You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 183.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove Podcast, your calm space for practical help to get your dream business up and running while being authentically you and taking care of your mental health. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you're here!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, My Strong Friends. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving week, I hope that you've got some great plans coming up this week. I know as entrepreneurs, there's this huge temptation to just keep our head down and keep working. But if we don't take some time to enjoy holiday festivities, our life starts to lose some color. I mean, after all, it's the joy and connection that bring vibrancy to our life. 

 

If you're someone that's struggling to either create consultations, or sign clients in your business, then I can understand why it's so hard to take a break, you need to create an income right? Even with the beautiful holidays, your nervous system might not let you calm down and relax enough to enjoy it. Your mind's always going to be consumed with anxious thoughts about getting clients so that you can create the income that you need. 

 

And it makes sense. I mean, this is a normal human response. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, helps us to understand that the basics of food and shelter are a foundational need. And if we don't have that taken care of, our body's gonna go into overdrive and our nervous system is going to be all jacked up. Because as business owners, we equate clients with food and shelter.

 

I have two things to help you. Because I want you to be able to enjoy your holidays. I want you to be able to enjoy your life. So I have two things for helping you to create consultations, and to also help to convert those consultations into paid clients. 

 

One is today's podcast episode, we're going to talk about my secret sauce for high converting consultations. 

 

Now this podcast is only going to be relevant to you if you actually have consultations booked. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to spend tons and tons of time revising your process on consultations if you don't have anyone to send through that process. 

 

THE ‘CONNECTION FACTOR’ COURSE

 

We also need to develop your skill of being able to create consultations. And I have an off-the-shelf online course available for you. Which means that you can get this course now, start doing it right away so that you can create some consultations. 

 

Then everything that you're going to learn from this episode, you can apply so that you can convert those to paying clients. So this online course is called “The Connection Factor”. And here we are in Thanksgiving week, so what makes sense, but to do a Black Friday sale. 

 

The connection factor course is normally two hundred forty seven dollars  for lifetime access. With this special Black Friday code of HAPPY50, so that's the word HAPPY and the number fifty, you're going to be able to get this course at fifty percent off. So the price is only one hundred twenty four dollars. 

 

So you can head over to my website at myfreedomgrove.com/theconnectionfactor, and you'll be able to go in and grab that course. 

 

There's also a big black banner at the top of both the homepage and the podcast page that you could click on that will go straight over to “The Connection Factor” page, so that you can learn more about that course. And it has that HAPPY50 code on there to remind you to use that. 

 

Alright, so that's going to get you out into the world and practicing and developing your skill to create consultations. And this is my secret sauce in there, a little bit different secret sauce, but that is tried and true. I developed that over the last seven-eight years. And I'm at the point where I can create a consultation and about five minutes from meeting a stranger. 

 

TAKING A POTENTIAL CLIENT TO A PAYING CLIENT

 

So this is a fantastic skill for you to learn and develop. And then you'll be able to create consults anytime that you want. Now once you have a ton of consultations, it's time to make sure that you can convert them to paying clients. 

 

LET’S DEFINE CONSULTATION

 

First, let me define a consultation so that we're all on the same page. 

 

A consultation is a meeting between you and a prospective client. 

 

This is where you're learning everything about them to determine if your product or service is right for them. This is also the time to ensure that there's a good fit between your personalities. 

 

Towards the end of that conversation an offer is made. If this is for a customized service, the official offer may come in a follow up document. During the offer, you include the scope of work, the time commitment, the price and how to arrange payment if applicable. 

 

So I mentioned “if applicable for payment”, because consultations also happen within companies. Staff from one department may do consultations with another department. So no payments are made between those groups. However, resources will have to get budgeted. 

 

The high converting consultation process I use works in both settings. I use it as an entrepreneur with my private clients. But I perfected it while I was an employee in biotech. I used to pitch high dollar improvement projects, some would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources. So I needed to be on point to get those approved and funded. 

 

I also used this for getting coaching clients while I was there in biotech because some clients were assigned to me, but for the most part, I needed to go out to find the ones that wanted to have development in our area. And then have them scheduled consultation call with me. 

 

A high conversion means that most of the offers that you propose, are going to accept that my consultation conversion rate is between eighty to ninety percent. In my private practice, and in biotech, my conversion rate was one hundred percent. So once I was able to get someone into that consultation, call or meeting, they'd always say yes, so eighty to ninety percent. 

