You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 181.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove Podcast, your calm space for practical help to get your dream business up and running while being authentically you and taking care of your mental health. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you're here!

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Hi My Strong Friends. 

 

Hey, Happy November. I am so incredibly grateful to all of you. 

 

You've been listening for a while now we're starting to come up close on four years of this podcast, can't believe it's been that long. Thank you for everybody who has been along for this whole journey. And thank you to those that have just recently discovered this podcast and you've started to binge listen to all the episodes. I'm able to look at the metrics. I can see when that's happening. It's pretty exciting. 

 

I want to express my gratitude to all of you by giving you a special gift this month. I am going to create four episodes for you that are going to show you the magic of the clarity steps. And how you'll be able to use that one, simple seven step process for

• creating your results for your clients
• creating your products and services
• doing consultation calls 
• selling your products and services with your sales funnels

 

Even better, you're going to optimize your revenue with this, all of that from this same exact seven step process. 

 

That's why I stress the Clarity Steps so much to everybody is because the process is applicable to many different ways of doing your business. 

 

So this week, we're going to talk about how to get your clients results. Now, I was inspired by doing this one because I'm in a very special coaching group that I absolutely love. We all went through the same life coach certification program. And we had these amazing tools, we've all learned these great, amazing tools, we can help so many people. 

 

The problem though, is that we were just given a whole bunch of tools and not necessarily the project plan for how to help someone get from point A to point B. So basically, how do you help someone to actually get results? 

 

Well, I used to be a project planner. So I luckily already have that ability. But not everybody had that experience. I also was a Kaizen trainer and a Kaizen facilitator. So what a Kaizen is, it's a Japanese word that means change for the better. 

 

Basically, we would hear all of the pain points of all of the people that had something going on, they usually it was in a work setting, but it can apply in personal settings too. You find out all of their pain points, and then you map out with their current processes. And then you find out what they would like their process to actually be like the happy path. You see what the difference is between the two. And then you come up with a project plan for all of the different improvements that you can do so that they can get to that ‘after’ state that they want. 

 

 A QUICK OVERVIEW OF THE ‘SECRET SAUCE’

 

The Clarity Steps are your way of having a systematic approach to doing that. It becomes the framework for any project plan that you want to create for your clients. 

 

So in the beginning, of course, you're hearing all of their pain points. But you need to have some kind of a structured way of putting it all together so that you know:

 

How can you actually get them results? 

 

For anyone that's not familiar with the Clarity Steps yet, I'm about to tell you those seven steps and then we'll go into details on how you can use these to get your clients results. 

 

You can also head over to my website and download the free guide, which is How to Achieve Any Goal without jeopardizing your mental health. That's gonna still give you the seven steps. You can look at that PDF either from your own vantage point of getting your own results, or you can use that for how to get your clients results. 

 

Okay, the seven steps:

1.  Vision-What do they want for the after? What's their goal? What's their dream? What's all the feelings that they would have once they achieve that vision? 
2.  Metrics-So how will you measure progress towards achieving that vision?
3.  Customizable steps 
4.  Obstacles- Identify what are all of the obstacles that get in the way of just that one step. 
5.  Experiments-Do a structured experiment that's measurable with defined requirements so that you can come up with a solution that works for you. 

Or it works for them, since it's for your clients. Knowing that experiment language is going to be really helpful because we don't always find the exact solution the very first time. We have to be willing to experiment and learn to find out what works for that person. 

6.  Lessons Learned-Find out what parts of it worked, what parts didn't work. And is that the final solution? Or do they need to do it again, but now they're going to try something a little different? Then we're going to think about, What would they do differently for that next experiment? 
7.   Celebrate the wins-It's so important to celebrate all of the micro wins along the way, instead of just waiting for the very last one, because we need to keep motivation up and going. 

 

GATHER SOME DATA

So how can you use this to help you get your clients their results? So one thing to consider is having some type of a record keeping system, because as you're hearing about writing down different obstacles and doing experiments, you're going to need to have a way of knowing what all of those obstacles are and a record keeping system for the different experiments. You can check in to see how things are going. And you're definitely going to want to have some way of tracking those metrics. 

 

Now, it doesn't have to be perfect, but you have to have an idea of how much progress they have made. Because if you're partway through your service package, and they don't have any results, you might need to do a little course correcting in how you're providing that product or that service. 

