This episode shows you why and how validation using rigorous, high quality data is your secret weapon for helping your clients to get better results and make long lasting change, and to create more value, more sales, higher prices and better profit.
Today’s episode is called validation, and I’m talking in relation to results that your clients get in your coaching business.
In my last episode I talked about how to sell more coaching programs with the inclusion of monitoring data, and that’s the backstory for today’s episode.
I’ve chosen the title ‘validation’ because I want to show you why and how rigorous, high quality data is your secret weapon for helping your clients to get better results and make long lasting change, and to create more value, sales and higher prices.
What is validation?
Let’s start with a simple definition.
- The action of checking or proving the accuracy of something.
- The recognition or affirmation that something is valid or worthwhile.
Change is hard for our brains, and data gives our brains the validation they need to decide a habit is worth continuing.
Why Validation Matters
Let’s start by talking about why validation is important.
Let’s say that your client is living a stressful life, and she quite likes the idea of regular meditation and wants to start up a regular habit to help her relieve stress.
To create a consistent habit, you know she’ll need to convince her brain that it’s worth it.
That’s because the human brain prefers to run efficiently, on autopilot, doing the things it already knows how to do well, so it can focus on threat, survival and fun stuff.
Therefore, according to your client’s brain, having to bring focus on developing a new habit is a chore and possibly a risk.
Change is hard for our brains, and data gives our brains the validation they need to decide a habit is worth continuing.
Aside from learning how to do the habit, her brain requires a process of ‘learning’ a whole bunch of micro habits and rewiring entrenched behaviours that happen before and after the meditation, before it can get the habit to happen automatically.
For example, she’ll have to learn to stop what she’s doing, say no to people, set aside time, stop saying she’s too busy, and then do the darn 10 minutes of meditation.
As she juggles her competing priorities and her already entrained habits that create stress, her brain will start to realise that starting a simple habit like 10 minutes of meditation is actually hard to fit in, commit to, and do consistently.
That will probably feel uncomfortable. She’ll have the urge to continue with her ‘more important’ stuff.
And a day after she meditates, she may feel totally stressed again, so her brain will question how effective it really is, because the results may not be huge or immediate.
Her belief system could jump on the bandwagon. She might start telling herself that this is too hard. She might tell herself that I might as well give up, because I am probably going to fail anyway.
This is why validation with evidence-based data is so important.
It does more than just prove to your client’s brain that a habit is safe and worth the effort.
It also provides tangible evidence that your client is capable of change and that the results are worth pursuing.
This is especially important for habits that have little to no visible, immediate impact.
For example, there are habits like physical exercise where you feel the endorphin rush and sweat afterwards. There’s a tangible impact.
Compare that with deep breathing exercises to lower your blood pressure and stress hormones. Those are two pretty invisible measures that your habits had a gradual, positive impact. No immediate reward there.
That begs the question – how do we help our clients monitor and measure progress? What kind of data are going to be meaningful?
Let’s look at two types of data – qualitative, and quantitative.
As she juggles her competing priorities and her already entrained habits that create stress, her brain will start to realise that starting a simple habit like 10 minutes of meditation is actually hard to fit in, commit to, and do consistently.
That will probably feel uncomfortable. She’ll have the urge to continue with her ‘more important’ stuff.
And a day after she meditates, she may feel totally stressed again, so her brain will question how effective it really is, because the results may not be huge or immediate.
Her belief system could jump on the bandwagon. She might start telling herself that this is too hard. She might tell herself that I might as well give up, because I am probably going to fail anyway.
This is why validation with evidence-based data is so important.
It does more than just prove to your client’s brain that a habit is safe and worth the effort.
It also provides tangible evidence that your client is capable of change and that the results are worth pursuing.
This is especially important for habits that have little to no visible, immediate impact.
For example, there are habits like physical exercise where you feel the endorphin rush and sweat afterwards. There’s a tangible impact.
Compare that with deep breathing exercises to lower your blood pressure and stress hormones. Those are two pretty invisible measures that your habits had a gradual, positive impact. No immediate reward there.
That begs the question – how do we help our clients monitor and measure progress? What kind of data are going to be meaningful?
Let’s look at two types of data – qualitative, and quantitative.
Qualitative (subjective) data
Normally coaches use tools that are subjective, that is, where the client rates themselves.
We use various quizzes, questionnaires, 1 – 10 rulers, sleep diaries, logging sheets and other self-rating tools to help clients understand what they feel, who they are and what’s changing for them.
They use these to rate hunger, energy, mood, stress, sleep quality, response to food and similar types of information.
Qualitative data is very important because it captures how the client feels at any given moment. The problem is, that information is subject to bias.
A client who self-rates may feel exuberant one day, and miserable two days later, so their mood will skew the data.
Even the more high level, scientifically validated questionnaires can be influenced by bias.
I had a client do a quiz several times because she wasn’t sure that her answers were accurate and she got a different answer every time.
How would you feel about the data if that was you?
How much would you trust it?
Could you rely on it?
That’s why coaching programs can be bolstered by rigorous data collected in an accurate way.
This kind of data provides the validation our clients need to believe that they can do something, and to believe that their new habits are ‘working’ and ‘getting results.’
Quantitative (objective) data
This is essentially what quantitative data is – objective data that is measured accurately using numbers.
Even better, using calibrated devices to measure physiological data that shows the impact of our habits on our bodies and minds.
One of the best examples is the bioimpedance scale which measures body composition – in other words – bone, fat, muscle and water.
While not as accurate as a Dexa scan, bioimpedance is an easy and accessible method to quantify body weight, muscle mass, bone mass, hydration and body fat percentage.
Obviously the more expensive models give more accurate data, and a Dexa scan is the most accurate.
I used this scale early in my business – from 2005 onwards – as a marketing tool. At health expos I had lines of people out the door wanting to get their body composition measured, while other vendors stood at empty stands, wondering what was going on.
Data provides tangible evidence that your client is capable of change and that the results are worth pursuing.
I used this scale in my coaching program to help clients see tangible changes in their bodies – inside and out – in conjunction with other qualitative and quantitative measures.
These methods gave my clients plenty of evidence that their bodies and minds were changing and, it gave me a huge data set that could be used to demonstrate typical client outcomes in my marketing.
For example, I could specify that 99% of my clients lost weight during my program, ranging from 3 – 15kg, and with the majority of that being body fat based on the numbers recorded.
These were all things that they measured during the life of their program, so they had great awareness of what had changed.
They loved the physiological data as it proved their lifestyle changes were having an impact and it validated how they felt.
You can imagine what that did for my marketing!
My clients would say things like – “there is real science behind this”, and “I have gotten so much more out of this program than I ever expected!”
That’s just with a simple scale.
More recently, some higher tech options have come up to get even better quality data.
One that comes to mind is the heart rate strap and watch that measure exercise performance.
There are a variety of wearable watches that measure various physiological data.
I can imagine what my clients will say in future when I use these devices as part of their coaching program and I’m very excited about the value, precision and accurate response measurement that can be developed.
It will help us to add tangibility to our somewhat intangible services.
It will help your clients to quickly identify which of their habit based interventions are having the greatest impact, and help them pinpoint where to focus their energy.
They will have a greater appreciation for the effectiveness of habit-based intervention, and a greater awareness of their own best solutions for managing physical and mental health.
And finally, it will give coaches a competitive advantage over others, help them to sell more programs, at higher prices and retain clients for a longer period, as has been my own experience in my own coaching business.
I am excited to share some new research in this area in coming months.
For now, if you would like to know more about monitoring and measuring, please get in touch at melaniejwhite.com/contact.
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