Wendy McCallum (01:36)
Hello there, welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I'm your host, Wendy McCallum. I've got a bit of a frog in my throat today, so you'll have to bear with me. It has been the month of sickness for us around here. I'm recording this at the end of February. We went away on a much needed vacation at the beginning of February and we both got sick within a few days and basically have been sick ever since. Although I am coming back out of it now, which is why I'm recording this episode, because I'm feeling like I'm finally up to the recording part of this.
I also think that having a really slow month in February, which I was sort of forced to do by nature of the because of this illness, has actually led to me feeling clear on this topic that I want to talk about today. I was able to glean some more data this month, really sort of pay attention because I got a little bit quiet.
to what was actually happening in this area that I want to talk about today. So what I want to talk about today is how to sell your coaching offers in a trust recession, which is what we are absolutely in right now. And why specifically one tactic, the tactic of urgency, that is where there is a deadline on something and after that date, it's not available anymore. Why that is not working like it used to work.
This is a pattern that again, I have been seeing for really the last year. I've been seeing it develop. I started talking about the trust recession about a year ago. When I started talking about it, I was thinking like, is this just a blip maybe something that's gonna correct itself? Is this like a long-term thing? I don't know. Turns out it's a long-term thing. Turns out it has just continued to impact the market and the buyer mentality.
and is not something that can be ignored anymore. And one of the little patterns or I guess pieces of the trust recession that I have noticed is around the ineffectiveness of urgency as a marketing tactic. And that's what I wanna talk about today. So this is the pattern I cannot ignore. And again, there were a couple more examples that popped up in the month of February when I was laying low that I noticed and I thought, okay, this is a real thing, I gotta talk about this.
So here I want to start with by sharing a little story. For years, I have offered a meaningful bonus in the five day window after a BBB open house. So been doing this for a while now. It's a new bonus every time I try to switch them up, I try to get creative with them. It's fun for me to think of what the bonus is going to be. Sometimes it's a discount on the BBB. Sometimes it's a, you know, a special
offer, one-on-one offer with me that goes along with joining the BBB. It might be a Compass audit or a half VIP day or, you know, if I've got another program opening, maybe you get like a significant discount off of that other program. It's been different every time, but there's always been a five-day window or so after the open house where people can opt into the BBB and take advantage of that bonus. And that has worked.
in that people generally were joining the BBB in the window after the open house. So I just started to be able to rely on the fact that we would have an open house and I would do all the work up to the open house and the open house would happen. And that might lead to some conversations with people in that five day window, but people would sign up for the BBB in that window. And so you could see like a little spike in the BBB enrollment.
with each open house. That was just something that I could rely on. That bonus to me felt really clean. It felt good. It felt like not pushy and really aligned because it wasn't one of those crazy things where, know, that sometimes people do where this is my pet peeve is when you're on a call and they tell you that if you sign up before the call's over, you get access to the bonus where you have absolutely no time to think about it. That's not what this was at all because that would not be aligned for me in marketing is not probably.
Tracks for you given what you know of me if you've been listening to this podcast for a while I would give people time I would say look I've got time in my calendar tomorrow if anybody wants to hop on a call and like chat about the Specifics of this and whether it's the right time for them. I'm happy to do that. You want to talk to you know, your advisor your mentor you want to talk to your partner you want to Just take some time figure out financially if this makes sense for you like take the time
But if you register before, usually it's Tuesday night and the BBB happens, the open house happens on a Thursday. So if you register before Tuesday night, you also get this really great bonus. And that, like I said, that really worked for a couple of years and it felt good. people were actually would send me notes and say like, what's the bonus this month? Can you tell me? Because I'm waiting for the open house to sign up. But something has shifted recently, really significantly.
What I'm seeing, and this is really interesting, and it happened in February again, which is why I decided to do this episode, is that people are joining outside of that window way more often than they're joining inside of that window. So I'm having people join before the open house. So I had two people join in January before the January open house. In the week before, two people joined. They hadn't even been to the open house yet. They didn't even know really what the bonus was. It was not a motivator for them.
