why we love podcasting. We can literally pause and delete that, but I’m not gonna pause and delete it. Cause I’m gonna show you how easy podcasting is.

(09:53):
So if you’re not charging enough, you get someone in the door who doesn’t have anything on the line. If you’re not charging enough, there’s nothing to lose. I will tell you that. As I started to scale pricing, I didn’t have fewer people work with me. I had more people work with me.

And as I started to scale pricing, I had the right people work with me. And I had people who were so serious about their transformation. You better believe they’re never late, cuz they’re gonna miss out on this large investment that took a long time to save up for.

But they know that it’s worth it because what? Number one, they know that I solved the exact problem that they have.

(10:33):
So you might look at your pricing. It sounded like you weren’t having trouble attracting people. You were having trouble with them sticking with the retention and also with them doing the work and having an actual outcome. So that leads me to believe the messaging was off and you weren’t charging enough.

(10:48):
Number three, one of the other pain points that you mentioned is that they weren’t showing up. They were canceling the calls. Well, the fact that you have a very busy mom stay at home or mom in general, who probably had young kids, I would shorten the calls.

(11:03):
I’m not sure how long your life coaching calls were, but I would ask if it’s possible for you to do 30-minute calls, I would also offer the option to not have a video call, to have just an audio call.

You, guys have to really think about who your avatar is and what their life looks like. And then you need to make that very convenient for them.

(11:24):
Every coaching call that I’ve ever done has the option to choose audio only because I don’t know someone’s life. I don’t know if this is a mom hiding in the closet or sitting in her laundry room next to her dirty clothes, trying to make a call happen with me.

(11:39):
And it doesn’t matter to me, but maybe that matters to her. And so she’s canceling cuz she’s embarrassed or she can’t find a quiet space, so really think about shortening the call and making the calls convenient for her using audio-only as an option, stuff like that really helps busy moms show up.

(12:00):
And last but not least, from call number one, Christie, you’ve got to powerfully and very clearly articulate your expectations in this coach-client relationship. So in that very first call, it’s like, Hey, this stuff’s gonna be hard.

(12:19):
Your life is going to get in the way there are going to be moments when you feel like you shouldn’t be investing in yourself.

There are going to be these weeks that you just feel you didn’t get to do the homework or nothing’s changing and you’re gonna wanna cancel and you’re gonna wanna quit and you’re gonna wanna stop coaching with me.

(12:37):
But the reality is is that you have to do this work. So, you almost have to have this tough love moment cuz in the first call, they’re excited. Everyone shows up to the first call, they’re pumped, they’re excited. Their hearts are forward and their spirit-forward is ready to beat transformed.

That’s when you tell them and you plant the expectation. I also let people know, and this is your bonus tip. Here’s tip number five, which I didn’t even write down, but it just flew into my mind, is that you’re gonna reference the contract.

(13:08):
I have a very specific ironclad contract. You miss a session, you forgo your investment. You’re late to your session, sorry, you’ve just lost 10 minutes. Your contract needs to be so super clear. Those points in there are bolded they’re underlined and you just kind of very lightly point back to that contract each time.

(13:31):
So in the first call, I would definitely highlight this, the communication, the expectations, but in our emails, when we remind clients about their upcoming calls, we actually reiterate, we just wanted to kindly remind you, there is a no show, no refund policy.

So please, be aware, put it on your calendar. We love you so much. We are so respectful of each other’s time and can’t wait. It’s like a little text at the bottom. We’re serious about this.

(13:56):
Your time matters. And they’ve gotta know that you take yourself super seriously and that they are going to take you super seriously. We have to put on our business hat as coaches. It doesn’t mean that we are not kind. It just means that we are very serious about their transformation.

And if they’re not showing up for themselves, they’re not gonna get a win. They’re not gonna have anything happen in these calls and they’re gonna quit on themselves thus quitting on you.

(14:24):
So, recapping Christie, five reasons you might be attracting the wrong clients and how to change that up, girlfriend. Number one, you might have the wrong or just a little bit of a tweak needed in your messaging.

Really digging into the specific thing that you solve within whatever it is that you coach. One thing that you solve. And then you just hammer that in within your copy.

(14:48):
#2, you potentially are not charging enough. #3, you can shorten the calls or make them more convenient by offering audio. #4, you need to powerfully communicate your expectations in the coach-client relationship in call number one.

And the bonus tip number five is to have a very ironclad contract with specific terms around no shows and, in my preference, no refund policy. So there you have it. I hope this blessed you.

(15:16):
And friend, do you have a question for me? Let’s do this. Go to stefaniegass.com/contact. Leave me a question or leave a testimony like Heidi’s, I’d love to air you right here on my podcast. And I’d love to hear from you.

Anything, any question you have around clarity, podcasting, scaling an evergreen online business hearing from God, growing in your faith as a Christian entrepreneur.

Whatever you have questions about or need encouragement over, or you have a prayer, whatever it is you need. Head on over there and leave us that speakpipe.

(15:58):
God bless you. I just pray that God finds you and meets you right where you are today, pours encouragement, belief, and conviction over you to keep pushing forward, that he would grow in your heart the desire to show up in your giftings and pursue the purpose and calling that he has over your life. And to believe that he has a way just for you. In Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you, sister. I’ll see you back real soon.