If you only knew how to phrase the big outcome you provide, so many things would improve, yes?
You’d be able to frame your offer in a more compelling way. You’d attract more empowered clients who WANT big outcomes (and expect to pay well). You’d get yourself “out there” more to do marketing because you’d actually have a BIG IMPRESSIVE MESSAGE that you were excited to share with the world.
So let’s talk about how to get clear on this whole “outcome” thing, shall we?
Because the teaching on how to do this in most programs is woefully thin.
Here we go:
There are four main categories that the outcomes for (most) coaches and experts can fall into.
1) Health
2) Wealth
3) Relationships
4) Personal development
I didn’t come up with these 4 categories (I saw various business experts talking about them and after much reflection and experience, decided I thought they were valid) but I DID come up with the thought process that follows here.
Let’s take them one at at time.
1) HEALTH
If you’re a health coach or other health/medical expert, then of course your category is “health.”
Your GENERAL outcomes are things like: lose weight, get fit, heal [a certain condition] (with the understanding that in actual marketing, you have to be careful about the word “heal” for legal reasons).
Your possible SPECIFIC outcomes are too numerous to list in a post of this length.
But they’re usually things like a specific amount of weight lost, a certain change in body composition, or reversing certain symptoms.
The keys to knowing precisely how to state it are: 1) knowing your ideal client’s starting point; and 2) knowing what they bring to the success equation.
For example, a lot of health coaches are initially reticent to say “I help people lose 30 pounds,” but they start to realize that they could actually say that in integrity IF they knew that their ideal clients tended to be about 30 pounds overweight (which is different from 100 pounds overweight).
And… IF they knew that their ideal client was going to bring certain things to the table in their work together (for example: they have detailed knowledge of nutrition, they’ve been lifting weights or playing sports for years or did so in a previous era of their life – that’s totally different from trying to help someone who has never exercised or eaten well ever, which is a much tougher mountain to climb).
2) WEALTH
If you’re a business coach or (almost) ANY other kind of business-related expert, then your outcome is in the “wealth” category.
Yep.
Yep.
YEP. 😉
And no, you’re (most likely) not an exception to this.
Occasionally, the outcome for a business-related expert is in the “personal development” category (the 4th of our 4 categories here) which I’ll get to in the 4th section of this post.
Lots of business-related experts freak out when I say that their outcome is “wealth.”
But they usually stop freaking out when I share the following thought process with them.
It’s the same as what I shared above for “health.”
Your GENERAL outcomes are things like “make 6 figures,” “make 7 figures,” and the like.
Your possible SPECIFIC outcomes are too numerous to list here.
But they’re usually things like: get a certain number of clients per month or year, set better boundaries so you can halve your hours worked so you can double your profitability, close 40% of your sales calls, grow your audience to a certain size so you can get more sales, improve your content so you get a certain number of additional leads, improve the efficiency of your offer or your coaching skills so that your clients get results in less time, set up your website in such a way as to get a certain number of discovery calls booked from SEO, etc.
Any possible business-related thing that you’re an expert in can be confidently tied to a wealth-related outcome if you know the same two things I listed above for “health”:
1) your ideal client’s starting point; and 2) what they bring to the success equation.
For example, sales experts usually get nervous when I suggest that their outcome is something like “close 50% of sales calls so you can earn six figures per year,” because they know not everyone can achieve that.
But then when I suggest that such an outcome would only apply to people who were already closing (for example) 20%, they relax and admit that the outcome is probably accurate, because they realize that such a person is already much further along than someone who’s closing 0%.
(That’s what I mean by defining “Point A”)
And then when we further define “what they bring to the success equation,” by stipulating that the ideal client must already have a lead source bringing them X number of leads per week or month, and must already have an offer that sells for $5K or more, the sales expert immediately realizes that they have the perfect equation for being able to state a wealth outcome, because they can then calculate what total monthly dollar amount would make sense as an outcome given the number of leads, the offer price and the closing percentage.
This exact same thought process applies no matter what your expertise is.
If you’re a copywriting expert, you’d define where your ideal client would already be starting from and what they would already have in place in order to make it likely that they’d get a certain revenue increase from having copy help.
(Maybe they’re already at six figures and they have X amount of leads and an offer priced at X amount and they already close X percent of leads and they already have certain copy assets already created.)