Did I offer them the bonus? Yes, because that's how I roll. So I gave it to them after the fact because I just wanted to be fair. And people who came to the open house got offered that bonus. And I thought, well, I'm not going to penalize these people for signing up before the open house. But they did not join because of the bonus or the open house. that is then that has happened. It happened in November with the open house and it happened in September. So I've seen that happen a number of times in the last six months where it has not happened before. Also, interestingly,
many people joining after the five-day window. So people consciously waiting until weeks after the bonus to join the BBB and not being particularly worried about missing the bonus. So what I am not seeing anymore is this, or cannot rely on anymore anyway, is a consistency in a spike in sales in that five-day window anymore.
And that is because...
It's not because people are not buying because I'm still bringing new people into the BBB ⁓ regularly. It's not that it's that they're buying when they're ready in a way that they haven't before. before, yes, I would always want to make sure people are ready to join the BBB when they did. But there was also like a little bit of like urgency that would play into that for them based on like, I don't want to miss this bonus. Now they're buying
because they're ready and pressure is really irrelevant. Like any kind of pressure outside of that is just not working. It's not relevant.
It used to work though, as I said. Excuse me, it used to work for me, it used to work for everybody, frankly. Everybody was doing it a couple of years ago. People did it in different ways. Like I said, sometimes people were super aggressive and kind of smarmy with it, which I never liked. But ⁓ there were lots of different ways to incorporate urgency and scarcity into the marketing process. Urgency being like there's a time deadline on this particular offer or
bonus or whatever or discount. And scarcity being there are only this many spots. And if you don't get this now, you'll never get this. You might never get this. So those two things, I think, are just not working anymore. We're to focus on urgency today. But I don't think scarcity works like it used to either. I've never been into scarcity. I don't like that at all. I think the reason why it used to work is that there was a much faster decision cycle happening for buyers. This was like post-pandemic. I really see this as a social
shift that happened during the pandemic where we couldn't get things. A lot of us couldn't get things like we had been able to get things before. We started to rely on delivery services for products and also services in a way we hadn't before. Things, places like Amazon and just ordering products online, groceries online, all of that, but also services online. A lot of us got really comfortable
with online platforms using Zoom and started looking for community connection support and services online in a way that we had not before the pandemic. And it was exciting when that happened, know, and it was exciting post pandemic. We came out of the pandemic like, my God, finally we're not in lockdown anymore. And there was a lot of like quick buying happening then. And again, like from a buyer psychology perspective, I don't, I'm not a psychologist. I don't know enough about this, but.
I can say from my own experience personally, there was a bit of like, I'm free, I'm free. I can do these things now, I can buy these things again, I can use these things that I'm buying. This is over. And a feeling of relief. And I think probably some spontaneous purchasing happening as a way to compensate for just generally how everybody was feeling.
So decision cycles were really fast, is my point. Like we were just buying, buying, buying, buying without thinking a lot. There was a lot of FOMO happening and that was actually working. So, you if you don't get this thing, you're going to miss out on it. And people were worried about that. Bonuses definitely mattered and bonuses worked then. Deadlines like incentivize people, they created movement, they caused buyers to take the step ⁓ to purchase. Scarcity was motivating and none of that's working anymore.
And it worked then because buyers weren't exhausted yet from this. It was all new and shiny. And there was a lot of trust in online stuff after the pandemic because people had not yet had time to experience the disappointment and buyer remorse from online programming. People also, I think, had disposable income. A lot of us, not all of us, but some of us had disposable income because we hadn't been spending for a period of time.
