Why Most Coaches Struggle to Get Sales from Email (And How to Fix It)

What if you could transform your email marketing strategy and finally see it convert into real sales? Join me, Gary Redmond, as we tackle the common pitfalls faced by online coaches in their email campaigns.

We'll uncover why many fail to make sales, and I'll share invaluable insights on how to revamp your approach. In this episode of "Unbox the Inbox," we explore the art of balancing the 'what' with the 'why,' increasing your offers, and forging an emotional connection with your audience. By the end, you'll have practical, actionable strategies to turn your emails into a powerful sales tool.

Through relatable examples, I demonstrate how to shift from information overload to crafting insight-driven content that resonates with your audience. Discover the secrets to nurturing curiosity and fostering genuine connections, whether you're guiding clients toward healthier lifestyles or innovative business mindsets.

This journey goes beyond just selling; it’s about reshaping perceptions and encouraging potential clients to take the next step with you. If you're ready to make your emails more impactful, then this episode is a must-listen.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to Unbox the Inbox with me, your host, gary Redmond. On this podcast, you'll learn how to grow your online business using the power of free and mostly automated email marketing, and we'll hopefully have some fun doing it too. I'm a co-founder of BusterBoxcom and also a mentor and coach, helping founders like me and you create their dream life through their online business. Okay, so the topic of today's podcast is going to be why most coaches struggle to get sales from email and how you can fix it. So I mean, if you're sending out emails and you're not getting sales, I want you to know first. First of all is that you're not alone. Okay, a lot of online business owners, coaches, whatever industry you're in struggle with with actually sending emails that generate sales, but the good news is it's fixable. So, if you have an email list that no one buys from, or your open rates are okay, your sales are dead or you even don't know what to write, and by the end of this episode, you know exactly why your emails aren't making sales and the simple shifts that you can do to fix it. So the three biggest reasons you don't make sales from your emails. Number one if you're a coach, you're probably giving too much what and not enough why. The second reason is you're probably not making enough offers. And and the third is that your emails lack emotion and connection. Okay, so we're going to break these down one by one. So the first one you're giving too much what and not enough why. So over-teaching in emails generally leads to information overload and not sales. Okay, if you give someone you know a 10-step framework that they have to do in order to achieve a specific result, like, a lot of people will read that and say you know, thanks, that's, that's helpful. But the chances of them, you know, printing your email and living, living like using that information and actually implementing any of it are pretty low. So what happens is they read your email and they kind of say to themselves thanks for that, and then they go on about their their day. So that doesn't lead to sales, because you've essentially given someone the answer and it's usually because most things are not solvable in one email, especially if it's to do with whatever you're. You're you're coaching people about, you're helping people with, and while these emails seem like you're addressing a problem, it doesn't naturally naturally lead for someone to take the next step, which is to say book a call with you or become a client. So what I like to do is shift to more insight-driven emails, and that's kind of showing people where to look for a specific problem in their business and not what to do to fix it. So here's an example Instead of saying like, okay, these are the five things you must do in order to lose five kilos this month, you could switch that and say in my experience, people struggle with losing weight when they think of it as a short-term diet and not as a long-term lifestyle change.

Speaker 1: 2:32

When you start to think of your food as your nutrition for the body that you want to have, it becomes easier to stick to your diet, instead of thinking that you're missing out on something that basically shows that you have. It shows you're competent and it's also an insight into a common problem that people have and that they maybe hate dieting or they struggle to stick to their calorie intake. And you're basically saying the reason why this is possibly happening to you is because you're stuck in a short-term mindset and you're not thinking about it as a lifestyle change. You're thinking about it as, oh, I'm on a diet and then it's like oh, okay, like you didn't tell me, these are the five things I need to lose weight. You've shifted my perspective from you know. Okay, maybe I'm thinking about this wrong. Maybe this coach can actually help me. He knows the, he knows this insight, maybe he has more, and that naturally leads people to be curious about what else you can help them with.

Speaker 1: 3:27

The second example is these are the 10 steps you must take correctly to hit 10K a month in sales. If you're a business coach, you could say most coaches struggle with generating sales because they don't have a system in place. A simple way to fix that is to incorporate email as well as social media, because then you're going to have two sales channels instead of one, and that gives you twice as many chances to sell to someone. This means that you could double your sales simply by cross-posting or repurposing your emails for social media or your social media content to your emails. So again, you're not saying you know, the first thing you need to do is you know this, this, this and this to hit 10k a month. It's basically saying you may be having a problem, um, or you might have, like, something you're not utilizing correctly and this is the way to solve that problem. Okay, with insight. Okay, so you know, in my experience, people who who hit 10k months have mastered at least two sales channels. That's kind of what we're saying here. So if, if you, if a person is reading this and they spend all their time posting on social media and recording reels that they hate, then telling them that you know, without you know, poking them or giving them a list of things to do, you're saying, if you're not hitting any of the sales results that you want to get, this could be a solution, okay. So one approach is giving the answer and the other one is showing that you have it. Okay, and it shifts perspectives rather than giving them something to do, which they usually won't. That's what I'm trying to get at here, okay.

Speaker 1: 4:51

The second thing is you're not, you're just not making enough offers. Okay. So a lot of people particularly coaches or people that are content creators or who are delivering quote unquote value to their audience which is totally fine they only pitch when they either have a product they're trying to launch or when they really need to sell. Okay, this conditions their audience not to expect offers, and so they get afraid when it comes time to ask for the sale from their email list. Okay.

