046: Why Nobody’s Booking Your Discovery Calls (and What to Do Instead)

Discovery calls. Dun dun. Oh yeah. The new discovery call. How to book conversations that Actually Convert. Ah, so the moment I ask, Hey, how many discovery calls have you been on this month? I can practically hear the shuffle. Uh, the nervous laughter, the, the fake. Oh, I gotta get that doorbell. So listen, I get it.

Discovery calls have changed. The old way doesn't work like it used to, but the truth, they are not dead. They just need a makeover. Who doesn't love a makeover show? So today I am breaking down how to fill your calendar with real conversations and turn those calls into paying clients. Can I get a heck yes.

So if we haven't met yet, my name is Renee Rebar, sales strategist, TEDx speaker, author, and I'm here to help you sell your expertise. In a way that probably you haven't heard before. So let me ask you this question. Kind of kick this off. Did you start your business during the pandemic? It's okay, I know.

Back in the pandemic. Ah, those days you'd post something online, drop a book, a discovery call link, and then. Boom. People started actually booking. You're like, oh my goodness, my calendar's lining up the pings on your calendar. They had, you had great chats. They had great personalities. They had interest and encouragement.

They, they wanted to hear from you. You made sales and then, oh. It stopped and most experts thought, I know what it is. It must be my content, or, Hmm, the algorithm. So they got busy creating custom GPTs and creating more content, more and more and more content and avalanche of content. But the problem is that didn't seem to move the needle.

So they thought, haha, I know what I'll do. It's the platform. So they started diversifying and creating platform specific content for YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X Threads, blue Sky, Substack, Tic-Tac, Zora. I mean, the list goes on and on, and then that's still didn. Seem to move the needle. Oh, they said then they start to hear that in-person events are the way to go.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So they join every single local chamber. BNI invest in, in-person events, but they have a zero follow through because they don't have a process. So a fist full of business cards is looking at them, staring at them, shaming them on a daily basis, and they still have no new clients. Except that one client who came back after ghosting you for the last six months and wants you to help her with her launch, that's happening next week.

Oh, did I mention she was your client three years ago when you first started online and we're just a va, you know, before you owned your expertise, before you started leading with Strategy First? Yeah. Her, but you're so desperate at this point. You're seriously considering working with her just because you wanna make something this month.

Right? It's okay. I got you. But the reality is, is you would feel like you're taking 10 steps back. You have internal turmoil, feeling like you should start dusting off your resume and sues, ah, no. The reality is you've been working really effing hard at playing a game. The rules have changed and it wasn't about more content or more platforms or more events or practicing your elevator pitch.

No, none of that. Because what's really changed is your buyer. See, you know this, I'm preaching to the choir. You know this. People are more cautious, more discerning, less willing to just hop on a vague call where they don't know what's going to happen. When I first started introducing this concept to my clients, they were wondering why I was starting to give them agendas.

Like, Hey, give the person an agenda. Like tell them what's gonna happen in advance. Because up until this point, they were just booking calls and then would just wait. Till the call to do anything. am telling you right now, that is just never gonna work. And it's always been genuinely a recipe for sadness.

So if you wanna fill your calendar again with great clients that respect you and want your advice, not just your hands on the keyboard, even though you're really good at that, and the results you bring by either just your advice or. The deliverables that you can bring to them, because I know if you're listening to this, you are most likely a very smart person, a service provider, and I mean, I, I, I, I know so many of you so well, and you've been so kind in communicating with me and he didn't reply on the emails I send, and I've, of course, continued to ask you questions.

You filled out applications to work with me, and I'm so glad because I get to know you better. And I know that you are a lifelong learner and you love being able to be at the. Cusp of the industry and ahead of the game. And you also want to make sure that you are not battling against someone else's business coach, even though you know what's best and the business coach doesn't, right?

And so you are ready to give people a specific reason to talk to you. I know you are. So let's buckle up because I've got a framework that I'm about to teach you that my clients are loving right now. So here goes. The framework, but before I can tell you about the framework, I have to tell you about the goal of the framework, right?

