The value of market research and a retail coach

Market research = mystery shopping, analysing movements of the market, sales figures, and more. All these are data = information about how retailers perform. Market researchers are consumers – members of the general public. People of all ages, cultures, demographics, social spheres. Anyone can mystery shop, attend focus groups, fill in surveys. Hence the value of market research is the consumer’s raw view of the retailer, its products, stores, sales associates, services. Because people are different they bring diverse points of view from the customer’s side of the cash desk. The raw views bring value to retailers exactly because they are raw and very diverse. People tell the good and bad of their shopping experiences, and retailers can learn or not learn from the views.

A retail coach brings the opposite value. The retail coach works in the retail environment + is trained in communication. S/he therefore notices different aspects of the retailer’s performance from aspects which shoppers from the general public notice. A retail coach brings value in breaking down and explaining the details of the good and bad aspects of the retailer’s operation and service.

If a retail coach is trained in for example NLP, the retail coach will pay attention to how sales associates greet customers and why the way in which they greet is effective or ineffective. The distance from which they greet, the timing, tone, words, body language with which they greet are all within the domain of observation of a retail coach. And of course much more, such as frequent mistakes of sales associates or how retailers let themselves down, or advice for professionals of certain segments of retail.

In summary

market research usually brings retailers the big picture and raw diverse data of what works and what does not, while a retail coach brings the details of why what works works, why what does not work does not work, and how retailers can improve what does not work. In other words shoppers from the general public feed back on the retailer’s environment and behaviour, while a retail coach feeds back on the retailer’s environment, behaviours, plus also capabilities, values, and identity – thus all neurological levels of observation.

The cons of market research

The cons of mystery shopping – market research are that members of the public who perform market research do not have training in communication, hence do not always know how to communicate accurately. Only accurate feedback has value, because retail is detail and excellence as well as the devil = when things do not work – is in the details.

60% of the population are generalists. Generalists notice the big picture. They don’t notice – and thus don’t know how to accurately define and describe – details. They know that they got a good or bad service. But if we ask them to define why, they won’t define, because their natural bias is to observe the big picture. They’ll therefore probably tell you “I don’t know why, I just didn’t like the way they did x. And who cares why? All that matters is that I will not go to that store again.”

And of the 40% of population who naturally notice the details a third will know how to use the right words for the right meaning, how to put the words into grammatically correct sentences, and how to order the sentences into an order that will make sense to a store manager or someone at the retailer’s head office on first reading. A third of 40% is too small a number to be enough to move retail to a better service overall.

…and the worst (the strongest con) for last…

Retailers hire market research agencies to send shoppers to them. Market research agencies do not treat shoppers well, hence a very small percentage of shoppers will be motivated to write the reports to great detail. The bad treatment plus (very) low fees that market research agencies pay shoppers result in the fact that many shoppers do the absolute minimum as quickly as possible in order to get paid. They don’t care about genuinely contributing value to the retailers for which they do the market research. As a result of this reality the quality of the reports is low = the value for retailers is low. Market research programs cost retailers money, and store managers [who read the reports] time and energy.

The con of a retail coach

There is only one con of a retail coach. The con is that the retail coach does not have the breadth of views which the public has. The retail coach cannot have the breadth, because s/he is only one person with one bias and style of observation as against many people with many styles of observation. But the value of the work of a retail coach easily makes up for this con. The value is in the details that the consumer won’t observe.

So market research or a retail coach?

Market research for identifying where there is a problem when the sales are low. A retail coach for identifying why there is a problem when the sales are low. Even premium brand retailers have problems. Every retailer can learn. Do retailers care to learn and improve service? That is a subject for another article. I hope that this article brought you value if you are a store manager or someone at the head office of a retailer. Perhaps you have run a market research program for years and still don’t see tangible improvement in service. Might this be time to hire a retail coach to tell you why? Let this article be food for thought and inspiration.

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Fear of presenting comes from a good intention

The intention is responsibility to do things well. In performing arts the fear of presenting is called stage fright. It’s the same thing. The intention is responsibility to do things well. When an artist is to perform in front of people who came to his performance for money or for free, the artist feels responsibility to give the audience a good experience. When a professional in the corporate world presents facts at a meeting, he feels responsibility to deliver the facts well so that his listeners understand correctly and act in a desired direction.

Doing things well is another intention of the fear of presenting. Every decent adult wants to do things well and right. The highest grade of doing things well is perfectionism. Most decent adults want others to see them in the best light. We want to show that we know, that we’re competent. We want to be credible and taken seriously. But the flip side of wanting to be perfect is that when we’re not perfect, we can block ourselves. One wrong word can totally derail us in stress. Sounds familiar? Perhaps…

Other factors that play a role in the fear of presenting

Some people are born performers. They thrive on being the centre of attention. Others are the opposite – they hate being the centre of attention. Hence if a person who hates being the centre of attention is to present at a meeting, of course s/he will feel stressed by the sheer fact that s/he suddenly must be the centre of attention! Just the words “introduce yourselves” at the beginning of meetings can trigger hellish stress, because they directly invite one to be the centre of attention. And one will be, because all eyes will be on him/her and all ears will wait to hear the introduction.

