When To Sell More Than Coaching

by Amanda Kaufman

If you’ve ever felt like the best-kept secret in your niche—like you’re sitting on a goldmine of knowledge and value but struggling to get the right people to notice—you’re not alone. In this episode of The Amanda Kaufman Show, I opened up about the messy, vulnerable, and deeply transformational journey from invisible expert to visible, trusted coach. Spoiler: it’s not just about coaching. It’s about so much more.

Let’s dive into why selling coaching alone isn’t enough—and what you should be offering instead.

The Pain of Starting Small

When I first stepped into entrepreneurship, I had a tiny list—eight names on a Post-it note, to be exact. That’s where it started. And while my heart was huge, my know-how about actually attracting clients was... well, nonexistent.

I had coaching certifications. I had experience. I had passion. But I didn’t yet understand the other crucial part of the business: marketing, visibility, and clear messaging. I was scared—of judgment, of messing up, of not measuring up to the successful version of me that had thrived in a corporate career. But the moment I began owning that fear, that’s when things started to change.

Why Clarity is Sexier Than Cleverness

One of the biggest shifts that helped me grow wasn’t some flashy strategy—it was getting radically clear. Clear on what I offer, who I serve, and what results I help create.

“Clarity is sexy,” I say this a lot, because it’s true. Being specific and consistent in your messaging is one of the most attractive things you can do in your business. People don’t buy coaching because it sounds clever. They buy because it’s clear how it solves a problem they care about.

Confusion never closes. A confused potential client isn’t going to say yes—they're going to scroll away.

You’re Not Selling Coaching. You’re Selling the Outcome.

Here’s one of my favorite metaphors: imagine you're selling vacations. You don't market the TSA line, the delays, or the cramped flight. You sell the white sand beach and the margarita with the little umbrella. Coaching is no different.

The process—hard conversations, emotional honesty, showing up even when it’s inconvenient—isn’t what people want to buy. What they want is the result: the freedom, the growth, the transformation. That’s what we need to lead with in our messaging.

Most coaches make the mistake of selling the coaching process too soon. Instead, focus on painting the picture of what life looks like on the other side of that transformation.

The Real Reason Your Messaging Isn’t Landing

Many experts are unknowingly marketing to themselves. You’re trying to convince your past self to buy. But here’s the issue: you may be talking to a version of you that wasn’t ready to invest, or worse, you're still in the thick of that same challenge.

It’s time to get honest about who your ideal client really is. It might not be the you from “five minutes ago.” It might be someone completely different from you—and that’s okay.

You don’t have to coach people who look like you, live like you, or think like you. You just need to solve a problem they care about in a way that makes sense to them.

Visibility Is a Skill—Not a Trait

You don’t need to be born extroverted to succeed at being visible. Trust me—I wasn’t. I grew up in a remote part of the world with limited connections and a whole lot of self-doubt.

But I showed up. Imperfectly. Consistently. And I learned something important: the people who get results in business aren’t always the most talented, but they are often the most visible.

Visibility is how people find you. It's how they learn to trust you. And trust is what makes someone pull out their wallet.

Stop Living Through Your Menu

There was a time I tried to be everything to everyone. High-performance coach. Business strategist. Messaging expert. Operations queen. And while it was all true, it was also confusing.

Your potential clients don’t want a menu. They want a story. They want to know you.

That shift—from “Here’s what I offer” to “Here’s who I am”—was massive. Once I allowed myself to be Amanda first, and a coach second, everything got easier. I could talk about any topic on my “menu,” because the message was grounded in who I am—not just what I sell.

You’re Not Just Building a Business. You’re Building a Relationship.

So why do I show up on podcasts, YouTube, social media—when I’m not directly selling? Because people buy from people they know, like, and trust.

Content isn’t just about selling. It’s about starting the relationship, deepening the connection, and creating trust. And the best sales don’t happen when someone meets you for the first time—they happen when they’ve been in your world long enough to believe in your value.

