EP 350 - Why Brilliant Coaches Can't Land Clients (And It's Not What You Think)

If you are an accomplished coach with decades of experience, credentials, and a track record that earns you respect in every room, but you cannot seem to land paying clients, this video is going to show you exactly why. The problem is not your niche, your marketing, or your people. The problem is that you are too brilliant for the words you are using.

If you're new to my channel, my name is Debbie Shadid. I'm a Business Growth and Life Coach and the founder of the Business Building Boutique. For over two decades, I've helped women learn how to become coaches, get clients, grow their businesses, and create meaningful income doing work they love.

Yesterday I had four consultation calls with four different brilliant women. Two were global leaders. All four had the credentials, the methodology, and the published work to back them up. And all four came to me saying the same thing: I cannot sell my coaching. Every one of them was missing the same small but critical thing, and once they saw it, the gap between their work and the world finally made sense.

In this video, we'll walk through:

• Why being the smartest person in your niche can quietly cost you clients
• The exact moment your ideal client clicks away from your website and what you need to fix before they do
• Why your peers and your boardroom can understand you perfectly while your ideal client cannot
• The difference between speaking your language and speaking your client's language (and why expertise lives in both)
• How Donald Miller's caveman language principle from StoryBrand applies to your coaching marketing
• Why hiring a professional copywriter or website designer might not be saving you (it didn't save my four callers either)
• The simple translation exercise that could be the difference between invisibility and your first client

This is not about downplaying your expertise. It is about making your brilliance accessible to the very person you are meant to help. When you translate your work into language they understand, you become more of an expert in their eyes, not less.

Want me to help you simplify your message and finally get clients? Join my free workshop here: https://debbieshadid.com/workshop

Connect with me, Debbie Shadid:
Website: https://www.debbieshadid.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbieshadid/

Listen to the Podcast:
Life Coach Business Building School Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/life-coach-business-building-school-with-debbie-shadid/id1502118085

