Four Things to Say When a Prospect Is Talking to Other Coaches

Have you noticed it too?

Referrals aren't closing themselves anymore.

For years, a warm intro was practically a done deal. Someone you trusted vouched for you, the prospect showed up pre-sold, and the call was mostly a formality. But over the last several months, we've been hearing the same thing from established women entrepreneurs everywhere: referrals have slowed down, and the ones that do come in are colder. They show up curious instead of committed.

And more and more often, they tell you — kindly, apologetically — that they're also talking to two or three other coaches or consultants before they decide.

Here's what that shift actually means, and it's better news than it feels like:

A warm-referral market rewards your relationships. A comparison market rewards your sales conversation.

For years, warm referrals have quietly covered for gaps in our sales conversations. When someone arrives 90% sold, you don't need a strong second half of the call — the trust was borrowed from whoever referred them.

But when a prospect is comparing you against other options, the trust has to be built inside the conversation itself. The referral gets you the call. The conversation wins the client.

And before you brace yourself: no, this does not mean you need a sales overhaul, a personality transplant, or a crash course in tactics that make your skin crawl. The gap between "great call that didn't close" and "easy yes at your full price" is almost always a few small, specific shifts. We watch it happen every week.

Let us show you exactly what that looks like.

The $45,000 question

A few weeks ago, one of our clients came to a coaching call with a question we've been hearing constantly:

"What do I do when a prospect tells me they're talking to several other consultants?"

Most of us respond to that moment in one of two ways. We either get a little smaller — wrap up politely, send the proposal, and hope. Or we get a little pushier — and immediately feel gross about it.

We gave her a third option, which we'll share with you below.

The next week, she came back to our coaching call and opened with: "Holy crap, ladies."

She had just enrolled a $45,000 client — the highest-paying client of her entire career, in the shortest sales cycle she'd ever had, with zero objections.

But here's what she shared that really sat with me… The client told her why she won:

"You were the most expensive, but we trusted you the most — because of the questions you asked us."

Read that again. Not the most polished pitch. Not the best price. The questions.

That's the secret of selling in a comparison market: prospects choose the person who understands them best. And here's the part most sellers miss — the questions and the pitch aren't two separate skills. They're one skill.

When your discovery goes deep enough, two things happen at once: your prospect feels genuinely seen (that's the trust), and you now hold the exact information you need to connect your offer directly to her specific situation, in her own words (that's the close). Our client didn't win despite being the most expensive. She won because her questions surfaced what actually mattered to that client — and then she communicated her value as the precise answer to it, so there was nothing left to object to.

What we told her to do

Here are four shifts for the moment a prospect says, "I'm also talking to a few other people." (We've written the examples below as if you were a website designer — swap in your own expertise.)

1. Coach them on how to evaluate everyone — including your competitors.

Point them toward the things you do exceptionally well, especially the things you know others in your field tend to skip:

"I think it's incredibly smart that you're talking to a few different designers! To help you out — when you talk to them, make sure you ask about mobile optimization. A lot of designers will build you a beautiful site but forget to optimize it for mobile, which quietly tanks your SEO. Whoever you go with, make sure that's included in their baseline price!"

Notice what this does. You've just become the person helping her make a good decision instead of one more person trying to win it. That's leadership — and prospects can feel the difference instantly.

2. Ask how they'll make the decision.

"Since you're talking to a few folks, I'm curious — when you sit down next week and look at all your options, what's the number one thing that will make you say, 'Yes, this is the person I want to hire'?"

Almost no one asks this. It's slightly bolder than the questions most of us are comfortable with, which is exactly why it builds so much trust. And practically speaking, they will hand you the precise criteria they're deciding on — so your follow-up can speak directly to it.

3. If you're worried about being undercut, teach them to compare apples to apples.

"One quick thing to keep in mind when you get those other quotes — make sure we're comparing apples to apples. Sometimes a quote looks super low, but that usually means a basic template where you write all the copy yourself. My proposal includes a fully custom build, so keep an eye on what's actually included."

You never have to bad-mouth anyone or defend your price. You simply make sure she knows what your number contains — and suddenly the "expensive" option is the transparent, complete one.

4. Always lock in your next call for AFTER they've spoken to everyone else.

"Let's put a 15-minute placeholder on the calendar for next Thursday, after you've had all your chats. Even if you decide to go with someone else, I have a couple of specific ideas for your homepage that I want to share with you anyway. Does 2:00 PM work?"

This one shift ends the follow-up limbo forever. You get the last conversation, on the calendar, before the call ends — offered as a gift, not a chase.

You can't shift what you can't see

Now, we'd love to tell you that reading four quick scripts in an article is all it takes. But you already know the harder truth, because you've lived it: the moments where your calls leak trust are almost always invisible from your seat.

That's the cruel irony of sales conversations. The first half of your call feels wonderful — great rapport, real connection, the prospect opening up. So when it doesn't close, you assume the problem was the price, or the timing, or the economy. Meanwhile, the actual gap — a question you didn't ask, a moment your energy wobbled, an answer you gave when you should have gone one layer deeper — happened twenty minutes earlier, and it felt completely fine at the time.

You can't shift what you can't see. And no amount of replaying the call in your head at 11pm will show it to you, because you're reviewing it through the same eyes that missed it live.

This is where we come in — and where our AI tools change the game. We've trained AI to analyze real sales conversations and spot these patterns at lightning speed: exactly where trust was built, exactly where it leaked, and exactly which small shift would have changed the outcome. What used to take months of coaching to uncover now shows up in minutes — which means you can correct it before your next call, not after ten more slip away.

Because here's what we believe, and what our clients prove over and over: sales skills are the single highest-leverage skill in your business. Even a modest lift in your close rate — one or two more yeses a month at your prices — is a massive revenue shift. Same leads. Same calendar. Same you. Just a conversation that finally converts at the level your work deserves.

Want to see what your calls are hiding?

For Entreprenista members, we're opening up a limited number of Sales Call Breakthrough Sessions this month.

Here's how it works: you book a call with us and bring a recording of a recent sales call (if you don't record your calls yet, no problem — bring your last few calls from memory, and we'll show you why recording becomes your new best friend). Together, live on the call, we'll run your conversation through our AI analysis and walk through exactly where the trust was built, where it leaked, and the specific shifts that will move your close rate first.

You'll leave with a clear picture of the gap you couldn't see — and exactly what to do about it.

If you're a woman with a proven offer who knows that even a slight increase in her close rate would change her revenue story this year, this session was built for you.

Book your Sales Call Breakthrough Session here →