 

The very first thing that you want to do after, of course, you have all of your tracking mechanisms ready to go is when you're first meeting with your client, that very first session, you're going to spend a lot of time listening to what their pain points are, what's going on in their life, what's that impact, because that's going to be some of those preliminary obstacles and a bunch of those you're going to have to use as you're coming up with what those structured steps are going to be and what sequence so you need kind of that pre work data of what's everything that they have going on. 

 

WALK THROUGH AN IDEAL DAY

 

Once you've listened to all of that, now you get to start helping them figure out what's the vision that they actually do want. And so it's very important that you're using affirmative language because we want to use the law of attraction, and talk about what they actually do want, not what they don't want. 

 

Because if they say, I don't want this, and I don't want that, and I don't want this, they're actually going to get those things. It's just how it works. Because that's what they're focused on, is I don't want this, I don't want this, I don't want this, which creates that desire and attraction for those things they don't want. 

 

Make sure to do it in the affirmative. Take them through exactly what a day in-the-life would look like once they're there. Once they've already achieved that goal, the more detailed you can get, the better because having something squishy like I just want to feel better is not going to do it. 

 

We have to think what does that whole day look like when someone is feeling better? How is it that they're interacting with other people? And don't have it be something so big like I interact with people. Well, what exactly does that look like? The more detailed the better. 

 

Now, once you have that vision, I want you to look at it kind of line by line or maybe even item by item that's in there and ask yourself, What's a way to measure the progress towards that? Sometimes it might be a squishy thing like maybe they did not want to have stress, they want to reduce the stress. So now they actually in their vision are saying I want to have a peaceful existence. 

 

Okay, so It's gonna be helpful to measure how much of their time is peaceful. Also, you may want to measure how much of their time was stressful. So even though that's not the final vision, you know, that's something that you need to decrease, and then you need to increase the other part of it. Having both of those metrics can be very helpful. 

 

If it's around a relationship, you might be looking at how much time do they spend enjoying each other's company? And they may want to enjoy each other's company might not be where they're starting off, they might be starting off with only being able to enjoy each other's company for ten minutes. And their target might be that they want to enjoy each other's company for four or five hours at a time. Okay, those are the important things to write down. 

 

If it's for a business thing, it might be some specific revenue targets, it might be some expenditure targets, they might be trying to get that down so they can drive up profit margins, it might be the speed or the quality of how long it takes for them to deliver their product or service. 

If it's weight loss, they might be looking at How long do they go not feeling hungry? Right? So a hunger scale is actually a pretty good one where they only eat between a hunger scale of minus two and plus two. So how many times? Were they always between a minus two and a plus two? Versus how much time, or how many times did they find themselves at a minus two on hunger? And now all the sudden, they want to overeat because they're super hungry? Or how many times did they eat, when they already were at a plus two of fullness. Having those numbers and knowing what the target is, for the very end, what success looks like, will be helpful. 

 

You'll notice that with that weight loss example, I went to something beyond just losing the pounds themselves. We're looking at some of those habits and some of those feelings. 

 

So as I was mentioning, in that vision, you're getting really specific on the details. Some of those can be habits or feelings, or time increments, those are the things that you want to measure, because that's where you're going to be able to see the progress. It's not just that one final thing at the end. It's all of those other details, too. 

 

BITING OFF JUST WHAT YOU CAN CHEW

 

Now it comes to your steps, the customized steps, that you're going to do for your folks here. 

 

In the beginning, you may not know what it's going to take to get them from point A to point B, you have an idea of what all of their obstacles are because they told you. And I said all, it's not all of their obstacles. They've told you the main ones that are at the top of their mind. And those are the ones that you kind of make sure that you're going to address because the obstacles are real. 

 

We have to make sure that we're not invalidating and saying, Oh, that's no big deal. You can get over that. And then focusing on just teaching them knowledge and steps. No, you actually have to help them resolve those obstacles, because it's just going to be willpower. If they haven't resolved the obstacles, it's going to cause extra stress. 

 

It's going to make it a lot harder, because now they're doing something with having like this huge, heavy emotional backpack on their back. Or they have to do a whole bunch of work-arounds because they have these obstacles. So make sure that you're building the obstacle resolution into those customized steps.

 

You're going to look at all of those obstacles plus all of the knowledge that you know that they need to learn those different types of new skill sets that they need to have. They might need infrastructure. 

 

Let's go with business stuff, let's say they need some software in place, they need some structure in place. Those are going to be things that you'll want to consider when you're looking at all of this. 