The second factor is how prepared one feels. A performing artist can prepare for a performance for years and feel supremely prepared until the moment when he is to go on the stage. Yet at the moment of having to go on the stage when he feels stage fright he never feels 100% prepared. It’s the nature of the beast, it’s a natural manifestation of the responsibility to give a good performance. How prepared one feels is therefore impossible to influence, manipulate, correct, suppress, or eliminate.

The only remedy is to prepare to really 100%. After all, preparation is a true mark of a professional, and the more prepared one is, the better he will handle mistakes, surprises, and blocks in stress. So always prepare as well as you possibly can. If you’re a student, this advice will stand you in good stead for exams! Students are always immensely afraid of exams because they don’t study enough to feel prepared!

The third factor is adrenaline. Many people report that they get hot in the body when they have to present at meetings. This is simply the result of an adrenaline rush. Public speaking raises adrenaline big time. So getting hot is a natural reaction. And a necessary one, because when we get hot, we start sweating. Sweat is a cooling mechanism which balances the adrenaline rush.

The fourth factor of the fear of presenting is the surprise element. What if someone drops something and the drop makes such a loud bang that we get completely distracted and won’t know where we stopped in stress? Or what if someone interrupts us and the interruption derails us? Alternatively what if someone asks a question to which we won’t know the answer even when we feel prepared?  There’re unforeseeable elements in every situation. And surprises are hard to handle because we cannot prepare for them. So here comes improvisation versus interpretation.

Interpretation is following exact text, choreography, wording, notation, agenda. We interpret what someone composed. Improvisation is making things up from our expertise and experience. Interpretation is usually memorised. We have to memorise a text, wording, agenda, dance, piece of music. If the memory fails, we will be lost… until we find ourselves and pick it up somewhere. In contrast, when we improvise, we don’t feel the stress of what might happen if the memory fails… We don’t have to be afraid of how we’ll handle the situation. We make things up from expertise and experience. And while making things up we sometimes even get brilliant insights! So we always have something to keep us grounded in knowing. And the intuition to guide us!

So how to handle the fear of presenting?

1. If you often present at meetings, accept that you will be the centre of attention for the time when you present. It is a fact which you can’t avoid, so accept it instead of fighting it. Fighting or wanting to avoid it won’t avoid it and will only stress you out. Even if you don’t like being the centre of attention, experiment with imagining that you’re an actor, and present as if you were the actor. This plus knowing that you will go back to your normal self after the meeting will definitely help.
2. Expect a certain degree of stage fright. It’s that natural reminder of responsibility to deliver the best you can. Instead of fighting it embrace it as a gift and treat it as an advisor. It’s a natural phenomenon, it will always be with you to a degree. You’ll never completely get rid of it, so what’s the point in fighting it? Now you know that it’s there for good reasons.
3. Always prepare as well as you possibly can. Even if you may not feel like preparing, don’t cut corners, because it is the law of life that cut corners will come to haunt you. You won’t know how to react to a question out of the blue etc. if you don’t prepare well.
4. Be as good at your profession as you possibly can. Not cutting corners of preparing will get you there by a great deal! And always aspire to being the best, because the best have the most experience. The most experience predisposes one to the highest expertise. And the highest expertise is the best cure against surprises. When we’re not experienced and expert enough, things easily surprise us. Conversely few things will surprise a seasoned expert. Plus when you’re experienced experts, people will take you seriously. Isn’t that what every professional wants?
5. Expect the adrenaline rush and take it as such. Just think of the bodily heat as the result of an adrenaline rush, not the result of stress. And thank god for the heat, because you can now also think of the resulting sweat as a cooling mechanism with which the body balances the heat of the adrenaline rush!
6. Concentrate on putting the main point across even if the words aren’t perfect. People want to hear the main points. They don’t care about how good your wording is. This applies especially if you must present in a foreign language which you don’t know perfectly. People don’t care about the fact that you don’t know the exact word. Find other simpler words to describe the exact word or phrase which you know that exists in the foreign language, but you don’t know.  People want to hear the point of the content.

…and the best for last…

7. bear in mind that others won’t see what you feel. They’ll see you from outside and mainly concentrate on the content of what you say. There will be people who will see that you are nervous. So what? They’ll probably see that you’re nervous because they feel exactly what they see you feeling when they present! And that’s also exactly why they’ll empathise, not criticise. The rest will not even notice your nerves. They’ll take your presenting on the face value and concentrate on the content of what you say.

8. Be human! If you get stuck, say that you’re nervous or forgot what you wanted to say or forgot the word… Or turn the fact that you’re stuck into humour. Say something funny or pull a face that will make people laugh. Who says that the corporate world has to be stiff and cold? Even corporate professionals are human beings who like to laugh. And I guarantee you that if you make them laugh, you’ll make them quickly forget about your nerves. And they’ll very likely remember how you made them laugh at the meeting!

If you feel that despite me having presented the advice in this article to perfection you’d like some NLP coaching on the fear of presenting, I’m here for you.

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Get out of autopilot – get into the zone

He who wants to get into the zone at will must start practising not living on autopilot. The more he practises on any activity, the faster he will learn to be present in the moment, which is the door to getting into the zone. Getting into the zone is a state in which one is totally and effortlessly immersed in an activity. One feels that the activity flows naturally as if it were his second skin or nature. He enjoys it, he feels it in every bone, it goes through him, it surrounds him. It’s concentration and meditation in one. It’s an amazing state. And that’s why so many people want to achieve it. But how?