Whenever I say things like that, I always remember those Dave Pike novels that my son used to love to have read to him, or eventually he would read himself. If you haven't read the Dave pil Captain Underpants novels, you're really actually missing out. It's kind of fun. Okay. Back to the content, the goal of this framework.

Is that you wanna bring on two new clients or projects every month through non hussle. Listen to me now. Sustainable activities. So this is from me, right? A salesperson since the 19 hundreds? Yes. And I've always worked on commission. I've always had to find my own leads, connect with them, nurture them, qualify them, disqualify them, prepare them for what's next.

Because so many people that need something that I have. Or that you have, they don't really understand what's happening. They don't understand what they're asking for. They don't understand all the things that go into making it a reality. So if you just blat out, well, this is what it looks like to work with me, here's the price you're gonna miss out on a lot of people that really do need you, and they're gonna miss out on you because.

They don't understand why that price exists. So the goal of this framework is to bring in two new clients or projects every single month through non hussle sustainable activities. I cannot say that enough. The activities I'm gonna give to you are very specific. Straightforward and can be done without being on social media, without DMing strangers, and you are definitely going to like the fact that you will be creating steady, predictable revenue.

I like to shoot for, at least for the start a base salary of 200,000 a year, right? A baseline by being intentional when you work this framework. What happens is, is you actually start to realize the people you thought were your ideal clients. The places you thought you were going to find them, the conversations you had or will have with them, it all starts to evolve.

So the number one thing is we're gonna be intentional about who your ideal client actually is, their qualities, how they describe themselves, their industry, and the problems they are willing to admit publicly. That's important and the ones that they're crying about in their bathroom right now, let's be honest.

So today I am gonna walk you through how to, number one, rebrand your discovery call into something people want to say yes to. Number two, how to reach out with purpose, not hope, but purpose, confidence, clarity. And number three, how to follow up without being awkward. Alright, so let's dig in old way. Put your link everywhere.

New way. Make a personal invite, old way, offer 20 time slots and let people pick. That sucks by the way. So bad new way. Offer two options with context. I cannot tell you how many beautiful and amazing smart people I work with that just this one change, just not having 20 time slots available and people picking randomly.

Helps them grow so much faster and have such a better peace of mind walking into every week, month, quarter, and year of their business. Okay, keep going. Old way. Book a discovery call to see if we're a fit new way. Let's do a 20 minute session with a specific result to get the full picture, and I'll help you identify your next best step, even if it's not me.

See the difference specific reason plus time bound plus outcome, specific outcome equals yes. Right? Like that's the framework. You have a specific reason, which we're gonna talk about in a minute. A time bound con confinement, like 20 minutes I'm saying, and a very specific outcome. That is much easier to say yes to than book a call based on this value driven piece of content I've shared.

Let's see if we're a fit for each other. When the person reading it doesn't really understand what they need, let alone what you offer and how it connects with them. So this is what I call a desirable call, not a discovery call. So can I just add that if you want. If you want these calls to be productive, you don't wanna wait until the call to discover about them, right?

In the past, people would say, discovery call. Discovery call. And I'm like, yeah, but the discovery starts way before that because if you've waited until the actual call to start discovering about them, you've already lost the discovery. Part of the relationship starts way before you ever get on a call with them.

They might even start before you invite them to any calls, so. Some of my clients end up mastering this part so well that they can completely eliminate discovery calls altogether. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the earlier you start, the better. Right? Just like planting a tree. Best time 10 years ago. Next. Best time right now.

So you used to invite people to a free clarity call, for example, right? But no one was booking. Yeah, that sounds just like my one client. She's a divorce coach. She helps high achieving women drop the guilt and reclaim their lives. So I wanna give you an example. So she always had these clarity calls, but then she changed the name to the guilt-free reset, a 20 minute review to uncover one story that's been holding you back.

Now, she didn't publicly share this. She only personally went back and shared this with a few people to start. And honestly, she's only getting on 3, 4, 5 of these a month, but the people she actually carves out time on her calendar for are that much more prepared and ready to have even this first initial free 20 minute call than any discovery call she had before.

So people started saying yes, and of course she still had the same offer, but just a new front door, a new way to continue the conversation. So I don't know how about you, but I've got lots of people that come to me like, oh, I've had my calendar bookings and I've had it open. I haven't had anybody book in the last three months.

