152: The Best Lesson I've Learned 20 Years In To My Coaching Business

Recently, a client asked me to share the biggest lesson I’ve learned in my 20 years of running my coaching business. Find the full transcript for this episode at prosperouscoach.com/152I have a feeling you’re going to be surprised by my answer … the best lesson boils down to less is more.It took me a long time to learn this lesson. Now that I have integrated it fully into my business and coaching mindset and habits I see the real power of this lesson. It applies to so much, not only in business but other aspects of life. And I’m so grateful to the experienced coaches and business owners who shared this wisdom with me long ago. So coaches often struggle to reach simplicity in their business in a number of ways. Of course, the first way is about who they serve. You hear me say this often enough so I’ll just reinforce this quickly. Choose one viable target audience and develop one specific niche for that audience. Less is more. You’ll market less and earn more.And now, I want to share 4 more ways that less is more in your coaching business. Take the time to review these areas in your business to see how you can recalibrate to doing less and saying less.Consider putting a sign up in your office that says LESS IS MORE to remind you about this.Put Less on Your Coaching WebsiteIt’s so tempting to use your website as a clearing house for too many satellite concepts, favorite quotes, recommendations. Getting carried away like this can mean failure because you don’t show your prospects the real path to you.So keep it simple. Provide the essentials. Inspire reading, exploring and invite only a strategic few calls to action.If you try to cover every possibility, cram in all the things you want to say, the message that could spark them will be lost.Adding more tabs is not a good idea, drop down menus under tab — don't ever do that! Too many words, too many paragraphs, too many buttons and distractions everywhere, that means your website will be a dud.See distraction creates a confused mind. And a confused mind never buys.In this overfull life, every potential coaching client wants a calm, logical experience. You want to inspire them to read more by having less copy. Rather than pushing and prodding them towards action, let them have their own pace.Every web visitor views a site differently. Your job is to help them see themselves in what you say so they want to explore.There’s one exception to less is more on a website. If you post a regular blog or podcast there’s no need to limit those posts but you can limit the length to a 5 – 7 minute experience per post. Which brings me to …Write Less and Say MoreOne of the things I passionately teach my VIP clients is how to write in a punchy way. Punchy in copywriting speak means streamlined, powerful and compelling all at the same time.Long highly descriptive sentences and paragraphs won’t get read. Go for a skimmable experience. People will read short sentences, short paragraphs and less total copy.When you finish writing an article or blog post, go through every sentence and streamline it. Take out most adjectives and reduce prepositional phrases. Also shorten paragraphs by breaking one up into two or more.Because people read on their phones ...To read 3 more ways less is more for your coaching business and 3 powerful questions to ask yourself now go here.