181: 10 Reasons Why You Say No to Investing In a Coach When You Want to Say Yes

Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I am going to admit, I am recording this at a very awkward, not awkward, but not normal time for me. Really early in the morning, we are heading this afternoon or maybe around noon time today to Bloomington, Indiana, which is where both of my kids go to school, they go to Indiana University Bloomington, and my oldest is graduating this weekend.

It is a Friday when I am recording this. I have my IU hat on in case you are listening and not watching. All of these podcasts are on YouTube, in case you ever wanted to watch me in my little podcast room here down in the basement.

But I'm not looking super fancy this morning. Just got my IU hat on, I've got my peppermint tea with me, and we are going to talk (taking a sip) we are going to talk today all about what's getting in your way of moving forward with coaching, with investing, with honestly anything.

The reason I'm recording this podcast is because I've been keeping track of my recent consults. I keep a lot of data actually on this stuff because it's intriguing to me—data on why people are saying no when they want to say yes.

I'm a big believer that if anyone gets on a consult call, honestly for anything, myself included if I'm considering using someone's service, if I get on a call with them, I want to say yes even before I know anything honestly, because it's something probably that I'm looking for, I'm searching for, and I believe that the person on the other end of the line has the answer or else I wouldn't have spent my, remember your most valuable resources, time, money, energy, brainpower, I wouldn't have spent those mostly, at that point, the time, the brain power, or energy to seek this other person on the end of the line out.

You have to believe anytime that you seek someone out, there's a bit of you already that wants to say yes. But through my research here, I have come up with the top 10 reasons why we don't say yes, and then I'm going to give you a little bit of how you can address that with yourself.

People often hesitate because they fear that they won't be able to maximize the value or utilize something to its fullest potential or one of the reasons that I’m about to give you. None of them—I'm just going to start here, give you a little preview of what I might be saying here at the end—none of them are necessarily true.

Any of these objections/factors aren't necessarily true. There may be some truth within them, but they are not entirely true. I really wanted to record this episode. It's been in my lineup of podcast ideas for a while because I often get the “I'm not sure I'm going to take advantage of everything in the program,” “I don't know if I'm ready,” or “What if it doesn't work?”

But we're going to go through this systematically, and I'm going to ask you to jot down some notes in this as you're listening to figure out if you are someone that's considering investing in something, why haven't you done it?

I want you to self-identify which one of these 10 reasons resonates with you the most or which handful resonates with you the most, then let's really explore that. All right, here we go. Number one—these are in no particular order, by the way—the feeling or the statement, "I'm not ready. I don't know enough yet."

People may feel like they don't have enough understanding of what's going on in their business or the skills that are going to be required in order to grow their business or they're not far along enough into their business to effectively use the investment of coaching or any type of help.

What's so ironic about all of this is because probably part of the reason you're reaching out is because you want to be further along. Often this has to do with finances, like, “I don't have a good enough grip on my finances yet.”

Well, part of the reason why you're investing is to help, at least with me, would be to help you get a grip on your finances. I include a component of that in all of my coaching programs. You're not alone in feeling that way. Lots of people feel that way.

This “I'm not ready yet,” I would love you to ask yourself when will you be ready? How far along do you have to be? What do you need to know that you don't know? Why not do it now when potentially you don't feel ready or don't know enough so that you gain knowledge quickly and that whatever you need to do moving forward, you're going to be doing it well, you're going to be doing it at a higher level than if you were doing it on your own?

There's this thing I love to say too, it's like you're going to pay one way or the other. You're going to pay now if you are going alone in time, sweat, and tears or you're going to pay now and have the help of someone else to get through this easier, faster, with more flow. So this “not ready,” “I don't know enough yet,” or “I need to get something in order,” that's the whole reason you're reaching out, my friends.

Number two, cost versus benefit concerns. There's often a worry about whether or not the investment will pay off. If someone invests a significant amount of money into something, they want to make sure that the benefits they receive will justify the costs.

There's an ROI, return on investment. Sometimes we're unsure about the ROI or return on investment. But here is the thing, that return on investment really is not about the coaching program. It is not about me as the coach. That's really about you.

