4 Elements Every Sales Message Needs (The SELL Framework) | EP 106

Most coaches are great at indirect selling. Direct selling? That's where things get quiet.

In this episode, Dr. Kasey Jo Orvidas breaks down the SELL Framework, a four-part tool she teaches inside the HMCC business track, designed to help coaches communicate about their offers clearly, confidently, and without the ick.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why freezing or going vague during a direct pitch usually isn't a sales problem, it's a framework problem
• S is for Scarcity: how to use real constraints ethically and why manufactured urgency erodes trust faster than anything
• E is for Exchange: why most coaches undersell what clients are actually getting and how to make the value visible
• L is for Livelihood: why listing features isn't enough and how to paint the transformation instead
• L is for Likeness: how to use social proof and authenticity to make the right person feel like this was made for them

If you've ever talked yourself out of a direct CTA, felt pushy writing a sales email, or just didn't know what to say, this episode gives you the exact structure to work from.

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Transcript

0:00

if your palms get sweaty and you like don't really know what to say and you feel like you're not saying it right and, and all of that stuff, usually it's not a problem of selling, it's that you're selling without a framework, Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I'm your host, Dr. Casey Joe. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we're gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we're going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply to your health. Fitness, relationships, business, marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it's not all serious and sciencey around here. We're gonna have a ton of fun too, and I'm so excited to share all of this with you. All right, let's go ahead and get into the episode. Well, welcome back to Not Another Mindset Show. I have another quick episode for you today, our second 15-minute framework. Look, Kasey, look at the time. Make sure that you don't turn 15-minute framework into 50- minute framework, okay? So we are talking about selling, kind of like sales psychology today. This is a topic that I bring up on the podcast pretty regularly, just like how to take what I talk about from a mindset, behavior change, and psychology perspective in your coaching, and how that translates to sales and marketing, and knowing that a lot of you are not just coaches, but you're also fitness or exercise or nutrition or whatever business owners. So a lot of you do a lot of indirect selling. You are showing up consistently on social media, sharing content, doing guest podcast episodes. You're building trust, and that long game works, and it is required, as much as it can feel like you are just a slave to an algorithm that doesn't give you enough attention. I get it. Believe me, I've been doing this a long time too. I'm literally doing it as we speak. I am selling indirectly by supporting you and showing you what you can do with mindset and behavior change and psych science, and where it can be applied. I'm building the belief in this kind of work, and hopefully like building some trust and credibility with you with every episode that you listen to. But on some point, you gotta directly sell. You gotta talk about your offer and sell it directly, whether that's through a launch or a sale or just a clear call to action for people. And honestly, that's where I see a lot of coaches get too vague, or they freeze, or they don't do it at all. It's like the classic, "I'm not signing any clients." It's like, well, when was the last time you directly talked about your offer and your coaching services? Um No crickets, no answer. So today I'm gonna walk you through a simple four-part framework for selling directly, whether this is a launch email, it's in your sales page, might even be like an IG story or a… It could be a DM conversation with a prospective client. It can apply here. So it's called the SELL framework. Fits so well, right? and this is actually something I'm pulling from the Health Mindset Coaching Certification business track. This is a mini course add-on for my students, and it's like a three-part pretty comprehensive training series, and this is just one little snippet that I'm gonna share with you. So if you ever feel scattered or worried that you're coming off as pushy when you have to do this kind of like direct selling, if your palms get sweaty and you like don't really know what to say and you feel like you're not saying it right and, and all of that stuff, usually it's not a problem of selling, it's that you're selling without a framework, and that's where things can break down. Because if you have a framework, then you have something you can confidently use to kind of like direct how you're speaking. So with this, you already know how to indirectly sell, and what we're talking about is directly selling with this framework. And is there anything else I wanna say before I get into this? Oh, yes. I want you to know. But you should know this, because you know me well enough at this point. This is not about manipulating people, convincing people, forcing them to do something, pressuring them to do something that they're not a good fit for, they're not right for, they're not ready for. That's not what we're talking about here. That's not how we do things here. this framework is really about how to communicate about your offer effectively, things that you need to keep in mind, and do so ethically as well. So the SELL framework. We have S for scarcity, E for