Why Clients Aren’t Hiring You (The Psychology of Positioning) with Lauren Balterman

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This is the beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story.

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And now, Sebastian Ross.

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Lauren, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for having me.

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Hey, thanks for being here. Thanks for taking some time out of your busy day to hang out with me for a few minutes. Sure to appreciate it. I know we connected over at Pod Match.

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Yes, yes, yes. It's a great platform Alex and his wife have built over the past, gosh, umpteen years. Just a great overall human being, but built a great platform as well to a degree. And I love the opportunity to meet other great humans just like yourself. So shout out to Alex and Pod Match. If you're looking to get matched on podcast, hit the link below in the show notes. You can check it out. I think they have a free trial. It's a great platform. I didn't mean to plug Pod Match, but since that's where we met, let's go. It's my show. I'll plug whatever I want. Yeah. Hell yeah. So you're, we were chatting before the interview. Here you are a New York transplant here in, in South Florida. That's a, that's a very common southwest Florida, rather very common trade over the past five or six years here. So welcome to Florida. Thank you. Thank you. Some would call it Florida. Uhhuh. I, I know why. You know, Lauren, I love telling people stories on this show, so yours is no different. But I like for context purposes for our listeners to go back to the beginning of the story. Now the beginning is different for everyone, so you decide exactly where that beginning marker is for you. But bring us back for a minute to where this story started, yours specifically. And let's unpack what brought you to present day with what you're currently doing. Yeah, I love it. So back in 2020 is when I personally moved from New York to Florida, as you mentioned, and what a time it was. I was a brand new mom in a brand new state with zero help and a person who had a very extensive and comprehensive past. I was a therapist of 15 years. I worked in private, private practice. I went into administration and leadership and helped a multimillion dollar founder of charter schools in New York City build up the schools. I started with one and we built it to six by the time I had left. I also had a health coaching business since 2011. So I moved. I was a brand new mom and I decided to leave my very juicy and cushioned salary in New York City and I was like, I'm going to go be a full time entrepreneur and bet on Me and do the damn thing.

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Zero. You know, to my. To my knowledge, I was like, I had a business for 10 years that ran completely on referrals and word of mouth. So I walked in specifically to the online space, and I was like, well, I used to charge $85 a month. We're not going to do that anymore. That's not going to pay the bills. I was really like the main breadwinner at that time. So one of the number one things that became very apparent to me specifically, again, as someone with so much knowledge to really bring to the table, was you need to stand out. You really need to find your special sauce and your magic and bring that forward. And again, at the time, I. You know, I. I didn't really call it my own positioning, but I was laying this groundwork for everything that I now do present day. So within that first business, I went into health coaching, but with a mindset perspective. So I also was a pro bodybuilder of six years. So I came in and I was like, yeah, we're going to do health coaching. But it was master your mind to master your body. Very, very different.

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People do it now in 2026. That was not the case six years ago. And it was really this recipe of like, I know who I am, I know what I do. I'm here to fucking stand out, and we're going to do that. And even though I had literally knew nothing about content, just because my positioning was so strong and I was very, very dedicated, I grew the business to over a hundred K in eight months. And soon after that, I was like, damn, I really have something.

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And a lot of gyms and health coaches back in New York, where a lot of my communities were, were like, lauren, you have something here. So I took the longest pivot ever, grew the health coaching business, multi six figures, assistant coaches, team, blah, blah, blah, all these wonderful things. And six years later, I still have that, and I moved fully into business and positioning. So where was that transition from health fitness to. To business? Because there clearly was some overlap there. There was like, wait a second here. Yep, yep.

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So I say it was the longest pivot ever, because if I'm being very transparent and, you know, I speak it like it is, I did not necessarily want to call myself a business coach.

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I didn't have the greatest experiences. And I am not one to lead with stripe screenshots and, oh, my gosh, you're gonna make a million dollars. You're gonna, like, go to the bathroom. It's gonna come out right, like, that was very gross to me. Yeah, I, I am very much a depth person. Again, as a therapist of so many years, it's like we lead with integrity. We lead, we go to school for ethics and morals and all these things. And again, not that you can't make a lot of money. You absolutely can. My clients do.

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It was just I didn't see myself in that light and you know, back in. So I started in 2020 with the health coaching, grew it to multi six figures within two years and it took me an entire year. So it was really 2022 into 2023. I joined a marketing mastermind for a year, spent more money than like the down payment on my house almost and, you know, really went into that with my background of sales psychology, applied it to marketing and that was when I was like, damn, you're really good at this. People are asking you to do this. You can go and be business coach and revamp that entire industry because you already did that. Yeah.

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And so what type of, what kind of businesses do you work with and where do you meet these businesses at? Yeah, so I work primarily with service based business owners. Very much the expert, the highly skilled individual, just like myself. I find that someone who has all this experience, you overcomplicate, you overthink, and marketing can be way harder than it needs to be. I primarily meet them on social media. So, you know, I am very big on Instagram.

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I just got on substack. A lot of my clients are on substack and I absolutely love it. Yeah, newsletters are the jam these days.

