Stop Giving Free Coaching Sessions

One of the words that can easily catch anyone’s attention, especially in a consumer-driven world, is the word FREE. Whenever something is offered for free, people are easily drawn to it, whether it’s a product or a service. Of course, some can be cynical and wonder if there’s a catch behind it, believing that there’s no such thing as free lunch.

If you’re a coach, here’s something I’ll mention right at the outset: STOP giving out free coaching sessions to attract clients. 

The secret is actually to give out what’s called free strategy sessions. A strategy session is NOT:

• a discovery call (which sounds like it has zero value to your potential clients)
• a free breakthrough session

What Is A Strategy Session?

A strategy session is the steps that your potential client wants to know to get from their current problem to their future desire. That’s what it is. It’s valuable knowledge that will give them an understanding of the path they need to follow. This is the valuable knowledge that you will be giving them for free, regardless of whether or not they subsequently buy your paid services.

You might be surprised by this, but did you know that your potential client doesn’t care about your services? Believe it or not, they actually don’t care about your programs or coaching packages. They don’t even care how long it is.

People Pay For The Path

What they really care about is what is called the path. It’s the actual path that takes them from their current problems in life to their desired goal.

If you can actually show them a simple path that they can easily understand and follow, what you’ll end up finding is that you will grow your income and the impact you have on people’s lives. When I meet a prospect, what they’re going to fundamentally pay for is the path.

A French poet named Anatole France (yes, his family name is also his country’s name) once said: “If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.”

Again, people pay for the path.

In the strategy session that I do with my potential clients, the only thing I need to do is explain the path to them. And this is really what your clients all care about because when they give you money for your coaching, the transaction is the transformation. So if one’s shown the path to take in which he or she transforms, then that’s the only thing that that person is truly interested in inside the conversation. 

You’re going to find that doing this is actually going to end up attracting not just any client, but clients that you truly want to work with. This will also allow you to create a thriving business. And since you’re able to articulate the path, what actually ends up happening is that your client hears the path, then they get what you’re about. They get it, and both you and the client understand if you’re a match or not.

So remember, all people care about is the path—the path that will take them from all the problems they’re currently facing to whatever their desired goal is.