exchange, L for livelihood, and L for likeness. Scarcity. You guys have heard this one before. This is not new to you. It's talking about how your offer is limited, whether that's by time, by price, by spots available. But it only works if it's real. No fake urgency and scarcity out there. We don't wanna do that because that will erode trust more than anything else. If you're constantly saying that the price is going to go up in your coaching and then it never does, people will notice. If you're constantly having a sale or a promotion every single month, people are like, "Why does she keep discounting her services every single month?" And like,"What's the big deal if there's just gonna be another sale the next month?" So if your offer isn't actually limited, don't manufacture that. Find a real constraint that you can use ethically for real. So for instance, HMCC only opens for enrollment twice per year. That is a real thing. You cannot … Literally, what is it? It's almost June right now when I'm recording this episode May, June, July, you can't get into HMCC because we only have two live cohorts that run two times per year. So we of course leverage that. You could also, if you are selling one-on-one coaching services, maybe think about how many people can you bring on in a month that you can comfortably onboard. Maybe that's five new clients per month. So now, it may be something you never talk about, but the reality is you don't really-- you would feel overwhelmed with more than five clients per month. So now it becomes, "Hey, my five spots for coaching for the month of June are available. They will go fast. I've only got five of them. Make sure you get in your application ASAP." So that could work. So I guess another piece of this too is I want you to know you don't absolutely need to have this, right? And if you're really racking your brain like, "I don't know how I could set this up in a way that isn't me like straight up lying and making something up," you don't need it. However, I will say people, especially if they're investing in something that is significant time, money, effort required, which a lot of times is coaching, that there's a lot of hesitation involved with that. There's a lot of weighing the pros and cons. Should I do it? No, I shouldn't. Here's a reason why I should. Here's another reason why I shouldn't. So having some form of timeline, deadline, spot availability, something like that, just to get people moving can really, really, really help. So keep that in mind E is for exchange. So we really want to communicate what people are getting in exchange for their investment. And most coaches undersell this because they feel weird, like, listing out all the features of their offer, all of the transformation that you can actually get from working with me. But your prospective clients cannot value and see the value in something if it doesn't exist, if you don't talk about that value, if you don't talk about what they're really getting in exchange They're handing you dollars, literally. they're handing you time, and effort, and commitment, and trust. Don't take that lightly. Talk about what that exchange looks like, and understand, validate that you know that they're giving you something too, clearly. So make it clear, specific, tangible. Not just vague outcomes like lose 10 pounds, but actual deliverables and what those deliverables make possible. And that point is really important. I don't wanna just see you get a weekly check-in with me. Who cares? So what? What does that actually give them? I know you see the value in it because you know what it means from your time and effort and your perspective to do a weekly check-in, and you know what you give clients in those check-ins, but they don't, and that's a feature that most coaches offer, so how is what you're giving in exchange something better, more effective? This also includes things like freebies or lead magnets. That's an exchange. Like, here's a free thing that I'm giving you. But you also have to think about when you're giving things like this, I mean, it's even like podcast episodes or your Instagram content, Does that actually set them up for the next exchange, being when you directly sell? Does it make it clear that the clear next step is your coaching All right, L is for livelihood. How your offer affects their life emotionally, practically. We're talking about their livelihood here. So this is kind of tying into what I said previously about just, like, listing off the features and all of the benefits that you get from a coaching program. But don't just list. You want to make it clear what the transformation looks like. what can they expect in the next six months? Paint the picture. Future pace them. Help them see how this really is going to impact their life, not just, "You get a weekly check-in with me and a personalized macro plan." We know that those things could change their lives. They don't necessarily. And the truth is, too, that information alone no longer is a selling point. We've got a whole resource portal t- with tons of PDFs for you, so you're never lost. Yeah, 'cause I could just go to ChatGPT and be like, "I'm going on vacation. Here are my macros. I would like to stay within 2 to 300 calories of that. I would like to have some alcoholic beverages. Can you write me a strategy plan for my three days in Mexico to make all of that work?" And ChatGPT will do that. They don't need your how to go on vacation and stay on track PDF. So just gatekeeping a bunch of information is, is not the way to do it in 2026. There's information, like, ridiculously available to everyone, and especially in the health and fitness coaching space. I mean, I could go on a full tangent here, but I'm not