😅 Rant: "The Prosperous Coach" Summary / Why I disagree with the book by Steve Chandler Rich Litvin

I want to talk about the book the Prosperous Coach by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler. The reason is because I have been recommended this book by so many clients over the years and I, I'm going to share my screen real quick here. As you can see, I, I bought the book seven years ago, actually, and I have tried to read the book several times over those years and I just couldn't get through it. So I am about to review a book I haven't read. If you disagree with that strategy, please go ahead and stop this video. But I have read the beginning of the book and I have listened to several book summaries of this and I have listened to several of my clients describe what they learned from the book. So I feel like I'm qualified in that regard. But I have not read the book. So please don't, please don't yell at me too badly, but I want it. Before I stop the screen share, I want to show you something here. Look at how much the book costs. $38 for the Kindle version, meaning the, the, let's see, all formats. Actually, the hardcover is how much? $70 for the hardcover. The paperback is new from 114. And the. Yeah, this is, I think this is the paperback. It's $40 and the Kindle version is $38. So the prosperous coach are the authors who wrote a book about the prosperous coach and charging $38 for the Kindle version, which is almost unheard of. Most Kindle books are fine, $10, 15, maybe even $20, maybe $30 at the most I've seen. But 30, almost $40. And then the paper, the, the hardcover, 100, whatever. Anyway, I just showed you. So and just to give you some context, my kindle books are $5, okay, because I, I want people to read, I want people to get it and to read the book. And anyway, I just have so much deep disagreement about the book strategy that I want to, I want to share that with you. First of all, I guess maybe I'll start with what's good about the book strategy. As far as I know, based on all the book summaries I, I listen to. First of all, I think the, the, the actual authors are probably quite good people. A lot of you are fans of the authors, which is why I am, I felt like I needed to make this video. I'm not, I'm not attacking the authors, but I am attacking the book. And I, and ironically, I don't think the authors themselves follow the book strategies very much. And I'll describe why I think that's the case. I think the authors themselves follow my strategy. I doubt that they follow the book strategy, so, and I have evidence for that. Okay? But what I do like is that the, the authors seem to be good people as far as I can tell from their online videos and what I heard from those of you who have worked with them. And secondly, I like that the authors basically say, let's get rid of the people pleasing type of sales where you kind of go into a room and you're schmoozing and you're like, you're just trying to like get on people's good side so you can pitch them your, your, your, your thing. The irony is that what they're teaching is not so far from that, but I'll get to that. Secondly, and then the second thing is, what I like is they say to coach people. I guess I like three things. One is stop the people pleasing schmoozing. Second one is to give as many people the experience of coaching as possible. The Prosperous coach mean it's not only applicable to coaches, it's also applicable to any service provider, anybody whom you can give some sample of your service to. So I like that they say give as many sample sessions as as possible. I have a different strategy on that called the tapering strategy, which I'll link to below this video. The third thing I like is that they say when you're, when you're coaching a client, be willing to tell them what nobody else is willing to tell them. So be willing to say the hard things that they need to hear, that maybe no one else in their life is willing to say it. But, but that's your responsibility as a coach or service part. Just be on being honest with them about their blind spots and about their resistances and about maybe parts of them that are, you know, harming, you know, perhaps other people. So I like that. I like those three points and then the rest I don't like. Okay, so let me, let me tell you this. First of all, the Prosperous Coach is a bait and switch because the title suggests, oh, I'm going to make money, you know, with this, by, by reading this book. And of course you spend more money on this book than you do on most books. And what this, what the main strategy is, is to go around in your life and please correct me if I'm wrong, okay? Those of you who have actually read the book, comment below and yell at me and says, george, just stop it and read the book already. I, I couldn't because like reading the book. I'm like, this is ridiculous. And I'm like, I'm not going to waste my time on this other than to attack the book. Okay, so here we go. So what I'm hearing, okay, correct me, you go around in your life and you look for people who might be open