Wendy McCallum (01:31)
Hello there, welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I'm your host, Wendy McCallum. We're gonna talk about something that is relevant to every single coach out there who is trying to build a profitable business. And that is what to do when an offer does not go over the way you thought an offer was gonna go over, when things are not selling the way that you had hoped that they would sell. And I think the timing of this episode at the end of January is...
probably gonna be hopefully really relevant for a lot of you who have tried to launch something in January and maybe it didn't go exactly the way that you wanted it to go or you were disappointed in it. My goal today is to provide you with a framework for diagnosing the problem in the sales chain and to help you get out of some of the common assumptions that I hear coaches making all the time inside the BBB when their offers don't sell the way they thought they were gonna sell around.
their own personal failings as a coach or as a business person. I wanna really get you out of that sort of spiraling cycle that can just be, you know, a self-fulfilling prophecy really and lead to like a whole bunch of other problems that don't need to happen and into a more constructive objective approach to diagnosing where the actual problem, challenge, missing link, bottleneck is in your...
sales chain and we're going talk about what I mean by sales chain in a second. So before we get into all of this, I want, because I'm going to forget to say this, there is a worksheet that I created that goes with this episode that you can download. It's free through the link in the show notes. And I really encourage you to go get it because it's going to take you through everything I'm going to talk about today in a really systematic and calm way.
and you can use that worksheet over and over when you are refining your offers and relaunching offers. Okay, so that worksheet is available through the link in the show notes. You can go and grab it after the episode or grab it right now. And it will help you take what you hear today and actually apply it to your own offers. Okay, so what we're talking about here is the moment when you put that offer out there and it's like crickets.
You don't hear anything back. You don't have any inquiries. You don't have any sales, or maybe you get a couple sales, but you're really disappointed because you'd really been optimistic and hopeful. You know, it's a really good offer, or you felt like it was a really good offer, and the launch feels like a bit of a flop to you, okay? This happens. It is part of business. It has happened to me many, many, many times, okay? And I just wanna...
really normalize that moment because it is not something that gets talked about very often and I like to keep it real as you know this is part of building a business you are going to put stuff out there and it's not going to work the first time or it's not going to work the way you hoped it would work the first time. What often happens for us when we have a moment like this when a launch does not feel really successful
is that we have a real emotional response to that. And that emotional response is like panic, self-doubt, self-criticism, and an urge to either change everything about the offer or just quit, just walk away from it altogether, either drop the offer or worst case scenario, just drop the coaching business. And I have seen this kind of response happen time and time again with the coaches that I support inside the BBB. So I knew that this episode would be helpful.
to every coach out there because this is a common, common thing. And what happens is in that moment is that we make a lot of assumptions around why the offer didn't go the way we wanted it to go. Sales droughts or what I'll call, I don't wanna call it a failed launch, but a launch that just does not launch in the way we wanted it to launch.
does not equal failure. It is not an emergency. It is information. Let me repeat that. When your launch does not go the way that you wanted it to go, that is not an emergency. It is really important data or information.
It's a helpful tool in the diagnostic process that we're gonna be talking about here. So it is a way to, and a place from which to start understanding where things aren't working as well as they could be working and need to be working and to actually fix those things. So it is not a verdict. Oh, this offers terrible, ditch it. That's not what we're looking at here. It's just a data point.
The most dangerous assumptions that we make, and I hear these time and time again, and I want to start with these because I want to really encourage you to put these completely out of your mind and move on to what actually matters here, which is the, the sales chain, as I call it. So how people come into your world, move through your world, and eventually get to this offer. We want to look at and diagnose all of those parts.
