How Long Til They Buy?

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We have a lot of marketing lore that tells us that buyers typically have to encounter marketing messaging several times before they feel familiar and safe enough with an offer to buy it. Especially if it requires an investment that is too significant to justify an impulse buy. So, if you’re selling something that requires more of a monetary, time, energy, and reputational investment than a candy bar, you can expect to have to market it. Rather a lot.

There’s the often touted Rule of 7- which dates back to market research from the early days of Hollywood that showed how many times the average person would need to encounter marketing for a particular movie before buying movie tickets. And that was back then before the internet, how constantly flooded by marketing we all are every day, and how that has affected consumer attention spans, brand recognition, and trust.

We also know that when a buyer is a business rather than an individual consumer, the buying process usually takes quite a bit longer because multiple people are involved in the decision-making process.

And yet, I know so many talented service providers, coaches, therapists, and artists who are shocked when they don’t instantly sell out after making 1 or 2 posts about an offer.

Let’s talk about it.

I have a business coach who I love. I've been working with her for 4 years. I've referred several new clients to her and I share her podcast and workbooks frequently.

Yet, it took me more than three months of lurking in her content before I made the investment to work with her. Even though I loved her content. Even though I was her ideal client. Even though her messaging was/is FANTASTIC.

I know, because I went back and looked at the dates on our initial communications, and then the date on my purchase confirmation.

Here's the thing: this is a normal buyer timeline/trajectory for a lot of 1:1 and membership service providers.

Which means, when I didn't say "yes" the first time she pitched, nothing had gone wrong with her marketing and sales processes. I just wasn't ready yet. My extremely normal, typical, and basic buyer’s journey hadn’t been fully journeyed yet.

I had to marinate, hang out, experience her free content, and then enthusiastically consent to my biggest business investment to date: money, time, energy, and trust-wise.

Normal.

But I think a lot of us can get distracted and discouraged by flashy messaging about high-ticket clients that drop $10k within the same 24 hours of encountering a coach.

Sure, it can happen.

But, is that likely to happen for *your* aligned clients? Have you studied a typical newbie-to-buyer timeline amongst your existing clients? 

(PS: Do you know how much corporations spend on market research to understand their buyers’ journeys each year? Hint: it’s a lot. Because successful companies understand that it is a priority to understand their buyer’s journey and are willing to devote resources to understanding it so they can optimize it.)

Also, which expectation is easier on your heart?  A) If you don’t instantly make 6-figures in sales within minutes of posting your business is failing or B) Your clients deserve time to deeply consider their investments so that when they’re ready to say “yes” they feel confident in their decision. Which has you motivated to keep going and which has you assuming something has gone wrong in your process every time it's not an instant "yes"?

If you need help with any of the above: figuring out your normal buyer timeline, interpreting what that timeline "means," and keeping your spirits up during the "marination" period, let's talk.

I have 1:1 spots available or you can join my Squad 🎉 of big-hearted, black sheep, rebel entrepreneurs. Whichever capacity you work with me in, we work together to upgrade how you see yourself so that when you need to make powerful, CEO moves you have the emotional capacity to actually do it.

No more anxiety spiraling out of actually marketing. No more undercharging and overdelivering. No more working before getting paid. No more hiding behind a mask of professionalism. No more doubting that your success is not only inevitable but also imminent.

This is the stuff most business coaching programs gloss over or leave out. Sure, they’ll give you shiny strategies- but they won’t help you build the inner strength to actually enact them. They won’t account for the extra mindset work, the extra identity upgrades, and the extra challenges folks who have experienced sustained psychological abuse face - either through marginalization by society or within close interpersonal relationships. They won’t account for how you’ve been systematically conditioned not to trust yourself or believe your own experience, and the work that goes into reversing this.

Not because you’re weak. Not because you won’t succeed. Simply because you have needs that few business coaches and consultants recognize and are equipped to meet.

But when you get support to embrace your powerful, leadership identity, amazing things happen: in your business and personally.

Because when black sheep find each other, they no longer feel “wrong” for being black sheep. When black sheep find each other, being a black sheep no longer feels like a liability, it’s an asset.

And when black sheep have power, they can break the systems that have marginalized them and build something better in their place.