 

In my private practice is probably the one that is most relevant to you, because most likely, you have your own private practice. You're working with the general public, and you want to try to get as many of those people that come for a consult, to actually want to work with you. So eighty to ninety percent is really high. Most people when they're starting out, they might get twenty percent. And twenty percent is usually really, really good. 

 

But eventually, you want to make that go up even higher, because you want to actually just work with your clients, you don't want to just spend all of your time with marketing. Eighty to ninety percent conversion rate would be fantastic for you to have. 

 

POUR ON THE ‘SECRET SAUCE’

 

I want to help you by sharing my secret sauce with you any guesses for how I do my consultations. If you've been listening to the last couple of episodes, you know that my secret sauce comes down to the same seven step process. 

 

And that's the Clarity Steps. 

 

In Episode #181, I showed you how the clarity steps can help you to get your clients their results. 

 

Then last week in Episode #182, I showed you how you could create your whole product and service suite using the clarity steps. 

 

Now I'm going to show you how the Clarity Steps creates the framework for you to have high converting consultations. 

 

Let's do a quick run through of these seven steps.

 

1. Vision
2. Metrics
3. Customized Steps
4. Obstacles
5. Experiments
6. Lessons Learned
7. Wins 

 

For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer to your client's case as a project. Now I know that many of you are developing or healing a human, and it feels weird to call a human a project. Just think of the skill development or the thing being healed as the project. So the human is a human who has a project. They need you to help them with this project. 

 

THE WORK BEFORE THE WORK

 

The first thing before we get into the clarity steps on a consultation, it's the pre-work that you do before the consultation. And this is something that I'm finding is something that people don't even really consider that much. 

 

They get a consultation, and they're excited. And then they just show up for the consultation. But there's actually some really important pre-work that you can do. 

 

This is actually where you're going to go and research a little bit about your client ahead of time. Now it's also important to work on your own self belief, but this is really about your clients. If you can go and do any research on them ahead of time, you're going to have a lot of the information that you need, in order to be able to establish rapport and connect with them almost immediately within that consultation. 

 

First, it's helpful to know who they are and some of the things about them. If this is for their personal life, you might want to know a little bit about their personal life. If this is for their business, you're going to want to know a little bit about their business. 

 

This is at the highest level view, 

 

What is their current status? 

What do they need help on? 

Why do they need that help now? 

 

And that will also be important, because if they're just kind of curious, like, Hmm, I wonder what this thing is all about. They might not be ready to buy, they're just exploring some things. But if they have an active need for help now, and it's a priority for them now, then there's a much better chance that they'll actually want to seal the deal and work with you. 

 

Now some of you are going to build up this information by collecting it on an application or an intake form. In my business, I use Calendly to schedule all of my consultations. So that is an online calendar scheduling service. They can self-serve and sign up there. I can customize some questions. I have just a couple of questions in there. They can give me some information if they want to. And you can make that required or optional. 

 

You might also want to go and gather this information in other ways. If you met someone in person, you might want to try to get as much information from them in person about what's going on before you have that consultation. You can also use phone calls to call and ask them some questions, email or even direct messaging on some of the social platforms. 

 

As a business coach, I also like to go and do a bit of research of finding it on my own instead of reaching out to ask them. I'll actually go to their social media and the Internet to pull up everything because it's all right there at our fingertips. I'll do a quick search for any of their social media profiles, check out what they have listed there, and learn a little bit about them. 

 

Then I'm looking for links to their websites, then I will follow those links over to their website or their freebie or whatever they have available. I'll spend some time getting to know them, and especially going to their about page, so that I can learn about them. Then also checking out what kind of offers they have, what kind of freebies. 

 

That gives me a pretty good sense of who they are and what they have going on. Then when I come into the consult, I'm a lot more prepared. 

 

One of the other benefits of looking at their social media profile, I can see if there's anything that we have in common, because you're trying to develop some rapport at the beginning of the call. If you have something in common that helps to speed up creating that rapport. 

 

One of the other things that I'm trying to figure out is if the project they have is an innovation project or an improvement project. And remember, this can still be personal. It doesn't always have to be a business thing. An innovation project just refers to something they've never done before. They're creating something new, whether that's a new habit, a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things. Maybe it's a trip. I mean, it could be anything they've never done before.

 

Or is this an improvement project? They already do something and they do it in a certain way, but they're finding that it's not working out as they want it to be. They want to try to figure out a new way of doing it or adjusting the way that they're currently doing it. That's an improvement project. 

