When I Finally Knew For Sure
When were you sure you were getting duped by the 'coaching' industry?
There were plenty of smaller things and moments that rubbed me the wrong way, for sure. They collected and nagged me for about three years. But the 'OK, now I'm SURE this is a sham' moment came about a year ago.
It was...drum roll...
*the exact same people 'cheering me on', not wanting to 'invest' in me*.
It happened not once, not twice, not even thrice; it happened FOUR damn times over those three years.
Some success-peddler or other ('business/marketing/sales coaches') 'coached' me on how to grow my speaking training biz.
It was always about egging me on to up my rates because 'are you kidding me - what you're offering is SOOOOOO valuable!'‘.
I had to 'know my worth' and charge at least £100 per hour. Nay, £120. Nay, £150! One even told me £290 - yep, two-hundred and ninety pounds. I wish I was making this sh-t up.
After all, I was an 'expert' at what I did, offered 'no-brainer value', and 'if I didn't believe in myself, why would anyone else?!'.
So with each of those four ladies, it was up-up-up with the prices. More per session. Bigger packages, going into the £1k+ range. I just needed to believe in myself and keep showing up. I was offering something SO many people NEEDED, so all I had to do was believe, and keep relentlessly showing up on social media and selling, OK?!!!
....eeeexcept, not one of them wanted to hire me.
Yep - all four of them, either during or not long after our work together, had a high-stakes speaking gig. And I was like...wait a minute!
- speaking at a high-stakes industry event? ✔️
- 'successful' “entrepreneurs” looking to take their speaking, and therefore business, To The Next Level? ✔️✔️
- they even already knew who I was and how I worked? ✔️✔️✔️
- AND believed my services were so damn valuable that I was undercharging, if anything? ✔️✔️✔️✔️
Well, I'll be damned. They were my Ideal Clients (TM)! The same Ideal Clients (TM) they'd helped me define in our 'coaching' sessions. Yabba dabba doo! They'd be JUMPING at the chance to get prepped by me for those gigs, right?
...Wrong.
Somehow, they all ended up being, like, omg, just soooooo busyyyy, you guise. Soooo so busy! They JUST couldn't work me into their BUSY schedule!
(They still had time to post on LinkedIn 75 times a day, 96 days a week, though. Possibly other platforms as well.)
I dared to ask the latter two: 'why are you doing this gig then, if you're not gonna do it to the best of your ability?'
Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrickets.
Oh. I finally saw the writing on the wall: the same people egging me on to 'charge my worth' and 'believe in myself' 'cause what I was offering was, allegedly, soooooo damn valuable that anyone would be lucky to hire me...somehow couldn't be bothered.
Which was in line with what I'd been getting for a while: more crickets. And the more I drove my prices up, the more crickets I got. Almost like there was a connection between me charging £100+ for one hour, while offering very little proof of concept my stuff even helped anyone...and people being hesitant to buy. ALMOST.
It's almost like there isn't a way to skip right to making tons of money and charging 'premium prices' when you're still new in your industry and haven't proven your worth yet.
(Likely because there IS no 'worth' to prove yet - your worth is how well you help and serve others, not self-perceptions and 'mindset' bullshit, like the 'coaches' of the world often tell you. And your ability to help others strongly correlates with time spent doing The Thing - if you’ve only served a handful of clients, you aren’t ‘transforming’ shit yet.)
Anyhoo - THAT is when I knew for sure that this was a sham. The people smack-down in the middle of my (alleged) target audience, who could more than afford me and encouraged me to charge my rates, where the same ones who weaseled out. Alright - message received.
What's your story? When did YOU know for sure that you were being manipulated? You can always send an email if you don't want to post it here in the comments.
Stay tuned for MOAR...