Close More Sales by Finding Coaching Clients’ Hotbuttons

by | Feb 4, 2017 | Business Coach Training

Seeing things from another point of view is not easy. For business coaches, this can be the biggest challenge–but one of the most important if you want to convert more clients. As a business coach, it’s critical that you know more than what their age group is, where they like to hang out and shop, and who their favorite film start/vocalist/ball player is. You need to find coaching clients’ hotbuttons–those emotional “hooks” that will get them ready to buy.

How, though, do you really get into their shoes?

Let’s start with two extremely strong hotbuttons: fears and frustrations. These can be powerful building blocks that enable you to create a stronger connection and engage in a more focused way than ever before through targeted content and great pitches.

What’s Frustrating?

We all get frustrated. In business, there are plenty of events and factors that stall progress, minor irritations that mean you don’t quite get what you want done. It could involve day to day frustrations, such as dealing with cash flow problems. It can be more personal, such as spending too much time in work and being tied to a desk. It can include anything from improving performance to not being able to get the best out of their teams.

Frustrations are generally those stones in the shoe that get in your clients’ way. If you can help your clients and prospects reduce the amount of frustration, then you certainly begin to become more useful to them.

What Are Their Fears?

There are a lot of things that your client may fear. Finding out what these are and using them to build a better relationship is the key. Fears are things that have not happened yet, but which may. This could be something like concern that a top-performing salesman will decide to go to another company, to falling behind the competition, to outstanding debt, to a whole host of hurdles your clients and prospects might be facing.

Fears can be wide ranging and not always rational but they are important to your client. When you help them reduce their fears, you get their attention and they become more likely to engage you in the future.

Getting Your Clients to Talk

So how exactly do you find coaching clients’ hotbuttons?

You could use your imagination to come up with a list of all the frustrations and fears that your clients face on a daily basis. Or you could get out there and talk to them directly. Doing interviews with clients and compiling a list of hotbuttons will enable you to uncover areas that matter most to them. 

Choose your clients carefully: You want to get good, honest responses and a clear picture of the issues facing them. Don’t simply carry out a few interviews and then think you have a handle on everyone’s hopes and fears. This is an ongoing process and the more you drill down, the more likely you are to strike gold.

One of the best resources to help you with this is our Silver Bullet Cheat Sheet, which covers the 21 most common hotbutton issues that your clients and prospects are struggling with AND their solutions. It’s available FREE on our downloads page–no opt-in required! Enjoy!

More About Business Coaching

RESULTS