allowed to 'cause this is a 15-minute framework, Kasey. Yeah, with AI, ChatGPT, all of this stuff, they can get a macro plan. You can do better than that. Showcase how you can actually give them an experience. Show them the transformation that their life is about to have, because ChatGPT can't do that. Last L is likeness. This is really about making the right person feel like this is made specifically for them And also, on the flip side, the person who's not a right fit, they should be able to pretty easily self-select out. You want to be filtering using your messaging. So similarity is really one of the most powerful elements of social proof. So just posting a smattering of before and after photos and testimonials, great if you have a ton of them. Not great from this like filtering perspective and finding the right people. You really want your ideal client, that specific person with that specific problem, to read a testimonial, to see a client case study transformation and go, "Oh my God, that person's just like me So that must mean that this coach can help me. That's what you want them to feel. I think also with the likeness, it's like how much they feel connected to you and feel like that they would like belong in the coaching relationship with you. And this is where your authenticity, your who you are comes out, how you speak, how you say things, how you talk about things, not just like run-of-the-mill information again. I can tell you things that make me feel good about myself . So I have students all the time who come to our live discussion calls that we have every single week when HMCC is running, that they just like, like to hang out with me. And same thing with Kira, who is my COO, and she comes to all of the calls, and we kinda like banter and have a good time, and it's … We are continuing education. We are a continuing education program, but we are not stuck-up. Like, we have a ton of fun, and that really helps from a selling perspective. So thinking about like direct selling, I would even say like go read your sales page out loud. Does it actually sound like you? Does it sound like you're speaking to a real person and having a real conversation? If it doesn't, then you may be, may be missing this one a little bit. All right, quickly wrapping up here. S is for scarcity. We want it to be real, not manufactured. E is for exchange. Make the value visible. Make it clear that you're aware of what they are exchanging for what you are giving them and vice versa. L is for livelihood. It's so much more important to showcase the experience and the transformation you provide over the information that you can give them. And L is for likeness. Do your best work to make the right person for your coaching, for your offer feel seen and feel like they are the right person for your offer. All right. These four elements, they work together But you may not need all four pieces in every piece of direct sales content. So don't feel like you need to try to squeeze it all in. But you do need to know which ones tend to be missing from your direct sales content. Again, this could be sales pages, sales emails, direct CTAs to your coaching on Instagram, what have you. So if you are an HMCC student and you're like, "Wait, I really like this stuff. I wanna learn more," that's what the HMCC business track is for. I'm sorry if you're not a student, then it's not for you, can't have it. You gotta have the foundational mindset, behavior change, and psychology knowledge from HMCC because the business track is all about taking that stuff and applying it to a business and marketing perspective. Okay, look at that. I feel like that was almost potentially, hopefully exactly 15 minutes. Uh-huh. All right. I appreciate you guys being here. I hope you're enjoying these little quick 15-minute framework episodes. If you do, please let me know. And if you, really do, and if you do like me and you feel like being a nice person today, I would love for you to leave a five-star review. Reviews are what keep the show going. I don't have sponsors. No one's paying me to sit here and share this with you. So the only way that we know we can get the show out in front of more people and to keep it going is through your lovely reviews, which I do read every single one of them and I really, really appreciate you. And we do giveaways for the people that do leave reviews. So keep that in mind. There's an exchange happening here, okay? Okay, that's all I have for you. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next week And that's a wrap for today's episode of Not another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you get notified of the next one. Because if you're anything like me, if the episodes aren't popping up for you automatically, you'll keep forgetting to come back to the show even if you really, really enjoyed it. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button and make it super easy for you and of course. If you wanna see more episodes just like this one, I'd love for you to let me know by leaving a review. I know, I know it's super annoying to do, but the few seconds that it takes means the world to me and also ensures that I can keep providing free education and value to you. And just to sweeten the deal, I am going to be picking a random reviewer every single month to receive a free workshop or product from me. If you're looking for more free resources or just wanna connect, hang out, chat a little bit, come find me on Instagram. I'm Coach Casey, Joe over there. That is where I hang out the most in the land of social media. Alright, my friends, that is all I have for you this time. I so appreciate you being here and love to see you prioritizing your growth. I'll see you next time.