If you’re an offer design expert or a coaching skills expert who can help people to get their clients results in a much shorter amount of time, that too can be tied to a monetary outcome.
You’ll need to define how much your ideal client would be charging already, how much time they spend with clients already, and how many more clients they’d have room for if they could free up X amount of their time by spending X amount less time with their existing clients while still charging the same because the outcome is the same or even better/greater. All of that adds up to a specific monetary outcome.
People who call themselves “mindset coaches” and serve entrepreneurs or business owners are usually in the “wealth” category too (unless the business owner’s goals for hiring the mindset coach are more about self-care or boundaries or things that fall into the “relationship” and “personal development” categories – which we’ll talk about in a second).
The thought process is the same here – if you’re only working on mindset and not on strategy, then you’ll want to define exactly what your ideal client knows AND HAS ACHIEVED in the realm of strategy – so that their knowledge plus your mindset support will equal the outcome of more money/revenue/wealth.
I could go on and on with any business example you could think of, and show how it could be tied to a wealth/money outcome if you knew the ideal client’s Point A and what they bring to the table already.
But this post is already getting long. 😉 So if I didn’t cover your type of expertise and you’re not seeing how this thought process would apply in your case, just comment here (on the Facebook version of this post) and I’ll reply with some thoughts.
3) RELATIONSHIPS
If you’re a relationship coach, you already know that your outcome is in the “relationships” category.
Sometimes, if you consider yourself a life coach or a personal development coach, you’re also in the “relationships” category. More on that in a second.
Your GENERAL outcomes are: “find a relationship” (usually means romantic, but doesn’t have to be) and “improve relationship” (can be romantic/marriage, parent and child, family in general, or any other kind of relationship really).
Your possible SPECIFIC outcomes are too numerous to list here.
But, in the “find a relationship” category, they’re usually things like: stop attracting “bad boys” and start attracting men who want a serious relationship, attract a partner who is at your level instead of someone you have to drag along, attract a relationship where the person is steadily there for you instead of constant on-again-off-again, etc.
And, in the “improve relationship” category, they’re usually things like: set better boundaries with kids or spouse so that you are not exhausted all the time, have well-behaved kids without yelling or fighting, eliminate criticism and blame in a marriage, etc.
Again: there are tons of options here. I’ve noticed that the particular “flavor” of relationship problem that is solved is slightly different from coach to coach.
Once again, the keys to knowing precisely how to state your outcome are: 1) knowing your ideal client’s starting point; and 2) knowing what they bring to the success equation.
A lot of people who describe themselves as a “life coach” or “self-love coach” or “boundaries coach” tend to get nervous when I suggest that their outcome is to improve relationships or find a relationship.
I think it’s similar to why mindset coaches and subject-matter experts in the business realm get nervous when I say their outcome is to increase wealth or make more money: because they’re not working DIRECTLY on that outcome and they’re not sure if their clients will achieve it or not.
In a similar fashion, self-love coaches, boundaries coaches, and life coaches are often not working directly on relationship issues (such as how to communicate with a partner or kids), but rather, on improving the SELF in some way (feelings/beliefs about oneself, and so forth).
But, once again, if you know your ideal client’s Point A you’ll be more comfortable stating a relationship outcome even if relationship strategies aren’t the exact content of your coaching.
For example, maybe your ideal client has already studied a lot about relationship/communication strategies. (Interestingly, some of my clients who have a relationship outcome often primarily serve OTHER people in the same field – like, therapists who want to work on their own marriage. So their clients certainly have knowledge about relationships, but they may not have the self-love or embodiment practices that the expert is going to bring.)
If you define the specific things that your ideal client is going to bring to the table, you’ll likely feel even MORE confident stating a relationship outcome.
For example, maybe they need to be familiar with a specific body of work (such as the Boundaries teaching from Cloud and Townsend). Maybe they need to have proven communication skills in some way (like having studied in a certain field) so you know that their relationship issues aren’t due to basic communication (if that’s not what you’re going to work on with them in your program).
The possibilities are endless.
I’ll never forget when a woman who was a fellow member of a coaching program with me started talking about how her outcome was “self-love” and everyone helped her to realize that her best clients in the past had wanted to work on self-love SO THAT they could find a relationship.