I can say, yeah. This is a way that you wanna follow. This is a framework you wanna give a try to. So I'm gonna give you a couple more examples here. So I think that as you listen to this episode, you're going to get your own ideas and I'm, I'm really excited about hearing what those ideas are.

So make sure you reach out to me. So, because people don't want discovery, right? They want relief. They want relief from something that's bugging them, something they might even be crying about. Like I said, in the bathroom, you know, or wherever you cry. I know the master closet, your car. I mean, we have different places we cry.

Right? It's not just me. Right? No, I know it's not. So you can speak to that, that thing that they need relief from back to what are they willing to publicly admit, and then what is the real private matter. So another client, another example. So I wanted to give you the framework and then I wanna give you example so that you can see yourself doing this because listening to this podcast is only part of this process.

You are gonna listen to it. I'm gonna give you some action steps and then I want to hear back from you, okay? Alright. Pinky promise. So another client and instructional designer. Love her. she was trying to sell course builds, right? Everybody should have a course. Why not you? So the problem is people don't know where to start.

They dunno what to talk about. They don't know how to make sure that their students actually get success. Their biggest concern is, are they gonna be able to get success if I'm not on calls with them every single week? These are the challenges and the concerns that her clients have. So instead of saying, here's the free discovery call, we created a free learning experience review.

A 20 minute audit to spot what's working, what's missing, and what to fix in your first course, even if it's still in your head. So that alone, that one shift, and the permission and really the instruction to be able to go out and connect with people that she'd already had coffee chats with, she'd already had connections with.

Already had conversations with and personally reach out to them with this new, very time bound and specific invitation. People said, yes. Why? Because it isn't about her process. It isn't about her magical systems in the backend. It's about their pain. She was meeting them where they're at. They wanna have a course, they wanna have more time, more freedom.

They wanna help more people, but the course lives in their head and they're not sure, or it's drafted out in a Google Doc, or it's already maybe on some platform, but they're not sure if it's the right thing. Her 20 minutes, her background and experience, she met them where they're at, help them with their pain.

And you know, people want to talk about. What they need to move forward. So with that 20 minute call, she was able to give them one thing to move forward. She guided them toward what to do. She said, try this one thing. She gave them homework. She did a check-in call, and then she would discern. By that point of course, she's also researching, asking more questions, getting a fuller picture, not just waiting for the call and not just confining her discovery of them to the 20 minute call.

She then could come back to that check-in, ask a few more qualifying questions. 'cause again, we don't, not just clients, we want great clients. Clients that respect us, that want our help. Our help. Not just any help. Our help and see the value of our breadth and depth of experience and wisdom. So the transformation was insane.

It was incredible. She now didn't have to mass market, she didn't have to publish more. She went back into her calendar, looked at a few people, invited I think four to calls, and people are getting on calls. And that is the road to paid offers. If they don't even book a free call, how are you gonna get to a paid offer?

And that's where smart. Really high level brains like yours start to go, well, if they're not saying yes to a free discovery call, maybe I should sell them a $27 offer. And then you go down this whole rabbit hole of investing all this time, money, and energy into something that is not a private invite.

It's a mass market business. It's a totally different business than having an expert business, and unless you've got private funding. It's a bigger investment than you imagine. So having said all that, , I wanna give you another example. I'm working with another service provider. this one is amazing.

She works with analytics and custom builds dashboards for marketing departments and so She reached back out to her network and privately invited a few of them for a quick 20 minute screen sharing call where she could see if their Google Analytics data could actually be trusted. The responses she got, yes, please, because I have no idea what those numbers mean. It was really exciting for her because she was finally getting people to talk back to her.

I remember these exact individuals were just like you. They started their business during the pandemic. They would post, they would get bookings. Now they've been posting more than ever diversifying on every platform, trying to get more people, and no one was booking. So now with just a, a, a slight shift in how she moved forward.

It's made all the difference. So her offer is specific, it's time bound and it's helpful and that's what makes people lean in. It's not a pitch. If you see something you can help them with, you'll make a suggestion, right? More often than not, there is a lot to see once you're quote unquote, under the hood.

