Episode 85. How to Sign Your First 1-3k Client

We are going to talk about how to sign your first paying client for your 1:1 coaching program that is priced between 1-3k.

We’ll specifically focus on selling a 1:1 coaching offer and at the 1-3k price range because this is a common first step or first goal for many of our clients who are just starting out in their coaching business and are ready to work with their first paying client.

I want to share some of the most common blocks that make it a lot harder for coaches who are in this stage of their business, and how to work around these scenarios, so you can too, sign your first high ticket client for your coaching program.

In This Episode:

When you decide to give this online coaching thing a try and ALL the mind drama starts to come up
The three most common scenarios that coaches at this stage of their business will struggle with
A quick summary on how to work through these three scenarios

When you decide to give this online coaching thing a try and ALL the mind drama starts to come up

If you’re in this stage of your business, then it’s highly likely that you are someone who recently discovered the online coaching industry.

Or perhaps you’re starting to see examples of entrepreneurs or content creators on the Internet who are not only doing what they really like, but they’re making a lot of money from it, reaching a lot of people and helping people all around the world through the power of social media and the Internet.

Now that you’re aware of these possibilities, specifically, the possibility of creating a new source of income based on doing work that you actually enjoy and work that holds meaning for you. The possibility that this can be a legitimate career and that this career can offer way more time and location freedom.

Now you’ve started to become aware of what’s possible beyond the traditional career paths or jobs we see people around us doing and working their butts off towards.

Now you also want to create this possibility for yourself, so you decide to start your own online coaching business and start selling a 1:1 coaching program because all the business coaches online suggest starting out with a 1:1 offer.

But, what seems to happen is that as soon as we make the decision to give this online coaching thing a try, ALL the mind drama starts to come up.

Let’s start here and look at the three of the most common scenarios that many entrepreneurs wanting to sign their first 1-3k 1:1 coaching clients struggle with.

The three most common scenarios that coaches at this stage of their business will struggle with

1. Not signing any clients

Let’s say you started a brand new Instagram account just for your business and you have posted an introduction about who you are, you created educational carousel posts, such as “How to do XYZ” or “3 tips for XYZ”, and maybe you’ve spent three weeks behind-the-scenes thinking about how to put together your coaching package.

Now, it’s been about 4 weeks since you started using Instagram (IG), you now have about 120 followers, and you’ve been posting two feed posts a week and you posted 5x a week on your Instagram Stories. But you haven’t gotten any direct messages (DMs) about your program.

At this point, a common thought that will likely come up for you is, “Can I REALLY sign a client?“ which then branches out into an array of thoughts like, “How do I know if things are working? How do I know how long to keep going? Is this even worth it? What if I never get a client and have to stay in my job forever? What will my friends and family and colleagues think if they find out about my IG account?”

Then that spirals into watching a TON of content from business coaches on YouTube or listening to their podcasts, watching everyone’s free webinars about how to sign clients, and maybe even buying some courses or joining a program about copywriting, growing on LinkedIn, etc.

All. Of. This. Is. Stemming. From. The. One. Thought. Of. Can I REALLY sign a client?

The reason this thought comes up is because we aren’t seeing evidence that our content or marketing is working.

So, if you’re in a similar situation, I want to first acknowledge that right now, the hardest part of signing your first high ticket clients is the mind drama and emotional roller coasters that you’re experiencing. Not necessarily the actual action taking or the actual action of typing something on Canva or pressing buttons on your social media.

I understand that if you’ve been trying to work on your business for several months but haven’t yet seen any “results”, it sucks. I get it.

I’ve had months in my own business where on the surface, things look like it wasn’t working. And I questioned whether I was ever going to sign a client again.

It is times like these where learning to manage your thoughts and building up your emotional resilience is more important than ever.

Stay calm and don’t panic and start telling yourself that you have to “do lead generation” every week, or send cold DMs to people who look like ideal clients on IG, or pitch yourself to guest on 25 podcast shows, create an evergreen webinar or live masterclass, etc.

This is not the time for any of that. Instead, I want you to first think about how you can create really, really, really impactful, helpful, and thought provoking content that not only helps you stand out in your space and become known for your own unique thought leadership, but also to build interest and demand for your offers.

This is a HUGE part of what I do with our clients: Helping them develop THEIR own unique thought leadership, and communicating that through their content.