We want to stay away from these assumptions that are so often the things that happen first for us when things don't go the way we wanted them to go, because these are all really damaging and unhelpful and frankly, 99 % of the time, completely untrue. So the first thing that people assume when a launch doesn't go the way they wanted it to go is that they're a terrible coach or a terrible business person, that they're not cut out for this, that other people have like the it factor and they don't have it. This is just not for them. And that is the worst place to start because you're
Coaching quality is almost never the problem. It is almost never the case that the reason why the offer didn't sell is because you're not very good at coaching or the offer, the coaching services that you're gonna provide are no good. So I wanna just underscore that. Like 99 % of the time, it has nothing to do with your coaching skills or the offer itself, nothing, okay?
And those types of assumptions are really a problem because they shut down that beta mindset that I talk about so much, that idea of staying curious in your business and being responsive and paying attention and learning from things and then tweaking things and changing things in order to set yourself up for greater success the next time. Those assumptions that you're not cut out for this, that you're a terrible coach, that your offer is awful, those will keep you out of that curiosity. And they'll also often trigger
some really negative self-talk, some really crappy feelings of sometimes even shame, but definitely of like, I'm just, I'm not good at this. And that is what leads to rash decisions, like I said, to like scrapping the offer altogether or to just quitting coaching or maybe to just like doing a full rebrand of the thing. And I think all of those rash responses,
are not helpful. They're not the right response and they're just not helpful. So I want you to really focus on this. From now on, the explanation when things don't go the way that you wanted them to go, that this is a you problem, that needs to go to the bottom of the list and you're not allowed to go there until you have looked everywhere else first. And we're gonna talk about what everywhere else is in a second. But I want you to really resist from now on.
If you hear yourself thinking, my gosh, I'm so bad at this, this is terrible, I'm not meant for this, my offer's garbage, nobody wants to work with me, I'm a bad coach, I want you to push that aside because I want you to remember that that is 99 % of the time not even a factor, okay? We're gonna move on to everywhere else now that I want you to look first, okay? And again, the worksheet that you can download through the link in the show notes is gonna help you systematically do this, work through this process with your own offers. Okay.
So here are some other kind of misleading assumptions that people often make that are not helpful. First of all, people will often say, I'm not selling this hard enough. So I didn't do enough work to sell, or I wasn't like pushy enough with my sales. I was too soft with my sales or, you know, my language, my sales language was not aggressive enough. I often, almost always, frankly, that's also not the issue.
People also will get caught up in the whole like, need a better landing page or a fancier website. It's just not polished enough. I need to tweak my copy. That's often not the problem either. Those things are not usually the reason why an offer doesn't go the way you want it to go. None of those little things, tweaking, putting some fancier photos up, creating a landing page that's fancier, like,
That's not gonna fix a broken sales chain. It's just not. I have sold offers and launched things with no landing page to great success. Okay? It is not about the landing page. In fact, a lot of the time when I start betas, and this is what I encourage my coaches inside the BBB to do as well, when they offer things for the first time, they can offer with just a text PDF of the offer.
So they don't even build a landing page for it. They just have a PDF that they send people and they have conversations about the offer. So the problem is not very often the fanciness of the sales assets or really how hard you were selling it. There can often be some problems around the sales process. We're gonna talk about those in a second, but it's not usually, I wasn't selling hard enough. That's not usually the issue. So.
Those strategies are often lead to that shiny object syndrome that I've talked about before, which is where people just get into like distractions, right? So they start spending a lot of time making things fancier, more polished. It's really a focus on aesthetics as opposed to the mechanics of the offer. And I want you to be focusing on the mechanics. Remember, sales problems are rarely solved by adding more things. Often sales problems are solved by finding the thing that is missing or misaligned or unclear.
And so that's what we wanna be looking for as opposed to just adding more stuff, okay? So let's shift now from the instinctive, I think almost, know, it's just, it cannot really be avoided. So I don't want you to beat yourself up over it if you've gone there, but that emotional response that we have when a launch doesn't go the way it's supposed to go. But I really want you to start working consciously on noticing it, becoming aware that you're in that place and shifting into diagnosis mode.