The first NLP technique that will help to get into the zone

…is knowing the submodalities of being in the zone. What does being in the zone look, sound, feel, smell, taste like? What do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste when you are in the zone? How bright are the pictures that you see? How far are they? And how loud are the sounds? Where do they come from? Is what you feel warm, cold, heavy, light… etc.? Where do you feel it? Does it move? When you know these submodalities, you know the state of being in the zone = you cannot confuse it with another state. You know that that’s it.

The second NLP technique for how to get into the zone

…is setting an anchor. Anchors are all around us. The traffic lights are an anchor for us to stop when they’re red and go when they’re green. A song can be an anchor that transports us to a particular moment… So can be a perfume – you know which person wore or wears it immediately as you smell it. Or someone’s voice can be an anchor which will immediately make you happy or angry. And of course, feelings can be anchors too. That familiar feeling… Or have you ever tasted something which you couldn’t tell what was, but which immediately reminded you of a certain place or person that used to serve that taste? So anchors can be visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory.

As long as the anchor which you set for getting into the zone is unique so that you can easily remember it, repeatable so that you can repeat it at will, appropriate so that you can fire it anywhere, intense enough to evoke the intensity of the state which it is to bring on, and pure so that it can evoke the state in the pure form of which you want to be, the anchor can be whatever picture, sound, feeling, smell, or taste works for you. Practise firing the anchor and getting into the state in which you want to be by firing the anchor.

The third NLP technique that helps to get into the zone

…is practising staying in the zone for longer and longer. Stretching the time when you are in the zone. If you read the article about NLP for breaking vicious circles, you’ll see commonalities with the principle of training yourself to stay in the zone longer and longer. The beginnings are usually shaky, but the more you practise, the more solid things will become. Because you know what it’s like to be in the zone and because you have a reliable anchor which will bring you into the zone, you’ll know when you have been in the zone for the first few seconds at the beginning. When you can be in the zone for seconds, you can be in the zone for a minute. And when you can do a minute, you can certainly do another minute. And so it goes until you find being in the zone for a long time. It’s all a matter of practice.

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A consumer gives feedback…

Let’s take an example. A friend recommends a retailer to you which has a product that you want. The friend sends you a link to the retailer’s site. You click on the link and the first page appears. A message pops up that you’ll get 10% off the first order if you sign up [presumably for the newsletter]. You type your email address into the field and click send.  The message on the next screen thanks you, but does not give you the discount code. You receive an email. The email welcomes and thanks you for signing up once again. But surprise surprise in today’s world full of imperfections, you don’t see the discount code in the email either.

How will that make you feel? Disappointed at best, angry at worst, cheated in either case. Why did the retailer not send the code? You need the product which this retailer has, so you order it. You’re shopping from the retailer for the first time, hence are getting to know the site and its features. Alas, you don’t have time to thoroughly browse the site and find all its features now. You only want to order the product and go on to the next task. So you will not see many features of the site on this occasion because you don’t have time to do so or aren’t interested in finding out whether the site has a chat, for example. Plus the process of ordering requires attention so that you place the order correctly. So you don’t want to distract yourself with other things on the site.

…and companies, retailers don’t hear the feedback

You order the product and write to the retailer that you didn’t get the discount code. You tell the retailer that when the code doesn’t appear when it should, it can look like a scam and definitely gives a bad impression – right at the beginning. Then you explain that you had ordered the product and would like the retailer to discount the promised 10% from the order if it is possible to do so.

The retailer doesn’t read the feedback properly and therefore takes it badly. Someone replies that:

So why does this retailer not hear the feedback?

Companies, retailers, don’t get negative and defensive, but hear and act on the point of feedback

Retail is detail. And the detail is in how we deal with things that don’t work as much as things that work. Pay attention to the point of feedback, especially if the feedback seems negative. If a client reports an error on the site, fix the error. Put time and energy into fixing the error instead of writing four paragraphs of irrelevant justifications. The client who feels disappointed at best, angry at worst, and cheated in either case doesn’t care about justifications which don’t address the point of his feedback. He cares about what you the retailer promised and didn’t deliver. The mindset of a consumer is selfish whether business owners and directors like it or not. Hence the consumer thinks only about what’s in it for him.

Besides, justifications will only dig you a deeper hole, because they maintain the opposite of what the client sees. If the majority of customers is happy with the products and service, well, this client is not.  Hence it can appear as artificial waffle which this client nor anyone will ever prove to be true. It therefore adds an insult to injury. So companies, retailers, hear feedback, pay attention to what you promise, and deliver promises.  Or don’t promise anything if you don’t want the hassle of delivering promises. That’s it.  A simple principle, a simple solution. NLP coaching for retail helps companies and retailers hear feedback and deal with it so that they appear honest and credible. Because retail is detail and NLP deals exactly with the detail.

