Hey, welcome back to the Life Coach Launchpad. My name’s BJ, and I’m here every week talking to you about all the online business things that, as it turns out, need to happen in order to have a successful life coaching business. I’m a business coach. I love to help life coaches make more money, get more clients, have more fun, and to do what they love to do, what they’re meant to do, and that’s coaching.

So, let’s dive right in.

Today I’m talking about how to get crystal clear on your messaging because that is the first step. You have to figure out what you’re going to say before you go say it. This is where your typical business coach will talk about identifying your ideal client. Sometimes they’ll call it an ideal client avatar, customer avatar, dream client, customer persona, whatever it is.

I usually just say ideal client. I’ve gone through a lot of trainings. I’ve been a business coach for five years, and I’m always learning. I’m always going through some sort of training. And I do that so that you don’t have to. I have the opportunity to pick and choose all the best training concepts. you.

Here’s what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to ask you to write down which magazines your ideal clients go through, which, what their eye color is, what their spouse’s occupation is, unless it’s applicable. But a lot of these exercises that other coaches have you go through are not are not relevant.

What I want is I want you to get down to what really makes your ideal client tick. The great news is that most coaches are a product of their product. You probably experienced results by going through coaching that led you to want to become a coach. You’ve gone through that transformation. You know what it’s like before and after.

Now I want you to be able to put that into words, which is not always that easy, but that’s why we’re going through this here. And now find a way to share how great coaching is and specifically how great your coaching is to other people. So The meat of this module is that there’s just these two tips to keep in mind when figuring out your messaging and then an exercise to go through.

Number one, be able to explain your ideal client’s pain points and hopes and dreams as good or better than they can. Because at the end of the day, you are selling a result. In order to sell the result, you have to acknowledge what’s not working today for them. People aren’t buying 12 coaching sessions, they’re buying the result.

In fact, 12 coaching sessions sounds like work. If you could deliver the result in one session, well, that would be even better. In this challenge of communicating pain points and then hopes and dreams, that is the reason why many coaches say that you have to niche down. It’s so that you can more accurately and precisely state your potential clients pain points.

And what they truly want to achieve. The wording for more niched coaching is more specific and it’s it ends up being easier to write, especially if you’re someone newer to the business of coaching. On the other hand, the benefits that come from general life coaching, they just, it can be harder to describe.

Again, that’s why we’re going through this exercise so that you have these ideas in your mind. Ideally written down by the end of this exercise and they’re ready to go. If you’re trying to describe general life coaching, the temptation is to be too general in your language, which comes off as wishy washy and unclear.

The challenge is the same if you’re more niched down or more general and neither one is better than another. I do not say you should niche down if you do not have a reason to. You just need to figure out how to communicate the pain points, And then the desired outcomes of your potential clients. Here’s an example.

I was giving a consultation one time. I was going through past examples of how I can help my clients. And this person in front of me, I saw her eyes go wide with a big smile on her face, and she just leaned forward. I remember exactly what I said. I walked her through the process of how I helped a client create a group coaching program.

And this client had people pay her to make it. That really was an amazing story. I will If you haven’t heard it, I’ll tell you more about it later. But the point is that when I described the outcome for this other client and I knew it was exactly what this person in front of me wanted, she was hooked.

She would have bought whatever I was selling. She knew that I got her. I’m reminded of a section of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that looks at the power of understanding the other person’s perspective. The example he gives is two different presentations from two competing companies to sell their ideas.

One presenter highlights all the reasons why his or her idea is so amazing. All the benefits of going with his or her idea. I mean, that’s pretty amazing. That’s standard stuff. That’s what most people would do. The other presenter spent 90 percent of the presentation showing all of the aspects of the potential client’s goals, what they want, why that’s important to them.

And then they just briefly outlined how the presenter proposes to do that. The client in this story chose the second proposal. They believed that the presenter fully understood them, and whatever their idea to accomplish their goals was, This client believed it would work because the presenter had the right end goal in mind.

It’s the same in your coaching business. You can spend way more time than you think you need to showcasing that you understand the challenges that your potential clients face. It will show up first thing on your homepage. You have about three seconds for someone viewing your homepage to assess your work.

If you can help them or not. Showing that you understand the problem is the fastest way to do that. In your lead magnet, on the landing page or registration page, the first section should be about the challenges they face. You should mention it in your lead magnet. On your sales page, for something you sell, same thing.

You have an opportunity every step of the way to show that you get it. Your ideal client is seen. Maybe you’ve been there. You know exactly what they’re going through. So when you’re doing that, talk like they do. The biggest mistake that I see coaches make when trying to communicate pain points and hopes and dreams is using words or concepts that their potential clients Just don’t understand, aren’t quite ready to hear yet, doesn’t click with them.