Let's look at your sales chain. When nothing is selling or when the offer didn't go the way you wanted it to go and you sold a lot less than you wanted to, don't spiral. Instead, I want you to zoom out. Okay? And I want to look at the full chain, the full sales chain, which is really how people come into your world, how you warm them up for the offer, and how you make the offer. Okay? So we're going to look at all three of those pieces.
And I'm gonna be referring to something that I call the business compass structure. And this is something I talked about in episode 68 of the Coaching Edge, which was the end of December of last year, 2025. If you haven't listened to that yet, I really encourage you to go listen to it. It was a virtual business retreat that I put on for all of you. And there was a little workbook that went along with that that can be downloaded through the show notes.
And this is where I introduced the structure for looking at your business. And this is how I support coaches inside the BBB with their businesses is by referring to these four main parts of a reliable, sustainable coaching practice. And they are according to the compass, the directions of the compass. Okay. And so I'm going to refer to those a little bit today as we're going through. So I'm going to, I'll recap it really quickly, but I really encourage you to go listen to that whole episode because you're going to get a much more fulsome.
explanation and it's going to provide you with a way to audit your own business and set some goals for this this year. So in the compass, the business compass structure, we talk about the north part of your business, which is your top of funnel and your visibility. So that is how people find you. How do people find out about you and come into your world? Is it that they Google your
your niche and you pop up because you've got really great SEO on your website? Is it because you have a podcast that they listen to? Is it because your social media is really strong and they find you that way? Is it because you have really amazing free resources that you do a good job of promoting and they come in through those and get on your newsletter list? Is it because you do these live events in the community? Is it because you have great referral sources with other practitioners? How do people come into your world? That is the North.
visibility or what I call the top of funnel. Then we talk about the East, which is once people come in through the top of funnel, how do you warm them up and build that like no trust? So what is happening once they're in your world? And this for a lot of people involves regular, good, valuable newsletter content. Or if you're somebody who has a podcast like me, it's consistent, valuable podcast episodes that come out every week. And for me also the newsletter content, but
You're delivering content regularly to these people that is allowing you to build a rapport with them and build trust so that they eventually get to a place where they're warmed up enough and interested enough in you and what you offer and feel like they know you well enough and understand you and your special sauce well enough that they're actually ready to buy something. Okay, so that is the East. Then we have what we call the South, and this is really where the offers and the sales happen.
In the south, this is where you do the selling. So we are going to talk about all three of these pieces of your business and how the breakdown and the problem that might be the reason why your offer didn't go the way you wanted to go could be in any one of these areas or in more than one of these areas. It is rarely going to be in the fourth piece of the business compass model, which is the west.
because the West is where we're talking about continued service and content and support for people who have already purchased from you. So that's kind of an area of the compass that we don't have to talk very much about today because that's usually not where the problem is with a new offer, okay? All right, so.
When nothing is selling the issue is almost always in the north, in the east, or in the south, or in some combination of those things. Let's start with the north. This is really the question of are there enough eyeballs on my offer? So are enough people actually seeing this offer that I can create a conversion rate that is enough to make this offer profitable? Okay. And there are common reasons why this is often the problem. Okay. And the most common one is that you just have a tiny audience.
So you have a really small newsletter list and a really small following wherever it is that you are trying to make yourself visible. Okay, so maybe you've got a podcast, but it's brand new and you only have 20 listeners a week. Maybe you're on social media, but you have a really little and unengaged audience there. Maybe your newsletter list is small and you have 50 people or a hundred people or less on your newsletter list. So that is often a part of the problem. And if that's the problem with your offer, it's a big problem.
