Transcript from the Christian Life Coach Collective Podcast:
Episode 238
Laura
So we're back with the second half of my interview with Justin Janowski from Faith to Influence. I hope you liked episode 237, where we talked about so many good things because we're talking about selling your coaching services and how it's kind to make an offer. It's loving to help somebody know they can invest in their lives.
That they can have change and transformation and you can have an impact and be successful in it by embracing the fact that as a coach, you have to learn how to sell coaching.
And you know me, I tell you, we're not selling coaching. We're selling results and transformation. And inside the Niche Clarity course and the Call to Coach course. I teach you about that. The getting from point A to point B, your coaching being the solution, the bridge between the two places and how what you're really selling is what they're going to get on the other side of coaching. People don't wake up and say to themselves, I want to buy coaching today.
No, it's like they don't wake up and say, Gosh, I just can't wait to go to the store and buy onions and limes. No, they're thinking about the result. Tonight for dinner, I want to have chicken tortilla soup. So the solution is I have to go to the store and make sure I have all of the ingredients so that I can have the outcome I want to have when I'm sitting at the dinner table with my family.
They're buying dinner, but it's pieces and parts that they have to go gather to get the results they want. And that's what coaching is. So the reality is that you've got to become someone who's capable of relaying the value that you offer. And then you have to share that in a way that allows people to make an investment by spending money on the thing that they want.
Learning how to clarify that so that you can be confident because you believe in coaching, you believe in your client's ability through coaching to get these results and transformation, you believe they can attain their goals, you believe they can lose this and gain that, and you believe in it.
That's gonna back up your ability to produce and deliver. To sell your offer and Justin is so awesome at helping people do this. So it's a great conversation. Jump in there with me and check out all of the links and the ways that you can find Justin in the show notes. We start out with a question.
At what point in a coach's journey and their business setting it up, do you think that they should start working with a coach like you and actually start looking at sales? Is there a certain pivot or turning point for them where that's like, “okay, now I need to start focusing on this”.
Justin
Well, the truth is most of our clients are people who have yet to launch their business. The truth is like most people they haven't had an entrepreneurial background or a sales background before they decided to become a coach. That's a really common story. And so in many cases, some people consider themselves coaches for months or even years before they ever make a dollar, before they ever get their first client and they're kind of stuck at the starting line because they don't know how to price their programs. They don't know how to get on a sale, how to line up a sales call, how to hold a sales call, and there's a kind of a fear or a stigma around their old stories around sales and money and all these things. And so many want to be coaches will never really launch and never make a sale, never have a real client because they don't know what to do.
And they need a little bit more confidence and direction and step by step before they launch. And so, many of our clients are in that kind of brand new phase where they want to become a coach. But they want a roadmap instead of having to figure it out for themselves. Most of the people we work with, like in our Christian coaches Academy, which is a, a low ticket membership, 75 a month kind of program, or our sales school program, which is a little bit more expensive and more investment from both sides, those programs, our primary clients are between zero and a hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue. And they're in most cases trying to find initial financial viability for their business, whatever that means for them, maybe it's $30,000 of income would have them feeling really comfortable and happy in their business for some it's $50k for some it's $100k for some it's $250k.
And so we're helping people set the business structures and the sales strategies in place that are high integrity and feel good for both sides, but also can help them achieve those goals. And then we've got a mastermind program, which is for coaches who are already kind of at that six figure range or closer to that of earnings. And then we actually do sales for some $1 million dollar and $10 million businesses at their conferences and events. They don't want to learn how to do sales from us. They just want us to do the sales for them. And they hire us to do that. So we work with Christian coaches really anywhere from zero to, you know, $20-30 million a year in annual revenue, but our most common client.
Is between zero and $30k like they're really in that early stage and they don't yet have the skill set or the knowledge of how to be an entrepreneur or salesperson effectively and also feel good about doing it.
Laura
Right. They're still overcoming a lot of the money stories. They don't even know what they believe. They don't know what they're going to have to do and then they don't know what their brain's going to tell them when they find out what they have to do about selling. "no, I don't want to do that. That's not comfortable. That's scary." So you have a structure of a sales call, some kind of framework. Can you tell me more about that?
Justin
Yes. And I'd like to offer if you want to follow along with this or want like a little bit more context, a free resource: www.goodsalespdf.com is gonna be our 10 step sales process. It's a free gift from me to you .
In our 10 step sales process, step 1 begins before the sales call actually starts with what we call "getting to your peak emotional state", which is a pre- call ritual to get yourself feeling really good before you begin. So you don't come in scared, you come in confident and feeling good and feeling ready. When we feel good, we'll get better results.
Step 2 of the process is to get into rapport with the person that we're with. But we don't think about rapport like small talking for 20 or 30 minutes as long as you can.
That's sales avoidance, usually, and we want to get into the real conversation within a couple of minutes. And so rapport for me is just two or three questions, but it's paying attention more than to what they say, the nature of how they say it, what are they, where are they at emotionally, their volume, their pace of communication, the language and words that they use.