Speaker 1: 5:19

So what you should do is you should normalize making offers by including them naturally in every email. So these can be soft, soft call to actions, pss, casual mentions of other ways that you can. They can get more help from you or take the next step. So, like when you pitch your offer as a natural next step to take, after someone reads your email, it becomes more natural for you to write. And also, it's not a, it's not a big break from someone. Like, if someone wants to take the next step, they can take the next step. If they don't, they just simply don't click on the email, click on the link at the bottom of the email or the reply or whatever call to action you have. So, um, the way to do it, as I said, is to, when you tell your story or you give your insight, you can essentially say if you want more help with this. This is how I can help you.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Okay, so it doesn't have to be. Of course you can send. You know if you're doing something like a launch, you're going to be sending a lot more. You know promotional style emails and but you know in your day-to-day emails, just because you're not in a launch phase or you're not sort of actively promoting something doesn't mean you can't give people you know be doing people a disservice if you didn't say something, like you know if this insight was helpful for you or if this email resonated with you and feel free to you know, reply and we can talk about working together. Or click on this link and book a call with me. Not a lot of people, not everyone, will do it, but you're getting into the habit of giving people offers with your emails. It doesn't have to be promotional, as I said. It's just about making sure that each offer actually has an opportunity for you to make money, and usually you'll make more money.

Speaker 1: 6:53

The third thing the reasons why your emails. The third reason why your emails are probably not getting you sales is because if you're being too boring or robotic or professional, it usually doesn't resonate with your audience and doesn't sell okay. So, similarly, when I talked earlier about giving insights, the best way to actually give these insights is to tell stories, okay. So if you can tell small, relatable stories that build connection and trust, you're going to be much more likely to actually get better engagement from your email list. So what do I mean? So let's say we wanted it.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Going back to the going back to the example earlier on from someone who wants to lose five kilos. You know, you can say I recently had a client who was struggling to stick with her diet okay, and having to chat with her for a while, I diagnosed the reason why um was because she was taking a short-term view of her, of her, of her, of her health okay and of her, of her transformation that she wants to achieve. So, in my my experience, and back to the same insight, in my experience, people who struggle with losing weight or sticking to the diet are having a short-term mindset and thinking about themselves as dieting, and that's something that usually ends, whereas if you shift your perspective to think that you're just eating this way and this is your nutrition to fuel your new lifestyle, then that's a more sustainable way to stick to your diet. So you're taking the same insight, but you're framing it in a story which is again relatable to what the person reading the email might be struggling with or going through. Similarly, you can use your own example. For example, I remember when I struggled to get sales as a coach, I focused so much on social media I totally neglected my list. Then I realized that having two sales channels instead of one meant I could, I had twice as much chances to make sales, and I figured out email is actually even more effective. So when I focused on email as much as, if not more than, social media, I finally hit 10k a month. Okay, so it's the same insight, it's just written into a story which is again easily digested by your audience and doesn't come across as promotional, okay, so let me just try and put this together into sort of a formula that you can use for your emails. Okay.

Speaker 1: 9:04

So, number one the first step is to always try and start with a hook and try and actually grab people's attention. So your subject line should also induce curiosity. Ask a question, open a loop, have some sort of story within a story, if you can in your subject lines and something that's going to spark curiosity and get people to click, okay, some sort of pattern. Interrupt, okay. Then when you've opened your email, when they've opened your email, when you're creating your email, you want to have a story which teaches them why this insight matters to them. Okay, and then when you do this, this naturally creates a gap.

Speaker 1: 9:39

So, as I explained again, if I say, this is what I figured out when I struggled to get to 10K a month. This is how I solved this problem. This naturally creates a gap. Oh, I want this result. I want to do that. That makes sense to me. I want to get that result that you struggled to get and now achieved.

Speaker 1: 9:58

And that's where, on the third step, after you make a hook and you tell a story, you want to transition to your offer, you simply a great line is if you want help with this, here's how we can work together, and then you can have a call to action to reply, click a link or whatever it is. Okay. So, like that's the formula to take your emails from emails that don't sell to emails that actually get engagement and sales. Okay, so, um, I just have an idea here for some, for some quick wins. Okay, um, if that all makes sense, I want you to do a couple of things for me this week. Okay, go over your last five emails and just double check if you made an offer in all of them, okay. If not, that could be a reason why your emails are not getting sales. Okay, um. The second one is are your emails giving value or are they giving insights? Okay, and, like I said, it's not a problem to give value. I suppose it's just more of framing it in a way that doesn't give people a list of things to do but tries to shift their perspective. Okay, and the other thing you can do is you can have a look at your subject lines and see if they sparked enough curiosity over the last week or so and going forward.

Speaker 1: 11:06

If you're not emailing enough which I mentioned in the last episode and make sure you're writing at least three emails per week, or four or five, like ideally the cadence you should aim for is daily, because people just don't open. The majority most, the majority of your list won't open your emails. Like, like, if you're getting a 30% open rate, it's quite good. So the more you make offers and the more you send, the more you'll sell. So that's pretty much it for this week's episode. If you're over-teaching, under-selling or not connecting with people, that's usually the reasons why you're not making sales from your emails. So for you at Action Step this week, along with my tips that I gave you, is to write your next email using the formula Okay, so start with a hook, tell a story and transition naturally to your offer and see what happens. Okay, so yeah, if anybody has any more questions or would like to get in touch with me, you can email me at gary at garyrebmannet, and I hope this episode was helpful, and it was helpful. I'll see you next week.