And because the market, wasn't a recession like it is now. And I think that then there was a whole lot less skepticism around the online stuff. But this has really, really shifted. What's happening now is we are in a trust recession, as I've been talking about. And that has led to much longer sales cycles, much more thoughtful financial decisions. People are just taking their time and making decisions much more mindfully around where they spend their money and invest. People are sometimes taking months even
even longer to decide. I have had people join the BBB who have been on more than one open house. So that means that, you know, there's been at least because the open houses are every two months, been four months between the first time I talked to them and their decision to join the BBB. Oftentimes I've also had a phone call, sometimes more than one phone call with them in there. So it's just taking people a lot longer, a lot less impulsive purchasing of online programming happening and a lot more, I think,
consciously aligned decision making happening ⁓ when it comes to people spending, investing in themselves, investing in their businesses. They're not asking whether, like, there's a great bonus, so they're not asking what's the bonus. I don't get that question anymore from people. Instead, what they're asking is, is this the right room for me right now? Is this the right space for me? Are you the right coach for me? And that's buyer maturity, and I actually think that's a lot healthier, and I am here for it. I'm actually really excited about this.
The problem is that if you're still resisting that, like I have been a little bit for the last few months, it doesn't feel good. There's a dissonance there because you're still trying to close. You're still trying to use some of the old tools in marketing that maybe had worked for you before, the old systems, the old structure, the old mentality around it. And it rubs up against the reality of the buyer mentality right now and where people are. Urgency is not working in the same way.
because it's now five years post pandemic. People have lived through years and years now of being like oversold. And I think people, a lot of people have had some disappointing experiences with online programs. I know I have, I have purchased things spontaneously, maybe as a result of scarcity, maybe as a result of some urgency, some tactics that now maybe don't feel so good to me, but at the time maybe felt exciting to me, I'm not sure, but.
purchased some things that I really regretted after I spent the money and some really big purchases, big investments in terms of both business coaching and on the personal side. I think other people have experienced that too, which means we're more skeptical now. We are less trustworthy when it comes to online programming and services and offers. I also think just generally our nervous systems are exhausted and this is partly because of, you know,
the overwhelm from the online world in terms of selling and all the newsletters landing in our boxes and social media and all the rest of it, but also like the state of the world, you know, it's just exhausting for us. It's like something new every day that just feels horrific and just like unsafe and untenable for most of us. So we're just, we're just pooped. And so pressure feels unsafe.
There's nothing about that that feels exciting anymore to us. It's just unsafe. think higher investments, which might be like a one-on-one coaching offer with you, it might be something like the BBB with me or one of my longer group programs, those really require internal certainty and external pressure, no matter what it looks like, is not going to lead to internal certainty. We really need to feel sure before we purchase.
And the thing for me is, and this may be the case for you if you also work with coaches, which some of us do, I think coaches are probably even more savvy around all of this because this is our world and we know these tactics. Like I am so intimately familiar with all of the marketing tactics out there. I mean, I teach some of them inside the BBB and I certainly teach what not to do inside the BBB. I am paying attention to what's happening. I am aware of all of the pressure tactics that exist out there.
for sales and many of my coaches are aware of that too. You probably are as well. I can tell you like some of the things that I see that just drive me crazy. mean, false scarcity in particular, like the false urgency and false scarcity, I guess, is like an absolute no-go for me. It just feels so misaligned for me. And that is when...
people send out emails. And I've just was, I was the recipient of a string of these emails this month and I've since unsubscribed to this person. But this is a person with like a good big reputation. Selling a program, sending out the like, just bombarding me with emails for the week before, which I've come to like accept as part of launch. Even though I personally have decided not to do that anymore. I committed to that in the summer. I send out one email a month, if you're on a week, sorry, if you're on my newsletter list.
occasionally one extra one if I don't want you to miss something. But for the most part, four emails a month is what I send out. But most people aren't doing that. So this person sent me like however many emails, I don't know, seven emails at least that week. And they were all leading up this countdown to like, you're gonna miss this thing. It's expiring, it's over, it's done at midnight tonight. And so, you I get the 11th hour email, like one more hour left to join or whatever. And then I get the email the next day.
or the day after that that says oops my bad that's almost always the realign something like that i screwed up the dog ate my homework the link was broken we sent it out to the wrong segment of the list so we're just we're gonna extend the deadline for signing up for this thing that drives me crazy i see right through that that is complete bs anyway i just don't think there's a lot of
place for that anymore because my guess is you see through that too and you've had that experience as well with people. I think we're all just savvy. We just get it now. So here's what I want to teach today. Here's the point I want to get across. Here's what I have been doing for myself that has been really incredibly helpful for me and I think will be helpful for you to accept.