Final Thoughts: When to Sell More Than Coaching

Here’s the truth: selling “coaching” isn’t enough.

You need to sell the transformation, not the tool.
You need to sell clarity, not confusion.
You need to sell who you are, not just what you do.

And above all, you need to show up—not once or twice, but over and over again. Because the coaches who win aren’t just great at coaching. They’re also great at being seen.

Chapter List:

00:00 Unveiling Your Hidden Potential

02:30 The Journey of Becoming a Coach

05:25 The Importance of Messaging

08:04 Targeting the Right Audience

10:32 Crafting Clear and Compelling Messages

13:30 Selling the Outcome, Not the Process

15:58 Building Trust Through Content

Full Transcript:

Amanda Kaufman (00:00)

you're not gonna earn more income and you're not gonna have more options for your growth and your career and your trajectory if we don't master what it takes to be more visible and to be able to connect with people that not just want what you do but are wanting to pay you for it.

Well hey hey, Amanda here and welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman Show. And today I want to talk to you about revealing the secret of your secret awesomeness. So seriously, if you feel like you're a best kept secret, if you feel like you're somebody who has done all the nerding out, you've maybe written a book or you've written the manuscript for a book or several of them.

You've been journaling out the wazoo and you know that you can be monetizing your expertise. That's what I wanna talk to you about in today's show because the thing is is that when you start, it is so intimidating. You're standing at the foothills of this mountain and you're looking for what's the best pathway up this climb? And I hope to give that to you. When I started coaching, I really had the credentials and I really had this heart to serve.

In fact, I had been serving already through my corporate job and I loved coaching. It was one of the big reasons why I decided to pursue coaching and consulting as an entrepreneur. The thing is that I had zero clue about what it actually took to get clients and I had to learn the hard way. So by doing this video today, I really want to show you what matters and what really, really doesn't to getting the next client in the door.

Okay, so here's the thing. When I started, I had literally like eight names on a post-it. I have this little post-it with the number eight on there. It's just this reminder of like, Amanda, you started with very small list, very small list of people that I felt like I could be vulnerable enough with to let them know that I was even considering taking on the identity of being an entrepreneur and of being somebody else's coach.

And when I think about that, that humble start, was like scared, I was so scared of the judgment from other people. I was so scared of the failure of comparing my success as a coach to the relative success that I felt in my prior corporate career. And I think that that's one of the biggest reasons why I've turned around and helped hundreds of other coaches navigate this transition.

into growing an expert business because it's no joke. It's not for the faint of heart. One of the things I love working on with my clients right away is why. I have this little saying that I remind myself of all the time. It's we lose our way when we lose our why. I heard that from Michael Hyatt and it's his wife, Gail Hyatt, that says it. And I love it because when you go to do this thing, this becoming of a coach, you've gotta meet people consistently.

You've got to talk to them about things that they actually really care about and deepen the relationship together. And then you've got to invite the right people to fit with you. And just before I went live with this podcast episode, I looked down at my notifications and I made yet another sale. And I was like, huh, how about that? Another sale. And that's amazing. But I was also just reflective of like, when I started with that post-it list of eight, I wasn't getting automatic sales.

I wasn't getting people passively enrolling in my programs. No way, no, how were they doing that? And it was because I didn't know some of the things I'm gonna actually go through in this podcast with you. Before I go through what you need to do, I think the first thing is we do need to know why it's so important. The stakes are really high. If you can't figure out how to...

properly message what it is you do, be really clear about how you help, and to gain that visibility. You don't get to do this work. You just don't. And when I first started, I mean, like, I was not only working from a really tiny list, but I was super scared of being on camera. I was scared of saying the wrong thing, the dumb thing. I was scared of being judged. And it took a lot of personal growth and development and also just doing the thing a lot.

before I realized that I was taking myself far too seriously. And that even when I think I'm sounding kinda smart, to someone that doesn't really care for what I am talking about, they probably think I sound like a dumbass. And when I realized I could just kinda take things a little less seriously, while at the same time take things more seriously in the sense of like activating my necessity around showing up for you and.