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If living on autopilot has a positive intention, the intention must be to make life easier, to get through boring repetitive mechanical tasks without too much mental effort. Is there another positive intention? Or is there any at all? This article isn’t about why living on autopilot might be good. Because it isn’t good for most people. This article is about why living on autopilot is bad. So…

Living on autopilot is dangerous and demotivating

Living on autopilot makes us empty, puzzled, absentminded, even feel like robots… That’s why it’s demotivating. It makes us empty because when we do things on autopilot, we don’t enjoy the rewards of the actions. The rewards can be simply feeling that the actions go smoothly, we do them in the shortest time – thus pack a lot into our days, or that the actions are done and hence prepare us for more impactful actions or shift us further. Living on autopilot makes us puzzled because we surprise ourselves at how we don’t remember whether we did something or not.  It then makes us absentminded because when we are on autopilot, the mind is indeed absent! And it makes us feel like robots because robots don’t need a mind that is aware and can enjoy the rewards of the actions. Robots need only a program.

Living on autopilot is dangerous because we can do stupid things without realising it! Many people drive without knowing how they drive! That’s daydreaming behind the wheel… the marvellous work of the other than conscious mind when the conscious mind is occupied with something mechanical. But it’s still an autopilot because one is not aware of how he drives. Many people don’t remember whether they turned an appliance off or washed the shampoo from the head when it didn’t sting their eyes! Living on autopilot causes perfectly avoidable accidents which cost the society time, money, energy, and make everyone suffer.

And it turns people into zombies who swim through life without using the mind, thinking about what they do, and the consequences of their actions. It’s a sad existence of which we see too much in today’s world. So if you decided to work on not living in this state, here’s some

NLP for not living on autopilot

The first thing is the trinity of awareness, intention, attention.  This holy trinity goes together everywhere and is inseparable. If you draw a circle and put the three elements on the edge of the circle, you can start from any element.  Most people start from awareness.  Awareness that they do x, y, z, and many more things on autopilot! Then they set the intention that they’ll start catching themselves on autopilot. And then they start paying attention to daily situations. The rest is practice. But I said that most people start from awareness. So you can experiment and you’ll find what element will be best for you to start with!

Now how to catch yourself on autopilot when you do so much on it? By thoroughly getting to know what being on autopilot feels like. When you know well what it feels like, the feeling itself coming on the next time will become an anchor. The anchor that will trigger you to realise that oops – you’re on autopilot like a traffic light triggers you to do the appropriate thing. And that’s how you’ll catch yourself on autopilot.  If you think about it, you’ll conclude that the feeling of autopilot can be your only anchor!

Other NLP ways to deal with autopilot

One is spotting patterns. When you progress to a stage of catching yourself on autopilot more, you can start observing patterns in the times when you are on autopilot the most, or patterns in situations in which you are mostly on autopilot, etc. You can observe patterns of whether more autopilot happens at work or at home, in what environments, behaviours, etc., whether the situations in which autopilot happens are mostly emotionally positive, neutral, or negative… Just reading this paragraph can get you thinking about the contexts in which you can observe patterns.

Or you can tackle autopilot this way. Do you have a situation in which you’re never on autopilot? If you found one, think about what makes you be aware, intent, and attentive in that situation. How come that you’re never on autopilot there? What makes the difference? Find the factor that makes the difference and voilá – you can map it across to situations in which you’re often on autopilot.

One more beautiful way to practice not being on autopilot but being fully aware is eating. From the next meal put the feet firmly on the ground which will ground you. Then eat and only eat. Do not fiddle with the phone, do not watch TV, and do your best not to even speak when eating. Look at and focus on every mouthful of the food. Chew every solid mouthful at least 32 times if possible and enjoy the flavours. You will see how eating will teach you awareness and attention. It is honestly the best exercise against autopilot as so many people eat on autopilot too!

And how to keep not living on autopilot?

When you have caught yourself on autopilot, you start paying attention, which makes you aware that you can live this situation fully aware. Realising this gives you the option to set the intent that you don’t have to live this situation on autopilot again. So you can decide at this moment that you’ll go through this situation fully aware – or you won’t live this situation on autopilot – again the next time this situation comes around. Let’s say that it will be tomorrow.  So tomorrow you’ll go through the situation fully aware again and feel great for it. And you’ll tell yourself that you’ll repeat this again tomorrow… You get the idea.  The bottom line is that you decide not to live this situation on autopilot on the first day and tell yourself that if you could do it today – on the first day, you can do it tomorrow.

After already even two weeks the brain will start leading you to do it aware, because you’ve lived all the benefits of full awareness, intention, attention, and perhaps even started discovering details in the situation which you had never been aware of so far. And that’s where the rewards – beauties – of not living on autopilot come in… And beauties don’t end there.  People who live in awareness and pay attention to life don’t need alcohol, drugs, games, addictions. They get addicted to the beauties of life. And some good coaching is one of and always reveals more beauties of life.  Would you like to try it?

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A good impulse

…is something that will be good in the short and long term. Going swimming – or doing any sport at an appropriate quantity and intensity, going to sleep earlier if we’re tired, eating a healthy meal, etc. Albeit the impulse may not feel good from the hedonistic viewpoint at the moment when we think of something impulsive, it will have good long-term effects. And a good impulse naturally fits into our path to being better people. It doesn’t distract from or conflict with the goal of being the best versions of ourselves.

A bad impulse

… is easy to define. It seems good from the hedonistic viewpoint, but will not lead to good effects in the long term. For example if we eat a ton of chocolate, we’ll feel its good effect for the time of eating. But most people won’t like the long-term effect. Alcohol, commercial sex, drugs, addictions, and binging are all bad impulses. Most people will have no problem with writing a list of bad impulses, but will have a problem with writing a list of good impulses. And a bad impulse distracts from the path to being a better person.