And I want to be able to meet people where they're at and connect with them. So that they feel safe in communication and comfortable with me. Now that's going to be a, putting them in a state where they can feel more comfortable making a big decision or sharing with me vulnerably. And so I'm trying to communicate in their language.
And we talked more about that in our art of influence, which I think is actually also on the good sales PDF.
Then Step 3 is the pre-frame. To me, this is most important. This is where we set the stage for what's about to happen. Like, "Hey John, thanks so much for connecting with me today. I want to make the best use of your time and mine.
So I just like to lay out a simple structure for this call. Would that be okay? Yes. Cool. The reason we're talking is Laura tells me you're a great coach. As you probably know, I work with Christian coaches to help them optimize their business models, pricing and sales strategies so they can scale their income and their impact.
And my outcome on a call like this is to get to know you and your business. And to discover whether or not it's a fit for us to work together. And the way I'd like to get to that outcome is by asking you some questions about where you're at in your business right now, what your vision for the future is, and some of the challenges that you're facing right now as well.
From there, I'll give you some perspective and coaching based on what I hear. And if it seems like a good fit at the end, I'll explain really specifically how I work with my clients. And then you and I can decide either to work together or not work together. And either way is fine with me. Does that sound okay to you?"
"Yes!" "Cool."
That pre- frame makes everything else easier. To me, it's the most important..
Step 4, we're going to skip in this little two minute version, which is mid- call objections. But I teach how to respond if somebody is like, Oh, how much does it cost? Or like, you know, kind of tries to derail the direction of the conversation a little bit.
And then we move typically from the pre-frame into step 5, which is discovery questions about the present and past to help us understand where a person is and why they're there.
And then we get into vision in step 6- questions about the future and what do they really want? What are their goals?
Step 7 is the gap where we ask what's the biggest challenge that's preventing you from fulfilling that vision. And we try to like zero in on the one thing.
And then from there, step 8 is to get into potential futures, which is saying, well, what's going to happen if you don't solve that problem? And then what would happen? And how would that feel? And what's the consequence of that? And on the flip side, like, what if you did solve this problem?
What would the life be like then? What would business be like then? What would be possible? And how would that feel? And who else would be affected by that? And that helps people develop the leverage or uncover the leverage that they have already to actually take real action, actually create real change.
And then we move into commitment, step 9, which is to say, well, how committed are you to solving that problem? And we can only work with and help people who are really committed to solving the problem. And step 9 & 3/4 for the Harry Potter fans out there, like platform 9 & 3/4, is a statement of certainty which is to say, cool, if you're really committed, Laura, I'm really confident I can help you.
Are you ready to hear how I work with my clients? So I like a statement of certainty. And then one more ask of consent before I make my offer and they're like, yeah, let's do it. And then step 10 is to make my offer, respond to objections, thoughtfully, like ask questions, be curious and help them make a decision.
Laura
That's so good. It was brilliant. How'd you come up with that? Did you talk to Jesus one day?
Justin
Yeah, I came down from, you know, the trek to my backyard with a tablet from Jesus, like here's the right high integrity sales process. No, it was, I mean, one, I've been in sales since I was 18. So I learned a lot of lessons along the way, 18 years in sales now, but I'll give a lot of credit to Jake Merriman and Ben Skemper.
They were two of my primary mentors at my former company I worked with. They were my coaches and they had a sales process and a lot of what I'm teaching in sales was things that I learned from them. But then. Some of the way they might respond to objections or handle certain situations didn't totally vibe with me.
So they're great salespeople, great coaches and leaders. I want to be clear about that. But like from, from my faith perspective, there were things that they did or ways that they did things that weren't really for me. And so as I held thousands of sales calls starting out using their process over time, it shifted and I changed a few things and I morphed it into my process and my language and found my authentic leadership voice in it.
You know, a simple example of that is that, you know, they wouldn't, they wouldn't want people to talk to their spouse or people like, Oh, I want to talk to my spouse. They try to teach me how to make the sale right now and not let them get off the call and talk to their spouse. But that didn't vibe with me or my values.
And so I'm going to help people like take ownership of their decision and I'll do that a little bit differently. I might say, okay, cool. Like I'd, I'd talk to my spouse about this, too. I totally get it. Let me ask you a question, though. Have you made your decision for you yet? If she says, whatever you think, babe, I trust you.
Do you know what you want to do? I can help them claim and take ownership of that. And if they're like, yeah, I'm in now, they're going to have a better, different conversation with their spouse because of ownership of this. Or they might be like, well, I'm not sure yet. And I realized there's a different objection.
We might want to talk through that and be curious. Ultimately, I want to end every call with a yes or no or the next call booked. They kind of wanted me to end every call with yes or no. But for me, yes, no, or the next call booked, I'm okay with yes. I'm okay with no. I'm also okay with him thinking about it or processing, praying, and talking to a spouse, but if so, I'm not going to follow up.
I'm not going to text them the next day and then say they didn't respond. Should I text back? How soon is too soon? Like, it's almost like dating. It's uncomfortable. It's strange. I will not end the call with somebody interested without booking the next call. I'll say, awesome.
