Photo courtesy of Emily Poisel and Flickr
“The people who influence you are the people who believe in you.”
Henry Drummond
Welcome to part 7 in the series of articles on the 10 professional practice multipliers from the Exponential Practice Scorecard https://www.jamiesmart.com/scorecard/. Each week I’ll be explaining them and looking at how you can leverage them to grow your practice, and here’s the thing: Whether you’re a transformation professional or not, you’re going to discover that these 10 multipliers apply to almost everyone (at least, with a little creativity). This week, we’ll be looking at Multiplier Number 7- Ethical Influence.
NB The next three weeks’ professional practice multipliers are focused around what I call leverage: your commercial transformation. This is important because most of us have been educated for a world of jobs and employment. We haven’t necessarily learnt the key elements you need if you want to run your own practice and work for yourself. If impact is about what people pay you for, leverage is about how you get paid, how you get scale and how you multiply your impact in a variety of ways.
Multiplier Number Seven: Ethical Influence
Ethical influence refers to selling (in the broadest sense), whether you’re “selling” clients on the value of your services or “selling” your community on your vision. And here’s the thing: Whether you like it or not, the one thing that has to happen if people are going to hire you is they have to have some kind of selling conversation with you.
While people will buy products via a web page, when it comes to doing transformational work with someone (especially high-value transformational work), they almost always have to have a selling conversation with you.
In column one, you hate selling and avoid doing it. You’re vague when people ask what you do and come across as awkward. People don’t buy from you. This is an incredibly common phenomenon among coaches, therapists, consultants and other transformation professionals because most of the models of selling we see are of it being done badly. There is good news, however; it turns out the things that make you a great transformation professional are also the keys that make you great at what I call 21st century selling: Selling based on connection, relationship and service.
In column two of ethical influence, you undercharge. You do some selling but don’t enjoy it. Clients often buy less than they need and you wish you could serve them more fully. The focus on enjoying it is important. A sales conversation is your client’s opportunity to “take you for a test drive” and experience what it’s like to work with you. The more you enjoy it, the more they’ll enjoy it. The better you get at selling in a way that feels good, the more likely, your clients are to get what they need from you.
In column three, you don’t mind selling and are competent at it. You look for ways to increase the value you offer clients and the income you receive from it. This is what we might call the skilled sales person. They’re good at it and enjoy the process. The transformation professional at this level will often increase their prices incrementally from time to time and increase the scope of their offer.
In column four is the exponential level of ethical influence: You love selling and are great at it. You constantly increase the value you bring and are rewarded accordingly. People enjoy buying from you. It may seem like a stretch to imagine yourself loving selling, but it really is possible. You see, the more you see selling as an opportunity to connect with your client, to serve them and give them value, the more you’ll see a deeper truth: That every sales conversation is an opportunity for you to serve your clients and grow and evolve as a transformation professional.
The key to making progress and improving in this practice multiplier is to see your selling conversation as an opportunity for clients to test drive what it’s like to work with you. Of course, all the earlier practice multipliers come into play here as well: Grounded certainty, authentic leadership, trusted advisor etc.
Here’s the sweet spot: The more you enjoy the selling conversation, the more your client is going to enjoy it. The more clear-minded and connected you feel during the process, the more clear-minded and connected your client will feel because they’re going to pick up on the experience you’re having. That’s why it’s so essential to make the decision to master your ability to have enjoyable selling conversations.
A great example of this development is Kimberley Kaase. When we first started working with Kim on our Coaching Package Power programme, she already had a successful practice but she suspected she could love the process of selling her coaching services a lot more. She was right. One of the big things that changed for her was this: she used to have a lot of hesitancy in enrolment conversations and seemed to lose her confidence. She realized she was getting caught up in contaminated thinking, over-thinking it and making things more complex than they needed to be. As a result of addressing this, she now loves the selling conversation and her practice has increased significantly.
Another example is one of my dear friends and colleagues, Dr. Mark Howard. Mark already had pristine grounding and impact and had been working for many years as a transformation professional within a large organization. He was having a phenomenal impact, but he had relatively little experience of working for himself and selling his services. The interesting thing here is that, because of the quality of his grounding and impact, all we needed to do was give Mark some simple distinctions around selling conversations and he was able to begin signing up clients on high-value packages right away. I mention this because I really want to underline the point: Grounding and impact are your foundation. They’re the basis that your commercial leverage and your exponential practice are built on.
“Ethical Influence” is one of the primary areas we work on during Project Glasswing (aka Coaching Package Power). The next instalment of Project Glasswing is due to kick off next month. If you’d like to be considered for the latest intake of the pilot programme, I’m looking for 36 very specific people:
– You are a coach, therapist or change-worker (Eg. Sports coach, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, business coach, bodyworker etc)
– You have at least one year’s experience of working with clients (either paid, pro-bono or both)
– You probably charge by the hour, but want to use a “coaching package” model and increase your income
– You have room to work with at least one longer term contract client, starting in November
– You’re an enthusiastic, friendly people-person
– You have a coachable spirit, and are willing to step out of your comfort zone if necessary, and
– You can keep a secret
If that’s you, then email me at info@jamiesmart.com, and let me know where you’re located and a little about yourself (if you don’t know what to tell me about, look at the list above for inspiration). Change the subject line to “Project Glasswing JST”. I’ll be choosing people in the next couple of weeks. Talk to you soon!
To your increasing clarity
Big love
Jamie
PS You can download your own “Exponential Practice Scorecard” to make progress on all 10 multipliers at https://www.jamiesmart.com/scorecard/