In this decisive episode, Chris Marr, Founder of The Authoritative Coach, shares strategies to boost confidence and authority as a coach. If you struggle with self-doubt or people-pleasing, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– How to cultivate an abundance mindset to reduce desperation
– How to see yourself as the prize to attract better clients
– Why embracing your unique perspective builds stronger connections
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder. And there is one, I would say, very, very big challenge that almost every founder who’s a service provider, a coach, a creative or we all have to face this, and it is that to sell your service is, to some extent, to sell you, and to be able to do that well, to sell more of your services, to make the impact that you got into the game, to make you have to be able to believe and act like you believe that you are the best thing for them. And that’s a lot easier said than done, especially at the beginning of the process, because you’re going to hear more nos and more not yets in the first couple years of your business than most people would in a couple lifetimes. And so here to help us establish the right mindset for our success and the success of our clients, because these go hand in hand is Chris Marr. Now, Chris is the founder of the authoritative coach. He’s also the author of Become an authoritative coach, stop people pleasing, challenge your clients and be indispensable. With over 15 years of experience, Chris has helped client facing professionals worldwide from small businesses to enterprises with nine figure revenues to build stronger client relationships, navigate challenging conversations and position themselves as indispensable experts. He created the people pleasers path to authority assessment, a tool that helps professionals identify and break habits holding them back. And he’s here with us today. Chris, thanks so much for being here. So excited to have you on the show. Loved the book. There’s a couple points in here I want to unpack. In particular, one of the hardest lessons I learned, but biggest revelations that I gained, was something that you call the prize, and being the prize, and I’m just going to I’m going to leave it that, I’m going to open it up, and what is the prize, and why does it matter for a coach on their way to becoming an authoritative coach?
Chris Marr
Yeah, great question. I don’t think I’ve covered this in detail when I’ve talked to people before, so thanks for having me and thanks for asking that question. This idea, I think the best way to think about it the visual representation of this. There’s many points, but visually, think about this idea that the grass is greener on the other side. I think every one’s heard that phrase before, and I use it, I use it in the book to describe this idea that like, if your clients feel like, if your prospects and your clients feel like they can own you too easily, then they take you for granted. And so this idea is like, you’re the greener grass, and you don’t want to let them feel like they own you, or can get a hold of you really easily, just because they can pay the money, or they can say, Hey, Scott, like you like I’m going to pay you money and you’re going to do this thing for me. And what we’re saying is, what we want to do is introduce like, an element of like, the chase in this relationship, so that the client actually has to work a little bit harder to get you and therefore actually appreciate you, and they don’t take you for granted. So there’s this idea of like, respect and control and influence in here. I think there’s many points we’ll make today. I think that’ll make this sounds palatable, or like there might be people pushing back on this idea already, that we’re trying to be rude to people, or we’re trying to deliberately aggravate people or frustrate people in the sales process. But I think you can look at anything in life where someone has been given something without having to work for it, and they don’t treat it well, like you get a company car you don’t look after it. You know, you know, you get things that are given to you, and you don’t look after them. I think this is when I think about the prize. I think about making this idea that your prospects have to work to achieve, to get the prize, there’s something that they have to do. The other way to think about this, this other, the other visual representation here is like, America’s Got Talent, or Britain’s Got Talent, or this X Factor where people have to audition to be a part of your program. And so the mindset shift here, in the way that you approach your whole sales process, and ultimately, your actual all your work entirely, is that if you were a prospect of mine, Scott, I would be asking you questions and getting you to convince me why I should work with you and not spend my time just vomiting on you about why you should work with me. Yeah, right. And so there’s this idea, there’s this like concept, or this idea in your mind that there’s a gap there, and you want the prospect to work, to achieve, to prove to you, to audition for you, that they’re going to be a good fit for you. That’s, that’s the concept. I hope that sort of creates a picture, at least.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s, it’s huge, and as you’re saying it, you’re feeling it as you’re saying it. I’m feeling it as you’re saying it. Other people are feeling like, that’s not like, that’s not the good I’ll say it this way. It’s not the good Christian. Thing to do. We’re a bunch of folks in Canada. It’s not the good Canadian thing to do, right? There’s folks listening from Australia. It’s not the good Australian thing to do. Like, yeah, it’s a little more palatable here in the US, because we like to think too highly of ourselves and Bs our way through. But even here in the US, there’s this sense of like, that’s arrogant. Like, okay, that that’s, you know, we run into tall poppy syndrome. You know what I mean? Like, there’s this sense of, if I think too highly of myself, that that’s, and it’s rude, it’s, it’s arrogant, it’s, I’m gonna be let down. I’m gonna let people down. What would you say to someone that’s feeling those negative feelings as they’re listening to this saying, like, I don’t I don’t know that I see myself as the prize. I don’t even know that I want to see myself as the prize. What’s the cost of that?