She switched her framing to talking about finding a relationship – with self-love as the mechanism to get there – and eventually made $1 million per year.
Because that just makes so much more sense – as most people rarely want to work on self-love for its own sake. It usually presents some other way – like as a relationship problem or business problem or health problem.
4) PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
(the final category)
This is a tricky one because a lot of people want to say that their outcome is a personal development outcome when it actually isn’t.
(for example: some kind of business expert or mindset coach wants to put themselves in this category because they’re avoiding seeing how their work enables a financial outcome)
(also for example: self-love coaches who want to be placed in this category but don’t see that their clients really tend to want to work on self-love SO THAT they can achieve a relationship outcome or a business/wealth outcome or a health outcome)
In the “personal development” category, your GENERAL outcomes are things like: achieve __ [where “blank” is a specific and tangible goal], overcome anxiety, overcome burnout or overwhelm.
The SPECIFIC outcomes are too numerous to list.
But for the “achieve __” one, they’re often things like getting promoted, landing a certain kind of job in a certain field, understanding what kind of job/vocation they’re a fit for, getting a specific kind of project done just because it’s a life goal (such as writing a book – unless the book has a business-related or money-making goal, then it’s a “wealth” outcome), starting/growing a nonprofit or a cause that matters to them, etc.
And the others in this category are often about how someone FEELS internally. (their attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, emotions)
For example, if they want to change how they think/feel about a certain situation in their life and have already realized that the situation can’t/won’t be changed because it involves another person’s willingness/ability to change. This would be a form of overcoming anxiety that isn’t necessarily about health (though a medical provider might find symptoms, as those who’ve experienced this kind of thing know!). Nor is it about relationships because the client’s goal isn’t to improve the relationship.
Feeling better after a breakup or divorce, where the goal isn’t necessarily to get into another relationship, would also be an example that would fall into the personal development category.
Overcoming burnout or overwhelm is a tricky one because that can actually be a relationship or business issue (for example – the client needs to get certain things off their plate but can’t communicate well with family or colleagues or employees to negotiate that) – but sometimes it is solely about how the client feels, and they don’t even necessarily have “too much do” when you look at their workload on paper.
A general guideline for what falls into the personal development category would be: Is the client’s focus mainly inward (on improving how they feel), or is it on changing/improving an external reality?
…
…and those are the 4 categories of outcomes and how the vast majority of coaches/experts fit into them! 😉
Did you find this helpful? Have questions? Not sure how it applies to you? Comment here (on the Facebook version of this post).
Or send me a Facebook DM about my 30-day 1-on-1 intensive. I take people through the thought process described in this post, but in a much deeper and more detailed way – so that they truly understand what outcome they provide AND what needs to be true of their client in order for that outcome to be valid.
This understanding alone is so valuable, clients have told me that it was worth the price of the program by itself.
But that’s not all that you get!
I also show you exactly how and where all of these distinctions (your outcome + details of who’s a good fit to get it + what your actual WORK is) get slotted into my two proven posting frameworks: the offer post and the value post.
I even help you to grow your organic audience on your FB profile if you need more of the right eyeballs on your content (and really, who doesn’t? 🙂 ).
And, I help you to put a SUPER simple sales process into place so you can enroll interested prospects over DM or a very short call (since content written this way already pre-sells people so well and repels the wrong people too, the sales process can be very short).
Send me a Facebook DM if you’re interested in this program.
Also send me a Facebook DM if you’re interested in teaching my methods (including the thought process in this post for nailing down outcomes, plus the post-writing frameworks and more) to your own clients. I have a certification program coming up where you’ll learn all of this stuff in great detail as well as how to teach it.
(This should go without saying, but you need my permission if you want to present the thought process and insights from this post as if they were your own, and to make money from teaching them to your clients/audience)
I’m also going to link some more helpful resources for you below, to expand on the points from this post:
A video and diagram that go into more detail about the 4 types of outcomes and how to determine yours
More info about my 30-day 1-on-1 program
More info about my certification program
A post with more detail about the two frameworks I use for content creation and how they incorporate your outcome AND your actual work AND describing who’s a good fit
If you have questions about anything – just send a Facebook DM or comment on the Facebook version of this post.
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