EP 98: Why Health Coaches Hate Selling (This One Belief is Costing You)

If you've ever told yourself you're just not a salesperson, that belief is probably costing you more than you realize. In this episode, Dr. Kasey Jo Orvidas talks about how money mindset beliefs create resistance to selling, but that isn't a character flaw. It's a story. This episode helps you unpack that story.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why coaches with a strong "helper" identity often unconsciously reject selling, and the research behind why this happens
• How selling is already woven into your everyday life in ways that don't feel slimy at all
• The difference between influence and manipulation, and why conflating the two is holding you back
• Why not talking about your services isn't humility, it's fear, and who's actually paying the price for that
• The one reframe that removes most of the pressure around selling your offer

If you've ever felt like selling goes against who you are as a person or that you're "a coach not a salesperson", this episode is for you.

Episodes Referenced: 

• Episode 41: The 7 Principles of Persuasion (Applied to Health and Fitness Coaching)
• EP 63: 3 Steps to Overcome Self-Doubt
• EP 62: How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome: Mindset Shifts to Try

Sources: 

• Aquino & Reed, 2002
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini

Get on the priority list for my brand new 2-Day Money Mindset Workshop

Connect with me on Instagram! 

Transcript

0:00

The coach who rarely talks about their services, they're not just being humble. They're letting fear make the decision, and the person who really needs them is now going without this because fear got in the way. Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I'm your host, Dr. Casey Joe. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we're gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we're going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply to your health. Fitness, relationships, business, marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it's not all serious and sciencey around here. We're gonna have a ton of fun too, and I'm so excited to share all of this with you. All right, let's go ahead and get into the episode. Welcome back to Not Another Mindset Show. Listen, if you've ever told yourself that you're just not a salesperson, that you just hate selling, you wish you didn't have to do it, then I'm gonna need you to pay attention for the next 20 to 30 minutes, however long this takes, okay? Because this is a really important episode for you. Mainly because that story that you're telling yourself, and you can feel free to push back and tell me it's not a story and it's the truth. But I think by the end of this episode, you might think differently. Anyway, if that's how you feel, I need you to be here because it's costing you to think this way, believe this way. Obviously, probably without saying this episode is for my business owners or health and fitness professionals generally who have any skin in the game when it comes to generating leads in your business, in the business you work for, what have you, if you sell courses, if you sell programs, listen up, okay? First and foremost, I need you to know this isn't a character flaw, okay? It's a belief that was probably influenced and then reinforced by other experiences that you've had as a consumer. So being like on the receiving end, right? I can tell you firsthand, I've had some not so great experiences. However, now that I'm thinking about it with these experiences, all it did was help me realize how I don't want to go about selling. really briefly, I can tell you that there was a, this is so funny because it's a very like meta example because I was looking to invest in a sales training system for my health and fitness coaching staff when I still owned my one-on-one health and fitness coaching business and was interested in this person and what they were doing. They were gonna come in and train my sales team, set up this whole system. Number one, the sales call that I had just felt so pushy and proudy and not great. By the end of the call, this man said to me, " Okay, so where are you at? What are you thinking? this a decision that you want to make?" And I said, "It's a decision that I need to take back to my team and make sure everyone's on board before we move forward, but this all sounds great. Thank you for your time, blah, blah, blah." And he goes, "Wait a second, aren't you, the business owner, aren't you the CEO?" And I said, "Yes, I am." And to which he said, "Well, then I'm confused why you would need to go back to your team to make this decision if it's a decision for the business and you're the business owner." And so then I had to, argue back that my team is important to me and I want to ensure that I have their buy-in and their autonomy is important and he just didn't get that and that was very uncomfortable. we got off the call, he sent some follow-up text messages, one of them, which was just a series of question marks because I hadn't responded in a few hours. I mean, listen, yeah, there's some cringey stuff out there, but that doesn't mean that you have to be that that you come off as that, especially if you're thinking to yourself, "I don't want to be this." And I promise you, you probably will not be that, right? So here's the thing that I wanna start with first, you're always selling already, every day in small ways, whether you realize it or not, and I have some examples for you where this could kind of look like once we get into the episode. So this sort of sales is slimy belief that so many of us