Chris Marr
Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of flurry of thoughts here. So let’s see if we can get our arms around this. This idea, number one is fit, right? You? If you’re a consultant or a coach like we are. You might have a small team, but generally speaking, you just cannot take on every single client. We all know and have felt and experienced, the bad fit clients, the resentment, the challenge, like we don’t want that. So you can’t work with anybody, everybody anyway, and you don’t necessarily want to work with everybody either. So you can and you don’t, and you shouldn’t. Okay, so this idea is, like the first thing is, is, let’s you’ve got to play this role of discovering fit, and ultimately, in the relationship between you and the prospect. You’re the expert understanding what it takes to be successful in the work that we’re about to do. How could the client possibly know that? How could the prospect know that. So your job is really, you’ve got to uncover fit, the red flags, the green flags, the things that tell you they’re going to be a good fit, things that tell you they’re going to be a bad fit or there’s going to be problems. So I think the first thing is, is like, you need to figure out if the relationship’s going to take hold there from the very start. And secondly, the prospect does, like, I’ve seen this in sales calls with with coaches and consultants before they’ll be like, Yeah, this is and just so you know, it’s not going to feel like it’s not going to look like this when we work together, Scott, and you’re like, they should already have a sense and a feeling about what it’s going to feel like to work with you. You shouldn’t have to tell them they should already feel it. And so I think that part of this is about you being able to show the type of coach or consultant that you are actually from the very beginning, and to make sure that the client gets a real sense of that so fit and relationship and what is going to look like to work together. I think this idea of arrogance, though, is like this is what the way I think about arrogance is that the ego is overpowering here that you’ve got high level of confidence, but it’s sitting in your ego. In other words, I I, I am, I know what to do, and I’m always right. That’s kind of arrogance and ego. But I think those that are quietly confident in their skill set can be confident and competent without the ego, and they can say, I believe in myself, and I know what to do, and I know I can help you. And I think there’s just a fine, like you said, there’s a fine line between arrogance and confidence, and I think we want to be able to feel like we’re confident in what we know and how we can help, and we that we value ourselves. So there’s a bit of an internal game to play here. And I’ll say, like, one last thing here is, like, this idea that there’s you, if you’re not convicted and committed to your frameworks or your program or the solution that you prefer, what is, how could you expect a prospect to be like you’re they can only meet you. They can never be more confident than you are. Right? So if you’re like, if you’re if, in other words, your prospects don’t want to come and meet you to figure out if you’ve got a great solution for you for and then leave feeling more doubtful about it, right? And so your commitment and your conviction to your ideas has to be paramount. Has to be at 100% Yeah, if you want to convince other people and help other people feel because they want to feel confident when they want to come to work with you as well. So, and I’ve learned this myself, it’s like watching people who are so committed to their ideas, and watching how inspiring it is to want to then be a part of that. Yes, very cool, right? That is so awesome to see. And so it is about prizing yourself and valuing yourself. So those are the types of things I think about this idea. And I think there’s one final thing, which is like this. I call it the willing to walk away principle, like, who’s got the leverage here, right? If you’re an expert or a consultant, literally, the only card you have to play is your expertise. I’m either going to give it to you, or I’m going to take it away, and you don’t have much leverage, so if you are desperate to make the sale, or you have to close this account and get that money, and the client’s got more leverage than you, and you don’t have any power in that, in that frame at all. And I think that’s a problem, because then they become desperate, people pleasing, and we start discount ourselves. Services, and then we start to kind of chip away at our authority and our confidence as well. So there was a flurry of thoughts. But those are the kind of things that kind of there’s not, it’s not just one thing, is it? It’s kind of that’s all in there. It’s all in this idea of like mindset, how you turn up, how you’re perceived by the other all comes through these, the way you think, the way you behave, the questions you ask, how yes or not, you know, those are the things I think about a lot Scott.
