How to Get Better Clients Through Assessment – In Just 7 Minutes with Natasha Todorovic

Resources/Links:

• Wanting to Know How to Be a Better You to Get Better Clients? Learn more on what’s your coaching superpower for a better coaching session: bit.ly/CoachingKryptonite

Summary

Have you felt like clients have been ghosting you, and ditching your coaching sessions?

Do you ever wonder what’s wrong? Is it your clients, your coaching sessions, or you, yourself?

Are you ready to know how to get your clients to stick with you through the promising effect of assessments?

Natasha Todorovic-Cowan is the CEO and co-founder of the National Values-Center Consulting (and owner of SPIRAL DYNAMICS® brand). Natasha’s expertise includes unravelling the people side of organizational challenges from C-Suite to shop floor using a proven human systems approach.

In this episode, Natasha shares the importance and benefits of doing an assessment in the long run for your coaching and consulting sessions. She also talks about the right and promising strategy that will guarantee you a deeper and better relationship with your clients.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:33 – Natasha’s ideal client: “Business and organizational consultants and coaches who are helping their clients with changing transformation.”
• 01:47- Problem Natasha helps solve: “They’re generally struggling with why their clients ghost them, why their clients aren’t getting the changes or transformations that they’re looking for. And some of them are trying to struggle with not getting clients at all, or not getting enough clients.”
• 02:31- Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Natasha: “Well, a lot of coaches and consultants get this feeling of, “You know, I’ve done a whole lot of stuff, but I’ve plateaued”, or they’re looking around, and they’re looking at their clients and going, “I don’t like these people. I want to up life, but I don’t know how!”
• 03:29 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Natasha’s solution: “One of the common mistakes, particularly for coaches, is they keep asking more questions. So, they start pushing clients, which is the exact wrong strategy! And what they do is they double down on their training, and that pushes clients away, as well.”
• 04:52 – Natasha’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “What we recommend that most consultants, particularly coaches, do is use assessment as a bridged strategy. And there are two reasons for that. Number one is you get to know the client more quickly and more deeply.”
• 06:07 – Natasha’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Natasha’s FREE Quiz: bit.ly/CoachingKryptonite
• 07:10 – Q: Why do service providers miss so much on their clients? A: Because we have so many cognitive biases that keep us from seeing ourselves. Let alone what’s alive and true in the client who is emerging to the next iteration of who it is they’re becoming.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Clients actually open up and become more real and authentic when they feel seen, heard, and understood.” -Natasha Todorovic Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:09
Greetings, everyone, and a warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to you from little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia, joined today by Natasha Todorovic. Natasha, good day! A very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Natasha Todorovic 00:24
Hi. I am hanging out in Santa Barbara, California today, Tom.

Tom Poland 00:27
You have a pretty hot summer over there, I understand.

Natasha Todorovic 00:30
Not as hot as your summers get. But yeah, it’s been pretty warm.

Tom Poland 00:34
Yeah, that can get a tad warm over here. Folks, if you don’t know Natasha, she’s the CEO and co-founder of the National Values-Center Consulting, also the owner of Spiral Dynamics brand, which is very interesting. Her expertise includes unravelling the people side of organizational challenges from C-suite execs right down to the shop floor using a proven human systems approach. Now, I’m personally looking forward to this Natasha. I just loved to interview even with no one else listening, because the concept that you’re going to walk us through is really very revolutionary, maybe not to you, but to us, great, unwashed masses. But the potential for this, folks, is an absolute game-changer. And no one in the space that I operate is doing this. And this thing is, “How to Get Better Clients Through Assessment”. So, Natasha is going to tell us all about that, and it’s only going to take seven minutes. Natasha, our seven minutes starts now. Who’s your ideal client?

Natasha Todorovic 01:33
Business and organizational consultants and coaches who are helping their clients with changing transformation.

Tom Poland 01:40
Oooh! This is not your first rodeo. Very succinct. Well-articulated. Question number two, what’s the problem you solve for them?

Natasha Todorovic 01:47
They’re generally struggling with why their clients ghost them, why their clients aren’t getting the changes or transformations that they’re looking for. And some of them are trying to struggle with not getting clients at all, or not getting enough clients. And so, it’s really the people stuff!

Tom Poland 02:05
Right. And then we’ve all had those situations where we just feel like working with a certain person is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and in other clients that just flows, right? So, that might lead us nicely into question three. Six minutes left. What are some of the typical symptoms that- prior to becoming a client of yours, people are going to be experiencing. Give them a bit of a heads up as to- some clues as to whether they should be reaching out to talk to you.

