I love strategy sessions.
I ran them back in 1996, before anybody called them strategy sessions. We just called it a free 30-minute session. Then the coaching industry grew up, the International Coach Federation came along, and coaches needed a repeatable way to uncover a client’s problems. The free session got a formal name.
The name changed. The job didn’t.
So here’s how to run a strategy session that actually turns into a client. It works whether you coach, consult, do marketing, teach nutrition, or run an engineering or construction company. Call it a discovery call or a marketing review if you want. Underneath, it’s three moves: map the gap, find the problem, ask for the next step.
Most small business owners skip all three. They pick up the phone and start talking.
Map the Gap Before You Say a Word About Yourself
I designed the Gap Analysis this way because it sets up a perfect strategy session. In The Millionaire Maker, I walk through it in the first three chapters. Borrow it. Use it in your business. Give me a little credit if you want.
The Gap Analysis asks two big questions. Where are you now? What do you want?
I call the first your Baseline, and the second your Freedom Day. The space in the middle is your gap.
In my business, I get specific. I ask eight questions:
- What is your monthly income?
- What are your monthly expenditures?
- What assets do you have?
- What are your liabilities?
- What else?
- What do you want?
- What skills do you use to make money?
- Are you willing to create and execute the plan?
Translate that to your world. A marketer asks, what’s your marketing doing today, and what do you want it to do? A nutritionist asks, where’s your nutrition now, and what result are you after? A contractor asks, where is this project, and where does it need to be?
Here’s why it works. An appropriate gap drives motivation. When people see both points clearly, they say the sentence that sells for you: I’m done being here. I want to be there. I need a plan.
That plan is where you come in.
“An appropriate gap drives motivation.”
Find the Problem, Don’t Solve It
This is where most of you go wrong. And I’m going to speak to the women I mentor here, because you do this the most.
You start coaching. You start consulting. You hand over the answer right there on the free call.
Stop. A strategy session is not the place to be the expert. Your only job is to identify where they are, what they want, and every challenge sitting around both.
Keep asking “What else?” It’s question five on my list for a reason. It takes a lot of prodding to uncover the real situation. One couple I worked with found nine forgotten 401(k)s from old jobs, worth $190,000, only because I kept asking.
In Cash Machine for Life, I teach that the best salespeople buy into the customer’s vision instead of selling their own. Pushy salespeople talk at people. Enrolling salespeople talk with them. Ask questions until the prospect states the problem out loud. If they state it, they own it.
“A strategy session is not the place to be the expert.”
Make the Big Ask: Tell Them Why You Are the Solution
Once they’ve laid it all out, you make what I call the big ask. You tell them why you are the solution.
Notice what you don’t tell them. You don’t tell them how. They pay for the how.
You tell them what you’re going to do for them and why it matters to them. You build certainty: this is your problem, and our team has the solution.
On my team, that sounds like this. You’ll get mentored by me. You’ll get coached by other experts. You’ll sit on a mastermind team. And you’ll get access to licensed professionals: tax strategists, lawyers, self-directed IRA specialists, funding and capital experts.
Most people don’t even know what they don’t know, so they don’t ask for it. When you show them the team, you stop being one more opinion and start being the answer.
Ask for the Money, Every Time
The third move is the final ask. What’s your next step? Do you want to start today?
Then ask for the money. Actually ask for the close.
If the call felt tentative, name it. These are my favorite closing questions:
- What’s your hesitation?
- On a scale of one to 10, how coachable are you?
- How ready are you to change?
- Are you willing to pay tuition to make that change happen?
If they aren’t ready, don’t let them wander off. Ask one more question: What do you need today to help move you forward?
Then send them something that matches their problem. Someone buried in debt gets my debt calculator. Someone sitting on lazy assets gets a section of my Wealth Cycle book on alternative investing and the tax benefits of depreciating assets. Someone with tax questions gets a tax report.
A higher-ticket sale might take two, three, or four sessions. A smaller offer moves fast. I’ve watched people run a strategy session in 5 to 7 minutes and sell something for $25, $50, or $100. People spend that kind of money all day long.
“Ask for the money. Actually ask for the close.”
Guardrails Turn a Chat Into a Client
The biggest mistake I see with small business owners? No guardrails.
Without guardrails, you wander. You end up talking about the dogs and cats where you’re going on vacation, everything except the problem.
A strategy session is an intentional, structured call about one thing, thirty to 45 minutes. Identify the problem. Verify that you are the solution. Ask for the next step, the money, or both. Then deliver.
And if you’re on the other side of that call, ask yourself how serious you are. I always say the vehicle in your driveway probably cost more than anything you’ve ever spent on your own development. That’s odd, right? Cash flow is the infrastructure of your entire life, and most people have never been mentored on it.
“The vehicle in your driveway probably cost more than your own development.”
Start Today
Here’s your week:
- Write your gap questions. Adapt my eight to your field. Where are you? What do you want? What else?
- Write your big ask. Three sentences: what you do, who’s on your team, why it matters to them. No how.
- Write your close. Pick two closing questions and say them out loud until they feel normal.
- Build your not-ready kit. One resource for each of your three most common problems.
- Run five sessions. Use the guardrails. Track how many end with a clear next step.
Want to see the Gap Analysis in action? Grab the Gap Analysis worksheet, or come practice live at the Millionaire Intensive, where we set aside three hours just to run strategy sessions in the room.
Go to AskLoral.com. Ask a question, make a request.