Right? It's, you know, not everybody who's in your world is going to buy. I'm going to talk more about that in a second. So this is like has to be a long, there's a lot of work that needs to happen here. And you need to have a big top of funnel. If you think of a funnel in the structure of a funnel, it's wider at the top and narrow at the bottom. And the bottom is where people are actually buying. So you need a lot of people at the top.
to convert to a smaller number of sales at the bottom. So you need to be working on building this. And I have done lots of podcast episodes on ways to build your top of funnel. There are a couple different episodes on how to create a really valuable lead magnet or freebie, free resource. That can be a great way to bring people in. And I've also talked about lots of other things that are top of funnel topics, okay? But I want you to be looking at that. Could that be part of the problem here? Another problem that sometimes happens is inconsistency in top of funnel. And that means,
you're not consistently putting yourself out there so that people can find you. So maybe you do a big push, you know, once a quarter where you have a workshop or a free thing that you promote for people. But then in the other months of the quarter, you're not doing anything to get people into your world, right? So are you being consistent with it? So for example, this podcast, there's a weekly episode that is me consistently putting myself out there and new people find me every week.
Maybe you're a brand new listener today. If so, welcome. Nice to meet you virtually. But that's an example of consistent content at top of funnel. Or consistently promoting like every week you make sure that you have posts in your social media where you are letting people know about the free resource that you have that actually gets them converted onto your newsletter list. Right. Are you consistently getting out there? You have a consistent plan for community workshops, for example, or
corporate wellness presentations, like whatever your top of funnel product is that brings new people in front of you and into your world, is that consistent? And then I think we sometimes can make some assumptions that, you know, if people find us, they already know what we do. It's actually really important, you know, to be constantly reminding your new people of who you are and what you do. Because sometimes people end up on your list because they signed up for something free and they can't even remember where they found you, right? So
I think that's important too, is like making sure that you're posting, for example, on social media, like, hey, it's been a while since I've done this, but here's a little bit about who I am and what I do and who I help with what, so reminding people of that. Okay, so if you think that the North might be part of the problem, which spoiler alert, it almost always is part of the problem, especially for newer coaches, you wanna go back to kind of some of those top of funnel basics, right? You wanna look at...
What am I putting out there consistently that is bringing new people into my world and what can I do to improve that? Am I, for example, post, what am I doing with social media? Now, I don't love social media as like the most important top of funnel thing, it's not, but most of us are still doing it, still hoping the algorithm is gonna shine its sunlight on us again and actually put us in its favor. So we're all still trying on social media, but.
Are we posting consistently? we posting valuable content out there? Are we posting the type of content that's going to help you pull people into our funnel? Are we actually making the offer for whatever the free thing is that we have so that we can actually pull them into our worlds? Okay. Are we guesting on other people's podcasts regularly? That's a great way to build audience. Are we collaborating? we...
know, guesting in other coaching communities or membership programs? Are we looking for ways to get in front of a different or new audience? Are we doing Instagram Lives with other people online? Like, what are we doing? Are we putting regular workshops on or free presentations or webinars or whatever it is that you do to pull people into your world? Are you doing that? Again, remember, this is about increasing the volume of visibility. This is not about sales or pressure. So, Top of Funnel is not about selling.
Top of Funnel is about attracting and pulling people in, okay? No eyeballs equals no sales. That is a very simple calculation. So if nobody's seeing it, nobody's buying it. So that is not a selling problem, it's a traffic problem. And I think that that reframe can be really helpful for people. So I offer that up to you. If there's a problem in your North, it's great to diagnose that, but that's not a selling problem, that's a traffic problem.
And so you're working on building traffic. Something and I have been consistently working on building in this portion of my business now for the last couple of years. Building traffic is what this podcast is all about. It's about building traffic. There's a reason why I offer you guys free resources and the webinars and all the low-ticket free stuff that I talk about on here. It's because I want to bring you further into my world. I want to offer you more really valuable stuff that will help you to build your businesses so that you will actually start to...
Trust me, right? So that is not about selling. It is just about bringing more people into my world, getting in front of more people. That's what you want to be thinking about. It's not a selling problem. It's a traffic problem. Okay, that's the North. Now you might also have a problem in your East. Okay. And again, the worksheet is going to take you through each of these areas so that you can figure out for yourself where the problem might be with your offer. That's not performing the way you want it to perform.