deal with. We need to figure out where it comes from if we want to combat it and stop feeling this way. So, so much of this, I think, especially for coaches out there, service providers, you're out there to help people with your education and your expertise, and you think to yourself, how often? I'm a coach. I'm not a salesperson. I'm a coach. I'm not a marketer. So I have a little bit of like a, a research angle I wanna share with you. There's this idea of moral licensing and identity behavior gap and people with a strong helper identity, which I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that as many of you, if you're a health and fitness coach or a health and fitness professional, you provide service to help other people. If you identify with that, it's really easy to unconsciously reject anything that feels transactional. So again, this isn't a character flaw. It's a belief, it's based in your identity, sure, but this is all stuff that is really changeable. So just like all beliefs and how I teach you to work with your clients who have beliefs that are holding them back from seeing more progress, awareness is going to be the first step. And You guys are probably sick of hearing me say this over and over again, but I say it over and over again because it is important, okay? Anything you hear me say more than once on this podcast probably means it's important, okay? So this belief doesn't come out of nowhere. It's coming from somewhere and is immediately, I just want you to sit with that. Like, I feel this way, I'm thinking this way, I believe this about myself when it comes to sales and selling and marketing for a reason, and it's not a character flaw. It's usually built from that experience, whether it was a pushy car salesman, you had an experience like I did, I don't know, the high school girls in your DMs with their MLM sales or the high pressure gym membership upsell pitch, whatever it is that you've experienced, that's how you have experienced sales. And if it's a negative experience, that's something that's gonna stick with you more than a positive experience. And we've all been on that receiving end of the sort of manipulative, slimy sales tactics and have essentially in our brains filed that under, "This is what sales is, even if we logically know that it can look differently." So I would invite you to think more about the meaning that you are assigning to the idea of sales and selling and why that meaning exists. To be honest, I could almost stop the podcast episode here because that alone is going to be so important. It is required if you want to shift the way that you're thinking about sales, selling, marketing, and get better at it. Okay. Quick commercial break, kind of. I mean, the show isn't sponsored and I'm definitely not making any money to record these episodes but I do have something really relevant to share with you. I'm running a two-part live training all about money mindset this July, the 14th and the 15th. Day one is basically the internal piece, your mindset, your blocks, your story around selling, and day two will be the external piece, the psychology of your perspective clients and how to use that to upgrade your marketing and sign more clients. If you've been listening to this episode and nodding along, then you definitely should consider being there. Head to the show notes, you'll find a link there that'll get you on the priority list, so you will be the first one to know when registration opens. Two days, two live trainings with me, two sides of the same money mindset problems. I'm super, super excited for this and I can't wait to share it with you. There's also an identity piece here that we need to talk about with being that helper perspective, the I help people identity, like thinking back to like the classic, this is what you should put in your Instagram pile. Like, I help so. and-so. Like we're all helpers here, right? It's great, but it can create some conflict in your brain because helpers help, they give, but then sellers, they take, right? So your brain is building this conflict of, "I'm someone who helps people. I don't want to take from them." You see where I'm going with this? So the question for you I have is, does it ever feel like selling goes against who you are as a person, as someone who has a helper identity? And I actually found some interesting resear- search around this. I kind of mentioned this briefly before, but that idea of moral identity, that people who strongly identify as ethical, caring, or service oriented can unconsciously reject behaviors that they perceive as self-serving, even when those behaviors are completely legitimate. So again, this is based on research from a quino and read, I have it cited here, but basically what all this says is that your resistance to selling might have something to do with the identity that you hold. But my friends, and this is important, this is an important takeaway here. You don't have a selling problem if that's the case, okay? It's not that you have to get so much better at sales and marketing tactics and then even thinking about that makes your palm sweaty because it sounds so awful. It's that you have beliefs about selling and you've developed this story over time about selling. And of course, this is the real takeaway. Beliefs and stories can change. You can change your belief. You can change the story that you have about what it means to sell to be a salesperson, And that's really kind of the meat of what we're going to get into inside this episode. So kind of coming back, I, I mentioned that we were going to talk about this at the very beginning. every single day you are selling something and almost