Right? And ultimately my clients end up sending them homework. Then they check in with them a few days later, and guess what happens on these check-in calls? The person who was not using your link to book a discovery call is now begging you to help them. They, they know you now. They see you now. I mean, they already knew you, but like now they really know how what you do applies to them.

the first question. That every person asks themselves before they say yes to anything, even a free brick of gold. And again, if you've been hanging out with me long enough, you heard me say this before, is, is she talking to me? Are you talking to me? This framework eliminates that problem in your sales process.

So think about it. This is your lane. This is where your experience is. They're on a call with you now. You've learned about them, about their business and how you can help them. You've given them homework. They've come back and now they're asking, Hey, how do I make this work? I need your help. This is your lane.

This is where your experience is, right? You don't have to be a master marketer or a master salesperson to take it from here. You are a great listener. You have their best interests in mind, right? Like you're not trying to put one over on 'em. You are actually gonna come through next. All you have to do is play the role of architect, invite them to.

Build a blueprint of the solution you see for them their next best step for just the plan. I mean, you could invest an hour of your time and they only have to invest a couple hundred bucks. And then once they have the plan, they might be able to implement it on their own or have their team do it. But what often happens is that they want you to continue to guide them through the plan.

How is this feeling so far? Are you seeing all the dots connect? Right? Do you see the framework now and how it's so powerful? Identify your ideal client, invite them to something with a tangible outcome, like the 20 minute call to see if their Google Business profile settings were toggled correctly and now.

They're looking at you as the trusted advisor that you are in almost every single one of my client relationships. The next question I get is, Renee, how do I know who to reach out to? Well, I already mentioned it a little bit, but I'm gonna say it again. My answer is go back through your calendar. Now, I have a very specific naming convention for all of my calendar events, which, you know.

That's a whole nother episode, but ultimately this means I can use my calendar as a search engine for myself. I can look at my last year of coffee chats, client calls, but for you, I mean, I'm sure you at least have the calls that on your calendar that you know are your clients, especially the ones who don't currently pay you.

Maybe you did a VIP day with them or a strategy session with them, or you had a coffee chat with them. Like I'm sure you can identify those people, right? Or don't discount tho those group programs that you've been paying to be in. Definitely look there because there's other people there that already know you.

And don't overlook the events you've attended. So if you did go through the process of joining A BNI, or even just going to one of the free sessions that they offer first, or Chamber of Commerce or nabo or Naqui, or any of those great organizations. That are designed to bring business owners together. If you have attended those events, those are people you could reach out to, and that's just one place.

Second place open your dms on whatever platform you use, and look for the people that you were like, oh, it was meaning to reach back out to them. Do you know how, I know this is in your dms right now? Because I do this every single week with my clients and I do it at my group programs. I do it at my events, my conferences that I host, and every single time they're like, oh my gosh, just, I forgot, I forgot about her.

I was, I was meeting to, to circle back. Right. Or that stack of business cards on your desk that you've been meaning to reconnect with. Yeah, I got those too Sometimes, or contacts in your phone or your Gmail. Just there is a treasure trove of people that you already know, that already know you under some context that you could reignite the conversation with that could be a potential fit for this new.

World discovery call, which is not a discovery call anymore, right? The desirable call, the 20 minute free initial call. The reason to reach out, that's time bound and specific. You know, these are all words that I love. So can you see now that there is a lot more people than you realized? These people already know your name, they've interacted with you before.

You are not cold pitching strangers. You are reigniting warm connections. So, I mean. Congratulations. You have exited the employee mindset zone where you are waiting for people to come to you. No, not anymore. You know your value and understand how to communicate what they want, clearly. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. But knowing is not doing, and that's where we're headed to next because here's the psychology, right when your call sounds simple and safe and valuable.

They'll take it once they're in your job is to guide, give one insight, assign a small piece of homework, potentially, then qualify them for a no-brainer offer. You don't have to go from, ah, this person was booked on my, on my calendar. What do I do? Who are they? What do I gonna make them an offer for? Ah, and you go into a tailspin of two hours of research trying to figure out what the full proposal's gonna be.

