Evolutionary Blog

Because we are dedicated to helping coaches and practitioners reach "financial sustainability" as well as their clients maintaining "sustainability of change", nothing can be more important than putting together an offering for clients that is 3-dimensional and saying no to a session-by-session weekly commitment model.

What that means is designing a package where the offering is coherent, cogent, and comprehensive. Where the client is moving through stages or phases that logically fit together in a holarchical way--each stage building on the previous stage or phase.

But recently, nascent practitioners have been asking me essentially this questions: "what if I am not yet clear about my offering? How can I figure out what to offer them when I am so unclear yet about my deepest gifts?" I want to answer this very important question because I have noticed that requiring the apprentices to come up with a full offering can be overwhelming and does not assist them in professional evolution, but has them contract and regress.

So, backing up to more fundamental ways to build your practice when you are new:

• Go ahead and work session by session at first. Schedule that single session
• Let them know at the beginning of the session, that once they experience you, at the end of the session, you will offer them an opportunity to sign up for more--then drop the subject and focus on their needs and outcomes
  • This has them know what to expect and takes away any objection to you offering it--and gives the client a smoother more integrated experience
• At the end of the session ask them what they liked about it
• Ask them if they want more of that
• Provided you were effective, they will say yes 
• Offer them a package of 4 or 6 session with a discount if they buy them all now. For instance--buy 6 get 1 free or some such offer.

All too often I have seen practitioners say some version of "if they liked the work..." or worse, "if it is meant to be then they will ask for more".  Not necessarily. Sometimes they just need you to ask. Sometimes they get distracted. And even if true, I have found it is all too often a gussied-up way to avoid what is realling going on--fear and anxiety about selling--while pretending to have a "accept whatever happens" orientation to life.

Rarely, do I sense it is an authentic developmental stage they have reached.

Most importantly, if you truly want to be successful, you need to integrate the fact that no matter how good you are or effective at your craft, you are the locus of responsibility to make things happen.

That, and if you really care about your clients having permanent sustainable change you will offer them a package. Would you go to the gym once and expect to be able to compete in weight lifting? Would you go once and think you have reached a new level of fitness?

Hardly.

So it is with the muscles of your [and your clients'] internal experience. Help them get the exercise they need so they can attain a new level of mental and emotional fitness--a new baseline of success and fulfillment in their life, and you get financial sustainability in the process.  Together, we all create a better world.

Now that is a true win-win-win.

[Listener Question]

It is unbelievable what I missed the first time through.

Yes. Most people do not believe me [or perhaps literally do not hear me] when I say to listen at least three times through all the way first because of what is missed by the human physiology/sense tools the first time--and even the second. Additionally, you are different, deeper, richer, or just plain have a new focus and so hear things differently--or perhaps for the first time, not having the ability to receive it/fit it into your linguistic or conceptual structures the last time you heard it--even after several listenings. I still re-listen to audio products I bought 10 years ago and hear them in ways that blow my mind now.

I do have one questions...how do I pace myself through the program. First time through was as you were releasing new episodes... now i have 16. I'm fighting back the urge to do them all at once.....

Thank you for this very important question. That depends on your own process and your internal processing. If you are a more kinesthetic person [talking slower, looking down a lot, feeling, touchy feely, perhaps], then you will get it more deeply, but it will take you longer to fully understand the scope. If you have good auditory digital recall, you may remember verbatim the first time--the guy who never studied in college, but always attended the lectures, then aces the final is one example of someone with good auditory digital processing. A visual person will often think they have it, because the understand it cognitively the first time--and very rapidly, but they do not have it deeply in their neurology and will lose or miss stuff thinking they already "know" it because they understood it rapidly. These people have the toughest time accepting that they understand it or cognize it, but have not necessarily "learned" it. When I say "learn" I do not mean remember or understand cognitively, I mean that they actually behave from the mindset, or that it is their patterned response--their new habit pattern or new emotional reaction or their "natural" way or predictable way of responding. On that note, a while back I wrote a piece to support this titled Insight and Integration. You can read it HERE. So...how do you pace yourself? I would make sure you listen to episodes 0 through 16 all the way through at least three times so that you can the model in your mind to such a degree that you can trouble shoot your own performance from an objective perspective. That requires you to mentally and conceptually hold the entire model in your mind. Do that all the way through. THEN go back slowly and go through it to do the exercises and play with the ideas and component parts individually. And remember--there is no inherent number of times to listen to it when you are "done". You are never done--there is just the asymptotic nature of Personal and Professional Evolution. The question is two what degree and in which contexts have I integrated it? Hope this helps!

Daniel from Portugal [http://yogaportugal.com] writes:

I am really loving [Evolutionary Sales] it has turn my world around, I am listening to them in order and I am now on ES012 so if the next 2 two question I have for you have already been answered on the show I would appreciate it if you could direct me to it.

The idea of an integrity and service-based sale is one that I even without knowing had been searching for quite some time, I am very glad I have found you.

Glad you are finding it of value.

As I said I have two questions that have been haunting me.

1. What if when talking to someone you are trying to sell to you realize that the person doesn’t need the product you are selling? You make it seem like it is always a matter of the right context and the right motivational techniques.

I walk away from the sale. I tell them I do not think it is a fit or that it will not serve them. It is that simple and that direct. No amount of money is worth the hassles that will come from trying to force it. It rarely happens to me because I make sure to qualify them [by "qualify" I mean that I need to be reasonably certain--over 85% certain--that I can be of service to them effectively and assist them in getting what they want]. But if and when it does happen, I do exactly what is stated above.

2. I would like to know how much thought you have gave to the notion of not permitting the person to wait before making the decision. I have develop a philosophical principle so to say that I should not decide any big amount of money sale on my first contact with the sales person. I has served me well in the past for I have examples of things that now I am really glad I haven’t bought and I have examples of things that each day that passed until I bought it my motivation to get it just kept rising and so did my faith in the product and the sales person. Someone who urges me to make a decision right then always strucks me as wanting to sell. But when someone is confident in their product enough not force to make a decision it may well be that I am there in the next day to “open the relationship”.

It is a great question. It is also a very common one, so I am glad to finally address it publicly.

In my business, people come to me wanting certain mental habits resolved, e.g.; fear, anger, anxiety, etc. They want other things too, but they know they want these negative habit patterns. If they go away to think about it, then they will start to have those same mental habit patterns that they have come to me to resolve take over. I have then essentially failed my first test as their Guide.

Now, if the business we some business other than the one I am in, then sure.

But with my business, what serves them best is to have them sign when they are clearest on my presentation, and are clearest as to the benefits. That means in that session. It has nothing to do with levels of confidence in my offering. Rather confidence in what will happen when they leave--and I simply tell them that all up front and directly.

They agree in most all cases. They know it is the truth. I think it is also critical that they never feel "pressured". They never do. I often will simply shrug when I tell them the above. I say it casually, in a relaxed manner, with nothing for them to resist. I am never attached to someone signing. If they sign under pressure, the sale might drop off. That serves no one.

When the reason for signing is a simple truth they know to be true, and I am coming from that place of service, it just has them all the more convinced I can [and do] help them. It is also hard to argue with 97.7% [my current opening ratio averaged for the last 3 years with 220 prospects with a significant commitment to a 6-month agreement ]. If my ratio were lower, I might look there first.