Coaches – How Are You Handling the Sales Part of Your Free Consultation?

Are you selling your coaching services through a “free consultation” model?

If so, then you know it’s challenging to transition from one role to the other in that call. On the one hand you’re a coach, and you want them to value you deeply and be motivated to work with you. On the other hand, you need to close the sale.

These two tasks seem incongruent.

But they don’t have to be.

I was having a chat with a business partner the other day about how sales managers often complain that members of their sales force don’t LISTEN and ASK QUESTIONS very well. They present, handle objections, and close, but fail to engage and motivate. So in the end, they lose the sale.

Coaches know how to listen and ask questions VERY well. They know how to engage and motivate. But in the end, they lose the sale because they don’t know how to present, handle objections, and close.

In fact, coaches may see the selling part of their free consultation as distasteful and separate. While sales reps see all that listening and questioning as too touchy-feely.

Let’s get together!

Coaches…you can blend your coaching consultation with a sales conversation, not have two separate things that are stuck together. By adding the sales part onto the end of a consultation, your job is made harder than it has to be. By making your consultation itself into a sales tool, you’ll find converting clients to be much easier.

And sales reps, you can make your sales call more of a coaching conversation. By mingling sincere and warm communication with your sales calls, your job will be easier.

How To Meld the Two Halves of the Free Consultation and Sale

I’ve had many clients comment that my sales conversation with them seemed very much like a coaching conversation. What it really is, in fact, is a consulting conversation in which I use coaching skills to draw the person out and explore their situation.

Sales calls by sales reps are not typically coaching conversations…you don’t want to delve too deeply into the interpersonal workings of the customer. However, you do need to connect at a deeper level than most sales reps are comfortable with, and so coaching-type questions can serve this purpose.

The right type of question is Openhanded and provides what Judy Rees calls, “intelligent influence.” Whether you’re a coach or a sales rep (you’re both if you’re a coach selling your own services), your sales questions need to be just deep enough to guide the customer to a decision, not to solve their problems.

Secrets of the Soft Sell?

If you’ve ever wondered how to DO soft selling, you’re not alone. Grab my free report on the tips and tricks of Openhanded Selling [http://openhandedselling.com], showing you how to have persuasive, confident, high-integrity sales conversations without caving in and without changing your personality.