In my last several issues, I made a VERY bold statement.

I said that everything you’ve ever learned about generating leads and growing your coaching practice is WRONG. Everything you’ve ever heard, everything you’ve ever tried, and everything you’ve ever done, it’s all wrong.

In this multi-part series, I want to teach you a system for marketing your coaching… to a point where it becomes instantly obvious to your prospects that they would be an idiot to receive coaching from anyone other than you… at any time, anywhere or at any price.

In my last article, I said I would give you several ways you can easily and quickly evaluate your own marketing to see if you’re getting caught up in the “jargon trap.”

Let me give you several ways you can easily and quickly evaluate your own marketing. Jargon evaluation #1 is what we call, “Well, I would hope so.” When you make a claim, don’t think about it in terms of the words coming out of your mouth. Think about it in terms of the words entering your prospect’s ears. This will enable you to realize just how absurd most jargon sounds. Look at the messaging in your marketing, and then ask yourself if the prospect’s immediate response might be, “Well, I would hope so.” Let me give you an example.

I recently saw a TV ad for a remodeling company

Throughout the ad they continuously emphasized the fact that their work was of the highest quality… it was fairly priced and they guaranteed 100% satisfaction. Well, I would hope so. Would you hire any remodeler who didn’t provide all of those as a standard part of their service? Of course not. This is all jargon… drearily commonplace… lacks the power to evoke interest through overuse or repetition.

How about this one from a consulting company: “Our training leads to change. We increase the productivity, performance, and profit of your company.” Well, I would hope so! Does anyone hire a consultant for any other reason than to do those things? Most ads today are nothing more than a jargon-fest. Does this jargon tell you anything about these companies inside reality? What else would you expect them to say? Everyone’s always going to say wonderful things about their company if they can get away with it.

The problem is that if your company has an exceptional inside reality… and you’re using the same jargon as everyone else… then the outside perception is that you’re all the same. And that’s when prospects default to the company offering the lowest price. Price now becomes the only determining factor. When you use this simple evaluation, just ask yourself openly and honestly why anyone would choose you over your competition? Then evaluate your answer against the “well, I would hope so” evaluation. And finally, check out all of your advertising and marketing materials, including your website. Do they pass the “well, I would hope so” evaluation, or are they all chock full of jargon? If they fail, then you need to make changes.

Let me provide you with a second evaluation technique

It’s called “Who else can say that?” This is similar to the first evaluation technique… and it’s also a product of the era of the brand-builders. Pay very close attention to this one. Stop thinking in terms of “Who else can do what you do?” Instead, think in terms of “Who else can say what you say?” Because the answer, unfortunately, is usually “anybody and everybody can say what you say.”

I know of a kitchen remodeler that ran by far the most impressive remodeling company in his community. Every member of his crew had at least 15 years of remodeling experience… they were all certified sub-contractors… they had won multiple industry awards… they were the only kitchen remodeling company that provided not only a full satisfaction guarantee but also a 10-year material and labor warranty on everything they did. They left the job site every night cleaner than when they first arrived. They also guaranteed they could remodel any kitchen in no more than 5 days… half the time of their competitors. This, of course, meant far less disruption and inconvenience to the homeowner.

In short, their inside reality was literally second-to-none. But they had a huge marketing problem. Their marketing looked virtually identical to all of their far less-worthy competitors. Their marketing said things like: “certified sub-contractors,” “guaranteed satisfaction,” and then a long laundry list of the work they performed, such as new cabinets installed… complete kitchen remodeling and so on. Oh… and get this… they accept Visa and Master Card! Well, I would hope so! But then ask this question: Who else can say that? When the owner of this remodeling company was asked that very question… he got really defensive. He said, “There’s no other remodeler that can begin to match the work we do! Our sub-contractors are far-and-away the best there is! No one — and I mean no one — can say what we say!”

