So, you think you might want to work with a coach (maybe me-yay!) and you want to do a Discovery Session before you commit a few hundred bucks to really working with them. That makes sense. And! The coach you are interested in is offering “free Discovery Sessions,” hooray!

But, you think, you know these games.

…You’ve been to resorts where the timeshare people offer you a “free” breakfast in exchange for entering their long-winded high-pressure sales presentation…

…You’ve had those missionaries knock on your door and just offer to share a “free” message about whatever, only to not know how to get rid of them before the dinner rush and your kids getting home…

…You’ve seen how so-and-so from High School has been pushing their “free” samples on Social Media to induce more people to join the MLM that they’ve joined…

…And all of this makes you suspicious. (Good for you. Be skeptical of the free labels. Keep up those critical thinking skills!) You don’t want to be suckered in to a commitment that you’re not ready for.

Luckily, when it comes to Discovery Sessions: your coach is probably wanting those same things. If you are interacting with a coach who has your best interest at heart (let’s just assume for the sake of this conversation, that you are), then your coach will also want you to be choosing them from a confident, stable, emotionally healthy state–not from being leveraged through time or fear or scarcity.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer you some ideas for how to navigate your Discovery Sessions (regardless of what kind of coach or service you are investigating) so that the power to choose what is best for you remains in your hands.

This is a preparation guide for how to know when to sign up for a session, a heads up on 🚩Red Flags🚩 that might indicate a coach is not being totally honest or clear with you, and how to navigate the actual Discovery Call, when you get there.

Aligning Expectations Before the Discovery Call

Before booking your call, you’ll want to do a few very simple things.

First…

Ascertain exactly what the coach, practitioner, facilitator is offering by offering a “free” call. Most practitioners will try to be very up-front about this. It’s usually proclaimed in the title or subtitle of their website. If they are not, that’s a red flag. 🚩Why are they not explaining themselves clearly?🚩

Remember that some coaches are offering free calls so that they can give you a high-pressure sales pitch. You can usually recognize these types of practitioners because they will attempt you woo you with promises of wealth, romance, and the whole world at your fingertips. 🚩Beware of over-promising.🚩 If a coach talks too much about their super-duper extravagantly wealthy lifestyle or promises you love, community, or results “instantly” you can be pretty confident that they are trying to fleece you. It is easy to be swept away by the romance and charisma of apparent success or connection, but true transformation takes time and emerges from the recalibrated sense of being, not from a one-and-done program.

Most coaches, however, know that their time is finite and that it takes work and time to help their clients move towards the life they want. And the coaches who are willing to work authentically like this want to work with people who want to work with them. They do Discovery calls to determine if the prospective client sounds like the type of person they feel able to help.

This is true for me, too. When I offer free Discovery Sessions, it is because I want to know beforehand if the person on the other side is bringing a certain chemistry that I feel like I can work with, as the coach. I am not a machine and I don’t (and can’t) mass-produce someone else’s embodiment. If I sense that a prospective client might be wanting or asking for a container I don’t feel ready or able to hold, then I say so! And if possible, I help them find another practitioner who will be able to meet their needs. On the other hand, if I feel that magical “fizz” of connection, then I note that my embodied knowing is responding to that person’s request and that they are someone I feel ready to support on their way towards deeper embodiment.

Second…

You must know exactly what you want from a coaching relationship with that practitioner. You don’t have to be super specific, even sensing that “there’s something I need to learn about embodiment here, but I don’t know how to describe it” is a great goal.

However, if your heart’s desire is developing six-pack abs before Christmas break and you are considering a Feminine Embodiment Coach, you might want to seek out a personal trainer + nutritionist, instead. 🙂

Third…

If possible, acquaint yourself with the pricing of the coach you’d like to work with and make sure you could realistically afford their range. This will save you and your coach a lot of discomfort and time in indecision and you can then focus completely on your fellow experience of being with the prospective coach in the Discovery call, rather than attempting to tally how many months of ramen you will have to survive in order to afford them.

Pricing should be listed clearly under a tab like “Offerings,” “Investment” or “Pricing.” If a practitioner only show their prices during a Discovery Call or after you have entered and read through a loaded booking page, that is another red flag. 🚩Concealing prices means that the practitioner is attempting to funnel you towards a commitment without giving you the chance to fully comprehend their price.🚩

In my view, this practice is doubly problematic because concealing prices until someone is in a Discovery Call or opens a booking page compromises the opportunity to make a truly confident decision and it forms a lousy foundation for evoking a sense of being well-resourced.

One more note about pricing: it’s a good idea to beware of really high ticket options. (I’m talking here about $20K+ intensives, immersions and the like.) While I fully believe in paying people and in valuing the transformative work that an excellent coach can offer, 🚩very high ticket offerings tend to come from people who are operating from a scarcity mindset and prey on people who are also in a scarcity mindset.🚩

How ironic, right? Facilitators of these types of containers will often promote the idea that “you get what you pay for” or “get out what you put in,” to justify their prices but the likelihood is that if you are paying $20K or more for a container with a coach, you are probably just in a cycle of feeding each other’s insecurities about money.