The difference between a good and bad impulse

… is not one, but are several. Well, the first one is that bad impulses always carry some conflict or friction. The conflict or friction is either between parts of us or between the body and mind or between will and spontaneity. Good impulses do not carry any conflict nor friction. The second difference is that if we ask whether the action will lead to happiness, we’ll answer no in the case of bad impulses and yes in the case of good impulses. Eating a ton of chocolate, commercial sex, drugs, addictions etc. won’t lead to happiness in the long term. Going swimming, eating a healthy meal etc. will lead to happiness in the long term. The effects of good impulses lead to happiness in the long term.

And the third difference is the most important one. In case of a good impulse the thing or action that we want to take feels right in all parts of us. We feel that the body and mind want the thing or action in harmony. There is no fighting, hesitating, evaluating. The intuition screams or whispers ‘yes, yes, yes’. And the feeling of something feeling right is easy for every one of us to identify because we’ve all felt it.

NLP coaching for impulsive behaviours

I wrote about a different facet of this topic long ago, so won’t repeat myself. I will only add that NLP has more easy tools that help here. And I won’t divulge them here so as not to make them easy for coaches who may read this article to take up because the best ‘artists’ steal and I write these articles for members of the general public who do not work in personal development.  But letting our feelings tell us whether a thing or action feels right is also NLP. Because NLP is modelling and when we listen to our bodily signals, we model ourselves.

If you are a member of the general public who wants help with working on impulses, we can easily talk about how I could help. The value of an objective professional’s help is priceless. Just start a conversation…

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Maybe this article will do me more harm than good. And maybe there will be readers who will agree with its point. Maybe whether a reader will agree or disagree is generational.  The millennials live online, hence are more likely to think nothing of hiring a life coach from social media while older readers are more likely to hire a life coach by referral or by knowing the coach from life, for example as a neighbour.

I am in the middle of the timeline of the generations, so understand both the younger and the older. But what I’ll never understand is how anyone imagines that asking me to be his friend on Facebook or writing me a message on LinkedIn will make me trust him or her enough to give him or her all my expertise just like that. I get lots of message requests from strangers. Many want interviews with me under the pretext that they want the info from the interviews for research or studies. Doesn’t that sound like a scam to you, dear reader? Would you be protective of your expertise and selective about whom you’ll give it to? Or would you honour the requests for interviews etc. because they’d flatter your ego?

Would you hire a life coach from a cold message on social media?

Another trend I noticed years ago but never wrote about until this article is cold messaging on social media. The principle behind it is promotion. That’s all fine, but I certainly wouldn’t buy something from a stranger who sent me a cold message on Facebook that he is a life coach or whatever. I guess that the people who so prolifically send cold messages are either scammers or belong to the young generations which live online and therefore think nothing of how ineffective their approach is to a large part of the audience which they’d like to turn into clients. That’s why I never message anyone offering coaching.

I figure that if someone follows my work for some time, s/he will get a sense of whether I’d be the right coach for him or her. I certainly don’t have the time nor inclination to live online, hence don’t post content every day. Marketing experts who advise people to post almost every 15 minutes would say that I’m terribly inconsistent and they’d be right. But alas, I post only when I have something valuable to say so as to make it worth readers’ time. If I have noting valuable to say, I’m busy gathering experience through  coaching. It’s that simple. I wanted to be a coach who helps people, not a marketer who posts free for all advice on social media every 15 minutes.

What do you think of cold messaging on social media? Would you hire a life coach on the basis of a cold message? Or would you have to know the coach a little before you hired him or her? Or is there a tendency among people to think that if they send a message to a life coach on social media, they’ll easily get free advice? After all, my experience has been that people are keen only to the point when I warn that coaching isn’t free of charge.  As soon as I mention that, people stop messaging. Don’t they read my info? Or do they think that I’ll easily give them free advice?

Following on social media

Even the business of following is a science in itself. What usually happens is that coaches follow coaches. That’s no good to me, because I don’t coach coaches. I coach artists, people with learning difficulties, landlords, tenants, people in retail, and members of the general public who are NOT coaches or personal development professionals. So why would I want coaches to follow me? It doesn’t make sense. That’s why I block every coach and personal development professional who follows me. I don’t want them to potentially incorporate my work into their success. I don’t steal anyone’s work, so they can also generate their own. Therefore I don’t want to make stealing and taking credit easy for them.

If being on social media is about promotion and visibility, then I want the right people to see me. But again, the fact that someone follows me on social media doesn’t necessarily translate into that person hiring me to be their coach. Would you hire a life coach from social media whose work you have followed for some time?

In conclusion and to continue…

I wrote about why life coaching is difficult to sell and didn’t include the topic of social media in it. So now you can probably imagine why so many coaches out there vie for the attention of the same clients. This article feels like work in progress to which I’ll most likely add as I gather more pearls of value to readers. If you’d like to contribute your pearl of value on this topic, you’re very welcome to do so.

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If the public doesn’t know what life coaching is, of course it is difficult to sell!