 

You might even want to consider what was your journey when you did it first. What sequence of events did you do? And did you like that sequence? Is there anything out of the sequence that you did that you realize you didn't actually need to do that you could take out and then are there some things where it's like that sequence would have worked out so much better if I had known this information first. 

 

Okay, use what your journey was, look at what they have and their specific obstacles, and from there come up with bite size steps for them to concentrate on. Sometimes I like to think of, What are three milestones between where they start and where they're going? Because that can help you put at least those three steps and maybe some other steps in the middle. 

 

A milestone is when from the outside, they can notice a difference in their behavior or in their results. And then how do they describe that? So when you're doing those steps, you want to title what each of those steps will be. And when you title it, it's not going to be the functional thing that you did with them. It's going to be them describing what their results are at that step. 

 

If the step is I'm totally knowledgeable on sales funnels. That's, of course, if they're a business person, or have a business goal. Having that at the end of:

 

I know about sales funnels, and I know which one will work for me, or I know which one I want to try first. 

 

That's putting it very affirmative. It's not saying Oh, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. It's saying the thing that they actually do want. 

 

And it did not have the details of okay, I'm going to teach them sales funnels. I'm going to show them a sales funnel map. I'm going to use sales funnels simulator software. It's none of that. 

 

We're thinking about it from their outside perspective. How would they describe it to somebody else in the affirmative? So it's what's different in their life. 

 

If it's a relationship thing, it might be: 

 

I know how to speak to my partner, where they don't get triggered. 

 

I mean, it could be something that simple. 

 

If it's weight loss, it could be:

 

I know what foods I want to eat every day. 

 

I mean, that's a huge one, I know. 

 

I'm going on a weight loss journey right now. And I've done this step multiple times. But things have changed for me where I don't want to eat the things that I was eating before, I need some variety. So I want something different this time. 

 

First step is figuring out, What do I want to eat and lose weight? That would be those first steps. 

 

Come up with those incremental steps, something that's bite sized, so that they can actually get through it. But it's also significant enough that they can recognize the win once they've completed that step. 

 

Overall, you've got that project plan, you've got their vision, you've got some metrics, and now you have some customized steps. 

 

LET’S TALK ABOUT RESULTS

 

So now comes the hard part. Now, how are you going to help them to actually get those results? 

 

We're going to focus on one step at a time. When you look at that one step at a time, within that step:

 

Is there specific knowledge that you need to share with them? 

Are there specific skills that you're trying to build up? 

Are there known obstacles that every human has, that you're trying to help them to overcome? 

 

That can be some of your regular programming, whether it's an educational piece, or some other thing that you're going to give them, a video. I mean, I guess it's still educational. But you're also going to find out what are the obstacles for them to get through that step, and write those down. 

 

Remember, we talked about a record keeping system, write down their obstacles for that one particular step. Validate that these obstacles are real and true and valid. I don't want to hear anybody saying, Oh, you've got that that's not that big of a deal, and then push on to the next thing. 

 

No, it is a big deal. That's why they brought it up with you. They need help with that. So write it down, acknowledge it, help them to resolve those specific obstacles. 

 

Now, if you don't know how to resolve that obstacle, that's where you need to put in that extra effort. This is you developing your skill set so that you can get them results. Because you have to be able to resolve those obstacles to help them move forward between times that you're talking with them. 

 

If you come up with an obstacle that you don't know how to resolve, that's when you're gonna go and educate yourself. You're gonna go learn some more things, learn some new techniques, ask a peer who might also be helping people with something similar. Ask a mentor who's done it a whole bunch of times or a coach developer who's used to developing coaches to handle all these different types of obstacles. 

 

We might have different tool sets than you've ever used before. So although we may have all gone to one coaching school together, many of us have gone on to additional trainings and additional certifications, and we've picked up even more stuff. So our toolboxes are huge. Our experiences that we've had throughout our whole life are different. So we might have already encountered that obstacle and we know how to help. 

 

So just reach out to your peers or to a mentor, to ask for that extra help. Your client doesn't even have to know if you don't want them to know, you're doing that between sessions, and then you come back and you're able to help them. 

 

LOOK FOR PATTERNS

 

Now the great thing with these obstacles is that, since you're keeping records of what obstacles your clients are encountering at their different steps, you might start to notice, some of these obstacles are happening across multiple people. When you notice that, this is a time for you to create something that you can put together one time and offer to everybody. 

