How to Get More Clients When You Hate Selling Yourself

If you’re tired of doing all the selling yourself, this guide is for you. Every explanation, every follow-up, and every call where you’re trying to convince someone of something they can’t see yet.

One of my clients was stuck on sales calls. We stopped doing them.

We noticed she felt so much more excited whenever she was working with clients. We created a monthly drop-in group. A few spots, people sign up, and they get to feel what it’s like to work with her. For her, it was a no-brainer. It was easy to run and it converted a lot better into her signature group program.

People need to experience your work before they buy it.

It’s like test driving a car. Once you’ve driven it, nobody has to sell you on it. Your work is harder to buy than a car because nobody can see it from the outside. They can’t hold it, try it on, or read a list of your client results. They’re deciding whether to trust you with something tender and all they have is your words.

This guide shows you where a taste of your work can go in your business: your content, your sales process, and your client journey. It starts with why explaining feels safer, because that’s usually what keeps people pitching. By the end, you’ll know the one taste you want to try first.

Part 1 · What’s going on underneath the pitch

Explaining feels safer than showing

You love the work. You don’t love the marketing and the selling. When someone asks what you do, you explain. Your training, your approach, how the sessions run. You rewrite your website. You try to get better at your sales calls.

All of that keeps people at a safe distance. If they say no to an explanation, they’ve said no to some words. If they sit with you, feel your work, and still say no, that can feel a lot closer to home.

That’s a very human reason to keep explaining, and it’s worth knowing it’s there.

“What if I give too much away?”

This one comes up a lot. If people get a taste for free, why would they pay?

A taste gives someone a moment of relief or clarity. It shows them what’s possible with you. It can’t do what months of working together can do, and they know that. Once they experience it, they just want more of it.

The decision from here

Stop asking how to explain your work better. Start asking where people can feel it.

Part 2 · Three places to let people experience your work

1. In your content

Your content can be the first taste. Instead of telling people what you do, do a small piece of it with them.

• If you work with couples, show the one question you’d ask in the first five minutes of the same old fight.
• If you work with burnout, teach the two-minute thing you’d do with someone who can’t switch off at the end of the day.
• If you do body-based work, walk them through one short practice they can feel right there on the couch.

The person watching should finish and think, oh, she gets it. And I feel a little different already.

2. In your sales process

This is where my client swapped her sales calls for a drop-in group. Look at the step right before someone invests and ask if it could be a taste.

• Monthly drop-in group. A few spots, one topic, one hour. Works best when you’re selling a group or you love holding a room.
• Workshop. One problem, one sitting, a clear next step. Works best when you want one event to bring in a lot of people at once.
• A first session that counts. One paid session, credited toward your program if they continue. Works best when people ask for one session before they’ll commit to more.
• A call that does a little of the work. You ask the question you’d ask in session and let them hear themselves answer. Works best when you like calls and want them to feel less like a pitch.

You can charge for a taste or offer it free. Both work. A small investment can help people show up.

3. In your client journey

The experience keeps going after someone says yes. The time between paying and your first session is when people can start to wonder if they made the right call. Give them a taste of what’s coming: a short welcome video, a first small practice, or a question to bring to your first session.

The same goes for what comes next. If you have a next-level offer, the people already working with you are the ones who’ve felt your work. Let them try a small piece of it before you talk about the investment.

Each of these does some of the selling for you. More of your week goes to the work you love and less of it goes to convincing people.

Part 3 · What makes a good taste

If yours passes all five of these, you’re ready to try it.

1. It’s small. One sitting, one topic.
2. It helps with one real thing. They leave with something they can feel, even if it’s small.
3. It feels like you. Your pace, your questions, and your way of being with people.
4. It’s easy for you to run. If it drains you, you won’t keep doing it. My client’s drop-in group was a no-brainer for her to run.
5. It has a next step. Everyone knows what happens if they want more.

If you’re a regulated practitioner, check your taste against your college’s rules first. A group or a single session can count as clinical work, with the same consent, records, and boundaries as any other session.

Part 4 · Find yours

This takes about 20 minutes.

1. Write down the very first step someone takes with you right now. The thing they do before they’ve paid you anything.
2. Is it a pitch or a taste? A call where you explain your packages is a pitch. A call where they leave feeling something shift is a taste.
3. Find the moment. Think of your last three clients. When did each of them first feel a difference? What were you doing? What did you ask?
4. Make it smaller. What’s the smallest version of that moment you could offer someone who’s never met you, in an hour or less?
5. Pick the place. Content, sales process, or client journey. Choose the one that feels easiest to start.
6. Write your next step. Finish this sentence: “If this helped, the next step is ___.”
7. Run the five checks and put a date on it.

Let your work make the sale

Once people have felt a difference working with you, they’ve already bought in. They just want to do it with you. That makes the sale easier, and it’s a lot more fun for you too.

Picture someone signing up for your program while you’re in session with someone else, because they’ve already felt what it’s like to work with you.

I’d love to hear what you came up with. Send me your taste in a DM on Instagram and I’ll tell you where I’d put it in your business.

With joy,
Deanne