{"id":46322,"date":"2022-02-19T11:59:31","date_gmt":"2022-02-19T11:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=46322"},"modified":"2022-02-19T11:59:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T11:59:34","slug":"showing-your-teeth-to-potential-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/02\/19\/showing-your-teeth-to-potential-clients\/","title":{"rendered":"Showing your teeth to potential clients."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I know that what I do and sell as a coach is absolutely priceless.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has changed my life in a gazillion ways, and it helped many people I worked with dramatically and very positively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that is all really helpful and cool, but it\u2019s not an argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While talking to a lot of people over the years, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that it\u2019s impossible to \u2018explain\u2019 the results of transformative coaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can chat about it, describe it, sketch it out, paint a picture, put it into a cool story, but in all those cases it\u2019s still mostly a bunch of words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can talk about freedom and happiness and joy and creativity as much as I want, but it\u2019s extremely difficult for most people to get a feel for what that actually means for their future, in a practical sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People are used to things they can understand, things that make sense on an intellectual level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why most of us love programs with homework and exercises and daily chores so much: they smell like hard work and logic, and that\u2019s how we\u2019ve learned many skills in our life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this mainstream idea about change and progress, this starting point of simply understanding and doing things, is what I often encounter while talking to a potential client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like they have been chopping trees all of their lives using a pebble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It kinda works if you keep going at it long enough, because if you keep hammering the tree for hours and hours and hours, it will eventually fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you don\u2019t know that there are other, way more efficient ways to get the same result, you don\u2019t even consider those alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You keep using the pebble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One tiny chop after the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You only know the pebble-way of doing things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if one day, somebody comes along showing you a big-ass chainsaw while promising that it will work WAAAAY faster, it probably won\u2019t do much for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At best you think that a chainsaw is bigger and heavier than a pebble, so smashing it into the tree will probably cause a bigger dent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to pay all this money for a thing that is just bigger and heavier doesn\u2019t make sense!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d rather keep using the method you know, or pay for a less expensive coach or course or book promising you a bigger pebble, eventually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This discrepancy between what people are used to and what you can ultimately offer them, something that is way beyond what they can comprehend at present, can be very frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the solution is not very complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is: you don\u2019t have to rely on words only, hoping that they somehow get what you are actually trying to convey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can show them the chainsaw in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is what a good initial conversation looks and feels like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t just talk about how your thing will bring down the tree way quicker and easier and with less blood on their hands; you let your prospect experience the whole chopping deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You let them feel what it\u2019s like to hold the chainsaw and cut through the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now there\u2019s a good argument for hiring you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @michaelfenton, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know that what I do and sell as a coach is absolutely priceless. It has changed my life in a gazillion ways, and it helped many people I worked with dramatically and very positively. Now that is all really helpful and cool, but it\u2019s not an argument. While talking to a lot of people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,102,97,96,117,114,100,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46324,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46322\/revisions\/46324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}