I’ve just come across a website and blog whose very first message to new visitors is something along the lines of:

“We don’t take on new clients, but if you think you’re interesting enough, then go ahead and contact us”.

If that’s the case, why bother marketing yourselves??? Unless of course you’re trying to convey scarcity or the fact that you’re so highly in demand you can’t even consider new clients. Still…it’s an odd thing to have as the welcome message on your website, don’t you think?

There’s the one where you use the fear of succumbing to illness or even death to motivate people to use your services. Or there’s the one where you use the carrot of helping people feel really, really good about themselves to motivate prospects to pay you for your services.

In my experience, making people feel worse about themselves is not a way to keep your clients happy nor a way to keep them coming back for more nor to get them recommending you to their friends & family.

Here are a few examples of how you can make your clients feel worse without meaning to:

• Forcing them to look in the mirror at themselves when they really don’t want to, even though you think they look great or better than they did (I made this mistake – but watch out for a fantastic tip on how to help clients who have body dismorphia problems).
• Flaunting your fabulous body in their face, mistakenly thinking that you’re inspiring them to be like you.
• Telling them about how healthy you are and how healthily you eat, sleep & breathe – again mistakenly thinking that if you walk your walk as well as talking your talk, they’ll be inspired (Note: I’m not saying don’t walk your walk, just don’t expect it to be inspiring to all your clients. Some will find it intimidating, some will find it annoying and some will think you just don’t have a life and don’t know how to enjoy yourself).
• Telling them just how well all your other clients are doing.
• Focusing on what they still need to work on and achieve without spending enough time celebrating their achievements & progress each time.
• Using the phrase “If you don’t do x, then you’ll never achieve y” as a motivator.

Whether it’s helping people through a physical change such as weight loss or an emotional or psychological change such as self confidence – it’s all the same…pretty damn challenging.

The problem with change is that it scares people. And quite understandably so when it comes to health & wellbeing issues.

• Change means they can no longer eat all the pies, chocolate, sweet & sugary foods or low fat foods that they’ve been conditioned to think are the healthy ones.

• Change means they can no longer burn the midnight oil, staying up till the small hours even though they might be at their most productive then.

• Change means drinking less or no alcohol and cutting out/down on fruit juice/coffee/tea/cola.

• Change means doing more, less or totally different types/intensity of exercise.

• Change means they can no longer do what they think they enjoy.

It means having to admit they are wrong. Of course, change also means all the positives & benefits of the above.

But it’s worth remembering that although we may advocate & encourage change (because of course, it’s not just change we’re aiming for, it’s improvement), it’s not what people buy.

(They buy the result of change, not the change itself)

It’s definitely worth considering this when it comes to your marketing, your coaching and your approach to eliciting change.

Or more recently this has morphed into, “Over promise AND over-deliver”. Eeek, just how do you do that?? But actually, it can be much simpler to do than most business owners make it.

It’s the little things that count…the things you maybe question whether you should bother & whether anyone will notice. We’ve been really fortunate to experience examples of over-delivering in almost every place we’ve visited in the past few months.

First there was Panama….here, our initial experience of renting an apartment wasn’t quite what we expected. Nothing worked and the fact that we were in the only building in that area above 3 storeys meant it sounded like we were living in a howling wind tunnel.

It wasn’t the rental agents fault though.

They went out of their way to solve the problems that weren’t actually theirs to solve (it was the errant owner who was being incredibly slow to respond to any of their requests). They did our laundry and delivered it back to us, they organised for things to be fixed within about half an hour of us calling them and then they didn’t charge us anything more than the deposit we’d already paid when we left early.

Then came the apartment in Amador which came complete with 2 bikes (unadvertised on their website). This was PERFECT. The Amador causeway is a stone’s throw away and it is a gorgeous place to walk or cycle along as the sun sets. Not only that but the owners, Patty & Rudy, also invited us over for drinks & nibbles despite being in the middle of launching their new B&B and exhausted from the effort of the last few months.

Hmmm, not many examples from Buenos Aires – although we LOVED the fact that the waiter/waitress in our favourite cafe always greeted us with a “Hola chicos” (translation: “Hi guys!”) which always made us feel very welcome & like locals. Ah, we’re easily pleased.

And here in Grenada, despite sometimes encountering some unsmiling faces (although it’s been a lot better today already), we’ve been lucky to experience more examples of over-delivering.

The owners of the apartment we’re in have pleasantly surprised us today by allowing us to stay in the bigger apartment instead of having to move to the smaller apartment now it’s free (which is what we’d agreed & paid for).

They drop off home-grown, organic fruit in our kitchen from their garden and Anthony (the husband) takes Jonathan to play football with him every week (when the poor precious hasn’t been injured from the previous week – “Oooh, look at my bruise” is a regular comment made every week on a Monday morning now).

They are all very, very simple things to do that really don’t cost a lot (like smiling) but make such a difference.