 When I see people trying to get more clients, I notice often that one of the key issues is that they're not selling their service enough. I mean, they're not talking to enough people about their services. And they're not talking to enough people and making enough invitations because they're scared to sell. Maybe you can relate. Now, why does selling feel scary? And how can we make it less scary? So let's talk about that in this video. So I want you to imagine if your service was only $1, it was $1 and you'd be like, oh my God, this thing is such a good deal. I am going to be, ironically, you might go the other direction and be scared to sell it because you don't want too many people saying yes. Now imagine if it was $1 and you had an application where it's like, okay, I'm only going to charge $1 but you have to apply for this. You'd be like happy to announce the service to everyone. It's like, my thing is such a good deal. It's so amazing. You're going to get so much out of it for $1, right? Selling feels a lot less scary when you're just charging $1 for your service. Now, of course, if you're charging $1 to somebody who has no interest at all in your service, that's scary too, because it doesn't matter if you charge, if it was free, or if it was a dollar, or if it was $1,000, they don't care about the service. So you feel like maybe you're bothering them by trying to talk them into buying your thing. But if somebody were interested, right? And you were selling it for a dollar, you'd be like, it's such a good deal. Please feel free to take me up on it. It's a really good deal and I think you'll be really happy with what you get out of it. So selling feels scary in short, because we don't really believe that what we are offering is a real win for the other person or that it's a win-win for both of us. We don't really believe it. If you really believed it, you'd be like, this is such a gift to that person for me to let them know that this is, for example, $1 and they get so much out of this thing, right? So how can we work on making our service such a great deal for our audience that we're just so happy to share about it? Or that we have so many clients that we're now becoming more shy about talking about it. I mean, I'm grateful that that's sort of the case for me today and I no longer offer one-to-one coaching because it got to be such a good deal for people that they just kept wanting to and then I said, no, I just do group now. And even my group program is all full. So I don't promote that either, but I had to get to the point of making my thing such a good deal for people that they said, well, when can I sign up? No, you can't, you have to apply. Oh, okay, you know, so let's talk about this. So number one, you can make your thing such a good deal for people if you improve what you do so that you really believe in it, right? I mean, but here's, I'm just gonna set that aside because I believe you're already doing that, right? Aren't you already working hard to improve your service so that you believe in it more and more and more? You probably are doing that. Now, one way to improve your service is by actually providing that service to as many people as possible, meaning having more experience so that you can grow from that experience. I have a blog post, you can Google it called The Tapering Strategy for Getting Clients where I suggest that when you still are at the point of being shy about selling your service because you're not really sure your skill is that good yet, you're not really sure it's worth paying for. I mean, you probably know that. I don't have to tell you that. If you feel like you're shy about talking about your service because you're not sure it's worth paying for, Google tapering strategy for getting clients and you'll see that I basically recommend you start with, possibly start with free. Now, maybe you start with a lower price, but the idea is that the tapering strategy means that you have a certain number of slots per week that you offer it at such a low price that you're like, this is a good deal. Even if I'm not that good at this, it's such a great price or it's free, right? And you have a limited number of spots per week and then once those spots fill up, there is a second calendar they can use to book a regular price spot with you. Anyway, so you can look for that. It's called the tapering strategy for getting clients and Google that, but so that's one way of doing it. It's just a lower, it's to lower your price. That's tapering strategy. Another way of doing it is to continue working on getting better at your skill. Now, you're already working on that. You may have a mentor, you might be getting some training, you might be getting more experiences and looking at your experiences to improve on it, but another way of doing it is just to create a separate service or product that's lower price such that you feel really good about sharing it at such a low price. You're like, oh yeah, this is a good deal. I put this together like an online course, for example. That's one example. Now, there are two parties here to whether when you're selling, right? There's you and your feelings about whether your thing is a good deal, right? And then there's the other person that feels your thing is a good deal or not. Okay, so let's talk about the other side now. So the other person, if they don't want your service you can tell when you start talking to them or if you post on your social media and nobody responds, it feels bad to you, but it's a signal that your social media audience doesn't want your service. So let's talk about how do we solve that issue, okay? We solve the issue of the audience not wanting in a couple of ways. One is that if you already have an audience you need to talk with as many of them as possible, 10 people at least one to one, ideally one to one, right? At least 10 of your audience members one to one that's your homework today. Reach out and talk to 10 of