I want you to accept that this is the reality. We are in a trust recession. The buyer mentality has changed. It is a lot much longer on ramp to a sale now than it was before. Buyers are only buying when they're ready. And pressure tactics, trying to rush that is actually probably just going to backfire. It's definitely not going to help. So instead of how do I get them to decide faster?
What I am really leaning into right now is how do I help them become ready? So let me say that again. Instead of how do I get them to sign up, decide, invest faster, how do I get them ready? And that for me looks like a bunch of different things. So it's basically just doubling down on things I've always done, but just being more careful with it. So one of the things that I've been focusing lately on lately is
making sure that I'm really clear about the return on investment in everything. Because personally, when I'm making a decision about investing, that's one of the most important things to me is how will I get the value back out that I am putting into this thing? And sometimes it's a dollar value, right? So certainly when it's a business investment, when I'm investing in my business, I want to know how I can be certain that I'm going to get that money and more back out. What is the return on my investment? And so I'm getting really
granular with that in conversations with people.
Look, you only need to book one one-on-one client that you would not otherwise book as a result of something I teach you inside the BBB and you will make your investment more slots to this group program that you have priced at this and you will make your money back. I can teach you five different ways to sell that program that you're not selling it, you you're not using right now. Or I can...
improve the value in that program, or I can help you build your confidence around that so that when you get into sales conversations, your conversion rate increases. You need to be able to do that too. And this is a tricky thing, or it can feel tricky to some of my coaches inside the BBB who are doing personal coaching. So business coaching sometimes is easier because there are dollar amounts that we can assign to things when it comes to articulating ROI. But with personal coaching, it can feel trickier. And we talk about this a lot inside the BBB. ⁓
Here's what I tell my coaches if they're life coaches or do some other form of personal transition, transformation coaching. What people are buying is the transformation, not the nuts and bolts of the program. You all know that, right? People don't care whether there's a workbook or a journal prompt every day or six modules or eight modules or the calls are 55 minutes long or 90 minutes long. That doesn't really matter to people. What matters to people
is how they're gonna feel as a result of doing this work with you. So the first thing you need to do is you need to look at how they feel now and how they're gonna feel when they're done. That's the first step, but that's not the last step. So articulating the emotional transition is a transformation is not enough for people to sell. What you really need to do once you've established like, okay, you're gonna go from, for example, feeling underconfident, disempowered and uncertain and anxious to feeling empowered and confident and clear.
Right, so that's the emotional transformation But what you really need to do next is you need to figure out how that is how that transformation is going to change their day-to-day lives how that's gonna play out for them in a really factual Practical way. So for example, if you are feeling empowered and clear and confident in who you are
that's gonna lead to you like having a tough conversation with your boss and asking for the raise that you deserve. Having the tough conversation with your partner and talking to them about like what you are willing to accept and not willing to accept in the relationship. Setting some boundaries up with your, you know, with your sister so that you're not taking on more than your share of responsibility with your aging parents, which will allow you to take better care of yourself, right? So those are practical ways that shift.
in emotion and how a person feels is actually going to impact their life. That's how you establish the ROI for your clients in personal coaching. You get into the really granular, nitty gritty, day to day impact of the shift that you help people affect. So you need to get really clear on the ROI. I think that's even more important than ever. I think it's important to be really transparent in how you show up. I think it's important to be
giving people a little taste of what you have to offer. So not being a gatekeeper on all of this, but actually letting people in. That's what the open house is all about. Come on in, come into a live office hours call. You get to see how I roll as a coach. You get to meet some of the other coaches inside the BBB. You get a sense of the vibe in there and the community feel and whether it's actually a good fit for you. And I welcome you in to that room, right? So how can you do that?
