Issue #012
The three sales tools coaches avoid (and shouldn't)
A coach I spoke with a while back told me she'd ended a discovery call by saying "take all the time you need."
The prospect said they'd be in touch. They weren't.
When I asked her why she'd said it, she was honest: "I didn't want to seem pushy. I didn't want to pressure someone into working with me."
That impulse is understandable—maybe even admirable. Nobody got into coaching because they wanted to be a closer. The problem is that "take all the time you need" isn't actually neutral. It's an invitation to stay undecided indefinitely, and indefinitely almost always becomes no.
Most coaches who avoid urgency, scarcity, and guarantees aren't avoiding sales tactics. They're avoiding the ones they've seen done badly: the fake countdown timers, the inflated "original prices," and the scarcity manufactured out of thin air. Those tactics are worth avoiding. They're damaging to trust and attract the wrong clients even when they work.
But the tools themselves aren't the problem. Used honestly, they do something different entirely. They help a prospect who already wants to work with you stop waiting for a better moment that isn't coming.
Scarcity and urgency provide the final push for people who already want the offer but are procrastinating. Loss aversion ensures the fear of missing out outweighs the inertia of inaction.
That's a meaningful distinction. And it changes how the tools feel to use.
WHAT’S ON DECK
The Playbook: 3 levers to use honestly
Real Wins: What a simple satisfaction guarantee did
Your Next Move: 3 Qs to identify your real scarcity, urgency, and guarantee
Steal This: Your sales page checklist
Coachstack Connect: Keep your offer clear and consistent at every decision point
YOUR MISSING PIECE
We're still in Step 4 of the Coaching Flywheel: Sell Your Flagship Offer. You've built the offer and sharpened the promise. This is the part that gets people over the line—by giving them something concrete to respond to with a reason to trust that saying yes is safe.
THE PLAYBOOK
Three levers that help clients decide
Alex Hormozi cautions against using false scarcity or urgency, as this can damage trust and harm your brand in the long run. By incorporating genuine scarcity and urgency into your offers, you can create a compelling reason for customers to act now rather than later.
That qualifier—genuine—is what separates the version worth using from the version worth avoiding. Here's what each lever looks like when it's real.
Lever 1: Scarcity
Scarcity in coaching has a built-in advantage over most other businesses: it's almost always true.
You have a finite number of hours in a week. You have a ceiling on how many clients you can serve well before quality starts to drop. If you're serious about the depth of work you do with clients, that ceiling is probably lower than you think. Most coaches working one-on-one at a high level can take four to six active clients at any given time before the quality of their attention starts to thin.
Scarcity must be real. If you say there are 5 spots, there must actually be only 5 spots available. You apply ethical pressure by framing your limitations around real-world constraints (such as your personal bandwidth) rather than using arbitrary deadlines.
This is the only version worth using. Say you have three spots open for the current quarter. Mean it. Close enrollment when those spots are filled. Then you're not manufacturing pressure. What you ARE doing is accurately describing reality, and a prospect who's interested has a real reason to move.
The secondary effect of real scarcity is worth noting too.
When clients know you keep a small roster by design, it signals something about the work: that they're getting full attention, not a slot in a calendar packed to capacity. Scarcity and quality reinforce each other when the scarcity is honest.
Lever 2: Urgency
Urgency is time-based where scarcity is quantity-based, but the same principle applies: it has to be real.
Hormozi emphasizes "everyday urgency,” aka leveraging natural deadlines rather than artificial pressure. Examples include limited enrollment windows for coaching programs tied to real-world constraints.
For coaches, real urgency typically looks like one of three things:
Cohort enrollment windows. If you run a program that starts on a specific date, even informally, that date is a real deadline. Someone who wants to join the October cohort can't join in November and get the same experience. The window closes. That's just how the program works.
Onboarding capacity. If you only bring on new clients at the start of a month because your onboarding process is structured that way, the end of the month is a genuine deadline. Miss it and the next opening is 30 days out. Say so clearly.
A rate that increases after a specific date. If you're raising your prices—which you probably should be doing periodically—the period before that increase is a real window. Communicating it honestly gives interested prospects a concrete reason to decide now rather than later.
"Maybe kills" is the best realization you can have in sales. The optionality of always being able to have something available is both very costly for you and your customer. Sometimes you need to help people get conviction by forcing them to either a "No" or a "Yes"—both being equally good.
That reframe is useful. A clear deadline doesn't just serve you. It serves the prospect who's been genuinely interested for three weeks and keeps finding reasons to wait. Giving them a real reason to decide—in either direction—is a service.
Lever 3: Guarantees
Of the three levers, this is the one coaches are most likely to skip and most likely to benefit from immediately.
Contrary to public opinion, a guarantee doesn't say "I'll refund you if this doesn't work."
