Are you hiding your best strategies ONLY for your highest paying clients?
Do you clearly see solutions for your lower paying clients… but hold back so you can keep them buying from you?
You may have been taught to teach the “what” but not the “how”. Or to deliver only part of what you could and to drum up a desire for what’s missing. I was taught that by some mentors, tried to believe it, but it never felt authentic. It felt deceptive and quite frankly, like an insecure person’s fear based version of how to run a business.
There’s a power dynamic in this thinking… the person with the sought after information suddenly becomes more important and the person seeking the information is relegated to a lower level.
Am I the only one who thinks this is insane? I can hand you sheet music of Beethoven’s symphony, but that doesn’t mean you’ll play like a master. We have all the information in the world at our fingertips- it’s mastery that we need and that doesn’t happen by sharing a few trade secrets.
I got really in tune with this a few months back. I created a mastermind program where a small, hand-selected group of soul-driven women could work on creating great offers. Offers that made us stretch and say “yikes!” and “holy crap, I can’t do this!” My invitation to this group clearly stated that it was a “studio” experience- that while I work on my big offers, I’d share exactly what was going on and for everyone else to do the same.
So I created this whopping big VIP package that would cost a small down payment on a home, and brought it to the group. I thought I’d invented the new gold standard in high end coaching packages. I felt luminous just thinking about it.
It got shredded. Totally absolutely unequivocally shredded. “Too complicated”, “Sounds like work- why would anyone pay for this?”, “It’s overwhelming”.
Here I thought it was brilliant, but it sucked.
And the beauty of all this? My clients LOVED watching me work my way into and out of a problem in a real world scenario. It helped them open up about what worked and didn’t work for them and also gave many permission to drop the veneer of perfection we’re “supposed” to show the world.
It’s like that scene from Gone With the Wind where all the ladies got to take a rest break and unlace their corsets for a bit. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, breathing feels so nice!
So where can you be transparent?
- Can you let someone know you’re making them an offer instead of dancing around until your big close?
- Are you willing to Tweet that you’re NOT happy with a situation or does everything have to be perfect all the time?
- Would you be open to sharing mistakes with your clients, mistakes you’re in the middle of or recently solved?
- Will you raise your hand and freely admit that the “lifestyle” you’re peddling doesn’t reflect you at all and that all your marketing is a lie? (OK, that’s a stretch, but one of these days it may happen!)
You don’t have to suddenly bare all to the world or go neurotic on this. We’re not asking for TMI (too much info) or bashing of others in the name of speaking the truth.
Simply look at your business and your clients. Where can you infuse some reality, some authenticity, some transparency? What “trade secrets” are you willing to loosen up on? How can you use that to invite in a desire to learn mastery from you, not just info? And how can you be clear about this?
That’s what I’m doing in my business and it’s awesome. I’d much rather mentor towards mastery and watch the real results instead of safeguarding information.
I’d love your comments on this and where you’re willing to loosen the reins of control and to invite your people behind the veil of your expertise.
About Nancy Marmolejo