You have to trust that you are going to get tremendous benefit. Sometimes I like to say, “Hey, was there any benefit on the consult call? Did you learn anything on that call in and of itself? Was there a benefit in reading my book? Did you find benefits in reading my book? Did you find benefits in listening to me on a podcast? And imagine if we were working together for an extended period of time, what kind of benefit you would receive.”

I don't really think this is really about whether or not you are going to get a return on investment or benefit. I think when I dig down deeper, and this just happened this week, it's really more about you. You're worried that you're not going to put in the work, or that you're not going to show up for yourself and get all of the benefits that are offered.

I guarantee 100% that there is tremendous value inside any coaching program I offer. I bet anyone else who's out there would guarantee the same thing. Are you going to get the benefit? Are you going to work to get the benefit? This comes down to big thinking and trusting yourself.

Number three. Fear of change. When you invest in something, it often requires that you change your lifestyle, your habits, or the way your business operates. Think about it when you engage with a personal trainer for exercise, something's going to change probably, hopefully, about your body, your strength, or your overall health.

The same goes when you invest in business coaching or life coaching. It's probably going to require some type of change in your life, habits, or business. You might be a little reluctant to make these changes. You fear the disruption or you fear failing at it.

So really what's going on here, and I urge you if you haven't read the chapter in She Thinks Big about the nine most common fears and there's also a podcast about that, go listen to the nine most common fears, fear of change is one of them. But what's the worst thing that could happen if something changes? Probably that you just feel some discomfort as it's happening.

This is a great place for you to ask the “What's the worst thing that could happen?” question. Is what's the worst thing that could happen worse than what's happening right now?

You could say, “Well, everything's going along. It's all fine. There are no big problems right now.” Okay, then why did you reach out? There's something you want to change. The whole reason you reached out to explore this is the whole reason you're saying no. You reached out because you want to change something. Now you're saying no because you're fearing changing something. So ironic. Is that you? Do you fear change?

Number four. I call this one creating your own requirements. Sometimes people believe that they need to utilize every single feature or opportunity an investment offers in order to justify the expense.

Like, “I'm just not sure I'm going to take advantage of all the things in there so I don't know if this is for me because I'm not going to take advantage of all the things.” Here's what I want to offer to that: will you take advantage of the things that you need? Yes. Will you take advantage of the things that you don't even know you need now but might need later? Yes.

Do you have a coach alongside you to help guide you to figure out what you need? Yes. Okay. Think about when you buy a luxury car, when you go to pick up the car and they want to give you a little tutorial on the car and all the things that it does, guess what? I don't know if you're like me, but when I drive off that lot with this new car, if I remember or use a third of all of the features and benefits, I’m lucky.

But what I'm getting out of that car is a luxurious smooth ride, which is really why I bought it in the first place. Yes, it is awesome. It has heated seats and a heated steering wheel. It is great that it dings if you're going into the next lane and someone else is in that lane.

But the whole Starlink thing, you might use it, but you might not. I want to ask you now, do you really take advantage of all the benefits or features of your vehicle? I'm going to guess not but yet you're still riding around in it. It's not because of the features, it's because of the overall benefit, the big things that matter to you.

In coaching, you have to trust that you are going to take advantage of the big things that are of benefit to you, that create the benefit for you. You may not investigate or dig deep into each little feature, but that doesn't matter.

This is a wussy, I'll call it, excuse that I'm not going to take advantage of all the features. Yeah, but it doesn't matter as long as you get some benefit, the benefit you're looking for.

Number five, economic uncertainty. “Well, I'm not sure where the economy is going to go. I'm just not sure that people are still going to need my services. I'm not sure if I'm going to create that income.” Okay, my friends, we are living in a tumultuous time. It's been a tumultuous time now for years.

In times of economic instability, the risk associated with investments can seem more pronounced. People fear making financial commitments often when the future economic conditions are uncertain. But is there ever a time when the future economic conditions are certain? That's what I would really love to know.

Then is this how you want to live your life? Is this how you want to live your life, not doing things because of economic uncertainty? Is that the life you want to lead? Is that who you want to be?

If your business tanks, you're going to figure it out. If you're not creating the income you want to create, you're going to figure it out. Yeah, you are. Are you letting politics and the economy get in the way of your dreams? Not so great, if you are. I don't love that excuse, that objection, or even that thought.