The East is all about, are you warming people up enough? Okay.
And this is really where the key question becomes, do people know, like and trust you? Do they know, like and trust you yet? And some of the reasons why they might not know, like and trust you yet is that you're jumping straight into an offer with them. So they get on your newsletter list, there's no welcome sequence, there's nothing that warms them up and like lets them know who you are, offers them some of your other free resources.
asks them, invites them to engage in conversation with you and respond back to one of the emails so that you can actually start building some kind of a connection with these people. Instead, they get on your newsletter list and wham, they get hit with an email that says, hey, join my coaching program for $997. Okay, so you wanna make sure that that's not happening. You need to be giving people time to warm up. Now, I'm not gonna get the statistic right, but a couple of years ago I was in a coaching, a business coaching, some kind of.
training program around something in business. And the woman who was running the program was talking about how you kind of need to assume that on your list, only about 20 % of people at the most might be willing to buy right now. The other 80 % of your people still need significant warming up. And I feel like the number she was tossing around was something like 12 to 18 months. Okay, so when people come on your list, it's a long game for most of them, you are warming them up for a long period of time. And I find that really helpful.
to both remember myself and to remind the coaches that I support of, because it's easy to get down on yourself and think, I've got all these people who've come onto my newsletter list, but nobody's buying. You need to commit to that warming up process, okay? So that is where you are really providing good, valuable content to them regularly. And that might be through a newsletter, it might be through continuing, for example, podcast episodes, as we've talked about, or you create more.
free or low ticket offers and you're offering those to them as well. Don't forget to offer your new lead magnets to your existing newsletter list. People forget to do that all the time, but it's such an easy way to provide more valuable content to them and to build that like no trust. Okay. The other thing that sometimes happens that can be a problem is that people forget to make any offers. So they never invite people to come further down the funnel with them, right?
opt into another free resource or to maybe purchase this low ticket or join them in this little workshop that they're doing that's like relatively inexpensive. People don't make the offer ever or the invitation in the East. And that can be a problem as well. So all value, no invitation, that's a problem. And sometimes what happens is people assume that just because these people are getting familiar with them, that they are ready to buy.
And again, that is not the case either. I just talked about how long it can take to warm somebody up. Don't make the mistake of assuming that readiness equals trust, sorry, that familiarity equals trust. That just because you've gotten in front of them a few times that they like you and they're ready to buy from you because that is not the case. You really need to work at that. And we've talked about that in other episodes this year. That trust recession is making that even more important. Just continue providing
really valuable, good, honest stuff to people and just trust that eventually that will lead to them trusting you because that is how it works. Okay, so warming up looks like, like I said, it's like really valuable, good content, it's honest content, it's storytelling, it's providing resources, it's providing tools, it's providing strategy, it's sometimes sharing client stories, it's letting people
into your world a little bit too. And sometimes it can be really helpful to share little bits of personal story. Like, this happened to me last week and it got me thinking about this, right? You're building like no trust. It's really important that people see you as a real person, especially in the age of AI and robots and all the content we're getting out there. That's just garbage content that doesn't feel human. You want to really build and work on that humanness. And it's also letting them...
sit with the problem for a while that you help them solve, right? So, and this, often try to rush them through this stage, but really what you wanna be doing, really well-crafted, East part of coaching business is going to be reminding people all the time of the problem itself, helping them to identify as somebody who is struggling with that thing, making it clear to them that this is actually something that's holding them back. And then also,
making it clear what the cost of that is to them. And then also what the value to solving the problem might be, right? So you're not actually doing the selling, but you are helping people identify as somebody who might actually need the solution that you offer. And you're doing that in your content. So trust is built over time. I want you to remember that. And so if you haven't been giving it time in the East or you haven't been doing that nurturing that you need to be doing and really getting conscious and active about it, this might be the place.