It’s helping them create their own content strategy that is reflective of their own ideas and experiences and opinions, and it’s also extremely unique and genuine to them.

We don’t spend time looking around at what other coaches are doing or do content research.

Because let’s be honest. If you have to do research just to create a piece of content, then I would question whether you are an “expert” on that topic and whether this is a piece of content that will help you be seen as a leader in your space.

I also want to shout out two clients who were on this podcast before. I’ve been really amazed at how they’re leaning into their unique thought leadership and that has been a pivotal reason why they have very specific and clear messaging.

People KNOW what they do, and they’re KNOWN for something. Also, they’ve been able to help people both inside their coaching programs and through their content and presence on the Internet.

If you want to take a peek at what these two clients are all about, feel free to check out:

• Episode 66. Thought Leadership & Being a Leader for Introverts with Jennifer Ho

• Episode 68: Building a Coaching Business on Top of a Career + Other Creative Projects with Betty Xie

I want to share another client example, and several clients come to mind for this – and they’re from different niches like the nutrition niche, English niche, career niche, and even web design.

Before we started working together, they have worked with paying clients before but they were charging a 3-figure price for their program, ranging from 400 to 800 dollars usually.

We worked on helping them lean into their own unique thought leadership and creating content that lets them express their own ideas, opinions, stories, personal experiences, and all the amazing brilliance inside their brain. That’s how they started signing high ticket clients.

When I talk about the concept of unique thought leadership, the reason why I define this as leading with your thoughts, and talking about everything that’s already inside your brain, it’s because that will be content, messaging and marketing that you believe in and hence you are confident talking about it over and over again.

It’s what you know best. And the more you talk about it and approach it from different angles and examples, the more it will eventually land with someone, even if they really did not get your message or ideas at first.

Because my clients and I are willing to keep talking about things we are so confident in and it is honest and genuine to us.

We say it in all sorts of ways and that’s how we build brand awareness and demand for our coaching programs.

We didn’t get to where we are because we tried to create content on things that we are only 5% confident on just because everyone else is talking about it, or because we kept flip flopping between new or different topics because we don’t want people to think we’re talking too much about something.

All that to say, make content and create an offer around what you know the most and/or love the most. Both would be great.

That is what will help you develop your unique thought leadership and that’s what your ideal clients need to see and hear from you.

2. Thinking that you are not enough and not experienced enough

The second scenario that is very common: Thinking that you are not enough.

Not experienced enough to sell a high ticket offer. Not qualified enough to even be a coach. Not confident or attractive enough when you compare yourself to other successful coaches who look like they have it all together and are living their best life. Not eloquent enough to do video content. Not [insert adjective] enough.

Right now, the immediate client example that comes to my mind is a business coach, who has worked in the marketing industry for years prior, but now they are ready to start their own coaching business.

But this client was really, really, really hesitant and scared to call herself a coach or to offer a coaching program. The thought of, “Who am I to be a coach?” was a really prevalent thought for this client.

And actually, on our sales call, the client told me that she might just be a social media manager instead of a coach. Well, we coached the client on her thoughts and what she really wants.

Needless to say, the client was clear on what she wants to do and how she wants to help people, so our biggest work together, especially at the beginning, was coaching the client on talking about how she can help people.

And guess what. The client literally signed her first coaching client at 2500 within one week.

After she got coached and she made a decision she fully backed, she went out there and started telling people how she can help. And in just one week, a client signed up and paid her.

The lesson here is: Know exactly how you want to help people, and tell people that you can help them.

Now, I want you to consider why clients invest in a coaching program.

I think while there are definitely many factors that clients will consider before making a purchasing decision, I do hypothesize that all clients will consider the following two things, in addition to other things:

First, the client will think about can this coach REALLY help me? Can they REALLY help me and my unique circumstances?

And second, do I like them and trust them? Can I relate to them and can they relate to me? Do we share the same values? Are they really someone I want to give my money to?

Specifically regarding the first point about “Can this coach REALLY help me?”, I want you to sell an offer that you are actually confident in.

Stick to what you actually feel comfortable and confident helping people with. This will require self awareness and honesty about what you are good at, your natural skills or skills you’ve developed, what you’ve helped people with before, what people tend to come to you for, what you love talking about and have many opinions on.