 

Now, the reason why I try to find out if it's innovation or improvement, is because there'll be a slight tweak in step one during the consultation, and I'll share that as we get into step one.

 

THE STRUCTURE OF A STRONG CONSULTATION CALL

 

Let's step into the consultation. 

 

The very beginning part of your consultation is when you're doing a greeting, you're getting to know each other, your names. And you're trying to find out some information on why they came to you. You want to give them enough time to share as much as they can. 

 

Depending on the amount of time that you have, you might need to help to, I don't want to say cut them off because that's not it. It's more of an interruption so that you can move on to the next part of the consultation. Because some people, you might be the first person that has given them time to talk. And for some people, they love that they really value it. 

 

I'm one of those people. And I will go on, I will talk for like half an hour, forty-five minutes. If you have a consultation, it might be just a thirty to sixty minute meeting. You'll have to also direct some of that meeting just to make sure that you can finish on time. 

 

During this initial greeting, you're establishing rapport, and you're taking a lot of notes as they talk, 

 

What are their pain points? 

What are their dreams? 

What's the intensity and urgency of both? 

Jot down any high level obstacles that they might share. 

 

That's just overall, your first, you know, say ten minutes or so. 

 

Now, you're going to start doing the clarity steps. Because this is going to create that structure so that you can follow through an exact process to be able to get to that offer at the very end and have everything make sense. 

 

GUIDE THEIR VISION

 

So step one of the Clarity Steps is the vision. 

 

This is what you're going to do with them after they've just shared everything free flow. Now you're going into structuring the vision. What do they want their future state to look like?

 

This is the most fun part, because this is where you get to dream together. This is also where I ask very specific things about what's in their vision, as it relates to the part that I actually help with. When we're asked our vision, What do we want our future to look like? We can get really creative and very expansive. 

 

But if you tailor some specific questions to the work that you help them with, that'll help to constrain the vision to exactly what you're going to work on together. 

 

So the seven things that I like to ask, within the vision, for my clients is:

 

What type of product and service do they want to offer?

What type of schedule do they want to have? 

What work location do they want? 

What type of client do they want? 

What type of sales funnel? 

How much revenue? 

What are some of those important things for them for their mental health? 

 

What are some specific things that you would ask in relation to your business? What are the specific things that you help with?

 

Oftentimes, my clients will also share their why behind their vision. And I highly encourage that, I want to know the emotions behind it. I want to know what motivates them to do the work to make this vision a reality. 

 

I also want to know what's going to be the impact on their life once they achieve that vision. 

 

Remember, I mentioned that there's two types of projects. There's innovation projects, and there's improvement projects. 

 

If you're doing a vision for an innovation project, you're starting with a blank slate. Now, this is wonderful, and it can also be a challenge. If something never existed before, it's kind of hard to describe. Some people have fantastic imaginations, and they're able to articulate their vision very well. It's very colorful, with lots of details.

 

But the majority of the population, they really struggle in that department. And that's why you'll see places like Design Studios, where they're giving examples of things. The client can pick out the parts that they like, and then put something together. In my business, I use funnel maps and examples of products and services and schedules, just to help get that vision going. 

 

If you have an improvement project, it's important to see the current state before coming up with an accurate vision of the after state. I like to use process maps and value stream maps that include measurements of their current state. This helps to uncover the unexpected before you go too far down the road. 

 

Depending on your type of business, you might use some other type of assessment tool like a wheel of life. Or you're looking at different parts of their life and then having them tell you where they are right now? And then where did they want to go? 

 

After you see their current state and understand the measurements. This is going to help you to design a desired process map or value stream map with their new measurements. Or if you're using something like a wheel of life, you now have a wheel of life with an idea of what it would look like afterwards versus what it looked like before.

 

I mentioned measurements. That's the next step that we go into with the Clarity Steps, measurements for any journey or project. You need to know what the most important measurements are. 

 

GOOD IDEAS AREN’T ALWAYS VALUABLE

 

Before we jump too far into this topic, I want to introduce the concept of a good idea versus a valuable idea. We've all been there, we've all come up with fantastic ideas. We get super excited about it. We believe everyone will love this idea as much as us. We're convinced that people need it. We go running full steam ahead with that idea. 

