I talk with hundreds of coaches and professionals worldwide, every year. It's crazy to me, but I STILL see so many of them working in a horribly outdated business model.

If you’re a frequent reader of the blog, you know what I’m referring to. The tendency for coaches to only sell time for money. Aka their revenue comes exclusively from one-on-one “lessons.”

If you haven’t heard the rant, I cover it in detail in these posts:

Sessions, Not Lessons: Know the Difference.

How to Introduce Long-Term Development Into Your Coaching Offer

Time and time again, I find that coaches aren’t confident about making the leap from lessons to results/outcomes… They don’t know how to successfully market and sell anything other than lessons.

Part of my mission with CoachNow is changing that fact. Because the coaches that heed this advice wind up more successful and less stressed than the coaches that stay on the “lessons treadmill”.

The best and easiest marketing framework I’ve found (thanks to Russell Brunson and all you digital marketers out there), is known as “Hook, Story, Offer”.

The Hook, Story, Offer disrupts the time for money paradigm by shifting the focus to selling results—real, tangible outcomes that resonate with athletes and parents alike (rather than time).

In short, you use a “hook” to draw the attention of your ideal customer, the “story” to explain why your services are right for their needs, and then present an “offer” that packages your services together for them to purchase.

I go over this concept at length in last week’s blog post: Hook, Story, Offer: What it is and Why You Should Care as a Coach

For today’s blog, I want to dive into what makes for a good coaching “story”.

Your story is your opportunity for potential clients to know exactly who you are.

There’s power in being vulnerable and clear here.

Tell them who you are.

What originally inspired you to coach? What motivates you? Excites you?

And (perhaps more importantly) who you AREN’T.

For example, if you’re looking for a quick fix lesson, I’m NOT your Coach. If you understand that getting better and achieving your goals is a PROCESS, I just may be the right Coach for you.

Because your athletes won’t trust you if they don’t know you. Remove that barrier early.

Part of this is being crystal clear in what you can provide for them.

As an Athlete, do you find it super frustrating when you have a great lesson, you have that breakthrough, and then it all falls apart a week later? You’re not alone!

As a Coach, I find it incredibly frustrating too! My job is to help you achieve your dreams, and one-off lessons just aren’t going to get you there. That’s why I’m no longer willing to do “lessons” because it's a disservice to YOU. To improve over time doesn’t happen with quick fix lessons, it happens with deep practice, expert coaching and ignition (aka: motivation). In other words, it requires a committed coaching relationship, over time.

Think about it: of all the things you could have done for your career, you chose to be a coach.

The first step to fleshing out your story: Explain WHY you chose this career.

For me, I founded CoachNow because of severe burnout and frustration with both the “lessons” model of coaching and the lack of purpose built coaching software.

I saw a need for a product that enabled effective asynchronous coaching communication, with no bloat or any of the unnecessary bells and whistles that caused platforms trying to emulate CoachNow to fail.

In almost all of CoachNow’s marketing, I reference my personal story constantly. I am confident that, if I can get someone to relate to my journey and see why I created CoachNow in the first place, they too will see the value we can deliver to their business.

What better way to ensure that athlete’s entrust you with their training and development than to share your own story with them?

Finding commonalities between your journey and your athlete’s will undoubtedly help them see why you’re the right coach for them.

Just make sure that you frame your story to be relevant to your prospective client’s challenges, struggles, goals and ideal future state/outcomes.

Ultimately, you want your athletes to completely see why your offer (and the story that brought you to that offer, specifically) is the answer they’ve been looking for.

The last key component is what marketers would call “social proof”.

Wherever possible, use specific real examples of how you’ve helped others (like your ideal prospective clients), achieve the same outcome they are looking to create.

Let’s talk about this with an example.

Say you want to create a year-long coaching program to help junior golfers to shoot in the 70’s in less than 12 months. Have you already helped other juniors achieve this outcome?

If so, share their story! It’s that simple.

Basically, here is where you’ll share compelling facts, testimonials, and success stories about how you’ve helped people go from A to Z.

Explain to others how you helped someone improve their swing, score more points, fix errors, gain confidence, etc.

Here’s the thing - when you can prove to a potential client that you’ve helped someone just like them achieve the very same goals they’re reaching for, they’ll have no reason to doubt your expertise and every reason to believe that you’re the right person for the job.

There are tons of coaches out there for athletes to choose from, but your story is what will set you apart. This is your chance to really show people why you do what you do.

If you can get them to understand your mission statement and how it will play a role in their journey, you’ve done your job.

Why not give it a try?

How do you share your story with others? We’d love to hear from you on Instagram: @coachnowapp