The superficial usage and the confusion surrounding the term life coaching is still disturbing even in this day when coaching has been on the increase for decades. I explained the differences between coaching, teaching, counselling, consulting, training and guiding, teaching, mentoring, sponsoring, and awakening. Whenever I hear someone say that their friend is a life coach, I ask to learn more. And then I’ll hear that the “life coach” did some course and has been counseling for just over a year…. And even worse is when people ask me what I do, I say that I coach people, and they ask ‘so you’re a shrink?’. No!  The horrible word shrink is a slang for psychiatrist! The difference is that a life coach helps mentally healthy people refine what they do while a psychiatrist cures mentally ill people.

And even if the public knew what coaching was, coaching would still be difficult to sell because…

There’re life coaches and there’re life coaches. The challenge of a person looking for a life coach is to distinguish which is which. As if the confusion around what life coaching is wasn’t enough, I hear from every direction that “my friend is a life coach” or somebody’s somebody is a life coach.. And the internet is full of people who sell themselves as life coaches… It seems as if the sack with life coaches has ripped and they’ve all fallen out. Many folks even sell life coaching, counselling, consulting, and therapy interchangeably!  So how is a person looking for a life coach to distinguish who is a life coach? And who is credible? What will sell you life coaching?

Unfortunately life coaching is being practised today by many who have not studied it, do not have credentials, and sell traditional counselling,  consulting, training, and pop psychology advice as coaching. And people who think that they practise life coaching are very often caught in the same epistemological trap of thinking as are the clients to whom they sell themselves. Learning still does not respond to the demands of our times and what and how we learn is part of the problem, not a solution.

Many people in the western culture believe that more information will bring them wisdom. When we confuse having information with knowing, we leave out the emotional, intuitive, and aesthetic dimensions of knowing and the intimate and spiritual aspects of our connection with the world. Our current learning practices pursue more information. Most people need to change them to include what there is between the lines to illuminate the path to wisdom and effective living. Knowing is far more encompassing than having information. Knowing requires far more awareness and attention to where and when we do what, how, why, with whom than does having information.

The intangible is harder to sell than the tangible

When someone sells cars, we know what cars are. They’re tangible – we can imagine and touch them. And we know exactly what we’ll get if we buy them. When someone sells accounting, we know what accounting is. It’s intangible – we cannot touch it, but we know what we’ll get. When I sell life coaching, it’s intangible. We can’t touch it and don’t know what we’ll get, because every person who has life coaching will get different things. So how does one sell life coaching to someone who has never had it? The first question people will usually ask will be what guarantees I can give that coaching will work for them. I wrote about that subject in this article. Judge for yourself.

The second question often is whether people hire life coaches when their lives are falling apart. Sometimes yes. And sometimes no. If a person let his life fall apart, he has left it too late.  He should have acted sooner. No, life doesn’t have to fall apart for someone to hire a life coach. A person can hire a life coach for one context of life. I coach on health, relationships, work, money, and success. If someone hires a life coach for, say, a problem in his relationship, his life isn’t necessarily falling apart. His problem is in one context of life. Of course, the problem will surely impact his health, work, money, and success. But it’s not the same as life falling apart.

Money money money…

The third question will often be whether the sometimes high fees are worth taking the risk for when we don’t know what outcome we’ll get from life coaching. We all have things to pay for.  Hence this is understandably an important question for people in all societies around the world. And I addressed this subject too.

And finally…

Regardless of whether coaching is tangible or intangible and whether we know what we’ll get out of coaching or not, one thing is absolutely certain. Every person who has life coaching will get immensely deep value from it.  Value is also intangible, yet we rarely think of it like that when we buy real estate, jewelry, and other valuables. In these cases we somehow see value in the amounts we pay for those things.  And we somehow even imagine the value of those things in the long term… But this perception of value still doesn’t make value tangible! Yet when I sell coaching, most people immediately scrutinisse the value for the money they are to pay for coaching.  Isn’t it fascinating how human nature can work? Why not look at the long-term value of coaching the same way?

The value of life coaching is that it shifts people from problems to resources or from problem states to what they want.  Of course, the person getting coaching has to do the work, but the more he puts in, the more he’ll get out.  If a person’s relationship is falling apart, coaching surely will bring value to the person’s life. And the value will ripple from his relationship to his health, work, money, and success. Everything is connected.

But the highest value of coaching by a professional coach, not by a friend, family, member, etc., lies in the fact that a coach will give you the objective view of your problem, while you, family members, friends, etc. have the subjective view. So if these words inspired you or finally sold you life coaching, let’s talk.

The post Why Life Coaching Is Difficult to Sell to People Who Haven’t Had It appeared first on nlp-life-coaching-2026.