 

So that might be an extra little training video, or a specific exercise, or maybe a PDF or some set of references. If it's something they all need, have it ready to go off the shelf, and then you can give it to them, they can do that part on their own time. 

 

And then at your sessions, you're now tackling the next obstacle that's specific to them that you might not have that already off the shelf thing ready to go. 

 

And then of course, you're not just going to send them off and go, Okay, here's the stuff go do it. You need to check in with them to make sure that whatever you gave them for that obstacle worked. 

 

STOP THROWING SPAGHETTI AT THE WALL

 

Now we're going to talk about the experiments, structured experiments are going to be helpful because most people have not gone through a structured experiment. And because they haven't gone through a structured experiment, they haven't actually considered or voiced what their needs or their requirements are. 

 

A lot of times, we're just thinking about that end result. We're willing to go out and try anything, throw spaghetti at the wall, without thinking about what our requirements are. 

 

If there's an option to do a solution that's going to completely zap you of energy, but it gives you your solution. Is that the ideal solution? Or would you like to have a solution that maybe takes ten percent of your energy source? You still have ninety percent left for the rest of the day. And that's your new solution. 

 

Well, knowing that energy requirement would be helpful before someone goes out and does the experiment. 

 

Now, here's why that's important. You might have them do experiments that are way too out of the box for a sustainable solution. It might be something that costs a lot of money, takes a lot of investment, takes people away from their family for a long amounts of time. It could be something that requires a whole lot of extra learning in order to figure out. So that they can just do the experiment; might have like a month long learning curve on it. 

 

That may not be what their requirements are. 

 

They might have requirements that it's easy to learn, it only will cost no more than a hundred dollars and it's a one time cost. They might want something that only takes them a maximum two hours, because they're thinking, Okay, if this is my new solution, that's two hours every single week, as opposed to something that would take thirty hours. Are you going to  keep doing that same solution if it takes you thirty hours every single week? 

 

The way to do a structured experiment is to ask first, What's the desired outcome? And the outcome could be a micro-step in their process or in their vision, as opposed to the final end state. 

 

What is their desired outcome this time? 

 

What are their requirements for a successful solution? 

 

And then if there are other people that are involved:

 

What are the other people's requirements for a successful solution? 

 

This is especially important when it's a relationship goal. We need to think about the other person in the relationship too. It's not just one sided. 

 

If it's a work related solution that they're looking for, there's often more than one person involved. There's coworkers, there might be suppliers, there might be customers, there might be a boss, there might be stakeholders. You have to consider all of the different requirements for the solution. 

 

Once you have all of those requirements written down, then design the experiment and have them go out and do it. 

 

And then they can come back and they can let you know how it went. 

 

EVALUATE RESULTS & (HOPEFULLY) CELEBRATE A WIN!

 

Then that rolls into step number six which is the Lessons Learned. And with that, you're just guiding them through 

What were all of the results?

 

Because there's going to be results that you don't even think about. Right? Because a lot of times they'll think about that main end result. 

 

Let's say it was losing weight, I want to lose ten pounds. And they come back, 

 

Oh, did you lose ten pounds? No. 

 

Okay, but what were all of the results? 

 

And so all of the results could have been:

Well, I actually lost four pounds. I wasn't hungry. And I saved fifty dollars on groceries. I found food that I really, really liked, but it caused my knees to hurt and I don't know why. 

 

That's a result too those unexpected results. Why would you want to know that? Because that now might become a requirement. They never even thought to note down that in a successful solution. They want to be able to save money, lose weight, all of the things, but they also don't want to create any unnecessary side effects. 

 

And so in that case, it’s somebody's knees were hurting. Okay, well, What can the experiment be like next time, so that the knees don't hurt? 

 

So you're taking them through the lessons learned of what were their actual results. 

 

What worked? 

 

What didn't work? 

 

Are they going to do another experiment? 

 

And if so, what would they do differently next time? 

 

You're helping to pull all of that out of them. Because sometimes people can get so discouraged by an experiment that didn't work. That's why we have to still talk about the experiment in our language, over and over and over again. And you'll want to be there supporting them, letting them know about the times when you had to do a whole bunch of experiments just to resolve one obstacle. 

 

Talk about your experiments that didn't work. Talk about the results that you didn't like that created disappointment. Or the unexpected results that you got that really created some chaos in your life. It normalizes that there are a lot of experiments. And it might not be how we want it to be. Help them to process their emotions when an experiment doesn't work. 