 

And then down the road, we get the feedback that nobody really wants it. That really sucks. Right? In the entrepreneur world, what that looks like, is a product or service that just doesn't sell. And in the corporate world that looks like a project that gets cut or canceled. Either way, it sucks. And you don't want to do that. 

 

Let's talk about what a valuable idea is versus what a good idea is. We talked about good ideas just now. 

 

Let's go into a valuable idea. In the corporate world. Large corporations will often have key performance metrics. And at the very top of the company, they may have True-North Metrics. It's three very, very important metrics. And everything that happens in the company, all filter into those metrics. Everything needs to contribute to moving the needle to get to the target. 

 

If you come up with a good idea that's unrelated, and it doesn't actually move those metrics at all, then it's just a good idea. A valuable idea is something that aligns directly to those metrics. And once that project is done, you'll see a noticeable shift in the metrics. The more that you can shift that metric, the more valuable your idea is. 

 

I had that really high project pitch conversion rate, because I always looked at those top metrics. 

 

First, I wanted to see what was most important. What were they already doing to move those needles? Were there any gaps? And what could I do to close those gaps or even exceed the target? 

 

Now, this is important with private clients, too. Even with personal projects, we all have our top three metrics. We might not think that way. I mean, most humans are not walking around thinking, Oh, well, what are my metrics about my life? 

 

But when asked, it helps them to start thinking about it and go, Oh, yeah, this is what's most important to me. It might be family time. It could be revenue. It might be a health metric. There are those that are the most important, the highest priority, and then there's everything else. 

 

When you're talking with them about their current project, is it aligned to one of those? Or is it even aligned to multiples of those? 

 

If it's something that's not aligned to the most important things, it's going to be a little bit harder for them to say yes to the project, or to even see it all the way through. That's how you get the valuable project so that they actually want to say yes, at the end. 

 

MEASURING SUCCESS FOR POTENTIAL PROJECTS

 

Now you're going to look at the measurements of success of that particular project. Is there an overall metric that's important? Like at the very end, one measurement? Or is it more important to measure certain components included in the project? 

 

I'll give an example. I'm currently working with a weight loss coach. And so of course, scale weight is one of those measures of success. I mean, we all know that. But I'm also measuring my energy level, and inclusion of new daily habits.  Both of those are really important to me. 

 

If I don't have those new habits, it's going to be really hard to even get to weight loss. And if I'm losing weight, but my energy level is tanking out, I'm not gonna stick with it. My energy level is actually a bit more important than the weight loss itself. 

 

Now, for my business clients, I'm looking at some of those smaller metrics in between that will get them to that end metric that they want. We're specifically looking at build plan completion rates. So if they're making a new product or service, we want to make sure that they're actually getting it done. 

 

We're also looking at sales funnel conversion rates between each of the steps. So instead of just looking at how many sales did we get, we're looking at every step in between to make sure that there's a really good flow of everything. 

 

Next week, we're going to talk about how we can use the Clarity Steps to optimize those sales funnel conversions. 

 

When I'm working with a life coaching client, some of the measurements that we're looking at are feelings. Like the number of days with that feeling, or how much time in a day we're having the feeling. 

 

In a consultation, we find out what their current measurement is, and then where they want to be. 

 

BRIDGING THE GAP

 

Now we go on to step three, the customized steps. So many people will also refer to this as bridging the gap. This is the part of the consultation where you'll share how you would help them get from point A to point B, and make all of those metrics get to their target. 

 

If you followed podcast Episodes #181 and #182, you already know which of your products and services fits this client, and which steps you would take to help them get those results. If for some reason you need to customize beyond your standard process, you'd make some adjustments here before you communicate how you plan to get them from point A to point B. 

 

As you communicate, you'll share the high level steps in sequence. Since you already know some of their specific obstacles, you point out which of those steps addresses each of those obstacles. It makes a huge impact to connect back to those specific pain points, their dreams and their specific obstacles. This is how they know that you're listening to them, and that your program helps them specifically. 

 

HEARING ALL THE OBSTACLES

 

Now we're going to talk about step four of the Clarity Steps, which is obstacles. We already know that we got some high level obstacles at the beginning on why it's hard for them to achieve this goal on their own. But this step is going to uncover any obstacles that get in the way of actually getting this project plan going right now, this could be time, money, effort, or something specific to them. 

 

One thing that many clients bring up with me is their ADHD, they have a hard time staying focused. They don't know if a project plan will work because their brains usually don't work sequentially.