It says "I believe in this outcome enough to stand behind it." The confidence signal matters as much as the protection it provides.
By strategically adding guarantees, you can significantly increase the attractiveness of your offer, driving higher conversions and customer loyalty.
The most credible guarantees for coaches are conditional—tied to the client doing the work instead of just signing the contract. A conditional guarantee protects you from clients who disengage halfway through and then expect a refund. More importantly, it sets an expectation from the start: this works when you work it.
A few structures worth considering:
1. The milestone guarantee.
"Complete the first 30 days of the program. If you haven't made meaningful progress on your positioning by then, we'll extend that phase at no additional cost until you do."
This ties the guarantee to a specific outcome, not just a feeling.
2. The completion guarantee.
"Do the pre-session prep work, show up to every call, and complete the assignments. If you reach the end of the engagement and haven't achieved the defined outcome, I'll extend the program for 30 additional days free."
This protects you while giving the client something real to hold onto.
3. The satisfaction check-in.
"At day 30, we'll have an honest conversation about whether this is working and what adjustments to make. If it's not the right fit, we'll figure out together what the right next step is."
This is softer, but it removes the anxiety of feeling locked in—which is often what's holding a prospect back from committing.
None of these require you to write blank checks. They require you to be genuinely confident in the work you do with clients who are genuinely engaged. If that confidence exists—and for most coaches, it does—the guarantee is just a way of making it visible.
REAL WINS
A coach I know had been selling a six-month program for almost a year at a price she privately thought was too low. She was closing about one in five discovery calls and consistently discounting when prospects pushed back on price.
She made one change: Adding a 30-day milestone guarantee to the offer.
Complete the onboarding work and the first two sessions, and if she hadn't seen real early movement on her positioning, they'd pause the engagement and revisit together at no penalty.
She didn't change the price or session count, and didn’t even rewrite the sales page or outreach emails.
And yet, her close rate over the next two months nearly doubled!
When I asked what she thought had changed, she said something that's stuck with me:
"I think people could tell I meant it. I wasn't nervous about putting it in writing because I actually believed it would work. And I think that came through."
That's the thing about guarantees. They reassure the prospect AND force you to get honest with yourself about whether you actually stand behind what you're selling.
The coaches who hesitate to offer them often find, when they examine that hesitation closely, that something in the offer still needs work. The ones who write them easily are usually the ones who've been delivering consistent results and just haven't been communicating it clearly.
TL;DR
Three things worth keeping from this issue:
Urgency and scarcity are vital communication tools. Used honestly, they help a prospect who's already interested stop waiting for a perfect moment that isn't coming.
Real constraints are everywhere in a coaching business. Limited spots, enrollment windows, upcoming rate changes — these are actual reasons to decide. You don't have to manufacture pressure when the real version is already there.
A guarantee is a confidence signal. When you're willing to put something on the line, it tells the prospect what your track record has taught you to believe about the outcome. That belief is contagious.
STEAL THIS
Sales Page Checklist: Five Things to Verify Before Your Next Discovery Call
Read through your sales page, your enrollment emails, or your discovery call follow-up with these in mind:
Element | What to Look For | In Place? |
Real Scarcity | Does your page communicate how many spots are genuinely available — and why that number is limited? | Yes / No |
Real Urgency | Is there a clear enrollment window, cohort date, or upcoming change that gives a specific reason to decide now? | Yes / No |
Guarantee | Have you articulated what you stand behind and under what conditions? Is it written down somewhere a prospect can see it? | Yes / No |
Guarantee Conditions | Are the conditions for the guarantee clear — what the client needs to do to qualify? | Yes / No |
Honest Language | Have you removed any scarcity or urgency language that isn't backed by something real? | Yes / No |
If any of these are missing, that's where to start, with the language that gives a prospect something honest to respond to.
COACHSTACK CONNECT
Once your scarcity, urgency, and guarantee language is in place, it needs to show up consistently — on your sales page, in your follow-up emails, in your onboarding materials. Coachstack's marketing hub and client portal keep those materials cohesive from the moment someone reads your offer to the moment they log in as a new client, so nothing important gets lost between the conversation and the contract. Learn more at coachstackhq.com.
YOUR NEXT MOVE
Before the end of this week, answer these three questions honestly — and write down what you find:
What genuine scarcity exists in your practice right now? How many clients can you actually serve well simultaneously? Is that communicated anywhere?
What real urgency can you build into your enrollment? Is there a cohort date, a monthly intake window, or an upcoming rate change that gives a prospect a concrete reason to decide now?
What would your guarantee say if you wrote it today? What are you genuinely confident enough to stand behind — and what conditions would be reasonable to attach to it?
Then reply and tell me your risk-reversal promise.
Even a rough draft is worth sharing. A lot of future issues take shape from what people write back.
—Peter