your audience members. And when I say audience members, I mean people who read your social media posts it could be friends, it could be colleagues but they like comment on your stuff, right? So you know they're reading it they comment on your thing. So talk to 10 of them at least if you can talk to 25 that would be even better. So 10 to 25 people at your homework, 10 to 25 people will comment on your stuff that you read reach out to them and say, hey, I would really be grateful if I could talk with you even just for 15 minutes because I'm doing this homework for a business coach of mine and I just need to ask a couple of questions about how I can improve what I do so that it's more interesting for other people. And your opinion is totally confidential, blah, blah, blah. So 10 people, got it? 10 to 25 people, you may do 25, that's even better but let's start with 10, okay? Now you might need to reach out to 20 people to get 10 to say yes. So, but that's the key is you got to talk to them and you got to say basically this is basically what you're trying to understand is what are you willing to buy from me? What should I sell? That someone like you would be like, oh my gosh I would love to buy that or hire you for that or I know somebody I can instantly think of somebody that I'm gonna email right now or message right now to say, I wanna introduce you because they would love that service from you. Essentially, if you can work it out with your audience to offer a service that most of them say they would either buy or someone they know would buy then that's what you offer. But the problem is so many of us haven't done the work. This is marketing. Marketing isn't just running Facebook ads or Instagram ads and putting videos up on YouTube and sending an email, that's the second step of marketing. A lot of people don't realize this. A lot of you or there's two moves to marketing. Marketing is yes, there's promotion, there's getting your things out there, right? That's outreach and advertising, right? But there's also the research aspect of marketing that too few people, marketers like myself too few of us talk about it. Market research, which is essential for something being promoted to actually work to actually have people say, yes I would love this thing. And market research is the most basic way I've just told you. Talk to 10 to 25 of your engagers, the people who engage with your stuff and essentially try to figure out what could you sell that they would happily buy? They would buy right now. Or if you're shy about asking that like you feel confrontational and would you buy this thing about it? Maybe that feels awkward to you. So instead that you could say, hey I'm trying to figure out something that I could sell that people would buy more easily, more readily, more excited to buy. And so I want you to think of somebody you know. So think of, well think about the thing that I offer things that I offer and I'm willing to think outside the box. And this is where I really think a lot of you would do well to try. Again, talk to 10 to 25 and be willing to think outside the box for what you could sell. If you're having a hard time getting clients, particularly if you're not having hard time getting clients, you can stop watching this because congratulations you have solved the sales issue. But for those of you who have not yet gotten a waiting list of clients and you're like, oh yeah, getting clients is not a problem at all keep watching, right? You need to work it out with your audience to say, what could I sell? So here's the thing. You might have started your business because you have a passion for a particular area of life and service. You wanna provide this particular skill to this particular type of person. But the problem is those people don't want it from you. Maybe if you're having a hard time getting clients you might say, well, George it's not that those people don't want it from you. I just haven't reached enough of those people. Okay, so let's talk about that briefly before we go back to. So if you're saying, George I can't even get 10 people on the phone because I don't even have 10 people commenting on my posts. All right, now this is where you do need to do some outreach and promotion but it's not for your service because again, you're promoting something that possibly people don't want. I'm sorry to say, you may even have gotten trained in something that the way you're framing it the way they taught you to present it is not something enough people want or at least enough for the people you know want. So people aren't buying from you, right? It's not necessarily sometimes not necessarily that you're charging too much you might not be charging too much. It's just that people don't want that service they just don't wanna buy it. And yes, if you educate them for years they might eventually say, okay I've never bought this kind of service before but now I'm considering it but it takes years of education maybe months if you're lucky but usually years of education before people go you know, I never thought about it but now I'm willing to. So how do you reach enough people so that you can actually have conversations with them? That's how it's. So to reach enough people to have conversations with first of all, start with your friends and your colleagues. You already know a bunch of people. No, you do, you do. You already know a bunch of people. Look at your Facebook friends. How many Facebook friends you have? Did George have a thousand but I really only know 300 of them. Fine, you know have 300 real Facebook friends. You have 700 fake Facebook friends but you have 300 real ones, okay? Or you have 300 Facebook friends but you really only know 100 of them. Okay, fine, you have 100 Facebook friends or Instagram followers or LinkedIn contacts or people in your email address book. Okay, fine, you know a bunch of people you know at least a hundred people that if you reached out to them they would