Aligning Expectations for the Actual Discovery Call

If your desire for a container and your prospective coach seem to be in alignment, then the next thing to be aware of is expectations for the call itself.

In healthy coaching containers, this list will be true almost all of the time:

You Can Expect…	Your Prospective Coach Expects…
✅to feel what the prospective coach is like in conversation and in leadership style	✅to offer a brief Q&A about their work
✅to sense if you feel safe being vulnerable or emotionally “held” by this other person	✅to hear why you are interested in hiring them (what do you want from this experience?)
✅to hear on a more personal level about why their offering might be worth your investment and time	✅to pitch their signature offering which is probably something bigger than a single session and priced accordingly
✅to express in real time any concerns or questions you have about signing up AND have those concerns respected	✅to respond to qualifications or hesitations you have about signing up for their offering

Just as important as the expectations about what to expect, are the expectations about what NOT to expect. If a call ends up drifting into any of these areas, it will probably be a sign to you or your coach that you will not be a good fit.

You can expect NOT…	Your Prospective Coach expects NOT…
❌to be held in a session long past the agreed-upon time	❌to have you tell them your entire life story or detailed accounts of the trauma you want them to heal
❌to be pressured to sign up immediately at the end of the call or be subjected to other high-pressure sales tactics	❌to have you request a full demonstration of their skills in this brief, free interview
❌to be “talked at” instead of conversed with	❌to hear you complain about how expensive they are
❌to be in charge of leading the discussion	❌to offer a specialty discount because of whatever your specific circumstances are

If you navigated the session to this point, liked the rapport, and received your prospective coach’s pitch, then you can assume that your prospective coach is interested in working with you.

Aligning Expectations at the End of the Call

The last thing to know about Discovery Calls then is which is how to answer the big question that hangs in the background:

Do you still want to work with this prospective coach and do you want to commit the time and money necessary to participate in their big offering?

If the Answer is “Yes”

If all your expectations are met, the price is right, and you feel ready to get started, go ahead and say so! If you did your homework, this should be pretty easy to answer by the end of the Call.

Your new Coach will tell you next steps and you’ll end the call on time. Good feels all around.

If the Answer is “Later”

If you like the coach and you want to work with them, but the price or timing are not right for you, but you can see a time within the next 6-12 months when it would be right, say, “I’d love to do this a little later, but this isn’t the right time for me. Will you be offering this program/course/offering next spring?”

If the Answer if “Maybe…” or “No”

At least when it comes to Embodiment Coaching, if you reach the end of a Discovery Call and still feel only lackluster about the idea of working with the Coach, then you can safely assume that your answer is no. (You can always change your mind later, if necessary.) You can phrase this as a polite, “Thank you so much for your time and for answering my questions. I don’t think this is the right solution/option for me right now, but I will let you know if anything changes.”

If the answer is “Maybe” because you have signed up for multiple Discovery Calls with Other Coaches

The only exception to the “maybe”=”no” rule of thumb, is if you are in the process of interviewing several coaches to decide which one you feel best about. If this is the case and if you consider the coach you are speaking with to be a compelling possible partner in the growth or transformation you would like, you can say, “Thank you for your time! I am in the process of meeting a few different coaches right now, but I will let you know what I decide.”

Ending the Call

Hopefully, your coach is respectful of your time and ends the call punctually, regardless of your answer to question about whether you will be working together more intensively. If they do, a simple “Thank you!” is a decent response and departure hail, no matter what else was talked about.

If you have said “Maybe” or “No” to your prospective coach’s pitch, there are some times when a coach might respond by asking about your concerns. If this a respectful request AND there is time left in the call AND you feel okay about sharing your concerns, this can be a valuable opportunity for your coach to learn from you and your responses. If applicable, you can also say, “I’d rather not share right now,” and expect that boundary to be respected.

However, if follow-up questions about your concerns feel like prying or if it initiates a justification of price, re-pitch of the offering, or any kind of pressure to change your mind, it is appropriate to limit your sharing and excuse yourself from the call with a simple, “That’s all the time I have for this call today, thank you for your time!”

Final Thoughts

Discovery Sessions/Calls are great opportunities to connect personally with the coaches or influencers who seem interesting to you. You learn different things about people when you interact with them in real-time than you learn when listening to their podcast or reading their website copy. Include all of these intuitive responses in your final decision of who to hire.

Coaches who can calibrate to your needs are invaluable and no matter where you are in life or how many containers you hold for others, expanding into a container held by another trusted adult can be a life-changing opportunity. But, ultimately the power to conduct the transformation is always your own and a coaching container will only be as powerful as you are willing to participate within it.

So, seek out the coaches with whom you feel that magical “fizz” of connection! Use your critical thinking AND trust your intuitive responses. And then, use those Discovery Sessions to peek through the door to see what kind of transformational journey you might be ready to take.