Number six, here's another one, perceived complexity. Sometimes people are intimidated by the learning curve. They start to realize in a consult call that they've got a lot to learn, and they worry that they don't have the time or the ability to master all of the aspects or all of the things that are going to be put in front of them.

Then this discourages them from starting at all because they fear that this investment will be wasted if they only use a fraction of what's offered. This goes back to you creating your own requirements like you've got to utilize every feature of the program. This is a version of that because you fear you're going to waste away some of what you've purchased or invested in because you're not going to take advantage of all of it.

Well, there's a reason that my coaching programs in particular are a year. You're committing for a year. The reason is because your business is going to evolve over the year, you're going to grow, and you're going to need different things at different times throughout the year.

Yeah. So, no, you're not going to learn everything in the first three weeks. You're not going to learn everything in the first month. You're not going to make all the changes you want in the first quarter. I give you a roadmap, we work together, and we figure out what you need to learn or what you need to address or change when. It's not too complex. Remember, I'm all about making things simple, doable, and fun. There's a podcast on that too.

Number seven, this is all about “I won't be on every single call.” This is value justification. People often evaluate purchases based on the perceived value they're going to get from them. If they believe that they're not going to be on every single call, and those calls are the most valuable part of the program, if that's what they're saying, then they may conclude that the cost isn't justified.

Or they think, “Oh, well, I don't really know how to use an online platform for coaching something like Slack, I don't know how to use Voxer, I don't know how to use any of those things so I'm not sure if the cost is justified.”

They think also that maybe they should be able to figure out everything that's going to be offered on YouTube. I had a client this week and her husband said, “Well, can't you just YouTube all the things that you might learn in this coaching program?” What exactly are you YouTubing? That's what I would love to know. What's the question you're putting into YouTube?

This is value justification. I'm not going to get enough value because I can't, again, be on every call or I don't know how to log into Slack. I'm not going to get enough value because I think I could get this value elsewhere.

Really? Is that really what you want to believe? Is that really true? You can figure all of this out on YouTube or if you're not on every call for 52 weeks, that you're not going to get any value? This is your brain just looking for evidence to support whatever way you're trying to go.

Because again, you wouldn't have gotten on that consult call if you didn't think there was some value to be offered. Now you're just trying to come up with excuses. Your brain is trying to protect you from going into something new and uncomfortable that might be a little hard, it's trying to protect you from that, and it is just offering up all of these other thoughts.

Yeah, you might not be on every call. I bet you won't be on every call. Yes, you couldn't YouTube a few things. I might even tell you to YouTube a few things. But that's not a reason for not engaging in a service that you want. That's not enough. What's the worst thing that can happen? You miss a call, you figure out how to do something on YouTube, one thing? That's not so bad.

Number eight, opportunity costs. Potential clients might also consider what they could achieve or purchase with the monetary resources that they might commit to the program, or what they could do with the time that they might commit to the program.

They feel that if they could allocate time or money more effectively elsewhere, maybe this isn't for them. This often comes into play where like, “Well, maybe I should just take this money that I'm considering investing in coaching and ask or invest it in a new marketing tool or someone to do their social media.”

Here's the problem with that. If you invest that way—and I'm all about systems, processes, software, and others other services—but if you invest and that thing starts to happen for you, that social media tool starts to work for you, you're still going to have the same brain, the same mindset after investing in it, and after it starts working than you did before.

So no matter how many tools, systems, whatever you have, if you're still thinking in the same way, then it’s not going to be effective. That is where I think coaching comes into play, or at least the kind of coaching I offer. I am giving you, helping you, and working with you to expand your thinking, change the way you think about something or the way you approach it.

That is 80%, my friends, of the problem usually. Remember 80% mindset, 20% systems. We could invest in all of these systems, but if we haven't invested in our mindset, we're still not going anywhere. Like the 80/20 rule. Well, it's not really the 80/20 rule, not that I think about it, it's a different way to think about it, but you'd need that mindset piece because that's 80% of the puzzle.