Life coaches do amazing work. I’m talking about general life coaches, weight loss coaches, grief coaches, business coaches, digital course creators. I have a coach. I credit coaching to me building the business that I have today. Even with having all the right skills and knowing what to do doesn’t guarantee that you’ll do it.

But even though I know the amazing outcomes that coaching can elicit, I sometimes don’t feel it when I’m reading some coach’s copy. And I, I get it. It’s hard to explain what you do without venturing into jargon or words that you use every day, but most people don’t. It feels very natural to use your words, but as soon as you know what a word means, and many others don’t, that That meets the definition of jargon.

Don’t use it. You’ll lose your audience super quickly. Even if you’re writing your 10th email of your nurture sequence, you’ve explained over and over what a particular specific concept is. Someone is reading that email who didn’t read the nine before it and is just going to get lost immediately. Don’t use words or ideas that you wouldn’t be able to explain to a 10 year old.

So here’s the second idea. This is just two ideas. This is the second and last one. Explain how you can get them from where they are to where they want to be and do it. In the easiest, simplest, most manageable way possible. You’ve come so far in your own journey. You’ve learned so much. It’s easy to overwhelm someone just starting out.

All you need to do is this thing, that thing, x, y, z, a, b, c, you know, that’s it. It doesn’t sound like too much to you because you’ve done all those things. But if you’re doing them over time, it’s easy. Not overwhelming, but when you put them all into a list in front of someone who hasn’t done it, it sounds like a lot.

Break it down. You just need to do these three things. How about this module, for example? There’s just these two ideas that you need to know, and then do an exercise, and you will get crystal clear on your messaging. That’s it. Know these two things, do this one exercise, and then do the next one. Because who wants to have to do even more work to get the result they want?

If there was an option to get the result you’re selling in one coaching session or zero, that’s the option that would sell the most. For me, when I offer done for you services, I call it my show up and coach approach for one of my clients. I have it set up that she just creates a long form piece of content each week and then shows up to coach clients, whether that’s in consultations or coaching sessions, do she does this one thing per week, and then she shows up at coaches.

Everything else is done for her. When I offer coaching, I walk live coaches through the process of creating the right offer, and putting it in front of more people. That’s it. You can and should include what makes you different from other coaches or alternative solutions. that your ideal client might have.

Remember that there is no one else in the world who has your background, your experience, and your coaching style. Your job is to figure out how to showcase all that. Tell people without overwhelming them or coming off as disingenuous. In the end, working with you is simple and it helps your ideal client to get what they want.

Okay, those are my two points. Now it is time for the exercise. It pays off to have a fine tuned bullet point list of your ideal client’s pain points, hopes and dreams, and how you get them from where they are to where they want to be. You’ll end up writing and rewriting these so many times, whether it’s in emails, social posts, notes for creating videos, masterclasses, sales pages, consultations, coaching, and on and on everything that you do.

It’s almost like you’re programming yourself to have these bullet points available to insert into everything that you do. What are you going to do with these bullet points? You will have them at the ready to be able to add them into everything you do. Everything you write, everything you say will have a touch of this information.

Of course, this perfectly sets you up for using these exact bullet points to train your large language model to write parts of all of your content for you. And just as a sidebar, no matter how well you program your chat GPT or Gemini or whatever other AI text generative tool, you still need to make sure that it has your personality.

Built into it, aka you have to add your own style in touch to it. You’re probably going to have to do some of the writing. Never start from a blank screen. That is, that is a rule of thumb now and always write some of it yourself. So here are the exercises to do right now. Get a pencil and paper or type them out.

Do that right now before you move on. Before life pulls you in a different direction. For each of these, there’s three. For each of these, It’s writing down five to 10 bullet points, five to 10 ideas, and you’re going to asterisk or highlight the top three or so, whichever one stand out as the most important.

So number one is write out five to 10 pain points of your ideal client. I’m going to go through all of them. And then when the video’s over, before you do anything else, write them out. Number two is write out five to 10 hopes and dreams of your ideal client. This is the desired outcome. That your client will have after working with you.

Number three is right. Five to 10 ways that you help your clients get their dreams. This is what is it about you, your experiences, your process that is so unique and that helps them get from where they are. to where they want to be. You want to differentiate yourself from the competition. You want to pull from the pain points of the first two questions.

Start with, I help you get from here, which is a bullet point in the first question, to here, which is a bullet point in the second question. And here’s how I do it. That is it for today. If you’re struggling putting these ideas into practice and getting your copywriting easy to write and your messaging crystal clear, I can help.

After working together, you’ll be able to quickly write and create content that accurately communicates how you get your ideal client from where they are to where they want to be. I have an offer on my website. Right now that helps with this exact problem, but it will only be there for about a week. Go to bjbutler.com and I’ll talk to you next week.