 

But also help them to celebrate all of the learning that they're getting from it, and how every experiment is getting them closer and closer to that final solution. 

 

So now you're celebrating those wins, right then and there. Does that mean that they're completely done achieving their goal? No, it was just one experiment. And you might be celebrating the things that they learned, as opposed to the goal that they achieved. 

 

WASH, RINSE, REPEAT

 

This becomes an iterative process. You're gonna go back and repeat experiments, go back through designing that experiment. Help them to go out, execute the experiment, and then come back and do another ‘Lessons Learned’ until they find that final solution that resolves that obstacle. 

 

And then you're going to go back to that obstacle list for that one constraint step. What are all the obstacles still getting in the way? And what kind of experiments would you do? And it's important to keep your eye on the metrics. 

 

All of this work that someone's doing, is it moving the needle on the metrics? Because if not, then you might want to do a little bit of change with your prioritization, or with the sequencing of your steps. Or maybe you need even better experiments that neither of you even knew existed. 

 

But when you talk to a peer or mentor, they might be able to suggest these other experiments that have had a higher success rate with other people. And so we're not talking about the whole project itself, we're talking about resolving that one obstacle. 

 

Once you resolve enough of the obstacles, all of a sudden, your client will achieve that one step. And then they can move on to the next thing. And this is also going to help your client to avoid overwhelm. Because sometimes when you want to achieve a goal, it seems so impossible, because you've never done it before. And you think that you have to do all of the things. 

 

This helps to break it up into bite size changes, bite sized steps, so that you can work on one thing at a time. And then it feels so good to have achievement. They've achieved that one step and now they're moving to the next one. They're moving to the next one. 

 

You have to ask yourself, What's the thing that's most important? Is it most important that they actually get their results, and that it is permanent, they don't backslide? Or is it more important to just get done with the timeframe that you talk to someone about? 

 

If the timeframe is important, that becomes a different question for you with all of those obstacles? You're asking, What are the obstacles that get in the way of this step and achieving it by this particular date? That's going to uncover other obstacles that you would have to work through, those are a little bit more unique because they're time sensitive. 

 

But if you have someone who is just really determined that they're willing to do whatever it takes to achieve the goal, that the timing isn't as much of an issue, then you're just looking at what are all of the obstacles? And then what obstacles do you need to resolve in order for them to achieve each of those steps individually, and then that eventually gets them all the way to their goal, and it's inevitable, as long as you're willing to find all the obstacles, help them to experiment to resolve them, they will reach their goal every single time. 

 

CLARITY STEPS RECAP

• Vision 
• Metrics
• Customizable steps
• Obstacles
• Experiments
• Lessons Learned
• Wins 

 

This simple seven step process is the best project plan that you can use. 

 

Over and over and over again. 

 

It doesn't even matter what the goal is. 

 

These seven steps work every single time. You can always get your clients results. 

 

If this is something that you would like to explore further, I invite you to reach out to me, we can do an extended consultation call if you want to, so that I can show you how this could work with your particular type of goal that you help your clients to achieve. 

 

I also am someone that helps to develop other coaches with their skill sets. A lot of those obstacles that you're going to encounter with your clients, I've already encountered it, because I've been doing this coaching thing for almost fifteen years now. So I've encountered just about everything, and my tool chest is huge. 

 

I love teaching people different tools and different ways of applying it so that they can help their clients to resolve those obstacles a lot faster. 

 

If you're interested in getting together and having a little chat, just go to my website at www.myfreedomgrove.com, and go to the contact me tab. You can schedule a time for us there. 

 

It's in half hour increments, but I'm pretty generous with my time. So I tend to go over a little bit so that I can help you. And we can also explore options. 

 

If you want to have some help for longer than that one session, we can look at either one-on-one intensives or being part of the membership where I have lots of courses that help you to figure out how to get your business running smoothly and profitably, while taking care of your mental health and helping your clients to get results. 

 

Alright, my friends, I will talk with you next week. 

 

Next week we're going to talk about how to create your product and service suite - meaning your whole collection of products and services. 

 

All right, my friends, I will talk with you then. Take care. Bye bye. 

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. When you are ready to make your dream business a reality and take care of your mental health, I invite you to join the Unshakable Business Co-Lab. This is the mastermind membership you've been waiting for. There's no limits on your imagination, nor your timeline. We're with you every step of the way. To learn more, please visit www.myfreedomgrove.com/join. I'll see you there!