and activating my necessity around telling my story. When I could really do that with more consistency, that's what helped really grow the visibility and deepen the relationship and the brand. So the thing is that I would never change anything because I decided that I wanted to help people be able to access more freedom.

in their lives, that's time freedom, financial freedom, freedom of association, freedom of contribution, freedom of geography. I wanted people to be able to exercise more choice in their life. And I realized that if I hadn't encountered all these constraints of being scared of being on camera, of being afraid of the technology, of being afraid of the rejection, being afraid of never reclaiming the level of success that I had previously, all that's...

I really feel like I went through it so that I can know it intimately so that when I got through it and I learned what to do differently to like change my results that it would be way more valuable. So maybe maybe that's why maybe that's why I did I wasn't born with the crazy extroverted gene or maybe that's why I was born in like a really remote part of the world with a limited network for my future success.

You know, like maybe that's why it all happened the way it did. I don't know. But I do know this, that you're not gonna earn more income and you're not gonna have more options for your growth and your career and your trajectory if we don't master what it takes to be more visible and to be able to connect with people that not just want what you do but are wanting to pay you for it.

And yeah, so let's unpack this, you know.

When I first started, I got not one but two coaching certifications, even though I'd already been literally getting paid to coach people in my job. And that I think came from a desire to have more credibility, to deepen my skill set, to feel really good about what I was selling. And the truth is that your skill as a coach is probably not the issue. And I can say that because I've worked with so many coaches and experts over the years.

Like genuinely, their coaching skills are pretty on point. Everybody has room for improvement, but I mean, it's pretty good. So what's the real issue? And it took me a long time to figure this out, but like the wrong message at the wrong time to the wrong person can just like completely flatline your business. You know, it can destroy the opportunity that you have because you said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. However, if your message is really clear,

and you say the right message to the right person at the right time, they will raise their hand because you're saying what they need to hear to be able to move forward in your process. And I know for me, I really struggled with worrying about saying the wrong thing and having it being taken out of context or accidentally saying something that was maybe unethical. I was really worried about the ethics of sales and marketing. And that's awesome. I think that's a good thing to think about.

explore some of that stuff, I really encourage you to go into ChatGPT and just like ask about what is compliant language, what's not compliant language, and to like have that deeper conversation around ethics and morality, but do not, do not prevent yourself from learning the skill set and the trade of marketing and sales. If you are not successful in gaining visibility appropriately with the right people,

And if you're not successful in having the right messaging appropriately with the right people, it's not even a question of ethics. It's a question of like, are you visible? Right? And are you visible in the right way? So why do we have such a challenge with building this messaging? You know, I think that one of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to the messaging is you're talking to yourself. And I'm laughing right now because I'm definitely looking into a selfie camera as I record this podcast.

But seriously, you're trying to convince yourself to buy as opposed to convincing another person to buy. And why is that so important? Well, because you, my dear, are a unicorn. You are unique. You've got your goals, you've got your challenges, you've got your way that you think about things. And if you're talking to a unicorn, you're unlikely to find the exact person that's just like you.

that you're gonna wanna market with. And I know this is so contrary to like a lot of marketing advice, but hey, if everybody did the average marketing advice and it worked, then everybody would be really successful, right? What I see when people take the advice of like, just talk to yourself of who you were five minutes ago. Most people choose the wrong five minutes, right? They choose like...

either the five minutes that you're actually in right now, which means that you don't have a lot of credibility or positioning to be able to teach from that because, let's be honest, you're still going through that, wrong five minutes. Or you chose the five minutes of you that was not ready to receive support. You weren't ready to hear that there was another way to do this. So you spent all your time endlessly convincing somebody to care about your message. And this is the number one issue, I think, with that.