Hey, welcome back to the Life Coach Launchpad. My name’s BJ, and I’m here every week talking to you about all the online business things that, as it turns out, need to happen in order to have a successful life coaching business. I’m a business coach. I love to help life coaches make more money, get more clients, have more fun, and to do what they love to do, what they’re meant to do, and that’s coaching.

So, let’s dive right in.

Today I’m talking about how to get crystal clear on your messaging because that is the first step. You have to figure out what you’re going to say before you go say it. This is where your typical business coach will talk about identifying your ideal client. Sometimes they’ll call it an ideal client avatar, customer avatar, dream client, customer persona, whatever it is.

I usually just say ideal client. I’ve gone through a lot of trainings. I’ve been a business coach for five years, and I’m always learning. I’m always going through some sort of training. And I do that so that you don’t have to. I have the opportunity to pick and choose all the best training concepts. you.

Here’s what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to ask you to write down which magazines your ideal clients go through, which, what their eye color is, what their spouse’s occupation is, unless it’s applicable. But a lot of these exercises that other coaches have you go through are not are not relevant.

What I want is I want you to get down to what really makes your ideal client tick. The great news is that most coaches are a product of their product. You probably experienced results by going through coaching that led you to want to become a coach. You’ve gone through that transformation. You know what it’s like before and after.

Now I want you to be able to put that into words, which is not always that easy, but that’s why we’re going through this here. And now find a way to share how great coaching is and specifically how great your coaching is to other people. So The meat of this module is that there’s just these two tips to keep in mind when figuring out your messaging and then an exercise to go through.

Number one, be able to explain your ideal client’s pain points and hopes and dreams as good or better than they can. Because at the end of the day, you are selling a result. In order to sell the result, you have to acknowledge what’s not working today for them. People aren’t buying 12 coaching sessions, they’re buying the result.

In fact, 12 coaching sessions sounds like work. If you could deliver the result in one session, well, that would be even better. In this challenge of communicating pain points and then hopes and dreams, that is the reason why many coaches say that you have to niche down. It’s so that you can more accurately and precisely state your potential clients pain points.

And what they truly want to achieve. The wording for more niched coaching is more specific and it’s it ends up being easier to write, especially if you’re someone newer to the business of coaching. On the other hand, the benefits that come from general life coaching, they just, it can be harder to describe.

Again, that’s why we’re going through this exercise so that you have these ideas in your mind. Ideally written down by the end of this exercise and they’re ready to go. If you’re trying to describe general life coaching, the temptation is to be too general in your language, which comes off as wishy washy and unclear.

The challenge is the same if you’re more niched down or more general and neither one is better than another. I do not say you should niche down if you do not have a reason to. You just need to figure out how to communicate the pain points, And then the desired outcomes of your potential clients. Here’s an example.

I was giving a consultation one time. I was going through past examples of how I can help my clients. And this person in front of me, I saw her eyes go wide with a big smile on her face, and she just leaned forward. I remember exactly what I said. I walked her through the process of how I helped a client create a group coaching program.

And this client had people pay her to make it. That really was an amazing story. I will If you haven’t heard it, I’ll tell you more about it later. But the point is that when I described the outcome for this other client and I knew it was exactly what this person in front of me wanted, she was hooked.

She would have bought whatever I was selling. She knew that I got her. I’m reminded of a section of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that looks at the power of understanding the other person’s perspective. The example he gives is two different presentations from two competing companies to sell their ideas.

One presenter highlights all the reasons why his or her idea is so amazing. All the benefits of going with his or her idea. I mean, that’s pretty amazing. That’s standard stuff. That’s what most people would do. The other presenter spent 90 percent of the presentation showing all of the aspects of the potential client’s goals, what they want, why that’s important to them.

And then they just briefly outlined how the presenter proposes to do that. The client in this story chose the second proposal. They believed that the presenter fully understood them, and whatever their idea to accomplish their goals was, This client believed it would work because the presenter had the right end goal in mind.

It’s the same in your coaching business. You can spend way more time than you think you need to showcasing that you understand the challenges that your potential clients face. It will show up first thing on your homepage. You have about three seconds for someone viewing your homepage to assess your work.

If you can help them or not. Showing that you understand the problem is the fastest way to do that. In your lead magnet, on the landing page or registration page, the first section should be about the challenges they face. You should mention it in your lead magnet. On your sales page, for something you sell, same thing.

You have an opportunity every step of the way to show that you get it. Your ideal client is seen. Maybe you’ve been there. You know exactly what they’re going through. So when you’re doing that, talk like they do. The biggest mistake that I see coaches make when trying to communicate pain points and hopes and dreams is using words or concepts that their potential clients Just don’t understand, aren’t quite ready to hear yet, doesn’t click with them.