Especially now at a time when so many retailers go out of business due to far too much competition it is tragic to see how sales associates at premium and luxurious brands let the brands and themselves down by making mistakes which may appear trivial, yet can be crucial since retail is detail. Here are the mistakes and how not to make them again:

Sales associate greet like robots or don’t greet

Wouldn’t it feel nicer, more humane, more personal if you came into a store and a sales associate walked to you and clearly greeted you? Of course it would!  Yet 90% of sales associate do the exact opposite – if they greet at all. They’ll greet immediately after you come in when you can’t see them yet because you have just walked through the door and they’re too far. They’ll greet from somewhere at the back of the store, usually while standing behind the cash desk. You sometimes won’t even hear the greeting. Or if you hear it, you’ll be looking around to locate the voice… Is this personal? Is this humane? And is this warm? Is this the best way to establish rapport? Of course not! Do brands train associates to do this? It doesn’t make sense. And since it happens in 90% of stores and brands spend big money on wanting to stand out,

here’s how not to make this mistake again:

1. observe me as I come into the store. Watch what I do. Am I getting my bearings? Let me do so. And in the meantime slowly come to me and greet me from the same distance as you would greet a friend.
2. Greet me with a clear greeting. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hi, hello, hey… You can even use some NLP here: if I look formal, greet me formally. If I look informal, greet me informally. Meet me in my world. And also pace the environment in which we are. Is it appropriate to greet informally in a luxurious store?
3. Greet first. Then start a conversation. Ask me preferably something creative first to engage me and stand out straight away. Prepare a crib list of things you could engage me with. A compliment usually works well, because it shows that you observe and is as personal as can be in the context. Just add the voice tone and body language that will make the compliment genuine. Plus, if someone gives you a compliment and perhaps even asks a question about the thing on which he gave you the compliment, you’ll immediately relax, light up, and willingly tell him all about the thing. It’s human nature. We feel great when someone acknowledges us. Hence you’ll stand out and be memorable.
4. And now it’s time to ask what I came to look for, therefore what you can help me with…

Sales associates don’t find out what the customer wants

This mistake may sound surprising, yet is immensely easy for sales associates to make. Let’s say that I walked into a fashion store and want to buy a handbag. Most sales associates either only ask what I’m looking for and after my response immediately start showing bags, or ask very vague or too few questions at best and make statements instead of asking questions at worst, thinking that I will understand the statements as questions! And to add insult to injury they stop after 2 questions because they don’t have the courage – or creativity – to discover the detail of my taste and needs. Hence there’s no wonder that they don’t understand what I want and show products irrelevant to my needs. And, of course, it all takes far more time than it could if the sales associates knew what I want, therefore what products to show.

Another unfavourable side of this is that it makes sales associates appear as if they follow a process, though don’t genuinely care about what I want. Dehumanization again. Surely no store manager would like that from his or her sales associates!  And sometimes this fact has made me as a customer even angry. And I’m sure that I’m not alone.

How not to make this mistake again:

1. ask me what exactly I’m looking for
2. in what style, shape, size, colour, materials, design, patterns
3. with what features – what features are important to me
4. for what occasion – day, evening, formal, informal, casual, sporty, etc.
5. if I tell you that what I’m looking for is a gift, ask questions 1-4 about the person for whom I’m shopping
6. if I now jogged your creativity, write and memorise what other questions popped up. Retail is detail. The more you ask, the more of an expert you’ll appear. And if I happen to a customer who doesn’t know what she wants, you’ll most likely help me clarify my head!

Sales associates don’t inspire the customer about the brand

Premium and luxurious brands spend immense money on marketing their image to credibly convince customers to spend insane money on their products. Yet exactly the sales associates – the front line of the brands – so very often let all that marketing effort down with their mistakes!  Surely anyone who walks into a fashion store and is to pay thousands for a handbag wants some schmoozing and inspiring selling instead of boring robotic basic product presentation and a few incoherent, often badly timed facts about the brand with a few names thrown in which don’t mean anything to the customer who knows nothing about the brand and the world of fashion – or whatever the brand deals in!

How not to make this mistake again:

1. think carefully at which point of my visit it would be most appropriate to introduce the brand. Here you, the sales associate, could educate me about where the brand is from, who was its founder, when and why s/he founded it, what product the brand became famous for, etc.
2. tell me about where and how products are made while I admire and try the handbag(s) of my interest. Point out and demonstrate the iconic features for which the brand is famous. You’ll be selling the brand’s unique selling point. And link the features to benefits to inspire me to own the bag. Transport me into the situations for which I’m shopping and tell me how I’ll benefit from the features of the bag in those situations. This will be the time to show how well you listened to me.
3. Tell me how the brand you represent is better than all the competition.

Sales associates often don’t close the sale

Every brand trains sales associates differently. But even if brands train sales associates to do something to close the sale, many associates simply don’t have the confidence or creativity to do so. They view closing the sale as pushy and don’t want to seem pushy. This is a pity, because you as an associate could also showcase your selling knowhow, creativity, and credibility at the point of closing the sale. And believe me, many customers are more indecisive than you think!  So if you gently lead them to buy, they’ll do so just because you led them to do so. And you’ll have the sale rather than the customer walking out with empty hands. This phase will be a test of how well you used your intuition and observed me. Do you intuitively sense that asking for the sale would nudge me forward? Or do you intuitively feel that I’m someone who knows best for herself, hence the situation calls for letting me decide? This is pure NLP in practice.

How not to make this mistake again:

1. Know the products that you sell well. This is important when the customer hesitates and starts objecting to buying. The better you know the products, the more creatively and credibly you’ll address every objection.
2. Use some NLP in this phase of retail: restate my objection casually to make me feel that you clearly heard the same objection as I raised. That will reassure me and make me feel that you’re a credible leader who listens carefully.
3. Another way how you can use NLP is by using your intuition. If you intuitively sense that I’m someone who knows best for herself, judges and concludes, examines and evaluates, ask your intuition whether it’s best to ask for the sale or rather leave it open not to push me, because you sense that I’ll decide for myself. Or am I someone who requires a lot of your feedback, input, opinion? You’ll intuitively know, because you observed me during trying the product. If I’m someone who relies a lot on others’ feedback, confidently ask for the sale.