Number nine, fear of wasted potential. This is like, if I did go all in, if I did use everything or go all in, would I be able to sustain that? This is related to the person's self-assessment of their capability and motivation. If they doubt their commitment to fully engage, they might say no because they want to avoid the guilt or frustration associated with wasted potential.

This goes back to one of those “The real problem is a negative feeling.” They don't want to feel like they didn't do everything. They don't want to feel that guilt or frustration. They're fearing wasted potential if they are not 1000% committed.

While I am a proponent of being extraordinarily committed to create extraordinary results, you've got to trust that you are going to be as in as you need to be in. Will there be times of frustration? Sure, yes, that's part of it all. But is that a whole reason, your fear that you're not going to be all in, is that a whole reason to not do it? That sounds crazy.

Here's the last one, high expectations. I think reviews and testimonials are an amazing tool. Sometimes I think when people read reviews and testimonials, they start to think, “Hmm, what if I don't get the results that that person got? I mean, I don't know if I could actually do that. I'm not sure I could do it as fast as they did that.”

You're putting high expectations for success or utilization of the program on yourself based on other people's experiences, and that can be intimidating. You're not going to live up to what could possibly be. Or you're not going to be able to do it fast enough to prove to your spouse that this is actually worth it. But when you think about that, is that a whole reason not to do something? That seems crazy too.

Let me review these 10 things. Number one was I call it “I'm not ready. I don't have enough knowledge. I'm not there yet.” Number two, the cost versus benefit concerns: Is this going to pay off? Am I going to get the ROI that I'm expecting?

Number three, fear of change. You know something is going to have to change probably and you're fearing it. Number four, you're creating your own expectation or requirement that you need to utilize every feature or else to justify the expense. That's like the car.

Number five, economic uncertainty: What if my business tanks? Number six, perceived complexity: I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to master all of this. I mean, I'm not really good at sales, business, marketing, or anything. I'm not sure about myself. Perceived complexity.

Number seven, the value justification: I'm not going to be on every single call so forget it. I shouldn't just be on any call. Number eight, opportunity cost: What else could I do with this money or time?

Number nine, fear of wasted potential: I am not sure that I can commit 100%. If I can only commit 85% of the time, then I shouldn't do this because it’s 15%, it's not 100%. Then number 10, the high expectations created by seeing others' success: I might not be able to do it as quickly or as well as they could.

Okay, so how do we deal with this? Number one, I just want to let you know that I have a whole onboarding process, I have tiered offerings, I give you a roadmap, I'm there holding your hand all along the way, but that's a conversation for another day.

What I want you to do is I want you to do two things. If you are holding one of these objections, I want you to say it out loud as if it were a statement, as if it were the Nightly News, like Dan Rather on the Nightly News.

“Woman decides not to invest in coaching to grow her business, which she wants to do because she fears she will not be as successful as others.” What? How does that feel? Or “Woman decides that she may not use every single feature of the program so she decides to not invest at all. She thinks she might use 85% but not 100% so she's not going in at all.” What?

“Woman believes she's not ready to do this because she needs to know a lot more and her business needs to be in a different place. So she decides to not invest in the thing that's going to help her know more or get her business to a different place.”

Say these things back to yourself like the news, and tell me where you end up. If you want to talk through any of this, reach out. Reach out, my friends. Let's have a conversation. Let me help you work through this. And maybe this isn't for you. That's the other thing you have to remember. Maybe this isn't for you, but I just want you to see what's going on in your brain.

My job is to show you what's going on in your brain. My job is to represent the you that wants to be here, that wants to be inside I've Got This or inside the Runway to Freedom Mastermind. That's my job is to represent that person and to help you see why you want this, what the possibilities are.

I'm here for you, my friend. If you haven't picked up a book of She Thinks Big, go right now on Amazon, put She Thinks Big in, maybe She Thinks Big Andrea, and get your copy. What are you waiting for?

If you want to have a conversation about this, direct message me on Instagram or LinkedIn, or just reach out via the contact form on my website or book a call, that's the best. A complimentary call, I think those calls sometimes are worth $1,000 just in and of the consult call itself. Go to andreaslinks.com and schedule your call.

Okay, until next time. Now's your time to level up. It's right now, now or never. Big thinking ahead. See you next time.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.