to your coaching and you try to get them into a coaching conversation. You invite them, you invite them to say, you know what, why don't you have us actually experience what I do? And free of charge. And here's what they suggest. I know a lot of people aren't doing exactly this, but they suggest a two hour free session. Yes. They want you to go around in your life looking at everybody to see if they're open for your coaching. And the person who seems to be open to this kind of thing, you invite them in to a free session for, for 90 minutes to two hours more if you can't. Steve Chandler, as it says, more than two hours if you can. So that at the end of those two hours they have fully been exhausted and worn down by your charm and, and the, the guilt of being reciprocating back to you and they'll sign up for your high ticket offer. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, right? That's exactly what's happening. That's the dynamic. You wear someone down with your charm and with your energy for two hours so that they feel guilty at the end and feel like, well, I probably should do something for this person because they just spent two hours with me intensively coaching me. So that's the, that's the main complaint I have is it sounds so altruistic to say, oh, I'm going around giving 2 hour long free sessions to a lot of people to help people to help them. First of all, do they even want your help? I mean, that's the question is the invitation stage that they're saying to invite people to say, would you like some help with that? You know, I just, I find it so annoying. I'm sorry. They ask people to say, would you like some help with that? Whatever issue that they're having. Oh, work issue, relationship issue, leadership issue, you know, spiritual issue. Would you like some help with that? When you say so would you like some help with that? To somebody usually like, oh, do you need help carrying the groceries? Do you need help getting across the street? Do you need help, you know, answering a question whether, but would you like some help with that? Or the suggesting of the help is just a veiled attempt at sales. And I just find it so Annoying that this is inauthentic selling. It's like, would you like some help with that? Really what I hope you'll do is experience my thing. And I'm so altruistic. I'm giving away all these sessions, which there's a problem I find on both sides is the inauthenticity of the selling. And on the other side there's the horrible boundaries issue that the service provider ends up having with like, oh, I'm, I'm just happily giving away these two hour sessions and like, I have no, no, no attachment. Really? Really. Do you, do you really have no attachment to whether someone says yes or no after spending two hours of intensive coaching with them for free? Do you really have no attachment? Is that honest and is that, is that realistic? No, it's not realistic. Right? Like, like for. If I spend two hours with you, you know, anybody, if I spend two hours in like since, intentionally coaching them for two hours or even an hour and a half or even an hour, I am pretty tired and I can't do a whole lot more of, you know, heavy brain work for the rest of the day. I don't know about you. Maybe that's just my introversion. Maybe Prosperous coach is great for extroverts who just have so much energy after two hours that they can, they can still do a lot more. Maybe, maybe that's, maybe that's the, that's the takeaway here is the Prosperous Coach strategy is not great for those of us who are more energetically sensitive. And it's like two hours intensive service provision for someone for free. It's like I'm, I'm pretty much done for the day and you want me to do that as often as possible? Really? I'll tell you, there's much better ways to spend those two hours of intensive energy. Right? Which I'll, I'll talk about soon. But let me just first say the person, if I receive two hours of coaching from you, I'm going to feel beholden to you. I'm going to feel in debt. I'm going to say, well, I guess, I mean, even if I don't like your coaching that much, to be honest with you, I'll be like, well, what can I do for you? You know, it's like I, I feel like I have to give back in some way because I'm a gracious human being. Like most of the people you coach are free are going to be who, who goes, yeah, it's. Who is that transactional? Really? Who is that transactional Say, great, you're going to offer me two hours of free, no strings attached. Great, let's do it. All right. No strings attached. I didn't like it so much. Goodbye. We're still going to be friends. It's just strains the relationship. It's like, oh, yeah, I gave that guy, that gal, that person, two hours and then they just didn't want my coaching. It strains a relationship, it strains the friendship, it strains the connection. Let's be honest about this. That's not just. It's not a transactional thing. It's a relationship that's happening there. And then on the other side, the service provider, okay, the service provider is spending two 90 minutes, two