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There's actually a newsletter conference coming up in your old stomping grounds that I thought about going to where it's called. Hold on a second here. And then I was just at south by Southwest last week too, and it's called the News. I think it's called the newsletter conference in New York. Yes, the Newsletter conference, May 15th in New York. Learn and network with the best in the newsletter business. I love that. I mean, in person is where it's at. That was nice. Half. You know, I started a leadership and networking community here in Sarasota. It's called the Impact and I do events up in New York, so I love in person events. And that's obviously where I meet a lot of my people. Yeah. What type of events do you do in New York? Branding and positioning. So in April, it's called Brand Magic and I'm doing it with a brand photographer. It's going to be absolutely amazing. I love it. Well, we should definitely collaborate Because I'm sure podcasting fits into that branding landscape somewhere. And I go where I go, wherever an airplane goes. Wink, wink. I love it. I love it. So what's the best part about what you do right now? Oh, my gosh. So the best part about what I do, I again, working with people who have the years and years. They went to school, they have the degrees. You know, so many people have doctorates and masters.

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They have found themselves almost in like this social media hole where they have learned content and they've learned how to make their hooks and all this stuff. And again, it was just like me years ago that they're too damn good. Like, they're so good at what they do and their depth and their expertise is not shown and it's almost to the place of resentment and like, damn, you know, should I even be doing this? So many people move into coaching, consulting, and being able to take that individual and find their secret sauce and magic and allow them to one be like, damn, I always knew I was this good. But to create the brand that is so them. And then the incredible business where they are making so much money because they are the good ones and that's the best. What's the worst part about. Ah, the worst.

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I feel like so many things that I would want to say. I have built a system, you know, back in. Maybe if you asked me five years ago, I'm like, I don't know, sending client contracts, right? Something like that. What's the worst? Present day.

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Yeah, I don't know if I have an answer for you.

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I guess, you know, figuring out.

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I'm trying to think of something. I don't know. Legions.

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Legion's always an ongoing. You know what, that was like, kind of on my mind, but I'm like, I have such a good team. Like my, my assistant does Legion. We have such a great, like, pass off, you know, you, you do need to be in the mood. There are some days I don't want to do it, you know, there are some days I'm like, but at the end of the day, you put some good music on, you're like, I'm going to go meet some people. So that bad? Yeah, Some days you just need to, you know, make a strong pot of coffee, throw on some gangster rap and just get it fucking frickin lutely.

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So we're, gosh, end of March as we're recording this episode. That's wild. Where'd March go, everybody? What. What are you the most excited about for the rest of the year? Oh, goodness. I am really excited about the event in New York in April.

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I'm also going and leading some keynote workshops at a retreat the end of April as well. So that is really, really exciting. And then late spring, I have rebranded my entire group hybrid program. I'm not going to say the name just yet. It's not live, but it is so good. So I'm really excited to get that out into the world. Amazing. So, AI, AI, AI, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Where does that all fit into this world of business coaching? And how have you been leveraging it realistically, to be able to say, hey, here's where it improves my business, here's where I'm able to leverage it as a tool. And then a secondary question to that is like, where are we going with all this? Yeah, I love it. So in my signature program right now, the way that I really utilize AI and explain it to clients is it's a great tool. It is there. It's not your brain, right? Like your brain is again, your secret sauce.

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A lot of the work that I do with clients and even how I utilize it is you're going to teach it as much as you can. Of course, most people know that no matter what AI you're using, but it really is having the right prompts to really get what you want out of those. Whatever it is. ChatGPT, Claude Gemini. Right.

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You cannot use it 100%. Like that is a hill that I will die on. Where you can teach it and teach it and teach it is still not you. There are so many things. I use it for content, I'll get ideas. I am very much the person where I'll read a whole bunch of things and I tweak it on my own.

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That's exactly how I teach it to clients. In addition, I don't love technology. I am a person who has multiple businesses of six figures plus, I do mainly online. Whereas I make very good friends with people who are tech people and love AI. One of my main partnerships is an incredible woman who builds websites completely on AI. You can go to my website, it's completely built through that. I literally gave her all of my information. It was done in five minutes. Those are the types of things that are. But again, it's my information, right? It's my signature phrases, it's what I say. It was transcripts from Zoom, you know, put into a one pager, you know, that AI could then take and create something that's really incredible. I love that. Well, friends, if you're listening to this right now. This is a stellar example of the reality of where AI is at because there's a lot of fear mongering happening out there. There's a lot of, you know, AI is going to replace, replace that one thing it's not going to replace is human connection, hand to hand combat, being able to actually shake someone's hand, give them a hug, in person events. And then also the trust factor and the sales part. AI is not never going to close the deal for you. I don't care how many houses have sold recently on chat, GPT and the trust factor on here. So I love the feedback that you've given on, on, on AI, Lauren. I'm aligned with that whole process. It is a tool. It's not an end all end all. It's a tool to continue like the Internet was, like social media was.

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But it'll be significantly, have significantly more of an impact, you know, in my opinion. Lauren, it's just been so great to chat with you and learn more about your business and now be, and now be connected with you. Look forward to seeing what, what we can figure out by, by supporting each other. So really, really looking forward to keeping the conversation going on here. I really appreciate your time. Wanted to encourage you to keep up the great work. You're clearly doing, work that matters. And as we close things out, any final thoughts for our listeners? Yeah. If you're really, really good at what you do, know that marketing doesn't have to be hard. Know that you can be an outlier and do things different and stand out in your industry. Make waves, change the world. Let's go.

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Great final thoughts. Lauren, you're a rock star. Thanks again for your time. Great to have you on the show. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. All righty.

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Until next time, friends, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the beyond the Story podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it.

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Signing off from the podcast launch lab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.

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It.