Brake on. Hello, stop the car, turn off the engine. We're not doing that. We're gonna look 'em up and take it step by step. So by the time you're making that proposal for 10, 20, 30, 50, a hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is, you are not coming out of the clear blue sky and you're not going to get scope creep.

You are going to have time bound and specific offers. In fact, the the process I continue on with my clients is initial free call, no brainer offer. Phase one, which could be one week, 30 days, 45 days, 90 days. Phase two, which could be another extension of that phase three, like don't go into retainer mode so quickly because retainer can often mean scope creep like crazy.

And I love re, I love monthly recurring revenue. And if that's what retainers are for you, monthly recurring revenue, then this is exactly how you get into more of those positions. Except it won't be, oh, that one client bird, they're horrible, they pay me $2 and they make me do all these things. Well, we can get you out of that.

You know, you're not locked in. So. I just want you to know that this strategy and this framework that I shared with you today is the bridge to real revenue, and it's just like dating, though you don't wanna propose on the first date. So here are your action steps. Number one, rename your discovery call.

Make it specific in time bound PS you don't have to make an announcement. No graphics required. Stay out of canva's. Rabbit it hole. I'm telling you to do this, you don't need a post. You don't need a redone page on your website. No one's gonna know the name of it except you and the person you're inviting them to.

Here's the other fun part. You don't have to rename it and then call it the same thing to everybody. Maybe Jane needs a certain kind of conversation called a certain thing. Same 20 minutes, but slightly edited as terms of the context that you'll be talking to Jane around. But Joe needs a different context because you know him under a different context and you believe based on what you know from him, that his problem is different than Jane's.

So Jane does not get the same invite as Joe, and that's okay, but you still have four 20 minute spots in your calendar this month that you are intentionally going to fill with the right people. With a time bounded specific invitation. So that's number one. Rename it. Number two, pick five people you already know and invite them five.

Based on what I already shared with you, you probably have 55. You could invite, just pick five. That's it. Number three, when they say yes, do your research. I call this recon and start sharing content with them that will help in educating them before the call. Honestly, one of the biggest aha moments most of my clients have is that.

Not to wait until the first call, book, the first call, but it doesn't have to be tomorrow. It's better if it's a week away than between now. And when you actually meet, you're preparing for that call and you're preparing them for that call. So that great piece of content, that awesome workshop, that incredible video that you shared.

Last year, six months ago, three weeks ago, with your audience or with your email list, or just with a client, you could share that with them too before the first call. Why? To give them context and an understanding and relevancy. Around who you actually are. You're not just going to answer the questions about the one thing that you bring 'em on the call for.

You're gonna answer that too. But if they keep hanging out with you, they could have a lot of other things handled as well, and that's what we want them to understand. Yes, it's a time bound and specific invitation for one thing, like, let's review your Google business profile, or let's review your LinkedIn profile, or let's review your website.

I mean, I've done literally all of those. And I don't, and I'm a sales coach. So how does that relate to sales? Well, that's what I tell you. I'll show you how that relates to sales. Let me show you the way, but I need to get on a call with you first. Get to know you first, build a relationship, a genuine, deeper relationship with you first before I can help you with anything.

Otherwise, none of the information I have is valuable and so it doesn't matter. So what I'm getting at is by doing this, working this framework. You're setting yourself and them up for success because by doing it this way, by actually sending those emails beforehand, by starting to share content with them, before you actually get on the first call, this 20 minute free call that I'm preaching about this whole podcast, you're educating them so that once you arrive at the call, you can go deeper, faster.

And that's all you need. You, you know, you can have calls booked next week without ads, without posts. Here's the best part. Without pressure, without pressure, this is something you can do regardless of whether you forgot to post last week or not. Regardless of whether or not you have an email list or forgot to email them in the past six months, it doesn't matter.

None of those things influence this sales strategy, so. Listen, discovery calls are not dead. They just needed a makeover. So give people a reason to talk to you. Give something specific and real and human and meet them where they're at and watch your calendar. Come back to life. Can't wait. I'll see you soon and make sure you go to ask me coach.com for all the latest goodies.