to spend some more time. All right, the other place that the problem could be happening is in the South. And the South is where we do the offer creation, we make the offer, we set the price, and we make the ask. This is where we do the selling. So offers and selling are in the South. Here are a few different areas where there might be a problem that you diagnose. One, and this is so freaking common, even though it seems like so...
silly when I say it out loud, but we always laugh about this inside the BBB and that is that people just forget to make the offer. So I'm asking all the time in the BBB, I'm like, how often are you making the offer? Are you making the offer? I challenge you this week to go out and make the offer every day, make the offer. Because if you don't make the offer, nobody can sign up for it. Nobody can buy. So
Are you just talking around the offer but not actually making it? hey, I'd love to, you know what? I think you'd be a great fit for this program and I'd love to have you in it. Do you have any questions about it? Like, are you actually letting people know what the offer is about and inviting them into it or are you just talking around the offer? Are you afraid you're gonna seem too pushy or salesy? That can often be a problem. And again, there are lots of ways to be really effective at sales and not be pushy and salesy. And those are all things that I teach inside the BBB and also I've talked about them on.
past episodes of this coaching edge. But that is also a roadblock for a lot of people, that they're really afraid of coming off as salesy so they don't actually make the offer. Are you just waiting for people to ask you about this? Are you just hoping people will show up and say, hey, do you have something for me? Because that is also an enormous problem. The other piece of the South that can be a problem is the clarity of the offer. So what problem does this offer solve? Who does it solve it for?
How does it solve it? Like what is your special sauce? And what is the transformation or the value? What is the actual real life impact of participating in this offer? What is it going to change for this person's day to day life? I always say this to my coaches when they're crafting their sales copy, like what is the actual tangible benefit of...
paying you and doing this work with you? What are they gonna get? What's gonna change for them? How's it gonna change the way they behave? How's it gonna change the way they feel, their emotional state? How's it gonna change the way they think? How's it gonna change their relationships? How's it gonna change their energy? How's it gonna change the way that they work with other people? How's it gonna change their creativity? And then really specific examples of that is really important. And often an unclear offer does not include that information. Transformation is what sells.
So this is sort of a subset of what I just said, but also a really common problem is that people focus too much on the features and the bells and whistles of the program and not on the actual transformation itself. Transformation is what people are buying. Nobody cares about how many modules you have, whether there's a fancy workbook, whether there's 16 videos or six videos.
People don't care about that stuff and coaches often make the mistake in their offers of focusing on that. What sells is the transformation in how the person is going to feel. So you need to tap into how are they feeling now versus how are they going to feel at the end of all of this and then get into the grainy lived result. So the specifics of their day to day and how that is going to change. So that can be a problem in the South.
Another thing that sometimes becomes a bit of a block in the South is the commitment. So is it too big of a commitment? Does it feel totally overwhelming to people because there's so much time involved? Maybe it's like a six month group program or 12 month program. Does that feel too big for people? Is the financial commitment overwhelming? Now, sometimes you can change the timeframe and the BBB is a great example of that. I've been talking about that in recent episodes.
What once worked for the BBB, the 12 year program that coaches loved because it gave them 12 full months of continued support, has now become something that does feel a little overwhelming in today's market for people. And so I've been responsive to that and changed the model so that the BBB is now a six month commitment with the option to stay on for another six months. But it feels a lot more accessible and less overwhelming for people, I think, as a result of that. also changed as a result of that.
the upfront investment in the BBB is a lot lower because it's a six month program. And is that something that might be at play for your market right now? Remembering that what once serves a group of people can change over time. It can change with a lot of different factors. Maybe you need to revisit that with your offer. And if you're getting feedback from people that, my God, this is a lot and I'm feeling really like this is a, it's feeling really scary to me to make this commitment. Is there something you can change around that? So.
