The Prosperous Coach: Increase Income and Impact for You and Your Clients (The Prosperous Series Book 1)

by Steve Chandler

The truth is they don’t care if you’re a coach, a consultant or if you can sprinkle fairy dust on them. If you can help them get what they really, really, really, really want, then they will find a way to become your client.

The real magic is in whether you are willing to help your clients dive deeper than they have ever gone into the question: What do you really, really, really, really want?

Show up. Be present. Be bold. Coach them powerfully. Be relentless. Be Sherlock Holmes and explore deeper into their lives than anyone has ever gone with them.

Most coaches are so afraid of a no that they won’t ever make a proposal.

“Rich, I loved this coaching session we just did together. How much do you charge?” “Well, let’s slow things down for a moment. Let’s find out if it would really be a great fit for us to coach together. I have five criteria that any client must meet. My clients must be inspiring, or have an inspiring mission. They must make, or be ready to make, a big impact in the world. They must be fun. They must bring along a challenge; I’m not looking for an easy ride. And they must understand the power of commitment.” I’ll pause to check in with the person in front of me. If they meet these criteria, I’ll let them know. And then I’ll go on. “Would you like to hear a little more about how we could work together?”

You see, I’m continually seeking permission to continue when it comes to a proposal. Then, based on our conversation, I will map out how our coaching will support their dreams, visions and goals becoming a reality. I will add to our conversation stories of results my clients have achieved or outrageous goals my clients have taken on. I’ll share stories about my own goals and even my own struggles. I don’t want to hide anything from my clients. And only then, if all of this is still a fit, will I talk “logistics.” “This is how often we will speak or meet. This is how much support you can count on from me. This is how much your investment will be. And this is how you make your payment. This is what you can count on me for. And this is what I require of you, if we are to work together.”

I will be very clear with them: “Does this feel like we are rushing things? If it does, let’s slow things down. Because if this doesn’t feel like a fit, let’s call it a clear no for now. “Let me be clear: you do not need coaching. In fact nobody needs coaching. The question is, do you want coaching? Personally, I believe in coaching so much that I have had my ...

someone hold me accountable to a bigger vision. I love someone who doesn’t believe in the negative stories I tell myself or the fears that...

“Basically unless this is an absolute yes for you, let’s leave today being totally clear that it is a no. That way if the desire begins to build in you to be coached you can come back to me. But only when you are ready. “And if you decide you’d like to begin, the moment you make your payment you are in. Here’s where you send your check...”

Dee Hock was the CEO of VISA, the first-ever trillion dollar company. He once said, “As a leader, I’ll never schedule a meeting for less than two hours. Anything less than that and the issue should be dealt with by someone else.”

Don’t close a sale—open a relationship

She said, “After dinner with Gladstone, I thought he was the most interesting person in the world… But after dinner with Disraeli, I thought I was the most interesting person in the world…” Disraeli won the election.

Call a client the day after a coaching call for a five minute catch-up. Clients love to hear from you when it’s not expected. Send a book to a client without telling them in advance. Offer to double the length of a coaching call, to really go deep with a client. Invite a client to a

day-long, face-to-face session with you, instead of your usual one hour over the phone. Write a client a personal, hand-written note, right now.

Failing is not a problem you will face. Failing is how you get there.

TO BE GREAT AT SOMETHING, anything, you must eventually enjoy the process from top to bottom.

We are always good at what we enjoy, and we always enjoy what we’re good at.

Sell the experience, not the concept

WHAT DO I WANT MY INTAKE conversation, my long “getting-to-know-you” conversation with a coaching prospect to demonstrate?

I want it to demonstrate my curiosity, my love of coaching, my ability to relate a story or case history or two about people I’ve helped through coaching, my ability to listen, to relate, to get to the bottom of things, and my desire to convert dreams into projects so that my prospective client will stop wanting things and start engaging in the process of creating them.

I always want to be the person who demonstrates what other people merely promise.

I have had many clients who could not “afford” me who ended up working with me because they sold something, or found a sponsor or benefactor, or got a loan, etc., so I learned never to factor in my own estimation of their ability to pay. I leave that up to them.

Coaching is not for dysfunctional people. It is not there to heal the sick and wounded. It’s there to help people reach their higher callings and unlived lives, the lives they are not living because they are trapped in their own isolated, self-critical egos. Coaching expands their world.

Please don’t let anyone hang up or walk out the door if the last words you exchanged were about money. It’s okay to go directly into the money issue, but then allow that issue to take you back to what your prospect wants and what his or her opportunities really are. You always want to leave your prospect inside the highest context of possibility.

Good counselors lack no clients. William Shakespeare

“I don’t really do chats. But if you would like to experience a deep coaching conversation, then call me. I will block out two hours for you for a powerful, life-changing experience...”

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few. Shunryu Suzuki

Magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect. - Teller (of Penn & Teller)

Be bold. Search for the Glimpse of Genius in the person in front of you. Go deeper. Be OK with silence. Keep some of your attention on the inside. Remember that the magic is in the person in front of you. Pay attention to their words. Lead powerfully. Hide nothing. God with a small “g”. Come from Spirit. Set a clear intention. Seek permission.

Coaching creates miracles. Invest in yourself. Be YOU. COMMIT. Be willing to fail.

And no client ever comes to you for the first reason they present to you.

In fact, as a coach, one of your gifts is that you know less about their business than they do.

you can know for certain that deep down there is a level at which the behavior makes perfect sense.

The results your clients are generating perfectly correlate with the actions they are taking. But if you can’t help them find out why they are taking those actions, the actions will never change.

Pay rapt attention to their words. Because their words tell you where they are focusing. Change their foc...

Your client is the god of their world because they create their own world. And they don’t even know it.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote: “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for; and then live inside that hope.”

“But every coach I meet says they’d love to coach me!” “Of course they do,” I replied. “With your track record there’s no doubt that you’ll achieve that goal. But I only like to coach people around goals that make them feel truly alive.”

You might think her anger and frustration were reasonable—she certainly thought so—and when I refused to buy into her story she was stunned. Instead, I explained that she had created a Perfect System for the results she was getting.

we uncovered two deeply held—yet contradictory—beliefs. The first was, “I will be safe once I am successful.” And the second was, “If I really have success,

people will take advantage of me.”

This first belief had led her to greater and greater success and even fame because much of her motivation came from the idea that the more successful she became,...

But the other belief of her Perfect System resulted—again and again—in opportunities being “taken away” from her at the very last minute. You see, if she achieved too much success she could really be taken adv...

I suggested that when the studio executives told her, “Sorry, we’re giving this project to someone else,” she had just crumbled and accepted it because she was secr...

Then I asked her what would have happened if she had looked them in the eyes and said, “I don’t give a **** how famous the other actor is. She’s not me. No one has been through the experiences that I have. No one understands this project like I do. There is no one in the entire world who could pla...

It doesn’t matter who your client is, they are paying you to be one of the few people in the world who is willing to say the things that no one else will say.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. Albert Einstein

Many of my most lucrative coaching contracts came from people who had no resources. Or so they thought. Until their lives were so profoundly changed by a long coaching session that they went to their Aunt Millie and borrowed money from her to continue working with me. Aunt Millie saw it as an investment in her nephew’s education. It worked for everyone.

Sometimes weeks, sometimes months and sometimes years later, but proposals generate future business. We just don’t see it because our culture’s attraction to the negative has us translate a proposal that gets a no into “emotional disappointment.”

Yes lives in the land of no. Without no there could be no yes. No means you are in action. Only passivity can stop you from being prosperous.