 

Big news flash, mine doesn't either. I also have ADHD tendencies. I've never gone in to get diagnosed, but I've got all the signs. So I hop around between things too.

 

That's why the clarity steps helped me because I have a workbook that I can hop around, and I'm filling in pieces at different times, instead of necessarily going sequentially. And that's how we can work with our brain but not against it. 

 

We love our brains, our brains are great. And I actually see ADHD as a superpower as opposed to something difficult, because having something that you can jump around in keeps you structured and moving forward. It is really going to help that you're listening to your clients for all of their obstacles. You're making sure that you're acknowledging them. 

 

All of their obstacles are real. Okay, and that I want you to really sit with that. You're listening to their obstacles, and validating them. I don't want you to say to them, Oh, no, you don't need to worry about that. It's no big deal. Because it really is. 

 

If someone's scared about something, acknowledge that they're scared, and then talk about how you could help them through that. You can help them to resolve it, don't just tell them, Don't be scared, it's going to be fine. It doesn't work that way, you actually have to help them, figure out how they can resolve that obstacle. 

 

Resolving that obstacle may or may not happen during that session, but if you can let them know how you can help them to resolve it, that's going to be important. As you're listening to all of their obstacles, write them down, and then share how you can help to resolve those. 

 

Depending on the obstacle, you might decide that some of those are out of scope. Just acknowledge them, let them know that it's out of your scope. If you have resources that you can give to them or references for where they could go to get help with those obstacles, this is a good time just to bring that up. Let them know you'll send a follow up email with all of that. 

 

Now, if these are obstacles that you can resolve right there on the spot, even better, because now it's like they're getting a free sample, and you're helping them all in one shot. And then it's a lot easier for them to want to move forward with you.

 

You may have also heard of this process being referred to as overcoming objections. I like to call this overcoming obstacles or resolving obstacles. And that's because obstacles are a more neutral term. We tend to feel this sting of rejection if we're thinking about someone having an objection. I think maybe because objection and rejection are so close in their language. 

 

But it really is just an obstacle. And an obstacle is just a neutral thing. And either you can resolve the obstacle or not. It has nothing to do with the person themselves. 

 

I also like to have an obstacle tracker. This is specifically for consultations. What are all of the different obstacles that they might have? And then I'll have at least three different solutions ready to go for any of those obstacles. 

 

I do this offline, and it helps me to prepare in the moment. And also, I can review it afterwards. If they had an obstacle that I never encountered before. Or if the three ways that I tried to help them didn't work, I can go back and look at it and go, Okay, well, which of those three would need to change? Or do I need a completely different set of three ways to help through that obstacle? 

 

WHAT HAVE YOU TRIED?

 

Now step five is experiments. 

 

One part that your potential client is considering is your solution and specific offer characteristics such as private or group atmosphere, maybe the timing of things. 

 

It can be helpful for us to ask them what solutions they've already tried for resolving the problem that they're dealing with or the project that they're trying to tackle. 

 

If they haven't tried any solutions, yet, is your solution right for them? And is it right for them right now? Or is it better for them to try some of these other things first? And then if those don't work, then come and try your solution? If your solution is similar to another solution they've tried, how is yours different? Is the solution a little bit different in itself or is it the characteristics of the offer itself? 

 

UNCOVERING REQUIREMENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION

 

And that's where we're going to talk about step six, the lessons learned. 

 

Once we know about the experiments that they've already tried, now, we're going to ask them for their lessons learned. This is going to help you to uncover their requirements for a successful solution and a successful offer.

 

If they already tried a solution similar to yours, what worked about that solution? And what didn't work about it? And why? What did they learn about themselves? What personal requirements did they discover? 

 

Some of this might be that a group setting didn't work for them, that they didn't feel comfortable that they prefer a private setting, or maybe it was about their own personal learning style. Maybe they realized that they were an auditory learner, and it wasn't being presented in an audio format. Or they would have liked to be able to listen to it while they're out for a walk or out for a drive as opposed to sitting in a chair. 

 

Once you know what their requirements are, you can evaluate if your solution and your offer will meet those requirements. 

 

EXTENDING AN OFFER

 

If you know that all of your stuff will actually meet their requirements, then it's time to extend the official offer to work together. 

 

Now what happens if you realize that what you're offering is not going to meet their requirements? Are you going to be tempted to offer it anyway? This is where we're showing how much we care about them. This is important for establishing trust. And they may end up referring other people to you or coming back to you. 