Natasha Todorovic 02:31
Well, a lot of coaches and consultants get this feeling of, “You know, I’ve done a whole lot of stuff, but I’ve plateaued”, or they’re looking around, and they’re looking at their clients and going, “I don’t like these people. I want to up life, but I don’t know how!” And then another one is the clients just kind of disappear. Maybe they’re not doing their homework, or they keep coming back with the same problem over and over. And sometimes they’re not renewing, they’re not referring, and they’re not telling if they’re the ideal client. They’re not telling other ideal clients about their service provider.

Tom Poland 03:05
So, this is a common experience for a lot of coaches and consultants. You know, the clients not implementing. They’re not progressing. They’re not showing up to meetings sometimes even. Well, they’re smart people. They’re going to try stuff. They’re aware that they’ve got this problem that these symptoms are being revealed. Let’s save them some time. Let’s save them some money. Question number four, five minutes left. What are some of the common mistakes that folks make trying to solve this problem?

Natasha Todorovic 03:29
One of the common mistakes, particularly for coaches, is they keep asking more questions. So, they start pushing clients, which is the exact wrong strategy! And what they do is they double down on their training, and that pushes clients away, as well. And by the time it starts to unravel, this is kind of like a freefall.

Tom Poland 03:53
They’re just not getting to the core of- the source of the problem which reading between the lines, I’m presuming, is that they’re just not a match with that particular person. Is that right?

Natasha Todorovic 04:02
Sometimes it’s a match. Sometimes it’s incongruent coaching or incongruent consulting. But 87% of clients leaving their coaches and consultants cite that their coaches and consultants and service providers did not understand them.

Tom Poland 04:18
Wow!

Natasha Todorovic 04:19
So, they have a connection problem. And in our end, 100% of the coaches and consultants that we’ve worked with, believe they understand their clients deeply. So, there’s a massive- yeah.

Tom Poland 04:33
So someone’s not right.

Natasha Todorovic 04:37
And if they’re paying you, it’s going to be the clients.

Tom Poland 04:39
Yeah, right! So, three and a half minutes left. Question five, a valuable free action that- it’s not going to solve the whole problem, they probably need your services for that, but it might take some of our listeners a step in the right direction.

Natasha Todorovic 04:52
Yeah, what we recommend that most consultants, particularly coaches, do is use assessment as a bridge strategy. And there are two reasons for that. Number one is you get to know the client more quickly and more deeply. And you can quickly turn away forfeit clients. And then the other side of that is clients actually open up and become more real and authentic when they feel seen, heard, and understood. So, it’s much more effective to use assessments as a bridge strategy to build that relationship pre-client relationship.

Tom Poland 05:28
Because the coach or consultant is sending a signal to the prospect that we really care about working with you. There’s also a really nice element of reverse psychology in that, I’m sure it’s done with kid gloves. But the assessment is kind of saying, “I’m not sure if I can help you, but let’s find out”, as opposed to the selling, which is, “For God’s sake, please buy. Please buy. Please buy!” So there’s a lot to like about that. Well, let’s- two and a half minutes left. Let’s get people some more information on those. Where can people go- a valuable free resource? People can go and check out the whole concept of assessing prospective clients prior to engaging, where do they go to get more on that?

Natasha Todorovic 06:07
Well, actually, this is not an assessment, but it’s a quiz. And this is a quiz that helps you to understand what is your coaching type and kryptonite? Meaning are you strong and why? And what’s the, maybe, the dark side of that. And that is at Bit.ly, that’s B-I-T. L-Y /Coaching, with a capital C, Kryptonite with a capital K. And that’ll get you right into the quiz. You’ll get a report. You’ll get a video and you’ll see if, you know, what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, and what you can do about it.

Tom Poland 06:43
Yeah, that makes total sense because I- it’s like, I need to do an assessment on me before I do an assessment on prospective clients. So that’s Bit.ly, B-I-T. L-Y /CoachingKryptonite, with a capital C and a capital K. Thank you for that! I’m going to do it right after this call. Question number seven, and we’ve got a whopping 70 seconds left, so no pressure. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t, then the answer, please?

Natasha Todorovic 07:10
Why do service providers miss so much on their clients?

Tom Poland 07:16
And why do they?

Natasha Todorovic 07:18
Because we have so many cognitive biases that keep us from seeing ourselves. Let alone what’s alive and true in the client who is emerging to the next iteration of who it is they’re becoming.

Tom Poland 07:34
Wow, well said. There’s a lot to unpack in that. Natasha, thanks so much for your time and your insights.

Natasha Todorovic 07:40
It’s been fun, Tom, and great to be with you today.

Tom Poland 07:43
Thanks again. Cheers.

Tom Poland 07:45
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.