Some coaches say clients pay you for results. Others say they pay you for the powerful insights you generate. And still others say it’s the possibility you get them present to.
But no matter how you talk about it, what your clients are paying you for directly or indirectly is what happens in the insight creation, or Shift, part of your coaching conversations. The reason is simple: the Shift is where things change. It’s where clients see their lives differently. It’s where they get present to possibility. It’s where they realize what they’ve been missing and create what wasn’t possible before.
If you understand this, you can use the power of the Shift phase to sign clients. If you don’t understand this, you’ll squander the Shift, it will create powerful conversations, but no clients.
This is how it normally goes (hint… not well). 
Normally, you coach a client, they get present to what’s possible, they see themselves in a new way, and they get interested in your coaching.
Then you try to ‘SELL THEM ON COACHING.’
But you don’t sell them the result of their Shift ; you don’t help them get present to the impact of what’s going to happen if they keep living from the old point of view versus the new point of view. No, you forget all about that. You try to sell them on a package, a program, a set of future goals that are dead and boring.
Before long, the magic they felt in the Shift is gone. Your interaction seems average, just like every interaction they’ve ever had with a sales person. They say they’re interested, they say they’ll think about it… and then you either get a polite email from them telling you no (but just for now), or you never hear from you again.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU SUCK AS A COACH OR AT SALES.
What it does mean is that their context won. The context of resignation and cynicism. The context that nothing will really change for them. And it happened because you squandered their Shift . You went from “SO MUCH IS POSSIBLE!” to “Here’s my $599 coaching program.”
How to make it abnormal and thus successful.
If you want this to stop happening, here’s what you do. When your potential client has a Shift in your session, write it down. Keep track of these Shifts carefully.
THEN when you get to the proposal phase, which is IDEALLY before you get to the proposal conversation itself, write down each Shift and draw two lines from each one of them.
On the left line write who they are before this SHIFT :What is their view of the world? How do they act? How do they be?
Then write down the impact of this:
– What’s possible and impossible?
– What’s available and unavailable?
– How do other people feel around them?
– How do they feel about themselves?
Now do the same thing for the right line. Do this for AT LEAST 2-3 of the SHIFTS they experienced in their coaching conversation with you.
NOW SELL THEM THIS!!!
Help them get present to the impact of what it means to keep living from the left lines. Don’t TELL them, draw it out of them. Have them experience what it’s like to be the old version, the pre-shift version. Have them get PRESENT to that impact of what it’s like to be that person.
THEN have them connect with what is possible beyond the Shift : what could they do with new beliefs, what actions could they take, who could they become. Sell them on a future they create for themselves, NOT on your boring process or absurd coaching package that has them create a context of ‘just like everything else.’
If you do this, you WILL sign clients. If you do this, you can use the Shift to create a powerful opportunity for commitment.
THIS is exciting and powerful. This is what it means to create commitment through service instead of pressure. This is the Art of Enrollment with Honor.
Love,
Toku