Sales associate don’t inform customers about the services that brands offer to clients

I called this article the most frequent mistakes for a reason. This mistake definitely figures high on the most frequent list. Sales associates, you’re there to sell the brand, not only its products!  So sell the brand through the invisible services that it offers. Some folks call them aftersales, others aftercare – you get the idea. Warranties, cleaning, care, repairs, personalisation, alterations… all those services can be the tipping point for buying especially for clients like me who know best for themselves. Why? Because these services act as assurance that if I buy the product for thousands and something happens to it, the brand will stand behind the product and help me with it. Plus you’re differentiating the brand from the competition and showcasing your credibility as a salesperson. What more could I wish for than a brand that will give me all those services with my bag and a highly credible sales associate?

So here’s how not to make this mistake again:

1. tell me about the invisible services either while addressing my objections or while closing the sale.
2. explain each service to great detail: how long a warranty is for, where it applies, what it covers and doesn’t cover, how many options of personalisation I have, what will be covered under repairs, etc. You’ll be using NLP and not even know it – from generalities to specifics.

Sales associates don’t clearly explain benefits in exchange for customers’ contact details

This is another unfortunate mistake which lets sales associates down even more than the brands!  If you don’t clearly tell me all the benefits that I’ll get for giving you my contact details, it makes you look amateurish. You work for the brand, you want my contact details which is a sensitive issue for many a customer of today, so you have to convince me to give them with clearly and credibly presented incentives. A facet of this frequent mistake is that sales associates don’t name all the incentives. They’ll name one or two, but there’re usually more. Sales associates, use NLP – put yourselves in my shoes: the more incentives I hear, the more likely I’ll give you my contact details.

How not to make this mistake again:

1. tell me all the incentives
2. explain each incentive clearly so that a person who doesn’t work for the brand immediately understands it.

…and in farewell…

I’ve seen sales associates turn around and start walking away from me while bidding me farewell. This is profoundly disrespectful and communicates that the sales associate can’t wait for me to go. Again, NLP can help here:

How not to make this mistake again:

1. greet me exactly as you’d greet a friend. It doesn’t matter whether I bought something or not. What matters is that I chose your brand and store. And you never know – perhaps I didn’t have enough money on this visit, but would come later and buy the bag I saw – and maybe more. Or perhaps I needed to go to the washroom, but didn’t want to tell you, hence decided to end the visit quickly. But how can you tell that I won’t be back? And if you treated me well, how can you tell if I won’t tell 1,000 people? Retail is detail…. so never assume nor conclude. You don’t know who just walked out of the store.
2. how do you bid a friend farewell? Your body is turned to the friend, you smile, look at him or her, and clearly say goodbye with roughly the same energy as is the one with which s/he greets you. That’s it!  Simple but immensely effective, because there’s nothing like making a good last impression.

Are there even more mistakes that sales associates make?

I wrote an article that will interest financial professionals in retail banking. After all, they’re also sales associates who make their own mistakes… Are you a store manager? Then you’ll have an idea of how I can coach your sales associates not to make mistakes that cost you performance points… And if you show this article to your sales associates who make some of the mistakes listed here, you’ll have done something great for them. To follow my advice will then be up to them. If I can help you and your team with some NLP coaching, let’s start a conversation.

The post Frequent Mistakes of Sales Associates at Premium Brands appeared first on nlp-life-coaching-2026.

A famous coach won’t give as good value

The reason is that, as in any field, people work hard up to the point when they become famous. When they’re famous,  they just ride on the big names for the rest of their careers. They work, but often to lower quality, because they trade on the fact that their names will sell even lower quality. People do it, companies do it. This happens in retail and everywhere we look. Sole traders who don’t have the name and smaller companies usually give a customer far better value because they know well that they compete with the big names. A famous coach will certainly give you the name, but not necessarily the quality for the big money s/he will charge.  An unknown coach will give you superior quality for far less. So which one’s a better deal?

Not every unknown coach will of course give superior quality. But when you find one carefully, you’ll get superior quality. Many coaches have become famous because of rich friends who helped them market themselves. Not because of the quality of their work or intelligence. There are superintelligent coaches who don’t have the rich friends to market them to fame. Bear this in mind.

Depth and personalization

An unknown life coach will usually also be far more thorough than a famous coach. Being thorough is important in coaching, because coaching is best when it’s deep, hence thorough. A famous coach won’t have time to pay you as much attention, because s/he will highly likely be a slave to a hectic schedule. The personal factor of a big name coach’s approach to you will also be lesser because a coach with a big name won’t have time to truly connect with you. The more famous the coach, the more s/he will likely work with groups rather than individuals. And this fact will also influence his/her depersonalized approach over time. In contrast, hire a coach who has no name and you’ll benefit from a much more thorough and personal approach to you as a coaching client.

Would you like to test this principle? Let’s have a conversation.

The post Why It’s Better to Hire an Unknown Coach Than a Famous Coach appeared first on nlp-life-coaching-2026.