Selling isn't the Opposite of Serving...it's the Beginning of It

The Influence of Authenticity

I never signed up for my coaching business to be a marketer.

And I certainly didn’t know how to sell with any acumen.

I just wanted to be a great coach and help my clients create impact for themselves.

Now a few years into my coaching career I see it differently.

While hustling for attention on social media is something I loathe, the learning how to market and sell my coaching experience in the name of client creation has certainly helped.   And not just help me – my clients too.

I thought marketing meant shouting louder. Or looking polished.   Or having to act like someone I wasn’t.

But good marketing is actually just showing people who you REALLY are.

It’s listening to what people are really struggling with… and having the courage to say, “I can help with that.”   Once I got that, everything started to shift. 

For business owners in their first couple years – the natural instinct is to skill up.  To focus 100% on getting trained in their services as much as possible.   To out-learn and out-skill and out-inventory their competition.   

Unfortunately this contributes to the failure rates in small business that have become so widely known and referred to.  It’s scary!   Not everyone should take the leap.

What’s actually most important in the first year is to make it to year 2.  Then year 3.   Then year 4.   And so on.  

You can only do that if you have a growing number of clients and revenues.  

And the best way you can do that fast and sustainably is to learn how to market authentically and have genuine, impact-focused, sales conversations. 

I teach my clients about servant-focused sales.   I teach my clients about authentic marketing – and even social media too.   Basically, to post and share what they would want to read themselves.  

The most important person I taught how to do this was me.

I’m proud of this work I’ve done.   Proud of how far I’ve come in the past 4 years.  

In 2022 I left my other business and bet on myself.   At nearly 50, it was a long shot and a gamble.   You just don’t have the energy and capacity at 50 that you had at 35.

But I’ll always bet on myself now.   And that’s not something I would have said before the pandemic.  

I used to think selling was something separate from coaching. Now I see it as the first act of service.

Learning how to ethically, clearly, and authentically share what I do didn’t just grow my business … it sharpened my clarity, deepened my message, and brought in more of the right people.

Turns out, getting better at selling helped me get better at coaching.

There’s a big difference between visibility and chasing approval.

Chasing approval is loathsome.

What I’ve learned is that you don’t need to be everywhere… you just need to be clear, consistent, and congruent.   And to never quit on the important stuff.

My clients don’t want to become influencers.  They want to become leaders worth following.

And that starts by learning to speak from the inside out.