Can you, for example, change, maybe you don't bring the price down, but maybe you look at different payment options for people that makes it feel less scary. Maybe you have a money back guarantee that helps to reduce the feeling of risk with it. And maybe there's a way to restructure it in terms of the time commitment, for example. The other thing that sometimes keeps buyers away is emotional, the emotional commitment, the emotional bandwidth required for the program. This idea that if they come into this program, they're gonna have to like,
share immediately and open up and it's going to be it's going to open up a lot of old wounds for them and you know so can you address that is there a way to help people feel more at ease with that piece of it if that might be part of the problem with the commitment to the offer the other piece that sometimes is a factor is the pricing so is the pricing aligned and this is a very complicated piece and something i spend a lot of time with my coaches working through
is there a mismatch between the perceived value and the price? And this does not mean that you need to drop your price. In fact, what I'm gonna be encouraging when I'm working with coaches, I'm gonna be encouraging them to do is actually get clearer on the value instead of dropping their price. But oftentimes what happens is there's a misalignment in the offer and people cannot see how that offer could possibly be worth that price. And that's because the offer, the value of the transformation has not been effectively described and communicated and articulated.
So that's one thing to think about. Like, this pricing misaligned with the perceived value here? And how do I fix that problem? And again, like I said, it's not about dropping the price all the time. Okay, the last couple of things I wanna talk about here are really around, like this is a repetition of things I've talked about before, but I think really important here. You need to make sure that when it comes to doing this diagnostic process, that you are also listening instead of guessing. So when an offer doesn't,
fly the way you hoped it would fly. Instead of guessing at what the problem is, you've got to get out there and gather feedback and listen because that is going to be your best information. Staying in that beta mindset. The market is going to tell you if you're actually listening. Sometimes you will have received feedback during the launch itself from people. Maybe you haven't heard it. You've seen it, but you didn't really pay attention to it. Maybe someone wrote you back and said, you know what? This sounds like exactly what I need, but honestly, the timing is really bad for me given the holidays.
I just don't have the bandwidth for this right now. That's really helpful information to have. Maybe you've had a couple of people write you back and say, I'd love to do this, but you know, I've got vacations planned over the summer. And so this doesn't work for me because I won't be able to attend these things live because I'll be away, you know, all of that stuff's good feedback. Maybe you need to address that in a frequently asked question, you know, there's a solution to those problems or maybe you need to change the timing of when you offer this program next time so that it's not, you know, overlapping with.
a regular holiday season, right? Anyway, pay attention to the feedback you get, because it's helpful. Now, if you didn't get any feedback, if it was a true crickets launch where nobody said anything and you just didn't sell nearly what you hoped you'd sell, I would go and I would make efforts to have conversations and get the feedback. And you know how big a fan I am of starting conversations? This is an important piece of that. Getting out there and getting real feedback from people. Often it feels safest to go to people who have
already bought from you, who already like no trust you, who you have an established relationship with. So go to your existing clients or past clients who maybe you made this offer to and ask them how, what they thought about the offer and how it landed with them and what their thoughts on the offer were. I love to do this. I love to, whenever I think an offer is a really great fit for somebody, but they don't think it's a good fit for them or they're hesitating on it, I like to ask this question, which I learned from.
somebody a long time ago, one of the many people I've worked with in building my own sort of business building expertise. But this has been a really valuable question for me. And that is what would make this offer a no brainer for you? So what is missing from this offer? What could I change about this offer that would make it like an absolute hell yes. What do you need from me for this to be so obvious to you as the right solution? What's missing?