 

If your offer really doesn't meet their requirements, be honest with them. Share that you really wanted to help them, but here's where your offer doesn't meet their requirements. 

 

For example, if you offer a group program, and it has a specific day and time that you meet with people, but that doesn't work for the client, then just acknowledge that it doesn't work for the client. I'll share one example. I have a membership. And I was recently talking with someone that lives in the UK. 

 

On Tuesdays, my membership call is at four in the afternoon, Pacific Time. That makes it about midnight in the UK. Now I could have tried to convince the person, Oh, stay up till midnight to work on your business. But no, I care about that person. I knew that that call wasn't a good fit. 

 

But I also knew that I have a second call in my membership that happens at noon, which is closer to about eight o'clock, his time. That is up for his consideration if eight o'clock could work or not. But we decided that a private setting is probably better so we could find a better day in time. 

 

Now I happen to have offers where I have a couple of different varieties. But if your offer is just one, and it doesn't fit, then who could you refer them to? Or is this something where in the future, you can see changing your offer so that you could accommodate those requirements? 

 

CELEBRATING A TWO-SIDED YES

 

Now we're gonna go on to step seven, which is the win. 

 

Just to recap, before we got here, we've already established what their vision is, we've established what measurements are important to them. We've given them an overview of the steps that we would take them through. We've learned what specific obstacles they've had, and we can help to resolve some of those obstacles on the call. Or those are ones we can address later on when we're working together, but we've let them know we can do that. Then we've also learned about any of the experiments that they've already done, their lessons learned on it so that we can uncover their requirements, and know if our offer is a good fit or not. 

 

Okay, so at this point, you've gathered all of the information that you need, and now you're ready to present your offer to them. 

 

That's where step seven of the Clarity Steps come in, and that's the win. This is where you're sharing that you believe that you can help them to win; that you'll be able to help them to make their vision a reality. 

 

You state their end goal, which is that vision, make sure that they're nodding in agreement that you haven't misunderstood something or lost something along the way. You share the measurements and the steps, you cover how their obstacles will be resolved, and how long this project will take. If their project is much longer than your average package, you'll share what that will look like. 

 

Either help them to scope it down to fit into your standard package. Or that you're sharing, Here's the standard package. And here's how we can extend it. This is also where you share your price. Then you paint the vision of what it will look like, what it will feel like, once they achieved their goal.

 

This is the fun part because you get to have all of the excitement. You've already gone over all the nuts and bolts of what the arrangement will be. 

 

But now, all of this is possible. It's going to feel great. It's going to feel amazing. You're going to feel accomplished. 

 

And then you're asking them, Would they like to work together to achieve this goal? 

 

And then if they have any questions. So if they do have any questions, you're going to answer any of those. But then you're asking, Would you like to move forward with my help? 

 

And at that point, that's when they're gonna say yes. Then you pick a start date for when you're gonna get started. 

 

Those are the seven steps of the clarity steps that helped you to have the structure of a consultation call. And you'll be able to go back and reference that in the transcript for this show.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

 

I also want to talk about how we start off, like in the beginning with our consultations, and how we start to improve our conversion rates on those consultations. Everything is a process, you've heard all of those different process steps broken down the clarity steps become your process step for your consultations. 

 

You may have a low amount of people saying yes, in the beginning. Then you can go back to look at those steps to see, Out of those steps, where am I getting stuck? And for me when I first started, when I was still in corporate, the part where I would get stuck is on step number four, which was their obstacles. 

 

Sometimes I would go and make a project pitch and they would have a lot of obstacles. And they just immediately say no, because I didn't have any answers to those obstacles. And so some of it, they didn't have enough information. They didn't understand how this was relevant. They didn't know if they had resources for this. 

 

I used this book called Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, and it helped me to learn how to prepare ahead of time for all of those NOs. When I would go and I'd make the pitch, and I'd get their objections, and they'd immediately say no, because I didn't have an answer for them. I would take their notes back to the drawing board. 

 

That's where I was talking about having that obstacle tracker, so that I know what are the things that are important that I need to include in this consultation or this project pitch. That way, next time I'd be able to have the information ahead of time. And then when we got to the obstacles, they didn't have that obstacle anymore because I already resolved it. 

 

In the very beginning, sometimes it would take me doing a project pitch three times before I could get to a YES. I didn't know what all of their obstacles were, and I couldn't get prepared for something I didn't know existed. 