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Transcript

0:00

Can I tell you something? You might be a genius. If you are working in the right niche, if you are working within your zone of genius, you might be the most brilliant person in your niche, and you know what? You also might be the most misunderstood. And the craziest part is, you might not have any idea that the reason why you're not selling your coaching is because you are so smart. Today, I wanna share with you what happened yesterday. I actually had four conversations with four different brilliant people. In fact, they might have been within their zone of genius. They might have been the smartest people I'd ever talked to within that niche. And you know what they came to me and said?" We can't sell our coaching" and they had no idea that they were actually the problem. They were saying, People won't buy from me. I need to find my people." How often do you think that? Like, "I just need to find the right people." What I wanna do today is open your eyes up to what the real problem is. There is a high chance that nobody understands what you are talking about. The four people that I talked to yesterday, when I looked at their marketing message on their website, on their social media, I was like,"What are they even talking about?" Because the person that I'm talking to in person on this call right now is saying one thing, and their marketing message, whatever the words are that they've said anywhere else, literally they don't match. What they said in their marketing message is the thing that everybody looks at first. If we think about our business just a few years ago, before COVID, we actually used to be able to have conversations with people. We could call somebody, and they would answer their phone. We didn't meet everybody over Zoom. We had this thing where we could see people's body language. We could sense what was going on, and we weren't in the kind of rush that we're in today... Today, you have seconds to get their attention, and they better understand what you're saying, or they are moving on. They need to know that, "This woman gets me. Like, she understands. She's actually talking to me." This is where the biggest problem is. So you might think that you have a problem with not getting in front of the right people, and I can guarantee you that if you are marketing, okay, that's the number one if. Are you marketing? Let's be honest about that. Are you marketing enough? If you are doing that, if you are putting yourself out there, if you have the right niche, and you are brilliant, and you are so good at what you do, I can guarantee you the words that you're saying are the wrong thing. This is exactly what happened yesterday. So what I am finding is the smartest people, they don't even realize how smart they are. Sometimes when they talk to me about their business, and this may be you, they're talking, and I'm like, "Wait a minute. What? What are you saying?" Like, I am asking questions from the point of view of the person who just stumbled upon them. So I wanna tell you about this type of woman that I've worked with so many times, and it's probably you. You are extraordinary. You've spent decades becoming the best at what you do. You have the credentials. You have the experience. You have the results. Two of the four people I talked to yesterday were global leaders, not just local or within the United States. They were global leaders. They had the results. They had the track record. They had boards of directors that were all giving them advice, that were all in the same zone of genius. So when they walk into a room, their peers respect them immediately. But you know what? They couldn't get any clients. That is why they were on the call. They're like, "I can't sell my coaching." You know why they weren't able to sell their coaching? Is because the person they were trying to talk to had no idea what they were saying. So you are good enough at what you do, but every single person in the world needs to be able to understand you. So you might find that your colleagues are understanding you. You might find that the people in your network are understanding you. You might be a researcher who has people that are like, "Yep, I'm gonna validate everything you're saying." You might have people that you have worked with for years that understand you, but that person that is scrolling by on social media, that person that drops into your website, they better be able to figure out what you're doing in a split second. so your problem is not a sales problem. Again, it's not a marketing problem or a people problem. The answer is within you. Let me show you what this looks like in real life, because I saw this yesterday. This was a researcher, and maybe you identify as an academic. This particular person had the data, the studies, the framework, the published work to back up everything she did. Her peers cited her work. Her methodology was respected across the globe, but her website read like a journal. In fact, it didn't even say at the top of her website who she was helping. Now, I know that you might be thinking, " My website is clear." And here's what's even crazier. She had actually hired professional copywriters, and she had a website designer. Somebody built it out for her, and this was just one of the four people. All four people I talked to had the same problem yesterday. So the person that you want to help most, do you know who they are? They're the person who you were years ago. They're the person long before you had your methodology, long before you had done the studies, long before you had peers cite your work. That person is who you need to talk to. That's the person that is actually landing on your social media, on your website, and they're clicking right off. The corporate executive that you want to engage with, they can't even hear you. If you have spent decades in rooms with powerful people, if you know how to articulate yourself so well, if you are very impressive, and if you speak the language of a boardroom fluently, and you're using that same language to reach people, guess what? You're not talking to the boardroom, you're talking to a human being. You cannot speak in a clinical or practitioner way even if you have those credentials, you have to lead your language, the language that connects with women, in a very simple way. Speak their language, not your language, the client's language. Those are two completely different, I'm gonna call them two completely different dialects. So what I want you to understand is when you have been doing your work for decades, you literally can't even remember what it's like. You need somebody to put their eyes on your work and say, " That doesn't even make sense." And then you, as the expert, need to say,"Huh, is that true?" Instead of feeling defensive about like, "Wait a minute, she doesn't know what she's talking about," you need to take a breath and say, " Could that be true?" Donald Miller, the author of StoryBrand, which I love StoryBrand marketing message creation, he talks about caveman language, I am a trained StoryBrand copywriter, so I understand what he's talking about when he says make it caveman How does this translate to you? If you read your message, what words are in there that people can't understand? What have you left out? The most simple thing. Are you saying, "Are you a woman who is a leader in this particular field who does this, this, and this?" Like simple words. You should be able to let somebody in seven or eight words, "Hey, I'm talking to you, and this is what your problem is." So you've got to find a way to speak in their language. This is not downplaying your expertise. In fact, what I wanna say is you will feel like more of an expert than you already are when somebody says, "Wow, that lady really understands me." When somebody lands on your page, and they are like, "Wow, this is so obvious that she gets me," like,"How did she know this about me?" That's what I want you to know. You will be the expert at what you do when you translate it to their language. When you simplify what you are saying, that again is not downplaying the brilliance that you have. You are still the genius, but you wanna make it understandable so the person that you're trying to help hears you. So your brilliance and what they're thinking, those are two completely different things. You wanna amplify what you have to say by saying it in a way that is relatable. So I'm not asking you to not tell the world what you have done. Your accolades and your certifications and all the work that you've done, the studies that you've done, share all of that, but there's a place for that, okay? When somebody first engages with you, they need to know, "Oh, she's talking to me. Right now she is talking to me. I know she understands me, and I'm gonna read further," All of the information about how wonderful you are, let's share that, but let's share that somewhere else. Let's just hit the high points of what their problems are. Once you get somebody in a conversation with you on Zoom, or let's say into their boardroom if you are working with corporate clients or leaders, once they get you in front of them, look, you can share all your brilliance. You can talk in any way you want to, but for marketing messaging, which is the key that you are missing, you've got to master simplicity. You've gotta master a way to talk about what you do in very, very basic terms. I really wanna encourage you to talk to some people who are where you once were and record the conversation. Ask them some very simple questions and find out what they're saying and take an honest look at what you are saying. I really wanna encourage you to have somebody else look at your messaging. there's a high chance that the gap between where you are and the success that you are hoping to have and the change that you're gonna make in the world, it's just a few words away. There's just this translation that needs to happen. You, I believe, could be one of the most brilliant people within your niche, within your zone of genius, and you are sitting on something that is so extraordinary, and the world can't experience it right now because they can't understand you. Your work is so good, but it cannot be put out into the world until you explain it in a way that somebody else can say,"I understand her, and this woman gets me." So there's the challenge for you. Go interview some people. Translate what you're doing. Honestly, this is my zone of genius. I'll just tell you that because those calls that I had yesterday, I can tell you one of those people, the very first conversation, I believe honestly that she's gonna make millions because she was missing something so important, like three words at the beginning of her message that are gonna make a difference, and even she agreed and she said, "Oh my gosh, my board of directors did not tell me. The people who wrote the marketing message did not tell me. The website person did not tell me. Nobody showed me what you just told me." So I want to invite you to take a look at what you're doing because that probably is the gap. I want you to do the work that you know you are meant to do. I want you to put all of that brilliance to work and change the world. I'm Debbie Shadid. I help women just like you who are brilliant and who have incredible work to do in the world. I help them build real boutique-style coaching businesses without spending money on paid ads. Check the link in the show notes. I'd love to be able to connect with you. Have a beautiful day, and let's go change the world. We'll talk to you very soon.