The first question: were they actually the right fit?
Before anything else, this is a fair question to ask.
Sometimes a client doesn’t get results because they were never quite the right fit for the offer in the first place, and somewhere along the way, you (or they) tried to make it work anyway.
There’s always a lesson to extract there.
What did you miss in the sales conversation?
What signals were there that you brushed past?
How can you tighten who you’re saying yes to going forward?
The goal here is to get smarter about enrolment so this happens less often.
The second question: are they taking the actions (at the volume required) to generate the result?
They either are or they aren’t.
And the answer completely changes what you do next.
If they are doing the actions but still not seeing results…
This is actually the easier scenario to coach through, because the problem has a clear diagnosis: it’s not a motivation gap. It’s a skill gap.
And skill gaps are fixable.
I had a client inside VIP who was doing everything right on paper.
She promoted her masterclass to her email list.
She posted on all her socials.
She wrote blog content.
The volume of action was there.
And she had seven people registered.
Seven. With all of that effort. It just didn’t add up.
So I said, okay…. show me what you’re actually sending. Show me the emails. Show me the copy.
And the moment I read them, I understood.
Her emails were way too long.
Like, by the time someone got to the call to action, they’d already mentally checked out, and the call to action itself wasn’t even clear enough to know what she was inviting people to do.
She wasn’t failing to take action.
She was taking action ineffectively.
That’s a completely different problem.
And pushing her to post more or promote harder wasn’t going to solve it.
What she needed was to develop her skills (specifically her copy and messaging to write something short and clear that actually moved people.)
Here’s the thing: we are not born knowing how to write a compelling email.
We’re not born knowing how to structure an offer, close a sale, or show up on a live in a way that makes people lean in.
These are skills. And skills are developed through practice and feedback.
So if your client is doing the work and not getting the result, don’t spiral into self-doubt.
Get curious.
Look at the work.
Find where the gap is.
And then coach them toward doing it more effectively, not just more.
BUT If they’re not taking the actions at all…
Now the conversation shifts.
Because if someone isn’t moving, the question isn’t “why aren’t they doing the thing.”
The real question is: what’s getting in the way?
In my experience, when a client is stuck in inaction, it almost always comes back to one of two places: mindset or leadership.
And leadership here doesn’t mean managing a team.
Leadership is the measure of how quickly someone can move from idea to action to result.
It’s about compressing that gap.
And that compression comes from the values you embody, the identity you’re standing in, the fortitude you’ve built.
In short, it’s an inside job.
Your role as the coach is to help them see clearly what’s standing between them and the result.
Name it. Get underneath it.
Because most of the time, they already know what they’re not doing. They just haven’t been honest with themselves about why.
Lastly, the question most coaches skip: what’s your responsibility, and what’s theirs?
This is the one I think matters most… and it’s the one that requires the most honesty.
Just because you’re doing everything you committed to doesn’t mean there’s nothing to examine on your end.
Sometimes the delivery needs to evolve.
Sometimes the support structure inside your program has a gap.
Sometimes there’s something you could add, adjust, or change that would genuinely help your clients get there faster.
That’s worth asking.
Not from a place of guilt, but from a place of growth.
And then there’s their side of the fence.
There’s a very big difference between a client who says:
“It’s not working for me”
…and a client who says:
“I know I haven’t been showing up the way I need to.”
The first one is blame. The second one is ownership.
Blame sounds like: the program isn’t working, the timing is off, the market is hard, it’s not clicking for me.
There’s a fear that lives underneath selling a coaching program that most coaches don’t say out loud.
And no, it’s not “what if no one buys?”
It’s: “what if they buy… and they don’t get results?”
And this fear is one of the biggest reasons coaches undercharge, over-explain themselves on sales calls, add bonus after bonus trying to justify the price, and sometimes don’t sell at all.
Because if you’re not confident that people will get results, it’s very hard to ask for someone to invest their money with you.
If you’ve ever experienced this, know that it isn’t just a “fix your mindset” kind of situation.
There’s actually a framework I use when a client isn’t getting results, and it starts with a very specific set of questions.
Let’s walk through it…
The first question: were they actually the right fit?
Before anything else, this is a fair question to ask.
Sometimes a client doesn’t get results because they were never quite the right fit for the offer in the first place, and somewhere along the way, you (or they) tried to make it work anyway.
There’s always a lesson to extract there.
