Crafting Your Coaching UVP: A Deep Dive into Client Beliefs and Emotions

Remember, this isn’t about comparing yourself to other coaches or trying to be something you’re not. It’s about uncovering the authentic, powerful value that you bring to the table. It’s about understanding your clients on a deeper level and aligning your services with their needs and desires.

Let’s recap our progress from episode 75:

• We created your client persona with lots of details
• We thought about what your client responds to and what they’re looking for
• We looked at the big picture, considering your money philosophies
• We explored the competitive landscape and the gap you can fill
• We identified your customers’ reasons for hiring you, their evaluation factors, and potential hesitations

Understanding Client Beliefs

Now we need to consider what beliefs a person needs to have to invest in your services. This has three parts:

1. What do they need to believe about themselves?
2. What do they need to believe about your company or coaching?
3. What false beliefs or misconceptions do we need to overcome?

Take your time to brainstorm each of these. For example, I wrote down for my client persona, Sarah:

• She needs to believe she’s capable of learning
• She needs to believe investing in herself is worthwhile
• She needs to believe in the value of time—sometimes we spend time and effort now to save time and effort later

Knowing this helps me speak to these points in my marketing.

Client Beliefs About Coaches and Brands

When it comes to beliefs about us as coaches or as a brand, we often assume clients need to believe in our knowledge or credentials. But in my experience, they actually need to believe in:

• The coach’s commitment to their success
• Our ability to be attentive and supportive
• Our company’s mission, values, approach, and process
• The value of what we offer, including the long-term impact

This is where understanding the gap between where your clients are now and where they want to be becomes crucial. If your clients come to you for an immediate crisis, they might need to believe more in the short-term impact of working with you.

The Importance of Feelings

Next, think about the feelings your clients likely need to have. For me, I wrote down:

• Hopeful
• Valued
• Supported
• Ready for change
• Inspired to act

This is important because your branding—colors, images, copy—elicits emotions. You want to make sure these align with what your client needs to feel to connect with you.

Consider the emotions you may need to shift. For instance, if your clients are currently feeling fear or overwhelm, your messaging needs to work on creating that shift towards hope and inspiration.

Capturing Client Stories

The next step is to write stories of actual clients that demonstrate the scenarios you’ve identified. I wrote out a few stories to capture these more fully. If you don’t have clients for every scenario yet, that’s where market research and beta clients can help.

I personified these stories with titles like “The Debt Conqueror” and “The Busy Professional”. Don’t worry about making these perfectly scripted—the goal is to capture the human side of these moments.

Establishing Common Ground

Think about your conversation starters:

• How can you establish common ground?
• What shared experiences do you have with your persona?
• What lifestyle aspirations and hopes for the future do you have in common?
• Do you have any shared financial frustrations?

For example, I tend to connect with my clients around overall well-being and the role money plays in their stress and life in general.

Creating Assets and Content

Brainstorm ideas for assets you can create to help your client experience or feel a win:

• A freebie or opt-in
• A free 7-day challenge or training
• A blog post comparing alternatives
• A quiz to help gain awareness

Use each section of the work you’ve been doing to determine your marketing content creation.

Writing a Love Letter to Your Client

The last step in this process is to write a love letter to your client. I know it might sound a bit nuts, but I actually did this. I imagined my client persona, Sarah, as my best friend who needed help. How would I speak to her? What would I say? What do I wish she knew?

This exercise can be really powerful, especially if empathy and compassion are important to your clients. You can use this letter on days when you’re feeling uninspired or give it to a copywriter to help with your website content.

Putting It All Together: Your Unique Value Proposition

Once you’ve done all of this, you can combine or summarize it into a UVP if you want. But you don’t have to summarize it if you don’t want to. This process is meant to be an internal driver for you. It doesn’t have to be a concise paragraph or a one-liner if that doesn’t feel right.

My UVP is actually a 29-page Google Doc! But I did write a concise version for my website:

“Fiscal Fitness is your personal trainer for your money. We bring the power of personalization and forward-thinking planning into financial coaching, handcrafting a Money Masterplan that is as unique as you are. Unlike traditional financial services, we center our strategies around your excitement and enthusiasm, creating a sustainable path to financial success that aligns with your values, goals, and lifestyle. Embrace the Fiscal Fitness journey and transform the way you see, save, and spend your money. Because with us, your financial fitness is more than just numbers. It’s about living and loving your life.”

Remember, this is my UVP; please don’t use it as your own. The whole point of these episodes is to help you discover your unique essence.

A Living, Breathing Document

I don’t consider my UVP done—it feels like a living, breathing document. As I gain deeper clarity on who I am, the impact I want to have, and the person I truly want to help, my UVP will shift and become clearer. And that’s a good thing! It means I’m understanding my client more intimately over time.

I know this is a lot. Business can be hard sometimes, and it takes time, attention, and a lot of you to make it work. But it can also be incredibly gratifying and fulfilling.

Over the last eight months, I’ve been giving myself time and space to think about these prompts, reflections, and questions. I’m so glad I stayed the program and gave myself permission to not know the answer right away. The end result is that I love my brand and my messaging. The essence of who I am, who my clients are, and what we do for people is front and center now because I took the time to do this.

I really hope you’ll do this work too, Coach. It’s worth it.