instantly know who you are, right? You know a hundred people, you do. Trust me, you do, all right. Those hundred people know at least a hundred people, okay? All right, you got a hundred times a hundred what's a hundred times a hundred? That's a thousand, 10,000 people from your second degree, at least, okay? Got 10,000 people that either you know or the people you know know. Do you think out of 10,000 people you could find 10 people to talk to? Of course you can. It's just that you never asked. You never asked. So you gotta ask your friends, start with your friends and your colleagues, hey, I'm looking to talk with somebody who might maybe have some interest in this broad area that I serve. You know, I'm a parenting coach. I'm looking to talk with 10 parents. I'm a relationship coach. I'm looking to talk with 10 people who are interested in bettering their love life. Do you know anybody like that? Like who's actively seeking maybe you have a friend who reads those kinds of books or works with coaches or you know is just interested in making a better relationship or I'm looking for 10 of your holistic health expert. Hey, I'm looking for 10 people who are interested in growing their holistic health. So out of your 10,000 second degree contacts in first degree, you probably could talk to 25 people. Like I said, 25 would be better. So when you're talking to them again the idea is to be open-minded enough where they could completely shape your offer and might be totally different from what you're offering right now. But you have to be open to that because if you're not open to that and you are pushing your current service on people that you notice they're just not responding, that's why selling feels scary because you're not getting a great response. If you were getting a great response, if every time you announced your service or mentioned to somebody, this is what you sell, you're like, oh my gosh, this is so great. Would selling feel scary? No, if you're like, every time I talk about this people are really excited about it. And people want, you would be scared to talk to too many people because you're kind of pushing them away now. That's a different problem. So this is why selling feels scary is that you haven't yet found the right match between what you offer and what the people you have access to would love to buy from you. And when you find that, the match is there. You just have to find it. You just have to talk to those 10 to 25 people, talk to more if you can. Of course, there's no detriment in talking to more people about your service and helping them, asking, inviting them to shape what you offer, right? The more people you talk to, the more you can think outside your own head so that you can think in other people's heads because remember, I always say this, your money comes from other people. Your income, where does income come from? Your income comes from other people. So if you're in your own head, that's not where your money comes from. Your money doesn't come from your own head. Your money comes from other people's heads. Other people go, oh my gosh, you have such an exciting service. You have such a needed service. I know somebody who would love to hire you, right? So I hope this is helpful. Remember, selling feels scary because we haven't yet found a match between what we're confident to offer and what the audience confidently would love to buy. And we talked about the confidence of you offering something. If you're not confident, you may need to lower the price to a certain extent. I mean, right now maybe you're charging $150 per session and you're feeling scared, even though you know people want it, you're feeling scared about it, why? Because you don't feel like your skill is not worth $150 per session. Lower the price until you're like a dollar? My God, no, that's a little ridiculous, but that's extreme, but that's an example that you can understand how that works. Like a dollar, my God, service, it's such a good deal. You would feel resentful charging a dollar for it because you know you're so damn, you're way better than a dollar. Your skill is way better than a dollar. Your skill might not be better than $150. If you feel that, you either lower the price or you have to use, you'd have to psych yourself up to say, I'm worth $150 an hour, I'm worth $250 an hour and that's just, it's just, I don't know. To me, it's not authentic. You're like all those mental hypnosis, try to hypnotize yourself and say, no, I'm worth a million dollars and I'm worth a million dollars an hour. Really? Okay, now back to the real world. Are you, the next person you're talking to, are you gonna feel fake? Just saying I'm worth a million dollars an hour, of course you're gonna feel fake. There's a certain number that you feel like, you know, I'm really comfortable at 120 an hour or whatever it is, I'm comfortable at this time. And then once you serve people at that rate, again and again and again and again, you're like, I'm feeling resentful now that I'm only charging 120. I look at my colleagues and they're charging 135, 150. I'm gonna increase it to 140 because I'm starting to feel resentful about this. Now you know, oh my gosh, gotta increase the rate. But if you're not there yet, it's okay to lower the rate. Google the tapering strategy for finding clients to kind of figure that out. And then again, your confidence and then the confidence of the audience for buying your thing means you have to talk with them for them to find some services. They're really excited to talk with enough people to get outside of your head, the brainstorm, new thoughts on what you could offer. It could be quite different from what you're currently offering, but it's still some skill that you have. So I hope this is helpful. I always look forward to your comments below and let me know if this is helpful. And if you do the homework, do let me know how it goes as well. I would love to know. I wish you well. Take care.