constantly throughout the day, you are selling something. What I mean by this, you are selling yourself on that one hour uninterrupted time of focus work that you're about to do. You're negotiating with yourself and your own brain. You're managing the resistance behind what else you need to be doing during that time. You're managing the objections that you're giving yourself that you need to grab your phone and check something during that time. You're finding a reason that outweighs the friction for that one hour of focus time. That, my friends, is a sales conversation with yourself. And you're doing that constantly. For those of you who are parents, you're doing a lot of selling. I'm not a parent myself, but I can only imagine, and when witnessing my friends that are parents, there's a lot of selling going on. For instance, you're selling your kids on eating the green stuff, right? Getting them to eat their vegetables. But you're not, and you probably shouldn't be not that I'm one to give parenting advice, you're not forcing your kids to eat their vegetables, right? But you are anticipating the objections they might have, right?"Oh, this is gross. I don't want this. Can I have something else?" And what do you often then do as a parent, again, not a parent, but I can imagine it may be some sort of reframing the value, right?"Oh, but the broccoli is going to help you feel good and run faster. If you finish the chicken, that's going to help you build strong muscles because it has protein." So we're reframing from it's gross to look at all this fantastical stuff that it's going to help you do. And sometimes you may even have to sweeten the deal, right? Like, as soon as you finish this, then we can go outside and play. That is a lot of objection handling. And I might also thinking like with the go outside and play, that's sort of like a bonus, a bonus value add, right? You are selling the barista on the fact that you're a nice person in a two-minute conversation when you get your coffee. You are trying to build rapport, come off as likable to this person, maybe even be thinking like, how can I make their day a little bit better? And after just witnessing that not so nice customer, I want to sell them on the fact that I'm not a not so-nice customer. So you care whether they walk away thinking well of you or not in this situation, and that is basically like personal brand management happening in real time, and that's selling. You are selling your email subscribers with a subject line. And in this case, I know that this is a little bit more like direct sales conversation, but if you really think about it, we may be thinking about the purpose of the email to sell something, right? But the reality is you're actually selling someone who's looking at their inbox, reading your subject line, you're selling them on actually even taking the first step to open your email. And then we could say you're selling them on the opening part of your email to keep reading more. And then you're selling them on actually clicking the link, whatever CTA you have at the bottom. And then technically you're also selling them on wanting to open your future emails. So you can see how there's just like mini sales process all of the time. Like you, with the one subject line with five words potentially. You were hoping someone would care enough to open the email and you thought about what could I put here that's going to make them curious enough to click this? You were hoping that this subject line hits their interests and you're writing for their interests, not yours. That's copywriting and all of that is selling. You are selling your friends on going to a movie that maybe they aren't that excited about themselves. So you pitched it, maybe you addressed some of their hesitations, tried to explain why it's going to be good, what the reviews are saying."Oh, look at this Instagram post. This person is raving about this movie."So maybe you've even, again, sweetened the deal with telling them you're, you're gonna go get drinks beforehand and you get them to go to the movie with you after all of that, and therefore you close the deal. Congratulations. You are a salesperson. Okay, I just have a couple more. I, I've had so much fun putting these together and thinking about where in our lives are we actually doing the selling? You are selling a prospect to download your free resource. This one is literally very sales adjacent. I know for those of you, that have lead magnets and freebies, which if you don't, you should. That's a conversation for another time, but you don't necessarily call it selling. Why? Because it's free, I guess. It's a free resource, so you're not selling it, but the psychology behind it is entirely identical. We still need to sell people on wanting our free stuff. That's the truth. And you're asking someone to exchange their name, their email, their attention for something that you created. It's an exchange, and therefore it's selling in some ways. It's a transaction in some ways. So last one I have is thinking about social media, you are selling people to watch your Instagram stories instead of tapping through, clicking away, going to the next story, and you have about like half a second to do this, right? You have half a second to hook them in, keep them there, listen to what you have to say, and that half a second, how you're hooking them in, the hook, that's a pitch. That's a pitch to keep listening. So, okay. The point here with all of these examples is that every single one of those things required you to understand what someone else needed, what someone else is wanting, what they're desiring. It's a belief in what you are offering