 

When you're out there working with your clients, they may have some things that you've never experienced either. And that's okay. Don't beat yourself up over it. It's just an obstacle that you didn't know existed, and you don't know how to resolve that one yet. 

 

Bring that back afterwards. Looking at all of the process steps that you have, you realize, Oh, it was this obstacle? Write that one down, and then try to figure out how you would solve for it.  Is there a place somewhere in the other process steps, maybe even before you get to step four, where you can address that? 

 

Something else that may come up is your own mindset obstacles as you're working through your consultations. Nothing can tank your self-confidence more than your own mindset obstacles. If you go through a consultation, and you felt a mindset obstacle for yourself at any point, afterwards, make sure to write it down the obstacle list then becomes one just for you and your obstacles. 

 

And then you can spend some time either self coaching or getting some coaching to help you resolve your own personal obstacles. Then you can show up being the fully competent entrepreneur that you are. 

 

A QUICK RECAP

 

Let's do a quick recap. 

 

How can you get high converting consultations? 

 

Before you even get into the clarity steps, you're going to do pre-work before your session, you're going to find out some stuff about them. 

 

Once you're in the consultation call, you'll spend a little bit of time establishing rapport. 

And then, Step 1, Establish their vision, and it comes down to two different processes. 

 

One is if it is an innovation project, something they've never done before, then you're going to help them to come up with what that could look like. And you might have to provide some different examples to help get those creative juices flowing. 

 

Or if it's an improvement project, you want to find out what their current state is like and any applicable measurements with that, so that we have an idea of where they want to go. 

 

Step 2,Define some initial metrics for a successful project. 

 

Step 3, High level process steps you're going to take them through to get from point A to point B, and you can customize these if needed. 

 

Step 4, Identify any obstacles that are going to make it hard for them to do this project.

 

Step 5, Discuss the experiments that they've already done to try to solve for this problem or for this particular project. 

 

Step 6, Lessons learned, to find out what worked for them, what didn't work for them, that helps you uncover what their requirements are, so that you could determine if your product or service actually meets those requirements.

 

Step 7, Summarize their vision, their metrics, the steps, the obstacles and how you can help them, tying everything back to their specific requirements. Paint the vision of what it looks like once they've won. So what's the vision they have?They're in the winner's circle. How is this going to feel? How are they going to celebrate at that moment when it happens?

 

Then you're going to present the offer and ask if they want to move forward. Having a process for your console is going to help you to know what to say and what to do. It's also going to help your clients to feel like they're in good hands. It's also going to allow you something to look at afterwards, and adjust to increase your conversion rate. 

 

Your business and style are unique to you. The Clarity Steps gives you a framework, but you need to add in what's important for your business. 

 

For example, your consultations may do best if you have visual success plans or information sheets for reference. So that's why it's important to start with the basics. And then experiment and tweak and tell it fits your business and your personality and your clients perfectly.

 

Help with this process is available during one-on-ones or in intensives with me and also in the Unshakable Business CoLab Membership. 

 

STAYING AUTHENTIC

 

If you would like some personalized help with your consultation process, I invite you to sign up for a free consultation with me. Not only will you get to see how I do a consultation, you'll get help to customize yours too.

 

You can schedule that consultation call on my website, you can go to myfreedomgrove.com and just go to the contact me tab, and you can schedule right away. 

 

Now remember, you need to have consultations booked on your calendar for all of this to work. If you need help getting consultations, you want to make sure that you take me up on my Black Friday sale. With that coupon code of HAPPY50 You'll get fifty percent off “The Connection Factor” course.

 

Just go to my website, the easiest way to get there is just to go to the homepage at myfreedomgrove.com. Look for the black banner at the top of the homepage or the podcast page, and click on that and we'll take you straight over to “The Connection Factor” course. 

 

The Connection Factor course is going to help develop your skills at talking with strangers and creating consultations quickly. With this skill, you'll become fully booked. Even with a waiting list. 

 

How great would that be? 

 

All right, my friends. 

 

I just want to express my gratitude for you again. 

 

Thank you so much for being in my life.

 

I hope you have a warm love filled Thanksgiving.

 

I'll talk with you next week. Bye bye.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. When you are ready to make your dream business a reality and take care of your mental health, I invite you to join the Unshakable Business Co-Lab. This is the mastermind membership you've been waiting for. There's no limits on your imagination, nor your timeline. We're with you every step of the way. To learn more, please visit www.myfreedomgrove.com/join. I'll see you there!