Life coaches do amazing work. I’m talking about general life coaches, weight loss coaches, grief coaches, business coaches, digital course creators. I have a coach. I credit coaching to me building the business that I have today. Even with having all the right skills and knowing what to do doesn’t guarantee that you’ll do it.

But even though I know the amazing outcomes that coaching can elicit, I sometimes don’t feel it when I’m reading some coach’s copy. And I, I get it. It’s hard to explain what you do without venturing into jargon or words that you use every day, but most people don’t. It feels very natural to use your words, but as soon as you know what a word means, and many others don’t, that That meets the definition of jargon.

Don’t use it. You’ll lose your audience super quickly. Even if you’re writing your 10th email of your nurture sequence, you’ve explained over and over what a particular specific concept is. Someone is reading that email who didn’t read the nine before it and is just going to get lost immediately. Don’t use words or ideas that you wouldn’t be able to explain to a 10 year old.

So here’s the second idea. This is just two ideas. This is the second and last one. Explain how you can get them from where they are to where they want to be and do it. In the easiest, simplest, most manageable way possible. You’ve come so far in your own journey. You’ve learned so much. It’s easy to overwhelm someone just starting out.

All you need to do is this thing, that thing, x, y, z, a, b, c, you know, that’s it. It doesn’t sound like too much to you because you’ve done all those things. But if you’re doing them over time, it’s easy. Not overwhelming, but when you put them all into a list in front of someone who hasn’t done it, it sounds like a lot.

Break it down. You just need to do these three things. How about this module, for example? There’s just these two ideas that you need to know, and then do an exercise, and you will get crystal clear on your messaging. That’s it. Know these two things, do this one exercise, and then do the next one. Because who wants to have to do even more work to get the result they want?

If there was an option to get the result you’re selling in one coaching session or zero, that’s the option that would sell the most. For me, when I offer done for you services, I call it my show up and coach approach for one of my clients. I have it set up that she just creates a long form piece of content each week and then shows up to coach clients, whether that’s in consultations or coaching sessions, do she does this one thing per week, and then she shows up at coaches.

Everything else is done for her. When I offer coaching, I walk live coaches through the process of creating the right offer, and putting it in front of more people. That’s it. You can and should include what makes you different from other coaches or alternative solutions. that your ideal client might have.

Remember that there is no one else in the world who has your background, your experience, and your coaching style. Your job is to figure out how to showcase all that. Tell people without overwhelming them or coming off as disingenuous. In the end, working with you is simple and it helps your ideal client to get what they want.

Okay, those are my two points. Now it is time for the exercise. It pays off to have a fine tuned bullet point list of your ideal client’s pain points, hopes and dreams, and how you get them from where they are to where they want to be. You’ll end up writing and rewriting these so many times, whether it’s in emails, social posts, notes for creating videos, masterclasses, sales pages, consultations, coaching, and on and on everything that you do.

It’s almost like you’re programming yourself to have these bullet points available to insert into everything that you do. What are you going to do with these bullet points? You will have them at the ready to be able to add them into everything you do. Everything you write, everything you say will have a touch of this information.

Of course, this perfectly sets you up for using these exact bullet points to train your large language model to write parts of all of your content for you. And just as a sidebar, no matter how well you program your chat GPT or Gemini or whatever other AI text generative tool, you still need to make sure that it has your personality.

Built into it, aka you have to add your own style in touch to it. You’re probably going to have to do some of the writing. Never start from a blank screen. That is, that is a rule of thumb now and always write some of it yourself. So here are the exercises to do right now. Get a pencil and paper or type them out.

Do that right now before you move on. Before life pulls you in a different direction. For each of these, there’s three. For each of these, It’s writing down five to 10 bullet points, five to 10 ideas, and you’re going to asterisk or highlight the top three or so, whichever one stand out as the most important.

So number one is write out five to 10 pain points of your ideal client. I’m going to go through all of them. And then when the video’s over, before you do anything else, write them out. Number two is write out five to 10 hopes and dreams of your ideal client. This is the desired outcome. That your client will have after working with you.

Number three is right. Five to 10 ways that you help your clients get their dreams. This is what is it about you, your experiences, your process that is so unique and that helps them get from where they are. to where they want to be. You want to differentiate yourself from the competition. You want to pull from the pain points of the first two questions.

Start with, I help you get from here, which is a bullet point in the first question, to here, which is a bullet point in the second question. And here’s how I do it. That is it for today. If you’re struggling putting these ideas into practice and getting your copywriting easy to write and your messaging crystal clear, I can help.

After working together, you’ll be able to quickly write and create content that accurately communicates how you get your ideal client from where they are to where they want to be. I have an offer on my website. Right now that helps with this exact problem, but it will only be there for about a week. Go to bjbutler.com and I’ll talk to you next week.