them, giving to them. And it's all communicating in a way that made someone want to say yes to something, and all of that, my friends, is selling. Okay. Yeah, I guess one other, like, little bullet point I had here, too, is that none of this stuff feels slimy, right? It doesn't feel slimy when you're having that conversation with the barista. It doesn't feel slimy when you're trying to get your kids to eat their vegetables, even though it's all kind of like the same exact mechanism, but has a different label and has a different meaning that you've assigned to it, and that's what makes the difference. right. So you may have listened to all of that and been like, "Yeah, Casey, that makes sense logically. I understand where you're coming from. Please, I don't need any more examples. You've made your point." So, yes, it may make sense logically, but I do really want you to think about that more and just, uh, where this stuff shows up in your life naturally already because if you already can recognize that you're doing this stuff naturally already, it starts to take the pressure off when you are actually consciously, intentionally trying to do it. So you might still, at this point, have some kind of ethical hangup, which is valid, and that's what we're going to get into next, because you may not actually be afraid of selling specifically, but you are afraid of manipulating. That's actually a pretty healthy instinct. I don't want you guys out there manipulating people into buying from you, but the problem is you've conflated the two, thinking that all selling is manipulation. I did do a previous episode on Robert Chaldini's ... I really hope I'm saying his last name right, Principles of Persuasion. I actually think in his most recent versions, editions of his book, it's principles of influence instead of persuasion now. But either way, his, his framing is really useful, and he says, "Influence is helping someone make a decision that is genuinely good for them, but manipulation that's bypassing someone's rational judgment to get what you want. Completely different mechanisms. We're not talking about manipulation. These are t- entirely different ethics, really. So when you believe in your offer, when you really believe that selling is an act of service, and if you just heard me say that and it felt a little uncomfortable for you, then we probably have some, some more mindset stuff to work on here, whether it's around money or selling or whatever, but you're not asking people to do something for you, okay? So we're not in unethical territory, manipulative territory. You're giving them information about a problem that you can help them solve, about a way that you can support them, and then they get to choose whether or not they actually take you up on that offer, which really is just autonomy. And that's, speaking of things that I mentioned all of the time on the podcast and my content with my students, how important it, it is from a behavior change perspective, which by the way, so much of selling is just understanding behavior change, decision making, psychology, and autonomy is at the foundation of so much of this. We're not trying to force people to do anything. We're just trying to help them make a confident decision on their own. And of course, this is exactly how you should be coaching your clients. You don't force behavior change. You help people find their own reasons to change, and you meet them where they're at. You address their fears, you build the belief that change is possible. That's the mindset and behavior change skillset that I'm talking about here all of the time. And the same skillset that you use to help your clients stick to the plan, stop, sell, sabotage, and get results that last are the same skills that you can be and should be using in your sales and in your marketing to help prospective clients say yes. And if you're a health mindset coaching certification student or a graduate, you get this. You already have this. You have the skillset and you should be if you're not already applying this stuff to your sales and marketing practices. So outside of that ethical piece, not wanting to feel like you are manipulating people, which is valid, please don't do that. That's not the goal here, but that's not selling unless you're some people, which they just really should be doing that differently. Um, you may have some discomfort around selling because of a little quiet fear in the back of your head, thinking to yourself," What if what I have to offer isn't actually worth it? Maybe you don't see the value in what you're offering, and it's really worth being honest with yourself here, as much as it might be uncomfortable, because if that's the real issue and you are not fully convicted in what you are offering and what you are selling, the solution is not better sales skills. It does not matter. The solution is having more confidence in yourself and in the work you do and in the offer that you provide. I do have a couple different podcast episodes here, because this is really an entirely different conversation. If you're not feeling convicted and confident in the work that you do and in your offer and in yourself as a coach, we gotta address that. the other podcast episodes I have for you here, we'll make sure that these are in the show notes, is one on self-doubt and, oh, definitely the imposter syndrome one. So check that out. That would be a good place for you to start if you haven't heard those yet. All right. So the truth is, if you are avoiding selling, then you're withholding something that your ideal client needs. That's the truth. The coach who rarely talks about their services, they're not just