hours plus. And at the end, it's like there's this awkward moment of, okay, you know, what they suggest is that if, that if it went really well, then you set up another meeting to talk about your services. It's like, okay, that wasn't the exploratory call. No, no. The two hours is supposed to be pure altruistic service providing. You know me, I mean, I talk about authentic service all the time. And I just, I sniff out. I just sniff. There's something wrong with this. Right? So it's like you're supposed to provide two hours coaching, you know, altruistically. And then if at the end, it was such a wonderful conversation. You know what? If you're interested in having more of this, it's like, oh, the whole time you weren't trying to help me. Oh, would you like some help with that? That wasn't. No. When you say help, you mean a part of a sales process. Oh, I understand now. Right. Come on, people, like, am I the only one seeing something wrong with this? Like, that's why I couldn't read the book. I'm like, really? This is not graceful human relationship. This is, this is incredible that, that this is selling so well. I mean, I couldn't believe it. So, so, okay, so after two hours, you know, wonderful conversation, I'm supposed to say, so if you want more, let's, let's have another call where we'll, we'll talk about my services. And of course, by that point, like I said, the person feels beholden to you. And like, okay, sure, let's. Let's talk about it, because I feel like I should give you something back. Okay. And in that proposal conversation you propose, what they seem to suggest, correct me if I'm wrong, is a high ticket coaching package, not a. Well, you know, this is working out. Why don't we Just, you know, why don't you just. We'll do it month by month, you know, $150 an hour, month by month. We'll just go as we can. No, that's not what they suggest, the authors. Again, I haven't read the book, but what I heard from all these book summaries is that the authors suggest a high ticket coaching package. And that makes sense to me why that would be the strategy. Because you go around spending two hours for free with a bunch of people, most of them aren't going to say yes. And so of course you need like 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 5 to say yes to make it worth your time. To say yes to expensive coaching package, to make it worth your time. And I've already said before, I wrote a, I made a video recently about how much did you spend on coaching? And I think it's much better for the relationship between a customer, a client and service provider for, for it to start with smaller amounts of spending before there's larger amounts of spending because there needs to be experience of the service being provided rather than signing up, okay, I had a two hour with you. Next thing I do is sign up for a $5000 package. I think it's not, I think, I don't think it's wise for that relationship. I don't think it bodes well for many of that in that situation. You probably have been in that kind of situation too. You have a great conversation, you sign up for an expensive package and like that wasn't so great. Maybe I should have started with their online course or their, you know, month by month or they're a single two, three, three hour, you know, three session package or something like that. So let me now start to wrap up by saying why I don't think the authors themselves, first of all, are the authors themselves practicing this strategy? Well, I don't know. Let me talk about Rich Litvin. Second, let me first talk about Steve Chandler. They're the two authors. Steve Chandler might be, I don't know, but I think if Steve practices this, he's talking to executives, he's talking to leaders. He has such. By the time they wrote this book, Steve Chandler had already has such a great reputation in the coaching world that I'm sure he doesn't go around spending two hours with some random person at the grocery store. Right? He's spending two hours because people are coming to him. And then he's probably vetting among the 10 people who want my time. Today I'm Going to pick this person, this leader of this organization who probably money is not an issue. And so he spent, Steve probably spends it two hours, fine, two or three hours or whatever, a weekend with this leader of an organization. And then by the end, the leaders paying, paying, I don't know, paying him $10,000 a month for coaching. And that's really worth Steve's time, I'm sure. But most of us are not talking to leaders of organizations for whom they respect us so much. They would pay us 5,000amonth, 10,000amonth, or 5 over 5 or 10,000 total. Right. Most of us are talking, giving these two hour sessions to friends of ours and colleagues of ours who probably for whom money is an issue. So that's, that's Steve. Let me talk about Rich Litvin here. Several years after this book came out, Rich Litvin made a YouTube video which I will link to below that's called the prosperous coach 2.0. All right, let's, let's, let's hear me out here. He made a video called the prosperous