And sometimes people will say, well, you know what? I'm really overwhelmed by the idea of like coming into this community where everybody's already ahead of me and I don't even know where I'm going to start. And I'm afraid that without some one-on-one support, I'm just going to come and get overwhelmed and just do what I always do, which is check out. And then I'm not going to get my money's worth. That's a really great feedback that provides you with an opportunity to fill that gap. Well, what if I offered you a couple of one-on-one sessions and you could charge for those or you could offer those as, know, depending on the
the program maybe you want to throw those in. But asking that question, what would make this a no brainer for you can be really helpful. You might get the feedback, well, you know what? It's like, I just don't think I can commit to this for 12 weeks. And that, if you're hearing that over and over again, maybe you need to shorten the program. Maybe you need to create two six week programs, a part one and a part two. Is there a way to respond to that? So get real feedback by reaching out to people. Reach out to people who you thought were gonna buy the offer and then decided not to, reach out to anybody.
you know, in your network who would have seen the offer and who didn't sign up for it. On sales calls, ask these questions. If you can tell people are not going in the direction of signing up for the offer, ask them questions about it. Okay, what is it about this offer that doesn't feel right to you? Or is there something missing from this offer that you're looking for? you know, ask them those questions. Have those conversations in the DMs, in emails, in sales calls. Okay, get the feedback. Reach out to your network.
and just start the conversations, not with an agenda, just with curiosity, you're going to get so much information. Conversions happen when people feel really clear about the offer, when your offer is really like bang on and on point, I think that's obvious. And you have to have conversations in order to get that clarity. Right? So conversations lead to clarity, which leads to more sales, and it's not the other way around. Selling the thing is not what
leads to clarity in conversations. You have to start with the conversation. So I wanted to remind you of that. And then lastly, just to remind your beta mindset, so important in all of this, it's probably obvious. Like if your stuff isn't selling the way that you want it to sell, don't burn your business down, please. Don't go into like a spiral of this is all my fault. I'm so bad at this. I'm terrible at business and I'm a terrible coach. Don't scrap everything all at once. Don't rebrand from a place of panic.
Don't do any of those things. Instead, I want you to get into the habit of when you notice you're thinking those things, because you're going to think all of those things, putting those things aside and remembering that 99 % of the time that has nothing to do with this. And really what you need to do is calmly diagnose. Now the worksheet that's free in the show notes is a resource you can use over and over again. Just download it and save it somewhere. And you can use it every time you launch something new as a tool for systematically and calmly and mindfully.
diagnosing where there might be work to do in your sales chain. Okay, adjust one thing at a time and then treat it like an experiment and see what happens when you make the changes. If nothing is selling, that does not mean you need to stop. It does not mean your offer is broken, is busted, is terrible. It means you need to pause, you need to assess and you need to tweak and realign. Okay, again, beta mindset is key.
It's going to help with everything. So I'm going to remind you of a couple things. I want to remind you of episode 68, which if you haven't listened to it yet is one that every coach should listen to. It's where I get into the details of this framework for your business. Such a helpful way to visualize your business. The coaches inside the BBB really respond well to it. They love this as a way to keep a big picture.
overview of their business to pull themselves out of the weeds when it feels like they've been working on like some real minutia in their business for a long time. It's a really great tool for auditing. So I use it whenever I'm helping coaches audit their business, which by the way, you can do with me anytime you can book a clarity compass audit. And this is what we'll do. We'll look at the big picture of your business and figure out where in these four areas you're the weakest. And then I will help you to identify some really specific actionable steps to take to start working on building up these parts of your business.
So that framework in episode 68, so great. And I encourage you to go and listen to that. And I also encourage you to download the worksheet with this episode and work through your own offer that is not performing the way that you want to perform and figure out, okay, well, where is the room for that realigning? Where is there room for making some changes? Thank you very much for listening to The Coaching Edge. As always, love having you as listeners.
and appreciate you so much. If you're not following me yet over on Instagram, I'm at Wendy McCallum Coach. I love to hear from you guys and every week somebody emails me. Sometimes I get a few emails and I love getting them. People talk about, you know, what episode was helpful to them or give me suggestions for new episodes or topics that I could cover that I haven't covered yet. Send me a note at wendy at wendymcallum.com or reach out to me through the DMs on Instagram. I love hearing from you. I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time on The Coaching Edge.