And, include that in your marketing. Stick to what you feel most confident on so you can sell confidently and feel confident about selling a program that promises to help people on those things.

I think where coaches who are struggling to sign their first 1-3k client will trip up on is that they feel like their existing skills are not good enough.

They feel like they need to promise a HUGE transformation or super sexy results in order to get someone to work with them, even though they are currently not yet confident on helping people with those things.

But why would you even sell a program that promises those things if you aren’t confident in helping people with those things?

Here’s what I want you to think about instead. Right now, if you believe that the transformation or skill you can help someone with is worth 1-3k, you will show up to sell that way.

Clients want to work with coaches who are so confident in their ability to help people and are genuinely interested in helping people with those specific problems or skills they’re selling in their marketing.

Of course, simultaneously, you yourself as the coach will continue to be building on your own skill sets and the type of transformations and results you’ll be able to confidently help people with.

That’s a given and natural part of your own learning curve as a coach.

But right now, no amount of sexy or grand marketing and big promises can cover up your own lack of confidence in your offer and being able to help people.

That’s also why many coaches start off by offering free coaching. A lot of coaches offer their services for free at first because they want to build up their confidence that they can help someone, and that allows them to sell their paid program much more confidently.

I also want you to recognize that you do have something, right now, that can help people. You can help someone with something, right now.

But it’s your job to identify what that something is and continue building up your confidence in that thing, time and time again.

Your clients are paying you for your strengths and skills, and your belief that you can help them. So your job is to communicate that you can help people and how you can help.

But you can only communicate this if you have the self belief that you are able to help them.

I also want to emphasize again that you don’t need to promise any results or transformations beyond the ones you know how to do. Stay within what you know and are confident in.

You don’t have to promise a full blown transformation. If you become confident in helping people on larger transformations later on, great.

But right now, market your offer around the results you are confident in helping people with.

Remember, whatever you are confident in helping people with at this moment, those results and transformations are going to be the stepping stone to larger transformations later on.

But the client has to go through those first few steps before they’re even practically able to work on the next steps, and before they even have the belief and confidence that they can achieve those next steps.

What you have to offer right now, it matters. It matters to your first few paying clients who want your help on those specific things.

3. Worrying about not having enough time to work on your business due to life circumstances

Another super common scenario is worrying about how you don’t have enough time to work on your business, or that you have certain circumstances that will make it hard for you to make your business work.

That could be because you feel like you have a lot of other responsibilities on your plate, like taking care of your family or kids, or maybe you are starting a new job and you don’t know if you can manage your time, or maybe you’re moving houses or even cities or countries and that feels really stressful.

Or maybe you feel like your life is a hot mess and there’s no way you are capable of starting an online business because you’re gonna overwhelm yourself and burn out.

For those of you who could relate to this scenario, I want to share a client example.

I recall a particular client who, when we first hopped on a sales call during summer of 2021.

She was super, super close to stopping her health and fitness coaching business because she was starting her new career as a lawyer.

Because after speaking with all her colleagues in the legal field, everyone around her was saying that there’s no such thing as work-life balance. So our client was getting discouraged about whether or not she could be a lawyer AND run a coaching business simultaneously.

I recalled asking her something along the lines of, “Okay, but, how many of those colleagues also have their own online coaching business? How many of them have actually even tried?

And also, if you’re a lawyer who already has the vision of building something in addition to your career, doesn’t that make you already different from all of your colleagues?

Something about you isn’t the “traditional” lawyer. You have a vision and mission outside of law that none of them have. So why are you basing your decision off the assumptions or opinions of people who are operating from a more “traditional” worldview?

Also, what if you’re a non-traditional lawyer? If that’s the case, why are you subscribing to the viewpoints or way of thinking of your colleagues whose sole career goal is to move up the lawyer career ladder?”

I think this conversation was something that our client really resonated with her, because she decided to not just embark on her new lawyer job, but she also kept going in her business.

And one year since our sales call, our client has recently quit her career as a lawyer and will now become a digital nomad and run her online coaching business.

I want to acknowledge that the past year may not be all “consistent” or glamorous, she definitely went back and forth on whether to pursue law only or pursue business only or keep doing both.

Regardless of that, she was still able to create evidence for herself that her coaching business is what she wants to go all in on and she has developed the skill sets and mindsets to continue her business as her main career.