coach 2.0. So I did watch that video in, in its entirety. And what he's saying is he goes, you know, in that book, I made the mistake. No, no, let me not say I made the mistake. I had recommended, you know, like, he was back, he, he said mistake, and then he like backed up, said, well, maybe that wasn't a mistake. You know, I don't want people to attack me for this, but I had recommended that people spend two hours, you know, in a, in a, in a sample session. And now I'm going to recommend something different. Yes. The Prosperous Coach 2.0 says, don't spend two hours with people right off the bat. He says instead, you should have a 15 minute conversation first to see if they're, they're the right fit. So hold on, hold on, Rich, you're now telling people what everyone has already been saying all along, that the first conversation, the first sample conversation shouldn't be two hours. It should be more like 15 minutes or half an hour. Go watch it Google or go to YouTube. Search the Prosperous Coach 2.0, Rich Lippman, and watch that video. You'll be like, really? Wow. He backed back. Like, he has now told millions of people to spend two hours with all these people. How much time has been spent? And now you spend. No, no, sorry. 15 minutes. 15 minutes. You know, to vet someone before. I don't know, I, it's like to vet someone before you go to the proposal phase or maybe, maybe then do the Two hours. I'm not, I'm not remembering exactly now what that is, so please correct me, but I think he says 15 minutes, and then you go directly to talking about the service so that you're not spending two hours with people anymore. And finally, I'll say this. Both authors, Steve and Rich, as far as I can tell, publicly, they're applying my strategy, too. My strategy. And here's. Here's what, here's the alternative to the prosperous coach, okay? Instead of doing the prosperous coach, follow what I'm teaching you, because that's what the authors are doing too. And what is that? Authentic content marketing. Because if you go on YouTube or, you know, yeah, just go on YouTube, search either of the author's names, Steve Chandler, Rich Lippman. They have so many YouTube videos of them doing the sample of what they do. And that, that's. So that's what my. Okay, if, if you, if you still care about sample sessions. Right. Sample sessions are great. I'll give you two alternatives. One, the tapering strategy for getting clients. You can Google that and you'll find my blog post. I think that's a much smarter strategy for doing sample sessions, the tapering strategy. And the. Secondly, instead of, if you don't want to do a tapering strategy which you can read about later, you, you should give sample sessions and record them with people willing to be recorded and do 15 to 30 minute sample sessions so that you can put them on YouTube, just like the authors do. Just like what I talk about authentic content. You put as much content as possible on the Internet, including samples of what you do. And also just your talks and your interviews and just, you know, defining things, describing your experiences, you know, sharing your skills on the Internet. And then people contact you, people come to you asking for your service. And then you can have your 15 minutes or half an hour or fine, do you want to spend an hour with them? But they're inquiring with you. They're already expressing interest in possibly hiring you. So as far as we can tell, publicly, the authors are doing what I, what I teach privately. If they're doing the prosperous coach method, they're qualified to do so because they're, they're getting executives and, and wealthy people coming to them for those two hours of free coaching. That's different than most of us. So it's like instead of spending the two hours with one person at a time, imagine if you spent those two. The same two hours. The same two hours you spend creating a piece of content. Guess what? Now that piece of content serves dozens of people or probably hundreds of people over the years. And if some of us are lucky that any piece of content may serve thousands of people over the years, which then some of those people will come to you and says, hey, you know, I really found that helpful. Let me look at your services. So I hope this is helpful. Again for someone who didn't read the book, tell me if I got it right or not. Those of you did read it and if you I am always open to disagreements. I'm always open to your corrections because I'm I'm always learning. So please do share it below. And if if, by the way, if the book has done you wonders that you really had used the strategy and got a lot of clients, let us know too. Because like I said, it may it I'm sure it worked for some people and that's why the book is so popular. But I just think for most of us there's better use of our time, including apparently what the authors are doing themselves with all this content marketing. So I hope this will save a lot of time and angst from a lot of you, and I look forward to seeing your comments below. Thank you so much for joining me for this.