Understandably, this contractor was extremely passionate and protective when it came to the superior company he had worked so long and hard to develop over the years. So finally, to try to get the point across to him, he was asked to pull up the websites of his five biggest competitors and see what all of them were saying on their home page. Let’s just say that his jaw hung open for about two minutes straight before he finally pointed at the screen and said, “Oh my gosh… look at this other company’s website. I know this guy. He’s terrible. But his site says the exact same thing as mine. In fact, I think he copied my site word-for-word!” He looked at the other remodelers and saw that all of their websites were virtually identical to his.

So remember… it’s not who can do what you do. It’s “who can say what you say?” And if you’re marketing is full of jargon, then sadly that answer is all of your competitors can. Let me give you one final jargon detection evaluation. It’s called the scratch-out write-in test. Take a look at your brochure… advertisement or website. Now, scratch out your name and write in your competitor’s name. That’s it.

If the marketing is still valid, if the website still conveys the same basic message, if there wouldn’t need to be any additional changes… then guess what? You just failed this test. This evaluation can be very revealing. Most businesses discover that they run fairly high on the jargon meter. You may find that your inside reality, excellent as it may be, is nowhere to be found in your marketing messaging. It’s all but lost in a sea of jargon and completely invisible to your prospects. Is this making sense to you?

Is it evident that this might be a problem for you now… and a tremendous competitive advantage if you could figure out how to fix this for your own business? So let me show you how to fix this. Let me explain how you can follow a very simple process we call the conversion equation… and when you do… you will eliminate jargon forever. I’m going to show you how to become a communications powerhouse… make your outside perception become an excellent reflection of your inside reality… and finally begin to get the results from your marketing that you should be getting.

The conversion equation has four main components

Let me start with a brief introduction, and then I’ll go into more detail. The first component of the conversion equation is called Interrupt. This is simply the process of getting qualified prospects to pay attention to your marketing. This is often accomplished by affecting the prospect emotionally. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s a lot more difficult to pull this off in real life… unless you understand what you’re about to learn here.

The second component is engage. Once the prospect is interrupted, it’s critical to give the reader the promise that information is forthcoming that will help the prospect make the best decision possible or, in other words, facilitate their decision-making process. This is also best accomplished on an emotional level.

The third component is educate. Once you’ve interrupted and engaged the prospect, you have to give them information that allows them to logically understand how and why you solved that emotional problem. This is accomplished by giving detailed, quantifiable, specific, inside-reality-revealing information. This turns the corner from an emotional sell — remember… you interrupted and engaged them based on emotional hot buttons — to a logical sell. This is easy to do if you just follow this conversion equation.

And the fourth and final component of the conversion equation is the offer. Now the prospect has been interrupted based on problems that are important to them emotionally… engaged by the promise of a solution to that emotional problem… and they’ve examined the educational information that makes your solution to that emotional problem real and believable.

So the last step is for you to give that prospect a low… or better yet… NO risk way for them to take the next step in the sales process. This can be accomplished by offering a free marketing tool — such as a report, brochure, seminar, audio, video, or something similar — that educates them even more… so the prospect feels in complete control of the decision-making process. This conversion equation follows the formula for what marketing is supposed to do in the first place. In fact, at this point, we can simply say that marketing’s job is to interrupt, engage, educate, and offer.

Remember earlier we discussed that if you want to know why Jane Doe buys what Jane Doe buys, you’ve got to see the world through Jane Doe’s eyes, right? Well, I would submit to you that if you want to know what Jane Doe sees, you’d better first understand how Jane Doe’s brain works… how it processes information… and makes decisions. To understand this process, there are three major concepts that I need to teach you. Three concepts that no one else in the world of marketing understands… but three concepts that will make all the difference in the world in your marketing’s effectiveness and, more importantly, in your company’s profitability.

The three things you need to know about Jane Doe’s brain are downtime, uptime, and the reticular activation system… also known as the reticular activator.

In my next article, I’ll go in-depth on these three and give you a thorough and complete understanding of how they work.