with that advice of like coach who you were five minutes ago is you've got to actually pick the right you from five minutes ago and hold the possibility that you don't even want to coach you. Maybe that's not the best avatar or the best ideal client for you. And I've run into this a lot with coaches because very often you know that you've got like a big load of things that you're actually working on in your personal growth and development.

and you don't wanna coach around it because you feel like an imposter and you feel like you can't do it convincingly and you feel like you're a fraud the whole time. So you really have two options. You can either force that agenda or, or just an idea, you can end up coaching on something that you actually care about, right? That you're good at, that you're not struggling with pulling into your life and that might mean that you're coaching somebody who looks nothing like you.

or is very different from you. And like, that's cool. You know, I've coached a lot of guys, for example, and like men have a different lived experience than women generally. You know, I don't resonate with, I resonate with some things that a lot of my male clients go through, but certainly there's a lot of other things that I really just don't relate to. It's not my demographic, it's not my psychographic, and yet we work together really, really well. Why is that?

Because I'm actually solving a problem for them that they want solved in a manner they want solved and I'm right on time with it. So let's talk about how do you actually do this. So I think the first thing is write this down if you're listening or you can. Write the words be specific. Be specific. I think one of the reasons why most messaging just sucks

You know, it's like people feel a lot more permission to post nowadays and especially aided by AI. But if your AI is pretty terrible or it's not seasoned with really good stuff, you're going to end up with just like this vanilla boring stuff that is just like, looks like everybody else's stuff. It's a clone of a clone of a clone. It is just like the worst, right? And we do this because we're not being very specific, right? So.

Be specific about the goal that they're going to attain. I love this four-letter framework that I always teach is achieve, become, create, or do. know, so often experts get like really twisted up into this cleverness. Like they want to be so clever about what they communicate. And honestly, it's your specific clarity that is going to be the biggest differentiator in your marketing, cutting through all the noise because you're saying something that's consequential.

You're saying something that is specific and detailed. So like that's the first thing. The second thing is stop selling the coaching. So I really struggled with this one because I have like I said not one but two coaching certifications. I am proud of my coaching process. Thank you very much. However, no one cares. And the reason why is because they only care about the process when they are immersed in executing it. I'm gonna say that again.

a little loudly for the people in the back. They only care about the process when they're actually immersed in doing it. So I'm gonna give you a metaphorical example. Let's say that you sell vacations. You don't sell the part of the process where they're going through TSA and they're going through the waiting room in the airport and they're going through the hassle of getting on the plane and listening to the toddler scream and all of that painful stuff that we go through.

in order to get to the vacation destination with the white sandy beaches and the unlimited drinks. We sell the resort, we sell the vacation and how nice the destination is going to be. We sell how hard day to day life is and how much you deserve a vacation because after all how stressful is it? But we don't try to sell you on the flight. Nobody sells you on the flight because everybody knows the flight is kind of painful.

the process is somewhat painful, but it's a pain that people will endure happily if it means that, well, moderately happily, I mean, I've been on an airplane too, but generally they will tolerate the difficulty and the inconvenience of the process of flying to the destination if they are sufficiently sold on the quality of the destination and how worth it that's gonna be compared to their everyday lived life. So same thing with coaching. Coaching is actually kinda hard.

You know, as an experience. So, like, let's break this down. Coaching, goodness, you're gonna have to block out time. You're gonna have to ask hard questions. You're gonna have to tell the truth about where you really are or suffer the consequences of being not real about it and then therefore not getting as much as you want to out of the process to like that decision to be vulnerable. It's so difficult because you really have to embrace the shameful parts of your journey so far.

and your dissatisfaction. These are not good feelings, y'all. So we're not selling the idea that you have to block time out on your calendar, or the idea you have to spend a lot of money to retain the client. We don't have to sell that we talk about this session and this session and then this session. Instead, we wanna talk about, where are you today? And this place you wanna go, do you believe that the process is gonna help get you there?