Scott Ritzheimer
So there’s I would go so far as to call it a dirty little secret in the coaching world, and that is that the more you pay for coaching, the more you get out of it. And it’s another version of this exact same thing that we’re talking about, because if in a sales process, I can create so much confidence that someone is willing to pay $10,000 and someone else comes along and they’re only they only create enough confidence that the prospect is going to pay $1,000 right? It might be the exact same service. You might walk them through the exact same process, but the more folks pay, the more they commit, the more they drive after it, and the more results they get. And so a big part of that, let’s take the money side out of it for a second and go back to this point that you made about the internal game and how so someone’s listening to that they’re bought in. Shoot, that’s what I did wrong. But I’ve got bills to pay. I am desperate. I do need the next one. I’ve heard a lot of people say no to me. I’m questioning myself. How do we turn that cycle around and and even before we have all of the quote, unquote leverage, right before we have the full schedule and we can easily say no, what would your advice be to someone in that moment who’s just trying to kick start this cycle and get it turned in the right direction.
Chris Marr
Yeah, And I get that, like, I don’t want to just wash over that, like, this is easy, right? It’s not. You’re gonna have a lot of conflict in yourself. Number one is, the initial thing comes to me is, like, you’ve, if you’re a solo especially, you need to do things that help you feel more confident, right? So what are if you’re sitting there and you’re like, what’s one thing you could do today that would help you feel more confident about what you’ve got to offer the world? Right? So that could be a conversation. You could write an article. There’s lots of things you can do. In other words, vote for yourself, like what you look like, to get behind your own ideas. Start conversations with people, go meet someone for coffee and share your ideas with them, see if they are influenced by them in some way. And so I think there’s like, a small I think it’s like just this idea that you need to be the one that engineers your own confidence right? So there’s just, like, lean into that and move yourself towards it. And sometimes we need someone from the outside to help us with that. That’s part of our job, I would say this, though, and this is the bigger idea that might feel a bit like you can’t get your arms around it. There’s an inverse relationship where there’s an inverse idea here, which is that the more desperate you are to close the deal, the more likely it is to slip away, and the more you prize yourself, the clients actually drawn towards you. And it’s like, there’s you feel like you want to make a discount so you get the client because you need the money. And it’s actually that’s the reason why they won’t pay you any money. It’s the reason why they ghost you after the sale. And the truth is, is like, if you you’ve got to get it’s that inverse relationship. It’s like you have to do the work you feel really uncomfortable about. You have to be willing to walk away for the client, to feel like they want to come into your world. And it’s Yeah, and I know that that’s like a conceptually maybe quite difficult to get your head around, but that’s certainly what I’ve seen in the past, is like you have to track they have to want to come into your world, and they’re not going to come into your world if they don’t feel calm. If they don’t feel confident about the arrangement or the or the way that you’re coming across, so.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that, and I want to draw out something that I think is really important in that point. And one is, you said, be more confident. That is not be more competent. Because here’s what I see a lot of coaches do, they feel that pain, and they go get another certification, right? Or they go study another article. And what I found is that actually makes it worse, because the more you know, the more you know you don’t know, and the less confident you feel in the short run. So okay, right? I’d be interested to see if you see that as well, but I think confident is absolutely the right word Do what makes you feel more confident, not what makes you feel more competent? Would you agree?
Chris Marr
I do agree with what you’re saying in this moment. Yes, I do think that more confidence comes through an increase in competence. Right? What I think the nuance here is like, how do you become more competent? And I would argue that sometimes it’s education. But for most people, the gap is, they feel like an imposter, right? There’s this imposter syndrome gap, but what they need to do is they just need to have more conversations. They need to take what they already know and get the. Actual reps in. So it’s less about reading another book, doing another course, and it’s actually about doing the work that you actually need to do. So it’s taken action. So I Yes, that’s where 100% says they are. Yes, reps,
Scott Ritzheimer
100% it’s pick up the phone and make the next call. There’s right, there’s and I think to take that one step further. And I loved, I think this is what you’re saying. Is one of the things that you can do to feel the most confident and least desperate on a sales call is to have another sales call waiting for you. Okay, yeah, right. So if you only have one, and you have to sell that one, otherwise you don’t eat next week, right? Just being a little extreme, but you’re going to be desperate to close it. You’re going to do anything that you can. And in a coach, there’s nothing more put that puts you off further than a desperate coach. It’s the worst way to sell but if you have another sales call and another sales call and another sales call, one of them is going to land, right? And I think, to me, that’s, that’s probably the thing that we could do to Kickstarter confidence the most.