What did you miss in the sales conversation?
What signals were there that you brushed past?
How can you tighten who you’re saying yes to going forward?
The goal here is to get smarter about enrolment so this happens less often.
The second question: are they taking the actions (at the volume required) to generate the result?
They either are or they aren’t.
And the answer completely changes what you do next.
If they are doing the actions but still not seeing results…
This is actually the easier scenario to coach through, because the problem has a clear diagnosis: it’s not a motivation gap. It’s a skill gap.
And skill gaps are fixable.
I had a client inside VIP who was doing everything right on paper.
She promoted her masterclass to her email list.
She posted on all her socials.
She wrote blog content.
The volume of action was there.
And she had seven people registered.
Seven. With all of that effort. It just didn’t add up.
So I said, okay…. show me what you’re actually sending. Show me the emails. Show me the copy.
And the moment I read them, I understood.
Her emails were way too long.
Like, by the time someone got to the call to action, they’d already mentally checked out, and the call to action itself wasn’t even clear enough to know what she was inviting people to do.
She wasn’t failing to take action.
She was taking action ineffectively.
That’s a completely different problem.
And pushing her to post more or promote harder wasn’t going to solve it.
What she needed was to develop her skills (specifically her copy and messaging to write something short and clear that actually moved people.)
Here’s the thing: we are not born knowing how to write a compelling email.
We’re not born knowing how to structure an offer, close a sale, or show up on a live in a way that makes people lean in.
These are skills. And skills are developed through practice and feedback.
So if your client is doing the work and not getting the result, don’t spiral into self-doubt.
Get curious.
Look at the work.
Find where the gap is.
And then coach them toward doing it more effectively, not just more.
BUT If they’re not taking the actions at all…
Now the conversation shifts.
Because if someone isn’t moving, the question isn’t “why aren’t they doing the thing.”
The real question is: what’s getting in the way?
In my experience, when a client is stuck in inaction, it almost always comes back to one of two places: mindset or leadership.
And leadership here doesn’t mean managing a team.
Leadership is the measure of how quickly someone can move from idea to action to result.
It’s about compressing that gap.
And that compression comes from the values you embody, the identity you’re standing in, the fortitude you’ve built.
In short, it’s an inside job.
Your role as the coach is to help them see clearly what’s standing between them and the result.
Name it. Get underneath it.
Because most of the time, they already know what they’re not doing. They just haven’t been honest with themselves about why.
Lastly, the question most coaches skip: what’s your responsibility, and what’s theirs?
This is the one I think matters most… and it’s the one that requires the most honesty.
Just because you’re doing everything you committed to doesn’t mean there’s nothing to examine on your end.
Sometimes the delivery needs to evolve.
Sometimes the support structure inside your program has a gap.
Sometimes there’s something you could add, adjust, or change that would genuinely help your clients get there faster.
That’s worth asking.
Not from a place of guilt, but from a place of growth.
And then there’s their side of the fence.
There’s a very big difference between a client who says:
“It’s not working for me”
…and a client who says:
“I know I haven’t been showing up the way I need to.”
The first one is blame. The second one is ownership.
Blame sounds like: the program isn’t working, the timing is off, the market is hard, it’s not clicking for me.
Ownership sounds like: I haven’t put in enough reps. I haven’t given myself enough time. I haven’t asked for the feedback I needed.
When a client is in blame, your job is to hold up a mirror.
Help them see what they’re actually doing and what they’re not doing, and what the gap between those two things is costing them.
When a client is in ownership, your job is to be the bridge.
Meet them where they are. Help them get back on the bike.
And the line you’re always walking as a coach is this:
Are we adapting, growing, and finding new ways forward together? Or are we repeating the same approach and expecting a different result?
Because one of those is coaching. The other one is something that needs a different conversation entirely.
I want to come back to where we started.
The fear that a client won’t get results is real. I’m not dismissing it.
But here’s what I’ve learned: the coaches who let that fear run the show end up playing small.
They avoid the sale.
They over-deliver to the point of burning out.
They say yes to clients who aren’t a fit because they’re afraid to say no.
The coaches who do their best work? They get clear on what they can control and what they can’t. They enroll the right people. They develop their clients’ skills and their own. They have the honest conversations.
And when something isn’t working, they get curious instead of spiraling.
That’s the work. And you’re already doing it just by thinking this carefully about it.
You’ve got this!