How can you show people at the inside of your room? Can you offer a free hot seat coaching session, for example, where you have six seats and people can come in and you just do 10 minutes of coaching for each person and demonstrate your skill and show them what you're like as a coach and start building some trust. Can you have an open house for your group program? There are lots of different ways to do that. One of the newest ways to do that is to trial the product or the course. So if you've got an online
course component to whatever you're offering. You can set it up so that people can access the first module or two. And then after that, they have to pay to continue on in the course. In fact, I got an email from Kajabi, which is the platform that I use and many of my coaches use just yesterday saying this is a new feature that's available when you set up a course in Kajabi. So you can create a free portion of the course and then a paywall and an automatic sort of trigger to pay to access the rest of the course. So they're onto it. They know that
the market has shifted and different things are required now. So giving people an opportunity to trial the product in a one-on-one coaching relationship that might look like giving people the first session for free and only after the first session do they decide whether they want to continue for the other five sessions and pay for the full six, for example. That could work. That's not something I would have recommended probably a few years ago, but now I think why not? Why not try that?
I think money back guarantees also are something to be thinking about right now. If you don't have a money back guarantee, why not? What is holding you back from a money back guarantee? I think if you get honest with yourself, for a lot of you, it is because you are worried that people are gonna ask for their money back. And that is a whole other problem that I can't deal with on this podcast. But you're not thinking about creating trust in the sale process. You're thinking about...
my gosh, I'm going to have to refund a lot of people because I don't have confidence in my coaching and the value of my offer. That's something separate to be working on, building your confidence and making sure the value is there in your offer. But money back guarantees are a big deal and even a bigger deal now because it signals something when you don't have one. If I was to say to people, you've got to join the BBB, lay down the investment for the BBB, commit to six months, and there's absolutely no opportunity to change your mind or test the pro.
the program, I wouldn't feel good about that. And I think that would send a message to people. I can tell you that there's a seven day money back guarantee in the BBB gives you a chance to come to office hours, gives you a chance to, you know, spend some time in the library, watch some of the master classes, you could not possibly access everything that's in the BBB library in a week, that would be completely impossible. But it gives you a chance to really test it out and see whether it's what you thought it was going to be. I have never had anyone asked for their money back.
But being able to say, you know what? No worries. Like if you change your mind within the first week, you can just get your money back. I'm not gonna ask any questions. I'll just refund you fully. Is something that feels good to me to be able to say, I stand behind the value of that product. I'm not worried people are gonna do that. But I do wanna give them that peace of mind. Because I know for me, that's a helpful thing when I'm signing up for something that feels like a big commitment or investment. So.
All of those things are ways to give people a peek inside your room, but also build transparency and trust. And also model confidence. think Money Back guarantees model confidence too. I'm not worried about the fact that there's a Money Back guarantee. Like I said to you, no one's ever accessed it. And if somebody did, because they really didn't feel like it was the right fit for them, then I would rather refund them and not have them in a program that they resented and wish they weren't in, than have them stay in that community.
To me, that's just like a no brainer. The last thing you need to be thinking about when we're talking about building readiness for people is the fact that this is a long game, not a short game. So again, the buyer cycle has lengthened out. It is taking longer for people to commit and invest. People are not jumping on things just because you offer them a special bonus or use some scarcity tactic. It's not working anymore.
Long-term nurturing is the name of the game right now. So how can you do that? Here are the ways I do long-term nurturing. Obviously this podcast every episode, every week, new episode, free, no commercials, come on in, zero commitment, right? Listen away, listen for years. Some of you have been listening since the very beginning. Thank you very much, by the way, if that's you. This is a way that I nurture and I build trust and I provide really...
