We just got back from leading an amazing Client Attraction Summit. We were SO inspired by the Coaches and Holistic Practitioners who showed up and the transformations they experienced!
And truthfully, underneath everything, Sharla and I were both feeling really anxious prior to the event.
We weren’t anxious about whether people would love the event. After hearing from thousands of people that this event had changed their life, we were very confident that this event would be an incredible turning point for the coaches and holistic practitioners who were coming.
Quite honestly, we were anxious about the HUGE changes we had made to the Summit.
In July of last year, we embarked on a bold and scary journey to dramatically change an event that over the last 9 years had brought us nearly 15 Million Dollars in sales.
What if these changes didn’t work out from a financial perspective?
Would we have to revert back to a model that was effective, but no longer aligned with us?
No!!!! We REALLY didn’t want to do that.
We REALLY wanted this new model to be effective... a model that provides so much more value to our clients and is aligned with our values of inviting our attendees to continue working with us from a place of wholehearted love and respect.
This past weekend was an inspiring, challenging, powerful, transformational event for our clients... and for us. We learned a LOT.
Here’s a little background to understand how we got to where we are today...
Eleven years ago, we attended one of the most powerful seminars of our entire lives. Several times throughout the seminar, we watched our mentor make an invitation in front of about 2,500 people to invest in his programs. Our jaw dropped every time, as we saw hundreds of people run to the back of the room to invest thousands of dollars.
We wanted that! We wanted to change lives. We wanted to inspire people. We wanted them to run to the back of the room to invest thousands in our programs.
So we decided to model what he did. We invited everyone we knew to attend a workshop and instead of charging them, we gave them full scholarships. 88 people showed up. And we were especially nervous because we planned to make five offers to invest in our programs throughout this 2-day event.
Even though we were really, really “Sexy” (this means “made lots of mistakes” at Thrive Academy) we counted up the sales on Sunday night and our jaw dropped again! We did it!!!! $33,000 in one weekend. (This was almost double what I had made in an entire year as a Wilderness Therapy Counselor for teens, just a couple years before.)
We booked another event with the same format. And another, and another... Pretty soon years had gone by. We didn’t question the model because it was working and our clients seemed to love it.
It wasn’t until we re-branded two years ago that we stopped and thought deeply about our business.
We realized that underneath our Heartselling™ teaching is our intention to change the face of how selling is done on this planet.
We realized that no matter how great our content and how heartfelt our offers were, inviting people to invest in five different programs in only 2 days and encouraging people to run to the back of the room to sign up, was no longer aligned with who we are.
But we felt stuck because whenever we didn’t give people a reason to sign up right away, our sales would decrease dramatically.
People would stand up at our events and tell us that they wanted more time and space to think about our offer. And, we told them we wish that we could do that. But we found that if we didn’t give people a reason to sign up right away, they would think about it, and think about it, and think about it, and never make a decision.
But, deep inside, we knew there had to be a better way.
So we started searching around for a new model... a model that was heartfelt, in integrity and effective. We spoke with our friends and colleagues in the industry and created a blend of the best ideas we gathered.
In September of last year, we tried it out. We changed the Summit from a 2-day event with five offers, to a 3-day event with only ONE offer (plus a small Philanthropy offer).
We made our offer on Saturday afternoon and encouraged people to think about it overnight... to talk with their partner before investing, to read our folder that contains lots of information about our programs... and then if it feels like a fit, to apply for a spot in the program.
We encouraged them to NOT make a rushed, impulsive decision, to get a clear yes or a clear no. They were so happy about us giving them space to sit with their decision that they burst into spontaneous applause at the end of the offer.
After the Summit was over, our clients raved about it like never before. And a greater percentage of people signed up for programs than ever before!
In December, we led another Summit. And the same thing happened! We got better feedback and nearly half the people signed up for our programs.
But this past weekend, we were more anxious than ever. What if September and December were just flukes?
We realized that we actually had more on the line this time. We could never go back to the “rush to the back of the room now” way of selling. So we wanted more than ever to prove that this new way of attracting clients was MORE effective than our old way.
And I’m glad to say that despite our anxiety, it was still an incredible weekend. About half of the attendees signed up for our program. And here are a couple of things people posted in our Thrive Facebook Group after the event:
“Hello Everyone: I am one of the new Thrive members that has started just this week. I already feel so blessed to be a part of this amazing community. I hope to meet many of you in person over the next year and beyond. I can't wait to build a thriving coaching business ($10,000+ monthly) doing what I love to do... I truly believe I have been waiting for a community such as this one my whole life...”
“Hello Everyone! I am still riding the wave of motivation, inspiration, clarity, self-expression, and ecstasy in living out my life's purpose in a successfully financially way!!! I am so grateful to have met many of you over the weekend and been guided by Sharla and Jesse in such a deep and empowering way. Thank you for sharing your time, expertise, and beautifully sexy selves with me…”
Here is a picture of our new Thrivers who chose to invest in themselves and their vision to help more people... aren’t they amazing?
So, we can pull out a few lessons from this:
- Sometimes it’s hard to stray from an archaic model that has worked magic in the past, but no longer feels aligned. Stray anyway.
- Sometimes it’s scary to disregard a mentors’ advice that no longer fits your value system. Disregard anyway.
- Sometimes it feels like you have to choose between being effective OR bringing the most heart and integrity to something. Keep looking until you find heart, integrity AND effectiveness.
What are your thoughts on the old paradigm of selling vs. this new model? We’d love to hear in the comments below.
We'd love to hear from you in the comments below.