That’s why today, she has created the option to become a full-time entrepreneur and travel the world because that’s what she values most in this current season of life.

Now you might be thinking, okay but how was this client able to do that? How was she able to make it work despite having a full-time job that is notorious for its competitive work environment and long working hours?

The answer is that we focus on doing the bare minimum number of things, but we do those things really, really well. Surprise surprise.

In order to know what is your own bare minimum, because it’s different for everyone.

My simple advice here is very similar to what we touched on earlier. Lean into what comes naturally to you.

That could mean creating an offer and creating marketing for that offer based on what you are confident helping people on or the problem you’re confident in helping people solve.

Do not try to promise the stars and the moon and the sun and everything else in your offer if it’s not within your scope of expertise at the moment.

It could also mean creating content around topics and ideas that you are so confident speaking on, or things you have a lot of opinions on, or things you have a lot of experiences in.

Do not talk about trends or things just because you see other people having success by creating content on those things. Likewise, utilize platforms or tools or strategies that play to your strengths.

For example, one of our clients really did not want to create video content like IG stories or livestream content. But she really liked writing. So that’s what she’s doing – written content on IG and LinkedIn. And she was able to double the investment of our program in just four months.

And yes, she had a lot of mind drama about, “Oh but everyone says you NEED to do video content”.

But let’s be honest, we could coach this client on feeling confident and comfortable on video, or maybe she has insecurities around showing up on video, or maybe there’s something else that’s creating that resistance towards video.

But because she is naturally great with written communication, we decided that right now, by having her lean into that strength, would actually allow her to “do the bare minimum” in her business and overall spend less time working on her business, so she can go live her life.

Overall, I really want you to think about how to create a personalized path of least resistance for yourself and your business when it comes to taking action.

To be honest, when I look back on my own experience and that of our clients, during this stage of our business, everything feels hard.

I mean, yes, the entire journey as a business owner will be uncomfortable. But I mean, at least make it easier for yourself.

If you want to be stretched as an entrepreneur, I can almost guarantee that you will be stretched at every single level of your business.

Whether that’s working towards signing your first client or creating your first 10k month or getting invited to speak or starting your own non-profit. Or anything else that’s possible as a result of your business.

I can guarantee that you will be stretched at every level. So, why not make it easier and simpler right now?

A quick summary on how to work through these three scenarios

As we start to wrap up today’s conversation, let’s summarize everything we’ve talked about so far.

Here are three very common scenarios that people often experience when they are at the stage of their business where they’re trying to sign their first 1:1 client for their coaching program priced at 1k-3k:

First, if you’re questioning whether what you’re doing is working and now you’re doubting whether you can really sign a client. Think about what is your unique thought leadership, and double down on that.

Second, if you’re thinking that you’re not enough, and you can insert any adjective here, not qualified enough or not experienced enough or not successful enough to build a coaching business, then this is the time to REALLY double down on what you’re already really good at and extremely confident with.

Go all in on these skills or experiences first and help people create results from that first. Be confident on exactly how you want to help people and how you can help people, right now… and communicate that . tell the people, how you can help them

And third and finally, if you’re thinking that you don’t have enough time to make this work, just know that you could actually focus on doing just the bare minimum number of things in your business, but do it really, really well. So that you can actually sign clients, make money, help people, and go live your life.

This is exactly what we help our clients get really really REALLY good on in their business. So all of those scenarios we just talked about are no longer blocks for them.

If what we talk about in this episode resonates with you, come join us inside the 1:1 program.

Here, we will focus on helping you to

1) Stand out in your niche/industry and be seen as a thought leader in your space

2) Build a uniquely differentiated brand that is not just a genuine and honest reflection of you and what you want to be known for, but it’s also exactly what your people will deeply resonate with and hence decide to work with you inside your paid programs or services, and

3) Ultimately do the bare minimum number of things in your business , but do it really, really well. So you can spend less time on your business and make more time for other parts of your life. Whether it’s your family, career, health, travel , or anything else, my goal for you is to create a simple business so you can actually go live your life.

For all the details and to apply, you can head on over to cheryltheory.com/program. Or, if you know you’re in and you want to get started ASAP, send me a message on Instagram and we’ll get you onboarded ASAP.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.