I think good quality trustworthy valuable content. The open houses are another example of that. That's an example of me giving people a chance to come inside the room. It is also a long term nurturing strategy in that you're not required to sign up for the BBB after an open house. Many people do, it's many people don't. As I've said, it's an opportunity for them to come in, see the community, get a sense of it and then start thinking about it. Is this right for me? And lots of people come back later. For a lot of people, it is a longer term
It's a longer on-ramp into the BBB. So open houses, get a taste of the community, me, and just generally ask any questions you have about the programming. It's a real office hours call that you join. So you get to see the real deal. My newsletter, obviously weekly. Many of you guys have a newsletter. That's another way that I sort of nurture over time.
And then I have lots of lower ticket offers and free resources for coaches at wendymichellum.com that people take advantage of every day. And those are another way for me to build like no trust and just nurture the relationship. And then of course, I'm happy to get on calls. So I do a lot of, there's a lot of conversation and relationship building that happens for me through voicemails, through little video messages and through Zoom calls.
sales calls and discovery calls and that kind of thing. So all of this is to build the readiness. And the way I've been thinking about it is I am holding space. That's what I'm doing here. Eventually, when people are ready, I want them to know with great confidence, I'm the person for them. I am the solution. I am the coach for them. That's my goal is to build that over time. The other thing that I've been doing that's been really helpful is I've been depersonalizing the decisions, the buyer decisions.
And this is something that takes some emotional steadiness and I think it's a skill that you grow over time. The more experienced you are, I know a lot of newer coaches really take it personally when someone decides not to work with them. I do not in the way that I used to when I first started. And I would say even less so in the last year because of the shift in the market that I'm seeing. Just because someone doesn't buy.
in the bonus window doesn't mean they're a no. That's what I've been telling you and I've been experiencing that now for the last six months. It is actually completely irrelevant. Oftentimes they sign up before, they sign up after, it just, doesn't matter to them anymore. And just because someone says to me like, I think that actually this would work better for me to start in January than it would in November, doesn't mean they're not gonna sign up in January. It usually means exactly what they say it means. I'm not ready for this yet, but I think I will be ready in January. And so I am seeing,
buyers who are making decisions based on readiness, like I said, and I am celebrating that instead of taking that personally. I am saying to them, I really want you to sign up when you're ready and you're excited about this. That is the best time to join the BBB. Because people often ask, what's the best time? it while I'm still in certification? Is it after I've launched? Is it before I launched?
And the answer is like whenever it feels like exciting to you and like you're ready to commit to whatever the next phase of business building is for you, whether it's launching or it's building your first group program or it's starting a podcast, whatever it is you want to do. If you are ready and excited, that's the right time for you to join. So don't take it personally. Really try to think of this as like holding space. Like I hold space for every one of you who listens to this podcast. I hold space for you to come.
further down into my world, whatever that looks like, whether you decide to opt into some of the free resources I have or sign up for the newsletter or come in and do a Compass audit with me or maybe join one of my bigger programs, like I hold space for you.
Part of that is just like tied directly into the whole idea of expecting longer sales cycles. The other thing, as I said, that I've been doing a lot more of is conversation. And I've been focusing on that inside the BBB with my coaches, really encouraging them to start conversations and engage and continue conversations with people. And it's because of this. It's because the sales cycle is longer. Don't be afraid to follow up either. This is something that I wanted to mention today. Coaches often worry that they're going to seem pushy if they follow up. And I'm like, no, just follow up, girl.
Like I followed up with this person this month who had come to the open house in January and who had said they thought they'd be ready to join February 15th. And there was a specific reason for that. And I said, okay, great. And left it at that. But then realized, they didn't actually sign up. It's been a couple of weeks afterwards. So I followed up with them to say, hey, I just remembered that you had indicated you wanted to sign up on the 15th, but I haven't seen you inside the BBB yet. Is there anything that you're missing that I can answer for you? And
That follow-up led to a little back and forth with us, and she had a couple questions, and then she signed up that same day. So follow-ups are important. Follow-ups are, I think, professional and I think expected and something that you need to get into the habit of doing. I also think we really need to be doubling down on being trustworthy, which ties into everything else I've been saying in the last, you know.
