Commitment-Phobia

Like many of you, I sell a product that requires a long term commitment on the side of the customer. For a client to sign up with us, they need to agree to work with us for a year. No less.

We have a specific reason for this. My full time job is real estate coaching, and even if we were to find someone a client TODAY, it may take three months or longer for the Real Estate agent to get a check. This can be a long sales process with a lot of ups and downs.

Likewise, a good coach is going to force you into a lot of uncomfortable positions. Without this, you will not see any personal growth. These are usually the early process kinds of things like setting up a CRM or building a referral network that do not pay immediate dividends.

So before we are willing to work with anyone, we need to make sure they are committed to work with us for the long haul. This is not always easy to do.

I say all this for a reason, the people who are afraid to commit are almost always nightmare clients down the road.

There is a specific reason for this. They are not ready to make real changes yet. They have not hit a point where they feel the pain of their decisions enough to change them. People do not modify their behavior unless there is significant discomfort.

The difference with myself and many other people is I do not expect them to. THE RIGHT THING AT THE WRONG TIME IS THE WRONG THING! Even if coaching is the right thing for them, it will not work until they are in a position in their life where they feel they need to make changes.

Likewise, when customers say they are afraid of a long term agreement, that is not the real fear. No one is really afraid of commitment.

Yes, the sound you hear in the background is my wife laughing hysterically.

No one lies awake at night terrified of being happily married for four decades. The things that keep them awake is what happens if things go wrong. They are not afraid of the marriage, the are afraid of the divorce.

When you hear a customer say they don’t want to be stuck in a long term commitment, try to dig deeper. Odds are either there is another underlying issue or they are simply not feeling the pressure to make changes in their life. Either way needs to be okay with you, but it is your job to get to the real underlying problem.