being humble. They're letting fear make the decision, and the person who really needs them is now going without this because fear got in the way. There's a concept in behavior change called the intention behavior gap. Also, I've talked about this for, before. If you're an HMCC student, you're like,"Here we go with the fricking intention behavior gap again." It's essentially this idea that people can intend all day long to do something and still not do it because you're essentially missing this bridge between intention and action. Talk about this with our clients to help them actually follow through and stick with things, but your prospective client may intend to invest in their health, intend to hire a coach, intend to lose weight, finally do something different, but without having a clear, confident offer from you in order to do the thing, you're basically just leaving them stuck in that gap. So if you think about it that way, if you reframe it that way, that you have people in your audience, people who want to work with you, that are intending to make changes to their lives, to get healthier, to do all these things that you can support them with, but if you're not talking about how you can support them, then you're kind of leaving them over there on the other side of the gap when actually selling creates the bridge for them to actually take action. So a little reframe for you. Mike, repeat after me. I'm not asking them to buy, I'm sharing what I offer and letting them decide if it's right for them. Tattoo that on your forehead if you need to, because that single sentence removes a lot of the pressure because it's true. You're not actually doing the closing, you are informing them, and the close is your clients to make. Okay. What else do I have for you? Honestly, that's, that's kind of it. I think just keeping in mind that successful selling doesn't require you to be a specific type of person. It's something that you are really doing all of the time in small ways, and I would encourage you to think about this as you go about your day. Where are you already selling in small ways in your life? The only upgrade here is that you're doing it consciously, and you're doing it in service for an offer that you actually fricking believe in. And if you don't believe in it, then that's something that we need to work on too. All right. So this episode is really just like the very first tiny fourth of an inch high layer at the bottom of the foundation when it comes to money mindset. And there's so much more we can get into, and we will, and we will. But in the next episode specifically, I wanna talk about the money mindset of your clients, because even if you've done all of the work to support your money mindset and your mindset around selling and your confidence in your offer, they're still walking into the conversation with you with their own set of beliefs, whether that's about money or worthiness or whether investing in themselves is even something that they feel like they're allowed to do. That's some heavy stuff. F- my friends. So stay tuned for that for next week. And thank you for being here, for listening to me, especially those of you who are here week after week. Speaking of money and selling, y'all know I don't get paid to be here, right? No one's paying me to do this. And the best way that you can pay me back if you, if you would like, is to leave a review. Five stars please. but please don't lie. if I'm less than five stars, maybe just don't rev- leave a review after all. Uh, but be honest and just know that when you leave a review, that means the most to me. It allows us to know that this is actually something people wanna hear and if we should keep the show going, that's the truth. So if you wouldn't mind just taking 30 seconds, I would so appreciate it if you left a review. And just so you know, don't forget, every single month we do a giveaway for people who have left reviews. So leave a review, screenshot that review, and toss it into our review form, which is linked at the bottom of every single episode. You have to do the form, otherwise we won't know how to contact you if you win. And what you're winning is a mini course, one of my mini courses. I actually do have a mini course that's all about the psychology of signing more clients, which goes very hand in hand with everything that we talked about today. So, okay. That is all I have for you. Thanks again for being here, and I'll see you next week. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Not another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you get notified of the next one. Because if you're anything like me, if the episodes aren't popping up for you automatically, you'll keep forgetting to come back to the show even if you really, really enjoyed it. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button and make it super easy for you and of course. If you wanna see more episodes just like this one, I'd love for you to let me know by leaving a review. I know, I know it's super annoying to do, but the few seconds that it takes means the world to me and also ensures that I can keep providing free education and value to you. And just to sweeten the deal, I am going to be picking a random reviewer every single month to receive a free workshop or product from me. If you're looking for more free resources or just wanna connect, hang out, chat a little bit, come find me on Instagram. I'm Coach Casey, Joe over there. That is where I hang out the most in the land of social media. Alright, my friends, that is all I have for you this time. I so appreciate you being here and love to see you prioritizing your growth. I'll see you next time.