"How long do you need a day, two days? Should we talk on Thursday or Friday to decide on this? What works better for you? Okay. Let's just line up a 15-minute call where I can answer final questions, and we can make the decision together. Does that sound okay?" Everyone says yes. And so I don't eliminate that weird followup and I want the decision in like a reasonable timeframe.
But I'm happy for people to have those conversations. So a lot of credit to Jake and Ben. They really helped me a ton, a lot of credit to like all of the Cutco experience, to be honest, and all of the, just like the thousands of sales calls. But definitely want to bring God into the space here too and like do what feels right and communicate to people with people in a way that feels fair and Loving and you know expression of God's love on a sales call as much as we can do that
Laura
Yeah, and it sounds like you just have such a level of confidence in the way you show up in sales calls that you can do that because you're confident; you've decided for yourself that faith is part of who you are. Yeah. It's part of your business. It's part of how you show up and coach people. It's part of your leadership.
And a lot of people, I think, struggle. They haven't quite made the decision about how faith is going to show up in their business and their content or marketing. But when you make that decision, it gets really clear how you're going to do things, how you're going to lead yourself. And I like just everything you're saying, is about leading people. Again, you're not forcing them, not bossing them. You're not begging them come with you. You're just leading them. They don't know which way they need to go. That's why they called you. And so you get to lead them even just by helping them determine, ‘check back with me in two days’; helping their brain make that decision that you're either going to check back in two days or three days.
And you've given their brain an, “Okay, I just need to pick one, and it's not a week from now, it's not a month from now, and there's permission to go talk to my spouse. Like, the people who should be making big money decisions with me, that's appropriate”.
And if you told me that you need a yes or a no right now, and I can't go talk to my husband, my answer is absolutely no. Because I immediately don't trust you now. You don't want me to go make the best decision with the love of my life. Like, I'm so sorry. We are not going to be the right fit. So you have to have your values in business aligned and clear for yourself. And that helps you show up on a sales call, in a discovery call, with greater confidence because you know who you are.
And I like what you said earlier about "sales has always meant this to me. But I'm writing a new story like sales with me looks like this..." and you have to determine that for yourself. And then you also see that when you're working with somebody you're talking to them. You're saying, do you know what you want?
Even if you go talk to your husband or your wife. And whatever, regardless of what they say, or have you come to a conclusion about what you want? And I think that's one of the hardest things for somebody to do, your client, is to know what they want. A lot of people don't know what they want, you know?
For example, even if you ask me what I want for dinner, the answer is, I don't know. And if I said, ‘well, if you did know, what would you know?’ Ugh! You know, it's just sometimes you don't know what you want, and you need somebody to lead you to help figure it out. And then, when you know what you want, you can determine what you'll do to get it.
Yes. You know? So I love all of that. That's an excellent, supernatural strategy that you have. Thank you. Thanks for sharing it with us. I'll put the link in the show notes for that PDF. http://goodsalespdf.com.
Yes, that's it.
And, we'll get some resources for the readers. I'll link the show notes to everywhere they can find you. Instagram, Facebook, I think you're on LinkedIn.
I'm kind of all over the place. I mostly hang out on Facebook if you wanna send me a direct message. But you could probably find me in most places.
Laura
Well, thank you so much for coming on today and for such a high-value conversation. I know many of my listeners and all the coaches and clients I'm working with will want me to direct them to this because they need to understand those money stories they've been believing, they don't even know, they're not even aware of what they believe and the things that they can do to start overcoming that and start kind of becoming more assertive because they believe, like, I'm supposed to be doing this, I'm called to it, and it's okay to share it with the world, it's okay to receive something for the value I create in the world and not to bury my talents, you know, so thanks for giving permission and release to everybody in those areas and even the 10 steps for people to understand, this is simple. It's possible, you know, just gives people an example of how to do it and that it is possible. It's fruitful.
Justin
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I do want to just mention if somebody gets the 10 step PDF process, you'll get on our email list. We'll send you our podcast weekly with other sales ideas, like what we talked about today. I loved having the conversation with you, Laura. You're awesome. This was really fun. Thanks for having me on.
Laura
What a great guy. So smart. Funny. Fantastic. I trust somebody who plays games with his wife. So, I hope that this has helped you open your mind a little bit to how sales really is part of a natural process of a coaching business, how it's possible for you to learn how to do it, learn how to do it well, and believe in yourself doing it.
And believe that it's fully expected and acceptable to sell your offer and that you have permission. I'm giving you permission right now. Justin and I, we mutually give you permission to sell your offer because that is going to be how you are enabled to do more of what you're called to as a coach.
And become successful in every way, not just monetarily, but benevolently, and spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, you can show up more fully. All of the time, instead of having to have a different job that pays the bills, you can learn how sales can be clean and feel great and feel loving because you are showing up with the call of God on your life to make an impact, to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and coaching is one solution, one way that you can do that. So bless you, all things are possible. I'm for you, Justin's for you, but God loves you and He's for you so much more than we are. So take all of this to Him as your CEO and ask Him, what He says. Take it to Him. Holy Spirit's going to guide you.
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