few months on this podcast, but we really need to be showing up in an aligned way. We really get clear on what our values are, what matters to us, how we want to show up, what's important to us about our reputation and our personal brand and show up that way all the time in all the ways. Show up that way in public when we're doing public facing that facing activity, show up that way one-on-one with clients and with potential clients and show up that way with other professionals in the industry with anybody else that we're talking to. And I think
Part of that, again, is just getting really personal whenever possible. So avoiding automated responses, really trying to be personal in your responses, be thoughtful, be mindful, have real conversations, be less performative, and just be looking for ways to create meaningful, authentic connection. Now, what's the upside of all of this? Well, the upside, I think, honestly, is that we're getting better buyers.
So it's improving the quality of my programming to have people coming in who are really thinking hard about it, making sure it's the right time for them and they're excited about it and they're ready to join. I have less of a chance of having people coming into the BBB who are anxious about being there, who aren't as committed. There's less chance of buyer's remorse. There's a greater chance of retention because those people are ready when they start and there's a greater chance they're gonna stay on as clients. They're gonna be happy with their experience and then they're gonna want more support going forward.
And generally then you build like if you have a community that goes along with your programming, like I do, build a more aligned community because everybody who's in the BBB is excited and committed to building their coaching businesses. So the conversations that are happening in there are really energetic and really positive and fun, frankly. And I think for us as the marketers, as the people marketing and selling the programs, the upside to this shift in buyer mentality is that
If we can lean into really just focusing on the long game, focusing on readiness and helping people get ready, it takes a ton of pressure off us and reduces the likelihood that we're gonna burn out from a bunch of marketing that frankly probably never felt aligned for us in the first place. It gives us permission to drop back from some of that. For me, there's been a huge relaxing thing in that. It's just been really relaxing for me to just be like, look, I'm just holding space. That's what I do. I'm having the conversations.
I'm answering the questions, I'm being transparent, I'm being upfront, I'm making things as accessible as I can, I'm doing everything that I can to help people get ready and be ready to make the decision when the time is right for them. And when they're ready, I will be the obvious solution for them as a result of all of the things that I'm doing and the way that I show up, right? So you can do that too. You can give yourself permission to do that.
And I encourage you to do that. This is just, it's another piece of the business experiment mindset that I talk about. Things have shifted. I've been noticing they're shifting. I've been paying attention. I've been watching for trends and changes. And this is something I noticed in my business. And again, stepping back a little bit in February so that I could try to recover from this heinous cold that I have has helped me see that even more clearly and allowed me now to come on here and talk about it with you guys.
I want to just close off by saying if urgency isn't working for you anymore, if you're one of my coaches, for example, who's been doing, you know, early bird, early bird deals on in a launch and then trying to do like a mid cart bonus of some sort, and then maybe a closing bonus. And, you know, you've been trying to use these tactics and it just doesn't seem to be working for you. Maybe it's not you. Maybe it's not your messaging. Maybe it's this shift in environmentality. Maybe it's this new reality that we're in.
And maybe it isn't about pressuring people or incentivizing people to make the decision. And instead, maybe it's about really working on becoming the safest, clearest yes for them when they are ready and helping them through the process of getting ready. And what happens for you if you adopt that, if you shift to that? Look, my job here isn't to sell and to close the deal.
My job is to get people ready. My job is to help it make it really clear to people that I am the solution to the problem that they're struggling with, or I have that solution, and I am the right person for them, the right coach for them. And when they're ready, just trust that they will take the next step, because that's what's been happening for me, and I can tell you that it is a relief to be thinking about it that way. So I encourage you to do that. I'm giving you permission to do that.
If you've been noticing this trend in your business, me a note, let me know. I'd love to hear from you. You can always email me at wendy at wendymcallum.com. If you have ideas for future episodes, I also love to hear those. Send them my way. If there's something that you've been struggling with as a coach or something that you've been noticing that you want my thoughts on, I would love to hear from you. Have a great week. I'll see you next time on The Coaching Edge. Thanks for listening.