But that's a verification after the clarity of what they care about with the before and the after. So don't sell the coaching, talk about the outcome, talk about where they are today, and then you can talk about the specifics during the sales call at the very end of the sales process. Okay, last couple of ideas. Clarity is so sexy. It's so attractive to be really clear about what it is

that you do how you help, who you help, when you help, the who, what, where, when, hows, when you get that clear and you stay on message repeatedly over time, you're gonna just find that people find your messaging more attractive. So if you can do that and really avoid confusion. So I messed this up so badly in my own brand for a long time, you know, because I was like,

I'm the coach that helps coaches to build a thriving coaching business. And then I was like, but I'm also like the high performance coach, you know? And also I help people with marketing, but also I help people with the back office and the operations. And also I help people with storytelling and messaging. And also, also, also, also, also. And when I was like all over the map with that messaging, people would hear me say I was one thing and then they'd hear that I was another thing. And then they would be like, well, what the hell is she?

know, confusion never closes, right? A confused mind doesn't buy. So I'm not saying that you've gotta like pick the super narrow lane of like, I do this. Instead, I think it's better to take a beat and instead of saying like, I am my menu of services, let them get to know who you are as a person. So when I kind of shifted it and I was like, okay, I am Amanda Kaufman and Amanda Kaufman is an entrepreneur

She's a coach, she's a mother, she is a wife, she is someone who cares about success in business, she believes in systems, she believes in time freedom, she believes in your ability to figure things out, she loves the power of knowledge. When I started to really like cultivate that, and it was more about getting to know Amanda with clarity and less living through my menu, it was such a...

transcendence because now I can actually talk about anything on the menu because the thing that I'm really talking about is more about me the human and how I'm moving through the world and I'm again not selling the coaching, not selling the menu, I'm actually selling the know, like and trust first. And then I use tools like webinars, like long form sales letters, like video sales letters.

to actually do the sales process. And of course, sales conversations with people that I'm talking more in a one-on-one capacity. But when it comes to the marketing, when it comes to the visibility part, you'll notice that I very rarely sell from the social platform, right? I reserve sales for the sales process where it's actually expected by my customers or more so expected by my customers. And so then you might be thinking, well, why the hell would you do

a podcast, why would you have a YouTube channel? Why would you go to all this friggin' work? And let me tell you why. I do this work because I know that good decisions sometimes take time, and I also know that the best sales are going to occur with people who trust me. And if I'm somebody who's just like, hi, nice to meet you, give me a credit card, like every single time you encounter me on social media,

And by the way, if you're new to me on social media, and the first thing you see is me, hi, nice to meet you, here's, know, can I get your credit card? And I'm not adding value on a really high frequency basis. That's gonna cause a lot of people to just like keep on trucking. Because people buy from people they like, people buy from people that they trust, people buy from people that they know they can be in a longer term connected.

relationship with and so yeah, the content is a way to start the relationship, to deepen the relationship, to nurture the relationship. It's not necessarily the place that I sell because the sales are typically gonna happen, like I said, in one of those sales venues, I guess you could say, rather than just like every time I open my mouth. So there it is. I hope you found this.

episode to be really helpful. I had a lot of fun putting it together for you. Don't forget to subscribe so you can hear more and also leave a review. If this was actually genuinely helpful, go ahead and tell us in the review section because it'll help people to choose this when they're scrolling and they are looking for the next thing that they want to listen to. And in fact, if you've got a few friends that would really have benefited from hearing what I had to share with you today, go ahead and grab the link and go ahead and share it with them. Excuse me.

You can send it through text, can send it through DM. And in the show notes below, I will share with you my book, Coaching Leads Made Easy. All right, this is it right here. Coaching Leads Made Easy, the digital version. You can get that for just $4.95. If it speaks to you, it comes with a lot of amazing, amazing bonuses. And I'll also include a link to my Clients Over Chaos community, which is absolutely free. It includes a five video challenge.

that takes less than an hour to complete and it is awesome. Like I've gotten such tremendous feedback from that. If you're looking to deepen your learning, I would recommend that you go do those two things and until I see you the next time, do what matters.