Chris Marr
Yeah, I think this is, can be anything. So there’s two things I would say here. One is, like, even if you don’t have another sales card lined up, you have to believe there is another one coming. Yes, like, yeah, that’s like, what we’d call, like, an mindset, right? There’s just this belief that the future is going to be better than your past, that your best work is actually ahead of you and not behind you. And those are the types I think about these things all the time, because I’m just like everybody else. I go into dips and I come out and, you know, it’s all of this stuff. So I think just your self belief matters so much when you’re building your own thing that you believe that it’s possible for you to build something on your own terms. It’s possible for you to get better clients in the future. It’s possible that you’re gonna be able to make more money in the future, that you’re not going to like, I think, if you think about it, like from a logic perspective, if you’re in your mid 40s, like I am, it’s like, am I going to be unemployed for the rest of my life? No, of course, I’m not going to be I’m going to get work. You know, it’s going to happen. So, you know, I think having that abundance mindset is really important. I would say this as well, even if you don’t have those sales calls, and that doesn’t mean you cannot have sales conversations with people. You need to just get into the DMS on LinkedIn. You need to message people on Instagram. You need to go meet people for coffee, find excuses to talk to people and figure out what their problems are and see if there’s something you can do to work together. And a simple phrase I use sometimes is like, what would it look like if you and I were to work on that together? Yeah, just, just get yourself into those conversations. So we’re back to this idea of voting for yourself, right? Getting yourself into a place where it’s possible.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Oh so good, Chris. I’ve got one more question for you here, and then I want to make sure folks know how they can get a copy of your book and get in touch with you. So before we get there, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Chris Marr
Yeah, you’ve got so this might sound a little like a platitude, but you’ve got to believe in the way that you think and see the world. I think a lot of people think they have to be like a certain person or a certain way or a certain type of professional but the way that you see a problem, or the way that you think through a solution for a client, the way your brain works, the way you see it. That’s your unique value that you bring. And so I would say to people, just embrace the way that you think and see problems and solutions and don’t filter it. That is what’s going to attract the right people to want to work with you. That’s what I found for me. And I think it’s I don’t I don’t know that anybody really talks about it, and I think it comes back to just being you, like, 100% through that’s what you bring. And if I’m too loud and I’m too fast and it’s too much, then you’re not for me. And that’s cool, because there’s people that actually want that, you know. So I think trying to be your very like, who you are, is really critical and really key to getting the right people to work with you.
Scott Ritzheimer
So good, so cool, Chris. There’s folks listening to this. They want to get a copy of the book. They want to find out how they can work with you, or just learn more. Where can they do that?
Chris Marr
Yeah, so the authoritativecoach.com you get the book there, and a few other bits and pieces. You’ll fail to scroll around on the website. And then I think the best place for people to come and interact with me is Instagram, @theauthoritativecoach, and you’ll get all my reels and videos. You can even DM me there if you want to talk about something that you see there. So I’m pretty accessible on Instagram.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic. The name of that book, again, is become an authoritative coach. Stop people pleasing, challenge your clients and be indispensable. And I having read it, even if you’re not a coach, but you find yourself struggling with anything that we talked about here today, the mindset stuff in there, just practical steps are going to help a ton of people. I highly recommend it. Chris, thanks for being on the show. It was a privilege and honor having you. Here today, for those of you, yes, for those of you, watching, listening, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Chris Marr
Chris Marr is the founder of The Authoritative Coach and author of Become an Authoritative Coach: Stop People-Pleasing, Challenge Your Clients, and Be Indispensable. With over 15 years of experience, Chris has helped client-facing professionals worldwide—from small businesses to enterprises with nine-figure revenues—build stronger client relationships, navigate challenging conversations, and position themselves as indispensable experts. He created the People Pleaser’s Path to Authority assessment, a tool that helps professionals identify and break habits holding them back.
Want to learn more about Chris Marr’s work at The Authoritative Coach? Check out his website at https://www.theauthoritativecoach.com/, connect with him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theauthoritativecoach/, and get a copy of his book: Become an Authoritative Coach: Stop People-Pleasing, Challenge Your Clients, and Be Indispensable.